Chapter 17: Uncertainty, Morgan POV (Patreon)

Chapter 17

Uncertainty

Morgan POV

The morning after the 25th Cycle ended, I woke up an hour before my alarm clock went off and didn’t feel like going back to sleep. Dinner with my family had been weird. Melody fit in like she had always been a part of our lives. She had a way of talking to people that made them feel like they were being heard. She’d pulled all sorts of stories out of my brothers, several I’d never heard before, going around the table and making everyone feel special.

She wasn’t like Tee. She didn’t find anything about the human condition strange. She had no other experience to draw on. As far as she was concerned, she had always experienced life from the human perspective. She talked about growing up in a world that wasn’t real. AIs had surrounded her all her life, helping her grow and develop, becoming her teachers and playmates. She didn’t have parents, and there was a heavy sadness to her when she talked about the people she had grown up with. She’d been raised knowing they weren’t who they appeared to be and that they would go on to be something else when she was old enough to leave.

She’d been isolated but not alone. She’d known people she liked but had no friends. She’d been cared for but never loved. Every relationship she had before she arrived here was a relationship that didn’t need to continue for her to be happy and content.

I’d caught her watching Dad when he would smile at something my brothers said. It was like she was experiencing it for the first time. She had seen almost every movie my brothers and I had, but Dad smiling contently as my brothers told a story was a new experience for her. It was someone showing love, and it wasn’t in a movie. It was right in front of her. And it was something she clearly wanted.

She wanted relationships, people she could care about and who cared about her. She wanted someone to look at her the way Dad looked at my brothers being themselves. But she was more than just a person who wanted to be loved. She was smart and witty, confident and competent. She didn’t mind telling people if she didn’t know something or liking something other people hated. She proudly told everyone she was a workaholic.

I thought she was joking about that, but after dinner, she pulled me aside and asked if it was okay if she went back to work. There was a lot she needed to get done before the next Cycle and not much time to do it in. Nicolas needed to know exactly what we were working towards, so she had to write a report and make a formal plan. She said she would need to work all night, getting everything ready so we could make the announcement later today.

I hadn’t had a chance to talk to her alone and wasn’t sure what I wanted to say when we were alone, so I jumped on the chance to keep her busy. Last night, it had all been just a little too much. It was one thing after another, and I didn’t know how I should feel. I was a complete sucker for a pretty face, and Melody was gorgeous. It was hard to separate my feelings from attraction. Did I like how she lit up the room, or was she just hot? Did I find her interesting, or did I want to find her interesting because she was hot? Did I want to treat this like a marriage my father had, or was I going to ignore her as much as I could?

I rolled over and stuffed my face into my pillow so I could groan. I wasn’t ready for marriage, especially to a stranger.

My phone started to ring.

I reached out to the bedside table, grabbed it off the charging pad and rolled over looking at the screen. Alex’s name appeared on the display, requesting a video call from me. I didn’t want to deal with her right now, but she only called me if something was important. So, I knew I had to answer. I swiped, accepting the call.

Her face appeared on the screen.

I stared at her, trying to blink the sleep from my eyes. Nope, I wasn’t seeing things wrong. It wasn’t Alex, only someone who looked like Alex.

“Hello, Natalia.”

Natalia, Alex’s twin sister, stared at me for a second and sighed. “How can you tell? No one can tell.”

“I get an uneasy, annoyed feeling when I see your sister. You didn’t give me that feeling when I look at you. Nice work on the makeup, it took me a second to realise. Now what were you trying to achieve, impersonating your sister, and taking her phone?”

“I received an offer via email to work in the lab on your station. I wanted to know if it was real?”

“Huh?”

It took me a few seconds to process her statement before I realised what she meant. Tee must have finally stopped waiting for my permission to send out the job offers for the station’s laboratory. Why he would send one to Alex’s sister, I didn’t know.

“It might be real. Flick me your number, and I’ll message you after I’ve spoken to my people.”

“Thank you.”

