Chapter 20: Chat

I wrapped Lena up in a hug.

I think it must’ve crossed over from affectionate to desperate, because after a moment, she started to squirm. She pressed her face against my shoulder and muttered, “What was that for?”

“Do I need a reason?”

She looked up and forced a grin. “It’s more like, is your reason that I sounded so cool, or that you’re worried about me?”

“Yes,” I said.

Her head tilted. Her grin softened and she settled into my embrace. “Good enough.”

I’d known that would be Lena’s answer: if you’re scared, you have to get strong enough not to be.

Her fight or flight reflex had long ago tipped all the way over to fight. Why wouldn’t it? In any given situation, she was likely to have the shortest legs; when you were the one getting outrun, “flight” became the last resort.

Me? I hit that flight button so hard it was starting to stick. My legs were long. So was my ability to shove problems into a box marked “later,” then put the box somewhere I didn’t have to be reminded of it.

I couldn’t run from this.

What was the best case scenario? It was too much to hope that the creature was gone and there wasn’t anything else like it out there. It might not be too optimistic to imagine they would stay sealed in places like the construction site, though. Weird liminal spaces Third Eye tried to warn us away from, if only we’d treat the signs as warnings and not invitations. Follow the rules, stay safe.

We couldn’t just plan for the best case scenario, though. If for some reason I’d allowed optimism to infect my outlook – I hadn’t –, Benji’s financial disaster set me straight.

Hope for the best? Sure, but prepare for the worst.

And the worst was that the whole reason Third Eye existed was to get us ready to face creatures like that.

If so, sooner or later, we’d have no choice but to fight.

I would have no choice but to fight.

Not just to protect myself, or to stand beside Lena. Not even to protect non-players like Benji or Zhizhi, or ex-players like Donica or Miguel. We absolutely did need to be able to do that, but it wasn’t everything. It wasn’t enough.

The last time we faced the creature, we’d been little more than bystanders. Albie had saved us. I couldn’t know, but I suspected that even now she was still protecting us. A little girl! She should’ve spent her days playing with her Daimon, Marroll, in the park. Not calling up his monstrous battle form to fight even worse monsters.

When Lena and I saw Albie looking scared as she left the park, we never could have imagined what she’d had to fear.

We’d wanted to help her, though, even after Miguel pointed out how little we could. Where would we have even started? We hadn’t known her last name – we still didn’t –, or her address, or what kind of problems troubled her.

Now, we had an inkling of the problems.

Now, we had a path to confronting them.

We needed to get strong enough that Albie no longer needed to protect us.

Strong enough to protect her? The thought seemed as absurd as it was intoxicating. File it under hashtag life goals, the kind you only post sarcastically.

Then again, a game giving real magic had seemed absurd a month ago. Fighting monsters had. Even reconnecting with Lena had, and the only thing stopping us from doing that had been ourselves.

For the moment, thinking of Albie reminded me that we had an option besides jumping at shadows or trying to tell ourselves the creature couldn’t get us.

“Check me on this,” I said.

Lena’s eyebrows raised. “Hm?”

“We should ask Albie if it’s possible we’re really seeing the creature, not just imagining it.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Lena hesitated. “You know we’re going to get a smiley and an answer that doesn’t really tell us anything, right? I message her every day, but that’s all I get back.”

In addition to flitting around the world, confronting players for reasons we didn’t understand and battling monsters beyond our comprehension, Albie also seemed to be the point of contact for Third Eye’s dev team. Her AlephLambda account gave pat, instantaneous answers, so much so Lena had once believed it was run by a chatbot. Until, unprompted, she and I got a message from the account that only made sense if it came from Albie.

We’d tried messaging her back, but we’d gotten the usual AlephLambda pablum in return. I’d have dismissed her message to us as a fever dream if I couldn’t scroll up through my Discord history and reread it.

“You’re probably right,” I said. “But unless you can think of a good reason not to, I’d feel better if we asked.”

