Control (Aurora Book 1)

Chapter 11 - Everything

I WAS AWAREof the more popular troll rooms, but I wanted to know where one notorious troll was hiding out. Ronnie Rarko was an individual I actively ignored in the past because of his often crude and juvenile manner of treating people, especially women. He’d never had much luck with us in the real world from what I’d heard and he wasn’t fairing much better in Aurora. Knowing that his inability to have much success with woman was his main motivating factor, I had a strong feeling that he may just know who was behind the hack. I didn’t think he would tell me straight out, but I felt if I paid him and therefore a massive portion of the trolls in the games a visit by going to one of their rooms, I might get them to slip up and say a few things they didn’t want me to know.

I searched for his name in the active player list and found that he was in a room called The Stormfront which is also a name used in certain circles that often support racial bigotry and segregation. When asked why such a room was allowed to remain open, the reasoning we got from the developer was that they were not breaking any rules so it was allowed to stay. Most players knew to never visit the room or others like them where certain discussions were always held. With as much sex, booze, gambling and other vices as there are in the game, it was always the trolls that were often looked upon the most as undesirable and no one wanted anything to do with any of them.

After making my location visible again, I tapped on Ronnie’s name and highlighted Teleport to Location from my available options. I was about to enter the hornet’s nest and I knew I would immediately become a target. I knew if I needed to I could call someone like Mustafa or a few other close friends to come with me as backup, but for some reason I felt that this was my battle, my fight. It was something I needed to handle on my own if possible. I knew my chances of success were extremely low, but I couldn’t sit back and wait for all the data to be released. I felt compelled to take action, anything to offer solace to the good people who sought refuge in Aurora.

It wasn’t nearly the first time I’d gotten myself into a serious problem while trying to help someone out. This time, however, felt much bigger than any other. It felt personal, and if nothing else, maybe the hacker was in that room and maybe my presence would make him focus on me more and only look to release my information and skip over all the others, at least for now. Maybe if I went in their and gave them every reason come after me, I could in turn save everyone else. All I knew in that moment was I had to do something and I would worry about the consequences later. I had too many friends that had too much to lose. Even if I became the lone target of the trolls and the hacker and ended up with a dozen incels stomping up to my real world front door, I felt it was worth the risk. I had no qualms with sacrificing myself for the greater good. I didn’t even care if anyone knew what I was doing or trying to do. I just felt in my heart that it was the right thing. I had to try.

I took a few deep breathes to prepare myself for what would in all likelihood be a fruitless venture. I spoke to myself for a couple of minutes to try and hype myself up so I could give my best performance. It had started to sink in that I was for all intents and purposes the face of the community, representing tens of thousands players from all over the world. I also knew that whatever happened in there would definitely be streamed to everyone else in the game and to those who watched game play on the internet. I closed my eyes and prepared for the teleport. Up until the second before I hit the button on my HUD, I still had doubts. As I had so many other times in my life, I told myself that doubt was the obstacle to progress and no amount of it was going to stop me this time. With that, I selected the ‘Teleport to’ option and within a second, I was in The Stormfront.

I loaded in at what I figured was the primary spawn point which was in a corner of a very large and filthy looking building. The ceilings were high like those of a large commercial warehouse and the lighting was white, simplistic, and optimized. Chairs of all types and designs were strewn about and several tables and bar tops were near them in no particular arrangement. The room overall was windowless with the exception of a single skylight placed near the center which appeared to let in a small amount of natural light and wasn’t centered correctly. There was no music playing in the room and all I could hear was a light rumbling of several dozen voices that were gathered near what appeared to be a makeshift stage on the far side of the room. Given the haphazard way in which the room was created, the maker was either awful at making rooms or they designed it with this specific aesthetic in mind.

Following the noise, I walked along the concrete floor for a couple hundred steps before I finally got a good look at the group. From what I could first make out, almost all of them were men with the exception of 2 female avatars I was able to spot. While all the men wore fairly simple outfits, the women were dressed scantily as if their outfits were thrown together without much care, only wanting to show off some skin, and possibly to please the large gathering of men around them.

I knew as I got closer that a few people in the group would get a good look at my face and immediately recognize me. It also didn’t help that I’d turned the color of my nameplate back to it’s normal rotating colors and redisplayed my title. As I got closer to the stage, I could see there was someone on it, speaking. It didn’t take long for me to recognize that annoying and nasally voice that belonged to Ronnie Rarko. I’d always known he was neck deep in the trolling groups in Aurora, but seeing him on stage speaking to everyone cemented him in my mind as the leader, at least in this room.

“Ronnie!” I called out from a short distance away which caused the entire group of people to turn around and look my way. A few light gasps were heard from them as I stepped closer, keeping Ronnie in my sights. As I walked forward, I could see from the look of amusement on his face that he recognized me straight away, almost as if he were expecting me. It wasn’t the first time he and I had had a run in. I knew he’d been suspended at least twice for attacking me in the in game chat boards with some very choice and colorful words. Those short suspensions did nothing to stop him from his rants about me and several other women in the game whom he’d, for some unknown reason, came to despise. While I’d never acted rudely to him before, I was willing to forgo any pleasantries if it meant getting him or anyone else for that matter a reason to refocus their trolling efforts on me.

“What do we have here,” Ronnie said followed by a chuckle. He watched me as I moved closer to the steel stage, the crowd in front of me splitting in two so I could approach. I paid them no mind, instead choosing to focus on Ronnie alone for the moment. With each word he spoke, his sarcasm became more and more aggressive. “Looks like we have some royalty in the building tonight, boys! The ‘Queen’ has chosen to grace us with her noble presence! Well, come on everyone! Give our ‘Queen’ the respect she deserves.” With that, everyone in the crowd began cussing at me and flipping me off as was expected. After several seconds of mockery, Ronnie spoke again. “Now tell me, Your Majesty! What in the dimwitted fuck are you doing in my room! You didn’t even call ahead! Hell, we would have rolled out the red carpet for you!”

“Cut the horse shit,” I said, matching his aggressive tone and not wanting to show any signs of weakness. I knew if I did, I was dead meat. “You and I have some urgent business to discuss.”

“Oh!” Ronnie said, his mocking tone continuing. “Do we now! And just what does her ‘Royal Highness’ have to discuss with me?”

“Don’t play dumb,” I shot back, his annoying and continuous usage of royal terms irritating me as was his intention. “You know why I’m here and I know the person I’m actually looking for may be here among you.”

“Ana,” he said, taking a turn toward a more serious tone which was unexpected. “I don’t know exactly what you came here for and I really don’t give a fuck.”

“The hack!” I said which brought a newfound silence to the surrounding crowd. I’d already figured that at least a few of them were also worried about their personal information getting leaked, but may have up until then been playing it cool and acting as if they didn’t care. “I need to know who did it.” The eerie silence continued and Ronnie, for a moment, stared at me silently as if trying to figure out why I was asking. After a few seconds more, he shook his head at me.

“If I did know,” he said, his voice lowering and his eyes squinting at me. “Why the hell would I tell you?”

“Because,” I said, taking a moment to look around to the crowd around me. “This hack has the potential to hurt all of us. If that data gets released every single one of us in this room could be exposed. Our real names and faces could be linked to our avatars and the things we do here which would potentially lead to real world consequences.”

“You don’t want everyone to know you suck dick for money?” a voice screamed out which caused the crowd to burst into laughter. Ronnie also chuckled and used the opportunity to mock and ridicule me further.

“He’s got a point,” Ronnie said. “I doubt you’d want anyone in the real world to know you do the kind of shit we all know you’ve done here.” Ronnie then hopped down off the stage and approached me. “We all know about your little ‘adventures’ with your friends. What was that shit you were doing for a while? That whole ‘Latinas for White Cocks’ crap? Really, what the hell was all that? That your thing? You get off sucking all that white dick, Queenie? God forbid the rest of the players here were to find out about all that!”

“I’ve never hidden any of the things I’ve done here,” I said, countering his personal attack with truth. “I may not necessarily be proud of my sexual exploits, but I’m also not ashamed of them. I do what I do here by choice just as you do the things you like in Aurora. I have never kept it a secret that I was an escort and I still hold my license even to this day. I’m not ashamed of what I did or who I am. You want me to be, but I’m not.”

“So you admit you’re a whore,” Ronnie said, again eliciting a reaction from the crowd. “Wow. Who’d have thought our own Queen of Aurora was nothing more than a dirty, good for nothing whore.”

