Nascent (The Stork Tower Book 1) Read online

  Contents

  Dedication

  Copyright

  History

  Chapter One - November 17, 2073

  Diary - 17 Nov 2073

  Chapter Two - November 18, 2073 A

  Chapter Three - November 18, 2073 B

  Chapter Four - November 18, 2073 C

  Diary - 18 November 2073

  Chapter Five - November 19, 2073

  Diary - 19 November 2073

  Chapter Six - November 20, 2073

  Diary - 20 November 2073

  Chapter Seven - November 21, 2073

  Diary - 21 November 2073

  Chapter Eight - November 22, 2073

  Diary - 22 November 2073

  Chapter Nine - November 23, 2073

  Spell Book

  Changing Attraction

  Circle of Sloth

  Disc of Death

  Freezing

  Grounding

  Healing

  Mount of Mist

  Orumeck’s Spell of Hidden Quietness

  Excerpt From ‘Odyssey’ Book 2 of The Stork Tower

  To my ever-patient wife.

  Nascent

  The Stork Tower # 1

  By

  Tony Corden

  Copyright 2017 Tony Corden

  Kindle Edition

  Cover image from Shutterstock.com

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  History

  It was the advent of safe electromagnetic neural manipulation in 2021 which led to the rise of a viable and sustainable virtual reality industry. Within thirty years almost all leisure, education, and work-related activity occurred inside virtual reality constructs. Individuals were suspended in a neutral buoyancy liquid which had a gel-like consistency. Their bodies were held in induced quasi-comas, while their nervous system was manipulated to provide a virtual sensory experience indistinguishable from reality while constantly stimulating the motor neurones to prevent muscular deterioration. The variety and complexity of the devices developed was frequently changing yet the market continued to refer to all such devices as Neural Interface SIM (Sensory, Integrative and Motor) Pods or SIM Pods.

  Many regulatory bodies, conservatives, and sceptics initially raised the problems of privacy and security. They were worried about the potential for brainwashing, for thought control, or even of subtle thought reform. In response, the VR industry developed and introduced an intelligently controlled interface which included a self-adaptive firewall. This device was controlled by the user and capable of protecting personal privacy and safeguarding the minds of the growing number of people both working and living in virtual space. With many users wanting even greater control over their virtual experience these interfaces quickly matured into personally managed, and owned, Artificial Intelligence Chips. The AI chips were physically implanted adjacent to the nervous system and able to protect, inform and assist individuals both inside and outside the virtual world. The chips micro-manipulated the auditory and visual cortices making it possible for the owner to hear and see implanted information, even in the real world.

  Various interest groups including parents, educators and civil libertarians raised concerns over the appropriate age for POD immersion. In research commissioned by the International Institute of Applied Neuroplasticity, there was clear evidence that extended immersion in SIM Pods was detrimental for those under the age of fifteen. Further studies led to International guidelines banning POD use for those under the age of five and limiting their use until age ten to two hours per day, then to four hours daily until age fifteen.

  At the Dubai Convention for Virtual Modality in 2050 the United Nations’ ‘Declaration of Human Rights’ was modified and the changes formally adopted the following August by the UN General Assembly. These changes asserted that the access to a personal AI was a fundamental human right for full access to modern society. The right to education was amended to include the right to access the virtual environment.

  CHAPTER ONE

  November 17, 2073

  Leah lived with her family in a small two bedroom apartment provided by the Australian Federal government. She had been born in the tiny room she shared with her younger brother. Their apartment was in the Switch, one of the poorest places in the city of Brisbane. Almost everyone in the Switch lived on Federally Assisted Negative Income. Fifty years earlier the area had been an Industrial Estate known as ‘Citiswitch’. It had been bulldozed to build apartments for those on negative income and became known simply as ‘The Switch’. The government provided just enough for essential services such as electricity, web access, simple medicines and basic food. Very few people had jobs, and those who wanted more usually either turned to crime or they found a niche by providing goods or services that people wanted but couldn’t otherwise afford. Small crafts, that had all but disappeared in the modern era, had been re-established: herbalists and cobblers: seamstresses and repairmen: bakers, vegetable gardeners and micro-brewers. Over time the Switch developed a nontaxable micro-economy all of its own.

  While the government provided police and a schooling system, they were practically irrelevant and fundamentally impotent for those trapped on society's lowest rung. Instead, people developed various alternative models for control, justice and education. Citizen Groups were formed to provide protection and order. While many outside the Switch called these citizen groups, ‘gangs’, they did maintain order and usually kept the peace: often for a small fee.

  The government provided ‘Education’, was poorly funded and essentially irrelevant: most children attended just long enough to sustain the tax benefit. Instead, they learned either craft or graft, depending on their family situation. The minority of children who wanted to learn had to find innovative ways not only to use the system but also to evade the majority of kids who happily tore down anyone seeking to rise above mediocrity.

