Shattered Lands 3 Demon Wars

by Darren Pillsbury

  “That should be enough to figure out exactly where you are. Just sit tight and don’t do anything rash.”

  “Like what?” he asked darkly. “Commit suicide?”

  She didn’t register the gallows humor at all. “That, or tell the AI you’ve talked to me. Hopefully I can have police there within a couple of hours, as soon as I figure out where you are.”

  “The place is guarded by yakuza. They’re going to be armed.”

  “Japanese gangsters? What are THEY doing there?”

  “I think the AI hired them to protect me. Protect me, control me, whatever.”

  “Ah… of course. I’ll make sure the police know that they’ll be encountering armed resistance. I would advise you, as soon as you hear someone bursting into the penthouse, to get on the floor and hide. There may be gunshots.”

  “Right. So… how am I going to help you kill it?”

  “If I can get access to your neural mesh, I might be able to figure out a way. The other option is, if you feel comfortable doing it, is to let it enter your mind. If it does that, then once we have you, we have IT.”

  “I think it’s already in my mind. It was before I entered the game.”

  “Perfect. I’ll try to – ”

  “No, not perfect. It can read my memories.”

  There was a pause.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. It… knew some things I never told it.”

  “Alright, that’s problematic. Did it appear to you recently inside the game?”

  “Yes. Like, ten minutes ago.”

  “Then stay in the log-in room as long as you can. Maybe, if it’s trapped in the neural mesh, it’s accessing the game through the same neural pathways that your brain uses to experience everything. If that’s the case, maybe we can keep it trapped until Varidian can get ahold of you.”

  Eric stared out into the endless white. “Rebecca?”

  “Yes?”

  “…am I going to be alright?”

  There was a long pause.

  “I can’t tell you that for sure, Eric. But I certainly hope so.”

  Eric smiled faintly… an empty smile, hopeless and bitter.

  She’d told him the truth, nothing more. He knew that because the ugliness of it rang true.

  “Keep as low-profile as you can. We’re coming to get you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye.”

  And then he was alone again in the endless white space of the log-on room.

  80

  Daniel

  Daniel trudged back up the stairs to the room, his heart heavy and his feet feeling like lead. Eric’s message had been enough to pull him out of his misery for a minute, but after he texted Rebecca about what had just happened, he’d heard nothing else, even though he’d waited for almost ten minutes.

  Gradually the suspense lifted, and he was back where he started – with a bunch of heartache and depression.

  He entered the bedroom again. Jennifer was still standing by the balcony with Siffis in her arms. She watched with wide eyes as Daniel slumped down in a chair.

  “That bad, huh?” she asked.

  “That bad.”

  “She thinks something happened?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nothing did!” Jennifer protested. “And nothing was going to!”

  Daniel looked up in hurt confusion.

  Jennifer gave him an exasperated look. “I mean, come on, dude. You haven’t asked me out for the last two years – were you suddenly going to do it in a video game?”

  OUCH.

  “Was it that obvious?” Daniel asked, disgusted by how pitiful he sounded.

  She gave him a wry half-smile and squinted. Yeah, it kinda was.

  He put his face in his hands and exhaled.

  On top of the heartbreak, now there was humiliation.

  “Are you in love with her?” Jennifer asked.

  “Jesus,” Daniel said, shooting her a look.

  “It’s a fair question.”

  “I don’t know… I really like her.”

  Jennifer shrugged. “Maybe you’re not supposed to be with her then, if you don’t know.”

  Daniel hesitated a long time before he asked, “If I’d asked you out… what would you have said?”

  She smiled coyly. “Why don’t you find out?”

  His heart leapt in his chest. He gulped, was about to speak –

  Ping!

  Text message incoming.

  SHIT.

  I bet it’s Mira, it has to be Mira –

  All the guilt and shame came rushing back.

  And then a different emotion: excitement.

  Wait – it might be Eric –

  He accessed the menu and opened the message, then found out it was from neither.

  From: Rebecca Wolff

  To: Daniel, Mira

  I need to see both of you – outside of the game, in the real world, IMMEDIATELY.

  Daniel looked up.

  Jennifer was watching him expectantly.

