Frozen Soul, and other works: Epilogue

(A virtual room in NERV HQ)

“Oh FUCK!”

Isaac’s head snapped up as one of the GMs suddenly cursed. They were pretty informal here, when the bosses weren’t around, but an outburst like that was usually a sign that something bad was happening. Given that pretty much 30% of their pre-designed plots had been thrown out because of how the players interacted with the game (not even COUNTING Jagloth), that did not inspire confidence.

The fact that the outburst came from one of the guys he had keeping tabs on what the Emperor and Deus were doing inspired a few other emotions, however.

With a sigh, Isaac said, “What happened?”

The GM looked up from the virtual screen he was studying, and looked a bit sheepish at his outburst. “So, um, just spitballing possibilities here, but what do you think the reaction of the player base would be if someone wiped out all life on Earth in game?’

Isaac blinked, taken aback by that question. “Well, I imagine that there will be people with pitchforks and torches at our door, and there will be all kinds of groups in RL that will be pissed as all hell at us. That’s why we intended for most of the major battles and stuff in wars to be away from species homeworlds.”

A sigh. “Yeah, that’s about what I thought.”

When the GM didn’t expand on that statement, despite Isaac’s expectant look, he cleared his throat, to get the man’s attention back on him. “And why would you be ‘spitballing’ about doomsday scenarios that are sure to get us all in hot water?”

“So, you know how there’s this civil war on? And because of that beta tester, the war suddenly turned against the pro-Travis faction since he helped the Merida faction win a few key battles?”

“Of course I know this! We all know this! We watched the battles here in the control room to make sure that we had a good view of the show… I mean to make sure there wasn’t any cheating going on! Get to the point already!”

“Well, it looks like the in-game AI Deus devised a plan to bolster its numbers before the final battle. The exact nature of what happened on Jagloth wasn’t known publicly until just before the curtain went down on the planet, but the major powers have spies, and Jagloth was a major planet. Seems an Imperial spy snuck some inactive nano off Jagloth before the quarantine was fully established.”

Did someone just turn down the temperature in the virtual room? Because Isaac was certain that it must have dropped about twenty degrees in the last twenty seconds. “Say that again. But without the part where the evil in-game AI overlord we didn’t plan on showing up so early got hold of the one player innovation we have tried our damndest to wipe from the game world in its entirety. Because I know that part can’t be happening. The reason I know it can’t be happening is because then I’d have to call Morgan and tell her I’m going to have to cancel our date while we try and figure out how to keep people from scorching Earth. And that just isn’t happening.”

“Um… well, at least it wasn’t the final version of the nanites. Reading the specs on the nanites, this looks like an early alpha version that the Bastard That Shall Not Be Named developed. The software is cleaner than the Hundherstellar versions that he based it on, so I’d say this was an early attempt at improvement before he figured out how to upload his own neural pattern but after he figured out how to link his minions into an army. And the AI’s been playing with the code and updated the hardware. Looks like it is going in a different design path than the rogue player did.”

“Why is it an early alpha version? Why not the plague version that caused people to wipe out Jagloth?”

“Best guess? The spy got inducted into the Legion not long after, and stopped reporting in.”

“Small mercies, I guess. All right, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to get with some of the programming guys, and dive that nano’s code to see if we’re going to have a problem. If we’re going to have a problem, then we’re going to have to come up with some way to deal with it that doesn’t involve just writing it out of the game, or if we have to patch it out, we do it before it gets to be any bigger a problem.”

Another GM spoke up, “I was running the numbers with the AI while you were freaking out. If it is going to be a problem, then we have two in-game routes to get players involved in taking this mess out, which would make it an Event, which the AI won’t fight us on.”

Isaac looked that way. “That’s what I like to hear! So, what routes do we have?”

“Well, the first one involves having Confederate Intelligence ‘finding’ chatter about it, and alerting people they can use to try and eliminate the nano. With the possibility of a ‘cure’, or at least an inoculation that works to prevent takeover developed by their own labs which are studying the Jagloth plague.”

“Let’s not, and say we didn’t. Also, see if we can arrange ‘events’ to happen to every site researching that shit. I want it to join the ranks of Lost Tech, without any way of ‘finding’ it again. What’s the other play?”

“Well, your favorite Beta tester had his guild raid a top-secret ultra-black Imperial research lab, and they stole the files, as well as a few VIPs. We can slip a ‘breakthrough’ in decoding the research data, and have an inoculation included. He’s already shown he knows how to keep things under wraps, and most of the people involved are either players that know not to destroy the world, or slaves and their families.”

Isaac nodded, the room going back to normal temperature again. “All right. That sounds good. And there’s absolutely no need to tell Morgan about this, because it will all be fixed before she finds out, right?”

The other GMs froze. Isaac was absolutely certain that the temperature just plunged again. “She’s behind me, isn’t she?” Nods answered him.

In icy tones, Morgan said, “Don’t tell me about what, Isaac? What did you do now?”

Slowly, he turned, hands raised in surrender. “OK, first off, it is totally not my fault, and you look very pretty today.”

“Cut the crap, Isaac. What. Did. You. DO?”

Isaac cursed the Bastard Who Shall Not Be Named again, for once more screwing with his life, even from the virtual grave.

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Frozen Soul series (Sci-Fi Supervillain story):

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Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy LitRPG):

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