The two [Mechanoid]s filled up our space gas tanks. It now contained barely enough future fossil fuel to power our flight towards Earth and maybe hit a Jump Gate out. I had no vested interest in our situation beyond keeping my allies safe and recovering the [Mistborn]. Soon I could return to Continue Online and my letter exchange with Xin would resume.
It felt oddly fatalistic to provide myself a lame fallback point. Worst case scenario, Jeeves might vanish into digital limbo, the three [Mechanoid]s with us would suffer a reset back to our home world, I would fail to resurrect Xin in some form to interact with, and my sister and niece would have a conversation topic. None of those sounded appealing.
I heaved a sigh then checked our countdown timer. We shared our fuel tank between the three [Mechanoid] vehicles. Aqua’s blues and Ruby’s reds locked into opposite sides. Eggman’s needle like vessel hovered nearby keeping pace. At least the new player didn’t slow us down.
Time until [Stabinator] catches up with [Wayfarer’s Hope]:
* 6:39:05
Time until [Wayfarer’s Hope] catches up with [WTS a Spaceship]:
* 11:02:04
Fuel Remaining:
* 14:00:00
We were screwed. Getting caught by the [Stabinator] sounded bad and all our timers were against us. I brought up the visual pictures of our three vessels. We were playing a grand game of chase and the odds were never in our favor.
Earth had a Jump Gate that looked different to the last four I had seen. The prior ones were giant shiny looking objects that wore shimmering energy up and down them like a lightning rod. This one appeared to be made of a light tan wood covered by mold. Giant slabs of iron were woven through it like braids or a cage. The Earth Jump Gate was one-third of the size.
“Is there anything else we can do?” I asked the two [Mechanoid]s behind me. My mind couldn’t wrap around any of our puzzle pieces. There were no blue turtle shells or heat seeking bullets we could fire ahead.
“Negative, Unit Hermes,” Jeeves said. “I haven’t found an alternate solution to avoid our impending doom.”
“Doom! Fantastically joyous doom!” Eggman happily said. He had used a class skill to break into our ship’s communications. It thoroughly pissed Treasure off. She had furiously pressed buttons and attempted to convince Ruby and I that our human addition needed removal.
“You’re a little over the top,” I said, trying to get the other player to tone down.
“I don’t care. I’m not here to assist you. I’m here to get revenge on those jerks who used to be my friends. Betrayed for quest loot, what a world!” Eggman was limited to sound only. Treasure’s skills had at least prevented us from needing to deal with his goofy looking face on our display screens.
“Please let Ruby kill him. He’s one of those old souls, right? He’ll just, pop back in somewhere after a few days?” She asked.
“He would, but we don’t have the key yet.” I tried to remind Treasure of our goal. My goal actually, part of me once again wondered about turning away from this whole situation. I might let Xin down, but no one else would be put at risk.
“That’s right! My key! Hahaha.” Eggman laughed through the ship's intercom. “So no killing of the Eggman. None is allowed, at all. None of it.”
Treasure pressed buttons and the player’s volume lowered. The next fifteen minutes involved the two of them trying to out hack each other. Eggman would break into our communications and start spouting nonsense. Treasure counter attacked by causing the lights in his ship to flicker on and off. At least neither one of them messed with the engines. They were both keeping our goals in mind.
At some point Eggman got control of our lights, focused them on Treasure, and started a salsa song. She put up her hands and struck a pose, her face wore a misplaced serious expression where her body seemed about to dance. Jeeves laughed a little. Levity helped.
I worked hard to tune them out and keep an eye on the tracker. The idea of being chased by Auntie Backstab had my heartbeat up. My prior scare made me worry about the amount of time I spent inside the ARC. Once it was clear we weren't in immediate danger I spoke to Jeeves. “I’m going to step out for a moment. I don’t want to pass out again.”
“Of course, Unit Hermes. Take care of yourself first, our ship is on course, and it is unlikely you will miss much until we get to the Jump Gate.”
