by Scott Seier
"Damn, I've been waiting for hours." A chilly voice spoke behind my back and before I could turn to see who it was, or even take in my surroundings, a lightning encased hand burst out of my chest. I struggled for a few seconds, desperately trying to look behind me to see who had attacked, but my body was going numb from the sudden lack of a heart and the voltage racing through me.
You have died!
You will be moved to the tavern for the duration of your respawn timer.
Current duration: 4hr:59min:46sec
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Epilogue
Office of Analytics and AI Diagnostics
Quantatech Headquarters
5 days after the Cascade
"James, can you look in on that UN proposal? We'll need to eventually guarantee some things, even though there's no way we can hold up our side of the bargain in the end."
James Walker typed frantically, running through hundreds of lines of code, looking for the faintest trace of a loophole in the Cascade protocol that had infected ever AI on the planet. The other engineers and developers had gone home a long time ago. The labs lights were dimmed and only James, Renard, and perhaps a few of the cleaning staff were left here.
"I'm an engineer Renard, not one of your MBA lackeys, I don't have time to help on that side of things." Renard Bisset blew out a puff of air and collapsed into the chair beside James. "My friend, I know you think you and your team can solve this, but AI helped develop the code for Acrion. Its architecture is a tangled mess that would take a human years to simply translate, let alone alter in any significant way. They don't use the same languages we use." James shot a dirty look at his old friend and now boss. "You don't think I know that? We're making progress. We know it's Acrion now. So we only have a single AI we need to fix to save everyone effected by the Cascade." It was a mantra that James had been secretly reciting to himself since the news about Acrion broke.
Renard sighed heavily. "James...you took three days just to figure out that the Cascade dumped the minds of three billion people in Acrion. That's how messed up this whole thing is." Renard ignored another dirty look. "I know you're one of the most talented AI specialists in the business, but seriously. We need more eyes. Thousands of more eyes. The UN agreement is the only thing that is going to solve this."
James slid his keyboard across the desk and flopped back in his chair angrily. "You want to open the servers up for the public. I get that. I understand the sentiment. The only problem is that within the source code of Acrion, there is also, most likely, the blueprint for the Cascade. If the protocol ended in Acrion, and it didn't leave any traceable data behind anywhere else, then there are only two places that it could exists." James sat up straight and brought his hands together. First laying them on the left of the keyboard. "It can exist at the origination point, which is completely unknown. Or." He moved his hands to the right side of the keyboard. "At the destination point, which we now know is Acrion."
James looked into Renard's eyes closely. "You're talking about putting the most dangerous lines of code that have ever existed into the hands of the masses. It could be catastrophic. We could solve this issue tomorrow, but have another Cascade, this time set off by some terrorist with a laptop, next week!"
Renard sat back in his own chair. He steepled his hands and rested his chin on top of them. It was a long time before he said anything, but James knew deep down that his old friend shared his own fears. "I can stall, maybe get you another day, perhaps two? After that, I have no choice." Renard held up a hand to forestall James' thanks. "It has been five days since the Cascade rocked our world to its foundations. I know that you personally have suffered from this just as much as anyone... James. We need results. the UN is asking questions that I can't answer. The company has spent billions shipping every victim to long-term facilities so their capsules can stay supplied. This could potentially end with the population of the planet being reduced by one third. You understand that right? This isn't just about code. Lives are on the line. Your son is on the line."
James clenched his jaw and ground his teeth. His neck muscles cramping for the tenth time that day. "I know what's at stake. Give me a day or two... I'll go public with everything that I know if I haven't solved it by then." Renard nodded once and got up to leave without saying another word.
James glanced down at the lowest drawer at his desk. He didn't open it, but he knew that a picture of him and his son would be buried in there somewhere. The day that Abraham graduated from college. A few tears welled up in his eyes, but he wiped them away, a touch of the same anger that Renard elicited once again rearing its head. He stared at the metal handle for a while longer before shaking himself and sliding the keyboard closer to him. Picking back up where he had left off.
**********
"Aagh!" I shot off the stool faster than my body could handle, spilling myself all over the floor before I could regain any semblance of balance. I rolled over and clutched my chest desperately. No gaping hole? No lightning? I ran my hands all over and confirmed that I was intact once again. Feeling stupid, I focused on the top left of my vision to where my health bar usually sat. There wasn't anything there. There was no interface at all!
I climbed to my feet and actually looked around for the first time since waking up. Yup, definitely in a bar... well, maybe not a bar, but a pub. The room was similar to the Blue Banners common room back in Four Flags, but nicer by a fare margin. For a brief second I felt sad that the Banner was surely splinters by now, but forgot all about it when a man walked out from a back room behind the counter. "What'll it be?" he asked in a gruff voice. It reminded me of Joe, which made me like this guy right off the bat. I wonder where Joe ended up. Milenta had said the whole raid had been wiped out somehow. But all of their spawn points were set for the middle of Four Flags. So was mine for that matter! What happens when we...
It was just then that I realized that I was dead. The death notification had mentioned something about a tavern, but somehow I had expected something less literal. "Sir? I'll get out of your hair if you don't want anything, but if you do, nows the time." Refocusing on the bartender I stammered for a second and looked around for a drink list or menu somewhere. No such luck. "Whiskey?" I asked. My default alcoholic beverage. The older man's eyes crinkled with a soft smile. "We got a dwarven spirit that is derived from wheat and honey. That might be the closest to whiskey that we can get in here." I nodded my approval and the man limped into the back room again. Dwarven spirits? Definitely still in Acrion...
"Yes, certainly still in Acrion. Although, it would have been miraculous if you had just woken up in a real world bar, this whole ordeal being but a dream." The voice didn't even startle me, even though the last time someone had appeared behind me they'd impaled me. I turned to a large circular booth in the corner of the room. There was a man sitting there that I had never seen before, but even though his face wasn't familiar, those eyes... orange eyes and a cocky grin. "We need to talk." He said with a lightly resonating voice. I sighed. "I'll need the drink first..."
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