Pressing yes caused the ARC’s visual feedback to go black. Things rocked and my insides felt like they were be warped across the galaxy. At least I assumed that was an apt analogy for a space game that put its user through simulated G-force pulls. Really it just made me sick.
Things slowly fuzzed in and the spots started to fade. The resulting vision was a lovely rendition of metallic looking toes. Not only mine but another three sets nearby. The ground under our collective feet looked absurdly smooth and clean.
My neck rocked slowly and tried to lift a sluggish head. It took a while before anything responded correctly. An elbow jerked wildly and banged into something. One toe tapped. And finally I managed to pull eyesight up to at least chest level.
“Welcome to consciousness, new unit.” One of the other creatures said. All three looked slightly different from the [Mechanoid] preview.
I wondered exactly what this signed me up for. Maybe Hal Pal had bolted me to a chair during my sleep and performed ‘upgrades’ while calmly stating resistance was futile. Or an army of robots got together and chanted ‘one of us’ over my reconfigured corpse.
No, there were still a few menu icons visible off to either side. “ARC?” I said.
“Awaiting input.” It responded. None of the three other [Mechanoid]s from this new game responded. It seemed like I was safe inside a virtual reality.
"Cancel input," I said to the ARC.
“How would you like to identify, new unit?” One of the NPC [Mechanoid]s nearby asked.
“Hermes,” I muttered. This time James, wait, these new robots couldn’t pester me about not having a good character name. I had one and planned to stick with it.
“Recently created consciousness self-identified as Hermes.” One of the [Mechanoid]s said. It looked vaguely female but sleek. Clothing was minimal of course. Almost like an old fashioned android might be perceived. She had stripes of red lining the sides of her neck that might have been status lights or wiring.
“Welcome, Brother Hermes. Are you ready for work?” This one looked male and was green. I hadn’t picked a color myself. Maybe I could do a cool black in token remembrance of my weapon [Morrigu’s Gift] and the [Wild Bill] hat.
“Fire away, Jeeves,” I said.
“This unit is known as Iron.” The taller unit in the middle had a dull sheen of metal instead of red laces. He, I guess, pointed towards the others. “That is Ruby, and this is Emerald.”
“Hello,” I said while trying to operate my body further. The mineral named trio backed up and allowed me more room to operate.
“Are you ready for work?” The green male Emerald said. He hunched a little which made his shoulders sit lower than Ruby’s. Both of them were far shorter than Iron.
“Where are we?” Character creation processes were weird. At least this was a bit less abrupt than Continue Online’s world with all their trials and stuff.
“You are aboard the Corvette, Wayfarer Seven. We are in route to a penal colony as part of our transportation duties.” Ruby answered. Her voice carried an extra harmonic that normal people didn’t have. It managed to sound both sweet and scratchy at the same time.
Mine wasn’t much better. I felt like my words were echoing back. The sensation felt like stereo feedback which caused me to keep wincing. It might have been the lack of complete control over my body.
“What happened to the first six?” I asked.
“The prior Wayfarers have all been marked as inactive,” Emerald answered with a slight head tilt.
“Why?”
“A loss of sustainability after combat against the Demi-Human race,” Iron answered this time. Its, his, voice carried an extra tone as well, a deep roll that ran alongside scratchy. It felt like these robots were trying to mimic two different normal people at the same time.
“Oh,” I said.
They didn’t seem offended by my less than robotic way of phrasing things. Nearby another unit came online. The units Iron and Ruby both went over and got ready to greet another new player.
“Can I get a list of jobs?” I hadn’t played a game with simple quests in forever. Continue Online didn’t handle the way any other game from my teenage years might have. It was too complex and involved.
“I will provide you a list of introductory tasks. Please complete any you are able.” Emerald said.
“Thank you.” I responded to the bright green one. His, I guess it was a he, face showed far more depth of expression compared to Hal Pal. It felt a bit more real.
“You are welcome, Unit Hermes. Please excel in your contributions to the Consortium.” The robot nodded with a friendly smile.
“Consortium?” I had heard Hal Pal refer to itself as part of a Consortium of AIs. Working so close with an AI in the real world was part of why I picked this race to begin with. It might help give me insight on how to deal with its statements.
I mean, Hal Pal was the one who got me into Continue Online? How bizarre. No, this was utterly, completely, and a beyond any shadow of doubt odd. Some neatness mixed in with the confusion.
“That is the name for our race upon this vessel. We are all Consortium members of the Corvette Wayfarer Seven.” He answered my half phrased question.
“That’s a lot of words.”
