The show automatically set itself up on the wall across from his couch. He already listed that as one of the default locations. If he had more than a studio apartment, he could setup other proximity triggers so that it would move if he did, but here it didn’t matter. He could make it surround him, the same as the playground really was, or even make it seem as though the whole playground rose up from the floor and go along for the ride like that.
The show he watched was of a developed House Respectability team of 6 raiders on playground 12. This was a low-tech world, like playground 23. The raiders entered a large lair, that someone reported as durable. The permanence of a lair denoted several things: Its age, how powerful the creatures inside were, how plentiful the creatures inside were, how extensive the lair ran. The black leviathan lair, that he discovered from playground 17, held a permanence of indestructible.
The raiders entered the durable lair with caution. Clearly a group of professionals. He’d seen them, barely, take on a durable lair once before. A galaxy combatant up front and a galaxy support in back. Good at massive actions, they often led either the front or back especially when there weren’t any martials with the group. The other two support, an umbra and a primal stayed in nested between the others. The sides were, of course, protected by the umbra and primal combatants. They walked deeper into the lair poking spears and shining light into every nook and cranny. They had one umbra support just watching the ceiling to ensure that nothing dropped down on them. They crept forward. “BOB!” The galaxy support covering their back swore.
“What, Val?” The galaxy combatant up front asked her, while keeping his attention forward.
“Back is closed, Ash. No sound, I didn’t see movement, just closed,” Val responded
“Alright, let’s slowly backup. It could be an illusion.” As the group backed up they continued to check every cranny they could. They even pushed on the slightly damp stalagmites to make sure those were stable. He watched as the support stayed center and dealt with light issues and searching while the three combatants stood up front and to the two sides.
Finally, they reached the back and Val, the support who originally spoke, touched the wall where the exit should be. The wall held firm beneath her hand. She used an ability and 3 dozen thin metal strands swiped up and down the wall checking everything in a 20-foot radius of her. None broke through. “Looks like it’s really closed. I’d bet a magical trap system.”
“I didn’t see any lures to draw other creatures in.” Said a man standing in the middle. He spread light around them as he spoke ensuring that nothing could hide in the darkness. But, Denny noticed a small shadow grow beneath the man’s very feet, before it reached out and began to pull him in.
A ray of light shot out from the left combatant scorching the shadow hand. “Umbra creatures!” The combatant shouted to the others, then he addressed the galaxy support in back, “Val, we need you to mass it up on the light.” After her he quickly turned to the umbra support who he just saved, “Hooper, absorb the shadows.” Hooper should have noticed the ambush, that’s the primary purpose of any umbra support. Notice what gets past everyone else, that and distract the enemy. Fortunately, the Umbra combatant must have had some ability to do the same and saved him.
The two support went to work. The light clear took quite a bit of effort on Val’s part. Her 36 metal strands expanded and started to vibrate, then glow. They lit up a massive area of the cave, she clearly couldn’t do anything else. Small dots, barely seen began to draw towards Hooper as he absorbed their shadows. Then the small dots expanded and began attacking the 6 raiders in earnest.
The galaxy combatant and support each did well in these mass group situations. They had much more trouble in one on one scenarios. Still, they didn’t do well enough. Slowly a shadow got past here or there. They seemed to target the primal combatant. While he could hold off for quite some time large groups with life were not a primal’s calling. They could deal with many types of creatures and did especially well in single combat or smaller group situations. But here, in a deep cave faced with shadow creatures that weren’t even undead, just lifeless. No, here they were weak, and it showed.
The primal support tried to keep him up, and did a valiant job, but after his combatant fell the three support didn’t last long. The galaxy combatant did well for himself, and even surrounded he stood out but when they came from below, he had no defense ready and crumbled too. The umbra combatant lasted the longest, he disappeared from view and from the shadows. Denny thought that he was trying to escape, but the cave didn’t open. Finally, the shifting floors found him, and a small fight ensued.
