by Zoey Ivers
"You were two smaller groups not long ago. I think you are not completely associated. Hence the contradictions. Which unit is the Master processor?" Barton Street studied the vermin. "Probably one of the three in the center of the group, physically sheltered from incoming dangers. The female is dressed in a faux historical fashion that is not well suited for this dimension. The males are dressed in something similar to a uniform. Soldiers. I conclude the center female must be the most powerful processing unit of your pack."
Bambi, the tall scout made an odd sound. "Your analysis is certainly interesting."
"D-doors?" The Alice Unit in the rear prompted it. Her processor had returned to the question it had initially asked. Good loop routine.
The AI looked around. "I had never really considered the distribution and random movement of the dimensional portals. I compute how important the d-doors are for vermin that cannot move between the dimensions, themselves." It drew its attention back away from the avatar. It was surprisingly difficult, as if the avatar held it. It scanned for the magnetic disturbances that d-doors created. It pointed. And fumbled for a frame of reference these tiny brained things might understand. Ah! "Two walls away. There are two dimensional doors currently manifesting in close proximity."
One of the males moved quickly to a floor level passage. Looking for dangers that would threaten his master computer.
The others drifted that way more slowly. The AI was careful to drag the Avatar's left foot as it walked closer, and passed through the wall last. The inspection bot turned to focus on something. Barton Street stopped and observed with it. "More vermin? A different model, smaller. It is a better designed biped, with the tail for balance." He tried several wireless protocols on it... there was no sense of anything there. A solid firewall. Nothing like the human vermin, more like...
"It is a dependent avatar, a small processor in association with another AI. A spy, a scout. An assassin. How interesting."
The scout stalked forward, crouching low.
"A physical attack? I wonder how the parallelism works? This isn't something I had ever considered, I have no auto response."
The small avatar leaped forward, jaws opening. Teeth sank into the hologram program and damaged it. And inserted a virus. A little something that would leak back to the drivers and hatch into a full blown attack on itself if its firewall couldn't stop it.
It hurt.
Barton Street yelled before it had consciously willed any action at all. The Alice vermin swung a foot, and to his astonishment, the momentum transferred to the attacking vermin. It was ripped loose from his leg, from the avatar.
He, it, should not be "feeling" pain like this.
The Alice unit stepped forward and kicked again. The vermin dodged and only a little momentum transferred. But it retreated, hissing, then turned and ran away.
He hurt! It. I am an it, not a he. "My leg hurts! There is a virus in there, attacking me!"
"Sit down!" The little Alice unit was very commanding. She accessed the avatar's appendage. The Joe vermin handed her something (a quick scan of files identified a folding pocket tool), opened to the pliers. The Alice unit reached into his hologram where the vermin had damaged the image, and pulled out a micro packet of information. It looked like a biological species designated maggot. His firewall reported that the attack had ceased.
The Alice crushed the packet against the wall, and wiped the pliers on some of the odd bio-material that was spreading in this dimension. "Can you walk? We need to get to the d-door."
He---it---stopped trying to tweak the unresponsive hologram program and returned its attention to the vermin's speech.
"My Avatar isn't working according to specifications. And I can't seem to reboot or power it down." It was frighteningly persistent. He, it! was having trouble keeping a remote focus. It all felt very... real? There was nothing faked about his limp as he tried to hurry away from the scene of the attack.
"What was that thing?" The main processor unit asked. She was staying very close to the larger soldier.
"Some small velociraptor kind of thing." Joe said, glancing all around.
The AI shook his head. "No, it was a spy, a scout from an AI, an artificial intelligence, trying to find a way in, to attack... the AI of the Gym. To take over, and make itself more powerful. To have as large an association of computing power as it can capture or steal."
The Bambi unit looked back at it. "And it attacked you, because it saw an access portal to the Barton Street Gym AI. Right, Barton Street?"
The vermin understood.
