“We’re not making it,” Mana said from the rear cabin. She checked the in-game clock and compared it with the quest’s time.
“How’s the cargo?” Anton asked from the front seat, Kayla driving the pickup beside him.
“Relatively intact. Well, one of the parts was thrown away, and a part of the packaging got ripped.”
“Well, that was a rather violent crash, after all. You’re driving?”
“Yep. I was already pushing it to its max. Wish we got a better pickup”
“It’s not your fault, Duke. Had that other guy not crashed into us, we would have arrived by now.”
“What did you even drive, usually?” Anton asked curiously. He remembered Mana driving a sports car in real life.
“A supercar. You know, those super-fast ones that zoom all over the place? I’m a champion in the Royning Track Championship, just so you know.”
“Ah, that one,” Anton knew about that one. The update before Advanced Future, called Royning Championship, was an update dedicated to car people. Most of its events took place in Royning, a city known in this world as the automotive center. Many of the in-game brands had their base located there.
“... Wait, what? You’re joking, right?” Anton asked, not bothering to hide the shock in his voice. Mana always drove safely in the real world, so he found it hard to believe. The Royning Championship was a game-wide event, so tough competition from all around the game gathered there.
“Want me to prove it?” Mana said. She pulled herself between the two front seats.
“I’ll pay for any damages to the truck,” she said with a smile. Anton then looked toward Kayla. Kayla noticed and glanced back at him.
“Why are you looking at me? It’s your car… well, not necessarily yours…”
“I still have a lot of money left,” Mana added that last bit.
“How about a bet?” Mana increased her offerings, as if not wanting to lose this argument. She opened her screen and sent a trade offer to Anton. On it were the keys for a red supercar.
“... What if I lose?”
“I’m dying to prove my point here, so I’ll give you a deal. You lose and all you need to do is believe my words,” Anton considered his options. If they crashed, then he would get himself a supercar, one that he could use to help his mission. It would help him save up money. Since it was a trade, even if an employee found out about that transaction, it wouldn’t look suspicious. They were in a peace zone, so they couldn’t die, and the game didn’t simulate pain, so…
Anton finally turned around and shook Mana’s hand. Kayla saw that and stopped at the side of the road. The two swapped places, placing Kayla beside Jerrico. Kayla snorted and then looked away. Jericho did the same, looking out the window.
“Who knew there could be animosity between AI programs,” Mana commented as she pulled the belt. Anton looked behind, finding both of them refusing to talk to each other. He didn’t comment and looked back toward the front.
“Ready?” Mana asked. Anton pulled the belt, strapping it in place.
“Don’t worry, you can’t feel pain anyway.”
“... Wait, what was that potion for?” Anton asked, only then remembering that Kayla gave Mana a potion.
“Oh, you don’t know? You cannot die in the peace zone, but you can be hurt in it. Your HP could be reduced to a maximum of half your total. It was introduced in the Royning Championship update.”
“Damn.”
So many unnecessary changes.
Anton held on tight as the pickup launched into speed. It quickly accelerated, even faster compared to his previous sedan. It passed one hundred kilometers per hour, still increasing in speed. He glanced at Mana, who drove with confidence. She noticed his gaze
“But make sure you don’t drive like this in real life,” she added.
“I don’t even have a car.”
“Well, I do.”
“I don’t know why that information is relevant.”
“Well, at least now you know who to ask when you ever need one,” Mana said, her eyes on the road. She weaved through traffic, narrowly avoiding other drivers. Had this been the real world, Anton would be screaming at this point. Betting on the hope that the game hadn’t introduced changes to the pain system, he held his mouth shut. As the speed increased, it soon became evident who would be winning this bet.
* ••
“Sigh, you win,” Anton said, standing next to Mana. Mana paid for the fees. Since they totaled the pickup, damaged the cargo, all while being late, it caused her to pay a hefty bill.
“Well, I’m keeping my supercar, then.”
“Not that I particularly want it,” Anton folded his hands and leaned back on the pickup truck's door behind him. The supercar, while fast, lacked any sort of defense. It also lacked off-road capabilities, not exactly an ideal fighting vehicle.
“If only they didn’t remove pacifist mode.”
“Yeah. What’s with that?” Mana asked. Anton responded with a shrug.
“I’m dealing mostly with the AI, not those kinds of things.”
“Well, nothing we can do about it. By the way, have you heard?”
“About?”
“Aripi getting acquired- ah, they’re back,” from the distance, Mana noticed Kayla and Jerrico returning from dropping the packaging. Anton looked their way, noticing the still visible animosity between them. He didn’t remember programming AI to be able to show dislike to other AI, but he wasn’t the only one working on the AI’s base program. Maybe someone else made that change.
