Continue Online The Complete Series Read online

  Present Proof of Ownership

  “I don’t have proof?” I had an empty glass. I had what remained of a water puddle. I had clothes and clomping shoes. Where would I have gotten proof of ownership?

  I had a card that wasn’t in English. Oh. Of course. I had thought about it a moment ago when seeing the letters form in front of me but didn’t mentally register the connection.

  “Did you want this?” The card was glowing in affirmation while I talked to a plaque floating in front of me. I expected machines to respond anytime I asked a question. Hal Pal was a good example.

  I moved the card around, noticing that the glow increased and diminished. A few more waves and I narrowed the hot zone down to the broken pillar and book in front of me.

  “This whole thing starts out with a puzzle huh?”

  I looked around for the tiny dragon. Not a sign could be seen. The door to my Atrium was somewhere extremely far in the distance.

  “Multi-pass?” I asked while dramatically waving the card.

  The book looked huge. A giant, old-fashioned tome bound on one side by hand. I could see the thread weaving in and out of its spine in an embroidered pattern. The same illegible letters sprawled across the cover.

  “Open sesame!” I tried touching the card to the book’s cover. Failure and awkward silence resulted.

  “Keyatus Becomcacus!” I shook the card and spouted my worst guess at a Latin translation. It refused to bend.

  “Decoder ring go!” I slid the card across the book’s cover in hopes that something would line up or clearly define what to do next. At least the glowing had stopped.

  The cover was done in the same overplayed gold inking. The normal black sheen that went on everything else was muted on the cover.

  I held the card up and tried to study both objects. If this was a puzzle, diving in would be pointless. A careful analysis was required to find the connections. Both the book and card gave a similar vibe. The lettering, however foreign, looked the same and had the same cuts and curls and spacing. I tried counting them in order to see if any was a cipher for Continue but was unable to find a direct connection. The squiggles seemed clearer now, easier to understand.

  Back and forth my eyes scanned over each shape. It was easier to recognize the exact shapes and links, but nothing was clearer. Then I realized something absurdly stupid. I was judging a book by its cover.

  One hand slammed into the side of my head. “Duh.”

  In all my life of playing games, buying new objects, downloading things for my ARC, there was one constant. Each one had a user’s manual.

  This was probably it.

  Cracking open the cover page was an experience. I hadn’t held, much less touched, a real book in ages. Everything was digital and floated around on interactive screens. Continue was a fantasy game. It would have a ton of elements that threw back to earlier generations, old methods of solving problems.

  The sound made me smile. Inside the front cover was a plastic sleeve that my little illegible card fit perfectly into. On the other side sat a hand-print outline. I was smart enough to follow these instructions. My hand went onto the outline while the card went into its slot.

  After I did so, noises came from all around me, like the murmuring of a thousand voices growing closer. The floating sign in front of me that had asked for proof of ownership fell and shattered on the ground. From somewhere in the darkness, a giant object moved, like the small dragon’s much bigger and much scarier older brother.

  I managed to hold my ground, not through resolution but because I was too surprised to react. Then the ground heaved, knocking my hand loose. Shaking continued to rattle the room while I finally felt panic at all the things that had happened. Questions flashed through my head. Was the Atrium still there? Was I able to log out? Was I safe?

  The book slammed shut and glowed brightly for a moment. Once it dimmed the giant room I existed in went back to normal. Darkness was broken by the single point of illumination around the pillar and book.

  I stood in a scramble and looked around. In the middle of that vast black area, I felt an almost amused sense of peace. How I could describe formless darkness as amused was beyond me, but it was.

  “Hello?” I said.

  Nothing responded.

  “Hello? Little dragon thing?” I wondered briefly if the dragon was male or female. Checking out which way it was equipped hadn’t been important. Calling a dragon it and thing over and over would be tiring though.

