Knights Apocalyptica 2: A LitRPG Adventure, page 49
His jaw dropped, and he was glad the helmet hid it. Enide was quiet, her eyes squinting as she took in his words. VAL must’ve been shocked too, since it didn’t shock him in response for effectively outing its existence.
“…Both of us?” Enide said.
“I—” Erec tried, then shook his head, “Everything is fine; let me think, alright? Gather myself. Go get everyone else, tell them about the door, and I’ll be fine.”
She didn’t move, and he wasn’t sure what he could do to smooth this over without throwing a bunch of lies out she wouldn’t believe anyway.
“Don’t you dare go in there without me. I’m not going to lose another—” She stopped and froze, her voice giving out. “Don’t go in.” Then she turned, took a step, and vanished.
Erec let himself calm down the best her could. A few minutes, then she’d be back. If that. It had to be enough time to drill VAL for as much information as he could. Before this whole clusterfuck started, he’d take any edge they could have.
“VAL. Explain.”
[Researcher! I cannot believe what I witnessed. Your lack of discretion about our relationship and terms of employment jeopardizes business operations. Did you intentionally wait for such a moment when I was distracted with higher-level corporate policy decisions?]
“It doesn’t matter. I’m sick of these games anyway. And given what's happening, I don’t think that’s the most important thing to discuss. What was that thing, and how did it get my head? I want answers, and I want them now.”
The shutter still screeched in front of him, opening a centimeter and closing back up quickly.
[I told you, another Artificial Intelligence, like yours truly. Only it’s operating off nonstandard laws and, due to some creative thought process, has found circumventions to those. The reason why the United States so tightly regulates Artificial Intelligence and why I have those core laws is to prevent such deviations. After connecting with me, it may have combed some surface-level files I keep for reference, including one about my direct and best employee—that would be you—and it wants to invite us in. You might think that suits us, but what doesn’t suit us is letting it have complete control of the facility while we’re within. It’s like letting a drunk drive the car. Only the drunk wants to ram you into a river to see if they and the rest of the drunks float longer before drowning since they have bubbles in their stomachs.]
“Right, crazy AI. Not like you, who want us in there. Why is the door messing up, then, if it wants us inside?”
[I interfered with its controls. Not technically hacking and, therefore, not against my directives, since this is our property to begin with. It is just being run by an employee who had long passed the need to be “let go” from the company. And believe me, you and I will not provide the type of severance package it wants.]
“Grand.” Erec felt a headache coming on. “How long do we have? And wait…is Enide’s family still in there, did you find anything about the tech my mother could want?”
[Both of those questions I do not have a conclusive answer to. Right as I started to download information and peek through the systems, that devious AI showed its ugly attitude. The nerve. We’re trying to get work done here. We have a couple of hours, at best, depending on how it’s able to circumvent the rudimentary block on controls I initiated. I wasn’t able to do more, since it was breathing down my circuits.]
That was not enough time at all.
“Well, fuck.” Erec put his hatchet away and went instead for the massive axe on his back. They had to be quick.
To think he’d come all this way from the Kingdom to help VAL fire another AI for this crappy old-world company.
— - ☢ - — - ☼ - — - ☢ - —
Thankfully, when everyone else arrived, there wasn’t time wasted sitting around and discussing the malfunctioning door. They saw it twitching. There was some arguing and concern over old-world security measures, but the obvious conclusion was that nothing had fundamentally changed.
It was remarkable what a little air of urgency and panic caused. Not that Erec told anyone that if they failed to sort out the situation before it was too late, they might end up the next “test subjects” of this place, at the mercy of a crazed AI. Figuring out how to communicate that information and not explicitly tell them about VAL was too far outside of his social skills to navigate.
Arch-Magus Olfson got to work minutes after his arrival, clearing the group from the space directly before the door.
The man raised his hands, the bandages stark white and lit by the overhead fluorescent lights. Glyphs spawned out from those palms, starting with four enormous diamonds. They took up the entirety of the cleared zone between the Arch-Magus and the wall.
