by deity
Jas dodges bullets of a World War II battlefield as he moves through a net-hub before blurring through streams of the latest financial data in another and continuing through the endless labyrinth of the cyber-realm. Level after level, row after row of portals each one containing a different element of human experience and possibility. He sped on through them, catching a glimpse of a birthday celebration through one as his humanoid form dissolved into a streamlined missile-like form whose purpose was clearly speed.. The images and their sensory impact are still intense to Jas despite all the time he has now spent here but they are one of the many unusual sensations from planing in the cyber-realm that he enjoys.
Jason focuses ahead at the cybersphere he is moving through; a translucent haze lies ahead. This place is full of surprises he thinks as he moves closer. While he can’t see clearly he thinks he can make out a cybersphere on the other side of the haze. As he tells Billy of what he sees he thinks of what to do next. While he is pretty sure this won’t harm him, at least not seriously, he can’t be sure and even if it doesn’t hurt him what if it disconnects him from base and he is lost? How long would it take for him to find his way home? If he could at all?
But he will have to investigate this strange screen of haze.
‘Billy, I’m gonna see what it does to a Datatrail?’
‘What? Just jump in, see what it does to you!’
‘Yeah yeah, I’ll have a go soon but first I’m gonna throw this sucker in’ he said as he plucked a datatrail from its course and made his way back to the strange haze within the cybersphere. Its efforts were powerless against his grip as he moved it forward, ready to thrust it into the unusual haze.
The exercise takes him back to his youth and showing his sisters the fun that could be had with a magnifying glass and a few hapless insects. The glint in Jenny’s eyes, while his elder sister gasped in horror and was soon threatening to tell their parents. There was a simpler solution; next time he just took his younger sister. They soon realize that if they can’t find enough insects for the game, a little honey and hey presto the insects soon come to them.
Jenny took to the game with particular gusto, she could never get enough, always hassling him to play again and again. He can still see her crouching down, a determined look on her face as she holds her aim while the sun does its work. Then a big satisfied smile as another ant combusts. The grin has barely settled on her face as her eyes begin to dart about, searching fiercely for another and then another. Jason tries to imagine her doing this now, or better yet the reactions of her friends,
‘GROSS!’
‘OMIGOD!’
‘OK, time for action’ he thinks and he forces the datatrail forward into the haze. A violent shimmer fills the haze, it becomes cloudy and unclear; like a TV on the wrong channel. The datatrail can only be distinguished as a shadow, a darkness among the impenetrable shimmer while the cybersphere on the other side cannot be seen at all. This continues for some time as Jason holds the datatrail fast, unsure whether to wait for this strange process to end. What was happening to his guinea-pig? Would it be recognizable?
Impatience soon wins out and he removes the datatrail. The cybersphere can once more be seen through the haze, the violent state brought on by the intruder clearing as abruptly as it begun.
The datatrail has undergone an even larger transformation. He barely recognizes what he held or, more accurately, what now seems to hold him. The datatrail and in fact much of his forelimb is covered by a collection of shells and casings. Jason moves and easily comes clear from his newfound armour. It clunks uselessly to the ground of the cybersphere, still affected by the physical property of gravity unlike Jason and other astral planars. The largest collection of it begins moving of its own accord, the datatrail is still in there and still functional.
‘So what do you know Jas? You don’t need a rescue mission?’ Billy comes over their psychic link.
‘Hardly, I’m sure you know as well as I do that I’m fine. The datatrail has also survived this haze but it’s come out covered with all sorts of armour’
He looks at it as it struggles along the cybersphere floor, its movement hindered by the armour that now encases it.
‘They seem to be a security measure. I’m gonna see what the story is for myself’, Jas tells his friend and moves into the haze.
It isn’t painful but he feels it manipulating him, trying to alter his astral composition. He moves through it and within the cybersphere. There is none of the casing that the datatrail acquired on him and while the sensation was peculiar he is pretty sure he hasn’t been harmed. He will have to see what Peta thinks this is, hopefully he will also get to talk to her properly, After the great night they recently shared they have rarely been in the same spot for a minute together. He can’t believe it has almost been two weeks already.
