Ravens of Eternity

135 Undying Code

“So you’re telling me that Bellum Aeterna never had this Godeater thing?” asked Eva.

Both Eva and Miko were on a video call with Jackson Stone, and had more than a few questions for him since they last spoke. Because he didn’t mention either Drogar or Godeater at that time, they assumed that they weren’t part of the game’s design. Maybe he could have forgotten. Or maybe he hid them on purpose.

So they asked him to confirm. Jackson shook his head in response.

He looked more haggard than the last time they saw him. More sober, too. But not by much. Well, he was getting up in years. Eva reasoned that time was just starting to bear down on him.

“No,” Jackson replied. “Nothing like what you described at all. Not even in concept, honestly. We were always aiming for hard science fiction with Bellum. An unstoppable unknowable unquenchable thing just doesn’t jive with the design. It’d be something you’d see in a soft sci-fi.”

“Like great big worms out on a desert planet,” said Eva, “that sorta thing?”

“I kinda like those things in stuff,” said Mack. “I played a ton of games where there’s some crazy dark evil out there. Watched a few movies like that, too. Like that spaceship that turned out to be a portal to hell.”

Mack was also on the call. In fact, he was the one that organized it and put it together. He knew the two of them had more questions for the old man, so he set up the call.

Plus he wanted to see Eva, to feel relief at the sight of her. It had been so long since they last talked, and it didn’t exactly go well... Hell, he was a downright mess.

.....

In contrast to Jackson, Mack looked quite sober, and a long way from haggard. Eva noted that he looked much healthier again. His skin looked warmer and filled with life, and his half-crooked smile came out more often.

She was silently glad to see that.

“I do too – it just didn’t belong in Bellum,” Jackson replied. “But what I am wondering about is this... in any open sandbox kind of game, challenges are placed everywhere for the player. Some’ll be easy, some’ll be tough, but they can all be beaten. Godeater doesn’t sound like something that can. What it does sound like is... is like...”

Jackson paused for a moment and looked off into the distance. A slight smile curled on his lips as an old memory washed over him.

After a moment, he turned back towards the others.

“Back in the early days,” he continued, “when we were still in the beginning stages of Bellum. It was just twelve of us devs, and we were testing and playing and just having a grand ol’ time building the thing.

“There was one week where we tested planetary tech, and played around with gravity, mass, atmospheric pressure, and so on.”

“You were testing interactability on a planetary scale?” asked Miko.

“Right! Yes, exactly!” Jackson replied. “We had this vision of touching down on a planet, finding a fruit off some crazy alien tree, and eating it. Just a little tech demo we could do, you know? Whet the appetite to get to some serious coding.”

He laughed lightly and smiled widely as more of the memory surfaced in his mind.

“Well anyway, we accidentally introduced this one bug on one particular planet and suddenly its gravitational field was thousands of times greater. It acted like a black hole, basically. But since it was just a simple tech demo, everything just kind of... crowded around it. And I mean everything. The other planets, stars, ships, people, their cups of coffee.

As he talked, Jackson became more and more teary-eyed. The passion he held for the game was truly deep. In truth his entire core team was like that. It burned so brightly for them that realizing it became their only focus.

To the chagrin of their families.

“Okay, so you had a happy accident during dev,” said Eva. “Are you basically saying that you made something way back when that could’ve ended up being Godeater? Or are you saying that Godeater is a bug in the system?”

Jackson shook his head adamantly as he wiped his eyes dry.

“No, no, no,” he said. “Our published code was clean of all that crazy testing. I mean, yeah, of course there were bugs. But I mean, I think all that was stolen from us was information rather than code. Database assets, not the engine. So a bug wouldn’t have been transported over.

“But that’s not all. What I’m saying is that someone or something out there made the galaxy you’re in. That they populated it with people and designs and ideas. On purpose. They wouldn’t just leave Godeater hanging around, you get what I mean?”

“I think I see,” said Miko. “If Godeater is a bug, the programmers of this galaxy would have removed it. Its existence is a danger to their own program. To their work.”

“Yes, yes! Exactly that,” said Jackson. “And equally, if what you’re in is a game, then speaking as a designer, its challenges need to be surmountable. But it’s the exact opposite of that.”

It dawned on Eva what Jackson had been trying to say about Godeater – that it wasn’t meant to be in the galaxy.

“Okay, fine,” she said. “So you’re saying that Godeater is another thing that came into the galaxy? On its own?”

“I don’t know what I’m saying,” Jackson replied. “Yes, it could definitely be that. It could be a highly-advanced, hyper intelligent nanite cloud. It could be an entire species of its own, alongside humans and Drogar. Who the hell knows?”

“Perhaps it is similar to a database injection attack,” added Miko. “I imagine enemies of the programmers infected their game.”

With eyes wide as saucers, Jackson nodded in agreement with Miko. His mind immediately spun into the wider possibilities. He looked off into the distance again, just to explore a few.

“Could be altered code,” he said absent-mindedly. “Or plain data corruption.”

Eva rubbed at her temples. She wanted answers, not more questions. The frustration was evident in her voice when she spoke.

