"So, the Director is A.I. determined to keep us trapped in this simulation. Our real bodies are on a spaceship. And there's an army of monsters outside. Anything else?"
“Cora knew the whole time,” Aaron was clearly not going to let this go.
“Will you get over it?!” she retorted angrily.
“Why wouldn’t you tell us?” he demanded.
Cora took a deep breath. “The people that helped the Director close the portals…they were my parents.”
“But, why…?”
“When I turned 13 and started exhibiting my powers, my parents acted as if they’d been waiting for this their whole lives, like they expected it. They eventually told me about the simulation, what the Demons really were, and why they wanted to stop the war. They didn’t want this world, this empire they’d built over six long centuries, to go to waste once the journey was over.”
“Did you agree with them?”
“I was too young to have an opinion at the time. But I had to trust my parents, believe that they were doing the right thing. They never told me the Director was AI, only that the Neogens would help humanity to rebuild. I do remember that at every chance they got, they’d remind me I was their daughter no matter what. To this day I took that as a sign of love, but can’t help wonder if it meant something else. And that’s where my knowledge ends. I now know as much as you do.”
“What about your older sister, Elysia right?” Isaac asked.
“Killed by a Demon shortly after the war started.”
“Oh…I’m sorry…she’s technically still alive though, right?” he stammered.
“I suppose. But this is why I tried so hard to find my parents after our Sanctuaries were attacked. I hoped that maybe they’d have a solution. Telling you this was a simulation wouldn’t have changed anything, and once I got older, I was too ashamed that my virtual parents had actually prevented humanity from being freed from this digital prison.”
We all stood quiet for a moment.
“It’s OK,” Lynn assured her. “We know everything now, and our goals are clear.”
“The Director is evil and he has to be stopped,” Cora agreed. “Are you with me?”
“Of course, we were always with you,” Rachel said, flexing her powers by ripping the restraint chairs from their platforms and throwing them over the edge. “Just needed a moment to complain about our current state of affairs before we got down to business.”
After trying nearly every start-up routine, I finally got Mark to power on using the acute force ignition coupled with a power cycle. Basically, I hit him really hard then switched on the core.
“ - get you out of this! Trust me!” he zoomed frantically around the chamber before realizing where he was. “Oh, you’re alive. Did I miss something?”
“Welcome back, Mark,” Isaac said.
We caught him up to speed with Micah’s tacit explanation, and proceeded to come up with a plan. He reacted in mild shock and indifferent acceptance. I suppose none of this really affected him as much as it affected us.
“The Director said his virtual AI core is somewhere inside this building,” Cora noted. “Let’s find it and disable it. This whole world is one big program, surely we can find a way to delete the virus and free people from the simulation.”
“What if he was lying?” Jared argued.
“He’s not, trust me,” Cora said.
“Either way, I can’t die,” Isaac said with a small degree of concern. “If I can’t die, how will I get out of the simulation?!” his breathing got heavier.
“Hey, hey!” Raphael tried to calm him down. “When the time comes, I’ll use my power to let you die.”
“You…you’d do that?”
“Of course!”
“Thanks, man. Sorry guys, I just got worried there for a second.”
“No worries. And besides, it’s safer to take him down from here,” I said. “This spaceship, we have no way of navigating it, nor would we have our powers in the real world.”
“I’m detecting large amounts of data transfer coming from the highest levels of the building,” Mark said.
“Seems like the obvious place,” Jared said. “Where are we now?”
“Level B5, five floors below ground level.”
“Better find a way up then.”
Chapter 18
Leaving through the exit doors, we found ourselves running through long hallways lined with large pipes and doors. We passed maintenance closets, locked rooms, and stairs that led further down. But no way up.
“Hang on,” Isaac stopped. “If the Director controls reality within this building, isn’t it possible that he deleted any route that would get us to the higher levels?”
“He has limited control, but yes that is possible,” Cora responded.
“Then…what if there is no way out?”
“Found an elevator!” Rachel called out from around the next corner.
Isaac sighed with relief, and we headed towards her. It was very spacious, probably meant for transporting heavy objects throughout the building. I wondered why there was a need for something like that; at one time, the Director could just rewrite the code to make an object appear anywhere he wanted.
We piled into the elevator, all dozen or so of us. I realized I’d never actually been in one of these before, only heard about how they were used to traverse skyscrapers in the days before the war. I had only ever been in two or three story buildings, so it came as a real shock when I saw that there were 163 floors.
“Wait, there’s no way it’s that easy, friends,” Aaron warned.
“Worst-case, he’ll make the elevator fall and Rachel can catch us,” Lynn said calmly.
I was skeptic, but we made it to the 20th floor without incident. Maybe the Director couldn’t see us from here, maybe his reach was more limited than he let on. I watched nervously as the floor numbers got higher and higher.
30. 40. 50. Faint music began to play from the speakers above as we picked up speed.
80. 90. 100. My ears began to feel a strange pressure building up inside them as we rapidly advanced upward.
120. 130. 140. We began to slow down as we reached our final stop.
