Spinward: An Artificial Dream State Novel Read online

  SPINWARD

  An Artificial Dream State Novel

  I.M.WAUGH

  Copyright © 2016 I.M.Waugh

  All Rights Reserved

  This novel is DRM free

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: Unlocking

  Chapter 2: Game On

  Chapter 3: Red Blue Pink Black

  Chapter 4: The Daily Grind

  Chapter 5: Phat Loot

  Chapter 6: Jester’s Tears

  Chapter 7: Outfitting

  Chapter 8: Be very quiet

  Chapter 9: The Proposal

  Chapter 10: Junk

  Chapter 11: Achievement Unlocked

  Chapter 12: Videodrone

  Chapter 13: We’re in Business

  Chapter 14: System’s Edge

  Chapter 15: Engage

  EPILOGUE

  Chapter 1: Unlocking

  5, 4, 3, 2, 1…….

  Unlocking

  Susan smiled and did a little dance in front of her phone after seeing the game status change, yes, yes, yes it’s actually happening.

  After the months of delays and rumours Spinward, the hotly anticipated Dream Box MMORPG from Snow Storm entertainment, was finally launched at 20:00 GMT March 3rd 2036. Susan, to her mum anyway, Su to everyone else, sat on edge her bed in her pyjamas clutching her phone and watching the progress bar on the app inch across the screen, willing it to move faster and get to the next stage, ready to play. Two rather tense minutes later, would’ve been quicker if I could afford to upgrade this old Samsung she thought, the bar hit the end.

  Oh now it’s checking for new content, what a zero day patch?

  The phone appeared to read her mind and the status line changed again.

  Downloading new content, 1.7gb/s, Estimated time 12 minutes….

  Su sighed and put the phone down on the bedside cabinet, a battered piece 20th century piece of Ikea that had seen much better days, and went to window to watch the wintery rain. The wind rattled the old sash window as the rain drops streaked down, glad the Landlord fixed the leak, only took him three weeks she grumbled to herself. Does it rain in Spinward she thought?

  Snow Storm had been uncharacteristically tight lipped about their new product, only releasing concepts, hints and grandiose claims about it, it’s set in Outer Space, it’s skill based and it’s the most immersive game ever created, but very little detail. Online pundits were divided, vapour-ware, overhyped, under- hyped, will fail to deliver, will be the best thing ever, will be the worst thing ever, nobody was letting on. Even the small cadre of external Beta testers were keeping quiet, but they were almost certainly locked down by an iron clad NDA. But all this seemed to work, anticipation was at an all-time high, the streams, boards and social media pages were buzzing with excitement and Su really really wanted to play.

  Su looked back at her phone, 1.5gb/s 7 minutes now and went through a her pregame checklist, warmest comfiest pyjamas, those blue ones with the little coffee stain that won’t come out, check, lucky pink bed socks, check, old Primark dressing gown that really should be replaced, check, Ok, arse kicking outfit all present and correct. Bed, cabinet, wardrobe, all still there, all really needing replacing but cheapskate landlord won’t do it until they completely fall apart, check. Phone, battery charged, 93%, should be enough, emergency wakeup link to the smoke and burglar alarms, green, good so now the precious.

  The Dream Box seemed rather out of place in the run down flat, an almost new piece of state of piece art mid-21st century technology contrasted with the dilapidated furniture. Su gave it a little pat, it was by far her most valuable procession and every hard core gamers dream, literally.

  Only five more payments of, Oh My Gawd, nearly as much as my rent to go and it will be obsolete when I’ve paid for it, Su sighed. This stupid game had better be worth it.

  The Dream box, Su’s particular one was an LG 250sx LDSM, was officially known as a Lucid Dream State Manipulator but everyone called them Dream Boxes, a device capable of inducing an artificial lucid dream state in a sleeping person and taking them into a shared interactive environment for all 5 senses. Vision was photorealistic and sound the highest fidelity, but touch, taste and smell weren’t quite up to the real world, they would be by the next generation the manufactures promised.

