by Paul Anlee
As her eyes adjusted to the dimming light, the bamboo walls that had been adjacent to the bed changed into damp, pitted bricks with rotting grout pretending to hold it together.
The fourth wall, the one with the door to freedom, transformed into rusty iron bars running from floor to ceiling. An iron grate door complete with antiquated lock stood firmly closed in the middle of the bars, denying her exit.
This is insane. Have I lost my mind or is this all just another one of Trillian’s illusions?
More cries rose from behind the flaming wall with its single window looking into a smoke-filled chamber. Mary supposed it was meant to remind her of the mythological Hell.
Okay, don’t panic—she reminded herself. Keep calm and figure your way out. Everything you see is virtual reality programming; it’s just a game.
She touched the burning wall to prove that it was only an illusion.
She gasped and snatched her hand back. Nope, that hurts! It’s real!
Real enough, in any case. She screwed up her nose at the smell of singed arm hair, and examined the angry red skin on her hand. No blisters, at least.
I don’t understand. None of this should be possible. What happened to the Vacationland safety controls and backup systems? I have to get out of here before Trillian kills me. For real.
She walked over to examine the iron bars. Just as she came within reach, the broad wooden floor planks beneath her started dropping away. Mary leaped the final step and clung to the rusty bars at the edge of the chamber.
A huge chasm, several meters wide and hundreds of meters deep opened up in the floor. The walls of the cell extended downward and merged into the rocky sides of the abyss. As they careened into nothingness, the newly liberated floor planks marked their descent with a receding “clunk, tunk, tunk.”
Mary closed her eyes and pressed herself backward into the imprisoning bars as hard as she could, and willed herself not to join the falling boards.
Her eyes searched frantically for a solution--something to hold onto, somewhere to leap.
There was nothing within reach. The entire floor was gone. No ledge. No handholds.
So…why am I not falling?
She lowered one foot and gingerly probed where the floor had been.
Her foot met resistance. It’s all an illusion! The floor under my feet is still there, it just doesn’t look like it. Take a deep breath, count to ten, and test it out—she ordered herself.
She added a little weight, but was ready to pull back.
It’s solid!
Her breath tumbled out in a whoosh of relief. Okay!
She took another breath and stepped out onto the invisible barrier cautiously, ready to leap to safety if it gave way. Don’t look down—she told herself, but she couldn’t help it.
Over the next few days, the effect repeated itself at frequent, though random, intervals. Each time, she tested it first with a tentative foot, then with full weight and, finally, jumping up and down. As she gained confidence, the planks would magically reappear.
Try as she might, she couldn’t overcome her fear of falling every time the floor appeared to open up. Her heart lurched and she’d scramble for the edge of her prison.
Every time she tested it, the transparent boundary held but she didn’t trust it enough to ignore the apparent danger next time it changed. Instinct told her the barrier could become insubstantial at Trillian’s whim. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t fallen. It was nerve-wracking to anticipate a fall that never came.
In the meantime, she focused on her breathing, the walls, and the ceiling. It was the only way to avoid the spiders that fell from the rafters into her hair or that dropped in front of her on long, silvery threads.
Except, if she didn’t keep a constant watch on the floor, there was a good chance her next step would land on a waddling rat, a fat cockroach, or a snake that looked as unhappy to be there as she was. Unknown things slithered and scrabbled from dark holes in one wall, skittered across the floor, and disappeared into holes in the crumbling mortar on the other wall.
Twice, a vicious, snarling dog dashed out and grabbed a two-headed rodent in its jaws. Both times, Mary yelped and hopped onto a high table with more agility than she’d have thought possible. She couldn’t ignore a vicious charging dog no matter how hard she tried to convince herself it couldn’t harm her.
As the days wore on, she paced the floor, trying to think her way out of her predicament. It’s more of a dungeon, really. Obviously, Trillian prefers the darker interrogation methods—she noted. What on Earth was I thinking, tackling him like that? What did I expect would happen?
With every lap of the room, she chastised herself for saving Timothy from Trillian’s clutches. Even if it was the right thing to do.
On a rational level, she knew the environment—inspired by the legends of pre-technology Earth Origin—was intended to provoke fear and keep her mentally off balance. She’d played enough inworld games featuring the bygone eras of the sword, bow-and-arrow, and torture devices to recognize the equipment surrounding her.
When her exploration of the room took her near one of the terror-inducing devices, it would start up on its own. Wheels spun, spikes rolled, and chains tightened at the direction of unseen hands.
After a few days of jumping in shock at every unexpected clatter and horror, she settled into a part of the room with the greatest average distance from devices, hugged her knees, and let her tears stream freely.
Everything is going to be okay. Darya’s doing everything she can to get me out, everything in her power. Then again, they’d never dealt with the likes of Trillian.
If she even made it out alive, herself—a little voice in her subconscious reminded her. Good point. She had to accept that Darya might never come for her. She blew her nose onto the floor, sniffed and, between sobs, caught the slightest whisper of movement. Someone’s in here with me.
She wiped her dripping nose with the back of her hand and cocked her head to listen.
