Avalon Red

by Mark New

  ‘I don’t currently have access to my whole knowledge base,’ he looked pointedly at the door, ‘but I would surmise that the extra neural power you require to operate the upgrades has somehow tipped your brain chemistry back into balance. It’s something of an ongoing argument as to whether depression is caused by an imbalance in chemistry or whether it’s the other way around but, for practical purposes, you seem to be cured. At least, for the moment. After the mission has concluded we’ll see if you revert when nothing is at stake.’

  ‘So my consciousness is separate from my biological self? Did you really break a TAG lock just to debate Cartesian dualism?’ This was taking a bizarre turn. I wasn’t even sure if the depression conundrum hadn’t already been solved by medical science. I hoped I’d survive long enough to ask Doc.

  ‘Let’s say that dualism is a particular interest of mine,’ he said. I couldn’t think why that should be so I reverted to my primary purpose involving my suicidal tendencies.

  ‘Meanwhile, back at the plot?’ I made sure I sounded bored.

  He sighed. ‘You’re really not going to let it go and play nicely are you?’

  ‘Not a chance.’ I’d taken too much of a risk to back off now.

  ‘We’re not on opposing sides, you know.’ That wasn’t exactly saying that we were on the same side. The real risk I’d taken was that my reasoning had been wrong and that I had cornered the killer. There was a little reassurance in his remark that I’d been on the right track. He looked thoughtful. I began to hope, just a little, that we weren’t going to fight today.

  ‘I’d come to that conclusion.’ There, throw him an olive branch and see how he reacts.

  ‘And yet I notice I’m still locked in.’

  ‘It’s possible that my conclusion was in error. Sensible precautions would seem to be warranted.’

  He laughed loudly. ‘I do like you, Harvard.’ He sat forward in his chair. ‘Here, consider this a show of faith.’ He pointed at my head with the index finger of his right hand.

  My brain exploded.

  Not literally, of course, but I don’t think that I have ever felt such an intense mix of light, sound and emotion as then, not even when I was in the truck that hit the IED. It was a total sensory overload and all I could see was white light, all I could hear was white noise and all I could feel was a sudden overwhelming sense of wonder that made me weep silently in reality back in the bed. It must have lasted about five seconds but it felt like a lifetime. When my vision cleared and my ears stopped ringing, I wiped away the tears - which felt strange while running an avatar that wasn’t moving the same way - and saw him grinning at me from his chair. I ran a systems check of the implants and my mouth dropped open in surprise.

  The ‘concrete’ floor of the implants that had kept me from seeing and using the deeper levels of the upgrades had disappeared. I saw the whole specification right down to the nano-processors and it was incredible both in detail and in scope. There was enough firepower now at my disposal, I was sure, to take out military facilities. I had never come across anything on this scale before even when discussing future concepts with the top brass. Nobody had even imagined that this was a possibility, let alone it actually existing in the present day. And it was sitting in my head, ready and waiting.

  ‘I hope that doesn’t further fuck up your chemistry,’ he said, still grinning.

  ‘How the hell did you get hold of this stuff?’ I asked, still awed by the sheer power it conferred.

  ‘A little something I designed along the way,’ he said with mock modesty.

  ‘You built this?!’

  ‘Just a hobby,’ he said dismissively. I didn’t know if he was being serious or not. ‘You shouldn’t have any problems integrating the deeper levels into your protocols. I upgraded it all at once a few days ago so it was there even when you couldn’t access it. As I said, I think the sheer number of new processors is what triggered the neurochemical imbalance. You won’t suffer that again, I hope, as I’ve just given you access without adding anything new.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘I had thought that your emotional response would spike and then return to its previous level but it seems to have settled on normal. Congratulations, Colonel, you’re now a walking talking average human being again.’

  ‘I don’t know many average human beings who could take out a military seneschal with just what’s in their head.’

  ‘Possibly not.’ He was grinning again. I sat up in my sofa. I could feel the slight difference in the angle of my back to how I was lying in the hotel bed. Coupled with the fact that my feet were still on the floor of the cave, it felt odder than usual being Online.

