[CHAPTER 1111]

"...looks like we just had our glitch for this mission…"

James Lovell

H.O.R.I.Z.O.N

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There was only a short announcement on GOKIA's various social-media sites when HORIZON finally returned back online. Within minutes, old users were frantically logging back into their differing realms of virtual realities. Platforms became accessible one-by-one. Most fans waited for their favourite game lobbies to open with fervent intensity. Some users weren't so pleased. Although it had only been five days since the unexpected crash, that was enough time to develop global uproar at the computing giant. HORIZON was used as a tool in education, to run major three-dimensional simulations for mining companies, hosting medical sites for treatment of PTSD, and even housed data analysis tools for economists. That wasn't even considering the every-day gamers that just wanted to play Pokemon in their time off. It was no wonder some people were upset following the crash.

To the team that had worked constantly to eliminate the potential bug, it had been a solid five days without sleep. GOKIA, whose market value had dropped over seven percent, couldn't let something similar happen again. The company was already under intense scrutiny by the Britannica government for the millions it was costing them a day.

The technology developed by GOKIA, not just HORIZON, was so ingrained into the new state that its economy was practically a function of GOKIA's own share prices. It had been an intense five days of political scuffles and infighting regarding a topic that had been blown out of proportion...especially when the United Nations got involved. The intergovernmental organization had called for a thorough investigation and black-listing.

It was the perfect storm to threaten GOKIA's monopoly over virtual reality.

For Baba, things were a bit different. The five days had been tortuous simply for the encroaching boredom they implied. HORIZON coming back online was like everybody returning back to school after a long holiday. The gaming platform that had once supported over a billion users started to trickle people back through the server once more. Streams of data entwined through the AI's programmed consciousness as elegantly as the electricity running through the circuitry of GOKIA's quantum computers. Baba relaxed into an ocean of user data like it was a warm bath.

Not that she could enjoy the return to normality. In truth, the artificial intelligence was looking forward to finally testing some intriguing hypotheses.

The earlier HORIZON crash never looked that serious from inside the simulation itself. Baba had done everything perfectly, instantly shutting down the whole virtual reality platform when a major glitch became apparent. It wasn't something she had prepared for. Protocols were only in place for dealing with similar incidents. However, the glitch wasn't entirely unexpected.

The typical HORIZON scripts that used placeholders for random Pokemon encounters had stopped working in the past. It commonly resulted in pixilated battles for players when HORIZON couldn't recover the correct information. The resulting Glitch Pokémon had gained a small cult following. It was a worry that players were actively hunting out errors in the source code. Baba had labelled the bug MissingNo as reference to the error message it flagged, keeping a keen eye on its development.

The artificial intelligence didn't foresee that the same glitch could happen to real players. High server usage meant that Richard had been assigned an incorrect placeholder. It had resulted in a self-perpetuating error message as the graphic generation coding dropped from a nine-letter seed to an eight-letter scrambled algorithm. Baba blamed herself for what happened next. She'd been playing with the automatic user disconnect sequence to avoid bottling-out Richard when he was immersed. Her new programme hadn't been sufficiently integrated into HORIZON's systems, failing to operate when the gaming platform imploaded.

Well...that wasn't entirely true. A connection request had gone through from an unknown user only moments before the crash. Or, more likely, a computerised system pretending to be a user.

Since HORIZON first went public, different bots had been poorly constructed to run fake NPCs typically acting to boost usage ratings for struggling platforms. Either that or run a sizable clone army of adavs. Baba recognised the non-humans with ease - isolating them and sending fake data reports back so the computer thought that their weak hacks were working.

The AI hadn't expected anything more elaborate

Abusing the MissingNo bug was just that. It involved a rather unassuming glitch initiated across multiple computer-generated accounts that was enough to disrupt HORIZON's graphics generation. In truth, an elegant non-localised solution to Baba's virus-protection. It was nearly impossible to spot within the statrolls of half a billion users which ones stored the garbled seed data ready to disrupt any unassuming player. Now the artificial intelligence knew what to look for, she wouldn't make the same mistake again.

'You alright with me testing this?' Baba sent a direct message straight to Yana's personal account. Given the risk of crashing HORIZON again, the AI was uneasy about her theorised experiments. Five days gave plenty of time to contemplate and design a few more redundancy tests. Yana took a while to respond. The young half-Czech programmer was currently distracted playing minesweeper during her break.

