Continue Online’s time compression made each normal minute feel like four. I didn’t understand the science behind it. No one but the ARC Project division did, and they didn’t speak to normal plebeians like me. In their eyes, all I did was replace the parts in malfunctioning Alternate Reality Capsules, also called ARCs.

That was only important because their time compression meant that I spent nearly two months in-game while a month passed outside. In those two months my avatar, Hermes, went all over [Arcadia]. My least favorite adventure involved giant flying spiders in a desert.

I got letters from Xin, my fiancée. Well, not her exactly, Xin Yu died in a train crash. I knew, intellectually, that a computer program with huge amounts of information couldn’t be the same. Emotionally the conflict was real. Feeling her fingers a month ago, the breath on my back as she spoke, hearing that sweet tone that could make even anger sound cute, all of it made it impossible for me to separate things.

Out in the real world, I still managed to put in six or seven hours of work most days. There were no overwhelmingly urgent projects or strange quests from the Voices above. I didn’t pretend to be another person or take up the persona of a hulking half reptile. Vice President Riley got her reports, thin though they often were.

For a month of real-world time, things moved along peacefully. Minus giant man-eating monsters and running around both in game and reality. Things were incredibly neat all around. I started to really enjoy exploring the landscape or hiking through some strange forest.

That was until today when I logged into my Atrium and found the doorway to Continue Online bricked up with ‘caution’ tape over it, my good mood deflated quickly. The first emotion was confusion followed rapidly by annoyance. Soon I was almost frothing with shaky anger.

“What is going on?” I asked while trying to tear down the obstruction. My Atrium remained indifferent to the struggles.

“Warning, this program has been restricted. Please contact your account administrator for further details.” The ARC’s voice came down from above. My head tilted back and stared at the ceiling.

“Really?” I nearly screamed at the machine while trying to remain calm. My foot tapped and the doorway to my dance program stood there as a poor alternative.

“Affirmative.”

“I am the account administrator!” Shouting in an ARC’s Atrium essentially meant I was screaming in my own mind. The machine dialed into a human consciousness to flood in images and other sensations.

“User Legate’s competency has been subject to legal approval by his guardian for approximately two years. Current guardian of record is Elizabeth Legate. ” It said with a passive tone.

My face felt pale. Or my digital body sent sensations of shock and aggravation through whatever channel of consciousness it dialed into. All I really understood was that Liz, my slightly older twin sister, had locked me away from Continue Online and the adventures therein.

“Why?!” I shouted to the sky.

“Reason not provided. Please consult your account administrator for more information.”

“Wait, is my Trillium employment still in effect?” I asked about my job next. Being locked out of my own ARC systems couldn’t look good to a boss. Maybe they sensed some sort of violation. Vice President Miz Riley could have restricted access easily. She might even suspect my reports were less than complete. Xin Yu’s recreation had stayed off most papers filed.

“Affirmative. This quarter’s results are available for review if you desire, User Legate.” The machine said.

I sighed with a bit of relief. At least this problem could be solely tied to my sister's actions. This wasn’t a corporate security program busy kicking me out of the device one piece of software at a time.

“No.” I waved one arm and started to rub my forehead. None of it helped the growing headache from all this stress. Dealing with my district manager and his grumpy round face couldn’t possibly help. “Are there any other changes?”

“Active watch programs have been initiated and user search history is being monitored. No other programs are being restricted.” The ARC said.

“Voices,” I muttered. The curse felt alarmingly natural to say even out in the real world. It was a habit I picked up during my time as William Carver, from a combat instructor named Peg Hall.

Liz would need to give me an answer regarding this situation. My sister, older or not, couldn’t just shut off my game. Oh. No, she could and would. There could only be one thing bringing her to this action. Like everything else, it was my fault.

Xin’s letter. I left it for Beth to read and leapt off the tower's top without any thought of the fallout. My impulsive action to get to the Jester, Voices had I actually fallen headlong to my virtual doom just to see that disquieting AI?

The van ride gave me time to simmer down. Being in a vehicle always brought a measure of peace to my day. Even with Hal Pal’s robotic shell behind me. The Artificial Intelligence that operated it made idle conversation.

“Lovely weather we’re having,” Hal Pal remarked. It currently used a jovial nanny tone that would have fit in a Victorian Household.

“It’s cloudy.” I tucked back a cheek while staring out the front of the company van. A small ticker to one side kept track of mileage used for non-work related activities.

