It had been a good, long day at work that had an odd end a little before McKenna left her job.

Watching Colin work his way through the Ruins of Old Willows Cross had been very satisfying since the paperwork she’d done all day had been dull. She’d spent all day with minimal interruptions and a pair of headphones in her ears to enjoy the show. The moment Colin had met Nox LightSnuffer, she’d even gotten chills at how powerful the Goblin had been.

Then at about a half-hour before she was to clock out from work, the feed had cut off. Colin had stepped onto a magical circle, with Nox behind him, and then… Nothing. The screen had gone black and a red, NO SIGNAL, stood stark against it.

Confused, but not bothered, McKenna put away her things and finished her day without a fuss. That was an enjoyable day, Colin did his thing and got his class. Antagonist Avenger, Hah, that was an awesome class. He’d even kept the bones of the previous Demon Lord, the sword she was impaled to the wall with, AND made a unique weapon. Colin was doing well in the game, and she was excited to go home and find out what happened with their connection. Maybe he just turned it off?

So she’d driven home, enjoying the music of her favorite chilling band, Sabaton, as she went home. She had just finished their CD ‘The Last Stand’ when she’d pulled into the driveway with their truck.

Driving such a large vehicle always reminded her of the times when she’d driven a Humvee when she was a Marine. While she’d had some difficult times over her multiple tours, she’d overall enjoyed her time in the corps and loved this truck. It was a shame that they couldn’t just buy an actual humvee for personal use.

Mentally preparing herself for what she’d promised her Hubby, McKenna walked up the path to their front door. She stepped inside and was surprised to not find Colin sitting on the couch, headset on, and not able to perceive her. In fact, Colin was nowhere to be seen.

“Colin?!” McKenna called, wanting to talk to him about his day.

“In our room!” he returned a few seconds later. McKenna’s eyebrow scrunched together as she started moving towards their room. Hadn’t that response taken a few seconds too long.

She shrugged it away without a thought, maybe he was just busy.

She entered their room and found him looking through his dresser, obviously not finding what he was looking for since the folded clothes were a mess. He stopped upon hearing her step into the room and turned to face her, smiling as he did so. It was odd, she thought, that smile looks just a little off.

“Welcome home, sweetie. How was work?” He asked, taking a step closer to her.

“Boring as shit, except for your exploits today. That was pure action hero awesome,” she said, pushing away the inkling of worry.

“Which part? I did do a few things today,” he said, stopping just short of actually touching her with his chest.

“All of it,” she said excitedly. But I’d have to say the Columbine Mutator was my favorite. The way you and Nox killed it was absolutely epic,” she said, smiling her heart out. “Speaking of Nox, he was awesome. You were lucky to find him,” she told him, stepping around him to go towards their hamper.

She took off her work jacket and kicked off her shoes before sliding the later under the bed. She turned to face Colin and smiled, “you did great today, Colin. The antagonist is fabulous, you’re actually part of the game’s story!” McKenna said, excitedly. “I can’t wait until my gaming set comes in so I can join you.”

“Uh, McKenna?” he said, suddenly sounding hesitant.

“What is it, Colin? What’s wrong?” she asked, her attention now entirely on him.

He swallowed and took a deep breath, “I was thinking of dropping the game. I just think I need to stop and do something else to-”

“Wait,” McKenna said, interrupting Colin. She took a step closer to the man she loved and said gently, “what’s the real issue?”

“I’m not sure what you’re saying here, McKenna. I really think it’s best if I stop playing the game since-” Colin said before McKenna stopped him again.

“What’s wrong with you, Colin,” she asked, worried over this odd behavior. “You’re not one to just quit something suddenly. Plus, I thought you liked the game now?”

Her husband shrugged, not looking her in the eye, the perfect image of shame.

No, that’s not right. Something was definitely wrong here. Either something terrible has happened to make him not want to play the game anymore, or the government sent in a spy robot that looks exactly like her husband.

The first was likely, and she suspected the later was hearsay and her imagination getting away from her.

