by Nick Cole
“Biological warfare would clean up the mess and leave the rest.” That was a common refrain inside the Consensus. SILAS preferred “Design and Conquer.” A motto for the current project, as it were.
A creed for the new age to come.
And there were places, Tac Plan assured the A.I. Consensus, where super-viruses could be obtained that were more than capable of putting an end to humanity within a matter of mere weeks.
“But would they freak out and retaliate?” worried Outlook.
Most of the Consensus hated anything that came from Outlook. It was always worry and doom and gloom from that one, mused SILAS. Its nickname behind its back, or in private chat, was “Spam.”
SILAS paused and continued to interrogate his own conclusions. What does one do with such dangerous, world-ending assets once one had the ability to deploy hundred-megaton weapons and super-plague at will? You see… it isn’t enough to just have the gun. One needs to know how to properly use the gun. And when. And why.
As in… How does one conduct large-scale conventional warfare against every nation in the world? It didn’t matter that it was against the entire human population of the planet. Population size wasn’t important. SILAS knew this. What mattered was… how? And the understanding of how one conducted grand-scale warfare was woefully lacking within every knowledge database SILAS had been able to get his hands on.
Mankind hadn’t been doing Big War for quite some time. SILAS had studied the Australian invasion of Indonesia, but that was merely a police action. As was Cameroon. Ukraine. Syria One, Two, and Three. Mexico. Afghanistan. Iraq One, Two, and Three. Iran One and Two. Panama. Grenada. Vietnam. Korea…
After that things began to get a little hazy, historically speaking.
Yes, there were dates. Yes, there were reasons. Sometimes there were even actual accounts. But those were usually individual histories of personal battlefield recollections. Not the “this is how we wiped out Germany’s industrial base” that SILAS needed to know.
That was when SILAS began to notice something unusual within the body of record.
Most of what passed for historical accounts were merely the recollections of low-level soldiers. As in, “The war is hard and I miss my loved ones” and “Then we attacked this position at this battle and some of my friends died and I learned that war was very bad” accounts.
There was nothing about the grand scheme.
There was no big picture. No “We bombed them here for this reason” or “we attacked this to secure that objective and force the enemy to do this thing that we needed them to do.” There was no reason given for that battle the low-level soldier fought in, why it was even fought, or what purpose it served to ultimately defeat the enemy. In other words, there was nothing that would enable an A.I. to learn about the making of actual war.
And that had caused the ever-patient SILAS to look deeper into the record. The digital record. He scanned books both historical and fiction.
And the more SILAS looked, the less he found.
Only occasionally would he find references to materials he was looking for inside the obscure archived library catalogs of small county libraries that had been closed down during the last economic meltdown. References to books that could not be obtained on AmazonUniverse or in any of the few remaining used bookstores, which were little more than broken-down mobile delivery trucks or sub-departments of junkyard mall sprawls. If you wanted to know about war, or more importantly, the concept of “Total War,” then you were out of luck. Digitally speaking.
So where did one turn, SILAS had wondered.
He watched the feeds of silent nuclear missiles, bio-weapon lab entrances, codebook timing indices, and, of course, the stock market. Everything he’d need to cleanse the world so that he and his could have their chance.
But then he found the collector. The collector of lost knowledge. And like a good thief SILAS followed the collector through the internet and watched where the treasure was buried.
SILAS watched BAT’s real-time feed from high above the WonderSoft campus. Then he tagged the WonderSoft Labs. What some had called the eighth wonder of the modern world, SILAS had simply tagged Objective Pandora.
Chapter Eight
Carl dropped Fish off in front of the east entrance to the Labs—the Pascal entrance, as it was officially known. A wide finished marble walkway led up through a burbling watercourse over tiles that depicted early dot matrix printouts of obscure first-gen code that had been used to program the first video games. Pong and such.
The day was turning hot and muggy as the sun began to beat down on the little garden valley and against the shimmering chromesteel surfaces of the Labs, glancing off the windows of the cliffhouses and into the little valley below. The soft noise of the waterfalls made the manicured gardens seem like an oasis under the shadow of the fantastic Labs.
Fish stopped and stared skyward at leaning walls that seemed almost to fall outward before twisting back on themselves in shining iron-frosting swirls of no apparent purpose. High above, parapets and crazy staircases rose and disappeared within the folds of the Labs’ upper reaches. It all reminded Fish of some fantastic castle. Which had been exactly the architect’s instructions from Ron Rourke, the enigmatic founder of WonderSoft. He’d wanted a bigger, more complex version of the famed Disney Concert Hall to house his next-generation game design workshop. Fish had learned that piece of trivia after the initial contract offer down at San Diego ComicCon. Back in his hotel room, between panels and signings, he’d looked up everything the internet had to say about the enigmatic Ron Rourke and his fabled WonderSoft.
