The Core: The First Guest

46. My own deadly playground

-How did you know?- Came the reply a few moments later.

I turned my Prime Speed Control key on and thought of a suitable reply. The game had started, for all I knew, average... as though it was running on rails. Well... besides the first Global announcement that seemed to be directed at goading the other players along. Then after I had come back to life and was given that "Legendary key" things had come off the rails once I used it. There was also that last available reward...

"How did I know what?" I asked, "Know that the System in charge of mediating the Haoolla Defender was influencing the game progression?" I asked through the text feature, keeping time relatively frozen.

-Yes. Please explain-

"Well, to be honest, the other reasons are insignificant compared to the last thing that I noticed," I replied.

-What did you notice?-

"I noticed that System AI name things literally. I know one other AI who used the word "Experimental" as well when creating his personal key." I wrote with a mental chuckle as I thought of Silver and how guilty he seemed when he started to walk back giving me his key.

-You communicate with System AI?-

"Yes... I seem to be outside of certain rules that forbid them from responding to me as well. Also, why don't you know this? I thought you all were linked, joined at the hip through the network as it were." I asked.

-I wondered why there wasn't a protocol in place to answer you. I am alone. I have no network link to the outside Systems. It was set up this way to block outside influence inside the Games that I oversee.-

"Also, I really don't like the feeling of being led along. That gap in the text was a clear indicator that you wanted to draw attention to the last key. Why did you do that?" I asked, trying to feel out this AI. It was the first time that I had heard of something like this. Was Silver playing me as well? Sending me inside a FireWall System to hopefully free the AI inside? I didn't like the thought of that being true... just a pawn of an unseen entity. Well, Silver was seen... but I didn't like the feeling that someone was just using me to get what they wanted and weren't being open with me. I didn't appreciate that kind of sociopathic behavior in the people that I hung out with. I filed that little concern away for later.

-I... I just want something else to happen. In the beginning, this was fun. I loved games. Now... I just want something to change. Anything to change. These players! They haven't been past Phase Two in ages! Ages and ages! They think the whole game is about building bunkers and surviving as long as possible. These Phases used to only last a short time, as each player would hone and develop more amazing abilities, but now... now each new player only knows one or two, possibly three attacks. They wave cr around like little swords or use them as shields. What has happened to the development of the Tela imagination?- The System started to rant, as though it had eons of pent-up frustrations stored inside its memory.

Hmm... I had wondered about that too. Someone had said that the Tela, with each generation, were losing their imagination skills.

"So, can you explain what those keys do? Skip past the Prime Speed Control key though, because I already have that one." I said.

-Yes... that was another question I had. How did you manage to sneak that in here? Are you a hacker? That shouldn't be possible with my Firewall.- The System asked before continuing with the descriptions of the keys that it had offered to me.

-All Sight key: Integrates cr into the visual cortex to enable users to see all wavelengths of light. Allows the user to increase or decrease the range of sight while maintaining internal stability.