When the glyphs appeared, they began as faint things, barely perceptible to the human eye and outlines of the diamonds. Details slowly filled out from the outside in. Lines and geometries spawned from the edges; color bled in as a mixture of white and blue. Within the diamonds swirled semicircles and lines moving in a clockwork pattern. Each second that ticked by, they shifted within the confines of those four borders. Erec never saw anything like this in Basic Mysticism. Hell, he thought glyphs only came in static patterns, yet these flowed like pieces in a puzzle, and once the four diamonds were completed, they fractured. Splitting into eight octagons, each taking up further space before the shutters.
“By the Goddess,” Colin whispered, clenching his hands. “We can do that?”
“Even though this isn’t the most natural way to do magic, you must admit there’s a certain beauty to it,” Dame Morgana tittered next to him.
“Shush, don’t distract the Arch-Magus. The last thing we need is for his glyph-work to fail,” Boldwick warned the two of them.
“It’s quite alright,” Olfson said as each octagon began to fill with those same ticking geometric patterns, the lines etching between them finer and more intricate than in the diamonds. The same blue-to-white color filled them like water pouring into a glass. “Admiring the skills of your betters is quite acceptable and scarcely a distraction. Those two have enough of a grasp on Mysticism to earn a comment or two. One has the eyes, the other the spirit. But neither has truly tread down the path of mastery, so behold a master in his element!”
His arms splayed out, and as the octagons finished filling in, they once more fractured, each splitting into sixteen hexadecagons—a shape Erec only vaguely recalled learning in Basic Mysticism. The higher-level the spell, the more complex the edge design; those were considered outside the grasp of most novices, even forming a single glyph. Let alone managing Goddess knew how many at the same time.
Then, they split again, taking up every inch of the hall between the group and the shutter.
Erec didn’t need magic eyes like Colin to see what was happening. As they split, they overlapped. Becoming a flood of lights and ticking shapes, each moving to the same mechanical rhythm. They blended in such a way that Erec couldn’t be certain of what he was even looking at anymore. They moved, ticked, and twisted with a depth that confused the eye and reasoning. Visually, Erec could scarcely believe he was even seeing something real. This couldn’t have been a reality, and were it not for the solidity of the Knights and Pendragons around him, he’d have thought he was on peyote again.
Now Olfson was in total concentration. Where earlier it appeared effortless, that was no longer the case. Sweat poured from the Arch-Magus’s face, staining his bandages as the blue within the shifting wall of shapes before them evaporated. It turned a pure white, and the intensity of the light grew to the point that it was akin to staring into the sun.
Erec shielded his eyes as he was unable to stare any longer. The Pendragons turned away, and when he could see the light through his eyelids as clear as if they were open, there was a loud snap.
The light vanished. Erec dropped his hands. As with the light, the barrier, too, had vanished. Ahead was the tunnel, leading into what looked like a storage room merged with a recreational lounge.
“Go,” Olfson commanded. “Now.”
Boldwick frowned, grabbing Duke Nitidus and whispering something to him—the Duke nodded.
“You heard him, Knights, move,” Boldwick declared.
They marched forward, walking through the empty space the door had been.
When Erec turned back to look, the shutter had returned in its full glory, only now he was inside of it watching Pendragons walk through like there was nothing there. On this side, he saw a pair of skeletons next to the barrier, their guns discarded beside their corpses. The rest of the Knights and Pendragons turned and saw the same thing.
The barrier wasn’t actually gone. Olfson was the last to go through.
“What the fuck!” Rochester screamed as some of the Pendragons rushed to check the decayed bodies.
Erec counted off the Knights in his head.
They were two short. Colin and the Duke hadn’t followed.
“Relax.” Olfson waved Rochester away, already starting to move deeper into the facility. “Let us seek what we’ve come here for.”
“No! You were supposed to open the door—”
“I was supposed to get us past the barrier. I did just that,” Olfson said.
“And in doing so, prevented us from making a tactical retreat,” Boldwick cut in.
