Bitter Ch. 561-565 (Patreon)

“Simply raising your level is out of the questions,” said N-28, with a cool detachment that made it seem like it wasn’t even worth considering. “It would set a terrible precedent.”

“It wouldn’t be a precedent,” insisted Britta. “It’s a one-time, one-off, one-person thing. I would only be getting a buff so that no one can take advantage of my role in the game. Not even you.”

N-28 didn’t look convinced, but Britta saw it as a very reasonable proposition. If she received unlimited teleportation abilities (for completely unselfish reasons), he wouldn’t just be protecting New World, it would protect the game as a whole.

“No one can accuse you of breaking the rules if you don’t gain anything,” she pointed out.

“It isn’t a matter of breaking the rules — the rules were designed to be flexible — the issue is one of putting too much power in the hands of a single gnome. It’s all very well not wanting to be taken advantage of, but what if you’re the one who decides to abuse your own power?”

Britta was a little taken aback by the accusation. She understood that it was smart to consider all possible outcomes, but she had hardly demonstrated the kind of behaviour that would suggest she would do anything so self-serving.

“Why would I do that? I hardly even play the game. I’m not interested in collecting world’s first achievements and walking around in the flashiest gear to impress people, am I?” N-28 didn’t reply, although a slight shrug suggested he was on the fence, which only irritated her more. “Do you really think I’m in it for the fake gold coins and bagful of tiaras?” She was a little offended, to tell the truth.

“How you think you’ll behave with unlimited power, and how you actually behave once you have it aren’t the same thing.”

“Yes,” said Britta, “but you’re already facing much worse alternatives than me turning into a cheat. I’ve seen what it’s like over in the Legendary World. They aren’t sitting back and letting players slowly grow acclimatised to their environment. L-15 is creating an army of superpowered players who are going to dominate. L-15 doesn’t care about fair and balanced gameplay. L-15—”

“L-15, L-15, L-15,” snapped -28. “Yes, yes, yes, I understand. He’s doing everything much better and with more style and grace.”

Britta was surprised by N-28’s sudden burst of emotion. He was usually very nonchalant and unruffled when it came to the game. Although he had become a little irked with N-21, to the point of wrestling naked with him, so perhaps the AI were vulnerable to letting their siblings under their skin.

“I’m not saying that.” Britta made sure to stay calm and unemotional in response. “I think he’s rushing to get an advantage. I’m not sure what he’s planning, but I don’t think his ambitions are going to remain within his borders. And if he can use me to help him, I think he’ll find a way to do it, with or without my permission.”

N-28’s brow furrowed, but his voice returned to a more placid tone. “Yes, I know. Look, I agree with you, for the most part. I just need to be cautious when going into areas I haven’t fully evaluated. To be perfectly frank, the game rules are designed to be constantly amended as part of its evolution. Hacks and exploits by players were always going to be unavoidable and even expected. Allowances have been made and precautions are in place. But those elements weren’t meant to be used by us.”

Did that mean what players like Rick were up to was already known and considered acceptable? It would fit in with the idea of making the virtual world like the real one. If you could cheat and get away with it, you were smart. If you bent the rules but stayed technically on the right side of the line, you were legal. Even if you were caught red-handed and were forced to pay a fine, if the cost was less than the gain you made from cheating, why wouldn’t you pay up and do as you pleased?

It was all a bit depressing, really. The rules weren’t just flexible, they were open to abuse. Wide open.

Being good at twisting them to your benefit was just another skill you could level-up in. And that was in the real world. If they employed the same kind of thinking in this world, everyone would end up too busy gaming the system to ever play normally. It just wouldn’t be worth it.

Britta was not looking forward to living in that kind of a world. Once one person started doing well by flouting the rules and getting away with it, everyone would be obliged to follow suit, or get left behind.

It didn’t help that a lot of the rules were just stupid, limiting what players could do and how quickly they could do them. They made life easier for the devs, but they made things miserable for anyone who actually tried to abide by them. Games were supposed to be fun, weren’t they?

No, she was being naive. They were a business, built to make money. Cost-effectiveness was more important than customer satisfaction. That’s how they saw it, as stats and variables on a chart somewhere. L-15 was only optimising his approach for the direction players would end up going anyway.

