Solid State Rhyme: A Novelette (Mandate)

by Harbour, J. S.

  Daniel opened the door, cautiously. It swung open to reveal a torch-lit stone hallway, lined with doors. He walked down the hall to an arched opening at the end. Upon reaching the end of the hall, his eyes eagerly took in the landscape of Helgar for the first time. He dashed out of the hall, and ran across a grassy field. Mountains beckoned him from the west, a forest lay to the north, while a raging river flowed to his east. He let his body fall to the grassy field. He was subtly aware of his virtual gear swinging his feet out from under him, suspending him in midair. He lay on the grass, watching the clouds above, utterly delighted.

  Suddenly, he found himself surrounded by armor-clad, steel-wielding soldiers. He hadn't even seen them coming.

  “Identify yourself, newcomer!” a rather large, angry-looking character demanded of him.

  “I, um, I'm Drake. This is my first time playing.”

  How could this be happening? Was this game networked?

  The boisterous leader exclaimed, “We are the Knights of Honor! We defend the helpless from the horde of player-killers roaming the land.”

  Daniel was stunned. This was a massively multiplayer game client, not the single-player VR simulation he had expected. He looked around and counted no less than twelve other players. They all wore different armor and wielded different weapons, but they all had the same identification markings: a shield with a peace symbol behind two crossed swords. That was the symbol for the Knights of Honor, he figured. Enforced peace? The concept seemed strange to him for some reason.

  The leader spoke again, “I am High Lord Sandman of the Knights of Honor.”

  Daniel got back onto his feet. “I am Drake . . . um . . . Dragonrider of Helgar.”

  The group mumbled to themselves. Daniel was obviously no Dragonrider. But the title seemed impressive enough to compete with the title “High Lord Sandman.”

  Fortunately, High Lord Sandman was an understanding fellow. He said, “We are pleased to make your acquaintance, Dragonrider Drake. Do you have any guild affiliations?”

  “Not that I know of,” Daniel replied.

  What was all this about? Were these be real players, or just impressive—

  He was jolted out of his thoughts when High Lord Sandman said, “Would you be interested in joining the Knights of Honor? We are a guild dedicated to preserving the peace and assisting the helpless in battle.”

  “Sure, I'd like to join!” Daniel exclaimed, a little too eagerly.

  High Lord Sandman replied, “Excellent. Please kneel, Drake.”

  Daniel kneeled in front of High Lord Sandman, who drew his sword and spoke these words, “By the powers vested in me by the Knights of Honor, I hereby dub thee, Sir Drake, of the Knights of Honor. You may rise.”

  The other knights saluted Daniel, and one of them handed him a new shield, bearing the Knights of Honor logo. At just this moment, an indicator sounded in Daniel's ear informing him that his time was over. Daniel bade farewell to his new friends, and touched the red sphere, choosing to exit the game.

  He tripped and sprawled to the floor upon trying to get out of the gear in the machine too quickly. “Wow, that was amazing!” he exclaimed, nearly tempted to insert his game card again. He stood up just as two younger kids fought over the card slot of the game. One of them succeeded in cramming his card in, and grabbed it before jumping into the game and slamming the door shut, leaving the second kid outside yelling at him.

  After dusting popcorn and dirt off himself, Daniel scrutinized the game cabinet more closely. It was not new but he was surprised that he hadn't played before. The date indicated it was manufactured only two years ago. It was all black except for a vertical logo along the backside that read, “InterWorld.”

  Strange name for a game.

  He also noticed a small logo of the Earth with a grid of red lines connecting major cities represented as white dots.

  So the game is networked!

  Beneath the “InterWorld” logo he found the company logo and name, which read, “InterWorld Systems: Power to the 4th = Realism to the 4th.”

  A group of kids began watching the screen above the game, which showed what the current player was doing. He was firing laser weapons and missiles at huge metal robots.

  Where was that game when I played? Must have been screwing around with the boots or something when it came up.

  So, there were at least two games available, probably more. This hyper-realistic game must have a state-of-the-art renderer with multiple graphics processors. His computer had good performance but he had never seen anything as realistic as the scenes in the InterWorld game.

  Chapter 5

  Daniel left the arcade and headed toward his favorite hangout spot in the mall thoroughfare. He opened his backpack and pulled out his padd, feeling the twinge of jealousy he often felt when someone had better computer hardware than he. In this case, though, he was comparing his padd to a purpose-built game system akin to an amusement ride, which was an unfair comparison. He decided his padd was pretty good after all. He was not unhappy with it—he could code on it just fine. The matter was one of efficiency. He could type eighty words per minute on a full-size keyboard, and only about half that on the detached padd. The padd was his sole computer, at home or away, and he was never without it. At home, it was docked to large-screen displays, input panels, and high-speed wireless.

  When he was writing code, he liked to lean back in a good chair and let his fingers rest on the keys. His brain was trained to expect the tactile feel of the touch keys, all of the subtle hints his fingertips sent him while typing—the corner of a key here, the bottom of a key there, the oversized space key, the locations of the function keys. It was familiar and unrestrictive, so he was faster at home. His coding hours on the solo padd were adding up, though. He could either put his work on hold all day at school until he got home or make the most of the padd's feature set.