“Call me whatever you want,” I said to Ronnie and to the crowd around us which appeared to be growing as more and more people around Aurora got word of what was going on and where I was. I knew this would happen so I wasn’t surprised. “I am what I am and I won’t be shamed. Yeah, I’m a whore and I had sex for money. A lot of people here do it and there’s no shame in it other than what you’re trying to make me feel right now. I don’t take clients anymore but sure. I’m an escort and I’m damn good at it.” I paused for a moment to look around more into the crowd. “Hell, I can probably scan everyone here and tell you all the people in your group who’ve used escorts in Aurora. Some of you may not even realize it, but all those encounters, all the times when gold is exchanged, there’s a record of it. The developers store all those transactions so before you act like you’re somehow better than me and pass judgment, maybe you need to think about your own actions first.”

“Professional cock sucker!” someone just behind me called out. I turned to see who it was and it was a man I’d seen around before, notably around Cris’s brothel. “Goes to show you can only glam up a whore so much!”

“Strange words coming from you,” I said to him, staring him right in the eye. “Who designed your avatar? You look like Picasso’s Dora Maar. You look like Bono from U2 fucked a Christmas tree.” My comments were harsh and scathing, and took him and the rest of the crowd by surprise so I continued. “You look like an advertisement on why a vasectomy is a good idea. You look like you were born under a very dim street light. You look like being in a car accident would be an improvement. You look like a warthog had sex with an avocado. You look like someone threw up on a potato and called it a face.”

The crowd and even Ronnie stared at me as I went off on the guy. Their stunned silence was somewhat satisfying as I let myself get into my rash of insults. I’d never once thought of what I might say to any of the trolls that actively insulted me on the chat boards. I know Cris and the other council members sometimes ranted about the things that were said about them, but I refused to let it bring me down. Still, I have to admit, putting them in their place face to face was exhilarating. Just then another person yelled out to me with an attempted insult.

“You’d still fuck him for enough gold!” they yelled out. I turned slightly and spotted their face in the crowd.

“I’d rather fuck a chainsaw,” I said back to this other man who I had never seen before. “I’d rather fuck a ghost pepper with a razor in it. I’d rather fuck a lemon strapped to a horse cock.” I wasn’t holding back and I didn’t care what they thought of what I was saying. “What can I say? Even a whore has standards.”

“And there is the core of the problem!” Ronnie said while raising his arms as if he were a church pastor hearing the voice of God. I turned around to face him again. “You just nailed the biggest problem right on the head! You tell us not to feel that you’re better than we are, yet you walk around this world with your nose in the air acting like you’re some gift to it! Like you’re the next coming of Christ! Are you fucking kidding me?” I could tell Ronnie was getting angry and my goal of getting him and some of those around the room unsettled had worked. All I needed to do was try and redirect him back to the reason for my visit to see if I could squeeze any information out of anyone.

“Who did the hack,” I said to Ronnie with a forcefulness in my voice even I didn’t know I was capable of.

“Go fuck yourself,” he said, his anger piquing.

“Who did the god damn hack!” I screamed, surprising most of the people in the room. Not a single time I had raised my voice to anyone quite like that in all my time in Aurora. I knew I had to go for broke or this wouldn’t work. “If that data gets out, you’re screwed just like the rest of us!” Ronnie snickered for a moment before giving me a sinister smile. His eyes peered into me as if mentally drilling a hole into my forehead.

“You’ll never find out,” he said with an evil and horrible voice. “You try to come here to my turf and tell me what to do? You god damn bitch! You act like you’re being so noble, yet all you’re doing is trying to save yourself! You know what will happened when that data gets released. You know you’re gonna be the one who’s hit the hardest so of course you come here looking for answers. I’m sorry sweetheart, but you’re not getting any help from me or from anyone else here.” Ronnie stepped a little closer to me. “We’re all gonna know who you are. We’re all gonna laugh when we see you’re really just some old, fat, bald guy living with his geriatric parents home who comes here and poses as a woman to get money out of people. You’re scared because you know once that info leaks, you’re through! No more ‘Ana’ after that! Oh, you’re fucked. You’re so fucked and you know it!” With that rant, I had my answer.

“You know,” I said, lowering my voice and looking him in the eyes. “You know who did it. You know who did it and you’re fine with setting this place on fire just appease your own personal agenda. You’re willing to expose everyone here…and for what?”

“You!” Ronnie shot back at me, his voice also lowering and coming across far more sinister than before. “I don’t give a shit about anyone else here. I don’t even care about myself. I just want you! I want the whole world to know that they all got played and you’re just a fucking phony piece of shit that they somehow came to worship. You and your fucking ‘council’ of nobodies are all fakes and I want to see you squirm like the worms that you all are and if that means I have to set the world on fire, so be it!”

It was Ronnie! Ronnie was the hacker…wasn’t he?

“Ronnie?” I said, somewhat taken aback by his apparent admission. “You? You did the hack?” The crowd was dead silent and my HUD began to light up with messages and a couple of incoming voice calls - one from Cris and the other from Reyna. I ignored them both as well as the messages to stay focused on Ronnie.

“I wish,” he said. “As much as I’d like to say I did it, I can’t take credit for it. I’m just glad it happened.”

“Then who!” I said, raising my voice to the point of causing an echo in the room.

“I did,” said a voice from the back of the crowd. Everyone, including me, turned to look for a face to match to it. Stepping through the crowd emerged someone I’d only met a single time in my time in Aurora. I’d met him when the game moved from Beta to Live and we’d only spoken for about 15 minutes. I’d seen him around the game in various rooms and while we never spoke after our initial meeting, we did exchange glances and head nods of acknowledgment. Setting eyes on him as he moved through the crowd sent a shiver down my spine for some reason. The look on his face as he moved toward me was nothing short of terrifying. He was expressionless and his eyes were dead, as if he had lost his soul long ago.

“You,” I said in a near whisper as he continued stepping toward me. “I know you. I remember.”

“Do you,” he said to me in a monotone voice. I recognized his face, but I remembered his name being different. I thought I was misremembering. “You know my face, but this name isn’t what you remember. I’m right, aren’t I. Do you remember the name…Four Buttons?” It was such an odd and peculiar name that I could never forget it. As soon as he said it, I knew my memory wasn’t wrong. It was the man I remembered meeting and seeing from time to time for a period when the game was still new. His new name, Elecshun, was one I’d not seen before.

“Yes,” I said, confused and unsure of what was really happening in that moment. “You did this?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice even and undisturbed as if it were coming from a robot. “I know even admitting it will get me banned soon enough, but I don’t care. I can just get another account set up, change up my hardware ID and I’m all good to go.” His eerie and haunting voice gave me chills and I felt the urge to get away from him but I stood strong, not wanting to appear weak.

“But why?” I asked. “Why do….”

“And I did it,” another voice called out from beyond the crowd once more. I looked over and in the direction of the voice and could tell who it was that had spoken up.

“Me too!” said yet another voice. “I did it.” More and more voices began to speak up, all claiming to have been the one that was responsible for the hack. I looked over to each face, thinking it was them that had spoken, but all of them stared back at me with blank and unmoving expressions. Before I knew it, all of them were saying the same thing over and over: I did it! I did it!

I felt the room begin to spin as each new voice caused me to turn my head, over and over. I could feel myself getting overwhelmed, but I managed to maintain my facade of calm confidence. I forced myself to look into the eyes of each person whose face I managed to spot as they spoke up. I managed to see a small opening and noticed another smaller group of players further back in the room away from the stage. They didn’t appear to be part of the trolls and were just quietly keeping an eye on what was transpiring. With each second, more people joined that second group and before I turned back to face Ronnie once more, that group had swelled to what I thought must have been several hundred people.

“Do you really think we’d just tell you?” Ronnie said to me, my eyes meeting his. His voice on the brink of laughter. He stepped to me again, this time getting as close as he’d ever been to me. Out of instinct, I turned on my Escort application in my HUD and adjusted my strength stat, something I would sometimes do if I were with a new client and didn’t want to give them a chance to overpower me should something go sideways. I set it to it’s maximum value of 350%.

“You’re a monster,” I said to Ronnie as I gritted my teeth. “This is why no one wants anything to do with you and others like you! All you do is talk about how you’re the victim and how people like me are somehow to blame for all your shortcomings!”

