20 Great-aunt Amila

When Eli stepped out of the apartment, carrying the box of teas, his phone pinged with a notification. He reached for his pocket, then stumbled from the forgotten mat outside the door, the box in his hands hitting the doorway.

"Ow," he grumbled.

He reached up to adjust his skewed spectacles, then backed into the apartment again, reached for the half-visor on the hallway table near the exit. He put it on, clipping the connections to his earpiece, and to his glasses.

The notification appeared on his visor display.

The car he'd rented for the day was waiting at the taxi station nearby.

"Good timing."

Eli chose to buy an apartment here because he knew his mother worried about his father's aunt who lived in a retirement community nearby.

He placed the box he'd been carrying on the passenger seat and jogged around the corner to the flowershop. An armful of flowers and incense was dumped once more in the passenger seat, before he took off again for another shop.

Finally, he slid into the driver's side of the car and input the address of the Haversun Homes entrance gate into the AI navigator.

The rented car was definitely less noisy than Mr. Kazan's truck. It was faster too. The journey took only a quarter of an hour.

There was a short line of cars outside the gates, which wasn't unexpected.

The gate was guarded by two people. Despite the extensive electronic security in the world, people still needed to see human security, especially in places with a vulnerable populace like schools, hospitals, and retirement homes.

Humans were a pack animal. Eli's lips twisted wryly. How many humans, if their pack was gone, would do as the Armored Mothmarmot did?

Too many.

Laws restrained the more excessive reactions that are based on instinct, but in a gameworld where every player knew those laws were ephemeral? It was a major reason why VRMMORPGs commonly had mechanics like Reputation Points or Alignment Ranks or Fame Points or other Virtue-Sin systems, which significantly adjusted a player's gameworld experience based on their moral choices.

"Good morning, sir."

Eli returned the greeting as he put up his phone to the floating drone scanner. The guard glanced over Eli's itinerary, and waved him inside.

He took manual control of the car and drove to one of the single-storey houses that were the norm in this particular gated community.

Great-Aunt Amila Crewan was waiting on the porch of her house, her pale grey cap of hair shining in the shade that the large tree beside the house casting over the front yard. It blocked the high morning sun from the car, which Eli was grateful for.

"Took you long enough to visit," she tutted as he got out of the car. She directed a scowl at him. He stopped, surprised that behind the expression he could see the warmth in her eyes.

He'd learned to read people in Zushkenar, and it was applicable here. Before Zushkenar, he just thought she was a senile woman who complained all the time.

"I'm sorry, auntie. Have you been well?" Eli was truly contrite. It had taken him a week after returning in time to remember her, and a whole month to finally come over.

Before that, he was sure he hadn't visited since he was fired from work.

"Am I well? Hmph. Tediously alone, is what I am. Everyone talking about virtual this and virtual that, no-one plays card games anymore! I tell them it's better to talk person, then they say virtual is 'in person'! How is it the same, I ask you? That rascal grandson of Arania's is too presumptuous."

"What did he do?" He followed her in and put the box on a table.

She looked at it suspiciously. "You didn't bring one of those virtual helmet glasses or something, did you?"

He glanced at the box. Eli had packed the teas in a headset box, yes. "The rascal grandson gifted you a VR headset?"

"For everyone in the community," his grand-aunt scoffed. "What will I do with it, hm?"

Eli raised his brows. Even the cheapest not-new VR headgear cost several hundred ecru at least. There were six hundred people in the Haversun Homes subdivision.

"You could try it," he suggested. "It shouldn't be too different from augmented reality…"

"Dear nephew, there is a world of difference between teleconferencing and jacking your brain into a machine that builds the conference room in your mind."

Point.

She looked at Eli suspiciously with the same brandy-brown eyes he inherited from his father. Her gaze was limned in the creeping blue of old age. "Don't tell me you've succumbed to this craze?"

"I don't know about 'succumbing', but I like that I don't have to wear glasses in a virtual world."

