Brent Roth - The Dragon's Wrath: A Virtual Dream

Chapter 23: Alpha n' Beta Meeting #2

(Saturday, January 23rd Real Day)

Glancing at the clock as I made my way out of The Cube, it was already nearly 11:00. The second meeting was in fifteen minutes and there simply wasn't any way I could make it short of taking a helicopter. Since I didn't have a helicopter, I opted to eat out instead. It was a bit of a shame, seeing how I would miss out on running into that brunette girl, but it couldn't be helped.

Staring at my face in the mirror, my beard had become a bit unsightly. Plainly put, I didn't have good genetics when it came to facial hair. I barely had any upper body hair as it were, and my beard certainly was lacking…volume.

Oh well.

Shaving it off seemed to have taken a few years off of me, as I wondered how old I would look to a stranger.

Approaching my twenty-seven birthday in two months meant I was still young but I felt as if my physical age was much, much older. My dark brown hair that nearly seemed black at times was peppered at the front with white hairs from the stress. The bags under my eyes weren't terrible but they certainly didn't help the look.

Without my multi-colored beard that was a strange mix of red, light brown, and dark brown I appeared at a minimum five years younger than before. It was a good sign at least, that some people mistook me as being around twenty when I was cleanly shaven and dressed appropriately.

The alternative was certainly worse.

Having just arrived at the restaurant I was pleasantly surprised to find that the lunch hour crowds had yet to appear. Crowds were never much fun, plus I had no interest in waiting for an extended period of time just to eat.

Walking through the door I was soon approached by the hostess while she leaned behind the counter to grab a few menus, "Hi how's it goin', for how many?"

Staying cordial I replied politely, "Hey there, just one."

The hostess quickly looked up and was a bit puzzled, like they always seem to be when I dine by myself. I couldn't help but wonder if it was really such an odd thing that a person would go to a restaurant by himself… they had single tables and a bar counter for a reason.

She looked confused as she placed the extra menus back on the stand.

"Oh, this way then."

She had intended to put me in the worst corner table the restaurant had, but I maneuvered myself to a slightly better one by the window. I used to be a regular here, even if she was new and was unaware, I wasn't going to take the worst seat in the house.

After ordering I had little do but watch one of the many televisions on the wall. Most of the channels were sports related but one was covering current news, none of it of any real interest. But, I continued to watch anyways less my gaze started to wander.

Though it wouldn't hurt anyone to look around, I had an issue with it myself.

The problem was that I was hyper-attentive and couldn't really stop it unless I forced myself to look away. I had always been an excessively attentive person; it was never a thing of choice really.

Sitting here at this restaurant for barely two minutes, I had already taken mental note of the people that had crossed my vision.

The guy that was getting ready to leave with the black slacks and black suede shoes, with yellow socks and a silver belt-buckle that had a symbol I was unfamiliar with. The wrist watch on his off-hand was flipped backwards, which I never could quite understand and the necklace to match that was barely visible beneath his button-up white shirt.

He wore a white tank-top underneath which seemed a little unprofessional as it showed through, but it was none of my concern. I could see he wasn't very athletic but had some size to him, and despite his best attempts to maintain his image, his hair was slightly disheveled.

The problem though wasn't that I just noticed the guy that passed in front of me, as in that moment I also caught sight of the girl directly behind him. She wasn't very attractive but that was a matter of taste and opinion.

With white tennis shoes and black stockings, a plain black skirt with an oversized belt tilted at an angle, the two charm bracelets on her left wrist and the bangle on her right. The phone closest to her on the table with the blue protective case was most likely hers as well.

Looking up I couldn't help but notice the lack of a necklace where her white blouse was opened up, with a black lacey bra beneath slightly showing through. It was a fashion faux pas if someone asked me, but no one did.

Her gold earrings that looked like crosses from here were an interesting touch, as was the black broach that was barely visible but clearly held her hair up.

All of that information was taken in within a split second before I could even think about it.

I didn't want to think about it.

Of course the real problem wasn't that I just noticed all the extraneous details about two random people directly in front of my eyesight, the real problem was that I also noticed the girl in the red dress at the window directly behind her.

The woman with the black heels, black leather bag, and the sizeable diamond ring sitting pretty on her ring finger as she quietly eats a salad while fidgeting with her phone.

I'll notice the condensation ring on the counter from where a glass was placed moments before as it screams out at me to look at it. The fact that there are four servers but only one is checking on the customers while the other three wander around pretending to look busy. The people at the bar enjoying their food while looking like the epitome of loners, something I was entirely familiar with.

All of these things were noticed and memorized in a matter of moments and I couldn't help it. I couldn't quite forget it either. Days or weeks or months later, I would still remember all of those useless details that I couldn't get out of my mind while I struggled with any attempt to succeed in school.

It didn't make any sense.

That my hyper-attentiveness could trigger my long term memory for the most mundane of things yet I couldn't remember the Chinese or German vocabulary I had been studying every day for hours.

The fact my memory seemed to work for such idiotic things while I had nearly completely lost higher level functioning from the last concussion bothered me.

I could read and understand the problems put before me, but I couldn't make that logical leap as I worked them out. My mind had hit some sort of mental block that would not allow me to progress. For a period of time I was completely unable to do even the most minor of mathematical equations, getting stuck on simple things like seven times six.

All of these issues a result of the latest concussion that decided to grace me with its presence. All of these lingering side effects conveniently listed underneath what they term Post-Concussion Syndrome, or PCS. Something they say most people recover from quite quickly, but depending on severity could take years or may linger forever.

I hated it.

I struggled with it.

Whatever I had learned previously worked as long as it was outside of the critical thinking areas, but my ability to learn going forward had been severely impacted.

I was stuck in the past.

Yet, here I sat with an uncanny ability to recognize things that were out of place. I often found it an annoyance, but it had served as a gift as well. It was that same hyper-attentiveness that had me tracing the lightning strikes during the storm and leaving a mental map of all the previous strikes.

That same mental map that later reassured me that I had indeed witnessed something special.

In reality, I wasn't the only player in that region on that day.

Since it was during the Alpha, we had been given free rein to explore the world as much as we wanted, up to a certain border. All of the starter zones and the surrounding areas were open, but all higher level content was locked to keep things secret.

On that day with the lightning storms, that March the third, I was one of at least a hundred players in the area that witnessed the event.

I was the only one who noticed.

Finishing my meal, I left my standard tip of around $3 for a $12 meal as the service wasn't lacking and headed out.

I was eager to return to the virtual world.

I was eager, to return to Selene and Katherine.

I now had two attractive women at my beck and call, with some romantic progression already occurring. That was something the real world certainly did not offer me.