“Because you are!” he screamed at me, our faces maybe a foot apart. I could feel his hot breath, stinking of beer and cigarettes, right up on me. “You were handed the keys to the castle while the rest of us got nothing! You were given some bullshit position of authority while the rest of us had no say in it! What gives you the right to tell any off us what to do or how to feel! You don’t get to do that to me or to us! The developers decided to play King Maker and just like that we have some fucking council to tell us all what to do? You’re a false prophet and I hope you fucking burn! You deserve none of what you have!”

“I never wanted any of this!” I screamed back to him as my guise of confidence finally fell away. The emotional toll of his words had finally broken through and my charade of a confident and headstrong individual gave way and all that was left was a tearful and scared woman who was barely hanging on. “I never…wanted this!” The crowd hushed once more as I spoke, the look on Ronnie’s face turning from rage into a sort of distorted pleasure. “I just…it just happened one day and I never….” I couldn’t finish my words. I broke eye contact with Ronnie and looked down to the gray concrete floor. The deafening silence was all that was present aside from the hard breathing coming from Ronnie who felt as if he were almost on top of me. I could feel myself breaking.

“And there we have it,” Ronnie said, backing away from me and looking back over the crowd and raising his voice so they could all hear him again. “There we have it, boys! You saw it here first. This is the result of all our hard work. This is our prize!” I felt the tears falling from my eyes once again. I couldn’t look up. All I could hear was the crowd jeering me again as well as what sounded like a faint series of foots steps coming toward me from behind. “That’s right! You see what just happened here?” I felt Ronnie step closer to me once more. “You like that, your majesty? Pawn…takes…queen.”

My hands began to shake and my vision began to fail me. The jeering was all I could hear and the smell of Ronnie’s rancid breath enveloped me. I began to question why I ever thought this would work. Why did I feel this need to try and do something so reckless, knowing the chances of it working were so low? What made me think I had the strength to pull this off?

“We’re too much for you,” Ronnie said to me, his voice boisterous and obnoxious. “You really think we couldn’t see through your whole charade? We sidestep shit like this all the time. Dodging your attempt was like shooing away a kitten.” Just then, the foot steps I’d been hearing stopped just behind me and a confidence and powerful voice came forth.

“Dodge this!” said the voice as it moved past me. I looked up in time to see a beer bottle come crashing down on Ronnie’s head and a glob of foamy liquid go flying. Recoiling from the blow, Ronnie fell to the concrete and writhed in pain, his hands instinctively covering his head. Turning to my right I finally got to see who it was that had stepped in to force him back from me. It was Reyna.

“You bitch!” Ronnie yelled out as he sat on the floor, beer all over his face and dripping down to his shirt and into his lap. Reyna stood above him, her hands on her hips and her face filled with rage. I’d never seen her make that face before. “You fucking bitch!” Reaching back and grasping for my hand, Reyna kept her focus on Ronnie.

“Check yourself, motherfucker!” she said to him. I’d never heard her speak like this in our time together. Like me, she was a girl from the ‘old neighborhood’ so to speak. She grew up with the constant threat of danger from hoodlums and gang members and learned how to survive it all. While I’d never heard her speak in such a way to anyone since we’d met, it made complete sense to me that that little ‘hood’ girl was still a part of her.

I looked up and watched Reyna standing over him, exerting her dominance like I’d never seen before. I felt another hand touch my shoulder which caused me to look to my left. Cris was there, looking me over and forcing me to pair with her which I did not resist. I knew why they were there and what they were doing. I looked around more and realize that Reyna and Cris had come on their own. The other trolls in the group that had started to close in on me had suddenly backed up, seemingly afraid to see the three of us together.

“Stay down!” Reyna said to Ronnie. I looked down to his face to see a slight twinge of humiliation taking hold of him as if this were something he’d long feared would happen.

“Reyna!” Cris said while standing by me, her hand still on my shoulder. “We’re leaving! Now! We gotta go!” Reyna looked back and locked eyes with Cris and nodded her head. She then brought herself closer to me and released my hand only to throw her arm around my waist.

“Do it,” Reyna said to Cris, letting her know she was done with Ronnie and ready to leave.

“Shit,” Cris said. “Where to?”

“What?” Reyna said, apparently confused.

“Where am I porting us?” Cris replied.

“Anywhere but here!” Reyna called back.

“Got it!” Cris said as she motioned with her hand to activate her port. In a flash, we were out of The Stormfront and into what looked like an outdoor area that I wasn’t familiar with. I took a moment to get my bearings as both Cris and Reyna looked me over and asked if I was alright. I nodded my head as Reyna embraced me. I wrapped my arms around her without much thought, just happy to be out of that situation. After a long moment, she pulled back from me and set her hands on my shoulders.

“What were you thinking!” Reyna said to me, her eyes full of worry. “Why on Earth would you go into a place like that alone!” I took a moment to gather my thoughts before I answered her. I closed my eyes for a few seconds and then opened them once more to meet Cris’s eyes, her expression just as concerned.

“I had to do something,” I said followed by a deep breath. “I couldn’t just sit back and wait for it all to go down. I thought if I could just get them to talk about it….”

“Wait,” Cris said. “The hack? You mean you think those assholes had something to do with it all?”

“Yes,” I said. “They all came out and said they did something.”

“Or they could have just been trolling,” Reyna said, making a very good point. “It’s what they do. That’s their entire existence in a nutshell. They don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves. All they want is to make everyone’s life as miserable as their own and you know that.”

“I know,” I said, letting myself relax more, thinking I was out of harm’s way. “I just have this feeling that they had something to do with it or they know who did it.”

“Why?” Cris said. “If the data gets decrypted and released, they have just as much to lose as the rest of us.”

“Not if they’re using hacked hardware,” I said. “One of the guys in there, he said something about being able to wipe or replace hardware IDs which would let them use previously suspended headbands. If that’s true then they’ve probably been banned before and were somehow able to create new accounts and use those same bands so they could skip the vetting process.”

“But how?” Reyna asked. “The devs have always been so stringent with who they let in here. How could they bypass everything like that?”

“They shouldn’t be able to,” I said while taking in another deep breath.

“Unless they have someone on the inside,” Cris added. “If they have someone getting them access to new accounts and hardware IDs, then they could do it at will.”

“Or,” I said, looking over to Cris again. “They found a security flaw, an exploit and they just keep using it to make the new accounts and generate new hardware IDs. If you could do that, you could just use that over and over at will. With all the new players the game has been letting in the past year, a couple dozen new IDs could potentially fly under the radar. No one would notice unless they did an intense audit and who knows how often that happens.”

“Or if the auditor is in on it,” Reyna added, realizing the weight of what we were discussing. “Jesus Christ. The more I think about all this, the scarier it gets. If they can make new accounts at will, they can come in over and over and cause all sorts of havoc. And if they crack the encryption to the personal data files, they wouldn’t care because the actions on their current avatars can’t be linked to them in the real world. They probably just filled in all the account information with false names and addresses.”

“Then mark their account as paid for a significant amount of time,” I said, adding on to what Reyna was thinking, “and no one would even really notice until it was too late and they’d caused as much damage as they wanted.”

“Then they’d just start all over again,” Cris said, finishing up what we were all thinking. “You’re right, Reyna. This is a god damn nightmare.” I openly sighed and looked to the clouded sky as did the others. With the extra bit of information I was able to get out of Ronnie and Four Buttons, we’d figured out what their modus operandi was. It was no wonder they never cared about the hack or if their own data was exposed because chances are their current avatars and accounts were all forged with false information. They didn’t care if they got banned because they could just create another account. We knew they had inside access, but to what extent and how was still unknown. My train of thought was suddenly broken when the crash of a shattering beer bottle breaking nearby startled me.

“Jesus Christ!” Cris screamed out as the bottle breaking also startled her and Reyna. The smell of beer filled the air around us and we all looked around to see how it got there. Just then another bottle broke near our feet and startled us once more. I looked around more and noticed a few men staring at us and moving in our direction, all of them with unopened bottles of beer in their hands.

“Oh shit,” I said, scanning the area more. The more I looked, the more I noticed and the number of potential assailants was growing. “We’re being stalked.” Reyna and Cris also took notice and instinctively turned their backs to me, sealing me off from any harm.

“Cris,” Reyna said as more and more of the trolls from the previous room started to spawn in to our location. “We need to move again. We’re in trouble!” They’d made it clear that they wanted to hurt us and were purposely pursuing us.

