“I told you she was a smart girl,” Xin whispered while nudging me with a shoulder.
Dusk, who had joined us at some point, opened an eye, then looked toward us from his spot on the floor next to our feet. He flicked an ear but otherwise stayed quiet.
I nodded to my fiancée while feeling somewhat drained. Airing myself in public always left me subdued. There was a relief to it, telling my story to those who might listen and try to understand. The action required risking ridicule for being a bit crazy. I felt crazy but happy.
“Does it matter? They’re alive.” SweetPea looked upset for us.
“Technically they’re pure code, at least if we’re following Kepler’s model. They might be using Gratton’s variation though. It’s, like, thirty percent hardware?” Awesome Jr. stepped down from the table to get a closer look at Xin. “Then the rest is stored in a cloud, maybe?”
My fiancée blinked twice in rapid succession, and I felt annoyed. Her face was carefully neutral, but the stillness worried me. Her cheeks bunched up slowly from a frown. I tried to keep myself positive. Being around her made me happy, and having Xin there while I told the story had helped immensely.
I leveled my gaze at Awesome Jr. The young man looked oblivious, due to focusing so intently on my fiancée. People used to look at us the same way, with a trace of confusion and uncertainty as to how we fit into the world. Out in reality, there had been lingering post-war racism. She’d frozen the same way during those occasions.
My hand reached for a weapon. The reaction was extreme, but I’d never appreciated people giving her that look even though Awesome Jr. probably didn’t understand. I tried to take a breath and relax.
SweetPea noticed first and walked in front of Awesome Jr. “Sorry. We’re being rude.”
“Sorry.” He rubbed the back of his head while looking down.
Wyl looked upset too, but I didn’t know why he might feel that way. My fiancée turned to stare at Wyl. Her head shook, and her momentary stillness faded away.
“You’re not asking new questions. I’ve run through the same ideas hundreds of times, if not more. It’s not my field of expertise, but like Thorny, I’ve recently had many reasons to try to understand,” Xin said carefully.
My lip hurt from chewing it. Xin didn’t even understand how she was put together. That idea should have calmed me, but instead, I felt worried. What surprises might her digital existence house? Could there be some ticking time bomb of code inside that recreated her body? I had so many questions and didn’t know where to start.
“What’s a Kepler?” the guardsman asked while fingering his ruined tunic.
“A scientist from our world. Kind of like a magician over here, only his work is mostly theoretical.”
“And he was probably on god knows how many drugs. The man had lots of sleep issues,” Beth said and sighed.
Wyl frowned then shook his head and muttered, “Kids today. Why don’t you learn how to do proper things, like—” His eyes went flat, and he ceased grumbling. The man’s shoulders drew together, making him look lost. His body faced the red doors.
The other players asked a few more questions. They were going over the same details again and again in different forms. Occasionally the teenagers would start talking about various classes at school. Every time one of them babbled about a theorem or speculated about items, it made my head hurt.
Plus I felt kind of stupid. Accounting wasn’t hard. It only required a head for numbers and study of trending. A lot of that could be done with the aid of a computer. Compared to their topics, I felt old and lazy. During these last few months, I could have easily researched Xin’s condition instead of studying how to make a campfire. I was good at making campfires though, even without my small bit of magic or ability to barf fireballs.
Xin abruptly giggled, then covered her mouth.
“What?” I asked while smiling.
“You’re doing that thing where you think too hard.” She pressed her fingers against my forehead and massaged. Her thumb came down toward my poor lip, which throbbed from being bitten.
I grabbed her hand and lifted Xin’s face to mine. Her lips felt amazingly soft. My mind went fuzzy for a moment as old memories flooded through me.
“Get a room!” a female shouted.
Xin’s eyes were heavy-lidded. From this angle, I could see down part of her thick robe. There didn’t look to be much under it, and the sight of a toned path downward made me gulp once. I looked up and raised an eyebrow at her. The woman’s head shook.
