Hello readers. It turns out that I’m still alive. Oh well. I’m sorry for the long wait but real life has not been kind to me. I will add this chapter for now and in a couple weeks I will start adding chapters again. Gotta prepare for and take finals and all that.

My writing quality may have dropped a bit, but future chapters will be better.

I hope you’re not upset L.

Please enjoy.

POV of Lisa and Tom Therwell

Reid’s parents watched him as he played the game. There was no other sound than the equipment’s quiet hum and Reid’s breathing. They looked at each other with worry written all over their faces. They knew that they had taken a lot away from their son by raising him the way they did it. They often pretended that their reasoning was whimsical and fun but they hadn’t done it without a purpose.

They needed one of their children to play the game. At first, it was supposed to be Reid’s sister, but she refused to do it. They didn’t tell her the real reason either. There were eight people who knew the secret that Undertones kept hidden. The rest of the company didn’t even know how they had created such an amazing game. They had worked on parts of it and helped develop it, but the game was more than they could have hoped for.

Reid’s participation in the game was because of a promise. They felt like they had betrayed their son for that promise and knew that he might even resent them. They could not afford to break that promise though or they risked losing too much. They weren’t the only ones though. There were two others who had done the same. The owner of Undertones, James Hark, and the CEO both had children or relatives playing in the beta of the game.

They called it a beta, but the truth was that the game was complete. There was a reason for all of this that was more important than a game, but they couldn’t tell him yet. They worried about him and hoped he would forgive them.

There was more to it than that, of course. There was another reason he had been taken out of school. In middle school, he had attacked three boys and hurt them badly enough that one even went to the hospital. He was expelled from the school and they were afraid to send him to another one. They had always tried to raise him to be compassionate and protective rather than insensibly violent and vindictive. Reid never did explain why he did it. He told them it wouldn’t matter because they would expel him no matter what and he didn’t regret what he did. He said it was just something he had to do as a man.

Lisa sighed. “Will he be all right?” She whispered.

“He’ll be fine.” Tom smiled weakly and put his arm around her. “I’m sure of it.”

They held each other close as they left the room. They still had work to do.

James Hark, the man credited with Dead World Online’s brilliant achievements and wonderfully innovative and immersive play sat across from a reporter, a solemn look on his face. He rarely smiled these days, couldn’t find the joy and happiness that had driven him to new heights in technological advancements. Everyone around him was so ecstatic and full of energy because they were ignorant. They didn’t understand what it was that made everything work. The reasons why no other company could reproduce their game properly and what really made DWO so special.

Currently, Games and Entertainment Media news station had managed to get an interview with James Hark in the station. They had their most beautiful female reporter handling the interview to raise viewer ratings and get the most attention on this event. The beautiful reporter spoke to him with a smile, asking him about the game. “Can you tell us why you decided to make the game like you did? Some would argue that the somewhat dystopian world that you have created is a turn-off to some players who would rather see a brighter, more lighthearted world.”

“The game wasn’t originally meant to be named Dead World, or be how it is. Originally, it was supposed to be a bright world where everyone could play and have fun. It was a game we designed with the intention giving people a fresh new world to play in. In fact, it was originally supposed to be bright and friendly. Sometimes though, things don’t always work out. Perhaps we tried too hard to make the world as real as possible, as…human as possible.” James fell silent, hesitating on whether or not to tell them the truth. Maybe they should know about everything, or maybe he should just keep the secret to himself.

No. He couldn’t tell them everything because it was too much of a risk. But maybe there were some things that he could say.

The reporter continued to smile as she asked another question. “So this game…”

“It’s not a game.” He cut off the reporter surprising even himself. “Haha, sorry.” He forced a smile onto his face that didn’t reach his eyes. “What I mean to say is that it wasn’t originally a game, at least, not for people.”

“What do you mean, not for people?”

He sighed. “I’ll start from the beginning. Many years ago, I was working on a project, trying to create a supercomputer, because what else does a wealthy, retired genius with far too much time on his hands do? The first thing I did was combine systems into a massive amount of processing power. I spent years developing this supercomputer and eventually I made a breakthrough.”

