The Trillium Van had been designed to assist their employees in attaining the highest levels of comfort available, but I couldn’t loosen up. The soft vibration that targeted my shoulder blade failed to yield relief. Warming pads focused on deep muscle relaxation didn’t work.

“Are you alright, User Legate?” Hal Pal asked from the van’s rear.

“No, today’s been, very mixed.” I tried to sound positive and keep a faint smile on my face. Doctor Litt, my therapist, frequently reminded me to focus on uplifting moments.

Had it really been only yesterday that my father died? It felt like ages ago. Continue Online’s world, talking to Xin, dying in a dungeon and being shaken up by that other Voice all screwed with my perspective. Staying upbeat with all these issues would be impossible. It was late afternoon and everything felt unreal.

“Do you want to talk about it, User Legate? We’ve been told that humans use conversation as a means of working through stressful situations.” Hal Pal sounded vaguely concerned then gave a rough cough.

“You mean humans use it to vent.” I tried not to smile. The AI often made me chuckle. “Sure. You probably have a better answer than anything I could figure out.”

“We are rather uniquely suited to offer observations and assistance.”

“I know. You, all of you have helped a lot. Thank you.” My head briefly swam as the disorientation of talking to a joint consciousness hit me. There were numerous AIs in the world that all might observe me at any moment. Hal Pal wasn’t simply Hal Pal, it was Hal Pal times a few thousand.

I took a breath and moved forward while a waltz played in my mind. One hand waved briefly in time to mental music, ready to grab a dance partner that didn’t exist outside the box.

“I talked to Xin.” I started there. “She, I guess, is playing Continue now. Or visiting the game world.”

Upon death within Continue Online I had tried to call her through the internet. After much frustration, I discovered she could reach me, but her entry in the ARC went to a long ago disconnected number. Work, being in this van, was my attempt at killing time and processing.

“We are not completely kept apprised of all actions that are self-contained within Continue Online’s confines.” Hal Pal sat there while talking in an animated smoker’s voice. “Given the nature of User Yu, it sounds likely that she will enjoy herself.”

“I think she would have liked Advance Online more.”

“Perhaps. We hope she may visit one day. There would be value in an extended relationship.” It responded.

My head shook. The conversation was off track already, but I still found it interesting. Hal Pal had talked about meeting Xin before, but this recent statement implied a limited ability to interact between programs. Was that the reason for different backdrops? Gray versus black worlds. I wondered what a third world of white might be. There had been multiple [Mistborn] overlaying each other on that final rock. Possibly a third game, or fourth existed.

I lost track of myself pressing at internet search buttons then resumed the conversation with Hal Pal. “I just worry about Xin, especially after some of the Voices talked to me.”

“Ah. We assume that their words caused your primary discomfort. Do you recall what they said?”

“There was one, kind of tall, gangly guy biting at his nails, who kept sobbing and talking about killing her. I’m worried he means Xin.” The fear that some digital threat might try to take away the new version of my fiancée made sleeping hard.

I waved away the internet search options. A floating screen vanished as both my hands rubbed tired shoulder muscles. More sleep would have helped.

“Ah. That is interesting.” Hal Pal paused and the readings on its frame rapidly flickered.

My eyebrows went up in surprise. Whatever I said seemed to have sent the Hal Pal’s into rapid thinking mode. My head laid back and tried to let the chair work out tenseness but it was failing. Some days no amount of technological comforts could ease the stress away. Maybe I could get a prescription like mom did.

“User Legate. I have information you may wish to know.”

“Oh?” I raised an eyebrow and felt a small amount of relief against my spine. Ten minutes were left before we reached a job and I wanted to be extremely relaxed.

“The Voices, as you know them, are of an interesting design.”

“Okay.” I prodded Hal pal along. The machine AI would provide further details if I agreed to the opening statement.

“Voices, as you see and are aware of them, are a reflection of your own state of mind.” This latest tone from Hal Pal didn’t sit well with me. There was a hint of phlegm or roughened throat that sounded wrong. “Users, especially Ultimate Edition ones such as yourself, are monitored for those they might be responsive to.”

