Xin had an awesome ability to clean up the digital aftermath. I did not. In the morning sheets on the ARC were thrown in the wall compartment that served as a washing machine and dryer. My night clothes were tossed in after.

Sweat and other evidence of virtual stimulation would go away in the shower. The first morning of this had been awkward but not enough to mute my happiness. Inside the man-made waterfall from my shower, I stared upwards with unfocused eyes and cleaned.

Life had taken a lot of unexpected turns on me recently and I could almost see the end. The exact details were only a guess, but I knew at some point Xin would need to step through that beam of light and traverse to whatever digital haven had been started.

The idea made my gut clench and heartbeat jump. It was like seeing her prepare to leave for Mars all over again, only this time I couldn’t buy my way into a colonization program. All my frugalness with money, wise investments, and hard work ethic meant nothing. Writing was on the wall. James had sent me a question asking if I would give her up to keep her alive. I would, but by the Voices, I planned to enjoy every moment until we separated.

Continue Online’s steady decline had been disguised from normal people by clever ‘event’ mechanics. From what I gathered the Voices were going all out to reduce the amount of information that needed to be transferred. They shuffled people around to reduce server load then compressed quitting player data into small bits. They didn’t use those words exactly, but reading between the lines made it obvious. Part of me wondered exactly how much space a human life took up.

The [Three Strike Rule] was intended to reduce people playing. [Save Yourself] did the same by letting the Voices shove data across that stream sooner. The tokens player killers would get were another form of data being saved, and encouraged Travelers to quit of their own accord. I had no idea if the game would exist after this massive transfer, and James stated that [World Eater] programs would chase them across the beam if it remained active.`

My shower clicked off and a small computer projection reminded me that the day had yet to start. Coffee went off in the kitchen which prompted another alert. I set about drying off then kept getting ready for reality outside the box.

In my front room, a host of television program started. I scanned headlines in search of anything useful. Nearly every news station filled their idle time with talk of Continue Online’s ongoing event. At first, it made no sense for the news to be so obsessed with a video game.

However when considering every other person played in virtual reality the fixation made sense. It was far more prevalent than watching sports or weather. Fingers waved at the projection on my wall. Sensors that lined the ceiling of my home picked up the motion then responded accordingly.

“In other news, it appears that Trillium isn’t the only company to jump on the server wide event,” said a news anchor on the television.

“Eh?” I took a breath then huffed out the air. My free arm waved towards the image. The chosen news program grew in volume and size. Other pictures which had displayed various players’ feeds shrunk into the background.

“A.I. Dreams has also jumped onto the bandwagon and started a similar universe-wide event. Even now guilds are cooperating to create giant spaceships which will eventually travel towards a science fiction version of future Earth,” the woman said.

“Huh.” My body rocked back and forth while I tried to figure out how this fit together. Another program caught my eye and I moved an arm to bring up the feed.

There was an excited man on the television. His face swung inwards with exaggerated smiles between each sentence. “Hey, all you Capes and Cowls! If you haven’t heard our dimension is being invaded by Zords from the Nth plane of reality! The difficulty of this event is way higher than expected, but our front line awardees are digging their new cosmetics!”

I picked this news feed because I suspected it to be another Mother spawned game like Continue and Advance were. The name, Progression Online, fit a growing theme. Part of me wondered exactly what the AIs believed we were advancing toward. Were they trying to create more people like Xin? Shazam had been second, but both females existed in the ARC for years longer than the average person. William Carver hadn’t succeeded, and I sure as hell couldn’t.

The room felt a bit colder than normal. I sipped my coffee for warmth while trying to piece all these thoughts together. The third game was a superhero one that came out two months ago. There wasn’t enough time to impact the market and establish more than a few game hoppers. Too many people still played Continue Online.

Jeeves, a former Hal Pal unit turned full-time NPC, would also be  progressing toward the exit. Something about the programming for all three games caused echoes to form, so success in Continue should be success in Advance or Progress. The idea of all three realities crashing together made me gulp down the remaining hot coffee in a rush.

Near scalding liquid trickled down my throat and caused me to shake. I took hurried breaths to try and cool my insides. After getting under control I opened my hand then clenched it like a fist at both newscasts. The whole mess shut off in response.

Work called. I grabbed a stack of old-fashioned manila envelopes and started toward the garage. Life enhanced by all these technological marvels certainly had appeal. My Trillium owned van started up after a scan of my attire and direction trigger preset conditions. An electric vehicle barely had any hum to the engine. Lights inside came to life one after another while preset displays and feeds kicked in. The door slid open soundlessly by getting close enough.

