error: undefined [MPC #40 - Videogame Nightmare]

In the Digital World, a new data stream appeared. It burst down from the heavens, scanning the earth and illuminating the darkness. It roamed through the sands of Folder Desert, the curved mounds of Mainframe Hills, and finally the trees of Server Woods. It searched, scanning the data as it went, flitting from left to right like a crazed sparrow.

The digimon of the forest knew better, and scattered from the glow of the data stream. Some took to the air, others escaped under to their dens.

Some digimon, unaware and unexperienced, stood stock still – eyes wide and filled with fright at the strange apparition. The data stream quickly snapped them up, leaving nothing but the bare earth that had been beneath them. One certain centipede digimon was among them, his own eyes wide and bright.

The data stream had paused right in front of him, as if contemplating its next action. It was so large, it left his relatively small frame a simple suspended silhouette. Then, within the blink of an eye, it flitted to his position and disappeared. The forest was dark again, like any other peaceful night, leaving no evidence of the data stream that had abducted several digimon.

…

“Desmond?”

“Do you hear us?”

The world, it was so white. And endless. It was just a blank, endless expanse… of nothing. Rinji groaned in pain, he was collapsed on the non-existent floor. His data was still fizzling from the rough transportation, leaving his form in an unstable, glitching state.

“Wait a minute, something went wrong with the update. The program, it’s running by… itself? It looks like the Animus is trying to fix itself,” a voice sounded from nowhere. It was a woman’s.

“Uh, Rebecca, I can’t help but notice – what on earth is that?” Asked a different voice. Cynical, and with a very British accent. “And where is Desmond?”

“It looks like Desmond fell unconscious, the Animus is disconnected from him. Strange,” said a voice that was neither Rebecca’s nor the cynical man’s voice.

“The question is, how is that possible? I’m trying to reboot it, but it’s not working. The update must have done something.”

“Damn Templars-“

“No, Abstergo didn’t do this. Maybe it was the error it threw up? Here, let me try something.” A few aching minutes later, and Rinji’s form finally stabilised, leaving him bundled on the floor in a collapsed heap.

“Oh God, I think it caught a virus,” she stated. Unbeknownst to Rinji, the woman was looking at streams of console code.

“My head…” He moaned, curling up in on himself. He wanted to cry. The voices were gone now; they had disconnected.

He was just alone, in this realm of nothing. Suddenly, the world flashed a brilliant white, blinding him. Massive triangles floated in the air and the world trembled, causing the shapes to reassemble themselves into a rather grey environment.

! Follow the path

“F-follow the path?” He had no idea how, but somehow, these three words appeared right in front of him. They lingered there, like an instruction.

He crawled forward tentatively, confused by this new world and the instruction given to him. And why was there a green indicator suspended in mid-air telling him where to go?

Rinji found himself being literally led up walls (which proved no challenge, considering he could just walk up them,) and past precarious leap, of those he avoided by simply walking sideways on the walls provided.

! Kill the soldiers.

Suddenly, there were humans in front of him. He… had to kill them? No way! He couldn’t do that. Although they didn’t look very friendly, either.

He waited there, for what must’ve been a few minutes at least, unsure of what to do.

“Whatever you are, those aren’t real people,” came the woman’s voice from the sky, again.

Rinji almost jumped out of his exoskeleton, but quickly calmed himself again. He'd heard that voice from before! He looked around frantically, head moving from left to right, trying to pinpoint where she could be speaking from.

After a few more moments of silence, he replied, “they aren’t?”

He sounded adorable.

“…no, but you’ll have to knock them out to get past. Still, mind telling me what you are and how you’re in the Animus?”

“Oh… I’m a Digimon, short for Digital Monster… and I think I was transported by a data stream?” He explained to the best of his ability, unsure of who the woman was or even where he was. But he trusted her anyway, she seemed nice enough.

“Wait,” she laughed, “that means you must be the virus! That’s incredible - a sentient virus!” Her voice sounded gleeful, as if she’d just discovered something amazing. “And well, you’re sweet enough, so I don’t think I’d delete you anyway.”

