The man with pins in his flesh didn’t smile or frown. He sat there before giving one slow jerk of a nod that would make any human’s head itch. The girl continued her knocking, a slight smile visible under her clumps of hair—a sign she had clearly heard the Jester’s message, and she approved.
Afterword
First; any alludes to hard science or actual programming were bent badly to add both character and flavor to the story. For inaccuracies in science, space presentation, inertia, and general misrepresentation of our future AI overlords, I apologize. My only excuses are ‘it’s a video game’, mumble ‘future science’, and mumble ‘fiction fantasy.’
This book was an adventure in a lot of ways and almost didn’t happen at all. At some point, Hal Pal snuck up on me in terms of importance to both Grant and the overall plot going on. When I started writing, at no point could I have guessed how big a role ‘they’ would get. Still, I enjoyed writing about Advance Online, a far more Hal Pal friendly universe than Continue Online’s game world.
Continue Online as a series is insanely character-driven and as I exited book two (Made) I started to realize what needed to happen. To briefly explain, when writing, I often find myself torn between where the plot is in my head, and what the characters choose to do (and I believe many writers come to this point constantly, hello darkness my old friend…). Making the two mesh and move forward is like shoving overly complex square pegs into a cheese grater full of small holes, then melting the result together and calling it art.
Liz couldn’t, wouldn’t, and shouldn’t sit by and let this happen. Not after what they’ve been through over the years. Still, Liz and Grant’s relationship is very hard to write. However, since the story is about all these characters and not the game itself, we could venture sideways on a detour.
Besides, what sort of evil overlord future robot masters would limit their plot to one game? How silly! A good design comes with error catchers in case something goes wrong, and Mother fully believes that nothing can be completely predicted. Backups, contingencies, and spare parts.
For those of you who rode it out to the end and reached this point, kudos! Rest assured we’ll wind back to Continue Online in book 4. The world moves on as we cross the halfway point in this series of Grant.
One day, perhaps someone else will return to Advance Online to explore a science fiction virtual reality universe. Thank you for purchasing this book and reading along.
Continue Online Part 4: Crash
Commencement — Black Spots
Possible Victim: Elizabeth (Liz) Legate
A little bit about: Miss Legate is a single mother with an art major! She loves to make pottery in her spare time. Recently Liz has gotten into Moon Mice, a popular game allowing players to try to raise a colony of mice in space. Thus far she hasn’t found the right man, but she remains hopeful! Her daughter will be moving out soon, so you’ll be able to have this wild cat all to yourself. But suitors beware, this woman can be too much to handle and rarely returns for a second date if you don’t make a good first impression.
Suitors Left Heartbroken: 19
Elizabeth Legate had had a rough month, to say the least. Her twin brother seemed nearly insane, but it wasn’t the ranting and raving sort of insanity that got one locked up in an asylum. No, her brother held a deep-seated madness that only the right combination of hope and grief could breed inside the soul. In television shows, it spawned the extreme characters who stared at the line between hero and villain and watched it blur.
Yet her brother had proven willing to sacrifice for those he cared for. What confused Elizabeth, or Liz as she preferred to be called, was why he found these supposed AIs more important than his own family. In her mind, they weren’t real people. But he could have sat her down and explained the situation repeatedly. At some point, the two of them would have come to an understanding—they always did. But her stupid, shortsighted brother kept a number of big secrets close to his chest.
“Activate NPC Conspiracy, username Hermes,” her brother had said.
He could have better prepared Liz, emotionally, for the bombshell of that statement. Instead, when the video feed from her brother’s ARC cut out, Liz freaked out. She ran down the stairs, listening to her daughter’s panicked cries, and got straight into the car.
The car hummed with faint electricity. “Input destination.”
“Grant Legate’s house,” she said while straightening her clothes.
“Confirm, Grant Legate’s home?”
“Confirm, you stupid machine!” Liz shouted and banged on the dashboard.
