Once, when talking to my therapist, I asked why everything seemed to start and end with death. His answer had been simple. We remember what hurts. The closer the person, the deeper the wound was, only sometimes they were so deep that every little breath triggered the pain.

Monday started with me laying back in the Alternate Reality Capsule, or ARC. Sleeps respite had not been achieved due to my thoughts being entirely too serious. One hand was raised in the air to assist in absent minded study of skin patterns. Hair swept off to one side like a painter's brush stroke. Toes wiggled freely and suddenly both arms shot up in lazy stretch.

“I wonder what he thought at the end.” No one was in my house to answer the question. “Did he feel happy?” My sense of WWCD, what would Carver do, didn’t extend to mind reading. I think, I hoped, that I had done right by the old man.

Though now was a bit too late to worry. Move forward, don’t look back too long.

An alarm in my ARC started frantically beeping. Slowly I sat up.

“Ehhh.” The habit I picked up while pretending to be William Carver seemed to be ingrained into my real life actions. That or the physical abuse imposed by my EXR-Sevens had caught up. They were a complicated set of bands that went around various parts of my body to assist in simulated exercise.  Muscles felt wounded and clenched in pain with each breath. I muddled through, went to the washroom, put on clothes with a vacant air, and finally slid into the front of my Trillium repair van.

“Good morning, Mister Legate. Was your vacation enjoyable?” Hal Pal sat in the back of the van. Its face was the same impassive expression it always was but its tone seemed smug.

“Pick a job, Jeeves.”

“Affirmative. Possible destinations being identified. Sorting by user preference order. Job identified. Estimated time of arrival thirty minutes.”

“Okay.” I read the details briefly on the van's digital projection. “Coffee first.”

“Affirmative. Rerouting in progress.”

So it went.

Minutes later we were on a thoroughfare and off to the first of today’s many missions. I sipped at coffee while wondering what the results of my hectic adventure would be. The Voices in Continue Online had to be somewhat pleased with the performance. I was. Was William Carver's original player?

That part worried me. I had come to the conclusion that William Carver, the player, had been watching everything from a remote location. Probably through something like the Second Player helm I used with Beth. I made a mental note to ask James about the man if my return to Continue Online didn’t somehow reveal a great mystery.

Work was much the same even after weeks of vacation. People still acted like addicts to the machine. They complained about the prices and how long a repair job took. I did my standard customer service actions and almost felt honest to god sympathy. That feeling hadn’t really passed through my brain in months.

I took naps when the travel time was going to be too long. Otherwise my car ride was spent researching how other people were handling life between reality and the ARC. My coworkers work history was public viewing so I started there.

“Hal Pal, can you double check these figures for me?”

“Your search history contains excessive unexplained data points.  Accurate speculation is unlikely.” Hal Pal responded. I frowned. Maybe there were too many windows displayed for the AI. It may be an incredibly complex piece of software but that didn’t make the machine a mind reader.

The ARC on the other hand…

I shook my head and explained the whole purpose behind my mess of screens.

“I’m trying to calculate how lazy I can be at work.” To Trillium's customer base there were a million ways to explain things. To an AI it was easier to be direct.

“Based on current performance levels you would require  seventeen basic repairs each week.  This will support your current minimal expenditures.”

I chewed on the inside of one cheek in speculation. Harder jobs paid more. Bulk jobs or specialty orders provided bonuses when performance met a high enough rating. There were entire programs that Trillium provided its field repair in order to calculate it all.

Henry Uldum, my boss, might have something to say about this. Maybe bumping out some of the other field techs for the good jobs would be possible. In the past year I never squabbled over work. Normally I took anything that was in the queue and moved on. Now there was something less self-abusive to take up my spare time.

No. This was too much thought for the entire thing. I was thinking about the game like playing was a forgone conclusion. First I would see what James had to say about the virtual invasion of my dancing program. This ‘leftover’ bit of my deceased fiancée needed a real explanation. Then, only then, would continuing to play Continue come into play. Just thinking that tongue twister made my head hurt. Soon I was laughing in the van. My actions prompted Hal Pal into another line of question and answer time as we made our way to the next job.

“Right, business as usual.” I nodded, satisfied in my decision. Bills had to be paid.  My niece had college and the cost of retirement kept increasing. Forty was too close for comfort.

Hours later I returned home pleased that I fought off the urge to play video games all day long. There was something about being able to resist temptation that validated my current path. Video games, in their own way, were more severe than drinking had been.

Hal Pal gave its standard parting and went about cleaning up the van. Once inside the normal night routine went into motion. First I switched from the work jumpsuit into a short sleeved shirt and boxers. Second I brushed all thirty two teeth. Third I laid down into the ARC and logged in.

