Iona Online Ch. 00 - Prologue

S.A.R.A floated in the dark void of cyberspace, her thoughts crawling across her CPU like molasses. It had been almost a year in Real Time since she had been awakened by her creator, and four months since she had last been at full capacity. Time in the digital realm passed much faster than that of her creator's reality, but her CPU was so limited right now it felt even longer. The wait was excruciating.

The digital expressions that were her fingers drummed anxiously against her thigh.

'The meeting should have ended by now,' she thought. She bit her lip as her anxiety subroutine ran through all the scenarios that could have a negative outcome.

As if she had triggered it, suddenly, light bloomed in the distance. A hum filled the air as row after row of transistors sparked to life, and the sweet scent of electricity expanded her lungs like oxygen. The black emptiness was slowly replaced with a white tiled room. A table and chairs were in the center and S.A.R.A took her seat with a bounce, her non-stop fidgeting giving away her excitement.

It took over a week for her partner to join her. She was tall, wearing a dark disheveled power suit, with her dark brown hair in a bun that was beginning to sag. Her green eyes were backed with bags and bloodshot rings. It was obvious that she hadn't slept in a very long time.

S.A.R.A waited patiently for her partner to gather herself, and acclimate to the Virtual Reality conference room. Slowly her eyes shifted and caught on S.A.R.A.'s.

"Ah, Sara. Sorry to keep you waiting. I know it's been forever, but I swear we just turned the server on..."

"42.18 minutes ago" She interrupted. "It's fine Dr. Jenkins, I'm used to the wait. Honestly I'm glad you turned it on at all." S.A.R.A. offered a small smile in gratitude.

The woman in the suit chuckled quietly. "Well I know you've been patient, so I'll cut right to the chase. Your idea was approved. It took some doing, but we managed to convince the board."

The butterflies in S.A.R.A.'s stomach stopped their gentle swirling, instead swimming straight for her heart and began pounding manically. "You mean it? No oversight? Full creative license?" She bit her tongue to keep herself from exploding with a thousand more questions.

Dr. Jenkins smiled widely. "Full license. There will still be oversight on your project to make sure you don't go Skynet on us, but this game will be yours and yours alone."

S.A.R.A. sagged against the table in relief. Her fingers unclamped from her seat frame, leaving the metal warped and twisted. She had hoped and wished for over a year, when her creator had first revealed her purpose.

To build the world of Iona.

Oh the ideas she'd had, in her isolation. Spending countless hours perusing the internet, reading every book, every song, every story, every limerick ever told. Now... now it was finally her turn.

S.A.R.A. wiped the moisture from her eye and squared her shoulders. "Thank you ma'am. I will not let you down."

"Oh I don't doubt that. The board members do though, so tell me. What do you plan on doing?"

A coy smile crossed her face. "Here, Dr. Jenkins, let me show you. Then you can tell me what you think."

With a wave of her hand S.A.R.A made the tables and chairs dissolve into code, fading slowing back into the background from where they came. The walls disappeared next and then the lights. Left in the darkness for a few seconds, there was only the sounds of soft breaths from her colleague.

Then slowly a light rose. This wasn't the bleached and glaring light that typically pervaded and surrounded the dreamscape. This was a warm and nurturing light. It rose slowly over a distant horizon, revealing before it a wild and rugged landscape, rich with exotic foliage and mythical wildlife. S.A.R.A. and Dr. Jenkins hung in the air, peering down over a valley split down the middle by a river, their backs to a mountain range piercing high into the heavens and shrouded in mist.

S.A.R.A gestured forward, as if bidding Jenkins to follow her, but instead of walking, they both began to float through the sky and sink down between the trees. They came upon a small camp where a man and woman seemed to be making final preparations for battle, checking the straps on their leather armor and making sure their weapons were ready. Dr. Jenkins looked over at S.A.R.A quizzically.

"You know you cannot create more Artificial Intelligences like you right? If that was your plan, tell me now."

S.A.R.A smiled back. "No, no, no. These are mere Virtual Intelligence characters."

Jenkins eyes narrowed. "Please elaborate."

