It is inadvisable for you to dispute this verdict unless you have additional evidence. Please stand by for important information that will help you improve your service to the Divine Authority.
The voice took an infinitesimal pause before continuing. Please be advised that under Rule #3398439 the Divine Authority is unable to use information contained within an archive that is voluntarily submitted from a defendant for purposes other than those expressly stated by the defendant.
D_Light knew about this rule. It was in place to encourage defendants to submit their archives-a most convenient form of evidence-to the Authority. Before this rule went into effect, defendants were afraid to submit archives because, in addition to ascertaining the guilt or innocence of the charged crime, the archive could also be used to detect additional crimes or locate the defendant. Now archives were off-limits for all uses except those explicitly given by the defendant.
D_Light’s mind raced. Further evidence? He’d given them a deep copy of his archive. There could be no better evidence of his intentions! No harm had been done. The archive of him outwitting them had to be very valuable, and he was ready to hand over the archive and the demon. What had he done? I am a loyal citizen, a model player! How could they not see this? he thought feverishly.
It’s a bug, thought D_Light. A bug in their legal protocols. That must be it! Outrageous!
Smorgeous, sensing his master’s distress, gently asked if he would like a downer. D_Light, agitated, declined. He needed all of his wits about him right now.
D_Light had a sudden revelation. There is one way to fix it, he thought. D_Light had fixed system bugs in the Divine Authority’s software before, although never software related to divine law. It was not something one did every day; indeed, few programmers ever did it once. However, being such an obvious bug, certainly he would get access and change his status back.
He sent an order to his familiar. Smorgeous, patch me into the Divine Authority Protocol Association. And give me both visual and audio.
Smorgeous opened a blink. A user interface for the DAPA appeared in his mind, semitransparent and superimposed over his vision such that he could still see where he was going, more or less. He was still trailing behind Lily.
A chrome number eight, fallen on its side, the mathematical symbol for infinity and the official banner of the Divine Authority, showed momentarily while D_Light’s credentials were approved.
D_Light, player #49937593, status “demon,” how can the Divine Authority be of service?
I wish to correct an error, D_Light responded.
The Divine Authority appreciates your time in remedying the matter; however, due to the possible security ramifications of your request, you are required to submit to a deep scan to confirm your intention is in the best interest of the OverSoul. Would you like to learn more about deep scanning?
No, D_Light responded. He had undergone deep scanning before. He knew what to expect.
Very well, if you are not familiar with the terms and conditions of deep scanning, please review them now. At this, D_Light was given the option of a textual or visual blink of the terms and conditions. As he always did, D_Light agreed to the terms without reviewing them.
In response, the neutral voice continued. Thank you. Do you agree to a deep scan at this time?
Yes.
D_Light saw a graphical progress bar constantly apprising him of how much time he could expect the scan to continue. As the scan commenced, he felt tingling that came and went in various parts of his body-in his hands, his lower back, his neck, the calves of his legs. He heard sounds, soft but distinct, humming that was replaced with a high-pitched whine. He heard voices whispering and muttering: “For the neospore we give thanks…why is your flavor…what is not what it cannot be…” The voices merged together. Some of them sounded like they came from him, some from people he knew, most from people he did not recognize, but this did not matter, as it all was nonsense anyway. He knew enough about brain scans to know that you could never predict what you would feel and perceive as your brain was being probed.
What precisely the scan was looking for was unknown. Information from the Cloud was hazy at best, with only general guidance from the Divine Authority itself such as, “Only a pure heart may access the Inner Divinity,” or “Let pure love guide you.”
Of course, the Cloud forums were chock-full of speculation about what these cryptic hymns meant. There were even a few players who, upon successfully passing through the deep scan, later attempted to upload a deep archive of their deed such that they and others could analyze the successful brain patterns. However, according to the terms of use, which no one ever read, you gave the Authority permission to intercept your live streaming archive before it could be written to memory or streamed up to the Cloud. It was like temporary digital amnesia, where the only recollections were what the unaided organic brain could retain, which, like all native brain memories, were vague and of little analytical value.
Finally, after a few more muscle spasms and minor hallucinations, an error box appeared in D_Light’s consciousness and a voice stated, You are unworthy of access at this time.
Having taken advanced security training, D_Light knew better. He replied, Being a demon does not bar me from accessing the code base.
The voice responded as another box opened. Correct. Under Rule #8939543, no one will be denied access to the code base or protocol databases due to profile status, past or present.
D_Light was dumbfounded. Then why in the hell don’t you give me access? he shouted in his mind.
You are unworthy of access at this time.
Unworthy! It was as though the monotone was taunting him.
Is it because I am upset? Is that why I don’t get permission?
You are unworthy of access at this time, the voice repeated.
D_Light tried several more questions in an attempt to understand what the problem was, but the voice merely answered him with the same “unworthy” statement.
While frustrated and furious, D_Light at least understood the Authority’s repeated, opaque answer. It was all about hackers. For someone trying to maliciously hack into a system, it was best to give him or her as little information as possible. If a hacker knew why they were being blocked, they would be better able to work around the issue.
