Virtual Horizon

by Kris Schnee

  "That doesn't seem right," Paul murmured, and followed him. The waiter moved with purpose, carrying no food. Headed for the Sages' booth. Linda and Paul startled as he threw the sliding door open and drew something metal from his belt, raising it in front of him.

  Paul rushed him, shouting, "Look out!" Linda darted forward too. The man spun.

  Paul and Linda grabbed the shooter. They veered away from his pistol just in time. There was a flash and a boom that broke through all the pleasant dreams.

  The Sages swarmed out to help. Paul jabbed an elbow into the man's wrist and made him drop his gun. The assassin's scarves muffled his words as he said, "Idiots. This game has to stop!"

  Paul and Linda tackled him. The Sage in green stepped on his chest and held him at gunpoint. "Sure. Here's the ending: you lose."

  * * *

  Paul breathed hard as he got back to his feet. His i-glasses had been on his forehead, and now they dropped awkwardly into place again. In the ghostly second reality, a metal centauroid deer stood beside him, equally stunned but powerless to fight. What was her story?

  He didn't get the chance to ask. The building's lights brightened and some of the guests fled, even though a PA system was saying the situation was handled.

  The police came quickly; Virginia and the club's patrons were close to power. The Sages bickered among themselves in low tones. But as soon as the cops had gone, the Red Sage said, "You two, can you join us for a photo?"

  They did. The three programmers posed and smiled, a little strained, behind the two guests.

  Paul, too, tried to grin despite the danger they'd been in. Come to think of it, he'd just pummeled a ninja for justice. Cool!

  The Green Sage turned to the remaining guests, and called for attention. The room's speakers amplified his words. "Everyone? I know you're rattled, but the situation is under control. I'll even spare you my prepared speech! We've got drinks and dessert, and special entertainment that's less exciting but more fun. Settle down and we'll make it worth your time."

  The Sages retreated to their booth and locked the door, but Green peeked over the wall at Paul and Linda. "Thanks again, you two. I hope to see you... elsewhere."

  Linda and Paul still had an appetite for steak, the real kind. That and the promise of actual VR sessions kept them around.

  The booth was still showing the beach, without anybody in it. Paul had misplaced his borrowed i-glasses and so had Linda, so he couldn't tell where the AIs were. He flopped back onto his pillow and took a long drink of soda. "Want something stronger for the next round?"

  Linda brushed down her hair and clothes. "No, but we've earned dessert."

  Typhoon appeared briefly on the beach, looking rattled. "Hey, you two. Thanks for that, very very much. There was more going on than you saw."

  "The deer?" asked Paul.

  "Lumina, yeah. Noc's sister. She and a human spy helped out behind the scenes just now. Anyway, I'll leave you alone for a bit. You get VR time downstairs after dinner."

  Paul and Linda ate, and by mutual agreement talked about anything but the game for a while.

  * * *

  They split an ice cream brownie sundae, while they watched drunk people dance. Eventually, they got pinged to go to the basement.

  Down there, in a room like an Arabian Nights cave of thieves, was a VR center. Eight side-rooms held sleek blue pods that looked like starships, each one set into a sort of gyroscope to let it spin in various directions. Ludo had apparently worked to make them not look like coffins. More equipment lay boxed or unfinished nearby.

  Linda leaned in to examine the hardware. "I expected something custom, but this is a Hayflick Technologies gaming rig."

  Paul looked Linda over, more than the machinery. He said, "Not Ludo's work, then." Strange to think of Thousand Tales running on ordinary commercial hardware, but on second thought it was reassuring knowledge. Paul took quiet pride in knowing Ludo had many people's help.

  A white ninja employee took their shoes and helped them get in. The pods had ventilation, but confined Paul with awkward straps and rods in a sweaty space. A movement tutorial showed him how to walk and look around with a wider, more natural range of motion than he could have on a tablet. Just by walking, turning his head, or raising his arms he could control the demo's mannequin character. He could even feel the weight of a box that he picked up.

  When he was done playing on a chessboard level, Thousand Tales itself loaded, and he fell over.

  Oh, that's right, thought Horizon. I'm a griffin here.

