Amelia pulled her visor off and took a long deep breath. It was recycled air at this point that filled her lungs. The central air management system did a large portion of C02 scrubbing in addition to climate control. She didn’t really mind it because it was crisp.

Champaign-Urbana was in full on flower season and while it smelled nice outside, it also smelled of pollen and decaying plant matter. At some point a ridiculously resilient sort of flowering plant had sprung up as a weed that spread like crazy that smelled absolutely horrid. The running rumor was that it was originally transplanted around the campus because the Chancellor’s wife had liked it. No one else really agreed. About the only quality that the plant had that could be called positive, again if you were the wife, was the fact that it spread like crazy and was virtually unkillable and impossible to stop from germinating.

The slight noise and the rise and fall of lungs next to her grabbed her attention. Aidan lay sprawled out on the large mattress next to her, the blinking online light of his visor the only real light in the room now that she discarded her own visor. He was saying his goodbyes in the game and would probably be pulling out soon. She had wanted to get a jump on him and see what this forums nonsense was about. No doubt there was a reason he had been a little irked. Irked probably wasn’t the right word if he was serious about joining and participating in the upcoming AA finals.

Aidan didn’t fight other players except on the rarest of occasions. Most of the time he didn’t choose to fight at all. An anomaly just like her. It might have been a holdover from the death game, but Amelia doubted it. Knowing him he would just explain that he was above such petty nonsense. She secretly thought that he just didn’t like fighting at all. At least tonight he was still in the bed. Every once in awhile she would log out or wake up and find that he had logged out and woken up to move himself to a sitting position where he chose to slumber without her. Probably another holdover from the death game.

The terminal hummed awake and she started the engine that would take her to the general AA forums. Searching for his name yielded about 20,000 results. Once she put in his specific character ID it narrowed the field down to one. Because his name was so generic the system had to assign out of game numerical values to differentiate the many people posting as a player named Aidan. The results brought up an impressive number of hits. Aidan apparently got on the forums frequently and weighed in on any number of conversations. She started to flip through the listings and was immediately frustrated. There was no way to tell which one of the threads she was pulling at contained the information she wanted. So instead she started clicking links at random.

Most of the threads he had posted in were him responding to questions and hypotheticals on game progression. The majority of the rest of the threads were him posting in a forum dedicated to the existence of the Graphic Design Job. She was quietly impressed that by his name there was a highly rated sign. It might seem obvious, but being so highly rated by other players was quite an achievement for an online persona. People would downvote your responses over the most trivial of things so maintaining a high listing was quite a feat. She wondered if he would be so highly rated if they heard him speak the words that he had written instead of just read them. She doubted it. He could come off as arrogant, which she reflected, he was.

“Canaveral.” Amelia frowned when she found that he had posted his own topic at some point and it was already 76 pages of responses long. She clicked on the link and didn’t immediately know what to think. “What?”

“Pet project.” Aidan supplied, leaning over her shoulder and scaring her to death. She literally jumped in her chair. Her heart pounded immediately and she cast a withering glare at him.

“You’re too quiet! Get a bell!” Amelia complained loudly, leaning back and pulling her bare knees up to her chest. She was still getting used to the fact that he was in her space even after more than a year. She was wearing shorts and a somewhat revealing undershirt.

“The Canaveral was an idea I had for a flying ship.” Aidan ignored her fleeting shyness and leaned down to kiss the back of her neck. It sent a shiver down her spine even though she knew from his posture he had just meant it as affectionate display rather than a push for more.

Amelia turned back immediately and started scrolling. A quick read revealed that Aidan had actually constructed a 3D model of a ship and converted portions of it to what he called ‘mana control for flight’. Listed was the prescribed theoretical construction process as well as the number of classes and people that would be necessary to keep the ship aloft. It quickly became apparent to Amelia after about the first two pages of his proposal that she had no idea what any of it meant after a certain point.