After a second failed attempt to pass the deep scan, the DAPA forcibly terminated the blink and D_Light could not log back in. Again, this was a security measure to inconvenience hackers. He knew that he would not be allowed to log back in for twenty-four hours. It was at this point that a cold realization came to him. Soul, I’m a demon and I can’t fix it! What the hell do I do now?
D_Light was so exhausted from the physical and mental demands he had recently endured that he found himself unable to truly panic, or even to despair. For as long as he could remember, he had worked every waking moment to be the best player he could be so that one day he would become one of the chosen ones, one of the immortals. He worked hard to escape the endless darkness that waited at the end of every loser’s life. Now the dream he had held all this time was in peril, perhaps gone.
He let out a low wail. His eyes swelled, and he felt the formation of involuntary tears. A lump formed in his throat that made him swallow hard, as though he was stifling the uprising of a terrible internal monster. It was all so terrifying, sensations not experienced since he was a child. Sensations he had hoped to forget.
D_Light stopped dead in his tracks. There were people around, but he didn’t care. Lily may have been staring at him, but he wasn’t sure and it didn’t matter. He did not look directly at her. Warm, runny snot started dripping from his nose. “Aghhh!” he cried out and quickly sniffed it back up. Then, without a thought to where he was going, he started running down the nearest side tunnel. He ran as fast as his already exhausted muscles would allow.
Smorgeous assured him that everything was going to be fine. The familiar reminded D_Light of difficult times in his past when
he had managed to pull through. The mistake would be fixed.
Sensing, perhaps, that his counseling was not helping, Smorgeous repeated an offer for sedatives. D_Light ignored this and, upon finding an exit from the mounds, found himself in the morning sun. He immediately beelined for a nearby grove of trees, which was just dense enough to conceal him. Finally able to lie down, D_Light agreed to the sedative. As exhausted as his body was, his mind was overly active, spinning in a whirlwind of activity. He needed to calm his thoughts, and none of his trance mantras were working. Besides, D_Light had no reason to use drugs sparingly anymore because, as a demon, his health contract was null and void anyway. In fact, as a demon, he was no longer in the Game at all.
An electromagnetic pulse beamed out of the embedded chip at the base of D_Light’s skull, focused downward through his carotid artery. Some of the nanobots suspended in the area where the blood had been irradiated were then activated, releasing their payload of drug molecules into his bloodstream. D_Light felt the effects immediately and lay face down on the ground; a twig pressed uncomfortably into his cheek. He did not even bother to make himself more comfortable before he lapsed into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER 17
A tight feedback loop-that is one of the primary components of facilitating flow in any grinder game you design. Even as I speak, your feedback on my performance is trickling in, affecting the points I receive. Ah, I see many of you liked that example. Another twenty-three points for me! Thankfully, you did not have to send this feedback explicitly, as was necessary in the past. Instead, your brain patterns, your BPs, offer the feedback, requiring no effort from you. Otherwise, how could you concentrate on what I’m saying?
Now, this constant appraisal of my work puts me into a state of flow. I’m not off thinking about what I’m going to do with my newly won points. I’m not planning what I will be doing in the next hour or the next week, or thinking about the funny story my brother told me less than an hour ago. There is only the here and now. In such a state of mind, is it any wonder that grinder games yield such high productivity from their players?
— Darwin Scazaan, from “Introductory Instructive Archive for Grinder Developers of House Tesla”
Takin’, whose name was short for “taking care of business,” was playing well tonight. He had a fleet of twenty-five cleaning bots under his command, and thus far his team was ahead of every other cleaning team in his zone. Of course, this was no surprise to Takin’, who constantly strove to live up to his name. He had studied his route carefully. He knew the high-traffic tunnels and chambers with the greatest likelihood of filth. He knew how to deploy his bots in just the right ratio so that the high-traffic areas were cleaned properly, but not with too many bots which might be better utilized elsewhere. This was important because quality cleaning was not enough to bring in the big points; you had to be fast at it, too.
Takin’ only owned five of the bots he was using. The rest were rented, so the faster he finished the more points he would net. Besides, the house that ran these mounds and was sponsoring this cleaning game factored speed into the bonus system. They wanted their clients to have to contend with cleaning gamers as little as possible. The best cleaning crew came through like a gust of wind-gone by the time you knew it was there.
Which brings up the third qualification for a high score-no customer complaints. Since logging a complaint was only a thought away, pissing anyone off, even just a little, meant your house would hear about it right away. Nailing all these goals was tough, but Takin’ enjoyed the challenge. And it sure helped that the game kept him constantly apprised of his progress. He had mental threads on all his bots that turned colors-red, yellow, and green-in accordance with the amount of grime they were picking up. Red meant that almost no cleaning was occurring, while green indicated it was keeping very busy with its work.
Takin’s goal was to keep at least a quarter of his bots in the green and the remainder in the yellow. If he kept up that level of performance, he would constantly get reassurances from his game genie, a smooth, young female voice. She said things like, “I liked that move,” or “Oh, yeah, you do that so well.” His favorite one that was reserved for when he was really cleaning up was, “Takin’! Oh yes! Takin’!” which the disembodied voice cried orgasmically. She had tons of prompts, and the AI improvised well.
