Stefan Gagne - Haven Borne

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H A V E N

B O R N

A Novel by Stefan Gagne

In a Future We'd Like To See

Legal Disclaimer -

This short story series, characters, plots, concepts, fonts, styles, and

rights reserved, etc. etc. What this means is if you write a story called

Haven Born with wacky characters named Doc, Random, or Lime, I can sue your

ass off and laugh hysterically as my ordinarily thin pockets are amplified

by legal reprimands. You've been warned.

The character of Number Two doesn't fall in this copyright zone.

Author's Note...

This is part of a much longer series (Space Patrol), so I'll have to

summarize the plot for anybody who hasn't read that. If you have, spin on.

If you haven't, you might want to consider reading SP first, as thiswrapup

isn't terribly detailed, or even terribly good.

Also, for regular readers of the series, a quick warning : this one is

considerably more serious and depressing than the usual silliness and dark

humor...

VOS (Virtual Operating System) was originally programmed by some chap named

Qwerty, aMurfle Programming God sort of guy who used it to interrogate

people who had information he wanted. A cheap,efficent way to get insider

tips and remove competition. Victims would jack them into the Township (the

first matrix), and due to the fact that VOS resembles reality VERY well

when given enough power, they never knew they were in VR.

Twerp, a character from the Space Patrol series, made an appearance as a

prisoner in the Township before it went under. This is somewhat ironical

because Twerp is Qwerty's brother; Twerp finds out it Qwerty ran the place

awhile later.

Something went horribly wrong and the Township crashed. Qwerty disappeared,

but accidentally left behind a sub-program that handled artificial

intelligence along with the whole VOS software.

WhenMacroWare and William Doors found the ruins of the Township's computer

system, they claimed VOS to be their own. Nobody knew about Number Two, the

universes only fully realisticartifical intelligence until William

unearthed his backup disk and ran it.

This takes place before the FWLS, shortly after the birth ofVOSNet . It

will forever change the universe, throwing another species into the fray...

A far, far time from now in a galaxy now so long, long away, there

were four Space Patrollers who had a habit of getting into trouble. Weird

trouble. Dangerous trouble. Strange trouble. The kind of trouble that makes

for very fat books reviewers seem to enjoy.

This is not their story.

Instead, it is the story of a person, or rather a faux persona, who

one of the Patrollers happened to have met in a simulation of an old BBC

science fiction show. It is the story of that person and what became of

him, or it, or whatever you might call anartifical intelligence.

It is a story that doesn't take place in reality as we know it, but a

very mediocre simulation thereof. It is a story of alifeform bound to that

simulation, and the problems inherent in being tied down to such a

system...

Living with yourself when you know you don't technically exist is a

pretty hard thing to do.

Number Two groaned as his alarm clock program rang out with poorly

digitized bell noises, and knocked it across the room. The clock didn't

break; theMacroware complex removed the object self-destruction routines

after a massive fight in the virtual cafeteria resulted in the breakage of

twenty plates and sixteen glasses. The techie staff had to spend several

hours picking the bits out of the system and disposing of them.

Number Two didn't really need to sleep, but he was programmed to

think he needed to. He was the only person who slept inMacroware's local

system onVOSnet -- the Virtual Operating System Network, linking all

VOS-running computers to each other. The other workers would simply jack

out of the network and go home to their own beds. Real beds, with actual

feather pillows and mattresses with springs. All Number Two got was a hard

cot made out of a simple rectangular polygon. This was all he ever could

get.

He wasn't particularly liked by his co-workers. He was treated like a

menial robot, just another program to order around, not like a normal human

being with sentient thoughts. "Number Two, give me that data unit." "Number

Two, sort these database entries alphanumerically." "Number Two, reach that

book for me." The strain was getting to him.

At first, he had worked with employee management, perusing files and

looking for weak links in the security chain. That's what he did best after

all, weeding out information and keeping secrets, because that was what he

was programmed to do. Then someone in the E-M office found out he was just

an artificial intelligence construct and complained about working with

nonexistent people. It was a choice between the complainer quitting and

Number Two being placed in a different office. The one with actual flesh

won.

