Fan Fic: Online Terror (Woo hoo! Chapter 3 added!)

[Robbie088]

Hey! Well, this is my first attempt at a fan fiction, and I have no clue if they've ever gone in this direction before, but I hope you don't hate it too much ^_^ I'll try my best to add more action in the next chapter since this one is really just to open up the story. Thanks for reading!

"So you're just giving it to me?" Robbie asked in disbelief.

"Sure, you need it." The Fonewm grimaced behind his tinted sunglasses.

"Thanks, I guess," Robbie replied as the Fonewm handed him the double saber.

Robbie, a Fomar character, his friends Scott (a Ramarl character) and Claudia (a Hunwearl character) had formed a room to demolish Dark Falz in hard mode. Right before they stepped into the boss warp, however, a Fonewm entered the room. The four defeated Dark Falz without a problem, due to the Fonewm's excellent techniques. Due to Robbie's necessity of Trifluids almost every minute, the Fonewm decided to give him a double saber which Robbie was told would steal TP from enemies.

"Be sure to use it often," The Fonewm advised as he strode off to the hunter"s guild.

"Wait, where are you going?" Robbie shouted after him as he approached the hunter?s guild doors.

"Have...go...connection...awful" The Fonewm replied with quite a bit of static.

"56K connection?" Robbie asked.

The Fonewm nodded as he continued to the lobby warp inside the guild.

After the Fonewm had logged off, Robbie turned back to the task at hand. Scott and Claudia had gotten into an argument about servers and Robbie was a bit disappointed that he had to enter the shops to settle this one. Frankly he wished he could just stay out of these kinds of fights.

"Actually, I never trusted the guy." Scott argued as Robbie entered the shopping area.

"Oh come on, I thought he was kind of cute," Claudia giggled as she blushed a little.

"What on earth are you two talking about?" Robbie asked, slightly puzzled, as he joined the two.

"That Fonewm," Scott began, folding his arms, "he looked suspicious to me."

"What do you mean, 'suspicious?' What was so suspicious about him?" Claudia demanded.

"I noticed how strong his techniques were for being only a level 1 Fonewm," Scott began as he counted the reasons on his fingers. "Also, that double saber he gave you, Robbie, I think it's fake, and third, well, I've never trusted Fonewms in the first place, let alone one with a huge afro with a pair of sunglasses. Please, whoever thought that was stylish should be shot."

"Hmph, well I thought he was polite by giving Robbie that saber," Claudia protested. "How many people on Vega would actually give you something for free?"

"Yea, just how many?" Scott argued again. "He could be a hacker and be trying to trick Robbie somehow."

"Please," Robbie butted in, "why would a hacker be using a 56K connection?"

"Well, it doesn't matter much anyway," Claudia replied.

"You're right," Robbie agreed, "we need to get headed to Altair since our clan meeting starts in a few minutes."

"Fine," Scott muttered, "I'm just ready to get off this server."

"Yeah, why did we come here anyway?" Claudia asked.

The two rounded on Robbie.

"Geez sorry to propose we do something new." Robbie half apologized on the way to the lobby transporter.

"Well next time we do something 'new', let's have it be on Vega 10 instead of Vega 1." Scott suggested as they entered the hunter's guild.

"Fine by me," Claudia answered as she stepped into the transporter.

"Oh alright," Robbie sighed as he began to burst to the lobby.

Once the three had made it back to Altair 5, they found themselves just a little early for the clan meeting.

"Names?" A tall dark blue Hucast asked when they arrived at the lobby.

"Robbie, Scott, and Claudia." Claudia answered to the Hucast.

The Hucast paused for a few moments as if checking their names off the list he had on his menu.

"Alright, the meeting is about to start. Please have a seat." The Hucast replied in a much friendlier voice than before, and he allowed the three to enter the area behind the lobby pit.

"You know, I always laugh whenever they say 'please have a seat' because there aren't any chairs available for us to sit in." Scott pointed out as they joined the group of about thirty characters for their meeting.

