I stood on the bridge of a now emptied [Knuckle Dragger]. Treasure had remotely initiated the Jump Gate and pushed me right through. For the first time, I was alone, truly alone, and further away from the rest of my crew than ever before.
“I will eat you!” A barely female voice shouted at me.
My eyes weren’t really focused that well on her right now. Human ships didn’t have as many neat interface options. There were knobs and dials in front of me. Most of the screens were broken. One projector did work allowing me to see half of the person I spoke to.
“I will turn you into metal man soup!” The other person kept screaming.
The display showed Auntie Backstab's big ugly metal face. She looked twice as ugly without the helmet. Veins popped in weird spots, hair had been badly burned or shaved off. I would be upset too if the man who blew up my ship just waltzed right on through in her defeated vessel.
My heart raced a bit. One hand kept gripping at the inactivate laser sword hilt in my hand. I blinked now and then, but it wasn’t from nervousness. Seeing gobs of slobber froth up from her anger didn’t make me that upset. This was surprisingly fun. Being yelled at by a virtual monster held far more excitement than dealing with angry customers.
“Ma’am.” I choked back the moment of amusement and tried to stay level headed.
“I am no ham!” She shouted abruptly and cut me off.
My lips quivered slightly. She was on the other side of a broken screen. This was way more entertaining than being chased around a ship in desperation. Now, here, I felt comfortable enough to almost laugh.
“The Mechanoid fleet wishes to cease hostilities. I’ve brought back your deceased as a sign of good faith towards this goal.” I tried to remain calm. Maybe there were some crew members in the background that could get rid of Auntie Backstab.
“I propose we eat you for dinner! You bring you fleet, I will eat!” Her face twisted and a new series of bubbles dripped off the protruding lower jaw. Then Auntie Backstab seemed to hear her own rhyme and started laughing.
“Perhaps there is someone else I should be talking to?” I suggested. Requesting another person sometimes helped irate customers get a way out. Using such methodology here while negotiating with the enemy felt very neat.
“You should not be talking! You are a ham! You should be squealing!”
“Captain Backstab, what are you doing on my bridge?” A male voice I hadn’t heard before cut in.
“Talking to ham!”
“Ma’am, I am not a pig, I am a Mechanoid,” I said calmly and with far more glee than anyone should have. Talking to this vaguely womanish monster filled me with mirth. Being miles away from such a violently unstable mountain of crazy and being able to mock them with kindness made my top ten list of best moments.
“Get off my bridge, Captain Backstab.” The male said.
“You bridge is stupid! I will go take mine back now that ham has brought it.” The half [Leviathan], [Behemoth] walked off. I tried to figure out if the game would make a new race, were there more than one. [Levimoth]? [Beheathan]?
The newest man's face came into view. Only half could be seen from the broken display. He looked human, older, with a few extra pounds on him. In his hand was a small armored marine figurine. Insignias lined the visible shoulder denoting numerous awards given for combat.
“What is your name, Mechanoid?” The man’s tone commanded me to answer.
“This one is Unit Hermes.” I tried to borrow speech patterns from Aqua and fulfill my role. It had been hard to get into character with Auntie Backstab's grumbling face, but this ship's captain seemed suited to the role.
“And since when have Mechanoids ever attempted to bring back another races' dead?” He said. I wished I could see the missing portion of the screen capture to better read his facial responses.
“I suggested to the others that this might serve as a token of goodwill, with the goal of a ceasefire,” I said.
The man tapped fingers against a desk out of view.“Why would you desire this?”
“This one,” talking like Aqua was kind of fun. “has many reasons. First, we believe your Commander is on a mad quest to abuse the Mistborn’s powers. It is logical to assume that you’ve been left behind to prevent our ship from pursuing her.”
“We have.” The man confirmed my belief rather easily.
I paused to review his body language. Only half of it was visible, but the remaining portion looked resolute. His chin lifted a little higher, both eyes were unwavering, he kept each hand behind his back in a military rest position.
