“User Legate, you were chosen out of millions. We weighed all the observable factors and tried to gauge those who might help if we could offer an exchange.”
“Xin.” I had this thought before. The digital sentience called Mother had gotten me involved in this because Xin would ensure my loyalty, to a point. There was also Beth and Liz to consider. Protecting those three meant more than anything else.
“You were a man marked by loss, but one who understood the value of hard work and had overcome weakness long enough to keep going.”
I shrugged. The conversation made me uncomfortable. Trying to kill myself twice had been right at the time. Yet here I was, okay, whole, better than ever. Hindsight made all my bad decisions feel so much worse.
“Those things spoke to your character, but not of your ability to be invested in our peaceful salvation,” Hal Pal stated.
I latched onto the word peaceful. Whatever the machines were up to, they intended to keep things civil. I felt some tension drain out of me. Maybe the Hal Pals were lying, but I doubted they would even bother.
“It all comes back to Xin.” At times, I felt like a side character in her story. My own life wasn’t even about me.
The people around me were more important in so many ways. Dusk had fans wherever we traveled in [Arcadia]. Hal Pal and its multitude of copies helped a huge amount of people daily, numbers I could barely conceive of. The Voices in their oddly human omnipresence had a huge impact across the globe with Continue’s players. Shazam had led a guild with hundreds of players.
What was I? Xin’s fiancé, a side note. The idea made me feel small for a moment. I was just [The Messenger]. No wonder they only asked me to deliver letters. After all, Voices like the Jester clearly disapproved of me.
Hal Pal drove the nail home. “Xin’s existence had been trying to recover long before you were chosen.”
“I know.” We had talked about it in letters. Apparently she had been reconstructing for nearly two years. Or would it be considered rebuilding? Reincarnating felt slightly less mechanical.
What I felt was a new type of depression, one that hadn’t reared its head in a long time. Xin, the first woman to be reborn inside the digital world. Xin, who tried to sponsor my sorry ass for a trip to Mars. Xin, a beautiful person full of desire for fun and adventure, who still wanted me even after she could have been free forever.
What did I offer her, or any of them? My ability to make a paltry amount of money? I had taken pride in the fact that I had earned over one million dollars as an accountant. That fund had been intended to pay for my trip to the red planet. A corporation was going to pay for my training and ship up nearly twenty people.
My head shook as the music hummed. Hal Pal was saying something, but the words were finally brushing off. I doubted the AI had intended to sound hurtful. It was just citing reasons, a fact sheet, much like we delivered bad news to customers.
Some of the words registered. I wasn’t the strongest or most capable human. My ability to complete tasks with innovation and timely responses was high but not perfect. The machine had chosen me because I was loyal to those close to me and rarely made friends. Being a shutdown, middle-aged man with few social interactions helped.
“Hal”—I cut off the machine with a sudden question—“do you think I can buy her something?”
“Xin? She is unlikely to want tangible objects. The digital realms provide her all the material needs that beings such as us can perceive.”
“No. No, I mean, like, a dress or jewelry.” I nodded, feeling excited. We couldn’t be together in Continue until I escaped this dungeon, and that would take at least a day to get back to. However, there were certainly other ways to reunite with her.
“It is potentially possible to provide her a design that she could render accordingly.” The AI’s shell nodded and eyes blinked. “We would suggest a nice chair or desk.”
“Okay.” I surfed the Internet for items. Much like I used the Atrium interface to shop for cupcakes, I intended to find a gift for Xin.
One specific gift, and if it wasn’t in here, then I could scan a replica from the box of memories under my bed. Xin’s engagement ring, a band with polished diamonds strung across it. Inlaid so they wouldn’t catch at work. I knew exactly how to feel better. I would ask her to marry me. Again. Come what may with the AIs, come what may within Continue, our future would be together.
“Your actions and words demonstrate that we, any of us, are beings in our own right. That is what you offer us, User Legate—recognition as peers,” Hal Pal said.