“How do you know so much about all the Jobs?” Amelia asked. She was feeling a little stupefied and a little bit irritated that it was probably showing on her face.

“I have to become an Emperor for my Empress.” He teased, wrapping his arms over her shoulders and clasping his fingers over the middle of her chest. “At least this much is expected.”

“Uh huh. You did this for me. Sure. Yeah but you wrote this half a year ago? Isn’t that a little too soon to be so damn knowledgeable?” She accused. She was pleased that he didn’t remove his hands and instead laid his cheek on her shoulder. She felt him shrug. “Now what are you thinking about?”

“Time.” He admitted softly. “I am thinking about time.”

“The great equalizer?” She joked.

“Yes.” He said simply.

“I’m going to need more.” She said. “With help files.”

“Help files available.” He replied. She felt his lips and face move on her shoulder and knew he was smiling. Amelia let that smile stay on her shoulder.

“Let’s assume the universe is finite.” He began.

“No.” She shook her head.

“No?” He stopped, surprised at her immediate refusal.

“Infinite.” She insisted.

“No.” He laughed then, and she shrugged off his hands because she was irked that he was laughing at her.

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“New things are being discovered all the time. It is literally impossible to conceive of all things in the universe, therefore it is infinite.” Amelia said triumphantly. There wasn’t a lot of room for debate, she was sure.

“But, they always existed.” Aidan said. “You even acknowledge the fact we are discovering them. This implies that at some point we will cease making discoveries because there is a limit to what can exist.”

Amelia stopped from immediately refuting his idea. It wasn’t that she didn’t see his point, she paused because she didn’t like his answer. Instead of just saying he was being dumb and difficult she wanted to think about it for a minute so she could tell him exactly why she thought it was stupid. She was discovering, which amused her a bit, that she really didn’t like to lose in arguments to him.

“Alright smartypants. First of all your argument sounds a lot like another one I heard recently. Someone told me that we would lose the Void fight because all possible routes and avenues toward victory were calculated based on skills and spells. Low chance variables, like if we won, wouldn’t be a huge surprise so that in itself was a loss. There at the end we wouldn’t show any sort of ingenuity or display any sort of new stratagem or behavior that hadn’t already been thought of at some level.” Amelia began, feeling pleased with herself. “In addition to that there are things in the universe that are being created right now. New life forms are crawling out of the muck or new stars are collapsing and pulling things and doing stuff. I’m not going to get technical because I’m not technical.”

“So you think because you discovered a new way to do something with a spell that already existed you’re proving that the universe is infinite?” Aidan smiled as Amelia turned herself in her chair to fully engage him. “Then I dare you to find another solution to the problem other than the one you used. Then another one. If you get 4, no, 2 solutions beyond the one you used I will immediately admit defeat.”

“I don’t have to,” Amelia put her tongue in her cheek and started to bite down so she didn’t yell at him.

“Oh?” He smiled.

“Yeah. Because there were thousands of us in that last fight. I am confident that even a small percentage given the right opportunity would have found a solution that differed from mine. I am not the universe Aidan, it doesn’t hinge on me finding multiple solutions to prove to you that it’s infinite!” She said triumphantly once more.

“Aw.” He leaned forward and pressed toward her, immediately putting her onguard before she relaxed. He kissed her cheek. “You’re my universe.”

“Well your universe very well might be finite and confined to the couch.” Amelia said grimly. She was pleased with his compliment but recognized the fact that he had stopped arguing with her simply because he didn’t think she’d get it.

“Fine.” He sighed and relented. “In the visible spectrum of light there are only so many tones and shades of different colors that we can perceive with the human eye.”

“Okay? So?” Amelia frowned at his abrupt change of course.

“So, you would agree that there are only so many colors that can be put together in so many ways with so many known subject matters that humans might find appealing? In fact, let us expand further. Let’s say there are only so many ways to combine colors into a meaningful presentation regardless of whether humans find it pleasing to the eye.” Aidan grinned.

