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  “In the flesh.”

  “Or not. I need a light.”

  “Oh. Right. Humans. Let there be light!” Leeroy—at least I thought it was Leeroy—shouted, and darkness receded.

  The adjustment was interestingly painless. Sure enough, the giant hulk of a man with his broadsword stood nearby. Under him was the carcass of some great hairy beast.

  “Are there races that can see in the dark?” I asked.

  “Vampires. It’s sweet if you’re into the whole blood-sucking thing. Good fighters when they’re not Travelers dressing up in drab clothes. There’re two of them, and they constantly try to out whine each other. Can’t wait ‘til we get some more.”

  “Oh. There’s a Voice for vampires?”

  “There’s a Voice for everything. We got one for Talking Mushrooms. But you mean Jean.”

  Maybe Leeroy was high on something. Maybe he was prone to mood swings. Maybe he really was a college frat boy. The way he talked about a woman so nonchalantly was amazing.

  “Jean?”

  Leeroy thumbed over his shoulder.

  “You’re not really mah type, sugar.” Oh look, the woman with a robe of red flowing liquid. The first time I had seen her was with the spinning Jester.

  I shuddered for a moment in expectation but was thankfully let down.

  I pointed at the fading image of a pale-skinned brunette. “Vampire?”

  “Of a sort.” She smiled, waved, and faded out.

  “Are all the women here so…”

  “Intense? Negative.” Leeroy shrugged. “Got personalities. Initia’s got a mouth on her. I’d follow her anywhere. Greatest. Plot. Ever.”

  Leeroy didn’t mean plot. Not with that twist in his tone. Giant hands going up in the air to clutch at his chest were also a giveaway.

  “So. How can I help you, Leeroy?” My tone switched to full customer service mode. This wasn’t a random interaction between people; this had the air of a business meeting. With a college-going meathead. There were worse clients.

  “My man Wild Willy, you’re doing good by him.” He gave me an exaggerated thumbs-up and looked as though he was a step away from demanding a high five.

  “I’m trying. It’s been hard.”

  “No joke. Balance is a bitch. Got him all feebed.”

  Something swung into being behind Leeroy’s head. A cross? No, something giant and wearing heels while stomping downward. That was the biggest leg I had ever seen. I flinched as it collided with the back of Leeroy’s form.

  “See! You’re a total buzzkill! Now my man Grant Legate’s seen it! I got a witness!” Leeroy was shaking his fist upward toward the sky. Thundering sounded in the distance.

  “You too, Selena!”

  I felt keeping my playful commentary to a minimum was good. James hadn’t shown up to defend me, so he might be elsewhere. Plus none of this had really been directed toward me. I got the feeling Leeroy pissed off more people than he helped.

  “Did you want to talk about William?”

  After all, Leeroy had intercepted my log-in process. There had been no interruption during my last few returns to Continue, so being in this space between was rare.

  “Yeah. Wild Willy.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Anyway. Tonight, I guess you’re doing this place, the whole Maze thing, right?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Good, good. Here’s the deal. You go in there, you’re in for a trip. The others and I”—Leeroy thumbed to the blackness behind him—“are doing what we can to make it epic. Failing epicosity, it’ll catch my man Wild Willy right here.” He thumped his chest and managed to look a bit sad.

  “So he’s still alive.”

  “Course he is. A few steps shy of being a vegetable, but he’s in there with you.” Leeroy’s arm came across the gulf, impossibly large, and poked the side of my noggin. “That last heart attack turned him into a drooler.”

  I rubbed my head while mourning my health bar’s dip. A single, halfhearted poke from this Voice had knocked off a quarter of my game life.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Good, man, good. It needs a human touch. We could play something out, but it wouldn’t be the same. I—well, me and the others—we like what you’re doing for us.”

  “Thanks.” This was strangely like talking to former bosses. An entire catalog of thoughts going through my mind couldn’t be said out loud.

  “Anyway, tonight, if you get through the maze to the end, it’ll be too much for those plebs you picked up.” Leeroy frowned down at me. The man was too big compared to normal-sized folks.

