Complete - Fateful Ripple: Part 2

Chelsea nodded to her chauffeur as they finalized the plan. They would enter the cafe separately yet stay connected via wire. She entered five minutes after him and made her way to a booth along a window. It was nice and in the corner of the cafe. Her chauffeur was wearing the most casual clothes he could find and had his gun on him. When he had discovered what she was doing.. it was almost the end of the line for the raven haired girl.

Somehow she had convinced him to help her.

Maybe the fact he once worked for her parents was helpful. Regardless having a adult with a weapon to watch her back made things easier. Even if when the time really came... she was going to be on her own. That was how things were for her all the time anyway. Nothing new. If she was going to end up like those others or in jail for trespassing. So be it. They went to take different seats but he remained in eyesight of her. He had a special listening device in his ear.

"Curry please. I suppose you don't serve Golden Dragon?"

Golden Dragon was her favorite curry. Her mother also used to love it. It was made of such expensive ingredients that it was near unheard of outside of the most exclusive restaurants. Even then... it's said that only one man can make it perfectly. She never met that man but her mother had promised her to eat there someday....

That was impossible now.

Of course the waitress had no idea what Golden Dragon even was so Chelsea just ordered normal beef curry. She waited for someone patiently. A certain someone. A someone with a very particular set of skills.

The time was drawing closer to get the proof she needed.

@Roland Rutledge

 

Jin smiled as he finished his coffee. It seemed his target had arrived. What kind of idiot broadcasts their need for a hacker on a BBS board? A rich idiot apparently. To be honest, almost ignored the post, but the possibility of a scavenger hunt appealed to him on an instinctual level. So he had dug through the code, looking for the piece that had been left there for him, simple coordinates to a cafe shop, and a word puzzle that worked out to be 'golden dragon'. From there, he dug deeper, cracking the site protections to obtain the IP address of the device. With that, he infiltrated the new government mandated repository of address records. It was a new regulation, passed by Congress to assist with tracking down internet criminals. Except in the right hands, it could just as easily be used by said criminals to help find their victims. God Bless America.

A couple of novice level hacks later, and he was on her network thanks to an unsecured wifi toilet in the household. Why that existed Jin wasn't quite sure, not that he wanted to know anyway. Regardless, he was soon in her computer, and from their collecting her identity was as easy as logging into social media. Chelsea R. Nexon, daughter of the Nexus CEO. Up to this point Jin's intentions had been to simply scare her off of the BBS board, maybe make a few hundred dollars in bogus charges while he was at it. However, it seemed that he had inadvertently caught a rather large fish. As unexpected as it was, he immediately got to work taking her identity to task, quickly opening a few lines of credit which he used to funnel a small percentage of her wealth. Small enough to likely not be noticed, but enough money to make his extended stay in America a little bit more comfortable.

The theft left him feeling hollow, however, as several questions remained floating in his head. What did the daughter of a fortune 500 company need a hacker for? Some teenage squabble? A pregnancy she'd like to have kept hidden? A quick troll through her social media feeds seemed to indicate this wasn't the case. Did it have something to do with Nexus then...? The question bugged him enough to drag him here, to this cafe. Eventually Chelsea ordered a real meal and sat down, while Jin stalled feeling suddenly anxious. Suddenly he felt extremely out of place. This wasn't Terrasphere. He wasn't some hero. What was he doing coming out in the open like this? He got up, pulling his hood over his face, preparing to leave. "Well..." he thought, "What could it really hurt."

Gathering his courage, he turned, taking a seat opposite of Chelsea. A long awkward moment passed before he spoke up, "So..." he said, "I heard you were looking for someone...with...uh... specific set of skills..."


@Lady N

 

Chelsea said nothing when a shady looking man sat across from her. She forked at her curry and took a bite of chicken. Chewing the tender meat slowly she looked at her wrist where a peculiar looking device that could easily be misidentified as a wristwatch sat. She saw a small blinking green light and then covered it back under her sleeve.

