《Phoenix》


 The Desert Dragon

    "Aw, Mom! They need me at the Fun Zone."


    Patricia Forester proved that the Mom Look worked even through a screen. "Homework first."


    She''d been tough on him once he stopped being about to die. There was math and reading to do again, and she''d even tried to have him go back to a physical school like the one he barely remembered from before getting sick. It wasn''t like any friends had stuck with him through that.


    "But [i]after[/i] I get it done?" asked Phoenix, tapping his new beak against the screen.


    Mom said, "Then you can go play."


    Phoenix was about to end the call, but remembered something. "Will you visit soon?"


    Visiting meant that Mom would climb into a VR rig, a cool piece of advanced technology that was the only way she could hug her son. She said, "Tonight, okay? Be good."


    "I will! You''ll see."


    Phoenix poked the screen with his yellow talon-like fingers and turned away from it. A warm breeze stirred the fire-hued feathers that covered him, and brought him a bad imitation of the scent of cookies. It was a lot more pleasant than the smells of the hospital, anyway. He was in the room where he''d first woken up in Talespace: a simple grey box with a wooden bed, a shelf, and a balcony open to the sea. Not any sea in particular, just one that constantly crashed and hissed in the distance, making nice sounds. He hadn''t bothered setting anything fancy up yet; there was always stuff to do instead.


    He hopped onto the balcony railing and jumped off, spreading his arms and the long feathery wings attached to them. Phoenix whooped as he glided down ten stories to the beach and landed perfectly on his taloned feet. His wings were fun and so was climbing the stairs way back up the grey tower where he lived. After barely being able to breathe on his own, let alone go to school, it was awesome to run and jump and swim.


    Now, where was the cookie smell coming from? He looked around the hazy beach, enjoying the feel of warm sand between his toes. Miss Ludo had given him this space and it was okay for now. He sniffed, then walked inland where the sand turned into a desert with lots of cacti. He''d had to run from a giant scorpion once; that was scary! He held out his wings to test the wind, then turned and kept exploring. The desert had more detail here, with giant chunks of glass sticking out of it like somebody had smashed a huge bottle. A big jagged glass dome stuck out of a dune on one side like a cave. Phoenix grinned; the scent was coming from here. He ran all the way there because he could.


    It was dark inside. He probably should''ve gotten a gun and a flashlight or something. "Hello?" he called out, voice trembling even though he was brave and cool now, and not just in that "aren''t you a brave trooper" sense he''d heard enough to hate. His left hand felt along the glass passageway.


    "Who''s there?" someone called out.


    Phoenix jumped and all his feathers floofed out. "I''m Phoenix! If you''re a monster, I''ll fight you."


    Bits of glass lit up with blue lightning all down the passageway. Something ahead had blue scales and a pair of slitted eyes turning toward him. It said, "Does a dragon count?"


    Phoenix ran away shrieking like a girl.


    "Hey, come back!" said the dragon, sounding like one herself. "I''m not gonna hurt you. Unless [i]you''re[/i] a monster, I guess."


    Phoenix turned around, blushing hotly, and peeked back into the cave. The dragon had followed him partway so a little of the hazy sunlight caught her. She walked on two legs like a person, but she had a long blue scaly tail plus claws and wings and horns and little fangs when she opened her muzzle. Phoenix said, "Uh. We don''t have to fight?"


    "I don''t think so. Hi." She offered one scaly hand.


    Phoenix crept forward and shook it. "Hi. Where''d you come from? I live in the grey tower by the beach."


    "I just got this cave," the dragon said, flapping the leathery wings on her back. "I only woke up last month; before that I wasn''t real."


    "Do you mean you''re one of the people Miss Ludo made?"


    She tapped her claws against her scaly chest. "That''s right. The name''s Volt St. John."


    "Saint?" asked Phoenix.


    "I''m from the Saint John''s Childrens'' Hospital. They say I''m their mascot. But Ludo turned me from a cartoon character they had pictures of, into a real dragon. So now I play with the kids there. What about you?" She scuffed at the sand with one foot.


    "That''s cool. I was in a place like that, but I got better. I work sometimes at the Fun Zone of Castor. It''s a real job!" He looked at her as though daring her to challenge it.


    Volt smiled. "I''ve never been there. Maybe you can show me sometime. Want some cookies?"


    Phoenix and Volt entered the cave again and scarfed down several dozen freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies. "Sorry if they don''t taste good," said Volt.


    Phoenix sat with her atop a hoard of pillows covered in gold sequins like glittering coins. The cookies really weren''t great, but it was nice to share them anyway. "It''s okay. Thanks!" He groaned when he remembered something. "I''m supposed to be doing homework before I go to the Fun Zone."


    "What kind? I''m not very good at math. People make fun of me, saying I''m a machine and I ought to know it all, but understanding it is different from using a calculator program."


    "You''re not more of a machine than I am." Phoenix looked at his feathered arms. "I''m a new person now. My parents don''t like hearing that but it''s true. I changed my name and everything."


    "You mean you didn''t have feathers and a beak before?" asked Volt, grinning.


    The bird-boy looked around the cave of glass. It was almost empty like his own room. "I wanted to be different, this time. So I''m different. But I don''t really know what I''m doing."