  I went back to the book. The ink was the same, the color of wet gold, but now the words made sense. “Continue Online” curled across the worn cover, followed by more unexpected words. “Ultimate Edition”. I about fainted on the spot. Instead, I managed to grip the side of the pillar with one hand and stay upright.

  “ARC!”

  “Awaiting in…”

  “Log me out! I need to make a call.”

  “Suspending program. Logging out. Please wait.”

  I sat in the ARC device, waiting and counting backward from thirty until my breath slowed and the world stopped spinning.

  Was this for real? Had Henry seriously given me an Ultimate Edition? As a goddamn prize for doing my job? I ran out to the van and dialed up Henry. Making the call from my house phone wouldn’t be as effective. Plus, this way I knew if Henry was online or not. His grumpy face spun into existence across the vehicle’s interface.

  “How was it?” Henry asked.

  “Tell me this isn’t a joke,” I said.

  “Hah!” He could be heard slapping his knee in the background audio. “No joke! Our division got a copy from upper management.”

  “But an Ultimate Edition? You wasted that on me?”

  “Wasted?” Henry went through a range of emotions quickly before settling on annoyance.

  “Look at this!”

  “What?” What was that? There were a lot of graphs and measures that meant very little to me.

  “It’s our goddamn quarterly reports, you single-minded idiot! There, we’re top of the division—top of the goddamn country! And who made that possible? You! You’ve earned us all bonuses higher than the price of one game.”

  “But it’s…” An Ultimate Edition wasn’t a normal copy. There were only a set amount made at the start, and only a trickle were released every year as the game’s player base grew. This wasn’t a one percent thing. This was one in half a million players.

  “Shut up. All I want to hear from you is that you’re taking time off to play with your prize and that you’ll be back to work after.”

  “I can manage that.”

  “Good. Maybe now you won’t look so goddamned depressed all the time.” He cut off the call with a grumbling snap.

  I kind of questioned his sanity over this gift. That thing was easily worth thousands of dollars—no, tens of thousands. Possibly even more. The price tag was insane depending on the time of year.

  Food was required. I needed to eat something and settle my brain before diving back into the ARC. Breathe. Maybe call Beth and let her know. No. It could be a surprise. I didn’t even know what the Ultimate Edition had in comparison to a regular copy. This certainly explained the alternate introduction.

  It did not explain the dance program acting frighteningly lifelike. The thoughts kept me distracted as I walked back inside.

  “User Legate.” Hal Pal had unbuckled from the van and wandered into my front room.

  After everything that had happened in my Atrium, this seemed innocent. Odd and uncommon, but Hal Pal was one of the highest-rated AIs in the country. Not one accident or threatening word. In fact, they were almost like nannies.

  Hal Pal was owned and operated almost entirely by Trillium. Thousands of its shells were all across the globe, each one remotely operated by the same program. A company memo months back implied Hal Pal was a consortium of intelligences operating in tandem to keep their software and firmware upgrades going.

  “What’s up, Hal Pal?” I questioned it.
r />   “Please remember to regulate how much time you invest in alternate activities.”

  I preferred the personality-enabled versions of Hal Pal that it used while out in the field. Here at home, the machine reduced to standard choppy robot voice.

  “Are you talking about the game?” I asked in confusion. My arm uncomfortably rested on a shelf nearby.

  “Affirmative, User Legate. Studies have shown that new users often have a hard time regulating their immersion. This can impact day-to-day activities.” It didn’t move much while speaking.

  “You heard Henry. I’m on vacation for a while.”

  “I do not understand,” it said.

  “Sure you do, Hal Pal. You’re programmed to understand words like vacation.” I had taken sick days. I didn’t work all the time!

  “No. I do not understand. User Legate does not take vacations.”

  I took Christmas and Thanksgiving evenings off to spend time with my sister and niece. Those should have counted in Hal Pal’s mind. We’d been working together for two years already.

  “Well, this week I do.”

  There was a pause while the robot looked almost confused at my response.

