Virtual Reality Read online

  Virtual Reality

  Gamer Girls: Book 3

  Auryn Hadley

  Kitty Cox

  Spotted Horse Productions

  Contents

  Trigger Warning

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Dear Reader

  Check out Another Book

  Chapter 2

  Check out Another Book

  Chapter 2

  Virtual Reality is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/ use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Copyright © 2018 by Auryn Hadley / Kitty Cox

  All Rights Reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher and the copyright owner constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  First Edition: December 2018

  Cover Art by Spotted Horse Productions

  TRIGGER WARNING: Contains off-screen rape and assault, domestic violence, addiction, suicidal tendencies, phobias, bullying, cyber harassment, violence, and more. The Gamer Girls series is based on what could have happened during GamerGate. Each novel features strong women, the men who love them, and the games that let them escape reality. Contains graphic language and situations that are suitable for a mature audience. This book is a standalone novel which moves forward a larger story.

  Dedication

  To my best friend. Thanks for always pushing me when I needed it most. ~Auryn

  But that’s what I was going to put! ~Kitty

  See, this is what happens when you’re too slow. ~Auryn

  Fine! Then I won’t tell you that I couldn’t have done this without you. I’m also taking credit for all the sex scenes! ~Kitty

  Chapter 1

  The blank space over the character creation pulsed, waiting for her to enter a name. Kate picked at her lower lip, thinking hard. She wanted something interesting, but not too girly. Charade. That would be perfect. It captured the reason she'd decided to play video games - to put on a brave face for the world - but didn't scream "needy woman."

  That name is taken.

  A deep sigh escaped as her head dropped in annoyance. She was too old for this. After years of watching her husband play these things, an article on Reddit had caught her eye about women in first-person shooters. It seemed like a great idea at the time: take out her anger and frustrations on pixelated players who enjoyed letting their friends shoot at them. Plus, it was one of the many things her soon-to-be-ex-husband said she couldn't handle, but she'd show him. This would be her own little revenge. No one needed to know, and maybe, just maybe, it would be the diversion she needed in her life. But first, she needed a name.

  Zero. That name is taken.

  Soliloquy. That name is taken.

  Migraine. That name is taken.

  Addiction. That name is taken.

  Distortion. That name is taken.

  Solace. That name is taken.

  Lithium.

  Press Next to Continue!

  It took a moment to realize she'd actually found something that was available. Kate tapped the mouse quickly, hoping nothing would change in the seconds it had taken to get this far and was pleased to see the loading screen pop up. Now, it was time to make a real fool of herself.

  Waiting for the world to load, she wondered for the millionth time if this was really a good idea. What if her ex was right? These people were all much younger than her, with years of experience she didn't have. There was no way she'd last more than a few seconds, so why did she actually believe this would be the best way to encourage herself? It was a stupid game. Just a video game that meant nothing in real life!

  And it was the first hobby she'd chosen for herself since she'd gotten married. This was her way of proving that just because someone could beat her down didn't mean she had to give in. Sometimes, kicking ass wasn't about fighting back. It was about simply refusing to give up. Perseverance.

  That alone made it worth trying.

  The golden glow on her monitor of a synthetic sunset halted her inner monologue. The world was beautiful! Harsh desert sands gleamed in the virtual light, stony outcroppings reached for the sky, and the pulsating wave of blue made it clear that where she stood was protected from the enemy. Glancing around, dozens of characters - all in blue - ran past like they knew exactly where they were going. A pop-up on the side of her screen waited patiently to explain the mechanics of the game.

  It didn't take long to read through it, and Kate didn't think twice before selecting the support role. She could get an idea of how the game actually worked without needing to jump right into the fighting. Clicking yet another button, she found herself falling into battle from some kind of spaceship pod, flames licking at the hull. It hit the ground, and the sounds of battle rang in her crappy headphones, drowning out everything else. The rattle of guns mingled with the explosions of tank shells and the whine of air vehicles. The world was chaos. As the sun sank in the digital sky, the tracers glowed, rays of red, blue, and yellow lighting up the path to the enemy. According to the tutorial, Kate just needed to focus on the blue.

  An explosion directly in front of her lit up a vehicle, the edges of it burning. Here was her chance! She pressed the number three button and charged in with her repair tool. Another explosion hit, making her screen flash red as she took damage, and her allies started moving, but the flames were subsiding. The engine of the truck revved to life.

