“Well, I’m with Victor," Zack said. “I’m going home for a nap. That was far too much excitement for one day.” He went to the nearest teleportation hoop’s keypad and tapped in the number for his personal gate in Houston. Portals had been upgraded since their arrival at Novum, the gates had number entry panels for quick access to other portals, journeys were authorised via thumbprint. The gateway engaged and he moved to walk through, paying no attention to the adjacent hoop which had also booted a few feet away, assuming that someone had initiated it from their workstation.
Zack stepped through the portal, then back into the room in the opposite direction, from the second operational hoop. He looked around in confusion, turned back to the gate he had just emerged from, typed his numbers again and pressed his thumb to the plate. He stepped through the portal to reemerge from the initial Novum HQ hoop, still in the same room.
“Simon, the portals are glitching. They seem to be looping back here.”
“Did you type the right number?” Simon called back from his station.
Zack was silent for a moment, then sighed. “Yes, I did it twice, I’m not an idiot, Simon.”
“Sorry, was just checking, I’ll bring up a diagnostic.”
Simon tapped on his keyboard for a few moments. “Everything seems to work fine from here. Let me check.”
Simon went to a portal and typed a number for the basement hoop. When the teleportation surface was in place, he stepped through and out into the darkened basement. He turned around and walked back through.
“Seems to be working okay for downstairs.” He said. “Let’s try Colorado.” He typed in the digits for Spencer’s US home portal, and the display above the keypad confirmed that the connection was made. He stepped through the portal and, like Zack, reappeared a few feet away.
“Well, that’s strange," Simon said.
“Satisfied?” Zack asked. “Am I capable of operating a portal?”
“Maybe it’s just external portals," Simon said, ignoring Zack’s complaints.
He tapped in the code for a portal on the inside of their current perimeter wall. As soon as the hoop engaged, he stepped through, then returned from the same gate.
“Uh, guys.” He said. “You need to see this.” And stepped back through the portal.
The rest of the team were in earshot and knew by Simon’s tone that they should follow him immediately. Once they were in the wooded area inside the wall, they turned to Simon for an explanation. He was already pointing to an area above the wall.
“Are we in the middle of a snowstorm?” Beth asked.
Nothing could be seen beyond the wall but pure white. No tall trees reaching above the wall, not even a sky, just blank space.
“There’s nothing about the area we stand in that inhibits weather conditions," Simon replied. “Much as I’d like to be able to do that, it’s not something we’re capable of yet."
James turned to a passing worker android. “Eight Five Nine,” he said. The androids had their numeric designation printed on their chest plate. “Could you send a stepladder through this portal?”
The android's software had direct access to the SARA function of portals and could create any item they might need on command. A ladder was able to appear from the hoop much sooner than if James had gone back through the portal to retrieve a tablet and request the item himself. He placed the ladder in front of the wall and climbed until he reached a height where it was possible for him to view the ground on the opposite side of the barrier.
“There’s nothing, just the same white void," James informed the rest of the team.
“This may be bad, I theorised this could be possible, I just never experimented with the notion," Simon said and walked back through the portal to HQ. Everyone else followed.
“This isn’t real, is it?” Sarah asked.
“Obviously not. We’re in a simulation, presumably in the quantum computer. I think, if we’d have stayed in the future a little longer before being attacked, we may have been told about massively multiplayer virtual reality gaming worlds that were available to residents. Victor has been requesting it for a long time, no doubt they completed it within those fifty years, Victor wouldn’t be at the beach if they still hadn’t cracked it.”
“Damn right I wouldn’t.” Victor agreed.
“Whoever put us here also had the time to complete it, and they didn’t expect to fool us for long since they chose not to recreate anything outside of the wall," Simon said.
The rest of the group remained silent for a moment until Zack spoke.
“How long? Since we came home from the future?”
“That would be my guess.” Simon concurred.
“So, when we came back, we were placed in a virtual environment, and our real bodies were never reintegrated?” Beth followed Simon's train of thought.
“Yep. Whoever put is here is still monitoring us too, since our future selves were allowed to leave." Simon replied.
“Who could have possibly pulled this off? No one outside the team even knows what we’re up to.” Zack said.
“I can think of one person who knows a great deal about us and our work, and wouldn’t take long to catch up with the rest.”
Again they all shared looks, coming to the same conclusion at the same moment, Zack a little behind having never had any contact with Stan.
“How did he get out?” James asked.
“Isaac," Simon said without moving his lips.
Everyone looked at Simon.
Victor concurred. “We didn’t show up, so he’d know something was wrong and he would make preparations, but he might have gone further than that. You think that releasing Stan was the only option his protocols allowed? ” Victor asked Simon.
“I do now," Simon said. “Now that Stan told us.”
“Stan told us? You told us, I heard… Oh.”
“Yeah, the voice didn’t come from me, I don’t even think I heard it aurally, I heard him in my head.”
“Now that you mention it, it was a little weird," Jules agreed.