“While I may not like her, Mezo said you’ve been dreadfully chaste, and that doesn’t sound like the Gee I remember,” she whispered.
That brought back a lot of memories, and my body warmed. The drained sensation from explaining my past to a room full of people vanished as a host of different ideas occurred to me.
“You remember our Saturdays?” Xin asked while smiling. Her words were quiet, and the others were talking about something pointless.
“I spent Friday cleaning and preparing dinner and making sure I had everything for breakfast.”
She giggled. “Your breakfasts were horrible.”
“Dinner was pretty bad too, but you wanted real food.”
Cooking wasn’t one of my skills. These last few years, I had gotten worse. Even Continue Online’s requirements for eating hadn’t forced me to actually make my own food. I often loaded up on all sorts of no-prep items when in a town.
Dusk was the only reason I had any fresh food in Continue Online. He frequently demanded something more complex than beef jerky and bread. The [Messenger’s Pet] didn’t care if he was fed in-game or in my Atrium, as long as the supply line didn’t dwindle.
“Our Saturdays.” I heaved a sigh.
“Saturdays were fun.” She laughed. Xin hadn’t changed.
Saturday involved releasing steam. She’d exercised a lot more than me and always seemed ready to go. Not that we did anything sexually before our first month of dating over eight years ago. After that, it became routine, especially when we were both going to school or working during the week.
“It’s been a long time since my last Saturday,” I said. Three years and change since the last time I touched a woman, besides Mezo, and that didn’t truly count.
“I’m sorry,” my fiancée whispered.
Just like that, our mood had shifted. I looked around while trying not to feel upset for destroying a moment. SweetPea was whispering to Awesome Jr., and his eyes were wide with amusement. Beth had no such restraint and watched us with a wide grin and raised eyebrows.
“What? You’re an adult,” I said.
She didn’t have room to talk, not since her tail and red skin had to be a [Blessing] from Mezo. My niece knew enough about the birds and bees by now, I was sure.
“Wait, Uncle Grant, are you saying you’re not a virgin? How scandalous.” My niece put one hand up over her mouth. “What will Mom think when she finds out she’s not the only Legate getting some?”
I certainly wasn’t. Then that reminded me Xin had been pregnant upon death in my world. I didn’t know the chances of that happening here, or how functional biology was. Did NPCs get to turn that stuff off, or had Mother somehow designed all those changes to be involuntary?
“It was just a joke,” Beth muttered.
“No, it’s all right, munchkin. I just, uhhh… I have a lot I need to talk to Xin about. A lot.”
Xin stayed quiet.
“Well, at least we didn’t need that Porter to find Auntie Xin. Or her, well, you know.” Beth fumbled through the words and her hands waved. “I mean, Hecate and Hermes? Really? And skeletons? What a kick!”
“They’re more like robots made of bone and magic.” Xin held up her fingers in an air quotation. “The rest of this look came from the Voices. Though the heavy robe has perks, and it keeps me warm.”
“I’ll bet swamps are a bitch.”
“Skeleton boat,” my fiancée responded. “I wanted to start with fire and
energy spells, then somehow meld them into stones for an airplane, but the Voices wouldn’t let me have that much.”
“Huh.” Beth’s eyes looked into the distance. I had no idea what sort of concepts would go through her brain after that, but I wondered how the boat might prevent water from coming in.
A silence filled the room, broken only by Awesome Jr. and SweetPea’s low voices. Their words were beyond me. I reminded myself to relax and not crush Xin’s hand. Every little memory reminded me how tenuous our time together was. The game world was crumbling, and oddly, no one had asked about that yet.
Maybe they didn’t believe me. I only vaguely knew about the deaths of Miz Riley and Viper’s reallife existence. Or they could require more than an hour to process the information. A lot of those revelations had taken me days to fully understand, much less figure out how to react to.
“Convict,” Wyl’s voice startled me.
“He saved your life multiple times. Hermes deserves to be called by his name.” Xin snapped her fingers, and a bone flew toward Wyl.