"Hmph."

"I brought what's left of mom's teas." He indicated the box she was so suspicious of.

She relaxed. "Tea? Insipid leaf juice, give me coffee any day. But then that young doctor said it was too much for my stomach. I should know what's good for my own body, don't you think!"

"What else did the doctor say?" Eli asked casually.

"Too many things to remember," she huffed. "I ignore him every time he starts talking. Don't eat this, don't eat that. Hah! I'm old, who's he to say I don't get to enjoy my old age?"

Eli made a note to talk to her doctor.

She ambled over and opened the box. "Mm, your mother liked the flowery ones, didn't she? Good, good. I've run out of the one she gifted the last time. Oh, this orange peel one, your parents introduced to me at their wedding. Go put the water on, nephew, the granddaughter of that Melenda one house over baked some vegetable bread for the whole street that would go well with it."

Vegetable bread?

Weren't those the steamed things Sirens made?

Eli hid a wince but still started to heat water, listening to her stories about his parents as his aunt went through the teas, interspersed with comments towards people in the retirement community.

He laughed at more than one of her observations.

He'd known his great-aunt and his mother had been close, and the last he saw of this lonely but formidable old woman was nearly eight months ago by this timeline, and a decade ago by his personal timeline.

Eli felt a wash of fondness and grief.

He was glad he brought the teas here. He'd left them to rot the last time, along with the rest of her effects, determined to hoard every memory of his mother to himself.

Seeing that there were others who loved her too, who hoarded those remembrances so tenderly, was painful and soothing both.

Great-Aunt Amila was one hundred and three years old, and according to her still 'spry as a jumping rabbit, thank you!' She would die too, some months from now – a blessing, as she would not see the city she loved so much fall into a crack in the earth.

Then Eli would be the last of his father's family, and the rest of his relatives would be distant maternal cousins too wealthy and too proud to know him. He inhaled and exhaled slowly. This year had been so much shit. No wonder he went crazy.

He really should visit more often. Eli only had a year left in this world, after all. And she had even less.

The vegetable bread was unexpectedly floaty and light, buttery and subtly sweet, speckled with green and orange and yellow. Not like Siren steamed vegetable buns at all.

How it went well with orange peel tea though…well, at least it didn't taste bad?

He glanced across the table.

His aunt brought the teacup up and inhaled the fragrance, before taking a sip. Her lips curved pleasantly. She took another sip.

Eli hid a smile by biting into a piece of bread. 'Insipid leaf juice', huh?

"The taste hasn't degraded that much," she pronounced. "I had thought them all ruined."

"They're all in vacuum-sealed glass." Good ones, with extra-tight sealing and temperature-control features. Eli would never understand tea-drinkers.

For him, coffee was coffee.

Great-aunt lifted a brow at him. "Containers fail."

"You sound like a tea-lover," he complained, teasing. "What happened to 'give me coffee any day'?"

She grimaced, pale brows crumpling into a scowl. "It's an acquired taste."

He hid a mischievous smile. "Taste in the virtual world is said to be expansive these days. You can drink coffee there anytime."

She made a grumpy sound of reproach, the looked away and drank her tea.

Eli blinked, then grinned outright. "You've already tried it!"

His aunt scowled. "The coffee tasted wrong."

"Which platform?"

"Halfworld."

Eli nodded. Halfworld was free to play for explorer accounts, with fees if the player wanted to build things. These days, people entered Halfworld for the spaceships, interstellar travel, and the realistic galactic expansion.

"Have you tried others?"

"It's not too different, you see one, you see them all."

"The Redlands sense platform is currently the best sense-sensation virtual environment in the world, according to research." As he said the words, something in his chest clenched and ached.

He wanted her to see Zushkenar, the world where he grew into himself. Redlands was a reasonable facsimile.

"The wargame?" Her words dripped disdain. Her generation was responsible for much of the world all but banning national standing armies, which led to stricter regulations on weaponry and the weapons industry diminishing.

