Mace: The Sleeper I

Welcome to the Dharmaverse, a near-future scifi world where the Earth has frozen due to a dying Sun, but Humanity survives with the help of powerful AI Metagods. Sacred technology provides everything we need, but to access it one must play the Dharmagames. It is a dark and terrifying world, and therein also lies infinite hope, compassion, and faith.

“Tell. Me. What. Happened!” The man named Bobby asks, with imploring eyes, almost bulging out of his sockets by a centimeter. “I just woke up, and… I have nothing. My entire savings is gone. I’ve been wiped out! I’m a citizen, damn it! A citizen!”

He then grabs the table, shakes vigorously, and lets out a cry of despair that makes the intake officer, Jack, wince.

“Please, sir, calm down, or we’ll have to sedate you,” Jack warns, gesturing the visitor-band strapped around the man’s left wrist.

The warning takes immediate effect, and the Bobby’s body seems to turn into jelly and slump into his chair, as he begins to repeat, “everything… everything… everything…” softly to himself.

I am in the room as a remote vizzy which only the interviewer, officer Jack Percy, can see. I look at him and take note of how young he is. A fifteen year old junior officer is unprecedented. He’s as scrawny and green as they come, and I can’t help feeling more than a little bothered that I had been assigned to work with such a junior.

And to think he had such high recommendations from high up…

“Ask him about his metamersion habits,” I advise the junior officer as he appears to be at a loss of what to do next. “Has he access to ICON prohibited material, that kind of thing.”

“Sir, are you a fan of metamersion, and that kind of thing? How do you leisure?”

“How do I leisure? Son… I leisure the old fashioned way,” he says with a hint of pride, “I’m an OG. I prefer not to be hooked to a machine all day, thank you very much. I prefer the real thing, if you know what I mean.”

The way he licked his lips while conveying his last sentence made Jack extremely uncomfortable, I could clearly see. “He may be an animal but be professional, Jack, ask about where he lives,” I advise.

“Ahem… So, I see that you live in sector B, sir. How exactly do you spend your time?” Jack asks.

(B sector is for dating singles. See The Walla Tower for more info)

“Oh, you know… I shoot hoops, I smoke some sheesh. I party. The usual.”

“And how much funds did you say you lost?”

“I lost a fortune, 224 K! Now how does that happen in broad day light, in what you call the safest place on this whole damn frozen Earth?” As he says this his agitation gets the better of him again, and he pounds a fist onto the table, emitting a loud thud. “One morning I wake up, and poof, it’s all gone. I’m left with nothing. I swear, I’m the last person to go to y’all. But this is a travesty. The president should know about this!”

“Calm down, sir. Your records indicate that you sent the money, through an untraceable channel, to an unknown source outside the Walla.”

“That’s bull****! The three gods can come down and smite me if I’m tellin’ a lie. I did NOT make that transaction! Why — Why would I do something stupid like that? It makes no sense,” the man says in a high pitch of exasperation. “Just ask my metadaemon. Can I auralink? How come I can’t pull up my buddy in here?”

“Sir, when you came into the unassisted office, you signed a waiver forgoing of your right of Metadaemon, if you were to testify to a Truthsayer, correct?” Jack reminds him.

“Yes, you the Truthsayer, right? You can tell that what I’m telling you is the truth, then!”

“I’m not the Truthsayer, but she is in the room with us, via remote.”

He’s not supposed to reveal that kind of information… I let him know via invizzy text.

“Oh it’s a she… Well I’ll be damn, I wanna see her. I’ve never seen a truthsayer before. C’mon, man, lemme auralink,” the man, whose name is Bobby, implores.

“Denied,” I say affirmatively.

“Denied, sir, I’m sorry. It’s best practice not to even talk about the Truthsayer here. So, you said you lost over 200 K. How did you come about with such a large savings account, might I ask?”

“I do mind. It’s none of your business! Now, what I want is a… is a full refund! Because I’ve got my rights. I’m a citizen, living in the Walla. If I went out there, and let everybody know, how it’s no longer safe to keep my own money in my own metavault, that some meta-spirit can just come in and take it all way, how the hell you expect 100 million people to react? There’d be a riot! A riot, you hear! And-”

Unable to hear any more of the nonsense, I task the officer to take control of the conversation. “Jack!”

“Sir… Sir… Sir…” Jack stutters as Bobby continues.