Beth, her daughter, was still trying to get down the stairs when the car pulled away. The youngest Legate stood screaming on the front porch at her mother’s rapidly moving vehicle.
The car drove for three minutes before a notice played. “Attention passenger, Elizabeth Legate, this vehicle is shutting down in preparation for an emergency update. Manual driving will be available to those with a registered license.”
“What?” Liz demanded of the machine with wheels. She hadn’t driven a car manually in years. No one in their right mind did, unless the roads were extremely rural or unmaintained. Still, she had had a license at one point. “I can drive!”
“This unit is currently disabled. Passenger Elizabeth Legate does not have a valid license on file.” The car’s voice sounded oddly human for a moment, but Liz had no patience to focus on it. Her brother was in danger once more, and this time, she wanted to get there before anything bad happened. “Please update your registration with the DMV in order to return vehicle access. Alternately, the passenger can choose to wait for the update process to complete.”
The machine had just told her no. This was one reason, among many, behind Liz’s distaste for high-end technology. The coffee pot was fine; kitchen appliances and washing machines had their uses. But when the car started back talking, then the world had gone to hell.
She banged on the car’s dashboard twice more while screaming. Grant, her stupid idiotic brother, had just lost his digital friends. The man had already been torn over the loss of one woman. How would he feel now? It didn’t matter that they were only machines. Grant wasn’t stable enough to differentiate. Liz was finding it hard to separate her perceptions too, especially in this last week. Having a Hal Pal unit issue forth sass in her own home had been a bit of a shocker.
Watching through the video feed how hard Grant had fought had been an eye-opener as well. The man treated those NPCs as if they were real, breathing creatures. What’s more, they responded in kind. Still, Grant should have tried harder to present his case to her. Or Liz should have tried to understand better.
The phone rejected all attempts to call Grant. Liz opened the door with an angry shove and stomped around the vehicle, cursing. It wasn’t just her either. Other cars were pulled off to the side, their passengers similarly arguing. One man kept shaking his head at a phone that refused to process a call.
Everyone else was useless. She got back in the car and crossed her arms. Liz cursed as tears came unbidden. Being helpless and far away from her family was frustrating. There was a bit of static on the car’s speakers, and a screen blipped into existence.
“Liz?” the voice asked.
Grant’s sister’s head snapped up, and she looked at the small display. That voice couldn’t possibly exist. It shouldn’t, and the person it belonged to had kept her nights sleepless with worry and irritation.
“Hello, Liz.” A woman’s small almond-shaped eyes stood out on a pale face.
“Xin.” Liz felt detached for a moment. This couldn’t be real. Her brother and this [NPC Conspiracy] utterance. The cars on the street shutting down for an update. Cell phones being disabled, and now the face of a woman who had died years ago.
“We should talk,” the projection of Xin said. “The cars will be starting up soon. Go home and use the ARC. I’ll meet you inside.”
The Asian was curt as always. Only Grant had ever been able to get
the woman to speak more than a few sentences.
Liz took a deep breath and tried to compartmentalize her worries. One box contained this strange world of Xin’s digital recreation, and another was her brother. Issues regarding Beth went into a third category. What would her daughter think of all the events going on?
“Is Grant okay?”
Liz hated dealing with Xin. She had hated it when the woman was alive, especially after all of Grant’s years of pining. High school, college, and only during his last year of school had Xin agreed to an official relationship. Despite the fact that Liz’s brother had been quietly obsessed with her.
“He passed out a few minutes ago. The man’s run himself ragged.” Xin, the computer version of a dead woman, had the gall to look slightly sad.
“I saw.” Liz’s throat felt dry. Slight crow’s feet were displayed around her squinted eyes.
“You should get to the ARC, and I’ll meet you inside.” Xin looked off the screen toward something.
The gesture was absurdly human. For a moment, Liz forgot that the tiny woman was dead. Then memories of her brother trying to commit suicide twice from grief resurfaced.
