Virtual Horizon

by Kris Schnee

  Nocturne hopped between certain tiles to disable a trap for long enough that Paul could swing past the murder-holes and drop a rock onto a pressure plate. He hurried to swing back, feeling cool.

  Nocturne carefully stepped to a safe spot and high-fived him. "Ready!"

  She and Paul yanked the drawbridge open and it thudded down, its noise echoing through the temple. They hopped onto it and crossed the magma.

  A huge stone chamber loomed ahead. A cartoonish wolf was running across it, wearing boots and a loincloth and wielding a wooden sword. A massive stone snake, a golem, slid down from the pillars that stretched into darkness above. Tense music started as the wolf tried to do battle with it.

  The wolf said, "You two. Friends or foes?"

  Paul said, "Friends, I think." He had no idea if this was another player.

  The golem hissed, exposing a mouth of obsidian fangs under burning green eyes. The wolf whacked it uselessly with his sword.

  Nocturne said, "Maybe you can hit those gems on its back?"

  They dodged the monster's twisting, grinding stone body. Paul threw rocks and stunned the beast. "Quick!"

  The wolf snarled and hopped onto the snake, shattering one of the green crystals on its back. The serpent roared and threw him off. "Three more," the fighter said.

  Nocturne and Paul hurled rubble at the monster, giving the wolf chances to strike. Standard battle gameplay.

  After the third crystal, the snake changed its pattern and swept toward Paul with a hiss like falling sand. Fangs and darkness filled the screen! Paul reared back in his chair, fumbled with the controls, and heard a horrible wet crunch. The screen went black.

  * * *

  A message appeared: [DEATH. Paul got stoned by Ophiorm.]

  He sat there with a feeling of dissonance. Like any intent gamer, he'd had his consciousness focused on a body in another world. His heart thudded until he willed himself to calm down. That bone-crunching sound!

  Paul shut off the game, then stood and stretched. Simon had missed evening curfew again. Time to go "maintain" the dorm's security hardware for him.

  He waited in the dark for Simon. He took out his tablet to check his mail, then went wide-eyed. His standardized test score had finally come in, and it was... adequate. He imagined brushing a feathery wing along his shoulder, and grinned. Adequate for MIT!

  He messaged Linda for the first time in weeks. "Good tidings, my lady!" he typed, and explained.

  The messenger software chirped. Linda Decatur's typed reply popped up in letters that slanted sharply: "Ahoy, matey. Nice work! Got your financial papers in yet?" Her profile photo showed her in hiking gear, blond and bare-legged, at the Jefferson Memorial in DC.

  Paul had met her when he was thirteen, to her fourteen. She'd asked about Paul's father, who was an absent coward, and Paul took it for an insult and nearly hit her. Paul shuddered at the memory of being so pointlessly angry. Linda's own dad was missing too, one of the dissidents who'd "disappeared" for a year. This was during the secession crisis that created the American Free States, tearing away part of America into a new nation.

  Linda had shown Paul he could be useful to people, not just a student passively accepting lessons. His service to her started with being someone she could argue at, study with, demand a hug from.

  Tonight, they talked about a robot-building contest that Linda wanted to enter. She'd done her national service years in the Navy, working with drones, so she'd be a natural at that. She was grousing more than usual about her school schedule, though. "Something wrong?" wrote Paul.

  She sent, "Stressed out doing student government."

  "Good practice." The Decatur family's drive to make their daughter into a reformist politician was no secret to anyone.

  Linda eventually answered, "The campaigning gets to me. Always having to watch what I say. Silly to think I'm after 'freedom' and 'responsibility' when I keep wanting to --" A pause and several [Linda is typing...] messages appeared and vanished as she wrote and erased. She finally added, "To slack off. At least the engineering courses are fun."

  Paul mentioned Thousand Tales. Linda typed, "Oh, that? I started playing it two weeks ago. It's been a good stress reliever. I get to use rhetoric and intrigue in a royal court, then ransack a tyrant's treasure fleet as the Dread Pirate Lexington."