Death was harsh in the playgrounds, one of the reasons combatants, support, and explorers were paid a little more. When you died, you lost not only all of your items but also 10% of your wealth, rounded down. This wasn’t game wealth, but instead 10% removed itself from your accounts. Well, less if you were married and applied for a joint fund. Each spouse was considered an even owner, and thus you only lost 10% of your portion. It still hurt though. It also sent sensations back to your body so that you felt what happened to you. It wasn’t the same as truly fighting, or so people claimed, but it definitely could hurt physically.
Fortunately, death was neither common nor permanent. The wealth loss hurt, but when you achieved something great you stood to gain handsomely. Denny checked the time, after the raiders died, he didn’t need to leave yet, so he played a bit with Monster. Monster wasn’t alive, and didn’t have feelings, but Monster did have programming that meant he was always ready to play, while never demanding. Monster’s main purposes were two-fold. First, he existed as a companion. He helped regulate Denny’s body and could administer medicines for a variety of purposes. Second, he protected Denny’s mind.
Everyone installed a Link Overlay (LO) which let them see and feel things easily in the real life, the VE, and the playgrounds. A companion was the only access point for the LO. New access points could be created, or it could be moved to a new, updated, companion. Most people tended to form a bond, or perhaps just nostalgia with their first companion and just upgraded that instead of getting a brand new one. Slightly more expensive perhaps, be common enough to not be too expensive.
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Monster kept any potential hackers out of his head. Ensured that Denny was only fed a safe, non-life threatening, feed. Denny could change the settings on his own to filter out certain words, phrases, or even things that would disturb him. He heard of one girl who filtered out spiders so far that when one landed on her hand she couldn’t fell or see it. Only others noticed it was there. It left without harming her, and if someone hadn’t said something about how much her phobia improved, she probably would have never noticed or panicked. The reaction video was viral.
Monster stopped playing and did a small huff bark a few times, Denny’s alarm to know when he had to leave. As they walked out of the apartment into the soft yellow lit hallway with neutral walls and no artwork, Denny used his LO to mentally signal for a ride to the restaurant. His door automatically shut; it did not lock. He took the elevator down a dozen stories to arrive at the street level. Denny didn’t live in a well-to-do neighborhood. In fact, all of the apartments here were completely paid for by House Respectability. He paid no rent and no utilities. It was the most basic living a person could get. He held a good position at work, but it was new and most of Denny’s spare money went to pay for his pod.
A blue single seater pulled up in front of Denny, using Monster to link into his exact location. The door opened, Denny jumped on front and Monster slid into the companion slot behind his seat, “Take me to Katala’s Spices.” Denny verbally told the lift.
Even though they hadn’t picked a meeting place, Denny knew his mom envisioned Katala’s Spices. It was a simple, 3-story, wood sided, restaurant. Not a relic of the past, per say, but something that called out to it. The House Respectability controlled restaurant’s food was deliciously spicy and prepared by the best androids right in front of you. Denny walked into the rustic building with Monster on his heels. As he entered, he used his LO to bring up his options
New Group, Existing Group, Placed Reservation
Knowing his mother, he chose placed reservation and quickly selected Powell. An arrow appeared on his overlay and he followed it. The aisles were wide and spacious, more than enough room to move between the other customers. His family’s reservation brought him to a table with 5 chairs up on the second floor. Denny saw that most people in the restaurant were what his brother-in-law, Jerome, used to call generally fit. It was known to be extremely difficult to build a different fitness without a high-end pod, comparable to Denny’s. That was the main perk to his pod, and part of why he lived in free housing. Not that he needed anything else. But push-come-to-shove, he’d choose an upgraded pod over an upgraded apartment or VE room.
His parents were already there, his dad always wanted to arrive everywhere early, his sister and her husband were still absent. “Hello parental units,” Denny said in a joking voice with a smile.
Both his parents rose, his father reached him first and gave him a big, hearty hug. “Congratulations, on your first day as a troubleshooter.” Denny’s dad never worked in the playgrounds or even in VE, he worked as a computer programmer designing new the code for androids in a constant effort to automate the world.
