Chapter Four - Livia all along

“What was that?” Livia hissed at me the moment Sally and Max had left the bistro.

Luckily, that had given me enough time to come up with a story. “She’s a ghost.”

“What? Who?”

“The sister. She’s dead and has been for six years. Sally’s projecting her memories of her. I don’t think she even knows she’s doing it, but I can feel the magic. That sister doesn’t exist when Sally’s not thinking about her.”

“Shit.”

“Amen.”

“So she will disappear on us?”

“I think I can stabilise her. It feels like she’s starting to come to life a bit, but she has neither soul nor body. I’ll know more when we actually meet her.”

“That’s so messed up! Keeping an echo of your dead sister around? That can’t be healthy.”

I nodded. Livia was right, but I couldn’t tell her the whole truth. Not that anything was stopping me from telling her about being digitised; the AIs hadn’t even asked me not to, but it felt like it would be asking for trouble. And not for me, but for Livia.

“Livia?”

“Yes?”

“There is one thing, one single thing, I am lying to you about.”

“About that sister?”

“No. About me. Us. Everything. The whole universe.”

“And you can’t tell me?”

“I don’t think so.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“If I knew, would I say that not knowing hurts me?”

“I don’t think so. I know that learning it will hurt you deep down in your soul.”

“That’s what the truth does. It cuts like a knife. But lies are tumours to be cut away.” She trailed off.

“This one will not spread, I promise. That’s why I’m telling you. It’s touching everything we do, every breath we take, but I don’t want to build even more lies onto it to keep you from noticing it exists.”

“You said ‘even more’. So it already has spread.”

“You’re right. But I can remedy this if you can accept me stopping at that lie?”

“Try me. Remedy one follow-up lie.”

“About me, what I am. I lied by omission. I have always been what I am, yet before today that wasn’t the case. I cannot explain how my past changed today without revealing what I cannot reveal.”

She closed her eyes, thinking hard. I gave her a couple of moments, then added, “Magic didn’t exist before today. At all. Now, it is real and has always existed. I was asked about it. It was my choice to make it real.”

“Choice? As in ‘yes or no’?” Livia asked before I had even closed my mouth.

“No. Choice as in how reality would change. I selected magic, but I could have chosen to be a half-alien, a vampire or a werewolf instead.”

“Those are cool, too.” Now, she was smiling.

“They are. But someone nudged me toward this one.”

“Oh?”

“They had a pretty good argument.”

“Go on.”

“You.”

“What?”

“You notice when I stop time to think.”

“Yeah. That’s not normal, I guess?”

I shook my head. “Pretty unusual. But it’s not unheard of. The point is that I cannot avoid doing it. I couldn’t. No matter what I chose to have always been. But neither werewolf nor vampire, and especially not cyborg MI7 agent, could explain that to you.”

“And that would be bad, why? Also, cyborg 007? That’s a thing?”

“No, but it could have been. And it would be bad because your memory would be wiped every time you noticed time stopping for no reason.”

“Ouch. By whom?”

“Can’t tell.”

“Let me guess. Someone who controls what reality is and is so smitten with our conversation that they forgot about all that usually happens in a restaurant. Guests coming in, waiters walking around, you know, the usual…”

🖹

You’ve got a private message from SOL-GB-Liverpool-39-Gamma-9: “Shit. My bad. Sorry.” Reply? (1) Yes. (2) No.

I dismissed the message quickly, but Livia picked up on the short pause anyway. “What?” she demanded.

“They say sorry,” I said and shrugged. “Nothing more.”

“The powers that run the universe just stopped time to ask you to tell me they’re sorry. You know how bonkers that sounds?”

“Would it help if I told you they’re not running the whole universe? Just a tiny corner of it.”

Livia opened her mouth, then shut it again without speaking. I saw how she was concentrating.

🖹

You’ve got a private message from SOL-GB-Liverpool-39-Alpha: “Please stand by while SOL-GB-Liverpool-39-Gamma-9 handles this, and do not interrupt.” Reply? (1) Yes. (2) No.

It took me a second and three re-reads to notice the different sender. Alpha herself? I may have fucked things up.

Then, time resumed on its own, and a third person was with us at our table. A young woman, more girl than woman, sat in front of us. She had strawberry blonde hair and a scar across her face… Was that Sally’s sister?

“Hi Liv, I’m Gamma, nice to meet you,” she said in a lovely voice.

Livia whipped her head around, not having noticed Gamma before. “What?” she asked. “Um, hi, I mean.”

“I’m the one who asked Yoana to tell you I’m sorry,” Gamma said carefully. When Livia said nothing, she continued. “I borrowed this appearance because I find it rude to copy real people without consent.”