I poked at the screen showing our little chase scene then groaned. Based on these timers, we would be caught by Auntie Backstab’s ship then die, and afterward the Jump Gate would be wide open for us to get through. Then we could simply jump to Earth’s solar system, deal with all the monsters that might haunt a decimated mirror of reality, and recover the [Mistborn].
Getting food from the kitchen was simple in comparison. I took care of myself while trying not to wince. That bout in the hospital still hadn’t cleared up. Aches deep in my chest kept creeping through me. I needed a week in bed free of Continue, Advance, work, and any kind of drama. There were options and pills that could be taken. My ARC came with a relaxation module that might lull even an insomniac to sleep.
I tried to do my stretches. Aching forced me to go slowly, but twenty minutes later I felt better. My toes wiggled freely, and both shoulders loosened. The situation in front of me was steadily coming to a close. There didn’t seem to be any good solution. We had our four [Mechanoid] squad and random human, against a flying spiked wrecking ball and other players.
“What options do I have?” I paced around while sipping my coffee. “All this started from those letters.“ Talking out loud helped now and then, but I often felt crazy during the process. The thoughts progressed to a key inquiry. “So, what other letters did I deliver?”
There had been dozens over the course two months in-game, plus what my autopilot did. A month of real time had passed between dealing with Requiem Mass and being kicked out of Continue Online. Where had I been?
“Oh.” I felt stupid. My Trillium van had a connection to all Continue Online players I had encountered. Maybe there would be hints in their actions. A lot of time had passed since I checked anyone besides those closest to me.
I fired up the display. A long list of names awaited me. My hands grabbed a portion of the digital names and made a gesture to discard them. Afterward, I activated video feeds for the remaining people. I was surrounded by visual displays. It felt weird spying on this many people at once. A good deal of them were worthless. Some players sat in towns. Others were traveling around.
“What are you working on, User Legate?” Hal Pal’s ever present shell took note once all the images floated into being. I flicked four notes away. They were people that were in autopilot.
“Trying to be clever,” I said while chewing my lip.
“That access doesn’t allow for communication with the owners, User Legate. It would be exceptionally difficult to cause a system to loop messages upon itself without leaving a trace.”
“Okay.” I chewed my lip and flicked off another window. Almost fifty were left. My travels had caused me to interact with a ton of players, even just briefly. Having admin access to their accounts had been intended as insurance, peeping like this felt dirty.
Somewhere in here was an answer, or a secret that might help me. I couldn’t make the [Wayfarer’s Hope] travel faster. My ability to hack things in the game was clearly lacking and would probably be useless. Spying on players was one of my few skills short of busting out the rule changing [NPC Conspiracy]. I pressed a button on the van’s dashboard and started music in the background.
“What do you hope to achieve?” Hal Pal asked.
“I’m looking for a miracle.” I sighed and moved fingers to the beat. “All this quest stuff in Advance came from letters I delivered. Maybe there are more pieces out there, but I, I don’t remember who else I talked to.”
Six people were sitting in auction houses poking at objects. They were shopping which did me no good. They were flicked off to the side and my list narrowed down again. Two more were in a lake boat of some sort for a date. They were useless to watch in the time I had left and were cast to the side as well.
“Ah.” The AI shell said.
“No suggestions?” I looked again then sighed. “No witty insights to human nature or mild prodding into the right direction?”
“Not that we can share, User Legate. We are trying. We hope that you will be allowed the opportunity to use the Mistborn program’s talents. However, we must allow the events in place to take their course. One of Jeeves’ goals also includes reaching the end.”
“It’s trying, and all the other Mechanoids too. And this new guy.” I stared at the screens. There remained thirty or so different images moving about. I flicked away Beth’s window. She was on autopilot and probably still with her mom waiting for me to log back in.