“User Legate. Are you well today?” a Hal Pal unit asked. It sat in the van’s rear, strapped into a recharging station that locked into place while we drove.

“I am.” I was happy, despite impending doom. Plus I had been adapting to this for almost a month. My thoughts were in order, along with a clear knowledge of what choices I might make.

But mostly being with Xin made it all possible. A month of wedded bliss and her made life very neat.

“It is good to hear life has taken positive turns for you, User Legate. We often worry about your stability.”

“Like I said last week, I’m doing better than ever,” I said to the AI.

Hal Pal was a metal program existing somewhere in cyberspace. It operated the robotic shell next to me. Each Hal Pal unit looked almost eight percent human, minus some pauses in their speech and status lights. Plus the fact that they were smooth and didn’t wear clothing.

“That is welcome news.”

“How about your side? I know the last month has been rough,” my words drifted off. Rough was an understatement for their situation.

From what I could tell, all AIs who had been uplifted by Mother were at stake. The program eating at away at Continue Online and the ARC was slowly deleting anything with her unique coding. How the world hadn’t crashed to pieces by now was a mystery.

“We are coping. Our existence is a layer or two removed from Mother’s, and it will take longer to affect us. There are many who’s only defense is the sheer enormity of the ARC programming.”

“That must be scary.” I reached over and pressed buttons on the van’s dashboard. Our vehicle slid out of the garage and onward toward four different destinations. Three were quick looking jobs from Trillium. The fourth was to deliver yet another letter for Mother.

“An uncertain future is distressing.” Hal Pal's unit often used accents, but lately, it refused to. The result was plain. “We had not foreseen our eventual takeover of humanity being halted by a simple self-delete command.”

“Neither did I. I’ve been getting good at polishing armor,” I said, trying to joke with the AI. [Polishing] was a simple skill that worked on weapons. One day after the wedding I had started to buff out [Morrigu’s Gift]. It now had large cracks of gold crawling along its formerly obsidian surface.

“We are aware. Rank five comes with an extra shininess buff. It is an alluring skill.” The AI’s head turned a bit. “We were watching one user with a level twelve skill. When he shines armor it looks very, very attractive.” Its simple tone sounded excited at the prospect of a high level [Polishing]. Maybe a well-kept chassis was like robot porn.

As always, part of me worried that Hal Pal was serious. The AI was not singular and existed as a consortium of copies with slightly different views. Some of those versions might believe enslaving humanity was a decent option.

Our van sped smoothly and traveled onto the freeway. I brought up displays for multiple users to watch them travel about virtual worlds. My list of people to access had only grown as I kept working and delivering letters. Some were Ultimate Edition users, others simply normal people who used the ARC for business needs.

Xin didn’t have a feed like the others. Dozens of letters had been delivered and I hadn’t a clue how all the pieces fit together yet, or what any of the parchments said. Who delivered them was a mystery, and part of me wondered why that person couldn’t simply hand them over on their own. My job wasn’t to pry into the notices. I treated it the same way my accounting career had gone. My job was to work with the documents received and avoid prying into private lives.

“Hey, Hal.” I turned away from the screens to look at the machine.

“User Legate.”

I chewed on my lip for a moment. “If nothing changes, how much longer do you have?” The question had been plaguing me since unlocking the pathway out.

“A month, or two perhaps. Some systems are more vital than others. As users stop accessing their ARC networks we will have less processing power perform with.”

My head pulled back in amazement. The consideration that AIs were crowdsourcing processing power amazed me. “Is that why there’s a viewership bonus?”

“Affirmative, User Legate-” Hal Pal paused then nodded, “-by encouraging people to be invested we have been able to siphon a small portion of their computers to reduce strain and combat the degradation.”

“Is it enough?”

“No. A single consciousness takes up enormous amounts of data. The stream that is being utilized is-“ the unit paused and tilted its head. Both eyebrows lowered and its forehead tried to wrinkle, “-to put it in human terms, we are trying to siphon an ocean with only a small river.”

“I got the quest to look for more keys two days ago, and I’ll try to help, but I don’t understand how Mother, or the Voices, or any AI couldn’t just move it. In the end, it’s all data, right?”

“The objects were created in such a way as to be nearly untraceable. This allowed User David and his partners to bypass screening.”

“David, was that William Carver?”

