Fantasy Online_Hyperborea Read online

  Ryuk: What’s coming!?

  Tamana: Please. Please. Be there in five minutes. PLEASE!

  Ryuk: What is going on? Are you okay?

  The entrance to the Shinsen Station is only a few blocks away.

  Even though her leg muscles are on fire, even though her heart is about to explode, Tamana continues her adrenaline-fueled sprint to the station. She weaves through pedestrians, illegally crosses streets, is almost sideswiped by a lowering aeros taxi, and spins and leaps over a woman pushing a baby stroller. The dragon-like creature relentlessly pursues her, roaring and bellowing and slaughtering all who stand in its way.

  Another glance over her shoulder and she knows without doubt that her efforts won’t be enough, that there will be no happy ending to this story, that the creature will catch her and kill her.

  Unless she kills it first.

  “Come on, come on, come on,” she huffs.

  Tamana skids to a halt at one of the entrances to the Shinsen Station. She hears the terrible monstrosity roar as she begins her descent.

  Breakneck speed.

  Her feet are pistons on pavement, her shoulders shovelers of bodies, her gaze aimed and angled downward. The land dragon smashes its bulk through a pillar and a portion of the subway entrance collapses around it. The monster cries out in anger; blood-tinged saliva hurtles from its gaping maw.

  Tamana hits the bottom of the first stairwell and slaps her cheek. She rubs her eyes again to wipe away the image that just won’t leave. Is it a glitch? How is this even possible? Something has gone horribly wrong, and other than gouging out her eyeballs to fully disconnect her iNet feed, she has no idea how to make the creature stop.

  “Come on …”

  A Tritanian land dragon, shouldn’t be chasing her, not in Tokyo, not in the real world!

  The rational part of her mind knows this; the rational part of her mind knows that she logged out of Tritania and took off her NV Visor; the rational part of her mind even suggests that Tamana let the creature catch her; this is the real world – it can’t do anything, it shouldn’t even exist here.

  But the monster rips through a manga stand and the salesperson inside. Blood splatters the walls, bits of flesh actually land on her arm. She hears the creature tear into the subway station; she shudders at the death cries of those smashed beneath the rubble.

  She stops just before the final stairwell and briefly turns to the land dragon. It cracks its hulking tail into an electronic billboard advertising Suntory Whiskey. Tamana picks up the pace – she thinks she sees Ryuk – but the station is too crowded to tell for sure.

  Down another flight of stairs, Tamana collides with a pair of overworked salarymen in their crisply pressed suits. No time to bow, no time to apologize. She hits the bottom and bolts straight to the edge of the platform, where she stops, hesitates, thinks otherwise for a single, prolonged second.

  Tamana’s leap induces gasps from those nearby.

  Her landing, the sound of the train horn, the sickening crack.

  Tamana is struck by the incoming train.

  Tamana is struck by the incoming train.

  The salarymen lift their heads, a woman drops her umbrella, a child reaches for its mother’s open arms, a white-gloved conductor runs towards her at sixty frames per second.

  (0)__(0)

  “Tamana! No!” Ryuk ends his desperate chase and slides to a halt.

  Out of breath, Ryuk utters a sharp curse and slaps the flat of his hand against the pavement. Vomit rises in his stomach. He swallows the urge down as the crowd comes to life all around him. “Tamana!”

  He wants to scream her name again, he wants to cry out, to somehow arrive in the train station moments earlier and stop her from jumping.

  Why Tamana why? His thoughts scream inside his head.

  All their interactions over the last several years come to him in a flash. They’d done everything together, gamed together, studied together in high school, gone to Tritania cons together. There was never a time in which she exhibited suicidal tendencies. She was a cheerful, happy person.

  He truly believed she didn’t have a bad side.

  Tears stream down Ryuk’s face. He sits with his back against the wall for a moment, oblivious to the people around him.

  Alarms sound, bystanders jostle for position, snap their photos and instantly post them on iNet. A pair of conductors produce kawaii panda-shaped plastic barriers and urge the crowd back from the platform. Medics in light blue uniforms appear. An older man tsks at the fact that another Japanese youth has just committed suicide.

