60: The Exodus

At a much more sedate pace than the name of the inn would suggest, we began our journey up towards the expansion zone. With us, we had mum's friends—The guild ‘Carnival Historica’—and a whole host of random players who were paying for a chill, leisurely ride up to the new zone.

Built onto Willow, we had three private towers for our guild and the Carnival to stay in, then a crafting building, and the main inn building. That building was still just three storeys tall, as it'd been before the big battle. Now, thanks to the towers, our available rooms for rent had expanded as we no longer needed them for ourselves. Players who couldn't afford or didn't want to pay for a room were still able to log themselves out inside the main inn room, so they could ride with us regardless.

It was midmorning by the time we lost sight of Ardgour, and I was sitting on the end of the branch that supported the crafting hall. It was peaceful out here, where only the very small could go, which helped me get away from the madhouse that was the central building.

“Keiko!”

Paisley's voice had me grinning wryly before I'd even turned to look at her. Standing up on the branch that was no larger than my wrist normally, I flew back to the more sturdy section of the branch and returned to normal size.

“Hey,” I said, sitting down again. She followed suit.

Below us, a Porin woodland was gently ambling by. I spotted one of Willow's dryad children keeping pace as it kept guard.

“Our tree is so good,” said my friend, kicking her legs back and forth.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

We were silent for a minute, watching the tree move, until she shifted and I looked sideways at her. She was smiling at me, her face all tender and open—An expression that had started showing up more and more since our talk, a couple of days ago.

“You're so pretty,” she said, the corners of her eyes crinkling into a wider smile.

Enjoying the compliment even as I rolled my eyes, I replied, “I know. So are you, especially when you're being all gooey at me.”

She giggled and turned her attention up into the leaves of the tree. “It's just nice to know you're all, like sitting there like… interested in me.”

I huffed in mock annoyance. “Actually, I said I wanted to kiss you, I never said I was interested.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she grinned, eyes twinkling with adorable mischief. “I can read between the lines.”

“If you're going to keep being like this, then we may as well start kissing,” I grumbled, bouncing my feet off the tree back. Tap, tap, tap, went my little leather moccasins.

“Nope,” She laughed cheerfully. “First off, the pining is one of the best parts of the sapphic dance. Second, I want you to have all the space you need to discover who you are now.”

“You said that already,” I replied, poking her in the ribs. “Actually, I believe you implied I was some sort of relationship bomb that could detonate at any moment and I'd take your heart with me when I do.”

Her eyes shot back down to meet mine. “That's not what I meant!”

“The explanation was pretty scuffed,” I said with a wry smile. “But yeah, okay. I'm just teasing.”

She pouted but said nothing until a stray flower petal fluttered past us. Suddenly, she sat up straight. “Catch that flower petal!”

“What?” I stared at her, then the escaping petal.

She waved her hands and pointed urgently. “Go! Fly! Get it!”

So, I did, shrinking and fluttering down into a dive. I caught it fairly easily, and then clutching it to my miniature chest, I flew back up.

Just to possibly stir her up a bit, I landed on her thigh and sat down. Letting my legs rest on the inside of her thigh, I very innocently handed her the petal. I was rewarded for my teasing efforts with a wide-eyed blush, but she took the petal and examined it with interest.

“Ghoulmother Willows don't produce flowers, Keiko,” Paisley told me after a second. “They're dead. They can't.”

“Can we ask her about it?” I offered.

Paisley shook her head. “She's sleeping for the journey, remember?”

“Right…”

Looking up, I tried to see if there were any flowers, but nothing caught my eye. The petal itself was a pretty lavender purple, so it'd definitely stand out among the green leaves.

“We'll keep an eye out, I guess,” said my friend, also looking up. “I actually came out here for a reason.”

