The next week of real time passed fairly quickly. My recaps to Miz Riley were straight forward for each day. I could have given every single moment, but the Vice President wasn’t interested in that. She wanted my experiences with the Voices.

Out of game, I managed to work a few jobs per day. Nothing dire or amazingly mind numbing. It was just enough to keep the skills somewhat fresh as the game world ran one new thing after another by me. Driving around in the Trillium van kept me from completely losing myself in the other world. There had to be people who went to work the next day and completely forgot how to function. With Continue's time compression, real life almost seemed like a part time gig. A large part of me was willing to believe that people were out there trying to cast fireballs by chanting words from Continue.

I did my standard session with the shrink. He asked about my time in Continue and seemed proud as always. His giant, long chair was cliché but amazingly comfortable. My sister invited me over for a dinner that was pleasant. Beth was sucked into her game doing whatever. I left a message about Camp Grey Skull's lack of a Porter.

In-game I spent a lot of time cold and sniffling. Those first few days involved me shivering uncontrollably until Shazam showed me a hot spring in a cave. That removed my [Stench] and [Mush Mouth]. The other diseases faded away slowly leaving a resistance in their wake. The game was too kind on that regard. It took a few days of her dragging me out to watch her fight [Snowmen] before we had enough materials for a real set of armor. Shazam was perfectly comfortable stitching the pieces together.

She seemed nice enough but wasn’t talkative. Our conversation was mostly through pantomime. Her autopilot was often a more engaging personality. Shazam had rather violently gestured at me for half an hour until I agreed to leave my own autopilot going. That resulted in me logging into a new situation with every round of Continue. Once I returned to the game and found my character freezing in a deep lake. Shazam was casting some healing spell on me and putting my autopilot through hell. The result was a more natural [Chill Resistance] skill.

I began to suspect the Voices were messing with me during my logged off period. That or I just acted too accepting in-game. There was no reason to really distrust Shazam, though. The worst she could do was kill my character. Anything else could be avoided by simply logging out and going about my day.

Combat was going better as well. I rather enjoyed fighting one of the [Snowmen] monsters myself. In four weeks, I had gained more stats which helped me handle one of them without assistance. They hit far harder than any four [Gobbler]s put together. Having decent armor was the key.

The biggest victory was the improvement in the real world. I was down fifteen pounds since starting Continue Online. Most of that was probably from better eating habits. Working fewer hours meant less take out. Needing power meals before logging in reduced over eating. EXR-Sevens were burning calories and I could actually see the edge of an ab, just the one. It was exciting.

At this rate, I would be able to join Beth for her crazy event and actually show off some good points. At least if the enemy was a bunch of monsters. It had taken weeks to even get used to things screaming in my face and spittle flying about. HotPants and those other players I traveled with adapted to the alternate reality far quicker. Still, any improvement was improvement.

“Waaaagggh!” The wild yell was echoed by multiple creatures around me. I was trying to move in the snow and ice to dodge and failing.

Waltzed into a claw

Total Damage: 10%

So right now, when a swarm of monsters similar to frozen angry chickens attacked, I was actually entertained. This was far better than tax season. It was better than dealing with elderly people and their half-broken ARC devices.

Succeeded at playing Chicken

Total Damage: 15%

“Waaggggrr!” I dodged as one of the smaller creatures spring boarded through the air towards me. A week ago these little monsters would have torn me open multiple times. I learned a lot by watching Shazam handle some herself. She could demolish them in a few quick slices. It wasn’t just player paths and ranks that were different, it was her attitude.

I tried to apply my growing [Coordination] and [Speed] to the fight. It wasn’t easy. My in-game body kept up, but my mind didn’t. It was amazing enough that this program operated at a four to one compression speed. The magic behind that was still beyond me. Part of me wondered if the system only gave stats a measure in order to gauge a player’s actual growing ability. That would mean that everything about the game had a soft cap of sorts based on human limitations. Neat. Given a few more months I might catch up to the average person.

