Massively Multiplayer, page 13
“What happened then?”
“Well, Brad Singh – that’s him over there – caught the squeal and pulled it down to his desktop, thinking it was a standard quest node: a place for a story to be related which would start some players on an adventure. But he couldn’t find any background listed for this ruin in the database, and he figured out it wasn’t even supposed to be there.”
“What did he do?” Wolfgang asked.
“Nothing. He tried, though. He called up one of the Catalysts from downstairs and they went into one of the workrooms. The actor – Martin something – manifested as a guardian spirit and made up some great stuff about those who would defile a dead city needing to face the dead themselves...really good impromptu work, it rhymed and everything. But we couldn’t access any addresses within the zone, so we couldn’t insert him. Eventually the adventurers got into an argument over some loot and started PK-ing each other. Knives in the back, spells flying around, you know how bad the player-killing can get in the really high circles. Survivor limped away. Bloody mess.”
“And then?”
“Well, we figured there might be something to the reviews we’d been reading, so three of us hacked up a quick search for areas that didn’t match the design database, and saw where things had been shifted around by the incorporation of new areas into existing zones. That’s where we got this.” She indicated the display again. “And then we called you.”
“Why me, particularly,” Wolfgang asked, though he was pretty sure he knew the answer already.
“Because this effects users directly,” she answered promptly. “And I know you care a lot about...um, I mean, there’s a standing order to contact you. You know. If an apparent system error is effecting players.” She trailed off lamely, blushing, apparently a little embarrassed by her momentarily over-familiar tone with the man who was, after all, head of the entire systems department.
Or was it something else? Wolfgang raised an eyebrow. Interesting. He decided to file the observation away for later contemplation, then rescued her. “What are these?”
She turned back to the floating display with clear relief. “These numbers next to each block are the number of users who’ve accessed each unauthorized zone since the rollout, which is the earliest recorded data we have.”
“Range?”
“Varies. There’s a new street in the capitol of Ghallad that over sixteen-hundred users have walked down. This one over here is a cave on a mountain in the middle of nowhere, that no-one has seen at all.”
“Can you limit user access?” Janet asked.
“We tried,” the programmer admitted. “But to place a barrier around something, you need a way to address it, and these areas don’t have any address. We can’t block off the surrounding areas without disrupting the system.”
“What about deletion?” Wolfgang asked.
“We were waiting for you first.”
“Try it now.” Wolfgang held up a cautionary finger. “On a small one, far away from users. Try that cave.”
The programmer obligingly plucked the corresponding block from the display with her fingertips. “I can’t delete it directly because of the addressing problem,” she noted, “but I can delete anything which is between any other addresses.” She spoke quietly to her workstation for a moment. She shook her head “No good,” she reported. “According to the database, there’s nothing there, so there’s nothing to delete.”
Wolfgang whistled tunelessly under his breath. “What are the current theories?”
One of the observers spoke up. “These things popped up when we did the rollout of the update, so they’ve got to be related. I’m guessing it’s artifacts from the programmers who came in with the new management.”
“You have no proof of that!” declared a little man with a thick beard. “We were responsible for textures and soundscapes. All design went through your in-house division!”
“That’s not it,” Wolfgang rumbled, heading off the fight. “Even if the incoming program team from Vital Enterprises did design any geography, it would have shown up in the general database. The rollout was counter-confirmed.”
“What about duplication?” another voice offered. “Could these be echo effects, created by redundancy errors? That way you might design one street, but the world generator might accidentally create four.”
“Worth a shot,” Wolfgang acknowledged. “See if, oh, that one right there, matches anything in the known database.” The seated programmer ran a quick comparison between the chosen target, a large house on a promontory overlooking the sea, and the central database which catalogued the geography of the Crucible game. She shook her head.
“Nope,” Wolfgang confirmed, “there’s nothing like these in the known database, so it’s not a copying error. These are unique.”
“Are we sure they’re intentional?” a man at his elbow asked.
“I’m sure,” the seated programmer said, and Wolfgang nodded. “Look at how seamlessly the rocks on this cave wall match those of the surrounding mountain. And these trees in this grove are the same kind as those in the forest. No, this matches too closely to be data artifacts. This is on purpose.”
A babble of accusations and defenses broke out, making it impossible for Wolfgang to hear any one theory. Janet Chen had been peering closely at the numbers in the desk display, and now raised her voice over the din. “Wolf, do you notice anything about the user statistics?”
Wolfgang saw where she was going. “I just bet,” he muttered. He pushed in next to the seated programmer, who scooted aside quickly. “Mind if I use your desk for a second?” She shook her head, and Wolfgang quickly accessed his own desktop remotely through the building’s intranet. “Retrieve and open ‘Suspects-two’ to this station,” he commanded. Obligingly, the desktop opened up a gray box containing the list of users who had heavily accessed the anomalous data Janet Chen had first discovered. “Query sum, uh, this” Wolfgang said stabbing a thick finger into the tangle of glowing data, “ummm, total.” A new box opened up and Wolfgang dragged it over the file from his desk. “Query compare,” he ordered.
