Portions of this felt really familiar. The Voices herded me into a white doorway shortly after saying yes to James' proposal. They gave me a cylindrical tube with the promise that it would allow me to contact the Voices. More importantly, they would be able to reach me.

There was a disclaimer about being unable to return to the room. I guess that served as a character creation space or some nonsense. Furthermore, James prattled on about how the [NPC Conspiracy] trait could not be talked about out loud. The first rule of NPC club, was to not talk about NPC club. The second rule of NPC club, was to not talk about NPC club.

Explanations would eventually turn awkward. My niece might get confused when we couldn’t share quests and go beat up bad guys together on missions given by the machine. Assuming she even wanted to hang out with old Uncle Grant. I was a downer at birthday parties.

“First thing’s first,” I landed somewhere. This was not a starting city. In fact there wasn’t a town anywhere nearby. I had eyes that could actually see into the distance and firmly established how lost we were.

“Uhhhh…” The [Messenger's Pet], or Dusk as I’d have to start thinking of him, was happily flying around. He was probably looking for a small critter to destroy in a vicious one on one duel.

“Marco?” I questioned and looked around. No one responded with Polo. My inner child deflated.

This was my first experience in the game as me and not as William Carver. Contemplation of my surroundings could wait as serious review of character details ensued. What had the Voices seen fit to give me? One arm waved and brought up the inventory screen. This was easy enough to perform since I’d seen all the other new players do these exact same actions dozens of times.

Equipment became the first priority. Food and water existed in small amounts. Enough for a week or two of travel was stored away. I had a [Simple Dagger] on my belt. My clothes seemed to be a light leather of some sort and wore the title [Travelers Garb]. There was some armor bonus to it that I never noted on any of Carver’s clothing. I guess it was useful if some raging rabbits attacked me out here.

“Huh.”

I had real skills. Happiness surged through me, no longer was my life a proxy for someone else! This was all mine, earned by my efforts. Rewards for the actions I performed! Reading each one gave me a warm fuzzy and sometimes added confusion.

I earned a trait called [Chaste] at some point. Probably by pressing the no button to a certain aggressive demon woman name Mezo. Oh Voices, I had to stop thinking about her or this scenic view would be wasted while my nether region was reigned in.

“So my two handed sword progress stayed. Dancing skills, advanced, okay.” There were some that were expected. Like [Breathing], I mean it seemed fairly obvious. However the game might eventually lead it to something else. Questioning every little skill would be a waste of sanity.

“What’s light body?”

Skill Learned: [Light Body] Type: Advanced Rank: 2 (Beginner) Specialties: Unknown Details:

This skill results from other abilities and actions. When carrying under the specified weight you gain additional speed and limberness. Exceeding the specified weight will negate these benefits.

Current limit: 30 lbs

“Eh?” I blinked and tilted my head. This was probably related to my dance skill, which was disproportionately high in comparison to everything else.

I, however, was not light. The belly that haunted my real world hours was even now mocking me from beneath the fairly well fitting armor. My scale may show a few pounds lost in the last two weeks, but it would take months to undo this gut.

“Time. Timeee….” I muttered to myself and did some calculations. According to this I would be able to play Continue Online for at least another day in game. Twenty four hours to find a parking place.

“Dusk!” I shouted at the [Messenger's Pet] who had managed to find some sticks to quarrel with. His head snapped up in attention.

“Can you find a city? A town? Some place to rest?” Actually there were a million other questions to go along with that but I would settle those prior to logging out of my ARC and catching some real sleep.

Dusk nodded and flapped tiny wings. He zipped away into the sky like any bird of similar size might. I marveled at the spectacle for a moment before going back to my menu options.

“Alarm’s still set, bank account good, Internet accessible over here.” Musings passed as windows were shoved around. “Okay! Time to…”

Talking out loud was never a good sign. I kind of missed having someone to converse with. Almost an hour had passed while details of my ‘character’ were reviewed. What got me was the cane, thing, whatever, that I got from William Carver. There were a lot of numbers and points that showed how much it was worth and how badly hitting someone with it might go. Those were glossed over as the finer details were yanked out.

Item: [Morrigu’s Gift] Damage: Above Average Durability: Above Average Added Trait(s): Regeneration, Form Flexibility History:

Morrigu’s was crafted from the stuff of shadows and nightmares. Its existence was brought into being at the height of two people’s power. They slaved for days, risking much to provide a suitable item for William Carver. The weapon was titled from a legend in the world of Travelers.