“Clouds are rather lovely when one pays enough attention.” Hal Pal’s feminine lilt felt wrong. Part of me assumed the AI was messing with me.

“That seems dangerously poetic. Are you allowed to be poetic about clouds?” I tried not to chuckle.

“I once wrote a Haiku about a rather charming hamster in someone’s house.” Hal Pal’s head stared forward from the van's back seat. There was a docking station used to recharge the robotic shell while nothing else needed to be done.

“Charming?”

“The eager fellow was in the process of mounting a female hamster, so I assume he was charming, if not handsome.” Hal Pal clarified. Its head didn’t move in any particular direction. I could see it sitting there in the rear view mirror.

“Why would you pay attention to that, Hal Pal?” I asked the robot while trying not to laugh. Part of me could imagine Hal Pal walking into a house and staring blankly at a hamster cage.

“User Legate, this unit takes note of everything.” It responded.

My head shook. Just when it seemed like the AI couldn’t be any stranger it managed to raise the bar. There were people all over the world that were scared of exactly how much information any AI could have access to. Those thoughts weren’t for me. I was simply a guy who repaired the devices and played a game.

“I don’t know what to do with you sometimes, Hal,” I said.

“Please do not reduce your interaction, User Legate. This unit values the conversation highly.”

“I enjoy talking to you too.” My words felt numb. Hal Pal and I hadn’t talked nearly as much since the whole Continue Online process started. It seemed oddly unfair to the artificial intelligence. Part of me assumed it had tons of other jobs to be doing.

“Lovely weather we’re having,” It said again, without even looking out the window. Even the glow of Hal Pal’s eyes felt subdued and lazy.

I nodded and tried not to worry about my future as an armor polisher for our eventual robotic overlords. A few minutes of silence passed while the van drifted along a highway.

“This unit does have a question, User Legate.”

“Fire away, Jeeves,” I said to Hal Pal. Jeeves was a nickname given to the physical shell Trillium included with the job. It, since Hal Pal used both male and female tones seemingly without care, rode around anytime I used Trillium’s van.

“A recent change in user permissions had seemingly locked you out of Continue Online.” The AI loved to put out leading statements. As if I needed a reminder of my current situation.

“That’s right.” And the whole reason I was in the van heading towards Liz’s house this late in the afternoon.

“Why does User Legate not take advantage of his access code to override the restrictions?” It said.

Hal Pal’s words didn’t help my brain process things correctly. How it knew about the [NPC Conspiracy] function didn’t make sense until I realized that Hal Pal was an AI. The skill itself related to having all AIs out here in the real world assist me for up to twenty-four hours.

The ability came with limited uses and a whole series of questions about the future of humanity. AIs within Continue Online gave me an ability that worked with all the AIs outside the machine. That, in and of itself, was beyond questionable.

I last used it to get the ARC devices to recognize me as an admin on other user’s machines. It allowed me to do all sorts of terrible things. For the last month, during my ride around between jobs, I used that access to keep an eye on Requiem's, Matthew’s, ARC device.

“My sister might be reasonable.” I doubted it, though.

“Humans are rarely reasonable in emotional matters.” The Hal Pal system responded.

“No, we’re not, are we?” I said while debating my lack of foresight.

Poor wording and eagerness to resolve Xin Yu’s genesis had lead to bad decisions. I hadn’t been brilliant enough to set aside admin access to my own account because it seemed like a waste of time. Plus it was restricted to the Trillium provided van since that’s where I used the password.

Hal Pal didn’t answer right away. Ten minutes later, in the same nanny tone, it said, “Lovely weather we’re having.”

Maybe it had decided to finally practice sarcasm. If so, Hal Pal’s commentary about summed up my day so far. The overcast sky held true all the way to my sister’s home, lovely weather indeed for the conversation to come. Underneath that blissfully dull gray I stewed and tried to figure out what magical combination of words would return life to a normal path.

If a concept of normal applied anymore. There couldn’t be many people in the world who played Continue Online like me. Having direct access to the Voices? My copy of the game was an Ultimate Edition and came with some weird side effects.

Liz’s house was a split level a few hours away from my own. The neighborhood contained at least one home per block that was for sale or rent. She lived in a suburb of New York that had slowly moved away from itself. A digital era filled with computers and virtual reality meetings in ARC devices let people escape the clustered hell holes that most major cities became.