“I’ll take us to my brothel!” Cris said as I watched her making hand gestures, letting me know she was working her HUD. “Here we go!” Just as two more thrown beer bottles were about to strike near us, Cris activated her port and in a split second, we spawned into her brothel, just inside the front doors. As soon as we got our bearings, Cris began instructing her staff to take action, having them lock the front doors and keeping an eye on the spawn points in case we were followed.

“Cris,” Reyna said as she took my hand and led me further inside. “Is this place secure? Can they get in?” Cris who had started following us stopped momentarily. “Cris?”

“I don’t know,” Cris said with a pause. “I can have my people cover the spawn points, but there’s really no way to stop them unless I close the room.”

“Then do that!” Reyna said, understanding what might be coming for us. “We can’t take any chances. They’re getting violent now!”

“I can’t!” Cris said, causing Reyna to drop my hand and walk back toward her.

“What are you talking about?” Reyna said to Cris as she stood in front of her. “Just close it!”

“The customers!” Cris said, referencing all the patrons in her room that were currently engaged in congress with her escorts. “If I close the room it will kick everyone out and send them back to their own rooms. It will severally piss of a lot of people if I do that.”

“Then why bring us here?” Reyna said, making an excellent point. Just then the trolls began to arrive, spawning in at the two larger spawn points as well as outside the doors. Not caring who they hurt, they began to throw chairs and flip tables over, all while trying to make their way to the three of us. People began to scream and the handful of guards that Cris employed did their best to hold them off, but to no avail. They were gaining ground and fast. “Close the god damn room, Cris!”

Cris froze in place as if unable to comprehend what was happening inside her brothel. Such chaos had never broken out inside it before as most people understood and followed the rules without question. Reyna and I called out to her but she stood there looking over her room as more and more furniture went flying and patrons and escorts ran for cover. Before long, over 20 trolls had made it inside the room and were gunning for us. They began throwing anything they could get their hands on our way as Reyna and I retreated further inside. Cris still stood there frozen and unable to act. Several of her guards ran over to her and whisked her away to another room as Reyna and I continued down a long hallway lined with several doors. I looked over to Reyna as we ran and could tell she was working her HUD.

“My place!” she said to me as she looked over to me. “All personal rooms are private by default so we’ll be safe!” I nodded to her, knowing she was right. It was where we should have gone in the first place, but failed to realize it as the adrenaline had overtaken us all. “We’re going now.” With a few more taps on her HUD, Reyna teleported us instantly to her personal in game apartment, a place I’d not been to since she’d left.

It was still very much the same, mostly untouched. All the white furniture and decor was all the same and the layout remained as it was 18 months prior. My hand still in hers, Reyna pulled me to her and embraced me, squeezing me and giving me the feeling she had no intention of letting go.

“Ana,” she said to me, the veil of toughness slowly fading. “What the hell is going on? Why is all this happening?” I felt my arms wrap around her, my heart beating a million miles an hour from our ordeal. I could hear her labored breathing, her chest moving in and out against my own. I could smell her perfume rising from her neck as her hair lightly tickled my cheek. I felt myself quickly being overcome with emotion. It was the first time since she came back that I’d really taken hold of her and let myself absorb her presence. The sensation of being in her arms again overtook me and I began to let all of my old feelings loose. I felt in that moment, even with the chaos that was unfolding around us, as safe as I did all that time ago. I began to feel that a part of me that I thought I’d lost along ago had finally found its’ way back to me. Although we’d not properly talked about all that had happened or all that we felt might, I still let myself take solace in her presence. It was a feeling I’d been chasing since she left and I wanted to bask in it as long as I could.

“I don’t know,” I said to her in a light voice. “I wish I knew.”

“Why can’t they just leave you alone?” she said back to me, her voice beginning to break. “What do they want from you?” Just then, without warning, a sinister and familiar voice came out from the dark corner where the spawn point was.

“I want to cut her fucking heart out,” an evil voice whispered. Both Reyna and I, startled, looked back toward the spawn point. Out of the darkness stepped Four Buttons, an evil and diabolical expression covering his face. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to have you like this.”

“What the fuck!” Reyna said, her voice still breaking. “But…how? My room’s private! How could you get in?” Four Buttons looked past Reyna and spoke directly to me.

“You and your bitch need to learn,” he said as he stepped closer to us. In his hand, a large reflective object with a point that glistened brightly. It was a knife, it’s sharpness seeming to call out and threaten us without making a sound. “You think you’re so much better than the rest of us.”

“No!” I said in an attempt to get him to stay back. “I’ve never felt that way.”

“You fucking liar!” he screamed at me. Reyna and I slowly backed away from him. I could tell she was attempting to teleport us out, but for some reason it wasn’t working. “You have no idea what it’s like to be one of us! To be me! You wouldn’t survive a single day in my shoes!”

“Why are you doing this!” Reyna cried out, the fear in her voice becoming unbearable. “Please…just leave us alone!”

“No!” Four said to us in an almost playful voice. “You, dear Miss Reyna. I don’t give a shit about you. All I care about is that whore behind you!”

“Why!” Reyna said, her back against my chest and her arms reaching back and around me. She was slowly pushing me back further into her apartment as Four slowly moved closer.

“Why don’t you tell her?” Four said to me. I sincerely had no idea what he was talking about. “Does she even know about your time when you were whoring around for money? Even then you thought you were better than all of us! Isn’t that right!”

“What?” I said, still having no idea what he was getting at. “Of course she knows I was an escort! What does that have to do with any of this?”

“It has everything to do with it!” Four said to me, his voice deepening and becoming more rigid. “I went to you that day. I went to you because I needed help! And what did you do? You ignored me! Turned me away!”

“What?” I said again. “All I’ve ever done is try and help people!”

“Except me,” he said. “All except me. I needed someone that day and you brushed me off all so you could go fuck someone for money.” His words made me think back to my time when I was actively taking clients during my escorting days. It wasn’t unusual for me to occasionally talk to people who needed a shoulder to cry on while I wasn’t all that busy. However, I always made a point to take care of my paying customers so I made sure to have them set appointments with me which I was diligent in keeping. If I set a time and date for them, it was kept with almost no exceptions.

It occurred to me that it was possible that at some point Four Buttons may have approached me seeking help when I was unavailable and I had to turn him away. I hated doing it, but it felt unfair for me to cancel a client’s preset appointment to speak to someone else. It wasn’t even about the money. It was about who came to me first and respecting them enough to not cancel on them for anyone else, regardless of circumstance. Many of my paying clients who just wanted to talk even paid me as they would if using my escorting services. I often asked them not to, but they sent me the money after the fact anyway in many cases, often feeling as if they had unfairly taken up my time. It was then I realized this was probably what happened with him. Four had come to me at a time when I was either prepping for a client or about to start a session with one and I had to turn him away.

It didn’t take long for my reputation to spread and it wasn’t uncommon for people to come looking for me simply so they could talk. They knew I would never judge them or expose their secrets to anyone else. I’d managed to build trust with people quickly and was often told I was extremely easy to talk to which is why the word spread as it did. Four Buttons, at some point, must have fallen through the cracks when I couldn’t make time for him. I tried to make time for everyone as much as I could, but there were always those I simply couldn’t get to. Some people would only need me for 15 minutes while others needed hours. It was often so hard to tell, even with appointments. You never want to leave someone when they are at their most vulnerable and I avoided doing that as much as I could. I wanted to give everyone that wanted it a chance, but it was physically and logistically impossible.

“Please stop,” Reyna said, her voice shattered with anxiety and fear. “I won’t let you touch her. You’re going to have to kill me!” Through it all, she still continued trying to teleport us out, but it wouldn’t work. Something was keeping us there. Even trying to log ourselves out was of no use. It was finally hitting both of us that we might have to fight Four Buttons off as if this were a real life encounter. Reyna and I had our Escort applications and we could make ourselves stronger, but seeing as how something was preventing us from even teleporting away, it was possible that our apps might also be compromised.

Even in Aurora, the trauma of being attacked could feel so real as to permanently scar your psyche in real life. It was all built and designed to feel as real as possible to the point where an average human brain would interpret it as actually happening and respond accordingly. In this case, it could cause our minds to overload and potentially cause serious and even deadly harm to our bodies as we slept. Reyna and I both knew this and Four Buttons definitely knew which is why he was wanting it to happen. He really did want me to hurt. He wanted me to feel his pain in a physical way. He wanted it to cross the boundaries of Aurora and into the real world.

