Our little cuddle lasted longer than I intended, and I was running late for my meeting with Windsor. After lying down for half an hour, I was feeling a little tired myself as I reached his office on the twelfth floor.
As I entered, Windsor was leaning back in his chair with his feet crossed on top of his desk. He was only wearing socks on his feet, and I wondered if this was because I was a little late or because he was comfortable enough around me to act in such a way. My curiosity about the purpose of this meeting was a little more pressing than my curiosity about his socks, however.
“Sorry, I was—”
“Wanda called me and said she couldn’t connect with your phone,” he interrupted.
“I was with Chloe.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with your phone being disconnected.”
I shrugged. “I wasn’t there to reconnect it.” The rising pitch in my tone made it sound more like I was making excuses rather than justifying myself.
Windsor smiled at me and put his feet down. I noticed that he had his laptop closed, and I wondered what we would be talking about if he didn’t have anything to draw on.
“You see, Noah, I wanted to give you a gift in this meeting. However, if I give it to you now, I feel I’ll just be encouraging you to be late more often.”
I smiled. “But you’re going to give it to me anyway. Why else have this meeting if not to show off something new you’ve come up with, right?”
Windsor sighed and stood from his chair. “Right you are.” He made his way out of his office, and I followed behind. “After all, there are only a few people like us that would appreciate my new innovation, and I’m dying to share it. But other than that, shame on you and all the rest. Take some time off to feel bad, would you?”
“I feel admonished already, Mr. President.”
“Good to hear.”
We made our way to the elevator, which took us down to the basement level where the Gamer Chambers were held, as well as Windsor’s own Debug Room.
“I don’t get it,” I remarked as we headed down. “We always end up going to your GC whenever we have a meeting. Why don’t you just tell me to meet you there?”
“Because I don’t like people knowing who in my company knows what I know. Don’t get me wrong, I trust you to keep this a secret, but I also know the added pressure that comes when people know that you know a secret that they want to know.” Windsor sighed as though demonstrating the burden of such knowledge. “It’s very complicated, but I try to account for all variables when I’m being sneaky.”
“And why are you trusting just me with this secret?” I asked. “Surely Data, Dice, or even Vega would be just as interested in any new development.”
“I’m sure they would. But they don’t react to my experiments the way you do. They overanalyze them to the point that they lose all their fun. You’re still naive enough about the technical aspects of the game to be amazed by them. It’s that glimpse through the eyes of the players in the Dream State that I’m really looking for.”
The passion in Windsor’s words moved me.
“You also remind me of someone,” Windsor said.
I was about to ask who when a memory returned to me of Malcolm’s words just before Windsor locked him in his Debug Room:
“Because you know what it feels like to be turned on by a friend when you know yourself to be doing the right thing. My resolve was never that weak . . . and neither is yours. I can respect that.”
Malcolm said that we were somewhat alike . . . does Windsor see that as well?
The elevator opened and we moved through the corridor to Windsor’s GC. He put in his passcode, and the door slid up into the ceiling.
“I’ve been keeping all this to myself for too long. Even now I feel like I’m bursting at the seams. I swear this will change everything in the Dream State.”
“That’s a big claim.”
“You’ll see.” He walked over with two already prepared vials of DSD diluted in lemon water and passed one to me. Before I took it, he held up his. I raised mine, and we clinked them as though we were celebrating something or embarking on some business deal together. “To the illusion of free will.”
I frowned at his toast and drank the DSD. Windsor gestured to one of the two reclining chairs and I sat down in the one on the right. My eyelids drooped as the DSD began to take effect, and the recliner lowered me back into the dark, curtained space in the circular walls. I made a mental note to wait a while before returning to the game with Chloe after I was done. It was harder to overdose on DSD than it once was, but I realized I should probably measure how much was already in my system before ingesting more.
Unlike going into the Dream State, Windsor had programmed his Debug Room so that one arrived in it as soon as they went under. Without a login menu, and with the only access being through these Dream Engines that weren’t even connected to the internet, there was less of a way for people to hack their way inside.
