Control (Aurora Book 1)

Chapter 9 - Everyone

I STARED ATReyna for a solid minute. I could feel Dutch’s tired and slightly drunk eyes watching over us as we stood there. She stayed quiet and stared at me the same way she used to back before she left. I stared right back as if nothing inside me had been changed by her absence. I could feel the beat of her heart through her palm as it covered my hand. The longer we stood there the more other players took notice and looked our way. I didn’t care though. I had never cared that people would stop and stare at Reyna and I no matter where we were in Aurora. I knew it bothered her though and would often try to shield her from it when I could.

“Why are you here?” I asked as I watched her move closer to me. It did feel strange to see her not only back in Aurora, but also in the very same room I was in. Given the thousands of locations, it would have be an insane coincidence that she just happened to come into the room I was in at the exact same time.

“I was hoping I could see you,” Reyna said to me. She was still good at holding back her emotion, but I could see something glimmering in her eyes. Something in her had changed.

“You searched for me,” I said, referencing the search function in the game UI accessible through our HUDs.

“Yes,” she said to me, confirming my belief that this wasn’t just a coincidence. All I could think of was why had she chosen to search for me now. I’d searched for her for so long after she’d left. I had to make myself stop after a time or I would have driven myself crazy. I had to get in through my head that she was gone and would probably never return. I fought the urge to search for her each time I logged in. This went on for months.

“So,” I said, trying my best to play things calmly to not work myself up. “I guess you’re back then?”

“I have been,” she said. “I came back about 2 days ago.”

“2 days,” I said back to her. “Just laying low, I guess?”

“Yeah. When I left I cleared my friends list so when I came back no one noticed I was online. I reached out to Shazzy and asked them to my place. His first thought was I would want to talk to you, but I asked him not to say anything to anyone.”

“Could always trust Shazz,” I said. “I haven’t spoken to him in a while.”

“He said you stopped doing the role play,” she said.

“I did. It was something you and I did and I couldn’t see myself doing it without you.” Reyna gave me a pained smile. “It would have felt all wrong.”

“I understand,” she said. “I haven’t done any role play since I got back, especially not the things we used to do.”

“It really did feel like it was just our thing,” I said to her.

“It was,’ she replied. “Started as a me thing and ended up as we.” I could feel that catching up wasn’t really the reason Reyna had come looking for me.

“That’s not why you’re here though,” I said. Reyna was caught off guard by my redirection. She paused a moment and took a deep breath as if trying to remember the other reason she came looking for me.

“You’re right,” she said, carefully releasing my hand from her chest and composing herself. This turn in behavior caused her to look away from me. I took the moment to look over her shoulder and to her right to see that we had in fact attracted some attention which I was sure was already making waves through the forum and chat boards. After all, we were in The House of Flies.

“It’s not safe for us here,” I said, motioning to her with my eyes that we had drawn a lot of attention. “It’ll only take them a moment to figure out who you are and then all hell could break loose.”

“Shit,” she said as she realized as I did that people were staring. She turned her head behind her and noticed the same crowd that I had.

“Come on,” I said, taking her by the hand and requesting to pair with her. She hesitated and I looked up at her to see why. It was apparent that she was still thinking about how things ended between us and was uncertain of where we stood. After a few seconds, she accepted and I whisked us away to a location I knew most people would never go.

I took us to a small neighborhood on the outskirts of the general “city” where most of the players setup and opened their rooms. It was a location I’d spent some time in back when the game was still in Alpha. Back then it was more of a testing area but was left in the game even after, and most players that weren’t around for the Alpha had no idea it even existed. Using an application I had in my HUD that most others didn’t have access to, I hid our location just in case anyone from The House of Flies was trying to follow. I held tight to Reyna’s hand and led her to an old, dilapidated house where I used to stay when I visited the area. I opened the weathered, sun-baked door and led her inside.

“Where are we?” she asked as I closed the door behind us and walked further inside. “What is this place?”

“It’s a house I use sometimes,” I replied, her hand still in mine. “Not been here in a while, but I’m sure we won’t be bothered.”

“Couldn’t we just go to your place?” she asked as I led her further inside.

“No,” I said as I dropped her hand and headed over to the front windows of the house to close the curtains. I walked over to the others in the living room and drew those curtains as well, making sure no one could see inside. I looked back to her. “Taking you to my place probably wouldn’t be a great idea right now.” She paused for a moment before picking up on my reasoning.

“I understand,” she said. I stood before her, but kept my distance, knowing that being too close to her would trigger more of my emotions to spill out.

“Why did you need to see me?” I asked, folding my arms in front of me. “Beyond what may be the obvious, I mean.”

“Right,” she said as she set her hand on the back of a dusted-covered chair in the living room and took a breath. “I need to talk to you about a rumor we’ve been hearing.”

“The hack,” I said. She’d probably figured that was why I was in The House of Flies to begin with since she knew I never went there, at least back when we were friends.

“You know about it,” she said.

“Yes.”

“So it’s true?”

“That the game developer was hacked?”

“Yeah.”

