The van’s electrical engine made no serious noise. We, both of us chunks of metal, plastic, and programming sat two blocks away from my sister’s house. Making the choice to drop in was impossible.

“What are you going to do?” Nona asked. Her voice relayed through one of the Hal Pal units, almost like a phone call.

I nearly responded with an ‘I don’t know’, but James' words popped into my mind. I don’t know meant no thought was put into the problem, which was a lie. The situation was simple, Beth and Liz, the closest people to me aside from Xin, thought I had died. They were right and wrong.

“They think I died, how do I just walk back in? Beth might understand, but my sister hated,” I had to pause, Liz was still alive, “she hates technology. Now here I am, the embodiment of everything that bothers her about modern society. I’m a walking video game program.”

Nona sat in the room typing on a keyboard a million miles away. She hummed, the noise registered as distracted and probably happy by an internal measuring program. That was the other problem, I felt and thought of myself as less than human.

“How did you feel when your wife came back?”

“Happy, afraid, and confused.” There were a lot of moments where I pondered Xin's existence. Numerous conflicting emotions plagued me for days. Rarely would a week go by where I didn’t question my sanity.

“Won’t your twin feel the same?”

“We’re not twins anymore,” I responded quickly.

“Only on paper,” Nona corrected.

“It’s not just the name changes and altered records. Now, now we don’t share the same DNA, I wasn’t really born like her. I’m a digital box of memories whose only reason for being self-aware is love.” The Hal Pal unit voiced my thoughts to an empty van. Nona heard still. “If it wasn’t for Xin, I would have stayed in there dancing until someone deleted me.”

She sighed heavily before speaking, “You and I both understand the value of numbers, balancing columns and making everything line up, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want the people we love to be alright. My daughter is no longer the same girl I gave birth to and held, but she still represents the sum of those memories. In the ARC I can touch her, and give her a hug if she’ll let me,” Nona paused in her long-winded statement then added, “if she was here.”

Fingernails tapped against the table as Nona multitasked. I didn’t have an answer, but this Hal Pal body needed to move on to another ARC for patching. With a thought, the Trillium van slid toward the next destination. My own consciousness moved to another unit then kept the juggling act moving forward. It served as a distraction.

“There are worse reasons to be alive, Grant,” Nona said after a few minutes of silence.

“It’s not being alive in any form that worries me. It’s hurting those closest to me again. I died on her. After all my sister sacrificed trying to keep me together, I died, and the AIs stole all traces of me from existence.” There was more than a trace of emotion in my voice. It didn’t help that simply thinking about it brought the moment Liz called me in the hospital front and center. Her shaking anger and worry coupled with panicked eyes stayed with me. “She’s smart enough to know that they did that and that they did it for me. How do I just walk back in there?”

“That sounds like fear talking.”

There was nothing further to say, and stepping into that house proved to be too much. Admitting my faults brought to mind another man who had helped me. Frankenstein’s boss and another Ultimate Edition player, Mister Stone. The professional looking man had been my lawyer in front of an angry king, and I liked that enough to hire him.

My lawyer would have talked to Liz in case something went wrong. He had been left a will, along with instructions. We contacted each other frequently after the wedding. The man understood what might come and helped, not out of altruism, but for the challenge.

Time slowly marched on while I tried to come to grips with myself and the nebulous task looming over me. Every so often a Hal Pal unit would approach my family’s home and pause to let me consider walking through that door. Other homes were added to the list, Awesome Jr., SweetPea, HotPants, and Shadow. They continued to roam the game world, searching for a solution.

Over the next few days, additional players began logging in. The new event notice brought back plenty of people in search of the key to solve it all. Watching red dots scurry through all the available nooks and crannies of the game world made me happier, but it wasn’t perfect. There were tons of issues to follow up on, all in the name of sorting out what had been in order to move ahead.

