by Kris Schnee
Phoenix shrugged at Malcolm and Volt. "I'm glad we're not primates anymore."
"I never was," Volt said.
They talked anti-monkey tactics for a bit, and then Alma returned. "He says yes. The monkey army now has an AI behind it, and Sunset's not controlling it."
Phoenix nodded. "Okay, we have a good plan now. We'll make peace."
3. The Great Sage
The fleet arrived on the inn island, carrying the crew, and without Sprout. So now Iris and Sig were on Sunset's island, unaware of the chance to negotiate, and Volt and Phoenix would take a while to reach them. "Miss Alma," Phoenix said. "Will you come along this time?"
She said, "I'm just an observer, but sure."
Volt rallied the kids who'd been waiting to ride back, and they boarded the ships. Phoenix asked the crew, "What's the latest?"
A wizard girl said, "We keep getting beaten up. Can't get anywhere."
"We're going to try something else next."
Volt and Phoenix hung out in a cramped cabin on one of the smaller boats. After a little while of reading while they rode along, Volt asked, "What do we do after we conquer the island?"
He shrugged. "I guess we commute to Talespace from there. Or... we move the island back to Talespace after we've tried living with real privacy."
"Do we even have that here?" she asked, waving around the cramped cabin.
"As much as we ever can."
Volt leaned forward and kissed him, grinning mischievously. "I've been wanting to try that for a while."
Phoenix was speechless. Touching the spark-dragon's muzzle had been like a physical shock, warm and exciting. "Really?"
They were crouching together under the low ceiling. She blushed, saying, "Mom was always watching. It shouldn't matter, but somehow it did. I kept thinking about how she'd approve or wouldn't, and then wondering exactly what she'd say."
"We'd get an achievement message," he said. "And she'd tell our parents. Mine, anyway."
"What achievement would you get?"
"I don't know. 'Lay the Dragon'?"
She snorted, and sparks flickered along her nose. "Then I'd get one called 'Hot Stuff'."
He'd grown up knowing Volt as a fellow adventurer, part of the gang, actually the first he'd met among his circle of friends. But she wasn't one of the ones who'd been rescued from sickness and death. She was special. She didn't even have parents, just the AI watching over her shoulder. She was great anyway, and she'd dealt with some of the same scary things he'd lived through.
Volt sighed. "She'll know eventually. I'm not even sure why I care. But I want something of my own." She looked into his eyes again. "Can we have this to ourselves, for now?"
Phoenix smiled and tried kissing her for himself. He had no idea what he was doing, but it was nice.
* * *
The diminished fleet caught sight of Sunset's island at dawn. Up on deck he stood close to Volt. "I'll fly out there to let them know what's going on." Some of the kids were trying to extinguish a fire before it could burn a stack of barrels. Iris was leading them with spells of splashing water.
He climbed the mast and flew. Sig and Iris waved to him as they finally got the flames under control. Sig said, "We're not making progress."
"I know. So we changed the rules. Sunset agreed to upgrade one of the enemies, so now there's a smarter monkey to talk to. We just have to find him."
"Did you get that shrine inscription translated?"
Phoenix slapped his forehead. "Maybe Miss Alma knows how. She's on her way."
The last of the ships arrived, just in time for the camp to face another monkey raid. The assorted army flapped and swam to shore to fight again, and some of them died. They narrowly fended off some chimps that were trying to wreck Rainbow Goddess, the last mobile save point.
Iris swore. "I was calling out for the apes to talk!"
"Maybe they only talk Chinese," Phoenix said. He turned to Alma, who'd scurried up a tree to watch the battle. "Can you translate?"
Alma dangled upside-down from a branch, grinning. "I don't know Chinese myself, but Sunset set me up with a translation system." She mimed opening a door in midair, and one actually appeared, revealing a red-and-gold room of books and pillars. "Show me what you need."
Phoenix handed her a note with a copy of the squiggles he'd seen at the monkey-guarded shrine. Alma took it and made a game out of swinging from her branch so she could dive through the phantom door. A minute later she hopped back out and down to the ground, saying, "It says, Zheng He's Regret. Iiiiinteeresting."
