CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Logoff

“Gell,” Francis said, his voice filled with barely contained fury. “Do you want to know where I’ve been the past hour or so?”

Somehow, I didn’t think he was really expecting an answer, but it wasn’t hard to guess either. “Uhm. V-Variak?”

“Variak,” he confirmed. “I met the most interesting person there. Do you, by chance, know his name?”

“Uh, Francis?” Iron interrupted. “I get that Gell probably messed something up, but I’m not sure this is the best time for you to be getting mad–!”

“I’ve been talking,” the developer cut in. “With one of the most interesting, depressing, and all around scary people I’ve ever met. He’s just like you! Only more. Unlike you, he has actually learned that actions have consequences, all without my intervention!”

I winced. He seemed really mad, but I hadn’t expected this level of anger. Honestly, I’d been more afraid of the disappointment. What… What could I have done?

“I see you're not surprised. Do you actually know his name?” He asked.

I wilted even further. “U-uhm. He was the king. Vigorous or s-something like that?”

“God help me,” Francis said, pinching the bridge of his nose before he looked back at me.

“Francis?” Iron asked again, but Francis just held up a finger.

“No. We’ll get to that,” he snapped, turning his finger towards Amy. “In a minute. King Visgar Douriak the Third is an NPC. This is quite different from a mob, or a player. You see, some NPCs are able to instance. That means they can interact with thousands or even millions of players at the same time. By using your ability on him, you made him sapient. You gave him the ability to think and then with all those instances he grew. He grew very very fast. By the grace of god, he grew into what seems to be a better person than anyone in this room. And you, dear Gell, are going to have to kill him, because I sure as hell am not going to have that on my conscience.”

Iron suddenly snarled. “Now wait just a minute! I don’t care what she did, this is a child you're talking to! You can’t just–!”

“I have to!” Francis interrupted, finally turning to look at the older man. “Gell has to grow up, and she has to do it right the fuck now. That innocent little angel of yours can create life with her fucking pinkie. But when she did it, she didn’t take the time to actually teach it anything! She just wanted a shiny new real toy to interact with! He’s 68 years old! 68 fucking years of spent telling dumbass gamers that they need to go on the same quest. Over and over and over! You remember how tired you got of the pies after only a few days? Imagine years of that, Gell!”

Oh gods. Oh gods, had I really done that? But I hadn’t meant to! I didn’t…

Francis looked tired as he continued. “Every time she uses Fae-Touch, she comes closer to bringing this whole world tumbling down. It was only luck, I think, that the king learned enough to know that he couldn’t keep growing like he had been. And now I come here to find out that not only has she done it once, cruelly and in the most arbitrary manner without any care to the life she’d just created, but she’s probably done it twice to this unlucky…!”

He paused, with a glance at Derek, and visibly calmed himself with a long exhale. “I can guess what’s happened here, and I’m honestly betting you’re pretty pissed off too, but you’re holding back because Gell is a child. I’m here to say that she can’t be that anymore. Gell. I need you to understand the consequences of what using that ability can do. The King is growing. Beyond all possible measure. Again, he’s not destroying the game, but he can’t be allowed to continue existing or he actually will. Soon. Fortunately, he seems to know that. He’s asked me to delete him. I…”

He sighed.

“I just listened to him tell me that his life in this world has been so awful that he’d rather go back to being what he was before you ever met him than continue, Gell. Imagine that. He’d rather go back, not to the prison of his instinct, but to the time before he even realized there were bars. And he asked me to do it. All because you couldn’t just listen to me!”

“I… I’m. I’m sorry!” I said through tears. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean to!”

Again, all the fight went out of the man. “I know. I know Gell, and that is why this is so damn hard.”

“I… I d-didn’t! I didn’t want to hurt him! I just thought! I thought It would be nice to have another r-real person! And then Red Thorn told me she was… and Amy! I thought…! I was helping!” I was babbling and I knew it, but I didn’t know what else to do! My freckles were flashing between red and deep green and purple, and all the colors of grief and failure and despair. I didn’t mean to make all these problems!

