A/N: Welcome to the Paranoia re-write, AKA Discovery. I re-titled my story since it was brought to my attention that the current title didn't really fit. Along with a lot of other things. If you wish, you can still read the other story, but I aspire to make this one a hell of a lot higher in quality. Thanks for your time.
Edit 12/6/2014: I've been struggling heavily with depression lately, so this is coming out later than I expected. As a result, I only have the first three chappies to this story done, including this prologue. I'll try to upload semi-regularly, with two or three updates a week if not a day. Things will go up as I finish them, but I wanted to get a foundation for the story before I started uploading, especially with my other story developing. That one will remain a bit of a secret for now.
Prologue: A Bit of Backstory is Always Necessary
"A bit of backstory is always necessary, Matt!" I exclaimed to my best friend over the phone. We were arguing over our next game and its storyboard; we had started a company in the last year and were hard-pressed to find someone willing to do the plot, so we were attempting to shoulder it between the two of us since our solitary employee was busy with the hard-coding. It was a bit hard to coordinate, though, since I was in Japan for university.
"Look, Matt, I know that you want to jump right into it, but exposition is the biggest part of any story! If you don't have it, no one really understands what's going on!" I sighed as an exasperated reply filtered through the receiver. "Fine. I'll try and fit into my busy schedule, oh valued partner. I have to go, the time difference is killer right about now. I'll talk to you tonight, okay? Yeah, bye."
After I got off the phone I cursed into the empty air next to me; I was alone in my apartment. My roommate was off running errands and I had just started school; unless I found someone creative fast, I was fucked. I leaned back in my desk chair and yawned. It was early in the morning for me, and I had a lot of work to do before class tomorrow. Granted, it was already ten in the morning, but that was plenty early for me.
Cracking my neck and promising I'd get all my work done before I had my fun, stood and picked up my mask from the table next to the door, putting it over the lower half of my face with a bitter look. As long as I could remember, I had had some obscure hereditary disease that horribly disfigured my face; I had long jagged black veins clearly visible along it and concentrated especially along my jawline. Additionally, for whatever reason I was unable to cry. At all. Ever. It put off a lot of people from befriending me since I never seemed to have any sympathy and was generally scary to look at, so I had never had too many friends.
Lucky for me, I had met Matt when we were both eleven. He was shunned pretty badly too, though for different reasons; he had a tendency to be completely emotionless and go so far as to avoid human contact. He didn't like people very much as he was afraid that he would catch their stupid, and he was always the top of our class. We made fast friends since I seemed to be the only one who could keep up with his mind and he was the only one that didn't care about my physical appearance.
As time passed, Matt and I grew closer and closer until one day we realized we had just started finishing each other's sentences. It was scary and kind of corny, but high school is like that when you spend all your time almost exclusively in one person's company. Now, our families were naturally supportive and wonderful people, and by the time we had both graduated we had pretty much adopted each other as honorary brothers.
About a month before graduation, we decided to start up a company. We would specialize in game design and development, and we first released a slew of short puzzle games, mostly as filler for our future content. Our next project was the biggest; a full-fledged story-heavy RPG. Unfortunately, the summer drew us apart from our goals a bit. I had gotten a full time job at a summer camp, and Matt was occupied with his girlfriend.
Eventually, though I had to leave America. I had determined that ultimately it was a good choice to move to Japan for college to learn coding from the game developers that founded Nintendo. They were bound to know some good tricks, and Matt and I agreed that it was beneficial to the company, especially with the announcement of the new VRMMO genre. I promised to look into it and get a copy of the NerveGear, the system used to simulate virtual reality, if I could. It would prove revolutionary if we could port our idea to the console.
And so here I was, an aspiring Japanese college student that had just moved from America. Lucky for me, I already knew the language and positively adored culture research, so it wasn't too hard for me to merge with the local university life. Another fortunate occurrence was the gift of my mask. Although I resented it, it covered the lower half of my face from my nose down seamlessly, leaving only my eyes and scalp visible. Since my condition was less prevalent there, it made making friends a lot easier for me. The mask itself was blood red and made from a smooth plastic-titanium hybrid. It was comfortable enough, but having people unable to tell whether I was smiling was a bit of a letdown.