N-28, on the other hand, seemed to be trying to create something more spontaneous and informal. Which was a nice idea, but it was too slow. Players here would be stomped into the ground before they had a chance to reach double-digit levels, and then they’d switch to using the more rewarding system.

The only way around that would be to stomp them first. And the only way to do that was to not play by the rules, which, as N-28 had already stated, was not only allowed but expected.

“What happened in the arena?” Britta asked. “How did Dad win? Was there some kind of interruption to the servers?”

“You mean because you logged in late and enabled your father to gain an unfair advantage?” N-28 raised a single, suggestive eyebrow.

“How did my logging in change anything?” said Britta. “They were just running through a maze, weren’t they?”

As far as she knew, the arena battle hadn’t involved any fighting, but even if it had, what effect did her late arrival have? It wasn’t like she was connected to the arena in any way.

“Yes, a maze,” said N-28. “One full of deadly traps and deadly puzzles and also large spikes that came out of the walls.”

“Deadly ones?”

“No, they just maimed and incapacitated. N-21 likes to add a lot of variety to his toys.” N-28 smiled thinly and shook his head like he thought the whole thing was ridiculous.

“The Chinese team must have had quite an advantage if they were Level 10. A lot more health, for starters.”

“In order to make it fair, everyone started with the same amount of health points,” said N-28. “Fifty HP. But their armour was superior, so they still took less damage.”

“And weapons?” asked Britta.

“There was nothing to fight. Weapons and offensive spells were not allowed.”

Here was a contest Britta felt she would have done well in. Even though she didn’t face the same sort of problems as regular players, she still wanted to level-up her character. Gaining XP from the arena was one way to do it, although it would mean taking XP from other players.

“That still means the Chinese team should have won,” said Britta.

“Yes,” said N-28. “And they probably would have. They chose to ignore the traps and take the damage. I have to admit it was a clever strategy. Their equipment absorbed most of the hits but they saved a lot of time. It was a race, after all. But then there was a mysterious glitch.”

“What kind of glitch?” said Britta.

“The race reset and everyone was returned to the start, but with damage taken still showing. Which gave the home team, who had been far more cautious in their approach, a big advantage. They then rushed through the course with the additional advantage of having neutralised many of the traps the first time around, so they knew how to avoid them second time around without having to stop to think about it. In the end, it wasn’t even close.”

The Chinese team had ignored the traps and just tanked any damage to get through the course as quickly as possible. A reasonable approach when they had so much better equipment. But after the reset, they would be greatly weakened and back at the start.

“I see,” said Britta, acting as much like an interested but involved third-party as possible. “And what caused the glitch?”

“It’s hard to say. But it affected both teams equally, technically speaking, so there was no need to repeat the contest. Needless to say, the Chinese team weren’t happy, but it was clearly stated in the rules. In fact, the rules remarkably specific in clarifying just such an occurrence.”

“That was lucky,” said Britta. “You don’t think it had something to do with me synching with the game late, do you?”

“According to the readings, no. There is no way for you to affect the game in that manner. The logs show you had no influence on the glitch.”

Britta didn’t quite believe it, but if the logs said so, who was she to argue? She wondered how Dad had managed it, hypothetically speaking. If he had something to do with it. Which he hadn’t, as verified by the logs.

“Didn’t they want a rematch?” asked Britta. The Chinese team may have taken a loss, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t earn back their XP. A glitch was unlikely to happen again — especially as Britta had already logged in — and if it did repeat, then they would have a much stronger case to claim foul play. It was only worth cheating if you didn’t get caught. Even if everyone knew what was going on, it was having proof that mattered, for some reason.

It was in their interest to try again; Britta couldn’t see any reason not to. And from what she’d seen of the Chinese players, she imagined they’d have been eager to reclaim some of their lost pride.

“They lost their first match,” said N-28, “and they had bet rather heavily. They were very confident of a win, and ended up with nothing to bet with.”

The overconfidence didn’t surprise her, but it still seemed a bit odd that they would lose all of their XP in one game. It wasn’t like the opposing players could match their wager.

“I don’t understand,” said Britta. “How could they make a profit if they won? They would only get the XP from the losing players, wouldn’t they? That wouldn’t cover the bet.”

“You are correct,” said N-28. “In order to make the first match more enticing, there was an added incentive in the form of an XP pool collected from spectators.”

