by Cosimo Yap
“I lost an AI, and that’s significantly damaged my abilities in certain respects,” Alan said.
“Are you no longer able to maintain the cyber-security and surveillance systems?” Aurora asked.
“I am able to maintain a constant strand of consciousness in Cyberspace, ensuring that the base’s systems are safe on that front, while also monitoring the cameras set up by Phantom,” Alan said. “I do need to sleep, though, so we’ll have to depend on the automated systems too. If there’s nothing else, I’ll return to the command center.”
“You are dismissed. Sidestep, accompany Alan to ensure his safety,” Aurora said.
“As you wish,” Sidestep said.
Sidestep followed Alan, and they made their way to the Black Rose base’s command post, the Council’s meeting room. Lambda dubbed it the throne room. As a security measure, the elevators had been temporarily disabled, which meant they would have to navigate underground passages filled with traps that had to be avoided or reset as they passed by. Sidestep could avoid most with a simple blink. Alan didn’t have that luxury.
They passed by a few patrols of guild members on the way to the throne room. The Black Rose guild’s methods of ensuring the entire base was safe and secure were odd. There were no regular patrols. Instead, semi-random groups of scouts were sent out periodically. If a particular area had gone a while without a scan the guards in that area would be alerted by an automated system.
The key areas of the base had guards resting inside or nearby. A pair of Phantom’s Specialists stood guard in the long dark hallway just outside the command post, never needing to rest.
Alan still couldn’t figure out how many androids Phantom possessed, or how the hell he was bypassing the in-game restrictions on how many robots you could command. Theoretically, Machine Commander would have allowed Alan to control up to a rank S drone, perhaps 10 rank A androids, but Enigma alone should have required at least half of Phantom’s allowance. Perhaps a few of the androids were actually players, but each time Alan scanned them with his bionic eye they checked out as robots.
Meetings weren’t held in the meeting room, because it controlled the base’s defenses; thus, only essential personnel that had gained a great deal of trust were allowed in. That was limited to current sitting members of the Council and their chosen protégés. Given that most of the Council was in the Abyss Labyrinth and Thrag had just left, that only left Aurora, Sidestep, and Alan.
Once inside, Alan activated divided mind, splitting off half of his mind to ensure the base’s Cyberspace was kept secure. In Cyberspace the Black Rose guild was a 3x3x3 cube of square rooms, with the center blocked off by shields. Most rooms controlled a key part of the facility, from defenses to waste disposal.
Each corner of the cube was a defense point that contributed to a large, powerful shield with two million energy. The corners of the cube also contained squadrons of five rank B units. Alan took a glance at their stats:
Elite Power Armor Marine, Rank B Program.
Heavy armor infantry combat program.
Cost: 1000 Energy.
Upkeep: 200 Energy.
Attack: 400 damage/sec. (Ranged.)
Defense: 50 armor.
Health: 500 hp.
Shields: 1000 Energy. (10 energy/sec regen.)
Movement: 5.
With the data Phantom had left it would take another week for Alan to finish researching these units himself. The units that defended the base were maintained by the base’s own data core, kept safe in the control room beneath the floor.
Now all Alan had to do was figure out how to survive against a massive self-replicating machine army supported by an additional army that outclassed, outgunned, and out-leveled them in every possible way.
***
After a few hours Aurora joined Sidestep and Alan in the throne room—it looked like she had something she wanted to discuss, as she immediately brought up a map of the Black Rose base on a console.
Sidestep rested his feet on the table, looking over the map Aurora displayed. Alan examined it as well.
Whoever had designed the base was a paranoid son of a bitch. The elevators, the long corridors, even the structure of the island had been carefully constructed to fool everyone—even the guild members living in the base—into thinking that the base went deep, deep underground. If that weren’t enough, projectors and optical illusions were used to give off the appearance of rooms and locations where there were none, all to hide the true shape and location of headquarters.
