Axton and Sally ground through another few more violent quests before Axton finally called it a day. He had just received the alerts from the VR pod that the nutrient and waste containers were nearing empty and full, respectively, and he needed a break for the in-game world as it was. The in-game time dilation was leagues more than the Beta’s had been, and Axton felt that if he stayed any longer, even if the containers didn’t have issues, then he would quickly lose his flimsy human grip on the concept of time itself.

And so, with zero fucks given, he stopped in at a barracks owned by Admiral DiVeto’s fleet and took an available bed. He closed his eyes and felt the world around him shift and distort, and soon after that, he felt the real world hit him like a freight train. The transition was far more potent than it had been during the Beta, and Axton nearly emptied his stomach as he struggled to get the pod open. Thankfully for his carpets, the sickness faded rather quickly, but the man exiting the pod was still rather dazed.

Everything around him just felt so… off. His mind then ran from that thought to the realization that the in-game world felt off as well, but he had been too caught up in it to notice. His mind then began to have a sort of existential breakdown as he realized that while in-game, he had felt that it was just as real as real life had been and that he, for the life of him, couldn’t tell if he was still in a virtual space. He began to hyperventilate as the thin wall that separated reality from fiction began to fall away, and he very nearly lost himself in a panic attack.

However, there was someone on hand to help him with his issues. Someone he did not know was in his home at the time. Someone who was there on the behalf of a certain oligarch. Someone who had seen someone close to them go through a similar mental breakdown and was very invested in making sure it didn’t happen to Axton.

A slap on his back shifted Axton’s perspective from the existential death spiral he was trapped in. He began to hear sounds.. no… words! Words were being spoken but he was so deep into his well that he could barely hear them. His body shifted around and onto its back as he grappled with the realization that there was no way of knowing if he was just a construct in a fictitious work and that-.

*ZAP!*

A quick but potent electrical shock ripped Axton from his mental torture and caused him to snap back to reality. Standing over him was a man in a typical ‘Corporate Goon’ Outfit, complete with a shaved head and dark, eye-obscuring sunglasses that were worn indoors. Axton began to panic again, and now for a different reason. Had Donovan sent someone to kill him?

“Breathe! Empty your mind and breathe!”

The booming voice of the Agent 74 wannabe was authoritative enough to force Axton to unconsciously obey, and he took several deep breaths before he began to slip back into his previous mental state.

“Oh, no you don’t.” the suited man said as he zapped Axton with what appeared to be a cross between a cattle prod and a police nightstick. “Empty your head and just breathe. Don’t think, don’t let your mind wander, just be.”

Axton obliged this time and found it was much, much harder to slip back into the spiral, however despite being much harder to do, he found himself falling again.

*ZAP!*

Another shock and a few more words repeated the cycle, and that cycle repeated several more times before Axton was composed (and in enough residual pain) to avoid sinking into that pit again.

“You should be glad that I was here.” The man said with barely any emotion in his voice. “Mr. Rhodes insisted that we take a look at your pod when we could, and we could only do so while you were in it.” The man then looked up at the pod that was just a few feet away from where Axton lay, and his face showed the slightest hint of anger and irritation. If one could see what he was seeing in his glasses, you would understand why he was so aggravated, but he made the reason why known for any in earshot to hear regardless.

“As expected, a remote hack using a universal backdoor to alter the perception of the user and induce an existential breakdown of targeted individuals upon deactivation via the removal of specific barriers designed to prevent such things. We’ll be taking a look at the pod for a few hours and see if we can’t install a third-party piece of hardware to avoid such issues again.”

He pulled Axton to his feet and placed a hand on his shoulder. The man was easily at least a half-foot taller than him and it kind of scared him.

“With this, we’ll be able to launch a full investigation into the company that made this pod series as well as the game itself. No doubt you aren’t the only person to suffer this way. To be honest, had you not been Mr. Rhodes’ friend, this issue would have been swept under the rug, but now….”

Axton could put the pieces together without any help. The modern oligarchs needed the masses to at least tolerate them, if not outright support them. If they did not have the support of the people, then it was inevitable that another revolution like the one that nearly destroyed them would happen. If it was made known that the newest, most popular, and most advertised game and VR Pod were just backdoor ways to mindfuck any random person that a certain group of oligarchs wanted, there would be massive backlash, if not outright rioting and possible revolt.

Whoever was responsible (and everyone and their dog knew who was responsible) would face a massive backlash from their own people when this exploit came to light, and if the oligarchs didn’t nip this in the bud, then they would quickly find themselves to be universally on the receiving end of a lot of hate and rage. There was no telling how many had already fallen victim to this scheme or if there were any others in the works, but maybe Donovan and his allies could be dealt a blow that they might not easily recover from.

Well, one could hope, anyway.