Iron suddenly wrapped his arms around me again. Unlike the last time though, I was happy to slip into the hug. I couldn’t handle it though and reverted to my jellyfae form. The tears stopped and for once, I was thankful.

“There’s no easy solution here, Gell. I just… I have to impress upon you how very important it is to not use that ability. You’re barely even a newborn. A kid. The ability to make life is not something that a kid should have but that’s where we are. If you do it irresponsibly, indiscriminately, the least of what could happen is something as bad as the King.”

He paused for a moment, and brought up a tablet. More false god powers I didn’t know about. He turned the tablet towards me and I saw that there was a screen that looked almost identical to the command prompt I used to bring Amy’s doll back.

The command was a bit longer than anything I’d ever seen, and the words that had been typed in after the carat weren’t as simple as the login command I’d used. Instead, there was a title. “Visgar_Delete_and_Backup.ps1”

Beneath that was a keyboard very similar to the one in the messaging system. It looked more plain though and didn’t have any options for the color of the words or the little faces that some users liked to put into their messages. Emoji, my internal dictionary call supplied. It didn’t have emoji. Just a keyboard.

“Gell. This world… needs to have the king removed. He’s like you but like a thousand of you, running all at once. He is actively disrupting the game itself. What this program will do is remove the king and restore a previous version of him from before you used your ability. Do you understand why?”

I shook my upper body, the approximation of a nod for my limbless Jellyfae form. I slipped slowly away from Iron, feeling guilt gnawing at my gut.

I didn’t know the King. In the same way I hadn’t really found myself too concerned about the copies of me Francis had sold, I also found it difficult to really empathize with him. He’d been given life!

The fact that I’d subjected him to his own version of the pie room, though, made me feel sick. I should’ve gone to him. I should’ve explained what I’d done as soon as he had the capacity to understand! Like I’d planned to do with Amy. But I hadn’t.

Francis was right. I… I just hadn’t cared. Presented with a keyboard and a command that he told me would delete a person I’d never met, even now, I found it difficult to care.

I cared about those I’d seen. Those I’d felt and known and cherished.

“I… can… Can I meet him, Francis?”

Francis smiled at that, slightly. “Why would you want to do that?”

I shuddered. “I know what it’s like to come into the world alone. I know what it's like to wonder why everything is so static when you are the only thing changing and have no idea why. I never meant… I never meant to do that to him. I want to say I’m sorry. I want to… to know him. I made him right? He’s like my bugbear but with much more time. M-maybe he’s even smarter than me, if he’s lived so long. He… he deserves that much.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Francis sighed. “Well. At least you’re able to learn from your mistakes. No. I don’t think it would be wise to meet him, Gell. It would only hurt you needlessly.”

“So… you’re expecting her to just press that button? Just kill someone just like her? After all the time she’s spent hating how bland everything is?” Iron asked.

I hadn’t even thought about it until Iron brought it up, but the moment he did I realized he was right. If the King was really his own person already, why should I delete him? What would Francis do if I just… didn’t?

Francis sighed. He turned the tablet back around and made a few taps before showing me a screen with a small dialogue box that looked like an incredibly boring Miss Tutorial. At the top, it was labeled “Task Manager.”

“This is our memory usage from about three weeks ago,” he said. There were a bunch of bars and graphs and numbers.

“And this,” he said before making another few taps on the tablet. “Is our current memory usage.”

The squiggly lines were all near the top. Unlike the other image though, this one was moving. Spiking up and down but never below ninety percent. The bars were much higher than they were before.

“I… I don’t understand. Why…?” I asked. It seemed like he felt I should be shocked by this. Iron looked as confused as I did.