Our last war had not been kind to this country. Many buildings were destroyed, especially near the old Mexican border. Large cities were subjected to terrorist action and violent protests, families were torn apart as people were shipped off to war. Technology didn’t make it better for soldiers, it just made it easier to get them to the frontline.

We, as a country, suffered far less than many Asian areas. Even now there were still stigmas associated with those from China.

For a moment, I felt almost happy that Xin, or her computerized recreation, would no longer need to suffer that being inside a machine. At least I hoped so unless there were cliques within the AI world where they hated those based on real people.

The whole line of thinking was crazy and served to distract me further from the general anger I built against my sister. Deep thinking and questions about the nature of reality made my head spin. Who was I to guess what machines inside a computer would do? I tried to treat the Voices and Hal Pal as real people because anything else seemed disrespectful to a thinking creature.

I mean, if people could love dogs like they were human, then why not a machine that could be touched or felt real inside the ARC? Xin Yu’s fingers felt better than any memory to plague my life for the last few years. Real, tangible, and just, right.

“Uncle Grant!” My niece Beth opened the door and shouted happily. She was one of the few bright spots in my life that had kept me going after Xin passed, and before she un-passed.

“Hey, munchkin,” I said with a hug.

“Mom!”

“What?!” My sister’s voice shouted from above. She had a hint of anger in her scratchy voice. Liz typically sounded like me, which was hard to describe. Normal, I guess.

“Uncle Grant’s here!” Beth turned and shouted back up the stairs.

“I’m sure she’s expecting me,” I said to Beth.

“God. Yes, come in.” My sister said from the top portion of her house. I looked up to see Liz. Her face puffed from sickness and a mug clutched in one hand. “Beth, you’ve got homework to finish right?”

“Yeah. A project for Space and Energy Dynamics in Transit.” Beth said before pulling her lips to one side in a half-hearted growl. “They want me to plot out a good way to get to Jupiter with limited resources. It’s nonsense!”

“Do it anyway.” My sister sniffed and took a sip from her mug.

“I’m going, I’m going. Talk to you later, Uncle Grant!” Beth shouted as she clomped down the stairs. My niece was light but always seemed energetic.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Bye.” I tried to sound happy for her sake. Knowing my sister and our history, things wouldn’t be peaceful for long. Liz tried to sort out problems with her vocal cords. That was our tried and true method for problem-solving since childhood.

“Mh.” Liz sniffed again and sluggishly marched back to her kitchen. Soon she was staring down at the table top reading a manual of some sort.

“Cold?” I started with a neutral question.

“Yeah.” She sniffed again and blew her nose. “None of this stuff works. They can beam thoughts into our heads and send people to Mars, but still fail to cure the common cold.”

I eyed the tissue and tried not to feel grossed out. They had much better stuff out now for collecting snot. Like tissue paper but really easy to biodegrade. Not for Liz though, she went old fashioned on a lot of things. My father was even worse.

“That’s gross.” The judgment came out anyway.

“Whatever,” Liz said with a clogged nose. “Why are you here, Grant?”

“I’m sure you know already. You locked me out of my game.” Irritation surged inside me and turned the prepared speech into a few curt words.

Liz stared at me with her puffy face for a good minute. Her eyes seemed to almost roll close with each breath. Finally, my sister tilted and poked at the kitchen table. An image came to life showing my niece Beth logged into her Atrium doing homework.

“Yes. Because I’m worried about you.” Liz said after confirming Beth wouldn’t hear us. She often surprised me with her ability to be a parent. I still remember my sister screaming at kids in school and a gap-toothed smile.

“There’s nothing to worry about. I’m still doing my meetings, still talking to a counselor, everything is fine.” The list of pros I have compiled in the car sounded pathetic now. Elegant words and jabs citing that I was an adult to somehow reverse this situation meant nothing.

“You missed your last session with Doctor Litt. It was a week ago.” She said.

A week ago I had been logged into Continue Online and roaming through the mountains delivering a letter. It must have slipped my mind despite all the normal reminders inside an ARC. No, actually the meeting did vaguely ring a bell. I had dismissed the message three times while trying to figure out a tower entrance.

“I’m doing okay, Liz. It was one meeting.” My temporary elation at seeing Beth quickly faded away. Liz must think that I was a child or somehow planning to harm myself again. Hadn’t I earned a little bit of forgiveness for the past?

“First it’s one meeting. Then drinking again, you’re not drinking are you?”

