by Mason Adgett
India said, “That’s why I wanted to mod one for the premiere. You know that was the first release you could do the sensory immersion? That was so fun. Have you done that?”
I had indeed tried sensory immersion. In fact I tried it every time I felt flush enough to afford it. I had extended my credit a little the previous night to experience the gobo vision mod myself.
“It’s not perfect.” I said. “It’s just a simulation.” Since a human brain wasn’t wired the same there was no way to truly replicate the gobo experience. Part of the reason gobos had the extra filters was the incredible sensitivity of their vision which extended well into the infra-red and ultraviolet spectrums. Ours was, as I told her, a much reduced experience.
“You’re no fun,” she said. “It seemed pretty real to me.”
“What can you tell me about the culture?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I know Vav likes to game,” she said. “Everybody on Asitot plays Empires. I can’t wait to get in and start decorating. I’ve simmed the city a bunch of times, the house too. You know Jebala, where his estate his?”
“You’re going to live on Asitot?”
“For a bit.” She seemed unconcerned by the idea. “I’ll probably travel a lot.”
“What about your career?” I asked. “You intend to keep working?”
“Oh!” she said, like a big idea had just occurred to her. “They love old movies on Barnaby. I should be able to get a lot of work there.”
Barnaby was Asitot’s inhabited moon.
“But you don’t intend to live on Barnaby, correct?” I asked.
“It’s all Pyramus,” she said, and about the same time, Ms. Rhine interjected:
“Is this line of questioning necessary?”
Which was of course an indication to Lewis that it wasn’t so I cut it short. I didn’t mention what I had already learned on my own about the Pyramus star system. Sure Asitot and Barnaby were both gobo (guvian I understand is the proper term) but politically they had split about 150 years ago quite harshly. Living on Asitot and working on Pyramus? From what I had gathered that would not be a simple prospect.
By the end of the interview I felt a condescending sympathy for India Phoenix who by all social measures was far better off than I but who seemed to be swimming into waters a little above her head. She failed, I thought, to appreciate the vast difference between humans and other aliens, as did her agent, advisor, or whatever function Ms. Rhine served. It wasn’t my business, however, to protect the Phoenix family from itself – just from any improper or illegal machinations of those wishing to align themselves with them.
The whole time we talked India was continually distracted by her cell, so much so that Ms. Rhine threatened to make her stop wearing it. We had to re-shoot several conversations, though the polygonist assured us he would be able to remove the cell in post anyway. That kind of trick was easy enough my own cell’s camera had it built in. People hardly ever took their cells off their eyes anymore but they still wanted their selfies to be free of the distraction.
“Important conversation?” I asked once when India had that look that people got when they were having a real dialogue face to face but were really spending most of the time thinking about the message they were formulating for a private chat window. “Vavaka?” I guessed.
She hesitated. “No, it’s nothing.”
Ms. Rhine gave her a sharp look but didn’t press the issue. It wasn’t until much later as I was leaving that I had an opportunity to bring it up with India. As the video crew wrapped up in Lewis’s office we were alone for a few minutes in the foyer.
“You look worried,” I said.
Her eyes darted to mine then back into that inner space reserved for cell phone operation then to mine again. “There is this person,” she said as though dismissing it, but then followed it up with a more earnest tone: “Some kind of crazy fan?”
“A man?” I said. “A human?”
She shrugged. “I suppose so, yes. Someone I’ve gamed with, probably.”
Her voice had dropped to almost a whisper as though she didn’t want the others to hear. “Obviously you should tell Ms. Rhine,” I said. “Don’t you have security for this sort of thing?”
She shrugged again, her eyes avoiding mine. “They are looking into it.”
She clearly wanted me to drop the subject so I let it go. We would be traveling together in the morning anyway, I thought. Maybe I could get her to open up about it on the flight.
As I was packing that night I called my friend Charles. The budget allowed me two assistants, not including the film crew who wouldn’t be much help in any investigation. They’d just be in the way. Lewis had appointed his own protégé Mike as one of my two and I knew he’d be good for muscle but not much else. My own pick was Charles, my best friend since college and the only person I really trusted to have my back.
I called to tell him the job and what it paid. “You keep it,” he said, referring to the money. “I’m in. You know I’m in.”
I hadn’t really questioned it. I didn’t even try to get him to take the money. It was a pointless gesture and he would have been offended. Charles had briefly been a basketball star before he destroyed his knee. Now he made plenty from his retirement income and still did occasional endorsements so he had mostly free time and unlike me he didn’t mind the attention from Lewis’s show. I think he relished it.
Charles and I had met our first day at Blackstone, the social sciences college in Oklahoma where I studied media engagement theory and Charles was establishing competency in human history on a basketball scholarship. We hit it off immediately. I had seen him once before when I had come over the summer for scholarship testing. He had basketball camp at the same time and had already been getting a bit of a surprise buzz so it was hard not to notice him at the small school, the way he carried a charismatic sense of humor and a fairly sizable chip on the same shoulder.