  "Get in Lithium!" came a voice through the in-game chat system.

  She pressed E to enter and found her character with a view that hovered over the roof as they sped away. The list of seats to the side was full, names ranging from the unpronounceable to the simply strange. Oddly, Kate was smiling. She'd managed to do something right! It wasn't much and, in the reality of her world, it didn't matter, but it felt kinda good. After years of being told that she was nothing but a failure, it felt amazing.

  They moved around the massive walls and parked again. Pressing the same key, she got out and moved between the truck and the wall, hoping for shelter, then pointed her repair gun at the vehicle again. Pressing the button, nothing happened. Obviously, it was fixed and didn't need her help. With another sigh, she looked around for so
mething to do. A ding made her look up to find bright pink text hovering in her chat box.

  [IceMan] Playing Support? You new to the game?

  That had to be a private message, but she had no clue how to reply. Instead, she just typed "yes" into the chat box, and saw it printed in the white of the local text. Man, she looked like such a complete idiot now. Oh well. Everyone had to start somewhere, right?

  [IceMan] Type /r to reply to a private message. You have a microphone? Need some help getting started?

  Oh! So that's how it was done.

  [Lithium] I think so. Been playing for about fifteen minutes.

  [IceMan] Not bad! You at least have the basics down... better than most. If you download TeamSpeak, I can get you into the outfit server, and we'd be happy to help you learn to play. No commitments, but we are recruiting new members. ;)

  She had no idea what he meant. Outfit server? Like a game server? What was TeamSpeak? Was that a game cheat? Well, it didn't hurt to ask, right?

  [Lithium] What's TeamSpeak? Isn't this server good enough?

  [IceMan] No!!! TeamSpeak is a voice chat program. The server lets our outfit, that's kinda like a guild, talk to each other. There's only a handful of us online at the moment, but figured it might be easier for you to learn if you don't have to stop to type. Not required at all, just like seeing new people in game.

  [Lithium] Ok. Let me figure that out.

  [IceMan] Just google it. Hop in the truck while you alt-tab out of the game, so you won't die. Well, not as easily.

  She did. The program was easy to find and didn't take long to install. It took longer to check to make sure her mic worked. She felt a little lost as she typed in the server information and clicked to log in. Her name hovered at the top of a selection of drop downs, similar to the file tree in her computer. Not that Kate was a computer geek or anything, but she did know how to find a few things on her machine. The biggest problem was that she was all alone, so had no idea how to talk to anyone, but that didn't last long.

  "You were moved," a mechanical female voice said.

  "Welcome to Paradox," a rich baritone greeted her. Glancing at the flashing icon, she realized it was IceMan.

  "Uh, hi?"

  No one spoke for a second, then someone named Synjd chuckled. "Q's gonna love this."

  "Did I already do something wrong?" she asked.

  "Nope!" This was a guy's voice, from someone named Knock. "Q's the person who designed the support role system - the class you're playing. She'll be thrilled to know it brought in another female gamer."

  "Oh. Is she like the leader or something?"

  "She's about to be," IceMan said in his beautifully deep voice. "Mostly, she's just QQ. Hope bad language doesn't bother you, because she sets the bar. Knock, is she logging in tonight?"

  "Nope. Void took her out on a date. That works for me, though... don't have to listen to the kink from upstairs."

  Ice laughed. "Don't want to know, man. What your sister does... yeah. Don't want to know. So, Lith. Ready to get a little experience?"

  That was how it all started. She spent the next few hours following IceMan around, healing and repairing while he explained the basics of the game to her. At one point, he even encouraged her to try pulling a fighting class. She died. She died a lot, but instead of frustration, she laughed about it. Each time she revived - either by another player's help or by spawning in where IceMan told her - she tried again. The problems of her real life faded to little more than a distant memory, and she never wanted to log out, but one by one, the other players were saying their good nights and leaving.

  Pale light was crawling through the window when she realized that only her and IceMan were left on the chat server, and the population of the game had nearly died out. They'd managed to win fights, lose fights, and deflect fights, but Kate wasn't quite ready to think about sleep, even though she should've been in bed hours before. They played in silence for a bit, him running a mech suit, her repairing the damage he took, until the enemy finally managed to take them both down. Before she could respawn, his yawn triggered one of her own.

  "I think that's it for me, darlin'. My wrists are starting to ache. So, did you have fun?"