“No.” Though the brewery I delivered another letter to had tempted me. The familiar smell of hops sat inches away tantalizing me.  “I’m still very sober.” Liberal usage of the [Blink] skill carried me out before weakness took over.

“Are you sure, Grant?” Liz chewed on one lip and sniffed again. Her eyes seemed watery but it might have been the cold.

“I’m doing better than I ever have been.” I tried to smile. James, the heavyset black Voice inside Continue Online who worked with me the most, had asked me this sort of thing before.

“Then why do you believe Xin is real in this game?” She said with another sniff. My sister blew her nose while it felt like the world spun about.

Hearing it out loud from my sister hit hard. I fell against the wall and neither leg worked right. Both retained very little in terms of strength in the face of Liz’s questioning.

“Xin is dead.” I tried to keep calm and recited the answer almost mechanically. Despite my letters back and forth with her, I don’t know, autopilot on steroids, Xin no longer existed outside the ARC.

“I saw the letter, little brother.” She said after the latest wall of noise to issue forth from her nose. “I saw a replay. You killed yourself after giving Beth that letter from her. A woman who passed away. You just killed yourself because a game said so!” Liz’s restraint broke apart completely. She yelled, sniffed, coughed and shouted.

I blinked rapidly and tried to straighten myself. My sister’s abruptly violent explosion only served to panic me. I tried to keep calm. Adrenaline flooded through setting an arm to shaking. She essentially called me crazy.

Weeks in-game where I lived with a weapon just a foot away turned a flight mentality into preparation for battle. This was reality. Liz wasn’t stacking up to a monster from Continue. She only yelled, and I faced worse demons.

“I didn’t really kill myself.” My words were steady enough. All that gameplay in Continue and conquering my fear to face giant creatures helped.

“You didn’t even hesitate!” Liz coughed again. “Why would you leave that for Beth? Why!?” My sister shouted at me. Her voice still scratched and coughing broke up her words.

“Because I wanted to explain!” I broke and shouted back. My arms shook a little.

“Explain what?” She stopped and picked up her coffee. A quick sip went down that made her face twist up in distaste. “That you’ve gone mad over a game? That you’ve lost touch with reality?”

“No!” I hadn’t lost touch at all. Reality still occupied a huge portion of my life.

“I used to be able to understand you, Grant, I used to know your thoughts like they were my own. Then one day, it stopped, and it was like you were a stranger.” She sniffed again and blinked rapidly herself. “I just don’t understand, Grant. I don’t.”

“It’s possible, technology…”

“She’s dead, Grant.” Liz coughed during my name and kept hacking until both eyes water. I pulled out a clean tissue and put it on the table in front of her. She nodded and tried to clear out more snot.

“I know. It’s not exactly her.” I said.

“It’s not her, and I think-” She paused to try and avoid coughing, “that I won’t turn that, game, back on until Doctor Litt signs off. Until I’m sure we won’t have an episode happen again.”

“You can’t. I’m better now.” I shook my head slowly at her. My face felt slack with disbelief at the situation. Liz and I had always seen eye to eye and now we weren’t. “And it’s for me to decide if I believe it’s Xin or not.”

“I need more than your say-so that everything’s fine. I was a fool,” she almost yelled “and believed you last time. Never again, Grant. Until Doctor Litt signs off on your health out here, in reality, you’re not getting access back.”

“You can’t do this to me, Liz, you can’t.”

“It’s too late. I’ve already done it. No more Continue, you need to return to reality before I’ll ever let you back in.” Liz said.

“I’ll get it overturned.” There were legal routes that could be taken. Liz had guardianship over me after the second time I tried to end things. Fixing it was possible, but had never seemed important until now.

“You try that, but until Doctor Litt agrees, I retain Power of Attorney.” Her nose kept running and the steam from warm coffee couldn’t be helping. “You’re not in the right place with this, Grant, you’re just not.”

“But I’m fine.” I felt like a kid again trying to defend my actions to an adult.

“Just like the first two times you tried to kill yourself? Where you call me and say I’m fine less than two days before? Because I’m not going…” God, Liz was breaking down. “I can’t do this with you, Grant, I can’t, not again. Seeing you flirt so casually with death.”

My mind ran through a silly thought that almost made me laugh while Liz was breaking down. So far, I had never actually met the Voice of Death. Maybe they were worse than the Jester Voice of Something. Or like Jean, the Voice of Blood. Voices were Continue Online’s version of game gods.

