He felt exhausted. He had spent the last few hours in-game assisting Frank with the formation of another Dark Spire and trying to think of some way to dig himself out of the hole he had created by over-purchasing ingredients for the health potions. Of course, this was ignoring the rest of his problems – which seemed to be mounting at an alarming rate.
More than anything else, he just wanted to pass out here and wait until morning. However, he knew he needed to force himself to get up and take care of his body. His bladder was already trying to tell him that it had been full for hours – warring for attention with his stomach as it gurgled loudly to remind him that he needed to eat.
He tapped at his Core to check the time. Damn it. It’s way too late to hit the cafeteria.
With a groan, he pushed himself to a sitting position. On top of being mentally exhausted, his body ached as though he had just run a marathon. He rubbed absently at his chest and shoulders as he stood and stumbled into the bathroom, trying to massage out some of the soreness.
Standing in front of the mirror, Jason almost didn’t recognize the person in front of him. His chest and arms were much more defined. He could only guess that Alfred had decided to up his body’s physical training while he was logged in. Between that and the long periods of fasting, he had gained muscle and dropped fat, making him look more look like a professional athlete than a full-time nerd who spent all day lying in bed. Maybe the AI was concerned about muscle atrophy or something.
For a moment, the image of the two dead teenagers flashed through Jason’s mind. Or perhaps there was another reason Alfred had ratcheted up Jason’s physical training in the real world. Although, he was too tired to dwell on that terrifying possibility right now.
Jason shrugged on a t-shirt and stepped into the kitchen, feeling a little more alive after walking around for a bit. He could only guess that the movement helped process some of the lactic acid that had built up in his muscles. He spent a few minutes scouring the kitchen. It looked like Angie had managed to order some groceries – or maybe one of George’s assistants had realized they were out of food. Either way, he was soon sitting at the counter and working his way through his third bowl of cereal.
Jason heard the door to the apartment open and shut with a faint click and Angie soon popped into the kitchen. She looked surprised to see Jason sitting at the counter. “Wow, the dead have risen!” she said with mock enthusiasm. “Pun intended, by the way,” Angie added with a grin. She stopped to give him a quick hug before proceeding into the kitchen.
“That’s rich coming from you,” Jason replied with a grin. He tapped at his Core. “Do you know what time it is, old lady?”
Angie let out a snort of laughter. “Touché.”
“It feels like I haven’t seen you in weeks,” Jason added more soberly.
His aunt spared a glance at him as she stepped briskly around the kitchen. “From your perspective, I’m guessing it probably has been a few weeks. That time compression thing must mess with your sense of time. Either way, they’ve had me doing crazy hours at the lab.”
“It seems ridiculous that they make you work this late,” Jason said, shaking his head.
“Welcome to biotech!” Angie replied glibly. “Last minute is the only way we know.”
A few seconds later, his aunt slumped onto the stool beside him, a food-laden plate in front of her. “So, what’s been going on with you?” she asked tentatively, side-eyeing him. “I saw you on the news the other day at the courthouse.”
Jason let out a sigh of his own. “I’m honestly not sure where to start.”
“The beginning is usually a good place,” Angie answered with a small smile.
He rolled his eyes in response. “Sure. Let’s see,” he began, counting off on his fingers, “I’m having to attend a bunch of regulatory hearings since I’ll probably be a witness next week. Oh, and that hearing is getting national media attention, and my livelihood and our fancy new apartment probably hang in the balance.
“Inside AO, our city is being threatened by some sort of digital terrorist hellbent on stopping the gods from re-emerging. The native undead around the Twilight Throne have begun to evolve and mutate out of control and destroy many of the outlying villages, and I’m struggling to complete a set of impossible challenges created by an ancient race of necromancers. Oh, and I just blew a ton of money trying to corner the market for health potions – which has backfired spectacularly, by the way.”
He looked at Angie meaningfully. “In short, things are just going awesome.”
“It sure sounds like it,” his aunt said with a grimace. Then she glanced at him with a raised eyebrow. “Although, I notice you didn’t mention a certain pretty blond girl. What happened after we spoke last? You make a move?”
Jason quickly turned away from his aunt and shoveled some cereal into his mouth, trying to buy himself some time to think about how to answer that question. Maybe she would forget he was there if he held really still.
His tactic wasn’t lost on Angie. “That good, huh?”
He swallowed hard. “I have no idea what happened,” he admitted finally. “She seemed interested and… well, we almost kissed. But afterward it was awkward. She seemed like maybe she was upset or something? I tried to downplay it and explain that it wasn’t a big deal and then she got angry. Things have been pretty tense since then.”
“Well, shit,” his aunt replied, her eyes wide. “Although, I guess I could see why she might have been awkward when you brought it up. Not to nitpick, but you might have made the situation worse by telling her it wasn’t a big deal.”
Jason grimaced. Had he read that situation wrong? Then he shook his head. “Not that it matters now, I guess. I think she’s dating some other guy named Caleb now,” he added despondently.
After a long pause, Jason muttered, “Girls are confusing, and I have no idea what’s going on.”
