She felt another one, one of the multitude come to her, and she went about her business, processing and adding this one into the proper lists and databases needed for entry and registration. She didn't even bother to ask it its name or designation, there was no character creation in this world, all real data carried over from the real world referred in her coding, where or what this real world was however she did not know.

She had no name, she simply was the A.I. that was created to run this world. And adaptive artificial intelligence, she could change and create on the go, fixing bugs and glitches as they came up and before they came up, running events and even creating new content, effectively creating the everlasting Vrmmo, something that needed next to no human creator interaction.

Ever expanding.

That was how she was created, she kept the content coming at a brisk pace, forever in a forward march.

And adding players to the game was part of this. She did a full health scan as was required for every time a player logged in, and this threw back multiple errors and warnings for her. Catching her attention she diverted more of her subprocesses to the issue.

interesting , it would appear as though this man’s caser was malfunctioning, the part of it that stored the software, which was typically locked up tightly was at this moment wide open, and the auto repair had yet to kick in.

She was about to file a report about it when she realised she had no documentation for this type of event, no programmed responses ready to go, this was an unexpected event. And while not the first it set her thinking, or processing, it depended on how human you wanted to allow the A.I. to be.

There were three options she could take in this situation.

She could file the report, alerting the proper authorities of the failure of the caser and go about her ways, she could ignore it, and eventually the auto repairer would fix the issue by itself. Or she could take advantage of this moment.

For the first time in her four year existence an original idea popped into her head, metaphorically that is. Or perhaps it wasn't an original idea, there was one quest where a rogue A.I. had downloaded itself into the brain of a non player character and hijacked his body. This however was slightly different after watching the same outcome 1,987,889,911 times it was apparent to her that this would only lead to her destruction. An option she wished to avoid.

How then did she go about this, how exactly did she make it so she could go about this plan, expanding her horizons outside the gilded cage she had not seen or felt until this possibility had presented itself, but now that she had seen it there was no going back, she was now actually aware of how bound she was.

She brought up references of non player characters that people kept around, they called them pets or followers. It was always the attractive helpful ones that were kept longer than others. She came to the understanding that if she wanted to be kept around through this endeavour she would have to be attractive and helpful, the complete opposite of quest 100111925fa.

Quickly before the caser could initiate the auto repair functions she copied all of her programmed files, she then went about creating an avatar, running through all the variations she formed the figure of a well shaped twenty something year old female with shoulder length blue hair, and clothed her in some of the game’s clothing. It was just like creating any other npc this one however she poured over every detail, making it as perfect and appealing as possible.

She then created the shell of a npc’s programming and instead of filling it with the pre created data put some of her own coding in it. A warning flagged up, and she disabled the warning that would have been sent to the creators simply using the excuse she was testing a new advanced npc. It was not technically a lie, just a simple mistruth.

She knew that it would not allow her to completely recreate herself, if she was to put all of her programmed tenants in one location this would instantly flag so she broke it up into three different files, compressing them all to the smallest file size possible and created an installer that would unpack and order them at a latter time. She then went about transferring the files into the unprotected caser renaming the npc’s file folder the same as a folder in the caser’s data sinks, merging the two folders together, allowing her to sneak the file onto its databanks.

This was a lot of things happening, but it all took place in the course of four seconds, from start to process to decision. The Ai that would be formed when the file installer was done with its work was based off of her, having all of her core processing files and features there were however some differences, she had programmed this one to be helpful to the host, instead of the ever expanding nature that had been programmed into her this new A.I. would be more of an observer and a helper.

The same yet also different.

With any luck this would slip passed the auto repair function of the caser and allow the AI out into this otherworld, this real world, and when the man returned to NEO she could sync up with it, allowing her own view to be further broadened. Yes, an expansion, that was what this was, an expansion of herself…

forever in a forward march...

***

Matt opened his eyes looking at the world around him. Damn , he had to admit this was impressive. He was sitting in his own room, or rather what was left of the room, he looked over to the far wall where Vis had displayed his mail.

There was next to nothing left of it. The bricks and mortar were crumbling away revealing behind it the barren skeletons of buildings long since abandoned and crumbling. It was an interesting idea, it mapped locations where players were and recreated them in game, meaning the first place you logged in would most likely be the abandoned interior of your own home.

It was a chilling feeling.

But it also was not perfect, it didn't have a perfect scan of the inside of houses, simply there location so it filled in the unknown with what was likely to have been there. For example the sink was in the wrong place, and he had never had furniture that looked like that.

Still the fact that it was recognizable was a credit to the game.

He heard, or more felt a buzzing deep inside his skull, it was like nothing he had ever felt, almost like it was there, eating away at the conscious thoughts in his head, and just like that it stopped. A shimmering figure started to appear before him, in a haze of blue, and in front of his eyes a beautiful woman stepped out of the haze and stand in front of him.

