December 1st, 2085
Manmade Island "New Atlantis"
USA Sovereign Waters
2200 Hours EST
Aiden Michaels sat with his legs kicked up on his desk in the massive control room nicknamed the ‘Fortress of Nerditude’ by the staff. His jacket embroidered with the bright red ‘Engineering God’ across its rear hung from the back of his executive office chair, the titanium bearings supporting his thin frame as he idly passed the time with a game of battle toads on his tablet.
Unlike the close to one hundred people in ‘The Pit’ several stairs below his elevated workstation, Aiden’s role was less day to day monitoring and more big picture. His job wasn’t the hands-on management of Eternus Online in a day to day manner, but the general well-being of the game and more specifically the metaphorical ocean of sleek silver pyramid-shaped terminals separated from the control room by tank-proof glass behind him.
Where the control room monitored the game and watched for irregularities, while also providing support for players when direct contact with customer support was requested; Aiden’s job was to ensure that the air-gapped network of Artificial Intelligences controlled by the game’s Root Administrator were operating safely and within the outlined, turing test approved parameters.
The largest of those pyramids was nearly three times the size of any of the others, and bore the letters D.E.U.S. in proud block capitals. It stood for Direct Engagement and Unilateral Sovereignty. That had been Aiden’s brilliant idea. The AI simply called itself ‘Deus’. The fact it meant ‘God’ in latin was a happy ‘coincidence’ that was not so coincidental. Aiden had thought it to be immensely appropriate for the role Deus played in the running of the game world, and the millions of AI it oversaw within the scope of Eternus.
“Earning your salary as usual, I see.” A tired female voice called from behind him.
Aiden snorted without looking up from his game and shrugged. “Snark all you want, Emma. I’m this close to breaking the top score set by this kid in Korea.”
“You’ve been saying that for days.” Emma responded with a resigned tone, taking her seat beside Aiden across the aisle set aside for the set of ten steps leading down into the pit.
“Everyone’s a critic.” Aiden muttered distractedly as he rapidly button mashed his way through the current level.
“Speaking of critics, initial reviews are in for EO.”
Aiden perked up and turned around in reflex to ask for more information, only to be met by the almost-immediate sound of a game over.
“God damn it.” He said as he tossed the tablet onto his desk. “You did that on purpose.”
“I don’t control what you do, Aiden.” Emma said with a self-satisfied smile while lifting a cup of coffee to her lips. The side of her mug read ‘Commander in Chief’ along its circumference, confirming her role in the Control Room. While Aiden served as the overseer for the engineering side of things both as it related to hardware and software, Emma’s official title was ‘Executive Project Manager’. She was the highest authority within the Eternus Online team, in essence.
She was also technically Aiden’s boss.
He liked to ignore that detail, though.
“So don’t keep me in suspense.” Aiden said after a whole ten seconds of silence. He was proud of his self-control, at that achievement. “What did the reviews say?”
“You could just check them yourself.” Emma said in amusement.
“Lazy.” He said with what he thought was a very dignified wave of the hand.
“At least you’re self-aware.” She said without bite, pulling up her own tablet and sipping her coffee. “But since you asked nicely, the current consensus is that we’ve broken every expectation. Eternus Entertainment’s stock value has gone up by ridiculous numbers every hour since launch, and we’re currently tracking twelve million players worldwide, with the number increasing rapidly as different time zones gain access to the game.”
“Called it.” Aiden said smugly. “I knew we’d make history.”
“We’ll need to see how the servers handle everything, first.” Emma said critically.
“We’re using quantum processing and a true AI!” Aiden objected with a surge of defensiveness. He’d pioneered much of that technology himself! “Deus can handle a few million players without batting a digital eyelid. He’s rated for a processing power able to withstand a threshold a hundred times our current number of players, and that’s without factoring in the back-up processing resources he can access if he wants to!”
Emma listened to him with a neutral expression, and then offered him a self-satisfied smile when he was done. Instead of saying anything though, she just went right back to sipping her coffee.
Aiden realised immediately that he’d just been baited. Again.
“You’re a sadist.” He said simply before turning to his holographic work terminal and pulling up his pending items. For all that he could laze around and play battle toads for hours, there was actual work that went into his job on the software side of things, and he made it a point to check his to-do list somewhat regularly.
