The Devil In White: An AA Online Novel

The normalcy of the day continued thankfully, and after her workout, she went home like she always did, already looking forward to her shower and then planning to maybe peruse the forums on MKC Online to see what the Airu fight looked like. Instead, contrary to her expectations, when she opened her door her father was sitting on her two-seater couch with her mother. Amelia's mind immediately came to a crashing halt, like an engine that had died and was turning over and over but not restarting. They were holding hands, watching some extra-net special about mecha fighters in space. Their conversation about the relative skill of whatever Extra-Dimensional Force Space Warrior they were looking at stopped.

"Daughter." Her father greeted her without rising. He was balding, and she could never quite reconcile the current image of him, gaining a bit of weight, looking weathered, with the image she had of him as a child as this terribly powerful man who stood quiet and imposing, demanding respect without ever uttering a word.

Her mother was doing the fake blonde thing to cover greying hair, and she leaped to her feet with a smile and greeted her at the door with a hug. Amelia had to admit her hair did look pretty good. "Welcome home honey!" Amelia had the sudden feeling that she was visiting their home and not her own. They were greeting her like she had arrived unexpectedly but they were still glad to see she had dropped in to visit.

"Oh. Hi." Amelia fumbled for a moment, managing not to ask what they were doing here. She knew that it would be dismissed immediately. Parents, or at least her parents, had always been derisive of the notion that they needed a reason to see their daughter, let alone her permission.

Both her parents smiled but said nothing. Waiting in that way they did when they knew she was organizing her thoughts.

"I thought you were on holiday?" Amelia finally managed lamely. She was sitting on the edge of her bed in the corner of the room, looking at her parents as they sat easily on the couch. The mecha space drama had been muted.

"Yes, Italy was nice. We took an underwater pod tour of the parts that were submerged a few years ago. They're still beautiful!" Margaret beamed.

"I thought you were in France?" Amelia asked in confusion.

"Then Italy," Francis explained patiently as if it were obvious and both countries were practically a casual drive from one another.

"Oh. How was it? Oh right, beautiful." Amelia grated awkwardly. "It's good to see you guys, I was going to come to visit you when you got back home. In your place. Elsewhere."

"I know we're intruding on Amelia space, but we were driving through." Her mother explained it away dismissively. "We're going to take you out to dinner and catch up, and you can tell us about this new job." It sounded almost like a threat. She was smiling but her lips were peeled back in a way that showed off all her teeth.

"I have friends who are coming over for dinner…" Amelia began slowly. It occurred to her that they, they being her crazy crew, had never shared their terminal numbers with her and that if she was being honest with herself, they had probably not bothered to set them up in the first place.

"Boyfriend?" Francis asked. Margaret stilled and peered at Amelia suspiciously. They were still not over the fact she had never had a boyfriend.

"Yes. You'll be happy to know, one of them is my boyfriend." Amelia drawled. "For less than a week. I'm sure he'll be thrilled to meet you." Amelia tried her best to keep the biting sarcasm from her last statement.

"Good! We can meet him!" Margaret got up and started fluttering around the room, straightening book stacks and generally trying to dust the tops of the stacks with a small handkerchief she carried with her, completely ignoring her daughter's distress.

"Oh good." Amelia shrank.

"Why?" Her dad wanted to know.

"Why what?" Amelia prompted.

"I thought no boys until you graduated." He held up a hand to forestall her protest. "Your rules, not ours."

"Yeah, I just sorta fell into it," Amelia admitted.

"Are you two, you know, being safe?" Her mother turned, gazing at her expectantly.

"Holy crap mom."

"Margaret!" Francis admonished.

"Why don't you just ask me whether I'm a p.r.o.s.t.i.t.u.t.e or on drugs again while you're at it?" Amelia flushed.

"Amelia be nice to your mother." Her father admonished again.

The situation earned a reprieve when Forsythe, arms full of bags, entered quietly into the apartment. He stared at the room for a moment, and then without a word went into the kitchen. To Amelia, it looked like he was fleeing, as if he had a sudden thought on what was going on and realized he had blundered into it. Then realized he wanted no part of it and bailed.

"Well, he seemed nice!" Margaret laughed mischievously watching the broad back disappear. Her eyes were wide and she gave a thumbs up.

"That wasn't him. That's Forsythe, he's cooking dinner for us." Amelia grated her teeth together trying to ignore her mother having rated Forsythe a 10.

"You have a live-in cook?" Francis raised an eyebrow.

"Well, she can't cook." Margaret pointed out logically. Francis nodded as if that did make sense.

Before Amelia could begin to defend herself Hurricane Raven slipped through the door, immediately bee-lining to her and completely ignoring the rest of the room. "

Amelia, that was incredible! When you reached out and you were wearing your 'I will destroy you' face to Heather. She almost peed herself she was so excited. Then you ruffled her hair and now you're the hero. She wants to be a strong dominant female like you…" Raven's gaze slowly drifted to the couch. "Oh. Hello. A.d.u.l.ts. Parental type figures." Raven turned to Amelia and tilted her head in amazement. "Parents?"

