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Doc raced over to Ren’s base, not even bothering to call out of fear of what he wouldn’t hear. Xisuma had messaged that Tango was gone again, and to check on all of the others. Beef quickly said that Bdubs and Etho were gone too, and Doc became so fearful, despite already accepting that Ren must be with them, wherever they were.
Doc burst through the door to Ren’s home, and scoured all of Ren’s normal hangouts until he froze in Ren’s bedroom doorway. Doc genuinely couldn’t believe that Ren was sitting in front of him. “Ren?” Doc called out, but Ren sat motionlessly, staring into his lap. He walked up to the wolf hybrid and gently put his hand on his shoulder. Ren’s head turned to meet Doc’s gaze, but his eyes were glossed over, not actually seeing anything.
“I shouldn’t be here.” Ren said.
Doc didn’t respond right away, waiting to see if Ren said anything else. After a minute, Doc said, “I’m glad you’re here anyway.”
“But I’m missing something. I wish to play the game.”
Doc squinted at the motionless Ren. This was the most they had ever gotten about what was going on. “What game?”
Ren’s eyes snapped to Doc, no longer clouded and fully vigilant. Doc’s heart broke as Ren replied, “What game?”
The new Ren was back, already beginning his contradictory statements, and Doc wondered if this was some brain sickness. He’d have to ask Cub about it.
***
“He’s constantly contradicting himself?” Cub asked as he searched through his medical guides. It was weeks after Doc should have been asking about it, but better late than never. If the forces taking the hermits were following similar timelines, then the missing hermits should be back within the next couple of days.
“Yes, but it’s giving us the only leads we have. Xisuma and I are beginning to think that they are in some sort of game, and if I hadn’t questioned Ren about the game, we could have gotten more information. But I’m more concerned about whether this new mindset is permanent. I need to know how to care for him.”
Cub’s sorrow filled eyes met Doc’s in understanding. Doc nearly forgot how long Cub had been helping Scar on his rough days, but now Scar was gone and Scar always came back in a worse condition than he had started with.
“There’s not much, but from the flippant behavior and not remembering what the other personality is doing, I’m leaning towards split- personality disorder. He’d need to go to an actual doctor to get a proper diagnosis, but it’s something personality related. It’s not switching between extreme emotions so I don’t think it’s bipolar disorder…” Cub shut his book and tossed it back on his bookshelf. “Doc, I’m not an expert on mental illnesses, my work is guess work at best.”
“I know, and I appreciate your help anyways.”
“Has he said anything else, about anyone in particular?” Cub asked, looking up at Doc with such hopeful eyes.
Doc hated that he’d have to crush that glimmer of hope. “No, he just sits around in his room all day, mentioning off-handed comments and then going back on them. I could try asking about Scar though, see if it’ll jog anything.”
“That’d be going against what Xisuma said though.” Cub said dejectedly.
“I just wish I knew what these… games… … were.”
Cub raised a brow at Doc. “You alright there Doc?”
It couldn’t be Watcher games, could it? Doc knew the blood was draining from his face, but he couldn’t believe he hadn’t connected the dots sooner. He’d already suspected Watchers after the last disappearance. And now with the theory that they were in a game of sorts… it all was lining up too perfectly for it to be a coincidence.
“Doc? What did you figure out?” Cub was desperate for any tidbit of knowledge.
“You said that Scar had memory gaps in his code, correct?”
“Yeah, why does that matter though?”
“Cub, have you checked any other missing player’s code for similar gaps?”
“I haven’t, but what would that prove? That everyone has the same gaps and could be fading?”
Doc raised his brow. “Fading? Not all of the missing players are hybrids that fade.”
“There’s been a new research paper suggesting that frequent memory gaps may be a symptom of fading in undead hybrids.”
“Would checking Ren disprove that for you?”
“I’d have to know who the anonymous undead player was in the paper. The likelihood of it being about Cleo is astronomically low. They’re the only other undead player on the list, and I know Scar isn’t that player.”
“Could you check anyway?”
Cub sighed as he agreed, and they traveled to Ren’s to ask for a code scan. Ren reluctantly agreed to it, as Cub came up with the excuse that he needed to brush up on his practice. Doc watched as Cub’s eyes narrowed on the code, and gave Doc a glance.
They waited to talk until after they left, Ren waving goodbye and mumbling about secret soulmates and something fishy going on.
“I don’t really understand what I was looking at, but after Scar’s last appointment, his doctor sent me code for looking at magic inside of player code.”
Cub pulled up a medical screen that Doc was all too familiar with, and Doc saw all of the blue lines of code interwoven into Ren’s being.
“You’re going to have to explain what I’m looking at here Cub.”
“This is Ren’s mind code. I won’t lie, whatever’s going on is a bit beyond my comprehension, I’m still learning about magic and medical code practices, but Ren isn’t a magic user. So what is all of this magic doing here?”
“He doesn’t have his memories. Something with magic removed them.” Doc knew of only one creature that had the power to tamper with memories. He was demanding an admin meeting with X as soon as they knew the missing players were safe and out of Their grasps.
“Ren doesn’t have gaps, he has links between them full of magic. That’s why he’s not recognizing that there’s a gap at all. Whatever those pieces of code are, they are acting as memory fillers. Ren’s are slowly growing back as well. I doubt he’d remember anything anytime soon, but with enough time, we may be able to get an actual memory of what happened. I’d have to see the other players to compare it, but this is positive news.”
A terrifying thought entered Doc’s head. “What if Ren’s memory is different though? I don’t see the other hermits acting quite like how he does.”
“Then we’ll do our best to help Ren anyway. Perhaps there’s a way we can encourage the code to grow back faster.”
Doc nodded, though he wasn’t encouraged by Cub’s enthusiasm. A particularly violent buzz on his comm drew Doc’s attention, and there was all the missing hermits join message. He better get that meeting with Xisuma as soon as possible.