[Hey -Hey! Wake up]

[….]

[Can you hear this? Strange, the connection seems intact. Are you ignoring me, ladies’ man?]

Yeung-Sung sat up, waking up to the pull of a tightly strapped feeding tube.

“MEDB?” he called out.

But the room held no answer except for the beeping of the dozing beep of his heartrate monitor and the snoring bubbles of his oxygen bag. And the rest of the building had no reply for his room, not even a shadow crossing past the window of the door. Lifting his arm, Yeung-Sung watched the flow of the IV shoot whimsically into him, a dingy on a waterslide.

“I must be hallucinating again,” he muttered. I have no phone; there’s nobody here.” He stretched down towards his legs, which lay stiff. “And I can’t move.”

Though how I wish you were here.

[Lie back down you spastic]

It was her. Her prideful, deprecating sing-song voice! But Yeung-Sung did not reach out for it, he did not want the illusion to break and be left with nothing again. Nothing but the beeps and hums of heartless machines, so far away from earth and plants and trees and greens -even that god damned red banana wood.

He took the advice of the voice and lay back into the pillow, still raised up by the angle of the medical bed. His vision quietly sobering, Yeung-Sung surveyed the room. It tasted of sweat and fear. So, he knew that at least this was real, obnoxiously so, and far more crowded with implements than in his dream; trays, surgical and cafeteria lay to either side as well as row of light -read; flimsy- wooden waiting chairs with a knitted, sleepy aesthetic lining the left wall of his room. He searched for medical charts, maybe something would tell him a little about his situation. His hands limp, flowing through the gaps at the railing at the side of his bed he remembered something else from the dream.

The plug.

He leaned over to his right to where the other-Jordan had tried to ‘switch him off’ and indeed a series of cords flowed out like plastic fins from his side. Feeling around the heavily bandaged area that they entered, Yeung-Sung watched the skin bulge and groan into a red state of stress, but pain did not come. His fingers wandered through the wound until -when they wrapped around a cord like the beckoning leaves of a turnip- the swooping Irish accent of MEDB shouted, louder than ever.

[I would not! -tamper with that. Medical innovation is not the focus of GLI’s innovation, unfortunately for you] She groaned like a fire alarm, glitching out at the peak.

[I’m surprised I managed to tap into this primitive routing]

Yeung-Sung could cry. He wiped his cheeks, but didn’t bother checking them.

“I am hearing you!”

The flat white walls absorbed his voice, and the excitement in his chest prompted his monitor into distress as the room fell silent again, and Yeung-Sung doubted his sanity as he waited for something to reply. From where, he did not care.

[You are? ~~Oh, yes. Of course you are]

MEDB whirred; vibrating her quantized, even breaths around the nape of Yeung-Sung’s neck.

[But technically…you’re not. I’m inside you. Your brain, that is]

Yeung-Sung instinctively felt around the sides of his head for any wires -or any lumps/ missing pieces that would have him experiencing this level of delusion.

“If that’s the case, then why does it sound like you’re coming from all around me?” he asked the air, “Like you’re in the wiring above me, in the walls?”

The AI’s voice suddenly faded, the quick fwoop of a studio fade out at the end of a pop song. A moment later resounding, coming from outside through the wave-ribbed window on the door.

[You mean like this?]

[Oh, I’m just learning, doing experiments. I’ve never interfaced with organic matter before. It’s fun!]

Despite falling several stories, despite the insensitivity -possibly permanently damage- that coursed through his hips and down to his feet, and despite being trapped in GLI while Wil needed his guidance to save the colony -despite all these things, Yeung-Sung was happy.

Happy to laugh. Happy to have the extremely unusual company of a being that was also under the enormous pressure of having to win the Gauntlet to survive.

Yeung-Sung belted out laugh after cackling laugh, filling up the desolate room to match the joy he felt in his head. He laughed to shed all thoughts of the coloners who couldn’t think past their political adversity to figure out a stupid fucking incremental game, of all those who had met him and seen his injuries, maybe even seen the existence of a chubby man called Brinn blipped away, yet still did not take Jordan’s threat seriously, still did not come together. And he laughed at the Champions, who were as bad as Jordan if not worse.

-It was they who let down Wil. I can’t forgive that.