I felt Reyna’s body quaking with fear. I could see the evil in Four’s eyes, his thirst for blood becoming more and more apparently with each step he took toward us. I stared at the blade as it moved with him, my eyes focusing on the point. In my mind, it was like I was back on that bathroom floor, a towel barely covering me and my wet hair sticking to by reddened skin. I could hear his voice all over again as it echoed throughout the apartment with each taunt he threw my way. I could feel the warmth from my burning tears streaming down my face. But then, in that moment, the tip of the blade squarely in my sight, I found myself reaching around Reyna and pulling her back around me until I was in front of her. I’d somehow managed to unconsciously put my life before hers. Suddenly, I was the one protecting her from that blade.

I could feel the manic rush of blood coursing through my veins, but the longer I stared at the knife and felt those emotions race through me, the clearer my vision became. I could see the blade and watched it as if time were slowing down. I glanced up to his eyes and although they were dead set on me, I did not blink. I found myself staring back at him, through him, unwavering. I mouthed a few lyrics to myself, that same song I was taunted with all those years ago, playing in my head.

I watched the change…in you.

I wanted him to focus on me. I wanted him to come closer. I felt the resolve in my mind building as my hands pushed back into Reyna, signaling to her to retreat further into the apartment. I felt her grip on me loosen and heard her footsteps as she backed away. I imagined the confusion on her face, but didn’t focus on that, instead wanting to keep my eyes trained on the person in front of me. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of making me feel small, scared, alone. I wasn’t going to let it happen to me the way it did back then. No. Not again. Not this time.

“I look at the cross,” I said to him, my voice finding its’ way back to me. A look of slight confusion came over his face as I spoke to him as if he was uncertain of how I’d managed to speak to him so quickly after I was racked with fear. I held my gaze on him, not breaking eye contact and not wanting to give him an inch on me mentally.

“What?” was all he could manage to get out to me. “What did you say?” He was confused, unsure of what it was I was saying to him. His eyes broke contact with mine long enough for me to, without thinking, reach forward and wrap my hand around the blade and squeezed down onto it. Shocked, Four stepped back but I held on firmly to the blade, the pain from it slicing into my palm severe.

“Then I look away,” I said to him, his eyes meeting mine again and still filled with confusion. I felt my legs become stable and the fear began to slowly flow out of my body. I could feel myself getting closer to my goal, an inner clarity that I so often sought when I was going through a hard depressive episode. I raised my hand up to eye level and scanned my fingers and my palm. I imagined what if anything that I could do with it if given a second chance to confront Will on that fateful day. I remembered the gun he held up to my head, the feeling of the cold steel pressed against my forehead. I imagined that same pistol in my hand, wondering how it would feel if I had managed to take it from him and turn the tables. I stared into my hand, a light digital flicker distorting my palm which took on a metallic color similar to aluminum. With each second, the vision became clearer. I could feel myself wanting to have that gun in my hand. A small disturbance partially distorted my hand for a split second causing me to blink rapidly. When I was able to open my eyes and look again, there in my hands, was that very same gun.

I felt its cold metallic form slide against the skin of my palm which cause me to reflexively grip it, my fingers wrapping around the barrel. I could feel the weight as it sat there in my hand. I stared at it for several seconds, wondering if I was imagining things. I had somehow, against the game’s programming, managed to spawn the same gun Will had used to threaten my life.

I looked away from my hand and back up to Four, the gun still extended in front of me. He stared back at me in what appeared to be a state of shock, him obviously knowing that what had just happened, me creating a working pistol out of thin air, should have been impossible given the safety protocols the game has in place. For some reason though, seeing the gun appear in my hand didn’t affect me the way I thought seeing something like that would. Instead of feeling a sense of awe, wondering how it got there, it felt almost natural to me, as if I had done something I knew I could do all along.

I stepped closer to Four without thinking, the fear having drained completely from my psyche. It had seemed that the dread I was feeling just moments before had somehow transferred over to him, his eyes shooting back and forth between my own and the gun. Four loosened his grip on the knife allowing me to pull it away from him, still not caring that the blade was cutting into my palm. I turned my head slightly, wanting to get a better look at his eyes as the fear gripped him. I didn’t feel any sense of power or satisfaction though. All I felt for him, in that moment, was pity.

With a flick of my wrist, I spun the gun around in my hand and gripped it by the barrel, letting the pistol’s grip face him. Stepping to him again, I pushed the butt of the gun up against his chest, offering it to him. My bravery having finally piqued only made me want to give him what he wanted from me. I didn’t feel that I should point the gun at him and hold him off as most people would do. I didn’t feel the urge to shoot him and put him down for what he’d done. Instead, for reasons I sincerely don’t understand, even to this day, I wanted him to take it from me.

“I give you the gun,” I said to him, pushing its’ grip harder into his chest. After a few seconds of confusion, I felt his hand brush against my own as he took the firearm from me. Sliding his finger behind the trigger, I kept my eyes locked on his, my stare unwilling to give him the satisfaction of seeing my fear again.

Once he’d taken hold of the gun and gripped it into his hand, I pulled on the barrel and lifted it to my forehead, pressing the muzzle against my skin. I gritted my teeth and pushed my head forcefully against the gun more, wanting to be sure he knew I was no longer afraid of him.

“I give you the gun,” I said to him once again, in a light and non threatening voice. I fixated on his eyes to the point where I could see the fear gathering behind them. It was as if he’d never encountered someone acting in such a way in his life. His befuddled stare couldn’t seem to comprehend what was happening between us. People like Four wanted and yearned to see the fear in someone else’s eyes as he trolled and tormented them, but I had managed to turn things around. I knew what I had just done to him and it was finally dawning on him. I’d taken away that satisfaction. I’d shown him that I was no longer afraid of him. In that moment, I’d show him that I had won. “Now…blow me away.”

It took me a moment to get my bearings, the dizziness from this teleport being much more abrasive than any other I’d taken before. I opened my eyes and saw nothing but white around me. The walls, the ceiling, the floors were all the same bright white. I looked around for something other than more white, but saw nothing else. I looked down at my hands and clothing and I was, thankfully, still there. There wasn’t even a cut or mark from where I felt the blade slice into my palm. Looking out into the white void with no visible light source was unnerving and strained my eyes so I kept my hands in front of me to avoid any vertigo. I turned around over and over until I heard a voice behind me.

“Ana,” someone said to me, causing me to quickly turn to look for them. Standing not more than ten feet in front of me was a man, older, maybe in his late 50s with salt and pepper hair with a full, well-groomed beard. The black suit he wore was form fitting and outlined his broad shoulders. It was freshly pressed, looking as if he’d gotten it back from the cleaners mere minutes ago. His shoes were black, shining as if freshly polished, and his feet where maybe a foot apart. His hands were clasped together behind him. I’d never seen him before and had no idea who he was. He stood there, letting me look him over, his expression stoic and calm.

“Who are you?” I said, dropping my hands back down by my sides. I could feel my chest rising and falling with each shaking breath I took. My heart was still pounding from the extreme stress of having Four Buttons coming after Reyna and I. It was then that I realized I wasn’t with Reyna anyone, protecting her our our would be assailant. “Reyna...Reyna!”

“She’s safe,” the man said to me. “I took both of you out of there before that player could cause either of you any harm.”

“Where is she?” I said, my eyes focusing intently on him. “What did you do with her?”

“She’s with Cris and the others,” he said to me. “They’re in Mustafa’s room. I figured any of those that were chasing you with half an ounce of sense wouldn’t dare chase her into his place.” He was right. Those who knew Mustafa and his crew knew they could be either the greatest guys you could ever know or your worst enemies. I’d only ever known Mustafa as a sweetheart and he always looked out for me so I knew Cris and Reyna would be safe with him and his friends. “I assure you she is perfectly fine. A little shaken up, but fine nonetheless.” I paused for a moment and looked this man in front of me over one more time to try and figured out who he was.

“Are you…Jazz?” I asked him. He shook his head. “Then who?” He smiled at me a moment and began to step closer.

“I’ve had many names,” he said, his hands still behind his back. I recoiled slightly as he moved toward me which caused him to stop. Seeing that I was still flush with adrenaline, he paused his advance and put his hands up, trying to show me he was no threat. After putting them back down by his sides and into his pockets, he continued. “Depending on who you ask, I guess you could say I’m…God.” I pursed my lips together and squinted my eyes and gave him a quizzical look. After a brief chuckle, he elaborated. “Maybe God isn’t the right word to use in this case. Other names I’ve had are The Creator, The Visionary, The Architect. To put it simply, I’m the person responsible for this entire world. Aurora is my creation. It’s my baby…so to speak.”

