Chapter Fifty One – Rose

I sat with Amy’s arms wrapped around me for longer than I probably needed to. Crying felt good. Relieving. Stress I didn’t know I’d had was released like an exhaled breath. For one of the first times I was thankful for my human body. I didn’t think I could cry as a Jellyfae.

“So… where are we? Who is Francis and… what is this place?” Amy asked while wiping her wet eyes.

At some point she’d come to sit beside me on the bench. Iron, too big to fit, stood around looking a little awkward before settling on the other side of the wooden table. His eyes were wet too.

“I don’t really know. Francis brought me here to talk to me. He told me a lot about your world. Apparently… I am an A.I.” I said with a sigh. “He also said that adventurers were afraid of A.I. Then he left me here, and told me I’d probably have to wait here for a long time. Maybe forever.”

They both paused for a moment, unsure what to say. Iron was the first to react, and he spoke like he was afraid his words might tip me over. “Last time… when Red Thorn called you an A.I. you acted like you didn’t recognize the term. Did he explain what that is to you?”

I nodded. “I’m a machine. Not a real person. Just… just like this world isn’t real. None of it. Everything I know, everything I’ve ever done. All fake. All part of my… my behavioral code. I… don’t know what to do. I’m scared and lost and I just…”

“Gell, that doesn’t matter at all. You’re real to me. And I’m sure it won’t take much convincing for you to prove to them that you’re real too.” Amy said, comforting me more than I cared to admit.

“It explains so much… you being an A.I. I mean,” Iron said. “How you didn’t understand our world. How you seemed lost with things any normal kid should know.”

“I… I guess,” I replied. “But now, Francis said that my influence on the world was hurting things. Ruining things. I don’t really understand. He’s spoken to me a couple of times now but ever since he brought me here, I haven’t been able to leave. It's starting to feel a lot like Dungeon home, except at least here people come to talk to me instead of kill me.”

“Ruin things. You mean like our names?” Iron asked curiously.

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. I didn’t know how to feel about what Francis had told me. I was causing problems. I was a nuisance. I was...

Suddenly, a green alert appeared in my invisible interface. That was strange since most of my blinky lights had stopped since Francis had brought me here. I focused on it and discovered that it was an Announcement.

Maintenance Announcement V3.0.0.73

Good Afternoon Players! We apologize for the inconvenience but Tread the Sky will be taken down for critical unscheduled maintenance in one hour. The game will be down until 8/19/2089 at 19:00 pst. Players who have subscribed for the month will receive a refund for the lost time. Thank you for your patience, and we hope to see you again soon!

Maintenance and Development Staff,

GypsEnergy

‘What…?’ I thought, worriedly.

“What does that mean? Offline? Maintenance?” I asked. “Wh-what’s happening?”

“A… A week?” Iron said, staring at his own announcement message in confusion. “This is an MMO. They can’t go down for a week.”

“Apparently, they are,” Amy said softy, turning to me.

“Wh-what is this, maintenance? Tread the Sky… Francis told me that was the name of the world. C-can they take… can they take the whole world down?”

‘And is it my fault?’ I thought morosely.

“They take the world down almost weekly, Gell. They update the game then. Uhm. That is… they make changes to the world. Tweaks that balance it. That make it closer to real.”

“But it’s not real! It’s all fake. It’s all the Instinct! More of the damn Instinct!” I shouted.

Amy frowned, and I could almost feel her desire to scold me for my language but I was too mad. Too scared.

“This happens all the time? A… a week. That’s eighty four cycles. So… if the whole world goes down for that long, what happens to me?”

Amy looked to Iron, who looked back and shrugged.

“We… don’t know, Gell. You shouldn’t even notice it though. Especially if you’ve never noticed maintenance before.

I shouldn’t notice it. I should wake up just fine after they finish. Oh gods. Francis had said my fate was going to be decided by his… his board. Would… would I still be alive after this maintenance? Would I still be me? Would they put the instinct back over me?

I suddenly began to shake. I had no idea. Amy wrapped an arm around me again.

We stayed like that for a long time it seemed. A long time. Me trembling and them doing their best to comfort me. I was powerless here. Francis… would he come back and tell me what was going on?

As the moments of the cycle slipped by, I realized he wasn’t going to. Half a cycle. A quarter. An eighth. Time seemed to be flying but I couldn’t say any of the words I wanted to.

“I… I’m really glad, I got to meet you both,” I said as a warning appeared, demanding that all players log off. I wondered what might happen if I tried to. “I hope. I hope I get to see you again.”

I managed a small smile.

“Gell,” Amy breathed. Iron had come around the table and squeezed onto my other side to hug me just as tightly as Amy and I could never remember feeling so close to anyone.

They disappeared. Both hugging me.

Then… there was…