  Ryuk swallows hard.

  He reviews the messages he had just received from Tamana. He reads them again and again, looking for a reason for her actions, stupidly hoping to discover why she’d just killed herself.

  Tamana: Help me! Near you! Going to Shinsen Station.

  Ryuk: What’s happening!?

  Tamana: Please! It’s coming!

  Ryuk: What’s coming!?

  Tamana: Please. Please. Be there in five minutes. PLEASE!

  Ryuk: What is going on? Are you okay?

  Ryuk: I’m here. Where are you? Are you okay?

  Nothing, he thinks, there’s nothing there.

  Ryuk staggers to his feet. Police have already begun to arrive he knows better than to get involved with them, not with his family ties to the Yakuza.

  He turns away from the crowd.

  Each step feels weighted, as if he is trying to climb up a sand dune. He can hardly keep it together, hardly keep himself together. The numbing pain is debilitating. He can’t believe this actually happened.

  It can’t be …

  The stairs that lead out of the subway seem so far away. Eons away. He envisions Tamana at the top as he climbs.

  This can’t be true.

  More tears come and he wipes them away. He pulls the hood of his sweatshirt up, and takes another weighted step.

  Just need to get home, he thinks.

  Chapter 2: Home is where the killer droid is

  Ryuk doesn’t say a single word to the two thugs in the lobby of his apartment building, nor does he make eye contact with the two on his floor. His guards are ever-present, stereotypical Yakuza muscle from the latest Jollywood flick. Clean-cut suits with the top two buttons open, shiny materials, polished Italian boots, thin gold chains around their necks, the works. The fucking thugs.

  And that’s not the scary part.

  The scary part is inside, Hajime, his humandroid bodyguard.

  Ryuk has been around these types of droids his entire life and nothing really bothers him about them, aside from the fact that Hajime could kill him in more ways than Ryuk can count.

  “That was fast,” Hajime the humandroid says instead of hello. He wears a traditional Japanese robe and his hair is tied back into a manbun. “Did you happen to meet Tamana? I wouldn’t worry about the guards below; they won’t tell your brother that you snuck out.”

  Is he reading my iNet messages again? Ryuk stares the humandroid down for a moment. He wipes his face and tries to cover the fact that he’s been sobbing.

  “Your vitals indicate that you’ve experienced a recent trauma. There are comfort foods good for hyperstress. Would you care for something?”

  Ryuk feels tears come and he sucks them down.

  Hajime’s eyebrows lift. “What happened?”

  “Not now, Hajime, please, not now.” Ryuk suddenly feels faint. He stretches his hand out to the wall to catch his balance. Hajime is at his side moments later. The droid helps Ryuk stabilize himself long enough for Ryuk to get his shoes off. He slips into his slippers and Hajime helps him to his bedroom.

  Ryuk sobs and swallows again.

  Tamana’s image keeps coming to him. The vision of her leaping into the coming train keeps replaying in his mind’s eye over and over again. Why Tamana, he thinks, why did you do it?

  He suddenly feels incredibly stupid for trying to ask her out, he then feels stupid for feeling stupid for trying to
ask her out after watching her die. The emotions are overwhelming, confusing. The urge to vomit again comes to him.

  She didn’t deserve this.

  Hajime leads him to his bed and Ryuk lies down. “I’ll get you some water.”

  “Tamana’s dead.” Ryuk grabs Hajime’s arm.

  “What?”

  “I watched her jump in front of the train. I saw her do it with my own two eyes!” he sobs again, chokes it down. “She did it … ” He’s beside himself again. “The sound … the train. I saw it all!”

  “She killed herself?” Hajime’s cadence and inflection sounds like any other Japanese man but he hasn’t quite mastered the art of human empathy.

  Ryuk nods; he presses his blankets away and glances around his room. His room is clean, minimal, aside from a different black hooded sweater tossed onto his haptic chair. He wipes his runny nose.

  “Just relax here,” Hajime turns to the door. “I’ll get you some tissue.”