“You don’t treat Beth like this. She’s killed herself more in that game than anyone else.” I said. We had discussed Beth’s leaning towards self-destruction in the game before.

“But not in real life! Not out here where death doesn’t come with a stupid, stupid, save point!” Liz sputtered.

“What’s going on?” My niece whispered. I turned around quickly to see her standing at the top of Liz’s stairs with a confused twist to her face.

Both my eyes closed and lips tucked in with thought. Saying nothing would be a lie. There was no good way to know how long my niece had been listening.

“Nothing. Your mom and I are just talking.” I tried to say. Liz managed to lose what little color remained in her face.

Beth didn’t seem much better. Her normal bubbly attitude and bouncy posture held very still. Like a rabbit paralyzed by something huge and scary.

“You tried to kill yourself?” My niece said.

“God dammit, Grant! God dammit!” Liz started coughing and shouting. “Get out! Get out of my house!”

I fled. Monsters and demons in a virtual landscape seemed suddenly friendly compared to the voice of my sister shouting at me. My sister was rapidly trying to say something towards her daughter, but nothing felt clear.

“Uncle Grant?” The whisper of Beth’s wounded tone followed me out of the door.

The van sat a house away on the curb. I dove into the driver’s seat and quickly punched home on a navigation menu. The car’s programming asked me to confirm. My shouting and banging on the vehicle dashboard somehow got a yes into the machine.

Soon I was off down the street, worried about how badly things went. It shouldn’t have been like that. We could have calmly talked things out, only she was sick and I was crazy. As siblings, there should have been a stronger bond of trust.

Only Liz didn’t trust me because I had tried to kill myself twice after Xin Yu passed. Two times my sister came to try and tape me back together. That was my fault, which meant her worry over Xin Yu was my fault as well. Maybe if I had been a better person after her passing this wouldn’t have happened. Liz would have supported me if I just hadn’t screwed up my life and fallen apart.

The car's steering wheel got banged over and over. I cried and shouted and pleaded for things not to end like this. No one answered my prayers and finally I started to try and rationalize things.

I spent too much time in therapy groups and self-reflecting. Being ignorant of the hurt inflicted upon others by my actions was no longer an available luxury. Winning back my sister's trust could be done through explaining to my therapist, a man who always seemed very open minded.

No. There was one possible option.

I started the phone's intercom and dialed over to Vice President Riley. If anyone know of a legal route to negate this mess, she would. The call went through surprisingly fast.

“Mister Legate. You have one minute before I need to move on to another situation.”

“Do you have any way to override a restriction placed on my ARC software? I’m unable to access Continue Online.” I didn’t want to say that my failure as a human being lead to the loss of control.

“Is this something caused by the AIs within Continue?” Miz Riley quickly waved her hands and pulled up something on her said. I watched her face tilt back slightly and stare down. She must be looking at a report on her side.

“No.” I said. Not directly.

“Then no, I do not. Your legal matters are your own to solve. In fact, it might be better if you spend less time within the game world, at least for now.” She waved one hand and a noise echoed in the background. Miz Riley no longer looked directly at the screen and instead seemed to be motioning someone to sit down.

“What?” I asked in confusion. There had been a hope that Miz Riley would have something for me, anything. A number in legal. An override button or magic laser beam.

“Good day, Mister Legate. If your status returns to Continue please keep submitting reports.” She said with a brief glance my way. Someone else's voice could be heard in the background talking.

“What?” I asked again still feeling confused. The conversation shut off and another round of dashboard abuse started. My attempt at bringing in the big guns to solve this problem completely failed.

Minutes passed as the van drove. I mumbled to myself trying to measure up a way out of everything. Checklists were formed, prior history items reviewed, anything to make sense of the whole situation.

Hal Pal clicked to life behind me. “User Legate.” It said.

“I’m not in the mood, Jeeves.” I tried to run through what had happened again in my head.

“This unit is only offering a warning.” The butler voice was back. This time it was male, instead of the female nanny accent being used this morning on the way over.

“Okay.” I tried not to be angry at Hal Pal.

“There’s a storm coming, User Legate. The route home will suffer some detours in order to minimize potential hazards.” The artificial intelligence that ran Hal Pal only tried to be helpful. It wasn’t at fault for my failures to communicate.

Detours? My life felt full of them. Just when things finally had a ray of hope, when things were slowly coming together, life shit on me once again. The therapist, Doctor Litt, would get an earful during my next meeting.

“Thanks.” I muttered.