“As far as I know,” I said. “Nothing’s been communicate to us from the devs. Right now it’s all a rumor, but people are believing it.”

“So it’s not true?” Reyna asked, somewhat confused.

“There’s no evidence of a hack,” I said, making it as clear as I could. “Someone decided they wanted to start a rumor, I guess. Either that or people started talking about hacking the game and someone thought it was actually going to happen and started blabbing about it all over the place. I’m not really sure how it all got started. All I know is it keeps spreading and people are getting nervous.”

“I know I am,” she said to me. “Aren’t you? Given your status I’d be scared to death! If there was a hack you have to think they’d go right for you. I know there’s the other title holders, but you’re the most prominent.”

“Like I could forget,” I said followed by a light sigh. “Seems all this god damn title has brought me is one headache after another.” I looked over to the plain, brown couch, walked to it and plopped myself down, sending up a small plume of dust. For a moment, I’d even forgotten that it had been 18 months since I’d seen Reyna. I looked up to the ceiling for a moment before looking back down to her. She could see I was stressed not only by what was going on but also because she’s suddenly come back into my life.

We sat there quietly for a minute, the silence in the house eventually becoming deafening. I watched her as she fumbled around with one of her large white rings she’d always worn. She had several, but this one was overly large, silver, with a massive white pearl as the centerpiece. She ran her fingers over it as if using it as a distraction from what had become an uncomfortable situation.

“Welcome back,” I said, unsure of what I wanted to really say to her. All of my emotion was being kept in and I didn’t want to allow myself to let it get the best of me. She looked at me a moment and smiled, knowing that I was simply trying to break the silence.

“Thanks,” she said, looking away from me. She seemed nervous and unsure of what she was doing there with me. A few more moments of silence came and went and it was clear that we were simply not ready to have any sort of conversation about us, but I tried anyway.

“What brought you back?” I asked. She still refused to look at me as if she had a great deal of shame inside that was eating at her.

“Just felt like trying again,” she said. I wasn’t sure what she meant by that.

“Try again?” I asked. “As in just play again?”

“Yeah,” she said. She finally looked back up to me and stopped playing with her ring. “I just…I don’t know. I just thought maybe I could come back and see what’s been going on and talk to some old friends.”

“I see,” I said. As much as I wanted to push her for more, I didn’t want to inundate her with questions. “I imagine you talked to a few more old friends other than Shazz.”

“I did,” she said. “They were all…really happy I was back.”

“I imagine they would be,” I said back to her. “I don’t talk to them much anymore, but I’m sure they all missed you.” Reyna broke eye contact with me and looked away once more. I could feel what was coming, but didn’t want to be the one to initial that conversation.

“And what about you?” she asked, staring down at the floor. I stayed quiet for a few seconds as I thought about how to answer her. Her eyes left the floor and found me again. We stared at each other again for several seconds before a call came through for me on my HUD. Since we were still paired, Reyna also saw the alert. I stared at her ignoring the call which caused her to become even more distressed. I could see she wasn’t able to match the intensity that I still had inside me, her time away from the game becoming obvious. Using my hands more so to let her know what I was doing, I clicked answer and took the video call.

“Ana,” said Cris or Chrysanthemum as she was more commonly known among the player base. She was another title holder and was know to the wider community as The Lookout. To people such as myself and her closer friends, she was simply Cris. “Hey, I need you to come see me.”

“Why?” I asked as I noticed the concern on her fair-skinned face. Something was really bothering her. “What’s going on.”

“I heard you were looking into that rumor of a leak,” she said.

“I am,” I said. “I think it’s just some rumor.”

“That’s why I need you to come see me,” Cris said. “I have a few others here with concerns and I think it’s best if we meet in person to discuss this.”

“Why?” I asked as most discussions could just be held via video call.

“Ana,” she said, her concern growing. “Please, just come. We’re already here at my brothel. We’ll be in my private quarters.” I openly sighed.

“Alright,” I said to Cris. “I’m on my way right now.” With that, I ended the call and took a deep breath and looked up to the ceiling again, wondering what else was going to happen. I looked back down and saw that Reyna was looking to me. I sat there for a moment before standing up and moving toward her and taking her hand. “I guess we’re going to Cris’s place.”

“What do you think is happening with her?” she asked. “She looked worried.”

“More of this hack stuff,” I said as Reyna stepped closer to me. “Probably just her and a few of her friends have concerns and they just need me to help them make some sense of it all.” With that, I located Cris’s name on my friends list and teleported to her location with Reyna in tow.

The two of us spawned just inside Cris’s brothel, the most popular in the game where the girls often charge a small premium because they are attached to her. Cris is an official Madam in the game and is highly respected because of the way she looks out for the girls under her watch which is part of the reason she’s known as The Lookout. Any client that deals with any of Cris’s girls knows better than to handle them roughly, lest they pay the price by being blacklisted by all of her girls and when you end up on Cris’s blacklist, word travels far and fast so even those not under her may decline to service them.

