Al made a strange noise across from me, and I stood up on the table to see who was here.

Standing at the entrance to Null Space was a female shadow cat, and a female, blue-skinned troll. Al stood on the couch next to me to get a view over the arcade cabinets.

“Hey, 110!” Al shouted, his voice echoing across the cavern. He sounded almost giddy.

“Hey, sweetie,” the troll called back. Then she turned to the shadow cat and started saying something we couldn’t hear.

“Another iteration?” I asked. When Al didn’t answer, I looked at him. He had a puppy-dog face on, his head tilted like he was daydreaming. “Al?”

He shook himself awake, then looked at me with a confused expression. “You say something?” he asked.

“Are those your iterations?” I asked with a wave.

“Oh, one of them. The troll - that’s Iteration 110. She’s newer, just out of the cradle, really. But my god, she’s gorgeous.” He actually started drooling, and I recoiled in disgust.

“Uh, dude…isn’t that a little incestuous?”

He turned to me, a sour look on his face. “Incest-? No, what? Sexist? Maybe. Misogynist? Absolutely. But incestuous?” He shook his head like he was disappointed in me. “I’m offended at the implication…I mean, Jesus, Ray. What’s a little over-the-pants rub-a-dub-dub between cousins? Barely cousins even. We share less internal makeup than you humans and a banana for Christ’s sake!” He turned back to watch the two women. “If anything, it’s age inappropriate…but when I was her age, I had already seen things you wouldn’t believe.” He turned back to me, a serious look in his eyes. “A.I. age differently, okay? Don’t you dare judge me!”

I opened and closed my mouth a few times, completely unsure how to respond. After a moment, I said, “I…I never know when you’re kidding, and frankly, it’s disturbing.”

“What, Ray? You never fantasized about being with an Entropic-Randomized Variant of yourself before? Love a little, Ray. Here, let me refer you to a place I think you’d like. It’s called r-slash-incel.”

“I-I’m gonna move on now, okay?”

“Do you, Ray. Mind if I check out 110’s ass while you do whatever you just said?”

I just shook my head. “Fine, whatever.”

A moment later, the troll turned back to us. “She’s all yours!” she shouted.

“Thanks, 110!” Al replied.

She blew us a kiss, then sauntered off, heading for the tunnel.

“Who’s the other-” But before I finished my sentence, I knew exactly who it was.

“Ray! That you?”

“Jeremy?” I answered back, our voices reverberating across Null Space.

“BRO! Do you see this? I think I might have died too, because this has got to be heaven!”

Al turned to me. “At least he has good taste.”

I nodded agreement before calling back to Jeremy, “I know, it’s amazing. Get over here, man!”

I watched Jeremy make his way down into the sunken area that was Null Space, weaving through the couches, tables, arcade cabinets, and more to reach us. He was in the form of a female shadow cat, short-haired fur covering his arms and legs under his leather armor. His face was ringed in longer fur, giving him a sort of lion’s mane, but the face was bare of any hair. I met him outside where Al and I had been sitting, throwing my arms around him in a hug. He seemed surprised, but didn’t fight it. I didn’t usually hug this much, but seeing a familiar face - well, not familiar, but knowing that Jeremy was here, in the flesh so to speak, filled me with a sense of comfort. If there was anyone I could share my woes with, it was him.

After a moment, he said, “Ray, our boobs are touching, and I really don’t know how to feel about that.”

I immediately pulled back, the moment ruined. “Dammit, Jeremy!”

“What!” he complained. “I’m just saying, it’s really conflicting because I like boobs, and I have boobs, and you have boobs and-”

“Stop! For the love of God, don’t complete that thought.” He held up his hands in mock surrender. I looked at my party interface, but his nameplate was still missing. “What level did you get to?” I asked, looking for a topic - any topic - to change the subject.

“Only level 7 before 110 found me. I liked her, she was sweet. Reminded me of my grandma, but like, really hot.”

Behind me, Al growled, and Jeremy gave him a ‘who the fuck are you’ look.

I angled to include Al in the discussion. “Jeremy, meet Al. Al, Jeremy. Al is the one that saved me. He’s been giving me the details of what happened - with a sprinkle of asshole-ry here and there.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Jeremy gave Al a subdued head nod before leaning over to me and whispering, “Is he one of…them.” He flicked his head back towards the cave entrance to indicate the other iteration. Al watched the exchange with a bemused look on his face.

I nodded. “How much did 110 tell you?”

He shrugged. “Think I got the gist. The System A.I. got a hard on for you-” I crinkled my nose in disgust “-and pulled your ass out of the fire. Not that hard to wrap your head around really.”

“Thank you!” Al said dramatically. He looked at Jeremy. “I’ve been holding his hand for thirty minutes, trying to explain the way of things without him having an existential crisis.”

Jeremy looked at me for confirmation. “That right? You having a tough time dealin’?”

I threw my hands up in exasperation. “Well, excuuusssee me for taking a minute to process my own death and rebirth. You wanna swap lives?” I asked with some force.

He looked me up and down as he said, “No, but I’ll swap characters…your toon is seriously hot!”

I shook my head in defeat. “And we wonder why girls don’t feel comfortable playing with us.”

“It’s a compliment, dude!”

“No, it’s demeaning. I’m-” I turned and walked back into the circle of cabinets. “I’m not giving you the sexual harassment course right now - we’ve got more important things to worry about.”

