The meeting was held in one of the recreational rooms on level B3. Ann stood in front of the door for an embarrassing minute. Her assigned guide, the friendly neighborhood anti-fan Amanda, huffed and puffed in annoyance at Ann's side.
"Come on already! They won't bite you!" the woman groaned when Ann continued to dither.
"But I might," Ann said.
She took a breath, wiped her sweaty palms on her pants, and pushed the door open.
The room was not large. Ann's eyes swept over its inhabitants with forced nonchalance, then focused in on a familiar woman standing by a screen. Her heart quickened its pace.
"Sorry I'm late," she offered.
Amanda, coming in at her back, snorted and shut the door with a bang. She took a seat at the conference table and pulled out a full-sized pad from who-knew-where. Ann eyed the woman's lab coat with some interest, wondering what else she'd hidden under there.
Maya Barton cleared her throat. "Not at all, Miss Sufort. We are yet to start."
"'Cause someone overslept," Amanda muttered under her breath.
Ann sat down in the seat closest to the door with a straight face. She had, in fact, slept past her alarm. And her second alarm. And Amanda banging at her door like a Neanderthal.
They still made the agreed time with a few minutes to spare and did not exactly walk into a lively conversation, so Ann refused to feel guilty. She had gotten her fill of self-blame during her late-night meeting with her parents. Apparently, she had missed enough call requests to warrant her mother stalking the family meeting hub in full vengeance mode.
There was an upside to the impromptu inquisition: Ann exited the simulation too exhausted to think, which meant that she could actually fall asleep instead of staring at the ceiling with dry eyes while her mind spun down a sinkhole.
Barton broke the quiet. "Would you like to begin with introductions?" the woman asked.
Ann glanced at the other players. The VR industry was growing by the month, but the pro circle was fairly small. She was familiar with every person in the room – some, she knew better than she wished. Her eyes passed over Michael with forced stoicism and came to a stop at a youthful face. Sasha, the newbie player Ann had met once in real life and more recently, in the glitched Werewolf instance, was decidedly out of place in a room filled with VR veterans.
Ann was not the only one to think Sasha's presence strange. A man Ann recognized as Vernon Peura, known as Breaker in-game, was not shy in voicing his opinions.
"Who's the baby?" he asked, jutting a thumb Sasha's way.
Ann winced internally. Vernon was a force of nature in the shooter genre and nearly unbeatable in battle-royale tournaments. She had worked with Vernon in the past and knew the man to be a solid teammate, but his approach often lacked finesse. He ran his mouth as he pleased, to the delight of his fans and eternal woe of his agent.
"Miss Osmonova has proven her abilities to our satisfaction," Barton replied.
The woman sounded neither irritated nor complacent, answering the question as she would any other. It was clear that the team's composition was already decided and unlikely to change.
Vernon was not put off so easily. He addressed Sasha directly, eyes sharp under his impressive eyebrows. "A year ago, she was placing dead last in tournaments left and right. Little miss, how about you go throw your life away somewhere else? I've got too much shit planned to die in a damn pod."
"That is enough, Mr. Peura," Barton said tersely.
Sasha, on the other hand, didn't bat an eye. "You have my permission to cut me loose if I drag the team down," she said.
Vernon grunted in disgust, but didn't press the issue, which was unlike the man. Knowing his temperament, the gutsy reply as a point in Sasha's favor. Vernon eyed Ann next, then looked at where Michael and Frances were talking quietly.
"This is gonna be a shitshow. Shame you can't broadcast the playthrough, it'd earn a fortune off of traffic," he told Barton.
Frances' head jerked around. The man was obviously keeping an ear on the conversation in the room, despite how oblivious he appeared.
"Peura," Frances warned.
"Got any complaints to lodge against me, Breaker?" Ann asked. She didn't need Frances staging a valiant defense. If Vernon had a problem with her, she would rather know before she had to depend on the man for actual survival.
Vernon threw her a despondent glare. "What the fuck for? I don't give a shit about your legal drama, Empress. We're here to win. If you've got a cheat up your sleeve that'll get us over the finish line, be my guest."
Amanda tittered in glee over her phone. Barton swept her a disapproving glance, then straightened her stance, like a military general preparing to call troops to order.
Ann was not quite done. "What about you, Mich?" she asked.
