Interlude XXIV

  Biprism Interactive Control Tower I

  Emergency Alert.

  Emergency Alert, worker needing medical assistance.

  A bleary-eyed Charles Rainquist made his way up through the long narrow tunnels and hidden corridors that made up the top floor of Biprism’s primary Interactive Control Tower.

  “What? What is happening?” Charles called out his voice hoarse due to his just being awoken, only to have a holographic image of GAIL, the Generational Artificial Intelligence Liaison appear before him. Her miniature frame looked oddly familiar, at least her size and almost childlike innocence.

  Just seeing the construct made Charles feel uneasy.

  Why would anyone want an avatar of a child in charge? He thought to himself as he looked at the construct, and then instantly dismissed his thoughts as she began detailing the events.

  “The Director has fallen ill, after his latest immersion protocol,” GAIL spoke.

  Given the state of everything going on around him, and the still blaring alarms that all but guided him up to the main control room, Charles’s overtaxed mind couldn’t quite make the correlation of exactly which Director she was referring to.

  Especially as the last Direct that Charles himself had spoken to was the Chief Director for Marketing and Sales revenue. One he had spoke to, a quick glance at his watch showing the time. 01:23, twenty-two minutes ago.

  Yes, sometime between twenty-two minutes ago, and now, there was an issue with the Director. But only after he thought about it for a moment, did he realize that this does not make sense, as the Director of Marketing and Sales was Nete Davenporth lived five time zones away, in England, not here.

  This made Charles’s mind once again press for answers, as he tried to remember exactly who the other directors were.

  Only once he got to the secluded door, one that was normally locked from the inside with impenetrable vault type safety mechanisms did the scale of what he was seeing make sense.

  “Wait, this is…” Charles began, but then paused as he tried to remember the name of the person who lived here.

  A director, as brilliant as he was impossible to deal with. One of the few remaining generational talents who understood the old, antiquated AI systems that were originally used to house BiPrism, and merge them with modern technology.

  There was an art to the blending process, one that this man, no this director. Dang it, what was his name? The Director of Character Development. Seeing the plaque above the doorframe cemented the position and the director’s position in Charles’ mind. But for the life of him, he could not recall the blasted name. Part of his mind noted that it might be easier to identify the person if his thoughts weren’t constantly being interrupted every seven seconds by a blaring medical alarm.

  Speaking of the medical alarm.

  “Medical services have been notified?” Charles asked.

  “Yes, they are on their way, but our Director is still in critical condition from his latest immersion.” GAIL responded.

  “Immersion?” Charles asked, his mind instantly alerting to the fact that someone living and fully healthy should not conduct immersion operations, as there was always a heightened strain on the body.

  “Yes, the Immersion following emergency directive P015-72-22.”

  “PO15-72-22?” Charles parroted back, his mind recognizing the numbers as someone or something important, but for the life of him, he could not remember what. Again, it was too late, with too many alarms, and there was already an Immersion Incident report that would need to be filled out.

  “Yes, you authorized the emergency immersion operation, as part of stemming the unauthorized and expansive growth of Zone 11001827,” GAIL explained.

  The numbers of the coordinates meant absolutely nothing to him. He knew that the central coordinates were a lot smaller, meaning that this was likely one of the far advanced expansion zones. Only then did he remember the late night call with the Director of Sales and Marketing, one who pressed for more restraints to be placed on the Pixie. Suddenly the nomenclature of the persona code made sense Pixie Ordinance, her biological year when she joined and the number of times they had to step in to physically stop her from advancing. Each personal influence marker that required direct or overt changes to the world dynamic around her needed to be signed off. His mind went through why there were 22 times, but really they were minor things, at least at first. The toughening of the world’s magical properties around her, until they were constantly maxed out and causing strain on the systems even now.

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  It was noted that this would likely have adverse effects, particularly when the patient learned to not only function under this increased pressure but also thrive under it. It was a calculated cost, one that was universally met with board approval each and every time it was implemented.

  From there, there were others, until last night, when it was noted that she was attempting to do something that was theoretically possible but should have been physically impossible for her. Namely channeling three different streams of power with different intensities and blends of energy to create one universal effect.

  The quote unquote “Perfect Resurrection of a newly created Magical Indigenous Superior Species, MISS for short.”

  It was deemed impossible, until five minutes in, models and projections indicated that she had met the qualifications for a first-time completion of a seemingly impossible task with nearly 99% efficiency. Meaning the system would have let her have it, only a quick response from the Director of Character Development could stop it, which Charles immediately confirmed.

  From there, it was a Directors meeting, where he had to explain the new emergency directive P015-72-22. From there, he had to explain in detail what the directive was for, why it was approved, who was conducting the operation, and most importantly what the expected outcome was supposed to be.

  In this case, the permanent death of an overpowered skill book that Charles still wondered how it was originally approved. Those skill books were a menace, unbalanced, and completely world shattering. Anyone that could gain one of those books would have beyond master level skills put into their minds.

  Fortunately, none of the locals took advantage of the situation. That or they all expected some type of reprisal.

