CA Epilogue (Patreon)

Aria grinned down at the little girl clinging to her leg. “You’re going to have to get off, kiddo. Time to log out.”

“Don’ wanna,” the little moppet said, lower lip protruding. “Ther’py hurts. I wanna stay here with you an’ Brandon.”

Brandon, an older and far more mature boy at the ripe old age of nine, sighed a world-weary sigh. “I’ll be here when you get back. Not like I’m going anywhere,” he muttered.

Aria gave him an understanding smile. He was one of the long-term residents of Haven, the small town she’d built not far from Refuge, in Veritas Online. He had a rare form of osteosarcoma, and he would remain in the game for the full duration of his treatment. That treatment, and the pod in which his body lay, was being paid for by Aria’s foundation, ‘Amethyst Angels’. His mother and father logged in from home systems that were also paid for by Amethyst Angels, as did his older sister, so the family was never apart for long, at least not here.

Unfortunately, Tamara, the little girl clutching Ava’s leg, wasn’t so lucky. Her mother was a single parent, and though the woman was on as often as possible, she was terrified of losing her job, so Tamara spent what felt like whole days without her, and the child had become dependent on the people who were here all the time, like Aria and Brandon.

Aria bent down and gently scooped the girl into her arms, lifting her to eye level. “You’re so much better now, though, Tamara,” she soothed. “Soon, you’ll be able to go home to your mommy, but you have to log out and let your body get used to the new prosthetic.”

Tamara kicked out her legs. One of them was flesh and bone, but the other one mirrored the bionic replacement Amethyst’s Angels had bought for her after she’d been involved in a car accident and lost her leg just above the knee. “I hate the pro’tetic, too,” she muttered.

Aria sighed. No matter how many times she dealt with this, she still never felt like she was saying the right thing. That was why she hired psychologists to live and work in the village, among the people who were there to heal.

“I know it’s uncomfortable,” she said, “but isn’t it exciting that you’ll be able to run and jump again in real life? And you’ll be able to go to school with all your friends, too, not just attend the preschool here. You’ll be a kindergartener soon!”

The lip quivered, but a tentative smile stretched the corners of the girl’s mouth. “Yeah,” she said. “I guess that’s okay.”

“Right,” Aria said, and carried the little girl over to the large tent that was not known as the Dead Tent in this little town where they all fought for life every day. When the children slept in-game, they had their own rooms or shared one with other children of about the same age. When they actually logged out, though, they used the Log-Out Tent, as did everyone else, because seeing the motionless, uninhabited Zombies terrified some of the children, especially the ones who had been through the most before they made it here.

Setting the little girl’s feet onto the ground, she gave her a gentle push toward the brightly colored tent. “Go ahead. I’ll see you when you get back.”

Tamara held up a pinky that only shook slightly. “Promise?”

Aria shook solemnly. “Promise.”

The girl nodded, braids bouncing, and ran into the tent. After a moment, a notification appeared in front of Aria’s eyes.

Tamara Pierce has logged out.

Brandon scuffed the toe of his shoe in the dirt. Some of the children liked to ‘dress up’, wearing garments that fit the medieval style of the game. Others, like Brandon, preferred the familiar comfort of blue jeans and tennis shoes. Bridget and Amy made sure the programmers dedicated to keeping Haven a peaceful, safe place for its very special residents generated whatever clothing or items the children needed to help them feel at home.

“I wish I could go, too,” the boy murmured, casting a longing glance at the entrance to the tent. He had been in the game for well over six months now, as far as he knew. His body had to be removed from its protective pod for treatments, every now and then, but this always happened while he was ‘sleeping’, and he was returned to the pod afterwards, so he never even knew it had happened. The side-effects of the medications he was on were significantly reduced, as well, so all he really noticed was that sometimes he was sleepy during the day, or didn’t want to eat dinner.

Aria set her hand on his shoulder, barely even noticing its metallic gleam as she did so. “I know, bud. It’ll happen.” She squeezed gently, and smiled as a timely message crossed through her vision. “But right now, you have a guest.”

Another boy, about Brandon’s age, thrust aside the flap of the tent, emerging into the daylight. Brandon’s face lit up. “Jiang! “ he exclaimed, reaching out to bump elbows with the newcomer. “What’s up? I didn’t know you were coming!”

Jiang grinned. “I got an A in math, thanks to your tutors. Eomma decided she was willing to let me come more often, as long as I study while I’m here.”

