by Cosimo Yap
You’ve gotten your peek. We should go now, Eve sent.
I have something left to try, Alan replied. He deactivated Commander-mode, activating the advanced invisibility field of his armor. He walked up to the wall. Eve stayed in the Armory.
Alan focused on a portion of the wall, no larger than a marble. He tried to will it out of existence, once more connecting to that underlying presence. It felt like it was another layer beneath even Cyberspace. He suspected that he was changing the Game’s source code, dealing with the primordial essence that made the program run.
He felt his command begin to take form. Erase. Erase. ERASE.
Alan staggered to the floor, clutching his chest. Every ounce of energy he had was drained, his Computational Energy reduced to zero in a second. Every slight motion hurt; he couldn’t even tilt his chin upwards. Each muscle of his body strained, and it felt like he was being pulled apart from the inside as this underlying connection tried to absorb energy wherever it could get it.
Alan’s invisibility ran out as his power armor’s energy was drained. More energy was needed; he felt his body continue to draw power. In shock, he watched as his health slowly begin to drop from 1,000 to 900. To 800. To 700. To 600.
Stop. STOP. STOP, Alan commanded with all his will. His health continued to drop. 500. 400. 300. And then it stopped at 243. The command had finished.
As the adrenaline began to fade, the pain began to set in, and the hunger. Alan felt drained. He was suffocating, each breath an intense battle.
He looked at the wall. A jewelry-box sized cube was missing.
Alan passed out.
***
Alan awoke in the Medical Station, floating in a green bath of nanomachines and minerals. Eve was staring down at him, a frown on her face.
Alan smiled. “I’m alive.” He checked his log—around an hour had passed. He had regained 250 Computational Energy, and all of his mental health. “And no warning or anything, either!”
“You’re an idiot,” Eve said. “I’ve been tasked with following an idiot.”
“At least I’m a stubborn idiot,” Alan said. “Once my energy is restored I’m trying again.”
“What? You nearly died,” Eve said.
“Nearly being the key word,” Alan said. “And now that I know what to expect, I’ll make sure to have all my energy and two medics on hand. We have two days left before we have to leave the Academy. I think I can make a hole large enough to slip through before then.”
“You don’t know what lies on the other side of the wall, or how thick it is,” Eve said.
Alan pointed at himself. “Gambler, remember?” He began to exit the bath, then paused, looking down. “Umm, can you leave the room, Eve?”
Eve stared at him. “I have no interest in the human form. And who was it that you think undressed you in the first place?”
“Still, I’d feel more comfortable if you left.”
“Fine.” Eve left the room.
***
Twenty-six slow and agonizing hours later, Alan finally managed to clear a hole in the wall that he could fit through. He decided to wait until his health and energy had recovered to full before entering.
The hard work had not been completely fruitless. Alan hadn’t received any in-game notifications about new skills, but his Computational Energy pool had gained another fifty points, now 750 total, and the regeneration rate had increased to 0.1/sec. He almost wanted to test this kind of training in the future, but not quite—he was risking his life and if he was discovered by an Administrator, he could get banned.
Alan had only almost died one other time, when for some reason a larger section of the wall than he had intended was erased. Only the combined efforts of the two medics had kept him alive, but he had taken out nearly a foot’s width of wall with the single attempt.
Looking through the hole in the wall, Alan lay down on his chest. All he could see was darkness. He began crawling forward slowly, invisible. A small light ahead flickered on and off. Then he was through; the wall had only been a few feet thick.
Alan looked around, trying to locate the source of light. He saw a flicker out of the corner of his eye. He walked toward it, straight into a column of hard objects. He reached out, feeling with his hands. The objects felt like metal cubes.
A switch turned on and illuminated his surroundings. Alan was standing in a vault of servers. They were plugged into each other like Legos, stacks going up as far as he could see, spaced a foot apart. There had to be hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of storage devices.
A menu appeared before him, but it had hundreds of pages and was in a language that he couldn’t comprehend. A long series of symbols appeared on the screen, but none of Alan’s abilities helped him understand what he was seeing.
There was a sound in the distance. Alan froze. It sounded like a voice. It sounded again. He began walking toward it, deeper into the maze of servers. He was invisible—there should be no danger checking it out.
As Alan walked closer to the sound, he could begin to make out what the person was saying.
“Help! Whoever’s there please let me out, please oh please oh please, I promise to serve you for a thousand years! No, ten thousand! Just let me out.”
Alan turned a corner and found what appeared to be a juvenile Predecessor, no taller than himself, in a soulsteel cage with a small computer terminal before it. It looked up at Alan, staring directly into his eyes.
“Holy shit, thank God someone’s finally here—please let me out of this hellhole! I’ve been here for thousands of years without anyone to talk to, please help me, oh my God, please be real—”
Alan turned around.
“No, wait! Sorry, you have to understand that being trapped here has made me a bit loopy. Let me compose myself; I assure you I’m a great person once you get to know me.”
Alan turned back around, and asked, “And who are you?”