A dab of a napkin to her face.

A drink of Dr.Pepper.

Even with her social class, it was the one she craved.

"To get here and know who I am., means yes, you probably do have the skill set I'm looking for. Mr. Watanabe."

Cold amethyst eyes spied his face. Her eyelids closed partly. She sipped some curry broth with her spoon.

"I am X. You already know my actual name though... right? Chelsea Rosaline Nexon."

Chelsea eyed him a bit more seeing his reaction to being caught in the act. If he had expected to successfully hack and rob someone who was actively looking for a hacker. Then he was easy very confident or just a trolling idiot. Yeesh, she always had to deal with this kind of thing when it was not a solo effort. This was impossible t do alone however. She had to trust that he would not do anything crazy now that they could basically get eachother into some very big trouble once they set out on this.

Even now, if her aunt learned this, she would have all her tools taken and things would become ten times as hard to do. Likewise this man would end up in jail.

"You overestimate yourself and expected a incompetent client. This is the real world not one of those VR games. The rules are different and the penalties are much worse. Often final, sometimes fatal."

She had to say this for herself as well. She hid a shiver and did her best to appear as cold and professional as possible. This should be in her blood after all.

"You can keep the money. Consider it a advance. The trap I left for you to trigger gave me a good deal of information that I needed about you. So..."

Chelsea took another sip of Dr.Pepper.

"First let me ask you Mr Watanabe. Do you know about the recent happenings? Around the country? They started in Boston, then moved to New York, now it's happening slowly all around the world. You know TS right?"

Many of the players would recognize that shortening very quickly.

"A long time employee of Nexus Corporation. A business founded by my father as you already know. Her name was Elizabeth Crowley, she worked in the Multidimensional Research Department. She was also a occultist and leader of some cult that had internet chat forums. Sacrificial gatherings of animals etcetera. She was let go for reasons of insanity and her division closed."

Her eyes scanned around behind him before continuing.

"Pronounced dead last year. Body burnt to a crisp. Only to eventually disappear from the hospital and authorities have no clue what happened. Or aren't telling. She was said to have been playing TS during that time. She was spreading rumors of bringing her cult into the game. Calling it the Grand or Great Transfer... or something."

She had another few bites of chicken. Her brain cycling through what she knew up to now.

"A investigator was also pronounced dead. Quickly vanishing from media outlets other than underground sources like Truth News. The only name they have for her is Beretta. Her body was found burnt too and had been investigating TS and Nexus. This time the body didn't vanish. As far as anyone knows anyway."

She sighed. Her apathetic look softening. These deaths may have been strangers but they still bothered her especially considering...

She went to speak of the others that either were dead, vanished or were hospitalized. Chelsea then finished with one she had yet to actually investigate first hand.

"The last person I looked up was a girl younger than me. Thirteen years old to be exact. She had logged into TS when she was twelve and has never come back out. Her family is keeping her alive at a hospital n Boston. ...Yeesh... what was her name? ...Wendy. Wendy Quinn?"

The dark haired girl did not pick up her spoon. She was too focused now to eat.

"That girl... knew Raina Raythean, the CEO of Raythean Corps daughter. Whom I also know. Raina and I.. had met a strange girl outside where Elizabeth once lived. That person also appeared alongside Chris Lombardi, the current CEO of Nexus."

Her eyes fell upon her chauffeur by accident and she quickly shifted back the hacker.

"Raina called herself... Seigi Ling Ling in the game. She had several players she quested with regularly. Most commonly, a female named Danielle. I think they were close in age. Danielle may be a target if this is all connected like I think it is."

Chelsea finally stopped and took another drink, this time long and slow. Finally she said;

"Mr.Watanabe. What do you think of what I just told you?"

