PftA Book 2 - Chapter 23

Chapter 23 – An Early Recommendation

I knocked on the doorframe of Rhona’s office, using the public entrance this time. It was late enough in the morning that all the Alpha and Beta testers were already logged in, so nobody noticed my approach.

“Emie! I didn’t expect to see you there!” Rhona said, motioning me inside. I left the door open. There was no reason to close it since I didn’t plan to say anything questionable. Besides, it was unlikely anyone nearby could overhear our conversation anyway.

“Hey, sorry for the interruption. I wanted to talk to you about the time-off request I just submitted,” I said as I sat in one of the chairs opposite her desk. I’d only sent the form a few moments before heading to her office, so I didn’t expect her to have seen it yet.

Rhona tapped at her tablet a few times. “You want to take off the week that testing starts for Apocalypse Earth?” Her eyes lifted from her tablet. “I’m assuming you want to take part in testing?”

I nodded. “I do. I was talking to some of my friends about it, and I figured, knowing what I do, that it would be a good idea for me to test the game and give you my opinion.”

The secret princess tilted her head slightly, and the corners of her mouth lifted. “I can see that, and I agree. Your insights could be invaluable.” She looked back at the tablet. “You don’t have to use vacation time to do that, though. I don’t mind making it a temporary assignment. Your contributions in R&D have already put us ahead of projections, so it’s fine.” She poked at her tablet several times, even though I knew she could control it perfectly well with her IA.

“Stella might complain since you were supposed to start work on her project that week,” Rhona added, “but I’ll talk to her. Another week won’t matter all that much. Just make sure you get the augment you need before then.”

I grinned widely. I’d already earned more than enough CP to make the purchase. “Thanks. Also, Bell mentioned making enchantments before the game started to see if they would be included. Is that something possible?”

“It is,” she said slowly, “but only the first time. After the initial snapshot is taken when players grant permission… it gets complicated.”

I remembered the game asking for permission to create an accurate reflection of my room the first time I’d played the game. At the time, I hadn’t thought much of it. I’d heard those who declined were spawned in a generic location similar to where they were, just without any of their belongings.

“Could the programming be adjusted to include anything within arms reach of the user?” I asked, knowing the haptic suit and headgear likely could scan nearby surroundings since they could monitor the body so well.

“Perhaps. However, it would need to be implemented when the simulation first initiates. We can’t make significant changes once the simulation is running.” She tapped her finger on her desk as she thought. “We were going to allow players to ‘scan’ their surroundings the first time they logged in and reuse the old scans since that saves a lot of… effort. But we could set the game up more like a competition and reset the whole thing every month, complete with rewards and everything. The game will run at four times time dilation, which would be four months of experienced gameplay. That would put the scenario a month beyond the portals opening…”

I remained silent as Rhona considered various options. Finally, she said, “Do you think the impact would be worth the effort? I can see losing progress to be wildly unpopular with a lot of people.”

“Absolutely,” I said quickly. “Based on my conversation with my friends, I can see several people acquiring functional weapons that will work for the scenario once they realize the items can be incorporated into the game. Deni was already talking about going to a Renaissance Faire to obtain real swords to use in the game if things transfer over. Aside from weapons, I can see people buying and stockpiling things like non-perishable food items and tools if they can be used in-game. When things change… they’d be a lot better off.”

“Let me think about it for a while. I have to talk to some of my counterparts. I don’t have the final say in things, but I do hold some sway.”

“Because you’re a princess,” I said.

Rhona narrowed her eyes at me before grinning. “Not entirely, but I won’t deny it has its benefits.”

= = =

After mentioning that I’d noticed all four (counting myself) of the naturally awakened natives had dual affinities, Rhona informed me that it was like that everywhere. Only one single-affinity person had naturally awoken, and they had an exceptional Soul affinity.

I was sure the researchers involved with the study had all sorts of theories about why nearly all the natives who broke through had dual affinities.

I was still contemplating the information when I walked into the cafeteria later that day. Most of my morning had been consumed by testing and compiling completed blueprints, so I hadn’t needed to expend much brain power. It was easy to complete my tasks while contemplating the intricacies of mana affinities.

Not that I got very far philosophizing.

I immediately noticed Elaine sitting alone at one of the small tables disbursed between the longer rectangles that took up most of the space. She was only picking at the food on her plate as she glanced around the room. When her eyes found mine, she immediately brightened.

I headed in her direction. “Hey, Elaine. I’m surprised to see you sitting alone.”

“Yeah…” Her smile dropped slightly as she glanced at a table in the corner. My eyes followed hers, and I saw Xavier, the other Alpha Group member from the beach, and another man sitting at another one of the smaller, round tables. It looked too small to hold another chair, so I understood why Elaine had opted to sit elsewhere. “I guess they got out early and didn’t feel like waiting or something.”

“Let me grab some food, and I’ll join you, if you don’t mind the company.”

“Please,” she said, her smile returning to its earlier luminance. “That would be much better than eating alone.”

When I returned to the table, Elaine said, “I was really tempted to just head to the other cafeteria and sit with my squadmates, so I’m glad you came when you did. I hate eating alone.”

“The food here is worth it, though, right?” I asked with a grin.

“Oh, my goodness, yes!” she exclaimed. “I don’t know what they do to the food over here, but it is so much better than what they serve on the other side.”