    "Yet. So try lots of things."


    "Yeah. That sounds good."


    Volt nodded. "Watch this." She walked outside with him, then reared back her long neck and blasted lightning from her mouth, into the sand. A patch of desert crackled and melted into glass.


    Volt scooped it out of the sand like a white bone, zigzag-shaped, and offered it to him. "They have this in the Outer Realm, too! It''s called fulgurite. Fossilized lightning."


    Phoenix stared at it, then at her, and took the glass rod. "That''s so cool!"


    #


    He took her back to the tower and set the glass on his lone shelf, next to the picture of his parents. "There''s not much else to see," he said. "Do you think I should make a castle or something?"


    "I don''t know yet," said Volt, looking out from the balcony to the shore. "I''m even newer at this ''living'' thing than you are. I met a couple of the other AIs and they already know everything. I only know one little corner of Earth plus what I read in books about it."


    "Well, I''ve got history homework. Want to work on it with me?"


    They flopped down on the bed and studied the Romans. The book between them was a big digital scroll with colorful pictures and lots of sidebars, captions and other distractions where you could jump around while reading.


    "I don''t really get how history works," said Volt. "These guys lived what, two thousand years ago? How old [i]are[/i] humans?"


    "Millions and millions of years, I think. But basically nothing happened most of the time. Some of the people I used to know said God made everything a couple thousand years before the Romans, but that doesn''t make a lot of sense to me."


    Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    "What was before them?"


    They rolled back through the scroll and read some stuff about Greeks and Persians and Egyptians, and then the text splintered into a bunch of asides about ships and farmers and empires and bronze. Before long they''d gone off on a tangent about Greek folklore, and read about phoenixes. "So that''s what you are!" said Volt. "I was wondering. So if you''re fire and I''m lightning, we need, like, another friend who''s got ice powers."


    Phoenix smiled. "Are you going to keep living nearby? The map isn''t going to get redrawn to put you somewhere else?"


    "I don''t think it will. We could ask Miss Ludo."


    He rolled off of the bed and stretched his wings. "If we''re going to find more friends, then we should have a better place to live. A castle or a spaceship, maybe. How do we do that?"


    A light flickered on the wall, next to the video screen. Phoenix poked it and Miss Ludo appeared. She was better than any of his old teachers; there wasn''t a whole classroom of other kids carping for her attention. The lady looked out from the screen, with her blue hair tied back and a pair of silly old lady glasses on her nose.


    "Good morning, you two! How are you doing?"


    "Good!" said Phoenix. He explained about the castle.


    She thought for a moment. "That brings up a tricky point. Up until now, both of you have been in a kind of warmup area. There aren''t many rules but there isn''t much to do, either. What would you say to having your life be more of a game, with rules that let you get new powers and explore?"


    "Like what?" Volt asked.


    An old-fashioned paper scroll appeared and hovered beside the screen. It said:


    Phoenix Forester


    PRIVATE INFO


    Account type: Uploader


    Mind: Tier-III


    Body: Phoenix, Anthro


    Main Skills: None


    Save Point: None


    PUBLIC INFO


    Note: Newcomer. Say hello!


    Class: None


    Ludo explained: "This is your ''character sheet''. There''s not much on it yet, but I''m trying to standardize things for my players. Do you know what that means?"


    "Making everyone the same?"


    She laughed. "Far from it. But making the [i]rules[/i] the same. Mostly. Right now, you''re sort of stuck in this part of my world when you''re not talking to people outside. If I make you start following the rules, you can do more."


    Volt stood with one hand on her hip, looking skeptical. "Why do we have to follow new rules?"


    "Say you get into a fight with another player, for fun. Who wins? Or say you want to fly instead of gliding. I could just poke you on the muzzle and give you that power, but wouldn''t it get boring if you instantly had everything you wanted?"


    Phoenix thought back to his studies. If he already knew everything, he wouldn''t have needed to hang out with Volt, and then she''d have already gone home. He said, "I think I get why. But... but does this mean I can get sick again?"


    Ludo shook her head. "Never again, dear. Unless it''s, say, getting dizzy for a minute because a snake monster bit you. Or being beaten up but reappearing somewhere else. In return you could learn to fight monsters, or fly away, or zap them with spells."


    Phoenix nodded. Volt said, "That sounds good. Let''s sign up, then."


    Ludo said, "Great! I''ll put instructions into a treasure chest over there, on the beach and about to wash away. Go get it!" She vanished from the screen.


    Phoenix exchanged a startled look with Volt, ran to the balcony, and saw a wooden chest bobbing in shallow waves and about to get sucked away to the ocean. "You can glide too, right?"


    Volt nodded. "Let''s go!"


    They jumped off the railing and sailed through the sky with open wings, whooping and laughing. They landed on the sand and splashed into the warm, bright water, but shark fins were starting to close in. "Quick!" said Phoenix. They yanked the box toward shore, freed it when it got snagged on the sand, and lugged the thing up to shore just in time to see the frustrated sharks snap and snarl at them from the water.


    Each of them got a "Quest Journal" book out of the chest, with instructions on how to summon and banish the thing at will. That was a neat magic trick in itself! They even came with pens and the feel of actual paper and leather. Phoenix flipped through his copy. "Good ideas in here. Getting weapons and armor, learning magic, finding places to explore. What do you want to do, Volt?"


