Stella drove her car into the driveway and it came to a full stop. I sat up, unbuckled my seatbelt, grabbed my sweater from the back seat beside me and had my hand on the door handle when Stella spoke up. "Welcome to my humble little condo!"

I paused and looked out the windshield; apparently Stella and I have completely different definitions of the words "humble" and "little." Admittedly her condo was a little smaller than most of the homes around the area, but this was the hills. The higher class lived here, after all. An abandoned lot alone could probably be worth more than my entire apartment complex.

"It's...pretty..." I mumbled as I opened the door.

"Thank you~!" Stella chimed excitedly

We stepped out of the car and the first thing I did was stretch. I brought my hands together over my head and stretched my arms and back until there was a satisfying cracking sound. I closed my eyes and sighed happily as my body relaxed.

Stella began to giggle as the car's lock beeped. "You're not much of a car person are you?"

I shook my head. "It's been a long time since I've been in a car. I usually just take the railway to the mall, even then I get tired of it anyways."

"Oh, but aren't you scared of being molested?!" Stella asked while she fished for her keys in her purse.

"You're hanging out with Mazzy too much." Mag groaned. "That only happens in shitty manga...and porn."

Stella struggled with a lanyard that was caught in her purse, completely ignoring Mag. "Have you called him yet?"

Mag shook her head and took out her phone. "Do you want me to call Mimi too?"

"Please and thank you~"

"Whatever."

Stella sighed as she finally got the lanyard out of her purse, "I love her to death but..." She gave me a weak smile and started to sort through the keys on her lanyard. Finally finding it she said a quiet "Ah!" and made her way to the front door.

"So uh..." The key clicked into place and Stella looked back at me. "Mag and I are a little messy so...sorry for the mess." She looked back at the door and turned the lock, took a step back, placed the lanyard back in her purse, and opened the door for me.

"Uh..." I looked down at my beat up sneakers for a moment and asked "Should I take off my shoes or...?"

"Oh, uh...no." She looked down at her heels, "I mean, you can if you want."

I muttered Thank you," and stepped in. First thing I notice is the smell of pizza and Chinese take-out, I looked around and lo and behold; there on the table ahead of me were a couple of pizza boxes.

Stella laughed nervously. "We kind of like to let the toppings age." She scurried over to the boxes and started to stack them together to take them out. "Make yourself at home; Maggie should be finished in a second."

"Yeah...thanks..." I made my way to the couch, sat down and sank to the bottom of it. I wiggled to try to sit up but I just kept sliding back down right where I started. I blushed out of embarrassment and looked around to see if anyone had seen me. The living room was clear, and from where I was I could also see the kitchen, luckily no one was there either; Stella must've gone to throw out the pizza boxes.

The condo did seem a little smaller from the inside but it felt homely. Messy, but homely. I felt like they generally had a lot of fun here. There was a guitar lying face up on the couch to my right, game controllers were strewn across the table and floor, there was dust gathering on the edge of the fan's blades above, and from over the kitchen's island I could see a mountain of pans peeking over it.

"Hey, need help?" Mag said as she walked in front of me, giving me full view of her neckline. Even while I was sitting down, sinking into a cushion she was still tiny.

I giggled. "Do you always puff up your chest like that?"

"Huh?" She frowned and furrowed her brow, "What does that mean?!"

"You puff up your chest like you're going to fight me every time you stand in place." I covered my mouth with my hand while I giggled. "It's kinda funny now that I think about it!"

She curled her lips and pouted. "Jerk."

I glared at her. "Shrimp."

We stared at each other, not breaking contact. I wasn't going to lose...nope...not gonna...she wants to...gotta hold out...just...!

We burst out laughing almost exactly on sync. I covered my face out of instinct and Mag looked away. We always ended up tying whenever we tried insulting the other.

"What'd I miss?" Stella walked into the living room with a confused look and a RAILS unit in hand.

"Nothing~" I answered in a sing song tone while Mag nodded to back me up.

"Right..." She said suspiciously as she walked over the couch to the right of me, took the guitar that was on it, placed it on the ground carefully, and placed her RAILS unit on the coffee table with a light "thud."

It was a little strange; I would've expected her to have the newest model, but hers was probably four years old since it still had the old teal colored RAILS logo on it instead of the bright red bolded RAILS of the new models. The visor on hers was a lot more circular and seemed to fit the face a bit better but sacrificed aesthetics over versatility; mine looked a lot cooler with its straight edges. The mic on hers had a small Styrofoam tip and looked a little more flexible than mine. The color on her unit was very vibrant blue; it was really "in your face."

"Do you want me to get mine?" Mag asked as she picked up the guitar and started to head down the hallway.

Stella turned her head and answered. "We don't need it right now but bring it if you want."

"Uh huh."

Stella sighed and turned to me "So!"

