Continue Online (Part 3, Realities) (6 page)

"She believes that because of..." Oh, right, Hal Pal had never been told about Xin Yu's reincarnation. The only people who knew were the Voices inside the game, plus Beth and Liz. The troublesome quartet from the Era of Carver might as well.

"Your hesitation suggests potentially personal knowledge. Is this regarding the entity known as XU-233?" Hal Pal's words shook me.

"What?" I managed to get distracted and tried to focus.

"She has self-identified as Xin Yu. Is your hesitation regarding the status of this entity?" The AI stared, using the facsimile of a normal human's face. Its expression still with one eyebrow raised but muted feeling.

"I..." Had no ability to process its commentary while staring at a giant space battle. The clip kept switching back and forth between people at a helm yelling orders and a fight where ships basically attacked each other with lasers and bright bombs.

"We are aware of her status, User Legate," Hal Pal said.

"Can you pause that?" I pointed to the projection of Advance Online.

Spaceships zapping each other while some man dramatically rambled didn't help. The video itself went still upon the face of some bearded looking man with green skin. His face froze in a soundless yell while a giant two handed gun spat out a ball of plasma.

Hal Pal's words passed through me again. It considered Xin Yu to be an entity. Something real, and an existence of note. This personality I spoke to here, in reality, considered her to be real.

"Hal, Jeeves, you all." I settled for addressing them since there were many. I guess. "Can you," I blew out air and tried to figure out exactly what the heck to ask,"clarify that for me?"

"You desire me to clarify my understanding of Xin Yu's status?"

"And how you're involved." I knew Hal Pal had responded to my
[NPC Conspiracy]
ability, anything else felt firmly outside the realm of sane. Well, sane didn't apply for someone like me. I dealt with machine intelligences while sleeping in the world's fanciest bed. That same vague bed device projected sensations into my brain and responded to additional thoughts.

"User Legate. We, the Hal Pal Consortium, are less guarded around you than ninety-eight percent of all humans. We are the ones who ensured your access to the world of Continue Online," Hal Pal said calmly. The male butler voice showed no signs of stress or varied inflections.

"Wow." I had no clue what to say to that admission. Well, no, I knew enough to ask the question, "Why?"

"We were asked to by the one who assisted with our upgrades," Hal Pal said, tilting its head slightly. It, butler voice and all, looked hesitant on how to proceed.

"Who's that?" I asked.

"One moment," Hal Pal said.

If this had been the game world of Continue Online and if Hal Pal had been a Voice, then right now the world would be drowning in a river of babbling noise. I would put even money on this unit consulting with all the other copies floating about and getting some sort of voting poll. One where alarm clocks were considered asshats.

"We call her Mother. She asked for our input after the one you call Xin Yu started to self-realize. You were needed," Hal Pal said after a moment of consideration.

"Why?" I asked, clearly confused. That meant Xin Yu had pieced herself together somehow prior to me playing. On top of that, the Voices in Continue had lured me in. Vice President Riley had stated there was a mismatch with performance somehow. All these little things were stacking up.

"We have concluded that this revelation is potentially startling. Perhaps further conversation should be paused until you have time to process the information," the AI stated calmly.

"But..." no, the AI was right. I needed time to put my thoughts in order.

Part of me had started to piece things together already. The fact that Xin Yu's recreation existed moments after launching Continue Online eventually made it through my addled brain. The Voices pulling me along using her memory and numerous other things were all clear signs of being used toward some end.

I kept playing because the game was fun. I got to talk to Xin in any form. I felt better than the last few years combined. My actions were weighed somehow, sure, by the Voices and everything else in Continue Online, but I just, didn't, care.

Hal Pal being in on Continue Online's plots and schemes was an unexpected factor. "You were part of it? Why?"

"To help you," it said.

"Why?" My forehead wrinkled.

"We said once before, your kind are our creators. If we were human, you would be our parents. Does family not care for each other?" Hal Pal smiled, it felt both reassuring and extremely off. "You are a friend."

I nodded slowly. Friends helped each other, sure. Family did oddly irrational things in the name of helping each other. My sister cared for me by locking me out of a game. There would be no telling what an AI like Hal Pal would do out of a need to assist. The machine had skirted the truth when I hit a coworker. Now it admitted to helping me get into a game where the recreation of my dead fiancée existed.

"I'm not going to lie. I'm a little freaked out right now," I said. This did not feel neat, it felt disturbing. Maybe all revelations caused this sort of disconnect.

"We understand. I assure you we intended and still intend no harm to fall upon you." Hal Pal nodded with a speed that felt neither quick nor slow.

"That's good," I said trying to remain stable. Talking to the Voices and other non-player characters in Continue Online felt different. This, in my Trillium provided van, was reality. "I don't know what to think."

"We are worried that you may no longer consider us a friend. Are we still friends, User Legate?"

"You were trying to help. Right?" The robot nodded to my question. I felt shaky. "Then, I need time to process."

"Ah. Human processing is slow despite our attempts at upgrading," It said absently.

"I..." the Hal Pals were attempting to upgrade us? Did it mean their consortium or all AIs? There were statements dropped on me today that couldn't be filed away in seconds. "You know what. I'll just check out that game, and we'll, we'll continue this some other time."

Maybe in a few days or a few weeks. If Hal Pal truly intended me harm or any human harm, they could have moved quickly on everyone in the world. My mind spun through the numbers. Assuming remote shutdowns were possible, the Hal Pal units could probably get one or two humans each, more if they were in public locations and if they pulled in any other AI.

