by Kyle Johnson
That particular bit of information was kept very, very tightly inside the programming team; in fact, not everyone in the team was even aware of it. Neo-dyne had threatened all sorts of punitive action against any employee who so much as breathed a word of that to anyone, even another team member, and after the company’s lawyers were done threatening Jeff, he had to endure a similar meeting from FBI agents promising him a long, uncomfortable stay in federal prison should he utter so much as a word anywhere in public. Jeff had been sufficiently scared by these two visits that not even his closest friend or family members had any clue that Singularity was, effectively, running itself.
“Trust me, Phil,” he finally said after a moment of thought. “Those algorithms are beyond anything ever designed in a computer, period. I can’t say much about it, but take my word for it: those sensory experiences the testers reported? They’re possible. More than possible… they’re likely.
“You know how my brain works,” Jeff continued with increasing confidence. “I love digging into this stuff, trying to break down the code into its basic forms, figuring out the underlying structures. It’s what I do for fun. But, this stuff? I wouldn’t know where to start. I helped code parts of it, dude, and I barely understand it! This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. It’s gonna be a game-changer.”
Phil blinked, startled at Jeff’s vehemence. “Well, then, I hope we both get to experience it tomorrow,” he conceded. He gestured out the window as the driverless car slid smoothly to the curb with barely any disturbance in the traffic flow. With every vehicle on the road now piloted by computer and linked through a Local Traffic Network, traffic snarls and honking horns were a long-distant memory. “We’re here. Let’s finish this conversation over some dinner and a beer. Yes, Jeff,” he interrupted the redhead, “you will drink a beer with me to celebrate. I might even splurge a bit and spend a ration unit or three to get some real food, instead of the reconstituted stuff. I mean, they’ve done some amazing things with insect powder and all, but…”
Jeff laughed and followed his friend into the restaurant. Dinner passed smoothly and uneventfully. They reminisced over the old tabletop games they used to play together at their last job, the old VRMMO games they played together, and how that experience might benefit them in Singularity Online. All the while, Jeff’s mind was divided between enjoying his friend’s company and wondering:
What was waiting for him inside the game tomorrow?
Chapter 2
“Just lay back and relax,” the young technician told Jeff as he was helped into the waiting pod. “The Mark I will do all the work, but the more you can relax and stay still, the faster it will be able to establish a connection.”
Jeff did his best to comply, despite being completely nude and settling his naked parts into a shallow pool of light green gel. Both technicians attending his pod were male, fortunately; he wondered if that was deliberate or just a lucky break for him? Not that it would matter once he was immersed, but the idea of some strange woman examining his nude body while he slept made him a tad uncomfortable.
The morning had gone remarkably well. After heading home from the restaurant, Jeff had tried unsuccessfully to drift off to sleep, but his excited brain refused to cooperate. What will it be like? His mind churned endlessly through the possibilities. What kind of world would he find inside Singularity? He knew it was supposed to be modeled on RPG games, but beyond that, he had no clue. Different testers had come out with different stories: some had been placed in an Asian-themed realm filled with samurai and martial arts masters; others had found themselves in a world based on Medieval Europe, replete with knights and dragons. Would he be in a Nordic realm and contend with berserkers and giants? Or something modeled after ancient Rome, where mighty armies clashed?
He had no way of knowing, and that meant he couldn’t really prepare. That was fine with Jeff; honestly, he did his best work on the fly, both in the real world and in video games. Some programmers relied on flowcharts, note cards, and extensive documentation to track their work; they planned everything out before writing the first line of code. That approach just didn’t work for Jeff: the more he thought and planned things, the more he tended to get in his own way and overthink everything. He did better when he went with his gut and trusted his instinct to guide him. He saw no reason to change that, even for such an amazing opportunity.