The brothel itself was similar to a massive luxury suite on steroids, filled wall to wall with tables, barstools, love seats, and a small dance floor. In the back were all of the private rooms where the girls or guys, since some men were also in the business, would take their clients for some private time. The lighting was usually kept rather low and the music pleasant and elegant. The upper levels which were only available through an elevator was reserved for the most expensive girls and their guests.

When I first started escorting in Aurora there were no madams, but there were several wannabe pimps that treated their girls badly. I’d turned down many of them when they tried to recruit me and never felt the need to have one. Cris started playing about 2 months or so after the game went live and actually came to me for advice on being an escort. We talked about how it all worked and I told her about the pimps that were around the game and that it was best to avoid them. Seeing an opportunity, Cris decided to come with me to see a few clients so she could get a feel for the business aspect of escorting. After a week or so, she wanted to try her hand at being a Madam and recruited her first girl. I helped her out by sending clients to them that I simply didn’t have time for.

It went on that way for a few days until she managed to unknowingly lure away another girl from a pimp who was not happy to lose one of his money makers. After a shouting match ensued in one of the rooms the two of us frequented, I stepped in to settle both Cris and the rival pimp down. He walked away angry, but Cris was thankful for the help I provided. A few other girls that were with that rival pimp ended up leaving him and hooking up with Cris which led to another spat where he threatened violence which was quickly quashed by a moderator. After that flare up, we never heard from that player again.

At one point, when her business started to get bigger, Cris offered to partner with me since I’d helped her get started but I kindly turned her down. We remained friends though and I would visit with her often and she was even kind enough to send a few clients my way where my particular skill set would work best for them.

Taking Reyna by the hand once more without thinking, we walked to ward the elevator and using my private access code which Cris had given to me when she first started the room, the doors opened and we were able to step in. Cris’s private quarters were at the top level and again using my access code, we were granted access to it.

“So weird that they use an actual elevator here,” Reyna said as we stood there, the dimmed lights barely illuminating us.

“It’s more for atmosphere,” I said. “Using a teleporter just doesn’t have the same feel to it. Places like this like to mimic the real world as much as possible. If you use a teleporter, it just feels wrong.” Reyna nodded her head. It had just occurred to me that so much had changed since Reyna had been gone. We’d had a countless number of updates and patches. There was also a push to make sure the game, when possible, could offer as many items and assets as they could to make Aurora feel like the real world at least in the public areas that were created by the Dev team. Player created rooms did not have such limitations, but some people preferred rooms that felt as real to life as possible.

Once at the top floor, the silver elevator doors slid open and we were greeted by a handful of individuals that had apparently been awaiting our arrival. Cris’s private suite was the same as I had remembered it with high ceilings, dim lights, red, black, and gold furniture as well as a fully equipped bar and entertainment area. It was quite large and she was able to afford it all from the money she made being a Madam. As we walked further in, I spotted Cris speaking to a younger man and when she turned to us, she sent him away.

“Good,” Cris said to me, squeezing her hands together. She paused when she saw Reyna by my side with her hand in mind. Cris was aware of our past and that Reyna had left in a hurry. “Oh! Reyna! It’s…so wonderful to see you! I didn’t know you and Ana had reunited!” I looked at Cris a little awkwardly, but then saw her Irish eyes looking at my hand still holding Reyna’s. I realized and quickly dropped it and Reyna looked over to me for a moment.

“Oh,” I said to Cris while shaking my head. “We’re not…it’s not like that. She and I happened to run into each other and we were gonna discuss some business and then I got your call so I brought her here with me.”

“Right!” Cris said with a smile. “So um…Reyna. I’m gonna have to take Ana away from you for a little while. It’s a very private meeting. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Oh no!” Reyna said, not wanting to cause any problems. “It’s fine.”

“If you’d want,” Cris said to Reyna, “the bar is open and you’re welcome to anything you like. No charge of course for such a special guest!” Reyna politely nodded and smiled to Cris and headed over to a love seat by the bar where that same young man from earlier joined her, apparently offering to get her a drink. Cris motioned for me to follow her which I did. We walked through a set of mahogany double doors and down a long, brightly-lit hallway where there were several unlabeled doors on each side.

“I’d forgotten how beautiful she was,” Cris said, her short pink hair lightly swaying with each step she took. Cris was a beauty in her own right. Her pale skin and blue eyes attracted many suitors in the time I’d known her, but she was content with running her business while still occasionally having one of her friends visit her bedroom from time to time. “Not to sound crass, but remembering the things you and Reyna did together….” Cris let out a deep breath. “I bet you two had amazing sex.”

“We’ve never had sex,” I said to Cris which caused her to break out in laughter. She turned her head to me, still laughing and noticed that I wasn’t joining her in it. After a couple of seconds of silent walking and me looking directly ahead after a slight glance at her, Cris’s smile slowly dropped from her face. She stopped me by putting a hand on my shoulder.

“Are you being serious?” she asked, sincerely wondering if I was pulling her leg. “You two definitely had sex…right?”

“No,” I said, looking Cris squarely in the eyes. “Reyna and I have never had sex.” Cris stared at me, dumbfounded by my statement.