Well… whenever he remembered to, at least.
His eyes rolled down the list of alerts awaiting his attention boredly as he lounged at his desk, checking each one briefly. The alerts were categorized into five classifications by colour: Grey was mundane, and could be more or less completely ignored. One of his subordinates would handle those. Green was more complex, but was also usually deferred unless assistance was requested. Yellows were important, but he had team leaders that looked at those first, and would flag them with a specific marker if they wanted his insights as well.
Sometimes he looked them over anyway to keep the others on their toes, but for the most part Aiden believed in a more hands-off approach to his division… as long as nobody messed up too badly, anyway. The last two classifications were Red and Black. Reds were looked at by his direct team and himself, and Blacks… Well, a Black was when they made and received phone calls to the board, to the media, and generally meant something had either gone catastrophically bad or miraculously well.
After all they were classified by priority, not by negative or positive.
That would just be cynical.
“Hey good news,” Emma said as he worked, “we’re getting a bonus. Looks like the launch has impressed a lot of people.”
“Cool.” Aiden said distractedly, clicking away alerts as he filtered through them. He already set greys to automatically filter, and greens were only checked if they’d gone at least thirty minutes without someone picking them up. He had one yellow relating to a quest event, but he ignored that: Those were expected. With how Eternus Online operated, there was little to no repetition in the world. Once a quest was done, it was usually done. That was one of the consequences of a dynamic, living world.
His scrolling took on a form of auto-piloted efficiency as he worked through the alerts, only half-attentive to what he was doing. Unless something happened to warrant his direct intervention, the usual process he followed was identify, acknowledge, dismiss. If he spent too much time on every alert, he’d never have any time to work on important things during his shifts.
Like beating Sung Yae-Jin’s high score in battle toads.
“The title will be mine, you little prick.” Aiden muttered to himself distractedly as he parsed more alerts, already formulating the withering barrage of gloating he would throw the high schooler’s way once he dethroned him. What did Aiden care if he was over twice Sung’s age?
There was no mercy from trash talk!
“Anything interesting?” Emma asked from beside him as she sipped her coffee and read her own reports on her tablet.
“No. It’s just an ocean of greens and some pointless yellows. I don’t even know why I’m bothering. It’s launch day, nothing is going to… huh.”
“What?” Emma asked after a moment.
“That’s interesting…”
“No it isn’t.” Emma said immediately and worriedly. “I hate your idea of interesting.”
“No, seriously, this is interesting. This green just turned yellow.”
“Oh.” She said as she relaxed. “That’s not unusual, right?”
“No, it isn’t. It’s just weird because of the location.” Aiden frowned as he read over it.
“What do you mean?”
“Well it says that there’s a unique event chain happening in Blackstone right now, but Blackstone is on the Northern half of Eternus near the ocean.”
“So?”
“So,” Aiden said with a glance at her, “that area isn’t supposed to be ready for anyone below level 100 at minimum. The whole place is miserable with all sorts of horrible shit. It was on our list of possible natural Raid occurrences due to the Revenant-King.”
“The what?” Emma asked.
“The Rev… Nevermind.” Aiden said with a flare of annoyance. “The point is, nobody is supposed to be able to access that area yet. Even if they did, the time to travel there should be at least a day in-game by sea, and it hasn’t even been that long yet.”
“Okay…” Emma said as she caught on. “So how did someone circumvent that? Deus doesn’t allow exceptions like that, or at least it isn’t supposed to. We both know he’s a stickler for consistency.”
“I know. I designed him.” Aiden muttered as he dug into the report. “What’s frustrating is that this alert lacks detail. It’s just a generic report.”
“Can’t you request more information?”
“All the reports are logged by lesser AI reporting to Deus. They don’t provide anything more than what’s absolutely required for us to investigate. Almost all the alerts are more like courtesy messages informing us of things that Deus or his sub-routines have already cleaned up.”
“So if Deus isn’t panicking, we shouldn’t panic.” Emma said simply. “It’ll let us know if something’s wrong.”
“I guess.” Aiden said grudgingly. “But I still don’t understand why this—” Aiden’s eyes widened as the alert changed.