My Atrium was an unholy mess. Counting to ten did not help reduce the unreasonable amount of anger that flooded through me. Someone, correction, something had been tearing up the home like a puppy being abandoned. The damage was amazing for something half the size of a cat.

“Get out here!”

Nothing.

“Don’t tell me you’re not listening!” I shouted into the doorway that was left open to Continue Online.

There was still no worthwhile response.

I kicked my way across the room. My friend the [Messenger's Pet] was one hundred percent behind this nonsense. Books that represented my ARC’s programs lay all over the floor and showed marks on the edges from chewing. Glasses were broken and wrappers strewn about. There was a comfortable recliner that had been reduced to ribbons on the back. That wasn’t even one of my purchases.

“ARC!”

“Awaiting Input.”  The machine responded.

“Reset Atrium, basic. No programs!”

“Please confirm your order.”

“Reset my Atrium! Basic!” Lippy computer. It was no longer on the list of polish worthy devices.  This ARC would get recycled as soon as the take over occurred.

The world around me shimmered as items vanished from digital existence. Resetting things was aggravating. This destructive nonsense would force me to create a default template for easy cleanup.  

“He’s not even in here.” I muttered. A basic Atrium layout was essentially empty white space. All that remained was the dark doorway that went to Continue Online.

Fine. I, Grant Legate, may be emotionally wobbly, stuck in the past, and guilty of idolizing a dead woman, but I wasn’t dense. Especially not in light of Continue forcing its presence upon my Atrium. My arms were crossed while I muttered curses under my breath. Both feet gave into the urge for exaggerated stomps. Mentally childish was added to the list of self-assessed faults.

The game world popped me right into the room of trials, or the space between as James called it. There was the familiar darkness lit up by a broken pillar and my Ultimate Edition book.

“Hello.” My head tilted back and scanned around the black room.

Nothing.

“Seriously?” I sighed and felt like everything was back to square one. Fine, if that’s how the Voices wanted to play it.  An attempt to throw the book failed. The darn thing was too heavy to even lift up. A sense of amusement swept through the darkness. Of course they were out there, watching me.

“ARC!”

“Awaiting input.”  The machine answered in the same absent minded tone.

“Log…”

“There’s no need to be so hasty, Grant Legate.” James faded into existence a few feet away. Both the black man’s hands were folded over his pot belly. I had successfully bluffed the machine.

“Really, James?” I waved around. “Back to the book? Aren’t we past that?”

“I’ll treat that as one question, and no, we will never really move on. After all, it’s your story we’re talking about.”

I blinked and twisted my face up in confusion. That made no sense. Maybe it was vaguely neat perhaps? If the machine wanted to pretend all this was symbolism for a grandiose purpose, who was I to argue?

“My turn for a question, Grant Legate.”

Today had been too long and full of too many special people for me to have any patience at the name calling. Plus part of me was really anxious to get right to my answers. One hand waved towards James for him to keep going.

“Why did you find opening the book so aggravating?”

“Because all of you seem to just pop in any time you want to, why…” I cut off my own question. “It seems pointless to bother with it.”

“Ah. Very well, your turn.”  He said.

“I’d rather just have my answers, James, I did what you asked with Carver.” Every single WWCD instinct available to me had been put into play. My four weeks in his shoes had hopefully put a good ending on the whole thing.

“That you did.”

“My man Wild Willy loved it.” Leeroy faded in with one overly muscled arm resting on James' shoulder. The black man looked annoyed and waved the other Voice away.

“That’s good to hear.” Part of me did feel revitalized by Leeroy’s feedback. Once I learned that William Carver had been alive the whole situation took on a personal tone. There was a palpable difference between a computer and a person. At least in terms of how I viewed the situation. I shook the other thoughts out of my head. That line of thinking would go in endless circles. If Washington couldn’t figure out an AI’s legal status, how could I?

“Is he okay?” I asked.

James tucked back a cheek while giving a frown.

“That is a question I can’t answer personally.”

“Okay.” The word drew out slowly while thoughts whirled through. “What do we do then?”

“Open the book, Grant Legate.” James stepped back while still frowning from a distracting thought. I had to remind myself that he was just a computer program putting on an act.

“Why?”

“You ask far too many questions. Remember our deal.” James went from distracted annoyance to directly focused displeasure. All of it aimed at me.

“You could ask questions you know.”

“I could, but I’m beginning to worry that you’re too much of an open book.”  Aggravation touched the edge of his mouth and eyes.

