“You’re not having a breakdown, are you?” Kurtis asked, ears back, looking Matt’s way.
“We’re yelling ‘cause announcements are stupid!” Val shouted to the water. “Announcements are really dumb and make no sense!”
“Matt? Buddy?” Kurtis tried again.
“Shh!” Matt waved him away, then said, “Uh, sorry, I don’t know why I did that. Give me a sec.”
“He’s in his menus,” Fallyn said.
Anika narrowed her eyes.
Matt was paralyzed with anticipation. There’s a Chatbot. There’s a Chatbot! He pressed his tongue to his upper right lip. He had so many questions. What should he ask first?
Fallyn and Anika stopped at a dead tree that lay across the beach and sat. Its bark had been stripped off; time had worn it pale and smooth.
“Chatbot…” Matt began composing slowly.
“You found a Chatbot?!” Kurtis almost pounced.
Matt stepped back. “Uh yeah, it just…” He motioned a hand in front of his face.
“Oh my gosh! Ask it how we group!” Kurtis said. “No, ask it—yes, ask it that first.”
Matt accommodated, “Chatbot, how do we group?”
The words ‘Me: How do we group?’ formed in the black window in front of Matt.
Then, came the response, ‘CB: HOW TO FORM A PARTY. Link hands in a circle and speak command FORM PARTY. Related commands: LEAVE PARTY, DISBAND PARTY, ADD TO PARTY, REMOVE FROM PARTY. ADD and LEAVE must be spoken by party members. DISBAND and REMOVE must be spoken by party leader. ADD requires hand-linking with speaking party member.’
Matt read it out to Kurtis, who immediately called Fallyn, Anika, and Princess Valkyrie over to form their group.
“Ask it how we see our XP progress,” Kurtis said, as the group organized in a circle around Matt.
Kurtis lifted Matt’s right hand, and then Anika slipped gently into his left.
“Form party!” Kurtis instructed excitedly.
“Chatbot, what are these new boxes I see?” Matt asked. There were now four gray rectangles to the left of his field of view, small, like a frosted window with four panes—but turned sideways.
Matt’s question was added to the dialog.
The response: ‘CB: BASIC PARTY INTERFACE. Display the members of your party. Related commands: SHOW/REMOVE NAMES, SHOW/REMOVE IMAGES, SHOW/REMOVE HEALTH, SHOW/REMOVE MANA, SHOW/REMOVE STAMINA.’
“Basic party interface show names, show images, show health, show mana, show stamina.” Matt listed them all. He could always use the remove command. The windowpanes fuzzed into tiny semi-transparent portraits of his friends with the first word of their names to the right and then three short bars below: red, blue, and dark green. The portraits were each overlaid with a small circle containing the number ‘2.’
“Neat!” Kurtis said. He’d copied Matt’s words. “Now, ask it how we turn off the bars above people’s heads if they’re in our party.”
Matt was beginning to think Kurtis should be the one with the Chatbot interface, but he amiably passed on the question.
“Got it,” Matt updated. “Copy this, Kurtis.” Matt gave the command, “Disable party member combat bars.” Then Matt added, “It says you can turn off the names too, just say names instead of bars. I’m going to leave mine on though. I kind of like that they light up when things go South.”
“I like that too,” Fallyn said.
“Did you ask it about the XP thing?” Kurtis urged. He hovered, pacing with excitement.
“Aww, look how cute you all are in these photos!” Val cried.
“Sorry,” Matt apologized. “Say that again?”
“I want something like the party boxes, but for myself,” Kurtis explained. “Most games will show that out of combat. And then, something to show leveling, like XP to the next level.”
“Chatbot,” Matt tried not to garble the request, “is there something that could show me my own party interface box and is there something that could show my XP progress to the next level?” Matt thought he did okay.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
The Chatbot returned, ‘CB: TRAVELER VITALITY DISPLAY. Display your health, mana, and stamina. Command: SHOW/REMOVE TRAVELER VITALITY DISPLAY. Related commands: SHOW/REMOVE RESOURCE VALUES, SHOW/REMOVE RESOURCE PERCENTAGES, SHOW/REMOVE NAME, SHOW/REMOVE IMAGE, SHOW/REMOVE LEVEL, SHOW/REMOVE XP, SHOW/REMOVE XP VALUES, SHOW/REMOVE XP PERCENTAGES.’
Matt quickly read out the whole thing, activating the entire list. Above the party menu appeared a similar, slightly transparent box; it spanned the full width, two party boxes wide. The bars first appeared labeled with numbers, but then they flipped to percentages.
Different from the party boxes, his level was shown in a circle that stuck out from the bottom left. The circle bookended a pink sparkling bar that ran along the entire bottom of the large rectangle. It said 81%. He wasn’t sure he needed his portrait or name—he knew who he was—but he left them there for now.
“It’s pink!” Val exclaimed.
Saw that one coming, Matt thought, smiling.
“Ask it about the rest buff we were supposed to get.” The questions poured out of Kurtis. “No, ask it about showing all active buffs and debuffs. And then ask if there’s a way to see damage and heal numbers.”
It was good stuff, but Matt was getting antsy to ask about the case.
“Chatbot,” Matt conceded, “tell me about the rest buff we were supposed to get from the tent.”
