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60.77% Data Dragon Danika / Chapter 281: Hidden Intelligence

Chương 281: Hidden Intelligence

Danika logged in to her work account, and ignored her assistant's protests that she wasn't scheduled to work today, as she entered the empty workspace where she normally interacted with the system.

The first thing she did was call up an instance of the traveling merchant. She wanted to verify that his relationship level with Kit really hadn't changed before she replied to Lin Hao. The merchant cheerfully assured her that his affection for Kit Tay remained unchanged.

Danika asked, "Was the marriage between you dissolved normally? I mean, as though Kit had dissolved it?"

She knew that the merchant could easily answer questions about the game's marriage system, but she wasn't sure he could answer what had happened to his own settings until he replied seriously, "Kit Tay did not dissolve our marriage, it was dissolved by the will of the Jade Emperor. This is such a rare occurrence that I do not believe it can be considered normal."

It seemed that the merchant could analyze changes to himself beyond his stats, but that she'd asked the question too vaguely. Danika tried again, "Why didn't your affection for her change when the marriage was dissolved?"

The traveling merchant replied unexpectedly formally, "I'm sorry honorable celestial servant of the sixth class, Danika Belova, last among your rank, serving the Jade Emperor in the construction of the Living Jade Empire, I may not share a player's private information with you unless it concerns your current job."

Danika stared at him for a long moment. She'd been working for long enough that she could infer a few things from his response, and none of them lessened her worry for Kit.

The merchant was basically telling her that his behavior had probably been modified by the risk evaluation system. Everyone was evaluated all the time to allow the game to create the personalized quests that it flaunted, and avoid throwing people with a fear of snakes into their nests, but it could also respond to psychological or medical data obtained outside of the game. All of that data was private, so she probably wouldn't be able to find out anything more from him directly.

She frowned and tried to think of a way to ask what she wanted to know that wouldn't infringe on Kit's privacy. Her assistant announced, "Josh Beagle asks if you're available?"

Danika shook her head, but then looked at her assistant and nodded. The little celestial dragon gazed at her with a confused expression, "What should I tell him?" it asked.

"Give me a minute," Danika replied. "I need to read the messages." She sighed and dismissed the merchant.

Lin Hao's message through Magna Silvam read: "Ugh, they still refuse to clear me to work yet. But at least they let me change who's in charge in the meantime. Don't badger Josh into reinstating the marriage, Myles wasn't wrong about the solution, just the method. I told him to assign the cats to you. I'll be logged in here after your morning meeting is over on Monday to talk to you about it."

Danika replied: "The cats? OK. The merchant's relationship wasn't inverted, but I'm pretty sure that it's not a bug. It looks like it's a personalized risk response."

She told her assistant, "OK, I'm reading Josh's next, you can tell him I'm available now."

Josh's message read: "Lin Hao told me to assign his AI development project to you until he gets back, but I've been going through the errors and flags all morning and it's really interesting. I mean, I can see why Myles was getting a little freaked, it's really out of his area of specialization, but it's pretty cool how the cats are developing. May I have your permission to view ZipZing's records?"

Josh popped into existence beside her before she'd quite finished and she looked up and said, "Sure, you can have my permission. Lin Hao's AI development is focused on cats?"

Josh laughed and shook his head. "Ah, I probably said it wrong. He and Devon Yu developed the core of the game's AI reaction systems together, but the focus was on humans. A lot of the animal reactions were developed by the system itself after all the data was submitted to it. And it looks like cats are a little strange, there are fairly ordinary cats based off of real cat data, but then there are things like how the King of Cats was generated."

"Strange like willows?" Danika asked, after thinking of the kinds of stories that featured cats.

"Oh," Josh said thoughtfully. "Yeah, it really is similar isn't it?"

"What do you need me for?" Danika asked directly. She added a little guiltily, "I left my cousin waiting on going out to breakfast to check on why the traveling merchant didn't suddenly hate Kit after that guy deleted the marriage and her baby, but I think it was a personalized risk response."

"Oh, probably," Josh agreed. His expression was serious as he told her, "Lin Hao said that the whole marriage was, and that's why he didn't insist on dissolving it originally after her first bug report."

Danika felt a little disappointed somehow. If the actions that had seemed independent were only being dictated by a different portion of the system, then the traveling merchant was really just a very complex, but ordinary AI.

Josh continued, "It's not that I need you for anything exactly, I just wondered if you know what's happened to the King of Cats? I can't find him."

"You can't find him?" Danika repeated blankly.

"No matter how I phrase it, the system can't locate an entity called the King of Cats anymore," Josh explained. "Half of the error messages were attached to him, because most of his monitoring routines are reporting null data."

"Most?" Danika questioned the key point.

"Right," Josh agreed. "The functions of the King of Cats are still operating, the luck routines and everything look normal. It's just that his avatar seems to have vanished, and yet the title isn't unclaimed."

"How is that even possible? I've been trying to find him again as ZipZing because he vanished from my messengers and my friend list, but I thought that was just from a player's point of view?" Danika questioned. "Did he reincarnate again?"

"What?" Josh asked blankly.

Danika explained what Lin Hao had told her about how the King of Cats had recreated himself as the cub of the guardian of the western vault, and Josh said laughingly, "Well, that certainly explains why Lin Hao said to assign this to you. I thought it was weird since you can't work with the code directly, but that never even occurred to me as a possibility."

"Was he killed because I asked him to protect people during the expansion?" Danika worried.

Josh reached out and poked her, startling her, and said firmly, "The cat is just an NPC, as cool as he is. Myles isn't wrong, even though he can stop ranting any time now, about how NPCs aren't as important as real people. Thanks for answering my questions, and now go have breakfast with your poor starving cousin, and don't worry."

Danika hesitated, but then she nodded. "Alright. But don't tell the King of Cats that you said that though, when you find him," she said laughingly. Josh rolled his eyes at her as she logged out.


Chương 282: Believe in Me

Mei was sitting at the table in front of the biggest screen and was playing a game with an ongoing space battle underway when Danika exited the VR-medi pod.

"Sorry I took so long," Danika apologized, to announce her return.

Mei didn't respond at first, and then after the screen flashed with a bigger explosion she sent her ship streaking away from the scene and said calmly, "I expected you to take longer, just a minute."

"Sure," Danika agreed. She checked her phone and saw that Shinichi had replied, twice.

He'd sent: "Okay, I've got an extra half hour, want to play?"

Then he'd sent: "Danika? You still haven't logged in to the game this morning? SilentSky is going to join us in Endless Song after all. MatchlessMinion and I sold the last of the lamps we took from the pyramid after we recovered the ruby rat. And my dad says Kit's stronger than we think and she'll be alright."

Danika was so curious that she swiped over to the 'Living Jade Empire' app, but her cousin laid her hand over Danika's screen blocking her view. When she looked up, Mei said, "Let's go. Do you really believe that your boyfriend is actually Aichi Shinichi?"

"Why do you think he's not?" Danika countered swiftly.

"You can't spend two minutes detached from a gaming device, why would a pop star date you? And the media would have you plastered all over as 'top idol's disabled doll' or something if he really was," Mei answered as she scooted over to the door.

"Ew," Danika replied dryly as she tucked her phone away. "I hope that you're not going to write the article."

"Do you have any proof that he really is?" Mei asked as Danika transferred to her chair.

Danika gazed up at her without answering for a long moment. Mei backed up as she pushed her way out of the tiny apartment and watched as her door shut. "I'm actually still pretty angry about you telling my father that Shinichi might try to take advantage of me, even though that finally got him talking to me again, and now you're questioning Shinichi's identity? Not that it's any of your business, but what exactly are you trying for?" Danika asked rather sharply.

"OK, that is not exactly what I said to uncle Dimitri, and I'm obviously going about this the wrong way," Mei admitted. "But you'd be worried too if our positions were reversed."

Danika was seriously tempted to turn around and spend the day in 'Living Jade Empire' as she'd planned, but instead she drew a long breath and then said, "So just say whatever it is that you're thinking clearly."

Mei smiled at her affectionately, and replied, "Well, from my point of view, you suddenly snuck a mention of a younger guy you've started dating into one of your infrequent life updates, and then you send me a photo of a pop star. I totally thought it was a joke, but you replied like you were serious. And you sent me a picture of you two together as proof, and then you joined a social site that you've been avoiding forever, and that TangledWords ID added a whole album of pictures of you..." she trailed off.

"Yes," Danika agreed calmly. "And?"

"And I honestly expected you to reveal that TangledWords was actually someone talented with photo manipulation, until I ran into uncle Dimitri and uh…" Mei hesitated again and glanced at Danika.

"And his girlfriend?" Danika prompted.

"Yeah," Mei agreed with relief. "She's nice I guess, but it was a surprise."

Danika felt a little relieved that she wasn't the only one to whom her father's partner had been a surprise, but she prompted dryly, "And? Shinichi takes pretty nice photos, but if he's talented in photo manipulation he hasn't revealed it to me yet."

"Uncle Dimitri said that he's not sure how to react to you being involved with a public figure, and he really seemed to think that you're actually dating Aichi Shinichi," Mei complained.

"Because I am, but I'm honestly not sure how to react to being involved with such a public figure, when it actually becomes public either," Danika admitted. "But I certainly don't need my family doubting that he's even real?"

Mei didn't answer right away, but Danika didn't press her, because she could tell that Mei was really thinking about it. They didn't go far, just over to the shop where Danika sometimes bought bubble tea. Mei avoided her question by placing her order and waiting until Danika had too.

When they were seated at one of the little tables outside, Danika pulled her phone back out and messaged Shinichi, "Sorry. I hope he's right. I'm having breakfast with my cousin Mei, who can't quite believe that you're real."

"Why you?" Mei asked finally.

"I don't know," Danika replied wryly. "And sometimes I wonder the same thing, but other times I realize that I still like him more everyday, and I just hope he doesn't change his mind."

Shinichi responded faster than Mei. "Cool. OK, tell her to watch tonight's concert live stream. ;) "

"He says to tell you to watch tonight's concert," Danika repeated.

"What?" Mei asked blankly.

Danika shrugged, since she couldn't answer that.

Another message arrived: "I mean the one two hours from now, Naoki insists that it'll still be early afternoon for you."

--

Danika watched the concert with Mei in front of the largest screen on her table. It was a little disorienting to see Shinichi and the other members of Underneath standing in an open stadium beneath a night sky, while the sun was shining brightly through the window beside her, and know that it was happening right now.

"How's this supposed to prove anything?" Mei demanded again.

"I don't know," Danika repeated.

Underneath began to sing, but it wasn't one of the songs that Shinichi had written since they'd met. It was one of their most popular though, since even Danika had recognized it before she'd ever looked anything up. She didn't hear anything different about the lyrics.

She hadn't been able to guess what to expect, but she couldn't help laughing and wishing that she'd been ready to take a picture of her cousin's face. After the first song ended, Shinichi walked calmly to the front of the stage. He looked straight into the camera, pointed, and called out, "Mei! You can believe in me! That girl is mine!"

Mei looked like he'd shot her with a taser through the screen. Her mouth opened and closed silently for a moment.

Shinichi spun away from the camera, and Akito launched the next song with an elaborate flourish across the keyboard. Kimitoshi was actually the one who began to sing first, but Danika blushed anyway. Their second song was 'Flying By', the song with ZipZing worked into the lyrics in a dozen ways. Naoki winked at the camera as he joined in.

Mei turned and looked at Danika's blush. "Seriously!?" she demanded with a high pitched squeak.


SUY NGHĨ CỦA NGƯỜI SÁNG TẠO
gusdefrog gusdefrog

Sorry about the Songs Recollection notice, I flubbed the timer. =_= I wanted to have an extra for tomorrow too, but I don't think it's going to happen.

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