Continue Online (Part 4, Crash) (6 page)

“Why not? Why is it only the person you like gets saved by some machine, but dad doesn’t?”

“I don’t know.” I smiled weakly. “And part of me is afraid to ask the question, what would happen if other people, besides us found out?”

Liz glared at me, then went after the other two ladies. She didn’t like my answer. Neither did I. Still, how could anyone sane expect to magically wake up inside a digital world with pieces of their old life stored away on a harddrive somewhere? The very idea was insane.

The Trillium van arrived quickly, and I loaded inside. My sister and niece would take care of mom. The bills should be all paid. We would arrange a real funeral in a few days after all the bodywork had been completed. Dozens of friends and old coworkers would be called, people I barely knew from dad’s life.

Hours passed as the van drove me home. It was in dire need of a charge after all the miles traveled today. Hal Pal said nearly nothing, again maintaining a generally low profile in the wake of my last
[NPC Conspiracy]
usage.

I disrobed from the work jumpsuit and slid my pile of dirty clothes into the washing machine. They would come out an hour later, cleaned, pressed and folded. The process was too easy. As before, I remembered mom’s complaints about doing dad’s laundry and felt a pang of sadness. Yet another memory tainted by death. She would never be able to label it, “A taxing chore from the devil himself.”

Still, there was a deep sense of budding joy, despite the recent tragedies. My happy moments were inside the machine, waiting for me. Lights in the front room were shut off by an old fashioned switch. In routine order, teeth were brushed, personal messages cleared from the ARC’s external display. All of the normal chores done with a fervor that hadn’t been felt in ages.

“ARC, log me in.” My physical eyesight fell away as the device overtook my senses. Hearing was replaced by the calming music of an Atrium. I turned it into a park where I used to meet Xin outside her work. Oak trees littered the roadside along with a much nicer bench than the one from reality.

I strode past those and went for my doorway to Continue Online. At last, at long last, the fantasy world would be mine to explore once again. Letters awaited me, monsters to be slain, dozens of kingdoms and planes to explore. All that, and Xin would be within my reach, where would she want to go first? Maybe we could find that guild who wanted to travel to the moon.

Eagerly I jumped through the doorway in my Atrium that led to Continue Online’s avatar. There was no time to be wasted checking for my autopilot’s status, not now, not after so long.

Light once again shifted as the Atrium fell away and Continue loaded. The formerly soft ambiance was replaced by a darkened location. My scenic park gave way to the scent of pure rot. Hearing picked up squeaks. To top it off, a message displayed.

So, as an excellent end to my day, my Hermes character was imprisoned in a cesspool of grossness.

Session Sixty Seven - Crime and Punishment

My avatar, me in essence, was currently equipped with a poorly made shirt and trouser combination that felt soggy in spots. Light down in this cell was poor, and seeing in the dark had never been a skill I gained in Continue Online. Mental desperation failed to activate a fantasy copy of
[Echo Vision]
.

Before being kicked out of Continue I had a whole swath of light items to help out when wandering. Most problems were solved with spell scrolls. If I needed an outdoor tent, there was an item to assist. Drinking water came from a
[Well Spring Stone]
. My inventory was full of handy player creations. At least, it had been, prior to Advance Online. Endless matchsticks for starting camp fires? The clothes washing bin to keep me from getting
[Soiled]
by nature? Those and more were gone. Only the
[Bound]
items stuck with me.

[Morrigu’s Gift]
and
[Morrigu’s Echo]
sat in my inventory with giant red cross marks on them. My gambling hat
[Wild Bill]
was in storage along with a bottomless deck of cards and some item titled
[Treasure’s Gift].
The picture for it in inventory looked similar to the box Treasure had provided me in Advance Online. I hoped it would be a useful item but for now, it was blocked. Even
[Blink]
refused to trigger, along with the few other abilities I had.

In short, I was fairly well boned. My autopilot had likely done some terrible things while I was away. Wait, Voices no. I had done terrible things. Killing Commander Queenshand, leading an army into battle against the giant space carrier
[Knuckle Dragger]
, planting a bomb to blow it up. The
[Mistborn]
, all those events in the game portion of Advance Online were echoed in Continue.

My gut sat in a low knot after logging in and seeing my dank surroundings. A wall of messages flooded my screen but I could almost predict what they were about already. Still, catching up on the backlog might provide more insight as to what was happening.

Continue Online’s pleasant Voice generated messages had a shortened recap. The words were verbatim, which let me know those upon high were still paying attention. Plus the
[Messenger’s Tube]
also sat in my inventory, crossed out of course.

