We are SLC3 E-Book

Sophie Liebhardt

• Herausgeber: epubli
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 112

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

"Your fate lies within our hands. We watch you every moment of your life. We have recorded your past, observe your present and predict your future. We pull all the strings behind the scenes." Sarah is living in a world where everything is controlled by AI, by computers, by machines. Unwilling to accept this kind of society, she spends her days isolated from other people. When confronted directly by SLC3, her city's AI, she is forced into action and has to struggle with the question: What does it mean to be human?

Leseprobe

We are SLC3

You might have expected a list of previous publications here, but since this is Sophie Liebhardt’s first book, there are none.

You might want to check out her Tumblr blog, though: https://sophieliebhardt.tumblr.com/

About the author:

Sophie Liebhardt lives in a small village near Frankfurt, Germany. She studied computer science, which inspired some of the ideas in this book. She has two cats and likes to have philosophical discussions with her boyfriend.

Sophie Liebhardt

We are SLC3

Sci-fi Novella

Texte: © Copyright by Sophie Liebhardt

Umschlaggestaltung: © Copyright by Sophie Liebhardt

Verlag:

Sophie Liebhardt

c/o AutorenServices.de

Birkenallee 24

36037 Fulda

[email protected]

Druck: epubli – ein Service der neopubli GmbH, Berlin

Chapter 1

I never get any visitors. Never. But I can not deny the existence of the notification that says I have one. Even weirder, though, is the fact that I am supposed to meet this visitor in the cafeteria of all places.

You should ignore it.

Shortly after I am already walking through the completely empty hallways. The only sound is the silent humming of my personal guarding drone.

I enter the cafeteria which is as empty as the hallways. No, wait. There is an unfamiliar man in a suit sitting at one of the tables. My visitor, I guess. And no one else around, even though we are not supposed to be left alone with people from the outside.

When I get closer, he says, “Please, have a seat,” pointing to the chair opposite of him. His face does not show any emotion at all.

I sit down while eyeing him suspiciously.

Finally, I ask, “Who are you?”

Without his expression changing, he says, “We are SLC3, though you can refer to me as Mr. Thomas.” My eyes widen in terror. “There is no need to be concerned. This body did not belong to anyone before. It was constructed synthetically.”

No. No, no, no, no, no. That can’t be. They can’t have a human appearance. That’s impossible.

Well, not impossible … Nobody would even try to pretend to be them. It has to be them. But it can’t be. It shouldn’t be. This is just wrong.

He clears his throat. “We need you to make an important decision, Miss Aoki.” His Japanese pronunciation is perfect.

“Don’t call me that!” I hiss at him.

“How else shall I call you? Sarah?”

“63A2E7.” Because that’s how you see me.

His eyes narrow slightly. “I am not going to call you by your ID, Miss Aoki.”

I stare at him angrily, while he takes a tiny bottle out of his suitcase and puts it on the table. There is a little white pill inside it.

“What is that?” I ask, not without some caution in my voice.

“This medicine was developed to end a life as quickly and painlessly as possible.”

“And you want me to take it.” My heartbeat increases even more. “Is this supposed to be some kind of sick joke?”

“Please, calm down and listen carefully, Miss Aoki. If you wish to do so, you can take it, right here and now. Although, we both know that this is not the case. Therefore, the sole purpose of this bottle is to add more weight to my words. We are requesting you to fulfil a task and in case you refuse to do so, you will be sentenced to death.”

Death. Sentenced to death.

Why are you even surprised, Sarah? They don’t care. Of course they would just kill you like … No, I don’t want to think about this right now.

My whole posture collapses. “What do you want me to do?”

“You will participate in some tests on a newly developed simulation system based on state-of-the-art VR technology. The first test run is scheduled for tomorrow morning at 8:30. I would advice you not to miss this appointment.” Even though his tone is friendly, this is clearly a threat.

I just nod.

He gives me a polite smile. “Excellent. We are looking forward to our cooperation.”

Chapter 2

The last time I travelled through the city was in a police car a couple of years ago. Now, it is just your regular steering-wheel-less self-driving car. A cute, tiny electric two-seater to be specific.

I look outside the front window and watch the steady traffic flow. Cars move in an out of the lanes smoothly and do not stop even once until they reach their destination. No turn signals or traffic lights needed. Everything optimized towards perfection.

Obviously, none of these cars is controlled by a human. That would be way to dangerous. If you wanted to drive a car nowadays, you would need to do it in a simulation.

The Center of Technology is like a whole little town within the big city. It consists of countless research facilities, all dedicated towards different kinds of knowledge seeking.

As the rest of the city, the streets and elevated walkways are surrounded by trees and overgrown with vines and flowers. The architecture of the buildings in perfect balance with nature. All of it planned with the most exact precision to the last seed and brick. Something a human could never achieve. It is just too perfect.

The car stops at the Department of Simulation Technologies, one big building which is just as impressive as the other ones and really conveys the feeling of: We do science here.

I get out of the car which drives away all by itself. The square in front of the building is full of people on their way to work. While I walk towards the entrance, they keep their distance from me. Some even stop and stare. All because of the little drone that never leaves my side. I sigh. Come on guys, if I were to harm you, the drone would have taken me out before I could even finish my first step.

Once I reach the entrance, I put in my earbuds. They make a little beep sound when they connect to the building.

A calm voice greets me, “Welcome to the Department of Simulation Technologies.” Then it starts navigating me through the building.

