DOWN WORLD
PROPHECY
MICHAEL CLARK
Copyright © 2017 by Michael Clark
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
CONTENTS
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Foreword
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
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FOREWORD
Hello,
This is episode one of season one in a Sci-Fi serial. We publish about every three weeks and there are ten episodes planned in this season.
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PROLOGUE
Space, the stars, a dream of humanity for millennia. With our tentative steps into the cosmos, we came to know that we are adapted both physically and mentally to the earth. But the eco-disasters of the 21st century that extended their devastation into the 22nd, all but guaranteed that the only place for the human race was space. We worked tirelessly to adapt, but scientists and doctors came to understand that there was something malignant about space itself that affected the mind. So man clung to the solar system, unable to go further, unable to go home. Virtual reality was the answer. Offering us respite from the vast expanses of the dark and the cramped confinement of the small envelopes of atmosphere we created. A limitless unspoiled home for our mind. We sought ways to link the mind directly to VR. Neural relay technology was the next step, but again our bodies were too frail and our mind too weak to withstand it. Dr. Jerome Atkinson was the man that finally developed the means to make it safe. Mapping the brain of individuals for the first time into the NR core and developing the so-called free-will algorithm to control it. Soon we developed avatar androids to make the vacuum of space safe. It seemed to be the perfect synergy of man and machine. Some, just want to step into the cosmos without limits. But there are those that want more, to step into the shoes of God himself.
CHAPTER 1
The sound of the shower came into focus first, then the sensation of light as it slowly got brighter. The sweet sound of singing came from the shower, soft and melodic humming. The sheets were warm, and he had no desire to get up. The smell of coffee found his senses as he opened his eyes. Perhaps he would get up and join her in the shower. But, as he sat up, the shower turned off. Moments later she appeared wearing a towel and started to look through the closet.
"I thought we would spend the day together?" He said half asking.
"I know, sorry, I've been called in," she said.
"Can't you just tell them no?" He asked.
"Jerome, we have talked about this, you know I can't," she said.
Now selecting a suit and a set of shoes she dropped her towel and set off to 'do her face' as it were. Jerome got up to pick up the towel and hang it up.
"Let's have breakfast. Before you go," Jerome said.
"No time, I will just grab some coffee, sorry," She sounded apologetic but what did it matter. Jerome looked at the kitchen, neat clean and white like the rest of the apartment. Why did it all feel so sterile? He knew the answer of course, on a space station that's just how things were. It seemed to apply to his relationships as well.
"Are they upgrading the station's status soon?" Jerome asked to make conversation.
"Next week, after adding the concentrator modules we will be at 16 billion tons, we will go from station to colony ship," Julia said.
Jerome headed to the kitchen; coffee now smelled too good to pass up. Jerome's phone started to ring and dance on the counter where it sat on the charging pad. It could wait, it bounced annoyingly for five rings and stopped. He assumed it had gone to the message service. He poured the coffee and started to take a sip when he heard Julia's phone ring across the apartment, only once, and then he heard her say hello to it.
A moment later Julia appeared in the kitchen, half dressed and annoyed. "Looks like the master calls for us all today, next time answer the damn phone, I'm not your secretary," Julia said. It didn't take much to trigger her and Jerome seemed to have a talent for it.
"Hello, this is Dr. Atkinson, who's this?" Jerome asked.
"It's Steve at the lab. You need to get down here the damn matrix is having a meltdown again."
"What, it can't be, we are only just in primary run status," said Jerome.
"I don't know." The silence rang in Jerome's ears, of course, the lab didn't know, it was his job to know.
"OK, I will be there in an hour, it will take that long to get there. I will remote into the core and see what's happening on the way," said Jerome.
"I wouldn't bother, the NR-Core has gone dark again, I can't get in from the lab either," Said Steve.
"OK, I will be there soon, see you," Jerome said hanging up.
"Trouble in paradise?" asked Julia now fully dressed and grabbing a travel mug.
"The NR core went dark, and the player is destabilizing again," Said Jerome.
"Well, we can't have that," Julia said with a curt tone.
"See you later?" Jerome asked.
"Maybe, I will have to see," Julia said.
"Call me then," said Jerome.
Julia did not respond and headed out the door with her coffee picking up her briefcase as she went. Jerome looked at the time; he had to hurry. Just have to put on some shorts and grab his backpack. Leaving the coffee he had poured to sit on the counter.