  Daniel recalled a program he had written a couple months ago to test the speed of his new padd. He was curious to learn whether the home network made him more efficient—or was it just my imagination? He knew all about benchmark software but he wanted to write the code to test it himself as a learning experience. The program performed a series of mathematical calculations, from simple multiplication to more complex equations. Every second, the program displayed the tally of operations per second—usually a number with too many zeroes to count. He modified the program to display values in billions.

  Up in the stratospheric levels of speed reported by his benchmark program, the detached padd was doing twelve digits. When docked at home, it could do eighteen digits. He held up his little computer in a moment of awe, “A billion-billion, huh? Very nicely done, little fella!”

  So, you're 100,000 times faster when docked at home. I knew it! Not just my imagination. The difference must be due to the battery. Runs slower to conserve power.

  Daniel thought about the number. TeraFLOPS. TFLOPS. It was hard to imagine thinking that quickly. What would that feel like? Would it seem like the world is in slow motion? Imagine all the books you could read in just one minute.

  He recalled Mr. Robathan in class, saying, “Decades ago, early computer manufacturers calculated the performance of their processors with the MIPS rating—millions of instructions per second. Average home computers today—like your padds—are called multi-computers by engineers.”

  He picked up the padd on his desk at the front left corner of the classroom. “This, and all modern computer devices, are benchmarked using the FLOPS test. Can anyone tell me what that acronym means? No querying allowed!”

  A few students raised their hands.

  “Yes, Eliza?”

  “How many times it makes a mistake? Flops?”

  “Very clever, Eliza,” Mr. Robathan said. “Yes, Tom?”

  “Uh, that's what I was going to say, more or less.”

  Mr. Robathan frowned, then said, “F-L-O-P-S. Floating-point operations per second.”

  Daniel remembered being upset wit
h himself that day for not knowing the answer to such a fundamental engineering question in his field. That had led to his current interest in benchmarking.

  Daniel smiled, eyes focused on the floor, as he thought about some computer history Mr. Robathan had taught them during the first two days of the semester. He brought up his class notes again to marvel at the ancient computers.

  The earliest ones had text screens, like a novel!

  Mr. Robathan’s history lesson about the early days of computing had thrilled him. He covered the life story of Alan Mathison Turing—a cryptanalyst and the father of computing, whose work helped defeat a terrible enemy in the deadliest 20th-century war.

  Daniel fancied himself inventing something extraordinary—something that would change the world.

  He quickly shook his head as if to fling the ego out of his hair.

  Funny analogy, that, Daniel thought, laughing at himself.

  Emma interrupted Daniel’s daydreaming as she hopped onto the bench beside him.

  He stared at her without comprehending the situation at first.

  “Hiya, Daniel! Sorry I’m late, couldn’t get a ride. Had to wait for Becca’s mom to bring us.”

  It must be going on 8:00, Daniel thought as the elderly lady at the leather shop across the way was locking up early as usual. Daniel stuffed his padd into his backpack and smiled. “That’s okay!”

  Emma introduced her friends. All three were dressed alike, in the teen rage of the month, but Daniel hardly noticed the other girls. Emma was modeling a short neon green skirt, black nylons, white sneakers, purple cotton tee shirt, white half sweater, small black choker, and leather headband.

  “This is Anju and Becca,” Emma said, introducing her friends.

  Daniel stood, wrapping his pack over his right shoulder, and smiled. “Nice to meet you,” and not really meaning it.

  Emma stood between her girlfriends, an arm dangling around each one. “Anju is an exchange student from Calcutta.”

  Anju looked down, turning a little red, and elbowed Emma softly.

  Emma continued, “She’s still a little shy, but we’re breaking her out of it!”

  “Hiya, what’s happening?” Wesley bounded out of the arcade and slid to a halt beside Daniel.

  Daniel introduced his friend, reluctantly, in monotone, “This is Wesley.”

  Emma ignored Wesley, as a rule, and refused to acknowledge him.

  Becca replied, “Hi, Wesley. I’m Becca, this is—”

  “Anju,” Wesley interrupted, and quickly turned red. He recovered his senses and whispered to Daniel, “That's the cute exchange student I was telling you about!”

  “Eh? Didn't say anything to me about her,” Daniel chided.

  Wesley stood back, looking stupidly at his off-and-on friend. “Yes, I did. Sure, I did. Why, just yesterday—”

  “Uh, guys?” Emma said.

  They looked back to the girls, and Anju was walking away briskly. Emma said, “Ann, wait!”

  Wesley raised an eyebrow at Daniel. “Cute,” Daniel said, invoking a double entendre that no one appreciated.

  Wesley pushed his shades up over his head so he could see properly. “Becca, are you new here?”

  Becca replied, “No! We've only been in the same class for two years, you—”

  “Oh, so you noticed me?” Wesley quickly said.

  Becca's eyes grew wide in astonishment. “Well, I never—”

  Emma interrupted, “Daniel, I can't stay. Becca’s mom just ran to the outlet, then we’re heading home. I'm awfully sorry we can't get any work done.”

