The Laptop - Ch.48 - Twenty Questions (Patreon)

The four of us all stood quietly in front of Frank's tent and watched as Annie slowly made her way across the market square. She took her time, smiling and greeting the other merchants as she wandered past their stalls and carts. Which gave my girlfriends and I plenty of time to get a good look at the elusive and mysterious woman who set all this in motion by giving me her laptop.

She was about average height, at least a dozen centimetres taller than me and maybe a half-dozen shorter than Gwyneth. Her wavy shoulder-length hair was jet-black except at the ends, where it faded to pure white. Her skin was fair, and her face was pretty. She had full red lips, and as she got closer I realized her eyes were different colours. Light green on the right, lilac purple on the left. Age-wise she looked about the same as Frank, in her early twenties. And as she turned I realized her ears were pointed. They weren't quite the same as Gwen's, but close. Enough to make me think she was probably a half-elf.

She was wearing a pale blue sundress, and had simple leather sandals on her feet. There was a cloth belt around her narrow waist, with a coin purse and a sheathed knife hanging by her hips. There was also some kind of wind instrument tucked in there too, something with seven or eight little wood pipes all attached together. And as she walked she continued to play her lute, which hung from a colourfully braided cloth strap.

Her tune finally came to an end at the same moment she stopped before Frank's tent, where the four of us were standing. The dwarven merchant was grinning at the new arrival as he began the introductions.

"Hi Annie!" he stated happily. "Here she is, this is Lisa! And kid, this is Annie! Oh and these are Lisa's girlfriends, Chelsea and Gwyneth."

I found myself staring at the new arrival while she looked back at me. It seemed like we were each studying or sizing up the other. She had a friendly smile on her face, while I probably looked a lot more serious. My girlfriends were both kind of serious too. Gwen's expression was neutral but she had a tight grip on her staff, while Chelsea's ears folded back and her tail twitched warily from side to side.

"So," I finally broke the silence. "You're the original Annalise Summerland? You're the one who wanted me to have that laptop? You're the reason my girlfriends and I are here, instead of being back at home in our normal lives."

The half-elf slung her instrument across her back as she corrected me, "My name is Annie Summers. The 'Annalise Summerland' name goes with the job, and both of those now belong to you."

I frowned at her, "And that's just another one of at least a hundred questions I've got for you."

"I know Lisa," she replied with a sad smile. "And I'm sorry that things haven't worked out as smoothly or easily as I'd originally hoped."

She tried to sound more positive as she continued, "You're here though, you're safe, and so are your girlfriends. So why don't the five of us get something to eat, then perhaps we can find somewhere private where we can talk."

Chelsea's ears were still angled back but she suggested, "We've got a room at the inn, it's fairly private. And we can get dinner there too."

"I was actually thinking of trying what that guy's making over there," Frank chimed in as he gestured towards the street-food vendor. "It smells pretty good."

I shrugged, "Alright then. Let's get something to eat, then I want some answers."

My former boss led the way, and we caught the other merchant just as he was about to start closing up shop for the evening. He was a middle-aged human guy, and he seemed happy enough at the little crowd of customers he suddenly had gathered around his cart.

He had what I'd almost call a medieval BBQ on one end of the cart, where he was grilling little bundles of meat arranged on small sharpened sticks. It reminded me of kebabs back home, but different enough that I knew it was going to be a new experience. The food wasn't served on the sticks, that was just to keep the thinly-shaved slices together for the grilling process.

He sprinkled the meat with a blend of spices while it cooked, then when it was done the little bundles of meat were transferred from the sticks onto oval flatbreads. A thick orange-coloured sauce was spread over the flatbread first, then the meat was added ontop and finally the bread was folded or rolled so the meal was safely contained inside.

Frank got a double-helping of meat in his, while the rest of us just went with a single serving. Then Annie paid for all five of us, and with our food in hand we moved on and left the merchant to close up for the night.

"This is yummy," Gwen announced after taking the first bite. She added a few seconds later, "The sauce is kind of spicy though."