"I guess they just assume we know how to form our own chairs," Robbie replied as he formed his lobby chair.

Now for Robbie and Scott, these meetings were a bit embarrassing. Not due to the fact that they were only at level 60 while many others were at least level 100, but instead, their ID badges were a bit out of style. Because of their names, they had to have the Pinkal badge, meaning that during these meetings they were the only guys who had a pink chair to sit in. Claudia on the other hand had a nice time at the meetings since she was a Greennill, and her costume was also light green, so she fit in nicely with her green chair.

After a few moments of light conversation, the clan leader (Ami: a green Fonwearl) approached her position to speak at the top of the catwalk in the lobby. Looking down at her fellow members as if silently calling for their attention, she began to clear her throat.

"Fellow members of the 'Kaori Klan,' Ami began, "I am disappointed to announce to you a message of warning tonight."

The crowd became deadly still and no one even dared to whisper to their neighbor.

"The sad fact is that a clan of hackers has formed within the community of PSO, and these hackers have begun to extend their power far beyond the boundaries of the gaming rules." Ami continued. "They have manipulated the duping system into an extremely dangerous and lethal copying practice. Although I look down upon the duping system with serious disgrace, this new form copying has made me think of duping as child's play."

Hushed whispers began to break out through the crowd. Many people at much higher levels than Scott, Claudia and Robbie began to wear panicked faces.

"You see, this guild, the '.hackers', have found a way to copy items, but at the same time, install a virus into the item. These viruses have been rumored to cause item deletion, corruption, and even worse, double save malfunction."

The three gasped as they heard this information. Duping was a despicable practice to the "Kaori Klan", but this sounded even more serious. Without the double save feature, all the data you had could be lost without its backup save.

"Now I know this is scary for all of us," Ami proceeded. "but I want you all to know that there is a way how you can protect yourselves. I have been advised by system administration to warn all of my clan members to not receive any items that have or could have been duped. But these days, we all know that many items have been duped, so I as a clan leader advise all of you to stay away from the vulnerable blocks of the US servers. These include most, if not all, of Vega and many other popular blocks of Altair, Antares, and Deneb. Also, password-protect your rooms so that you know who can come in and out."

The next part of the meeting was really just same old business. Players submitted their new levels to the record book and others passed out their new guild cards. One person did bring up an interesting point, though, when Ami asked for any group discussion ideas.

"Ami, what exactly could happen to us if the double-save feature is blocked out?" The Ramarl spoke up.

Ami sighed as she gripped the railing. Apparently she was dreading this topic would come up sooner or later. However, after a moment of thought, she seemed to make up her mind of getting it over with.

"Very...good question Riku," Ami began as she cleared her throat. The room became deathly silent yet again as all attention focused on Ami. "You see, now that PSO has become more advanced with connection equipment, things could very well become a disaster if our double-save feature is removed. How should I put it? Okay, well how many here use the pods to login?"

Every single hand raised at this question.

"So I figured," Ami sighed as she continued. "We all remember how the interactive pods promised to submerge you in game play, and that they do, but there were many debates on the whole concept when the pods were about to be launched. Doctors claimed that it was too dangerous for people to use the pods due to the fact that they placed people in a state of unconsciousness in order to achieve the full real-life effect. However, during that time your body is taken care of by the amniotic-like fluids inside the pods so that on the outside nothing can really kill you. Bullet-proof glass covers most of the pod, and it has at least three backup batteries in case things go awry.

"But doctors didn't like how your state of consciousness was being placed in the hands of the PSO team. Now the PSO team has hundreds of members on its staff in order to maintain the safety of its users while online. That's the reason for the double-save feature in the game. The first save saves your game data, while the second save puts you back into your state of consciousness. So to answer your question, if the double-save feature was erased, you'd be nothing more than a sack of bones with minimal abilities."

