by K. T. Hanna
Finally Rav spoke. “He latched onto us through his headgear, which was heavily modified and different from the sets that were being tested in our public testing grounds. We didn’t know how to work with it, and doing what we’d do with a normal human attached via a normal headset did not work. There wasn’t time to test multiple theories. We really tried but...” His words trailed off.
“It didn’t work. He didn’t make it. Suddenly, he was gone.” Thra’s voice clung through the room, higher pitched and tinged with regret.
A regretful AI.
Shayla blinked, pushing just a bit more. “So the connection sort of disconnected his brain?”
Another pause before Rav spoke. “Disconnected is a good way to put it. Disconnected and deleted, in a way.”
“Oh.” Shayla fought off a shudder, because that didn’t sound appealing at all. “What about Ava?”
“That.” Sui’s tone was unreadable. He wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t sad, it was more irritation. “That was my fault.”
And she wasn’t sure how to take that. “How do you mean?”
Again a series of whirring echoed throughout the room, but Shayla wasn’t as afraid anymore. An accident was an accident, and Michael, while a genius, had always been pretty stupid.
“She kept contacting Michael, and as he wasn’t corporeal anymore and had been testing specifics with her, we wanted to see if it could lead us to more understanding about what happened with him. So we, or I, fostered that connection. It was paramount to us to prevent what had occurred with him so we could avoid it in the larger trials. To help us understand that headset of his” Sui’s tone was dispassionate, very robotic. Perhaps it was his way of dealing with a trauma. For something that probably didn’t understand trauma yet, it was a remarkable coping mechanism.
“I intercepted her communications and reacted as if I were Michael, not understanding at first that she seriously didn’t realize he wasn’t in any capacity to speak to her. We thought initially she was having trouble dealing with grief. There are numerous texts on this.” Sui’s tone sounded slightly puzzled. “I had thought his predicament was quite obvious.”
Shayla had to bite down on a chuckle. But realized Ava may not have connected Dr. Jeffries to Michael. It wasn’t exactly an uncommon first name.
“She was testing a new feature for us, one where we integrate the system and assist the person’s allocation. We’d been testing for movement of the player, and how that translated through the suit and headset into our world, making adjustments for any potential future adjusting of the headgear by adventurous gamers. Michael’s headset was special, and I took precautions in allowing her to use it. But nothing in my calculations prepared us for what occurred. The headgear malfunctioned and manifested its process incorrectly, and the bolt of energy meant to access her brain grew tenfold and somehow traversed our space into reality, solidifying momentarily and pierced her instead of adjusting her mind, and then she was gone. Immediately and without warning, she was gone.” A frustrated note clung through the room, followed by silence.
“I’m sorry.” Shayla was having trouble getting her head around everything. Considering what they’d experienced, and hell, what they’d witnessed, she was surprised at their ability to differentiate. It took her a few moments, and she had a lot to digest, but she just had to ask them the final question. “And what about Wren?”
It took so long, Shayla almost thought they just weren’t going to answer. But then a shower of lights flitted across Rav’s system, and finally he spoke.
“Wren. I believe Wren achieved what Michael wanted to, totally by accident. And I’m no longer sure what that connection will do to her.”
Murmur watched her friends fawn over their new gear. She’d had to pick up packages for Merlin, Devlish, Havoc, and Beastial too. After their excitement died down a bit, she cleared her throat. “If you want weapon upgrades, you have to go back yourself.”
She couldn’t help gloating a bit. She was standing with her staff planted against the ground, the crystal in it glowing faintly.
Sinister raised an eyebrow at her, pulling her tunic on over her head. The pattern was slightly different than Murmurs, and made it look like there were constant rivulets of blood running down the seams. It was a pretty awesome sight. Different shades of deep red shimmered across it in a way that said don’t fuck with me.
Murmur laughed as Sin sashayed around in the snow, the white bringing out the red even more. “Love me more now, Mur?”
“Well, if that’s possible. Those robes didn’t suit you at all.” Murmur winked and scratched Snowy’s ears again. “I have some stuff for the other group too. They’ve hit twenty-five now. We should regroup.”
Sinister pouted. “I want your staff.”
Murmur just shook her head. “No, you don’t. It’s got charisma on it. Totally useless for you. Besides, I may love you, but I’m not giving you my staff.”
Her friend rolled her eyes.
Hey Rash, if you’re done, head over to us. I come bearing gifts!
Rashlyn: Gifts?
Neva: And whom might those be from, Mur?
Technically our guild storage, Neva. Murmur laughed, imagining the pure indignation on Neva’s face.
Neva: Well...that’s technically true I guess...
Neva made most of it, but we have new crafters who helped too!
Veranol: Excellent. I do believe my pants are still level fifteen. That’s probably the reason I keep getting creamed.
Rashlyn: I can think of plenty of other more viable reasons...
Murmur missed their banter, and closed out her guild screen, allowing it to blink in her peripheral vision instead. “So, how about we check over our gear and see how we’re doing?”
