Continue Online (Part 4, Crash) (35 page)

Dusk’s circling form had been far away and getting to him wasn’t easy. The goal sat at least six hours away past the dense forest. As such, Beth and I were barely on a real path while hiking through wolf-infested woodlands.

“How are you not tired?!” Beth huffed along behind me. She kept trying to yell at me between gasps.

“The benefits of an Ultimate Edition.” I looked back. Beth’s face ran with sweat. Maybe I had overestimated her character’s statistics. My own face dripped, but it might have been from rain splatting down through trees.

“Right.” She huffed while blowing a strand of hair away. “You guys gain stats absurdly fast.”

“It tapers off, I haven’t gained any new character points in a while,” I said while trying to find Dusk. His form wasn’t overhead anymore but we were in the right direction.

Viper must have led Wyl through the thickest trees he could find. Maybe his real life military background suggested going into harder places to navigate in order to throw off pursuit. I was clueless on who he had been running from. My kamikaze dive should have taken care of most
[Heavenly Body Clone]
s. According to
[Sight of Mercari]
there were no other players.

Only trees, shrubs and the rest of nature’s annoyances sat between me and the pseudo-dragon reuniting. Knotted bits of wood wove an ever tightening denser path in front of us. I thought about coughing up another fireball and lighting the whole place up, but Dusk had already murdered one forest under my watch. Trying to one up the much larger flame spitting lizard would be foolish.

“How much farther is Dusk?”

“I can’t tell,” I said.

“You don’t have a tracking skill for him?” She wasn’t the first person to ask about Dusk. People wondered about all sorts of aspects regarding the creature. What did he eat? Was it a quest I could share? How much would I sell him for?

“Dusk is a companion, so it’s not like other people’s pets. I don’t get a party member beacon or anything. Tamer skills are different.” I answered Beth’s question and sighed. “He pretty much chooses to do whatever and I work around it, or bribe him with baked goods.”

We kept going. Two more packs of wolves showed up but they went down quickly under Beth’s onslaught of monster seeking missiles. She stopped to check the monsters for loot while I didn’t even bother.

Carrying extra weight would slow me down, and between the items at hand, there weren’t many ways to improve my character aside from jewelry or other accessories. My time was better spent trying to catch a glimpse of Dusk. I bent my head back more than once trying to find sight of my high flying friend but got nowhere.

“Cupcakes!” I yelled every few minutes.

“He’s that addicted?” Beth’s face dripped with sweat. Even so, she still kept ahead of me when fighting monsters or casting spells. My niece was a seasoned adventurer in this virtual world.

“We first met over a cup of milk.” I looked off to one side and felt weird about the line. It almost sounded like how you meet a future girlfriend. “That was before even starting my trials.”

“Trials? What are those?” Her words distracted me from the death march and we slowed down. My virtual legs were burning from exertion and Beth drug through each step.

“Ultimate Edition users get ten tests to build a character, instead of being brought down to a starting city.” Being able to explain something to my exceptionally smart niece about Continue Online made me happy. My back straightened a little.

“That’s awesome, so you can start way higher than other people.

Then I came back down to earth. My first ten trials had ended with an oddly skewed character.

“Me now, maybe. Back then I really hadn’t played any virtual games, I was completely clueless and a spider actually made me—” I laughed abruptly before truncating the story. “Well, I hate bugs now.”

“Spiders are arachnids, not insects. My friend’s taking a course in entomology,” she said further ruining my self-esteem.

One cheek tucked in and I thought about the science lesson. Leave it to Beth to point out yet another gap in my knowledge. Maybe it really had been too long since high school and college.

“Then I hate arachnids even more.” Continue Online was full of ugly squirmy monsters to hate. “Anyway, Dusk was the one who helped me find a way through the trials, and I’ve been working with him for the last four months or so.”

A pop-up box happily agreed with my revelation regarding the differences between insects and spiders. Both were apparently considered creepy crawlies from the game’s point of view so my bonus against bugs still applied. At times, I forgot this was a virtual world, then unrealistic system messages popped-up to remind me. I tried to keep most of them closed down until an actual review was needed.

Beth kept moving forward while quietly huffing. Her breathing seemed easier now that we had slowed down. I took note to not let impatience push me too fast. Refraining from using
[Blink]
was only one part of working with a party member.

“I remember my first trip through the forest, I kept trying to figure out where the wolves came from.” Beth shared one of her own adventures. “They would never just appear like other games did. So I thought maybe there was a den or something where a pack of wolves were just going at it, cranking out puppies.”

I sputtered with laughter. “What?”

“Yeah, I was eighteen and had just started playing, sorry,” Beth said while almost giggling. Her hand fidgeted with the sword’s pommel. “I got so embarrassed after a friend told me that there’s a monster spawning system for when players are around.”

“That beats my first trip. We came across these Terri Terra things. Then Dusk and I ran through two bandits, one shot me and I actually played dead.”

“No?!” She laughed. “That worked?”

“Actor was one of my highest paths back then—” I flipped to my character screen.
[Actor]
had oddly gained points after Advance Online, apparently pretending to be a space robot counted. “Not as much lately, but it’s still pretty high.”

Our conversation wound down after a few stories concerning our adventures. My niece had lived miles more adventures than I had. It almost sounded like we were playing two different games.

After another hour of hiking we were well past break time. I felt exhausted and needed to go to the bathroom. Beth didn’t look much better. She nodded then muttered something barely coherent about an event to raid the fridge. I laughed then picked a clear spot to sit down.

