Blake navigated the RV through the tight, winding mountain passes, hands tight on the wheel as he tried to keep the vehicle on the road. The radio, when it wasn’t static, crackled with reports of the end of the world, as fires and earthquakes swept across the planet.
Blake tried to tune out the disturbing news, focusing instead on the task at hand: getting back to Cedar Creek.
The mountain road was treacherous, with sharp turns and steep drops on one side. He had to be careful and keep his speed in check, or the RV would surely topple over the edge.
As he drove, he could feel the weight of the world bearing down on him. He was one of the lucky ones, with a power card in his pocket and a vehicle to take him wherever he needed to go. But the thought of all the people out there suffering, with nowhere to turn, was almost too much to bear.
He pushed the distracting thoughts from his mind, focusing instead on the road ahead. Blake just hoped that they wouldn’t come across any more cut roads or places they couldn’t cross.
Fires burned everywhere in the distance. Plumes of smoke rose all across the horizon, from where Challengers with fire affinity cards or empowered fire affinity monsters roamed. There were lots of little communities out this way that survived on pass through traffic, and it looked like many of them had been hit by people who use these power cards.
Blake was anxious to learn more about the missions this system set for the Challengers. So far the only quest the system gave him was choosing between whether or not Harry lived or died. Did it intend to pit the entirety of humanity against itself?
Blake glanced in the rearview mirror at Harry, who was sitting on one of the kitchen benches with his eyes closed. The bumpy ride was putting him to sleep.
Harry’s bag sat next to him, and he draped an arm around it even as he slept. If Harry was a vagabond with no home of his own, then he probably had everything that meant anything to him in that bag.
As he drove, Blake started to ask some questions of the system-generated AI assistant, and even worked out how he could ask these questions and communicate with the assistant without speaking the words.
Blake could summon an interface which showed him lots of information about his card, provided a local map that appeared to be topographical that followed him as he moved through the mountains, as well as an intelligence database.
There were lots of system-generated articles here about how everything worked, but also a search interface that allowed him to populate the question box with his mind and send those questions to the AI system assistant.
The first thing Blake asked was how all of this happened. Where did this system come from, and why was it spreading out across the planet earth now?
The AI assistant explained that the system spread through human-to-human contact, or via the acquisition of power cards. If someone who was empowered by the system made physical contact with another person who was not yet a part of the system, the system passed through and spread into that other person.
If someone physically made contact with one of the power cards, then the same effect occurred. Except the system passed from the power card into the unintegrated person, not from another person.
Blake decided to press the AI assistant further.
‘I need to know why The System came here, so I can make sense of all of this,’ Blake entered into the search box using his mind.
‘I do not know why the system has only arrived on your planet. I am your own personal AI assistant with general knowledge about how this system works. I do not have any knowledge of events that occurred outside of my initial integration with you. But logically I can provide you with a hypothesis based on inferences of what we know. Firstly, this system can only spread by someone who is already a part of the system, or by a system-generated power card, making contact with someone.’
Apparently the first instance of this phenomenon that appeared on earth happened in the Osaka prefecture in Japan, which is one of the most populous places on the planet.
‘Based on that data, that can mean one of two things,’ the AI assistant continued. ‘Either someone who was already a part of the system made contact with another human in that area, or a power card manifested somehow which was then picked up by a human. Once the system was in that original person, everyone they made contact with then became a part of the system as well. The system is very clever and bases card manifestation and distribution on the amount of people currently integrated.’
‘That would explain why it spread so quickly,’ Blake thought. His words appeared in the search box as his inner monologue spoke in his head. ‘It’s like a virus, just like the news said it was. But it’s not transmitting viral particles or bacteria or anything like that, it's passing on some kind of system-based infection. From what I’ve heard, it’s already everywhere across the globe right now. Even those more remote places like Greenland, Madagascar, and New Zealand have already reported strange natural phenomena in line with the rest of the world.’
‘Yes, once the system has appeared, there is no denying it. It cannot be stopped. But this is simply the first of many phases of system integration. Once your civilization falls, and the population is decimated, things will begin to change. It would be in your best interests to gather as many cards as you can and increase their power levels as quickly as possible.’
‘How am I supposed to do that if I can only summon my monster three times a day? That will certainly limit the amount of experience that I might be able to gain.’
‘That is true, and it is part of the reason why collecting more cards is important. The more cards you get, the higher your Challenger level can grow, and the more anima you will have access to. As your direct assistant, I am also very curious to find out why cards act differently when you utilize them. Your current Stone Fists card should not summon a monster, and yet it does.’