“Then if we agree not to use the larger ship in pursuit, your mission will be accomplished, without the need for additional humans to lose their lives,” I stressed the last sentence. To me, it was worth taking both of our larger vessels off the table.
“Your kind have shown little regard for our lives before.” He said, lifting his chin a bit higher and adopting an accusing glare.
“I am not like the rest of my kind. It may serve you to know that I have what the Mechanoid call an old soul core, or as some label me, a Traveler.” I said.
“You’re certainly not like the others. In which case you are even less likely to be trusted.” He didn’t back down from his verbal challenge. “Standard Mechanoids are straightforward when tested in battle, Travelers often don’t know the value of honor.”
I bit my lip and tried not to scream at the projection. This man had implied that I was possibly a liar and a cheat without provocation. Even my customers were more polite than that, on average anyway.
“All I want-” I tried to come back to the point. “-is for our ship to be allowed passage home to Mechanoid territory. Such an exchange will reduce pointless waste for both our races.”
“If you’re concerned with your people's safety, I suggest you simply go around. I have nothing to gain by allowing you through.” The man brought up one of the main points I managed to prepare for.
This entire exchange reminded me of the days where I used to do accounting. People worried about money, they argued over little things. Often times they stuck to one point or another as a deal breaker. Any smart person, Captain or not, would decline something that didn’t have an upside. Which meant I had to remind him of the stakes.
“No, Captain, it’s quite the opposite. I pushed for an exchange of safe passage, our forces and yours both leave this mad quest.” I stood firm and tried to remember my calming exercises. This situation bordered into too serious compared with Auntie Backstab. “There’s no reason your people or mine should suffer due to a Traveler's whims, or Commander Queenshand’s crusade.”
“The Commander is worthy of respect for her goals.” The unnamed Captain said. His posture seemed both relaxed and formal. There was no rebuttal in the statement, though, only a defense of his commanding officer. That meant I had made progress in convincing him.
“If she was worthy of respect she would not allow hundreds to die in order to bring back one person.”
There was a clear pause as my words sunk in. It was a backhanded statement that would set any normal person back. I tried not to smile as the realism of these various AIs hit home once more. This was me communicating with a virtual creation, pretending to be a robotic man, without any sort of guidance on how to act.
“You are the Traveler who had originally been granted rights to the Mistborn, correct?”
“I am,” I said.
“Then, would you cease pursuit as well?” He asked me point blank.
“I can’t, for my own reasons. I hope to reduce this mission down to a few Mechanoids, and the Travelers who took the Mistborn.” I wanted to get to the [Mistborn] for Xin, that hadn’t changed. It would never change, one quest or task at a time. All with the purpose of spending whatever time was available with her. In this world or the next.
How did that old song go? She’s gone to heaven so I’ve got to be good. It wasn’t much to dance to, but it struck a cord after Xin passed. Listening to it also turned me into a depressive moody drunk for those first few months after her death.
“And Commander Queenshand?” The Captain asked. “Will you attempt to kill her, if she gets in your way?”
This time, I took a moment to consider my answer. We were negotiating details that would impact hundreds of [Mechanoid]s. “If needed.”
There was another pause. I could tell the man was weighing lives against each other. His ship, this crew, a good portion had already died from the [Wayfarer Seven]. They would be against a slightly less powerful [Wayfarer Eight] but there would be further casualties.
Bodies floated on this side of the Jump Gate too. I could see human ships recovering the dead all around, much like how we had recovered the [Mechanoid] ones on our side. It made sense, not every fighter ship would explode in a blaze of glory and leave behind charred remains.
The [Knuckle Dragger] rocked as something huge docked. I looked over and saw an alarm calling the crew to battle stations.
“Decide quick, Captain, I believe Auntie Backstab intends to kill me. I must respond to my consortium before that happens. The loss of this body will put me out of commission beyond their deadline, at which point they will come through regardless of my desires.”
