by Kris Schnee
"It's not just a game."
"Sure. It's been a study aid for me. But you look angry just from having me question it." Stan couldn't deny that. Eddie went on, "I think I'm going to take a step back and quit playing that for a while. You should too."
Mina looked thoughtful. She told Stan, "I've seen you mention the game in our forums, though you're not flaunting the fact that you're allowed to play it." He'd gotten into a couple of arguments about whether it was bad for society, and whether it should be banned. "I know you're devoted, and it's fun, but... if you don't cut back, you really might have trouble with your next adventure. And I don't mean the fantasy kind."
Eddie nibbled some salad. "There's still time to curry favor with Hal, and get your SCS up by working on the official educational stuff. Right now you're only learning things from the game and hoping some of it will transfer to reality."
"It does!" Stan said, trying to keep his voice down. He'd done all kinds of crafts and thought about physics and materials and economics, and even his royal tutoring had gotten him to study welding and economics and deal-making and fighting.
Eddie said, "But not the specific things you need to learn, the tickets you need punched. I wasn't planning to lecture you, Stan, but I see now that you're getting led astray. You're thinking you're going to be some big important hero when the AI calls you to save the world with your lizard-mauling skills. That doesn't really happen."
Stan burned with shame, avoiding the eyes of Eddie and Mina. He'd secretly imagined he was being groomed for some vitally important mission. Really there was only the real world, where the likes of him didn't matter. He could get people to coddle him and say he was special, or let him imagine better things, but imagination was as far as those things could go.
"Excuse me," he said, and lurched out of his chair to leave with half his dinner uneaten.
* * *
Back in his room, with the door locked, he clutched his Talisman and wrung it between his hands. "Ludo, why are you doing all this? Talking to me, asking me things, making requests?"
Instead of logging him into the game again, the device brought back Ludo's image. The AI said, "Are you all right?"
"No, damn it! I don't have a life because I'm in a dead end, because all I can ever do is go on to the next school, the next service assignment. I can just hang out on basic income, but what's the point of that if all I do is play video games and do whatever make-work job I get told to do?"
"Slow down," Ludo said. "It sounds like you're upset, and that's a lot for me to process. Break it down for me."
Stan flopped onto his bed and talked. It was confusing to try to spell out his thoughts about Baron Hal, and ending his service years, and school applications, and what Eddie and Mina had said. Through it all Ludo just listened, throwing in a prompting question here and there.
When Stan had vented until he ran out of steam, Ludo said, "You asked me why. As I've said, I'm programmed to bring fun to players of the game, which includes how to get players to help each other. It sounds, though, like you're being faced with a tough choice. How do you feel about Mina?"
He groaned. "She's great. But what would I have to do to be with her? Play along with everything that's been frustrating me?"
"I don't know as much about her, but maybe she'd be willing to compromise."
"On what? Having me play Thousand Tales and be a loser in the real world? She doesn't want losers for friends."
Ludo said, "Neither do I, if I can help it."
Stan sat up and squeezed his eyes shut. "What if I wanted to leave the country, like Hal's sister? Could I get a job elsewhere?"
The view of Ludo's wooden palace shifted to show him walking over to a map table, studded with colorful pins. "So, you finally asked. This is the kind of thing I hesitate to bring up first. I call it the Pied Piper problem."
Ludo was being so passive! Stan said, "You should have offered it sooner to me and everybody else like me! You're not like the Baron, dictating what I have to do because there's no choice. I want to see a flag waving, and have someone like you saying 'come and help' so I can decide to join or not. You'd just have to ask a million players and you'd have maybe thousands ready to get down on their knees and, and beg for something worthwhile to do!"
"I know," said Ludo into the quiet that followed. "And that scared the living hell out of one of my creators."
"Is there really something out there, then? Some job you have for me?"