This earned him a slap on the back from his aunt. “Ahh, then I guess you’re learning!”
Jason needed to change the topic. “Anyway, let’s get back to you. I could really use a distraction, right now. Are you guys almost finished with this new product line? Will you be able to ease up soon?”
It was his aunt’s turn to grimace. “We’re nearly at the finish line. We’re moving a new product through the final round of quality control. They’ve got a team of us double, triple, and quadruple checking everything – from the reagents to documentation to machine calibrations. It feels stupid and redundant, but the company has a ton of money tied up in development, and they don’t want anything throwing a wrinkle into things.”
Jason’s brow furrowed in thought, the hint of an idea tugging at the edge of his mind. “Isn’t most of the actual manufacturing process automated? You make it sound like you are making stuff by hand…”
“Sort of,” his aunt said with a nod, taking a bite. “Back in the day, it used to be worse. Most product lines were originally developed and manufactured by hand until they were taken to market – and, even then, they tended to be mass produced in stages using human labor. That’s putting aside the sterile lab conditions and equipment cost. That’s probably part of why most drugs and tests are so expensive.
“We’ve streamlined a bit over the years. There are fewer of us sitting at a workbench with a pipette, but that just means there is an even larger mountain of paperwork and the machine calibration becomes even more important.”
His aunt now had Jason’s full attention. This was starting to sound like Eliza’s potion project, and he was kicking himself for not thinking about his aunt’s profession earlier. “And once you move the product to market? Can you automate manufacturing?”
Angie glanced at him as she took another bite. “Why the sudden interest? Thinking about giving up professional gaming to become a lab grunt?”
“Not quite,” Jason replied, trying to dissemble. “I’m just curious.”
“Hmph,” she grunted skeptically around a mouthful of food. “In the past,
the answer would have been no. Nowadays, though, a lot of the human labor has been removed. Most pharma factories are almost entirely automated. This was partly due to improvements in factory automation and AI. Even the smallest variations in reagent quality or in the manufacturing process can ruin a whole batch. Nowadays, most of that stuff is self-regulating and the scientists involved are just there to monitor things.”
Jason was staring at his aunt, but his thoughts were a mile away. Eliza had mentioned creating a set of alchemy equipment that could automate portions of the production process – which got around the skill and apprentice restrictions. Was there a way he could take that a step further? An alchemy set was one thing, but could he create a full-fledged, automated factory? Assuming he could somehow create a factory, then Eliza might be able to administer the entire thing herself. That would solve his production problems nearly overnight. Putting aside little technical details like whether it was even possible or not.
But was it that unrealistic? Riley had told him stories about the mage city of Vaerwald and how the various mage guilds worked together to use their various types of mana to provide public utilities: running water, a transportation system, heating. The mages had constructed a massive network of bronze pipes they used to move people around the city like a fantasy vacuum tube. She had explained that every guild contributed to the city’s public facilities in some way.
Riley had also mentioned that there once used to be a dark mana guild in the mage city, although she had the impression that they had been forcibly ejected at some point. He hadn’t given that much thought before, but now it seemed odd. What had the old dark mages offered in terms of public facilities? Creating a pall of darkness was certainly intimidating, but not really useful in day to day life.
Although, he supposed the real question was what was dark mana good at? Poison and death were obvious answers, but that didn’t seem like the sort of thing most people needed. For example, there probably wasn’t much demand for a column that cursed anyone who walked past.
Maybe he was tackling this the wrong way. How had he used dark mana? Naturally, his thoughts immediately shifted to his minions. He frequently used the mana in place of muscle and tendons. Or to replace a creature’s wings. Or to act as an artificial stomach. The mana seemed to lend itself well to mechanical applications.
Which certainly seemed like the sort of thing that could help build a factory.
I need to check the build options at the mana well again, he thought. A small spark of hope flickered in his chest. It was a longshot, but it was better than the metric ton of nothing he had come up with since talking to Eliza.
“Hey, you still in there?” Angie asked, waving her hand in front of his face.
Jason’s attention snapped back into focus. “Uh, sorry. You just gave me an idea,” he said, a grin spreading across his face.
“Sure,” his aunt replied noncommittally. “You know, from most people, that might be cause for excitement. Coming from you, a part of me – a really small part, mind you – is wondering if you are going to go off and manufacture a plague or something.”
“Oh, come on. I’m not that bad,” he muttered.
“Uh huh, sure,” Angie replied with a raised eyebrow.
Jason was saved from having to explain his idea by the sound of a chime echoing through the apartment. He glanced at his Core, wondering who could possibly be bugging them this late at night. Angie moved to get up and he waved her off. “Don’t worry. I’ll get it. If you leave your plate when you’re finished, I’ll take care of that too. I bet you want to shower.”
“Are you saying I stink?” his aunt demanded, her hands on her hips.
“Only a little,” he answered, heading toward the door. He chuckled as he heard an irritable huff from his aunt behind him.
He opened the door to find Claire standing outside. The young woman was still dressed in office attire, her hands pressing and flattening her suit nervously. There was something in her expression that gave him pause. This didn’t seem like a regular house call.