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “Why do you want to work in my lab, anyway?”

“Before the Peacekeepers took over, I was studying to become a mechanical engineer. Modelling careers don’t last forever, and I planned to transition out when work started to dry up. I think working in your lab would look good for my resume because it would expose me to all sorts of technology and ideas most people don’t see.”

That wasn’t the reason I expected, but it made sense. After Alex had said her sister paid her not to show her face, Tee and I had done some research, watching a few interviews that Natalia had done. She gave me the impression that she was hardworking and business savvy. She didn’t sound like the sort of person who would blackmail someone into hiding their identity. A few fashion vloggers had interviewed her parents, and their reaction to questions about Alex was telling. There was something there when Alex was mentioned that suggested my gut instinct about not trusting her was correct.

“I’m going to be honest with you, Natalia. I’m not sure why you were offered the job. Research is done through puzzle games. The people I hire will be ranked in the top 10 globally for their preferred game.”

“The offer isn’t for a research position. It’s an internship.”

That made more sense. Giving her the internship was something Tee would do. Alex was starting to test my patience. Ever since she repelled the 20th Cycle attack, she’d become more and more demanding. She needed Sector 13 to devote more resources and credits to her station. She needed the fleet on standby, ready to protect her. She was even actively trying to take resources away from Danny and The Librarian.

I think when she discovered exactly how many Tokens we could earn, it made her greedy. Tee was probably trying to turn her sister into a mole.

“My mistake,” I said. “Have a nice day.”

“You, too.”

I hung up.

I put my phone down and climbed out of bed, throwing on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt. There was little chance of me falling back to sleep, so I decided to go to the dojo and do my morning routine. The lack of competent challenges when fighting had started to make me lose the edge I’d been given. Sparing with Thumpa in Game each day helped me maintain it, but I also had to go through the motions on Earth.

I walked down the hallway, slid open the door to the dojo, and froze. Melody was in the middle of the training floor with her back to me, wearing a grey tank top and sports shorts. She was going through a series of kicks that would have put an Olympian gold medallist to shame. They weren’t the sort of kicks you used to get points. They were the kind designed to break bones and kill people. A thin sheen of sweat covered her, showing the effort she was putting in.

She pivoted, catching sight of me and froze mid-kick. She didn’t stumble or lose her balance, panting her raised foot with the kind of ease that only comes from intense training. She turned and ran to the edge of the dojo, grabbing her towel and wiping her face and body.

It took me a second to realise she was embarrassed by her appearance. “Sorry, I’ll come back later.”

She dropped the towel. “No, it’s fine. There’s enough room for the both of us.”

I glanced around the massive room. She wasn’t wrong. Knowing it would look like I was ditching her if I left, I shrugged and walked to the training aids. I grabbed a gravity bracelet and a dampening field bracelet, strapping one of each wrist. The gravity bracelet made everything harder, adding more weight to my body, and the dampening field stopped me from breaking my neck if I was executing a difficult move and miscalculated. What I could do in the game wasn’t the same as on Earth, and sometimes I overestimated my capabilities.

Melody moved back to the middle of the floor and continued what she was doing. I moved to the other end and went through my warmup. Once that was done, I began moving through my forms. Some made sense. Others were only useful for fighting something that wasn’t humanoid. After fifteen minutes, I was sweating heavily and breathing harder, flowing from one form to another as fast as I could.

Melody had slowly increased the speed of what she was doing until I unconsciously started doing the same. A competitiveness grew within me without me realising it as I unconsciously tried to outdo her. I didn’t dial back the extra gravity, just pushed myself harder.

Fifteen minutes later, when everything burned and I could barely keep going, I realised what I was doing and collapsed with laughter, realising the stupidity of my actions. Melody finished her form and then dropped to the ground starfishing, too out of breath to talk.

She had a big grin on her face as sweat poured off her. The moment she caught her breath enough to speak, she raised her hand and said one word, “Winner.” Then dropped it and went back to catching her breath.