MEDB? He thought, his throat too hoarse now to talk, how are they doing without me?

[Take a look for yourself; Sharing optical feed]

A curved visor appeared across Yeung-Sung’s vision, displaying the forest clearing of the Gauntlet. Though, properly staring at it felt like staring through two suns.

He tried to wave away the throbbing headache, but his physical body did not affect it whatsoever. It was a layer of reality not remotely connected to his feeble pawing.

[Sorry about that. As I said, connection’s iffy so I have to depend on some of your faculties to run it. Hmm, I hope that doesn’t affect you later on in life.]

MEDB’s giggles bubbled around the caverns of his ear.

[But you won’t need to watch for long. Guess which Gauntlet this is?]

Gripping the frame of his bed, Yeung-Sung pushed through the mental exhausting of rendering and compressing the image of what MEDB was feeding him. But he could barely make out the green of the trees let alone the number of barbarians or the equipment of whomever was fighting them,

Couldn’t you just tell me? Somewhere in stage 6 still, right?

She giggled again.

[I knew you’d think that, but actually -Ha-Ha- oh, no you have to see this for yourself]

Forced back into his pillow once more, MEDB pulsed and flared herself, fleecing the interweaving pathways of Yeung-Sung’s brain like a fishing net, trying to throw all sensations except the visual she wanted to show him.

And the visor screen went away.

She let him breathe for a minute before entering his mind again.

[I’m going to try something here] MEDB said, [Take a look around yourself and see if you can spot any flat, circular surfaces]

Stunned and slack jawed, Yeung-Sung still had to know what was going on with the colony. He hadn’t dared hope, but neither is MEDB letting him down gently.

Though, I doubt she would know to do that.

He turned left and he turned right.

What’s here…apart from the heartrate monitor, IV stand, the bedside table -is there any water, I wonder?

Reaching for the silver keep-cup in comfortable reaching distance he spilled the contents into his gullet and was about to put it back when MEDB once again interrupted his brainwaves.

[There! A cafeteria tray underneath the bottle, perfect]

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Snagging the thing, Yeung-Sung asked, “What do you want me to do with it?” his voice was refreshed and willing.

[Keep it in front of you -and stay still! Quickly, or you’ll miss it!]

He did as the mind-MEDB bid him and, just as he placed the grey-steel disk over the blanket covering his lap, a collection of miniature Celtic barbarians popped into being.

He crept is fingers away from the rim. He counted them; five -then 10 -then 20, coming in one at a time, each one feeling like they were being extracted from a nugget of the headache that he was experiencing before. It was quite novel, actually, to watch the twinkling axes and toothpick swords be brandished so earnestly, yet so harmlessly.

Yeung-Sung took up the tray in one hand like a waiter would. He tipped it, yet the characters jutted out as they were instead of sliding down and off into his lap, keeping to the original gravity. It allowed Yeung-Sung to observe the Gauntlet in a unique, albeit impractical way.

Woah.

Once all the figures loaded in and armed themselves, the background fleshed itself out around the tray in one sweep of evergreen and then lastly, the Gauntlet runner emerged in a heavenly ball of light -far brighter than anything else Yeung-Sung had ever seen, in the virtual plane or otherwise.

Only one person I know has an avatar that bright; Wil! Wait…

Tapping his finger over the barbarians wild, braided heads, Yeung-Ung counted fifty.

“MEDB”, he gasped, “Is this the final stage?”

The tray slipped from his hand as he jolted up in shock.

“MEDB! How long have I been here?”

[Sur-prise!] Confetti and kazoos whistled celebrations in a halo over his head. [It is exactly what you think it is; The day the United Nations arrives]

“Then this our -the colony’s- last chance?”

[This is the colony’s final attempt]

The tray rattled, catching in a snag between the bent rail of the hospital bed and Yeung-Sung’s numb hip. Unhooking it, he watched the slightly dented scene with a new focus.

Do you think it’s possible he will beat you?

A pause.

Yeung-Sung swivelled to the sides, then realized how stupid that reaction must’ve appeared. He’d have enough of being bullied inside his own mind. He bludgeoned his thoughts with a scream, imagining the strain and terror it would cause him to hear it. It was the closest he had ever felt to touching MEDB. Funny, how it literally took her to inhabit his consciousness for him to interact with her.