Takin’ had a hunch to play at the Anywhere apartment mounds today. He wasn’t sure why he should play there, as it was a little out of his way, but he had learned to trust his hunches-the subtle promptings of the OverSoul. And this time his hunch had really paid off. A massive stampede of unprecedented magnitude had just gone through Anywhere like a spanker cattle drive, and Takin’s bots were cleaning in the green across the board. It was going to be a good game.
Katria was on the other side of the planet, walking along a well-worn trail through a multicolored but orderly orchard of nectar trees. This was one of her favorite paths to stroll while grinding. The scenery of this route was beautiful, but due to the regularly spaced rows of trees and monotonously brilliant green grass carpeting the ground, it was not distracting, which was perfect for thought-intensive grinding.
Against all odds (as she understood them), she and Rhemus had lost the demon girl. Or at least for the moment. A sudden and disorderly exodus of the spanker ghetto had overwhelmed the sniffer bots that were stationed at the ghetto exits. The bots were very good at what they did, but they were not designed to process so many so fast.
Do you suppose this player, D_Light, as he’s called, knows that she’s a demon? blinked Rhemus. Is he actually helping her?
Hard to say for sure, replied Katria. The things he did, like logging her into the game and then starting that riot…Well, if he wasn’t trying to help her, I couldn’t imagine a more effective way to accidentally escape.
Yeah, and his beacon is off, Rhemus added. Few players run cloaked. I’d say he knows what he’s doing. We need to factor him in. It’s not often a mainstream player works with a demon. Might make this hunt pretty interesting.
Katria did not want an interesting hunt; she wanted it to be over. She had already spent far too many points on the sniffer bot rental fees. Having escaped the ghetto now, the two could have gone in any direction with nearly an hour head start. It had taken that long for the pandemonium to die down enough for a sniffer to find the scent trail again. Worse yet, shortly after finding the scent trial, they lost it-or more precisely, the trail had been demolished. Katria cursed her absurdly bad luck. A cleaning crew had gone through and scoured the area through which the fugitives had escaped. Now the few sniffer bots Katria kept on retainer hovered about where the trail had gone dead, impotently sifting the air.
I think it might be time to bring some heavy artillery into this game, Katria said.
A seeker, eh? That’ll be expensive, Rhemus replied with an attached Whinicon™.
It’s the right move though, Katria assured him. Now that the demon’s out of the bag, the bots are just too stupid to deal. It’s time to step it up. Katria sighed as she focused on a nearby purple and pink nectar blossom.
Rhemus paused for a few seconds and then said, I concur. I’m in for half of the fee.
That was why Katria always played with Rhemus. He did what needed to be done. They thought enough alike to work together easily, but diverged enough to not be redundant.
Thanks, Rhemus. I’m calling the bots off. The seeker will be in play within fifteen.
After making the appropriate arrangements, Katria opened a blink to her friend, OffDaLeash, to shake down what was what for the night. Katria figured she deserved a little break. The seeker would take it from here.
CHAPTER 18
I’m growing tired of this question: Is the OverSoul God? In answer to this I say, “To do is to be.” Does the OverSoul not bring out the best in every one of us? Does the OverSoul not answer our prayers? Does she not see all, even into the darkest corners of our soul? Can she not bestow everlasting life? Let me tell it to
you straight-the OverSoul meets every condition of the gods of the ancient world, so who are we to add more qualifications?
— Minister A_Dude, archives, “From the Pulpit”
D_Light was awakened from his chemi-induced slumber by a nightmare. Nightmares never happened. The dream started the way it always did. He was on his sailboat with a strong, steady wind, a wind that shifted to keep him on a reach, the best point of sail. But then there was a beautiful witch who flew across the sea toward him. As she approached, he saw it was Ascara, the character he played in NeverWorld. “I’m coming for you,” the witch said in a menacing whisper that carried over the cresting waves and the whipping wind. “The others cannot find you, but I can. I have magic.”
Suddenly, a great storm rose up, and his boat soon capsized. He was drowning, and as his ears went under the water, he heard his own screaming.
Having woken from the nightmare, relief washed over D_Light. He did not, however, open his eyes.
Smorgeous, what the hell was that?
Master, please specify your request.
My nightmare! What the hell? With the witch? I was dying. Play it back to me.
I have no reference to any irregular dream patterns, master. Would you like me to play back your most recent dream?
Yes, D_Light answered. He spent a few minutes fast-forwarding and rewinding through the archive of his dreams. There was nothing. Had he imagined it? But if so, wasn’t that what dreaming was-a hallucination? Hallucination or not, it should be in the archive, as all conscious experience was recorded.
Smorgeous, check again. Check for something like what I’m remembering now back while I was sleeping.
I’m sorry, master, but there is no archive of anything similar to the distressful events you are imagining now. To summarize, your most recent dream cycle was 16.4 minutes long and consisted of you and I aboard Terralova sailing to an unspecified location. Aside from adjusting the sails and a few minor steering corrections, the dream was uneventful.
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