by Mark New
‘Do you really need bots?’ I asked my companion who was striding alongside me carrying his staff.
‘Yes,’ he sounded surprised, ‘the ones playing villagers are the ones who repair and maintain the vir-scape. The soldiers and knights protect the portal and the internal areas and most of the lords and ladies you’ll encounter are the AI level bots I use on errands Online.’
‘Are they the other AIs like you?’
He thought that was funny. ‘Just wait and you’ll see,’ he promised, ‘and the ones you’re referring to aren’t “like” me, they are me.’
We walked up the track towards the castle gates as I reflected that it wasn’t necessary to have walked at all. We could simply have entered the portal and landed in the castle if that was our ultimate destination. Avalon Red was demonstrating another human trait - he was showing off. I didn’t know if that could be turned to my advantage if necessary but further consideration of the point was lost when we met the mounted knight about halfway up the track. He reined in his horse and hailed my companion.
‘Greetings, Merlin.’
‘Sir William,’ replied Avalon Red, still using the booming druidic voice from the cave. ‘May I present Colonel John Harvard?’ Sir William raised a gloved hand in acknowledgement and I nodded my head.
‘We may have a lead on the Evil One,’ Sir William reported. I didn’t know who he meant but Red, naturally, did.
‘You may freely speak in front of my associate,’ he said. I was flattered. First I had been described as an ally, now I was an associate. At this rate of progress, I’d be a knight of Camelot by tea-time.
‘Our agent inside the Argonaut has sent word that he has detected activity from within that is most likely the work of the Evil One. He continues to investigate but also notes that a deep search by the guard there may mean he has to leave prematurely.’
‘Keep me informed, please. It is more important that our agent remain undiscovered than that he confirm his suspicions.’
‘Of course, Lord Merlin.’ Sir William saluted with a clenched fist over his heart - I refrained from laughing but it looked horribly clichéd to me - and with a nod to me urged his horse into a canter down the hill. I watched him go and then turned to Avalon Red.
‘You didn’t need to have that conversation at all,’ I accused him. ‘You and he could have easily transmitted the appropriate data between you in milliseconds.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘But there was good reason to do it in the way we did.’
‘Oh?’
‘Apart from sheer politeness, I need you to be able to understand what’s happening so I’ve ordered all of the bots to operate as though they were gamebots.’
Manners maketh the lifeform, I mused. We had taken a couple of steps towards the gates when I suddenly stopped. Red stopped as well as looked at me.
‘Something wrong?’
‘No, I just thought to ask how long has this been up and running?’ I waved a hand around randomly. He may have had a very long time to make it this perfect.
‘This Avalon scenario?’ He was grinning. ‘This is my long-standing lair. I created it about fifteen years ago. I know what you’re thinking, though, and you’re wrong. It’s always been this good.’ I wasn’t sure I believed him but this was undeniably some feat of tech engineering to set it up looking so perfect. ‘I have a number of other vir-game scenarios filed that I can construct in relatively short order if I need them. Most of the time my sites are simply chaotic void. It’s not like I need anything other than the room Online affords in normal circumstances but I wanted one fixed home, and I suppose that’s how I think of this.’
‘So how many people, real people, have you entertained here?’
‘Including you?’ We had reached the highest point of the path and now it was a hundred yards or so of flat path to the gates. The gate guards, resplendent in red and white, did the funny salute as they spotted us approaching, and one of them turned to open the inset gate that was used for pedestrians. It probably had a name that had been used since medieval times but I didn’t know it. I made a note to look it up if I ever got the chance.
‘Including me,’ I nudged him.
‘One.’
Honour indeed. I hoped I lived up to the billing.
We entered through the little gate and found ourselves in an outer courtyard. That probably had a special name too. We crossed the small grassed area between thick stone walls and went into the main gatehouse. I was impressed with the size of the place but chose not to say so. There were more guards on duty wearing the red and white surcoats. Now that I could see them up close, the emblem seemed to be a Maltese Cross in red on a white background. I was out of sight of the flag but it was reasonable to assume that it bore the same device. From the gatehouse we entered the main courtyard. It was another example of a history lesson I must have missed because I had no idea what that was properly called, either.