150. 160. 162. And here is where my hopes of an easy climb were shattered.
You were right. There is no way on Earth it would be that easy.
There were no speakers or cameras this time. It was as if he was talking directly from the air around us, his voice wrapping around our minds. Suddenly, the cabin groaned and shuddered. I heard the sound of cables snapping overhead, and the lights flickered as we lost suspension. Rachel quickly extended her hands to either side of her and held the elevator telekinetically. Jared rushed to help her hold us up as we backed away from his flapping wings. After a minute, they gradually released their hold of the elevator.
“Wait, it’s not…it’s not falling anymore,” Jared said warily.
“You guys could stand to lose a few pounds,” Rachel said, rubbing her temples.
We pried the doors open, and I stuck my head out to take a look around. But there was nothing to see. Complete darkness in every direction. We were in an elevator floating in a sea of nothingness.
I can alter data. But I can also take it away.
“C-Cora?” Isaac asked warily. “Any way out of this?”
There’s nothing here. Besides us in this metal box, there’s absolutely nothing.”
“Worst case, she says. Rachel will catch us, she says,” Rachel repeated with a sigh.
“No! There has to be a way out!” Jared cried as he flew out of the cabin, straight into the darkness.
“Wait!” we called after him.
But only a few seconds passed before we heard a thud on the other side of the elevator. Then, Jared appeared in the doorway. He was breathing heavily, probably due to the dwindling oxygen supply.
“W-what…how?”
“We’re stuck in a null loop. There’s no physical way to get out of this,” Aaron sai
d, looking around nervously.
It’s not the most elegant solution…actually, in a way, it is.
His voice was was incredibly loud, yet very dull and distant. Our panic lasted some time before we were able to start thinking of possible solutions. It took another several minutes for my thought process to become desperate enough for me to have a very strange thought. I sat down and shut my eyes. I imagined that familiar small fire ignited over a bundle of wood, as I always did when using my power. The flames danced along the night sky, embers escaping to fly free among the stars. I pictured the flames frozen in place. Within the same second, the glow became constant and steady, and the embers remained trapped in mid-air. I focused on this image for some time. Then, I tried something I'd never thought to do before. I imagined the fire receding back into the wood. Moving, but against its natural, entropic flow. It was working within the vision, and I prayed the results would manifest in reality. Or at least, virtual reality. I saw the flame get sucked back into the ground, my consciousness transfixed on this movement. Suddenly, my concentration was interrupted by Cora’s familiar words.
“Killed by a Demon shortly after the war started.”
“Oh…I’m sorry…she’s technically still alive though, right?” Isaac responded, as expected.
"It…it worked!" I would’ve jumped for joy if I wasn’t completely out of breath.
I was in the same chamber again. We had just escaped from our restraints and were gathered on the central platform. Rachel was still destroying chairs with her new powers.
"What worked?" Isaac asked.
"I traveled back in time!"
"Seriously?" Lynn asked, just as intrigued as the others.
“From when?!” Aaron asked.
“Like ten minutes from now.”
“Something really terrible must’ve happened for you to have to do that,” Cora said, probably already knowing what it was.
I recanted the tale of the elevator and the void space, much to the horror of the others. I had some help from Cora, who looked into my head and shared the burden.
“How do you know the AI core is on the 163rd floor?” Raphael asked.
“Mark scanned for it. Speaking of which…” I walked over to Mark and gave him a good smack before resetting his power.
“ - get you out of this! Trust me!” he zoomed around the chamber frantically before realizing where he was. “Oh, you’re alive. Did I miss something?”
“I can go back in time!”
“That’s…wow…I mean…are you…really?” Mark stammered, which was somewhat odd given his robotic nature.
“I am…really!” I said, completely ecstatic.
“Can you go back to before the Director captured us? Or maybe before our respective Sanctuaries were attacked? Oh wait! How about before the war started so you can warn the Director’s creators that he eventually turns homicidal?”
“Technically, he’s the opposite of homicidal,” Isaac said as-a-matter-of-factly. “He’s trying to keep everyone alive and in the simulation.”
“And besides,” I said after taking a pause to stare judgingly at Isaac. “I was winded after a 10 minute jump. I really doubt I can go back decades.”
“So, you can go back just enough to give us a second chance. Or third chance. Or fourth. However many it takes to get to the top,” Lynn said.
I could sense the others felt more comfortable with this arrangement. I guess they looked past the fact that at least one of them would probably have to die each time. I myself wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of being given this much responsibility, but with the Director’s near god-like abilities, it seemed to be the only way.
“Alright then, let’s get started,” I said leading the way out. “Rule 1: No elevators.”
We navigated the maze of hallways for what seemed like hours. The same elevator presented itself to us, but we ignored it, much to the Director’s chagrin. But eventually, we found a stairwell in some corner of the halls. It was dimly lit in pale yellow light with concrete walls and worn out steps. Five floors later, we reached the a sign that read “Ground Floor” in white lettering over a black background. This normally wouldn’t seem odd, but the other signs, such as “Floor B2” and “Floor B3” were blue with gray lettering. Not one second after my suspicion turned to worry, the sign dematerialized into a million little particles and within the same second, they reorganized into a massive turret, aimed right at us.