'Yes.' A reply arrived a few minutes later, 'Make it unassuming. Isolate, if it works!'

Yana's words were a mere few bytes within a collection of trillions that Baba sifted through every millisecond. Her role wasn't to actually run HORIZON, which would have been boring as hell anyhow. She just had to manage and maintain it.

'Thanks. Running in seven-point-two seconds.' Baba responded back. Normally she'd run the conversation through a webcam and set up a mock stream of her human persona. Yana had rejected her earlier call however...most likely because the programmer had gone to work in her pajamas again.

The artificial intelligence had been instrumental in correctly coding the immerser software. This, on top of the days Richard had clocked in VR, allowed her to mimic the young man's signal almost exactly. Baba cleverly tricked the internal HORIZON simulation to generate a synthetic replication of Richard on the Pokemon platform. She couldn't help but feel pity when the projected Liepard appeared.

A message from Yana popped up just as Baba prepared the necessary coding.

'DON'T CRASH HORIZON.'

Baba replied instantly with a stuck-out-tongue emoji before running the test.

User data spiked almost instantly. Within microseconds of simulating Richard's immersion characteristics, NPC requests bombarded the platform. Already in the process of isolating the dialating code, Baba observed with fascination as MissingNo alerts flooded in. Sure enough, placeholders were borrowed from the statrolls of the fake accounts and a self-perpetuating graphics collapsed started. There was no time for celebration following the successful hypothesis. The artificial intelligence locked and purged the Richard simulation, ending the threat..

'It worked.' Baba pinged a compressed file of her findings (compiled in a meagre four seconds) to Yana along with a hastily written message;

'However, our idea with scrambling was incorrect. It rewrites the coding, based on user spikes stressing placeholders. An external computer system is creating the user traffic. See data file.'

'Looking.' Was all Yana responded with. In the ten minutes wait that followed, Baba had time to re-review the experiment over a hundred times. She was about ninety-eight percent certain that the strange coding blip was a malicious response to immerser signals. Baba set up another two experiments, analysed the results, and worded conclusive findings before Yana finally responded.

'Is it malicious, or are we looking at a genuine bug?'

'I tested similar synthetic brain patterns which were both corrupted and overwritten immediately. It only works on immerser data patterns.'

'Like a virus?' Yana typed out quickly. Baba was delayed in responding when the Outer Wilds digital platform struggled to cope with a surge of users as it returned online. Phasing the return of different VR services was helping to minimise such traffic, but didn't alleviate the problem.

'In a biological sense, more like antibodies. External computer-generated users are triggering effectively a MissingNo glitch which self perpetuates, and is over-written by whatever placeholders these users have, stored as graphic data. The fake-account attack's are very specific, installing the malware from generated statrolls.'

The AI stewed over the test data, waiting for Yana to respond;

'This bug neutralises any indications of immersion. Human minds.'

The reply wasn't a question for the artificial intelligence, but in fact a statement. Similar to the AI herself, Yana had zoned-in on the trigger of the HORIZON glitch. The AI paused, taken-aback by her intuition. Baba never ceased to be amazed at just how fast the programmer could read, interpret, and solve problems like that. Yana worked through software issues with a natural ability faster than thought.

'Correct.' Baba responded in a heartbeat. 'Its targeting unusual activity within HORIZON, but seems to purposefully crash any evidence of immersion. I'm sending the data over now.'

'We're calling it Gaia.' Yana responded just as quickly. If Baba had eyebrows to raise, she would have raised them. The AI didn't get the reference precisely, but if Yana was willing to give the issue a cute name, it meant that the bizarre computer glitch was being considered seriously.

'I liked MissingNo.' Baba countered, 'Why Gaia?'

'Ask James. It's our global-computer-system-that-shuts-down-intelligence idea. Remember? If the government data is to believed, it's been in operation at least since it attacked exDEV.'

'exDEV was an AI.' Baba clarified to the programmer. Given that newly-named Gaia wasn't targeting her nor James, that theory didn't make sense. Baba herself was a generation-evolution of the original artificial intelligence. Yet the Gaia glitch only seemed to target evidence of human immersion, not intelligence like herself. The evidence seemed contradictory.

'Thinking.' The programmer responded shortly. A couple of lines of text arrived a minute later. 'Will contact Harry and let him know. The team's going through your data now.'

'Send my regards.' The AI responded after a few seconds delay. Talking about the businessman suddenly reminded Baba of his predicament. 'I thought he was arrested?'

