Chapter 8 - Session 0.08.47

  “Well, Arlo’s made it safely through the first day,” Julian announced as a soft beep sounded from his desk. He grinned. “His mind is at rest now—a little behind schedule, but he’ll get back on track.”

  Rosie edged closer to the two armchairs. The pretty young reporter sat with her legs crossed in one; the young odd-job man lay motionless in the other. Nothing seemed to have changed with him. He remained calm and quiet, the red light on the VR headpiece still lit up.

  “I want to hear more about how that works,” Emery said, digging out a notebook and pen as well as a small recording device, which she placed on the arm of the chair. Now she really looked like a reporter. “Do you mind if I record our chat?”

  Julian shrugged.

  At this, Emery switched on the recorder and mumbled, “Interview starts on Thursday, June 4, at 3:23 PM, with Julian Alexander Ravencroft, lead software engineer for Splinter, his newly formed gaming company. Julian’s grandmother, Rosie Denfield, is present.” She smiled and raised her voice. “Yes, I know from my own experience that the days and nights inside the game are short. Why did you go that route?”

  Julian didn’t respond. After an unusually long silence, Rosie glanced over and realized her grandson was sending a you-can-leave-now look.

  “Thanks, Gran,” he said, and to back up his warning glare, he nodded toward the door. “Miss McIntire and I are in the middle of something here.”

  His dismissive attitude annoyed her, especially when he didn’t even bother to hide it in front of the nice reporter woman. Just for once, Rosie stood her ground. “Oh, but I’m interested too. Perhaps you’d be so kind as to fetch me a chair, my dear?”

  “What? Why?”

  “Well, for starters, I brought us all coffee and cookies. Would you prefer I just stand here and drink mine?”

  Emery jumped up. “Here, please, take this armchair.”

  “Oh, goodness no. If I sit down in that thing, it’ll be a month of Sundays before I climb back out again.”

  So Emery shot a look at Julian, her expression pretty clearly demanding he assist his poor grandma.

  He opened his mouth to argue, then bit his tongue and nodded. “Fine.” He got up and stalked off down the hall.

  Since Rosie didn’t want the armchair, Emery eased herself back into it and peered at the sleeping man next to her. The virtual reality headset masked the top half of his face. His chest slowly rose and fell.

  “You wouldn’t believe he’s in another world right now,” Emery said. “Sleeping, running around like a maniac . . . it all looks the same from here.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Rosie muttered. “Julian put those awful goggles on my head a few weeks back, and I nearly died of fright. I ended up standing on a cliff, looking down on a village far below. Oh, it was terrifying.”

  “It must have been,” Emery agreed, her face wrinkling into a frown. “Why on earth did he show you that? Did you stick around long?”

  “No. He said he put the mask on me and whipped it straight back off, but it felt like a minute or two to me. He said I wasn’t cut out for a place like that.”

  Emery nodded slowly. “I should say not, for such a kind soul.”

  “Oh, you’re a sweetie, do you know that?” Rosie felt a surge of warmth in her chest. “I was always led to believe that reporters were cold and heartless, but I can’t imagine you writing a mean word in your life!”

  Emery smiled broadly and batted her lashes behind her glasses. “I’m an absolute angel.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Julian returned then, carrying one of the kitchen chairs—the one with the padded cushion strapped to it. “Here you go, Gran,” he mumbled.

  “Thank you, my dear. Ooh, my old bones,” she added with a grunt as she lowered herself down.

  “Want your coffee now?”

  “Not just yet. Too hot.”

  And my joints are flaring up, so I can’t hold the mug.

  Julian sat heavily on his office chair, swiveled around, and rolled it across the laminate wood floor closer to where Emery sat. “Where were we?”

  She raised her notebook and pen. “The days and nights being so short. What’s all that about?”

  “Oh, yeah. It’s simple, really. What do people do in the evenings?” He barreled on before Emery could formulate a reply. “Nothing of interest, that’s what. If you follow the life of an adventurer, all the fun stuff happens during the day. So, let’s say seven hours of solid play time. It could have been eight or nine, but I kept it at seven for processing reasons that I won’t bore you with.”