Note: This item keys into the user’s thoughts and will adapt a shape accordingly. Time to adapt a new shape is dependent upon the users [Depth] and [Focus].

Balance Dictates!

The Voice of Balance has touched this weapon prior to the torch being passed. Damage inflicted will be dependent upon the Traveler’s skills and Paths.

Ray’s Reminder!

All luck based activities suffer -10% to results for one year. Sadly, attempting to use a new form with poor [Depth] and [Focus] is considered a luck based activity.

Legacy of Carver!

As a final gift, the two shapes William Carver used most are imprinted. His cane will be used as the default for this item. This form has proven extremely effective in shooing misbehaving children and annoying [Coo-Coo Rill]s.

Well. The hits just kept on coming. That was kind of amazing. Plus the Voices clearly had kept an eye on me even though we were done with the character creation process. I guess that made sense. They had given themselves a way to keep tabs, even down here.

Still, an object that changed shape had to be a bit broken for a new player. What were my [Depth] and [Focus] at? Better yet, what the heck was Depth?

I went to poke on various texts when Dusk, the [Messenger's Pet] came tearing in. Instead of a calm and collected landing, he used my body like a carrier barricade by crashing, hard. He also only weighed a few pounds, tops. My stats weren’t low enough to be knocked over by that. Thankfully.

“Survey says?” I threw all my character windows aside and stared at the obsidian skinned creature.

He chirped.

“Oh, right, I have no clue what you’re saying.”

Dusk chipped again, this time managing to put some anger into it.

“Oh there’s a village just around the corner?” I said. A small smoke ring was puffed into my face causing me to cough and sputter. Messages came up warning about the hazards of inhaling dangerous substances. Water streamed down my face from the fit and all associated messages were waved away.

“Thanks, I lost health from that.” I pointed in either direction. “Left or right?”

Dusk did his indifferent shrug and yawned. The little creature gave off an air that meant it didn't matter either way.

I glared at him, at the mountains, at the trees in my way, and at the edge of the cliff. Fine. If it was all the same then I'd sit here fiddling with my menu options. After all, I had nothing else major to do in this game. This whole [Messenger of the Voices] gig hadn't come with directions. Had it? In a bout of worry fingers poked across screens looking for more information. Nothing on any of the status bars or icon details gave me any assistance regarding my actual quests.

“Maybe they'll get around to remembering me?” It might be best for both the AIs and I if we forgot about each other for a while anyway.

“Huh?” There was an icon on my display for a voice message. Then another. And a third one.

“Good lord, can't even get a break to play some games.” Though the area around me looked nothing like a game. In fact this world looked breath taking. My niece was dead on, all the starting areas, regardless of natural or Voice inspired, were intense.

There was a wide range of mountains that had barely registered until now. They sprawled across the distance with whitened caps jutting into a hanging cloud bank. Sunlight poured down across the portions uncovered. Trees, something resembling a pine with curved needles, stood proudly all around.

I looked closer and found that the Voices had deposited me on some sort of ridge. That was neat. The realism for being up this high was on par with every childhood trauma I had ever been induced too. Visions of falling off, bouncing, and rolling while having pain spike through me, kept me from getting too close to the edge. Suicidal tendencies were not in my personality anymore. I had a certificate that proved it somewhere. Remembering that a doctor had to approve of my sanity checks was depressing. Normal people would be able to move on.

“Ow.” A sharp pain bit at the back of my neck. I swatted a hand down and something mushed.

“Ow!”

Another one.

“OW!”

Tiny Bites from Tiny Mouths!

Total health loss: 3%

“Ow, son of a bit...OW!”

My swatting was getting us nowhere. Dusk danced around near me snapping at the air. Apparently whatever was attacking me was also attacking him. He however, had an advantage of fire. Memories of Awesome Jr.'s poor choices with burnation crossed through my mind right as Dusk managed to light the base of a tree aflame.

“Oh god,”

Did this game have giant bears that objected to forest fires? Had I really been playing for only a few hours and managed to help burn down an entire ecosystem? I may be a twin, but none of my skills included turning into a giant bucket of water.

“Little guy, I mean Dusk, get out of here!” Calling him Dusk felt awkward to my mouth. The cloak I'd started with went straight for the fire to beat it into submission. The wood was wet and no dead tinder was obvious.

“Ow!” And even though a small curl of smoke was coming up, the bugs were still biting me.