“Wait,” she said. “Wait, wait, wait. You have to be putting me on. You’re trying to tell me in all those times you two were together and doing all that crazy shit you all did that you never, not a single time, had sex?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” I said back to her. She shook her head at me as she tried to figure out how that was even possible. “I mean…yeah. We did all those wild things together and we were in each other’s company when all that happened. You know, us having sex with others. We even kissed some when they asked for it after the men finished on…you know what I mean. But as far as just Reyna and I having sex, one on one…no. It just never happened.” After another long pause, Cris shook her head again.

“How the hell is that even possible?” she asked me, completely bewildered. “You two were a couple for that long and you two never have sex. I just can’t see how that’s even possible, especially here.”

“We were never a couple,” I said which caused Cris to guffaw, putting her hand over her mouth as she did. As before, once she saw I was being serious, she stopped.

“Did I just completely misunderstand your relationship?” she asked.

“Reyna and I,” I said, pausing for a moment take a deep breath. “We were never an official thing if you know what I mean. It was a strange kind of relationship. People like to throw around terms like ‘Friends with Benefits,’ but that wasn’t us. The only way I can really describe it is maybe…more than friends but less than lovers.”

“What do you mean?” Cris asked. “Like soul mates?” I could feel my emotions beginning to take hold of me. I closed my eyes a moment to try and steady myself before answering.

“I don’t know,” I said, feeling my body temperature rising. “We were…we just bonded so much and….” I stopped myself for a moment. “I’m sorry Cris, but I really can’t talk about this right now.”

“Right,” Cris said, remembering why I was really there with her. “Right. They’re waiting for us. We should…yeah.” Cris and I started walking again, not saying a word to each other. Before too long, we arrived at stained-glass double door at the end of the long hallway. Pushing open the doors, Cris walked in and I followed, finally seeing who else wanted to discuss what had become a serious hassle up until that point. Inside was a large, circular table similar one you might see in a grand corporate office. Surrounding it were several chairs, business in style, with rolling wheels and leather-covered cushions.

I immediately recognized Mustafa, his massive stature and size hard to miss especially when compared to me. I walked right up to him and let him give me a massive bear hug the way he always did. I always felt like his muscles might one day try to eat me instead of making me feel safe! Pulling back from him I looked over his face, his wide and thick lips smiling at me as if he were really happy to see me. I always enjoyed visiting him in his room where some of the old stereotypes about black people were proudly put on display. Mustafa didn’t care though. What some people looked at as stereotypes I viewed as part of his culture, and he was proud of it. While his room did attract certain individuals that some in the real world might be fearful of, I always felt at home there since I’d grown up in a Black and Latino part of my home town. Being there among people that looked like I could have easily grown up with kept me at ease. It had been some time since I’d move out of that old neighborhood of mine, but I’ve never forgotten where I came from.

Giff was also there, dressed as he was earlier when he was spinning records in his club. I walked up to him and gave him our customary half hug and pat on the back. Of all the people in the game, he really did feel like a real life brother to me even though we were from completely different backgrounds. While I’d grown up in a not so great neighborhood, Giff had confided in me early before he revealed himself to everyone that in the real world he was from a prominent family. His father is well-respected doctor and his mother a successful business owner in Los Angeles.

Growing up in Beverly Hills, Giff had all the advantages most people could only dream of. Still, he chose to go his own way unlike his siblings who he says often sponge off of his parents to this day. Instead, Giff moved out and went to college, opting for a far more affordable community college instead of going to his other options such as The University of Southern California or UCLA. After a couple of years, he transferred to California State in Long Beach where he completed his degree in Communications. Giff told me he was about to get a well paying job while still taking courses, but instead began to DJ at local bars and clubs. He’d started DJing occasionally in high school and continued through his college years. While his strict Asian parents weren’t too happy with his job, they let it slide since he was going to college and doing quite well. Once his degree was secured, he felt he’d completed any sort of obligation he had to his parents. Having already weened himself off his their money through college, he was able to pay all his own bills and even get a decent position with a local company in Los Angeles while he continued his DJ jobs on the weekends.

The fifth and final member of our “therapy” group was Spell Caster or simply Caster. He was the “nerd” of our group, having grown up in the United Kingdom and went to what he called a “Prestigious University” although he has never told us which university it was. Caster was very secretive of his identity which was understandable. Most people on the game often were, given part of the idea was to be someone in the game that they couldn’t out in the real world. The same could be said for all of us in some way and to different degrees.

Cris probably couldn’t hope to be a madam in real life and I certainly wouldn’t consider escorting with all the dangers that would entail. Giff could DJ here full time instead of just on the weekends. Mustafa just liked hanging out with his friends and having a few ladies over when he felt like it. Caster was someone that loved conversation but would grow upset at times when he felt the other party didn’t have the knowledge with which to properly discuss whatever the topic of choice was. Given his higher than average level of intelligence, Caster took to being a professor in Aurora, choosing to teach others willing to learn about things like Cosmology and Astrophysics. When we first met, I noticed that he would challenge me at times on these topics and while I was no Cosmologist, I could still hold a conversation with him which I think either intrigued him or frightened him given my background and what I’d told him about me. Maybe both. Still, he was good to have around when we needed to look at things from a more logical perspective.