I had to agree, on both counts. The flatbread was warm and soft and fresh, and on its own it would have been pretty tasty. Then the meat was interesting, in a good way. I'd never had anything like it before, but the best way I could describe it was beef flavour with chicken texture. It was a bit greasy too, like some cuts of pork. And the sauce was fruity but with some heat to it as well.

The only thing we were missing was beverages, but the guy didn't sell that. We could have just gone into the tavern to get drinks, but my girlfriends and I didn't feel right going in there while we were eating the other guy's food. That might have been acceptable on Daearen, but we were all used to the rules back home and most restaurants frowned on bringing in outside food.

So we ended up just standing around outside while we ate. We picked a spot on the edge of the square though, so we could watch the last of the merchants as they closed up for the night. And we got to see what seemed like half the village go by, as they headed into the tavern for drinks or dinner.

After we were all finished eating I suggested, "Let's head up to our room now. We can get drinks on the way, maybe a pitcher of ale and a pitcher of that fruit drink?"

"Don't worry about the beverages," Annie replied. "I'll take care of that when we get to your room."

"Alright," I shrugged as the five of us got moving again.

My girlfriends and I led Frank and Annie across the tavern then up the narrow flight of stairs, and finally down the hall to our door. I unlocked it with the chunky key, then once we were all inside I closed and locked the door again so we wouldn't be disturbed.

"Nice room," Frank commented as he headed over to the table by the window.

He hopped up into one of the chairs, and Annie sat down next to him. We only had the four chairs though, so we were going to be one short. I thought about going back downstairs to ask the barkeep if we could borrow a fifth chair from another room, but Chelsea hopped onto the bed and sat crosslegged on there while Gwen sat next to her. So I moved to the table, where I took the chair across from the mysterious bard.

"You said something about drinks?" my former boss reminded his girlfriend.

"Of course," Annie nodded, as she reached up and started making some sweeping gestures in the air in front of her.

I frowned as we all watched her, and I could imagine some people assuming she was making arcane symbols or otherwise working magic. To me though it looked like she was interacting with an invisible UI. Sure enough at one point I caught her briefly typing in mid-air. After a couple more seconds five glasses appeared on the table. There was one beer mug, a wine glass, and three regular drinking glasses, like what we'd use for soda or whatever back home.

The drinks appeared a moment later. Six cans of chilled beer joined the mug in front of Frank, while a wine bottle sat next to the glass in front of Annie. And before me was a twelve pack of those cherry vodka coolers that Chelsea introduced Gwen and I to back home.

"Alright!" the dwarf grinned as he popped open a can and poured it into his mug. Then he asked, "If you're just poofing stuff up Annie, how about summoning some snacks too?"

His girlfriend smiled, "Very well."

After a couple more sweeping gestures and a bit more air-typing a large bag of pretzels popped into existence in the middle of the table, while a big bag of chips appeared on the bed next to my girlfriends.

"Help yourselves girls," Annie told us as she opened her wine bottle. Except instead of wine some kind of pale blue liquid came out when she filled her glass. That's when I realized the writing on the bottle didn't seem to match anything I was familiar with from Earth.

Meanwhile Chels jumped up off the bed and opened a bottle of the fizzy cherry drink. Her ears were angled forward as she poured herself a glass, while her tail slowly swished back and forth. Gwen did the same, then while my girlfriends retreated to sit on the bed again I finally poured myself a glass as well.

I didn't want to admit how much I missed cold sweet carbonated beverages, but I definitely enjoyed my first gulp of the cherry cooler. Then I fixed my attention on Annie again and asked, "How'd you summon the drinks and food? You were accessing the inventory system, weren't you? But I don't see a laptop, or any other physical computing device."

The mysterious bard enjoyed a sip of her blue beverage before replying with a question of her own, "Is that how you want to do this? Are we going to play twenty questions, or would it be best if I just began at the beginning and told you everything?"

I frowned at her, "There's a few things I want to know right now. So if you've prepared some sort of speech or presentation, maybe you can hold off on that for a bit?"

"Alright Lisa," the half-elf nodded. "Ask away, what's your first question?"

