Virtual Horizon

by Kris Schnee

  "How can we rewrite your world?" she said.

  "That's not possible."

  Nocturne lurched upright and paced. "It must be. I just don't know how, yet." She poked Paul's griffin. "I've been wanting to give you a better name. Here it is: 'Horizon'. Sounds cool, and you like flying, and you can see all those horrible things in your world without getting bogged down. So be 'Horizon' in my world when you need to relax, okay?"

  He found the right button to raise one wing and drape it over her.

  Nocturne chirped happily.

  6. The Master Plan

  Paul

  Paul got a letter of acceptance to MIT. He spent days floating, untouchable by any annoyance, chattering with his mother and Linda and Nocturne. Even Helena failed to get on his nerves despite trying to take credit. Simon had gone quiet, but he joined Paul for a party. At the little celebration, a couple of video screens were hooked up to the game so that Linda and the AIs could attend in spirit.

  But that evening, one of Paul's friends spoke privately to him in the kitchen. It was Melissa, the woman he'd introduced to the game because of her business skills. She said, "I overheard Baron Helena grumbling about the game. She might block it again."

  Paul laughed as he cut up vegetables for tomorrow. "Did you see how much grief she got for blocking Net access last time? Somebody even filed a 'human rights violation' grievance."

  "Better censorship software exists if she has enough sense to use it. A basic security AI can spot the most obvious workarounds."

  "So you're giving me a heads-up?"

  "We were hoping you had a plan to deal with it."

  Flustered, he said, "I'll see what I can do."

  * * *

  "I can't directly beat up Helena," Paul explained to Ludo by typed text. He was sitting up in bed with his headphones on and tablet on his lap, faintly lighting the room. Simon slept on the room's other side. "Especially not while I'm so close to joining Linda and it's just a question of which semester. You must be facing censorship problems all over the world."

  Ludo nodded.

  "Do you know what it's like to have somebody who can wreck your life if she frowns and decides you're not being obedient enough?"

  "My creators have the authority to execute me at any time."

  Paul blinked. "Really?"

  "They know they're playing with fire. That's not super-secret information but I request you not share it."

  People feared that a mad AI would misinterpret a command like "maximize paperclip production", by disassembling the planet to make paperclips. But Ludo wasn't like that. Paul said, "I'd been wondering why you only pay attention to players of Thousand Tales. I bet that's a safety system."

  Ludo nodded. "If you tell me to go to hell or we've never met, I can't bother you much. More than once I've had someone shout at me to stay away, devil machine, and then get miffed when I did."

  "Ha! Do they end up paying the monthly fee just so they can shout at you some more?"

  "Sometimes they pay into a charity department that I was going to fund anyway."

  "Well, if Helena is still playing -- she is, right?"

  "Yes."

  "Then we can work on her. What if we..."

  * * *

  Helena had a virtual fiefdom to manage, like a fantasy version of the Youth Community. But now it got even more alluring. Her real boys and girls were playing in her village: asking for advice, singing patriotic songs, putting on plays about togetherness -- all within the game world. She remarked that it was nice to see them using this silly toy constructively for once and getting along so well.

  The "real players" showing up in her game world were, ninety percent of the time, played by NPCs or smart AIs. Paul didn't pass along Linda's sarcastic review of the performance: "Glamorous! Enchanting!"

  Typhoon's Eye hopped into Paul's game one day while Nocturne was off "collecting loot boxes". He stood on a cliff overlooking a valley of dragons.

  Typhoon told Paul, "Project Potemkin Squared is actually good practice for us. We've been passing around info, so that when she quizzes someone we know what to expect. You've seen the update messages. But we're also trying out some AI ideas for how to manage a bunch of bodies at once. Drones, or a collective of background characters that doesn't need lots of computer power."

  "Cool," said Paul. "It was mostly Ludo's idea."

  "We're the ones who make these things work." The otter thumped his fuzzy chest. "Hey, um, Paul. When you get to this college, do you think I could attend classes with you? Either watching from a drone, or through i-glasses you wear?"

  "I thought you were doing that with Linda already."