None of them looked exactly like their vague counterparts in Advance. I believed Eggman mirrored a player I had delivered a letter to. The person I suspected was sitting in a bar drinking, much like the round Eggman. An image of the Advance Online player came to mind and made me shudder. He wore tight clothes and space goggles like TheLittleMan had. They were probably a guild item, or maybe one of them made both sets.
Never mind, reminiscing on their gear differences wasn’t a helpful avenue of thought. I moved his screen to one side for further watching. Shazam’s window was one of the ones remaining. She was a tall tanned Amazonian woman who also held the distinction of being the highest Ranked warrior in the game. Lia Kingsley was her real name. The woman was also mute but communicated with sign language and occasionally even typed. She was riding a giant [Caliburr] mount. They were a mix between bunny rabbits and horses that laughed like assholes. The mounts pissed me off, but they moved rapidly when needed.
There were a lot of people following her. My autopilot, unexpectedly, was one of them. I desperately wanted to log in and ask the woman what was going on. Other windows were waved away as I tried to focus on the scene. They seemed to be running southward along a coastline, but none of the landmarks rung a bell. That could have been a huge lake, another plane of existence, or a guild raid in the works. Shazam liked to vanish for the big boss fights while I typically stuck to delivering letters.
I gave up trying to sort through the people. None of them looked directly related to my current quest. At this point, I wasn’t confident in being able to link situations anyway. There would have been no way for me to know about the [Mistborn]’s abilities from one harried meeting. I couldn’t have known that a letter delivered to Auntie Backstab’s Continue counterpart would play into our situation. Maybe the letter I shoved in a fox hole made a difference or the one I dropped into an ocean shoreline.
Hal Pal had gone into standby. It felt similar to me taking a nap and only half paying attention. I glared at the drunk in a bar once more. He reminded me of my own past. Numerous hours were spent trying to obliterate my current reality in hopes that tomorrow might be better.
My admin access did provide a location at least. This drunk, a player named KeylessLock, was at the [Fine How-do-ya-do Tavern] in [Quaint City]. Shazam was riding down the [Starlit Coast] which didn’t help. I sat in thought with my forehead wrinkled. Both eyes were wide as half spun ideas tried to click together. The AIs were clearly thinking far deeper than I was, despite my [Depth] skill. My head shook briefly, the game world sometimes had me convinced that stat points mattered in reality.
“Goodnight, Hal. I hope, when I see you in the morning, that everything will be better.” I said.
“User Legate, we too share a hope for tomorrow to be better.”
The AIs words made me pause for a moment. I gave a weak chuckle and said, “It’s impressive, to me, that you’re can see so much about humans and what we do, and yet sound so sincere.”
The shell didn’t respond. I eventually assumed the machine AI had shut off, but our silence broke as Hal said “Goodnight, User Legate.”
“Goodnight.” I went back inside and laid down in my ARC. Advance Online reappeared rapidly around me, leaving me once again in my seat. Snoring echoed around the cabin.
“Is that noise-“ I pointed up.
“That noise is the human Eggman. He is currently engaged in psychological warfare after failing to gain access to our systems.” Treasure responded. Her tired and sweet voices were both grinding teeth in frustration. I smiled halfheartedly and looked at the countdown timers. We only had an hour left in the game world before Auntie Backstab caught up. The [Stabinator] loomed close. We were like ghosts running away from a heavy metal version of Pac-Man.
“I tried to figure out a solution, but came up empty. You?” I asked Jeeves.
“No clear options presented themselves. I suggest we proceed with utmost haste towards the Jump Gate.” The iron and golden [Mechanoid] answered stiffly. Our chances of making it out were slim, but we had to do our best. If we could run away from a full blown [Leviathan] as newer players, maybe we could outrun one angry captain.
Snoring broke off as Eggman started laughing. “Haha! Hehe. You can’t just hit this gate right away! It’s not a slide! It takes time to activate the key. Hehe.”
The player’s laugh was maddening. I grit my teeth and asked “How much time?”
