I stared at the message through narrowed eyes. The damage window with its quirky messages had resurfaced. This felt suspiciously familiar. Another bug took a bite out of my calf and I hacked at it and others swarming nearby.
There was no time to stare up. Up was a lost concept anyway on a floating space monster that twisted around according to whim. I felt the ground beneath me rumble and wiggle while bugs kept up their relentless biting.
“Stop! Die! So gross!” I kept chattering while fighting them off. In the end, a small pile of dead bugs lay around with half a dozen scattering across the [Leviathan]‘s back.
Minor Munching Inflicted
Total Health Lost: 21%
This, so far, was the worst event to follow the rush of flying a spaceship ever. I did it anyway because we needed these little guys for parts or something. I didn’t get a loot window, but Hal Pal and its specialized [Core] might be able to.
We marched back to the ship. I did anyway. Dusk stayed behind chasing after those trying to escape his terrifying wrath upon all critters small and annoying. More power to him, maybe this game would award us a [Bug Destroyer] ability. [Pest Punisher], [Louse Lancer], any number of clever titles revolving around the destruction of all critters buggy.
Elizabeth Legate: Grant, what are you doing?
The message popped up right in my face during the return trip. I blinked and nearly lost control of my bucket of bug bits. A few stray ones floated about from my actions.
Grant Legate: I’m destroying space lice on a giant monster, that I plan to blow up, by planting explosives in its butthole.
Take that, Liz! This wasn’t my niece talking. It was my sister breaking the silence by contacting me directly in the game. I felt semi-satisfied that she came down to my level. The victory didn’t amount to much in the grand scheme, but it was a win.
Elizabeth Legate: …So I got a call from Doctor Litt. He thinks you’re making progress. He says you have ‘a girlfriend’ in the game, and we both know you didn’t tell him it was Xin.
My eyes didn’t roll, but they came close. I took a deep breath instead. Physically the [Mechanoid] unit didn’t respond, but my real body felt stressed. The feelings of physical me always lingered in the background even while playing highly immersing games like this one.
Dusk shot by me. He hadn’t figured out how to fly, but the little guy certainly took advantage of low gravity and his long tail to shoot around the landscape. I felt jealous. Maybe we could buy a grappling hook upgrade for the [Combat Program] system with my next batch of contribution.
Extra purchases would come after paying off the soon to be exploded spaceship. I managed to almost make it back to Hal Pal before my sister sent another message.
Elizabeth Legate: We need to talk about this.
I couldn’t figure out any way to respond that wouldn’t blow up in my face. Being aggressive and shouting went against my very nature even after pretending to be both William Carver and the [Red Imp]. For the safety of my sanity I had to be calm, go with the flow, and try to improve.
Grant Legate: Okay.
What else could I say to her? Liz would probably react poorly to everything said from here on out. Family issues always seemed so dramatic. Couldn’t we hang out and talk nicely about nothing weird? The weather maybe. Or space. I wanted to talk about space with someone.
“User Legate!” Hal Pal shouted while I stared at the transformed remains of our ship.
No longer was our freshly bought vehicle in one piece. There were two much smaller items in its place. One looked slightly darker, a rusty red and seemed to be a long column. Its surface looked dull and muddy. I could see where it might separate into two chunks or bend a little.
The other half was blue and lodged into [Leviathan]‘s thick hide. Hal Pal anchored to it with a long cord much like Dusk used his tail to get around.
“Are those our explosives?” I pointed at the red ones. They were elongated barrels, maybe half the diameter and twice the length.
“Affirmative,” it responded. Hal Pal’s arms were both elbow deep in a pile of metals. The AI lifted an arm out of the material. Whatever he had concocted looked like clumpy sand.
I watched for awhile as Hal Pal moved the clump of sand over to our explosive bundle. The AI appeared unaffected by shuffling volatile substances back and forth. Maybe Advance Online forgave him a bit. I knew real life bomb making involved an insane amount of preparation.
