“You’re clever enough to guess that I was the autopilot,” Carver said.
“Yeah,” I said.
My background was crunching numbers. I had barely understood my fiancée’s rocket science. Putting modules into ARC machines was a relatively new career. Neuroscience was not my forte, so I took Carver’s words at face value. The computer had scanned in what it could, combined it with what it knew, and tried to recreate a real man here inside the digital world.
His forehead lowered and both eyes squinted. “You’re clever enough to pose as me and give me comfort in my final days.”
“I tried.” That was in the past. Failures and successes aside, what had happened couldn’t be undone. Xin’s face flashed through my mind again, and I clamped down on my swiftly changing emotions.
“You did well. There, in the end, that final battle, the rush of each swing, falling, and getting back up.” Carver lifted the black cane and gave it a weak swing. “Almost as well as I would have done.”
“Not even close, I’m sure.” I laughed. That had been exciting, sure, super neat, but each attack had been laced with my second-rate ability as a player. At least this subject was more comfortable than the ARC mind-mapping concept.
“And Mylia!” William Carver sounded younger than he had previously. Less gruff and curt. Maybe this was more of the player shining through than an AI’s progress bar. “That was a surprise.”
The older man’s face was nearly rapt with glee. If it wasn’t for his hands grasping the cane, I might expect him to start swiveling in excitement with doe eyes.
“It was neat,” I said.
“How did you know?” William asked.
“Uhhh…” The empty blackness that Carver and I existed in provided no assistance. “A terrible guess based on a misspent youth?”
“Good God. Was it that obvious?” Carver rubbed his face with a rough, gnarled hand. “I felt like it was the dragon all over again—her father, if I were to guess.”
“I never got the entire story.” Mylia’s actual backstory was not something I’d learned.
Carver lifted a hand and leaned in as though he was sharing a great secret. Slowly he whispered, “When you get back to Haven Valley, look for the monument. They put it where my bench used to be. If you could believe that! The Voices tell me there will be a video for all Travelers to see regarding my legacy. Way better than a gold watch, I’ll tell you.” He smiled broadly and stood upright again.
“Anyway, it was a fitting end!” he declared with a rap of the cane.
“Is it the end?” I questioned.
“For me, for him, for both of us, yes.” Carver sighed. “I-I should feel upset that I was set aside to allow you control, and I was worried a few times. But no longer.”
“I didn’t even realize until the end that the Traveler…” Both of my eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. Referring to Carver, while talking to Carver, was weird. “That the player was still alive. Not until near the end.”
“Barely. But you were right. I, he, was too hardheaded to die without one last adventure.” William’s face twisted with rue and happiness. “The entire event was being projected to us, or him, me, my body in the real world.”
“Then?” This wasn’t going anywhere pleasant. Realistic, understandable, but absolutely not a happy ending. William Carver couldn’t just leap out of his bed and dance a jig with perfect recovery.
“He, I, we passed from the old world that night.” The cane lifted and gestured to one side. “Shortly after your fight.”
“What now?” The whole subject of a digital version saying the physical one was dead kind of worried me. He seemed lost, so I asked, “How much do you remember?”
This mirror image of the player seemed to share many of the memories that went with William Carver or, at least, his in-game life. Part of me wanted to dive in and ask all about where the man and where the machine ended. Having walked in his shoes all that time made the very thought impossible to act upon.
“How much?” William Carver tilted his head and looked up. “It’s strange; I remember all of my adventures. I remember portions of my family and the things that were said while in the ARC. I remember seeing myself sitting in the room and being annoyed that things were taking so long.” Moments passed while William chewed on a lip. “But I don’t remember my son’s face.”
He looked distraught. Seeing an old man’s face crumple was nearly as bad as seeing a child break down. A downward pull of lips implied bitterness at the thoughts going through his brain. Had he never considered his life on my side of the machine?
“James? Can you do something for me?” I glanced behind me toward where the Voice had stood before.
“If allowed, I will try,” he said. The black man’s words resounded from the darkness.
“Use your connection to my ARC, look up William’s real name, and get him a picture at least?”
There was a rush of murmuring that I’d come to associate with the Voices talking. Sounds similar to a river’s babble. Tones and pitches of all flavors melded as computerized logic was applied to my situation.
“James?” I questioned.
“They won’t do it. The AIs are shackled to prevent them from crossing,” William said sadly. “This is the price.”
“I gave James access to my ARC.” Briefly, it occurred to me how dangerous that action might have been. For now, it might allow me to give the old man one final parting gift.
When Xin had passed, I threw out most of our things or gave them away. The pictures were kept in a small binder under my bed. William’s grief could be minimized by such a small gesture. It was the kind of assistance that helped with my own sorrow.
“We will do this,” James said.
Surprise and relief washed across William’s features.
“Thanks,” I muttered and tried not to make eye contact with the older man. This was awkwardly embarrassing, even for a man like myself, who regularly shared his stories with strangers.
“What do you want in exchange?” William asked.
“Nothing. Not for this.” I would feel guilty. This wasn’t an action where repayment was expected.
