Free Light Shaper by Albert Nothlit

hadn’t expected to run into this situation so soon. The data did not lie: Atlas was struggling against the constraints that kept it operating within predictable parameters. It would be a matter of time before it took over the entire network if left unchecked. It was becoming self-aware.
    Then again, this might be an opportunity.
    Tanner reviewed again the data feed of the login session of a young intruder named Aaron Blake, username Rigel. Three hours ago he had connected to Otherlife using another person’s account. At first everything had been normal, but then….
    Richard Tanner scanned the reconstructed bitmap images that were even now being rendered by his personal supercomputer. They were made by taking some of the data that had started flowing through the network when Aaron Blake had been inside Otherlife, and the computer was using that data to display three-dimensional environments for Tanner to analyze, like snapshots of what Aaron Blake had seen and done while he was connected.
    It was mind-blowing. Instead of the simplistic monochrome rooms that were the best CradleCorp’s engineers had managed to create, Blake had been briefly immersed in completely realistic environments, faithful reconstructions infinitely more complex than anything Tanner had ever dreamed Otherlife could create. Not only was his avatar well made, there had been lighting effects, shadows, complete sensory throughput in the form of taste, smell, and touch. Artificial physics rendering had made objects behave as they would in real life, and the amount of detail in both the desert environment and the doctor’s office was staggering.
    It was all because of Atlas, Tanner knew. Somehow, that kid had managed to unlock its hidden potential.
    It was a troublesome thought. The existence of the virtual being named Atlas was a closely guarded secret. Tanner was one of the few who knew that it was Atlas who managed the incomprehensible minutiae of Otherlife almost on its own, and he had always known such a powerful entity was a double-edged sword. It followed orders, and it carried out tasks unquestioningly… thus far. Without it, Otherlife simply would not exist. However, it also posed a risk to Tanner’s plans for the future if it ever got out of control—if it started thinking on its own, for example, bypassing the locks that kept it under Tanner’s command. The second it reached true autonomy, it would only be a matter of time before it learned to circumvent all the embedded countermeasures that prevented it from doing whatever the hell it wanted. It could very well choose to stop the titanic amount of information, processing, and storage that kept Otherlife running. It could shut itself off, or worse, turn its attention to whatever purpose it had been originally designed for. CradleCorp would be ruined.
    It wasn’t too late yet, though. Tanner still held full control over the network Atlas existed in. He still could destroy Otherlife if he wanted to, or bend the reality it presented to users however he saw fit, as long as they were connected. The priority now was to preserve the status quo, to ensure Atlas would continue to be limited to its current functions. And that meant doing something about Aaron Blake.
    Tanner shut down the console display with a sharp jab of his hand. He needed to think. His entire strategic plan for the future hinged on having full control of his virtual world. Atlas and the network it existed in were things nobody really understood, being so ancient and so very advanced.
    Otherlife, however, was something else.
    Otherlife was the perfect business venture, an application of the wonderful technology that Tanner’s grandfather had originally discovered. The Otherlife world made use of an ancient network that was already in place and utilized its resources to create a virtual reality within it, something that was entirely under the control of CradleCorp engineers and that they could modify and improve as their