It wasn’t until just now that Alan learned the truth—only when your position in the guild was elevated were you allowed to look at a true map, and even then he was pretty sure the current blueprint he was looking at wasn’t the full thing.
According to the plans Alan had access to, the underground base was a 9x9x9 sided cube made up of massive rooms underneath the central island castle and surrounding sea. Each ‘room’ was an entire structure all on its own and was capable of movement, allowing the base to be reconfigured like a Rubik’s Cube. Entire rows, columns, and faces of the cube could shift about. In addition, individual rooms had the ability to trade places with others. Due to the control over gravity, the rooms could even move without the inhabitant’s realization. Overall, the base’s design reminded Alan of blue square blocks that he had used in math class growing up.
Only a quarter of the rooms seemed to serve any actual use, while another quarter of the spaces in the cube were empty, allowing for easier transformations of the base. There were five static locations in the base: four power generators located in corners of a 3x3x3 sided cube within the larger cube, and then a single hidden cube at the center of the larger one with a question mark in it. The control room was located beneath this central cube.
“So, what’s in the inner vault?” Sidestep asked, pointing at the question mark in the center.
“I don’t know. My mother didn’t grant me permission to enter the space or know what it contained,” Aurora answered.
“Since we’re now in charge or whatever, we should know,” Sidestep said. “Why not check it out?”
“There are contingencies in place, defenses I don’t have access to. Ignore that room,” Aurora said.
“But it’s at the center of the base, so obviously it’s important,” Sidestep said.
“Get your feet off the table,” Aurora said. “Remember what I said about respect.”
Sidestep shrugged, putting his feet on the floor. He turned to Alan. “Figure out anything helpful?”
Alan stretched his arms over his head. “The good news is the Haxlards are trying to convert wherever possible, rather than outright kill. They’re taking the time to comb through all the ships they’ve disabled, so it will be a while before they have complete control of the airspace around Khersath. The bad news is the Weaver has started to send scouting drones. We’re still screwed, outclassed in every measurable way even if we miraculously combined forces with the rest of the planet.”
“That’s your plan? Wait to get fucked? C’mon, man, I expect more from you,” Sidestep said.
“My instructions were to hold out as long as possible,” Aurora said.
I might be able to help with that, Lambda sent, outlining a plan of defense to Alan.
“Okay, I’m uploading the details of my strategy now,” Alan said.
Sidestep read over the proposal and voiced his thoughts aloud. “Only use autonomous defenses? Give up the entirety of our surface levels? This seems more like surrender than a plan.”
“No, I can see how this might work,” Aurora said. “We create the illusion that we evacuated. The Weaver is sending out scouting drones to try and find the pockets of strongest resistance. The main city blocks full of players are better targets than an empty guild base full of traps.”
“Am I the only one that wants to maybe, I don’t know, try to beat this Extinction Event?” Sidestep asked.
“We have zero chance to defeat the Weaver, but good odds of
earning a decent number of survival points,” Alan said. “We have 1000 guild members in the base, average level 1500. We’re going to run out of personnel far before we run out of ammo or food. Plus, each remaining player is another survival point for the guild every day. After a week we earn a survival point for every hour. We do need to ensure the safety of the power generators, but if we can guarantee at least two are under our control at all times, we should be good to go.
“The possibility for the reconfiguration of the base is meant for just such a scenario. We can hopefully kill off any initial scouts with the automatic defenses of the base, but then when the Haxlards breach the defenses we can ensure that they never locate any areas with players.”
“We hide,” Sidestep said.
“Yes, we hide and survive another day,” Alan said.
“One problem with that plan,” Sidestep said.
“What’s that?” Alan asked.
Sidestep pointed at a screen.
The Haxlard fleet just broke off from the Weaver, leaving the fleeing ships, Lambda sent. All major guilds in the Private Quadrant are being targeted.
