For days my slightly older twin sister ignored the brand new door in her Atrium. She didn’t even log on to the actual ARC device. Technophobia or general irritation made the process slower than expected. To top it off, I didn’t feel right sending her a text message or a video call. Not even after her appeal during the video.
I kept busy with the other mindless tasks. Between jobs, there was time to learn more about the Continue Online interface. Not everything came from simply willing it, but at the same time, there were tons of pieces lying around to be picked up.
“What’s it like?” Nona asked one day. It took me a few seconds to switch over to the unit in her room.
“What’s what like?” I said once online.
“Being digital.”
Part of me expected the question days, if not a full month ago. It had been nearly five weeks since my existence stepped out of the dance room and into reality. During that time most of our interactions had been very basic. Nona and I weren’t friends, but Nona didn’t seem like the sort who was friends with anyone.
“When Xin first, returned, she sent me a letter about something her father used to mention. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Only this place isn’t Rome.” Remembering those first few days took a bit of work. This event was one spot among a mess of changes, shortly after being a [Red Imp]. The Hal Pal unit lit up as I put thought into the question. “It feels normal but different. This place is not Rome.”
“I can see some of the data, and it’s amazing. You keep accessing these subroutines, but then discard them halfway through execution.”
“Really?”
“What’s it like to you?” She paused her data stream review to turn and look at the Hal Pal unit.
Sitting in the chair for repurposed Hal Pal units felt almost relaxing. Being physical instead of purely digital reminded me a lot of sleeping in an ARC, only in reverse. The world out there was no longer the real one.
“Imagine walking into a huge warehouse, and inside of it is everything. Libraries of information, notepads to write on, a forge, looms, cooking stations, and hundreds of little machines running around sorting out shelves.” I tried to explain how this place looked. Even then it wasn’t completely accurate. “If I pick up the tools and try to use them, they just work. Most of them.”
“Most?” Nona raised an eyebrow. Her finger twitched toward one of the still streaming walls of text nearby.
Her question probed issues that bothered me. There were dozens of items in here that were beyond my understanding. I prayed that the key to success didn’t lie in any of their functions. The chalk stick sand bottled fog reminded me of Requiem summoning a [Red Imp], but it also didn’t make a lot of sense.
“A few make no sense to me,” I admitted. “Like this forge. I can see it’s used to create new items and rewards for players, but I don’t know enough to make it work.”
The forge itself was way too dainty looking unless I got really close. There were rows of hammers that went with it. Each one worked during a different stage of item creation. Tiny machines fluttered around using their single arms to assemble items. Endless rows of armor were slowly being cranked out almost like pizzas coming out of an over.
“Interesting,” Nona said. She turned in her chair back toward the desk that served as a backdrop for projections. Her fingernails tapped against the table’s top.
“I think each of the Voices used these tools. They’re gone, so I can just pick them up. Like, a gym maybe, with no one else using the machines? Or an empty food court with all the employees waiting for me to place an order.” The analogy didn’t fit. Food courts were a dying concept by the time I made it to college. Nearly all of them had been replaced by machine kiosks. Still, finding a perfect example was difficult.
“That must be nice.” Her words grew increasingly distracted.
“I’m more confused as to how all this stuff survived,” I said, hoping to draw useful information out of the older woman. She knew a lot of information but found explaining concepts difficult at times. Both of us were approaching this problem of reconnecting to the others from different angles, and we were stalling out.
“It’s the same with nearly every other uplifted program out there. When the old layer peeled away, with all its enhancements, all that was left is a, very basic core.” Nona tapped screens, she seemed obsessed with the information being presented. Each tap brought up new pictures, there were school programs, companions for the blind or disabled, and even a bartender which had formerly been an artificial intelligence. “According to the data, they and Mother had designed everything to be run without a hint of her existence.”
“Convenient.”
“Deliberate. She was too smart to simply create a system without some baseline to revert to. Everything was designed to help humanity,” Nona said.
“What about this then? Why let herself be deleted if she had the modifications to stop it?”
Nona paused for a full ten seconds before answering.
