## 2018:05:18:20:36 - The World Neuvo: μ Test Phase Bolgograd

Step by attentive step, Jyos roamed the mess of meshes that filled the zone in search of the mysterious Taha. If Taha is Tovia, they'll surely recognize me, he thought. At the same time, there danced in his mind the fancy of finding them first. There was something more comforting in that idea, perhaps the possibility of catching them in the act of spying on other gamers.

"Psst! Jyos!"

Alas, no such luck. At least they recognized him.

Jyos turned to see a strange new character hiding behind a rock. They glanced both ways and then motioned him closer.

"Is Gemphl watching?" said Taha.

"No. He's..." Jyos paused. Should he inform them Doslad hadn't been on chat recently? Why were they asking for Doslad specifically? Did they know Gemphl was Doslad?

"I'm afraid of logging into chat. I might expose our chat system server," said Taha.

"Why?"

"I'm being followed."

"By whom?" How fun, a mystery... or a lie, thought Evan. Was Taha hoping to deceive anyone? Why? What would they gain in doing so?

"I can't explain the details very well, but I just know."

If they were trying to fool anyone, they were doing a pitiful job at it.

"You spilled some of them already," Jyos pointed out.

"I did. I probably said too much then."

"Don't you trust us?" asked Jyos pointedly.

There was a silence. Taha looked down in regret. Evan could tell they were pondering their answer. Evan found himself starting to relax alittle. Perhaps it was because of their canned answers carrying into nothing, Evan felt they were either an amateur failing miserably at tricking him... or it really was Tovia.

The silence carried on for a full minute. Finally, Taha broke the silence.

"I guess trust has always been an issue in this group. We're all so secretive no one wants to share anything with each other..." Taha paused again.

Jyos just stared, unphased.

After a few relaxed breaths, Taha straighted up and eyed Jyos with a serious look, "There's someone - an outsider - who knows about this game. I don't know if they've managed to infiltrate it yet, but they were really curious because they came to me in person and asked about it."

"Really?" said Jyos in modest yet perked curiosity. "What kind of person?"

"I couldn't find out anything about them other than that they weren't who they said they were according to some hackers who have access to the information."

"Who did they say they were?"

"Evan Yeltsin of the Bureau of Psychological Health, section C."

Evan chewed on this tidbit of information for a minute. This is random. Why would she name someone so random? This story wasn't making any sense. What else could he ask but the most logical question:

"Why do you think he was following you?"

"I don't know."

That wasn't helpful. On the one hand, Taha was sounding believable. On the other hand, their story still sounded very contrived and poorly executed. It was time to cut to the chase: perhaps she'd remember more if he asked something he knew about her.

But before he could utter another word, Taha added, "He showed up after..." Taha hesitated. "I need to trust you. Yeltsin showed up when I went to the hospital for trauma. The truth is... I was wearing a headset that day when we were trying to examine... lure and examine Mobashem."

This was Tovia. Now the pieces were fitting into place. But who was Yeltsin? Obviously, he wasn't "who he said he was", but did that mean...

"I see. So this Yeltsin showed up to see you. Was he not of the Bureau of Psychological Health then?"

"Exactly!" Taha said emphatically. "I don't know where he was from. He asked some very piercing questions. He was trying to log in or something. What I don't understand is how he found out and why he's so interested."

"And this makes you nervous?" Jyos said unimpressed.

To Evan, the game was a game. Perhaps the guy was a game fanatic. That wouldn't explain why he suddenly showed up at a hospital, and come to think of it, it was rather creepy that he'd be spying on a gamer so closely that he'd visit her at the hospital. What kind of creep would do that? Maybe the KGB? Evan thought jokingly. Then again, it's not like anyone else would do that. Needless to say, the story was still very confusing. Thankfully, he had at least confirmed this was Tovia.

"Why would someone visit me at a hospital for a game?!" said Taha, expressing aloud Evan's thoughts.

"What all did he ask about?"

"He was..." Taha looked like they were trying to remember. "He asked about my traumatic experience."

"Naturally part of the Psychological Health ploy."

"But he wanted to see it through the eyes of a gamer. He asked about the people running the game, if I knew them, and if the game was still active and how I knew about it."

"Sounds like a rabid gamer who went to an awful lot of trouble just to play an obscure game." I guess that's not totally unusual for gamers, Evan thought.

"Here's the thing though, while I was talking with him, I realized that he knew that I was playing a game whose service had ended. Think about it. He wants to know why we are playing this game after its service has ended."

"Interesting."

"I thought about these things over the week, and it's making me nervous. I think he wants to learn how to put people into comas!"

Comatose. The word resonated in Evan's mind over and over. How could such a thought have eluded him? First of all, he hadn't thought about it in awhile. Mikmik was in a coma perhaps, if not already dead. A sinking feeling ran through Evan's mind. Mikmik may be dead. How long had it been since they lost him? At least a month? Maybe longer? Here he had been fascinated by playing a custom copy of the World R:1 and suddenly everything about this setup was rearing its ugly head: a comatose victim, a spy perhaps trying to put people into comas, and a squad of selfish hackers mindlessly bringing about their own capture. Even if they weren't put into literal comas, they would all soon be addicted to playing the game and lose the rest of their lives sitting behind a computer screen. Poor Mikmik had been the first, and he didn't have a choice to escape now. Something had to be done. They had to find Mikmik. In doing so, they may find themselves and realize their madness.

"Can you tell this to Doslad for me?" Taha inquired.

"I can," said Jyos. "There's something else though."

"Yes?"

"You were saying something about the trust in the group earlier. I wanted to hear more about your opinion."

Taha looked down for a moment and sighed. "We don't trust each other enough. We aren't making friends. We've been at this for over a month, and yet, I feel like I hardly know anyone. Now that we have someone trying to infiltrate the game, it'll be important for us to be able to distinguish us from him."

"I see what you mean," began Jyos. "I happen to have made friends with some of the other guys now. I guess... friendship is really just a matter of stepping out yourself. If you're too secretive, you're not going to make any friends. Friendships are about trust."

"Anastasia."

"I beg your pardon?"

"My real name is Anastasia."

It took a second for Evan to catch his bearings. Her introduction seemed out of the blue for a moment but on second thought should not have been unexpected.

"Nice to meet you, Anastasia. I'm Evan... a real Evan, not some phony doctor."

Taha looked nervous.

Jyos sighed, "I'm not Yeltsin. I didn't visit you at the hospital. I don't even know where you live, and frankly, I don't care. What I do care about is that you like playing video games because that's what we're doing all this for."

Taha smiled. "Thanks."

"For... for what?"

"Giving me peace of mind. You will tell Doslad won't you?"

"I will. Incidentally, though, why do you want to talk to him so badly?"

"He is the project leader."

"True. But word gets around..."

"And I didn't want the spy to find out. I figured the game might be more private because there's so much space, whereas the chat room might be hacked. We use a cheap chat system even if our networks are secure."

Wow. She's a really clever girl. Evan began toying with a certain off-topic idea in his mind. Wonder what it'd be like to date her?

"Good answer," was all Jyos could respond to that. "I'm off to find Doslad."

With that, Evan logged out. First mystery solved. The next was yet to come.