“At least five minutes. I’ll try to warm her up. Warp drive, set to eleven! Haha!” Eggman’s ship broke off from our glommed together [Mechanoid] vessel. He laughed manically as his shard shaped vehicle rocketed ahead of us. Had I known his ship was that fast I might have hitched a ride and sent the other [Mechanoid]s home, but it was too late.
I turned around in my seat to look at the other two [Mechanoid]s. Treasure paused her display feed and also turned. Jeeves took another moment after frowning at his display. We had less than a minute on the timer. Intellectually I knew what would be our best bet, but it was terrible.
“We need to delay her,” I said. My teeth briefly clenched on metal lips before continuing. “Here, away from the gate, or else she might get Eggman.”
“That would be good. I’ll let you know when it’s ready.” Eggman’s voice reached us from up ahead.
Two [Mechanoid] faces appeared on the display. Aqua presented with its serene smile. One that spoke of belief in a higher plan painstakingly put together by a higher power. Ruby’s face, as always, did nothing.
“Support ready to engage,” Aqua stated with an unfaltering smile.
Ruby nodded but otherwise wore a blank expression. For a moment, I wondered if she might be a copy of Shazam, but the merger didn’t fit. The red [Mechoind] was sneaky and Shazam existed like an immovable wall. Eggman and the drunken KeylessLock didn’t line up either, and these games were only echoes of each other. Some excuses could be made for non perfect representations.
Our timer ran out. The picture of Auntie Backstab’s vessel caught up with ours on the chase timeline. The first thing I heard was a sound that screamed across our interior louder than Eggman’s snoring.
“HAM! I FOUND YOU, HAM!” Auntie Backstab shouted.
I swiveled the chair back around and prepared to take the controls. Treasure snorted at my actions and began rapidly pressing buttons. Display notices came up.
Ship Status Boost:
* [Mechanoid] Unit Hermes (Pilot): Provides a bonus to [Coordination], [Reaction], dodging, energy recharge, ship’s firepower.
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
* [Mechanoid] Unit Treasure (Support): Provides bonus to deflection, sensory awareness, ship’s firepower, repair.
* [Mechanoid] Unit Jeeves (Support): Provides bonus to shields, sensor range, repair.
Note: Bonuses will expire once crew’s energy depletes.
This promised to be a worse situation then our [Leviathan] chase before. Ruby and Aqua peeled away in separate directions. I veered off in a third in hopes that our scatter might cause bewilderment.
“She’s locked on us.” Treasure said.
“Of course she is.” I attempted to see where everyone was We weren’t in an asteroid field so there were no spots to hide or dodge around. Ruby was nowhere in sight and Aqua shined with its blue coloring in the distance.
We strove to outfly the unquestionably faster ship. Ruby fired lasers at the [Stabinator] but no damage resulted. The large ship with spikes was easily four times our size. There was little conversation as I endeavored to abruptly change direction away from the enemy ship, but each change of direction or doubling back movement caused our shields to take a bump. Jeeves and Treasure both seemed grim.
“I need options!” I tried not to yell at them but failed. Dusk squeaked and wiggled from a perch up above. I didn’t have time to give the [Messenger’s Pet] a glance. There were three of us and we were being rammed from behind by a space blowfish. We should be thankful our foe didn’t have any actual weapons. Auntie Backstab relied on brute force and speed to solve issues.
“Bombs? Do we have anything to aim backward?” I asked.
“Each attack costs us mass, Unit Hermes.” Treasure’s tired voice ran rampantly over the sweet one.
“Death costs us mass,” I responded while doing another white-knuckled turn. Our shields dropped twenty more percent from a jarring hit as we rolled off Auntie Backstab’s vessel. Dusk squawked and the blanket of stars spun around wildly as I tried to pick new directions.