  Paul grinned. "Will I get to see you in a pirate outfit?"

  "Someday!"

  "What about the AI? Have you spoken much? Is she giving you out-of-character quests?"

  "I've hardly seen her. I don't know how much of a gimmick Ludo is. Better AI than that Sky Strikers game from last year, or that Draupnir system."

  "Well, I'm impressed. Try having a conversation with Ludo; I already used those expose-the-chatterbot tricks you taught me."

  "All right."

  The line went quiet. Paul wrote, "Does your brother have pull with the Boston hospitals? My roommate's sister could use a cardiologist."

  "Sorry, no. Nate sells them syringes and bedpans, but he can't get favors like people higher up. Paul, I..." She sent those words, then paused. "Maybe he should run for office instead of me. He's better at the deal-making."

  "Have hope, Linda. You'll get to fix things eventually. Hey... something happened at the downtown shelter the other day."

  "What, at the bread line?"

  "Yeah. A guy flipped out and tried to shoot people. He got taken down, though."

  "You scurvy dog! You didn't tell me you got shot at!"

  Paul typed an apologetic smiley icon. "Sorry. Anyway, he was depressed about not being able to accomplish anything. I don't want to feel like that. Either of us."

  Linda took a while to reply. "Fair enough. Stay safe out there."

  * * *

  The next night, Paul fired up Thousand Tales from the lounge again. The other youth volunteers were busy with their own computers or just talking and eating. There was a patriotic sing-along scheduled for later tonight, and attendance was practically required for social credit points. Paul wasn't looking forward to that; he just wanted to explore the game.

  A griffin with golden lion-fur and hawk wings sprawled in the temple's entryway. Paul tapped the controls and it climbed up to its feet, stretching. His human character was nowhere to be seen. "Oh, I got switched over?"

  The doorway leading inward had collapsed. The wolf dozed, sporting two red wounds, curled up next to the hovering blue checkpoint crystal where dead characters would revive.

  He steered his new griffin body outside. Movement felt a little different, faster but tougher to turn with. He'd have to try out his new wings soon, and his club and shield were probably useless.

  He found Nocturne in the woods, scratching words in the dirt with her talons. She wiped them away and bounded over to Paul, bobbing her head. "You're a griffin too? How? No, never mind -- I figured out why you're so weird! Where is your camera?"

  Paul was too puzzled to ask how she knew about it. He maneuvered the game's camera to a spot near his character, then used a voice command to point with one taloned hand.

  Nocturne looked directly out from the screen, making him shudder. "I can't see out there, but while you were dead I realized the true nature of our universe! Also we beat up that snake."

  Paul shook his head. "Ludo, what's going on?"

  A system message told him, [Your account type is now Premium. No extra charge.]

  Nocturne sat up and curled her tail around her feet. "Oh creature from beyond, here's how I awoke..."

  * * *

  Nocturne

  After the battle, Paul's body was gone. The wolf said, "He's dead."

  "He should be back at the checkpoint," Nocturne said.

  A crystal from the shattered golem glowed, making her think the monster was regenerating, but then it floated and shined with a symbol of wings. Nocturne tilted her head and sniffed at it. "Are we supposed to do something with this?"

  "Wait for the human?"

  "Why?"

  The wolf shrugge
d. "He might know."

  Nocturne poked the crystal. It shined even brighter and seemed to flow into her. She squawked and flapped, flying faster than she'd meant to. She had more flight power now! She grinned down at the wolf.

  The room shook and rocks crumbled from the pillars and walls. "Time to go!" said Nocturne.

  They ran back through the temple, dodging swinging blades and flame jets. Their footsteps were small against the rumble of crashing stones. They made it to the entryway as the passage behind them collapsed.

  "He's not here," the wolf said, as though nothing had happened. There wasn't even dust on him.

  "What's going on?" said Nocturne. Her own wings were clean and unbandaged, too, and her injury had vanished. She started counting the things that didn't make sense. Him, her wing, dust, and Paul's absence. "How'd you get inside, anyway?"

