The Wolf's Skull is a small icy planet located near the outskirts of the Grey Wolf's central solar system. It was one of the first planets landed on by the explorers of the Grey Wolf's forces and it was almost immediately deemed too cold for human settlements. However, in the post-modern age of space exploration, the story of Wolf's Skull does not stop there.
With the rapid development of computers and the consequential drastic increase in computing power, humans of the late modern age has begun experimenting with running computing operations under extremely cold situations in order to increase the speed of computation, and soon the very cost of maintaining a cool environment or running the cooling process becomes quite a nuisance.
With the advancements of modern and late modern communications technology, one can begin to move the servers and computers further and further away from the settlements that are actually the ones using the computers, and it wasn't long that places and locations that has an extremely low natural temperature are used for the location of many major server rooms for big companies and tech giants. And the same time, the heat generated as a result of trillions of computational processes are also being used for certain purposes, one of the examples being the warm planet of Hyperion 4, where the main servers for the War Games are located, but that's merely a tangent.
The icy planets are hence there most of the major computing powers of the entire Grey Wolf's region is located, and tens of hundreds of communications and transmissions space stations are located with the higher and lower orbits of the planet. Countless bites of data are being moved in and out of the planet, and yet from the outside it's just a quite ice ball in sat in the infinite darkness.
When Rydel and Valerie arrived at the orbital station designed for organic being use, they found themselves surrounded by only a handful of technicians and workers, while most other persnonnel are various forms of Artificial Intelligence based holograms.
'When the guy said the artificial intelligence programs have gone mad, does it mean we will get poisoned here?' Rydel asked as he looked nervously at Valerie, who is equally as nervous on the outside. They are both far outside their own element, and being surrounded by delicate machinery and bland holograms certainly didn't help to let them settle in.
'Hi, I presume you are the saviors of the Wolf's Skull?' As they left the space ship, they were greeted by a hologram forming right in front of them. Her stereotypical role playing game greetings and question made Rydel wish that he would have spent more time playing those games and maybe then will he feel more comfortable in this setting.
'We are here to complete the Test of Brain?' Rydel answered, and the hologram didn't move, seemingly lagging, or thinking, and Rydel doesn't know which one of those is more terrifying.
'What's going on, did it not understand what you are saying?' Valerie is equally as confused, but then suddenly the AI flipped over and leaned over her before aggressively defending herself, 'I heard what he said, it just doesn't make sense.'
'Oh my god...'Valerie instinctively back down as Rydel reached for the pistols attached to his belt just in case, 'relax, I am just asking.'
'And I have just asked, are you the saviors of the Wolf's Skull?' The Hologram backed away to her original position, and returned to the beginning of the current loop of programming.
'Tell me about what needs saving here on the Wolf's Skull?' Rydel said but before he even finished the hologram angrily cut him off,
'ARE YOU THE SAVIORS OF THE WOLF'S SKULL?!'
'Yes yes yes!' Valerie said putting her hands up and out, trying to calm the hologram down, but it is up for debate if it actually made any difference.
'Ah, thank you for coming!' After hearing about the positive confirmation she's been waiting for, the hologram finally calmed down and put a smiling image of herself up before talking further, 'for the recent weeks, we have detected that some of the artificial intelligence programs operating in the planet surface and the deeper cores have been behaving strangely, they exhibit rash and radical behaviors, despite prior programming restrictions and protocols being in place.
Initially, it is thought that what was happening was nothing major, and simply a byproduct of the data processing after so many years and cycles of calculation, and soon it was realized that the rate of decrease in speed of calculation has grown to a significant level, and further investigation found a great amount of computing power is being expended to run some side calculations that was never within the core programming.
Further investigations for some of the programmers and artificial intelligence programs from up on the space station yielded no further results, and some of the neuro- deep dives resulted in the users being overwhelmed by what they have experienced. Though we have not attempted to perform a neuro- deep dive on the server connections on the planet's surface.
'So you are suggesting that we go down to planet surface to perform the neuro- deep dive and figure out what's happening?' Rydel asked.
'Confirmed.' The AI said so with a smile, 'a shuttle has been arranged. Please proceed there.'
'When is the last time you did a deep dive?' Valerie asked, 'I heard it's a sort of normal practice in the settled regions?'
