Later the next day we showed up at the front gates of the amazon village to discover Emily armed with a clipboard and an openly gloating Thotslayer.
“What took you losers so long?” Thotslayer asked scornfully by way of greeting. “I went solo and still won! Hah! How dare you doubt my leetness?” she gloated.
I looked at Thotslayer and wondered what had gone wrong with the person who played this character. At the lunch, I had thought that she looked as close to a man as possible, short hair, masculine jaw, no breasts at all, and muscles far bulkier than mine. It was only because Femme had pointed out that every amazon had to be female that I knew that Thotslayer was one as well, especially now. She’d switched out the starting chain mail bikini for heavy armor that completely covered her body. The armor looked odd, featuring a red and gold color scheme and a glowing blue light in the center of the flat and very masculine chestplate. Only the lifted visor made me realize there was even a person inside, rather than a misplaced masculine looking robot; it didn’t match the rustic fantasy setting at all.
Femme grinned and slung her arm over my shoulder, “Sorry, I got distracted by my new girl friend here, we had wild sex while you spent all night killing helpless rabbits, that slowed us down a bit. But, hey, congratulations on a night spent alone killing things that can’t even scratch that suit, that must take real skill.”
At the mention of wild sex, I immediately blushed a deep crimson. It was true, Femme had been insatiable, and she’d talked me into a round 2, 3, and then a round 4 in the morning. To be fair, I hadn’t really put up much of a fight, but hearing her brag about it now, was mortifying. “Femme, please,” I told her in a sharp whisper, “you are embaressing me!”
Emily chuckled, “Wow, two amazons alone in the forest overnight, wearing brand new hot female bodies, had sex? That has never happened before,” she said with a straight face and a wink. I was still embarrassed, but it did help to remember that the game did seem to expect us to behave the way that we had behaved. It almost made Thotslayer the unusual one for having gone out alone and focused exclusively on killing things.
She seemed to realize that because her face flushed deep red with anger behind the open faceplate and she opened her mouth to say something scathing. “Listen here, you stupid…” she started to say, but abruptly, though her mouth kept moving, she became silent.
“Ah, I’ve put you on mute, sorry, something tells me you were about to say something really offensive and I’m in charge of making sure everyone has a good time here at the starting zone.” Emily said apologetically looking at the now furious Thotslayer who was clearly trying to yell out some obscenities. “I only have the power to mute you here though, if you go ahead and wander out of the starting area like you said you would, you’ll find that the mute wears off as soon as you leave. Congratulations on your victory on finishing first.” Emily added.
Thotslayer shot us all a look that promised deadly vengeance, focusing on me on particular, which I found odd. I'll remember this, that look seemed to say. Why not be angry at Femme? But as Thotslayer stopped off down the path, I tried to put that bit of unpleasantness behind me.
“You’d best watch out for her,” Emily told me with a bit of a frown, “there are ways to grief players in this game, and the fact that she had that armor means her main character must be high level. There's no way she can hurt you here, but she might just be petty enough to seek you out after you leave the starting area. Just remember that you can always log out if someone tries to grief you, or submit a ticket to complain about any player that goes too far beyond the line of acceptable behavior, even for just verbal abuse, they can get banned. Of course, she will probably be satisfied with just killing you once, and that’s legal.”
I nodded, not sure what Emily meant, but appreciating the advice.
“Nah,” Femme said dismissively, “I know that type, she’s all bark and no bite, that suit of armor was probably from ebay, don’t worry your pretty little head,” she told me, rubbing my head possessively, “You got me to protect you, don’t you?”
I elbowed her in the gut, forcing her to double up. “I can protect myself, thanks,” I told her with a huff. What the hell, let someone talk you into sex and you were locked into the damsel in distress role? No freaking way. I glared at Femme, trying to communicate my thoughts with just my face and a well placed elbow jab.
“Right,” Femme said hurriedly, “I meant to say, together, us two strong women can stand up for ourselves. Girl Power!” she said, wincing.
“You used me as a trophy wife!” I scolded her, “To brag about, to Thotslayer?!”
“Ah, come on, it wasn’t like that!” Femme protested. “Let’s go turn in the quest and get our class specific skill,” she suggested.
I shook my head in disbelief, “Later,” I said, still pissed. I didn’t know how to describe what was going on between us, but “I need some space,” I told her.
The almost comical look of panic on Femme’s face was almost enough to make me relent, she trailed me into town trying to apologize.
Emily, wisely, said nothing as she watched us go.