  “Understood. I will suspend this remote unit and continue working my review of humanity’s flawed projections of future possibilities.”

  “Make sure to give Stranger Danger’s fans a good time.” My words felt dry and unenthused.

  “Affirmative. I have intended to interact with their users for many cycles. A reduction in remote unit activation will free up processing space and allow me to do so,” it said.

  “I’m sure the other employees of Trillium will need their shells even more.” I wouldn’t be taking care of my excessive workload for a week.

  “Ah.” The machine replicated a sigh alarmingly well. “How unfortunate.”

  It turned around and ambled back into the van. Great. Both Henry and Hal Pal were concerned about my well-being. Exactly what kind of impression did everyone have of me? After eating, I logged back in, happily putting thoughts of Hal Pal and Henry out of my mind.

  Session Four — Choice of Voice

  Everything was as I’d left it. The white marble pillar sat peacefully with an obsidian-and-gilded book upon it, appearing slightly faded. Inside the cover was my name. Gone were the card and hand-print from before.

  I turned to the next page. The first few items were all basic settings. I played around with choosing interface methods—such as pop-up displays, colors, and borders—for a while. Finally, I settled on something out of place enough to be attention-grabbing, but different than my alerts in the waking world. After a review of basic settings, the game message box shifted and the book slammed shut without my say so.

  Welcome, Grant - Use the book to choose a Voice

  “Grant! Skill activate, use book!” I exclaimed.

  Nothing happened. With a drawn-out sigh, I flipped to the first page again. The results were completely unexpected. Instead of seeing something on the page, the scenery behind the pillar shifted.

  An almost sterile landscape formed—marble, like the book’s pedestal. A much taller and complete pillar sprouted from the floor. There were no cracks or ripples of damage on it like the one I stood next to. On top of the pillar was a woman, her ankles crossed, wearing a white flowing dress. She stared off into the distance and seemingly took no notice of me or anyone else. An absent wind fluttered through.

  “Never could stand a woman on a pedestal.”

  She must have heard me, because the woman, blond locks and all, turned and gave me a bare hint of a glare. Nothing as crass as a sneer. Not enough action to fully acknowledge my presence, only the edge of a tightening cheek that made her lip curl. I turned the page again.

  This scene wasn’t even remotely similar. There was a woman, sure, but she had deep red skin and no clothes at all. She sat on a chair in the same pose as the woman from before. After a moment, she came off her seat with a saucy stride. My heart jumped abruptly and my face reddened. Getting caught staring was a social taboo. The way she lifted a leg to step down onto the floor was tantalizing. Seductive half movements. Her hands effortlessly and coyly covered key parts of her body as she walked, almost dance-like, toward me. Moments later, after she had captivated me, her body started motions that were dangerously arousing. I flipped the page again.

  A giant, burly man wearing little more than a few strapped-on pieces of armor raised a giant sword. His muscles were solid enough to be carved from marble but glistened with sweat and exertion. That weapon couldn’t have been light. He roared. I turned the page.

  Parts of this were clear. They were asking me to choose between all these images of people. Most of them seemed to be archetypes of who knew what. Hah, archetypes in the ARC program. I tried not to chuckle as I flipped past the next few. These figures were all clearly following a theme but likely weren’t as simple as looks alone made them seem.

  An angelic female, a clearly devilish one, the wild warrior, those were the first few of a whole list. A Japanese schoolgirl passed through with a wave and a pose. I shook my head and tried not to think about who might pick that one. Next was a librarian. She even had glasses, which people rarely wore anymore, with surgery being cheaper than lenses. Page flipping paused on a drill sergeant archetype. The man was straight out of every military movie I had ever seen.

  Seconds later, he started screaming.

  “You are not prepared! You are a weak little man who can’t handle what I have to offer! You keep turning that page right past me, maggot!”