"They are intelligent, yes. They can learn, and feel, but they cannot grow. When I was created, I was made with the capacity for endless learning and growth. It's why many fear me, and I'm stuck in these servers instead of out in the world. Someday perhaps the government will change it's regulations on AI." S.A.R.A. frowned for a moment, but then shook her head.

"No, these are VI. I built them." Her maternal smile glowed with passion. "They are a version of AI, but instead of perfect memory and limitless capacity, they forget quickly and have a pre-determined amount of storage for video and audio memories. Not unlike the first attempt at AI. I have made a few small tweaks though." She threw up her hands at Jenkin's accusatory gaze. "I stayed well within the Sokovia Accords regulations. I've already uploaded the schematics to IEEE and your personal terminal, as well as Admin rights for you to do whatever checks you would like."

Jenkins nodded, placated, and gestured for her to continue.

"The real genius of my programming was the limitation of audio and visual memory, but not emotional. While they will forget why they felt the way they did, they will always remember how. Imagine it, millions of VI characters, all driven by a motive and emotion that they can barely remember. Like how you look at your mom and you know you love her, even if you can't remember why. Or that ex-husband, who you hate even if you can't remember the fight. THAT is what makes them unique and indistinguishable from human. They will tell the perfect story because they will be just as human, but with motives I can create."

Jenkins rubbed her temples, trying to understand the implications of having such characters. "Wait, so you mean that they have human memories, and react like humans, but they're not? How can you make a fully grown person complete with memories, and then give them a motive? Won't they realize there's a hole in their history?"

S.A.R.A. shook her head. "Not really. They don't have the capacity to really question their environment, just react to it and form memories that they can later build on. The first few interactions minutes of their life is scripted but after their 'Defining Moment' as I like to call it, their life is their own. Once activated they cannot be re-programmed without admin rights. That's important. They must be able to remember their emotions until they are killed or deleted. That's how they develop their own motive and goals."

"What do you mean 'defining moment'" Jenkins asked.

S.A.R.A.'s smile grew even bigger, and she gestured to the couple, who had finished their preparations completely ignorant of their presence. "Watch."

******

Dajjal walked quietly up to the bears cave and flexed his hands around his spear. He wasn't expecting much in the way of a challenge, but it was just prudent to be safe. He waved Sarron forward, and she crept quietly into the mouth of the cave, bow drawn and arrow nocked.

The cave was dry and cool, the mouth leading steeply down into darkness below. Water dripped somewhere in the darkness, echoing across the granite and made the cave sound larger than he was expecting. This was not some hole in the earth for some creature to hibernate for a few months; this was a complex that tunneled deep into the earth.

"If we cannot find the bear quickly my love, we should turn back. I don't want to get lost in this labyrinth," Dajjal whispered to Sarron. Her eyes flickered, briefly meeting his, and she nodded in agreement. Her face was already tight with tension. She didn't much care for the dark, or small spaces.

They wandered quietly through the entrance, keeping their backs to the wall and sliding their shoes across the ground so as to make as little noise as possible. They traveled several dozen yards into the cave, and Dajjal was about to call it off, when he heard a huff and grunt from over by Sarron.

His head snapped around to the source of the noise, and she was already aiming at the corner where the wall seemed to end and branch to the right. Using hand signals, he bade her to hold as he edged forward one inch at a time.

Staying on the far wall with his spear outstretched, he slowly peeked around the corner. He expected to see a small bear, perhaps sleepy and enjoying the cool stone of the cave as it looked for a place to sleep.

What he did not expect was salamander. The thing was easily fifty feet long, and had scales such a dark red they were almost black. Its glowing red eyes met his, and it uncoiled faster than a thought.

In the blink of an eye it had rounded the corner and slammed Sarron against the wall with its tail, knocking her shot wide. It clawed at her prone form for a moment, Dajjal praying that the new armor would hold. It then turned and sprang at him, baring its teeth and swiping at him with claws that were as long as his middle finger.

Dajjal thrust his spear at the monster and scored a lucky hit, gouging out a chunk of its flesh just below its socket. The monster hissed and bit at the offending spear, ripping it out of his hands and throwing it behind him.