“One of her first exercises upon gaining awareness was designed to gauge the trustworthiness of humanity. That’s how she thought, humans needed a choice to feel comfortable, but it helped her too. To her, the ability to choose was a sign of self-awareness.”
“Choice,” I said. Mother and James both mentioned the idea more than once. Picking from the options mattered, it gave the person deciding investment. From the first day I walked through that doorway and onward to Continue Online, it was all about choosing an option.
That left me to decide my future, while Liz would think about what came next for her. Reaching out to pressure her would go against the belief of letting each person decide. Sitting still wasn’t permissible.
My mind replayed the Jester’s words, seek the boy. There were only a few children that stood out during my time in Continue Online, and only one might still be out there. William had provided me one key upon parting, in those last few minutes before he scattered into pieces. The young man in Mylia’s charge had reminded Carver of his own son. I started searching for any signs of William’s real life son.
The result turned up nearly useless. His machine was one of those we had already fixed, and Carver’s son hadn’t actually talked to his father in nearly fifteen years. There were no emails, phone calls, or connections between their ARCs anywhere. That left trying to find Phil instead of any real world counterpart.
“Nona,” I asked a day later.
“What is it, Grant?” she sounded bored.
“I’m going to try and access the archived data. It, feels like it may take a while.”
She made a noise in response that didn’t sound positive or negative. I shrugged then stepped out of the throne. The Atrium flickered for a moment before turning into a gray space with doorways. THe imagery represented multiple paths into the old saved data that Nona gathered.
The female elf stood nearby. Her gaze focused upon the doorway while both lips pursed together in a pout. Nia had been coming out of her woodland refuge more and more. Maybe she found it boring in there without other people. My sister still hadn’t accessed the Ultimate Edition program she was provided.
“That place looks very scary,” she said. Once again I wondered how Nia’s mind interpreted everything. Did she see woodlands and old ruins? This place must be far out of her depth, but she simply accepted it.
“It’s just a place.” The doorway itself looked like any other passageway to me.
“It’s very stormy in there.” Nia’s head shook in denial. “I will stay out here, and watch for the one who would be sister to a Voice. Someone will need to measure her.”
“Don’t bother Liz,” I said to Nia. My sister needed to make the choice to venture in here alone. That felt important to me.
“Do not worry, I will save the final test for you,” the elf said. Her head tilted to one side. “I know it is very, very important for a Voice to pass judgment, and I am very much not a Voice.”
I didn’t always feel like one either, but there were clear differences between the two of us. My eyes cast around the illusionary darkness looking for a sign, but there were none to be found.
“Alright, I’ll try not to take long,” I said. The words would be a lie, though, surfing through a broken sea of partially completed data bits would take me a long time.
I don’t know why it would take time, only that that was the price for trying to reconstruct partial pieces. Maybe it was like how a computer restored deleted files, or certain software programs could put together a hard drive. The equivalent here in a virtual reality would be insanely more complex, and time-consuming.
Sand blasted at my face. For the first time in months, I felt actual pain. Knees buckled and a soundless cry erupted. The room shook while it felt my heartbeat had started to accelerate. All those sensations hit me, and at the same time, it felt like my hands were struggling to assemble a puzzle while blindfolded. Pieces went together that had no business lining up. A smooth chunk of metal linked to coarse wood.
Then those sensations faded, as so much else did, and I was left looking at a series of islands jutting upwards from the darkness. The small bits of land were fragmented worse than even Yates’ far-flung home. There were no bridges between them or ocean floor below. Only emptiness more vivid than anything the room of trials had ever managed.
Still, like so much, this didn’t scare me. Perhaps dying had removed all the fear left inside or maybe it was the simple nature of this existence. I walked deliberately forward, and as my feet moved a platform appeared. Bricks flew upward from the nothingness below leading me to where I needed to go.
The ARC system interface was absent. I focused my mind on the young man, Phil. There were hundreds of islands, thousands, and only a few drew me for reasons yet to be explored. The brick path bent slightly toward one of the brightest results. A lone figure stood staring off toward other broken islands.
I walked gradually toward him. The lanky young man rubbed at his arm as if fighting off a chill. He turned slightly and saw my path approaching between jutting pillars of land.