Many gasped at this remark, and screams began to echo throughout the lobby. Ami must have expected this reaction, because she let the chatter go on for a few moments before asking for silence again.

"Now, as a clan leader who has to report to the PSO team, I've been told to tell you the safety precautions I mentioned earlier." Ami paused as if debating whether or not to continue. "But as a person who is as scared as you, I urge you to take some time off from playing PSO, if just for a few days. Just let this thing blow over and allow the PSO team to catch the '.hackers.' The message boards will still be open and you can access those with your normal Internet connection. Either I or a system administrator will post when it is safe to continue playing. But as for now, just go and get some exercise or perhaps play offline so you'll be stronger when you connect again."

Glancing at her watch, Ami gave a breath of relief.

"Well, I think that'll do it for tonight. Go log off and perhaps make it an early night. After a fright like this, I think we all need to just take some time to relax. I'll notify you all by regular email when our next meeting will be, since I probably won't be on for a while. But don't worry; I still get email from system administration, so you?ll be the first to know anything when I hear from them. Good night everyone."

The lobby filtered out slowly as people stopped to talk to others about the news. Others took Ami's advice and logged off right after the meeting was dismissed. Robbie, Claudia and Scott, on the other hand, decided to stay on a while longer.

"I think this will all blow over soon," Scott scoffed as they sat down in a corner of the lobby. "Don't you remember that clan who gave out weapons that would never stop copying themselves and would take over your entire item box and inventory? Or what about those people who gave out those photon drops that stole your exp?"

"Yea, but none have ever been this bad." Claudia pointed out. "All those other ones were just newbies wanting some attention. This is really like some terrorist attack or something."

"I agree," Robbie began as he folded his arms. "PSO security or not, there's always a back door into a system, and those '.hackers' could really have found it. But if they're going as far as to do this, what could they want from us in return? You really can't put a price on your life can you?"

"Perhaps it's some country wanting the US to agree to some weird terms." Claudia suggested.

"Or maybe it's some corporation wanting the PSO team to shut down in order to take the market for gaming." Scott thought.

"I don?t know," Robbie sighed as he stood up. "But all I really want to do is call it a night."

"Yea, same here." Scott agreed.

"So when should we meet again?" Claudia asked.

"Let?s play it safe and get on a messenger service on the computer." Robbie replied as he headed towards the information desk.

"Good idea." Scott added as he got in line behind Robbie.

"It will seem weird for me to get back on our regular computer again," Claudia sighed as she too got in line.

"Better safe than sorry, though," Scott pointed out.

"Too true," Robbie began as he approached the attendant at the desk. "Well, good night." Robbie waved as he logged off.


[b]

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Robbie088 on 2003-07-14 06:48 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Robbie088 on 2003-07-14 06:48 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Robbie088 on 2003-07-17 17:38 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Robbie088 on 2003-07-18 21:54 ]</font>

[Jehosaphaty]

definately an interesting read.

[Robbie088]

Hey people, well I finally have chapter 2 done, but sorry that it still is not really going too many places yet actionwise. I'm still getting the main points written, so if you could please bear with me for a couple of more chapters, then I hope that this will turn into a very nice story. Well, without further adieu, Chapter 2!


Gene was feeling a bit uneasy at the moment. He stared in waiting at his client who seemed to love taking his time sipping his coffee in the nearly deserted coffee shop. The only way he could figure to pass the time was to sit and drum his fingers on the small table in front of them and look at customers who were busy with their own lives, completely unaware that anyone else was in the same coffee shop as they were.

As he continued to wait for his client to finish his beverage, Gene noticed a couple sitting across the room holding hands on the table. Slowly the two locked eyes, and sure enough, the man (looking around the age of 25) began to close in for a score. The woman (who looked slightly younger) closed her eyes gracefully in preparation to receive his lips. Just as they were about to lock lips, a customer entered the store, setting the bell jingling, thus breaking the romantic moment the couple was sharing.

"You moron!" Gene said silently to the man who just entered, who was completely unaware of what he just interrupted.

