This creepy, haunted town was covered by such a veil of mystery, that I almost dropped the phone upon hearing another person’s voice for the first time since coming to Hopeville.

  “Richard? Can you hear me?”

  Hearing the woman’s voice again snapped me out of my daze. It felt like an eternity since I last spoke to someone, myself not included, so the words came out stumbling and awkward.

  “Ye, yeah, I can hear you.”

  “Oh, thank God. I was afraid your brain had been fried by the system.”

  “Is that what that thing was out there? This messed-up game’s system? What am I? Some kind of VR show contestant?” I asked.

  “No, no, no. I already told you, this isn’t a game.”

  “Then if this isn’t a game, then what’s going on?!”

  “I was hoping you could tell me that, Richard.”

  My stomach felt like a ten ton weight dropping to the bottom of my gut, the intensity of which threatened to buckle my knees and send me to the floor in a curled up ball of despair. She didn’t know?! This entire time I thought that my invisible observer had at least a somewhat better idea of the whole picture than I did, but instead, she was just as clueless as me! I wanted to just hang up and die.

  I put some steel in my voice instead and growled, “Lady, I’m just as much in the dark as you. I woke up in some forest, stumbled into the worst little town on Earth, and been running from man eating freaks and whatever the heck that trench coat wearing freak was for the last several hours. I’ve got nothing for you either.”

  “Cognito didn’t send you?”

  “Lady, is that some sort of supervillain’s name?”

  “Oh, that’s strange. That’s really strange.” The woman on the other end of the phone sounded like she was talking to herself now. I didn’t want to be cut out of the conversation so I asked the obvious.

  “Since you know my name, what’s yours? Who are you?”

  “Samantha Kline. Hopeville backup administrator.” Her answer was quick and non-evasive, something I appreciated in most people, but at this time I was feeling a little heated.

  “Samantha, I don’t know if you’d noticed, but I think Hopeville has a little problem.”

  “No kidding, Dick.” Samantha’s voice snapped back at me from the other end of the phone. “I’ve been cooped up in the subsystem’s access area, powerless except for my ability to access the tiniest part of the observation grid, and watching you stumble around, clumsily slaughtering everything in your path.”

  “Gee, sorry chickie, my bad.” Lots of experience with the dames made me reflexively apologize. As much as I was still wanting to vent at someone, I still needed to get some information from this woman.

  “If you have to call me anything, call me Sam, not chickie.”

  “Ditto, Sammy, don’t call me Dick.”

  Sam released a breath I heard from my side of the call and she forced a laugh. “Touche, Richard.”

  “Ok, alright, now we’re getting somewhere, Sam.” I got up from behind the bookstore counter and started skulking around the shelves of used books while I spoke to Sam. “Let’s just start from what we both know and take it from there.”

  “That’s fine by me,” Sam replied. “You first.”

  “Alright, well, like I said, I woke up in the forest, shanked a few of those hollows and ended up here after that thing chased me with that weird cloud.”

  “But weren’t you sent here?”

  “No. The last thing I think I remember was a door kicking job and clearing some squatters. I’m a private investigator.”

  If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  “Hmm, that makes sense of why I don’t see you on the resident list. You don’t strike me as the billionaire type.”

  “So this is some kind of billionaires’ paradise? Come on, it’s your turn to start talking.”

  “You didn’t really tell me much, but fine, I’ll start from the top.” Sam said. “Hopeville is an immersive dive system that caters to select clientele that have paid millions for a space in the simulation.”

  “That explains all these silly video game mechanics like leveling up and points,” I replied.

  “Not really. Residents of Hopeville don’t have an interface like you do.”

  “Well, why do I have it? You keep calling me every time I level up.”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. It’s an automated system that has been making those calls. The only thing I’ve been doing is watching you through your system interface device and texting.”

  “You mean the phone?” I asked.

  “The phone.” She replied.

  “Ok, so I’m in some billionaire hedonistic play pen and neither of us know how I got here, but what’s with all these freaking monsters? Where are the people? For that matter, where are you?”

  “To answer the easiest question, I’m in the subsystem access area, just floating in the ether. I’ve been cut off from Hopeville’s main surveillance access, so I can only see from your point of view.” That sounded a little invasive, but Samantha pushed on. “Those ‘monsters’ you’ve been slaying aren’t the good citizens of Hopeville, thankfully, they’re creations of the system.”

  “Why is your system spitting out a bunch of eyeless freaks then?”

  “I don’t know, Richard. I’m as frustrated as you are.”

  “Lady, I don’t know if you’re even a tenth as frustrated as I am. What kind of backup administrator are you?”

  Sam didn’t reply right away and the silence was palpable.

  “Let’s just get back on track.” The levity had fled Sam’s voice and now she sounded more like that automated level up call.

  “Right…” I felt like a dingus then, but Sam kept going before I could genuinely apologize this time.

  “I woke up at 0625 due to the emergency backup alarm pinging me. In the event that the chief administrator is incapacitated or vacant, then I am the stopgap to prevent total system collapse and brain death for everyone still connected to Hopeville.”

  Trying to ignore the implications of ‘total system collapse’ I asked, “So you’re the admin now?”

  “No, there can only be one core mind facilitating system cohesion, bugs occur with simultaneous psyche projection. When I was woken up, I was unable to access any core functions or generate an avatar for myself.” Sam paused. “There’s still an admin running Hopeville.”

  “Well, where is he?” I replied. “I’d like to have a word with him.” My right fist would do the talking if I had it my way.

  “You’ve already met…He was the entity in the trench coat that chased you here.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, you’re telling me.” Sam’s voice sounded flat. I didn’t like that tone. The kind someone took when they knew they were losing and might as well give up. The kind I’d heard too many times from too many mooks that had just given up on life and given in to living in squalor and filth. I didn’t like that at all.

  “So, if I merk that goon, then the admin access will be free for you to step in and even this place out? Get me a ticket out of here too?”

  “In theory, but that ‘goon’ is essentially a demigod as long as it has total system control. You’re not just going to be able to shoot it and then game over.”

  I checked my phone notifications. There were two level up missed calls and a few quest notifications, but I was focused on my stat notifications.

  [Level 5 attained, +1 to all stats, + 1 skill point, Imagination unlocked!]

  [Level 6 attained + 1 stat and skill point!]

  That was a lot of stats and skill points, not to mention the 6000 points I had banked to use in the store app. Maybe the situation was not as hopeless as Sam was making it out to be. I’m not an optimist, but 6 grand could buy me a whole lotta ammo.

  I gave the little camera on my phone the best wolfish grin I could muster, projecting confidence I didn’t really have, and said, “Guess I gotta level up then.”