The man took more pictures of Joaquim with Maria, then some of him on his own. Facing the camera, facing the big yellow computer, holding the yellow helmet with the plastic strip and even one whilst he was spinning the chair around. When he did that at school he was told off but all the people laughed and told the man with the camera to ‘catch it’.
Then Maria showed him the screen. There was a computer-generated valley area and they were flying around it. Everything was in Spanish but they could change it to Quechua, Aymará or English if he wanted. Joaquim said ‘No’ because he spoke better Spanish than he did Quechua. He did not speak Aymará or English at all.
Maria told Joaquim to imagine that this was a new world full up with books. All the books had been placed in different areas. There was Geography & History Ocean, Space Mountains, Technology River and Art & Literature (Painting & Writing) Lake. But somebody had blocked the routes from the valley to all the other areas. What Joaquim had to do was put on his helmet, find out why the routes had been blocked and solve puzzles to unblock them. Then all the children around the world would be able to visit them as well.
She showed him the lever on the arm of his chair that went backwards and forwards and told him that when he was in the valley, that lever would move him backwards and forwards. The harder he pushed; the faster he went. There was also a little button, like the button on a mouse. When he put the helmet on he would see a circle in the middle of his field of view. If he pressed the button while the circle was on something, then it would do whatever he needed it to do. If it was a door, then it would open up, if it was a lever then the lever would move.
She said that it was hard to explain but that he would understand if he had a quick practice. All the children in the competition could have a very quick practice before the yellow sheet was lifted and the competition started. As long as they did not tell anybody.
Joaquim put the helmet on and the picture that had been on the computer was everywhere he looked. He was still flying around the valley but when he looked left in real life, the picture he could see looked left as well. He laughed because it kept wobbling. After a couple of minutes he took off the helmet and looked at it to see how it worked. Maria made him put it back on and then kept tightening and untightening the straps until it did not slip around. It was very clever, he thought. The American people were very good at making clever things.
He kept looking around as he was flying and could see the whole valley spinning gently beneath him. It was beautiful and covered with lots of strange plants and trees. Between the trees were dusty paths which led to four different areas. To the north he could see a bright yellow spaceship, to the west a very old ship. The third path led south to an old building that looked like a museum and the fourth led east to a wooden platform with a reflective silver lever which sat on the top of some very high stilts.
Four large items, Joaquim thought. Four routes to four other areas. Easy.
There were other smaller objects hidden within the valley like a sundial and a group of five small animal statues. In the centre was a large, round, yellow building with an ornate glass tower on its roof that twisted and turned high into the sky. On top of the glass tower was another platform.
“Click on the building,” Maria said.
Joaquim looked at the building spinning below him and when the circle was centred within it he pressed the button on his chair. He flew lower and lower until he landed just outside its doors. In his ears he could hear birds singing quietly and the sound of waves lapping on a beach.
“Why don’t you go up the tower and have a look around?” Maria said.
Joaquim struggled a little bit at first because it felt very strange; he was walking forward whilst he was still sitting in a chair. It was not like playing video games because the headset meant that he could see nothing around him that did not move, things like the side of his table at home. When he wore the headset everything moved.
He pointed the circle toward an archway in the building and pushed forward, bumping into the side because he glanced left at the last minute. He reversed and tried again and this time he went inside. The room was full of shelves; some had books on them, others had computer-generated ornaments and gadgets. In the centre of the room was a cylinder that went up to the ceiling and he could see that it had a door in it. This must be an elevator that went up the tower, he thought, so he walked forward and went inside.
“Well done,” he heard Maria say.
When he was inside he turned around and saw two shapes on the inside of the door, one was an arrow pointing up and one was an arrow pointing down.
“Click to go up,” Maria said.
Joaquim looked at the ‘UP’ button and when the circle was right in the middle he pressed his button. There was a strange high pitched humming sound in his ears and he started to rise up from the ground. Everything went black for a moment and then a few seconds later he emerged through the roof of the circular building. He was going up the glass tower and the valley was getting smaller and smaller beneath him.
When he reached the top he stepped forward onto the circular platform and he could hear the sea lapping and the birds singing again.
Maria watched the screen and saw Joaquim look around. Then she saw him look up above the elevator and focus on a gold lever that was hidden on the very top of the tower. When it was in his field of view he clicked the button on the chair.
“You have to go up another level,” she said.
Joaquim went back into the elevator and turned around. He focused on the ‘UP’ arrow again and clicked. Then he clicked again. And again. Nothing happened.
“It won’t go up,” he said.
“That’s because it won’t let you up until you have opened the routes to the other areas,” Maria said. “You must come back here and pull this gold lever if you solve all the puzzles. If you are the fastest then you will win.”
“I will win,” Joaquim said and he heard the other people in the room laughing and clapping. He could also hear the man with the camera taking more pictures.