Slowly, Lena nodded. “Same. Besides, if there’s even the tiniest chance that thing is out there, or a reflection of it is, or something, and the devs don’t know about it?”

“We,” I said, “would be well and truly fucked.” For a value of “we” somewhere between “Lena and I” and “the entire human race.”

“Exactly,” Lena said. “Message away.”

I let go of her and pulled out my phone.

A glance at the official Third Eye Discord showed that AlephLambda was online. As always. Messages zipped by, players asking questions, AlephLambda answering. For all I knew, somebody had asked about Third Eye conferring real magic. For all I knew, they’d gotten confirmation. It would only matter if someone committed to scrolling all the way up, and ain’t nobody got time for that.

I had no intention of sharing this question with the community. We hadn’t settled on the best way to break magic to them, much less monsters. I was pretty sure “random question in the official Discord” was not the answer.

I switched to my DMs.

Then I switched to Samsung Notes and tapped out my message in advance. Lena started to shift from foot to foot. I figured I was about a second away from her snatching my phone when I finally finished and copied the first part back to Discord.

OldCampaigner: Do you have a minute?

AlephLambda: I’m always happy to help! :)

Almost every line AlephLambda sent came with an emoticon, usually a simple smiley. That had been part of what made Lena think they were a chatbot in the first place. Either that, or deeply sarcastic. No game dev could stay that chipper, especially when exposed to their audience.

Now, I suspected Albie really was happy to help.

I copied the rest of my message.

OldCampaigner: Ever since the last time we played together, I keep thinking I’m seeing that PVE mob. Ashbird said the same thing. We haven’t been attacked, or even threatened, but we’d feel a lot better knowing we weren’t going to run into something like that unless we ignore warnings and go into a zone we’re not ready for.

It felt absurd to couch what had happened to us, what continued to happen to us, in terms of a normal game. That was how Albie had chosen to communicate as AlephLambda, though. I didn’t know if it was her preference, or a rule she had to follow, or a way to get around the eye of her brother.

The response came through, as it always did, in an instant. Lena and I had bounced theories about that back and forth, but had yet to come up with a satisfying one.

The most mundane explanation was that the AlephLambda account normally was a chatbot, but Albie could take control of it when she wanted to send a message to specific players.

I was pretty sure the response I got was customized, though, and it came through just as fast. It made me wonder if there was some weird time shit going on, the opposite of what we’d experienced at the construction site.

AlephLambda: I’m so sorry to hear that. :(

AlephLambda: Open world PVE won’t be implemented during the beta, so please don’t worry. :)

OldCampaigner: That’s a relief, thanks.

Not as much of one as I would’ve liked. Did you catch the catch? Albie specified “during the beta.” I considered that pretty damn close to confirmation that we were enjoying a temporary reprieve.

I showed Lena the screen.

She sucked air through her teeth. “Sounds like I’ve got the right idea, getting stronger.”

“I think we both already knew that was the case,” I said.

She toed the snow at the edge of the balcony. “I’d have really liked to be wrong on this one.”

I patted her shoulder. “First time for everything.”

We both tried to smile.

“Can I have your phone for a sec?” she asked. “This is the most personalized response we’ve gotten from Albie in a while.”

“Go for it.” I handed her the phone.

Her fingers flew across it, wonderfully deft. Watching her work made me wonder if my clumsiness operating a touchscreen was holding me back when it came to Third Eye gesture controls. Another thing we ought to test. Add it to the list.

Lena showed me what she’d typed.

I swallowed. I nodded.

She hit send.

OldCampaigner: Ashbird and I both want to know. Are you okay?

Once again, Albie answered in an instant.

AlephLambda: I’m doing really good. Thank you for asking. :)

AlephLambda: Thanks to your feedback last time, we’ve been able to troubleshoot the problem much better. It’s been a big improvement! :)

Some of the tension left Lena’s shoulders. I was glad for her. Glad for Albie, even, if whatever had changed really did make her life easier.

But all I saw in her message was confirmation that she still had monsters to hunt.