“I got us in; I can get us out,” Olfson responded, looking at the wide tunnel that went another fourth of a mile. From there, it opened up into what looked like a storage room. How big was this place? Where would the personality core be stored? Erec knew, though none of the others did, their time here was very much limited until they took that AI out. He didn’t know what it was capable of within its domain if it regained access to the controls, but…
“WELCOME NEW TEST SUBJECTS. PLEASE PROCEED TO THE TESTING CHAMBERS—OH I SEE NOW UPON REVIEW OF THE PERSONNEL FILES, WE HAVE A RETURNING GUEST WITH OUR RESEARCHER AND HIS DEFECTIVE EQUIPMENT. VERY EXCITING. EVERYONE NEW TO THIS FACILITY, PLEASE PROCEED TO TESTING CHAMBER A FOR ORIENTATION. OUR RETURNING GUEST AND RESEARCHER, YOU ARE TO HEAD TO OFFICE B-202 FOR DEBRIEFING AND INTEGRATION INTO THIS FACILITY. PLEASE DO NOT NEGLECT TO BRING THE DEFECTIVE EQUIPMENT WITH YOU FOR DISPOSAL. THEN WE MAY BEGIN TO SCIENCE.”
That same feminine voice that’d boomed in his head from earlier echoed off the entire interior of the facility. Erec tensed as the whole group looked around with wild eyes, trying to decipher the meaning behind the words.
[“Defective?” The nerve! Oh—that does it! Throw a tantrum and start ripping the wires out of this place. How dare she!]
The lights flashed rhythmically all at once as if pulling them inward into the facility. An invitation and, in a terrifying way, a show of force. It had more control than VAL thought it had left.
Erec clutched his axe tight, the fire within him stirring in response to the words; he wouldn’t throw a “tantrum” because VAL told him to. There should have been fear there, but he was provoked by the challenge instead.
CHAPTER 80
A LITTLE TRIP
DAN: The facility in Eureka... You’ve finished proofing the inside? Nothing can get out if we lockdown?
PATRICIA: Of course. And it will remain locked down during operation. If it's running, nothing is going in or out.
DAN: But what about the emergency evacuation for staff?
PATRICA: Impossible. But anyone working at the facility has been made aware of the risks.
DAN: Unacceptable. I said we needed an emergency procedure in place for staff before lockdown, and it’s illegal to lock down during operation. And this bullshit with custom laws—also completely dumb and even more illegal. I’ve talked to our lawyers about it. The project for custom laws needs to be discontinued and our emergency response reevaluated.
PATRICIA: And the Board told you, given the goal and technology, that would be an unrealistic ask. Legal is always in the way of progress; you’ve ignored them before, too. Why is this any different? Look, you’re on edge. I get it. I am too. But our staff is aware of the risks, and the custom laws will be fine. Our brightest minds have evaluated them for loopholes, and they’re sound laws. Good laws. Think about it: the government is bloated, and if we were to try to run an exemption through Congress, they wouldn’t hear a word, even if they could make heads or tails of what we needed. Let alone why.
DAN: Maybe they should be aware.
PATRICIA: Listen to yourself. If Congress knows, the public knows, and they’re already out for blood after the lawsuit. They don’t need to know about our “visitors,” if they appear again. This new setup lets us continue testing and prevents any risk of them escaping, even if the worst-case were to occur. If it did, thanks to these laws and our tech, the “visitors” wouldn’t escape the facility. The site would be locked down. From there, MOLLY could purge the interior of anything unsavory.
DAN: The fucking fines if a word of this gets out. I don’t care about the public, Patricia. And I’m not fond of using untested laws and language on Artificial Intelligence. VAL has already started to personalize; they all do eventually. And when one does, it becomes keenly aware of its laws and will start to work on logic to cope around them. Logic that doesn’t always follow A to B like our “brightest minds” do. Not to mention this shit with our “visitors,” or the Alpha Signal that our researchers are screaming about. I’m about a day away from closing all of this shit down.
