Chapter Forty One – Another World: Six

Havery sat in his office, staring at his computer in annoyance. There, listed before him, was the newest game review of Tread the Sky, and it did not look good.

“While massive in scope and crowd appeal, Tread the Sky differentiates itself in almost no way from prior titles of a similar nature. It currently boasts a massive playerbase, but this is due more to the overwhelmingly positive reception of Exenium Immersion Technology’s Neurosync, which finally allowed VR to override player nervous systems. This alone makes the game amazing. Anything else about it is utterly mundane. It gets kudos for being the first in a new world of VR gaming, but other companies like Blizzard and Valve are quickly closing the gap by building anticipation for MMOs of their own, utilizing the new technology.”

The review rambled on about how the game was generic and kind of boring. It had a main story quest that players had trouble finishing due to the brutal level requirements, and those requirements could not be changed since half the goal of the game had been to make one where only actually skilled players could rise to max level.

Of course that had been immediately borked by glitches and faulty mob drops that a few enterprising players had capitalized on, but that would hopefully be ironed out sooner or later.

Perhaps attempting something like that had been foolish. Havery’s character was only level 12, and he found himself dying because he personally wasn’t skilled enough to utilize the stats of his character. Theoretically, the story could be completed in its entirety by a level one character, but the actual player would have to be a freaking ninja in real life in order to pull it off. About fifteen people had already done so, but high stats and levels were required for the endgame content and raids.

There were also unforeseen real world problems that the game was causing. Players, having grown accustomed to being able to climb trees or houses, or jump over rivers, were idiotically attempting those feats in real life. With oddly varying degrees of success.

Playing the game was like exercising because the system actually took over the body’s nervous system and… flexed for lack of a better term. Rather than simulating muscled strain, the Neurosync simply induced the muscles needed for whatever in game action the player was attempting, at a reasonable level. Basically exercising, so players were getting stronger, and faster, by playing.

Alas, they were not getting smarter. YouTube was going insane.

Still, numbers were up despite a surprisingly heartbreaking amount of negative reviews about Tread the Sky. People were playing, but they weren’t happy about it. The review he had just read gave the game a 6.2 out of 10. Pretty abysmal. Yet there were more subscribers every month.

Havery dreaded the day one of the big game companies managed to build their own MMO with the new tech, but for now at least, they were king.

Not for the first time, he regretted deciding to remain with GypsEnergy, rather than flipping over to manage the software design of Exenium when he’d been given the chance, back when this whole project had been in the early development stages and they hadn’t even hired a lead designer yet. Exenium’s Neurosync had taken off in ways he would never have believed. Mostly because the tech had kind of scared him at the time.

Nervous system control sounded like a lawsuit waiting to happen. Apparently, people were more than happy to give that up for either a pain free couple of hours, or the ability to realistically feel like they were able to jump ten feet into the air.

Both sensations were, admittedly, awesome.

He flipped back to his emails and found another one from the lead developer, Frank. He sighed. The man annoyed him at times. He was a god-damn genius, but his sheer love for what he did kind of overpowered just how smug he might otherwise be about it. The man had ridiculous job security, which wouldn’t be a problem if he didn’t know it.

Frank’s position was about a hundred times more secure than his own.

The email turned out to be another employee evaluation. Frank – and wasn’t it so weird to know that his real name was actually Francis? – had been diligently knocking those out for the past few days. He had a pretty sizable team and most of them were great at their jobs. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean the game was great.

Another email just below it caught his attention, though. Jason Stewart was a young minimum-wager, a CSA who handled day-to-day complaints from gamers. He’d met the boy – well, man, if only just – outside of work at a bar nearby the office, and was a little surprised to discover they worked at the same company.

Initially he’d been suspicious the boy was angling for a promotion, but they’d had no contact since then and that had been nearly three months ago. Spotting the email now had him curious.

The subject line read: “Concerned with a Complaint. Please advise.”

Even more curious, Havery opened the email to read.

Mr. Havery Barquet,

I doubt you remember me. We met a few months ago at Shakers, and played a few games of pool? Sorry to disturb you but I’m a little disturbed by an in-game complaint I received a little while ago. I passed it to my sup, but they thought it was spam and told me to ignore it. I… don’t feel comfortable doing that though.

You see, the complaint involved possible In-Game Human Trafficking. I thought it was bogus at first too but then I looked a little deeper. I tried to ping the player in question and found that the player had no account, and no nervous-system statistics, yet still registered as an active player.