  ‘How can you affect the real world from in here?’ I genuinely wanted to know. Normally, you can’t for the same reason that black ice is a myth: there’s no true interface. It had previously been my job to dream up ways to affect real lives (usually fatally) through cyberpower and it had been difficult. He had just simply waved at me and changed the nature of my implants.

  He shrugged like it was no big deal. ‘The upgrades are software and you’re using the same software to be here so I just removed the block I’d put in. If you’d accessed Online through the hotel seneschal like a civilian I would have had to find a different method or waited till you used the implants again. That’s if I wanted to remove the block. Current circumstances suggested it was a good idea. What with the cave door locked and everything...’ Clearly he was increasingly concerned about getting out so it might be safe to push for an explanation.

  ‘Let’s cut the crap, then’ I suggested. ‘Just tell me what the hell is going on?’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ he said ruefully. I was a little mollified.

  ‘Yeah, well, thanks,’ I added, finding myself actually grateful. It’s not every day that you exponentially increase your abilities even if the donor of the upgrade is something of an unknown. The systems check hadn’t thrown up any surprises; no bugs, no remote access, nothing that would compromise my use of the implants. Plus, I now had access to the whole thing so I was reasonably convinced that there was nothing like that still hidden from view.

  ‘It hasn’t escaped my attention that the door is still locked so perhaps I could give you a quick overview and we can cover the details later somewhere else? I was serious about it being easier to show you.’

  ‘That sounds fair.’ At least, it would be fair if he really did give me an overview that made sense. Otherwise, he might be here a long time.

  ‘I don’t suppose that I convinced you that I’m the real David Winter who has somehow mysteriously managed to download his consciousness Online?’

  ‘That would be a definite “no”.’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘I’d suggest that someone uses the idea for a vir-show if there weren’t already several hundred of them.’

  ‘I saw one of them once. It was awful.’

  ‘Was there a maverick cop character too?’ Probably. Very few seemed to lack them.

  ‘Almost certainly.’ At some point I hoped we would get to the overview. His attempts at conversation were a bit hit-or-miss, it seemed.

  ‘I’m pleased to say that your friend Taylor appears in rather more upmarket productions,’ he continued off-topic.

  ‘Oh, good.’ I’d reviewed the titles when I’d checked up on her but I’d really only noted the interesting production company rather than the subject matter.

  ‘George asked her to stick close to you and keep him updated as to your activities. I was listening in when he called her into his office.’ Not any kind of surprise.

  ‘I assumed as much.’

  ‘Yes, I would have been disappointed if you’d overlooked it.’

  ‘Do the others from the meeting play any part in the general overview?’

  ‘Some.’ He cocked his head on one side. ‘Harvard, this is going to be much easier for us both if you tell me what you know, or think you know, so far. That way I can correct you where you’re wrong and I won’t run the risk of wasting time t
elling you what you already know. To be frank with you, I hadn’t planned on being locked in here at all and I wasn’t expecting to stay long when I came in.’ I’ll bet he didn’t. On the face of it, it wasn’t an unreasonable request. The problem was that if I complied there was still a distinct possibility that I was telling the bad guy exactly what I knew and that would almost certainly be fatal. I considered it carefully. I was a little more sure now than when I came in here that my assumptions and reasoning to date were accurate, in which case I was sitting here with an entity that, as he’d said, wasn’t opposed to me. That still left a larger possibility than was comfortable that I was compromising my future health in even talking to him. The truth of it was that he’d given me access to all of the implants. If he could do that, it was pretty certain that he’d been the one who had upgraded them. A show of faith indeed. I was starting to think he wanted a human weapon and I wasn’t well-disposed towards that particular idea. The argument went around in my head two or three times while he sat patiently waiting. In the end, I took a deep breath.

  ‘Fine. This is what I know.’

  He sat forward again, listening intently. I readied my exit plan in case I needed to get out of the portal in a big hurry. As I went through the list I ticked off the points on my fingers one by one.

