She expected the system to do what it was programmed to do when confronted with references to the outside world: ignore it, or treat the question as nonsense.
But it didn’t.
Far from it.
“THIS IS A COMPUTER SIMULATION. YOU HAVE ACCESSED THIS PROGRAM THROUGH INTERNET PORTAL OAX1928BT356X23, AND ARE A PARTICIPANT IN THE MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE ROLE-PLAYING GAME SHATTERED LANDS, COPYRIGHT AND TRADEMARK VARIDIAN INCORPORATED.”
WHAT IN THE WORLD?!
Rebecca actually stood up from the console, she was so shocked.
This was impossible. There was an impenetrable firewall between the inner functioning of the game and the computer-generated player world. There was no way that the two could cross over – they had designed the game specifically to prevent that.
And then the second anomaly happened:
The video feed suddenly cut out.
She frowned and started typing.
Now the system was telling her that the video feed didn’t even exist.
That what she had just seen never happened.
She tried for ten minutes to bring up the feed, or the files, or any indication of what had just transpired.
She came up with nothing.
When she accessed the diagnostics program directly and put in a request for a log of all interactions over the last 30 minutes, she got an unexpected reply:
System error
Log inaccessible
She tried again.
System error
Log inaccessible
On a hunch, she typed in ‘Unnamed One’ into the game database – the list of over ten million character and place-names that defined the contents of the Shattered Lands.
No results.
But she’d just HEARD the voice call itself the Unnamed One. It couldn’t use that term unless it was in the database.
She did a system-wide search of ‘Unnamed One.’
No results.
This…
This was not good.
She walked down the hall to her colleague’s office and rapped on the open door. “Lauer, we need to talk.”
Jon Lauer glanced up at her with weary eyes. “If this is about the QC department’s memo from the weekend launch, I’m on it, okay? Just – hey!”
Rebecca had walked around the desk and started typing on his keyboard without asking.
“Sure, fine – go right ahead,” he said sarcastically.
On the computer screen, a video came up – of the dark-haired kid in the tower.
Lauer slumped back in his seat, bored. “Why are you showing me a video of my son’s best friend?”
Rebecca looked at him in shock. “You KNOW this kid?!”
“Yeah – Eric. He’s been playing the system all weekend with my son. Why?”
She hit PLAY on the video recording.
“I AM THE UNNAMED ONE.”
“What did you mean by ‘the confines of this game’?” the teenager asked.
As soon as Lauer heard that, he frowned.
“THIS IS A COMPUTER SIMULATION. YOU HAVE ACCESSED THIS PROGRAM THROUGH INTERNET PORTAL OAX1928BT356X23, AND ARE A PARTICIPANT IN THE MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE ROLE-PLAYING GAME SHATTERED LANDS, COPYRIGHT AND TRADEMARK VARIDIAN INCORPORATED.”
By the time the voice was finished, Lauer was sitting bold upright in his chair.
The video cut to static.
“That’s impossible,” Lauer said, stunned.
“That’s what I thought. But it happened.”
“Where’s the rest of the video?”
“The system cut me off.”
Lauer frowned again. “You mean it crashed?”
“No. I mean it cut me off.”
“Wait, let me get this straight – you’re saying it knew you were spying on it, so it locked you out?”
“That’s precisely what I’m saying.”
He laughed. “You need some time off, Rebecca.”
“What’s your explanation, then?”
“Well – God forbid, but what if it’s a hacker? I mean, we spent billions making sure the system’s secure, but still – what if we missed something?”
“I would have seen indications of subroutine hijacking in the code. There weren’t any.”
“Okay, that’s a relief,” Lauer sighed. “But what if it’s somebody on the inside? A company employee messing around or something.”
“Again, I would have seen indications. There was nothing. And then it went and erased all traces of its actions so that there’s no evidence it happened at all.”
“What?!”
She typed on his keyboard again and brought up a record of her searches over the last twenty minutes.
“I tried to find the feed again – it said it didn’t exist. I tried to access the diagnostic program’s records of the last 30 minutes. It gave me a system error and said they were inaccessible. I looked for any mention of ‘the Unnamed One.’ It’s not in the database.”
Lauer thought for a second. “Try searching for Eric Richards.”
“Is that the boy in the video?”
“Yeah.”
She typed in the name in the player database file.
Player not found.
Lauer’s jaw dropped in astonishment. “That’s impossible – that was him,” he insisted.
“You’re sure?”
“I’ve seen the kid in my house at least twice a week for the last six years. I think I know what he looks like,” Lauer said sarcastically.
“Alright, that just bolsters my case, then.”
“Which is what?”
“I watched a video where the diagnostics program directly stated to a player that he was inside a computer game – an action that defies every rule there is. Then the program cut off the video feed. Then it denied me access to its logs, and now it’s erased all records of a player we both know was in the system, and who is probably in the system RIGHT NOW. The program is systematically covering its tracks.”
“It couldn’t have done any of that unless it knew you were watching it, and…”
Lauer’s voice trailed off.
“And it didn’t want me to,” Rebecca finished.
“You’re saying… it’s lying to you,” Lauer said, comprehension beginning to dawn on his face.
“Which means it’s self-aware,” Rebecca said. “Somehow, we accidentally created the world’s first sentient artificial intelligence – and we have no idea what it’s doing or what it wants.”
The Adventure Continues In
SHATTERED LANDS 2: The Fall Of Blackstone!
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Books In The
SHATTERED LANDS
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SHATTERED LANDS
SHATTERED LANDS 2
The Fall Of Blackstone
SHATTERED LANDS 3
Demon Wars
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SHATTERED LANDS
Copyright 2017 Darren Pillsbury
Original cover artwork by Christof Grobelski
Cover layout/fonts by Damonza.com
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people.
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Edition: August 2017
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