Icarus and Phoenix find themselves in a virtual forest. Icarus walks around and he's soon absorbed by the environment. He sees everything from big trees to small flowers and he is pretty sure he hasn't seen any of them in real life or online. Everything around him seems to be made by a team of designers with lots of time on their hands, great skills and extraordinary patience.
He admires the strange insects flying around and enjoys the whispering sound of their tiny wings hitting the air. Every now and then light rays penetrate the dense vegetation and illuminate small corners, leaves and fruits, shapes and colors of the forest. There are also places the virtual sun can't reach. All you see there is groups of colorful flying bugs form floating glowing fibers while dancing in the dim light.
Icarus also notices something strange. On the forest ground he can spot a number of bombs from a variety of time periods with different colors and designs. Thought someone could claim these bombs have found their targets not a single one of them seems to have exploded or even looks deformed from the fall. But they're not in perfect condition either. The once shiny bomb shells although intact seem to be heavily affected by erosion. The water and soil of the environment has changed those killing devices forever while some of them even look like they host some kind of vegetation along with groups of small insects. Every bomb Icarus sees is a triumph of the virtual nature over the ruthless instruments of war. Still there is no violence in the process; the forest has slowly changed the bombs turning them into a part of its own self.
All these drive the curiosity of Icarus making him turn to Phoenix for information about this bizarre web world and its owner. Phoenix answers with its familiar sweet voice.
"The simulation consists of about five billion polygons while more than sixteen thousand different materials have been used. The website is updated every week, with almost no stop or interruption for the last five and a half years. I also get a single person as an owner, designer and responsible for security and maintenance. User-name: Electra. Code: 1435907E. What's also interesting is that?"
Icarus raises his hand in a quick node making Phoenix pause his report. A small round glade is right in front of them. It's surrounded by big trees loaded with fruits and flowers and the ground is covered by short, soft grass. Right in the middle of the glade a little nine to ten year old girl is sitting on her knees. Icarus and Phoenix are not far and definitely into her field of view, right between the trees, but she seems too busy to notice them. They both decide to stay still though; at least until they figure out what's going on.
Girl's attention is turned to a flower that floats in front of her. The girl pulls the petals with graceful soft moves and they seem to grow following the motion of her hand. On her other hand she carefully rotates a circle, responsible for changing the color and texture of the petals for her virtual flower. She stands for while and looks at her work in progress while her expression changes from skeptical to happy.
Shortly after she uses one hand to pull the bottom of the flower and forms a straight green stem. Her other hand's fingers gently beat the formed stem at different points and makes pretty green leafs unfold and grow, completing her design.
The little girl leans back to enjoy her new built flower when her eyes fall on the half hidden figure of Icarus. She begins to move nervously and stretches her head to see better and distinguish the metal body among the trees. Her trees! The expression on the girl's sweet face shows both fear and anger. She gets up and makes some uncertain small steps towards her uninvited visitors.
Icarus realizes it's time to show himself. He slowly abandons his hiding place and moves to the glade. Without thinking too much he stretches his arms forward, trying to show that they intend to do no harm. He is pressed to think of something to say that could calm the little girl, when he hears the voice of Phoenix, who is still hiding in the foliage.
"Watch out Icarus. Anger, panic, fear? I sense some form of digital depression here."
The girl's eyes are now fixed to the bewildered Icarus; she begins to tremble. She scrubs her arms with her palms and repeats the word who with increasing agony in her voice. The weather changes instantly and the virtual forest gets pretty dark as swift, dark clouds cover the sky. On the horizon, lightnings briefly illuminate the tree tops. Weather isn't the only thing changing though; the girl also begins to deform, to grow rapidly. She grows one, two, five, ten, almost fifteen years. Within seconds Icarus is facing a pissed off, scared, brunette woman.
A heavy rain with big fat drops begins to fall. Icarus is just about to say something when the frightened woman beats him to it. She almost screams.
"Go away!"