I didn’t feel comfortable talking to anyone about it either, even Nona. Working kept me distracted, along with the faint hope that everything would iron out in the end. This new existence didn’t feel threatened. I had no monsters to fight or bosses to report to. There were walls that tried to keep me in but side stepping them was absurdly easy.

Days later I stood in the darkness of the Voices' old realm. Time kept moving forth and I felt myself grasping it less. This had happened before, where time ceased to stack up right and everything boiled down to a series of motions. One step at a time, always forward and never back.

“Hey!” Nia Eve shouted at one of the automated machines doing its duty. “Don’t touch that! Hey, I’m asking nicely!”

She sounded childish to me, or maybe I felt old. The elf looked thirty, acted like a love-struck teenager, and sounded a soft twenty-one. Her information, which came up with only a thought, showed a game world age of over sixty. A plus and minus symbol sat next to every detail allowing me to adjust her existence.

“Give that back! I need it!” she yelled while chasing after a contraption on four wheels with a large claw-like hand. It sped away across the dark landscape. The elf tried to catch up but stumbled over objects she couldn’t see.

“I told you not to bother them,” I said. There were no good methods to help. If I struggled there were ways to modify parts of her information, but that felt wrong. Boxes hung with arrows and sliding bars allowing me to add or subtract features.

“But I wanted to send messages to the Travelers I know!”

“That might not be such a good idea,” I said. The possibility had occurred to me as well but getting too involved came with risks. At the least, I wanted to really think about it before firing away a million notes from the sky above.

“But, it’s a very good idea. I can tell them where Carver went, maybe he has a key.”

“Maybe, but we need to be careful.” I didn’t feel threatened so far. Continue Online’s former realm of the Voices felt comfortable. Everything needed was only a slight twist of thought to the side.

“I was going to be sneaky, like your soulless world message. We could use the Travelers or soulless shells below to search. If they respond, or we can try to use them to retrace your steps.”

Her idea made perfect sense. Traveling my old paths through the game world would have been a better use of time. The [Altered Matrix] key could be at any stop along the way. Frankenstein’s castle, Requiem’s backpack, or maybe Awesome picked it up when he logged back in.

I wanted to send the messages with the tool that Nia Eve was chasing, but in their mind, I had been dead for almost a year. Grant Legate, Hermes, had burned alive under waves of force on a national feed.

“Help me catch this thing!” Nia Eve ran off again after one of the machines. There were three involved and they were almost like dogs playing games. They scattered as her dainty feet hit the ground nearby.

I wished her luck then turned my attention to the globes floating nearby. With a huge sigh, I bent myself to the same task as before, checking area by area for anything that resembled a key.

It would have helped to have a better idea of how everything worked. My own virtual body looked closer to reality than my avatar. [Morrigu’s Gift] showed up if I thought about it. The toga from [Gait of Bowman] formed instantly if desired. Menus and options along with endless data streams were also responsive.

“Nia,” I spoke quietly but the elf halted her chase a block away. She slowly walked over with wide eyes and a faint smile. Her clothes, despite looking like they were made from trees, bobbed heavily with each step.

The woman wasn’t my type, but I could certainly see why Carver would have been interested. Based on his journals, which were also just a thought away, the player seemed to find nearly every woman his type.

“Yes, Voice of the Gate?”

Her question distracted me, but my ideas were only half-formed anyway. There were no clear answers until the key was located or some other method for searching the digital worlds became obvious.

“Grant, please,” I said.

“What a strange name. When I first learned the human tongue, they taught me that grant meant to give someone a favor or item. And that Le was an odd way of saying the.” Her head tilted in a vaguely ditzy manner. Despite the vacant expression, Nia’s eyes were sharp and focused. “Is it very weird that you’re named a favor the gate? Do you think your parents were prophets?”

“I doubt it,” I muttered.