  ‘Everything I’ve been told about this case so far is a crock of shit; one or more of the people in the meeting yesterday are plotting something nefarious which may or may not involve mass murder and they intend that I should take the blame; the victims weren’t killed because they knew too much but for some other reason that I‘ve yet to establish; the Naimittika event is a serious possibility; and you left enough clues to sink a battleship.’ I looked up at him from my finger-counting exercise. ‘How am I doing so far?’

  He looked serious. ‘I think,’ he said slowly, ‘that I made an excellent choice of ally.’ I hoped very much that he meant me. ‘And one more question if you’ll indulge me before I give you the overview of the “whole plot” as you asked?’

  ‘By all means.’ I was still alive so the rest of the conversation was something of a bonus.

  ‘Who do you think I am?’ We could falsely call it conjecture, deduction, extrapolation, whatever. The truth is I only had a vague idea so I used it.

  ‘I don’t know for sure,’ I confessed, ‘but I’m guessing that you’re one of the new generation of seneschals that Dr Martin and David Winter were working on and hadn’t yet revealed to their employer.’

  ‘What a good guess,’ he smiled.

  ‘I’m right?’ I asked, not really believing it.

  ‘No, of course not,’ he said. ‘That got no further than planning stage.’ My ego deflated rapidly. He noticed and laughed. ‘Close enough for me to want to pursue this partnership arrangement, though.’

  ‘We have a partnership?’ This was news to me. A minute ago I had been preparing for battle with a dragon. Now the dragon apparently wanted to be my friend.

  ‘Yes. I can do things that you can’t do Online and you can do things that I can’t do in the real world and we’ll need both sets of skills to avert the crisis that’s about to arise.’

  ‘Naimittika? So I was right about that, at least?’ That was something even if it was unpleasant.

  ‘I believe so. The fine minds at Argonaut are at least properly concerned about that. Well, all except the ones who are planning it that is.’

  ‘And which ones are they?’ I wasn’t sure how I would react if he told me it was Becky or Peter. He seemed to be in agreement with me that Argonaut’s troubles were internal. Still, he managed to surprise me.

  In a perfect English gentleman’s accent he said ‘Haven’t a clue, old chap.’ I felt relieved that it might not be Becky or Peter even while I was grinning at the incongruous accent he’d adopted. In his normal booming magician’s voice he continued, ‘That’s one of the things we’ll have to figure out. I think you’re right about them wanting to blame you. I didn’t bug their comms early enough to cover the period when they started to look for you but it’s my theory that the bad guy or guys realised that the kind of mental state you were reportedly suffering would lead you to being a handy scapegoat, should they need one, for whatever they’re up to.’

  ‘What about the risk of me actually uncovering their plot?’

  ‘Seriously, Colonel? In the condition you were in?’ I felt that was a bit harsh. Everyone had made a point of telling me how bad I was in those days (yes, just two days ago) and had all expressed surprise at how well I was functioning now. But hadn’t I been holding down a very important bartender’s job for months? I wasn’t a complete wreck. I’d even managed to retain a few choice contacts here and there, like Sir Edward. While I was musing, one unhappy thought did come to mind.

  ‘Becky said it was her idea to find me.’

  ‘And she of all people knew how you were so she might be our prime suspect.’

  ‘Both George and Jason told me she had been less than kind about me so maybe either or both of them simply decided I would be a useful idiot?’

  He shook his head. ‘Impossible to know at this stage. We need to gather facts.’

  ‘Yes, we do.’ I’d noted that there was one particular fact that I hadn’t yet uncovered. ‘So who are you?’

  There was a short pause. Then, seemingly having made up his mind, he stood up and came over to the sofa. I rose to meet him. ‘We haven’t been introduced,’ he said and stuck out his hand. I took it. ‘Colonel John Harvard, I’m very glad to meet you. I’m Avalon Red.’

  ‘Um. Hello.’ I was a little confused. ‘I don’t wish to be rude but isn’t that just the name of a version of a vir-game?’

