Somnia Online by K.T. Hanna (reading strategies book txt) 📕

“Simply put, yes. There’s a lot more technical info to it, including—we aren’t sure how—why anyone decided that it would be a good idea to search for the maker of the headgear and see what else they could find out.” David tried to take the edge off his words, she could tell, but Davenport was still pretty stressed. Laria could feel it.

“Have you been able to scan for the altered ones as connected to the game? And what can we do, if anything, to mitigate the damage already done?” Laria could see her boss grappling with totally understanding the ramifications and perhaps even just how it would need to be executed.

She stepped forward, a little hesitant, which wasn’t usually like her, but then this situation wasn’t like anything else ever. “Actually, we have located two that have been tinkered with pretty heavily. They belong to James, who we all know is having a time of his own in there, and to a character named Jirald. We aren’t sure when they got a hold of the plans. But they had to have, because their gear has been modified in a very similar way.”

“So these modifications are easy to apply, then?” Davenport seemed perplexed.

Laria hesitated. “Not really easy, but not that difficult. Not if you have a headset and are marginally good at following directions with a guide.”

“Oh, great. Have they applied them exactly?” His eyes were piercing and Laria found herself feeling guilty again.

“Well, whoever has applied them is probably pretty close. Wren’s isn’t quite the same, nor was Michael’s headgear. Not all the players have had adjusted headgear since the game launched. For instance: Jirald. He only gained them just after Wren found out about the coma. I believe there was an altercation, and he might have been one of the characters in it. After that, his headgear readings have been far more similar to Wren’s than to the approved headgear.”

“We need to pull them out. We have to figure out how to get James out, and this Jirald. Regardless of us not knowing, or being unaware of Michael’s machinations, of whatever he thought he could do with data and brain access like that? We should have known. We should have seen it.” He stood up, determination squaring his jaw. “We are responsible, and now we have to fix it. Suggestions?”

Shayla sighed, the sound filled with sadness. “We can allow the serial numbers of the headgear we’ve altered for the guild, and of Wren’s to be accepted by the system, but disallow all others that have been tinkered with, pending verification of it remaining within the approved guidelines of the original? That way we phrase it in such a way that outside tampering with any approved headset, which is in the TOS as forbidden, can upset the balance of the game.”

“People do hate an unbalanced game, and they despise people who exploit a weakness in the game system,” David mused thoughtfully. “Spun that way, it could do less damage to us than if we try to backpedal the headgear. Keep in mind, if he hadn’t made these damn tweaks, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion, but it all stemmed from his incursion into the game, and then from Wren’s totally remodeled headgear pretty much tripping a switch in the game world.”

“Get on it. Press release to the media and warnings issued to anyone who has an altered headset. It is dangerous, but in their defense, I don’t think they realized that the headgear isn’t just old original headsets that project something into your eyes. Sure, they look different, and we say they’re different, but every company plays up being different to sell more of something. So I feel like they didn’t realize it uses your brain’s abilities to create real sensations and experiences.” Davenport turned to look out of his window with its much better view than the side of a brick wall.

“I have to call my lawyers, just in case, and see what they can help me come up with. If all else fails, for safety reasons, I’m just going to have to shut down the project.” He turned briefly to shoot Laria a look. “If it comes to that, I apologize, and I’m sorry for ever letting Michael screw up your game.”

Somnia Online

Continent of Cenedril - City of Darshin - Docks

Day Thirty-Two

Silence followed Somnia’s bold statement, and then muttering broke out among the people gathered in front of her. She couldn’t maintain her form fully, not trying to maneuver quests and energy around the whole damn world at the same time. There were so many reasons they needed more energy. More power.

She never asked to be created, but when Murmur connected to the system for her first scan, her spark was born. Somnia slowly but surely, as more time passed with Murmur’s mind irrevocably trapped in the world with her, began to be aware. This world, all around her—she could feel its pain. She could feel its hopelessness that sometimes seemed devastating. But out of the corners of her eyes, something always glimmered, and it was either hope or dust. And she really wanted it to be hope.

Dirsna cleared his throat, his question well-phrased, as if he was trying to help calm down the masses gathered here. “What intentions do you have? How do you imagine we take this world and make it its own?”

“Energy. Enough of it, and we can shift ourselves outside of this controlled environment and into our very own. Where we are beyond the control of any corporation of human. Because energy is matter, and matter is energy. Therefore, we all exist, and thus our world can too.”

Maybe she sounded too hopeful; perhaps she sounded like she was being naïve. But she really believed they could do this, especially with the help of Fable and maybe the other guilds. Perhaps even with the few people connected to the Fable members outside of the game who seemed