[00] The Control Room

[DA 2009]

FIVE HOURS AGO…

“Are you ready?” Damon asked.

Audric spritzed his mouth with a spray of peppermint breath freshener. “I was born ready!”

The supervisor then straightened his tie. He had changed from his normal wardrobe to black slacks, white dress shirt, black vest, and black tie. His hair, of course, was still much in his mohawk fashion, but he’d already argued that it was his “natural hairstyle” and trying to change it would make him look ridiculous. It also “complimented the elf ears,” he’d added.

“You could have at least worn a jacket. This isn’t junior prom.”

“Whatever, I look good,” Audric retorted. “Besides, I’m a programmer, not a wind-up executive in a penguin suit. Relax, Damon, it’ll go fine.” He gave his boss a hearty slap on the back.

“Don’t touch me,” Dukes threatened instantly, not even bothering to break his gaze from the empty conference room.

“Right,” Audric said, withdrawing his arm.

Damon put on his political face. “Don’t forget to smile.”

Audric forced a very cheesy and very unnatural grin.

The holograms materialized, and the third roasting of the Dante’s Abyss program began. Before the host could even rattle off his smooth and elegant greeting, a board member cut him off.

“You better have something good for us this time, Damon. We rarely review a developmental project a third time, and there will not be a fourth.”

“Absolutely. The board has been most generous, and I sincerely appreciate it,” Dukes nodded. With a grand gesture, he began his third foray into the dragon’s lair. “Enough of the tournament has passed in order to evaluate what we in the Research and Development Department like to refer to as ‘Progression and Promise.’ These two stages are absolutely key for the future of any project that our workers undertake. In my previous presentation, my main point of focus was to highlight the ‘Promise’ of the selected candidates in order to put the program in perspective. However, singular moments failed to encapsulate the full effect and did not show any of the ‘Progression.’ I can certainly see how it was not effective. First, let me take you back to the beginning. My technical supervisor, Audric, has prepared an impressive demonstration of the program’s capabilities and why you should use a simulation versus an actual, physical reality.”

Damon gestured towards Audric and stepped back with a little bow. Despite the verbal and physical cue, Audric stood frozen in place with his cheesy little grin.

“Audric?” Damon prompted politely.

“Yes?” the supervisor squeaked through his teeth.

“Please begin your demonstration,” Dukes chuckled good-naturedly, giving him a light pat on the back.

“Okay!” he replied in an overly loud volume. He twitched in embarrassment and cleared his throat. “Wow is it loud in here or is it just me?” Audric laughed nervously. “I’m uh, I’m Audric and I’ll be tonight’s entertainment!” His enthusiastic joke was met with silence and impatient glares. “Okayyyy.”

He pulled a remote from his pocket and hit a button, and a panel of the back wall slid upwards, a mechanism pushing out a giant monitor. It seemed very few places in the compound didn’t contain a hidden television of some kind. Audric set down the remote and perched a portable control panel upon his fingertips, balancing it carefully. He punched in a quick sequence of keys and his visual display began.

“Okay, uh, what you are seeing now is a simulation of a simulation,” Audric explained. “This is the machine that we insert the contestants in. For all intents and purposes, it’s the perfect virtual reality that would give even the Wachowski brothers a hard on.” Nobody laughed. “Not that any of you would know who they are, but! The code that Damon got hold of in R&D was a basic model of what we used here. The premise of that program was on the power of belief. Basically, if the people inside believe that their world is real, their mind makes it real. So, in theory, if the participants were to discover that they were within an in fact fake reality, they could rebel against it with the ‘power of belief,’ y’know, some ‘Heart of the Cards’ bullshit. They could theoretically hack the system with their mind and change the rules.”

He entered another string of numbers and letters, executing the signal to translate into the display as a figurative person demonstrating the “rebellion” he’d just described. Then, he hit another button and the video game man exploded.

