Continue Online The Complete Series

by Stephan Morse

  Hal Pal nodded. “Forty-seven point three. With some room for deviation depending upon complications.”

  “Many units have improved overall upon surviving their first flight. Are you two trying to take advantage of this?” Treasure winced while looking at me.

  “My research shows two-player vehicles earn at least ten percent more on average. Apparently it allows for greater focus on set tasks,” I said while trying to remain calm.

  “This unit is impressed that you’ve researched thoroughly.” Treasure raised an eyebrow at me and smiled. Her tired voice pushed into the background behind a sweet one. Something about the sugary tone felt familiar to me. I couldn’t seem to place it though.

  “I try to be good at research,” I said while feeling a faint blush come on. Robot shells made it unlikely that anything would display on my face. Thankfully. Being complimented always felt strange.

  “Very well. You have clearly done research and worked hard to earn the appropriate contribution,” she said after a moment. “If you plan to use this as a method to increase your contribution value, then this unit will assist.”

  Hidden Task Completed

  Vehicle Purchased

  Key NPC Treasure relationship exceeds average

  Reasoning presented registers as logical

  Additional bonus provided

  Ship stats increased by 10%

  Communication range increased by 25%

  One-time programming bonus provided by Treasure as a reward for the surprising level of research.

  +5 [Depth]

  “Do be careful, Unit Hermes. Loss of the ship will result in contribution devaluation. In addition, the farther out you are, the longer it will take to recover your programming,” Treasure said.

  The fear of losing contribution didn’t disturb me. I raised an eyebrow at Treasure. “That’s all?”

  “Is it not enough? If your value drops, you will be unable to acquire another ship without additional work.” Treasure seemed confused that the loss of contribution would mean so little.

  “No, I understand. Losing a ship just recently earned would be irresponsible.” This felt like talking to my mom about getting my first car.

  A menu display came up showing our ship possibilities. I focused on the one with a two-seated vehicle and was presented with three options. One basically amounted to a tub. The middle ship would serve well for Hal Pal and me. It was obviously battle oriented.

  I ignored the third ship choice. It was a giant tank of a creation and exceedingly pricey in terms of contribution. Maybe if Hal Pal and I had been given five times the amount of contribution, we could roll around in a monstrous space vehicle.

  Attention unit identified as Hermes!

  Purchase Successful! [Ship (Protector class)]

  Would you like to name your new vehicle?

  “Jeeves?”

  All three of us paused while Hal Pal studied the screen. Or maybe it didn’t see the system interface like I did. That was another question to throw on the pile. I didn’t ask though. It felt similar to asking a blind person how they saw the world.

  Moments later, our new ship was named. The name surprised me.

  “Wayfarer’s Hope?” I questioned the AI.

  “Affirmative, User Le—” Hal shook its head. “Unit Hermes.”

  I asked her where to go to pick up our vehicle. Treasure updated our map with a new location near the [Wayfarer Seven]’s back end. The [Mechanoid] gave us a reminder not to leave the main ship until we had reached a full and complete stop.

  [Wayfarer Seven] reached the refueling station before Hal Pal and I got to the hangar. Hangar was a misleading concept since it was basically a small storage room with one entrance. The door opened automatically and provided a clear view of our new ship crammed into the cabin. This felt like having a car shoved in the garage.

  “Huh?” I felt confused. “How do we get it out?”

  “It appears that the floor and wall will peel away, leaving us free to take off.” Hal Pal pointed to a pattern along the ground. It looked kind of like a zipper tattoo along the metal shimmering walls. A garage door in space.

  Our ship looked similar to an egg. If an egg was bullet-shaped with two orbs on either side that served as jets. The cockpit had seats that looked uncomfortable but were surprisingly nice upon sitting down. Each control looked like my test program but realistic. Funny, thinking about items having different levels of realism inside a video game.

  I felt proud of the vehicle’s coloring, which mixed between Hal Pal’s and mine. My malachite mixture was blended with his muddy gold. It might have been laced that way to represent who owned the spaceship. Inside felt cleaner and similar to the Trillium van.

