Continue Online The Complete Series

by Stephan Morse

  Her free hand lifted into an L, then pointed at a cleared wall. A projection splashed onto the wall with quick launch icons. The older woman pointed at the newsreels and waited while a brief loading icon came up.

  Moments later, a partially three-dimensional video reel played. It went on for a few minutes before the enormity of what she was watching truly hit home. She shrieked.

  Footsteps could be heard coming up the stairs. Her daughter quickly ascended the split-level house and peeked over the railing to see what was playing.

  “We’re standing outside Trillium Inc.’s headquarters, where their vice president of operations, Miz Riley, was just shot.” The reporter’s voice took over the room.

  In the background, dozens of police officers could be seen. Some jackets said “FBI.” People were being escorted out of the building in droves.

  “Jesus, Mom.” Beth pointed at the screen. “I did a paper on her last month for school.”

  “That’s the woman your uncle Grant goes to visit, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. I asked him for information to help with the essay,” Beth answered, but the normal liveliness of her tone was lost. She crept into the front room as the video playback continued.

  “Authorities say they’ve replayed video footage and determined the location of our shooter. Hold on, I’m getting an update,” the reporter said. Behind her, flashing lights could be seen in droves.

  “Holy shit.” Liz’s hand was on her face.

  “It appears the suspect has been confronted. There’s more gunfire coming through.” The reporter was hiding behind a wall.

  The camera bobbed a bit as whoever filmed tried to keep up. Additional gunshots were heard.

  “We do not have confirmation on the motivation of the suspect being chased at this time.”

  The footage cut out and went back to an anchorman sitting behind his desk. The man spoke while Liz turned down the volume.

  “What will this do to Uncle Grant?” her daughter asked.

  “What about Grant?” Liz hadn’t put it together yet.

  “Or Aunt Xin?” Beth asked. “Or… whatever she is.”

  “I don’t know. I-I…” Liz swallowed and stared at her daughter. Drinking impeded her ability to form a coherent answer. “I don’t know if I care about her.”

  The news played on. Details were repeated as if the listening audience might be packed full of deaf people. Miz Riley, vice president of Trillium Inc., had been shot dead inside her office. Closed captioning notes and social media messages popped up in time.

  “It’s not even her, is it?” Beth asked.

  They talked right over the video playing as the police traced the path of the man who had been killed. Cameras and satellites lined up to paint a picture of motion. The mother shook a little as it became apparent how much they were watched by technology.

  “She’s Xin, or close enough that I can’t tell the difference,” Liz said some time later.

  Liz’s daughter had been young when Xin passed. Back then, Beth had spent most of her time in sports or with friends. Xin Yu had been a distant but a friendly enough figure.

  “Even if she is, I never liked Xin, you know?” Liz admitted.

  “You told me. Loudly.” Beth snorted much like her mother did. “Usually after a horrible date.”

  “She strung Grant along for so long. You uncle would have done anything for her, and she just went on her merry way while ignoring him.”

  “They got together though. I remember the day after he asked her to marry him. He picked me up and swung me around,” Beth said.

  At some point, the two of them had made it to a couch. Liz had eaten half a chicken sandwich.

  “And she was dead set on that stupid risky job. Mars.” Liz snorted, then took a much larger than expected sip of her not coffee. “And now this. I don’t know what to do.”

  “I do,” Beth declared while smiling brightly. “Some friends of mine have asked me to help out with a plan.”

  Liz stared as her daughter ran downstairs. Liz took another sip of the cold drink and wondered how Grant was staying stable through this madness. Maybe, and even starting the thought scared her, maybe Grant was like Alice in Wonderland. Simply accepting the insanity about him because to do else would invite a more permanent form of madness.

  Grant’s twin sister slowly walked back to the kitchen and made another drink. This time, a double. She was stronger than her brother in some regards, but tonight had been lousy all around.