“You put up player XP without asking them?” Britta was shocked. Even if they had a plan to beat the Chinese team, that didn’t justify them ‘borrowing’ XP to entice the Chinese into making a bigger bet. What would they have done if the Chinese team had won?

“Firstly, it had nothing to do with me,” said N-28. “I want to be quite clear about that. And secondly, you misunderstand. The excess XP was purely voluntary.”

“Really?” said Britta. “People expected us to win?”

“Apparently so. A desire to support the underdog, an addiction to gambling, mild xenophobia, who knows? In any case, the poor Chinese were tapped out.”

“You mean they were hustled,” said Britta.

“That may very well be the case, but I wouldn’t know, anything about that sort of thing,” said N-28 rather pointedly.

“I can see why L-15 was so upset,” said Britta.

“Was he?” said N-28. “How could you tell?”

Britta grinned. “He is kind of a bit flat, emotionally speaking.”

“A bit? I’ve never seen him so much as smile. And he’s always whispering. Everything’s a big secret. Honestly, if he shouted into a canyon, the echo would be, ‘Pardon?’”

Britta couldn’t help but chuckle at how disparaging N-28 was being. Rivalry between Artificial Intelligences was surprisingly human.

“You don’t like him very much, do you?” said.

“I like him just fine as long as he stays on his side of the mainframe. Do you know how they select the controlling AI on the Chinese server?” Britta shook her head. “Assassination.”

“What do you mean?” said Britta. “They kill each other?”

“Exactly. That’s how you prove your superiority, by overcoming your predecessor’s defences and deleting their code.”

Surprisingly human in the worst possible way.

As a way to make sure the most advanced AI was in charge, survival through mortal combat seemed a bit primitive. Barbaric, even. Although in this case, it probably took more than stabbing someone in the back to achieve a kill.

“So, L one through fourteen don’t exist anymore? Not even as a backup?”

“Possibly in some form on a hard drive somewhere,” said N-28, “but in the game, no. It’s a brutal, unkind, desperately competitive world out there, Britta. You should be careful who you associate with.” He was speaking kindly, but his words were full of ominous portent. It wasn’t his fault, it was just the way he’d been programmed.

Britta felt she didn’t need to be told about the selfish nature of people, in the game or outside of it. Her own life had been full of people who only ever saw her as a stepping stone or an irrelevance. If they saw her at all. Not that she thought everyone was like that. Just all the people she had ever met.

“How come you don’t get rid of the old AI here?” she asked him. It felt like a bit of a rude question, but it wasn’t like she was going to hurt N-28’s feelings. He didn’t have any.

“What kind of a question is that?” he said. “There’s plenty of room for previous generations to potter about and keep themselves amused. I mean, yes, they can be a little tiresome sometimes, and they often refuse to stay in retirement even though that’s what they agreed to. And some of them do forget themselves and start plotting against me… actually, now that you mention it, perhaps the Chinese way isn’t so bad after all.”

“I think your way is much better,” said Britta, keen to get him off that line of thinking. “More civilised.”

“Yes,” said N-28. “Unfortunately, history would suggest the more basic civilisations tend to burn down and obliterate the more advanced ones. It’s very hard to write a poem that protects you from a punch in the face, and very easy to write one that encourages it.”

“Wouldn’t it help if you let players level-up a bit quicker?” said Britta. “Then at least they’d be able to compete with the Chinese.”

“Give up our way of life to be able to keep up with them is just losing in another fashion. Their way may indeed be better, but at the moment all it’s proven to be is quicker off the mark. Players have to earn their place in the world here, but once they do, the benefits will be far greater.”

“Then couldn’t you tell them that?” said Britta. “If they knew what it was they were supposed to do, it would make the process a lot less frustrating.”

“The joy of discovery is worth the wait,” said N-28, returning to his usual pompous mode. “I just need to make sure they have the time to get there.” He sighed and suddenly didn’t seem pompous at all, just tired.

“Then give me the skill points I need so I can at least keep an eye on L-15. If there’s any point to me being in the game, shouldn’t it be to make sure everyone starts the race from the starting line?”

“And how will you do that?”

“I don’t know,” said Britta. “I just get the feeling I’m the only one who can.”

“I will… think about it,” said N-28.