A single capital ship was an army in and of itself. Each capital-class ship required a crew of at least ten thousand, and had a length of over a thousand meters, four aircraft carriers put end to end. Each had the firepower to wipe out an entire city, not even counting the escort of hundreds of smaller battleship and fighter-class ships. The entirety of Earth’s Space Force was comprised of a single capital ship. Ten were headed towards the Private Quadrant.
But only one of them should target the Black Rose guild, Lambda sent. Remember that there are many guilds within the Mercenary Bloc, and each has a base in the Private Quadrant.
A screen flickered into place beside Aurora. It came from the communications station, an adjacent room that handled the incoming and outgoing messages.
“A few other guild leaders are demanding to speak with Elissandra. They wish to form a united front against the incoming fleet and develop a plan of defense,” the officer said.
“Tell them that the Black Rose guild will see to our own defense,” Aurora said. “What are we facing?”
“A single capital-class ship, the Helios, as well as an assortment of smaller battleships: the Bastion, the Titan, the Rhea, and the Pile of Junk are currently set on a direct course for our location,” the officer said.
“Excuse me, what was the name of that last one?” Sidestep asked.
“Quiet, we need a plan of defense,” Aurora said.
If they know the Black Rose guild has no real fleet they can just sit up in space and fire off their long-ranged weapons, Lambda sent.
Alan looked over Lambda’s analysis, and then said, “We need to evacuate the upper floors, and shift the important locations two levels down. The Helios’s lasers will make short work of our surface defenses. Assuming the Haxlards don’t want to wait a few months burning through our defenses they’ll need to send in ground forces.”
“We need to start setting up traps, have pockets of defenses layered out in such a way to try to draw in and ambush Haxlardian forces without giving away where our generators and command center are placed,” Alan continued. “It’ll be like Stratego, this Earth board game that I used to play, but in three-dimensional space with—”
“Stop,” Aurora said. She pointed at Alan. “Your job is cybersecurity—to defend the base from Cyberspace attacks. This is not one of your board games. The rest of the guild is not under newbie protection. This is a matter of life and death for us. I have men and women who have trained their entire lives, and who have years of experience defending this base. I will meet with them now, and we will come up with a method of defense.”
Aurora left the room, telling the communications officer to connect her to all available squad commanders.
Don’t worry, they’ll probably come up with the same conclusions and plan, Lambda sent. I believe this to be Aurora’s first real command. Your suggestions need to be more like advice, and less like orders.
I’ll keep that in mind, Alan sent. He checked his divided mind, the half of his consciousness in Cyberspace defending the base. Nothing had happened.
“She’s right, this is a matter of life and death,” Sidestep said. He walked over to Alan, lowering his voice to speak. “You and I both know there’s probably weapons, items of great power in the inner vaults. They won’t do us any good sitting there, so we need to get them out and use them to defend this place. Do you think you can hack the vault and get us in?”
Alan hesitated, checking his permissions in Cyberspace. The twenty-six outer rooms were available, but he couldn’t enter the central square building of the 3x3x3 cube. He had a hunch that the controls to the vault lay inside, but he couldn’t get in. Alan realized that he didn’t detect anything in that part of Cyberspace—another inner shield with a million energy lay between him and the room.
With Lambda’s help, Alan could probably handle the twenty rank-B defense programs that were at the four corners of the base, but he had no idea what was inside the center chamber. It was a mystery, one that Alan didn’t like at all. Why was Aurora so insistent about keeping the central vault closed and off limits?
Back in the Game, Alan looked up at Sidestep, then shook his head. “No, we’d probably end up shooting ourselves in the foot. We should listen to Aurora, sit tight, and defend for as long as we can.”
Alan didn’t voice his other thought, that the interaction might be a set-up, a test of Alan’s trustworthiness. Sidestep had been a little too insistent about going against Aurora’s wishes.
Sidestep stared at Alan for a moment, then shrugged and sat down in one of the chairs, resting his feet on the table. He began browsing the globalnet.