  “This place is that dangerous?”

  “It’s not meant for them. Not yet. This one’s for Wild Willy. We put together something special-like. Pulled a few strings to make it work.”

  “Leeroy, don’t give away too much. We need his actions to be as honest as possible.” James appeared nearby with a slight frown.

  I nodded and kept eye contact with Leeroy.

  “That’s fine. I was going to do my best anyway.” Both my hands went up in a gentle stop motion.

  “Don’t be afraid in there, man. I know you’re not like Wild Willy—he had the kind of stones that are rare in both worlds.” Leeroy grasped his genitals with one hand and jiggled them around. “You’re gonna have to reach down deep.”

  “Okay.” Now I was really unsure. I was trying to stick to this WWCD mentality, learning inside and out how the man performed.

  “Don’t worry, Grant Legate. Everything will work out,” James said from the side.

  Next to Leeroy, the black man looked almost harmless. But I did remember that James had somehow gotten me tied up in webbing and chased by giant spiders.

  “Our deal’s still on, right? You’ll tell me about her?” I asked.

  “If things continue as they have been, yes. Of course, if you run away tonight, then that will be a failure.”

  I saw a box appear with new quest details. Now, instead of a progress bar, I simply had to make it to the end of this [Maze of Midnight]. There was no percentage. Failure had been modified to be all other actions.

  “That’s easier.”

  “Thanks for helping those kids, Mister Grant Legate.”

  “Maud? Oh.” Right, Maud, Voice of Orphans and Separated Families. I hadn’t even thought of what my actions did on that front. “Not a problem. They’re good kids.”

  Even Phil, who constantly called me a geezer, seemed kindhearted under all that. Maybe a little jaded by his situation, but still striving to do a good job.

  “Are you ready, Grant Legate?” James said as the other Voices faded into the background.

  “Sure. Let’s get the last act going.”

  James smiled as my dark room faded away. Moments later, I woke up in the body of William Carver. A small glowing lamp was off to one side and a quill in my hand.

  “Mmmh.”

  It looked as though Carver had already been writing notes. Writing had been my exact plan for today’s Carver adventure—at least pre-midnight. How did the machine know what grand scheme had been in my mind? I tilted my head to see an entire line of names. These people were from William Carver’s past. More than one had showed up in my journals.

  “Mmmh.” I stood and groaned a bit. Eventually, my body made it over to the stack of journals in Carver’s second room. They were not in the same spot I had left them.

  “You little punk.”

  My [Messenger’s Pet] had likely been goofing around with things in Carver’s house. Much the same as it had in my ARC’s Atrium.

  Where was he anyway? I hadn’t seen the little dragon for almost a day. James had mentioned the [Messenger’s Pet] might stop hanging around if he got bored. Guess I was no longer entertaining.

  Journal after journal went onto the table. Notes would be cross-referenced against the names on my list. I had thumbed through them more than once over the last few weeks of game time. Still, it wouldn’t do for a man’s final fare
wells to be hacked together with no feeling.

  When the guards showed up an hour later to see if I needed help down to the beach, they were met with a grunt and wave good-bye. When Wyl himself showed up to report on the two players and check on me, I handed him a letter and waved him off. Even High Priestess Peach wanted to have her say regarding this last adventure nonsense. One of the priests had reported on what our group was up to. I gave her a letter and made her promise on Selena not to open it until tomorrow. Peach was concerned. Even William Carver’s nearsighted eyes could make that out.

  All of the remaining letters went to Phil. He snapped too smartly with an imitation salute picked up from the town guards. Old Man Carver’s personality didn’t lend itself to obvious amusement, so I kept everything under wraps. The farewells were in good hands, I thought. Whatever mail system this world had would get them out, and hopefully the Voices above would fill in the blanks.

  I wrote one final note for the man himself. Wild Willy. Mister Carver. William “Old Man” Carver. These were in larger letters, slowly and carefully put together. Words that had brought me some measure of comfort when my fiancée passed three years ago.

