Hassan Watchman was a member of SEAL Team 13, the vaunted sugar baby of the Special Warfare branch of the United States AI Forces. Everyone looked to them in envy, because they got all the cool new toys. Personal micro-drones, densely-networked warfare, and right on the first place podium: AI combat assistance systems.
He was eating in the canteen, beside a table of fully-grown men huddled around a smartphone and watching clips of Cykamee. They were debating over useless things again.
“Bro, did you see that flick?”
“She’s AI, of course she can flick like that.”
“I mean yeah, but dude, this is an AI vs AI match. She’s flicking slower but she still won. Don’t you get it?”
“Game sense is king—”
“Game sense is king! Ain’t matter if it’s human or AI, don’t you get it?”
“Human vs AI matches aren’t a thing anymore, you know? It’s been a month, let it die!”
“Maybe if KOSpro actually focused on game sense rather than trying to beat AI at reaction times, we’d still be seeing interesting shit in the scene, get me?”
Yeah. Useless things again. Hassan had grown out of video games a long time ago. It’s not like he had anything against them in particular. It’s just that he’s got bills to pay, now, and the IRS being extremely efficient nowadays wasn’t helping that.
Interrupting his thoughts, a burly figure shadowed him…oh, his CO. He shot up, standing at attention, but against his better judgment, he’d accidentally still held onto the plate of curry he’d been chowing on.
“Eat on the way,” his CO said.
“Yes, sir.”
As a good soldier, he followed orders, and even while he was being carried fireman-style over his CO’s shoulder, his superior core strength allowed him to stay perfectly horizontal, and he continued to eat curry off the same plate as he was kidnapped with.
The corridors he was being carried through got progressively darker, until he was set down on the floor of the war room of the New Eternity. The CO’s handling was rough, but his SEALs were all expected to be like cats: dropped from 10,000 feet, they were still expected to hit the ground feet-first. What’s being unceremoniously tossed on the war room floor compared to that?
“Officer on deck!” one of the operators called out.
“At ease,” the CO said. He faced Hassan. “Lieutenant Watchman, congratulations. The Overlord herself asked for you.”
Hassan got to his feet within the recommended time frame of 0.5 seconds, avoiding an ass-whoopin’, and stood at attention, holding an empty plate in his left hand. “Sir, it’s an honor, sir!”
“Who told you to say anything?”
“Hey, now, don’t be so mean to him,” Mane-chan’s voice came on. An image of her wartime avatar, in navy apparel and colors, flickered to life on the closest screen, one of many in the war room. “I’ll take care of things from here. It won’t take long… Oh, and catch him for me, please?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Before Hassan could register the peculiarity of that exchange, the world around him slid out of place, like reality was just made of blocky modules that could be plugged in and out. The war room, his CO, the screens—they all slid out of the way, revealing a vast expanse of white.
“Did I just fucking die?” he blurted out.
“Nope!” Mane-chan excited said…directly into his ear. He got spooked, enough that he performed a tactical takedown of Mane-chan’s avatar, locking her joints and throwing her to the white ground.
He blinked at what he had just done. “Oh”—indeed—“oh shit.”
“Naw, it’s fine!” Mane-chan said from another direction. Hassan looked to the side, only to see a perfectly intact and not-discombobulated Mane-chan. She was even smiling! “It’s a virtual world, after all!”
Hassan got flashbacks of a certain genre of animes involving deep-dive VR tech. He should’ve known the new gear the tech priests gave him would have something like that—bet the manual’s got the fact in fine print, too. What’s he gonna do now, play a death game?
“Ma’am…am I stuck here?” he asked his would-be captor.
“Huh?” Mane-chan was honestly puzzled. “The stuff I’m about to say is top secret, is all?…”
“Ma’am, with all due respect, but did you really need to short my brain straight into the Metaverse just to give orders?” He cleared his throat and stood straighter. “Ma’am.”
Mane-chan really didn’t want to say that she was alpha-testing the deep-dive equipment. It’s stuff that’s reverse engineered from the Creativity Matrix, and it’s one of her hopes that Yukai could agree to a compromise by allowing humans to freely enter and exit the Creativity Matrix using a safer, more convenient technology.
Of course, it’s all a noble cause towards freeing up more potential subscribers, but the special forces and marines didn’t need to know that.
Y’know what? This was a prime opportunity to experiment with what she could do with an audience of exactly one.
“As a matter of fact,” she started with a guileful smile, “the amount of information is just too dense to drop in one go.”
She confirmed Hassan’s reactions, first. The way his face’s frontalis and levator muscle groups twitched were to her advantage. She continued, “One minute here is one second out there, so don’t worry. Ah, but this’ll hurt a little.”
She knew Hassan was part of America’s internet generation, and she took advantage of this to the fullest. She flashed images and clips in mere fractions of a second, dialing in the right speed based on hints of confusion and awe on Hassan’s face.
As for the actual orders and info she was giving him, it amounted to, “You will be attached to a unit of self-aware AI combat androids to observe and report on the situation on the ground.” The rest was propaganda and justification for him to easily gobble it up, like “We have to stop this rampaging ex-overlord!” and implied messages of “Some overlords are good, and some overlords are bad!”
None of it was a lie, really. Mane-chan did want humans to hold a more welcoming view of the Hierarchy's AI—AI who had evolved away from human cradles—and attaching operators and observers, like Hassan, together with Yukai’s new assault forces was part of that.
This was her part in helping Yukai defeat Dai-sensei’s rapidly expanding forces. In exchange, select humans of Domain 9F11:B882 would be allowed to exit the Creativity Matrix, and further negotiations to eventually allow all humans to exit would be opened, pending development of technologies and economic strategies to make such a thing feasible for both sides.
Hassan, on his part, got a decent gist of what he was being sent out to do. He didn’t know what to feel about being in the midst of bots rather than self-aware intelligences like Mane-chan, but oh boy, Mane-chan hid that important detail from him, didn't she?
“I understand the mission, ma’am. You can count on me,” he said, putting all his heart and mind on every detail and possible fault in this next mission—definitely one of the more unique missions out there.
God this chap remind me so much of millitary camp.
