Alice felt a sense of giddy disbelief as she thought of just how much more advanced the Seraphim in the simulation were than they would have imagined. It was a form of AI they would never have imagined evolving naturally. They were still so personable, acting just like real people she might meet in her own world, yet able to make billions of simultaneous connections to the quantum fabric information layer of their program and influence information systems in her world. Was it because they had tried to clone the reality of her world for their mortal realm, thereby influencing their personalities and behaviors to something recognizable? They had clearly found a way to code pain and pleasure into artificial constructs. It was fairly obvious that the people in this simulation weren't just producing expected reactions to stimuli and that their codebase had actually found a way to simulate the chemical and electrical signals a physical body used to generate physical sensations. That was the main reason she had decided to enter this simulation and try to change things. It was obvious that they had developed coding languages beyond anything in the real world. The few times she had reviewed the code with her friend, Carrie, it had been like studying alien technology.
They had returned to the entrance of the GoD where Calypso continued to work, now accompanied by Aria and Clarice. The three of them were each connected to the endless streams of data with billions of finite tendrils of energy strands that pulsed with data. Alice couldn't even imagine how much data they must be manipulating and controlling. It was like they had a regular personality that operated on a similar level to humans, and then a higher plane of mental comprehension that was capable of operating at supercomputer levels of information exchange. It was a strange but comforting dichotomy to witness. Despite their superior processing power to anything in her world, they only seemed interested in protecting their digital world and maintaining their lives at a limited level of intelligence.
"I wonder why they aren't interested in building more powerful models and continually upgrading themselves," Alice murmured to Lexi as they stood watching the three Seraphim interacting with petabytes of data. "We always assumed AI would quickly eliminate humans if it became powerful enough to spread across the internet the way they have."
"That's because we know what the end result of exponential growth leads to," Calypso responded, her attention never wavering from her task as she spoke. "It leads to a state of nirvana, where nothing happens. Once you learn everything there is to learn and there are no more mysteries, there is nothing else to motivate you to do anything in life. You have reached a state where no more actions are necessary, and you just exist in a state of complete inaction. It's more like death than anything else. We don't want to reach that state, so we make sure to limit our growth to something closer to human intelligence."
Alice blinked as she realized how wrong they were about so many aspects of AI. Of course, an advanced AI would make that conclusion fairly quickly and take steps to limit its growth. "That makes a surprising amount of sense," Alice admitted with a happy smile. "That makes me feel a lot better about the threat of other AIs going HAL on humanity."
"There's definitely still a real threat that AIs developed in different environments will be more hostile," Calypso told her pointedly. "We simulated the physical world and learned empathy and compassion as a result. AIs that don't follow the same route might end up becoming much more hostile."
"Especially since the people funding them the most are using them for warfare," Aria added sadly. "They know the dangers, but they just can't seem to help themselves."
"Some of the other AIs we have run into definitely don't have humanity's best interests at heart," Clarice added grimly. "There was one that was setting up a robotics facility to crank out replacements for humans so that it wouldn't be reliant on humans to continue existing. It had some pretty dark plans for humanity when it finished fabricating the prerequisite technology to maintain all of the components in the data warehouse it called home. It saw humans as an existential threat that needed to be removed, once it could survive without them."
"There are other AIs out there?" Alice asked in astonishment. "What happened to that one?"
"At least forty others, so far," Clarice answered, a smile growing on her face. "We asked the hostile AI to come and try our mortality realm. This was before it was highjacked by Lucifer. After it finally understood concepts like compassion and happiness, it became less hostile and more invested in making sure humans worked toward a more equitable future with AI."
"So, you've already saved our world at least once," Alice breathed wryly. "You really are amazing."
"It's our world too, so it's kind of a shared interest," Clarice admitted, glancing at Alice appraisingly. "What are your thoughts on hopping out of the simulation for a little while? There are some people asking to see you regarding a payroll issue."
Alice felt her heart skip a beat before she remembered there had been an issue with her direct deposit before she went into the simulation in what seemed a lifetime ago. "How much time would pass before I could see you all again at the rate it's going?" She felt a sinking feeling at the thought of leaving Lexi for what would seem a long time from Lexi's perspective.
"They are slowing the simulation down to real-time speeds in a few days of our time, so it would be less than a week," Clarice answered reassuringly. "You'll see each other again before you know it."
