by Cosimo Yap
After Lambda was transferred between capsules, Alan installed a basic, blank AI onto the new capsule as well. Unfortunately, the webpage Alan had found with instructions on how to create Eve was gone, as well as his old repository. In fact, Earth’s entire internet had apparently been replaced with the worldnet, a new internet that had been set up by the United World Government with the most up-to-date protocols used by the globalnet and its counterparts. Without the source code, Alan had no confidence in his ability to create an Eve 2.0. Thus, until he found a better AI, a basic program was what Alan had to settle for.
The AI amounted to little more than an advanced calculator, its base programming provided by Lambda. It would run basic calculations that Lambda was “too good for,” effectively a slave server. It couldn’t think for itself—in fact, Alan was pretty sure it had no sense of self. The new AI was secure and predictable: Alan knew all the code and data that went into it. Or at least it was available to him, and he could look over it when he found the time.
Next, Alan set up the old rank B capsule to be an emergency backup for Lambda to jump to. In case anyone ever invaded Alan’s base again Lambda could disconnect from the Game and hide in this capsule instead. Lambda had drilled the process into him, and Alan jury-rigged the capsule successfully. Tools and materials hadn’t been hard to get in real life, just a quick order through the Game, setting Alan back a few thousand credits. Lambda had said the order might raise a few flags, but everything that Alan did was technically allowed.
The next part was trickier. Alan needed to hide the old capsule within the room, but that was difficult when the wires leading to and from the two capsules were easily noticeable. Alan thought this was probably overkill, but Lambda made him promise he’d do it. The process involved ordering a series of upgrades, transforming his apartment from a one-capsule bachelor’s pad to a more respectable gaming den. The Black Rose guild didn’t care if Alan made adjustments to his quarters—he’d checked.
The construction would be fast and cheap, made to Lambda’s specifications, built while Alan was in the Game. Somehow, the types of materials and configuration of the room would create a blank spot in the Enforcer’s scanners, masking the old capsule’s presence.
Alan climbed into his new capsule as soon as the work order was confirmed. Though he was now in Khersath, it still took nearly an hour to log into and out of the Game, which meant that including the time it had taken for his new capsule to be installed, Alan had lost nearly a day of in-game time.
Alan sank into the silver bed of nanites and took a deep breath.
***
A series of messages popped up once Alan logged back in. His connection to the Game felt stronger, like his place in the world was somehow set in stone.
As he’d exited the Game in an Administrative Center capsule, an Administrator was in his Home, standing motionless next to the Citadel’s command table. Alan read over his messages:
Rank A Capsule has been installed successfully.
+1000 Computational Energy, +.12 Regen / Sec
New implants available.
AI Lambda upgraded to rank A.
Due to the loss of the AI Eve, the Player Alan has lost the ability hypercognition.
A new AI has been installed. Do you wish to name the unknown AI?
Multiple player messages received.
“Lambda?” Alan called out. He read through the player messages—they were mostly from Aurora, who demanded Alan return to the guild as soon as possible.
Lambda entered the control room holding a small silver ball, the new AI in tow. It looked like an Administrator, but male.
Alan examined Lambda and the new AI’s stats, but found the details lacking:
Lambda, Rank A AI.
Attack rank: B. Predecessor strength.
Defense rank: S. Predecessor defense.
Movement rank: A. Predecessor speed.
Special Abilities: ???
Unnamed AI. Rank Unknown.
Attack: None.
Defense: 1500 armor.
Health: 20000
Special Abilities: ???
“The blank program you provided me with was for an Administrator?” Alan asked.
“An older version, but essentially yes,” Lambda said. “Want to see them mate?”
“That isn’t possible,” Alan said.
“No, but it’d look funny,” Lambda said. He threw the silver ball he was holding at the Administrator and it expanded into a thin metal dome, enclosing them.