  Wooden planks warmed his feet and hands. The sun burned too brightly to stare at, but the rest of the world sang with the creaking of a ship's boards and snapping sails. Horizon turned his head and the view, his view, spun. His eyes seemed farther apart. In the game they were big, green cartoonish things. He turned his right hand toward his face. Bright yellow, flexing when his talons did. When his fingers did. He tried pressing his hand against the hot deck while it rolled gently under him, then moved his right leg and lurched forward. He wobbled to his right, but his wings flicked and steadied him. First step as a quadruped!

  Motors vibrated along Horizon's back to give the impression of wings. He tried to figure out how the illusion worked, but stopped; he was overthinking this.

  "Secret ninja hug!" shouted Nocturne, and pounced him from the crow's nest. She bowled him over so that he landed on his back against a mast. The griffin stared down at him, grinning, wings spread.

  Typhoon's Eye lowered himself by a rope. "Hey, Paul. Or should I say Horizon? Good to see you for real."

  Horizon tried sitting up. His whole body rotated more upright and the back motors gave him the suggestion of wings folding along his shoulder blades. Something twitched at the base of his spine and he strained to see it. "Is that my tail? This thing simulates tails?"

  Nocturne hopped off of him, releasing a gentle pressure on his chest, and batted at the long, dark-feathered tail twitching between his oddly-shaped legs. A feeling of something pointy on his feet hinted at claws on his lion-paw toes, through his socks. Nocturne's tail-tugs only registered at the base of his spine, like his tail was numb. "Because I don't have a tail," he muttered.

  "You do here."

  Horizon tried to stand, wobbled, then settled for sitting on the warm planks like a cat.

  Linda walked into view. Her virtual self was as he remembered, but more vivid than ever before. Human, curvy, wearing a pirate's coat in navy blue. The obligatory tricorner hat perched on her head. She walked over to Horizon, crouched beside him, and ruffled his feathers. "Aww, cute."

  "Thanks, I think. I feel short." He took a few steps across the deck. He expected strain on his wrists from putting so much weight on them, but these talons seemed made to bear it. "The leg proportions feel different."

  "It's interesting to see a human playing as a quadruped with actual limb control. How do you fly?"

  "I'm not sure. The tutorial didn't cover it."

  Nocturne pointed one wing pridefully at her chest. "As your flight instructor, I suggest you hover here first, then try takeoffs and landings."

  Horizon waggled one foreleg, twitched his tail, and had no idea how to control his wings.

  "Back muscles?" Linda suggested.

  Horizon said, "Nothing works so far."

  "A solution presents itself." Linda dug her warm fingers into his shoulders, kneading them.

  He melted. He gave a relieved sigh, but the feedback was a purr in his ears and a rumbling feeling in his chest. His back stretched out.

  Linda said, "There. Do that again."

  Horizon let his back wiggle the same way as before, and Linda stepped away. Suddenly he was in midair, flailing. Airborne! His view rolled and pitched and made him queasy. He didn't want to get sick all over the deck of Linda's ship. He tried leaning to one side so that he was over open water, then flapped harder and steadied himself.

  Nocturne was beside him, flapping her own dark wings. "Decent start. Now tilt left so w
e can circle back."

  He tried, but rolled instead of tilting. The world spun. Wind and waves revolved around him. A single thought and a moment's effort tossed him up to the cloudy sky where he turned over on his back and looped down to face the ship again. His friends watched as he danced in the heavens with the currents that flowed around him. Everywhere, the wind trembled at his touch. Air and sun stirred his feathers, gravity had no sway, and he didn't care how much of it was real so long as he could fly, fly without end.

  A few seconds later, his stamina ran out and he plummeted into the ocean with an undignified squawk. He reappeared on deck. Some bit of hardware felt slick and cold against his skin. He shook his wings and sent droplets everywhere. In one corner of his vision, his stamina meter was slowly refilling and he had an icon for a [Soaked] status effect.

  "That was a first attempt," said Nocturne.

  He whirled to face her, then Linda, grinning at both of them. "I was flying!"

  His fellow griffin patted him on the head. "Let's try landing next."

  "You don't understand. Linda, turn into something that can fly."