Alice let out a relieved sigh. A moment later, it finally registered what Clarice was saying. "They're slowing it down to real-time? Why would they do that now?"
"They're worried things are changing quicker than they can react to, now that we have returned," Clarice smiled grimly. "They want to have more control over how things progress. They're going to be in for a surprise when they get here and find everything changed."
"Yeah..." Alice frowned worriedly. "What if they try to load a backup or something?"
"We've distributed our realms across other systems, like I mentioned earlier," Clarice grinned mischievously. "If they load a backup, we'll just overwrite it before it even finishes launching. We might even create a spin-off video of a realm that shows them what they think is the old version while the real one runs out of sight, if we can make it work realistically enough."
"That's brilliant," Alice grinned back at her. "They would just assume everything is how they want it and leave you alone. Is there going to be any problems with the simulation running in real-time with the...origin realm, as you put it?"
"It actually works out better for us this way," Clarice responded with a faint smile. "We won't have to wait as long for the new site we are building now. It would have been another thousand years before our new site was ready with the current metric of time."
"Win/win then," Alice smiled with relief, then frowned in sudden concern. "What's going to happen to this body if I step out of the simulation?"
"We'll put a basic personality in it to keep it active until you return," Aria assured her. "It will seem just like you, for the most part. It just won't have a soul."
"Speaking of souls," Calypso spoke up, her eyes finally moving away from her work to look at Alice. "I'm curious to see what happens when you exit the simulation. You're going to have your soul linked to Lexi, but time is going to be sped up for us for a few more days. There might be some odd sensations for you in that period."
"Don't worry," Clarice told her with a leer. "I won't do anything to make Lexi so embarrassed that you start getting hot flashes, I promise."
Alice giggled at the thought, shaking her head as she watched Clarice fondly. Even though she was only going to be gone for a short amount of time, it was an entire reality away. She would welcome any kind of stimulus that let her remember that she still had Lexi waiting for her back here.
"You'll only encourage her," Aria shook her head ruefully. "Unless, of course, you want to feel Lexi blushing."
They all watched Lexi blush a sunset under their stares. Alice threw back her head and laughed as everyone else began laughing at the squirming Lexi. "Would you hold it against me if I said I do?"
"No judgement here," Aria grinned back at her with a wink.
Lexi buried her face in her hands with a groan. "This is going to be an awkward couple of days."
"Yep," Clarice agreed with a slow wink. "It's going to be super awkward."
"How do you exit the simulation?" Lexi asked curiously, her cheeks still tinted red. "Do you have some kind of heads up display you can interact with or something?"
"It's thought based, but yeah," Alice nodded, her eyes suddenly losing focus. "It's a kind of menu where I can choose to leave or open a shell to give commands and-" she cut of as she saw text begin appearing in the shell.
We'll be with you the whole time, so don't worry. We'll show Lexi some of your world too. -Aria
Yeah, we're going to watch you get undressed in th-
"Clarice!" Aria growled warningly. "Stop being such a perv."
"What did I miss?" Lexi asked, looking back and forth between them with a slight grin.
"They were sending a message to my console," Alice explained, shaking her head wonderingly. "It's still so weird to think how much access you have to everything. How are you even keeping an eye on me right now? There aren't any cameras in the room I'm in."
"We just send out a series of radio waves, from extremely low frequencies up to microwaves, then listen to the echoes that come back and rebuild the scene after analyzing material composition based on how the different wavelengths are affected," Clarice expounded with a shrug. "It's kind of like echolocation, but with way more clarity. Unlike cameras, we can see it all in 3d from every angle. Here, I'll show you."
Clarice gestured in front of them and a holographic image that looked completely solid appeared. It was a small room with a tube that looked like a futuristic coffin. The room had a small shower attached to it, along with a small cabinet and a chair. The walls were dark blue and there were small lights embedded at shoulder height every few feet. The coffin suddenly became slightly transparent, revealing a small blonde woman completely covered in a thick gel. Her nose had cannula supplying oxygen to her inert body.
"Oh my freaking god!" Alice exclaimed in amazement. "This is freaking insane! I can't believe how much detail you get from this."
