Sinner's Run Ch. 13

Two Months Later

Noah heaved the last of the boxes across the threshold of the new apartment. He straightened up, hearing several somethings in his back pop. Only now after being back in the real world had he realized one key difference between it and the digital world - physical exhaustion had much more meaning out here. At least this time he had help when it came to moving, unlike the last time where he'd moved all his stuff all on his own.

Down the hallway that led to the two bedrooms, Fidget stuck her head around the corner. "Hey Noah! That really weird-sounding guy from the radio show called again!"

Noah groaned. "Did you answer?"

"Nope! Not after what you told me last time!"

Noah let out a sigh of relief. "Good, thanks. He's more trouble than he's worth."

32 stuck her head out of the bathroom, holding a vial of shampoo in her hands. "You wanted all this in the cabinet, right?"

"Yeah, just so we can keep it all in one place and it doesn't get everywhere." Noah hiked the box up in his arms and pulled the door shut behind him.

The small two bedroom, one bathroom was all he was willing to float the money for at this point. His own financial situation was a big giant question mark at this point. His old data entry job had filled his position after he disappeared, and Noah didn't fault them for it. He had dropped off the edge of the Earth and they had work that needed doing. When news of his reappearance had become public, his old boss had gotten in contact and asked if he wanted them to let the new guy go and give him his job back. Noah had declined. He'd though at the time it would be the noble thing to do, that he could just fold himself back into the workforce with little trouble.

Boy, had he been wrong.

Just as he set the box down on the couch, his phone buzzed. There was a laundry list of people who called him every day now, and none of them had yet to ring him yet that day. "Survey says..." he muttered before pulling out the phone. "Vivian!"

"Noah," she greeted him. "How goes the move?"

"Just got the last box inside," he said, patting the flaps atop the box. "I'm thinking another day or two to unpack. Just in time to head out again."

"It should only be for a short while. Agent Mathieson is being absolutely insistent to his superiors that removing you from the process of getting your life back on track is detrimental to your mental health, much as the spooks want to prod and poke you with all sorts of unsavory instruments."

"I appreciate you being willing to do the brunt of this."

"It's no trouble. I'm out of a job now, and I need something to occupy my time. I may or may not also be trying to ingratiate myself with them in hopes of scoring more permanent employment, but if that doesn't work I could always go back to the private sector. There's no shortage of studios looking for environment designers these days." Vivian paused for a moment. "Though I'm not sure whether dropping my name will prove to be a help or a hindrance after everything is all said and done."

In the aftermath of Noah's return to the real world, a lot had happened. The volatile exodus he, Fidget, 32, and Nala had taken out of the Mechantix servers back into the real world had fried the studio's entire computer network. Every computer linked to the servers - that was to say every computer in the office - had been bricked by the electrical overload. While the studio had an offsite backup of all of the game's data, the entire network in the studio had been fried to a metaphorical crisp.

And that was before the government had gotten involved.

Noah's disappearance case had fallen out of the news cycle owing to the time that had passed, though there were still some law enforcement working on it as well as a federal agent. Owing to him manifesting in dramatic fashion inside a game studio while the entire staff was present, there was no way his reappearance wouldn't become known. He hadn't wanted it to, but he'd never expected the aftermath that had happened. Within minutes the police had swarmed the Mechantix parking lot, and feds had followed an hour later. The week after had been a blur of interviews, medical tests, statement recordings, and a very long-winded session of him explaining the difference between a battle royale game and other shooter games to a confused FBI agent with gray hair.

In the end, Noah had been given a clean bill of health, though the professionals had been flummoxed by how even though Noah had been in a digital space for almost two months, the physical changes to his body wrought by running around for every day of that time had stayed. He was slimmer, with a lower blood pressure and greater muscle tone than he'd had before. It had left the doctors who'd poked and prodded him visibly confused, whispering to each other over their notes even as he was walking out the office door.

But Noah's situation had become secondary to the drama playing out with Mechantix. The government was very interested in how a reasonably successful game studio had wound up with a missing person inside their computers, something that before was only possible in science fiction. Brian, the head of the studio, swore up and down he had no idea how it had happened, but the spooks weren't buying it. The studio had suspended operations while being investigated, which meant that Sinner's Run was currently a dead game, and Vivian was out of work. Owing to her job situation, and her hands-on involvement with freeing Noah from the game, she'd become much more a focal point of the story as the weeks went on.

