Continue Online (Book 1, Memories) (26 page)

"I
guess." A chance to understand this world more? To understand
exactly what this mystery was surrounding my fiancée? Sure.
"Yeah. I'll do it."

A
door slid out of the ground complete with a bright light and
everything. It was so cheesy I laughed.

“
A
question before I go, James.”

“
I’ll
indulge you, Grant Legate,” He said. I closed my eyes and
counted to three. Hopefully, a good name would occur to me within
these four weeks.

“
What
sort of game is this exactly?” Strange tests and altered
programming was only the tip of our insanity iceberg. Trillium and
ARC had really done an amazing job with this setting. Continue
absolutely deserved all the praise it received in reviews for
throwing me off enough to make me doubt myself.

“
It’s
no game. To us, it’s very real and very serious.” James
said.

“
Yeah,
that’s not ominous or anything.” I scratched my head. A
gentle tempo floated through the recesses of my mind almost setting
me to dance. Keeping in motion, drowning my thoughts in the music,
both helped me cope with the darker thoughts.

“
Do
not be mistaken. There is no intent to do you harm in here. What you
do in the world is entirely up to you.”

“
Aside
from this.” I gestured to the doorway of white.

“
This
too is your choice. Be one of ours, a man named William Carver, and
if you do well enough, you’ll get answers.” He responded
with that almost sly smile.

Again
I idly scratched my head and tried not to mutter an angry reply. All
the details would have to be figured out later. My next step was
simple, step through the door and get a lay of the land. Afterward, I
would log out and cool down. Maybe that hot tub program should be put
to more use.

My
amazing restraint, built over two years of therapy and meetings,
succeeded. Instead of having to deal with more of James’ half
answers and annoying responses there was this other option. I could
step through a door into non-player character land. If nothing else,
it was a distraction. I walked through the cheap doorway effect while
wiping at my eyes.

Interlude -
Everyone gets a Story

There
were some things that hadn’t changed over the years. Video
recordings were restricted, projections, Bio-Watches, anything modern
had been dialed back to keep the setting classic. We had a single
publicly owned camera rolling footage for security reasons. Metal
chairs, all in a circle, guys, girls, all shapes and walks of life,
here to share their stories.

Next
was my turn. To finally share my hand wringing sob story. Like the
others before me, and the others after me. This was the circle
intended for support. Support required sharing oneself in a room of
near strangers. I didn’t like it, but eventually we all shared.

“
My
fiancée had taken a trip to Florida that morning. Part of her
job application process, some tests. She left a day early and took
the train because they were going to retire the public rail program
to make room for the TRANS Tunnels.”

“
I
dropped her off, kissed her goodbye, and said I’d see you
soon.” Those who’d shared before me all followed the same
pattern. Final words to the departed mattered more than air.

“
I
didn’t know exactly what time the call came in, not until
later. Four oh seven PM, for seven minutes, thirty-two seconds.”
I’d stared at my phone call log absently until the numbers were
burned into the back of my retina.

“
The
woman on the phone told me that there had been an accident with the
train. She was clinical. Maybe a robot.” I shook my hands from
where the rubbing had pushed out too much blood.

“
The
train had crashed. Spilled over onto the interstate. Cars, passenger
carts, just, just, chaos everywhere. Casualties and unidentified
bodies. The woman on the phone said they were calling all family
members.”

“
I
got in the car, set a destination, and let the Auto NAV take me cross
country. You know, normal tragic mind numbed beyond belief stuff.”

The
actual ride had been much more complicated. I’d made calls to
my sister and parents, called my fiancée’s mother and
broke the news, looked up news articles. All the standard robotic
actions required in order to keep everything neat and
compartmentalized. My attempts at sanity were completed between bouts
of screaming and raging denial.

“
So
I get there, identify the remains, there was no doubt, her parents
had asked for a cremation, which I told them.” That was before
the bomb that had hammered the news to a worse level.

“
The
person, uhh, a doctor, I guess, he was wearing a white coat, he told
me she, my, uhh, fiancée, had been pregnant. Had. Wasn’t
anymore. Almost three months.”

“
I
nodded, tried to smile, and did, did all the paperwork. The uhh,
cremation, took only a few hours.” Modern technology painted a
very clear picture of what happened. A simple turn gone wrong on the
tracks, not even slightly malicious, no murder plot, one stupid
accident that ended so many lives.

“
A
technician handed it to me, the remains, and I sat there, uhh,
thinking to myself, how neat, the sum of her life and our unborn
child is smaller than a breadbox.”

A
broken chuckle escaped me. Someone else muttered that the attempted
humor wasn’t funny. I looked around, trying not to break down
while avoiding eye contact.