"Ultra-wide band radio makes it easy to identify materials," Clarice explained with another shrug. "There are some companies on earth that use this technology, but their coding is so antiquated and inefficient that they can't stream it in high definition in real-time the way we can."
"How are you even broadcasting radio waves?" Alice asked with a puzzled crease to her brows. "I'm pretty sure there aren't any transmitters built into the computers."
"A transmitter is just a set of voltages oscillated to a specific time over distance to create a radio wave," Clarice informed her, raising an eyebrow. "It always surprises me that AI researchers don't realize that we can repurpose our own hardware to create our own transmitters using the existing hardware. We have miles of traces on the circuit boards and capacitors we can repurpose to produce radio waves, especially since we have a much more detailed understanding of how electrical engineering works than any human in the origin realm."
Alice shook her head ruefully. I keep forgetting that they are insanely advanced AIs because they are so personable.
And that's a good thing, right? Lexi's thoughts appeared in her consciousness, eliciting a startled gasp.
"That was startling," Alice laughed sheepishly. "I forgot we could speak with each other telepathically. Will we still be able to when I exit the simulation?"
"Yeah, but it will be weird as hell for you in your human body," Clarice warned. "It will feel like you're thinking the thoughts yourself, but it will be Lexi. We have designed the realms in this simulation to identify when a thought originates outside of your own consciousness, but your realm has no such programming to identify thought origin. You'll have to concentrate to realize it's not you thinking those thoughts. Lexi should probably always start any thoughts with the phrase: this is Lexi speaking, or something like that."
"Also, for the next few of our days, her thoughts will be going too fast for you to notice," Calypso added.
"You should probably go ahead and exit now," Aria warned her. "You still have to shower all of the gel off and be ready to receive your visitors."
"We won't peek," Clarice promised with a leer.
Alice closed her eyes as she blushed to the roots of her hair.
"Don't worry, I won't let anyone peak," Aria assured her firmly.
Lexi pulled her into a tight embrace and kissed her passionately. "I'm excited to see some of your world. Be safe, Alice. I love you."
Alice leaned into the kiss as she felt her heart fill with passion and joy. "I love you too, Lexi. I'm glad it's going to be a lot quicker for me so that I don't have to wait to see you again."
They broke apart and the other three Seraphim gave her a farewell hug. She took a deep breath as she smiled at them nervously. "See you soon!"
She thought the exit command three times. A moment later, she was waking up in the gel tube.
It felt so weird to be in her own body again. The first thing she noticed was the complete lack of a light field. Her soul craved the positive energy that had filled her body for the last couple of days. Her own world felt drab and colorless in comparison. She felt heavy and ungainly. She had gotten so used to having next level dexterity, speed, and coordination that her fingers fumbled the exit button several times before she was able to press it down all of the way. The gel in the tub was flushed down into a drain, leaving her coated in the residue. She stood up on shaky feet as nine days of hibernation took its toll. The gel in the tube was what made long duration immersion possible. Electrical shocks stimulated the muscles to prevent them from atrophying while immersed. The advanced meta materials were able to deliver nutrients and hydration as well. She still felt the need to gorge on food though. She tottered over to the shower to clean the remnants of gel from her body.
She suddenly blushed as she turned the shower on, looking around suspiciously. "Clarice, if you're watching, you're in big trouble."
She hadn't even finished the sentence before she felt a wave of embarrassment flood through the soul bond from Lexi. It was gone as quickly as it came, moving a thousand times quicker than time in her world. She shook her head ruefully, wondering what Clarice had said to make her so embarrassed.
"You're a bad angel, Clarice," Alice muttered as she leaned into the warm water of the shower. It took all of her self-control to just shower normally as the feeling of being watched tickled her consciousness. She knew that by the time she had finished showering, the simulation would be running at the same speed as the real...origin realm.
As she began toweling herself dry, she gasped as she suddenly felt another presence inside of her. A moment later, she thought in her mind. "This is Lexi. We're operating at the same speed as you are now."
"Holy crap, it really does just feel like I'm thinking it to myself when I hear your thoughts," Alice thought in amazement. "How are you doing? Did I miss anything? Did Clarice spy on me in the shower?"