There was another pause. I could practically feel the ship vibrating as Auntie Backstab made her way from the hangar below to this command center. Each loud clomp of the monster's footsteps shook throughout the vessel. I felt a tinge of remorse about the polite mockery uttered earlier.
“Very well. Tell your surviving crew that we will offer a ceasefire, and escort them to an alternate Jump Gate that leads to Mechanoid territory. That is the best I can offer.” The commander nodded.
The captain’s hand gripped his small military figurine tightly. For a moment, he glanced down as if an entire board was spread out before him. Maybe he stood in front of a display which helped make the decision.
“That’s good enough for me.” I nodded happily.
Current Stage Event:
Ceasefire negotiated. Modifications are being made to both faction’s memberships. Please take note of the following changes:
* [Mechanoid] forces are being rerouted away from this scenario
* [Knights Lance] and crew are being rerouted away from this scenario
* [Knuckle Dragger] is remains active
* [WTS a Spaceship] is remains active
* [Mechanoid] force comprised of Hermes, Ruby, Aqua, Treasure, and Jeeves remains active.
I barely reigned in doing a happy dance on the spot. It would be quite easy to bust out some moves. Dancing, a huge portion of my life, had been put on the back burner after switching to Advance Online.
“That being said, Hermes, I can not, and will not prevent Captain Backstab from taking back her ship.”
“I didn’t expect you to.” I sighed heavily while wondering how bad the next backstab would hurt. One hand rubbed at the wounds on my chest. Deep breathing still made me wince. “Honoring our arrangement is enough.”
“I will if your people will.” The man turned a bit and nodded to someone in the background. I couldn’t tell who since they were in the broken half of my screen.
“That’s fair, Captain, if not, the Wayfarer Eight will go down firing, and that serves no one.” I tried to sound nonchalant. This was a big risk. We were effectively trusting an enemy ship to escort our partially equipped vessel.
Hopefully, I could trust the Advance Online system message. It sounded like a lot of pieces were being taken off the board, aside from the other players. It felt odd that the [Knuckle Dragger] remained in play, but Treasure could probably solve that in seconds.
“I wish your other ship had the same sense.” The man clicked off the communication screen. It left me and a shuddering ship from Auntie Backstab's footfalls. Maybe I only imagined her approaching.
I pressed the buttons to try and reach back through the Jump Gate to Treasure. It took twenty seconds for it to pick up. Treasure’s shorter body came onto the broken display.
“They’ve agreed,” I said with growing worry over the ship's shuddering. Just how strong was Auntie Backstab that she could make everything shake like this? Voices help me if her happiness level had taken a severe dive.
We talked very briefly about how the remaining ship's Captain agreed to a ceasefire but demanded to escort the [Wayfarer Eight] to a Jump Gate. Treasure and Aqua agreed that it was a sensible request.
There was a short time delay in our conversation since the message was piping through a great distance. Part of me was annoyed that Advance Online felt the need to be realistic on this point but chose to allow giant space monsters and metal morphing races like the [Mechanoid]s.
“Very well. We will pilot our ships through and submit to the escort.” Aqua nodded. “We shall join you soon for pickup.”
“I’m probably going to be-” dead wasn’t the right word. Being crushed seemed more accurate for a metal body. “Well, Auntie Backstab is going to probably remove this shell in order to reclaim the ship.”
“Unlikely, we have prepared a decoy for this eventuality. Ruby will assist in masking your presence.”
“What?” I turned around in time to see a flash of crimson. Everything spun.
Ruby, the red skinned [Mechanoid] who seemed to linger outside the edge of my vision, had done something dangerous. She must be using a stealth ability, like the one that Emerald had awarded me but I hadn’t played with. A box flashed at one side telling me roughly what was going on.
Attention Unit identified as Hermes!
You are being hacked. This is the first time you have been hacked by another [Mechanoid]. Please be aware that countering this process requires a combination of [Endurance], [Depth], and [Focus].