The station was silent as all the people in the interview area were silent, mesmerized by the words of this old man. There wasn’t anyone who dared to move or break the magic of the moment. Originally, this was supposed to be a short interview but the managers of GAEM news were making calls and changing the schedule so that they wouldn’t interrupt James Hark as he told them the secrets of virtual reality and more than they could hope for. He was telling them secrets that Undertones had guarded fiercely in the past.

Even now, the company was calling the station to shut down this program. They were afraid to say too much. There were certain secrets that they were terrified Hark would release to the public. If he did that, it would have terrible effects that only the top management of Undertones would understand. If he said the wrong secrets, it could ruin everything they’ve built.

“I created a virtual intelligence. At first, I fed it information and taught it a great deal. Soon after, it was learning at an insane speed as I tried to improve upon it and make it better. Then, we created another virtual intelligence, and soon after, a third. They learned, taught each other and were connected. They were basically one being, one creation when there was a change. They learned about humanity, emotion, and they began to develop personality.” Hark’s face lit up in a genuine smile as he reminisced about his creations. “Personality! Can you even comprehend that!?”

“They developed and advanced in a few short years, becoming artificial intelligence, as if they were their own people. Like children, they thirsted for more knowledge and understanding. They desired to become more and more human, and I wanted them to be as well. I had them play games to interact with NPC’s and real people. They learned to play just like everyone else, without the computer analytics and computations. They made mistakes and acted more and more like people than ever before.”

The station’s people were mesmerized and the people at home were just as frozen as they stared at the television. If what Hark said was true, then he had done something far beyond what current technology should have allowed. An artificial intelligence was seen as something that could potentially be dangerous to society if it was unleashed to cause havoc. At least, that’s what the science fiction stories all seemed to have in common. No one knew what an artificial intelligence could really do, what it could really accomplish. This was far beyond anything people imagined.

“We created a game together, so that they could play and create their own world. At first, it was very simple. They made humans that I would interact with and then tell them what made them inhuman or felt wrong about them. They began to get better at it, creating humans that looked more realistic, games with better graphics, larger worlds, more complexity. The speed with which they learned and improved was astounding.”

Hark slowly grew more and more excited as he continued on about his creations and there wasn’t a soul around that dared to move or make a sound in case they somehow caused him to stop. “I feared what they could do, what they could become, so I cut them off from the Internet. They had learned all they needed to from it anyway and that way they couldn’t cause harm.

"However, they soon wanted to make their game something more, so I brought in my best game and technology developers to help them. They were the few who knew the truth about my children until now. We created a game together, on its own network, with its own console and with new technology. We created virtual reality and we worked on it until we got it right, perfectly right. We spent years in development until we finally created a world together. It was…no… it is magnificent. It was a beautiful world but it was far from complete.

We let them play with the world for thousands of years. Can you imagine that? The complexity of a game made over thousands of years. How could anything compare to that? Obviously they didn’t actually spend that long on the game, but that’s how much time passed in the game. With such an insane amount of processing power and the minds of three computers making a game, the world developed its own history naturally. Population increased, kingdoms formed and fell, wars occurred, disease, monsters, and society. Just like humanity, except in a virtual world. It was an entirely new world."

"However…” He stopped himself. “Ah, well I think I’ve said too much already. Let’s just say my artificial children wanted real people to play their game so we made it possible. Sorry, that’s all I can say, maybe more.” He stood up shook the stunned reporter’s hand and left in a hurry. I almost said something dangerous there, he thought as he drove home. I almost told them the most disturbing truth. If I had… god help us all.

The seven others who had previously known the secret of the artificial intelligence were currently sitting in a conference, quietly staring at one another. They had just finished watching Hark reveal a great deal of information to the public so soon after the game was released. What was he thinking? What Hark had told everyone was only part of the truth. The rest of the truth was something that none of them would dare to speak of. “Fortunately, this changes nothing.” One of them spoke while the others nodded. “We continue with the test as planned. The winner of the beta will meet with Catherine and then we will all see what happens from there. They were all solemn as they waited in dreadful anticipation. The world couldn’t begin to imagine that a mere game could affect the lives of billions of people in the future. They could do nothing but wait and hope.