The story takes place in Colombia, the year is 2052 and humanity has successfully invented the virtual reality, thousands of people use new technology every day in many ways: some use them for gaming, others for design architecture projects, home design, even cooking with the most advanced machines out. Thousands of companies emerged and thousands more fell.
The governments of many countries started to use the technology for military purpose: training their soldiers using the harshest environments they can imagine without the risk of losing potential good soldiers in the process, countries like the United States, China, Russia, Germany, Japan, Great Britain, and France are the ones with the most advanced technology and therefore the strongest armies in the world; they're at the brink of a world war but the possible extinction of the human race manages to restrain them, but a single mistake or suspicious action could be the spark that could start the fire.
Colombia is a little Latin American country, they don't have the most advanced technology of South America, nor the best government, or a united nation; at least they have beautiful landscapes, some cities are not that bad and they have a stable V.R. company that provides with the technology to all the people in the country, like everyone else they have their own military program but not that sophisticated.
Santiago Lozada is the leader of the team that keeps the virtual world functioning, he has white skin, brown hair and a messy beard, is the tallest of the team and always wore his uniform perfectly, with the help of the team which consists of him, his best friend Moises, a bald middle aged man with tanned skin, short stature, and Juliet, a brown haired young woman with white skin, designed a simple AI that learns from them to make more accurate adjustments when a bug pops out or suggestions to make the tests more realistic, the name they gave her is "Lirya".
Their control room was a small room with a super computer, 3 small monitors for micro management and a big one where the data is displayed to everyone, they have their own chair and keyboard to input data to be processed by the AI and then it goes to the main monitor.
"Lirya, prepare the arctic scenario for the debugging phase, this time try to add more fish and fewer mountains, the beta version didn't convince the General," said Santiago to the microphone in the control room.
"Negative, we'll do that when the guys get accustomed to the environment." Moises rubbed his smooth head as he watched the flow of data. "if we make it too hard for them in the first test they'll be furious and we'll be blamed".
"Even if the test is supposed to be the most difficult scenario we can imagine, we have a lot of limitations, don't you think?" asked Juliet, who would have liked to show off but his friend was usually right about these things, "they even have the gall to cut out our budget because our results aren't as good as the other facilities, I bet a million pesos they're using the money we deserve in whores and cheap beer".
"Shhh, don't say bad words in front of Lirya, she may learn them," said Moises in a low voice but...
"A whore is...something these guys are going to explain, see ya later!" she used the short distraction to left the room leaving the dumbfounded guys alone with the curious AI.
"Lirya you see..." Santiago tried to repair the awkward situation but the text continued to appear in the screen.
"Stop Lirya...just stop" Santiago made a wry smile and sat on his chair to drink a cup of coffee, the only cup of expensive coffee their superiors provide them every day.
"Soooo....how's little Francisca?" asked his friend trying to change the topic.
"She bit a boy that called her freak for her heterochromia, I had to threat with a demand to make the teachers pay more attention to these kinds of thing, they always say 'the kids are often rude when they're little' I don't know what kind of things the fathers teach their children but…damn I would like to beat them myself."
"But you aren't their dad nor want to lose your job because of a problematic kid, calm down a little" said Moises, he knows his friend is just stressed because of this job and it surprised him a little hearing him losing his composure.
"I know Moises, I'll try to concentrate in another thing and maybe tomorrow I can talk in a peaceful manner to the teachers" he sighed and repressed his 'fury' with coffee.
"That's more like you, just try to don't burn yourself down like last time, we work here doing the same thing, you don't have to go overboard for the pay we have right now" Moises leaned on his chair and crossed his legs.
"Yeah but thanks to that we have our little Lirya here, or you're telling me you don't like her?" he smirked and finished his cup of coffee.
"I prefer having her here, less work to do and more time we can spend doing other things but I don't want to drag your unconscious body out of the office again."
"It will not happen again Moises, not for now at least." Santiago closed his eyes and stretched a little in his chair; "where is Juliet? She's taking too long"
"Maybe she had to go to the bathroom," said the bald man yawning, he stretched too and went to the coffee machine to prepare more coffee.
"Or just wants to flirt with the chef again" Santiago rolled his eyes.
"Come on, leave her try to find her happiness" Moises leaned on the table and Santiago turned the chair to look at him.
"In work hours? No, she should be here with us dealing with the upcoming dead line", he slammed the armchair with his index fingers a couple of times.
"Whatever, just call her if you're that anxious" Moises rolled his eyes and returned with his coffee to his chair, "and the scenario is almost done, Lirya just have to debug and we're basically free."
"I know It's just…that I wanted to show her this" he sighed and took a flash drive from a pocket in is coat, "I designed a simple audio module for Lirya".
"Can I ask why did you do it and were not sleeping peacefully with your wife? Like you should do every night," Moises was impressed but worried as well, he can see the nights without sleep in his friend's eye bags.
"I did it because I wanted, and stop complaining Lirya, this is a gift for you" Santiago plugged the flash drive in the USB socket of the CPU.
"Don't ask why, just enjoy your voice!" Santiago smiled and inputted a few commands on the keyboard, "use the speakers when you are ready to say your first words".
<…>
Santiago nodded in acknowledgment and Moises clapped a few times, the feminine voice from Lirya came from the speakers in the room, a little stiff and robotic but that was a great jump from just text in the monitor.
"No more work for tonight, understand?" reprimanded Moises.
In the virtual world, a little AI analyzed her new knowledge and reached a conclusion.
<…>
<4 theories have been made>