The guardsman stared at the white projectile that embedded itself in the ground.
“Babe,” I said after settling my heart.
My fiancée’s lips tightened and closed her eyes. I tried hard not to chuckle. Once again, her actions proved there were no differences in attitude or actions. Now the woman had spells to assist in expressing her irritation. We should have played VR games a long time ago.
“Sorry, sir. We haven’t even asked what you want. Do you want to go back to Haven Valley, or were you on another quest?” SweetPea asked Wyl.
She’d already said a lot more than I ever remembered her saying, despite her obvious desire to hide. The last three months of playing this game must have changed her too.
“I wish to return to Haven Valley, but I have no idea what’s happened there. The last word I had was that some Travelers attacked.” Wyl toed the bone Xin had cast out. I could see that it had lodged into the ground with a force comparable to a metal spike being shot. “Do any of you know more? Or can you contact friends through your ways and find out?”
“Shadow might be able to once he gets back,” Awesome Jr. said. “The closest we can get is maybe half a day away. We found a doorway which ties to an island off shore. We don’t have a boat though.”
“Which island?”
They talked, made plans, and I dipped my head for another kiss. Xin responded, but the moment of passion from before felt distant. I was okay with that. Being able to show any affection to her would have been a dream months ago. It had been one, and a nightmare, and a noose that threatened to strangle me daily. Odd how that which was tied so closely to my mental hell also served as a key to my liberation.
“We’re going to dance,” I told her.
Xin opened an eye, then raised one thin brow. “Now?”
I looked around at the other three in the room and blushed. My jaw hurt a bit from trying not to smile. “If you want, or later. I want to dance with you.”
“We did dance once, you know.”
“We did?” I thought of the times we had met in person. Only one time came to mind, an all too brief moment together after the second use of [NPC Conspiracy]. All our other interactions had been exchanging letters and two phone calls.
“That first day, in your ARC. That was me.” She pointed at her chest.
“Oh,” I said and failed to keep myself under control. My stomach clenched. I remembered how messed up that interaction had left me, and she remembered it too. “Oh.” The word escaped me again.
Awesome Jr. walked toward one of the doorways in the distance. He shouted at the other girls, “Come on, Elizabeth, maybe you and Melissa can figure out a way across. I know my swimming Rank isn’t high enough to make it.”
“Let me go with you. It would do me good to be closer to home,” Wyl said.
Then we were alone for a moment. I wanted to talk to Xin about so many things, but she moved up for a kiss. Without an audience, I found it far easier to regain our heat from earlier.
She had one hand on my shoulder, and I wrapped an arm around her waist, then lifted. Her robe got in the way a bit, so she ended up half on my lap and twisted to give room to our kiss. I slid my free hand along her hair, then pushed it out of the way. My lips progressed from Xin’s and went down toward a sensitive spot on her neck, one that never failed to get her attention.
Xin was the only woman I’d felt comfortable enough to be aggressive with. She wasn’t one to lose the lead. Smaller fingers curled in mine and dragged my hand up a leg. I took the hint and slid my hand farther, pushing past the robe’s edge and halfway up a thigh, then higher, until I confirmed she wasn’t wearing anything at all.
“Really?” I murmured into her neck.
“Really,” she responded before happily gasping.
I wanted to keep going. My experiments with sliding a toga around were minimal, but I was willing to learn how quickly. There would be player underwear and possibly a few check boxes to click yes on. Xin squirmed, then pulled away.
“Ah, too much. Not yet,” she said, bringing my head back down to [Arcadia]. Xin stood and smiled as I fell forward with a grunt. “Come on. We should go see what they were looking at anyway.”
“But what about…” I tried to control myself. Walking was awkward now. “Uhhh…. Saturday?”
Today was Thursday, or maybe Friday. I had lost track of time recently and didn’t feel the desire to pull up my ARC display.