“Ana,” Caster said as he finally stood up from his chair. He and I respected each other, but we weren’t close the same way I was with the others. “Glad you could make it on such short notice.”

“It’s fine,” I said, letting out a big breathe. “I’m all for talking about rumors and fear mongering.” Cris and the others looked at each other after my comment and then back over to me, a look of concern on their face. “What? Was my joke that bad?”

“That’s why I wanted us all here,” Cris said. I was confused for a moment.

“To discuss my sense of humor?” I asked, half joking.

“No,” said Giff. “That thing about a hack.”

“It’s real,” said Cris. “All the rumors about it being real were actually a rumor, but we think the person who started it either actually did the hack or they know who did.” I was caught very much by surprised.

“Wait,” I said, looking at each of them and letting my mind work. “You’re telling me this is real?” Cris nodded her head as did the others. “The developer was really hacked then.”

“It’s true,” said Caster in his posh, English accent as he walked behind his chair and set his hands on the back of it. “All that talk about there being a hack and turns out it really happened.” The five of us stood there for as moment, silent, thinking about what this could mean for all of us.

“Jesus Christ,” I said, putting my hands on my hips and exhaling. After a moment of thinking, something had occurred to me. “Cris, wait. Who told you?” Cris looked at me and then looked at the others, all of them apparently withholding a secret from me. I looked back to Cris. “Seriously, who told you? I know you have connections all over, but only someone like an employee would know for certain that there was an actual hack.” All of them looked at each other again, unsure of how to answer me. “Wait. Did all of you know?” Mustafa was the first to speak up.

“The 4 of us were told at the same time,” he said in his thick, intimidating voice similar to that of Michael Clarke Duncan from The Green Mile.

“What?” I said, getting seriously irritated and wondering why I was the only one left out of the loop. “What the…what the hell is going on here?” Cris jumped in as she noticed I was not taking this vital piece of information being withheld from me very well.

“Ana wait,” she said, putting her hand up as if asking me to keep my cool. “Please, let us explain. We have good reason.”

“Oh,” I said with a sarcastic tone. “Well then! Let’s hear it!” I folded my arms in front of me, sincerely wondering why I was the odd one out.

“I’ll tell her,” I heard a familiar voice say from behind me. I turned back to see a small spark of light floating in the air. After a second, it flew forward and streaked by my arm and ended up in the middle of the room where all of us could see it. It looked more like a spherical incandescent light that took on a life of its own than anything else in Aurora. It was Jazz, the GM that occasionally visited me when I was dressing…which in itself sounds creepy now that I think about it.

“Jazz,” I said as I followed his sprite as he zoomed past me.

“Ana,” Jazz said in his light British accent as he bobbed up and down in front of us all. “I contacted the others before you because we didn’t know how good or bad you might take the news of this.” Jazz went on. “You see, Ana. The amount of data that is thought to have been taken in the hack was substantial. It includes names, addresses, and avatars connected to those names.”

“That’s what I figured,” I said back to him. “I get it. We all have something to lose here if this data gets out. That still doesn’t answer why I wasn’t told.”

“Two reasons,” Jazz said to me. “The first being Reyna’s return.”

“What about it?” I asked.

“We’re all very aware of how hard you took her leaving the game when things between you fell apart,” Jazz said. Even though he was simply a floating ball of light, I got the distinct feeling he was “looking” at me. “Because of her return and the hack happening at virtually the same time, we didn’t know if it was a good idea to hit you with both of these events simultaneously. We didn’t know if she would try to contact you or not and we wanted to, if possible, space out those events. However, we realized you two had run into each other so the possibility of that reunion being staved off for the time being was rendered moot.”

“We were just worried about you,” Giff said to me. “You see Jazz came to us and mentioned both of these things and Mustafa and I remembered how broken up you were over Reyna so….”

“None of us really knew how you’d react,” Mustafa said, interjecting and stepping closer to me. “I’m sure you understand why we did this. You know me, Ana. I’d never keep shit like this from you unless there was a good reason.”

“I wouldn’t either,” Cris added. “Giff and I went back and forth over it and as much as I wanted to say something, we thought it best to stay quiet to see if we could space them out. We didn’t want it to be too much for you.”

As much as I hated to admit it to myself, they were right. I’d taken Reyna’s departure incredibly hard. During the nights after she left, I’d found myself wandering into places I’d never been before. Once word had spread to Cris and the others, they did reach out to me and even insisted on coming to see me. Except Caster. He felt it was better to let me handle it on my own and figured if I wanted or needed help I would ask. He was both right and wrong.

The very next night after Reyna left, Cris, Giff, and Mustafa came to see me in a particularity seedy location where after them asking about Reyna, I quickly fell apart. I remember trying like hell to keep it together, but I broke down sobbing and screaming for her. I remember Cris holding me and Giff and Mustafa telling people around me to leave, not wanting them to see me in such a state. Cris and the others eventually rushed me away to a private area where I went on and was inconsolable. Never in my time in Aurora had I become so emotional.