  Chapter 3: Digital hallucinations

  A clawed hand tears Ryuk’s door from its hinges.

  “Hajime!”

  Ryuk scrambles to the ground and he sees a Thulean warrior – a dragon-descended humanoid – grab Hajime by the back of the neck. The image twitches and Hajime is suddenly standing there, normal as ever, staring curiously at Ryuk.

  It cuts back and now the droid is being choked again. “Hajime!”

  A hand presses over Ryuk’s eyes; a dazzling burst of light flickers across the inside of his eyelids. He kicks his feet and struggles to free himself from the steely grip. He tucks his chin into the crook of the elbow that encircles his neck; his teeth find purchase and he bears down hard. The arm tastes like …

  Nothing. Cloth maybe, or some sort of skin-like plastic, but that’s about it.

  “Relax.”

  Why is Hajime’s voice behind me now!?

  Ryuk swallows hard and struggles to master the overwhelming terror that surges through him. The realization strikes him – he’s sitting on the floor and someone is behind him, holding him as a mother would comfort her child. He tries to stand, but the arms restrain him.

  “You’re hallucinating something,” the voice says into his ear.

  “Hajime?”

  “Open your eyes slowly. Remember, whatever you see is not real.”

  Hajime’s voice.

  “Hallucinating?” Ryuk asks.

  “I’m here, nothing can hurt you. I’m removing my hand now.”

  After a trembling breath, Ryuk opens his eyes. The Thulean’s stats appear on his iNet screen:

  Thulean Warrior Level ??

  HP: 5309/5309

  ATK: 867

  DEF: 2960

  MATK: 131

  MDF: 2116

  LUCK: 311

  Ryuk stares in horror as the Thulean brandishes a pointed spear and tests the weapon’s balance with a flashy whirl-parry-thrust. The dragon-descended humanoid’s grin is all pointed teeth and forked tongue. Painted on his forehead are three blood-red lines under a crescent moon.

  “What do you see?” Hajime whispers in Ryuk’s ear.

  “He’s … he’s … ”

  Coming for me!

  The Thulean casts a fanged grin and steps into a ready position.

  His armor clinks as he charges at Ryuk.

  (0)__(0)

  The Thulean warrior’s spear passes through Ryuk’s body, followed by his hand, his arm, his shoulder, and his chest. All of him seemingly disappears right into Ryuk’s chest.

  He blinks his eyes rapidly as he tries to comprehend it all.

  The Thulean is suddenly gone, vanished completely. Ryuk’s in his room on the ground with Hajime behind him, who still holds tightly onto him.

  “It’s over.” Hajime relaxes his grip on Ryuk’s body. “Relax.”

  “What … was that?” He breathes heavily for a moment as he rubs his eyes. Suddenly visible on his pane of vision are a few minimized chat boxes, including Tamana’s final real world message.

  “I’m going to let go now.”

  “Fine,” Ryuk says, suddenly ashamed by his actions.

  “I’ve scanned your vitals, and they are all within normal limits. Tox scan is negative, and I can find no cause for the hallucinatory episode you’ve just endured. May I tap your feed?”

  “Please do,” Ryuk pulls himself to his feet and returns to his bed. A prompt appears on his pane of vision as Hajime accesses his feed.

  [Will you allow Hajime, Model 08-67-53-09 to access your feed?]

  [Yes/No]

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I would like to review your feed from when you followed Tamana into the train station. You did actually see her, correct?”

  “I did,” he gulps, “right before she jumped.”

  Ryuk’s stomach still churns from his unexpected encounter with a Thulean, in Tokyo. If he just hallucinated a Thulean warrior, what could Tamana possibly have seen?

  “Maybe … ” he sniffs. “Maybe she was seeing something too, just like I did!”

  “Clearly,” Hajime’s eyes flash, “but what I was checking was in regards to your feed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let me show you.”

  Hajime approaches the Holoscreen attached to Ryuk’s wall.

