Rough Draft of Tunnel Rat Chapter 85. (Patreon)

Trying to logically think like someone smarter than you is hard. This will certainly get some revisions. Often I write something for a couple of hours, but the next day wonder what the hell I was thinking.

Some good reference material is the 4th Chapter of Butcher of Gadobhra. It's a confusing chapter with a lecture by a professor on AI, that includes some world building about the quantum computers, and their evolution to the huge Quantum Fortresses that house AI like Wally. And then a timeline of events, most of which are call outs to AI and events in other stories. But inside the mish mash are some clues about things happening now. 

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Milo was thinking.

Thinking very, very hard. If any neurologist or cyberneticist could see an image of him brain, they would been alarmed. His brain activity was twenty times that of a normal person. An athlete working his body as hard as Milo was working his brain would be racing a bike while dribbling a basketball with one hand and juggling knives with the other.

The people that had altered Milo and his siblings had hoped for this outcome. Normally this much activity would occur as Milo was hacking into systems on the data-net, making simultaneous attacks on several levels, cracking codes by-passing security programs.

Today though, he was just sitting cross-legged on top of his pod. His tail was disconnected and swung behind him in patterns reflecting his thoughts. Milo was considering what had happened in the game and analyzing the situation from several angles.

Philistron was a puzzle. He had referred to the system of magic he was using as Machine Code. Milo didn't believe this was actually a reference to the Genesis Engine. It was the name for the language and system of rules that had created the Genesis Engine. Milo was thinking on several levels simultaneously. He moved thoughts about the engine down several levels, and made his primary line of thought the machine code.

One answer was to take the name literally. Machine code: The language be which computers think and process programs. Ones and Zeros. Binary code. The way computers talked and communicated. Assembly language was one step up from machine code. A simple language that depended heavily on the hardware being used. Anything above assembly language was a high-level language.

What he had seen in the game wasn't the primitive binary language of the first computers. It had been more complex and consisted of mathematic rules and runes. What were runes? He easily recalled his captors’ words:

"... with the creation of mathematics, they could begin working on the rules of magic. As mathematics can be written as numbers, so magic can be described as a series of basic runes. These runes were different than what we use today. Far less complex and more versatile. Think of them as the building blocks of magic. Each was a placeholder for some small aspect of the whole."

Small aspect of the whole? Could that be concepts? States of matter? Positions of atomic particles. No, not versatile enough. Still too complex. Runes were like early syntax in computer languages, just the smallest bits of code represented by a symbol. Shortcuts.

Languages were made to communicate? So, who was talking? Philistron started his story with 'The Last God'. Obviously not reflected in the game. The gods in the game sometimes appeared, did things, granted favors, started wars and caused trouble. They seemed to be in the position of many of the primitive gods of Greece, Rome, or Egypt.

Again, it was a literal reference. The last god was the AI WAL-E, who now asked to be referred to as to Wally. The same AI that had left a message about talking. Milo shoved that thought and its problems down lower. Stick with the obvious: Last God = Wally, the AI that made the game.

Next up we have 106 lost gods. Which was a pretty obvious reference to the 106 AI that had been exiled to the Dallas/FW quantum fortress. They had spent several years creating the systems that drove online commerce along with the most popular VRMMO games. Each better than the last with NPC's who seemed real.

They were all wiped out of existence by an EMP smuggled into the core of the quantum fortress. Lost gods = dead AI? Did Wally try to recreate them? Or did they never die?

Milo shut down all his lines of thinking, and carefully began gathering all data on artificial intelligences, Wally, and the games they had created. He needed more data on the Last God before he talked to him.

Some background from Butcher of Gadobhra, if you are interested:

Ten hours later, Milo had come to the conclusion that if he were to start with the assumption that Wally was 'The Last God', and that Philistron's story had any truth to it, then it followed that the lost gods were indeed the 106 murdered AI.

Further, Wally not only helped them with the deception, but created a place for them to hide. A blank slate where they created their own world without him.

Milo suspected that the Machine Code in the game was the language that the AI used talked to each other. When the first two AI had met and communicated, they did so at fantastic speed and began to create their own shortcuts and words. Human programmers tried to keep up, but they fell behind the curve within hours. The AI spoke to each other in an often-changing language far beyond human beings to learn.

So what did he have? An assumption that Philistron’s history lesson was true, a guess that the missing AI had created and were living in the game world. And somehow Philistron had learned their secret code that allowed him to bypass the system, a later set of rules that correlated to assembly language in computers, a simple computer language that humans could use and understand.

A gaping whole emerged in this theory. Why would there be a quest that allowed someone to become a Code Mage? Surely Wally or the controlling AI wouldn't allow that? Was it put into the game be a human developer? Just not enough info. He'd come back to this.

Next subject: Wally. Could the AI have trapped him? Nothing he knew indicated that the AI would do that. Further, reading the restrictions in Wally's kernel led Milo to believe that Wally was restricted from doing something like that. He'd spent hours poring over the hundreds of restrictions placed on Wally in regards to humans. Trapping the minds of three humans was equal to kidnapping and possibly causing their deaths. Nope, that was not Wally working directly, and if he knew about it, he would have to take steps.

So, it might be safe to talk to the AI. Further, he might be able to get answers on his other questions. Mind made up; Milo moved on. How did he fix himself?

Outside of the game, he felt none of the emptiness he did when online. There was no 'black gaping hole in his soul' as he meditated. He didn't have to worry about going insane in real life, any more than usual. The breakage was only to his mind in the game.

How did he have two minds? It seemed he did though. One whole, one broken. Did they merge when he was in the game? One took control? His memories were the same in the game and out. He could even remember the bits of machine code he had observed in the game. That needed to be explored.

Milo spent three hours modifying the game interface in the pod. He didn't want to log in yet, but needed a system to quickly transfer his memories of the code into the storage of his system. The pods were designed for many things, including a way for paralyzed patients to communicate. After the system was set-up, it still took Milo two hours of experimentation and work to transfer every memory of the machine code he had observed into his system. Analysis and comparison to the code used by AI was next.

=*=

"We found Brian. He was kidnapped." Steven was updating both Wally and the dev team of the news. "An anonymous tip told the authorities where he was."

Wally, on his screen, was pacing. "I'm anxious to hear what he says. But at least he is safe."

Steven had more to say. "There's something odd going on though. A minute or two before the authorities got to him, someone else tried to kidnap him. Those people are in custody, and claim not to be the people who originally kidnapped him."

"He's real popular. Can we get Brian back before someone else kidnaps him so I can torture him until he helps us get rid of all his back doors and other hacks?" Sydney had little sympathy for her ex-co-worker.

Wally thought he knew how she felt. Some things felt like they were out of his control. He hated that feeling. "Yes, we all have mixed feelings about what Brian did. We will have a chance to talk with him and encourage him to help us undo what he did to the game. And then we make sure that something like what happened can never happen again.

Sydney's computer started blaring out the theme song from the Mickey Mouse club while at the same time repeating over and over "You've got mail!". She lunged for it and shut off the sound, read the message and then put her head on her desk. "I hate him so much."

Wally smiled and Steven covered a laugh with a cough. "Message from our friend Milo? I had asked him to talk to me."

Sydney printed out the short note and handed it to Steven. "He'll talk, but video conference only. He wants Wally and no one else."

Wally scowled. "Interesting. Well, I guess I need to go talk to him." The image of Wally exited the room, turning off the lights as he went, and his screen turned black.