“What’s your plan from here on out?” Mana asked, pulling her body away from the pickup truck. Just behind her, the Luna Space Station rose high up into the sky.
“We’ll check out the new space update. You?”
“I heard of a good quest nearby,” a supercar then appeared from behind Mana.
“See ya later,” Mana waved toward Anton and Kayla. She and Jerrico entered the supercar. As if to show off, Mana sped toward the end of the parking lot and drifted around the edge. She made a sharp turn before speeding away toward the exit.
“Cough cough.”
Anton coughed after sucking up the virtual smoke.
“You’re alright?” Kayla asked, her voice filled with concern.
“I’m fine,” Anton said as he turned around and entered the passenger seat. Kayla went past the front of the pickup and entered the driver's seat. She turned on the engine and waited for a box truck to pass by, heading for the exit.
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“Those NPCs were really angry when they saw the cargo,” Kayla said, looking toward the truck. The truck stopped in front of the gate, paid for the fee, and drove off. Kayla pushed the handbrake down and drove toward the gate.
“Sorry for throwing that to you and Jerrico.”
“It’s fine. Unlike me, those NPCs followed a predetermined script. As for Jerrico, I will only care about him if you care about him.”
“I think that last bit is unnecessary.”
“You think so?”
“Let’s… just forget about it,” Anton said.
The pickup stopped in front of the gate, the parking fee automatically deducted from Anton’s balance. The two left the lot and headed for the station.
“It sure is huge,” Anton looked out the front window.
The building stood proudly above the land, like a spear facing the heavens. In the distance, Anton saw a starship diving down from the sky, before leveling a few kilometers away from the station. Kayla stopped the car, prompting Anton to get out. The massive starship made its way toward a gate at the station’s side. Shape-wise, it looked like a space train, a merge between a container truck and the fuselage of a large plane. It featured a very boxy shape, with large engines occupying the rear space. It had two pairs of small wings near the end, one pair facing horizontally while the other facing vertically, with the vertical ones larger than the horizontal ones, each of those wings supported a rocket engine the size of a school bus
Smooth metallic paint covered the exterior. Another set of vertical wings occupied the space behind the cockpit. As it got closer to the station, the loud roar of its rocket engines became louder. It reduced its speed and navigated into the docking, its right side connected to two sets of jetway-like bridges. A platform extended from the station, extending all the way to below the ship. It then rotated upward, holding the ship in its arms, locking it in place. Once it was secured, the engines were turned off, and the air became silent once more. Anton then returned to the pickup.
“Let’s go. We should be able to make it in time,” Kayla said as she pulled the stick back.
They drove off, heading for the station.
“How long do they dock for?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“Alright.”
From the parking lot, Kayla drove the pickup uphill, making a left turn at the top. She followed the road running in front of the station. She then made a turn into the station’s front parking lot, occupied by several empty cars. Kayla backed into an empty parking spot and the two got off.
“Should we just leave it here?”
“Could parked cars be damaged?”
Kayla nodded to Anton’s question.
“I’m returning it, then,” Anton said.
They still had some time in the rent, but since empty parked cars could be damaged by others, it wasn’t worth the risk, especially since they wouldn’t be using it anymore. The pickup truck then disappeared. Anton and Kayla then made their way into the station. It looked far emptier compared to what Anton initially thought. There were still a lot of people, both players and NPCs alike, but with how silent the city itself was, Anton expected more people to be here.
Maybe they’re still on the moon.
He himself didn’t know just how big the Advanced Future update was, so maybe, once they got to the moon, maybe only then he could see a crowd similar in size to when the game first launched.
The two made their way to the front desk. They purchased a ticket for two and headed through security. A massive elevator sat behind the front deck, capable of holding up to fifty people at once, that would take them up to the gates. A large group waited in front of them, with some other NPCs, solo players, and their companions off to the side. The elevator arrived, and from inside, a group walked out of the elevator, heading back outside through a path on the right of Anton.
They then board the elevator. It had glass walls on all sides except the floor, giving them a magnificent view and it sped up the steel cables. It took them around fifteen seconds to reach the gates. Shaped in a circle, the floor had a diameter of forty meters from one end to the other. Some vending machines occupied the sides of the large room with seats in the center. Large glass walls surround the waiting room, giving them a great view of the surrounding area.
