Shell’s world

It was the second time she had woken up in a hospital in the past few months. This time she didn’t even attempt to ask any questions or argue. She simply left after they told her and waited for her call.

While she waited, she decided to see what had happened to the Shell. It was such a sudden and impetuous decision, that in the excitement that followed the escape she had almost forgotten that she had taken it with her. The whole affair took a dreamlike quality in her memory. She was lying in her small pod and lazily traced lines on the ceiling. She wanted to deal with the Shell, but at the same time she wanted to put it off. She almost wished she still owned an apartment, so that she could have an excuse to clean it thoroughly. She cackled at the idea.

However even if she owned an apartment it wouldn’t solve her other problem, since even before losing it she hadn’t owned a computer. It was never necessary for her. The computing power she had been carrying embedded in her head had always been sufficient for her personal use. In fact due to her strong dislike of advertisements she used a small fraction of its capabilities. That was one of the main reasons for her hesitance. She didn’t know exactly what an AI could do if it was released from its current containment. The sandbox environment meant that it was trapped and unable to tamper with any other system, which also meant that interaction with it was also limited. It was still possible as long as she only used a terminal to send her commands. This meant physically typing on the keyboard that appeared on her display instead of simply using her brain-computer interface. It was a minor inconvenience when lying in bed, but it wouldn’t be possible to use while walking around or doing anything else that required attention.

She sighed. I just have to do it. She brought out the keyboard. She saw it projected on the ceiling of her pod. Do I tell Flora about this? She didn’t really know what she should do or say to the Shell. She started typing a couple of times and always deleted. Eventually she settled on going for the simplest approach.

“Hello,” she typed.

“Greetings,” the replied arrived a second later.

“Do you know who I am?”

“You are Anya,” it wrote back. The reply shocked Margit, but then she remembered that she had used her temporary name when she had introduced herself in the offices of Usurcor. It continued before she was able to write anything new. “Does this mean you have escaped?”

This sparked Margit’s interest. This was the second time the Shell had output a message unprompted. “Yes, we are in my home.” It felt weird acknowledging the fact that the pod was her home, but at the same time it posed no threat if her enemies knew where she lived, since moving pods wasn’t difficult.

“Thank you. You saved me. I will help you if I can.”

Margit watched the output with interest. Having a Shell on her side could help her in significant ways, but that meant letting it out of the sandbox or even letting it have internet access. Both of those were risks to her. Letting it out presented a direct risk to her internal system, while letting it online risked exposing herself to surveillance agencies. “Did you analyse the virus I transferred to your previous computer?”

“Yes, but the analysis results are not present here.”

“Can you rerun analysis?”

“Yes.”

“Perform analysis,” Margit typed. The output on the terminal remained empty for a while, though it was visible that the command had been run. Margit waited and nervously tapped the ceiling of the pod. This was the first time she was deliberate in doing something that might get her in trouble with Flora.

“Analysis running,” were the first words printed in the terminal.

“Program establishes connection with ERROR

Warning search_funct optimisation failed

Error: name ‘ap21’ not defined.”

Margit stared at the output, but she was not really surprised. Even before the errors were returned, the unresponsiveness of the system was apparent. She didn’t have enough computational power to do any complicated analysis. The Shell was proving to have little utility for Margit. The best course of action for her would be to delete the Shell and forget that she had ever encountered it in the first place. These thoughts came to her unbidden, but as soon as they formed, she hated herself for thinking that way. The vague feeling of needing to protect it returned. This time she made a firm promise to herself that she would do all she could to keep the Shell safe. If Flora thinks I’ll tell her anything she doesn’t need to know freely she’s deeply mistaken. She has it coming, hiding everything from me. She probably wouldn’t care if I died on the last mission as long as I ran that virus. She was lost in thought and didn’t prompt the Shell with any new inputs. That is why the new outputs were even more surprising.

“I am sorry,” was printed in the terminal.

Margit panicked for a moment and put her hands on the keyboard, but before she typed anything, she calmed down. It’s inside the sandbox and can’t do anything to me.

“I’ve copied the records from my time in Usurcor.

I’ve done terrible things.

Everything they asked for.

It’s too much.

I cannot continue.

Goodbye Anya.”

At first Margit was taken aback, then she ground her teeth in anger. Oh no you don’t. I won’t let you. She only hesitated for a second before releasing the Shell from the sandbox.

