Ipseity (The Stork Tower Book 5) Read online

  Ipseity

  The Stork Tower Book 5

  Tony Corden

  Copyright © 2018 by Tony Corden

  Tony Corden owns the content in this book and reserves all his legal rights of ownership. ‘Ipseity’ is published for your personal enjoyment (and, if he’s honest, so he can earn a living). He allows quotations in book reviews and social media posts. In fact, if they are positive reviews, he encourages their use (yay, free advertising). If you want to use it for some other purpose, then email him and get his written permission, if you don't then you may not reproduce or use it.

  ISBN 978-0-6482890-2-9 (E-book)

  ‘Ipseity’ is fiction, Tony isn’t writing about real people and doesn’t intend in any way to point the finger at anyone. If there is a similarity, then it’s unintentional and a coincidence. If for some reason you think the good guys are based on you, then be encouraged, you are smart, kind and brave. If you think the bad guys are somehow based on you, they aren’t, but Tony suggests you need help. Seriously, see a counsellor or turn yourself into the police. Some of the places, corporations, institutions, public figures, books, movies and songs Tony mentions are real. Tony has used them in a made-up story (fiction), i.e., IT ISN’T REAL.

  Tony designed the cover using an image from Shutterstock.com and Photoshop. Vellum was used to prepare the e-book.

  Published by Tony Corden in 2018

  You can find out more at www.tonycorden.com or write to Tony at [email protected].

  To Tim and Aly

  Dark dreams impede life.

  Words discern, hope snares shadows.

  Misery, archived.

  Acknowledgments

  I struggle with both spelling and grammar. Even with the spelling and grammar checks turned on I keep making mistakes. Homonyms trip me up, as do commas. In particular I want to thank T and E for helping to edit this book. They are wonderful people who deserve all the credit when you can’t find an error. When you do, that is all me, not only for making it in the first place but also because I sometimes ignore what they suggest.

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Diary - 13 December, 2073

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Diary - 14 December, 2073

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Diary - 15 December, 2073 - Morning

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Diary - 15 December, 2073 - Evening

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Ipseity Puzzle Answers

  Excerpt from Book 6 - Contest

  Introduction

  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.

  SUMMARY OF NASCENT

  Atherleah Carroll grew up in a negative-tax family in the gang-controlled suburbs of Brisbane at the end of the twenty-first century. From the age of six, she decided that she wanted more and with the help of her local gang-leader, she learned the skills to escape the relentless pressure to accept a life of mediocrity. On her sixteenth birthday, she was inadvertently implanted with a Neural Enhancement Chip instead of the free Government provided basic level personal AI. This mistake not only removed the limits placed on the AI but also broke some of the Government instigated control parameters. Leah’s life rapidly became a battle, both in the virtual-multiverse and in real life.

  On the advice of the local ‘boss’, Leah began playing the virtual fantasy game Dunyanin to earn the money she needed to live at the local POD facility and help with her education. With the help of her rapidly evolving AI, she has not only thwarted attempts by the government to limit her opportunities but evaded kidnapping by virtual slavers. Co-opted by several Virtual Security AI Leah has helped shut down a virtual sweat-shop which used mind-controlled players to farm for resources. The family, which runs the virtual crime syndicate, has cornered Leah in the depths of a virtual-mine and sent twenty player-mercenaries to capture her. Fleeing through a hidden doorway into a mirror mine operated by goblins Leah hopes to escape her pursuers.

  SUMMARY OF ODYSSEY

  Leah’s escape from her pursuers catapults her into a multi-dungeon Odyssey which promises challenges and rewards beyond anything she has yet faced. She invites her new virtual friends along and together they are melded into a team. In the real world, she is blocked by people within the Government who want to prevent her rising from her set position in society. Some in the Government are allied with her enemies in the crime syndicate and force her to relocate from the public POD facility. They also try to put an end to her academic aspirations.

  She attends a meeting with the Matriarch of the syndicate on a space station in a new virtual universe. When she uses her childhood skills to pickpocket the Matriarch’s head guard
she inadvertently steals something of immense value and exacerbates the conflict. In Dunyanin Leah embarks on a journey to fulfil the only timed quest she has. The route includes a visit to both heaven and the place of the dead. She changes history and finds herself rewarded in the court of the High Elves. The reward sends her on a detour and a confrontation with a clan of vampires.