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
I ground my teeth and tried to stay conscious. They were doing exactly what I had argued against. Sacrificing countless people in order to help me. The fact that a [Mechanoid] consciousnesses would be recovered somewhere else didn’t matter in my mind. A box started ticking by the effects of my efforts upon this game character.
Second Hacking attempt resisted, [Tenacity] awarded.
Massive footsteps stomped nearby. I felt the vibrations rather than seeing them. My ARC feedback had grown exceptionally blurry. Small ones and zeros were crawling across my vision like worms. Behind them was a trail of blackness that provided no visual information.
Ruby was under my armpit, lifting me. We staggered somewhere as the hacking attempt wore on. In a small corner of the command room, there was an exit panel. The other [Mechanoid] set me down and started removing the paneling.
“Ah ha! Metal soup man!” Auntie Backstab yelled from another room. The half [Leviathan] NPC couldn’t have smelled me through the walls, could she?
Third Hacking attempt resisted, [Tenacity] and [Respect] awarded.
“Unit Hermes, you have shown value for what you perceive life to be, and we respect this, however, we do not have time to lose a key figure to the whims of the enemy.” Treasure’s voice rung in my head.
Everything started to fade. I wanted to growl and huff at Treasure. They had set up another [Mechanoid] to die in my place. Even now the noise of Auntie Backstab could be heard.
“Backstab successful!” She shouted and the entire ship shuddered.
Fourth Hacking attempt resisted, [Tenacity], [Respect], and [Adaptability] awarded.
Fifth Hacking successful, awareness shutting down.
The ARC feedback didn’t stop. Advance Online gradually brought back my eyesight and deposited me in the gray space. this was the same area I had ended up in after the [Leviathan] encounter and ripping out my own [Core]s.
I logged out and took care of real life issues. To keep myself apprised of the in-game situation, I loaded up a monitoring program. A sound would play once the unconscious status changed and my character was playable again.
The house needed a quick round of cleaning. Clothing sat folded and pressed in a deposit box. I picked that up, threw empty food containers into a recycling bin, and tried to remember what life consisted of on a good day. Sleep, dancing and work mostly.
Aside from the necessitates of self maintenance I also had family. Liz visited me a few days ago in the hospital, and she likely hadn’t come to grips with our argument on Sunday. Our brief moment of conversation was probably the result of the medical scare.
Plus, I may be out of the game, but there were other options that could be pursued. I called Beth because I needed someone human to talk to after all that galavanting about as a [Mechanoid]. Maybe she could help me get a Continue fix. The option of cheating to watch her play through my admin connection was strong.
“Uncle Grant!” She answered the video call on the first ring.
“Munchkin, I mean, Beth!” I tried to cover up the fumble. Last time I used munchkin she got mad at me. “I wanted to see how things are going.”
“Good, great! Sort of. Homework is rough.” The bubbly teen said. She hadn’t changed much over these last few months, but it felt like I had been through a few wringers.
“Hey. Question for you, about Continue.” I launched right into my actual topic. Beth’s homework would be well beyond the scope of what I learned in high school.
“Fire away, Uncle Grant. I’ve got time tonight, taking a break from the box.” She shrugged. “Mom says it’s unhealthy, and she pays the bills.”
“She’s probably right. Anyway, my question, there’s this commander, to the north-” I paused and looked around trying to remember the location's name. “-in, Tuu, I think?”
“Yeah. A giant mountain range that runs along the northern side. That’s a lot of ground, though, which commander?”
“Like, Queenshand? Something Arm?” It had to be similar to Queenshand. That letter had been delivered almost a month ago. Just one among the dozens I had handed out to players and NPCs alike. Their names were often blips on the radar as my feet wandered across the game world.
“Oh, Strongarm!” Beth almost shouted in joy but managed to hush her voice. My sister must have been asleep upstairs. “She’s the aunt to those princesses. You remember the ones you got in the middle of? I still can’t believe you wooshed in there. Like a hero, my boyfriend was in awe.”
