Continue Online (Part 3, Realities)

by Stephan Morse

  “Add more!” I looked at a small icon where the shield practically shone blue. It wasn’t enough. We needed to slam into this ship like a cannon ball.

  We were too far gone to try anything else. [Wayfarer’s Hope] hit the wall hard. The shield hit zero almost right away. Our ship shuddered and crumpled on one side, reducing the cabin space. Wearing a seatbelt was the only thing to keep my melon from crashing against the newest interior remodeling. It wasn’t enough.

  Outside the windshield, I could see where we clipped metal walls, ships, and yellow repair machines. We kept spinning through the carrier’s hangar like a pinball gone wild. Human workers looked on in horror. Various less sophisticated robots tried to go about their tasks only to be bowled out of the way. Stains splattered into our front window during violent bouncing.

  I felt sicker than ever before. My stomach threatened to crawl up and explode. This was more intense than the scariest amusement park ride ever because we were still crashing. The only reason I didn’t black out is because it was expected, and [Mechanoid]s didn’t believe in getting knocked out by a little thing like violently colliding with another ship.

  “Our shields are gone,” Jeeves said as we spun in circles. We hit one extra wall as our engines sputtered. Vehicle damage impacted our display. One part of our ship was completely crushed. “This is bad.”

  “Live a little!” I tried to shout but failed as feelings of nausea came in waves. If this game had given me the [Red Imp] ability for altered time perception things would be fine.

  We started rocking to a halt. The spinning motion wound down and after a few seconds, we were no longer colliding with random parts of the cabin.

  “I am once again formally registering a complaint regarding your definition of living,” Jeeves said.

  “Jeeves. Once we’re done, you and Dusk get that bomb set up.” I choked back another wave of bile.

  My body moved to undo the clasp and roll for the door. There were faces that could be seen past the display. Humans, robots, a few other species. All of them appeared slack-jawed. I had to distract them before they fired on our battered craft.

  “Jeeves, set up the bomb, figure out an escape!” I turned to the small creature in my arms. “Dusk, just like before, protect Jeeves.”

  Dusk’s tail had left curved indents along my arm. His head spun and the [Messenger’s Pet] may not have heard me. I triggered my class commands for the pet, brief rays of green rippled up and down my arm signifying the abilities kicking into action. Hopefully, they would give the little guy a boost.

  I had no time to figure it out. There was a hole in our ship. I crawled through quickly while fighting to right my mind after that roller coaster. Jeeves should be able to do something. People were flying about as air sucked out into space.

  Our ship was trashed and low on energy, but I was full up. [Anchor] and [Power Suit] activated, the heavy weapon Gatling gun came up, and I opened fire. Lasers blasted into two defenseless enemy ships, causing their engines to explode on the room’s far side. I turned the lasers and panned over to a stack of boxes. Bolts of fiery doom tore the bottom ones apart, causing piles to topple over.

  My goal had been to cause as much chaos as possible. The last of my energy drained and I let the Gatling gun reabsorb into my body. I started to run for a wall and plot my next move. People were shouting, words that oddly didn’t make much sense. It felt like the indistinguishable screams of people burning, dying.

  I felt sick but wouldn’t let that stop me. During my travels in Continue Online, I had run into a lot of things that gave me practice at swallowing back revulsion. This was a game, these were AIs, but they would survive, or respawn, or be blessed by the Voices to reincarnate into butterflies next time.

  Aside from all of those self-justifications, it was their virtual existences, or Xin and Jeeves would suffer the consequence.

  I let a few additional shots go off from the smaller wrist laser and ran for another set of boxes. Humans scrambled poorly out of my way. Most desperate to hold on to the ground until the air lock reasserted itself. They resembled engineers or other types of noncombatants. They could run away and it only increased the chaotic situation.

  “Jeeves?” I whispered. “How much time?”

  “Four minutes, maybe five. I need room to get out and plant the bomb,” It said back to me.

  Everything slammed down as the hole we had created sealed up. A faint halo of energy shimmered over the gap. I cursed, if that had stayed open we could have done this whole mission a lot easier.

