The Rubidium Beach Series - Episodes 1 Through 4: Cyberpunk/Dystopian Science Fiction

by G. D. Blanton

  Junco asked, “What happened?”

  “The Plateau is still very new and the programming isn't as robust as the rest of Rubidium Beach. I thought that I'd be able to debug at my leisure – wasn't expecting any emergency situations,” Ani explained. “For some reason I can see exactly where the gang members are but cannot influence them in any way.”

  “Sounds like a permissions issue,” said Junco. “You can see or read but you cannot change code. Surely that is just a matter of flipping a virtual switch?”

  “That is what I thought. I've tried resetting the permissions but nothing changed. The problem isn't global, though. I can change some things on the Plateau but not others.”

  Teal changed the subject. “Skua, who were those other guys – the ones with the yellow suits.?”

  “Rival gang. Well, to be strictly accurate a splinter group. They split off from Mayhem about twenty years ago. Sometimes we are at war and sometimes there is a sort of a truce between us.” Skua added, “It does mean that word of Rubidium Beach has now spread beyond Mayhem. I think that you should assume that the entire population of Violencia now knows about the Beach.”

  “It was bound to happen,” said Ani.

  “What are we going to do about the ones on the Plateau?” asked Junco

  Ani responded, “We are probably going to have to kill them.”

  “That's a bit drastic,” said Scoter.

  “No other way unfortunately. I cannot exile them back to Violencia unless I can get them back into the Jupiter Moon or back down to Rubidium Beach proper.”

  “How about we go and find them and leave our options open? They are idiots for sure but a death sentence seems a bit harsh.”

  “Fair enough,” said Ani.

  The Transporter cube took them from the Moon to a half a mile or so inside the park. The front panel opened and the five of them looked out. There were around twenty gang members brawling on the path. The two factions were still going at it. The transporter had come to rest on the grass, about 50 feet away from the action.

  “Do they ever stop?” asked Teal of no one in particular.

  Skua attempted an answer. “They don't do well with change. Put them in a strange environment and they want to hurt people. Sad, really.”

  “I can see why you wanted out,” said Teal. “You seem to be a little to evolved for all of this.”

  The fact that Teal's eyes softened when she talked to Skua made Junco uncomfortable, but the reason for commanding the auto-surgeon to make Skua look ordinary was staying buried – for now at least.

  “Whatever you do, stay inside the transporter,” Ani instructed.

  There was a crackling and a flash of blue across the transporter opening. Junco attempted to put his hand through the opening. He may as well have been attempting to push gently through steel. Ani had put a force field between them and the outside world.

  Then something slammed into the force field. It was all claws, teeth and blinding speed. The creature tried to get into the transporter three more times before wandering off. The transporter's occupants had instinctively pushed themselves back, as far away from the opening as possible.

  “Don't worry,” said Ani. “We are perfectly safe in here.”

  Three more of the animals started to circle the transporter but none attacked. This was the first time that they had been moving slowly enough to see properly. They were death machines. At least three rows of long pointed teeth, very strongly muscled, without fur of any kind and with two forward pointing horns one above each other between the eyes.

  All of a sudden blue lightening crackled along the length of the footpath. The brawlers appeared to feel a bit of a jolt but it didn't stop them from fighting. What happened next did though. The animals that had been circling looked towards the path, took off at a blinding speed and launched themselves at the mob. Several more of the animals joined the other three. Thirty seconds later every gang member was dead.

  “The force field – that was to keep the animals off the path wasn't it?” Said Teal. “It was never designed to keep people off the grass.”

  “True,” said Ani. “The animals were never meant to be here. They are basically a virus. I put the force field up to keep them away from everything else until I had a chance to work out how to get rid of them.”

  “Do you think there is a connection between them and the word changes on the bar sign and the pins?” asked Teal

  “Very possible,” said Ani. “I have never had a problem with Rubidium Beach that I didn't understand almost immediately. Now I have two that I have been struggling with on and off for months in working time.”

  “Let's go back to the Moon.” suggested Junco.

  Skua took one last look at the remains of his compatriots. “Sounds good to me.”

  7. RUNNING REPAIRS

  A few customers had arrived in the Moon. These were all regulars, however, not a flashy neon suit or pointed toe shoe anywhere to be seen. This was the first time that any of them had seen the new super clean super modern version of the Moon and, by and large, they were not impressed. Bar regulars do not like change. 'If there is a universal truth then this is it,' thought Junco. Of course they had all entered from Downtown and none had thought to look out of the door marked 'Plateau'. Ani suggested that they did. “I thought Rubidium Beach could use a bit of green space,” he said, addressing the regulars as a group. Judging by the mumbled responses Junco guessed that green spaces were not high on this crowd's list of priorities.

  The group found a table that was likely out of earshot of any of the other patrons.

  “Are you Okay, Skua?” asked Teal

  Skua looked up from his glass. “Sure, why shouldn't I be?”

  Teal continued. “Well, you've just seen a lot of your people killed and maimed today.”

  “Not my people. Don't forget that everyone who came over from Violencia would have killed me without hesitation if they would have recognized me.” Skua looked across at Junco. “That cosmetic job? Thanks – it saved my life.”