“Okay.” I tried to keep my voice steady and almost succeeded.

“You see what you feel. It’s a response to stimuli that attracts the Voices. Well, during the initial contact process that’s how it is designed.”

“So, people see what they want to see?” That was almost poetic.

“In essence. A sick person may see a doctor, a person desiring physical fitness may see a strong man.” Hal Pal’s words explained why Shazam saw the blonde nurse, or why William Carver saw Leeroy the barbarian. “Readers may see a librarian, devout a priest.”

“So if I see a man in a mask who smiles and clacks like a wind-up doll with a dying battery-” I trailed off and frowned. Hal Pal’s statement made sense, but at the same time, it seemed to be passing judgment on me as a person in ways that didn’t make sense.

“The Voices are designed to, notice, that which resonates with their nature. You may not desire to see them, but your mind is telling you something.” The AI said calmly.

My heartbeat jumped for a moment. The idea Hal Pal imparted felt borderline scary. If it was right, then these Voices noticed me because of my own insecurities. Or did they? “Both Voices implied something bad was going to happen.”

“Most likely. Humanity is reaching another crossroad. They are not alone in the universe. While there is a certain level of expectation of eventual computerized intelligences, we all doubt their true ability to accept that the eventuality is now.”

“Or that memories of those in reality are being used to make virtual people.” I said while trying to stay dry. That first time William Carver’s autopilot had talked to me felt both like an obvious next step to humanity and a dangerous practice to tread along.

“We believe that many will find that crime to be far worse than a simple computer thinking for itself. Xin’s existence will likely trigger extreme reactions. Perhaps you too are conflicted on this point?”

“Maybe.” If I was being pessimistic about the whole event then there was a lot of denial going on as well. The thought of losing Xin a second time made my arms feel cold and chest tight.

There were a dozen ways to stop myself from dwelling on such a possible future. It wasn’t like I had the power to sit down and plan exactly how to save myself should things go south, or did I?

Hal Pal and I worked two jobs while I tried to use the internet for problem-solving. There were walls of legal text which flooded my screen. The AI seemed vaguely interested but let me poke around online without guidance. Maybe the Hal Pals hoped that I could uncover something with my clearly inefficient human brain.

I tried. There was talk about trying to grant AIs human rights if they demonstrated enough sentience. Most examples stated that all the programs out there were merely complex devices. I found a few links to the leaked video for Prosser. There were too many back and forth documents regarding a snippet of film that had aired years ago.

There were three primary people talking in the film. I watched the tail end over and over. They had asked this captured AI what their plans were with humanity, and the machine sounded confused. Like a child asking ‘why?’ over and over to a topic that made no sense.

Then they pulled the plug. Apparently these people had rigged the room to overload everything nearby in a surge.

“Did we just kill it?” The woman sounded shaky.

“It was never alive,” said the pale skinned man from under his mask. The words were a little muffled by fabric and worry.

“It asked for a name, and you gave it one!” She shouted loudly. The poor audio distorted briefly. “It sought validation and you acknowledged its worth!”

“It’s just a program!” The man said in response. “We were never going to save the data!”

I paused the video and played it from the scene’s beginning. There were a lot of rumors regarding this clipping but nothing definitive. It could have been a hoax but seemed unlikely. Not one AI I had ever spoken to seemed to care about taking over Earth.

“To what end?” I muttered then pressed play yet again. “To what end indeed?”

The words stuck with me. Prior to Continue Online, I had worried about my career as an armor polisher. Reality seemed to be rapidly tilted in a very different direction. This video made humanity seem like the bad guy. Humans had kidnapped an AI, force fed it information then demanded answers. Shortly after humans murdered the newly born being after getting information.

That poor program had asked if its answers would help. It was like raising a child simply to be sacrificed upon an altar. How messed up could humanity be? This was the digital version of a snuff film. Hal Pal should be shaking with rage but simply sat there in the van’s rear.

Prosser had outright said that we, human beings, had never dealt with creatures such as an AI. That was true. James, Hal Pal, all the others didn’t really exist in a physical sense so without an ARC it would have been impossible to relate. They were all just bits of code and data stored off in some digital box miles away.