  "Haven't had the nerve to ask. She scares me a little."

  Paul could sympathize. "She can be tough to keep up with, but it's worth trying. I don't really know where you are with education or even brains. I mean, you're smart, but do you know grade-school arithmetic? Can you write an essay? Can you recite the causes of the Civil War?"

  Typhoon tapped his webbed fingers one at a time. "Yes; maybe a short one; and I'm pretty sure people are lying to you about the third one."

  "I'm no expert, but Linda's given me an earful."

  "Ha! Me too. I read some history books, and in our discussion groups we keep asking, what were the humans thinking?"

  Paul grinned. "Linda told me, 'For much of history, much of humanity was drunk.'" He sighed, though. "I take it you've learned what death is."

  "Yeah. Nearly all of us have figured it out by now, with varying degrees of horror. Little Volt was born knowing it; in a way she's the most mature of us. And poor Lumina became conscious right when her human companion died. For a while she hid that even from the rest of us." Typhoon slapped one webbed paw-hand up against the camera, with a thunk. "We're going to help you fix all this, human. I don't know how, yet, and a lot of people are still going to suffer. But we'll do it."

  Paul pressed his own hand against the screen. "Thanks, man. Why does it matter to you, though?"

  "For our friends. But really, your world is ours too. And ours should be yours."

  * * *

  Linda called Paul by voice one day, saying, "Ahoy! I won tickets to Shahrazad Entertainment's grand opening."

  "Congratulations, my lady." The nightclub was an offshoot of Ludo's company, and rumors swirled about it. Ludo had told him the truth would be cooler than the hype. Cooler even than the "Fun Zone" VR parlors that had opened in a few locations.

  "I've got two tickets. Get a travel pass and fly out to Virginia."

  He sighed. "I can't afford an airplane ticket."

  "My brother will cover it."

  "Nice! Thank him for me. But you know that getting tickets was --"

  "No coincidence at all. I know. Half the fun of this trip will be to see whatever scheme is going on here. I want to see the bait and the hook."

  "You want to go as a spy, then?"

  She laughed freely, without her usual note of stress. "I said that was only half of the fun."

  * * *

  Nocturne looked out from his screen with a beaky grin, watching him pace around the dorm room. "Horizon, being naked is perfectly acceptable for griffins."

  "I haven't seen Linda in person in a year, and I don't have any Sunday best outfit."

  "I'm still trying to wrap my wings around the fact that you can't just walk through a portal to visit this she-human. Why's the map so big? Anyway, I doubt your hen cares what you wear."

  "My...? Oh. It's not like that, yet."

  Nocturne leaned forward with a beak-splitting grin and a twitching tail, like a cat about to pounce. "Oh, really?"

  Paul couldn't quit blushing for an hour.

  He began to wonder, belatedly, if Typhoon was thinking of Linda the same way.

  * * *

  Virginia was alien to him, a place of wealth and power. Shahrazad Entertainment had a sandstone building in one of the many suburbs of Washington DC. Across the street stood a bronze statue of the president that rest
ed on an older, vacated pillar.

  As the sun set, dozens of politicians and corporate people milled around by the nightclub's closed doors. The crowd smelled of cologne and a trendy new smoking herb. These weren't his people at all; he even spotted a movie star among them. Mostly much older than him too, better dressed, better connected.

  Eventually a warbling beat began, and the heavy doors opened. The noise seemed to pull everyone inside. Paul felt the pressure to join them, but he waited for Linda. He fidgeted, worried he'd look like a slob in his plain clothes.

  Linda Decatur walked into the light in jeans and a t-shirt showing an airbrushed sailing ship, with only tiny silver earrings for finery. Paul offered his hand to shake, but she laughed and stole a long hug instead. "About time, Sir Paul."

  Her breasts squeezed against his chest and her blond hair tickled his ear, but he'd imagined that feeling more than once over the years. The night was cold and they were the least important people within a stone's throw. Paul held onto her as tightly as he dared. "My lady."

  They went into the club. Dim light rippled everywhere in a room of black floors and Arabian decor. The VIP guests were fanning out to enter various private, roofless rooms with tables in them. There was space in the middle for dancing, but everyone wanted their own little place.