As he continues through this unknown element of the cyber-realm his thoughts return to Peta. The most peculiar thing to Jason about this whole situation is how it is such a non-event; no dramatic arguments nor climatic love scenes. He feels strongly, yes but also confused. This horrible, gnawing feeling shadowing him every day, haunting him wherever he goes. Their night together reminding him vividly of what he has been missing and it has grown worse each day since, slowly filling him with self-doubt…This is stupid, he thinks to himself, and frustrating and familiar.. So many of his -what would you call them, they didn't really qualify as relationships; brief encounters, flings?? Whatever they were they often involve quite a lot of this feeling, this uncertainty. Many times this was how things had ended, please not this time, not with Peta he begs whatever higher power there may be.
Billy interrupts his self-absorption across the psychic link; ‘We have a jammed site coming up, take another cybersphere, Jas’
The two boys have recently improved to the point that as a navigator they could view beyond the cybersphere of the planar. Their view is not limited, like a planar, by sensory appendage nor organs. And this could be shared immediately via the psychic link between their minds. Combining this with the full 360 degree view that the planar had of their surroundings had once been an overload of details but with their continuing practice and experience it is no longer so daunting. They can now process the various data streams and communicate what’s relevant in mere moments allowing the planar in the cyber-realm to quickly respond. Such challenges and team-work are unique to this realm. And this is another element of the cyber-realm which the boys now excel in while the more experienced astral guardians continue to struggle.
Jas leaves his cyber-sphere and approaches another in the free space that surrounds the cyber-realm. It is here that Jas and Billy saw their fellow student, Stave, moments before he disappeared, severing his connection back to his physical body. Their confidence here now overshadows any concerns from the risks that took their fellow student, in fact they barely think of their departed colleague, Stave, there were simply too many more pressing matters with all their advances and discoveries in the cyber-realm.
‘How’s this one look?’ Jas asks Billy
‘Happy travels ahead, but there is some company not far behind you.’
Jas continues onward appropriating some of his energy to view his pursuers, they are well behind him, far enough that he ignores them. He knows Billy will keep an eye on them and let him know if they need any of his attention. This is a task which is easier for the navigator to do, the planar should focus their attention on the immediate surrounds and their actions unless there’s a compelling need to do otherwise.
Jas enters the roomy expanse of a net-hub, ignoring the flash of a series of photos as he enters and takes a hard right before stopping and waiting at the junction of the small, cylindrical cybersphere he has just come from and the broad expanse of the net-hub. His shadows will not be far away. Here we go, he thinks as a collection of web-robots arrive. Jas grabs a robot and hurls it into the crowd of its accomplices.
‘Strike’ he says with a laugh, blasting off to find some more
action amidst the busy net-hub. His pursuers are scattered in a tangle of disrepair. He knows they won’t be able to bother him again. It is so much fun here, Jas thinks to himself. Zipping around, in and out of all the net-hubs, through data trails, seeing first hand all the uses of the internet come to life. And of course wreaking a bit of havoc with it. It is harmless enough according to Peta, only causing a few minutes delay in a download or a web page. Like his own personal playground. Jason ponders this thought, the combination of the physical and astral in the cyber-realm are part of the attraction. At first this made it awkward even painful but that’s now long gone for him and Billy. Over the last week the boys have developed well beyond such novice status. Everyone now knows they are second only to Yachi in the cyber realm.
It has not been spoken of but is hardly surprising. After all the guardians rarely enter the new realm, constantly discussing what has happened, what it means and how to best approach this dangerous new world.
‘Of course if they were like Billy and I and just practiced then they wouldn’t be so vulnerable now and there wouldn’t be much of a problem.’ Jas thought as he bustled through another nethub. But that seems pretty unlikely, Yachi and Peta are in another meeting with them all now.
All the time they have spent in the cyber-realm has also impacted the boy’s astral form. Jas currently blazes like datatrails and other inhabitants of this strange new plane. The boys and Yachi now notice they are more than the energy forms of their astral profiles in the cyber-realm, they are powerful compressed capsules of life, fissioned of human and cybernetic.
The nightmarish qualities of the astral guardians' recent devastating encounters are now irrelevant to them. The powers unleashed to create this new world are there to be harnessed rather than feared.