“Not even your fiancée?” William’s features adopted a concerned look.
“I imagine parts of her were scanned by an ARC for her job, and uhh, they linger around in here,” I spoke slowly.
“They do.”
Fervent thoughts of finding a happy place spiraled through. This answer couldn’t shatter me. I had done well this far, focusing on responding to each sentence. Moving onward and not spending a lot of time in the past. God, Liz was right. I was such a crybaby. All I did was drag myself through hell over and over as if poking the wounds on my soul had grown addicting.
“Why?” My voice held together for the one word.
“To make this world real. Millions were scanned. Everyone who ever stepped into the ARC.”
“Including me?” I nodded. The answer was fairly obvious.
“Yes.” For a moment, there was a sparkle in Carver’s eye. Was it amusement? “Everyone. The longer we stay, the more the machine maps and stores your responses. What makes you happy, angry, how your mind dances as time winds by.”
“That’s…” There were no good words. Terrible? Horrifying?
My face grew cold as it occurred to me what the machine was doing. Dead or alive, it was basically reincarnating individuals inside. Souls were still an unsolved topic in my world. The ARC Lab, Continue Online, Trillium, had tapped into the closest thing and brought it to life. Our very minds and memories were mimicked within the digital world.
My knees felt weak and my head swam. “That’s insane. You’re talking about…” There was an entire poem about this that crossed my mind. I couldn’t remember the start, but I remembered the end and muttered it now. “‘They will come back, come back again, as long as the red Earth rolls. He never wasted a leaf or a tree, do you think He would squander souls?’”
Kipling’s poem
applied to a digital reality. I fell to my ass and sat there.
“She,” William corrected absently.
“Mother?”
“Yes,” he said.
“And Xin is one of them. A reused soul,” I stated while trying not to let my stomach sink.
“As close as mankind dare reach, yes,” William confirmed.
“With enough of herself to attach to my ARC and the dance program.” I wasn’t stupid. Maybe I was filling in the blanks without fact-checking. Still, there was so much on the programming side that didn’t make sense to me. This though, this vague concept of what the machine had done, I understood.
“Yes.”
I should be angry at the old man’s admission.
“She, a small portion of the imprint, took notice once your Ultimate Edition was activated,” William said.
“But only that once?” I hadn’t seen her afterward.
“Mother pulled her back in. I’ll tell you, an errant imprint caused quite the commotion around here,” James said while standing nearby.
I’d known the large man would be watching this revelation. There was no way a man like him would ignore a goldmine like our conversation.
But I was glad she was alive in some fashion. I had many questions to ask, too many to sort through. Questions of morality and mortality that may never be answered to my satisfaction. What would happen if Continue Online’s servers went down? Was she the same person here?
I settled for one all-consuming question and said, “Is she happy?”
“I believe so,” William Carver said. The old man sighed and deflated. His shoulders dipped low. “I must hope so. What happened to her will soon happen to me.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Balance restricts even us, Grant Legate,” James said. “Soon the being you know as William Carver will be scattered and born anew throughout our world.”
“Like Xin was?”
“Yes. Your world has legends of the river of unmindfulness, Lethe. Ours has something similar.”
The people of this world suddenly mattered a lot more to me. What was left of my fiancée’s spirit, digital or not, was out there in a strange land.
“Wild Willy.” Leeroy faded in. “It’s almost time.”
“I understand.” The old man nodded. He looked at my collapsed form with a frown.
There was a nuzzling at my shoulder. A familiar weight that belonged to the [Messenger’s Pet] climbed up on my arm. I turned and looked. Once again, as he had before, the small creature held something in his mouth. One hand went out and waited for a deposit.
“Mh?” Sniffling threatened to overrun me. Three years, yet there were more tears to be found. Voices, what an emotional train wreck my life had become. I felt as though I was unable to last five minutes without spiraling backward.
I held up the now unrolled item. There was a picture with a face upon it. “Take this, William.”
“Thank you.” William looked down with a smile. “Hah. What do you know, he has Phil’s eyes, or does Phil have his?”
That soft, indirect question shook me out of the depressive funk a little. Phil had been the orphan from [Haven Valley] that called my Carver body “geezer.” My suspicious glare at James was met with an amused but unclear smile. Adding an eyebrow to my questioning look garnered no further information.
“Here. I won’t need this where I’m going.” William Carver pressed something into my free hand.
My other was busy wiping at my face with a sleeve on my mended shirt. Thank goodness the ARC program had restored it after my encounter with the Temptress’s wanton ways.
William was led off by Leeroy into another doorway. Much like the same one I had first used to step into Carver’s life. I looked up and wondered if this scene would also make its way to a certain High Priestess of Selena. By now, at least five, maybe six days, had passed in [Arcadia]. Carver’s death should be known by the entire town and maybe she expected a revelation from her patron Voice.
With a bright flare and a sound like breaking glass, the old man disappeared. Absently I wondered if this was his first death or third. There was a long silence in the room of trials, in this space between that I’d both come to enjoy and detest. A number of painful things had happened here, but at the same time, I had a lot of exciting memories.