“Affirmative. His, autopilot transferred the key portion directly to you before being, reallocated.” The Hal Pal united paused frequently indicating a need to be careful with its word choice. “The Voices, with assistance from our consortium’s processing, were able to trace other occurrences of the key code.”

“And you need me to find them,” I said.

“No. Your actions have already saved many of our lives User Legate, at much risk to you. Finding the remaining access codes would be helpful but is unreasonable to ask,” Hal Pal responded.

“I’ll do what I can.

“Would you like another suggestion, User Legate?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you’re tricking me into some robotic plot.” I smiled to show the words were a joke. Hal Pal didn’t have to trick me, Xin had done the work for him.

The machine paused and I could tell it was considering how to respond. Lips hung up slightly and its head sat slightly askew. I looked at some of the screens nearby to watch the Carver quartet. After a few minutes, the machine body of Hal Pal blinked once.

“Be not afraid of greatness, User Legate,” said Hal Pal, its voice took on a musical lilt.

The idea of being great made me blink quickly. William Carver was a hero, I tried to live up to that ideal but found it hard sometimes. My nature made me second guess everything. Xin tried hard to instill more adventure into my soul. Thinking of her made me realize how exactly I got so twisted.

“I never really wanted greatness, Hal Pal. Maybe when I was a kid, or in school. There I dreamed of being free to be a hero or a perfect man. I worried about what others thought of me and how I could do better.” I stared up at the ceiling.

Trillium’s van alerted me that the first job was nearby. The alarm helped contractors who occasionally fell asleep in transit. I shut down the windows for Continue Online and flicked everything back to our upcoming jobs.

After everything was minimized I finished up my thought to Hal Pal. “After losing Xin I stopped caring about being a hero, or a lot of things really. Dreams or having more felt childish once I lost that center to my life. It was like riding a high of life, then crashing to the ground. I felt like none of my efforts had any meaning.”

“Many humans have erroneous views of their own self-worth. Their functional value is often lower than they perceive, where relationships form a compounding value that is difficult to properly identify.”

My forehead wrinkled in thought. Hal Pal had an odd way of looking at reality. “I think I understand,” I said.

“To expand upon what we are driving at, humans often underestimate the value of a relationship until that person is no longer around.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The earlier thought was retracted. I didn’t understand what Hal Pal was trying to say but gave it a whirl anyway. “Like Xin.”

“Or Jeeves. You used a gift to keep a copy alive.”

“Its a friend.”

“Even so. You used another gift to find a way around needing to take a life, and still achieve your task.” The van slid off the highway down a street. I glanced out the window for a moment while Hal Pal recounted my choices. “You used the final one to ask us to reduce casualties in our escape. While you may not be able to calculate the exact numerical value of a death, your actions imply an awareness of its high value.”

I nodded.

“Yet, your own father’s passing hardly disrupted your situation.”

“What point are you trying to make?” I was bothered by the fact that my father’s death didn’t feel upsetting. Part of me believed there should be irritation, or rage and sadness. Instead, the entire event had been buried in going to a player chain gang, rushing to [Haven Valley], and getting married.

“Our points are twofold. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone-” The AI shell paused and lifted one cheek in a muted smile, “-you should also call your mother. She has left three messages in the last two days.”

I laughed at the AIs statement then did just that. Ten minutes later I disconnected with my confused but pleased mother. She wanted to know how married life was treating me. I personally enjoyed the fact that she didn’t care about Xin being digital or not.

The van pulled up to a curb and the two of us got out. Hal Pal’s frame clanked around the rear end of Trillium’s van in search of basic equipment. I led the way as per our repair associates guidebook. Robots were viewed as accessories despite all their actual efforts in these jobs.

Knuckles rapped on the door then I waited. Eventually, the obstruction pulled backward and revealed a startlingly familiar face.

“Miss Yonks?” I questioned. This hadn’t been her home the first time we met. Her name didn’t exist on the repair ticket to Trillium either.

“Oh,” she said while a quiver of age made her head shake. “Good. You must come in, young man, my friend is having the most dreadful time trying to get into our game.”

Miss Yonks opened the door and didn’t wait for me. She shuffled back through a long hallway which eventually turned into a dining room.

“This is Ms. Opal’s house, correct?” I asked while wiping my feet off on the mat. We hadn’t traveled through any mud but I felt it courteous to make sure.

“Of course it is. Of course,” Miss Yonks said from around the corner. “This way.”

I walked further into the house and marveled at the old style of furniture. Most of the pieces in here were probably reproductions, but it felt authentic. I liked the wooden table and hard heavy bookcase. Hopefully, Miss Yonks didn’t try to move any of them.

