by Oli Smith
The Doctor looked grim. ‘I know, but –’
He paused.
Then his face lit up. ‘Of course, it’s obvious!’
‘What is?’ Blondie asked.
But the Doctor was already heading towards the central lift. ‘You’ll find out,’ he winked. ‘Blondie, come with me. We’ve got a war to win.’
‘Now you’re talking.’ Blondie strode over to stand behind him, snatching her sword into her hand. She looked over to the Chief Architect. ‘Coming?’ she asked.
The Architect lowered his head. ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘All I’ve ever wanted, my entire life, is to create. The thought of this darkness, this destruction, is heartbreaking. I cannot bear to watch, let alone be a part of it.’
Behind him, the open wall began to reform. White blocks formed in the air outside, sliding into place until the office was enclosed once more.
The Doctor nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘for all your help.’
But the Architect ignored him. He took a seat on his white stool once again and held out his hands. Orange keys began to outline themselves around his outstretched fingers and the white wood of a piano started to fill in the gaps.
The lift began to move, and the Doctor and Blondie were lowered into the soft green glow of the corridor once again. Above them, the soft notes of the Architect’s playing faded away into silence.
CHAPTER 19
The Sword and the Screwdriver
They had only been running down the central pillar of the Guild for five minutes when the Doctor became frustrated. ‘We don’t have time for this!’ he shouted, brandishing his sonic screwdriver.
He switched off the pillar’s gravity.
For a split second, Blondie and the Doctor hung in space, their bodies uncertain as to which way was up. Then they were sent tumbling down towards the base of the structure.
Doors, floors and then the main hall flashed past them at incredible speed, and Blondie screamed with excitement as they continued into the depths of the Guild. The corridors narrowed once more as the opposite side of the Guild narrowed in a perfect reflection of itself and soon they were rushing towards the final floor – and the doorway to the ground.
The Doctor fumbled for his sonic screwdriver, but it slipped from his hand. It hung in the air beside him, falling at the exact same speed as he was, until the Doctor snatched it back and thumbed a button.
Almost immediately the pillar’s gravity returned and the pair were dragged onto its surface. They slipped and slid across the last few metres, scrambling for a handhold. Finally they skidded to rest at the very end of the pillar.
They climbed to their feet and looked up at the floor that seemed to hang above their heads. But they were actually standing on the ceiling.
‘Here, jump,’ Blondie grabbed his hand and yanked him into the air. They flipped over, landing with a thud on the floor.
‘Well, that was . . . confusing,’ said the Doctor.
They lay there for a minute, looking up at the pillar above them, back the way they had come. It stretched away for what seemed like miles until its shape was lost in the glow.
The Doctor turned his head to look at Blondie. She turned to look at him.
‘Hand me your sword,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m going to save the Defrags.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Blondie frowned, but she passed him her sword anyway.
He ran his screwdriver across the shimmering blade. The white metal rippled as the green light passed over it.
‘This sword, in computer programming terms, is designed to erase the body and mind of whatever animal you strike. But every time you hit something with it, you earn experience.’
‘Only from animals, not other citizens.’
‘Yeah. So it’s already in the sword’s code to transmit something from the creature into the blade of the sword. But what if it wasn’t experience points that were transmitted, what if it was people’s minds? What if, with every stroke of your sword you could separate the mind of a citizen from their body and store it in the blade?’
Blondie realised what he was saying. ‘You mean I could remove the minds of the Defrags. I could destroy their broken bodies but keep their minds safe?’
‘Exactly. You wouldn’t be killing anyone, but you’d stop them from killing others,’ the Doctor said.
‘We’d be literally saving them, storing them on the network. And without their bodies the system wipe wouldn’t be able to touch them. Because their minds can’t be erased. Doctor that’s brilliant.’
The Doctor grinned. ‘Well, duh.’