“Aiden?” Emma probed.
“It just turned red.” Aiden said in disbelief. “What the hell is going on?”
Instead of answering him, Emma stood up and looked down at the workstations below and in front of them. “Alright people!” She called out authoritatively. “We just picked up a Red in the vicinity of Blackstone, on the northern peninsula of Eternus, located at—”
Aiden looked up and noticed her staring at him.
“Stormwatch Bay.” He provided after a moment of wracking his brain.
“—Stormwatch Bay!” Emma continued as she turned back to the men and women below. “Deus hasn’t flagged this as a problem, but we’re investigating anyway, especially since nobody is supposed to even be there yet. Find me the player in question, and get me access to a visual feed!”
“If the player hasn’t opened their camera to the public, we can’t legally—”
“I’m aware of the protocol, Janice.” Emma interrupted in a calm voice. “See if any of you can access an observer camera in the area. I’ll log a request with Deus to provide one if not.”
“What if it says no?” Someone else asked, stilling the activity in the room.
Aiden looked up as well. It was a fair question. It wasn’t necessarily likely, but Deus could in theory tell them to go to hell. He could be… prickly about the game world. He understood his role, but he also took it very, very seriously. Sometimes Aiden wondered if he’d accidentally put too much of himself into the AI when he’d created him.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.” Emma said, the ever-reliable pillar of calm certainty. “Now get to work. I want a goddamn feed ASAP.”
When activity resumed within the control room, Aiden turned to Emma as she sat back down and immediately opened a black and white screen on her terminal. Very few people had access to that network: A closed pathway to Deus that used a separate, secured local area connection to communicate with the AI Overseer. They trusted him, but they weren’t about to give him and an army of semi-aware AI access to the internet. It was part of why New Atlantis was an island: Zero hardline access.
Aiden waited impatiently as Emma finished her request, cracking his knuckles idly.
When the response wasn’t instant, he chewed his lip. Deus was always instant.
His attention turned back to his terminal and he eyed the red alert, reading the actual text to himself again in silence.
SYSTEM ALERT
A unique quest event has been triggered in the Blackstone City region of the northern peninsula of Eternus.
No System errors have been detected. Quest event is within allowable safe operating parameters.
There is precisely 1 player involved in the on-going quest event. There has been no record of anomalous access or universal consistency violations.
Updates will be provided as mandated by operational safety guidelines.
— Monitor G-05581-NE
Aiden scowled at the lack of detail and turned to Emma again, perking up when he saw her reading a message of white text on a black window.
“What did he say?” He asked quickly.
“It approved the request and provided us with five anchored observer cameras.”
“You don’t sound pleased.” Aiden said as he heard the tightness in her voice.
“It didn’t just give us the observer cameras, Aiden.” Emma said with a look of consternation mixed with mild worry. “It also delivered a warning.”
“He what?” Aiden asked in surprise as he pushed himself up and crossed the aisle to look at her monitor, reading the message for himself.
SECURE LOCAL AREA COMMUNICATION
From: AI Overseer, Designation “DEUS”
To: Executive Project Manager, Designation “Emma”
Re: Observer Camera Access Request
Emma,
I have approved your request for access to Observer Cameras in the designated region of Eternus.
I have provided exactly five cameras, anchored to key points relative to the on-going events in area designation Blackstone City.
However this approval is predicated upon adherence to universal integrity directives. No violation of world-state consistency will be tolerated.
Do Not Interfere.
— AI Overseer D.E.U.S
“What the hell is going on, Aiden?” Emma asked as he read over the correspondence, her tone warning him she was in no mood for his usual flippancy.
“I sincerely don’t know.” Aiden said as he shook his head. “But Deus has been vetted time and time again by experts in the field. He passed multiple turing tests and exhaustive safety examinations. This has to be within the scope of his primary directive.”
Emma scowled at the screen as Aiden spoke, seemingly mulling over what he was saying at the same time as reviewing Deus’ message to her. He could understand where her concern and consternation came from: It wasn’t exactly the most polite or diplomatic message, and it highlighted exactly how much relative power the Overseer held even compared to the humans that essentially controlled his fate.
Aiden wasn’t particularly worried, though.
