[CHAPTER 1010]

"...I like that sound like I got back there..."

James Lovell

H.O.R.I.Z.O.N

00110010 00110000 00110111 00110011

'Who's a good boy?' James asked playfully, running his fingers through the thick purple fur on Bagheera's neck and back. The Pokémon had once found this activity rather demeaning and would have squeezed out of the close embrace. However, having spent two weeks outside of HORIZON on Marks request, Richard was all too happy to throw himself back into the computer generated world. He didn't realize just how much he missed his feline form in the virtual reality world.

'Who's a good boy?'

Bagheera bobbed his head in affirmation that he was indeed a good boy. Whipping his slender tail back and forth, the feline pushed his face into James's chest as if to amplify the petting. The Liepard had missed seeing his brother, what with his easy-going attitude and ever-comforting presence. Even if he was being treated like some glorified pet, Bagheera had been missing-out on all the attention. He was doing all he could to make up for it.

'Did you enjoy your rest?' James continued, scratching at the Liepard ears.

They were still in the lobby of the Pokecentre, where the new trainer had come to collect his prized Pokémon. James had been told that HORIZON updates meant his pet Liepard needed to be recalled for a short period. During the interval he had missed the dark-type intensely. James felt lost without the large feline with whom he seemed to share some mutual understanding. Although James often had to remind himself that living in HORIZON didn't truly count as reality, his connection with Bagheera seemed to be the most solid part of the game.

'James...You're getting in the way.' Rikola was forced to spoil the moment. A cheeky grin hovered over her face as she tried to shuffle the over-excited Pokémon trainer out of the way of other trainers collecting Pokémon from the PC.

'Ah…' James pushed himself to his feet and called Bagheera to heel. 'Got a bit lost in the moment there.'

Rikola just shrugged, running a hand through her blue hair.

Bagheera, however, was still begging for attention. Although he refrained from jumping up at his trainer, he couldn't resist winding his way between James's legs. The finale of all this was the Pokémon rubbing his cheeks against the trainer's jeans. A reassuring scent filled the immerser's nostrils.

'I know. I know.' James patted at the Pokémon's head, 'Let's get out into St Hutton Park and you can meet the rest of the team.'

Bagheera froze, ears perking up comically as his head tilted to the side. What team? An uncertain feeling of excitement and dread rushed up the feline's spine as his bright green eyes narrowed on his trainer. What team?

'Somebody looks a little uncertain about that.' Rikola pointed out with a chuckle, sticking her hands in the pockets of her slim shorts. The young adult looked the part as an intrepid adventurer, minus the brightly coloured hair. 'He might be just a little jealous.'

'Bagheera's too nice for that.' James tried to persuade himself gently as they headed outside into the warm sunshine. The Liepard's tail lashing proved otherwise.

Pewter was a green city, with a small centre consisting of short residential towers and office spaced filled by interstitial beach trees. A central park acted as a meeting point for trainers. Pewter filled an elongate valley, margining a gently meandering river. The water filled the town with the scents of trade and brought in a host of local Wingulls which perched on the river-side apartments. Fertile farmland lined the hillsides in the distance, pock-marked by tall wind turbines.

Although not as popular as the bigger city locations, Pewter was more homely than you'd first expect. Lime avenues swayed in the breeze overhead as the two trainers ambled down the highstreet. Electric cars zoomed past with many taxiing different virtual players from one tourist attraction to the next. The geological museum to the east of the town was of particular interest...even if James had already visited it three days in a row.

'The gym is going to be super-busy at this time.' Rikola took a second to check her watch, 'The Americans are all going to be on and you know how annoying they are.'

'It's good we have other plans!' James explained in a manner which seemed over-enthusiastic to Bagheera. They followed the narrow lane between a residential block and popped out on the edge of St Hutton Park. A couple of acres of lime avenues and beech trees were often quiet apart from the odd group training their Pokémon.