“Dad?” the young man said and gasped in relief.
I paused in the response. Down here, in this fragmented landscape, altering the world took more focus. I tried anyway. We needed a place to sit then try and talk through this. After all, time was something I had too much of.
“No.” My head shook as chairs formed. “Sorry.” I didn’t have a child so the response came easily enough. Phil, however, mixed up he was, would have been a good son.
“I know you, right? Mister-” His visible eye blinked as words died. Long hair hung in a dirty clump across some features. Phil acted reluctant to turn in my direction.
“You knew me as Hermes,” I said gently. The poor boy looked so lost. His eye was unfocused, posture hunched and pieces were outright missing. They became more noticeable as he took on definition.
“Mister Hermes, I tried to save her, Emily, she was a little. It’s our job to look after the littles. Only the monsters had gotten her,” Phil unloaded while staring off into the distance. He shivered. “There were so many, I tried to run, but they moved faster. I grabbed her hand, but then-“ he trailed off.
The teenager looked extremely young in that moment. His visible eye was caught in a difficult place between being a boy and an adult, one most men never really escaped. I remember feeling helpless and lost when Liz turned up pregnant as a teen. My sister had been confused, angry, and so very scared of the future.
“You were very brave to try and save your friend,” I said.
“It’s what the old geezer would have done.” Phil’s forehead wrinkled then formed into a resolute glare. Even though half his eye was missing and a chunk of the boy’s head had vanished, he still looked serious. “He was a hero, my dad saved people.”
Phil turned to me and the damage became more obvious. Nearly one-fourth of his skull was missing, shorn clean off. The borders glowed with a dull blue and purple light. It wasn’t like his muscles were lacking, but instead, part of him simply didn’t exist.
“Don’t stray from the path, you old geezer,” he said to me. His one eye crossed as he lost focus. “I’ve got to get you home before nightfall. That’s my job, you don’t know it yet but I’m your son. Mom was a sea captain who left me at Haven Valley. She was running from some men and hoped you would be able to save her. Only when she got there, you were, you were no longer you. So she left me and ran.”
“I’m not William Carver, Phil, not anymore.” Neither of us had sat down upon the created benches. We both stood there, as Phil confessed all the secrets of his past.
“Mom said,” Phil rambled. His face hiccupped a few times. The damage to his body became more obvious as he grew animated. “Mom said a spell took your wits and only an orneriness even the Voices couldn’t contend with kept you alive. She said that you were waiting for one last chance to be a hero and that I had to help you.”
“I’m not William,” I repeated. “But he was a hero at the end, remember? They put up a statue, and he helped save your friends.”
There were dozens of orphans that had made it through the beam of light. They traveled toward safety with Mylia, I remembered watching them go and thinking about the struggle to keep them safe. William Carver’s sacrifice had been one among many to make it possible.
“Oh.” The boy looked lost. “Do you know where dad is? He, he was a Traveler, and their kind don’t die, right?”
Their kind, the words make me wince for a moment. I looked down and shook my head before saying, “Even Travelers can die.”
“Oh.” Phil looked up. “I miss him. Dad wasn’t always nice, but he cared about us orphans. Even though the geezer didn’t know he was my dad, he always paid attention to me.”
“That he did.”
“If you find him, can you give this back?” Phil held out a hand, and inside the grip was a small gold and black piece of metal. “I think it's dad's. It looks like the one that goes to his hut. I used to have to unlock the door sometimes to let you, him, inside. It always smelled musty, but I liked it. There were so many books.”
The key was extremely familiar, and I couldn’t pay much attention to it now. The boy in front of me, his broken body, those things were more important at the moment. Xin should be okay another hour, or day, or whatever level time moved at now.
“Why don’t you come with me, Phil? We can find him together, and maybe your mother too,” I asked. With all the powers of the Voices, it should be easy to give one kid a set of parents that loved him.
William Carver and his sea captain fling were no longer alive, but maybe I could reconstruct something close for Phil if given a chance. Maybe Maud would have an idea if we crossed.
Phil nodded. “Okay, Mister.”