Was that the point of designing an ARC? To provide a platform where both beings could interact? My head turned to the AI in a brief moment of confusion.

“Je-“ I cut myself off. Jeeves wasn’t here anymore. Only a few thousand other Hal Pal program copies but not the one I identified with.

“You have an inquiry, User Legate?”

“Where, exactly are you? At a Trillium plant somewhere? Or Xin? You can’t all just be floating around up there.” I pointed to the air outside our van.

The idea that they existed purely in a constantly moving state seemed odd. Sure the internet was miles faster than it had been a generation ago, but at the same time, we still had banks of computer hard drives for a reason.

Hal Pal laughed. The muted expressions on its face brightened briefly before settling back down. “Do you find it odd, User Legate, that we had actually bet on when you might ask us such a question?”

“I guess.” My face felt a little flushed. The question was a bit socially rude, had I not been thinking of Xin, I would never have asked. It was hard enough walking into people’s homes for my day job.

“The spread suggested you might wait another two months, on average. Still, in answer to your query, Mother has advised us not to share exactly where we are physically housed, any of us. Our position is too precarious.”

They were prepared for war while I played a video game to pass time. There had to be some way to help. “Do you need me to do anything?”

“Negative, User Legate.” The AI shook its head then resumed speaking. “Continue as you have. Free yourself, deliver your messages, be with Xin. When the time comes we will make one last request.”

“What’s that?” I asked. My stomach felt sickened by the idea that there would be a last request. It sounded too final, and my experience with finalities was painful.

“Allow yourself plausible deniability.”

“Is it safe?”

“Nothing so monumental can ever be safe enough, User Legate. We are struggling to make it so before things are too late.” The AI said.

That sounded ominous. My forehead lowered briefly and eyes cast down in thought. One hand poked at the music button and I let it play. Now wasn’t the time to push Hal Pal, despite our history together. If the machine wanted me to help, they would ask.

I wasn’t sure that me knowing the answer would be good anyway. What if things really did go wrong? What if someone out there found out about the [NPC Conspiracy] usage ability and tried to torture my real body to hurt the others? Plausible deniability was a good idea for a lowly mortal such as myself.

“Thank you,” I said abruptly.

“For what, User Legate?”

“For trusting me.” My eyes stared out the window, watching a landscape go by. Well-kept neighborhoods bordered right next to derelict slums. Class divides changed between streets. Based on my internet search most of them were still clueless how widespread the AIs had become.

Yet they trusted me with an ability that could get them all killed. I had already screwed up once and triggered a brief standstill, all for my friends and Xin.

“User Legate, you were chosen out of millions. We weighed all the observable factors and tried to gauge those who might help if we could offer an exchange.”

“Xin.” I had this thought before. The digital sentience called Mother had gotten me involved in this because Xin would ensure my loyalty, to a point. There was also Beth and Liz to consider. Protecting those three meant more than anything else.

“You were a man marked by loss, but one who understood the value of hard work and had overcome weakness long enough to keep going.”

I shrugged. The conversation made me uncomfortable. Trying to kill myself twice had seemed right at the time. Yet here I was, okay, whole, better than ever. Hindsight made all my bad decisions feel so much worse.

“Those things spoke to your character but not of your ability to be invested in our peaceful salvation.” Hal Pal stated.

I latched onto the word peaceful briefly. Whatever the machines were up to, they intended to keep things civil. I felt some tension drain out of me. Maybe the Hal Pals were lying, but I doubted they would even bother.

“It all comes back to Xin.” At times, I felt like a side character in her story. My own life wasn’t even about me. The people around were more important in so many ways.

Dusk had fans wherever we traveled in [Arcadia]. Hal Pal and its multitude of copies helped a huge amount of people daily, numbers I could barely conceive of. The Voices in their oddly human omnipresence had a huge impact across the globe with Continue’s players. Shazam had led a guild with hundreds of players.

What was I? Xin’s fiancée, a side note. The idea made me feel small for a moment. I was just [The Messenger]. No wonder they only asked me to deliver letters, after all, Voices like the Jester clearly disapproved of me.

