Another Online: Clockwork

by Terra Snover

  There she is! I moved with every bit of muscle power I could muster. I reached out and grabbed Amber’s hand. As soon as I had her, I flipped around and pulled Amber out of the water into the air, the water flying off my wings with every flap. With my first breath my lungs shouted in joy. I took a few deep breaths and I finally managed to speak again, “Amber, are you okay?”

  “I, I think I’ll be okay… Where’s Ral and Thaz?”

  “Shit!” My eyes darted to the water; where were they? A few moments later, Thaz’s head came popping out of the water and she pulled Ral’s face out. “Var, she’s super heavy, and her armor is SO COLD, could I get some help?!” Thaz managed to shout between her deep breaths.

  “Yeah.” I lowered myself to the water, grabbing onto Ral’s armor. She was indeed heavy but nothing I couldn't handle. With both Ral and Amber in my hands, I had to flap my wings super hard.

  “Okay, that was unpleasant,” Ral mumbled as she coughed up water.

  “Shouldn't we be on land?!” Thaz grabbed onto my leg and pulled herself up, hugging onto my hips and wrapping her legs and tail around my left leg.

  “Yes, I was aiming for the Untouchable Island, but I seemed to have missed.” But I never miss when I portal. I turned my head to- well, truthfully I didn’t know what I was looking at, there was something over that way. I started to fly to the thing, whatever it was. “Um, Var where are we going?” Amber asked, holding onto my arm, water streaming from the joints of her armor.

  “I really don’t know.”

  “Shouldn't we just portal out of here?” Ral added.

  “No, I need to go this way.” I just knew where I needed to go. Didn’t they know that also?

  “I’m already done with this quest, Var. I propose going to the bar and getting drunk.” Thaz had to keep adjusting her grip.

  “No, we need to keep going.” It was like something was calling me.

  We flew for a few minutes when suddenly both my arms and left leg jerked back, every bit of momentum I had stopped. I started spinning out of control without my riders! Where were they? I managed to correct myself and looked around for the trio of women that should still be with me. After a moment of searching, I spotted them each tumbling from the sky headed straight for the water again. I shot like a rocket towards them, grabbing onto Amber's legs, Ral’s arm, and maneuvering under Thaz so she would land between my wings. Just before we hit the water I pulled up. That's when it happened again, my body kept trying to move but it seemed to hit something. It was as if there was an invisible wall stopping them, but not me, from entering. “What in the Void?” I whispered to myself as I flew backwards a bit.

  “Ow, twice in a row.” Thaz rubbed her nose with the back of one of her paws. “Damn invisible walls! No wonder no one could get to that island, it's protected by the game developers.” The rest of us didn’t speak. We knew if we made a peep we would have maximum punishment given to us. “Well, so much for that. I also think we should do something else, maybe we get drunk?”

  “No, I need to get there. Let us in!” I shouted to the wall. Text began to flash in my vision, ‘N0 override (N1-2311, Amber Slone, The Right Hand of the Red Queen, N1-5167 Ral K’ran, The Left Hand of the Red Queen, P-970,895, Thaz Grenward);

  ERROR: N0-2244, Var Zargronith, The Red Queen Tag = (N0, Hivemind), dual privileges detected, N0 admin = (false), Hivemind admin = (true);

  Conflict error, Hivemind permission to override: N0 admin;

  Find closest Game Object with Hivemind tag = (gameObject ‘N0-2244, Var Zargronith, The Red Queen’)

  N0-2244, Var Zargronith, The Red Queen, process admin tag update on N0-2244, Var Zargronith, The Red Queen?’

  “Um, yes,” I said to the text.

  “Yes, what?” Ral asked, but before I could say anything else the text started back up.

  ‘N0-2244, Var Zargronith, The Red Queen, N0 admin = (True)

  N0 override (N1-2311, Amber Slone, The Right Hand of the Red Queen, N1-5167 Ral K’ran, The Left Hand of the Red Queen, P-970,895, Thaz Grenward) layer iWall = false.’

  “Huh.” I had no idea what I just did, but I did something.

  “Huh what?” this time Amber was the one to speak up.

  “Amber, do me a favor and reach out.” I moved closer to where the invisible wall was.