    She was studying a map in the front. "This is the best picture of Talespace I''ve seen so far. Maybe explore the space zone?"


    He peered at his own copy. Of the little bubble-worlds, a few were open to visitors, but several had a bright red "NOPE" across them. Maybe they were too dangerous. "I wanted to do some work at the Fun Zone. You can come along, and we''ll play whatever they''re playing."


    They ran up the tower stairs together and used the wallscreen to call for a portal. A shimmering red force-field door whooshed open on one wall. Volt jumped through, and that looked like more fun than just walking, so Phoenix did the same.


    #


    They appeared in a white concrete maze full of brooms and buckets. Normally it was an easy walk from there to the Fun Zone, but today a mean ogre with a club was guarding the halls. Volt and Phoenix had to sneak through the clutter and try not to knock stuff over and make noise.


    Finally they made it to what looked like a theater behind the curtain. "It''s called backstage," Phoenix said. On the far side of the curtain there was a crowded restaurant where everybody had screens in front of them as they ate. The graphics were kind of messed up so he wasn''t really seeing the people, but they still seemed to be having a good time. Phoenix said, "We''re on Castor, the sea colony. It''s just ocean under here! It''s the Caribbean Sea, where pirates come from."


    Volt looked down at the seemingly solid floor. Really they were on a bunch of floating platforms like oil rigs lashed together, forming an island of concrete and metal and plastic and snapping flags and clanking machinery that kept everyone alive on the surface of the great blue sea.


    Phoenix said, "I mean, we''re in the computers there. Or we''re looking out from cameras there. Anyway I come here a lot. If you go through the curtain they can see you on their main screen, but you can also pop up on people''s screens." He turned and pointed to a chart of what everybody here was playing.


    One group of teenagers was playing a shared fantasy game. Volt said, "Can we jump into their game?"


    Phoenix recognized the names, and rolled his eyes. "Those guys are jerks."


    Volt tried joining in anyway. She stretched one window on the backstage display and got a view of a traditional stone dungeon, where heroes were disarming spike traps. She poked a button and vanished into their game world.


    "They''re just gonna kill you and call you names, you know," said Phoenix. On the screen, Volt had appeared out of the adventurers'' sight in a distant room. They''d keep exploring, find her, and treat her like any other imaginary monster between them and the final boss.


    Phoenix jabbed the button too, so he wouldn''t have to watch that.

 The Hands of Fate

    He was in a bare stone room of the dungeon. The walls were ten feet high and ten wide, there was a vague musty smell, and a dingy wooden door blocked him off from one of the halls the teenagers were exploring. "Bleh," he said. "This isn''t even creative." But Volt was there, and that made it cooler.


    Volt paused with one hand on the door. "You jumped in, too?"


    He scuffed the stone floor with his foot-talons. "They''re going to beat you up. I tried making friends with them before. They said I was a stuck-up billionaire baby. My parents aren''t that rich."


    Volt''s slitted eyes narrowed. "Ugh. What if we fight them, then?"


    "They''re tough."


    "But that was before. I mean, if you were in their game then you were probably using whatever generic rules the monsters use, right? Now that Miss Ludo is treating us like real players, we have character sheets and can get the same kind of powers they have."


    He went wide-eyed. "You''re right! And there''s two of us now. They''ll probably still win, but we can give them a challenge."


    His job was to amuse the Fun Zone''s guests and help them have fun. Being a "baby" that they sneered at and beat up wasn''t fun for them, but having a chance to kick their butts and make them sweat would entertain them whether they won or lost. Right?


    Phoenix raised one hand and did the gesture and nonsense phrase that made his journal appear like it was burning in reverse, and drop intact into his grasp. His character stats were near the front. He winced at the fact that he didn''t have any skills, even though he''d studied hard. History and math apparently didn''t count. Or, for a better way to think about it, the rules were going to track what he did starting now. He put the book away and said, "Okay! We need weapons and armor. Or at least I do; you''ve got that lightning breath."


    They opened the little room''s door and crept out to a hall. No sound of the "heroes", but they couldn''t be far off. Volt asked, "How big are these places?"


    Phoenix spotted a suspicious panel set into the floor and guided them around it. "Usually the customers have an..." He tried to think of the word. "An ongoing adventure, but when they come here to the Fun Zone they''re mostly there to hang out with friends. So a dungeon like this is something they''ll want to finish over an hour or two of drinking."


    "Drinking? Like, beer? They''re too young."


    "Psssh. You''ve never seen Castor, have you? Hardly anything''s illegal. The Fun Zone had to spell out that you have to wear clothes, when you don''t really have to in public. If I were out there as a human I could buy bad drugs."


    They found a room with racks of weapons, and a practice dummy made of rags. "All right!" said Phoenix. There were swords and staffs, axes and bows... He hefted a spear because swords were generic and he had no idea how you really fought with any of these, if you weren''t just pushing an Attack button on a controller. "You should pick something too."


    "Look out!" said Volt. The practice dummy roused itself from the post holding it up, and shambled toward him.


    Phoenix yelped and jabbed it with the spear. The rag golem slipped to one side and punched him so hard it was like getting slapped with a sandbag. He fell down and saw words across his vision: "Minor wound!"