  Daniel expected as much, but he didn’t mind. “No problem. Know what, I’m done with it already.”

  Emma looked truly shocked. “Daniel! How am I going to get a grade now?”

  Daniel shrugged, “It’s no problem. I’ll fill you in on it Monday morning before class.”

  “Are you sure? I don't like taking credit for someone else's work. Not one bit!” Emma asked.

  Daniel replied, “Don’t worry about it, it's alright. You gave me a lot of great ideas that are part of the program. And, you did all of the test runs yesterday.”

  Emma frowned, “Okay.”

  Daniel just smiled, then cringed as Wesley yelled, “Hey, I’m next! No cuts!” Wesley bolted back into the arcade, unaware of his surroundings, and nearly collided with an elderly couple.

  Becca’s mom appeared out of nowhere and said, “You girls ready to go?”

  “Mom,” Becca said. “This is Daniel.”

  Becca’s mom replied, “Nice to meet you, Daniel.”

  Daniel bowed his head slightly. “Likewise.”

  She bent toward Becca's ear to whisper, “Such good upbringing!”

  Emma returned with Anju. As the girls started to head for the mall exit, Emma yelled back, “Thanks, Daniel! See ya Monday!”

  Daniel yelled back, “Okay!”

  He stood there, backpack slung, wondering what had just happened. He didn't understand people. Well, girls, mostly. Why drive all the way to the mall to tell him she can't study when she could have just texted?

  He headed back into the arcade to find Wesley. When he caught up with him, standing next to an ancient video game. He was feeling mischievous. He whispered conspiratorially, “So, you and Becca?”

  Wesley nodded, smiled from the corner of his mouth, and said, “Maybe. Probably.”

  Daniel laughed, then tugged at Wesley’s pack. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Nah, I've got a high score to beat, mate.”

  “Alright, see you later,” Daniel said and left.

  Chapter 6

  Daniel began modifying his artificial life program as soon as he got home. He spent a couple hours tweaking the old code, trying to add random elements to the data structures to allow the program to adapt. He then used his program as a template to mimic some of the programs other students had created. Each one was just an estimate, a best guess, emulating their most dangerous behaviors.

  He set them all running in his own version of the simulated environment, with about a dozen copies of each creature. His creatures were behaving erratically, making it difficult for any other creature to get near them. That's what he wanted to see, a bit of chaos on display.

  Having done that, he added a complicated series of functions to his program that would allow his creatures to mutate from one generation to the next. His program had the ability to modify itself at run-time—that is, to modify its own properties, affecting creature behavior. Daniel was pleased with the result. He had never tried to create a self-modifying program before, and this in itself was a curious exercise.

  Daniel set the simulated ecosystem running again. Not only did his new code overcome the other programs, but his new life forms also mutated after each generation. Reproduction was a key behavior, but every student program in the class demonstration simply copied itself in order to multiply. No one else was modeling the biological modus operandi, as far as he knew.

  Daniel sat back in his chair and let the simulation run its course to completion. Within minutes, the new creatures had conquered all of the competition and were filling the habitat with their kind. Then something strange started to happen. Some of them began to attack each other! Daniel watched, utterly amazed, eyes glued to the screen. He barely allowed his eyes to blink, lest he miss something. Each time a new creature emerged within a new generation with radically different traits, the old creatures would attack it as if it were an enemy. Daniel paused the simulation to work on the code some more.

  Obviously, some fine-tuning will be needed here.

  He spent an hour thinking about the problem, looking over the results, trying to decide what to do next. Upon closer examination, he found that some of mutated creatures had survived. Daniel was surprised at this latest development. Ideas flowed through his mind in a torrent.

  Somehow, an ability to change basic behavior.

  He looked at the source code on the left screen, at the paused simulat
ion on the right, and an idea blossomed in his mind.

  DNA?

  Daniel made major changes to the program, completely losing track of time during the rest of the weekend. He slept in spurts, ate in his room, and tuned out his family and friends. He was in the zone—it felt like being in touch with the universe.

  Daniel wrote the code for an emulation system around his lifeform program that would continue to obey the limits of the simulation while making its own rules inside. Functions were replaced with digital DNA. Behaviors such as walk were reduced to fundamental components. Walk might become crawl or jump or fly. In this realm, there was neither gravity nor air—nor feet or lungs. Just movement—direction, angle, vector, velocity. Mr. Robathan's simulation and example supplied the movement when a program wanted to move.

  Each digital DNA base represented a simple attribute for a larger function. By assembling bases into different combinations, it was possible to breed a lifeform capable of doing almost anything in the simulation. Those that died quickly would not pass on their d-DNA. Those that survived the initial “eat-and-reproduce” stage would contribute to the next generation.

  The fittest will survive. What determines a fit lifeform? Daniel thought about it for a while. Ah, yes, the first stage, of course. First, we must eat. Any advantage that increases the chances of finding food will be favored.

  Daniel’s new program was elegant. The first generation had to start at the beginning with no survival traits.

  He knew only a little about genetics beyond pop culture references, so he called his d-DNA bases A, B, C, and D. There was no limit to the number of functions in the base chain because he didn’t realize such limits were necessary.