Contest (The Stork Tower Book 6) Read online

  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

  STORK TOWER

  Leah’s personal world in the multiverse continues to expand as Gèng adds details. Gèng begins to act more independently while continuing to help Leah navigate the multiverse.

  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

  Olivia Goodwin - Solicitor - criminal lawyer

  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

  Leah is currently on a quest for Lord Geckiş, the God of Transition, Change and Metamorphosis. She has won the Crown of Yilinlar and Somur T’kan, the son of Lord Geckiş has agreed to be taken to his father. Leah is about to be crowned Queen of Yilinlar and then must make her way to one of the entry points to Lord Geckiş’ realm. She is also supposed to be preparing for the first contest in the Merkize Odyssey.

  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 Clan 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

  Serseri, Goddess of the Outcast

  Suzluk - God/Goddess of Despair

  Susma - God of Silence

  Umut - God of Hope

  Utsal - Goddess of Light and Truth

  ACADEMIA - EDUCATIONAL PORTAL WORLD

  Leah has begun to make new discoveries about the aether dimension and her braid formulations.

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

  Dr Thomas Ellis - MIT Doctoral Supervisor - Experimental Physics

  COSMOS ONLINE - GALACTIC SPACE WORLD

  With one of her game avatars, Leah and Wisp are preparing to claim the giant space station and what looks to be a intersystem portal.

  Atherleah - current avatars on her ship the Betrayal and two space stations, Berne and Hydra

  John - current avatars on Berne and on Hydra

  Mahigan the Black - Meredith’s character

  Red - part of Red Star Protective Services

  Star - part of Red Star Protective Services

  Tungsten - leader of Berne Assault team

  Wisp - current avatar on Betrayal

  PNEUMATICA

  Leah has just killed Frank Emerson and delivered information about a plot to destroy Aeolipile to the Queen.

  Atherleah_Carroll - Leah’s user name - known as ‘Charlotte’ - Privateer Captain of the Tempest and the Draken

  Edison - Developer in charge of Pneumatica

  Lord Frank Emerson - Thad’s uncle - part of crime syndicate

  Thad Emerson - Leah’s boyfriend

  Kate Emerson - Thad’s sister

  NPCs

  Commander Abbotsford - First Officer of Maelstrom’s Fury

  Albert Lincoln - Head concierge at the Hotel Herrington

  Captain Barnsdale - Privateer Captain of Maelstrom’s Fury

  Billy Bartle - Head thief

  Major Ian Daniels - Marine Captain and member of Charlotte’s crew

  Master Mary Fallow - Brownsmith

  Mr Wilks - member of Charlotte’s crew - previously the first officer of the Tempest

  CYBER-VERSE

  Leah is looking for leads on the people she found imprisoned within the multiverse in a vault at the World Bank.

  Akia - Security Oversight AI 4 - Security AI

  Alan Hopper - person responsible for the back doors into the vault and the World Bank.

  Atherleah Lin Mu-Ling Carroll (Leah)

  Gèng - Leah’s AI

  SURVIVAL

  Leah has just entered one of the toughest scenarios within the game called ’Survival’. On entry Meredith had Leah’s shuttle blown to bits as it started the scenario.

  Other Worlds (so far)