Every name in the box turned green.
“No such thing as coincidence,” Wolfgang breathed. “A one-hundred percent match. That’s one mystery down and about five-hundred more created.”
The surrounding programmers had quieted as Wolfgang performed this operation. “Wait a minute,” one asked now, “did you already know about this?”
“Not a clue,” Wolfgang admitted happily. “But I now know why the bandwidth has been running high since rollout. Every time a user walked past one of these shadow zones, he made a blip in the bandwidth which wasn’t accounted for by regular data. And if they actually walked down that street, or entered that ruin, or interacted with the zone, the unauthorized usage spiked. Score one for Ms. Chen.” He tipped an imaginary hat.
“That still doesn’t explain where this material came from,” Janet reminded him. “It just shows that whoever did this wasn’t too concerned with covering his tracks. Now why’s it there?”
“All in good time,” Wolfgang said, thoroughly pleased with himself. “This could be a hack, or a prank, or any number of things. The data itself would tell us what. Now that we know it’s game data, that’s going to be the easy part.” He turned back to the seated programmer, who now looked hopeful. “How close a look have you gotten at one of these shadow zones?”
“Third-person isometric, nothing closer than a group view. Most of our work is done on the heads-up display instead of immersed in a virlo,” the programmer added for Janet’s benefit. “There are too many distractions otherwise. Besides which, we’ve been too busy cataloging instances to really examine them on a case-by-case basis.”
“No time like the present. Suit up and give us a closer look.”
“Yes sir.” The programmer slipped on goggles and wireless wrist and ankle cuffs, then leaned back in her chair, which obligingly settled into the familiar shape of a standard virtualounger. The virlo hummed as the desktop display cleared and refilled with a representation approximating the programmer’s point of view.
“What’s up now?” Janet asked.
“We use standardized avatars for error-checking, testing, other routine tasks,” one of the crowd told her. “We call them ‘angels.’ It’s not like the ones gamers or catalysts use – it’s transparent to the program, invisible, immaterial, and indestructible. That way we can tweak stuff in-game without bothering the users. She’ll use one to take a look around inside this mysterious zone while we look over her shoulder.”
“I’m opening up the last one I accessed,” the programmer said softly. The crowd quieted in order to hear her more clearly. The desktop display changed to show the house on the promontory once more. It looked gloomy, an impressive mansion of sturdy timbers now much weathered, its gaping windows boarded over, and its rotting door hanging off its hinges. “I’m inserting a standard avatar. I’ll give you a chase cam.” The display zoomed out slightly to take in the whole cliff-top, and a silver-robed figure appeared without fuss a dozen yards from the mansion. “Looks like typical scenery for the area. This is on the European server. Should I go inside?”
“Yes,” Wolfgang affirmed. “Let’s see what we’re really up against here.”
“Yes sir.” The programmer’s hand twitched, as if in sleep, and the silver-robed figure in the display raised its arm in a jaunty salute. Several of the observers grinned, feeling the natural cockiness of problem-solvers throughout history who think they’ve finally got a handle on a crisis. The robed avatar turned back towards the mansion and stepped confidently over the threshold.
And burst into flames. To the assembled viewers, it seemed a column of incandescent light simply burst from the sky, bathing the porch of the house in yellow-orange light. The structure seemed entirely unaffected, but the “angel” avatar was consumed in seconds, melting away into a tiny pile of ashes before the display went totally dark.
The programmer twitched spastically on her virlo, then jerked herself upright, ripping off goggles and wrist-cuffs before she was even upright. “What the hell was that?!?” she demanded.
“That,” Wolfgang Wallace mused, contemplating the blank display before him, “was interesting.”
Chapter Nine - War
“You are sure?”
“Of course I am sure. There are at least three new quest zones within the Bleaktooth Range, and one at the source of the River Swift, above Sapphire Lake. That last one I saw with my own eyes, and I have directions to the others here.”
The speaker reached out and a thin green rectangle snapped into existence at her fingertips. She handed it to Gregor and watched as he cross-checked the information encoded there with the map which lay on the table before him.
“So it seems. There can be no further doubt: Archimago has just reversed years of stated policy, and one of the crucial elements behind their game design. I have now confirmed over forty new locations which opened up within the existing architecture, all dating to the rollout of version four.” He leaned back and sighed. “This is giving me a headache. Nevertheless, thank you for coming to me with this information. I know you could have gotten cash for this at one of the commercial gaming nets.”
The young woman across from him smirked. “Better you than me. I trust your maps and information more than I do most other sources, so I figured I owed it to you. Besides, you have promised me a trip to the new caves once you’ve finished updating. When will your character make it back from the Westerly?”
“Not soon, I’m afraid,” Gregor mused. “I owe a friend some support, and I’ll need to distribute this—“ he tapped the map “—to my regular subscribers as soon as possible. I should be able to charter a boat by Tuesday, and could meet you at the port in MidSea by Thursday morning. Okay?”