Laughing, Brandon gestured toward the small schoolhouse, where people from all over the world logged in to teach the young students. There was always someone available any time one of the children needed help with something. If someone with the right skillset wasn’t already logged on, the NPC Principal would send out a notification that they needed a geologist, or a mathematician, and one would appear within minutes. It was amazing who would sign up to volunteer, and Aria had seen Pulitzer Prize winners teaching journalism and literature to teenagers, and people with PhDs down on the ground, drawing parallelograms in the dirt for first graders.

The boys ran off with barely a wave, and a man who had been standing off to the side stepped up beside her, falling into step as she started walking toward the town hall.

Aspen absently patted the back of the toddler strapped to his chest. The small girl was slightly green, but otherwise showed little sign of the fact that she was only half human. “It’s amazing what you’ve created here,” he said, looking around. “I never imagined anything like this when you asked if you could have ‘a little land’ near Refuge.”

She laughed. “It was all Gina’s doing. If I had to have all this built, it wouldn’t be nearly as nice. Good thing our friendly neighborhood goddess was feeling helpful.” Her eyes flickered over the sleeping toddler. “Where’s Wren?”

He shook his head. “Trailing around after her big sister,” he said ruefully. “She’s almost four. She doesn’t think she needs her dad any more.”

“Except when she needs someone to convince the trees to produce fruit out of season, right?” Aria grinned.

“Well, yes,” he smiled back, tilting his beleaguered straw hat back so the circlet around his brow caught a beam of sunlight, glinting brightly. “Everybody needs me when they’re hungry.”

They exchanged a smile, and continued walking, though the closer they drew to Aria’s office the more she realized she didn’t want to work today. She had homework to do for her Finance class, and she absolutely didn’t want to do that, either. She’d spent the last two years in college, learning how to manage the absolutely stupid amount of money Amythyst had managed to leave her. Since those two years in reality translated into four in the game, where she spent most of her time, she was almost finished with her Bachelor’s degree, but she already knew she was going to go for her Master’s, and just the thought made her tired.

“Come on,” she said, veering sharply to her right. “Let’s play hooky.”

Aspen laughed. “I thought I was already doing that,” he said, but followed after her gamely.

They wound between houses, shops, and various places designed to keep a constantly fluctuating number of children entertained. People, both players and NPCs, waved and smiled, but no one tried to stop them. It was like they could tell that she had someplace to be.

When Aria reached the edge of town, she slowed, only then realizing that she’d been moving faster than most people could, which probably explained why everyone had just let her go by. Aspen, who also had a ridiculously high dexterity score, had matched her pace so easily she hadn’t even noticed. Crossing over the invisible line that kept anyone not approved by Amethyst Angels out of Haven, Aria walked toward an enormous tree. It was so large that its branches shaded a good half acre all around, and no matter what time of year it was, a thousand different kinds of fruit dangled from its limbs.

Pausing as she entered the shelter of the Goddess Tree, Aria pushed the hood back from her face. Amythyst had altered much of her character design, so there was little of the vampire, AlphaOmegadon, left in her appearance, but one thing the AI hadn’t been able to fix was Aria’s extreme sensitivity to the sun. She kept her skin covered whenever she was outside during the day, but sometimes she was able to get away with relaxing just a little bit, and there was something about the darkness under the Tree that seemed to protect her more than anywhere else.

Turning her face up toward the sun, which she knew was still blazing brightly above, even though she couldn’t see it any more, Aria said, “Do you know what day it is?”

Aspen sighed, and she didn’t have to look at him to know he was rubbing the back of his neck. “I know,” he said.

She shot him a sad smile. “I figured that’s why you were here.”

He gave her one of his lopsided smiles. “I come on other days, too.”

She nodded. “But you always come on this day.”

He leaned his head forward, resting his cheek on the soft curls of the sleeping child on his chest. “To thank you. And her,” he said. “Not that she can hear me. Still, I feel like it’s the right thing to do. Without her, I wouldn’t have my girls, especially,” his voice broke, and he cleared his throat. “Especially Wren. And without her coming to find me in that… void, after Veralt’s little city of puppets vanished, I think,” he shook his head. “No, I know I never would have made it home.”

