The Vanity of Hope

by G W Langdon

  Chapter 14

  Tom collected a water bottle from the loft fridge and eased onto the side of his bed. He gingerly stretched out his legs and rubbed his tight muscles. The fight-training regime with Silak over the last thirty days had left his torso and forearms mottled in a pattern of blue and black bruises layered over the older greens and yellows. The shades and shapes of the bruises told their age, the force behind the blow, and even if it came from a kick, punch, or the long staff. He swung onto the bioMemic mattress and checked the time on the wall clock as he hunkered in for a quick rest.

  Tilas and Earth shared eerily similar recorded histories. The stone structures of Myelir could easily have been Stonehenge, and the Great Pyramids of Egypt had equivalents near Segeth, where the agricultural villages grew into Tilas’ first true civilization, ruled over by elites of great wealth and power who’d squandered their empire’s resources appeasing gods in the hope of achieving immortal life.

  Emperor Tahulan’s power-riven empire bore a striking resemblance to the Roman Empire—the assassination of the famous war general, Culio Jeruie, by a group of senators could’ve described the betrayal of Julius Caesar.

  Would the Great Wars of Tilas that vacuumed in soldiers from across the planet also be the fate of Earth? Or was it a biological meltdown like the global pandemic that would’ve wiped clean the Tilasians from existence had they not escaped to Heyre? Much worse, might the tragic Fall of Tilas happen on Earth if Decay wasn’t defeated on Heyre?

  He rolled off the bed and headed to the bathroom before the doors opened below, invariably on time. He splashed ice-cold water on his face, toweled himself dry, and ran a comb through his inch-long hair. He rubbed the three-day growth on his chin and opened the cabinet. Electric was safest, but he was getting used to the razor-sharp blade. He closed the cabinet and stared into the mirror. At home, a mirror was a mirror, but here it could be… a lightScreen. He’d shave in the evening and shower when there was more time.

  The wall clock chimed three times.

  “Where are you?” Ba’illi called up, as the doors closed behind him.

  “On my way.”

  He put his robe on and side-skipped down the stairs to reduce the weight on his tight leg muscles. “Your usual drink,” he offered, heading for the kitchen pantry.

  “Yes, Speril.”

  Ba’illi wore a green tartan jacket over a dark green shirt, green-striped trousers, and dark green boots. It was a different fashion from yesterday but always the same shade or another. A red case swung freely in his hand.

  “What’ve you got there?” Tom asked.

  “All in good time,” Ba’illi said, sliding the case next to his chair. “How do you like your new robe? A sharp cut: long cuffs, generous collar tapered to the hood, two deep front pockets and double-breasted with four front buttons. Very smart. The wide hem for added weight will keep the robe away from your boots.”

  “You designed it?” he asked, returning with a tray of crackers and two tall glasses of drink.

  “No. Queen Lillia oversaw the project. I guess she saw it as a chance to test her needle skills. I never knew she did those sorts of things, but she has many talents.”

  Tom slid the glass of Speril juice across the lesser table. “It’s very comfortable, although it might take me some time to get used to the smooth, inner lining. Not complaining though. It’s much easier to move around than the old one. Should help with training.”

  “From where I’m sitting it looks tailored to perfection, and a big improvement on what I found you in.” Ba’illi looked down with a small grimace. “The knight will upgrade those old boots. They might do for Silak, but you can’t sword fight in those.”

  “The new robe was worth the wait, but… ” So much had happened that the ordeal crossing over from Nago already seemed a long time ago. He nodded at the portal. “There’s something wrong with that.”

  “I haven’t seen any error logs.”

  “If I enter a search for ‘Mnemonic duplication,’ the portal returns, ‘Access Denied’. The same for gravity drives. And there’s nothing about the Battle of Orth, except general facts around its geographical location and the history leading up to the Great War.”

  “Oh, that kind of ‘wrong.’ Mnemonic duplication and gravity drives have a yellow tag, which means they’re considered too advanced for your present capacity.” Ba’illi shrugged. “The Great Wars are the knight’s area of expertise.”

