LevelUP: an 8-bit novel by Micah Joel. Author's definitive online edition.
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“You…you’ve got a HUD too?”
Isidore doesn’t seem to notice, wrestling with the giant knife switch; a noisy electrical arc erupts across the contacts. With both hands, he pins the lever into the OFF position.
The giant monitor flickers and blinks “No Signal” a few times before blanking out entirely. Ozone fills the room with an eye-watering whiff.
“Matter of fact, I do.”
“I thought Humans First people didn’t like tech,” Max says.
Isidore shoots him a look. “Technology is not the problem.” He steps onto the platform outside the coffin. “Walk with me.” He takes them to a round table set up in the corner of the vast open hangar space. A narrow shaft of the early morning sun shines through a pitted hole in the metal wall, making a blurry oval on the table. There are dilapidated office chairs positioned around it. They sit.
“This is confusing,” Max says. “And I still have no idea how my father or I got wrapped up in this. Or what this is in the first place.”
“Your father,” Isidore says, looking Max in the eyes, “is responsible for all of this.”
Max sits in silence long enough for the words to sink in. “What do you mean?” he finally asks. “Are you saying Hadley Root caused Damage?”
“What do you know of that thing we saw back there?” Isidore asks.
“It was a computer program,” Max says. “A machine.”
“Can it think?” Isidore asks.
“Yes,” Molly says without hesitation.
Max has to think a bit before answering, but he agrees.
“Can it feel?” Isidore asks.
This time, Molly and Max both answer immediately.
“Yes,” Molly says.
“No,” Max says.
“There, you see? Already we have a healthy debate,” Isidore says.
“Machines can’t feel. They’re, well, machines,” Max says.
“You and I are machines. Really, really complicated ones, but machines nonetheless,” Molly counters.
“So, if I were to imprison a machine, would it be a moral act or not?” Isidore asks.
“That depends,” Max says.
“Really,” Isidore says. “On what?”
Max sputters, trying to find words. Of course, humans are distinct from computers. How else could it be?
“The opposite scenario is more worrying,” Molly says.
Isidore raises his eyebrows. “Go on.”
“The case where the machines imprison humans.”
“Give the young lady a gold star,” Isidore says. “But humans have been imprisoned by machines from a time much earlier than the advent of AI. Technology is not the problem. People are. That’s why we need to make sure the good ones stay on top. Let’s go retrieve the last trophy.”
“And figure out how to get the other four back from Hemera,” Max adds.
“We have that contingency planned for,” Isidore says.
“What about the scroll?” Max asks.
“Scroll? What scroll?” Isidore asks.
“Well, one of the earlier nodes had a, for lack of a better term, pixelated version of my dad,” Max says. “He gave it to me.”
Isidore’s brow furrows. “A node avatar looked like Hadley? Say more.”
“It was a pretty uninspired 2d platformer,” Max says. “Jumping over barrels and the like. The biggest attraction was a pixelated version of, well, Hadley Root. Said it was a training mission for me.”
“This was the node near the LevelUP branch building?” Isidore asks.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Max says.
“That node was compromised. I wouldn’t trust a thing that came from there,” Isidore says.
“Wait, compromised?” Max says. “That can’t be. We followed the address. Went to the library and everything in order to figure it out. It led us to the underground room with the node.”
“Underground?” Isidore asks. “What in the world are you talking about?”
How could Isidore not know about this? “The shed? The trapdoor led underground to a—”
“Trapdoor?” Isidore says. “Underground?”
“Look, I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing,” Max says, “but it’s pretty insulting for you to stand here and tell me you didn’t know about a trapdoor in your own cabin.”
“A physical trapdoor, through the floor?” Isidore says. “Leading to what?”
“I think he really has no idea,” Molly says. Coming from her, that’s quite a statement.
“No,” Max insists. “You just said the node was compromised. You knew about the node. You had to know about the Colossal Cave—I mean, the tunnels.”
“The compromised node was above ground,” Isidore says, his voice pitching with emotion. “I swear it.”
“Wait,” Max says. “Nodes need to broadcast. They need an antenna. So how did an underground node work? How would the signal get out?”
“You say you found a trophy there?” Isidore says.
“Yeah,” Max says.
Isidore strokes his chin. “Okay, tell me more about the scroll?”
“It disappeared as soon as I figured out how to read it to the end,” Max says.
“I knew there was more than you were telling me,” Isidore says. “Anything else you want to come clean on?”
Neither Max nor Molly answers.
“So, your inventory is empty right now?” Isidore asks Max.
Max realizes he’s never actually checked inventory since he lost the trophies. Visually, in-game, he saw them…at least most of them. “Inventory,” he says.
INVENTORY:
* IVORY TORCH OF THE ENDLESS FIRE
Max sinks into his char. “All I have is a stupid ivory torch. What good does that do me?”
Isidore suddenly looks interested. “Where did you get that? Have you used it yet?”
“I got it from The Eigenthief,” Max says.
“Eigen-what?” Isidore asks.
“Molly thought it was an AI and related to the black slime. But he appeared in a different world.”
“Brain Attic,” Molly says. “I was there.”
“That’s an old game,” Isidore says. “It was around way before Damage happened. What did this Eigenthief look like?”
“The Eigenthief,” Molly corrects.