  Emery nodded and jotted down some notes.

  “Actually, maybe I will,” Julian said with a grin. “Since we’re on record, let me introduce you to my flightdeck.” He gestured toward the seven computer towers, each pulsing a gentle white light. “These machines handle specific dominions of reality. One server exists solely to calculate the endless laws of physics in my VR world. Another is for procedural generation. That one on the top is for building realistic personalities; it’s stuffed with tensor accelerators feeding an array of character models . . .”

  There he goes again, Rosie thought. It’s a foreign language.

  Julian continued, but his meaningless words started to blur together. “Fiber lines bind the system together through an internal network switch . . . Storage arrays with petabytes of NVMe solid-state memory in RAID configurations . . . A closed-loop liquid system running beneath the floorboards, connected to an external heat exchange unit out back . . .”

  “Wait, what?” Emery said, glancing toward the window.

  But Julian was on a roll, showing off to the reporter. “What he’s wearing on his head,” he said, jabbing his finger toward the sleeping man, “is a next-generation neural dream-recording device. It basically monitors and decodes the brain’s activity during induced sleep, specifically the dream phases. I call it VR even though that usually implies real-time gameplay. Dreams are way faster, so those old retinal-resolution microdisplays are a bunch of horsecrap as far as—”

  “Julian, that’s enough,” Rosie interrupted.

  He blinked at her. “Huh?”

  Emery smiled. “I have to agree. As impressive as the hardware specs might be, my readers will be more interested in how it actually works. You were explaining about the short days and nights?”

  Leaning back in his chair again, Julian nodded slowly. “Hmm. Well, okay. My new gamer friend, Arlo, is currently in sleep mode. It’s a time for everything to cool down—his brain as well as the processors. The VR is harmless, but there’s a massive amount of information feeding its way through the system. His brain activity, his dreams—it’s all being recorded and analyzed by AI, and in these few minutes of downtime, the program has a chance to get up to speed and compile a report. That allows me to check in on his progress for the past day.”

  “You’re saying that, right now, his first day’s activities are being written up as a readable report?”

  “Exactly, yes. It was the same with you.”

  “You said there’s a movie version, too?”

  Julian nodded with vigor. “That’s the coolest part. The entire experience can be viewed as a movie from the Player’s point of view. But . . .” He spread his hands and leaned back in his chair. “You can imagine that’s an absolute crap-ton of processing power, and it takes a day to fully render. Your own Level 1, for example, won’t be available in movie form until tomorrow.”

  Emery tapped her notebook. “That’s what you told me, yes. Okay. So you can read an AI summary of what Arlo’s been up to on his first day. But right now he’s asleep.”

  “Yeah. I have to gently force sleep time, especially on later levels. It’s necessary. If the Player tries to stay awake, the system starts to get backed up, and the next day is delayed, and so on. It’s a fairly strict regiment, but it allows cooldown, and everything runs more smoothly.”

  Rosie raised a hand. “I have a question, if I may?”

  Julian swiveled in his chair. “Sure, Gran.”

  She chose her words carefully. “If Arlo wanted to leave the game, like if he’s bored, or it’s too dangerous, or some other reason . . . Well, can he? Can he leave?”

  “Partway through, you mean?” Julian glanced over at Emery—specifically her notebook. “Currently, no. Unless he dies three times, of course. But in the interest of public well-being, I plan to implement a sort of ‘safe word’ where the Player can shout it out and prompt an abrupt exit from the game.”

  Emery scribbled a few notes.

  Meanwhile, Rosie found herself asking a follow-up question. “Can he get hurt inside the game?”

  “Oh yes,” Julian said, looking rather proud of himself. “It wouldn’t be an immersive experience otherwise. Pain is in the mind. Did you know that? There are people with a rare disorder where their brain’s pain receptors don’t work, and they can’t feel pain. With that in mind, the VR taps into those receptors so they can feel pain. It’s more realistic that way.”

  Rosie shuddered. “Sounds completely awful. I do hope he’s careful, then.”

  A soft beep sounded from Julian’s desk. After a quick glance, he grinned and nodded. “Nighttime’s over. He’s waking up.”