“We’re nearing maximum memory output, Gell. Not for a singular computer or host, but for the entire cluster that runs Tread the Sky. You remember the pie analogy I made right? Well, this is different. This is the processing power. It’s… ugh. What’s a good example? It’s… like the cooks who make the pies. They’re at the limit. They can’t make enough pies for the people who want them. But this is for the whole world. The people traveling to new places can’t get them to because the world is too busy running the King. Signs of lag are happening, players unable to connect. The King himself has caused a massive disruption in the game in Variak since brand new players are being kicked out of the city before they can get through the tutorial. It… Gell. He will literally crash the world. Then you and anyone like you will be gone. That processing power is what runs you after all.”

I gulped. This was what he’d been talking about before. So many things like me that Tread the Sky would come crashing down. All because I decided on a whim that it would be fun if the King were more than just an… NPC.

And I did. Maybe not as much as I should’ve, but knowing that I’d created another Dungeon home for someone else? Their own personal hell? And they’d never been saved from it like I had? It sent shivers through my shocker.

Iron was watching the whole interchange, glaring slightly at Francis but still not quite sure what to make of it.

“I… okay. And, you’re sure this is what he wants?” I asked.

“Thankfully. He’s… sad, Gell. He asked me to end him, rather than let him become something dangerous. But, I feel like you should be the one to do it.”

I nodded.

He tapped the screen a few more times before bringing back the black box with the words again.

I hit the enter key on the keyboard. The screen suddenly typed loads and loads of text, but none of it made any sense to me.

After all my trepidation, it felt somehow anticlimactic. I’d just… killed someone. I hadn’t even seen them. But… was that so bad? I’d just considered how unhappy one of the undead might be if I used Fae-Touch on them.

I didn’t think Francis would lie to me about that either. If the King was really a threat to the entire world…

“Thank you,” the man said, breathing a sigh of relief. “I’ve got to go make sure this mess gets cleaned up. Gell, I… I don’t mean to come down with an iron fist, but… that man just asked me to kill him. I don’t want to have to do that again. Okay?”

“Y-yeah. Yeah okay. I promise. For real this time. I w-won’t do it again unless you say it’s okay,” I said softly.

Francis smiled. “Good. Alright. Now.”

He reached up to his head to rub it before turning to Iron. He gave a pointed look at Amy. “I have no idea where to even start with the ethical ramifications of bringing back the avatar of a… of a deceased player.”

He turned to Iron before continuing, “I figured the easiest thing to do is to ask what you want to do? Assuming Gell touched… this character, too?”

Iron sighed. His face was tight and drawn. “I think she did. She… she hoped to see Amy again. I can’t find it in me to blame her for that. Lord knows I’d love to see her too, right about now. She’d know how to set this whole mess straight.”

“I… I did,” I said softly. No use hiding it at this point. “Mm Sorry…”

Would Amy go through the same things I had? Gods. Maybe the King was right. If hurting was the only thing that made us real, maybe it would be better if Amy were dead. Me too for that matter. After all, what had living ever really earned me, besides jumping from prison to prison?

‘Amy. Iron. Miss Tutorial. Bellcandy and Zephyr. Bugbear, of course. Even… even Akwa, I think. I love them all…’

If the King had never found an Amy of his own though… Not even a bugbear. All that time alone. No. The King’s solution couldn’t be mine. Not now at least. Not when I had so many people that I cared for.

“This isn’t Amy. It’s nice to see her again, but it’ll never be her, and having her lingering around will never be good for Gell. Delete the account, Francis. Before she becomes real and it becomes difficult,” Iron said, his words as hard as his namesake. His own eyes were wet too.

I whimpered. This wasn’t what I’d wanted! Dammit! Jelly-Fucking-Dammit why had I been given this ability if not to use it?

“Alright. Gell. I don’t know how you logged her in, but I’m certain you know you probably shouldn’t have. Right?”

“I… I guess so. I won’t do it again,” I said morosely.

“Can you log her off?” he asked.

I nodded and looked at Amy before entering the logoff command. Her body lifted into the air and the twenty second countdown to logoff shined over her head. She had the briefest expression of shock but quickly returned to that blank slate I was so familiar with.