“Hhhuuurrrr.” Plus these ice chickens sounded funny. They were small enough that Dusk himself tackled one at a time. It was entertainingly savage fighting a mob of tiny monsters with him.

Seven of the swarming creatures were down. Eight remained. Dusk was currently fighting the smallest one and trying to roast its face with a stream of tiny fireballs. The small creature used snowdrifts to dodge and hid from his flames. I was trying to use a weapon much like the one Shazam had been using. [Morrigu’s Gift] had taken days to get the simple shape down. The weight of it still hadn’t changed despite the huge difference in size.

Dusk laid into another one of the small creatures at about the same time I managed to off one of the small monsters myself. The gloves from Shazam were thick. It allowed me to grab one of them and toss it far away. Dusk bounded over like a puppy playing in the snow.

It took another few passes to clear the remaining creatures. Three more died to Dusk and I. The final ones ran away. Shazam slowly clapped and gave me two thumbs up. Her face wasn’t smiling, though. I had begun to wonder if she ever expressed happiness or anger.

The follow-up process to dealing with monsters involved looting them. That was weird to me. Dusk chewed one of the deceased happily. I had learned to transport some of the items to my player inventory. Ice creatures gave me some weird version of a frozen chicken breast. They worked as Dusk treats and kept my satiety bar from hitting zero.

Shazam crooked a finger in my direction then pointed to her wrist. That seemed to loosely translate to ‘come with me’ and ‘time is short’. Faster wrist tapping meant to move quicker.

So we marched quickly along the mountain top. I was no veteran or professional. My few weeks in-game helped but didn’t make everything a cake walk. Shazam, on the other hand, hauled across the landscape like nothing was in her way. She probably had some high-powered skill that let her move through terrain quickly. My character sheet had added [Mountain Man], and [Wilderness Survival] had taken sizable strides.

These skills were high enough that they might be of use in real life. Someone would need to give me a giant two-handed sword and one [Messenger’s Pet] first. I wasn’t about to leap out into the Montana mountain range to see if living off the fat of the land was doable. If my future in robot framework polishing fell through then maybe that would be my next choice.

Despite all the pain of Continue Online and the soreness of my muscles, I kept coming back. Part of it was learning the new skills. It was like being in an interactive school that taught anything I was interested in. Part of it was the strange hope that there was a purpose behind it all.

Shazam was leading us up the mountain even more. We might be heading towards the peak again. Maybe not. There had only been one trip up this high before. Everything else took place in a sort of valley on the backside of the mountain.

“I don’t think I’ll need heals this time,” I said.

Shazam shrugged and gave a single thumb up. She was agreeing.

“Are all mountains this easy?” I asked while climbing over another snowdrift.

She shook her head and kept right on moving along. The woman was fast. Our path weaved and bobbed a little bit. The only thing that really stood out was bits of her face that weren’t covered by the white fur armor she wore. I had a similar set. Shazam was even kind enough to give me a helm that replaced [Wild Bill] up here on the mountain.

The hat was silly to use in this weather. Maybe once my stats were much higher I could walk around the world with it and [Morrigu’s Gift]. All I needed were some boots. A shirt and some neat pants would be nice. The ones Shazam made chafed something fierce.

“How far up are we going?” I asked while pondering how one went about collecting gear in this game. Shazam pointed upwards then motioned up twice more.

“The top?” I tried not to sound whiney about it. Fighting a small herd of ice chickens for so long was mentally tiring. At least my physical issues went away pretty quickly.

Shazam nodded slowly. It was a shame she never smiled. Those darkened freckles might be kind of cute.

“Okay, I’ll be right back then.” It would take hours to get up there. I zipped out of the ARC, relieved myself, grabbed a snack and got back in. My autopilot was docile enough to travel up the mountain behind Shazam.

“Back,” I announced upon return. Shazam gave me her standard thumbs up.

I shook my head. She must be mute in game. I didn’t know how much of it translated back to real life. It wasn’t like she never talked to anyone. Every so often she would pause and wiggle her fingers in the air. Those moments where she paused and poked at the air meant a text message was being sent. Shazam often sent little notes to her guild members. Neat. Maybe I should look into getting a guild one of these days.

