Chapter 23

Alice took a deep breath, slowly calming herself down. 

"Haha, she's still trembling." 

"And her expression when she got shot, hahaha." 

"Haha, I'm dying." 

You received 10 roses. 

You received 15 roses. 

You received 35 fireworks. 

You received 12 meteors. 

Alice should have been happy to see so many gifts arriving, but seeing the chat sending multiple images of her contorted face made the girl irritated. 

"What are you laughing at?! It wasn't my fault, the developers of this game were obviously lying in the synopsis. This game is obviously not a story game, but now I'm prepared.

" With a determined face, the girl started reading the texts in front of her, looking at a map of her decisions, she finally understood. "

I get it, so everything I do will change the ending... it seems like I left a lot behind... this is very interesting, it looks like in this first chapter there could be up to 15 different endings." 

In the original game, the first chapter doesn't have as many endings, but as a virtual reality game, Alex gave the players much more freedom. With Luna's help, he tried to guess the various behaviors that players could have, and players didn't have to follow the choices offered by the game. 

During conversations with NPCs, the player could take control of the protagonist and respond as they saw fit. This obviously introduced many variables, but with a large amount of credits and a little effort, Alex easily managed to create a good AI for the characters. So they could converse comfortably with the players, he even added some easter eggs. 

But Alice didn't know that, so she mentally prepared herself and started the next chapter. 

"This time, pay attention to how a real detective works." 

A scene began with some codes appearing on the screen, then a store appeared, with several employees presenting the products. 

"They... they are selling androids as if they were a refrigerator or something." 

A salesman approached the camera with a customer, the man was fat, wearing slightly old and worn-out clothes, sweating and slightly out of breath. This was a somewhat strange image because fat people basically don't exist, after all, if a person starts accumulating extra fat, they can just buy a pill at any pharmacy and lose the extra weight in a few days. 

So somehow looking at that man, fat, sweaty, with an unshaven beard, oily hair, giving the impression that he hasn't washed his hair for a long time, made Alice, as well as everyone watching, instinctively have a bad impression of the man. 

"Here it is, it wasn't easy to fix and get everything working again, she was very damaged... what happened to her again?" 

Upon hearing the salesman's question, the man seemed obviously uncomfortable.

 "Uh... it was a... stupid car accident." 

"Ah... I see." 

The salesman seemed to sense the man's discomfort and stopped asking. 

"Anyway, she's perfect again... but we need to reset her, meaning she lost all her memory... is that a problem?" 

"No problem." 

"Okay, do you have a name?" 

"My daughter gave her one." 

"AX400, register your name." 

Saying that, the salesman stepped away, leaving the man to approach the camera, making everyone watching feel a bit uncomfortable. 

"Kara." 

The scene changes, showing a beautiful android with a gentle smile on her face. 

"My name is Kara." 

Everything goes dark, a soft music starts playing in the background, then the scene shows Kara in a car, driving through the city. 

"Damn, why do I have a bad feeling about this fat man." 

"That man looks like he's going to commit a crime, hahaha." 

"Just by looking at the fat guy, I can tell he's going to mess up." 

"Kara is beautiful." 

"I didn't know androids were sold like this." 

"This whole scene gives me a bad feeling." 

"This music is relaxing." 

While the chat was sending messages, Débora found herself lost in her memories as she watched Alice play, she saw the girl controlling another protagonist. As she walked through the city, Débora could see the posters against androids and the store displaying androids in the shop windows. 

Débora could perfectly remember how popular these stores were in the past, one of her biggest struggles was how newly created androids should be treated. Today, when a new android is built, it is registered with the name of the family that placed the order, and the person or family is responsible for taking care of the new android, while the android, in turn, must work for the family for 700 years. 

Although not ideal, it was the best agreement they could reach, humans have cheap labor while controlling the number of androids being created. 

As new androids continue to be created, they also have the freedom to live their lives after their service time. In addition, in modern times, androids are generally treated as family members, so it is very rare to see any reports of abuse, which was very frequent when these stores existed. 

The stores that sold androids were extremely wealthy, she spent over a thousand years dealing with all kinds of politics and bribes to finally get rid of them. Now, looking at these stores again, she felt her chest burn a little, even though people nowadays don't remember or simply want to erase from history how androids were treated in the past. 

She would always remember all the protests, all the prejudice, all the innocent androids that were destroyed, maybe if it wasn't for the war, the androids would have been completely destroyed. Over the years, Débora tried to create various ways to keep that time recorded, she firmly believes that the past cannot be forgotten, it must always be remembered, so that everyone can avoid making the same mistakes.

 ..... 

Alice, who was controlling Markos, stopped to listen to an artist playing an instrument she had never seen before, but she liked the music. But looking down, she saw a small sign. 

[Human music! $1 to hear music with soul] 

"Damn racist, $&#@&# $&@#&" 

Alice really started to get annoyed by this, as the daughter of an android, she couldn't help but be indignant. 

"Haha, I didn't know my Alice could swear." 

"Thanks to the automatic censorship, otherwise she would be banned." 

"She looks so beautiful when she swears." 

"Why are there so many racists in this place?" 

"Look at these stupid protesters." 

While the chat was joking around, Alice encountered the protesters, and one of them stood in front of her. 

"Where do you think you're going, tin head?" 

The protesters surrounded her, Alice, who was already irritated, tried to push the man, but her body froze and a message appeared in front of her. 

[Androids cannot harm humans, do not resist.]

When she wasn't paying attention, someone pushed her from behind.

"Look at this son of a bitch, stealing our jobs but can't even stand on his feet."

