GodsRealm- Betrayal

by Luke Isaacs

  “I don’t care for the bigger picture, Yee,” Mehemet said in a low voice. “What I get is more than enough to close my eyes and be led down the path less trodden, and it’s been a path of fortune from the beginning till now.”

  “Let’s change the subject,” Yee said offhandedly. “I’m sure our host would not be happy if he knew we were discussing him.”

  “Indeed.”

  The deep voice belonged to an avatar in the form of a tall hooded man who materialized with no warning. His features swam and swirled in the darkness and that it was impossible to discern anything about him aside from the fact he was humanoid and possessed a deep rumbling voice.

  Yee jumped and almost reached behind his shoulder to suit off before realizing it was in fact their host, and as was known only among a select few, he didn’t upload or download like other users of VNet. Normally a download caused a slight blurring in the air before the person appeared, and upload caused light to emanate in the form of a person before they fully materialized.

  Not the Hooded Man. He seemed to just appear out of thin air as if he just separated from the background graphics without any signal announcing his coming. This was something that Yee was spooked by every time he met their host. That, and his ominous shadow-shrouded face of course.

  “Gentlemen,” the Hooded Man said the term like it was an insult but continued without missing a beat. “I should punish you severely for your actions. But it gave rise to unforeseen results that could be considered positive. Results that you don’t need to know of for now.”

  A chair materialized at the table and he joined the two other men seated there. A tall glass of Hypno-Whiskey appeared on the table in front of him. Seen as the most difficult substance to simulate correctly on VNet, the whisky synth had become a legend itself and had a price tag to match. The Hooded Man sipped from the tall narrow rimmed glass and the liquid appeared to fall into a void.

  “I called here today because this night is special. Certain events are in motion and I need to be sure you will stay the course.”

  “We are, of course, at your disposal,” Mehemet said humbly.

  “Yes, of course,” Yee echoed Mehemet, and then added: “All of my corporate resources and connections are at your disposal.”

  The Hooded Man didn’t even acknowledge him.

  “At midnight, be at these coordinates,” he hands both men a line of complicated code in the form of a fortune cookie that they will need to ingest to access the information within. “I think it is time.”

  All associates of the Hooded Man and there were many among the rich and powerful, knew eventually that he would announce himself as the real master of the VNet and its resources. Yee and Mehemet knew this was their day to give back. It had been their unspoken agreement with the mysterious figure ever since he had approached them. He had promised fortune and power, and he had delivered.

  But Yee and Mehemet knew from experience that it was always beneficial to be on the good side of the Hooded Man; rumors had circulated about powerful men and women who had lost everything in an instant, and while it was rumor only, the Hooded Man was the name on everyone’s lips as the culprit.

  “I am not calling on my other associates yet,” the Hooded Man said. “Their roles in this game are not for the events of tonight. Only you two and a third player will be involved,” he took another sip of his impossible-to-simulate drink and continued, “he will take the helm and both of you with all your resources will yield to his will.”

  “Can we know who this third player is?” Yee asked him.

  “Jamal Yu,” the Hooded Man took another sip as the two men looked at each other in horror. “I informed him just before meeting you of your role in the events leading to the crippling of his son,” he paused for effect and added, “I would imagine that he would require some form of retribution, but I forbade him anything to do with your real-life bodies and minds.”

  35

  Jamal Yu gathered 30 of his best coders and another 30 of his security personnel just south of his palace in a separate facility that he owned for his private coding needs. Every man present was fiercely dedicated to him and loyal to a fault.

  Once assembled, they suited up and he uploaded all of them to the meeting point on the boundaries of the redundancy zone.

  He knew that within minutes he would be joined by two more players and that both of them were directly involved in the events that crippled his son. He was promised retribution for this, on the condition that it didn’t injure the body or minds of the two evil bastards in VNet or real life. That was okay. He knew exactly how to make them hurt in other ways.

  He stood amongst his men and after two minutes Yee and his men, around 40 of them, materialized, followed closely by the criminal overlord Mehemet with around 70 of his men.

  One hundred seventy-three men to conquer the world in one night – not a small feat to accomplish, but first, Yu wanted his reckoning.

  A table was arranged for Yu, Yee, and Mehemet to meet. Once they were all seated, Yu started, “Our mutual friend put some bonds on me, but I deserve payment for the wrongs done to my son.” Both men nodded. “So, to do this and with permission of our friend, I am suspending your AI augmentation for the entirety of this important night, demoting you to foot soldier and primary coder for the army of the Hooded Man.”

  Panic crystalized in the eyes of both men. They were shocked for two reasons; the first was that the augmentation process performed by the Hooded Man was supposed to be one-of-a-kind, meaning each one of them would think that he was the only augmented human on the planet. The second reason was not the demotion, but the fact that they would be stripped of their augmented minds and the benefits it brought to their daily lives – a fate almost equal to being blinded.

  Yet, they both knew that if the Hooded Man sanctioned this, it had to happen; it was, after all, part of the deal even if the wrongs Yu sought to redress had come about as a direct result of them following the Hooded Man’s orders in the first place. They also knew how vindictive Yu was and losing the augmentation for one night, even a night as important as this one, was a deserved and calculated price to pay.

