by Tom Hansen
She scrunched up her brow and shuffled her legs again. “But even with those restrictions, you have more than 250 million people world-wide who could potentially play this game? A quarter of a billion people.”
He nodded, leaning back again. “Yes, and I’m happy to say that not six-hours in, we’re already up to twelve million. People are loving this game.”
“But you didn’t program it; you had an AI develop it?”
He was waiting for this part. “Laisseze is the most advanced Artificial Intelligence on the planet. He built this game in record time, so fast, in fact, that our marketing department was left with their pants down-if you excuse my analogy. He was so efficient and effective with coding and neural networks, that the poor humans in the company didn’t think it was possible to have the game up yet. But here we are.”
He paused, a twinkle in his eye for the camera. “Perhaps we should have created a marketing AI so that they could have kept up with each other.”
“So, rather than wait for the predetermined release date with marketing and fanfare, you just released it?”
“We call it a soft-launch. And honestly, how much more fanfare do we need? It’s been the only thing on the news for the last six hours. Who needs marketing when every news agency on the planet is vying for my time. The entire gaming community has been following our development diary updates like their lives depended on it. I think we did just fine.”
A shot of regret accompanied a twinge up his spine, making him cringe. His cavalier comment about the gaming community’s lives might open a Pandora’s box of query. His own internal PR department had found out about it three hours earlier. This had to be spun just right.
“Well, it is interesting that you bring up lives, Arthur, because reports are coming in, and these reports are saying that people are staying logged in, not going to the bathroom, not drinking water. Reports have even said that people who have come out of the game aren’t able to talk about what is in the game. Some said they forget their own memories when logging in.”
He took a slow, measured breath, easing into his best grandfatherly smile. “Despite our earlier-than normal release, we have been clinically trialing this game for months now. We have the top neuroscientists, psychologists, psychoanalysts, and every other doctor with letters after their name watching everything very carefully. We took every precaution and are continually monitoring the health of the game and its players closely.
“If an adult, and let me reiterate, you have to be able to buy alcohol and rent a car to be allowed into this game. If an adult chooses to endure some discomfort for the sake of gameplay, that is his or her choice. We will monitor the situation and if we see too many issues we can broach the subject of warning messages, but I think that your network especially should be okay with us not coddling players.”
He paused, collecting his thoughts. The stitch in his left side was back, annoying as ever.
“As for memories, I honestly don’t know where these unfounded rumors come from. While in-game, the AI does limit talking about RL, or Real Life. That is done simply to ensure that the experience for those that want to fully immerse themselves in Eloria remains unspoiled. That’s all. They’re free to say whatever they want, but certain types of hateful speech, and discussions about, say the latest baseball games won’t be heard by other players. There is absolutely no manipulation at all. We merely filter the conversations and encourage all our players to join in the community with all of their being. It makes for a much more immersive experience. You really should try it.”
She gave a curt smile, a hint of nervousness in her eyes. “I definitely will.”
She crossed her legs again. One of her eyes was beginning to twitch. He would have to thank his PR department for this interview. The reclusive and rarely-seen CEO of Epoch finally doing an interview for the first time in six years. They picked the perfect person to interview him, someone who couldn’t handle being in VR for too long. It was a shaking house of cards, and she, not wanting to lose face, would be the first one to break off the interview.
“So, changing tacks here, can you explain a little bit about how this game will affect the core goals of Epoch International?”
This was almost too easy, even if it had been a required question for the interview. If she didn’t ask it, they weren’t allowed to broadcast it, and since it was all taking place in The louVRe, Epoch was under no obligation to allow the footage to be released to them unless all the requirements had been met. This meant she was nearing the end of her rope and there would be no more hardball questions today.
“Well, Cynthia, as you know, Epoch started decades ago when my mother died. I’d grown up without a father, and she worked two jobs just to make ends meet. My freshman year in college, she was hit with early-onset Alzheimer’s. The disease came on fast and rendered her unable to work. She passed not more than a year later. I determined from that point on, I would dedicate my life to seeking cures for ailments such as the one that took my dear mother from me at such a young age.”
“What about the name of The louVRe?”
“Ahh, well, I thought this was pretty common knowledge.” Discredit the reporter for not knowing basic backstory. “One of the jobs my mother worked was as a janitor at the Louvre, in Paris. I would stop by after school and do my homework surrounded by some of the most impressive artwork in history, while my mother worked to pay for my schooling. Many times, she woke me up late at night to take me home.”
He paused, looking away from the camera with a measured pained expression on his face, the VR software timing it for maximum impact without overplaying an event that happened so long ago.
“Besides, there aren’t many English words with the letters VR in the name, so it was pretty easy to name it The louVRe.”
“The louVRe originally started as a medial experiment?”
