“He’s not my dad,” she grumbled under her breath. Why does Mom put up with that creep?
Instead of hanging out at the malls like most thirteen-year-old girls, she spent her spare time battling against evil. It was about the time when she received a full scholarship to study at MIT, the summer before her fifteenth birthday, when she first met Harry.
She had gained ten million points, the most any player had ever reached. Everyone was talking about it in the discussion forums. That same day, she received a private message, which invited her to join the Elite team. It was sent by Harry, or more accurately by his online alias Zero Doubt, creator of the Truth Seekers. All gamers knew that Zero only invited the best of the best.
Zero: Inviting you to be a member of the Elite Team. You have twenty-four hours to accept the invitation.
No one would even dream of receiving a private message from the infamous Zero Doubt. Other gamers could only hope of having Zero comment on their discussion posts. When Harry posted a message, gamers would rush to reply to his post in hopes that he would respond. What a bunch of losers. Who the heck was this Zero Doubt anyway?
But the challenge to be in the top team was hard to resist. So she responded to his invitation.
Mist: Mission accepted. Awaiting further instructions.
After the first successful mission as an elite Truth Seeker, Harry began messaging her regularly. They started to spend hours online brainstorming strategic maneuvers to conquer other players in the game.
Many times while video chatting with Harry, her stepfather would bang on her door yelling, “If you don’t stop playing on the computer, I’m going to shut off the Internet!”
“Is everything okay?” Harry would ask her.
“Yeah,” she answered, in a tone that was a bit sharper than she intended.
She always pretended that things were fine. “Never show anyone your weaknesses,” her father always told her. “Especially your closest allies.”
Chapter 6
Joanna Chan (alias Onyx)
“IS HE SERIOUS?” Joanna asked herself, running her hand through her long, straight, black hair. This was the fourth quality assurance project assigned to her. What an insult to her programming expertise. She wasn’t the top gamer in Truth Seekers for nothing.
She drummed her peach-colored manicured nails on the armrest of her office chair.
Instead of working, she was entertaining herself by playing the Truth Seekers’ alternate reality game. The fun part was doing it with no one noticing. It wasn’t hard to do, since she was the newest kid on the block. Her cubicle was the size of a postage stamp stuck way back in the dungeons of the office, far away into the corner next to the archive cabinets. The nearest cubicle to her was ten feet away, so she had all the privacy she needed to play her games. Out of all the games she played, Truth Seekers was the most breathless and demanding, just like the programmer genius who developed it. And like in any game, she wanted the top prize, so she had no doubt that Harry was hers to attain.
The game’s private message box bounced in the corner of the monitor demanding her attention.
Joanna’s eyes sparked with excitement.
Zero: Onyx, let’s meet at the coffee shop across the street in ten minutes. Mist hacked into the database and found some information that might help both Graphix and you find out what happened in the disappearance of your family members. You can work to decode all the encrypted data. But we can talk more when we see each other.
Without hesitation, Joanna logged out of her computer, grabbed her purse and ran out the back door. She ran across the street, the spiked heels of her black boots tapping the cement. She could see Harry sitting by the window table of the coffee shop. Finally, here was her chance to work alone with Harry on a real Truth Seekers’ mission.
Harry Doubt, the icon of alternate reality game creators was a private guy. Gamers could only play by his personal invitation. Joanna, who had been playing obsessively on Truth Seekers every night, took the job at Global Nation at the GN University campus in New York City when Harry sent out the following message via the Truth Seekers’ private message system:
“Looking for a real Truth Seekers’ mission? Only inviting 5 of the top gamers here. You’ll get to work closely with me on missions which are yet to be disclosed.”
Joanna didn’t think twice. She was twenty-four years old and had just graduated from the Emery College’s Game Art and Design Program in San José, California. She was itching to do something fun. She bought a one-way ticket to New York City.
Harry had made sure all the hiring paperwork was taken care of. He even found an apartment for her to live in and paid one year of the lease up front. She was so thrilled to be one of the few gamers to have the opportunity to meet the famous Harry Doubt that she had heard so much about in the discussion forums.