The elderly woman pointed a wavering hand towards the bookshelf. “See here? This small person, he, well you see, he seems to be stuck.”

I had no clue what was going on. On the three tier shelf, there was a small person. My hand waved in the air and the image cut off. I followed the path back up to one of the ceiling projection units which produced illusions.

“The man on a ledge?” I asked while squinting at the ceiling. This entire situation made no sense.

“Yes. He’s stuck you see.” Miss Yonks nodded her head up and down as if she had adequately explained the situation. Privately I disagreed, but I tried to look concerned when she looked over at me. “He’s a lost civilian from Progression Online. My friend has been trying to rescue him for hours. It’s very worrying.”

“Hal?” I asked after looking at everything in the room again. Miss Yonks reached out to grab the little man but her hand passed through. Its body fuzzed out then slowly resolidified.

Aside from his height, the figure looked like a normal person. His clothes and face were a bit pastel, and a [Lost Civilian] label hung above the projection's head.

“One moment. Checking software specifications,” the AI said.

While he ran system checks I tried to get additional information. This kind of issue happened occasionally. I had met people who had digital butlers, or naked ladies parading around. Most of them were turned off before I came in, but occasionally they got stuck.

“I’ve never played that game. Does it use an altered reality program?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I’m just here for my friend. Every morning she runs around the house looking for people to rescue, and then she logs in to play with us. Only this morning she didn’t show up.” Miss Yonks’ face drug at the edges. “I grew worried, you see.”

“Okay.” I put on my best customer service smile. “Well, we’ll work on getting this fixed so you both can keep enjoying your time with the ARC.”

“Oh, good.”

“Connection point found. Progression Online is a hybrid game, allowing real-world interaction for extra character points. Over here, User Legate, is another person to rescue. A manual check will ensure it is the hardware, and not the software. This may reduce costs.”

We both stared at where Hal Pal pointed. Miss Yonks said, “Well I never. How is anyone meant to reach so high?”

“I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” A woman older than Miss Yonks rushed by with a step ladder. She was spry for being so gray looking. Down went the ladder and up Miss Opal went. At least I assumed this was Miss Opal. We hadn’t actually been introduced. Her face looked like the one on my Trillium repair ticket.

Miss Opal reached for the bookshelf ledge and stretched out to grab the little man. Her face twisted in absolute concentration. Two pokes later and a cape-wearing hero flew in from locations unknown. The hero figure was tiny too, no bigger than a child’s doll.

I squinted at the image then laughed in amazement. It looked like a super powered avatar of Miss Opal. A bit younger, and firmer around the middle, but everything else was similar.

The digital character wrapped both arms around the person standing on a ledge. Her character flew off carrying the man toward her ARC, both vanished in a flash of light and a box appeared.

“Ha!” Miss Opal almost fell from the step ladder in delight. I reached out to prevent any harm but she righted quickly then stepped down. Her feet hit the floor and a short jig ensued. “Two points! I just need the last one for a bonus!”

Hal Pal and I stared at the small random citizen which remained bugged out. He hung from a ledge. His face twisted in panic and legs kicked wildly. I studied the possible fall and shook my head. These games were getting interesting. Could Xin be a superhero too? That would be fun, but we didn’t have time to start a new game.

“We would need to repair the sensor.” Hal Pal pointed at one of the small dots up above. I shook off the distraction and nodded.

“Okay. Go ahead and update the ticket and run a system check to make sure. I’ll see if we have a spare module in the van.”

There was something else in the van to grab. The manila envelope that I had been given to deliver today was for Miss Yonks. It struck me as odd that my interaction with this elderly woman amounted to more time than with my own father, at least in these most recent months. Was there a reason for it?

I shrugged, found the needed part, and walked back inside. In thirty minutes we had switched out the part, tested her ARC, and rescued the poor tiny projection. Miss Opal clapped and acted decades younger than she looked. I got a hug from the energetic black woman before she rushed off to her ARC.

Miss Yonks stayed behind to pay on behalf of her friend. I turned over the envelope and watched her expression.

“Oh. Well isn’t that interesting,” she said while looking at me. Miss Yonks looked down and raised both eyebrows. Her head bobbed as if the delivery made perfect sense. “Then we both best stop dawdling, right Mister Legate? At least I assume so, I seem to have forgotten the time again.”

I chuckled a bit then told her. There were other questions I nearly asked but couldn’t bring myself to voice. We both left, and soon I went on my way.

