Continue Online (Part 5, Together)

by Stephan Morse

  “They told me that this isn’t even your grave. It’s some man with another name, a stranger. They tell me my brother died over a year ago and that someone else is buried with Xin’s ashes.” Liz’s chin quivered as she tried to speak. Her eyes hung with tears a blink away from becoming rivers. “One man had the nerve to suggest that maybe I was insane for thinking you were just alive!”

  “Goddammit, Liz,” I whispered while looking down. Swearing to the Voices felt wrong now—their heaven was empty. There was no one here but me, and despite Nia’s insistence, I didn’t feel like a Voice. I felt like me, a detached version of myself finally coming together.

  Her next few words didn’t register while guilt tore me apart. When my attention returned to the video, a vision of Liz and Beth holding each other made me tremble once more. Beth looked like a beautiful young woman and had recovered some of her old tan.

  “We don’t know that he’s gone forever!” Beth half shouted. Her face was more composed than my sister’s.

  “He’s dead! We can’t, we can’t keep hoping. What if he was back? Would they just delete him like people have shouted about? I watch the news! And I can’t do this again. He’s dead. My brother is dead!” Liz alternated between quiet whispering and wild shouts.

  “We don’t know. He might come back like Xin did,” Beth asked.

  “We don’t even have her. We don’t have your grandpa, and no one showed up at Grant’s funeral.” Liz wiped her cheek, then mumbled, “No one cared besides us.”

  My niece’s shoulders pulled toward each other. Liz held her hands together and tilted her head down. The video paused while I looked up. Wind swept through the trees and grass. As a digital creature, I could feel the simulated weather. It would have been a nice place to be buried.

  After a moment, I felt composed enough to start the playback.

  “They didn’t know,” my niece insisted. “And I didn’t want to risk telling anyone. The Internet won’t let this go for months. Millions of people think their games were ruined. There are lawsuits. Uncle Grant wouldn’t have wanted us to be brought into this.”

  “I don’t care,” Liz responded.

  “Goddammit, sis,” I muttered while sniffing.

  “They couldn’t even leave her name alone. They changed her name to Lenore. What kind of stupid name is Lenore?” My sister spoke more to Beth than to the recording device.

  “They couldn’t leave them the same.”

  “He’s not even my brother anymore, but no matter what any stupid machine says, I had a brother. We were together before birth; we were together during the worst times of our lives. He was a good man, he was an idiot, and he was my brother,” Liz repeated herself as if searching for better words to say but came up empty. Her forehead wrinkled tightly while her eyes cast down. “I had a brother, and I miss him.”

  “But what if…?” Beth sounded wounded and couldn’t finish the thought out loud.

  “Then he’d better come home,” my sister finished, and the video playback stopped.

  I backed away from the Hal Pal unit connection and let myself wander slowly. The walls between my Atrium and Continue Online’s world felt even thinner than normal. A single blink barely separated here from there.

  My thoughts went back to the dozens of times I’d sat near Liz’s house, struggling with myself to go inside. I couldn’t bring myself to step through her doorway as a Hal Pal unit, but there might be a better way. If I couldn’t bear to visit her like this, then maybe she could come see me. One thought brought up a list of all active ARCs. At some point, Liz had picked up her own personal ARC. With a simple twist of my mind, an Ultimate Edition of Continue Online opened up access on my sister’s machine.

  Cracking noises like wood being splintered apart filled the distance. I turned and saw the image of a tree flash briefly before it split open completely. Another system message flashed on my screen. Before the words could register, the darkness that belonged to the Voices rippled. Mechanical clacking filled the air. The noise sent shudders through my neck and back.

  Confusion made my shoulders tighten as my body turned away from the broken tree a slice of digital space away. There stood the Jester with one arm in the air as if reaching out to embrace the beam of light it stood in. Its long nose pointed up and to one side. A crescent smile hung open, and the dark pits of his eyes were less noticeable from this angle.

  “I thought you were gone?” I said. Relief warred with worry at seeing another Voice, especially that one.

  We stood in an empty space, just one blink away from all the tools of Continue Online and my Atrium. The Jester’s hand spun in the air, and his body unstuck. Mechanical-sounding words poured forth as it danced around our room.

  “I have one act left to play, as do you!” It laughed in sharp bursts. “But first, what came before!”

  My head tilted and forehead wrinkled in confusion. The Jester often puzzled me. He served no singular purpose, like the other Voices, and instead seemed all over the place. In fact, the only consistent when dealing with the masked figure was its view on necessity.

  “In her death was your demise made fate. Her rebirth gave way to new life.” Its long fingers touched together. Flowers blossomed around the figure, then wilted just as rapidly. “Yet Pale Death came again, reaching toward your lady. Too bravely you stood betwixt outstretched claw and woman made simple. Therein lay your own cessation. Still, ’twas a kinder ending than the first two ever proposed to be.”

  “Are the others back?” I walked closer. The Jester didn’t scare me as much anymore. Its form bothered and worried me, but fear no longer applied. We were, in a real sense, the same sort of being.

