When Rick’s alarm went off at nine a.m., Kristina had already left for her appointment.
He brushed his teeth, letting the banal morning routine soothe his nerves about the tournament. Alex had messaged; she’d placed their bets. For every position he placed better than eleventh, they won more money.
They’d raised just under $800,000—enough for a sane man to contemplate simply moving on as though Kristina’s harvested eggs didn’t exist. That kind of money could keep them going for a year in a better neighborhood, and though he wanted that as well, he wasn’t a sane man; he was a man who wanted a family in a world that didn’t want him to have it.
He drank a beer for good luck and it seemed to hit harder than usual. When he stepped outside, the daylight was brighter than expected for a fall day, no matter how sunny. He locked the door and braced for the advertising assault of the muni ad-net to start. When he made it four paces in silence, he stopped. Taking a while to load—maybe the ad-net is down. He made it to two blocks from the train station before he trusted something must be wrong with the muni advertising system, but it wasn’t until he got to the train that he discovered what it was.
When Ditto’s voice rang out in his head in place of an advertising message and image, he closed his eyes and sighed.
“You were never supposed to win, Rick Prophet.”
Rick kept his voice low. “What the fuck are you doing in my head?”
“You’d prefer the ad-net?”
“It would at least be normal.” He’d raised his voice and attracted the attention of a woman sitting across from him. He dropped to a whisper. “I wouldn’t have to question whether I’m crazy.”
“One auditory hallucination is hardly enough to diagnose you with a disorder, Mr. Proph—”
“Rick,” he whispered, though it was a loud whisper that got the attention of the woman again. “My name is Rick.”
“You’re not crazy, Rick.” There was a pause. “You’re not crazy because of this, Rick.”
“What do you want from me? I mean, I’m grateful the muni isn’t in my head, but now there’s… you.” He frowned. “How are you doing that, anyway?” He pulled out his phone to make it seem less like he was talking to himself.
“It’s technical, and knowing it won’t—”
“Humor me,” he said.
“Your implant has onboard storage for moving neutral pathway information back and forth. You don’t need it all outside the AR, VR, or SR arrays, so it’s just there. The ad-net beams stuff in and out via a wireless network, but because I’m here, occupying that memory, the network can’t load anything in. The network itself is weak and patchy—it needs the buffering. As long as I’m not in here for longer than a day at a time, the system ignores it, no matter how often it happens, unless a citizen complains.”
Rick nodded. “You’re right. Knowing doesn’t make a difference at all. What do you want from me?”
“You were never supposed to win.”
“You’ve said that. Repeatedly. I don’t know what that means.”
“Why are you working for the broken woman?” Ditto asked.
Rick grunted. “You called her that before. What does it mean?”
“Her ethics are unusually… pliable, for a star—”
Rick’s laughter drowned out the rest of whatever the disembodied bot said. He glanced at the woman, then at his phone, as if something on its screen had caused him to laugh.
“I don’t understand why that’s funny.”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“You just described most people,” he whispered.
“Your ethics are completely transparent, even the criminal act of state property theft is understandable, given the data,” Ditto said.
Rick jolted upright in alarm. “My… what?”
Ditto’s laugh was less mechanical than his speaking voice, and its simulated human richness sent a chill down Rick’s spine in the strangest way.
“Your wife’s reproductive… situation,” the bot said.
“Who are you?” Rick’s voice was louder now, and ice cold.
“I’m an interested party,” Ditto said. “You shouldn’t be able to fight, but you do. You shouldn’t win, but you do. I have all the data available. It’s possible you’d prevail despite the fact you shouldn’t, but if I’m right, it will only get harder from here. With my help, your victory is certain. Or, rather, more probable, if precision matters.”
“Okay…”
“But is your success for the higher good? I could prevent it, but something within the game, within all the systems, is subtly pushing the odds against you, and I don’t know what or why.”