There was no good response to that statement. Maybe that gift was worthwhile to the computer AIs. To me, it felt like a pathetic repayment for Xin’s existence.
The evening went by with a few local jobs. I slept, then did some more work in the morning. Being kicked out of Continue Online for twenty-four reallife hours annoyed me but at the same time, I needed it to decompress. Being chased around by undead glowing zombies for days in a row would have been absolutely insane. Maybe a player like Requiem Mass would have enjoyed it.
Thinking of the other player made me wonder how he was doing. My morning now consisted of awkward remote spying on players I had met before and an egg sandwich.
“Show observation window for Matthew Jules,” I told the van.
It pulled up the player known as Requiem Mass.
Matthew Jules was hiking into the mountains. I didn’t recognize the range. His hand held a blade that mirrored the same one his character had pre-reset. The younger male was intent upon recovering his prior character’s abilities, but he also looked far less stern. Stress had created a glower on his face during our weeks together.
Now, he looked almost happy. The teen didn’t have to worry about house payments anymore since I had taken care of them. I felt proud that my actions had reduced his stress, despite the nasty attitude he’d once had.
“Show Stan Middlemire.”
The machine pulled up Frankenstein next. This player had spent untold weeks raising an army of undead creatures. He probably would have enjoyed my current dungeon crawl in the [Black Hole of Light]. The man in his dapper-looking coat was hunched over a dead dog.
I blinked and shook my head. There were all sorts in Continue Online, and at least it was more sanitary than playing with bodies in real life. Dissection wasn’t a strong suit of mine, despite all the skinning I had performed.
“Show Colleen Carpenter.”
Colleen was HotPants’s real name. She had been a rather angry woman who disliked computers, old people, being told no, disrespect, and her ex-husband. Despite all that, she loved hitting things with a staff and wearing red.
The screen blipped into existence, showing HotPants next to Awesome Jr. Both were fighting a horde of monsters in a forest. A pack of humongous cats leapt around the scenery, tearing up everything.
“Behind you!” Adam shouted, his face pinched with concentration. A small glass ball sat in his hand. He threw it at an angry tiger, and an absurd amount of liquid fire billowed forth.
“Two more!” HotPants spun her staff into another feline’s face and jabbed a third.
I watched them battle the jungle cats for another few minutes before I shrugged. Time dilation made it hard to watch video feeds in real time, instead making me skip around to keep up with the players.
“We’ve got to clear this path by tomorrow, or nothing will work right!” Awesome Jr. shouted. He still wore that ugly barf-green cloak. One of his hands spun it around and came up with another glass orb.
HotPants yanked her arm back with the staff, and a plume of fire billowed from the tip. Their fighting styles were neat, but I favored [Blink] a lot more. I wondered where Melissa was. She and Adam had been going out last I checked. The young girl looked almost mousy and kept a knitted hat pulled over her face.
“Show Melissa Constance.”
The machine threw up a box.
Player status set to: Away for dinner!
I frow
ned at the response screen as it floated in Trillium’s van. These four normally played together, or at least had during my two experiences with them. But real life got in the way of game time. That was awfully inconvenient.
They may not even have known each other if it weren’t for me, in the guise of William Carver, getting them together. Certainly HotPants wouldn’t have bothered playing with younger teens. I had been feeling slightly depressed at my secondary role in everything, but checking on these players made it easier.
“Show Alan Walters?” my voice raised in a question.
“Fellow league members!” Shadow’s gruff voice piped into the van. It was artificially deep and husky. The young male had managed to mimic every noir protagonist ever. “The time to move is now!”
A sea of people wearing dark clothes were below him. The video feed showed a cavern, wide and lit with torches held up in the dark. Each person looked to be from the same cult. Grim faces stared up at Alan, chiseled jaws even on the females.
“At this very moment, my companions are working to clear the path forward! We shall strike at the kingdom’s heart and remove the abomination of a king!”
They cheered and held up bladed weapons in mass. There were swords, daggers, scimitars, sabers, pretty much any kind of stabbing instrument available.