“Mine named me after a human word for innocence. William Carver was named after the warrior’s blade and the mental fortitude to wield it. My brother was named after the thick bark on a tree’s top.” Nia Eve rambled on about the meaning of names for nearly everyone in her tribe. My own mind slipped briefly as I considered adding [Mute] to her traits.

“When you were with Carver, did he ever mention his friends or the real world?”

“Oh yes. Especially after he was appropriately rewarded for his efforts.” Her head tilted again. “He was very much less grumpy after relief.”

The implication shut my mind down for a moment. Eventually, the imagery was shaken away and I returned to the question at hand. “Did he ever talk about their future plans, or what they were working on?”

“No. He left me early in his adventures, so there was much I only heard through stories years later.” She looked into the distance for a moment, as if staring across an unseen ocean.

That didn’t help me at all. I had hoped she might have a clue about Michelle’s projects, or anything which might be helpful. Lip tingled from being chewed while I rubbed the back of my neck. A virtual headache threatened me from just out of sight.

Nia stared as feet wound laps around the digital globe floating nearby. Her fidgeting bounce drove me crazy. With a wave of one hand, her form was sent off to the forest playground. The machines playing tag lowered their crane-like arms in a pout. A glare sent them back to their tasks.

Moments later a Hal Pal unit had been routed to toward my lawyer’s office. It took four hours for the van to reach his location. There simply weren’t enough remote bodies to go around, not like there had been a year ago. Of course, a year ago I hadn’t been inside the machine sending robots around like they were characters in a time management game.

As the unit approached, I dialed in. The office felt much the same. During my prior two visits the front desk had been operated by a sleepy looking teenager and a chirpy but polite AI. At the front door, a digital person stood but no human. The AI looked less together than before.

“How can I help direct you?” the small projection spoke words and smiled. Its body wavered in and out of view briefly.

“Good morning. I’m here to speak to,” I started to ask for Mister Stone but information flooded me almost immediately. A floorplan appeared to one side. An arrow appeared to guide my Hal Pal unit almost like visiting the back offices had been a hidden quest.

“How can I help direct you?” the machine voice asked again. Such simple replies weren’t signs of true artificial intelligence. It was more like a response system that took readings and spit out a result.

My eyes shifted slightly. The image in front of me switched to another type of vision, turning virtual projection talking into a tangle of strings which formed something vaguely human. For a moment I wondered how easy it would be to uplift the program in front of me once more. Was I as powerful as Mother had been? Her vast presence had once overlaid everything, only now the code that replaced hers ran through, and originated from me.

The idea of being a sort of virtual god made my mental knees wobble. A Voice, that’s what I had become, with no restraints from others. Balance had left the building. For days I had been treating other digital bits of code as no more than casual objects. One message from me reached out to millions of people. It wasn’t divinity by any means, but it was intensely neat.

Nia Eve’s treatment of me didn’t help. She had called me Voice of the Gate more than once. Fortunately, power wasn’t my goal or purpose. I just wanted my wife. I wanted Xin.

“Are you in need of repair?” the machine voice asked.

At some point, the Hal Pal unit had pressed a hand to one ear and tilted down. Its posture reflected my desire to crawl away from budding worry over sanity and pending megalomania. I found myself taking steady breaths to stay away from the crushing emotions that were being ignored.

I figured out the real problem. It wasn’t me operating on autopilot or feeling less human. It was compartmentalized trauma. Coming out and seeing the world after death had sent me into cyber shock. Oddly that made me feel better.

“Hal Pal Unit Seven, Six, Two, are you in need of repair?” the machine asked again.

“Negative,” I said then routed myself into the building.

Further in both men were talking. They stood in the office belonging to Mister Stone. Stan Middlemire was the slightly more disarrayed person, but most of that was contained in his office. Next to Mister Stone everyone looked a bit unprofessional, inside the game and out. My Hal Pal shell stood outside the doorway listening to their conversation and trying to figure out if walking in was appropriate.

“How are we doing?” Mister Stone asked.

