Shepherd Moon: Omegaverse: Volume 1 (10 page)

Arranged in a semicircle in front of his seat were several empty stations.

“
Clive, can you put some people on the bridge?”

Crewmen appeared, filling the seats at the stations. They all stared intently at their respective screens, occasionally moving as though to adjust their instruments.

“Thanks. Can I see you?”

Another crewman appeared, standing to his left. He was an average sized man, wearing what looked like an unadorned naval uniform.

“Certainly, sir. You can change anything you like about me. My sex, age, race. My name, voice, clothing. I’m entirely customizable. You’ll only be able to see me on the bridge of your ship. All other times I’ll be as you’ve come to know me.”

“Thanks. You’re fine for now. Pull up the navigation map, please.”

One of the crewmen bent over her station, and a navigational display, a top down view of the galaxy, overlaid the now dimmed outside view.

“Pinpoint Eta Bootis.” One of the stars grew brighter. “Zoom in.” He paused. "Again.”

The map now showed an area of space centered on Eta Bootis. Most of the surrounding stars showed, in green lines, jump routes to and from surrounding stars. They had multiple lines. Eta Bootis showed only one. Only one route in, and one route out. That route led to an unnamed system. The unnamed system had two clusters of routes. One cluster led to the group of stars surrounding the space station he was at, marked by a pulsing blue dot. The other cluster surrounded another blue dot.

“What’s that other station?”

“A station just like this one, but that one is used for new players from India.”

“Can I go there?”

“Of course. You can go anywhere. The only cost is fuel and time. You must jump through each intervening system.”

He zoomed in again on the system that looked to be the sole transit between the two clusters. The system that was also the only way in or out of the Eta Bootis system. The jump point in that system was near the fourth planet, represented on the map as a blue, ringed, gas giant. Near the large, green jump point was a flashing red dot.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“The location of your last mission,” responded Clive.

Interesting, thought Duncan. Apparently the pirates recognize the system as a transit chokepoint as well. It’s also pretty far away from either space station.

He plotted a course for the system, then stood, pointed dramatically, laughed and said “Engage!” The ship began pulling away from the station, began moving toward the first jump point.

Duncan turned and walked through the door on the bulkhead at the rear of the bridge.

“Destination?”

“Uh,” he thought, “Captain’s quarters?”

The door opened. He walked through into a good sized room. But for a display on one wall, currently showing the forward view, the room was empty. He assumed he’d have to pay for any furniture or decorations. He took off his wolf’s cowl and dropped it on the floor. He retreated through the door.

“Destination?”

“Hangar.”

The door now opened into a large, industrial looking room. Also bare, but dominated by a wedge nosed rectangle poised expectantly on four short legs, like an attack corgi. He entered it through a door on the side into a small two place cockpit.

“Is this for landing on planets?”

“Yes,”
said Clive,
“It can be controlled via the ship’s bridge, or flown manually.”

He left the shuttle, began walking toward the interior airlock.

“Clive, how come I have to fly my ship through all of the various jump points, but when I take a mission it gets me there instantly?”

“All of this technology was ‘found’,’’
said Clive,
“All of the space stations. All of the means for creating new ships. All of the manufactories. When humans first began exploring space, they found an abandoned station near earth. The short answer to your question is “we don’t know.” We think the energy involved requires a space station for instantaneous transit.”

“In other words,”
laughed Duncan,
”it’s because we’re in a game and that’s what’s required for the game. Nobody would take missions if you had to worry about transit time, but owning ships would be even more unbalancing than they already are if they weren’t stupidly expensive and relatively slow.”

“That is also a prevailing theory,”
confirmed Clive
.

Duncan returned to the bridge, arriving just before the ship reached the jump point. Once that happened, the ship would travel in hyperspace until reaching the final jump point; he had to travel through each intervening jump point, but wouldn’t drop out of hyperspace until the course was run. Unless he was torpedoed.

He checked the ETA.

“Wow,” he muttered. It was an hour away. It would take one third of his fuel.

“Clive, if I’m offline, can you text me if anything happens? Or when we get to the destination?”

“Yes sir.”

“Thanks. Also, as soon as we clear hyperspace, set the cloaking.”

Duncan took off the helmet, got another beer. He drank while reading about the consumables market in game, familiarizing himself with their relative values.

meta 2

how much was the second highest bid?

four million

selling it was a good sign.

but

it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s thinking

long term.

there’s something else we can try.

i’m confident in his candidacy.

you heard what he said

about the singularity.

Chapter 11

the day before

Charlottesville, VA. USA

Duncan spun his cell phone, which lay on the steel mesh table in front of him. As its rotation slowed to a stop, he picked up his pint glass, took a drink.

“Do you want another mimosa?”

“I’m good for now, thanks,” said Anna. She leaned back into her chair. She stretched, sunning herself.

She looked back at him, “How can you tell, in your game, when you’re talking to someone who’s real and someone who isn’t?”

He thought.

“Usually, you can tell just by the way they act.”

“If your asshole guy didn’t have friends to apologize for him, would you have known he was real?” she asked.

“Known?” he responded, “No. But I would have been reasonably sure.” He laughed, “The AI in the game is supposed to be there for fun. A bunch of assholes wouldn’t be fun.”

