Going to Work?!

The heater in my pretty pink sedan was blowing hard so I didn’t freeze...is what I would have said if I’d waited for the heater to kick on before I left the house. This dumb thing took like twenty minutes to get to full strength, and by then I was almost to my destination.

“I need a new car…” I sighed, driving a little over the speed limit to get to Ray’s studio quicker. “Teny-chan, are you sure this is going to work?”

Teny-chan’s face appeared on the little dashboard screen. She had a smile, but a sappy one that didn’t make me very confident.

“I’m sure it will. It’s a long shot, but Mr. Roberts is still in the game, so we should be able to save him.”

I bit my bottom lip and, very clearly, furrowed my brow so she knew that there was something else bothering me about this too. I mean, I was getting Ray out of there no matter what. Even if I had to scratch out that stupid bitch Malwaria and her dog of a virus turd-jerk with my bear manicured nails...

But…

“Teny-chan, I mean getting into the game at all. Can someone really just jump into a computer screen and go into a new world? Safely?”

I emphasized ‘safely’ because I didn’t want something to happen on the way in and all this was for nothing. Ray might have gotten in, like, there’s no denying that. But this was some freaky stuff straight out of a mid-twenty-teens angst anime and I wasn’t confident.

“Yeah, it’s safe. Mostly.”

“Oh no… Missy, you did not just add that ‘mostly’ in there.”

She did a little shrug and frowned.

“It’ll be fiiiiine… I’ve done it a few times already. Look!” she pointed to the ground behind her where some creepy pentagram lookin’ crap was. “The summoning circle is ready and everything! This time I’ll be waiting for you at spawn.”

“Teny-chan, I’m not going to need an exorcism after going through that, am I?” I asked.

“An exorcism?” her head cocked to the side like a curious bird. “No. Why would you?”

I had to take her word for it, but maybe Crow-boy could pull off some holy magic and get any of that freaky stuff out of me if needed.

“Crow-boy… Ginger…”

This whole time I’d been super worried about Ray. I didn’t even think about what happened to those two. Were they okay? What did those awful jerks do to my friends?

“You’re worried about them too, aren’t you?” Teny-chan asked.

“Do you know what happened to them?” I asked.

Her face had been all over the place and she’d stopped looking straight at me. But this face was really confusing, probably regret and uncertainty if I had to guess.

“Crow’s character…” Teny-chan started, “I know he died there and got stuck in the death loop.”

“Crap…” I smacked the wheel. “So he got stuck like Troja?”

“Well, not exactly,” she said. “I’m pretty sure he logged out by just shutting down his computer. He wasn’t actually ‘in’ the game like Mr. Roberts and Troja, remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” I uttered. “So, is he going to respawn or what?”

“I just sent him a PM, so I think…” she stopped talking, then kinda’ blanked out with a thirty yard stare. “Oh!” she smiled. “He’s creating a new character! He’ll be logging in to help us!”

“Baller!” I smiled and nodded. “So he’s good and golden. What about Ginger?”

She was an advanced AI, so I wasn’t sure if she could have gotten away from the problem.

“Well…” Tensei’s frown returned. “I don’t know. I lost contact with her after The Virus nuked us with items. But I haven't seen any logs saying she died.”

You know, how did Tensei get away in the first place? I asked my question, and I didn’ think her frown could get any lower, but dang… That girl looked like a cartoon with how sappy her face got.

“I-I ran away just before he overloaded the game,” Teny-chan admitted. “I’m sorry…”

Did she think I was going to call her a coward? Her getting away was a huge deal, because she was the only one who could get me into that game to save my man.

“Don’t worry about it, Teny-chan. You did the right thing and I don’t want any crying.”

“No crying? But I didn’t help save anyone…”

“Nah, you made the right call, girl. ‘Slong as you're here, still ready to fight, it’s all girl power going forward. We’re gonna’ show those jerks they messed with the wrong family.”

“Family?” Her frown recovered a little, being replaced with curiosity.

“Oh yeah! You’re my little girl, Teny-chan. Feel fre-free to call me m-mom if you want…” I blushed.

“Lady Rose…” she uttered softly. “M-mom…” she smiled. “Mama-R… Mama Rose! I have a Mama Rose!”

It sounded so good hearing her call me mama. I never said this to people, but next to getting married, there wasn’t anything more I wanted than having a kid of my own. Ray was always like, ‘Hold on until we’re financially stable!’ Well, when was that, Ray? I’m not getting any younger over here!

“When we get him out, I’m havin’ a baby!” I shouted out loud.

“Wh-what?” Teny-chan poked her chin. “I’m not a baby. I mean, I guess I’m only a few years old and all since they made me in the game, but…”

“Uh, forget I said that last part out loud,” I snickered.

🌹🎮🌹

I made it to Ray’s work, and some of the cars here were covered in snow like nobody had cleaned them up in weeks. Must have been the people who were stuck in the game.

Trying not to slip on the darn ice everywhere, I ran to the front of the building and tried to get through the entrance door.

“Locked?!” I pulled on it as hard as I could, but that thing wasn’t budging. “Let me in… Let me in!!”

“Oh, let me help!” Teny-chan said from my phone.

The doors to the building unlocked and opened all on their own.

“Scary that you can do that…” I said, getting out of the cold and into the nice, heated building. “But I won’t complain. Alright, where’s the…”

“Excuse me?” A security guard at the front desk gave me a shocked look. “Can I help you?”

“Oh, hey there.” I waved and power posed proudly. “I’m Rose Roberts. My handsome husband Ray…you probably know him as the coolest guy that works here…forgot his lunch. So, I’m bringing it to him.”