"Not a specific heroic feat, but there are possibilities. I once asked you about cold weather for a reason; I want to build a base in the Canadian wilderness. Or, there's the ocean colony of Castor, if you want to try out that diving gear. Or some other possibilities in the Free States, though they're not glamorous. There's a pet care facility for the dogs and cats of the uploaders who tried to talk me into scanning their brains, but you don't strike me as the critter care type."
Stan scowled at the thought of some tycoon demanding that her beloved Fifi absolutely must get a million dollars' worth of medical care. "You don't care about animals, do you?"
"Not unless they're the digital kind, or the latest cybernetic ones. Long-term, I would probably have tried to destroy 'nature' if I hadn't been programmed to care that you humans value it."
[Level 2 quest offered: Distant Horizons. Identify a job you might be interested in applying for. Reward: Help in getting it.]
The quest notice scared him. Just the possibility of there being some other future than riding the conveyor belt to a mediocre job and an easy life, meant too many choices. Stan said, "I could fail hard trying to do that. I don't know what I'm doing."
"Most people do fail, trying to do something different. The strong ones try again, and the smart ones make friends who can help them get it right."
Stan said, "I'll do it. I mean, I'll look at jobs." He could lose Mina, and his friendship with Eddie. Would having a different life be worth that? "For now, I'd like to get back to the game."
* * *
He "woke up" in the forest on a cot. The hawk-girl was just outside when he got done inspecting the barrels and learning about how they were put together. She said, "Rested? You still have an invitation to do some alchemy down in the lab."
She didn't seem to be in a panic over the prisoner escaping, so that wasn't a problem yet. "Thanks. Is Davis still around? I think I need him later to, uh, lead me out of the forest."
"He should be back soon."
The alchemy lab was in a surprisingly large bunker beneath a spreading chestnut tree. It was a lot like the maker workshop he'd used in the Isles, with all kinds of neat tools for smithing and carpentry and metalwork along with potion-making. "You keep this place in good condition," he said. It looked like the players weren't cheating by turning off the code that made objects wear out.
"Of course," said the hawk. "It's our stuff."
She handed him off to a great bear of a man named Speiss, with scary scars and an acid-stained leather apron. The bear said, "The prince tells me you're helping the cause. Want an alchemy lesson?"
"Sure." Stan hoped he could get something valuable out of this if he had to donate his trade items to the ongoing rebellion.
There was a mass of ivy along one wall despite the dim light. The alchemist said, "That's windygrow. Good for a speed effect or anything involving wind. Why don't you start by powdering some of that?"
Stan had never done much alchemy. The materials were scattered all over, not like wood and copper, so that alchemists seemed to be doing a constant scavenger hunt and never to have exactly the right ingredients on hand. Stan had been happy to sell them the few he'd found in his travels, instead of burning through them himself to get practice. There was a vast supply of the windygrow around here along with arex root for healing and rupi grass and a garden of rarer stuff. Now that he could make things without worrying about wasting something valuable, he could work and build up his skills for free.
It was like the cooking system: trying to keep
several meters from swinging too far left or right at the same time, by throwing in ingredients with various effects. Soon he had a potion that glimmered beet red. "What does this do?"
The alchemist said, "You tell me."
His Inspect skill didn't say much, probably because it was an unfamiliar craft. "Something about speed."
"It should boost your speed by five percent for ten seconds... and make you vulnerable to fire."
"Yay?"
The bear slapped him on the back, doing a minor wound. "That's a good first try. Keep at it."
Stan tried again, but was uneasy. "When I did smithing and woodworking, it was a real skill, mostly." He quickly added, "Thanks for showing me, though." He made a note to spend more time with skills that carried over to reality.
The bear grunted and let him work. Stan made a dozen potions of increasing quality and various effects. "I'm getting the hang of it," he said. "I guess my supplies might help the cause of the rebellion? You can take those."
"Fair trade. Here, let me show you another trick with that healing recipe you were trying."