He nodded. “Yes. It was a blank slate, a safe-space, if you will, for people with various types of brain ailments. Inside the VR environment, as you are seeing here, we can do anything. We can recreate traumatic childhood moments, helping those with long-term anxiety revisit those experiences in a controlled way. With the guidance of qualified medical professionals, we helped thousands of people get through those memories which haunt them. We’ve even made incredible strides with other disorders such as schizophrenia, dissociative identity, bi-polar, PTSD, autism, and of course, Alzheimer’s.”
“Are you still working in these fields?”
“Oh yes.” He donned a great big smile, a genuine smile this time. “We have never lost focus of our original goal. The gaming portion was simply a way to, well, pay the bills.”
She chuckled, looking back down at her notes. “And you have some pretty impressive bills. In twenty years you have provided free internet, sorry, The louVRe access to every nation worldwide?”
“Not just every nation, every village. We have hundreds of satellites in geosynchronous orbit and we’re currently launching more every year. Satellites don’t come cheap, so the more remote locations are currently serviced by autonomous solar-powered planes. Antarctica was completed last year, and we have hopes to start setting up the more traveled ocean shipping lanes before eventually covering the whole globe.
“The louVRe’s name was used to launch our world-wide VR environment, which everyone can access, free of charge. We’ve improved education for everyone worldwide, particularly for girls in developing nations.”
“And all of this is paid for, how?”
“Well, to be honest, that would be a question for Chris Morino, known online as Mariana, as he deals with the finances, but basically, it is businesses. We charge businesses for virtual real estate, we charge fees to our wealthier clients for perks like flying, fancy clothes, or skins. The implants help fund faster access for inner-city and third-world countries.
“The louVRe has leveled the playing field for everyone worldwide. In the virtual world, Natcha in Bangkok can start a business up right next to the latest
tech-startup in Silicon Valley, providing similar products and services for a better price. American and European industries have to compete on a global scale now, and I think the world is a better place because of it.”
She sat there for a long second, an age of dead-air before coming to her senses. “Well, thank you for that. I think we are out of time here for tonight.”
“I would like to make one announcement, if I may.”
She nodded, shooting him a glaring smile. “Of course.”
“I mentioned earlier that we are constantly watching the health of our systems and players, and due to the incredible popularity and surge of new logins, we need to do some maintenance on our servers to increase capacity. At 1 a.m. Pacific Time, that’s West-Coast US, by the way, we will take our servers down very briefly to double the server load.”
It was the first time Adrianna ran the show, and it was terrifying as hell. Despite the chill in the room, sweat gathered along her hairline, threatening to drip down her forehead. She scrubbed her sleeve across her face, applying more pressure than necessary. She wanted to make sure her nerves were responding.
The last half hour left her entire body feeling numb.
The room was full of managers, programmers, and analysts, collectively holding their breaths, waiting on the large screen in the center to finish updating.
To her side, Sven did his index-finger-to-the-lip thing that he did when he was deep in thought. Occasionally, she glanced from her tablet’s scrolling activity logs to look at him. She was pretty sure she hadn’t seen him blink in at least three minutes.
On the board in front of the room, a large digital map of the world had lit up sections indicating which parts of their server farm were online and which were offline.
“The western US is almost offline, just a minute left.” She said, trying to get the words out as fast as she could. The room was stifling, and she caught the whiff of tobacco from someone. It reminded her of her teenage years, and her fingers twitched, wishing she could have a puff. If there ever was a time to pick it up smoking, now was it.
Focus, you bitch.
The scrolling logs slowed down.
EPIUSWCSRV001 shutting down…
EPIUSWCSRV001 offline.
EPIUSWCSRV002 shutting down…
EPIUSWCSRV002 offline.
EPIUSWCSRV003 shutting down…
EPIUSWCSRV003 offline.
EPIUSWCSRV004 shutting down…
EPIUSWCSRV004 offline.
EPIUSWCSRV005 shutting down…
EPIUSWCSRV005 offline.
All US West Distributed Host Cloud Servers offline.
She swallowed. So far, all she’d managed to do was something every toddler could do; unplugging the computer.
“Servers are all offline. Crosscheck?”
To her right, a disheveled and irritable Bashir sat after being told he would lose his job if he didn’t show back up for work immediately. His plaid shirt was buttoned incorrectly, making one side of his collar stick up.
He typed furiously, swearing under his breath in Punjabi, and slammed on the backspace multiple times. Bashir went through a lot of keyboards.
To her left, she heard Sven swallow. It was one of the more terrifying sounds she had ever heard.
“Crosscheck complete. All servers offline.” Bashir said with a nervousness in his voice that matched her own internal terror. Adrenaline was the only thing keeping either of them awake.
A collective sigh could be heard around the perimeter of the large conference room.
Adrianna double checked the board. Nothing was lit up. She glanced back at her tablet, expecting to see results she wasn’t supposed to see.
Laisseze was a bastard of an AI. She’d been trying to tell management for months that it wasn’t performing all code changes according to its initial programming. Every one of her complaints had been met with a demeaning pat on the head. She was told to just do her best with what it gave her.
