Continue Online (Part 3, Realities) Read Online Free Page B

from the general anger I built against my sister. Deep thinking and questions about the nature of reality made my head spin. Who was I to guess what machines inside a computer would do? I tried to treat the Voices and Hal Pal as real people because anything else seemed disrespectful to a thinking creature.
    I mean, if people could love dogs like they were human, then why not a machine that could be touched or felt real inside the ARC? Xin Yu's fingers felt better than any memory to plague my life for the last few years. Real, tangible, and just, right.
    My niece, Beth, opened the door and shouted happily, "Uncle Grant!" She was one of the few bright spots in my life that had kept me going after Xin passed, and before she un-passed.
    "Hey, Munchkin," I said and gave her a hug.
    "Mom!"
    "What?!" my sister's voice shouted from above. She had a hint of anger in her scratchy voice. Liz typically sounded like me, which was hard to describe. Normal, I guess.
    "Uncle Grant's here!" Beth shouted up the stairs while turning.
    "I'm sure she's expecting me," I said to Beth.
    "God. Yes, come in," my sister said from the top portion of her house. I looked up to see Liz. Her face puffed from sickness and a mug clutched in one hand. "Beth, you've got homework to finish right?"
    "Yeah. A project for Space and Energy Dynamics in Transit," Beth said before pulling her lips to one side in a half-hearted growl. "They want me to plot out a good way to get to Jupiter with limited resources. It's nonsense!"
    "Do it anyway." My sister sniffed and took a sip from her mug.
    "I'm going, I'm going. Talk to you later, Uncle Grant!" Beth shouted as she clomped down the stairs. My niece was light but always seemed energetic.
    "Bye." I tried to sound happy for her sake. Knowing my sister and our history, this situation wouldn't be peaceful for long. Liz tried to sort out problems with her vocal cords. That was our tried and true method for problem-solving since childhood.
    "Mh." Liz sniffed again and sluggishly marched back to her kitchen. Soon she was staring down at the table top reading a manual of some sort.
    "Cold?" I started with a neutral question.
    "Yeah." She sniffed again and blew her nose. "None of this medicine works. They can beam thoughts into our heads and send people to Mars, but still fail to cure the common cold."
    I eyed the tissue and tried not to feel grossed out. They had much better stuff out now for collecting snot. Like tissue paper but really easy to biodegrade. Not for Liz though, she went old fashioned on a lot of things. My father was even worse.
    "That's gross." The judgment came out anyway.
    "Whatever," Liz said with a clogged nose. "Why are you here, Grant?"
    Irritation surged inside me and turned the prepared speech into a few curt words, "I'm sure you know already. You locked me out of my game."
    Liz stared at me with her puffy face for a good minute. Her eyes seemed to almost roll closed with each breath. Finally, my sister tilted and poked at the kitchen table. An image came to life showing my niece Beth logged into her Atrium doing homework.
    "Yes. Because I'm worried about you," Liz said after confirming Beth wouldn't hear us. She often surprised me with her ability to be a parent. I remember my sister screaming at kids in school and a gap-toothed smile.
    "There's nothing to worry about. I'm attending my meetings, talking to a counselor, everything is fine." The list of pros I had compiled in the car sounded pathetic now. Elegant words and jabs citing that I was an adult to somehow reverse this situation meant nothing.
    "You missed your last session with Doctor Litt. It was a week ago," she said.
    A week ago I had been logged into Continue Online and roaming through the mountains delivering a letter. It must have slipped my mind despite all the normal reminders inside an ARC. No, actually the meeting did vaguely ring a bell. I had dismissed the message three times while trying to figure out a tower entrance.
    "I'm doing