Continue Online (Book 1, Memories) (10 page)

“
And
this thing said you tried to hang yourself. Doesn’t autopilot
act like you play?” I tried to skirt the issue but still get an
answer.

“
My
character did that, not me! I was away.” Her vision went
downward as the rope, I guess the twenty feet of spider silk, went
into a backpack she had swung off from behind her. “If it’d
been me for real, I would have aced that event.”

“
So
you don’t play like a depressive emotionally unstable teenager.
That was all the Autopilot?” Just how dense was Uncle Grant in
her world?

“
Yeah.
It kind of reads into things…” A few other boxes
appeared on her screen and she flicked them off into oblivion. “Let’s
see…”

“
Can
you walk around?” I didn’t really even know how to
approach that event message. Situations in that realm were to be
passed to my sister. Maybe it was serious. Maybe it was her being a
bit crazy in-game.

“
Sure.
Oh, I know! I’ll show you the starter area. It should be fairly
empty.”

“
I
thought they were always full,” I said.

“
Maybe
in other games. Continue only lets you have one character. But it’s
cool because you can learn whatever skills you want to.” Beth
responded happily.

“
Like
that singing one?” The two from the event, handcraft and
sewing, were other probable professions. Each one likely went with
the type of action being performed. At least the naming convention
seemed straight forward.

“
Yep!”
Beth said while running down a seemingly random path. She dodged
through tons of other people who were talking casually. Others were
looking at shelves of items in stalls. Some were laying down chatting
way. My face felt cool. A gust of wind pelted against one side then
the other as we shifted around objects in our path.

“
How
do you know where you’re going?” I asked.

“
Memory!”
We kept right on cruising through the town. There was a slight
jarring sensation as she pounded across the cobblestone.

“
No
map? Or some sort of navigation?” I felt confused. At least my
voice wasn't interrupted by the rush of movement.

“
Nothing
I own, they’re all player made.” Beth responded.

“
That’s
weird.”

In
the games of my youth, everything had a map. Except a few professed
hardcore ones that were more puzzlers than anything else. For those
games, there had been some exploration. Most of it was figuring out
which area was safe first and slowly building up to the harder zones.
Maybe this was the same.

There
were a few whose entire purpose seemed to be trapping and killing the
player. Getting through to the other side was a test of sanity.

Truth
be told, everything looked real enough to blow me away. The touch
feedback wasn’t quite there, but Continue Online's visuals were
amazing. Especially considering Beth wasn’t moving slowly, she
darted around with an incredible speed.

“
What
class moves like this?” I asked.

“
There
are no classes, Uncle. You play however you want. Skills are unlocked
based on what you demonstrate and focus on. Instead, you’re
ranked along a Path which is based on your skills.” Beth did a
spin around two people that made my head feel dizzy for a moment. My
dance program contained some moves, but they were all computer
programs. Real people were less predictable.

“
Paths?”

“
I’ll
probably have to cut short some of the explanations. There’s a
safety when doing Second Player mode that will penalize me.”

“
So
the machine's listening to you talk to me,” I said.

“
Yep.
So you can ask me outside of the game, but I’ll probably be in
here a while once I’ve shown you some stuff.” Beth
sounded amused. Seeing her expression couldn't happen with a Second
Player helm. The equipment put me in a first person view.

“
On
a school night.” It was Tuesday. Tuesdays still were school
nights right? I haven’t really paid attention to what classes
Beth was taking.

“
Time
runs fast inside. There’s a compression rate of four to one.
One minute out there, four in here. I load up my homework while
traveling.” She managed to talk almost naturally while running
full bore.

I
could feel the hint of effort being put into her movements. Legs
touching down, each stride almost a leap. Gazelles would lunge the
same way from location to location. Finally, barely short of breath,
she came upon a nearly empty square.

“
That’s
far too convenient.” Being able to do homework in here was
unfair. Even my dance program didn’t compress things to such an
insane level. What happened after a year of this, or three or four?
Mentally a person would have lived a decade, and real life would have
only been two years and change. Such a concept was absolutely beyond
belief. Of course so were printed cars that drove themselves.

“
Welcome
to the future, Uncle Grant.” I heard the noise before the
visual input really registered. Beth was looking, I was looking, but
the moment took a minute to click.

Once
it did I dropped my jaw. We were on a pavilion nearly midway up a
roaring half circle waterfall. The top of the waterfall was so high
up that it covered the dais with mist. Water kept right on rushing
down towards a destination I couldn’t make out below.