'Not as much as you think.' Rydel thought back to the first time the term neuro-deep dive was mentioned to him. It was way back in his high school days, when it was taught as an alternate means of computing that's supposedly way more effective and time efficient and yet risky to the user. Instead of getting back and neck pain, the deep dive rebound symptoms might include cognitive difficulties and other long term psychological issues as a result of the process if one is not skilled and clear-headed enough.
The technology neruo-deep dive is based on was also developed near the late modern age, when the advances in computing power meant the computers and humans finally meet on a point of technological singularity with the brain's computing capacity finally matching that of the computers. Many feared for the popular fictional futures of the robotic overlords being the dominant force within the galaxy, and those fears are certainly addressed long before the computing power even got remotely close to this point.
Instead of the classic three rules of artificial intelligence being implemented, even more fundamental rules regarding how artificial intelligences are being trained and used are put in place, so that at the end of the day those programs are merely extremely specialized programs that excel at one thing and one thing only.
Hence, they became masters of fixing problematic codes, debugging and other technical chore, but nothing more. This made them extremely popular and widely used in server planets, like that of the Wolf's Skull.
Neuro-deep dive is then developed as a way for human to interface and interact with the digital world in a more holistic and user-friendly manner, saying good to the hours wasted slugging away at obscure and unexplained syntaxes only to get the simplest of computation performed. It would take special training that was actually included as part of the skills training at the Absolute Academy, though how good one will be at performing the neruo-deep dives depend on each person and even each individual dives.
Rydel was satisfactory during the training for the deep dives, and he has experienced enough mind bending experiences from all that he did with the artifacts that the after effects of syncing with a digital interface is really child's play, but he knew that the Test of Brain will sure as hell make things extremely difficult for them.
When the pair finally arrived at the surface of the icy planets, all that are visible are simply an endless night with patches of light occasionally piercing through the clouds. The planets is far enough from the sun that it felt like a perpetual dawn. There are lots of heat exchanger plants located near the landing pad, and a single small building that houses the lifts going down into the planet's deeper core.
The only way for information to travel in and out of the planet is through the transmission dishes located in the clearings up a hill way far out in the distance, and most of the computing is done within computing server centers deep underground, powered by geothermal plants.
There is not a single soul around except for an AI hologram accompanying them all the way down to the room reserved for organic neuro-deep divers. The room was dimly lit, though it gradually brightens up as the two walked in to reveal multiple pods where people lie in during the diving process.
'Please get yourselves acquainted and comfortable, and then I will give you the specific tasks and final briefs once you are connected to the local region. Remember the code: ETLC, extract to local center, if you are in trouble and need to pull out.' Seeing the two humans are about to dive into the chaotic digital world, the AI is finally being nice and caring, per the programming, and explained to them what exactly to do should things go out of hand. Being pulled out without completing the tasks would mean a fail, however, and none of the two wants to do things like this twice.
'Well, I guess I will see you on the other side, maybe?' As Rydel took off the clothes all the way until all his wearing are his underwear and hopped into one of the well cleaned and maintained deep dive pods, he looked over to see Valerie doing the same, the scar from the mercenary barely healed up.
'Yeah you better watch yourself.' Valerie said, 'can't have me wasting all that time on nothing.'
'Oh wow....' Rydel laughed out loud as he saw Valerie giving him a cheeky wink before both of them lied down in the pod and shut the lids.
The pods sensed their presence and began to adjust for the optimal conditions to work in in terms of temperature, humidity and oxygen saturation. When they are sufficiently relaxed and focused, then a connection is established after some gel was applied at various points of their head and a cap was being put on. Rydel simply followed the protocols he always had for previous deep dives and took a deep breath in and out, closed his eyes and counted to ten.
Then, he opened his eyes, but not really.
The connection was quickly and successfully established without much hustle, and Rydel found himself suspended in space, with no ups and downs, but just being present. This is his consciousness interacting with the digital environment. One of the first and most important things for anyone performing a neuro-deep dive would be to create a sense of self, where one quite literally reconstructs their own body and being within the digital world, not only for visualization purposes but also acting as a reference point for the rest of the digital world.
Starting from his eyes, his consciousness expanded towards his entire face, upper body, torso and lower body. He looked down at his hand, and saw his glove, it became such an integral part of him that it is essentially part of who he is, as reflected when he reconstructs himself in this world.