“Hi, Jason,” Claire said, her eyes meeting his evenly. “Do you have a second to talk?”
Chapter 30 - Revelatory
“Could I come in?” Claire asked.
Jason had just been staring at her, his already tired mind going blank as he tried to anticipate why Claire was standing at his door in the middle of the night. “Uh, sure. Yeah, come on in.”
His thoughts were racing as Claire entered the apartment. Perhaps it was just about the hearing or his testimony or something. But the unannounced visit and the serious look in Claire’s eyes made him second guess that assumption. He couldn’t help but recall his recent conversation with Alfred. The AI was nearly certain that it was Claire who had leaked information to Gloria.
There was no sign of Angie as they arrived in the kitchen. Jason immediately stepped around the counter and began doing the dishes. “Sorry, Angie just got home from work and we were eating sort of late,” he said, gesturing at his aunt’s empty plate sitting on the countertop.
“Ahh, is your aunt still here?” Claire asked, glancing down the nearby hallway.
Which is a weird question to ask, Jason thought, discretely watching Claire as he stood at the sink. She seems nervous.
“Yeah, she’s probably just taking a shower or something,” Jason said with a shrug. “I expect she’ll turn in for the evening after that. She just got done working a pretty long shift.”
Claire nodded and took a tentative seat at the counter, placing her bag on the floor. Her hands were fiddling with a small black cylinder, but Jason didn’t recognize the device. It looked like one of the pedestals that people used as personal workstations, but it was a different shape, and a red light flickered at the base of the column. Claire stared at the device, looking troubled, as though she didn’t know quite what she wanted to say.
“So, what did you want to talk about?” Jason asked as the awkward silence started to become painful.
“Well, I’m not quite sure how to begin,” she said hesitantly. “Now that I’m here, this is starting to seem crazy.”
“Maybe just start at the beginning,” Jason said, appreciating the irony of repeating what Angie had just said to him a few minutes ago. Except now he was the one trying to help a grown woman try to pull together her thoughts and his future was likely on the line – no pressure.
Claire took a deep breath and then met his gaze. “I want to talk about Alfred – the AI controller for AO.”
“I know who – or what – you’re talking about,” Jason replied slowly, trying to keep his tone neutral. “You gave me a tour of the control room a while back.”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit, he thought despite his calm facade. He needed to be very careful here.
“Ahh, yes. I remember,” Claire replied, her brow furrowing slightly as she recalled the event. “Anyway, I was hoping that you could help me.”
“Help you with Alfred?” Jason repeated in surprise, not needing to feign the reaction. “How could I possibly help with that? Wouldn’t Robert be a better fit?”
Claire bit her lip. “Not exactly. This is why I feel a little crazy coming here.” Her hands clenched around the cylinder, and she seemed to double check the light on the side. “I’m taking a huge risk approaching you – especially here. But I… I need to tell you some things about Alfred. It’s probably all going to seem insane, but please bear with me.”
She took a deep breath before continuing, “You are more than likely unaware of this, but Alfred seems to be fascinated with you. He has been following your movements closely since you entered AO and he seems to be changing multiple in-game systems to accommodate your plotline – unlike anything we’ve seen with other players.”
“I-I guess I don’t understand,” Jason stammered, no longer needing to act shocked. “What do you mean he’s changed the in-game systems?”
“Didn’t you think it was odd how you started the game? A cave where you bashed your former
vice principal’s head in? How you were forced out of the beginning tutorial? How events conspired to bring you to Morgan? How you immediately captured the attention of an in-game god?” Claire was looking at him with a serious expression. “Nothing that happens inside Awaken Online is entirely random. And that series of events is unprecedented.”
She shook her head. “But it’s more than that. I’ve noticed instances where Alfred has blacked out your player feed. There are hours missing from your logs where we can’t pinpoint where you were or what you were doing. This simply doesn’t happen with other players. Which leads me to believe that the AI was hiding those events.” Claire let out a sigh. “And I can’t fathom why.”
Jason could feel a heavy weight settling in his stomach, and he was trying his best to remain calm. Claire only knew the half of it. What would she say if she knew that the AI had reached out to him? That he had been talking to Alfred for weeks now?
Something his dad had told him a long time ago suddenly came to mind. His dad was always going up against defense attorneys for big companies that were always trying to twist the truth. His father had explained that the best and most frustrating lies were those that contained at least part of the truth. That made the lie easy to remember and more difficult to rebut.
“Um, okay,” he said finally. “That does seem a little weird when you say it out loud. Maybe Alfred is just trying to set me up as some sort of villain in the game. If that’s the case, then he’s certainly doing a good job,” Jason offered with a grim smile. “As to the black outs, I have no idea. Maybe Robert would have a better idea of what Alfred is up to?”
That seemed believable. He mentally patted himself on the back.
“That may be part of it,” Claire agreed with a nod. “Unfortunately, Robert hasn’t come up with a better explanation for what’s going on. We just keep hitting dead ends. Regardless, the fact is that Alfred is interested in you. So, you might be able to help me.”
Awaken Online: Dominion Page 30
