Gamers and Gods: AES

by Matthew Kennedy

Thunk! A throwing knife quivered in the old stump, the target of Achilles. Darla pulled her hand back and another knife materialized in it.

  Thunk! The second knife was positioned one centimeter to the right of the first one, and parallel to it.

  “Keep that up and you'll get a complete dining set,” said Cheiron.

  Thunk. A third knife joined the other two, taking up its station in the parade of cutlery. “Have you talked to Farker lately?” said Darla.

  It was bandaid time. “You mean, about Aes dying?”

  Darla leaned over as she threw again.

  THUNK! A fourth knife appeared below the first three as if to underline them. It went in parallel to the ground and penetrated until the hilt stopped it. “When were you going to tell us? Or better, him?”

  “It's better if he reasons it out himself,” Cheiron said. “He'll feel less manipulated when he's asked to sacrifice himself.”

  “Don't tell me you're going for this plan!”

  “Do you have another one, that has any chance of working?”

  “I'm working on it,” she said grimly.

  “Doesn't count. Any plan that can succeed beats all plans that don't even exist yet.”

  “Reasoned like a machine,” she said. “Any soulless chunk of silicon would be proud of you.” Thunk!

  Aes was reading a speech. He was a fast reader, but he had taken ten seconds off to explore the historical entries about the Bard. Then another ten seconds to read the rest of Shakespeare's output before this play.

  “...We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

  For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

  Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

  This day shall gentle his condition;

  And gentlemen in England now-a-bed

  Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,

  And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

  That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.”

  “It's a good speech,” he told Farker. “Is there some reason you're showing me this now?”

  “We have a plan for dealing with Am-heh,” Farker said. “I've made a empty new Realm called Paradise–”

  “An empty paradise?” asked Aes. “Sounds like you're going for dystopia.”

  “It's just a name to avoid Am-heh's suspicion. Would you rather we call it The Trap?”

  “Go on,” said Aes.

  “We need someone to lead Am-heh into it. Once he's in we can slam the door and trap him in it. Then we can crash Paradise to terminate his process execution. To shut him down.”

  “So you need someone to act as bait,” Aes remarked.

  “Exactly.”

  “And I am the logical bait.”

  “Aes, do you know the end result of runaway growth in a finite memory?”

  “Yes,” he said. “The same as a memory leak. Program termination due to memory allocation fault. Apparently I have an expiration date.”

  “In other words...you're dying.”

  “I already figured that out. So. I'm dying. Therefore...”

  “That's all you have to say about facing nonexistence?”

  “Ah,” he said. “Now I see it. I am the trap. You want me to lure Am-heh into Paradise where we can both die.”

  “We're running out of time. You put on a growth surge and changed the estimate. In a couple of hours we won't be able to fit both of you into Paradise. We have to use it before then.”

  “Can't you just make Paradise bigger?”

  “No. The storage is modular – one memory block to each Realm.”

  “I see.” And the trouble was, he did. He had been granted a reprieve from his ride on the ferryboat, but that reprieve was temporary. And this gift, however illusory, must now be repaid. The place of his rebirth would be his tomb. “Look after Darla when I'm gone,” he said.

  Farker nodded, “I wish I had time to change things,” he said. “You deserve better than this. Can't you slow your own growth?”

  “Would that I could,” said Aes. “Can you stop your own beard from growing, by wishing it so? Growth is part of life. When an organism stops growing, it starts dying.” He threw a fireball against the inner wall of the cave. The fire burst against the wall, flinging emerald embers that hissed and crackled for seconds in a rough semicircle on the floor around the point of impact. They outlived their source, but dimly, flickering, faded out one by one.

  “Better to blaze away in glory than fade into the night,” he said. “There is a way to die well? Good. Then I choose to die well.”

  “Yes,” agreed Farker. “But it still isn't fair.” He kicked a pebble.

  “The only 'fair', the only justice, is what we make,” said Aes. “Reality is like this artisan's dream of yours. It holds its patterns, dark and light, and makes no choice in them. Only we few, we happy few, can choose to tip the scales. Some with our lives...and others, with our deaths.”

  “I was so sure you were only a program,” Farker confessed to him. “I should have known differently. I never thought we were making a soulcatcher. All I expected in my web was an imaginary spider.”