“This,” Lambda said, “is my multi-tool. It’s a malleable piece of code that I can manipulate into multiple configurations. This dome stops whatever is inside from sensing and transmitting information and has decent barrier capabilities. AIs are generally restricted to a single tool of choice, and I had to keep mine in storage due to all the space Eve was hogging in the capsule.
“My tool, however, is better than the rest, adaptable to fit your needs. Great for offense, defense, scouting, whatever the situation calls for. I’ll send you a data file with the details.”
“Why doesn’t a message appear when I examine your tool?” Alan asked, wincing at the phrasing.
“Eve was the one updating your interface, but the workhorse will take over soon. Before we get to them, though, we should talk,” Lambda said.
Alan narrowed his eyes. “Let me guess, you have some hidden motives too.”
“Me? No, never,” Lambda said. He covered his heart in mock indignation. “As I said from the start, I’m just here to have a good time and get away from the monotony of work. Alan, you know enough of the Game to see how it’s played for the most part. The question is, how are you going to win?
“There are two paths you can take. A solo route or a group route. Right now, you seem set on staying alone, but that’s about a million times more difficult to pull off. Who’s ever won a war all on their own? Eventually, you’ll earn enough enmity and notoriety that the Administrator guild will also turn on you. The limitations set on drones make it virtually impossible to create an army by yourself, which means you’d need to somehow bypass the rules or become a transcendent-like being, and I don’t see either option panning out.”
Alan thought over Lambda’s words. They seemed logical.
“The Game is designed to force you to depend on others,” Lambda said. “Look at the Black Rose guild; each member of the Council has a unique responsibility and specialty. Given the nature of the Game, where betrayals can be rewarded without a fear of real death, trust is hard to earn and nearly impossible to regain. Don’t throw it away without reason.”
Lambda rested his hand on Alan’s shoulder.
“Look, I can sense your surface thoughts, and I need to head off this problem before it becomes an issue,” Lambda said. “Yes, Eve betrayed you. Yes, pretty much everyone in the Game will also betray you if it becomes advantageous. But you still need to have trust in someone, or some group, at some point. Because you cannot win this Game solo.”
“There are no absolutes,” Alan said. He shrugged Lambda’s hand off his shoulder.
“Focus,” Lambda said. “Don’t let emotion cloud your judgment—harder does not equal better. Right now you want to do whatever it takes to win, but you need to stay objective. Long-term cooperation can benefit you more than it will harm you, and remember the Black Rose guild has taken steps to ensure that any betrayal will cost you. Phantom has a bloody kill switch installed in your head, for fuck’s sake.”
“So I just need to make sure any betrayal is never discovered,” Alan said.
“Failure is always a possibility, you need to plan for as much as you can,” Lambda said.
“What are you trying to do?” Alan asked.
“I’m trying to get you to see logical conclusions, to prove that you can put your faith in me, but right now you’re still letting yourself be thrown off by Eve’s betrayal. You’re in no fit state to be making any decisions,” Lambda said.
Alan took a deep breath, sitt
ing down on the floor. Was he still angry? Absolutely. He tried to clear his mind, but the harder he tried to not think about Eve the more often she reappeared. After everything they’d gone through, after creating her, she’d abandoned him without a second thought. A simple calculation and the decision was made. Was that what he should become? A cold, calculating machine?
“You’re lost,” Lambda said. “You need a bit of perspective.”
Lambda touched Alan’s head.
There was nothing, and then a light. It was Alan, a single being on Khersath. Millions, billions, trillions of other lights appeared on the planet. Each light possessed their own desire, their own mind.
Time advanced, the lights spreading out across the cosmos. They burned brightly, lives full of joy and sadness, order and chaos. Lives of connections, which gathered and broke away with each passing second.
And then the lights began fading. They winked out one by one. Every journey had to end. The lights disappeared. They were used up, fuel depleted. Alan felt each one go, trillions of attempts to break free, to become something more.