CHAPTER 2
Jerome made his way to the lobby of the building he lived in. It was buzzing with activity. There was never a shortage of people about at any time. Shifters they called them, they took care of most of the station's systems at all times. He looked at the Chron, sixth shift. As a prime or first Shift, He had not expected to be up now much less heading to work.
"Hello, Dr. Atkinson. What brings you out this late?" Asked the manager in the lobby.
"Work I'm afraid. No rest for the wicked. Do you know when the train goes offline for maintenance?" asked Jerome.
"In segment four? I think it should be the seventh shift, in about a quarter turn," The manager said.
"Not much time, if I miss this I will have to go around, I've no love for a 360 km ride tonight," Jerome said.
"I see, well, it will be tight a lot of people rushing at the last minute," The manager said. Looking toward the door, motioning to a young man. "I have a solution," said the manager.
"Are you sure, I don't want to be any trouble," said Jerome. It was the polite response.
"nonsense, no trouble at all," said the manager.
"Leroy, would you be so kind as to fetch the buildings car? Dr. Atkinson will need you to drive him
to work.
"The young man jumped into action, grabbing the keys to the car from behind the counter and disappearing through some doors that said sub-level 2.
"Will there be anything else," Asked the manager.
"No, thank you," Said Jerome.
He headed outside just in time to see the young man pull up with the vehicle. The train would have been faster, since it traveled on the inner ring, but only by ten or fifteen minutes. Very few people used cars, they were mostly just used to distribute food and other commodities.
"Have you driven one of these much?" Jerome asked.
"Define much," Leroy said and smiled at him as Jerome got in.
Jerome decided to close his eyes and hope for the best. As the car sped over the outer ring highway, Jerome searched his mind for anything that could be causing the NR-Core to fail.
CHAPTER 3
Jerome felt he was being watched. Which was disconcerting enough until he realized the driver kept glancing at him and only intermittently at the road.
"You that guy that runs the core?" asked Leroy.
"Pardon?" asked Jerome, having only half registered the comment.
"The core, they say you invented it."
"Ah, no. The core has been around for a lot longer than I have. I wrote the NR opcode. LifeWell, the first NR core world," said Jerome.
"Oh wow. I love LifeWell. The women are so hot, and they seem so lifelike," Said Leroy.
"Really? You do understand that The NR-core is mostly people like you, interacting. Because of safety protocols, Core NPC are not allowed to interact with people, only act as directive avatar or sidekicks in range games. LifeWell is a good game, I grant you. But those 'hot' women are just other people, and many are probably not women at all," said Jerome.
That shut Leroy up, the thought seemed to unsettle him a little. Jerome went back to thinking about the core issues. He missed the days of working on LifeWell, the game was relatively simple in comparison to his current project to shadow the core. Every year Saturn Station had to shut down for two months as Saturn eclipsed the earth and the core went down.
But after a while it just made his head hurt. He took a break and looked out the atmo field to the side of the track the car ran on. Saturn dominated the view, its banded rings were an awesome sight. He was still a bit tired, and the ride was not helping. Jerome closed his eyes again and rested his head.
"Hey, we are here," said Leroy nudging him. The nudge startled him awake, he had nodded off. Jerome pulled out his phone and looked at the time. He was three minutes ahead of the train. Leroy must have flown down the ring, he thanked God now that he had fallen asleep.
"What's your service number?" asked Jerome.
"67543-0982Y," Said Leroy. Jerome's phone switched screens, and Leroy's number appeared. Jerome typed in 150 and hit send. Leroy's phone buzzed, and he checked it.
"Holy cow, thanks. You need me to wait for a ride back?" asked Leroy.
"No, I think I have been lucky enough for one day," said Jerome.
"Well, thanks," said Leroy.
"You should try going to the blue spike, in the game, tell Mazie 'got any new tricks' you won't be disappointed," Said Jerome getting out of the car.
"Ok, I will give it a try. Thanks again," Said Leroy, then he and his lead foot were off. Jerome just shook his head.
CHAPTER 4
Seventh shift on the dot. Jerome swiped his badge and put his backpack on the table for inspection.
"You're up late, or early Doc," The guard said.
"Early," said Jerome.
"OK, you're good," said the guard. Jerome grabbed his bag and headed to the lab. finally arriving at the lab and went inside.
"Where are we Steve?" asked Jerome.
"The consoles are still down," said Steve.
"How the hell are we supposed to do anything without Core access," muttered Jerome.
"What?" asked Steve.
"Nothing, are we getting anything on telemetry?"
"Yeah, but it's weird. I have never seen patterns like this," said Steve spinning the console around and looking at the screen.
