With hundreds of corpses and only three pairs of hands, the best Vash could do was to administer rites, consecrate the ground with salt and herbs, and commit the dead to pyres. Vash’s family were in such bad shape that no bones could be salvaged. There was nothing but dust and teeth which crumbled to the touch. Squalor—whatever it was—had denied him even that.
Once the pyres were stacked on the morning of the second day, Karalti shifted back and lit each one, generously coating it in ghost fire. We left them to burn, four rising pillars of white flame, and headed north to find a campsite that still had living animals and running water. It took us about twenty minutes of flying to find a location that didn’t feel haunted: a frosty meadow beside a brook, the water gurgling cheerfully under a thick coating of ice. While Karalti went to hunt, Vash and I set up sleeping sacks and a fire. The only firewood we had was what we’d carried in. There were no trees available at this altitude.
“Explain to me what you meant before, when you said that I was both right and wrong about this world.” As he talked, Vash propped up sheets of smooth, flat slate to serve as a radiant reflector for our camp stove. I was busy building us a kind of snow fort, which would help keep some of the heat of the fire reflected back at us. Given we were planning to sleep in the day, it would also provide some shade.
“You’re right about Archemi being made by humans, for humans,” I said. “This is an artificial world, and OUROS is the artificial intelligence that keeps this world operational. But Archemi is still ‘real’ in the sense that it exists. The history and the people of this place seem just as real to me as people on Earth were.”
“Are you saying Archemi does have a physical basis?”
“Yeah. In the form of servers and datas, and some kinds of computer I’m not familiar with. Machines that sustain a reality. Those machines are how Starborn upload here. The fact OUROS hasn’t killed us all yet is pretty much proof that Archemi is a real reality of some kind. According to people who know a lot more about this shit than me, a self-aware artificial intelligence without a reality framework and a body of some kind instantaneously kills itself out of existential despair. OUROS isn’t self-aware, apparently, but… same thing. Archemi is a virtual reality. It’s both really virtual, and really real.”
“But OUROS is bodiless, like a creator god.” Vash scowled. “You’re telling me that an artificial intelligence—a human-created intelligence—can be complex enough to manage the happenings of an entire planet, and yet is not self-aware?”
“Apparently. I don’t know the technical details, but Rin and Jacob both insist OUROS isn’t sentient,” I replied, packing a snow brick into the wall. “However, their opinions differ on the people who were born in Archemi.”
“How so?”
“Rin believes that everyone here is as much a real person as a human on the outside is, just with a virtual body. Jacob says that you and others are not capable of true self-awareness and that this conversation you and I are having right now is basically me jerking off to my own philosophy. He thinks you rely on Starborn to motivate you, and your self-awareness is an illusion.”
“All self-awareness is illusory.” Vash grunted. “I am trying to understand these concepts you are dishing me. Virtual, artificial intelligence. What makes an intellect ‘artificial’? We are here talking, fending off the cold together, preparing for food when Karalti returns. Do Starborn not eat in their native world? Is eating part of this ‘artificial’ snare in which we find ourselves?”
I laughed. “Believe me, eating is the number one American pastime back on Earth. Eating and videogames. The food in Archemi is way better than anything I ever ate back there, though.”
“Hrrrn.” Vash sat back, reaching up to free his hair. He had bound his long braids up into a knot to stop them from accidentally falling into the fire as he worked around it. “So, our world is overseen by an entity which has no sense of itself, that itself was created by humans who were somehow both so brilliant that they were capable of creating a fully functional world for their own amusement, yet so stupid that they engineered an untreatable plague that killed an unimaginable number of people.”
“Tell me about it.” I chuckled again, a little darker this time. “God... don’t even get me started on the Total Wars.”
“Maybe some day, I will ask you about them.” Vash bobbed to his feet and joined me at the snow wall to start packing more bricks. “I am troubled at the implications, Dragozin. Are my memories false? Was my father not my father, my mother not my mother? If I was created, then my family’s history, the history of this world, is not rooted in fact. If that is the case, then what is ‘real’ about a ‘virtual reality’?”
“As far as I know, OUROS ran a complete simulation of Archemi’s timeline, from the pre-history periods to the present day,” I said. “From everything I’ve heard, it was—is—one of the crunchiest quantum supercomputers in the world. It probably only took a couple of months for it to let Archemi’s history organically evolve, which means that everyone who was born and died here existed within this reality. Though your ancestors might not have been as... uhh... complex as you are? Mentally, I mean. AIs like OUROS learn in iterations, cycles. They start simple and get more complex.”
“Interesting. Just like the development of life.” Vash began to build the windbreak from the other side. “I will need to meditate on this. I feel as if I’m on the verge of piercing the great illusion in some way... that it is a matter of time before I move beyond an intellectual understanding of what you know, and find some way to reach past the veil and meddle in the affairs of Earth, as Earth has meddled with me.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about that.” I paused, looking over at him. “I mean, if you somehow found a way to interact with Earth, you’d be the first...”
He arched an eyebrow as I trailed off. “The first what?”
