C.N. April 2014: Digital Distraction Part 24

They had already started disembarking from the boat when Dani finally finished working on her latest updates and setting them to update on a schedule for the next few days just in case something happened.

She wasn’t too worried. She was due to start at the ‘temple point’ starting position along with three others and if she was reading the map in the guide book right, it was the closest starting point to the docks. She had plenty of time to gather up her things and head out.

She could hear the sounds of people moving around in the corridor, rushing to get off the boat and start playing. She could understand why. If SharpShade Inc. wasn’t involved she would have been ecstatic to be testing out the VirtualNet. However, knowing that the ShadowSwords were involved left her wondering why the hell she had agreed to Pegasus’s request for help in the first place.

On an intellectual level she knew why and it wasn’t because of anything as simple as a desire to prevent other people getting sacrificed. It was partly because of that, but mostly it was because Pegasus had promised her backup and a rather large sum of money towards her expenses. She still felt like she was a complete and utter moron for agreeing to do it though.

As the voices outside faded away she packed her laptop away in her shoulder bag and shrugged on her jacket. Finally she attached her DimDIsk to her arm, enjoying the reduced weight. Even though she didn’t generally compete in tournaments, she still had one of Kaiba Corp’s Duel Disks and often used it to play against her university course mates. She had mentioned a couple of time on the blog that the Duel Disk was more than a little bit heavy. She wasn’t sure that the lighter DimDisk was the answer though.

The VirtualNet system looked impressive, she couldn’t deny that, but she had little hope of a city allowing someone to install the projectors all over town. They were an eyesore and they would, most likely be expensive. Still she wanted to see what the new tech could do in a game.

A knock on the door made her jump, causing her to drop her bag. She flinched as the expensive piece of equipment within hit the floor hard. “I’ll be out in a minute.” She called, picking up the bag and checking the contents.

She let out a frustrated huff as she noticed a crack in her laptop’s casing, but she didn’t get a chance to see if the machine was broken or not. The door slammed open and three men entered the room.

“Umm, hi?” Dani asked, backing up rapidly, glancing around for a way out.

“It’s been a while, Green.” One of the men told her, causing her to look at him, startled. Her face paled as she realised she recognised the man in front of her as one of the men who had held her captive the last time she had run into the ShadowSwords. “You honestly thought we wouldn’t be waiting for you when you got here? Especially after you got Pegasus to add you to the rosta specifically?”

“Honestly?” Dani asked, edging around the room and trying to lure the men further in. It worked on two of them, who moved towards her. The one who knew her stayed in the doorway. “I wasn’t planning on coming, I got bribed into it. And I didn’t expect enough of you to have survived the last few years to remember me, considering the way you off each other at your little Gatherings.” She explained, before grabbing the chair and chucking it at the man by the door.

He yelped and jumped away, allowing Dani a chance to dart out of the room. The men followed, nearly catching her as she raced up the corridor. She managed to gain some ground on them when she grabbed the arm of one of the crew members and used him as a post in order to turn sharply and escape down a corridor.

She was almost to the exit, not that she had anywhere to go after that considering that it led out onto the bad guy’s island, when something heavy came out of nowhere and slammed into her stomach, sending her tumbling to the ground, winded.

As she coughed and gasped, she glanced around, trying to work out what the hell had hit her. It wasn’t hard to work out. One of the other mooks she had seen on the boat was stood by the door with a rather sturdy looking pole.

“Pick her up.” The man from her room gloated as she was dragged to her feet and her laptop and her phone were pulled from her bag.

“No, please!” Dani struggled, watching as her machines were carried over to the edge of the walkway that led out over the ocean and onto the docks below. “No. No. No!” She watched, horrified as the goon holding her stuff dropped the equipment into the water. “You son of a bimph!”

Dani’s cursing was suddenly muffled by the rag that was shoved in her mouth. She tried to spit it out but another cloth, wrapped around her head kept it firmly in place as she was dragged away from the exit, kicking and screaming, fury obvious.

“She’s a feisty one.” The one holding her laughed as she tried to scratch and bite, his amusement fading fast when she elbowed him in the nuts, pulling the cloth way from her head and spitting out the rag as she darted out of the exit and into the nearby forest.

