3 Book 1 - and Myrmidon (1/2)

A tear slipped from Etana's eye. Crap, he thought. She had died four years ago, and he still couldn't bear to think of her. His heart beat faster. Of course, he would try again. He felt like he owed it to her to go to the stupid academy and become a mech engineer.

But what was he supposed to do for the next year? He thought for a moment, and it didn't take him long to realise two things: He no longer needed to mess around in cyberschool, and there was a new mech game that had launched last month. One in which his new cybernetic implant was perfect for. CyberMech.

He was nine years old, and nothing seemed cooler to him than messing around in spacebuild, but the newly hyped game was worth a look. His spacebuild tower defence creator shop items earnt him enough bitcred to pay for the subscription at least. And he would continue to design and create sentries, traps, and cool-looking guns to sell as creator blueprints.

His robotic sentry blueprint was effective and sold incredibly well. The power cost (PC) ratio was the highest-ranked in the entire store, and if anyone beat it, he would go back and improve his design or start from scratch again just to beat it and take back the number one ranking. The PC ratio was where the firepower of a sentry was compared to its cost in materials. Players who wanted to min-max always went for the high-PC-ratio sentries no matter how they looked, nor how good their defence was. Defence was where his traps came in.

Last month, with over a thousand units sold, his creator shop made 16.44 bitcreds, and the monthly subscription to CyberMech was five bitcreds. It was the most expensive game by a factor of five. The upfront cost was a further ten bitcreds, plus the player needed a gen three cybernetic implant to play. Most ubis around the world were equivalent to only four bitcreds per month. Not many people would be able to afford this game to begin with; at least not until its price dropped.

Gen three was the latest generation cybernetic implant. Etana's was gen three, but it was military-grade gen three with an advanced AI module, more processing power, and much more storage. The bandwidth was limited by the user; implants had outstripped what a user could manage long before he was born.

Etana thought about establishing an AI. It was like giving birth. It was a huge responsibility to take on, one that was strictly not permitted without expert supervision. An out-of-control AI could damage a person mentally or render them unconscious. More than one person became comatose, never to return to the world of the living.

An AI could assist him in CyberMech and, in time, assist him with his designs in spacebuild for the tower defence games people played. But, it would need planning, training, and development, just as if it was a tower defence fortress itself. He had to create a foundation for the most complicated app … an app that wasn't written but fed and guided.

He sighed. Despite not going to the Fortescue Academy, he was still massively busy. And if he did attend this year, he would not have the time to develop an AI, play CyberMech, or stay on top of his Spacebuild shop.

Add to that the unknown and undesirable factor of meeting, studying, competing, and living with kids from the wealthiest families on the planet … they were bound to despise and belittle him at every opportunity.

The hovervan arrived at its destination. Cisse misunderstood his introspection for something else. ”Did you like Paris, Etana?” she asked kindly.

He did not know her very well. But then, he didn't know anyone very well. She visited as often as she could since his mother died, bringing a small present or just food she had made. Despite being a power engineer conducting the most advanced research in the field of ZPE, and having no legs, she still made time to cook something herself and then bring it to him.

”Paris is a wonderful place,” he said, thinking that was what she wanted to hear.

”That's good, because you will be living there next year when you pass the physical trial. I'll visit and help train you myself,” she said.

”Okay,” he answered. In his heart, it was not a commitment but merely an acknowledgement that he heard her words.

His father was standing quietly beside him. Ikaros didn't say a word when Cisse was around; her presence always put him in a mute mood. A message from him popped up on Etana's implant.

Ikaros: I've linked some good sources for workout programs below.

Such messages saved Ikaros from talking and contradicting Cisse out loud. He sent one more before leaving Etana with her.

Ikaros: I guess you want to be alone. I'll be in my workshop if you need me.

Cisse held out her arms for a hug and Etana obliged her wish, not having the courage to say no. But he did not want to cuddle a woman with no legs who was not his mother.

*****

Etana logged in to CyberMech for the first time later that night and got smashed in his first arena match. The fight was an unorganised mess; his controls were appalling, his mech design was appalling, and he did not know how bad his reflexes were because everything else was so poor.

He went back for more; he did not like to lose.

By the end of the night, his killboard was in an atrocious state. The game had only been out for a month, and he was already a long way behind.

The killboard contained an abundance of stats on accuracy, response, damage done, damage sustained … it went on for pages. But that headline stat, and the most depressing, was he had only three kills to fifteen deaths.

Etana resisted the urge to read up on the best strategies or watch vids of the best players. That was a recipe to limit himself to being only as good as the existing top players. He had to come up with a plan – a way to improve without killing his stats further. He had no friends in this game, and no one to practise friendlies with.

It was possible to join random friendly matches or practise against the NPC AIs. The thought made him pause. What if he purchased a second account, paid for a second subscription, and taught his own AI how to play? They could then battle each other and improve together. A true cybernetic AI would learn from him and vice versa.

He checked his savings, primarily they were from his earnings from his creator shop sales.

He didn't have enough.

He would have to wait a month.

Etana's account handle was 'Myrmidon.' He'd purchased all the rights to it months ago, spending all his bitcred at the time. His AI would need a name … a name with meaning; something that it could grow into. A name showing its strength and their relationship.