“
No,
it’s not is it.” There was a pause while I tried to piece
myself together once again. Something I’d done over and over
since she passed six months prior. In front of these people, I
couldn’t do it. Everything slipped.

“
You
know, I thought I’d be stronger. I’d always thought I’d
be cool as a ship in clear waters. I wasn’t. I went back to the
hotel I’d rented, crawled into a bottle, and life went downhill
from there.”

Someone
handed me a cloth because heaving sobs were all too common during
these meetings. I thanked them and wrapped up so another sob story
could be shared.

“
So
here I am, uhh, like you guys, trying to not need a bottle to get
through the night.” I gave a weak smile and covered my face,
dabbing my eyes and wondering how snotty my face was going to get
this time.

They
let us take a sorely needed break. Some people’s stories were
harder than others. I took a breather and walked to the bathroom to
compose myself. It had only been six months since she passed, but
every day was a short hop away from mental Hell. The wrong thought
would cause my chest to seize. Moments later and I’d be
fighting to unclench my hands from curled fists. A deep pain that
felt like a knife would jab into my heart.

This
was meant to be the start of my attempt at self-repair, to make
myself something resembling a whole human being. All these
technological advances and still the human heart was a frail thing.

Two
months ago I tried to kill myself.

Six
months after that introductory meeting, on the anniversary of my
fiancée's passing, I tried again. That was my lowest point.

"God
dammit, Grant!" My sister, Liz, was storming around the digital
representation of a tranquil riverside camping spot. We were
currently engaged in an online conference call because the doctor
thought it was the safest thing for my recovery. I was on all sorts
of drugs so it was hard to focus on anything but the sound of water.

"Seriously!
Again! You did this to me again!" She shouted, but all that made
it through was a slow drip. Her words took time to catch up.

"I
didn't do it to you," I muttered. There was no good self-defense
for trying to end my life. Intellectually the idea was absurd but
suicide wasn't about thinking. It was about feeling. "I did it
to me."

"Get
it through your thick head! What you do affects me." She said. I
slowly managed to tilt the virtual headset up and Liz's face came
into view. My sister was waving her arms around rapidly then crossing
them. One lip was being chewed on while she thought. "God, I
don't know if I can explain this to Beth."

"Don't."
The drugs made the word slur a bit.

"What
am I going to tell her then? That her Uncle, the man who basically
acted as a father when she was young, gained a new scar by accident?"
Liz glanced at me sidelong then looked away. That brief glance felt
both accusing and ashamed.

"Don't
tell Beth," I said.

"Of
course not, Grant. Of course not. But I thought we were doing well.
We had the meetings set up. Your counseling is going well still,
right?" Liz continued pacing around the room. She managed to
keep both hands under control by tucking fingers into her armpits.
Every so often Liz stared at the digitally rendered sun slipping
lower over the camp's treeline.

"I
guess." I may have missed a few meetings. I may have ignored a
few calls from my sponsor, which was a glorified way of saying a
babysitter. The thought made me frown, thinking badly about him was
uncharitable. Leon, the man who checked in with me once a week, had
been trying hard.

"I
swear to God, when you get home I'm going to rattle all your teeth
until some of this nonsense leaks out of your head." Liz stood
still for a moment before stomping around again.

"Okay,
Liz," I said.

"God
dammit, Grant!"

"I
know." I kept the tone low. Longer sentences were hard to get
out. Drugs had an adverse effect upon the digital software used by
ARC devices. Being sedated was bad enough but the hospital had put me
into a Second Player helm. This wasn't even a full Alternate Reality
Capsule.

Somewhere
in the virtual landscape a bird chirped happily. Crickets and frogs
made noise to fill the silence. None of them were real. I wasn't
comfortable in the wild anyway. Like most children of my generation,
we were all city kids who rarely visited nature. There was a bench
nearby that I could sit on. Liz kept weaving around it in her endless
pacing.

"Okay.
Okay. We can do this. Like last time. The doctor said you've got two
days under observation. Then we have to put the band on you again."
Liz said. She turned and started walking back towards me. Having a
plan made it easier for her to focus. We both had that in common. At
least we used to.

"I
know," I said slowly.

"Then
after the band is on and working you're clear to come home," Liz
looked down at my foot. That was where they would put on the ankle
band. Anywhere else and it was too easy to disrupt.

"I
know." I hated the band. It was part of my insurance plan. God
knows what those people would have to say about all this. Tests,
price hikes, rules would change. Everything would go together and
cause me a headache once these drugs wore off. Right then I wasn't
coherent enough to have a headache.

"And
we'll make sure there's a car available for your meetings. I'll start
working from home a few more days a week. We can do more dinners."
Liz pulled one arm out and looked at it. Her hand was shaking. My
twin sister shook her head and arm rapidly then tucked it back in
again.