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Thank you for coming to check out my series. Here is chapter 1 for you!
Prologue - Destiny’s Champions
After the third ring, he picked up the phone and answered it, still trying to wake up.
“Hello?’ he mumbled into the phone, looking at his clock and seeing it was 2 am.
“Dr. Phillips, it’s Ian from the IT Security Team. Sorry to bother you so late, but the hooks that we keep track of in the AI’s…”
“Ian, I know what they are. I was the one who wrote them. What did your group find?” Hooks, tags, call them what you want, they tracked the data the servers were used to move information around. It was a way to see how stable their servers were and see if there were any intrusions from outside sources.
“Well, sir, we aren’t sure. As best as we can figure, it seems that the AI is pushing data into, well, nothing. We made sure it wasn’t data that the servers were sending to an outside source, but best we can see it’s just going nowhere. What made us catch it was that it was a lot of data. I mean in the Terabyte size every two minutes”.
“What the hell!! And it’s not affecting the servers?” If anything would wake him up, it was something like this. They had been running the servers nonstop for over a year now without any incident.
“No sir, what we can see is the load is not being affected, we just have no idea where all this data is going except into the void. Since it’s not going anywhere, we tried to ping the source, but it doesn't lead to anything. What should we do?” Ian asked Dr. Phillips.
He didn’t want to scare the investors or even the staff over something which might be nothing. The standard protocol was to create a report and send it to all the top managers and investors. But with the new VRMMORPG game about to be released in less than two weeks, he couldn’t afford to have it stalled with an investigation. If they waited, he would be losing millions in funding and would have to push the release date. Sigma Worlds was one of the most sought after games, and the hardware purchases alone were now in the billions. They had sold over two hundred million headsets, and that didn’t even include the over 100,000 full immersion pods.
“Don’t do anything, must be something I forgot to add to my project list. I’ll look at it when I get in.” The doctor knew that he was lying and that he might regret it later, but having spent the last thirty years to get to where he was now, he could afford to take the blame for it once the game was a success. He was the top scientist in Artificial Intelligence, but he’d also been a big gamer in his youth. He wanted to prove that the AIs were able to create a world using VR that would be indistinguishable from the real. Unlike the old VR systems of the VIVE or Oculus that had been around for the last 20 years, this second-generation VR gear worked directly with the brain, and he wanted it to be a success.
“OK, Dr. Phillips, if you are good with it, I will mark it down as regular traffic and close the logbook on it,” said Ian, sounding unsure.
“Thanks, Ian, have a good night.”
Destiny’s Champions
I never really liked this room. I had been living in it for the last year. It was, in simple terms, bland. Four white walls, one window, one door. A standard hospital wardroom. It didn’t even have a closet. Who needs clothes when you live in a hospital gown?
“Come on, Jason, stop being an ass and just sign the fucking paperwork already!” yelled my lawyer Michael.
“Jesus Christ, Michael, you are supposed to be my friend, are you trying to write me off already!” I yelled right back at him.
“First of all, I am your oldest friend, but I’m also your damn lawyer, and I read the contract they are giving you. Hell, I wish I was in your place.” As soon as he said it, Michael’s face changed. I could tell he regretted his comment and wished he could take it back.
“Oh, fuck right off, you prick. Do you think I enjoy being an invalid like this? Do you think I enjoyed being t-boned by some ass who decided it was OK to drive while drunk and disable the AI in his car? Fuck you!” I answered angrily.
“Listen,” said Michael shamefully. “It’s not what I meant, and you know it. You have the opportunity to be able to move out of this "shit hole" of a hospital, as you keep calling it, and start earning money. And it will let you explore something outside these four walls, even if it’s virtual. The company, GFL International, has been helping folks who are not medically mobile experience life in VR for over ten years. I checked them out, and they have been used heavily in the medical field to help the mental health of patients. For fuck's sake, even my grandfather used them the last year before he died to experience nature since he couldn’t get outside.”
“I get it, but dammit, I want my damn life back!” I yelled.
“Ah, and we get to the crux of it. It’s been three years, Jason. You need to understand, and I am saying this as your friend. We have looked at every medical procedure possible, and there isn’t anything out there that will make you walk again. The settlement from the accident gave us a big chunk
