THE MOMENT
"Why me?" Aurelio asked after accepting the job. The bushy haired teenager was confident Justice had a reason for seeking him out, but he didn't want to accidentally encourage her to reconsider. He and Justice were alone in a sealed white room, because she also asked for privacy. She wore a crisp white blazer and slacks with a red tie, so she was technically supposed to be working. She tilted her head, making her pink braids sway, and narrowed her eyes.
"Did you even read the bug report before saying yes? It's the very first line," she said.
"Oh," he shrugged and brought the node up to take a second look. "You said you only wanted me to fix the last three, so no." He held the transparent glass card up by the tip and read the red text; the solid white background of the space helped it stand out. "Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Did you tell him already?"
The first line of the bug report was about a glitched princess, and those were something their friend, Oren, was very interested in. And, if the bug report was processed normally, the princess would have been fixed without Oren ever knowing about it. And, it might've been her. Aurelio could fix the outstanding issues while Oren and Justice went to investigate the princess.
"Going to the site next, and I'll Whisper him from there," she said. She threw a black card against the wall as she answered, and it opened a tall black portal.
"Wait, how do you want me to handle the subjective time diff? It's probably just an SST misalignment and Janet owes me a couple of favors. I can go through her, or Chronos; he's still connected with the Sharp time stream."
"Use Chronos. If he’s busy, figure something out," Justice nodded. "Janet's whisker deep in something else." She said it in a hurried fashion as she turned toward the portal, and rushed through it before he could ask anything else.
She emerged on a bright, breezy meadow on the outskirts of a dense forest. Bowling ball-sized blue slimes and unusually oversized rodents wandered the plain searching for their chance to help make someone stronger, but Justice had her sights set on something else. She spotted the dark-haired princess at the mouth of the forest, staring intently forward into the darkness.
The forest itself was a dense wall of blood-red pine trees, except for a narrow path flanked by white-flame torches. Each torch flickered with bright, solid white light visible even at midday, helped in part by the red background.
[Found a Princess. - Jstice] She sent the Whisper as she closed the gap toward the bugged NPC. She expected an immediate response and wasn't surprised when he emerged from a portal mid-step alongside her.
"Thank you," he said it without looking at her. He was focused on the Princess as they approached. She had raven black hair, but unfortunately, that only meant he was worth calling. It wasn't enough to get hopeful about. He wasn't remotely romantic but Oren was ostensibly, officially Justice's boyfriend and she knew all about Oren's search for a princess.
The AlterNet was reality rewritten as a game. The nanos involved saturate an entire Earth and function as programmable atoms; they subsume the existing reality to create an immersive MMO layer. A woman, a Unique Soul, named Eva was once like an adoptive mother figure to Oren. Then, she was rewritten as a Princess. Her soul was merged with AlterNet nanos, and Oren had been searching for her ever since.
"Please guide me deep into the heart of the Blood Forest. From there I can journey safely to my home in the village," the lovely princess made her at-odds request once the pair were close enough.
"I'm gonna go," Justice smiled, hugged Oren, then vanished while he processed it. That was Eva's quest text. She had dark hair, fair skin and blue eyes like Eva, and billions of other NPC princesses; but that was Eva's quest text. It didn't mean it was her, but it was a good sign. And, Justice knew Oren wouldn't want her to see his reaction, regardless of the outcome. If it was her, he wanted to be alone with Eva. If it wasn't, he wanted to be alone.
"I'll help you," Oren nodded. His first test was to make sure she wasn't working right.
"Please guide me deep into the heart of the Blood Forest. From there I can journey safely to my home in the village," she repeated it without accepting his help.
"What's...," he paused as he met her dull blue eyes. The NPC gaze was something that took a while for players to identify. Her eyes had a far off look of concentration, as if she were looking through him, and yet he somehow still had all her attention.
"What's your favorite number?" he asked.
"35!" For the first time, the Princess blinked. She was surprised at her own answer. Surprised she had an answer, and astounded she had many answers. She awoke to a new clarity, and even some memories. The instant, short answer was an entire symphony to Oren's ears. Her eyes sparkled like sapphires as they filled with tears. She recognized him, and more importantly, herself.
"OREN!" she threw her arms around him and he returned the gesture with a tight squeeze.
"C'mon Princess, Eva," Oren opened a portal beneath them and they began to sink into the black hole. "Let's get you home safely."