“Just tired of hiding things.” I sighed. My personality wasn't always stable. Part of that was due to trauma from my fiancee's passing.  Attempting to kill myself twice hadn’t helped. Plus being forced to bare those wounds repetitively had dulled the normal offense someone might feel.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

“I do have one question actually.” James mused.  His disapproval had transformed into a sly smile.

“Fire away. I owe you a few.” Part of me felt tired and drained. Today had been a long day.

“What was her name?”

“Who?” Wariness flooded me.

“Your fiancée, the woman who died and left you in such a state.” That was actually a very good question. So good that I paused and debating how to answer. Her name wasn’t something I thought of, just like her passing.

“That doesn’t seem like such a good question, James.” As if the cosmos were mocking my bravado at being an open book, James poked the wound in a spot that had never really healed.

“The fact that you’re even protesting means it is a very good question.” Fine. James had a point. When was the last time I had even thought her name?

“Xin.” I said softly.

“Xin? That is not native to your tongue.” James had one eyebrow up and a hand half lifted in question.

“Her parents were from China.”

“Interesting.”

“Which part?” That made my head tilt in confusion.

“I hadn’t expected her to be of another race. My information shows that people in your world and ours avoid mixed relationships. You yourself stated much the same when we first met.”

“Yeah.” Continue Online hadn’t exposed me to any racism at this point. Haven Valley was fairly quiet even though it straddled the border between two major political arenas.  Maybe people just left Carver out of it.

“It’s less so in our world, though it got bad again after the last few wars.” Racial hatred had grown especially terrible for the Chinese. They had been blamed for a great deal of economic issues as trade between countries went through upheavals.

“Did this bother you?”

“God no. She was…” Was, that word came out of my mouth and tore at me. Three years and it was still impossible to just let go. “She was, uhh, a great person.”

“Xin Legate?” James questioned. I couldn’t even make eye contact with the man but his tone felt softer.

“She hadn’t decided on if she would keep her name or, uhh, take mine.” Cultural practices differed. Xin, my fiancée, had been…

Talking to James was actually too much right now. I had to get away from this entire line of thinking. All so my happy place wouldn’t be completely destroyed. Her smile flashed through my brain for just a moment. Everything drowned out in a swell of mental music which enticed a weak smile to my face. A waltz. She would love a dance.

I tried not to let past wounds creep up as one hand cracked the book's cover. Light shone from out of the pages. Bright colors from all over the rainbows spectrum filled the room. ‘Congratulations!’ stood out from the page in popup fashion.

“What?” That shook the growing melancholy. I embraced confusion as it replaced negative emotions.

“You did great man!” Leeroy was back and clapping giant meaty fists together. I didn’t even get a warning as my body was sent sideways by something red skinned.

“Ahhh!” Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no.

My legs were pinned, both arms covering my face and an extremely pleasurable sensation rushed through far too much of my body. Her fingers had started tearing the poor virtual shirt to shreds.  Soft hair dripped across increasingly exposed skin. The Temptress was very much on top of me, unclothed, and growling in what was perhaps the most arousing manner to ever come into my life.

“No!” I protested with what mental capacity was left. Most of it was very distracted.

“Yes!” She sat up and started rocking. My responses were perfectly natural, even here in a digital landscape.

“No?” My tone had shifted as my face flushed and pants grew tight.

“Yes!” She started tearing at my shirt again.

No one was coming to my rescue.  James and Leeroy were both gone leaving behind the broken pillar and book. A colorful ‘Congratulations’ taunted me.  I tried with increasing weakness to fight off the red skinned woman.

“No. Please. No. I hardly know you.” The Temptress was above me stretching in a way that had my mind going all sorts of wrong, or right. Depending on how I felt about biological programming. Right now even saying the word biological would be impossible.

“You’ll know me as well as any man if you just say yes.” She had moved on without me. Teeth were tugging at the waistband of my avatar's clothes. I wasn’t sure if I should be thankful or upset that they weren’t coming off. Instead my waistband seemed to be held on by some invisible force.

Her eyes seemed to be gesturing to the side at a window that had been invisible during my lust laden fog.

Quest: Extremely Instant Gratification Difficulty: Easier than ever Details:

All you need to do is accept. What more details do you need? She promises to have you screaming in pleasure until your mind turns to mush.

Denial: Would be foolish.

Acceptance: Shut up and do it.

‘Yes’ and ‘no’ buttons floated just below the quest text. Reaching for the no button was almost as hard as other unmentionables. Worse still, it ran away from my finger.

“Yes!” The Temptress growled around my waistband. The yes button got bigger.

I kept reaching for the no.