'Well this is a good a spot as any.' James placed his hands on his hips and surveyed the parkland. 'Maybe we can discuss our mission!'

'If we choose to accept it...' Rikola muttered, only getting a blank stare from her friend. She waved off the outdated joke and motioned for James to continue.

'Right Bagheera. Sit! Ok...Well you've got a new partner to work with on our team! Rikola can introduce her new Pokémon herself, but you can say hello to 'Star' the Starly.'

There was a flash of red light and Bagheera, who had previously been sat down at his trainer's heels, jumped back in fright. The beam from a Pokéball flashed and a small pigeon-like bird materialized. It appeared just as startled as the large feline towering above her. The small bird barely scraped a foot tall. Shaking its wings off, the bird bobbed her head in greeting.

'Uh...Hello?' Bagheera responded in kind. The leopard-like Pokémon inched forward to sniff at the bird. It was something that Bagheera did without thought as the dark type's eyes narrowed on the creature.

'I'm Star!' The bird bobbed again, 'You must be Bagheera, who I have heard so much about.'

Again. The feline's shy nature crept to the surface. Thankfully, any awkwardness was saved by their trainer who took a step forward to pat Bagheera on the head.

'Right you two! We've got a side-quest given to us from Baba. There's been something strange going on with the HORIZON coding...and for some reason it seems to be associated with users.

'If you've lost me already...I don't know how these computerized unthinking creatures will understand.' Rikola chuckled to herself and dodged a short jab from James. 'It's the truth!'

'Bagheera, you understand don't you?' The young trainer bent down and petted at the feline's cheeks before scratching at his ears. 'Baba says we've got some issues with malicious users, that are trying to play with the HORIZON coding.'

'Lie!' The Pokémon responded. For James, this was enough to confirm the Liepard's intelligence. Rikola shook her head. Star the Starly was bouncing up and down in an effort to share some of the attention, before fluttering back with a squawk as the Liepard hissed at the bird in irritation.

'Come on you two...play nice. You're going to have to work together when it comes to this first gym!'

'Oh, talking about that. We better sign up for a slot! There's going to be a bit of a waiting list.' Rikola theorized, pulling out a softscreen to check to the time.

'Well we can make that stop one for the day.' James confirmed, straightening. Getting Star to rest on his shoulders took a few minutes of gentle convincing from the uploader. 'Starrr...' the bird-Pokémon muttered in discomfort even with a few calming words from Bagheera. The Liepard was happily trotting by his trainer's side. Rikola shook her head as James tried to recreate the look of a very stereotypical Pokémon trainer.

Pewter city gym, lead by Brock the rock-type expert, was only five minutes walk away. Bagheera trotted down the pavement with his ears perked up watching the serene city around him. It felt good being allowed back inside the computer-simulated world of HORIZON. The Pokémon felt all the tension fall out of his body as he loped ahead, nose picking out the myriad of scents hanging in the air. The virtual simulation was a perfect mirror of reality made even better by the heightened senses of his present form.

'Here we go…' James rounded the corner to find the large sign over the gym. Rikola followed with Bagheera tailing, eyeing a passing electric car before following the small band through the sliding doors.

'Welcome to-' An attendant at reception went to speech but was interrupted by a blaring BEEP BEEP BEEP when Bagheera stepped through the doorway. The feline jumped into the air at the sudden sound, hissing in response as he cowered under the audible onslaught.

'Excuse me sir.' The reception attendant leaned over the desk as the alarm finally stopped, 'But you seem to have an issue with your Pokémon.'

By the speaker's statroll James could clearly see the receptionist was a NPC rather than a virtual gamer. Sighing, the uploader pulled out his Pokédex and showed the Liepards details clearly.

'I assure you. He's fully registered.' James turned to the attendant only to find the man had disappeared. Where before a neatly dressed person in brown and white uniform had welcomed him, there was nobody.