“Indeed. Your awareness interface will display a small symbol for each member of our Consortium. If you have any questions, please inquire with any available unit.” Emerald went on to spout more information. I rather enjoyed how the machine actually explained all the bars and icons on my screen. With Continue Online, they were mysteries until filed away.
Part of me felt unhappy about it as well. Maybe it was the removal of self-discovery that made it feel kind of dull. Or the fact that my arms still didn’t work right. There was no pain, just a lack of response, and a small progress bar to one side.
Attention unit designated as Hermes.
Unit Synchronization is still in progress. Functionality limited. Please continue attempting interface with your new shell.
Please be aware that backup functionality is limited until synchronization is complete. Changes to your programming and physical makeup will not save automatically. Consult your personal guide for further details.
Wait, the computer had basically built in an excuse for not knowing how to adapt to my brain waves? I knew the ARC took a few weeks of image training to sync up with a normal person. The machine didn’t come with some magical ability to read minds and project details.
When I first got mine it took two days to get basic commands lined up correctly. Hours passed as I imagined walking forward and ended up stumbling. Now though, the thing practically hopped when I asked for something. I thought about walking and both feet went forth to conquer the space in front of me. Speaking took a lot longer.
I tried moving this metal body in a dead bug wiggle. Arms, legs, feet. Everything clanked around wildly. The new player next to me was already marching off with a broken stutter towards destinations unknown.
Full Body Movement successful
+1 [Agility]
A message popped up that caused me to pause the wiggling and blink. Stat windows never really did much for me in Continue Online. The game almost felt like my skills and abilities mattered only as a measure of how I played rather than how hard I ground out some skill.
I had no idea how relevant they were here either. Both arms went up in the same balancing movement I tried to do with the [Behemoth] character. Theoretically [Mechanoid]s had exceptionally fine motor skills. Probably from being in a robotic shell, computers in real life were very precise as well when programmed correctly.
A small icon flashed to one side of my vision. I focused and sure enough it responded like anything in Continue Online. Information came up about my chosen race, citing bonuses and drawbacks that really meant nothing to me. Near the information window was a tab for active quests which I focused on next.
Race: [Mechanoid] Default Coloration: Clear Base Stats:
* Skills tied to [Adaptability] receive a 20% bonus in growth
* Skills tied to [Mental] growth suffer a 20% penalty in growth
* Biological Skills are not accessible
* Any toxins or side effects tied to flesh based functions are negated
* Additional damage is received by skills targeting metals.
Attention unit designated as Hermes.
As with all skills, further quests may cause modifications to a unit’s current status. Nothing should be assumed as final, the universe is vast!
There were four tasks displaying. Each one listed as optional. Advance Online seemed indifferent and content to let me wander the halls. I figured simple missions might be at least mildly interesting. If nothing else this would help me experience what Continue hadn’t.
I went towards one titled [Clean the Sensor Array], mostly because it was in an opposite direction from the other new player. People flooded my daily life, running into them in-game while I was sulking would be aggravating. Plus it was cleaning, that was a task even I could accomplish.
The [Mechanoid] programming included a minimap. My meandering route along a dotted line eventually reached one of the ship's outer hulls. The ship seemed to only be a thousand feet long or so. There were seven floors and probably some hanger near the back.
This outside portion was a walkway along one of the top floors. I pulled myself out of system messages and maps to see a wall of stars on the left. My heartbeat stuttered and I threw myself against the inner wall.
“Goodness.” I huffed. A passing [Mechanoid] with almost pink coloring didn’t even glance in my direction. There was an NPC icon floating above her head.
Space was, spacious. Seeing it in my Atrium felt normal because my feet were on solid ground. This giant starship boat had inertia and mild force carrying us forth. The biggest issue had to be a lack of water to fall into. On an ocean cruiser, I could fall in and swim around. Here, if I fell, the ship would vanish into the distance.
I dodged into the first available door then took an inside route up to my quest marker. That felt safer and far less like eternity might swallow me up. Space was just too spacious. There was far too much of it for my mind to wrap around being this close.
My robotic body shook a little. A message displayed progression with synchronization, but it hadn’t reached completion. There were a few small window panels on the walk to my quest. I stopped to glance out each one, feeling more at ease with visible walls safely holding me in.
By the tenth window, I felt a little less shaken up. I braved standing in the doorway and looking out like an animal scared of the unknown. Xin had been insanely brave to want this kind of life. I tried to picture her up here, hanging in a landless array of lights between worlds.
Hadn’t I decided back in Continue Online to not be afraid of this sort of stuff? Wasn’t this only a video game inside the digital world? Finally, after much hesitation, I braved moving out of the doorway. One step forward at a time, and finally up to a wall of energy that sizzled against my hand.