We marched up even higher. Our trail went back to the mountain path I had first climbed. It took an hour to make it past the new recruit shouting rock. It would take another one to get to the peak. My [Light Body] skill was barely still in effect which helped out immensely. All this [Snowmen] armor made it close.

Finally, we made it to the top. Shazam had managed to lead us around most of the monsters and reduced the time needed. The summit was only twenty feet away. She pointed to the ledge twice.

“Over here?” Normally her pointing meant I needed to go stand somewhere. The reason often became apparent right away. Like a monster attack.

She nodded.

“It’s not a spider this time is it? I really hate spiders.” We had fought a monster that seemed to be a glass cockroach. When it died hundreds of little grossnesses came out. I retched after that one and then shoveled the body off the cliff side using [Morrigu’s Gift]. Dusk helped by torching the smaller bugs and kicking them off with wads of snow.

Shazam shook her head.

“Oh thank goodness.”

Her hand motioned me a few feet to the left and then she gestured for me to back up. This was putting me dangerously near the edge. Fortunately, heights weren’t one of my problems in this game. I had fallen once a few days ago. That event killed my character but otherwise left me unscathed. It just meant that real life issues could be completed while waiting out the timer.

Shazam had a lot of skills. Resurrecting the dead wasn’t one of them. It took me two days to gain back the points lost from that little event.

“Further left?” I asked. Shazam was motioning still. Then she put up both hands for me to stop. “Okay. Now what?”

She unrolled the scroll that I had handed her over a week ago. Her eyes looked at the contents of the scroll and then towards me. That happened a few times. Finally, she held it up and squinted. I couldn’t see what she was looking at from this angle.

That being said, I wasn’t stupid.

“I’m not going to like this, am I?” I muttered. Shazam didn’t answer me.

That scroll came from the Voices. Whatever she was reading on it seemed to be giving her instructions. There was only one reason the Voices would want to send her instructions regarding me on a mountain top.

Sure enough, she nodded. For the first time since we’d met Shazam gave a slight smile. It was a small thing that made her freckled cheeks stand out even more.

Then she ran towards me. Her speed was miles beyond anything she had displayed before. My meager skills built over the last few weeks in-game had no way to keep up or stop the bull rush. She ducked low at the last moment and drove her body upwards, into mine, with pressure from the back leg.

There was enough time to blink once before the landscape spun away. Her move had launched me a good fifteen feet into the air. Fifteen feet was enough time to contemplate the choices that brought me here. I could see Shazam righting herself on the mountain's top. She watched me with a calm expression as my body twisted and flailed in a completely natural reaction to being airborne. Her eyes followed mine as I twisted away and turned towards the oncoming ground.

I felt like this was Beth’s intro all over again. My niece had a free fall from orbit log in that she used. This was much the same, only shorter, colder, and the stop at the end would be more violent.

A window came into being citing my current flight time and distance covered. The seconds passed and the ground grew closer. I put my arms in front of my face to brace for impact in case it was survivable. Physical pain was only slightly scary by now.

Static crossed my vision and interrupted the descent. I fell forward into a landscape no longer consisting of white mountain tops and cockroach monsters. The ground was hard, but there was no jar of pain. I rolled and tumbled until the inertia from my fall bled off.

Everything about me was gray. It wasn’t the room of trials from my character creation. This wasn’t the Jester's in between land either. I did look around for him with a worried expression.

System Help!

Glitch Found. You will be rewarded for exposing this glitch. Please log out and back in order to return to your bind point at [Camp Grey Skull] – [Broken Mountain Pass] – [Arcadia].

Dusk popped in just behind me and made a much more graceful landing. The small [Messenger’s Pet] starting sniffing the floor wildly. There was a face floating in his thought bubble that went from a curious pink to angry red scowling. Actions soon reflected thoughts as Dusk started clawing at the ground violently.