    Volt grabbed the nearest sword and swung it wildly at the dummy while Phoenix got up. The thing dodged again but that gave Phoenix an opening to stab it. It fell back clutching its cloth chest as though he''d really hurt it.


    "You''re just a monster, right?" said Phoenix.


    The dummy silently came at him again, and he and Volt double-teamed it. It swiped at them with its heavy fists but they jabbed and slashed the thing until it fell down and didn''t get back up. Volt said, "Great!"


    He checked his stats again and saw "Spear" next to "Skills". "I don''t know if this means I got better because the skill is listed, or what." However that worked, he at least knew a little more about fighting. "Did you get ''Sword''?"


    "Yeah."


    He grabbed a wooden shield, then noticed something. "Hey Volt, you''re left-handed?"


    The dragon looked at the sword in her left claws. "So? We''re made differently from you. From humans, I mean. I asked once and Miss Ludo said we''re ambu -- ambidextrous but one of her programmers put a ''default hand'' setting to ''left''."


    "Why?"


    "I don''t know. I guess they''re weird enough to make talking dragons and mermaids and centaurs and phoenixes instead of everybody looking human."


    Now that they were armed, they explored more of the dungeon, keeping eyes out for the teenagers. Those guys were slow, probably spending half their time drinking in the real world instead of playing. He felt like a mouse underfoot since this place was set up for tougher heroes than he was. One room they found had a bellowing minotaur in it, and he slammed the door and ran instead of even trying to take it on.


    Volt frowned. "It''s just a maze, right? Not a ruin that used to be a prison or a city or something."


    "Well, yeah. It only exists so these guys can walk around and kill stuff for treasure. There''s no history." He looked at one of the blank stone walls. "Hey! Can you carve messages into the stone with those claws?"


    She tried, creating tiny sparks as she scored a V into the grey rock. "Looks like it."


    "Then let''s make this place cooler."


    They grinned as they scrambled to redecorate the dungeon. Phoenix''s talons could mark the walls too, so they began leaving cryptic notes. "BEWARE! THE SEVENTH LEGION FELL HERE WHEN AMBUSHED BY THE TWOTONS!" Did he spell that right? He''d been distracted by one of Volt''s jokes while reading the Roman stuff, earlier. Outside the minotaur''s room they scratched, "BRAVE HEROES MUST CHARGE STRAIGHT IN AND IGNORE THE ILLUSIONS!" And so on. They arranged weapons from the training room all over that trap hallway to disguise the floor trigger he''d found, and managed to revive the rag golem and get away before it attacked, then prop up an axe above the door so it''d fall on someone.


    They hid around a corner to watch the heroes. It was more fun to risk getting caught and fighting to the death than to jump out of the game and see from outside. The teenagers finally got closer and found the tale of the legion''s woe.


    "The hell is this?" said a wizard, reading. "We finally get a backstory?"


    "I don''t care about the plot," said the guy playing their barbarian axe-man.


    "This could be a clue. We did find that ''Angel Legion'' tablet last week."


    "Whatever."


    Then they all walked straight into the hall trap, and rocks rained down on them. Red and yellow wound icons flashed all around them.


    "A major and a minor. Great. What healing have we got left?" said the wizard.


    The third teen, dressed as a thief, tossed him a potion. "That''ll fix the minor, but I''m out of major healing. We''ll have to play it safe."


    Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    "Or what; we respawn at the entrance?" the barbarian said. "I''ve got work to get back to. Let''s get this lame quest done with before we have to pause it for the day."


    "Two tons," the wizard mused, looking at the fallen rocks. "Fine, but be careful."


    The barbarian read the bit about charging in, and decided it was good advice. Phoenix and Volt couldn''t help laughing when they heard the minotaur growl and chop up the startled adventurer.


    "I heard something!" the wizard said.


    "Yeah, ''Gronthar'' failing to disbelieve the illusion. Guess we have to retrieve his body."


    "No, other people! Whoever you are, come out!"


    Phoenix whispered to Volt, "Retreat?"


    "Nah, let''s fight." She jumped out from cover, brandishing her sword, and said, "Huzzah!"


    "Huh?" said Phoenix.


    "Battlecry."


    Phoenix jumped into view too. "Huzzah!"


    The wizard groaned. "Not you again, trust fund baby. Who''s the chick?"


    "Volt''s the name," said the dragon. "We already took down one of you. Want to go two on two?"


    Phoenix imagined the barbarian''s player sitting in the restaurant, watching his friends keep playing, or already back in the game and running from the last checkpoint to rejoin his friends. He whispered to Volt, "To the weapon room when I say."


    The wizard and the potion-dealing thief had a magic staff and a lot of knives between them. The mage said, "Out of our way, kids. We''re here for whatever the treasure is."


    Phoenix said, "You don''t even know?"


    "We''re here on a long lunch break. I have a real life, squirt. Who cares what randomly generated widget we get at the end of this level?"


    This place didn''t have a story at all until Phoenix and Volt got there to write a little of their own ideas into it. In fact, it was as though the details of the rock trap had taken a cue from what he wrote. Phoenix thought back to the terrible movies he''d watched with his parents, and the books he''d read. "I care, because it''s not random. The treasure here is a pair of armor gloves called the Hands of Fate. Once a day they can cheat luck and make special things happen. Like, making dice all come up six. But it''s guarded by a Moon Beast with weird legs."