  Dusk poked his head out of a hole in the ship’s top. The sucking sounds of space pulling objects out had slowed drastically. He looked around in both directions like he was picking out a spot to sleep. Then he hissed toward the far direction.

  I did not like what his hostile noise signaled. If things were even, Dusk didn’t get upset. If things were badly against us, he chittered, chirped, spit small balls of fire, or clawed at the ground, then hissed. A tall hunched over creature strode in through a far hallway. Their form was large enough to take up the entire passageway. At least fifteen feet tall and four times my video game character’s weight.

  “Voices,” I muttered. “This will be hard.”

  I saw Dusk leap down from the ship and scamper off toward one of the air vents. This room had sealed behind us and didn’t seem to care about the hole we made.

  “My ship!” the newest creature shouted. Air vibrated. A few humans were knocked over by the power of that sudden burst. The being was carrying some fighter plane’s wing like a club.

  “Who did this to my ship!?” yelled the lumbering monstrosity . Armor up and down the giant’s body obscured skin. Only the being’s mouth was uncovered, the better with which to yell, I suppose.

  “Sir!” A human worker ran up and saluted hastily. My vision wasn’t good enough to pick out all the details of their face from here. The giant creature smacked the offending human.

  “Ma’am!” A new one didn’t even hesitate and stepped right up.

  “Ma’am! A Mechanoid craft has broken into our launch bay, they are behind this, sir!” The newest soldier was sent flying in the same arc. Crashes from their bodies broke up the sound of fire crackling.

  “Ma’am! They’re hiding over there!” a third human said. This one did not get bashed away, and instead turned to run down the corridor where this monstrous creature had come from. Apparently calling Auntie Backstab ‘sir’ caused issues.

  “I wish you luck, User Legate,” Jeeves said quietly. Both its voices sounded nervous.

  “Thanks,” I muttered as the giant turned in my direction. All I could see, aside from a body encased in metal, was a huge mouth dripping with rabid amounts of drool. Letters slammed onto my ARC interface proudly informing me of an impending boss battle.

  Boss Encountered!

  Name: Auntie Backstab

  Health Pool: A lot

  Damage Output: Will end you

  Happiness Level: -16

  Details: Nobody’s sure what kind of creature she is. Secretly some brilliant scientists decided to inject [Leviathan] DNA into a [Behemoth]. Their results ended up killing them. Commander Queenshand won this gentle giant’s trust by promising endless combat and choice spaceships to eat. She does have a morbid sense of humor and chose the name Backstab to help confuse her opponents. When successfully turning an enemy into artwork paste she is often quoted as saying ‘Backstab successful!’.

  “I will crush you,” the mountain of an NPC said. “I will grind you bones and turn you flesh into soup!”

  I looked over at a creature easily twice my height. This abomination, felt familiar, in the way so many things did between games. I was fairly sure that my current foe was a copy of Continue Online’s Uncle Meanface.

  “Sorry. Mechanoids don’t have flesh,” I shouted, hoping to keep her attention on me. Sorry was not on my list of currently felt emotions. Panicked, running through escape routes, sorting past options of health and energy, y
es, but not apologetic.

  “Rarrrghhhgh!” the armored up bulk of angry mass yelled. The sound bounced off of walls and vibrated my core.

  Stunned! Abilities requiring focus suffer a 50% penalty.

  “Nngh,” I groaned. Not this ability again. My weapons required [Focus] to use properly. William Carver’s [Stubborn as a Mule] ability couldn’t save me in space.

  Auntie Backstab raised one huge arm with that was bigger than my increased body. I immediately made a decision. There were fights that involved combat and overcoming the enemy. Other battles simply required staying alive long enough to let my team win.

  I said a prayer to the Voices and AIs running this game then dodged off to the nearest doorway. The wall of mean crashed after me, sending various broken bits of fighter planes flying as it moved.

  Running away from a giant monster intent upon drinking me like a gelatin shot was frightening without [Blink]. I resorted to madly scrambling through the ship’s halls.

  “Move!” I shouted at a crew member standing in my way. The man had a perplexed look and his eyes widened as the stomping noise behind me sunk in. I made it past him and two boxes okay. The man cried out in alarm as Auntie Backstab tore through right behind me.