We ended up rooming across from each other our introductory year. The first night we moved in, a week before classes, we stayed up all night talking – me, him, and his suite-mate Anton – until four in the morning, covering every topic from families, girlfriends, music and movies to philosophy, human versus alien consciousness, interstellar travel, and what it might be like to live on another planet. At that time only one of us had left Earth. Charles had played several games on Mars in high school but Mars then was just a human colony. What we all wanted was to visit an alien world.
Since then we both had plenty of chances and he, like me, embraced the opportunity for another. I agreed to pick him up in the morning.
It did not take me long to pack – I travel light and the wardrobe did most of the work – but like the night before I couldn’t sleep thinking about the upcoming adventure. Eventually I got out of bed and spent another $40 for an hour on Galactic Empires where I modded gobo with the full sensory immersion.
Instead of jumping right into a game I first ran the “Introduction to Asitot” tutorial several times over. It wasn’t that I needed the practice, I just wanted to take my time getting a feel for the world. They are never the same as Earth, you know. Asitot was inhabited mostly underground, which I initially thought would be claustrophobic but didn’t seem that way at all in the game.
The third time I repeated the tutorial I discovered the instructor was not merely an AI when he said, “Greetings, sir. I had you on earlier. Are you struggling with anything in particular?” It still could have been an NP, of course, as that kind of friendly banter is standard coding but when I asked, “Are you an advanced help protocol?” he laughed and clarified:
“Oh, we are not bots, sir. I am proud to represent Asitot as part of our cultural outreach program. The first tutorial is automated but after that one of our representatives steps in to observe. It is our job to make sure you get the help you need. If I may ask sir, which game would you like to try?”
“Wait,” I said. “You’re from Asitot?” His appearance in the simulator was
fully human.
“I am.
“A gobo?” I said.
“I am guvian, yes. I can switch to a guvian mod if that is more to your comfort.” As it was he was a tall human man with a short beard and glasses while I was a short gobo, bald, squinting in the bright light.
“No,” I said. “Human is fine.”
“You are struggling with the eyes?” he asked. “Most players who repeat this zone say they are having trouble acclimating themselves to the shatia, which is what we call the membranes that cover the eyes. Remember it is not necessary to blink and when you do the shatia chosen will be dependent upon the pressure.”
I had already mastered it, sort of. Though I had noticed if I didn’t choose the same filters – the same shatia – every time it took a little while to figure out the order. Operating the mod hadn’t been a problem for me. Still I blinked a few times as a little more practice never hurt anybody. There was no physical sensation other than the normal feeling of blinking, just the shifting in exposure and hue that came with the change of shatia. With one of the filters I could see prisms of light reflecting from the instructor’s glasses but as the overall effect was far too bright in this environment I quickly shifted to another. “I have a question,” I said. “How close would you say this is to the real experience?” I knew what seemed bright to me with these eyes wouldn’t to my own. The caves of Asitot are dimmer than Earth’s daylight by far so guvian eyes are accordingly more sensitive.
“It’s difficult for me to say,” said the trainer. “As I am guvian I cannot know how these scenes are perceived by one who is human.”
“I guess I’m curious as to what I’m missing,” I said.
“As I too am curious. I am told that humans envision with particular clarity. Or perhaps the word is consistency.” He paused for a moment. “My translator recommends the words ‘exactness.’”
“You speak anglish incredibly well,” I said.
“Thank you. I have studied with fascination since childhood when I first saw the great cinematic Mickey the Mouse.” He laughed. “I was very naïve. I believed truly that a mouse could grow over a meter tall.” He paused a moment then politely asked, “Were you planning on playing a particular game?”
I hadn’t really decided yet as my real interest had just been to acclimate myself to the environment. “That’s what I was trying to figure out,” I said. “I would like something immersive, culturally immersive. I’m more interested in a learning experience I suppose than strictly gaming.”
“I understand, sir, and think it an excellent idea. Cultural exchange is one of the greatest benefits of the Galactic Empires gaming system. For the most realistic historical immersion I highly recommend the Ghaman Tournament. It is our version of your Kingdoms. You can even port a higher level character directly if you have one.”
“I do.” I didn’t play Kingdoms much but I had worked my way up to mayor of a small city-state in Ancient Greece. I daydreamed briefly about what a level nine with that kind of influence would get me in the Ghaman Tournament but no doubt it would take all night just to convert my history unless I let the AI do it, which was not my style. It sounded interesting and educational, but... “I’m less interested in the historical side,” I said. “What have you got that’s more of an immediate experience? More recent, up to date?” I threw out Vavaka’s home city. “I’d love to play something in Jebala. I’ll be visiting soon.”
“I see!” he said. “Very nice!” He seemed genuinely enthused. “With an entry-level character there are many options to explore. We have a game called Market Performer which you might enjoy if you are artistically inclined. Or if you are interested in the seedier side there is a criminal organization simulation called Masters of the Underworld. These are of course translations and both games offer a fully anglish immersive experience within Jebala.”