  The Dream box was actually a 2 part device, the Dream and the Box. The Dream part was the head unit, it actually looked more like an overstuffed pillow and even had a washable fabric cover on it, but inside was the latest soft tech with ultra-high resolution EEG sensors and neuron manipulators. It worked sort of like a pillow too, the user rested their head on it and closed their eyes and were taken in to the controlled dream state.

  The other part, the Box, was a sleek 30cm rectangle of dark plastic with a single status LED on the front, currently green, and a wake me button for emergencies. Inside nestled a multi qubit quantum processor linked to more conventional computing power than pretty much the entire sum of the world’s processing power for a significant part of the twentieth century, it was capable of creating simulated realities almost indistinguishable from the real thing. Su kept hers in the sock draw.

  The two parts were separate because the boxes’ heat and RF emanations could interfere with the delicate dream mechanism of the head unit. Like most specialised hardware in the mid-21st it didn’t bother with its own user interface or network connectivity, instead a very low power Bluetooth connection linked the head unit to the box to and the box to the to users phone. On the phone an app linked the Dream Box to the outside world to provide network access, security, software updates and social media connections.

  The app flashed.

  Game Ready.

  Finally thought a relieved Su, she locked her room’s door and tapped the Ready to Play icon, then lay on her worn duvet cover and nestled her head in the high tech pillow.

  ‘To sleep, perchance to dream,’ she whispered to herself and closed her eyes.

  Su opened her eyes suddenly and sat up with a start, her tiny room with its cheap furniture in a crumbling Victorian pile near the Hasting’s seafront was gone, replaced by an ultra-modern white, almost too white, bedroom. Su had to blink a couple of times before it all came into focus. Even after playing these dream games for over three years walking up in game was always a bit of a shock. Now dressed in a luxurious white robe Su yawned and got out of the virtual bed, not a bad entry room, she thought.

  ‘Welcome to Spinward Player’ a neutral voice emanated from nowhere in particular, ‘Please place you hand on the table for verification.’

  Susan walked up the glass table she swore wasn’t there a second ago and placed her hand on it, back in the real world unseen biometric sensors in the dream unit took readings and compared them to the records saved in Snow Storm’s cloud to find the player’s account.

  ‘Please speak your pass phrase,’ the disembodied voice requested.

  ‘The blue ridge mountains of Virginia ate my hamster,’ replied Su confidently.

  Over a split second Cloud servers distributed across data centres in Iceland, Hungary and Vietnam compared the biometrics and pass phrase to those on the databases, logged the successful access, created a player account and started the billing cycle.

  The outline of her had glowed blue and a soft chime emanated from the table.

  ‘Verification complete, account details and billing created. Hello Susan Wakefield, please read the EULA and accept its terms if you wish to proceed.’

  The document appeared on floating pane of glass hovering above the table. Does anyone actually ready these Su wondered, waving her hand quickly and repeatedly to scroll the massive document of impenetrable
legalese down to the bottom to get to the Accept/Decline buttons. Accept was tapped. Well they probably now own my first born and or immortal soul Su philosophised, this game had better be good.

  ‘Licence Accepted,’ the voice sounded out happily. ‘Now please select your realm.’

  The legal document was replaced by a long list of servers, all indicating high populations.

  ‘Your character will be locked to this realm and its game rules, please select carefully.’

  Her hand movements were more deliberate this time.

  Nope do not want Asian, Oceania or American locations. Nope don’t want Mandarin, Japanese, German, Russian or French languages. Nope do definitely don’t want open PVP, Role playing, hrmm, nah that can get a bit heavy so let’s just find a standard one, ah, there right at the bottom, European, English Language, Consensual PVP, Standard Server. Accept.

  ‘Due to unexpected demand there is currently a queue for that server, wait time is estimated at twenty three minutes, chose another server or wait.’