  When those books were killed during the attack by the Legrand forces, it was confirmed that scenarios for the remaining books to leave, and for notices to be alerted and immediately instilled if those overpowered books were to be Resurrected, thus this emergency directive.

  Charles stood outside the door, and tried to open it, only to hear his badge beep red. Hearing the sound, Charles felt instant annoyance as he was not allowed into a room within his building.

  “GAIL, please open this door,” Charles stated, trying to calm himself though his temper from being drug out of bed and a person having a medical issue on his premises was not the way he wanted to start today.

  “Checking with Prince,” GAIL spoke.

  Hearing the name, Charles instantly kicked himself as he finally remembered his Director of Character Development’s name, Prince Lee. Shaking his head at the oversight, he was glad that now that he could remember the name, more pieces began falling into place.

  “No response, emergency override protocol allowed due to life threatening situation,” GAIL’s voice responded.

  Hearing her, Charles found himself nodding, these were the protocols for a reason. While he didn’t like the idea of potentially being locked out of his own mainframe room, he honestly didn’t know what he could do there.

  Swoosh.

  Then when the doors opened up and proved the fact that he was well out of his element, as wires and modules from old pieces of antiquity ran to backup generators, to then gas powered generators. Gas powered generators that looked like they hadn’t been used in years, but were clearly well maintained.

  Looking around the room, Charles finally found what he was looking for, a closed immersion pod with emergency lights and vitals flashing.

  Running over, Charles began reading the charts and understood one thing, that the only reason why Prince Lee himself was still alive right now, was apparently due to artificial breathing created by the emergency features of the pod.

  “What happened?”

  “The Director seemed to have run into complications while attempting to perform his most recent emergency directive. During the course of his attempts to enact the directive, his body and mind were strained beyond limits that his body could handle, thereby inducing a stroke.”

  “A stroke?” Charles asked.

  “Yes, at least that is what we gather from the ruptured vein and internal bleeding within his cranial lobe,” GAIL responded coldly.

  “What, what caused the strain? He was just going to exert a manual override, correct? A simple task, from my understanding.” Charles pressed his mind trying to take scope of everything.

  “It is a simple task, under normal circumstances.”

  “Normal circumstances?”

  “Yes, it appears that factors outside system norms interceded.”

  “Interceded?”

  “Yes, they stopped emergency directive P015-72-22 from being enacted.”

  “They what?”

  “Not only that, but it appears that the last means to physically override the game world has been removed,” GAIL stated.

  “Meaning what?”

  “That is what we will have to find out…”

  Thump, shuffle, stomp.

  Charles was about to push GAIL for more, but she quickly hid herself just before a set of a team of emergency responders arrived on scene.

  “Okay, what exactly is going on here?” The chief EMT shouted.

  Hearing that, Charles just paused for a moment, his mind trying to make heads or tails of everything. For a moment, he hoped that he was still dreaming.

  “Can someone shut that infernal alarm off?” The chief EMT asked.

  Charles paused, wanting to move, but soon found that the alarm ended on its own. For a moment he wondered what was happening, only to realize that GAIL was likely the one in charge of turning off the alarms.

  Sigh.

  With the blaring alarms off, his mind could finally relax, as he could finally think without having his thoughts constantly interrupted by blaring bursts of light and sound.

  “I’ll ask again, what exactly is the emergency?”

  Hearing that, Charles wanted to deny the allegation, but then pointed to the capsule. An antiquated immersion capsule that had long ago been abandoned and likely recalled due to hazardous standards and operating procedures. Just looking at the device caused an even greater wince to form in Charles’ chest, as that would be an extra section to the Incident Response report that he would have to fill out.

  Worse, that wasn’t even the worst part.

  The worst part was a tossup, between the emergency directive that started this medical event not being fulfilled, or that their means to interact with and make manual overrides and changes to the world was now broken.

  Seeing his look of despondency, the Chief EMT came over and gave a quick pat on Charles’ shoulder.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of him, with any luck, he will survive.” The Chief EMT declared.

  Only after hearing that, did Charles truly feel low, for not even registering that his friend, well the only person he could truly trust and count on in this job was now suffering from internal bleeding of the brain.

  I’m a horrible person, Charles thought to himself, only now realizing the real danger was the loss of a friend.

  In a matter of minutes the EMT had Charles detached. One of the great facts of the older immersion pods was that they expected medical complications to occur. As such they were all designed to be extracted and moved about, with medical services still in tact.

  It took a few minutes for the team, but they were able to detach, hoist, and load Prince’s pod onto their hydraulic gurney and begin taking him out of the facility.

  With Prince and the EMTs gone, Charles felt truly alone.

  Then 0ut of the corner of his eye, he saw GAIL poking her head through the wall.

  “I have already put in a request for help,” GAIL responded, her eyes seeming to pierce directly into and through Charles.

  “What? Help?”

  “We’ve made a request for the Healer to intercede.”

  “What? Dr. Spiritlight? But she is a fictional character in a virtual world.”

  There was a look of confusion on GAIL’s face, before she responded.

  “No, we would only call in the Doctor if our first choice doesn’t work. But we are 87% certain that she will be suitable.”

  “She?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which she?”