Alice got furious, she stood up ready to punch whoever pushed her, but her body froze again and the same message appeared.

A man approached and held her by the shirt.

"I'm going to crush you like a soda can."

All the protesters began shouting and cursing, saying they would beat her up. Hearing all of this made the girl even more irritated. As the daughter of a council member, she had excellent self-defense training. No one could speak to her like that without getting a few broken bones.

But when she tried to move again, several red signals appeared, along with the same message.

[Androids cannot harm humans, do not resist.]

"Damn it, don't touch my Alice."

"That's why nobody likes protesters."

"I really want to beat these idiots."

"You lost your job to the androids because you're useless."

"Oh my god, I'm so angry."

Soon, a police officer appeared and ordered everyone to leave. Alice stepped back and started complaining.

"What the hell is wrong with this damn game? They created it to make me angry. I can't even hit these bastards. It's so unfair."

She continued to complain until the transport arrived. Just as she tried to board, a message appeared.

[Androids must go to the cargo area.]

Alice was surprised by this. Before she could react, she lost control of the character, and a scene began. She just watched as Markus went to a small area in the back, crowded with several other androids.

The scene ended, zooming out from the androids and showing that the area with chairs was completely empty.

Looking at this scene, Alice calmed down.

"This game takes place in the fifth millennium, right?! This is the part of the story I studied the most. I already knew there was a lot of prejudice at that time, but experiencing it firsthand is different from reading or watching an old video. I think I'm starting to understand what this game is about."

Alice was slowly understanding the game, but she wasn't the only one. Detroit was slowly but surely gaining more attention.

Many players were testing it and getting hooked on the game's narrative, including Elena Maxwell.

She was already one step ahead of Alice. Elena was controlling Kara as she cleaned Todd's house. Looking at the old, completely messy house, full of dirt, with a visibly nervous child sneaking around the corners, and the fat, panting man sitting on the couch drinking, made Elena furrow her brows with disgust.

"How can this pig live like this? Even this child looks pale. How I wish I could have a moment alone with him."

Of all the things she had seen so far, this was the most revolting. Unlike Alice, Elena didn't have much knowledge about the fifth millennium, and even if she did, it wouldn't have affected her much. After all, as someone who had lived for so long, something like this couldn't easily affect her like it would the younger ones.

Christoffer, who was watching his wife play, was a bit confused.

"What is this story about? Honestly, I don't see anything wrong with how the androids are treated."

Hearing this, Elena couldn't help but agree.

"Yes, I was thinking the same thing. After all, back then, the androids were just machines, and few had consciousness. Even though these people are very rude, I don't see a problem in treating a machine like a machine. It would be different if they already had consciousness, but so far they are just robots... but I trust the boy, this story must have more than what we're seeing."

"Yes, yes, that kid is amazing."

"What? Are you jealous of an 18-year-old kid?"

"Jealous, please..."

"Hehe, it's okay."

Elena continued cleaning the house, picking up empty bottles and discarded food boxes scattered everywhere.

"How can this pig let a child live like this?."

After doing the dishes, she went to the living room to collect the trash. Looking at the device in front of Todd, Elena saw that he was watching a sport she didn't know. A little curious, she stopped for a moment to watch.

Todd noticed Elena standing there and immediately got annoyed.

"What the hell are you looking at?! Get out of here."

Even though she was a calm woman, even Elena got irritated, but she was forced to go back to cleaning.

Taking the dirty clothes, she went to the washing machine. While grabbing the detergent, she noticed a small package with some red pills inside. Using Kara's abilities, she analyzed the small pills and discovered that they were a potent type of drug that caused various negative psychological effects.

Before she could do anything, Todd suddenly appeared and grabbed her by the neck, lifting her up. Elena almost instinctively tried to defend herself, but her body froze.

[Androids can't hurt humans, don't fight it].

"I don't want you going through my things, it makes me nervous."

"Sorry Todd."

"Don't touch anything that's mine, unless you want to piss me off, do you want to piss me off?"

"No Todd"

Elena was really angry, but she couldn't move, several red warnings kept appearing, she couldn't even control what Kara was saying.

(That pig bastard.)

Todd let her go and left the laundry room. Looking over, she saw Alice, Todd's daughter, looking at her with a frightened expression.

"It's okay Alice, I'm fine."

Hearing this the girl hugged a small teddy bear she was holding and ran into the living room, Elena sighed, in all her life she had never felt so trapped, so vulnerable, so weak.

(Perhaps that was the message the boy wanted to convey.)

Elena came very close to guessing what this game wanted to show the players.

When Alex was deciding how much freedom the players should have, he purposely made the beginning of the game extremely limited in Kara's chapter.

He wanted players to feel a sense of helplessness, knowing that everything was heading for the worst possible scenario, but all they could do was watch.

This would make the end of Kara's chapter at home much more exciting.

........

Note: Another chapter, this one didn't take as long as I thought, hahaha.

I was reading some comments asking for the name of the original, I just wanted to explain, I had already written it in the synopsis, but THERE IS NO ORIGINAL.

I'm writing this story in my native language, but since I don't know enough English to write everything in English, I'm using free sites to translate.

So sometimes the translation gets a little, or a lot bad, hahaha.

I saw someone in the comments recommend Outer Wilds, I had bought this game a long time ago but never played it, I even forgot about it, when I saw someone comment on it, I decided to give it a try.

 And I have to say that this game is a unique experience, so unique that I don't know if I should put it in this story, I feel like it would make a lot of people miss out on an incredible experience playing it, and I also don't know if I would be able to convey the right emotions.