I grinned with my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

***

An hour later, I found Nicolas cooking in the kitchen. A dozen dishes that looked like the sort of thing you would buy in an upscale restaurant sat on the bar, smelling like heaven. My family, Tee, and Pan all sat in a line at the bar with a plate of something in front of them, eating in silence.

I took one of the empty seats and glanced at Nicolas. “What prompted this?”

He grinned, flipping a pancake. “I wanted to unwind and to test my new cooking ability. Try the Eggs Benedict. Everything was made from scratch, and if it’s not the best thing you’ve ever eaten, I need to know where you eat.”

I chuckled and took him up on his offer, pulling a plate towards me. I glanced at Tee. “Did you start the application process for the lab?”

Tee ignored me, taking another bite.

“I need to know.”

“Shhh, eating,” Tee said.

“If we didn’t do it.”

“Shhh, eating,” Tee said more insistently.

How good did the food have to be to make Tee completely ignore me? I glanced at my brothers. The moment they emptied a plate, they pulled another one closer. Simon was eating incredibly slowly like he was close to puking, but he didn’t shy away from taking more, focused only on eating one more bite.

I grabbed a knife and fork out of the pile and decided to see what the fuss was about.

An hour later, I waddled into the conference room carrying a fresh plate of Eggs Benedict. I’d eaten six plates before it occurred to me that Melody might not have had breakfast. She’d showered, changed out of her tank top and short shorts, and now wore a bronze dress that went to her ankles.

She was talking to the Rabbi about the Constitution while writing on a laptop, so I put the plate beside her and left, not wanting to pull her away from her work.

I went back to the kitchen and helped Dad with the dishes. Then I went to talk to Tee. He was on the main deck, on a poolside chair, wearing a pair of swimming trunks with my face on it. He had his laptop out and was on a call with someone. Assistant drones floated around him, waiting to perform any task he needed.

These days, Morgan Tee Enterprises took up a lot of his spare time outside the Game. He had hundreds of projects as he bought companies consolidating their technology together to create that sort of technology humanity would need to participate in the Game long term. Fully automated crop production was his main focus right now as he tried to incorporate the technology from self-driving cars into John Deer equipment. He wanted to make it so that when cereal crops arrived for processing, the only human intervention needed up to that point was vehicle maintenance. Humanity was currently twenty years away from that. Tee wanted it done in two, so he was buying any company that could speed up the timeframe.

We could rent technology that was capable of doing this from the Peacekeepers. It would just cost a horrendous amount to Tokens and make humanity forever reliant on them if we didn’t develop the technology ourselves.

The Kilocksin had shared with me that lot of factions stagnated when they entered the Game, relying on the Peacekeepers rather than developing further. There were technological limitations to being a member of the Collective, but the restrictions weren’t so great that most of the rewards they offered couldn’t be covered by hard work. Tee wanted humanity to be self-sufficient, not so humanity could thrive, but so our station had the support it needed.

“The US government just printed a trillion dollars to buy ten billion Tokens from us. We can meet their higher purchase price,” Tee snapped. “Don’t let them keep dicking us around. Have the paperwork signed by the end of the day. I want that company.” Tee hung up, glancing at me. “I didn’t issue the request for your lab staff. Melody did.”

He turned his laptop around, showing me the screen. The name Mars Corp sat at the top of what looked like a website.

“Melody had me make this website for her last night and push it through all my channels. It explains what the Mars faction is, what it stands for, and all the benefits of working for Mars Corp. She’s creating a formal system that is part corporation, part nation, and there are currently over a hundred thousand job listings.”

I stared at the screen, almost in disbelief. “She did this in a night?”

“She’s everything you were promised.”

“But I’m also married to her.”

Tee nodded. “That is a problem. However, we now have a formal system and structure. Filling that structure will take effort, but that isn’t our problem. Melody can take care of it. You just need to decide how much power you want to give her?”

I frowned, taking a seat beside him. “What do you mean?”

