Awaken Online- Flame

by Travis Bagwell

  That would at least give him a chance to run away…

  “Well, replace might be a better word,” Daniel replied hesitantly, flitting around Julia’s head and observing her dour expression. An image abruptly popped into the air beside Finn, a glowing orange outline that showed the anatomy of his face and an illustration of the combination of metal and crystal he had fused into his eye sockets. The AI must have improved his projections since this one came with a “helpful” animation of the process.

  I suppose it’s good that I can still see Daniel’s projections, Finn thought to himself. He stored that helpful fact away for later.

  “Finn absorbed the mana from two fire crystals, and then embedded the crystals in a molten matrix of the dark metal. He then proceeded to—”

  “I get it,” Julia snapped at the AI. “So, this means what? He can see mana all the time now – even while moving?” She seemed to be pacing in front of Finn, the sound of her voice shifting as she spoke. “Or can he only see mana?” She paused, turning toward him. “Can you even see me right now?”

  “Well, not exactly since your body doesn’t contain any mana,” Finn began hesitantly. “Technically, I can see your weapons, your clothing, and the small lumps of metal in your limbs, so I have a sense of where you are and what you’re doing. Although, with some work, I think there might be a way to use Daniel’s highlights to give me something approximating normal vision—”

  “Stop. Just fucking stop,” Julia snapped.

  Then the dam seemed to fully, and finally, burst.

  “What the actual fuck were you thinking?” she demanded. “You replaced your own eyes – melted them from the inside out with molten metal? Who the hell does that?”

  Finn grimaced. “I did it to save you,” he offered quietly. “I don’t know what other option we had.”

  There was a brief hesitation on her end and then…

  “You could have just fucking let me die! That was the other option!” Julia practically shouted at him. He could tell from the way her shield bobbed that she was now furiously pacing the area in front of him again.

  “Seriously, this is a game,” she continued. “I don’t how many times I have to keep saying that before it sinks into your thick skull!” A brief pause. “Or, I know! Maybe I should write a damn note, attach it to a molten spike and drive it into your fucking temple! Because that’s just the new normal around here now!”

  She whirled toward him, and he imagined she was stabbing a finger in his direction. “I didn’t say anything when you started killing hundreds of students in the mage guild, or worked literally all day and night in-game training, or when we jumped off a damn cliff and fought our way desperately through some fucking over-leveled ant hill.

  “Hell, I even went along with it when you seemed oblivious to me or freaking anything else around you. I also know how long you stayed logged in the other day – I left a few hooks in your home system just to make sure you were eating and sleeping. 18 hours straight? The system logs say you had Daniel pull out your old feeding tube and catheter… I thought you were joking before, but it seems I didn’t give you enough credit!”

  She sighed in frustration, some of her anger wilting but seemingly turning into a bitter disappointment that Finn somehow found worse. “I gave you space, thinking maybe you’d snap out of it. Maybe you were telling me the truth, and you just needed an outlet after what happened to Mom. Something to help you reengage.

  “And after our last conversation…” She trailed off, hesitating. “I thought maybe you could change – that we’d reached a turning point.”

  She slumped down onto a nearby boulder as though defeated. “But you know what? You’re doing the same fucking thing now that you did before she died. And the same shit you pulled after the accident. You’re distant, distracted, focused only on some bullshit goal instead of the shit standing directly in fucking front of you. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe this is just who you are. The almighty Finn Harris!”

  Finn winced. That one definitely hurt more than the anger. Maybe because there was some truth in it. The Seer’s memory had made it clear that he had been an incredible asshole over the years, and he suspected that hadn’t started when Rachael passed. It had just gotten worse. His wife had been a buffer, a tether to the rest of his life. And once it snapped…

  Hell, even now he could appreciate the bitter irony that he couldn’t see Julia’s face as she shouted at him. Not that he was certain he had really seen her before.

  But at the same time, he did have a good reason for doing what he had.

  Except, how the hell did he explain that?