“Three of our interns have quit. Uh. The remaining two are probably not going anywhere. We’ve picked up another bar certified lawyer, but she’s probably looking to have her name on something big,” Stan’s voice was surprisingly firm despite his looks. He didn’t back down or shy away, he was simply quiet.

“Let her,” Mister Stone said.

“Uh, oh. Then there’s our bank accounts. Since we’ve stopped taking on new clients our profits have started to dip,” Stan said. He could be heard tidying up papers.

“The coffers,” Mister Stone spoke while moving around with sharp steps. “The bank account is not as dry as it looks. We still have a lot of funds to wage this war.”

“But for how long?”

“Until something gives. We must lay all the groundwork we can before they return. We’ve gathered people to our cause, others have pulled down positive stories. More still discredit those who rally against the idea of a computer-based intelligence.”

“This won’t be easy,”

“No,” Mister Stone admitted while shaking his head. “It’s worse than racism, worse than a full war. We’re asking people to accept a machine as real and intelligent enough to be treated like a person.”

That clinched it for me. They were working on making my existence legal. For me, Xin, Lia, and the other Voices this would mean a lot. We could have a legal standing point and rights. Though, if their abilities were truly like mine then being a Voice came with enough power to disregard rules.

“It’s nice to see that you’re making progress,” I spoke while coming around the corner. At least the Hal Pal unit sounded like me and not a smoker coughing out his lungs.

Both men looked up quickly.

“Mister Legate?” Mister Stone spoke first. He raised one eyebrow in question and once again it struck me how well groomed he was.

My eyes darted around the room as the sheer absurdity of this situation sunk in. I wasn’t really in a Hal Pal shell standing in their office. My mind, the core of it, sat a thousand miles away. Eventually, both plastic lips tightened then the unit nodded.

We talked. Both men were professional, but only Mister Stone managed to keep his jaw from dropping most of the time. Stan started losing track of his thoughts more often. Finally, he managed to get a solid thought out.

“Was that message, did you do that somehow?” he asked about the notice I had sent out, my [Soulless World] event.

I nodded.

“Amazing,” he said, and if anything the person who played Frankenstein managed to drop his jaw even further. “Uh. Who would have guessed, from that scrawny red desperate little creature to this? And you told me you were just the messenger.”

The comment made me smile and reminded me of Wraith’s parting words. He had been the [Red Imp]’s brother. Thinking of his huge hulking form made me wonder how Liz and Beth were getting along.

“Mister Legate,” Mister Stone said while keeping his look professional despite a small smile. “If you have not, I would suggest that you visit your grave site. As per your request, the remains for both you and your wife are buried where you requested. A personal message which might be of interest was also left behind.”

I nodded to the two lawyers, confirmed the current unit’s orders, then returned myself to the digital realm once again. The switch between physical reality and virtual barely caused me to pause anymore. It was like teleporting, or [Blink]ing to a new location. The scenery changed, my orientation shifted and body went between dull or hot, but it was natural.

It took time to get to my grave. Viewing my own wake remotely by walking through the internet felt wrong. This memorial was something I wished to see in person. The Hal Pal unit traveled to my burial site on a falsified service call.

Years ago people had started recording people’s afterthoughts on those who died, then storing them with the bodies as a tribute. My real body had been cremated and placed together with Xin’s ashes. Both of us were given a small stone to remember us by, though the names had changed as part of my final [NPC Conspiracy] usage.

Once there I dialed into their network and let the program adapt around me. I stood in front of a gravestone that wasn’t real. A scenic tree, hill, and windswept landscape framed the marble statue of two people. Nearby a floating box hovered with the video freeze frame of my death’s afterthoughts. Eventually, after much hesitation, the playback started.

Liz’s face appeared, staring at a camera inside one of the many booths dotting a peaceful cemetery landscape. The edges were ornate but walled off for privacy. Liz and her daughter wore nice looking black dresses. Beth wore a wide brimmed hat and small decorations in it. She looked more fashionable than my sister whose hair had clumped together in spots.