“Should we go after her?” One of the men asked, watching her rather than his colleague who was curled up in a ball on the ground, trying not to throw up.

“No, she’s wearing her DimDisk. It’ll lead us right to her.”

C.N. April 2014: Digital Distraction Part 21

When Yami nodded and moved to the spot indicated, Harper spoke up, his voice carrying around the now silent dining hall. “Activate ‘Stageshow Protocol’ Include players Edmund Harper and Yugi Mutou.”

The crowd let out an appreciative noise as the VirtualNet hubs hummed into action and the floor beneath them converted from the plain white tiles to a cobblestone surface, the walls seeming turn into stone bricks, with torches giving off light.

Yami couldn’t help but be impressed and both sadness and anger flickered through him as it occurred to him that Yugi would have loved to see the VirtualNet in action. If, of course, Dimension Software’s sponsors hadn’t kidnapped him.

“I’m just here to summon an opponent or two for you,” Harper explained to Yami, “And give you a demonstration of what to do and what can happen.”

Yami nodded warily, waiting for him to make his move.

“Your deck goes in the holster, here.” He demonstrated, his stack of cards obviously not Duel Monsters cards unlike the ones Yami slipped into his DimDisk. “Then to fight the opponents within the game, we’ve set it up to allow you to summon your Duel Monsters as your ‘protectors.’ You can have five on the field at any given time and you can have five magic or trap cards set, ready to cast at any point.”

With that he drew five cards and set two cards before sliding two cards into the monster slots. Two men appeared in full suits of armour, wielding swords. Yami took a step back and glanced at Harper, who nodded to him, “Use it like a Duel Disk.”

Yami nodded, drawing five cards and setting one face down before summoning out his Queen’s Knight to attack one of the men.

One of them shattered, but the other, without direction from Harper, tapped a face down card, which glowed brightly for a moment, turned into a gemstone, which equipped itself to his sword, causing it to gain a flaming aura. Then it tapped the second card which caused a set of angelic wings to appear, just before the first guard reappeared. The second guard attacked his Queen’s Knight, which shattered just like the first guard, and Yami’s health decreased by four hundred points.

The first guard then attacked and there were more than a few horrified sounds as it looked like the guard had run Yami through. Then Yami let out a pained howl as the guard pulled his sword back out again and the Pharaoh fell to his knees, clutching his chest.

“I know that must have hurt.” Harper apologised, as Yami got up, glowering at the Guard that had struck him, completely unharmed. “We’ve yet to implement safeties on our VirtualNet so I’m afraid that any attack will feel very real, even if it doesn’t leave any lasting physical damage.” He glanced at Yami, whose health had decreased by another eight hundred points. “Care to call it a day?”

“No.” Yami replied with a shake of his head, “Is it my move again?”

“Once a battle starts, when the enemy creatures have all attacked, it’s the player’s turn again.” Harper nodded, intrigued as to what Yami had planned.

Yami drew, then his scowl turned to a smirk as he played Monster Reborn, which created the same wing effect as the card the guard had activated. Once Queen’s Knight was back on the field, Yami sacrificed it for Dark Magician Girl, activated his face down Sage’s Stone to summon out his Dark Magician and the pair of mages took down the Guards with no sweat.

“And once the enemy creatures are defeated, the battle ends and you can go back to the adventure part of the game.” Harper looked torn between amusement and disappointment as the virtual surroundings disappeared. “You guide books have the plot and the rest of what you need to know about the game in them. We’ll be disembarking in about an hour.”

With that he left, leaving Yami to rejoin his friends, a frown crossing his features when he realised that his health points had yet to recover.

“You okay?” Joey asked Yami.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ve had worse from the Duel Disk system.” Yami shrugged, grabbing up his game guide. “But I think I need to know more about this game system.”

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.”

C.N. April 2014: Digital Distraction Part 9

“Excuse me?” She waved her hand in front of the suited man in front of her, “You know, not that I don’t appreciate the free limo ride but I kind of had plans for today.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Green, but Master Pegasus was most insistent that we find you.” The guy did look apologetic at least.