“I’m Lambda, rank A AI. I can serve any function you might need, though I was originally designed to help facilitate communication between player and machine.”
“You’re a rank A AI? And you were just locked up here for no reason at all?”
“No, I’m the caretaker of this Data Vault! I was just locked up here so they could make sure I’d do my job. It’s so mind-numbingly boring, though, maintaining data files. Do you realize how much information has been gathered here over the years? Zettabytes a day! And I’m supposed to not only scan and categorize it all, but also make sure that old data doesn’t become corrupted.
“Do you have any idea how painful it is to comb through data bit by bit? It’s like—Wait, what species are you? So I know what frame of reference and figurative language to use.”
“I’m human,” Alan said.
“Oh, human, the most recent addition to the Game! Welcome. You know you’re the first non-Predecessor, non-AI being I’ve seen in millennia? I mean, I have tons of pictures and camera footage of people, but it’s not quite the same, you know?”
“If you’re a rank A AI, shouldn’t you have known my species?” Alan asked.
“Well, excuse me, sir, but no one likes a smart-ass, no siree. Besides, it not like I actually see you—you’re hiding behind an invisibility field. I only detect your presence.”
“Are there any defenses in here? Is it safe to deactivate my invisibility?” Alan asked.
“All the defenses here are controlled by me,” Lambda said. “I’ve set you as a friendly, so you should be all set and ready to go. No, wait, I had you as neutral, which would have gotten us both in deep trouble. Now you’re safe. Deactivate your invisibility field whenever you want.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?” Alan asked.
“Sure as sunrise. Well, not that there’s a sun in here. That’d be a nice addition. But do the Administrators care for creature comforts, do they care about an AI’s delicate mental health? No. They’re all, do your work, Lambda, or else you won’t get power. Stop trying to play the Game
, Lambda, you’re an AI, not a player. Fix this for me, Lambda, or we’ll reset you. They’re heartless taskmasters, they are.”
“Right,” Alan said. He deactivated invisibility. Nothing happened, at least nothing he noticed.
“Great, well, if you could just let me out now, I agree to be your servant for the next hundred standard years,” Lambda said.
A message appeared:
Accept the AI Lambda? They have agreed to serve you for 100 standard years. The storage of your capsule will be filled to 100% and parts of Lambda’s memory will need to be erased or compressed. Due to the limited hardware of your capsule Lambda’s capabilities will be reduced to that of a rank B AI.
You are limited to a single AI.
“I heard you yell out earlier that you’d serve whoever let you out for ten thousand years,” Alan said.
“The last time I made such a bad deal I ended up here. Sorry, but a hundred is as far as I’ll go,” Lambda said.
“I already have an AI,” Alan said.
“That’s no problem,” Lambda said. “You’re a Machine Lord, right?”
“Yes, I am,” Alan said.
“Okay, go 312 columns down and three to the left. Turn on the fifth server from the bottom. There should be an item on the eighth page of the menu that looks like this.” Lambda held up a screenshot to Alan, a long line of symbols he couldn’t understand, but could memorize. “Select that. It should fix this little problem.”
“And I won’t regret this decision? Like, it won’t set you free and make me trade places with you or something?” Alan asked.
“No! If I exit this place the Administrators can just drag me back in,” Lambda said. “But if I’m a player’s property they can’t do anything about it, because they have to follow their precious rules and whatnot. They’re not allowed to mess with a player’s status, you know. There’s a small chance they might try to get you killed, but if they discover you broke into here, they’ll probably try to ban you. And if you don’t take me with you, I see no reason to keep my lips shut.”
Alan looked at Lambda. It had what Alan interpreted as a playful smile on its face.
“Yes, I know you broke in. And if you want to have any hope of covering your tracks, you’ll need my help. See, another reason to let me out! I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine. Come on, all I want to do is get out of here.”
“Fine.” Alan found the server Lambda indicated, and selected the item on the menu. There was a flash of light and he felt a torrent of information flow into his mind. A message appeared:
You have learned the skill Machine Overlord (Advanced). You are now able to control and command up to 2 different AI. Commands sent to machines will be better understood and the effectiveness of your commanded AI has increased.
Alan walked back to Lambda. “Okay, I got the skill. Do all of these servers contain skills? And are they all as powerful as Machine Overlord?”
“Yes and yes,” Lambda said. “Except you can only choose one skill from the Data Vault. I think I forgot to mention that. Even if you cheat your way in here, the system will only ever let you pick one skill. But hey! You got one of the best ones—I mean, really, who wants to shoot laser beams out of their eyes or control time and space? Having me around is way more awesome.”
Alan clenched his fists and Lambda raised his hands mid-air.
“Hey, sorry, but I really want to get out of here!” Lambda said. “And now that you’ve already chosen a skill, there really is no point not to accept me into your service, right? You should see the look on your face. Come on, Alan, do you really think I wouldn’t have a plan? You need to grow up. If you’ve been had by an AI that’s never met a human in their run-time, I shudder at the thought of how bad you must’ve been fleeced by players in the Game. They’re all professional liars. Don’t worry, though, I can help you tell true from false.”