“You’re the creator?” I asked, still trying to figure out what was actually going on.

“I am,” he said. “Aurora is my dream come to life. I’d dreamt it up when I was still a child and kept it in my thoughts all through my teen years. I eventually felt it was something I wanted to pursue so I went to college and learned all about computer programming and how to build true to life, interactive worlds. I’d made a few of them, but none of them were quite right in my mind. You’re obviously familiar with sitting in front of a computer and playing video games. You’ve done that for a good portion of you life.” I nodded my head at him and he went on. “All of those games you and millions of others have played…they’re all great in their own way. You can be a wizard battling against ogres or you can be in space, piloting your own craft across the stars. All very fun and engaging for most, but I was never quite happy with them. Something was always missing for me. Even as a kid, I remember sitting there in my living room playing my old Atari 2600 and wondering if there could be more.”

“So you invented Aurora,” I said as my nerves began to settle down some.

“Not at first,” he said back to me. “In the beginning I wanted to make something similar to many of the other games you see out there today. Only I wanted it to be more than just sitting at a desk and smashing your keyboard or sitting on your living room floor with all your friends around while you and a buddy raced digital cars against one another. I wanted something more, something better. I wanted…something real. You see I went to school for more than just computer programming. I also studied things like computer hardware and interactive devices you could plug into computers. Eventually those interests expanded and before I knew it, I was helping to create hardware someone could place on their body and use their muscles to control another object. Over time, it became…much more sophisticated.”

“The headband,” I said, referencing what every player had to wear to bed in order to be able to enter Aurora.

“I invented the technology behind it,” he added. “The headband was not my first choice though. I wanted something I could physically embed into someone’s body, but that was far more difficult to construct and obviously not too many people would want something like that implanted into their heads so the headband was the compromise.” I stared at him a few more seconds, thinking he might try to keep expanding on his thought for which I didn’t have much interest in at that moment.

“Why am I here?” I said, redirecting him to my primary concern. “Why did you bring me here? What is this place?”

“Oh,” he said, looking up to the ceiling and around the room. “This place is basically a staging area. Think of it like the blank canvas you see before beginning a painting. It’s the area of a room one would see if we didn’t start you off with the default room interior.”

“So this is a room then,” I said. He nodded. “If this is a room, then why leave it like this, all white, blinding and disorienting?” He looked back at me for a moment and nodded his head once more.

“You’re right,” he said and in an instant, the room was populated with lighting, furniture, decorations, and everything else a regular room might have, only this was much more elaborate and customized. Taken aback by the sudden change of my surroundings, I felt as if I might fall over but managed to stay on my feet. Surrounding me now were the same things you’d find in the living room of a very rich individual.

Paintings from well known artists such as Picasso and Matisse hung on the walls and the furniture appeared custom and was covered with golden adornments which made it look almost gaudy. The floors were covered in Persian rugs which looked as if they’d cost a small fortune to acquire. The coffee table which sat between two massive chairs was made of wood, oak from the looks of it, and was red in color. The smells in the room reminded me of times when I’d had the opportunity to visit some very wealthy business people and was allowed to roam their homes with them while we talked about various money matters. I turned around and took in more lavish antiques, sculptures, and pieces of art as well as a large black bar where behind it stood a massive rack completely filled with wine bottles.

“I hope this place is alright,” he said as he walked over to one of the large chairs and sat in it, adjusting his position so he’d be comfortable. “Please. Sit.” I cautiously walked over to the other oversized chair directly across from him and sat down, also taking a moment to adjust myself. “I like coming here when I’m taking a break from all my work. I don’t like having many things like this in real life, but here…I don’t mind. Makes this place feel cozy and welcoming. If I wanted I could probably put together something like this for real, but I’d never have time to enjoy it.”

“Why am I here?” I said, interrupting him. “Who are you really” I kept my gaze on him as he looked around the room more as he was describing it only for his eyes to slingshot back to me after I cut him off. He looked down for a moment and then slapped his hands on his knees.

“Very well,” he said in a lower tone as if he wanted to skip any further pleasantries. “My name is Thaddeus Mann. I can see you’re already looking me up in the web search in your HUD, but I assure you that’s not necessary.”

“You’re in my HUD?” I asked, annoyed that he could see what I was doing.

“I can see all of it,” he replied. “In fact I can see your vision as you look back at me. All your data, your friends lists, your real life heart rate, breathing. There isn’t much I can’t see.” It all made sense though. If he really were the creator of Aurora, surely he could see every single aspect of the game as well as all the things any average player could see. It made sense that he could, if he wanted, mirror someone’s HUD and simply watch the game as they would as they played. It was unnerving, but something any Game Master could do if needed. “I apologize. I know it’s invasive and it feels like an invasion of privacy, but I had to keep an eye on what was going on with you. With all the chaos that was breaking out in Aurora, all of the GMs and myself have been in game and watching it all unfold.”

“So you knew all of this,” I said, feeling a sense of anger coming over me. “So you knew…shit. Of course you knew. You knew what was happening all this time and you just…what, let it happen?”

“Not exactly,” he said to me, putting his fisted hand under his chin and resting his elbow on the arm of the chair. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“Enlighten me,” I said, matching his posture and resting my chin on my clenched fist. “If you really are the creator of this place, I really would want to know why you let all of this happen, especially today.”

“Yeah,” he said, closing his eyes to me. “About that….”

“You almost let Reyna and I get assaulted!” I said, cutting him off again and raising my voice. “You let some troll get into her apartment when he was dead set on….” I stopped myself a moment, the realization that he very well could have let Reyna and I be severally traumatized.

“You’re right,” he said, opening his eyes again and sitting back in his chair and dropping his hands into his lap. “That was something that never should have happened and I apologize.”

“How is that even possible?” I asked him, genuinely wondering how someone could get into a room that was specifically marked as private. Such a thing should not have been possible.

“That was a hiccup on our part,” he said, nodding to me. “We screwed that up. There was a bug that allowed people to go into private rooms. When a room opens, there is a 2 second window where the room opens and it gets marked as private. If someone were to try and enter it at that time, even if marked private, they could enter it as if it were public.” I stared at him long and hard and came to a very simple conclusion.

“Another one of those things you all failed to mention?” I said, eluding to the length of time it took for them to mention that they’d been hacked. Thaddeus openly sighed, knowing I had every right to be upset over both of these issues.

“I deserved that,” he said, nodding his head once again and looking me in the eye. “As much as I…we work on the game, there are always going to be bugs and issues.”

“That’s a huge bug,” I said, not letting him schmooze his way out of it. “The amount of damage that could cause to people in massive. Do I even want to know how long that bug was around or are you gonna drop another bullshit statement like the one you did earlier. And in the middle of the night when everyone’s asleep.”

“Players would find out sooner if they were asleep,” he said.

“ I mean the non players,” I said. “The rest of the world! It doesn’t matter though. Word is already spreading and everyone else around the world that plays is already finding out. You have no idea the amount of damage this is going to cause! You’re going to get sued into oblivion!”

“Do you think I don’t know that!” Thadeus barked at me, almost breaking into a scream. I stared back at him, unwavering because I knew in my heart that I was right. Someone had to answer for this massive failure and since I had this rare opportunity, I felt I should make the most of it. “Ana, I know. We screwed up. Royally. I’ve been up most of the night trying to figure out the best way to go about this and you’re right. The statement we put out was all corporate crap that the lawyers put together. I know you’re angry and you have every right to be. The fact is we got hacked and the data was stolen. Not only that, but we also had a rogue agent in our midst that we had to take care of. He’s the reason so many of those false accounts were started. He also granted new hardware IDs and if I’m being honest with you, we have no idea which ones are legitimate and which ones were forged.” Given he was talking about hardware IDs, I assumed he had been mirroring my HUD while I was in The Stormfront and when speaking with Cris and Reyna about it all. He’d been watching the entire time!

Thaddeus put his hand to his forehead. I could tell he really did feel remorseful for the problems that had all come to a head that night. It was weighing on him heavily and it occurred to me after watching him like that for a moment that as upset as I was, he had to be feeling 100 times worse. Aurora really was his baby and his baby was sick and under attack not only from the outside, but also by someone from the inside. He remained quiet for an extended period of time as if this, out first meeting, should have gone in a much different direction.