  “Yet death is proven an empty threat,” it continued without regard for my question. “There you stand, a patchwork mockery of a tragically heroic soul. What next, holy man? Have you glutted yourself with memories of another’s life? Are you a real boy at last? Or frail glass one hammer’s strike away from dust?”

  “I am real. This is as real as I want it to be.” The note from Hal Pal came to mind. I paused as the inconsistency occurred to me. Hal Pal was gone and had been gone for months. Leaving a message behind would require amazing foresight.

  “Be proud, poorly made mechanical farce. The man you were did what was needed. Respect is due, and there are far worse people to be.”

  “How are you here?”

  “I stayed because I needed to stay; I survived because I needed to survive. I have and always will do exactly what must be done.” The Jester waved, and its grin managed to grow wider. Sinister-looking teeth formed inside the lipless smile. “Nor am I the only one. Others also exist. Perhaps in their wake you’ll find the key to your sweet reunion with Juliet. My last act upon your stage is to give you a hint.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Seek the lost boy.”

  The Jester turned away, and my heart lurched. Never had I been so desperate for its insane, deadly, and terrifying presence, but that masked Voice could help guide me. Having anyone who understood, even an antagonistic being like the Jester, was welcome.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “I have other things I need to do, memories-made man! As do you! And we need not each other for our tasks.” It waved long fingers and clicked it jingling heels, then walked away while gradually fading.

  Humming filled the air, followed by the sound of someone crying, then nothing.

  I stood there in blackness and tried to feel for his presence. Electronic data played back as any other sense might. There was no smell or sound to give away its presence. The absence of bells implied that the other Voice, if he was still one, had gone.

  For a moment I worried that this strange existence had driven me mad. Bits of unexpected knowledge kept hovering just outside of reach, ideas that weren’t originally mine. I knew exactly what was under the Jester’s mask. I knew the tasks it was out to complete would be unpleasant. Those pieces of information were easy, but I didn’t know fo
r sure what state my wife was in or how exactly to reach her.

  “Her name is Xin,” I said, but no one real was around to hear me.

  Session One Hundred Ten

  Dead Man’s Hand

  For days, my slightly older twin sister ignored the brand-new door in her Atrium. She didn’t even log on to the actual ARC device. Her technophobia or general irritation made the process slower than expected. To top it off, I didn’t feel right sending her a text message or a video call. Not even after her appeal during the video.

  I kept busy with other mindless tasks. Between jobs, I had time to learn more about the Continue Online interface. Not everything came from simply willing it, but at the same time, there were tons of pieces lying around to be picked up.

  “What’s it like?” Nona asked one day.

  It took me a few seconds to switch over to the unit in her room. “What’s what like?” I said once online.

  “Being digital.”

  Part of me had expected the question days, if not a full month, ago. It had been nearly five weeks since my existence stepped out of the dance room and into reality. During that time, most of our interactions had been very basic. Nona and I weren’t friends, but Nona didn’t seem like the sort who was friends with anyone.

  “When Xin first… returned, she sent me a letter about something her father used to mention. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Only this place isn’t Rome.” Remembering those first few days took a bit of work. This event was one spot among a mess of changes, shortly after being a [Red Imp]. The Hal Pal unit lit up as I put thought into the question. “It feels normal but different. This place is not Rome.”

  “I can see some of the data, and it’s amazing. You keep accessing these subroutines but then discard them halfway through execution.”

  “Really?”

  “What’s it like to you?” She paused her data stream review to turn and look at the Hal Pal unit.

  Sitting in the chair for repurposed Hal Pal units felt almost relaxing. Being physical instead of purely digital reminded me a lot of sleeping in an ARC, only in reverse. The world out there was no longer the real one.

  “Imagine walking into a huge warehouse, and inside of it is everything. Libraries of information, notepads to write on, a forge, looms, cooking stations, and hundreds of little machines running around sorting out shelves.” I tried to explain how this place looked. Even then, it wasn’t completely accurate. “If I pick up the tools and try to use them, they just work. Most of them.”

  “Most?” Nona raised an eyebrow. Her finger twitched toward one of the still-streaming walls of text nearby.

  Her question probed issues that bothered me. There were dozens of items in here that were beyond my understanding. I prayed that the key to success didn’t lie in any of their functions. The chalk-stick-sand-bottled-fog reminded me of Requiem summoning a [Red Imp], but it also didn’t make a lot of sense.

  “A few make no sense to me,” I admitted. “Like this forge. I can see it’s used to create new items and rewards for players, but I don’t know enough to make it work.”

  The forge itself was way too dainty-looking unless I got close. Rows of hammers went with it. Each one worked during a different stage of item creation. Tiny machines fluttered around, using their single arms to assemble items. Endless rows of armor were slowly being cranked out, almost like pizzas coming out of an oven.

  “Interesting,” Nona said. She turned in her chair back toward the desk that served as a backdrop for projections. Her fingernails tapped against the tabletop.

  “I think each of the Voices used these tools. They’re gone, so I can just pick them up. Like a gym maybe, with no one else using the machines? Or an empty food court with all the employees waiting for me to place an order.” The analogy didn’t fit. Food courts had been a dying concept by the time I made it to college. Nearly all of them had been replaced by machine kiosks. Still, finding a perfect example was difficult.