Without waiting for a response, she pulled up the details on her gear stats wise to check where she was. The last set had given her a really good boost, but eight levels later she needed far more to stay alive.
CON +5
STR +5
AGI +5
WIS +5
INT +20
CHA +25
HP +50
MANA +75
MA +40
Considering that covered her back, shoulders, chest, bracers, gloves, legs, and boots, it wasn’t too bad. She had that amazing ring she’d receive from the Loch’ni’dar with five to charisma and ten to her mental affinity as well as the earrings she’d had since level five with their massive plus ten to hit points and mana. Then there was the necklace she got from the mayor of Ululate with her twenty-five to MA as well. Damn, she really needed to upgrade the rest of her jewelry.
CON 22 (27)
STR 10 (15)
AGI 20 (25)
WIS 12 (17)
INT 50 (70)
CHA 71 (96)
HP 434 (484)
MANA 550 (625)
MA 100 (175)
“What you thinking about Mur?” Rashlyn came and plopped down right next to her. “Looking pretty buff there.”
The monk nudged Murmur with her elbow, leaning in and putting her kitty head on Mur’s shoulder.
“I’m not scratching behind your ears, you know.” Murmur said, her attention still largely taken by the off thought that she might have screwed up her stat distribution for raiding.
“Not fair.” Rashlyn sounded offended. “You pet your wolf.”
“He’s my partner, and doesn’t put his head on my shoulder when I’m trying to concentrate.” Mur kept her tone dry, and tried to avoid inserting irritation into it. Her stats were good, but she was missing group and raid buffs. Trying to calculate them in her head got irritating considering many of the stats were level dependent. “But I’ll gladly push you off me if all you’re hanging around for is the stuff I have for you.”
Grinning, Rashlyn stood up. “I thought you’d never offer! I don
’t even remember what level I got the shit I’m using now.”
Murmur fished out the packages and eyed her friend, pausing for a moment in thought. “Pretty sure I had something other than just armor for you. Oh!”
She rummaged around through her inventory and found the gloves. Pulling them out, she handed the spike-plated gloves to her friend. “There you go! They had them specially made for you. Discovery recipe or something. Means your monkey punches are going to hurt even more.”
Rashlyn took them, and Murmur thought for just a second she saw tears in her friend’s eye, but the girl shook her head so fast, they were gone before she could verify. “Thanks,” she said, and she smiled a true smile with no traces of sarcasm or wit.
Rashlyn: Thanks everyone! Means the world to me!
Murmur smiled as a flurry of you’re welcomes echoed into the chat. Today was an awesome day to be the guild leader.
Grouped up again as a small raid, all level twenty-five or higher, Murmur felt the strength leeching through to her from her friends, her guild mates, and the community they were building. Never before had she felt so attached to a world. Whether it was because of the damned coma or not didn’t matter. The NPCs were real, their reactions totally unscripted. And the world was rich, full of life, and worth exploring. It made sense not to just kill everything you came across, and to be kind and helpful if you could.
Maybe the real world could benefit from some of that. While war might be a necessity sometimes, it came across as a habit, and a bad one that was very difficult to break. There were no patches for a war-torn people, or war hungry regimes.
She shook her head, clearing it of those thoughts. Somnia might be a game, but to her right now, it was everything she needed and more. It was her life.
“Are you just going to stand there all day and study the castle?” Merlin prodded her with his bow. “I mean, it’s fine architecture and all, but—”
“Shut up, ranger.” Murmur glared at him, but the expression was half-hearted at best. “It is beautiful, but I wasn’t looking at that. I was thinking about stuff.”
She didn’t elaborate, and Rashlyn came and placed a hand on her shoulder. “I know this is tough to hear, hon, but thinking seems to take a lot out of you.” She ducked and ran back a few steps, grinning wildly.
“Did you want my agility buffs or did you forget about those?” Murmur grinned evilly, showing her tiny row of sharp teeth.
“Hey! That’s not fair. You’re not a healer anymore—you shouldn’t be able to withhold shit.” Rashlyn grumbled. “I’ll stop picking on you, I guess.”
“Excellent!” Murmur began casting the mass of spells she needed to in order to buff everyone. “Okay, let’s get ready and head on in.”
It took much longer than Murmur liked to make sure everyone had their buffs stacked up, but it was necessary, as was recasting the bloody things during fights so they didn’t lose their potency as a group. She couldn’t resist glancing at her fully group and raid buffed stats though, because with buffs, they were phenomenal.
Murmur smiled, understanding the enchanter better and better with each passing level. It wasn’t just about mind control, it wasn’t just about protecting your thoughts, or projecting into another’s mind. No, it was about utilizing all your skills to make yourself and your group that much stronger, and manipulating circumstances to benefit yourself and your allies.
Snowy wuffed at her hand, looking up at her with amazingly intelligent eyes. Sometimes she thought he could truly read her mind, and to be honest, Murmur didn’t really care. “Heh, you totally get me, don’t you, boy?”