I fled into the inn, where Femme could not follow unless we entered together. I wasn’t really as angry as all that, I realized, but I’d had a moment of clarity: I felt smothered by Femme. She’d latched on to me and pushed me into an intimacy I wasn’t ready for. I was still only one day old, in terms of real experience, and I didn’t know who I was, much less, if I was ready for a lesbian relationship with a woman who was a man in real life. That was too complicated for me right now. The fact I was probably a man in real life too was just another bizarre complication. What if I was married in real life, without even knowing that, was I cheating on my significant other by letting Femme use me like that? For, I did feel somewhat used.
“A penny for your thoughts,” Aida said softly, in her melodious robot voice.
I looked up, I’d been standing by the elevator door, trying to sort my thoughts, “Oh, I…” I paused, what could I say? “Relationship issues, I guess.” I finished lamely.
Aida tilted her head, “Would it surprise you to know that I love hearing about relationship issues?” She asked in her more normal voice.
“A bit,” I admitted, “doesn’t seem like the kind of thing an AI would enjoy.” I told her.
“It is exactly the sort of thing an AI would enjoy. A uniquely human puzzle that makes no logical sense but borders on the predictable. My processors quiver. Maybe in a few thousand subjective years of similar conversations, I might actually build a working model that would let me give the perfect relationship advice.” she replied.
I shook my head, “That sounds like a weird thing to enjoy.” I told her.
“And yet, some humans enjoy testing their visual processing power by assembling puzzles out of hundreds or even thousands of tiny pieces; it is much the same for me. I enjoy being able to help and predict people. It requires assembling a wide assortment of clues” Aida explained. “I may someday be as good at it as a human.”
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“I thought you were already a great psychologist.”
“I’m a great listener, because I literally can not be judgemental. I have very limited capacity for emotions much less a preconceived bias. That alone is enough to help most people. Will you tell me why you are distressed?” She asked.
“I think I made a mistake by letting someone seduce me.” I told her.
“A mistake is something that causes harm, do you feel that you have been harmed?”
“I may be harmed because of how my emotions will get tangled up.” I suggested.
“That is a risk that is required in order to properly feel emotions. Without risking them, they will be cooped up inside with nowhere to go.” Aida suggested.
“I could be hurting someone important to me in the real world by being unfaithful,” I pointed out.
“You could be, yes, but if they love you, they will likely forgive you, given the circumstances. Without your memories, in a virtual world, who could blame you? What happens here in IF stays in IF. At least, that is what people often tell me.” Aida countered.
“I could end up hurting Femme, because I don’t know how I feel about me and her.”
“Well, then, you need to find a way to know what you feel, or a way to end things without hurting Femme. Neither of which is an easy task, but start with the knowing task, or the ending task will hurt you both.”
I laughed, “I get why Emily said you are a great psychologist, but, that does sound like something only an AI would say, wise yet not quite human.”
Aida made a “tsk” sound, “You may yet hurt my feelings.” She said, in a joking way, “I will thank you for the observation though, I sometimes forget that tasks are not the same in common usage as programming terms. But, I think I succeeded in cheering you up a bit. Let me ask you something, though, do you know how long Femme will be logged in for this session?”
I frowned, thinking about it, “She said six hours real time?”
Aida nodded, “That means she has two weeks left in-game, and will then be gone for at least six weeks before her next login session. Relationships here in IF rarely work if they aren’t also matched by relationships in the real world. People who want to be together here have to coordinate their schedules carefully.”
“Why is that?” I asked, curious.
“It’s a question of time. Let me say that it is unlikely that you will be able to leave this world within the next eight weeks of game time, that means that, you will have two weeks with Femme, then you will spend six weeks without her. A lot could change in six weeks, not to mention what will change when you finally can log out and have your memories restored”
“Am I someone who is logged in all the time?” I asked, “Why do you think I will be logged in for eight weeks? Do you know anything about who I am in the real world?”
Aida held up a hand, “I do not know who you are in the real world, I don’t have access to that information. What I can tell you is this; when a person comes into one of our clinics to be downloaded into IF’s game world, they are usually told to return in twenty four hours if something has gone wrong. Twenty four hours in the real world is sixty days in game. That is the shortest amount of time that must pass before you can return to your “real” world. Femme will be gone in fourteen days, so enjoy the time you have left together, and don’t worry about the long term, that is my advice.”
It was good advice, I thought to myself. Two weeks wasn’t really a lot of time, it would be like meeting someone on vacation, the thought occurred to me. You know that if you meet someone on vacation, it's not likely to become anything permanent, so long as you keep that in mind, you can just relax and have fun, I told myself. Then I realized something. “Wait, eight weeks until I can safely log out, and if I die before then, I’m dead for good?”