  Tom scooped a handful of snacks and sipped on his juice. “Is that what the sword tag means?”

  “The knight’s in charge of the military realm you need to learn. He knows all there is about the wars, but lives in a narrow, pre-defined world—heroic, but without the free will to draw his own conclusions.” Ba’illi drew a spiceRoll packet from an inside pocket, lit the end, and blew out a cloud of smoke. “What?” he said, at Tom’s stare. “Haven’t you seen anyone smoke before?”

  Tom shook his head. “Never. It’s not something I’d have ever… eating, drinking, chewing, but smoking?”

  “You should try it, one day. You may even come to enjoy it. We all smoke, except the knight.” Ba’illi searched for somewhere to drop the ash before it fell off.

  “I’ll get you something,” Tom said.

  “If you were wondering,” he said, tapping the ash onto his palm, “my family were Court Chroniclers for the Emperors; highly valued members of the inner circle.”

  “I wasn’t… wondering, but now that you mention it, I did think the archives of the Emperors were more detailed than those of the Kings.”

  “Ba’illi is our family name. We went by that name so the references you might come across do not refer to the same individual, rather different versions of the same model.”

  Tom stopped chewing. Models? Surely, Ba’illi meant ‘descendants.’ “Are those different from Queen Lillia’s?” he said, pointing to the packet.

  “SpiceRolls are genetically prescribed to the user.” He motioned to the packet. “These green ones are to relax my mind after a sustained period of thinking or talking.”

  “Can I try one?”

  Ba’illi shook his head. “You shouldn’t try another’s spiceRoll. It’s statistically unsafe.”

  “Who would I ask to get one?”

  Ba’illi blew out a cloud of smoke and frowned. “You know who.” He rested the Roll in the saucer and popped the locks on the red case. “Have you heard of virtual reality?”

  “I’ve read about it, somewhere.”

  “VR, as I call it, helps you learn faster.”

  “Faster? I can type any topic into the portal—almost—and the results appear a second later. I’ve no need for anything faster than that.”

  “Your keypad and lightScreen are rudimentary interfaces that create an unnecessary barrier between the observer and the subject. VR lets you experience the subject. Active versus passive. For example, instead of searching for the Library of Segeth then reading and watching to learn about the subject, VR lets you visit and experience the Library’s grandeur and amenities.”

  He shook his head. What did Ba’illi mean by ‘visit?’ As he understood the situation, he could not leave the castle and the Library of Segeth was on Tilas. Had they built a replica here?

  Ba’illi placed a pair of skullcaps with tethered, transparent ponytails onto the table and brought out gloves to go with matching face visors.

  “Millions of nanoSensors inside the cap read the electrical activity in your brain,” he said, helping Tom to fit the skullcap. “Synaptic channels carry this data to the base of the cap then down the fibers encased inside the Spine—the main data channel. The Spine plugs into this luminous socket in the case, which connects to the portal.”

  Tom smoothed his hand over the cap’s finely dimpled surface and traced his fingers down the spine. “It looks like a hideous wig.”

  “Vera combines the brain activity captured by your cap and visor into a single biometric dataStream. After real-time interpretation—no
buffering—she loops the interpreted dataStream back into the system.”

  “Vera?”

  “All in good time.”

  The skullcap molded over his hair without a single wrinkle. Like the robe, it was a perfect fit, of course. He picked the visor off the table and stared at his distorted reflection in its gold-tinted surface. Was VR the beginning of a new world, or the end of an old world he’d thought was the only true reality?

  Ba’illi tapped the line of small, red dimples in the band across the forehead. “These dimples double-up as data nodes. The plugs go in your ears. Surround sound—not Hyper, but good enough. Automatic perspective algorithms adjust the proximity of the projection and proportion everything to appear life-sized.”