  Junco replied simply. “No problem.”

  “Besides,” continued Skua. “Where I come from we are used to death. It really is a way of life for us. You get sharp, you get fast, and most importantly you get unsentimental. Otherwise you get dead.”

  Junco broke the silence. “I've never noticed that before.”

  “Noticed what?” Said Teal.

  Junco pointed at the Three dee holo-clock on the wall behind the bar. “The numbers are not numbers. They look like some sort of weird stick drawings.”

  Ani looked up. “They should be ordinary numerals. I have no idea what went wrong.”

  Skua looked perplexed. “They look like perfectly ordinary numbers to me.”

  “Ah that half explains things. The marks themselves are Violencian. Still no idea how they changed,” Ani said.

  Junco spoke next. “I assumed that universal translators were built into all the virtual Levels. The speech side of things is obviously working just fine otherwise we wouldn't be able to understand Skua.”

  Ani smiled. “You wouldn't be able to understand Teal either. Think about it, her people never left Level Minus One and your history and ancestry for the last thousand years is all Level Zero. Linguistically you are much further removed from Teal than you are from Skua.”

  “Makes sense as far as the virtual Levels go but how come we still all understand each other on Level Minus One?” Junco asked.

  Ani explained. “Nanobots interface with our implants. Pretty straightforward really.”

  “So, speech is being translated but there is a glitch with visual?” Queried Teal.

  Ani replied, “It is a bit more complicated than that.” Then added. “Junco, do me a favor and see what the sign outside says. Skua you go with him.”

  “Sure thing,” said Junco.

  “Well?” Asked Ani.

  Skua replied. “It is in Violencian, no question about it. It looks fine to me but like squiggles and
marks to Junco.”

  “Extremely ugly ones,” Junco added. Skua smiled.

  “I wonder if this is connected to the other problems, the wrong words on the pins and the sign and those animal things,” said Ani almost under his breath. Then his eyes lit up. “Skua, I never thought to ask. Did you recognize those animals, the ones in the park?”

  “Of course, they are colatoos. Surprised to see them here, I must admit.”

  “Stuff is bleeding through between the Levels,” said Ani.

  Junco looked at Ani. “Stuff? Is that a technical term?”

  Ani smiled, “Its just about all I've got at the moment. Seriously though, it is obviously a code leak but beyond that I have nothing.”

  “Do you think that you may be able to fix it?” asked Teal.

  Ani nodded. “Possibly, I am going to disappear for a few minutes of your time to give it a go. Try not to miss me too much. Oh and one last thing, I would stay in the Jupiter Moon if I were you. While you are here no harm will come to you but beyond the door may be a different story.” With that his eyes glazed over and he was gone.

  The next fifteen minutes were possibly the strangest in the history of the Jupiter Moon. The place was a kind of portal between Levels and a basis of operation for Ani so a certain amount of weird stuff was to be expected – but this was something else.

  Gravity, or rather pseudo gravity, was the first thing to go. The tables and seating and bar stayed where they were as was fixed to the floor but just about everything else rose slowly towards the ceiling. Then gravity returned and the down journey was a lot faster and a lot less pleasant than the up one. It was also much noisier. There was no serious damage to any of the group but the floor was covered in broken glass.

  Junco dusted off a stool and sat down. The others followed suit. “Well, that was interesting. Anyone hurt?”

  Teal responded, “I'm fine, just a few minor cuts and bruises.”

  “No damage here at all,” said Scoter. Skua just gave a thumbs up and smiled.

  Before the group could get fully comfortable five animals entered the bar through the Plateau entrance. These were nowhere near as fierce-looking as the colatoos encountered earlier. They were very round with six short legs and covered in black fur. Their snouts were pointed and their teeth looked sharp. They were roughly as big as a medium-sized dog. One of their number waddled over to the group, looked up and said as clear as day. 'What fresh hell is this?”

  Junco and the others looked at Skua. They did not need to speak. “They are doladrems,” Said Skua. “And yes, they are from my Level.”

  Junco spoke for the others. “But they talk!”

  “Hey, we are in the room,” said the lead doladrem. The voice was guttural and not pleasant on Junco's ear but the words were unmistakable.

  “Please excuse us,” said Scoter. “No offense meant.”

  Skua whispered something into a hole in the middle of the doladrem's head and then the five animals disappeared. Not through the door, but rather into thin air.

  “What did you say to it?” asked Junco.

  Skua looked nonplussed. “Say to what?”

  “This is not the time to be dicking around,” said Junco sharply.

  Skua replied, “Seriously I don't have a clue what you are talking about.”

  Judging by the others expressions, neither did they.

  “So no one saw any animals in here?”

  “None at all,” said Teal. The others nodded in agreement.

  Junco decided to give it one last try. “Skua, do you know what a doladrem is?”

  “Sure, black furry ball-shaped animals that talk. They make great pets.”

  “Well,” said Junco, “I saw five of them in this room.”

  “This has to be connected to whatever Ani is doing in the White Room,” said Teal.