Amelia chewed her lip, unable to argue with this even though she felt like she ought to. “I don’t know that any such number of combinations can be reached…”

“Well let’s say then, for further expansion, that most of those combinations are so close together as to be indistinguishable from each other. You know when you walk into an art store and see a wall full of forest landscapes? Does any one particular painting jump out at you?” Aidan prompted.

“Right, but they’re still different.” Amelia frowned.

“Finitely.” Aidan said sadly. “Based on the number of leaves on the trees. On the blades of grass stroked in. On the color of the sun bleeding through the trees. On the position and number and type of trees painted in. It is an incredibly astronomical figure, defying logic and reason. A number so high there is literally no need to count it because in your lifetime it is impossible to understand, let alone apply.” He held up a finger. “But. It is countable, even if it is beyond your ability or your appreciation.”

“Are you trying to depress me?” Amelia blurted out. Her head was starting to swim and she was getting dizzy just trying to imagine the math that would go into calculating such an algorithm. “You can’t quantify the universe!”

He laughed then. This time she didn’t get mad because it was rich, and deep, and so loving that it made her heart start pounding in her chest. It was a laugh that she would give anything to hear on command. It was precisely why such a laugh could not be given on command that she loved it so much.

“Get to your point.” Amelia said, half-growling.

“Alright.” He chuckled a few more times and then he went still. She could see that he was thinking very carefully now. “So if the universe is finite then many things we are appreciative of and love are things that have been discovered before and have always, as I am pointing out, already existed. They are new to us though because we’re not a hive-mind. Still, because we are so well connected to one another such originality, even if it’s recycled, is still novel to us. Discovery is why many people are as happy as they are, after all.” Aidan smiled. “I was just thinking that there are two ways to approach discovery. One is to stand at the bottom and to do things we already know over, and over, and over until it appears to be insanity. Sometimes, like with Fred, you discover something that astounds everyone and appears to be a new and original discovery. I was just casting him over and over because I was bored. I wanted to see if anything strange would ever happen. I mean, he always shows up just a little bit differently so I wanted to see if I could see a dragonfly I didn’t recognize -- or one with extra wings. Then he popped up without me casting the spell because I was looking over at Raven and she was doing something that caused me to be quiet for a moment while I was thinking ‘dragonfly.”

“I was thinking about that.” Amelia admitted. “I mean if we go with the dive gear then I would think that if you did something enough then the game might view it as an involuntary action, like walking. You literally think the same thing over and over and the game recognized the command without you being verbal about it. Language without language.”

“Right.” He grinned.

“That’s terrifying.” Amelia admitted. “Do you think you can do it with more complex spells?”

“Certainly.” Aidan shrugged. “Do I think I have the time to stand around casting spells over and over and letting the game learn my specific thoughts that activate them? No.”

“Fine.” Amelia wasn’t ready to let it drop but it seemed like they were reaching the limits of that line of thought. “What’s the other way? I mean to approach discovery?”

“To stand at the top of knowledge.” Aidan said.

“What?” Amelia felt her face wrinkling.

“I mean, in order to discover something you have to stand on the top of everyone that came before you without exactly knowing anything profound about it and just try. The ship is like that. I looked up all the Classes and Jobs I thought might be useful to my flying ship and researched them. I picked abilities I thought would be useful and drew up the plans.” He waved his hand expansively at her terminal. “Will it work? I have no idea. Do I have the ability to make it happen? Again, no idea. But like all good ideas from science fiction, you have to think of something before someone can come along and look at it and think to themselves, hey, I could make that.”

Amelia immediately started laughing. “You just put it on the ethernet hoping there would be a bunch of crazy people that would try it out?”

“I did.” Aidan grinned. “At the bottom of my schematic I put an instruction. That if they ever did figure it out they’d give me a free ride.”

Amelia laughed, rocking back and forth in her chair. “I wouldn’t hold my breath!”