MetaGame

by Sam Landstrom

  Lyra realized she probably could not even put a penalty on the doctor for what pretty much served as imprisonment. Before they entered the inner sanctum, Love_Monkey had insisted they all digitally sign a number of legal documents, and-as expected for a bioengineering facility-quarantine was a legally covered scenario. Clearly, Dr. Monsa was no fool. And perhaps Lily wasn’t quite as naive as Lyra had thought. Possibly it was no coincidence that Dr. Monsa came to favor the product during their stay. Perhaps Lily had made extra “efforts” to make the doctor favor her, and now this was how his bias was playing out. Lyra chastised herself for not ingratiating herself more to Monsa over the last few days. Had he not been so off-putting and ugly…

  Lily stared up at the blue sky above as she floated downstream on her back. This was the closest thing to rest she expected for the next sixty-nine hours, but she could not rest her mind. She needed to anticipate their next move and act accordingly.

  The team would not be able to catch her by tracking alone. She was moving too swiftly, and her trail was light. Even her present waterborne journey would frustrate their tracking effort for hours. But she knew they were clever. They would do more than just sniff her out. They will use their eyes too. She remembered when the cullers had been hunting them; Djoser had used his robot to scout out the garden visually from the top of a tree. Their familiars can see very far and can see a great deal at once. I must stay hidden.

  To do this, she would need to leave the garden and travel through the wild forest that surrounded it; however, she realized the thicker cover would come at the price of speed, and she would not be able to disguise her trail at all. The other option would be to stick to the water and allow this stream to carry her as far as it would. No, it was a predictable move, and predictability was the one thing sure to kill her. Besides, BoBo had said some time back that all rivers flushed out through impassible grates into the great lake above. There would be no escape that way.

  By sunset of the first day the hunters had lost and found Lily’s trail several times, but they had not actually seen their prey. Nevertheless, without a break, the hunt continued into the night.

  Each of the hunters had their assignments. Lyra, along with her familiar, continued to track. Amanda, Djoser, and Moocher were sent ahead of Lily’s estimated heading to attempt to catch up. D_Light and Smorgeous were left behind to guard the paradise garden. It was here where the small lake and main waterways of the inner sanctum were largely concentrated. Wide, shallow creeks, fountain pools, and narrow but deep rivers were fed by the lake-a lake that was fed from beneath itself by a deep geyser.

  Staying behind was D_Light’s idea. He suggested that Lily, upon realizing she could not leave the inner sanctum, would eventually double back here to again destroy her trail in the water. This strategy of ambush was plausible to the others, but to him it was only an excuse to be away from the rest of the team. Seeing them in their purpose sickened him.

  Unfortunately, despite his physical distance from the rest of the team, the nobles were constantly drawing him into their blinks with their incessant planning and status updates. This left little opportunity for sleep, so D_Light patrolled along the edge of the rivers. Besides, D_Light knew the nobles would be furious if they caught him snoozing during their final quest.

  Meanwhile, Smorgeous played lookout on the highest branch of the tallest nectar tree in the area. Without his familiar nearby, D_Light could not see much in the soft light of the faux moon, but he did not resort to artificial light because it would give away his position. The inner sanctum was a dark zone, void of nanosites coating the surfaces, so there were no skins to jack into. And with the network quarantine in effect, the Cloud was gone. With nothing to see, he closed his eyes and just listened. In between blinks from the others, there was only deafening silence.

  He wondered if this was what it was like without the Game. Nothingness. A life without goals or overriding purpose. A life like those of generations past, who fabricated the meaning and value of their own existence in an indifferent universe. The indifference of the rocks, plants, and water around him had been unsettling, but now, with his eyes closed, he felt even more alone. I’ve always been alone. Soul, I don’t want to die alone.

  CHAPTER 32

  There are no challenges or opportunities-only probabilities.

  — Excerpt from archives of analyst #4302409 (a.k.a. Hal)

  Day 2; 15:34 hours.