“
Whoa.”

“
Like
it?” She walked closer to the edge and looked up and down.

“
I
love it.” This was different, yet as breathtaking as the moon
shots. There was an awe inspiring serenity to her surroundings. Noise
from the flow drowned out nearly everything else, forcing your
attention to one spot.

“
All
the starting areas I’ve been to are incredible.”

“
Where
does that cliff go?” I questioned.

“
Down
a longgggg way. The bottom is a higher level zone, there’s a
dungeon down there I’m going to challenge with a friend. The
top is a bit closer to intro Ranks.” Beth laughed and waved at
some of the other people sitting around.

“
How
did you find that out?”

“
Oh,
first thing I did when I logged on was jump off that cliff at least a
dozen times!” She was leaning over the edge and yelling to be
heard. Thankfully her side was all locked within the ARC, or my
sister would probably be breaking down the door.

“
Like
the free fall entrance?”

“
Best
rush ever!” Beth answered.

“
There
were no penalties?”

“
Nah.
There’s nothing like that until you’ve got your first
rank. After that things can get harsh.” She backed away from
the edge and sat down on a bench. Things were much quieter further
away from the waterfall. People were passing through, going about
what seemed like routine tasks. Buckets of food were in one woman’s
arms. Another woman was trying to convince some squat mule with extra
horns to drag a cart along. The things abnormally rounded ears kept
twitching towards the water.

“
If
I died now I’d have to deal with all sorts of stuff,”
Beth said. “My path ranks are all over the board.”

“
That’s...”
I paused. “Harsh?”

“
Different
people play the game different ways. Some people I know rushed their
combat skills. Others couldn’t handle the monsters so they
stuck with trade skills. Everyone finds a pace they like.”

“
This
is nice, though.”

“
You
can watch it for a while if you want. I’ll leave the feed on
for you while I take care of some homework.” Beth offered.

I
grunted in a positive reply after realizing Beth wouldn’t see
me nod. For a long time I stared at the waterfall, admiring the mist
as it flowed. To the side was enough clear space for couples to
dance. Music would be perfect. Tears slowly invaded my vision. Not
from Beth’s feedback, but from my own. My fiancée would
have loved it here. She had been the adventurous one and this world
would have been perfect.

Session Three
- Christmas in July

“
Grant.
You alright?” Metallic rapping woke me with a snort. I started
to mumble my reply.

“
Huh.
What. No. It’s all sis’s idea. I swear.” The
reaction was half coherent as I tried to string together where I was.
Aches and pains crawled up my spine from where I had fallen asleep.

“
Sure
it is, Grant. Still trying to blame me, mom never believed you then,
she won’t believe you now.” My sister said with a glare
that I could only feel.

“
You’re
the one who tried to set the cat on fire.”

“
That,
fucking, cat tore up my best dress.” Her finger jabbed at my
still sitting form.

“
Sniffles
did no such thing.” This heavy helmet made conversing feel
outright silly. I grabbed at both sides and lifted it away. After
being logged into Continue, the real world felt colorless and dull.

“
Oh,
this place.” I squinted upwards at my sister. “Hi, Liz.”
Both my sister and her daughter were named Elizabeth. Neither one of
them went by it. Liz also had darker hair like I did, where Beth's
was a lighter brown.

“
You
have fun in there?”

“
It
was neat,” I admitted.

“
I’ll
bet. Beth doesn’t know it, but I sneak down and watch sometimes
myself. That girl has packed more action into her life than either of
us.” Her head shook slowly, slipping shoulder length hair
about.

“
She’s
a regular thrill-seeker.”

“
You
can see it now, she’s crawling around in a dungeon with that
boy.” Liz started waving her hands over the ARC’s
external screen to peek in on the action. This sort of thing was only
possible with parental controls being established. Beth may
technically be the adult, but Liz still took care of her in nearly
every other way.

“
Bet
she’ll come screaming out of there, hungry from near starvation
again, grab a plate of food, and crawl back inside.” Liz
pantomimed extreme hunger by crossing her arms above her belly.

“
She’s
still doing okay with her classes, right?”

“
Oh
sure. Her grades are the only thing I have to hold over her. She
keeps them up and I can’t object to her playing. Even if I
don’t like, that, boy.” I followed her poking finger to
the ARC display she had brought up. The Second Player helm moved out
of my way so I could lean in closer.