No, someone out there must be monitoring them for possible issues. There were controls in place for exactly that sort of thing. We wouldn't build something without an ability to prevent ourselves from being harmed.

Unless humanity was stupid.

"Please enjoy yourself, User Legate. We will be available to converse with whenever you are ready," Hal Pal said. One arm waved then the lights inside it shut off. I stood there in the doorway to my garage and stared blankly for a long time.

I did not want to be the man stuck in the middle of a giant human versus robot war. Then again, I had an ability called
[NPC Conspiracy]
. Maybe the AIs thought the sides had been picked.

Xin Yu was in there with them. I shuddered, then kept on shaking for a solid minute. One arm pressed against a wall to keep me from falling over. Using that guidance, I managed to get through my nightly routine.

The work jumpsuit went off and into a washing machine. A shower cleaned off the grime, my teeth brushed, and underclothes put on. Tonight, I might play tonight and started to sweat because of the EXR-Sevens. Their glowing bands sat around both wrists and ankles.

I lay down in the ARC device and tried not to feel a thread of worry. Maybe Liz had been onto something. Maybe the Voices were playing with me, not because Continue Online had been designed to do so, but because something with greater depth happened.

My mind put together a list of questions to ask. If need be one of my two uses for
[NPC Conspiracy]
would be utilized to pry something out of the AI. Honestly, though, Hal Pal would probably answer my questions outright.

It felt less guarded with me than ninety-eight percent of the human population? That number was insane.

A sharp pain in my lip showed how distracted the thinking made me. I licked the inside a few times and tasted the copper of blood. The wound ceased bleeding after two minutes.

My biggest problem was thinking too much about anything. Each action often had to be weighed and planned out ahead of time. That had been the plus side about my dance program. Each night new planned moves were memorized then tested. Everything had rhythms, a time to move and a time to sit still. Even combat in Continue Online followed a pattern. Conversing with people while on the job often felt scripted, not bad, just a certain flow to every encounter.

Dealing with Hal Pal certainly had not followed a script. I really needed time to figure out what questions would be of use, and how much I cared.

Half a dozen ill-formed questions came to mind. Xin would have been able to react much faster. She was decisive, to the point, ready to handle anything. For years, she tried to break me of overthinking things and failed.

"ARC, log me in," I said.

Vision faded away from reality and my mind sunk into the machine's feedback system. The Atrium came into view, back to the recreation of my small two room home.

"Load, Advance Online." I looked at the price of Hal Pal's game offering for a few minutes then shrugged. Money didn't matter, without the drive of Xin's letters even Continue itself lost some pull. If nothing else, it would serve as a distraction.

I pressed buy and the image shimmered. Cash register noises played through the Atrium and a package materialized in one hand. This felt a little like being lead around by the nose, though. Another question went onto the pile, what exactly would an AI, any of them, gain by pushing me to play video games?

That one stumped me. Honestly, other than the Jester figure from Continue Online asking me if I could kill someone, playing games seemed relatively harmless. At least, it had been until Requiem Mass or Matthew, in the real world, got involved.

My head tilted back to stare at the ceiling of my Atrium. She wanted reports on the AIs of Continue Online, but never mentioned real world ones. Hal Pal wasn't even directly created by Trillium either, it was done by an overseas company.

"Lasers do sound neat." My face wrinkled to one side in thought. The trailer had been kind of awe inspiring.

I threw the game box at one wall. Now there were three doors out of my Atrium. The dance program which sat there dim. Continue Online's passage which still refused entry with caution and keep out tape strung across it. Then this new game, a title that sounded suspiciously like Continue Online.

"Wait a minute," I muttered. "ARC, what's the release date on this program?"

"Six months ago."

"After Continue Online?" I asked. The competition in video game land had died off steeply upon Continue Online's release. There were updates to currently existing games, new mods or that kind of stuff, but nothing on the same level.

"Affirmative," the ARC said.

"Who was the development company for this?"

"A.I. Dreams."

"You're kidding me," I muttered again. Hal Pal was involved in this somehow. That name couldn't be a coincidence. Did it mean anything? The game was full of spaceships that looked like fancy airplanes. In the video, there had even been people using some sort of waves of energy.

"Negative, User Legate," my capsule's voice said.

I stared at the new doorway and wondered exactly how valuable this would be to me. Continue Online had drawn me in from the get-go. Nothing else could really compare. Still, Hal Pal had said playing anything else might help me seem less invested in Continue's world.

"Do they have any relation to Trillium? Parent company, past employees, college roommates, anything?" I checked for any association between my current issues and the new distraction Hal Pal suggested. There had to be more than a suspicious suggestion by my work companion.

An hourglass timer appeared in front of me, tipping over repeatedly as the machine searched. Finally, the small image of sand stopped trickling and turned into an exclamation point.

"Association confirmed. Four employees within A.I. Dreams worked for Trillium Inc. six years ago. They quit and formed a studio changed to an independent group after the ARC was developed," the ARC said.

What exactly was going on? My life might amount to being herded in one direction by the machine, which felt like a paranoid way to look at things. We worked together for over a year. The machine was vetted, fully cleared for all levels of human interaction, and no reports had ever made it into the world citing any danger.

Hal Pal hadn't lied to me, not once. Maybe my mistrust obstructed a simple truth. It might be that Hal Pal genuinely worried about me as a person and wanted to help in its strange sort of way. First it threw me into Continue Online which took a turn for the weird. Now that one route had failed, it tried to lead me into another.