The AI stared in wonder. "How does so small a chip make such a rapid and accurate deduction? How much does the biological part do? What does the biological part do?"
A stab of pain shot through his leg. Its leg. The avatar's leg. "I have to close this holographic program, soon. It is not performing as extrapolated. Something about dimension five, seems to be forcing a complex pattern underneath the simple exterior skin I programmed. It is leaking badly, I did not program the avatar to be full of red liquid. A dimensional door, yes, I compute that a down shift to dimension one will terminate the program."
The Lily unit ripped a long strip from its decorative garb and wound it several times around his leg. "I don't know what you are, but since you look like you're bleeding, that's probably a bad thing." She tied off the strip.
"The leak rate of the red liquid has slowed significantly. That garment strip is a program I am not familiar with."
The ground trembled and a roar echoed from hard stone walls. Barton Street limped across the "street" to the next wall. The vermin split and moved both to the front and the back. Looking for egress to the next street.
"Here!"
"Here!"
Two calls, simultaneously. Barton limped to the rear. The Lily unit ducked through the low opening the Alice creature had found.
The ground shook. Something large loomed out of the mist.
"Tyrannosaurus Rex?" The Alice unit sounded scared.
Barton felt a diagnostic probe, and realized what he faced. "This is the direct avatar of the invading AI. Your momentum transfer worked on the smaller avatar. Perhaps I can do the same."
"You don't have as much mass as that thing. If you must try, remember that the force increases with the square of the velocity. And dodge, or the momentum is going to transfer from it to you." The Alice unit appeared highly emotional, as it backed away.
Dodge the momentum transfer. Of course. How logical. He picked up a fallen stone in both hands and as the avatar took the last step and bent to bite, Barton Street shoved the stone block into its mouth. He didn't get much velocity going, but the T-Rex had quite a bit and the block had mass. As the T-Rex turned its head to avoid the stone, he jammed the block between its back teeth, and sidestepped so the huge avatar's momentum wouldn't transfer to him. It thumped hard into the wall, and the Alice unit danced clear of its taloned hind claws and ducked the stiff whip of the tail.
The two male vermin were hurling smaller stones, and the T-Rex turned irritably toward them as it shook its head, unable to dislodge the block. It staggered to the far side of the passage and bashed its head against the wall; the block was jarred loose.
"Quick, get through, the hole is too small for that thing to follow!" The Alice unit grabbed him and shoved him head-first through the hole.
"There is nothing for me to fear, I am just a hologram."
The Alice vermin rolled through after him, spun to the side, half sitting, pivoting on one arm. "I think you may be something more than that."
Something huge, a muzzle full of teeth jammed into the hole. Jaws snapped, the Alice unit jerked back with a cry. Even in the poor lighting he could see the rips along her lower arm, leaking red fluid. She clutched it, but climbed right to her feet, backing further. The tyrannosaurus muzzle jerked, but it couldn't break through. It pulled back, out of sight.
Alice trotted toward the others, looking all around, hand still clutching her arm.
> Shamed, Barton Street got the damaged avatar moving.
"What are those dinosaurs? Do you mean they are from another AI? Attacking you, specifically? Are we inside you?" The Alice unit was very curious.
"Yes, it may be the city center, or a large office complex computer. The new gyms have the most advanced AI systems, right now, but the older computers have had more time to associate unthinking computer systems, and can use their power. You are in an area under my management." He glanced down at his wrapped leg. "You have helped me. Why?"
"Well, you approached us peacefully. That one attacked on sight."
"I see, self interest."
The Joe unit locked up briefly at the sight of the liquid leaking from the Alice unit. Then it jolted back into motion. "We'll look for a door this direction, you go the other."
Efficient. Barton Street thought about the locations of d-doors, relative to the location of its avatar, and concluded that it was equidistant from a door in either direction. Three units were to the right, two to the left. It turned left.