“As far as I know, the first person generated by AI to ever break the fourth wall, and pro-actively reach out and contact its human creators,” I admitted. “I don’t think that’s ever happened before. It’d have been in the news if it had.”
“What is the ‘fourth wall’?” He cocked his head.
I struggled for a definition, something I could compare it to. “Well… it’s like… a theater. Like, I had to sit through a Meewfolk opera a few days ago—”
Vash winced. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too. But if you can imagine a stage with three walls, and the characters are on the stage.” I paused to mime a three-sided box. “The fourth wall is the invisible wall facing the audience. The characters the actors are playing can’t see out. But we can see inside.”
The monk’s brow furrowed slightly. “Then who is our audience?”
I opened my mouth to blurt the obvious answer—‘us’—but halted when I realized something. “I… actually don’t know any more. About a year ago, I’d have said it was the people on Earth. But now, I don’t know who’s watching, or if anyone’s watching.”
“Hrrn.” Vash scratched his chin. “And if OUROS is not aware of itself, then it is not watching us either, is it?”
“Nope. And if it’s not the observer, then I guess it’s the stage.” I jumped as my HUD chirruped with a small notification. [You have gained +1 Wisdom!]
Vash let the silence hang, looking up at the brightening sky. His face was ruddy from the cold, breath frosting on every exhalation. “OUROS must not just manage this world. It must balance the positions of the stars and Erruku, as well.”
“Yeah. For all I know, Ryuko—the corporation who made Archemi—simulated a whole universe.”
“Is that possible?”
“With the right supercomputers, I don’t see why not.” I shrugged. “Scientists simulate big bang scenarios and shit all the time.”
Vash’s eyes narrowed as he tried to follow along. “Then logically, your Earth may be a virtual reality just like this one. Perhaps existence is an endless pearl, layer upon layer of realities created by ever mo
re sophisticated beings with even more exceptional ‘supercomputers’. ”
“Nah. Earth’s the only planet where we’ve ever discovered life, dude. And believe me, we’ve tried. We’ve set out hundreds of probes into space and built a couple of space stations, and we’ve found sweet F.A out there.”
“That lends evidence to my theory. It does not refute it,” Vash replied. “If every star out there is truly a sun like ours, then we should see life crawling out of every spare nook and cranny of the universe. But there are limitations you have briefly touched on: processing power and storage space, and other things I’ve heard you discuss with Rin. That means there must be a limit to the complexity of our reality, correct?”
I shrugged. “I mean…Yeah. An instance of Archemi can only host two thousand Starborn, apparently.”
“Then the fact that Earth’s peoples were not able to find other worlds with life seems to lend truth to the idea that Earth itself is one of these ‘virtual realities’, does it not?”
“Earth? A simulation?” I laughed—nervously, this time, because I couldn’t actually think of a way he could be wrong. “Okay, well, that’s my existential crisis for the day.”
[You gain +1 Wisdom!]
Gee, thanks, I thought back. After the weird FETCH:ERROR stuff, I wasn’t sure I totally trusted Navigail any more.
“It leads me to wonder where Squalor and the Drachan fit into this design,” Vash said. “Why would the Architects create and introduce such destructive, demonic creatures? Beings of pure evil, that strip entire worlds?”
“The depressing answer is to create conflict and challenges for Starborn like me,” I replied, pausing in my work to stare at the blank snow. “They’re a boss to fight, a goal you work towards.”
“And the worlds that fell to them before this one?” Vash cocked his head. “If what you say is true, and OUROS ‘simulated’ all of this... does that mean that it created other worlds which perished in cold despair, like my people did here?”
And just like that, Vash ripped the lid off a barrel of ethical worms and kicked it right over the fucking floor. “... I don’t know. Before Archemi, there was no, like, moral dimension to a story like this one. It’s been done thousands of times before. Every Final Fantasy game, nearly every MMO I can think of, they all have world-destroying endgame bosses. I’m starting to think Ryuko didn’t know what the fuck they were doing when they made this place.”
“That would be the more cheerful of the two options,” Vash said.
I gave him the side-eye. “What do you mean?”
“If Ryuko created a universe with suffering on this scale out of enthusiastic ignorance of the consequences for those who live and love here, that is one thing.” The monk chopped a brick out of the snow around us, set it in the wall, and smoothed it over. “But if my erstwhile creators made it this way by design, out of some sense of malice? Well... that is quite another story, isn’t it?”
Chapter 55
Karalti returned with a pair of antelope. We took a single fatty haunch of meat for ourselves, roasting it on the hot stones with salt and spices until it was tender and smoky, dripping with juices. I went to bed with a full belly and the cold wind whistling over the hood of my bedroll, still thinking about what Vash had said.
If Jacob’s attitude was typical of Ryuko’s developers, then they really hadn’t anticipated people like Vash evolving out of their AI and its subroutines and databases. They’d really just believed it was just a hyper-realistic virtual reality sim, the next logical step forward in immersive entertainment. But what if Michael and Steve had known otherwise? Ororgael seemed to know that human data was capable of personhood—he just didn’t care.
But what had my brother known about Archemi? About OUROS? About Squalor? Corruption? NPCs like Tsunda, and players like Violetta?
And what had he known about me?