  “There’s… there’s more to it than that,” Finn offered tentatively.

  “Really? Like what? What could possibly justify going to these lengths? You wouldn’t tell me before, but now I expect a good fucking answer,” Julia demanded. She sat there, staring at Finn. Even now, he could imagine the angry, demanding look on her face.

  He hesitated. Did he tell her? There was no going back once he did. And yet, Finn suspected that if he didn’t share his goal with her, he might lose Julia. Their relationship already felt fragile. And yet… his first instinct had been to push her away and ignore the problem by not telling her about the Seer’s bargain. Even now, he wanted to deflect away from the real answer to her question.

  And maybe that was the problem.

  He had told himself that he was going to move forward – try to repair their relationship. He couldn’t expect different results unless something changed.

  He owed her more than that.

  “I did it to bring Rachael back – to bring your mom back,” Finn said, his voice hoarse.

  Julia seemed to freeze in place, her body going still.

  “What? What the hell does that mean?” she demanded, although she sounded more uncertain. Probably asking herself if he’d gone insane.

  Finn grimaced. “I haven’t been entirely candid about how I started playing this game. When I first entered this world, I was confronted by a woman that claimed she was the god of fire – the Seer,” Finn explained tentatively. “She gave me a tarot reading. She knew things about me… about my history. Impossible things. Unless, of course, she was accessing both my short-term and long-term memory. You mentioned the same thing just a few days ago – how the game creates this narrative around your own personal experiences.

  “Well, in my case, the goddess knew about Rachael.”

  Finn took a deep breath. “She… conscripted me, I guess you could say. Branded me with her mark.” He pulled back on the sleeve of his right arm to reveal the tattoo there, the three cards that had appeared after that initial confrontation. “That’s how Abbad first found me. He claimed it was the Mark of the Crone and that I was some sort of ‘chosen one.’ I think it may be tied to a prophecy these people believe in.”

  “I’ve picked up pieces of this already,” Julia replied curtly, “but none of this explains why you’re doing this… or what you mean about bringing Mom back.”

  He shook his head, unable to look up at her even though he knew he couldn’t see her face. “At first, I was just fascinated by this world. It was captivating – learning a new language, to cast magic, to fight. But before the last duel with Vanessa, I was wavering, uncertain if I wanted to keep going. I saw myself changing. I had to kill Kyyle and felt his blood run across my hands. I didn’t… I don’t – want to hurt people, particularly people I care about. It felt like I was going too far.

  “But then the Seer came to me, and she made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

  Finn’s fists clenched, a hollow pit forming in his stomach.

  “If I won the Emir’s competition, she would help me bring Rachael back.”

  A brief silence followed that announcement.

  “That’s… that’s not possible,” Julia suddenly blurted out, her voice disbelieving.

  “I thought so too, at first,” Finn murmured. “Yet the Seer explained that the AI that controls this game was de
veloped using my original program, a digital-analog for the human mind. One that was based on your mother’s memories, her brain scans, her speech, and her affectations. We compiled every ounce of data we could on her and used that to develop the initial prototype. The first true AI, made in the image of my wife – your mother.

  “The Seer claimed that the data is all still here, buried within the memory of the core AI that controls this world. Yet I was still skeptical. Even with the data, it wouldn’t be Rachael. It couldn’t be… At least, so I thought. Then I saw what the game has done to Daniel,” he offered, gesturing at the AI that floated nearby.

  “Since I added him to the game world, it has completely altered his programming, and I can view the modified code from my home workstation. It’s… I’ve never seen anything like it. Someone took my code and went far, far past where I stopped. Hell, you can see that for yourself.” With a flick of his wrist, he brought up his in-game console and projected Daniel’s code architecture into the air beside him – a spiraling column of glowing orange data that revolved in an endless recursive loop of self-improvement.

