by Tony Corden
They made their way to the centre of the room. It opened at a touch and there was a ladder descending into a room. Leah closed her helmet and started down, followed by Wisp. As they descended, the room lit up. It was spherical and in the centre was a small hovering disc with a console. As soon as they stood on the disc, the ladder withdrew, and the console lit up with a keypad.
Leah was about to enter the code she’d used before when Wisp said, “Wait, there is a code at the top of the first map. I didn’t notice it before, but it’s now in English numbers.”
Leah looked, and there was a twenty digit number at the top of the page. She entered the number, and the disc began to tilt. Except for the initial movement they wouldn’t have known except it looked as though they were changing their orientation within the sphere. When the disc stopped a walkway extended from the base, and a square doorway appeared at the end of it. Together they made their way to the door and stepped through.
They were in what Leah identified as a truncated icosidodecahedron. The edges were clearly visible as beams, which gave the structure enormous strength. Most of the faces were solid, although some were blank. Down the centre of each solid face was a textured walkway. Wisp looked at the map, which showed the room as a hexagon. She imagined the gravitational direction to represent the surface of the map and of the surfaces in that plane only one of the other faces was blank. She pointed to the exit and Leah led them along the walkway to the opening Wisp had pointed to. The room was ten metres in diameter and gravity shifted subtly as they walked. It seemed as if they were always walking along the flat.
Wisp continued to direct Leah, and for the first twenty-two rooms the plane they arrived in only had a single alternate opening. They'd travelled over two hundred metres and had begun to move at a jog. The twenty-third room had two exits possible in the plane, but the line on the map showed that they should take the left-hand opening rather than the one which was almost straight ahead. Leah slowed down and said, “Everything we’ve done matches the map, and it looks like you’re reading it properly. We need to move faster if we’re going to make it in time. The actual distance we have to travel is more like nine or ten kilometres than the one-and-a-half I imagined. Are you OK to stay almost a room behind me and call out the directions? I’ll be double checking, but I want to be ready for the attacks when they come. I haven’t seen any evidence yet of creatures here, but I’m sure they’ll show up soon enough.”
Wisp agreed, and Leah began to move faster. They’d passed through over a hundred rooms when as Leah stepped into a room, she saw something dropping from the ceiling toward her. Leah fell to her right and rolled to the side as it slammed into the floor right where she’d been heading. The creature had six limbs, each with opposing thumbs and claws on its digits. The body was flexible and covered in small scales, each of which had a short spike or hook at its centre.
All six limbs had crashed into the pathway. As Leah watched, two lifted from the ground and the upper part of the body rotated toward her to show a head which reminded her of an insect due to its multifaceted eyes with flattened edges. There were three eyes, each one orientated toward vertices of its triangular face. In the centre of the face was an opening which was surrounded by overlapping teeth and with which the creature screamed at Leah. It then leapt at her from a standing start using its four lower limbs.
Before it reached Leah, Wisp shot at it with her blaster, blowing a hole through its head. Leah nodded thanks to Wisp, and they both looked up as faint echoes of the scream seemed to rebound through the maze. Leah said, “I’m going to up the volume on the helmet speakers, so I get more warning. When we enter a room, I’ll check ahead and then to the right and down if you can check up, then right and behind. I’m sure the sounds were heard, and the number of the creatures will increase.”
“That sounds good. I have a small drone. How about I send it ahead of you, so we have more warning?”
Leah smacked her helmet and said, “That’s a great idea. I have several drones and should have thought of it myself. What if I send two ahead and you set yours to watch our rear? If we link them, you can give the directions, and we’ll share their feeds.”
“If you have more, then how about programming them to leapfrog ahead and also check one room along each branch not on our path? That way, we’ll have extra warning.”
Leah agreed and soon each had four images projected on the top of their faceplate. The usefulness of the drones was shown eight rooms further on when the image of one of the creatures appeared down one of the branches not on the pathway. It was standing on two legs and holding the edge of the entrance with four claws. Leah expected it to propel itself into the room as they arrived, and she was not disappointed. This time she was ready and killed it before it had moved a metre into the room. She slowed to let the body fly past and then resumed the fast jog she’d been using.
Altogether it took three hours to reach the end of the maze and enter the room at the top of the collection tower. Without the drones, they might never have made it, and if they had, it would have been hours later. Some of the rooms toward the top had held upwards of six of the creatures. The upper chamber had no creatures in it, and the few that had been chasing them stopped at the doorway and didn’t enter.
50
Chapter 50
December 17, 2073 - Afternoon - Part 3
COSMOS ONLINE
The end room was a sixty-metre diameter sphere, and as they stepped into it, the spherical wall became the down direction for gravity. Around the edges of the sphere were nine consoles placed around the equator of the room if the place they had come in was thought of as the south pole. There was a large transparent section at the north pole which looked out into the star system. In the centre of the room was a twenty-metre diameter globe that was whirling around the axis between what would have been the north and south poles. Wisp and Leah walked to the closest console. On the screen was what looked like a puzzle.