“It’s beautiful.” And frightening.
“Indeed. Eons ago when our progenitors were first conceived, some of them looked above and dreamed of this vastness. A freedom to go anywhere.” A [Mechanoid] passing by, NPC by the icon, happily commented.
“It’s huge.” I stared in wonder.
“The possibilities of space are high enough to be effectively endless, Unit Hermes.” This [Mechanoid] was short and colored with a series of gold streaks. I really wanted to get some sort of design on this player shell. It felt so boringly gray.
“I knew, know, someone who would love it up here.”
“Ah. Your designation shows that of a new unit, are you one of those who retain their consciousness from old Earth?” Her words seemed to play into a prebuilt explanation for abnormal talking. At least in the world of Continue Online they cleared it by being Travelers from another world.
“I guess,” I said while absorbing the details of our conversation. Maybe one day I would stop to read the user’s manual instead of playing immediately. It seemed unlikely. Games were one of the few things that felt better just diving in.
“Welcome. You must be here to help clean the sensor arrays then.” She said while looking up. The female [Mechanoid] was both shorter and more pronounced on the curves. Her face far livelier than many units I had passed during the walk out here.
“I’ve got some time,” I said. She didn’t exactly stir my interests as one person to another, but I could see how robots might find her interesting. If robots even found that stuff interesting. Some of the Voices within Continue Online certainly cared.
“Yes. Your units were a perplexing anomaly. One day I shall peek under your chassis to see what engine core causes such irregularities.” She stared up at me for a moment with a creepy sort of longing. I swear the [Mechanoid]'s fingers were twitching with anticipation.
“Please warn me before hand.”
“Of course. Peeking under another Mechanoid's casing without permission is taboo.” She gave the most realistic frown I had ever seen on a robot shell. Her hand came up and pointed towards the path back inside. “If you walk this way, I will provide you the proper enhancements for hull walking.”
“I have to go out there?” I assumed hull walking meant going around on the ship's outside. Right now there was a field of energy between me and the great abyss.
“Of course. There would be no need to clean the sensors were they internal.” Her head shook back and forth as we turned around. “Our ByteMites are perfectly able to take care of small issues.”
“ByteMites?” This short, golden theme [Mechanoid] kept throwing new ideas at me. Each one made a little bit of sense.
“ByteMites.” The golden one pointed towards two small robotic creatures that looked kind of like mice mixed with vacuum cleaners. They scooted around the corners picking up small items.
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I had no [Identification] skill to use so the exact details were beyond me. Adapting to a new game while not having old skills would cause confusion. Voices, but I would miss having [Blink] to get around any obstacle. That ability had become brokenly overpowered.
“Do you have a name?” I asked as we walked back to the inner track.
“This unit is called Treasure.” Her tones of speech involved dueling sweetness and exhaustion. Each one of these robot creatures had two separate voices overlapping.
“It's nice meeting you, Treasure.” I tried to remember my manners for meeting new people. My own voice still felt flat and uninterested when I took note.
“Please walk inside the alcove there, and you’ll be provided more details on this task.” Treasure pointed to a corner that looked more like a walk-in shower. A small hovering arrow floated up and down similar to how Continue directed me around. At least some items were familiar.
I stepped inside and waited. The walls came in like a press on either side around my legs first. I tried to jerk away then another clasp locked around my chest followed quickly by the shoulders. Words printed in blue across my line of sight that seemed like subtitles or a marker, at least if my life had been a movie.
“What?” I tried to move but couldn’t. Something tickled, no itched, buzzed? No words seemed right.
Attention unit designated as Hermes.
Please Wait, model enhancements underway. New information will be provided upon completion.
“How long does this take?”
“Your modifications should be done shortly. I will provide additional details while they are being performed.” Her voice made me think of slow dripping syrup.
“Okay.” These games would be so much easier with actual dialog choices. “Anything you can tell me would help.”
“Anything?” Treasure raised an eyebrow and smiled. Again I was startled by her expressions. The confusion wasn’t seeing a video game character look alive, but seeing a robot do it. Hal Pal could use a few lessons.
“Anything related to the mission.” I clarified with a half-smile.
“Ah, yes. Contribution to the Consortium is paramount.” Treasure said with a single nod.
“So I’ve heard.” They liked the word contribution.
“You will gain contribution value by completing the tasks assigned. More difficult tasks will reward higher contribution.”
“Okay. That makes sense.” I said to Treasure’s explanation. She basically told me that I could gain points, probably reputation or something similar. Real life work equated to paychecks and performance reviews, in-game work turned into contribution.