“You’re right,” I said with a deep sigh. I knew they were right. I had to own up to the fact that I’d let something eat me alive for a time and they had every right to be concerned. In fact, as I stood there and looked back over their faces, I began to feel an even deeper appreciation for them. They’d considered my emotional state and how I might handle two potentially huge events being dumped on me so close together.

“We had to do it,” Giff said with concern in his voice.

“I know,” I said, nodding my head. “I remember. I was…a complete mess then and you guys have every right to be concerned. I assure you though, I’m in far better shape now and seeing Reyna hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be. I mean…we’ve not really had a chance to talk but still.”

“You gonna be alright with all this?” Mustafa asked. “You know we got your back if you need it.”

“Thanks Mu,” I said. “All things considered it would appear I’m handling things pretty damn well. Wouldn’t you all agree?” They all looked at me and smiled, even Caster. “With that out of the way…Jazz. You said there were two reasons.”

“Indeed,” he said, continuing. “The amount of data that was taken from us is virtually the entire player database. Unfortunately, if they are able to crack the encryption on the files they stole it would expose everyone so I asked that the others take proper precautions. I do have a primary concern that I had not mentioned to all of you just yet.” With that statement, the others turned their focus back to the bouncing orb of light.

“What do you mean?” Caster asked, giving Jazz a peculiar look. “What more is there?” Jazz went on.

“All of you are at risk,” Jazz said. “I’ve already mentioned that. However, Ana here is of far greater concern.”

“Why?” I asked, suddenly becoming even more concerned.

“Because of who you are,” Jazz said back to me.

“A title holder?” I asked.

“That’s the first part of it,” Jazz said. “Ana, because of your title and because of the way you present yourself to the player base has led to an unforeseen consequence. Your consideration and compassion for others has made you, by far, the most popular player in the game. It’s not even close if I may be so forthcoming. You’ve spent so much of your time here helping others. You’ve helped people with their rooms and helped them through real life trauma. You’ve taken on their problems and worries as you own, knowing you weren’t getting anything out of it. People come to you and you offer to help share their pain so they could possibly overcome it. That reputation is the reason why not only are you the most popular player, but it has also led to you being the most searched for and discussed player across all media. The forums, the text chat rooms, the video rooms, and of course the various rooms throughout the world.”

“So what are you saying?” I asked Jazz. “I’m more at risk because…I’m nice to people? That doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“But it does,” said Jazz. “A certain group of players in Aurora and even non players in the real world have had their doubts about you. They think that no one can possibly be that selfless. They think there has to be a catch, some sort of reason why you act the way you do. Some people think it’s because you’re aware of your popularity and crave the attention.”

“I don’t,” I said, interrupting him.

“We know,” Jazz said. I assumed when he said “we” he meant the development team and moderators. “But you have to consider the fact that there are some very jaded people out in the real world and some of them are players here. They watch you far more than you realize, picking at your every move and comment and looking for a chink in the armor so to speak. They have this idea that there’s something very wrong with you and they’ve made it their mission to try and find out what it is.”

“Chink in my armor?” I asked more as a rhetorical question. “Trolls will be trolls. I can’t help what the say or do about me.”

“That’s true,” Jazz replied. “The concern is this, Ana. What if even a few of those trolls found out your personal information. And what if even 1 or 2 of them went too far. What if they had become so obsessed with wanting the answer to their question. How far would they go to get it?” With each word Jazz spoke, I saw more and more what he was getting at. I closed my eyes and felt the sting of an old stalker going out of his way to find me in real life once before. He’d driven to my place in Texas when I lived there and came looking for me. The experience was so frightening for me that I ended up moving to a completely different part of the country.

“Shit,” I said, letting out an exasperated breath. I balled up my hands into fists and lightly pressed their heels to my eyes. After a moment, I looked back up to Jazz and the others, the expressions on their faces beginning to fill with worry, even Caster.

“Ana,” Jazz said to me. “We always keep an eye on the conversations that occur here in the world, but with so many players, the best moderation we can reasonably offer is to set up some key words or phrases that will trigger an alert for us if they are brought up. The sheer scale of such an undertaking is beyond even us. The amount of manpower needed to look for and catch everything is immeasurable. We often depend on players alerting us if someone breaks the rules. Once we see it, we can step in and stop it.”

“So why not ban the players talking about Ana?” Giff asked. “You know they’re talking about some underhanded stuff. Why not snuff it out?”

“They can’t,” Cris said, stepping in and answering for Jazz. “They can’t stop people from talking about Ana or any of us for that matter. That’s not against the rules. Simply talking about us isn’t any sort of crime here and it never should be.”

“But what about those you know are troublemakers?” Giff offered back. “You know there are people here that are only looking to start trouble. Surely the mods have them in their sights.”

