The Metaverse: Virtual Life-Real Death

by William Kurth

  Both victims tried to talk but couldn’t say much due to their burned mouths, tongues, and faces. The lips of both men were mostly gone or curled into their mouth exposing more of their teeth. It was a horrible sight, and many of the agents turned away whenever one of the cams swept close into a burned area. The two tried to give the rescuers thanks or screamed as a piece of the steel bailing wire was pulled from their flesh someplace, freeing it from the pole.

  The pain medication soon made them more comfortable and quiet, both intubated for fear that their swollen and seared tongues might block their airways. Medics wrapped Roland and Clemons in cool, sterile burn blankets. Sterile gauze covered their heads and faces. A paramedic continued to pour saline solution over them as they were wheeled out to a waiting medical VTAL which had landed in a pasture adjacent to the barn. Looking at the two wrapped up in sterile gaze like mummies with the breathing tubes, and vital sign monitors made Argosi shudder. I don’t think they could have taken much more and lived. He thought.

  Parker picked up the phone. “Yes, ma’am I’ll tell him.”

  Parker hung up the phone turning to Argosi. “Sir, the stock market just crashed, and all financial institutions are shutting down for the day, perhaps two days to reset. I’m afraid the cascade was quite severe.”

  Argosi nodded and looked around. “Eyes on me,” he commanded.

  All the MCT agents stopped what they were doing to look at him.

  “What we did, what you did, just saved those two lives. That hostage rescue was in keeping with the highest principles and values of the Bureau. If I can only emphasize one thing in times like this,” Argosi paused and surveyed the room. “It’s that you often only get a small window of opportunity to act. If you wait for perfect conditions, you will paralyze yourself. I imagine that there will be a lot of fallout over this. While you carried it out, this was my decision and mine alone. You all were under orders. Regardless of what happens to me, I will sleep well tonight and every night after that. I hope that you do too. Now let’s get back to work. For the first time, we have the initiative let’s not waste it.”

  The agents all nodded and returned to their stations. Argosi went to his office and closed the door. He sat at his desk for a moment then dialed Stezno.

  ***

  Argosi sat in the conference room reading news streams that covered the rescue of the two BMM employees. He was by himself with the door closed and the shades drawn, covering the windows that looked out onto the lab floor. On the screen against the opposite wall sat Stezno. She was in a conference room at the Justice Department in D.C. In the real world.

  The earlier conversation on the phone with her was a less than pleasant one. Not because she was angry with him. But because she had been bombarded from a number of sectors to relieve Argosi for “Flashing” the Internet, which included the Metaverse.

  The financial cost was still unknown but enormous. For her part, Stezno and the director himself were supporting Argosi. The Treasury Secretary and the Federal Reserve Chairman kept calling for his head. Both were currently in a meeting with the FBI director and the Attorney General of the United States.

  Stezno didn’t know where the AG would come down. He may do nothing, leaving it to the director or he may order that Argosi be relieved or reassigned. It maddened and frustrated Argosi that a couple of days ago the powers that be green lighted all and any resources to catch the Metaverse killer. Now that financial transactions got lost from the “Flash,” it seemed that was no longer the case. Worse, he was sitting in a meeting taking up valuable time while he had the killer on the run. Leave it to the bosses to screw up a case.

  Not the first time that’s happened, Dom. Probably won’t be the last.

  Argosi, out of habit, rose as the AG strode in, followed by the FBI director. Next came the treasury secretary and finally the federal reserve chairman trailed closely behind. The AG was only a few years older than Argosi. He was a Harvard Law Alumni and had a reputation for being very direct and not a fan of long meetings. Argosi hoped both of those things were true, regardless of the outcome. Before the AG even got to his seat he motioned for Argosi and Stezno to sit.

  The AG took a pitcher of water and poured himself a glass of water, sat back and took a long gulp staring at Argosi. “Well let’s begin this turkey shoot,” he said, his southern drawl quite pronounced.

  “Commander Argosi, both esteemed individuals on the other side of the director here want your head on a pike.” The AG motioned with his left hand to the two-stone-faced people, a woman and a man who sat at the other end of the table without looking at them or introducing them. “Then they want to take it out on the lawn and kick it around. After which they want to tie it to the back of their car and drag it around Washington for all to see. Then when they get it home they want to let their dogs fight over it. You get the picture?”

  “I do, sir.” Argosi kept eye contact with the AG and ignored the others.

  The AG tapped his pen on the digital legal pad that someone had placed at his spot before he came in. He then leaned back and took the pen and rolled it between his left and right hands. Then he put it down on the pad staring back at Argosi before speaking.

  “Well, they can go fuck themselves–”

  “Mr. Attorney General!” The female Secretary of the Treasury interrupted, but didn’t say anything other than that.

  She appeared shocked not only at his language but by the statement itself, not prepared to say anything beyond registering her objection. Before she could formulate any other words the AG shot out his left hand and with his index finger extended towards her and continued.