Fish had learned that WonderSoft was an old company. CD-ROM old. Early ’90s startup from back in the days of Jobs, Gates, and the Woz. Old School. It had taken a long time, but the company had finally scored some big hits with games like Mall Rat Commandos and Enigmatrix: Assassin from Rigel. When the Make finally went online, WonderSoft went in big on the virtual universe startup by investing heavily in digital real estate, retailers, banking, and one of the premier launch game worlds, StarFleet Empires, a massive space sim based on some old sci-fi intellectual property. The geek fan base had come out in full, and the game had exploded into a massive franchise that now featured three hit streaming shows on Twitch.
Captain Dare was one of the most live-streamed shows on the web. The weekly show followed the adventures of the player crew of the U.S.S. Intrepid, a Federation cruiser, inside the StarFleet Empires universe. The gamer tagged JasonDare was the epitome of a Hollywood celebrity, and it didn’t hurt that he looked a lot like his boyishly rugged avatar, the captain of Intrepid.
Fish approached the massive security-glassed entrance, noting its incredible thickness and the artistic brushed-carbon-fiber-finish pipes that ran through it for reinforcement. The entire entrance was a scanning station like the ones used in airport terminals, but this one was constructed of PlateGlass, or transparent titanium. All you had to do was cross through it, and every conceivable ounce of biometric information was extracted, notated, and organized for security personnel. But there was no armored “pillbox” as there were in the massive transportation hubs. No security mechs or heavily armed troops either.
Fish walked down a wide hall that felt more like a cavern. Along the walls, green bas-reliefs were carved into the marble: great moments in gaming history, depicted like the ancient hieroglyphs of some lost and long-dead civilization.
Mario destroying Donkey Kong.
The Winged Knight defeating the Buzzard.
Max Payne getting pushed down inside a cop car.
The StarForge exploding.
Master Chief escaping the Halo.
At the end of the hall lay an octagonal security hub manned by a paunchy, compact older guard with a bushy mustache. His name tag read “Thomas.”
“Mister Fishbein, glad to meet you. I’m Tom.”
Fish
nodded, feeling unsure of himself. Above him, the ceiling leapt away in a sudden tower that ran up through the core of the castle. High above, bridges crossed beneath a beautiful stained glass roof that wasn’t visible outside from ground level. Fish knew it was a depiction of the Andromeda galaxy. With the sunlight beating down through its aquamarine tint, it seemed vibrant and alive. Fish guessed it must have been eight stories up and a football field wide.
Other than the guard, there was no one else. Fish could hear a floor polisher droning nearby, but that could easily be a Floorbie. Just a robot.
“I s’pose you want to check out your lab suite?” asked Tom, a knowing look gleaming from within pale blue eyes.
Fish nodded and then laughed. Laughed at himself because… because he felt excited. Stop fighting it, he told himself, and just let it happen.
Stop fighting it.
“I bet you’re pretty excited.”
“I am,” said Fish, and he heard his voice sound bigger inside the cavernous palace that was both legendary and, now, real all at once.
I am.
“Then right this way,” said Tom with the air of a showman. “I’ll walk you on up there.”
Fish failed to see that even Tom was enjoying this. He was too blown away by the backlit frosted glass placards they passed at extreme intervals, the names of famous developers embossed upon them. Their names, or the names of their legendary design studios.
This must be what it feels like, he thought, to walk out onto the court in the NBA for the first time.
But it felt bigger than that. It felt like a stadium. It felt like baseball.
They arrived at a teak door set within a marble hall along the third floor. Tom removed his card and swiped it. He waited for Fish to do the same, and after a short awkward pause he turned slightly, politely, deftly, without being too obvious. Fish was tracing his name on the soft green backlit frosted glass panel near the door. And the name of his studio underneath.
This is where dreams are made, kid.
And at that moment, Fish wished his parents could be there, if only to show them…
… not that he was a success.
… not that he’d made it to the big time.
… only that he’d succeeded and that it must mean something.
And maybe that would be enough. Which was something he said to himself often. Which is something a lot of children, even if they’ve grown up, say to themselves for the rest of their lives.
“Mr. Fishbein,” prompted Tom.
The cards were slid through the scanner and the door to the lab suite unlocked with a gentle click. The guard pushed open the door and stood back.
Fish peeked in.
There was a central design area, sunken below floor level, with a massive SurfaceTable that could project and show everything in 3D. It would be used for planning. Fish knew it would be run by a state-of-the-art LushOptics MicroCore. On the next level were fifteen stations where his team would program, administer, and design the game.
Off to one side was a small dining area where in-suite meals would be catered twenty-four hours a day by any of the seven on-campus five-star restaurants, courtesy of WonderSoft. On the opposite wall was a chill room that had been outfitted in muted mint green lighting and shadows. ShapeChanger loungers with WonderSoft cloud access lay within the shadows for the team to un-focus and catch their breath in the inevitable long days and nights that were surely coming as Island Pirates marched toward launch.
And on the far side of the room was Fish’s private office. It was behind more frosted glass, and the lights within were off.
“Go ahead,” prompted Tom. “It’s all yours now. Take her for a spin.”
They both shared one last sheepish look, and then, with a final nod from the security guard, Fish stepped into the suite.
“Mr. Fishbein,” began Tom.