There were some workers with a hay cart in one corner trying to persuade the ox harnessed to it to move and a couple of well dressed women walking away from us towards the entrance to the central keep. I was pretty confident that was what the big stone tower was called. The castle fulfilled every dream I ever had as a young boy about being a knight in the middle ages. It would be true to say, however, that as a young boy I was more interested in being a more modern soldier. Honestly, if I had stuck with being a knight I might have had a lot less trouble as an adult.
Red pointed at the keep. ‘There’s a meeting chamber at the back of the keep,’ I congratulated myself for my knowledge of castle architecture, ‘where you’ll get the briefing you’ve been longing to hear.’ I couldn’t miss the irony in his voice. More and more I was sure that he was no kind of seneschal I’d ever encountered. I still wasn’t convinced about his claim of sentience. As far as I was concerned, it was up to him to prove it to me. Extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary proof and all that.
‘Nice castle,’ I complimented him. ‘Not the kind of thing you just throw up in thirty minutes, is it?’
‘Thank you,’ he was amused. ‘No, it must have taken at least four hours back in the day.’ If vir-games designers had heard that, they would have wept. Creating this kind of vir-scape would take a design team many years, if they could have matched it at all. ‘It’s a concentric layout reminiscent of thirteenth century castle construction. Actually, it’s nearly an exact copy of Beaumaris Castle on Angelsey except that I had to re-jig it to fit the hilltop contours and I reduced the size of the gatehouses and inserted a central keep.’
‘All while tracking bad guys, working out the plot and getting locked in caves?’
‘The getting locked in caves part came after the building was done,’ he reminded me.
‘You forgot the moat,’ I said, helpfully. He turned his head to look at me as we ascended the handful of wide steps to the entrance to the keep.
‘You’ve been to Beaumaris?’
‘No,’ I had to admit, ‘but castles have moats, don’t they?’
‘Not always. Not if they’re built on hills.’ Good point.
‘But you’re confident that you can withstand a siege without one?’
He chuckled. ‘There are three wells in the inner ward to provide fresh water from the underground spring and there are enough provisions in the warehouses to feed the castle inhabitants for six months.’
‘Really?’ He was taking this game design stuff very seriously. As we entered the main door to the keep he laughed so loudly that the two women who had preceded us looked back and smiled.
‘No, you dumbass, it’s not real!’
I didn’t feel at all stupid as we strode into the great hall. After all, I’d learned today that the courtyard was called a ward. That had to count for something.
Red’s laughter was just beginning to tail off as he led me through the door situated on the left at the rear of the hall into a wide passage that extended parallel with the wall. Halfway along on our left again was a doubl
e door guarded by two more knights who executed the salute in perfect unison. They then reached behind them and opened both doors wide for us. I was maybe two steps into the chamber before I realised what it was and I abruptly halted, gaping. Red - who was directly in front of me now - turned with a flourish, robe flapping, and lifted his staff about a foot off the ground while raising his other hand in the air above his head.
‘Colonel John Harvard, I bid you welcome to the Round Table.’
There in front of me, in the cavernous chamber decked with coats of arms, was a huge ornate round table inlaid with marble and around it were high-backed equally ornate chairs, all but two of which were occupied by knights wearing the red cross on their surcoats. It was in every single detail exactly what you would expect to see if you were really present with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The effect was breathtaking. I was a veteran of Online and I’d seen some pretty amazing things there, not to mention some deeply unpleasant ones, but this was the first time in my life that I have ever been completely lost for words.
I heard the guards close the doors behind me as I stood there in what could fairly be described as awe. As soon as Avalon Red had finished speaking, the knights rose as one and turned to face me, making the fist salute as they did so. Red himself walked around the table to one of the three empty chairs.
‘Hello,’ I said feebly. The knights resumed their seats. Red sat down as well and indicated the empty chair situated nearest the door.