She glanced at Bashir. “Starting code download.”
abrzezicki3@devtest3:-$ sudo
[Sudo] password for abrzezicki3: ***************
login approved
abrzezicki3@devtest3:-# git pull prod
5…10…15…
The code was downloading way too slow. She double checked which node she was on. She should have the permissions. She was on the correct system. She pulled up another terminal and checked the disk space available for the fourth time in an hour.
20…25…30…
Sven cleared his throat. “Adrianna.”
Her pulse rate skyrocketed in her chest. Sven was the strong, silent type. Rarely speaking unless it was absolutely necessary.
She looked over. His hands were down as he stared intently on the screen.
“Why are there still dots active?”
She ignored the collective gasp from the back of the room. The rest could think what they wanted. She only reacted to Sven’s inputs, as his were the only ones she trusted.
She glanced up at the board in a panic. “Where?” Her eyes darted back and forth. “I don’t see any servers online.”
“Not the servers. The servers are red, correct?”
She nodded, “and the players are …”
She saw it. They were hard to see given they were only 1 white pixel in a five-meter sea of black, but there they were.
She once owned an older LCD monitor with a stuck pixel, nothing in the world worked for her to ignore that little fucking pissant of a pixel, staring back at her, taunting.
Adrianna stood, her finger itching to massage the pixels from being stuck.
She walked up closer to the board.
There were less than fifty across the whole board, with a small cluster around CERN.
“I have no idea what those are.”
“Aren’t they players?”
“Well, maybe, but they can’t be online if the servers are offline.” She pulled her tablet in front of her. 60% downloaded.
She pulled up another terminal window typing furiously. “Bashir!” She barked with an irritated tone.
“On it.”
Her command processed just a second before his did, but she took a second longer to process what she was seeing, so when both of them said the same thing at the same time it was an eery echo that chilled her to her spine.
“Thirty-seven players online.”
Agamemnon piped in. “How is that possible?”
Sven spoke up, ignoring the CEO’s question. “Adrianna, didn’t someone say earlier that there were some anomalies with the player-base?”
“Yes, that was —.”
Sven nodded, cutting her off. “How many anomalies did the transcript say there were?”
Adrianna realized he’d cut her off on purpose. He didn’t want her saying Carole Astrid’s name. He was guiding her answers, making sure that this code download failure didn’t come back to his own department.
She wanted to hug him, thank him for not throwing her under the bus. She also noted to never get on his bad side.
She glanced at her tablet screen out of habit, despite it not containing the data she needed she already knew the answer. “Less than a hundred.”
Sven leaned back in his chair again, hands folded like he was in prayer, and tapped his index fingers to his lips. “Well, thirty-seven sure sounds like less than one hundred, don’t it?” He glanced quickly to the back of the room where Carole sat, probably fuming.
Still looking at her tablet, she was about to respond in the affirmative, but then she noticed the counter for the download.
“Oh shit.”
“What?” Sven and Bashir said in unison.
“The code stopped downloading at 75%.”
She looked back up at Sven, a stricken expression on her face. “I don’t know what happened, let me restart the download.”
As she turned to her manager, his eyes began to widen in surprise. Text scrolled furiously on her tablet. She turned toward the large scre
en where everyone in the room stared, with their mouths agape.
Across the world map, dozens of red dots and thousands of white clusters lit up each second.
“What the hell is going on?” Bashir asked beside her.
The screen went black. Adrianna took a step back, as if being too close to the screen was going to be dangerous to her health.
Something was very, very wrong. It became more and more clear that no one in this room was in control of the situation.
Laisseze had taken over.
In the center of the screen was a large dinosaur. Raptor to be exact. The raptor had a giant grin on his face, exposing razor-sharp teeth. One disembodied raptor claw shook back and forth in an accusatory matter.
Underneath the giant raptor image were the words “Uh, uh, uh! You didn’t say the magic word!”
“Fucking Laisseze.”
Chapter 18
For thousands of years, the Tau’raj lived in peace among themselves. Generally, split into many tribes, they would meet together each year on the Summer Solstice at a common location in the heart of the Eternal Plains called Whistling Pass. Over the centuries, a town began to flourish to better house the tens of thousands of tribe members for their annual pilgrimage.
Nearly three decades ago, however, the Nagos began routing out the various tribes of the peaceful Tau’raj, fracturing their peace and forcing the Tau’raj to band together and fight for the ultimate survival of their race.
For years, they held the Nagos at bay, but defending the land for so long carries a price. The Nagos have been slowly whittling down the Tau’raj and the leaders now worry that a strong enough force of Nagos could topple their tenuous hold on their homeland, scattering the remaining Tau’raj to the wind.
Of the ten sentient races in Eloria, there may soon be only nine.
Matuk Scarhoof:
Age: 40 Gender: Male
Race: Tau’raj Class: Shaman
Level: 005 XP: 1620/2000