Vivid Stars Online

I moved slowly as I opened up the machine, focusing all of my senses on each piece before I took it apart. In my previous attempt to use my senses on a VR pod, I’d detected a large shielded section in the center of the machine.

That concerned me enough, but I also couldn’t be sure it was the only thing I would have trouble sensing. I could see someone lacing smaller shielded sections containing traps throughout the machine.

Anything dangerous on the outer layers was probably unlikely given how many people had to have cracked one of these open, but I could see a silent notification being sent somewhere. The last thing we needed was to have anyone paying too much attention to what we were doing.

The outer panels came off fine, only breaking the warranty voided stickers. After that, things got harder. All the inner bolts required special tools to open, forcing me to use Technokinesis to twist them open.

Given enough time, we could fabricate them for future use, but for now, it was easier to push forward with my abilities. Past the bolts came sections of plastic that were glued on, those I had to crack open with brute force.

Beyond that was almost my undoing. Forcing open the panels exposed a nest of wires, blocking my path. I only detected that two were hidden to my senses after disconnecting the first few, and it was only through luck that I didn’t start with one of them.

Focusing on one of them, I pushed my senses to the max and forced my way past the shielding. It was connected to a hidden transmitter designed to send some form of message if disconnected.

The other was similar, though it was connected to a GPS tracker instead. Either would alert someone that we were messing with the internals of a pod. It was unlikely that would trigger an immediate response, but it might draw attention to us.

I was able to proceed by isolating the two wires and disconnecting the others, but forcing my way past the shielding and keeping track of them drained a lot of energy. I was still at a little more than half my reserves, but I was no longer confident about cracking the inner shielding today.

Black metal was revealed behind the wires, and my senses stopped dead against it. This was the shielded core at the center of the pod. I had enough energy left to force a glimpse beyond, just enough to confirm the same Arkathian signature from my old pod.

Then I let the sense fade as my energy dwindled. With a groan, I leaned back and turned towards Simon and the camera.

“I found two traps beyond what looks to be intentionally difficult to remove casing. One message transmitter and one GPS tracker. Either would be enough to let someone know we were messing with a pod.”

“Beyond that is the core shielding, but I don’t have enough energy to tell what’s on the other side today. It might take me a couple more days to get a good enough read on it to be sure it’s safe to crack open.”

“Got it,” Simon responded as he flicked a switch on the camera. “Even that is more than anyone else has been able to get us. Given Vivid Industries’ standard operating procedures triggering an alert like that would at least get a background check done on the pod.”

“We’ve gone to a fair bit of trouble to obfuscate the paper trail for these, but I expect a few of our colleagues weren’t as careful. That might explain a few of the disappearances if they kept investigating.”

“I doubt it would be all of them, however. Expect more trouble as you go deeper.”

“Makes sense,” I nodded back at him as I slid a panel back over the opening. I wasn’t going to screw it all back together, but I didn’t want to risk those wires being disturbed.

“You can’t keep a global conspiracy like this secret without multiple countermeasures,” I continued as I turned back to him. “Let's head back to the main facility. There are some tools we can make to speed the process up next time, and it would be good to find a way to deal with the glued panels as well.”

“I’ve got a few ideas for that,” he responded as he turned for the door. “Shouldn’t be too difficult to manage with the right preparation. It would certainly stop idle curiosity, however, I can see why they would have done it.”

“We’ve got the building under remote surveillance,” he finished before we split up into our separate vehicles. “If anyone shows up to investigate, we’ll know something went wrong.”

“That’s good,” I said, even as I frowned in concern. “I think I avoided all the traps, but it’s always possible I’ve missed something. I hope you have a plan if that does happen?”

He only nodded in response, keeping any details to himself. Given how new our partnership was, I could respect that, it wasn’t like I was sharing all my secrets either. After that, I bid him a brief farewell before we both left.

I spent a couple more hours that day working on tools to make further attempts go smoother before I left to log into VSO.

There, I found the expedition preparations to be going well. Most of the supplies had been shipped in, and we were only waiting for the last couple of items before we would be ready to leave.

They were due tomorrow morning, so we should be able to leave the next time I logged in. I found myself looking forward to the trip, the first one I’d done with just Linnea in a long time.

Sure, we’d had more recent outings, but I found myself nostalgic for the times when it had just been us. Even though we hadn’t been romantic at the time, it had been a joy to work together.

Now that we were a couple, it would be even better, excitement and exploration paired with alone time. Not even the extreme duration that I was expecting was enough to dampen my excitement.

After I made sure all the preparations were settled, I sat down with Elana to see if she had any suggestions for handling the VR pod. That resulted in a long discussion about various methods but didn’t bear much fruit.

While she had good suggestions for handling the paneling and keeping the offending wires out of the way, there was little she could suggest on venturing into the unknown core.

The best advice she had was simply to go slowly, and make sure I knew what I was touching before I moved or altered anything.

We briefly discussed putting the entire pod in a Faraday cage to block any outgoing signals, but in the end, we set the idea aside. If they were tracking each pod, then even the absence of a signal might bring attention down on us.