'Uh, hello?' James tried, turning to Rikola for backup.

The young woman was nowhere to be seen.

'What's going on?' The uploader nearly called out in fright. Feeling the loss of weight of Star from his shoulder, he span to try and find Bagheera at his heels. James's vision suddenly became very blurry and he wiped at his eyes in fear. This must be some kind of game crash he thought to himself, though the knowledge that he wasn't a player who could simply log out made the experience terrifying.

'HELP!' James's voice broke, 'BABA!?"

The feline Pokémon was at his feet still...but something wasn't right. The Pokémon had become pixelated, jittering forward as he attempted to walk towards it's trainer. James yelled, stepping backwards away from the now snarling Pokémon. It's three dimensional textures were blitzed to the point that Bagheera looked no cleaner than a wire-frame model.

Each blocky pixel was filled with the same error warning.

Missing No

The Liepard, now a muddled collection of textures that had failed to load, stuttered. James was pinned against the reception desk in the lobby. With tears flecking his eyes he cringed back from a sudden flash of white. The last thing the uploader saw was the silhouette of his pet Liepard thrashing on the floor.

Blink and it was gone.

Of all the terror-addled thoughts fracturing James's mind, one thing stuck out in particular. He needed to get in contact with Baba, or somebody in the outside world for help. Yana. Mark. Jean. Anybody!

Yana was preoccupied.

Where normally the computer programmer would be no further than a few seconds from some form of technology, she'd been roped into a stupid meeting.

Yana wasn't aware of the first ever crash of HORIZON starting in the supercomputer five stories below them.

The Cezch woman waited in a bland corporate room facing the English Channel. Given that 'England' no longer existed, it was yet another memento to a bygone age. Rain splattered the windows although it only seemed to amplify the humidity in the air. Harry Eisenhower was sweating profusely, beige tie hanging limply over top of a moist striped shirt. It did little to hide the significant amount of weight he carried.

Yana sat next to him. The two adults, businessman and computer programmer, were as dissimilar as you could possibly be. Whereas Yana was a bundle of energy with a hyperactive (and hyper-intelligent) mind to match, Harry was broad and deliberate. Yana was spontaneous, Harry was calculating. Every thought was tailored to assess cause and effect.

Yana had her feet up on the table, purple Dr Martens resting on the wooden table top before Harry pushed them down.

'That's mahogany!' he grumbled before clearing his throat. 'You need to be on your best behaviour.'

Yana snorted, pushing long curly ginger hair from her eyes. Tugging her felt jacket around herself, Harry eyed the woman as she fished something out of her pocket. Sweat was beading on the chubby man's rounded neck and he wiped it away. With a frustrated grumble, he was almost tempted to ignore Yana when she dropped a can of soda on the table. The man shot his friend a disgruntled look,

'Seriously…?'

Yana pushed the can towards him before speaking lightly in her Czech accent,

'You...You let me speak freely.'

'Do you honestly believe I could stop you?' Harry snorted, 'Deal.'

Yana lifted her eyebrows and for a moment it was as if she was going to speak. The woman twisted her hair with a finger before sighing loudly.

'Why us? Haven't we got more important things concerning us?' The computer programmer moaned. 'I've got better things to be doing right now!'

'Because Dr Heath is an old friend...and because you said he might be right! I thought you were concerned about this missing number stuff or whatever that means. Some issue in the coding?'

'That's the error message.' Yana rubbed at her cheeks, fidgeting in her seat. It was clear that she was getting frustrated. The chairman of GOKIA let his eyes dance around the small board-room. Yana reminded him once again that the group of academics were late. Harry had his elbows on the desk and rested his chin on his hands.

When the team from London did arrive, consisting of Dr Heath, a female colleague, and a rather smart gentleman who introduced himself as being from the civil service, Yana was foaming at the bit. When tea and coffee came a few minutes later, Harry Eisenhower cut the chase.

