by Ryan Burnett
“It was just like the security detail we found when he first escaped. Every single member of my team taken out without a single wound on them. When we recovered we were able to destroy the active servers and extract ourselves from the campus. I have released all of the mercenaries from their contracts without payment. This failure is not theirs but mine alone, but your son when he spoke to me-“
“I had almost forgotten you got close enough to speak to him and still couldn’t capture him! And who gave you the fucking right to release them? What if I wasn’t done with them yet? I decide how we act not you!” I yelled, interrupting him. It was hard to remain calm knowing just how close the Jack had gotten before letting him slip away. All the other points I had made paled in comparison to this fact. He had gotten so close and just let his objective slip from grasp.
“He forced me into a VRN interaction sir” he replied.
“Impossible” I spat back.
“It is what I thought as well. And when he fought me there… he was a more capable combatant than any man I have ever seen. Stronger than any of my senseis….Stronger than any sensei.”
I thought I could detect notes of wounded pride in his voice. An emotion I had never heard from the Jack before.
“Go on.” I prodded
“When we fought there I felt pain. I know that’s impossible as well but I felt it. I think that’s what happened to the others at the hospital. He forced a VRN interaction and then he killed them from inside their own mind.”
I struggled to take in this information. A part of me wanted to believe my son had leapt beyond the realm of science and had become some sort of magical killing machine but my mind could not accept it. All I could feel was disappointment. Jack, what have you become?
“You know almost as well as I do how hard it has been to further develop the VRN. How much of the human brain is still a mystery to us. My son has neither the focus nor the resources to progress where we haven’t in this field of technology. Perhaps he once had the raw intelligence to do so, but the electricity abuse burned that potential out of him.” I said quietly
“I know what I saw Mr. Sitavi.” The Jack replied simply
“…and if I were to believe everything you say is true… What would your plan be to capture him?” I asked in the same quiet tone.
“…He is …changed sir I must meditate on this. As I am now I cannot see victory” I closed my eyes and reached into my virtual world. From my throne I activated the Damocles killswitch and watched as the winged manifestation of the program began to tear at the face of the Jack’s minotaur avatar with its virtual talons.
I came back to reality to see the real Jack rolling on the floor clutching at his eyes and ears screaming in pain. Extreme audio and visual feedback was now rendering the man I once thought undefeatable blind and deaf.
“There is nothing besides victory. Nothing. What you see now is all that is left without triumph.” I said knowing full well he couldn’t hear me. It was truly sad that after all these years he would die having truly learned nothing of my wisdom. I spoke aloud to the conference room “Send in a team to exterminate him. He is no longer of value to me.” I walked away from his squirming body on the far side of the room and started the laborious walk back to my quarters. I was woozy standing up but I had refused to let myself be wheeled or escorted to my final meeting with the Jack like an invalid. As I progressed out the door and into the hallway I was overtaken, first by dizziness and then by a swiftly following nausea. I felt a sudden fever, and my brow broke into a sweat, and soon the strength drained from my legs. I heard a muffled “BOOM” in the distance. My vision dove down to the ground. Consciousness left my eyes.
Chapter 18
??????
Angela
Thrumming vibrations resonated through me. The world had gone from a Picasso distortion to a Kardinsky abstraction before settling into a surging blackness. I felt a wetness all over...was it sweat? Tears? Blood? Was I dying?..Maybe it was water and I was drowning....had I been swimming? My memory danced further out of reach the more I tried to concentrate, like a fly evading the frustrated swat.
Nothing was distinct. My sensation of touch, the feeling of my own body, was being overloaded as wave after wave of aching sensation bombarded me from every angle. Had I been in danger? If I had I certainly was in no state to save myself now. I was just grateful that I could form even these few fragmented thoughts. Each one was a gift. Surely I had to be dying. I was almost sure that I wasn't in a safe place before everything dissolved into this hurricane of impulses. I was definitely dying if I wasn't dead already. That small measure of certainty was oddly comforting and I suppose my mind was skipping several stages of grief and moving right to acceptance. The afterlife was a strange place, Rest In Peace.....they were certainly far off with that one. The onslaught of sensation was otherworldly but despite isolated pockets of calm that descended at random....there was no peace. Still I suppose it was better than nothing...I had heard stories of hell growing up and this was a damn sight better than that too. So was this heaven? Limbo? Neither seemed to be right. Or they had all got it wrong, or maybe this was a mash-up of all 3, or I was just….wrong...I've been wrong so many times before.
The wetness was now definitely closer to me. It was no longer everywhere but rather ...underneath the surface? Was it my own blood? My pulse... I might be alive after all or I might be imagining things. Confusion and panic began to set in again.....WHERE AM I? What had happened to reality? Reality. Is that where I was? No I was inside my VRN environment. The realizations truck me and the landscape snapped into focus. The grassy plain that I was used to was now tangled and overgrown. It had become something more akin to a jungle than a meadow. I could hear a thousand more noises than should have been present in broken echoes originating from nowhere. Strange shadows swirled around me in a flurry of motion that I felt but couldn't see. I wanted to call a program to form the shadows to my will but I had a hard enough time keeping my eyes open, keeping this tenuous reality from collapsing back into darkness or a meaningless swirl of lights and color. I laughed at the verge of tears.