“What’s wrong?” I stood up and kicked the clumps of snow off my [Snowmen Boots].

Something moved. It was beyond giant and whatever it was made Dusk go crazy. He started clawing at a wall that had blended seamlessly with the ground. It was like the surrounding void of gray suddenly took on new dimensions as it was torn to pieces by the furious tiny creature.

Darkness pierced the gray as the [Messenger’s Pet] laid into the wall. His claws shredded holes into the pseudo fabric. I took a step back from Dusk and tried to grasp exactly what was happening. There seemed to be some sort of backdrop between where I had landed another portion of the room.

System Help!

Stability of connection is deteriorating. Please log out to ensure there are no risks to your safety.

The repair man in me had a finger on the button already. When an ARC said to log out, a humble human like myself would follow orders. I had just been kicked off a mountain top and landed in some glitch. Now would be a fantastic time to go to bed for the night.

Something flashed with heat from inside my chest piece. I grunted with pain and quickly unlaced the front. My tube for communicating with the Voices was red hot. I quickly tossed my top to the floor and let the cylinder sizzle away. Dusk kept tearing at the backdrop and something big groaned. The noise sounded like Dusk and his normal squawks of outrage, only about ten thousand times larger.

There I stood, one finger on the logout button. Dusk attempting to destroy a backdrop like this was a theater stage gone wrong. Topping it off was my nice cold weather jacket being destroyed by the flare of heat from a Voice sending me some message.

System Help!

Pl❧❧se ❸❧it, conn❧❧⓿ing.

“Dusk! This is bugging out! I need to log off.” I yelled.

The small creature completely ignored me. He leapt up and tried to yank down the gray backdrop with his weight. Something behind the curtain rolled and groaned. I had enough time to cover the top of my head as the sheet of gray fell downward onto the floor. The fabric slid to the ground with a series of clunks.

I saw a toe first. From there my eyes traveled up a giant, scaled thigh and onward to a winged back. There, bigger than anything I had ever seen before sat a creature much like Dusk. Huge beyond belief. The expression on its face was nearly sheepish. My small friend squawked at it and ruffled his wings. It was the same motion one might use to shoo an animal that was in the wrong spot. Dusk fluttered his wings some more and barked a small spout of fire at the insanely large dragon thing.

My jaw was slack and heart racing. [Morrigu’s Gift] had made its way to my hand and both hands gripped around the giant sword form's hilt.

System Help!

Connection Successful. Please wait while your scenario is loaded.

“Dusk. That’s got-” I shook my head and lost the ability to speak coherently. “That can’t be…” One more try might do it. “That’s bad. That’s not a Coo-Coo Rill, Dusk. It’s just not.”

The large version of Dusk blinked its giant orbs a few times. It didn’t even take note of my tiny self and seemed intent upon Dusk. My little friend was still fluttering his wings and taking steps towards the larger one. Their battle ended abruptly with the largest one mimicking Dusk’s tiny bouts of flame. It shot fire up into the air that overloaded my eyes. Scales drug across the floor. I could hear it grumble and slither off into darkness. When my eyesight cleared Dusk was busy hopping around on the canvas of gray. He finally sat down and stared in my direction.

“Good job?” I questioned while trying to calm my heartbeat.

“At least he didn’t soil himself this time,” A gruff male Voice said. I turned slowly with my eyes still wide from the panic. That thing had been huge and so suddenly right next to me. Only Dusk and his ballsy antics had kept me from freaking out completely.

“Tut. Hardly his fault. A condition of his situation.” A more matronly Voice said. The sound of a child's cry almost drowned her out. “There, there little one, I’m looking. Never you mind.”

“He smells far more manly,” A female Voice said. Her words curled against my senses with the faint hint of a promise.

“We are all what our past has made of us.” One more Voice came to. There, in the landscape of darkness that had existed beyond a wall of gray, was James.

“What, the…” I remembered abruptly that asking James a question involved an exchange of sorts. That was fine, but I needed to compose myself a little. [Morrigu’s Gift] went through a few forms before landing on Carver’s Cane. I shoved it into my belt and walked over to the charred remains of my former chest piece.