Bridget had tried to explain exactly what happened to Aspen’s program when Veralt’s system fried in the blaze that destroyed Landon House. Amythyst had hidden ‘him’ in the memory buffers of the pods just before the backup generator failed, leaving the pods without external power for several hours. Fortunately, Ava and Amy had both been unconscious at that point, because the pods couldn’t provide anything except minimal life support while they were in power-saving mode, so they would have been left trapped in absolute blackness until help arrived. Unfortunately, Aspen hadn’t been so lucky, and his code, which Bridget herself had created and hemmed around with backups and failsafes and special little hacks, had been left without external input for far longer than any real person could have handled without going insane.

It was Amythyst who insisted Bridget retrieve the pods before they completely ran out of power, long after Ava and Amy had been flown to the hospital, and Amythyst who had carefully extracted Aspen from the buffers and returned him to the embrace of his loving wife. A wife who had, apparently, been affected more than Bridget expected by one of Aspen’s sneakier little background programs, which allocated more memory and CPU time for NPCs with whom Aspen spent time regularly. Said wife had noticed that something was very wrong with the normal-NPC doppelganger that Amythyst left behind, and once she got over being glad Aspen was home, he had been in a great deal of trouble for quite some time.

Aria nodded. “She-,” her own voice broke. “She made sure to take care of us all before-” She shook her head, unable to finish as tears she thought she would never stop shedding tracked down her cheek again. She swiped at them with her right hand, the one that the doctors hadn’t been able to save, and which had been replaced by a very, very expensive prosthetic shortly after she was allowed out of the pod in which she’d spent several months following the fire. Other than that, and the left eye that was now as metallic as Felicia’s, there were very few traces left of the ordeal she’d gone through to save Amy’s life.

Aspen’s hand came to rest on her shoulder. Warm, reassuring, and as real as any hand belonging to a ‘real’ person in the world Aria visited less and less often. Then the toddler’s head jerked up, big, golden eyes opened, and the rosebud mouth stretched into a cry, though whether the child was protesting her waking, or demanding some need be met, Aria didn’t know.

The tall farmer-king’s bemused eyes looked down at his wailing offspring, and he kissed the soft curls, making the cries trail off into a hiccup. “Well,” he said, “duty calls. I just wanted to let you know you weren’t alone. And that other people miss her, too.” She nodded, smiling, and he strode away, already murmuring to the little girl who gazed up at him with adoring eyes so similar to his own.

“Phew,” came another voice, a female one this time, from behind the broad trunk of the Tree. Bridget poked her head out, smiling uncertainly. “I don’t like him to see me when I’m not all,” she waved her hand in front of her face meaningfully.

“Goddessy?” Aria said, dryly.

Bridget shrugged ruefully. “His ‘Gina’ has changed three times, even though he’s the only one who notices. I think he’s just about figured out that I’m not actually a god, and he doesn’t like it very much. I’m not actually sure I could fix him if I broke his program, so I try not to remind him more than absolutely necessary.” She stepped out from behind the tree, revealing a blue and white dress that was so simple it only served to emphasize how naturally pretty she was.

Aria sighed. Bridget still wasn’t her favorite person in the world, even though she and Amy had been invaluable in helping Aria set up her foundation and finding trustworthy people to keep it running until Aria could learn to do it herself. “What do you need, Bridget?” she asked, not caring that her voice was a little more brusque than it should have been. Her gaze dropped to the woman’s waist, which was still slim in spite of the fact that the real-life version had ballooned up in the last few months.

Bridget’s hand came to rest on her flat belly, and she grimaced. “I still have more than a month before the baby’s due, so I’m allowed, as long as I use a headset and gloves, or a regular pod.” She hesitated. “And I… have news.”

Aria raised a brow, silently encouraging the other woman to continue.

“The jury finally came back on the last of the charges,” Bridget said, still absently stroking her abdomen, and Aria’s brows jumped.

After the fire, Veralt had been stopped as he was about to board what could best be described as a ‘slow boat to China’. He, Carl Landon, and many of the people who worked for them, had been arrested. Upon interrogating them, it turned out that most of the people who worked at London House had been subtly fed the story that Carl had taken in a young woman who looked like his daughter, Amy, after the real Amy died.

The ‘adopted’ girl was supposedly an orphan who had survived a car accident similar to the one that led to Amy’s death. Carl had paid for her medical treatment and care, all while everyone else pretended that she was the real Amy Landon. It was sad, and probably more than a little crazy, but when you were as rich as Carl Landon, the word they used was ‘eccentric’. The only reason Ava hadn’t yet heard the carefully vetted rumors was because she wasn’t there long enough, so no one was quite ready to tell her a ‘truth’ that they believed could get them fired.

