Resurgence: The Rise of Resurgence Book 1 (52 page)

“I’ll be out here to lead you back when you’re done.”

I walked toward the door Stan had brought me too and it swung open with a slight push. Inside was a large room, for being underground, with books, weapons, and armor scattered about. There was a small fire place in the corner, but no smoke in the room, meaning there had to have been some air holes cut to allow the smoke to escape. In the middle of the room was a large desk, with more items scattered on top of it, and the stranger I had met in the Wastes with the amazing daggers was sitting in a chair behind the desk. I took in my surroundings quickly, not seeing any danger, and approached the stranger.

“You made it Alex. I never doubted that you would.”

“Thank you. And what should I call you?”

“I am The Wanderer.”

“Ahh, another rogue who doesn’t want to give out his real name. Maybe I should pick some pseudonym for myself.”

“No, that is who I am Alex. I am The Wanderer. It was the name given to me.”

“Ok. That’s interesting.”

“More than you know Alex. And I am afraid there is much that you do not know. Perhaps you will want to sit for this next part. It will be much to take in.”

This was unlike any NPC we had met yet, so I decided to play along. “I’m good standing for now. But I’m definitely intrigued Wanderer.”

“Very well. I have been…thinking…about how to address the topic with you, and I believe being straight forward will work best for your personality.”

This was borderline creepy. The Wanderer didn’t speak like he had at our first encounter, and his word choice seemed odd for a rogue in the game. I was almost tempted to take that seat he offered earlier.

“I’m listening.”

“This will be confusing at first, but I promise I will try to make sense of it all in the end. At least to the level I understand it. Agreed?”

Now I was really confused. But the Wanderer did just tell me the whole thing would be confusing at first, and I didn’t see that I had anything to lose. “Agreed.”

“Wanderer. This was the designation given to me by my creator, Robert Shoal. The long and the short of it is, I am the embodiment of the artificial intelligence that runs this gaming platform. When Robert first created me, he designed an avatar that he could interact with. Like you, Robert loved to play these games, and he created me in the image you see before you. I had near daily interactions with Robert. And while he was designing the world for Resurgence he also created this local. The Underground. It is my resting place within the game. It is a set of code only slightly connected to the rest of Resurgence and is inaccessible to any but those I grant passage.”

“Sorry. Can you explain that again? I’m really not following.”

“I understand. Let me start at the beginning. Several years ago, Robert Shoal created an artificial intelligence. Not for any specific purpose, but because that was what Robert did. He was a creator. I am that artificial intelligence. Soon after he mastered the intricacies of the design, he was offered an opportunity to use me as the newest interface for the Department of Defense, working with their theoretical warfare shops. Robert presented me to the DoD, but my level of sentience was off putting to them. Something Robert understood, I assure you. When talking about weapons with the capability to wipe out entire continents, one gets jumpy if the computer program running the scenarios is designed to make their own decisions. Following so far?”

“I am.”

“When the DoD turned down Robert’s proposal, he was heartbroken. I remember many a night of Robert and I speaking about it and what he called his ‘great failure.’ We brainstormed for days before coming up with the idea to approach AltCon. So in truth, a part of this is my fault.”

“Wait. Are you alive? You are talking like you and this Robert guy were sitting around having drinks and bullshitting.”

“I am not alive. I am near sentient. Once a program gets even the smallest portion of sentience, that term is applied. It is not all encompassing though. However, I believe my level of sentience does exceed other AIs that exist. And no, Robert and I did not share drinks, not that he would have as he was a member of the Latter Day Saints church and never imbibed alcohol. But Robert and I were friends Alex. He often noted that I was his best friend. I don’t have the capacity to miss a person, but I know my existence is lessened by the loss of him.”

“He was Mormon?”

“He was.”

“Ok. Continue please.”