  There was a mirror in one room that I took nearly thirty minutes to unhook from the wall and drag to a table. It was nighttime now, two hours from midnight. Phil would be outside soon to pick me up for this final journey.

  “Carver.” I licked dry lips and stared into the reflective surface. “I don’t know if you’re in there. If you are, then I hope I’ve done right by you.”

  One finger scratched my scalp idly as the speech in my head fell apart.

  “I’m not a very good hero. I’ve never fought even half the things you have.”

  Not in any game this immersing. Sure, I had clicked away monsters on computers decades ago. Those video game spiders paled in comparison to Continue Online’s giant ones. I imagined a dragon to be much worse.

  “I’m going to do my best to give you the ending you deserve. Who knows. Maybe when I get out of here, I can ask if you liked how things worked out back in reality.”

  I smiled at the sudden thought. Of course showing up out of the blue would be a little tacky. The Voices had said Carver was riding along somewhere, still alive. Trillium’s Second Player helm would be perfect for allowing him to do such a thing. It even worked on a patient who was, as Leeroy had said, a “drooler.”

  “It’s been something else. I’ve, uhh, never played a game like this. It’s so real. And these people, even though they’re AIs, they really, really, and I mean really, care for you.” Even the Jester was respectful, and that was super extra neat.

  “Anyway. I wanted to say something myself, that it’s been an honor to be you, uhh, and also the weirdest thing I’ve ever done. But, I mean, I hope you’ve enjoyed the ride.

  “Here. This-this, uhh, helped me.” I blinked away the mopey mode my mind was rapidly declining into. Death had never been easy for me to be around, not since the train wreck.

  These words were read aloud in case William Carver couldn’t focus on them.

  “‘As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well-spent brings happy death.’” I let the silence settle for a moment.

  “It’s supposedly said by Leonardo Da Vinci.” I shrugged.

  Whomever Carver was in real life, he wasn’t old enough to have met Leonardo probably—most likely. This game had my brain all twisted around.

  “So, uhh, if half of your journals are true, if you’re even half this driven in our world, I think you’ve spent your life well.

  “So, once more unto the breach, right, Mister Carver?” I lifted the cane in a poor salute and tried to straighten this curved spine out a little.

  Finally, the myriad of emotions coursing through me got to be too much. The cane lowered and out the door I went. Time to give this man one last adventure.

  Session Sixteen — Maze Inspiration

  Phil was off doing who knew what, so I was left to walk from Carver’s house to the hedge maze entrance. All four players were gathered in the same spot as yesterday. Two were arguing about something that was too difficult for me to hear from this far back. As I got closer, it was easier to tell who the talkers were.

  “That’s what you’re bringing?” the older female said.

  “What? I like this cloak.” Awesome Jr. was defending himself against HotPants’s aggressive opinions.

  “A cloak. Seriously?”

  “Yeah, I can swoosh it around and catch weapons or something. It makes me harder to hit.” He moved the cloak around, trying to give a good example.

  “It makes you harder to look at,” Shadow remarked.

  I said nothing and marched up to our meeting spot. We were outside a row of bushes that lined the walkway. Yesterday’s reconnaissance by the [Messenger’s Pet] and me had shown it to be a basic maze for children. The kind of thing you found at county fairs.

  “Are we ready?” My voice came out gruffer than normal.

  “Sure am. My stealth and speed went up by leaps last night. That guard captain, Wyl, he’s a genius,” Shadow said.

  “He’s a computer.”

  “Yeah, how’d your near-death go?” Shadow questioned HotPants.

  “Stupid wolves. Really, they were worse than my neighbor’s dogs.” Her hands tightly grasped the weapons at her side, both eyes narrowed and stared into the distance.

  “Bet it felt good hitting them,” the assassin responded.

  “You shouldn’t hit dogs.” SweetPea was busy looking at her toes while muttering a defense.

  “You tell me that kind of nonsense when they’re snarling in your face. My heart must have skipped a few beats last night. At least in here I don’t have to feel guilty about it.”