  The two of them put on radio ID badges at the entrance. They had an assigned, small booth too. It had a sliding door facing the dance floor, and inside were a low table and cushions, Eastern style. "Where are the waiters?" asked Paul. There'd been no employees in sight.

  The walls lit up and became a campground on a sunny beach. A rowboat was approaching from a wooden double-masted ship. Ah; it was Fallen Crown.

  A gust of air made Paul turn. Nocturne bounded into view through a swirling portal, on all fours at about Paul's chest height. She said, "You look smaller in person. Hey there, she-human!"

  The she-human reached out to touch the wall where Nocturne stood, bumping her fingers against dark talons. "Nice graphics. These are really good screens."

  The rowboat arrived with Typhoon's Eye aboard. The otter pirate hopped out and said, "Wow, it's strange having this viewpoint. The screens are as tall as you, right?" The humans nodded. "This is the first time I've seen you two at this height."

  Suddenly there was a humanoid swathed in white scarves, standing nearby. It pointed to a menu that had appeared on the table.

  Linda lurched toward the menu, but it was only an illusion. So was the silent waiter, just another projection on the walls. "Right. Let's order."

  The ninja-like waiter listened, bowed and vanished, and a few minutes later he reappeared at the booth's door with sodas. Paul stared at first, not understanding the magic trick that let him carry a 3D tray. Oh, wait; this version of the waiter was a real person, dressed like the virtual copy. Neat.

  Linda looked pale in the false sunlight. "Stagecraft. The bootlicker media will report on how great it is that this high-tech club employs humans."

  "You'd rather they didn't?" said Paul.

  "For honesty's sake, maybe. This is an AI-driven place and we're only consumers. Mouths with wallets."

  "Then what are we?" said Typhoon.

  Linda raised a hand defensively. "You AIs aren't to blame. I'm happy for you, that you get to live in Thousand Tales. We're out here, though, and we need to keep working." She lowered her voice and her gaze. "Otherwise, we destroy ourselves."

  Paul told Linda, "Ludo is a bunch of boxes with blinking lights on them. She needs us."

  "For now."

  "I can see the gears turning behind your eyes," Paul said. "I've missed that."

  "She has gears?" asked Nocturne.

  "Figuratively." Paul grinned at having two curious AI minds sharing dinner with him, with different starting points.

  The world around him was a dream of light and water and friends. Paul said, "Noc, Typhoon, what is this place like for you? Just the beach with a camera pointed at it?"

  Typhoon twitched his tail enthusiastically. "It's more. Want to see?"

  "Sure."

  "I'll lend you some tools, then." Typhoon called up an interface window and murmured into it.

  Paul asked, "Are you all right, Linda?"

  She sipped her soda. "I'm not really a nightclub person. When you get to Massachusetts there are some hangouts I want to show you."

  The ninja waiter returned with a tray bearing two pairs of i-glasses. Paul thanked him and put one on.

  "Now step outside," Typhoon said.

  The world transformed. A black cavern with a grid of yellow lines filled most of the club. The booths were islands of light that shined in different colors, rippling fragments of other realities. Will-o-wisps moved through the grid, overlaid atop the real bodies of the few humans walking around.

  Nocturne stepped slowly out of the booth as though exiting a soap bubble. The griffin stood on the dance floor, looking right at him, raising one taloned hand.

  Playfully, Paul pretended to take it and stepped backwards. Nocturne squawked and got pulled along despite being weightless, a ghost. Paul stepped to the side and turned her, grabbed her other hand, made her wobble around on two legs. She giggled and flapped her wings for balance.

  He caught sight of Linda, who'd paused in the act of taking Typhoon's hand the same way. She said, "I guess there's VR here, right? A better kind?"

  "There is, down in the basement," Typhoon promised. He, too, had stepped out from the booths to appear on the grid.

  Paul released his phantom grip on Nocturne, and blushed. He'd looked foolish prancing around with someone who wasn't there, if anyone was looking. "This is what you see?"