@Roland Rutledge

 

Jin eye'd the girl quizzically as she named him. Had he made a mistake? Left a finger print? Or was it something worse? This could be a trap, something set up by the authorities to lure hackers like himself in....but why would they use a girl, who couldn't have been...more than fourteen. "No," Jin thought to himself, "The cops wouldn't use a little girl..I must have fucked up..Just...stay calm..."

Despite his attempts Jin's face paled as sweat began to trickle down his brow. It wasn't hard to spot someone who was naturally as nervous as he was.

Still he somehow managed to remain calm as he diatribe began, belittling him for falling for such an obvious trap, in such an obvious way. Quickly his embarrassment quickly shed as it was replaced with anger. How dare she put him in this predicament, not even a day ago he was simply content to stay within the game hours at a time ruling his fledgling dukedom.

Eventually her harassment gave way to a long lecture regarding the previous employee to her father's company. Her death wasn't something that had come across Jin's radar, nor was Beretta's. In fact most of the story Chelsea spoke of was something that Jin had never heard of at all, and seemed much like a paranoid delusion, or children's tale. Considering the source Jin had a hunch it was the later.

Until she mentioned Seigi.

The gears started turning in Jin's mind as he turned the information over in his head. He had just met with Seigi in game the night before, learning of her inability to log out of Terrasphere. Was it possible the two were connected, and that it had nothing to do with the boss after all? Then how was Ashiore connected to all this...? Is it possible she was this Danielle? Maybe something *was* going on here after all.

A stern face overcame the man before Chelsa as the nervous teenager disappeared. Replaced by Roland, he now wore a stern but cold face, as he shrugged his shoulders, "I know of Raina's in game counterpart, in fact just this past night I discovered her avatar had been trapped in the game by an unknown threat... I hadn't thought it could be the manipulation of someone in the outside world...but that would make a lot more sense. Tell me though, you clearly have a theory, what do you think is going on here?"

 

Chelsea may not have shown it with her face but her eyes brightened with a aha moment when he mentioned he knew Raina in the game of Terrasphere. So it was connected then....but what was this about being unable to leave the game? She was...

"...Uh."

Crap, she hesitated and that would ruin the advantage she had here! That was not a Nexon thing to do! Boo!

"I have not heard anything about inability to log out for someone in Raina's case. That's odd... Maybe she is a left over code in the database. Yes, that makes sense considering the AI level of the game. This AI said it was Raina Raythean? Hmmm..."

She put a hand to her mouth in thought and and then sipped her Dr.Pepper again to get the parched feeling out of her throat. A living person, trapped in a game and now a copy of one's memory running around? This made little sense but whatever was going on she was 100% sure it was that Chris guys fault! This may require a in person investigative detour from what she had planned though.

Watanabe asked her what she thought... yeah... that was something she was still figuring out how to word without sounding like a insane conspiracy theorist that watches Truth News. Oh... she did.

"I have my hunches."

Chelsea said little for a awhile, just focusing on finishing her meal. Afterwards she dabbed her mouth and had no choice. She spilled what she felt about all of it.

"Nexus Corporation has recently announced some kind of new revolutionary product. Something that will change the modern world forever. You know.. the usual building up of a new thing."

She hated downing her own company but it was not hers now.

"I don't know why but I think they... secretly created Terrasphere and... arekillingpeopleforsomereason.Probablybecausetheywereclosetoknowingsomethingtheyaretryingtohide."

The raven haired heiress remained cool even with this crazy theory revealed. She had said it as quickly as possible and the words actually ran together. It was partly her own desperation to find her parent's killer that drove her to this conclusion. Yet, there were far too many coincidences. The AI in the game said Raina was trapped by a unknown threat? That was likely a lie to cover up the real world issue.

"Whatever they are going to reveal soon. It's going to cause a lot of problems... bad ones. There might end up more like those victims."

Her eyes shifted to her chauffeur again before she forced herself to face Watanabe. She shook off her concerns and continued.

