Data Dragon Danika

The little dragon ignored her emotional state and agreed as calmly as usual, "Certainly, it will just be a moment."

A few moments later Danika held a virtual screen that displayed ZipZing in the mobile version of the game. Kit and Shrubbery were still waiting within the building"s boundary that Kit had set. Their little chibi forms had sad faces, but still didn"t match the broken whisper that Kit used to ask, "Can they do anything?"

"I don"t know yet," Danika admitted. She wondered if she should have just waited until she knew more. "Josh logged out and went to ask Lin Hao, who isn"t allowed to log in until he"s cleared by his doctor."

The dryad and the druid both flashed question marks over their heads. "They live together?" Shrubbery asked.

"Uh, kind of? A lot of the top people live and work at the game headquarters," Danika explained.

"Oh, right, you told us before," Shrubbery replied nervously. Kit nodded but didn"t say anything.

Danika didn"t know if she should tell Kit that her baby really had been straining the system resources. She hovered worriedly in front of the screen. Josh reappeared a moment later and Danika looked up hopefully.

"Is that, are you connected as ZipZing right now?" Josh asked with a worried expression.

"Yes," Danika admitted nervously. "Kit and Shrubbery are anxiously waiting to find out if anything can be done."

Josh grimaced and her heart sank. "Lin Hao said, um, actually, I don"t want to repeat it all. He"s pretty mad. He cursed for a bit, and then said that all I can offer you, I mean her, your friend… All we could do at this point would be to create NPCs that looked the same. We could copy the merchant"s memories with Kit Tay, but the baby"s are gone."

Danika gasped and looked at the game screen worriedly, and Kit demanded, "What is it? What are they saying?"

Josh looked at Danika"s confused expression and explained, "They can"t hear me, they can only hear what you say, it"s not really using a microphone like your phone does."

Danika took a deep breath and repeated the bad news, "Lin Hao told Josh that all he can offer is copies." She didn"t bother to explain about the memories, because she was certain that Kit would refuse.

Kit immediately shook her head. Shrubbery looked back and forth between ZipZing and Kit worriedly. Danika gazed at the screen anxiously.

"I"m sorry Kit," she whispered.

Kit"s chibified form looked at her expressionlessly and then she said simply, "I have to go to work."

"Kit," Shrubbery said worriedly.

"I"ll log in tomorrow," Kit said, and then vanished.

Josh asked uncomfortably after Danika stopped talking, "Danika?"

"Sorry, what?" Danika asked apologetically.

Shrubbery replied to her words before Josh did. "She said she"ll come back tomorrow, so finish up there and then come back," Shrubbery instructed as firmly as MatchlessMinion would have.

Danika hesitated, but then nodded, even though Shrubbery couldn"t see that. "Alright," she agreed, and logged ZipZing out again before looking up to meet Josh"s eyes.

"I um, I think you can tell your friends that Myles Blue will definitely regret it after Lin Hao gets back?" Josh suggested.

"You can"t be sure of that, Lin Hao might have deleted him just as fast," Danika pointed out a little bitterly.

"Oh no," Josh protested immediately. "He"d definitely have tracked down what went wrong during the NPC creation first, and exactly what kind of errors were being created. He"d make sure that any future children of NPCs with system procedures built into them, like the G.o.ds and the guardians wouldn"t create more NPCs that bogged down the system like that."

Danika laughed helplessly for a moment. "You really are Logical Heart aren"t you?" she asked.

Josh blinked at her, and replied, "Yeah, of course?" He looked a little offended as he questioned, "You weren"t sure?"

"I had no idea until I saw that window that shows the same scene as ZipZing"s stone s.p.a.ce," Danika admitted, and pointed to it. "I mean, I knew you played an enchanter, and I guess it seems pretty obvious, but it just never occurred to me."

Josh shrugged. "It"s OK, I never said anything either. I"ll log on tonight and finish your boyfriend"s stone s.p.a.ce so I can send it to him."

"What? Oh, um, alright?" Danika agreed questioningly.

Josh admitted a little sheepishly, "I put it on hold while we finished up the expansion, and then I got distracted with exploring the new desert and trying to figure out how it might be using more resources than we could measure."

"I guess that isn"t a problem now," Danika agreed bitterly.

"Yeah, sorry," he replied quietly.

--

Danika took a break and ate something before logging back in as ZipZing. She also sent a long text to Shinichi, describing how suddenly Kit"s marriage and baby had been deleted.

Shinichi replied very quickly: "I see. That"s rough, but also, good work. It sounds like you found a serious problem with the game that needed to be fixed."

Danika stared at his message for a long time.

She wasn"t sure if she wanted him to be trying to look at the problem in such a positive light. She felt really guilty about insisting on putting in a report.

She washed her dishes and then decided that putting it off any longer was just cowardly, and scooted over and pulled herself back over the edge of the VR-medi pod.

Shrubbery"s little golden mouse messenger was waiting for her, and the message said simply: "I"m going to work in my garden until you get back."

Danika had tried putting an a.s.sa.s.sin"s mark on Shrubbery"s tree, with all the travel back and forth between the desert and the settled areas of "Living Jade Empire" and it had worked, so she could simply teleport to the dryad"s tree. She took a deep breath and triggered the skill.

She used the excuse of pulling candy out of her inventory to recover her lost health, and avoid Shrubbery"s eyes as she announced, "Josh tried to tell me that I could tell you guys that Lin Hao will definitely make that guy regret it when he gets back."

"Lin Hao definitely will," a female voice agreed rather belligerently from behind her.

Danika spun and stared at Magna Silvam. "My a.s.sistant said that you"re not allowed to log in?" she blurted.

"I"m using a VR-medi pod to play, but I still can"t access my work account until I get released," the busty, blonde, elven cleric complained.

"How sick are you?" Danika asked worriedly. "Are you hospitalized?"

Shrubbery gasped, and Silvam rolled her eyes and declared, "I"m not that sick! My cold just threatened to turn into a case of pneumonia. I"m already doing much better this time!"

"You should really be taking it easy," Shrubbery advised worriedly. "You didn"t say anything about that to me."

"This time?" Danika asked questioningly.

"I got really sick once a few years ago after I didn"t sleep for about a week on a project. But I"m fine, and I might as well be hospitalized as use this thing," Silvam complained. "Er, no offense," she added quickly to ZipZing.

"I guess that"s true," Shrubbery agreed when Danika didn"t answer right away.

Danika didn"t know what to say. Part of her wanted to yell at Lin Hao for letting someone from his department delete Kit"s baby and marriage. Part of her knew that it wasn"t his fault.