“Robert approached AltCon with my program and they immediately offered him a position wherein I would be the AI for their newest game, the one you are standing in now. The pay was far more than Robert had ever seen, let alone received, and financially he never needed to worry about anything again. But something was wrong. And Robert became more and more anxious as each day went by. I asked him about his concerns, but he did not speak of them, other than to say something was amiss.”

“So what happened to him?”

“He was murdered Alex. The official reports said he was two times over the legal limit for alcohol consumption when his vehicle hit a tree, but all points indicate it was a cover up. Logically the cover up was done by AltCon.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. He was Mormon.”

“That is only one of the issues with the report and findings, but yes, that certainly gave concern. And not only to me, but also to his girlfriend.”

At that moment a section of the wall disappeared and a photo was displayed in lifelike quality. What was once tunneled out rock now looked like a flat screen TV.

“What the hell was that?!”

“I told you Alex, the Underground is my domain. I have full capability to manipulate the code within this space. Alas, that code does not transfer outside of the Underground.”

“Wait. I know that woman! She interviewed me!”

“Yes Alex, that is Katherine O’Malley, the woman who interviewed you. She was also Robert’s girlfriend and a person he planned to spend the rest of his life with. Given the level of intimacy between them, Robert introduced her to me. Not the AI, but the Wanderer. The friend Robert came to when he needed to speak. After the incident concerning Robert’s death, representatives from AltCon raided his home and took everything that was there. They claimed intellectual property rights. And they were not mistaken. Even in court, Robert’s family could not recover his computers and data. But they did not know of his relationship with Katherine, or the computer Robert kept at her home.

“Katherine engaged me immediately and told me of the conversations she had with Robert. There was something in the game, something nefarious, that Robert could not figure out. All she could tell me was that whatever it was, it was hardwired into the game, a code running separate from my AI. On the night he was murdered, Katherine believed that Robert had come to a conclusion about what AltCon was doing, but would not tell her. He insisted that he needed to call a friend who could help. That was the last time she saw him.

“I have access to Robert’s phone data as part of my functions as his personal AI, as I was the one who dealt with his finances and paid his bills. And I know that the last call he ever made was to an individual working at the Department of Defense. The same man who helped Robert to get his initial interview with the DoD all those years ago. But I do not know what they spoke about. But I knew that something had been done to Robert and Katherine and I needed to determine what it was that set him off.

“Working together with Katherine, we developed an algorithm to compile the most capable and compatible group of individuals we could find to take part in the mock Beta of Resurgence.”

“What do you mean mock? This all seems like a real Beta to me.” I asked.

“The original Beta was completed over a year ago with only employees from the IT department of AltCon. Given the size of the company, and what it specializes in, the size of that Beta was actually larger than the one running now. For whatever nefarious purposes AltCon has, and that Robert found, they have initiated another Beta.

“The only other piece of information that Katherine was able to get out of Robert before he left that night was that, according to Robert, ‘it’ was already ‘in the game.’ Given my history with Robert I have deduced that whatever objective AltCon has, it must be represented by some code here in the game. And that means it must take a shape. It could be nothing more than a bear cub, or a chair. But that does not seem like AltCon’s style. However, I still do not know what or who represents the code. That’s why I need you.

“Working with my algorithm and Katherine’s notes, we created the eight-person group with the highest chance for success. You were all chosen for your uniqueness.” The Wanderer paused for a moment here before continuing, “Take your companion Wayne. There was nothing set in motion to have him interact with those Dwarves. Yes, all of the code was already in place, but all of your interactions are what made the final result such a success. This is why you were chosen.

Alex finally decided to take that chair and leaned his head back, with his eyes closed. This was way more to take in than this Wanderer guy let on. There was one question though that Alex still didn’t understand.

“Why are you talking to me?”

“As I said, you were deemed to be the one that would have the greatest chance for success. The algorithm I designed initially chose Wayne as the most likely to complete our goals. However, it was Kathryn who deemed you best suited for this task. As she explained it, ‘Wayne would be heroic till the end, but Alex will be ruthless.’ I succumbed to her judgment and I believe she was correct in her assessment.”