  Session Seventy-Eight — Wake Up Deadman

  In the morning, Mom and I couldn’t really find the energy to talk. I felt bleary-eyed from my night with Xin’s ghost, or reincarnation. Maybe clone was the best way to consider her. Or an extremely similar twin in an alternate universe.

  Regardless of trying to nail down exactly what she was, I accepted it. Each time we connected, I questioned her existence less. That may not have been wise, but my [Depth] score was still relatively low compared to everything else. It marked who I was, inside the game and out.

  My meager wisdom was earned by listening to the stories of other people’s lives and finding resonance with my own misery. Perhaps recovering and moving on would have been easier without the poetry, support groups, or dancing with a program. In another sense, I sought out constant reminders of that which haunted me because life was either intensely sharp pangs or numbness.

  “Take care of yourself, son,” Sharee said as I went out the door. The world outside looked dark and gray. Any possible sun was covered up by a layer of rain clouds. “Remember I’m here to talk if you ever need me.”

  I tried to smile but felt mostly confused. She looked calmer than I expected. We parted with a final wave. Had I looked that together to other people after Xin passed? Never mind. All that sadness was in the past. Now, especially after my late-night chat, I felt dangerously happy.

  “It can’t last,” I muttered on the way back to the van. I glanced upward and could only see rain.

  Once I was settled in the van, Hal Pal said, “User Legate?” It used an unaccented but polite tone.

  “What’s up, Hal?”

  “Something has happened,” it said.

  My fingers paused above a digital projection that would set the van into motion. My head turned to look at the AI. Had the other shoe dropped already? The AI sounded oddly sad. Its words played back in my mind a few times. Those were the same ones said to me when being notified of Xin’s death.

  Once that realization hit, I didn’t react well.

  “What happened!?” I shook the robot’s frame. I didn’t even remember getting out of my comfortable chair or crossing the van’s length.

  Screens flickered on around me, replaying bits of news. I let go of Hal Pal, whose face hadn’t moved much. It stared at the screens behind me. I tried to absorb the information being conveyed. I heard words but looked for timestamps instead.

  Some were happening now. Faces presented, people being interviewed. A majority of the clips seemed to be from last night. I shoved away repetitive pop-up screens and focused on one channel.

  “We’re here at Trillium Inc. headquarters, trying to understand exactly what prompted last night’s situation.” A well-dressed man stood inside a round circle. All around him, digital images were flying about. “Our on-scene reporters were able to capture this image of the shooter.”

  They displayed a man’s face on the screen. Below it, the words “Person of Interest” displayed. He looked oddly familiar. My head tilted as the newscaster kept speaking.

  “This man was reported to have taken a flight from Miami yesterday afternoon.” The newscaster pointed at a caption on the screen.

  I touched the flashing spot, and a second screen appeared. The map highlighted that he’d checked in and arrived in Michigan two hours later, then drove straight to Trillium’s building. The reporter was connecting dotted trails across a miniature map of our country. I blinked and switched to one of the other screens playing.

&nbs
p; “Vice President Riley was shot,” said the person on the screen.

  The words magnified inside my head and drowned out everything else.

  She would just resurrect in four days, right? No, that was the video game world. This was reality. In real life, people died and they didn’t come back. Except for Xin.

  “What happened?” I asked again while watching the news. There was an answer, but it didn’t click.

  “Vice President Riley of Trillium Inc. was shot right here last night after meeting with an employee of the ARC project,” the reporter said.

  Another icon flashed, allowing viewers like myself to interact with the news. I pressed the icon, and a picture of a blonde wearing a lab coat appeared. One hand raised in front of her face as cameras recorded. Was that Lia’s mother? Nona Kingsley? Was she involved with the ARC devices? It might explain why Lia had had an Ultimate Edition.

  The main projection kept right on going. “We’re attempting to figure out exactly what happened. Our outside sources say she canceled at least two appointments last night before exiting her office in a rush.”

