Pingback, Part 1

Ace grinned and stretched. She had pulled her avatar back into the lobby and waited for the others to do the same. One by one, they all came back. Excited shouts and emotes flew left and right.

“That's a wrap, boys and girls,” Ace said. Her jaw was starting to hurt from smiling. This had been the best Raid night of her life. Hell, probably the best night, period.

A lot of the Raiders knew each other by name or reputations. The score charts made it easy to recognize the heavy players. Some she'd even run with before, in times past. So there was some friendly competition, some ribbing and bets. Every one of them knew what they were there for, though: to give the CSO a solid kick in the ass that they would be feeling for years.

“That enough excitement for you, Gee?” Zee asked.

“Meh,” Gee said. He threw an exaggerated shrug. “I guess it'll do for this weeks fun.”

They all laughed at that.

“So what do we do -”, Ace began. An alert flash suddenly lit up in the corner of her screen, red and urgent. A single click and all the enthusiasm drained from her, along with maybe a little bit of pee.

There was sudden shouting from all throughout the room. There was a surge of noise that grew quieter as avatars started logging out left and right.

“Pingbacks from CSO!” somebody shouted. Even more logged off then. Probably the ones without enough kit to detect it themselves.

Ace stared at the screen, gawking. Then realized she was the last one there. She hit the kill switch on her rig and sat in the fresh darkness.

Hell.