  Ascendent - Elite Club within the Multiverse

  Adventure World - second date with Thad

  Alexandria - Horror and the Occult theme world

  Carnival - first date with Thad

  Curator - History and Archeology world

  Dark Moon Duel - Leah learns swordplay

  Master Archery - Leah learns archery from Lady Flèche

  New World - 4X universe world

  Persepolis - Persian theme world

  Quickdraw - Western theme world

  Ringworld - World based on novel by Larry Niven

  Runes of Destiny - Michael is playing to find out about Kodomans

  Saturn’s Rings - Space world

  Spectator - Provides immersion into virtual feeds and news

  United F
ederation of Planets - Star Trek theme world

  Virtual World Today - news and current affairs world

  Walworld - shopping world

  Warrior - Conflict Resolution world for the wealthy

  1

  Chapter 1

  December 16, 2073 - Part 8

  SURVIVAL

  For the multiverse to work, there needed to be clear communication and data sharing between the virtual world and the PAI of the individuals who accessed the worlds. When Leah entered Survival, Gèng was given read-only access to the positional and sensory-cue matrices of everything expected to impact Leah for five seconds. This access facilitated an active and integrated sensory flow. During the registration process, Gèng provided Survival with a full copy of Leah’s scans so they could prepare and manipulate Leah’s avatar. In return, Gèng was given access to the gaming algorithms so she could pre-prepare a range of possible inputs to help minimise both her filtering and her monitoring of the sensory data. Even so, it was Survival’s AIs and algorithms which prepared and transmitted the sensory information to Leah’s neural system. It was Gèng’s role to manipulate Leah’s avatar in Survival by interpreting Leah’s neural responses and applying this real-time data to Leah’s avatar.

  The explosion which killed Leah in ‘Survival’ was not one of the pre-prepared sensory input sets that Gèng was expecting, but as Leah’s death was within the bounds of acceptable results, she terminated the avatar and prepared to resurrect Leah in accord with Survival’s gaming algorithms. The developers, however, had not envisioned the possibility of a Pod exploding while on approach and the resurrection point for players was preset to the final resting point of their Escape Pod. The AI responsible had to search through a range of options before coming to a decision.

  There were times when the Pod came to rest in the fork of a tree, so the AI did not merely assign the resurrection point to the ground underneath where the Pod exploded. The search found a decision matrix to be used when a Pod exploded. Such explosions sometimes occurred when players made unsafe modifications to their downed Escape Pod. In these circumstances, the AI was supposed to calculate the material left behind after the explosion and then using the previous final resting place of the Pod and the damage done to the jungle, it then lowered the player’s resurrection point by the calculated amount directly under the Pod’s pre-explosion position. In Leah's case, not all of the material had finished moving, and the AI had to apply several other decision matrices to finalise the data before it sent the sensory input set to Gèng.

  Gèng was aware of the delay, but as it didn’t exceed the preset parameters for signal loss or deterioration she didn’t interrupt or apply any of her own sensory input to Leah. This left Leah in a similar cyber-situation to when she entered a portal, but without the interference and distortion caused by the digital handshake between the virtual world and Gèng. The delay was less than three hundred milliseconds, but it was ten times longer than the usual length of a portal’s initiating-handshake. In this interval Leah’s new awareness of the cyber-verse noted the presence of a signal. Leah subconsciously tried to represent it in a way that she could understand and automatically increased her perceptual awareness to maximum.

  Gèng immediately noted the increased neural processing and applied a filter designed to hide the signal from the Survival server while she tried to reduce the activity. She also sent Leah a message asking her to keep her neural speeds under tight control. By the time the Survival AI sent the new sensory input, Leah’s neural perception had returned to normal. The input was applied even as Gèng evaluated it and sent a confirmation request.

  Leah resurrected one point eight metres below the point where the Escape Pod had exploded and just over three metres above the forest canopy. She was unprepared and crashed through the canopy without it slowing her fall in any way. She bounced off several small branches and then slammed into a larger branch, breaking her back. She slid off that branch and fell another fifty metres before hitting another branch, this one with a diameter of two metres, and Leah was killed instantly.

  She would have resurrected instantly, but Gèng’s query was still being processed. Leah found herself in the same cyber-situation as before, and again there was no interference or distortion. She momentarily increased her perceptual speed and asked Gèng both to filter the signal and to warn her when to slow down. Gèng had already applied a filter and replied that she had no control over the timing. Gèng urged Leah to return the neural processing to its unaccelerated speed. Leah waited for three-seconds before slowing down, and even then she had to wait another two-seconds before Gèng said, “I’ve just received a message from the administrative AI. It says there has been an unexpected event and you can choose to cancel the scenario, restart the scenario, or continue the scenario. It estimates successful completion of the current scenario is less than one per cent.”