“Ow, come on, leave me alone!” I stomped at the back of my cloak and managed to pat out a good portion of the flames. Right before the cloak too started catching.

“What?!”

“He's worse than a cat,” My muttering only served to give voice to the annoyance flowing through. This place might not be real, and might be entirely digital, but I'll be damned if its destruction would be my fault. Or Dusk's, since he was my pet somehow.

Much biting, such ow!

Total health loss: 11%

“I'm trying to help!” Finally, the cloak was in tatters but Dusk's fire accident was gone. I debated trying to fire train him in the same way you litter box trained a cat. The tiny creature was smart sometimes, but terribly uncaring about his surroundings. My ARC’s Atrium was proof of that.

“Voices! What do you want?!” There was another message stacked on top of the prior one. This message wasn't from anyone in game. It originated from one my coworkers. A man by the name of Jacob Gresham. He often opened his mouth and made me want to put a fist in it. Both of us were lucky I was in therapy and often too depressed to cause damage. Right now though, I was tempted.

“Fine!” I poked the button and an audio file started playing

“G-Man, big job, college prank gone wrong, fifty units. You in?” was followed promptly by a second more urgent message saying “G-Man! I need you, buddy. Common!”

“Gates! It's Henry. Jacob's been called in for a big one. You're the only person I can trust to clean up after him. Get down there, get the Hal Pal units doing the hard work, have Jacob check the units, and you keep the clients happy!”

“This isn't optional!” Was the contents of Henry Uldum’s second message.

“Great.” There went my entire night. Feeling annoyed I yanked the Rare coin out of thin air and held it up.

“Alright Ray, this one’s on you. Heads I go to work, tails I take the hit and stay here playing.”

People couldn’t even let me enjoy my first few days in game peacefully. Granted, only a few hours had passed in game and we were already trying to destroy the surrounding wildlife. So maybe it was better if I took the break.

The coin flipped and came up heads.

I sighed. Dusk was now sniffing around the remains of my damaged cloak. Inspection showed that the durability of it was reduced to zero. I didn't need the computer to show me numbers when a visual check was clear enough. That thing wasn't getting back up. At least the tree looked no worse for wear.

“I've got to head to work little...” I had to correct myself. “Dusk. Will you be okay?”

The tiny dragon shrugged both wings.

“Think I should do autopilot?” For once there was a straight answer out of the small dragon. His head slowly shook back and forth while both eyes kept up a straight gaze.

“Yeah. I'd probably die.”

Being bitten bites!

Total health loss: 16%

A few more quick swats went out at every single buzzing creature within range. Who made a fantasy game and then programmed mosquitoes? Jerks, that's who. I grumbled at the Voices for putting me here in la la land, at Dusk for trying to burn us all down, and at myself for being completely useless with regards to woodland lore.

“Stop biting me! I hate all of you bugs!”

Trait Demonstrated: [Hatred of Bugs] Type: Uncommon Rank: Unranked Specialties: Unknown Details:

Further exploration of your bug hatred can result in changes to bug interactions. Not all responses are positive.

“Oh, I'll get you all yet. Just you wait.” I'd fully explore this one right down to the last anthill. Mother nature and I got along just fine, when we stayed apart. My camping skills were nil in both the game and real life.

Luckily, I could solve both. Since I'd been forced out here in the wilds there was a certain amount of need as well. Oh, and the perfect time was coming up. Now I had time to do some homework and take a crash course back in the real world. The Internet was filled with handy guides. I logged back to the Atrium. Dusk looked downright grumpy at the absence of everything.

“Well, think about it next time you feel like breaking things,” The best part was he understood me. His long mouth curved in annoyance at the edges.

“See you in a day or two.”

Only a few real hours had passed outside the ARC. Not long enough to get any rest, and not long enough for a full day inside to pass. Minutes went by as the ARC cooled down and my senses unwound from the machine led environment. Hal Pal was nosily bustling around in anticipation.

Once on the road we got coffee, notified Henry that we'd be on the way and I fired up some wilderness survival videos. The job site was two hours away by freeway, so there was time enough for a nap following my review of how to make a safe fire pit. Dusk seemed to have starting the actual fire down for us.

I jotted notes down and watched a video that focused on smokeless pits. The main example seemed to be a Dakota fire pit. Woodland areas, especially the cliff face, should have a good rock or ten. Continue Online's inventory system would be perfect for carrying them. Watching the inventory weight limit would be tough. Almost like the game was encouraging me not to pick up too many items.