  “Enough.” He slipped the gloves on, snug right to the fingertips. It was bad enough that he wasn’t actually going on an outside visit, but it was too much to have the magic behind the curtain explained.

  Ba’illi plugged the VR controller into the portal. “Close your eyes. If you become disoriented, wait for me to get you out. Don’t take your visor off until I say so.”

  Tom lowered his visor. “Good to go.” He briefly strained his eyes downwards at the faint glow of light seeping up from the room then stared straight ahead. “Blue, it’s just blue.”

  The portal beeped.

  A cube of black lines formed on a white canvas. Two chairs and a table drawn from straight and angled lines and shaded planes of grey appeared in the middle of the cube. A black book titled The Great Library of Segeth lay on the ‘table.’

  “Is that you, Ba’illi?” he asked, as a stick figure passed in front.

  “Hello, Tom,” the stick man replied.

  “Now what?”

  “To move to a specific place, look directly where you want to go and touch your forefinger and thumb together—right hand. By the way, I can hear you talking in the real world. You only need to think the words you wish to say. To master virtual reality, you must train your mind that anything physical, walking, running, fighting comes from directed thought. In here, thinking is everything. The clearer your thoughts, the stronger you will be. You can achieve little with a muddled mind.”

  “You sound like Choen.” He edged towards the table. Every forced step required the deliberate, conscious effort of walking through mud. “This is hard going.”

  “With repetition your efforts will shift to the subconscious and you’ll run as freely as you do outside—better in time.” Ba’illi lifted the book from the table. “Open the book by pressing the cover with your right hand.”

  An explosion of contrasting shades transformed the white room. Ba’illi was a lightly shaded, highly recognizable, charcoal-drawn character of his true self. Tom checked his new, improved form and straightened the waist belt and stuffed his hands into the deep, front pockets of the robe.

  The arched entrance of the Library of Segeth loomed over them like a grand portal to an age of chivalry. How much more would the original Library have been? Even in this rudimentary form, it was easy to appreciate why the original library was one of the Nine Wonders of the Ancient World.

  “This way,” Ba’illi said, above the bubbling atrium waterfall. Burly Sentinel guards at the main hall entrance glanced to each other and turned inwards as they passed.

  “What do you want to learn about?” Ba’illi asked, as he breezed ahead.

  “Memory.”

  “That’s a difficult subject. Are you sure you won’t go for something easier? Might I suggest anatomy?”

  “Memory.”

  “We could take the stairs, but Biology is on the eighteenth floor.”

  He padded the spongy carpet and considered taking the stairway to the dozens of floors that circled above to the painted ceiling. “Not today.” He touched his forefinger and thumb and looked to the fractal-patterned cube with the letter ‘G’ glowing above the mesh doors.

  The lift glided upwards to Biology and came to an imperceptible, non-mechanical stop.

  “Relationships determine subject arrangement,” Ba’illi said, as the doors zipped open. “Alphabetical is useful, but only if you know the name of what you are looking for.”

  They turned down an aisle housing hundreds of titles concerning the brain. Ba’illi pulled out a book titled, ‘Memory’ and placed his hand on the cover. A room of neatly arranged books appeared around them.

  “All these concern memory?”

  “In one way or another.

  There were gaps in the shelves. Tom opened and read the opening lines of Theory of Biological Memory Retrieval, and replaced the book into another gap.

  “Not there,” Ba’illi said, reaching out. “You have to put the book back where you found it. There must be order.”

  “Why?” he asked, keeping a firm hold of the book.

  “Because I said so.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not an answer.”

  Ba’illi held Tom’s stare then relented. “You are new to this way and right to be curious, but each book has a unique ID code to prevent the cross-contamination of information.”

  An alarm rang out as Tom attempted again to ‘misplace’ the book.

  A Sentinel appeared at the end of the aisle, thrashing its tentacles in a fearsome twenty-four-color display exaggerated against the neutral background. Tom stood his ground and braced to fight, even though he hadn’t yet fully mastered walking in a straight line.