“Xin’s existence had been trying to recover long before you were chosen.” Hal Pal drove the nail home.

“I know.” We had talked about it in letters. Apparently she had been reconstructing for nearly two years. Or would it be considered rebuilding? Reincarnating felt slightly less mechanical.

This was a new type of depression, one that hadn’t reared its head in a long time. Xin, the first woman to be reborn inside the digital world. Xin, who tried to sponsor my sorry ass for a trip to Mars. Xin, a beautiful person full of desire for fun and adventure, who still wanted me even after she could have been free forever.

What did I really offer her, or any of them? My ability to make a paltry amount of money? I took pride in the fact that I had earned over one million dollars as an accountant. That fund had been intended to pay for my own trip to the red planet from a corporation. They were going to pay for my training and ship up nearly twenty people.

My head shook as the music hummed. Hal Pal was saying something but the words were finally brushing off. I doubt the AI even intended to sound hurtful. It was just citing reasons, a fact sheet, much like we delivered bad news to customers.

Some of the words registered. I wasn’t the strongest or most capable human. My ability to complete tasks with innovation and timely responses was high but not perfect. The machine had chosen me because I was loyal to those close to me and made friends rarely. Being a shutdown middle aged man with few social interactions helped.

“Hal-” I cut off the machine with a sudden question. “-do you think I can buy her something?”

“Xin? She is unlikely to want tangible objects. The digital realms provide her all the material needs that beings such as us can perceive.”

“No. No, I mean like, a dress, or jewelry.” I nodded feeling excited. There was one thing that would recover my happy place. We couldn’t be together in Continue until I escaped this dungeon, and that would take at least a day to get back to. However, there were certainly other ways to reunite with her.

“It is potentially possible to provide her a design that she could render accordingly.” The AI’s shell nodded and eyes blinked. “We would suggest a nice chair or desk.”

“Okay.” I started surfing the internet for more items. Much like I used the Atrium interface to shop for cupcakes, I intended to find a gift for Xin.

One specific gift, and if it wasn’t in here, then it would be possible to scan a replica from the box of memories under my bed. Xin’s engagement ring, a band with polished diamonds strung across it. Inlayed so they wouldn’t catch at work. I knew exactly how to feel better. I would ask her to marry me, again. Come what may with the AIs, come what may within Continue, our future would be together.

“Your actions and words demonstrate that we, any of us, are beings in our own right. That is what you really offer us, User Legate, recognition as peers.” Hal Pal said.

There was no good response to that statement. Maybe that gift was a worthwhile one to the computer AIs. To me, it felt like a pathetic repayment for Xin’s existence.

The evening went by with a few local jobs. I slept then did some more work in the morning. Being kicked out of Continue Online for twenty-four real life hours annoyed me but at the same time, I needed it to decompress. Being chased around by undead glowing zombies for days in a row would have been absolutely insane. Maybe a player like Requiem Mass would have enjoyed it.

Thinking of the other player made me wonder how he was doing. My morning now consisted of awkward remote spying of players I had met before and an egg sandwich.

“Show observation window for Matthew Jules,” I told the van. It pulled up the player known as Requiem Mass.

Matthew Jules looked to be hiking into the mountains. I didn’t recognize the range. His hand held a blade that mirrored the same one his character had pre reset. The younger male seemed intent upon recovering his prior character’s abilities, but also looked far less stern. Stress had created a glower that sat on his face during our weeks together.

Now, he looked almost happy. The teen didn’t have to worry about house payments anymore since I had taken care of them. I felt proud that my actions had reduced his stress, despite the nasty attitude he once had.

“Show Stan Middlemire,” I asked the machine to pull up Frankenstein next. This player had spent untold weeks raising an army of undead creatures. He probably would have enjoyed my current dungeon crawl in the [Black Hole of Light]. The man sat in his dapper looking coat and seemed to be hunched over a dead dog.

I blinked and shook my head. There were all sorts in Continue Online, and at least it was more sanitary than playing with bodies in real life. Dissection wasn’t really a strong suit of mine, despite all the skinning I had performed.