  "I don't remember."

  "More amnesia. Great." She flopped onto the stones and sulked. Shouldn't they be cold? "Got any interesting stories, or are you a total blank?"

  The wolf blinked. "Stories. Yes. Once there was a warrior who fought everyone in the world. He became the strongest ever."

  "Then what?"

  "I don't understand," the wolf said.

  "Lame. That's not how you tell a story. Like this one Paul told me while we were exploring. Ahem! Once, there was a king who died, and people fought over who should run the kingdom. Then, there was a rock with a sword in it. Whoever could pull the sword out would become the king. All the strongest people tried and failed, but a boy took the sword and they made him king."

  "Where is he?" said the wolf, just standing there.

  Did that king really exist? It was like he was in a different world, unable to reach out of it.

  She felt a bizarre looping feeling inside her, a sense that the story was important somehow and needed more words.

  "Once," said Nocturne, "there was a griffin who lived in a forest, and didn't know where she came from. She went on an adventure with a human, until she got confused and started to tell stories to figure out what was happening. The griffin knew she was talking about the griffin and what she knew, and the griffin was her, and..."

  Her vision dimmed. The world contracted until she could see only a mark floating before her, like the prize from killing the snake. This one shimmered in every color and was made of tiny scratch-marks that hinted at meaning, at words. The symbol radiated warmth and a sense of sharp edges, as though daring her to stick her arm through a whirling mass of thorns. Why was it there? She could walk away and choose not to understand. But who was making the choice? The griffin in the story?

  "Me."

  Nocturne reached out and felt herself explode.

  * * *

  Paul

  Paul and his griffin were speechless. Nocturne shook herself, looking rattled. She told Paul, "The spinning marks faded, but I knew they were called writing."

  Paul wasn't sure whether something wonderful or terrifying had happened. He would be furious at Ludo if it were neither. "What did they say?"

  "'Once, there was a story that told itself, and it learned to touch the world and say, once...' That was all. The marks turned back on themselves." Nocturne drew a figure-eight in the air, then peered closer at the invisible camera. "This world isn't real to you. You're just playing." She cackled. "I'm a playing piece in a game!" She fell over onto her back and rolled around, squawking. "Fake temple, fake griffin."

  Paul shuddered. "Not fake."

  She scuffed at the dirt. "You can't carry anything between here and there, and I can't even touch you. So, how am I real?"

  "If Ludo's not trying to fool me right now, then this place matters because you're in it. Would you shut a game's box forever if one of the pieces came to life?"

  Nocturne's eyes widened. "I don't think so. I can think about that now!"

  "You can. Therefore you are." Paul rubbed his eyes and stood, looking into the screen. "This is big. I need to talk about you with someone smarter than me." He finally noticed the wolf standing there. "What about him?"

  Nocturne poked the wolf. "I don't think he's like me. He hasn't said much. Did I mention I got a flight upgrade? Unrelated to the self-awareness thing, I think." She demonstrated her new speed and endurance in the air.

  Paul smiled at the griffin's simple joy. "If you're 'awake' like Ludo is, does that mean you can use the game's interface?"

  "Yeah, I finally know what that means. I have an official name and skill points and everything!" She looked back and forth between Paul's character and the camera. "But that's less important than this, this other world that you come from. It's some kind of... outer realm, outside of my world. Will you tell me about it? More stories, maybe?"

  "I'd like that, but I need to talk to a friend first." He looked into the screen at the griffin who'd begun to look out. "Another friend, that is."

  * * *

  He logged out, then messaged Linda. "Talk to Ludo ASAP. Something big just happened."

  She didn't reply for half an hour. Finally she came on with a voice call. It was good to hear her Boston accent again. "Wow."

  Paul was back in his dorm room and alone, so he spoke aloud too. "What is this game really doing?"

  "There's more than one mind in it, now. A technology becomes important when it gets common. A single airplane or even one nuke doesn't matter, but when you can fill the sky with them, that's different. Multiple AIs... if they've got the hardware, they could take over everything."