And it wasn’t hard to discern that they were tracking them. Theft tracking was even listed as one of their official services, with the company claiming they could get the location of any stolen pods to the police.

If they could do that for official reasons, then they could certainly do it for unofficial ones as well. And if they were looking for stolen pods, then it wasn’t hard to imagine that any going off the grid would look suspicious.

The conversation wound down after that, with her simply reminding me again to be careful. She’d reiterated it enough for it to actually become a bit annoying, but I understood that it was her family that was in danger.

A family that she hadn’t even seen in months. While she was with Linnea every day, the rest of her family either stayed out of the game or were on another world in VSO. It had to be hard to be separated from them like that.

So I only assured her that I would be as careful as possible again before I left to return to Linnea’s and my room. After a couple of hours spent with her, I slept the night in VSO.

The next morning, I woke up and logged out to prepare for work again. I spent another couple of hours working on various simple projects that I could be trusted with as a newbie before I left for the warehouse.

Like before Simon met me there, and we spent a few minutes discussing whether we should keep digging into the same pod, or if we should start with a new one.

I wanted to push forward, but he made a good point about gathering as much information as possible. That way, if something happened to us when I cracked the final shielding, we would at least have helped the next person as much as possible.

It was a morbid thought, but in the end, I agreed with it. That day we cracked open two more standard model pods, and I confirmed that both were trapped in the same way. It made sense since they had to be mass-produced, but it was also a relief.

It meant that we had something concrete to share and that I would be able to open future pods in a fraction of the time that I’d spent with these. Given the right tools and methods, which we’d documented, anyone else should be able to do the same with care.

It was a productive day despite the lack of forward progress, and I logged onto VSO happy.

There Linnea and I began our journey after one of my other pilots dropped us on the furthermost edge of the army patrol routes. We’d been able to get their data, and so had a safe area to land.

It wasn’t a massive distance out, but it still saved us a couple of days of walking. After that, the day progressed fairly quietly. We’d long since out-leveled and out-equipped the monsters of this area.

The most trouble we had was with a pack of wolves, and even then we killed them without taking any injuries. In the end, monsters at this level were only XP for us. I’d been told that would change as we moved further north, but for now, it made for easy travel.

That night we made camp with a fire to keep the beasts off and I again slept in the VSO with Linnea. This was where being removed from the standard login cycles showed its real value.

Even when I didn’t want to do multi-day stays in VSO, just the ability to sleep here and log out when I wanted was leagues better than when I’d first joined. It meant I was on hand if anything went wrong, and while it didn’t that night, it might in the future.

Over the next three days, I continued the same schedule, working followed by pod research followed by travel in VSO.

For those days, I only focused on scanning through the shielding with my senses. It was extremely hard going, but I managed to get a brief glimpse of the internals each time. If I did nothing else but wait for my reserves to recharge, I could get two such glimpses per day.

It was enough to paint me a sold picture of the interior as a vastly complicated piece of Arkathian machinery. It rivaled the portals or my ship’s fabricator, putting it at the top of what I’d seen.

Beyond that, it let me detect the final trap.

“I confirmed it this time,” I said to Simon as I let my sense of the interior fade away. “There’s definitely something that triggers if you open the core to air. I’m not sure if it’s an explosive or something else, but I am sure it’s dangerous.

“I don’t believe it,” he responded with a frown. “While I know we discussed this as a possibility, I just don’t see how they could get away with it. These pods have been sent everywhere in the world, they must have been scanned with everything under the sun.”

“Sure, that might get picked up if they're normal technology,” I responded with a shrug. “But this metal doesn’t even register under normal scanners. Plus, if it’s explosive, it might be Psi based rather than chemical.”

“The torpedoes on my ship use the same method, and they don’t show up as explosives even on the better tech I have access to in VSO. And I’m not saying that’s what it is, but it will do something if we open it.”

It was the biggest risk I’d seen Vivid Industries take yet, and I was sure it meant that it was protecting one of their biggest secrets. Even with the extreme hardness of the inner metal, there had to be some people who’d cracked it open without malicious intent.

Covering up those incidents would take significant effort on their part, meaning that they wouldn’t go to such lengths without reason.

“So we’re stuck then?” He asked with a deep frown.

“If it was anyone else, you might be,” I responded with a smirk. “But I can get around it. I’m confident that if I shift the metal to cover the dangerous section, I can open the rest without danger.”

“You should probably go just in case, though,” I finished. “Even if I’m sure there’s no reason to risk both of us.”

“No,” he responded with a shake of his head. “This is too important to just run. If it’s not an explosive, I might be able to do something to help.”

“Suit yourself,” I said as I focused my will on the revealed metal core. After all the preparations, the final act was easy, even with the bare dregs of power I had left. For all its stealth capabilities, the metal was no more resistant to change than normal steel.

I held my breath for a moment, then relaxed as the bulk of the internals were revealed without triggering anything. With my senses given free rain, I focused my full attention on the technology, grinning at what I found.

It wasn’t just as complicated as a portal, it felt almost exactly like one.