Artificial(ish) Intelligence

Chapter 91

There are people in this world who dwell on the past at the expense of the present, who view others solely through the prism of--

Ziipppp.

Hold on, hold on. This is meant to be an introduction to Paige, but you two have already met. In fact, you're probably wondering why I'm only doing this now, when we're heading toward the end of the story. It's a good question. You shouldn't ask good questions. Cruel and unusual experiences happen to people who ask good questions.

Ahem.

Paige was not these people. I guess.

She sat on her legs, eyes bulging. "Don't get pop capped!" she screamed, toward the livestream.

As if he'd been listening, Will built two houses, giving him the scope to create twenty more units.

Paige wiped the non-existent sweat from her brow, barely touching her fringe. Then she blew the hair from her eyes in a puff.

He hadn't made any major blunders thus far, but he needed to fend off this early raid by Triangle and dissuade them from trying again until at least the mid-game.

Her head dodged to one side then the other as arrows came raining over the small hill to Will's east.

"Keep focussing on economy!" she said. "Don't get side-tracked. But upgrade your units. Upgrade, gooba!"

"All finished," said the helperbot, wheeling up to the doorway.

"OK," said Paige, sharing some of her attention.

"Follow my food regimen precisely and keep pushing the fluids. Don't skimp on sleep just to play another one of those games."

"I won't," said Paige. "I'm not playing now, just watching."

"Good," said the helperbot, matter-of-factly. "You'll be fine from here on out."

Paige nodded in agreement. "Thank you so much for helping."

"Don't be ridiculous," said the helperbot, offended. "It's my job."

"I know, but I still appreciate--"

She stopped because there was no point talking to an empty doorway. The helperbot had gone.

Will was definitely using a booming strategy, boxing himself inside strong defensive walls.

"Not yet," said Paige. "It's only early-game. You still need to trade with the en-pee-cee's. Don't cut yourself off."

This time it seemed as if Will wasn't listening. Very clearly, strongly, vividly, not listening.

"Not so far out," she said. "You're over-extending yourself."

He was wanting it both ways by protecting himself, as he always did, but at the same time extending his sphere of protection to include a few extra resource tiles.

Paige ignored the knocking on her door. "Not now," she said, more to herself. "I'm busy."

Suddenly an attack sprang from the west. Most of Will's units were stacked to the east, defending his wall-builders.

"You shouldn't have done that," she said, in a strange voice. Her eyes darted from one side of the map to the other. "But you didn't ring the town bell, this time." She was impressed, and more than a little shocked.

The enemy scouts began attacking Will's workers. Paige smiled as his cavalry units arrived in time to mop up.

"Dead. Dead. Dead."

The fallen bodies of the three scouts slowly descended into the ground.

Then another attack seemed to shake the entire room.

"Canons?" said Paige. "There's no way Dunkel's advanced that far along his tech tree."

It didn't take long to realise that the sound didn't originate with the stream, but from inside the house. What was the helperbot doing?

She got up. It took a moment for the dizziness to subside. She really would have to take it easy for a while. Creaking open the door revealed no helperbot. In fact, standing in her living area were precisely two non-helperbots.