“Well, what do you think? A lot nicer than your room at our old place, right?” The smile on his dad’s face was hopeful.

Ali surveyed the room, trying to take it all in and give it a chance. It was smaller than his old room, which he supposed made sense. There were more people in Bastion, so space was probably harder to come by. In the corner of his room, the movers had set up his bed, a twin, and put some light blue sheets on it. At either side of the bed were two doors. One was open, revealing his own bathroom. The other was closed, but Ali presumed it was a closet. Against the other walls were Ali’s small dresser full of clothes, his rickety old bookshelf stuffed with books, and a new metal-framed desk with his computer set up on it, which was built into the wall.

The room was fine, Ali supposed, though he wondered what had happened to his old desk. He preferred the larger room he used to have, but he wanted to live up to his promise to himself and be positive about the move, so even though he would have preferred more space, he said, “Yeah, it’s nice.”

His father’s smile broadened. “I’m really glad you like it. This place is going to grow on you, I’m sure of it!” Ali’s father put his arm around him again before continuing, “We’re going to make a new life here. A good life. I even had the movers hook your computer up to aNet for you already. In fact, there’s a little surprise installed on there, as well. You should check it out later.”

A surprise? Now that piqued Ali’s interest. He wondered what it might be, but told himself he’d wait until he was all settled in first. His father backed away to let Ali look around the room, but continued to stand awkwardly in the doorway. Ali gave him his best smile, to reassure him he was happy in the new place. Even though he was fairly sure it came off more like a grimace, it seemed to appease his father, who simply said, “Anyway, I’ll leave you to it. Don’t stay up too late. We have breakfast with Tori in the morning.”

His father stepped out of the room and the door slid silently shut behind him. Those automated doors were going to take some getting used to.

Ali walked over to his dresser and pulled out the drawers one-by-one to find his clothing neatly arranged by category. The top drawer had his socks and underwear; the middle drawer, his shirts; and the bottom one had his pants. Just like home. His old home, Ali reminded himself. This was his home now. He stepped over and opened the closed door to find that it was indeed a closet. It was a walk-in closet, much larger than the one he had before.

“Oh, and one more thing!” Ali’s father said from the once again open doorway, startling him. Those automatic sliding doors really were quiet. “I just messaged you the link to your high school admissions paperwork. You’re getting old enough to do stuff like that yourself, right?” Without even giving him time to answer, his father took a step backward, allowing the door to slide shut in front of him, leaving Ali was alone again.

He checked through the clothes hanging in the closet, making sure everything was there, before heading into the bathroom. It was nothing fancy. A sink, a toilet, and a shower — no tub. The movers had hung a hand towel near the sink and a larger one by the shower. His toothbrush sat by the sink in the turtle-shaped holder he had made when he was little. Even with all of his things in place, Ali still didn’t feel at ease. Maybe a shower would make him feel more at home.

Ali peeled off his clothes and tried out his new shower. The water got hot immediately, another improvement from the old place. After the shower, he brushed his teeth before retrieving his pajamas from the closet and putting them on. He picked the red flannel ones his mother had given him the Mawlid before she had died. She hadn’t been Muslim, but his father was — a sore spot for both sides of Ali’s extended family. Ali’s mother had always done her best to respect the traditions of her husband’s culture, although she had been raised by atheists. She had only ever referred to herself as agnostic, though, unlike Ali’s grandparents.

Obviously, with underpopulation being the problem it was, neither set of grandparents outwardly said anything about his parent’s relationship — or his father’s new relationship with Tori, for that matter — but Ali had heard his parents arguing multiple times about the difficulties of their interracial and intercultural relationship. His father had once accused his mother’s parents of being racist, saying, “They will always hate that you married a black man.” His father hadn’t actually said “black man,” but Ali had looked up the history behind the word he had used, and didn’t want to even think it in his mind. Conversely, his mother had once explained, rather loudly, to Ali’s father that his family had made it known that they were not happy with him marrying a non-Muslim.

Since his mother’s death, he had only seen his mother’s side of the family twice, and one of those times was at the funeral. Even before that, though, his father’s side of the family had treated Ali differently. At a party when Ali was nine, his cousin had called him a mulatto, rather loudly, and in front of his parents. Ali’s father wouldn’t stand for it, and he took Ali and his mother home immediately. That was the last family party Ali had attended.