“Now, Grant Legate, we are far overdue for the true purpose of your arrival.” The black man turned serious. His hands clasped tightly over his belly.
“No more questions?” I asked James.
“I will always have questions, but all things serve a purpose, and you must start your own journey in our world, if you choose to.”
“Okay.”
“Will you?” James asked.
“That’s a question, James.” I tried to be clever with my words. There was no heart in the response though. His inquiry was a fair one. Did I want to keep going now that I knew the grand secret?
At least there were no aliens involved or strange doorways to alternate realities. No. William had explained that this machine emulated human beings. Everyone who had stepped inside with all the knowledge they possessed. Considerable as that might be. Pieces of Xin were scattered all across this world. Incomplete and shattered. Did that concept call to me? God, yes, or more appropriately, Voices, yes, it did.
“I think I will. For a bit longer.” My time as Carver had been enjoyable but rushed. It would be nice to play Continue Online for what it was. A game. A distraction.
“Then we must make decisions.” James stood and waved one arm.
A giant screen came into being, looking like a throwback to role-playing games from decades ago. Flattened-out imagery displayed a character sheet with statistics and other details.
New players always beamed into [Haven Valley] with a baseline of ten in everything. The [Inspection] skill had made that much obvious. My highest traits, as measured by the computer, were [Coordination] and [Learning]. Both likely due to my endless dancing and the poetry I professed to know portions of. I did have a master’s degree in the real world, so I’d been around the block. [Divine Favor] was through the roof. My interactions with the Voices, and playing as William Carver, had likely contributed greatly. It was almost double the other statistics. My [Strategy] statistic was amazingly low. [Speed] wasn’t that high either. Both were just below a new player’s baseline. I really had no idea how to weigh these things against seasoned players.
I waved the box away. “I’ll look at them later. Let’s finish this up.” I had a vague idea of where my stats were.
“Very well. Then let me simplify the process.”
I nodded.
“New Travelers, except rare cases granted by us, start out as humans. Nothing in your actions with my trials or as William Carver will allow me to alter that,” he said, speaking in an even tone.
Human I would be. Part of me found it vaguely interesting that everyone started out that way. My niece had been a half-demon thing, right? Her man friend, whatever his name was, had been a tiger creature of some sort. Well, whatever. I tried to focus on one step at a time.
“In addition, we will be restricted from letting you start in Haven Valley. You simply know too much for that town to be a measure of your natural tendencies,” James continued.
“Okay,” I said. I was busy trying my best not to freak out and thus far succeeding.
“However, there are some things we can afford you that are not typically given as gifts. This is in addition to the legacy William Carver has provided you.”
I gave pause to my contemplation of the middle distance and looked at James. He was looking at my hand.
“Huh?” I said while looking down.
Carver’s cane was sitting comfortably in my grip, similar to how it’d been for the last four weeks of game time. A frown crossed my face as our conversation came back to me. A gong sound that echoed across the background turned James even more serious. He nodded in response to something obscured to me.
&
nbsp; “However, you are new to our world, so all gifts will be balanced accordingly. We are not in the business of promoting any one person over another, without cause, despite the grumblings of Travelers. Those who achieve do so by earning their gifts,” the black Voice offered.
I gave a single dry chuckle and kept staring at the cane. There were no inspection details available at this moment. My fingers trailed over the form. The cane was strangely polished. That hadn’t been obvious to William Carver’s gnarled hands. It felt more like a rod of metal with a grain of wood.
“Okay. Yeah.” I felt a bit excited. The old man had given me a gift in spite of my original denial.
“Your looks and body, do you wish to modify them? All Travelers are allowed to do so in minute ways.” James waved an arm again at the giant picture of me.
I shook my head slowly. “I am who I am. There’s no use in changing it to suit vanity.” I wasn’t terrible. Thinning hair and a gut, too many pounds on a body that hadn’t spent a lot of time in the gym. None of this was unusual.
“Very well. You are no doubt aware by now that who you are in our world can change based on the decisions you make.”
I nodded. James was delivering a needless disclaimer, from my point of view. After all, I’d watched dozens of new players start out in the world. They came in all shapes and sizes.
“Before you can truly start your adventure, you’ll need a name,” he said.
“Finally.” That one thought echoed through my brain over and over.
“Have you decided?”
“No.” My slowly budding happiness wilted.
“Then perhaps I can make an offer.”
James was up to something. What, exactly, wasn’t obvious. The heavens, or at least this immeasurably sized room and its edges of darkness, shook madly. If the Voices had been a babbling brook before, now they were an inferno of bubbling lava sliding by at a hundred miles an hour. My face felt as though it were being blasted by sand and air. Notifications of who knows what type were pouring across my screen in flickers of red and blue. A bar I’d tied to health was dropping rapidly.
“Enough!” James shouted.
In the background, multiple people faded into view. They seemed to be divided into camps arguing with each other. My cheek stung, and I rubbed at all the exposed bits of body for possible damage. Eventually, I remembered this was just a game and my body was lying safely inside the ARC. I shivered and shook off the rush.
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