Chapter Five – Another World: One

Tatiana was livid. She stared at the television with rapt attention as Gypsenergy’s director McDonough spoke at another press conference. Finally admitting they had created an A.I. was a step in the right direction but the fact that they were not only letting her live, but allowing her to stay in the game?

“What the hell is this bullshit!?” She screamed, tugging at her hair in frustration before rewinding the interview and replaying it again.

“–es. It appears that our game system was somehow able to spawn a brand new intelligence. As of right now, the intelligence is still being allowed to live within the confines of the game. It has expressed no ability to escape its world. While it has shown aggression, the employees of Gypsenergy feel that destroying what may very well be the first non-human intelligence to ever exist on earth would be morally reprehensible without proof that such action was necessary. As of now, the A.I. has done nothing overtly threatening, and has only expressed frustration with its circumstances for perfectly justifiable reasons… It was introduced to the world by being killed repeatedly. Our developers are keeping a close eye on the A.I. but we are not revealing its identity or location at this time, in the hopes that it can come to understand its world and our own. There will be no questions at this time. Thank you.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” she thought.

That thing wanted to kill her! Gell, regardless of the circumstances, had threatened to kill her family and make her watch! And they thought that wasn’t overtly threatening! The video was all over the damn internet!

She’d sighed. She’d hoped this problem would be dealt with. The company had shut down Tread the Sky for an entire week, after all. That didn’t happen for no reason. Something big had gone down and Tatiana knew Gell had to be at the heart of it.

But they’d decided not to erase her. Not only that, they’d left her in the game! How did that make any sense?

The only thing that did make sense was that they couldn’t erase her. She’d somehow compromised Tread the Sky’s code in some massive way and now they had no choice but to claim this corporate bullshit sympathy for “the first non-human intelligence” while sweeping Tatiana’s very real fear under the rug.

‘Idiots!’ she thought for the millionth time.

She had no idea how to handle this. Gell was free. Gell was free and the developers weren’t going to do anything to stop her. Instead, they were letting her roam, and sooner or later she would come for revenge.

Tatiana couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Seeing Red Thorn would only make Gell more angry, and within the confines of Variak, she couldn’t even hurt the A.I. Not that that would help anyway.

Her original plan had been to simply delay Gell from affecting anything else with her creepy A.I. powers. As long as she was stuck in her cave, she figured Gell wouldn’t be able to learn how to escape the game. That, tied with the video she’d released to her streaming account had all but assured her that Gell would be deleted.

But they hadn’t deleted her. No, not only that, they’d admitted creating her and damn near endorsed her!

Nevermind that Tatiana’s family might be in actual danger. God, what if she accessed her social account? What if she messed with her grades? Her money!?

‘I suppose I could just… leave her alone. Stick my head in the sand and hope she forgets about me,” she thought, resignedly. But she knew she couldn’t let it go. Not that easily.

For the life of her she couldn't think of any way to effectively fight Gell, though. The creature was immortal. Maybe, maybe if Gell came to Pel’Bramont, and joined an opposing guild to Tatiana’s own, she could capture her and throw her into the guild dungeon. But, then she’d have to justify that to the rest of the guild, not to mention she’d have to do it over and over again.

Hell imprisoning her might just teach her how to manipulate the game even faster! She’d already shown that she could fuck with its code. How long could it be until she could break out of it?

‘God dammit, I need a programmer. The problem is I have no damn clue what a loose A.I. in a video game could do!’ She thought heatedly.

With a sigh, she decided to reach out to the one friend who might have some idea of how to help her. She’d already told him about the mob. If he’d watched her video, condemning the company itself for working on A.I. then he probably already knew the rest.

She clicked to call him on the computer and was a little surprised when he answered almost immediately.

“Heeeyy! If it isn’t miss “Down with the Machine” herself! So, what does the famous Red Thorn, slayer of Jellyfae and gametime itself have to say to little ole me!?”

She blinked at the exuberant response. Unlike the last time she’d spoken to Germaine, this time, he’d completely dropped whatever he’d been doing before. He was looking straight at her and had a grin on his face a mile wide.

She flushed a little as his words caught up with her. “I… guess you already know?”

“Know?! Are you kidding me? If you thought you were internet famous before, you should see the memes you spawned. Here. Here look at this one.” He suddenly clicked something and I was shown a view of his computer screen surfing for an image.

“Down with AI!” was plastered across an image of her with a swastika in the background. Below the image were the words “Hiel Thorn!”

“The… the fuck is this shit!?” she shouted, looking at the meme.

He grinned. “Not going to lie, I thought you were being pretty fucking ridiculous myself. Then the game shut down for a week? Then they admitted they had an A.I.? Suddenly what you were worried about looks way more serious, but damn. How have you not seen any of this? It’s all over gamer boards!”

She bristled. “When they took the game down, I thought they’d take care of the problem. Visited my parents, and they’re… off the grid, puts it mildly.”

“Ahhh. Heh. Well, sorry to be the bearer of bad news then. For a hot minute, mocking you was pretty much the number one thing to do on the forums. Then… well. After the game devs announced there really was an A.I. people started taking your video more seriously.”

Tatiana sighed, bristling with nervous energy as she dropped her head to the keyboard. “So does that mean you saw the most recent announcement? How they’re letting the A.I. remain in the game!?”

“I know right? It’s awesome! I’m gonna try and find her. Rumor is she’s in Variak, though I guess you’d know best, right? Hey what happened after that video cut off anyway? Did you kill her?” he asked curiously.

“It’s-! It’s not fucking awesome! It’s an A.I. who threatened to kill my actual family you dumbass!” she shouted, now feeling like she might’ve made a mistake in calling him.

He scoffed. “Please. I heard what she said as well as everyone else. She has a reason to be pissed at you, Red, and I know how guilty you felt about killing her.”

“I… well, yeah. Anyone would. But that ended when I realized she can’t be reasoned with! She’s an A.I. with a grudge against me! What am I supposed to do about that? What if she comes for me? Y-you know. Online? Can she do that?”

Germaine frustratingly shrugged. “Can’t really say. Maybe? I think you’re looking at this the wrong way though.”

“What do you mean?”

“Artificial Intelligence, Tats. She’s intelligent. Maybe not as intelligent as a human. Or maybe she is more intelligent than us, but really lacking in the emotional quotient. Intelligent all the same. You’re intelligent, right? Do you want to go and whack everyone who inconveniences you? Hell, would you want to kill someone who robbed you?”

“Well… no… I guess not.”

“So it stands to reason that she can be reasoned with. Hell maybe she’ll even forgive you. You need to be a bit more genuine than you were in that video. ‘Forgive me or I’ll kill you’ doesn’t really look good, Tats.”

She grunted, acknowledging the point.

“I didn’t just inconvenience her, though. I killed her, Germ. And her family. Those bugbears with the weird names? I guess now we know why.” She replied, feeling morose. Every time she thought about what she’d done there it made her feel a little sick.

“So, find a way to make her forgive you. Or at least make her understand that you’re not out to do it again. Hell, let her kill you. If you’re really scared of her, let her kill you over and over again. Might be worth it if she actually can access the internet.”

Tatiana cocked an eyebrow. “But she’d try to kill me as soon as she saw me. Or in a safe zone she’d at least run away.”

He shrugged. “Sorry, Tatiana. I feel like you’re massively overblowing her threat though. I mean, did you actually listen to her speak? She sounds young. Like a kid. She doesn’t really want to hurt people. Just be safe. Maybe… I dunno. Save her life? Watch out for her?”

Tatiana gave a noncommittal hmm, but inwardly her mind was whirling. The inklings of an idea began to form.