"Uh..." I paused for a second, what does "so" mean? "...So?"

"Sorry, didn't know how to start." She ran her fingers through her hair. "I don't have to talk about this much so it's a little hard to explain."

...And I'm lost again, "You mean coding?"

"Yes-No!" She scratched her scalp while she looked for the right words to say. "Sort of. You see I might've, uh...'contorted the truth.' I know how to code−and I'd be happy to teach you, I have a degree in it−but that's not what my job is."

I tilted my head in confusion. "What's your job then?"

"Well..." She smiled and winked "I'm a data mercenary!"

I stared at her. What was up with that delivery? First she acts all nervous about it, and then she yells it out like it's her super power. "What's a data mercenary?"

"Well in the private sector...private sector is like big conglomerate companies. You know what corporate espionage is, right?"

"Well, it's-" Before I could even answer the doorbell rang and Stella stood up. "Let me answer that first."

I nodded as I watched her open the door and a guy with a motorcycle helmet under his arm stepped in. He looked older than Stella, probably in his late twenties, probably twenty-seven-ish. He wore a black and red leather motorcycle jacket and a matching red t-shirt with black jeans. His hair was a dark red that was nearly black and was so well kept it almost made me jealous, his bangs were pretty long for a guy, in fact they could almost cover up his left eye.

"Maggie called." He said as he and Stella hugged and kissed cheeks.

"There was somebody we wanted you to meet." Stella answered. "Do you know if-Hey!"

Before she could finish the guy had cleared the space between her and me and was already sitting beside me on the couch. "Hey there, you know, you never accepted my friend request."

Oh god. It was this guy. Suddenly my image of him has dropped from cool and mysterious to flirty and annoying. "Well you did pull your sword out on me." I said coldly.

He pulled out a cocky smile and winked. "It's a badass sword, huh? If you want I can show you what it can-"

"Stop compensating you moron," Mag massaged her hand after taking a fistful of his bangs and yanking. "Also, she's jailbait."

"Oww..." He groaned and rubbed his forehead. "She looked older..."

I blushed a little, like I always do whenever somebody talked about the way I looked. Still, I didn't know if looking older than my real age was a good thing or not.

Mag cleared her throat to get our attention. "Carmel, the moron to your left is Mazzy. Mazzy, the girl to your right and out of your league is Carmel."

"You have a pretty name Carmel." he smiled and stuck out his hand for me to shake.

"It's actually Carmen," I shook his hand cautiously.

"Oh, which do you feel the most comfortable with then?" Again with the irony...

"Carmel's fine." I answered bluntly. "Lemme guess, your name isn't actually Mazzy, is it?"

He shook his head while Stella came over and sat with Mag on the couch to our right, "Name's Mazuma actually."

"Oh, like that Aztec king?" I asked.

"Uh...That's Moctezuma, not Mazuma. It's Yiddish." He stuttered for a moment. "...And uh...1920's slang for money...you can call me Zuma too..."

I mouthed out the word "right," paused, then answered "I'll just call you Mazzy."

The room went quiet. Nobody really knew what to say. What could I possibly add to the conversation? Jesus, this was awkward...

"So uh..." Stella cleared her throat. "Where was I?"

"Corporate espionage!" I said in too much of a haste to stop the awkwardness.

"Oh!" Mazuma looked excited. "Is she telling you the story of how she's a spy, used me, and broke my heart?"

And...now it was awkward again.

"I said I was sorry!" Stella protested.

"You can't just say sorry and make it better!" Mazu-...err...I mean, Mazzy answered back.

"I've been saying sorry for the last, what? Four, five years?!" Once again, I sat there awkwardly, not really knowing what to say. I glanced over to Mag and accidentally made eye contact. Before I could look away she looked over to her sister, rolled her eyes, and mimed shooting herself. I tried to stop myself from giggling but it just sorta came out, luckily (or unluckily) that didn't stop the two from arguing.

"Yeah, because 'sorry' solves everything!" Mazzy yelled as he stood up, not even noticing me or Mag.

"No, but I thought we've moved on from that!" She stood up and stared daggers. Apparently Stella didn't notice either.

"You had no right to do what you did!"

"I'm sorry but it had to be done!"

I looked back over to Mag who was in the middle of a face palm. I brought my hand up my mouth and tried to keep it shut. Mag smiled and gathered her hair in two tufts, like pigtails. Her eyes motioned to her right, towards Stella, and it finally clicked.

I gripped my lips together tighter while Mag started mouthing out words in time with her sister. It was almost scary how good she was at imitating her sister; she wore that same pouty lip curl, that narrow-eyed glare, and those furrowed pencil-thin brows.

I had to bring my other hand up to keep my mouth shut, trying to keep from giggling too hard. She was so good at it, like if she had memorized everything beforehand. Every blink, every lip curl, up to the foot stomp was just so perfect, I couldn't help but laugh.