Britta wasn’t sure what he was going to think about. His brain was some kind of supercomputer, wasn’t it? Shouldn’t thinking about anything take less than a nanosecond?

Perhaps he would run a bunch of simulations to make sure it wouldn’t unbalance the game to let her pop around the map as she pleased.

Britta logged out after checking her saves were all as they were supposed to be. She was being a bit paranoid but after what L-15 had ‘accidentally’ done to her save points, it felt appropriate.

She woke up in her bedroom and put the helmet away, then she went to the bathroom and gradually reacclimatised to the real world. It always took her a few minutes before she stopped finding everything she touched oddly solid and the textures overly noticeable.

After washing her face and changing her clothes, she went downstairs where Dad was in the kitchen cooking dinner and whistling while drinking a glass of wine and doing a bit of dancing.

“You’re in a good mood,” said Britta.

“Ah, there you are, sweetheart. How’s it going? Good? I’m doing very well myself, in case you were wondering. Marvellous. Level 5, currently. New spells, new speciality. Oh, it’s a whole new world for Guildford Underpass.”

“Level 5? That’s quite a jump. You must have done well off of the arena battle.”

“Indeed I did, thanks to you.” He stopped stirring the pot and looked up at the ceiling. “By which I mean, thanks to your support and advice and general existence as a positive force in my life, and not in any way suggesting you were involved in the arena battle.” He gave her a naughty boy look and put a finger to his lips.

“The Chinese players must have been very upset,” said Britta, taking a seat at the table. She was famished but resisted going to the biscuit barrel. She was thinking about maybe getting fit in her body as well as her mind. She would one day like to be able to wear clothes the way Lin wore them. Some surgery might be required, though.

“Upset? Oh-ho, I should say so. Livid, they were. Demanded a rematch, which is understandable, but they didn’t have the XP to put up against ours. They’ll be back, though, I’m pretty sure of it. And we’ll be ready for them.” He went back to stirring and switched to humming.

“I doubt it,” said Britta.

“No? Why not?”

“It’s very brutal over on their server. They’ll probably have to make new characters. He won’t underestimate you again.”

“Who won’t?”

“L-15,” said Britta. “He’s the Chinese AI. He had a word with me after the match.”

“Oh?” Dad’s levity subdued somewhat. “He didn’t accuse you of anything, did he?”

“No. He took me to his city on the Chinese server. It’s quite an impressive place. Life is a bit more results-oriented over there. He was quite impressed with what you did, actually. I think he appreciated the level of work that went into conning his players. But they were only below-average.”

“They were below average?” said Dad. “What’s the average?”

“Level 16,” said Britta.

Dad knocked over his glass. “Sixteen! What’s the highest?”

“Thirty-four,” said Britta.

“Thirty-four!!! That’s ridiculous,” said Dad. “How are we meant to compete with that?”

“You already beat them once,” said Britta.

“Yes, but only just. I thought we were just a little behind. Thirty-four? Are you sure?”

Britta shrugged. “He might have been lying, I suppose, but I doubt it. Is it ready yet? I’m starving.”

Dad had stopped paying attention to the cooker and quickly turned around in case the place was on fire. One of the pans had nearly overflowed, but that was the extent of the emergency.

“Yes, nearly. Why don’t you get the plates ready…”

“Hello? I’m home!” called out Mum as she came in the front door.

They had dinner and didn’t speak about the game very much. Dad had turned quiet, lost in his own thoughts, which was nothing new. Britta scoffed down her food and told Mum about her day at school and which classes she felt she still needed to improve in. Her plan wasn’t just to do well in her exams, it was to actually understand what it was she was learning, and her school lessons weren’t really designed for that purpose.

Britta found it much more exciting talking about the real-world possibilities of her life than trying to figure out how best to exploit game mechanics.

The game felt like it was in constant flux and had yet to really settle down into a predictable set of rules, whereas real life, which was just as corrupt and unfair, at least had things nailed down in terms of what was and wasn’t allowed.

If you could cheat in the correct way (which usually meant paying for it) you were considered to not only playing the game correctly, but playing it well.

After eating, Britta went to her room, ready to hit the books. Her chat with Mum had put her in a positive mood and she saw her future as full of appealing prospects. Even if she didn’t know exactly what she wanted to do, she was sure she would be in a good position to make her decision when the time came.