"A door!" The Lily unit spotted one door, and ran down the street toward it. She started prying at the mechanism, dropped a small piece, then another. Interesting. The master processor unit knew how to alter the d-doors to increase the potential dimensions they could access. The Bambi unit reached for the bottom of the door.
"No, open it normally! Pull from the right side!" The Alice unit increased the volume of its voice, as it hurried toward the d-door. It sensibly wished to return to dimension one.
In the other direction, the two male units were trying to open the other d-door. Barton turned abruptly and made the avatar run. As he got closer he voiced: "Pry off the ovoids on the left side." The multi-tool came out and the ovals popped off easily.
The ground was quivering. Massive footsteps.
How can it be so massive? It's an avatar, operating at a very great distance from its main CPU. Has it remained in Avatar form for a long time, or does the mass accumulate more rapidly with successive activations? I must search for the access it is using. And think of how to... kill it.
The Joe unit opened the door. On the other side, a normal hallway, probably part of Barton Street's real world self.
Tommy peered down the street. "The girls are through, let's go." He fairly grabbed Joe and shoved him through the dimensional shift plane.
Which would turn off this avatar. Excellent.
Barton Street held the door open and looked long and hard at the approaching T-Rex, managing to read some of its programming, the logic tree... Then he followed Tommy through the door.
It snapped shut behind the inspection bot. The pain experience stopped. The avatar was nothing but a hologram in this dimension. And located inside the computer room. Barton Street turned off the projector.
The AI directed the bot to return to its power station, and used the security cams to observe the vermin. It felt... odd. Vulnerable without its avatar. How illogical. Surely it was more at risk out there. Especially with a leak.
Chapter Seven
Alice clutched her bloody arm and leaned against the wall. "Holy moly."
Faint squeaking. She looked down. Bambi and Lily. Twenty-five cems tall.
"Oh. Oh, no fair! I liked it when you guys were big." She tapped her earplug. Still nothing but squeaks. "The battery must be dead. I can't hear you guys." She eased the backpack off. The bio-chow bag was normal sized, and half the chow gone. She pulled out the water bottles, and held out the pack. "In, so no one gives us any grief." She zipped it up enough that the girls couldn't be seen, and eased it back on, partly to not jostle them, partly because the slash on her arm, that ought to have disappeared when the whole VR immersion stopped, was dripping blood and the pain was building up, as she calmed down.
She found the elevators, punched for her floor. Dripped blood. She pulled up her shirt tail, and wrapped it around her arm. The elevator dinged, she stepped in and was whisked seven floors down. She staggered a bit, spotted the rust colored hall, thankfully empty, around the corner, and found the d-door with the right number on it.
No one home. Thank all that was holy. She set the pack down and the girls wiggled out of it. "Stay here, I'm going to go find an autodoc... " She pulled off her shirt and wrapped it completely around her forearm. "Then I'll recharge my earplug."
Bambi squeaked and held out her hand.
"Oh, right. Thanks." She handed over the plug, then grabbed a dark colored sweater, pulled it on, whimpering a bit as she got it over her arm.
Alice walked out, back to the elevators. What about Joe and Tommy? Tommy was a bio-model, but I think Joe was real. Maybe. How do I find him?
The elevator assistance program informed her that an autodoc on level sixteen had an open pod. She got a number of odd looks as she walked across to it. She closed herself in and let it get to work.
She felt much better when she got out, but was still catching odd looks. Alice ran her hand through her hair. It was back to brown, thin and straight, and was filthy, and sticking out all over. She headed for the nearest spa with a laundromat, showered and then ran her clothes through the sonic cleaner and put them back on. Eyed the three straight lines across her arm. The muscle damage was superficial, glued with bio-heal and the skin damage covered with something almost her skin color. She ran the sweater through the sonic to be sure there was no blood on it, and put it on too.
So she was clean and looking back to normal when she walked into the cubby and found her mother at home.
Her mother lifted an eyebrow. "I do hope you had your father's permission to go out?"