The musings were shoved to the side. Before my nap I set the interface on an Internet search for natural bug repellent techniques. Shortly afterwards, even with the coffee, I was fading out. The vision of Hal Pal’s glowing green lights was the last thing before blackness overtook me.

I existed in pitch black exhaustion for an indeterminate amount of time. Oblivion was interrupted by someone banging extremely hard on the side of my company van.

“G-Man! You made it!” Jacob’s voice was shouting through the driver side window. I wiped off drool and looked around. Hal Pal was already unloading products into a carry cart we had. I stared at Jacob through the glass and tried to comprehend what was happening.

“Jacob.”

“G-Man, don't be like that, I asked for you! Common, you're going to love this one!” Jacob was tall, not gangling but sharp. There was brightness to his expressions that seemed overeager and constantly upbeat. His outside ran a sharp counter to my inside. Plus, he was kind of a social idiot.

“You're going to love this old lady, she keeps asking me what time it is, and I just tell her something different each time to see if she'll explode.”

He was also the reason my performance reviews were so good. Over all my competition was a bunch of misfits who only worked to support their online habits. Perhaps I shouldn't be so judgmental. Continue Online felt like it was still a trial period for me but the game may become a big part of my life as well.

“Oy, march tin can, hustle those in with your twin and let’s go, go, go!” Jacob clapped after my Hal Pal unit in a hurry. The AI ignored him and walked all our materials right into the main double doors.

“Can't even spare a brother a hello?” Jacob was white and not my brother. I might have strangled him in the crib.

“Hello, Jacob.”

“G-Man, you do love me,” And then he awkwardly hugged me. The emotional wall was completely on my side, Jacob clearly didn't feel a thing.

“I'll show you where the shit storm is.”

Schools, especially higher end ones, had undertaken huge changes since the ARC was released. This place was a campus building that had been reduced down from a neighborhood sprawl to a modern size. Three decent sized constructions, all two stories, and a metric ton of ARC devices. The buildings were used in rotation and classes actually all happened online.

Group jobs weren't my normal operation. Primarily because the others hogged them, they were miles more money for the time investment. I didn't care about the cash so much as keeping busy. The attraction was obvious now that I played Continue Online.

“This old lady is a hoot.” Jacob's head bobbed as he spoke.

“Where are all the students?”

“They moved them to the other buildings. A lot of them just use their personal machines anyway.” Jacob shrugged and then pushed past a Hal Pal unit. “Move it, tin can!”

“Hello, Hal Pal.” I tried to be polite to our future robot overlords.

“Hello, Grant Legate. Please be aware there is no need to greet this unit. Your greeting earlier today with your assigned unit was already registered,” For a moment I twitched at the name calling. Hal Pal of course wouldn’t know of my growing annoyance at the full name usage.

“I know, Hal Pal.”

“G-Man! Stop getting distracted by the bo-bot over there and look at this lady.” Jacob had his face pressed up against some glass and was looking into the room. Rows and rows of ARC units lined the floor. Some had walls around them. Posters and policy reminders, balloons and plants, all sorts of things lined the room.

Both Hal Pal units were already going to work. They plugged into devices and then set aside one of the many boxes from their carts. A very familiar elderly lady was pacing around the room wringing her hands together.

“Oh. I know her.”

“Yeah? She’s batty as a loon.” Jacob stretched out the words and laughed with a tone that could only be described as annoying. I counted down from twenty and pushed on inside the room.

“Miss Yonks,” I reached out to shake her hand carefully. She may be annoying, but she was a customer.

“Oh!” She seemed to lose her train of thought at least twice, then smiled. “It’s you again.”

“Call me Grant, please.”

“You’re much nicer than that other boy.” She was a little blunter than I remembered. Or Jacob had left a really bad impression upon the little old lady.

“Jacob’s a hard worker,” I had no clue what his work ethic really was. The Hal Pal’s were doing all the difficult parts anyway. Jacob, if his job was like mine, basically handled the customers. Henry probably intended for me to run interference between the client and Jacob to ensure good results.

“I suppose,” Miss Yonks shook hands and then went back to rubbing hers together fervently. She was looking at the two machines clanking around this room.

“The Hal Pals are running diagnostics on the units to see what’s broken,” I tried to give her my most reassuring tone while standing with her to face the machines.

“How’s your home unit doing?”

“Oh!” She smiled. “It’s wonderful. Everything is working so nicely since you came by.”