After arriving back at Neo-dyne, he’d been escorted to one of the simpler cortical mapping devices for a series of tests. He’d been through these once already, but apparently the company wanted a second set of data to verify the accuracy of the first set. It had taken a couple hours, but having been through it before, Jeff didn’t mind the testing as much as the delay. He wanted to get inside the game!
Once the initial testing was done, he was subjected to a physical, blood test, a battery of stress tests… When he questioned why the testing was necessary, the doctor informed him that any significant physical issue would disqualify him from the testing: the company didn’t want something as simple as looming health problems to corrupt their data. Fortunately, Jeff kept himself in reasonable shape, and thanks to the food rationing, obesity was the least of his issues.
Finally, after a rather simple lunch where he and Phil swapped stories of their mornings and wondered pointlessly what they would find inside the game, one of the two technicians called for Jeff, and he was escorted back to the capsule room he found himself in now.
Jeff flinched as he stepped into the lime-green gel, expecting it to be cold on his bare leg, but to his surprise the colloid was essentially the same temperature as his skin. Reassured, he slid into the capsule and sat down, allowing the technicians to snake a harness across his chest and secure him into the seat. Once he was secure, the capsule began to recline him into a more relaxed position. Small tubes snaked out of the capsule’s walls, connecting with his arms with a brief flash of pain as the nutrient tubes connected with his veins. A triangular mask slipped over his mouth and nose, connecting smoothly and seamlessly to provide him with oxygen as the level of the greenish gel rapidly began to rise.
“You’re doing great,” the technician reassured him. “All vitals are stable. The nano-gel will stimulate muscular activity while you’re inside and break down any waste products like sweat and urine. All you have to do is close your eyes, take a deep breath, and before you can count to 3, you’ll be inside. Have fun, and we’ll see you in a week!”
Jeff forced his body to relax as the gel rose over his navel. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and counted silently. 1… Breathe. 2…
Jeff blinked as he found himself suddenly sitting in a small, nondescript room. The circular walls were off-white, bare of decoration and pierced by a single door. The floor was covered with a carpet that he guessed might have been Persian; he didn’t really know anything about carpets, but this one was soft beneath his bare feet and covered with a complex pattern that, after a moment, he realized was based on the Fibonacci Series. The chair he was resting in was soft, brown, and smelled like real leather, something he had only seen in the Neo-dyne board room in the few times he’d been required to attend a meeting.
Before Jeff could move, the door in the wall opened noiselessly, and an attractive, older woman walked inside. Her hair was dark blonde and shoulder length, wavy without being curly, and looked as if it were brushed several times per day. Her features were almost perfectly regular without being glamorous: a slightly Roman nose, full lips, and high cheekbones set atop a narrow, elfin jaw. She wore a dark blue pantsuit that hinted at her figure without displaying much.
“Hello, Jeff,” the woman smiled as she entered, closing the door behind her and moving to a second chair that Jeff swore hadn’t been in the room a moment ago. “It’s very nice to meet you. My name is Veronica, and I’m your guide.”
Guide? Jeff’s mind suddenly kicked into gear, and he grinned. “I’m in the game?” he exclaimed, half rising from the chair. “I’m in Singularity? Yes!”<
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Veronica chuckled. “Indeed, you are,” she assured him. “At least, you’re in a part of it. Think of this as a clean room before you go inside. Here, we’ll figure out who you are and what sort of character you’d like to play in Singularity. Are you ready to begin?”
“I suppose that depends on what I need to do,” Jeff replied hesitantly. “I mean…what do you need to know? Don’t I just get a character selection screen?”
Veronica chuckled. “We tried that at first,” she admitted. “It didn’t work well. As you know, the things people want to do are often not the things they’re suited for. So, we’re going to run a few tests to narrow down the choices for you. Nothing too intrusive; you might even enjoy it!”