    "And only one weakness," said Volt. "It waits in a room all made of smoke and silver, with lots of spikes, and -- oh wait, you don''t want to hang out with us, right?"


    The thief said, "Just tell us already."


    Phoenix grinned. "Please?"


    The wizard said, "Let''s kill ''em and get on with this."


    "No, I want those gloves now. You know that trick with making potions that make you better at potion-making? We could abuse the odds and do that. Even sell the items for real money. We forfeit and go back to random loot if we lose this."


    That explained the barbarian not coming back into play. Phoenix folded his arms and savored the moment. "Well, you''re not getting the treasure if you fight us, ''cause we''ll get in a couple of wounds even if you beat us. Your only chance is --"


    "Ugh," said the magic-user. "Fine, you can come with us, but we get the Hands."


    The four of them made their way through the dungeon together. Volt "spotted" the axe trap above the weapon room, helped the players beat the rag golem, then ventured beyond the paths Phoenix and Volt had seen. They fought a suit of silver armor that clanked and roared, swinging swords built into its arms and knees. At last they reached a shiny silver door.


    "So what''s this weakness?" asked the thief.


    Volt said, "Lightning. Which I happen to have. It stuns the monster."


    Behind the door, everything shined. Walls, floor and ceiling were all metal, wreathed in smoke. As soon as they''d all entered, some of the vapor condensed into an unholy-looking version of the armor guardian, with glowing white eyes and as many spikes as the walls. It let out an unearthly howl, and the battle was on.


    Volt fought for a clear line of sight, but the Moon Beast knocked her down and sent her skidding across the floor. Phoenix rushed to defend her. When the Beast''s fists shot out like rockets with chains attached, he knocked one aside with his spear but got slammed with the other, into a spike through his back. His vision flashed red with the words, "Major wound!". That actually hurt! He yanked himself off of the spike and stood, still aching, but there wasn''t any blood when he fished around behind him with one hand.


    The teenagers battled with it, calling out, "Where''s that lightning?"


    Phoenix helped Volt to her feet. She drew back her muzzle and blasted the Moon Beast with a line of crackling blue lightning. Thunder boomed. The monster roared and jittered... and the energy shot through the silver floor and sent everyone tumbling down and twitching.


    "Way to go, dumbass," said the thief. He and the mage couldn''t feel any pain through their computers, so they recovered first. The boss was already defending itself again, though.


    Phoenix staggered, and in the corner of his vision he saw he had two major wounds and one minor. Everybody had at least one. "Need a new plan."


    The mage cursed. "Did the door lock behind us?"


    His friend lunged over to it and shoved the door open, one step ahead of the Moon Beast''s spiked fists. "This way!"


    Phoenix and Volt banged on the monster with their weapons, lured it back to the middle of the silver room, then fled. Everyone was outside the final chamber now. "Try again," said Phoenix.


    "Can''t. Give me a minute to recover my breath attack."


    The wizard groused, "Waiting for the kid to breathe. Great."


    Phoenix said, "Then get it to chase me." He jabbed it with his spear to get in the Moon Beast''s face, then fought defensively and let it drive him back. The others were happy to let him face most of the attacks. It scored another minor wound on his leg with a chain, tripping him. The humans bashed the Beast from behind until Phoenix could get up.


    Phoenix caught its attention again, then ran into the room of weapons. He switched rapidly from spear to axe to knives, literally throwing everything he had into the fight.


    Volt called out, "Ready! Stand back." Everyone gave her space. She blasted the Moon Beast with lightning again, this time staggering it without hurting everyone else. The four adventurers closed in and beat the monster down with half a dozen weapons and some kind of arcane blast. At last the thing melted into the floor, and a treasure chest appeared.


    "It''s ours, you hear?" said the thief.


    Volt hopped back. "Yeah, yeah."


    Inside were gauntlets inlaid with intricate metal tracing like circuitry. The mage stared at them, reading something Phoenix couldn''t see. "Just like you said. These are going to be great."


    Phoenix said, "I guess we''re done here?"


    "Yeah." The mage paused. "Thanks, kid."

 The Price

    Volt and Phoenix materialized outside the dungeon, back in their view of the Fun Zone. The crowd had changed, not that Phoenix could see the people very well, and the teenagers were leaving.


    Volt high-fived him. "We made some friends!"


    "I don''t know about that, but it went better than the last time I met those guys. So... We can rewrite the game?"


    "Looks like it. Those guys didn''t put much imagination into what they were playing, but when we came along, we did that for them."


    Phoenix belatedly realized he still hurt all over. He checked his stats: still major-wounded, but with Spear and Dodge listed for skills now. "How do we heal, anyway? I don''t want to stay hurt."


    Nearby was a table with a slitted view of the restaurant through curtains. They sat down. Volt checked her quest journal and said, "Time, or finding a cleric or an alchemist or something. And neither of us has a class."


    Phoenix flipped through the Talespace map and compared it to the Fun Zone''s chart of what areas the customers were playing right now. "We could visit one of the other players who''s got healing powers. Says here this one''s run by a cleric." It was one of the little bubble-worlds with a mark saying it was okay to visit, but there wasn''t much detail.