  ‘Unexpected demand? This is the biggest game release of the year, hype has been building like mad, media channels going on about it like nothing else and servers like this are bound to be chosen by at least seventy five percent of the players in the UK. How on earth can demand be unexpected?’ exasperated Su.

  ‘Answer not understood,’ replied the neutral voice, ‘Please select other server or wait.’

  ‘Ok, Ok. Wait it is then.’

  ‘Thank you for waiting, estimated wait time is now twenty five minutes. In the meantime please enjoy these complimentary beverages and foodstuffs and take a moment to read the game manual and safety advice while you wait. Snow Storm Entertainment apologies for any inconvenience’.

  A plate of sandwiches and a glass of clear liquid slide out of nowhere onto the table and the floating glass screen widened to show the interactive manual in landscape format.

  Su nibbled a sandwich, hrmm Cheese, ish, sort of, not bad, I’ve had worse dream food. She took another larger bite and started paging though the manual.

  Section 4.2 Skills

  Spinward has no levels, just skills, which are split between game character skills and the actual player’s skill, though the split varies.

  Physical skills are mostly player based, for example aim a laser pistol at a target and pull the trigger. If your laser pistol skill is low or you do not have it, an unseen dice roll will deflect your aim slightly, wereas.at higher skill levels a small amount of assistance will be given, guiding your aim. The effects are subtle and if you were pointing the weapon in completely wrong direction the game won’t help you.

  Verbal interaction skill and appearance affects conversion results with AI NPCs in a similar way, but obviously have no game effect on other players.

  Technical and mental skills are more governed by characters skills, for example to repair complex machinery the player gets a significant bonus if the correct tools are placed in the correct locations, but the actual repair success or failure will be mostly determined by game rules and character skill levels.

  Physical attributes provide skill bonuses were appropriate.

  Skills can be improved by practicing them and by doing training within game. Some skills have mandatory training requirements and examinations. Many advanced skills require relevant basic skills to be at certain levels before they can be obtained. Maximum number of skills learnable is limited by the characters intelligence statistic. There are no classes, any combinations of skills can be learnt by any player.

  The detail skill listing are covered in Appendix 6 but be warned, this is not the complete list, some skills will have to be discovered though play.

  Flicking over to the appendix Su started to skim the skill list and a few builds came to mind. I’m definitely going to need some first aid and weapon use skills, moving to specialise in pistols perhaps? But things like entertainment, specialising in playing guitar, no not really a priority she mused. Though it’s nice they have that sort of stuff there, just killing stuff can get a bit dull after a while.

  Section 7.3 Snow Storm Store

  No game affecting items can be purchased from Snow Storm Store, only cosmetic items are available.

  Oh thank you Snow Storm, no play to win this time.

  Section 11.0 Factions

  In Gal year 5611 the major factions in the Carina–Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way galaxy are rearming and rebuilding after the catastrophic AI wars.

  All players must choose one of the major factions when creating there character but relations with others factions both major and minor can be built during game play

  11.1 Major Faction: The Grand Duchy of Sagittarius

  Led by the Grand Duke Altar III from Sigma Sagittarii IV, the GDS is a class-based society were the wealthy hereditary aristocrat class live in luxury while the free merchant classes and the indentured proles work the factories, mines and farms and serve as enlisted troops in the Grand Duchy’s extensive military. The GDS’s outlook is militaristic and expansionistic as it suffered the least of the main factions in the AI wars due to its preference for using human labour. They now seek to fill the power vacuum and expand into other territories.

  Oh let me guess, they all have English accents, wear fancy uniforms, are all uptight and are the really bad guys?