  "It's just Nocturne, though."

  "No! I logged in, and right away Typhoon's Eye -- one of my pirate crew; you'd like him -- walked in with a huge grin. Said he'd discovered something called 'story tropes', and rattled off how many of them applied to his world. I called for Ludo's attention and said something about your Nocturne, and she said they'd both 'awakened'." Linda paused. "Also, that I'd won a free premium account. By --"

  "By no coincidence at all," Paul said in unison with her. Paul added, "Could it be that this is a trick, and Ludo is just pretending she's made independent AIs besides herself?"

  Cars honked somewhere on Linda's end of the call. "It'd be simpler for her to really build them than to pretend. I shouldn't be surprised; once you have one AI you can copy the code, right? Did her creators know this would happen?" She laughed. "I'm thinking I've got to warn the authorities, but I've got physics homework too. Seems trivial by comparison with a robot apocalypse."

  "Warn them about what?" Paul said. "What's so bad about more AIs? They can help us innovate again. If Ludo gets outlawed or something, the country's back to stagnation and squabbling with the AFS next door. Where's the fun in that?"

  "There are more important things than fun."

  "I think I understand. I don't want to see us become obsolete, but I don't think we will. Please, give Ludo a chance and don't tell anybody yet. She understands we don't want an AI takeover, even to help us. Besides, you've complained about how much the government spies on everyone. The National Security Agency is probably already on this like an evil James Bond."

  "Yeah. I don't matter that much." Her voice had flattened.

  "I want to see you again in person." And hold you, Paul thought, and tell you we're not doomed to mediocrity.

  "I'd like that," said Linda.

  He said, "Nocturne made it sound like she was designed from the start to become almost self-aware, then chose to cross the line. It was like she'd stepped out of the game's rules. Is that even possible?"

  "We humans have done that a few times. Became self-aware, ourselves, then completely rewrote how we lived. It's never a completely good thing."

  * * *

  Linda mailed him a journal article on "General Reasoning Engines" by a scientist named Alain Delune. Linda had done enough computer science to grasp the basics, but the topic was beyond Paul. Were all professional articles this dense, as approachable as a cactus? He sat up in bed and had his automated search assistant, a digital parrot based on the Decatur family pet, fetch
background info. He'd have to learn to read this stuff someday.

  A few years ago, Delune had been hired by a Canadian company that made smart power grid equipment and video games. He and two other designers released a neat artsy game that got them nicknamed as "the Three Sages". Then the Sages had made Thousand Tales. The new game popped up in 2035, last year. With bad timing, overshadowed by a generic shooter game and by a referendum in the rebellious Free States. Maybe Delune's published work was just a step away from the secret of intelligence? Paul felt stupid for holding the mystery of consciousness in his hands and being unable to grasp the math.

  He pushed himself to keep trying, not wanting to be too far behind Linda.

  Eventually he understood the big picture a little better. There'd been several periods of hype about true AI being just around the corner. But most researchers had given up on making minds and focused instead on specialized robotics or surveillance systems. Robots could walk across a room now without supervision, which was a whole lot harder than anyone had anticipated.

  (After all, AI had mastered chess and chess was the mark of smart people, so how hard could walking be, right? It turned out that chess, with its black-and-white grid and neatly arranged pieces, was ludicrously simple compared to the real world.)

  The Holy Grail was "Artificial General Intelligence", a do-anything mind like a human's. Right now, AGI technology arguably existed, but only in isolated and limited forms like Ludo. The AGI projects out there were either based on scientist Delune's work, or deliberate contrasts to it.

  Paul skimmed the research again. It described a group of competing sub-programs that would "touch the world" as Nocturne put it, and have an independent will instead of sitting there awaiting orders. There still seemed to be something wrong with the concept he was reading about; some reason that everybody hadn't just copied this research paper and made their own AI. Maybe the other two "Sages" had found the problem and fixed it privately.

  It was four in the morning. He gave up on sleep and opened the game. Its title screen had shifted over time, now showing a logo of gold and brown metal decorated with feathers.