“Since you are an extremely new unit, it is worth advising you that contribution can be exchanged for unit efficiency increases.” Treasure stared at me for a bit longer than normal. It was only after we locked eyes that I realized neither one of us were blinking.
That felt weird. I tried to blink but didn’t seem able to. My body rocked as one arm tried to come up and feel how the eyes were formed. The material locked around me kept everything still and the ticklish itching kept right on going. A rolling sense of numbness kept transferring between both feet and hands.
“In some cases task completion and continued performance will increase your parameters. This should all be in your standard interface directives.” Treasure turned to a display hanging along one wall. I looked at it with her and took note of the map displaying black spots.
“What is that on the screen?” I asked.
“One moment, I am attuning your visual interface to our outside hull. This will allow you to see the portions that need to be cleaned.” Treasure didn’t seem to be doing any such thing. She stood there staring at the wall and a second loading bar appeared to one side. It moved much faster than the [Model Enhancement] status.
With a ping of noise a small screen popped up on one side. I failed to blink a few times then focused on the small window. The map grew bigger and showed a vision of our ship floating through space. Black spots littered the sides but mostly gathered near one side.
“Neat,” I said.
“Simply dislodge any objects you find. Sensors are found on the forward portion and sides, here, and here.” She pointed to the screen and glowing areas showed up on my map interface.
Attention unit designated as Hermes.
Chassis upgrade received: [Anchor]
Enhancement Details: Upon activation, this will increase your grip upon various metallic objects. [Anchor] performs best when locking onto high concentrations of iron, nickel, and cobalt.
The system went on to tell me that an energy drain would apply. I did the math and determined this ability could last a few minutes.
“Portions of your makeup have been exchanged with Neodymium. Activation takes a minor amount of time and will concentrate the elements to your hands and feet as a default.”
“So I’m a giant magnet.” I didn’t understand exactly what space science went to this lifeform. It was probably more likely than the ARC’s strange abilities.
If I asked, these other [Mechanoid]s would probably explain, if I kept playing. If Liz locked me out of Continue Online forever this might be my only place to relax. It would just be without Xin, Dusk, or any of the other Travelers I had gotten to know.
“When you want to be, Unit Hermes,” She said with a beaming smile. “Now please, Unit Hermes, go forth and achieve great contribution to the Consortium.”
The machine released me and everything still felt a bit more jerky. There was a tingle to my skin that hadn’t been there before. Not like the numbness or itching when that shower stall like vice had trapped me. No, this was like having a sunburn.
“Okay.” I nodded. This game seemed neat too in terms of ARC feedback for the world details.
Thirty minutes later and I was walking around on the hull. The shock of endless stars still lingered, but my resolution to be braver held true. All that time spent as William Carver, Hermes, and even the [Red Imp] Spite helped me adapt to a new situation fairly quick. Having a death grip magnate ability helped.
“Woh.” My energy bar flashed yellow. I scrambled for one of the handholds. They were planted every fifty feet. Little places to grip and hang onto.
“Still. There’s way too many of those bits. This is probably going to take forever, huh Dusk.” I said absently. Talking to the small dragon-like creature had become habit after a few relative months inside Continue Online. The [Messenger’s Pet] didn’t cross through games with me though so I was basically talking to myself.
“It’s like the world's dirtiest dish.” I surveyed the landscape of Wayfarer Seven. So far my first non-Voice induced quest felt dull. My energy bar took a few minutes to recharge and once complete I started wandering the hull picking up any manner of items
Some were globs of goo materials. I assumed it was space bird crap like on a car. There were places with smudges of dirt that I brushed off with a giant mop like tool. The item itself thankfully came with a belt and tether so I never lost it when [Anchor] wore off. In addition was actual space debris that flew by and needed to be dodged. If bathroom cleanup was a mini-game somewhere it was probably just as boring.
I only almost fell off six or seven times before cleaning one of the huge areas.
The work was absorbing if monotonous. The solitude of space gave me time to sort myself out regarding Xin, Liz, Beth, and everyone else. It was during one of the pauses for energy recovery that I fired up the ARC’s messaging system. Luckily it worked the same here as in Continue Online.
Grant Legate: Hi, munchkin. If you want to talk about what happened please let me know. You’re an adult now so you have a right to have it explained.
Maybe Beth didn’t have a right to know. Honestly, my attempted suicide could be no one’s business but my own. She was my niece and Doctor Litt had okayed it if I wanted to.
The only real difference was needing to wait for a time dilation difference. Continue Online didn’t accept relative conversation with the outside world. While it ran four to one, nearly no other programs did. Advance Online seemed to operate at a two to one, but it wasn’t as impressive.
Elizabeth Legate: Uncle Grant. Mom's still really mad. She keeps waiting for you to call her. We’re worried. Are you okay?
