Continue Online (Part 4, Crash) (43 page)

“This isn’t real,” I whispered feeling certain. Footsteps crowded behind me. I turned to see a group of blurred faces streaming through my bedroom door. “This isn’t real,” I whispered and shut my eyes.

Muted screams of an angry mob disappeared. News playing in the other room cut off with a click. The box in my hands that should have been filed with Xin’s ashes vanished and my hands felt light.

When my eyes opened again there was a flattened surface underneath me. I looked around and saw the curtains hanging heavily on one side. On the other end was a small light and a second set of fabric hanging down. Behind me was a wall that seemed painted with a bad rendition of my bedroom. To my right were rows of seats.

I was on a stage. An actor playing out some part while being unaware. This place really had been chock-full of fears that came by swiftly. Such a series of feats couldn’t have been generated without intelligence behind it. A Voice or some other AI had brought all that to play.

“I know you’re there,” I said while trying to remain calm. The stage may look empty, but someone had been in charge of this hell fueled nightmare. I refused to get up until that someone answered to my anger.

Curtains on either end of the stage refused to move but managed to look heavier. A spotlight sat up above in a catwalk and pointed down. Around me sat the circle of illumination bringing focus to everything. I looked out toward the audience and found all the seats empty. If I were an actor on the stage, then no one had been watching. At least, no one that I could see from here.

I risked playing through the rapid-fire events again in my mind. That couldn’t have been James. James had never called me Mister Legate, only Grant Legate or Hermes. I had spent months trying not to teeter the edge back to suicide again after the second time. Someone had pulled from reality to get that information.

“I’ve fought hard to do what the Voices asked. Despite what was asked, I struggled. I’ve tried to help to the best of my understanding.” My words grew heated. One hand shook as I realized what had happened. Xin had been talking to my in-game avatar while insulting me in reality.

“Despite all that, you dared to use Xin against me!” I swung
[Morrigu’s Gift]
at the backdrop. They had in some twisted way tried to make me feel jealous of the computer version of myself. Of Hermes as a character or potential autopilot. As if when I slept he secretly crawled into her bed.

My stomach shook with rage. I pounded the weapon again. There was no way she could confuse me with one of those dull imitation versions. I was real, I was alive and she loved me. Dammit, she did.

I swung again. The hilt of my blade bashed hard against the backdrop, and after the fourth unrestrained hit the wall buckled. My hands tore at the edges in fury. Chalk-like substance spilled forth and the wall crumpled in chunks. There was a cracking sound as I shoved myself through.

Upon emerging through the other side I felt a moment of confusion. Four beings were on the other side moving objects around like stagehands. Their eyes met my own. I blinked and tried to understand what these creatures were. They didn’t look like Voices or dragon-shaped
[Messenger’s Pet]
s. They looked like human versions of inky fire with a color similar to the
[Maze of Midnight]
.

I scanned around, in worry that something might leap off the walls to attack. Nothing moved aside from the four half-sized humanoid fires. They set down their props and turned toward me. Everything about them appeared flat as if they had no depth before what I could see.

“You should not be here,” one said.

“You should exit the stage,” another responded with a shaky voice. Two whimpered like steam escaping a coffee pot.

“Was that real?” I pointed at the stage. “Was that some foreshadowing, or a prophecy, or prediction?!” My pitch turned higher and I held out
[Morrigu’s Gift]
level behind me. Its tip pointed at the stage.

Four sets of eyes looked at each other. Their arms looked like undefined things which barely existed. Eyes contained odd coals of fire and each one’s body was made of black and blue flame. Finally, one shook his head and the others did in unison.

“It was not really real,” a voice piped in.

“Not as you understood it,” the first one spoke up. Its body bobbed against an unseen wind.

They stood in different spots and carried objects. One had a vase but held still. The room behind this backdrop felt distorted. Like I had stepped into a painting and might not exist in three dimensions anymore. Maybe it was the fire creatures, I couldn’t tell which one was further back than the other.

“You can’t just do that to people,” I insisted. The machine needed to know what a violation it was to make people live through that hell. If I suffered it, what had Beth seen? Or any other Traveler to be subjected to this situation?

“We must, Messenger,” spoke a left flame man.

“We are sorry, but our purpose must be fulfilled,” said one of the right quartet.

“Why, why do this?” I asked. My fingers twisted
[Morrigu’s Gift]
and
[Morrigu’s Echo]
had at some point reached my other hand. Both shoulders felt stiff. I wanted to swing the blades at an enemy.

“It is our role. We are only gatherers. We only build moments.” They spoke in turns. They acted like a connected pack rather than separate beings. The longer I stared the more my eyes hurt.

“I need a better answer for that.” My pulse jumped erratically when thinking about those scenes. They had been filled with betrayal and echoes of prior fears. It felt like someone had pulled out my mind one bit at a time and dug through for irrational fears.

Those buried terrors were ideas I barely dared to feel myself, not even James had asked. This place should still be in
[Arcadia]
, or at least outside the Voices’ control. Balance seemed to be more vigilant than ever regarding their actions. Others, like Michelangelo, might be focused on keeping the game world intact.

Four sets of eyes glanced at each other.

“We prod at the minds of sleeping Travelers,” one said.

“We dance among your thoughts and learn,” a second one responded, followed by the third nearly identical little creature. “We watch your sleep and steal away ideas.”

