Trojan: An Epic LitRPG Adventure (Afterlife Online Book 3)

by Domino Finn

  I opened my Everchat prompt and initiated a chat request with someone living on the outside. The handshake took several minutes as it waited for a response, but I wasn't disappointed.

  A live video feed flickered onto the menu screen. An unfamiliar living room, but a familiar face. Squinting back at me from the other end was none other than Tad Lonnerman.

  1340 Game Dev Story

  "I feel this deserves an explanation," I started.

  Tad's eyes strained in disbelief. "No. Fucking. Way."

  In lieu of a more dignified response, I lazily hiked a shoulder. Tad Lonnerman. The real Tad Lonnerman. The Tad-Lonnerman-who-lived-in-the-Portland-apartment-with-his-brother-Derek Tad Lonnerman. There wasn't an abundance of things to say.

  After coming to grips with life, the universe, and everything, Tad Lonnerman asked, "Who are you?"

  I took a slow breath. "I'm Talon."

  "Yeah... but who are you?"

  "I'm you," I said with a smirk.

  "Uh-huh."

  Tad panned his head left and right. When I raised an inquisitive eyebrow, he instinctually did the same. Then he lifted his hand and waved slowly before the camera.

  "I'm not a reflection!" I snapped.

  "Psh, obviously. You're a damn good AI, though."

  "As good as you," I muttered. "Listen, Tad, I know this is hard to believe, but I'm you, uploaded to a digital reality built by your company."

  He blinked. "You mean Haven?"

  I blinked. "You know about it?"

  "Well, sure. After my accident, I've shifted duties a bit. We moved to Seattle."

  "Seattle?"

  "The Kablammy corporate offices."

  "What about Derek?"

  "I think he likes it here better. He— Wait, why am I telling you this? You're just an AI simulation."

  I gritted my teeth. "You're clearly not wrapping your head around the full predicament, Tad. My brain is your brain. Or a copy of it, anyway. I'm you and you're me, perfectly, except we branched off a while ago and now have autonomy from each other. We're like a single individual living in separate dimensions."

  Tad snickered. "All right, 'Talon.' Good job stealing my favorite username, by the way." He sipped from a Finding Nemo mug depicting a bunch of identical sea gulls crowing, "Mine! Mine! Mine!" The irony wasn't lost on me.

  "I am you, and I can prove it because I know everything about you. Right now you're drinking Death Wish Coffee fresh from that manual grinder Derek bought you for Christmas. Your favorite soda is Mountain Dew: Code Red; not just an excellent drink but the best damn spin-off soda in creation. You like playing non-traditional rogue kits, programming JRPGs in your spare time, and you have a spreadsheet detailing story details and your ratings of all the episodes of Babylon 5."

  Tad apprehensively swallowed his drink. "Anybody could find that stuff out."

  "No, I really have your memories, Tad." I rolled my eyes at what I had to do. "Remember that time Mom caught us masturbating to that Telemundo weather report?"

  Death Wish Coffee spat from his mouth. "That's not cool, man! That's embarrassing."

  "I know. I cringe just bringing it up."

  Tad hurried away from the desk propped on a single crutch. After wiping the mess with a paper towel, he melted back into his Aeron chair.

  "Uh..." I nodded at the crutch. "How're you holding up?"

  He shrugged. "Can't complain, considering. Immediately after the car accident, I was in an induced coma due to brain swelling. Hit or miss for a while there, I'm told. I woke up with a cracked skull and a shattered fibula. As long as I have sufficient pain meds, I can get around."

  "You know, you shouldn't take too many of those," I warned.

  "I know. I said sufficient. Jeez, you really are me."

  I smiled.

  He peered into the screen. "What about you? Any injuries?"

  "Me? Nah, I'm good. I mean, last week I accidentally severed my arm in an unfortunate encounter with a treasure-chest mimic. Hurt like a bitch, but a health potion fixed me right up."

  Tad Lonnerman shook his head in futility.

  "What about Derek?" I asked. "He figuring things out?"