Maria unbuckled his helmet and carefully slid it over his head. Joaquim blinked his eyes. The lights in the NetCenter had seemed quite bright before, but now they were dull compared with the sunshine that had filled the virtual world. He liked the valley. It was bright and clean and relaxing.
“I can’t wait to solve the puzzles,” he said excitedly.
“All I am allowed to tell you is that you must solve them one at a time,” Maria said, “I cannot give you any clues. When the time comes I will wish you luck.”
Joaquim smiled. He did not need such things as luck. When he had been in the round building he had seen an ornament that he could tell was something called a ‘lava lamp’. He had seen others like it in the expensive shops in town, the ones that sold things to the people who worked in the big buildings.
The one inside the round building was slightly different, though. Because it was shaped like a rocket ship.
Joaquim had all the clues he needed.
according to the promise
Galatians 3:29
With the exception of the press, Jack knew most of the people in the audience personally. Many were his employees along with their families, and some were business colleagues whom he had invited to the main launch based at the Campus itself. Everyone was smiling, happy and expectant.
He was separated from the crowd by the full width of the lake, a dark cloudy sky reflecting on its gently undulating surface. It looked like the heavens would open at any moment. With that in mind, a marquee had been hastily erected to protect the guests, with a second covering the scaffolding and plasma-screen. Jack was not going to allow today to be a washout in any sense.
Standing on the platform directly beneath the screen, currently showing demonstration and promotional graphics for the FireNet and FireWorX systems, his half-hour introductory speech had been greeted by rapturous applause. Glancing swiftly to his right he saw Nina holding Daniel in her a
rms, his fragile body wrapped in warm clothing against the cold. He felt at peace with the world. He had already altered its future, now he was about to write its next chapter. Short of the abysmal weather conditions, things could not be better.
“Despite the weather’s attempts to dampen our spirits,” he laughed, “it is with great pride and a sense of extreme excitement that I start the IntelliSoft FireWorX Challenge. The one in which I believe technology will play an important role in uniting children of all races and creeds. Now, tomorrow and forever...”
Loud thunder rippled through the dark clouds which crept like a frightened child’s blanket over the campus. The letters emblazoned on the countdown board behind him ticked closer to their final mark;
0 days, 0 hours, 13 seconds
He smiled broadly and asked the assembled guests to join him in the final countdown; ten, nine... he scanned the faces as they chorused in synchronicity... six, five... he caught Warner’s face and smiled. His friend had made it after all... three, two, one....GO!
The crowd roared and focused with Jack as he turned to see the children displayed one by one on the screen. Henry Thompson, Sydney; Kao Ling, Kuala Lumpur; Joaquim Aldez, Lima; Phillip Harris, Belfast. As promised, each child was being granted his five seconds of fame as the Quotient continually scanned against set algorithms to determine a clear leader. It would be eleven and a half minutes until all the children had been seen and, based on beta-testing, approximately fifteen minutes after that that the first child would crack all the puzzles. Twenty six minutes in total. If the IntelliSoft Research team had been wrong and the puzzles transpired to be too difficult for the age range, then the system would time-out in forty-five minutes and the launch would proceed with a number of ‘BEST RESULTS’ as opposed to a ‘WINNER’.
With the race firmly underway, Jack indicated to Nina that he was going to meet his friend and she nodded before taking Daniel into the shelter of the main offices. He walked down the steps and around the side of the lake. Warner, still confined to a motorised wheelchair, greeted him warmly.
“You made it,” Jack said with a broad smile.
“You’d never have forgiven me if I hadn’t,” Warner said. He glanced at the screen and the attention it was commanding. “It looks impressive.”
Jack smiled appreciatively. “Oh, it is believe me,” he said with forced vanity. “It’s the best. How’s the chest.”
“Hurts like hell, but they’re keeping me pretty well pumped up with painkillers. Apparently, the lung’s healing pretty good.” He scowled as the rain started to fall. “Well Jack, you certainly picked the weather for it.”
Jack laughed. “There are some things, Frank, that not even I can control.”
“I would say that in recent weeks that’s become patently obvious.”
They headed along the side of the crowd, slowly following the edge of the marquee back around toward the stage. Barring the canopy which rippled noisily in the increasing wind, the buzz of Warner’s wheelchair was the only sound to break the expectant silence. “I’ve only got ten minutes,” Jack continued. “Then we’ll have a leader and I’m back on display ‘til the end.”
Warner looked out at the rain. It was getting heavier by the minute, large droplets falling like bearings and breaking like water balloons on the ground below. “That’s okay,” he said. “I’ll still be around. I mean, let’s face it... I’m not going to go far, am I?” He gestured to the slow pace of wheelchair and smiled wryly.
“By the way,” Jack asked with a suspicious smile. “How the hell did you get them to let you out? I was told they were keeping you in for three to four weeks minimum.”
“They were,” Warner said proudly. “But I know one of the nurses. She kind of... aided my escape.”
Jack looked chastisingly back. “Oh boy, are you going to be in trouble.”