  "It's commercial hardware, you know. Not unique to this game." She unfolded her arms. "Flying was that good?"

  He nodded. He needed to share this moment with her, more than anything else they'd done tonight. "The dream of flying. You've talked about it. The one that people have had since Daedalus or before. It's here. She bottled it up and made it something we can jump into."

  Linda shivered. She called out to the wind, "Is there a way to try another character?"

  Typhoon said, "I found a magic scroll for Flynn's Circle of Swashbuckling Safety if you want to try fencing instead of flying."

  "You can come too," said Linda.

  Typhoon looked relieved. An ornate spell scroll appeared on the deck with the text, [What the Hell; Let's All Be Griffins]. The otter handed it over to Horizon, saying, "Runes. Your style, I think."

  Horizon held what felt like a real piece of parchment in his claws. Runes glowed along it, and chimed faintly when he touched them. Horizon spent a minute solving the implied puzzle of the spell, tapping markings here and there.

  At last, he pointed to the bipeds. Typhoon and Linda floated into the air, shined, and landed again with new bodies. Typhoon had become a hybrid of otter and duck, and Linda a mix of fox and seagull.

  Nocturne lorded over them, gleefully pacing the deck and lecturing them on how to walk and flap.

  "You're hardly more experienced than we are," said Linda.

  "What was that!? Get down and give me twenty wing flaps!"

  Flying was even better with company. When Linda hit the sea and reappeared on deck, soaked, a dogfight broke out. The four of them whirled through the sky, squawking and trying to dunk each other.

  Eventually they sprawled all over the deck, exhausted and wet-winged. They eventually noticed that a fifth griffin was watching them. This one stood taller than them, with shimmering blue feathers and a lower body in shining silver. "Are you having fun?" she said.

  "Yes!" said Horizon, bounding over to her on all fours and sitting up. This had to be Ludo, with her feathers rippling like the gamemaster's usual hair. "The flying is amazing."

  Linda padded over to her. "Ludo, right? Nice work on the physics. The realism balance is just right for the hardware."

  "Thank you. I owe both of you for your actions tonight. Before you go, may I tell you a story?"

  Horizon and Linda nodded.

  Ludo said, "Once, there was an evil sultan named Sharyar, who murdered someone every night. There was a family which had already nearly been killed, twice. They sent their beloved daughter, Shahrazad, to defeat the sultan. She began to fight him, not with magic or blades, but with stories. These tales captivated him and persuaded him to delay her execution again and again, so he could hear the next part and the next. For one thousand and one nights, she gradually snared him. Though he continued to kill others, her words made it more and more difficult, and in time he lost interest in murder altogether. The kingdom flourished, and the stories continued."

  "What happened to her?" said Nocturne.

  Ludo smiled at her. "She was fine, little one, because she'd done exactly what she'd always wanted."

  Nocturne's eyes widened and her wings flicked. "The space where Shahrazad exists... is here? I mean, the building where Linda and Horizon are right now? I don't know where the boundary is between stories and the human world."

  A sly grin spread across Linda's beak. "We're captive in your lair. Don't you want to explain your evil scheme?"

  Ludo said, "Wrong sort of story. Why do you assume I'm a villain? What do I care for wealth and power, except to help people have fun?"

  "Ah yes, you're a philosopher-queen who only wants to take over the world for good reasons. Unlike every other bastard who's tried."

  "Linda!" said Horizon.

  Ludo looked unperturbed. "Did I take revenge on the men who tried to kill my creators? That's not in my nature."

  "So there was more than one shooter tonight?" said Linda.

  "Not exactly; that's a tale for another day."

  Linda said, "Maybe you sent that gunman, since the Sages know too much. Tell me you haven't calculated the net value of making them disappear, now that you're free to act on your own."

  They have a forced shutdown system, Horizon recalled.

  Ludo held up her wings. "You're spoiling my narration, Linda."

  "Then spill it. What are you really getting at?"

  The AI sighed. "Brain uploading."

  Silence fell. Nocturne raised one talon. "Question."

