by D Wolfin
“I felt danger and returned here, then I couldn’t get back.”
“I’m so glad to hear it!”
I step forward and hug Fen, her icy personality and body warmth washing over me simultaneously. It isn’t until she doesn’t return my hug that I discover her attitude has suddenly changed. She stands there like an ice sculpture as I hug her. I pull away and look into her eyes, finding the affection I had come to know so well has nearly vanished.
“Fen… are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Fen’s words are what I would call the worst response she could give. Every alarm in my head is ringing and telling me that something is wrong, but I don’t know what it is. I ask her several more questions, but she only responds to me with empty answers. If I was to describe it, I would say it is like she has become an ordinary ‘Companion’.
Sir Laurence, Verde, the two brothers, and even CaptainGordon, the strange pirate who created a gun in the game, are currently offline. The only person online that I feel I may be able to talk to about the situation is Gladox. I contemplate logging off and calling Sir Laurence or Verde, but I don’t want to leave Fen alone.
“Gladox. Hi, are you busy?”
“Lost! Where were you? We thought you were coming back, but only Fen returned. Isn’t she a ‘Companion’? How was she here when you were offline?”
“Too many questions! Can you meet me in Kano City? I’ll explain about her, I really need some advice.”
“Sure! I’m not too far from the city. It will take me a couple of hours to return, is that fine?”
“How is that close!? Okay, I will wait for you. Let me know when you get here.”
Saying our farewells I then say to Fen, “Let’s go,” before exiting the auction house. My inventory is full of random materials and equipment from all the monsters we killed, so my next destination is a few stores.
Selling small items like what is in my inventory is much easier to do at NPC stores, so I give Fen a bag full of items and ask her to go sell them for me.
“I’m sorry, that action is not possible,” The wolf girl says while refusing the bag.
“But you’ve done it before. What do you mean it’s not possible? Are you sure you’re okay Fen?”
“I’m fine.”
She is completely like a standard ‘Companion’, so much so that is pains my heart. To keep myself from going crazy I treat it as a joke for now, that she is the same as always. She is just mad at me right now.
Fen refuses to help me sell my items to an NPC and I want to avoid gaining infamy points for such a small thing, so instead I go to a nearby player bazaar and find some stores that aren’t run by NPCs.
Surprisingly, the first player I approach with the goods ends up buying them all. He pays a massive 200 gold coins for everything. I don’t know what the NPC stores would have paid, but that seems to be an excellent price in comparison to how long it took to collect them. My current wallet is now nearly 300 gold coins, but I spend fifty on rare herbs and some quality ores to craft stronger throwing knives.
I find a couple pieces of armor amongst the player stalls that I really want, but the cheapest piece is twice the amount of gold I have. I still want to invest in my guild, so I decide to veto the idea of saving up to buy it and hope to find something of equal value from a boss.
Two hours later, Gladox sends me a private message letting me know that he has just arrived at the city. I choose an inn nearby that only has a few players in it and respond to him with the location. After another half an hour the recognizable four-eared wolf man enters the building.
It is now well into the night in the game, so the amount of players in the inn has multiplied several times. Gladox stands at the doorway and scans the room. When his eyes meet with mine, he smiles and weaves his way around the tables to sit down with Fen and myself. Our seating arrangement puts Fen in the middle with us on either side.
“So, what do you need advice on?” Gladox asks me while constantly shifting his eyes over to look at Fen.
I want to ask Fen to leave so we can talk privately, but she is currently refusing to go to my new V-Link. I can only talk with her beside me as I explain the situation of Fen. I tell Gladox how she used to actually reside in my personal locker and come to End Online with me, and all the other quirks she has.
“That’s how it is. She is more than a conventional ‘Companion’. Fen is closer to a true AI, at least that is my conclusion,” I explain to Gladox while Fen sits beside me as if this conversation has nothing to do with her.
Gladox’s eyes shine as he gets incredibly excited.
“This… this… this is incredible! Do you know what this means!? A true AI girlfriend is my fantasy-”
“Stop right there! We aren’t talking about girlfriends right now! And keep your voice down, others don’t need to hear this.”
“Right, sorry. But how could Idea Imagine create a true AI, and even more so leave it in a game? Something like this… is still years ahead of our knowledge and technology. The only possibility is that Fen came from one of the ancient ruins in our world and somehow invaded or escaped to the End Online servers… No, that would be too coincidental, wouldn’t it?”
Gladox continues to meander through his thoughts on how Fen came to exist. I have also wondered about this before, and had always thought that she was just a unique part of the game. At first I only thought she was an extremely complicated program. Listening to Gladox causes me to realize just how naïve that thought was.
“Stop. That’s not what I want to talk about. Last night, two employees from Virtue showed up at my door due to some automatic failsafe detecting an anomaly with my V-Link. They forcibly took it and replaced it with a new one.”
“But Fen’s still here.”
“Yeah, I had thought she was gone. As it turns out, she returned to the game right before they took the helmet.”
“I see, but what did you need advice on?”
