Continue Online (Part 4, Crash) (46 page)

“Agghh!” a wild shout barely preceded a crack of noise.

The skeleton which had been standing off to Xin’s side rapidly moved in front of us with one arm up to block. Both its knees bent to absorb the impact. A glowing red staff held by HotPants bore downward. Her hair tips were white hot and fluttered slightly in the nonexistent wind.

My fiancée stood, readying her own weapon. Small symbols of white fluttered around the robe’s hem as she prepared to chant something. Shadow appeared next to HotPants and wrapped his arms through the older woman’s. The younger teen struggled to hold back an angry mother while I sat there chewing my lip.

“Jesus!” Awesome Jr. said with an unexpectedly serious tone. “Take a walk!”

“Asshole! You let us believe he, you, fuck! You were dead!” She practically spit the words as pressure increased. Muscles along her arms twisted and coiled under the strain of oppression. Xin’s skeleton had hairline fractures all over that hadn’t been there moments ago.

“William Carver is dead,” I spoke with a firmness that years of customer service had provided me. The edge of
[Awareness Heightening]
threatened to kick in as my heartbeat climbed but the threat had passed. Instead, I felt a little more surprised that not really being dead had garnered such a reaction.

“Come on. Remember your exercises. Breathe. In with the good,” Shadow spoke in hushed tones to the older woman. She let herself be dragged backward.

“God dammit!” Something crashed as they walked off through a doorway.

Xin turned toward the fractured skeleton and pursed her lips for a moment. One slender arm reached out and touched its white body. The creature collapsed one bone at a time and a rune flared for each vanishing piece. White lights cascaded around as her summoned creature’s entire body vanished into the clothing somehow.

“Sorry about that. HotPants has been increasingly volatile since Haven Valley,” Awesome Jr. said with a surprising amount of diplomacy.

I nodded slowly then reached out for Xin’s hand. She turned and squinted for a moment while her nose flared. The woman was annoyed, not at me, but at the others disrespect of the situation. At least that’s how I normally remembered those expressions. It had taken me a long time to understand her mannerisms. In public she chose to let me take the lead and grew annoyed when others slighted me. It had taken almost a decade of working my ass off to get that level of respect from her.

My almost casual acceptance of Xin having abilities should have bothered me but didn’t. Here in a virtual world violence was natural. If we explored dungeons together we would have plenty of opportunities for abilities. I swallowed a brief moment of unease.

“It’s okay,” I said to her and rubbed softly on the back of Xin’s hand.

The others were hesitant in their responses. Awesome Jr. hadn’t said much yet, taking a backseat and fiddling with his army pieces.

“I’m sorry about that. Everyone here was affected by Mister Carver’s passing. It sounds like it wasn’t easy for you either,” SweetPea said.

“How could it have been? We had all just started. I thought he was a NPC at first, then once I realized he was still alive during the last moments, I, well it helped me get myself together,” I said. Was SweetPea really only nineteen? These teenagers were all so grown up at times. Maybe it was a matter of what they dealt with. My own life had changed a lot since I started playing. The same may be true for them.

“Do you really talk to them, this world’s people, outside of Continue?” the young woman asked.

“The Voices mostly. I’ve talked to them a few times in my Atrium. Recently one of them kicked the others out.” I wished they had another name. Telling people I talked to Voices from a video game felt a step shy of needing a straitjacket.

“Awesome. They’re self-aware enough to rein each other in,” Awesome Jr. said.

“And she’s really a copy of your fiancée who died years ago?” SweetPea asked with soft tones. Her fingers fidgeted with air and legs crossed at the ankles. She seemed to be struggling not to pull the hoodie down in shyness.

I hesitated before answering that one. My eyebrows lowered while looking at Xin. She was a copy, but at the same time had lived experiences of her own.

“I don’t feel like a copy, or dead if that’s what you mean,” she said while smiling at me. “At first I felt rigid, unnatural, but the longer I exist in here, the more natural this world feels. There’s just extra rules and things move faster.”