"Surprise?" Amelia opened her arms, smiling awkwardly. "I have some."

"What happened to your arm?" Francis wanted to know right off the bat. Her dad, always direct.

"There's no reason or accountability for fashion." Raven replied so swiftly and with such solemnity it sounded like her real opinion, all the while waving the stump which was now sporting a new cornflower blue wrap with its signature bow knot. "I thought everyone would be doing it before long."

"Hmm." Francis stretched out his left arm, and after a moment stared at her with an equally blank and mysterious gaze. "I've been meaning to lose pounds myself. Is it thinning?"

"Oh, that's adorable! Have you considered making your own line of cute little wraps?" Margaret gushed, moving toward Raven and admiring her blue cloth from inches away. She reached out immediately and touched the fabric, turning the bow slightly so it wasn't as crooked with a casualness that startled Raven.

Raven slowly turned to Amelia, her face a mixture of awe and horror. Her jaw was hanging loose, and she just stared at her, as if trying to figure out which emotion to deal with first.

"Forsythe is in the kitchen," Amelia answered the unspoken question about how to flee gently.

"To the kitchen." Raven fled.

"Oh I like her. She's quirky and feisty." Margaret sighed. "I wish she had gone to school with you earlier. You needed more friend's Amelia, all your friends were so boring."

"MOM?" Amelia shouted, eyes wide.

"You almost made someone pee themselves?" Her father interjected, eyebrow-raising.

"She hit me first. Little girls should know not to smack finger-exploding monsters." Amelia scowled. "Raven is making a gang and recruiting them young from the neighborhood kids. They're apparently too young for some things but she has high hopes for their future criminal prospects."

"I suppose that makes sense if you are you." He conceded after a moment.

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"Forsythe. I'm freaking out. Her parents are like world-bosses. I don't know what to do but I felt this overwhelming bloodl.u.s.t when they were looking at me. Like dragons who I accidentally agroed. Then they stood and stared as if they were trying to figure out whether I was worth the effort to walk over and eat!" Raven was pacing back and forth behind Forsythe, who was wearing a 'Capture the Crab' apron with the shadow of a cook with a pot lunging after a crab.

"I mean I felt like if I did anything that I did normally I would be swallowed whole. It made me want to do it even more. I almost walked over and started knocking over stacks of books just so I could look back over my shoulder and sneer at them. Just so I could see what they would do, to prove they weren't freaking me out but they were, in fact, freaking me out so I couldn't." Raven continued babbling.

At last, when he could take no more Forsythe turned and put a gentle hand on Raven's head, stopping her from her pacing. He didn't speak, just stared at her. She calmed after a moment but then started to get worried when he just stood there mute. He hadn't said anything, or even really reassured her, and in fact, was trembling slightly. Could it be Forsythe had also been terrified by the monsters in the other room?

"Holy crap! What are we going to do?" Raven whispered fiercely with renewed panic.

"Help me cook. We will feed them and they will spare us." Forsythe suggested.

"Good plan. What are we having?" Raven stepped up to the stove, for the first time in her life entirely devoted to the giving of others.

"Steak, buttered steamed asparagus, and cauliflower." Forsythe was taking no chances.

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"She seemed fun!" Margaret casually dismissed her daughter who was trying to tell them to tone it down. She was looking like she was enjoying herself. She was still fluttering about trying to straighten things. Amelia simply didn't have enough stuff for her mother to feel like she was making any significant contribution to cleanliness. "What was her name? Your friends are all running away before introducing themselves."

"Raven." Amelia dutifully replied.

"Really? That's an odd name. I mean it's beautiful but I didn't think people named their children that way anymore." Margaret finally paused and sat down by her father on the couch, she took his hand which he gave her dutifully and held it in her l.a.p. "Although I did know a girl growing up and her parents named her Photoshop Essentials. She went by P.S. Elliot which was really the better choice I think."

"Well her real name is Emily but she goes by Raven." Amelia explained. She was almost sidetracked by the photoshop name.

"Is that a thing?" Francis asked.

"Sort of nowadays. Forsythe's name is Richard." Amelia felt her mouth getting dry. She was having a hard time justifying why they had different names without mentioning that she had met them in a VR game.

"What about your boyfriend. Will he be Rex?" Margaret wanted to know.

"No, his name is just Aidan," Amelia said, resigning herself. "Speak of the devil."

Aidan had walked in slowly, removing his shoes as he considered the strange company in the living area. After a moment he dropped his backpack and moved toward the couch, extending his hand first to her father. "Mr. Patrick. Mrs. Patrick."

"Good guesser!" Margaret decided, allowing him to shake her hand gently after her husband did.

"She has a photo of you on her screensaver terminal. You were at some lake and she looked sour." Aidan smiled.

"Yellowstone Lake." Francis supplied. "...and you're Aidan..?"

"Yes sir." Aidan stood awkwardly for a moment but gave no indication he was going to supply a surname. "It's a p.l.e.a.s.u.r.e to meet you. How was France?"