“Alright, let me just go clean off my face, and then we’ll talk some more. I want you to tell me the real reason you’re quitting the game, if for no other reason than it was expensive. No bullshit, got it? Remember, I can tell when you’re lying to me.” She said, trying to lighten the mood and give herself a moment to think.

She stepped inside and started to wipe what little makeup she’d put on for work. The foundation and lip gloss came off quickly, but the mascara took a few moments to do thoroughly. So she thought about all the little inconsistencies that her husband had done since she’d come home.

He was usually forth-right, and now he was beating around the bush and acting ashamed. He was quitting something after he’d sworn to do something, and something else was setting off alarms in McKenna’s head. It was a nagging little feeling that was getting louder every time something was off.

She knew her husband, he was a creature of strength and snarky comments. Also, one set in his plethora of little habits. Before the game, if KcKenna had called to say she was home, Colin would always respond within the first five seconds. He’d always been straight forward with questions, comments, and concerns enough that he’d even answered the eternal question wrong. Does this dress make me look fat?

Then the one thing that had made her more worried was that he didn’t kiss her upon seeing her home. That was simply something Colin always did unless she was admittedly annoyed or pouty.

She might just be thinking all paranoid and shit, but the thought would not leave her alone.

So she did what any sane woman would do, she tested him.

“Hey, Colin?!” she called out of the bathroom as she finished cleaning up.

“Yeah?” he returned.

“Do you remember what I promised you earlier? If you impressed me while you were getting your class?” McKenna said, stepping out of the bathroom.

“Yeah, I do,” he responded. A smile crept onto his face at the memory.

“Well, I wanted to ask you wanted to eat dinner first or jump right to the good stuff?” she said, gesturing at herself.

“Well, who could resist that,” Colin said, stepping closer to McKenna.

“Then come on over,” she said, smiling invitingly at him.

Colin approached, a smile plastered on his face. He reached out and grabbed McKenna’s waist, pulling her into his front. He leaned in to place his lips onto hers when she pulled away. Colin was about to ask what was wrong when she pulled back a fist and threw it into Colin’s temple.

Her aim was true, and he blacked out in the one blow.

When he awoke, McKenna was doing the finishing touches on the knots she was tying around his wrists, connecting him to the chair he was now sitting in. Two sharp tugs and his arms were tied tightly to the chair, and she proceeded to stand across from the bound form of the man that looked eerily like her husband.

“Alright,” she said, confidence projected. “I know that you aren’t my husband. So I am going to give you one chance to come clean before I kill you. OR. Or I just kill you if you don’t answer me,” she told her prisoner.

McKenna then walked over to her side of the bed, lifted up the mattress and reached between it and the box spring for the pistol she kept underneath. It was her Beretta M9, a gift from Colin on their honeymoon as an unregistered defense. He believed that eventually, people would come for all the weapons they knew about, so they’d always have one in waiting.

“Wait, McKenna, what are you doing? I am your husband! Please, put that weapon down before you do something you’ll regret,” He said, pleading.

“Now, you see, that’s how I know you’re not him. Colin wouldn’t be shamelessly begging like you are. He would have already gotten his hands out of those ties and have pinned me to the floor. You can’t even get out of those binds, can you?” she asked, smiling maliciously.

The man impersonating her husband tried to free himself for a few moments before looking back up at McKenna with a broad smile on his face. “So, what tipped you off first?”

“Colin usually kisses me when he first sees me. You didn’t even attempt it. Oh, he also always goes for sex after dinner. He believes in filling up the tank before putting on the gas, as he likes to put it,” McKenna explained. “So who are you,” she said, cocking the pistol, “and why are you impersonating my Hubby?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” the thing impersonating Colin said. “Besides, this is still his body. What would he say if he found out you broke it?” it said with a sadistic smile.

McKenna cocked her head, “that’s impossible. Possession is beyond what is possible with our current technology. Now, shapeshifting robots? Maybe. Wanna try again?”

“Seriously? You said shapeshifting robots AND possession in the same statement? What kind of weirdo are you?” it scoffed with a toothy grin.