Something strong, furry, and smelly rubbed against her back. With a yelp, she sprang from her resting spot and batted the air around her body. There was nothing there. It was only another trick but her skin still crawled, nonetheless.
Exhausted, she finally slumped to the floor and let her eyes close for a moment. She was so tired. She felt herself sinking into slumber and gave herself over to the welcome sensation.
Feathers brushed against her cheek. Confused, she struggled to open her heavy eyelids.
A fluffy bouquet of gaudy, fluorescent feathers, waggled inches from her nose. Black duct tape bound the radiant bouquet to the end of a long stick. At the other end of the stick stood a clown. She hated clowns.
The clown pulled the stick back to one side with both hands on the handle, preparing to strike her.
Mary jerked fully alert in a flash, eyes wide, and hands up to deflect a blow that never came. An air horn blatted; she cringed and covered her ears. When she looked up, the clown was gone.
At other times, moans, groans, whimpers, and screams came from outside her cell door. The voices sounded familiar, those of friends and colleagues. She doubted they were real either, but they served as constant reminders of the agony that awaited her when Trillian decided to employ the torture devices.
It’s not them—she told herself. Darya and Timothy escaped. You saw them go. Gerhardt is dead. It’s not really them you hear; it only sounds like them. It couldn’t be them. Could it?
The relentless and unpredictable terror prevented rest and coherent thinking. Trillian’s technique was ridiculously obvious, but effective.
Mary drifted into a fitful sleep, popping awake when she heard footsteps approaching her cell and an iron key grating as it slid into the old, rusty lock. Each time, her eyes popped open and she peered into the darkness, trying to see who was there. But nobody entered.
It’s a game of wills. Once Trillian’s satisfied I’ve been adequately sensitized, once I’m a blubbering mess, he’
ll arrive and make good on his implicit threat to deliver pain.
She focused on staying calm. Darya will rescue me as soon as she can. She repeated the assurance, her new mantra, over and over, desperately wanting to believe it. Her hope and resolve were eroding under the constant horrors of the cell. Rescue was unlikely. She knew that.
Trillian would come for her soon, and she’d have no strength left to resist.
5
DARAK AND BROTHER STRALASI MATERIALIZED a light year away from the exploding suns and the decimated triple ringworlds.
The last thing Stralasi remembered was a brilliant light, searing heat, and a powerful “WHOMP!” that buffeted him mercilessly. He felt for broken bones, and was surprised not to find any.
“What happened?” he groaned.
Darak didn’t answer right away. He was crouched on the patch of dirt that had been transported inside their protective bubble. His head rested in his hands, and he appeared to be focusing his full attention on breathing. When he finally answered, he did not look at Stralasi.
“Something I would not have believed, had I not experienced it for myself,” was all he offered.
Stralasi looked on with concern, both for Darak and for what observing his companion in this “very human” moment meant for their combined wellbeing. The illusion of invincibility was shattered.
The Good Brother, a comforting father figure to many on his planet, felt like a child glimpsing vulnerability in his own father for the first time. Stralasi realized that Darak was neither Angel nor demon but a man.
What do I do with that?
“I remember an intense light at the end of the battle,” the monk babbled, trying to shake off the thought before it could take hold. “And…and…something pushing us—stronger than anything I’ve ever felt—and the next thing I knew, we were here. Was I unconscious?”
“No,” Darak rasped, “but you…we…were nearly killed.”
Stralasi gulped. We? The word sank to the pit of his stomach. So he is a man after all, not a god. He’s fallible, and he holds my life in his hands.
“I didn’t think you could be killed,” Stralasi confessed.
“Yes, I can be destroyed. If luck hadn’t been on our side, both of us might have ended our journey there.”
“But you were winning. We almost escaped.”
“We were close, but Alum must have figured out I wasn’t one of them.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought I’d hidden my abilities from Him. I fought like an Angel would. An advanced Angel, to be sure, but I was careful not to give away that I was anything other than an Angel. It was a pretty convincing performance, if I do say so myself.”
“How did He figure it out?”
“Either He recognized me, or He deduced my real nature. Either way, He had no qualms about sacrificing three suns, their magnificent ringworlds, and the hundreds of billions of lives that lived there, simply to destroy me, to prevent me from getting away.”
Stralasi slumped down beside Darak. There was no way to reconcile his belief in Alum’s love for His People with this knowledge.
“Why would He do such a thing?”
A dark and cynical, “Hah,” escaped Darak’s mouth. “When the entire universe is a short while from annihilation and re-Creation, what do a few billion or trillion human lives matter to the…All Powerful?” The bitterness in his voice both chilled and saddened Stralasi.
“Are you sure they’re dead?”
“Completely sure. Along with the Angels he deployed. All gone.”
“But that’s insane!”
“Exactly.”
Stralasi played with the dirt at his feet. “But if the Angels were destroyed, how did we escape? Their jump blocking de-co…de-co…thing had us trapped, didn’t it?”
“The quantum decoherence field? Yes, it had us trapped until right before the end. When the explosions hit, the flash of light moved ahead of the worst of the heat and radiation. When it struck the Angels behind me, I noticed the field go down and I took countermeasures. We jumped through the heart of a supernova.”
“Thank God.”
