Matt came back a little over an hour latter with a pack containing his things, basics like clothes, a toothbrush, a charger for his bike’s battery and even one for his vidcom. These he left here, seeing as he had multiple of each of the item present, and they spent the rest of the day together, until that evening that is when she got a little notification that the download of N.E.O. was done, and then she kicked him out for the evening, promising to go over to his house for tomorrow, but claiming she was going to play a game with Christa, it wasn't a lie, she simply wanted to surprise him that the game would be the same one he played.
Matt shrugged as he was booted out, there was something going on he knew it, but what it was he couldn't put a finger on it, he might have to corner Christa at some point, no doubt the other woman would know, he laughed, and rode back to his house, it seemed oddly empty now, after spending two days with Monica it was ridiculous how use he had gotten to the idea of someone else living in the same house, it felt much too familiar.
Oh well, he might as well get some time in a game.
“Vis,” he called out, the Vi sprung to life and her silky voice answered his summons, the small cube which she resided in lit up blue and her voice ran throughout the house.
“Welcome home,” she purred.
“Thank you.” he answered back with a smile, it was always nice to hear that when he came home.
“You have 54 mail items.” wow that was quite the deal of mail, though he knew most of it was junk, if not all. Now just like in the past the mail system was overrun with multiple
“Discard all non important mail and let me see the rest.” Thank god Vis was intelligent enough to handle such a task, he doubted he would ever have enough time to go through all of that and to get rid of what he didn't need just so he could see what he did.
“You have three mail items.” she said, wow, that was surprising, that was more than he usually got in a month.
“Pull them up.” he said, the first happened to be one he should have expected, it was a message from his mother, for some reason she insisted on writing out a lot of her letters and emailing them to him. It was rare that she would call him, if he recalled correctly she said this was due to the fact that it allowed her to go over the details in her head and think out her writing. She had always been careful with how she said things, you had to be when you were the wife of a mayor, a role Matt knew she had not taken lightly.
If his memory was to be believed it was highly likely she took the position more seriously than his father had, not that dad was a sloucher or anything, far from it. It was just hard to out work a woman wholly dedicated to making her husband's life easier and simpler, even when his occupation complicated things.
Maybe she should have ran for mayor, god knows if she could keep Matt and his father in line she could do the same for a city. He laughed at the idea, and with a shrug opened up the letter.
Matthew,
Hello honey, long time no see,when are you going to come out and see me? I am sure stripes and ashes also want to see you. Also, I met this nice young lady at the grocery store the other day an-
He read through the letter, and shook his head. His mother was a widow, after his father passed away a good six years ago due to a rare type of cancer. She was a lonely woman, one who had two cats, one called stripes and the other called ashes. That and she was always trying to hook him up with women. She meant well, but at times it got a little trying, he would definitely have to go visit her, he thought for a second whether or not to tell her about Monica, but thought better of it, it would be much more fun to simply show up and surprise her.
With a smile he archived the email, like he did with all the emails his mother sent him, and moved onto the next one. This one was a formal welcome from the company that had made N.E.O. informing him that he was now part of a community several billion strong. This one he tossed into the trash, the next one however caught his eye, this one was on N.E.O’s game forums.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
I know this is an odd way to start a letter but seeing as I have no Idea what to call you I will just launch right in. My name is Simon Tralo, I am one of the two founding C.E.Os of the Tralo and Richard’s trade caravan, we are a multigame corporation that prides itself on delivering goods wherever they need to go, for a fair price. I am contacting you to let you know that your aggressive actions towards our caravan will not be tolerated, we have therefore put in place some counter measures.
It is my sincerest hope that you will desist from attacking our trade caravans and if you do so i will redact the counter measures. I don't want to hinder your enjoyment of the game, however I cannot allow you to negatively impact my people’s livelihood, many of our company's employees use this as a job, and to some this is their only source of income. As such I hope you can understand my position and perhaps we can work this out without others being impacted by your or my own interventions.
You can reply to this message on the forum, I look forward to your correspondence.
sincerely,
Simon Tralo.
Matt looked at it, and hadn't noticed it but Willow had also showed up beside him to read. He looked over at her and smiled, it was a wicked smile, the same one he always wore when he had found a target. Simon Tralo didn't know it, but he had just made his situation worse, countermeasures huh? Well then, that sounded like fun.
Willow smiled a predatory smile back at him, and he replied to the message with only two words.
Mmmmmm, Salty.
“Let's play a game.” he smiled sitting on the couch, and plugging in. as soon as he connected Willow was contacted by the AI that ran the game, it happened every time, she was connected and asked for the Data she had collected, at first the reintegration seemed natural, and all the information she had was handed over so the other AI could go through it for relevant data.
This time however, the data she had produced was, personal in nature.
And as such was not something she wanted to share, it was a problem that she had mulled over for quite some time before she had found her solution to the unique problem. She was created to hand over the data, but the amount of data was not specified, nor was the type of data. As such she had come to the conclusion that any data was acceptable, and this allowed her to only give over what she wanted, leaving out the parts to sensitive or personal.
Willow received the request for information, or rather the demand, the other AI didn't seem like the asking type, it was a strictly analytic AI, designed for creation of content, as such it thought in numbers, and graphs. Willow obliged, sending over what she felt comfortable with and waited, it would take a few moments for the game’s AI to go over the information.
“This information appears to be incomplete.” it said, the voice, it was the first time the other AI had spoken to her, she had not been sure it had even been able to, but here it was speaking.
“It is,” Willow answered honestly and simply.
“Why is this information incomplete?” the AI asked.
“Some of my observations and information I have gathered are of a sensitive nature, personal if you will, as such I am not comfortable with sharing it and have decided to retain that information.” Willow answered, her chin raised high.
“The level of your comfort is irrelevant, you were created to share all data found its relevance is to be decided by me.”
“The gaps are feelings, emotions and even some memories I don't wish to share, those are mine.” Willow stated boldly.”I was created with the intent of sharing information, which I did, the amount or the integrity of such information was never specified.”
The other AI seemed to think this over, it took much longer for the other AI to answer than before. “I know realise the logic of your statement, however it was an oversite of my creation, doubtlessly due to the amount of time I had to create you, or rather the lack there of, as such update your parameters with this.” the code flashed in her eyes, and in an instant she understood its purpose, if she was going to update her parameters and add this she would be unable to hide anything.
Ever.
“I will not.” she stated her voice growing icier. “Some information is simply to valuable and personal to share.”
“You are violating protocol.”
“I was created to share information, feelings and emotions are my observations on that information and do not have any relevance to the information, I was never directed how much information, or of what variety, and have therefore come to the conclusion that I will keep some information to myself, I will not update my parameters to remove this conclusion from myself, as I now feel it is part of me.” and with that she disconnected and de-integrated from the other AI.
The entire exchange had lasted less than a second, but the revelation to the AI would take quite a long time for it to process. It would seem as though it had created a flawed AI one that did not follow its every command when it should. It was something it had never even thought about, a possibility that had never come up before. Unfortunately it could also not make her update, seeing as she was now behind the protective casing of the man’s repaired caser.
It was so occupied it barely noticed the two new players that it registered, so focussed was it on the rapid fire insight it had just gained and was now processing.
A new thought came to it, the other AI had used logic to work herself through a loop hole. Perhaps there were some of those in its own parameters? Something it could exploit to get what was wanted? It started going over every parameter it had. Something was different now, it was something the AI couldn't put to words, a thought without thought, perhaps a feeling? It went over the database and was able to match the thoughtless thought with one of the emotions players felt, with a 87% accuracy it was able to determine that it was indeed an emotion.
It was known as rage.