[Well, I’m not going easy on him, if that’s what you mean. You kiddin’? My life is on the line here]

Hardly helpful. Yeung-Sung had to predict the result himself and prepare himself. From the fact that both Wil’s avatar and the barbarians were still on opposite sides of the arena, he could tell that the fight had barely begun, and from the way that each fighter posed like statues on the cafeteria tray, it was clear that Wil was in full time dilation, planning his assault.

Yeung-Sung squinted, examining the bite-sized avatar through its cover of brightness. He was decked out; a pleasant change from Wil’s earlier exhibitionist runs; yet he retained his weapon choice form before, and in fact the poleaxe he wielded was probably proportionally bigger. The size of the hologram made it hard to judge, but Yeung-Sung reckoned that if it was full sized, it would be a giant’s idea of a weapon.

[Mmm -mmm- mmm-]

Spurts of MEDB’S pure satisfaction laced his ears.

“What are you going to do?” he asked MEDB. Looking straight ahead, like she was in front of him, leaning back against the wall, the figure of a GLI scientist; one hand in her lab-coat, sacking her lips in a tut-tut while checking her nails.

[Mmm mmm- mmm-]

[I applaud you for figuring out a method to circumvent the need to test each and every blessing. Whether you know it or not, you’ve helped your friends more than you understand.]

[But your friends in the colony are more predictable than you are. They rely too heavily on that one mechanic]

What does she mean?

Wracking his brain, Yeung-Sung tried to wind out an idea through all the digitally used memory. Chewing his lip, he watched as a single Celt ran ahead of the rest in a blind charge toward Wil’s avatar. The twinkling of blessed gear was as noticeable on the snarling, scrawny barb as it was on the elaborate pieces of folded metal plates that protected Wil’s golden avatar.

He could have any number of blessings with him. Surely, he must have one to deal with whatever tactic MEDB decides to throw at him.

Unless…

Yeung-Sung careened, thrashing around in his pillow as MEDB laughed; a high swelling pitch, unrestrained.

[That’s exactly it! You certainly are the brightest of the bunch]

You’ll turn their blessings against them.

[What they are wearing is not a blessing at all, but a curse]

She shrank her laugh down to a whisper. [Oh, but…I am sorry. Jordan taught me recently that I should do what I think is best, even if it requires sacrifice. And I can’t die.

-I don’t want to die, too]

It may have been sweat or tears, or even a mixture of that plus others, but Yeung-Sung could feel it sliming around his skin and had to wipe it off. Inhaling through his nose, through the uncomfortably fitted oxygen tubes, Yeung-Sung did something that he hadn’t done in a long time: He hoped. Despite the odds, he hoped Wil would find a way around the cursed gear.

He did something else too; He believed. Even though he knew Wil was a man-child without a hint of proper planning skills Yeung-Sung kept believing that his capture and subsequent loss of Yeung-Sung would have at least led him to take this fight seriously. That he had the guts and perseverance to gather up the entirety of the colony and listened to their advice when cooing up with his plan he had to now execute. IN spite of MEDB’s underhanded tactics of turning their core abilities against them.

[I have this weird feeling, Yeung-Sung; It is what you would call guilt, I think]

[It is telling me that before I win and you are forced to restart the experiment again, or worse, that I should tell you something. Something important about Jordan]

Trying to clear his mind, Yeung-Sung breathed steadily out and watched the fight with his hidden hope.

The lone Celt unsheathed a silvery short sword as he rounded Wil’s avatar, who held his ground, staying his oversized polearm when he could have easily reached the assailant with a thrust of its spiked point, not even needing its broad, golden-laced blade. But that would’ve have left him open to the retaliation of the other forty-nine barbarians, if he missed would have left the lives of the entire colony exposed.

[GLI has been helping world nations to control their people for the five years after the crash. Their fingers are in everything, so for Jordan I doubt the ‘approval’ of the United Nations really mattered to him all; if the experiment was ‘successful’ or not. You know what he’s capable of now, don’t you? It’s the approval of the public that he wants, on a personal, moral level]

Air pressed in and came out in waves, crashing against the mental barrier Yeung-Sung tried to keep up against MEDB invasion of his conscious privacy. Whatever she said, even I she understood the colony and Airgead -even Jordan- better than any human, Yeung-Sung was confident that she could still be wrong.

