by Tony Corden
Skirmish
The Stork Tower Book 8
Tony Corden
Copyright © 2021 by Tony Corden
Tony Corden owns the content in this book and reserves all his legal rights of ownership. ‘Skirmish’ is published for your personal enjoyment (and, if he’s honest, so he can earn a living). He allows quotations in book reviews and social media posts. In fact, if they are positive reviews, he encourages their use (yay, free advertising). If you want to use it for some other purpose, then email him and get his written permission, if you don't then you may not reproduce or use it.
ISBN 978-1-922336-16-3 (E-book)
‘Skirmish’ is fiction, Tony isn’t writing about real people and doesn’t intend in any way to point the finger at anyone. If there is a similarity, then it’s unintentional and a coincidence. If for some reason you think the good guys are based on you, then be encouraged, you are smart, kind and brave. If you think the bad guys are somehow based on you, they aren’t, but Tony suggests you need help. Seriously, see a counsellor or turn yourself into the police. Some of the places, corporations, institutions, public figures, books, movies and songs Tony mentions are real. Tony has used them in a made-up story (fiction), i.e., IT ISN’T REAL.
Tony designed the cover using an image from Shutterstock.com and Photoshop. Vellum was used to prepare the e-book.
Published by Tony Corden in 2021
You can find out more at www.tonycorden.com or write to Tony at [email protected].
For all those whose voices are never heard.
May we listen to what is said before it is too late.
Acknowledgments
I struggle with both spelling and grammar. Even with the spelling and grammar checks turned on I keep making mistakes. Homonyms trip me up, as do commas. In particular I want to thank T and E for helping to edit this book. They are wonderful people who deserve all the credit when you can’t find an error. When you do, that is all me, not only for making it in the first place but also because I sometimes ignore their suggestions.
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
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Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
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Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
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Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
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Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
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Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Excerpt from Book 9 - War
Introduction
HISTORY
It was the advent of safe electromagnetic neural manipulation in 2021 which led to the rise of a viable and sustainable virtual reality industry. Within thirty years almost all leisure, education, and work-related activity occurred inside virtual reality constructs. Individuals were suspended in a neutral buoyancy liquid which had a gel-like consistency. Their bodies were held in induced quasi-comas, while their nervous system was manipulated to provide a virtual sensory experience indistinguishable from reality while constantly stimulating the motor neurones to prevent muscular deterioration. The variety and complexity of the devices developed was frequently changing yet the market continued to refer to all such devices as Neural Interface SIM (Sensory, Integrative and Motor) Pods or SIM Pods.
Many regulatory bodies, conservatives, and sceptics initially raised the problems of privacy and security. They were worried about the potential for brainwashing, for thought control, or even of subtle thought reform. In response, the VR industry developed and introduced an intelligently controlled interface which included a self-adaptive firewall. This device was controlled by the user and capable of protecting personal privacy and safeguarding the minds of the growing number of people both working and living in virtual space. With many users wanting even greater control over their virtual experience these interfaces quickly matured into personally managed, and owned, Artificial Intelligence Chips. The AI chips were physically implanted adjacent to the nervous system and able to protect, inform and assist individuals both inside and outside the virtual world. The chips micro-manipulated the auditory and visual cortices making it possible for the owner to hear and see implanted information, even in the real world.
Various interest groups including parents, educators and civil libertarians raised concerns over the appropriate age for POD immersion. In research commissioned by the International Institute of Applied Neuroplasticity, there was clear evidence that extended immersion in SIM Pods was detrimental for those under the age of fifteen. Further studies led to International guidelines banning POD use for those under the age of five and limiting their use until age ten to two hours per day, then to four hours daily until age fifteen.
At the Dubai Convention for Virtual Modality in 2050 the United Nations’ ‘Declaration of Human Rights’ was modified and the changes formally adopted the following August by the UN General Assembly. These changes asserted that the access to a personal AI was a fundamental human right for full access to modern society. The right to education was amended to include the right to access the virtual environment.
SUMMARY OF NASCENT
Atherleah Carroll grew up in a negative-tax family in the gang-controlled suburbs of Brisbane at the end of the twenty-first century. From the age of six, she decided that she wanted more and with the help of her local gang-leader, she learned the skills to escape the relentless pressure to accept a life of mediocrity. On her sixteenth birthday, she was inadvertently implanted with a Neural Enhancement Chip instead of the free Government provided basic level personal AI. This mistake not only removed the limits placed on the AI but also broke some of the Government instigated control parameters. Leah’s life rapidly became a battle, both in the virtual-multiverse and in real life.
