The Saviors of Mankind

Chapter 10

Media drones hovered over a big space between Game Engine and the National Assembly. Bleachers had been set up, but most of the people sitting on them were tourists, since Players could experience the event without ever leaving their houses.

In front of the crowd was a woman who held a microphone for the benefit of non-Players who could not hear her thoughts. Some distance away from her, there was a small pavilion with a silver cloth draped over it. The words "Winner of the Upgrade!" blazed in golden letters on the side of the cloth.

"Ladies and gentlemen!"

Inside the pavilion stood a pretty Korean woman in her twenties, athletic, with thin arms. She was dressed in everyday clothes and carried a silver purse.

She closed her eyes and the purse began to shimmer. Within seconds it had reconstructed itself into a long silver rod that she grasped in her right hand.

She smiled and tapped the silver rod against the ground. Nothing happened.

With a worried look, she double-tapped the rod again. Still nothing. She sighed.

A low tone started to buzz inside her head, and in one corner of her eye, she saw the familiar face of a woman in her eighties.

"No, no!" she cried. "Not now! Oh, dear, how does this thing..."

Ring, ring.

She gulped hard, blinked, and answered the call.

"Halmoni!" The Korean word for grandmother.

"Hyuna-yah!" Halmoni said. "I thought now might be a good time to ask you about my future grandchildren."

"Aigo!" Hyuna sighed. She tapped the rod again. Why wasn't it working?

And outside, Hyuna could hear, the master of ceremonies was starting to make her introduction.

"I think I might have found someone," her grandmother said. "He's not very tall, but he's Going to School in Jeju."

Hyuna double-tapped the rod again. This time it lit up. A silvery tornado enveloped Hyuna and within seconds she was wearing a silver cap, a black-and-silver tunic, black trousers and boots. The rod was a bit thinner now.

"Jeju? You mean Stanford, right?" Hyuna asked politely. After the Seduction of Silicon Valley, the Stanford campus had moved to Jeju Island — Korea's version of Hawaii.

"Yes. And you're not getting any younger, Hyuna-yah..."

"For months," the MC said, "Game Engine searched for the best candidate for a new operation that would transform the winner into a hybrid artificial intelligence who retains a human brain and body. Since the Game's inception ten years ago, Players have used their human insight to direct Game Engine's computers in a Cambrian explosion of discovery and a global display of military power — used, of course, for humanitarian purposes.

"But recent events indicated that we need to take the Game to a new level. We need Players whose interactions with computers are closer and more intimate than ever before. Game Engine determined that the winner of this competition would be the first such Player."

"What's wrong with next Thursday? You can't stay in Gamespace forever, Hyuna-yah. No matter how delicious the artificial food seems to be, your body still needs the real thing once in a while."

"Halmoni, could we please..."

"Do you know how hard it was for him to get reservations at that place?"