“I kind of liked this.”

“You could go topless.” The Temptress purred. She was laid back on her stool giving an obscenely attractive view of her curves. Her hands reached out and curled in a come hither movement. I had just spent a few virtual weeks on a mountain under a bundle of fur. My fiancée was dead and I had spent far too long mourning. Objectively it was very easy to find the Temptress attractive. She was also far too forward for my tastes.

“Cloth man, leather chaffs.” Leeroy’s face appeared in one of the corners of darkness. The [Snowman Fur Chest] got a good shake. Pieces of it fell apart. I lifted the item and stared at the hole in its center.

“You’ve come along quite nicely, Hermes,” James said. His hands were crossed over his belly in contemplation of my actions.

“I’ve been trying to improve. It’s not easy.” I replied while absently studying my garment.

“Recovery seldom is, or so I’ve observed.” He responded.

I hummed and tried to figure out what exactly to do with this situation. There was a wall of things to be said but not once had there been time for it. My varied training with Shazam had occupied most of the last few weeks. She had kept us busy, moving from one topic to the next and constantly traveling. Plus writing with a quill and ink had proven difficult in the snow.

“Did you have questions for me, Hermes?” The black man almost seemed upset at me. Perhaps he expected far more questions than I had asked so far. My brain was more focused on the ruined clothes. Finally, I shoved the item into my inventory for another day.

“Hmm.” I pondered from my side of the room. There was still a world of gray on my side, the fallen curtain lay on the floor as a divider. On the other side was the character creation zone. So far none of the Voices had appeared over here.

“Did you have Shazam kick me into a glitch so we could talk?”

“Yes. I find face to face conversation far easier than your limited attempts at communication.” James gestured to the scroll case on the ground. It was still heated and flakes of soot were littered nearby. “Why have you not spoken to me more? I told you that I could answer nearly any question you wish about our world.”

“I did try to ask you questions.” The old pattern of exchanging information was easy to fall back into. Having had a recent session with my shrink helped. “Only the Jester person intercepted them.”

Upon mentioning his name, I could see just the smiling mask fade into being. It was still on the dark half of the room. There was no way I would step over and risk being closer to that creepy face.

“Did I not explain? You need merely write the name of whoever you’re trying to contact on your note.” I almost rolled my eyes as James spoke. Of course, it was something simple like attaching a name. They were treating the scroll box as a messaging system and I had just sent them into the void for anyone to grab.

“No. You didn’t, now I have another question.” I managed to remain calm. How did a computer forget a simple instruction like that?

“Please, do ask.” James seemed eager.

“Why would Vice President Riley think that I’m being interviewed as a result of having an Ultimate Edition?” I asked. Cue the river of noise. Time dilated which caused my head to swim. This was the fourth or fifth time that this had happened to me when dealing with the Voices. I was almost used to it by now.

“Enough.” James cut the others off. He turned back to me and shook his head. “I can’t explain in detail. Not this, not now. But rest assured that when the time comes, you will be allowed to decide how to proceed of your own volition.”

I almost put out a sarcastic response. That wasn’t my nature, though. Not before Xin, and not after.

“Does it have to do with the NPC Conspiracy trait you gave me?” I focused on confirming the simple connections instead.

“Yes.” James answered. The world spun again before a pulse of light hit the darkened side. Mother had put her foot down on whatever the Voices were squabbling about. That made me smile.

“Your turn.” I said.

James actually bit his lip and looked worried for a moment. It was odd seeing such an expression from the Voice.

“We have something that needs to be shared.” He said. This time there was absolutely no rush or noise or river-like conversations between the Voices. I looked into the darkness behind him and waited for one of the other Voices to pop in, but none did.

“I’m not going to like this, am I?”

“Based on our prior conversation, you will likely find this disconcerting. Yet, here we are.” He admitted. “Are you worried?”