Anton and Kayla lined up behind the crowd, waiting to enter the ship. The crowd moved forward. They walked through the covered bridge, entering the ship. The ship’s layout looked like an airplane, with three by two by three seating. Anton and Kayla selected seats near the ship’s rear, choosing the place near the window. From inside the ship, he could see the ship’s previous passengers waiting for the elevator.
The elevator metal doors opened, letting some people out who ran toward the ship while letting others in. It closed again, descending back into the ground floor. He couldn’t imagine how crowded this place must be when the update first dropped. Maybe, at that time, they would see launch-level crowds.
“Is this the only station?”
“In the city? Yeah. There are several scattered across different cities, though.”
“And each tower could only hold one ship at a time?”
“The most is three,” Kayla answered.
“And the moon is the only destination?”
“For now, yeah.”
Quite the smart tactic, Anton thought. By building facilities with limited sizes and a single destination, they would focus the players in one region. The early days when the game had enough players to support multiple different events in different locations at once had ended. That had its own pros and cons, however, so the player count was probably not the only reason they changed the events format.
Just then, an NPC employee made her way from the rear of the ship, walking down the aisle. She warned people who were still standing to sit down and buckle up. She did a count of all the passengers. The gate connecting the bridge to the building was closed. An NPC stood guard in front of it, his body visible from the starship. The starship’s doors were closed and locked. The NPC walked to the front of the ship before disappearing behind a dark blue metal door that separated the cockpit from the rest of the passenger compartment.
Another warning spread through the radio, asking players to use their seatbelts. Anton and Kayla fastened their seatbelts and straightened up their seats, similar to how an airplane during take-off. The windows didn’t have window shades and remained open at all times.
Being a virtual world, there would be no need for safety briefings. A warning told players that the ship would soon depart. The engines turned on, filling the compartment with its faint roar. The roar grew louder, and the bridges retracted to the station. The support platform released the ship. It started floating, the pilot pulling it away from the platform. Once the ship cleared the platform, the platform retracted back into the station.
The entire ship tilted backward, its underside facing down. A red light appeared on the ceiling, and Anton felt his entire body moving.
“Virtual gravity?” He wondered aloud.
He could feel gravity disappearing. Instead, something else pulled him toward the ship’s bottom, keeping his orientation aligned with the ship. The ship’s engine screamed, propelling them through the sky. From the window, Anton watched as the world quickly shrunk behind them.
As they ascended higher into the sky, he saw the countless bright lights decorating the neverending space. If this game continued for longer than he expected, many of those lights would soon be visitable. It would take a long while before that amount of progress could be made, and Anton didn’t think P4ngea would stay that long.
With how things were going, it looked impossible. Anton didn’t have access to all that information, though, so he could only sit back and relax, all while doing his best to complete his mission.
“How long before we reach the moon?”
“Ten minutes.”
“I see.”
“Next update would probably introduce new planets.”
“You know about them?”
Kayla shook her head.
“No. I only know based on the rumors floating around. As an AI companion, I couldn’t give you accurate data about that.”
“I know, I know. Not that it matters anyway.”
Most of Anton’s plans involve traveling around the world itself, this game’s version of Earth, P4ngea. The fourth version of the world, rebuilt after a series of massive disasters. It had also become the reason why so many ancient cities and locations exist underneath the soil of the world.
Of course, it was all just in-game lore. A game needed some story to make it interesting. While MMORPGs tend to focus on exploration and co-op playing, occasionally PvP like P4ngea, most of them also had a sprinkle of the story here and there. MMORPGs or RPGs in general, with their massive worlds, tend to have a lot of little stories that paint a bigger picture about the world itself.
Anton didn’t care much for those secrets. If he really wanted to know, he could probably just drag one of the narrative team’s members to a full night of drinking. He could extract some information that way, but that wasn’t his goal. His mission involved extracting something entirely different.
He glanced at the companion that sat next to him.
“Hm?” Kayla noticed his sudden gaze and tilted her head.
“Nothing,” Anton said as he looked back outside.
Kayla, she was the one he wanted to extract. Anton felt unsure about the game’s future, and he believed that with how things were going, despite how it looked on the surface, the game would at some point collapse. He didn’t want to lose Kayla, thus he did what he needed to do. He had extracted most of Kayla’s basic programming and data into his own computer, but Kayla couldn’t be called Kayla without the personality and memories that formed her.
AI programs required a lot of data to work with. This journey was a trip to provide the data the program required. Create as many memories with Kayla as possible, to make sure when the game did collapse, all of her would remain intact, separate from the game. As he faced the sky, the endless space that extended far beyond what the game would let him explore, he couldn’t help but think of the AI, the girl that sat beside him.
His trusty AI companion.