Leave The Monster Alone

"Make sure you have gear properly installed over your person. We will not be able to reach you otherwise" Mark did not know what he was doing, but thankfully for him, others did know how to make him presentable. There was nothing for a moment before a shock passed through his body and made him lose his consciousness. It was not like going to sleep which happened in an instant but a gradual process where he could feel himself sinking deeper inside that void.

It was a terrible feeling to feel his body and not be able to move it in any way. The void did not allow any movement and it held inside it. There was a feeling of despair inside him which made him want to start running away but his body did not cooperate with him in any way. There was a feeling inside him that said he would not be able to move ever again.

And then, the light started to flood his eyelids. The blank space beside him started to morph into different colors and shapes. They gradually solidified and formed a very familiar landscape in front of him. He was finally back inside the game.

"You can hear me? There are no signs of disturbance in the network, are there? Can you see everything as well?" Mark had not yet oriented himself when the plethora of questions began. We had to hold ourselves back from saying something stupid in return for those questions.

"The place has stabilized, or I think it has stabilized. There are no issues with the network connection and I can hear you clearly from my side. What should I do next now?" This place, this room, seemed not to have changed at all. He also knew now why he felt so much at home here now. It was because this was a replica office original room.

"Good to know that you are not facing any problems. Now, I will guide you to the source location of the supercomputer. You will need to grant me access to the firewall and I will take over from there" there was still a slight concern in Mark's mind about Rao and his true objective but he had decided to trust the other anyway.

Since he had decided to trust others, he had to follow his commands as well. Mark pushed himself off of the bed and made his way to the washroom. He decided to get acquainted with the new body and its functions to get a feel for it. He had not changed physically at all but she could still feel the power coursing through his body which would take a little time to get used to.

"Are you finished with your morning routine? Should start getting to work right now. I need you to take me to the central headquarters of the resistance. That was where the supercomputer should be right now" Mark could do this. He did not know where he was in the storyline but he knew the location of the base. It has remained constant throughout.

Mark decided to purchase a vehicle as to the first step. He did not have a lot of funds but that was rectified with only a single button click. The down payment was made easily enough since he did not have to prepare the papers. Rao was an excellent companion this far and made the journey too easy.

For the first time in this world, Mark drove by having all the traffic rules swimming in his mind. There were a lot of cars inside the city and Mark was extra careful to not hit any of them. She had practiced so much on the empty roads, traffic was something he was afraid of. But he quickly got used to driving in heavy traffic.

The resistance base was located out and there were only trees and caves in the vicinity. It made it very easy for Mark to be able to drive to this cave entrance. The entrance was big enough to drive his car inside but getting it out would be tricky. There was not enough space inside to make a U-turn or to reverse the car.

If the base was not open then there would be no way to get the car back outside safely. That was why Mark decided to leave his car outside the cave and continue on foot from here.

The cave opened up into a clearing and provided Mark with the very familiar look right in front of his eyes. He felt their water for no reason and had to bring tears from them as well. This place had held a lot of memories for Mark, both good and bad. This place was a part of him he had never discarded away and never will.

"Have you reached the base yet? Get me close enough so that I can give you inside access. I am scanning the place of and no living form has been discovered inside it. You are free to roam around without getting caught" so this place had no want to operate it right now? That was good news since it would mean that Mark would not have to face other humans to get inside.

"Keep on moving forward. There should be no obstacle in your way till the third chamber. Once you get there, you need to connect me to the firewall so that I can disable it" Mark ran through the familiar hallways of the base. He did not know where the third chamber was since nothing had ever been referred to as chambers inside the base. He wanted to ask what and where he would find those chambers, but he did not need to.

"Stop here and move toward the hind wall. Take the HDMI cable out and connect it to the small device in your bag. I will do the rest of the work from here" Mark did as he had been instructed to do. He took out the HDMI cable and connected it to the small box in his hands. However, nothing seemed to happen when he did so which confused him. He looked back at the connection screen to get further instructions.

"You have to switch it on as well. You should know how these things work by now" how would Mark know this kind of thing? He had never operated such a mechanism before, nor had he been presented with instructions on how to utilize this machine. Rao could not expect him to know this all on his own.

"3….2….1… I am in the system data right now. I have disabled all the security concerns as well as footage that was being recorded of your activity. You have one hour to get me to the central supercomputer" 1 hour might seem like a long time to most people but Mark had a feeling he would meet all the time he could get.

Something about this place was different than before. There was a feeling of disturbance in here that he had not felt for a long time now. He had to hurry up and get things in working order before his bad feeling bore any fruits.

"Provide me with the map of the inside and the shortest path I need to take to get there. I will be shown to connect to the supercomputer inside there as soon as possible" Mark ran through the hallways once again. His heart was beating too loudly in his chest but he finally made it to the gate of the room.

Open the room quietly and made his way to the central beam and did not hesitate to connect the HDMI cable to the supercomputer as well.

Finally, I felt like he could take a deep breath and relax a little. He had only just taken a deep breath and allowed himself to sit down before he felt the danger in his surroundings. You only had a few seconds before he had to dodge The Attack coming his way. Luckily, The attack missed both him and the supercomputer behind him.

"I know you will be back sooner or later to try and take me down. You have not realized that it has been too late already." Was it his imagination, or had the AI talked differently? For the first time, those words looked like they were coming out of a human mouth instead of a program. There was something different about this AI this time around.

"Get out of there and try to keep him away from the supercomputer as well. I will need some time to revamp the base and work to virus out. We cannot allow anyone to interrupt us during this procedure" since the other had said this, there was only one thing left for Mark to do.. He had to fight the other and get his attention focused on himself. This was the only way they could make sure that he did not foil their plan