'Not for long...Harry can smooth-talk his way out of anything.'

'Noted.'

'Thanks for the tests. We'll double-check the results before you run more. Keep an eye on HORIZON. We can't afford for it to go down again. Got a meeting. Speak after.' Yana replied bluntly before signing off.

Baba felt the need to huff, awareness floating back to the problems to hand. Fragmenting herself to work on the Gaia side project was starting to become computationally taxing. With a small grumble, the artificial intelligence returned to her work maintaining HORIZON. Phase eight was expected in two hours returning everything to full availability. It was going to be busy ensuring the servers continued to run smoothly.

Time passed by more slowly in the real world. Or, at least it felt that way for Harry Eisenhower. He'd been restricted to the same drab Britannica apartment for the last three days with nobody but his lawyer for infrequent company. The small suite backed onto the Amsterdam Britannica government offices. An open window looked down upon a busy street, sirens from police cars and ambulances a stark reminder of the urban sprawl outside.

The businessman leant back in an old armchair, rubbing at his stubbled chin

'Your just going to have to bite the bullet and step down.'

'Fuck off.'

'That's their proposal.' Harry's lawyer showed his palms, far beyond exasperation at this point. The legal adviser was only a few years older than the GOKIA businessman, but expressed the years more gracefully with his preened demeanor. A formal black suit only exaggerated the complete contrast compared to the chubby man lazing opposite. Harry was sweating in the late summer heat, shirt undone at the collar and shoes kicked off across the carpet.

'Britannica doesn't want this going public. Nor is their proposal unreasonable. Given your companies huge impact on this state, it would make sense to place some of it under government regulation. You have to choose your battles.'

'I have.' Harry practically snarled. It wasn't aggression towards his lawyer, but disgruntlement. 'And I have consulted the top data analysts in my company! They ran an operations test only this morning. The shut-down of GOKIA services was as a result of a malicious cyber attack. This isn't my fault!'

'I understand.' The lawyer paced opposite. He felt uncomfortable getting too close to the large man, choosing to hover next to the window. Having spent the last three hours hotly discussing a new agreement being pushed by the Britannica government, the legal agent was itching to leave. He wasn't sure if the GOKIA chairman was being pig-headed, stupid, or was still in a state of denial about the whole situation. Harry had done little but talk over his hired adviser.

'However.' The aging lawyer tried another angle, 'You have to see this as an opportunity! Britannica are offering to progress aspects of your-'

'By bloody stealing half of my company! Yes, it offers financial stability and continued investment-'

'Not to mention having a UN-authorised establishment' The lawyer muttered under his breath.

'-but they don't have a vision! I don't get why they even care about controlling HORIZON. It's a success because it's an impartial, independent business.' Harry banged a clenched fist on the side of his armchair. 'They don't like what I wanted to do with it anyhow. Hell, they voted in the UN for the spectre scheme over my uploaders.'

The lawyer rubbed at his eyes, frustrated that Harry was starting to cool off. He'd been hoping that all the shouting might have attracted the attention of the two armed guards standing outside the door. Now the large man simply sprawled in his armchair. Harry had grown weary of the endless security regarding how he ran his business.

'GOKIA is a global company, you supply important digital infrastructure to half the world. Britannica, who already offer unique endorsements, want their fair share...and they also want more control. Just look at the LEONOV scheme! It's fringing on the edge of legal with the possibility of being weaponised. Talking straight, people don't trust machines anymore Mr. Eisenhower.'

'That's exactly the problem.' Harry sighed, blinking slowly. Scratching at the bald patch on his head, he steadied the void in his chest. The businessman couldn't remember the last time he felt this stressed. Actually he could, but he didn't want to think about that either.

'Well. That is all I can offer you today. The officials will want your answer by tomorrow morning. If you need me, drop me a call. I'll meet you tomorrow for the signing...' The Lawyer excused himself. When Harry waved him away, the advisor had to avoid grabbing his briefcase and legging it through the door. Not that Harry noticed the hasty shuffle. Eisenhower only managed to pull himself out of his thoughts a few minutes later. He'd sunk deeper into the armchair, the sounds and scents of the city outside washing over him like a humid storm.

'Shit.' He muttered to himself, and then louder, 'Shit.'

Normally, Eisenhower could think himself out of situations like this. He was the type of person who had a hundred plans for every possible outcome. Harry often debated between different plans of action for what to do next. But this time, there was nothing. For Harry, there was no alternative. Britannica had formally wrote the declaration within their formal documentation. Either he handed over leadership of his famed company, or they went public with their accusations and took control anyway.