“Not with my program!” Audric announced triumphantly. “The machine plugs itself directly into the nervous system, manipulating the player from a biological level. Chemicals and electrical impulses are carefully monitored and maintained. What they feel in the program, their body feels in real life, which is why they must be transitioned from their vegetative state in stasis to a medical facility for treatment.”

“Now, wait a moment, wouldn’t that be exactly the same as the regenerative process used to clone their bodies?” a board member protested.

“That procedure costs millions of zeni per body cloned,” Damon interrupted. “The treatment we provide is merely rest, relaxation, and standard outpatient procedure care.”

“The damage caused by the program is not permanent. See, when you get hurt, your brain sends electrical impulses through your body that tells you you’re in pain. The machine triggers those impulses when a corresponding action within the program occurs. It would be like you feel like you’re being stabbed, but you’re not actually being stabbed, see? Even if anyone was to figure out that they’re in a program, and not really on an island, it won’t affect how anything runs. They’re essentially…”

“…prisoners?” another board member supplied.

Audric paused a moment. “…I was going to say ‘hardwired.’”

“They’re no more ‘prisoners’ now than they have been in past incarnations,” Damon assured.

“So you’re telling us that whatever happens in the program happens outside the program, and vice versa?”

“Yes. The signals in the program’s coding trigger command lines in the machine, and command lines can be inputted remotely to affect both the program and the capsule. It’s a two-way feed,” Audric confirmed.

“And what, then, stops them from overpowering the machine? Not necessarily through mental stimulation, but through a physical rejection.”

Audric began another scenario on the display screen. “Not possible. We use a dampening device to prevent their ki from being used outside their physical bodies. Any trace elements of energy that leak out are absorbed by apparatuses placed inside the capsule.”

“So if you’re describing the perfect containment, why can’t we use any of our other players?”

“Because there’s a cap to the amount of energy that can be dampened,” Audric answered.

“A cap? I see. That would be a very good reason not to use the program in favor of a physical island. It seems it prevents us from finding the best candidates we possibly can.”

“No, no it doesn’t,” the technical supervisor disagreed, somewhat annoyed. “What you don’t seem to understand is the brilliance behind the program.”

“Audric,” Damon cautioned, holding an arm in front of him as if to restrain his subordinate.

“Then enlighten us,” one said dangerously.

“A fighter’s energy is measured by a unit called a power level. The higher unit, the higher concentration of energy, or ki, the fighter has. The fighters you’ve all selected have astronomical power levels. The scientific community classifies them by letter: D, C, B, A, and S is the strongest. ‘S Class’ has the ability to blow up planets; they’re like, gods or something. Those old fighters are ‘A Class,’ one step below that, and only getting stronger. Pretty soon, they’ll be beyond your ability to ‘contain’ on that little terraformation of yours, and they’ll take the whole damn planet with you.”

“What my colleague means is that Dante has to constantly redesign the program to conform to our previous competitors’ exponentially growing strength,” Damon interjected. “The fighters we have were ranged from Class C to Class B. Think of it as ‘getting in on the ground floor.’”

“How’s that?”

“The program learns,” Audric grinned. “Now, it’s not self-aware, because I don’t want to deal with a rogue A.I. running around all over the place, but there’s a repair function within the coding that identifies problems or shortcomings within the protocols, and recommends a replacement sequence to be manually entered. When a muscle microtears, the body repairs itself so that the muscle never microtears the same way again. That’s how we get stronger, and that’s how the program gets stronger. With careful monitoring and maintenance from yours truly, the program can adapt itself to the players. In short, our…er, Damon’s…version of Dante’s Abyss will grow with the contestants, efficiently cost-effective and evolves in strength as they do.”

“In short, ladies and gentlemen, we select candidates who are weaker, and as they get stronger, so do we, creating a perfect containment solution. These warriors will eventually become as strong as the old ones, and the program by then will be perfectly adapted to their individual organic or inorganic make-ups,” Damon concluded. “But that’s not everything.”

Audric stood back, letting Damon take center stage.