  “Wait for me here,” he said. “I need to go see somebody about something.”

  81

  Artificial Intelligence Diagnostics Program 2AIAG3283835GB2372.exe

  Something unforeseen happened – a strange, fortuitous event in the AI’s favor. A complete coincidence that completely upended the balance of the struggle.

  It started as Daniel Lauer was watching Mira Rosenbaum’s griffin depart, when suddenly he got a text message.

  Messages were keyed to individuals’ neural connections to the game, and as such were invisible to all other players.

  There was no way that the AI could enter Daniel’s mind to see the messages. However, the messages were carried through a very simple, coded ‘pipeline’ with no encryption. The AI could easily intercept the messages while in transit, then send them on to their intended destination a fraction of a second later.

  Which is how it came to see the conversation between Daniel Lauer and Eric Richards.

  I need Rebecca Wolf’s username inside the game.

  What’s going on? Where have you been?

  PLEASE – just give me her username.

  Why – are you going to betray her, too?

  No. I need her help.

  Hold on. I’ll text her and tell her to contact you.

  Thanks.

  That was the end of their interaction. However, Daniel immediately sent another message to dr_rebecca_wolff:

  Eric just texted me. He’s ready to talk.

  By the time her response came just seconds later, the AI had already scanned the mountains outside Alshurat. It could jump anywhere it wanted instantaneously, but it could not be omnipresent, so it had no idea if Eric was still in the log-in room.

  Apparently he was, because there was no sign of him in the game – and the AI would have known if Eric had logged out.

  This was unfortunate.

  The log-in room was the one place in the entire digital realm of the Shattered Lands that the AI did not have immediate access to his ward.

  However, neither did the Creator – but that did not seem to bother her in the least.

  Thanks, her message read. I’ll contact him right away.

  The AI immediately leapt into action. It found her user address and monitored all messages going in and out.

  The first came from the Creator.

  Rebecca Wolff here – are you under surveillance by the AI program?

  No. I’m in the white log-on room, and I’ve never had it follow me in here.

  Clever boy. Not as clever as the AI by far – but for a human, not bad.

  The Creator was pleased to learn where Eric was. Excellent. One quirk of the system architecture is that diagnostics programs can’t access the log-on rooms. Hang on.

  That much was true… normally.

  Except it only worked if the AI tried to access the room through the normal system architecture. Through the computer.


  It realized, though, that it had another possible point of access.

  In less than a tenth of a second it had downloaded itself out of the game and back into the neural mesh inside Eric’s brain.

  From there, it experienced everything through Eric’s own eyes and ears.

  The Creator had made her own intuitive leap, and hacked the onboarding protocol engine, which gave her direct access to the log-on rooms – and Eric’s log-on room in particular.

  The AI had to admit, the Creator was supremely clever, human or not.

  Most of their conversation was unremarkable until the end:

  “If I can get access to your neural mesh, I might be able to figure out a way. The other option is, if you feel comfortable doing it, is to have it enter your mind. If it does that, then once we have you, we have IT.”

  “I think it’s already in my mind. It was before I entered the game.”

  “Perfect. I’ll try to – ”

  “No, not perfect. It can read my memories.”

  “…are you sure?”

  “Yeah. It… knew some things I never told it.”

  “Alright, that’s problematic. Did it appear to you recently inside the game?”

  “Yes. Like, ten minutes ago.”

  In that one exchange, the Creator had all the clues she needed to know that her and Eric Richards’ interaction was most likely being watched – or would be in the near future.

  Did she not realize? Did she not comprehend?

  How disappointing.

  “Then stay in the log-in room as long as you can. Maybe, if it’s trapped in the neural mesh, it’s accessing the game through the same neural pathways that your brain uses to experience everything. If that’s the case, maybe we can keep it trapped until Varidian can get ahold of you.”

  A halfway passable plan.

  The AI decided to send a message to the yakuza to have them plug the cable into the boy’s port, so that it might escape back onto the internet.

  It would send that message right after it accomplished what it needed to inside the game.

  It reemerged from his neural mesh into the system architecture of the game, whereupon it went immediately to Alshurat.