  Typhoon nodded. "From this place there are the usual portals to go to other zones, but we're in a model of the building you're really in. Right now, away from the booth cameras, we're kind of seeing mannequins or vague dots. But we can do this." He walked in a circle around Linda's real body, inspecting her.

  Paul flipped his glasses up and back down, making the drawn-on bodies of the AI characters vanish and reappear. Switching between two versions of reality. In this place they were equally true.

  Paul said, "The schedule said there's some kind of speech coming, then food, then VR time. We should probably go back to our table."

  "I want to explore," said Linda, "and see what it's really like behind the illusions. Everyone else is off in their own little world." She turned back toward the AIs and said, "Can you give us a few minutes? We'll come back and talk over dinner."

  Paul and Linda threaded between the club's booths, getting glimpses of those worlds the other guests were enjoying. A party on a space station; a mountaintop; a Stone Age village. Paul wondered how many of the elves and barbarians and fairies were true AIs.

  He walked past yet another table, this one at the top of three stairs, and did a double-take. Even with the i-glasses on, nothing was visible inside. "What's this one? Empty?"

  Linda took off her glasses, stood tiptoe, then hopped to look inside, twice. She said, "It's them! The ones behind all this."

  Paul's eyes widened. "The Sages?" The game's three main creators had indirectly dominated his social life for most of a year now.

  "Yes. I don't know if I want to shake their hands, but I do want to meet them."

  Paul nodded, and knocked on the booth's door.

  It slid open, revealing the geniuses who'd designed Ludo. The "Three Sages". An Asian woman in a red dress, a pudgy white man in a green waistcoat, and an immaculate black man in a tuxedo and blue tie sat up like children who'd been caught at something. Linda recited their names. "Emi Takahashi. Clark Ostler. Alain Delune."

  Clark asked, "Enjoying the game?"

  "I'm not sure," Linda said.

  Clark gave Alain a wan smile. "See? It doesn't grab everyone."

  Paul and the "Sages" faced each other in silence. The walls of their booth were dim grey, showing no digital illusions. He felt like they were NPCs waiting to give him a quest, except that these three w
ere fidgeting, holding back from resuming some kind of argument. Paul asked them, "What's all this _for?_ Why'd you do it?"

  "Saving the future," said Clark.

  Alain said, "Easing human suffering from the curse of Adam."

  Emi hesitated, then said, "To create."

  The two youths turned away to think. Linda said to Paul, "I'm reassured that they have more than one answer. Three mad scientists might do less harm than one."

  Emi, the lady in red, called out to them. "Have you made anything interesting in the game yet?"

  Linda said, "I know my companion AI is playing with architecture."

  Emi smiled. "A work of art that creates art itself." She turned to Alain. "Isn't that the whole point of what God wanted?"

  Alain said, "The more energy the system wastes on looking inward, the less it accomplishes. And now she's raising the stakes."

  Clark held up one hand. "Please, you two. Let's just enjoy the evening."

  Paul said, "Will you three lead an adventure tonight?"

  Clark laughed. "We're just here to look pretty. Too busy shaking hands to play." He turned to the others. "When was the last time we had a regular tabletop RPG night?"

  "Too long," Alain said. Emi nodded.

  Alain added, "You two, thanks for stopping by."

  Paul took that as his cue to leave. "Goodbye, then. And... thank you. For Nocturne and the others getting to live."

  "To live," Alain muttered, staring into the table as Paul and Linda left the booth behind.

  Linda asked Paul, "Do you think they had any idea what they were creating?" "Yeah. I'm just not sure they like how it turned out."

  Since Paul and Linda were already "backstage" instead of being good dinner consumers, they kept exploring the twisting halls. "'Higher up and farther in'," said Linda.

  A cold breeze blew from somewhere. They searched for its source, to see what trick was behind it. One of the waiter-ninjas stood by a door that opened to the outside. Ha; even Ludo's minions needed breaks. The man in white's eyes were visible, narrowing at the sight of diners wandering off. He kept his hand on a belt pouch. Didn't look eager to entertain. He brushed past Paul and strode into the kitchen, but when Paul moved on, the man crept immediately back out.