“You need to look at the system she’s created. Mars is going to be formally established as a monarchy. There will be no democracy. Instead, she’s created a constitution that gives citizens rights that you cannot remove and a legal system that is fixed and unalterable for ten years. Changes can be implemented to these laws, but they do not take effect until ten years after they are signed.”

“Is that bad?”

“No. From what I’ve read, Mars will be run like a business. The entire planet is going to be devoted to food production and education. Citizenship will be difficult to receive, so the people who join your faction, will come in under a corporate structure. Seven years of employment guarantees one rejuvenation treatment, kind of like a pension. The next one will cost twenty years of employment, but they will have more freedom to change jobs.”

“What does this have to do with power?”

“Melody is your wife, but she’s not the Queen. She has no power. While I haven’t seen anything I think you will disagree with, she has no authority to do what she’s doing. I’ve talked to The Rabbi, and he is willing to sit down with you and walk you through everything she is doing on your behalf. The way she is advertising everything makes it appear to those outside that everything has already been signed and approved. This will make it difficult to build creditability if you veto anything.”

“Do you think I will?”

Tee shook his head. “She’s only advertised the Constitution so far, but there is nothing in it that you will disagree with. But it includes things we never considered or discussed, so you need to read it.”

“I guess I know what I’m doing today then.”

***

The Rabbi took me through everything Melody had sent him, explaining it all in detail and getting me up to speed on everything she said she wanted to do. After that, I went to find Melody.

One of her assistant bots met me at the door to her new office, and I was told she was in a meeting with several heads of state. Not wanting to interrupt something so important, I scheduled an appointment and came back forty-five minutes later.

When I walked through the door, I found Melody sitting behind a desk that looked like it belonged in the Oval Office. Her new office was decorated on a budget that would have made a millionaire blush at the price. It wasn’t that every piece of furniture was made with gold or platinum, it was the amount of detail that went into each piece. Every surface held tiny, detailed images that took years of an artist’s life to create. A bookcase holding first editions of hundreds of books sat behind her, with knickknacks that looked just as expensive.

Melody watched me taking everything in. “Wealth incites insecurity. When we see someone with more than we have, we immediately give them a position of prominence in our subconscious. We assume they have done something better or smarter than we have, which puts us on the back foot regarding negotiations. Displaying your wealth and power is a weapon you must use when dealing with the wealthy and powerful. It tells them you are at least as competent as they are.”

“Is that an excuse or a justification?” I asked, taking a seat across from her.

She smiled, showing off dimples, which threatened to distract me. “It’s a social reality. But we can table that later. I’ve been told you’re upset with my performance.”

“I’m not well enough informed to know if I’m upset with your performance, and I’m here to fix that.”

“Everything was in my report.”

“I was afraid you would say that.” I crossed my arms and tried to keep the accusation from my tone. “Can you please clarify why you’re keeping Mars as a monarchy if the administration and law changes are all performed by The Council of Seven? Also, why did you give the council a name that sounded like it came from an anime show?”

Melody leaned back in her chair, folding her own arms. “The instinct to put our needs before others is intrinsic to our survival and is also where corruption comes from. This is why no human system of government is immune to corruption. You are Mars' failsafe against the council becoming corrupt.”

“I’m the King because I’m a failsafe?”

“Yes. Giving you the power to depose the council or veto anything they try to do stops you from needing to be involved in the day-to-day running of the government while reminding everyone you’re in control. Not having the power to directly enact law changes yourself keeps people from fearing Mars is a dictatorship. The Council of Seven exists for the benefit of the Martian people, and their powers and responsibilities are limited by a Constitution that you can’t change. While any major changes will take decades in the future, it means that no one will ever be caught unaware of what is happening.”

“And the name?”

Melody smirked. “If you think the name sounds like it came from an anime, you need to study the United Kingdom’s government. The House of Lords, the House of Commons, the Privy Council, practically every government branch sounds like it came from a Game of Thrones novel, and Mars will be a monarchy, so I figured I would copy.”