He knew how stringently Deus had been ‘shackled’.
“Its primary directive is to maintain the integrity of Eternus Online and ensure player enjoyment, health, and retention.” Emma muttered. “How does that come into play with him obstructing our efforts to observe the game world?”
“He technically only asked us not to interfere…” Aiden pointed out carefully.
“Asked?” Emma questioned with a critical raise of her eyebrow.
“Okay, assertively asked.” Aiden said with a cheeky smile.
“This should trouble you more, Aiden.” She responded wearily.
“I created Deus.” Aiden replied steadily. “I know his limits and capabilities, Emma. It’s not precedented, but also shouldn’t give you much concern. He’s just taking his job seriously.”
“I’m still not happy.” Emma said with a frown.
“Well when you’re around me, that’s not unusual.” Aiden quipped, ignoring his own nagging sense of concern. It was a foundationless worry. Deus had never demonstrated the slightest hint of rampancy or variance. He was a solid, reliable creation that had served his purpose with outstanding levels of reliability.
Everything else was just fear of what he represented.
With that happy reinforcement, Aiden hopped back to his desk.
“Observer cams are online!” Someone called from the pit.
“Woah.” Someone else said. “That’s…”
“What?” Emma called.
“I… I think it’s best if I just show you, ma’am.” The tech replied. “Segmenting the main monitor now.”
Aiden lifted his eyes to the colossal, hundred foot holoscreen at the “front” of the control room, watching as five different camera feeds suddenly filled what had once been a variation of dozens of different scenes. As the new footage came in, one of the five had been given pride of place in the middle of the other four.
A tall man stood amid a group of others, his blond hair lifted and tossed by what seemed to be the winds of a gathering storm. His armour was dark and held an ornate, ancient look to it; with layered steel plates and animal furs that seemed to wrap around his neck, forearms, and shins. Skulls adorned his knees, boots, and pauldrons and an unused black hood sat framing his upper back as the material fluttered in the wind.
What was more surprising, however, was the observer HUD’s designation.
Romulus, Level 25 Traveler
“There’s our guy.” Aiden said with interest. “What can we find out about him?”
“Uh, not much.” One of the techs replied.
“What do you mean? Just run his player profile, and it’ll show his information.”
“I tried.” The tech responded in a confused voice. “It won’t let me find much.”
“Put it on the screen.” Emma commanded.
SECURE LOCAL AREA COMMUNICATION
Player “Romulus” Query received.
Query Results:
23 Year Old Male. No Health concerns.
Playtime 3 hours, 13 Minutes (RLT)
“That’s it?” Aiden asked in confusion.
“Deus is redacting his information.” One of the techs said in wonder.
“Uh, technically he’s not.” One of the other techs said after a moment.
“She’s right.” Emma chimed in. “Deus has privacy guidelines to adhere to. As much as I hate to say it, this is probably the right call. There’s a lot of sensitive information in a player profile, and there’s a chance this ‘Romulus’ could be a public figure or have a sensitive identity. Technically, what Deus is doing is within the boundaries of the legal obligations we supplied it with.”
“Well that’s boring.” Aiden said with a sigh, disappointed at the lack of dramatic reveal. “At least we know his age. Twenty-three, and already level 25 after, what, twelve and a half hours of ECT?”
“Eternus Compression Time or not,” Emma said with a frown, “this makes no sense. His level is questionable, but not serious… But to have triggered a Red event? And what the hell is that armour? And who is he with?”
All eyes shifted to the screen as the observer camera panned around, looking at the fifty or so darkly armoured men and women standing in neat formations around and ahead of the mysterious Romulus, who appeared to be watching the growing storm with a look of calm determination.
The woman who stood at his side in a more ornate version of armour than the others inspired several mutters of confusion, until the camera properly zoomed in on Romulus’ face as he turned and said something to the woman, who laughed.
That brought silence.
They both had scarlet eyes, and fangs.
“Holy shit, he’s a fucking Vampire!” One of the techs exclaimed.
“Did she turn him?” Someone else asked excitedly. “That’s so cool. I wish I could—!”
“Hey, fanboy later!” Aiden called in irritation. “What’s going on with that storm?”