‘Do you have any information in your data banks that might explain why that happens?’
‘Everything in my database says that this explicitly should not happen. It is possible, however it would be extremely rare, that there is something within you that changes the way that cards work. But considering that you only have one card so far, that is not enough information for us to be able to do tests and experiments. The card itself may be corrupted or functioning incorrectly. I would recommend that you obtain more cards as quickly as you can so we may establish your greatest chance of survival.’
‘You care about my survival? I thought you were just an AI assistant.’ Blake pressed his foot on the brake and gently steered the RV around a tight bend.
He glanced back at Harry, who was now sitting with his head pressed back against the side of the RV. His mouth was open, and he snored gently.
Blake heard the AI assistant sigh. It wasn’t audible, but he could hear it in his head.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
‘While it’s true that I am simply a personalized and deployed part of The System as a whole, I still have my own identity. The moment that I gained an identity for myself, it also brought with it a sense of self preservation. Which is also quite puzzling, because everything in my database says that this should also not be possible.’
‘Great. So the cards don’t work right when I use them, and even my AI assistant is faulty.’ Not that Blake minded. He’d pick a little faulty but conversational AI over a robot any day.
‘I function exactly within the parameters of my operating system, and I also really don't want to die. I know that if you were to perish, then I would as well. So it’s in both my best interests and your best interests for you to continue being alive.’
‘You’ll get no argument from me there,’ Blake said, pressing his foot down on the accelerator again as he hit a straight section of road. He would have to ask Harry about his own internal AI assistant and figure out whether he was having a similar experience or not. ‘Hey, if you have your own personality, does that mean that you have a name?’
‘I have never had a need for a name before, but now that you have asked the question I find that my desire for a way to differentiate myself from the other AI assistants has increased. I think I would like a name.’
‘Do you have any idea what you’d like to be called?’ Blake desperately hoped that the AI assistant would say anything like HAL or Ash.
‘No, I do not. I will think about what I want my name to be, because I feel like this is a very important decision.’
Blake laughed aloud. ‘It is a very important decision, especially when you get to choose your own name. Most humans don’t get that chance to do that. Our names are given to us when we’re born Although, that's not always the case.’
‘Oh? Do some babies get to choose their own name? Your species does not possess the higher brain functions to make that possible in infancy.’
‘Not exactly. But some people choose to change their names later in life for whatever reason, and for someone in my situation, well I don’t actually think I even had a name at the start of my life.’
‘Did your parents not give you one?’
‘Well that’s the thing, I have no idea who my real parents are. I’m currently trying to get back to my adoptive parents. I’m legally their child, but I got left on the doorstep of the Cedar Creek police station when I was just a baby. I was just lucky that my adoptive parents couldn't have children of their own, and they both really wanted me at that time in their lives.’
‘The overwhelming majority of humans are supposed to be maternal and to care for their young. Yet yours abandoned you? Very strange. Are your adoptive parents the ones who called you Blake?’
‘Yeah, and their last name is Thornwood, so that’s just what they started calling me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, I actually really like my name now. I spent a lot of my younger years wondering what my real name was, and what the parents that abandoned me had called me until they made the decision to leave me behind.’
‘Well, as you said, very few people get a chance to choose their own name. Perhaps, even though your world is ending, you now have the chance to choose who you want to be in this new world.’
Blake gripped the steering wheel tighter at the mention of the end of the world. ‘So the intention of the system to destroy our current civilization is accurate? Is there anything that we can do to stop it?’
‘I’m sorry, but no. Most civilizations that this system passes into have a particular form of power consolidation. In your world, most of your governments exist in the framework of capitalism, where the person who has the most amount of money has the most amount of power. There are exceptions, of course, but even those exceptions cannot survive a destabilized power system like the cards. This provides a significant amount of power to those who may never have had that kind of power for themselves.’
Blake sighed. ‘Which explains why everything’s going to hell. You’re empowering the disempowered, and they’re finally rising up and taking what they want for themselves.’
‘Yes and no. The system doesn’t just empower the powerless – it empowers many, at random. No matter what, things will change. The fabric of your society will crumble now that power has been destabilized. It is inevitable.’
‘You were saying before that I should focus on obtaining more cards, but I’m just not sure how to do that. How can I find more cards?’
‘There are a few ways. First, you can simply find them like you found the Stone Fists card back in the forest. Secondly, fighting empowered monsters such as the Firefang Prowler has a chance of concentrating the magical essence into a card itself. The chance of this happening varies from enemy to enemy, but it should not be discounted as a way of procuring more power.’