In an instant a number of thin shadow forms appear between the forest trees. The falling rain seems to be passing right through their opaque bodies as they swiftly move towards Icarus.
"Damn! Shadows? No wonder this is a low traffic virtual world. Nice destination choice, Phoenix!"
Icarus is doing his best to avoid the weird attackers from hitting him.
"Sorry Icarus. We are dealing with a heavy form of digital depression here. We've met these things before. Sadly, there is no use in trying to fight back?"
"I know that Phoenix! You can't beat a bad dream or sad thought with your fists! Thanks for the information but we still need a plan!"
Icarus reflexes and agility is put to the test. He leans, dives and rolls trying to avoid the furious attacks. He doesn't even want to be touched by these things. He remembers on their last encounter, he was hit by a shadow and was instantly filled with depressing thoughts and life like nightmare visions. His virtual body code was also partly destroyed; he definitely doesn't want to go through this again. No way.
"Phoenix I got an idea! Make an administrator log-in. I want another transformation software upload. Make it quick!"
"Ok Icarus, we'll be ready in a second."
"Convert and upload file G dash olive dash final. Folder name is nature dash two."
Seconds later, in the center of the glade an impressive olive tree appears. It's tall with thick trunk and silvery green leaves. Olives are brown and green shiny little spheres. The strong wind barely moves the branches of the old proud tree.
The woman is immediately charmed by the tree and takes her eyes away from the furious, unfair battle. She watches the branches dancing lazily in the wind and the olives glowing in the dim overcast light. A faint smile is painted on her face and the blurred shadows disappear one after the other. Icarus is left lying on the grass exhausted but relieved since his unbeatable enemies are now all gone.
Icarus rises slowly and approaches the girl, who is completely absorbed by the beauty of Olea Europaea.
"Wow! Such a lovely olive tree. Myth has it that goddess Athena won the patronship of ancient Athens from Poseidon with this very gift. Some actual trees are said to be more than two thousand years old. Nicely done too?"
"Glad you like it. I won a prize for realistic flora representation some years ago with this one. I'd like to leave it here? Judging by what happened before? Well? I can definitely say it'll be safe in your forest. I'm Icarus."
The girl smiled again and on the edge of the clearing, on the green grass small yellow flowers sprang. Shrubs and a variety of flowers moved like a tiny tidal wave from the edge of the glade and surrounded the olive tree. The virtual forest seemed to accept and hug its newest member with a warm reception. The clearing is radically transformed within seconds.
"Hope this is a better way to welcome you here? I'm sorry for what happened before. Truth is that I rarely get visits here. I'm Electra? That's a great looking tree Icarus. Thank you for your gift."
"You're welcome. We both know you're not to blame for what happened. I came out of nowhere. You were frightened? Angry?"
"It's the depression Icarus? I'm well aware of my condition. The changes in virtual worlds, the whole web says much about our selves, about our bright and dark sides. Web is home to our knowledge, fears and passion. But more than anything else, the world network is the
mirror of our infinite loneliness. Loneliness and depression are now good friends of mine. It might sound sad but I've learned to live with them both. This forest makes me forget about the whole world and its problems. I take good care of it, build it, renew it and enjoy its beauty. It's my little private paradise. How did?"
Phoenix approaches Icarus and Electra. She pauses for a while as she examines the weird flying machine.
"I mean how did you come here? There is no actual address or links that can lead you to my virtual forest."
"Our luck brought us here. We were chased by the Chocolate Fighters Group minutes ago. Phoenix my 'assistant' arranged a number of log-ins and outs on different and random web addresses and here we are."
"So? You're giving the good fight for people's chocolate?"
"I'm willing to fight for something that brings me joy. That's all."
Icarus slowly sits on the soft grass. He seems to admire the virtual forest for a couple of seconds.
"It's a good thing you're so creative. Your forest looks good, nice balance of shapes, colors and all. You're very good. The actual reason I'm here is because I think I got a cure for digital depression."
