by J. J. Lorden
Elle cited her mandate to create and run a digital world, safe for players to enter via full emersion tech. Beyond that, she had no other information.
Despite his consternation over the mysterious changes, Austin found that Kuora was running flawlessly. The error log was clear, and the program log listed close to a billion separate active programs.
Sorting them by type he found that 10-percent were variations of the same base program. He focused on these and further sorted them according to elapsed program run time.
The top two had been running for all but the first twelve hours of Kuora’s existence. Below those were five others that had run times beginning 3 days after seeding. Then there was another gap to the next longest running program which started 4 days after seeding.
He focused on the top two and pointed them out to Racheal and Matty. “There’s a hundred million programs with this naming scheme.” He pointed to their run-times. “These two have been running much longer than the others.”
NM00016191084825MDO.QS
EH00016193174643MHXGO.QS
Austin leaned back. “Any thoughts?”
Racheal looked and shook her head, but Matty pulled his chair up. He dragged the data over to the right-side terminal and started scrolling through it. Austin left him to it, focusing instead on other Kuora performance data.
Matty broke the silence a few minutes later. “I think I got this figured… well, at least the number bit, not sure about the letters.” He shrugged. “Don’t think it matters though; since the numbers tell the story.” He looked back, checking on Racheal. She stepped closer, and Austin leaned in.
“Look.” Matty pointed. “See this twelve-digit number in the middle of the program name? It roughly coincides with program run time. The ones at the top are the smallest numbers, and as you go down the list these numbers only increase. The higher this number, the less time that program has been running.”
He checked to make sure they were following, got nods, then continued. “It’s a directly inverse relationship.”
He ran a finger down several, pointing this out. “See, the list is sorted by the run-time. The longest running are these two at the top with the smallest number in the program names. Then a gap, then this other group of five, another gap, and the program numbers steadily increase. So that means higher numbers are newer programs.
“Another thing is the gaps between them. Below those first seven, the gaps between the numbers are typically a thousand or more, sometimes a lot more. At least here at the top of the list.”
Matty skipped down fifty-thousand pages, to the middle of the list. “The farther down you go, the numbers get closer together. Here, look at these two.” He pointed at two programs.
QA04253065112135FEH.QS
QA04253065112212MD.QS
“The gap between them is only twenty-three.” He copied one of the program names he was pointing at into a blank document, deleted the letters, and added hyphens.
04253-065-11-21-35
“Yep. I think I’m right. In a vacuum, it would just be a random string of numbers, but given the direct correlation to run-time… it has to be a date.” He pointed at each group and said, “Year, day, hour, minute, second… I’m betting it’s the timestamp of when each program was created.”
Austin nodded along as Matty explained. He agreed with the logic, and it also gave him an idea.
He pulled the data back up on his terminal and flipped the program sort order so the most recently launched program was at the top. After four or five seconds, a new one appeared as the latest program. Ten seconds later, another appeared; fifteen seconds after that, a third new program topped the list.
“Yeah.” Austin nodded in agreement, meeting Matty’s gaze. “You’re right. I’m pretty sure this can only be one thing. Each one of these is a digital being. I think we’re watching NPCs being born.”
“Oh man… that’s so weird,” Racheal whispered. “Are all of those intelligent beings?”
Austin shrugged one shoulder and tilted his head slightly. “Not sure. I certainly hope so, though. This will be a failure if they’re not.”
He looked over the same shoulder and smirked at Racheal. “That being said…” He rotated his back to the workstation. “Let’s talk about what we’re going to do.”
They debated their next step for a few minutes and determined it was a choice of either entering Kuora to get a look at what it had become or shutting it down and starting over. Nobody wanted to shut it down, especially in light of the newly born programs they’d observed.
A shutdown felt to them all like mass murder. All the same, they wanted to be smart, not reckless, so they debated for several minutes, and eventually voted. Entering Kuora won, 3-0.
That settled, the three of them sat in a circle while Austin spoke. “Okay, so we’re going in. Before we do that, though, there are some things I want to explain about Kuora.”
Matty and Racheal both leaned in.
“First”–he held up one finger–“it’s probably going to be very challenging right out of the gate. The typical zoning that we’re used to, where all monsters within a specific area are bounded by a level cap–those won’t exist. All areas will potentially have any level wild beasts and monsters.
“Pragmatically speaking, creature levels will be similar just as they are in the real world, but there won’t be any hard lines preventing us from running into something ten, twenty or even fifty levels higher. The best way to deal with this will probably be general alertness. Focus on your surroundings, pay attention to everything, and work to raise your perception or related attribute.
“Since this is a beta test, we’re logging in the same way all future players will. Without any idea of how Elle has set the system up. That said, we can count on our actions and mindfulness being key in acquiring new skills.” Both Racheal and Matty nodded silently at his assessment.
“Second thing. We’re going to spawn in the wild and in different locations. This is a hard limitation meant to force players into discovering the system for themselves, a nudge toward self-reliance. The typical proximity limitation will be five thousand meters, but I’ve set ours to a thousand, which is the minimum allowed. So, about six-tenths of a mile.”