  Moocher’s got a visual on her. Djoser’s thought signature was all business.

  Djoser’s familiar streamed the video to the rest of the party. A tall, blond figure swept through a long, narrow clearing, quickly disappearing back into the thick underbrush. Moocher pinged the location on the map. She’s heading for the trail, probably going to make a run for the gate, Djoser declared. Okay, everyone, let’s move!

  I’m too far to be of help, D_Light returned. How about I just hold my position?

  Fine, Lyra answered.

  There was a pause and then Lyra said, Djoser, you’re the closest. You get a shot, you shoot to kill, right? No funny business.

  There was another pause before Djoser responded, What else would I do?

  Lyra left the question unanswered.

  Slogging through the tangled, thick, and often unpredictable forest of the inner sanctum was beginning to tire Lily, and unlike her pursuers, she did not have the benefit of drugs to keep up her pace indefinitely. Worse yet, her efforts had the nasty side effect of clearing a pathway for her hunters.

  Lily needed her gamble to pay off.

  She assumed her pursuers had spotted her crossing the dried-up creek bed. Once across, she put on a burst of speed, drawing on whatever energy reserves she could muster. Fortunately, there were many fallen logs running along the creek bed, which she used as a makeshift trail, dashing along and between them. Her ploy was simple. Upon finding her current position, they would think she was heading for the outer gate. With any luck, they would then attempt to cut her off before she reached it by sprinting along the trail.

  But she had no intention of escaping the inner sanctum. She had even more enemies outside than within, and she doubted she could escape anyway. Instead, she would circle back. Besides temporarily knocking them off her trail, she hoped to tire and demoralize them. Perhaps, if she was lucky, it would enrage them to the point where their judgment would be clouded. Lily, who had been raised in the running game, knew the chase was more in the mind than in the body.

  Not far ahead she saw a pair of thick, fallen logs that spanned the creek bed, festooned with branches and needles. She prepared to carefully crawl underneath this natural tunnel, protected from the watchful eyes of the familiars, to the other side, back toward the garden.

  They are closing in, D_Light thought to himself. He dropped from the blink. He knew the others expected him to stay engaged, but he could not listen, much less watch. Lily did not stand a chance against Amanda alone, but with Djoser and Lyra too? They might be coddled nobles, but they knew how to kill. Everyone from House Tesla did.

  It will be over soon. Just make it quick, he tried to tell himself, but he started to sob. Pathetic, I’m being absolutely pathetic.

  D_Light should be relieved. Smorgeous had recently notified him that the repellant in his system was just about spent. This quest had to end, or the Game, indeed, his very life, could end.

  But he suddenly felt the now familiar wrench in his stomach and a great despair as Lily’s face haunted him. The feeling reminded him of the emotions he’d endured in the shower after fragging Fael just days ago. This was even worse. He felt like a part of him was being strangled.

  Now, without the blink, the silence-like an unwanted lover-returned to him, broken only by his own sporadic curses and subdued moans.

  Smorgeous interrupted the silence. Master, there is a humanoid heat signature on the move 0.40 kilometers from here.

  D_Light immediately thought of the cullers.

  I am unable to get a direct visual due to interv
ening foliage; however, the general shape of the signature does not suggest that body type-it is too small.

  Lily? D_Light wondered. It couldn’t be. She was several kilometers from here. Only minutes before, he had watched her on the video feed. Nevertheless, D_Light ordered his familiar down from the tree. The two of them then headed toward the location of the man, woman, or whatever it may be.

  Dr. Monsa’s favorite analyst was making his way back to his lair. He was named Hal by Dr. Monsa, but Hal did not care what he was called as long as the doctor and everyone else left him alone to do his job.