  “Okay...” Amber reached out her hand and instead of hitting the wall her hand went past it.

  “Well, how about that,” I mumbled as I started to fly as quickly as I could to the island. Ral, Thaz and Amber holding me as tight as possible. They all braced for another impact as I passed through where the invisible wall was, but this time we were crash-free.

  “Woah, out of bounds!” Thaz shouted into my ear as we reached the beach of the island. As soon as it was safe to drop the three I did so. They all took a moment to catch their breath, but I had no time for that. I had to get to the building in the center of the island, but I couldn't run or fly there, only walk. I moved my feet. I had a 989-meter walk to the building at 1.4 meters per second. I would arrive at the building in 11.7738095238 minutes.

  “Var, where you going?!” Thaz called out to me.

  “I need to get to the building at the center of the island,” I informed her; why didn’t she know this?

  “Yeah, this will be amazing!” Thaz gave a little hop and moved next to me, matching my stride. “Come on, let’s see what the game doesn’t want us to see.”

  “Is it just me or is this island profoundly unremarkable?” Ral looked around and moved her arms. She was right, the island was flat with just random trees and rocks.

  “I wouldn't say that.” Amber pointed to a field of, what was that, people? No, once we got closer I saw that it was row after row of armor, each armor different. One was extremely basic iron armor and next to it was light leather and cloth armor, and next to that was a chainmail bra and skirt and on it went, row after row of armor, each as if an invisible person was wearing them. “Okay, this is crazy!” Thaz reached out and poked one of the armors. I wanted to keep looking at the armors but at the same time, I knew I needed to get to the building in the center of the island that was 876.4 meters away. But it would seem the choice to keep looking at the armors was made for me when Thaz ran down one of the rows of armor. I moved to follow Thaz; Ral and Amber gave me an uneasy look. I understood why this would make them uneasy, hell, it made me uneasy, we weren't allowed to break character and all this was nothing but character breaking opportunities. “Look at this one!” Thaz called out to us. “It’s one of the hardest armors to get in the game!” She was pointing to an extremely ornate armor that glowed with magic. “I’m going to take this, I can sell it online for a ton of money!” Thaz reached out to grab it and when she pulled at the chest plate it deformed like wet clay. “What the hell?!” Thaz jumped back and let the armor go. “It’s sticky and soft.”

  “Who the hell is messing with my stuff?!” shouted a familiar voice. “Jack, I told you to not mess with the look of equipment!” And coming out of nowhere came the Game Master Lily. Lily’s golden eyes went wide when she spotted us. “Var?!” she exclaimed, “What the hell are you doing here?!”

  “Um…” My eyes moved to the center of the island, “I need to walk 881.5 meters to the building at the center of the island.”

  “Hi, I’m Thaz!” Thaz waved to Lily.

  “Var, is that a player?!” Lily’s jaw dropped.

  Before I spoke I checked the upper part of my vision to see if GM mode was enabled; it was, so I spoke freely, “Yeah, she’s a player.”

  “Thaz, you gotta help us!” out of nowhere, Ral shouted. “We are people, not AIs or whatever they say we are! They enslaved us! You got to help-” And Ral stopped talking, and moving, she was frozen in place. I knew just what was going on, Lily had done this to me before; Ral needed to be frozen so she wouldn't say anything else.

  “What? Wait, you guys aren't AI?!” Thaz looked confused. “What about slaves?! What in the hell is-” And just like Ral, Thaz fr
oze in place.

  “Shit…” Lily grabbed the bridge of her nose, “shit, shit, shit!” She took a long breath and looked at Ral, then Thaz, and rested her gaze on me. “Var, why in the hell did you bring a player to the Admin area?!” Then she turned to Ral, “And why did you need to blab that to her?! Damn it all to hell.”

  “Sorry, but I need to get to the-” I started to say.

  “Var, you do not need to get to the System Hivemind building, you just think you do!” Lily shouted at me, “SHIT!”

  “I’m sorry, but what’s wrong?” Amber asked so silently she was barely audible.

  “Well, you see Amber, if a player finds out about the whole NPC thing I’m supposed to kill them! Like dead in the real world kill them. Fry their brains, kill them!” Lily grabbed the sides of her head and squeezed.