“Thank you,” he said to me after a while. Eventually he dropped his hand from his head and looked back at me. “That speech you gave earlier to everyone…you didn’t have to do that. I have to admit you kind of saved our asses there. I thought for sure things were going to get worse, but you managed to calm people down with that.”

“The choice was never really mine,” I said, the real reason I did it sticking in my throat for a moment. “You made me do it. You put me in this position. With this…title you gave me.”

“You didn’t have to,” he said, shaking his head at me.

“But I did!” I said as I stood up from my chair. “No one else was going to do it! The people needed a voice to calm them down and it fell to me to be that voice!” I turned from him and looked over to the Picasso he had on the wall, unsure of its’ proper name. I stared at it for a few more seconds. “I swear…this god damn title. Ever since you all gave it to me, it’s been nothing but heartache. All it did was drive the person I cared for the most away! What even is the point of them? Why even give them out? Why push this on me? On any of us?”

“I have my reasons,” Thaddeus said without elaborating. I turned back around to him.

“I guess that’s another one of your big secrets,” I said bitterly. “Just more shit you’re gonna shovel my way!”

“Ana,” he said, rising from his chair. “Please stop this.”

“No!” I said, my anger building more. “Why do this! Why!”

“Do you really want to know?” he said to me.

“Yes!” I said, my voice getting louder.

“You really want to?” he said, repeating himself.

“Yes!” I said, screaming at him. I could feel the expression on my face distorting and my bottom lip beginning to shake, the anger inside me having reached a critical point. He stared at me a few seconds and took a deep breath.

“Mustafa,” he said, finally explaining his reasons to me. “When people see him, the first thing they notice is his size. They see all 6 foot 5 inches of him and his huge muscles. They’re usually intimidated because he’s so big, but does he aim to intimidate when he speaks to people? No, he doesn’t. He’s a good man with good heart. He takes people in and protects them. The weakest ones in the game who others may try to take advantage of, he looks after and people love him for that. That’s not something he does to show off. That’s just the kind of man he is.

“And then you have Cris. She’s someone similar, but she has a wonderful business acumen. She helps those around her and shows them how to survive here. She gets them started, teaches them what they need to know and even employs many of them. Not only that, but she protects her girls and guys. She’s the good boss everyone wants to have. They all know that when the chips are down, she’ll be there to take care of them. That’s what makes her special. That’s why we chose her.” I kept my eyes on him as he continued to offer reasons for everyone.

“Giff is a man that could turn anyone’s bad day around,” he said, remarking on one of my oldest friends. “He came from a wealthy family, but broke away from them to make his own way in the real world. He doesn’t let his privileged upbringing change how he judges others. To him, everyone is equal and all he wants is to see them smile. That’s why he has his club. No matter how down someone feels they know they can visit his place and either get on the dance floor and let the music take them or they can go into a private room and relax for a while with a few friends. He’s always there when he can be and he always takes the time to welcome new people and makes them feel special. His unyielding energy and attitude makes him special. That’s why he was chosen.” I was actually looking forward to see what he had to say about Caster.

“Caster is,” he said before I butted in.

“An asshole?” I said, my anger still there, but having settled down somewhat. Thaddeus laughed at little at this comment, mostly because he knew how true it could be.

“He’s logical,” he said, continuing his explanation. “He very intelligent and can often set aside any prejudice when handling a situation. He’s meticulous and methodical in his approaches and because of that he rarely makes mistakes. He’s not to everyone’s liking, but he knows how to get things done in a timely and efficient manner. His education and dedication to teaching others here in Aurora is why he’s so respected. Even before he was granted his title, he had helped hundreds of others learn about things like philosophy and history and many other topics. We thought about calling him Professor, but we felt Wizard was more in keeping with his name so that was what he was given.”

“And with all of them,” I said in a lower voice than before, “you eventually felt you needed to have someone who was a screw up?” With that, Thaddeus looked at me strangely as if what I said had caught him off guard. “Did you all really want someone who was…broken and dysfunctional and afraid to leave her apartment for long periods of time?” Thaddeus openly sighed and shook his head at me.

“You really have no idea,” he said to me, his voice softening. “It doesn’t surprise me really, given all that I know about you.”

“What?” I said, an awkward chuckle making it’s way through my body and out of my mouth. “What idea is that? If you really know all about me then you know what I’m talking about. You know I was the oddball here. I never deserved to get a title. I never deserved to be on the same level as the rest of them so why did I get one?” In that moment I could feel some of my insecurities creep along my skin and down to my hands. I looked down to them and watched as I balled them up into fists over and over, trying to keep them from shaking. “You know about my past, right? About how…about how my dad never wanted me? About how he told me that I should have….” To my surprised, Thaddeus nodded his head to me.

“I know about all that,” he said, a somber look coming over his face. “I know about how he left you days after you were born and you had to look to your brothers for a positive male influence.” Jesus Christ…he does know. “I know your father ignored you when he visited your brothers, about how that ate you up inside. I know about Mrs. Montgomery and about how she talked to you about love and acceptance and what it means to be brave, even in the face of devastation. She showed you that there can be happiness even after heartache.” I could feel my heart sinking down into my stomach.

“I never told anyone about her,” I said back to him, my voice slowly starting to crack from the stress of hearing my trauma talked about out loud. “How could you….” Thaddeus raised his hand, prompting me to stop speaking.

“I know about about Will,” he said which caused me to shutter and take a step back. “I know that he beat you…and I know you lied to the police about…what else he did to you that day. I know you lied to the judge to get him out of trouble and I know he made your life a living hell after you went back to him.” He really did know. How he found out, I had no idea but he really knew all of it. To have someone I’d never met before reveal to me that the knew all of my traumas shook me to my core. I could feel the pain from every horrible memory flooding back to me. My eyes welled once more with tears and within seconds I could feel them dripping down my face.

“How could….” I couldn’t get the words out. I tried again and failed.

“Do you remember the day your headband arrived?” he asked. Still unable to find my voice, I simply nodded to him. “You probably thought it was from one of the companies you do contract work for but then you realized it wasn’t. You saw it was from a gaming company and because of your affinity for them you pulled the book out and you went through it. You saw who we were and you went to the website that same day, registered, and that very night you were here in Aurora during our Alpha period. You really were among the first to come in. And we…I…was so glad you’d chosen to join us.”

“I?” was all I managed to get out to him.

“Yes,” he replied. “We had a committee that chose from a select pool of applicants that had applied to be part of the closed Alpha. It was comprised of several of the other developers and some of our current and former Game Masters. They all voted to see who would be granted access based on an array of factors like personality, intelligence, overall disposition. I, on the other hand, used my power and influence to insist that we let one more player in with the first group. You.” His admittance took me by complete surprise.

“What?” I said, letting it spill out of my mouth without much force. “What? Why?” I sincerely had no idea what he was about to admit to. The stream of tears from my confused eyes continued as he went on.

“Because of who you are,” he said without any hesitation. “Ana…the world, the real world, I mean…it’s not a good place. It’s full of anger and suffering, fighting, war, political and social strife. I didn’t want any of that here, at least not to the levels that we see in the real world. I knew some would creep in no matter how much we tried to stop it, but I had hoped we could keep it to a minimum. I didn’t want this place to end up as a 2nd Earth. I wanted it to be a place people could come to and escape, and be themselves. All the booze and sex and clubbing that happens here, it’s not an accident. We knew people looked to those things as escapes from reality and we wanted to give that to them. However, we also knew that people are people and no matter how many amazing options we give them, things like pain and suffering will still make their way here. You can’t have that many people from so many different backgrounds come together in one place and not expect there to be problems.”

“And what does all that have to do with me?” I asked, waiting for him to get to the point.

“You asked me why each of you were chosen,” he said, circling back to his original point. “Mustafa, Giff, Cris, and Caster - they all have their own qualities that make them uniquely qualified to act as guides in Aurora. They represent the best of us all. To some they may seem like ordinary people, but they are more than that. They’re born leaders and people are naturally drawn to them because of those qualities. The reason we chose them was because of that charisma and their ability to touch people on a much deeper level.”

“That makes sense,” I said, knowing he was right about the others. “But why me? I’m not like any of them. I’m not special. I’m just some screwed up women with more trauma than brains.”

“You know that’s not true,” Thaddeus said. “At least I hope you know that. If anything, that response tells me that the decision to give you a title…to recognize you as a leader was the right call. Your humility is one trait that we don’t see very often in the real world. Everyone is about being praised and recognized all the time. It’s why you see all those videos on places like Instagram and TikTok and You Tube all the time where some guy is helping a homeless person or giving money to some charity. It’s them saying ‘Hey, everyone! Look at me and how great I am! I’m helping someone.’ It’s all posturing. It’s all bullshit. They do it to make themselves out to be something they’re not. No truly decent person ever feels the need to show off in such a way. They don’t need a camera on them to do the right thing.”

