Snippet #2142523

Finally! My day off... Fawn thought, curling up in her bed, wrapping herself in the white sheets in a pseudo cocoon. Minutes passed. Then hours. Then the black butterfly wriggled and shed the sheets loose, kicking them off and let them lay on top of the bed while her slender hands pushed a button on the Radio alarm clock; prompting 97.6 Ez Rock to play as she organized the dead sheets.

The building was a bachelor pad. A disgustingly neat bachelor pad that could easily induce claustrophobia if she wasn't careful. Furniture was scarce, a black leather futon, and one of those clunky black plasma screen TV's that looked like it came from the good old 1990's. She didn't like spending money until it was absolutely necessary but the prospect of a bigger apartment nibbled on the back of her head. Rent was sucking out what money she earned from working in the Cherry's Diner and the rest like food, water, movies came out of her bank account that was slowly going down a rabbit hole. Software companies didn't want to hire anybody; especially somebody with just three years in a declining company. C++ and corporates only had one thing in common: They're both a complete pain in the ass.

After rinsing off from the cold shower, another lovely thing about the apartment was that they had access to ice cold water in the mornings and nights and all the time in between, she put on a pair of sweatpants and an oversized white T-shirt that was merely for comfort.

The only thing that had any value in the apartment was the desktop computer and the laptop. Both had the latest graphics card, high clock speeds, ten gigs of ram on the desktop and eight for the latop and a shitload of memory - Terabyte hardrives.

There it was, right on the oak desk of her laptop, the vr equipment for Star Ocean Online. She entered her name in a contest and won it; by far it's now the most exciting part to her day. Playing out the life Franziska Bullit, a character who's more concerned with accepting jobs for gold then leveling. The jobs ranged, from people who wanted to PK another character but didn't have the skill to do it, find rare items, powerleveling, and the one job that garnered her true fame: take down a player killing guild. Osiris.

Fawn looked at the brand new book sitting right next to the helmet, gathering dust on the cover, sadly looking at her. It was a fantasy book about a zombie PI in the underworld; which meant demons, vampires, werewolves, horror, mystery and a touch of humor. She hadn't touched it ever since she hooked up the VR-helmet to her computer. It just made her guilty; just looking at the neglected novel. "It's probably a good read too." She thought, turning back to the VR helmet. "They can survive without me for a few hours anyway." She thought.

Wiping the dust off the cover, she stared at it, walked over to the futon and dropped herself. The book still had that new book smell on it. For what seemed to be a few hours, she was on page 206 but deep down she knew she couldn't read anymore, she just had to stop. Needed to know what happening in Klaus III; what job offers she got in her PM's.

Immediatly closing the book, she went to her computer, and booted it up. Fawn put on the VR helmet and a screen flashed in front of her.

"Log in restricted."

No further explanation. No closing for maintenance or servers are down; just restricted.

She took off the VR helmet and fired up Mozilla to get to the game's site. Every space that inhabited the screen of the site had six words that filled the screen: "No one gets in or out!"

It was enough to just suddenly close the window, turn off her computer, and quickly back away from her computer. Just what the hell happened while she was reading? "I'll just flip on the news and forget all about it." Except every news channel jumped on Star Ocean Online like piranhas to blood. Just as she was going to turn off the TV, a picture of a crying family suddenly shot up on screen, and the reporters started to say something useful.

"And their mother and father are now praying that Max will make it through this ordeal as thousands of other parents are praying for their children who are now literally living in the world of Ocean Star Online as their bodies are now in a vegetable-like state. Many adults are also trapped in the large MMO-world and anyone living with people who have been sucked in are advised to never turn the power off-"

Fawn felt her knees go weak and leaned on the futon to stabilize herself before sitting down in complete shock. News broadcast after news broadcast. TDI claims they don't have any involvement; their own developers stuck inside the world as well. Families give death threats. Talk of a class-action lawsuit brewing. TDI claims it was the work of a master hacker; thus the state of their website.

"If only I could just tell Max..." The mother cried again.

It was odd how at the worst times of someone's life you can come up with the best of ideas.

Fawn instantly rushed back to her computer, booted it up, and started googling names the TV spat out. A developer's wife and a kid's mom. Full names came up on Facebook. Perfect. She thought, suddenly sending emails via a disposable address of a service she can provide for hard tender: Communication. Communication and safety.