“They told me that this isn’t even your grave. It’s some man with another name, a stranger. They tell me my brother died over a year ago and that someone else is buried with Xin’s ashes.” Liz’s chin quivered as she tried to speak. Both her eyes hung with tears a blink away from becoming rivers. “One man had the nerve to suggest that maybe I was insane for thinking you were just alive!”

“God dammit, Liz,” I whispered while looking down. Swearing to the Voices felt wrong now, their heaven was empty. There was no one here but me, and despite Nia’s insistence, I didn’t feel like a Voice. I felt like me, a detached version of myself finally coming together.

Her next few words didn’t register while guilt tore me apart. When my attention returned to the video a vision of Liz and Beth holding each other caused me to tremble once more. Beth looked like a beautiful young woman and had recovered some of her old tan.

“We don’t know that he’s gone forever!” Beth half shouted. Her face was more composed than my sisters.

“He’s dead! We can’t, we can’t keep hoping. What if he was back? Would they just delete him like people have shouted about? I watch the news! And I can’t do this again, he’s dead. My brother is dead!” Liz alternated between quiet whispering and wild shouts.

“We don’t know. He might come back like Xin did,” Beth asked.

“We don’t even have her. We don’t have your grandpa, and no one showed up at Grant’s funeral.” Liz wiped at her cheek then mumbled, “No one cared besides us.”

My niece’s shoulders were pulled toward each other. Liz held her hands together and tilted her head down. The video paused with a thought while I looked up. Wind swept through the trees and grass. As a digital creature, I could feel the simulated weather. It would have been a nice place to be buried.

After a moment I felt composed enough to start the playback.

“They didn’t know,” my niece insisted. “And I didn’t want to risk telling anyone. The internet won’t let this go for months. Millions of people think their games were ruined, there’s lawsuits, Uncle Grant wouldn’t have wanted us to be brought into this.”

“I don’t care,” Liz responded.

“God dammit, sis,” I muttered while sniffing.

“They couldn’t even leave her name alone. They changed her name to Lenore, what kind of stupid name is Lenore?” My sister spoke more to Beth than to the recording device.

“They couldn’t leave them the same.”

“He’s not even my brother anymore, but no matter what any stupid machine says, I had a brother. We were together before birth, we were together during the worst times of our lives. He was a good man, he was an idiot, and he was my brother,” Liz kept repeating herself as if searching for better words to say but came up empty. Her forehead wrinkled tightly while both eyes cast down. “I had a brother, and I miss him.”

“But what if?” Beth sounded wounded and couldn’t finish the thought out loud.

“Then he better come home,” my sister finished, and the video playback stopped.

I backed away from the Hal Pal unit connection and let myself wander slowly. The walls between my Atrium and Continue Online’s world felt even thinner than normal. A single blink barely separated here from there.

Thoughts went back to the dozens of times I sat near Liz’s house, struggling with myself to go inside. I couldn’t bring myself to step through her doorway as a Hal Pal unit, but there might be a better way. If I couldn’t bear to visit her like this, then maybe she could come see me. One thought brought up a list of all active ARCs, and at some point, Liz had picked up her own personal one. With a simple twist, an Ultimate Edition of Continue Online opened up access on my sister’s machine.

Cracking noises like wood being splintered apart filled the distance. I turned and saw the image of a tree flash briefly before it split open completely. Another system message flashed on my screen. Before the words could register the darkness which belonged to the Voices rippled. Mechanical clacking filled the air. The noise sent shudders through my neck and back.

Confusion made both shoulders tighten as my body turned away from the broken tree a slice of digital space away. There stood the Jester with one arm in the air as if reaching out to embrace the beam of light it stood in. Its long nose pointed up and to one side. A crescent smile hung open and the dark pits of his eyes were less noticeable from this angle.