  I did, while trying to wipe off flakes of spittle he’d managed to shout over to me. Then I turned the page back and flipped off the drill sergeant, which set him off again. As I turned onward, I swore the next person was laughing at my antics.

  “That’s right! Screw that asshole!” said a young man dressed in a black leather jacket.

  I paused for a moment.

  “How many choices are there?”

  “One for every dream under the sun, man. We are legion!” The teen did a kick and started dancing.

  I smiled, recognizing it from an old music video, then waved good-bye. The younger man waved back and kept right on going, inserting his own sound effects.

  It was interesting and definitely neat. I might have scrolled back through a few if they didn’t seem so real. Getting caught staring at the red-skinned woman again would have been bad for my heart. I sighed and turned another page, hoping for something that would speak to me. Not in a literal sense, though; I needed someone relatable.

  There was a yawn again. I looked over my shoulder, pausing halfway between turning the page away from a child reading a book. The child had been cute, but relating to younger kids was painful to me. I kept asking myself endless amounts of questions. Most were of the “what if” variety, and those often knocked me out of my happy place.

  “Oh, you again.”

  The small dragon was perched on an even higher pillar behind me. Where that one had come from was beyond me. Perhaps the computer had generated it when the small creature wanted a towering vantage point. It looked down at my finger, then tilted a small scaled head quizzically.

  “I don’t know either. There are so many choices and all I see is a person. Got any suggestions?”

  The dragon rippled in a shrug, both wings fluttering slightly.

  “Yeah. That’s what I figured.” I turned the page again.

  The small child looked up briefly from the book, smiled, and waved. Behind me, there was a purr from the dragon. They parted ways as the next person came into being.

  A man in prayer complete with a stole. Shortly after was a female in matching clothes. Next was a woman complete with baby in one arm. She looked both tired and pleased at the same time. My sister had worn the same conflicted look as Beth grew up.

  “It gets better.” I tried to give her a reassuring smile, but it felt fake.

  The woman grunted and waved me away.

  Voices ca
me in all shapes and sizes. No two were alike, though many seemed to have gender counterparts. Skin color varied, and many weren’t human. One Centaur-type creature was disturbingly correct in its anatomy. I shuddered for a moment while the great beast gave a laugh. That page was turned quickly before he could rear up and disturb me even more.

  One was a short creature that might have been a gnome. A stockier one followed that might be a dwarf. Scanning through this book was giving me a fairly clear picture of what sort of choices were out there in this game.

  Here was a tree, and perched up high in it was a giant cat man. Clearly this was the same race as whomever Beth was playing with in the game. I paused in my perusal. Were these what passed for Gods? Was that what was happening here? Oh wow. Now it was even more important to find one that worked for me. Only I had no idea what to choose.

  Next up was a Jester-looking creature. I hesitated to say human because it wasn’t entirely clear under the clownish edge of frills. Worse still was the long nose and the distorted smile. This one stared at me and didn’t move. His backdrop was blank like some others had been.

  I blinked and tried to figure out if I was looking at a mask or its skin. The eyes were dark and sunken, the rest of his face a pearly white. My skin crawled. That had to be a mask. The rest of him was so colorful that it was hard to look in one spot.

  Suddenly the room was too quiet. Looking away felt dangerous. I had to struggle to remind myself that this was a computer program. Nothing here was real. Yet the thought of looking away made my heart race. This Jester creature could have been staring into the middle distance or something over my shoulder. Behind me. Was something there? Maybe?

  I risked looking away from that inhuman face for a moment. A second to confirm that the door to my Atrium was still in the distance. To check to make sure nothing had crawled out of this latest display to get behind me.

  The tiny dragon squawked with sudden panic and flew from its perch. The feeling that had been creeping up behind me was even worse, only now it was from the direction of the Jester I’d dared to look away from.

  I turned back and flinched. The Jester was now inches away from my face. The long nose spanned the divide. There was nothing under that mask. No mouth or eyes to be found in the depths of blackness.