“Okay, that sounds reasonable,” Jeff replied hesitantly. “I mean, I usually play something like a rogue or archer, but…”
“Yes, I know,” Veronica nodded. She gestured, and a manila file folder suddenly appeared in her hand. She opened it, and a holographic image of him sitting at his workstation suddenly appeared in the middle of the room, rotating slowly. “Jeff Lawing,” Veronica began to read, pulling a pair of old-fashioned spectacles from her pocket and perching them delicately on her nose. “26 years old. Single, never married, no children. Both parents alive and a sister who is a nurse outside of Buffalo, New York. Avid gamer who plays under the handle “FromTheGut4228” and favors Dexterity builds. Computer programmer at Neo-dyne who created some rather critical algorithms for the game. In fact, I’ll bet not even you realized just how vital your contributions were. That’s why I’m here: we’ve been very excited to meet you, Jeff!”
Jeff blinked at the exhaustive dossier the woman held in her hands. “Wait…how do you know all that?” he stammered, even as his brain ratcheted into gear and reminded him that most of that information was public knowledge if one knew where to look, except maybe his gaming preferences. “And who’s been excited to meet me?”
“I can see you putting the answers to that first question together,” Veronica smiled. “You’re very bright, after all. Most of that is easily discoverable. As for your gaming handle, you do realize that in preparation for creating Singularity Online, Neo-dyne purchased a number of small, nearly defunct VRMMO gaming studios, including all of their user data, yes?
“As for who wants to meet you,” Veronica continued, snapping the file shut, causing the image of hm to blink out, “why, all of us. All of the AI’s in Singularity. We’re interested to learn about the people who most contributed to our creation, of which you are one. You’re not the only one, of course, and you won’t be getting any extra benefits from our interest, but it will be interesting to satisfy part of our curiosity.”
“The…the AI’s?” Jeff repeated, suddenly remembering an old book he had read once. “Wait…you’re not going to follow me around as a cat, asking me questions, are you?”
Veronica blinked. “No,” she said simply. “Nothing like that. In fact, I’ll be the only one directly observing you, just as every player has a guide.”
“So, what do you do?” Jeff asked, coming back on balance. “How are you supposed to guide me?”
“That will depend on the results of your tests,” Veronica smiled. “Speaking of which…”
She snapped her fingers, and suddenly Jeff was standing in the middle of what looked like a battlefield. Shouts and screams assaulted his ears, and he covered them reflexively, squinting as smoke drifted into his eyes. He could smell blood, urine, and worse and he gagged, struggling not to vomit. He spun around and saw armored figures locked in combat with large, nearly nude creatures with ebon skin, coarse orange fur across their heads and shoulders, and tusks jutting from their lower jaws.
Are those orcs? He wondered in amazement as he took in the scene. I was right: the sensory algorithms are amazing! This Is so…real!
Suddenly, a scream burst from his left, and he turned to face the sound. A single orc – if that’s what the creatures were – was bearing down on him, holding a crude axe overhead and shrieking in bloodlust. Jeff froze for a moment before his reflexes kicked in, and he turned to run from the attacker. As he did, the battlefield vanished, and he found himself standing in the middle of a room surrounded by multi-colored tiles.
“A puzzle,” he murmured out loud. “I wonder if I should…” Solving the puzzle was the work of half an hour once he discovered the patterned ceiling overhead. Most of that was grunt work, as touching a tile would cause it to shift colors along with several other tiles scattered across the room. The difficulty lay in figuring out which tiles were linked, then the proper order to touch them.
The moment he had the last tile set correctly, he blinked and found himself standing in a harsh, blasted landscape. The blood-red clouds overhead cast a grim light on the jagged rock and black gravel that covered the ground. The air was thin and reeked of the coppery tang of blood. As Jeff struggled to take in the horror of the scene, though, a terrifying shriek came from overhead, and sharp pain lanced through his shoulders as something struck him from behind and hurled him face-first into the unyielding rocks.