  “Gotta slow her down,” I muttered.

  Ahead of me, a small head poked out of one vent. Dusk hissed again and spit out a batch of acid. I dodged around it in alarm. The little guy was up to something.

  Auntie Backstab either didn’t see the green puddle or didn’t care. Her giant armored foot slammed into it sending minor amounts of liquid splashing around.

  “Arrgh! Stupid snot balls!” she yelled again. Two messages popped up. One was the [Stunned] notification. I promptly stumbled into a wall as the effect hampered my movement. The second helped make up for it.

  [Ooozed!] debuff applied to boss [Auntie Backstab].

  The boss’ [Speed] will be lowered by 10% per stack, for up to 5 seconds.

  The boss’ [Attractiveness] will be lowered by 10% per stack, for up to 5 seconds.

  Auntie Backstab’s [Attractiveness] was already in question. As for [Speed], five seconds was a lot of time. Especially if I could lure her into multiple stacks. Dusk popped out of another vent up ahead. I took it as a cue to lure our excessively loud, mean and ugly boss monster into them.

  “I owe you cupcakes!” I said, my words echoed in the ship’s corridors as I dove around another corner. “So many cupcakes!”

  A pleased chirp noise came out of the vents. Dusk’s tiny raptor feet were skidding around rapidly as he tried to keep ahead of us. We made it up a hallway. Half a dozen ship workers either tried to stop me or ran to get out of Auntie Backstab’s way. Our mad dash around the ship’s hallways lasted a few minutes before something else went wrong.

  “User Legate. I seem to be in trouble,” Jeeves said.

  “Not neat,” I said in response. My arms and legs weren’t tired yet, but I had some message that my [Coordination] had missed a roll as my body fell to the floor.

  Auntie Backstab was close now. I got to my feet and ran from the hulk, looking for any obvious object to remove the threat with. There had to be something nearby that said, ‘Impale the boss here’. Hopefully. At six stacks of [Ooozed!] the boss’ [Attractiveness] was like two pigs mating in a field of rotten pumpkins.

  Gooey leftovers from Dusk’s puddles caked to the boss’ feet and legs. Her formerly shiny black and red armor looked like an evil Christmas decoration.

  “Dusk!” I shouted while slamming the [Defend] command for my [Domestic Trainer] class. “Protect Jeeves!”

  The [Messenger’s Pet] spit up one extra ball of snot acid goo and then sprang out of his vent. A tiny raptor body flew past Auntie Backstab’s field of vision.

  “Crush little metal man! Crush little spitty thing!” she shouted. The long piece of wing she had been dragging around slammed abruptly into the space Dusk just occupied. My friend hissed at her and spat a glob in the monster’s face.

  She howled. I backed up Dusk’s attack with a wrist laser blast to her face. Auntie Backstab didn’t lose much health, but she did howl in anger. The room shook and vibrated as the giant half [Leviathan] thrashed wildly. The goop barely made her pause.

  I ran out of the latest doorway only to find that we had reached the third floor. My latest route involved a walkway around the ship’s giant hangar. Jeeves was down below in the open. Dusk crawled down the wall swiftly using his tail as an anchor. A crash behind me served as a reminder that their problems would be minimized by my running skills.

  Giant Gatling laser? Not enough. Her health pool was huge. Could my [Mechanical Minion]s be used to hamstring her? Technically there wasn’t a command for it, but Advance Online was flexible enough so far. Maybe I could invent an ability on the spot. I could generate one without losing the [Power Armor] ability. A mini Dusk rolled out and leapt for covered shins.

  “Stop running, metal man! I will only eat part of you!” the hulking monster yelled.

  My first tiny [Mechanical Minion] rippled and flowed into a ball. Watching a piece of me pull away like shedding metal skin was slightly creepy. I set it on the boss’ heels, literally. My former pelvis, hand and leg bits ran off to attack their target.

  “I need my arms!” I replied. Part of me worried about the [Mechanical Minion]s, maybe she would think they were snack packs or take out being delivered right to her doorstep.

  “I will eat you legs then!” The idea made her start slobbering even harder. It felt like that giant [Leviathan] was chasing me once again, an enormous maw filled with rows of teeth that promised painful crunchings.