‘That’s yours,’ he said.
I walked slowly up to the table until I reached the chair, half glancing at the different coats of arms displayed on the walls. I grasped the back of the seat and pulled it out, which was when I noticed that it had an inscription on the inside face. I vaguely recalled that, in the legend, the chairs around the table bore the names of the knights. As I went to sit, I read the inscription on it.
‘Oh, hell,’ I murmured. There was general amusement around the table.
In flowery font on the inside of the back of the chair was written in large friendly letters: ‘Siege Perilous’.
Chapter Twelve
I sat down and lived. That was something of a pleasant discovery as I remembered that the Siege Perilous was fatal to those not worthy to put their backsides upon it. I almost chuckled aloud at the thought that I’d become a Knight of the Round Table well in advance of tea-time. Merlin watched my tentative place-taking with a degree of amusement.
‘I see you’re familiar with the legends.’
‘Enough to know that not everyone likes sitting here,’ I told him. ‘Won’t Sir Galahad want it back?’
‘Or Sir Percival. I haven’t decided which version of the myth we’re playing.’ So he hadn’t had time to work out all the details of the vir-scape. It was almost like he had more pressing concerns. He indicated the assembled knights. ‘Each of these is me. We can work together or individually and share information or collate it later, depending on the task at hand. I think of it as working vertically and horizontally but I doubt that will help you to understand it better. Mostly we retain a connection but there are odd times when that isn’t possible.’
‘Like when one of us is locked in a portal,’ said the knight to Merlin’s immediate left, drily.
‘I hope that won’t be a regular occurrence,’ Merlin said to him. Then he turned to me and pointed at his colleague.
‘This is King Arthur. We each tend to specialise and he is in charge of security.’ I tried to wrap my head around the idea that someone’s brain could be partitioned and yet still work as one. I failed entirely.
‘It isn’t often that all of us are together in one actual geographical location like this,’ Arthur told me. I did a quick head count but failed to remember how many there were in the legends so the exercise was futile. One seat was still empty, though. ‘One of our number has been slightly delayed. You should feel honoured. We’re only together for your benefit. Merlin thought it would be helpful.’
‘I’m the command aspect,’ Merlin added.
‘Isn’t Arthur the king?’ I was just trying to be difficult.
‘I wouldn’t get too carried away with the simulation,’ Merlin warned. ‘I just wanted a frame of reference people could understand. It might be instructive if you monitored the datastreams in here.’
I gave it a go. Even with the upgrades, the implants could barely comprehend the traffic I saw in front of me. It reminded me a little of the maps of air traffic years ago where you could just about see the main routes around major airports on a map that’s covered with increasingly thin filaments showing all of the hundreds of flights. What I saw here was like that but even more complex. I realised very quickly that, unlike in the usual Online flow, I had no chance of isolating even one of the larger bands. They flickered, died and were replaced faster than I could follow and I had to concentrate to avoid becoming dizzy in the multitude of colours and shapes. I was still highly sceptical about the claim of sentience but I had to concede that I’d never before encountered this level of activity even in the most sophisticated military AI. And my mind spun when I threw in the concept of all of these hubs being able to act independently as well as in concert.
‘That’s a pretty lively set of comms you have there,’ I commented.
‘Now you see how concerned we were when Merlin was cut off for a while,’ Arthur told me. ‘It would be like asking you to manage for a few hours without your right arm.’
‘I didn’t know what I was dealing with,’ I said. I wasn’t going to apologise for my trap. ‘I still don’t.’
‘No, quite right,’ said the knight to my right. ‘I think the time has come to rectify the gaps in your knowledge.’
‘Sir Belvedere is my information aspect,’ Merlin put in.
‘I wasn’t criticising, Colonel Harvard.’ Arthur hadn’t finished yet. ‘I was going to add that I was most impressed at your tactics. I don’t often encounter someone who can surprise me.’