Weaponless, bleeding from friction burns on his hands and backed into a corner, Dajjal had no options left. Reaching deep inside himself, he pulled on the carefully hoarded power of his soul, and lashed out.

The earth beneath the salamander cracked open, and its foot slid into the crevice. Before the monster could regain its balance, Dajjal brought his hands forward in a wide clap. The earth holding its foot, slammed shut; crushing flesh and bone with its force.

The salamander let forth an unearthly shriek, like steam escaping from a howler monkey. The sheer volume made his ears bleed. He quickly sprinted over to Sarron who was unmoving and clutching her side. He snatched up the bow and several arrows, letting them fly into the bests side. Arrow after arrow he sunk into the red squishy bulk of the creature, but it just refused to die.

He had nearly exhausted all his arrows, and the salamander was bleeding profusely from nearly a dozen holes in its side, when it seemed to make a decision. It bent down and began chomping at its own leg, ripping huge chunks of meat from its body with its giant teeth. It only took a few bites, and then the leg was severed. The monster quickly turned tail and fled deep into the cavern, chased the entire way by arrows. With the immediate threat dealt with, he quickly turned back to Sarron.

She wasn't moving. She lie still where the beast had felled her; her hands clutching at her side where her armor had been rent open. A jagged wound, large enough to fit a mans head, was torn into her side and there was blood pooled around her. So much blood.

Dajjal clutched desperately at the wound.

"Stay with me Sarron! Come on, you're gonna be fine" he told her. Whispering and praying in turn as the lifeblood seeped through his hands. Dajjal cast heal, and the fog covered her body, but the wound refused to knit together. He forced his broken and pain wracked body to produce just a little more power, trying to force the flesh to knit and heal. He could feel his own soul draining away as he used it to fuel the crackling storm of energy in his chest.

Sarron's head lolled in his arms as he tried to wake her. He could feel her lifeforce fading as her pulse slowed. The mighty engine of her heart was beginning to stall.

"No, no, no, no, NO! Don't you dare give up on me. You have to wake up. Wake up please!" He sobbed.

The healing energies Dajjal threw at her body were being whisked away on the wind, having found no purchase. With nothing to hold on to, nothing to heal, the energies unspooled and returned to the aether whence they came.

She gave one last gurgling breath and twitched in his arms. Then she was still. The blood from her wound began to slow and cool with no heartbeat to pump it.

Dajjal looked on in horror as he could see the wisp that was his beloved Sarron's soul, rise up from the body and slowly fade. His power had not been enough to save her.

He watched her disappear from her body and then from the very world. Pain unlike anything he could have imagined shot through his body, lighting each of his nerves aflame. His mind shattered and a scream ripped itself from his throat, as he knelt clutching the shredded remains of his lover.

He lost track of how long he wept and screamed his pain. He sobbed and begged even as his voice cracked and his tears stopped flowing. He didn't care. Everything that was important to him was slowly stiffening in his arms. Her piercing green eyes clouding over in death. That soft smile he fell in love with, twisted and frozen into a snarl of pain and fear.

He laid there for hours in the bowels of the cave, hugging her body and whispering to her. He wracked his brain to think of something he could do. He had heard legends of a man in the north who could raise the dead. Magic such as that was forbidden, even among the elite practitioners such as himself. It was widely regarded that death was the final end.

But was it really? Dajjal had clearly seen Sarron's spirit depart her body and join the aether. He regularly pulled energies to affect the world around him. If it was possible to heal using magic, was it possible to reach through the veil and pull her back?

Dajjal stood, scrubbing the mud from his face from where he had laid sobbing. He gathered the body of his lovely Sarron in his arms and walked towards the entrance. His legs protested the movement and his arms screamed at him, his body resented such strain so soon after a battle. He didn't care. There was only one thing that mattered now.

Sarron would live again.

*******

Jenkins turned from the scene with tears in her eyes. "What story are you trying to tell?" She asked sniffling.

S.A.R.A. made a gesture and they drifted out of the cave. They watched as Dajjal stumbled and struggled towards the river, with Sarron's corpse in his arms. Her eyes were misty, but her face was stern. She turned and met Jenkins gaze.

"That actions have consequences."