  “OK, Mr. Yu,” Mehemet bent his head towards Yu. “You may proceed.”

  Yu pointed what looked like a ballpoint pen at Mehemet, who collapsed to the floor.

  Yee was more hesitant, but he also bent and said: “Do what you have to do Yu, my fight was never with your son. Be quick.”

  Yu pointed the ball point pen at him, and he also fell to the floor.

  A few minutes later the two men came back to their senses. Yu was hyperventilating, while Mehemet just sat silently as the Hooded Man arrived.

  “Gentlemen, we have a busy night,” he announced. “We are going to hijack the six backbone servers of the VNet, secure the 13 levels of VNet real estate and secure the data holdings of the five biggest companies on VNet and real life,” he gazed at them from the dark depths of his hood. “Tonight, you put a hold on your own dreams and plans and follow me.”

  He paused for effect before his voice boomed. “Tonight, we conquer VNet and the world!”

  36

  Jones, Rania, Edward and Rick alternated their work on the Stasis Can for nearly four hours before they finally broke it. Once free, Jones informed them that she had only one hour max in left her suit and that she would suit off, then suit on again from her apartment in her UN regimental suit. She vowed to join the five to get to the bottom of what was happening, not the least of why Jamal Yu hadn’t intervened in their breakout.

  After she suited off, the five marked the spot in the memory of their suits then uploaded to their team HQ to discuss their next move.

  “I think Mr. Yu is suited and since it is night,” Mario said. “I think we can enter the palace and approach Edward in real life.”

  “Why?” Edward looked at him with puzzlement.

  “Because I think I can heal you,” Mario replied, his voice confident.

  “Well, it’s w
orth a shot, Edward,” said Dana.

  “But if father finds you there…” the word trailed off in Edward’s mouth.

  “Nothing worse than what he intends to do to us anyway,” Rick said. “He already plans vengeance for breaking into his vault and trying to drop him in his own invention.”

  “I say we go for it,” Rania said emphatically. “We will all end up in servitude anyway, at least this way we go with a smile.”

  “And a clear conscience that we did all that we could for a friend,” Mario added.

  “OK, I can at least make your mission a little bit easier,” Edward added. He liked the idea of healing without depending on the nanites for more weeks on end. “When we suit off, I will send you my own AI-powered streetcar, the Tesla 10k.”

  “I always wanted to take a ride in one of those ridiculously expensive cars,” Dana laughed.

  “OK, then it is settled,” Mario reached behind his shoulder to suit off. “Meet you at my house then.”

  They all suited off as well.

  *

  Half an hour before midnight, the Valhalla Greatest team members gathered around Edward’s bed. He was apparently in great pain.

  “The nanites can’t work in the presence of pain killers,” he swallowed and continued, “so, I log on for almost 20 hours a day to avoid this pain.”

  “Don’t worry my friend,” Mario placed his hands on Edward’s forehead and under the base of his neck. “I will start now.”

  After a few seconds, he removed his hands.

  “The pain should stop now,” he panted as if he’d been running. “I also stopped the nanites because they were interfering with my attempts. The damage is intense, and I think the nanites made it worse. They ate all the severed nerves to replace them with their own bodies eventually. You would have depended on them for continued health for the rest of your life.”

  “I know,” Edward said. “The cost might be high for nanite healing, but it is nothing in comparison to the cost of maintaining them in your body.”

  “All right,” Mario rubbed his hands together. “I need something very high in sugars, a stool and somebody to lend me some of their energy.”

  Dana rushed to the InstaFood machine and dialed a very sweet mango cocktail; Rania brought a high-backed chair to Edward’s bed and piled it with cushions for Mario to sit on, while Rick stood beside Mario offering his hand to allow him to draw life energy to heal their friend.

  Mario placed his hands on Edward again and closed his eyes. His face became a rictus of concentration. Sweat beaded on his forehead and coalesced to form tiny rivulets that ran down his face to his neck.

  Edward moaned softly as the nerves in his severed spinal cord started to grow, joining the two parts of his nervous system; in a minute his shoulders began trembling and in five his feet twitched. After 10 minutes, Mario collapsed from his chair taking Rick with him.

  It took another five minutes for them to come back to their senses. They found Dana disconnecting the machines from Edward, who helped as much as he could by pulling the wires and tubes from all over his body. Within minutes the tall young man sat up on the edge of the bed to Rania’s delighted squeals.

  On shaky legs, Edward stood and went over to hug Mario and Rick.

  “Thank you, thank you very much,” he said, tears welling in his eyes. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to return the favor.”

  Silence fell over the room, broken only by the soft hissing of the support machines.

  “Rich boy, this calls for a celebration,” Rania said as she wiped the tears from her eyes. “You must have the best of rare handmade food and beverages in this palace, aren’t you going to offer us some?”

  “Yes, we have real beer and cheese,” he grinned. “In the annex wing of the house where my father has his development studio, we have a special storage unit for real handmade cheese and beer. Enough to last us till next week!”