At least distance would provide a convenient, if inaccurate, excuse for why Ali had no genuine relationship with his extended family. He wondered if getting away from both sides of the family had anything to do with his father’s reasoning behind moving to Bastion.

Sighing, Ali slid into his desk chair. That admission application wasn’t going to do itself. He powered up the computer, noting as he always did the crack going from the center of the right side of his screen to the top. Much of what those who had survived the mammock had was salvaged from the old world, and Ali’s computer was no exception. His father often said that aNet, the company he worked for, was planning for something bigger and better than even pre-mammock civilization had, but when Ali pressed him, his father never gave him more than a few vague hints.

Ali opened up aNet Messenger and found the link his father had sent. The questions on the application were fairly straightforward. Where are you from? What is your age? What schools have you attended in the past? And so on. Ali toyed with the idea of making himself sound cooler by stretching the truth with some of his answers, but none of them would have been that cool, anyway. The end of the form required a signature from Ali’s parent or guardian. He opened the drawers of his desk, trying to locate where the movers had put his stylus. Finding it, he quickly slid it across the screen in an approximation of his father’s signature. He had gotten pretty good at forging it when his mother died and his dad had thrown himself into his work.

“And send,” Ali said, tapping the button with his stylus. Now, with all the important stuff out of the way, he could check out the surprise his dad had mentioned. Minimizing his browser and messenger applications, he searched his desktop for any new icons. Despite how clean he liked his physical space, Ali’s digital workspace was a mess. Icons of games he had played but never uninstalled, links to websites and forums he frequented, and homework documents littered his desktop. Finally, he found what must have been the new icon, a stylized letter A inside a letter O on a black background. Beneath the icon, the text read, simply, “aOnline.”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

The aOnline icon [https://imgur.com/LX8amg8.png]

Ali remembered the name, but he couldn’t quite remember from what. As he opened the largest drawer in his new desk and fished around for his VR headset and controller, he wracked his brain trying to remember where he’d heard of aOnline before. Then it dawned on him, as he hooked up his gaming gear to the computer, the files he had seen on his father’s computer had listed “aOnline Handle” for each user on the list.

Was aOnline the project his father had been working such long hours to complete? It had to be.

Double clicking the icon, Ali slid his headset on and found himself in a familiar empty black space. This was the VR loading screen. After a moment, a sword, rendered in 3D, began rotating in front of him. Beneath the sword, words appeared, spoken aloud in a familiar feminine voice, “Welcome to Apocalypse Online Beta.”

Ali knew that voice. He didn’t even have to think about who it belonged to. He knew it in the deepest parts of his being. It was the voice of his mother. He had no idea how or why, but the voice of his mother had just greeted him in a video game.

He sat for a moment in shock before a different voice came through his headset. “Unexpected moisture buildup in VR headset. Please remove and clean before continuing.”

Ali took off the headset, wiping his tears from his face before grabbing the hand towel from the bathroom to dry the inside of the VR goggles.

How had his father replicated his mother’s voice so perfectly? Had she recorded it before she died? Ali knew that his mother often helped his father with his work, but he had never expected to hear her again.

Taking a deep breath, Ali slid the headset back over his eyes. He found that the character creation screen had loaded in his absence. A blank slate of a being, positioned in the shape of an X, like a famous sketch by Leonardo da Vinci that Ali had once seen in a school textbook, hung in the air in front of Ali. Behind the blank character was a tree. Upon each leaf of the tree, Ali could make out tiny roads and rivers, towns and cities.

The World Tree [https://imgur.com/WO9Klxv.png]

“The story of Apocalypse Online takes place in a word represented as an enormous tree,” the voice of Ali’s mother began. The VR headset must have told the game’s AI that his eyes were looking at the background. It continued to fill Ali in on the information it assumed he was wondering about. “Each leaf of the World Tree is a small world of its own. Only those born with a special gift can achieve travel between worlds. We call these special few sojourners. You will be playing the game as one such traveller.”

The background of the tree blurred and the character in the foreground seemed to become more pronounced. A nose, a mouth. Then it froze and Ali’s mother spoke again, “Would you like to create a character using your own unconscious representation of yourself?”