Matt read the response to the group, “It says, ABOUT REST XP. Well Rested buff is granted after resting a full night in a designated rest area. Well Rested grants double XP gain for the first 50 million XP earned. Well Rested expires at end of day.”
“That’s a lot,” Kurtis said. “At least right now.”
“Chatbot, how do I see that I have this Well Rested thing?”
‘CB: Your TRAVELER VITALITY DISPLAY is one of the ways you may currently view Well Rested. Direct your attention to the XP portion of the display. Remaining XP to be earned with Well Rested applied will be indicated by pink.’
So that’s what’s up with these sparkles.
“Well, what did it say?” Kurtis pressed.
“Uh, the pink on the XP bar.” Matt moved on, “Chatbot, give me information about the legal case.”
‘CB: Please clarify what you are looking for.’
Matt tried again, “Chatbot, tell me about the yellow announcements that mentioned a legal case.”
‘CB: ABOUT ANNOUNCEMENTS. Announcements are displayed in yellow text. By default, they repeat five times. GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS are displayed to all travelers. LIMITED ANNOUNCEMENTS are displayed to a subset of relevant travelers. Related commands: ENABLE/DISABLE ANNOUNCEMENTS/[ANNOUNCEMENT TYPE], REPLAY LAST ANNOUNCEMENT/[ANNOUNCEMENT TYPE], CHANGE ANNOUNCEMENT/[ANNOUNCEMENT TYPE] REPEAT TO [NUMBER].’
Matt commanded, “Replay last announcement,” to reference the case number. The yellow text scrolled.
“Chatbot, give me legal case, number 1425778, information.”
‘CB: I don’t have that information. Would you like to try a different question?’
“Chatbot, Explain the legal case 1425778.”
‘CB: I’m not familiar with that topic. Would you like to try a different question?’
“Is it not working?” Fallyn asked.
Matt gritted his teeth. “Chatbot, what is this place?”
‘CB: ABOUT HUMAN PRESERVE 1. Partitioned Continuance Platform hosted on third-party architecture. Population: 1,000,234. FRC registered technology patent 17875578. All rights reserved. Prosperity and profits for all.’
Matt went pale. “Chatbot, how did we get here?”
‘CB: ABOUT ENTERING CONTINUANCE. Initial entry begins with INTAKE SCAN (FRC registered technology patent 178755878-11). Scan requires baseline brain maturity and fitness. Records indicate human baseline age 25-40 due to prefrontal cortex growth and degradation. Records indicate entry interface not found.’
“What’s happening?” Val asked, impatiently.
“Chatbot, give me more information about that.” Matt’s mouth went dry as he spoke the words.
‘CB: ABOUT ENTERING CONTINUANCE. Initial entry begins with INTAKE SCAN (FRC registered technology patent 178755878-11). Scan requires baseline brain maturity and fitness. Records indicate human baseline age 25-40 due to prefrontal cortex growth and degradation. Records indicate entry interface not found.’
“You’re freaking us out Matt…” Anika warned.
“Chatbot, that’s not what I was looking for. Can you give me different information?”
‘CB: I don’t have that information. Would you like to try a different question?’
This again. Matt felt faint. Interface not found. Age 25-40. He re-read the words.
“Chatbot, what does interface not found mean?” A sinking feeling built in his throat and traveled downwards.
‘CB: I don’t have that information. Would you like to try a different question?’
Matt huffed. “Chatbot, what happened to people who are not age 25-40?”
‘CB: I don’t have that information. Would you like to try a different question?’
Then, a moment later, another line followed, ‘CB: You have asked a sequence of three questions I don’t have information for. Would you like to queue for chat with an operator?’
“Yes! Chatbot, yes!”
“Matt.” Fallyn touched his arm, breaking the spell. “You need to update us.”
Matt took a deep breath. “Sorry.” Then he began to read off the sequence of chat messages aloud. Kurtis paced as he listened, holding his tail. Fallyn looked very serious. Anika was either angry or sad and Val was uncharacteristically quiet.
“Who is FRC?” Fallyn said, barely above a whisper. “Matt, can you ask it?”
“Yeah,” Matt said, honestly surprised he hadn’t thought to ask already. He was reeling, struggling to process the information. “Chatbot, who is FRC?”
“It says,” Matt read out, “CB: FRC is an initialism for Feng Roan Corporation. Prosperity and profits for all.”
“Chatbot, where is Feng Roan Corporation located?” he tried. Then he read the response, “It says, ‘CB: Feng Roan Corporation is located on Feng Roan Corporation. Prosperity and profits for all.’”
“Because that makes a lot of sense…” Val huffed.
“Ha!” Kurtis remarked. “Ask it if it has to say that prosperity slogan every time it mentions FRC.”
“Chatbot, do you have to say that prosperity slogan every time you mention FRC?”
“I wasn’t serious!”
Matt had been relaying so many questions that the words had just rolled out.
A familiar response appeared in the window: ‘CB: I don’t have that information. Would you like to try a different question?’
“It says it doesn’t have the info anyways,” Matt said.
“Try asking where FRC is incorporated,” Fallyn suggested.
Matt tried and got an answer he wasn’t expecting: ‘CB: Chatbot queries limited due to partitioned Continuance. You have reached your weekly limit of 20 queries. Please return in one week (FRC standard).’
A loud, nasal roar blasted Matt’s ears.