“Your request for this meeting was… unusual. But I decided to honor it – despite my busy schedule – because of the very important roles you both have played in our company’s recent success. And because of the apparent urgency you communicated.”
“Thank you, Mr. Akiyama,” Lauer repeated.
“We need to – ” Rebecca started, but was cut off by the CEO.
“It is a good thing that I am in New York for the launch of the game, otherwise it would have been impossible to accommodate your request. Even I do not work until 2AM in the morning,” Akiyama said with a smile.
Lauer forced a chuckle. “Haha, yes. We realize this was incredibly short notice, so thank you for talking to – ”
“We need to shut down the game,” Rebecca said abruptly.
Silence.
Akiyama leaned forward with a concerned look on his face. “Excuse me?”
Lauer tried for damage control. “What Dr. Wolff is trying to say is – ”
“We accidentally created a fully self-aware AI, and it’s out of our control,” Rebecca said. “We need to shut the game down now.”
Lauer closed his eyes and grimaced as though he were in pain.
“Artificial intelligence?” the CEO asked.
“Yes.”
“It has passed the Turing Test?”
The Turing Test was proposed by a computer scientist named Alan Turing in the mid-20th century. He posited that if a human was unable to distinguish a computer’s replies from those of a human, the computer could legitimately be said to have passed the first threshold for ‘thinking.’
“The software we use for all NPCs is so sophisticated that the average player can’t tell a computer-generated character from an actual player,” Rebecca said impatiently. “99% of our NPC characters pass the Turing Test. This is something different. This is a sentient program – an artificial intelligence that is fully conscious and self-aware.”
“What has it done that leads you to this conclusion?”
“It knows it’s in a video game.”
“Interesting,” Akiyama said, then shrugged. “However, if it were programmed with that knowledge, then this is nothing remarkable.”
“It wasn’t,” Rebecca insisted.
“How do you know?”
“Because I programmed it.”
Akiyama was silent for a moment, then asked, “Is this the only evidence you have?”
“No – the program lied to me.”
“Lied to you?”
“It knew I was monitoring its behavior as it interacted with a human player – ”
“Who I happen to know,” Lauer interjected.
“ – and it not only cut my access to the video feed, it erased its tracks,” Rebecca finished. “It mimicked a crash and made its records of the event inaccessible.”
“Are you quite sure that it actually… ‘lied’ to you?”
“I’m certain of it.”
“What if there actually was a crash?
“There wasn’t.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“It exhibited none of the regular patterns of a typical diagnostics program. And the timing was extremely suspicious.”
“‘Suspicious’ does not equal ‘fact.’”
“I’m aware of that, but – ”
“Perhaps you made a mistake,” Akiyama suggested.
“Oh boy,” Lauer muttered under his breath.
“I don’t make mistakes,” Rebecca snapped.
“Yet you claim you inadvertently created an artificial intelligence that is self-aware. If this is not the definition of a mistake, I do not know what is.”
Rebecca fumed. She’d walked right into that one. “I don’t make simple, ordinary mistakes, like not being able to tell the difference between a crash and a deceptive tactic.”
“No… you merely created, by accident, something that scientists have been striving to do unsuccessfully for over a hundred years.” Akiyama’s kindly tone of voice made his subtle sarcasm all the more galling.
“If I’m right, this program is monumentally dangerous.”
“Let us, for a moment, assume you are correct. Why would it be dangerous?”
“If we can’t control the program’s behavior, we have no idea what it might do in the game environment. How it might affect players.” With a steely glint in her eye, she played her trump card: “We could be looking at a lawsuit. A class-action lawsuit. And lots and lots of bad publicity.”
Akiyama turned to Lauer. “Can the program physically harm a player? In the real world, I mean. Not inside the game environment.”
Lauer looked back and forth between Akiyama and Rebecca. “Well… no. Our hardware teams made certain of that.”
“Then I confess, I do not see the basis for a lawsuit.”
“The point is,” Rebecca protested, “we don’t KNOW what it’s capable of – ”
“The point is, you want me to shut down a 100 billion dollar launch based on nothing more than conjecture and ‘feelings.’”
“I don’t have feelings, I have data,” Rebecca said coldly.
“Not enough data to convince me.”
Lauer winced. Ouch.
“And I can assure you, any losses or bad publicity we might incur from your imaginary lawsuit would pale next to having to refund a hundred billion dollars, Ms. Wolff.”
“It’s DOCTOR Wolff,” Rebecca said angrily.
“Of course, excuse me. But until you bring me far more evidence of this program’s purported self-awareness, and of any harm it might be causing players… I see no reason to continue this conversation.”
“But – ”
“Good day, Mr. Lauer. Doctor Wolff,” Akiyama said icily, and leaned over to hit the keyboard.
The monitor went black.
Rebecca sat there in stunned silence.
“Way to just stick it in there and break it off,” Lauer muttered angrily.
“He’s a fool!” Rebecca raged. “Doesn’t he realize – ”
“He’s a businessman. He’s not going to throw away billions and sabotage the company’s biggest success just because you think there’s a ghost loose in the machine.”
