Covered Correspondence

Chapter 8 Gargathah

CHELSEA. WE. LOVE. THIS. CHAPTER.  -Your Faithful Writers- Steve~Lewis- 

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It had been some time now, almost four weeks, since Piper got shot. A melancholy vibe had been surging through the whole building. Especially Chase, Professor Owen and I. And to make things worse, agent's access cards where having major melt downs. In fact, the whole system seemed to have gone ka-blooie over night.

I had just finished my training shift and had showered and dressed for the night. No one else was in the door room, so I hopped onto the computer and logged myself into Zombie Tribe Three online, just because I hadn't been on for a long time. Exactly two days before Piper had knocked on my door.

Piper...

I shook the thought of her out of my head, and checked my zombie cash. The icon showed zero. Zero? That couldn't be right. I had just spent real money on zombie cash the last time I was on. It may sound stupid to spend real money on online games, but this game was addictive, and they kind of suckered me into it.

"What is going on?" I mumbled to myself as I checked my twenty dollar gift card balance. It also read zero. I remembered giving my username to Piper the day she had knocked on my door and I had taken her dumb survey that had gotten me into all this crap. She wouldn't have hacked into my account and stolen money from me, would she? I also remembered Yumi typing in my username into the metal door. What did they use it for?

I finally decided to call Chase. I picked up the special communicator that every agent was forced to carry, paged Chase and waited for him to accept my call.

Finally he did.

"What do you want, Mark?" Chase sighed. "I'm kinda in the middle of something."

"What did they use my Zombie Tribe Three online username for?"

"Uhhh... What?"

"When I took Piper's survey, she asked me for my Zombie Tribe Three online username. I gave it to her and everything went 'boom' on my account."

There was a long pause.

"Dude you still play that? It was unpopular years ago." Chase's voice chuckled.

"That's not the point!" I felt my face become hot. "Just tell me!"

"Fine, we just used it to register you as a new agent. Almost all of our agents used to play Zombie Tribe Three Online, so it was the easiest way to get everything sorted out. It's a pretty complex system though, so you wouldn't be able to understand all of it."

"Why, because I'm too dumb?" I shot back.

"Precisely" Chase said, and ended the call."

"Crap on you!" I yelled into the receiver.

Nothing. "Aaaarrgg!" I threw the device across the room when the door opened and the communicator hit Reed in the head.

"Oww, Mark! What the heck!" Reed whined.

"Sorry." I grumbled and pushed my way out to the hallway.

"Dude!" Reed followed me out. "What forced you to pull the Piper?"

"What?" I mumbled.

"It must be pretty serious for you to pull the Piper on Chase in a time like this? He's been down enough lately!" Reed exclaimed.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well you know, 'Crap on you' that's Piper's line. "And didn't you hear? Chase failed his fith year A.C.T. test."