  Ryuk rarely uses the thing – why watch anime on a screen when you can simply lie back and watch it on the inside of your eyelids? Still, it is helpful, or at least it was helpful, when he was enrolled at Waseda University.

  As soon as the screen comes to life, the Waseda University bear mascot does a little dance in the bottom right corner. Ryuk has been meaning to fix that, but he still entertains the possibility of re-enrolling.

  “Give me a moment to arrange the videos.”

  Hajime stands in front of the screen and the volume icon appears. It adjusts itself, and once it is at a low level, two iNet feeds come up in split-screen. On the left is what Ryuk saw at the subway. On the right is his view of what just happened in his bedroom.

  “This may be a bit disorienting,” Hajime warns as the videos start up. Sure enough, Ryuk can actually see the Thulean on his most recent feed, big as life and twice as ugly in his black scaly armor. All he can see on the left is Tamana running and leaping and …

  No! Ryuk turns his head away at the very last moment. No sense in seeing her do that again.

  “Now observe what happened just now from my perspective.” Hajime’s feed comes up. In the feed, Ryuk screams and scrabbles for no reason. Hajime surveys the whole room too fast to follow, moves behind Ryuk and pulls him into his arms.

  Ryuk drops his face into his hand, suddenly confused and overwhelmed by what he’s experienced over the last thirty minutes. “What just happened?”

  “I think something just hacked your iNet feed, and apparently this very same something also hacked Tamana’s feed,” Hajime concludes. “Based on the message you received and your feed, whatever she saw chasing her at the time of her death was real to her but to no one else. She leapt to avoid it; I don’t think she intended to kill herself.”

  “What about my feed?”

  “This appears to affect only the individual who experiences the digital hallucination, and is apparently quite subjectively real. I’ve collated some data about apparent Proxima dreamworld intrusions in the real world environment that caused lethal results.”

  A chart springs to life on the holoscreen, its main line ticking upwards.

  “This chart shows the number of dreamworld users who have experienced an unexpected or unusual death within seventy-five minutes of logging out, beginning in 2070. As you can see, the chart spikes from no reported cases in 2070 to fifty-six deaths in just the first two months of this year.”

  Magazine and iNet articles flash on the screen in various languages with Japanese subtitles.

  “The mainstream outlets are not carrying these stories,” Hajime points out, “most of these come from Proxima fan sites and Proxi-blogs. Based on what you have just experien
ced and what happened to Tamana, statistical probability indicates that something, likely NPCs, is coming through the digital dreamworlds and manifesting itself through the users’ iNet feeds. This is causing people to do horrible things to themselves and those around them.”

  Ryuk shakes his head. “Are you telling me that there are killer NPCs?”

  “No, you are saying that, but something is happening, and it’s manifesting from the Proxima Galaxy, from the online worlds that players around the world dive to, like the world you and Tamana frequent, Tritania.”

  Ryuk buries his head in his hand. “Tamana,” he whispers. Just the sound of her name makes him want to sob again.

  “She’s not dead,” Hajime says.

  “What?”

  “You of all people should know what I mean.”

  Ryuk’s eyes go wide. “Her … her RPC!”

  Hajime places his hands behind his back. “Yes, her Reborn Player Character, set to spawn in the Proxima Galaxy in the world of her choosing once she dies in the real world. I’m surprised you didn’t think of that already.”

  “I just saw her die!” Ryuk cries out. “I was … ” He gets control of himself and remembers that Hajime is homo machina, very different from Ryuk.

  “Do you think the online world of her choosing is Tritania?”

  “Of course it is,” Ryuk says, “we haven’t been to another world in years. That’s definitely where her RPC would go.”

  “Reborn Player Character,” Hajime muses, “the same thing as an AI generated NPC but with all the former users data.” The humandroid nods towards Ryuk’s NV Visor. “You should log in. I never thought I’d find myself saying this, but that may be the best thing you can do at this point.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” he finally says. The more Ryuk thinks of it, the better it sounds. He can see Tamana in Tritania, be with Tamana, and together, they can uncover why NPCs are taking peoples bodies.

  “You took new avatars, didn’t you?” Hajime asks.