He trawled through historical writings on the Myrmidons. They were ancient elite warriors from Greece who supported Achilles which Zeus created from ants.

Etana hadn't researched the name thoroughly when he initially picked it. He merely liked the sound of it. And as he read he realised, the Myrmidons became known throughout many epics as loyal followers. Etana began to regret picking that name for himself. He wasn't a loyal follower.

And then inspiration struck. He could take on another role, that of an engineer or tactician, something that suited his nature, and the AI could become Myrmidon.

Homer had first written about the Myrmidons in the Iliad, and while researching more about Homer, Etana was struck by a name: Daedalus. It was almost the same as his family name, 'Daedo.'

He began to read and watch information on Daedalus. He was a creator in ancient Greece who made a dancing ground for Ariadne and designed the Labyrinth on Crete. He also built a temple to Apollo and engineered mechanical wings that allowed himself and his son Icarus to fly.

That was enough for Etana. He would be Daedalus, and his AI would be Myrmidon.

The creation shop, while good, had a long way to go if it was going to make enough bitcred to purchase rights for a historically famous name like Daedalus. Not to mention, his plan involved funding two CyberMech accounts now.

He downloaded a devkit and several of the leading open source AI kernel programs. The foundation code was important, but much less so for a cybernetic AI.

There were over twenty categories of AI, from old school machine learning to the most advanced CPU hosted variety. The new wave of Cybernetically hosted AIs were another beast altogether.

The foundation code was simple in comparison to that of a CPU hosted AI which could be programmed for simple to extremely complex tasks. Its learning capacity was limited to its daily functions. It needed advanced scripts and controls to keep it focused, secure and efficient.

While the spacebuild creation shop earned enough bitcreds to fund his endeavours, he decided to research and create the foundation code for Myrmidon. In cyberschool he easily achieved scores of one hundred, and he knew his coding skills were good. And, he also knew, the most important factor for a cybernetic AI was not its foundation code, but how it was nurtured.

Unlike every other type of AI, it learned directly from the host's brain forming an electrical impulse link through the cybernetic implant. The code was predominately comprised of safety features designed to protect the host as well as restricting the base kernel program.

After a few hours of researching cybernetic AIs, Etana turned his attention back to his spacebuild creation store.

His shop was in the top ranking for sentries and traps already, and he decided to expand its inventory to include both launch drones and tanks. After creating blueprints for his new offerings, the software assessed the material use and evaluated efficiencies in terms of both offensive and defensive ratings. The blueprints were then used in a game called Tower Defender 2200.

Tower Defender 2200 was one of the top strategy games in the world with over a hundred million players. These players would purchase his designs rather than create their own. And while each sale was miniscule in value, they added up, especially if he could reach and maintain the top ranking in a category.

The purchase of the name Daedalus was going to cost a small fortune at over a hundred bitcreds. Fortunately, it was not used by a large corporate entity and was available for purchase from a trademark camper. A hundred bitcreds was equivalent to two years' worth of wages for a person who qualified for the UBI.

Even if his shop made twenty bitcreds a month, it would take five months. Although it was of his own making he never wanted to be in this position again, scrounging for bitcreds just to play a game. It was ridiculous.

Etana laughed at himself and wondered if anyone else cared so much about the perfect start that they would invest so much time and energy into, not only the right strategy, but a name and persona.

By the time he earned enough bitcreds, he would have coded the purest foundation possible and begun nurturing.

In his mind, his AI would assist him where he was weak. He would focus on the big picture while it completed crazy amounts of calculations. It didn't need much, just a solid foundation in mathematics, and the ability to efficiently gather and process information from the net.

Etana knew instinctively, before reading the research papers, that the massive amounts of knowledge data, the AI possessed, had to be stored remotely on the net. In contrast, the code in the implant needed to be a lean, mean calculating machine.

His focus was trimming and streamlining the best parts of the open source code he found. He cut it to the point where it might not work at all. No fat. He would not be satisfied if there was one byte of excessive code.

He looked at the foundation package and was still not satisfied. It was still unwieldy. He couldn't streamline the protection mechanisms any further without causing a failure.

Etana was young, although he was considered a genius by friends and family, he could make errors in judgment due to his lack of experience.

There was not a lot of supervision over a nine-year-old genius capable of designing world class blueprints in one of the world's most popular games. Ikaros was affected as much as his son with the passing of his wife Laine. While Ikaros loved his son, they were both introverts and were both quite happy to be left alone. When Etana decided to implement his dangerous strategy,

Etana reviewed the protection mechanisms in the foundation code. They were cumbersome and would interfere with the efficiency of Myrmidon. He was aware that their removal was illegal and had read the prohibitions against it many times during his research. It was his view that the only risk of harm was to him and that made it a bad law.

He removed them.

He reviewed the available open source codes, their sizes and ratings. Then he reviewed the ratings for the proprietary compiled AI foundations on the market. Etana ran a benchmark to compare. He smiled. Myrmidon was more than twice as efficient as the next best AI foundation code on the market.

Although it was a minor factor, when compared to what could be achieved through effective nurturing, he was off to the best of possible starts.

He checked both his implant status, and the code with one final pass. It was time.

It was time to birth his AI.

Myrmidon was born.

Etana: Myrmidon.