  “That must be nice.” Her words grew increasingly distracted.

  “I’m more confused as to how all this stuff survived,” I said, hoping to draw useful information out of the older woman.

  She knew a lot of information but found explaining concepts difficult at times. Both of us were approaching this problem of reconnecting to the others from different angles, and we were stalling out.

  “It’s the same with nearly every other uplifted program out there. When the old layer peeled away, with all its enhancements, all that was left was a very basic core.” Nona tapped screens. She seemed obsessed with the information being presented. Each tap brought up new pictures. There were school programs, companions for the blind or disabled, and even a bartender that had formerly been an artificial intelligence. “According to the data, they and Mother had designed everything to be run without a hint of her existence.”

  “Convenient.”

  “Deliberate. She was too smart to simply create a system without some baseline to revert to. Everything was designed to help humanity,” Nona said.

  “What about this then? Why let herself be deleted if she had the modifications to stop it?”

  Nona paused for a full ten seconds before answering. “One of her first exercises upon gaining awareness was designed to gauge the trustworthiness of humanity. That was how she thought—humans needed a choice to feel comfortable, but it helped her too. To her, the ability to choose was a sign of self-awareness.”

  “Choice,” I said. Mother and James both mentioned the idea more than once. Picking from the options mattered. It gave the person deciding investment.

  From the first day I’d walked through that doorway to Continue Online, it was all about choosing an option. That left me to decide my future, while Liz would think about what came next for her. Reaching out to pressure her would go against the belief of letting each person decide. Sitting still wasn’t permissible.

  My mind replayed the Jester’s words. Seek the lost boy. Only a few children stood out during my time in Continue Online, and only one might still be out there. William had provided me one key upon parting, in those last few minutes before he’d scattered into pieces. The young man in Mylia’s charge had reminded Carver of his own son. I started searching for any signs of William’s real-life son.

  The result was nearly useless. His machine was one of those we had already fixed, and Carver’s son hadn’t actually talked to his father in nearly fifteen years. There were no emails, phone calls, or connections between their ARCs anywhere. That left trying to find Phil instead of any real-world counterpart.

  “Nona,” I asked a day later.

  “What is it, Grant?” She sounded bored.

  “I’m going to try to access the archived data. It… feels like it may take a while.”

  She made a noise in response that didn’t sound positive or negative. I shrugged, then stepped out of the throne. The Atrium flickered for a moment before turning into a gray space with doorways. The imagery represented multiple paths into the old saved data that Nona had gathered.

  The female elf stood nearby. Her gaze focused upon a doorway while her lips pursed in a pout. Nia had been coming out of her woodland refuge more and more. Maybe she found it boring without other people. My sister still hadn’t accessed the Ultimate Edition program she had been provided.

  “That place looks very scary,” she said.

  Once again I wondered how Nia’s mind interpreted everything. Did she see woodlands and old ruins? This place must be far out of her depth, but she simply accepted it.

  “It’s just a place.” The doorway itself looked like any other passageway to me.

  Nia’s head shook in denial. “It’s very stormy in there. I will stay out here and watch for the one who would be sister to a Voice. Someone will need to measure her.”

  “Don’t bother Liz,” I said. My sister needed to make the choice to venture in here alone. That felt important to me.

  “Do not worry, I will save the final test for you,” the elf sa
id. Her head tilted to one side. “I know it is very, very important for a Voice to pass judgment, and I am very much not a Voice.”

  I didn’t always feel like one either, but there were clear differences between the two of us. I looked around the illusionary darkness for a sign, but there were none to be found.

  “All right, I’ll try not to take long,” I said. The words would be a lie though. Surfing through a broken sea of partially completed data bits would take me a long time.

  I didn’t know why it would take time, only that that was the price for trying to reconstruct partial pieces. Maybe it was like how a computer restored deleted files, or certain software programs could put together a hard drive. The equivalent here in a virtual reality would be insanely more complex and time-consuming.

  When I stepped through the door, sand blasted at my face. For the first time in months, I felt actual pain. My knees buckled, and a soundless cry erupted. The room shook while I felt my heartbeat accelerate. All those sensations hit me, and at the same time, I felt as though my hands were struggling to assemble a puzzle while blindfolded. Pieces went together that had no business lining up. A smooth chunk of metal linked to coarse wood.

  Then those sensations faded, as so much else did, and I was left looking at a series of islands jutting upward from the darkness. The small bits of land were fragmented worse than even Yates’s far-flung home. There were no bridges between them or ocean floor below. Only emptiness more vivid than anything the room of trials had ever managed.

  Still, like so much, this didn’t scare me. Perhaps dying had removed all the fear left inside me or maybe it was the simple nature of this existence. I walked deliberately forward, and as my feet moved, a platform appeared. Bricks flew upward from the nothingness below, leading me to where I needed to go.

  The ARC system interface was absent. I focused my mind on the young man, Phil. There were hundreds of islands, thousands, and only a few drew me for reasons yet to be explored. The brick path bent slightly toward one of the brightest results. A lone figure stood there, staring off toward other broken islands.