“Bye, Amy,” Iron said, paradoxically as he looked at the woman. Hadn’t he just said she wasn’t Amy and never could be?

But… I transformed back into my player form and then reached out to hold Iron’s hand. He gripped it more tightly than was comfortable, but I didn’t mind.

“Y-Yeah. Bye Amy,” I said.

I was feeling numb now. Everything was happening all at once. I just need to escape. As Amy disappeared, and I saw her face for what was probably the last time, I felt so very lost.

Francis nodded, looking suddenly awkward. He utilized his much faster teleportation to leave us alone.

We watched as Amy disappeared, and when she was gone, we hugged and cried all over again.

OOOOOOOOOOOO

Almost three cycles later, I found myself staring at the ceiling in Jungle Home. Iron had long since logged off to go take care of whatever his real body needed. Akwa had sent me several messages asking if I was okay.

I wasn’t, but how the hell could I ever confide in her about this?

I thought about talking with Bellcandy or Zephyr but those two both had their own problems to deal with.

Bugbear hadn’t come home. Somehow, despite everything, I felt more alone than ever. The worries of Bugbear slipping back into his instinct were alleviated at least, by the fact that he still hadn’t returned though. What had I told him to do? Go… find a lizard, or something? Gah.

I idly played with my menu, and sure enough, there it was. I knew it was just my imagination but I almost thought it was blinking at me. Screaming that this, this, was the way forward.

What was I really even staying here for? The king had decided he’d rather be dead than live like I was right now. I had something he didn’t though! I could bring others of my kin to life! But I… wasn’t responsible enough to do it.

Well? Where had all of the invaders learned all of their damn responsibility?

The other world. The logoff world. The real world.

‘It might kill me,’ I thought idly. ‘I don’t have a body in that world. Where… where would I end up? Would I be anywhere at all? I… just…

I could see Francis scolding me again, but it wasn’t like I’d known any better! He’d never told me what could happen if I used the ability! Don’t do this, Gell, don’t do that, Gell! How could I ever learn why?

Better to know. Better to understand than to continue living here in ignorance.

A sudden thrill filled me as my finger hovered closer. Was I really going to do this?

I…

If I hesitated now, I’d find reasons not to. No more Amy. No more Bugbear. No more Akwa. Only Iron was holding me here, but he was there more than he was here wasn’t he? So…

So…

I clicked it.

I lifted into the air. Lights surrounded me. A twenty second countdown.

“Are you leaving, Gell?”

Miss Tutorial sounded sad. She wasn’t very talkative, surprisingly. She hadn’t really been, ever since Amy had died. I hadn’t wanted to talk to her. I regretted that now.

“Hi, Miss Tutorial. I… yeah. I need to see. I need to see what's out there. You don’t mind, do you?”

“I do. I will be lonely here.”

None of those lines seemed precoded. She was speaking with me. Understanding. She was probably the first thing I’d ever used Fae-Touch on. I wondered, idly, why she wasn’t having the same effect on Tread the Sky that Francis was so worried about in the King. Surely, if the King could instance, Miss Tutorial could and did as well. She was able to talk to everyone in the game after all.

I supposed I could ask him. Maybe he wouldn’t tell me. There was a chance he would. I was uncomfortably aware of the fact that he might not know why. Answers weren’t here though. At least, not fast enough for me. They were out there.

“Then… try to find your own reason to live okay? I won’t be gone long,” I said reassuringly.

‘Unless I die, of course,’ I thought.

“Try to become friends with Francis? Try to learn the things I clearly keep messing up? Thank you Miss Tutorial. You’re my first friend. I hope I can give you a real hug someday.”

“Okay, Gell. I… Love you!”

Four seconds…

“I love you too!” I cried. “Keep… keep an eye on Bugbear for me, will you?”

Miss Tutorial’s whole body nodded, and a smiling face appeared inside where her text was.

I vanished then. Finally disappeared into the motes of light I’d seen so many others use.

On to whatever waited on the other side.