That wasn’t so unreasonable. “Why are you moving so quickly though? You wrote the Constitution, had it proofread and checked, and then posted it publicly without showing it to me.”

Melody’s smirk turned into a smile. “Morgan, I was created to be the perfect administrator for you. Do you know how you create someone like that?”

“No.”

“It’s surprisingly simple. All you have to do is make the administrator want the same things as the person they’re helping. You and I want the same things. The only difference is that I can put your wants and desires into words and actions. I see your goal and every step I must take to reach it. I want this at least as much as you do. I want humanity to succeed in the Game. I want them to thrive and grow. But that is a faraway dream that becomes harder and harder to achieve the longer it takes Earth to organise. So that’s why I’m moving so quickly.”

What she’d said wasn’t a surprise, and it did resonate with my feelings, but this was also one of those scenarios that were too good to be true. “Melody, do you trust the Peacekeepers?”

She paused. “I trust they don’t want to destroy us. I trust they don’t particularly care what we do for the most part. I trust that they don’t want us to go extinct, but beyond that, no I don’t trust them.”

“So, if you woke up tomorrow and they gave you an assistant who they claimed had all of your skills but could work twice as fast, would you hand over all your duties to them?”

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t.”

“Then why are you expecting me to do the same for you?”

She sighed. “I don’t.” Then she started to smile. “I just may have been hoping we didn’t share this same streak of paranoia.”

“Why?”

She shrugged like everything that had happened wasn’t a big deal. “Because then I could have all this done as fast as possible.”

“You could have checked first.”

“Sometimes it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.”

***

The following day, there was a knock on my new office door. Melody had decorated an office for me in a similar style to hers, but it was even more ostentatious. Everything felt like it belonged in a museum, and I was having trouble getting comfortable, which was something I needed to do, or having an office this fancy was pointless.

I finished reading the Australian Prime Minister’s email and looked up. “Come in.”

The door opened, and Nicolas entered. “Can I talk to you for a minute? I’ve got something on my mind.”

I closed the laptop. “Sure, what can I do for you?”

Nicolas took a seat. “I’m not sure how to approach this subject.”

“Just say it.”

He dropped his gaze. “Did you really accept an arranged marriage to help build your faction and improve Earth’s chances of remaining in the Game?”

I let out a sigh, leaning backwards. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I feel guilty every time someone bursts into tears thanking me for what I did. And I thought maybe if I did something for everyone that cost me something, I wouldn’t feel guilty. Also, humanity needs Melody more than it needs me being single. I’ve been doing my part to pull everyone together, but I don’t have the skills to do what we are trying to do, and the people who do can’t be trusted. The Chinese won’t work with the Americans. The Indians won’t work with the Chinese. Everyone is still acting like national borders matter. There are supply chain issues and starvation problems in Africa that the major governments are ignoring because they’re still trying to pull everything back together after so many key people died. Everyone is looking internally, trying to get the best for themselves because that’s what they are conditioned to do in times of crisis. We only survived the 20th Cycle attack because we ignored the governments and went straight to the people. But that brought all sorts of problems. People are doing their best to help, but we don’t have any structure for their help, which is creating other problems. Do you know some of our surviving sectors lost half their freighters and mining vessels because the captains and crews tried to ram the enemy fleets attacking their transit stations? The economy in those sectors has been crippled because of what they did, and they didn’t make a significant difference.”

Nicolas stared at me. “When was the last time you had a day off?”

I sighed. “Does the Game count?”

“No.”

“What month is it?”

Nicholas didn’t laugh. “So, you married her because you felt guilty? That’s a bad reason to get married.”

“I know.”

“Do you regret it?”

“I haven’t had enough time to know.”

“I suppose that’s true. Do you regret becoming the king of Mars?”

“Besides being ostracised by most governments on the planet and not being allowed to return to the US, no, not really. It needed to happen. We wouldn’t have made it past the 20th Cycle if I didn’t.”