Ruby’s lasers kept ricocheting off the [Stabinator]’s hull. Aqua risked crossing close to us and I saw a blue beam shoot out. It aimed for our shields instead of Auntie Backstabs vessels. Our blue bar for recovered as the other [Mechanoid]’s shields went down. I barely registered that the ability was transferring energy to us in an effort to help. Another violent nudge surged into our backside and knocked off ten more percent.
“Trouble!” Shouted Eggman. “Sending you what I’ve got! Heeee-” His voice wasn’t into the laugh now. The player sounded nearly depressed, and I understood why.
“Is that?” I wanted to cry out loud about this unfair situation. We were screwed, completely and utterly screwed. Even if we managed to get away from the [Stabinator], which was still seeking to violently mate with the [Wayfarer’s Hope], we would have the giant player vessel standing in our way.
“The player ship, yes. WTS a Spaceship.” Jeeves uttered.
“Why is it blocking the Jump Gate? Why do they always block it?” I banged on the steering wheel violently and failed to dodge an additional whack on our ship.
“Ships popping through gates get a few seconds of immunity, it prevents spawn camping by raider guilds,” Eggman said, happily providing an answer to our ridiculous situation. There were explosions rocking his audio, clearly his efforts weren’t going well either. “Or else we would all be doomed!”
“Ham. Ham. Ham.” Auntie Backstab chanted.
“Doom. Doom. Doom.” Eggman has his own words to the song Auntie Backstab was broadcasting.
“Darnit! Full shields!” I spun our vessel around and tried to ram the [Stabinator] back. We didn’t have the power, mass, or inertia to make a difference in space. Our ship was pushed backward. Giant spikes were rotating across the surface of Auntie Backstab’s space blowfish. The shields kept us both physically separated as the sharpened cone came into line.
There was a sudden rush as the spike rocketed from [Stabinator]’s surface and collided heavily with our shields. Her vessel was actually firing spikes at us! The very idea that she had somehow created a vessel that seemed to shrug off lasers and was tough enough to just push around small ships was bad enough. Now there were impalement attempts to dodge.
“We should avoid those,” Jeeves said.
“Yes, we should.” Treasure echoed the sentiment.
“Fine!” I shouted at them for being super helpful and rolled us over the [Stabinator]’s shield. Our blue meter flashed and only a timely strafing run by Aqua kept it from being completely demolished.
I drove us towards the big ship. My desperate hope was to use these giant spikes against the [WTS a Spaceship] vessel. It would probably get us killed, but my options were limited. Aqua came in for an extra shield regeneration run, but the [Stabinator] unexpectedly fired all the spikes at once.
“DIE, BLUE HAM!” Auntie Backstab’s voice shouted and there was a flash of light. I watched the bar for Aqua’s ship vanish as two different spikes pierced through its lowered shield. Just like that it popped.
“Aqua!” Treasure screamed. Jeeves gasped with its nanny voice.
Aqua’s ship had been demolished. There would be no way to recover the [Mechanoid] now. I took a breath and pushed myself to keep moving forward. One step at a time, one problem to solve before moving on to the next. My arms didn’t work quite right and one foot faltered at the gas peddle.
Ruby’s silent face practically snarled. I saw her red ship dive between the spikes and fire away. Lasers glanced off and were essentially ineffective. We weren’t going to be able to take down this captain’s vessel. It was just too big for us to thwart.
“Careful,” I said to Ruby, feeling almost numb with forced calm.
Neither Jeeves or I had the right [Core] to bring back Aqua now. Our healer was gone, and Ruby looked to be mad with mute rage. Her ship actually crashed right into the [Stabinator] in a ball of kamikaze red.
“Oh no. What was she thinking?” Jeeves said.
Treasure sniffed behind me then took a breath. “They’re with the Great Core now. It’ll be okay. They’ll be recovered in the Borders of Ohm once more.”
We had only been able to recover them the first time because their [Core]s were intact and working. There wasn’t even time to stare at the mess. I focused on moving us forward towards the big vessel. We, I, could hopefully use one ship to fight the other, or something. Anything to make this work. Going around them wasn’t an option. Going through them would probably meet with failure, but by the Voices I didn’t plan on giving up.