"It was wonderful. Have you ever been?" Margaret asked.

"Once. I saw the Eiffel Tower and climbed to the top but I was too young to really appreciate anything else so I didn't go." Aidan admitted.

"What a kidder! Climbing the Eiffel tower. Those stairs fell down years ago!" Margaret giggled. "Your parents didn't drag you around? That's why Amelia looks sour in the photo. We were dragging her around when she wanted to stay home and play games and read books and build block castles." Margaret smiled sweetly at Amelia over his shoulder.

"No, my father was there for work and my mother had passed some time before that," Aidan explained. He seemed grateful that she had let his faux pas about climbing the Eiffel Tower go. He couldn't have known that you couldn't do that anymore.

"What do you do Aidan?" Francis asked immediately. His eyes narrowed as if it were a very important question. Amelia knew from experience that he didn't really care but was just putting on a show.

"I'm a part-time tutor for the History Department at the university currently, and in the fall I'm enrolling in Communication to pursue graduate work toward social construct theory and the growing field of Virtual Reality broadcasting," Aidan replied after a brief hesitation.

Amelia wondered when he had decided that. He had made no mention of it to her before. It made her kind of happy that he was going to stick around for a while. Still, she was a little impressed because she knew from his facial expression that he was grinding the truth out despite his usual flippancy regarding such things including 'honesty' and 'truth'. She was pretty happy he was already looking for something that interested him, though she wouldn't have been mad if he had decided to just hang out. She knew that with the money set aside in investment banking while the three had been in stasis that they were all independently wealthy. Not incredibly rich perhaps, but well-off enough to slum around wherever they wanted for quite some time.

"That's ambitious." Her father supplied. It was clear he had no idea what any of that meant.

"Stop Francis." Margaret squeezed his hand. "We all just want to know how you two met."

Amelia froze, the pit of her stomach doing a roll. This was a conversation she didn't want to have. She definitely didn't want to lie to her parents.

"I was sort of just existing with Raven and Forsythe and we all met Amelia as a group of friends," Aidan said smoothly. "When the opportunity to play Awakened Aspiration Online came about we all started seeing each other over a period of several weeks. I guess our interest, or mine, at any rate, grew over that time." His face was very calm, and there was no hint of a smile to his words. She knew that was when Aidan was being his most careful. Despite that, she blushed as he described how his interest in her had 'grown'.

"Yeah. That's the game I'm getting paid to play at the moment." Amelia said, trying to sidetrack the Aidanquisition.

"How do you get so much money to play a game?" Margaret's face scrunched in disbelief. She seemed to have been holding her tongue. Amelia imagined that her father had probably warned her not to jump to conclusions until they heard her out.

"It's not all that strange sweety, remember how people did the online streaming when we were young?" Francis consoled.

"Most of those were scantily clad women and men who were more mouth than a brain!" Margaret stared at him as if challenging him to disagree.

"There were a lot of quality people doing it as well." He consoled once more.

"There's a spot in the game coming up that will determine the game's course. Millions of people are going to be affected if we lose. It might even kill the game. I'm somehow in the middle of that and MKC Online is using my footage from the events. The actual broadcast is free, but the money comes from companies and sponsors who pay MKC Online to put in advertising and commercials. It's a huge PR project for the game itself as well so they make some side money on that." Amelia explained. "You remember how network broadcasting used to have commercials for shows and that's how they got money to stay on air before everyone went entirely digital?"

Her father nodded, and grudgingly her mother nodded as well.

"Same thing." Amelia crossed her ankles and waited.

"So you're an actor." Margaret finally decided to put a name to it that made her comfortable.

"Actress." Francis corrected her.

"Not… exactly. I'm more of a camera…woman." Amelia decided. "No one can see me unless they're looking through someone else's eyes so it's somewhat anonymous."

"Not for long." Aidan said, and he moved to the bed to sit by Amelia. He didn't take her hand or do anything but sit with her. She was grateful and irked at the same time. She wanted him to hold her hand but didn't want it to look like he was claiming her in front of her parents either.

"Explain." Francis turned his gaze on Aidan.

"There is a lot of players or potential camera women." He offered. "Your daughter as of this moment is in the top 100 most viewed players of the month." He shrugged his shoulders. "In the world."

"Oh thank god." Margaret finally laughed letting out a relieved breath of air as the silence started to stretch.

Aidan blinked, turning to her quizzically.

"I was so afraid you were selling your organs. Your father told me I was just being ridiculous and hysterical." Margaret put her hand to the side of her face as if blocking her mouth from view gave her and Amelia some special privacy. "Fame seems the lesser evil."

"You were being ridiculous," Francis said.

"Let it be known Aidan that telling a woman she is both ridiculous and hysterical is something most men learn not to do." Margaret had looked pointedly at him and he nodded solemnly, casting a glance at her husband who seemed unaffected.

"Be nice to mom!" Amelia said, smirking.

Forsythe appeared from the kitchen entryway. "Dinner."