  Hal was pained to have been away from his den so long, as 5.3 hours had passed already and another 1.2 minutes would pass before he would arrive back at his lair. Intolerable! There was so much to play. Much of the economic prosperity of House Monsa was in the analyst’s pale, long-fingered hands; not literally, of course, for the analyst interfaced with his grinder games primarily in his mind. Even as he sat getting his weekly booster-the one time a week that he simply had to leave his sanctuary-he interacted with the games. But this was not adequate. Only when surrounded by his AI, monitors, and raw-data-crunching organic computers could Hal attain his potential. This being the case, Hal hurried as quickly as his feeble, ghostly legs would carry him.

  The door of the analyst’s den was open for almost a second longer than was needed for the analyst to enter. This lag was programmed into the system to allow time for the dragging tubes to cross the threshold before the door sealed shut-sealed securely and tightly to ensure that no pesky sounds filtered in.

  Hal later deduced that D_Light exploited this delay in the door’s closing to slip in behind him. Only after Hal had settled down in his chair and had all of his tubes reattached to the life support by the service bot did the analyst detect that something was amiss. Although countless displays ran across his visual cortex, his real eyes-the ones used to scrutinize the dozens of monitors around him-noticed a misplaced lump in his peripheral vision.

  The analyst did not want to focus his attention on the lump. He had better things to do. Certainly, it was not important. Still, it was unexpected, and so with a great act of will, the analyst flicked his eyes over to the corner. The lump was the man from the dinner party of five nights ago. D_Light was the human’s name.

  “Why are you here? Please leave.” Hal spoke as clearly as he could, which came out as a crackling whine. His unrefined voice was the result of nearly unused vocal cords, and it irritated him that he had to use them now. The closest analogy the analyst had for his ancient, human-inspired vocal system was that of computer floppy drives in the time of early computer networking. It was slow, worked with a limited amount of information, and using it was divergent from the norm. Having nearly exhausted his patience with his earlier sentence, the analyst opened the portal of his lair with a flicker of a thought and then returned his attention to the monitors, rapidly shifting from one to the other. The human was expected to let himself out.

  But the lump did not move. Mildly irritating as this was, Hal ignored it. Analysts were highly skilled at tuning out extraneous input.

  “I want to know how to stop the MetaGame,” the lump stated.

  The analyst knew what the human was referring to. He knew just about everything that was known, particularly everything that occurred in his own house. But the analyst was not interested in talking to this unwelcome guest. He would ignore D_Light. Surely the human would see the futility of his questions and leave.

  D_Light raised his loaded crossbow.

  Hal glanced up and then back to his monitors again. Hal knew D_Light’s profile. The player was human, but not stupid. “Not in your best interest,” he said dismissively. “You would not gain the information you seek by killing me.”

  D_Light lowered his weapon slightly, now aiming it at the analyst’s legs. He paused there for a moment and then slung the crossbow back over his shoulder. “I’ll smash your machines!” D_Light erupted like a crazed man. “All this shit you need-I’ll smash them, bash them against the floor!”

  This sounded to Hal like a more plausible threat. His eyes darted away from the screens, over to D_Light, and then back to the screens again. “To end the game, either win or lose,” the analyst answered.

  Hal considered pinging for the guards. However, they, along with all the other so-called “intelligent life,” had been evacuated from the inner sanctum. Such evacuations were routine in the inner sanctum. Aside from real emergencies due to rogue microbes and the like, the doctor would run occasional drills. But this unscheduled quarantine had lasted too long, and the temporary lair given to Hal was inadequate for his work. Therefore, the analyst had seized an opportunity to escape back into the inner sanctum, back where real grinding could get done. Up until now, escaping back home had seemed like an optimal move despite the time it cost him to hack out of the network quarantine to get Cloud access. Now Hal was not so sure.

  No, the guards would come too late to be of use if they came at all. Worse yet, Father would have him evacuated again. It would be a terrible productivity hit for the analyst.

  “I don’t want to win or lose,” D_Light clarified. “I do not want to destroy the product. I just want the quest to end.” D_Light took a step closer to the analyst’s desk.