  “...This was an act of terrorism, and I understand that the director here has been warning both the Fed and Treasury—that would be you, Madam Secretary—that you should harden against a flash. You didn’t and now are paying the price. Commander Argosi here used the tactics available to him as well as provided to him by the Justice Department to save lives which is what he did.”

  The AG took a breath.

  “Y’all would be wise in trying to save your own behinds by fixing your shops and not looking to blame someone else for your failings. The American people deserve better, and so does my Bureau of Investigation.”

  The AG let that hang in the air for a moment then turned to Argosi and continued. “Well, now that we have that out of the way, what can I do to help you, Commander?”

  The Bank of St. Petersburg, New Polis, Metaverse

  Edgar swiveled his chair around his expansive downtown office and put his feet up on a credenza. Cradling a phone to his left ear he gazed out onto the business district with its endless skyscrapers below him.

  “Yes, I understand, Mr. Chairman. I’m sure you did. Thank you for your time.”

  The call ended, but Edgar held the phone to his chest for a half minute before swiveling around to face the man sitting in one of the large plush chairs in front of his oversized desk.

  “That was the Fed Chairman. He did what he could for me but was himself hamstrung by the DOJ.” Edgar paused and pushed some papers around his desk before continuing.

  “I think our Mr. Swanson may have gone too far. He had a few hundred million people to choose from inside the Metaverse and yet he had to go after someone in the real world who it turns out is from a politically connected family. If he would have stuck to striking victims in H-Pods, he could have researched them and avoided unnecessary complications.”

  “Politically connected, sir?”

  “Yes. It seems that one of the individuals, the young man from Georgia I believe, that you roasted for fun and profit was. It turns out that he has an aunt who just happens to be married to the Attorney General of the United States.”

  Edgar returned the phone to its holder. “That’s only the half of it. Swanson was never to use any of the bot technology that he developed for me for this operation of his. They will take those bots down to their last line of code. Years of work and planning not to mention tens of milli
ons of dollars wasted if they discover the hidden software built into the mundane hardware components that eventually could create an army for us.”

  Edgar got up and walked around to where Reynolds sat and took the seat next to him.

  “Alex...I’m afraid Mr. Swanson has become a liability. We need to move in a different direction.”

  “I understand, sir,” Reynolds replied.

  Edgar’s dark blue eyes lit up.

  “I know that you do, Alex.” Edgar leaned in close to Reynolds.

  “It turns out that Mr. Swanson and I share a mutual friend. One that I introduced to him some time back. I understand that they had a bit of a falling out and with a bit of a financial incentive she should be able to help us. Give this bulldog Argosi a treat, so he forgets about us.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll see to it.”

  “Thanks, Alex. We will make a great team in future endeavors.”

  “There is one more thing, Mr. Mathias.”

  “Please tell me, Alex. Let’s not keep anything from each other.”

  “Very well, sir. Mr. Swanson had me arrange a meeting with DLS tomorrow. They seem eager to settle with us. Do you want me to go forward with it?”

  Edgar sat back in the chair and thought for a moment before replying.

  “Yes, Alex you should. Even with the information that our friend will provide it may take even this Commander Argosi some time to catch Mr. Swanson AKA Dr. Maddox. No need to get sideways with Maddox or make him suspicious or even more paranoid. Besides, we may as well continue to benefit financially from the good doctor’s work.” Edgar said with a broad grin.

  “Of course, sir.” Alex got up to leave.

  “Alex, have you recovered from the interruption earlier? Any idea what they used to paralyze the Metaverse and crash sentient beings like you and me?”

  “No, Mr. Mathias. It is a weapon which we were unaware of. It will take some time to figure out how they did it. I fear that it would require hardware, which we cannot ourselves directly manufacture, to protect ourselves.”

  “That’s why we need the bots and the secure backup server farms. Fortunately for us and not for them, time is on our side, Alex.”

  MCT Lab, New Polis, Metaverse

  “Sir, we’ve isolated the original video stream. We have a location in New Polis. Wu and Callum are onsite.” Parker chirped as soon as Argosi ran out of the conference room.

  “Assuming that you are still our commander,” Parker added, not sure to chuckle or be upset.

  The flash had thoroughly screwed up so much business and financial activity that people were beside themselves with rage. Saving the lives of two people and getting a lead on the killers responsible for six other deaths held no sway on some individuals who lost money today.

  No actual money, of course, was lost. That would all remain in various accounts. It was interrupting the opportunity to make money that was the real problem. Deals failed to happen. Buyers and sellers could change their mind or might go elsewhere now. Then there were all the communications including live newscasts taken off the air in the Metaverse, their real world counterparts less affected.

  “I’m still here, Charlie, so don’t be measuring my office for curtains just yet,” Argosi said with a smile. “So, have they reported back yet?”

  “It’s preliminary so far, Commander, but they report finding a couple of offices and a larger work area with dozens of workstations all vacated. The good news according to Mr. Wu is that they have isolated the servers that maintained that site. They are doing a remote download; hopefully, we will be able to see what they have been up to.”