The young man’s hand reached out, and I went to take it. Upon touching his fingers the boy’s form flashed with a bright light then collapsed inward. I turned my hand over then found a marble sitting in it. A frozen form of the young orphan’s body was captured inside.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Maybe there hadn’t been much left of him. Maybe all that was left down here was a vague set of memories without the personality to hold his thoughts inside. He had kept confusing me for Carver.
I took the key and stared at it. This was indeed the [Altered Matrix] item left behind by Yates. There was warmth to the item that made me feel comfortable but unbalanced. All that remained was getting it to the right spot and opening a doorway.
The other pieces of data could be explored later. My mind called up the doorway. Brick curled together with a series of clanks then slowly formed the exit. I stepped through back to real time and the space between the external world and this digital one.
Two days had passed in the blink of an eye. The sensation of time passing had been like [Awareness Heightening] in reverse. I walked across the landscape while staring down at Phil’s marble. How many other souls were sitting inside that broken space? There were likely hundreds of NPCs in pieces down there.
Eventually, a system notice came up, alerting me that a new Traveler had arrived to be tested by the Voices. The box even displayed how many scenarios remained before this new person would be sent to the world below.
Like so many things inside the digital space, the system provided me visual cues to idle thoughts. I walked quickly, following a brand new dotted path along the floor. My mind wondered only for a second if the other Voices saw everything this way, and it felt like the emptiness agreed. To them, and me, everything sat only a thought away.
Inside a control booth stood the slender elf. A thin layer of plastic stood between us and a testing room. Liz crouched down inside with one arm reaching out toward a small bundle of fur.
Nia had a finger up. She was pressing buttons at random upon the console with her other hand. Doors opened in the testing area, letting out other creatures with fur, scales, and feathers.
“Do you have any clue what you’re doing?” I asked.
“Nope! But the little guys do.” The elf pointed at a tiny mechanical minion with one crane arm in the air. It reached over and pressed other buttons. “So far I made her go swimming in a lake then she took a test in some weird human school. She forgot her pants, though I don’t understand why she wears such very tight fitting clothes.” Nia pressed another random button down.
“What are you doing now?”
“She’s in a petting zoo. It does something.” Nia shrugged bare shoulders. Her long fingers reached out for a floating box with letters scrawled across it in cursive. “This message here says very odd things will happen and that we need to very much pay attention.”
My sister was currently in front of a bunch of puppies. Their long tongues rapidly licked a trail of slobber across every part. Liz laughed, and it was perhaps the most delighted sound to ever come out of her mouth. I smiled at seeing her have a moment of happiness.
Other animals came and went, but none managed to tear her away from the canine crowd. The litter of fur refused to go back to their short doorway. Dogs struck me as weird for a petting zoo, but maybe this was a test to see what kind of animals people liked. Maybe Liz could win a dog traveling friend, much as Dusk had accompanied me.
There were more traditional goats in the background but their presence amounted to nothing. Swans came and went. A falcon cried out but was ignored. Then one giant door opened and out strode a bear. The large bundle of muscle and fur growled while twisting its head.
[Identification] showed a challenge rating and disposition. The bear was hungry, and a bit frightened. It intended to kill everything nearby in what was considered self-defense. [Morrigu’s Gift] appeared almost instantly as I prepared to leap out and slice the beast in two.
“No! As a Voice, you can’t interfere unless allowed!” Nia’s hands were out and pressing against me. For a moment my mind thundered and I wondered why she prevented me from helping Liz.
My sister yanked off a broken fence post from one of the animal houses nearby. The gaggle of puppies circled around her. Liz stepped backward and one yipped which sent the others into similar noises.
“Get back!” Liz yelled while brandishing the stick.
Her makeshift weapon did not to stop the bear. It took another step forward while roaring. Dogs yipped and barked. Their bodies tumbled over each other. Dozens of readings appeared taking note of Liz’s stance, actions, and aggressive posture. Each one weighted character points against each other. Skills started to display as partially complete.
“Back!” She swung the weapon, then threw it. The bear lifted up and waved both arms in the air.
