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File: 113/50/05/wtf/Continued

Source: LinkData\LinkDiary\Peter_Vincent\Personal

<LinkDiary Running>

First, though, we were going to have to get out of my room.

Again, I thought of Kyle Straker and the moment he tried to escape from his own bedroom. I looked over to my window.

My heart sank.

The plexiglass was thick with the bodies of my father’s bees, clambering over each other, urgently trying to get in. I wasn’t even sure it would hold them.

Epic fail there, then. Door or window: both were out of the question.

And that left … nothing.

We were trapped.

I almost gave in to despair. It would have been so easy. But when I looked at Alpha I saw an expression on her face that pulled me back from the brink.

I’d been expecting to see fear, or pain, or resignation, but I got something else entirely: expectation.

A look that said: so, what are we going to do now?

And that also said: I know you’ll sort it out.

And the spark of an idea came to me almost immediately.

I stood up and searched my room for something to help. Ideally I needed a sheet of metal, but I thought the chances of finding one of them was slim to none. Alpha watched on with a puzzled look, but didn’t interrupt with unnecessary questions.

In my drawer I found a clothing blank: a neutral garment ready to have a style and a material type flashed on to it.

They’re pretty much all that I wear these days. People can still buy clothes, but it seems a bit outdated and unnecessary. I just use my LinkHangers app, and I have any garment I need.

Any garment I need …

I sat down on my bed and thought about it.

A clothing blank had the potential to become any material.

ANY material.

I needed metal.

I’ve worn metal before.

I accessed my LinkHangers and navigated to a small and slightly shameful hanger section filed away as ‘CosPlay’.

CosPlay, or Costume Play.

I only have a couple of templates hanging there. Last Quest stuff, from when I was completely obsessed with the games, instead of the ‘mildly obsessed’ I am now.

See, there are Last Quest get-togethers called QuestCons, where people turn up and meet up with people that they know from online activities but have never met in the flesh. And the true Last Quest fans … well, they kind of dress up as their online characters.

I selected a chain-mail shirt from a hanger and connected my filaments to the clothing blank.

Result: a metal mesh shirt.

I looked up at Alpha.

She was gazing at the garment in my hands with something close to amazement.

I guess she didn’t know about Cosplay, Last Quest, or a Beserker called Tempest who wore a similar garment.

‘We need a bee,’ I told her.