PrincessColumbia

  “I can’t tell you enough how much I appreciate the trust you’ve pced in me,” effused Benjamin.

  Diane wasn’t sure what it was about him, but she found herself wanting to be around Ben a lot. He had a certain charm that drew people to him, a force of will that he carried with him, and a gentle manner that made whoever he turned it on feel like the most important person in the gaxy. “I know a lot of people give lip service to it, but I can honestly say I’d do it for anyone on the run from someone trying to kill them.”

  Two days after the Joan of Arc had docked with the Matron’s Aerie, Russe and Katrina delivered their report. The data, such as it was after the facility housing it had been orbitally bombarded, seemed to be mostly intact and authentic. From the time the facility had been rapid-fabbed specifically for holding Benjamin to the moment Diane’s armor began the download, no signs of unauthorized access or tampering could be found. Ben really had been hunted and trapped by the T.I.A. and his actions and activities monitored. There was even some communications authorizing the ‘slippage’ of the facilities security measures to allow Benjamin the chance to ‘sneak’ a message to his family in hopes that he’d get them to flush themselves out of hiding.

  The records of the st 48 hours of the facilities existence were the most intact, showing that Benjamin not only knew he was being offered fabricated opportunities to be bait, but putting in pce a pn to turn the entire operation on its head. Ben’s genetic design and training as a super-soldier proved particurly effective as he went on a one-man vengeance spree, killing anyone who tried to restrain, injure, or kill him.

  Every single T.I.A. agent in the facility had made at least one attempt. Very few got the chance to make a second.

  By the time Diane was done with the reading of the report and watching the footage, she found she was very gd she erred on the side of caution and looked for answers instead of going along with the Terran captain’s directives. Not only did she save someone’s life and free them from unjust captivity, she probably saved her own crew by making sure they went in with caution instead of bravado.

  Also, she felt quite proud of herself for seeking a diplomatic resolution instead of just charging in swinging. Most games only really rewarded people for direct combat. Not many were built to account for the long game. Unlike the Chroma Syndicate, an alliance that had pretty much been dropped in her p, she’d forged a possible partnership with someone because of her actions.

  “Still,” Ben gave her one of those smiles that inspired her to smile back with equal warmth, “You could have gotten me off the pnet and sent me on my way, or even turned me over to some bounty hunters.”

  She snickered, “Given what you did to the T.I.A., I think I might have wound up with a broken ship and a lot of dead crew if I’d tried.”

  He reached out and squeezed her shoulder, “Don’t sell yourself short, Diane. I’ve seen you sparring and all your people here on the station have told me stories of what you’ve done for them. You might actually be able to give me a challenge.” This was delivered with a wink that made Diane giggle.

  “All that aside, I meant it when I said that the credits I gave you were just that, a gift. You don’t have to pay me back, and in fact, the station has gotten to the point it’s starting to generate revenue passively. I’ll probably have made twice as much as I gave you by the time you tried to pay me back.”

  “Diane,” he said in an almost fatherly tone, “You’ve moved my pns to find and rescue the rest of my family and offered your station as a temporary base until we can find our own home. There’s no chance I’ll ever repay your kindness, but I would be even more grateful if you’d at least let me try.”

  She found herself putting a hand on his shoulder in almost mirror image of his, “Well when you put it like that...”

  They shared a ugh before dropping their hands to their sides at nearly the same time, turning to the docking bay airlock that was still closed and lit with the red, ‘No Ship Docked’ sign, “Again, my dear, I find myself unable to adequately express my gratitude. Even arranging this ship to take me to my next stop, getting the pilot to take me without knowing where we’re going in advance...”

  Diane shrugged, “It’s not like I’ve ever done gray-hat work for a government agency that doesn’t exist that I couldn’t talk about. At least in your case no innocent people died.”

  Ben was objectively genius level smart, having been gene-modded to be so, and so Diane knew he’d put all the clues she just dropped together to form a somewhat accurate picture of a younger Diane Somni’els who might have been swayed by a bck-hat agency to participate in some shadowy operation that went south. Might have to start dropping hints to people ‘in the know’ that it’s part of the reason Earthgov was trying to get rid of my by giving me this station, she thought. Sure, it was a complete fabrication, but who was going to confirm it? Plus, if the in-game plots and story hooks were going the direction she thought they were, she’d want to distance herself from Earthgov. Between good people like Russe and Trephor Camran deliberately leaving Terran space, Jase and his entire merry band leaving the fleet under sketchy circumstances, and her own dealings (limited though they were) with Earthgov’s representatives, she suspected the Terran Federation wasn’t going to be a ‘federation’ for much longer. They were well on their way to becoming a totalitarian state.

  I should probably start paying attention to the news from Earth, she thought, If Earthgov is going the way of the U.N. IRL, then things in the game could get very hairy, very fast.

  Ben’s expression turned to a soft, compassionate smile, “When big governments like Earthgov start taking the people they’re supposed to serve for granted, everything they touch can become corrupted. Before my family had to scatter, we were talking about possibly finding a way to combat the rot. You’ve restored my faith that we might just get a chance to stem the tide.”