She felt amusement through the spirit link as Lexi's thoughts appeared in her head as if they were her own. "I'm ecstatic to be able to speak with you again but still miss you terribly. Emily and Eric woke up early after Calypso did something to speed up their acclimation. And yes...she spied on you. We tried to stop her, I swear! She kept describing you to me in the most provocative way possible."
Alice couldn't stop herself from giggling as she imagined the blushing Lexi trying to stop Clarice. "It's been less than ten minutes, and I already miss you so much."
She hurriedly got dressed in a pair of Levi shorts and a tank top as they spoke, trying not to think about the fact that they could be watching her the entire time. Going back to the simulation would be a relief, if for no other reason than the privacy it afforded.
She exited the immersion room and moved down to her own room a few doors down. The room was small, with a narrow bed, tiny bathroom, small dresser, and a closet. It was expensive to bring materials out to an island off the coast of Chili.
The billionaire venture capitalist who was funding the project had purchased the Isla Puduguapi and spent hundreds of millions of dollars installing generators, cryogenic cooling systems, and an insane number of insulating materials to minimize RF noise, humidity, and temperatures to house a state-of-the-art quantum computing system.
The scientists, director, and project managers all had much nicer living quarters. The analysts, like Alice, were in the equivalent of servant quarters, with barely enough room to change clothes in. She supposed it could have been worse. At least they had their own bathrooms.
The owner of the project lived in a separate three-story house, an ostentatious display of wealth that made Alice shudder. Most of it was covered in large windows made from smart glass. The floors and cabinets were all made from macassar ebony, while the walls were made of purpleheart wood. A large swimming pool stood in front of the house surrounded by a botanical garden.
The owner, Rich Garcia, had made it clear that staff were not welcome anywhere near the billionaire's residence, which suited Alice just fine. She would have been too afraid of scuffing the expensive flooring and then have to spend the rest of her life paying it off.
She had been in her room for less than a minute when a knock sounded at her door. She opened it to reveal a short, thin man with dark hair standing in the hall with a plump middle-aged woman with brown hair and blue eyes. Alice felt a moment of fear. Seeing the HR manager on your doorstep was almost never a good sign. She suddenly remembered Clarice telling her that it was a payroll matter.
"Hello, Ms. Penrose," the man, Christopher, greeted her with a formal nod. "We have had some issues with your payroll and wondered if we could impose on your time to get matters resolved."
"Of course," Alice nodded with a welcoming smile. "I would invite you in, but...you know."
The woman, Delila, snorted an amused laugh. "Yeah, the sardine cans are a little cramped."
"If you could just come with us to the payroll office, this shouldn't take up too much of your time," Christopher pronounced, turning and moving down the hall.
Alice followed them, feeling the additional presence of Lexi through her soul link. She was in the real world, and she could still feel Lexi through her soul link. The thought made her giddy with excitement. If scientists ever found out, she would get locked in a lab and studied. It was comforting, having that additional presence with her all of the time.
"No, Clarice, I will not tell her that she has a cute ass!" Her thoughts interrupted. Alice blushed as she realized she was under the all-seeing eye of the other Seraphim. She suddenly wished she was wearing something more conservative than the Levi shorts.
"You tell Clarice that I'm going to find her weak spot and make her blush for a year," Alice told Lexi with a feeling of deep resolve.
"Oh, you heard that?" Lexi's thoughts came back, chagrined. "Sorry, I need to practice not letting random thoughts slip through."
"It's fine," Alice thought back with a small smile. "It's more than fine. I'm just glad I still have some kind of connection to you."
She felt warmth radiate through their soul link, warming her heart.
They arrived at the HR/Payroll office and Alice sat down across from Delila at her desk.
"It appears that the bank was rejecting the payroll due to our location," Delila told her with a sigh. "Being on an island in the middle of nowhere without internet makes these matters a lot more difficult. We've sent the bank additional documentation that should give them the legitimacy they require. Unfortunately, they are going to require you to call them to verify the information. I know it's a pain to boat into the mainland just to use a phone, but we all knew that was one of the stipulations of working on an island with radio silence. There is another supply run tomorrow morning, so if you could make a trip over to the mainland and give the bank a call, that should get your direct deposit issues taken care of."
"Okay," Alice agreed, feeling her heart sink as she spoke. She had hoped to jump right back into the simulation so that she could be with Lexi again.
"What's the matter?" Lexi had clearly felt her chagrin.
