Harem Reborn - Chapter 236

“So, what don’t I know about you and the girls, and you’re not kicking me out of here until I know the full story. Too long have I been running with scissors in the dark; I almost deleted someone, do you know that? Where were you when that happened? When I was grilling your daughter about if she was still a puppet? I could go one, but you and I both know that isn’t necessary. Is what Dansei said true? And how do I know that?”

So many unanswered questions wanted to spill out of me, but doing that wasn’t going to get the answers I needed. No, what I needed was the story from before the game started. If I designed this then there would be a way for me to control things better.

“Telling you will do nothing, but leave you with questions. You need to see from the beginning, and just know this. The girls and I owe you all owe our lives to you and could never ever repay you for what you have done and are still doing for us all,” Tequila said as she floated towards me.

“Well, I have a rough idea now of what happened, but I am missing the important specific parts. I want to believe you Mom, but right now, I need to stay firm with my resolve. So, show me what I am missing.”

Mom nodded, and reached forward to my forehead, and then her hand went inside my head. I was shocked at first, but there was no feeling of it. It was like a hologram passing through me; just a ghost feeling of something being there that wasn’t.

I placed my hand on Mom’s other arm and it was as solid as I was, and oh man was her skin smooth. Stop it, Dave! Or I was going to have to stop calling her mom! Ugh, if Grace was still here I would never hear the end of it, but then, someone turned out the light.

————–

[2 years before the launch of Reborn]

I opened my eyes, and I was in a bed, very familiar. I looked around the room, my room, this was my actual room. This started to drift into my mind, this was my room when I first started to work on Reborn. I looked around more, yeah, I was an Otaku from Calgary, Alberta, and my room was living proof of my claim.

The walls were covered in shelves that were filled with manga, Dungeons and Dragons books, and other Fantasy and Sci-Fi novels. The free space on each shelf had figurines of my favorite animes, and any free wall space was filled with anime girls. Even though this was me, I was still shocked at my own level of geek, but that wasn’t important.

Why was I here?

“Hey, dipshit, are you awake yet?”

The door banged open and my loud-mouthed blad older brother walked in. That right, we live together, mom and dad, are down in the states at the time-share place they pay for right now.

“Why are you yelling? I’m right here you jackass! What’s the big deal?”

“Big deal?” Hyde asked coming over and slapping me around, not hard, but I still had to defend myself, but this wasn’t a game and I was just a scrawny twenty-year-old programmer, Hyde was not.

“Alright, UNCLE! What the fuck do you want?”

Hyde pulled off me when I said uncle, but then made a feint at me when I swore at him. The guy was always bullying me, but I have had to bail him out of jail more than once for putting someone in the hospital after they messed with me. Still, what the hell was he…

“The launch for Second Life you fucktard, remember you, stupid little friend? You know the one that you insist is only your friend? [email protected]$##@, were you drinking while coding last night?” Hyde asked, but the name he spoke scrambled.

“Who?”

“[email protected]##@, are you deaf?”

Now he was looking like I was going to get a beating for real this time, so I dropped it. There must be a reason why I couldn’t hear that name, but I knew who he was talking about, and we were just friends. I had known the person since childhood and she was a crazy perverted weirdo that has been helping me design my new VR game worlds I had been working on.

“Don’t hit me, but what year is it? My head is in a fog right now, so just play along for now. I will get ready as you talk.”

“Jeez, man, I bet you were up all night talking with [email protected]##@, and now your brain is cooked. At least you will just have to watch her go in, lucky bitch! You and I both play way more games than her and she got picked over us, but I heard out of the one-hundred and fifty people going in for the playtest, one hundred and thirty are girls. The rest are males that paid a lot of money to get into the game, this whole thing seems fishy. It’s Nov. 28th, 2035, and it’s Wednesday if your brain’s that cooked.”

Once I was dressed, I grabbed my winter jacket, and warm toque pulled them on, and stepped in my boots. I could see the bit of snow on the ground outside, and I hated the cold, so I zipped up before leaving the apartment. Hyde laughed at me and pulled up his hood, asshole better off letting the truck warm-up before coming to drag me out of bed.

Personally, I could have just watching from my clear lens and still be working on my game, but [email protected]##@, had asked me to come for the hour she would be in there. I had agreed and here we were; Hyde was just eager for all the single ladies that would be coming out of dive after. His thought was, they will have been tired of all the same things in there and nothing real, so he would be the first real man they see coming out.

I was fucking cold out, minus twenty-eight, and Hyde still only had a black hoodie on that said NOFX on it, some old punk band that he cranked while gaming. We got in the truck that was thankfully warmed up already, and buckled up, Deerfoot was going to be a nightmare, but anytime outside the hours of midnight and four AM were a nightmare to dive in winter. Plus, seventy percent of Canadien drivers forgot every year what it was like to drive with ice o the roads.

Hyde was driving, so it was his problem. I pulled out my phone as we left Canyon Meadows, and made the long climb up the hill to join the actual city. One of the coolest parts about where we lived was being in a valley that hid the rest of the city from us. I had a missed message from [email protected]##@, man, even on my phone it was messed up!

‘Where r u’ [email protected]##@.

‘OMW, traffic is bad and roads are worse’

I waited for a reply, but then looked up as Hyde was hammering his horn, and yelling at the window.

“Fucking, giving me some fucking room, you bitch! You fucking inching along, let me fucking in, or so help me god, I will fucking rip your head off and shit down your throat! MOVE!” Hyde yelled as he rolled down the window, letting all the cold air in and the hot air out.

“Close the window! It’s fucking cold out! I complained, but that got me a glare that said, all of this rage can be yours for one easy payment of opening your fucking mouth one more time.

This was a daily ritual for us when we needed to get to work in the morning, but I didn’t go in every day, no need to, I was the boss. My company had been supplying retrofit worlds for Second life and the A.I. concepts I had been working on for NPC. One could say that I really designed Second Life, Reggy, and his crew were in charge of the equipment, but, because they hired me, it was their game, and I was just another no-name developer.

That was going to change, I already had people reverse engineering a test model I bought from some that had got one and we’re working on a new prototype. Speaking of Reborn, I should check my email, and see how it went, they had said in the last email last night that they had finally broken through the eternal block that was keeping my guys out. Hopefully today I would have some concrete info before [email protected]##@ went into the game.

Like Hyde had said, there was something fishy about what people were picked for the test run, and there they had only run males in the simulator before this. I was following everything I could get my hands on and I was thorough, even outsourcing to some pretty shady people to get what I wanted, but my friend was going into this game.

Hyde was yelling again as we tried to merge onto Bowness, but I was distracted, I had just opened up my email.

‘Boss, read now!’ -Simon.

Was sent to me thirty-five times and I noticed an uncountable number of miss calls and started to panic. I immediately called Simon, not checking the emails.

“DON’T LET THOSE GIRLS GET IN THE GAME! ITS A FUCKING TRAP!” Simon screamed at me through the phone.