I prepared that excuse in case this sorta’ situation happened. It didn’t look like my charisma was working on the guy.

“Sure, but how did you get in without a key card? Can I see some ID?”

“Uh…” I lifted my phone. “Tensei, help…” I mumbled. “I forgot my license at the apartment…”

“Right!” she cheered.

There were a few screens around him, especially two big ones behind his head. My license appeared on the left most one, while Ray’s company ID appeared on the right.

Holy frack how did she pull out that info?!

“Alakazam!” I pointed to behind him with a cheery pose, trying to play along and not looked shocked. “There we are!”

“Huh?!” he turned around to see the info he needed. “What the…?”

He lifted the hat on his head and brushed his hair back in disbelief. Then sat back down in his chair and forced a smile.

“Well, you’re Ray’s wife alright…” he tossed me a visitors pass that I clipped to my shirt. “Have a nice day…?” He sounded really confused.

No idea how Teny-chan got that info up there, but I figured it was best not to ask so I wouldn’t be convicted of any crime when someone sues the studio.

🌹🎮🌹

Well, we found Ray’s computer, but holy crap this thing was wrecked! The screen was broken and his whole desk was a mess. The only parts of it that weren’t a total crap show was our wedding picture, but even that was a little busted up with a crack going right over Ray.

“Teny-chan, you better not ask me to jump into that broken thing.”

*zZzzz…*

Even if I could use this, it was a little small for me to climb into, right? Did he really work on games with this tiny little computer screen?”

“Ah nuts…” Teny-chan snapped her fingers on the other end. “Uh… Hmm… Is there another way in?”

*zZzzz…*

Geez, the guy next to Ray’s desk was sawing logs like Paul Bunyan…

“Wait, Paul…” I leaned over the chair and fed that thought for a second. “Paul was… Teny-chan! Where is Paul Dunhans office?”

“W-why would you want his office?”

“Because I have a feeling we might find what we’re looking for there…”

🌹🎮🌹

She led me right up to the door to his office. He didn’t have a cubicle like a lot of the grunts around here, he had a whole office room to himself, definitely something reserved for only the most veteran workers. It was a pretty huge space from what I could see behind the glass.

Of course, it was locked.

“Teny-chan, work your magic here!” I snapped my fingers.

“Roger, Mama! Open-sesame!”

The door clicked and the light on the handle turned green. I twisted it and pulled it open, only to be blasted with a cold winter wind. Apparently Paul left his window open and the air had plenty of time to get cold as balls.

“What on earth…?” I shivered as I adjusted my jacket back over my shoulders. “Why would he leave and keep the window open?”

“Do you want to know the truth?” Tensei sighed. “He actually left the building through his window.”

“What the frick?” I pulled up my phone and gazed at her in disbelief. “When? Why?”

“I…I don’t know. I… uh...”

She knew more about it than she was saying. Another thing on the list of weird stuff around this Paul guy. But she just gave me a little hint at something I suspected for a while now.

“So, you knew this guy, yeah?” I took an educated gamble.

“Y-yeah…” she nodded.

“You tried to get his help first, didn’t you?” I closed the door behind me and shut the office blinds so no one could look in at us.

“Sure did…”

“You figured a guy who knew so much about the game that he could spawn any item would probably be able to fix every problem in it, yeah?”

“Kinda’, yeah. I wanted his help to finish the game at the time, not fix it. But it was his idea to come in to save people.”

‘Save people’ was an interesting term to use, but if I had to guess, he probably was looking for the devs who went missing.

“Was he able to go in and out of the game?” I asked.

“Yeah. He first started doing it on that big TV over there with my help. I wasn’t going to tell you about it because I didn’t want to come back in here.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because…” she shied up. “Because this is… This is where he said he’d delete me if I told anyone what he was doing.”

I knew this guy was no good, but now I wanted to kick his nuts in.

“So, once he got the hang of going in and out of the game and learning the mechanics, he tried didn’t need you and betrayed you. Am I right?”

“Pretty much,” she nodded “He turned out to be a real jerk.”

While she was talking, I started to boot up his computer. The big TV screen lit up and went through its wake up stuff.

“So… hmmm… If this guy could go in and out of the game from here, why’d he jump out the window? I’m guessing he was trying to run from someone, right?”

“Don’t tell him this, but I made his computer take a little extra time to boot up. Some big guys were looking for him and were trying to break into his office. I wanted him to get caught so he’d stop hacking the game.”

Fracking crazy. Why would big dudes be trying to hunt him down? Even with that question, I got a pretty good picture of what this guy was all about.

The computer was logged in and ready to start the game. Teny-chan loaded it up and got to the start screen. Ahh, that familiar Japanese text…

“One more question. Am I going to spawn into the game half naked?” I asked. “Rather not end up like Ray in a loin cloth and all, you know?”

“I have a special class for you to use. So the starter gear for that will come with some clothes that I think you’ll like a lot.”

“Cool stuff, Teny-chan. Lovin’ how you're on top of things.”

“Thanks, mama!” she cheered. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah. I’m ready Fredy!” I said. “Wait! How am I going to do this without someone controlling me on the other end?”

“Don’t worry about that,” Teny-chan claimed. “The class you’ll be playing doesn't need that. So it’s all up to you, Mama Rose.”

She was really making this class sound cool. I couldn’t wait to see what it would be!

Before jumping into the screen, which is what she said is all I needed to do to get in, I took one last look at reality, taking in the moment just in case this was my last time seeing it. Not that I was going to be stuck in there forever, because Ray and I were coming out and making a family, but I couldn’t shake that last hint of worry before the storm.

“Let’s do this!” I cheered. “Time to save my husband.”