His mom swooped him into a hug as well and said, “We’re both so proud of you, rising up in the playgrounds like you have. One day maybe you’ll even earn diamonds, or emeralds if you keep going. I can’t believe it.” Denny’s mom worked part-time in VE as an interior decorator. She’d be appalled at his room there and in real life. “Do you know where your sister is at?”
“I think she worked till 4:00 today, so she should be here soon.”
“I just can’t believe that she’s still working 8-hour shifts,” Mom huffed.
Denny’s dad shook his head, “8-hour days were normal in our grandparent’s time. She’s young, and already makes more gold monthly than I do. She’ll be fine.”
“It’s just not healthy,” his mom ranted. “People died so young back in those days. Did you know that they used to have and elders association, the only thing you needed to do to be automatically in was reach 55. And then they got increasing rewards after that based on how long they lived. They chose weird years probably based on how many people died before certain ages, 62, 65, 67 and 70 all different rewards if you lived that long. Everything over 70 was the same because even getting that far was so rare. She’s working an unhealthy amount and any parent would be justified to be worried. 24-hours a week, with 8-hour work shifts. It’s not humane. It can’t be good for the companies either. Why can’t they just go to a normal 4-hour day 5-days a week or do what those elites do and 6-hour days 3-days a week if necessary. They get paid a nice bonus for the longer days and work fewer hours in a week.”
“I get paid excessive bonus for my long days, Mother, and I still average 20-hours a week. 24 one week, 16 the next. You know that. Besides, it gives me more days at home with Rosy.” Fiona said as she walked up to Mom and kissed her on the cheek as they hugged, no real heat in her words. The family finished exchanging hugs and then all sat down.
The android approached the table to take orders and prepare food before any more conversation could take place. After the orders were place, Fiona turned to Denny, “So, I hear that they’re going to be piling more of Respectability’s hopes on their people in the playgrounds.” Denny at her and signaled her to carry-on, “Bountiful stepped into the LO market with a bang. They designed some new chip that makes ours completely obsolete. I know we aren’t the biggest in the playgrounds, but I hear the Respectability is pushing their people for a win there to balance their recent loss.”
Jerome laughed, “It doesn’t matter what they push for. This was bound to happen. BOB must have given Bountiful that information to help them out. He probably downloaded something straight into someone’s overlay while they slept.”
Denny went back to his food and shook his head minutely. Jerome definitely possessed some interesting ideas, but some of his thoughts were just so out there. Denny found it better to just ignore the man when he started talking about BOB.
Denny’s dad snorted, “BOB doesn’t control anything in the real world, Jerome. It’s just the AI of the playgrounds. And really, all it does there is create challenges. People still need something to do and making money in the playgrounds gives them that.”
Jerome shook his head and began speaking with his hands in his excitement, “It’s not just that though. Look at his name, Brainlink Organized Biosynthesizer. He’s plugged directly into our link overlays and can synthesize any biological reaction for us to have. How would you even notice if he took control of everything you saw and made your world something different. Or what if he gives slightly pleasurable feelings whenever someone’s discoveries go in the direction he wants. You can’t deny his power. He could even control the androids, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.”
“Oh please,” Denny’s father entreated. “I’ve seen the code, remember. I know, maybe not what BOB’s code looks like, but what the interaction codes look like. I even worked on the LO for a bit before I went into androids. BOB has no interaction except where the playgrounds are concerned in humans, and none whatsoever for androids. The AI just wasn’t given permissions to do anything like what you’re suggesting. Besides, BOB is an AI, it’s an it, not a he. It doesn’t have gender, or sentience. If BOB had sentience, it would be a they.”
“How do you know that it hasn’t achieved sentience other –“ Denny tuned out the rest of the conversation as they argued about possible genders to call BOB. It wasn’t a subject that really mattered to him. If the AI held a preference, then it was never expressed to anyone Denny had heard of.