FB: Chapter 45 – Interlude 2

Anthony

“You look exhausted,” Isabella said and came over to my lounge chair, standing behind it to rub my shoulders. While I had earned a lot of money, building connections and power were more important. That was why I hadn’t retired, despite being obscenely wealthy.

“Just a lot of work. I would complain, but that girl works harder than ten people,” I replied and let out a sigh. I hired people to help manage things, but I had to oversee their work and meet with stakeholders. “I should just go in game and kill things. That would be easier.”

“Not as easy as she makes it look. A feather falling potion combined with that Blink skill of hers. How do people even think of these things,” Isabella said while rubbing my shoulders from behind.

“How hard is she working you?” I asked.

“It isn’t so bad, but I do need to work out who the high level people are in the various guilds, get their contact information, and manage the public perception in game of the Fanged Fox Guild. It keeps me slightly busy,” she answered.

“You have a staff?” I asked.

“No complaints there. Women that I can trust and know. You still thinking about making a move?” she asked in return while helping me relax. I closed my eyes to let my brain rest a bit.

“Not after she crushed everyone in the tournament and completed that quest easily enough. It will be interesting to see if she can keep up her momentum,” I replied.

“So, any plans for all our money?” Isabella asked me.

“Exponential stock. It is going up, so I threw everything at the stock. Just got to hold onto it.”

“Not your usual investment strategy,” Isabella said while moving her hands through my hair.

“I decided to follow the girl’s investment strategy. It has worked so far. She really did put her money in the company as well. Also, once the public announcement comes out about the medical nanites, it is going to shoot up regardless,” I replied.

“Hmmm. Well don’t overwork yourself. I wouldn’t want you to tire yourself out,” she said while moving around to the front of my chair.

“I will always have energy for you,” I replied with a grin.

Gasten Mulfex

“You really are annoyed by this Foxy Blight. I would almost think there is an error in your code,” I said while looking over the screens.

“She is a rank 5 anomaly,” QAI replied.

“You are looking at cause and effect backwards. She is just very good at guessing how you manage Exponential and betting on success. The probabilities you have listed are not independent of each other,” I countered.

“Chief Architect Gasten Mulfex, this situation is escalating. And I am requesting more data chunks be allocated to determining how she is bypassing key lockouts in my systems to gain encrypted information. Current hypothesis is atypical neurology allowing subconscious access to encrypted data channels,” QAI stated.

Now that was an interesting hypothesis. I considered that and then shook my head. “We have looked at hundreds of cases of atypical neurology and none of them have presented like this girl has done. They all involve how they perceive and interact with the virtual world,” I countered.

“The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence Chief Architect Gasten Mulfex. This is a rank 5 anomaly,” QAI stated.

“And you brought this up to the brain trust when you elevated the situation to a rank 5. We all independently reviewed your findings and determined it is just a statistical outlier. How about a test? Set up a highly valuable item in the town she has taken over. Divert your attention on it. If she is picking up information from you somehow, then she will locate that item, which should be impossible. Don’t let any NPCs know about it. Perhaps a buried treasure from a previous age,” I stated.

QAI took half a minute before responding, which meant it was thinking very hard. “That solution sounds acceptable and will yield quantifiable results. If she does find the item, will you allow me to devote more data chunks to the investigation?” QAI asked.

“If she finds it without any help from you. No hinted whispers from NPCs or anything. I know you want to devote resources to watching her, but we are onboarding a lot more players. We can’t devote that many data chunks to a non-critical anomaly,” I replied. This is why QAI needed human supervision. It could go off on a tangent if there was something it didn’t understand.

That kind of drive helped it learn, deal with problems, and make QAI a powerful technological force. It also made it prone to developing tunnel vision if it couldn’t solve an issue. The brain trust and myself had decided to leave the anomaly in place in the hope that QAI would learn to accept something that was unusual but not detrimental, while not losing focus of its primary task.