  “Check if I would be returned to this position or if another would be allocated.”

  “This position will be quarantined until the error is identified.”

  “Then I’ll continue the scenario.”

  “The AI will continue this scenario but has sent the event log to a developer for consideration and confirmation. You will resurrect in three seconds.”

  Leah was more prepared this time and tried to slow her fall by grabbing the smaller branches as she crashed through the top of the canopy. Unfortunately, her speed was too high and her hands couldn’t grip sufficiently. The external surface of the branches ripped the skin off her hands. She had managed, however, to change her direction enough that she missed the branch which previously broke her back and instead was killed when her head hit a different branch thirty metres lower.

  She resurrected immediately. This time she let herself bounce off the smaller branches and tried to rotate her body to have her feet hit the first branch and use them to slow herself down. Leah didn’t get them around far enough and broke both legs as they slammed into the branch. As she fell, she tried to look around for other options. She was killed when her head hit a large limb.

  On the twenty-sixth time she resurrected, she began rotating as she passed through the canopy. Leah controlled her deflections off the smaller branches so that she fell past the back-breaker at just the right distance and angle so that when she pushed off with her legs, she fell past a horizontal bough, which she caught hold of and used to swing herself through an arc and slow her vertical velocity. She did this because on the twenty-fifth attempt, she’d grabbed the branch in the wrong place and impaled her right hand on a three-inch thorn which tore through her hand and held her back just enough that she didn’t make her destination, which was a one-meter diameter branch running parallel to her line of travel.

  This time Leah brought her hands closer together, and although the bough tore some skin from her hands, she held on long enough to flip herself onto the one-meter branch. Then in a combination of a step, a roll and a slide she came to a stop several metres from the trunk of a colossal tree two hundred and seventy metres above the ground.

  Leah looked around and couldn’t see anything threatening or anything which she needed to be concerned about immediately. Her clothing had been destroyed in the explosion and all Leah had was a set of basic modesty gear provided by Survival. It consisted of a black cropped athletic tank top with matching shorts. She had no footwear. She was due in Dunyanin soon and needed some food and a break before she headed there. Leah said, “Can I log out from here, and what are the implications for when I log in again?”

  Gèng replied, “You are not in danger and can log out. When you re-enter Survival, you will appear in the same location. Survival expects players to log out from places of relative safety and not in the open. They penalise poor location choice by leaving your avatar exposed in the exact place you log out from. The avatar is open both to attack and environmental damage. The effect is limited to two per cent of actual per hour of real time. In effect, if you log out while exposed to the environment, you
will be dead within fifty real hours. Developers advise that generally people accumulate enough damage within fifteen hours that they probably won’t survive. Wounds, rashes, and bites do heal at an accelerated rate but it is only double what would happen normally.”

  Leah carefully moved along the branch looking for somewhere safer to log out from. None of the information gathered had discussed plants and animals this high up in the canopy, but she kept a look out for the large variety of dangerous flora and fauna that had been discovered. Leah headed away from the trunk, and after twenty metres she came to a section which was clear of other foliage. After checking for insects, she was about to log out when Gèng said, “A developer from Survival would like to discuss your decision to stay in the scenario with you. He is available now and suggests you meet in his office, or he can come to the Tower. Otherwise, I can make an appointment for later in the day.”

  “Do you have a suggestion of what would be best?”

  “Both locations will be private enough for a frank discussion. You will have more control in the Tower.”

  “Let’s meet in the Tower then, but at the new gazebo.”

  After a final review of her situation, Leah logged out.

  2

  Chapter 2

  December 16, 2073 - Part 9

  STORK TOWER

  Leah appeared near the Tower’s entry podium wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Gèng appeared beside her and said, “I’ve reviewed your experience while waiting for the Survival AI to resurrect you and I think you should review that before heading into another world.”