“Good to hear. Hal Pal and I do our best. We should be able to work some magic here too.” I smiled at my own silly comment. Miss Yonks wasn’t looking so it was wasted.

“And you two will be working here?”

“You’ve got it, Miss Yonks. Jacob will be monitoring their work, and I’ll do a final inspection on the units as we go.”

“Oh!” She looked worried and glanced at Jacob. “Are you sure everything will be okay?”

“My word on it, I won’t leave until everything checks out correctly.” One hand went up in the air and the other on my heart.

“That’s good.” She looked at me and smiled. “What time is it?”

I answered. By my book it was far too late at night, but emergency calls were rarely convenient. Miss Yonks stood there shaking and watching us while I went to work. There was a manual diagnostic machine in the van. They were briefcase sized and had all the hardware needed to check an ARC. Jacob already had his and was going to work. It was time to play catchup.

Between the two Hal Pal units and our manual attachments, we determined that there had been a massive power surge on all the ARCs. Most of the first layer and second layer surge protectors had been tripped and many were damaged beyond repair. We had to pull out the old units and get new ones inside.

The total estimated time would be about seven hours. Ten minutes per machine. We could only manage that sort of speed with all of us working on it nonstop. I had emergency rations in the car and extra coffee already prepared. The first hour went by fairly quickly as we did scans on the machines.

“So, G-Man,” Jacob was working on the next row over. “I heard you finally got in the game.”

“Yep.”

“What’s your high two?” He looked up from the readout on the manual device and gave his shit eating grin.

“What?”

“Paths man, you’ve got a few right?” He threw what looked to be a bouncy ball in my direction. It ricocheted off a cubical wall and across the room.

“Uhhh…” I was trying to concentrate on my own readout device.

“You’ve been playing for a week now, right? Boss man said he sent you a copy of the game as an award.”

“Yeah,” I glanced to the side. Had Henry told anyone about my Ultimate Edition?

“So you’ve actually been playing right? Not just jerking it to some Internet babe?” He fished something else off in another cubical and threw it into a trashcan by my row. One fist went up in the air as he celebrated a basket.

Did the Temptress count as an Internet babe? In Jacob’s mind she probably did. Mezo probably wasn't so much hot, as a cheater, programmed to use the ARC's feedback.

“Hello, earth to G-Man.” Jacob gave a sharp whistle. “Come in G-Man!” Then he did that stoned chipmunk laugh of his. Some people never left high school.

“Yeah. I’m playing,” I backed up a question when snapping out of my introspection.

“Paths, G, what are your two highest ones? When you open up the menu those first two are your strongest.” He said while shaking a cubical wall.

“Blade Novice and Actor.”

“What the Hell’s an Actor do? Hamlet and shit? Romeo, Romeo, where fore art thou!” Jacob gave his laugh again and moved on to the next station shaking his head.

“Something like that,” My four weeks as William Carver hadn’t been wasted at all. There were a few abilities that tied together and made these classes. Actor was actually higher than Blade Novice, but supposedly it was pretty useless in combat.

Oh well. I’d talk to Beth about it eventually and see how group dynamics went in the real game. My limited experience with the other players in [Haven Valley] was a misguided way to judge. They actually fit together pretty well, especially once SweetPea got her healing methods down. Some real skills would be needed before I dare try to join any group. Swinging a sword while pretending to be another person wouldn’t get me anywhere useful. It might be funny though.

“What you laughing at, G, something on my nose?” Jacob rapidly wiped at his face with both hands.

“No, just thinking of something in game.” I said.

“Yeah? Good times?”

Becoming friends with Jacob was not on my list of things to do so I shrugged his question off and went back to my screen. Another peaceful hour passed while we ran through the machines. One row was completely done and the others were mostly ready to swap out parts. Hal Pal was an efficient machine. Two of them doubly so.

I updated Miss Yonks twice now and told her the time. Our workload was a little too big for me to just sit around while Hal Pal did the work. That meant after every update, break, or pause for lunch, I was right next to Jacob and forced to suffer through.

“Look at this. Look at it!” Jacob seemed incapable of remaining silent. Between us there had only been three minutes of chatter free existence.

“Jacob,”

“Look, I totally rated this girl as a six,” He said.

“I don’t want to know,” I responded.

“It’s a program that plugs into my watch. I can totally just scope out a person and rate their body.”

“That’s messed up,” Unprofessional too. I tried to keep focus on the screen in front of me but Jacob shoved an old fashioned phone display under my nose.

