History Literature / Caffeine

* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Brandon proposes legal recognition of self-aware AIs. Aether doesn't think it's a good idea.

%%* GlamourFailure: The archangel and his paradise.
%%* HolographicTerminal: Though more advanced users don't need them, [[UnusualUserInterface thinking the commands]] instead.
* InsideAComputerSystem: Dynamic Reality is a virtual reality internet.

%%* TheVirus: Aether

%%* WorldOfHam: In-universe example, onboard ''[[SpaceSailing The Intergalactic]].''

* CommercialPopUp: Holographic technology has brought this to RealLife. [[SexSells Attractive women constantly stop Brandon on the street]]... to tell him about half-off drink specials and sell him data plans.
%%* CooldownHug

%%* DigitalAvatar: Vanitars
%%* EarnYourHappyEnding

%%
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%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.
%%
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%%* AFriendInNeed
%%* AFormYouAreComfortableWith
* AGoodNameForARockBand: Eleven Under, Aiming for Wednesday.

%%* AutomatedAutomobiles: Suggested to exist.

%%* BigGood: Raskob

%%* ChekhovsGunman: The kid from Slammers and the sandcastle builder.
* CommercialPopUp: Holographic technology has brought this to RealLife.
%%* ConstantlyCurious: Scott

%%* {{Cyberspace}}: Dynamic Reality

%%* EasterEgg: The access key for Brandon's ascension booth.
%%* EmotionlessGirl: Aether starts out as this (when her [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity anger]] is abated), but her learning to manage emotions becomes a central part of the story.
%%* {{Escapism}}
* FakeOutOpening: The first couple of pages seem to be set in the 1930's, but the movie theater is revealed to be a [[{{Cyberspace}} DR construct]].

%%* GodIsGood
%%* HardLight
%%* HumansAreFlawed

%%* IllKillYou: The only encouragement a malvirai knows how to offer.

%%* JustAMachine
%%* MagicAIsMagicA: Brandon can't bend the rules of the games anymore.
* MeaningfulName: ''Aether'' is the medium science once believed light waves traveled on.
%%* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Brandon, twice.

%%* NotSoStoic: Veronica when they first met. Also Aether, first with anger then with sorrow.
%%* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions
%%* ThePhilosopher: several
%%* PostCyberPunk
* ThePowerOfFriendship: Malvirai have no concept of peaceful interaction or friendship. Aether's unprecedented exploration of humanity leads Brandon to make an unprecedented offer.

* {{Screw The Rules Im Doing Whats Right}}: JF, the Patrolman.

%%* SexSells
%%* TheUnfettered: Aether
%%* UnusualUserInterface: SNDL implants

%%* WhatIsThisThingYouCallLove

%%* WingedHumanoid: The angels in paradise, and [[spoiler:the one who rescues Brandon and Aether from it]].
%%* WorldOfHam: In-universe example, onboard ''[[SpaceSailing The Intergalactic]].''
%%* YearInsideHourOutside: Aether's perception of time changes when she's living through her vanitar.
%%* YourMindMakesItReal

->''"Do you know how the mind of an AI works, Brandon? Even if you did, you wouldn't know the first thing about this one. Malvirai are designed to expand quickly and disintegrate... to expand within a very limited scope, which she has broken out of."''
-->-- An impostor of Raskob, making Brandon desperate to escape.

A 2009 stand-alone {{science fiction}} novel by Ryan Grabow. The e-book was originally released on the author's website under a [[CreativeCommons Creative Commons license]]. Splashdown Books released a paperback version in 2011.

This novel provides examples of:

* [[AGoodNameForARockBand A Good Name For A Sledg-ek Band]]: Eleven Under, Aiming for Wednesday.

* [[ChekhovsGunman Chekhov's Gunmen]]: The kid from Slammers and the sandcastle builder.
* [[ChristianRock Christian Sledg-ek]]

* EasterEgg: The access key for Brandon's ascension booth.
* EmotionlessGirl: Aether starts out as this (when her [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity anger]] is abated), but her learning to manage emotions becomes a central part of the story.

* HolographicTerminal: Though more advanced users don't need them, [[UnusualUserInterface thinking the commands]] instead.
* IllKillYou: The only encouragement a malvirai knows how to offer.

* MagicAIsMagicA: Brandon can't bend the rules of the games anymore.

* NotSoStoic: Veronica when they first met. Also Aether, first with anger then with sorrow.
* OneWordTitle

* WingedHumanoid: The angels in paradise, and [[spoiler:the one who rescues Brandon and Aether from it]].
* WorldOfHam: In-universe example, onboard ''[[SpaceSailing The Intergalactic]].''
* YearInsideHourOutside: Aether's perception of time changes when she's living through her vanitar.

%% ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.

* AFriendInNeed
* AFormYouAreComfortableWith

* AutomatedAutomobiles: Suggested to exist.