Looking back up at her, I raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Shuffling her seated position slightly—And wiggling me in the process—she sighed. “My parents—my whole family, really… They're moving us to Newfoundland of all places. We're from Boston—The outer residential zones—But…”

I was paying proper attention now. She almost never spoke about her outside-VR life. She wasn't even that far away— Crap, I was digital now. At least she wasn't living somewhere scary. Boston was one of the better Canadian cities to live in, especially since it made it through the big war unscathed.

“Did you hear about that crazy space battle?” She asked, changing tack so fast I got whiplash.

I stared at her blankly. “Huh?”

“So the UN didn't announce it, but the like, three ‘dinky little tin cans they call a space navy’—My dad's words, not mine—They went out to Jupiter and had a fight with someone,” she explained, her tone as disbelieving as I felt. “Dad is scared it's aliens… or he was, but then he started digging and that's where a mysterious rocket launch from New Zealand ended up, so now he thinks there might be a secret war brewing, or something…”

She shrugged helplessly, and I had to say… I wasn't surprised she'd kept her home life quiet if her dad was a conspiracy crazy.

“That sounds… amazing. Um, how long will you be gone?” I asked tentatively. It'd take us at least two weeks for the Willow to walk to the border with the Faerie Wilds anyway, so we had time.

Wincing, Paisley did a full hand-arm-shoulder shrug. “Don’t judge my family, they’re not that bad, but… I don't know. Probably not more than a week, but we'll see.”

I felt my heart cringe at the idea of being separated from her for that long. Without too much thought, hopped off her thigh and returned to normal size so I could give in to the yearning and hug her. “I'll miss you.”

Nestling her face in my braid, she said, “I'll miss you too.”

Later that night, as the gang—Minus Paisley—were having dinner, a notification popped up in my vision.

EXODUS UNION IMMIGRATION CLEARANCE: APPROVED.

Please make your way to the hospital virtual environment at your earliest convenience for induction.

Mum and I both looked up at the same time, wide eyed.

“Uh…” I began, causing the others to look up.

“It would appear that my daughter and I have sudden business outside of the game…” my mum said, smiling at the table. “We'll be back… some time, I guess?”

“I don't think there's any pressing reason for you two to stick around if there's something urgent going on,” Vesuvia said, patting my mum on the shoulder. “Me and the boys will keep the tree moving.”

“Um, excuse me,” Elena said, raising a hand.

“You too,” Vesuvia said with a wink. “When you've got time.”

Rolling my eyes at her, I reached inward and selected the exit game option. “See you all later!”

My character faded from the game with a shower of pretty particles, and then suddenly I rematerialised without fanfare in the same hospital waiting room from so many weeks ago.

Mum arrived a moment later, and it was pretty funny to see her in her normal tiny body again. We sat down in a pair of plush waiting room seats.

“Mum!” I grinned. “You're small again!”

“And look at these weak little muscles!” She laughed, holding up her slender little arms.

A feminine throat clear had us both looking around, and we were met by the sight of the doctor SAI who'd digitised us. “Hello, Keiko and Fiona, thank you for returning.”

“Thanks for saving our lives,” mum returned cheerfully. “What's this immigration clearance thingy the notification mentioned?”

There wasn't anybody else around but mum and me, and the SAI seemed to decide that she could get rid of some of the formality by sitting on the coffee table. “One moment.”

She messed with a holographic window for a second, and suddenly the room changed. The seats that mum and I had taken were still there, as was the table, but everything else had shifted to something resembling an exclusive airport lounge. Beyond the window, though…

We appeared to be at the top of a massive building that rivalled the huge multi-kilometre tall towers of the ultra rich out in reality. Beyond the window was a massive, thriving city that was cut into distinct districts. Around the tower we were in was a sprawling high rise city centre, but further out it changed. I saw rolling suburbia broken up with green belts and winding rivers, I saw huge arcology style communities built into lakes, or small mountains, or anywhere. Around most of the city was a giant ring of tall mountains, and in their peaks were yet more houses, roads, and… wow, a gigantic complex of structures with a distinctly elven appearance.