  “That’s why this version of Daniel keeps developing new mannerisms,” Finn offered. “That’s not me changing him. That’s him learning. Developing a sense of humor. Emotion. Empathy. Hell, he’s even been making changes to my mods, tweaking them, and taking initiative. He’s like a child, growing and developing at his own pace.”

  Julia was silent, her form frozen in front of him. There were only minor movements, likely her attention flitting between the image floating in the air and Finn. Although, he wished he could see her face – her expression. Was she upset? Intrigued? Disbelieving? Finn was beginning to intensely regret the loss of his eyes. It made this conversation so much harder…

  “Once I saw Daniel’s code, I knew. With that kind of architecture and with the remainder of your mother’s data, it’s… it’s possible. I could bring her back,” Finn croaked. He’d likely be crying now if not for what he had done to his eyes. As it was, he only felt a dull ache, his tear ducts fully cauterized and sealed with metal.

  “And I would pay any cost to accomplish that goal – to win this damn competition. My time, my real body, my eyes, transient pain… I’d give anything even for just a few minutes with her again,” he choked out. When he said it aloud, it sounded almost comically insane, the ravings of a broken madman. There was no way anyone would buy into this fruitless, painful chase.

  He was expecting more angry ranting. Incredulous questions.

  Maybe she’d push to put him into a home… or a mental ward.

  What he wasn’t expecting was for Julia to dart forward, wrapping her arms around him.

  Finn was so surprised he nearly fell from his perch atop the rubble.

  “You’re an idiot,” Julia muttered into his shoulder, her voice uneven. “Why didn’t you just tell me? Did you think I wouldn’t help you bring back Mom – whatever that might look like?”

  “I-I thought you would think I was insane,” Finn replied, his own voice cracking. He shook his head. “Hell, I’m not even sure that I fully believe it…”

  He felt Julia pull away from him, and his eyes widened as a blue haze washed across his vision, replacing the colorful energy and rippling and contorting before his eyes. He could almost make out a fuzzy outline of Julia…

  The energy rippled again, becoming more precise. Hazy blurs became clear lines, tracing the curve of his daughter’s face, her nose, her lips, and eyes. In only an instant, Finn could see Julia crouched in front of him, her eyes peering into his. The tears that ran down her cheeks.

  “How—?” Finn began, raising his hand and cupping his daughter’s cheek.

  “I took your suggestion,” Daniel chirped. “You were right. I can use the data from your sight and the in-game highlights to simulate your normal vision. Unfortunately, the negative space created by the energy you can observe is uneven, the bands of mana merging in a gradient. This forces me to approximate lines and angles, but it’s a reasonable estimate. Although I can’t do anything about the color.”

  A brief, almost hopeful, pause. “Do you like it?”

  Finn and Julia both turned to stare at the AI.

  “Yes, Daniel. Yes, this is fantastic,” Finn said in a muted voice. Daniel flashed once brightly, dancing in the air as though pleased.

  “Do you need any more proof than that?” Julia whispered, her brow furrowed in confusion and surprise as she watched the AI.

  “I guess not,” Finn replied.

  They both heard glass crunch behind them, and they whirled to find Kyyle standing there. His eyes were wide, his jaw hanging open in the most dumbfounded expression that Finn had ever seen. In that moment, he realized that the earth mage had likely just witnessed the craziest scene imaginable.

  Finn and his daughter were crouched in the center of a cavern, the floor broken and destroyed, glass shards and fragments still littering the room, and the dismembered corpses of hundreds of grubs lingering around them, their blood staining the area a dark orange… talking about resurrecting the dead.

  In a videogame.

  “Kyyle…” Finn began.

  The earth mage raised a hand to forestall his explanation, shaking his head. “Okay,” he began slowly. “So, if you’ll let me, I’d like to recap the story I just heard… just to make sure I understood it – and that I’m not dreaming right now. I’m definitely not dreaming, right?” he added with a tilt of his head.

  Julia shook her head no.

  “Okay, fully awake. Cool. Got it.”