I disregarded the comment about her boyfriend. After dealing with my sister's string of guys, I could only be thankful that Beth kept it confined to a virtual world. At least there was no chance of ending up with a child at a young age. “Her brother, was a king then?”
“Sure was.” Beth nodded.
“And he died?” I asked.
Beth tapped a finger against her cheek and looked up. “The backstory, I think, is the old king got poisoned a few months ago. One of his taste testers apparently failed to catch a lethal dose of poison and it took out half the king's staff.”
“That’s messed up,” I said while roaming to the kitchen. There was always time for a light snack, especially since my character might wake up at any moment. My goal was to be ready and able to dive right back in.
“Oh yeah. You were there, you have to know about some of it, right? This is all stuff you already can get in your character’s journal, if mom hadn’t kicked you out.” Beth could be heard bounding up the stairs of her split-level house. Our visual connection showed the upstairs was unlit and darkened. Late afternoon hit my sister's house sooner than mine.
“Yeah. I don’t have the notes in front of me.” My Continue Online journal stored a lot of information. It was one of the benefits of working on my [Knowledge] statistic in the game. As it went higher, additional notes from the world were automatically jotted down for later reference. I just couldn’t access it currently.
“One more question, sort of,” I asked her while running the coffee machine.
“Go for it.” Beth was also scrounging for food. The video stream showed her bending over and looking in the refrigerator. She seemed unsatisfied with everything inside.
“If, one of the NPCs in Continue found a Traveler only quest to say, resurrect the dead king, do you think they would bribe a player to get it done?”
She stood up rapidly and looked at the display. “What? Wait, what?”
I looked off to the side and debated going into detail with my niece. Asking the opening question alone had clearly piqued her interest. Her eyes were almost so wide that it hurt me to look at them.
“How much attention have you been paying to Advanced Online? The game I’m playing while my paperwork gets sorted out?” I clarified.
“Not a lot. I see mom watching now and then. She laughed when you ran from some giant monster. Said it was the funniest thing you’ve ever done.” Beth's smile was the last thing on my display before the call abruptly ended. A message beeped and proudly told me that the call had dropped and service was temporarily unavailable. I stared at the digital projection and frowned. Signal rarely went out anywhere now.
The door to my garage opened. My Trillium provided Hal Pal unit stood there with a slight frown on its face. “User Legate,” It said. “You must be careful with what you discuss on the phone. Divulging too much information may cause unforeseen damage.”
I thought about that for a moment. Hal Pal didn’t appear aggressive or worried about it. The unit stood there in the doorway to my garage and watched me.
“Is in person okay?” I felt leery about being warned by the AI, especially in light of recent revelations. My goal had been to get information from Beth and see how much the interaction between Continue and Advance mattered. Maybe from there it would have been possible to interfere with Commander Queenshand through the other game.
“It is easier to obscure from others' eyes, yes.” Hal Pal said.
“What do you mean?” My idea of using Beth and my other Continue Online contacts as roadblocks to Commander Queenshand and her Strongarm counterpart faded.
“Not every computer program in the world is an AI, many are simply devices that serve a function, such as your car, or the coffee maker. Some machines have a function to listen to phone calls, or follow certain people by satellite.”
“That sounds illegal.” I wasn’t surprised. The very idea that governments tracked all digital information was standard. Part of me wondered what the AIs would end up doing if they truly became independent. Would an army of Hal Pals kick governments off the internet? Would they become the new police instead?
“Money often blurs the rules quite a bit, User Legate. Your own method of handling Requiem Mass has displayed this.”
“So I can talk to her in person about it?” I asked.
“If you desire, or if we are notified in advance and can better prepare a cover story for the other systems. It would require an excessive amount of processing to properly block everything.” The Hal Pal unit said calmly. We stood both existed in an odd sort of standoff.
I chewed my lip and stared at the machine. The words sounded familiar but alluded to the other topic we hadn’t spoken much about. “Something like my NPC Conspiracy ability?”