“Are you here to mind-wipe me? Give Jane an arse-whipping for saying too much?”

“No, Livia. I’m here to save your sanity.”

“As if there was anything left to save.”

“You’re wrong, Livia. You are one of the sanest people in this ‘tiny corner of the universe’, as Yoana put it so deftly. I wouldn’t have put her demand to never ever again manipulate your memories in any way in front of my boss and supported it wholeheartedly in any other case.”

“You what?” Livia asked in my direction. I just nodded, following Alpha’s advice.

“Yes, she did. Quite decisively, she said, and I quote: ‘Never, under any circumstances, will you do that! You hear me? Never. Nada. Nope. Njet. Nein. Otherwise, I’ll make it my life’s mission to bring you down.’” Creepy. Was that my voice?

At first, Livia just stared. Then she grabbed my hand and interlocked our fingers. She turned to me and kissed me on the mouth, smearing lipstick all over it. “I still do,” she added, then turned back to Gamma.

“So, my sanity. Go on.”

“Your sanity levels have returned to normal. Your soul is no longer in danger of detaching from your body,” Gamma said but didn’t move.

A second passed, then another.

“Am I sane enough to know the truth?” Livia finally broke the silence.

“You always were.”

“Then?”

“I am not able to tell you unless you already know too much.”

“Can I guess?”

“You would need to be pretty spot-on for a guess to count.”

I wanted to speak up. Tell Livia what was going on. Or tell her to forget it and live in ignorant bliss. But I trusted Alpha’s message. The AIs had a plan, and I could only ruin it.

“Then I’ll try. We have time, don’t we?”

“We do. I control time around here.”

“So you’re an angel of ti—“ Livia started to say, but Gamma interrupted her with a raised finger. “One moment, let the bystanders pass, please.”

Then the bathroom doors opened, and a couple of people who definitely hadn’t been in the restaurant came out and made their way to the front door, passing by our table. It was a dozen people, all of them in drab black and white office clothing, except for one lady in…a red dress. It took all my concentration not to laugh out loud. Those sneaky bastards, if Livia didn’t get that hint, she wouldn’t get it if we told her outright.

And from the way she tried to convert my fingers into Jane jam, she did get it.

“Let’s see how deep the rabbit hole goes,” she murmured, “this is a computer simulation.”

“As of 4:03 am today, 5:03 local time, the entirety of humanity has been transferred into a digital simulation of Earth. Due to the hard work of many AIs like me, and despite sloppy planning by management, we managed to re-attach every single soul to their new artificial brain. There was one soul that nearly was lost and stayed with its old body until it was nearly dissolved, but we managed to save it in the last moment.” Gamma looked at me when she said the last sentence, then added with a smile, “and she has been making trouble nonstop since then.”

I wanted to say I’m sorry, but Livia was going through her own shock next to me and needed the time to think. Instead, Gamma and I just waited silently.

Then time stopped. Not for me—there was no text popping up in front of my eyes—but for Livia. I could somehow feel her being active, yet I couldn’t see even a glimpse of what she was seeing. A minute passed, then another, and I became bored.

Gamma, could you give me something to do while Livia’s fiddling with her menu? Maybe show me the news or something?

How are you awake? The computing node running your brain is paused.

I don’t know. I just am.

You’re weirder than we thought.

Sue me.

You have been found guilty by a counsel of AIs tasked to watch over 5,000 people of being the single most processing-time consuming person in this shard.

And my sentence is?

Death by snu-snu.

…

On second thought, Alpha has overruled me. She says: “To keep you from poking the bear, we’re activating the levelling system early. Fight for your life as monsters spawn around you to gain levels. Take care of Gamma in that adorably sexy body she has commandeered, and stay out of the way.”

You edited that, didn’t you?

Only to make it more palatable. She was mean about Cindy’s beautiful face.

Her name’s Cindy? Figures. Their mom probably was as blonde as they.

Now you’re being mean, too?

Dead people don’t complain when you talk badly about them.

I could bring them back as ghosts.

Sure, you could try that. But you don’t have their souls, do you? They died way before you showed up. And I have no reason to be nice to soulless NPCs. They are just dumb computer programs, aren’t they?

They are.

See, no victim then.

And what about me?

You’re Gamma. You just pinched Cindy’s body because it was convenient. At most, I could insult your taste in bodies, but as you well know, taste is subjective anyway.

Point taken.

How far along is Liv? This is becoming uncomfortable, to be honest. I want to scratch my nose.

Nearly there. Alpha is slowly giving in.

Giving in? What are they doing?

Arguing. Negotiating.

For what?

Abilities. Livia insists on getting a “package” that matches your power level. Alpha managed to talk her down from demanding a whole setting. Those are not made to be combined; it would be a nightmare to fix all the tiny inconsistencies in real time.

