Foundation of All

Sean hummed as he deconstructed another rusted out vehicle of this world. He had tested out most of the other games on the holodeck over the last few months and enjoyed most of them. But something about Foundation of All kept bringing him back.

He had his own world he was working on right now even if he and Emily occasionally worked on their shared world together as well. He had been surprised to find that after playing and studying some of the schematics he acquired around the city that he was beginning to understand and keep up when she talked about technology. He now understood how most of the basic devices worked by now, his prior experience with the defensive turrets helping him here.

The technology was rather simple in this city considering the sheer size of the collapsed structures around him. He had just started using robotic harvesters looking like smallish metallic men with large baskets attached to their backs. He could make them with his multi tool, but they were highly complex and studying and understanding the schematics was coming slower to him than all the other devices in this place combined.

He still couldn’t talk to Emily about chemistry or biology though, the instant she started talking about either of them he was instantly lost with his head spinning trying to even understand what she was saying. Even when she tried to really dumb it down for him he just didn’t have enough background to do anything practical with either. It felt like a completely different language than when they spoke about electrical circuits and welding joints. It was to the point that sometimes she suggested a complex chemistry solution to some simple mechanical problem as a joke.

One of the schematics had a loose pipe fitting so fluid leaked from them? Use some two thousand step process with vats of liquid to create some super sealant that would last until the end of time.

Robots kept breaking down when they got too far from base? Use some other super material she would detail the formulas for to increase battery life. Sean had been annoyed about it until she brought him to her digital world she had been working on recently. That proved that she really knew what she was talking about, and her solutions would probably work despite how complicated they were.

He had been amazed when he had seen it. You could invite anyone to whichever world you wanted, but only the owner could use the multi-tools and actually meaningfully change anything inside them. In Emily’s world they had started in an ornately directed room filled with paintings and ancient pottery on display. She led him into a glass elevator with a smirk as he stared around realizing now that he played the game himself how much work must have gone into all of this detail just in this one hallway.

The doors closed and the elevator rose into the air, surrounded by more walls of ultra strong glass. They rose up and up and up… And more of the metropolis was revealed. As far as the eye could see was a swarm of robots running and flying every which way. As they rose the bustling city only grew larger and larger below him, the sheer scale of everything boggling the mind.

“You built all of this?” He asked dumbly as the blue sky around them turned to the black of space. The planet below was revealed to have every inch of its surface covered in steel and gleaming glass.

“Yep. You like it?” She asked knowingly, “This is actually my first factory world that I built in here. Normally I like the greener natural look instead, but I thought you would enjoy this one more. Let’s explore, I haven’t… haven’t been able to show anyone else this before.”

Sean looked up at her in confusion, “What? Not even all the other immortals? Surely you’re friends with some of them?”

She looked put on the spot and got that same slightly panicked look she always got when he started questioning her past too much.

“I…I… No, only a few. And none of the ones I’m friendly with like Foundation of All too much,” She said before relaxing slightly as he didn’t probe farther, “I’m actually surprised how invested you’ve been in it for these last few months,” She continued, “Your factory has really come far. I don’t think I fully claimed the first city nearly as fast my first time playing.”

“Thanks,” Sean replied, “I don’t know… it’s just so satisfying to finally being able to build something rather than maintaining old machines on the brink of failure with old parts because no one wants to spend the money. And I have your advice too when I get stuck, that certainly helped a lot too.”

“Yeah. Listen Sean, I…” He turned to her at the sudden tension in her voice only to see her hesitate again, “Nothing,” she eventually said letting out a breath, “I’ll show you the central facility for the whole planet. I’m sure you’ll learn something there.”

She had been on and off working up to tell him about something for weeks now, but Sean had learned over time that pushing her too much would cause her to close off and pretend like he hadn’t said anything at all. It was frustrating for him that she was being so secretive, but on the other hand he sort of understood. She didn’t owe him anything, actually he was indebted to her for saving him and doing so much to help him ever since they had met. No matter how much he wondered, it wouldn’t be right for him to pressure her to share any secrets with him before she was ready.

Emily hit a button on the elevator and it stopped and the doors opened to space. Sean stared at her in confusion as they waited for a minute before a floating silvery metal platform dropped from above directly in front of them. Emily stepped on and Sean followed. Two bands of light reached up and strapped his feet to the platform before Emily smiled wildly.

“No fall damage, right?” She said, “We’re going to take the fast way down.”

Sean’s eyes widened but before he could protest she leaned down and tapped the corner of the platform and the buzzing immediately stopped and they immediately began to rapidly drop. Even without the lurching sensation of falling in his gut, Sean felt mildly sick as ground below them rapidly grew in size.

