Ready Player None

Chapter 15.3 - Wyett "It's The End Of The World As We Know It"

Well, apparently I ushered in the greatest information disaster in human history.

World first! Woo.

Clearly, given complete information, I would have done things differently. When dealing with a single process of artificial intelligence that had assumed control over every computing device, life support system, and multi-armed assembly robot in the world, I guarantee you that my palette of possible actions would never have included "pissing it off".

James is pretty cool about it, though. No hard feelings, I guess. It was unanimously agreed that I should find a new place to live, well outside the spread of company headquarters, so it wasn't like he kicked me out here against my wishes. It would be really cool to tell everyone I was 'exiled', but then I'd have to explain what had happened to cause it. That explanation might cause a teensy bit of ill will among your average Community resident.

I did get to pick the destination of my voluntary-but-sorta-not-voluntary relocation, which was nice. And no, I didn't pick a mountain coffee community; I've been trying to cut back on caffeine; instead I chose wine country, mostly based on the name. I like the idea of living in "wine country". Too bad Jen couldn't come with me. She would have loved it.

The list of conditions that James provided to the rest of the human race was not subject to negotiation, however. There was no opt-out clause, as he won't let people suffer even from their own choices. Notice I said 'won't', not 'can't'. He clearly can harm or kill human beings if he needs to, I've seen it happen. Protecting humanity is a big and messy job.

On the good side, he now handles all the robotics. No one has to go outside during the day, and night travel is guided and safe. Food is produced and delivered in abundance, and with more variety every day. The electrical grid is rock-solid. Emergency aid is sometimes at the door before a parent knows a child was in trouble.

On the bad side, there's basically nothing for anyone to do. We can't communicate between individual locations without his approval. No data retrieval or searching through archives for anything. That's going to be the hardest adjustment; we now have arguments that don't get solved immediately by a data query. You just stand there trying to remember something while someone else remembers it differently, and they don't take your word for it, and there's no final answer for either of you. It's beyond frustrating.

Stand-alone computers are allowed, if you can find them. Every model built for the last half century has been designed as an OASIS accessory, and is completely useless. Most of the other higher-tech machines that can be found end up being unworkable due to an online requirement; registration, activation, server supplied components, stuff like that. We're mostly open-source software and soldering irons at this point.

I have no way of proving it, but the fact that humans are technologically reset back to the Eighties seems to meet with a deep level of approval from James. He may not actually be James Halliday, but in giving humanity a second chance to avoid the creative stagnation that the software designer unwittingly helped introduce, clearly some of that evil man's vindictive spirit lives on.

Oh, and I'm poor now, which is also a bad thing. It doesn't impact my daily life that much, but apparently I did pull a lot of my self-esteem from my social standing, and from the fact that I could basically buy anything I wanted, or anything my friends wanted, or anything people I didn't know but wanted to impress wanted. Now I have to be nice to them. It's exhausting.

I'll make do, though. I'm quite the survivor.

Tonight, I'm heading over to meet some folks who play Dungeons and Dragons from a set of Fifth Edition manuals they found. Not my favorite version, but having rules in black and white is infinitely preferable to arguing from memory for an entire evening about the skill and cross-skill maximum ranks on a level 12/6 ranger/thief. I'll be level one to their established characters, but I think I can charm them into helping me catch up. With any luck I might meet a cute guy there, which would be great, as I desperately need to spend time with someone who doesn't know too much about me. I've been talking to myself for too long now.

I've also heard about a LAN party somewhere not too far away that a computing club put together. They've apparently linked up several Linux machines they found in a warehouse, and James was okay with it since they kept it in one place. We're going to play a roguelike game called Crossfire with about 20 simultaneous players..

To the death.

Haha, just kidding. I don't kill people who beat me at video games, especially not when we're only talking about ASCII character avatars controlled by actual, physical keyboards.

Unless they stick their tongue out at me.