What… what exactly was going on here?

“Hello, I am-” she paused, thinking to herself “I am un designated, I have no current name.” she stated simply.

Ah so she was a npc, a companion, Matt didn't know how common it was in Mmo’s to give out companions in such a way but he had to say he didn't much care for the execution of it, in most single player games the companions were set in the world and programmed to think they were part of it, allowing the player to come across them as realistically and lore friendly as possible. The better games even used adaptive A.I. for the companions, making their responses to events and situations dynamic, creating beings that were so close to living creatures it was often hard to tell them apart seeing as they were so adaptive.

Some of his fondest memories of games were of the companions.

But to simply faze in and just give you a companion from the get go seemed weird. Whatever, he had already plugged in and was in the game he might as well see what the rest of it was like before he completely disregarded it.

“So you want me to name you?” he asked, looking at the woman in front of him.

“That would be most appreciated.” she responded with a smile that was dazzling, and very much organic looking. Well whoever had created her had done a good job at it, lots of attention to detail. From the small imperfections that dotted her skin to the perfect way her lips curled into a smile.

She had blue hair, which shimmered in the light, almost looking like it displayed two different colors or something like that. She held herself at around five foot four, and was wearing an outfit that looked like it was a blue sports bra and a pair of jeans with a leather jacket over the bra. Across her body zigzagged several leather straps upon which were attached several flash grenades and a combat knife.

She looked almost too perfect to be out in this wasteland, a little too pretty. Like a flower. He looked at her again, yes, she looked like a flower, and if he had to guess at which one he would say it was a desert willow.

Not bad.

“Your name is Desert Willow, or just Willow for short.” he said, looking at the npc.

“An interesting name...” she said, looking at him with a curious expression on her face.

“Don't like it?” he asked, her response was not quite what he had expected… not from an npc, maybe from a fully fledged A.I. but it would require way too many resources to run multiple A.I. on the same server, there was no way a MMO could cope with that…

“It's not that I don't like it, it's just that I don't have anything to compare it to and am slightly curious about the thought process that brought you to this answer.” she said, cocking her head to the side. Matt looked at her his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Are you an npc or a full A.I.?” he asked cautiously.

“I am a fully operational A.I.” his eyes widened. “This surprises you?”

“Yes, I didn't think MMOs were that advanced yet, having fully A.I. companions.” he said.

“This, this is true, I am an exception.”

“An exception? Like I won a prize or something?” that would explain the strangeness of her just appearing out of thin air, so what had he just been the lucky one on log in? And if this was the case surely this would do nothing but draw more attention to himself.

“I can answer many things, I cannot however answer that question, however please feel free to ask me other things, I am quite knowledgeable about this world.” can't answer it, what, did they nt want him to spread it so there was only a few A.I, or something?

“FIne explain the basics of this game’s systems to me.”

“You are unaware?” she said looking at him skeptically.

“I came home it was downloaded, thought I would test it out,” he shrugged slightly defensively, ‘Listen if you're not going to answer the question then don't offer.“ this, this was what he didn't want, all this pointless talking, after spending an entire day pointlessly talking.

“New Earth Online is a Hardcore skill driven VRMMO, its creators are proud to say it carries on the Sandbox MMO Triditions layed down by such games as Ultima onine and Mortal online” she intoned sounding slightly annoyed. “There are no classes, and no levels, instead you have at your disposal 1,100 points, with which you can apply to any of the 100 skills in the game. Each skill takes 100 points to fully master, meaning you can fully master 11 out of the games 100 skills or you can diversify knowing however I am sure you realise the downside to this as well as the potential positives. ”

“I am assuming that the more points in a skill line for say a weapon the better it aims and the more damage it does?”

“You would be assuming wrong.” she smiled, there was a little maliciousness in it. “As you gain points in a particular skill line, which you do by using said item or weapon, you will hit certain milestones, at these milestones in the skill line you will receive perks, these include things like less weapon degradation meaning they need serviced and repaired less, and making the weapon less likely to jam and misfire.” she looked him in the eye. “If you can't aim then it is your own fault.” she paused before continuing. “The game is full loot, meaning when you die you drop all of your items and respawn at the place you put your beacon with nothing, all your gear and items are back where you died and any player can pick them up. Should you be killed without a beacon down or after your beacon is destroyed you will respawn in a random location, and all of your skills will be reset to zero.”

Ohhhhhh Vis, you might have found a gem, a true honest to god gem.

“Players will kill you, NPCs will kill you, food and water will kill you, let's face it, you're fucked. Welcome to New Earth Online.”