Continue Online (Part 3, Realities)

by Stephan Morse

  “Dusk!” I tried not to shout. Every time my voice got too high the small cockpit amplified everything. “Options? Escape routes? Secret zones?”

  Dusk always had something. The small [Messenger’s Pet] turned raptor seemed less interested in answering my question and fully invested in hissing. [Leviathan]‘s body wiggled causing our small ship to be violently slapped. Our shield flashed even lower.

  “I know it’s big! I need options.” My voice nearly spiked in pitch but was reined in by clenching metal teeth. A quick jerk of the wheel and abrupt change in engine output prevented us from hitting another asteroid.

  “Hull self-repair functions dropping. Shield restoration dropping. Fuel usage elevated.” Hal Pal started citing a line of status updates. “Distance between Leviathan’s teeth and our ship decreasing rapidly.”

  “I thought you were doing something with the energy.”

  “I am, User Legate. Otherwise, we would be terminated already,” Hal Pal responded. I tried not to grumble, turning the engines up a notch still hadn’t saved us.

  I yanked on the wheel again, pulling back and twisting up. My piloting skills were terribly low, but desperation fueled another nausea inducing spin. [Wayfarer’s Hope] rolled poorly over the top of [Leviathan]‘s body. The eel-like creature tried to twist in pursuit only to jab its own side with teeth.

  “Damage has been inflicted. A drop in health equating to three percent,” Hal Pal said, sounding vaguely pleased.

  “I’ll take it.” Both feet slammed on the engine pedals again to take advantage of our lucky break. “Tell me that our shield’s recharging, please.”

  “Affirmative. Fuel reserves still dropping. We will be able to sustain this pace for seven more minutes. Eight if we wish to retain optimism.”

  “Optimism is good.” I spared a glance for the nearly frantic [Messenger’s Pet]. Dodging around objects at high speeds caused our shield to chip away. “Dusk, I need an out.”

  The [Messenger’s Pet] always had a way through. First, he chased off that giant ink monster when I posed as William Carver. There were other occasions afterward, like escaping from bandits and navigating the [Grand Labyrinth]. Dusk kept hissing and making concerned chirp noises.

  I ran through the options while trying to keep up evasive maneuvers. The only thing keeping me alive was the fact that there were no other spaceships in this region of space. Floating rocks were barely avoided by our amazingly responsive vehicle, despite my low skills.

  The first option, load Dusk into a cannon and launch him at [Leviathan]‘s eye. The idea made me laugh but solved nothing. We had no torpedo tubes and I had no idea if Dusk would reappear here, in Continue Online, or my Atrium. A moment of worry caused me to successfully hit a floating asteroid.

  “User Legate, we must avoid getting hit in order to continue functioning,” Hal Pal said.

  “I know,” I said, trying not to yell and concentrated on weaving past another rock. They were all over, but free flying out in space would put us too far away from the [Wayfarer Seven] or too close. Following that line of thinking, leading a ginormous space eel that ate starships toward our base would be bad.

  The final option, run and hope one of these rocks had something useful. The fuel gauge was dropping rapidly while our pursuer showed no signs of slowing down. If anything, the mouth threatened to swallow us with every passing dodge. Only by twisting the creature’s body back around and taking advantage of our small size did anything progress.

  Dusk kept skittering around trying to grab on to something with his feet. His tail jabbed into the floor like an anchor. The angry noises from him were as much from our wildly spinning viewpoint as the giant monster.

  I tried not to feel sick. Days in the training simulator and cleaning our mothership’s hull helped prevent me from losing it completely. If only that gas giant in the distance would stop spinning so much.

  “I know. I know!” My foot slipped off the pedal. Our ship didn’t lose speed but the attempt at rolling away failed. A message flashed up about skills both growing intensely and failing to meet a check.

  [Leviathan] opened its giant mouth and snapped at the backside of our ship. Our shield shattered while a new message popped up saying our hull was damaged. Luckily none of us needed oxygen or this would be that much worse.

  New Status Applied: [Hull Breach]

  Details: Actions requiring an atmosphere will suffer a penalty to success rates.

  Note: [Mechanoid] structural makeup does not require oxygen.

  Everything felt suddenly quieter. Maybe it was the giant hole behind Hal Pal’s seat. The AI looked halfway to panic stricken but also somehow detached. A brief moment of sadness came over me at my traveling companion’s inability to express emotions. The thought was chased off quickly, Hal Pal had no issues expressing his thoughts.

  “User Legate!” Its voice was fairly clear. It felt more like an internal message than any sort of external one. “I do not wish to be eaten!”

  “Me either!” I said while turning back to the wheel. “Hang on!”

  “I do not know what will happen!” My friend was loud. I felt shocked and turned back again to give the scene a deeper look. Hal Pal was losing his grip as the ship accelerated in different directions. Our ship lost a lot of speed due to missing a chunk of the frame.

  “Shit,” I said, sounding far less upset than the situation warranted. The wheel jerked and we pulled away from the mouth past the giant eyeball again.

  “Dusk! Acid spit attack, go!” Dusk scrambled toward the hole in our ship to attack. I channeled my inner Xin and flipped it off in conjunction.

  The [Attack] command boost from [Domestic Trainer] ability activated. Dusk turned and leapt up to the hole and jabbed his tail into a new spot. Moments later he was sending the space game version of fireballs right into the large creature’s eye.

  Big green gobs of spit almost peacefully floated across the distance. The creature took another two percent of damage which stacked on top of the minor amounts from ramming into objects. Part of me felt proud that we had made a raid creature lose a total of ten percent of its health.

  [Leviathan] twisted and coiled upon itself. One giant eyelid batted quickly to try and get rid of the multiple globs staining its orb. Finally, it hung there huffing while clearly failing to see out one reddened eye. I guess it had enough moisture in its body to get watery. The large lid blinked repeatedly while scanning about.

  “Good job, Dusk,” I said quietly, unsure how well a space faring monster might hear.

  Our shield was gone. The health of the ship near empty and a fuel gauge sat even lower. Nothing nearby could offer any real reprieve.

  “Come on. We need to hide,” I said.

  Both feet lightly depressed the gas pedals and I wove our ship along the creature’s side. Finally, I drove the [Wayfarer’s Hope] into a spot on the giant tail. I could only hope that a creature of this mass, one that ignored asteroids five times our size, wouldn’t think twice if we quietly sat here.

  I huffed my chest up and down for air that didn’t exist around us. Dusk kept the chirping down but looked around swiftly. Hal Pal’s eyes were wide with what had to be fright. We stayed that way for minutes, jumping at the slightest vibration from the [Leviathan] or rocks bumping into it. Finally, we both started moving again. We were vaguely safe, for now.

  “How long before the ship’s repaired?” I tried to ask quietly.

  “Hours. Many, many hours.” Hal Pal’s words felt less complex than normal. The AI might be on the verge of a breakdown.

  “Are you okay?” I asked while undoing my chest harness. We were no longer jerking around wildly fighting against inertia’s pull to change directions. A human probably would’ve been squashed by some of the maneuvers I put us through.

  “Negative, User Legate.”

  “Anything I can do?” I asked. Repairs made no sense to me, but I could follow directions.

  “I do not know,” Hal Pal responded. The idea that m
y friend was at a loss worried me. It always had commentary or a response. This most likely had to do with Hal Pal’s singular existence within Advance Online.

  “Do you want to log out?” I suggested. We might lose the ship and our contribution, but we would be alive.

  “No, User Legate. I must stay, present, for as long as possible,” It responded with the male tone overpowering the quieter female one.

  “You don’t need to stay for me, Jeeves.” I shook my head and floated closer to the hole in our ship. Whatever material made up the front window seemed fairly solid.

  “We, they, did not send one of ourselves into this world simply to assist you, User Legate,” Hal Pal said. The harness locking it in stayed securely around its chest.

  I blinked a few times, or at least my vision did. The existence of my own eyelids remained unknown. Hal Pal had every right to be worried and choose to stay in here instead of running away. I wish my own existence had been programmed with such certainty. It would have made my start to Continue Online a lot smoother.