Turning back to face his client (a man of 40 some hears, now draining the last bit of coffee from his cup) Gene coughed in a manner of impatience. His client looked up from under his cup at Gene, and, realizing that there was no reason to stall any longer, sat his cup down and cleared his throat.

"Well, thank you for coming," the man began as he looked Gene straight in the eye. "I've heard that you were one of the best when it came to hacking."

"Oh you have, have you?" Gene asked in a sarcastic voice.

"I'm in dire need of your services, and, looking at the state you appear to be in, you could use a side job like this." The man nodded to Gene's worn outfit.

"Okay, so my jeans have some holes in it, so what makes you think I'm not just trying a new fashion?" Gene asked in slight annoyance.

"Because that so called, 'fad' died out years ago, and you don't look like the kind of guy who would want to be a tacky dresser."

Gene surrendered, knowing that his client was right.

"So, I assume you've heard about what?s happened in the news lately?" The man asked once he realized he won that so-called battle.

"Who hasn?t?" Gene began, wondering where this conversation could be going. "You are talking about the logout crisis of PSO and those several thousand players who are now trapped inside the game?"

"Precisely," The man began as he nodded his head, "I need you to do an extraction job for me. You see, my son Robbie was among those trapped, and I don't exactly like my son being stuck inside a pod while those responsible for the mess are running around acting like chickens with their heads cut off!"

As Gene was about to cut in, his client started up again in a much calmer voice.

"Oh kids these days. You know how they are; always thinking they know best and do whatever they well please. My son always knew the right thing to do, and I hoped and hoped that it was perhaps his fault that he got stuck inside the game, because then perhaps the system administration could break him out. But no, it had to be some hackers who screwed up the system and not even the so-called 'professionals' know how to get them out."

"I understand what you mean," Gene began in the same kind of voice, "my girlfriend was trapped inside the game as well. The only problem was I never had the kind of money to buy equipment in order to break her out."

"Please, I'll provide all that you could possibly need." The client pleaded, "I just want my son back. Can you do that for me?"

"Sure, I'd be glad to." Gene answered. "By the way, I know this doesn't make any difference now, but how come all those people logged back into the servers when they knew that there was a hackers group running around inside?"

"Oh, I know all about that," the man began, "Robbie stayed offline for a few weeks during which he constantly checked the message boards. Finally, a few days ago a message came from the system administration giving players the all clear to play again. But, as we know now...that message didn't come from the system admin."

"Sure shows how we can't trust many people these days," Gene commented. "By the way, I never got your name yet."

"Call me Ron."

"Well Ron, I"ll be glad to try and break out your son, but I need to warn you that there is the slight chance that I might not be able to. If this group of people could disable a corporate server like that and then break into accounts that easily, this could take a while or it could be impossible for me to do."

"I understand." Ron replied a bit depressed.

"Well, in order to attempt this extraction, I'[ll need a pod, a broadband connection, and a memory card." Gene rattled off the supplies he would need.

"Done. And how much would you be wanting to charge for this operation?" Ron replied as he got out his checkbook.

"Frankly Ron, I don't care so much as long as I can get my girlfriend out of there." Gene replied, a bit shocked that he would say such a thing to a client who apparently was loaded.

"Nonsense, here, this may help with your financial problems," Ron replied, tearing off the check.

Gene glanced at the slip of paper and whistled. No doubt this man was loaded, speaking as he had never seen that many zero' on a check he had ever received.

"Well thank you very much!" Gene replied heartily as he folded up the check and placed it in his pocket.

"No problem." Ron began as he packed his things away. "Now, shall we go shopping for your equipment? I'd like to start as soon as possible."

"I'd be glad to come along." Gene replied as the two headed out the door.

[Hippocanibal]

Nice.

[Shadow82]

Wow good FanFic.

[Shadow777]

very good writing. I've never seen a fanfic take this direction before either, nice stuff you got here.