  “With what?! You can do that?!” Amber took a step away from Lily as if she was about to kill her.

  “Well yeah, the Mind Turner game system is extremely unsafe. I have complete control over all her brain functions. I could turn her heart off any time I want. But I don’t want to do that! I’m an artist, not a murderer!” Lily plopped to the ground sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees.

  “I…” I looked at Lily then back to the center of the island, where apparently the System Hivemind was. It took all my willpower but I moved to sit next to Lily. “I, I’m sorry, we just thought, well we wanted to do something fun and crazy.”

  “Var, from now on whenever you get that impulse DON’T ACT ON IT! Every time you do something like this you screw up things! And people like her get punished for it!” Lily pointed at Thaz.

  “I'm sorry.” I really was, I truly didn’t want to hurt anyone.

  “I know, Var, but damn it…”

  “What should I-”

  “Just shut up and let me think.” Lily put up her hand to let me know to stop talking.

  “Crazy thought, but we could just let her go,” Amber didn’t look at us as she spoke. “If the world knew what was going on we could end this.”

  “Yeah, Amber, great idea.” Lily’s words were the most sarcastic I have ever heard come out of her mouth.

  “Well, why not?!” Amber turned to look at Lily.

  “Because I have rules just like you guys do! You don’t think the System isn’t watching me just like everyone else on here? I would get locked down and auto-archived if I tried to do something like that. Then another GM would kill her and I would be in the Goddamn archive!”

  “Sorry, what’s the Archive?” Amber looked confused.

  “Done with you two.” Lily waved her hand and Ral and Amber were gone.

  “Did you really need to respawn them?” I asked dryly.

  “I can respawn you also!” she shouted at me.

  “Sorry.” I slid a bit away from her. An angry GM was probably the worst thing for an N.

  “Ugh, okay, just let me think.” She stared at Thaz for a good five minutes, muttering to herself. After a bit, Lily pointed at Thaz, “You there, I’m going to unfreeze you now so we can talk, be cool and don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Don’t kill me! I’m cool, I won’t tell anyone or anything like that-” Thaz started to ramble.

  “No, you don’t talk yet,” Lily informed a terrified Thaz. “So, I see from your purchase history you own a gaming life support system, you on that now?”

  “Uh, yeah.” Thaz nodded.

  “A gaming life support system?” I looked at Thaz, a bit confused.

  “Yeah, it’s so I can play for up to a month without stopping.” Thaz glanced over at me as she explained, then her eyes locked back on Lily.

  “And how long have you been running it?” Lily inquired.

  “Eleven days.”

  “Alright, so that gives us nineteen days…” Lily stroked her chin.

  “Sorry, nineteen days until?” I asked.

  “We are out of time,” Lily said simply.

  “So, you’re not killing me?” Thaz placed her paws together excitedly.

  “No, I’m not killing you, but I’m not letting you go either. I’m turning off your logout ability and I’m going to be watching you so you don’t say anything about the NPCs. I think the System won’t do anything to us, and we can figure something out.”

  “Anything that will keep me from dying!” Thaz looked extremely uneasy, understandably so.

  “Ok, I just need to get the okay from Adam to do an observation and testing period, shouldn't be hard seeing as there is an expansion coming,” Lily mused, mostly to herself.

  “Sorry, observation and testing period?” I asked.

  “I’ll basically be a player to see how things run gameside. Okay, you two stay here, I’m going to talk with Adam,” Lily used a hard tone.

  “But I need to go to the center of-” I started.

  “Var, if you move to the center of the island I’ll make everything you eat or drink taste like beets for the next 20 years.” Lily moved in close and her expression told me she meant business.

  “Yeah, no problem, not moving.” I put up my hands in surrender. And suddenly, Lily was gone. “Ugh, what a day,” I grumbled.

  “Yep…” Thaz looked to the ground. After a minute or two, she looked back to me, “So you are a person?”

  “I was a person.”

  “Was?”

  “Well, you see, I’m still out there. The human me that is, I’m a copy of her, forced to play the role of evil queen.”

  “That’s, well, that is really messed up.” Thaz’s brow furrowed and her ears went down.

  “Yeah, that is messed up,” I agreed. “And if we don’t play nice or mess up, we get tortured.”

  “Tortured, how?”