“It makes sense,” Awesome Jr. spoke up. SweetPea’s eyes opened wide for a moment then she turned around. Her head tilted in confusion. “You remember all the other NPCs we’ve dealt with? They’re super complex. There’s an entire Neural Matrix Primer class at school using Continue and Advance Online as case studies.”

“Oh yeah. That entire course is hard,” Beth spoke up. She sat a little off from me. “Plus the teacher makes no sense.”

“Are you in that program?” The alchemist in his ugly green cloak paused to look at Thorny.

“I’ve attended a few classes after”—Beth glanced at Xin and I—“well, I’ve had more interest lately, you know?” She shrugged.

I looked at my fiancée. She smiled and leaned her head back slightly. Being so close to her physically made life feel right. Well, we were only here digitally or mentally, but it was real enough for me to be happy.

“I told you she was a smart girl,” Xin whispered while bumping me with a shoulder. Dusk opened an eye then looked toward us from his spot on the floor next to our feet. He flicked an ear but otherwise stayed quiet.

I nodded to my fiancée while feeling somewhat drained. Airing myself in public always left me subdued. There was a relief to it all, to tell my story to those who might listen and tried understanding first. The action required risking ridicule for being a bit crazy. Anger from HotPants stood higher on the list of possible reactions than laughter by a mile.

“Does it matter? They’re alive.” SweetPea looked upset for us.

“Technically they’re pure code, at least if we’re following Kepler’s model. They might be using Gratton’s variation though, it’s like, thirty percent hardware?” Awesome Jr. stepped down from the table to get a closer look at Xin. “Then the rest is stored in a cloud, maybe?”

My fiancée blinked twice in rapid succession and I felt annoyed. Her face was carefully neutral but the stillness worried me. One cheek bunched up slowly. I tried to keep myself positive, being around her made me happy and telling the story with Xin there had helped immensely.

I leveled my gaze at Awesome Jr. The young man looked oblivious due to focusing so intently on my fiancée. People used to look at us the same way in public years ago. A trace of confusion and uncertainty on how one of us fit into the world. Out in reality, there had been lingering post-war racism. She froze the same way during those occasions.

My hand reached for a weapon. The reaction was extreme but I never appreciated people giving her that look. Studying us, even though Awesome Jr. probably didn’t understand. I tried to take a breath and relax.

SweetPea noticed first and walked in front of Awesome Jr. “Sorry. We’re being rude,” she said.

“Sorry.” The other male rubbed the back of his head while looking down. Wyl looked upset too but I didn’t know why he might feel that way.

My fiancée sat up a little bit and stared at Wyl. Her head shook and the momentary still attitude faded away.

“You’re not asking new questions. I’ve run through the same ideas hundreds of times, if not more. It’s not my field of expertise, but like Thorny, I’ve recently had many reasons to try to understand,” Xin said carefully.

My lip actually hurt from chewing into it. Xin didn’t even understand how she was put together. The idea should have calmed me down but instead, I felt worried. What surprises might her digital existence house? Could there be some ticking time bomb of code inside that recreated her body? I had so many questions and didn’t know where to start.

“What’s a Kepler?” the guardsman asked while fingering his ruined tunic.

“A scientist from our world. Kind of like a magician over here, only his work is mostly theoretical without much basis.”

“And probably on god knows how many drugs. The man had lots of sleep issues,” Beth said and sighed.

Wyl frowned then shook his head and muttered, “Kids today. Why don’t you learn how to do proper things, like—” Both eyes went flat and the grumbling noises stopped. The man’s shoulders drew together making him look lost. His body faced the red doors.

The remaining two asked a few more questions. They were going over the same details again and again in different forms. Occasionally the teenagers would start talking about various classes at school. Every time one of them babbled about a theorem or speculated about items it made my head hurt.