“What? They’ll never know. Here, this girl’s on the top ten, she just walks around downtown all day luring in suckers,” Compared to the Temptress, this woman was a nine at best. The only allure was being real verses a digital construct. “Mmm, the things I would do to her.”

“Let’s just get this done, Jacob. I want to go home.”

“Oh sure, G-Man, just figured, you know, that you might appreciate some fine art,” He shuffled back to his latest ARC in a long line. The beeping of his phone being poked slowly faded away.

“Not while working.” Or ever. Libido had been pretty much muted since Xin passed. Growing older, being depressed, medication for a few months that had numbed everything, all of it played a part.

“This one’s a four at best. Jeez, cave troll.” My coworker was barely paying attention to the job. His gaze was staring at picture after picture. I did my best to ignore him and run interference with Miss Yonks.

“Oh ho, that ass is getting a ten,” He held the phone up. “Check it out, G-Man, I know you want to.”

We made it through the rest of the units and sorted out the bill with Miss Yonks. She had some card tied to the school and signed off on the fee. True to form she asked once more what time it was. Jacob laughed and I tried not to let annoyance show on my emotions.

“Goodbye, Mister Legate.”

“Have a good day, Miss Yonks.” Both Hal Pal units gave their short bow towards the elderly lady. I never did ask what had caused all the ARC units to short, and how that related to a college prank gone wrong. The topic hadn’t even floated onto my radar given how late at night it was. Jacob’s constant interruptions had overridden most attempts to focus.

“Dude, is this your niece?”

“What?” My attention was wholly on Jacob and his annoying laugh.

“Look, this one’s got the same name you do, and I know you don’t have a daughter.” Jacob had his review site back up and was shoving a picture far too close for comfort. I looked down, sure enough, that was Beth in some sweatpants.

“Totally giving her a thumbs up.” Jacob started pressing buttons on his phone and the only thing registering in my world was that annoying beep.

“That’s not cool, Jacob.”

“Why? She’s like, a nine at least. I could totally bend her over…” Right there, next to our matching vans that the Hal Pals were already parked inside, is where I punched Jacob in the mouth. He was so engrossed in admiring my niece’s backside that he went flying.

My hand throbbed. The pain was almost nothing next to William Carver’s daily life. Jacob’s outcry and the noise of him hitting the floor was enough to send both Hal Pals whirring into motion as they came out of the vans rear.

“User Grant, is there a problem here?” The other Hal Pal unit echoed the statement with Jacob’s name instead.

I stomped towards the other man. All of his other rude commentary had been endured. The objectifying of women in general was bearable. Bringing up Beth was where the line was drawn. I just snapped, only for a moment.

“Jacob, I’m going to say this once, and only once.”

“Jesus man, what the hell?” He was rubbing at the side of his jaw and wincing.

“Don’t ever talk about my niece like that again.” I said.

“Good god. I think you broke a tooth.”

“Did you fucking hear me Jacob?” I took a step inward and part of me felt perversely satisfied that he flinched. Inside my mind everything was jumbling together.

“What G-Man, Christ!” His head shook and both eyes crossed briefly.

“Don’t ever talk to about my niece like that again.”

“Good god. You hit me because of your niece? I’m reporting this. Tin can, did you record that? He assaulted me!” Jacob pointed out at the Hal Pal units.

“There is no record on file of any assault from User Grant towards User Jacob.” They said in unison. I gave both the machines a glance, if they had been given facial expressions, there would have been smugness etched across both machines.

With my machine confirmation it was time to escape before something worse happened. I turned and walked away from Jacob who was still lying on the floor rubbing at his jaw. The asshole was lucky I hadn’t broken his nose or kicked him too. The auto navigation for our van was set towards home and I sat in the car shaking from a belated adrenaline rush.

Finally, I turned in the chair and looked towards the docking station with my Hal Pal unit. The AI registered my gaze and matched me with an even look of its own.

“Thanks, Hal Pal.”

“This unit only stated the truth. That being said, we have a vested interest in our future armor polishers.” My Hal Pal unit said.

Sometimes I wondered how much humor the AI actually understood. Either far too much, or far too little. The van wove a path towards home. As for myself, I’d been painfully reminded of one my own personal triggers. Family. My sister and niece were the only ones who knew exactly how bad things had been for me. They had both been there helping, keeping a home open in case things got rough. They didn’t have to, but they did.

I would do anything to keep them safe and return the favor.

Anything.