Nicholas frowned. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Make these sorts of sacrifices?”

He didn’t get it. “Do you know what I did the day after my father received his rejuvenation treatment?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. “I went home and balled my eyes out. I was a mess. I was a mess because the Peacekeepers hadn’t come a year earlier. If they had, I would still have my mom. That’s what the Game represents to me. People who wouldn’t have their mom having their mom. What would you have given to make your mom healthy again?”

“Anything.”

“What would you do for someone else in your situation? What would you do for a million, a billion people in your situation? That’s the kind of scale I deal with. My decisions have affected everyone on Earth and continue to do so. I believe, with everything I have, that we need to stay in the Game as long as we can. Our medical technology has improved over the last century, but it’s not at the level where we can compete with the Peacekeepers. We still need miracles, and the Game is the only way to get them. So, I make sacrifices that others don’t because the results those sacrifices produce are results only I can produce.”

Nicolas sat quietly, thinking over what I’d said. “I’m not replaceable, am I?”

I paused, then sighed, and shook my head. “No, Nicholas. In the Game, you’re more powerful than everyone on Earth combined. Out of the Game, you own a moon which gives you almost the same political recognition by the Peacekeepers as Earth if you chose to wield it.”

“I earned billions of Tokens from achievement rewards last Cycle,” he said quietly. “Tee offered me fifty billion dollars for them. I’ve had more money than I needed for most of my adult life, but how do you deal with that much money?”

I chuckled because I’d thought the same thing at one point. “Honestly, I ignore it for the most part.”

“You ignore it.”

I nodded. “When I learned what Tee was doing and how much he’d earned, I sent my dad and brothers a billion dollars each and stopped thinking about it. I’ve got more important things to worry about than how much money the Game has made me.”

“I’m not sure I can do that.”

“It’s your first Cycle. Everything has changed, and you don’t think you can keep up. Give yourself time to get used to it and take things slow.”

Nicolas sighed. “I don’t think I’m cut out for this.”

I frowned, hearing exactly how uncertain he was. “Do you like your new class?”

“It’s stressful.”

“Does stress outweigh the reward?”

“Not right now. However, since I’ve met you, my stress level has gotten a lot worse.”

“But it was okay when you thought you were just getting people out of the Sectors?”

“Yes, I could manage that.”

“Do you trust me? Answer honestly, I won’t be upset.”

“I’m not sure.”

“Do you trust what I’m trying to do?”

“It kind of looks like you’re trying to build an empire, but at the same time, that empire is the only thing that will keep humanity in the Game. If I don’t want to park my ship in a sector and play guard dog, it might be the only way we survive.”

“Do you want to play guard dog?”

“Not really?”

“Then what do you want to do?”

“I want things to be simple. Nothing has been simple since I became a Transcendent.”

I frowned, trying to come up with a way to help him. The only reason I was doing all these things outside the Game was that I was the only person who could. No one else could unite humanity the way I could. No one else could stop people only thinking about themselves. They were all too grateful for what I did not to listen to me.

Nicholas didn’t need to be a part of that. Outside the Game, he was just a wealthy man who had retired young and opened a small bookshop. Inside the Game, he mattered, but out here, he could just be himself.

I started to smile. “Would you like a job?”

“Huh?”

“Would you like a job? It would keep things simple, and you wouldn’t have to think about the politics. We could hire you to do jobs, and you could do them in-game for us until you feel like you want to join or decide you want to go your own way.”

“And the job would be?”

“Basically, everything we’ve talked about. Your first job would be to reach Sector 1 to transport the capital building and its buffs to Sector 13.”

“What about the players?”

“The players can go to Sector 6.”

“And after that?”

“After that, you’ll relocate the surviving players and NPCs out of all the falling sectors.”

“What if another government wanted to employ me?”

“They’re welcome to do so, so long as you don’t attack us.”

Nicolas started to smile. “I think that might work. But won’t this make it harder for you?”

I shrugged. “Probably.”