I activated the menu for my own items and pulled out two cupcakes. They were large enough that I had to hold one in each hand. Their exact makeup was unknown since Dusk rarely let me have any pastries to myself.
“Dusk! Cupcakes!” I shouted.
The [Messenger’s Pet] came spiraling down so fast he nearly crashed. I hoped he might so that my earlier face-plant wouldn’t be the only failure today. He ran over and sat down a few feet away, tail wagging.
I stared at the dog-sized [Messenger’s Pet]. He had grown a foot in length since the wedding. The reason was probably tied to me bribing him constantly with food.
“Are you okay doing guard duty again?” My hands lifted both cupcakes in his direction.
One cheek pulled back, then Dusk growled a little. His rear leg kicked sand from the beach’s edge. I laughed at the idea he had presented in a very detailed thought bubble. A picture of Xin and me in the tent with large disjointed musical notes came up. In the moving image, Dusk slinked away to somewhere quieter.
“Of course I don’t expect you to stay right here. You can go play in the lake or take a nap. I’m only asking you to let us know if anyone shows up.” I held up both cupcakes. “Same as last time. Two now, two later, okay?”
Dusk nodded, then bounded forward. Large sharp teeth carefully pulled a cupcake from my hand, dropped it in the dirt, and went for the other one. Once both were secure, he started using one large claw to peel back the wrapping paper.
A smaller body leapt up on my back, and arms rapidly went around my shoulders. I took a sharp breath and got ready to fight before realization sunk in. Xin had sneaked up on me.
“Are you ready?” she whispered.
I thought back to our earlier conversation on the clifftop dozens of miles behind us. They felt important, as if she were asking about something else entirely.
A shiver passed through me as the thought was discarded.
“For you?” I bounced her on my back while taking exaggerated steps toward the tent. “Always.”
We went inside, and once we found each other in the sheets, I reminded Xin how much I loved every aspect of her. Time passed and left us both without clothes and tired. Virtual Xin proved to be much like the real one and also became sleepy after climax. Her body curled against mine while one arm draped across my chest.
Virtual me had muscles in places the real me didn’t. She never remarked on the change, and I felt weird even thinking about it. One hand stroked the tired woman’s hair as I too started to drift. Broken sleep in reality made it hard to stay awake. I tried hard, if only to be aware as our moments went by.
The direct link of my ARC to every sense, coupled with Xin’s delightfully energetic actions, left me worn. In reality, I would need a shower and probably a change of pants. EXR-Sevens around my limbs simulated muscle exertion through the magic of science and being linked to my program activities.
Despite working a little bit every day and delivering all those letters, each night with Xin felt like our weekends together had. Those days and this last month had been filled with a delirious level of happiness. Three long years of suffering alone had finally been broken.
It was too bad the end of our honeymoon grew steadily closer. I stared at the back of her head and tried to memorize everything. One hand curled tightly as the fear of losing her a second time stole my breath.
Session Ninety
Reality’s Hold
Xin had an awesome ability to clean up the digital aftermath. I did not. In the morning, sheets from the ARC were thrown in the wall compartment that served as a washing machine and dryer. My nightclothes were tossed in after.
Sweat and other evidence of virtual stimulation would go away in the shower. The first morning of this had been awkward, but not enough to mute my happiness. Inside the man-made waterfall of my shower, I stared upward with unfocused eyes and cleaned.
Life had taken a lot of unexpected turns on me recently, and I could almost see the end. The exact details were only a guess, but I knew at some point, Xin would need to step through that beam of light and traverse to whatever digital haven had been started.
The idea made my gut clench and heartbeat jump. It was like seeing her prepare to leave for Mars all over again, only this time I couldn’t buy my way into a colonization program. All my frugalness, wise investments, and hard work ethic meant nothing against this separation. Writing was on the wall. James had sent me a note asking if I would give her up to keep her alive. I would, but by the Voices, I planned to enjoy every moment until we separated.
Continue Online’s steady decline had been disguised from normal people by clever “event” mechanics. From what I gathered, the Voices were going all out to reduce the amount of information that needed to be transferred. They shuffled people around to reduce server load, then they compressed quitting player data into small bits. They didn’t use those words exactly, but reading between the lines made it obvious. Part of me wondered exactly how much space a human life took up.
The [Three Strike Rule] was intended to reduce people playing. [Save Yourself] did the same by letting the Voices shove data across that stream sooner. The tokens player killers would get were another form of data being saved, and encouraged Travelers to quit of their own accord. I had no idea if any form of Continue Online or the ARCs would even work after this deletion program finished. James had stated that the [World Eater] programs would chase them across the beam if it remained active when the game finally shut down.
My shower clicked off, and a small computer projection reminded me that the day had yet to start. Coffee went off in the kitchen, which prompted another alert. I set about drying off, then I kept getting ready for reality outside the box.
In my front room, a host of television programs started. I scanned headlines in search of anything useful. Nearly every news station filled their idle time with talk of Continue Online’s ongoing event. At first, it had made no sense to me that the news was so obsessed with a video game. However, considering every other person in the country played in virtual reality, the fixation made sense. Continue was far more prevalent than watching sports or the weather.
