It had been years since IOI disbanded and Nolan Sorrento was killed by Anorak during the Shard Hunt. The world has returned to normal, and Wade hoped that him and his wife would finally have some peace and quiet. However, that hope was short lived...
"Sir, I need you to come with me immediately." A robot voice says, causing me to unbury my head from my hands and follow it down a long hallway through a set of double doors at the end. After what felt like a marathon later, probably due to my lack of real word exercise, we finally enter a room where a beautiful girl lay, hooked up to more machines, wires and robots than I could count.
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"Her nurse will be here shortly." The robot states in a monotone voice and whirs away. I gingerly step foot in to the room and quietly approach my ill wife.
"Arty, I need you with me. I can't do this without you; you bring out the best in me. Please, stay strong and keep fighting." I say, taking her hand in mine. As I wipe away my tears, I notice a small tuff of hair covering the right side of her beautiful face and instinctively, my free hand pushes the strand of wavy, auburn hair behind her ear to expose her beautiful facial features. I was so engrossed in worry and sadness, I did not hear the automatic door slide open and the nurse walking in to the room.
"Mr. Watts, I'm very sorry to have to interrupt your time with Ms. Cook. I'm Athena, her nurse for today." She pauses, giving me the time to turn around and look at her to focus on the conversation. Once I'm ready, I motion for her to continue with whatever she had to say.
"Ms. Cook has had a miscarriage, and despite our best efforts, she is deteriorating quickly. She has developed a massive internal bleed and will require blood transfusions to combat the blood loss. At the present, we are running short on certain blood types, including Ms. Cook's as less and less people are donating in today's society. We need to know if she has any family that could be contacted to share blood at this time." I quickly shake my head, knowing that her last surviving loved ones passed one year earlier when I was a, pardon my language, 'dick' to her.
"I see. I'm sincerely sorry for putting you under a spotlight in a time as difficult as this. I will give you some privacy with your wife." Athena says.
"Athena wait, what about me? Can I donate blood for her?" I ask, practically begging.
"We'll need a sample for your blood type, but provided that it is a match, I suppose it is possible." She says.
"I'll do it. Just tell me what I have to do."
"Mr. Watts, I need you to stay put and comfort your wife right now while I speak with the doctor. Once he gives his approval, we can begin the procedure." I nod and she leaves the room with a sympathetic expression. As soon as Athena is out of eyesight, I plant a small kiss on Samantha's forehead both in love and in fear. Time went by slowly as I kept an eye on the clock and on my wife as I waited for the nurse to return with good news. The sound of my phone ringing snapped me out of my trance as I reached in my pocket to answer the call.
"Hello?"
"Dude! What's going on? Sho and I are freaking out here!" The voice of my best friend yelled.
"Aech, Samantha is dying. I have to go." I say, abruptly ending the call. I know it was rude to be dismissive to my best friend like that, but at the present, I only wanted to hear one voice, the beautiful, angelic voice of my other half. As I bathed in the silence filling the room, my mind wandered back to the power couple that was Ogden and Kira Morrow. Was this how Og felt when Kira passed away? Is this how Samantha felt when she lost her grandmother?
"Mr. Watts, Dr. Morrow has agreed to your proposition. As such, the first step is to obtain a sample of your blood so that it can be typed and cross matched to confirm it's compatibility with that of Ms. Cook." Athena says, now appearing in the room. I nod and take a seat on the chair in the corner of the room, quickly rolling up my sleeve just past the elbow.
"Thank you. Just hold pressure for a few minutes. I will get the results back to you as soon as they become available." Athena says as she retracts the needle from my arm. I nod and thank her as she hurries out with tube of my blood in her hand, or more accurately now, Samantha's lifeline. For the second time in twenty minutes, my phone rang again.
"I'm sorry Aech, I was a jerk earlier. It's been a stressful t-" I'm cut off by a different voice.
"Sir, this is Fasial. If you would like, I can patch you to Ms. Harris."
"Please do. Thank you."
"Z? We have an emergency here, we need you back at HQ ASAP!" Aech says.
"What's going on?"
"It's a group called the Remainders, all of which are former Suxors, they want control of the OASIS and they'll stop at nothing to get it. They've already destroyed Falco as warning to us, and you won't like where they're targeting next. The Distracted Globe."
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"If they destroy that planet, millions of innocent people will lose everything. We need to send a warning to everyone to evacuate the Globe immediately." I say.
"We tried that Z. This group is smart. They've disabled the ability for anyone to leave the planet unless we agree to hand over control of the OASIS to them." Aech says.
"How are they destroying planets? It shouldn't be possible, Halliday and Ogden purposefully didn't create artifacts that powerful. I mean even the Cataclyst couldn't destroy planets. And how are they stopping avatars from leaving the Globe?"
"We don't know Z. But from what Faisal and the programmers were able to gather, it appears that this dangerous group is welding a never seen before weapon, and have access to the raw code that makes up the oasis. We've identified where the host code for the Globe was modified with prior authorization." The horror of what my best friend was telling me suddenly became clear.
"Only GSS employees have the authorization and security clearance to access and modify the OASIS source code. So if what you're saying is true................" I trail off only for Aech to finish my thought.
"We have mole in the company."
Thanks for reading everyone, I hope you enjoyed this introductory chapter! I look forward to hearing feedback from all of you and have a great day!