“Th-thank you?”

“But first thing’s first, you don’t belong here, but Baby here seems to have accepted you anyway. Did you want to go back to wherever you came from?”

“Uhm… yes please, I didn’t want to come here.” Rinji’s voice was full of hope at the offering.

“I’ll have to get working on finding out where you came from, then, and maybe find out what you are… in the meantime, I’d like you to continue the simulation.” The voice continued to explain to him what an Animus was, and how a human named Desmond was supposed to be in it instead.

“So, I just have to help you find the key by playing through the simulation?” He asked, still unsure of the task ahead of him, and if he could really kill someone, even if they weren’t real.

“Yep! It’ll be easy, trust me. Oh, another thing, considering you seem to be deeper in the simulation than Desmond ever was, means you’ll have to talk to the other characters themselves. It shouldn’t be too much of a problem though. Have fun!”

“Wait, what!?” But her voice was gone.

! Kill the soldiers.

Oh, right. Well… if they were just simulations, then it was basically like a videogame, right? Some digimon would play games that involved killing the characters. So it would just be like that, except he was in the videogame.

Quite literally.

The two soldiers were still there as well. Their lack of doing anything indicating intelligent life was encouraging, at least.

“Alright, then. Hope this works…” He prepared himself, ready to jump down onto the first one.

“Singeing Shock!” He shout-whispered, aware of the fact that he could notify the other human of his presence if he were too loud.

He dropped down onto the soldier human, stabbing him with his electrified tail. He didn’t pierce the human, but the human dropped down, scorch marks on their back.

“That was so cool!” The voice from above said - she was suddenly back. “I knew it, you’ll have no problem.”

He still felt bad. He hoped he’d never do this to a real human. Still, it was only a simulation, and he had to help those people who really needed it as well.

He quickly dispatched the other human in a similar fashion, and followed through the obstacle course some more. Soon he’d enter the real simulation, so he’d been told, as this one was just a practice test. With practice humans. 

He dropped down from a ledge, in front of a building of some sort.

He felt his data fizzle and pop as the surface of it reformatted, forming a very different appearance. Rinji looked down at his hands, and fainted.

When he woke up, he honestly wished he could just faint again. He was lying back down on the floor, in a blue sort-of overcoat and a strange hat.

He was also a human.

He didn’t know how, he didn’t know why – and right now he didn’t want to face the world. At all. This was too weird.

Rebecca had mentioned he’d be reliving simulations of human ancestors… but he hadn’t paused to think that by that, she meant this.

He groaned, his hand held up to his head. Even his voice was different. To say the least, the experience was disconcerting.

“Rinji, it’s time to get a move on. When someone talks to you, the Animus should tell you what to say.”

He simply nodded, not really wanting to be reminded of how his voice had changed to accommodate being…someone else. With a one-thousand-yard stare, he hoisted himself up onto two legs. At least the Animus had given him the data to understand and use the new body.

He felt the Animus feed him the lines he was supposed to say and even when to say them. It was a topic about opera houses. Is that what he’d be doing? Just seeing an opera?

He said the lines to another human who seemingly appeared from nowhere, rendered by the simulation he was currently stuck inside. His voice almost hitched and stopped a few times, as he forced himself to spit out the words.

It would take a lot of time to get used to this.

He was no natural actor; he felt like a complete faker.

Rinji, or Haytham Kenway, as was the name of the ancestor he was impersonating, soon found himself walking up the steps of a rather regal-looking opera house. He still felt rather rude for having ignored the man who asked to take his coat, but it was what the Animus had told him to do.

If he risked desynchronising himself, the Animus could break. Or delete him. Or worse. Death, right now, was a very real possibility. At least, Rebecca had told him earlier when he’d looked at the human, and considered disobeying the Animus’ instructions.

She was keeping a very close eye on him.

He sat down next to a stranger, and said “Reginald?”

His voice being shaky hadn’t been what he intended, but he was determined to see this through. He wanted to help, and wanted to get home.