  Hal regarded the human more carefully now. He ran an analysis of the expression on D_Light’s face. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, his face was pale, and his chin trembled. His appearance was indicative of one suffering from sleep deprivation, but beyond that he also appeared to be under significant stress. Panic? Anger? Hal often found it difficult to tell these emotions from appearance and body language alone. A sniffer could measure D_Light’s pheromone signature and get a better reading, but Hal had never needed a sniffer in his lair before.

  “I am afraid I do not know how to end your game,” replied Hal. “Remember, you entered the MetaGame under your own free will and agreed to abide by the rules. I have scanned over the rules of your current quest, and it is quite clear that you must either win or lose to end the game. Alternatively, if basic survival is your goal, you could attempt to escape the inner sanctum and by doing so escape the cullers present here. However, all exits are sealed, and I do not have the key-not that it matters because the key changes every fifteen minutes. Yet another alternative would be to obtain some culler repellant. I do not have any. Unlike many here, I was designed for the inner sanctum and the smell of my flesh is of no interest to the cullers; therefore, I have no need of external repellant that is imbibed.”

  Unfortunately, this explanation did not satisfy D_Light, who grabbed a nearby monitor, ripped it off its housing, and flung it down on the stone floor with a crash.

  Hal recoiled as though wounded himself and cried out. He wrung his hands uselessly at D_Light. “ No! Stop that!” Just the loss of that monitor alone would cut back Hal’s productivity by perhaps 0.5 % until replaced. Everything in Hal’s lair had been optimized over the years. Every piece of equipment was the right tool for the job and was positioned in just the right place. As bad as the loss of the monitor was, Hal shuddered to think what would happen if this maniac let loose on the Artificial Intelligence machines.

  D_Light seemed oblivious to the cries of the analyst as he pulled down yet another monitor that splintered and shrieked as it was obliterated on the floor.

  “ Damn you! ” Hal screamed at him. It was alien for Hal to curse. For once, he did not know what to do. Perhaps if he had some time to analyze the situation, but this monster was literally ripping the lair apart!

  “This will cost you everything! Stop! ”

  The crazed human was oblivious, as though in some mad trance.

  “You did this!” Hal shouted. “You made the MetaGame! You can’t ask me to fix what you made! I can’t! I can’t!”

  D_Light paused and looked up at the tall, gaunt analyst. D_Light’s face was flushed with exertion. He was breathing heavily. He looked slightly puzzled, but reached up to grab another monitor.
/>   “Stop! Stop! I’ll send you an archive! The answer is there! Damn you, stop!”

  For the first time in his life, Hal did something impulsively. Unauthorized, he sent one of the most top-secret archives in his possession. He sent the night harvest archive. Hal would later regret it. He would later decide that it would have been more prudent to lose the entire lair than to succumb to this terrorist act, but standing idly while watching his tools get smashed was unbearable. Although Hal was designed to find violence loathsome, had he any weapon he might have murdered the human.

  D_Light stopped his rampage. “My Soul,” he whispered with shock and exhaustion as he received the archive. He slumped against the wall and slowly lowered himself to the floor to avoid fainting.

  CHAPTER 33

  Democracy is not dead, merely unconscious.

  — Excerpt from “Musings of an Immortal,” by Dr. Stoleff Monsa

  Despite the fact that Hal sent Smorgeous the encryption key along with the archive, it took over a minute for the content to be decrypted. D_Light had never received anything with such high security.

  Night Harvesting Executive Summary

  Artificial intelligence alone is insufficient to power a framework as unfathomably complex as the Game. Combined, there are over twenty-eight billion humans and intelligent products in existence today. These beings make up an astoundingly intricate network of relationships and interconnected knowledge. Only by leveraging these nodes is it possible to optimize the Game and enable an overarching consciousness (the OverSoul) to emerge from this collective intelligence. The means by which this intelligence is tapped is through the most obvious method available, which is to say, by tapping into the mind interface chips implanted in the majority of intelligent organic beings.