My energy bar recovered completely so I paced around the hull half-heartedly cleaning. The actions felt almost therapeutic, like someone straightening up a cluttered desk or finally taking care of the messy closet. Only the ship was very shiny despite the blackness of space. The hull might be illuminated with some material. Or it was future robot spaceman powers.
Grant Legate: Of course I’m okay.
I couldn’t call myself completely fixed, but the self-destructive impulses from years gone by were far less than they had been. Games skewed my behavior while playing. That was no new issue though or restricted to just the ARC.
Elizabeth Legate: Are you sure? I don’t know what you two were yelling about. Mom won’t explain it. She says it’s not something for me to worry about. I’m not ten anymore, Uncle Grant.
Grant Legate: I know you’re not, Munchkin. It’s hard for us adults to see past the young girl who lost her baby teeth.
Typing out the message brought a smile with it. Beth was always fun to tease. In my eyes, she would never stop being that little girl who rushed around the backyard laughing. At least talking to her was a good distraction from cleaning up this messy hull. Splitting my focus made straying from the handholds a bit iffy. I didn’t want a warning bar to flash up and leave me torn between typing to Beth and diving for a handhold.
Of course floating off into space would give me tons of time to talk. I could type things out happily until the surrounding abyss provided me a game over message. Maybe I would find a secret area.
Hopefully, I could keep surviving. I had grown used to dodging and avoiding objects, but this body had nowhere near the same stats as Hermes in Continue. It was similar to the beach cleaning exercise I gave SweetPea as Carver.
An absurdly quick moving object beeped into my awareness. Along with it was a tiny message in red going ‘Dodge’.
“Ah!” My flat voice was swallowed up by the void of space. I managed to get around one rock and another started blinking in.
Elizabeth Legate: Well. I…know it’s not something I should ask about. I, I don’t want to see you in danger over it. I read that letter, the one with auntie Xin’s name on it. It doesn’t make any sense, though. I’ve never heard of a quest that talks about dead people.
Reading Beth’s next message had to be put on the back burner. There were too many of these flying derbies coming in.
“Unit Hermes. Are you okay? Our sensors show a small debris field of some sort.” Treasure’s duel voices came through from somewhere. Probably a radio or some robot people communication ability. “I would have warned you, but a new unit was arguing with me.”
“Ah!” I dodged another small black object. Piles of glop smacked into the hull and rolled around like snot streaking across.
Elizabeth Legate: Uncle Grant? Was it really from her? Like did she leave a message from the past or something?
That would be a weird take on things. No worse than anything else. I didn’t have much spare attention to respond to the next window in my way.
“Unit Hermes? Be careful!” Treasure shouted with a strange calm.
“Right!” I shouted. My response must have made it through to the gold themed [Mechanoid]. She said more things, but another item demanded attention. Something that looked like a small black raptor with an extra set of arms darted across my line of sight.
I dodged under another pile of goo or asteroid, whatever, and tried to get back to safety. The ledge itself was too far away and there were no exit hatches.
It slammed into me. The health bar on my interface dropped which made me downright frail again. I turned to try and escape because my energy bar started dwindling rapidly as my body got knocked around. ARC feedback turned everything into pain equated with frozen paintball bullets.
The small creature jumped on me again. It moved rapidly along the ship’s hull. I needed an [Anchor] ability to travel around but this small bundle of blackened anger didn’t care about my failing grip of rapidly dwindling energy bar.
Another rock hit and my foot lost any grip. The bar to hold onto wasn’t close enough. The small bundle of anger made one more dive bomb at me and I found myself floating into space. My red bar was below half. The blue one was nearly empty not nearly enough. I reached out and tried to grip the spaceship.
A message displayed on the screen.
Synchronization complete.
Upon cessation of your current shell, a new one will be created with all current progress stored accordingly. Synchronization will need to be completed again with each new shell in order to avoid loss of status.
I had at least one consolation as this [Mechanoid] shell drifted off into the unknown. Once it ran into a star or something similar, my [Anchor] ability wouldn’t be gone. Maybe they would let me keep the space mop too.
“Neat,” I said as the cold emptiness sent a shiver through me. Thank goodness robots don’t breathe.
Grant Legate: I just looked at the time and we should both probably get some rest. You think of any questions you want to ask, and I’ll answer them tomorrow.
It was nearly four in the morning. Tomorrow there would be work for Trillium. Even though it was unneeded with Miz Riley’s employment deal, I still worked to keep a sense of independence. That and during my travels Hal Pal might answer some questions. My time cleaning the ship’s hull gave me the time to think about what to say.