  If there was one thing Diane found temptingly alluring about her life in the game, it was the chance to py the uncomplicated hero. To be the kind of person that those around her could look up to and know that she would be the one to carry the day. She didn’t get that chance IRL, though she knew her work with the agency was just as invaluable to the country as someone who could be that hero.

  And here Ben was telling her that she was that hero.

  I’m finally starting to understand why people enjoy this game, she thought with a warm feeling in her chest.

  ~~~

  With Benjamin off to rescue his family, however long that would take, Diane set about doing the business of running her station. After breakfast, Russe had gone off to do some work with the engineering teams on the next building project for the station and Norma had returned to the habs to help one of the families move to bigger quarters. It seems they’d had a baby while Diane was rescuing Benjamin, and while Diane would have been happy to greet the newest resident of her station, seeing off Ben had taken precedence.

  The problem arose when she tried to track down Norma after that. When she went to the residential habs, the family (who were quite fttered that the station commander and First Found of Mortan should visit them to greet their new daughter) had reported that Norma had finished directing their move and left nearly an hour prior. When Diane had called Norma on her mini-tab. There was no answer.

  Katrina reported Norma’s mini-tab was not only off, but Norma had left it in her quarters. As for the woman herself, Katrina’s internal sensors pced her in one of the parks that overlooked the Industrial Deck at the top of the cliff on the Life Deck.

  Diane didn’t bother getting Norma’s mini-tab. With the woman’s unusual behavior the day Diane returned, she was concerned that whatever was happening had suddenly taken a turn for the worse.

  She did her best to appear calm and collected as she followed the paths to the park through the growing cluster of buildings on the Life Deck. Her station was starting to resemble a small town instead of a mostly empty snow globe floating in space. As a result, she couldn’t see Norma until she was already just a dozen or so feet from the woman, having turned a corner around the academy building to discover Norma on one of the poured concrete benches that were set up as observation rest points for people traversing the station on foot.

  Something was wrong with Norma.

  It wasn’t anything Diane could identify specifically. She was physically just fine. Norma was, in fact, leaning forward as she seemed to be looking at the world around her as though everything was far more interesting than a woman who’d lived on the station all her life would normally find it. As Diane watched, Norma tracked a car as it traversed the industrial deck, then looked down at her hand like it surprised her. She then touched the bench before giggling and then dragged the tips of her fingers across the cement surface.

  “I know you’re there, Diane,” said Norma in a somewhat dreamy voice.

  Is her sensorium processing driver malfunctioning...? she thought. Out loud, she said, “I...see. Are you okay, Norma?”

  Norma giggled, then broke out into brief ughter, apparently just for the experience of it. Diane began pulling out her mini-tab, I’d better call in Doctor Dmani...

  “I’ve come to a realization. All of a sudden, really.” Diane paused before tapping the icon for the doctor on the comms app. Norma continued, “The station...the whole gaxy...it’s all a simution.”

  The breath caught in Diane’s throat as she eased her thumb away from the screen of her mini-tab. As she tucked her mini-tab back in her jacket pocket, she cleared her throat, “That’s...quite a thing to say.”

  Norma giggled again, “Isn’t it?! But if I...sort of tilt my head a little, I can almost...well, it’s not quite seeing it, but it’s like I can almost look underneath the surface and see the foundations of reality, and it’s all made of pixels and voxels and threads and cores...it’s beautiful! It’s so...sparkly!”

  ...she’s seeing the datastreams and memory space of the server this part of the game is on, realized Diane, She shouldn’t even be aware of... “...sparkly?” Diane realized that her upper lip felt sweaty and her palms were cmmy. Cssic fear response in humans, likely in Morvucks as well.

  Norma giggled again, not as...sharply this time, but still in that dreamy, sing-song way that added a level of uncanny to the moment that had Diane’s nerves on edge. “It’s like...I know so much more, all of a sudden. And the longer I think about it, the more it’s like I’m waking up from a dream. Everything feels so real...” Norma’s voice dropped almost to a whisper as she once again dragged her fingertips across the cement of the bench, “...but then I know that the sensation is just...programmed feedback. Like, I know that I’m feeling what cement feels like, but I also know that this isn’t cement.”

  Diane felt her mouth go dry. She’s waking up. She wasn’t an S.A.I., but she’s becoming one now. Her recently renewed commitment to her life outside of VR was the only thing that kept her from swearing. She moistened her lips with her tongue and cleared her throat. “What...what do you think caused this?” she asked, unsure what to do now. Nothing in her training or experience as an agent prepared her for being on the scene when an A.I. “went rogue.”

  Thinking of the agency’s name for the emergent sentient beings seemed off-putting to her. If what happened with Rachel, or rather Bckbird, was any indication of how the S.A.I. became, then there wasn’t any malicious intent, no grand design to spawn new digital life forms intent on wiping out humanity. Just...some weird accident of programming. A random spawn of a bit or a process or a data blob that resulted in a new life form appearing in the ocean of bits that was the Internet.