  “Why then?” I asked while looking out. The gas giant floated off in the distance. A wall of rocks flew about wildly, no doubt from our earlier passing. One, in particular, spun rapidly but traveled slow.

  “We said it before. Our problems define us, User Legate. Do you overcome your limitations by performing repetitive tasks within your comfort zone, or by facing new challenges?”

  I stared at Hal Pal for a long while. The [Mechanoid] version of my work companion looked back without blinking. Memories of my first experience with Continue Online flashed through.

  Months ago I had been trying that first route which amounted to using a routine to keep myself from falling apart. Receiving the game, running into Dusk, performing all those challenges, however stressful, all of it served to break me away from my old self and move forward again. I honestly felt like a better person than I had been, even if Xin wasn’t a factor. Getting out of my own head by having goals to strive for helped. Seeing the positive reaction upon completing tasks meant something.

  “I get it,” I said and nodded. “If you ever feel it’s too much, I will understand if you need to log out.”

  “Thank you, User Legate.” The golden color on Hal Pal’s body gained back a portion of formerly lost luster.

  “Okay.” We had to get back to the task at hand. further discussion of this topic could wait until we made it to the [Wayfarer Seven]. “We need a plan.”

  “The ship will not be ready in time to return to the [Wayfarer Seven].” Hal Pal brought up a few menu screens. Its face stayed passive despite the status report.

  “Okay.” The layover was twelve hours. We burned a little under two flying around out here and running from the [Leviathan]. Repairs would take longer than ten. “We need something else.”

  “I find myself at a loss for handling unforeseen situations.”

  “Yeah. Being trapped in space on a giant monster wasn’t in my plans either.” I looked outside again. We weren’t really moving from the information available. Maybe [Leviathan] had defaulted to a dormant state, like when we first ran across it.

  “It is illogical,” Hal Pal said. The female nanny voice almost tittered with laughter but managed to keep straight.

  “Can we scavenge parts?” If this creature ate ships we might find something.

  “It is unlikely any substance remains outside the Leviathan.”

  Not neat. Terrible. I took a breath and tried to calm down. The music grew annoying and I demanded the ARC switch it to something calmer. Classical, something with woodwinds. It helped me let go of some stress. We were only minutes out of the chase and anything could go wrong in an instant.

  “Okay. How about inside it?” I shook my head and started whittling down the options. Risking my life for parts to help Hal Pal and Dusk get away would be acceptable. Dangerous, finding a way inside would take time.

  We were on the tail end so there had to be a way inside somehow. Voices, I was calmly thinking of crawling up through the monster’s butthole to find ship parts. Part of me mourned at being desensitized to video game monster guts. Oh well.

  “Unknown. There is not enough information available. Few survive an encounter with one of these,” the AI said.

  “It eats ships. It has to be heavy with metals or plastics. I’d bet on metal. Asteroids have metal right?” I was throwing out ideas now. It felt like the right track, but part of my responses also felt like desperation. Hope glimmered faintly in the distance.

  Maybe this could work. We could somehow use various alloys, space magic, maybe lingering water particles that consolidated on rocks. I vaguely remembered combining both items in high school. Okay, maybe there had been topics of interest back then. I still stood firm that learning about curing leather by using urine should have been in science somewhere.

  “Affirmative. Your statement does seem likely. I will scan,” Hal Pal said. We could make it through. Everyone was on board, Dusk would end up chewing on some small creature, Hal Pal could do the scientific stuff. I would whack things. Our party could survive.

  A noise came out of Hal Pal as it worked with the interface. I could see a small bar up above indicating an action being completed. Interesting, I had never taken note of other people’s skills showing progress status. Maybe it was a [Mechanoid] thing. Continue Online certainly didn’t perform that way.

  While Hal scanned, I poked my head outside. We were basically floating, not just the [Leviathan], but our small party of three only stayed in place because the ship had a ceiling. There were a number of options available and all of them sounded dangerous.