“That won’t solve the problem,” Caster offered as he moved out from behind his chair and closer to me. He looked me over a moment and sighed. “Banning them might only make them assume they were suspended for talking about Ana which would only fuel their suspicions which could make them even more fanatical. Plus, you can’t ban people in the real world from talking about her or watching the live streams people do that sometimes focus on her and what she’s doing. If you start banning people in the forums from talking about her, you run into that same fanatical issue again. They’ll be that much more determined to find out what’s being kept from them.”

“Such things have been tried before,” Jazz said, jumping back in. “When we noticed certain conversations and even some in game plans that placed Ana in any sort of jeopardy, we suspended and warned those users, the reason for the suspension being conspiring against other players. As Caster said though, it didn’t have any sort of chilling effect. All it did was cause them to be far more cautious. For a time, they even gave her a code name: Queen.”

“Oh,” I said dropping my hands from my face and putting them on my hips. “Well, isn’t that nice! Now I know how that nickname really came to be. I thought it was from some interview I did a long time ago.”

“Probably did come from that,” Caster added. “If they’re that obsessed with you, chances are they found that interview and decided to use it.”

“That’s a reasonable assumption,” Jazz said. “We were only made aware of the ‘Queen’ code word after we began cross referencing Ana’s name and title with other frequently used words or phrases. By that time though, we’d seen that the suspensions weren’t working so rather than issuing more we decided to quietly monitor them. At this time, we’re aware of several hundred people, mostly men, who have shared at least a few negative opinions on Ana on a regular basis while here in Aurora.”

“Several hundred?” Mustafa said, raising his voice. “Are you shittin’ me? And you all ain’t gonna do nothing about that?”

“They can’t,” Caster said, continuing his logical approach to the situation. He was still standing in front of me, but had turned his eyes back to Jazz for the moment. “There really was no way to stop it all. It’s one of those things that once it starts spreading, there is very little you can do to stop it. Often times when you try to stamp out a problem, it only makes it worse. All you can do is try to manage it and hope it goes away on its’ own.”

“This is a fucking nightmare,” Cris stated, dropping down to the floor and siting with her legs folding under her, not caring that her dress was riding up.

“No shit,” Caster added, his own concerns for his privacy apparently hitting him just as hard.

“We should all be very fucking worried,” Cris added, her hands on her knees as she sat. “Well, not Giff. Everyone knows who you are in the real world.” Giff nodded to her, but I could tell he was still concerned for the rest of us.

“Shit,” Mustafa said walking his way over to the door as if he were leaving. “These fuckin’ marks wanna roll over to my hood, they better be prepared to catch a few. No cap!” Mustafa stopped himself and looked back at us. He could tell we were all feeling the stress of what could potentially happen.

“Jazz,” I said, my voice still strangely calm all things considered. “How good is the encryption on the data?”

“Quite strong,” he said. “An average hacker would have no chance against it. The problem is hackers are often found in bunches. They all like to talk to one another. There’s a chance that one of them has something in their bag of tricks that can bypass the security measures. Nothing is truly uncrackable. Given enough time and the right tools, a group of hackers large enough could break the encryption and then all the data would be in their hands.”

“How long would something like that take?” I asked.

“Hard to say,” Jazz offered back. “But each minute that goes by means they are one minute closer to cracking it and then who knows what they’ll do with that information. We do know, however, that there is a ransom.”

“Ransom?” I asked.

“It’s normal,” Caster chimed in. “Whenever these hacking groups get a hold of extremely sensitive information, they often approach the entity they got it from and demand a certain dollar amount for either return or promised destruction of the stolen data. The problem is even if the company pays that amount there really is no way of knowing if they actually destroyed it. They could simply take the money and then release it anyway.”

“That’s why we have not paid their asking price,” Jazz said. “Even if we pay, there is simply no guarantee that the data will be properly recovered and secured. That’s the classic problem with digital data.”

“You can just keep making copies of it,” I said to no one in particular.

“And at this point,” Caster said, “Those encrypted files have probably been copied hundreds of times.”

“We’re releasing a statement now,” Jazz said. All of us turned our eyes back to him but only I realized what I felt was obvious.

“What?” I said, stepping past Caster and closer to Jazz. “Right now? It’s the middle of night! Why on Earth would you release a statement now?”

“Money,” Caster said. “When corporations have awful news they need to release, especially when it comes to things like personal data leaks and hacks, they tend to release those statements at odd hours. It used to be about dodging news cycles, but that’s not really a thing now. Maybe they want people to wake up and then immediately be worried about their private information being compromised. All I know is there’s a reason they’re releasing it at night beyond the fact that this is generally their busiest time for players in the western part of the world where most of the player base is from.”

Just then a game wide alert went out which lit up our HUDs, letting us know there was an major news announcement to be made. Cris pushed her video feed to a large empty wall in the room and we all stood there and watched. The video was a simple message that was typed out on the screen along with a voice reading it. A majority of it was standard boilerplate corporate speak that one would get if a company they did business with somehow lost their personal data. The admittance that the hack happened 3 weeks ago shocked all 5 of us. Audible gasps could be heard in the hallways outside the conference room we were in as people learned that their personal data and in some cases their safety was in serious jeopardy.