The man named Reginald looked at him, almost as if he was assessing if he was real. Then, he spoke up, “I can’t tell you how happy I was to hear they’d mounted this revival. Gay’s best work by far. Have you seen it before?”

“Um, once – my father brought me here as a child, though I remember… little of it. And I don’t suppose tonight will offer me the luxury of a proper viewing, either.” Okay, he hadn’t said the lines perfectly, but Reginald seemed to buy it. 

“No, I’m afraid it won’t. Onto business then. Do you see him?”

Somehow, he just knew. The guy was up there, on the balcony. 

“He’s on one of the boxes up there,” he replied. That sentence hadn’t been said perfectly, but either way, the Animus accepted it.

“The stairs are watched, you’ll need to find another way up.”

Instead of replying (like he was supposed to), Rinji, or Haytham now – simply nodded. Maybe he could get away without saying exactly what the Animus wanted.

“Sorry,” he repeated as he edged through the seats to get to the other side. He really did feel bad, however, despite knowing the humans weren’t even real.

Some climbing and impossible jumps later (it was a lot harder as a human!), and he found himself at the ‘destination’. It was an older looking human, with grey hair.

“Haytham,” the man almost whispered.

The name almost didn’t register in his mind. It really did not feel right to be called anything other than ‘Rinji’ or ‘Scolomon’.

Wait… would he have to kill him? He steeled himself at the thought, he couldn’t break down or screw it up. He could very well die himself if he did. This was an important event, wasn't it?

Some more words were exchanged, and this time he said exactly what the Animus told him to. The guy seemed so nice; he really didn’t want to kill him.

And then he stabbed him in the back.

Grabbing hold of the necklace like he was supposed to, he didn’t even see the child that had witnessed the act. Said child was staring at him, wide-eyed.

Shaking his head, he just walked out. That child wasn’t real. None of this was real. Everything would be okay. He didn’t actually just kill someone.

The rest of the mission was uneventful, a few people(?) were blamed for the murder, and he found himself in a carriage – spitting out more lines that didn’t make much sense to him. The guy whose life he was reliving… was a bit of a jerk, really.

One cut-scene later, of which he of course he had to act normally in, and he found himself on a ship. It was weird to see the world suddenly deconstruct and reconstruct before his eyes, placing him out on the open seas.

Or presumably the open seas. Because right now, he was inside the boat. The Animus told him to say something alongside the lines of ‘some fresh air will do some good’, but seeing as no one was around, he simply let out a breathless sigh.

If there was nobody around, he could act out of character, right?

After a few minutes of simply enjoying the peace and quiet, thinking about how weird the whole situation was, he got up from the wooden chair and stretched his limbs. Despite being in a simulation, he still felt very real, with very real needs.

It wouldn't be long before he'd have to climb up onto the top deck, and continue the simulation.

...

Countless missions later, and some killing he’d rather forget, and he was no longer on the boat anymore. Instead, he was in America, sat in a tavern on a wooden table with a mug of ale he hadn’t touched.

He could initiate the next mission anytime he wanted.

But he didn’t. Rebecca hadn’t talked to him in what felt like days, weeks, or months even. Time was hard to tell when stuck in a simulation that really enjoyed its time jumps.

It was snowing wildly outside, one step of ferocity away from being called a blizzard. Sometimes it was easy to forget he was in a simulation; easy to forget that he wasn’t some human called Haytham Kenway.

Dear God, he’d almost forgotten his name. His real name. He was even starting to assimilate some of the human’s personality traits – it wasn’t like he wouldn’t notice. He could be naïve, but he wasn’t stupid.

He didn’t even have to act with the simulated humans anymore. He was just being himself.

And that scared him.

“Mind if I sit here, mister?” Asked a woman.

“Go ahead,” he didn’t even look up at her.

A comfortable silence was shared between them, contrasted by the background noise of the rest of the tavern. It was almost like they shared their own pocket of silence.

Shortly afterwards, he heard the woman push her chair out from under the table, and leave.

He looked up at the space the woman had occupied, and his eyes widened in response.