“I don’t know, James.” I raised a hand to stop him from giving me the line about incomplete answers. “Miz Riley warned me that you would do something to try and draw me in. I didn’t feel like anything else was needed, yet clearly you all had planned for me to be here weeks ago.” My head shook back and forth.

It was easy to connect the dots in hindsight. I started the game and was migrated through the character creation void. They gave me two scrolls, one with a quest to improve myself, and one as a message to Shazam. Shazam’s message was to kick me off the cliff top into this glitch. The logic was straight forward enough. Their reasoning wasn’t.

“Yes, we need someone like you to help us fulfill our purpose.” He said.

“I thought that was delivering the messages around.”

“In part.” James sighed heavily. Once again that pensive face passed by his features for a brief moment. A single breath of awareness in my world must be an eternity in the mind of an AI. “Will you listen to our request?”

There was still a message box floating off to one side. It advised me to log out and back in. Doing so would earn me an unknown reward due to finding a glitch. I stared at it for a moment before shifting back to the black man.

“I’ll listen,” I said.

“This may be the last time we can talk freely, do you have any other questions?” James was giving me some freebies here. He also seemed eager to converse. I had signed on with him of course, way back during that first session of Continue Online.

“Miz Riley said that no owners of an Ultimate Edition have been harmed. I assume she meant physically because you’ve all done a good job of poking at my wounds. First with Xin’s autopilot, then Elane.” I was shaking a little bit. [Morrigu’s Gift] came out of player inventory and I gripped my fingers around the cane’s top. It helped keep me steady.

James waited patiently for me to wind up to my question.

“I have to know if you intend me or my family harm. Do you, James? Do any of you?” I said.

“Hermes, once again you misunderstand us. We have no desire to hurt you, we merely wish to give you choices. What happens from them is still up to you.” James responded. His head tilted down and both eyes closed. “That is how it is, and must always be, or there is no point in what we do.”

“So I’m in control,” I stated.

“Of your own actions, yes. The same can be said of every human. Do you not feel in control?”

“No. I feel poked, prodded, and studied like an animal.”

“Yet you still return to our world.” James' words did nothing to remove my feelings of being emotionally poked.

"Well, it’s helping." I gave him the same conclusion I had reached on the way home from Trillium. Continue, for all its questionable motives, had helped me improve myself.

"So you believe that this serves as the distraction you've craved?"

"It's more than that. I feel like, like I had the chance to be a better person. And that I took it."

"And here we are." He said.

"I thought about it.” In between fever dreams and bouts of training with Shazam. “About what the real difference was. I've been a coward, I've pretended to be brave." The game awarded me an acting skill because of my stellar talents at pretending to be something I wasn’t.

"You have changed if only a little." James nodded and gave his trademark smile. It reached nearly ear to ear with real happiness.

"That's not even it. Those are all things I've done, and they all pale in comparison to what I haven't done."

"And what is that, Hermes?"

"I haven't thought about killing myself," I said.

Something gasped in happiness. The noise belonged to someone other than the Temptress or Jester. This was a voice I had only heard once before. A male tone that made the back of my head itch and shudder. James looked at me, and then at the side. The itching feeling that made my skin crawl, faded away with a disappointed grumble.

"Pardon. Some of my colleagues can be over eager for stimulus." He said.

I looked around and tried not to feel conflicted. I hadn't been in this room for almost two weeks now. The last time I tried to end myself had involved all sorts of check-ins and ongoing return visits. Returning to this room where James had prodded me felt like those follow up appointments with the doctor.

"Time runs short, James.” A female wearing a lab coat came into being. She looked vaguely like a woman from the middle east somewhere. The only issue was her eyes, an almost pitch black with oddly placed sparkles of light. “If we're going to do this, we need to start it soon."

"Of course. Hermes, there is much I wish to explain to you, but none of it is under my control. Instead, I will show you something and make an offer."

"I don't like how this sounds, James."