  Leah worked hard to do both. Nine years previously, at the age of six, she started working for Jimmy Loo. She needed a protector at school, and he needed someone to squeeze through the dog door of Mrs Peterson’s apartment. In return for unlocking the balcony window, Leah earned one month’s protection from bullies. Jimmy assigned her one of his gang’s uninitiated members, a ten-year-old kid, to walk her back and forth from her classroom each day.

  Over the next six years, Leah continued to do small jobs for Jimmy picking up skills like lock-picking, and the ability to climb a drain pipe. The protection changed over time from a bodyguard to self-defence instruction. Leah became proficient in various Indonesian and Filipino fighting styles where she excelled in knife and stick fighting. Although her and Jimmy’s business relationship had waned over the last four years, they were still acquaintances, if not friends. In fact, outside of her family, Jimmy and his boys were probably the only friends Leah had. She had spent nearly every day over the last decade at the school, or in the library reading and studying. Everything for a chance to get ahead. Nobody understood why, and she never explained, but the simple truth of it was - she wanted to experience more.

  Now, finally, today was the day!

  “Leah! Breakfast is ready.”

  Her dad’s voice dragged her out of bed and woke her little brother, Conner, who was still asleep on the other side of the room. Her father, Michael Carroll, was of Irish descent, he had ginger hair and was a tenth generation Australian, he loved cricket and everything Celtic.

  “Ling! Come eat your congee, bring your brother.”

  Leah’s mother was Lin Li-Jin, from Xi’an, Shaanxi Province China. She was small, dark-haired, very traditional and she always called Leah by her Chinese name and almost always spoke Mandarin.

  “Hurry up Leah,
your mum won’t let me start without you, it’s your birthday girl, move it, I’m hungry.”

  Her mother responded, this time in her accented English, for her father had never learnt Mandarin.

  “Yes, hurry, your barbarian father is hungry.”

  After dragging her brother out of bed, Leah made her way to the table.

  “Michael, you say grace!”

  Leah’s mother had become a Christian during a gospel meeting at the local Baptist Church several years after marrying Michael. He was Catholic, but very nominal. Jin was always trying to get the family to church, but Michael was determined to keep whatever faith he had as far from everyday life as he possibly could. Leah's mother had little awareness of the Jimmy Loo connection, and Leah tried as hard as she could to keep it that way.

  With a sigh, Michael said the only prayer he knew.

  “Bless us, O Lord, and these your gifts, which we are about to receive from your bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen!” Without so much as a pause he continued, “So sweetheart, today’s the day. You're all grown up. What time are you heading into town, and do you want me to come with you?”

  “Michael, stop! I don’t think she should go. Maybe it is best if she waits and thinks some more. Don’t go, Ling, it’s dangerous.”

  Leah had just turned sixteen, and this was earliest she could apply for a free AI implant and have access to a virtual college. In theory, it all sounded straightforward, but like most things, there were barriers in the way of those who couldn’t pay. The law mandated access to an AI implant: in practice, only Nascent AIs were available for free. Nascent AIs were at sentience level one - the lowest level: they had undergone minimal development: with further development left to their user. Very few inexperienced people were able to assist these AIs to develop higher level sentience.

  It wasn’t a simple matter of code: AIs had to learn as a process, not as a data dump. Of course, if you had money, you could buy a pre-developed AI. These AIs had been compiling in ideal conditions for periods of up to a year. If you had money you could purchase a level two or a level three AI: it was even possible to obtain specially developed AIs and link them to your Prime AI. Such AI had specialisations in things like engineering, medicine, tactics, economics or flight. The cheapest pre-developed AI was well beyond the means of anyone in the Switch, and so Leah was going to get the only one she could afford, the free one. She needed an AI to have access to a POD, and she needed a POD to have access to a college or university. Very few from the Switch were ever able to pass an entrance exam much less have the educational foundation to succeed in higher education, Leah had worked hard to have this opportunity.

  “Mama, I have to do this” Leah said in Mandarin, bowing to her. Such respect almost always won the day, but not today.

  “If you go, you will come back different. You will no longer remember your family, and you will forget who you are. These things have happened to others. A strange thing will be living in your head. You will live all the time, but asleep. It's not okay! It is not good.”

  “Enough Jin!” Leah’s dad interrupted forcefully and then in a quieter voice said, “She’s made up her mind. Let her go. She needs to make her own choices now. She always has. Have faith.”

  Leah’s mother pursed her lips and left the room. She was probably going to pray for Leah’s safety, and for her soul. Michael, Leah and Connor ate the rest of breakfast in silence.

  The previous day Leah had prepared what she was going to wear. She knew her mother would want her to wear her ‘good’ church clothes, but there was no way she was going to wear a dress on public transport: you had to protect the bare skin. Instead, Leah wore her best jeans, a white long-sleeved button shirt, a belt and a pair of slip-on sneakers. Everything was second-hand, and the jeans were a bit loose, but still, she thought it looked good. She wondered how to take her fighting sticks with her but in the end left them behind: rich folks got offended easily.