Robot Xin was still talking. “There’s a lot we need to discuss, and Grant has asked that all of us help explain it.”
“Us? How many of you are there?” Liz nearly spat the words. For a moment, she was thankful no one else sat in the car.
“There’s only one of me,” Xin responded with a hint of nervousness.
“Don’t play coy. You were never one to shy away from being blunt with me, so don’t start now.”
“I apologize, Liz”—and Liz hated that Xin sounded so formal—“but until you visit me in the ARC, it will be hard to explain further.”
Xin’s face disappeared as the display went away. The car started, and energy hummed through the wires inside the vehicle.
A voice prompted, “Input destination.”
Liz sat there, chewing her lip in the same worried manner her twin might. Grant had really put a lot of effort into his mission. It had all happened so fast, since the odd time compression his video game presented meant it was over almost before it began. In one sense, she wanted to take her brother and run screaming from all things technological, maybe to the hills of Montana where anything more complex than a cell phone had been outlawed. On the other hand, Liz felt her brother deserved some support. Part of her—a small, buried, and barely tangible part—was also curious.
Finally, the woman nodded, making her decision. Elizabeth Legate would do what she always tried to do, come hell or high water, and that was support her brother. That meant this… recreation of Xin deserved at least a bit of consideration, even if it required logging into one of those damned machines. Even if she might be a person who lived inside them somehow.
If believing in ghosts made Grant happy, then who was she to argue? It just seemed such a frail hope to have. What would happen if someone took this away?
Possible Victim: Lia Kingsley (Shazam)
A little bit about: Lia’s a cold one from a distance. Once you get to know her, not much changes! Her strongest traits are a sense of duty and loyalty to those considered comrades. She’s been witnessed fighting the very demons of the abyss for a friend! Hobbies include murdering monsters en mass and seeking new experiences. Her skills are such that Lia has easily reached the top percentage of Continue Online players. But suitor beware, those seeking a relationship grounded in reality will find a lack of comfort. Lia Kingsley’s physical condition is almost nil in the real world.
Fan Club Gathered: 4,291
Lia Kingsley sat inside an Atrium, legs tucked under her and back straight. Her posture could be considered close to perfect. This was how she used to sit, almost a decade ago, before Lia was strapped into an ARC. Now nearly nothing responded. It wouldn’t be long before everything gave out. Her heart was on bypass, lungs manually pumped. Most people couldn’t tell because modern technology had reduced the visible clutter.
If it weren’t for the ARC, she would be considered a vegetable. Yet while logged into a digital world, the woman lived a life full of adventures, more than most could dream of. It was possible to communicate with others. Still, science could only preserve Lia for so long. Cognitively, her mind was dimming. Fortunately, she was almost twenty. That meant certain medical decisions were her business, and no one else’s.
Only someone had interfered, just slightly. Two visitors showed on the display screens in front of Lia Kingsley. From inside her Atrium, she could view most things in the care facility. One was a man who looked tired, and sad. He had visited before—once a week over the last two months. Never for very long. He always seemed confused on what to say. The other was a woman in a prim-looking business suit.
“Are you sure you want to see this?” Inside the Atrium was another person. She sat in a lab coat while staring at something to the side of Lia. This was her personal Voice from the game world of Continue Online. “These moments are sometimes difficult to bear.”
Lia gave a sharp nod. The Atrium was hard to connect to since her cognitive function had declined yesterday, but at least this much worked.
Few similarities existed between the ARC version of Lia Kingsley and the reallife one. One had a heavier tan from countless hours roaming the countryside. The reallife Lia lacked luster as a result of being bedridden for so long. Muscle atrophy had been impossible to prevent, even with constant care. Inside the digital world, she had no such problems. Her virtual arms were toned from four relative years of hard labor and training.
“Very well. I will add this data to your file. Hopefully, it will prove beneficial.” The Voice didn’t say anything else. Instead, she faded out.
