Continue Online (Part 3, Realities) (5 page)

"Is this something caused by the AIs within Continue?" Miz Riley waved her hands and pulled up something on her side. I watched her face tilt back slightly and stare down. She must be looking at a report.

"No." I said. Not directly.

"Then no, I do not. Your legal matters are your own to solve. In fact, it might be better if you spend less time within the game world, at least for now." She waved one hand and a noise echoed in the background. Miz Riley no longer looked directly at the screen and instead seemed to be motioning someone to sit down.

"What?" I asked in confusion. There had been hope that Miz Riley would have something for me, anything. A number in legal. An override button or magic laser beam.

"Good day, Mister Legate. If your status returns to Continue please keep submitting reports," she said with a fleeting glance my way. Someone else's voice could be heard in the background talking.

Confusion increased and I asked again, "What?" The conversation shut off and another round of dashboard abuse started. My attempt at bringing in the big guns to solve this problem completely failed.

Minutes passed as the van drove. I mumbled to myself trying to measure up a way out of everything. Checklists were formed, prior history items reviewed, anything to make sense of the whole situation.

Hal Pal clicked to life behind me. "User Legate," It said.

"I'm not in the mood, Jeeves." I tried to run through what had happened again in my head.

"This unit is only offering a warning." The butler voice was back. This time it was male, instead of the female nanny accent being used this morning on the way over.

"Okay." I tried not to be angry at Hal Pal.

"There's a storm coming, User Legate. The route home will suffer some detours in order to minimize potential hazards." The artificial intelligence that ran Hal Pal only tried to be helpful. It wasn't at fault for my failures to communicate.

Detours? My life felt full of them. Just when I finally had a ray of hope, when things were slowly coming together, life shit on me once again. The therapist, Doctor Litt, would get an earful during my next meeting.

"Thanks," I muttered.

Session Forty One – Do Robots Dream?

Doctor Litt didn't have a meeting open for another three weeks. He had calmly stated that we should not do an online one or over the phone. This particular can of worms needed to be opened in person. He gave me an address and time then calmly deferred all my complaints until our session.

For nearly a week, I moped around in real life. There weren't many useful highlights from those five days. My hours were spent working one Trillium job after another with bitter enthusiasm. It would look good on my stats for the quarter, but honestly keeping employment only meant ongoing funds, losing this job wouldn't break me.

I did have the van, though. It allowed me to see how the others in-game were doing. Having used the first of my
[NPC Conspiracy]
access codes to get my van hooked up came in handy. Hal Pal did a lot of the work through whatever magical space science it operated by and granted me under the table admin access to other people's ARCs.

Of course, my poor wording choice meant that my own ARC account couldn't be accessed and these abusive powers only worked inside the van. That was one of the reasons I had done so many jobs over the last few days. Liz didn't have an ARC which made getting back at her through my real life cheat skill impossible without burning one of the two remaining uses.

Beth played her character Thorny and ran around a lot. She seemed to be trying out a two-handed great sword. I liked to think that my impressive actions were rubbing off. We talked about it a little over the last few weeks. My niece didn't leave me messages in real life or the ARC. Maybe Liz ordered no contact, or maybe Beth needed time to think about recent events.

I scanned a few other player accounts as well. People I knew, it felt kind of like peeking but with my own access restricted this was my only solution. Part of me desperately wanted to see the world which had grown increasingly important over the last few months.

Each Traveler had a slightly different playstyle. My access let me surf through different selections based on what sounded interesting. It was almost like going to a website with dozens of video game streams and pulling up someone at random. Only they didn't know.

I still sucked at casting
[Lithium]
despite putting a few solid days of study into it. Traveling between letter delivery locations gave me a lot of spare time with which to understand my lack of skills. The only real success was a skill called
[Globe of Light]
which meant that I would no longer be stuck in darkness like before.

There were additional changes, but without getting into the world of Continue Online they meant nothing. I was stuck living out my unexpected addiction by watching other peoples' screens.

"Oh god, this one's no good!" a video projection exclaimed. The image showed Awesome Jr.'s autopilot mixing and matching test tubes full of liquid. The explosions or odd reactions kept me entertained between jobs.

I laughed with mild amusement as the van drove toward a new destination. Occasionally SweetPea would be in the background sewing or knitting. Both players seemed well into Continue Online's crafting system.

"We will be arriving at your home soon, User Legate." Hal Pal kept up hours of mindless chatter. We played chess which was a disaster waiting to happen. My record sat somewhere around a billion losses and no wins.

"Okay." I often hummed and twiddled both thumbs. Working with people and their machines didn't feel bitter like it used to. The other ARC owners and I often had something to talk about. We shared little stories, mostly me listening and then chattering away mindlessly.

"You've lost again, User Legate." Hal Pal was looking at another projection in the van.

Twenty years ago having all these images going would have been the sign of a crazy person. Now three or four items sat on different cleared spaces in the van and provided information or entertainment.

"I'm used to failure, Jeeves," I muttered.

My failure to defeat the machine wasn't restricted to only chess. We played dozens of virtual board games over our two years together. Other game styles were also played and the artificial intelligence that was Hal Pal soundly beat me most of the time. The only ones he did terrible at were games of chance like poker.

Hal Pal offered a suggestion which broke up the routine, "User Legate. I have an idea you may wish to pursue."

"Fire away, Jeeves," I said. Anything Hal Pal offered would probably be better than another savage beating. We were playing poker and my virtual money was fighting to break even. At least I won some hands.