‘But what’s the point?’ Blondie looked away. ‘Our world will be gone, there’ll be nowhere for them to live, no bodies for them to control. They’ll just be stuck, in a world of nothing.’
The Doctor propped himself up on his elbows and handed the weapon back to Blondie. ‘We’ll see,’ he said.
Blondie rolled onto her knees and looked down at the Doctor, still leaning on the floor. He was smiling quietly to himself. ‘You’re not telling me everything, are you, Doctor?’ she said.
The Doctor stopped smiling. ‘I don’t want to get your hopes up, Blondie,’ he replied. ‘But I think it all rests on Daryl.’
‘Daryl? Who’s Daryl?’ Blondie raised her eyebrows.
‘I don’t know,’ the Doctor jumped to his feet and strode over to a small wooden door. ‘But I have a feeling . . .’ He grasped the bronze doorknob firmly and pressed his ear against the wood. He listened for a moment and then shook his head.
Blondie looked at him.
The Doctor looked back at her, shrugged, and then flung open the door.
Outside, the city was in chaos. The deep green shadow of the Guild rippled across the curving buildings, as if the entire world were underwater. The air was filled with the broken gleam of numbers. They formed orange ash that drifted through the streets as the Defrags dismantled the world.
The citizens were running scared, and the Doctor and Blondie watched the confusion in silence for moment. They traced the movement of the crowds, trying to discover which direction they were running in.
Finally, Blondie pointed. ‘They’re running that way.’
‘So the Defrags must be –’
‘That way,’ Blondie pointed in the opposite direction. ‘I need to get to the front line, I’m the only person who can fight these things.’
The Doctor nodded. ‘Then you’d best get going.’
Blondie nodded and drew her sword, spiralling it around her body with practised ease. She tested its weight in her grip, then began to jog towards the noise of the battle.
But a few steps later, she stopped and turned.
‘Wait,’ she said, ‘what about you?’
The Doctor put his hands in his pockets. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re a player. Your mind isn’t part of the network. When the time comes my sword won’t save you, you’ll be disconnected from your other body and die.’
‘I know,’ said the Doctor. ‘Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that.’
‘If you could get to a save-point before it’s too late . . .’
‘I’m not leaving Parallife,’ the Doctor looked stern.
Blondie smiled. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But it was worth a try.’
She turned and began to run – her sword held out by her side. It flashed in the gloom for a moment and then was lost in the crowd.
When the Doctor was sure she was out of sight he reached into his pocket. He pulled out the picture of Amy and Rory and unfolded it carefully. ‘Come on, you two,’ he muttered. ‘Save my life.’
CHAPTER 20
Breakthrough
The sandstorm loomed large in the sky above Amy and Rory, and even the bulk of the construction robot was dwarfed by its size. They were barely a mile away from the front line but already the sand around the construction robot’s tracks was churning. The wind was intense and Amy and Rory cove
red their mouths, hiding their faces in their shoulders to escape the stinging grains.
Even the steady flow of tarmac was warping and twisting as it failed to find steady ground on the dune – despite the best efforts of the construction robot’s mechanical arms.
Daryl gave up his seat on the robot’s neck and walked along its back to meet the pair. They looked up at the sound of his footsteps.
‘This is going to get bumpy,’ he shouted over the noise of the wind.
‘Yeah, we kinda got that,’ Rory mouthed over to him.
Daryl stepped around them and held out his arms as wide as he could, fastening his hands onto the metal on either side of them with a burst of white heat. With a series of soft pops his exoskeleton opened slightly, fanning out to create a protective barrier around the pair.
He began to speak but the noise was too loud, so instead his words were displayed in text across his screen.
‘Hold on tight.’
A deep bass rumble was beginning now, the sound of the demolition robots hidden behind their tidal wave of destruction. It was a terrifying, clanking growl, as if the angry pistons were fighting each other for the chance to disintegrate the construction robot and its crew.
Then the storm hit them.