“Duh,” Matty said. “We speak metric, bro.”
“Right, sorry.” Austin smiled. “Anyhow, the points will be equidistant. Meaning, if plotted on a map, our starting positions will form a triangle with equal-length sides. However, given variable terrain, that may not be line-of-sight, so we might have to find each other.
“Also, depending on how long each of us takes in character creation, we probably won’t spawn at the same time. So, try and keep track of where you are relative to your spawn point and stay within roughly a half-mile of it until we group up. If you do die, you’ll return to your spawn point, which should be a relatively safe spot.”
“Third.” He lifted his index, middle, and ring fingers. “This is a totally open world with no limitations. Consequentially, there’s no handholding, and we’re likely going to start with little to no resources or any of the typical in-game conveniences. Things like maps and messaging and storage will become available at some point, but we almost definitely won’t have them at the beginning.”
He lifted a hand and shrugged. “I’m not for sure on this, but Elle has my mind on it, and I wanted the game to make players earn as much as possible.”
He looked to the side, thinking for a moment. “Honestly, it’s entirely possible that we’ll each unlock different capabilities in different ways. Each player will learn and advance based upon their natural talents and abilities.
“To a significant degree your experience will be unique to you. Pay attention to everything, trust your instincts, and you may pick up some unique skill.” Matty and Racheal nodded.
“This brings me to my fourth point,” He lifted four fingers, back of his hand out. “Character creation. Again, Elle has done the actual interface build, so I don’t know
details, but it will be tailored to your specific brain. I stressed this to ensure each player has a unique experience and to eliminate metagaming. I hate metagaming.”
“Yeah, no joke. Ruins all the fun.” Matty chipped in.
“Exactly. It ruins the realism and sense of wonder when a game only has a handful of optimum character builds, all of which have detailed explanations on a wiki page. I refuse to have a game-world with a hundred thousand warlocks running around using the same 15 abilities, 9 spells, and one of a dozen different magical staves. That paradigm is dead in Kuora.
“Elle will have created a system wherein you’ll create a completely unique character. It should be literally impossible for anyone else to create the same avatar even with the same inputs. So, forget about best builds and focus on what you like and what makes sense to you. Setting up character creation like this was one of the few instances where I specifically instructed Elle to do something. I also told her to include a hidden structure to reward players for being true to themselves.”
He looked at them seriously. “I can’t stress this enough–Be true to yourself in character creation. We’ll be able to earn significant perks if we do.”
Matty was looking at the ceiling in contemplation, but then he looked back at Austin. “Sooo, if I feel like, deep down, I’m really a female gnome living in a man’s body, I should trust that?”
Austin grinned and chuckled. “Yeah, bud, just like that. Let your crazy loose. If you feel compelled to be an orc shaman, go for it.”
Matty nodded once. “Roger-dodger. Loose my crazy and go for it–that I can do.” He beamed.
“Pahh!” Racheal spat out. “We know.”
“I have no doubt.” Austin added, then took a moment to gather his thoughts again.
He held up five fingers. “Okay fifth point. It’s something that my dad originally stressed to me, and I’m anxious to see how it works. Elle is not just a self-aware super-computer; she’s empathetic with a deep understanding of human emotions and the human psyche.
“Although the greater game world will have events in which everyone can participate, and we’ll probably share some quests, mostly Elle ought to design our quests to help us grow as individuals. Should be interesting to see how that goes.”
He lifted both hands, palms up, as if to the heavens. “Hopefully, it works.” Then lowered them. “If it does, playing in Kuora will result epigenetically upgrading our DNA. Naturally higher serotonin levels, improved adrenal response, denser fast-twitch musculature–”
The piercing looks from Racheal and Matty brought Austin up short. They already knew all this. He hadn’t stopped talking about it for two years.
“Okay, okay.” He lifted his hands, acknowledging their silent complaint. “You guys know all that. Last point, and this one is a bit technical, but I’ll try and keep it simple. Remember when I described the tiers of the time compression that Kuora has been running at? Well, that system is built upon a base of 3. So, the standard compression at Tier 0 means time in Kuora passes three times faster than on earth.
“Each tier above 0 doubles the in-game time compression, so at tier 1 every 1 hour on Earth means 6 hours pass in-game. At tier 2 it’s 12 hours, tier 3 equals 24 hours, and so on up to Tier 19, which is a bit more than 1.5 million times faster than earth time.”
“Ohh my god dude, we’d be immortals!” Matty interjected, wide eyed. “You didn’t mention this before.”
“Hah, right. We’d also have to be integrated permanently into the Quantum node.”
“Oh, Okay. Forget that. Sorry, go ahead.”
“Anyhow,” Austin continued. “The way our bodies work with our brains is a system of stimulus, processing, and response. The more times we’ve seen or done something, the less processing time is required, speeding up response time.
“Here on Earth, there are some obvious limiting factors, but we normally have no reason to even think about them. For example, your hands are some distance from your brain, so signals from your brain take time to reach them. Also, your limbs have mass and are subject to inertia and the laws of physics.