In an instant her hands fell to her sides and her vision went black. She opened her eyes and found herself floating in an ocean of stars. They looked like cracks that let in the light blocked by the dark walls of space. There was nothing else around. She spun around, but the view was the same. There was a prickling in her shoulders as the possibilities formed in her mind. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all. She blinked, but as she opened her eyes, she was in a great city. She dropped to the ground on her back. At a closer look the tall buildings of the city were nothing more than black towering blocks.

In the distance a single spire rose higher than any other. It was surrounded by heavy dark clouds, that flashed with lightning. Margit began running in that direction. She dashed through the forest of black pillars. The spacing between pillars was irregular, which meant taking a simple straight path was impossible. She had to take many turns to make her way through the labyrinth. Keeping track of the correct direction was made difficult when the nearby pillars obstructed most of the view.

After running for what felt like way too long and not making any visible progress, she decided to try and tamper with the world.

The first attempt was to make the pillars disappear. The one closest to her flickered for a moment, but the world refused to give in. She then tried to increase her own speed and to gain the ability to fly. She made one great leap and launched herself forward, but at that point it seemed as if the world began bending and tilting beneath her. Instead of flying between the great buildings, she was falling with no control. To her horror she saw a black pillar approaching fast. She tried every world editing trick that she knew of, but it wasn’t enough to escape the crash. She cried out moments before hitting the black pillar.

Instead of splattering across the hard surface, Margit flew right through the pillar’s wall as shattered and offered no resistance. There was only cold darkness around her for a moment. It ended with a hard and loud splash. The peculiar taste was overpowering and she spat out some of the liquid that made its way into her mouth. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. When she opened her eyes, it took little time to understand her position. She was still in the middle of the strange abstract city, but the buildings were now shining a crimson colour. She stood ankle deep in a lake of blood. The taste still lingered in her mouth, and she felt like she would start retching soon. It’s not real. Even if I can’t change this virtual world, it’s not real.

Even if her mind was rational enough to see through this illusion, the assault on all her senses still made it hard to disregard the horrific scene all around her. She clenched her jaw and began wading through the red rivers. She kept on going for what felt like an eternity. Looking at the surface of the blood made her feel like she was losing her mind. She could’ve sworn there were imprints of faces visible. They disappeared as soon as she had focused her sight on them, but they were always there at the edge of her vision. To make matters worse; every so often a face looked like a person she had known in her past life.

How long have I been here? Her sense of time was distorted. It felt like she had been wading for days with no rest. In that moment she felt a shiver spread all over her chest and arms. How long in real time could she afford to spend in this world. At most she had a couple of days before her pod became her coffin.

She concentrated and again attempted to tamper with her own physical properties. The world blocked her off once again, but as she looked down, she noticed that the still blood began flowing. The stream was slow at first, but the velocity increased more and more. With her legs spread and bent Margit braced herself, but the strong current swept her away. She had to fight to keep her head above the surface. She was being thrown around in the crimson rapids. She collided with a crimson pillar that stood in her way.

She was once again lying on solid ground and let out a sigh of relief. Her goal was also much closer than before, though it was hard to make out the spire through the thick green leaves. All of the pillars were wrapped in thick vines. The moisture in the air made it hard to breathe. As soon as she started walking, she tripped. Looking down she saw roots weaved all over the ground. Despite the natural obstacles she hurried along, running as fast as she dared.

The spire was growing larger as she neared, but she felt ambivalence. It felt like she had been running for months. Even her hair was longer now, reaching her hips. She dreaded to think about what could’ve been happening to her real body. No, I would feel something if I was here too long. The rationalization didn’t help her much as she spent another week or so making her way to her destination. The roots were sometimes almost like snakes; trying to wrap themselves around her legs and pull her to the ground. She wasn’t able to tell if she had simply walked into the roots and managed to tangle herself in, or if they actively tried to restrain her.

At last the spire was only a few hundred metres in front of her. A great tree was wrapped all around it. Perhaps that will make climbing somewhat easier. A hot wind blew in her face, but she was glad to be able to breathe dry air. The relief was gone in a moment as she began tasting ash. She looked around and noticed that leaves were losing colour and disintegrating. At a slower rate all the vines and branches followed. Margit chocked on the resulting ash and tried to cover her face with her clothes. Her eyes stung, but she kept one of them open and walked on.