Suddenly I found myself unsure where to start. I had dozens of questions, and the person with all the answers was sitting across from me sipping blue wine as she waited for me to pick one.

It took me another couple seconds before I finally asked, "Where did that pink laptop actually come from? And what did you mean about the name and the job going together?"

"Regarding the name and job I meant exactly what I said," she responded in a matter-of-fact voice. "The name and the laptop both go with the job. The laptop, or what it represents, is the quintessential SysAdmin tool, it's the single most important tool of the trade. And that one was originally issued to someone named Annalise Summerland. It belongs to her. So whoever owns it, whoever takes the role of SysAdmin, automatically becomes the new Annalise."

After another sip of her blue wine she continued in that same tone, "It was the same for me by the way, I originally had a very different name. But when that laptop was passed on to me I became Annalise Summerland. And now that the laptop belongs to you, so does the name."

Her tone and expression became a little more wistful as she added, "That was a long time ago by the way. The concept of 'years' becomes almost irrelevant when you're always jumping from realm to realm, but subjectively I was Annalise for roughly a century, before I passed that particular mantle on to you."

"Were you the original Annalise?" Chelsea spoke up. "Or if not, who was?"

Annie shook her head, "I have no idea who was the original. I don't even know exactly how long it's been since the original was around? I'm pretty sure I was number seven. So Lisa here is probably the eighth to hold the name and position."

It seemed like everything she said only led to more questions, but fortunately it was fairly easy to pick the next one.

"Who's issuing these laptops?" I asked. "Who set all this up in the first place?"

The bard grimaced slightly then shook her head, "Pass. The answer to that is way too involved. That'll be part of my big speech as you put it."

I frowned but accepted that. Instead I moved on to another question I'd been sitting on for almost two weeks, "What are canaries? What exactly happened back on Earth, that we ended up having to flee for our lives?"

"Right," Annie sighed.

She paused to drain the last of her drink, then poured herself another glass. Frank was actually on his third can of beer by that point, while Chelsea got up and poured herself a second glass of cherry vodka cooler. Meanwhile Gwen was only about halfway through her first, and I'd barely touched mine. The dwarf was also happily munching away on pretzels as he listened in on the conversation, and my girlfriends had been quietly nibbling on chips.

"The short answer is canaries are a kind of NPC," the mysterious bard finally answered. "They aren't real people, but they don't know that. And under most circumstances they act normal enough, which makes them really hard to spot."

Yet again one answer spawned a dozen more questions, but Annie didn't give me a chance to interrupt. "They're not actually called canaries by the way, that's just a nickname. Based on the canary in the coal mine concept? Anyways they're programmed to glom onto anything that sticks out, anything that's outside a realm's normal operating parameters. It becomes like an obsession for them, they start digging deeper like they need to understand and uncover everything they can about it."

"And yes," she added as soon as she saw the realization in my expression, "As I'm sure you've just guessed, it was Terri."

I asked, "What about the other three? Kinsley, Pearl, and Zach? Are they ok? Did they get to keep their miracle transitions?"

Annie nodded, "They're all fine. Even Terri, all four of them kept the miracles you gave them."

"Canaries are part of an over-arching security system," she added as she got back on topic again. "Every realm has them. Like I said, they're programmed to latch onto anything that violates the realm's standard operating parameters. And when they find something, when they uncover its source, that automatically triggers the clean-up routine that would have erased you if it found you."

I frowned and slowly finished the last of my vodka cooler as all that sank in. Then I took a deep breath and fixed my eyes on Annie again as I asked, "So that leads to the next big question. How will we know when it's safe to return home? And how long is that going to take?"

"Or put it simply," I added with another frown, "When can we go home?"

From Annie's expression it was obvious her answer wasn't going to be anything we wanted to hear. She grimaced then sighed, "I'm going to pass on that one too Lisa. At least until after I've filled you in on the big picture."

"Fine," I sighed. "I suppose it's time for the big speech then. Hopefully we'll finally learn what's really going on."

** This chapter is brought to you courtesy of Mythriel, who sponsored it! **