"I've been out almost as long as I was in," Noah said to himself. "Huh. Imagine that."

"Did it feel longer?"

Noah moved into the hallway, 32 pulling back from the doorway to let him past. Her hand slid along his back as he did. "Yes and no. I kept count of the days so I was aware of the time, but the day to day felt a lot longer because of, y'know, getting shot at. The doctors said they were surprised I didn't have any signs of PTSD or anything."

"The digital environment probably helped." Vivian paused. "Or maybe they're delayed-onset."

Noah nodded, even though she couldn't see him. "Time will tell, I guess."

Vivian took a moment to respond. "Yes, it's Noah," she said to someone on her end of the call. "Here."

The noise of the phone being passed from hand to hand rustled in his ear, followed by a scratchy voice. "Hey, Killer."

Noah smiled. "Hey, Nala."

They had managed to keep one secret. Nala had hid under the pile of collapsed servers for a time until there had been an opening, and she'd gone to hide in the vent system. After a time, she'd quietly made her way out of the building to Vivian's apartment complex, and was now lurking in Vivian's place. Her future was still up in the air, especially when all she wanted was to return to the game world when the game world didn't exist any more.

"Move going alright?"

"Yeah. Sure you don't want to come stay with us instead of Vivian? You might feel more at home here with 32 and Fidget around."

"I'm good, Killer." Nala's tone was neutral. "Vivian's taking good care of me."

The way she said it made Noah's mind go a certain direction, but he kept that to himself. "Don't be a stranger."

"Wouldn't dream of it, Killer."

She passed the phone back to Vivian. "I'll let you go, Mister Welkin."

"For the last time, call me Noah."

Vivian sighed. "Sorry, during the hearings that's what everyone refers to you as. It's a hard habit to break. I'll get it eventually."

"I'll see you at the next one. I'm a little worried."

"You'll be fine. You survived a homicidal AI that almost erased you from a digital space. You can handle out of touch suits probing you with mostly inane questions. At least, that's been my experience."

Noah snorted. "I'll take your word for it."

"You would be wise to." Vivian giggled, a very un-Vivian sound. "Farewell, Noah."

Noah hung up and shoved the phone back in his pocket. "Alright, now where were we?"

He joined 32 and Fidget in unpacking the rest of his stuff from the move. Aaron had almost had a heart attack when he'd turned back up, and again when Fidget and 32 had been released from government poking and prodding and had crashed in their living room for a few weeks while Noah had found a new place to live. The two of them were finding the real world a bit of an adjustment. Fidget missed being able to combine the things in her hands with a thought, but had quickly figured out her way around a Swiss Army Knife. Her current obsession was sporks and other novelty cutlery.

32, on the other hand, had far greater of an adjustment in front of her. After describing her blood-bending abilities to a government, she'd been taken to a firing range to demonstrate. She had, with some reluctance. Afterwords, there had been a big debate about what would happen. Some wanted her abilities to be pushed to their limits, to see about possible reverse-engineering. However, someone higher up in the Department of Defense had killed that push quickly, fearing that any development of such technology might be co-opted by other nations and lead to disaster, as had happened in the past with the nuclear bomb. There was also 32's fervent desire to be rid of the augments that enabled it. There was currently a small army of medical professionals looking over x-rays and MRIs of her entire body trying to figure out a way to extricate the augments without damaging her limbs. Little progress had been made, but 32 remained hopeful.

The three of them worked through the afternoon until the sun dipped below the horizon and the last of the boxes was empty. All three of them flopped back on Noah's bed, breathing heavily and sweating into the sheets.

"Good job," Noah panted, raising a fist for them to bump.

"Teamwork makes the dream work," Fidget said, tapping her hand against his.

"Leaves you with quite the hole in your stomach though," 32 said.

Noah blinked. "Where did you pick that slang up?" 32 had immersed herself in pop culture, devouring books and TV shows at an alarming rate. Idioms had already started to creep into her vocabulary.

"I saw it in a couple contemporary novels." 32 dropped her hand to her chest, folding it with the other over her heart. "I never could have fathomed just the breadth of different stories there were to tell."