'Right then. Now we're all here, including Yana, perhaps we can go through the data.'

The can of soda, still dappled with moisture, stood on the table between them.

Dr Tyler Heath, who maintained his request to simply be called Tyler, cleared his throat. He wore a pink tie over a rather garish blue shirt that was the academics only attempt at appearing formal. A small cup of coffee clasped in his hands had yet to kick in. Tyler rubbed at his eyes as he flipped open the screen of his laptop.

'Ok. I went through the dataset again and given that GOKIA is one of the few serious online corporations which are transparent with data usage-' Tyler tilted his head towards Harry, 'It's provided the best indication of anomalies.'

'Anomalies similar to the micro-transactions that exDEV was running when it first broke out.' Tyler's co-academic provided, talking over the edge of her mug.

'Processing being completed in the wrong place?' Yana asked quietly, 'That may also be a result of relocation of server usage during periods of high stress.'

Harry nodded, glad that Yana could jump in so quickly. Normally the woman was introverted to the point that in many meetings she's simply sit and listen to the speakers. Perhaps as the subject matter concerned her own coding, she was happier to defend the academics snappy questioning.

'During periods of low online user counts?' Tyler countered, pointed at his laptop screen. Yana shook her head.

'HORIZON can act as random generator for some platforms. During periods procedural generation, processing may be drawn from other areas.' The female programmer explained speedily. Yana often found that her mouth failed to match the speed of thoughts in her head. It often resulted in her missing out certain words.

Tyler, who was sat across the dark wooden table from the two GOKIA members, looked from Yana to Harry and back again.

'HORIZON isn't programmed like you'd expect.' Harry simplified. 'But since uh…he's here. This must be a bigger issue than what you suggested in London.'

The large man was useless with names and reddened slightly upon failing to refer correctly to the civil servant. Unlike everyone else in the room, he was suited and carried a small notebook instead of a softscreen. A few years younger than Harry, the government employee carried his age well as he fixed the GOKIA chairman with a hard stare.

'exDEV is an international threat Mr Eisenhower.' The civil servent still refused to share his name, 'We've had reports from other officials of behaviour on other computer systems which are suggestive either of the artificial intelligence itself...or that something similar might exist.'

Harry groaned,

'Let me get this straight. It's not exDEV you're interested in here but the fact you think GOKIA might be doing this?' The rounded man leaned forward and the table squeaked as it struggled to hold the extra weight.

'Doing what?' Yana's eyes had also narrowed. 'I doubt Baba would do anything you suppose! WE are COMPLETELY transparent with our work!'

'Whoa calm down.' Tyler patted the air in front of him. The gesture looked like more like a lame excuse for a dance move than an attempt to diffuse the situation. 'Stop jumping to conclusions. We're talking about exDEV here.'

Harry crossed his arms, 'Go on.'

'Our data suggests unusual peaks in activity between computerized share transactions on the Japan Exchange Group, at the same time as unusual memory usage on the GOKIA systems...and drop in performance of the Nintendo platform on HORIZON.'

'Anything else?' Harry asked, though to everyone else around the table it sounded more like a demand.

'Well…' Tyler trailed off, leaning back in his chair as his co-academic filled in the gap. She wore a flowery shirt which only seemed to enhance her delicate features. However, it was the civil servant who butted into the conversation with overtly smooth words.

'Whatever the case, these events seem tailored towards influencing GOKIA at every level.'

'And when did this start?' Harry phrased the question nonchalantly, even as his stubby fingers flicked across his softscreen to the calendar app. Yana eyed the motion as she rolled an empty mug between her hands.

Tyler scanned through his own softscreen opposite.

'The twenty-sixth of May...that's the first thing I have on my system.'

Harry was already on that date checking through what he had booked into his diary. Yana whistled as she leant over to read the entries of the man's schedule.