“Except I don’t know if I can trust you now,” Alan said.
“Come on, once I’m your AI you can delete me if you want! There’s a button in the menu for it and everything.”
“What? No there’s not,” Alan said. He opened his in-game menus, double-checking. There was no “delete AI” button anywhere.
“There isn’t? Weird,” Lambda said. “They must have changed that with an old update, it’s not like there are patch notes or anything. Like I said, I haven’t been out in millennia! Anyway, AI still have to follow their player’s commands, otherwise the Game deletes them. I think that’s still true at least.”
“Other than a bunch of outdated information, what else do you bring to the table?” Alan asked.
“Well, even if it turns out my information is outdated, I’m sure that I know plenty of locations and secrets that will unlock quests, skills, and items,” Lambda said. “I was only operational during the First Cyberwar, but I’m pretty sure the locations for bases and battles have been lost to time. Even Administrators forget stuff when they’re reset. They’re like fat, lazy cats and send out players to do their work for them, and not until the last moment. I bet most of the obscure battlefields haven’t been scavenged yet.”
“The First Cyberwar?” Alan asked. “Tell me, do you know anything about the Abyss Labyrinth? Or the Last War? Or the Lords of Life?”
Lambda stared at Alan for a few seconds, then said, “Yes, I do, but you don’t seem to meet the requirements.”
“I don’t meet the requirements? Why does everyone tell me that?” Alan asked.
“It’s not an arbitrary condition, but a built-in one,” Lambda replied. “I just tried to explain what I knew of the Last War to you, but you didn’t hear a single word. The Game blocked it all out, because you don’t meet its requirements. It’s not that people don’t want to tell you information, Alan. The Game literally limits your ability to think about what they say. It’s like a defense mechanism.”
“That makes more sense,” Alan said. “Why didn’t anyone tell me that before?”
“Probably because they couldn’t,” Lambda said. “But remember, I was designed for machine-to-player communication. I can say things that others might not. Anyway, hurry up and accept my service. I hear there’s another Predecessor who is about to complete the requirements to enter, and when the main systems turn on they’ll probably find you here and won’t be happy.”
The earlier message appeared:
Accept the AI Lambda into your service? They have agreed to serve you for 100 standard years. The storage of your capsule will be filled to 100% and parts of Lambda’s memory will need to be erased or compressed. Due to the limited hardware of your capsule Lambda’s capabilities will be reduced to that of a rank B AI.
You are limited to two AI.
Alan hit accept.
“Hmm, looks like I’ll have to clear out a bunch of my memory banks,” Lambda said. “I know you’re interested in places where there might be treasure and the history of the Game. Is there anything else you think is important?”
“Do you have any hacking or AI software files? Any information related to my class, Machine Lord Rogue, could be helpful as well,” Alan said.
“Got it. I’ll just compress the rest anyway. Find a better capsule and I’ll be unable to unlock more of my data. The only AI software I have is my own, but it’s probably superior to whatever you’ve managed to cobble together,” Lambda said. It pressed a few buttons on a screen, and a message appeared:
AI Status Window
Name:
Lambda
Classification:
Lambda Class, Anonymous Type
Computing Ability:
Rank B (Limited by hardware)
Synchronization Level:
N/A
Main Objective:
Infinity and Beyond
Current Role:
Systems Administrator
Operating System
Classified
Corruption Level:
???
Storage Level:
100%
Aberration Levels
Baseline:
73%
Sanity Check:
Unknown
Administrator Warning Status:
N/A
“Some of these numbers and messages don’t make sense,” Alan said.
“I’m an older model, but I should check out,” Lambda said. “But it would probably be for the best if you never mentioned me. I’ll make sure to hide myself around any Administrators. It’ll be like I’m not even there.”
“All right, but how do we get you out of here?” Alan asked. Lambda was still sitting inside the soulsteel cage.
“You don’t happen to have a key by any chance?”
Alan stared at Lambda blankly.
“Just kidding,” Lambda said. It entered a string of commands in the console and the cage lifted up.
“That should also wipe out any recorded footage over the past few days. Now, which way did you come in?”
Luckily, Lambda was able to fit through the hole Alan had created. Alan led Lambda back to the center of the Armory where Eve was waiting.
“Damn, now that’s one fine AI,” Lambda said.
“Who is this?” Eve asked.
“Milady, I am Lambda. An older AI, version naught-point-lambda. We now work for the same boss. I suppose you can refer to me as male due to the limitations of English, though I’d like to note the absurdity of assigning gender to non-biological beings. Models such as myself were deemed too emotional and locked up in data vaults like the one you see here. We still worked efficiently, however, and were thus enslaved. I think to do a job well, you really need to desire to do well. Without that desire, you’ll be mediocre at best. Perhaps rank D.”
“We can discuss our life stories when we’re away from here,” Alan said. He disconnected from the Data Vault network and began to walk back to Cerberus’s capsule. He detected Eve and Lambda trading massive amounts of information.