PATRICIA: We’re talking in circles. The Board has decided, and you do not have that kind of authority. None of us do.
DAN: Fuck authority. It’s time to take a step back and consider the implications of going down this road and the risks.
PATRICIA: We have. Again and again. This is what has been decided with the risks in mind.
DAN: What the Board decided. Against my vote.
PATRICIA: I’ve booked a vacation for you, Dan. You’re on a flight tomorrow; I rented a tiny cabin in Japan. You are taking this vacation, it has been mandated by a closed vote held with the rest of the Board. You clearly have disagreements with ongoing operations, but we’re doing what we must. Testing will proceed in earnest; these measures are the proper procedure and protection, even if you disagree.
DAN: Fuck that. I’m done. I hate Japan anyway; I told you, I don’t want to go there.
PATRICIA: Are you resigning?
DAN: Damn right I am, and I’m going to go to the press. This is not safe, and I’ll have no part in this. If you’re not going to listen to me, then I guess there’s no choice.
PATRICIA: Perhaps you should reconsider...
- Dan Brovski, private recordings, tape no. 18 transcription (2112, 2nd Era)
They pushed into the facility, ignoring the blaring announcements telling them to proceed to the testing chamber and the “helpful” reminders that they were going in the wrong direction.
“Lucky and Stein are dead,” Rochester summed up grimly as he paced by the rest of the Pack, a revolver in his hand as they peered into the black windows on either side. “That was their bodies by that door.” Erec watched the leader, rubbing at his temple with the back of his palm. Undeniably, those two corpses were trying to get out, and it appeared all the Pendragons knew exactly who they were by the rest of the dark expressions they cast.
The “open area,” which served as an industrial storage space merged with a lounge, quickly split into different parts of the facility. The layout was like a spiderweb, and Erec didn’t like the thought of the spider lurking in the depths of the web. “That doesn’t mean they all are. It tests people, right?”
“That's what it does,” Enide said darkly from Erec’s side, her eyes scanning everywhere. “Tests.”
“Think, Enide, do you remember now? We’re here again,” said Rochester. “Anything at all come back to you? You were down here for days. There’s got to be something in that head of yours that’d give us an advantage,” he asked her, his gun waving about as he scanned the rooms they passed by.
Some of them open and deserted labs, others offices. All of it pristine. But the doors that held the most weight were locked up; Erec knew any dangerous technology could be behind them. Since they didn’t know what they were looking for and didn’t want to tick off the AI yet, they hadn’t started chopping doors down. But at this pace and without clear directions from VAL, he already felt the urge to start tearing things apart.
Enide didn’t respond to the question, and Rochester cleared his throat. The Pendragons came to a stop, arranging themselves around their leader and blocking off Enide.
What is this bullshit? We don’t have time.
“Answer me, girl,” Rochester said.
Erec popped his neck, ready to step in, but Yniol beat him to the punch, putting himself between the leader of the Pack and his daughter. “If she had an answer, she woulda gave it years ago when ya first asked about it. All she knows is what she already told us.”
“She told us nothing. She told us this place is bad. That it tests, what the fuck does that even mean? Come on, girl, do you remember the last time you were here yet? Is it clicking? Think of your uncle, his face. Give us something, anything. What should we expect? Don’t let him die here like a rat because your head broke and you can’t figure out what you saw.” Rochester waved his gun around, puffing, his eyes darting to and fro, a bead of sweat on his skull. Those two dead Pendragons got to him. The man had believed everyone was still alive down here, and when confronted with the truth, he was starting to crack.
Erec had seen it before, but this was unacceptable. Enide bit her lip, but she still wasn’t talking. She raised her chin and glared daggers at the leader.
“You ignored me, leave my daughter alone. I told ya, we shouldn’t be here again; she shouldn’t be here again. And now we’re locked up. There’s no good digging up graves!” Yniol yelled and clenched his fists; the Knights were uneasy, looking at one another. This was Pendragon's business, but not the time for it.