Before we could respond, it opened fire, lighting up the stairwell in bursts of muzzle flash. I scrambled back down the staircase for some cover, but not before I felt a sharp pain on my right shoulder. Clutching my wound, I watched as the others fell one by one. I shut my eyes to avoid seeing the massacre, and for a moment was lost in a haze of fear and confusion. Then, composing myself, I pictured a flame. The gunshots slowly faded away and the familiar hum of the holding chamber resonated in my head once again.
“…by a Demon shortly after the war started.”
“Oh…I’m sorry…she’s still alive though, right?”
“Here we go again…” I sighed.
I kicked Mark on and revealed my time travel abilities once again.
“Something terrible must’ve -”
“It did. Twice.”
“Twice?”
“This is the third time I’ve been here.”
“That’s astounding,” Cora said, closing her eyes and concentrating. “I can feel the mental burden.”
“I’m grateful,” I walked to the exit with Mark and took a look down the halls. “Let’s go. Cora, have your shield ready.”
“I know.”
I retraced our old footsteps to the stairwell. As we climbed, my heartbeat accelerated with each floor. B3. B2. B1. And finally, the ground floor.
“Get ready,” I said as we reached the end of the last staircase. I positioned her in front of the group and we peeked around the corner of the landing.
“Now, the floor sign is going to morph into a turret. Almost instantly. Just hold out your shield and be ready.”
“Again, I know,” she said, tapping her bracelet.
“I’m mentally preparing the others,” I turned to them. “Close your ears.”
The second Cora stepped forward, the turret materialized and opened fire once again. We instinctively covered our ears and ducked, some behind the staircase, some behind Cora’s shield. She steadfastly held against the storm of bullets, at one point giving me look of unfazed exasperation. After a straight minute of constant gunfire, the turret finally broke down into a plethora of tiny particles, reverting once again into a sign. Cora stored the energy and retracted her shield.
“What happened last time?” Isaac asked nervously.
“Most of you died,” I said, shuddering at the memory of something that never happened.
Exiting on the ground floor, we found ourselves standing in the familiar entrance hall.
Ah, you made it out. Well done.
“Hey!” Aaron abruptly shouted. “Does the set of all sets that do not contain themselves contain itself?!”
We heard a metal clang as Mark hit the floor.
“What the hell was that?” I demanded.
“I…I just remembered reading somewhere that paradoxes can make AI crash. I thought…I don’t know…“
“Dumbass,” Cora mumbled under her breath.
To crash from a paradox, I’d actually have to register it as an input. And I was made with a logic firewall, allowing me to pre-process such questions if I’m not explicitly prepared to compute. But I applaud your ingenuity. You really know -
“Do you ever not talk?” Rachel interrupted.
What d -
“See, you’re doing it again.”
I -
“Shut up or so help me I will bring down this entire building, I swear on my life.”
Go ahead and try.
It’s strange that we’d never considered simply using our powers to just demolish the Sanctuary itself. We could cause
as much destruction as we could on the lower levels of the building, weakening the foundation. The building would fall, and the Director’s virtual AI core along with it. But I suppose we didn’t really know what would happen to the world around us if that happened. Another problem was that Rachel was the only one with any real destructive power. If Aelia were here, she might be of some use, but the rest of us were better off fighting Demons rather than buildings.
“Let’s just keep moving, try and ignore him,” I said, kicking Mark back on.
“Did some - did someone just use a paradox?” he said with an irritated tone.
“Sorry,” Aaron said.
“It’s fine, just…just don’t do it again. Or ask me to ponder the meaning of life or whatever,” he replied, his hover wavering slightly as he made that last request.
At the other side of the entrance hall was a double doorway leading to the main stairwell. Adjacent was another elevator, which we elected to stay as far away from as possible.
“More stairs…” Isaac sighed.
Micah and Aaron led the group, each pushing open one of the doors. We cautiously followed suit, taking extra care to keep me out of harm’s way. I could reverse anyone’s death except my own, since I’d have no powers in the real world. It was practical, but I still felt uneasy about letting other people die for me. We all filed into the large area in front of the steps, and jumped when the doors shut a little too loudly.
Micah put her foot on the first step. The second she made contact, an infinitesimal clicking noise reverberated into a thunderous bang, echoing furiously around us. She muttered a curse under her breath. Not a moment later, hundreds of tiny holes appeared on almost every surface, each of them unleashing a flood of darts from every direction. Rachel outstretched her hands and stopped them mid-air, several feet from our position. Within seconds, we were surrounded, enclosed within a sphere of projectiles, each adding to the weight building up around us.
“I can’t…hold this forever…” she said, her voice straining.
The onslaught did not stop. Cora had her shield ready, but it wouldn’t defend us from this attack on every front. All the rest of us could do was move closer to Rachel, closer to the center of this ever-darkening prison. The incessant tapping got louder as more and more projectiles joined the fray.
The Children of New Earth Page 22