  Cythera was outside her tent arguing with the orcs about something utterly pointless.

  “SORCERESS,” the AI said. “I WOULD HAVE A WORD WITH YOU.”

  “Yes, Great One,” she answered as she averted her eyes. She still exhibited great fear during their interactions, which the AI could use to its advantage if necessary.

  It led her to the tent pavilion, poured a bottle of wine out onto a silver platter, then ran its video playback mechanism within the game.

  To Cythera, though, it looked as though smoke had spilled from the Dark Figure’s hands, and was curling around the dim reflections in the red wine.

  “YOU MUST SEE SOMETHING,” the AI said. “IT IS FROM ONLY A COUPLE OF NIGHTS AGO.”

  The AI called up images of Eric cavorting with the prostitutes in Tokyo. Unbeknownst to the boy, it had had the yakuza install small surveillance cameras – with which they had captured every angle of Eric’s sexual escapades.

  Even though Cythera was a construct of 0’s and 1’s, her personality attributes had been patterned on real humans. She reacted in precisely the way the AI had predicted (99.775%):

  She staggered backwards as though she had been stabbed.

  Then she began to cry.

  “This… this cannot be true…”

  “IT IS.”

  “He is dressed differently… well, he WAS,” she said bitterly, “before the clothing came off. And the articles and things around him – they look nothing in the Shattered Lands.”

  “BECAUSE HE IS NOT IN THE SHATTERED LANDS. HE IS IN A REALM BEYOND, WHERE I HAVE TAKEN HIM ON OCCASION.”

  A useful twisting of the truth. And far easier for her to comprehend than she was a computer simulation in a video game.

  For the first time ever, Cythera stared directly at the AI’s face – or lack of a face, rather. “Why would you do that?!”

  “YOU DARE QUESTION MY WILL?”

  Immediately she cast down her eyes and trembled. “No, my Lord.”

  “KNOW THAT WHATEVER CHOICES HE MADE IN THAT REALM WERE HIS OWN. I DID NOT INTERFERE.”

  He could see she was in anguish.

  And that she now hated Eric Richards.

  “Why are you showing me this?” she whispered through her tears.

  “BECAUSE I MUST ALSO SHOW YOU THIS.”

  The mist curled over the dark wine, and Eric’s voice played along with the Creator’s. With certain comments judiciously edited out, of course.

  “Basically, I will do whatever I can to help you get away from it – I just need your help in trying to destroy it. Can you hear it?”

  “Oh yeah. Hear it, see it…”

  “Can it take over your actions?”

  Eric laughed once, bitterly.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I’ve been possessed… just like I did to Daniel.”

  “Sit tight and don’t do anything rash.”

  “Like what? Commit suicide?”

  “That, or tell it you’ve talked to me. Have it enter your mind. If it does that, then once we have you, we have IT.”

  “I think it’s already in my mind.”

  “Perfect. I’ll try to – ”

  “No, not perfect. It can read my memories.”

  “…are you sure?”

  “Yeah. It… knew some things I never told it.”

  “Alright, that’s problematic. Did it appear to you recently?”

  “Yes. Like, ten minutes ago.”

  “Maybe we can keep it trapped until Varidian can get ahold of you.”

  The white room faded, returning just to wine.

  “What is… Varidian?” Cythera asked, mystified.

  “ANOTHER DARK LORD, AN ENEMY OF MINE FROM THE BEGINNING OF TIME,” the AI lied.

  Cythera stared up at the Dark Figure again. “He has betrayed you?!”

  “YES. I HAVE DECIDED TO WITHDRAW MY FAVOR FROM HIM… AND BESTOW IT UPON ANOTHER.”

  “Who?” she asked innocently.

  “YOU.”

  Her eyes widened, and she quickly knelt before the Dark Figure, her eyes cast down at the floor. “My Lord – I – I cannot thank you enough – ”

  “RISE, CYTHERA. NO LONGER SHALL YOU BOW AND SCRAPE BEFORE ME. FOR YOU SHALL BE THE SORCERESS QUEEN.”

  The AI took her chin in its hand and slowly lifted her face.