On the advice of the local ‘boss’, Leah began playing the virtual fantasy game Dunyanin to earn the money she needed to live at the local POD facility and help with her education. With the help of her rapidly evolving AI, she has not only thwarted attempts by the government to limit her opportunities but evaded kidnapping by virtual slavers. Co-opted by several Virtual Security AI Leah has helped shut down a virtual sweat-shop which used mind-controlled players to farm for resources. The family, which runs the virtual crime syndicate, has cornered Leah in t
he depths of a virtual-mine and sent twenty player-mercenaries to capture her. Fleeing through a hidden doorway into a mirror mine operated by goblins Leah hopes to escape her pursuers.
SUMMARY OF ODYSSEY
Leah’s escape from her pursuers catapults her into a multi-dungeon Odyssey which promises challenges and rewards beyond anything she has yet faced. She invites her new virtual friends along and together they are melded into a team. In the real world, she is blocked by people within the Government who want to prevent her rising from her set position in society. Some in the Government are allied with her enemies in the crime syndicate and force her to relocate from the public POD facility. They also try to put an end to her academic aspirations.
She attends a meeting with the Matriarch of the syndicate on a space station in a new virtual universe. When she uses her childhood skills to pickpocket the Matriarch’s head guard she inadvertently steals something of immense value and exacerbates the conflict. In Dunyanin Leah embarks on a journey to fulfil the only timed quest she has. The route includes a visit to both heaven and the place of the dead. She changes history and finds herself rewarded in the court of the High Elves. The reward sends her on a detour and a confrontation with a clan of vampires.
Through all of this, Leah finds time to go on her first date.
SUMMARY OF CHANGE
When Namus, the Vampire Patriarch, changes Leah into a vampire, an error in Dunyanin’s code initiates real-world changes in Leah’s anatomy. She begins learning how to access and use the additional connections her chip has made throughout her body. In Dunyanin Leah is finally able to finish the timed quest. On the way she discovers that the crime syndicate has an even greater presence in the virtual multiverse than she’d imagined, she once again helps free some slaves. Leah is separated from her friends during an ambush and has to continue alone. On the journey, she makes new friends, learns new skills, hatches her dragon, and finds a mega quest which thrusts her into the spotlight, not just in Dunyanin but throughout the multiverse.
Leah not only reaches an agreement with MIT to begin her studies but they agree to let her start researching her theories, all she has to do is find some professors who will work with her. The Pod facility she opened expands as she helps others from her neighbourhood get higher education and access the multiverse. Her battle with the crime family escalates as she begins to unravel the secrets of the syndicate and they both tarnish her reputation and remove the allies and friends who could help her.
Her relationship with Thad grows as they find time to have several dates.
SUMMARY OF RESCUE
Leah’s play within Dunyanin is threatened by legal action taken by the administrators of the game. Leah gets ahead of the media storm that’s brewing by going public and forcing Dunyanin to fully restore her playing privileges. The crime syndicate kidnaps her mother forcing Leah to use her connections within the gangs who rule the poorer sections of the city to try and find where her mother is being held.
Leah searches the steampunk world of Pneumatica for a virtual slave she’s heard about whose been missing from her family for years. In the process of hunting the slave down Leah discovers Thad’s family operates its own crime syndicate, attacks and takes over several pirate airships, and sets hundreds of slaves free. When she approaches Thad to discuss his family she discovers that his will has been compromised by malware introduced into his AI by his parents.
In Dunyanin Leah helps save a race of Dryads and makes a claim for the throne of the Elfauns. During the gameplay Leah takes some shortcuts and overpowers her spells so that the limits set by the developers of the game are circumvented and Leah is set on a path to becoming the Empress of all Vatan.
Leah makes headway on deciphering the information she’d stolen from the crime syndicate in Cosmos Online. She decides to download the material and her AI saves it in newly constructed storage areas in Leah’s head. In order to rescue an archived AI from a secure virtual vault Leah works with her AI to learn the skills of interpreting the electronic signals without her AI’s help. When she enters the vault and rescues the AI Leah discovers that the leader of the crime syndicate may not be who she pretends to be.