"It actually started as a crafting game. There's still a lot of that, and it's a fantasy world auntie. The landscape is very unique."

"There can't be a lot of safe zones in a wargame," she disagreed. "I, for one, don't want to walk down a street and be collateral damage for gangers tossing fireballs at each other."

He couldn't refute that.

It was true. Game-mandated safe zones were a thing of the past. In Redlands, the safe zones were situational, places that were deliberately protected. The holy places might be the closest, as the 'gods' that protected them were AI that could retaliate and NPCs would defend them.

Even then, there were very few indestructible places in Redlands.

"Do you have plans before the afternoon mass?"

"We're having lunch with the Darasuems. Their family is hosting a Souls Day barbecue. The whole street is invited. Sarah Darasuem has many nieces and granddaughters your age. You won't be bored."

"Auntie…"

"Or do you incline to the other side? She has fewer nephews, I'm afraid. But she brags that one of them is a runway model, so they must have good genes."

"No, auntie."

When they got to the Darasuems, Eli handed his aunt over to her friends, immediately made for the nearby playground where the children and young teens were gathered, plopped down on the grass beneath a tree and opened the Redlands forums.

There was no way he was going to mingle with the adults when there would be three or more old people looking to meddle in the love lives of the younger generation.

Looking at the crowd of people, from elderly to middle-aged to teen-aged to all years of pre-adolescence, Eli wondered.

The depression and grief of the transmigrated players after the Quake was one reason they kept to the patterns of behavior they were used to in the game.

What if their families transmigrated with them?

Eli pushed his glasses up his nose, thoughtful.

He opened the RSI page, navigated to the suggestion system.

VR tourism was a phenomenon. Why did Redlands and RSI not open the world to those who only wanted to see new landscapes and new peoples without getting too involved in the game?

Temporary passes were a thing that existed, for 'Halfworld' and other VRMMO games like 'Tomb Robbers Ancient Eras' and 'Royal Architect'.

[Thank you for your suggestion. We appreciate that you have given your time to helping us create better solutions.]

He pressed his fingers against his leg, pensive.

Would that gain more people for Zushkenar? Save more people? Or was it just players that transmigrated?

Eli shook his head, closed the page.

This was about all he could do at this end. He knew too little.

What he should do, was concentrate on Redlands and relax.

He'd only just sent off an order for a pack of BrainZip ZombieFluid, thirty minutes into his shaded relaxation, when a young voice piped up.

"You're not supposed to be here."

Eli glanced up at the six year old, who'd crossed her arms and was pouting at him. "No?"

"You're an adult," she huffed.

He glanced up to see her babysitter some distance away, a college student aged woman with the same black hair and dark eyes. He turned his gaze back to the child. "Isn't she an adult?"

"She's my cousin," the girl refuted.

"Oh, I'm not an adult either."

"Yes you are."

"No. I'm a ghost, currently sustaining myself by eating the laughter of little children."

The girl stared at him for a long moment. Then she screamed at the top of her lungs.

Eli flinched back at the sudden sharp sound. He clapped his hands over his ears as she ran away to her cousin.

Well, it worked and he was alone again.

The not-adult cousin glared at him as she tried to calm the little girl down. Eli shrugged at her and tapped to the RSI video portal, RedVisor, scrolling for interesting game videos with Spell use and the Shadow Element.

Unfortunately, no one dished out their secrets for free on the streaming site.

"Are you really a ghost?"

It was a young boy this time, only a year or two older than the first girl, smiling brightly.

Eli didn't lower his phone. "What will you do if I say 'yes'?"

The young boy looked back at his cohort, then hissed in a whisper that carried. "Do we have holy water?"

"No," someone hissed back. "But Bibi's uncle can bless anything! Mama said."

The boy turned back to Eli, pointed dramatically. "We'll be back."

They scurried off. Presumably to make holy water.