  It was almost a four-kilometre walk from Leah’s apartment to the Bundamba Transit Stop, but she covered the distance in just over half an hour. Fortunately, public transport to the centre of Brisbane was free for those on Negative Tax. She inserted her ID card to enter the station, and the screen responded with:

  [Child ID not valid - Citizen A. L. Carroll - FQC3465278 is currently 16 years old]

  [Single trip to National Citizenship Register allowed - have a safe journey]

  She got on the automated mag-train and carefully pulled the map from her bag and amended the planned route for the day. First stop then, the National Citizenship Register to upgrade her citizen ID and register as an adult. Second stop, the Department of Neurology at the Greater Brisbane Hospital for insertion of an AI. Then finally to the Federal Bureau of Education to register for access to the next available SIM Pod.

  Everything at the Citizenship Register was automated and seeing a free booth Leah inserted her Child ID into the slot, sat in the seat provided and placed her hand in the DNA reader which took a sample of both skin, and blood. The retinal scan was just as quick. A new identity card with her DNA profile, retinal scan, picture, and a full database of her medical, educational, financial, and social histories extended from the slot.

  It was only at the hospital where her self-assurance almost failed. She stood outside and the excitement that she had expected to carry her through the day evaporated. For the first time in years, she suddenly felt alone. She had always done things on her own, and most of it so she could be here, now, at this time. She was about to take the most significant step ever, and no one she knew was there to witness it. She felt like a young warrior from one of those ancient primitive tribes embarking on some dangerous right-of-passage where no one would ever know if they succeeded or failed. Or possibly, she mused, like Schrödinger’s cat, caught up in a weird thought experiment: how can something be so momentous and life-changing and at the same time be so lonely and cosmically insignificant? How she wished she’d given in and let even one of her parents come with her. At least then someone could observe this moment, this transition, this victory. But no, she’d been stubborn, she’d been independent and wanted to be alone, and here she was: alone.

  She took a few deep breaths, wiped the stray tear, centred herself, and walked into the hospital.

  After following directions to the Department of Neurology, she encountered another automated system, given a ticket [NT15N-323], and directed to the waiting room for AI installation. After twenty minutes, an assistant ushered Leah into a change room and told to remove her clothing, place it in a DNA lockable storage tub, and put on the hospital gown. The assistant inserted Leah’s ID in a lanyard and placed it around her neck and showed her to a small room to speak with an Admissions Administrator.

  “Do you understand the procedure as explained to you?”

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  “Do you understand that you are only eligible for a Nascent AI?”

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  “Do you agree that the hospital is not liable should you suffer harm in any way?”

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  “Do you have any questions?”

  “No, Ma’am!”

  “Please sign and initial the following forms. For DNA verification and Security purposes, we require a drop of your blood on each form in the space provided.”

  After signing the forms and providing the blood, the administrator said, “Please make your way into the next room, and someone will be with you shortly.”

  It was almost half an hour before someone came and directed her into the room where an orderly proceeded to shave her head. Losing her hair was the part she had dreaded the most. She loved her hair and had allowed it to grow down to the middle of her back. But she had known this was coming and was prepared. Her courage almost failed, but she took another deep breath and sat like a statue.

  The technician directed Leah to an automated booth where, after removing her gown and lanyard, she was required to perform a series of movements w
hile the computer created a three dimensional model of her for use as a primary avatar in the virtual universe. Finally, she donned her robe and entered a full medical scanning tunnel which mapped her whole body over a twenty minute period. A technician added a data disc to the lanyard: the disc contained her avatar model and the body scans. Leah was directed to a final waiting room until called by an AI installer.

  Leah’s future successes were hers and hers alone. However, it is possible if one was so inclined, to trace an alternate causality for her success. Either to the weak bladder of one Ryan Thompson; the predatory tendencies of his boss John Welford, Chief AI Installer for the Greater Brisbane Hospital; or the upcoming nuptials of one Alinga Murray, the AI storage controller.

  Chief Welford had been paying less and less attention to his duties, and more and more to the screen displaying those waiting to have a Personal AI (PAI) chip installed. The slim, well toned, girl with the number NT15N-323 virtually overlaid above her head increasingly drew his focus. Taking note of his wandering eyes, and aware of his habits, his personal AI calculated a 97.4% probability that the young lady would end up in Booth Three. On receiving the information, John made his way to relieve the assistant installer in Booth Three.

  John welcomed Leah into the booth and took the lanyard with the scans of her body. Now if he could just find a way to copy them and get them home, John would then upload them into his private virtual-world and have his virtual ‘way’ with her, all without her knowing. Chief Welford had done this often and always enjoyed the thrill of watching the girl in person, imagining all sorts of things and then going home and carrying out his fantasies. He glanced at the current stock inventory and smiled.

  Down the corridor, Alinga’s preoccupation with her wedding destination had resulted in her falling behind in the preparation of chips ready for installation. Ideally, the chip's installation occurred within two hours of uploading the relevant AI. Alinga usually kept ahead of demand by keeping track of the upcoming queue. If she had been more aware, she would have already prepared the Nascent chip for transport to Booth Three. Instead, she was involved in a fiery video call with her future mother-in-law, discussing options for wedding destinations. So, when Chief Welford glanced at the stock inventory, the screen showed: