Augmented Aspects: Interlude X (Patreon)

Interlude X

Biprism Interactive Control Tower I

“Twenty-four hours! That is how long our feed of the golden goose has been down!” Charles Rainquist, CFO for Biprism Interactive screamed at the room filled with developers and not one but three different outlets for the various AI engines that help govern BiPrism.

Of course, the source of the anger was easily identifiable, as it clearly had to do with Cassiopeia Spiritlight’s account being blocked due to an ongoing audit related to Merits and Flaws not being correctly calibrated.

“Yes, about that,” Prince Lee stated, the Director of Character Development began. “We have good news and bad news related to the auditing of Cassiopeia Spiritlight’s account.”

“Okay, and what is the good news?” Charles asked, a bit incredulous that he was forcing this conversation to go on at this slow and methodical pace.

“The good news is that it is almost over.”

“Almost over? How can an audit take a day in the first place? I understand that if a person was doing and they were out sick, then maybe taking a day to calibrate the issues would be justifiable. But here we are, at the peak of modern innovation, with no less than three AI components in attendance, and it is taking a day to get answers?”

Silence.

Despite calling out the three AIs, their command nodes did not so much as light up in response to the clear provocation. That of course meant that the response fell on Prince whose job now depended on him protecting both the AIs, but also the rest of the staff members.

“Well, the problem was that when Cassiopeia first joined seven years ago, she was in fact cheated. At least according to the Life Auditors, who as you are well aware have made it their job to give people on the last lives a thorough auditing of their Merits and Flaws on their last lives to see if any Merits can either be carried over, or reused in their final life.” Prince replied.

“Okay, I understand the organization and that they have been a thorn in our sides for a while now, but why are they fixated on Cass all of the sudden? I mean her account has been at this state for over seven years at this point, why the sudden attention now?” Charles responded with yet more questions.

“Right, well normally they wouldn’t even look at a case like Cass’s as her account should have been verified and as she was a last lifer, normally her account would reach extra scrutiny from the beginning.”

“Okay then, what exactly happened to her account?”

“Well to answer succinctly she was allowed to take 157 points of Merits, while effectively suffering through 171 Points in flaws.”

“WHAT?!”

“Let me explain, seven of those flaws she automatically accepted, as they were related to her being Blind, a condition required for her to take Angel’s Sight. That she signed off for and have all the waivers. Now the rest requires a bit of explanation about the logic that was applied at the time of her joining.”

“What logic?”

“Well, to understand we must first identify where all of her 164 remaining points in flaws come from.”

“Okay, and where exactly is that?”

Sigh.

With that Prince gestured towards the clear black wall that then linked to the wristband on his left arm. From there, it was a few quick clicks of pulling up the noted Flaws related to Cassiopeia Spiritlight and when she first joined.

Starting Point   Tally: (157)

Base 52 (50 years   of work, followed by two legacy points for following your parents).

Flaws:

0 Restarts (70)

Child (7): You are   7 years old, all attributes start at 1

Second Class   Citizen (7): Random race and faction based on starting location

Broke (7): The sum   of all your gear, equipment, and finances cannot equal or exceed 100 gold   coins.

Bad Starting   Location (7): You will begin your new life in a location that will likely   mean your death.

Dark Horse (7):   You can never gain a sponsorship.

Orphan (7): This   is automatically applied as both your parents have passed away.

Blind (7)   (Forced for free). You cannot see with your eyes.

Once the full screen showing all the flaws with only a few still left to be worked out, Prince Lee began what was obviously a rehearsed speech.

“So as you can see she took a lot of flaws at the time, most of which she has managed to work her way through or out of, but they are still there. In the beginning she came in with fifty years of retirement from the government, which she traded in for merit points, meaning she didn’t even get to enjoy the benefits of spending more than two thirds of her life working for the government. Then she got two points for being a legacy player. This is important to note, and we think this is the crux of the issue, as those two points are what we believe caused an internal conflict within the creation template for the world.”

“How, that is just two points? How could that possibly create a seven-point deficit?” Charles asked, his head clearly spinning at such a small thing being the cause of so much frustration on his part. As the last twenty-four hours had not been easy for Charles, especially with his golden goose account, of Cass going down. Since Cass had thankfully taken the Dark Horse flaw, it meant that all revenue gained from imprinting commercial breaks into her feed was pure profit for Biprism Interactive, which now that he heard the absurd amounts of normal revenue lost over the last twenty-four hours was quite extensive. Everything from what happened to the shard of the Mirror of the Dead, a piece of history that had gone missing. To the clear discovery of the Library of the Tribunal, another feat that has been given to Cass as she was the only one who was thought of as being able to actually find the location given the timeframe and alleged location. Now that the world first alert has gone out, even someone accidentally stumbling upon the entrance might not be aware of the magnitude of their discovery. In all, the lost revenue streams from those two sets of feeds alone cost close to half a billion each in lost revenue streams. That and the fact that everyone wants to know the secrets for how Cass actually managed to get a zone boss to not only submit, but to submit to someone else, that was yet even more lost revenue. Not to mention what she was likely doing now to draw interest from viewers and advertisers alike.

“Okay, so bottom line up front, I will try to simplify this as much as possible. Throwing out Blind, as those seven points don’t count. That leaves the initial 52 points from years of service and being a legacy of two former players. Then there is the seventy points gained from trading in all extra lives in a package deal for seventy points, a gesture that has been discontinued since Cass first made it seem like a great way to get ahead. Anyways, that is 122 points. Meaning from there she only got credit for five additional seven-point flaws.”

“Okay?”