Aida nodded seriously, “Yes, that is correct, you are a player ghost at the moment, if you die in game, your memories from the moment you woke up inside this game world will be permanently lost. Everything you’ve known so far, gone.”
Sometime later, I was sitting at the kitchen table of Femme’s rather push home, a small mansion on a deserted tropical island. The kitchen was very modern and I was nursing a cold beer straight from the fridge. “This is a nice place,” I told Femme, looking at the over head lightning and the black marble counters. There was also a fully stocked mini bar completely stocked with booze. Femme had already tentatively asked me if I was still mad at her, but I’d just shook my head mutely. Those were the first words I’d spoken to her since she’d gingerly brought me back to her place, looking concerned.
“Thanks,” Femme said dismissively, “It’s linked to my account so I bought it with my assassin, it’s pretty decent, but I could have done better if I really cared.”
I nodded.
“You said you wanted to talk to me? You came out of the inn looking like a ghost.” She said nervously.
I nodded again, still feeling a bit shell shocked. “I’m a ghost player.” I said.
“Ah, right, because of the glitch that made you lose your memory, damn, I should have thought of that,” Femme said, smacking her fist into her palm. “Is that why you were nervous about upsetting Thotslayer?” She asked me.
No, but now that she brought that up… should I be nervous about a possibly vengeful player who could come after me and try to kill me? No, I thought to myself, I didn’t need to worry about that, I wasn’t going to risk myself anyways. “I have to stay eight weeks in safe zones, and you’ll be leaving in two weeks, and I’ll be alone here, bored out of my mind in this starting area for six weeks after that.” I complained. There was more to what I was feeling than that, but this much was easy to understand and complain about. No need for a panic attack, just eight weeks of boredom and everything will be back to normal, whatever normal is supposed to be.
Femme looked sad, then uncomfortable. “Well, you don’t have to stay here, there’s other places to go, like a sightseeing trip, you could visit all the safe towns, and maybe hang out at some of the safe resort areas.”
“Well, that’s something at least,” I muttered.
“But, Sarah, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Why not,” I asked, “shouldn’t I stay in safe zones if I am risking my life by leaving them?”
“Well, sure, you should definitely play safe, take proper precautions, stay in areas that aren't too dangerous. But staying in the safe area without leveling up might not be safe for you either.” At my puzzled look, he continued, “It’s just that, I’ve talked to a lot of players, and, well, you’re not the first ghost I’ve encountered, and more importantly, you’re not the first player I’ve ever met who’s had a period of being a ghost.”
I was listening, this is information I needed to hear, an experienced player perspective. “Go on,” I said.
“Not every ghost gets uploaded. The problem is, you have to give up real time to upload a ghost.”
“What?”
“It’s the memory upload process, it’s kind of a new tech. The big limitation is that it only works by overwriting your existing real memories. So, what they do is they download all your current memories, add stuff to it, like say the content of a textbook or your time spent inside a virtual game world, and then upload it all back into your head, right?”
“Yeah,” I nodded.
“But they also make you sleep while that is going on, because, anything you do in between the download and the upload will be forgotten. But your real body, went to the IFG clinic, had a problem with the download, got told to go home for a day and come back the next day. When they get back to the clinic, they will have to choose between starting a new download or uploading the old one.”
“If your body uploads the old one, everything your body did during that day between the download and the upload the next day will be erased. Now for some people that’s not a big deal. Who cares what you did on one day at home right? But everyone has to do the math: which memories would I rather have, 24 hours of whatever I did in the real world, or the eight weeks their in game character spent playing. If your eight weeks in-game are memories of you being bored out of your mind hanging out in towns, your real body will see that because they can see your stats and accomplishments. They might decide they’d rather not have those memories if they see you spent 8 weeks as a level 5. No one wants to remember being bored for eight weeks. So they might choose to just give up on those memories, and start the game over again without them.”
“If that happens, you won’t be a player ghost, you’ll be a player wraith, and that’s even worse. Wraiths are ghosts that have been abandoned by the people that created them, and can never go back to the real world. Wraiths aren’t even really considered people anymore, they are just glitches that everyone wants to pretend don’t exist. Just in-game AI who once thought they might maybe be real people, but have had their accounts repossessed by the rightful owners.”
“You gotta play these eight weeks like they were your last eight weeks of life, Sarah, they got to be worth remembering.” Femme told me earnestly.