Where she had previously been sat, was a digivice.

He snatched it into his palm as quick as a blink, and studied it’s red casing incredulously. Right now, it was the only hint – the only reminder that his own world still existed out there. And maybe there was still a way to get back there.

He fiddled with the buttons, pressing this button and that button, but to no avail; it refused to even activate.

“Well, that was disappointing.” It looked like it wouldn’t be that easy, then.

Maybe the only way to escape… was to desynchronise. The digivice was useless, and desynchronisation had been the only thing he hadn’t tried yet.

He had to hold back a wry smile. After all this time trying to blend in, all he had to do now was act out of character. Do something the Animus didn’t want him to. And maybe then, it would end. Just like that.

…

The next day (the Animus could even simulate day and night, how different from the Digital World was it, really?) and he was chasing General Braddock down in a swamp. He leapt onto him, pinning him down onto the muddy banks of the water.

“Finally,” he said, exasperated and not caring about what the Animus was screaming at him to say. He didn’t care anymore. He just wanted out.

Now was the perfect chance. Let’s see…

Haytham, (or Rinji, in reality) finally spoke, “you do know this is all just a simulation, right?” He was genuinely curious to know what ‘Braddock’ would say.

“What are you talking about, Haytham? Have you finally gone mad?” Braddock growled back, struggling to break free.

At this, he was shocked. He was supposedly in an ‘important event’, completely ruining it with lines that were nowhere near what were supposed to be said, and the Animus didn't even care.

In his stupor, Braddock kicked him in the chest, and slipped out from his grasp.

“No!” He hissed, before taking up his chase again. Was he even in a simulation anymore!?

His entire identity had been stripped from him, and at this point he couldn’t even tell if it was a ‘simulation’ anymore.

Still, Braddock was running away, and considering the man was cruel and, simulation or not, would probably be better dead – he pulled out his flintlock, aimed, and fired.

The man tumbled to the ground, clutching at his chest.

No longer in any hurry, he walked up to where the man had fallen. His shot had been deadly accurate – the man laid there, unmoving. It was done.

What had he become?

Shaking his head, he walked away from the scene of death. The Animus had stopped deconstructing and reconstructing the world a while ago. He’d have to make it back manually.

“I’ve done my end of the bargain, I suspect it’s time you uphold your end, as well, Kaniehtí:io.” It was a small reminder, unbeknownst to Rinji, that the real Haytham would’ve never been able to pronounce the native woman’s name.

She quirked an eyebrow at him, “follow me.”

It wasn’t long before he found himself being led from the underbrush to the underground. Of a cave, that is. Strange markings were notched into the stone, presenting a gate of some sort.

As he was studying the wall, so was Ziio studying him. The woman, perceptive as ever, commented, “you are not Haytham, are you?”

“What?” He sounded genuinely surprised, and found himself staring into the woman’s eyes. “I can assure you, that I’m quite sure my name is Haytham,” he lied.

“I found this in your pocket earlier.” She stated, holding out the form of the digivice in front of him.

How on earth would he explain this?

Before he could even fumble out an explanation, the device flashed twice, and a horrible grinding noise emanated from outside. Both of them looked at each other briefly, before running up and out of the cave’s entrance.

A huge, beam of pure energy shot down from the skies; its own light shining as brightly as the midday sun above it.
Ziio held up a hand to her mouth, while ‘Haytham’ simply stared at it, entranced and amazed all the same.

It snapped the pair up in an instant.

…

The sun was shining. Birds were chirping. Spring flowers swayed softly in the breeze. The meadow grass moulded against Rinji’s form, as his insectile legs dug into the earth beneath.

He looked up at the endless, blue sky. And started laughing. His amber eyes were filled with joy – real, honest joy. He was in the Digital World. This was where he’d dreamed about being sucked up by a data stream!

What a nightmare that had been.

“My head…” moaned another, more distinctly feminine voice. It sounded familiar…

There, in the grass, a meter away from him, was a small, brown, cat digimon.

In the name of Yggdrasil himself, it was going to be a long day.