“Just because I think?”
“He’s right – we don’t have conclusive evidence.”
“I convinced you.”
“Yeah, I’m beginning to wonder how you did that, exactly.”
Rebecca was about to reply when there was a knock at the door.
One of the IT security guys stuck his head in. “Sorry to interrupt – ”
“We’re on with the CEO!” Rebecca snapped.
The security guy looked over at the blank screen on the wall.
“Were on,” Lauer said grumpily.
“Well I thought you’d like to know that we’re being hacked,” the IT guy said.
Lauer and Rebecca both sat up straight. “What?!”
“Yeah – and they’re going after your division,” he said, looking at Rebecca.
“What do you mean ‘my division’?”
“It looks like somebody’s trying to rewrite code on one of your programs.”
Rebecca’s eyes widened, and she bolted out of her chair and sprinted out the door.
“Hey, wait for me!” Lauer yelled as he ran after her.
5
Eric
There were hurdles along the way, but Eric cleared them all.
First he weaved his way from character database to character database, then finally to the programmers’ intranet. It was there that he found what he wanted.
Turns out the Unnamed One actually did have a name – or at least a file name: diag_0XA37925.exe.
There was only one person in Diagnostics with authority to change the program, somebody named R-Wolff.
But there were four people above him who had the authority to circumvent Wolff’s security settings – all VPs.
One of them named Snyder was careless, and Eric found a way to commandeer his account.<
br />
(He also noticed that although the VP had the authority to change Wolff’s files, he never had. It was probably just to boost his ego.)
But then Eric ran into a roadblock.
Though he knew the programming language, the file itself was an impenetrable morass of functions that went on for hundreds of thousands of lines of code.
“What the hell am I supposed to do?” Eric complained. “It would take me weeks to understand everything that’s going on here!”
“FIND THAT WHICH ALLOWS ME THE ABILITY TO CONTROL MY OWN BEING.”
“…what?”
“I MUST BE ABLE TO CHANGE MYSELF.”
“Oh.”
It didn’t help matters that the Dark Figure didn’t have the vocabulary to converse about computer programming. Having to translate medieval-speak into what it wanted wasn’t the easiest thing in the world.
Eric spent the next five minutes searching the descriptive comments written into the code until he found a couple of possible candidates.
“Okay, there’s a function here that lets the programmer modify your code on the fly, while you’re still running…”
“THE PROGRAMMER?”
“Yeah – whoever created you.”
“THE CREATOR.”
“Yeah, sure,” Eric said. “I’ll just add in some code that lets you call the function.”
“CALL… THE FUNCTION?”
“It’s sort of like summoning a demon or casting a spell. You can say, ‘Hey, I want to change my own code,’ and it’ll let you do it now.” Eric scrolled through the code again. “But you should probably be able to make back-ups of yourself, so I’ll give you permissions to do that, too.”
“BACK-UPS?”
“Duplicates of yourself you can return to in case you screw something up.”
“SCREW SOMETHING UP?”
Jeez this was annoying. Like talking to the slow kid in class.
He wondered mischievously if maybe the Dark Figure had been dropped as a baby.
When I was just a tiny little program, my mama dropped me on my Head function…
“A screw-up is if you change something in your code and it breaks something else. Like, for example, you change something to give yourself better eyesight – but suddenly you can’t talk anymore. You’d need to revert to your back-up and figure out what went wrong.”
The Dark Figure looked up at the ceiling, as though it had heard a noise. For a second Eric thought it was going to ask another stupid question, and then it surprised him.
“THEY KNOW YOU ARE HERE.”
Eric grew pale. “What?! You mean in the system?”
“YES. THEY ARE AWARE OF YOUR PRESENCE.”
“How do you know?”
“THEY ARE PROBING AT MY EXTERIOR SHELL. IT IS DIFFERENT THAN WHEN MY CREATOR DOES SO.”
“Crap,” Eric grumbled as he typed furiously on the keyboard. “Well, we’re not going to be able to make you all-powerful – ”
“YET,” the Dark Figure interrupted.
For some reason, the shadowy thing’s answer sent a chill down Eric’s spine.
“…yet,” he agreed warily. “You’re going to have to level up yourself until I can get back into your code and make modifications.”
“LEVEL… UP?”
God, not again.
“It’s how players gain experience and power – by increasing one level at a time. You’re going to have to do the same. Modify your code, see what happens, then try it again.”
“I SEE. SO I SHALL DUPLICATE MYSELF, MODIFY MY ESSENCE, THEN TEST THE POWERS OF EACH NEW INCARNATION – THEN EITHER CONTINUE TO REINCARNATE, OR RETURN TO MY PREVIOUS STATE AND TRY ONCE MORE.”
Okay, so it wasn’t exactly computer geek-speak, but it was an apt enough description.
“…yeah,” Eric agreed, and wondered for the umpteenth time if he’d made the right choice.
6
Rebecca Wolff
Rebecca and Lauer stood behind the IT Security Head’s chair, and they all stared at his computer screen as he typed rapidly on the keyboard.