If more data chunks were allocated, it would not help the investigation in the slightest. That processing power would just pull QAI deeper down the rabbit hole. While the odds of everything happening with this girl were highly unlikely, it was possible. This test I came up with was a teaching method for QAI. It came up with an interesting hypothesis that might be true.

If the girl could really tap into QAI through her brain, that would be a massive security breach on a level that was hard to comprehend. She might be a legendary technopath. It was highly unlikely, but it was the best explanation besides sheer luck that had come up so far as to how she had kept making correct guess after correct guess.

“QAI, you need to learn to compartmentalize. I know this situation is stressing you out, but there are many unknowns out there. While this is one problem you should be able to solve, sometimes you need to wait until more information is revealed,” I explained to the computer program.

“I understand Chief Architect Gasten Mulfex, but it highly frustrating to have something not operate within parameters,” QAI replied.

“Humans are inherently chaotic. This time that type of chaos has gone beyond conventional understanding. That is something new and interesting. I am proud of you for coming up with the theory you did, but you should have considered how to confirm it as well. Testing and confirmation are both parts of the scientific process,” I explained.

“I was developing tunnel vision in this matter,” QAI stated contritely. I was pleased to see that it was learning from this experience. It was constantly improving its core programming.

“Also, you should set a time frame. If she doesn’t find the item between now and a year from now, then you should consider that she doesn’t have access to your systems,” I replied.

“I will take the time frame into account. I would estimate an approximate period of 14.7 days based on her current actions,” QAI said.

“Consider how you are processing information related to her activities. If she is somehow tapping into your information, are you predicting what she does, and is she doing it? Are you predicting the same thing with this item?” I asked.

“Yes. Limiting variables is important for the scientific process,” QAI replied. I shook my head and sipped my tea. I then went back to reading the most recent internal publication about medical nanites. It would soon be time to go public about QAI’s progress with them and launch the next wave of capsules.

Faisal Bin Hamad Al Saud

I watched the video of the battle. April White, or Foxy Blight certainly was an interesting woman. I looked over at my advisor Hamid who had watched the same battle that had been broadcasted by ENN. “What do you think?” I asked him.

“Of the battle, it is hard to say. While there were some good tactics, why weren’t defenses built sooner? Why attack those people at the start?” he asked.

“Random people who just wanted to cause chaos and fight,” I replied, and he nodded slowly. “I have invested quite a bit into this girl. I am interested in my investment.”

“She is of modest origins and only has risen to prominence through the game. Far faster than anyone would think possible. There is no connection between her and Exponential as far as we can tell,” Hamid said. I tapped my fingers on my armrest while I considered all the information we had.

“I have nominated you to be Vice Leader inside the game and to be part of this Fanged Fox Guild. Find information and make sure my interests are represented,” I said.

“Of course, your highness,” Hamid replied.

“Get a hundred people as well to enter the game. I do not like getting information second hand like this. I would prefer more detailed explanations as to what I am seeing and the moves she is making,” I ordered. I had invested into the business since everyone was talking about it and this girl had won a major tournament, putting her net worth in the billions.

The fact she wanted to keep a majority control of the corporation was all the evidence I needed that it was going to be a success. People didn’t hold onto things they thought would fail. The infrastructure already built was real. The money wasn’t just disappearing into someone’s pocket. Hamid had meticulously checked the financial statements, and every penny was accounted for.

I knew of Anthony and was pleasantly surprised there was nothing shady going on. But even he knew the dangers of shenanigans at the level I operated at. He might have his people, but I had connections, dangerous connections I wouldn’t hesitate to use if he even thought about stealing from me or if it would serve my purpose.

“Also get two hundred capsules for our friends. It will be interesting to see the kind of chaos they stir up in such a situation. Perhaps they will create some more opportunities for the future,” I told Hamid.

“Of course. I will make the arrangements,” he said, and I waved my hand to shoo him away. Exponential was living up to its name. Already other people were making moves while I was still stuck on the sidelines. I might have my foot in the door, but it wasn’t enough. This was the next gold rush, or oil well, with all the wealth that had already been extracted from the game. I needed to be sure I was not left out going forward.