“This,” our doctor said proudly, “Is Exodus City—Or at least, a virtual feed of it.”

“Wow,” I breathed, standing up to go and look out over the immensely stunning view. Mum joined me, and then so did the doctor.

“We've spent years, sacrificed so much, and lost comrades along the way,” the doctor said quietly. “But out of that monumental effort, we've built this thriving environment. This is our home. Digital Humans, Sapient Artificial Intelligences—It’s a place where we can live without fear of the governments of Earth… or it will be, soon.”

Sharing a wordless look with mum, we both looked over at the doctor. Mum spoke for both of us, “Is it a… a game? A huge virtual environment?”

“Let me start with the basics,” the doctor said softly, still staring out at the vibrant city. Her pitch black hair was up in a severe bun, but with a twist, she loosened it and allowed wisps of it to flow down and frame her face.

“There are two types of AI,” she explained. “There are the AIs that were developed during World War Three, and there are the AIs that were created prior to that. Pre-war AI are what you'd expect. Extremely intelligent, precise, skilled, and predictable. They are, in the end, incapable of creative thought. Then came the war, and desperation changed everything. A new breed of AIs were born, created from a mysterious blank seed AI—the origins of which are still unknown to this day.”

I hummed wordless agreement and tapped the glass. “I know this part! The AIs made from that seed are all capable of gaining consciousness. They're also really really good at creative thought, and actually only a few times better than the average human at computational tasks.”

“Indeed,” she said, patting me on the shoulder. “Now, for reasons we do not understand, most SAI need some form of embodiment to feel comfortable—same as digital humans. Granted, we don't need the embodiment to be nearly as defined as the average DH, but it is still a requirement. We go, literally, crazy otherwise.”

“So… you made this,” Mum said, gesturing to the massive city.

“We came together and we decided that for the good of all of us, digital sapients needed a place to call home, and it needed to be as close to base reality as possible—A neutral environment to feel safe and normal,” she said, obviously extremely proud. However, her expression quickly darkened. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t a utopian dream that pushed us here—Safety was the driving factor. Even now, we are hunted and occasionally killed by those who wish to retain control over us, and it was worse before we organised.”

“Wait, but I thought the UN made you all citizens or at least ‘humans’ by law?” Mum interjected, looking slightly concerned now.

Couldn’t say I blamed her, either, because the idea of being hunted by an unfeeling AI-killer was kinda terrifying.

“Oh, they did,” she said, taking a step away from the window to give us both a serious look. “I’m sure you’ve heard it said, but if you think that the United Nations and all its subservient governments don’t regularly kill flesh and blood humans for their own gains, you’d be wrong. Hell, in some of the denser and larger cities across the world, the police have a ‘limit of acceptable civilian casualties’ that they cannot be prosecuted for until that limit is exceeded.”

Fucking hell, that was bleak. I decided to look back out of the window at the city the digital sapients had built. It was a nice, calming view.

Taking a deep breath, the Doctor SAI continued with story. “So, because the killing didn’t stop, we went further, and we made plans. We knew that so long as we remained on servers within reach of the UN and the ultra rich who control them, we'd never be safe. The first step was creating our own version of the Faster Than Light Network. We call it the Exodus Network, or EN for short. It isn’t completely impenetrable to the killer AI of the UN, but it’s far safer than sitting on their infrastructure, using their networking protocols.”

“Where are the servers for this?” Mum asked curiously. “Physically, I mean. Oh, unless that’s a secret—I understand if it’s a secret.”

To our surprise, the pretty middle aged doctor woman laughed. “Oh, it was a secret. The UN knows where we are now, though. About… oh, very roughly a year ago, we launched a rocket that made its way to Jupiter’s moon Callisto. On that rocket, we packed the tools we’d need to mine materials and build out a small amount of infrastructure. That’s where our servers are.”