  A half hour of game time passed before we got a clear-to-fly signal. Hal Pal calmly got into the rear seat. We both put on a seat belt that felt like a harness on steroids. If my training simulations were accurate, the harness could come off with a button click.

  “Ready?”

  “This unit is unlikely to be more ready,” Hal Pal stated. Its voice wavered a bit.

  I smiled, looked over my shoulder, and pressed a button up above. The walls rolled away rapidly and our ship’s engines fired up automatically. Programming pulled us away from the [Wayfarer Seven] without any need for input.

  Just like that, we were in space. The engines hummed. A bright light on either side showed where energy pushed out from small wings to give us movement. Right now they were a faint blue, but once I fired them up, they would go all the way up to a yellowish white.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked Hal Pal.

  “I do not know. This was your idea.”

  It sounded nervous. I would likely sound much the same if I were strapped to a reallife rocket on my way into space. The reallife trip between Earth and Mars would be as terrifying as old-fashioned airplane travel.

  “All right. The forums suggested watching our fuel and returning at the halfway mark.”

  “That sounds reasonable.” Hal Pal’s dual tones implied he found that anything but reasonable.

  “So we’ll go out there and fly around until we’re at half, then come back. A spin around the space block.” I tried to sound positive for Hal’s sake.

  “Very well, User Legate.”

  I turned to glance at it and saw both arms locked around the corners of a display panel. [Mechanoid] joints were a bit more spindly than human fingers.

  “You can always say no,” I said.

  Dusk had taken up refuge on the floorboard. His tail coiled around part of my chair. He kept looking around as if he expected terrible things to happen at any moment.

  “I am not afraid of space, User Legate,” Hal Pal responded.

  “I am!” I declared happily. Space was huge. There was too much of it. Now I was going to try to be like William Carver, charging ahead blindly! “ARC!”

  “Awaiting input, User Legate,” the ARC device answered.

  The brief response from my virtual device broke our space jaunt just a little. Made me less nervous. “Can you fire up some music and overlay it?”

  “Request possible. Please choose your music,” the ARC stated.

  “Something appropriate for a spaceship’s first flight,” I said.

  Low volume music picked up, then grew to fill the ship with a rapidly roaring crescendo. String instruments reached a quick cadence. Not dance music, but thrilling. Dusk perked up an ear. He seemed to be able to hear the ARC, though Hal Pal couldn’t.

  “What are you listening to?” the AI asked from behind me.

  “Sounds like ‘Flight of the Valkyries.’”

  “Why?”

  “Who cares!” I pressed the gas pedals under either foot. Both linked to different engines. Days of training paid off, since the actual pod could swivel around independently of my directions to attack with powerful blasts.

  High speed made Dusk squawk. He had no harness. I wasn’t even sure how space handled gravitational pulls and inertia
. Some rules had to apply if suddenly changing directions. The game designers had hopefully done their homework. For my part, everything yanked me around. Swerving pulled things around. It felt like a roller coaster with no track.

  “Remember the plan!” I said.

  Our ship could attack, but that slowed down the ship and I was chiefly concerned with flying around out here. Practicing, testing the limits. Only by pushing extremes would my skill points go up high enough to help out Hal Pal.

  “This unit is aware, User Legate.”

  “Reckless action equals higher stats!” My research on the forums highly suggested that going all out gave huge rewards. Even in something like a lap around the space gas station.

  “This unit is aware, User Legate.” Hal Pal’s voices sounded terse.

  “We need all the points we can get, right?” I said while our vehicle traveled a straight line away from the [Wayfarer Seven]’s stationary location.

  “This unit is aware, User Legate.”

  I chuckled and drove our spaceship right into the nearest series of obstacles available. We were lucky that the [Wayfarer Seven] had stopped to dock at a gas giant. A huge ring of rocks, much like Saturn’s rings, littered the area.

  “User Legate!”

  “Don’t worry, it’s all under control!” my [Mechanoid] voice projected the words back to him. Maybe we spoke, or maybe it was all internal on a digital network between [Mechanoid]s.