“And this?” I pointed to the blue pillar Hal was tethered to. Looking at it longer revealed the shape. It looked like a spinning top, with the pointy end facing down.
“Something to hold on to, along with what remains of our ship’s functions,” the AI said, though he sounded distracted. Its head tilted to one side while studying the separated portions.
“How did you do all this?” I walked over to the bolted portion and let go of the [Anchor] ability. My energy bar started to recover one bar at a time.
“Desperation and a kind system interface.” Hal Pal looked up from its project to spare me a quick glance. Moments later it was elbow deep in the blue pile of items again. “The programming within Advance Online allowed me to compact the remaining parts and mold from there.”
“So that’s our communications and everything?”
“A beacon. Once the explosives are set, we can push off with this and hope to escape the creature’s notice. I predict the explosion will be extremely distracting.” Hal Pal’s faint smile came to the forefront while the female nanny voice raised in amusement.
“Here’s more bugs.” I smiled back and managed not to laugh at the strange combination. The bucket was handed over carefully. An hour of gathering familiarized me with inertia’s tricks.
“Excellent, I will distill whatever metals are available and add the correct items to our current mixtures.” Hal Pal was kind enough not to use fancy words or talk about mixtures in detail.
“If you say so,” I responded. Chemistry confused me, but Hal Pal clearly had an idea of what to do. It reminded me of Awesome Jr., he had been pretty good at mixing potions in Continue. I understood the theory behind ‘mix this with that’ and such, but actual compositions and formula diagrams were beyond me.
One of its arms went into the bucket and bug carcasses started melting. I swallowed back bile while looking away. Dusk was sniffing at the explosive red barrels. I hissed in his direction which made the [Messenger’s Pet] turn with a puzzled look.
Hal pulled out another pile of goop, slightly orange this time mixed with flecks of dark black. The newest pile got thrown on the ground and its arm went back into the bucket.
“This will work?” I asked while my forehead wrinkled.
“According to the system text, yes.”
“Neat,” I said. “I’m not sure where to place it, though. Dusk got distracted chasing those bugs.” My head shook at the [Messenger’s Pet] while trying to shoo him away from the explosives.
Hal Pal, or Jeeves for its character, pulled out another pile of red. It joined the two explosive containers to one side. Rusty red took on a slightly brighter hue. I activated [Anchor] and took a step toward my nosy companion. Dusk saw me coming and slunk off to one side, his neck extended and still sniffing.
“There’s no air to sniff that, you goofball,” I said to him.
“My scans revealed little in the way of openings.” Hal Pal looked up as if something occurred to it. The action felt almost natural from the AI. “Aside from the front portion, where there was a rather obvious hole. Perhaps we can-”
“It would take us hours to get up there.”
“Ah. Indeed, we do not have enough time. Strange how little time we have. It seems to be the one resources we never have enough of.” Hal Pal’s head tilted back down to the pile of bugs. Its actions repeated while a handful of red powder came out.
I chewed my lip. There was very little time for us to handle much in the way of musing. “The Wayfarer Consortium, they’d leave us behind?”
&
nbsp; “To the Mechanoid race, we are merely physical shells to a digital consciousness. Why worry about the portion that can easily be replaced?”
“Except you’re not sure if you will recover okay,” I said, a frown plastered on my face. When I released from floating in space there was very little issue in returning to the [Wayfarer Seven]. My body and mind were sitting in a bed inside a house back in reality.
“I am not. I have never, died, before.”
“I’ll do what I can, Hal, even if it gets me killed.” I tried to reassure my worried friend. A life meant little to me here in-game. Out there I would hesitate, but in here I was practically a fearless warrior.
A box popped up again which made me frown. The AI nodded and continued working with the metals. Gold threads on its body lit up with ability activation. Hal and I were having a nice bonding moment talking and facing a giant monster, but my sister kept butting in. The keyboard floated into being and I started rapidly typing.
Elizabeth Legate: Don’t ignore me, I have admin access and can see that you’re playing right now. Tell your friend that you’re busy answering your sister about an important family matter.