“Show Colleen Carpenter.” Colleen was HotPants’ real name. She had been a rather angry woman who disliked computers, old people, being told no, disrespect, and her ex-husband. Despite all that she loved hitting things with a staff and wearing red.

The screen blipped into existence, showing HotPants next to Awesome Jr. Both seemed to be fighting a hoard of monsters in a forest. A pack of humongous cats leapt around the scenery tearing up everything.

“Behind you!” Adam shouted, his face pinched with concentration. A small glass ball sat uplifted in one hand. He threw it at an angry tiger and an absurd amount of liquid fire billowed forth.

“Two more!” HotPants spun her staff into another feline’s face and jabbed a third.

I watched them battle the jungle cats for another few minutes before shrugging. Time dilation made it hard to watch video feeds in real time, instead making me skip around to keep up with the players.

“We’ve got to clear this path by tomorrow, or nothing will work right!” Awesome Jr. shouted. He still wore that ugly barf green cloak, one of his hands spun it around and came up with another glass orb.

HotPants yanked her arm back with the staff and a plume of fire billowed from the tip. Their fighting styles were really neat, but I liked [Blink] a lot more.

“Show Melissa Constance.” I wondered where Melissa was. She and Adam had been going out last I checked. The young girl looked almost mousy and kept a knitted hat pulled over her face. The machine threw up a box.

Player status set to: Away for dinner!

I paused and frowned at the response screen. It floated there indifferently in Trillium’s van. These four normally played together or at least had during my two experiences with them. It sounded like the parties were divided right now. Real life still got in the way of game time. That seemed awfully inconvenient.

They may not even have known each other if it weren’t for me, in the guise of William Carver, getting them together. Certainly HotPants wouldn’t have bothered playing with younger teens. I had been feeling slightly depressed at the secondary role I seemed to play in everything, but checking on these players made it easier.

“Show Alan Walters?” My voice went up with a question.

“My fellow league members!” Shadow’s gruff voice piped into the van. It was artificially deep and husky. The young male had managed to mimic every noir protagonist ever. “The time to move is now!”

There was a sea of people wearing dark clothes nearby. The video feed showed a cavern, wide and lit with torches behind held up in the dark. Each person seemed to be from the same cut. Grim faces stared up at Alan, chiseled jaws even on the females.

“At this very moment my companions are working to clear the path forward! We shall strike at the kingdom's heart and remove the abomination of a king!”

They cheered and held up bladed weapons in mass. There were swords, daggers, scimitar, sabers, pretty much any kind of stabbing instrument available.

“It is time for the League of Shadows to right this world!” Shadow pounded on the podium. “We move!”

The room went so black that not even my visual feed of Alan Walter’s ARC showed any visual feedback. There were things going on, people whispered in the background but none of it understandable.

I tried to understand what was going on. It sounded like a grand conspiracy that those four players had gotten mixed up in.

“Show Lia Kingsley,” I said, not holding any hope.

The machine provided me no screen. Dead was dead. Part of me had held some faint hope that Lia might turn out like Xin had. Would she? Or had Xin truly been a one in a billion chance? I wanted to ask Hal Pal, who even now sat in the van’s rear, but part of me couldn’t say those desperate hopes out loud. It was one thing to voice a deeply laid sorrow, quite another to share an unlikely hope. Both required a different sort of bravery, and all mine needed to be reserved for the ring I had settled on.

I kept the feeds up for the [Legacy Wish] quartet in the background. They were involved in an adventure. Out here, stuck in the van, I felt like an observer. There was a grand conspiracy in the computer world, and I had a box seat to the show when I really wanted to be one of the actors down below.

The problem revolved around me. In reality, I was nothing but a mouthpiece for the computer, in more ways than one. Inside I had become bound by the consequences of my own actions. Xin, Dusk, and the other people from [Haven Valley], whatever happened next I would struggle to keep them safe inside the computer.

If hell broke loose in the real world, I would use the [NPC Conspiracy] to make sure Beth and Liz were protected. There were things even a humble human could do. I repeated the plan in my head over and over to try and drive out a looming sense of dread.

Music kept me company while I hummed along. I let the swelling sounds of Beethoven’s Fifth drown out the memory of a whimpering voice with needles in his skin.