"What the hell? these are the player synaptic traces?" asked Jerome.
"Yeah, this one has these strange Beta waves. See there goes a cluster now," Steve said pointing at the screen.
"I have seen traces like this. Before NR buffering. That could be a seizure, have we notified the floor?" Jerome asked
"I tried, but no one answers," said Steve.
"Have we tried re-engaging the safety protocols we disabled to see if that stabilizes the telemetry?" asked Jerome.
"I thought of that, but the options for the safety protocols don't respond, I can't even get to the screens, it says I am not authorized," said Steve. Jerome quickly negotiated the screens on the console and just as quickly received a big red unauthorized message. That was it, Jerome decided to take action and grabbed his phone.
"I'm going to call the benefactors, this is unacceptable, this place is out of control," Said Jerome. The phone started to ring. It rang quite some time; he counted at least six or seven, it was not dropping to message either. Jerome noticed that Steve had stood up and was now facing the door. Jerome turned around to see a small man in a dark suit, white hair, looking at him in the usually composed state. It was the representative.
"Could you leave us, Steve?" the man asked gently. Steve quickly did as he was told.
"And, could you lock the door," asked the man as he walked forward and took the phone from Jerome and hung it up, handing it back to him.
"We should talk, let's go to the core room," the man said to Jerome.
CHAPTER 5
It was rare for the benefactors representative to show up in a lab, it never meant anything good. His name as was Mr. Somers, and he was always calm, always quiet, not a wrinkle on his suit, but his presence was always unsettling.
"I'm sorry you were called in today Dr. Atkinson," Mr. Somers said.
"Steve did not have the authorization to call you. We are sorry to put you out like this," said Mr. Somers.
"I'm glad he did, did you see the telemetry? These people are not well, at least one shows some seizure activity," said Jerome.
"Nothing unexpected Doctor," Mr. Somers replied.
"What? I developed Neural Integrated Relay to prevent this. Expected? I don't understand," Said Jerome.
"I was afraid this time would come. But I suppose as we are at an impasse in your research. The Benefactors have decided you should be given access to the core, although I have advised against it," said Mr. Somers. He held out his arm in the direction of a cipher-locked steel door that was marked 'service corridor.'
"But the core, isn't it that way?" asked Jerome, pointing at the lab door. Mr. Somers looked at the door, then at Jerome.
"No, that room is storage. Come, doctor."
"Storage? but why would..." Jerome started to ask.
"Really Doctor? you think we would let one of the most powerful resources in the known universe site off a public access corridor." said Mr. Somers, cracking just the faintest smile.
Mr. Somers lead the way down the dark service corridor. The air was stale and had a tinny electric quality. Finally coming to an unassuming door with no markings, no lock, and it was gray like the wall. Mr. Somers opened it to a brightly lite space, with the deafening sound of dozens of computer systems and circulation fans. It looked grimy, not at all what he expected. Mr. Somers must have anticipated a question.
"These are merely the station's Ops systems Doctor, but from here we can get to the core at the center of the station," he said.
They continued to walk through several more corridors and came to a tram station. Mr. Somers touched a console and placed his hand on an authorization pad. Jerome immediately heard a sound of the tram coming. It was a stark contraption of pipes and basic looking systems and gears. It had two large green tanks and a set of face masks.
"After you Doctor," said Mr. Somers.
"Wh
at's this? What are the masks for?" Jerome asked.
"The NR Core is at the center of the station; we will be outside the atmo field for about a half a turn. A long time to hold one's breath," said Mr. Somers. Reluctantly Jerome got aboard. He had only ever used a mask during the yearly decompression drills, and he wished now he had paid more attention. The ride was a frigid 90 km to the center of the station. Jerome was glad when they arrived and transferred to an air lock, in seconds he felt warmth and color return to his skin.
"Not such a bad ride? This way doctor," said Mr. Somers again leading the way giving Jerome no time to recover from the ride.
Jerome has heard stories about the center of the station. Crushing gravity until you got the very center. But the gravity did not seem bad, a little heavy but certainly not crushing.
"I thought there would be more gravity here," Said Jerome.
"The center ring is on a different rotation speed, going much slower than the station to compensate, or we would never be able to do maintenance at this level," said Mr. Somers. They finally entered a white room, a half dozen technicians dressed in white busy with various tasks. On a large view screen, filled with a man stretched out, floating in liquid, tubes running to the man at every conceivable angle. He was motionless except for an occasional twitch of a finger or an arch of his back.
Down World - Prophecy: Book 1 (Quantum Clockwork Series) Page 1