Finally tracking down where her mother is being held Leah, and some friends, storm the secure private residence and using her new physical abilities they rescue Leah’s mother. During the rescue Leah’s mother is almost killed and Leah is badly hurt.
SUMMARY OF IPSEITY
Although Leah’s mother Lin is back with the family, she isn’t yet free from Nathan’s clutches. Hoping to keep control of Leah he had an explosive chip installed in her skull with safeguards to stop it being deactivated. Nathan agrees to tell Leah how to disable the device if she hands over the data to Meredith.
In Cosmos Online Leah booby traps the ship before leaving it in a system controlled by Mahigan. Leah is told her mother is caught on an alien world in a survival scenario. Leah must find her and speak a code phrase before Meredith discovers the data has already been retrieved. Meredith’s attempt to board the booby-trapped ship goes wrong, and Meredith is killed by a massive explosion. In another part of the Cosmos Online universe, Leah and Wisp discover a massive unclaimed space station.
In retaliation for being killed and thinking the data is destroyed, Meredith orders Leah to be killed in real life. Leah is shot and seriously wounded, saved only by the structural modifications made by Gèng.
Meanwhile in Dunyanin Leah starts her quest to find the son of the God of Transitions, Lord Geckiş. On the way, she is hampered by the Lord Geckiş’ daughter and diverted to several dangerous quests. In the first, she must battle different versions of herself. In the second she gathers a small team of players to help her mine a Darkness Diamond Mine owned by Lord Kötü, a Darkness Dragon. After Leah reaches an accord with Lord Kötü, she is free to enter Yilinlar and battle her way to meet Lord Geckiş’ son. Leah wins the crown of Yilinlar and prepares to add it to the Empire.
In Pneumatica Leah officially becomes Captain Charlotte and is awarded the Draken as a prize along with several other airships. Leah enlists the aid of Billy Battle to find and set Thad free. Billy introduces Leah to one of his students, Katherine. Together Leah and Kate set Thad free and uncover a secret that could destroy Aeolipile.
As Leah enters the world of Survival, she discovers that Meredith has changed the game to destroy Leah’s chances of rescuing her mother.
SUMMARY OF CONTEST
Leah enters Survival and begins her race to find her mother. The almost impossible task is aided by hundreds of those she’s released from virtual slavery. These people enter the game and build a database designed to provide Leah with all the information she needs to survive.
Not only is she wanting to help her mother but she’s convinced one of those trapped inside a vault in the World Bank is none other than the real Meredith Kodoman. Leah looks for a way to re-enter the vault and does this by contacting the developer who helped set up the security protocols as well as creating the backdoor to circumvent them. Instead of contacting him directly she breaks into his backdoor system to leave a message. She does this but has to be wary of the EPICs she now knows inhabit the larger multiverse.
In Cosmos Online Leah and Wisp unlock a massive space station and galaxy wide transport system. Besides claiming the entire system, which Wisp names Seraph, they enter into a contract with the Cosmos Online owners to manage the entire system. The financial rewards for this are staggering.
In Dunyanin, Leah makes her way toward the portal into Lord Geckiş’ realm as she prepares for the first contest as part of the Merkize Odyssey. To reach the portal Leah goes through land under the control of the Fae. Besides learning more of Merideath’s history, Leah discovers Fae magic. This magic comes in useful when she, and the other nine contestants begin to battle in the first contest. Despite being very competitive Leah comes eighth. What is surprising is the skills many of the others have been hiding. To the surprise of many, Ivan wins the contest.
Elsewhere, Leah has very little time to work on her Community College studies but does spend time with Dr Ellis working on the theories and practicalities of Aether Dimensions. To help develop these theories Leah purchases property to use for experiments. In Pneumatica Leah and Thad are successful in rescuing the Queen of Aeolipile’s eldest child but before they can get away Leah is captured by the Pyranthians. The Tower continues to grow as Gèng’s skill and ability continues to develop.
Leah finally rescues her mother within the game of Survival and the bomb within Lin’s head is disarmed. Frustrated at every turn Meredith and Nathan have Leah framed for the murder of the person who they had arranged to shoot her. Despite the proof being circumstantial at best, at the end of the book Leah is arrested for murder and driven away from her Pod facility by the police.
