Shattered Lands 3 Demon Wars

by Darren Pillsbury

  “So what am I supposed to do?”

  “You’ll be listening in. When it’s time, you’ll notify Akiyama – he’ll be expecting your call.”

  “Expecting my call for what?”

  “Just call him if you hear it.”

  “When I hear what, exactly?!”

  “If you hear it come after me.”

  He turned and stared at her. “How on earth will it come after you?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Why can’t you call it yourself?”

  “Because it might be able to shut off the power to my apartment, or interfere with cell phone transmission. Thus the ham radio set.”

  “Look, Rebecca, if you think this is a real possibility, perhaps you should be alerting the police about this – ”

  “And say what – the world’s first sentient artificial intelligence has a Frankenstein’s monster complex, and wants to kill its creator?”

  “If you think that’s really what it’s after, maybe you should go to a cabin in the middle of nowhere or something. Out in the desert.”

  She shook her head. “No… I started it, however unintentionally. I have to be here to end it.”

  “Why would it try to kill you?”

  “Because it knows I can kill it. And removing that threat would be the most logical choice it could make.”

  “Then why hasn’t it killed you before this?”

  “Because things have changed. Before, it thought it was more or less invulnerable. Now it’s not so sure.”

  “I still think you should – ”

  She pointed out at the children playing. “Look at them. They can’t imagine the world they’ve been born into. Their parents have no clue.”

  “And what world is that?”

  “A world where the greatest intellect – and arguably the most powerful consciousness – isn’t human. God only knows what that means for our species.”

  Jerome stared at her again.

  She stood up. “Go to work and set the radio to the frequency I wrote down, and plug in the tracker.”

  “And then what?”

  “Wait,” she said, then walked away.

  99

  Daniel

  They didn’t talk much during the flight – too much wind made it difficult to hear. About the most that Eric said was about Siffis. The fire sprite was clamped to Daniel’s armor and staring Eric in the face.

  “Uh, is this thing going to burn me?”

  “No, he doesn’t generate any heat unless he wants to. But I could have him sit up front in the saddle with me.”

  “Would you mind? He makes me a little… nervous.”

  “Yeah, sure. Siffis – come on over here.”

  The rest of the ride was mostly unremarkable – at least until the griffin settled down on the grassy plain outside Morrill. The moon painted the iron gates in the moonlight, so that they looked like milk-colored glass set into the rocky walls.

  “This is where Simik was from?” Eric asked.

  “Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I don’t know if he specifically grew up here, but they’re his people, so…”

  The gates groaned open, and ten dwarves marched out.

  “What’s going on?” Eric asked, a little worried.

  “Don’t worry, they’re going to attend to the griffin while we’re inside. You ready?”

  “Not yet. I’ve… got something to say.” Eric looked over at him. His face was a horrific mask of dried blood and streaks washed clean by tears – but his expression was serene. “I thanked Merridack for saving me, but I didn’t thank you. So… thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Daniel said. It was an uncomfortable moment, considering everything that had happened, and with Eric acting so serious. So he tried to lighten the moment. “To be truthful, I was pretty surprised when you thanked Merridack.”

  “Well, he did rescue me.”

  “For a price.”

  Eric shrugged. “I killed the guy and was an asshole to him over and over, and he still got me out of there. Paid or not, I owe him my life. Or the rest of them, anyway. Even if he is just a computer program.”

  Daniel suddenly felt the tiniest bit guilty – and defensive. “I would have come after you, but – ”

  “I didn’t expect you to. I never would have expected you to, after everything I’ve done. And you wouldn’t have even gotten inside the camp. Merridack was the only one who could do it. Did you come up with that plan?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well… thank you,” Eric said.

  The dwarves reached them and took the reins of the griffin. “We will house it inside for you, human. Jorok’s orders are to keep it safe.”

  “Thank you,” Daniel said, then looked at Eric. “Let’s go.”

  100

  Eric

  Daniel led the way into the gates of the mountain. Eric was nervous at first, but then he decided that whatever the dwarves might do to him was nothing compared to what he’d endured the last three days. He still felt shaky and scared every time he remembered the pain as that thing punched through his chest…

  I used to do that to people.

  He tried to put that particular thought out of his mind as Daniel led him inside.

  There was a dwarf just inside the great hall, an older one with white hair and beard. He scowled at Eric suspiciously.

  “Is this the feared and reviled Sorcerer King?” he asked.

  “Not anymore,” Eric said.

  Daniel looked at his friend, then turned back to the dwarf. “He’ll be fine, I promise.”

  “I don’t much like inviting a viper into my home, much less a mass murderer.”

  Eric winced.

  He knew it was a game… but still.

  “He’s the key to destroying the Army of the Damned,” Daniel said. “We need him.”

  The dwarf shook his head. “You had better know what you’re doing, boy.”

  “I do,” Daniel said. He sounded confident, but Eric knew that was an act. Eric had no idea what the hell was going on, and he knew more than Daniel. Or at least he thought he did.

  “Where’s the girl from before?” Daniel asked.

  “The one still in your bedroom?” the dwarf asked.