  A deep breath and then, “So, first off, if I heard you two right, Finn here is actually Finn Harris, the father of modern AI. Sound good so far?” Kyyle asked.

  Finn nodded reluctantly. He wasn’t surprised that the young man had recognized his name. He was extremely well known. His story had been plastered all over the news back in the day, and his name was regularly taught alongside most modern programming classes. That was part of the reason he had retreated into his cyber fortress, to get away from all the recognition and esteem his name conjured. He just couldn’t take it, the praise only serving to remind him of the very real cost of his so-called success.

  “And Julia is your daughter, which is abundantly obvious at this point.”

  Another nod.

  Kyyle took a deep breath as though steadying himself. “Okay, so Finn here was conscripted by a fire god, who tasked him with completing an in-game competition to become the ruler of a city, except the prize was actually resurrecting his dead wife – whose memories are apparently all stored inside this same game since the AI that controls it was developed using the same technology that Finn created more than a decade ago.

  “As a result, we have had to fight hundreds of other players in a grueling deathmatch, we have no less than four – no, maybe five – different factions all trying to kill us, we survived a two-thousand-foot drop without a parachute, fought our way through an entire ant colony using tools that we scrounged together MacGyver-style, strapped the magical equivalent of a rocket to our ass to get out of said ant colony, raced across what can only be described as a ‘death chasm,’ and then watched as Finn melted out his own eyes in order to be able to permanently see magic so that he could save his daughter from being torn apart.

  “Because, again, we need to complete this competition in order to resurrect Finn’s dead wife.”

  As he finished, Kyyle glanced back and forth between them, a deadpan expression on his face. “I cover everything?”

  “Yeah, and I know this is a lot…” Finn began.

  Kyyle held up a hand, shaking his head. “Don’t give me the whole, hey, I realize this is a lot, you can exit the ride at the next stop.

  “At the risk of sounding a little indelicate, fuck that,” Kyyle said, a broad, excited smile stretching across his face. “You basically described the most epic story ever. Hell, I could probably convince my psych professor to just let me stop coming to class in exchange for writing up my
notes on the adventure and the effects on you and Julia. I mean, c’mon? The possibility of resurrecting someone using their memory and brain scans? Can you imagine a better thesis, even forgetting who we’re talking about for a second?

  “This could get me published in every major psych journal in the world,” he murmured to himself, turning away from them and swiping at the air. Only seconds later, his fingers were darting across a keyboard that they couldn’t see, likely typing up notes for later.

  For their part, Finn and Julia just glanced at each other. Julia gave him a little shrug, and Finn just shook his head. It seemed that they attracted crazy.

  “Looks like we’re all in,” Julia observed, abruptly rising to her feet and wiping at her eyes with her sleeve. “And now that I know what’s really at stake, why the hell are we just sitting here? We have work to do and a competition to win.” She offered Finn a hand, her eyes locked on his.

  Finn just stared at her hand for a second before glancing up at his daughter. He could still see moisture glimmering in her eyes, but behind that, he saw a burning, relentless passion and resolve. He’d seen that look before, but he had always been staring in the mirror. It seemed that despite his best efforts to fuck it up, his daughter had picked up some of his better traits.

  “Yeah… yeah, I guess we do,” Finn said, finally grabbing her hand.

  Chapter 43 - Adjacent

  Bilel’s Journal – Entry 145

  I had been spending almost every free moment in the library, although I must limit my time now. The other acolytes have been on edge since several of the lower-ranked clergy having gone missing over the last few days. Despite these challenges, I have still managed to continue my studies. Now that I know the gods are real… that changes everything. What I once mistook for religious allegory and superstition has taken on a different meaning.

  The Seer is fond of prophecy. The clergy speak of divine inspiration, the flickering flame that comes to them in their sleep. Those poor acolytes then write down their visions – foretellings of the future, cryptic riddles that the other clergy spend days, months, and years trying to decipher. Yet among those writings, I found a common prophetic thread. The words are often meandering and unclear…