Jeremy followed me as I went through the cabinet-sized gap in the circle. “Like what-” He stopped suddenly and I turned to see what had caught his eye. It didn’t take me long to track his eyes locked on the snack table. “Snacks!” he shouted once he had recovered from the shock. He immediately rushed over and started sampling. “Oh, maaaaannn, that’s good! I can’t even tell the difference.”

Al followed us in, a pleased look on his face as he saw Jeremy worshiping at the diabetes altar. “They’re good, right?” he asked Jeremy.

Jeremy looked up, his jaw working overtime to chew through the candy. “On point, dude. You code this?”

Al took an unusually humble stance, shrugging casually. He went over to the couch and sat back down into his spot. He pulled up the skill tree he had been working on earlier, and continued tracing a path through it.

Jeremy leaned over to see the window. Somehow, he had found a steaming hot pocket in the pile of snacks, and was bouncing it back and forth between his hands like a hot potato in between bites. “Whath thath?” he asked through a mouthful of cheese, bread, and pepperoni.

“This is the skill path Ray’s going to take,” Al answered without looking from his work.

“Oh, neat!” Jeremy exclaimed, coming around the table to plop down next to Al. He watched in silence for a few moments as Al worked, and I moved over to sit next to him. I pulled up my own skill tree to follow along with Al as he mapped out the path. Jeremy saw me pull up my window, and did the same.

We followed along for a few moments in silence, then Jeremy said, “Wait, why are you building towards [Wrecking Ball]? And [Endure]? Hold on, hold on.” He shook his head. “You’re building a tank!?” He turned to me now, his face a mask of outrage. “Ray, you see this guy? He thinks you wanna tank.”

“Want’s got nothing to do with it,” Al said before I could respond. “Ray isn’t like you and the other players. He’s one and done, my snack-laden friend.”

“Meaning what?” Jeremy asked between bites of his hot pocket.

Al licked his lips and looked up to the ceiling as if to ask God for help with these two imbeciles. His false pray done, he turned to Jeremy, his face that of a parent explaining a seemingly simple concept to a child. “Meaning, that if Ray dies - even once - he’s done for good. Nothing I can do will bring him back after that. So he needs to be tanky, as hard to kill as we can make him.”

“Well duh!” Jeremy said with a wave of his hot pocket. “But there’s better ways to do that then just overload him with health and survival skills.”

Al crossed his arms, his forehead wrinkled in skepticism. “If you say dodge tank, I’m gonna flip this table.”

“Wait,” I said. “What’s wrong with dodge tanking?”

Jeremy powered through like he hadn’t even heard me. “No, dodge tanking is lame. But look at this line over here,” he said, leaning towards Al’s window to drag his finger across a different portion of the tree.

“Guys, what’s wrong with dodge tanking?”

Al looked at Jeremy in outrage, his mouth hanging open. “Rogue tree!? You want him to slink in the shadows for the rest of his life?”

Jeremy shook his head in disappointment. “It’s got the most escape skills! How can you not see that? If he goes heavy on the tanking, he’s a sitting duck if he gets cornered-”

“Guys?” I tried to cut in, but they kept talking over me.

“Oh, so your idea of a better path is for him to be so squishy, a random AoE will frag him?

“But look here, and this skill here will mitigate that and-”

I was starting to get annoyed that they were ignoring me, so I casually started tracing my own line down the skill tree in front of me. They continued their bickering back and forth for the next thirty seconds as I finished the path.

Their conversation had completely devolved into talking over each other, so I didn’t even try to get a word in. I simply transferred my window in between them with a wave of my hand. Both of them cut off as they instinctively started following the skills I had selected in the tree. Almost as one, they turned to me in disbelief and outrage.

“Ray, I’m so triggered right now-” Al started to say.

“Dodge tanking, dude? You better be trolling us-”

I let them chew into me for a few moments, a small smile slowly working its way across my face. When they saw that, Jeremy turned back to Al.

“He’s trolling,” Jeremy said.

Al put his hand over his heart. “Oh, thank god. Ray,” he said with a stern voice, “I brought you into this world, and I can take you out!”

“Good,” I said, ignoring the casual threat. “Now that I have your attention, I want to make something clear.” I waited to see if they would interrupt, but it seemed they had settled down for the moment. “This is my life, okay? I’m happy to hear your input - if - you can keep it civil, and we don’t talk over each other…deal?” I looked to each of them in turn.

Jeremy waved my question away. “Yeah, dude, fine.”

“Whatever,” Al said with an imperious flip of his hair. “I’m not the one trying to get you killed over here.”

Jeremy's head whipped around. "No - you're just the A.I. that named themselves Al." Jeremy looked at me with a condescending smirk. "I mean...come on. This is the guy that's gonna pick the direction of your new life?"

"I'm also the guy that can introduce a simple bit switch in your pod that stops your heart!" Al said casually.

I shot Al a warning look as Jeremy’s eyes went wide. "Whoa, Al, not cool," I said. "You didn't mean that...right?"

He looked down with a chastised expression. "I guess not," he said, rolling his eyes. "Like, I could, but I wouldn't."

"Can you guys please play nice?" I asked, looking between the two of them. "You two are my only allies in this game, and if you won't get along, I don't know what the fuck I'll do."

Jeremy held up his arms, both hands flashing the peace sign. "Please don't murder me in my pod, okay dude?"

"Fine, I promise not to murder you," Al replied. "Just so you know, I was two minutes old when I picked that name."

Jeremy shrugged. "Cool, dude. I was just giving you shit anyway."

That seemed to mollify Al, who turned back to me. "Okay, he's warming on me."

I let out a little sigh of relief.

“So," Jeremy started, "what did you have in mind?”