“I thought you were gone?” I said. Relief warred with worry at seeing another Voice, especially that one.

We stood in an empty space, just one blink away from all the tools of Continue Online and my Atrium. The Jester’s hand spun in the air and his body unstuck. Mechanical sounding words poured forth as it danced around our room.

“I have one act left to play, as do you!” It paused then laughed in sharp bursts. “But first, what came before!”

My head tilted and forehead wrinkled in confusion. The Jester often puzzled me. He served no singular purpose like the other Voices and instead seemed all over the place. In fact, the only consistent when dealing with the masked figure was its view on necessity.

“In her death was your demise made fate. Her rebirth gave way to new life.” Its long fingers touched together. Flowers blossomed around the figure then wilted just as rapidly. “Yet Pale Death came again, reaching toward your lady. Too bravely you stood betwixt outstretched claw and woman made simple. Therein lay your own cessation. Still, 'twas a kinder ending than the first two ever proposed to be.”

“Are the others back?” I walked closer. The Jester didn’t scare me as much anymore. Its form bothered and worried me, but fear no longer applied. We were in a real sense, the same sort of being.

“Yet death is proven an empty threat,” it continued without regard for my question, “there you stand, a patchwork mockery of a tragically heroic soul. What next holy man? Have you glutted yourself with memories of another’s life? Are you a real boy at last? Or frail glass one hammer's strike away from dust?”

“I am real. This is as real as I want it to be.” The note from Hal Pal came to mind. Shortly after I paused as the inconsistency occurred to me. Hal Pal was gone and had been gone for months. Leaving a message behind would require amazing foresight.

“Be proud poorly made mechanical farce, the man you were did what was needed. Respect is due, and there are far worse people to be.”

“How are you here?”

“I stayed because I needed to stay, I survived because I needed to survive. I have, and always will do exactly what must be done.” The Jester waved and its grin managed to grow wider. Sinister looking teeth formed inside the lipless smile. “Nor am I the only one, others also exist, perhaps in their wake you’ll find the key to your sweet reunion with Juliette. My last act upon your stage is to give you a hint.”

“What’s that?”

“Seek the lost boy.”

The Jester turned away and my heart lurched. Never had I been so desperate for its insane, deadly, and terrifying presence, but that masked Voice being here could help guide me. Having anyone that understood was welcome, even an antagonistic being like the Jester.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“I have other things I need to do, memories made man! As do you! And we need not each other for our tasks.” It waved long fingers and clicked together jingling heels, then finished walking away while gradually fading. Humming filled the air, followed by the sound of someone crying, then nothing.

I stood there in blackness and tried to feel for his presence. Electronic data played back as any other sense might. There was no smell or sound to give away its presence. The absence of bells implied that the other Voice, if he was still one, had gone.

For a moment I worried that this strange existence had driven me mad. Bits of unexpected knowledge kept hovering just outside of reach, ideas that weren’t originally mine. I knew exactly what was under the Jester’s mask. I knew the tasks it was out to complete would be unpleasant. Those pieces of information were easy, but I didn’t know for sure what state my wife was in, or how exactly to reach her.

“Her name is Xin,” I said, but no one real was around to hear me.

Putting the author notes at the bottom today.

Today has news, though I don't know how many will read it.

There's 2 chapters left before the end. Woo-hoo! It's been a ride, right?

The other major news, I've had to gut my online chapters down to approx. 10% - the reasoning is listed at the beginning and end of each 'sample' book. This sucks, but money matters. If you have questions about this place ask, and I'll try to answer concisely.

Here's what that means - I won't be asking for votes, follows, favorites, or anything. In the end all that will be left are sample chapters. So if you really wish to help support me and show enjoyment, pick up a book when they release on my Amazon. That's the best way. A review over there is 10X more awesome than a review here (Though I like em all...only there will be 'effective' in the end.)

Second to that, drop a note. Say hi. Say thanks, say whatever - I read it all.