  "Surprisingly well, actually. He got a job at a Capitol Hill bookstore. Met a few friends who seem mostly responsible. I was afraid the move would be too much for him, but he didn't complain. He was there for me when I really needed him."

  My eyes clouded. Something was probably wrong with Haven's humidity setting. I wished I could see Derek making his way through the world. "I always wanted to check on him, you know. After I was trapped in here. It didn't seem right to leave him alone."

  Tad nodded. "He mentioned the app request to me. I told him I had no idea what he was talking about. I think he thought I was under NDA and couldn't tell him. I didn't know anything about Haven at the time."

  "But you do now."

  "I do." He pondered that a moment. "The whole process was very rushed. I was in the hospital for two months. The last month and a half was resting, moving and starting my new job. I've only been here two weeks."

  I worked through the timeline in my head. What had been six weeks for me was three and a half months for him. That was due to the two-month delay between Tad being copied and me being activated. I entered Haven the day Tad Lonnerman was released from the hospital, a fact I now knew wasn't an accident. Lucifer had seen his chance to ally with a developer slipping away and made his move before I was deleted.

  "Now I get it," said Tad, working out his own side of the conspiracy. "Joining Christian's special project means licensing rights to my digital consciousness. They wanted me on board before I found out about you—I mean me—whatever."

  "A legal loophole," I concluded. "So they don't get in trouble for their mistake."

  "Yeah. It also explains the generous pay raise and insurance coverage. Not that I'm complaining. Uploading an AI version of myself is pretty neat."

  I huffed. "I'm not AI, Tad. I'm literally you. I'm a living entity, even if I'm ones and zeroes instead of flesh and blood."

  "Your black box. Christian always stresses how perfect the imprint is. Getting the brain copied is really easy. The imperfect part is interfacing with it. Your consciousness is a series of neural components, hash tables, and helper routines, with more reliable memory than the biological version, but questionable throughput and sensory stimulation."

  "Which just proves the nuts and bolts don't matter. Your brain is a mass of synapses and neurons. What's the difference between that and a circuit board?"

  He chuckled as he took my point.

  "Do you realize there are lots of people like me in here? Well, their human counterparts are dead now, but they're still alive in the sim."

  His brow furrowed. "What are you talking about? Haven's not going live for another week."

  "That fast?" I shook it off. "Never mind, that's not important. Haven's been in a closed beta for... what... nine months now? Hundreds of players have been uploaded. Haven isn't some spawning ground for revolutionary AI, although it has that in spades. Haven is the afterlife, online."

  Tad leaned back in his chair and blinked. "A chance to circumvent death..."

  "Sure, in a way. It's—"

  "No," he said. "That's something I've heard Christian say a couple times." His gaze went out of focus, as if he was trying to assemble a puzzle by memory.

  "Who is this Christian guy you keep mentioning?"

  Tad shook off his funk. "Christian Everett, the tech titan? You know who he is."

  "Yeah. Of course. The CEO of Kablammy Games."

  I had heard of him. A one-time VR pioneer who sold out and went into the mobile-casual space. Haven was his baby.

  "Dude is eccentric," said Tad. "Always seems like he's doing ten things at once, and half of them are secret. Get this. Haven's been teased to the public. Christian's announcing satellite launches to transfer the servers to orbit. Even if the Earth is nuked, Haven will go on. It's a big hit with the end-times folks."
>
  "Digital preppers? Now I've heard everything."

  I wondered what the CEO was really up to with those satellites. I wondered if Lucifer knew about them. Once again I realized how susceptible Haven was to outside forces.

  "So," started Tad, leaning in, "just to get this straight. You're in Haven, right now, adventuring with hundreds of other dead people?"

  I swallowed. "Well, I'm in my house at the moment, but pretty much."

  "And when the game goes live, your contracts continue. You start over with wiped profiles as new players get uploaded?"

  I winced. "Weeell... I may have put a kink in those plans. Haven's had trouble lately. The saints have slowly lost power to the players. Hasn't Christian told you any of this?"

  He shook his head. "I'm still super out of the loop. The community team has been running around like chickens with their heads cut off, though. Pete is scrambling to keep everyone on task."