"Why?" asked Volt.
"Who made this island, and why?"
"Sunset?" asked Phoenix.
Volt said, "Was it Jade Dragon?"
Iris laughed. "Sure, everything was invented by dragons."
Sig said, "Actually, maybe it was the Red Sage, the co-creator of Ludo who got kidnapped by Jade Dragon. Or both of them together."
Phoenix conferred with the others. "Jade was meant to take over the world for China or something, right? Wouldn't he want us to somehow use this island to steal tech for China?"
"Or learn about China," Volt suggested. "I'll bite. What is this Regretful Zengy you're talking about?"
Alma snapped her fingers. "You now have access to a Chinese Cultural Outreach Center, programmed in advance as part of this sim."
Phoenix looked around. "Where?"
All four of them cursed. "Seriously? Back by the inn?" said Volt.
Alma shrugged. "The idea was that you'd think to ask before sailing back into battle."
Iris said, "But you could move the entrance. And didn't you summon a door just now? It's only data on a computer."
"If I gave you instant access, then you'd learn that when things get tough, you go running to the nearest teacher. Is that the lesson you want?"
Phoenix growled. "No, we can solve this. We have a different solution in progress. Let's head inland in search of this super-monkey. Anybody who gets killed, if your save point is back on Launch Island, check the library."
He hiked with Volt and Iris, this time leaving Sig behind to guard the camp. They also brought along a dozen of the army kids for reinforcements. Volt even thought to check with Lieutenants Malcolm and Eva this time. No sneaking now; they marched openly and had himself and Volt make short flights to find the enemy.
The first encounter they had was with four more of the stupid monkeys. Iris called out, "Take us to your leader!" but they attacked as mindlessly as usual. Fine! Badly outnumbered, they fell quickly to Phoenix and company.
The party trekked uphill, scouting, until Phoenix found a clearing in the jungle. A mysterious, riven landscape of gorges and cryptic statues loomed ahead. Chinese writing decorated an arch with a floor of stone pressure-plates and a switch.
Iris eagerly began studying the symbols, rapping the ground with her bow as she walked along them. "We won't get anywhere without translating this, too."
A voice from above boomed, "It says, States of the Spring and Autumn Period."
Phoenix looked up and drew his spear. A monkey with a gold headband stood atop a tiny cloud, adding, "State your business." His voice was like a monkey trying to sound regal and unable to quit hooting and leering.
Volt said, "We're here to take control of this island, mister...?"
"I'm Sun Wu'kung the Great Sage, Equal of Heaven!" He posed arrogantly.
"Uh-huh. Some Chinese thing. So what do you need from us?"
The monkey sputtered. "You should all be asking for my autograph!"
Phoenix scanned him to check what they were dealing with.
[Sun Wu'Kung, Aware Of Emptiness
PUBLIC INFO
Class: Sage
Faction Flag: Monkey Tribe
Note: Handsome Monkey King, Equal Of Heaven]
There was no explicit statement of his AI type. Usually that info wasn't listed, but it was worth checking. When dealing with NPCs, the best strategy was usually to get pulled into whatever fiction define
d them.
Echoing his thoughts, Volt sent him a silent private message, copied to Iris and the kids. [Big ego. Praise him?]
Phoenix took out a scroll. "Yeah, can we get one, please?"
"If you get me a brush! There should be one around here somewhere."
[Here's Quest #1], said Volt, with an eyeroll icon. Phoenix admired how she could use those as easily as speaking. Aloud she said, "Oh Sage, can you please tell us about the Spring and Fall States?"
The monkey hopped down from his cloud and landed in another dramatic pose; he seemed to be unable to stand normally. "Of course!" He began to lecture them on a bunch of names and dates of old kingdoms. Phoenix turned on sound recording so he could ignore the details for now.
"What do each of these say?" asked Iris, pointing at the puzzle tiles. The Sage happily rattled off syllables. Iris said, "Somebody, match them up?"