I felt a moment of guilt for letting Jeeves and Treasure come into this mess. If there had been a way to back out and let them go, I might have. Briefly it occurred to me that I should have stolen the ship from Ruby and Aqua back on [Offbeat Point]. Then they would all be safe, away from my madness.
It was too late. The player vessel [WTS a Spaceship] loomed in the distance. Our Jump Gate sat behind it. I released my hands from the steering wheel and shook them both to get circulation back. [Mechanoid]s didn’t need it, but as a person it helped me. Driving was not a skill I used often in the real world.
“I’ve got something” Jeeves shouted.
Treasure gasped. “Multiple crafts inbound! I’ve got communications, it sounds like they’re old souls here to attack-” The silver and gold [Mechanoid] paused with clear uncertainty. Her mouth pumped a few times to try and speak the words. “Commander Queenshand’s forces?”
I didn’t have time to care. We had gained a small lead on the [Stabinator] after its spike trick. Suffering a small Kamakazi from Ruby had slowed it down further.
“Patching in audio!” Treasure’s sweet voice took over fully. Whatever happened must be good.
“Alright, boys! You know the rules! All in, everything on those two ships, try to get the Mechanoids through! Move, move!” The voice sounded nasally. The kind of person who probably had tons of pimples and sat behind a computer screen.
Goodness, now what was going on? Dozens of ships were flying in. These were all player vessels, not NPCs. They aimed straight for the two enemy ships. Explosives and slowly forming beams rocketed across the landscape. Where in the universe had this army come from?
An idea occurred to gave me a spark of hope. Were these Advance Online’s representation of the army Shazam was leading? Was this one of those echo events that Jeeves had mentioned? This was our cavalry, riding to the rescue because of a letter I delivered!
“Come on, quickly! I’ve got the gate started, but our window is short.” Eggman shouted at us and I changed course.
Current Stage Event:
The Jump Gate to [The Old Earth Solar System] is now active. This is a limited portal and will be unavailable after one minute.
* Time Remaining: 00:00:58
Or vehicle went from its beeline for [WTS a Spaceship] towards the gate floating nearby. Eggman’s shard of a vessel was taking heavy fire. Lights flickered along the wooden Jump Gate, it looked like the various beams of lightning were slowly being brought together into one giant straight ray of light. It shot off into the distance. Pulses rippled a path out of this disaster.
Then Eggman’s ship blew up. I didn’t know what to think, had a third traveler just died? Was this another casualty to go with the army around us that was assaulting our enemies? I didn’t have time to figure out who was on our side, or who might be with Commander Queenshand. We had to get to the gate.
I drove straight for it while watching the timer. Blasts from other ships flew in from all directions. A few hit us and shaved away health and energy. Treasure and Jeeves were both madly pressing buttons, micromanaging the ship’s functions and diverting energy from places. Small symbols appeared showing fluctuations in our weapon’s power and that [Repair] functions were being taken offline to boost the shields.
My job was to steer towards that Jump Gate. That had to be my only focus.
Remains of Eggman’s vessel flew by us. One large piece actually collided with our hull. I couldn’t afford to pay it any mind as I pressed down on the gas pedal. Even that brief bit of collision from an opposite direction had ruined our inertia.
“Come on,” I muttered.
There was a clank of noise. Large heavy footsteps clambered in from the exit hatch that shouldn’t even be open. I couldn’t turn around to look.
“Human!” Treasure sounded affronted. I focused on aiming for the Jump Gate.
“Alright, those punks, taking my ship after all that work!” Eggman’s voice wasn’t over the intercom anymore. “Hey, Igs! Surprise, I left a self-destruct option aboard before quitting the guild! Hahahaha.”
“HAMMMMMMMMM!” Auntie Backstab’s voice chased us through space. “HAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.”