“No,” she pouted, “but if we have to do without Wisefellow’s help for another week, I suppose we must. Have fun playing with the Americans.” She blew him a kiss and faded from existence.
If only I had time to play anymore, Gregor thought in annoyance. Ah well, I was never as good at that part of it as I was at the technical side anyway. Nor as interested, he admitted, peering closely at the map of Crucible spread out before him.
Archimago had either brilliantly extended their appeal, or made a colossal marketing error. It all depended on how their user base reacted to the change in the accepted, and well beloved, system. Gamers could be agonizingly protective of their favorites, and players of the unusually immersive Crucible more so than most.
To find out, he should distribute the new information as soon as possible and gauge the results, and he would start with Andrew, his American friend. With Druin out running errands for Gil de Wraithmorte, it would be impossible for Gregor’s alter-ego, Wisefellow, to make contact, but luckily Gregor knew Andrew’s RL net address and would send the information there. He shut the map, compressing the file it represented and sent it back to his home computer in Greece, and was ready to log out when a sharp pinging alerted him to another guest. Sighing with irritation, he waved his hand to allow the unknown visitor access to his online workspace.
His “caller” was a recorded v-mail, from a fellow student from the university in Athens. The image of a thin, bearded man of thirty materialized before him. “Gregor? I have something odd here. I got it from an undergraduate in my section on digital marketing, and I recalled that you had an interest in these things.” The figure offered a small shining cube, representing a block of data. “I seem to remember you mentioning this product in our netvironmental design class, and thought you might be interested. See you on campus.” The form faded away.
Curious, Gregor touched the cube, accessing the files within. Several small images spat out, fragmentary colors and textures. Text and video notes were appended to each one.
Curious, he turned one over, a square of smooth purple texture, like a fabric sample. It floated in midair a few inches above his hand, a strange, flat jellyfish. He brushed it with a finger, and it rippled. Cloth?
He reached for another of the little data blacks. This one was a solid cube of some unfamiliar metal. Each side was decorated with a complex pattern of incisions. Peering closely at the texture, he could see that it was made up of tiny overlapping shapes that looked oddly familiar. He could swear he’d seen the little detail pattern before, but he wasn’t quite certain where.
He spent a few moments puzzling over the fragments, and then studied the notes which had been attached.
After five minutes, his curiosity had become fascination.
After ten, it became anger. Andrew’s problems would have to wait; what he had here was going to be very, very important.
Andrew, frankly, wasn’t in a receptive mood. Another day of bleak half-existence in that fuzzy time between the end of summer and the beginning of school had been interrupted by an unexpected visit of a different sort.
An hour after lunch, he had been browsing the sites of a music retailer, and wondering whether enough money would be leftover from tuition for some shopping, when his father knocked on the door of his bedroom.
“Mind if I come in?” Andrew was almost surprised by the question. Usually, the assumption in this family was that his parents had the unlimited right to check up on their offspring. His youth had been punctuated by snap inspections of his homework, his computer files, the cleanliness of his room and the backgrounds of his friends and any potential dates. He had always figured it was a natural, if irritating, consequence of their generational insistence on “responsible parenting,” a term which to Andrew seemed associated equally with security that one was doing “the right thing” for one’s children and guilt about too little direct contact.
His father’s profession, as an editor of distance-education materials, didn’t help. It might also have contributed to his parents’ timidity when faced with the real-life breathing reality of their oldest child.
Andrew motioned to the bed as the cleanest place to take a seat, thinking absurdly that his father looked as if it were he that was about to be grilled. He wore a smile, which he no doubt thought was of the appropriately “chipper” sort to put his only son at ease, but Andrew wasn’t having any of it.
Instead, he flung himself onto the virlo. “Yes? What’s up?”
“Hey there, Anders, I was just walking by, saw your light on...”
Andrew winced at the childhood nickname. “I’m kind of busy, dad.”
“Oh.” His father was silent for a moment. “Busy with?”
“Stuff.”
“Ah yes, stuff. I remember stuff. I remember I could do ‘stuff’ for hours on end, and my mom would ask me ‘what are you doing?’ and I’d say ‘stuff.’ I was always amazed she couldn’t understand what I meant. This must be what they call karma.”
Andrew rubbed his eyes, too tired to appreciate the bantering tone, which he was certain hid some subtle barb or other. “Yeah, karma. So I’ll just get back to...”
“Funny you should mention being busy,” his father broke in, a bit desperately. “Your mother and I were talking about your schoolwork. We’re very happy with your grades, of course...”
Here it comes, Andrew thought. When they start by buttering you up, you know there’s a hammer in it.
“...you just seem so, well, idle these days, that we—“
“I don’t think so,” Andrew interjected. “I have about six weeks left before school starts, and I’m already registered for classes. I have enough saved up to cover my part of tuition, and I’ve arranged housing.”
