Characters: Sophia, Pip, Neil, Marcus, Gibbers
“That’s it,” Pip said. “We lost him.”
Sophia rubbed her hands against her face and leaned against the back of the chair, causing it to roll forward and slam Pip against the desk. “Damn. Now what are we supposed to do?”
“We could try pulling the plug,” Neil suggested.
“There’s no telling what that could do. How could you guys let a virus like this invade our systems?”
”It’s not like we welcomed it with open arms and a red carpet.”
“Well, it’s certainly making itself at home.”
“But at least now we have a lead,” Pip squeaked as he struggled to breathe. He was pinned to the edge of his desk by the chair. “Those girls obviously knew something. Two of them were telling the truth and the other two were trying to frame them.”
Sophia pushed herself off the chair. “Yeah, but we don’t who was telling the truth. Can you bring up the video archives and replay them?”
“Yeah, one second…”
Pip shuffled through the old computer files and replayed the video of Tony’s entire journey in Neverquest on the front screen. They watched it through again until there was a shot of Siarra, Kim, Gena, and Roxanne together. Then Sophia told him to pause it.
“Alright,” she said, snapping her fingers. “Neil, run their faces through an identification program. Find out who they are, where they live, and if they have any prior experiences with computers or computer viruses. Somebody’s lying here.”
“I’m on it,” Neil said, wheeling around in his chair. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to go to the cafeteria and get a pizza.”
“Can you bring us back one?”
“No, you can’t eat on the job.”
Suddenly, the phone rang. Nobody answered it. Sophia looked at Pip and Neil, both who were pounding away at their keyboards, and sighed as the phone continued to ring…eight, nine, ten, eleven times. Huffing, she reached over Pip’s desk and grabbed the receiver, throwing it to her ear.
“What the hell do you want?”
“Hey, it’s Marcus,” said the voice on the other end. “I’m at the first house on the list.”
“Whose house is it?”
“Some girl named Joan lives here. Her mom won’t let me in to see her, though.”
“Well, Marcus, you have to go in. We won’t know if the virus was planted there until you do.”
“She threatened to sic her dogs on us. Please, Sophia, they’re big dogs.”
Sophia sighed and clonked Pip over the head with the receiver before putting it back to her ear. “Alright, alright. Marcus, stop crying now. You’re not going to get eaten by a bunch of puppies.”
“Puppies!? These dogs are the size of—”
“I’m going to connect you over to Pip. He’ll tell you what to do.”
“I-I will?” Pip said.
Sophia shoved the phone in his face and he took it slowly.
“Alright…” Pip said. “Marcus, you need to get to the computer in that house, even if it’s just for a second. All I need you to do is press F11 and read off the access code on the bottom of the screen. We can then trace that and see if it matches with the access code of the virus.”
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Marcus muttered. There was static for a moment and then the sound of glass shattering and a woman screaming. Pip stared at the receiver. “Uh, Marcus… What are you doing?”
“Getting you your damn access code.”
“Oh, what the hell is he doing?” Sophia sighed.
“He’s—”
“Actually, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I want pizza.”
“Bring me—”
“No.”
“Get out of my house, you punk!” a woman on the other end of the line screamed. “I’ll call the cops!”
“Shut up, lady!” Marcus barked. There was the sound of a struggle for a moment. “Ow! She’s hitting me with a broom! Ow! Stop that!”
“Oh, for the love of…” Sophia flipped her cell phone open and dialed a number. “Gibbers? This is Sophia. …No, I’m not calling you for a date. Go into that house and get the access number from the computer before your partner gets killed. …Just find the computer and press F11. Okay? Okay.” She tossed her phone to Pip, who caught it in his free hand. “I’m going to get pizza now.”
Pip looked down at both phones, pressing them each to a different ear. “Marcus? Gibbers? Either of you close to the computer?”
Only breaking glass answered his call, followed by more screaming and pain.
“I’m glad we work behind a desk,” Pip said, glancing over at Neil. “Compared to the rest of these guys, it’s almost like we’re not doing any work at all.”
“Ah, the true work of a GM!” Neil laughed.
Pip lowered the phones to his shoulders and watched Sophia disappear out the doorway. Then he leaned back in his seat and stared at the ceiling, listening to the clickity-click-click of Neil’s keyboard. “You know… Sophia is really hot.”
“Yeah, I know. You should see my computer room at home. I got posters of her all over my wall.”
“Right next to your Star Trek ones, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Pip chuckled and closed his eyes, thinking. “…Do you ever think it’s…I don’t know…weird, I guess, that we worship things we can never have?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like Sophia—or any girl, for that matter. We sit and dream and talk about them all day long, but we know we can never have them. Just like Neverquest. It’s just some fantasy that we have to go to when the real world won’t accept us.”
“It’s a pretty damn good fantasy, though, wouldn’t you say?”
“But it’s not real.” He paused and bit his lip, rolling his head from side to side. “I don’t know. Who are we to decide reality? We’ve spent so much time designing this virtual reality game that we don’t even know what reality is anymore.”
“We?” Neil echoed. “No, not we. That was all you, man. You and Tony and Sophia’s father—you built this world. This is your fantasy.” He shrugged. “Me, I’m just here helping out.”
“Well, you’re been a big help. I don’t think I could run this place without you—especially at a time like this.”
“Hey, I’m there for ya, man. That’s why you hired me, right?”
“Well, it wasn’t for your good looks!”
They both laughed.
“…No, really,” Pip said. “It wasn’t for your good looks.”
“I got the access code!” Gibbers shouted over the phone. “It looks like…um…”
“Hang on,” Pip said, scrambling to find a pen. “Okay, go.”
“Hey, Joan’s pretty hot. She’s just sitting here with the game helmet on, looking so sweet and yummy. Heh, I’d like to insert my disc into her drive, if you know what I mean. Up her RAM a bit, you know? Press her start button. Open her Windows. Click her—”
“Would you just read off the access code?”
“Oh, fine. You know what your problem is, Pip? No imagination. You got no imagination, man.”
“The code, Gibbers.”
“Right. Okay, it’s… 2-H-G-3-0-M-4-1-A-2-0-6-ahhhhhhhhhhhight!”
“Wait, what was that last digit?”
“Eight! Eight! The dog’s biting my leg!”
“Yeah, that’s a great rhyme. Is that the whole code?”
“My femur! GOD, that hurts! I’m…going down… Help… The horror, the horror….”
“Alright, so… 2-H-G-3-0-M-4-1-A-2-0-6-8, correct?”
No answer.
“Okay, I’ll get back to you. Good job, Gibbers.” He hung up the cell phone. “Looks like we got the first access code. I’ll see if it matches the virus.”
Giantess World