Emily shouted something at him, but he couldn’t hear her over the wind. She pointed and silently laughed at him as he tried to school his expression into indifference. He struggled not to laugh as well as she nearly keeled over with heaving breaths as her laughter continued. He didn’t think it was that funny, but her humor was infectious and he found himself smiling as well.

Then he remembered that they were still falling as suddenly he noticed the ground rushing up at them from below far too fast. He waved at Emily to get her attention, but she didn’t notice until it was too late. Before she could react they crashed through the roof of a building at full speed and impacted the floor faster than Sean could blink. The platform plowed through what appeared to be a very complex machine lined with all sorts of pipes filled with multi colored fluids and promptly exploded into shrapnel. Sean and Emily were sent flying away and were thrown onto a flat platform raised above the machines, held gently in the air by the holograms of the holodeck as they flew.

“Haha! Wasn’t that great!” Emily said, hopping back to her feet after they landed from where she had landed face first. “We should go do that in real life sometime. ”

Sean gestured to the smoking wreckage in front of them spilling fluids into the center that were eating into the floor below even as he watched.

“Well it was certainly faster,” he joked as he brushed himself off despite knowing that he wouldn’t get dirty in this digital world. “Shame about your machine though.”

She shook her head and reached out her hand to help him up. He went to take it but before they could touch she slid back unnaturally. She blinked and her expression dimmed as she quickly withdrew her hand.

“Oh, yeah. Digital world,” she said before brightening again, “Ah, the machine will be fine though. Just watch, I’m sure they’ll be here soon.”

Sean stood on his own and watched as a series of flying drones and robots carrying an assortment of tools descended on the destroyed machine and began disassembling and repairing it and its surroundings.

After thirty or so minutes, they finished up and the machine was as good as new.

“Is the whole planet like that?” he asked in surprise, “No human intervention at all?”

“Pfft. I hope not. You think I want to go through the guts of that thing to do repairs if there’s some minor issue?” Emily responded, “I have to do enough of that in real life, I don’t want to do it in the digital world too. I’m sure you understand the feeling. Once I’ve finished up with a zone I scan it and let the local AI figure out how to return things to how they were and keep things stable and running smoothly.”

“Why don’t people do this in the real world?” Sean asked, “You’ve got a whole planet working here, why not out there?”

“Remember how I feel about AI pilots?” She asked and Sean nodded. She had stated many times the dangers of relying on them too much.

“These are the same. Work perfectly until they screw up and make things explode. Since this is just a simulation it just magically fixes things if the AI starts malfunctioning, but in the real world a factory like this would be a ticking time bomb until the AI went crazy and started drilling big holes in the walls to increase proper airflow in this place or something. And that’s the best case. Oh, and they’re expensive. There’s that too.”

“Huh.”

“Anyway,” Emily said, “I know you aren’t as familiar with chemistry, so I thought I’d show you the big robot factory I have. Something a bit more mechanical and to your tastes. Lots of great robot models and designs in there that I’m sure you’ll like. Since we, ah, crashed for no reason at all as far as I can tell, we're still a mile or two away from there now. There are some walkways we can follow to get there.”

“Following your lead,” Sean said before gesturing to the door to the outside with both hands. Her lips twitched upward before she turned and walked out the door without another word.

Once they got outside she started babbling as they walked on the walkways, pointing out every little detail she had added to the massive city around them as they went. She seemed to enjoy giving him the tour like this, showing off all the work she had done. As they walked through Sean realized that despite how amazing and efficient it was, this world was… lonely.

The streets below them and skies above were filled with mindless robots directed by unfeeling AIs only focused on their singular tasks. He could hear the loneliness in Emily’s voice, that nearly desperate tone as she shared every little detail she could remember. Maybe that’s why she was so eager to share it with him, hoping that all her work would be appreciated by someone else at last. And he did appreciate it, it all was rather impressive especially now that he’d dipped his toes into the game himself and knew just how hard these things were.

It was so strange to think that she was millions of years old when he saw her sudden mood swings from happy and bubbly to melancholy and depressed. Sean well… he wanted to help her, help her feel better, but what could he do? She was ancient, and far more competent at everything compared to him. What could someone like him do to help someone like her?

He shook off his spiraling thoughts as they finally reached the factory and refocused on all the interesting robots being assembled in the factory, Emily more than happy to answer his every question about them. And so his musings once again faded into the background as Emily pulled up a hologram of one of the models and showed him the internals and explained why she used this part and not that part. She really was some sort of genius no matter how much she tried to claim otherwise when he complimented her on her intelligence…