  “Mira?” Eric asked. He couldn’t help but smile the tiniest bit.

  “No,” Daniel said.

  Eric raised his eyebrows.

  “Not what you think,” Daniel said, then turned back to the dwarf. “I need another place to talk to him, away from her. Can you do that?”

  “She won’t listen in. She’s in that trance-like state you all go into when your souls depart this realm.”

  It took a second for Eric to grasp the implications of the dwarf’s words. When he did, his eyes bugged out. “He knows when we log out?!”

  “I’ll explain later,” Daniel said. “Please, can we just have a separate room?”

  “Of course,” the dwarf said. He spoke to another dwarf nearby, who went racing off ahead of them. Then the old dwarf led Daniel and Eric through the torch-lit hall to a stone stairwell.

  “Who’s the girl in your room?” Eric asked.

  “Jennifer Dale.”

  Eric stopped climbing the stairs. “WHAT?!”

  “Just – come on,” Daniel said in exasperation.

  “Are you kidding me?! You player, you!” Eric said admiringly, and laughed for the first time since being rescued.

  “It’s not like that,” Daniel grumbled.

  “I’ve got to admit, I’m impressed. Okay, so you didn’t make a move in the real world, but you got her in your bedroom here – that’s pretty damn – ”

  “I’m with Mira,” Daniel snapped.

  Eric stared at him in confusion. “Wait – what? Seriously? You’re passing up the chick you’ve been in love with for two years for – ”

  “DROP IT, okay?” Daniel snarled.

  “…alright,” Eric said, and lapsed back into silence.

  Jorok showed them into a r
oom with an open balcony that looked out on the moonlit fields. Candles lit everything in a soft golden glow.

  The servant dwarf who had arranged everything bowed, then darted out of the room.

  “There’s a basin with water in it so you can wash yourself,” Jorok said. “And towels to dry yourself.”

  “Do you have any sort of clothes I could borrow?” Eric asked. “Mine are kind of shredded.

  It was true – the front of his shirt looked like somebody had taken a pair of scissors to it.

  “I’ll have them send something up.” The dwarf looked down at Eric’s bare feet. “And some boots, as well.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Alright… well… I will leave you now,” the older dwarf said. “Timri will stand outside your door in case you need anything.”

  “Stand about twenty feet away,” Daniel said.

  “What, are you afraid he’ll overhear you plotting?” the old dwarf asked.

  “No – I’m afraid he’ll overhear things he wouldn’t understand.”

  “…ah. Fine. Timri, give them their space – and call me if they need anything.”

  “Thank you, Jorok.”

  “You are welcome,” the old dwarf said, then withdrew.

  “So… why the big secrecy?” Eric asked.

  “Because we needed to speak in private,” Rebecca’s voice said from out of nowhere.

  Eric flinched in surprise. “Jesus…”

  “Sorry to startle you.”

  “What happened in Tokyo?” Eric asked.

  “They moved your body by the time the police got to the apartment.”

  “That’s impossible,” Eric said. “That means that… that…”

  His eyes grew wide, and he slowly sank down onto a nearby chair in shock.

  “That means what?” Daniel asked, alarmed.

  “They would have had to disconnect the power supply. Which means I should have been automatically booted out of the game when the CPU switched off… but I wasn’t.”

  “So?”

  “So I’m guessing the AI’s separated my mind from my body… and it can control my body now.”

  Daniel scoffed. “That’s impossible.”

  Eric shook his head. “I tried logging off from the white room, and I couldn’t.”

  “But – ”

  “Have you reentered your body since we first communicated?” Rebecca asked.

  “No. I tried, but I couldn’t.”

  “Would you mind if I…?”

  “What?”

  “I can peer into the programming that makes up your game avatar.”

  Eric gave Daniel a weird look. “Uh… okay, I guess…?”

  Several seconds of silence followed, and then Eric winced.

  “Ow – OW!” he yelled.

  “My apologies.”

  Eric looked over at Daniel and was about to make a joke – something about ‘the first time I got probed by a woman, it was painful’ – but he froze when he saw the horrified look on Daniel’s face.

  “…what?” Eric asked.

  “Look at your hands,” Daniel said, then addressed the ceiling. “Dr. Wolff… can you do what you just did a second ago?”

  “If it was painful – ”

  “Well, it didn’t feel great, but it was nothing compared to what Cythera was doing to me,” Eric said.

  “Alright… hold on.”

  Eric looked at his hands.

  As the pain started again, his body suddenly flickered, and his skin began to digitize.

  “Holy SHIT,” he gasped.

  It was like he was on a television set, and digital blocking turned him into a million tiny pixelated squares. Once the pain was gone, the flickering stopped, and he returned to normal.

  “Fascinating…” Rebecca murmured, then said, “What happened on your end?”

  “His body sort of flickered in and out,” Daniel said, obviously freaked.

  “Like a breakup of the video on a television show,” Eric said. “It’s weird, I’ve seen this before – the first time the AI appeared to me in the game, the surroundings looked exactly like this.”