“DOOOOOOMMMMM!”
Explosions distorted space for endless miles. Pieces of ship rocketed outwards in a ripple. My eyes stayed glued on the escape, our only hope, Xin’s salvation. I dove straight into the activation portal for [The Old Earth Solar System]. Our ship wooshed through in a beam of light. My eyes felt like reality was being stretched through all the world's funhouse mirrors at one time. Everything rippled and spun, compressed and expanded.
Then we plopped out the other side. My interface was completely messed up. Health and energy bars were crawling with lightning looking static. I tried to breathe and see where we were. Finally, satisfied that we had made it through this latest leg, I turned to confront the player Eggman.
“You do understand that was a one-way trip,” I said to him. We sat at the Jump Gate’s edge. Going back would be impossible, there was no energy to the gate on this end. The other player's ship was destroyed. Aqua and Ruby were destroyed along with their vessels.
“I do! It will be fantastic! Hehehehehe.” Eggman started laughing. We were about the same mass, at least in terms of volume. I was allowed to put it into different places, were Eggman kept his a few feet lower across the board. Each time his belly wiggled it pushed into the other [Mechanoid]s.
“You’re willing to go this far, just for revenge?” I wanted to check with the other player. We hadn’t talked much in person aside from his strange habits of spouting doom and laughing.
“On those idiotic brats? Of course! Let them try to stop me! You saw what I did to my old ship. Your minions can deal with the NPC, I’ll show The Little Twerp and Jolly Green Moron a thing or two.” The round player began to strike poses in our small craft which only served to knock Jeeves and Treasure around.
I turned towards the front and pressed the gas pedal. We had come this far and needed to keep forging ahead. There was a timer displaying how long remained until we caught up with Commander Queenshand’s ship, the [Lady Liberty]
Current Stage Goal:
Intercept the first squadron’s ship, [Lady Liberty] and recover the [Mistborn]
Time until [Wayfarer’s Hope] catches up with [Lady Liberty]:
* 1:33:54
I drove on. Stealth was pointless. We would either attract every monster in the entire solar system or make it through safely. [Lady Liberty] was ahead somewhere, my hope was that she would be fighting or clearing a path. After ten minutes, we encountered the first casualties.
There was a stream of dead monsters. I saw pieces of bodies and health bars. A trail of defeated beings littered the galaxy, snaking between planets and onward towards the center. It was possible to see where they had sacrificed a lot of human ships in order to make it this far.
I stared at the dead. Our ship floated forward almost silently. It was like walking through a graveyard. The monsters I didn’t mind, except that some of them looked like giant twisted people. Mutated faces and extra arms hung off of human looking creatures floating in the vacuum. This went on in a long trail of crazy. By Neptune, I felt sick. At Saturn, my stomach wanted to retch.
“Welcome to a spaceship graveyard.” Eggman didn’t have the nerve to laugh in the face of this. Treasure’s noisy scans kept identifying ships. Brief messages came up. Her readings presented all kinds of details such as the year each ship went missing, crew size, and their allegiances. The oldest ship was from at least one hundred years in my future.
We passed by Jupiter, then Mars, and finally to my homeworld. Earth. We had found the Advance version of Earth. Only instead of one small green and blue marble, there were four large pieces. Lightning crackled and a cloud hung between them. Our planet looked to have suffered from an explosion that rent it into shards like a global watermelon.
“What happened here?” I asked the three behind me.
“Humans,” Jeeves said.
“That’s what the records imply.” Said Treasure.
“We fucked up paradise during a war with the first AIs.” Eggman supplied further information.
I stared at the globe in front of us. This scene was a virtual foreboding of mankind’s future, especially with my only knowledge about AIs and their existence. Our programs were no longer simple creations that only understood and performed basic tasks. They grew, learned, evolved, and apparently even fell in love.
An image of Xin’s face popped into my mind. I hoped especially that they loved.