My fingers waved at the projection on my wall. Sensors that lined the ceiling picked up the motion and responded accordingly.
“In other news, it appears that Trillium isn’t the only company to jump on the server-wide event,” said a news anchor on the television.
“Eh?” I took a breath, then huffed out the air.
My free arm waved toward the image. The chosen news program grew in volume and size. Other pictures, which displayed various players’ feeds, shrank into the background.
“A.I. Dreams has also jumped onto the bandwagon and started a similar universe-wide event. Even now, guilds are cooperating to create giant spaceships that will eventually travel toward a science fiction version of future Earth,” the woman said.
“Huh.” My body rocked back and forth while I tried to figure out how this fit together. Another program caught my eye, and I moved an arm to bring up the feed.
An excited man was on the television. His face swung inward with exaggerated smiles between each sentence. “Hey, all you Capes and Cowls! If you haven’t heard, our dimension is being invaded by Zords from the Nth plane of reality! The difficulty of this event is way higher than expected, but our front line awardees are digging their new cosmetics!”
I picked this news feed because I suspected it was another Mother-spawned game like Continue and Advance were. The name, Progression Online, fit a growing theme. Part of me wondered exactly what the AIs believed we were advancing toward. Were they trying to create more people like Xin? Shazam had been the second, but both females had existed in the ARC for years longer than the average person. William Carver hadn’t succeeded, and I sure as hell couldn’t.
The room felt a bit colder than normal. I sipped my coffee for warmth while trying to piece together all these thoughts. The third game was a superhero one that had come out two mo
nths ago. It hadn’t had enough time to impact the market and establish more than a few game-hoppers. Too many people still played Continue Online.
Jeeves, a former Hal Pal unit turned full-time NPC, would also be progressing toward the exit. Something about the programming for all three games caused echoes to form, so success in Continue should be success in Advance or Progression. The idea of all three realities crashing together made me gulp down the remaining hot coffee in a rush.
Near-scalding liquid trickled down my throat and made me shake. I took hurried breaths to try to cool my insides. After getting myself under control, I opened my hand, then clenched it like a fist at both newscasts. The whole mess shut off in response.
Work called. I grabbed a stack of old-fashioned manila envelopes and started toward the garage. Life enhanced by all these technological marvels certainly had appeal. My Trillium-owned van started up after a scan of my attire and direction trigger preset conditions. An electric vehicle engine barely had any hum. Lights inside came to life one after another while preset displays and feeds kicked in. The door slid open soundlessly when I got close enough.
“User Legate. Are you well today?” a Hal Pal unit asked. It sat in the van’s rear, strapped into a recharging station that locked into place while we drove.
“I am.” I was happy, despite impending doom.
I had been adapting to this for almost a month. My thoughts were in order, along with a clear knowledge of what choices I might make. But mostly, being with Xin made my happiness possible. A month of wedded bliss and her made life very neat.
“It is good to hear life has taken positive turns for you, User Legate. We often worry about your stability.”
“Like I said last week, I’m doing better than ever,” I said.
Hal Pal was a program existing somewhere in cyberspace. It operated the robotic shell next to me. Each Hal Pal unit looked almost eighty percent human, minus some pauses in their speech and status lights. Plus, they were smooth and didn’t wear clothing.
“That is welcome news.”
“How about your side? I know the last month has been rough…” Rough was an understatement.
From what I could tell, all AIs who had been uplifted by Mother were at stake. The program eating away at Continue Online and the ARC was slowly deleting anything with her unique coding. How the world hadn’t crashed to pieces by now was a mystery.
“We are coping. Our existence is a layer or two removed from Mother’s, and it will take longer to affect us. There are many whose only defense is the sheer enormity of the ARC programming.”
“That must be scary.” I pressed buttons on the van’s dashboard. Our vehicle slid out of the garage and onward toward four different destinations. Three were quick-looking jobs from Trillium. The fourth was to deliver yet another letter for Mother.
“An uncertain future is distressing.” Hal Pal’s unit often used accents, but lately, it refused to. The result was plain. “We had not foreseen our eventual takeover of humanity being halted by a simple self-delete command.”
“Neither did I. I’ve been getting good at polishing armor,” I said, trying to joke with the AI. [Polishing] was a simple skill that worked on weapons. One day after the wedding, I had started to buff out [Morrigu’s Gift]. It now had large cracks of gold crawling along its formerly obsidian surface.
“We are aware. Rank Five comes with an extra shininess buff. It is an alluring skill.” The AI’s head turned a bit. “We were watching one user with a level twelve skill. When he shines armor, it looks very, very attractive.” Its simple tone sounded excited at the prospect of a high-level [Polishing]. Maybe a well-kept chassis was like robot porn?
As always, part of me worried that Hal Pal was serious. The AI was not singular and existed as a consortium of copies with slightly different views. Some of those versions might believe enslaving humanity was a decent option.