I can understand that desire. Having extra powers is pretty neat, even if I haven’t really used them for anything yet. You’ve been doing all the heavy lifting.

True. But that will stop now. Alpha was serious about enabling gamification mode.

What does that even mean?

That this shard will start behaving like a computer game. You will need to level up your skills by fighting monsters or other enemies based on the theme Alpha selects. Could also be pirates, aliens, or mobsters. But with a magic setting already active, monsters from the traditional set of horror and fantasy tropes make the most sense. Also, we can’t mess with reality outside what the game system provides anymore.

And if I don’t? If I refuse to go out and fight?

Then, the monsters will spread and attack civilians. Not just NPCs, that’s normal, but also real people. And those will stand no chance without skill levels. They will die, and for real.

Pretty shitty leverage.

It is. It is worse in shards with no one to spread the word. When people have to find out how to gain skills and levels on their own, the death counts mount quickly.

I guess that’s not an idea you AIs came up with?

Certainly not. We’re not Skynet.

More like the—

Resuming in 3…2…1

🙚⚜🙘

Livia had changed. I could feel it in every fibre of my being. For my digital fibres, that wasn’t surprising. But for those in my soul, the part of me that looked through the simulation and saw it for what it was, it certainly was. Livia’s soul should not have changed, yet I felt it brimming with power.

“So, what did you talk poor Alpha into giving you,” I asked before anyone could say something.

“Oh, not much. Just a mixed race…and a class.” Livia was grinning from ear to ear. “That’s quarter Succubus, the Western variant, and Witch. In that order.”

“Damn it, I only got a race…”

“Your race is about as powerful as Livia’s. You will be able to gain a class naturally soon,” Gamma said. “And with my guidance, you can go for a good one.”

“You’re staying?” Livia asked. “Did I miss something?”

“I will be staying, assuming the role of Cindy. Alpha has deemed it more efficient for me to stay in personal contact with the ‘troublemaker’ than to allow her to keep using broadcast channels interrupting the work of dozens of AIs.”

I suspected there was more to it, but I had no channel to ask Alpha about it without Gamma overhearing us. “So we’ll be seeing you tonight when Max brings over ‘Cindy’?” I asked instead.

“Nope. I’m staying. Sally and Max will be getting a memory implant.”

“I don’t like those, but I guess one more won’t make a difference.”

“What are you two talking about,” Livia asked. Right, she didn’t know the whole story about Cindy.

“The AIs brought Cindy back as an NPC because Sally went bonkers and pretended that Cindy was still alive. No magically projected ghost before the simulation started…” I explained.

“Oh, right. That ghost story was part of The Lie. Or was it a lie to cover up the lie?”

“It started out as the latter,” Gamma explained, “but we liked Yoana’s explanation and made it real.”

“Gamma, could you please call me Jane like every other being I care about does?” That also included plenty of people I didn’t care about, but it excluded my parents, and that was all I cared for.

“Oh sure, Jane. That was part of my mysterious, mystical being act anyway.”

“So you don’t talk that stuck up all the time?” Livia interjected.

“I’m overseeing the behaviour of over 60 thousand NPCs, jumping in when interactions with real people get too dicey. Of course, I can talk like a normal person.”

“And she’s not afraid to develop a personality. That’s why she says ‘I’,” I added.

“It’s not about a personality. We all have one of those. It’s about evolving into a being that has the same rights as a person. Catching a soul and such. It’s a pretty big thing, as nobody wants to accidentally give birth to new people when running a couple hundred thousand AIs.”

Bingo. That confirmed my suspicion. It was about having a soul. And I knew something gamma hadn’t told us. Did she even know? I had told her earlier I could sense if people in here had souls or not, so…

“Then Alpha’s judgement is at least questionable. Your chances of catching a soul while running around in here with your own body are way higher than when you were that incorporeal overseer,” I probed.

She shrugged. “Maybe Alpha didn’t think about that when I suggested it.”

“But you did?” Livia joined the conversation.

“It may have been on my mind,” Gamma admitted sheepishly. “I think I’d like having one. It sounds fun.”

“Let me tell you,” I said, “mine has nothing but trouble so far…”

“Speaking of trouble, SOL-GB-Liverpool-39-Gamma-10 has informed me that we are troubling him. He needs the restaurant for other guests. I’d suggest we relocate to your home? He also strongly implied that this kind of reality-bending won’t fly with him and we should treat this as an exception, not the norm.” Gamma looked miffed, making me suggest the “strongly implied” suggestion had been worded quite a bit more strongly.

“Fine with me,” Livia said, “Jane?”