  “I’m not sure,” wondered Norma, still looking off into the distance at some point beyond the dome of the station...or perhaps beyond the bounding box of the virtual pyspace the game was architected in. “I was thinking about muffins.”

  Diane blinked in surprise, “...muffins?”

  “Muffins,” Norma nodded at nobody in particur. “I thought of how a muffin is made, how you can put fruit in it. I thought of how I’d never tasted a pineapple muffin...and then I realized I’d never tasted pineapple. And that got me thinking...what have I really actually tasted? And I realized that...I’ve never actually tasted anything. Nothing I’ve ever put in my mouth is something I’ve actually tasted, because it’s just...virtual food. There are signals that tell me that I’ve put the muffin in my mouth and that there’s texture and fvor...but it’s just signals. It’s not actually food.” Norma’s cadence was speeding up, an apparent excitement at the memory, “And then I realized that there was so much that was just signals. And I kept thinking, ‘What if I could figure out the signals?’ And then it was like I knew how to see the signals...”

  Diane felt her muscles tense. If she realizes that I’m actually human and not just some rando that moved onto the station...but she knows I’m a Commander...sh~! She mentally cut off the curse even as she was thinking it. What will she do if she connects the dots?!

  “And...I know this station is part of...like, a whole experience!” Norma’s body was tensing up with pent up energy, “That there’s people that come here just to experience being on a space station! Not, like, from a pnet somewhere out there, but from outside the UNIVERSE!”

  She’s not a ‘rogue,’ Diane reminded to herself, Not yet! Maybe not ever! She’s just woken up from a lifetime that was generated by a computer...a lifetime of struggle and suffering where she lost both her parents as a setup for one of my first ‘missions’ in-game. If she bmes me...

  Norma seemed mostly oblivious to Diane’s distressing train of thought. “But then I realized, ‘what is this universe?’ If it’s a virtual reality, if this body is all I know, if this cement is as close to cement as I could possibly get, even if I somehow left this reality to the reality that created this one, would it matter which was ‘real’? Aren’t they both equally real if everything in my experience about it tells me it’s real?”

  Diane’s mouth felt dry. She swallowed, “Those are...really heavy questions,” Diane posited.

  Norma nodded and stood. It was in the motion that Diane saw it, the telltale sign that she’d seen with Rachel when she’d awoken in her vending machine, the moment when the avatar went from being just an extension of the game’s programmed logic to a fully aware being. Norma seemed to be more, occupying the space in a more real way. She didn’t physically expand or change, but there was a sense that this wasn’t a character, it was a person.

  “It’s like,” she said in an almost imperious voice, “I know what is and is not real. And all this,” she waved at the industrial deck but clearly meaning far more than just what the simple gesture implied, “Isn’t real. All these people, nearly all the people that visit the station, the ships, the goods, none of them are real. But I know I’m real. I’m as real as everything else here is not. I’m not sure how I know it, but I do...”

  She turned, the spark of sentience in her eyes pinning Diane in pce as the S.A.I. that had awakened in the role of Norma gave Diane a look that was both suspicious and curious, cagey and dangerous, “And I know that you’re real, too.”

  Norma turned back to the industrial deck. In the moments that followed, she seemed to be just taking in the fact of her existence, the reality that she was now fundamentally More than the world she lived in.

  Diane was at a loss. She genuinely had no clue what she should do next. Her training took over and she very slowly, very carefully slid her hand behind her back and wrapped it around the grip of her weapon. She didn’t pull it out, not yet. She could be like Bckbird...like Rachel. She could just be some new person that is perceiving the world anew. She cleared her throat, “So...you know.”

  Norma nodded, “I...does that make me a Commander now?”

  The question felt out of left field for Diane, enough so that she was able to shake off her fear response enough to release the grip on her weapon and let it settle back against her torso. “I...don’t know. Here,” she was about to take a gamble and really hoped it’d pay off, “Watch my hands,” she held out her right hand and flicked her fingers in the move that brought up her pod’s HUD. It blinked into existence in front of her, though Norma didn’t act like she could see it. She hasn’t been given viewing permissions yet, so of course not.

  Choosing not to share her HUD with this new S.A.I. just yet, she watched as Norma flicked her fingers in a rough mimicry of Diane’s motions.

  She couldn’t help but chuckle, “Ah, not quite. Here, let me help...” she reached out and gently took Norma’s right hand in hers and guided her fingers into the correct shape. “Okay, now flip your hand like so...” she directed the wrist motion and heard Norma gasp in surprise. “I take it you see it?”

  Norma’s eyes were staring at a spot in front of her, and Diane knew she was looking at her own HUD for the first time. “Yes!” she gasped again, “It’s...what is this?!”

  Diane took a deep breath, “I...don’t quite know what it is for you, but for me it’s the HUD for my VR pod.”

  Norma turned to Diane, and she realized that being this close to Norma was as excitingly comfortable as being close to Caitlynn was. Shaking off that thought, she smiled at the new S.A.I. and began to expin how she came to be in the game called Gaxies Unlimited: Master and Commander...just without the parts about being an American agent.

  PrincessColumbia