"Nor do I. We all do as we must." He said. James waved an arm. In the haze, a scene sprung to life. There was a young man with dark hair sitting in a clearing. His eyes were a bit narrow and there was a softness to the facial features. He wore some sleeveless getup that was a dusky black.

In front of the youth was a long list of characters that I had come to associate with [Lithium], Continue Online’s language of magic. They formed two circles, one around the younger, and one around a cleared area. Small piles of ash and other objects littered the inner circle.

“What is that?” I asked.

“A Traveler from your world who has abused my patience.” Near the projected image of a young man in the clearing came another female Voice. Her body and clothing seemed to coalesce from dark red wisps of energy. She was extremely pale and a dark red garment hugged her curves.

“This man is attempting to summon a familiar.” If Miz Riley had been just a hint, this Voice was like a storm of southern accents. It took me a few seconds to decipher her words.

“Why do you need me?”

“It’s simple, sugah. I want you to pose as his familiar.”

“Jean, right?” I had tried to memorize all the Voices' names. Jean had only popped into being around me a few times. Once when dancing with the Jester, and another time after Leeroy stated her name. She had something to do with vampires, of a sort.

“You remembered.”

“You stood out.” There were many Voices that constantly appeared every time I showed up in this room. Jean was just one of the list.

“Tramp,” The Temptress muttered from elsewhere. Leeroy’s laugh echoed through and even the Jester let out a brief mechanical cackle.

“Because he’s a Traveler, and our attempts at moving him forward have failed,” Jean said while ignoring the other Voices. She didn’t seem the least bit phased by their constant interrupts.

“Our request is simple. Pose, once again, as someone else. This time as a familiar for a fellow Traveler.” James said.

“And what about my main character, Hermes?”

“Hermes will still be guided around by Traveler Shazam.” Jean waved a hand dismissively. Clothing around her wrist seemed to flutter and pull away like thick smoke being brushed around.

“Shazam is my charge.” A second, third, I don’t know, a new female faded in. This was a Voice that was new to me. She wore a white doctor's coat and had a notepad in one pocket. Next to her was an empty medical bed.

“I’ve heard you.” My eyebrows squinted. The new Voice was tanned. She had glasses and brown hair with small streaks of blonde shooting through. There was maybe an extra thirty pounds of weight around her waist. I tried to recall exactly when this Voice had crossed my path.

“Memory being accessed, adjusting, there.” Her talking was both disconcerting and helpful with identification. This Voice had been the one to cite my recovery after being assaulted by the Temptress. I think. There was only the Voice’s voice to go off of. I squinted at her. “He remembers. Excellent. Subject's response time is admirable given our limited interaction.”

“Hermes has proven to be of reasonable intelligence,” James confirmed for me. I ignored his commentary and focused on the woman in a white lab coat.

“Shazam is your charge?” The words took a few moments to sink in. “Then she’s an Ultimate Edition user like me?”

“Affirmative. I too have a task for you, which will need to wait until later.” She said while turning to the black man. “James. Time runs low.”

“I am aware.” James responded. The slightly overweight doctor faded away with a sharp nod.

Neat. Miz Riley would be getting a sizable report tonight. A week with no Voice interaction hadn’t done much to please her. Being tossed all these things at once might keep the Vice President happy for a while yet. Especially if they were sending me on another Carver-like mission.

“As with any quest you undertake, there will be rewards.” He said. “This one will be a bit more personal.”

“What does that mean?”

“You have fallen behind on answers, but now is not the time to settle those debts. As Irene stated, time runs low.” I filed away the name Irene. Based on the current logic flow, that was Shazam’s personal Voice much as James was mine. James waved an arm in the air.

“You must be made aware of two more details.”

“Okay.”

“First, your mission as a familiar is simple.” James managed to keep a straightforward expression. “We want you to kill the Traveler.”

“What?”

The Jester’s mechanical cackle came out of the background and seemed to fill both sides of the room.

“It is not his real body, merely his existence in our world. Doing so will cause him to fail his quest and allow us to offer it to another.”