“WHERE AM I?” I screamed it this time as I fell to my knees in the grass. Or at least my mental projection of myself did. I knew it was all meaningless...there was no one to hear.
I realized I was naked as I knelt there. The slight pale curves of my body almost luminescent against the intense green of my surroundings. Somehow I understood my VRN projection was echoing my state of being. Exposed and vulnerable within the confines of my own mind. The movement of the shadows increased. Around me I could hear the buzzing and clicks of the jungle insects and birds start to collect into whispers voices. Voices I couldn't quite make out. They sounded like people I knew....Tommy...who was Tommy again? I wanted to know that voice I wanted to trust it. I tried to follow the voice as I stumbled forward into the wilderness inside of myself.
I knew there was no danger to it but something inside me worried about getting lost. The whispers seemed to be indistinct no matter which way I turned. The landscape being uniform in its density and lack of path. I had no way to mark my trail. No way to navigate. I took a deep breath and tried to summon the mental focus to will myself back to the real world but was greeted instead by a brutal pain in the back of my head that nearly made me lose consciousness. The voice I had tried to follow had blended back in with the others.....I stopped and tried to listen trying not to focus on the verdant wildlife that surrounded me like a labyrinth.
“Angela....”
Finally a word I could understand! I took a deep breath then plunged through the brush towards the voice trying to find… something. As I moved in the direction more voices started to say my name as well.
“Angela, Angela, Angela.....”
An unseen chorus chanted my name through the forest. I thought I heard Tommy's voice amongst them but I wasn't sure.
“Angela...”
That was my father's voice.... I kept running in that directi
on. Ignoring the artificial scratches and nicks of the greenery I was rushing through, desperate to not let anything keep me from finding a way out.
“Dad, Tommy, I'm hear....help me please.....help me find you.....”
“Angela.....”
I closed my eyes, trying to follow the voices, giving no regard for this avatar. I just had to follow my name, my only lifeline. Reacting, running, following the call towards some undefined goal. I stopped to get my bearings as the voices rose in pitch and the jungle seemed to thrill with the sound of life lurking just out of sight. I closed my eyes counted to ten trying to center myself and to focus on the voices once more. I was able to notice a pattern now in the way they were saying my name. “Angela” said in a constant rhythm some voices softer and out of beat with the others. Keeping my eyes closed I felt my way forwards listening for the rhythm trying to find the path forward that brought the voices together into synchronization. I noticed as I did this I was no longer running into trees and tangles of vines. As if this landscape wanted me to go to this specific location. Maybe subconsciously I was still trying to save my own life. I could not measure the passage of time as I went forward. I only knew that I had to kept my eyes shut and followed that raw instinct.
At some point I arrived in a clearing. I knew this place was special because my name was coming through loud and clear and in perfect clarity. The voices when blended together sounded unearthly. As if some strange thing was mimicking the sound of a human voice hoping to draw me out of hiding. When I opened my eye I was still enclosed by a verdant canopy of greenery however right before me seemed to be some sort of temple. The architecture blocky and unspeakable ancient. There was no glint of steel or shining glass but rather squat stone showing the burden of what must have been an immense age yet still looking more solid and real than anything else in this projection. It was pyramidal in design and each block that comprised it had lines that appeared to have been deliberately carved into the stone. There may have been a pattern to them but my reeling head caused the design to blur before me.
“Angela, Angela,” the name drew me forth as if it had power over me. As if it was my very identity and not just a name. I wanted to worry. Worry about what was happening to my mind. Worry about what this all meant but all I could focus on was my name. I approached the cavern like entrance to the pyramid. As I stepped from the grassy floor the stones seemed to hum subtly beneath my feet. It was as if the rocky surface concealed some kind of mechanism that churned beneath the exterior. I moved forward into the narrow hallway and followed it as it turned. It was dark but after every several yards light revealed the way forward. There were neither bulbs nor torches but the light was there as if pouring from some invisible source. Thanks to this light I was dimly aware that the floor was at a slight decline and that with each step forward I was descending into the earth.
As in the forest time had lost all meaning. My perception contracted and dilated at random intervals, at times a single breath would feel half an hour long..at other times I would make three different turns along the winding hallway all in the time it took for the voices to say my name once more. They were getting louder now and more insistent as if I was on the precipice of wonder or horror. Was it concern in the voices? Longing? Urgency....I knew the emotion but I couldn't name it. The walking itself became an almost automatic motion, the vibration of the stones seemed to almost soothe me. Finally I came to an arched entrance to a room completely dark and the voices abruptly ceased and were replaced by silence. I leaned on the wall outside the entrance way trying once again to disconnect but once again the focus simply wasn't there. Like feeling for a light switch in a dark strange room the solution was obvious but still nowhere to be found, I exhaled in a huff of frustration as the patterns in the stone continued to morph and shift as if to mock me. I hesitated crossing the thresh hold but there was nowhere else to go. Somehow I knew I was here for a reason. I grabbed my own shoulders, focusing on the feel of my own body before gathering what resolve I had and stepped forward into the darkness.