  The double laser sword came out next. I stabbed at anything that looked frail while running. Our thudding path across the hangar’s upper level was shaky at best. There were support struts and bound wires holding up our causeway, I cut them all to slow the giant down.

  One [Mechanical Minion] didn’t seem to grab the giant mess of armor’s attention. The [Ooozed!] effect had just worn off. I wasn’t running fast enough. Further minions would help, but we needed distance. I scrambled across the wing of a spaceship that sat docked inside and within leaping distance. It tilted to one side. The struts holding it up were a partial casualty of my initial burst with the Gatling laser gun.

  My footing slipped and my heavy metal body scraped against the wing in a tumble. One hand gripped at an edge of the wreckage in order to break my fall. I landed at the bottom with far less grace than desired. [Blink] would have been neat to have here.

  [Mechanoid] bodies felt diminished pain from ARC feedback but one leg ceased to function fully. Numbness intertwined with a deep ache. A message popped up displaying the [Hobbled] condition but I waved it away.

  I had distance. Out came the big gun once more. Metal rippled into the Gatling laser and my energy was burned on firing wildly at walkways where Auntie Backstab lumbered. She had stalled slightly due to our narrowed passageways. Despite the insanity of our chase, she seemed to care for the ship’s structural integrity. I did not.

  The full burst drained my energy. Her health bar had hardly moved. Once again I affirmed in my mind that this was a fight to run away from. Maybe during my next contribution grab, like the [Leviathan] kill, I could purchase a nuke and deal some real damage.

  Auntie Backstab let out a roar and fell from the second story. She crashed into the remains of a fighter spaceship and flailed about. Chunks of machinery went everywhere, doing damage to her own people. The ship wing she had been carrying around lodged straight into a wall.

  Dusk was currently chewing some larger human’s shoulder. The two of them spun around wildly and more blasts went off. Jeeves was in a quiet corner of the room. The AI had a large red hued barrel in front of it and seemed to be connecting wires. They were both holding their own. The boss monster clearly cared about my presence over anyone else’s.

  “How much longer?” I asked Jeeves with a hint of desperation.

  “Too long, User Legate,” Jeeves sai
d. It sounded worried enough that the normally stoic butler was affected. “I am trying. It is difficult to function due to damage. I estimate three additional minutes before completion.”

  “Yeah. Okay. I’ll keep this one busy.” I glared at the mess where Auntie Backstab wallowed. Jeeves was hurt, and clearly not a fighter in reality or the virtual world.

  “Dusk is performing exceptionally well,” Jeeves muttered.

  I kept moving my [Hobbled] body toward the tunnels. Dusk wasn’t killing the other men running around. Just bringing them low and letting them run off. He leapt around charging soldier after soldier. There were still large blasts of energy going around. A side glance at my combat map showed our forces dwindling. The [Wayfarer Eight] was under fire from the [Knuckle Dragger]‘s remaining guns.

  “He does that,” I said trying to make it another few feet.

  Time for more minions. I popped out four additional ones and set them on the struggling Auntie Backstab. Pieces of her armor were cracked due to the fall. They were each given weak points to target.

  My body reworked itself as the mass of four little terrors extracted itself. I kept on moving my [Hobbled] self toward the tunnels, hoping for the safety of distance. There was a maze of corridors which all interconnected back there like an ant maze. It had to be enough.

  “Arrggh!” Auntie Backstab shook herself free. A shower of ship parts burst away from her landing spot. One hand grabbed a hunk of metal and shoved the offending object straight into her face like a handful of potato chips. She had broken free but focused upon eating and getting a weapon. One fist shoveled metal, showing her [Levithan] genetics in action.

  I had five little [Mechanical Minion]s chomping at the boss’ bits. My own stride was reduced by a considerable amount due to the size reduction. I activated one more minion and then used it to help tear off a vent cover. At four feet tall I should be able to crawl in.

  “Unit Hermes, Unit Jeeves. We will be unable to break through the enemy lines and retrieve you. The Wayfarer Eight will stay behind, we are jumping in four minutes. An exit is recommended.” Treasure’s voice cut over our communications and painted a terrible picture.