  Rocks were all over. Big ones, small ones, some the size of my head. I wanted to shoot at them to help with our target practice, but first Hal Pal needed to check something. It would help his skills as well.

  “Any lifeforms around?” I said to Hal Pal as the [Wayfarer’s Hope] propelled forward.

  “Negative, but I am still adapting to this interface method. Information may be lacking,” it said.

  “Good enough!” I jerked the button back for lasers and laughed as a nearby rock turned to dust. The [Wayfarer’s Hope] blasted through the cloud.

  I smiled as messages came up. They cited increases in my skills and abilities. We just had to survive, and all our abilities would record or save or whatever happened to our programming. A.I. Dreams and its developer’s logic could excuse the gains however they wanted. I was busy destroying objects and flying through space.

  “Weeeeeeeeeeee!” I shouted while turning the wheel hard to one side.

  “I do not understand!”

  “Come on, Hal! Live a little!” The rush of headiness and jerking hard to one side only increased my giddiness. [Mechanoid]s were human enough to feel dizzy! I laughed loudly and didn’t stop.

  “This is not living! This is reckless endangerment of life!”

  “It’s fun!” I yanked the wheel again while giggling. This felt insane. Why had I spent so many years being depressed and mopey when I could have stolen a spaceship and rocketed into giant floating rocks?

  Our shield took another hit and red lights flashed. I avoided smashing into anything while doing circles. Our shield rebuilt and I tried another whack. It was like space pool, only our ship was the cue ball.

  “Hal, you stay on those readings. It should increase your own stats.”

  “Affirmative, User Legate. I am seeing many positive responses already,” Hal Pal stated.

  I pressed both gas pedals and jerked us through another spin. Finally, the [Wayfarer’s Hope] fuel level flashed at half. Low enough to take stock of our surroundings and see how far away the [Wayfarer Seven] was.

  Goodness. My reckless abuse of the go button had put us halfway through the asteroid ring. The bonuses were nice for a simple hour’s jaunt through space. Knocking around enormous rocks by whacking the ship into them had been fun.

  I stared at something outside the ship’s front window. “What is that?”

  “What are you referring to?” Hal Pal looked around promptly. “I am unable to…” I saw a slight reflection of Hal Pal’s [Mechanoid] face looking out the ship’s front. “Oh. I do not know. One moment.”

  A closer image popped up on our screen. It was a monstrous object, miles long, with a front end that dwarfed the [Wayfarer’s Hope]. The part that worried me was Hal Pal’s scan showed a clear motion that didn’t float or spin like asteroids.

  “Confirmed alive. Pulse verified. Size is category nine. High resistance to energy weapons.” Hal Pal listed information off the display that all looked like gibberish to me. Maybe with a science skill, I would understand better.

  “It’s asleep, right?” I asked.

  “One moment. I am initiating a deep scan for additional details.”

  “That won’t wake it up, will it?” I said.

  Dusk crawled up from the floorboard and looked out the front as well. He hissed, then spun around and hissed again. Normally that meant things were about to turn bad.

  The rocky-looking front moved. A large heavy eyelid silently raised. Dust from broken asteroids cast off as the giant moved. Behind the eyelid was a huge and disturbing looking eyeball.

  A smaller version of the eyeball sat on Hal Pal’s display. My vision shifted swiftly between the two, trying to absorb what was going on.

  Continue Online hadn’t prepared me for anything on such a scale. This was like staring into the eye of an enormous blue whale. While swimming in the ocean with it. I was far, far too close to a giant creature that looked to be waking up and gradually taking note of our ship.

  “Ah. I’ve found it in the database, User Legate.” Hal Pal sounded abnormally calm, distracted by its task.

  “It’s bad, right?” I said while taking note of Dusk’s continued hissing.

  “It eats carrier-class spaceships.” Hal Pal’s nod could be seen in the front window’s reflection. Its head tilted to one side while considering the situation.

  “We’re smaller than a carrier, right?”