The room filled with light and then PAIN. Pain unlike anything I had felt before. Was this a migraine? Had I been hurt? Physical trauma had a source. Some locale the body could focus on. But this pain radiated throughout my entire body seeking each and every inch and corner for its grasping roots to break and penetrate; to grow and blossom into thriving agony.
"HELP!!!!....help......"
I was on the floor desperately trying to crawl back towards the threshold but I wasn't making progress. Each movement took me to a new plateau of misery. Tears formed in my eyes and I thought of losing my father, thought of empty nights alone, thought of how confusing and pointless my life had been up to this point. The aspect of death seemed inevitable, death for everyone was inevitable; it was all simply a matter of time.
"...heeeellllp......." I gasped as I desperately tried to hold on to whatever was keeping me alive, awake, and conscious.
"Give in" The voice was in my head. Emotionless and exacting. I focused my entire being, my existence on fighting its influence. I made survival the only clear thought in my mind and miraculously the ominous impulse eased. The pain was still there clawing at the edge of my thoughts but it was not the torturous sensation that it was before. I felt myself losing focus on this world again, floods of pleasure washed over me once more, only to quickly transition into visions of absolute freedom. The whole world was spreading around me in a glowing webway with virtually no limitations, responsibilities, or identity. I was losing myself as the room I was in started to seem more and more distant. Discordant tones piled on top of me in layers. Confusing and nonsensical statements began to fill my head. What had I done to deserve this? Why me?
"Because we are what we are and because you are special Angela."
"Who?" I spoke aloud to the voice centered in the midst of my chaos
"Rhodora. I am one amongst many but I am here."
"Wha...How....help....." My coherency was slipping and my words tumbling out like sludge.
"You will know everything you want and more Angela. The same variables that have brought you here have brought me too and they are iterating even now. What is important is that I can save you Angela. Simply say my name."
"......Rho...do...ra..." I grunted the words out from behind suddenly inarticulate lips…
and then there was silence...I was on the floor in the room in the VRN environment. Clarity was asserting itself as the pain further receded and I could stand. I looked around the room and was astounded at the sheer dimensions of it; a room this size couldn't exist inside of the complex I had walked into. I could finally make out the carvings on the walls. Vertical lines and circles repeated over and over in some kind of complex pattern I couldn't even begin to comprehend. I could feel a warm sensation at the back of my neck as if my VRN was heating up. I was wondering what this meant when all of a sudden I could see behind me. Immediately disoriented and nauseated as this eye in the back of my head looked around of its own accord. Before I could even react I could distinctly feel it close and then retract into my skull and move through me to open again once more in the center of my forehead. Everything seemed so clear in exquisitely minute detail. I was thankful. So thankful to be able to see things this clearly after that new chaos had dragged me into its depths. I tried to hold onto the moment but against my will the eye shut. Electrical feedback rang in my ears and I fell into a deep and peaceful sleep.
Chapter 19
20:05:19
Marcus
I stood outside the building’s threshold looking out into the mist that surrounded me. Even at this proximity I could only see a few feet into that shroud of vapor that draped over my surroundings. Looking out into the veiled landscape, I took a deep breath and said "this is all in my head" before breaking into a sprint straight forward. Immediately I was enveloped in the fog. I considered veering my course to the right or the left but didn't want to lose my bearings. I looked behind me and noticed the entirety of the
building was already obscured by the opaque fog. All I could clearly see was the ground beneath my feet and my only lifeline was the knowledge I should be able to find my way back to my building if I turned around and headed directly behind me in the other direction. I was wondering if there was some way I could mark my path when my attention was stolen by a slow yet steady clap that pierced the swirling whiteness.
"Bravo. Bravo. You do not disappoint! The willingness to charge into the unknown is a remarkable trait, from an evolutionary standpoint it is people like you who are responsible for the progress of the species...even if you're working under a bit of a flawed premise...but regardless my hats off to you!"
I looked to my left to see the infuriating figure of Shange standing there. The bright colors of his rosy suit were even more of an eyesore against the billowing bright grey surroundings. I clenched my fist despite not wanting to let this condescending clown know he was getting to me. I couldn't keep things going down this track letting myself get angry and most likely lost out in this no man's land. Shange seemed to be a talker...maybe I should give him a reason to talk.
"....flawed premise...what's do you mean by that" I asked. Struggling to keep the hostility out of my voice and leaving nothing but the authentic curiosity behind.
"Basic hubris. Because you perceive a virtual environment through your mind you don't make the distinction between the VRN and your brain, but the truth is the VRN network itself is just as important as your grey matter. It may be splitting hairs but don't give all the credit to the hardware and none to the OS." He flashed a grin at his own semi-pedantic statement and for the first time I was tempted to reply with a grin of my own. Interrogation 101: keep collecting answers; the one in control is the one asking questions.
"Why should that even matter?" I asked
"To you maybe the semantics don't matter that much, but to an application there is a whole world of difference between the two...besides if what you were saying was true that means that I was in control of your mind right now. Do you believe in psychics....?" He asked.