"I coulda told you that, silly!" Fidget jackknifed up into a sitting position. "But she's totes right, I'm super hungry." She turned to Noah with a manic grin on her face.

Noah closed his eyes. "Pizza again?"

"It. Is. Divine." Fidget's other primary focus had been food. She could put away quantities that seemed impossible. Then again, 32's blood bending powers still worked, so why should Fidget's voracious appetite be abated?

Noah looked at 32. She shrugged. "Just as long as you don't get that weird one with the pork and pineapple on it again."

"Heretic!" Fidget declared.

Thirty minutes later, Noah answered the door to get the food. Mercifully, the short teenage delivery driver didn't immediately recognize him on sight and pepper him with questions about what he'd been through. People had been doing that whenever he was out around town doing mundane things, and it freaked him out a little. Then again, Sinner's Run wasn't exactly an unknown game. The whole story had been front-page news since it started, and probably would remain so for some time.

"Meat lover's and veggie," Noah declared to the girls, both of whom had showered and taken up spots on the gently used couch he'd picked up from a convenience store. Fidget sprang up immediately, the sudden motion making her breasts bounce under the oversized shirt she wore; it was one of Noah's. She and 32's clothes had been taken by the government for examination as part of their quest to understand how they could manifest in the real world. A helpful agency clerk had cleaned out some of the old stuff from her wardrobe for the both of them to wear, as well as sprung for some underwear for the both of them. Fidget hadn't taken to the donations, but 32 was wearing one such shirt now, a pink number with a cartoon sun on it that was the polar opposite of the person wearing it.

Both of them, Noah noticed with piqued interest, weren't wearing pants.

"Gimme gimme gimme gimme." Fidget almost tore the box open in her desperate need to get at the delicious pies.

"Grab me a slice of the veggie, would you?" 32 called over her shoulder as Keanu Reeves stopped bullets for the first time in The Matrix on TV.

"Kay!" Fidget took three slices of meat lover's and one veggie before traipsing back to the couch. Noah followed her shapely thighs all the way around the couch before turning back to the food. He grabbed one of each kind of pizza and went to join them.

Fidget scooted to the side so that he could sit between the two of them. He put his feet up on the beat-up coffee table next to the glasses of water already there. "You said this movie is your favorite?" she asked.

"Oh hell yeah." Noah gestured to the screen. "I mean, Keanu got better as time went on, but this movie changed pop culture when it came out. Kickstarted a whole genre of stories about people getting stuck in virtual spaces and trying to get out."

"And now reality is beginning to mirror fiction," 32 mused, tucking her legs up on the couch as she ate. She was already at the crust of her pizza slice.

"I mean, that's happened a lot in the past." Noah leaned back into the couch. "Somebody came up with something in a fictional story, and then someone with the means to make it a reality looked at it and said, 'hey, maybe that can work.'"

"Hmm."

The three of them settled in to watch the rest of the movie, Fidget consuming the majority of the meat lover's pizza on her own by the time Neo jumped inside Agent Smith and destroyed him from the inside. 32 had shifted her weight, leaning into Noah's side with her head resting on his shoulder. He could feel the hard nubs of her implants against his arm along with the questioning brush of her knuckles against his wrist. He took her hand, and felt her exhale against his shoulder.

The credits rolled, then were letterboxed into the corner while the sequel began to play. "We'll work up to that one," Noah said, quickly grabbing the remote and thumbing through channels. "Let's find something else to watch."

"Or we could talk about something!" Fidget said, snatching the remote from his hand and hitting Mute. She adjusted her posture on the couch so that she her weight was on her knees, allowing her to loom over Noah.

Noah looked up at her. "Uh, about what?"

Fidget's mouth pursed into a little pout. "Why haven't we fooled around at all since we got out of the game?"

32's hand squeezed his a little. "Yeah...good question. Why haven't we?"

Noah looked between the two of them, still conscious of the fact that both girls were half-naked and Fidget was very obviously not wearing a bra under the shirt. "Well, y'know, it's been busy between the interviews and the move and the whole trying-to-make-everything-normal-again thing."

"We could totally have snuck some time in somewhere," Fidget countered. "People do it all the time!"

