Chapter 17: Gathering

There was once a time in my life when there was nothing but blue skies. I couldn't see anything but the glorious morning that rose and fell each day. The sky was vast and never ending, I felt as if I took a step forward the world would change and everything would be different.

My life was bliss. I couldn't have imagined myself doing anything else I just wanted to be free. This however was not my meaning.

The sky clouded with gloom taking my freedom with it. My soul had been lost; I was merely a puppet for someone else's wish. My life, my friends, everything I had ever loved and wanted, gone.

But that is how life is, or at least that's what I have said to myself countless times, people come and go bending to each other and showing that they care. But I bent because I had to; I bent for the wrong reason, for the wrong will. Does this make me a traitor to my freedom?

Maybe it was just me that took away my freedom; perhaps I was the one that locked myself in this world of shadow. Could it be that I have the key in my pocket still?

Even if I could escape myself I would only have to return to the only home that I knew the cellar of my madness which created the shadow in the first place.

Maybe I'm just doomed...

"Why do you haunt these souls Recompense? Have you no compassion anymore? What made you turn yourself against yourself?" Reconcile said as he stared deep into my eyes. His familiar penetrating gaze that I couldn't ever shake, it reminded me of Kasami.

"Because I did it, so can they." My soul faded away from Reconcile and I began to search for the bodies of the players.

Old Men sat around watching a TV placed in the middle of their conference center. "This is Charlotte Watkins here. Reports claim of have found 10 bodies of people varying in age and all around the country. They were found with their HAWK headsets on, now there is one connection in this and that they were all players of the Beta version of the world. Now they have all been taken to separate hospitals and are being treated for the cause of comatose. The CC Corporation, which is the founder of the game "The World" of which they were all playing, has yet to come out and make a statement about this epidemic."

"Turn it off." A Boardman said. The properly dressed secretary standing next to the remote took it up and turned off the broadcast. "Well what are we going to do about this gentleman? We clearly have lost a good portion of our supporters already and we will undoubtedly have questions asked." The old Boardman said.

"Isn't it obvious? We must come out and claim that there has been another hacker and he has been able to hack the ALTIMIT system and managed to create a virus that can kill people once more. But since our system is so secure it could only put the players into commas rather than killing them so in a way we saved lives rather than putting them into comas." The game director said.

"Heh you sure know how to twist the way things are Richard Korman but we must actually do something about the game as well. I say we just start over the servers keeping all of our saved data and just create another server." Another board director said. People in the roomed seemed to agree to his idea.

Another secretary walks in and hands Mr. Korman some notes. He smiles and puts them next to him. "People people," Richard Korman said, "We don't need to change anything about the game we have checked the servers just barely and in fact there was a system disturbance caused by an outside force. So in fact it was not our fault we were the victims of it."

The entire board was taken back as Mr. Kormans secretaries passed out the figures to the rest of the board. Korman motions for his secretaries to leave the room as they all exit and leave.

"As you can see by the figures it will now be perfectly right for us to release our new computer on the market as well. We can say it is the perfect computer for everyone and is perfect for playing the new "World"."

The board directors now looked up from the figures, "It wouldn't be right for us to release the bio computer at this point in time. We don't want anyone know that we have a computer that you can actually implant into yourself to allow you to access anything you wanted." A board member said.

"That's right! We don't even know how the public would respond to the announcement you want to give or if we want to release the bio computer yet."

The members began to get riled up at the few that were opposing Kormans idea. "It doesn't matter this new computer will destroy all competition and allow us to be excused for the incident of which some punk kid created."

Korman smiled, "So then it's settled we will announce our new chip and announce that we are hunting down the hacker who did this and we will find him." The members all nodded their heads and left the room.

Korman sat alone in the meeting hall as he thought to himself, let's see if you really do have a bio-computer already Recompense.

Hmm it appears the CC corp. is going to make their move before I can get mine off. Aw well it's no matter as long as I don't get too close to their facility I will be fine. But that still leaves the problem of Leonheart, I think he is inside CC corp...

I walked outside of my home and began to slide down the roads that were covered in ice this is now my time to move quickly I have to find all of the bodies before they ruin my game.

Argent was shocked at what he just saw on TV. That could've been me? He thought to himself as he stared into the pixels of his small TV.

"So Recompense has to gather up all of the bodies are in comatose then huh Alberio. Well then we'd better get started too." Cygnus said as he began to research on the bodies of the comatose.

"Ya we should before the boss gets mad at us." Alberio said in his childish voice.