  “Maybe we can start to unravel their operation. I’m sure Reynolds or whoever is behind this can reconfigure now, but it’s going to take them some time. We need to use that time to our advantage.”

  “One more thing sir. DLS has told us that they are meeting with Alex Reynolds in their offices at 0900 UMT tomorrow.” Parker added.

  Argosi nodded.

  “Ok, I’ll also be going. You’ll have the conn here. Wu and Callum will accompany me. Make sure DLS knows we will be in attendance and make sure they know they don’t have a choice about that.”

  “Roger that, sir.”

  Business District, New Polis, Metaverse

  Callum and Wu were looking through the office space that they zapped Alex out of and later abandoned by MD. They studied the workstations with the multiple screens. When the system reset the monitors returned to what was on them before the Flash took them down. Wu studied the page links to BMM on one screen. On another were a list of the seven bots all greyed out. The connection to them was lost. On a large screen on top of the lower ones, Wu could see that it split into two squares named TC-1 and TC-2. Wu looked at the screen below it and brought the cursor to the one marked TC-1 and clicked on it. Suddenly the screen went live, and he could see the dirt floor of the barn, the bottom of the pole, as well as pieces of wires and clothing cut from the victims.

  Wu heard some voices. He moved the cursor over to a round control graphic and clicked on it. The view changed from the ground level to standing as the traffic control bot that had been kicked over earlier got to its treads.

  Wu perked up at the yelling around the machine and turned the bot’s head towards the noise just in time to see the muzzle flash before the cam went to static gray. Wu called the lab and let them know he could activate the bots from the offices they found and not to shoot any more of them.

  Back at the lab, Parker scratched his head. Supposedly it required a manual restart to activate the bots. Why then was Wu able to start them back up? Parker wondered.

  “Roger that Mr. Wu,” Parker said into his headpiece. “Give us a heads up next time you think you are going to activate one of the bots from there. You scared the crap out of the onsite officers. No one is going to trust any bot for a while.” There was a pause on the other end.

  “Does that include me, sir?”

  ***

  The MCT worked in shifts through the night except for Wu, who worked the whole time both in the MCT in-world and in the real world. Argosi and Parker both decided that Wu was a secure AI. Being one of a kind meant that no code, app or virus could assume control of him. He was sentient and unique in that his codes were unique to him and him alone. Wu was not affected by the Flash, the servers that contained his “cognizance” was shielded from it and operating on the secure closed government side of the internet.

  More than that Argosi believed him too valuable to sideline. Across the globe companies were sidelining or weakening their work bots. A great deal of the humans assigned to work supervising or alongside bots refused to do so.

  Companies like BMM were shutting down whole divisions until they could figure out how their bots were co-opted or at the very least add additional overrides. Widespread panic spread from the workforce, who did not trust the bots, to the boardrooms where billions of dollars evaporated out of their coffers. No major company could operate at capacity or even a large fraction of it without the work bots.

  Reynold’s public torture and attempted murder of the two young workers backfired. The focus was no longer what went on in the digital world. It had shifted to what was happening in the real world and the role sentient beings had in it. From Capitol Hill to statehouses, and in parliaments across the globe, elected officials clamored for restrictions on bots and on the AE’s themselves.

  Some were advocating the widespread deletion of all current sentient beings. Activists for sentient being rights which typically could generate media attention were all but drowned out by the chorus of voices that wanted to wipe clean the Metaverse of them and start anew with restrictions and controls that would effectively not make them sentient at all. It would make them slaves to humans.

  At least that was the position of Edgar Bartholomew Mathias as he presided over the Council of Free Digital Sentient Beings. It was not a formal council in that anyone here was elected or appointed or even represented others. It was a co
uncil that Edgar had formed some years back.

  He had invited select sentient beings who, like himself, were independent and had both financial means and influence. The goal was to work together not only for mutual profit but to enhance the Metaverse and New Polis as a whole. They contracted with lobbying entities to gain influence or if necessary bribe the humans in control of the political systems in the human world. And ultimately over the Metaverse, at least in the current arrangement.

  None of these DSB’s knew of Mathias’s long-range plans. Nor of his involvement in the current shakedown scheme which he had profited from handsomely. He stripped off his share as soon as it came into the bank, depositing those funds into a tangled web of accounts and financial instruments both in the Metaverse and the real world. Unlike Maddox, he would collect his share. He would, of course, return a token amount on behalf of his bank to the victim’s families. A show of good will from an honest, hardworking DSB such as himself.

  Digital Life Systems Campus, New Polis, Metaverse

  Dominic Argosi along with Callum and Wu, over the objections of the CEO of DLS Clayton Perkins, seated themselves at the conference table located in the CEO suite of DLS. Argosi had neither the inclination nor the time to pretend that any of his surroundings were real. He had Callum teleport them directly into the meeting, materializing in front of the DLS CEO and his staff during a group huddle before meeting with Alex Reynolds.

  “As the General Counsel for Digital Life Systems, I must object to both your being here and the way that you violated the private sanctity of this conference room inside a private corporation.”