"Mr.Watanabe, there is someone named Danielle that knows Raina fairly well in the game. I am going to arrange a meeting with them for more information on what she did in Terrasphere. If you'd like, you can accompany me. I will be checking out the hospitalized girl at the same time. My only warning is... this is probably life or death for us and others. Even if you do nothing it will continue though...sigh."

Her cold demeanor broke for a moment but again she resolved to retain it.

"I need a skilled hacker like you to take on something as powerful as Nexus. I need to know what's going on in there and the only way, is from inside."

Yeesh... well she said her piece at least.

@Roland Rutledge

 

Jin's eyes almost closed as he squinted at the girl before him. "AI? As far as I could tell it was the real Siegi. In fact I had run into her some time before so I can attest to the fact that she seemed genuine. Why would you think she is an AI? You think Terrapshere, or rather the company behind it, is killing people?" Jin snorted as he leaned back in his chair, "That's ridiculous..... but... trapping her within the virtual world would make sense. Basically it could be a form of blackmailing, 'give me one million dollars and we will let your daughter free'.. Or something like that at least".

Jin mused the idea as Chelsea sipped her carbonated drink. His coffee being long gone he had been forced to watch as Chelsea finished her meal. He supposed he could have ordered himself one, but busied himself by checking his cellphone instead. Several posts on the BBS board were popping up regarding the monster in Astorea, and the plan to defeat it. Strikingly, none of them brought up what he had discovered during his meeting with the Teritorian nobles. He hoped his warnings were not in vain. That's when he realized a mistake he had made.

"Wait." He said

"Seigi wasn't the only one trapped within the game there was another. A player by the name of Ashiore also claimed to have been unable to log out as well. Each said they were killed by an eldricth horror in game. I asked both for their real names, but only Seigi felt comfortable enough to give it to me... which reminds me I promised to look up how she fared in real life and relay that back to her..."

Fiddling with his phone more, he did a quick search online to see if he could narrow down where she lived. "Might as well start with a simple google search..." he muttered as he entered her name into the search engine.

His eye's went wide as he stared at the results. The first several posts painted a very clear picture of her fate.

"Raina Raythean daughter and heir of the CEO of Raythean Corps has been found dead within her home this morning[...] Cause of death at this time is unknown [...]"

Jin blinked checking the date of the articles, they were more than two weeks old! Meaning Raina had to have been long since dead before the character Seigi had shown up at his manor. How was such a thing possible? It couldn't be...the only explanation was...

Jin turned his gaze back to Chelsea.

"You knew..."

His mind turned and tried to chew through the new information he had just been presented. "Terrasphere is designed so that only you can play your character. It would have been impossible for someone to impersonate her for that amount of time, not to mention a complete lack of motive to do so.... the only logical reason would be that the Seigi I met was an AI."

Jin scratched his head, but how did Nexus actually fit into this? And what did this have to do with a product that would be launching soon? Blackmail made sense, but killing her outright greatly deflated that theory. Then there was the fact that Ashiore was likely related, how exactly did she fit in....? Is it possible that this Danielle was her character player and had managed to survive whatever fate had befallen Raina?

There was only one way to know for sure.

Jin nodded confidently towards Chelsea, "Fine, I'm in. At the very least Nexus is to blame for some of this, if not all. I want to know more though, so I'm going with you to that hospital..." Jin looked around, "but... I might be unavailable in a few days.. there's something else I need to take care of."


@Lady N

 

"Someone else?"

Chelsea's face showed a look of surprise for a split second before she returned to her cool demeanor. There were of course many victims to this, it had to go deeper than she could see on the surface. However anything happening to someone outside where the dots connected... bothered her. Chelsea did not want to be wrong, she couldn't be wrong!

It was Nexus and she would fix it!

Regardless it looked like he was in. This was helpful even if she could only trust him as far as she could throw him. He was obvious a sly one with trying to get a big tip and all beforehand. Finishing her meal she paid for both of them in full plus a extra large tip, It was only right considering this place could get a drive by or something at the rate this was going.