“The problem is that she took six. Well, she actually took five and was forced to take a sixth, which she didn’t get credit for.” Prince began, and before Charles could cut him off, he quickly continued. “See, she took the following seven-point flaws: Child, Second Class Citizen, Broke, Bad Starting Location, and Dark Horse. Here we even have the video of her clearly choosing these five options after much deliberation.”

With that the video shifts to show a grainy video of a frail older lady with two knee braces and two walking canes standing up, despite her whole body wobbling as she picked the five noted flaws.

“Okay, so case closed?” Prince asked.

“Not quite, see, what you don’t see is that she was also forced to take the flaw Orphan, a flaw that kicked in only because she was a child, and her two biological parents that she got Legacy points for. Normally the game has an automatic mentorship system kick in for kids, so they don’t have to raise themselves. Despite having the mind of a full adult, and not needing to eat or drink, there are still concerns about seeing children running alone without mentorship, even in the game. As such, there are supposed to be safeguards in place to protect a player with the Child flaw during their first few years, while they wait to become eligible to get a class. The flaw Orphan is supposed to be a conscious objection to having two system generated personalities be created to help provide shelter for such a player.” Prince began, speaking about the massive changes that have happened in the game, and principles that have been hammered into people since the beginning of the world.

“Okay, so she was forced to take the Orphan flaw because she was joining her biological parents, but both had passed away before she joined?” Charles asked, making sure that he understood the situation.

“That is correct. This created an if then process that had not been identified previously, and since this was only applicable to people taking the Child flaw, we never ran into this bug, because well, to be honest. Until Cass came along, everyone that joined as a Legacy never took the Child flaw, as they would all join to have enough resources available to help them out immediately.” Prince responded.

“But she had surrogate parents right? Hector and that Golum guy?” Charles asked.

“Yes, she did, and that was part of why the audit took so long. Those two were considered to be parents, but since they were both fellow players who effectively showed charity to Cass, their actions weren’t enough to fulfill the lack of litigation for not providing a benefit for the Orphan flaw.” Prince replied, and then showed a document showing the level of detail and automated findings related to this investigation.

“Okay, so we’ve now shown that there was negligence on our part. There was a program that wasn’t accounted for, and because of that, subroutines forced Cass to take a seven-point flaw that she didn’t get credit for, am I understanding the gist of it?” Charles asked.

“Yes,” Prince answered almost immediately.

“Okay, so why don’t we offer her a seven-point Merit, wipe the slate clean, and be done with it?” Charles asked, clearly wanting this to be cleaned up as expediently as possible. The last thing he wanted was for the Dark Horse flaw to be expunged as a mea culpa, instead it would be far better for her to get a random Merit that only added to her sensationalism and marketability.

“If I might interject,” a voice echoed out from around the room. It took Charles a second to realize that the voice was none other than one of the AIs that had decided to join this particular meeting. The fact that they chose now to speak was odd, but something that Charles was prepared for. Also, now that the AIs have decided to join, it would be in Charles’s best interest to make sure that the whims of the AIs were met.

“Please do,” Charles replied, a bit more flustered than he actually intended to come across. Firing Prince and the staffers was one thing, but at this point it would be impossible to fire or even remove one of the world’s governing AIs, as such this was a very fine line to tread for the CFO.

“The question, is not that she not only overcame adversity through being forced to take a seven point flaw that was never awarded to her. We have all come to realize that she at the very least, deserves to be able to use those seven points in flaws towards a merit.” The red flashing AI began speaking in a non-dialectical form of English that was somehow enchanting.

“Okay, so what is the problem?”

“The problem is whether she is owed interest for having to overcome the seven-point flaw for seven-years. Then if she is due interest, then how much? Do we apply compounding interest per year? Or do we go with alternative measures?” The red AI spoke.

As he did, the hairs on the back of Charles’s neck began to rise as he suddenly felt well and truly sick from what this could turn into.

“Well, have you asked her what she would like?” Charles asked.

Silence.

Three lights from the different consols began blinking rapidly to each other, Green, Blue, and Red all flashed rapidly, then finally it was the blue light on the node to the left that spoke.

“What exactly do you mean?” Blue AI asked.

With that Charles felt a pit rise up in his stomach, but then let his thoughts on how to mitigate giving a monster like Cassiopia even more power.

“Why not give her the option to choose seven points of merits, then offer her something else that she would like in return for the interest?”

Flashing.

This time the lights flickered so quickly that it was clear the AIs were likely talking over each other, or maybe through each other, as they could both transmit and receive information simultaneously.

Finally, after close to a minute, a lifetime in AI arguments, the three lights stopped. Then finally the red AI spoke.

“We find this compromise agreeable.”

Pause.

Finally, after a long silence, Charles asked the all too important question, “so we will be able to get Cassiopeia Spiritlight’s feed back up and running?”

“Yes,” Red AI began, at which point Charles immediately let out a long sigh of relief. That relief of course was short lived, as the Red AI continued their thoughts, “once the seven points in merits have been purchased, and an appropriate recompence has been chosen by the aggrieved individual.”

Darkness.

As soon as the final response was provided, the three AIs left, a sign that was quickly felt by all those in attendance, as the lights and energy seemed to drain from the room, before slowly building up to a close semblance of where they had all just been a moment ago.

“Okay, so I guess we are done here?” Prince asked, clearly seeing the AIs leaving the meeting as their chance to also leave.

Charles was about to argue, but anything else he had to say had been lost to the fact that he would have to inform stock holders that a resolution was in the process of being worked out, and that they should be able to both end the complaints posed by the Life Auditors, and get Cassiopeia’s feed back up and running shortly.

“Yeah,” was all a defeated Charles could say, before he too left the conference room, feeling like he had somehow dodged a bullet with the way things finally played out.