“Maybe they’d add a few, just to make it seem more real. Which might make it more fun,” she smiled. “Have you heard of the singularity?”

“Black holes?”

“Not in this case,” she said. “It refers to when AI will exceed humans in intellectual capability. We talked about it in philosophy class.”

“When did you take a philosophy class?” he asked. Last he heard, she was going to be an organic farmer.

“Last semester. I’m thinking of changing my major to philosophy. I love it.”

He nodded, smiled. This was the fourth possible change of study she’d gone through that he knew of.

They’d known each other a year. He’d rented a beach house last summer with several friends. Shannon was one, and she brought Anna. He remembered first seeing her, getting out of Shannon’s car. Wearing the same awful flip flops laying in front of her chair now. She had also had on what looked like a sleeveless, pink pajama top and a tawdry little miniskirt. Her shoulder length hair had been bleached a horrific off-white. She’d been beautiful.

Now, her hair was cut short. Spiked on top. Back to her natural color, he assumed. Brown. She was still beautiful.

“Anyway,” she continued, ”the singularity is when computers will be smarter than people. Once that happens, they’ll be able to design computers that are even smarter.”

“Computers will design computers?” he asked.

She nodded. “Some folks think it’ll happen within a couple of decades, some think it’ll be sooner.”

“And when it does,” she continued, “how will you be able to tell an AI is an AI? If it’s smarter than a human? And if you can’t, then what’s the difference?”

“Especially,” she added, “if, as some people think, we’ll be able to transfer our consciousness into computers.”

He asked, “Would you want to live like that? Are you still alive? Do you still exist if you’re just your consciousness?”

She shrugged.

“And where does philosophy go? Without the biological imperatives that define most of our existence, what do we contemplate?”

She shrugged again. “Would
you
want to live like that?”

“As opposed to being dead? Sure. It’s got to be better than nothing.”

“How do you know death is nothing?”

“There’s no evidence for anything else,” he shrugged.

“There’s no evidence against it.”

“Just faith that it exists. I don’t have that faith. Not enough, anyway, to avoid taking another route if it’s offered to me.”

“But,” she said spreading her arms, “what about all of the life around you? You can’t believe it
just happened
, that there’s nothing greater.”

“Why not?” he answered, “I’m literally surrounded by an infinite amount of empirical evidence that it did just happen. And absolutely zero evidence that there’s anything greater.”

“Anyway,” he continued, “you’re twenty-two …”

“Twenty-three.”

“Twenty-three, sorry. When you’re a doddering old person of forty-five like me, you might see aging and death a little differently. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you, I’m looking at working for another decade or two just to be able to retire and sit on my ass and wait to die, pinning my hopes on some fairy tale afterlife that I don’t believe in.”

Duncan pushed back his chair. “I have no motivation anymore. I just don’t care. What’s the point of busting my ass, just so I can roll over and die to make room for some jerk who’ll make the same dumb mistakes I did.”

He finished his beer. “Now, if you can find a way that I can live a long time, a timeline I can sink my teeth into, then I’m interested again.”

Chapter 12

Duncan walked onto the bridge of his ship. He wondered what to name it. There was no reason he had to name it at all, so he’d take his time, come up with something he liked.

The ship arrived at the interstellar jump point, left hyperspace. The display screen on the bridge flooded with stars in unfamiliar constellations. He was slightly above the plane of the ring around a gas giant, also several hundred kilometers from the outer edge. He brought up his scanning instrumentation, set to passive.

The gas giant was the fourth planet in the system, several AU out from its star; a run of the mill yellow G class, much like the Sun. He slewed the ship until it was pointing toward the planet, its blue orb dominating the screen, dwarfing the yellow sun far distant. At the outer edge of the ring was a small moon. Nestled close to the moon was a ship; close enough that its shadow highlighted its shape. The HMS Westy.

“Can he see me?”

“No sir.” responded Clive, “we came out cloaked. If he was actively scanning our location, he would be able to detect our presence, but not our exact location from that range. He’s not actively scanning, however. We are invisible to him as long as we move slowly, keep our shields off and refrain from any active nav scanning. Our cloak will keep him from acquiring us visually.”

Duncan was glad that he’d spent the money for the cloak. Even from this distance, the Westy was clearly visible; backlit by the shepherd moon.

“However,” continued Clive, “assuming he were monitoring the faster than light traffic through this system, as is likely, he will know we’re in the area, as he will have noted that we’re no longer in hyperspace.”

Duncan wasn’t worried that he’d be attacked, at least not by the Westy. That guy was a jerk, but he seemed to only worry about hunting pirates so Duncan thought he was safe. He hoped. Pirates were no threat to him, they seemed only to attack the automated cargo drones that delivered goods between systems. At least, most pirates we no threat. He supposed that players could buy the extremely expensive naval vessels like the Westy, but as far as he knew, nobody risked those ships for the relatively meager returns they could get from piracy.

He’d read that pirates usually bought the cheapest ship they could get away with, to limit their costs if destroyed. Being destroyed while engaged in piracy negated your insurance policy, so most didn’t bother with that added expense either. Another dangerous option, rarely taken, was engaging in piracy while in a ship taken from mission control. If you were caught while in a mission ship, you wouldn’t be allowed to take another mission for a very long time.