"Mr. Watanabe... thank you. I know this sounds crazy but it's real. I will bet my life on it. I lost a lot to whoever is behind this.... I won't forgive and I won't forget."

Her teeth almost gritted but Chelsea wouldn't let herself fall into emotion. That would make her weak. A Nexon was the best at everything they did. No weaknesses.

"In Terrasphere We may need to stay in contact. If what everyone is calling a game is really this dangerous. We should try and keep tabs in case whoever is removing people is using the VR to do it. The methods are still a total mystery to me. ...We should try to avoid making messages in the game though for sure. They are likely monitored."

She gestured to her chauffeur who got up and approached. He flashed his revolver from under his jacket before sitting down.

"This is Charles. He's the only ally I have right now, other than you. He has a good shot but in the game he can do nothing. I need to get stronger myself... just in case a high level area is the key somehow. Yeesh... that's besides the point. I need to get into Nexus HQ and your skills will be critical Mr. Watanabe."

She reached out a hand for a handshake. Her aunt would be furious that she would make such a business gesture without a traditional Japanese bow. She could care less for such traditions.

A small sincere smile appeared on the raven hair's face. Allying with anyone was so not her thing but... this was a rare exception.

"Let us trade information on who we are in the game. By paper in case we are being spied on."

She passed a small piece of paper with scribbled ink on it to the hacker.

I'm Lady N a solo player that has aligned with no Faction or Player Group. I trust you will keep it a secret. My trust is placed in very few people Mr.Watanabe. You now have it.

Chelsea watched him with a silent stare and waited. If he couldn't share his in game ID, then this was not going to last long.

@Roland Rutledge

 

Jin grimaced as Chelsea continued to stick to her crazy idea. Well, the idea he had thought was crazy until a minute ago at least. In fact, now it seemed downright plausible, but that didn't mean he had to like it. No, he hoped what he had discovered today was mere coincidences, isolated incidents with hardly any connection. Sadly at the end of the day, he was always a skeptic. As was often the case, the worse scenario was often the correct one. A skeptic's own version of the Occam Razor.

His unease with the situation wasn't helped by the arrival of her hired gun. Jin wasn't sure where he had even come from, had he been in the cafe the entire time? God, real life was so much harder without a UI, they really should add some sort of tech to help with this kind of stuff. Nervously he nodded at the man and tried to feign a smile. The attempt was rather pathetic.

"R-right then. We should absolutely do that. I'm actually lucky enough to have a quite a bit of in-game power at my disposal; it should help..uh... investigating a bit easier. At least, the bit we do inside the game, because that doesn't actually help out in the real world. I, I mean I know, you know that, but still. Not that I can't help out here though, I can still do what I promised to do. It's just that in the game, it's a, uh, the lot easier than it is in real life...because...because.."

His words trailed off as his gaze shifted between Charles' gun, and his eyes as if they were both snakes. If his rambling speech hadn't made it apparent, his twitch-like movements indicated that it made Jin quite nervous. Eventually, Chelsea passed Jin the paper upon which Jin quickly scribbled out, "Roland Rutledge" upon it before pushing it back to her. A moment passed before he realized his mistake. "Oh...Oh! One moment, give me that back.." Quickly he pulled a napkin from the table over and rewrote his name passing that to Chelsea while pocketing the paper she had given him before.

"Ah...Alright then.. Like I said there is something I have to take care of in game.. They uh.. Need me, and if the stakes are what you say, I *really* need to be there. Just, uh, give me a heads up when you want to visit that hospital, and I will come along.."

With that Jin stood on shaky legs ready to leave the cafe. The world was spinning around him, for reasons he didn't fully understand. Was he always this timid? No... it had to be something with the game. He just felt like a fish out of water. The real world simply didn't suit him as it once did. At least not compared to Terrasphere.