“And what did I do?” I asked, my emotions starting to run high again. “What was my great thing? Getting beat up by my ex husband? Lying to the cops about the shit he did to me? Is that something to be praised? That I helped him stay out of prison when I knew he’d probably get years? Yeah, real accomplishment there!” I could feel my body getting hot all over again and my eyes watering with anger just thinking about Will. “You keep saying that I’m somehow worthy of this title when I’m not like the others! They’re worthy of it all! The money, the popularity, the praise! Let them have it! Not me! This makes no sense to me! I’m nothing like them!”

“Yes you are!” Thaddeus shot back at me with as much force as I was giving him.

“No!” I said, angry tears now running down my cheeks. “I’m not…I’m not worthy this. I’m not worth…anything!”

“God damn it Ana!” he said to me, stepping forward and standing directly in front of me. “How can you not see! How!”

“I’m not like them,” I said through my tears. I felt my hands hit the rug has I dropped to the floor. I didn’t care to look up and didn’t want to. I didn’t feel like I had any right to be there in that room, talking to the creator of the game. “Look at me. I’m a god damn mess of a human being! I fall apart and barely leave my apartment! I’m divorced and alone and don’t even care that I’ll never find anyone again. I’ve…I’ve failed at life. I don’t want this. I never wanted any of it. I’ve never been good enough for…anyone. Will hated me. My father never wanted me. My stepfather never wanted me.”

“I wanted you!” he said to me, his voice sounding as if he were suddenly struggling to speak. Hearing him say what he did caused me to look up, wondering what he meant. “Ana, the others have their qualities. Things that make them who they are. My God, how can you not see that you are not just as good as they are…you’re better. You…I chose you because you have all of those qualities! You may see yourself as weak, but you are one of the strongest people I have even known of in my life. You were broken and beaten down, but you still found a way to stand up and keep moving forward. That shows me you have the strength and resolve of Mustafa. You are often tasked with taking care of others and making them feel that the world isn’t ending! You help them see that there is more to life beyond their broken hearts! You take care of people the same way Cris does!

“When you go into rooms and out into Aurora, people notice you and they see the energy and excitement you bring with you. People feel that. They can sense it! That’s why they all turn and look at you when you arrive. They see you and your smile and they feel better about everything. They can have the worst day, but when they come to Aurora and see you, things don’t feel nearly as gloomy. Just like Giff, you can lift people up and remind them that tomorrow is a new day! Tonight, when you saw Clover Leaf there in the club and you saw her overloading, you didn’t hesitate to run over and help her. You felt in your heart it was the right thing and you did it! Not only did you keep her from overloading, you took time out of your night to talk to her, dress her, help her understand Aurora better. You became a teacher…just like Caster.”

Thaddeus reached out to me and took my face in his hands as his knees hit the floor near my own. “Ana, we chose you…I chose you because you are everything the others are and so much more. You’re all of them rolled into one. You think your trauma defines you, but it doesn’t. It never has. Your trauma is not who you are. You went to hell and back and you still ended up being one of the kindest and sweetest people I have ever seen in my life. I watch you every night when you login and all I can do is marvel at your efforts. You don’t even have to try to be a good person. It’s simply your nature. You bring a stability to Aurora that no one else has. Your old Latchkey teacher Mrs. Montgomery…what did she tell you? Do you remember?” I nodded my head. “Say it to me. What was the one thing she said to you over and over during your time with her?” I found myself looking into Thaddeus’s eyes and wondering more about who he really was. How could he possibly know so much about me? “Ana…what did she always tell you?”

“She would tell me,” I said, my voice breaking as I stared into Thaddeus, a sudden sense of familiarity filling my heart. “In the end, only kindness matters.” With those words, Thaddeus smiled at me and surprisingly, tears began to stream from his eyes.

“You do remember,” he said to me. “Through all your pain, through all that you’ve had to endure in your life, you never forgot the one thing that makes you who you are, the one thing that defines you. Your heart!” The moment Thaddeus said those words, I knew exactly who he was. “Being brave and facing the perils of the world doesn’t mean being fearless. Being brave is knowing you’re going to get hurt, being aware of the pain that’s coming but doing it anyway. It’s being willing to take a chance on love again even after you’ve had your heart broken in pieces. Being brave is taking that leap of faith on someone who may end up hurting you.”

“It’s you,” I said in a near whisper. “It’s you…isn’t it.” I was so certain of my assumption, but I wanted them to say it to me. “You’re the only one that knows all this about me. You know…about my father. And you know why I don’t deserve this.”

“You do,” he said to me, trying once more to reassure me but to no avail. “I know in my heart you do.”

“No,” I said once again in a near whisper. “There are so many others that deserve this more than I do. I’m not the leader you think I am. My life…is so screwed up! Even here people want to bring me down and I’ve done nothing but try to be kind to everyone. I don’t deserve this. I don’t want this.” I shook my head to him. “Not anymore. No more.” Thaddeus broke eye contact with me and looked down to the rug on the floor. I could tell I had let him down. He’d had it in his mind that I was the answer to some question he had in his head, possibly for years but I couldn’t be who they wanted me to be. I felt in my heart like a lost and broken person, incapable of being the one to lead even a small team, much less a entire world of tens of thousands of people. I felt as if I had failed on every level not only in my real life but also in Aurora.

I am a failure.

“I’ve come to realize something,” Thaddeus said to me, still looking at the floor. “I still believe there is more to you than even you know.” He finally looked back to to me, his hands dropping from my face. “But no matter how much I tell you this, I can’t make you see that greatness that I know is inside you. I wish…I could help you in all this, but you…you are so convinced you’re nobody. I know that’s not true, but….” With those words, Thaddeus stood back up and turned away from me, taking a few steps forward. I heard him take in a huge breath and slowly let it out as he looked up to the ceiling. “You keep saying you don’t deserve your title. You think I made a mistake.” I watched him as he nodded his head. “Maybe you’re right.”

Thaddeus turned back toward me and reached down, forcefully pulling me up by the arm with his hand. I stood up in a jerking motion, not caring that he was hurting me with his iron grip. He looked me in the eyes and I stared right back, my mind already made up and unwilling to listen to his reassurances anymore. I didn’t want the title. I never did because I felt I never deserved it.

“You say you’re undeserving and that I was wrong,” he said to me, his voice much more harsh and pointed. “If you truly think that, then fine. I won’t try to convince you anymore. You say you know of others who are more deserving than you. Very well. I’ll give you a choice then. Once you leave here and go back out into the world, go and find whomever you feel is more deserving than you. Find them and go up to them, touch them on the forehead and then step away. At that point, they will be granted a title all their own and your title will be stripped from you.” Looking into his eyes, I could see he was dead serious. “Be aware, once you’ve done this, your title will be gone forever. There is no going back from this. If you truly think you are unworthy, then this is your chance to make things right by giving a title to someone you feel is worthy.” I wiped a stray tear from my eye, looking him directly in his to make sure I wasn’t imagining things.

“You really mean this,” I said to him, my voice somewhat steadier. “You’re letting me choose someone to give my title to?”

“Not your title,” he said, correcting me. “Your title will cease to exist. You will be selecting a new title holder to take your place. Once you do this, you will just be your old self again. You won’t be featured in any of our advertising for the game anymore nor will we include your name on the website or any other media. We will...erase you from all of it. It will be as if ‘The Lotus’ never existed.” His voice was firm and calm, as if this were something he’d felt he might have to do at some point. It made me wonder if he knew I would eventually ask this from the developers. I closed my eyes for a moment, contemplating what this could mean for me. I thought about how I would just be a normal player again and that no one would look to me to be anything more than just an escort.

“Very well,” I said, blinking slightly as I realized what I was agreeing to. “I’ll find someone and they can get the recognition they deserve.” Thaddeus shook his head at me again and I could tell he wanted to stop me from saying more about me being undeserving, but stopped himself. “I have one condition…if that’s alright with you.” He tilted his head toward me, shooting me an expression of curiosity and slight annoyance.

“Your condition being?” he said to me in a calmer than expected voice.

“When I make my selection,” I said, my eyes still beaming into his, “I get to choose what they’ll be known as. I will name them.”