“I was kinda hoping for insight on this,” she said. “To know it wasn’t unbeatable, you know? Like maybe it had a weakness to, say, cryoblasts or something. Instead, we’re coming out knowing less.”

Silence settled around them uncomfortably. No-one liked to have that kind of darkness hanging over them, or their thoughts.

Eventually, it was Jackson who broke the silence.

“You know, the Drogar are far more interesting,” he said. “And they’re right in front of you. You could find out everything you want to know about them as a species. Even if they’re unfriendly, at least they’ll respond in some way.”

“Oh, I know all about that,” said Eva.

She rubbed at her right temple in remembrance of Orsethii’s decisive strike.

“They would’ve made a great species in Bellum,” continued the old man. “A seriously amazing adversary. Smart, tough, technologically advanced. I prolly would’ve made them the dominant species, too.”

“What did you have in-game?” asked Mack.

“You didn’t play?” asked Jackson, mouth agape.

“Wouldn’t be on Earth if I did.”

The old man tsk’d at Mack, then sighed.

“The Ferrons,” he replied. “Androids who had experienced a massive breakthrough in regards to consciousness and self-realization. I guess they were smart, tough, and technologically advanced as well, but they didn’t own the galaxy or anything. They were relatively rare and only had a few solar systems. There were a bunch scattered all around the galaxy.

“We designed them to be really tough to deal with, and they kinda adjusted themselves depending on how hard the players pushed against them. Long story short though, they’re basically PvE endgame content. Doing missions around the Ferrons would unlock the rarest schematics for chassis, weapons, armor, everything.”

“Yeah, usually whole guilds got into it,” added Eva. “They’d use their entire production chains just to crank out required schematics one after another. I did a few solo. Took forever and a day, but I got them done.”

Jackson’s eyebrow arched when he heard her say that. He designed it specifically to be brutal against solo players. Just like reality, the galaxy was filled with dangers, and The End could come at any time.

Friends were necessary to survival.

“Solo, huh?” he said. “I’m impressed.”

“Don’t be,” she replied. “The game ate up a good chunk of my life. Some days, that was all I ever did.”

“You’re making it sound like you enjoyed wasting your time.”

“That’s exactly what I mean. Years of my life disappeared out to nowhere. To an addiction to your amazing game. I love it, but I kinda wish I didn’t, you know?”

Jackson scoffed at her. In truth, he wanted people to waste all of their time in his game. It wasn’t out of malice. He truly wanted people to enjoy themselves to the fullest.

“Yet here you are actually living it,” he said. “And having the goddamned time of your life, am I right?”

“Look,” she replied, “all I’m saying is that I’d be with the people I loved right now if it wasn’t for my addiction. Yeah, of course I also love my current life. I can be everything I’ve always wanted to be. Independent. Rich. Badass. Outgoing and friendly. But I lost everything else to have this life.”

“Fair enough. But think of it this way instead: you went through all that pain and bullshit, but came out on top regardless. And you wouldn’t have even come to that conclusion if you hadn’t experienced that pain first.”

Mack had been listening all the while, and had perked up when Eva alluded to her gaming as an addiction. He quickly realized that he could’ve been there to help guide her out of it, but his own selfishness blinded him to it.

“You know,” he said, “I personally woulda wanted that lesson earlier than later. I mean that coming from a just-outta-rehab kinda dude.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Jackson, “we all could learn our lessons earlier. What I’m saying is that the time before you learned that lesson wasn’t wasted. It was necessary.”

As they spoke, one of Miko’s cottonball birds flapped over to her and got her attention. It chirped at her with its melodic machine language, which puzzled the others immediately.

“We have to go,” Miko told Eva. “Talyss is enroute for your bladedancing lessons.”

“Bladedancing? What the hell are you all up to?” asked Mack. “I’ve been so outta the loop.”

“Speak to ‘kasa for details,” Miko replied. “She has been caring for the channel in your absence. Be sure to thank her.”

“R-right.”

“Talk to you both soon!” said Eva. “And hey, M – glad to see you back.”

The two of them blinked off the screen, which left Mack and Jackson in the video call by themselves.

“Well, aren’t they busy little bees?” said Jackson. “I guess I should be off, too. Thanks for the invite, kid.”

“Hey Jax, got a minute?” asked Mack. “I was kinda wondering about the game... Are you still running it? Like on a private server or something?”

Jackson darkened a little when Mack asked. It had become quite the sore spot, after all.

“Why do you wanna know?” he asked.

“Look, nothing bad alright? I’m not, like, trying to rat you out or whatever. If that’s what you’re worried about, I mean. I’m just... I wanna go over there, you know? At least, I wanna try.”

Jackson cursed under his breath, and shook his head solemnly.

This fuckin’ kid!

“Oh, it’s running alright,” Jackson replied. “Me and the original crew? All twelve of us have been running it. A whole server just like before, just for us, just so the dream couldn’t die.

“And you think we wouldn’t wanna go ourselves?! So hell yeah we’ve been trying. And failing. Day after day, month after month, failure after failure. Since we’re not over there, you’re not going over there either. So may as well not even try.”

“But... you’re still trying it, right?”

“Like an idiot, yeah.”

“Well, I’m an idiot too.”

.....

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