  "Saint Peter?"

  "Yeah," he chuckled. "I guess that's what he goes by in there. You probably think he's an old man, right?"

  "He's not?"

  "No way. He's in his thirties. He loves cycling. Has really buff calves. Look, AI—black box bodies are an expression of the consciousness. That's why you look like me. Developer skins, on the other hand, are purely fictional."

  "That explains Varnu the Texan."

  "Who?"

  "Just a hilarious employee from tech support. This actually leads to my point. Saint Peter told me the community team member driving Saint Loras is on vacation."

  "Larry, I think," he said. "I never met him, but I'm pretty sure he's fired."

  "I have reason to suspect he was a mole for another company. Any idea who that might be?"

  Tad frowned. "Not at all. We don't work with outside developers. It does explain a lot if they caught Larry selling secrets, though. Christian's more worried than ever about security. But Kablammy shit-canned Larry and hushed up the conspiracy. Which must be where the leak came from. We've moved up the launch timetable. It's why things are so hectic around here."

  "Except the problem's not solved. Larry may not be around anymore, but he was working for someone, and that someone now has control of the Saint Loras avatar. He's up to trouble in Oakengard."

  "Oakengard?"

  I grunted in frustration. My real-life counterpart wasn't exactly clued in, but he was the best we had. Stationed in Christian Everett's tall tower in Seattle—he was our way in.

  "It's an NPC city," I explained. "They have the largest trained army in Haven, which translates to a significant amount of sway." I chewed my lip. "Saint Peter hasn't mentioned anything about this at all?"

  "No. Like I said, they're bringing me on board one piece at a time. I'm familiar with the EXSIL interface and the neural black boxes, but nothing specific to the beta. I don't know a whole lot, much less that I was already in the simulation."

  "That's bad," I said. "I thought we could trust the devs."

  "Eh, they're just covering their ass."

  "They were covering their ass when they tried to delete me."

  His eyes lit up. "They tried that? That sucks."

  "It more than sucks, Tad. This is my life now. My entire reality. Players are here for the rest of eternity. NPCs and mobs are self-aware. This isn't a game anymore."

  He blinked. "I guess not."

  "So will you help me, Tad?" I tensed in anticipation.

  The real me sighed and rapped fingers on the reclaimed-wood surface of his desk. "I mean, I guess you're me... and you deserve to live and all... What do you need?"

  "You're the best. We need to find out who's in control of Loras now. Even Saint Peter doesn't have access to him. At least that's what he told me."

  "Hmm, that seems strange. I've never been in the sim so I can't say for sure what controls they have."

  "There's no easy index to check from a console?"

  "When I get to the office tomorrow I can look. Tons of data is obfuscated to the outside, though. It's the cost of security. But Pete's not a programmer. He has no idea how to tease the data to tell him what he wants."

  "It might require some hacking," I said.

  "Huh, I've never thought of myself as a hacker before."

  I smiled. I'd had the same exact response upon first meeting Lucifer.

  "But I think you're right," he continued. "I just remembered. Pete mentioned losing access to AIs and black boxes. A rogue Loras would be difficult to track. I could go to Christian. He's a genius."

  "No. You can't let them know what we're doing."

  "But he probably knows all about Loras and the threat. He could just tell us."

  "He hasn't told you so far. Why start now?" I grumbled as I tried to suss out the CEO's motivations. "Look, Christian's the head honcho. He nearly bankrupted himself with satellites or whatever his latest publicity stunt is. Kablammy's on the verge of going out of business or being bought out. He's in financial straits. Whatever Christian's up to... we can't let capitalist interests dictate what happens to Haven."

  "Capitalist interests? You're talking about my boss, man."

  "I'm talking about your digital life. Or mine, anyway. But you might make it here one day too. I'd welcome you with open arms."

  He chewed his lip. "You probably wouldn't give up the username Talon, though, would you?"

  "Sorry, usernames are reserved on a first-dead-first-served basis. There's always Talon92."

  "As if I'd be that lame. So I'm in this alone, then."