“3 Weeks!” Cris said as she stood up from her seated position on the floor. “You knew about this Jazz and said nothing for 3 god damn weeks?”

“Cris,” Jazz said in a somber tone. “I apologize, but I was under strict instructions not to speak about this until the statement release was set in stone. I had to secure special permission to even speak with all of you about this, sighting your higher social ranking and the potential real life ramifications this could cause.”

“Like that did us any good,” Mustafa barked at Jazz. “Thanks for the 30 minute head start!” His sarcastic tone wasn’t lost on any of us.

”I do wish things could have been handled better,” Jazz said to all of us. I could tell he was just as frustrated with the entire situation as we were. “All I can ask is that you all do what you can to stay safe and if possible, use your influence to try and calm the player base because many of them will begin to worry over this.”

“As they should,” I said. I walked over to the chair Caster was standing near previously and sat down in it. I leaned back and looked up to the ceiling. Caster and Cris began to lay into Jazz.

“Good work Jazz,” Caster said in a condescending tone. “You’ve done a real bang up job keeping all of us safe.”

“All of us should sue your ass!” Cris stated. “It’s your fault our safety is at risk now!”

“Stop,” I said in a surprisingly calm but firm voice. I looked back down from the ceiling and saw that all four of them had turned to me. “Guys, don’t. Jazz isn’t our enemy. He’s just the messenger. He doesn’t own the company that let our data be stolen and he’s not the boss. He’s just a GM that was given the unenviable task of telling us.” Everyone stopped for a moment and considered my words. I looked down to my lap where my hands were resting, balling them into fists and releasing them over and over, occasionally leaving them open so I could stare at the lines in my palms.

“You’re right,” Caster said as he walked over to the wall where the message was being projected and leaned his back against it. Just then a flurry of messages began to appear in my inbox, lighting my HUD up like a Christmas tree, many of them marked as urgent.

“Here they come,” I said, knowing people would start trying to contact myself and the others. There was no doubt that we carried a massive amount clout in the eyes of the player base. The others also started to receive messages from people on and off their friends list. Many of the messages asked what they should do or if they should stop playing completely and maybe even delete their accounts.

“What are we going to tell all these people?” Giff asked, the concern on his face growing by the moment.

“Everyone’s freaking out,” Mustafa said. “Shit’s hit the fan.”

“That boilerplate bullshit of a message didn’t do anything but cause panic,” said Caster. “All the developer is doing is basically saying ‘yeah, we’re so sorry! Good luck!’ I should have known better than to put my trust in all this.”

“Someone has to say something,” Cris added. “People need reassurance. They’re panicking. Unless you want a full on riot, Jazz, you’ve gotta say something!”

“I can’t,” Jazz said back to Cris. “My hands are tied. If I speak out, I’ll just be fired and removed from the game completely.” All of them began to loudly chatter back and forth between themselves and Jazz as they tried to figure out the best way to approach this rather than trying to answer the mountainous number of messages we were each receiving.

“I’ll do it,” I blurted out without really thinking. Everyone looked over to me and stared for a moment. I lifted my gaze from my hands which were still resting in my lap and looked back to each of them to see the worry in their eyes, either for themselves or for others they knew in Aurora that would be negatively effected should the data be made public. I stood up and began accessing my HUD, setting myself up for a live stream which I didn’t do all that often.

“What are you going to do?” Caster asked, his back still up against the wall.

“Whatever I can,” I said back to him. I directed Cris to drop her HUD off the wall so I could toss up mine. I setup my stream and looked over myself as my image sat on the makeshift screen near Caster. I fixed up my hair and makeup to make sure I looked half decent. “Jazz, I’m sending you my stream key. Set it up and patch me through.”

“To who?” Jazz asked as I finished making sure I looked alright. I paused for a moment and looked down to my hands once more. I rubbed my finger tips against my thumbs for a moment, contemplating what I should say in my message. People were worried, scared. They needed answers and the game developers weren’t giving them the ones they wanted. I knew in my heart that I needed to do something, to say something to help quell their worries. In all my years in the game I’d never broadcast myself to more than a handful of close friends who wanted to see me in game while they were offline.

“Ana,” Cris said, taking a few steps toward me but stopping short of standing beside me. “What are you doing? You can’t expect to settle the nerves of tens of thousands of people. That’s not possible.”

“No,” I said to her as I made a few more adjustments to my HUD. “It’s necessary.” I once more looked down to my hands, palms up, and mouthed a few words to myself which were once told to me by an old friend decades earlier. I took a few deep breaths to try and steady myself.

“Ana,” Jazz said. “Patch you through to who?” I looked back up and over to Cris. I gave her a knowing look and she picked up on what my plan was. I then turned my eyes to the others - Giff, Mustafa, and Caster. Each of them also understood what it was that I was doing. No one from the developer was going to do this so I had to take it upon myself to see it done. With a quick nod from Caster, I finally replied to Jazz.

“Everyone,” I said, focusing my eyes on the wall so I could see myself while I spoke. “Put me through to everyone.”