The Devil In White: An AA Online Novel

Amelia sat up in her bed, wondering what had awoken her. It was the middle of the night, and her body told her that if she had set an alarm it wouldn't be going off for hours. Amelia sat there, half-awake, upright, and wondered what she was doing. She laid down again and started to close her eyes when she heard the chime. Her eyes popped open again uncomprehendingly. It sounded suspiciously like a door chime. It chimed again, dissolving the illusion that she was just hearing the sound in some half-asleep part of her dream.

"Yeah. There better be a fire." Amelia shifted her b.a.r.e feet to the floor and pulled her long sleeping t-shirt down so that it covered her to her knees. She yawned and moved to the door without getting the lights. "Somebody better be dead." She called out.

When the door slid open, she wasn't ready. She was half-awake, groggy, messed up hair, and it was dark behind her. The hallway was well-lit, and the three faces that peered at her beamed brilliantly. The easiest to recognize was Raven. Sure enough, she had one arm and had wrapped her stump in a cute little smiley face handkerchief. She was smaller than she was in the game, but her bright eyes danced with excitement that made her easily recognizable. Before Amelia could form even the most half-assed of comments Raven was hugging her and then began crying.

"Oh," Amelia said. She was unprepared. Raven was really crying. "Why are you crying?" Amelia felt like it was a stupid question like she should know why and it was her fault.

Forsythe must have been the tall one because he was silent and also in shock at seeing Raven cry. He stared stupidly at her back as if he were trying with all his heart to think of something to say. He could have been a model for an athletic outdoorsy type magazine where all you could see was a man on a mountain and a smile beneath dark sunglasses. In real life, he was bigger than she had imagined him, but as he shifted from foot to foot in sudden discomfort Amelia realized he was gentle. A gentle giant.

Amelia turned her bleary gaze on Aidan even as Raven continued to heave against her. His eyes were bright and his smile gentle. It was a smile he never showed in the game and his eyes drifted to Raven. Aidan had the most incredible eyes, and Amelia was momentarily at a loss. "Sorry. You know. You can't cry in the game."

Amelia looked down and slowly wrapped her arms around Raven. Raven had a good one-armed grip around her waist and was even using her shoulder and her stump to hold onto her. "Hi, Raven. You're surprisingly adorable."

"Oh god. We're out." Raven only said those words and continued to cry. As Amelia slowly came to full wakefulness, she realized that she had to stand here as long as it took. She was suddenly reminded of the Disney princess motto, let the child end the hug first. The irony, of course, being that she wasn't sure how old Raven actually was. Raven looked to be sort of in her early 20's so near her age, not counting time in popsicle land. So she stood there and felt the shirt she wore turn damp and was surprisingly okay with it.

"You're early," Amelia noted quietly, talking over Raven's head.

"It seemed silly to get a hotel for five or six hours," Aidan admitted, and Amelia noticed his eyes were slightly damp as he watched Raven. Forsythe for his part was a mountain of a man and didn't seem to have tear ducts. He did, however, seem to have a huge heart. He reached out a paw and put it on Raven's shoulder, only making her bawl harder.

"Raven. Come cry on me inside. Everyone's standing in the hallway." Amelia joked.

Raven continued to cling to her even after they entered the apartment and turned on the lights. Amelia continued to hold her until Aidan cleared his throat.

"Amelia." He began.

"Yes?" Amelia felt the last vestiges of groggy burn away as the enormity of the situation presented itself.

"You're not wearing any pants." Forsythe pointed.

Amelia looked down, seeing that she was indeed in her p.a.n.t.i.e.s and that while her long shirt held her dignity below her waist it was slowly losing the battle to Raven's tears and becoming transparent around her c.h.e.s.t. "Raven. I need to change." Amelia said, starting to pry herself free.

"OK!" Raven stepped back, apparently having cried enough that she could extricate herself willingly. "Whoa! Nice figure!" Raven framed Amelia with her fingers in a sort of box. "Great body!"

Amelia glared for a moment and turned her back with as much dignity as she could. She grabbed clothes from her dresser and went to the bathroom, re-emerging minutes later in simple jeans and a new shirt(with a bra this time).

Forsythe was already absent, and judging by the sounds investigating the kitchen. Raven was sitting on the two-seater couch, already being swallowed by the cushions as she looked around, and Aidan, he was looking at her books. Flushing with embarrassment, Amelia hurried over to him. "I know, I know."

To say Amelia had a collection of books was an understatement. She hadn't bothered with shelves because books lined the walls of the entire apartment stacked from the fake wooden floor up to about waist-height. Books were something that were terribly expensive these days. Most authors signed for e-publishing and then were picked up by book artists who turned their series into their depiction of a graphic novella. As a result, books were only picked up by people who preferred the medium and were willing to pay for it. It was a world where you could pull up books on your tablets or terminal and usually find the graphic novella alternative if you wanted to see what artists thought the scenes looked like.

"No. I was thinking this is exactly what I pictured. More library than the dark witches den, but not by much!" Aidan turned and grinned. "I have read only a few of these. Recent then?"

"Yeah… I like modern, but there are classics in there somewhere…" Amelia muttered. Then, "hey, what do you mean witches den?" Unthinkingly she punched him in the arm. Not softly, but not hard either.

Aidan turned that gaze on her for a moment, the one where he sees something unexpected, and snickered loudly. "What are you 5? If you like me you can just ask me out to dinner."