  "Yeah, actually." Checking the clock, she realized she'd been playing Eternal Combat for over six hours. Time had just flown.

  Ice chuckled. "This means you're going to come play with us again?"

  "Really?" She wondered what the catch was.

  "Yeah, of course. I mean, you're doing pretty good for as new as you are. In a few weeks, we can teach you how to become a killing machine." He laughed again. "Besides, it's kinda nice to have another girl around. So what made you decide to try a first-person shooter anyway? I kinda get the impression this isn't your normal genre."

  "I dunno, I just saw an article about it and figured it might be fun." There was no way she'd to admit how pathetic her real life was, not to someone who was basically a complete stranger. Instead, she asked, "So how long have you been playing?"

  "Eternal Combat? Since it came out? FPSes? Um, twenty years? No, nineteen. I started when I was fifteen." He sounded a little embarrassed by that.

  She quickly did the math. "Wait, you're thirty-four?"

  "Yeah? You sound shocked."

  She was. She thought only kids played these things. "I just didn't expect people my age to be playing." This time, she was the one that was embarrassed.

  "And how old is that, if I can ask?"

  "Thirty-two." Inside, she cringed a little, hoping he wouldn't judge her too harshly.

  "Sounds about perfect to me." The way he said that made her smile. She had to be reading a bit too much into it.

  Time to deflect. "So, if that's 'perfect,' I take it most of the people in Paradox are about my age?"

  He paused, probably gathering his thoughts. "Depends on what you mean by older. I'd say late-twenties is the average. We have Knock, who's like seventeen or eighteen, a couple of others around that age, then all the way up to Synjd, who is in his forties."

  "Really?" She'd talked to him earlier. He seemed like a really nice and normal guy! She never would have guessed he was older than her.

  "Darlin', gamers come from all walks of life. Well, I mean we all have our own reasons for playing, but we're also ok with that. Like Knock, he started gaming to get away from his parents. QQ has some rage issues to work out. Void? He just likes the challenge of it all."

  "You?"

  His voice changed to jokingly seductive. "I'll tell you my reasons if you'll tell me yours."

  She decided to hedge her bets. Give him just enough of the truth to sound plausible. "I played a couple of MMOs, but never anything serious. Was just looking for something to hold my attention, I guess."

  "I understand." He paused. "I just like people in games more than real life, I think. Spend too much time working, not enough trying to do age-appropriate things."

  She giggled. "So that means it's true, huh? Gamers really are just a bunch of losers."

  "Nah. Everyone's a loser if you measure by that yardstick. We just play to our strengths. Most gamers are very intelligent but have minimal concern for social standards. That's why we're always seen as freaks. We decided to stop playing by the rules. FPSes are no different than MMOs, we're just more competitive."

  It sounded like such an appealing thought: just tell society to shove it and do her own thing. Too bad she couldn't hide away from the world. She'd gotten a little too good at that recently, but her savings account was starting to get slim. For a moment, Kate allowed herself to imagine a world where she didn't have to see another person face to face.

  "Wouldn't it be nice?" she asked. "I mean, to just make a living from gaming?"

  "It's not easy," he admitted. "I'm not quite sure I'm ready to do what the pros have and sacrifice everything for a professional contract, but to make a living doing what you love? Yeah. It'd be nice."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, the PLG, or Professional
League of Gamers, pays pretty well," he explained. "Our outfit has a few pros in the list, and a handful of sponsored gamers now. They're crazy, though. It takes hours and hours of gameplay to get good enough to try, and they track everything."

  "Yeah, and all young kids, I guess?"

  "No," he assured her. "Void - I mean, he's not really in our outfit, but he plays with us a lot - he's thirty now. QQ is in her late twenties. Knock's a kid, but Ryno's like thirty-five."

  "Oh."

  He yawned again. "Yeah, not what most people expect, I guess. And they are all cool as shit, Lith."

  How did she manage to fall in with these people? IceMan seemed so nice, and it sounded like the others were really good at this whole video game thing. "I guess I repaired the right truck, huh?"

  "I guess you did. I was screaming that we needed to keep it up - I mean, that's our spawn point for the assault - but no one was willing to play repairman. Then you just appeared, like an angel, to save us."

  She felt her face getting warmer and was glad he couldn't see. "An angel. Yeah, slightly hyperbolic."