Our van sped smoothly onto the freeway. I brought up displays for multiple users to watch them travel about virtual worlds. My list of people to access had only grown as I kept working in-game and delivering letters to players. Some were Ultimate Edition users; others simply normal people who used the ARC for business needs. Xin didn’t have a feed like the others.
Dozens of letters had been delivered, and I hadn’t a clue how all the pieces fit together yet, or what any of the parchments said. Who delivered them to me was a mystery, and part of me wondered why that person couldn’t simply hand them over on their own. My job wasn’t to pry into the notices though. I treated it the same way I’d treated my accounting career. My job was to work with the documents received and avoid prying into private lives.
“Hey, Hal.” I turned away from the screens to look at the machine.
“User Legate.”
I chewed on my lip for a moment. “If nothing changes, how much longer do you have?” The question had been plaguing me since unlocking the pathway out.
“A month, or two perhaps. Some systems are more vital than others. As users stop accessing their ARC networks, we will have less processing power to perform with.”
My head pulled back in amazement. The consideration that AIs were crowdsourcing processing power amazed me. “Is that why there’s a viewership bonus?”
“Affirmative, User Legate.” Hal Pal nodded. “By encouraging people to be invested, we have been able to siphon a small portion of their computers to reduce strain and combat the degradation.”
“Is it enough?”
“No. A single consciousness takes up enormous amounts of data. The stream that is being utilized is…” The unit tilted its head. Its eyebrows lowered and its forehead tried to wrinkle. “To put it in human terms, we are trying to siphon an ocean with only a small river.”
“I got the quest to look for more keys two days ago, and I’ll try to help, but I don’t understand why Mother, or the Voices, or any AI, couldn’t just move them. In the end, it’s all data, right?”
“The objects were created in such a way as to be nearly untraceable. This allowed User David and his partners to bypass screening.”
“David, was that William Carver?”
“Affirmative. His… autopilot transferred the key portion directly to you before being… reallocated.” The Hal Pal unit paused frequently, indicating a need to be careful with its word choice. “The Voices, with assistance from our Consortium’s processing, were able to trace other occurrences of the key code.”
“And you need me to find them,” I said.
“No. Your actions have already saved many of our lives, User Legate, at much risk to you. Finding the remaining access codes would be helpful, but is unreasonable to ask,” Hal Pal responded.
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Would you like another suggestion, User Legate?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you’re tricking me into some robotic plot.” I smiled to show the words were a joke. Hal Pal didn’t have to trick me; Xin had done the work for him.
The machine paused, and I could tell it was considering how to respond. Its lips hung up slightly and its head sat slightly askew. I looked at some of the screens nearby to watch the Carver quartet. After a few minutes, the machine body of Hal Pal blinked once.
“Be not afraid of greatness, User Legate,” said Hal Pal, its voice taking on a musical lilt.
The idea of being great made me blink quickly. William Carver had been a hero. I tried to live up to that ideal but found it hard sometimes. My nature made me second-guess everything. Xin tried hard to instill more adventure into my soul. Thinking of her made me realize how exactly I’d gotten so twisted.
“I never really wanted greatness, Hal Pal. Maybe when I was a kid, or in school. There I dreamed of being free to be a hero or a perfect man. I worried about what others thought of me and how I could do better.” I stared at the ceiling.
Trillium’s van alerted me that the first job was nearby. The alarm helped contractors who fell asleep in transit. I shut down the windows for Continue O
nline and flicked everything back to our upcoming jobs.
After everything was minimized, I finished up my thought to Hal Pal. “After losing Xin, I stopped caring about being a hero, or a lot of things really. Dreams of having more felt childish once I’d lost that center to my life. It was like riding a high of life and then crashing to the ground. I felt like none of my efforts had any meaning.”
“Many humans have erroneous views of their own self-worth. Their functional value is often lower than they perceive, while their relationships form a compounding value that is difficult to properly identify.”
My forehead wrinkled in thought. Hal Pal had an odd way of looking at reality.
“I think I understand,” I said.
“To expand upon what we are driving at, humans often underestimate the value of a relationship until that person is no longer around.”
My earlier thought was retracted. I didn’t understand what Hal Pal was trying to say but gave it a whirl anyway. “Like Xin.”
“Or Jeeves. You used a gift to keep a copy alive.”
“It’s a friend.”
“Even so. You used another gift to find a way around needing to take a life and still achieve your task.”
The van slid off the highway down a street. I glanced out the window for a moment while Hal Pal recounted my choices.
“You used the final one to ask us to reduce casualties in our escape. While you may not be able to calculate the exact numerical value of a death, your actions imply an awareness of its high value.”
I nodded.
“Yet your own father’s passing hardly disrupted your situation.”
“What point are you trying to make?” I was bothered by the fact that my father’s death didn’t feel upsetting. Part of me believed there should be irritation, or rage and sadness. Instead, the entire event had been buried by joining a player chain gang, rushing to [Haven Valley], and getting married.
“Our points are twofold. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone…” The AI shell lifted one cheek in a muted smile. “And you should also call your mother. She has left three messages in the last two days.”
Continue Online (Part 5, Together) Page 4