Андреа Хёст - The Starfighter Invitation

"It feels like all two million started in the same zone," Silent said. "There’s at least a few hundred thousand on this island, all in view, and not the faintest hint of lag."

"Aliens or AI?" voidMaster asked, with a sly smile. He was fit and muscular, his accent South London, his face Bollywood-handsome.

"Aliens," Silent said firmly.

"Only took a couple of hours for you to stop pooh-poohing the idea?" voidMaster asked. "Why not AI?"

"Hardware. Nothing we have could run this game. I don’t care how many server farms Ryzonart have. And since an AI that formed on Earth would be limited to our systems, it must be aliens."

"Technically, the Cycogs are alien AI anyway," Far pointed out.

"I make no judgment on what kind of aliens. I simply don’t believe we have the hardware to run a game like this, no matter how much of GDG is a construct of our sleeping minds."

Our turn for a pod came, and as soon as the door shut out the noise and the press of bodies, I could breathe again. "Would you quit if Ryzonart could read your mind?" I asked, dropping gratefully onto a seat.

"Nope," voidMaster said. "I live for this stuff. And Ryzonart wouldn’t get much out of the bleak wasteland of Pop Tarts and anime porn that has prime rental space in my head."

"Not a chance," Far said, as the pod stopped. He stepped off with a wave, leaving the rest of us to travel on.

"Possibly," Silent said, after a pause. "I’m less bothered by mind-reading aliens than I am by mind-reading humans. Or email-reading aliens, which is all we’ve confirmed so far. I’ll withhold any decision about whether I want to be playing a game run by aliens until I see any negative effects."

"Negative effects like your thoughts being livestreamed, or Cycog world domination plot enabled?" voidMaster asked.

"Either."

"It doesn’t require scheming aliens or mindreading to be disastrous. Just people loving this game so much they won’t do anything else."

"Too much of a good thing," voidMaster agreed, grinning. "I bet that five hour shut-out rule isn’t necessary at all, but if they didn’t have it, people would let their kids starve, or wouldn’t get up until their cats started chewing off their ears."

"I feel like I’ll miss so much if I log out," I admitted. "Things like that mass suspension won’t happen too often. But I want to get into space as soon as possible, and it looks like many brief logouts is the most efficient way to work on ranking up. It’s going to be hard to resist spending all my time—"

"In the Harry Potter dating sim?" voidMaster suggested.

"Maybe. I like magic school stories, and I think I’ll definitely go for a fantasy sidequest, to contrast the main quest."

"Sign up for Proving Ground before you log, if you think it looks like fun," voidMaster said. "It’s definitely going to run out of slots real soon."

"Guild cooperation might be helpful there," Silent said.

"Get each other to the final round, and we’ll duke it out for the crown," voidMaster agreed, then stood up as the pod slowed. "My stop."

"Mine as well," Silent said. "Looks like we both have underwater views. See you in the sidequests, Leveret."

"Later Kaz," voidMaster added, as the door closed behind them.

I let out a second breath, not because travelling with my guildies had bothered me, but when I get too much crowd, I can only really decompress with some quality alone time.

Not that it seemed I would ever be fully alone in DS . I glanced up at the glowing mote hovering above me, but didn’t speak until I was all the way back to my Snug, seated in the cockpit, and looking out over the velvet, milk and diamond of night sky and ocean. The curves of the rollercoaster mirrored a pale shadow across the sky: the ring of debris that was the moon.

"Does it bother you when Bios ignore you, Dio?"

[[You mean these brief, blissful periods when I need not cater to your mayfly attention span?]]

"Or any other time," I said, trying not to smile.

[[I’d consider it rude if you didn’t respond when I directed a comment or question to you. Otherwise, not at all.]]

"And if I asked you to confirm the theories we were discussing, would you laugh, or tell me to get to Rank Ten?"

[[Both,]] Dio said, laughing.

"What, so if I get to a certain rank you’ll tell me the truth about Ryzonart and all your sinister plans?"

[[Ranking gives you access to more information about The Synergis. Whether you’ll consider what you discover sinister—or merely soul-destroying—remains to be seen.]]

"Okay, that does not incline me to work on my ranking," I said. "I haven’t forgotten that bit about The Synergis having run out of Bios, either."

[[Yes, we can always do with more toys.]]

Dio was such a troll that it was never possible to tell when te was being serious, but if the main quest involved more than grinding my way up the ranks, I’d better remember every contradiction. Right now, though, I needed to decide what to do next.

"Is The Synergis super-crowded, Dio? If Bios can avoid aging and most health issues, don’t you—won’t you eventually end up with too many people?"

[[Overall growth is stable. While some Bios do become more cautious as they age, risk-taking behaviour greatly increases for many. Combine that with a general inclination to travel and compete in early years, rather than have children, and there are times when we nearly slow to equilibrium.]] There was a little pause, then Dio added: [[There are some very popular planets, but most Synergis worlds are not so full as yours.]]

Dio plainly hadn’t forgotten elevated heartbeats. I looked out at the ring of the moon, disliking having anyone with such a vantage point on me, but then said: "Would you be able to warn me if any of the Challenges involve big crowd scenes? That would take the fun out of it for me."

[[Define big crowd .]]

"When people are packed together like walls around you. Particularly if there isn’t a nearby exit, or at least something you can put your back to. Does the main quest require anything like that?"

[[No. Very well, I’ve added an extra search filter for you.]]

I immediately tried it, and didn’t see any notable decrease in the mass of quests. Then I spent some quality time reading the descriptions of the Challenges guild members had recommended.

"Is Veil really a dating sim?"

[[Sleeping your way through the student body isn’t technically a goal. There is nothing to stop you from trying, however. There are several search terms you can use to identify Challenges focused on a variety of interpersonal relationships. Most of those won’t be accessible this early in the game, however.]]

So Ryzonart wasn’t going to shy away from one aspect of virtual life sure to complicate Dream Speed’s reception. There had of course been an enormous amount of speculation about whether DS would allow sex with other players, let alone structure games around romancing NPCs. The majority view had been that it would bring too much negative press, and might even lead to a whole new category of lawsuits. Of course, no-one had doubted players would try to hook up, if there was nothing to prevent them, but if DS was including scripted romances with NPCs, players would be dealing with a lot more than awkwardly posed cut-scenes. Instead of spaceships, the game would be known for countless virtual first times. An intimate exploration of alien anatomy. The complications of people who could wear animal modals. Animal-like aliens. And the question of who exactly you were with, if you spent time with an NPC.

"Who is—" I began, then paused, thinking through the best way to get relatively clear answers from Dio. "In The Synergis, in the virtual Challenges, are the NPCs simply very well-scripted computer programs, or what we’d call AIs, or are they being controlled by Cycogs?"