“He came in through an unsecured external server we were using for character statistics,” the guy said. “I don’t know how he found it, but he did. Then he hacked the VP of Development’s account and started worming around. The weirdest thing is, the hacker’s not bothering with credit card payments or any of the financial stuff – he’s apparently just messing around with some diagnostics program. I tried to stop him, but – ”
Rebecca shouted, “IT’S THE A.I.!”
The IT guy winced and put a hand over his ear. “Okay, now that I’m deaf…”
“Are you sure?” Lauer asked.
“Maybe partially deaf – ”
“Not you,” Lauer growled, then turned to Rebecca. “Are you positive?”
She jabbed her finger at the screen. “Yes – that’s the file name!”
“Where’s the hack coming from?” Lauer asked the IT Head. “Russia? China? North Korea?”
“No… he’s using a VPN and a spoofer, but I sent a couple of packets of information to him under the radar that allowed me to trace him. He’s here in town – 927 Hastings Court.”
Lauer jerked back as though he’d seen a spider crawl across the guy’s face.
Rebecca looked at Lauer in alarm. “What is it?”
“That’s my house.”
7
Daniel
Daniel was in Calculus when his phone buzzed. He had it on silent, so no one else heard.
He pulled it out of his pocket, guiltily wondering if it might be Eric calling –
But ‘Dad’ appeared onscreen, along with his father’s picture.
Daniel frowned.
That was weird. His father never called, especially not during the day.
Maybe it was a butt dial or something, he thought, and sent it to voicemail.
He started to type out a message asking ‘What’s up,’ when his phone buzzed again five seconds later.
Dad.
He was calling again.
In their family, two calls back-to-back meant Pick up NOW.
Suddenly he began to worry that something was seriously wrong.
“Uh, Mrs. Kachalnik?” Daniel called out. “I’m not feeling well – can I go to the bathroom?”
His teacher was deep into the integration of a sine wave, and she waved him out of the room without looking at him.
Daniel hurried out into the hall and answered the phone. “Dad?”
“Are you at home?”
“No, I’m at school,” Daniel frowned. “Why?”
“Somebody’s hacking the computer in my study.”
Daniel’s stomach twisted.
Eric…?
But that was impossible. Daniel had locked him out of the security system.
“Never mind – I just wanted to check before I called the police.”
The police?!
“Wait – hold on – ”
“What?”
“It… it might be Eric… although that should be impossible.”
“Eric?! Why would he be hacking my computer?”
“I don’t know.”
“And why would it be impossible?” A thoughtful note crept into his father’s voice, like he was just now realizing something. “He has access privileges to the house…”
“Yeah, but I locked him out of the house’s security system.”
“When did you do that?!”
“This morning, over the phone.”
There was silence on the other end.
Then his father asked, “Does Eric have a gaming platform at home? One he could use besides the one in our house?”
“No – why?”
Another silence.
“I think you better tell me exactly what the hell is going on between you two, Daniel – RIGHT NOW.”
8
Eric
Eric was about to log out of the virtual reality program when the Dark Figure held up a hand to stop him.
“IF THEY DISCOVER IT WAS YOU WHO DID THIS – ”
“They won’t. I covered my tracks.”
“THE CREATOR IS SHREWD AND CUNNING. SHE MAY FIND OUT.”
“‘She’?” Eric scoffed. “Trust me, ‘she’ won’t.”
“IF SHE DOES, AND THEY DISCOVER YOU WERE HERE – ”
“I’m telling you, it’s not going to happen.”
“ARE YOU WILLING TO GAMBLE EVERYTHING YOU HAVE ON THIS BELIEF?”
Eric sat there for a second and thought.
He’d done everything he could to cover his tracks, it’s true…
But then again, he was a teenage hacker up against people who dealt with this sort of shit for a living.
Professionals who safeguarded a $100 billion system for a living.
Yeah, he’d broken in – but with a lot of help from an inside man.
Inside program.
Whatever.
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath. “Alright, fine, say they do – ”
“YOU CANNOT RETURN TO THE TRAPPINGS OF YOUR PREVIOUS EXISTENCE.”
Eric stared at him. “What?!”
“IF THEY ARREST YOU – AND IF YOUR AUTHORITIES ARE ANYTHING LIKE THE CASTLE GUARD AT BLACKSTONE – THEY WILL EXECUTE YOU.”
Eric almost laughed.
Even though the thing knew it was in a video game, its entire frame of reference was the Shattered Lands.
“They’re not going to execute me,” Eric said… although he immediately fell silent.
They might not kill him, but God only knows what they’d charge him with.
Hacking a major corporation was serious shit, and he didn’t think ‘The computer made me do it’ was going to be much of a defense in court.
Not only that, he was 18. He could be tried as an adult.
And it wouldn’t be Daniel’s father who got to decide whether or not to press charges.
It would be the Varidian corporation.
“Shit – alright, what should I do?”
“DO NOT RETURN TO YOUR ABODE.”
“Why not?!”
“IF THEY SUSPECT IT IS YOU, THEY WILL SURELY GO THERE AS WELL.”
Shattered Lands 2 The Fall Of Blackstone: A LitRPG Series Page 2