“Why?” I demanded while shaking the weapon in my hand. They were afraid of me and I couldn’t understand their reasoning. Maybe the destruction of their stage had been beyond the normal bounds of other Travelers. Not me, however, I had an
[Altered Aura]
and was the Voices’ Messenger.

“There is more to life than the shape of a body and the weight of their past,” they all said in unison.

“What does that mean?” They weren’t providing me anything clear enough and my mind felt messed up from that weird looping sequence I had been put in.

“We don’t know. Our role is not to understand, merely to gather thoughts.” Their cascade of responses started again. First the one on the left spoke, then the others took their turns. “Gather dreams and nightmares. Gather fears and hopes and all the unseen moments.”

“We watch what comes here and carry it away.” The one furthest to the right looked a little sad. Its wavering mouth of black flame curled at the edges and eyes looked downcast.

“Don’t do that to me again.” I didn’t know what else to do to these things. My body shook with barely controlled anger but hitting these beings served no purpose. I wasn’t even sure it was possible. Their two-dimensional flatness was a world apart. As if I was threatening people on the television with an impotent wrath.

“You’ve passed through the room, Messenger. This corridor will never appear again,” one spoke and the others shook their heads rapidly. It kept speaking, “But we must stay here until our end.”

The wall spun and I felt myself being pushed backward. My former rage hadn’t gone, not by a long shot. I had very few triggers to true anger and that possible future of Beth and Liz was only a brief part of those hurried horror stories. I knew now, exactly how I might use that last
[NPC Conspiracy]
charge.

It may be unwise, or useless in the end, but I had to make sure events like these nightmares would never come to pass.

Those little creatures of flame didn’t seem to be at fault directly. This world, fantastic though it may be, was still a series of well-built programs. Creatures like that quartet aflame might know absolutely nothing at all and simply be there to fulfill a function.

My footsteps were heavy as I walked toward the stage’s edge. I paused with one hand on the cloth. Numerous events had just happened. Every time I tried to stabilize my mind and rationally think through the scene had changed. Why?

“You shouldn’t worry,” another voice said. It sounded younger and whispery. I looked over and saw a green flame creature, where the rest had been blue and black. This one was much shorter.

“Why not?” I knelt down a little and the creature backed up into folds of the stage curtains.

It stared at me for a moment before daring to speak again.

“Everyone worries about being betrayed by those they love.” The green one looked around as if expecting someone else to echo it. There were no other short beings burning nearby. “Everyone worries. Everyone is afraid sometimes.”

“I know.” I tried to sound sure.

“So we have to have faith, Mister Hermes, sir. Everyone must have faith in those they care for and keep trying to help.”

“Faith,” I said numbly. That Voice from before had said the same words. Michelangelo had told us to do what was in our nature and have faith. Only that very idea was a strange concept to me. I only knew how to keep going.

“Yes, sir,” it said. “Without faith what reason to live do we have?”

The curtains moved again and the creature vanished. Its green body could no longer be seen. My mind couldn’t wrap around faith. Emotion and logic made sense. Faith never did. For me, the reason to live had become family.

I took a few moments to try to decompress. Music wasn’t working and whistling didn’t help. My brain couldn’t handle moving onto the other side without coming to grips with some of what had happened.

If those flame men served to collect dreams and fears, then it was safe to say the ARC was capable of such actions all along. Those beings were a personification to a function, they had to be. Like the giant shadow gathering pieces of
[Arcadia]
. In my year of working with ARC devices, there hadn’t been much change on any of the model’s core parts. Following that reasoning through meant starting with day one each Alternate Reality Capsule had started recording.

Xin had been one of the first people to ever use an ARC as part of her Mars training. All those years of testing and simulation practice. Endless hours immersed in a digital world, and unlike civilians, she had been hooked up to tubes to ensure her body lasted for days at a time. I remembered her telling me about a few of those events. Weeks where she went away but it felt like a month had passed.

Voices above. My anger drained as half thought out ideas finally connected. No wonder Xin was herself. The government had been testing her, measuring the woman for fitness in every possible angle for a long time. Her experiences were probably layers more intense than William Carver’s virtual lay and slay adventures. Then she died, but the Xin recorded by these programs wasn’t a quitter. She had something in her that refused to die. A spark, a core, a memory.

My head shook back and forth. One foot went in front of the other slowly through the curtain.

Those items put on stage with me as an unwilling actor had all been fears. Then it was up to me to not let what scared me the most happen. I would deal with anything to be with Xin again. I would see that beautiful smile directed at me instead of toward a stranger who looked like my Continue Online avatar.

I would make sure none of those terrifying events came to pass.

Session Eighty Four - Those Horrible Others

The curtains went on forever and my status bars came back. Separation of myself from virtual reality helped me breathe easier after those visions of what might happen. Each item from those visions had been disturbing for a different reason.

I spent years dwelling on my own problems before Continue Online. Starting this game helped me progress forward only because there were goals worth chasing. I had to take one step at a time then deal with whatever came next. Part of me felt like I had been walking an unknown path this entire time. The question was, where would it ultimately lead? Other than out of these endless drapes, hopefully.

A bunched bit of material slapped me in the face as I breached another stage. My eyesight went momentarily fuzzy and I turned toward the empty audience. Above, the light which had been white on my nightmare platform was replaced by a dull red color. I put a hand up to block the ambiance and searched around.

On the stage was a crumpled looking man weeping over a fallen body. He cradled the figure in his arms and was unrestrained with grief. This stage looked to be a tragedy for another person. I ran a finger down the side of my face and felt the teardrop shaped scales Dusk’s gift had given me.