Volt said, "Got it," and pointed out which tiles to step on. She and the others did that, and the ancient arch glowed. It created a translucent, shimmering bridge to some hovering platforms. Those walkways held an elaborate machine made of bamboo pipes and gears. The bridge looked incomplete and unstable, though.
Phoenix said, "Thanks, Great Sage! While we're at it, what can you tell us about the machine? You must know all about it."
"Do I! This is a water mill." He began a lecture about pipes and Chinese inventions. "To cross the bridge safely and reach the machine, you'll need to learn the secrets of the Analects."
[Or, you know, just fly], sent Phoenix. Several of the army kids had wings or magic to get up there. [What are we trying to do, anyway? Solve the puzzles to get a brush, to get an autograph?]
Iris wrote, [I've seen worse puzzles. This one probably leads to treasure. You fly; I'll keep him talking.]
Phoenix and the other fliers took to the air, skipping the bridge. Up there a platform held the machine and buckets of rice, with pictograms instead of Chinese writing. Phoenix conferred with the others about how to use the thing. Looked like it could grind grain and activate a weird fantasy scale. "I've gotta say, if this is educational, it's lame. Alma does this stuff better."
Volt said, "We should be negotiating. I think we messed up Sunset's puzzles by getting this smart monkey, since he's giving us the answers."
Phoenix laughed. He pictured Sunset slaving away designing a bunch of challenges that he was now bypassing. "Funny, but... now I kind of feel bad about it."
He looked down from the platforms, toward the island's shore, and saw the camp fending off another minor attack. They seemed to have this one under control. He said, "Oh, I get it. We were supposed to research the Zengy thing and unlock a save point that way, then keep learning stuff that would eventually let us take over. Not just kill all the monkeys. But Sunset messed up the attack difficulty."
"Probably," said one of the kids. "Keep solving puzzles, then?"
"Yeah." Phoenix turned his attention to the bamboo technology, until somebody tapped his wing and pointed directly below. A fight had started! The Sage had whipped out an iron staff and knocked people aside, then conjured another band of the damn monkeys!
Phoenix dived, spear in hand. Wind roared up through his feathers. The Sage looked up and parried, sending Phoenix into a skidding landing, but Volt's lightning breath caught the staff and zapped him. Then the whole flying squad was in the fray, blasting the latest beasts.
The Sage himself screeched, flipping from the role of helpful tour guide to warlord. "Insolence!" He chanted a spell that Iris interrupted with well-timed arrows. But when five monkeys jumped her, he finished the casting and grew to ten times his height. He roared, shrugging off every blow that the intruders threw at him.
"Aw, man," said Phoenix, as the enlarged iron staff slammed down on him.
* * *
[DEATH. Phoenix]
Phoenix blinked. "Uh, Hokkusai buddy? You missed something with that system message." He was on the beach of the inn island again, and most of the others including Iris and Volt were respawning along with him. So they'd all gotten their tails kicked.
The story-assistant AI sent, [I'm sorry. This adventure is outside my usual experience. I don't know how to taunt you properly, and I can't design content here.]
Come to think of it, Hokkusai was also a spy system. "Watching us," he groused, looking at Volt.
The dragon-girl sat up and winced. "Then he knows about... everything."
Phoenix said, "Maybe. I should've thought of that sooner. Are there even more watcher AIs that we're forgetting about?"
Iris said, "Why do you even care? We're no closer to taking the island over."
Phoenix called out, "Hokkusai, quit --"
Volt said, "Be polite."
He sighed; she was right. "Hokkusai, we like you, but we want to quit being watched for a while, okay? Just head back to Talespace, please. It... defeats the purpose if you're here."
The AI paused. [But music, special effects!]
"We can live without an orchestrated soundtrack."
[Fine. I will take my leave.] There was a final burst of music that Phoenix suspected was some kind of insult, then only the sound of the wind.
Phoenix shook his head. "Has anyone ever actually signed up willingly for a system where they agreed to be watched and studied all the time, in return for some nifty convenience thing?"
Alma had overheard. "Hell yes," she said, then covered her muzzle.
"You know we know that word."