It's not as if a fight wasn't put up. The only person in this

corporation who particularly liked Number Two was the president himself,

William Doors, who had salvaged him from the wreck of the first VOS system

and placed him in a high position of the corporation, recognizing Two's

skills. Doors didn't seem to care that Number Two was a construct. He

didn't treat him as an object of study, or something to be awed by, or

something to fear. He treated him, well, normal.

Which is why it was so difficult to quit.

Number Two walked silently into William Doors' simulated office,

steppingsomberly towards the ornate oak texture mapped desk. William

didn't notice him enter, still busy writing a thesis on the effects of VOS

on the human mind. Number Two tapped the table.

William looked up. Number Two took resign.txt out from behind his

back, and dropped it on the desk.

Without a word, William picked up the note, unfolded it carefully,

and read. A slight frown played out on his face.

"Why, Number Two?" he asked.

"Don't misunderstand, old friend," Two said. "It's not your fault.

You have been most fair in my stay at your fine company. I just need a

change of pace. I feel that my talents aren't of much use here."

"I know you better than that, Two," William said. "You're hardly

useless around here. Before people found out you were a construct, you were

one of our top employees."

"Were. Past tense," Two pointed out. "It won't work here. In the

Township, nobody knew, nobody minded. I need to find a place like that

again, where nobody will care whether or not I'm just a program running on

a mainframe. Plus, I really don't know much about myself. I only discovered

two or three months ago that I was virtual... before that I thought I was a

living person. I need to come to grips with that. Call it a soul searching

mission."

"Where will you go?"

"Well... I've been reading up on developments in VOS on the

newsreaders," Two informed. "There's a rather shady fellow over on the

Septic Tank which has experimented with constructs. Very primitive work,

but he might have some insight into what makes me tick."

"The Septic Tank?" Doors asked, surprised. "Isn't that a seedy

underworld system? I mean, it's not exactly a nice place to live, and you

wouldn't want to visit, either."

"There aren't that many choices. VOS is relatively new, not many

places have set up enough computing power to run amultiuser net through

it...Macroware has their company net. There are college student run nets

like the Tank andDixie and a few others, all linked up toVOSNet , but

that's about it. Sure, there are small corporation LANs, but those are

quite boring and of no use to me."

"Okay," William agreed. "Should we discuss your severance pay?"

"Money is useless to me," Number Two shrugged. "But I do need a

bargaining chip of some sort in order to convince the administrator of the

Tank to give me processor space."

"What did you have in mind?"

The Object Designer pre-release package was gleefully transferred to

the Septic TankNewuser Administrator's account via subspace modem link.

"I trust that the program is satisfactory?" Number Two spoke to the

virtual videophone link.

"You bet it is!" the unshaven, crazed looking hacker at the other end

said ecstatically. "It's about time a program that can create new

object-icons came out."

"Now you realize that's a piratedprerelease ," Two warned. "The real

thing will be out on the commercial market in a month."

"That'll give us plenty of time to pump out a pack of newobjicons

before anyone else," the hacker said. "You just gave us a goldmine,

stranger. You've got yourself your run time and an account. I'll start you

out with a hundredVirtuCreds out of my pocket, since this stuff's HOT.

What name and password would you like?"

"Number Two will do," Two said. "Password... hmm. Make it something

dull, like 'temp', I'll change it later."

Although Number Two was walking into this situation with only a

smidgen of background research, he still had hispreprogrammed paranoia and

character judgement to rely on, and some subroutine had a feeling this man

wasn't to be trusted.

"Sounds cool here," the Hacker said, typing it in on a virtual

keyboard several million miles away. "You're in the Tank.Congrads . Not

many have enough qualifications to get in here. Consider it a higher class

of low life."

"Will do. When can I move over?"

"Anytime, pal. You've got the connection over, just copy your runtime

software over and I'llrehook your process to our system. And don't worry,

I'll keep your non-realness to myself. Not that it matters much anyway, as

long as you don't tick off any of the head honchos around here."

"Thank you, good sir. I shall see you over there, I trust?"

"Nope. Got paperwork to do. You'll get the welcoming wagon instead.

Watch your six, thou, as usual."

The screen shut off, and Number Two felt a sickening sensation, as if

he was being sucked bit by bit across a million miles of subspace... which

was, in fact, what was happening, as the modem link transferred his being

to the other system.

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