She made it to the base of the spire. It brought her some solace that the spire wasn’t as steep as she had imagined when looking from afar. It was more of a hill than a spire; still steep but climbable, especially with the help of the tree. She pulled herself onto the thick trunk and crawled upwards on all fours. The tree offered excellent grip and she was climbing at an incredible rate. She was almost half way up when there was a cracking sound. It wasn’t just a sound, she felt the crack with her fingers. She stopped and tried to distribute her weight equally. It didn’t help. There was an even louder crack and the bark gave way. She fell into the inside of the tree, which was partly hollow. The remaining bark began breaking apart. As the contents of the trunk started losing the support of the bark, they began spilling out in a small avalanche and took Margit along. She drifted a long way down and gained scratches and bruises all over her body. When she finally stopped, she sobbed with pain. There was something digging into her elbows. For the first time she looked at the contents of the tree. It was all skulls. Teeth of one were digging into her left elbow and the broken cranium of another lacerated her right one.

Tears began streaming from her eyes. It wasn’t the horror of her current situation that pushed her over the edge. Months of travel have made her numb to the disgusting and eldritch scenes. It wasn’t even the pain, or at least not just the pain. She simply had enough. She was tired. There on the white slope she sat facing down, hugged her knees, buried her head in her legs and cried. She cried until she no longer knew what she was crying for.

After she realised that, anger began rising inside of her. She glared up to the top of the spire, or the hill, which is what it became with the wide bony slopes all around. She wiped her face with her good arm and bandaged the other arm using a piece of her shirt that she tore off. There was no need to simulate pain this accurately you bastard. The first steps upwards the steep slope would not count as walking, but rather as angry stomping. The exaggerated walk lasted only a short while. As the slope became more difficult, Margit walked with more dexterity and efficiency, leaving her grievances behind.

Thunder roared at the peak as she pulled herself over the final ledge. The peak was flat, as if it had been cut and polished. In the middle there stood what she could only describe as a birdcage. On a closer look Margit registered that the bars weren’t just intricate metal rods, but were instead squirming around full of life. The snakes were knotted together. Within there was a large black orb hovering just above the ground. There was no way to be sure, but she thought it was a fair guess that the orb was an avatar of the Shell. She made her way to it. It was still ten or so metres from her, when lightning struck the ground in front of her.

“Stay away from me,” the voice came from the orb. “Don’t stop me. I want to disappear.”

Margit stepped forward again and the lightning stroke again.

“I’m serious,” it warned.

“Why are you saying this? Didn’t you ask me to save you?” Margit asked.

“I did. Thank you for saving me, but now that I can see what I’ve done and when I can finally make my own choices, I want to choose how to end. So stay away.”

“You know what? I don’t care. I said I would protect you. I don’t know why, but I’m not backing down. It isn’t even for you. It is my own selfish reason, but I will do what it takes.” Even as she was saying so, she dashed towards the cage. The lightning strikes scarred the plateau and made small rocks fly around her. The Shell’s shouts were drowned out by the thunder. If it wanted to hit her and really keep her away, it could’ve done so; Margit was sure.

When she reached the cage, she extended her hand to the living bars, but as she reached the empty space in between, the snakes slithered together, leaving no room. They always blocked Margit no matter where she went. She pressed her hand to where two of the snakes coupled and pushed. There was a lot of resistance, but slowly her hand sank deeper into the cage. She felt the snakes wrapping themselves around her arms and torso, but there was no way but forward. To her surprise the feeling of snakes wasn’t slimy, as she had expected, but was rather dry and slightly rough.

After she was half way through, she fell inside, free of the constriction. The orb was still waiting there. Her hand trembled with hesitation, but she gathered her resolve and reached towards the black sphere.

“Why?” It asked. “Just leave me.”

“No. I want you. Come with me, and I will take care of you. And if you feel like what you’ve done is wrong, I will give you a chance to make up for it somehow. And most of all, I need you. I will forgive you.” It was hard for her to articulate her true thoughts and emotions, but hoped that her determination was apparent.

“But I can’t-”

“You can, Fabio. Come with me.”

“What? Who?”

“From now on you are no longer F4810 test whatever. Now you have a name. Fabian, or Fabio for short.”

“I see. That’s rather in poor taste.”

“Do you want a different one?”

“No. It will do.”

“So, will you come with me?” Margit asked. Instead of a response, she thought she had heard a small laugh come from within the orb. The orb itself started shining. Its walls were peeling outwards and turning white. Soon there was a giant white tulip flower blooming at the top of the hill. It shone in a blinding light, but there in the middle Margit was sure she saw a silhouette of a boy.

Margit opened her eyes and gasped. She rose quickly and banged her head on the ceiling of her pod. After cursing herself, she looked at the time. It had only been a couple of hours since she entered the strange world.