‘I’m full of surprises,’ I grinned. My main preoccupation was that I was starting to get confused at the use of pronouns. I sort of understood that they were all aspects of Avalon Red but they seemed to use ‘we’ and ‘I’ interchangeably and it was a little difficult to follow whether Arthur meant himself as the security aspect was impressed or whether he was speaking for the whole entity.
‘I would suggest an information download, if you’re agreeable,’ Sir Belvedere spoke again. Seeing my look of concern he looked at Merlin.
‘As you’re here in my Online location, I could send a compressed info-dump directly into your implant,’ Merlin said. ‘Once you have it, you can review it at leisure. It will take some time for you to absorb all of the information so we can arrange to meet again when you’re better informed.’
‘He’ll be concerned about bots,’ Arthur reminded him.
‘Oh, yes, thank you. The security software in the upgrades should give you reasonable comfort that I’m not putting in anything malicious. The download will take milliseconds and you can run whatever protection programs you like before you run it.’
I thought about it. I had been sitting in the Siege Perilous without ill-effects and Avalon Red and I had traded a handful of confidences which had seemed to cement a fledgling working relationship. Was the next level accepting a download? What he had said about my security was true. If I discovered something I didn’t like, I could reject the download without opening it. It was improbable that he could conceal anything that would reveal itself only when opened. It wasn’t like I was an amateur at this game. I looked at Sir Belvedere.
‘Go ahead,’ I said, more decisively than I felt. He nodded.
It arrived so fast I couldn’t believe it. He had barely finished nodding before my implants told me there was a waiting download in my cortex. I immediately ran the full security sweep over it and received the all-clear. I ran it again just to be sure and added a bespoke program of my own for luck. It was still negative.
‘Happy?’ as
ked Merlin.
‘Yes, it seems fine. Do I need to look at it now?’
‘No. It’s mainly background but it’ll give you an idea of my origins and what we’re up against. I’d be grateful if you would treat it as highly confidential.’
‘No problem.’ It really wasn’t. There was nothing currently in existence that would prise it from my implants without my express permission. If the worst happened, I could wipe it in an instant.
From across the table, another knight spoke.
‘Sir Bors,’ he introduced himself. ‘I’m taking the lead on the present case. If you don’t mind, I’d like to clarify something you said at the meeting at Argonaut?’
‘We were listening through the botbug,’ Arthur put in. I’d never heard an implanted bug called a botbug before. I smiled broadly and resolved to use the term myself.
‘Ask away,’ I said to Sir Bors.
‘Two things only, as we would prefer not to all be in one location for too long. The king will shout at us if we linger.’ Arthur nodded sagely. I noted once more a sense of humour unusual in a seneschal. I was really going to have to visit a comedy store to see how the specialist AIs handled it. ‘Firstly, you sent them off to look for a cryptid. May I ask why?’
‘Because it’s close enough to what they’re really looking for that it won’t impede the search but it doesn’t give away that I know what it is really; a truly rogue AI - possibly even an irrational - that may be under the control of an external agency but has a wide latitude of autonomy.’ I saw everyone around the table look at each other knowingly and I briefly wondered whether I had been wrong. Sir Bors just nodded thoughtfully and went on. ‘Secondly, you said you knew what the link was between Meille and Peters and you declined to tell them. What link did you find?’
‘That’s easy,’ I said, looking at Merlin. ‘There isn’t one. At least, there isn’t one other than the bequest in Meille’s will and you,’ I waved my left hand in Merlin’s direction, ‘are the one who inserted that paragraph into it in the fraction of a second between the probate office releasing it and a human reading it.’ There was silence around the table and I had the horrible feeling that I’d just transgressed in some way. Feeling that further explanation was required, I added: ‘I saw that when I looked at the original record in Quebec. They didn’t have the ‘ware in that old system to see that the last paragraph wasn’t part of the original and, to be fair, they had no reason to look.’ I tapped my head. ‘The upgrades spotted the addition as it could detect the difference in the timestamp on the original and the addition, short though it was.’ I wasn’t joking either, the difference had been less than a millionth of a second. Even the implant program had needed to work hard to see it. That was why I’d concluded that only a seneschal could have timed the insertion correctly.