I felt like I had wasted enough of his time so I thanked him and tried Market Performer as he had recommended. I spent a little extra time on the character creation section (since I went ahead and purchased a character instead of playing one of the temporary presets) and eventually came up with a gobo of Hullen descent – a nationality I had never heard of but which seemed vaguely similar to what we would call gypsies back on Earth. When the game began I was essentially a street beggar. I had chosen art instead of music, which meant I began with a pad of paper and a charcoal-like piece of rock – a fascinating thing, by the way, that was mostly dark purple but allowed for an incredible variety of shading and texture – plus the clothes on my back, no shoes included. For a half hour I stopped random strangers in the street and pressured them to pose for quick portraits. At the end of that time I had collected enough to buy a strange black drink that dubiously translated as “coffee” or an additional drawing rock of another color. I went with a second color, adding a versatile red. All that was secondary to my real intent to familiarize myself with the planet a little bit.
If you’ve played Empires you know the experience isn’t quite perfect even in immersion mode. Nowadays it only seems to break apart a bit on the edges of your peripheral vision, but that minor static does serve as a small but constant reminder that it was all just a simulation. I assumed many if not most of the gobos I interacted with were NPC’s. With a couple of my “customers” their behavior was shallow enough to make it obvious, but despite my minor complaints about the depth of the immersion it was real enough for my purposes.
I know that to human vision Asitot is dark like a late evening on Earth, lit mostly by bioluminescence and only recently electrics. Hence gobo eyes are incredibly sensitive, and I had no trouble seeing through any of my four shatia (I had hoped for more, but that aspect of character creation was randomized and I had my typical luck). The “market” I “performed” in existed inside a single enclave next to which ran a tunnel that served as road. Inside the enclave – which was as large as a football field – crevices had been carved, descending into the ground, and recessed into these were small shops and ad-hoc storefronts, with storage apparently kept underneath. I was pushed out of a few of these trenches by aggressive shopkeepers who tried to keep the space limited to customers, but I eventually found a place next to a friendly, chubby gobo selling candy treats to passing children.
He was playing a game called Solar Sweets, a small mod of Merchant Wars localized to Jebala. The gameplay was not too different from Market Performer and we occasionally were able to score off the same customers.
His name was Boodle, probably just a handle, and I stayed near him because he was naturally chatty and didn’t hesitate to answer any of my random oddball questions. I told him I was human right from the start and he immediately broke into a smile.
“Ah, earthen are you? Plasma Gate, yes? Horaflik Fryday?”
Plasma Gate was a recent blockbuster movie – clearly a hit on Asitot – and Horaflik Fryday its main character, some sort of time-traveling hero, I thought, though I hadn’t seen it myself. I couldn’t remember the name of the actor who played the main character but I had never liked him – he had a monotone voice that sounded like he was reading and even when he did body work it always seemed stiff and uncomfortable. Anyway, out of respect for social niceties I didn’t say so; instead I nodded knowingly as Boodle talked about his favorite scenes. I pretended it all made sense but it sounded like surreal pseudo-punk and his descriptions did not inspire me to go see it.
Eventually I was able to ask probing questions about what I was really interested in: guvian culture. What was it like to live on Asitot? He seemed to know Earth pretty well – he was a big fan of Hollywood and thought it would be amazing to see such a vivid sky, he said – but I had no such advantage. Guvian film was too visually complex for most humans and was not centered around plot like ours but instead around subtle visual symbolism developed from their own historical mores.
“I can’t tell you much,” he told me, “only what I’ve experienced myself.” He blinked to a different shatia and looked me over. “You’
re Hullen, I take it, from your hair and your accent.” I hadn’t realized I had an accent – which of course was simulated since I was still speaking in my natural anglish – but as for hair I had almost none, just a very short layer of black fur on top of the head. Boodle on the other hand had longer locks, dark blue, styled into curls around his ears.
“Hullen, yes,” I said. “I don’t know much about it.”
“Well,” he said, “you’re liable to get passed over by some. It’s not that Hullen are disliked, you see? Just that a few of the tribes sort of pretend they don’t exist.”
Here the sim poked into the game – as discreetly as possible – to offer alternative translations for the word “tribes:” “families,” “races” and “religions” all popped up. This would only happen if the program considered the original guvian word to have no real anglish equivalent, so any attempt to make sense of it could be doomed to failure.
I mentioned it to Boodle and asked for clarification.
He took a moment, interrupted by a similar translation glitch, then said, “Religion?”
“Religion?” I repeated.
His brow cleared and he smiled. “Yes, religion. I use here the word ‘religion,’ which could also be for my tastes ‘fantasy,’ ‘dream,’ and ‘conviction.’ This is what you mean?”
I hesitated. “Well, what about culturally? What about beliefs? What, for instance, do the Hullen believe?”
“Beliefs?” he said. “You mean by this ‘convictions,’ ‘knowledge,’ or ‘frame-of-reference?’”
Again the AI popped in to let me know that “frame-of-reference” was only a loose equivalency for the untranslatable alojago, which could perhaps also have meant “perspective,” “alone-ness,” or even “intense love or hatred.”