Electra almost falls near Icarus. She looks at him with a puzzled face.
"Well it's not really a cure or a way out or anything. Let's say it's a form of virtual chocolate."
"A what?"
"In the web world, like in the real one, our mood changes according to what our senses receive. We can also be deceived. We get stimulated by an 'adult' image or a video even when we don't have a sexual partner. We cry in movies even if we know that we're actually looking at professional actors doing their job. I just realized I gave two awful examples but I think you get my point. I strongly think the web needs to get its smile back. Project Tickle is the software I've been working on for a while now..."
A wide smile appears on Electra's face she seems to be making an effort not to laugh with what she hears.
"Project? Tickle you said?"
"See? We need silly stuff like that. We take ourselves too seriously and we've ended up thinking laughter gives us the appearance of fool people. We need small doses of fun. This is some short of escaping from digital depression. A tiny feel of euphoria, like the effect chocolate has on us. In your case, the olive tree made you smile and forget your fear."
Electra lets her eyes wonder on her virtual forest for a while. She also seems to be satisfied with her work so far.
"In my case it was rather easy to guess what could give me joy and grab my attention. We are in a digital forest..."
"Tickle is a relatively small program that initially collects information about the target. Such information may come from his or her profiles, contacts and most visited websites. The software learns things the individual likes, stuff that make him or her relax or paint a smile on his face. It then searches the Internet, finds and brings to the target's virtual world images, videos, sounds and smells that make him cheer. I have tried it several times and I can say that the success rate is pretty high. My only problem is that I can not upload it on a massive scale before it gets deleted or before I am getting traced and chased. Because of my recent activities, unfortunately, I've grabbed the attention of the wrong people. I think? I'm stuck."
Electra's eyes are wide open and she seems exited. She believes she can help Icarus with his problem, and takes a few seconds to organize her thoughts.
"There might be someone who could help us with this one?"
"What do you mean by saying, help us?"
"Don't start the heroic crap about fighting your own fight and all. You obviously need help and I think I got a plan here. I'll only tell you about it if you let me come with you. Moreover, as you discovered a few minutes ago, I'm more than able to defend myself against possible threats."
Icarus stops to think for a while. When he turns back to Electra her serious and energetic expression makes him laugh a bit.
"Well? Why not. You could join us if you want to. You were saying that there is someone that might be able to give us some answers?"
"Exactly, have you ever heard of Gray?"
Phoenix now comes even closer to them.
"You mean the first artificial intelligence on the web?"
Icarus turns to Phoenix, he looks a bit surprised.
"I've heard some stuff ; yes. Phoenix you seem to know a thing or two about it. How's that?"
"Gray is something you organic beings can't comprehend. Only when your logic is based on code you can actually realize and understand what Gray is. That's cause Gray is probably the most elaborate and dynamic piece of code in the entire network." Electra also seems well informed.
"Exactly. It is said to be the result of an experiment of two quirky but intelligent students. The experiment was about simulating the structure and functions of the human brain using the complexity of the web. The experiment succeeded, but the application gave birth to an artificial intelligence that was beyond the coders control and evolved rapidly, thanks to information and data derived from the internet. From every corner of the world web... Gray fathoms man's intelligence, perversity, knowledge and cunning. Neither good nor bad. Neither black nor white."
Icars gets up, he also looks exited.
"Gray? Experiential evolving artificial intelligence. Wonderful. I've read something about it. It must have made quite the headlines six to seven years ago. What makes you think that we can actually find it and convince it to offer us a helping hand?"
"I think I have a way to find it and make some short of contact. About whether it wants to help or not; we can simply ask it, right? Are you good at riddles Icarus?"
"Don't know? Wait; what do you mean?"
Electra turns to Icarus with eyes full of confidence. She stands up, takes a look at her new olive tree and gives it a kiss from a far.
"I've heard that Gray loves riddles, let's go!"
Chapter 3: We meet