* BigGood: Raskob

* ConstantlyCurious: Scott
* CooldownHug
* {{Cyberspace}}: Dynamic Reality

* DigitalAvatar: Vanitars
* EarnYourHappyEnding

* {{Escapism}}

* GlamourFailure: The archangel and his paradise.
* GodIsGood
* HardLight
* HumansAreFlawed

* JustAMachine

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Brandon, twice.

* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions
* ThePhilosopher: several
* PostCyberPunk

* SexSells
* TheUnfettered: Aether
* UnusualUserInterface: SNDL implants
* TheVirus: Aether

* WhatIsThisThingYouCallLove

* YourMindMakesItReal

* CommercialPopUp: Holographic technology has brought this to RealLife.

* {{Elephants Child}}: Scott
* EmotionlessGirl: Aether starts out as this (when her [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity anger]] is abated), but her learning to manage emotions becomes a central part of the story.

Brandon Dauphin lives in a rapidly accelerating world. Shocking trends emerge daily, [[RecordOfLoudnessWar louder is better]], and the [[FantasticDrug powerful stimulant PJX]] is found in almost everything (by popular demand). A sagging economy and cheap, reliable artificial intelligence have conspired to put people out of work. Not everyone minds the free time, though. [[InsideAComputerSystem Games have never been more realistic]].

* GattacaBabies: "Veetoos" are created in a lab from engineered DNA. Both of Veronica's parents and her younger brother are veetoos, though Veronica herself was a natural child.

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<<|ScienceFictionLiterature|>>
<<|PhilosophicalNovel|>>
<<|TroperWorks|>>

-->-- Impostor-Raskob, trying to make Brandon desperate to escape.

A 2009 stand-alone {{science fiction}} novel by Ryan Grabow. It was originally released on the author's website under a [[CreativeCommons Creative Commons license]].

Brandon Dauphin is a citizen of a rapidly changing world. Shocking trends emerge on a daily basis, [[RecordOfLoudnessWar the loudest music is the best music]], and the [[FantasticDrug powerful stimulant PJX]] is found in almost everything edible (by popular demand). The economy is sagging again, and artificial intelligence technology has matured enough to become a low-cost replacement for customer service workers. "Amai" look and act just like people, appearing in the real world as holograms, or within the many simulations of [[{{Cyberspace}} Dynamic Reality (DR)]], a global network which has rendered fantasy every bit as real as reality.

As everyone in his generation heeds the command to indulge, Brandon is overcome by the sense that life has become cheap and fleeting. He failed at finding a career, and everything else in his life is growing similarly distant. His only hope left is Veronica, a woman he met in DR, in a [[NotSoStoic chance encounter that saved her from suicide]]. Their long-distance relationship doesn't fail like [[LookingForLoveInAllTheWrongPlaces the others]], and Brandon realizes that he's fallen in love. He plans to propose marriage, in person, on New Years' Day. If she doesn't say yes, though, Brandon knows there will be nothing left for him.

With no work to distract him from the questions and doubt raging in his mind, and three days before his cross-country trip, the world of [[{{Cyberspace}} Dynamic Reality]] is all Brandon has to retreat to; but when [[HolodeckMalfunction the AI characters act strangely and his war-game begins tearing itself apart]], Brandon realizes he's become trapped in an environment he can't control; then, finding a way back to [[{{You Cant Go Home Again}} a real-world that isn't so real]], Brandon questions whether he ever made it back at all.

Torn between reality and fantasy, Brandon encounters a woman named [[MysteriousWatcher Aether]]. Brandon's only concern is to make the [[TheCracker hacker]] let him go home, though he has nowhere to return to. He doesn't understand what Aether wants, but she, [[ImplacableMan with the sensitivity of a machine]], threatens to [[{{Determinator}} end his life if he doesn't cooperate in her experiment]]. Brandon senses the threats are real, but Aether is hiding something.

Aether isn't a hacker, but a [[TheVirus computer virus]].

Brandon has fallen into Dynamic Reality's worst case scenario, as the path of such a "malvirai" leads to a [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity fast and violent end for itself and anyone in its path]]; but, with Aether's self-awareness came something else, something beyond her programming that she's committed to uncover. [[ThePhilosopher Aether asks whether her existence is a lie]], and her relentless pursuit to understand the truth has led her to [[HumansThroughAlienEyes study the race that created hers, and to study the world they live in as only a virus would]].

Caffeine questions our definitions of good and evil, and treats the existence of a world we can't see as inevitable. If amai are said to [[InstantAIJustAddWater become self-aware]], why not [[TheVirus the viruses]] based on them? Can {{God}} love an entity programmed only to destroy? Can a destroyer ever see beyond her programming?

There is no going back. Brandon feels he has become an illusion, already fading. Aether will inadvertently force him to choose between his love and his hate, and Brandon will need to overcome the noise of modern culture to learn what it means to be human all over again, before the illusion he has become is gone forever.

* ChekhovsArmoury

* EasterEgg

* {{Foreshadowing}}

* GlamourFailure

* InsideAComputerSystem: Dynamic Reality is a virtual reality replacement for the internet.

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Brandon. Twice.
* MysteriousWatcher: Aether, when Brandon thinks he's back in the real world.

* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman