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Chapter 13 - Peace City

The peace city

The capital of the world confederate

Home to the president

It was one of the rare few notable cities that escaped direct nuclear strikes during world war III

Because of the mountains that surrounded it; it has less nuclear dust carried by wind decreasing the death toll due to radiation as well.

The city was a place where the warring countries spoke of a truce for a few days, to let their silos cool down, before they went back to fighting.

So there was an unspoken agreement to not attack it.

Because of that, when the countries are forced by SASHA, the country leaders had gathered here.

The leaders signed the agreement that formed the confederate here and the place became the home to the confederate as well.

The city is situated at the end of Peace Lake, formed by the Peace River; they were called differently before the ww3. But after the election of the first world president all three of them were renamed as peace by him, to indicate where the motivation of the new government lies.

But the place is nothing like what it had been before WW3.

With the development of technology, and because it is the heart of the world, the most advanced technology could be seen here before anywhere else.

But the city retains its historical remnants nonetheless.

And like every capital in history, this place is a viper nest or stairs to the top depending on the person's fate.

As every government needs an official building in the capital to become the center of the world's attention, the world confederate has one as well.

Directly on the shores of the lake, surrounded by a large garden is a modest square building.

It showed simplicity to its end but had its own hidden majesty.

It was named the House Harmony, a name intended to deliver to the public that it wishes for harmony among the people. For country leaders, it means harmony among countries.

Guards here ranged from Level B to Level A. Unlike the AO base which is kept a secret, the Peace house is the face of the world and thus any people with ill will towards the Confederates know where to attack.

Terrorists who were still unhappy with the end of the previous governments exist.

In the end, SASHA the most AI is not an all-seeing god. If she is, there would be neither crime nor freedom.

In fact, a policy was actively voted on by the public for the restriction on how much SASHA can intrude on their privacy.

This happened because after the formation of the governments SASHA had banned a few things including pornography, and actively erased any traces of them on the cloud.

Her reason is that it is bad for the mental and physical health of the people and shows a bad example for children, but it is still an arbitrary decision by the AI.

The people may be grateful for SASHA ending the war but that doesn't mean they would entertain the possibility of AI takeover control of the world.

This became the biggest and first setback for AI, and the newly formed government is happy to restrict the AI powers and further their own reach.

If it is some tyrant, they may struggle against the decision to decrease their power, but since the AI isn't one and its existence is programmed for humankind, it heard their opinion and restricted its power itself.

That also made it impossible to keep track of everyone and find terrorists among them as it is a breach of the policy.

So this inevitably led to back-door dealings and secret organizations taking place.

The capital itself has such a secret society, albeit a state-run society.

Lake peace is patrolled by a naval force 24/7, for a couple of reasons. The primary among them is because of the Marine corps. Headquarters is on the other end of the lake peace, the secondary reason being the House Harmony is easily attackable from the lake, and the territory and the other not much-known reason being the gathering of the most powerful men in the world is held in a base on the middle of the lake.

NOBLES

Not the nobles who claim descendency from historical figures of ancient times.

These nobles rose with the SASHA.

They were awarded the title because of their unquestionable contribution to the formation and preservation of the confederate.

In the base, a meeting among the so-called nobles is being held in a conference room.

The conference room is empty spare for the holographic screens floating in the room.

There are a total of 10 screens, each showing the current head of the great Noble families.

These great nobles are a step above the other nobles because their effects directly led to the creation of SASHA.

Their ancestor was people who had some influence during the start of world war 3.

At the start of the world war, 12 people came together and started Project APEX.

A project which would later create SASHA

In fact, the 12 can even claim to own SASHA and much more technical and technological development the world sees today.

SASHA is only the chief among them

Some of the 12 are simply investors who invested in the project with monetary or physical resources, even though a raging war is going on in the outside world.

Some others are scientist who was responsible for the creation of era-changing technology under the Project.

And others are people with militaristic and political power who saw fit to keep the knowledge of the project even after knowing their motive to create an AI powerful enough to subdue the world governments.

After the formation of the world confederate, these people sat at the core power of the new government.

But such powers are fleeting and they know that it would not give merit to their descendants.

So, to that effect, they awarded themselves through skillful manipulation of the newly formed government, the titles of Great Nobles.

A title while hereditary is just a title to the public.

The public believes it is some sort of medal but that isn't really the end of it.

Individually they have more tax reductions, perks, and much more.

They are special because the 12 as a group have the only knowledge of where two of the 5 parts of the AI, SASHA lays hidden.

This knowledge is not even known to the president let alone any public.

So if any terrorist organization wishes to successfully bring down SASHA, they would need the knowledge these group hold.

Because of that, they could be said to a guardian of some sort for the SASHA.

Currently, 10 out of 12 great nobles are busy pulling their hairs over an issue.

The issue being, 'Where the hell did the damn screen come from?'

"The president is very…Spooked" one of the men on the screen said.

"Well he should be, I should be if I were the president and someone did a stunt like this under my nose," a female voice said.

"Who could it be? SASHA had no knowledge of whom or which organization did this" another gruff man voiced.

"NO traces on the surveillance, no hidden messages, I start to doubt that this is really a stunt by the gaming company"

"Nah, if they had such a motive, they would surely have their brain transplanted with shit. One of us would be publicly destroyed let alone a stupid company with no background for pulling such a prank over the world"

"All the game companies big or small had been investigated, if it is truly one of them they would be caught by now"

"Then what do you think about the game, I had a good time watching the live stream of that Samrex guy"

"I'm more concerned about SASHA not being able to track the damn game website; in fact, I don't how such a website exists in the first place. It doesn't have any credentials at all"

"Any of you worried about this being the work of some terrorist organization?" one of the women asked turning all ten of them silent.

The silence was daunting, and the worry among their hearts only increased but finally, one of them spoke "If it is them, then they would have surely achieved some sort of breakthrough in technology, what we will do if it is true? We have no Lady Goldwin to bring us another era-changing technological advantage"

Lady Goldwin is the sole creator of the AI SASHA. She alone programmed it by creating five unique programming languages just for this purpose.

Not only that she proclaimed the greatest scientist to ever walk on earth, not even Einstein got that title.

It's because her interest was in all over the scientific field, she even helped in major breakthroughs in other research under Project APEX, such as quantum communication technology, and advanced theoretical writing on digitized minds which will enable a human to upload his consciousness to the cloud.

In fact, VR as they now know is because people based it on the theoretical work done by her. but this is while achieving 5% of what's in the theoretical work.

100% Realistic sensation and time dilation are concepts achieved by the new VR is only remotely spoken by Lady Goldwin. Not actively pursued in her theoretical work.

One thing they are sure of is; change is coming, either for good or bad. A war might soon follow, either for chaos or order.