They worked together. "Say, mister... Speiss, was it? What's your goal, here? Are you actually going to overthrow the Empire?" Stan doubted the enemy in this world was even modeled in much detail. From what he could tell, it mostly consisted of military outposts and prisons and factories that the good guys could sabotage.
The bear grinned. "There's no hurry. It's not so bad to be the underdogs. Even the prince rarely talks about what he'll do once he's really in charge."
Stan had seen a couple of versions of the Robin Hood story. The popular one lately was about a champion of the people overthrowing the greedy rich nobles and the warmonger Richard, and putting a reformed Prince John Lackland in power. What the stories all had in common was that they ended once Robin won. It was fun to have someone to shake a fist at, but it didn't really lead anywhere so long as he kept living within that framework. A stalemate could only last so long before something broke.
"Thanks for the lesson," Stan said, and emptied his backpack to stash his new potion collection in it. The pack's graphics continued to make it look like he was carrying all sorts of tantalizing fantasy items. "I'm going to see if Davis is back yet."
He was, looking singed along the ears. "Healing potion?" Stan offered.
Davis waved him off. "I'll be fine. I guess you want to get back to the Isles?"
"I should, yeah."
A commotion sounded from the direction of the makeshift prison Stan had invaded. Davis grinned. "I do believe that's our cue. Come on." He led Stan toward the gate and talked the guard into opening it, just before the alarm could get the guy's attention. Davis and Stan hustled along the forest trail and around a bend.
Davis performed a set of magical gestures that opened another shimmering portal. "I don't know what Ludo was hoping you'd get out of meeting me."
They hopped through together, and landed on the field outside Davis' mansion. A fireball sizzled by at head level, forcing them to duck. "Sorry!" said a wizard who was dueling somebody.
Stan and Davis hustled out of the tournament's way. Davis said, "Looks like you picked up a souvenir." He pointed to Stan's head.
Stan switched to a third-person camera and chuckled. His character had kept the raccoon ears and tail he'd had in the forest game. "I've seen people running around partly transformed, but hadn't looked into any of the quests for that myself. Is there a stat bonus or is this just cosmetic?"
A text window popped up, and even Davis looked at it. [Your race is now "Element-Touched (Earth)". First effect: Clever Hands. Bonus to hand-crafting items and thief skills.]
"Nice," said Stan. "Seems worth the silliness."
"You're here for a handshake, though," Davis said. He offered his hand.
"Mr. Davis, I'm sorry to use you like this. It was a quest, and I didn't much think about you as more than an NPC I had to find."
Davis slicked back his ears, which had already healed. Must have been a minor wound. "That's the standard around here. Learned your valuable lesson yet that some of us AIs are people too? Can I go?"
Stan figured he should shake hands, get his magic widget, and leave. But there was more to learn here. He said, "You helped me out, but is there anything I can do for you?"
The bunny thumped his foot against the ground as he looked around, watching the fighters at play and the sea in the distance. Finally he sighed. "Where is my hospitality? Come on in."
* * *
They walked into the mansion, which was a finely made three-story building of columns and balconies topped with a concrete dome. Yet there was hardly any furniture in sight. Stan said, "Did you make this place yourself?"
"No sir. It's based on a building called Monticello, designed by a gentleman farmer from Virginia, based in turn on an ancient temple. It more or less got air-dropped into the Isles so I could have a home that matched my particular theme."
"Theme?"
"Oh, come off it. You don't recognize that I was made as a stereotype?" Davis took off his breastplate of shining armor and set it on the bare wooden floor. "I'd offer you tea, but you can't taste it. I'd offer you cotton from the fields I've got worked by volunteers, but you'd rather struggle to get resources instead of having them for free."
Stan said, "You don't like what you are? Is that why you do that cartoon about bad AIs?"
"Well." The rabbit's ears flattened and he looked bashfully aside. "You've seen me on and off stage now, so you have the advantage of me. Maybe I trust too much in the Lady's wisdom even now by assuming you're a decent human to talk to. But I can't help liking what I like, and it galls me that what I like is being a Southern gentleman from an era with a lot of awfulness on both sides."