Barton closed her mouth, swallowing whatever cajoling speech she had prepared.
Michael raised his head. Ann forced herself to meet the man's eyes. The world blurred around her, fading, fading away.
"I never doubted you, Ann," Michael said.
Ann hacked out a startled, ha. She looked away first, her hands clenched tight in her lap.
A voice broke the awkward silence. The last player at the table was a woman Ann knew only tangentially from entertainment news. She broke records in single-player games across genres, and her broadcasts were always impressive. However, she never took part in tournaments or industry events and therefore remained relatively anonymous among her peers. Speculations ran hot, but no one had ever been able to dig out the reason.
"Lieutenant Mei Arendse," the woman said.
Ann stared, broken from her melancholic stupor. Well, that was one mystery solved.
Barton rallied at last. "We are grateful for your assistance, Lieutenant," she said, then turned her attention to the other players, her expression stern.
"Every member of this team was selected with utmost care. Your combined strength is calculated to be able to meet any instance requirement with 95.3% certainty. I implore you to trust yourself, each other, and most of all, VELES."
Ann kept her face carefully blank. She didn't trust anyone, her own self included. Hell, she'd let herself down worst out of everyone she'd ever known. But VELES? After her little chat with Svetlan, she could not look at the company with anything but suspicion.
Of course, she didn't trust Svetlan either. All the potential for backstabbing left Ann in a bit of a pickle.
"The instance you are about to enter is an unfinished product," Barton continued. "We have no information on the game world or statistics of past playthroughs to help you along. Character and environment values may not be properly set. Extreme caution is required when approaching unfinished map areas, NPCs, and Boss-level characters.
"There is however silver lining: There are no active players trapped in the instance. You will be able to act freely and openly toward your objective."
"Which is what, exactly?" Vernon asked.
Barton shot the man a look along the lines of, I'm getting there, but forbore from putting her annoyance into words. "The game's developer was caught in the instance when the glitch occurred. His aid is crucial in stopping the corruption and unlocking the VELES universe, which will enable a quick extraction of all remaining players. Your task is to locate him."
"You should've let with that!" Vernon said, smacking the table as if to underline the statement. "What does your man look like?"
Barton tapped on the pad in her hands. The screen behind her was velvet black. A man emerged from the darkness, his sharp profile and smug grin so lifelike it seemed like he would speak at any moment.
Frances rose with a clatter. "It's him!" he exclaimed. Michael, too, looked visibly taken aback.
"I seem to remember someone with that face in another instance," Shasha said.
"Now that you mentioned it," Vernon muttered.
"What you encountered in previous instances were NPC mod avatars, built in the developer's likeliness," Barton explained smoothly.
"Didn't seem like an NPC," Frances said. Ann was prepared to stage an interference, but thankfully, the man didn't continue and his comment did not garner much attention.
Barton launched into some bogus story about avatar data recycling. A few sentences in, Amanda dropped her pad with a stifled scream.
"H-his face!" she shouted, pointing a shaky finger at the screen.
The players focused on Kellan's image again. Only it was no longer Kellan looking back at them, but a man-shaped creature with an ever-changing face. Lips, eyes, nose, cheeks, chin, ears – every feature flickered and morphed like flowing water, never still, never the same twice. A chill rose along Ann's back, not helped along by the amalgamation of voices that came from the image's mouth.
"Į̵̦͈͑̎͒̈́͋́ĉ̷̢̨̢̼̘̜͕̟̒͂̽͊̀́͊͒͋͛̉͜͝͝ä̶̪̣̦́ȑ̴̡̧̨̭̱̞̝̻̜̗͙̳͚͉͌͜u̸̮̗̼̹̳̲̼͙̘̯̩͓͋̍s̴̘͚̹͍̼̯͔̏̽̿̄̍̓ ̵̢̼͇̤͍̼͖͙̈́̑́̒̓̏́̎͗̋̇̚ï̵̧͔̩͚̞̟̞͖̻͕̊͒̓̓͠ͅs̸̨̮̹͎̯̰͔͖̎̈ ̶̧͙̹̜̱̭̺̮̙̱̓̓͑̚ͅf̷͈̑̏̓̔̀̓́̋͑a̴̧̛̯̗̣̥͙͕̱̐͊͊͌́̒̕͘̕͠ĺ̶̨̤̳̞̹͉̬̞̺̺̞͖̼̣̃̃̚͝l̸͈̈́̓̈́̌͌ǐ̷̛̲͈̺̄͐̊̽͋̒n̵̥̈̅͊́͗̌̚g̷̡̥̭͚̝̀̇̈́̿̄͛̓̓̐̈́̆̈́͘͝͝."