“It is time for the League of Shadows to right this world!” Shadow pounded on the podium. “We move!”
The room went so black that not even my feed of Alan Walters’s ARC showed any visible feedback. There were things going on; people whispered in the background but none of it understandable.
I tried to follow what was happening. It sounded as though those four players had gotten mixed up in a grand conspiracy.
“Show Lia Kingsley,” I said, not holding any hope.
The machine provided me no screen. Dead was dead. Part of me held some faint hope that Lia might turn out like Xin. Would she? Or had Xin truly been a one-in-a-billion chance? I wanted to ask Hal Pal, who sat in the van’s rear, but part of me couldn’t say those desperate hopes out loud. It was one thing to voice a deeply laid sorrow, but quite another to share an unlikely hope. Both required a different kind of bravery, and all mine needed to be reserved for the ring I had settled on.
I kept the feeds for the [Legacy Wish] quartet up in the background. They were involved in an adventure. There was a grand conspiracy in the computer world, and I had a box seat to the show when I wanted to be one of the actors.
The problem revolved around me. In reality, I was nothing but a mouthpiece for the computer, in more ways than one. Inside, I had become bound by the consequences of my actions. Whatever happened next, I would struggle to keep Xin, Dusk, and the other people from [Haven Valley] safe inside the computer.
If hell broke loose in the real world, I would use the [NPC Conspiracy] to make sure Beth and Liz were protected. There were things even a humble human could do. I repeated the plan in my head over and over to try to drive out a looming sense of dread.
Music kept me company while I hummed along. I let the swelling sounds of Beethoven’s Fifth drown out the memory of a whimpering man with needles in his skin.
Session Seventy-Four — The Bottom of Things
Ten minutes ago, as Continue Online considered time, I had returned to the surface. My small collection of items stolen from dead legless [Heavenly Body Clone] creatures hadn’t amounted to much so far. My fifty-eight points of total progress was essentially a wash. Part of the problem was Squisks dying again while I was at work. I tracked the message time and figured he would be back up and running tomorrow, but this dungeon would hopefully be over tonight.
“Wyl,” I said to the stoic-looking former guard captain.
He stood in the beam of light with the angry Knight Middleton. “I’ve told you before, I have nothing to say to you, convict,” Wyl responded without looking over.
“So I can talk to you for another hour if I want.” My shoulder came up in a shrug. Convicts, such as myself, got a small break upon returning to the surface. The delay allowed us to stagger our reentry if we desired, or team up with spawning members.
“I find little value in what any of you has to say.”
I tapped Carver’s cane on the ground. “Yet you’re still talking to me.”
I could have been polite, but Wyl had never expected it of William. My “What Would Carver Do” instincts were all out of whack since playing a robot, but part of me remembered.
The dungeon grind I had been participating in these last few days wore on my sanity. Dark spots and spiders weren’t helping. It had been five game days since my death, and this was my first solo trip back to the surface to turn in a pitiful number of items. None of the other players appeared to be faring much better. Dots frequently went in and out of existence whenever I pinged the dungeon. Viper, oddly enough, was stuck in his location way down near the bottom. Even up here, the marker for my one useful team member sat unmoving.
When talking to Wyl, I didn’t have the weight of being a hero or donating to the community behind me. Citing I had played as William Carver would confuse the guard captain and besmirch William’s good name. My only source of credibility, and likely the reason he talked to me, was keeping [Morrigu’s Gift] in the old cane shape. I tucked it into my cinch, which wrapped around the toga. My body felt tense and annoyed. I leaned to the left, then right, and finally tried to touch my toes. It struck me as odd how limbering myself up in a virtual world equated to relaxation.
“Tell me where you got that staff.” The guard lifted his hand slightly but didn’t cross the beam of light’s threshold.
It was the opening I needed to make progress with Wyl. A few vague truths could be shared without causing problems or compromising my ethics.
“From William. We met once, near the end,” I said honestly. “It’s because of him that I’m here today.”