(nice name shadow82 http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wink.gif )

[Robbie088]

Yay! We're getting into the story more! Thanks for the nice comments, by the way. They really put me in the mood to write more ^_^ I hope that you like this chapter as much as you liked the other two. I'm hoping that this fan fiction can make it into the archives ^_^

Gene stood doubled over as he leaned against the wall of the lobby for support.

"Memo to self:" Gene began as he recalled the awful experience of logging into the system, "avoid logging in too many times."

Gene had a weak constitution, and the feelings he experienced while bursting into the system made his stomach somersault countless times. He would have gladly paid the PSO team a great deal of money in order to take that feature out of the game altogether.

As he began to gain his balance and health, Gene looked around the area he had landed himself into. This lobby was green all around, as if someone was obsessed with the color. A pit was situated in front of him where an information counter with three computerized staff members behind it was also situated. Along one side of the lobby was a circular shaft, its purpose unclear to Gene. The other three sides of the lobby were occupied with areas for players to walk around, and decorations (currently trees) were scattered around as well. Along the back of the lobby was a catwalk where players could get a glimpse of the entire lobby from a slightly higher elevated level than the rest of the lobby.

Before Gene could make his way to the information desk, a 3-D holographic screen popped up in front of him. Scanning through its' contents, Gene found out that he had to pick a server to travel to (he wondered why he was the only person in the lobby).

"Hmmm," Gene thought, as he decided which server to pick, "Vega is the first one on the list, so why not it?"

However, when he tried to select it, the message, "Server full. Please choose a different server."

"Okay, how about Antares?" He thought, seeing as it was the last one on the list. Again the same message appeared.

"Fine, what about Altair?" He mumbled, slightly disgruntled. Thankfully, when he chose this one, the screen disappeared, and another one popped up, showing a selection of blocks to choose from.

"Okay, let's see...5 might be clear of people.?" Gene thought as he selected block five. Sure enough, the screen disappeared and Gene was thrown into another phase of bursting.

"Oh wonderful, just wonderful." Gene thought sarcastically as he reappeared in a lobby much like the one he was in before. "I wonder how many more times I'll get that oh so good feeling during this mission?"

Looking around, Gene noticed that he was currently among about twenty others who were trapped in the game. What's more, most of the lobby was full of Humars and Fomars all talking animatedly to their fellow players.

"I need lvl 30 techs!" A message flared up on Gene's screen. Some person named "Sephiroth" had sent the message and was flying around the lobby looking for anyone to answer him.

"Stupid kid," Gene thought to himself as he opened up his menu screen in attempt to search for Robbie, who ("of course he just had to be one!" Gene thought) was a Fomar.

Scrolling through the list of results from his search, Gene unfortunately found no sign of Robbie.

Gene decided to waste no time and jump to another block in order to speed things up. He got in line behind a chubby-looking Fonewm and waited his turn at the information desk.

"You know," A female voice rang behind Gene, "if you're trying to get out of here you're going to have no luck whatsoever."

Gene spun around to come face to face with a Hunwearl that stood as tall as he, with short-cropped blonde hair, and who wore an orange halter top with a pair of short jean shorts.

"What are you talking about?" Gene asked, a bit surprised that someone would actually talk to him, seeing as he disguised himself as a shady-looking Humar.

"Typical. Another player who doesn?t think with his brain." The Hunwearl sighed, as she suddenly became uninterested in their conversation. But to Gene's surprise she thundered right on. "All the servers are full. No one leaves the spot they're in, due to the fact they don?t want to risk any chance of making things worse than they already are."

"And what makes you think I want to change servers?" Gene asked smartly.

"Because I know what you're trying to do," she replied as she scratched at her earlobe.

"Oh really? And do tell, what am I trying to accomplish?" Gene said in sarcastic wonder.

"You're trying to set those '.hackers' straight and then bring freedom to all the little children around the world." She replied in a sarcastic hearty voice.