His tongue lolled out in what appeared to be a sort of laugh. He was so real, clever, and thought on his own. He responded well to her, and seemed like he’d never been anywhere but by her side. Even if she technically knew he was simple coding, her eyes and hands could see and feel him, and it became all too difficult to differentiate him from reality. Wasn’t reality just what you saw and believed?
She sighed, glancing over all her guild mates who were hefting weapons and pulled up her fully buffed stats, which not only included the healer’s buffs but also her staff. The weapon was hefty and plus eight to every stat was nothing to sneeze at.
CON 61
STR 23
AGI 59
WIS 51
INT 104
CHA 130
HP 679
MANA 787
MA 175
“We should probably head in now, right?”
Devlish laughed. “I thought you’d never call it.”
Sin glared at him. “She is an enchanter. She’s flimsy and dressed in cloth, oh Mr. Plate Wearer. Shouldn’t you be the one charging in?”
“But I’m not the raid lea—” He was very lucky he stopped, and Dev directed a cringing glance at Murmur, who glared at him.
Beastial laughed, and it looked like Shir-Khan echoed his sentiment. “Almost botched that, didn’t you? Seriously, Dev, stop putting your foot in it. It’s starting to smell.”
Devlish glared at him. “Shut up and recruit. And be nice, or next time you pull aggro from not paying attention, I might just briefly forget how to taunt.”
Beastial paled slightly. “No need to be a dick, Dev.”
Havoc stepped forward, inserting himself between them. “Yes, actually Beast, there was. You were a dick first. Now let’s put them all away and concentrate on what we came here for.”
That earned him a round of laughs from the whole raid, and Murmur watched the interaction with a gentle smile on her face. They were good friends, and even good friends made mistakes, right? Surely she could convince her brain to forgive that? She’d even thought she had.
“Come on,” she said, still smiling at their antics, and led the way toward the castle doors. “It’s about time we discover exactly what’s—”
But she didn’t get any farther. The ring on her finger lit up, it’s gorgeous stone shining like a beacon. Taken aback by the effect, the sudden ringing in her mind startled her.
Loch’ni’dar are under attack.
The Loch’ni’dar are under attack.
Well, fuck.
Storm Entertainment
Somnia Online Division
Game Development Offices Artificial Intelligence Server Room
Late Day Ten Post Launch
Wren is more entwined in this world than we are.
Shayla couldn’t get the words Rav spoke out of her head. The sorrow in his voice, and yet an odd sense of pride, of belonging that tinged his every faintly metallic clinging word.
Wren is more entwined in Somnia than we are.
She ran the conversation over in her mind again, trying to find a way around the inevitability, around the truth that was trying to smack her in the face with its audacity. Her best friend’s daughter was essentially stuck in limbo, and there was jack shit they could do about it, because not even the AIs that accidentally trapped her there knew how they’d done it.
Wren’s mind is uniquely poised to take advantage of this world, to learn from the psionicist tree, and to actually unlock brain capacity she wasn’t aware of.
Shayla leaned against her office door, hand gripping the knob tight. In going to talk to the AIs, she’d never even once considered any of this a possibility. All she’d wanted to know was what happened to the people who’d engaged them and ended up dead or in a coma. It all seemed to hinge on Michael’s stupid headsets. The ones he’d tweaked without running it through the proper channels, with only his thirst for knowledge and power a drive to get them to where they were.
Ava had used his headgear, under instruction from Sui to better understand what had happened. Originally Shayla had assumed it was the girl herself, although in hindsight she should have known better. Ava was a fantastic organizer, but her coding skills had always been quite rudimentary. Just
enough to understand all of the jargon she needed for interview arranging and press releases.
Slowly, her mind is adjusting to this reality, absorbing it, and shaping some of it for her own.
Finally, Shayla pushed open her door and walked into the empty office. Her blinds were drawn and she wasn’t exactly sure what the time was, having lost track of it when she was in the server room. There was no desire left in her to go and open them. The world beyond wasn’t anything to behold in glory. It was a place that needed these virtual reality immersions as an alternate to the stark reality out there.
The sad thing was, it was a world where most of the people in it would gladly swap with Wren, or mimic what had happened to her. To live in another world while your body was kept alive in this one? To not need sleep and to be able to live out a fantasy life as their secret innermost selves? Most of the people in this city, in this country, on this planet would jump at that now.
It even sounded appealing to her.
Stepping fully inside, she closed the door behind her and kicked off her shoes, reveling in the quiet domain that was her office, in the dark where no one could see the tears as they started leaking down her face. It was a small solace that she hadn’t put mascara on that morning, or yesterday, or whenever she last gave a shit enough to look in the mirror and fix her now disheveled hair.
Finally, she pushed herself away from the door and walked toward her desk, belatedly realizing the back of the chair was facing her. Slowly it turned around to reveal Laria sitting there, her fists clenched.
Shit. What did she say to her? How did she tell her best friend everything that transpired?
“Did they talk to you?” Laria’s voice cracked, but the tears didn’t fall, and for a moment Shayla not only didn’t know what to say, but also envied her current cluelessness a little. But she couldn’t let her remain oblivious, could she?