Lol, that is exactly the reaction I was hoping for, Rad.
Blaze, the reason that happened to Pootang was because he isn't a user. Richard is.
Huh, Cloaky, I hadn't thought about that, but you're right, it is a similar visual.
This is not directed at anybody in particular, but it has been worrying me crazy lately that somebody might accidentally guess some plot twist I have planned before I can write it. I am deathly phobic of anything resembling spoilers, and the same goes for stories I'm writing where I don't want my readers to accidentally be informed of what might happen. So if any of you ever happen to have speculations regarding where the story might be going? Please, please PM them directly to me. In exchange for keeping this in mind, you may be rewarded with previews of things to come (assuming
you don't mind spoilers), or even a (larger) role in the story!
And, another random side-note, I'll be in New York for my sister's graduation for the next week or so. I'll try to keep writing during that time so I'll have lots to post when I get back, but it's hard to know how busy I'll be. So, fair warning, if you don't see another chapter by this time tomorrow, then I'm not going to have a new one up until next week.
Chapter Six
Still reeling from the mere suggestion of the possibility that Richard might be an ordinary mortal, the five RAFians left the glass ship and stood outside the buildings of RAF once more. It was still an incredible sight, to see the so-familiar boards towering as gigantic structures above them, into the blue-grey sky above. The sun, Dino noticed, was now nowhere to be seen. Of course, she realized. It hadn't been 'the sun' in the first place. And Estelore couldn't really be expected to hang around in the same place in the sky all day.
The light that lit the main forum seemed to come from everywhere at once, but Dino could still feel that it was starting to get late. She wasn't hungry, however, even though she knew she ought to be by now. But then, maybe she really was just some digital file, stored somewhere within a computer's memory bank. The mere thought of that made her a little uneasy.
There were several more RAFians milling about than there had been when Tony and Dino had passed this way before. Most of them were human, presumably newbies and lurkers who had never registered their species. They looked up at Dino and Bear with apprehension, nervously keeping their distance.
But then they noticed someone that seemed familiar. She was apparently human, but clad in pirate attire, her skin a deathly pallor. She turned, an odd, mechanical motion, and they could all see the vampiric fangs that protruded from her mouth.
"Gaz!" Seal shouted excitedly, bounding out of Tony's arms and towards the pirate. "Did you just get here? How are you?"
Gaz didn't move, didn't speak, just stood there, unresponsive.
"Gaz? What's going on?" Tony asked urgently.
Seal poked her foot with a flipper, and still there was no reaction. "Gaz? Gaz! What's the matter with you?"
After a moment, she responded in a robotic monotone. "Why are you guys PMing me?"
Seal tilted her head in confusion. "We're . . . not PMing you. We're right here in front of you, talking to you. What's wrong with you?" Her voice had an edge of panic, worried that something truly terrible had happened to Gaz. Seal couldn't even begin to think about something like that, not after everything she'd already been through today.
Again, there was a pause before Gaz spoke. "Is this a game?" Gaz intoned mechanically. "Is there some kind of event going on right now on RAF? Why does nobody ever tell me these things?" Then she made a sudden turn and rigidly walked off towards the General board, seeming to have forgotten that the other RAFians were standing right there.
The others chased after her, trying to figure out what was going on. "Oh man, oh man, somebody brainwashed Gaz!" Seal cried.
<I don't think so. It's like she's here, but at the same time she isn't here,> Bear commented as he loped along, easily keeping up with Gaz. <Do you suppose . . . I dunno, but the way she's talking, it's like she's just logged into her computer, with no idea that the rest of us are actually inside the internet.>
Gaz marched mechanically towards the General board, and suddenly stopped as she arrived in front of the door. She sharply turned back to face the others again, and, after a moment, asked, "Okay, I'll bite, what's going on? Why are there so many posts today?"
"Gaz, listen carefully, because what I'm about to tell you is probably going to sound ridiculous," Seal began, giving the others a nervous look. "We're all trapped inside the internet."
Another pause. "What?" Gaz asked. "Is this one of those roleplaying games? I'm confused."
"No!" Seal shouted, impatient. "This is real! We're really here!"
". . . Okay, I think I get it," she said. "Oh, it's a nice day on the forum, isn't it?"
"Rrrgh," Seal growled, quickly becoming frustrated that she couldn't make Gaz understand. "This is not a roleplay. We are in the internet. RAF is a real place, and we are here. Me and Dino and Tony and Terenia and Bear. Tell her, guys!"