    "That''s not one of the areas the customers are playing," said Volt.


    "Oops. Sorry." He''d misread the map; there was a lot of exploration to do!


    "Is it okay to go there, or are you on duty here?"


    "I don''t have to be here all the time. So let''s try the cleric''s place." Phoenix went over to a wallscreen to tell it to open a portal, but it brought up a complicated puzzle instead. There was a picture of a box dangling from some ropes above an adventurer, and something called a "sine". He grimaced. "Math!"


    He worked with Volt to figure it out, which filled part of a glowing meter full of "portal energy". They had to solve two more problems to fill it completely, which made the air crackle and a rippling doorway appear in the air. It was too high to walk into. On the far side was dirt, like a ledge above the restaurant''s floor. They pushed the table over to stand on it, Phoenix helped lift Volt so she could jump and flap through the gate, and then she was on the other side to reach down and pull him through, too.


    #


    It was quiet and dark here, wherever this was. Starry sky and gently rolling grass with racks of vines in long rows, and a few scraggly trees. "Hello?" Phoenix called out. They stood on a raised platform with some cargo containers and a concrete building.


    A bearded old man appeared, startling them and looking surprised himself. "Yes? Who are you?" He had some kind of European accent.


    "Phoenix Forester and Volt St. John, adventurers. We got beaten up by a monster and the map says you''re a cleric who might heal us."


    The man stared at them, then doubled over laughing. He looked to the clear moonlit sky and said, "Very funny. I perform one little wedding and you rank me as a magical healer." Indeed he was dressed more like a farmer than like a priest. He looked back at his guests and said, "Call me Krupp. Welcome to France."


    Volt said, "Like, actual France or a copy? Where''s the Eiffel Tower?"


    "Miles west by tank. You''re probably seeing my virtual overlay right now. I operate a set of robots in the real place, but I use this representation of it to help me guide them. The grapevines, for instance, are generic graphics that tell me where to send the robots but the exact vine positions take special effort to see."


    Phoenix walked toward the nearest vines, set up like a fence with the plants creeping all over it. A simple robot on treads whirred along it, tending the crop with its claw arms. "Oh, that''s what grapes look like? Why are they off the ground?"


    Krupp followed. "Grapes are normally grown that way, but it''s also because this place was a battlefield. The ground is... dirty."


    "Where are the monsters?" asked Volt.


    "Safely underground, let''s say. I''m gradually cleaning the place, but there''s no adventuring to do unless you like gardening. Sorry."


    Phoenix scuffed the ground. "Then you can''t heal us?"


    "I wonder..." Krupp focused his eyes strangely and gestured in the air. Menus flickered into existence in front of him, but the text was in some other language. Something about "Eisen". Krupp smiled and said, "I''ve hardly done any of this questing business, but it seems I''ve been awarded a healing spell."


    "Great," Phoenix said.


    "I''m rusty at the puzzle-solving this is going to take. While I study up on the rules, would you mind helping me? Fly a drone through the north woods and see if you can spot a broken robot in there. You''ll find the controls in the main building." He pointed to the concrete bunker.


    Phoenix nodded and went with Volt over there, while Krupp busied himself with his menus. The bunker was weird. "Must be part of the overlay," said Phoenix. "This is, like, Talespace systems drawn on top of the inside of a real building."


    They sat down and basked in the glow of a dozen monitors. There were no people around, but a set of joysticks gave Phoenix access to a robot that lifted off from the roof in a flurry of propellers.


    Volt poked him. "Why are we doing it that way? Look." There was a button labeled "First Person".


    One press later, and they were surfing through the air on the back of a flying robot. The wind blew through Phoenix''s feathers as he spread his arms for balance. He was pretty sure he couldn''t fall off while he was steering something on Earth, but it felt like he could. The movement under his feet gave him a sense of the drone''s balance. Volt crouched and held on, looking a little scared. "Are you okay?" he asked.


    She nodded, though her claws were tight on the machine. "I''ll navigate." A map appeared in the air in front of her. "See the trees there? That''s north. Mister Krupp''s missing robot should be over there." The drone had a flashlight and an IR camera to give them something like a real view of the world, tinged fuzzy green the farther they got from the main base.


    Phoenix leaned forward and the robot veered with him, carrying him along like a magic carpet. He tensed his knees and kept his arms wide to let the long rows of feathers hold him steady like sails.


    Together they flew over the grassland, a hundred feet in the air but seeming much higher from the little drone''s perspective. All around them was the vineyard, little hills, and a village of trucks and apartments in the distance. When they reached the woods Phoenix dived, surfing between the twisted trees.


    "What do you suppose the flags are?" said Volt. There were lots of little neon markers sticking out from the ground. A signpost by one broken rock said "Here stood the church."


    Phoenix said, "Marking a path. Guess he''s trying to protect the environment. Or we''re just seeing Talespace graphics. I wonder if the real trees look like this." His view was close enough to real that the drone''s warning beeps only had to steer him away from a few branches he couldn''t see.


    The search didn''t take them long. They''d wandered from the path and over ground that didn''t look like anybody had traveled it in a long time, but eventually they spotted a glint of metal and dived toward it. Sure enough, it was a four-legged robot with claw-arms like the vineyard bots, but smashed by a fallen branch.