Voices. I was an adult! My sister didn’t care and clearly had been spying on my ARC feed. Once again I regretted not taking care of this long ago. Still, prior to Continue Online, I wasn’t really doing better. It was only after receiving the game that the greatest strides started happening.
Grant Legate: Can’t. I need to blow up a giant space monster.
Elizabeth Legate: Do I need to block that game also, so that you’ll give this the attention it deserves?
Grant Legate: Really? You’re turning into mom.
Elizabeth Legate: I may block it because you said that.
I growled. She probably would do it to spite me. We had fought over the internet once as children and she tattled to mom in order to get me kicked off. The plan backfired, though, lots of our younger years were like that.
“User Legate?” Jeeves looked perplexed at my frantic actions. My hands were waving in anger at the text message screen from Liz.
“Sorry. I didn’t hear what you said.” I shook my head and tried not to be upset. Liz only acted this way because she worried. Worried about me, that I might relapse or be going crazy.
Xin, all of it came back to her. Hal pal had somehow gotten me the Ultimate Edition of Continue Online, after a deal with Mother. Moving out, trying to kill myself twice, the new job. All of it truly started with her death.
“We should plant these explosives and prepare to disembark. If we’re lucky we will get far enough away that the Wayfarer will send someone to bring us back.” Hal Pal rewound its tether on the blue top like anchor. I relied on the minor energy usage of my ability to keep from being knocked into space by the [Leviathan]‘s small undulations.
“Fine. Give me a moment. I need to talk to my sister. She’s threatening to remove my access to this game too.” I waved at my chat messages to Liz. Hal shouldn’t be able to see it, but the AI would understand.
“That is ill-timed.”
“Family issues are never well timed, are they?” I said trying not to sound snarky. My sister made me feel like a teenager again, and not in any sort of positive way. Hours of bickering, tattling to mom, getting in trouble, all sorts of sibling nonsense.
Sometimes I envied children who weren’t twins. Liz and I didn’t always get along, even after being in the womb together. Sometimes it seemed like being so close made things worse.
Grant Legate: How about this weekend? I’ll come over and we can talk in person. I’ll explain everything I’ve been dealing with. All of it.
Elizabeth Legate: …Promise?
Grant Legate: Yes. But you’ll have to promise not to interrupt until I’m done. It…it will sound crazy, but I swear on Nana’s grave that I’m not making it up.
Elizabeth Legate: Okay. Six then? We can have dinner.
Grant Legate: Umm…sure. Hey, I just thought of something. Do you mind if I bring my friend? They’re very much part of this.
There was a long pause. Years of being close to my sister gave me a fairly good idea of what she was thinking. Liz was probably upset that someone else knew more about my situation than her. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it.
Still, Hal Pal might be able to lend credibility to my situation. It knew things from a perspective that I could only glimpse here in Advance Online. The life of being a robotic AI, working with others of your kind, being inside the machine.
Did Xin’s reconstruction see the world this way? Could she log into a game like Hal Pal did and feel vaguely alive? I smiled briefly and hoped that one day we might be able to share a view like this one. Asteroids all around, a giant planet close by. Even the [Leviathan], she would probably find fighting this creature to be hilariously funny.
Elizabeth Legate: Fine. Bring your friend. We can all talk about this Sunday. Six?
Grant Legate: I’ll be there.
I made a note with the ARC’s reminder system for a few hours ahead of time. We had a few days before this dinner date with my family, but I couldn’t get distracted again. Not like the missed meeting with Doctor Litt.
“Here, User Legate. I believe this will be strong enough to get the payload off.” Hal Pal had another metal cabling in its hands. One end connected to the blue top, the other to a conjoined set of red barrels. They looked weird being merged at center.
“I’ll carry it. Will you be okay until then?”
“Dusk seems willing to guard our escape craft, if you’re comfortable taking the bomb to this point, here.” Hal pal pressed something in the air and a new screen displayed on my interface. A map swallowed up the lower right of my vision. One small marker popped up revealing where to go.