“As much as I’d love to, something tells me there’s information worth our time over there.” Xin pointed at the table. She walked off looking none the worse for wear. The robe was unfair.
Part of me stood at attention while Xin moved away. I took a moment to contain myself, then tried to walk after her. Thank the Voices no one had walked in during that.
[Chaste] Trait removed
[Faithful] Trait added
Oh, Voices help me. Someone had noticed, be it the system or another Voice. Hopefully that hadn’t come from Mezo. I waved away the messages. [Chaste] probably meant about as much to my character as [Faithful] did. The only difference was someone up there had finally recognized my attentions were focused on one woman.
I shook my head and took a deep breath. Across the room, Dusk was nosing around the table. His large tail brushed soldier figurines onto the floor. He sniffed, then plopped down to stare at us.
Xin walked backward while pulling my arm. I followed, as I always did. She let go and did a slow lap around the table, entering and exiting light. The effect made her look unintentionally cute. One hand sat in a fist under her chin, with the other arm crossed under.
“Mmmhm. Do you see it?” Xin asked, then planted her hands upon the table. Her eyes dimmed and her hair hung in a frame around her face.
“I do.” I saw her. She was the only thing to cross my vision since our reuniting. My brain sat stuck on a giddy repeat. Especially after our close encounter of the sexual kind.
She smiled. “Not me. Here.” A finger ran down the map. “Do you see what I see?”
I looked at the board Awesome Jr. had left behind. There were pieces all over and a groove in the map where his finger had traced repeatedly. Ink marks and crossed out portions clustered down the middle. He seemed to have identified a path that cut through the continent’s center. Almost like a river that gathered up smaller streams.
My breath hitched for a moment. Michelangelo had mentioned a river gathering together. The mighty Mississippi cut a path through the continent. Its very existence had defined a generation of pioneers and still served as a landmark and dividing line.
The path Awesome Jr. had traced repeatedly looked the same, only its trail went toward the west. Across the mountain paths of [Tuu], through cities and forests alike, until it arrived at the shore.
“It’s a river,” I muttered while trying to remember the full description. Thoughts of [Instant Gratification] faded away into the background. “A path to the ocean.”
“Not the ocean, Grant,” Xin said.
“Where? This appears to lead to Haven Valley. Where does it go from there?” I muttered. Everything came back to that starting point, but why?
“A new home, I hope. Maybe a place where we can be safe from the programs tearing apart Mother.” Xin’s face was motionless for a moment, but her arm trembled. The impending deletion by those giant monsters wouldn’t have completely bypassed Xin. She probably thought about the threat frequently.
I felt bad for shoving it to one side during our reunion. She was in danger, and we needed to figure out a way through that first.
“Was this her plan?” I asked while running my eyes down the path again. “How long ago did she expect to die? This couldn’t have all been done in one week. How did these four even find out? Or get mixed up in it?”
“Maybe because they’re special, like you. The chosen of William Carver.” Xin shrugged.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know everything, Gee. I’m only guessing based on this map. But Haven Valley is where William was, and he picked people during his last moment, or at least, his autopilot did.” She shrugged as though it didn’t matter which was which. “He couldn’t have been hanging around Haven Valley to retire. He didn’t seem like the type.”
Xin was right. William Carver had gone from one point to another to adventure endlessly until falling ill. The man’s journals stopped prior to killing the dragon, but he could have done a lot of other tasks. Or went into the real world and programmed something. An autopilot which copied William would have still been trying to help the people of [Arcadia] in some fashion. Bringing up new Travelers and sending them into the world might have only been part of a grander goal.
“That makes as much sense as any of this does.” I nodded and brought up my own player map. There were a lot of vaguely filled in areas, but I saw the connections between my own recorded destinations and the map. “William played this game long before anyone else. He loved the people here. He worked with the ARC labs. He could have—no, he would have done something.” I felt sure of it.
“A way out.” Xin huffed as the idea solidified.
Continue Online The Complete Series Page 160