“There are also other limiting factors that vary from person to person, like the route efficiency of neural pathways, mitochondrial health, signal loss between neuron transmissions, and also nutrition.”
Austin took a second to check in and make sure his friends were with him. They nodded that they were, so he continued.
“While we’re in Kuora, all of these limitations are reduced, improved, or completely removed. All stimuli and responses are handled in the brain, and the nanites and quantum array are far faster at delivering new data than our bodies are.
“Also, the nanite nutritional package that we’ll be on is vastly improved from what we typically eat. It’s packed with high quality fats, aminos and detoxifiers designed to improve body, mitochondrial, and neural health. This also supports the accelerated epigenetic changes. Basically, we’re going to be on the diet of champions.”
He paused, then added, “We’ll also be outside the limitations of physics.”
“I picked that up,” Racheal said. “But not really, right? I mean Kuora will have its own set of laws. We can’t just go into God mode and start breaking everything. Can we?”
“I hope not. That would make this a horrible failure. That said, those laws probably won’t be immutable. Over time, we should be able to do some pretty wild shit.”
“Now you’re talking.” Racheal grinned and looked to Matty.
Matty also wore a toothy smile. “Hell yeah baby, I’m all about pretty wild shit.”
Austin chuckled. “I know, right. I can’t wait to see how far we can take it.”
He took another moment to reflect, then nodded to himself. “In all honestey, the three of us are above normal and could probably adapt to first or second tier time compression pretty easily, but I don’t want to do that. I want the final product to run at the tier 0, 3-to-1 compression ratio when it goes live for the world, so that’s what we’ll do, at least to start.” He looked at them. “Questions?”
“Yep, what the fuck is a mitochondria?” Matty asked.
Austin gapped, stunned to silence for a moment before it turned into a scowl. “Really dude? You’re not serious right? I talk about this stuff all the damn time.”
“I know, but at some point, you said pizza was probably bad for my mitochondria, and I love pizza, so I just ignored it all after that. Now it seems kind of important though, so I say again; what the fuck is mitochondria?”
Austin glowered. “I can’t believe you. I eat pizza too, you asshole. Just because I mentioned that one time, you ignored every other thing I ever said about it?”
Oddly, he found himself torn between feeling offended and impressed. They must have had a couple dozen conversations about mitochondrial health, probably more, and Matty had intentionally remained ignorant despite that.
This wasn’t the first-time Matty’s selective memory capacity was on display, but this indicated remarkable control Austin hadn’t grasped his friend was capable of.
Austin went with offended. “That’s, that’s just frickin dickish, bro.”
“Hey, man, my emotional health is important to me, and I was clear I wasn’t giving up pizza. So, there was no good reason for me to learn all that stuff. Why would I do that? I’d just end up feeling guilty every time I ate some of my insanely delicious pie! Fuck that.” Matty flipped his hand, face half scrunched. “Ignorance is bliss, baby.”
He did have something of a point there. It was twisted, but Austin could acknowledge his logic. Somehow, it seemed simultaneously enlightened and irresponsible, but it was valid.
Matty continued, apparently feeling the need to finish his rant. “Howeveeer. I just heard you explain that these things can make me a more badass gamer and maybe a more badass person. So now I’d like to know what they are.” He met Austin’s incensed look with stoic placidity, then added, “Please.”
Austin breathed, focusing on the a
ir movement in and out of his lungs, working to banish his annoyance. Before he could say anything, Racheal spoke up.
“They’re the things in all your cells that make ATP, which is the energy your body uses to do everything. They’re also in all other living creatures and aren’t part of our DNA. They have a separate genome. They’re basically a symbiotic organism living in all living things that makes life possible; without them we’d all die. When they’re healthier, we’re healthier, and vice versa.”
Austin stared at her.
“Got it. Thanks, Racheal,” Matty said.
“No problem. Now…. can we get this show on the road? I want to go play.” Racheal leaned forward and braced her hands on the chair arms, ready to spring into action.
Austin, shocked by her concise mitochondria explanation, responded slowly, “Yeeah… I think that covers everything. Any more questions?”
“No, but I want a faster pod,” Racheal said. “You two are slowpokes. Set me up at 12, I’m going to smoke both of you.”
“Hah, nice. Nope. Doesn’t work like that. One game world–one speed.” Austin said.
“Well that’s a programing flaw you should fix,” Racheal retorted. “But whatever, slow-boy, I’ll still run circles around you on my magic unicorn. C’mon already, let’s do this,” She was already headed toward the pod room door.
“Totally, let’s do this thing,” Matty said, clapping Austin on the back as he followed.
Austin trailed them. All concerns had been put to rest. Excitement building, he whispered to himself. “Hell yeah. Here we go, baby.”
9
The Mist
Texier Quantum Labs Research Facility and Q-Core Node Host
Sub-level 37, Immersion Pod Room
May 13, 2064—World Seed plus 7 days, 0 hours, 01 minute
Twelve sleek, gunmetal-gray capsules formed an arc to the left, away from the pod room door, completing one-third of a circle. They radiated from a central hole in the floor, from which black power cables emerged in pairs, trailing strait and clean to each pod.
