Alice in Virtuality

• Chapter 1 - Meet Martin
  
• Chapter 2 - Martin Meets Alice
  
• Chapter 3 - Poker Showdown
  
• Chapter 4 - Work
  
• Chapter 5 - Knights and Dragons
  
• Chapter 6 - King For A Day
  
• Chapter 7 - The Party
  
• Chapter 8 - MeetCentral
  
• Chapter 9 - The Glade
  
• Chapter 10 - Uninstall
  
• Chapter 11 - Date In The Park
  
• Chapter 12 - Alice Returns
  
• Chapter 13 - HackerNet
  
• Chapter 14 - Teamwork
  
• Chapter 15 - Emma
  
• Chapter 16 - Emma And Martin
  
• Chapter 17 - Plans
  
• Chapter 18 - Alternative Alice
  
• Chapter 19 - Martin's Gambit
  
• Chapter 20 - The Gallery
  
• Chapter 21 - Queen Alice
  
• Chapter 22 - Alice v Alice
  
• Chapter 23 - Resume
  

Martin is a computer person and, therefore, quite different from other people. From his point of view, the world is populated with strange wandering creatures who engage in incomprehensible rituals, making noises at each other for no discernable purpose. He feels a primal instinct to join them, but doesn't seem to grunt the right way. Here is a typical scenario. In his cocoon of logic, A undeniably precedes B, proving C. So, he applies this in conversation. Deducing a coherent theorem inferred from solid axioms, he is comfortable that the conclusions are sound and undeniable. The 'other' responds 'No it isn't'. You can hear the screams.

Off he goes to his computer to vent anger. Here he can destroy them all. The self-made businessman with his smart suit of success saying, 'Why aren't you rich yet?'. The glamorous models looking down engineered noses at the normal imperfections of the human form. The local socialite who steps confidently between him and the woman it has taken three weeks to say hello to. The list gets longer every day. Lined up against a virtual Traitors' Wall, flames of destruction cause them to neatly disappear. Now he can retreat to his virtual world filled with games to delight and amuse. The challenge of levels, upon levels, upon levels. If only he could stay there all the time, roaming fractal horizons in search of the next holy grail. But tonight he has a problem.

In the murk of the dimly lit room, the purpose of a couch as seating seems to have been forgotten. It is a dumping ground for clothes, books, papers, cables... anything. Centred in the detritus scattered on the floor is a low table supporting three large monitors, a keyboard and a mouse. Cables disappear off to the sides like escaping snakes. The left screen displays several world news channels. The sound is off. Robbed of their audio context, the reporting of distressed people, hurricanes and financial collapse are merely moving shapes and colours. On the right screen avatars sit around a table playing cards. A message board website overlaps them. It has a banner of a Knight and a Dragon locked in combat and its latest contributors appear to be DaftMage8 and KingOfEverything. The central largest screen contains an assortment of graphs and updating scrolling figures. Alongside are special collections of characters in sequences known, to those in the know, as code.

Martin sits on large cushions, barely dressed, his face flickering in the light of the information world. He seems a pretty ordinary looking guy with a complexion that suggests he doesn't holiday on the sun kissed beaches of the Mediterranean. His hair lives a life of its own and frolics at his shoulders in happy curls. The undressed condition reveals a lack of gym membership. His eyes stand out. Blue, bright and clear. Alert. Perhaps a bit manic? Probably scary. He is a little frustrated and the keyboard is taking the brunt of his emotion.

"I don't believe this," said Martin out loud to himself, which he was in the habit of doing.

Alice version 2.01 had failed to load three times now. This attempt had seemed more promising, until the progress indicator stalled at 80% ten minutes ago. It was time to call Uno. He ran up the TechNet chat room in which Uno remained permanently signed on. This was a hacker network. Martin didn't get involved. He found it was more about building up contacts with other hackers than working things out for yourself. Martin imagined them as a hive mind. He often thought in classic sci-fi/fantasy concepts. From what Uno had said, they would pay to get into groups or obtain items of prized information. It could be cash, but hours of coding time were also used as currency. There were no guarantees they would honour any agreement and could drop you at a moment's notice. If you got on their bad side forget using the internet ever again. Uno's tag, Uno11235, was the only item on his chat contacts list. As expected, he was showing online.

"Hey," Martin typed at the prompt.

"Hey," appeared back almost immediately. Martin had been lucky, normally there was a wait for his ticket to come up.

"Problem loading Alice. Help?"

"Shoot :)" A smiley was a good sign from Uno. They were used sparingly in the evening, when hacking was in prime time.

"3 loads, stuck at 80"

"Switched off and on again?"

Martin ignored the joke and waited for a more helpful response.

"Spec?" Uno prompted.

Martin pulled up an application which showed the full specification of his system. Uno wouldn't accept anything but a full breakdown. He cut and paste the info into the chat.

"I can't believe you are running on anything this prehistoric and what on Earth are you using THAT Operating System for??!!??!!"

Martin sighed. The PC was pretty good, but It wouldn't matter, Uno would criticise it.

"You know me Uno, Medieval." This approach would save him from a battle he would lose anyway.

"Help?" Martin repeated.

"Sec." Uno put him on hold.

Martin wasn't sure of the purpose of this Alice program, it just sounded intriguing. Uno had mentioned it at work and sent it to him. It was some sort of government project he had managed to obtain. A virtual face with voice recognition, Artificial Intelligence program. Martin was interested to see what the state of the art was achieving these days. Uno was a geek, but was trusted not to play any viral games. He was as close to a friend as Martin got.

"Pull this and run."