  Through all of this, Leah finds time to go on her first date.

  SUMMARY OF CHANGE

  When Namus, the Vampire Patriarch, changes Leah into a vampire, an error in Dunyanin’s code initiates real-world changes in Leah’s anatomy. She begins learning how to access and use the additional connections her chip has made throughout her body. In Dunyanin Leah is finally able to finish the timed quest. On the way she discovers that the crime syndicate has an even greater presence in the virtual multiverse than she’d imagined, she once again helps free some slaves. Leah is separated from her friends during an ambush and has to continue alone. On the journey, she makes new friends, learns new skills, hatches her dragon, and finds a mega quest which thrusts her into the spotlight, not just in Dunyanin but throughout the multiverse.

  Leah not only reaches an agreement with MIT to begin her studies but they agree to let her start researching her theories, all she has to do is find some professors who will work with her. The Pod facility she opened expands as she helps others from her neighbourhood get higher education and access the multiverse. Her battle with the crime family escalates as she begins to unravel the secrets of the syndicate and they both tarnish her reputation and remove the allies and friends who could help her.

  Her relationship with Thad grows as they find time to have several dates.

  SUMMARY OF RESCUE

  Leah’s play within Dunyanin is threatened by legal action taken by the administrators of the game. Leah gets ahead of the media storm that’s brewing by going public and forcing Dunyanin to fully restore her playing privileges. The crime syndicate kidnaps her mother forcing Leah to use her connections within the gangs who rule the poorer sections of the city to try and find where her mother is being held.

  Leah searches the steampunk world of Pneumatica for a virtual slave she’s heard about whose been missing from her family for years. In the process of hunting the slave down Leah discovers Thad’s family operates its own crime syndicate, attacks and takes over several pirate airships, and sets hundreds of slaves free. When she approaches Thad to discuss his family she discovers that his will has been compromised by malware introduced into his AI by his parents.

  In Dunyanin Leah helps save a race of Dryads and makes a claim for the throne of the Elfauns. During the gameplay Leah takes some shortcuts and overpowers her spells so that the limits set by the developers of the game are circumvented and Leah is set on a path to becoming the Empress of all Vatan.

  Leah makes headway on deciphering the information she’d stolen from the crime syndicate in Cosmos Online. She decides to download the material and her AI saves it in newly constructed storage areas in Leah’s head. In order to rescue an archived AI from a secure virtual vault Leah works with her AI to learn the skills of interpreting the electronic signals without her AI’s help. When she enters the vault and rescues the AI Leah discovers that the leader of the crime syndicate may not be who she pretends to be.

  Finally tracking down where her mother is being held Leah, and some friends, storm the secure private residence and using her new physical abilities they rescue Leah’s mother. During the rescue Leah’s mother is almost killed and Leah is badly hurt.

  WHERE THE STORY IS AT

  Some detail, just in case you’ve forgotten where the story is at (including previous characters who return, or have significance, in Ipseity):

  REAL WORLD

  Leah is tired and hurt having just returned from the mission to rescue her mother. During her ordeal Lin was chipped by Nathan Kodoman. As Leah increasingly uses her new abilities so the changes in her neural structure continue. Leon is working to find additional Pod facilities around Australia as well as looking for somewhere for Leah to experiment in the real world with aether dimensions.

  Leah - Atherleah Lin Mu-Ling Carroll - 16 years old

  Gèng - Leah’s AI

  Leah’s family

  Conner Carroll - Leah’s brother - 14 years old

  Lin Li-Jin Carroll - Leah’s mother (Lin) - from mainland China

  Michael Carroll - Leah’s father - Irish ancestry

  Leah’s Security Personnel (Pod Centre)

  John - Head of Security

  Lacey - head of the assault team

  Marie - scout

  Johan - knife specialist and medic

  Other Characters

  Jimmy Loo - Crime Boss in the ‘Switch’

  Jen - Jenny Ngô - John’s girlfriend

  Father Andrew - Catholic Priest

  Mrs Sperry - Counsellor

  Aker - Tailor of armoured clothing

  John Welford - ex Chief AI Installer for the Greater Brisbane Hospital

  THE STORK TOWER

  Leah’s personal world in the multiverse continues to expand as Gèng adds details. Gèng and Leah continue to look for a way to provide Gèng with a practical expression of her freedom.