The black tiles with glowing edges beneath my boots reminded me of Malcolm’s Debug Room. The Dream Engine somehow still had my game information, as I still looked like my in-game avatar and possessed all its equipment and abilities. The same looked to be true for Windsor, as he appeared in his own in-game Tamer avatar with its gunstaff and canine companion. The new Niche had been popular. Having a Dream Pet must have been a very appealing aspect for some.
“Setting 18-A.” Windsor clicked his fingers and suddenly the Debug Room began to change.
The tiles rolled beneath us as walls rose up to surround us. Artificial sunlight shone down on the open roof of a massive, circular coliseum, complete with trapdoors, a pit, and a high stand with cheering spectators. We stood in the center of the pit. Windsor gestured to the crowd but then frowned and circled his finger.
“Dial down the volume a bit. I want to be able to hear myself talking.”
The screaming of the crowd became a low hiss in our ears, and I nodded, impressed with the amount of control he had over even the crowd of NPCs. Windsor caught my expression and shook his head.
“Oh no, this isn’t what I wanted to show you.” He flicked his hand at the setting, as though trying to wave it away. “This is all old stuff you can still find in the game. I thought I would just set the scene a little.”
“Okay . . . So, what did you want to show me?”
“You see! That’s why I needed two Dream Engines, so I can show people things like”—Windsor raised a finger—“this.”
Suddenly, a transparent image of Windsor appeared, jumping from his body to stand next to him. It looked like a blue projection, but without any noticeable source of light. Then a second and a third blue Windsor appeared on either side of him, then a fourth appeared in front of him. This last one walked forward as the two other images flicked out and then Windsor himself began to walk behind the third, following the transparent image of himself.
A question sprang out of my mouth. “So, this is another Illusion spell? I heard Illusion only had two levels, so is this the third . . . a doppelganger illusion?”
The blue projection of Windsor shook his head and began to talk. The illusion was talking. It didn’t make sense.
“In order to show you what this is, I need to give two demonstrations . . .”
Just under a second after the illusion started talking, the real Windsor began saying the exact same thing, like a sentence being interrupted by its echo. Windsor waved his hand again and the transparent doppelganger vanished so he wouldn’t interrupt him. He then raised his finger and tapped the air in front of him several times.
“And what’s the second demonstration?”
“For that, I’ll need you to try and hit me.”
My brow knitted in confusion. “Excuse me?”
“You have all the abilities and weapons you would have if you were in the Dream State. Use anything you want. Anything. Do all you can to try and hit me. Seriously, go all out.”
I raised my palms. “I don’t get it.”
“Just try. You’ll understand soon. Let me just say this: no matter what you do, you won’t be able to hit me.”
Sounds like Malcolm. No one could hit him unless they trapped him. Did Windsor find out how he did that?
I smirked. “Alright then.”
My Sapphire Edge flashed into my hand. I didn’t have a mana bar in his room, so I didn’t hesitate to let loose. I raised a hand above me and made a fist, the gesture needed to cast the Iceberg spell. As the sound of ringing bells filled the air, I slashed two Shockwaves on either side of Windsor. Just as the arcs of blue light were about to reach him and my massive Iceberg was about to fall directly on top of him, Windsor smiled and simply walked forward.
His stride was fast enough that he only just escaped the impact of the massive boulder of ice. However, as soon as I saw him advance, I charged forward, fist raised for a Fire Weave. By the way he had evaded my last attack, I knew he would either dodge left or right, so I flipped a coin. Just as my flame was about hit him, I launched an Earth Punch up from the ground to the right of him and then the left. He jumped. Like all avatars, his jump launched him six feet into the air, and he landed on top of the large rock fist before jumping off it.
“So, you’re trying to say you can dodge all my magic?” I shook my head in amusement. “But what about when the magic is random?”