“Okay. But I’ll admit, I’m surprised you have game skills to make a bomb.” I shook my head and took the cable from him. There were two hand holds on the barrels that would serve to carry it quickly while the thick wiring seemed to be a final tether.
“It would be counterproductive if we both chose the same abilities, User Legate. A division of labor is highly productive.”
“Mechanoids work better together, right?” I remembered from the race text.
“Yes,” Hal nodded, “in this case it means dividing the labor based on our skills.”
“And my skill is dragging the bomb off, huh?” I tried to smile. Once this thing went off it would likely send a ripple of pain feedback through the ARC. I could take it, though, months of abuse as the [Red Imp] had adjusted my pain tolerance by leaps and bounds.
Hal Pal walked over to the red container and pointed at two buttons on either case. I nodded, they clearly needed to be depressed in order to set this mixture off. Almost a year of working together out in the real world helped us require less communication in some cases.
“Got it,” I said.
“That is reassuring. To answer your question, you are the one who learned to anchor themselves to a ship’s hull and fight monsters. I could not even pass level twelve of the combat simulator,” Hal Pal said. A dull imitation of bitterness passed across its face. Just a flicker around the eyes and one cheek pulling back slightly.
“Alright. Dusk, you keep Hal Pal alive, I’ll drag off the bomb.” I tried not to feel conflicted. Carrying explosives around in such an immersive game felt strange. Continue Online had explosives but [Blink] let me bypass pretty much all obstacles. Voices, I missed that ability. Getting around on the [Leviathan] would be so much easier.
“Good luck, User Legate.”
“Thanks, Jeeves, stay safe.” I nodded and grabbed the chain. A small message box popped into being.
Item acquired
Explosive Core (Beginner, Well Made, Enhanced (3))
Control of Detonation will be provided to the primary holder of this ownership cord. Should the player lose contact the detonation ability will be removed.
“Neat. I shall call you the suppository explosive,” I commented then got mov
ing. Hal clutched its remaining tether. I could see it staring in my direction as the bomb and I shuffled away.
Dusk chirped with a tone that slowly faded into the background. He sounded upset, like a dog whimpering about being left behind. Dusk’s lamenting came through as a weirdly combined cat-bird mixture.
[Anchor] drained energy even faster. Gripping explosive barrels made moving harder than expected. The bombs’ inertia caused me to slip more than once. I pushed off one ridge and we went sailing across to the next ripple of [Leviathan] flesh.
Ticks watched from down in the folds. Killing them without Dusk was difficult. Luckily I hadn’t run across any nests in the last hour. That reduced the challenge a lot. I could only imagine that there were more creatures in existence the further toward the head we went.
My life reduced down to climb, hop, [Anchor], hop again, rest for energy, and repeat. I wanted to huff and be tired but [Mechanoid]s didn’t feel strain the same way. Working in zero gravity bored me more than anything else.
Finally, over one of the ridges, I could see a deep pit-like area. I tried not to wonder about the darker red coloring to it or give thought to why so many space mites were hopping about. Even fouler was a giant white critter that might be a space tapeworm.
Voices. So gross.
Yet, if this would get Hal safely away, I would do my darnedest not to retch uncontrollably and plant this bomb extra deep. Hal Pal had found Xin for me, and that deserved to be repaid, especially if the AI felt distressed because of a situation I got us into.
I had told Dusk there was no air to smell anything, but that seemed wrong in hindsight. This creature’s butt smelled like a rat crawled under my pillow and died three weeks ago. Then someone came by and vomited on top of that. Give or take a few rotten fruits with space maggots floating around.
After this, after getting Hal and Dusk to safety, I would need to stand in a hot shower just to feel clean again. Maybe two, and a scrub. What would Doctor Litt think about this?
“So, do you feel it’s normal to crawl up someone’s rear end with the intent to cause harm?” I tried to mimic his tone then shook my head.
Continue Online (Part 3, Realities) Page 16