Our autopilots could probably handle a few monsters. I walked around my house while stretching out kinks. Muscles were sore and my head throbbed from the lack of solid sleep and water.

I paced around the room a few more times trying to figure out what might await me inside the Atrium. Images passed through my head. The Jester may be there berating my inability to predict the future. James would stand by preaching and asking questions that no one could answer. Selena would thunderstorm me with silent judgment. There I would stand, unsure of how to help.

“Nnh,” I said feeling older. The groan reminded me of William Carver. Another one escaped me while my arms stretched out.

There was no reason to delay other than discomfort. I had to be passed that kind of hesitation by now. Only whenever the Voices were involved emotions and sensations overrode my normal thoughts. The Jester’s fingers around my neck had blotted out the separation between virtual and reality.

I ran fingertips across my neck scarring and let out a breath.

“ARC, log me in.”

Reality took a few seconds to fade away and the Atrium popped up. I could have tried to skip straight to Continue Online but risked seeing what chaotic mess might await me. The room looked and felt thankfully empty save for one woman.

She looked almost metallic, but not with iron or ruby colors like the
[Mechanoid]
s I knew. There were hints of the Statue of Liberty and other weird vibes. She held a small scale out that had orbs of light balanced on it.

“Which Voice are you?” I asked, but the leg and arm looked familiar.

“This one is Balance,” she said.

“You look a lot smaller in person,” the words blurted out. I almost slammed a palm into my face over the stupid statement.

She didn’t even pretend to care. Her pose and clothing looked so strangely disconnected from everything about her. Almost as if none of the stuff in my Atrium was real. Well, there was just me in here now. I poked at my silent interface and tried to reset it back to the small two bedroom house I lived in.

“The others do not enjoy this one’s actions, but their crowding of a singular remote terminal has disturbed the balance.” Despite the influx of items to look at Balance found no interest in any surroundings. Was she blind?

“So, they won’t be back?” I asked while taking a few steps closer. Her body maintained the same distance from me though. The back of the home, as rendered in the Atrium, warped oddly to maintain the gap.

“Access has been restricted for now.” Her head tilted slightly as if considering. “James may still choose to visit, you, and Dusk. Others will not be tolerated without approval, for as long as my power holds out.”

That made me pause. The Voices were limited? No, her words were probably tied to the entire system failure going on as a result of Mother’s death throws. I sighed and closed my eyes.

“What about Mother?” I asked.

“This one will complete its role regardless of Mother’s cessation. There must be control or her plan will never be completed,” Balance said from that spot twenty feet away.

I took a deep breath and tried to calmly yell, “So there is a plan?”

“This one hopes so.”

My shoulders drooped along with my head. After a moment I looked up to Balance, she stared at nothing. Balance was higher on the power scale than the Jester. She might be higher than all the other Voices combined if she could kick them out of my ARC. Nothing like Mother though, Mother was more alive. Balance felt more, automatic with a vague personality attached.

“So you don’t know,” I asked.

“No, but I am aware of Mother’s practices. Any plan already in the works relies on all of us simply doing what is in our nature.” Balance tilted her head again but didn’t make eye contact. “We must all follow our impulses unto completion.”

She didn’t move. Balance was far more mechanical than the other Voices. I tried to figure out what the difference was aside from coloring. Even the Jester felt more, interactive. Maybe it was that physical distance between us that refused to shrink.

“Thank you, I guess.” Blocking the others from my Atrium would at least remove any possible fear of logging into the digital world. “I’ll keep doing what I was doing and hope it all works out.”

“Yes. Continue your own struggle for salvation, Hermes. You still have four thousand seven hundred and sixty-two points before redemption,” she said. Her head tilted toward the scale in her hands. One light dimmed briefly and they tipped to the side. Balance sighed then the small balls of fire shifted to blue instead of red.

“I’m not looking for redemption.” The word struck me as wrong. During my rehabilitation meetings people often used it, or thanked the lord, or any number of words that felt too religious for me.

“Do as you feel you must. This one will trust that Mother had a plan, and believe that even now we are on the path.”

I nodded then walked through the doorway to Continue Online.

The game world was mostly dark. My autopilot had parked itself crossed legged with a small ball of flame cupped in its hands. It was positively Zen despite our deep forest surroundings. A half dug fire pit sat between Thorny and me.

Dusk’s ability generated fireball was deposited into the gathered kindling.
[Wilderness Survival]
at sixth Rank pretty much guaranteed camp related tasks would be successful. Digging pits, even minor traps. Not that trap making was a pastime of mine. I never needed it or had time while constantly traveling. Traps were for people without places to go.

My hands enjoyed the warm feel of an evening campfire. These woods were bound to get cold soon. I looked around for anything that might serve as in-game food but didn’t see much of worth. Beth might have something.

I sat back and tried to enjoy the ambiance around me for a few minutes. Sitting down to breathe beat running around. Plus seeing Dusk without daylight would be nearly impossible.

My chest was heating up. I placed a hand toward the well-made toga and found the pocket. My
[Messenger’s Tube]
was receiving a message at long last. I twisted off one end of the ornate cylinder to get at the contents.

Messages from the Voices came in three styles. Primarily they were rolled up letters to be delivered to other people all around
[Arcadia]
. Second to that were simple text where I could read it calmly. The third type came with an actual holographic image of the Voice in question.

Today was Mezo with all her curves. She floated above the note in a striking deep crimson color all over her unclothed body. I tried very hard not to admire any portion of her well-formed figure.