  How did that math problem go? If the [Wayfarer’s Hope] leaves this belt moving four hundred miles per hour, and the [Leviathan] chases us at four hundred and fifty miles an hour, then how long before we’re all turned into fish chow? Luckily my accounting degree wasn’t required for a calculation.

  “It had giant teeth right?” I asked while trying to follow up a half-formed idea. It was that or calculate exactly how big this asteroid belt was.

  “I took note of numerous giant fangs, yes,” Hal said.

  “Rows right?” I shook my head. Hal was distracted but still answering. “More than one?

  “Yes.” Hal Pal paused its air poking to look at me. Its head tilted to one side and lifted a cheek in question. “Are you suggesting that maybe it grinds food down?”

  “Likely. Then maybe some digestive method to break down the metal further,” I spoke while pushing out past Hal Pal and grabbing onto the hole’s edge. My feet touched the [Leviathan]‘s skin. “It had an eyeball, but this skin, it’s like metal. Is it more likely that it somehow absorbs the metal portions?”

  “That does not bode well for us.” It came to the same conclusion I did. There would be no crawling inside or finding some secret dungeon involving the giant space eel’s innards. Not for creatures like us.

  “No.” I agreed.

  We were [Mechanoid]s. Metal absorption would likely screw us over as much as any acid. At least my feet didn’t seem to be risking anything out here on the outer shell. Maybe we could send Dusk off to gnaw on the creature’s brain stem.

  Actually, the more I thought of that idea, the better it sounded. Dusk ignored regular rules in Continue, he would probably be kind of broken in a game where he didn’t even belong. I filed the idea away for later.

  “Can we blow it up?” I tried another route.

  “I did not prepare any form of explosives,” Hal Pal answered.

  “How about the Wayfarer’s Hope? Can we cannibalize a portion of it?” I checked another possibility. We only had so many items. If Continue Online taught me one thing, it was video games always had a way. Generally always. Maybe. I hoped.

  “Possibly.” Hal Pal stared off into literal space while thinking. “Yes. There is enough material inside to isolate alkaline, combine it with moisture from the surface-”

  “I’m not good with chemicals, Jeeves.” Both my hands went up to s
tave off further explanation. Hal Pal probably couldn’t see them from the cockpit. “Just tell me if we can use it to do enough damage.”

  “Yes. It will assist if we can use multiple charges to do enough damage. Once the threat has been removed the Wayfarer can send a craft to recover us.”

  “Alright. Another problem solved by violence.”

  “Ah. This game was designed with heavy human input, such a solution is expected.”

  “You think we could ask nicely not to be eaten?” I tried not to sound sarcastic. Part of me genuinely wondered if there were other options. Would [Domestic Tamer] allow us to get out somehow? Me, taming an enormous [Leviathan] and riding around, becoming a space pirate.

  “Do you think this will work? Will we be able to cripple or kill it with only us?” I asked while trying to figure out how hard walking along this surface would be. Without gravity, I was basically tethered to nothing.

  Wait, no, I had a solution. All those mindless hours cleaning the [Wayfarer Seven]‘s hull provided me the perfect skill. Giant spikes to use like mountain climbing anchors would have been neat too.

  “It is unlikely that our current method has been tried. The chances are minimal that other humans have survived long enough to land upon the creature,” Hal Pal said. The AI floated to the hole and peeked outside. Not anything risky, but certainly wary about being un-anchored.

  I thought about the massive maw which had chased us through this region of space. Most people probably didn’t have a small acid spitting [Messenger’s Pet] to blind the creature either. Nor would they be foolish like I had been.

  “Let’s do it. How do we convert this?” I pointed to the ship.

  “Fortunately, I have chosen to take up a construction core. It will assist in reconfiguring the matrix holding our ship together.” Hal responded.

  That made me pause. Hal Pal’s skill set was suspiciously convenient. Its ability to fight had clearly been lacking. Maybe the AI chose a crafting subset in order to feel more comfortable in the game. Perhaps he felt putting together objects was familiar like our job repairing ARC devices.