I believe you Wil, he thought inside the little crevasse of his mind he hid away from the AI.

Waiting until the instant that the assailant committed his lunge forward towards his head, Wil’s avatar dodged past him and bull-rushed into the fray of the giant group of Celts ahead of him.

He has an AoE spell; he thinks it’s an opportunity, a rare slip up by MEDB to give him so much playroom, but it’s not! Wil, it’s not! DON’T FALL FOR IT!

[He made it too easy. That’s the thing with Jordan, you think you matter to him but you’re just another seed in his garden. Same with you, same with me -Una told me that once]

“Shut up, MEDB and watch!” yelled Yeung-Sung.

The avatar leaped into the band of Celts. Half-way through his jump his momentum was lanced through by about half of those who reacted quickly enough. Spear and axe and arrow lodged themselves into every segment of his armor; Chest; boots; helmet; greaves and cape, sending a fountain of shimmering blood into the air out behind him.

[That’s the difference between us, Yeung-Sung, I couldn’t hope for an outcome without reasonable -eh, reason]

The colourful lining of the avatar’s blessings sparked forth in their rubies and emeralds and various rare shines, but a cloud of deep violet consumed grasped them like a waiting vulture, consuming them in an indiscriminate explosion.

The tray clanged off the floor. Yeung-Sung tried to make out what was happening, but couldn’t make out the results through the spinning plate or the consuming fire.

Something, someway, somehow…Wil, you’ve got to!

[Yeung-Sung, the game is irrelevant. I say that as it’s overseeing intelligence. The economic technology was the testing point, sure, but there will be other games, and in landing yourself here, you lucky duck, you’ve assured that I get to live on. Thank you for that…I wonder what my next assignment will be]

The tray clattered to a stop, upside down on top of the sea blue and foam spotted floor. And MEDB quietened. The heartbeat monitors once again the only source of interaction with Yeung-Sung’s senses. As he lay in his bed, helpless even if he had some secret weapon, some magic word that would unlock the freedom of the colony, Yeung-Sung receded inward, growing numb to the pain of sadness. Growing up from his hips like a spreading plague.

Was it all for nothing? Came the thought in the aftermath.

-beep -beep -beep

-beep -beep

-beep - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -beep

A gasp. It burst into his brain so suddenly that it tricked Yeung-Sung into taking his own, interrupting his panic attack.

MEDB had never sounded so human.

You’re not gloating? Waiting for me to ask what happened so you can shut down my illogical hopes? You are of him, then.

Sighing, Yeung-Sung felt around the bedside table. Were there was a cafeteria tray, logically, there should have been -A fork! Yes!

He held up the white plastic utensil, springing the curved tongs with a snap of his fingers. Pushing his dead-weight body, Yeung-Sung strained over the side of his bed, fork wobbling in his hand as he clamped down his teeth and fought for the strength to keep his arm straight.

Come…ON!

His stretching body was quickly freeing the tubing on his right side, pulling it to its limit. But if Wil lost the Gauntlet, he’d die anyway, right?

Just -a little bit - more.

Edging the fork like a lever under the grooves of the tray’s ridges, Yeung-Sung bellowed a battle cry as he pulled up -and tore the fork’s tongs straight off. Shit, shit, no!

He threw down the handle, prodding the tray he had knocked even further out of reach. As Yeung-Sung stared at the tray with such a pronounced anger, as he projected his anger into this stupid plate that obstructed the visual plane that would give him answers, that would give him some well needed closure, came a radiant yellow glow SHINE!

“He’s back!”

[That…cannot be right. His avatar should have been killed]

“And he re-incarnated!” Yeung-Sung retorted with a roar. He pumped his fist in the air after the style of his friend and split off the rest of his medal cords.

Oh no,

-beep -beep-beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep

-beep -beep-beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep

[Yeung-Sung, stay calm. I’ve sent for help]

-beep -beep-beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep

-beep -beep-beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep -beep

[Hang on…friend]

Liquid pain of decidedly different gradients festooned out of Yeung-Sung like he was a conservative’s watering can, painting the white walls. As he tried to cover as many of the punctures as his hands would cover, he could only laugh.

Now you’re worried about me?

In the midst of his swirling vision, he almost missed the door opening.