Green went quiet. She was a reporter in the Duelling world, so she had run into the C.E.O. of Industrial Illusions before. He had never had her brought in for a meeting before and she couldn’t think why he would do so now. She had been a little rude about Kaiba Corp’s recent total system failure but she hadn’t belittled Industrial Illusions once the entire time.

“Did he say why?” Green finally asked, looking a little worried.

“He said you would understand if I were to mention ‘four years ago next Sunday.’ He also told me to offer you anything you wanted from the drinks bar.” The goon informed her.

Green paled at the mention of four years ago. She remembered what happened four years ago all too well and she had hoped that no one else had known about it. It had been a little event she had gotten involved with purely by accident and had been the most involved with magic she had ever gotten. It had also changed her world and left her trying to re-centre herself and understand how her world had changed for weeks.

“If we’re going to be talking about four years ago, I’ll take a glass of whatever is the strongest thing he’s got in that bar.” She grimaced, “I’m going to need it.”

The goon chuckled and poured her a glass of champagne. “This is the strongest thing in the bar, enjoy.”

“This glass is probably worth my entire week’s wages.” Green said as she swirled it around gently before taking a sip, “And I probably should have eaten before drinking this.” With that she downed the glass.

“Another?” The goon asked, “We’ll be pulling into Industrial Illusions London in another minute or so.”

“No, one is quite enough.” Green could feel the haze settling in already, helping her relax about what was to come, “Especially with your boss waiting for me.”

The goon nodded and when the car pulled up he followed her, still holding the open bottle and the used glass, both of which he put on the table next to her. “Master Pegasus will be here shortly.” He promised, “If you need anything, I will be right outside.”

“Thank you.” Green nodded to him. There was no need to be rude to the staff when they were only trying to do their job after all.

The goon nodded back and left the room. Green was there for less than ten minutes before the door opened again and Maximillian Pegasus walked through the door.

“Ah, Dani-girl!” He grinned at her cheerily, “Sorry about the pickup, but you see there’s something rather urgent come up and I’m afraid it just couldn’t wait.”

“Mister Pegasus.” Dani shot to her feet and offered her hand, “It’s an honour sir, but...”

“If I thought there was anyone better for the job, I would have sent my men to pick them up instead.” Pegasus informed her, “However, there wasn’t and you’re perfect for what I have in mind.”

“I’m not magical.” Dani shook her head, “Surely there’s someone with magic who’d be better suited to sort out this mess. I can’t...”

“You can and you must Dani-girl.” Pegasus interrupted, “You see, I have a rather large problem and to be quite frank you’re the only person who can get in there and solve it before it turns from a big problem, to a mass murder.”

Dani went very still at that. “Mass? But it only takes one...”

“Not this time, not as far as they’re concerned.” Pegasus shook his head. “And it’s that time again. I know you aren’t normal, Dani-girl. None who are touched by the Shadows as you were four years ago are ever ‘normal’ again. But that isn’t entirely why I asked you here today.”

“Oh?” Dani asked, wondering how much he knew of her ‘changes’ in the last four years and how it had made her job easier.

“I find myself in need of your skills as a reporter and as a Duellist.” Pegasus explained.

“What skills as a Duellist?” Dani pointed out, reminding the head of Industrial Illusions that she was just as famed for her lack of Duelling ability as she was for her reporting skills.

“Not your skills with the game, Dani-girl, but your skills with the monsters.” Pegasus chuckled, “Your deck loves you and you love them. More importantly you talk with them, not to them or at them. When you step into the VirtualNet, they will aid you because of that. That’s what I need. Someone I know I can trust with my secrets, who I know will not rest until she has uncovered the truth and protected as many people as she can and who I know will be protected in turn.”

“What is it, exactly, you want me to do?” Dani asked, confused and curious, “And what VirtualNet?”

“You haven’t heard, Dani-girl?” Pegasus looked far too amused by that, “I thought you were on top of everything.”

“Apparently this slipped through the gap.” Dani grouched, trying not to get mad and wondering if she should have skipped the glass of Champaign if Pegasus was going to talk circles around her.

“Well, Dani-girl, it all starts with a group called the ShadowSwords...”