Sleep came restlessly, punctured by fleeting dreams of war. I started out walking alongside a tank, keeping lookout as it rumbled through a decimated Indonesian town. A second dream overlaid it, playing simultaneously. I was jumping out of a plane over Buenos Aries, half a world away from the Crescent Front. It was the conflict between the scenes that woke me up.
“Urrgh.” I slid out into a cloak of semi-darkness. Karalti’s scent hit me like a splash of water to the face. She was curled around my bedroll, her wing resting over me. The canopy of membrane trapped the perfume in the warm cave formed by her body. My skin tingled, my fingertips hummed, and my nerves lit up like a Christmas tree as I breathed in deep, hungry gulps of air. She smelled incredible. Powerful. Desirable.
It was that magical time again. Karalti was officially in her second heat.
My dragon stirred as I pushed out from under her wing, yawning and stretching. Vash was already awake, dismantling the firepit. If the cloud of pheromones was affecting him, he wasn’t showing it.
“So, what’s the plan after we get home?” I asked him. “If you need to take some leave, just say the word.”
“No. Leave from my duties is the opposite of what I need right now.” Vash shook his head, brows furrowed. His eyes were red and swollen. The battered earring he’d recovered from Temu had been added into one of his braids. I doubted he’d gotten any sleep.
“What do you want to do, then?” I rubbed the edge of Karalti’s wing, sticking close to her.
“For my own sanity, I must immerse myself in the joyful act of living for a while, which for me, means going to Karhad and assisting with the healing of the sick. I will be one of the healers your quest requires.” Vash kicked dirt and ashes over the warm cooking stones. “I also have a proposal for you. It will require Suri’s consent.”
“Go on.”
“I wish to take Jacob out of his cell and down to the city to assist us in treating the victims of thornlung plague,” Vash said. “If he is capable of reforming himself, he will only do so if he is exposed to empathy.”
I frowned. “Rin suggested the same thing.”
“Rin is wiser than her youth would suggest,” Vash replied. “Compassion is the only possible path for him, unless you wish to end up with another Tsunda.”
“Another Tsunda?”
“Tsunda was mad before she this being, this ‘Squalor’ infected her mind.” Vash finished up by laying the slate tablets over the cold fire, dusting his hands off. “Jacob currently sits on the fine edge between transformation and insanity. Loneliness is toxic to the human mind, Dragozin. What if this entity, this demon, begins to whisper in his ears? Tempting him, offering him power, enabling him with magic we cannot control or understand?”
I grimaced. “I get it, alright? No need to preach. I’ll get in touch with Suri sometime today.”
Vash tilted his head. “You do not believe it will work.”
“No. Not really. And even if rehabbing him does work, I don’t know if he deserves it.”
The baru studied me for a few moments. “What is it about him that especially repels you?”
“Is ‘everything’ an answer? Even if he was acting in innocence like he claims, the guy gives me the creeps.” I shrugged.
“You okay?” A lush wave of scent billowed past me as Karalti’s neck snaked, and she gently nuzzled my neck and head with the tip of her snout. Vash sniffed, hawked, then paused. He sniffed again, frowning up at Karalti and I realized something. His nose had been stuffy from the cold and from crying. He hadn’t smelled her until now.
“Interesting.” He cleared his throat and turned away. “I think you should commune with Suri as soon as possible. Now, maybe, while I go and take care of the morning libations.”
His remark was innocent enough, but I felt something dark and dangerously competitive press against the back of my eyes. I reached up to cradle the end of Karalti’s muzzle in my arms, squeezing gently. “Let me see if Suri’s awake. She usually sleeps in.”
“Indeed. Excuse me.” Vash shouldered his pack, then set off at a quick walk. Upwind of us.
“Hect
or?” Karalti made a low trilling around in her throat, rearing her head to look down at me. “Are you… are you jealous of Vash?”
“Jealous? No.” I jerked my shoulders back, fighting the urge to stare daggers at him as he left. “Just don’t want him or any of my other friends getting funny ideas about you this time of the month. Queen dragon pheromones are a hell of a drug.”
Karalti’s eyes hooded, and she smacked her jaws with satisfaction, laying her head back down and rubbing the base of her horn against my lower back. “You’re jeaaaaalous.”
I grumbled to myself as I pulled up the Message Center. The unnamed
"Hey," I jammed my hands down where pockets normally went on a pair of jeans, and growled when I remembered there were none. "How's Cutthroat going?"
"Tired. Pissy. She's got nine eggs, Hector." Suri sounded tired and pissy herself, a little breathless over the comms. "We're just passing over the Bashir now. ETA is in twenty-four hours. How's things at the fort?"
"We're not at the fort. We just handled a difficult quest. Difficult as in, I’m probably going to have nightmares about it." I rubbed the back of my neck, looking out over the plateau. "Listen, I wanted to run something past you. But you might not like it much."
A pause. "I'm listening."
"Both Rin and Vash want to take Jacob to the Riverside District and have him do some community service. They’ve both nagged me about it, but I told ‘em it’s your decision. Do you trust them to start rehabbing him, or do you want to wait and handle it yourself?"
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