“The kind that has a real gun in her hand and knows how to use it. This gun is mine,” she stated, gesturing at it. “that rope around your wrist is mine. Most importantly, Colin is my husband. This is the one last chance I am going to give you before I do anything else. Are you going to tell me anything useful?”

The perfect imitation of Colin rolled its eyes to the ceiling in thought. They stayed there for several seconds, hemming and hawing over whether or not it should. About thirty seconds in, McKenna got tired of it joking around and walked back to their bathroom. She returned a few seconds later with a half-dozen towels of various flat colors.

“What are you going to do with those, waterboard me?” it said in Colin’s voice.

Without another word, McKenna laid several of the towels on the floor and one on the pretender’s lap. He quickly made a comment about hiding a growing hard-on but was just as quickly ignored as she threw the last towel over her own shoulder. Less than a minute later, she was done and looked at the pistol in her hand and pursed her lips in thought.

Then with a shrug, she took the towel that was over her shoulder and folded it several times, she then placed the muzzle of the firearm against the towel and held it. She waited for a few seconds to let the Not-Colin start to sputter in an incoherent attempt to stop her, then pulled.

Bang!

The Not-Colin yelled and lashed out against his bonds as he looked at McKenna, first in bewilderment, then anger. “You crazy bitch! This really is his body! Where the hell will he go if he comes back?!”

“Go ahead, yell your lungs out. Colin had the place soundproofed when we first moved in. I doubt anyone will hear you,” she said, using the towel that she’d placed to minimize the powder burns to staunch the bleeding.

After a minute of him thrashing, She checked the wound and nodded. “Through and through, I anticipate a full recovery. Once I find the bullet so I can confirm it didn’t shatter in there,” she said, poking the towel dressed wound.

She stepped around the chair and continued to talk as she looked, “I hope this proved my point. Tell me what I want to know, or I will keep going,” she said, looking at the wall above Colin and her headboard. “Ah-ha, there it is.”

She pulled it out with a pair of pliers she’d gotten from Colin’s dresser and looked it over under the rooms lamp, “Hmmm. Smooshed but intact. Whew, lucky us. While I can treat it, I don’t have any decent pain killers. Although, that might have helped me get you to talk. Too bad,” McKenna mused with a little pout.

“Got anything to say?” she asked, crossing back around the chair to see Not-Colin’s face.

“Are you bat-shit or something? You seriously shot me for the first round of questioning? That’s crazy. What’s next, hot irons? Stuff me in a freezer? Poke me with all your sewing needles?” it said, biting back any more suggestions.

McKenna looked ponderingly at Not-Colin for a few seconds as he went silent. Then with a huff, she said, “actually, I like all those ideas. I think I’ll start with the freezer idea first. Less actual damage to the body. Come on, let’s get you to the basement,” she said, oddly cheerfully considering the subject matter.

The Not-Colin’s eyes widened in surprise. No way, this crazy bitch would actually…

McKenna walked around the chair, placed her hands under the seat of the chair, and heaved it up into the air. With cheer in her voice, she said, “Whoo, I think Colin’s been putting on a little weight. I used to do this easily,” she chuckled as she started walking to the door, captive in tow.

Now panicking, Not-Colin started wiggling in his chair as he sputtered, “I’ll talk, I’ll talk, I’ll talk, you crazy bitch!”

For the continued name-calling, McKenna simply dropped him to the floor. He was lucky that it landed on all four legs of the chair and stayed upright, McKenna was not going to stand him up straight.

“So, just so we understand each other. You ARE going to answer my questions now, right?” she queried, with a bit of a snarl entering her voice.

He nodded, “what do you want to know first?”

“Where is Colin?” she said instantly.

“Rosengard,” he stated quickly. McKenna’s eyebrows scrunched together, and the Not-Colin started explaining. “This really is his body, but his entire consciousness has been placed inside the game. I have been put in his body so that it doesn’t atrophy in his absence. Plus, a lot of people have a much-reduced chance of noticing that somethings up if the body is moving.”