The screaming stopped but I didn't. I realized both Mazzy and Stella were looking at me weird and Mag was still imitating Stella's one eyebrow lift.

"What are you-?" Mazzy sounded irritated at me but once he had finally noticed Mag he couldn't help but snicker.

"What is wrong with you two?" Stella asked, looking between both of us. When none of us answered (we were still too busy giggling to form a sentence) she looked over to Mag who immediately dropped her act (and her pigtails) and shrugged like she really didn't know what had happened.

Stella sighed and sat back down. "Can I just finish my story?"

We all nodded and Stella started. "So, as I was saying I'm a data mercenary, I spec-"

"I prefer 'spy.'" There was a smug grin on Mazzy's face.

"I think 'hacker' sounds a lot cooler." Mag quipped.

Stella growled, trying to keep her cool. "As a DATA MERCENARY, my job is to get whatever information my contractor wants by whatever means necessary." She paused and sighed. "So I am sort of a hacker and spy..."

"That's how she met Mazzy!" Mag snickered.

A look of annoyance with a hint of a blush spread across Stella's face. "...We'll...get to that in a second."

I nodded. "So let me get this straight, you're going to teach me how to be a hacker?"

"Uh..." She shook her head. "Kinda...I'll get to that in a bit. It'll make sense; just stick with me for a second. One day I got a job from an anonymous source, they wanted me to get them the source code for RAILS."

"What's a source code?" I've heard of the phrase before but I never understood what it was.

"You know all those ones and zeroes at the beginning of Matrix?" Mazzy answered instead.

I nodded.

"Well, that's a computer language called binary." He brushed his hair to the side and paused. "With the source code it's easier to decrypt code into a language that's easier to understand. Every game, program, and OS has its own source code. Think of it like the Colonel's secret recipe: you could probably find out the twelve herbs and spices if you tried hard enough, but it would be a lot easier if you have the recipe. Speaking of which..."

Mazzy looked over to Stella who responded bluntly, "No. We're having Thai food delivered, we already settled this."

"But-!" He didn't get very far before he gave up.

Stella rolled her eyes playfully and said, "Anyways, I had to get the source code for RAILS which is where he comes in." She pointed towards Mazzy. "Mazzy over here is part of the original team of developers that made RAILS. He was actually one of my heroes while I was still in college."

"Wait, really?!" It felt like I was meeting a person from history, like Einstein or Tesla. "That's so cool!"

He gave a humble chuckle and rubbed his neck awkwardly. "It's nothing really..."

"You act like its some big deal." Mag slouched in her seat "Rio is the daughter of two of them and Nafhe is the creator's granddaughter."

"Professor Zaha spoiled that girl rotten." Mazzy groaned and shivered and I couldn't help but giggle.

The door rang and Mag rushed to the door to open it. She yelled out "MIMI!" and hugged the Asian woman at the door. She was dressed in a woman's business suit and had hair that reached to her mid-back, probably a foot shorter than mine and not in a ponytail.

She looked uncomfortable while being hugged by the tiny Mag. I didn't blame her; Mag doesn't hug people like a normal person, and she was probably trying to get under her skin to be honest.

"Ugh..." The woman stood uncomfortably at the door and looked over to Stella, "Stella, can you...?"

Stella sighed...again; I was starting to notice a theme here. "Mag, stop it..."

Surprisingly Mag did let go and came over and sat down to my left, leaving me between her and Mazzy. I looked at the two and it worried me, they both had this grin on their face, like they were planning something.

The woman walked over to the couches and looked at Stella, "I was told there was something important...?"

Stella smiled warmly, stood up, and did the whole hug-kiss-kiss routine, "Thanks for coming Mei. We wanted you to meet somebody."

They both looked over to me at the same time and the woman stretched out her hand, "Mei Xing-La Holliday."

Holiday? That was her name? Weird...I took her hand and shook it, "Carmel...err...! I mean Carmen!" Even I'm doing it now, Jesus.

"Nice to meet you Carmen." She smiled, but I felt she had done it out of sense of politeness and not general niceness.

"Likewise." I paused for a second to work up the nerve. "What was your last name again?"

"Xing-La is my maiden name, Holliday I got from my husband." She said as if she had memorized it...

"We just call her Mimi!" Mag blurted out, wearing the coyest smile possible.

"Ooh! Can we go eat at Mimi's Cafe?" Mazzy chimed in.

Stella and Mei glared at him.

"My name, Mazuma, is Mei." She glared at Mazzy with total and complete malice.

"Um...uh..." He stuttered "Tai food is fine too...Mei."

Stella smiled triumphantly and looked over to Mei. "Please sit down; we'll get to you shortly." She cleared her throat, "I met Mazzy hoping I could get the source code from him but..."