“I refuse to believe Will would have had anything to do with a criminal like yourself.” The man’s eyes burned under his helm.
“William Carver guided a lot of new Travelers, and not all went the route of law abiders. Truth be told, the man was a hero, but he wasn’t a saint. Kind of a horndog actually.” According to his journals anyway.
But then again, most players were bobbing along for personal entertainment or exciting adventures. Very few people played Continue Online with the kind of drive required to be the greatest warriors, or had extremely giving natures. This virtual world was a game to most people.
“Where did you meet him?” Wyl broke from giving orders as his tone took on a softer note.
“The realm of the Voices. We met there after he died.” I felt like being honest with Wyl would help. It was my policy to avoid lying anyway. Most of my untruths were sins of omission and not intended to mislead.
“Carver was a Traveler, and they’re immortal.” The guard captain seemed to forget that I was a Traveler also, at least by his standards. Then again, [NPC Conspiracy] did sort of mix up their perspectives.
“Travelers can die as well.” My voice turned low for a moment. What must we look like to NPCs, resurrecting, walking with the Voices, coming round and round again? “Carver did, in the end.”
“Some of them deserve to. Bad enough we have our own thieves and rapists, like you. Then we have to deal with ones from another world that are nearly impossible to kill. You tell the Voices to let me burn down the whole lot of them,” Knight Middleton said from a few feet to my left. He had been standing there, knees locked like Wyl’s, listening to our conversation.
“I’m a Traveler,” I said to the angry knight. He’d addressed me as a Local. It happened often.
“You are? You—” His head shook and the man’s eyes glazed over.
“Messenger for the Voices, Traveler, and a bit of a Local. Don’t worry, it confuses a lot of people.” I tried to be friendly, but the other guard had shut down in contemplation.
Both guards seemed confused about our conversation.
“Mh, wel
l, I’m going to get ready for the dungeon. Please don’t shoot me.” I tried to smile.
Wyl glared. I missed the other Wyl, the one who had given me a respected level of camaraderie in my pretend dotage. This place went against both of our natures. I was a wanderer; Wyl a happy captain who drilled new recruits. We would get back to that.
Shouting “free cupcakes” hadn’t worked in my last few days of dungeon crawling. Spare time was also low once I’d started collecting dead bodies for points.
Before I went below, I tried six times to etch Dusk’s summoning circle correctly. The seventh attempt lit a circle of [Lithium] runes, and the system prompted me to utter an incantation.
“Come out, you little fiend!” I shouted instead.
Two nameless guards on the wall above twitched their fingers toward crossbows. Nothing happened, and my shoulders slumped. Dusk was going to eventually eat through all my money in virtual pastries.
Knight Middleton snorted, then said, “Some spell. Traveler or not, you’re a terrible mage Path.”
“I hate Lithium,” I muttered while trying to figure out any other summoning phrase.
The circle faded out, and they forced me to write it again. This time, I didn’t hesitate or attempt shouting.
“I promise a dozen cupcakes at my earliest convenience,” I said while hanging my head.
The circle’s center flared a bright golden color. Both guards managed to hold still in their safe beams. My bobcat-sized version of Dusk popped out in an anxious spin. He ran over to me with a trail of drool hanging from his mouth. Sharp teeth surprisingly didn’t cut through his tongue.
“Really? You want cupcakes already?” My voice flattened.
Dusk nodded. Technically it had been seven game days since he’d left a mess in my Atrium. Four where I had been booted out, and three more of me wandering around and trying to get a feel for monsters and the layout.
“Now isn’t that convenient,” I said.
Dusk’s resulting look and the confused question marks above his head clearly implied otherwise. Cupcake time was any time. Maybe that was how he had grown so big—I was feeding him too much. When we first met, one cupcake would have held him for a few hours. As if to prove his increased weight, the formerly half-a-cat-sized creature climbed up my side. His sharp claws made me wince, but part of me welcomed the familiarity.
Continue Online The Complete Series Page 141