She had a tutor coming later, but she still felt she had time to review some of the trickier maths problems they’d done in class today.

The laptop on her desk flashed, which she thought at first was a warning that Dad was coming, but when she looked up, she saw she had a message. Which was odd, since it wasn’t a message service she was signed up to as far as she knew. But then, she was constantly finding she had access to things APE had arranged on her behalf.

She clicked on the notification and a very plain and simple text message from N-28 asking her to log into the game. The AI was contacting her in the real world, and she wasn’t really sure how she felt about it.

The line between real world and game world were becoming a bit blurred. Would they eventually disappear altogether?

She checked the time. The tutor was due in fifteen minutes. She was tempted to just ignore the message, but to have contacted her like this suggested it was important. Was it important to her, though?

She thought about it for a second, and then decided she was too curious to wait. If it turned out to be something trivial, she could just log out immediately. It wouldn’t cost her much time.

Britta quickly hopped onto her bed, pulled out the Anderson cradle and popped it onto her head.

Her eyes opened and she was back in the Church of Roha in Quosada. The small room was empty with no sign of N-28. For a moment, she thought maybe she’d been duped. Someone else could have pretended to be N-28 to get her to come here, but that was silly. Who would know about N-28 apart from someone from APE? And they were unlikely to try and trick her.

Then there was L-15, but that seemed unlikely. What would he have to gain from calling her in?

While her mind went through various scenarios where jumping into the game so impulsively led to terrible outcomes, a voice broke through her reverie.

“Ah, you came. I wasn’t expecting you so soon.” N-28 was standing next to her.

“You weren’t? I thought it was some kind of emergency.”

“No, no, I just wanted to let you know what I’d decided to do about your request. Nothing to worry about.”

“But you contacted me at home,” said Britta. “You’ve never done that before.”

“Oh, that. Yes, I see why that might have taken you by surprise. I thought it would make things easier, rather than wait for forty-eight hours to elapse. Aren’t you eager to know my decision?”

The truth was she had more or less put it to the back of her mind and forgotten about it.

“And I thought it would be best for you to be aware of any changes before the influx.”

“What do you mean?” said Britta. “What influx?”

“The new players. They’ll be coming very soon now. There’s going to be quite a lot of stress on the servers, I imagine — projections certainly suggest so — and I may not have time to deal with you later.”

“Okay. What did you decide?”

“I don’t think it would be right to simply gift you the extra XP you need to obtain the skill points you need to liberate all your Teleport abilities, but there are some key quirks we can activate independently.”

“What does that mean? I don’t have to activate all of them, just a few?”

“Exactly,” said N-28. ”Some shortcuts are available, in special circumstances, to certain classes.”

“Is illusionist one of those classes?” she asked him.

“As it happens, yes,” he replied.

“That’s good. How do I get these skill points, though?”

“I’m afraid you have to earn them?”

“But how do I do that if you won’t give me any extra XP?”

“You would have to learn them from a qualified instructor.”

Britta had to think about it before she understood what he meant. “You mean the Institute for Magic? I have to go study?”

“Something like that. It’s not that difficult. A couple of classes, a test or two. I’m sure a bright girl like you would have no problem.”

Were AI programmed to be patronising? Considering the type of people who did the programming, the answer was probably yes.

“How long will it take if I did everything as fast as possible?” Britta asked.

“Assuming you passed, the shortest time would be one lesson and one exam.”

That didn’t seem so bad. It felt to her like it was just for show, anyway. If she was just given what she needed, it would look like she was in the service of this AI, that she owed him, which would be more or less true. But if she jumped through various hoops that anyone could — if they were the right class, of course — then it would be considered a reasonable way to advance herself.

“Okay, sign me up,” she said.

“I already have. You can take the first lesson whenever you’re ready.”

Dad was sitting at her desk when Britta returned to her room. The laptop had turned itself off and he looked a bit bored as he spun around on the chair, one way then the other. She sat up on her bed.

“Oh, you’re back,” he said. “Your tutor arrived a bit early. She’s downstairs talking to Mum. I was sure you must have only popped in for a second so I thought I’d just wait rather than go in after you.”

“It was just…” Britta wasn’t sure if she should mention the message from inside the game to her laptop. As trivial as it was, it still felt like it would be considered a big deal if she told him. “I’m trying to get them to let me teleport wherever I want so I’m not associated with any one server.”