<Yep, pretty much what the seal said,> Bear agreed.
<Gaz, listen, it's true. We're really here,> Terenia added.
". . . I'm sorry, you're just not making any sense. You realize that isn't possible, right?" Gaz asked.
"We
know it isn't possible, but it's happening anyway!" Tony put in.
". . . Look, guys, you're starting to scare me," Gaz said.
"GOOD!" Seal yelled at her, her voice breaking slightly with emotion. "Because we're scared, too!"
Gaz paused again, her unblinking stare unnerving as they waited for her to respond. "I don't know. I just don't know. I want to believe you guys, but this is an awful lot to take in. This just seems like it has to be some kind of trick."
Seal massaged her forehead with her flipper, thinking hard for a way to prove that they were really there, but coming up with absolutely nothing. If everything they did or said just showed up on Gaz's computer as nothing but a message, then how could they hope to prove their own predicament to her?
"Guys, don't freak out or anything, but I'm logging off. It's late, and I need time to think," Gaz said.
"Gaz, wait, don't leave!" Seal implored, but it was too late, and Gaz had vanished in the blink of an eye, leaving Seal talking to empty air.
<What was that all about?> Bear wondered. <Why didn't Gaz get pulled into the internet the way the rest of us did?>
<You suppose maybe they finally got whatever Swiss thing that was malfunctioning fixed?> Dino considered. <You know, that teleport thing that was sucking people into the internet in the first place? If they got that fixed, then anybody who logged in afterwards wouldn't be affected, right? So, they might be completely unaware of what was going on, like Gaz.>
"Swiss thing?" Seal asked. "What Swiss thing?"
"There was an article about some researchers in Switzerland, who were working on a device to teleport people through the internet. We figured, this has gotta be related to that," Tony explained.
<Yeah, I was the one who sent you two that article,> Bear noted. <To be honest, I thought it was a prank at first.>
<Yeah, so did I,> Dino added. <Heh, no wonder Gaz doesn't believe it either.>
"She'll come around," Seal assured herself.
Meanwhile, in her room, Gaz stared at her computer in puzzlement. Although none of it made any sense, there had been a feeling of urgency to what her friends had told her. While, yes, she knew that RAFians in general liked to joke around about things, and sometimes they all could act remarkably serious when they had a running gag going, somehow this was different. It really seemed like they had been in distress. And surely they wouldn't play a joke like this, when it would make her worry this much about them.
Gaz sighed, and turned off her computer, feeling a twinge of guilt as she did so. But she had work to do in the morning, and it was already late. So she just had to hope that it was some kind of game after all, and try her best not to worry about it until tomorrow. She turned out the lights, and fitfully tossed and turned as she tried to sleep. She promised herself that she would get to the bottom of this, as soon as she was able, and with that thought in mind she finally lost consciousness.
Back on RAF, Dino had separated from the others in the Social board. From the inside, Social looked like an enormous dorm or hotel, with spacious hallways wide enough to easily accommodate Dino's full size. The large, cozy common room displayed pictures of various RAFians and their pets, with maps tacked up with pictures from past real-world RAFtrips. On a pedestal at the front, was a map engraved in black marble, showing the locations of the various members' profile threads. Dino quickly found her own room on the display, and headed in that direction. She padded down the wide hallway towards what looked like the opening of a cave, which she knew to be her lair.
Dino's lair was sparsely decorated, but well-lit by flickering warm lights that gave the cave a pleasant evening glow. Her 'bed' was a resting couch of Dinotopian design, a long, hammock-shaped padded pedestal contoured to fit her stomach. She settled into the velvet lining, and it snugly supported her as she curled up like a roosting bird, her legs hanging off the sides. Apparently there was a pressure switch within the bed itself, because the lights dimmed as she settled into it.
She sighed heavily, thinking about everything that had happened that day. Had it really only been just one day? Being dragged into Facebook and RAF, meeting the other RAFians, seeing Pootang, and then Gaz, all of that didn't feel like it could have happened in only the span of twenty-four hours.
Dino thought about the encounter with Gaz, and sighed again to expel the tension she felt. She didn't like being reminded that there might still be a real world out there, outside the internet. Did her parents know where she was? Did anybody? How could Gaz not have known what was going on? Surely this many disappearances would have made the news. Or, was it somehow being kept a secret? And how?
Dino's thoughts became more and more jumbled as she drifted off to sleep, eventually turning to nightmares of haunting fractured screams.