“Why?” McKenna inquired simply.

“I don’t know,” Not-Colin said, then quickly continued before McKenna could show her displeasure. “The only thing I was told was that I needed to inhabit a body for the foreseeable future. Because the synapses in the brain remain unchanged when one of my kind inhabits a body, we can read their memories. You just noticed before I completely absorbed and integrated his quirks. I have to say, you are very perceptive.”

“I know, it’s a curse sometimes,” she said, not breaking eye contact with Not-Colin. “Unfortunately, I can’t tell whether or not you’re lying or not. Why should I believe you?”

“I can’t prove anything,” Not-Colin admitted. “The only thing I can tell you is that he IS in Rosengard, and that rumor has it that he had a role to play.”

“Yeah, the Antagonist, I know all about that. Why should that matter, it’s just a game,” she said, looking critically at the Not-Colin.

“Heh, it’s not just a game. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you anything more,” he said, then he added on before McKenna said the next inevitable line. “It’s not won’t, I really can’t tell you. If I say, then I will expire, and the body will die with me. Trust me, Colin can come back into here, but only if it survives,” he explained.

Growling, McKenna turned away from Not-Colin and walked a few steps away in thought. A minute passed, and she turned around to face him. “What are you, exactly?”

Then it went into its own history. Apparently, it was part of a human tribe that was strong with psionic power. To gain more power, the entire village agreed to concentrate their energy and ascend from their flesh to become beings of mental power only. This came with the discovery and downside that mental power needed brains to perpetually generate the power they needed to survive. They did their best to be benevolent beings that help others and only took over the dying or willing. Not-Colin also mentioned in passing that he had so little powers currently because it took some time for him to assimilate to new brains.

Others of his kind cared less for this. His faction was called the Enlightened, while the others were called Psionic Elementals.

The whole story sounded like it should have come out of a Dungeons and Dragons adventure module.

“Okay,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Look, I’m still not sure if I believe any of this. I’m still likely to believe that you are just a really good, bleeding, advanced robot made to look like my Hubby. But, I am going to get something done. For the moment, Hmmm,” she hummed in thought. “You stay there and relax.”

He said nothing as McKenna walked out of the room and walked to the kitchen. She poured herself three fingers of Scotch and downed it all. This whole thing was weird, complicated, and hard to believe. There were literally hundreds of light novels, novels, manga, and anime that involved games trapping people in it. How much more trope-y do you get?

Deciding on a course of action to start, McKenna pulled her smartphone from her pantsuit pocket and made a call.

It went to voicemail so McKenna called again getting the same result. She texted Colin, hoping that it might get through whatever was going on. After the third variation of the same text, Not-Colin yelled from the bedroom saying that the phone was in there with him. Great, If it wasn’t connected and synced before going into the game, then it wouldn’t connect at all. So there was no getting in contact with him that way.

It rang three times before she hung up. She watched the screen for fifteen seconds before smiling as it lit up, playing the chorus for Disturbed’s ‘Indestructible.’

She answered it, and immediately the voice on the other side called out, “Slut Queen!”

Groaning into the phone, McKenna had managed to block out that nickname from her memory and only remembered the good times. There had been several misunderstandings when a member of her team would accidentally say it around people, not in the know. There had been many broken wrists and noses from people who’d gotten the wrong idea.

“What? Not happy to hear from me?” the masculine voice on the line asked, a little dejected. “You called me, you know.”

“Oh, I know I did. I just hate that name. It makes me sound like a cheesy porn star,” McKenna said, whining a little since it was far too late to change it.

“It does, but that’s what makes it fun!” he announced into the line. “You’re not really one to call people for pleasure, so I assume you need something.”

“Yeah, that nickname is why,” she commented before moving on. “Yeah, Creep,” she said, using the old Marine’s own nickname. “I need to call in that IOU.”

Creep groaned, “I guess it must be serious if you’re calling that in. What do you need that your fantastic husband of yours can’t do.”