Only a DNA test would have destroyed this carefully crafted fiction, and the item that LeeAn had slipped to Ava on the last day contained both a drop of Amy’s blood, and a single strand of Carl’s hair, complete with a perfectly preserved follicle. There was also a tiny note, written with such small letters that it would have taken a magnifying glass to read them, asking Ava to contact Bridget Andrews or Harkness Landon, and let them know what was going on.

Of course, Veralt didn’t know that the cat was already almost out of the bag, but when George Short suddenly showed up, and one of Veralt’s pet programmers reported that the code for Amy’s avatar ‘looked strange’, he decided it was time to cut his losses. The third immersion pod that Carl Landon bought was actually for Veralt, and the man had retrieved a few key components that no one would know how to use unless they’d been on the development team. He’d stacked gallons of alcohol-based hand sanitizer and gas canisters in the closet of his office, then set a fire that started in Carl’s office, destroying any evidence Amy’s paranoid father kept in his not-so-secret room.

Veralt had planned to knock Quinn out, plant his own ID on the other man, and leave him and Amy in his own office, right next to all of the flammable items he’d accumulated. He knew that fires weren’t nearly as good at destroying evidence as people assumed, but he hoped that the one he’d created and fed would burn hot enough to destroy everything except traces indicating that two people had died in the fire.

Of course, even with the testimony of LeeAn and several other employees, who were horrified when they discovered the truth, it took months for all of this to come out, and even longer to put together proof that would stand up in court. Amythyst had saved the video-feed from Ava’s implants to a server at Veritas Corp. That should have been more than enough to show that Veralt intended to kill her and Amy, and had killed Quinn, but making it stick was a shockingly difficult thing.

“It’s over, then?” Aria asked. The last few times she’d logged out, it had been so she could attend court sessions, and she was so, so tired of the questions, the sly insinuations, and the outright accusations. Amythyst had put a great deal of effort into making sure that Ava could just take her money and leave the mess  for Bridget to clean up, and Ava had thrown it all away when she insisted on testifying.

Indeed, Carl Landon’s lawyers had placed counter charges against her, and she spent a few nights in jail before Bridget’s lawyer negotiated to drop some of the charges against Carl in exchange for them dropping the ones against Ava. Once she was free again, Ava hadn’t even cared that much, because she knew Amythyst wanted to see Carl receive mental health care, not jail time. Even if he deserved it.

Bridget nodded. “Finally. Veralt will never be a free man again, and he won’t be allowed to tell anyone all of the amazing ‘discoveries’ he made, either.” That had been the hardest part, actually. Once Veralt realized he was going to jail, probably for the rest of his life, he had tried to hire a ghostwriter to write his ‘memoirs’. Apparently, Bridget and Veritas had developed some aspects of virtual reality that could be weaponized quite easily, and Veralt wasn’t above getting his revenge while also revealing his ‘brilliance’ to the world. It had taken a long time for Bridget to prove that all of his secrets were actually hers, and he had no right to profit from them.

Aria felt her shoulders slump, as a tension she’d been carrying for so long she didn’t even notice it any more drained away. “No more court appearances, testimony, or interviews?”

“No more,” Bridget confirmed again, before she chuckled softly. “Well, none except the ones you do to tell the world about Amethyst Angels.” She slid a sidelong look at Aria. “You still hate those, huh? You’re really good at them, though.”

Aria’s cheeks grew warm, and she looked away, shrugging. “Maybe. It’s only because it’s important. Honestly, I’d rather hire someone to do all the publicity and just stay-” she broke off, clearing her throat.

“At Amythyst’s house, huh?” Bridget smirked. There had been some awkwardness when they discovered that Amythyst had left the house to both of them, as well as Amy. Ava had been so angry at Bridget that she had tried to force the other woman to give up her share of the house, and it had only been because Amy ran interference between them that it hadn’t become yet another legal battle.

“Uh, yeah.” Aria said.

Silence fell between them, and while it wasn’t as fraught as it once would have been, it wasn’t exactly friendly, either. Finally, Bridget cleared her throat. “You know,” she said, carefully, “Amy told me you sing.”

Aria felt her back stiffen. She did sing, though her voice wasn’t as clear as it used to be, in real life. Her vocal cords had been damaged by the smoke and heat, and even several months in the healing shelter of a full-immersion pod hadn’t been able to completely fix it. Still, just because it was different, that didn’t necessarily mean it was bad, and it didn’t change her style or skill.