“Excuse me?”
“His name was The Eigenthief. Including ‘The’ always.” Molly says.
“He was kind of, well, dashing,” Max says. “With a very generous opinion of himself.”
“I knew it,” Isidore says. “That’s the original.”
“Including ‘the’?” Molly asks.
Isidore looks confused for a second. “No, not a proper name. You encountered what was likely the first AI to emerge. In a way, that set into motion the events that culminated in Damage. I’m surprised it survived. That blows a huge hole in Hadley’s theory. I wonder if he ever found out…”
Max’s head spins. “Well, I never used the torch. It doesn’t seem to do anything.”
“Try it,” Isidore says,
“Now?” Max’s first instinct is to argue, but at this point, what would be the point? “Use ivory torch,” Max commands.
THE PENETRATING REFULGENCE OF THE IVORY TORCH OF THE ENDLESS FIRE LIGHTS THE WAY. THE INVISIBLE MYSTERIOUS SCROLL BECOMES VISIBLE AGAIN.
Max’s eyes widen. “I still have the scroll.”
“So what?” Molly asks. “You already read the whole scroll.”
“I did,” Max says. “At least I thought I did.” What did it say again? “Read scroll.”
THE PLACE WHERE YOU FIRST BEGAN
Max reads it out loud. What does it mean? A reference to LevelUP corporation? Or the Lockheed camp?
“That’s it?” Isidore asks.
“Let me try again. Unroll scroll,” Max says.
BENEATH THE GLOW OF THE TORCH YOU DISCOVER AN UNREAD CORNER OF THE SCROLL
“No, wait, there’s something else here. Read scroll.”
ALL YOUR BASE BELONG HERE[24]
Max reads it out loud for the others. “Wow, nice grammar. What’s it mean?”
“That the translators were in a hurry,” Molly says.
“Anything else?” Isidore asks.
“No, nothing—wait—” When Max blinks, he gets a flicker of…something else. More than text in his HUD. An image. A map. He blinks more. Markers numbered 1 through 5 arrayed in space. “I know where all the trophies are.”
There’s no geographic reference—no way to tie the markers to physical locations. But the first four are clustered tightly together—presumably on Hemera’s location. And they’re on the move. The elusive fifth trophy isn’t far away. And Hemera’s getting closer…
“Then you know Hemera is getting close,” Isidore says.
“I know it, yeah. But how do you?” Max counters. “Who do you have whispering into your brainstem?”
“It’s not like that,” Isidore says. “It’s a piece of kit. A stolen piece of kit.”
“Kit?” Molly says.
“Right, Yanks,” Isidore says. “Tech. Equipment. The Big Three were collaborating on the best user interface for an intelligent personal assistant. They produced a self-assembling array of bioluminescent chromatophore stem cells that arrange themselves in just the right part of your eye to blink messages at you.”
“You mean, a HUD,” Max says.
“Yes, that’s right,” Isidore says.
Max presses on with his line of argument. “Since Damage, I take it the tech got pretty far along, at least for rich folk. The tech you described sounds like it’s only a dumb terminal. Not much use without a computer attached. Or a connection to another person.”
“Yes, quite astute,” Isidore says.
“It’d need top-grade security. Disaster if hackers got into someone’s head and could send messages at will. Nightmare material there,” Max says.
“That’s right. The committee thought that would be the biggest obstacle toward widespread uptake,” Isidore says.
“How did they resolve it?” Max asks.
“So far as I know, they didn’t,” Isidore says. “They were still working on a solution when Damage flattened the global economy. LevelUP solved the problem, though, and in so doing found a way to partially bypass the technology lock. It involves active mitigation via embedded low-level AI—not something that helped much in convincing people it’s safe to use. You’ve seen a more developed version of it.” The black slime. “It’s a terrible hack, but all of their advanced products are based on it. Including the units we’ve, uh, obtained from them.”
“You’re a Humans First revolutionary with an AI riding around in your head,” Max says.
“Know thy enemy,” Isidore responds.
“Wait, are you saying my HUD has an AI in it?” Max asks, his heart racing.
“No. Yours is vintage. But not mine.” Isidore says.
Molly starts bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Not good!”
Isidore looks at her sideways.
“I’m with you on that one,” Max says. Then his HUD lights up with text.
PROXIMITY WARNING
“Proximity warning?” Max says.
“I see it too.” Isidore’s brow furrows. “We tightly control every node within broadcast range. In fact, while we’ve been chatting, I’ve had technicians double-check every antenna under our jurisdiction. It’s all clean. Who is communicating with you?”
“I was about to ask you the same,” Max says.
“Not the trophy,” Molly says. “Not the trophy.”
For once, Max is on the same wavelength as Molly. “That’s not a trophy proximity warning.”
“Hemera?” Isidore says, alarmed. “Why didn’t the perimeter alert go off?”
“Not like that,” Max says. “She’s closing in on the final trophy. She’s about to have them all. That’s what’s proximate.”
Molly seems calmer now. “Yes, that,” she says.
Max gives Molly a chaste peck on the cheek. “You’re a genius,” he says. Her cheek feels warm. He turns to Isidore: “Now what?”
“We cut her off at the knees,” he says. “Metaphorically. Come.”
footnotes
[24] http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/all-your-base-are-belong-to-us
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