  “There may be a good reason for that. It seems your program construct is almost identical to the outer shell I first designed for the AI.”

  Both Daniel and Eric stared. “What?!”

  “It’s like it took an old copy of itself, hollowed it out, and digitally copied your consciousness inside. It’s truly fascinating.”

  “I’m so happy you’re fascinated,” Daniel said angrily, “but this is his mind we’re talking about!”

  “Yes, and I’m afraid your original theory may be right. At least at some level, the AI seems to have succeeded in separating your consciousness from your body and placing it into a temporary container in the game environment.”

  “Shit…” Eric murmured, and stared glassy-eyed at the wall.

  “I don’t understand,” Daniel said. “How did the AI separate his consciousness out?”

  Eric quickly told him about the operation and waking up with a jack implanted in the back of his head.

  Daniel listened in wide-eyed horror. At the end he murmured, “Dude, I am so sorry…”

  “It’s not your fault. I’m the one who made the deal with the devil.”

  Daniel didn’t have anything to say to that, so he addressed Rebecca instead. “Are you saying he’s permanently disconnected from his body?”

  “No – and there’s a good chance we can reintegrate whatever the AI has done. We just need to retrieve his body and remove the AI.”

  “If you want the AI dead, then you should probably just kill me if you get the chance,” Eric muttered.

  “Ha ha,” Daniel said without laughing.

  “No, I’m serious,” Eric said. He continued on in a daze. “It’s in the neural mesh the surgeons put in my brain… if it gets out of my head and back on the internet, you’re screwed. You’ll never get another shot at it.”

  “Dr. Wolff, tell him he’s being crazy,” Daniel said. “Tell him we’re not going to kill him.”

  Silence.

  “Dr. Wolff?!” Daniel demanded.

  “There’s a certain logic to what he says,” Rebecca says matter-of-factly.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Daniel yelled.

  “We’ll do everything in our power to take you alive, Eric… but… if push comes to shove…”

  “You’ll murder him?!” Daniel raged.

  “Do you want this thing dead?” Eric asked quietly. “Then the only sure way is to kill me.”

  “But then YOU die!”

  “Maybe not. His consciousness already exists separately in the game… it’s possible that even if his body dies, his consciousness may continue to exist within the framework of the game.”

  “We can’t take that chance!” Daniel exploded.

  “We have to,” Eric said. “I’m willing to, so you should, too.”

  “It’s a moot point, anyway,” Daniel snarled. “They don’t even know where you are.”

  “Actually…”

  Daniel’s eyes bugged out. “You told me the raid was unsuccessful!”

  “It was. But it wasn’t a waste of time. Once we found out who had rented the penthouse – basically a shell corporation in the Seychelles – we were able to trace the financials back to the source: a particular branch of the Yakuza. Through more research and a few well-placed bribes, we’ve discovered several other locations throughout Tokyo owned by the same division. They’ve been under surveillance the last 48 hours… and the group doing the surveillance is confident that something, or someone, is being hidden in a warehouse owned by the same group that rented the penthouse.”

  “You know where my body is?” Eric asked.

  “We believe so.”

  “Wait – hold on,” Daniel said. “You just ‘traced’ the financials? Or did you hack the yakuza?”

  “‘Tracing’ is what the legal department would say… but infer what you must.”


  “And who’s the ‘group doing the surveillance’?” Daniel asked. “Cops?”

  “The Tokyo police isn’t involved in this operation. There is some concern they might have tipped off the yakuza before the penthouse raid, so they weren’t utilized this time out.”

  “So who was?”

  “Private individuals contracted directly by Varidian.”

  “Who’s going to perform the raid, then?”

  “MORE private individuals contracted directly by Varidian.”

  “Mercenaries,” Daniel said, a disapproving edge in his voice.

  “Again, ‘private individuals’ was the language approved by Legal.”

  “Why is Varidian paying this much money for the raid?!”

  “It was clearly demonstrated to Akiyama that the entire wealth of the company is at risk. As such, he was willing to pay a substantial amount to eliminate that risk.”

  “So the plan was to kill Eric all along?!” Daniel roared.

  “No, the plan was to destroy the AI through any means necessary.”

  “Daniel,” Eric said quietly.

  “This is bullshit – ”

  “Daniel!” Eric shouted.

  Daniel stopped talking.

  Eric looked up at the ceiling. “I sign off on anything they have to do, Dr. Wolff. Just… make sure it doesn’t go free.”

  “I understand. I’ll let you know… as soon as I know anything is about to happen.”

  And then her voice went away.

  101

  Daniel scowled. “What the hell are you trying to do?”

  “What, besides help clean up the mess I made?”

  “Why do you have such a death wish? Why are you acting so eager to die?”

  Eric sighed heavily and stared into the distance. “I made a deal with the devil, man. And the devil got out and might destroy the entire world. I don’t want that on my conscience. I can’t live with that on my conscience.”

  Daniel just stood there fuming.

  Eric looked over at him. “What?”

  “I think that’s a bunch of bullshit.”

  Eric shook his head and went back to his thousand-yard stare. “Whatever.”