Spear of Destiny by James Baldwin (room on the broom read aloud txt) 📗

his eyes. “They’re just monsters. Big Bad Evil Guys. World bosses and monster-type NPCs don’t have any personality data at all. All big boss mobs in the system have pre-determined identities and powers. There’s only about thirty Drachan in the setting, all of them currently disabled under the Caul of Souls.”

“And there’s no way OUROS could generate new ones out of human data?” I asked.

“No. For one thing, physical storage on the orbital servers is really limited. We had quantum cores in Juneau that could hold a couple million exabytes of information. The orbital equipment had access to the same info when it was connected via entanglement. But now that we rebooted from the satellite, it’s only got its onboard equipment, which is maybe like... I dunno... ten exabytes. The space is so limited that we don’t dream here. You notice that?”

I could tell that information was lost on Suri. It was almost lost on me, though I knew the basics of how computers worked. “Ten exabytes is still a lot. Like ten billion terabytes of info.”

“It’s just enough to run a world like this one, and I mean JUST. So yeah, OUROS isn’t breeding new villains to torment us with.”

“Then do you know how we can defeat the Drachan?” I asked.

Jacob scowled. “No. I know it sounds weird coming from a game developer, but the game itself never interested me that much. I’m a data nerd, not a fantasy nerd. The only conventions I ever went to were on Quantum SQL entanglement exchanges. I got involved because Ryuko paid me a lot of money to move to Alaska, and I was excited about the tech.”

I sighed. “Damn. Knew it was too good to be true.”

“So you’re saying that Ororgael’s agenda has nothing to do with the, uh, system that you Architects made,” Suri said. “Ororgael saw some things in his accident that made him scared, and now he’s a delusional narcissist trying to control this world the same way you and Nick felt like you had to control Al-Asad.”

Jacob gave her an odd look. “Look: I apologized. What else do you want me to do? I was depressed and shitty and angry. But I’m not like Nick or Michael.”

Suri looked down at him, her eyelids hooding. “I’ll have to think about that. Until then, you’ll stay in my dungeon and rot. C’mon, Hector.”

“W-Wait!” Jacob scrambled up to hands and knees. “I gave you what you wanted! You can’t just leave me here!”

“Watch me.” Suri let me pass under her arm.

“Do you have any idea what solitary confinement does to people!?” He scrambled up to his feet, edging forward. “This is torture! This is against the Geneva Convention!”

Suri gave him a flat look of disbelief, and slammed the door in his face.

Chapter 19

By the time we reached the stairs, Jacob’s screams of rage gave way to sobbing as our footsteps faded from his earshot. Suri and I climbed the stairs without saying anything to one another, but when we reached the surface, we both took deep, grateful breaths of fresh air and turned to look at one another.

“I think that went pretty well,” Suri said. “He squealed like... well. A rat.”

“He sure did. I wonder if there’s some way we could let Nick know his butt buddy bitched him out. We could hold that over Jacob to encourage compliance, and we might be able to draw Nick into a sting and capture him, too.” I nodded to the guard as he saluted. “You think he earned breakfast?”

“Yeah.” Suri shuddered and jerked her shoulders. “Gods... the man still makes my skin crawl. What do you think about what he said? About the people here?”

I frowned, looking out over the inner ward. The castle was already bustling. The guards were in the middle of changing shifts, servants were busy bussing sacks and crates between the gatehouse and kitchens, and Vash had started drilling his students in the area just outside the Great Hall. Kitti Hussar had joined Karalti today: the young countess had apparently volunteered for a martial arts lesson.

“Neyhg! Kor! Trun! Doro!” he barked the Tuun numerals as the two girls stepped forward in stance, punching from the hip. “Keep your back straight, Hussar! Shun! Zorgaa!”

“Jacob’s wrong,” I said quietly. “The way he described the system doesn’t take into account any of what we see here, day in, day out. I mean, just look at what we’re seeing here. If Kitti was just an NPC reacting to your motivations, why the fuck would she be learning Tuun martial arts? She joined the lesson for her own reasons. She’s curious. She’s bored. Static programs don’t get bored, Suri. They don’t instinctively want to learn for the sake of learning.”

“-Tuurgiz! Uun!” Vash called out the last two numbers, moving to stand in front of them. “Hoch Tsool!”

“YUSH!” Both girls shouted, sliding into the final stance position, punching with the right fist, and bringing the left arm into a forceful upper block. Karalti was better practiced at it, holding the forward leaning stance with no tremors. Kitti kept glancing at her, trying to line her feet and hips up the same way.

“Okay, okay, hold position.” Vash went to Kitti and gently kicked her feet into the proper position. “Good, there we go. We’ll make a Tuun brave out of you yet, Lady Hussar.”

“You’re right,” Suri said. “And I mean... you’re bonded at the brainstem to Karalti, right? You’d know if she wasn’t making her own decisions. Even Cutthroat just does what she wants.”

“Yeah. Exactly.” I watched as Vash went and picked up a pair of sacks connected by a short rope. Karalti whined, then again, louder, as Vash hung them over her outstretched arm.

“If you think this is bad, just wait until you earn your black belt!” Vash chided. “You’ll have to hold ME on your