  Junco noticed that Scoter was now staring into space and completely oblivious to the conversation that the rest of them were having. Ten seconds or so later Scoter's focus snapped back to the rest of the group. “That was incredible.” No one else had any idea of what was incredible. Apparently Scoter had been watching a solo performance by one of the greatest violin players ever. The player had been dead for hundreds of years.

  “We need to be on our guard,” said Junco. “Literally anything can happen to any of us. We don't appear to be sharing a common view of this virtual space anymore, so we have to watch out for each other. I just hope that Ani is watching rendered versions of his changes and not just the ones and zeroes.”

  Then everything went black. Junco had no way of knowing if he was the only one experiencing this latest change or if the lights had gone out for everyone. He reasoned that asking the others wouldn't tell him anything as a positive response could easily just be part of the hallucination. The next thing that Junco heard was the sound of running water. The next thing that he felt was his feet getting wet. Then his shins. Then his knees and lap. The water was rising incredibly fast and there was still no light. He hadn't heard anything from the others which made him suspect that this was a private as opposed to public hallucination. All he had to do was hold his nerve. The rising water lifted him off his seat and Junco knew that he was heading for the ceiling for a second time. Less than a minute later he felt a gentle bump on the top of his head. Seconds later the ceiling was pressing on Junco's nose. The water closed the final gap.

  This was normal water though. It wasn't the heavy, viscous stuff of the metallic sea. This gave Junco a little hope. He began to swim, in what he hoped was the direction of the door. Junco realized that the odds were against him, trying to hit a target several feet away in the pitch black without knowing his starting position was not going to be straightforward. Yet it was. He got to the door, which was somehow open, and swam through it. He was suddenly out of the water. In the building he was in the water and outside the building everything was dry. It was still pitch black, though.

  Then a light came on in the Jupiter Moon and the water was gone – there one second and gone the next. Junco remembered what Ani had said about staying inside the Jupiter Moon, and walked briskly back inside. The others were sitting around and chatting as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

  “Good to see you back, Junco,” said Teal. “You were out of it for a second there. Anything interesting happen?”

  “Very weird. I'll tell you about it sometime. How about here?”

  “Everything good here. Since Ani went off to the White Room everything has been as normal as it ever is here,” said Teal.

  Junco was now pretty sure that this whole thing was his own private VR show. He wondered if the others were all having their own unique production. Not much choice but to roll with it and hope that Ani finishes soon.

  Then Ani was back. “Hi, well that was interesting.”

  Junco spoke. “How do we know that this is not a hallucination for want of a better word?”

  “You don't,” Ani said.

  “Not helpful,” Junco responded.

  Ani laughed. “I know, but it is true. I know that you are not hallucinating but there is no way for you to know for sure. Don't forget, this is all virtual anyway, all of it. The only difference between the normal day to day Rubidium Beach and what you just experienced was that Rubidium Beach is a shared hallucination. Your recent experiences were strictly personal.”

  Junco took a second to process this. “Seems like I have no choice but to take you at your word. What about the others?” He asked, looking around.

  Ani spoke for the group. “Yes, everyone of you experienced different realities – some more exotic than others.” Junco noticed Scoter coloring up.

  Junco pressed. “Why, though?”

  “I had to take Rubidium Beach offline for a while – your brains, implants and other inputs simply filled the vacuum.”

  “Why didn't you just tell us drop down to a different Level for the duration?” asked Junco.

  “I needed you all on this Level while I was runnin
g diagnostics. There was a very small possibility that one of you could have been the problem.”

  “And was one of us the problem?” asked Junco.

  “No,” Ani replied. “I am fairly sure that is not the case.”

  Junco let the 'fairly sure' part of Ani's response slide. “Well Ani, don't keep us in suspense. What have you found out?”

  8. OSMIUM AND MIASMA

  “As you know, each second here is the equivalent of over sixteen minutes in the White Room...”

  Teal cut Ani off. “Yes, yes, you were gone for two hundred and fifty hours White Room or working time, give or take. Roughly a month of eight hour days.”

  “What you don't know Teal,” said Ani, sounding agitated, “is that I called on the help of a couple of friends. They were with me working on the problem for the whole time.”

  “Okay. Sorry to be so impatient.” Teal appeared to be genuinely contrite.

  “Who were these friends?” asked Junco.

  Ani replied. “That doesn't really matter for now. Maybe when the pressure is off we can all get together. I think that you would like them.”

  “Sounds good,” said Junco. “Looking forward to it already.”

  Ani continued. “As you know, I took Rubidium Beach offline. This was to stop any data or other code getting in or out. We then ran loads of internal diagnostics of course but we also put some sophisticated and undetectable bits of code across all possible entrances and exits. This code can best be described as a very sophisticated electronic trip wire with one major difference: However good the intruder is, he or it will never be aware that they have tripped the wire. I didn't want whoever or whatever was causing the problems to know that I was on to them.”

  “Hang on a second,” said Scoter. “Aren't you burying the lede here? You are saying that an outside entity is responsible for the errors? If you are, that is news to us.”

  Ani replied, “I was almost a hundred percent sure from the word go. The appearance of the Colatoos was the first hint. I've never intentionally coded anything that monstrous in my life.”