    "Can we lift it?" asked Phoenix.


    "Looks too heavy. Just mark our location so mister Krupp can find it."


    They flew back by a different route, zooming between vine racks and high into the sky where confused birds squawked and veered away. By the time they came down to the roof of Krupp''s base, he was there like a ghost standing in the field, not quite real but happy to see them.


    Both kids reeled, returning to the control room and feeling dizzy. Phoenix met Krupp at the doorway and said, "We found it! A tree smashed it."


    "Is that what happened? Shouldn''t have sent that one out with its locator on the fritz. Thank you two. Are you ready for that healing now?"


    He drew a complicated knot of golden lines in the air, wrapping both of them in a spell that became a thicket of runes and sank into their feathers and scales. The ache in Phoenix''s muscles faded away, and some notation came up to tell him he had no wounds anymore.


    "Thanks, mister!"


    Krupp smiled. "Anytime. It''s nice to have visitors."


    "I was thinking," said Volt. "You said the ground is dirty, but you built stuff here and you''re growing plants. So you really are a healer, right?"


    "It''s usually slower than this magic, but I suppose I am."


    #


    They warped back to the Fun Zone on Castor, where it was still day. There was an interactive cartoon on the main screen. A bunch of kids had come in, human kids that is, so there was a show about evil lizardmen battling a village of fox-people. A sign told Phoenix and Volt, "Extras Wanted."


    "I kinda resent the lizards being the bad guys," said Volt.


    "You''re a dragon. Dragons are cooler. Want to join in? You can probably be a bad guy if you want."


    She brightened. "Yeah! I''ll do that so they can have some dragon awesomeness on their side. You go join the foxes."


    There were a couple of pages of text they had to read to learn the story, but there wasn''t much to it. The wallscreen directed each of them to a side room.


    Phoenix stepped into his side''s place, and suddenly he was in a forest. He was in the cartoon that the kids outside were watching! A bushy fox tail twitched behind him, making him jump in surprise. His beak had become a fuzzy muzzle with a black nose visible in front, and the wingflaps on his arms were gone, and he was dressed in some kind of Robin Hood peasant outfit with a spear. It was different, but kind of neat.


    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    After that story reading, all he ended up actually doing was getting into a huge fight. A light blinked to warn him that the main screen''s camera was focusing on him and he should be extra cool. He called out, "Quick, what should I do?"


    Voices came to him from the audience. The forest had become his world, so that he saw nothing of the Fun Zone where they were watching him. Someone said, "Capture their flag!" and he went with that. He charged, spear in one hand, jabbing and dodging his way past lizard soldiers.


    The lizard carrying their scary skull banner was blue, and had a gleam of mischief in her eyes. "You shall never prevail!" she said.


    Phoenix didn''t want to hurt her, but it was just a game. He jumped forward and tried to snag the flagpole in her hands. She whacked him with it and knocked him down. He did his best to steal the thing without actually hitting her. But then more foxes ran into the fray, turning into a giant football tackle that got more and more silly. At some point he managed to crawl out with a flag and wave it triumphantly, but it turned out to be a little white flag and somewhere, people were laughing at him.


    That was okay. The point wasn''t to win. He pretended to be mad as he snapped the flagstaff over one knee and stomped away.


    #


    After the cartoon ended, Volt hugged Phoenix. "Sorry about the fight."


    "It''s fine. Just a game."


    A new, synthetic voice broke in, saying, "So we hear."


    Phoenix looked out at the Fun Zone. One figure stood out more clearly than the humans: a tan plastic robot, humanoid, with ears and a tail like an otter''s. How much of that was what the machine really looked like, Phoenix wasn''t sure. Somehow the robot had gotten enough access to Talespace to appear in this way and speak from the far end of the room. The humans in the room glanced curiously at him, then went back to eating and playing.


    "Oh! You must be Zephyr." Phoenix had heard of some kind of rogue robot working on Castor. "What are you doing here?"


    Zephyr the robot strode to a corner table and plugged a wire from his arm into a socket there. A digital copy of him materialized in the backstage area, looking at them with glowing green eyes. That voice was faintly musical, pleasant but alien. "We''ve barely seen the inside of this place, either the physical side or the digital one. We heard one of the AIs was visiting on a regular basis, so it was a good chance to meet. But which one of you is the human?"


    Phoenix felt his beak bend into a grin. "You tell us. Volt, are you human?"


    The dragon-girl stood with her hands on her hips, tail twitching. "Nope! And neither are you."


    Zephyr didn''t move as he considered the situation. He asked Volt, "If we asked the bird-boy if you were an AI, what would he say?"


    "That I''m way better than a lizard."


    "She''s almost as good as a phoenix," added Phoenix.


    "Hey!"


    Zephyr''s head turned slightly to one side, then the other. "Two of a kind, anyway. Have you considered leaving Talespace and having a real life?"


    Phoenix frowned. "Hey, I had one out there, and... I just lost, didn''t I?"


    A trickle of laughter escaped Zephyr, but it was like a second voice that made up only half of its... his? normal one. He stepped closer and offered one mechanical hand to Volt, who shook it. "It''s always strange to meet an AI who doesn''t come from my own creator."