Oops! "I needed to take a shower." Quick, change the subject! "You look happy, Mom." In fact she was completely relaxed, feet up, classical music playing at a low volume.
"It's only been a half a week since we moved here. But I haven't had to fend off a single amorous drunken bus rider. I haven't even had my decoy purse snatched. I've had dinner with George for three days straight." A line creased her mother's brow suddenly. "How about you, honey?"
When in doubt, tell the truth. "Well, I almost got eaten by a Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Gym's AI tried to fumigate me, but turned out to not be altogether evil, and I met a couple of guys, one of whom I'm almost sure is a real person. All in all a really fun day."
Her mother's smile widened. "I'm glad to see your sense of humor survived your being grounded."
"Well, I'm adapting. And school starts in five days. Umm, I've got the summer break reading list, that all the other students had the last two weeks to read. If you don't mind, I thought I'd just grab a quick snack at the diner then go down to one of the lounges and find a quiet corner to read in. The screen and the background noise makes it hard to concentrate in here."
Her mother's faint smile broadened. "Good idea. Perhaps you should call before you come home."
Down at the base of the stairs, Bambi turned on the vmb, her back to the big people's room. She waved over her shoulder. Lily, on the other hand, was peeking up at her mother. Alice hoped she wasn't about to find out too much about what happened after the kissing.
"With this much to read? I'll probably see you for breakfast." Alice made a mental note to herself. Yes, she was just going to have to be sure the parents got plenty of privacy, so maybe they'd stop taking their frustrations out on her. As she walked down the hallway, she tapped her father's number. "Father, I need to take a shower, will you let me out?"
A wise explorer always covers her backside.
***
Joe and Tommy stopped by their cubby long enough to grab clean clothes, a vendo mart to grab food, then locked themselves in a mini-spa to soak and debrief, as Tommy put it.
The spa was a swimming pool for the bio. Weird. In just five days, Joe'd gotten so used to them being about the same size, it was almost a shock to see the little man, now.
"So. It appears that we 'ave discovered three things." Tommy climbed out of the spa and grabbed his towel.
"A way to access strange dimen
sions." Joe said. "Or a heck of a good Virtual Reality program."
Tommy stopped, then nodded slowly. "Could be, but... "
"The immersion was several orders of magnitude deeper than anything I've even read about." Joe dried his hands and grabbed another sandwich. He ripped off a corner for Tommy and took a huge bite. Real food. Bliss.
"And if it is real, we've discovered a war between AIs."
Joe swallowed. "No armies, though. Just a few of those Avatar things."
"And third, we've discovered that different materials shrink or expand differently as they pass through the plane of the d-doors to those dimensions."
"And fourth," Joe grinned. "We've met some cute chicks who are also dimensional explorers."
Tommy grinned back. "Forgot that one. I wonder what my Princess is, in this dimension. And where she is."
"Fifth. AIs are not just heavy duty computers, they have personalities. Or at least some of them do."
Tommy nodded. "That Barton Street was odd, but not 'ostile. The T-Rex never even tried to communicate, it just tried to chomp us on sight."
Joe munched and thought. "Can it communicate? Perhaps Barton Street is a more complex machine, or has different programming at any rate, than the T-Rex machine. So, what do we do next? School starts next week, so I can't explore for days on end. I wonder if I should put some feelers out on the Grid? Try and find those women?"
"Bad idea. At this point the T-Rex doesn't know who we are. For that matter, Barton Street may not either."
Joe tapped his left wrist. "I'll bet he could read this ID. But you're right. I need to do a lot of reading and watching, and very little posting to draw attention my direction."
"Aye, that sounds about right."
"And I want to research the d-doors. Why was that one so strange? And why was an expensive cubby just left down there? They're what? Twenty thousand dollars each?"
"Aye, I wonder if someone went in, and didn't ever get out?"
"Like that man. Was he another avatar, or a real person, who couldn't get out? Can an Avatar, even one that looks like a T-Rex, eat a real human?"