Jeff cried out and rolled over to see a winged creature zip past him, its claws narrowly missing his face as he ducked. He scrambled to rise to his feet and felt something cold and hard beneath his hand. A glance showed that he had touched a rusted, pitted short sword. The blade was about 18 inches long; the edges were dulled and cracked; the leather wrappings on the hilt were crumbled and dusty in his grip. Still, he thought grimly, better a crappy weapon than no weapon, right?
The flier was circling around him, moving faster than Jeff could run. It seemed to be the size of a hawk or small eagle, but its wings were leathery and bat-like instead of feathered. Its head resembled a lizard’s, and when it opened its jaws to shriek at Jeff, he could see innumerable small, sharp teeth. It had relatively spindly arms and three-fingered hands, but its legs were powerful and ended in razorlike talons. Its flesh was mottled scarlet and black, the coloration making it hard to track against the bloody sky.
Jeff quickly set his feet and hefted the battered blade. He had never used a sword like this before – the martial arts classes he took focused mainly on much longer blades – but he figured the principles were about the same. Grip it loosely, he reminded himself grimly. Hold it low, wait for your moment, and never overcommit to a blow.
With another shriek, the creature dove at Jeff, who attempted to step to the side and slash at the creature as it slid by. The treacherous footing betrayed him, though, and he stumbled, the blade missing the attacker by a good foot or more. The imp turned quickly and dove for Jeff while he was off-balance, but he regained his footing and slashed backhanded at his assailant. The sword finally connected, but Jeff – unused to swinging a sword with one hand – accidentally turned the blade as he swing, striking the creature with the flat rather than the edge. The blow knocked the creature to the side, sending it flying past Jeff, but the impact of the blow raced up the blade and numbed his fingers.
He spun to keep the beast in sight and turned to see it plunging toward him once more. This time, Jeff took a moment to settle his feet and slashed at the creature without trying to sidestep it. He felt the blade bite deeply in the monster’s abdomen just as its talons crashed into his chest, digging deep and sending searing pain through his body.
Jeff blinked and screamed, but the creature had vanished and he found himself standing before a series of low, marble pillars, his wounds gone as if they had never existed. Atop each pillar was a bronze disc etched with a single, indecipherable rune that glowed faintly with power. Inset in the floor was a diagram showing how each rune had to be placed, in just the correct order, at a specific orientation. As Jeff analyzed the puzzle, a realization struck him.
“It’s a spell,” he murmured appreciatively. “I wonder what it does?”
Jeff stepped back and mentally started placing the runes in their correct order without touching them. A few minutes later, he grinned. “Okay, I get it,” he chuckled. �
�It’s a spell…but it works like code!”
He moved back to the diagram and touched a spot near the center of it. “Here’s your input,” he muttered. “And, it goes through here, gets rerouted through these subroutines, loops through this part…” He stood up and shook his head. “Wow,” he muttered. “This is incredibly inefficient. Half of this seems like redundant code. Well, let’s see if we can tighten this up…”
Over the next 15 minutes, Jeff carefully placed the tiles, cutting out extraneous loops and wasteful side routines, until he had connected what his gut was telling him was the input with what he was certain was the output in what appeared to be the most efficient, direct way.
The instant he laid the final rune, though, his body was rocked by a blast of energy that lifted him from his feet and tossed him several feet from the tiles, where he rolled along the ground, finally stopping as he struck some immovable object, presumably one of the pillars.
“Well, that didn’t quite work,” Jeff groaned as he rolled over onto the carpeted floor, examining his smoking clothes to see if they were actively burning. Nope, he thought silently. At least I didn’t set myself on fire! Definitely not my worst coding fail…
“In fact, it did work quite well,” a cool, female voice spoke from above him. Jeff looked up and realized that the immovable object he struck was Veronica, standing above him, tapping her chin thoughtfully. He glanced around and realized that he was back in the clean room – something he probably should have guessed, he ruefully realized, from the carpet covering the floor. Ah, well, he reassured himself. I did just get blown up.