by Tony Corden
When she’d finished the cyber practice, Leah spent an hour in NREM3 before taking a break.
47
December 28, 2073
REAL WORLD
Leah made her way out into the communal kitchen and dining area. When she arrived, the room was empty, so she made herself a sandwich while munching on one of the high energy bars she was supposed to eat each time she took a break. With a plate of sandwiches and a large glass of juice, she sat to eat. She’d just started eating when she felt Lacey and Marie approaching. As neither was aware of her and because they weren’t talking to her Three didn’t share what they were saying. Leah realised afresh that despite all the workarounds that the chip and her increased abilities gave her, she’d still prefer to see and hear.
Both Marie and Lacey had shaven heads, and it was clear they’d just come from their pods. When Lacey saw Leah, she headed towards her, followed by Marie. Sitting opposite Leah, Lacey said, “L≋: Leah, I’m starting to understand why you eat so much. I know I don’t have some of your changes, but John’s recommended our settings be changed to help tone and build up our muscles. With all the training and fighting I’m doing, I’ve almost doubled what I usually eat.”
“Which worlds are you playing on?”
“L≋: John reviewed the prohibited list you had a copy of, and that cut out all the sites dedicated to real-world training in firearms and even some of the other training worlds. Doing something similar to what you did to learn how to use the sword, we’ve all enrolled in some small niche combat gaming worlds where no preset moves are allowed. They’re significantly more expensive than the larger worlds, but the skills will transfer to the real world. They get around government prohibitions by using unique weaponry that only exists in the virtual environment. The weapons, though, have been designed so they match the weight of real-world weapons and the grips are in the same position as the ones John’s sourced for us.”
After Marie and Lacey had made something to eat the three talked for another ten minutes, then Leah headed back to her pod. As she headed back, she felt despondent as their conversation had turned to the protests, looting and violence that was erupting in all major cities and many of the smaller ones. Hundreds of thousands of those from the negative-tax areas had seized on the opportunity to protest what they saw as the oppression of the government and the wealthy who pulled the strings behind the scenes.
The situation was aggravated as hundreds of those Leah had saved shared their stories, and as community leaders like Jimmy added their insights into what was happening. The government and those reporting continued to ignore the messages being yelled, and focussed on the violence and promising to curb what they classed as gang-related anarchy. Even so, there was a growing number of those in the middle and lower classes who were listening to what was happening and looking to form their own opinions.
Marie had shared that many of those who had spoken publicly of their enslavement had been arrested. Jimmy and other leaders had arranged for lawyers where possible, but few of those in the legal profession were interested in representing clients when it was clear that doing so would put them in opposition to the government and its draconian laws against public expressions which engendered negative press and were therefore considered ‘treason’. A law had been passed earlier that morning restricting legal representation for those charged with such crimes to attorneys physically living in the country. This move overturned decades of virtual practice where lawyers had enjoyed a global presence and been able to focus on issues and localities of their choice.
Not only were thousands of protestors arrested, but the government forces were steadily increasing the intensity of their response. Hundreds had needed hospitalisation, and over thirty people had now been killed. The deaths only increased the determination of the protestors to look for change. Leah was convinced that change was only possible if those who lived in the virtual world began to understand the issues and realised that they were also affected by the government policies.
DUNYANIN
After a quick shower, Leah double-checked her supplies then spent ten minutes at cyber speed, rechecking her plan and spells then stepped through into her tent in Dunyanin. As soon as she arrived, she sent Peter Lady Serseri’s Chest of Communication. He’d messaged her and said he’d been able to source most of the things she’d wanted. Leah expected the artefact would take several days to make. She would need the help of the various craftsmen, enchanters and other mages, including the dwarfs.
It took an hour to check everything and set things in place, and then a second hour to explain to the various craftsmen and enchanters what she wanted them to do. On one table, Leah had laid out a selection of precious and semi-precious gems in all sizes. Jewellers and enchanters worked together to shape and engrave spells on the gems. They combined the gems to form patterns to represent each of the continents, including Çaresiz and Merkize. The engraving had several purposes. The first was to prepare each gem to collect and store mana. Other spells were then added, primarily to help focus the artefact.
Smiths and masons began preparing the settings for the gems. Each continent was represented by a two-foot-wide disk of marble inlaid with gold, platinum and mithryl. The inlaid metal was used to hold the gems and formed spells that acted as conduits to direct the mana. Each continent’s disk had a colour focus to match the colour and elemental orientation of the continent. Leah had found details of these in the handbook. Each continent also had a range of flora and fauna which were unique to them and exemplified in some way the continent and its people. Peter had provided samples of blood, scales, hair, bones, leaves, essences, poisons and other ingredients to help the craftsmen and enchanters enhance the connection to each continent. Leah had added hundreds of potions and ingredients from her own supplies, and Mìng helped with advice when Leah was busy elsewhere.