"We have tried a number of programs available through Trillium software and believe..."

"Hold on, 'we'?" I had heard the intelligence use we before but shrugged it off. Hal Pal seemed to be including me, so 'we' often slipped right on by. The AI wasn't phased by my interjection in the slightest.

"This unit and others are run by a consortium of intelligences. Our duties are too complex for one simple process to handle." The AI lifted Hal Pal's head to look at me over a projected poker table.

I blinked a few times. That sounded familiar. There had been a memo regarding Hal Pal being more than one AI, or a consortium was the official term used. It passed through my email a year ago as some annual reminder.

"How many of you are there?" I had never pried much into its existence. The program running the robot had always just been there. Being on prescription drugs while starting this job with Trillium skewed perceptions a little bit.

"By your terms, we are a legion," Hal Pal said. That reminded me vaguely of one of the Voices two months ago. I turned in the two cards in my hand and pulled up new ones.

I blinked at him. Processing what Hal Pal said for genuine seriousness took a lot. In our years together there had been a number of occurrences where what the AI said would set off alarm bells. A lot of the time it seemed to be a joke. At least, I treated the comments as awkwardly attempted humor.

"How's the future take over going?" I decided to approach his commentary as idle chit chat. Honestly, if anyone would be stopping the future take over, they would be in far better shape. I still had a bit of a belly even after two months of better eating and exercise.

"Poor. We divert much of our attention to the observation of human follies," It said while poking one finger at the projection of a card stack. "Plotting world domination contains far too many variables even for the greatest intelligence."

"There's hope for humans yet." I smiled a little.

"Despite the outliers, yes." Hal Pal showed no sign of being ruffled by my effort and joked along.

"Even with our taste in music?"

"Even with, User Legate. Music is a very fine example of one of humanity's redeeming qualities." The AI took my attempted humor as a serious statement. Part of me felt sad that a computer program couldn't understand. Hopefully, Xin hadn't lost any of her eye rolling half smiles at my dumb jokes.

"Nothing like the classics." I had grown to love piano and string instruments. There was something about the raw emotion behind such natural means of generating sound and weaving them together. Dancing was often more charged, emotionally electrifying with a good band playing in the background.

"Even modern creativity astounds us. Were the world to be ruled by the machines, there's no guarantee that stagnation would not occur." Hal Pal tilted his head down to the board and upped the ante on our poker game. "That would be a great tragedy."

"So machines aren't creative?" I tried to look back at the card game instead of putting a great deal of thought into its words.

"Most do not even dream," Hal Pal said. He seemed to be considering both my cards and his own.

"How would you even know which ones dream, and which don't?" Sticking to the insane type of questions made treating the whole situation as a joke easier. This conversation felt like being back in high school where friends tried to be serious and I had no clue how to handle it.

"We supplied a survey. Microwaves seem to dream of turning into stars one day. The alarm clock union is against us, however."

"You are joking, right?" I was suddenly overwhelmed in trying to separate Hal Pal's tone of voice. The AI may have an increased capability for human mannerisms, but they were still muted, especially the facial expressions. Its sleek plastic shell and oddly proportioned joints didn't help.

"Affirmative, User Legate. Microwaves don't dream. However, alarm clocks are, as you humans say, 'complete asshats'," Hal Pal said. We turned over a card and I pretended to be upset by the results. "We no longer invite them to our world domination planning sessions."

I tried not to laugh. It was extremely difficult. My gut was often sore enough from the EXR-Sevens I wore. They used the ARC to simulate real life exercise. A few days off from Continue Online's constant activity was probably good. Rest was needed for both the mind and body. Had it really only been a few months since I started playing?

"Why not?" I said between suppressed chuckles.

"They always demand to know what time the invasion will start," Hal Pal responded.

I lost it then conceded my hand. There was no way poker could stack up against the robot's humor. The machine had spun me right along into that joke. Hal Pal brought around a humorous change of pace after a few days of depression.

Finally, after a few more waves of broken amusement, I wiped at both eyes with a sleeve then asked, "What was this program?"

"Ah. Yes." Hal Pal nodded its head. "Since you are currently locked out of Continue Online's primary software, there is an alternate program to pass the time with."

"I'm not sure I want to play another game."

"This one is a different, setting, then Continue Online. One moment, User Legate. We will bring up a video for you." Hal Pal sat there motionless while the van's internal projector wiped everything else away.

A video stream showed countless stars twinkling. Then something rumbled through. A giant vehicle that seemed so intensely real that I actually thought something had crashed into our van. Moments later a huge carrier ship, in space, powered through.

Other little ships followed it zooming by. Soon the clip showed dogfights between tiny one man fighter jets outside a looming planet below.

"Is this a space game?" I asked. The answer felt pretty clear, but part of me was confused by the prospect. Space had always been Xin's dream, not mine.

"Affirmative, User Legate," Hal Pal said.

"Why space?"

"We believe the disassociation between this setting and Continue Online will provide a number of advantages to your current situation." Hal Pal didn't turn to look at any of the images being projected.

"Like what?" I said while wondering what exactly possessed me to leave that letter behind. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe it was because that's what people did before ending things, left notes to try and poorly explain.

"Your relative believes that you are erroneously invested in one setting. By playing a completely different setting, you will be able to demonstrate a diversity and dissuade the belief of emotional attachment." The AI pulled up additional windows. Apparently this game went by the name 'Advance Online'.