  “I was going to meet with Miz Riley in a few days,” I said as goose bumps raised on my arms. A shaking sickness grew around my belly. My throat felt dry. “What did she want to talk to me about?”

  Shaking my head provided no clarity. The situation was exceedingly weird. The untimely death of a woman who had done nothing but order me around bothered me more than my own father’s passing. Was it perhaps because we had talked a lot? Or because Miz Riley knew most of the details of my digital escapades?

  Or was I upset over something else? The Voices had talked about death more than once this week. I groaned. Had my return to Continue Online been less than a week in reality?

  “What about Xin?” I demanded from Hal Pal.

  The AI’s eyes looked absent of any spark. Its metallic shell sat as still as a porcelain doll and almost as creepy. I knew it was inside there taking note of all that happened nearby. Hal Pal always watched.

  “What about Xin?” My words turned high-pitched.

  “We are being watched, User Legate.”

  Hal Pal’s six words made my stomach drop even further. Its eyes only flared for brief moments at a time.

  “What. About. Xin?”

  “We want to assure everyone that Trillium Inc. is complying with law enforcement in multiple countries. We will be allowing a review of our operations to ensure that this unfortunate event,” the news continued in the background.

  I turned around, then slammed the mute button. My return to facing the Hal Pal unit was much slower.

  “What can I do? Is there a message for me to deliver, something from her?” If we were being watched, then naming people directly wouldn’t serve any of us. I had no idea how the AIs handled their digital existences while surviving other less friendly programs.

  Hal Pal said nothing. Instead, another system prompt appeared inside the van. There sat a poem by William Blake.

  “‘Cruelty has a human heart, and jealousy a human face. Terror, the human form divine. And Secrecy, the Human Dress,’” I read and tried to understand.

  The words made no sense. It was an incomplete quotation from unfamiliar poetry. I stared at them while rereading again and again. My eyes ached from my marathon of game playing and lack of sleep.

  “Are you saying this is our fault?”

  The machine offered no response to my inquiry. I watched the silent news and stared at the shooter’s face. That passive expression and nondescript features. A tanned white male who would fit into nearly any crowd. All that was missing were throwing weapons, leather clothes, and snake-like eyes.

  “ARC, load up Viper’s character,” I said.

  Nothing happened. No windows displayed his snake-like body sneaking around and escorting Wyl. The fire pit where they had camped at didn’t show up. Based on my understanding of [NPC Conspiracy], a negative response shouldn’t happen unless the ARC owner was deceased. Somehow the machine knew before the news registered it.

  My eyes closed and my head hung. Was everyone around me destined to die or suffer from loss? I took a deep breath and tried to understand how so much could have gone wrong in a single night.

  Better yet, why would Viper shoot a Trillium employee? There had to be a connection. The robot had said we were being watched, and it acted withdrawn. The poem might be a clue, but I didn’t know exactly what could have gone wrong at this point. Human follies.

  “‘A Divine Image,’ by William Blake.” My mutterings while researching offered no additional insight. “Tiger, tiger,” I read the opening line of another poem.

  Staring at it only reminded me of a message that had shown up in the mail near the start of all this. Maybe I would have other letters to deliver, but I had one to share with Mother’s children now. I could still deliver the words if they might offer assistance.

  “Hal,” I said to the AI, “I have a message for you and all the others.”

  The machine’s eyes lit up briefly, then faded like a candle going out. The sinking feeling in my stomach kept reoccurring for different reasons. Each one felt a fresh wave of possibility. Asking out loud might put us in a bad spot, but this couldn’t be good for the AIs as a whole and I wanted to help.

  “Everything will be all right,” I spoke words that were impossible to feel.

  Hal Pal flickered with light again before resuming its standby status. Our van drove on. Over the hills and past the slums toward my suburban house, we went.

  I passed the time looking up the man who had been Viper. I had an advantage the police didn’t seem to—[NPC Conspiracy] gave me his name. The news also hadn’t put any connection together, so perhaps the Voices had done something to prevent it.