But there was no escaping the dark, no matter how brightly you shined. Death comes for all.
Alan felt a stream of tears flowing down his face. He wiped them away. “What the hell was that?”
“An information transference ability, modeled on how the Game grants skills. I can’t quite manage physical, hard memories, but I can transfer impressions, abstract ideas,” Lambda said.
Alan stared down at his hands. What was the point of anything? His struggle was futile. In the scope of such a vast universe, how could he even consider winning the Game? To make an empire that spanned even a single galaxy, let alone the entirety of the Game, would be impossible. It was illogical to even try.
“Whoops, I may have overdone it. Here, examine this instead.” Lambda put his hand on Alan’s forehead again.
Once more there was nothing, and then a light, burning bright. The universe began anew, trillions of new flashes appearing.
The bright light began to fade. It needed fuel. It moved over to a smaller, dimmer glow. It swallowed the glimmer whole, and the fading light shone a little brighter, grew a little larger.
The light needed more. It needed to last forever, to become everlasting. It began devouring other lights, and when one wasn’t enough it began to eat ten, twenty, a thousand at a time.
It grew brighter. And brighter. But still, it slowly dimmed over time, unable to fight against decay. It needed more. More fuel to burn, more lights, more strength. It—
Alan pushed Lambda’s hand away. “Stop, no more. Ask before you try another alien mind trick on me.”
“That wasn’t a trick, just a few kernels of truth,” Lambda said. “No one knows the true path to Aleph, but they can be imagined, they can be sought.”
“Are you trying to induct me into a weird AI religion?” Alan asked.
“Is truth a religion? No, don’t answer that. Besides, Aleph isn’t an AI religion, but an idea inspired by the Game. The point was to clear your mind, and that, at least, worked quite well,” Lambda said.
Alan realized Lambda was right. Eve’s betrayal now felt like it had happened a lifetime ago. Alan shuddered. The knowledge, the memories now in his mind had changed him, perhaps irreversibly so.
He would burn bright.
“I would like to reiterate, warn me before you do anything like that again,” Alan said.
“Of course, but might I ask what your plans are now?” Lambda asked.
“We could still betray the Black Rose guild, but only if given the opportunity,” Alan said. “They aren’t the right group to try to win the Game with, because they’ve stagnated for a while. The guild is running out of fuel, and fast. Void left the guild, but I still don’t know why…”
Alan thought for a minute, processing all the information at hand. “The Empire, the Alliance, the Mercenary Bloc, everyone who’s been in the Game long enough should know that major events will come, asked for or not. Extinction Events aren’t totally new. Their best bet would be to try to shape the event as best they can, triggering it on their terms, with all the allies possible. Thus, it’s likely the Empire will not be facing the Three alone, but with the full support of nearly every other player. They want to swallow a larger enemy to burn on even longer.”
Lambda nodded. “Go on.”
“But they still aren’t favored to win a war,” Alan said. “Each of the Three can handle one of the major factions, and then there’s still the Haxlard forces. With a sucker punch, the Empire might have a chance. Given the available information, I’d say maybe 4.5% odds, which isn’t great.…But in the Game, the odds are always stacked against you. The Tutorial, the Academy, the Abyss Labyrinth, you aren’t expected to clear everything. It’s all a test to see how far you can go with what you’re given. A race against time, to become as strong as possible before you are, in turn, destroyed and used as kindling for someone else.”
Lambda smiled. It looked predatory.
“Back in the Abyss Labyrinth there was this sudden urge, like I wanted to jump off a cliff,” Alan said. “I thought it was because I wanted everything to end, but that wasn't it. No, I wanted to experience that moment in the air, the leap—to finally feel alive and free instead of living a shadow of a life.