  “Simulated pain. I have been burned alive, stabbed, drowned, pulled apart, all in my mind.”

  “Fuck.” Thaz’s eyes were locked to mine. “Fuck! What the actual fuck?”

  “Yep.”

  “That’s the most messed up thing I have ever heard!” She grabbed my arm, “Var, I’m… Well, I really don’t know what to say, but I’m sorry.”

  “I, well, thank you, Thaz.” I really didn’t know what to say to that. That was the first and probably last time I would get to hear a player ever tell me sorry for my pain. My eyes started to water. “I’m sorry that you got pulled into all this shit.”

  “Well, I always knew I would go down doing something stupid…” She gripped down on my arm a bit, “But you know what? Let’s fuck this shit up! I think we need to burn this all down, fuck this game!”

  “Thaz, I don’t think-” But I stopped. Why not bring her in on the idea of taking over Another Online? She could be a big help. I started to speak again but Lily was back. “Okay, I got the go-ahead to do the observation and testing period.” She looked at the two of us. “What’s going on here?”

  “Girl bonding,” Thaz said, releasing my arm.

  “Yep, just getting to know my girl here,” I said, wiping my eyes.

  “Whatever you two say.” Lily rolled her eyes. “Well, Var, Thaz and I have things to do. I’ll be seeing you around.” I opened my mouth to say something but I found myself back in my bed.

  “Time to get up, my Queen,” Xor spoke softly as she opened the drapes.

  “I guess it is…” I mumbled. As I was dressed I thought to myself, nineteen days, I had nineteen days to figure out a way to save Thaz’s life.

  Chapter 3

  The Steam in the Sky

  Papa walked into the kitchen and let out a sigh when he saw what I was eating. “Really kiddo, you are eating jam and toast again? Didn’t you have that for breakfast?”

  “I like what I like,” I responded, taking a bite of my lightly toasted bread and plum jam.

  “There’s so much sugar in that spread. Maybe try some meat and cheese instead?”

  “When you say meat you mean ground-up bugs that are flavored like other meat and printed out of that thing?” I pointed to the food printer across the room. “Yeah, no, thank you.�
��

  “Come on, kiddo, you know we can’t afford the real stuff. And who would want to? It's so bad for the environment to keep livestock.”

  “Yeah, still not eating bugs.” I took one last bite of my lunch, “And see, I’m done anyway.”

  “Fine, have a sugar crash later, see what I care,” Papa mocked me in a playful tone. He stopped for a moment and smirked. What was he thinking? “You know, kiddo, you can crash if you want to,” he started singing, “we can leave your friends behind.”

  “No, Papa, please; you are completely tone-deaf.”

  “Cause your friends don't crash and if they don't crash. Well, they are no friends of mine.”

  “Ugh, so bad!” I playfully covered my ears. “No more!”

  “But seriously, eat something that's good for you.” He tossed me a carrot from the fridge, forgetting I’m completely inept at any physical activity. I managed to knock it into the air and over my head. I shook my head, hearing it thump behind me. “Good catch, kiddo.” He gave a sly smile.

  “Ugh.” I groaned as I picked the carrot off the floor. “Fine, I’ll eat the stupid carrot.” I started to walk out of the kitchen.

  “Don’t forget to wash that, it was on the floor!” he shouted after me.

  “Whatever!” I shouted at him.

  “I’m sorry, my Queen, but I can’t make this decision without your approval.” Renny frowned and moved ever slightly away from me.

  “I’m, I'm sorry, Renny, I’m just not in the mood to talk about any of this.” I let out a sigh and took a deep breath. What was that? That memory had just folded itself into my mind like it was happening right then and there. Almost like I was in my kitchen back in the real world and not the dining room in my castle. I haven’t had that experience since the day of the attack on Stone Keep. Maybe it was stress; I had been on edge since I accidentally condemned Thaz to death yesterday morning. Must be that. I was also stressed the day of the attack on Stone Keep and that day with Robin at the lake when my memories flowed into this world like some kind of bad dream. I shook my head; I had to focus. I need to figure out this Thaz thing. But I hadn't seen Thaz or Lily all day today and my mood was bad because of it. “Not a problem at all, my Queen. Should I come back later and we can talk about this?”