The arch’s posts and lintel were formed from two of Lord Y’sam Ejderhasi’s femurs and several ribs. The voussoirs of the curved section were shaped from some of his vertebrae. The dwarfs and several smiths helped shape the bones. Once the bones were smoothed and shaped to form the main structure, smiths and masons were directed by enchanters to carve intricate designs, runes and spells on each surface. Most of these were then inlaid with mithryl, platinum, gold and enchanted gems.
Besides directing the work and helping with both smithing and enchanting, Leah collected a large supply of her own blood throughout the day. Each time she would heal herself with a potion, wait for a break and then repeat the process. Using spells from the spellbook of the Blood Mage, Queen Ikinci Nota, Leah was able to keep the blood fresh and increase its potency. Towards the end of the day, Leah spent an hour heating various metal arrowheads and quenching them in small amounts of her blood to see if she could create some empyreanite. None of the lesser metals reacted positively and most dissolved or exploded when immersed in the mixture of purified blood. Using the best grade of steel, Leah thought she could see empyreanite begin to form. Still, it faded almost as quickly, and the entire arrowhead disappeared in a puff of dust.
Platinum, mithryl and adamantine, on the other hand, all looked unchanged but when she struck them with a hammer, each shattered into jagged-edged fragments.
Leah was disappointed with the results and knew she’d need to rethink her options after rechecking all the spell books and other manuals. After reviewing the work left to do, Leah made changes then headed to the tent to log out. Most of the craftsmen, smiths, masons, jewellers and enchanters had agreed to work on the project through the next six real-hours until Leah was able to return. Leah was a Grandmaster Crafter, Mage and Alchemist. Because she was overseeing the project, the players helping her could work at higher levels than they had achieved and accumulated points at an accelerated rate. Most worked non-stop, pleased to get the extra experience.
Leah took her usual fifteen-minute break from the pod, then sat on her sofa and had Three place a braille reader for each hand so she could recheck all the s
pells. Working at almost cyber-speed, Leah re-read all the material including Falsi’s Diary of Herbs and Potions, Tufek Horozu’s Designs for the Forge and the various spell books she’d gathered. Some she’d not yet read, as they were collected from players during the recent battles or from the Citadel of Frost. After several hours in cyber-time, Leah had some ideas to work on for the next time she was in Dunyanin. She had received a reply from the administrators concerning her questions and sent messages to Peter and the leaders of Clan Guàn. She wanted to review the material again, but it was almost time to meet with Gradient.
Leah spent fifteen minutes reviewing the material for the first few families of moves Gradient had designed, then stepped toward the TRAX portal as Three let Gradient know that she was on the way.
When Leah arrived, she found herself in a large open area standing next to Gradient. Gradient said, “G☇: I looked at what you sent, and I’m amazed at how quickly you could put that together.”
“To be honest, it wasn’t me. One of my AI made the connections and suggested it would help both of us find a way to move forward.”
“G☇: One of your AI? How many do you have?”
“Three at the moment. One is the AI I had in the chip that was burnt out. Thankfully, she was archived in my Pod. She’s been amazing helping my new AI understand me and how they can help. I had two chip embedded the second time, and each had a PAI. One deals with my interactions in the virtual universe and the other works behind the scenes in lots of ways to help me cope with the changes I’ve had to go through.”
“G☇: Does having three PAI help when you play?”
“No, only one is interacting with me in the gaming scenario. I can talk with the others if I need to, just like I can text or receive messages while playing. To make sure it’s all fair I’ve a SNAIL protocol and Snail Central keeps a close watch on the interactions. All the interactions go through the PAI on my main chip. Its name is Three, and it only has access to the same input as everyone else. The difference is how it and the world I’m in represent that information so I can access it.”
“G☇: How is the signal modified in TRAX?”
“Well, I can’t see. My optic nerve is fine, but the part of my brain which interpreted the signal was destroyed. The SNAIL protocol allows the world and my PAI to show me the same information as a sensory map on my skin. My brain has to change the new signals into a picture, of sorts, that I can recognise. Across my body, the protocol makes continual changes to what I feel on my skin. Using constantly changing information like temperature, pressure, itching and pain, I can ‘see’ objects and work out their distance, rotation, colour and speed, to name a few things. Even in the short time I’ve been using the protocol, my brain puts most of the information together almost unconsciously. For the gravity skates, the SNAIL protocol adds another set of sensations that I’m still getting used to. This shows me the gravitational flux, which is an optional setting for people using the gravity skates.”
“G☇: That sounds almost frightening. I get irritated with even a small itch or the pain of a small pimple. It’d be maddening to have that all over my body, all the time.”
“It does get a bit much sometimes. When I’m just in my own world or taking a break, Three often drops the range of sensations to show just a few meters. Honestly, I’m more scared when I lose all the stimulation than the excess.”
“G☇: OK, I guess I can understand that on some level. Are you ready to see if we can synchronise our moves?”
“Definitely. What’s the best way to practice?”