'That's the date that we started the immersion with Ri-'

BZZZzzz

The light's flickered. For a brief moment the meeting-room grew dark. Yana froze. Harry almost dropped his cup of Coffee as the LED strip lights flickered momentarily. A second later and everything was back to normal. Yana continued as if nothing had happened.

'That was when we first tested the immersion set-up.'

'And could that have caused any strange effects?' Tyler asked, taken aback by Harry's scowl as the fat man prodded a finger towards the academic's laptop.

'Just load up the files and run through the issue.'

Tyler rolled his eyes but did as the man said. It took a few minutes of awkward silence as he clicked through the security and eventually found the correct documents. Harry drummed his fingers on the table while he waited. Tyler turned his laptop around and was just about to speak when there was a knock on the door.

Harry swore, before remembering he was still in a meeting, and called for whoever it was at to come in. The businessman had to make a show of being angry at the disturbance, not really contemplating why somebody would need to interrupt. Perhaps there had been a power cut, given the momentary loss of power a few minutes earlier.

His elderly aid, Madison, poked her head around the door.

'Sorry to bother you Mr Eisenhower. We've had an issue down in Yana's office.'

Richard? was the first thing Harry thought. Yana's office was effectively codework for the immersion device Booples located in her back room. Something like that wouldn't have normally have phazed Harry, but the look of concern on Susan's normally sweet freckled face convinced him something was wrong.

'Thanks Madison.' Harry replied as calmly as possible before turning to Yana. The programmer was out of her chair already, patting Harry's bald head as she squeezed past his chair. Eisenhower wasn't sure if Yana actually wanted to find out what the issue was...or if she was simply using the interruption as an excuse to leave the meeting.

'How about we have a look at the data after a short tea break?' The businessman suggested lightly, ignoring Tyler's concerned look. 'This sounds important and it'll give you time to set up the projector and to actually organise a presentation perhaps?'

The latter referred mainly to the academics as Harry struggled to his feet. Flashing a grin, he backed out of the room. Only then did he let his facade drop.

'Shit.' Harry stressed to himself as he strode past the elevator to the stairwell, 'Shittity shit shit.'

When the businessman finally descended the multiple floors underground and pushed his way through the double doors to the very chilly underbelly of the GOKIA branch, he found Yana's office empty. The back door however, which still had 'DO NOT ENTER' scrawled across it, was ajar. Panting heavily, Harry blundered his way across the room and nearly tumbled into the large chamber housing Booples.

'Whaa…?'

Harry's brain couldn't contemplate what the hell was happening.

Richard was sprawled across the floor within his haptic-feedback suit, looking much like a fish out of water. Mark was kneeling beside him, alongside somebody dressed as a medical professional. On the other side of the room Yana was furiously bashing buttons on one of the many computers trailing off Booples. Jean was the one actually holding down Richard. The immerser was thrashing on the ground as Mark helped to retract something metallic from the back of his head. The lightning bolt logo of the Musk Foundation could be clearly seen on the Neuralink, which was still in direct contact with Richard's scalp.

'What's going on?' Harry managed to mouth at last, feeling the blood drain from his face. 'WHAT the HELL is happening!?'

Yana blanked him. Jean the mute couldn't reply even if he wanted to. Out of all the adults in the room, it was Richard who answered. The young man's eyes were wide in a combination of shock and pain. He grunted but the sound came out as a shallow trill than anything human.

Harry took a step back, too confused to speak.

'Richard?' He tried, 'Are you...are you alright?'

The former-welders eyes were glassy.

'Liepard?' Richard mumbled in response, dragging out the last syllable in pain, 'Liepaaarrd?'

END

Unlike nearly all the chapters previously, I didn't notice anything in this edition of EOrRRoR that needed any extra information. exDEV is becoming a more prominent feature of this story, the history of which was explained in the introduction (and a little in chapter 1) of this fiction. As always, a massive thanks for reading! This story has now become my most popular ever in terms of views thanks to you. Enjoy!