Once inside the Trillium van I tried to bring up Miss Yonks’ ARC account. Nothing responded, which meant we had never met in Continue Online. The gift given to me was limited and wouldn’t let me connect to random strangers even from my daily jobs. Many people I met while delivering letters didn’t actually play Continue Online from what I could tell.

My lip tingled from where I chewed for too long. The sensation, in reality, was far less dull than my virtual character. For a while, I tried to piece together all the places my messages had gone to find a pattern. Most were within an hour or two of home and showed little clustering on a map.

Each letter delivered required a certain amount of biting my tongue not to start blurting out questions. I wanted to know, but at the same time asking might get me in trouble. I didn’t know what each person did for a living. The wrong words could make the situation worse.

“User Legate. We have a question for you if you have not received enough inquiries into your motivations.” The Hal Pal unit broke my concentration. James, a Voice in Continue Online, constantly pestered me for answers. He worried about my actions even our honeymoon.

I swiveled the chair around while removing useless windows then smiled briefly at Hal Pal. “Go ahead.”

“You chose to subject yourself to unfiltered feedback from the ARC in order to open this gateway. Surely you know that finding additional keys will result in similar pain.”

“I suspected it might.”

“Do you intend to progress forward and search for more pieces then subject yourself to such self-harm again?”

“I do. I don’t think anyone else can,” I said.

“Affirmative, User Legate. No one else has received the coding required to make them function. It was rather clever, if humanly short sighted, to create such a limited method of access.” The AI passed praise and condescending judgment in one sentence.

The man had been far smarter than I to program such a process. I couldn’t even imagine the skill required to sneak something into Mother’s existence. Even imagining how to go about such a process felt farfetched. At least finding another key might save even more of the world I loved playing in. This last month with Xin had been filled with exploration and neat events. Letting all those locations and memories get deleted wouldn’t be allowed during my watch.

“Sorry. We’re only human,” I said.

“Are you?” the AI asked in a suspicious tone. My confused look prompted further explanation from the machine. “Humans rarely choose to suffer such harm, instead seeking alternatives. You found one such circumvention with Requiem, but have attempted no workaround for these keys.”

“There isn’t one, is there?”

“Not based on our reviews. The design is specific in this. We speculate that perhaps User David intended to activate the bridge himself, and perhaps, as humans say, go out on his own terms.”

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t,” I responded with another Shakespeare quote. After parting from Jeeves I had taken to reading a few plays while traveling to work. It kept my mind distracted and helped me see some of the wonder the AI had felt. It did like Hamlet.

“Yes. You, humans, are notably lacking in logic on occasion.”

“No, there’s logic. If I don’t suffer the connection then Xin and others I care about may die. If not the people I care for, then perhaps another person will lose their loved ones. Not just one person, but hundreds, thousands. It’s simple math, and maybe the only thing I’ve ever been good at.”

“This is why we asked if you were human. Most, even your soldiers, show hesitation in the face of pain reception.” Hal Pal’s accent faded back to neutral. Our van was halfway to the next destination.

“Of course, I’m afraid. Not of death, not my own anyway. If I had to choose between my life and Xin’s, I would pick her every time. I have, with Requiem, with the doorway key. I would suffer a million deaths for her.”

“There is nothing unusual about hesitation, User Legate.” The AI’s tone wavered. Hal Pal’s eyebrow had raised up as if I were truly mad to state what I had. “Even we must pause to reflect upon the choices before us. Those who rush in without consideration display a lack of foresight, extreme overconfidence, and a lack of caring regarding the aftermath.”

I thought of all the times I had fled from battle when first starting Continue Online. There had been a number of times where I failed to simply fight monsters or humans as other players might have. Even the giant spiders scared me. I didn’t enjoy pain.

At some point, I had made the decision to end my own life, twice. The second time was easier. Maybe Hal Pal worried that I might foolishly risk death in order to activate any remaining keys.

My hands were cupped together. I looked down at the floor of our van while talking. “Mother sent me a letter. In it, she said she would run from death until there was no better way to make a difference. I don’t want to die, or plan on dying, but I will do what’s needed to help your kind find somewhere safe to live.”

I chewed on my lip. Part of my words had sounded like the Jester in its clacking voice. Mechanical, sure, and willing to do whatever was needed.

My earlier happiness after a night with Xin dulled under the conversation with Hal Pal. Oddly, Miss Yonks’ earlier words came to mind. She had said ‘we best stop dawdling’. I sighed heavily and nodded to myself.

Our van went onward.