“Mana,” I replied. At her look of confusion, I added, “Most of the ingredients are sourced from rifts, so everything has mana in it. It makes the food taste so much better.”

“Yeah?” she said before taking another bite with a thoughtful expression. “I was wondering why there was a separate dining facility. They probably don’t want to feed mana to unawakened people. Or maybe there isn’t enough for everybody?”

I shrugged. “I’m not sure.” Changing the subject, I asked, “Have you gotten to delve yet? Based on your levels, I assumed the three of you delved together.”

“We did, along with Rodney.” She nodded her head toward the third guy at the table. He wasn’t someone I was familiar with. “He’s some politician’s son or something and joined Alpha Group as a ‘liaison’ around the time you and Xavier awakened. I’m not sure how he got access to his interface early, but…” She shrugged. “He’s got a pretty rare affinity – Sound. He mostly fights melee, but he has a wicked sonic attack that does a great job of disorienting the mobs. It makes fights a lot easier.”

It probably wasn’t a coincidence that someone – who just happened to have an affinity for Sound and was related to a government official – was assigned as a liaison shortly after people started naturally awakening. I wasn’t sure why Atlas didn’t just assign Xavier as the liaison, but I was sure politics likely played a part in the decision.

“Does he normally not eat with you guys? I don’t think I’ve seen him in here before.”

Elaine shook her head. “No, he’s usually busy. I don’t see him much outside of training and delves. We’ve only delved three times so far, but we’ve trained in the game several times. I don’t think he lives locally.”

The conversation shifted to other topics. By an unspoken agreement, we kept the conversation casual, not discussing anything of any import for the rest of the meal. Xavier nodded as he and the other two men walked past. I nodded back politely. The other two men didn’t even glance our way. Their lack of engagement struck me as odd.

Elaine let out a sigh. “I can’t wait for someone else to awaken with a Life affinity. Xavier isn’t bad, but I’d rather not go into dangerous situations with people I don’t trust.”

“They’re pretty shady, huh?”

“You have no idea,” she mumbled before looking around quickly.

“I should probably get back to work. I have a lot of blueprints to organize,” I said a few seconds later.

“Oh, can you tell me what you’re working on now, or is it still secret?”

I leaned back in my chair. I’d already mentioned what I did to Xavier when he asked, so I was surprised that Elaine had no idea. Then again, I probably shouldn’t have expected him to share the information. While she might have been an excellent actress, I had a hard time believing she had ulterior motives, especially after using Sense Intentthe day before.

“I’m an Enchanter and took actual classes in the runic language as part of my training. Most of what I do involves simplifying enchantments so they’ll work with really low-tier materials. Hopefully, my designs will make things easier during the reintegration. I’m almost certain technology won’t work once the ambient mana reaches a certain point, so I’m designing things to mitigate the worst of it. Heating and cooling, lights, stuff like that.”

“Ah,” Elaine said. “That… I hadn’t really thought about that part of it. And your big project?”

My eyes lit up. “You wanna see?”

“Sure!” Elaine said, immediately jumping to her feet and rushing to the tray receptacle to deposit her dirty dishes. Once our table was clear, I led her to the R&D testing room.

I removed my newest prototype from my ring and set it on the table.

“Spatial storage?” she asked before being distracted by the actual object I’d removed. “Is that a microwave?”

I laughed. “No, but it does make food. Check it out,” I said before placing a Tier One chunk of stone into the device. “Chocolate or fruit? I don’t have a lot of dessert options yet.”

“Chocolate.”

I concentrated and activated the device. Once the crystal dimmed, I opened the door, presenting my fellow awakened with the newly created dessert.

“No way!” she exclaimed, staring at the slice of decadent chocolate cake. “You made that out of a rock? That’s definitely not lights and air conditioning!”

I chuckled. “It was a personal project. One of my classmates made something similar for the Junction tournament while we were in high school, and I wanted to see if I could recreate it in real life. Mostly, I just wanted to be able to copy all the delicious foods I encountered to make sure they weren’t lost… just in case.”

Elaine nodded thoughtfully. “I can see that. Can it make non-food items, too?”

It could, but I didn’t want anyone to know that. It was much better for people to think my device only made semi-processed food-type items. So I deflected, explaining that I’d only designed the device to make meals.

I put the cake into a small container and handed it to her, knowing she’d need to return to work soon. Realizing we hadn’t exchanged numbers, we quickly saved each other’s contacts before Elaine departed. As the door closed behind the beta tester, Vasilla exited her attached office.

“New friend?” she asked.

I nodded. “I think so. She’s an awakened native. It’ll be nice to have someone to talk to who understands where I’m coming from and isn’t a government spy.”

“I bet she feels the same.”

“Probably,” I agreed before turning toward my office. “Do you have a design you need help with, or do you want me to start on the next one once I finish reviewing the last set of blueprints?”

My crafting mentor and former teacher shook her head. “Go ahead and start on the air filters when you’re done. They shouldn’t be very difficult for you to design.”

Acknowledging her instructions, I quickly organized the remaining enchantment instructions before making my way to the DIVE headgear I had in my office. I’d probably be able to finish several variants of air filters before the day was finished, which would put me ahead for the week. That was good since I had a lot of recipes I needed to gather.

A LOT of recipes.