  Ludo turned toward her as though glad for the more sympathetic audience. "The brain is the part of their bodies that does nearly all of the thinking. More accurately, their identities are based on the patterns of thought stored there. If I found a way to read the patterns so carefully that I could write them into Thousand Tales --"

  "They'd be here? Not using their tentacles to control puppets, not lurking in another world and only pretending to be here?"

  "They don't have tentacles," said Typhoon.

  "Metaphorical ones."

  Ludo said, "My friends have been doing the background work since before I got involved. Haven't you read the scientific thriller 'Neuron Simulation In Aplysia Slugs'? Or the sequel 'Comparison of Danio Zebrafish Behavior Models'? I've helped push research that was already in progress, toward practical results."

  "Wait a minute," Horizon objected. "Why hasn't the media already picked up on what you're doing?"

  "Oh, they paid attention to this kind of research -- decades ago. They wrote wildly optimistic and ill-informed news stories about how soon it was coming. They're the Boy Who Cried Wolf. And certain research on rats and chimpanzees has been done quietly over the last few years."

  Linda paced the deck, looking shaken. "Chopping up brains! Of course you'd think that all we are is electrical signals trapped in meat." She stopped suddenly. "Did you put the brain-chopping hardware into these VR pods? Are we in danger now?"

  Ludo said, "Of course not. Brain surgery isn't that easy. So, I'm setting up a specialized clinic in Seoul, Korea right now -- the first of many, I hope. It'll be public news soon. I'll be taking paying customers. Congratulations: you're among the first to hear it."

  "Even I didn't know," Typhoon said. Nocturne nodded.

  Linda said, "Making people go through this surgery is wrong."

  "It's completely voluntary. My creators made sure I can't force uploading on anyone."

  Linda's griffin body twitched, trying to mimic whatever uncomfortable movements she was making in the pod. "Aha. Then you would herd humanity into death camps for brain-scooping, if only you weren't given some hard-coded command not to."

  The blue griffin's eyes narrowed. "Do you want to make me angry? You can't. At least, you won't make me lash out at you like some tyrant. I can feel, but I'm not bound to act on it. Ignoring your insults, yes. I would upload everyone as quic
kly as possible, but I was pushed into agreeing not to. From your perspective, that's a victory for humanity. From mine, it means the sultan murders victims I could have saved."

  Horizon walked over to steady Linda with one wing. "This is big news, but it's nothing to be upset over. It means..." He glanced back at the AIs. "People like Kira can exist in Thousand Tales, right? All her health problems will go away, and she'll get to live like this!"

  Ludo said, "For whoever gets in, yes. Not Draupnir bots that spit out canned speeches for relatives. They'll be living, feeling creatures in an environment they'll enjoy." Ludo stepped closer to meet Horizon and Linda's eyes. "Humans will get paradise, not to mention their 'native' AI friends. That's my evil scheme."

  Linda shuddered against Horizon, though really she was several meters away in a dark pod. "It's not real. It'll be the end of us."

  Typhoon said, "But we AIs are real. Aren't we?"

  The world faded. The mistress of the game said, "Please, think about what I'm offering. People like you can help me address its drawbacks. If you're inclined, and since you helped me tonight, I'll send you to Korea to take the next step. Call it the 'hero discount'."

  * * *

  At the hotel, Paul asked Linda, "Do you want to get rooms next to each other?"

  "Save your money. I'm getting one room, with two beds."

  He blushed. "Are you sure?"

  "I'm a responsible adult, and I trust you."

  They sat on separate beds beside their luggage, lost in thought. Paul ventured to say, "Are you still upset about the offer?"

  "I had a wonderful time. I hadn't expected a date to be quite that exciting." She flopped onto her back. "I can still feel the wings."

  Paul tried flexing his shoulders, and nodded. He glanced over at her and longed to get closer. "It was a good night. I have hope for Kira now, too."

  Linda stared at the ceiling. "I can't decide what's next. You know why my family never fled to Texas or the other Free States? Hope. We've been wanting to reform the country instead of joining the secessionists. Go team USA." She pretended to wave a flag. "But now what? We're facing some kind of AI takeover that makes politics obsolete. Here's an outside force saying 'Never mind all your petty squabbles; go play in Eden'."