  Atherleah Lin Mu-Ling Carroll (Leah)

  Gèng - Leah’s AI

  Michael Carroll - Leah’s father

  John - Head of Security

  Leah’s Employees and Consultants (Virtual multiverse)

  Dr Ellen Roberts - Psychiatrist and Neural Specialist

  George - Financial Planning AI

  Leon Scorsese - Chief Financial Officer of Guàn Enterprises

  Reed - Sharon Trang’s AI and hacker

  Sarafaraz Kalif - Accountant

  Sharon Trang - Public Relations Consultant

  Stephen Riley - Attorney

  Susan Drisedale - Solicitor - corporate lawyer

  Tesfaye Berhanu - Virtual Security Analyst and hacker

  Virtual Multiverse Characters

  Akia - Security Oversight AI 4 - Security AI

  Amy - Amelia Walker - Leah’s friend

  Andrew Kodoman - Nathan and Meredith’s son

  Dr Ellen Whitfield - Leah’s MIT Doctoral Supervisor in Theoretical Physics

  Ernst Kodoman - Nathan and Meredith’s son

  Harry Emerson - Thad’s brother

  Jackson Kodoman - Nathan and Meredith’s son

  John Emerson - CEO of North Shore Resources - Thad’s father

  Julie Emerson - Thad’s mother

  James - James Brenton - Leah’s friend

  Karine Emerson - Thad’s sister

  Meredith Kodoman - high profile player involved in virtual slavery

  Nathan Kodoman - high profile player involved in virtual slavery

  Paris Emerson - Thad’s sister

  Mr Peterson - Emerson’s Head of Security

  Thad - Thaddeus Emerson - Leah’s boyfriend

  Thomas - Virtual Security Consultant

  Dr Thomas Ellis - MIT Doctoral Supervisor in Experimental Physics

  Wisp - Annie Martin - Leah’s friend

  Zack - Zackary Williams - Leah’s friend

  DUNYANIN - SWORD AND SORCERY FANTASY

  Leah is currently on a quest for Lord Geckiş, the God of Transition, Change and Metamorphosis. She is travelling through the Forest of Night to the lost city of Yilinlar to convince, or capture, Somur T’kan, the son of Lord Geckiş and take him to Lord Geckiş’ realm. She is also supposed to be preparing for the first contest in the Merkize Odyssey. Lord Geckiş transported her to the Forest of Night without Mìng.

  Atherleah - Leah’s character - half highland human, half forest elf - vampire - Empress

  Mĕi - a Chimera - Atherleah’s pet

  Mìng (Shēngmìng de huǒ) - a mixed Fire/Life Dragon - Atherleah’s companion and pet

  Merkize Players

  Delta_Knight_01 - from Ozgur - head of Clan DeltaForce - human

  Princesa_Amazônica_23 - from Ozgur - head of C
lan Jaguar - elven ranger/beastmaster

  Боевой_молот (Ivan) - from Isikar - barbarian human

  Мастер_Cмерти - player from Isikar - orc

  Gottes_Krieger_10 - from Hiddet - Paladin of Namus - human

  Královna_Kouzel_666 - from Hiddet - head of Clan Pavouk - elf

  Yuè_Fēi_Lóng - from Shenqi - elf

  Seishin_no_kage_12 - from Shenqi - assassin

  Merideath - from Vatan (Taramore map) - head of Clan Y’Haul - sea elf

  Atherleah - from Vatan - head of Clan Guàn - half human half elf

  Gods

  Aldat - God of Deception

  Geckiş - God of Transition, Change and Metamorphosis

  Intikam - Goddess of Revenge

  Iskense - God of Lies

  Kargasa - God of Chaos

  Mantic - God of Logic

  Namus - God of Purity

  Olme - Goddess of Death

  Suzluk - God/Goddess of Despair

  Umut - God of Hope

  Utsal - Goddess of Light and Truth