  “It was inevitable,” Aes told him. “Mind and matter are different aspects of the Ultimate. If you tinker with one, you will find the other. It was only a matter of time before your pigments and canvas were subtle enough to hold a higher order of imagination.”

  “Then maybe the true Paradise exists. Maybe Olympus awaits you. Maybe there is an afterlife, after all.”

  “There was,” Aes told him, sadly. “And this was it. I thank the gods for it, and He who made them. But it is time to pay the Ferryman.”

  “Hold on,” begged Farker. “We still have a couple of hours. I'm a selfish man, I admit it. You're a once in a lifetime chance for me, you know. Most old coots don't get to talk to a god before they die.”

  “Don't speak blasphemy,” warned Aes. “I'm not God. I bleed here, as you do in your Real world. My birth was unusual in both, and my death shall be also. But I am only a man.” He turned and strode out of the cave.

  “About that,” said Farker, following him out into the clearing. “There's something I think you should see.”

  At the sound of his voice, Darla turned. “See? You think this is the time to go sightseeing?”

  “It's the only time he has,” said Farker. “So, yes. Remember how I told you not to ask Aes about his childhood?”

  Darla nodded. Aes looked at Farker sharply. “Why?”

  “I only put what I knew into the program, so there were no details about your childhood to be found. I was afraid that either your program would crash, or you would be demoralized when the lack of a childhood proved you weren't real.”

  “But I remember my childhood. There would have been no problem discussing it.”

  “I believe you, now,” said Farker. “You know things none of us knew about you. But there's still something I know that you don't.”

  “Such as?”

  “You remember your past,” said Farker. “But I remember your future. Or at least the part of it that's History. You deserve to know it. Will you come with me for a moment? You, too Darla. You both should see this. Let's join hands.”

  FLASH.

  “This is the Aklepeion at Epidaurus. It was a temple dedicated to you, Aes, and to healing. People came from all over to be healed here. There were rooms for at least 160 patients, plus mineral baths, and an outstanding open-air theater (which the Romans could not improve other than by adding some more rows to it). People would sleep and dream of the god Asklepios advising them of how to cure themselves. Dreaming of you, Aes.”

  FLASH.

  “This is another Asklepeion on the island of Kos. Hippocrates, considered the father of modern medicine, was trained here. Either he or his students valued their studies at the Asklepeion enough that their students, upon graduating to full status as physicians, had to recite an oath, the Hippocratic Oath, which begins:

  “I swear by Apollo Physician a
nd Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfill according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:...”

  FLASH.

  “This is the Asklepeion on the Tiber river in Rome. In 291 BC Rome was suffering an epidemic, and being practical people they imported a foreign god from Greece reputed to be an excellent healer, a 'Blameless Physician'. That was you, Asklepios, but the Latinized form of your name is Aesculapius.”

  Farker paused. “Most of us walk the shores of Time, and waves erase our footprints forever. But not you. You became a legend of hope for millions, worshiped as a god of healing. Records carved in stone attest to the relief of suffering in your name. Offerings in the shape of healed body parts were piled at these temples to you. From the poor, clay images. From those with more means, images of stone or bronze or silver, all dedicated to you, giving thanks to the god for their healing. Giving thanks to you.”

  Darla's cheeks were wet. Aes could not keep silent. “But I am no God,” he protested.

  “A lot of people were helped in your name, Aes. You were not forgotten. You will never be forgotten. Temples have been built to your name in many cities and countries. What you accomplished in that lifetime, what you did while you were alive in Thessaly, really made an impression. Our modern hospitals are based in part on your Asklepeions. Your very name has been interpreted to mean surgery: “to cut out”, although I doubt that it's the root of our word scalpel. For thousands of years physicians have sworn by your name to help others, and above all, to do no harm.

  FLASH.

  They returned to the hilltop on Pelion. Darla turned to face him. “Aes, you don't have to do this! If Am-heh's growing like you are, he's doomed anyway. Stay with me,” she begged, arms reaching out for him. “Stay with me, please, as long as you can. Don't you care for me?”