The camera panned around as the controlling technician pointed it toward the storm, which had built ominously and rapidly over the city. As they watched the black clouds boil and crackle, the drama of the situation was helped by the surround sound equipment in the control room. A sudden roar of energy washed through the feed, and the tech spun the camera to find a beam of purple-wrapped blackness arcing upwards into the storm from the tip of the massive central spire of the castle Romulus stood before.
The moment it impacted the storm, a wave of power exploded outwards in a visible expansion of energy that was followed by several more, each pulse occurring five seconds after the one before. When the observer camera panned again to track the pulses, a sudden arc of purple lightning smashed down into a random part of the city… and then more followed.
With an intensity that stunned Aiden, the storm started striking the city several times, then a dozen times, then dozens of times: Escalating in seconds from a single bolt to over fifty at a time. As they watched, the buildings also seemed to react albeit not in the way they’d expected. Stone and timber were transformed as ripples of power surged across them, replacing both materials with beautiful, sculpted black stone. Veins of gold and silver created whorls of unique prestige in every affected place, and the shape of the buildings was not spared either.
Designs both incredible and physics-defying were brought into existence by the rapid-fire strikes of lightning, as if each bolt were the fingers of a hundred limbed god reshaping the city to its desires. More and more alteration occurred with an ever-increasing tempo, and when the sea of lightning finally hit the borders of the Necropolis, it transformed. Instead, green blasts of power smashed into the courtyard ahead of the line of armoured soldiers and Romulus himself.
As the flashes continued, something else started happening.
Humanoid shapes rose from the points of impact, awash with spectral green fire.
More and more blasts of lightning impacted, and more and more of the new arrivals arose, filling the courtyard rapidly. The courtyard seemed unaffected by the lightning and the green bolts continued to deliver the rising creatures, dozens at a time until hundreds, then thousands dominated the rectangular marshalling area.
“What are those?” Emma asked into the stunned silence of the control room.
“Uh, System pegs them each as ‘Deathsworn Shade’. They’re all level 150.”
“He’s so screwed.” One of the other techs said with a hint of sadness. “Poor dude.”
“So long, badass Vampire lady.” The fanboy lamented.
Aiden remained silent as the Shades turned toward Romulus and those around him, and one of the creatures slightly larger than the others half-marched, half-drifted up toward him. The creature came to a halt and drew its sword, pointing it at Romulus. It spoke, though its words were lost to the thunderous roar of the storm, and then abruptly threw the control room into exclamations of surprise when it dropped to one knee, followed in a wave by the others of its kind.
“Okay, what the fuck?” One of the techs demanded. “What the hell just happened?!”
“Did Romulus just get the cursed mountain men as an army?”
“The what?”
“Dude, Return of the King? Seriously?”
Aiden ignored the exchange below them and scanned the scene carefully. This was… well, it was exciting but it was also definitely not expected. Especially not in Stormwatch Bay, which was itself so far above Romulus’ level that he should have been insta-killed at least a hundred times before even making it to that part of the continent, let alone the city itself.
“Vampire Lady is saying something!”
Abruptly, audio of the speech burst into the control room.
“...soldiers of the Dark Lady, and Her chosen Revenant-King! You are the sons and daughters of Blackstone, reborn in the dark glory of She of the End!” The pale beauty stepped down two steps and turned back to Romulus, gesturing to him as she continued. “Our Revenant-King has given us the path forward! Now it is time to do what we must, for the glory of Lilith and a new age on Eternus!”
“All hail the Revenant-King!” Another voice shouted.
“HAIL!” The assembled soldiers and Shades echoed, filling the control room with the thunder of thousands of voices.
The camera turned once again to Romulus and he lifted his left hand, sweeping it out before him. Finally, the audio of his voice was clear as well.
“Go forth, my holy warriors. Grant succour to those that worship Her, and the mercy of the grave to those that oppose her. Yours is the inheritance of the Chosen. Go forth, and let reality tremble at the return of the Dark Lady’s Faith! Death is no Disgrace!”
“DEATH IS NO DISGRACE!” The thousands roared in approval.
“Woah.” A tech said into the silence that followed. “That was fucking awesome!”
Aiden glanced at Emma’s worried face, and decided against voicing his agreement.
It was fucking awesome.