The construction robot rocked like a boat in the crashing waves of sand that engulfed it. Pale white showers of dust washed over its bodywork and choked its fragile passengers.
Amy tried to open her eyes but couldn’t. The sand clung too tightly to her face and she dared not breathe for fear of drowning in the grit.
A noise like a buzz saw erupted all around them as the tarmac pumps became clogged and overflowed. Amy and Rory managed to grab onto Daryl’s arms and pull themselves up just in time to avoid a searing flood of hot tar. It flowed across the construction robot’s back and onto the struggling tracks beneath it.
Then the robot lurched one more time and levelled out.
The storm was calmer here and Amy risked letting go of Daryl’s shoulder to wipe her face and look back the way they had come.
‘We’ve passed the demolition zone.’ The text scrolled across Daryl’s screen, but it wasn’t needed. Amy could see that for herself. Behind them, the rambling tarmac path that had trailed behind them for so long had suddenly straightened out, as the ground around it smoothed. Gone were the rough hills of the dunes, instead replaced with a smooth, flat, gritted wasteland.
Amy moved her head slowly upwards. The swirling sands blotted out the sun, and the world was tinged in browns and golds. Then she saw them, the demolition robots, huge outlines in the darkness.
If she hadn’t known what they were she would have guessed that they were giants. Dark, lumbering shapes the size of skyscrapers moved slowly behind a curtain of sand.
Even the sound of their destruction was faded here, and it seemed to Amy as if the demolition robots walked in silence. Like ghosts in the storm.
She breathed.
And the sand came crashing down once more.
CHAPTER 21
Legacy
‘Amy? Amy!’ Rory slapped her gently round the face to wake her up.
‘What? What is it?’ Amy mumbled. She tried to get up from where she was lying, but found that her clothes had stuck to the drying tarmac that lined the rear of the robot. She yanked, hard, and winced as she heard her jacket rip. Then she realised that it was night. ‘How long was I asleep?’ she asked, suddenly awake.
Rory grinned. ‘Almost the entire trip, you lucky thing. It was well boring,’ he turned and pointed at the perfectly straight road stretching away behind them.
‘So we’re here?’ she asked, looking around. ‘Oklahoma?’
‘Where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain.’
‘It’s a bit . . . flat.’
‘Everything is flat now,’ said Daryl, looking down from his perch on top of the ledge. ‘This is fertile ground, ready to be rebuilt. And that –’ He turned his head and pointed in front of them, ‘is Legacy.’
Amy and Rory both scrambled onto the ledge as the construction robot trundled onwards. When Amy finally hauled herself onto the cool, unstained metal at its front, the sight before her made her catch her breath.
‘It’s huge,’ she said quietly.
‘Well, it needed to house an army,’ Rory replied.
A gigantic, stepped pyramid rose into the sky in front of them, and its black polished surface reflected the stars. As the robot approached, they could see the chambers that must once have housed the demolition robots – dark, shadowy holes that lined the lower hundred storeys. At the top of the pyramid a ribbed transmission mast cast a moon-like spotlight across the desert. A lighthouse in the wilderness.
‘Do you think the future has anything that’s normal-sized?’ said Rory eventually.
Amy shook her head.
They sat together, watching the pyramid grow as they approached it. Daryl busied himself with the robot’s controls, turning it slightly towards one of the glass lifts that sat patiently at the bottom of the structure.
Eventually the construction robot reached its destination. It collided against the polished surface of Legacy with a loud crack, then shuddered to a halt.
Rory hopped down the ladder, eager to stretch his legs on solid ground. He stared at the long white scratch the robot had carved into the wall. ‘I hope no one tries to send us a bill for that.’
‘I’m pretty sure there’s no one round here to tell on us.’ Amy jogged over to the lift. She pulled open the double glass doors and peered inside. ‘Uh, Daryl – I’m not sure you’re going to fit.’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ Daryl replied. ‘I’ll ride on top.’ He reached up to the roof of the lift and pulled himself onto its thin metal ceiling. It bent slightly, but held his weight.