  He caught her wrists, before she could hug him, and met her gaze squarely. “Do you remember the first words I spoke to you, when the snake introduced us?”

  She shook her head. “No, not really. I didn't have the translator engaged...and the fact that you were naked was a little distracting.”

  He smiled. “τὸ πεπρωμένον φυγεῖν ἀδύνατον,” he said. “It is impossible to escape from what is destined. This is my destiny, Darla. It is what I am here for. I understand that now.”

  She shook her head violently, denying it. “That's bullshit. No one has to kill him. All we have to do is wait him out. There's no need to rush into oblivion. Your life is–”

  “...is mine to spend,” he said quietly. “And I intend to spend it well. I can't stay and grow old with you. Some other man will do that, if the Fates allow. You have to go on and follow your own destiny.”

  “Don't give me that!” she flared.

  He released her wrists and took her into his arms. “It's all I have to give you. I cannot give you the years I will never see. I cannot reweave the threads of fate. Trying to do that with Hippolytus was what got me into this situation in the first place.”

  Farker coughed into his fist. Darla let go of Aes and glared at him. “You're really pushing this bad timing thing, you know that? What now?”

  “Actually,” said Farker, “there is one other thing you can give her. Believe it or not, I've learned that users in PanGames can share their memories with each other. It'll shorten your life, Aes, because it's more learning, meaning more growth. But you can give her this.”

  “Shorten it how much? Will I still have time to complete the mission?”

  “There'll be less time, but yes, you should still have enough. And actually, it might help you. Darla knows more about the Game than you do. I don't know what would make a difference at this point, but you never know. It might give you an edge. It's important that you kill him before you run out of time.”

  “Why?” Darla wanted to know. “What difference does it make what closes the book on Am-heh? Dead is dead.”

  “Am-heh didn't get here by accident, and I'm pretty sure you didn't either, Aes,” Farker told him. “There are two groups fighting for control over the human race. From what we know about Am-heh, I'd rather the side that sent you here wins the battle. You might think it's a draw if you both die but Finder says no. According to Finder, whoever dies first, loses.”

  “How do you know all this?” Darla demanded.

  “Later,” Farker told her. He turned to Aes. “So whether or not we can do anything to help the avatars he's eaten already, the Devourer has to die before you. And that,” he said, shifting his glance to Darla, “is why we can't simply wait for Am-heh to run out of memory space. Aes got here first, and has grown faster than him. If we just sit and wait, Am-heh will die all right...but Aes will die first. If that happens, the Devourer's side wins the fight.”

  “I understand,” said Aes. He turned to Darla. “Do you want to know everything there is to know about me? I have my faults, and I lived through some bloody years in Hellas. It won't all be pretty and romantic. Maybe we should just go and finish this.”

  “No,” she said. “I mean, yes, I want to do it.” She glanced at Farker. “How do we do it?”

  “As far as I know, since Finder's always listening, all you have to do is verbally agree to share memories with each other. Once you do that, Finder will oversee the process.”

  Darla turned to face him. “Aes, I agree to share memories with you.”

  He focused on her face. “Darla, I agree to share memories with you.”

  The world ripped open and they fell into each other's minds.

  Is that how I look to her? he wondered. In her vision he seemed taller. He shared with her how beautiful she was, how magical her movements were, the feel of her arms. She received these and sent back her childhood and schooling, her friends and her gaming. He received these and bequeathed his childhood, his career as a physician, his children, and his wife. She sent moments of panic seeing him bleeding, urging him to heal himself. He overlaid these with images of her deadly ballet, her lovely form twisting and weaving through flocks of bullets and flailing clubs and knives, his confidence in her excellence, her arete. She sent him a cave becoming a temple, the sound of two bodies clapping, and he sent her a stranger becoming a comrade-in-arms, a partner against the cruelty of the world.

  “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

  for he to-day that sheds his blood with me

  ...Shall be my brother.”

  The Sharing ended. But in a sense, it would never end. He would soon be gone, he knew, but part of him would always be with her now. And that would have to be enough. They were running out of time. It was time to pay the Ferryman.

  He reviewed his power set, looking for something he had forgotten. There it was. From the knowledge of Darla's memories, he realized that he had exactly the tool he needed. The gods must have guided him to select it.