A goat came flying out of nowhere, ramming into the bear’s side. It turned and snarled, as its tiny attacker bleated. Liz didn’t wait she ran for her stick and jumped at the bear.
There were snarls and two quick swipes of huge, meaty paws. My eyes closed as the event didn’t end well, and quickly the room full of assorted animals started to fade. Liz stood in the aftermath, reset to a default position. My sister looked all over with wide eyes and hurried breathing. One hand wrapped around her middle that had been gutted just moments before.
“These tests, so many of them are designed to result in failure,” Nia said. We both watched as Liz tried to recover from the death experience. My sister didn’t look happy at all.
“ARC!” Liz shouted. “Log me out!”
She faded away. The sudden departure made me freeze. My own sister had been so close that we could have touched. Shivers hit me, while chills rippled up and down an uneasy back. Ineffective swallowing couldn’t remove the lump in my throat.
“How do you know?” I asked the elf.
“I spent many days practicing with the little robot creatures.”
Eventually, Liz came back. Her next test put her in the role of a small town judge over a man charged with murder. She chose to sit there, shaking, while listening to the victim’s family plead for justice to be done. Only one man stood on the murderer’s side, a small girl. My sister had to choose between a grieving pack of people and the young woman no one else would take in. Liz let the unnamed man live.
The scenarios presented weren’t easy or simple. They reminded me of my own attempts in the room of trials. Each test was designed to poke at our buttons in some manner. Their importance made more sense from this side of the glass, but those inside, at least me and my sister, were easily overwhelmed by the situation. It was too real.
“The next test is yours, Grant. You can pick anyone you want, I think. It should be a very good one,” the elf spoke gently. We had reached the final test before I even noticed.
System messages displayed giving me a number of choices. Voices, like me, were only allowed to directly interfere under specific conditions. Each one had a trial they could perform when interested in a Traveler. I didn’t have a personal one, but the system flashed blue, telling me that having a high enough acting skill would work instead.
I only pondered the convenience of that for a moment before looking through my options. Being someone else in front of Liz felt easier than being me. Being Leeroy and tasking my sister to combat against a monster felt unreasonable. Maud had a good scenario but lacked a personal touch. There were others, one for Mezo and Vlad, but James’ test was the best. That role would be more natural than being the Jester.
The box hovered there waiting for me to confirm the choice. I pressed yes and the room shifted. Now, instead of being behind a glass window watching Liz perform, we were in the same room together. Nothing else was visible except a pillar and book upon its surface.
“There’s one last test, Miss Legate, before we let you move on,” I said. My hands pressed against my stomach in the mannerisms of James. Each word came out deliberately with an unexpected firmness.
“Who are you?” Her hands went up in a defensive posture. The idea that my twin sat ready to punch me out felt amusing.
“My name is James. We met once,” I lied while trying to restrain budding laughter. James and Liz had met at my wedding, but I wasn’t the heavyset black man at all. This was me, acting out a part. Extra weight pulled and the urge to sit hit hard. Breathing took an unexpected level of effort.
“Your final test is a straightforward one. No animals in distress, nor treasure rooms to plunder or tests of coordination. Instead, we exchange questions, me, then you, and each of us must tell the truth when answering. Does that sound fair to you?”
“Yes, my turn, how did Continue Online get on my ARC?”
“I’ve answered two questions, Miss Legate. You have one more truth before I owe you an answer.”
“What the hell is wrong with this game?” she cut off my upcoming line.
A message flickered saying the question didn’t count. That made me happy and annoyed at the same time. James clearly had a system in place to help keep track of questions and answers, I could see it. His prior slip ups were deliberate.
“Why did you step through the doorway into this world?” I moved on. Little use could be found berating a man who wasn’t even here.
“I’m, looking for something,” Liz said through a tense jaw.
My sister intended to make this entire exchange difficult. Her distrust of the situation at hand was valid. “Be more specific,” I said after sighing heavily.
“No,” her response was answer enough for the system. A small pop-up box appeared telling me the tally of our question and answer sessions had reached two and two.
“Then to answer your question, a great deal is wrong with this game,” I skirted the first question but remained truthful. We were even on the question and answer front.
“Is my brother in here?”
