The Days Of Fear: A TO Novel - Chapter 2

[Pythor 1,354]

PREVIOUSLY ON T.D.O.F.--- http://en.tankiforum.com/index.php?showtopic=376636 -- CHAPTER 1

 

C H A P T E R  2

 

 

It was 5 PM that same day. Michael, Aaren, and Connor were gathered in Michael's room holding an emergency meeting. Right after the spooky events of the morning, Michael phoned Jeff to make sure he was okay. To the his relief, Jeff was confused and angry, but not physically affected. However, Jeff had explained, when he tried to log back into his account, nothing happened. He suspected his account was lost, as well as everyone else's accounts in that particular battle. Everyone else, that is, except Michael. "Blue Leader" had vowed to Jeff over the phone that he would figure out what had exactly happened and get to the bottom of this mysterious catastrophe. Michael had not, however, mentioned to Jeff the voice he had heard immediately following the "Madness Earthquake," as the boys had started calling it. There were endless questions but zero answers. Thus, Michael called an emergency gathering. 

 

"So, guys," Michael addressed his friends. "Let's go over all the facts that we know so far."

 

"Well," Aaren answered. "You and Jeff were both in a Madness CTF. You guys were losing 11-1, and Connor and I had just left the battle to play matchmaking. You had opened your garage page, and it was loading when the gold box siren sounded. You were unable to get back into the battle in time, thus you had next to no chance to get the gold. Jeff, however, found the drop zone and had a very good chance of catching it. That's when... It happened."

 

"A very good summary Aaren. But what exactly did happen?" Michael questioned. "We heard a rumbling sound, then the map and the tankers in the battle totally vanished. It doesn't make any sense."

 

"It's like the floor of the map collapsed," Connor spoke. Michael and Aaren turned to look at him. "Michael, you were unaffected because your garage page was open. You weren't technically in the battle. Your tank wasn't visible. You got lucky, it was perfect timing."

 

"But what about the voice?" Aaren pondered.

 

"I dunno," Connor replied. "A hacker?"

 

"We obviously don't have much to go on. A hacker supposedly returns to Tanki after who knows how long he's been gone and causes a map to collapse and accounts to be lost." Michael paused. "Right now, we are the only ones who know what happened. The voice spoke after... whatever happened. I don't think anyone else who was in the battle heard it. At least, Jeff didn't mention anything. I suggest we bring this before an admin. The question is... who?"

 

"A battle moderator, I would think," replied Connor. "Maybe Mr. Stiffler?"

 

---

 

 

The next morning saw the three boys in a group PM chat. Michael was trying to get hold of Mr. Stiffler, but with no luck. It was another dreary day out as the cold front remained in Chicago. Trees blew back and forth violently, branches threatening to snap in half. Occasional thunderclaps caused Michael's dog, Barnaby, to flee down into the basement where the boys were stationed. All was quiet downstairs while the storm raged outside. 

Connor and Aaren were playing battleships while Michael waited for Stiffler to reply. Soft tunes played in the background from Michael's laptop.

 

"Hit at delta 9!" the electronic battleship board sounded. "Special Operations Craft sunk." 

 

"Ha," cried Connor. "He's gone. No more special operations for you!"

 

Aaren smiled then entered his guess. The board sounded "Hit at Alpha 1!" Connor choked on the frozen grape he was eating.

 

"Guys! He just replied," Michael exclaimed suddenly. "Come read it." The other two boys scooted over.

 

"I'm not sure if you're making this story up or not. Either way, I can't help you," Aaren read aloud. "However, I do know of someone who could. I'm not positive that he's even still around, but it's worth a shot."

 

Aaren looked at Michael. The other shrugged his shoulders. They both turned back to the screen.

 

"Well, refresh the screen!" exclaimed Connor. 5 seconds later the response came through. Michael read it aloud.

 

"His name is Underwood."

 

 

---

 

 

"Hmmm," Michael stroked his chin. "I'm not finding an Underwood in the Wiki either." 

 

It was about a half hour later. All three boys had already looked up the name on Google and in the Tanki game page, but with no results. 

 

"Check the forum page," suggested Connor. 

 

"Yessir. That's what I'm doing right now," Michael replied. He opened the forum page and scanned through the topics. "Would he be under the "Helpers of the Game" section you guys think?"

 

"Yeah," Connor replied.

 

Michael scrolled through the page. 

 

"Nothing about an Underwood as far as I can see. I... wait. What's this?"

 

Aaren looked over his shoulder. "What's what?"

 

"It's a link. I've viewed this page a gazillion times and I've never seen that link before. Someone must have just posted it. It says 'T.O. U-G-A-H-D-A.' "

 

The link took them to a darkly lit page with a short message scrawled across the bottom. The three boys crowded around the laptop to get a good view. It read, "LoOKinG fOr mE? 635-889-2228."

 

"A phone number!" Connor exclaimed.

 

"Evidently." Michael reached for his phone.

 

"Wait, are you actually calling it?" Aaren said in surprise.

 

"Of course. It's only a phone call. It's not like we're meeting this guy in real life. 634...889...2228." Michael said aloud as he typed in the number.

 

They waited tensely as the phone rang once, twice, then a third time. Suddenly, there was a sharp click and a muffled voice spoke.

 

"Very good. Now, listen closely. As much as you want to tell me about your story, I need to know the details more." The mysterious caller talked quickly. "Call me back tomorrow, but not at this number. Keep this page open for a second longer." Then the phone buzzed and went dead. 

 

The boys looked at each other stunned. 

 

"How..." Aaren began, then stopped as he saw more characters appear on the dark screen. It looked as though someone was scribbling on the page with an invisible pen. Michael read it aloud as the message appeared. 

 

"001-001-001... 7:00 AM. Don't be late. Asher Underwood."

 

---

[kaisdf 3,320]

Article approved.

 

Nice piece, great continuation of the last piece. Looking forward to Chapter 3!

 

Note, if you want to have a separating line, you can use [.hr], or underscores and it would probably be better than hyphens.

 

Very accurate overall.

 

Edits:

 

• Deleted some tautology, things like “It was 5 pm in the evening” (As if it’s 5 pm in the morning…)
  
• A few spelling mistakes
  

 

[Pythor 1,354]

 

Article approved.

 

Nice piece, great continuation of the last piece. Looking forward to Chapter 3!

 

Note, if you want to have a separating line, you can use [.hr], or underscores and it would probably be better than hyphens.

 

Very accurate overall.

 

Edits:

 

 

• Deleted some tautology, things like “It was 5 pm in the evening” (As if it’s 5 pm in the morning…)
• A few spelling mistakes

 

 

 

Awesome, thx Kais

[thethiefofvictory 339]

[*]Deleted some tautology, things like “It was 5 pm in the evening” (As if it’s 5 pm in the morning…)

Time to write a story :p

 

Anyways, great job! I'll be waiting...

[Pythor 1,354]

Time to write a story :P

 

Anyways, great job! I'll be waiting...

lol.. I feel stupid 

[Hippin_in_Hawaii 639]

This is fun! I like the dog hiding from the thunderstorm, a lovely realistic detail.

[P.4.R.K.O.U.R 329]

Its amazing how you can craft out a thrilling story based on just some guys playing tanki. I mean, the most I could have thought would be a crazy guy seeking out to kill the person who took his gold box.

Great job.

[Viking4s 10,791]

Really entertaining! Keep it up.

[Pythor 1,354]

Thanks guys! Just finished writing chapter 3.. Should be out late next week.

[Person_Random 4,991]

Great piece, better than I would be.  Well, time for one suggestion: the dialogue could be more descriptive, so you could give more details about the surroundings and the people.