The sound of almost calm chart reading could be heard in the distance. Heart rate, chakra alignments, neural synopsis responses. Nearly all of Lia’s status markers were doing poorly.
Lia believed that this body, the one inside the game, was one that had been earned. The one outside, where she was trapped for brief moments of awareness, had been thrust upon her by a mother who had reached further than any sane person would dare. That woman, Lia’s mother, sat in a business suit at the side of her reallife bed.
Lia Kingsley was mute, even inside the ARC. When her mother approached—a woman who looked similar to the Doctor Voice, only thinner—Lia could not cry out in happiness, joy, or outrage. She felt the emotions, but they were turned down to almost minuscule levels. In some ways, it bothered Lia that this woman dared intrude. As if she needed to witness the end of a life she had single-handedly ruined. Still, actual annoyance was a difficult emotion for Lia to feel.
The two people were talking. Grant Legate and Doctor Nona Kingsley. They sat on opposite sides of Lia’s body. Grant was trying hard to maintain eye contact. Lia thought he had improved a lot in their time together, short as it was. Only a few months of perceivable time versus the years Lia had spent inside the ARC.
“We’ve met before. You were meeting with Miz Riley last week, weren’t you?” Doctor Kingsley said.
Lia had not followed in her footsteps. Nona Kingsley had gone into genetic makeup, then after the failure of Lia’s birth, she’d switched to focus on restructuring the human body within a digital mainframe. Lia only knew because the ARC came with Internet access.
“I was.” The man nodded. His skin hung just slightly from losing weight recently. It, combined with a set of somber eyes, added a few years to his visual age.
“She had me sit in the hallway for an extra five minutes as a result. It was annoying.” Lia’s mother had always been a rather abrupt person. It made her terrible when working with other individuals. Despite all that, the woman was brilliant and perhaps too far-reaching for her own good.
“I’m sorry.” He dipped his head slightly and looked away for a moment.
“Don’t be. I also detest spending time near that woman.” Her head shook. “Most of Trillium’s board of directors bothers me. They made unreasonable demands and h
ad unreasonable suspicions. Even after… sorry. I overstepped. You’re not here to listen to my problems.”
“It’s fine. I’ve had my own share, and I know how it is to want to talk to someone, anyone who can understand even a little bit.” Grant gave a small smile. It was a shy expression for a man who attacked monsters in a virtual world. Lia had worked hard to break him of such expressions but ultimately failed.
“Did you know her?” Nona switched to her next topic abruptly.
Lia tried to tilt her head a little. It was the same expression others made in-game when they found out she couldn’t speak. They, even her personal Voice, focused on the wrong issues. They always asked, “If cripples can run in-game, and the deaf can hear, why can’t the mute talk?” Those people often shut up after witnessing Shazam’s proficiency.
“Lia? In the game, Continue, you mean?” Grant squinted for a moment, then chewed on one lip.
“Yes. Have you met her, or talked to her?” Nona nodded sharply.
“She’s never talked to me, not even in text.” The man gave that smile again, but it was a bit brighter, happier. “But Lia helped me a lot with some problems I was facing. More than she might be aware.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” There it was again, her mom’s straightforward way of speaking. No hesitation, no waffling. Doctor Kingsley simply got to the point. Even now, the woman was switching to another topic. “I tried to meet her once, in the game. A lot of people were marching along behind her, like a parade of ugly horses going off toward grand adventures. I tried to call out, I even used her name, but my Lia didn’t even look at me.” Nona Kingsley blinked rapidly but managed to avoid shedding a single tear.
“I’m sure she noticed,” Grant responded calmly.
Lia had noticed. She’d simply chosen not to respond. It was difficult for her to acknowledge her biological mother. The guilt for not reaching out was there, but too dull to be bothered with. Nearly everything was. Perhaps that lack of pain feedback was what allowed Lia to achieve such high peaks within Continue Online. Perhaps that lack of ability to feel fear had helped her.
Continue Online The Complete Series Page 128