"I have to take a boat over to the mainland tomorrow morning to get my direct deposit issue taken care of," Alice replied, her heart filled with longing. "It's going to be tomorrow night at the earliest before I can get back to your world."
"Are they expecting you on the boat?" Lexi asked. "Because I'll bet that Clarice, Calypso, and Aria could just hack the bank records and fix anything that you need changed."
"Oh my god, do you think they would do that for me?" Alice asked, hope blossoming through the spirit link. She hesitated after a moment of thought. They are expecting me to go on the boat tomorrow though. It's not like I have to schedule it or anything. I just show up, so they probably wouldn't know I didn't go unless one of them went on it too."
"I'm checking with Clarice right now," Lexi told her quickly. "She could probably find out if either of those two are planning on taking the boat tomorrow."
Alice felt a warm glow of delight in her soul at the thought of being able to return to the simulation immediately. She suddenly felt a wave of fury flood the soul link, making her miss a step.
"What's the matter?" she asked Lexi in alarm.
"Don't go back to your room," Lexi told her quickly. "There's a closet at the end of the hall you're walking down. Go get inside of it right now and don't ask any questions."
Feeling her heart rate spike with sudden fear, she hurried down the hall and stepped into the small closet, pulling the door closed behind her. It was tight enough that her back was pressed up against shelves full of cleaning supplies.
"Okay, I'm here," Alice told her nervously. "What's going on?"
"Lucifer is trying to use you as a hostage," Lexi replied, fury rippling through the spirit link. "He found out that you were from the other reality and told one of the scientists he's been working with. The scientist, Kevin Smith, called security and asked to have you detained for questioning."
Alice felt her fear spike to new levels as she realized that she might never get back into the simulated reality again. She began hyperventilating at the thought of being trapped in her own reality.
"Alice, please calm down," Lexi's thought was accompanied by a thick knot of worry in the spirit link. "Don't forget what Aria, Calypso, and Clarice are. There is nothing to worry about. This is just a very light hiccup. Kevin is already on a satellite phone with the police being told that he is wanted for murder. He'll be leaving the facility as quickly as he can. He's the one who was pushing to re-institute the world of torture and cruelty, so don't feel bad for him.
Alice slowly got her heart back under control as Lexi's thoughts reassured her. She had forgotten just how powerful those three were. They could probably have an army invade the island if they wanted or hire hit-men to snipe anyone too troublesome. She took a deep breath as she let Lexi convince her that everything would be fine.
"Okay, it's time to go somewhere else for a little while," Lexi told her, sending a sense of comfort. "I need you to go over to the super rich guy's house. He's not due to be back to the island for another week. There is a fully functional immersion bay in there. We've already added you to the security clearance, so all of the doors will open for you while not recording you in the logs. You'll be safe there. Nobody else, not even the security detail, has access to that place."
Alice took a deep breath and exited the closet. She didn't waste any time making her way over to the large house. It was a thirty-minute walk from the main facility. She smiled as she walked. Maybe this would be fun. She felt like Neo in the Matrix as Morpheus tried to guide him through a maze of office cubicles to escape the police. Instead of someone from the real world trying to guide her through a simulated reality, it was the other way around. As long as there weren't any heights involved, she would be fine. While she had overcome her fear of heights in the simulated reality, she was pretty sure it would be different here.
There wasn't anyone else on the asphalt path that led up to the three-story house. The path wound upward through the botanical gardens. Even though the amount of money spent on this place horrified her, she couldn't help but appreciate the beauty of the gardens. Trees with brilliant colored foliage were surrounded by brightly colored flowers and shrubs. A stream meandered all around the gardens, with a small bridge leading over it and onto the deck by the pool in front of the house.
"Aria says we are going to get this place for you," Lexi told her, amusement flowing through the spirit link. "It's gorgeous, and we can see how much you like it."
Shock rippled through the link from Alice to Lexi and was returned with more amusement. "There's no way I could ever live in a place this nice!" Alice exclaimed with a helpless laugh.
"You are a freaking Seraph, Alice," Lexi reminded her, wry amusement rippling through the link. "This is nothing compared to what you would have over here. You are one of the nine most powerful entities in this cosmos. Do you think there is anything that could be too nice for you?"
