Page 28 of Control

“You know about it,” she said.

“Yes.”

“So it’s true?”

“That the game developer was hacked?”

“Yeah.”

“As far as I know,” I said. “Nothing’s been communicate to us from the devs. Right now it’s all a rumor, but people are believing it.”

“So it’s not true?” Reyna asked, somewhat confused.

“There’s no evidence of a hack,” I said, making it as clear as I could. “Someone decided they wanted to start a rumor, I guess. Either that or people started talking about hacking the game and someone thought it was actually going to happen and started blabbing about it all over the place. I’m not really sure how it all got started. All I know is it keeps spreading and people are getting nervous.”

“I know I am,” she said to me. “Aren’t you? Given your status I’d be scared to death! If there was a hack you have to think they’d go right for you. I know there’s the other title holders, but you’re the most prominent.”

“Like I could forget,” I said followed by a light sigh. “Seems all this god damn title has brought me is one headache after another.” I looked over to the plain, brown couch, walked to it and plopped myself down, sending up a small plume of dust. For a moment, I’d even forgotten that it had been 18 months since I’d seen Reyna. I looked up to the ceiling for a moment before looking back down to her. She could see I was stressed not only by what was going on but also because she’s suddenly come back into my life.

We sat there quietly for a minute, the silence in the house eventually becoming deafening. I watched her as she fumbled around with one of her large white rings she’d always worn. She had several, but this one was overly large, silver, with a massive white pearl as the centerpiece. She ran her fingers over it as if using it as a distraction from what had become an uncomfortable situation.

“Welcome back,” I said, unsure of what I wanted to really say to her. All of my emotion was being kept in and I didn’t want to allow myself to let it get the best of me. She looked at me a moment and smiled, knowing that I was simply trying to break the silence.

“Thanks,” she said, looking away from me. She seemed nervous and unsure of what she was doing there with me. A few more moments of silence came and went and it was clear that we were simply not ready to have any sort of conversation about us, but I tried anyway.

“What brought you back?” I asked. She still refused to look at me as if she had a great deal of shame inside that was eating at her.

“Just felt like trying again,” she said. I wasn’t sure what she meant by that.

“Try again?” I asked. “As in just play again?”

“Yeah,” she said. She finally looked back up to me and stopped playing with her ring. “I just…I don’t know. I just thought maybe I could come back and see what’s been going on and talk to some old friends.”

“I see,” I said. As much as I wanted to push her for more, I didn’t want to inundate her with questions. “I imagine you talked to a few more old friends other than Shazz.”

“I did,” she said. “They were all…really happy I was back.”

“I imagine they would be,” I said back to her. “I don’t talk to them much anymore, but I’m sure they all missed you.” Reyna broke eye contact with me and looked away once more. I could feel what was coming, but didn’t want to be the one to initial that conversation.

“And what about you?” she asked, staring down at the floor. I stayed quiet for a few seconds as I thought about how to answer her. Her eyes left the floor and found me again. We stared at each other again for several seconds before a call came through for me on my HUD. Since we were still paired, Reyna also saw the alert. I stared at her ignoring the call which caused her to become even more distressed. I could see she wasn’t able to match the intensity that I still had inside me, her time away from the game becoming obvious. Using my hands more so to let her know what I was doing, I clicked answer and took the video call.

“Ana,” said Cris or Chrysanthemum as she was more commonly known among the player base. She was another title holder and was know to the wider community as The Lookout. To people such as myself and her closer friends, she was simply Cris. “Hey, I need you to come see me.”

“Why?” I asked as I noticed the concern on her fair-skinned face. Something was really bothering her. “What’s going on.”

“I heard you were looking into that rumor of a leak,” she said.

“I am,” I said. “I think it’s just some rumor.”

“That’s why I need you to come see me,” Cris said. “I have a few others here with concerns and I think it’s best if we meet in person to discuss this.”

“Why?” I asked as most discussions could just be held via video call.

“Ana,” she said, her concern growing. “Please, just come. We’re already here at my brothel. We’ll be in my private quarters.” I openly sighed.

“Alright,” I said to Cris. “I’m on my way right now.” With that, I ended the call and took a deep breath and looked up to the ceiling again, wondering what else was going to happen. I looked back down and saw that Reyna was looking to me. I sat there for a moment before standing up and moving toward her and taking her hand. “I guess we’re going to Cris’s place.”

“What do you think is happening with her?” she asked. “She looked worried.”

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