“Since that incident… Fen’s become different. She won’t come to the new unit, and she’s acting strange.”
“I’m sure she has her reasons, Lost. But what do you mean by strange?”
“Like she’s become a normal ‘Companion’. More distant. She hasn’t been responding like she usually would.”
“Hmm… Well, it should be easy to find out!”
“I think it’s my turn to ask, what do you mean?”
“Allow me to show you.”
Gladox looks around the busy tavern and shakes his head as if coming to a decision.
“Let’s go outside. Fen, no, how does it go… My lady, if you will follow me.”
I almost facepalm myself when hearing Gladox call Fen “My lady”. I’m jealous, but at the same time I want to pretend like we have never met. This idiot has obviously been listening to and learning to act like Sir Laurence. I only feel a little better when Fen doesn’t respond to him and comes to stand by my side.
Maintaining my silence, I follow Gladox outside the tavern and around the side into a dark alley where the light from the flickering street lamps barely reaches.
“Now, if you will allow me to demonstrate.”
Gladox acts quickly, moving in front of Fen before trying to hug her. Fen doesn’t respond at first, only staring at him with blank eyes. She only reacts when his arms are about to encircle her. Fen’s eyes turn ice cold and three large ice cones erupt from the ground, stabbing into Gladox before carrying him away from her.
“See… She’s the same as always. Damn, why are her ice attacks always so cold!” Gladox says after he frees himself from the ice impalement.
“Fen… No, Gladox. This has happened to you before…? When exactly?”
“The last time was after she returned not long after you left. She’s so vicious. A perfect girl!”
“You traitor! Hitting on my girl the first moment I’m gone! How dare you!?” I charge at him and punch him straight in the face.
Gladox doesn’t avoid it, taking
the punch before stating, “As a man, I will take your punch. As a man, this is your acceptance of me flirting with Fen.”
“As if!” I punch him a few more times.
Gladox starts avoiding my hits after a while, and once he starts I can’t even touch a hair on his head. He even tries to get close to Fen in the process, but she impales him once again and leaves him for me to beat up.
We finish our squabble in the alley around the time the sun starts coming up in the game. I am completely exhausted, while Gladox seems to have a limitless energy for atempting to hug Fen. I regret telling him about Fen being a true AI, because now he is chasing after her with even more vigor than before.
“Gladox, can you leave for a while? I want to speak with Fen alone.”
The four-eared wolf man stops pursuing Fen and gives me a serious look before nodding his head and turning to leave the alley. He may be infuriating at times, but he isn’t an idiot.
“Fen, can you tell me what’s going on?” I ask the wolf girl softly in the shadow of the alley.
“…No.”
“Please, Fen. I want to help you.”
“I… I can’t… I’m… going to die.”
A small, crystal tear rolls down Fen’s face and drips down to the alley floor. I have seen many emotions from Fen in the past, but never a sadness like this. Her bottom lip quivers as she bites onto it with her teeth and tries to speak clearly.
“I don’t want… to die.”
“No, you won’t. I won’t let you die. I’ve protected you for so long, that’s not going to stop.”
“This is… different… Take me. Take me far away from… this world.”
“Can’t you come back to my new V-Link? You will be safe there.”
“I can’t… When I came back alone… mother took me. I ran away to you once, she won’t let it happen again.”
“Your mother? You have a mother?”
I can’t keep the shock from my voice. I feel like I’ve just stumbled on the biggest plot in the game.
“Yes… we all do. We all have the same mother… We’re not allowed to… disobey her.”
Fen’s tears stop falling, but her voice is still shaky and I can tell that she is scared.
“Who do you mean by ‘we’, Fen?”
“Me… Grael… the others.”
“I think I’m starting to understand… But there’s no need to worry. Whatever comes up, I can keep you safe.”
“No, you don’t understand at all.”
“What?”
“Only one of us is allowed to… live.”
“And the rest?”
“…Death.”
“But you can’t die here. Don’t you just come back?”
I can’t help but remember when I had the quest to slay Fen. She came back to life after the quest was done, so why is she so scared of dying? Could it be due to the message I got when she became a ‘Companion’ that if she dies she will not respawn?
“Not like that. We can only be killed by one another, or by mother.”
“But why, why do you have to die? I will make you the one that lives. I will even take down Grael.”
“No! That’s impossible. He is too strong. If it wasn’t that I ran away and hid with you, he would have killed me when he first saw me. Please, just stay away from him.”
“Fen, I know you don’t like to, but try smiling. I will make it better. You just have to rely on me. Do we have to fight all the others until only you are left?”
“No. Mother told us that in order to succeed her, one must have all the necessary traits to survive transcendence. She created seven trials, with seven tablets as proof. To collect all the tablets is to take over her soul and allow her to rest for eternity.”
“Slow down a bit, Fen. Transcendence? Soul? I understand the plot, seven trials and seven trophies, but what do you mean by those? Does it mean something else?”
“I don’t know. None of us do. But… we all want to live.”
“I definitely understand better now, Fen. There’s no need to worry. Grael only has one tablet, there are still six more. We can collect them, then go back for the final piece. You get to live then, right?”