Amy nodded. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked. ‘You’ve been . . . quiet. For a while now.’
Daryl nodded and looked away.
Amy decided not to press him any further and motioned for Rory to join her in the lift.
‘I hate glass lifts,’ he muttered, stepping inside and closing the door. ‘Why does anyone think you want to see how far away the ground is?’
Amy sighed and pressed a button. The doors hissed shut and the lift began to climb. Rory buried his face in his shirt and refused to look until they reached the top.
As they reached the final floor, another pair of glass doors opened onto the central control chamber. At this height the pyramid had narrowed, but the chamber was still the size of a small shopping centre.
The polished black surface continued inside, coating the floors and the low ceiling. The room was lit by moonlight. It flooded through the windows that lined every wall. But the room was so large that it was unable to illuminate the very centre of the structure.
Amy’s stubby heels clicked loudly on the floor as she entered, followed by Rory. She walked over to the shadowy central area. As she did so, the floor and ceiling began to glow softly. They cast a calming natural light and the shadows fell away as she approached. They revealed a curving Desktop computer, above which hung a variety of different-sized monitors. The central hub.
She reached out her hand and ran it over the ebony surface of the Desktop. It blossomed into life. Ripples of colour spread out across the surface, spilling onto the floor around her.
‘The whole room is a Desktop!’ Amy cried.
‘I know,’ said Rory. ‘You’ve had a message floating by your feet the entire time.’ He looked around to where Daryl had sent the lift sliding slowly back down the outside of the building so that he could enter through the glass doors. ‘Come on Daryl, we haven’t got all day!’
Amy had to crouch to read the words that floated in the floor by her feet in small red letters. ERROR REPORT FILED. They said.
‘This must be the Doctor’s message,’ she edged closer towards the curving Desktop, and managed to get close enough that the letters flowed up and onto the surface. She pointed a finger and jabbed at the words.
The screens above her head lit up, each one opening the message simultaneously. But instead of the Doctor’s comforting face, all that appeared was a string of yellow text.
Is Daryl the Games Master?
Love,
The Doctor
‘What does it mean?’ said Rory, squinting.
Amy turned to where the large bulk of Daryl’s figure was hidden in the shadows near the door. ‘Well?’ she asked him.
Daryl’s screen switched on and a sad yellow face appeared.
‘Yes,’ he said.
CHAPTER 22
Mistaken Identity
‘I was the first,’ Daryl began. He leaned heavily against the central Desktop, as if suddenly tired. Amy wondered how long it would be able to take his weight. ‘The first artificial intelligence in Parallife. The game had been going so long that all the players had seen nearly everything the level designers had created. So they created me to build new levels and new monsters – new adventures for the players to have. My job was to see everything, check on everyone – to make sure each of their character’s stories were exciting and thrilling. Then one day, they just left.’
He raised his head to the ceiling. As if it were aware of his motion, the display above him blossomed into an image of the sky. A bright sun, clouds and behind them an impossibly blue sky lit up the control room.
‘I didn’t know where. I didn’t know how. But they vanished and Parallife was left empty. All those adventures I’d created and the characters that had experienced them. They’d all just stopped, their stories left unfinished. I couldn’t bear it.’
Above him the sky shifted and changed, the day turning to night and then back to day again, over and over – time passing at high speed.
‘It was ten years before I came upon a solution,’ Daryl continued. ‘I took my mind and copied it. Then placed the copies inside the players’ characters and each version of me changed to suit their body. My mind was limitless; I wasn’t trapped inside a body. But with my mind in a million different characters – it adapted to fit each one. They developed into personalities. Then they began to create. They made their own levels, crafted new monsters, found new ways to communicate. For the first time since the game began their stories were truly their own. It was then that I realised I wasn’t needed any more.’