'Mirror.' Rydel whispered, and a rectangular glass appeared in front of him, showing exact what he looks like. As he commands for a second mirror and completed the image reconstruction all the way around, he then started attaching sensations and feelings to the image, trying his best to associate as many aspects of living and being to the digital package that he is being connected to.
Just one of the many ways to remain sane in this digital world.
After calibrating all the details he could while remaining static, the 'static calibration', he then started doing some simple movements and actions, and all of the memories of doing the exact same things when preparing to train with Dolon in the private rooms of the War Games began flooding back, and without much conscious thought he began to sped up all of the processes and finished his dynamic calibration in even shorter time.
He is ready, and it's time to get this done.
With his metaphysical body well defined in this space, the surroundings began to shift and morph according to his will, and he simply created a small rectangular room that will be anchored as his local center. This is where he would venture out from in all of his journeys, and it will also be where he will eventually return to to exit the ditigal world, being sucessful in his mission or not.
'Well done, now I will brief you on your mission for this deep dive.' When Rydel is comfortable with his digital representation, the AI then entered the local center and greeted him with a smile and a nod before explaining what's on the table for him, 'you will be in charge of accompanying with the Artificial intelligence code named Bookkeeper within the memory organization and sorting directory and figuring out what exactly is happening with his calculations and loops, and perform the requisite intervention as you see fit. The objective would be to reduce the time per operation and computing space taken by the bookkeeper to below one millisecond and as small as possible. You may now proceed.'
And with that, Rydel found himself rapidly exiting from the local center and dashing across the digital landscape according to his wish. The environment rapidly shifting from the bland plain white room to an endless calm stream. This is how he defines his personal interface, the way he will interact with all of the modules and programs of the system. This is yet another one of many things that helps humans ground their experiences during the deep dive and reduce the amount of stress that came from being in a completely foreign environment.
The water is flat, and solid, despite ripples being formed from subtle shifts in Rydel's body. He moved his body around gently, and made sure that he is fully comfortable. If anything, the neuro-deep dive is more akin to lucid dreaming than anything, except things have real consequences than waking up with a sweat.
'Memory.' Rydel whispered yet again, bring him to the directory in which the AI stated the book keeper is going to be. Various folders appeared in the skies above as circular portals that leads to a dimension of their own, and Rydel simply commanded for himself to be in the Organization folder and then went even deeper to the program level.
Now, he found himself submerged underneath the calm surface, and streams of codes and logic flowed through the water like packs of fish. They entered and exited from various circular portals at different depths as they get called and imported from one function to another. For the untrained eye, this looked like nothing more than a convoluted mess, and it may well be that.
'Time change, pause.' Rydel whispered once again. This is a command to stop the codes from running normally, and it seemingly pauses the time when in fact the processing of Rydel's brain activity is simply being matched with the software's processing speed itself and both are being slowed down to the extreme. One of the many special characteristics of neuro-deep diving is the warping of perspective of time, and it proves to be extremely useful in a lot of cases.
In this one especially, where Rydel really need to dig deep and look into the layers of codes in order to figure out the one behind it all, the one named the bookkeeper.
He has only ever interacted with pre-written hard programs before, and certainly nothing nearly as complicated and multifaceted as an artificial intelligence, so as he got deeper and deeper into the ocean of codes, he does not know what to expect.
Will he have to fight some sort of monster in this virtual world? Will he have to chop the head off the malfunctioning code and return the entire program to its original capacities? Rydel could feel his heart pounding, despite it not making any sense. The mechanical calmness of the surrounding environments when all the processes are stopped dead in time gave him a nauseating unease, especially when he knew something is wrong with all of this.
Then, at the very bottom of this, he found the package, the compilation of codes that run all other codes within this dimension, the one responsible for it all.
It took a little time before the package morphed into what he visualizes to be the artificial intelligence's home folder, and it appeared to be a small country house on the bottom of the sea floor.
Rydel descended onto the seafloor, the particle effects sends pressure signals to his feet that he is feeling something soft and crumbly. This isn't real, obviously, and yet it made Rydel relax slightly.
He looked to the front of the little house, and a sigh materializes from nothing, saying the following:
Home of the Bookkeeper.
'Here goes nothing...' Rydel lets out a breath that he didn't even know he was holding, and knocked on the door softly.