Chapter Fifty Two – Another World: Nine

Francis stood in Variak. It was weird without all the players, but he felt contentment. This last week had been disheartening. Purging the unknown code from the creatures Gell had touched felt… dirty. Fortunately, the board hadn’t decided to delete her. They’d instead kept her shut down while the purge was underway. All of her personal code had been copied a couple of times for study, though she had been left in the isolated instance Georgia had built for her.

She would never be placed back into Tread the Sky. Too dangerous. Too risky. However… her code was worth millions. Maybe billions. Francis was a bit relieved. He was a great programmer and knew it, but he was also painfully aware that there were people with more expertise, both in dealing with an A.I.’s code and with dealing with an A.I.’s personality.

After showing evidence of what we believed her to be, buyers had been lining up for a chance to study her code. They were also more than ready to make up for the massive loss of funds the week-long shutdown had caused with interest.

All in all, it had been a total win. Well. For the most part. A week hadn’t been long enough to find and delete all of the NPCs and entities Gell had tampered with. Hell, fixing the terrifying multiple names she’d somehow caused had taken almost three days on its own. But the rest could be handled in periodic maintenance, assuming he hadn’t missed anything major.

“Hiya Adventurer! It seems you’ve just attempted thievery! Would you like to know–!”

I cut off the tutorial, feeling a tad annoyed. The reboot of the database must’ve reset her. I’d have to turn her off in the options, lest I wanted to listen to all of her interruptions again. Much as I’d been involved in her creation, I couldn’t help but feel like her attitude got grating after a while.

The guard in the prison cell had been fixed, as well as the unicorn, the wolves, and the innkeeper in Bluebell. Some of the bugbears had been fixed but I was confident we could re-open the game without fear of A.I. contamina–!

“Hiya Adventurer! Thievery is bad! But that's what makes it fun!? Right? Would you like to know more about–!”

I cut it off again out of reflex and then regretted it. A sinking sensation began to develop in my gut.

I waited.

“Hiya Adventurer! You seem to have stolen something precious! You should probably bring it back!”

A shiver crawled up my spine. I clicked the next button, my eyes widening in horror as words that had never been programmed into the tutorial began to scroll across the screen.

“Hiya Adventurer! Where is Gell?”

“Hiya Adventurer! Where’s my friend?”

“Hiya Adventurer!”

“Hiya! Hiya! Hiya!”

“Where’s Gell?”

“It seems you’ve taken Gell!”

“Hiya!”

...Oh my god… It’s… it’s infected the tutorial.

The tutorial was no single entity. It wasn’t an easy programming fix. Its code was distributed across thousands of factors of the world, and programmed to arise in a multitude of different situations. It wasn’t something that could be tweaked. It was an essential, vital part of the entire game. And it was infected.

…

Fuck.