“G☇: This space is designed to create sample arenas with a set number of opponents. Most arenas are between ten and fifty square miles. They have themes as diverse as a prehistoric forest to an alien urban wasteland. While most of the arena is static, there are always moveable sections we can affect using gravity to attack opponents or defend ourselves. We’ll start with a basic set of static opponents and practice our moves. After an hour of that, I’d like to move on to opponents who move and begin using basic attacks. What level do you want to set the sensitivity to?”
“I’ve been practising on max, so why don’t we start there and dial it back if we need to?”
Gradient agreed. After double-checking the hand signals for the different moves, she went through the signals for each of the transitions. She then had her PAI set the arena to a ten square mile arena with open fields and only the occasional rock, tree and opponent.
Leah engaged her skates and stood beside Gradient, who started with the most basic of movements and sent the two of them moving in the same direction. Within moments Leah and Gradient were accelerating across the arena with Leah matching her moves, not only with Gradient but with slight changes to smooth the gravity field fluctuations. It only took ten minutes for the two to destroy the fifty static opponents and for Gradient to bring them to rest.
“G☇: That was amazing. I honestly didn’t think we’d be able to work that well together even if we managed to do a Tier Twelve contest. You picked up all the signals, and I know I got some wrong, but you shifted seamlessly to my actual movement, almost as if you recognised the error.”
“It did throw me a few times, but I’m also watching the gravity fields and working to match those with our movements.”
“G☇: If you’re OK, then let’s up the practice and work with Tier Twelve to Tier Ten opponents. I’ll set the arena for random and see how it goes.”
With all the added details, both Leah and Gradient made more mistakes. Still, except for one time when Leah missed a change which stretched the gravity tether too far, they managed not to be killed and won all the other battles. After agreeing to learn the next set of families, they arranged to meet back the next virtual morning and hopefully attempt a real battle at the end of the next session.
STORK TOWER
Back in the tower, Leah headed to her bedroom for an hour of NREM3 sleep before logging in to Academia to meet with Dr Ellis.
Once Leah was in the Tower, she headed for the bedroom, and Three brought her to NREM3 until she was due to visit Dr Ellis.
ACADEMIA - EDUCATIONAL PORTAL WORLD
Dr Ellis was still working on setting up the apparatus when Leah arrived, but suggested she worked to code as many aspects of the new theories as possible so that the laboratory’s AI could apply them to the virtual setup. This wasn’t a simple matter of adding the new hypothesis to the scenario. That would almost certainly show the results they wanted. Instead, Leah had to reframe the currently proven science in terms of the new hypothesis in such a way that the results derived under the new system matched what was already expected. With the new hypotheses embedded, as it were, any new experiments would extrapolate that understanding into new situations. When framed in this way, the hypotheses could be tested without forcing the AI to follow the scientists’ conclusions.
Even when the results followed as expected, the science would only be able to be effectively submitted for peer review when real-world experiments also showed the hypothesis to be valid. Leah had Three set aside space in the laboratory where she could work at the usual virtual speed. Using the SNAIL protocol, Leah made free use of her ability to multi-task and sped up her perceptions. By the time her hour with Dr Ellis was finished, she’d made changes to several hundred formational theories and set the AI up to virtually test each one against known experiments in preparation for the testing she and Dr Ellis wanted to do.
Leah logged out after letting him know what she’d done and took a break from the pod.
Diary - 28 December, 2073 - PM
People are dying, and still, I’m playing. I understand why, but it is getting harder and harder to do nothing. No wonder people find it hard to make a stand; there is always something that says, ‘wait’ or ‘not yet’. That’s what got us here in the first place; we tolerated the small infringements on our liberties and decided it wasn’t worth it, fighting for something so minor, so trivial. We let the government slowly delve deeper and d
eeper into our private lives. We gave them access to make everyday decisions for us instead of demanding to let our voices be heard. Now, we have to overthrow, burn, march, and kill because we weren’t prepared to defend the small things.
I suppose it was a trade-off, really. Take the small tedious responsibilities from us, the common sense ones, and leave us with the things that we want to think about, which entertain us, which don’t freak us out. Teach our kids, tell us what to eat, how to exercise, where to walk, where to run, what to wear that’s safe, what medicines to take, what to watch, make those decisions for us, so we’re free to be entertained. I can’t blame my grandparents or even my parents because I’ve been just as blind to what’s happening until it hit me personally. The problem is a simple march, boycott, or petition won’t be enough now; now, we have to fight.
I wonder if the government rationalises what it is doing? Do they think they have no choice? Are they thinking they’re responding for the public good. If we can riot for a myriad of reasons, I bet they react as they do from just as many perspectives. Maybe they aren’t monsters; maybe to them, we are.
48
December 29, 2073
STORK TOWER
As Leah went to log out, Three said, “3: John wants to talk with you about your plans. He’s got most of what you’ve discussed ready to implement, and wanted to finalise some details and timing. He’s mostly free but wants some time set aside soon, as well as several hours with the team that’s going to do the infiltration. He thought Gèng could set up a room here and that would be the best way to do a walkthrough as well as some dry runs. Gèng has already begun setting up the space, but you need to set the time.”
