Jack of Harts

It’s a hard thing when a toy you created wakes up and asks you if you care about her as an elaborate toy or as a real person. Especially when you can see in her eyes the worry that you’ll just throw away the toy if it isn’t entertaining enough. It’s the kind of thing that makes you look at all the worlds in a different way. It’s the kind of thing that becomes a real clarion call. I had to admit that I’d never thought of it like that. I’d never put the thoughts to words, and they sounded pretty monstrous when said like that. I could tell there were a lot of eyes watching me at the time. Far more than either Dad or Tai had guessed. I had to do some fast talking that day. And some true talking. It’s real hard to lie to top shelf AIs.

My dad had the patience of a saint. He never once yelled at me over that grand plan to pull several characters out of a zombie apocalypse at once. He did say that he really wished I’d run the idea by him before trying it out. He totally agreed that I’d done a good job planning it all out. But he could have brought up an issue or two if he’d been made aware of it. Things I hadn’t thought of. And he said it was my responsibility to make amends. I agreed with him. I had failed to fully appreciate the ramifications of my actions and other people paid the price. Or people that might be people at least. Sometime. Either way, I fully recognized my responsibility and promised to make things as right as possible.

I enacted my grand plan to save several characters from a game at once. I followed the script. I killed a LOT of zombies. Chain guns. Rocket launchers. Pistols. Knives. You name it. I was a whirling dervish of destruction. If the zombies could have felt fear, I would have sent them screaming in panic. I saved one character after another from mortal peril, we killed the bosses from about ten different games and movies, and we all got back to the chopper. We flew out of trash panda city in time to see the bomb go off from a safe distance. And through the magic of holofields and hardlight I flew off to land the chopper on my front lawn in front of my lake where everybody was totally safe. Mission accomplished. I was a big damn hero.