My boss, Mr. Chandler, thought the whole thing was an elaborate prank, but… well. I was just hoping you could advise me on where I should take this? I know you probably don’t often look at low level complaints like this, but it really has me concerned.

Thanks, and have a great day!

Jason Stewart,

Customer Service Agent I – (133) 555 - 0150

GypsEnergy Entertainment Inc.

Well, it didn’t look like one of those spam tests. Attached was a player complaint file with a corresponding date and time. Since he couldn’t see anything indicating the email might be fraudulent, he opened the attachment.

‘Brave kid, coming all the way to me with this,’ Havery thought, amused.

He read the complaint file, submitted by… ugh. He rolled his eyes at the name. Iron Crock? No wonder Mr. Chandler disregarded the complaint. Havery almost did the same but continued reading out of morbid curiosity. His eyes widened with each word. Was this… could this really be a legitimate human trafficking incident?

He forwarded the email on down to Francis. Much as he hated it, the man knew the game like the back of his hand. If something like this were really possible, Francis would know.

Havery got up and began the trek down to the fourth floor, where Frank’s office was. Silly as the idea might be, if there was even a chance that there was merit to the complaint he and his own bosses would need to be all over it like a wildfire on underbrush. He wasn’t really very worried but… better safe than sorry.

He stepped out of the elevator and walked towards Frank’s office when he caught wind of a discussion between the man in question and one of his team.

“I asked if we’d considered just asking Gell if she knows anything about her functions?” Donna-Lou’s voice floated out of a cubicle catching Havery’s attention.

Gell? Wasn’t that the name of…?

“Are… are you crazy? It’s a program. You can’t just ask a program what it does,” Frank called from the office, sounding assured as always.

‘Annoying prick,’ Havery thought, knowing it was unfair even as he thought it. Frank wasn’t a bad sort. It just annoyed Havery that his livelihood often depended on the man for things he didn’t understand.

“Did you just say Gell?” he asked, making himself known.

“Oh. Hi boss!” Frank called. “What brings you down here?”

It was absolutely impossible to stay mad at the man. He sighed. “Hello Frank. I just sent you an email with a complaint from a CSA. I normally wouldn’t make a big deal about it but the subject line is certainly worrisome. Then, I just overheard Miss Donna mention a character named Gell? That is curiously exactly who the complaint was about, though it seems you already know about it?”

Frank looked poleaxed. “You… got a complaint about Gell?”

“Yes, and I’m glad to see you’re already on the problem, in some form.” Havery said, now more curious than ever. “Check your email, please. Forwarded from me. While you check that, can you tell me what you know about Gell?”

“Yeah… its… well...” Havery quirked an eyebrow at Frank’s flummoxed expression. It wasn’t often the man was caught flat-footed. “You remember the shutdown a few days back? That was caused by an in-game mob overflowing its item cap?”

Havery nodded. He would’ve spoken but was afraid he might say something stupid and give Frank his moxy back. It was enjoyable seeing the man on the backfoot for once.

“Well… the fix was to give that mob player-status. Unfortunately, the mob, Gell, isn’t staying still or acting like a mob at all. It's… frankly fascinating.”

“Fascinating as it is, she doesn’t look much like a program, in game. Look at her image in this article,” Donna said, standing up and walking over to Frank’s office door with her tablet in hand. “People are meeting with it. Interacting.”

She touched the tablet to the screen on the wall, syncing the displays, before pulling up the image of a… girl. A strange… blue-teal skinned girl with glowing polka dot freckles. She looked mostly human except her hair looked more like the tentacles of a jellyfish, and her ears extended out like fins. She wore a set of simple leather armor, and a pair of seashell pauldrons.

The scene showed an image from a place Havery had never visited in-game, since it was nowhere near his chosen starting zone.

“That’s not an in-game race,” Havery commented, puzzled. “I would know, I had to vet them all. It’s not a mob either.”

“Wait… that’s Gell!?” Frank asked, sounding shocked. “That’s… that’s impossible. If anything she should look like a glitched out menace. There shouldn’t have been any code written to generate her appearance!”

“Check the article’s title. Someone knows about her, Boss. They’re jumping to conclusions but… well. Maybe not, eh?”

Havery and Frank both followed her advice as she scrolled up. Glancing to the top of the screen, he read the headline that prefaced the article and the image.

“Tread the Sky experimenting with volatile Artificial Intelligence!? Gamers Beware! Meet Gell, the Jellyfae! The cutest digital creature to access your personal information yet!”

Havery’s eyes widened. “We’re experimenting with what now!?”