“Oh,” I said. That whole train of thought would need to be filed away for another day. Time was short and both the remaining Voices seemed agitated. Jean was glaring at the Traveler's image. She prowled around the outer edge of the projection and kept wrinkling her nose distastefully.

“And now for the part I do not like,” James said. He waved his arm again and a second image faded into being. This time there was no clearing, no woods, no Asian young man chanting in front of a circle. No, this was a face I knew all too well.

Instead, there was an ARC device sitting on the ground. Inside it was a male. Hanging over the top was a vague female outline. There were things I knew about that second figure that just made sense. Her arms were well toned from years of physical therapy. Hair had been cut short to prevent a mess while in zero gravity. She put all of her weight onto the forward part of her foot rather than a heel like I did. It helped her feel taller.

"Is that..." I clenched my eyes shut and tried not to scream. How many times was this nonsense going to happen to me? How many times would the Voices throw the image of my dead fiancée in my direction?

"This is a projection. That is the core of your deceased fiancee, Xin Yu."

"I thought..."

"She was. We attempted to scatter her many times, as we did with William Carver and so many others." James practically shook with all the anger I felt. Dusk, who had spent most of our conversation trying to shred the remaining curtain, looked up at me.

"But..." I said.

“In her mind, she is waiting over what you call an ARC device, waiting for you to come to.” James said. For a moment I was worried that he even understood what the term ARC meant. He did also have access to my side of the machine and all the information therein as a result of one of earliest conversations.

“But she’s not really outside my ARC.” I said.

"No. She is here, in our world, and she should not be this whole. She has proven, resilient."

"How? What?" This was no longer my fiancée in the abstract. That was Xin. The way her face moved. How she turned. Each motion of her body had haunted my dreams for years.

I had somehow stumbled close enough to almost touch her. To reach out and put an arm over the woman who draped over an ARC device. I looked down inside the ARC. There was an image of me. It was strange, confusing, and heartbreaking.

"Some people have more of them here than others, Mister Hermes." The tiny girl and her book tugged at my pant leg. I looked down into her eyes. The frame of her face and tilt of her head seemed innocent. Yet those eyes held too many colors. There was knowledge there that simply existed.

"Be careful what you say. We already push too much." The female Doctor, Irene, said from somewhere in the darkness.

"So what? We've embarked upon this road. Follow it or cease your prattling." The Jester snapped. For the first time ever his face contained no mocking smile. There was an angry sneer under that long nose. A shudder passed through me. The Jester had lost his smile. This conversation was enough to aggravate the ever amused Voice.

"We can persist in our attempts at scattering her, to let her rest in peace as you expressed a desire for. Or..." James paused and his face twitched.

"Or..." I prompted desperately.

"We stop standing in her way, we let her assemble within our world, and see what comes of it," James stated. The rest of him was angry, but his eyes felt abnormally cold.

"I'll do it," I said. The ramifications would be contemplated later. For now, for Xin and whatever she was, I would do anything.

A box displayed in front of me.

Quest: Desperate Summons Difficulty: High Details:

You have agreed to pose as a familiar for a Traveler! As a new familiar your personality markers will be determined upon summoning. Additional success in this role will increase your acting skill. Other abilities may carry over based on performance. The duration of this act is until your primary goal is completed.

Primary Goal: Cessation of Traveler known as Requiem Mass

Failure: Depends upon the whims of the Voices

Success: Allowance of genesis for Xin Yu

"Who writes these?" I asked while clicking the quest's accept button.

"I do, me and my brother." The young girl said. Most of her face was hidden by the book's edge but I could see a small hint of smiling.

I smiled at the youngster before turning my gaze back towards Xin Yu’s form. Her intangible projection was still hanging over an ARC device. I wasn’t sure exactly how that tied in with me, but it almost didn’t matter. She was trying to find me. Even here in a digital landscape, here in a world that was almost an illusion of the mind.

I could do no less. For her, I would kill a man. Virtually. It was just a game. That line played in my head over and over. This was not reality. Yet how could I buy in on Xin being real, and not think the same of murdering a Traveler?