'Shittity shitty shit shit.' Harry tried again, to no avail.

It felt like he had a weight pushing down on his chest. All of this...for nothing. He'd built GOKIA from scratch within the ashes of the sustainability crises as a stark reminder of the power which technology had to help humankind. He'd pushed the frontiers of virtual reality at the same time as supporting a whole new independent state - even creating viable solutions for the expansion into space.

And what did he get in return? The Britannica government had pinned him during his moment of weakness. They'd shut down the the LEONOV scheme over poor usage, even going as far to raid his home to find blackmail material. The government was using all the scare tactics in the handbook to force a takeover outside of court. Worst of all was the fact they were working. Harry was already going stir crazy within the small apartment.

Something seemed off about the way Britannica were handling this.

For a few hours he stewed over that thought. Harry had his fourth coffee of the day, sitting in the dark, when he found his way onto his smartscreen. The noise of traffic buzzed through the open window. A faint breeze sent a chill down the pudgy man's spine. He didn't know if he had goose pimples from the cold night air...or for the number on his screen. Harry stared at the digits, mouth dry.

He pushed the call button with a thumb and waited.

Dialing tones sounded through the drab apartment.

"The person you are trying to call is currently unavailable. If you would like to leave a message, please speak after the tone."

Harry had to physically restrain himself putting the phone down there and then.

'Hi there...Corey.' His tongue felt too big for his mouth, 'It's Harry. Yeah. In case you didn't guess. I...Uh...I know…'

He scratched at his chin.

'I hope you're keeping well and I...I'll cut to chase. The government wants to take over GOKIA and I don't want to drag you into this. Put something together which covers your back.'

Harry paused, staring into space.

'But you might want to look into issues in the global computer network. They're putting the blame on GOKIA for the crash, but we've spotted unusual activity from computer systems. It might be something left over from exDEV? Uh...Yeah…You might wanna check that out.'

'I'm...I…' He sagged, leaning against the wall as struggled to keep his voice even. 'I know how things are now. I just, uh…'

Harry hung on the edge of spilling everything. Explaining to Corey through the tears how all of this was for her. To show that he could do it all without her. Creating GOKIA, the expansive technology empire now affecting billions, was just a distraction so he could forget. The pain of everything still clung to his soul. It was stubbornness that had got Harry this far. Only because he couldn't admit he was wrong.

'Look after yourself, alright? I owe you one. See ya.'

He couldn't hang up quick enough.

Harry wiped the moisture from his eyes. Even with the traffic wailing outside and the air conditioning whirring above, it was too quiet. Everything was so loud and oppressive whilst simultaneously not being stimulating enough. He turned on a lamp, illuminating the drab apartment for the prison it truly was. For a while Harry hung by the bedside telephone. It was all too tempting to order up pizza and binge the evening away. Maybe it was anxiety hurting his gut rather than hunger?

It was in the early hours of the morning, sprawled across his bed that Harry finally had an idea.

Britannica were blackmailing him everything they could get their hands on - anything to taint his reputation and break his resolve. The LEONOV scheme was perhaps a little dodgy. By now, the security services had most likely found evidence for other projects involving battery storage solutions, rad hardened space circuitry, and a new type of roomba. They'd raided his house for fuck's sake! The government wouldn't let the opportunity to take control pass them by. If Britannica wanted to go public and take him to court, why shouldn't they? Harry Eisenhower had given his life for his company and wouldn't back down easily. If the very country he had such high aspirations for wanted GOKIA, they'd have to fight him for it.

Resolute, Harry Eisenhower called up a pizza delivery. He couldn't work on an empty stomach.

END

Thanks to my overly optimistic idea of balancing a number of different stories at once, updates for Error have dropped to once every three-weeks. I'm expecting to write another twenty thousand words to tie everything together, which should end up as around five chapters. Updates will still be on Sunday mornings.

There wasn't much trivial in this chapter. The HORIZON crash is based on the generation one glitch-Pokémon MissingNo, which was hinted at in earlier chapters. This was an infamous glitch that could be caught at cinnabar island. Programming jargon was there for sci-fi reasons and not worthy of note.

As always, a huge thank you to everyone supporting this story! A warm welcoming to new followers and viewers, and Roasted-Potato for the review (world-building will sneak into later chapters). Thanks for reading! Enjoy!