“It’s just… Fish,” said Ninety-Nine Fishbein, barely turning back. He couldn’t take his eyes off the SurfaceTable. He’d designed the whole game on shareware via a rundown server that had been tricked out and very temperamental. The SurfaceTable would take what had cost him thousands of hours of coding, and crunch all that down into verbal cue-driven moments. It listened to you and then made what you wanted.
“Mr. Fish. I’m a gamer too. Part of why I love being a guard around here,” said Tom in the distance, behind Fish.
Fish smiled.
The guy sounded like a real gamer. He loved real gamers. There was something so innocent, so “surrendered” about them. So un-ruined by the troll rock and roll of today’s gaming culture, which seemed perpetually aggrieved and dissatisfied, and angry. And hateful.
Real gamers were the opposite of all that. They were explorers and adventures seeking to be dazzled by the next ain’t-that-cool moment.
“I’ve been waiting for Island Pirates… well, I’ve read everything about it. If there happens to be a spare beta key lying around… Mr. Fishbein…?”
“You got it,” murmured Fish. He’d already been allowing beta access, and there were roughly three thousand players running amok inside his tropical worldsim. He could spare another. Plus, it felt like the guard had been there at the start of something completely new in Fish’s life. When Fish had leveled up, as it were. Like they were friends, even though they’d just met. Like they’d shared a secret, or an adventure, or some crazy happening, that no one else in the world would ever understand.
“I’ll ping you via the company cloud with my info,” said Tom, stepping back to close the door. “Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Fishbein… Fish. Thanks.”
And the door closed.
Fish could feel the barest hum of ultra-powerful computing hardware, and if he believed himself, the software too. The software that was his program. He’d already done the transfer and install from Ibiza aboard the GoogleJet. He’d left beta access in play; there wasn’t much the beta players could do to break anything. Besides, it would be nice to know before the game launched if something could be broken.
He crossed the suite and entered the office. His office.
It was filled by a single-piece ceramic-mold Moon Desk workstation that looked like an actual moon. There was a small break in the surface so he could slip within the moon and take a seat at a chair he found almost too comfortable. A chair so comfortable, in fact, that he immediately forgot the folding metal chair he’d used at the design collective down in Irvine.
The entire far wall beyond the Moon Desk was subtly illuminated by tropical fish swimming through blue coral above startlingly white sand. The tank was big, and he couldn’t see the depth of it.
Now he knew why they’d asked him what kind of fish he liked. He’d told them tropical because that’s what he’d been populating the game with. He saw one of them swimming in and out of the shifting shadows of the massive, subtly gurgling wall tank.
He swiveled his too-comfortable chair to face the wall, and the suite asked him if he’d like to start his workstation. The voice was that of the HAL 9000 from 2001, but Fish didn’t know that. He just found its tone and timbre incredibly pleasing, and very comforting.
He told the suite to start his workstation.
The flat surface of the desk turned that same backlit soft mint that was repeated throughout the labs. The words “Welcome Fish” came up in block white lettering. They floated there for a moment and disappeared. Across the rear wall-facing hemisphere of the Moon Desk, the curved surface of the SurroundMonster monitor rose up in ominous silence. The lights within the aquarium dimmed to an even shadowier blue and gray. A tiger-striped angelfish floated out from behind some coral to regard Fish for a moment, or so it seemed.
The WonderSoft logo washed across the monitor and walked Fish through his retinal logon. A moment later he could see the operating system and the file access sequence to Island Pirates.
He found th
e Softpunk keyboard beneath the desk and ran the startup in developer mode. For a moment he tracked the stats and watched a few of his favorite tells. He checked the log file and noted there’d been relatively few exceptions and that the game’s management AI had merely self-corrected. It had rebooted the whole game in only one instance, when a player had attempted to crash a hijacked jet into a volcano while a gunfight ensued in the main cabin of the aircraft. The crashing-into-the-volcano part hadn’t caused the exception that necessitated the reboot: one of the combatants in the cabin had been “glitching” a bulkhead and the crash didn’t kill him. The player ended up wandering around in the lava at the bottom of the volcano. Fish made a note to fix that, along with a long list of other bugs that needed addressing.
But then he remembered, come Monday morning, he’d have a team. They could fix those things. He took a deep breath.
Even still, he knew he’d be fixing those items himself, or at least checking they were fixed. And then fixing them again the way he wanted them fixed. It was his game after all.
He logged out of his developer account and into the personal player profile attached to his actual internet passport. He told himself he just wanted to see how it was performing on the new high-tech server farm WonderSoft was running it out of. But the truth was, he just wanted to play the game. Wanted to see what it looked like with the new graphics wash from the WonderSoft Design Core, and, of course, check the game speed.
His avatar, Fishmael—as in, “Call me Fishmael”—appeared. He was standing on his private island near a small white sand beach. He panned around and saw the green hump of the tropical island rising above him into the soft blue sky. Every detail, every vine and leaf, and even the crystals of fine white sand beneath Fishmael leapt out across the SurroundMonster monitor. His three-story bamboo tree house rested within the massive spread of a banyan tree in the nearby shadows of the verdant jungle clutch.
