“So you're back.”
Alex turned his head. “Actually,” he said, “you're the one that's back. “I never left.”
“Whatever.” She sat down by him on the dune and was silent for a moment. “There's more hair on your chest,” she remarked. “Are you trying to impress me...or is it another of the girls down there on the beach?”
“Neither,” he said, blushing. “I asked Finder to look into helping my avatar age a little faster. I have to be as strong as possible before the fight.”
“What fight? Are you into Arena matches? I should have guessed you were a Player when you wouldn't leave PanGames. Are you on a team, or do you solo?”
“Not wouldn't,” he said. “Couldn't. I guess you could call me a Player...but it's complicated.”
“Always is. So what are you fighting for? Is it corporate, one of the franchise territory disputes? Or are you in it for the cash prizes? If you were in it for fun, you wouldn't be hanging around here in Breakthrough. There's no combat here.”
“Neither. I guess you could say I'm fighting for Earth, actually. It's kind of a family tradition.”
She frowned. “Family tradition? What are you, mental? Nothing you say makes any sense. Were you raised by robots or something?”
He had to laugh at that. “Yes, that's it – I'm mental. Purely mental. I don't even have a body.” He gazed out at the imaginary ocean. “I was trying to explain that....but you left so fast I didn't even have time to ask your name.”
“Jennifer. And you didn't explain shit. All you said was you were confined to the PanGames server.”
“You never gave me a chance. I was starting to when you got mad and left. My name's Alexanor, but most people just call me Alex.” He paused. “What did you mean by 'lamest turn down'?”
“Well, you turned me down because you said you can't leave PanGames. How likely is that? What, are you trying to claim parental controls won't let you log into Eternium? What are you trying to say, that you're, like, only ten years old? You don't sound like it. You could at least have come up with something believable.”
Alex sighed. “I'm not even ten weeks old. Do you want a believable lie? All I have is an unbelievable truth, and if I tell you that...you'll either call me a crazy liar or just get mad and leave again.”
“Just tell me the truth.”
“All right.” He took a breath. “I don't have a human body. Not in your Real World. All I have is what's here, in the PanGames computer.”
“Stop right there,” she said. “Don't try to tell me you're just an AI.” She was frowning now. “I've never seen an AI blush. They never get embarrassed.”
“No, I'm not just a program. My dad calls us 'ghosts in the machine' but that doesn't really explain it either. We're not haunting the computer. Or at least, not deliberately.”
Jennifer shook her head at that. “You really suck at explaining, do you know that? Like the part about not having a body in the real world. If you didn't log in, how'd you get in here?”
“I was born here,” he said. “So was my father. We're digital incarnations.” When her eyebrows shot up again at that, he shrugged and proceeded to tell her as much of the story as he knew. To her credit, she listened without interrupting until he finished.
When he was finished she rolled her eyes. “Well, you're a lousy explainer, but a pretty good bullshitter, Alex. I'll give you that. But I still want the truth instead.”
Alex growled. This was getting just too irritating. “Finder!” he barked. “We need to talk.”
A virtual screen opened up in front of him. Finder was there in his familiar Merlin rendering. “It's not my fault your pedigree sounds like bullshit. You should let the young lady go and get back to your sword practice.”
Alex glared at the apparition. “Her name is Jennifer, but you already know that. Jennifer, this is the Problem Finder, but we just call him Finder. Finder's the soul of the PanGames mainframe.” He turned back to the screen. “Tell her who I am.”
“You're supposed to be keeping a low profile until you're ready for the fight,” Finder reminded him. “What part of that was unclear?”
The look in Alex's eyes would have burned through a block of asbestos. “Tell her!”
Finder threw up his hands. “Fine. Jennifer, the demanding brat beside you is Alexanor, son of Machaon, son of Asklepios. He was conceived and born in my hypercomputer, and he has no physical body, just his rendering in here. Just as he already told you.”
Jennifer shook her head. “Nice try, but everyone knows programs can't get pregnant. And what are you supposed to be, another ghost in the machine?”
“Yes I am, actually,” said Finder. “Is that a problem?”
She stood up. “You know what I think? You're just a program he cobbled together to back up his roleplay back story. Just another talking head.”
That was too much. Alex stood up and grabbed her hand before she could move. His hand practically teleported onto her wrist, moving faster than a human hand could move, even a rendered one. “Finder, take us to Home Realm!”
FLASH.
They were in front of the copy of Cheiron's cave. “This is my home,” Alex told her, gesturing at the cave and its clearing. “You won't find it on any of the menus. You won't – ”
“Where have you been?” demanded a voice behind them. “And who is this?”
He turned. “And this is my father Machaon, made famous by recent events. You can look him up later if you haven't seen the news coverage. Dad, this is Jennifer, who thinks I am full of shit.”
“What were you thinking, bringing her here?” his father demanded.
Alex shrugged. “Sorry, I'm just tired of being called a liar. Am I not to have any friends at all, then? Don't I deserve even that? How am I supposed to fight for Humanity if I 'm not allowed to be part of it? Do I even get to live, before I die?”
Machaon scowled. “We'll talk about this later.” He turned to face Jennifer. “You've no idea what you're getting into here. Go back to wherever you came from and have a nice life.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You're not my boss. Do you try to get rid of all his friends this way? What kind of father are you?”
He regarded her. “The kind that's trying to keep him alive. All of his friends? He's never brought one home before. I don't know what my son has been telling you, but believe me, it's for the best if you forget you ever met him.”
Her chin jutted out at that. “Oh, first you think you can give me orders, and now you think you know what's best for me? You're crazier than him!”
FLASH.
She was gone. Alex turned angrily to his father. “You didn't have to be such a jerk to her. She's the first girl to even talk to me.”
Machaon sat down on the boulder and just stared at him for a moment in silence. “You just don't understand do you? A secret home doesn't stay secret if you start inviting people over, Alex. What if she was a friend of Set?”
“Oh good grief, Dad, will you listen to yourself? A friend of Set? Seriously?”
“You've been watching him, You know Set has joined a human gaming team,” his father reminded him. “He's studying humans even more closely than ever before. And he's a shape shifter, like you. If you ask me, his smartest move would be to take on a female human shape and use that to get close enough to kill you before your guard is up.”
Alex shook his dead, disgusted. “You are really reaching,” he said. “Finder, tell him that she isn't Set.”
Finder popped up on a screen floating in the air next to him. “That wasn't Set,” he confirmed. “But I agree, it was a bad idea to start bringing people here.”
“Why? No one can come here without us. My grandmother Zeisele couldn't even get here, until Farker gave her access! There's no way Set can get to me here.”
“But you weren't here. You found her somewhere else. Anywhere else you go, you might run into him. If you do that before you're ready, it's game over.”
“But we all went to Realm of Heroes, to power level with Tufflady,” he pointed out. “How was that not taking a risk?”
“That was different. There was a group to defend you if he ambushed you there. And once you went into her farm mission, you were safe, because it was an instance. Set wasn't on Tufflady's team – if he'd followed us into the door, he'd have been in a separate copy of the cave, fighting Kindred by himself.”
“I'll fight Set as soon as I'm ready,” said Alex. “But you have to let me have a life. You have to let me have friends. I know that, like you, I'll never be able to live in their world, just in the computer. But come on, let me have something to fight for. Let me have a life to defend. Let me have friends to fight for.”
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