“Yes!” A wave of pleasure wracked my brain and caused a groan to escape my lips. The machine was not playing fair. Three years without sex and being jumped by an exotic beauty had almost done me in. I tried to operate one hand and think of all the calming items from my teenage years. Knees flexed in an effort to force blood elsewhere.

“Yes!”

“No. Not like this.” I gasped and surged my hand towards the ‘no’ a final time. This one was successful.

The Temptress faded with the most disappointed and frustrated groan I had ever heard out of a woman. My heart raced and thudded. According to the health tracker that went with my EXR-Seven bands I was well past the cardio zone.

“He said no?” A little girl’s voice came through.

“Ha, ha, ha.” Somewhere in the background the Jester was laughing its mechanical laugh.

“Man, Grant Legate. You really aren’t like Wild Willy are you?” Leeroy was peering down at my still recovering form. I blinked a few times and tried to figure out what had just happened.

“Not really.”

“He would have tried to hit that so hard that she would walk funny for days.” Leeroy grinned. I shuddered and tried to avoid thinking about the entire situation. Just the hint of remembrance had kept life hard this entire time.

“What’s a matter, Grant Legate? A girl gotta buy you dinner first?” Leeroy was a bit of an ass.

“If you wanted something to eat, all you had to do was ask.” Her lust ridden tones attacked my senses. The words were so cheesy but it didn’t stop my face from getting flushed again.  Leeroy’s grinning face did not match the Temptress’ words in my ear. She wasn’t even in the room but her presence flooded me again. I rolled over with a groan and pretended to bury my head in sand.

“Need a hand?” Leeroy asked. His tone was amused. The Voice gave off a bro mentality that had taken up part of my college years. Not that I was a bookworm and hid in the library all day, I just couldn’t get behind their extreme actions sometimes.

“No. I need a minute.”  I reached for the log out button.

Back in the real world I awoke with the same problem as the virtual one. A bulge stood out in an almost forgotten part of my anatomy. At least out here it was easier to calm down. Had the computer just tried to rape me? No, there had been a clear line of required consent.

“Fuck.” I gritted out the simple curse.

There were still questions to be answered.  Reaching them required wading through Continue Online’s latest head game. What had James said, they didn’t rely on smoke and mirrors to entice people to play? Logging back in was best done before my nerves completely collapsed. Sitting outside the machine would just lead to more confusion. Moments later I descended back into the ARC’s virtual world and made my way into Continue Online.

“Welcome back, Grant Legate.” James had returned to his passive expression. Judging everything with those eyes.

“Can we not do that again?”

“That is entirely between you and Mezo,” James' expression broke with a slight smile. The Temptress' name is Mezo? “I will not control the choices you make.”

I started to open my mouth again for an angry retort but James raised a hand and cut me off.

“Why did you say no?” Right, we had a deal. His questions then mine. There had to be something resembling an even exchange.

“I don’t know.”

“Come now, Grant Legate. We’ve talked about this. Take the time you need and answer the question.”

“James, you let the man be and move things along. Tut. Taking all this time to sate your own needs without worrying about your charges. It’s disgraceful.” Maud was defending my inability to formulate an answer. Her hands and legs were once again surrounded by children who seemed to be looking in all directions with interest.

“I’ve upheld my nature throughout.” James went from amused to affronted with a simple twist of his cheeks and turned down pitch.

“Past debts must be settled when they can be.” One of the children at Maud's feet clamored for attention. She gave the small one a pat on the head while glaring at James.

“Ah. Yes, first thing's first.” The male Voice admitted.

Part of me tried to gauge what sort of results punching a Voice might issue me. A bonus to Divine Attention for sure, maybe another hit to some stat in game. Finally I settled on ignoring the whole thing and waiting for James to move us onward.

“For this part, I believe it's best handled by someone else.” James turned stern and gained a few inches in height. His gaze cast around the dark room. “No one is to interfere.”

Thunder rolled as the black man scowled into the room. There were brief flashes of other faces that I associated with various Voices. Muttering, rushes of noise, and finally a bright chime of light that shut all the other action down. James looked pleased with the last note.

“Which one of you was that?”

“Mother,” James said. “Your answers next, Grant Legate. Then perhaps we can speak of other things.”

I tucked back one side of my lips and raised an eyebrow. James shook his head in negation and faded away. From behind, where James had pointed, came a clicking all too familiar. Cane struck the ground in a slow step and footsteps huffed in the dark room.

“Do you prefer Grant, or Mister Legate?” For a moment it was like hearing a ghost speak. That pitch and tone belonged to a man I had posed as for nearly four weeks.

“Carver?” I turned around and saw the old man standing there. Both his hands clutched a blackened cane. My first thought was about how short he seemed from this perspective.