"Sorry. You struck a nerve. Part of this experiment was to see what you make of the privacy problem, and you noticed that the Talespinner AIs play a watchman role. Now what will you do about it?"
"Can you take five while we talk?"
Alma nodded and entered the inn, leaving the beachgoers in some kind of solitude. Phoenix led his friends away from the Saved troops.
Iris said, "I have to trust Sig to send a boat back for us. Did we need to send Miss Alma away? And the Talespinner? And Ludo? You're shoving people away for no reason, all because of this silly privacy thing."
Phoenix said, "Alma thought it was worth leaving us alone to talk." He gestured to call up library access to read about spying, but the command was missing from his interface. He didn't have the usual features here. "This is going to be annoying if we keep Sunset's island here on these computers. Maybe we can get the software updated."
"Then let's move it back to Talespace. We made our point about getting independence."
"Did we?" said Volt. "Because so far we failed. Hard."
Iris folded her arms and scowled. "Failed at beating up NPC monkeys. So what? This all happened because Phoenix wanted to turn a simple quest into a complicated one, by moving the whole thing to another country."
"It was worth trying," Volt said.
"It wasn't. I have better things to do than keep losing at a pointless quest when we already have an HQ island back home."
Phoenix said, "Girls, break it up. We've got a job to finish."
Iris said, "You know, normal people our age just have to do essays and math."
"You're not normal and you never will be," said Volt.
"Says the kid who pretends to be a dragon."
Volt's muzzle crackled with sparks and her scaly tail lashed. "You know exactly why I'm a dragon. You know, closely related to the reason you're not dead forever?"
Phoenix got between them. "Quit it!"
Iris turned on him. "And you. You picked a name that sounded cool when you were what, ten? Don't you think it's time to grow up?"
"Excuse me?"
Iris said, "I don't need this. I'm going to get some real studying done, so I can learn to not be useless in the real world." She stomped away through the inn's door and slammed it behind her.
* * *
Volt blasted a bolt of lightning down into the sand, creating instant glass, then stomped it. "That's not fair! Just for starters, there's no other creature in the universe that has a better claim to being a dragon than I do. I'm as real as dragons
get."
Phoenix fumed. "Now we get to slink home and admit we failed. How did Iris even pick a fight with the monkey lord, anyway? We had him acting super helpful and she messed it up."
"Bet she did it on purpose."
He looked around. That new building Alma mentioned was behind the inn: a red-and-gold pavilion with monster-head designs. "Let's get this done. We need clues."
Volt looked at the carved serpents on the walls. "I suppose the Jade Dragon AI is a scary dragon-thing, but Chinese dragons really aren't the same. It's bad translation. They're just noodle monsters."
The door opened to reveal a lounge full of scrolls and holo-displays about Chinese science and history and culture. In English, fortunately. They went inside and browsed the collection. Phoenix flipped through a few of scrolls, then rolled his eyes at the tone of it all. "This looks like propaganda. Didn't they have a revolution because they screwed up the environment so hard and killed a bunch of girls?"
"I don't know as much Earthside history as I'd like," Volt said. "After a bad day at the hospital I started reading some 20th century stuff, went Nope nope, and shut the book for a long time. And my sister Lumie had it even worse; she's German. But we have to learn, sometime. To 'grow up'. Ugh."
Phoenix said, "Is my name really a stupid one?"
"I like it." She grinned and kissed him. "What would the point be of getting a regular name like 'Alan'? People will think we're weird no matter what. I embrace it. Little miss Iris wants to be flesh and blood again, but she can't."
"I don't want you two fighting. Maybe one of the evil AIs is trying to split us up again." It had happened before, judging from reading between the lines of something Sunset once told them. As annoying as it could be to have Miss Ludo's attention, Phoenix did not want to be noticed by her rivals.
"This time I don't think so." Volt's ears lay back. "Do you know how stupid it is to wish to be a regular human when you're one of us?"
"You don't have to tell me," Phoenix said, looking at his clawed hands. "There's not much I could do out there that I can't in here. Don't you ever wish, though, that you could run off into the wilderness and have nobody seeing you, judging you, giving you a score or a soundtrack or a mission?"