"Don't tell me you've lost your nerve," 32 teased, poking him in the side.

Noah squirmed away from her, standing up. "No! No, just...I needed time. I didn't know what was going to happen to me, or to you two. Everything's all up in the air right now."

Fidget sat back down normally, resting her hands atop her bare thighs. Her thumbs danced around the elastic waist of her underwear. "Then let us help you bring it back down to earth for a little while, silly," she said.

"You're sure?" Noah asked. "Neither of you have to stick around me if you don't want to. You're free of the game now, you can live your own lives and it won't hurt my feelings." He felt like a goof, like a bit of his old self was surfacing. No, he thought. I'm being honest and upfront with them. Old me never would have done that.

32 and Fidget shared a look. "I mean, we've talked about what we want to do now that we're free," 32 said. "There's still a lot we don't know. I mean, neither of us know if we'll even age because of where we came from originally."

"Which has some serious upsides and some real downsides, by the way," Fidget added.

"But right now, we're still trying to figure everything out," 32 said. "Which means you're stuck with us for a while."

Noah snickered. "I wouldn't say I'm stuck with you."

"So why make it complicated?" Fidget chirped. She licked her lips. "We can pretend we're still in the game if it'll make you feel better!"

He shook his head. "I...never really liked the idea of roleplay."

32 smirked, tilting her head back so a lock of her raven hair fell free and framed the side of her face. "What about the idea of both of us sucking your dick at the same time?"

Noah's cock, which had been lazily thickening in response to the mood in the room, came alive. In a matter of moments after 32 voiced the idea, he had a very noticeable bulge in the front of his shorts. "Well, when you put it like that."

"Get your pants off and come over here then."

Noah thought about it, then shook his head. "Not here." He reached down and grabbed both 32 and Fidget's wrists. "We just got that mattress, let's go break it in."

Fidget squealed and raced out of the living room into the hallway. A moment later, the shirt she'd been wearing flew around the corner, tossed carelessly over her shoulder. "Hurry up, you two!" she called.

Noah and 32 shared a look, then raced after her through the tiny apartment, still hand in hand. Fidget was already wriggling out of her bottoms on the bed, squirming around dramatically. Noah turned to 32 only for her to push him backwards. The back of his knees hit the edge of the bed and he flopped onto his back, looking up at the two women. "Y'know we really should get some posters or something for the wa-mmmph!"

His banal observation was cut short by Fidget bending over to give him a ferocious kiss, her eager tongue sliding along his lips as her poofy hair fell in a veil around them. Noah arched his neck up into the kiss, a moan rumbling his throat as he felt 32's slender fingers at the catch on his pants, seeking to free what she craved. She managed it a moment later, cool air wrapping around Noah's cock and balls. "Fidget, leave him be for a moment and come help me with this," she crooned.

Fidget broke the kiss and scooted further down the bed. 32 was on her knees on the floor, leaning into the side of the bed as she nuzzled the underside of Noah's cock. Her tongue flitted out, pressing into the glans and making Noah shiver. Fidget brushed her hair back behind her ears. "This is going to take some finessing," she giggled.

"Just imagine it's the explosives you like working with," 32 murmured, her breath tickling Noah's trimmed pubic hair (he'd made a habit of keeping it under control since returning to the real world). "This can go off just as much as those can."

"Then go a little lower, sister." 32 obliged, her thin lips trailing further down towards Noah's balls. Fidget took a breath, then went down on Noah with a very distinct "aaaah-mmph!" noise. The sudden surge of warmth around his cock almost made Noah leap off the bed, but he grounded himself by bunching his fingers in the sheets. He'd forgotten just how good both of them were at this. And when they combined their talents...

Both women settled into a steady rhythm. 32 kept her attention focused lower, her tongue lathing along his balls as she took one into her mouth gently and sucked. Fidget worked on his shaft, not hesitating in the slightest when it came to getting every inch of Noah's long cock into her mouth. She deepthroated like a pro, a rapturous expression on her face as she did. Noah found it hard to sort out the sensations, trying his best to watch every second of what was going on. It all felt so good, enough that he knew he wasn't going to last long. But from the way both 32 and Fidget didn't seem to want to take it easy on him, they were in it for the long haul.