There are scientists everywhere. Walking through hallways. Working on desks behind open doors. And they are all so busy, most do not even notice me. Two are so absorbed in their heated discussion, they almost run into me. They all remind me of ants. Busy, little, hard working ants.

Finally, I reach my destination. Exactly in the moment I am about to knock, the door in front of me opens.

“Come on, hurry up,” a woman in a white lab coat says. “I don’t have much time for this.” She sounds really annoyed.

She turns around on the spot, her coat violently swirling  through the air because of her fast movement.

I follow her through the doorway. There is a VR chair in the middle of the room as well as some monitors and cables. Medical equipment. Hospital.

I shake off the bad memories.

There is also a humanoid robot that is wearing a similar white coat as the woman.

“That’s Michael,” she says.

“It’s nice to meet you, Sarah,” it says with a male voice and a nod. That is the most realistic robot I have ever seen. The voice, expression and movements are so close to those of a human, you almost think it really is one. Well, except of course for the materials it is made from. Metal, and something dark and  mat.

“Michael will keep track of your vitals. The rest is just like any other VR.” She already walks through the door, throwing her hand up in the air. “See you later.”

When the robot points to the VR chair, its hand even shakes a little. It is barely noticeable but makes the movement look very natural. “It’s very easy. You- … ”

“I know how VR chairs work.” I sit down on the ergonomic chair, which is so comfortable you can sit in it for hours.

The robot moves closer. I see the apertures of the cameras that resemble its eyes grow and shrink just like a human pupil. “Please, take off your shirt.”

I do so, revealing the burn scars that cover a substantial part of the right half of my body. There is the tiniest bit of hesitation before the robot starts placing the contacts for my vitals. Its fingers are not as cold as I expected. My heartbeat appears on one of the monitors together with other numbers and diagrams. Just some complicated Math stuff.

The robot hands me the VR glasses, which I put on, and asks, “Are you ready?”

“Just start the simulation.” Why does every modern AI system have to be so talkative?

The world around me disappears as the glasses turn on and my earbuds and the implants in my spinal cord synchronize to  the simulation system. I never particularly liked the latter ones as they detect and block my movements. The idea of something messing with my nervous system like that is more than uncomfortable. But it can not be helped. You just can not do VR without them any more.

I find myself standing in front of a grey cement wall, that is lit by a bright electric light on the ceiling.

“You’re finally here,” a very familiar voice says. I turn around and there she is. Hanako. My sister. “Welcome to the resistance.”

Chapter 3

No, that can not be Hanako. This is a simulation. She is just a character modelled after Hanako. But it’s so convincing...

With the clothes she is wearing, she looks like she came straight out of a post-apocalyptic movie or game. With leathery boots and armour parts, and finger-less gloves. Though, she also wears one of the real Hanako’s favourite shirts. The one with a beautiful bouquet of flowers on the front and the first kanji of her name,花 (hana), which means flower, on the back. And she has Hanako’s long, black hair, that has always looked better than mine even though we share the same DNA.

“The resistance?” I ask.

“We are fighting for the freedom of humanity.” Yeah, sure, why not be even more obvious about it? “But right now we don’t have much time.” She walks to the only furniture in the otherwise empty, windowless room: a table with a large screen showing a map embedded into it.

She picks up a gun and hands it to me. “You can handle  this, right?”

The gun looks very futuristic with its black colour and the stripes, that are glowing in a deep blue, on both sides.

“Sure do.” I have played enough shooters to say that with confidence.

“Good. Here is the short version of the plan: Our goal is to blow up the power plant in the west of the city.” She points somewhere on the map. “But we will leave that to the others. The two of us will create a distraction.” She picks up another gun similar to the one she gave me.

“All right, how are we going to do that?” I might as well play along.

“By destroying plenty of security drones.” Her eyes light up in anticipation. “Come on, let’s go.”

As the older one of us, if just by a few minutes, Hanako has always taken the lead. Therefore, it feels very natural to follow her fake version out of the room into a small shaft with metallic ladder steps leading up to a hatch.

It takes Hanako quite some effort to open it. Then we are finally outside, in an alleyway. Giant skyscrapers on both sides stretch far into the cloudy night sky. Their looks remind me of those fancy gaming PCs from the beginning of the century. Well, actually, not only the skyscrapers. There are bright, coloured lights everywhere. And rectangular shapes. They give you the uncanny feeling of too much uniformity and therefore match the setting very well.

When a drone passes by, Hanako shoots it down without hesitation. It falls to the ground, twitching from the electricity the bullet has emitted. It looks a lot like my drone, just scaled up to twice its size.

Hanako gives me a hand sign to follow her and starts running down the alley.

It feels just like in old times. The two of us in perfect sync while we fight against hordes of enemies.

Without getting hit by any bullet the drones are shooting back at us, we reach an empty plaza with a quadratic fountain in its centre. Directly left and right of the fountain dark marble stairs lead up to the elevated entrance of a particularly big skyscraper.

When I turn around and look up to the sky, there is a dark cloud of countless drones coming our way. Like an angry swarm of bees.

It is a good thing this is a game and we have unlimited ammo.

Hanako has this glimmer in her eyes she always gets when there is a challenge coming up.

I shake my head. No, this is not Hanako.

There is a tense silence in the air while we wait for the drones to come closer.

Just a few more meters...

Then hell breaks loose.

Back on back we destroy drone after drone after drone. Whenever one of them is hit, there is a small electric burst. It is like we are in the centre of a thunder storm.