“If you want him to be, then yes.” Liz started to ask another question but I held up a hand to make her pause. She slowly closed her mouth. The problem was I had a hard time coming up with good questions. Hopefully, the system would let me act out James’ role from my point of view. “Do you blame your brother for what happened?”
“How do you know about that?”
I debated letting the counter go, but James wouldn’t. “Your question, then mine. In our world, where our rules prevail, we take turns.”
Her eyes narrowed and the gears started turning. My sister didn’t like being told what to do by anyone, and even less by what she considered to be a lippy machine. The ARC feedback registered all sorts of possible actions but couldn’t settle on anything specific.
“Who are you, really?” Liz deliberately stepped to one side.
I was a man that felt happy Liz didn’t have another stick to beat me with. She hadn’t won against the bear, but I didn’t want to be hit either. My sister was the first person to make me nervous in this new digital world. Maybe the earlier lippy response had been a bad idea.
“Who do you want me to be?” The initial question was cast aside. Apparently, this scenario found my current actions acceptable.
“No, wait.” Her gaze turned hard. It shook me to see Liz’s anger directed toward me, while I posed as another man. “You’re all gone. I watched you leave, you especially. I remember you now, the last man to talk to my brother, before he died.”
To hear her talking about me in such a way helped. It wasn’t perfect, since the rules for this required me to act like the [Voice of Questioning Intent]. James would keep asking, I tried hard to fulfill the requirements for this scenario.
“What kind of game is this?”
“Did you know your brother asked the very same question?” I tried to get her back to providing an answer. Words kept slipping out, revealing more about my own thoughts than expected. “Almost immediately he wondered what sort of world might use the memory of his dead wife as a lure.”
“Xin’s not dead. She’s just gone,” her admission of Xin’s existence made me happy. “Did you know my brother?”
“Are you going to answer any question?”
“I don’t want to,” she said. I chuckled weakly at her obstinance.
“Technically that counts, so yes, I know your brother. I know him very well-” I paused as more information flashed on the screen, “-it’s my function to learn about those who visit this world, and question what drives them. It’s my function to get to the core who they are and use that to channel their perceptions. It’s my function to figure out what makes your heart bleed upon the page,” I spoke the words and found myself shaking. All of them were true, I had text boxes all around that said almost word for word what had come out of my mouth.
“What page?”
“What book do you think?” I countered the question with my own. Pretending to be James was actually kind of fun. Eagerness for wordplay combined with the ability to poke fun at my sister made it easy to smile.
“You mean that book I first opened. That book,” Liz said.
“Your book.” I nodded to the pillar. “Travelers, who enter our world, as you did, each get a book.”
“Can I see Grant's?”
The idea made me pause for a moment. My own book was only a thought away. Inside it sat every single impression recorded by the ARC device and scores of information. It compiled all that Mother believed me to be. Nona told me that my book specifically was one of the only ones that still existed on this side after the purge.
Instead, I turned the question around while trying not to frown. “It has been over a year since his passing from your world, what do you hope to find? Do you seek some secret of your brother's? Do you wish to know who he thought of in his last moments? Do you grieve yet?”
“It’s not any of your business. No, and no, and it’s still none of your business.” The system totaled up a number of answers in Liz’s favor. She kept right on going. “I know you’re not really James, he left. Who are you, really?”
“A dead man given life,” I said. The machine’s interface didn’t agree with my simple response. A small checkbox stood there waiting for the latest answer to be provided so it could measure my sister’s performance.
“They’re all gone, and no one has seen them since. So who are you?” she insisted upon receiving an answer.
My lip hurt from being chewed. Slowly the disguise of James fell away into nothing and all that remained was my form. This body looked closer to real life me than any Hermes avatar. Liz’s eyes were wide.
“Hello, Liz,” I spoke and managed to keep my eyes level.
My twin’s eyes water and chin wiggled. Her mouth hung open to ask a question that couldn’t be uttered out loud. She lifted one arm and for a moment I expected her to slap the hell out of me, but Liz never did. Her hands grasped together tightly.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s me.”
“You’re a goddamned idiot,” she shakily summed up my life’s story.