“Okay, Stan. You have our attention. I’m sure you’re dying to engage in one of your monologues for your captive audience, why don’t you just get on with it?”
“Stan.” The voice in their heads replied. “I hate that name.”
“That’s kind of the point," Victor said. “You’re not our Simon, you couldn’t be more different.”
“Well, you’re right about that," Stan said. “I do find my past self a little repugnant, Stan it is. I won’t give you the satisfaction of letting it vex me. Okay, make yourself comfortable, you’ll be here a while.”
Everyone found their seat begrudgingly, there was no point in dragging this out, they were prisoners for now, and no one currently had any clue how to change that, this might give them a chance to think it over. The act of sitting itself seemed strange, these weren’t their real bodies, so they shouldn’t need to deal with fatigue. Though, psychologically, the attempt still allowed a degree of relaxation.
“This is so strange," Beth said, voicing their thoughts. “How will we ever know what’s real after this?”
“We just need to get outside the walls," Simon said. “We are aware he didn’t digitise anything beyond that.”
“What if we get out and we’re just in another, more expansive layer of the VR onion?” Beth asked.
“Maybe I’ll send the drones out on a scout run, get it finished for you," Stan said inside their heads. “If it will interfere with your concept of reality, it might be worth the effort. It’s easy enough to automate while I concentrate on the more important work. Maybe you’ll go mad, it will be an interesting experiment.”
“Then who would you gloat to?” Victor asked.
“What you have digitised is very convincing," Simon said, fascinated by the achievement regardless of its current application. “Is it just visual or does the virtual quantum computer work?”
“Of course it works. I needed every feature to work, so y
ou’d be completely fooled.”
“The portals didn't work.” Victor was deliberately contentious. He thought that if he could get Stan mad enough, he might let some valuable information slip accidentally.
“I didn't have time to recreate the entirety of all three planets, Victor," Stan condescended.
“A couple of other earth towns and cities should have been easy enough, though, right? This one’s extensive enough. You could have recreated Harrogate and the HQ there, small areas around the Aurora and Houston portals. We were on to you so quickly.”
“Small victory. You're in there for all eternity. I win.”
“We have a working quantum computer, we’ll program a few locations of our own. A simulation within a simulation. Might not be so bad.”
The rest of the group looked at Victor like he was crazy.
“I can control your environment from here. I can give you all a twenty-foot empty white room if you like.”
“Would we still have each other?”
“You’d all get your individual plain white cubed cells in which to slowly go crazy with boredom.”
“Okay. I would... not like that.” Victor said, deciding to remain quiet now that his plan had seemingly backfired.
“I tire of you. I have a world to conquer, I’ll leave you to your futile attempts at escape.”
“Conquer? You’ve gone from the world’s self-declared saviour to conqueror? So you’re done pretending to be a hero?” Spencer asked.
“Things have changed since you were last here, Spencer dear.”
“Don’t patronise me nutbar, we already saved the future.”
“Did those odd fellows you sent packing agree? The ones with the weapons of mass destruction. I don’t think they did, did they? I didn’t bother to reintegrate them, by the way, they’re of no use to me. There are so many on earth who are equally as worthless, a hard reset is the only way to be sure the world is truly saved.”
“Wait, what?” James asked.
“You’ll see, if you ever get out of there, which you might, once it’s all over. So long, my friends.”
“Wait! What are you going to do?” Victor shouted into thin air. There was no reply. “You forgot to monologue!” Still no reply. “Damn.”
“This must be so strange for you," Jules said to Simon. “Like having a split personality, but also a split body.”
“It’s unsettling, yes," Simon replied with a deep inhalation that showed his discomfort.
“So, how do we get out of here?” Zack asked.
“Well, I might have an idea, but this virtual world is a new development. Figuring out how to divert from a virtual portal to a real-world portal might be a problem. If I do manage to access the real quantum computer, finding the new software that Stan wrote and learning how to use it will take some time, but hopefully, he might have made some of the same coding choices that I would have.”
“Well, let’s get started," Victor said. “It’s not like we have anywhere else to be.”
∆ ∆ ∆
“Getting access to the operating system of the quantum computer we’re being held on is the easiest part, it seems," Simon informed the group. “Stan left us with access to some of the rudimentary systems on the virtual rendition of the quantum computer that he created here.”
“It’s like a set of Russian dolls," Victor said.
“There is an element of artistic recursion to it, like an infinity mirror," Sarah agreed.
“Quite," Simon joined in on the assent. “But I think I found the hammer for the glass. He removed a lot of the software but left us with an image manipulation app and an editor for code. Obviously, he wouldn’t have programmed in a connection to the real world version of this quantum computer, so we can’t hack into the system that way.”
“Obviously," Victor agreed. “If he did, I wouldn’t trust it, who knows what booby traps he may have left there.”
