Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 19 - The Lost Scream
K-Rox used one of the quieter teleport sites on the southwestern edge of Empires. He emerged from the booth and just as he had guessed the area in front of the entrance was fairly sparsely occupied.
The booths were on Principia’s 6th level and mainly served the residents of the upper-western outer ring. K-Rox spied about three dozen people milling around the small Empires entrance, he walked the eighty metres from the booth with his empLink off so as not to engage with any of the players, and entered the game.
He hung motionless in mid-air, in front of him in the distance, the frozen image of a blue marble, suspended in inky black space, dotted with faint milky smudges.
K-Rox sent a thought command as the image grew, a gender neutral voice addressed him.
“ID Confirmed, state your destination please.”
“London, August 2016.”
“Your last logout location was Koh Samui, February 2010, you will lose 472.3825 reality credits if you login to your chosen destination; would you like to proceed?”
He had almost forgotten that the last time he was in Empires the game glitched and he, along with everyone else, had been evacuated; K-Rox paused before confirming his request.
The loss of reality rating was annoying, however K-Rox prided himself at being the number one grey. He checked the list and saw that losing any more than three hundred credits would knock him down to third place, and there were two other Empires helpers below him.
“What’s the credit loss for Koh Samui, August 2016?”
“With current game time, if you delay by five real-objective minutes, I can minimise your loss to only two hundred and seven credits.”
“Can I use a temporal shift in here without effecting my real rating?”
“Any use of temporal shift credits in the waiting area is considered outside of all onblock reality protocols.”
Why couldn’t it just say yes? K-Rox activated the temporal shift and confirmed his location request. A subjective five seconds later, the image of the Earth swirled and faded to be replaced with a simple door which he reached out and stepped through, he stepped out into the heady atmosphere of the Shangri-La, the bar he had been in when the game-evac had been called.
K-Rox walked past the seat he had been sitting in when Jemima had approached him while he was waiting for his drink. A thought struck him so suddenly it caused him to stop dead in the middle of the bar. Music entiwned with the garbled conversations of the Shangri-La patrons swirled around K-Rox’s head as he turned the thought over and over in his head.
He remembered waiting far longer than usual for his drink, at the time he felt that it was a glitch, and then the evac happened and K-Rox supposed he had subconsciously tied the two incidents together. However now when he thought about it, there had been something else strange about the whole episode.
When he asked the bot-waitress if she had seen Jemima, she had replied that there was no such person in Thailand or Empires. The waitress had mentioned Empires by name, which as far as he was aware was not possible for any of the game AIs. Even when she was telling him about the evacuation she didn’t mention Empires by name; did it mean something; and if so what?
He realised he was still in the middle of the bar standing motionless and staring straight ahead. K-Rox resembled an ancient wind-up toy that had just started up again, as he refocused and walked out of the bar towards the huts further up the beach.
K-Rox had set the game to keep his status the same as when he left, which meant he still had the same hut, it also meant that because of his time jump, he had paid six years’ worth of rent, at five dollars a day, he winced internally at the waste of money as he opened the door to the dwelling.
Once inside he located his rucksack, which was still sat in the tiny wardrobe in the corner of the room. He pulled his laptop from inside, within minutes he had logged into his cloud account. K-Rox located the Steemit file referencing Isaac.Asimov and read through it.
It was called The Silent Screams Of The Steemit Botwar, when K-Rox had first discovered the file, he hadn’t been sure exactly what it had been referring to. There were many files from that period that were very confusing, mainly because of the strange sense of humour the 21st century humans seemed to have.
That’s what made Empires such a valuable tool, with Empires it was possible to immerse yourself in the culture of the time. When K-Rox had originally discovered the file, he realised that it referred to an attack on the Graphene blockchain, though he could find no other references to attack.
Now as he read the file again, K-Rox felt as if he was on the edge of understanding, as if he was standing at an angle, where he could almost see what was hidden behind the wall, if only he could somehow stretch, and peek just a little further.
The dull click of the laptop snapping shut, and the swish of the door swinging briefly open and shut, were the only sounds in the hut as K-Rox left the room. The only thing left on his mind, was his impending brain-death, and the resultant trip to Mars.
Previous Chapters
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 18 - The empLink Story
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 17 - A Problem With Time
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 16 - Neither Here Nor There
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 15 - At The Edge Of Madness
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 14 - A Sense Of The Real
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 13 - The Search For Truth
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 12 - Empires
Original artwork by @nekromarinist
Original words by Cryptogee
"which as far as he was aware was not possible for any of the game AIs"
Now, this is spooky and very suspicious. When you are in the Quantum blockchain and realise that there is something fishy when things don't work as you thought they should. Maybe another glitch? I don't trust AI :)
I am very excited to see how you'll describe the brain death. As I wrote in one of your previous posts, I guess it is a more intense and comprehensive detachment of consciousness from the body, hence causing the temporary breakdown of bodily functions. Personally, it reminds me of a kind of Astral projection, albeit within the Quantum blockchain.
Why did K-Rox not question the bartender right there and then to confirm if Jemima was there or if the AI had been correct earlier on? There's a possibility of learning something there, it think.
Could it be that the game realised that there has been an error that was why he was quickly removed from the game?
I was wondering what a future like this would mean for us all. A future of not just artificial intelligence but also virtual realities that affect not just the human mind but also reality. It seems awesome but also scary @cryptogee
Nice story, enjoyed every bit of it even though I don't fully grasp some of the context in the story. Guess am behind schedule