I sighed again, looking at the clock. About fifteen minutes had passed since I took my trip down memory lane, and I groaned and stretched after fitting the mask to my front. I was a lazy fucker, but I had a reasonably good work ethic even so. Shaking the cobwebs out of my head, I opened the front door and left the apartment, locking it behind me.
My first stop was a café I had found by wandering around the area my first few weeks. It was a bit of a hole in the wall, but the owners were nice people and the bartender was even American like me! Well, his wife was American. His name was the most American about him as he grew up in Japan. I strode in purposefully and took a seat at the bar; it was pretty much empty given the time, and the only other occupant of the room was the owner himself. "Yo, Andrew," I greeted as he slid me my usual English-style breakfast. "Looking forward to the launch today?"
"You know I am, Charles," the man replied in his characteristically deep voice. We were speaking in English as usual to give me some comfort; it was a bit off-putting when no one really cared to learn your language, though it was understandable seeing as it was one of the world's hardest to learn. Too many grammar rules. "You got a username and character appearance picked out already?" I nodded as I ate. "Good to know. Mine's going to be Agil if you want to shoot me a friend request when you get in."
I swallowed my latest bite and looked up at last, smiling. "I'll do that, Andy. How's Kathy doing? I haven't seen her in a while. She still sore about you winning the fight for control of the game?" Andrew laughed and leaned forward onto the counter.
"She's doing fine. She's out running errands right now. Besides, she couldn't be too sore that I beat her fair and square." I smirked. "Shut up, you. It was perfectly fair and you know it." I widened my smirk and Agil sighed; I had helped him a little bit with his fight prior to it to help him win; Kathy didn't know.
"Whatever you say, Andy. Well," I started, drinking the last of the orange juice he had provided me, "I ought to go. I have quite a bit of work piled up that I need to finish before logging in. I'll see you there. Don't be worried when you get my request as soon as you get it; you know full well I'm keeping my screen name a surprise!" Waving, I left the café.
Of course, the two of us had been talking about the biggest game of the decade, Sword Art Online. The game was the first full dive game for the NerveGear and was truly a masterpiece of code. It was an RPG with a twist – you made your own character. It wasn't unlike a game such as Skyrim or Oblivion from the early 2000s, but your dialogue choices were only as limited as your mind and the plot breadth was truly extraordinary. As both an avid player and a developer, I had to get a copy.
Andrew, of course, would also be joining me in game. He and his wife Kathy had met inside an MMO, and so gaming was a very big part of their lives. The fight the two of us had referred to was a battle between him and Kathy to determine who would receive the honor of playing Sword Art Online during launch day; he had only been able to secure one copy of the game as there were only 10,000 made in the first batch.
Next up on my list of tasks for the day was to find my roommate, Ryōtarō. Even though he was a full four years older than me, he helped me out once I arrived in his country and was one of the kindest people I had ever met. He and his close group of friends were in a guild together in another MMO; as such, I waited in line with them to get a copy of the game. He and I were planning to dive together as a testament to our friendship.
Ryōtarō was one of the most amusing people I had ever met. He was a bachelor like myself, but he was overly enthusiastic when meeting pretty much any unattached woman. It had embarrassed me on many occasions, and I often found myself apologizing to the poor girls. What my friend and roommate lacked in tact, however, he more than made up for in loyalty. As the guild leader in his MMO, he made a point never to leave someone behind and always help them where he needed to. In addition, even though he know about my facial appearance, he couldn't care less and supported me where others shunned me.
After wandering aimlessly for a while, I slapped myself upside the head at my foolishness. I fished my phone out of my pocket and dialed his number; he picked up almost immediately. "What's up, man?" he asked brightly. I smiled at his enthusiasm; Ryōtarō was always happy to see or talk to me. "What did you want?"
"I just want to know your location, dude," I replied with a chuckle. "I was going to come help you out with whatever you're doing for a bit. I hope you didn't forget to order the pizza in preparation for our dive in a couple hours!" We had made sure to plan out our day for maximum efficiency; this way we would only have to be logged out of the game for a few minutes before jumping in again. Since it was launch day, the pair of us had made the questionable decision to pull an all-nighter that night; since Monday was a weekday it was a bit risky.