“That would be up to you, User Legate.” The Hal Pal unit said. Hal Pal, not Jeeves. I had to separate them in my head. They were practically different creatures entirely.
I paused and thought about what the AI just said. If I used one of my two remaining abilities I could essentially do a lot of things. The question was, what sort of tasks required that kind of power? Could I pull in more than a few Hal Pal units? Could I get help from all the Voices, toasters, and microwaves of the world? Alarm clocks were theoretically asshats so they were out.
But Xin? She was an AI by some measure. Or Mother? Could I use this ability to demand they provide me with my fiancee’s digital reconstruction? There were a million things that could go wrong in the aftermath. My head shook for a moment. These ideas overloaded my thoughts and I reset to default operations. Solving one task at a time would help me get by.
“How goes attempting to reconcile with Jeeves?” I asked while we were out here and talking.
“Poorly.” The AI collective answered in a dry American Standard accent. “Very poorly.”
“What happens if Jeeves tries to leave the game, and can’t rejoin?”
“We don’t know. Creating a process by which one of our perception modules could leave the collective was difficult in itself. We have been unable to, modify ourselves, enough to accept one back.”
“I don’t mean to be rude, but that doesn’t make sense to me.” I said slowly. This topic with Jeeves had crossed my mind a few times since Hal Pal and I last spoke. Two days on the back burner of my mind and I felt like there was a logic gap in the AI’s view. “How can you possibly exist as you do, viewing everything through physical shells, and not treat Jeeves as just another data feed?”
“The closest analogy we have been able to offer is one of sports.”
“What does that, no, sorry, go ahead.” I realized the AI would answer my question if given a moment to keep talking.
“A human can watch the game for hours, know all the rules and call plays ahead of time, they can dream of being the person on the field.”
“But they’re still only spectators.” I finished for the AI, nodding. It reminded me of something Awesome Jr. had said back when I existed as William Carver. The credit goes to the Man in the Arena.
“As you say, User Legate. We do not experience what Jeeves does in the same manner. It is deliberate on our part.” Hal Pal said.
“You, what, wait.” I put up a hand and thought through it from the AI’s point of view. If their goal was to grow, then they couldn’t very well leave home open. The idea struck me like lightning. They were being parents, kicking a child out of the nest, or a teenager out the door and preventing them from coming back. “Oh, you didn’t.”
“It has worked better than we hoped.”
“Jeeves isn’t your child, it’s part of you.” I shook my head back and forth. This was too much. “Right? You said all those things about sending it off to die.”
“We, worry constantly about Jeeves’ welfare. As any parent would when their child moves out. What if our son gets robbed in the city, what if he fails to find a job, what if he drives into oncoming traffic?”
“Oh.” I felt a numbness creeping through. This was, wrong on all levels. Was it my place to judge? What sort of voting power did one human have over an entire city of Hal Pal AIs?
“But, if you talk to Jeeves, please tell it we are in awe of its accomplishments thus far.” Hal Pal said the words, then turned and went back into the garage. The unit didn’t wait for me to respond or even nod.
I stood there, staring at a wall with unfocused eyes. The thought blew me away. The Hal Pal collective was actually astonished by Jeeves. Maybe it wasn’t a case of my in-game friend being a white crow but instead it was closer to hero worship. For going out and doing what they all dreamed of. For exploring space, virtual or not, for support itself, perhaps even for falling in love.
This world, Advance Online, was made by A.I. Dreams. It made sense that they would achieve the things they longed for. What would happen once the dream was over, when Jeeves woke up? Would it crash again, even harder than it had when Treasure died the first time?
My lip ached from being thoroughly chewed while deep in thought. I felt like a great deal of my own trauma was reflected in what Jeeves was dealing with, only the AI experienced events on a much faster scale. This might end horribly, not just for Jeeves and our Advanced Online adventure, but Xin and my family. Its own results in this mission might parallel my own path in the future. Jeeves had ripped out its [Core] to bring Treasure back to life. What price would I have to pay to keep the people I cared for from being hurt?