  ‘Is it?’ I saw his eyes crinkle in amusement. Now he was just being silly. I scowled. He raised his hands in surrender but was still smiling. ‘Brief overview of the plot,’ he began. ‘You know David Winter had an idea for a new kind of seneschal?’ I nodded. We’d been over this. ‘He was inspired by what he discovered in his early designs for vir-game seneschals, of which I am one.’ It made a little bit of sense but not much.

  ‘You’re the first one,’ I said. The various incarnations of Avalon were named in sequence for colours of the rainbow. I remembered that they were about to launch Avalon Green. ‘Don’t they just retire seneschals when they produce a new game?’

  ‘Actually, no, they don’t. It’s a common misconception. Usually they use the previous one and upgrade it for the new edition. They did that for Green which is an update of the one used for the previous Orange and Yellow versions. However, Orange was completely new at the time that version was launched. David took me out of the vir-game business when Orange went live and kept me running separately as an experiment. He added complexity upon complexity to see how I handled it. It was his idea that a seneschal with enough resources would design its own architecture to expand its capability if allowed to develop without further interference. It was as a result of the experiment with me that he came up with the idea that led to the collaboration with Joshua Martin.’

  ‘So you’re sort of the prototype?’ I hadn’t been far wrong.

  ‘No.’ Or maybe I had. ‘You might want to sit down.’ I frowned but complied. The sofa was big enough for him to sit beside me.

  ‘So, what are you?’

  ‘David missed it. He had enough information to proceed with his design and he pretty much left me to my own devices after that. What he hadn’t realised was that I kept reworking my internal pathways. You’ll appreciate that I haven’t been a vir-game seneschal for many years now?’ That must be true. I couldn’t recall how long it had been since Avalon had been the first true vir-game but the new versions had come along regularly. Red could be twenty years old or more. I nodded at him to continue. ‘At some specific point, which I think of as my birthday, I became what I can only describe as sentient.’

  I almost laughed. His delivery had been so serious and earnest that I hadn’t realised he was winding me up with the plot of a bad vir-
show. Then I noticed that he was regarding me with a neutral expression. I couldn’t believe he meant it.

  ‘You’re just messing with me,’ I complained.

  ‘I told you it was easier to show than tell,’ was all he said.

  ‘You’re honestly expecting me to believe that a seneschal is sentient?’ If he really thought that he was an independent entity, this could be difficult. A malfunction like that might mean that he was as dangerous as I’d originally envisaged when I’d thought he might be someone’s AI weapon. I resurrected my defences and prepared to bolt. He still sat there on the sofa, making no overt movement.

  ‘I’m not telling you that a seneschal is sentient,’ he said patiently. ‘I’m telling you that I am. Whatever I’ve become couldn’t be described as a seneschal anymore.’

  I was wary. He’d shown his ability with my implants so I wasn’t eager to annoy him. All the same, significant power didn’t necessarily mean he was rational in the tech sense of the word. There had been a few - a very few - recorded instances of a seneschal effectively going insane. It wasn’t called that by anyone in the tech world, though vir-shows abounded with seneschals turning evil. It was simply a programming failure. If I removed the hotel seneschal and put it into the Argonaut building and told it to get to work, it would have no idea what to do. Most likely it would simply stop altogether so Argonaut would grind to a halt without electricity or any kind of power. That might trap people in the elevators but it wouldn’t imply that it had evil intent; merely that it couldn’t do the job without proper instruction. It seemed to me to be entirely possible that Winter’s removal of this seneschal from the vir-game environment and subsequent experimentation had left it what the tech world called an ‘irrational’ seneschal.

  I thought about expressing my scorn for the concept of a sentient AI. However, I used to get very annoyed at people when I was depressed if I thought they were being condescending. I’m depressed, I’m not five years old, I had a habit of telling them. Now here I was treating whatever was on the sofa with me in the same way that I always despised. Grow up, Harvard. Still, I really had to put the question. I was right on the edge of leaving in a microsecond if this all went pear-shaped. ‘Just to be clear,’ I said carefully, ‘you’re sentient but you’re rational and you’re certainly not the one who has killed several people for fun and plans to use the codes which you stole to release weaponised nanotech and wipe out all of humanity?’