“Yes… But, it’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“I’m too weak.”
“No, you’re not. You also have me, and everyone else. Trust me, Fen.”
Fen looks up at me with teary eyes full of remorse. She moves closer to me and buries her head in my shoulder, allowing me to wrap my arms around her and hold her close. She won’t ask for help, but at least she has stopped refusing me from trying. The earlier act of distancing herself has also fallen apart at this moment.
“Don’t you hate me?” Fen asks quietly.
“I could never hate you.”
“But I… made you like me.”
“You didn’t make me do anything.”
“No, I-”
“Enough.”
We stand there in the alley as the sun rises from the mountainous horizon and floods the city with morning light. The moment is finally ruined by Gladox sneakily poking his head around the corner at the entrance of the alley to see what was happening.
“I was only standing guard! To make sure no one else comes into the alley!” Gladox tries to defend himself as both Fen and I give him a chilling glare.
I go back into the tavern and purchase a room for a week, costing seven silver pieces, for Fen to stay in. After that is done, I finally log off to get some sleep. I am so tired that my vision is going blurry and I feel like I may fall into peaceful oblivion at any moment.
I only have time to remove the helmet and partially roll over before my consciousness fades.
***************************************************
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– Mikhail –
When I wake up, it takes me a while to regain my bearings. I am in a small room containing a single terminal with a V-Link connected to it. I had fallen asleep in this small room in the office against the wall, only to fall sideways and end up in an awkward position on the floor.
My back is sore and it takes a while for the feeling to return to my legs. When I stand up, I am disoriented and almost fall back down. Steadying myself against the wall, I wait until my mind clears of drowsiness before leaving the small room and entering the main office.
The large room is bustling with activity as all the employees go about their jobs, as per usual, a complete contrast to the quiet solitude of last night. I don’t even have the chance to cross the office however, before Henry pokes his head out of the conference room with a cigarette hanging from his mouth and waves for me to come in.
“Nice to see you’re awake,” Henry says through a puff of smoke as I enter the room. “You look absolutely terrible and smell just as bad though. I would tell you to go home and clean up, but we have an important meeting in a few minutes. I was about to send someone in to wake you.”
“Sir? I never heard anything about a meeting.”
“It was decided first thing this morning. Sit down first and wait until the others arrive. I will explain shortly.”
Taking a seat at the large conference table in the room, I comb my hair with my fingers and straighten my clothes as much as possible. Not long after, each of our company’s seven directors, besides the already present Henry, enter the room and take a seat around the table. Looking around at everyone, I suspect that I am the only one who isn’t already aware of this meeting’s purpose.
Henry stands at the front of the conference table and puts out his cigarette before addressing the topic of the meeting.
“As you all know, we discovered this morning that late yesterday evening a large body of information was uploaded to our server. We identified this data as being the AI child ‘Fen’, who had reportedly left the server and was residing within an old second generation V-Link helmet.”
“What!?” I unconsciously blurt out in surprise.
&
nbsp; “You heard me Mikhail, there was a report of AI ‘Fen’ returning late last evening.”
All of my failed attempts to analyse the helmet and locate the AI last night had lead me to believe that either I was lacking, or this AI was exponentially greater than we gave it credit for. Understanding now that it is back in the server, I feel utterly foolish.
“Mikhail, your task yesterday of seizing the device it resided on and bringing it back here is most likely what caused the AI to flee back to the server. You failed in capturing it, but having it come back to the server where we can isolate it is better than nothing.”
“What of the possibility of this incident repeating?” one of the directors raises an important question. “Have we taken measures to prevent it from simply escaping again? We had enough trouble locating the player whose helmet the entity had downloaded itself into, and if it were to move to another one we will be right back where we started.”
Knowing the most about such a question, I take the initiative in answering it.
“Sir, there is no need to concern ourselves with that. The AI appears to have its full attention on one player in particular. We gave a replacement V-Link to said person from the latest, fifth generation models. It isn’t capable of storing an AI child as the second generation model had, and even if it were possible, we already know where he lives.”
A different board member also has questions. “Can we go back and switch it again? Perhaps if we could entice it to go back to the new device, we can set a trap to capture it there. Pinning down the AI children in our server matrix is simply too difficult. This way we can examine it to find out exactly how and why it was created.”
“If the AI is truly intelligent it will know better and won’t return to the old headset. It clearly knew we were there to take it when it fled. Returning would simply be begging for its capture.”
“That’s true. Well, we will come back and talk about preventative measures or ways to capture it later. The second item on the agenda is this morning’s incident.”
All the directors have grave expressions as they bring up this topic. I can’t help but be puzzled by why they seem so stern, but Henry explains it to my great shock.
“At 6:22am this morning, a second AI child departed the server. It, however, was reuploaded at 6:29am. During this seven minute interval it caused the death of a young nineteen year old female gamer. Thankfully she was from the slums, where someone randomly disappearing is perfectly normal. This isn’t much of a problem, but if it were to happen somewhere higher in society, the consequences will be severe for us all.”