"Yeah, and take us!" Raven called from the couch.

Face flushed, Amelia turned to Raven. "Go ahead, make yourself at home then!"

"I'll cook." The muted voice of Forsythe from the abbreviated kitchen. "You need more spices," he added.

"It's too early for breakfast or any other food time." Amelia snapped. "I'm a food pill person most of the time anyway, what do you want me to do, add cinnamon to my capsule?"

"That's terrible," Forsythe murmurred sadly from the kitchen. "Food pills. This world is terrible."

Raven had already hit the light curtain and figured out how to turn it on. She was messing with the keypad. "What time is it in Australia Fours?"

"15 hours ahead." He replied, appearing into the room.

"Why do you know that?" Amelia asked.

"I know all." He said loftily.

"I bet he's been talking to Hunter after hours," Aidan said sweetly, earning a slow look of death from Forsythe.

"Who's talking about Hunter?" A voice interrupted from the light curtain. A small blonde woman and a miniature version were taking up the light screen, peering toward their own.

The blonde teenager looked in and brightened. "It's Raven! I knew she'd call."

"You gave out our private line?" The older woman looked amused. Hunter, Amelia guessed. She was gorgeous even out of the game, earning a little envy from Amelia. She didn't look like SHE had just slept on a bed of duct-tape and got rolled out of it.

"Well yeah, mom," Elisha said, rolling her eyes, apparently thinking that it was obvious.

"I watched the first season," Raven announced. "You said it was slow! It was amazing! I can't believe how good it was!"

"Yeah, but a lot of people don't like the first season. It's one of my favorites because it's before it gets REALLY good and it fills in the backstory for the heroine Janey!" Elisha gushed.

"It gets REALLY good?" Raven demanded.

"What time is it there. You look tired… Amelia right?" Hunter smiled, interrupting the Raven and Elisha show.

"Yeah." Tired. Another way of saying she looked like crap.

"So the dark haired one with the grin must be Aidan. Geez, you even look like a villain in real life." Hunter complained, flashing white teeth as she smiled. "Oh, hey there Forsythe. You're tall in real life too." Her smile had vanished, and she stared for a moment as her cheeks colored. "It's good to see all of you! Though isn't it incredibly late for you guys?"

"How about you?" Forsythe asked. "Aren't you playing at the same time as most of us?"

"Oh yeah. Well, mostly I work nights at the hospital. My years of the long shifts finally ended so I can snooze during daylight like a normal person. We were up watching the news and the feeds on the event, catching up. We've been up a few hours." Hunter explained. "Oh, I signed with some legal snooze for streaming? I don't know. I always thought it was a hassle to be involved with some corp but if Amelia is doing it I can help out."

"You weren't getting paid for your stream?" Amelia said with surprise.

"Oh no, I just posted it because some people at work heard my stories about the game and wanted to watch. Then before I knew it there were lots of people hitting my site. The hospital people are big fans." Hunter said with a grin. "It makes work more bearable if we can all talk about something."

"But you're a hall of famer?" Amelia asked, shocked.

"I am? What kind of hall of fame?" Hunter asked, perplexed.

"Another weirdo. Weirdos. Everywhere. What the hell." Amelia felt dizzy. "Quit your job Hunter, you're a millionaire."

"What?" Hunter's eyebrows creased. "Are you drunk? Who is going to pay me to play a game I do for fun?"

"I think," Aidan interceded smoothly, "Amelia is just surprised you didn't know, but people will pay you vast sums of money for your audience. This hall of fame apparently is a monthly tally of viewership for AA, and that's viewership that can be shown commercials. You're number 5. In the world."

Hunter paled. "How do I not know this?"

"Geez, mom." Elisha looked surprised too. "You didn't know? I kept telling you that you were ranking up really far."

"I thought that was some silly game thing. Like a scoreboard in one of the cities." Hunter w.h.i.n.ed plaintively. "No wonder we get so many applications. God. I need to turn over guild leader to someone else."

"Don't panic mom. You're fine. You've been a ranker for a long time." Elisha soothed her expertly. It reminded Amelia of when she had tried to soothe Forsythe.

"We just did this so we could meet people Elisha! Not become e-pop celebrity hoodoo." Hunter's voice was starting to rise. Her eyes had widened and she looked seconds away from a real world freakout.

"Wow. We're going to go. We broke out the word 'hoodoo'. We'll see you later… today? Tomorrow? Tonight? Wherever you are we'll see you when we get on." Elisha laughed and her arm moved toward the camera before it went dark.

Amelia, Raven, Forsythe, and Aidan were silent as they considered the screen. "That is the woman for you Forsythe," Aidan finally managed. "No idea, not a clue, just didn't give a damn and did it all because she thought it was interesting."

"I like her," Forsythe admitted, earning owlish stares from all of them. "Elisha too."

"Oh god. New quest. DING! Forsythe in love. Help Forsythe to overcome his shortcomings as a mechanical robot and learn the ways of love." Raven sang, imitating a quest flavor text. "Do you accept?"

"Accepted," Aidan said solemnly.

"You're both idiots." Forsythe decided.

"Additional quest. Is love worth more than passion? Will Forsythe give up his dream of cooking 24 hours a day to make time for love?" Amelia couldn't help herself.

"Accepted," Aidan said and Raven immediately replied. "Amelia has joined the party."

"You're all idiots." Forsythe was starting to smile, just the tiniest raise of lips.