Continue Online (Part 3, Realities) (23 page)

I growled. She probably would do it to spite me. We had fought over the internet once as children and she tattled to mom in order to get me kicked off. The plan backfired, though, lots of our younger years were like that.

"User Legate?" Jeeves looked perplexed at my frantic actions. My hands were waving in anger at the text message screen from Liz.

"Sorry. I didn't hear what you said." I shook my head and tried not to be upset. Liz only acted this way because she worried. Worried about me, that I might relapse or be going crazy.

Xin, all of it came back to her. Hal pal had somehow gotten me the Ultimate Edition of Continue Online, after a deal with Mother. Moving out, trying to kill myself twice, the new job. All of it truly started with her death.

"We should plant these explosives and prepare to disembark. If we're lucky we will get far enough away that the Wayfarer will send someone to bring us back." Hal Pal rewound its tether on the blue top like anchor. I relied on the minor energy usage of my ability to keep from being knocked into space by the
[Leviathan]
's small undulations.

"Fine. Give me a moment. I need to talk to my sister. She's threatening to remove my access to this game too." I waved at my chat messages to Liz. Hal shouldn't be able to see it, but the AI would understand.

"That is ill-timed."

"Family issues are never well timed, are they?" I said trying not to sound snarky. My sister made me feel like a teenager again, and not in any sort of positive way. Hours of bickering, tattling to mom, getting in trouble, all sorts of sibling nonsense.

Sometimes I envied children who weren't twins. Liz and I didn't always get along, even after being in the womb together. Sometimes it seemed like being so close made things worse.

There was a long pause. Years of being close to my sister gave me a fairly good idea of what she was thinking. Liz was probably upset that someone else knew more about my situation than her. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it.

Still, Hal Pal might be able to lend credibility to my situation. It knew things from a perspective that I could only glimpse here in Advance Online. The life of being a robotic AI, working with others of your kind, being inside the machine.

Did Xin's reconstruction see the world this way? Could she log into a game like Hal Pal did and feel vaguely alive? I smiled briefly and hoped that one day we might be able to share a view like this one. Asteroids all around, a giant planet close by. Even the
[Leviathan]
, she would probably find fighting this creature to be hilariously funny.
 

I made a note with the ARC's reminder system for a few hours ahead of time. We had a few days before this dinner date with my family, but I couldn't get distracted again. Not like the missed meeting with Doctor Litt.

"Here, User Legate. I believe this will be strong enough to get the payload off." Hal Pal had another metal cabling in its hands. One end connected to the blue top, the other to a conjoined set of red barrels. They looked weird being merged at center.

"I'll carry it. Will you be okay until then?"

"Dusk seems willing to guard our escape craft, if you're comfortable taking the bomb to this point, here." Hal pal pressed something in the air and a new screen displayed on my interface. A map swallowed up the lower right of my vision. One small marker popped up revealing where to go.

"Okay. But I'll admit, I'm surprised you have game skills to make a bomb." I shook my head and took the cable from him. There were two hand holds on the barrels that would serve to carry it quickly while the thick wiring seemed to be a final tether.

"It would be counterproductive if we both chose the same abilities, User Legate. A division of labor is highly productive."

"Mechanoids work better together, right?" I remembered from the race text.

"Yes," Hal nodded, "in this case it means dividing the labor based on our skills."

"And my skill is dragging the bomb off, huh?" I tried to smile. Once this thing went off it would likely send a ripple of pain feedback through the ARC. I could take it, though, months of abuse as the
[Red Imp]
had adjusted my pain tolerance by leaps and bounds.

Hal Pal walked over to the red container and pointed at two buttons on either case. I nodded, they clearly needed to be depressed in order to set this mixture off. Almost a year of working together out in the real world helped us require less communication in some cases.

"Got it," I said.

"That is reassuring. To answer your question, you are the one who learned to anchor themselves to a ship's hull and fight monsters. I could not even pass level twelve of the combat simulator," Hal Pal said. A dull imitation of bitterness passed across its face. Just a flicker around the eyes and one cheek pulling back slightly.

"Alright. Dusk, you keep Hal Pal alive, I'll drag off the bomb." I tried not to feel conflicted. Carrying explosives around in such an immersive game felt strange. Continue Online had explosives but
[Blink]
let me bypass pretty much all obstacles. Voices, I missed that ability. Getting around on the
[Leviathan]
would be so much easier.

"Good luck, User Legate."

"Thanks, Jeeves, stay safe." I nodded and grabbed the chain. A small message box popped into being.

"Neat. I shall call you the suppository explosive," I commented then got moving. Hal clutched its remaining tether. I could see it staring in my direction as the bomb and I shuffled away.