I raised one finger into the air. The sky darkened, and lightning from my Perfect Storm spell struck down. Windsor looked up and stepped to the side just as a bolt of lightning smote the pit where he had been standing.
Lightning too? This can’t be just luck. Can he see my commands?
While he was distracted with the lightning, I cast a Speed Amp spell on myself and dashed forward. I began striking at him with speeds that would’ve been impossible in real life, but my Sapphire Edge cut nothing but air. Every blow, every stab and cut—somehow, moving at regular human speed, he evaded each one. He stepped back, so I cast an Ice Wall behind him, making it impossible for him to retreat farther. However, without even knowing where I was casting it, he stepped backward around it and continued retreating.
Fine, let’s see how he does against a widespread spell like Wildfire!
“Cooked mouse coming—Huh?”
For the first time during this demonstration, Windsor was running toward me. I flicked my arm out for the Wildfire spell, but as soon as I made the gesture, he was already behind me. Fire exploded out from me, all of it burning in the wrong direction of its intended target. I swung blindly out at him with the Color Blade, but Windsor was crouching, close enough now that I could see the massive grin on his face.
“See, you can’t hit me,” he said.
I stepped back, panting. “I get it. You’re doing what Malcolm did to us in his Debug Room. The question is how?”
He rose and lifted his finger again. “That’s one of the things I’ve been trying to figure out for the last month. At first, I thought he was just breaking the game mechanics, but then I realized that Malcolm never worked on the system itself. He worked with the brain, with the neural network and its interface with the game.”
I nodded. “Okay, so it has something to do with the brain, not the game.”
Windsor waved his fingers. “That’s right. We even talked about it when I was designing it. He told me that the Dream Engine reacted to the MMRI as soon as the information was available.”
“MMRI?”
“Micro-MRI: the helmet’s brain scanner.” He started pacing in circles. “The problem was that if the player’s avatar reacted as soon as the information was available from the subconscious, it would act before the player’s conscious mind knew what they were going to do. This caused nausea and broke the immersion of the players. You see, our brains make up our minds long before we’re aware of it.”
“Hence you toasting to the illusion of free will.”
“That’s right!” He flashed me a grin. “So, to make the actions and thoughts line up in the game, we had to slow it down by just under a second.”
It hit me all at once, and I felt my jaw go slack.
“So, by applying this reaction speed to a doppelganger illusion, you can see what a person is going to do before they do it!” I shook my head and laughed. “That’s why you were playing around before you told me to attack you; you were making it so only you could see the transparent clones that showed what I was planning on doing.”
“And that’s why your party could never hit Malcolm. He could see your actions before you made them. That’s why only the two of us working together could trap him and then hit him with something that he wouldn’t bother blocking. He didn’t know what the tag did, so he had no reason to block or dodge it . . . but with this, he could have if he wanted to.” Windsor frowned in reflection. “His ignorance was the only reason we managed to win.”
The only blow that had hit him was Frank’s cannonball, and that had flown at him from behind, which still did little against him. “We were that close, huh?”
Windsor nodded. “Yup, that close. But because of him, I have figured out how to introduce a time travel battle mechanic. It might just be a few milliseconds, but as I have just shown you, it can make a big difference.”
“Yeah!” I raised a hand in annoyance. “Too much of a difference. It’ll make anyone who uses it far too OP.”
Windsor grinned. “I’ve never heard you complain about having an advantage in the game before.”
“That’s because . . .” I paused as what he had said finally dawned on me. “Wait, are you saying you’re going to give me this ability?”
His grin widened even further. “All the better to help you track down Malcolm and the Screamers, right?”
He raised his hand above his shoulder excitedly, begging for a high-five like a dog begging for a bone. Still speechless, I obliged. I’d never seen a middle-aged man act so much like a teenager. However, my mind was still racing as I caught Windsor raising his brow at me.
“So, want to try it?” Windsor grinned. “I can have this linked up to your account by tomorrow. Of course, it will just be an experimental trial run.”
I laughed and nodded. “Do you even have to ask?”