Sleeping Player (Project Chrysalis Book 3), John Gold [free e books to read online .TXT] 📗

been through her program over the years, but there hadn’t been any adults. Could he have been one of her former patients?

“Anji? Is that you?”

The cat instantly looked over at her, a look of annoyance flitting over his face. There was no sign of recognition or affection. Hannah had the animal lord class, for which perception was one of the most important skills, and that meant she could hear the hum.

“Do you remember me? I’m Eliza Donovan, your psychologist from the orphanage.”

Tears poured from the cat’s eyes, the hum grew louder, and the animals started running away from the field. That confirmed what Eliza was feeling—they could sense the aggression, too. Even the air started growing thick around where the cat was sitting. Anger, rage, and loathing battled across his face.

“The last time we saw each other, you were leaving the orphanage. Me, Vaalsie, Galboa, Finx. We walked out to–”

“Pain…”

It was the first word the cat had said, and it meant nothing good.

Damage received: 468550 (ignored: 3733)

0/12260

The last thing Eliza saw was the clump of air that pounded her body half a meter deep into the group. Her body fell lifelessly into the pit under the tree, where the roots reached out to grab hold.

Next to her, LJ’s senseless body also fell. Some nearby city guards grabbed the troublemaker and dragged him away to the local jail, though Eliza didn’t see it happening.

***

Deep under the surface of Arpa was where the technical premises were located. They belonged to organizations the city did their best not to advertise, including psychiatric hospitals, prisons, research labs, military training facilities, and many more. One of the facilities housed the capsules assigned to the Galileo Psychiatric Clinic. That was where patients who were supposed to spend all their treatment time in the game were kept, where they were disconnected or medicated via a catheter when they had health problems or needed hormonal correction. One of those cases was ongoing.

The patient was forcibly disconnected from Project Chrysalis due to their critical condition. One of the staff decided to use that instance to explain to a newcomer what the procedure was for when things like that occurred.

“The patient’s name is Bak Kvan. His brain has been through a number of strokes brought on by unproven medication, and he spent five years in a coma. As soon as he came to, the capsule established his level of brain activity and sent him to the appropriate medical facility in Project Chrysalis.”

“Why was he disconnected from the game?”

“His brain was seriously damaged from the trauma. When there are spikes in emotional energy or stress, the capsule administers sedatives through the catheter. They didn’t help this time, and the capsule’s ArtIn decided that the patient needed to be pulled out and put to sleep. But that’s the second problem: the patient can’t sleep at all. He feels like his consciousness is drifting into a darkness where time stands still. The overload itself means that his brain hasn’t been fully restored yet, so medical nanobots will get to work repairing the damaged circuits and connections. In the future, that kind of stress on the brain won’t lead to the patient being disconnected.”

“Why is his encephalogram off the charts like that? It’s almost like there’s a group of patients in his brain, and it looks like that only happens when he tries to sleep.”

“What, you thought personalities don’t suffer after strokes? If we were to turn off one of your hemispheres or reduce its capacity by half, do you think you’d be the same person? Of course not! It isn’t just about the physiology—we can fix that. It’s about how badly the individual took it.”

***

Eliza logged out of the game—the second zoo supervisor could take care of the kids, and he was already up to date. What she wanted to find out was what happened to Anji. Why had he reacted so strongly to what she said? Why did he collapse?

Moro responded instantly when she showed up.

“Good afternoon, Miss Donovan.”

“Hi, Moro. Pull up Anji Ganet’s data. He has a psychological problem, so I want you to send everything you have on him to my profile in the infonet.”

A couple of seconds later, Moro replied instead of sending the information.

“My sympathies, Miss Donovan. Anji Ganet died five years ago in D. Shtal’s clinic, over in the city colony Arpa. The cause of death is multiple strokes and hemorrhaging in the brain. I emailed you the autopsy report and the psychological portrait the orphanage supervisor put together.”

Eliza was shocked.

“Really?”

***

LJ woke up in a lone prison cell. The walls were bare, and there was hay on the floor instead of a bed. Sunlight trickled in through a small window.

He pounded on the bars, wanting to find out what he was doing there. All he could remember was talking to a woman standing by the tree. Each of her words pulled an ocean of rage that just made him want to kill her. She’d named places and people, and his head had practically split open with each one. The voices… They’d been so loud! They wanted to kill everyone. He remembered the names. Blood…

“Ah, you’re back, cat. I remember you—you’re always sitting up in the tree and taking care of animals. Well, you got in a fight? And you made sure everyone could see you?”

LJ shrugged. He didn’t remember a fight.

“You’re in here for a week without bail. The time will let you cool off and think twice next time before you pick a fight around a bunch of kids.”

The jailer walked away, leaving LJ frozen in surprise. What if Milisandra comes back? He didn’t know what would happen if she came and went without waiting for him.

Bad thoughts whirled around in his head, and his mood turned sour. But his