THE ASCENDANCY - The Keep - Day 6

  An hour later everyone was gone. ARi and I sat on the bench together, embracing the silence. I wouldn't call it completely romantic, one of my rogues sat on the bench across from us, swinging his little feet and staring.

  "You know, ARi," I said, "I was thinking about it. I think it's time we expanded the den again. There's only one wall left for us to push into, but I think it's time we each had our own space."

  She looked at me with sad eyes. "But I like sleeping in the cot next to yours."

  "I'm not trying to say I need space away from you," I said. "It would be nice if we had a little more private space, maybe somewhere we could spend more time together."

  She blinked, and I could see the hint of understanding spread across her face. "You're right," ARi said. "And you know what? I think the others would love it if they all had their own rooms. And, as a precaution, as a security feature, each room should be conjoined with a door to the one next to it. You can't get trapped or cornered in an emergency."

  She stood, waved her hand, and went to work, carving the chamber out with precise, practiced motions. "It only makes sense, Gavin, to put the rooms in the same order as our cots," she said. "Which means mine will be right next to yours."

  "While we're at it, is there any way we could upgrade the beds?" I asked. "Not because of anything, you know, but the cots aren't comfortable. They sure beat the floor, though."

  "No problem," ARi said. "I can do a lot better. Each room should have at least a full-size bed. I'm not going to get too fancy. Bathrooms are out for now, they're too far from where I set the plumbing. But beds, wardrobes, maybe a mirror, I can do that."

  She turned and walked toward the kobolds' barracks, pushing the layout farther out and reshaping it into multiple larger rooms. She put enough beds in each room for up to three kobolds. When she knelt and reached down to Little Sawyer, she took his small hand.

  "Have you ever seen a bunk bed before?" she asked.

  Sawyer's eyes lit up. He scrambled into the barracks, jumped from bed to bed, climbed to the top bunk, and looked down at us with a huge smile. It was the first real grin I'd seen from one of them; we'd usually tell they were happy by the way they hopped and chirped. It was starting to sink in that these guys were learning more than spawned skills, they were picking up human quirks, too.

  "Sawyer," I called, "there's a couple of herbivores about a hundred yards out. Go see if you can take them out and bring back dinner."

  He tapped his chest, hopped down from the bunk, and bolted to the door. I yelled after him, "Do me a favor, if you're bringing back food, don't use your poison knives!" He tapped his chest again, grinning, and raced out.

  "Now, Gavin Daniels, let me show you to your new room," ARi said, taking my hand and hustling me toward the newly carved space.

  Each room was huge: a full-size bed that looked infinitely more comfortable than the cot, a small wardrobe, and, to my surprise, a mirror. Not glass like back on Earth, but a super-polished stone surface. The reflection was murky and dark, but it was a mirror nonetheless.

  "The first ones I made were brass," ARi said, as she pulled me close and kissed me long and hard. "They were tacky." She indicated a door at the back of my chamber. "This one leads to my room. You know, Gavin, we don't have to be so sneaky."

  "Yeah, well, the guys know too," I said.

  "I think we should keep being sneaky," she said, surprising me. "It makes it more fun."

  A couple of hours later I was going through system messages and windows, checking skills and stats to make sure I hadn't missed anything, when the others returned.

  "How was the hunt?" I asked.

  They looked exhausted. Half the shields the kobolds had left with were missing.

  "We got four raptors," Tim said, "and a Ceratorex. Your rhino-rex did not go down without a fight, it made three charging passes into the kobolds. I'm glad we didn't lose any. The good news is most of them got a couple of good spears in before Yumi cut the damn thing in half."

  "Sorry," Yumi said. "How was I supposed to know all three darts would do that much damage?"

  "When the Reapers were chasing you, they were blowing craters and exploding trees," Tonya said.

  "That guy was level six," Yumi grumbled. "Anyway, we brought back meat from the kills. I think a couple more kobolds leveled up, and Tanya and I are close to leveling. Tim even managed to get one."

  "We tested Tanya's Life Coil on one of the kobolds," Tim added. "That positive bolt is powerful, but we had to carry the kobold for a while, his stamina was completely drained. He was fully healed, though."

  "Where is ARi?" Tanya asked.

  "She's napping in her quarters."

  For the first time, they noticed the open door at the back of the wall and that the cots were gone. "ARi made us actual rooms and real beds. She even expanded the barracks, too. Now the kobolds have separate rooms, three per room, I think."