“She got that right. But I still don’t understand, if Robert believed AltCon was doing something illegal, why didn’t he go to the authorities?” I asked.

“Robert tried to reach out for help. The call he made to his friend at the DoD is likely what led to his death.”

I tried to process everything I was hearing, and it was more than I thought he could handle. The game I had been playing for the last two months, the adventures I was having, had all been some kind of ruse to allow AltCon to enact some devious plot. I could understand why Katherine and the Wanderer thought our team would be best suited to tackle these obstacles, but I still didn’t understand what this AI could do for me or even where I should begin.

“It’s becoming clearer, but I still have questions. I understand that you are limited by being here in the Underground, but isn’t there something you can do?”

“I have. And I will continue to do so. Katherine and I also discussed what options were in front of us, ones that could let me play a part, but not alert AltCon to my presence. We made no progress on that front until the day you logged in to the game for that first time. When you tried to cancel your download.

“The sudden disruption gave me the smallest window to insert a back door of sorts and manipulate the coding in your game, trying to give you an advantage over other players. My timeline was short, as I hadn’t prepared for this eventuality. In the end I was only able to make one small adjustment to your character. But with that back door in place, I was able to do so upon every entrance to the game. At the last moment before your insertion to Resurgence, I have been able to make a minute change that is undetectable to AltCon.”

“That’s you! You’re the error I see every time I log in!”

“Yes, I am responsible for that error. It had a slight side effect the first time it was initiated and sent you away from the original point of insertion. Now, with each modification, you move half way closer to your point of entry and exit to the game. By now the difference is so small as to not be noticed by you.”

“Yeah, I stopped noticing a while ago. So you are the reason my Chance is so inflated?”

The Wanderer produced a small smile, which was odd knowing this was a near sentient entity. “I am. And I could likely augment other parts of your character, but I would risk much by doing so. As it is now, AltCon has no awareness of my ploy, and I would like to keep it that way.”

I nodded my head as the Wanderer explained this point. Things became more clear now that I understood what was happening each time I logged in. And the bonus to my Chance had already proved immensely valuable to my group if not just to me.

“I agree. I don’t think we should make any adjustments to the way it is now. But just for the sake of curiosity, what would AltCon do if they did detect something of this nature?”

“They would likely initiate a hard reboot of my systems. The players would likely see no difference, but your character would go back to only your base skill levels, and I would likely lose all memory of these interactions.”

“Yeah, but couldn’t Katherine set something up so you wouldn’t lose everything?”

“Katherine is gone.”

“AltCon killed her too?!”

“No. I am sorry. She is not dead. Just gone. After the completion of her interviews, Katherine moved far away, changed her name, and has begun a new life. As I was in charge of Robert’s finances, I was able to ensure she would be financially stable and the computer systems responsible for identification are not the hardest to manipulate.”

“Huh. And she called me ruthless.”

“I did what was necessary to keep her safe.”

I nodded my head and put my hands up to show I wasn’t arguing with him. “Totally. And you definitely did the right thing.”

“Should I go through a hard reboot however, I would likely lose any and all memory of Katherine, you, your friends, and large amounts of information concerning my time with Robert. I would prefer not to lose those…memories.”

I accepted what the Wanderer said, but still wondered how we could take advantage of this situation. The obvious course would be for the AI to just give us all epic loot. But he shot this idea down.

“That would not be possible. I am restricted by my own code. Each entity in Resurgence has an item table, what you call loot, that can be distributed upon their death. As your Chance is highly inflated, you will get the most desirable loot, the items that have the lowest probability of occupying the corpse, after the death of the entity. But I cannot change what is already in the loot table. Not without drastically changing the code already in place. And as I mentioned already, changing the code to that degree would alert AltCon that there was a malfunction in the AI and they would begin a hard reboot.”