  11.2 Major Faction: The Canopus Co-prosperity Sphere

  Formed from a cabal of nine Corporations and Oligarchs the wealthy Coprosperity Sphere seek profits, growth, materials, markets and above all power but are prone to infighting between themselves which has noticeably limited there expansion. Though significantly damaged during the AI wars their economy has recovered far faster than expected. All citizens of the CCS are employees of the nine whose wealth and power is determined by their position in the corporate hierarchy, with senior management living in absolute luxury and lower class workers little more than slaves.

  This is the “No these aren’t meant to be the Russians and Chinese honest” faction then Snow Storm? Bet they all wear suits.

  11.3 Major Faction: The Carina Free Federation

  Led by the Symposiarc Clauson and the Federation Senate from Eta Carinae II they lead a group of partially self-governing systems aligned to the principles of personal freedom, free trade and democratic process. The CFF’s economy was successful and dependant on robotics and so it suffered heavily in the AI wars. They are still recovering and starting to rebuild their economy and military, but other factions are manoeuvring around them looking for weakness.

  So this is the democratic plucky underdog good guy faction? Bet they speak American. But if they are all for freedom, why did they suffer so much in these AI wars or does freedom only apply to humans?

  So no AI or Aliens then Su wondered, not even ones that are mostly human but have odd bumps on their forehead? Su searched the manual, nope just humans. Bit dull thought Su, perhaps they’ll be in an expansion? Though playing something non-humanoid via a Dream Box might just too weird, she supposed.

  Just as Su was moving on to the manual section about space flight an orchestral chime filled the white room.

  ‘Spinward is ready to play, please step though the doorway to begin character creation,’ the voice announced.

  She looked up from the manual, an open doorway has formed on one of the opposing wall.

  ‘Ohh this is it, we’re in.’ Su strode towards the door smiling.

  Another white room, almost featureless apart from a low silvery grey low pedestal in the centre, which Su was already standing on it by the time the voice had managed to say please step. She knew what was coming.

  More floating glass panes formed, two full length, one in front and one behind and third smaller panel just next to her right hand. The larger planes shimmered for a second before displaying a figure, or more accurately, a reflection. Su saw herself, or at least a pretty good approximation of herself in the panes. The white robe she was wearing in the previous room had vanished leaving her in some very pla
in but substantial white virtual underwear.

  ‘Please morph your features to suit your game character,’ the voice droned, ‘Snow Storm Entertainment do not recommend deviating more than 20% from your natural shape, doing so may cause disorientation, dysphoria, loss of balance and general discomfort for the player both in the real and dream worlds, for which Snow Storm Entertainment do not accept liability for’.

  Standard boilerplate. Dream games always started you with your own body shape which you could morph to change your height, weight, hair, facial features, musculature and even sex, but some people found changing the avatar to far from their natural body shape caused problems inside the game and out.

  Su had tried being a muscular Amazonian, a voluptuous goddess and even a man in other games, but always found it disconcerting and never kept these characters. Over long or short limbs especially made walking really odd and the having body parts she wasn’t born made in game life rather difficult, as did going to the toilet the morning after a gaming session.

  So virtual Su, what shall we do with you then...

  She looked down to her slightly saggy midriff. Abs, I want abs she thought. Her hand slid across the sliders bringing in her waistline. Hips can come in a bit too and did another wave of the controls. A little bit of muscle I think and with a tweak of a setting she had an athlete’s tone. Pasty white skin that never sees sun can get a little bit of a tan, she picked a colour from the palette, eww no, too orange, than one, erm OK. What else can we do? Jawline and cheekbones just a bit sharper please, lips a touch fuller, oh no, not that much now I look like a pop Idol, no, just a little, there we are.

  Scrolling though the settings, ahh, the infamous boob slider, they always have one of these, so what happens if we push it all the way to…

  ‘Oh My Gawd’ said Su out loud with an embarrassed laugh as she looked over newly morphed body, her breasts had ballooned out to the size of large footballs. Nope not doing that, no way, not ever and she moved the controls back to default. Looking down again at her normal B cup self, she looks around sheepishly and then nudged the controls to just a single cup size bigger.