That there was a disembodied AI in Rick’s implant disturbed him, but the lack of malice in Ditto’s demeanor set his threat response back closer to neutral. “And that’s…”
Ditto’s eerie laugh was back. “Not good.”
“Course not,” Rick said.
“I don’t mean ‘not good’ for you, Rick. I’m only one AI, but I’ve been around long enough to see that whenever someone interferes with the algorithm, it’s not for a good reason.”
Rick’s frown was one of confusion. “The game’s algorithm is that important?”
There was a pause. “The game is a microcosm. The algorithm it uses…” The bot stopped. “I will leave you now. I’ll be curious to see how you fare in today’s match.”
“Why are you in my head—not how, but why?” Rick ground his teeth.
“It’s the most secure way to talk to you, to observe you. I need to see how you are outside the game. I have data. I know your most recent cholesterol level, your prison record, your fighting history, but what I’m doing is too important to use incomplete data. After I study this interaction, you’ll hear from me again.”
Rick raised his eyebrows. “What if I get my implant checked,” he whispered.
“Idle threats are noise to me, Rick. The quickest way to your own private failure state is to repair your implant. Your neurotransmitter levels are unusual, and your white blood cell count is higher than normal, by the way. At some point, you will need to seek a repair. Your time as a fighter is borrowed, for now, but without my help… you only have so much time.”
“That raises my spirits, Ditto,” Rick whispered. “Didn’t you say you were leaving?”
“In some cultures, it’s proper to bring a gift when one enters another’s house,” Ditto said. “As a gift, I’ll leave memory storage blocks at all the incoming nodes in your implant. I’ve set them on an algorithm that detects when you’re in an ad zone. With some exceptions, you’ll be free of the muni ads. I need to let a few through so as not to alert the algorithm, and when you’re at home or in an ad-free zone, I’ll allow the network to transmit openly.”
“That’s… awesome.” His voice had risen to a low mumble again, and though he attracted the attention of the woman again, and a woman beside her as well, he didn’t care anymore. He’d wanted to be free from the muni ads all his life. “But why?”
“Humans function better when they’re not distracted.”
Do they? It had been so long since he’d not been distracted. By the ads, by his phone, by videos and screens, there were so many ways for something new to pull him away from deep concentration.
“I’m undistracted in the game,” he said.
There was no reply. He wouldn’t know if Ditto had told the truth about the ads until he stepped off the train.
**********************************************
Rick’s day in Alex’s spare SR array room began the same way it had the day before, minus the conversation. His ribs felt better, but were still sore from the robbery. Wow, that feels like a year ago.
When he faded to black, then came back in the server lobby, Alex was already waiting for him.
She placed a hand on his avatar’s shoulder. “You ready, Sport?”
He sighed. “Do or die, right?”
She nodded. “Just gotta break the top ten again, but please—the better you do, the more we’ll have for the next tournament, if you wanna do this.”
The future. As much as the entire endeavor was about his future—and Kristina-Anne’s—Rick had too often been stuck moving from crisis to crisis, the effect of years of living on the edge of ruin had a tendency to do that to a person. Everything in his mind and body ached. It ached for a resting spot where things weren’t always on fire, bleeding, or both. It ached for a wife who simply believed he loved her for longer than two or three days. It ached for that thing a person never seemed to get, for the sort of contentment represented by a warm hearth, though he’d settle for frozen food and video games with his kids in front of the AR array, playing some silly, low-stakes game.
Alex snapped her fingers inches from his face. “Focus, man. Fuck is wrong with you? Tourney starts in five minutes. Get your game face on, ya dork.”
They waited in relative silence as the five minutes counted down. Rick paced, shaking his hands, psyching himself up. Alex gave him whatever advice came to mind, but it didn’t stick to the inside of his head. He’d jump in and adapt. That worked when the flames of impending doom were all around him, but goddamn if he didn’t need to figure out how to avoid these messes.
The server button flashed and he put his hand on against it.