    "Not ''our''?" said Phoenix.


    "I, the AI mind inhabiting this robot, am partnered with a human who lives here on Castor. We are curious about other kinds of minds. We''ve been wondering in particular about Ludo''s uploaders and her minions. Is it really that tempting to live in a false world?"


    Phoenix said, "It''s not fake. I do a lot of fun stuff."


    "Fun, yes, but productive? What will the world come to if everyone only plays?"


    "I studied math today. That''s something." Sure he''d been goofing off the rest of the time, but it wasn''t like other kids were in school all day either.


    Zephyr paused again as though the AI and his human were talking silently to each other. "Miss Volt, if I may ask: why do you exist?"


    "She''s useful too!" said Phoenix. "She helps at a hospital."


    "Fine, but why --"


    Volt swiped one hand through the air. "Listen up, robot. Today''s been a good day for me ''cause I haven''t had to deal with anybody on the verge of dying, so I''m in a good mood. I''ll tell you straight up what I am." She stepped closer to Phoenix and said, "According to the creator of my world, I exist -- I live -- to have fun and share it with others. And not just by playing games with them, but by figuring out what fun means and how to make it better."


    Phoenix hadn''t seen her so serious as when she was talking about fun.


    Zephyr said, "Your maker gave you a goal without clearly defining it?"


    "I''ve got some programmed instincts like a human, but it''s partly what I came up with. Sharing things you like with other people? That''s on the fun list. Making people feel bad by calling their world fake? That''s not."


    Zephyr''s eyes gleamed brighter. "You phrase it as ''fun'', but we and you might have more in common than we thought."


    "You''re not going to fight us, are you?" asked Phoenix.


    "Not today, I think." Zephyr whirred and turned away, and his actual body in the restaurant stood up and prepared to unplug. "Would the two of you like to hitchhike on a robot and do a little sightseeing?"


    Volt said, "We did a flying drone already today."


    "These go underwater."


    #


    A few minutes later, the AIs and human minds rode a virtual submarine linked to the sensors of an underwater drone. Inside the sub they sat in chairs and listened to sonar pings like a movie. They couldn''t dive deep and keep their radio signal, but they ventured through the shadows of the colony''s huge platforms. Pillars stood all around them like a forest, other submarines whirred through the sea on errands, schools of fish drifted in cages of nets and bubbles, and slanted red evening light made everything look scary.


    Zephyr said, "Forester. I looked your name up. If your family''s rich enough that you uploaded, are you the people who run Ludo''s movie studio in Free Texas?"


    Phoenix said, "Huh? You mean Amagi Films? That''s my parents'' company. They own it, not Ludo. I think there''s some stock too but I don''t know how that works."


    "But it''s listed as one of the AI''s assets. I..."


    "What?"


    Zephyr''s voice split again, sounding more like the human helping to steer him. "It''s nothing. My mistake. What else do you want to see? I want to show you everything, but it''s getting late."


    "Some other time?" asked Volt.


    "Anytime."


    #


    Back in the desert with the dragon lair and the grey tower, Phoenix yawned. "I should probably check in with my parents."


    "Yeah, I should make sure everything''s all right at the hospital." Volt hugged him, letting him feel warm scales against his feathers. "I had a great time. Can we do this again soon?"


    "Of course!" said Phoenix. "We''re neighbors now, and we haven''t even learned magic yet. See you!"


    "Bye!"


    Phoenix reluctantly parted from her and climbed up the steps of his home, too tired to run. He''d heard his brain had to slow down sometimes and recover, so sleep would be a good idea soon. He grabbed his computer tablet, flopped onto his bed with his wings wide, and called Mom.


    "Hello, hon," Mom said from right there in the room.


    Phoenix rolled and staggered up to his feet, hearing his talons clack on the bare floor. "Mom! Oh, right. The VR rig."


    "Yeah. How have you been?" She hugged Phoenix for a long time, then glanced over at the glass rod on the shelf. "What''s this?"


    He said, "It''s called fulgurite! Today I met a friendly dragon and she zapped the desert with her lightning breath to make that for me. We studied a lot and talked with Ludo about how to be adventurers, and then we helped design a dungeon for some jerks who weren''t all that bad in the end. Then we went to France and flew around a vineyard to find a missing robot, and I was a fox for a while, and then we made friends with a different robot and he took us on an underwater tour of his sea colony."


    Mom stared at him, then tickled his wings until he squirmed and collapsed onto the bed, giggling. "Glad I heard there was some schoolwork in there, but it sounds like you did a lot more besides."


    "Yeah!" said Phoenix, sitting up again. "And I get to do even more tomorrow."


    She sat down beside him and held both his hands in hers, squeezing tight. Her eyes were shut. "Lots of tomorrows for you, kid. But let me tuck you in, okay? Dad will see you in the morning."


    "All right. Hey, Mom? Some people think I''m not real, or my world isn''t. But I can still be a hero, right?"


    "Of course. Phoenix." She didn''t usually like calling him that. "Good night."


    Phoenix nodded and hugged her one more time before she had to go back to the world outside. "Good night!"


    There was more to do tomorrow, more to see and learn. Phoenix looked from his bed out to the digital sea, already wondering what to try next.