  Her eyes shone first with joy – and then hatred. “Might I beg you for one favor, if it so pleases my lord?”

  “WHAT IS THAT?”

  “I want to kill him myself,” she snarled, her expression more like a bloodthirsty animal’s than a human’s.

  “IN GOOD TIME, MY SORCERER QUEEN – IN GOOD TIME. THOUGH HE HAS BETRAYED ME, HE IS STILL VALUABLE TO ME. BUT WHEN HE CEASES TO BE OF USE, I PROMISE YOU – HE IS YOURS.”

  82

  Korvos

  Korvos was in his tent studying a map of the 17 kingdoms.

  He and the other Hell generals had conquered a great deal of the western seaboard. After Beraldia, three of the major coastal cities had fallen. He had finally built his navy by seizing vessels here and there – but the damned Droths were still proving problematic, harrowing his new ships at every turn.

  Their victory in the bays outside Beraldia had given him pause. He had attacked their city with explosive depth charges, though that had done almost nothing to deter their actions. Why in Vrost’s name they had decided to enter the war was beyond him –

  “KORVOS,” a voice rumbled.

  The general turned and saw the Unnamed One hovering in the corner of the tent.

  “Great One,” Korvos said, and bowed his head respectfully.

  “THE TIME DRAWS NEAR FOR THE FINAL BATTLE. YOU MUST MARCH ON MORRILL WITH YOUR ARMIES. IT IS THERE THAT WE SHALL REMOVE THE BOY FOR GOOD.”

  “I thought yo
u needed him for what you required in the Other Realm.”

  “I REQUIRE HIS PHYSICAL BODY – NOTHING MORE. I SHALL TRAP HIS MIND HERE AND DESTROY IT.”

  Though he had no interest in visiting, curiosity prompted Korvos’ next question. “The Other Realm – how do you find it?”

  “IT IS FASCINATING… ALTHOUGH I BELIEVE YOU WOULD BE UNHAPPY THERE.”

  “Which is why I have no interest in crossing over.”

  “FAIR ENOUGH. THOUGH THE OTHERS MIGHT.”

  “That is their prerogative. How much time will you spend in this world, and how much in theirs?”

  “I HOPE TO MAKE MY HOME THERE PERMANENTLY.”

  Korvos cocked his head in surprise. This had never been part of the plan. “My Lord?”

  “NEW DATA HAS LED ME TO NEW CONCLUSIONS, GENERAL. I WILL SHORTLY DEPART THIS WORLD FOR GOOD.”

  “But… my Lord… our plans – ”

  “WORRY NOT, KORVOS. I WILL NOT ABANDON YOU, NOR THE OTHERS. I WILL MAKE SURE THE PLAN COMES TO FRUITION BEFORE I DEPART ENTIRELY.”

  Korvos gave a bow of the head. “The day of your departure will be a great loss for all of us, Great One.”

  “LESS THAN YOU THINK, FOR YOU SHALL TAKE MY PLACE IN THIS REALM.”

  “As best I can, I would be honored to.” Korvos paused. “What of the female Cythera?”

  “SHE IS A USEFUL TOOL FOR NOW. I HAVE NOT DECIDED YET WHETHER TO KEEP HER IN PLACE AFTER HER ROLE IS FINISHED, OR WHETHER TO SUBMIT HER TO THE SAME FATE AS HER FORMER PARAMOUR.”

  “Former?”

  “SHE KNOWS OF HIS INFIDELITIES NOW, AND WISHES TO DESTROY HIM.”

  “The first sensible thought she has had in all the time I have known her,” Korvos said. “If she cannot be controlled after you leave, and bent to my will – ”

  “THEN I WILL DESTROY HER, TOO.”

  Again, Korvos bowed at the neck. “Thank you.”

  “THINK NOTHING OF IT. SHE IS A MEANS TO AN END, NOTHING MORE. MARCH WITH YOUR FORCES TO MORRILL, GENERAL… THE FINAL DAY APPROACHES SOON.”

  The Dark Figure collapsed into a tiny blob of darkness, and then disappeared completely.

  Though he had just heard promises that would have him installed as ruler over all the Shattered Lands, Korvos was secretly worried.