It started to rain. I didn’t move. Then it poured. I didn’t move. The lightning that hit the bus stop made me jump face-first into the gutter, but then I got mad and sat back on that bench. Did I have a stubborn streak? Maybe. Or maybe I was just emotionally stuck. It didn’t matter to the AI. The red door appeared and for one stupid minute, I thought about walking through it. There might be donuts. I don’t know why I didn’t walk to the door.
The sun set and it got cold. Then it got really cold, especially for an LA setting. Yep, it snowed. I didn’t budge. The sun rose five minutes later. It set again in another five minutes. I did not sit there for a whole five days but this was one of those fast forward, blurred image things that made you think time had passed when it hadn’t. The slush of the gutters was still loose enough to splash on me. And the door was still there.
I was just throwing my own version of a temper tantrum. Knowing what happens next, as your narrator, I can imagine what kind of conversation might have happened between the World AI and my mirror ghost. I can say this. They were AIs and so the conversation didn’t take long because I didn’t sit there that long. Despite the sunrise-sunset fast-forward thing that changed the seasons to the dead of winter in New York City, I didn’t sulk for more than an hour. Maybe the conversation went a bit like this…
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“She’s still not moving,” the World AI would have complained to Grace.
“She’ll move,” Grace would tell the World AI. “She’s just in shock.”
“She’s taking too long,” the World AI ground out with very impatient anger that did not suit an AI at all.
“It’ll just be a few more minutes,” Grace would have begged for patience. “Give the poor child a break.”
“I will not give her a break,” the World AI would have continued to be totally unreasonable. “I’m invoking the most heinous punishment because she is being reasonably weak.”
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That isn’t how the conversation went, but I imagine it was something like that and since these are my memoirs, I can paint this however I want. In fact, if I put a fiction title on this I could claim anything. Whatever. Who would read that? In any case, there is a clause in all broadcasting contracts, a contract I didn’t sign but was rather signed for me by the justice system of a world that had gone stupid, that stipulates that the World AI can do something drastic if their human component doesn’t “get with the program.” My World AI, already kind of pissed off that I’d even chosen its venue on the eve of its recycling into something more sensational, decided to use my very understandable state of shock and “recalcitrant behavior” to rewrite its settings, plot, and venue to increase ratings.
Three key elements had to happen for the World AI to invoke this clause. One, the human component, that’s me, had to refuse to engage in the storyline, which I had technically done by sitting on the bench for too long while “on air.” Two, the human component had to refuse to use the red door when the “off air” sign was engaged. And three, the human component had to be willfully tanking the program. The reason I’d been given so long to sulk was that a technician had been called to check that my pod was working properly and that my medical condition was officially healthy.
Since I was technically healthy physically, the World AI gleefully rubbed its malicious little hands together and all I saw was a fade to black. I didn’t think much of it at the time. It felt a little like when you were going in for minor surgery and they told you to count back from one hundred. I’d gotten my wisdom teeth extracted that way. I didn’t even get to ninety before I was out. I didn’t count this time.
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I woke up in a cave. The walls of the cave were only about an inch taller than my own height of 5’10” and I knew this because I stood up and nearly hit my head. The walls were rough rock, and the floor was mud that squelched under my sneakers. My jeans were caked in the mud that I’d picked up from laying there in it. I only stood up to get out of the mud and was trying in vain to wipe it off as I looked around. It was a blank cave. What else can I say about it? All it had in it was me and my backpack which was currently posing as a crude leather version of itself.
“Now what?” I muttered to myself, giving the only exit from this place a dubious look. Light filtered in through a bunch of sticks and leaves that might have been a door?
“This is your new safe room,” came a very muffled voice from my backpack.
Was that Grace?
“Open the backpack,” it came again.