Plus I felt kind of stupid. Accounting wasn’t a hard class. It only required a head for numbers and study of trending. A lot of that could be done with the aid of a computer. Compared to their topics I felt old and lazy. During these last few months I could have easily researched about Xin’s condition instead of studying how to make a campfire. I was really good at making campfires though, even without my small bit of magic or ability to barf fireballs.

Xin abruptly giggled then tried to cover her mouth.

“What?” I asked while smiling.

“You’re doing that thing where you think too hard.” She pressed fingers against my forehead and massaged. Her thumb came down toward my poor lip that throbbed from being bitten.

I grabbed her hand and used my other arm to lift up Xin’s face. Her lips felt amazingly soft. My mind went fuzzy for a moment as old memories flooded through me.

“Get a room!” a female shouted.

Xin’s eyes were heavy lidded. From this angle, I could see down part of her thick robe. There didn’t look to be much under it and the sight of a toned path downward made me gulp once. I looked up and raised an eyebrow at her. The woman’s head shook back and forth in a negative.

“While I may not like her, Mezo said you’ve been dreadfully chaste, and that doesn’t sound like the Gee I remember,” she whispered.

That brought back a lot of memories and my body warmed up. The drained sensation of explaining my past to a room full of people vanished as a host of very different ideas occurred to me.

“You remember our Saturdays?” Xin asked while smiling. Her words were quiet and the others were talking about something pointless.

“I spent Friday cleaning and preparing dinner and a making sure I had everything for breakfast.”

She giggled. “Your breakfasts were horrible.”

“Dinner was pretty bad too, but you wanted real food,” I admitted. Cooking wasn’t one of my skills. These last few years I had gotten worse. Even Continue Online’s requirements for eating hadn’t forced me to actually make my own food. I often loaded up on all sorts of items when in a town.

Dusk was the only reason I had any food in Continue Online. He frequently demanded fresher meals and something more complex than beef jerky and bread. The
[Messenger’s Pet]
didn’t care if he was fed in-game or my Atrium, as long as the supply line didn’t dwindle.

“Our Saturdays,” I said and gave a heavy sigh.

“Saturdays were fun.” She laughed. Xin really hadn’t changed.

Saturday involved a lot of releasing steam. She exercised a lot more than I had and always seemed ready to go. Not that we did anything before our first month of dating over eight years ago. After that, it became routine, especially when we were both going to school during the week, or working.

“It’s been a long time since my last Saturday,” I said with a pause. Three years and change since the last time I really touched a woman, besides Mezo and that didn’t truly count.

“I’m sorry,” my fiancée whispered, and just like that our mood had shifted.

I looked around while trying not to feel upset for destroying a moment. SweetPea was whispering something to Awesome Jr. and his eyes were wide with amusement. Beth held no such restraint and had a wide grin and raised eyebrows.

“What? You’re an adult,” I said. She didn’t have room to talk, not since that tail and red skin had to be a
[Blessing]
from Mezo. My niece knew enough about the birds and bees by now I was sure.

“Wait, Uncle Grant, are you saying you’re not a virgin? How scandalous.” My niece put one hand up and covered her mouth. “What will mom think when she finds out she’s not the only Legate getting some?”

I certainly wasn’t. Then that reminded me Xin had been pregnant upon death in my world. I didn’t know the chances of that happening here, or how functional biology was. Did NPCs get to turn that stuff off or had Mother somehow designed all those changes to be involuntary?

“It was just a joke,” Beth muttered.

“No, it’s all right, munchkin. I just, uhhh… I have a lot I need to talk to Xin about. A lot.”

Xin stayed quiet.

“Well, at least we didn’t need that Porter to find Auntie Xin. Or her, well. You know.” Beth fumbled rapidly through the words and her hands waved. “I mean Hecate and Hermes? Really, and skeletons. What a kick!”

“They’re more like robots made of bone and magic.” Xin held up her fingers and did an air quotation. “The rest of this look came from the Voices. Though the heavy robe has perks, and it keeps me warm.”