Alan scanned the globalnet as well, trying to find any news from Earth. There wasn’t much information—it was too small of a place, too far away to be mentioned in the newscasts now that every major system, every capital planet, was under attack. Alan sent a message to Thiago instead, though he didn’t expect a reply anytime soon. The message had to be relayed through a series of ships and satellites instead of the in-game system, thus there was no guarantee Thiago would even get it. He wondered if Thiago would be emboldened or dissuaded by the Extinction Event.
A few minutes of silence passed, until Sidestep closed what he was reading.
“They never mention the waiting, the suspense,” Sidestep said. “All the holovids show is action—the thick of the fight, the heroic battle. But we’re useless here, aren’t we? All that matters is happening elsewhere. We’re no longer in control of our own destiny, and we never have been. I should have become a pilot.”
“Never too late for a career change,” Alan said.
“Oh, but it is,” Sidestep said. “The cost to get my abilities and implants replaced would be soul-crushing. I can’t just re-specialize. I was chosen, as a child, for this class, this career path. I don’t have the training for anything else.”
Sidestep stood up, immediately blinking in front of Alan. “Because the Game demands excellence. Whatever field you choose, whatever abilities you want to master, you had better be damn good, otherwise a million others that want your place—that want to kill you—will take it. And the sad truth is you’ll never be the best. Not with the Game as big as it is.”
What? Where is this anger coming from? Alan asked Lambda.
He’s a young man about to head off into his first war. A few nerves are to be expected, Lambda sent.
Alan shrugged, palms up. “So don’t specialize, learn as many abilities you can, grow in experience and wisdom slowly, but always continue to move forward. Though I will tell you one thing. I won’t ever stop trying, no matter the odds or the forces set against me.” Alan smirked. “I want to be the very best like no one ever was.”
“Didn’t figure you to be such an optimist,” Sidestep said.
Alan smiled, and then stopped. Since when had he been such an optimist? He had always thought himself
more pragmatic than anything else, yet now there seemed to be this constant undercurrent of hope, of calmness inside. Why wasn’t he as nervous as Sidestep, even though he was probably about to die an Extinction Event that would have lasting effects that forever changed the landscape of the Game?
Lambda, what have you done? Alan asked.
Nothing much, just readjusted a few chemical imbalances that Eve introduced, the kernels of truth—
I don’t want to hear any more preaching. Tell me in plain words what you have been doing, Alan sent.
I’m balancing your brain chemistry, Lambda sent. The Machine Lord implant, the capsules, not only regulates and influences your brain, but also introduces various chemicals into your system. It’s why you had such adverse side effects to the Berserker’s Blood—the chemicals compounded and didn’t mix well.
Why do you think Eve didn’t have you on a regimen of steroids from the beginning? She not only configured the Computer-Human Enhanced Interface to have your body creating natural testosterone from the get-go, but she introduced other things to make you feel more apathetic toward pursuits that wouldn’t have increased your in-game potential. I simply undid these changes. The positivism and general content might be due to a rebound, a rebalancing. Your brain is capable of much faster re-adjustments now that the rank A Machine Lord implant was installed in real life.
What? When did that take place? Alan sent.
It occurred discreetly, through the capsule, Lambda sent. While you were connecting to the Game I let the Archivists in, and their team upgraded your implant without disruption. Don’t worry, I monitored the entire process—nothing got past me.
But I never felt anything. Where was the in-game message? Alan sent.
This was an illegal transaction—the upgrade is not detected by the Game, but it is nevertheless present, Lambda sent. I was going to bring it up with you soon, as the upgrade allows for a few options for our yet-to-be-named AI.
I thought you understood, Alan sent. I just want to be myself.
Are any of us ever just ourselves? Lambda sent. We’re amalgamations of random events, circumstances beyond our control. Nothing exists in a vacuum. When we change, the space around us changes. And vice versa. This implant isn’t taking any of your choices away, or introducing new thoughts, it is simply allowing you to adapt to your circumstances faster than before.