These clothes were gross and felt cold. My pants seemed to have bathed in liquid of a questionable nature. The cell next to me either had someone dying or shitting wildly all over the place. I got up and tapped on the bars in hopes that someone might notice. This whole scene needed to move onto its next stage. Too bad the game required that I be logged in and active in order to get rid of the
[Jailed]
status.

“Nobody knows, the troubles I’ve seen.” I mourned while I tried to activate various abilities. “Nobody knows, my sorrows.”

“We know, we just don’t care,” a male voice down the hall shouted. Other figures laughed, some rasped, and one hacked with amusement.

“Anyone know the next verse?” I shouted back toward the unknown audience. Since there were other people here, maybe we could kill time together. There didn’t appear to be any good method of escape so far. My attempts at using fingernails to file away the bars was failing.

“No!” a woman, or possibly man with a really feminine voice shouted. “Just shut up! I want to serve my time in peace!”

“Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen,” the newest person sang with a terrible tone. “Glory, Hallelujah, sometimes I’m up, sometimes I’m down, ohh, yes Lord.” They managed to stretch the words out a bit and it almost felt religious. That seemed odd for a game with all sorts of divinities in the form of Voices. What would they think?

“Shut up!” shouted the woman, or man, or someone. More than one voice protested.

I checked the walls, poked and prodded nearby objects in search of a jail cell escape event. The ceiling braces were devoid of keys. Muck piles in the corner squished grossly while I toed through them. I longed for shoes to make this process less nasty, but the ARC happily gave me chilled feedback on every oozing inch.

“Sometimes I’m almost, to the ground, oh yes, Lord!” The terribly toned player managed another line before pausing. People were booing but most of it felt like bored harassment rather than outright maliciousness.

“Give up?” the feminine person said after a minute of silence.

None of the brick rocks moved. My system gave me a message stating skills like
[Brawn]
,
[Coordination]
,
[Speed]
,
[Limberness]
, and
[Endurance]
were all reduced. Oddly my social statistics, except
[Respect]
, stayed the same.
[Attractiveness]
, which had never been that high to begin with, was actually increased by twenty. That made no sense to me.

“I forgot the rest,” responded the singer. A few people collectively sighed in relief.

I went back to the bars and shouted down the bricked hallway, “I didn’t know that was a religious song.”

“Just ‘cus it says Lord don’t make it religious.” A fourth person sniffed.

There was nothing useful to see anyway. None of the bars wiggled. Nothing glowed to key me in on the escape route. Angling myself from the cell’s corner showed me an awkward slice of brick wall extending twenty feet in either direction. We were without guards and none of the other Travelers talking were visible. I couldn’t even be sure how many prisoners there might be.

“Shut up, it’s got glory, and hallelujah, and even Jesus in there.” The one who had been signing sounded upset. I could hear bars farther down rattling and an abrupt moment of laughter.

“Sounds religious to me.”

“You all don’t know nothin’.” They kept talking and I had no clue who was speaking. It could have been one person with a multiple personality disorder or a gang trapped in one room. My participation in the ongoing conversation was minimal as I searched for an escape. Maybe once outside I could
[Blink]
away to freedom.

“Ain’t that just like real life. A body don’t find religion until they go to prison for sinning,” the manly sounding female said.

I happily hummed through another round of escape attempts. Most of my brimming curiosity was focused on an important question. What was in the box?
[Treasure’s Gift]
could be gold, but that would be useless once I made it back to a mailbox. The Casino royalties provided more than any sane man could ask for. Still, none of these messages gave me an answer.

“What are you in for?” one of the people shouted.

“Technically, I think I killed a Commander, and maybe this king, sort of,” I said absently. A moment of hesitation passed through me too late to prevent the admission. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. “Part of that was my autopilot.”

“Good lord, what kind of monster trains their autopilot to kill NPCs?” the woman said.

“Listen, we can’t all be in for a Ponzi scheme!” one of the others shouted in response.

“Please. It’s not my fault those players were suckers,” she said.

“Hey, newbie! Killing royals is a high crime! Bet you end up on The Wheel for sure!” an unsteady voice shouted from really far away. It was hard to tell what any of them looked like with these bars. They should have given us cells facing each other for easier communication. Or maybe this prison was designed with cramped room in mind.

“Wheel what?” I shouted back.

“The Wheel,” a closer person stated. “Only the worst get that gig. Child molesters and crap, or so I’m told. Lucky saps like us just get confined until enough play time passes.”