The Anthologies Saga Volume 1-Pixelations

Ch-Keet Code

Keet walked out towards the woods near the Tavern before he saw who was going to fight...
All of the Teens.
He locked eyes with Gary, and the same Dust Blood that came when he saw Marx Triplet resurfaced. He almost ran to him, murderous intent in his eyes, had it not been for Anna and JJ holding him back.
"Get off! Get off of me!"
"Keet, calm down," JJ tried, but Keet didn't want to listen to him at the moment. He didn't want to listen to any of them.
"I wasn't there for her!" Keaton sobbed. He didn't even know he had tears in his eyes until his voice broke. "I wasn't there for her because of YOU!"
Gary chugged down his Monster and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He's not gonna be intimidated by an NPC. No way.
"You only came because it was 'Stasia," Gary chided. "You just wanted to go on a date. It's your fault you weren't there, not mine."
Again, he lurched to Gary, and again, he was pulled away. He was thrashing around, so close to ripping free and choking him out-
"Keaton, STOP!"
Everyone paused and turned at the voice. The Teens knew who this was, but Keaton had never heard her voice before.
Kat looked at the shocked faces from behind their screen. Almost like betrayal.
"I thought you were mute..." Keaton panted. He looked around. "What else are you not telling me?"
"Listen," Kat told him, getting closer. "I'm only here because I wanted to thank you for what happened at the tavern. The guy was being a prick, and you showed him whose boss."
Keet rolled his eyes, but inside, he was really touched by what she said. He sat down and watched the others, the voice of Mama ringing through his head, talking about how to stay calm and be a gentleman.
Look where that got him.
"Okay, so here's the plan," Anna told the Teens. "The point of the game could be that we have to stop Armageddon. And Keaton is going to help us."
Everyone turned to Keet, who nodded and stood up. "Yes, on one condition- you guys get me out of the game and into reality."
Gary, surprise surprise, was the first one to say anything. "Oh, HELL no! I'm not going through a Doki Doki situation here. I'm out!" And with that, he grabbed a map and clicked somewhere, dissolving into golden dust.
Keaton turned to Anna. "What's 'Doki Doki'?"
Anna pressed her lips together and turned pale. Luckily, Babi answered for her. "It's best that you don't know."
Keet wanted to press on, but he didn't, for the sake of being a gentleman.
"Okay, how much time do we have?" Babi asked, continuing the conversation. "Can anyone check?"
JJ checked the timer on his computer. "We still have four days left."
"Okay, that gives us quite a bit of time. Especially if we pause the game."
"Woah, woah, woah, pause the game? Anna, have you lost your mind?"
"Not yet, Kat. Not yet."
And almost simultaneously, the three paused the game and with it, the timer. Keaton froze up. He couldn't move. He moved his pupils and saw that Gary was approaching the two of them. Gary saw the group and groaned. "Guys, did you pause the game?"
No response. Gary groaned again and soon, he froze up. He needed to take a leak anyway.
From behind their screens, JJ, Babi, Kat and Anastasia started having a serious conversation about what to do.
"Why did we need to pause the game, Anna?" Babi asked.
"Okay, guys, we're not just going to be pausing the game..." Anna sighed. Here goes. "We're gonna walk away from it for a little while."
The chat clamored over each other, but Anna could distinctly hear the words "Are you insane?!"...or something along those lines.
"What are we going to do until then?" Kat asked. "Build an android to plug Keaton's code into?"
Anna fell silent. Babi gasped.
"You're kidding."
"Well..."
Babi grabbed at her head. JJ spat out his drink and had to get to his kitchen to wipe the liquid off his earpiece. And Kat realized what this meant.
"No."
"Kat..."
"Anastasia, NO. I'm not that good an engineer."
"I don't buy that for a second."
"Well, buy it in bulk, alright? It's true."
"Anna," Babi interjected. "If this is about Hermit Kermit-"
"This isn't about Hermit Kermit anymore! This is BEYOND Hermit Kermit!"
Everyone in the chat fell silent as those words sunk in. Even Gary was shocked that Anastasia would say something like that.
Anastasia collected herself and continued. "We could be talking about sentient AI here, guys."
"Free Guy," Babi breathed out.
"I do love me some Ryan Reynolds," Kat agreed.
At this point, JJ came back from cleaning his earpiece. "What'd I miss?" He asked the group.
"'Stasia has this brilliant idea that Keet could be sentient, like Free Guy."
"Oh, I LOVE Ryan Reynolds."
"Everyone loves Ryan Reynolds, but that's not the point," Gary said. "The point is that that idea is INSANE."
"How insane can it be?" Kat said. "Death and The Grimm Reaper should've taken Keet when he saw them. Keet was just following his programming."
"Wait a tick," Babi intervened. "Did you program Keaton?"
Kat stayed quiet for a moment. "Not necessarily. I just saw his coding. And in it, I saw that they coded him to be a good person, incapable of feeling any negative emotions." She pulled up the coding for evidence. "For instance, whenever Keaton sees a character, NPC or otherwise, in some sort of trouble, he'll walk to them and try to strike a conversation. The conversations usually start with 'hey, (character's name), are you okay?' And in the case that they say no, he asks what's wrong. Perhaps he thought that the hooker from the other night was in trouble, and that's why he was able to see the Takers. His coding to help others and be a good person overrode his coding to not see the Takers until it's time, and in a sense, not follow them. He followed the hooker, not the Takers."
That's right, Anastasia realized. Why did she just now realize this?
"Listen, Anna, are you sure that you want to do this?" Kat asked. "If something happens, like a computer virus, an unstable or interrupted internet connection, hell, even during transfer, we could damage the coding."
"What?"
"What if something goes wrong when we try to bring him here? What if half of his coding gets completely wiped out while trying to power up?"
"That's a lot of 'what ifs', Kat," Anna told her.
"Anastasia, THIS ENTIRE SITUATION is a big fat 'what if'!" Kat screamed into the earpiece. You could hear a pin drop in the chat. Kat gathered herself and calmly continued, "The coding for Keet is...special. I certainly can't duplicate it. Trying to take a goldfish into a saltwater lake could have serious consequences."
"Dude," JJ blurted through a bag of Doritos. "I don't understand fishing metaphors."
"JJ, shut it," Gary snapped. "How do you even know that saving the world is the plot of the game, 'Stasia?"
"I don't," Anastasia admitted. "But it's something we have to try. We can't call ourselves great beta testers if we don't try all the possibilities."
The chat sighed. Finally, Babi broke the silence. "Who's gonna tell him?"
No one volunteered immediately. While some might not admit it out loud or to themselves, the chat has grown fond of Keaton. And who wouldn't? Every gamer had a special connection to an NPC. Markiplier had Tiny Box Tim.
They have Keaton Douglass.