“Well,” Warner said nonchalantly, “I figured if I was going to run the risk of being caught going A.W.O.L, then I might as well use my time to come here. It is rumoured to be the epicentre of the one hundred and thirty nine most dangerous places in the world at the minute. It’s even crept ahead of Beirut I believe.”
“Very funny,” Jack said. His sarcasm was pronounced, although he knew in reality that his friend had done nothing more than quote the popular media. Since the discovery of the devices, the press and TV had done all they could to deter people from attending any of the launch sites, trying to convince their readers and viewers that nobody could guarantee that they would be safe from a terrorist attack. Prior to today, Jack had been convinced that the public relations disaster would severely affect turnout, but he had misjudged the people. They could smell scare-mongering like a rabbit smelled a fox. In the end, global attendance figures had exceeded all expectations.
“I have to tell you, though,” Warner said as they reached the base of the scaffold tower. He turned to face his friend, a look of gentle concern apparent across his ageing features. “There is one thing that still bothers me, though...”
the island of the innocent
Job 22:30
The countdown was in full swing and Maria could hear the crowds gathered outside. Chanting:
seises... cinco... cuatro...
She rested her hand on his shoulder and wished him luck.
tres... dos... uno...
Joaquim had clicked on the circular building and was floating down toward it before the yellow sheet had even been lifted. The crowds outside could see him through the glass, pushing his lever forward and pressing the button on his chair. On the temporary screen they could see the full spectacle of the virtual world. The graphics were like none they had ever seen; the almost super-real quality of heavily retouched photographs. As Joaquim’s head moved from left to right they saw everything that he saw, as he saw it. He focused on an archway leading into the round building and went inside. Then, from the hundreds of objects that littered the shelves, he looked directly at a lava lamp shaped like a spaceship and headed straight for it.
Joaquim had known that there was no point heading for the spaceship itself. All he would find was a door that could not be opened or a lever that could not be pulled. Then he would have to come back to the round building and try to discover why. Better, he thought, to start with the objects. The lava lamp was exactly the same shape as the spaceship outside and his instincts told him that this was no coincidence. He paused in front of the shelf and looked.
Why would a door not open or a lever not turn, he wondered. Was it locked and did he need to find a key? Was there some obstruction that required him to find an item that might clear the way? Or...?
He saw the power switch for the lava lamp and clicked on it. The light came on and the lava started to flow within the elongated sphere of glass. It worked far quicker than it would have done in real life, but that was the point of virtual reality; it was quicker.
He retreated from the building and started to head off up the path that led to the spaceship. It was quite a distance, but along the way the details contained within the graphics were faultless. Birds sang through the speakers in his ears and butterflies flitted through grass that swayed on a virtual breeze. He smiled when a snake slithered across the path some way ahead. This was very clever, Joaquim thought. Clever and beautiful. The programming must have taken somebody a long time.
After three minutes the path opened out at a cliff edge and there; sitting on a steel jetty high above the lapping waves, was his quest. Looking up he saw a door at the top of some heavily oxidised steps, but the steps needed to swing downward like a fire escape if he was to use them. To the right of the jetty was a steel lever with an electrical cable running off into the forest. He was right; power was the key.
He pulled the lever and looked back to the steps. They, for their part, stayed exactly where they were. He pulled the lever a second time; still nothing. He looked around, even over the cliff edge whose perfect detailing made him feel slightly queasy, but there was nothing else that might free them. There
was only the sea and the grass and the trees.
What had he missed?
He had to go back to the round building. He had been so sure that turning on the power to the lamp would also turn the power on to the spaceship but he had obviously overlooked something. What that might be, he did not yet know, but whatever it was he would find it.
After another three minutes travelling at highest setting of the computer’s variable speed lever he was back in the round room. Again he went straight to the lamp.
There was nothing else he could see on the object itself; just an elongated glass sphere swimming with blobs of green lava sitting within a chrome base that had three fins for feet. The top of the elongated sphere was capped with a pointed chrome cap to form the nose of the rocket. From the base of the body a wire emerged; the power cable, and a few centimetres along was the switch he had pressed. He pressed it again and the light went off. Nothing. Again and it was on. Nothing. Off, on, off, on, off.
Nothing.
So what else was there? The spaceship needed power which it quite obviously obtained from the lamp. Yet no matter what Joaquim tried, the required power was not forthcoming.
So, if the lamp did not give the spaceship power, then perhaps it was using the same power. And perhaps that power could be re-routed.
So where did the lamp get its power?
Carefully twisting his head, Joaquim followed the cable along the shelf. It ran behind many of the other objects, appearing at the other side, but then disappeared completely behind some shelved books. Why did it not reappear at the other side, Joaquim thought? He clicked on each of the books in turn and they came out so that he could see their front covers. When he clicked again, they went back. When he reached the fifth book, however, it did not come out like the others. It quite simply fell on the floor with a pre-programmed digital thump.
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