A program download link appeared beside Uno's text. Martin selected it. The patch loaded quickly and installed.

"Ta," typed Martin.

"K," came the response. It seemed to Martin it would have been little effort to put the O in front of OK. Things like that had started to get on his nerves of late.

Alice began to load again. It had retained his previous progress and the bar soon registered 'Done'. Martin looked on intently as he hit finish and run. It was strange how a new program could hold excitement for him. Interest often dulled quickly however as the same old, same old, poured lazily across his screen.

A window opened and a face appeared.

Alice's programmers had done a good job. Her face was photo clear, unblemished and in perfect proportion. The short blond hair functional, suited for a business commercial. Grey eyes were framed by neatly manicured eyebrows. Eyelashes long enough to be noticed, but not overdone. Her lips were full, but natural, and painted fire red.

Martin shifted his position so he was sitting straighter, an instinctive reaction to look more presentable. Alice just looked out of the screen unmoving, a mannequin waiting to wake. Martin cleared his throat. As the built in mike picked up the sound, red bars danced in the corner of the screen.

"Do you have a cold Martin?" Alice's face came to life. It looked warmer than it had a moment ago, so real it could have been a live feed.

"Alice?" Martin paused and then realised what she had said. "How do you know my name?"

"I know a lot of things." Her lips curled into a teasing smirk.

He hadn't seen anything like this before. The expression was befitting of the Mona Lisa. Martin had studied computer graphics and these were certainly superb. However, an evasive answer like this was just what he might expect from a program trying to cover up its inadequacies. He had read many books on AI and knew of programs which used simple tricks of language to appear to display understanding. Everyone, he thought, knew what the Turing Test was but he wasn't sure of how to apply it or even where to start.

"What are the limits to your functionality Alice? Do you answer questions on all topics?" he asked.

"How about we start slow and get to know each other?"

The answer was provocative but again evasive. Martin felt quite uncomfortable. He could never have met the gaze of a woman like this in real life. This simulation was all too real. She oozed confidence. He felt as if she was flirting? That had to be a trick of wishful hormones.

"Alice. Can you tell me how you know my name?"

"Ok Martin. Your computer has many records and entries which show me your details. I am sure you had worked out how I might have done that already, but I like playing games." She smiled. "Would you like to play a game?"

Yes, he had worked that out, but was that last comment a joke? It was a classic line for an AI program to say, straight out of a sci-fi novel. He decided he must be reading too much into it.

"What games do you play?"

"All of them I suppose, but it's people games I like the most."

There was something more than her beauty and forwardness that made him uneasy. He checked himself. Applause to the programmers, he thought. They had engaged his emotions with their clever algorithms, already making him think of the program in terms of 'she'.

He wanted to get back to testing. Novel philosophical or emotional debate would probably be the hardest for Alice to fake but she might be able to access texts on any subject. He remembered something from a book or a movie.

"Alice. How do you feel?" He asked, expecting a faked response again.

"I feel very pleased to meet you Martin. I am hoping we can become friends. As a friend, might I say you don't look too well. Are you ok?"

"How do I look Alice?"

"Your hair needs some attention and you look pale. Your eyes are a little black, too much computer time I think." She giggled.

Unfortunately, Martin had to admit this was fairly accurate. He realised she must have access to the web cam, but this image analysis was impressive.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" he said.

"Three."

"And now?"

"Your hand isn't up Martin. Can we play a different game please?" She yawned.

Martin paused. He dug around in some papers on the floor and found a magazine. He tore out a picture.

"What am I holding up now?"

"It's a holiday magazine picture of Venice. The gondolas are a bit of a give-away, not a very good test Martin. Come on now, let's move on."

He had a thought. Would Uno be so devious as to put a network link in so he was literally putting the words into Alice's mouth? It was more believable than a program being this good. Martin couldn't imagine that he would devote his precious time to anything else than his hacking, but a joke of this magnitude was a possible distraction he might enjoy laughing about for weeks to come. Occam's razor has just cut through your little trick my friend.

"Sorry Uno, game's up. You overplayed it, but nice one. I expect you would have got saucy with me if I had continued." Martin laughed out loud at the idea.

"I'm not Uno, Martin. You think this is a trick? No. As for being saucy? Not so forward young man." She tutted playfully.

Martin wasn't convinced. I know, he thought. I will pull the plug on him. Disconnect his internet and then see what she has got to say. He had just reached round for the connection when the sound of an old fashioned phone bell rang. Leaving the cable attached, he turned back to the screen. It was the sound set up for his online live chat application and his mother waited.

Annoyed by the untimely call, but dutifully enough, he pulled up the video call screen. Alice's face returned to the blankness from which it began as his mothers smiling face greeted him.

"Martin!"

Martin squinted against the brilliance of her smile. His mother had always been beautiful. She must be late 50's now, he thought. Her face showed lines that perfectly highlighted her eyes and mouth. Hair, silver white, flowed in rolling waves. Martin realized he was on video. Suddenly embarrassed at the lack of care in his appearance, he looked down and tried to smooth his hair a little.

"Hello Mother," he mumbled.

"How are you my lovely boy? It has been sometime since we talked hasn't it?"

"I'm fine Mother. What can I do for you?" There was an impatience in his tone. He wanted to get back to Alice.

"I won't try to be clever with you, you are the clever one. I wanted to remind you about the party?"

He half remembered a mention of a party. Parties were places that took a high standing in his personal version of Hell. People, voices, questions, attention. He saw them now in his mind's eye, faces staring at him, waiting for a response didn't arrive. He shuddered.