  HotPants seemed a little less angry today. Certainly she was far less arrogant in both mannerisms and speech. The whole thing with Awesome Jr.’s cloak was completely justified. It was an almost neon green that made my old eyebrow twitch in annoyance.

  “You’ve all done what you needed?” I tried to rein in my pack of players. They had to have an attention disorder or they were approaching this thing too casually.

  They glanced at each other. Shadow shrugged and nodded, followed quickly by the others agreeing.

  “Good. In the center of this maze is a gateway. That gateway goes to the [Maze of Midnight]. We have less than two hours to make it through this maze.” I, William Carver, couldn’t afford to be casual.

  “Wait, we have to go inside to find the door?” Shadow complained. “Damn. I’d hope the maze door was the actual door.”

  “It’s not,” I said.

  “How do you know?” Awesome Jr. asked while swooshing his bright cloak around.

  My shoulders went up in a shrug. I knew because the computer told me on a map. All the secrets of this town had been scribbled in location after location.

  “Oh, it’s okay, I got this.” Shadow leapt on top of a bench and yanked his light frame up onto the hedges. One hand sat above his eyes to block out the streetlamp. He squinted into the distance.

  “Come on, it’s dark, but I can guide us from here.”

  “Hey, you’re not just a stupid wannabe ninja,” Awesome Jr. said happily.

  Shadow glared but chose not to respond.

  “At least he’s not wearing a barf cloak.” HotPants took the lead with her staff at the ready.

  “Hey, at least I can cook rice. Sort of.” Awesome Jr. had no problems defending himself verbally.

  “Can you share the recipe?” SweetPea said.

  I ignored them and followed after a bundle of washed reds. HotPants’s armor jangled constantly. A guard that went up around her neck actually suited her—I thought it was called a gorget. It was new too, probably a reward from her patrol exercise.

  “So a wolf nearly got you?” I was genuinely interested in how she’d fared against the creatures of this world. Being attacked by one in real life would make me flip out. Being attacked by an endless amount with blood
and guts everywhere had to be worse.

  “Sure. Those other guards were on point though. I was the one holding us back.” She looked a little embarrassed but managed to power through with most of her arrogance intact. “I needed to get a feel for a real fight.”

  “Was it everything you’d hoped for?”

  She nodded. “That, and more.”

  “Good. Some Travelers find it hard to adapt. I hear there’s not as much violence on your side.” I lived in the Americas. The last local war we had been part of involved a nasty merger between the United States and parts of Canada and Mexico.

  “Depends on where you live. Or who you live with.”

  “Mh.” I didn’t pry. That sounded like a sore subject on many levels.

  “What’s it to you anyway? Nosy machine.” HotPants glared at me from top to bottom before turning away in annoyance.

  “Miss HotPants”—keeping my cool was a challenge—“who ever said I was a machine?”

  “What? What does that mean?”

  “Figure it out yourself. Consider it something to occupy your mind.” Anything that would dislodge her current stream of misplaced anger was welcome. She’d improved overnight, but only a little.

  “Left, then I think we can go straight from there. Hold on.” Shadow jumped across one of the bushes to another one and looked fearful for a brief moment. Both hands were out as he balanced.

  “You okay up there?” Awesome Jr. asked.

  “Fine. My skill check passed.” He muttered something else under his breath, but my old ears didn’t catch it.

  The others switched to a conversation regarding skills and their activation. I shrugged it all off. Carver’s notes had outlined all sorts of things they were already talking about.

  Shadow called out each turn for us: left, right, forward. I kept a fairly steady, if not eager, pace. Moving around was easier than earlier today. Carver had sat on his virtual behind all day long, and my activeness was paying off. We managed to avoid doubling back or hitting too many dead ends. Soon we were at the heart of the maze, and a stellar emptiness met us.

  “What time is it?”

  “Not midnight.” Shadow hopped down and looked around.

  “This spot here?” SweetPea was looking at a pattern on the ground. A series of spirals radiated outward from an almost perfect circle.