Dusk chirped with a tone that slowly faded into the background. He sounded upset, like a dog whimpering about being left behind. Dusk's lamenting came through as a weirdly combined cat-bird mixture.

[Anchor]
drained energy even faster. Gripping explosive barrels made moving harder than expected. The bombs' inertia caused me to slip more than once. I pushed off one ridge and we went sailing across to the next ripple of
[Leviathan]
flesh.

Ticks watched from down in the folds. Killing them without Dusk was difficult. Luckily I hadn't run across any nests in the last hour. That reduced the challenge a lot. I could only imagine that there were more creatures in existence the further toward the head we went.

My life reduced down to climb, hop,
[Anchor]
, hop again, rest for energy, and repeat. I wanted to huff and be tired but
[Mechanoid]
s didn't feel strain the same way. Working in zero gravity bored me more than anything else.

Finally, over one of the ridges, I could see a deep pit-like area. I tried not to wonder about the darker red coloring to it or give thought to why so many space mites were hopping about. Even fouler was a giant white critter that might be a space tapeworm.

Voices. So gross.

Yet, if this would get Hal safely away, I would do my darnedest not to retch uncontrollably and plant this bomb extra deep. Hal Pal had found Xin for me, and that deserved to be repaid, especially if the AI felt distressed because of a situation I got us into.

I had told Dusk there was no air to smell anything, but that seemed wrong in hindsight. This creature's butt smelled like a rat crawled under my pillow and died three weeks ago. Then someone came by and vomited on top of that. Give or take a few rotten fruits with space maggots floating around.

After this, after getting Hal and Dusk to safety, I would need to stand in a hot shower just to feel clean again. Maybe two, and a scrub. What would Doctor Litt think about this?

"So, do you feel it's normal to crawl up someone's rear end with the intent to cause harm?" I tried to mimic his tone then shook my head.

Me, two explosive barrels, and the colossal space monster anus were going on an adventure. We only had six hours left to start our escape then flag down the
[Wayfarer Seven]
. Three hours in the real world. Space didn't believe in a sunrise and sunset, but four in the morning would come and go by the time this was over.

Session Forty Nine – Insides Job

The worst part wasn't the smell. Tons of little bugs hopping around barely registered since their damage was minor when not in packs. A long white ribbon creature rated pretty high because clearly the game designers thought space monsters deserved tapeworms. This squishy sloppy flesh texture closing in around me was probably the grossest thing to happen my lifetime. It certainly topped the ice cockroach by miles.

It was not good. Giant explosive canisters took the lead as we pushed through the rectum.
[Anchor]
made the process disturbingly easy. Almost slippery.

"So gross." I shuddered and yanked myself in behind the barrels.

I should have asked Hal Pal for a drill. We could have bore into the side of this giant creature and held on with
[Anchor]
. Dusk and his acid might have helped get us further down. A deeply wedged explosive could have done enough damage to distract the
[Leviathan]
. We only really needed a solid distraction so the giant monster didn't end our lives.

Making it past the tight end of a gargantuan space eel caused the entire creature to shift and roll. I pressed out to the side to brace myself and recoiled in horror from the slimy, warm rubber texture. Eyesight flipped over letting me see a slight shimmer from metal in the walls. I shouldn't have bought
[Echo Vision]
with contribution. I wanted to avoid being stuck without vision like in Continue Online, but this nasty sight should have remained unseen.

I swallowed and pushed the bomb in front of me. We would see this through, and worst case scenario the self-titled
[Suppository Explosive]
would go off and I would be caught in the blast. Hal Pal, or its character, Jeeves, should be okay out there. Dusk and it would take off to safety while my body got caught in a mercifully quick detonation.

Neat, I guess. It would help a little in dealing with my current task. Maybe blowing the creature up would count as completion of the dungeon and helping Hal Pal would be even easier. Of course exploding it from this, delicate, location might completely debilitate the beast. Or all our efforts would come off as the biggest fart in history. I hoped for more than digital flatulence and kept going.

I readied the laser sword but kept it turned off. Inside here there were far fewer bugs to fight. Most could be stomped on or were melting as the corrosion level stacked up. My own health was down roughly thirty percent from the earlier gathering and mildly acidic insides.

"Voices." I shuddered while stepping around a small melted metal bit. It looked like a helmet that almost made it to the far end of space worm digestion. "Oh no."

There was an entire cockpit here. I could see where the
[Leviathan]
's digestion process had ignored bone and leeched nearly every other mineral from some vaguely humanoid creature. The skull looked dark red from rolling around in metal fluids. Calcium painted with a pool of copper maybe?

We weren't the
[Leviathan]
's first meal. Additional victims became apparent as I went further in. A nearly broken gun and scraps from a ship's dashboard, or the fin from a wing. Leftovers lined the entire tail end. This behemoth must have wiped entire raids.