  Ba’illi blazed a brilliant green.

  The Sentinel stopped, retreated, and vanished.

  “What did you just do?”

  Ba’illi frowned. “I told the Sentinel I had the situation under control.”

  “What would happen if that didn’t work?”

  “If you were on your own?” Ba’illi smiled. “Pain, for a start. Penalties, limits, loss of…”

  “I get the idea. Are those gaps in the shelves the same thing as the ‘Access Denied’ tags?”

  “Similar. Knowledge equates to power and when applied incorrectly by an inexperienced user it can become dangerous. The information on how to make a bomb is made available only to those who would never use a bomb to harm others. Imagine the trouble if anyone could learn how to make a bomb.”

  “But I don’t want to build a bomb. Maybe I’ll see Queen Lillia.”

  Ba’illi grasped his arm. “No. Today’s lesson is not over.”

  He tried to break free, but the grip far exceeded the natural strength of the thin fingers.

  “VR is my field of expertise,” Ba’illi said, with unexpected coldness. “In addition to my other fields of knowledge, I’m specifically tasked to teach you everything I know about this technology. Queen Lillia was quite specific about this.” He relaxed his clamp. “Do not take me for a fool.”

  “That is not what I think.” He hesitated. “How are you so strong?”

  “Everything in this world comes from the mind. This realm is black and white to protect your inexperienced mind from reacting as though you were seeing the real thing.” Ba’illi spread his arms wide. “I am stronger and faster than you because I understand the rules that govern this world.” In a speeding blur, he picked a book from a shelf across the room and returned. “If you ever want to be as powerful as me in the virtual realms then you have to trust me, implicitly.”

  “Being super strong and fast sounds good, even if it isn’t true.”

  “There are many opportunities in VR that are not possible in the real world, but there are also unique dangers.”

  “What dangers can there be if nothing’s real?”

  “In here so you can’t incur physical injury in the real world—like broken bones. However, the neural nature of VR can have a very real effect on the state of your mind. Imagined experiences can cause the same neurological trauma as anything real. It’s all the same to the mind.

  “This VR realm is a simple program to prepare you for the larger and more realistic constructs you’ll have to control to become a master of VR. In more sophisticated realms ther
e are beings that seek out and prey on the unwary.” He paused and continued, deliberately, quietly. “Deceivers lurk in unexpected guises. Always be on your guard.”

  “Deceivers?”

  “Beings who’ve attained a high Color rating through their good deeds, but for selfish reasons have reverted to a lower state. I’ll keep it simple for now. There are three classes of Deceivers: Thugs, Rogues, and Infiltrators.”

  “What is my best defense against a Deceiver?”

  “Experience. There’s no other way to develop a sense for what is true.”

  “What should I do if I suspect someone is a Deceiver?”

  “Nothing. Escape, sound the alarm—do not confront. There are enforcement agents for these different classes: local, intra-level, global.”

  “Global?”

  “Global—anywhere, anytime. Stealths are the only ones with such powers.”

  He leaned forward. “Stealths?”

  “So many questions, but someday you will need to know these things. Stealths are like the Sentinel that paid us a visit before, except with far superior powers and definitely more lethal. Pray you never encounter one.” Ba’illi glanced at the time on the back of his hand. “That’s enough for today. You can take your visor off now.”

  He lifted his visor and blinked against the outside light that rang true with reassuring clarity and full color.

  Ba’illi packed the skullcaps, gloves, and visors into the case. “Mastering VR will expand your mind. I’ll monitor your development and make new modules available for you to work in as you advance. But be careful and take your time when exploring.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “Beings have entered virtual worlds with clear minds, but they have stayed too long and burned too bright.” He took a final draw on the spiceRoll down to the filter and casually puffed into the air. “The higher the Immersion Density in the realm—its Color—the greater is the desire to remain. The lucky ones survive Rehab, although they’re never the same,” he added, crushing out the spiceRoll and putting the packet away.