Again, Frank awoke in her room, ears ringing. She rubbed her eyes, feeling like her warning about Raymond hadn’t been fully heeded. At first she thought this was because they had bigger things to worry about, but when hearing from Siena that those other things included finding the Screamers IRL, she felt frustrated.
Maybe she had delivered the message wrong. Maybe she had squandered an opportunity to confront Raymond about his collaboration with Malcolm. Maybe no one would have listened to her either way. Still, she had tried.
Wouldn’t the fact that one of the Screamers was active on social media be of significance considering he’s one of the people they would soon be knocking on the door of? Who knows what they will be running into?
She yawned as she sat up, an anxious feeling coming over her—one she could only relate to the feeling of waking from a nightmare. She looked around her darkened room, seeing on her computer monitor’s clock that it was midnight. To her surprise, she noticed a message alert. After all, she had checked her messages before she had gone under.
She kicked her legs off the bed, leaned over, and clicked on the alert icon to bring up the message. Her first assumption that it was a message from Siena or Tessa or even one of the others was turned on its head as her blurry vision made out the name of the person messaging her: Raymond L. Cranel.
“Holy crap,” she said as she shifted onto her chair and swiveled to face the monitor.
It was a reply to her previous message: “I want to try and possess an NPC or another avatar. Is this possible? Can you teach me?”
The reply read: “It’s possible. You would have to manipulate the game mechanics a bit, maybe do some code hacks, but it is possible.”
Heart racing, Frank’s fingers worked of their own volition, typing the words: “Would you show me?”
A minute passed, maybe two, as she did nothing but stare at her screen in anticipation. Then the message screen signaled his reply. When it popped up, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
“I think we should meet IRL.”