  "We're in this together," I assured. "But you're the only one on the outside. That's why you're so important."

  Tad rapped his fingers and mulled over the dilemma.

  "There's another thing," I said. "I heard something about a secret developer menu. Since I have a Kablammy ID, I should have access."

  "Like the saints. Yes. I might need to enable privileges. That should be a piece of cake."

  "And then I have it?"

  "Well..." he hedged. "You might still need a token on your end. A key of some sort."

  "A bit key. With access to the Oculus."

  "What's an oculus?" he asked.

  "The Oculus," I corrected. "It's the connection Stronghold has to the core code."

  "The central hub," he finished. "Got it." Tad's face grew excited. "If you have hub access then finding Loras might be easier than you think. But not directly. Do you have any messages or saved interactions with him?"

  I thought about it. "His attempt on my life didn't exactly come with a valentine... unless you count one of the daggers he meant to kill me with."

  "That'll work. All items in Haven have a history log. It helps prevent duping by verifying traceable creation and exchange events. If Loras was in possession of this dagger and you access its history at the Oculus, it might tell you where he is, at least where he was when he had the dagger."

  My expression dimmed. "But I already know where he is. He's in Oakengard."

  "But you'll still be isolating his avatar instance. I'll check the central hub for your query. That'll give me a link to Loras, and maybe I can grab the IP of whoever's remoting into him."

  "See?" I said magnanimously. "Who needs a genius billionaire CEO?"

  Tad flashed a glum expression. "Not a billionaire anymore if everything you say is true." Poor guy was worried about his long-term employment prospects. "How soon should I look for your intrusion?"

  "Well, there's a big summit in the Arena at noon tomorrow between me and Papa Brugo."

  He frowned. "You realize I could lose my job for this stunt. Everything needs to be in place for it to work."

  "Right. I'll get it done in the morning, before the summit. In the meantime, we should keep Saint Peter from looking too closely at us."

  "That goes without saying." Tad laughed. "You know what? This is a trip. It's like a real adventure. My own quest."

  "Just wait till you wake up in an MMO."

  1350 Homefront

  The following morning I woke up amped.
Strangely, the tower common rooms were empty.

  While it was typical for Kyle to be strewn over the couch watching cartoons or playing the latest first-person shooter, he was just as likely to be sleeping in. Not seeing him around wasn't unusual.

  Izzy was a different story. She was an early riser, and without Kyle classing down the place, she would usually snuggle in the love seat with a good book. I'd also missed her last night, through a combination of falling asleep and her not messaging me. I figured our official relationship was new enough that she wasn't comfortable waking me.

  All alone in the place, I frowned. My thoughts took an inevitable turn and I opened my menu and contemplated my options.

  Ghost

  Become ethereal to players, NPCs, and mobs for 6 seconds.

  Pathfinder

  Visualize the optimal path through dungeons and hostile environments.

  Assassin

  Auto kill a susceptible opponent.

  Ghost was a strange one. Very OP but also very limited. It was probably the most versatile of the bunch and handy in a pinch. I also saw it as the pure escape skill. I didn't know that I wanted to make my name running away from fights.

  Pathfinder would be a universally loved option. A support skill—a scouting skill—to help my party and faction in dungeon raids. At the same time I dreaded the simplification it presented precisely because I was a scout. I didn't want dungeons to become a follow-the-dotted-line affair. As cheesy as it sounded, I was afraid using the skill would erase the joy of discovery.

  And last but certainly not least: Assassin. There was an undeniable cool factor with this one, though I was still unsure of the fit. I couldn't formulate a single coherent argument against choosing the ability, at least insofar as having a bad taste in my mouth wasn't a solid argument.

  I sighed. After a moment's deliberation, I shut the menu and opened the fridge.

  Peanut butter and jelly was on the menu and I wasn't a picky eater. I munched on it as I hit the stairs. It was good to see Bandit and Artax waiting on the ground floor. I gave them some ear nuzzles. When Bandit still wasn't satisfied, I gave her half my PB&J. The stallion was too dignified to resort to the meal, but the mountain bongo was my kind of girl.