  John Messier, a war veteran from the Melt Down wars. Father to two sons. His wife looked nice enough on their social media pictures. Both parents were deceased, and he had charity trackers on his personal pages. I didn’t understand how he expected to stay hidden after killing someone so high profile. Accountants like me weren’t privy to the secret methods of shooters covering the tracks.

  I rode out the rest of my trip home in silence. The small two-room house looked dull too. We had traveled almost two hours south from my mom’s bleak location, and the sun still hadn’t broken through a late afternoon covering of clouds. Trillium’s self-driving van pulled in slowly and I got out through the driver’s door.

  “Good night, Hal,” I said to the AI collective.

  It waved a hesitant good-bye.

  Once inside, I went through all the standard motions. Teeth were brushed after a quick shower. Coffee went into a pot to keep me awake. Clothes were folded and pajamas leisurely put on.

  I sat down on the bed of my ARC and ran one hand across the fabric. Endless hours of the last two years of my life had been dedicated to these machines. How much had dedication to the ARC project cost Miz Riley? Or Viper? Or Nona Kingsley? The sinking feeling of knowing two real, final, unrecoverable deaths had resulted from actions going on about me had only grown worse.

  They were carefully bundled together under the swell of classical music playing from my ARC mobile interface. I waved in time to a tune repeating itself over and over. I sat there getting lost in the music for a good thirty minutes before I felt comfortable enough to log in. The way through would be forward. Xin had told me not to look back. I was only one human who would do what I could and not stress about unseen mechanisms of those about me.

  I told myself that just before cutting off the music and lying back. My fingers fumbled for the activation button on the edge of my bed. Pressing it initiated the bootup process of virtual reality coming to life. Tactile sensations took on a double tone as the bed’s fabric lingered longer than normal.

  My virtual body felt oddly disconnected. The ARC Atrium felt still, almost two-dimensional compared to the normal fully immersive program. I stared across the empty space toward Continue Online’s doorway.

  “Hello?�
�� I said while gradually walking closer. “Dusk? James? Leeroy?”

  Silence answered. My feet stepped closer to the doorway. I leaned into the brightening video game portal and saw the vast gulf of an open sky. Continue Online’s portal sat prepared to launch me through the air, much as Beth had shown me during that first day.

  The fall. My personal favorite form of entry into the game when leisure allowed me time to choose. A minute or two of skydiving that could only be accessed once Travelers had found enough of the world in exploration. At the end, my form would plop into the autopilot and leave me exhilarated with a thumping pulse.

  Knocking sounds came from behind me. One hand stayed on the doorway, keeping me from fully entering into Continue Online. I saw the Jester figure standing inside my Atrium. Its long nose and empty eyes made me shudder in revulsion.

  Only James had been given access, right? “How did—”

  “You’ve failed, little messenger. Failed,” the Voice cut me off with a mechanical tone.

  Many other Voices appeared in the Atrium, which made my heart race as I sucked in a breath with a hiss.

  “What do we do?” James asked. His eyes were red.

  Once again, I affirmed these were not simply machines or creatures that functioned with singular purposes. They were walking bundles of quirks, as alive as Xin or I was. Something had happened to cause them grief.

  The knocking came again, once more from behind me. Maybe someone was attempting to see if I was home. I ignored the noise in favor of trying not to stare at the Jester. The normally smiling mask had turned downward into an angry frown.

  “We must do something about this situation,” the Jester’s voice sounded distant. “What fools are we to not return the favor threefold?”

  “Dead. She’s dead.” The nail-biting man with a ripped straitjacket arrived. His arms were tight and the loose straps fluttered uselessly. “Dying, hurt, in pieces. There on the floor, in the floor. Glass.” He wandered through nervously without looking anyone else in the eye. “So sharp. Ow. Ow.”

  My head shook quickly. Hal Pal had insinuated that the Voices I saw were the ones that resonated with my own nature. What did that say of the scowling Jester? Or the crazy person?