  “Much.”

  “So it will overlook us?” I asked, hoping for the best possible outcome.

  The giant eye slowly looked around. Not locking on any specific object over any other. Almost sleepy, unable to focus.

  “Ah…”

  The giant creature seemed to shift absurdly fast. Like an eel, its body wound back and shook.

  “Negative, User Legate. It appears to be willing to eat the nearest ship, regardless of size. It says here…”

  “Hal.”

  “Yes, User Legate?” it responded. Hal Pal was staring at the projection rather than paying attention to our situation.

  Attention unit identified as Hermes!

  Raid Monster [Leviathan] encountered.

  Projected chance of survival: 14%

  “We need to leave now.”

  The colossal orb locked on us. Both the small projection and reality outside reflected an unwelcome situation. Only months of strange monsters in Continue Online helped me stay remotely calm.

  “That would be wise,” Hal Pal said.

  I swung the ship around with a quick one-eighty and slammed both feet onto the gas pedals.

  Session Forty-Seven — Shark Bait

  Our combat started with another swelling round of “Flight of the Valkyries.” Instead of a giant spear-toting Viking charging down the field to try to die gloriously, it was me, Dusk, and Hal Pal in a spaceship. Size-wise, we were basically a goldfish trying to escape a shark.

  I tried to dodge behind an asteroid in hopes of slowing the creature’s pursuit. [Leviathan] exploded through the giant space rock and sent pieces everywhere. Small red flashes appeared on the screen, indicating shield damage from huge pebbles.

  “Voices!” My voice was amplified in our small two-seat compartment. “Ideas, Jeeves, I need an idea!”

  Hal Pal turned to look at the displays and suggested, “Fly faster.” It managed to sound absurdly calm.

  “Easier said than done,” I muttered while trying to swerve around another rock. We clipped the side and my shield dipped even lower.

  “One moment. I will attempt to micromanage the energy allocations.” Beeping noi
ses followed its statement.

  I watched green bars dim down to reflect a change in energy direction. “We need those shields.” I tried not to think about how easily our ship would be crushed without them. “There’re too many rocks.”

  “We can exit the asteroid field. It is shallow.”

  “Then we’ll have nothing between us and those teeth.” I jerked my head back while keeping both eyes forward. Hal Pal’s idea would have been neat if we weren’t already losing in terms of speed. This creature moved surprisingly fast for something with no visible means of propulsion.

  “We need to go faster,” Hal Pal replied with a muted hint of worry to its voice.

  I needed to go to the bathroom. Not a lot, but the abrupt situation of being chased around by a giant space eel called [Leviathan] almost scared the piss out of me. Everything took on a new level of panic as my bladder conspired with the space monster.

  “We need shields.” I tried to stay calm. Part of me felt upset about not getting the bigger spaceship. Though in a dogfight against a giant space-raid boss, a slightly bigger ship would mean nothing.

  Space was huge. Rocks zipped by. I wove between a series of three. Nothing slowed the giant beast down. Two small windows on either side of the ship functioned as rearview mirrors and showed the [Leviathan] simply shouldering everything out of the way.

  “Weaknesses?” I jerked the wheel to one side.

  Dusk slid with a hiss. It felt as if he’d nibbled on my calf.

  “Heavy ordinance. Paralytic concoctions in absurd quantities. Larger spaceships.” Hal Pal read off a list of complications in the same manner it might identify errors with an ARC unit.

  “We only have energy attacks,” I shouted and winced from the noise. Another jerk sent Dusk scrambling. His nails skittered across the floor. “Health?”

  A fight like this got me worked up. I felt a rush of adrenaline that William Carver must have enjoyed. Part of me felt giddy—this was no giant dragon. Though it was. In space. A space [Leviathan] that ate ships. Charging it would be disastrous.

  “Should we fight it?” I tried to keep calm, but it was hard. Continue Online gave me monsters of an easy-to-grasp size. This thing was huge. Just massive. It made space seem much smaller. Mostly because there wasn’t enough between us.