“A riot, imagine, if everybody who’d been stuck in their capsules, just pops out and freaks out. And they start running into the streets and banging their heads on the Dome, and start smashing the drones and climbing the buildings. You’d have a catastrophe on your hands! I demand some reprecussions. I demand my funds back in my account, today! I am a citizen and I got my rights. I did not send those funds, and don’t you dare look at me like some kind of idiot, that would just do something like that. It’s insulting. Insulting! How dare you insult me. And spying on me with a invizzy watcher. Show yourself. Truthsayer show yourself!” He begins screaming.

“Show yourself! Show yourself! I demand my rights!” He continues, as he suddenly tries to yank the table into the air. Luckily for Jack it is secured to the ground.

Jack, in a panic, begins to fidget through his vizzy dash. The entire room, lined with smart-display, suddenly transforms into a space station, followed by an underwater sub. A whale swims by the window and startles them both. Jack in particular falls off his chair.

I shake my head, “Uggh, so unprofessional…” And hit my override button, followed by the sedate option.

“Whoa!” Bobby exclaims. “What’s this? This — this feels good. Mmmmm.” And slowly slumps back into his chair, in a daze, and stares at the blue whale swimming by. “How you doing there big guy?”

I look over at Jack sitting on his ass on the ground, and laugh. “Quit staring at the whale, Jack. Come on. Go into the other room and let’s debrief what we know, okay? Just leave the background as it is. He’ll be fine.”

“Ok, tell me what we know,” I begin as soon as Jack enters the adjacent room, and the door closes automatically with a “csh” behind him.

“I… Well… Records show he sent all his money to an anon.”

“And…”

“And he doesn’t have any recollection of it.”

“And…”

“And he’s extremely excitable!”

“Uggh, listen Jack, you know why the Unassisted Task Force was created? The reason your department, out of all the various functions in the Walla, is the only one where Metadaemons are not allowed to assist the people working there?”

“So AI won’t be in charge of everything, so humans still have something to do?” Jack ventures.

“Sure, that too, but the real reason…” I take a deep breath before continuing, “the real reason is for fear of a sleeper virus.”

“…What? Sleeper virus?” Jack says as he lifts his eyebrows way high, giving him a comical look of confusion.

“I see you’re not familiar with the term. Jack, do you know how many Metadaemon plugins there are, on the open market?”

“I dunno. Lemme check. Two hundred twenty three thousand?”

“That’s just what’s sanctioned by the Walla’s ICON protocol. I mean out there,” I sweep my arm to indicate the wider world, “Shadow City, for example. The syndicate…”

“There’s millions.”

“And we are all aware of Metadaemon viruses, right?”

“Yes.”

“Walla and Mr.President of the Futurist party has always made it a point to taut themselves as having the safest protocol amongst all the kawas. But even we have had breakouts.”

“Errr… Our records — ”

“Sure, they might use labels like Update B283, or a recall of the Treasure Hunt game… But those Daemon Plugins were removed due to clear signs of behavorial manipulation, and the ability to for rapid spread.”

“The official definition of a viruses…”

“Yes, you get it now.”

“But… what is a sleeper virus?”

“Now, if you can admit that daemon viruses can slip through the cracks to penetrate into the most protected society on Earth… you will then realize that the only way to truly know whether a daemon plugin is a virus or not, is by deploying it in public, after real people are attacked.”

“Ok…”

“Now, imagine that there is a virus where the attack only triggers when certain conditions are met, such as…”

“Someone works for the Task Force?”

“Yes!” I am genuinely happy that Jack finally seems to be getting it. “Exactly. That’s why Metadaemons are not allowed.”

“But… Does what you tell me have anything to do with the case?”

“While you were talking to him, I pulled up his travel records — ”

“I’ve looked at them. He’s been living in L1 for the whole year,” Jack says, indicating to me that he has done his homework.

“Yes, but he did leave the Walla around two years ago. For a full week.”

“Wait, you don’t think that may have something to do with our case here, do you?” Jack asks in a tone of skepticism.

“What did I tell you? Given all the advantages of working alongside metadaemon AIs, why do you think Walla has your whole department working unassisted? The fear of sleeper viruses is real. Two years may seem like a long time for us, but rest assured, for a sleeper, it is not…”

“So, you’re saying he must have caught something two years ago, and it’s only triggered now. I expect we’re going to be seeing a lot more of these cases then.” Jack concludes

Kid’s sharp. Now I understand why he was recommended by the Metagod Walla herself.