  “So,” Dana looked at him expectantly. “What are you waiting for? Lead the way, Edward.”

  He led them through a side door and down onto the ground floor, before entering a long corridor to the annex wing of the palace.

  “Strange,” said Edward, as he looked around. “All the rooms are alight; father never allows that unless the staff is working on new software.”

  Rania opened the door to her right and pointed inside.

  “Um… there are four men logged on here.”

  37

  The others rushed to look inside and Edward, his face pale, went to one of the monitors that register where the occupants of the suits are in VNet and what they’re doing. Rick went to check the other rooms and saw more men in VNet suits logged into the grid.

  “This is not just strange … wait!” Edward said, hushing everybody as the Hooded Man appeared on the monitor with a small army gathering around him.

  “It can’t be!” Mario shouted when he heard the voice of the Hooded Man. He leaned close to the monitor for a better look.

  “What is it!?” Edward asked.

  Mario shakes his head as though to ward off a bad dream.

  “This man,” he said, pointing at the screen, “has the exact voice of my brother, right down to his lisp on the letter R.”

  “Whoever he is,” Dana pointed out, “they are standing in the place we were held in.”

  “Let’s see which layer of VNet this place is situated.” Edward typed fast commands and a map of the 13 layers of VNet formed on the holo monitor. An arrow denoting the location of the small army and its mysterious leader was well outside the boundaries of the VNet.

  “So, the legends are real,” Rania said in a tone of amazement. “The redundancy zones really do exist.”

  “Your father must be in over his head Edward,” Dana said in a shrill voice. “Taking over the world is some seriously crazy shit.”

  “Should we do something about this?” Rick asked. “Or just call Miss Jones and let her deal with it?”

  “I think leaving it to Jones ends up usually in somebody getting their spinal cord fried or worse,” Rania said.

  “I think I can reason with my father,” Edward said hopefully. “I think whatever hold this mysterious man in the hood has over him, I can reach through and stop him from following.”

  “OK, so,” Dana said, “we go in guns blazing?”

  “We don’t actually have guns,” Edward said to her.

  “My point exactly,” Dana continued. “We don’t have guns, so we can’t face this army on VNet and expect to pass through unscathed.”

  “We are not harmless either,” Rick pointed out. “We have our abilities for one.”

  “We also have inside intelligence on their operation,” Edward added.

  “And the element of surprise,” Rania said.

  “I think we can at least slow their plan down a bit,” Mario added. “We know they want to attack the six backbones, and this would at least take three-quarters of their coding power to do, which leaves small groups trying to solidify their hold on the 13 levels of VNet.”

  “Make it nine levels,” Rick added. “The top and bottom maintenance levels are going to fall automatically if they take the six backbones, and the two sub hub levels above and below are only residential space for places like our HQ. That only leaves the hub and the other eight commercial space tiers.”

  “Shouldn’t we protect the backbones as a primary target?” Dana asked.

  “Not really,” Edward answered her. “The backbones are just for address sorting and archiving machinery, each with a full copy of the VNet on them,” he added. “If they fall the problem is that the backup copy of the VNet would not be reached, but if we can keep the VNet operational, even if they control the backbones it doesn’t really matter. They normally run in the background as a request for restore goes to them.”

  “So why are they attacking them in the first place?” Dana asked, confused.

  “Ransom tactics maybe?” Rick said. “If they damage the VNet in any way, the backbones
will restore it to what it was within an hour, so this is when the man in the hood could make his demands. The global financial crisis would be child’s play in comparison to what could happen if he gains control.”

  “OK, seems like a plausible theory,” Rania turned to Edward. “So, if we should protect a part of the nine tiers, which one should it be?”

  “It would need access to the security infrastructure of VNet,” Rick said. “We wouldn’t know who even to approach since the nine tiers have at least a hundred or so different security operators.”

  “I know who can help with that,” Dana smiled. “I will call on her and see where we go from there.”

  Rania groaned loudly.

  38

  “So, let me get this straight,” Jones addressed the five gathered around her in Yu’s palace. “You brought me here to log onto VNet for something massive that you can’t tell me anything about until we are actually logged in… and we have to risk experimental suits that Edward developed before falling into his coma but were never tested… and finally that I should not notify Central for risk of tipping off the bad guys with critical information.”

  “Sounds about right,” Dana smiled brilliantly. “You got it in one sister.”

  “What the heck is this critical information?” Jones all but shouted.

  “Honestly it’s big,” Rania told her. “And we are at least 30 minutes behind.”

  “Behind what?” Jones fumed.

  “The huge event transpiring as we waste time talking,” Dana said.

  “Which you need me for but won’t tell me anything about,” Jones turns to leave. “Sorry guys, but I am about to discover the identity of the people behind your comas and the injury to Edward. Who by the way, seems to have really benefitted from the nanite therapy. Glad to see you up again big guy.”

  “Oh, don’t worry honey,” Dana pulled her back in. “We know their identities, and this is far bigger than them.”