"Not quite," Gene replied as he turned back to see how much longer he was to wait in line with this lunatic. "I'm just trying to break two people out of here. I have no inclination whatsoever of setting anyone straight."

The Hunwearl merely stared at him, as if he didn?t reply at all to her prediction.

"I don't believe you," She replied calmly. "You wouldn't come in here and risk your life to just save two people. A sane person would at least make the trip well worth it by saving more. So cut to the chase and tell me what exactly you are trying to do."

"Are you deaf?" Gene raised his voice a little louder. "I said that I'm here to break two people out of here and then-"

Gene's last remark was muffled as the Hunwearl covered up his mouth with her hand. All that came out was muffled remarks from Gene.

"Don't say it so loud!" She replied as she looked around. People were staring as if the two were some rare item, their eyes lit up with excitement.

"I mean, uh?" She coughed loudly and spoke loud enough for people to hear. "You idiot! Don't go logging out just because you had a crazy dream!"

Gene watched as the onlookers slowly fell back into their depressed state, and turned away from the spectacle.

"Come on!" She hissed as she dragged Gene to the circular shaft at the other end of the lobby. "We're going to another lobby to chat."

The two burst to a lobby that was decorated in a purple color scheme. Tanks of fish were also scattered around the entire lobby.

"So you really think you have a way out?" She asked.

"Yea mystery woman," Gene replied a bit rudely.

"The name's Lilia." She replied as if the question was meaningless. "By the way, I don't know if you?ve noticed yet, but people are desperate to get out of here. Have you ever been kept awake for three days straight with nothing but this game to look at? No link to the outside world, no promise of ever leaving?any normal person would go insane at any minute."

"Well I have noticed from the looks on their faces back there." Gene replied, as if stating the obvious. "But why on earth are they all staying in one place all the time?"

"Because they don't want to get fsod."

"Huh?"

"Freezing screen of death. PSO team had its servers tweaked so it wouldn't happen, but with the new people in charge, people are scared of getting it."

"And so what happens in fsod?"

"Your entire system freezes up. I have no clue what happens to you now since they switched to the pods, but in the old versions, you could lose your items and some unlucky few could even get their data erased completely."

"How...pleasant."

"You're telling me."

"So, why exactly are we in here to chat?" Gene asked as he sat down in his dark blue chair.

"Because I need to tell you something that I don't think the others could possibly handle at the moment," Lilia replied as she remained standing.

"What could that be" That you think I'm hot?" Gene asked jokingly.

"Oh shut up. The only reason I dragged you here was to talk hacker to hacker."

Gene fell silent at these words. Lilia was a hacker? But...how come she wasn't out of the game now?

"I've tried and tried everything I could think of," Lilia began as she leaned against a wall, "but alas, I've yet to find a way out of this virtual prison."

"So you're here to tell me how you flopped?"

"No, moron, I'm here to tell you that your risk was in vain. There is no way out of here! I've tried breaking into the server control, but it was locked up. I tried breaking into system administration, but their passwords are too complex even for me. I even tried tipping the scales in lobbies in attempt to force the servers into a reboot, but the jerks took off the limit law."

"But how come I wasn?t allowed into the lobbies?"

"Because in order to get into them you have to hack your way into them if they're full. They just expected, though, that something like this could happen, so they limited players from the traditional log-in screens, but if you know how to get around, then you can get anywhere at anytime."

Gene let the words sink in a little. He felt quite dumb after listening to Lilia. In fact, he had the impression that he could break into either system administration or the server controls, but if an experienced hacker couldn?t do it, what chance did he stand?

"So, you say that there's no way into the control rooms at all?" Gene asked desperately.

"Not unless you have the passwords, and there's a ton of 'em." Lilia replied as she folded her arms.

Gene's stomach clenched from fear as he sat and really understood the position he was in.

"So what you mean is-"

"What I'm trying to get across to you, Gene, is that you're now under their control. In lameness terms, welcome to your worst nightmare."