Mazzy picked up the story from her, "The OS between my time..." He pointed towards his motorcycle helmet, but now that I saw it from closer up, was actually a RAILS unit, the first model in fact. "...And the new OS is too different for my source code to decrypt most of it."

"We found out later though…" Stella took back the reign of her story "That we could still access the developer's console in any game that had the Irino Corp logo on it. We ended up choosing Arcana because it had the biggest population of all Irino Corp games, which meant it had to have the most moderators and admins to keep the peace. We used the developer's console to start learning some of the commands the system used. We hoped that we could use these commands to crack and decrypt files in the new RAILS OS this way..."

Stella sighed, her demeanor changing. "…Then we started noticing a command we couldn't understand..."

"Slash logout underscore lockout..." I looked over to Mazzy, even his demeanor dropped. Everyone's did, and the room felt tense.

/logout_lockout

What did it mean?

"What's that mean?" I asked.

Stella looked sorrowful. "We wanted to know what that command did. So we took shifts, waiting for that command to appear again. It took a while but eventually I noticed someone entering the command during my shift. I rushed to that area...and...that's where Mei comes in..."

We all looked over to Mei who was staring at the floor, "My husband...is a private investigator...a mother had come into our office. Usually we have jealous spouses, or kids looking for their parents, but this mom came into our office crying. Her son−he was in college and loved VRMMO's−had fallen into a coma. They weren't that well off and had to have her son transferred to St. Joseph Grace Hospital, but as it turned out, it was owned by a company called Healthy Families Pharmaceuticals, which was itself owned by Irino Corp."

Oh...oh, no. I was starting to notice a pattern here and I didn't like it

Mei continued on. "This mother felt that Irino Corp was in someway responsible for what had happened to her child. My husband began an investigation, and it eventually led to him logging into Arcana. Some high ranking Admin caught wind of his investigation and ordered my husband to be locked out. It's more like being locked in to be honest..."

Again Stella took control of the story again. "What the lockout command does is make it impossible for you to be able to log out; it locks your consciousness into the game, and leaves your body as a vegetable."

I covered my mouth and whispered to myself "Oh my god..."

Stella nodded solemnly... "Do you remember the person that was with me when we attacked your group? That was Mei's husband."

I tilted my head in confusion "But wasn't that a girl?"

Mei nodded and tried to disguise her sob with a cough. "The admin decided it would be funny to change his avatar to a girl...the sick fuck..."

I thought back to when I registered. Not once did it ever ask what gender I wanted to use. I never really wondered why, but to be forced to live your life as the opposite gender away from your loved one...it must be a special type of hell.

"That's..." Mag spoke up, and she sounded different, more reserved. "That's why I didn't want you to log in...I didn't want you to risk the chance of getting locked out."

"..." I thought about what they were saying. Could they really be right? Is Irino Corp really part of this giant cover up? There's no way. They would've been sued by now right? They have to be lying.

"What's your proof?"

Everybody looked at me like I was crazy, everybody except Stella, who shook her head, "If we had any proof we wouldn't be in this situation. Irino Corp covers their tracks well."

Maybe she was right. Mei's story felt so sincere. It was the only thing that made me consider that maybe they were telling the truth.

I clicked my tongue. "What if I say I believe you?"

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Mag instantly light up, and to my surprise she actually hugged me. "Oh my god! I thought you were going to think we were crazy!"

I see why Mei was so uncomfortable with her hug; she was hugging so hard, squeezing my shoulders it almost hurt. "Mag you're squeezing too hard!"

"I thought you wouldn't want to talk to me!"

"Mag, stop!"

"I was so worried!"

"Mag!"

I looked up to Mazzy, pleading with him for help. He shook his head and just watched as I was squeezed to death. He's so going to pay.

Stella cleared her throat, and suddenly Mag didn't seem so important anymore. "Carmel, I'll teach you how to be a coder and a hacker, but I can't guarantee that you'll be safe."

I lowered my gaze and thought about it: I could be trapped forever in a game. My mom would be heartbroken; my little brother would have to grow up so quickly because of me. They wouldn't have to worry about paying for my hospital stay but I wouldn't be able to help Mom pay the bills anymore.

Still...I had this sense of duty. A sense of wonder. I was getting myself involved in something I shouldn't, but I felt I should. I bunched my hands into fists, grabbing at the couch cushions under me like if they were some sort of support. I raised my gaze and tried to look as confident as possible. "I want to help."

Stella smiled. "Welcome to the Black Star guild."

Thanks for reading chapter 2 of Arcana! As always, big thanks to my beta-reader Black Maiden for helping work out the kinks I always seem to miss. Don't be afraid to drop a review with your honest opinion on the story, positive or negative. I'm going to go watch SAO II now...