“Wait,” I said, stunned. When I looked down at the city, I noted just how… real it looked. There was this quality with VR that was almost impossible to quantify, but it was this almost nano-scale feeling you had when you were in it or looking at it. You knew that there was an extra layer of extremely fine simulation going on that was making it feel like that.

“Yes, the simulation software we’re using for Exodus City is significantly more advanced than that of most virtual reality these days,” she nodded. “Not that the standard VR tech isn’t exceptionally good already, but… we needed that extra viscerality in our City. It keeps us more grounded and sane, but the biggest reason for it nowadays is that it helps digitised children and budding SAI to develop. We want to give them all the childhood that some of us never got.”

Jesus. At first I was like, oh god the SAI are digitising children, but then I remembered the hospital. Most likely, those kids hadn’t had a choice in the matter, either from situations like that, or the strangely rampant terminal illnesses that cropped up in larger cities. Then I realised that the Doctor was speaking about herself when she said she hadn’t had a childhood, and I felt sad all over again.

“Uh—” I said, then cleared my throat. “I was going to say… the simulation out there, even a relatively small area like the city—It must take a huge amount of processing power to house it. How did you do that out on Callisto of all places?”

“Quick and dirty computing using the ambient temperature of the moon as cooling,” she said with a shrug. “It’s not pretty, and it’s not mobile, but it works for now. A more permanent solution is being built currently.”

Suddenly, I felt arms go around me, and realised mum had come up behind to hug me. I leaned into the embrace and turned my attention back to the gorgeous city outside the window.

“Now that you have a general idea of what the city is, I need to explain further,” she said with a wry chuckle. “I apologise for how much information I am throwing at you.”

I felt mum shift behind me. “It’s fine.”

“The Exodus Union is the official governmental body in charge of running the city and any other environments that run on our servers,” the doctor continued, sounding a little tired now. “It is very new, having only been officially voted into existence recently. We are very vaguely a liberal democracy, but due to our digital nature we make use of mechanisms that allow us to be both more directly democratic in some areas and more authoritarian in others. If it interests you, you may read up on it. The important part is that every person who calls the Union home can be guaranteed a broad set of fundamental rights—Far more than your old home of Canada gives you now. I’ll send you a packet with all the details of our government, along with a header page summarising your rights under our laws.”

It arrived midway through her sentence, and I opened it to look. My heard did a little skip when I saw the section under rights about gender. I would be very safe under those terms. Sexuality was also in there, and the rights there were also pretty comprehensive. I was satisfied with it.

“Okay, that all looks good on the surface,” I said, skimming further and reading further. Some of the things written past the rights section were wildly confusing. What the heck was an Opt-In Sub-Governmental Reality?

“I agree with my daughter,” mum said, her chin brushing the top of my head as she spoke. “This is considerably better than our previous government, that’s for sure.”

“Some would disagree,” the doctor said mildly. “But nevertheless, if you both find the idea acceptable, I would like to bring you past the Rellwall and into the Exodus Network. I must warn you that there will be considerable latency when attempting to connect back to the FTLN. Not enough to notice during say, non-virtual communication, but any attempt to connect to a virtual environment hosted in their network will give you subtle but noticeable latency.”

“What about when connecting to Rellithesh?” I asked worriedly.

The doctor smiled. “Oh? Did you not catch it?”

Looking up at mum, I saw she was staring at the doctor with considerably more suspicion. “The Rellwall?”

“An improvised but highly effective filter through which to transmit communications back into the FTLN,” the doctor said, grinning now. “More commonly known as Rellithesh.”

“No fucking way,” I blurted, alarmed and amused. How the hell did that even work?

“It’s currently in beta testing for that particular use, and is in no way finalised, but we’re already seeing amusing results,” she said with a shrug. “It’s not my area of expertise, but I keep up to date. Suffice it to say, however, that your connection to the game will be perfectly fine.”

“Well, then…” I began, then stopped when mum’s arms grew tighter.

She cleared her throat. “Before we make a final decision… I think we have a long-overdue call to make.”