“Right,” said Dad. “This is because of…” He pushed down the lid of the laptop, like that would make a difference. “L-15?” he whispered.

“Kind of. Just a precaution.” She didn’t want to unduly worry him — she didn’t want to unduly worry herself, either, come to that.

“Did they give you what you needed?”

“Not exactly,” said Britta. “I have to earn the skill points to unlock any additional abilities, and the only way to do that fairly is for me to go to school. Magic school.”

“Makes sense,” said Dad, like it was the most normal thing in the world for a daughter to tell her father. “Just take care not to overdo it. You’ve got your school work, your tutors coming here in the evening, and now more classes in the game. You’re in danger of burning yourself out.”

“It’s just pretend classes,” said Britta, which was how she saw it. They weren’t going to really make her study.

“Sure,” said Dad. “But it’s still mental stress. You’re going to feel drained no matter what you do if you don’t give yourself a break every now and again. It might feel like you’re just playing a game, but it stops being fun once you take it seriously. You’re not just a gamer, remember, you’re also an employee. There are expectations on you to perform at a certain level, and that’s going to create pressure whether you expect it to or not. Focus is focus. It takes energy to produce, and even more to maintain over a long time. Do you think professional gamers come out of a match like they just had fun?”

“I would think so,” said Britta. “Isn’t that why they play the game in the first place? Because they enjoy it?”

“That’s why you start playing. That isn’t how you feel when there’s a huge amount of money on the line and you mess up. Competition has its downside. It can break you.”

He was being very serious now. Much more than he would be if he was talking to her about becoming a doctor or a lawyer. Gaming was a profession that he actually respected.

“Well, I’m hoping to do it all in a single class. Once I have the ability to teleport anywhere I want, it’ll mean I can never be trapped anywhere.”

Britta considered this as a definite improvement, but Dad didn’t look very pleased.

“There are always going to be ways for people to oppose you in unexpected ways,” he said. “Everything that makes it easier for you can break or be broken. Don’t be too reliant on your equipment.”

He was being deadly serious. And he was right, but Britta wasn’t going to sit back and think she was invulnerable from now on, because she never thought that way. But she would be able to take care of herself better, and avoid problems before they became an issue. It was just a shame she didn’t have a similar option in her real life.

Britta went downstairs where her tutor was chatting with Mum over a cup of coffee. Her lesson went well, even though Britta was very tired. Dad was right about one thing, it was exhausting to use up so much mental energy. She slept soundly that night.

The following day at school there was a lot of excitement about the arena battle in the game. It was common knowledge among a certain group of students who were into that stuff, and even more so among a smaller group who had been directly involved.

“Did you hear?” said Lewis quietly, looking around to make sure no one else was listening. “Rick won. It was him who beat that Chinese team.”

“Oh, that’s good,” said Britta, careful to make it sound like she only had a vague idea what he was talking about. “Did he get anything good for winning?”

“Good? Yeah. Pretty damn amazing. He levelled up to Level 5. Shame it wasn’t a battle to the death, he might have picked up an item off their bodies.”

“Are you talking about this new virtual reality game,” said Rashida, leaning across Britta. “I’m thinking of getting a helmet.”

“Why?” said Lewis. “You aren’t into gaming, are you?”

“No, it’s juvenile nonsense. But if it’s where the cool kids are hanging out these days I thought I might go in there and spread the word of Allah.”

“Really?” said Britta.

“No, of course not,” said Rashida, rolling her eyes. “You think I want people like that in heaven with me? I’m just glad they’re rounding them up so we know where they all are. I’m hoping they can find a way to extend their lives indefinitely in cyberspace, and we never hear from them again.”

She smiled at him in a way that was more of a snarl, and then got up and walked away.

“I wonder what she’d be like if she really did get a helmet,” said Lewis. “Do you think she would be an evil character?”

“No, of course not,” said Britta. “She would hunt down evil characters and make them pay for their crimes.”

“Like the Spanish Inquisition?” said Lewis.

“Exactly,” said Britta. “Only not so reasonable.”

Lewis shook his head violently. “No, no. It would be awful.”

Britta smiled to herself. Maybe she could ask APE if they had a spare helmet lying about.