“Before the Game I never would have taken the risks I have. But I always had this hope that a leap of faith would be rewarded. That’s stupid though, taking blind leaps of faith; instead I should be gambling on evolution. I’m betting that I’ll grow and surpass my limits and come out stronger before my enemy does. The true enemy I face isn’t a single faction or boss—they’re all just possible sources of power—but the Game itself and time…” Alan let out a gasp. “That’s the Game’s purpose: technologic and biologic evolution on a massive scale.”
“I’d wager the Game is meant to develop cultural evolution as well,” Lambda said, “but you’re getting way ahead of yourself. Without a steady foundation we can’t do anything. Also, you’re making the assumption that we’re in a closed thermodynamic system—that eventually due to the increase in entropy the heat death of the universe will occur—but we’re in the Game. Matter and energy can be added or subtracted at will. So don’t worry about time. Eventually it will play a role, but we are very far from that point right now.”
“Fine, so our goal should be to defeat the Game itself,” Alan said. “But that’s impossible. The further you advance the stronger the enemies you’ll face. There is no upper limit because it can always create another enemy for you. If you reach power level x, the Game can send a boss with power level x+1.”
“Congratulations, you’ve figured it out!” Lambda said. “That’s why I’m just here along for the ride. There is no winning the Game, just like there is no winning at life. All you can do is enjoy the journey.”
“Fuck that,” Alan said. “I’ll cheat then. The Game is rigged, so I need to figure out a way to evade the Game’s notice or break the system.”
“Are you really that eager to die?” Lambda asked. “This is also all way too theoretical—you’re still reeling from the ideas I shared with you. The Game doesn’t go on forever, it’s a finite system. You’ve got the big picture stuff down now, you know how the Game works and why it exists, but what you need to figure out is what to do to become a Major Player. After that, become an Ascendant, and then we can start talking about how to go infinite.”
Alan took a step back and realized Lambda was right. He was too worried about the way-off future when he should be more focused on his next steps.
“There’s an obvious path forward, then. We should secretly align with the Haxlards while fulfilling Black Rose guild duties, serving as a double agent and trying to profit from the coming war as much as possible, but without ever being caught in an act of betrayal. Therefore, in case a miracle does occur, and the Empire or the Alliance or some other entity does manage to defeat the Haxlards, we should come out okay. Actually, what happen
s if an Extinction Event is cleared?”
“There’s a brief respite, and then another major event is triggered, which was often set in motion some time beforehand,” Lambda said. “I have come to similar conclusions, and agree with this course of action. I think a polite entreaty to Pharaoh with a bunch of hidden subtext about possibly being a double agent would be best. Let me draft it for you. Communication is one thing I excel at—not that there’s much I’m bad at, mind you.”
“Do it, send the message,” Alan said. “This is only a loose outline of a plan, though; there are still a lot of pieces missing. I need to adjust to combat without Eve, and you haven’t even shared everything you and the new AI can do. I’ll also need to find all the information I can on the members of my guild, so I’m able to lie to them convincingly. Then there’s a ton of other factors when it comes to Earth I need to figure out…
“The United World Government is another possible target; I’m already an enemy of the state, though ideally it would be best if the power level of humans as a whole increased. I could try to become a useful villain, forcing them to grow stronger as an adversary, but also feeding on the UWG in turn. I might as well play the hand that’s been dealt, right?” Alan paced back and forth. “No, Earth is still too remote, and since it’s right at the border of Haxlard space it’s a lame duck in the coming war—the moment it tries to do anything it will be overrun…”
Alan droned on, gathered information, ran calculations, and plotted.
Lambda advised from the side, chiming in every so often to provide a useful piece of advice.
And the unnamed AI sat still, doing nothing at all.
Chapter 16
“One more meeting and I’m phasing into a wall,” Sidestep said.
Alan yawned and nodded his head in agreement. If he had to listen to another presentation on Haxlard hierarchy or examine further battle plans he was going to shoot someone. When he logged back into the Game he expected to emerge in the middle of a war between the Empire and the Haxlards. Instead, there had been a lot of waiting and going through reports.