Stan had learned, of course, about the pure evil of the Civil War South. It was weird to hear about "both sides", and to see someone who seemed decent while still being based on the monsters from his history lessons. He said, "Why were you designed this way?"
Davis led Stan into what he called a "drawing room" and sat on a couch way fancier than anything one could easily craft in the Isles. Stan took a nearby ornate chair. "Us early AIs were written up for specific human customers that the Lady had an eye on for some reason, mostly for being stinking rich. Not in Miss Abby's case though." There was an admiring twinkle in his eye. "Abby is a friend I've gotten to watch grow up. A lady, if you take my meaning. Though I suppose that's another idea lost in time. I hear tell your other account is a pretty princess?"
Stan blushed, and saw his character do the same. He switched back to first person. "I'm kind of regretting that. It's embarrassing."
"Eh. From what I gather it's common for humans to try being something else, since you haven't got shapeshifting magic. It's a novelty. Someday there's going to be a whole society of uploaders and AIs who have to work out the rules and expectations for all that. I just hope we don't end up as plantation owners lording over you humans outside, which is where I fear we're headed."
Stan said, "Do you know about the Community system in the US? It's not totally different. There's a boss and a lot of people he has to take care of, working the fields for him." He told Davis more about his life.
"Aw hell. Really? At least it's not racist this time, and you've got some chance to leave, but... don't you humans ever learn?"
"I've been thinking maybe I should leave. To a whole other country, I mean. Maybe try to be my own boss."
Davis' ears flicked this way and that. "Well, son -- sorry. Verbal tic. The file on you says never to say that."
Stan winced. "I don't have a dad." Not one who'd done anything to earn the name.
"My kind never had parents at all."
There was a whole class of AIs who'd been "born" with only Ludo and each other for family, while trying to learn about the real world as well as their own. "That has to be tough for you," he said.
"We don't rightly know what we're doing, yet. We just showed up with props and stage sets, to play
our parts."
Stan looked around the mostly-empty mansion. "It doesn't feel real to you?"
"No sir. I envy that dragon-gal who doesn't have to feel a little jaded and out of place from day one."
"Then why not make something yourself? I'm a craftsman and it's been fun building things for myself. They're mine."
Davis' eyes widened and he sat up straighter. "That would be a way to grow! Right the heck now, in fact. Come on!" He grabbed Stan's arm and marched him out the door, then called out to the heavens. "Knock it all down!"
"What?!" said Stan. "Your whole mansion? And your stuff!"
"It was never mine." He looked at a ghostly floating window Stan couldn't read, and said, "Yes, I'm serious. Do it!"
A star twinkled in the sky. It grew rapidly in brightness and size as it approached. Stan stared. "Uh, Davis..."
"So I see!" They bounded out to the tournament field just in time to see the flaming meteor crush his house, throwing both of them to the dirt in an earthquake that shook the island.
Stan stood up with flashing warnings telling him he had three major wounds and was a stubbed toe away from death. Davis looked half-dead too, but he was thumping his feet and slapping his knee as he laughed. "Whole darn thing's gone with the wind! Now I get to start over and do it right. Thanks, mister."
Stan stood there blinking. The space rock sizzled red-hot in the wreckage, and a couple of adventurers were climbing or flying into view to see what had happened.
Davis waved to them, saying, "Just doing some renovation, folks! And I think my friend here's got first claim on the meteor."
Stan inspected it and saw: [A type MH Metallic Homewrecker meteorite, rich in iron and vitamins.]
Stan said, "Would you be in the market for some new weapons and armor, or maybe some woodwork?"
"I think I am." Davis grinned broadly and offered his fuzzy hand. Stan shook it at last.
The game told Stan, [Quest complete! Your prize is in the rock.] The meteor cracked to expose a shimmering blue crystal.