“True, though we expected that with his laptop too, and we were wrong," Simon continued. “Either way, I think I can code a hack within the editor and embed it in an image file. Once the real world quantum computer renders the image in our virtual world, it will be misread as executable data in the on the actual QC. The commands executed will reroute access from the real world computer to our virtual terminal.”
“Great thinking, Mr Robot," Victor congratulated. “What can we do to help?”
“I wouldn’t worry about it, I can have it coded in the time it would take me to designate your parts.”
“Of course you can," Victor said. “Well it looks like Stan was kind enough to code in my e-reader, so I’ll catch up on some of my unread novels.”
Simon was already typing furiously before Victor even had the device in his grasp. Victor went to his recliner and made himself comfortable while the rest of the group dispersed to find a quiet activity to take part in, so as not to disturb Simon while he hammered out his escape plan.
∆ ∆ ∆
It took two hours for Simon to complete his image worm, much longer than designation to the team would have taken, but his colleagues understood that he enjoyed this kind of challenge and left him to it, two hours was still a short amount of time for the work he was producing. They also realised that Simon was eager to undo Stan’s damage as he felt responsible for all of his future self’s actions.
“I’m in.” He told the group.
“Could you at least have waited until I finished?” Victor said. “I’m fifty pages from the end.”
“I’ll disconnect if you like," Simon said. “Saving the world for Stan can wait, can’t it?”
“It might, but nah, let’s try it since you’re already there," Victor said with a mock laid-back composure.
“Okay, here goes.” Simon began to browse through the operating system of the real world quantum computer and started the teleportation software. He perused the interface for a moment. “Wait. There’s a tab labelled Virtual/Real World Junction Select.”
He clicked the tab, and a new page replaced the default on the interface.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this," Simon said tentatively.
“Why?” James said. “That was easy; we struck it lucky. It says that Virtual is the current default, just click that to switch to Real.” He pointed at a button labelled Push to Toggle.
“It’s too easy," Simon said. “He’s a slightly more experienced version of myself. I’d have made sure there was no way for us to escape if I were him, and I could make this prison permanent. He wants us to get away, he gave me all the tools to do so, everything I need and nothing I don’t. He’s leading me.”
“That’s worrying," Beth said. “He really doesn’t like us, so what’s out there must be considerably worse than in here.”
“Worse than an inescapable prison?” James asked.
“We have each other, and there’s open space outside, we just can’t travel far.”
“How long do you think you could stay here before you eventually gave in to your curiosity?” Spencer asked.
Beth didn’t have to think for long. “A few years at most.”
“Right, so let’s get this over with. Hit the button.”
“You sure you want to risk it?” Victor asked. “If Stan really does want us to leave, what if he has another surprise waiting? What if he’s set it to send us somewhere worse, still in a virtual world, like the white cubes he was talking about? Or he could amalgamate us in the teleporters; I don’t fancy being spat out as an amorphous blob, screaming ‘elp me while Stan watches us and laughs.”
“I think it’s more likely that he wants us to see what he’s achieved so he can boast about his genius," Simon offered.
“I know that, why do you always have to ruin my fun? Did you see how horror-stricken Beth looked? Alright, let’s do this.” Victor spoke the final sentence with such drama that it became awkward when they had to wait quietly for several seconds while the junction made the switch. Victor’s bold, heroic pose slumped gradually during th
e moments of silence.
“Okay, it’s done," Simon announced. “Walking through that portal should take us back to Earth HQ in reality.”
They all composed themselves in readiness for what they might find on the other side then stepped through in single file.
Chapter 67
Simon was first to step into the — hopefully — legitimate Earth HQ, the rest of the team followed close behind. Due to the unknown nature of their point of entrance, no one had the presence of mind to make room for each successive arrival through the portal. Their reappearance into the real world was far from organised, jostling each other and losing balance, a few almost ending up on the floor.
The room was dark, but their eyes adjusted enough to discern that their headquarters was not as they had left it. Victor ran his fingers over the nearest desk space, inspected the digits and then held his hand out to the rest of the group so they could see the dark smudges of dust at the tips.
“How long were we in there?” He asked.
“Oh, no," Simon said, smacking his forehead. “Stupid, stupid! It never even occurred to me that our experience in the virtual world might not have been in real time.”
“Go easy on yourself, Simon, we didn’t catch it either," Spencer said.
“I know, but I should have. I know how my mind works better than any of you. Stan essentially told us that his plans were already underway."
“Stop literally beating yourself up about it, Simon, there’s nothing we can do now. Even if we had figured it out beforehand, travelling back in time from virtual HQ would have only split the timeline again, we’re trying to avoid that. If he wanted us out of there, I’m sure he’d have taken steps to ensure we came out to this exact time anyway.”
“Yeah, Stan could have had us stored in the quantum computer memory banks for years before he released us into the virtual world. Even if he didn’t, he’d still be able to release us into any time he chose,” Sarah said, “but we’ll have to worry about that later. Right now we need to find out what he did to the world while we were in there and reverse his changes without creating a new timeline.”
Drive Time Page 37