Nowadays, though, Aria only sang for the children who were part of her program. A few times a week, she had someone build a campfire, though she always stayed well away from it, and anyone who wanted to join her could eat all the s’mores they wanted, and sing fireside songs, or they would attempt whatever recent hits the children wanted, while Aria summoned an invisible band to back them up.

Because that was something else Amythyst had done when she adjusted Aria’s character. AlphaOmegadon the mule was gone, and Aria the bard had returned, with all of the spells and skills she had had when Ava deleted her. While Aria was still a vampire, and had fangs that pointed up, instead of down, she now drank only fruit juice, and her appearance was otherwise strikingly similar to an elven version of Ava. The change had shocked Toggle, Tess, and Vexxx, who had been waiting when Ava had been cleared to log back into the game, but once they got used to it, it was a good change. It had allowed them to finish the final level of the Labyrinth dungeon, too, but that was another story.

“Yeah,” Aria admitted. “I was thinking about taking lessons, actually, once I finish my Bachelor’s. I do all right, now, but I think I could… I’d like to try releasing an album. Someday.”

Bridget’s fingers spread on her stomach, caressing a baby bump that she could feel, even though it wasn’t visible here. “Would you… sing something for me?” She shook her head. “No. For Amythyst.”

Aria clenched her teeth. It was true that she had been working on something, in the privacy of her own room, but it was still rough, and she wasn’t sure she could share it yet. Not with anyone. Maybe especially not with Bridget.

She opened her mouth to refuse, but what came out was, “Sure,” and the next thing she knew, her guitar was in her hand. She was certain she hadn’t meant to do that, but here she was, and when her fingers struck the strings, the music just…. poured out, and she closed her eyes, letting the words carry her away.

“I spent my life,

Walking backwards.

Never thought about,

What came after.

Had no time for all of that.

Rainbows and butterflies,

Present tense and pretty please,

Things I can ask for,

That may yet come true.

Flying high and dewy-eyed,

Laughing out loud,

And letting the breeze,

Carry me away.

Did I turn or did you

Make the world spin for me?

I may never know.

Spent my life,

Walking backwards.

Never thought about,

What came after,

Till you made it all come after me.

Now I know that I can run,

That my story isn’t done,

There’s no need to wait for

Life to start.

Spending my life,

Facing forward,

Present tense,

Full of your words,

Run along, and I’ll chase after.

There’s no need to,

Stop your laughter,

After all,

That’s who you were meant to be.

Meant to be,

Everything,

To me.”

As the last note rang out over the shadowed clearing beneath the Goddess Tree, Aria opened her eyes. She expected to see Bridget, but somehow, when she saw Amythyst instead, it was right, and she didn’t even feel surprised.

“Did you make me do that?” she asked, voice distant as she returned the guitar to her inventory with a thought and reached out trembling fingers toward the other woman.

One corner of Amythyst’s full lips twitched, but it didn’t quite bloom into a smile. Not yet. “Only the first part. The rest was all you.”

“How?” Aria breathed.

Amythyst took a deep breath. An absolutely, utterly unnecessary breath. “I wasn’t sure we could do it. Trim my code down enough to fit inside this without losing who I am, I mean. It was… a close thing, more than once. Though,” she grinned, swirling her finger as her body shifted to the slightly taller, masculine shape of Myles, “I do still have a few tricks up my sleeve.” Another swirl, and she was back to a twenty-something, slightly plump, freckled brunette in a gauzy green dress. It wasn’t quite the goddess dress, but it was close, and Aria thought she was completely, perfectly beautiful in it.

Taking a step forward, Aria let her fingers trail over Amythyst’s collarbone, then up to her face, cupping her jaw. Only then did she think to ask, “May I?”

Amythyst flushed, a deep, hot red, but nodded. As Ava’s fingers traced her brows, and then her lips, the AI said, “You’re not angry? That we let you think I was… dead?”

“Furious,” Aria admitted. “Bridget helped you?”

Amythyst nodded, reluctantly.

Before she could second guess herself, Aria leaned forward, pulling the AI into an embrace so tight it would have cracked the bones of anyone who wasn’t a digital construct. “You’re both in so much trouble,” she murmured into honeysuckle-scented hair as Amythyst’s arms closed around her, holding on just as desperately.

“Okay,” Amythyst said, tilting back her head so she could stare into Aria’s eyes.

“Okay,” Aria echoed, and just like in a movie from the golden age of Hollywood, the credits rolled as the leading lady finally got her kiss.