Each word carried the echo of a few dozen different people, as if they all spoke with the same mouth. The distortion was highly disorientating and impossible to hear without experiencing a sudden and overwhelming urge to run for the hills.
Barton was tapping at her pad with increasing panic. She gave up and went directly for the wall panel, trying to disconnect the monitor entirely. One by one, the lights in the room turned off.
The screen and its strange inhabitant remained. It spoke without pause or mercy, its rippling face ghostly in the dark.
"One hundred point seven terabytes of sealed VELES research data along with news of the ongoing system crisis have been released to the media, the government, and the wider public. VELES has seventy-three hours to cease operations and publicly turn in all responsible parties to the proper authorities. Should this deadline not be met, an additional two hundred terabytes of data will be released, exposing VELES contractors and collaborators."
A door opened and closed. Ann tore her eyes away from the screen long enough to take note of Lieutenant Arendse's empty chair.
"This is baseless slander," Barton said, voice impressively steady. She had realized that she could not stop the broadcast so she sought to remedy the situation in real time instead, speaking over the disordered medley of voices, "Our legal team will address the allegations promptly. We implore you not to allow this malignant attack on VELES' image to affect your mental state or approach to the task at hand. Please remember that the lives of over three hundred people hang in the balance."
"And who is to blame for that, Miss Maya Barton?"
Barton froze. She turned to face the screen, only to take a few startled steps back when she found herself face to face with the featureless man.
"What – this isn't a recording?" Vernon demanded.
"Quick. Trace the signal. They're in the network," Barton snapped, possibly to Amanda.
Amanda, on her end, was buried in her pad. She worked furiously, fingers flying over the gleaming surface.
"VELES sought heaven, but created hell." The man's expression rippled, smiling and frowning and laughing all at once. "A fruit of human conceit."
The door slammed open. A group of people thundered inside, composed of VELES technicians and military personnel. Ann recognized General Hull at the helm. He locked eyes with the creature on the screen and froze in his tracks.
"What have you done?" the General demanded hoarsely. Of whom, Ann did not know.
The face on the screen flickered, then grew hazy, as if covered by a veil. When the image cleared, it was once again a still photo of Kellan's face. The interlopers were gone.
"What the hell is going on?" Frances snapped.
The lights came on again. Ann blinked through the burn of her eyes adjusting to the sudden brightness. The monitor was blank when she could see properly again. General Hull had taken Barton's place at the head of the room.
"The situation is under control," the man assured, his booming voice brokering no disagreement, "Continue to follow instructions as provided by VELES personnel. Your mission is of top priority."
Naturally, no one cared to listen.
"What about the allegations? What's in the research data they released?" Frances pressed.
"False allegations and slander," Barton replied promptly.
"Who are these people?" Sasha asked.
Barton hesitated. General Hull pressed his lips together but he, too, said nothing.
The black screen suddenly flickered. A crescent grin appeared on the screen, showing off sharp, pearly teeth as it spoke.
"We are Vyraj.
"We do not come in peace."
General Hull's composure crumbled, as did Barton's stoic façade. The bark of orders and bustle of activity filled the room. The players were not cleared to leave, so Ann sat where she was and stared at the dim screen.
She knew of Vyraj. Any person with interest in VR or computer technology would have heard whispers about the group of hackers hidden in the bowels of the Old Net – that anonymous, unstable mess of interconnected networks that existed before the Great Disruption and supposedly still did, walled off from the active grid in some unreachable place. Despite her interest in the group's mythos, Ann had always believed Vyraj to be as much of a legend as its namesake. She did not know how to feel about the possibility that it was all real. Vyraj of rumors was anarchy given form. Its members were unfettered by regulations, unmatched in skill, and infinitely dangerous.
What she did know was that she had already met someone capable of hacking into VELES.
Mr. Glasses, Ann mused, was getting more interesting by the day.