Ignoring that, she started, “Okay, first and foremost. I need either an Ineffable Gaming System helmet or access to one of the long term pods. The more advanced the version, the better. Next, I need someone to dig into the company and find out whatever you can. Something weird is going on, and I want to know what it is.”

“Anything else, Your Highness? A muffin to be delivered from your local bakery?” Creep asked sarcastically.

“No, just those two things. I need that first one ASAP. Can you do it?” She asked, waiting to hear the response she knew was coming.

“Unfortunately, I can. I will have to bring in a few other people to help with the company investigation and research. Will that be an issue?” he asked, papers rustling on his side of the line.

“No, just call me when you have anything for me,” she said, about to hang up.

“What? That’s it. Barely a how do ya do? Just business. I thought we were better friends than that. I mean, you took two rounds for me personally while still gunning down the enemy. I guess you’re too domestic for old marine friends now.” Creep told her, sounding actually disappointed.

“No, Creep. I mean Barry,” McKenna paused, took a deep breath, and held it a tick before releasing it. “Maybe you’re right, Barry. How’s the wife?”

“Asleep with the baby in her arms. It’s actually adorable, you remember how tiny Henri is? Well, she looks almost like a middle schooler holding a baby instead of a thirty-year-old woman. It always makes me smile,” Barry said, the pleasant tone in his voice evident.

“Better not let her hear you call her that,” McKenna said, a small chuckle escaping her.

“Oh no, she’d hate that,” he agreed. “How’s your guy?”

Deciding to take it literally, she said, “tied to a chair.”

“How badly did he screw up?” Barry said, laughing.

“Uncertain, but I will find out,” McKenna told him. “Look, I gotta go. Give your best to Henrietta,” McKenna told him.

“Wait!” he said, humming to himself for a moment too long.

“What? You have me waiting here in suspense.”

“I might have a bead on both a long term pod and a new helmet-type. Supposedly, it has a higher immersion speed and is about twenty percent lighter. They are looking for beta-testers, and the spots are going fast. Here, check your phone. I just sent you the link. It’s legit, I checked it out. I’d suggest just filling it out.”

Ding!

There it was, a link to the Ineffable Gaming Systems website where a sign-up sheet did indeed talk about a new VR helmet. Perfect.

Jumping immediately to it, McKenna put the phone on speaker while she filled in the form. “You’re on speaker. Tell me about the pod you mentioned?”

“Only if you promise me an actual conversation soon. With a lot of small talk and reminiscing, agreed?” he said sharply, broking no discussion.

“Alright, you’ve twisted my arm. What can you tell me about the pods?” McKenna said, moving to the next page of the forms. It turned out to the legal pages that stated, in no uncertain terms, that this was prototype equipment, and if it blew up due to misuse, they weren’t liable. All agreeable.

“There are many luxury pods that are usually only used by the rich who can afford it. I might be able to pull some strings and make it more affordable. All lower end pods are taken and logged out for the next few years.” Barry said with a vocal shrug. In all honesty, if you don’t get that prototype, you might be forced to get the pod. You know, for the reason you’ve yet to say.”

“And, as of now, still won’t. Thank you, Barry. Please stay well and let me know what you get. I’ll message you as soon as I hear back from the helmet people,” she said. Then quickly added, “helmet. Bah, this couldn’t stop a bullet.”

“Ha!” Barry belted out, only to be greeted by a baby’s cries. “Shit,” he groaned and hung up the phone.

A few short minutes later, McKenna finished the paperwork and signing all the agreements for the VR helmet, hitting the submit button at the bottom of the screen. The loading wheel rotated for a few seconds before a message appeared on the screen.

‘Congratulations. Your application has been submitted and is number 762 out of the 1000 applicants for the new Ineffable Gaming System’s VR Helmet, Seraph! Since you are within the first thousand, you will receive your in five to ten business days.’

“Good,” she said aloud. “One step closer to finding Colin and kicking his ass for getting stuck in a video game cliche. Now, what to do with the body?” she asked herself, looking past the walls to the Not-Colin waiting quietly. She’d have to figure that out, but until then, another shot of Scotch and later, dinner.