Ali was taken aback. Was that even possible? Was the game implying that it could actually read his mind? He knew that the VR headset could map out what areas he was looking at and guess what he was thinking, as it had demonstrated earlier with its explanation of the World Tree, but knowing the inner workings of his mind? It seemed impossible.

“Yes,” Ali said. The character hanging in the air before him changed shape, and Ali thought he could make out some of his own facial features. Then, suddenly, it reverted to its blank state again.

“Neural net not found. Loading from unconscious representation: not possible. Retry?”

Well, that was disappointing, but kind of expected. Ali knew it was too good to be true. Just then, a familiar alert sound came through his headset. Ali subvocalized “Messenger” and the aNet UI appeared, showing him a new message from his father:

“Hey, I forgot to tell you about part of your surprise. You’ll need to look under your bed. Also, don’t forget to take your meds before you get too engrossed in the game.”

Ali took the headset off. He assumed that the hardware he was lacking was what was under his bed, but he also doubted he would have the self-discipline to keep himself from hooking it up and immediately trying it out if he did that first. So, he took care of his meds first, just in case. Then, he got down on his hands and knees to look under his bed. He found a box, which claimed to contain one haptic suit. Ali opened the box and pulled out a bag containing what appeared to be a flexible wetsuit. He slid it out of the bag and pulled off his pajamas before stepping into the haptic suit. Before he could look for a zipper to close it, the suit shifted and closed the gap on its own, constricting around him and becoming skin-tight.

“It’s like a full-body wedgie,” Ali mumbled to himself. It was more than a little uncomfortable. And claustrophobic, in a way. Oh well. Ali would get used to it if he enjoyed aOnline. Catching his reflection in the mirror over his dresser, Ali put his pajamas back on over the suit, just in case his father came in. Then he walked back over to his computer and slid the VR headset back on.

Ali still faced the nearly blank avatar. The text below the blank character read, “Haptic-neural net not found. Loading from unconscious representation: not possible. Retry?”

“Retry,” Ali said. As the character before him took shape, Ali wondered to himself how the “neural net” part of this worked. Perhaps the haptic suit had some sort of in-built MRI? He would have to ask his dad later.

After about a minute, the character took form and, looking over its smooth curves, Ali’s heart raced. As color flowed over the character, giving the avatar the same sepia tone as Ali, his fears became reality. A girl stood in front of him, no longer hanging motionless in the shape of an X. She looked back at him with a realism that Ali had never seen in a video game, even from the best pre-mammock tech.

Ali's avatar [https://imgur.com/PVCgRhP.png]

The short-haired girl was wearing unassuming clothing in a pseudo-medieval style: a black tunic, tanned leather riding pants held up by an intricate system of laces, and matching riding boots. Her piercing brown eyes matched Ali’s own.

Was this really what he looked like inside? As soon as the question had formed in his mind, Ali knew the answer was yes. This was why he’d created a female persona for his aNet profile. This was who he was, and it was being reflected back at him like a mirror. It felt like Ali was being seen for the first time. It was exhilarating.

At the same time, though, it was clear that Ali’s father had information about what went on inside aOnline. And it was equally clear to Ali what his father thought about gender non-conforming behavior. A couple of years ago, Ali had expressed some romantic interest in one of his classmates. A boy named Nathan.

Upon finding out, both of his parents had chastised him. His father, because he believed, like many religious people, that such a thing went against Allah’s plan. His mother used underpopulation to explain the importance of him being with a woman, presumably as a man. Ali had always told himself that his secret female aNet persona directly resulted from this experience. If he could not fall in love with a boy as a boy, then he would simply be a girl.

This avatar before him, however, made Ali second guess everything about himself... Herself? Was Ali really a girl? It felt right, in a way. It was a deep down feeling of right-ness.

But then the avatar fell slowly away, circling her way toward one of the many tiny leaves in the distance. Fear took hold of Ali.

“No!” he said. But the avatar kept falling. He couldn’t allow the game to choose this avatar for him. His father would surely find out and then... What? Ali wasn’t sure, but it wouldn’t be good.

“Cancel! Cancel!” but the world around Ali faded away...