Darak scowled. “Seriously? Through all of this, have you not yet learned that your ‘God’ is someone to be condemned, not praised?”
“I mean…. I just meant…. How do you know He didn’t transfer them to safety first? The people, I mean. Maybe he got them out first.”
Darak cocked one eyebrow and glared. “No, He didn’t. He intentionally destroyed hundreds of billions of cognitive beings just like us. He could have moved them, or us, or waited for a better opportunity to catch me. He could have, but He didn’t. And here you are, thanking Him for your escape?”
Chastised, Stralasi muttered, “It’s just an expression.”
Darak’s face softened. “We were lucky this time. You were practically insubstantial in this universe when the shock front hit and, even though Alum figured out some of my abilities, He underestimated me. We won’t be so lucky next time.”
“I’m grateful to you,” Stralasi offered contritely. “You said He might’ve recognized you. Do you know each other?”
“I once cooperated with Alum on some projects but that was a very long time ago. I don’t look the same as I did back then, and I don’t respond to any of my old identity codes. I would’ve thought that after so many millions of years my name would no longer mean anything to him. The Realm is full of names.”
“So you didn’t always oppose His wishes?” Stralasi asked.
Darak eyed him for any antagonistic intent, but the gentle sincerity in the Good Brother’s voice and gaze won him over. It reminded the traveller of simpler times, and he eased back.
“No, our relationship has been long and complex,” he explained. “At times, we were mortal enemies and, at other times, allies. But the Aelu changed that forever.”
“The war?” Stralasi asked.
“Yes, and given today’s events, it looks like He’s as ruthless as ever.”
Stralasi barely heard. The cumulative weight of such enormous loss—three glorious suns, three ringworlds, and billions of conscious souls—along with irrefutable dark revelations about his beloved Alum, overwhelmed the monk and his head sank in sorrow.
Is there nothing to be salvaged from such tragedy and loss?—he wondered. He could imagine no coming back from this day; all he could do was place his trust in Darak.
Darak stood and brushed the dirt from his hands. He put on an optimistic face so they could both begin to move forward. “On the bright side, I now have a pretty good idea where the thing I’m looking for is,” he announced.
“I hope it’s worth it, that thing you’re looking for.”
“So do I,” Darak replied. “It was once known as the Eater. You might have encountered the legends about it in your studies. If my hypothesis is right, it may hold something dear to me and vital to our quest.”
“Well, we might as well get started,” Stralasi said. “Lead the way.”
6
MEGABIT BY SLUGGISH MEGABIT, Darya returned to her trueself.
The ancient, unused broadband transmission channel had been excruciatingly slow but it was reliable, even after millennia without servicing.
She activated passive visual sensors and braced herself for action. Who knows what I’ll find outside?
The recharging station crater was illuminated by the diffuse light of millions of stars near the center of the Milky Way. It was never truly dark in this region. At the moment, the dim light suited her fine. She was grateful she didn’t need to activate her radar.
Darya had docked in her usual position near the rim of the deep depression in the asteroid surface. She didn’t want to be shut in, considering the Lysrandia fiasco and her narrow escape from Tertius. When she’d landed, other Cybrids had been recharging nearby while enjoying their favorite inworld entertainments. The crater could hold almost twenty thousand docked Cybrids at a time.
How many of their minds are trap
ped in Alternus?—she wondered.
The popularity and high capacity of this recharging station was one of the reasons Darya had selected it for the first installation of Alternus. It guaranteed a steady supply of potential new recruits to the cause. Her concepta virus continuously sifted through the candidates and identified the most pliable.
She’d understated the strength of the virus code to Mary. She didn’t outright lie, she just didn’t reveal its full capabilities. So far, she’d used it only to insinuate increased openness, a willingness to consider anti-Alum messages, into the minds of the several million local Cybrids. She also neglected to mention how easy it would be to activate more aggressive and invasive features.
If only it was that easy to find Timothy.
By now, Timothy would have taken up residence inside Gerhardt’s emptied Concepta-Persona Processing Unit—his CPPU.
Gerhardt won’t need it again. She bit back bitter virtual tears as she remembered her friend and thought of how horribly he had died.
Once Timothy and Mary are safe, Trillian will pay—she vowed. She hoped Qiwei and Leisha had found their own ways out, or that they were laying low somewhere in Alternus.
Darya did nothing but watch for thirty minutes. There should be more traffic—she thought. At least one Cybrid leaving or arriving every few minutes. Since she’d woken up in her body, not a single Cybrid had moved and she hadn’t heard any navigation pings.
Trillian may have forbidden anyone to leave the local inworlds, maybe even ordered the Supervisors to lock everyone in place wherever they happened to be, not only those visiting Alternus. But that shouldn’t have stopped the steady stream of new arrivals to the recharging station. Darya spied a number of vacant bays ready to accept a Cybrid in search of electricity for their internal batteries. There were even a few mercury/anti-mercury propellant filling stations available.
Something is turning new arrivals away. Darya turned her attention outward to the space high above the crater. She didn’t dare use active radar; she broadened the range of her passive sensors across the electromagnetic spectrum and boosted sensitivity to the maximum.