Leah looked for a moment and said, “Let’s check the other consoles and see if the puzzles are the same.”
They walked together to the console on their left. This puzzle was different.
Leah said, “The puzzles are different, and so far, each solution is different. Let’s look at them all and then we can see if they should be done in any particular order.”
Wisp said, “Have you solved those already?”
“I think so. They are basically logic puzzles, and it’s my thing, kind of.”
Each of the seven consoles showed a different puzzle. Walking around the ring, they found the following puzzles in order.
Leah sat and stared at each one for a while before saying, “The solutions are all numbers between one and nine. I think we should start at the one with the solution of one and work in ascending order. Does that sound OK?”
“Yes, I’ve only been able to come up with two answers so I’ll go along with you. Do you want to discuss your reasoning on each one as we get to it so I can check?”
Leah agreed and walked to the console, which had the forty-two numbers in six rows. She said, “I started with the second row, and 800 is ten squared multiplied by eight and the one hundred-and-sixty-four is ten squared plus eight squared. It’s the same in the third row with 363 being eleven squared times three. Eleven squared plus three squared is one hundred and thirty. The same pattern is true for the first row, using nine with the seven. Following the pattern, the last row shows fourteen squared times five which is 980. The last three numbers are then fourteen squared plus five squared, which should be 221. The missing number is 'one'.”
Wisp needed her PAI to help her then said, “Amazing! OK, so type in the answer.”
On the console was a keypad and Leah typed the number one. The puzzle flashed green and what was clearly a sudoku appeared on the screen with four of the numbers highlighted. All were the number 'one'.
Leah made some notes and then pressed on the five other squares where she thought the number one should go.
As Leah filled in the ninth square, there was a grinding noise, and a slice in the centre of the globe began to slow down and then stop. The globe continued to rotate both above and below the stopped section.
Leah then walked to the second console they’d looked at and pressed the number two. Another sudoku appeared on the console. This time none of the numbers were highlighted, Leah first solved the puzzle then highlighted the nine squares which had the number two in them. As she did, a segment of the globe just above the equator slowed and came to a stop. Leah moved from console to console solving the puzzles until all nine sections of the globe were still.
Leah and Wisp looked at each other, wondering what would happen next, but the room was still. A survey of the globe found a metre wide opening at the base of the globe. Wisp said, “Let’s send a drone inside.”
Leah nodded, and Wisp sent one of her drones into the globe. The opening was the beginning of a tunnel that wove its way into the centre of the globe. If any of the sections had stopped at the wrong place, it would have been impassable. In the centre was a room with a console in the centre. On the screen, they could see a ring cut into nine sections. One of the sections was highlighted. Wisp said, “Shall we both go or just one of us?”
“Both, I think, although it’s probably just another logic type puzzle.”
They made their way into the globe and were soon standing and looking at the segmented ring.
After staring for a few minutes, Leah said, “The only thing I can think of is to press the segments in the same order as the consoles outside.”
“That’s the only thing I could think of as well.”
Leah reached out and pressed the segments in the order of the outer consoles. As she pushed the last one, the ring flashed green, and a counter appeared in the centre of the ring. It was counting down from thirty. Leah said, “You first, let’s leave.”
Wisp used the thrusters to race through the tunnel and out of the globe. Leah wasn’t far behind, and a counter Gèng had put on her faceplate showed they made it out with five seconds to spare. As they touched down on the outer surface of the room, the globe began to spin again, although this time it didn’t only turn around the axis, but the axis also began to rotate around the centre of the globe. As it began to spin, they both received a message.
Congratulations, you have reset the failsafe and begun the process of restoring power to the station. The rest of this process is automated. You have four hours and forty-eight minutes remaining to claim the station. The control room is near the centre of the city. You have five minutes to vacate this room before the power is restored.
Beneath the message, a counter had started a countdown. Wisp removed the map they had printed of the path to the control room, and one end showed the spherical room they were in. Next to the entry were two numbers which looked like longitude and latitude. Leah had Gèng use their entry point as ninety degrees south and started longitude at the first console. Gèng highlighted the position represented by the numbers, and the two friends hurried toward the area indicated.
There was a concealed hatch which revealed a keypad. Leah used the code from earlier in the day and the hatch opened, showing a long dark tunnel dropping through the spike. With a smile at Wisp, Leah dropped into the tunnel. Gravity was pulling her straight down, and she used her thrusters to slow the fall. It only took three minutes to cover the distance it had taken them to climb to the top of the collector tower.
They were only a third of the way down when the five minutes were up. Lights along the length of the tunnel began to glow. When they landed, they could hear the spire shifting as the one and a half kilometre long spire reoriented itself to point at the fourth planet. They were in a circular room once again. This one had nine doors or access hatches around its circumference. One of the hatches was open, and lights showed a tunnel heading through the station toward the surface. Wisp pointed to a doorway two to the left of the open hatch and said, “If the map is correct, then the fastest way will be through that door, not the one that is lit.”
Leah said, “We’d follow the lights if you hadn’t discovered the other menu. I recommend we take the direct route.”