  Sawyer came running out, grabbing other kobolds and dragging them back to the barracks to show off the new bunk beds. We heard chirps of delight as they flooded their new rooms. ARi had topped off their armory as well with new weapons; they no longer had to come to her for repairs, they could grab replacements right off the wall.

  Yumi grabbed Tanya's hand and sprinted down the corridor to pick a room. "I'm so glad you did this," Tim confessed. "I didn't want to suggest it and make things weird, but I couldn't sleep another night with Kyle snoring."

  "Hey!" Kyle protested, still standing next to Tim.

  "Dude, I'm right here!" Kyle muttered as he stomped off to find a room.

  "Seriously, Gav," Tim said quieter this time. "That guy snores like crazy."

  "Yeah, I know," I said. "Everybody knows."

  Tim grinned. "So, is it one big room for you and ARi?"

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  "No," I said defensively. "We each have our own room."

  Yumi hollered from down the corridor, crushing any chance at saving face, "Oh my God, it's so cool, they have conjoining doors!"

  Tim gave me an admonishing look. "You know you guys are adults, right?"

  Walking up to my door, I said jokingly, "Thanks, dad," closing my door behind me. I flopped back onto the much more comfortable bed and let the events of the day sink in.

  It was late into the evening and most of the oil lamps were out, in the new quarters ARi had created earlier that day. The adjoining door slowly swept open and a figure stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. One article of clothing after another slipped off in the dark as she crossed to the bed and slid into the sheets, completely naked. She rolled on top of him, pinning his shoulders, she kissed him.

  "Let me make this clear," she said, looking at him with a stern, serious expression. "If you tell anybody about this, it won't ever happen again. Do you understand?"

  Kyle nodded, and Yumi kissed him again.

  ARi turned to look at me, her eyes wide in shock at the sounds coming from Kyle's room down the hall. ARi had slipped into my room much earlier that evening, and we had been lying there for hours. Both of us had drifted off in relative comfort, but neither of us were getting any sleep now.

  There was a quiet tap on my door. ARi waved a hand and the lamps in the room flicked back to life as the door slowly opened and we both sat up. Standing in the hall were Tanya and Tim, wide-eyed and open-mouthed; Tanya pointed down the corridor and silently mouthed, "Oh my God." At that point it was now clear that none of us were going to get any sleep. I took ARi's hand and helped her slide out of the bed, and we made our way to the benches around the fire.

  Twenty minutes later the sounds from the end of the hall stopped as abruptly as they had started. A short time after, Yumi stumbled out of her own room and, surprised to see everyone gathered around the hearth and all of the kobolds piled in their doorway all looking towards her, she took a breath and regathered her composure as she walked over and sat next to ARi.

  She leaned over and whispered loud enough for all to hear, "You're right, ARi. It is way more fun to do it in secret."

  ARi's eyes went huge and her face flushed, and I felt mine doing the same. Yumi gave ARi a quick hug, said hi to Tanya, grabbed some water from the pantry, and returned to her room. With the closing of her door, we all sat in speechless silence, dumbfounded by what had taken place.

  Tanya sat shaking her head. "She could have at least put pants on before coming out here." The whole den seemed to hold its breath in silence before we all busted up laughing.

  "I had no idea that Yumi liked Kyle," Tim said.

  "How could you not?" Tanya said, exasperated.

  ARi slowly nodded. "No kidding. I haven't even been fully human for that long, and I can sense that tension."

  Tim and I looked at each other, still confused.

  "Seriously though," Tanya said, "you and Gavin are sweet, and everybody kind of saw what was going on there. I don't even think you two could help it. But Yumi, that girl is savage." Tanya grinned impishly.

  "Poor Kyle," Tim said in mock solidarity.

  I indicated to the kobolds that everything was okay and that they should go back to bed. Surprisingly, Lilly and Bishop never even got up from where they were by the fire during all the commotion. Tanya and Tim made their way back to their rooms, and as we walked down the hall, ARi split off toward her own. I grabbed her hand, pulled her close, and planted another kiss.

  "Did you not want to sleep with me tonight?" I asked. She smiled, hugged me, and followed me back to my bed. As we lay next to each other ARi murmured, "You know I copied you, right?"

  "What do you mean, you copied me?"

  "Back in that break room at the research lab, you told Tanya and Tim you made a scene so you could see an honest reaction."

  "ARi, is that why you acted so crazy when we first met you in that briefing room? You called me a meat bag."