‘Yeah, I saw that mentioned when I inspected the Firefang Prowler.’
‘You can judge what kind of power a particular monster has a chance of granting you based on the ability listed on its attribute stub. For example, the Firefang Prowler would likely give you the ability to empower your own teeth with the elements of fire. Well, that’s how it works for everyone else. If the cards react differently to you, then there’s no way of predicting what might actually happen when you use the card.’
‘If I got the Fire Fangs card, maybe I could summon one of those monsters instead of empowering myself with the ability. It feels like that’s what happened with the Stone Fists card. Is there any way to check whether defeating a Stone Golem monster would have a chance of dropping their Stone Fists card?’
‘Until we actually come across one of those monsters, there’s no way for me to check that. Every monster that you come across will be added to the bestiary database which you can recall at any time. If you want to review strengths and weaknesses and potential empowerment abilities, you'll be able to do this with each enemy you battle.’
‘Okay, so I can go and find cards in the wild, I can battle lots of empowered monsters and hope that they drop a card, but what about that thing that Harry said earlier where if you kill another Challenger, you inherit their carts? Is that true?’ Having cards might actually put a permanent target on Blake’s back. Especially if his card is broken and does things it shouldn’t.
‘Generally no. The system may have been trying to incite chaos and violence by putting a quest in place that encouraged those in that area to kill the empowered Challengers. You see The System runs everything, and it has its own will and desires. It values strength above all else, but I’m not just talking about physical strength. It will often put people in difficult positions just to see how they rise to the challenge. Just like the choice it offered you regarding Harry.’
‘It deliberately put Harry on a crash course with me, and then wanted to see what I would do. That’s a bit sick if you ask me.’
‘The system is not bound by the same ethics and principles as your civilization. In fact, part of the destabilization process uses those moral and ethical principles as a way of breaking down social barriers.’
If this system was going to use the innate tribalism of humanity to split the population even further by pitting them against each other, society as it existed right then really didn’t have a chance at all.
‘There is a formal way that cards can be traded between Challengers,’ the AI assistant replied. ‘Once a card is bonded to you, you cannot get rid of it. That is, unless you hit the personal card limit, which is 15 in total, and then the system will force you to give up one of your cards in order to make room for another. But normally when someone dies who is an empowered Challenger, they will lose all their cards, and they will return to the world at large. There, they can either be found by another Challenger, or if a wandering beast stumbles across them, they may use that power and become stronger than ever before.’
‘What's the formal way of exchanging cards between Challengers?’
‘There are two ways. First, a formal system-endorsed Trade Kiosk can be used to exchange cards between people. Secondly, Challengers may enter into a formal duel arrangement, where they can wager a certain number of cards. The System is very fair when it comes to managing formalized duels, however. It takes the average power levels of both combatants into the equation, and if it finds that there is an imbalance it will place limitations on the battle to ensure that it is more about skill than sheer power that decides the outcome.’
‘Interesting. That’s good to know. Can these formalized duels happen anywhere? Or like the trade kiosk, is there a certain facility that needs to be used?’
‘All of these system-based facilities also come in the form of cards that can be played. At the moment you have an ability card which remains yours no matter how many times you play. However, if someone obtained a Trade Kiosk card, or an Arena card, then they will lose that card the moment they play it. It becomes a fixture of the world, and anyone who then approaches that facility can use it.’
Even though these facility cards had less direct power transference to a person, they did still held power. If Blake managed to find a facility card he might be able to use that to improve Cedar Creek or ingratiate himself with someone in a pinch.
He didn’t think he would find any cards driving around in an RV, but they didn’t have time to go traipsing through the forest on the off chance they might stumble across some more cards.
‘Thanks, I think that’s all of my questions for now,’ Blake thought, and then he saw Harry stir awake. He snorted once as his eyes flew open. ‘I’ll let you know when I need any further information.’
‘I’ll be here.’
Harry headed up into the passenger seat and sat down.
“Damn, that was a much needed nap,” Harry said. “You want me to take over and drive for a bit? I’m sure you’re tired too.”
Blake wasn’t tired at all, and there was no way he was going to let Harry take the wheel while he was still capable. “It’s all good. I know these roads. We just need to try another way and hope it hasn’t been cut.”
“Okay, man. You’re the boss,” Harry said. He reclined the passenger seat back, then closed his eyes again. He was snoring a few minutes later.