"Oh yeah, the pizza! I'll call after I get off the phone! By the way, back to your question, I'm just about finished so I'll meet you back at home, alright? I know you have some work to do with Matt." I sighed into the receiver and Ryō, as I called him to shorten the name and generally irritate him, laughed loudly. "Of course you don't want to work. We can always sync up the NerveGears instead?" He ended in a question.
I brightened almost instantly. "Sounds great! I'll meet you back at home. Half an hour sound good? Just saw Yuki and want to say hi and make sure she's still coming over later." I had in fact caught sight of another of my friends; Yuki Nagato, someone I had met in the library my first few days here. She was a junior in high school but had an astounding knowledge of literary culture from both Japan and America, so we hit it off right away.
"Hey! Yuki!" I called out, jogging to reach the girl. "How's it going? You're still coming over, right?" She smiled slightly and upturned her face to meet my eyes. Yuki was one of the shyest people I had ever met, which drew me to her naturally. I found her silence and social ineptitude rather cute.
"Yes," her simple response was characteristic of her and I grinned. "5:30, right?" I nodded. "I'll be there. The key is in the usual place?"
"Yup!" I answered, pretending that my friend could see my smile under the mask. "Try and be there a little early, you know how I like seeing your face when I wake up!" Yuki blushed a bit and I threw an arm around her shoulder. "Bah! I'm just joking and you know it. Seriously though, try to make it a bit early. Ryō and I tend to lose track of time when it comes to games."
"Will do. See you later, Charlie." With that, Yuki turned and walked away. I shook my head at the action; the girl just didn't know how to act around people. Granted, I had been much the same as a kid, but my personality woke up at some point. It just took some time out of the books for me to realize I wasn't living up to my full potential.
I glanced at my watch and then at a nearby street sign. My eyes widened and I swore. I had fifteen minutes to get back to my apartment and it was nearly a forty five minute walk from where I was. I sighed and smacked myself; it appeared I had wandered quite a ways from my home. Luckily, I knew that both Ryō and Matt could wait a bit longer and took off running.
It was nearly twelve thirty when I got back to my room. Panting, I burst in to the sight of Ryō on the phone while lounging on the couch with our NerveGears on the table. I sighed in relief; I was safe for the moment. I took out my own phone and dialed Matt, making the international call with almost no effort. So much had changed in communication technologies since my childhood in the early 2000s.
The dial tone rang for thirty seconds before forwarding to voicemail. I shrugged and left a message for my partner telling him that it wouldn't be until late that I could get to the work we needed to do since my blunder of a hike ended so spectacularly bad. He would understand, and after finishing I hung up and slid the phone into my pocket. Turning to Ryō, who had by now finished his own call, I grinned and pushed him to the side before flopping down on the couch next to him.
"Ready?" I said excitedly, taking off my mask and setting it on the table in place of my NerveGear, which I had picked up. "Yuki's going to be here early, so don't be too surprised about it when we log out." Ryō smirked slyly at me and I punched him playfully. "Oh stop it, there's nothing between us and you know it."
"So if there's nothing between you two, you won't mind if I charm her then, right?" I glared at him and he chuckled. "Yeah right, nothing between you two. If you don't come to your senses pretty soon, I'll have to act myself!" I punched him again, not holding back this time, and smiled when he winced.
By now it was nearly time for our dive, and we hurriedly calibrated our NerveGears. After we made sure everything was ready for us and that the key was in its usual place under the potted plant we had reluctantly placed outside, Ryō and I lay on the floor across from each other, watching with bated breath as the clock counted down to 13:00. 45…46…47… I counted in my head, my excitement growing with every tick of the second hand on our retro analog.
"Link Start!" The two of us nearly screamed as the minute hand finally ticked to its position on the twelve. Finally, we would be entering the game we had been looking forward to for about a year. Finally, I would be able to get a taste of virtual reality. Finally, I could create a character I could walk around as without worrying about people cringing at my disfigurement. Finally, I could make friends in a world where there were none of the usual barriers to social interaction. Sword Art Online was finally a reality.