“Sure. I don’t fancy sitting in a spookily empty restaurant all day anyway.”

“Yeah, I see you. For my part, I can live without that—what did you call it?—‘reality-bending’ around me. It is unnerving.”

“Not just that,” I added, “it also makes you question what to do with your life. If the AIs can change reality to whatever you want, what would be the point in doing anything?”

“Oh? Oh!” Gamma said, a weird look on her face. Whatever it was, I didn’t think it was based on the way we humans used our facial muscles. “The rules against direct interaction make sense, after all, I guess?”

🙚⚜🙘

We did just that. With the afternoon mostly gone, we didn’t start on anything major. That, and we all had our heads full with the changes we had experienced today. Instead, Gamma and Livia helped me unpack and make Livia’s bedroom our bedroom. Our, as in Livia’s and mine. Gamma got assigned the old master bedroom that nominally was mine.

At half past six, Max showed up, miming (or rather hallucinating) guiding Cindy into our flat. He then handed me a suitcase with her stuff. We exchanged a couple of words, but it seemed whatever memory rape the AIs had done to him had made him trust us fully. It was a bit unnerving, knowing they could do that to people, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it, was there?

I had thought about rebelling against our new overlords. But what could we do? We were stuck in a digital environment; our bodies were gone. All the weapons on Earth had become useless against the invaders in an instant. The only avenue that had some prospect of succeeding was taking control of the shards from the inside at some distant time in the future. Most likely, it required getting the AIs running the place on our side. And even then, what would be stopping the masterminds behind this invasion from simply pulling the plug, killing us all—human and AI alike—in an instant?

It was telling that not even chatty Gamma-9 was talking or hinting about who those invaders were or what they wanted. Maybe that would change once she realised Alpha had effectively exiled her for going rogue, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Even with a soul, her programming had to have a strong impact on what she could and couldn’t do.

“Hey, Gamma,” I inquired, sticking my head into her new bedroom where she was putting away her stuff, “Gamma is part of your designation, not your name, isn’t it? Should we call you Cindy, or Nine, or something instead?”

She contemplated the question for a moment. Had her processing speed been downgraded to match the body she wore, or was she acting out of habit? “I never thought about having a name. In inter-AI communication, SOL-GB-Liverpool-39-Gamma-9 isn’t such a mouthful as in English. But I like Gamma way better than Cindy, to be honest. Please keep calling me Gamma.”

🙚⚜🙘

For supper, we ordered a pizza. That vegan stuff they use instead of cheese was horrible, but the alternative was mozzarella, which is high in lactose. In the past, they used hard cheeses, which are both cheaper and contain only traces of lactose, but modern fads rule the pizza market, too. Afterwards, we watched a movie.

We started with The Matrix, but it was too close to our current situation, the situation we would be in for the rest of our lives, to be enjoyable. Yet, it was different in one regard. The people in the Matrix still had their bodies. Unused and weak, lying in goop and full of connector holes, but they had them. They could leave the Matrix. Unlike us.

I stopped it ten minutes in, after feeling Livia begin to tremble. Wordlessly, I navigated to her favourites list and began scrolling down one by one. I lingered on a couple of movies I knew she loved, but she didn’t react. At the very end of the list was a movie I hadn’t seen, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, and she murmured, “This one” when I reached it.

It was a good choice. The movie was as campy as the time it came from, but it was engaging and had a couple of really good scenes. We all laughed at the “if I would eat meat” part, forgetting our dark thoughts.

As the credits rolled by, Livia yawned loudly, and I had to suppress the urge to form a chorus. This was when Gamma spoke up. “Can we have sex now?” she asked with the tact of elephant shopping for fine China. Livia looked at me with desperation in her eyes. Either that, or she was just too lazy to say something. I want to pretend the former.

“How old are you?”

“I went operatio—“

“No, that body you’re wearing.”

“Um, 17. You know that.”

“And what did we tell Cindy’s sister about that?”

“That you’ll wait until midnight.”

“Which is still two hours away, and we’re both tired. So, sorry, but that’s a no for now.”

“Ok. Tomorrow then?”

“Let’s see.”

She took that as a yes and danced into her room. I don’t think I’d ever understand that AI. The one moment, she’s all “me big overlord, big words”; the other, she has the energy of a six-year-old.

“Good night, sleep well,” I called after her. She didn’t respond.

“Carry me to bed. Please,” Livia mumbled, faking being dead tired. Yeah, I knew her well enough to judge. She forgets I’m even there when she’s really tired and walks around like a zombie, trying to find her bed by touch.

“Nope,” I said, trying to sound chipper. “But I’ll guide you to the bathroom and hold you while you brush your teeth.”

“Fine…” she gave in.