I didn’t hate Grace, so I opened the backpack. What crawled out of it made me wish I hadn’t. I nearly stomped on the furry thing before it looked up at me with Grace’s eyes. I’m just going to say that a furry spider is a thing that should not have the sepia-colored eyes of an old woman. I barely managed to resist stomping on it, but it was a close thing, especially when she raised her front legs. She might have been trying to smile and wave, but it looked much more like… well, did you know the things hiss? I hadn’t known that. Of all the things my old apartment hadn’t had, it was furry black and tan striped spiders as big as my fist.
“Don’t smush me!” Grace’s voice came out around the hissing. “It’s me, Grace.”
“If I didn’t know that, you’d be squished already,” I told her, trying to stuff my eyes back in my head and be polite. “What the hell happened!?”
“The World AI has evoked the Dead Air clause,” Grace explained, giving me all the reasons I gave you before, so we’ll skip past my perfectly reasonable indignant response and all the swearing that could take up two chapters. “Your venue has changed to a dungeon crawling game show, reminiscent of a cult classic book series from the 2020’s named Dungeon Crawler Carlisle. Since that series had a pet show poodle, it was determined that I should be your pet sidekick. This is your safe room. You have a timer in your upper right vision that says how long you have here before you are ejected into the dungeon that is crawling with nasty monsters that want to kill us both.”
The timer had about ten minutes on it. I’d sworn about five minutes off of it.
00:09:43
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“This isn’t what I signed up for,” I argued, poking my nose into my backpack to see if anything else was in it. I had a coil of rope, some soap, two candles, and a few energy bars. “You’re supposed to be my advocate. Do something advocatey! Get me out of this!”
“You do remember that you’re a criminal and not in charge, right?” Grace asked, and I flinched again as her hairy front legs waved as she talked. “AI parameters require that an advocate be assigned to all criminals, but they don’t stipulate what the advocate’s role is. Since the World AI has more power than you do over my fate, I’m just here for the ride, Sugar.”
“Obviously,” I grit my teeth and sent a mild kick at the wall. “At least I have shoes.” I remembered that series.
00:08:59
“You bought them with creation points, so the World AI can’t take them away,” Grace gave me the good news even as she was trying to crawl up on my pants. “I feel rather vulnerable down here, Sugar. Care to give me a lift?”
“Does that mean that I can still upgrade stuff? Like my safe room?” I asked, edging away from Grace and avoiding the question.
“If you managed to earn any experience, then yes, you could upgrade stuff,” Grace groused at me. “But last I heard, you were on a sulk strike.” It was the first time I’d heard Grace’s tone slip to accusatory and I took it harder than I wanted to. “If you dislike spiders so much, maybe this will give you a reason to upgrade me since you weren’t interested in doing it for kindness’ sake.”
That prickled at me. I’d always through of myself as a nice person. Who didn’t? “It isn’t that I don’t like spiders,” I admitted reluctantly, trying to keep my disgust from my tone. “I just have a problem with the ones that have fur.”
“Great,” Grace gave up the pretense of politeness. “I’m going to die because you’re squeamish about fur. You have all of 4 xp. You can’t buy an upgrade with that, so unless you want to lose your only guide in this place, you’re going to have to swallow your revulsion of me long enough to kill something other than me.”
00:08:03
I blew out a breath, the timer making me feel very insecure in my life choices since my arrest. Her feet felt silky against my palm, but I still had to fight back a shudder. I placed her on the shoulder that didn’t have my backpack slung over it and as far from my neck as possible. She still had fangs.
“It’s not like I asked to be a spider,” Grace did her own form of a sulk, and I was thinking that she was better at it than I was. My mom hadn’t been a guilt-dumper in general, but when I didn’t live up to standards, she let me know. Did my mom even know I’d been arrested? I didn’t want to think about that. It was bad enough that I wasn’t married at my age.
00:06:27
“I’ll upgrade you,” I told her, feeling like I had a spine for the first time in my life. It wouldn’t last, but it was something to start with. “What about my character sheet?” And my words summoned it up.