The price's were small, at least a grand to relay a message back and forth, a grand and a half for a day of message rallying and protection. The developer's wife instantly responded; ponying up half a grand first and willing to give away the rest as soon as she could tell her husband how much she loved him.

Getting past the log in restricted screen was a joke though. After setting up a couple of proxies she got in and logged in to Franziska Bullit, spawning on...Elicoor II? With Level 1 armour?! Franziska wasn't going to be calm and collected today, oh no, she let a string of curses as she walked around town. Finally letting the last two or three slip from her lips, she tried her best to ignore the ugly lvl 1 armour, and sent a private message to Gelikon32.

"David, Stephanie wants to talk to you. Meet me at the Burnt Hare Tavern."

Wherever he was, he bolted through the door of the tavern, covered in sweat. Huh. Must've been a new update. Franziska waved him over to the stool next to her in the isolated room and he was tired, walking-half running, and confused. David was a 6'2 monk, muscled body and all, tall, dark-short hair, and handsome looking.

"How do you know Stephanie?"
"She payed me so she can speak to you. You can't seem to log out after all and I doubt she wanted to take the risk logging in herself."

He closed his eyes for a moment and layed a hand over his face, like he was truly tired and needed to wipe the sweat off his eyes to keep from crying, almost too real.

"So what did she say?"
"I'll tell you what she said once I know what's going on here. I don't know how I can help you if you can't let me in on what the hell is going on."

The developer paused for a moment, looking over behind him, and back at me. The bar was small, empty, and isolated. He showed the messages he had received from the hacker himself, a cheery, almost fake cheer of a character, who wanted them to all level up and go kill a Daemon. He told her that he can literally feel things now; taste and eat them. In game food was horrible. Combat was scary and dangerous because pain was real and lives were on the line. PKing is murder.

It was almost too much for Fawn to take at once but it was necessary. It was useful, raw information.

"So, please, tell me. What did she say?"

With a sigh Franziska whisked her hair to the side. "Tell him I believe him with all my heart. Tell him I love him more then the entire world, almost as much as our children. Tell him, they miss him, but he's still living in their hearts and we're praying for his safety home."

She could see the man slowly burst into tears, trying to wipe them away as he fell, his eyes red and puffy and chhest quivering. Fawn gave him what time he needed to dissect it.

"Tell her, I miss her and I love her more then the galaxy. Tell her, I love the children more then life itself."

Oh crap. Fawn was starting to tear up around the eyes behind the VR helmet. Franziska nodded; recording his answer so she didn't have to say the words herself. They made an exchange: for his friendship and co-operation with any questions involving the game she'll relay messages back and forth in between them for free.

As shallow as it seemed getting out of that tavern and straight to a tailor for new clothes it was. Lvl 1 armor made her look like some anime bastard child. 1000 gold all spent on a generic black tie, a white T-shirt, and black pants. After immediately equipping them Fawn felt at least some security in her looks. She can log off in peace.

An ad appeared on Craigslist:

Got a loved one trapped in a dangerous MMO World?

Order a PI to send:
Messages
Revive potions
Protection
and other miscellaneous in helping them survive.

Any other in game jobs? Money is worth your loved one's life and anything goes. Contact us now for a price list!

Cheesy as hell? Yeah. Effective? Let's wait and see.

The mother from the news finally contacted Fawn in her fake e-mail willing to pony up $1500 for a send and receive message while providing bodyguard protection. Both of the parents had different messages; as well as the girlfriend. It's not like Fawn was going to charge them individually, as capitalist as she was, she wasn't cruel and immoral. The girlfriend provided an IP address instead of a username but it worked even better because now he stood out as a small blip in the mini-map. They essentially worked the same way, no two people had the same username and no two people had the same IP address. It was just of matter of utilizing an illicit program to track him down. She went through the fields necessary to tracking the blip down, putting a skill point in kick, and drop kicking generic green slimes into the air so she can shoot them and finish the fight before they hit the ground. It was like zen meditation and once she started, she couldn't just stop with one or ten. She actually hit level 2 before she pull herself from her favorite pastime and focus on the task at hand. "How many hours did I waste in Beta just doing that all day?"

Laying back on a single tree, looking up at the sky, there was Max. Franziska came up behind the unaware character, staring up into the clouds and looked down at him and his very feminine body.

"Guess it's true after all. There are no girls on the internet. Isn't that right Max?"