C.N. April 2014: Digital Distraction Part 20

Joey was confused as he watched Yami pounce on the buffet breakfast table with a ravenous hunger that was very different from anything he had seen from the Pharaoh before. Yami was never this hungry, especially when things went wrong. Normally when he was stressed Yami just didn’t eat, not unless someone forced him to so it was weird to watch the Pharaoh stack his plate up high and slump down at the table next to him with a huge glass of orange juice.

“Yugi?” He asked as Yami guzzled down the glass. “You feeling alright?”

“I...” Yami bolted down a couple of sausages, then paused and blinked at him, “I don’t know.” He admitted, pausing to consider himself properly, “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this hungry or thirsty before.”

“Did you eat at all yesterday?” Kari asked as she settled at the table with a much more reasonable sized breakfast.

Yami nodded as he chowed down on his bacon and eggs. “Grandpa made me eat before I left the shop.”

Kari and Ombre looked at each other, a thought occurring to them both at the same time. Back when the spirits had lived within their Items all their energy and power had come from the items and their other selves. Kari’s theory was that most of it still did because all the hikaris still ate like they were still supporting their other selves, tired when their darker selves did and when the lights were ill or fading, the darks lost some of their power.

Without Yugi carrying the Puzzle he and Yami couldn’t talk telepathically however they were still the same soul. Dani, the reporter from last night, had warned that the people holding Yugi tended to neglect to feed their prisoners. If Yugi wasn’t getting anything to eat or drink, then he had no energy to feed Yami so the Pharaoh had to get his energy from somewhere else. Obviously his new body translated the energy requirement to eating enough to feed the entire Gryffindor table.

“I’ll make some sandwiches up for later.” Tea decided. “I mean I know we all brought food this time and Dimension say they’re going to provide some food but...” She gestured to the plates of both Yami and Joey.

“Good idea.” Kari agreed, noting that halfway across the room, D.M.G. was wrapping up several sandwiches and shoving them in her backpack, obviously planning for later too.

She had just finished her breakfast and helped Tea make up some sandwiches to carry around with her when a smartly dressed man in a black suit, ridiculously slicked back hair and a wide, smug, grin as he looked over the people nearby.

“Welcome everyone.” The man said, gesturing round to them all, “I am Edmund Harper, C.E.O. of Dimension Software. All of you here have been carefully selected from countries across the globe in order to test out our new VirtualNet system. Since you’re all from different places, I must request that you speak English while you’re on the island in order to allow for ease of communication.” There were a few discontented murmurs, but generally everyone agreed with that easily.

“Now we’re only a couple of miles out from the island, I’m going to give you each a DimDisk.” The CEO gestured to a group of men by the door who wheeled in a rather large box. To each of the people in the room they handed a piece of equipment that looked rather like a trimmed down Duel Disk.

Kari turned it over in her hands, considering the piece of equipment as Harper continued, “In a few minutes we’ll register your DimDisks to you so we can tell what player is where and how each of you are doing.” Joey grimaced slightly. It made sense but would mean that they would have to take their disks off in order to sneak around and try and find Yugi. “Each DimDisk starts off with eight thousand health points.” He continued, “When you run out of health, your DimDisk will lock down, preventing you from continuing your journey and knocking you out of the game.” His men handed round manuals to each of them, “When this happens you will need to report to the castle in the middle of the island which happens to be the main base of the ‘Dark Master’ who is the final boss of this demo game, in order to regain access to your Deck which will be locked within the DimDisk upon your defeat. This means if any of you actually make it through to the final round, those who have been knocked out of the demo will get to see exactly what they would have been facing.”

Which sounded good in theory but meant that the defeated Duellists would be rounding themselves up for the bad guys without even thinking about it purely because they would want access to their deck again.

“You might notice that your DimDisks are much lighter than the Kaiba Corp Duel Disk.” Harper sounded excitable, as if he had looked forward to this for a long time, “This is because they require much less processing power within them. All the hard work is done by the VirtualNet. All you have to do is play your cards and make your moves. The DimDisk will recognise the cards you play and the VirtualNet will do all the processing for you and project the results of your moves.”

He scanned the crowd of players and grinned as his eyes rested on Yami, “Ah, Yugi Mutou, would you help me with a demonstration?”

Yami’s eyes narrowed but he nodded and got up, strapping on the DimDisk as he stepped up to join the CEO.

“Right, give us one second.” Harper said as one of his men, carrying a laptop and a handheld scanner, “We just need to register your disk...” Yami allowed them to turn his arm so they could scan the barcode on the bottom of it. He then waited semi-patiently while they tapped his name into the computer, linking his details to the disk on his arm.

The screen on the top of the DimDisk, which was where the circular top of a Duel Disk would have showed his lifepoints, flickered to life, showing a set of eight boxes, a green health bar with 8000/8000 underneath it, and his name or rather Yugi’s name.

“Right, Yugi.” Harper grinned at him, “What you and the other players didn’t know until this moment is that this entire room has been laced with the VirtualNet system.” DimSoft’s leader pointed to the black half-spheres on the ceiling, “Those aren’t security cameras. Those are the VirtualNet hubs for this room.”

Yami nodded, unable to help but wonder if the ones on the island would look like that or whether they would be camouflaged better.

Harper gestured to his men who scurried aside, clearing a section of floor. “If you would be so kind, Yugi, I wish to demonstrate the battle system.” He said as he slipped his own DimDisk on. “And don’t worry, your health will be restored at the end of this little demonstration.”