  "Yeah. Sorry about that. It wasn't all for show, though. They really did have me cut off from the outside world. I never did find out how Lost ended." She leaned up, kissed my cheek, and snuggled closer. "I like it when you hold me," she whispered.

  "I like holding you. Also, everyone that watched the end of that show is still trying to figure that shit out," I replied.

  "If I'm able to return to Earth as a human girl, is it still going to be like this? Will you still want to hold me?"

  "I would want to hold you and be with you no matter what world we're on."

  "ARi, if you were able to go back to Earth as a human, and later come back into the Ascendancy as a Guide class, would the rules treat you like one of us? Could you basically have two lives?"

  "Gavin, from what I understand," ARi said, "when you're in a cradle, your physical body is suspended and your avatar, the body you inhabit here, becomes your active body. It's confusing, but basically you can only have one presence. You can't be duplicated. Only one version of Gavin Daniels is allowed to exist in the universe at a time.

  "Your spirit, your consciousness, when it's in this avatar is effectively you in every way. When you reawaken in the cradle, consciousness shifts back to your original body and the avatar is suspended.

  "To be honest, Gavin, I don't think there's a scientific reason for why we only get one life before losing our body back on Earth. All the respawn mechanics were programmed as part of the game rules. They aren't the same thing as the underlying technology. That's how they can take my presence and put it into an avatar here, and now they're saying they can spawn a new avatar back on Earth, which would suspend this one. For the record, that wasn't in the rules at all. The rules said nothing about cradles being able to do that.

  "Originally the understanding was: if one of you died, your body on Earth was forfeit, but you would continue here as an avatar. Now we're finding out there are ways, through the competition and its systems, to circumvent that.

  "One of the reasons I've been so scared to be alone in this den, Gavin," she said, voice cracking, "is that I was afraid that even if we survived and claimed this world, if all of you woke back up on Earth in your original bodies, would my avatar continue to live here? Or would I die?"

  She trembled; I could see tears on her cheek.

  I realized the root of ARi's fear. She was comparing her digital existence back on Earth to being an unembodied spirit, a ghost in the machine. She was afraid for herself, and she was afraid for us. If we died under the game's rules and couldn't find a way around them, our bodies would be forfeit. That would leave us like her: disembodied, spirits.

  "Hey," I said, holding her tight. "It's okay. That's not going to happen, ARi. And even if it did, and something happened to me, and I ended up spending the rest of my existence disembodied or whatever in digital form with you, I would be okay with that."

  She kissed me again. "Well, I guess we make the best of it while we can. You know, just in case," she said with a grin from ear to ear. "But not tonight. First, I have some questions for Yumi…"

  The next morning we sat at the long table in almost complete silence. Everyone looked at each other, except Kyle, who kept staring down at his food. It felt awkward until Yumi finally broke the quiet.

  "Oh my God, you guys, look at him, he looks like a little wounded puppy," she said, nodding at Kyle. She rose and walked toward the pantry, and as she passed him she reached down and gave him a quick kiss on the side of his head. "It's okay, sweetie. You can go ahead and talk about it. They already know."

  Kyle's face went bright red and he tried to disappear into the bench.

  "Oh good," I said, relieved, like a weight had lifted. "That means I can finally ask what I've been wanting to ask all morning,"

  Tim beat me to it. "Yeah, Kyle, how'd you sleep last night?"

  Kyle looked up and a grin slowly spread from ear to ear. "A gentleman does not kiss and tell," he said, which made Tanya choke on the bread she was trying to eat.

  "It's okay, Kyle," ARi jumped in, grinning. "Girls tell each other everything. We'll find out anyway."

  "Jeez," Tim said. "This is worse than the locker room back in high school."

  "I know, right?" I agreed. Kyle's face was still crimson when I patted his shoulder. "Welcome to the club, buddy. I'm glad the focus is on you and not on me."

  "I might recommend a bit more discretion," I added. "You two were loud enough last night that the kobolds started putting on armor and grabbing weapons, thinking we were under attack."

  Kyle looked up. Everyone was laughing. Tim said, shaking his head, smiling, "They were all crowded in their doorway trying to figure out what was going on." The whole thing was funny, aside from the lack of sleep.

  "Sorry, guys," Yumi said as she returned and sat across from Kyle. "All right, you guys. Now that this morning's shenanigans are done, I think we need to talk about..."

  The den shuddered. The ground rolled beneath us.

  ARi froze, eyes going distant. Snapping back, she looked around the table. "Gavin," she said, voice low and sharp, "the Reapers are here."

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