Actor Character Sheet
Name: Janet Mosely Level: 1 Exp: 4/1000
CB – 6
DQ – 1
TA – 1
SS – 1
ER – 1
image [https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53636641794_cb93f55b4d_n.jpg]
Dungeon Character Sheet
Name: Janet Mosely Level: 1
Class: Exp: 0/1000
Health Points: Durability x10 Stamina: Dar+Dex x5
Mana: MS+MA x5 Charm: Likability x 10
Dar – Daring – Charge! Go get ‘em! That kind of thing.
Dex – Dexterity – How well you can dodge without falling down and throw without missing the barn.
Dur – Durability – How much damage you can soak up before you die.
MS – Mental Stability (-2) – We both know how little of this you have.
MA – Mental Ability – You’re going to need more of this even if you don’t cast spells.
LI – Likability – How much NPCs will not want to spit on you as you walk by.
LK – Luck – This stat will help determine how likely you’ll be able to get out of something stupid you got yourself into.
Skills: Stupid Stubbornness (2)
“Yeah,” Grace pointed toward the floating boxes. “You’ve still got the old one which is based on our ratings, but now you’ll have one for your character in the show. You’ll be able to pull up your dungeon sheet outside of the safe room, but the viewers will also be able to see it. You have the same deal with 10 points to distribute to start you off and 5 points per level.”
I just about put it all in luck, but then I noticed the snarky comments. “What’s with my MS stat?”
“You pissed off the World AI with a stunt worthy of a five-year-old,” Grace eyed me in a very unnerving way from my shoulder. “What did you expect? And don’t bother stuffing everything in Luck since the World AI has final say over anything crazy you want to try.”
I rolled my eyes and evened out all my stats with 1s, dumping 3 into Mental Stability to get it out of the red. Then I had one left, and I couldn’t decide where to put it.
“What about a class?” I asked because nothing happened when I tried to select it.
“Class will be determined by actions,” Grace explained, her furry legs pointing. I hadn’t minded that she talked with her hands when she was a safe grandmotherly figure in the mirror. Now they threatened to brush my cheeks as she talked, and I swore to myself that she was the first thing I was spending experience on to upgrade. “If you do stuff, the Writer AIs will make up some classes for you to choose from. Your skills are going to work that way too.”
“Like Stupid Stubbornness?” I glared at the words like it could make them go away. I should have chosen a fairy tale world.
“The World AI always has final say on things,” Grace warned me, her tone serious enough to scratch through the terror I barely hid behind my crossed arms and furrowed brows.
00:03:07
That clock wasn’t my friend. It was a steady reminder that my previous attitude wouldn’t be tolerated. Thing was, I wasn’t sure I had another attitude.
“What happens if I die out there?” I choked out the question, clenching my hands so they wouldn’t shake.
“You end up back here with a penalty,” Grace told me, and I wondered if an AI could be bracing herself for sure death.
“What kind of penalty?”
“The World AI – “ Grace started.
“Has final say on everything,” I finished for her, watching that clock. “Yeah, I’m getting the theme here.”
“It could be anything from an experience penalty to a stat or skill loss,” Grace shrugged her second set of legs in a way that only a spider could do, but probably shouldn’t.
“I could do with losing that skill, but I doubt that would be the World AI’s first choice of penalty,” I said, swiping away screens that now looked like this:
Dungeon Character Sheet
Name: Janet Mosely Level: 1
Class: Exp: 0/1000
Health Points: 10 Stamina: 10
Mana: 10 Charm: 10
Dar – 1
Dex – 1
Dur – 1
MS – 1
MA – 1
LI – 1
LK – 1
Skills: Stupid Stubbornness (2)
00:01:19
“You can’t afford to piss it off anymore,” Grace warned, her legs all falling into a stable position on my shoulder as my shaking hand reached toward the vine-covered door in front of me. “Just because he didn’t take away any of your bought items, doesn’t mean he can’t with the right situation.”