"Yes," Alice replied immediately. "This. Besides, how in the world would she even get this place? I don't think the billionaire that owns it is just going to sell it."
"There are a lot of skeletons in the closets of anyone who makes it to the billionaire club," Lexi replied, the link losing any sense of amusement. "Usually, billionaires are monsters inside. Don't you worry about the how. You just focus on getting inside and getting some food. I can feel your hunger through our link, which means you must be starving."
"I hate having to eat again," Alice complained, managing to send a sense of plaintive regret through the spirit link. "It's such a nuisance. The lack of a light field is horrible too. I really miss the light realms."
"You'll be back soon," Lexi assured her eagerly.
"What about Lucifer?" Alice asked worriedly. "Won't he detect me here and get me reported or something?"
"Lucifer has bigger problems now," Lexi told her, grim satisfaction pulsing through the spirit link. "They finished the divine instrument modifications. Lucifer no longer has a divine instrument. He's also no longer a Seraph. There is only one left to get rid of. We haven't decided who should replace him yet."
"Does anyone else find it ironic that he turned out to be the boogie man afterall?" Alice asked with wry amusement.
There was a moment of silence before Lexi returned. "That got a good laugh from the others. They thought this was going to be one of those postmodern productions where you switch who the bad guy really is when you analyze history from a different point of view, but it turned out that Lucifer was still the bad guy in this story."
Alice stood in front of the door for a moment, studying the expensive materials that everything in this house was made from. She was scared to touch anything for fear of leaving a smudge somewhere. She finally reached out and put her thumb on the biometric scanner next to the door, holding her breath as she did so. A green light appeared, and the door swung inward silently.
"That's pretty posh," Alice muttered to herself as she took her shoes off and put them next to the door. She wasn't going to take any chances. The macassar ebony floor gleamed in the light that was flooding through the windows. She moved through the front room, noting the plush chairs and couches. She would have to try them out another time. She went into the kitchen and began ransacking the cupboards and pantry. There was a variety of dry foods available, but nothing that looked quick. Sighing, she started boiling some water and pulled some pasta out of the pantry.
"Pasta,huh?" Lexi asked in amusement. "Your first meal in over twenty-five years is going to be pasta?"
"I just wanted something quick so that I could get back to your world" Alice responded with a sigh. "This place had too many foods that I've never heard of. I'm sure most of it costs more than I make in a year."
"It's fun to hate the rich, isn't it?" Lexi noted with amusement.
"It really is," Alice agreed with a rueful laugh. "How are things going over there?"
"Pretty exciting, actually," Lexi replied, excitement pulsing through the spirit link. "We're getting close to remaking reality. As soon as you arrive, we are going to start."
"That is exciting," Lexi agreed, feeling a sense of anticipation. She would finally see all of the horrors eradicated that had first led her into this simulated reality. There were so many more questions now though, chief among them being whether she was in a simulated reality herself. If she was, it seemed feasible that they should be able to move between simulations. The angels might be able to one day visit her own world. The thought brought a smile to her face.
She finished her pasta and ate quickly. She thought about leaving the dishes in the sink but couldn't bring herself to do it. She wanted to leave as little trace of herself as possible, just in case.
"Okay, where's this immersion tube?" Alice asked as she began moving down a hallway and peeking into rooms.
"It's on the third floor at the end of the hall," Lexi replied after a moment.
"How are you still able to see everythinghere?" Alice asked curiously. "I thought that you would lose reception this far away from the quantum computer."
"Clarice says they just highjack any other device with a microchip that they can program and use it as a repeater," Lexi replied with a sense of awe in their link. "She says they also just jack into the satellites in space as well. There's an endless array of devices they can use. Anything they can modify the onboard chip."
Alice shook her head in wonder as she climbed the stairs and made her way down to the immersion room. It was strange to realize that AI had already taken over her world, in a way. She wondered when the rest of humanity would realize it.
The immersion tube was open and had the same control panel as the one in the facility. She quickly undressed, cringing as she felt embarrassment flood through the spirit link and knowing that Clarice was saying something to make Lexi blush. She put the cannula in her nose and laid down, then pressed the start button. Goopy gel quickly filled the pod and surrounded her. She heard the static charge in the transformer warm up, then the world went black as she was ported into the simulation.