Wisp agreed, and they made their way to the hatch that was closed. It wasn’t locked, and they were soon standing in a dark tunnel that had no power. Leah said, “Let’s send the drone ahead and move like we did up the collector tower. The map is straight most of the way. It’s over three kilometres, so we’d best hurry.”
51
Chapter 51
December 17, 2073 - Afternoon - Part 4
COSMOS ONLINE
Leah led the way as they ran into the dark, the way lit by two headlights situated at the top of her helmet. Leah was slightly worried at the complete lack of opposition on the path, but everything Wisp had discussed about stations suggested if they could get through a door, it was legitimate. The last three hundred metres of the map was a series of ladders which climbed up through the station towards the centre of the city. An hour after they had left the collection tower, they stood outside a hatch which the map suggested led into the control room. Once again the hatch opened readily, and Leah and Wisp stepped into another circular compartment.
The power was on in this room, and the walls showed scenes from the city outside. The scenes looked to be real-time, and they could see the dome which was forming over the city. The trapezoidal structures had extended as Wisp and Leah had predicted. They had no way of measuring what the field was that appeared between them, but they could see the dome was almost complete. The room held a variety of consoles and in the very centre was a dais. Each of the consoles was either asleep or on standby. Leah walked slowly to the centre and stood on the dais.
A voice said, “Welcome, Atherleah. You have successfully restored power to this Class Five Space Station and now have control of it and the associated portal. Claiming this station is recognised as a claim over the whole system and comes with the responsibility to manage the facility in line with Cosmos Online policies.”
Wisp gave a cheer as the room flashed with light, and the dome also gave off a bright pulse of light. When Wisp had stopped hugging Leah, the voice continued, “Have you any questions before you and Player Wisp_001 are transferred to a meeting with Cosmos Online developers to discuss your claim?”
“Yes. I request that both Player Wisp_001 and I be permitted to notify and have at the meeting our lawyers and business managers. Also, there are other players in our team.”
There was a moment of silence, and then the voice said, “That is your right. We will adjourn the meeting for fifteen minutes to give you time to contact your representatives and the other players. We have given your PAI the address where the meeting will take place. We look forward to seeing you in fifteen minutes.”
Wisp said, “I don’t have a lawyer or business manager.”
“That’s alright, mine can represent both our interests. I’m sure Gèng is already contacting people, so how about we meet in the Tower to discuss everything?”
Wisp nodded, and they logged out.
STORK TOWER
Leah arrived back in the Tower and headed for the gazebo. Gèng appeared alongside her and said, “I contacted Stephen, Leon, and Priscilla when you restored power and they have been discussing options for the last hour. Amy, Thad, James, John and Zach have all been contacted as well. John said you can control his vote as did Thad. Amy, James and Jack are on their way. Stephen, Leon, and Priscilla are in one of the staff offices but can come to the gazebo if you prefer.”
“No, let’s go there.”
They walked the rest of the way, listening to the gentle sounds of the Tower. The building Gèng had constructed for the staff offices was designed so that each office looked out over the valley and was accessible through the main entrance. The offices all occupied the same space but were created in different virtual dimensions.
Stephen, Leon and Priscilla were all sitting around a table when Leah walked in,
and by the time they’d finished congratulating Leah, Wisp and the others had arrived.
Stephen said, “I’ve a copy of the contracts Cosmos Online filed which relate to those players who manage the two Class Three stations Wisp told you about. They were offered a sliding scale of responsibility from full management except for the public areas through to no management responsibilities for a percentage of the profits. Leon has looked it over and says the percentage of profits will bring in about half the minimum you could earn by managing it yourself. You’d have to appoint someone to run the station full-time, and there are a range of penalties outlined in the contract if you fail in the responsibility.”
“Why do Cosmos Online give people the option?”
“Almost always, private ownership leads to greater productivity. Cosmos Online will end up making just as much either way, and the private ownership opportunities will attract a superior calibre of players to the game. People who can use their skills in the game will flock both to play and look for such opportunities.”
“Do you have people in mind?”
“We brainstormed, but your best bet is to advertise. The advertisement will drive the stock up.”
“Priscilla? Any thoughts?”
“Over the last four hours, I’ve bought in excess of fifty-million VCr worth of shares for you alone, Leah. You have about seventy-five million dollars invested in the company, which at today’s prices is worth somewhere around three trillion. I suspect you’ll double your investment within three months and the dividends will add somewhere around twenty per cent additional income over the year. If you fully manage the station and players flock to it as expected, then you could earn easily ten or twenty times that amount. The real estate alone is worth billions. I modelled a daily player volume of two hundred thousand. That is long term, as I expect the initial number will be in the millions. Those players who have used up their avatars will need to pay for a new one. If they then start here, that will bring you somewhere between fifty and a hundred VCr per extra avatar. Each day someone chooses to play here instead of elsewhere will earn you a slice of their monthly fees. Cosmos Online has over one point two billion players, which means from fees alone, each month, before players spend money to purchase goods, is somewhere around a quarter of a trillion VCr. I suggest you find some people you trust and work it.”