Eli brushed himself off as he stood, then ambled back toward the Darasuem house. Maybe they had a quiet corner there, with no children attempting to exorcise him with 'blessed' water.

Also, they were already serving the barbecue.

The mass was at three in the afternoon.

That was only two hours away.

Eli wasn't religious, but his father's family was part of the United Christian Church. He'd sit through worse than a choir and sermons for Great-Aunt Amila.

He was, in fact, sitting through worse.

Keeping up an empty smile while being introduced around to people who were his physical age range and coincidentally single was hellish.

He was relieved though, that his aunt wasn't as lonely as he thought she was.

The church was large; it echoed. The words of the priests and the elegiac songs of the people rang and thundered through the alcoves and the small spaces of the soul.

His fingers drummed on his leg, as he fought to keep his expression neutral.

There were no Earth religions in Zushkenar.

Still, these songs were so familiar.

Of course, they had been familiar before Zushkenar, but in Zushkenar those who had faiths retained the songs and parables from different religions. Clinging to everything that was lost, the transmigrated players learned too. The first time he'd been to the aftermath of a battle after the Quake, he'd been surprised to hear the songs sung at both funeral and celebration.

The familiar songs weren't sung in churches, but rang in clear air, in taverns, in private houses, by mercenaries or soldiers or crafters of all races. They were mixed with Earth-made pop songs, and folk songs, and new songs written by transmigrated musicians.

Zushkenar and Earth flickered, merged, separated in Eli's mind as a particularly common hymn burst from the throats of a hundred people.

His twitching fingers stopped, dug into his thighs.

Earth, he reminded himself.

He was on Earth.

Listen. Listen closely.

Despite being the same songs, the way they sung was different. This church congregation lacked the intensity that came after a battle, the reverent relief at being alive, the hidden bone-deep anger at being alive, the ripping grief at the loss of a thousand little familiarities.

Eli relaxed slowly.

But then tears formed in his eyes.

How was that better, exactly?

A thin, elderly hand clasped his whitened fingers. He took a deep breath and refused to let the tears fall, forced his fingers to loosen their grip. His aunt would only worry. He clasped her hand back, comforting.

He was fine.

In the late afternoon, after mass, they both stood before the family memorial walls, before the ancestors of his blood, and lit incense while placing flowers on the ledges.

He watched curls of smoke rise up in velvety strands from the incense sticks.

Fifty years ago, the memorial hill would have been flickering with thousands of small flames from candles. He'd seen a documentary. Today, no one made candles that weren't electric anymore.

He'd have liked to light one, he thought; an actual flame candle. Real fire was more appropriate for Zushkenar than just smoke and fragrance. But he didn't; just watched the smoke of a thousand tiny pyres disappear into the sky and let himself hope that it was enough for the souls of the lost.

The sun sank on the horizon, painting the clouds with red and orange.

"I'll visit next week, auntie," he promised as he escorted his aunt to her room, after another tea and bread meal. She'd been tired out by the holiday.

"Hmph. I'll believe you this once." But her hand tightened briefly on his before she let go.

Eli smiled a little painfully and left her to get ready for bed. He checked security one more time before letting himself out of the house. He took out his phone, tapped a visiting schedule into his phone, and sent it to his aunt. It was up to her to confirm it with the Haversun Homes security systems.

It was already eight in the evening when he turned into the street his apartment building was in.

Parking in an empty spot, he tapped the controls, indicating to the hiring company that the car was ready for pickup, and walked from the station to his building.

"Oh, hey, are you Elias Crewan?" asked one of the two men waiting with a large package outside his apartment.

"You're early," he greeted. "You didn't wait long?"

The man shrugged. "Just got here."

The other leaned forward to see Eli from across his friend. "I told him the reason for the late delivery was the All Souls Day visiting, but he didn't believe me."

"You should have contacted me." Eli unlocked the door. "Come in."

It was good they were here now. The faster he got used to his avatar-body in Redlands, the better.