Light. White light. Werner was lying on his back, on something between a
comfortable and spartan
surface. As he tried to get up, he was suddenly held back by the buzz of the
restraining field that had been placed around the bed. Twisting his head around,
he saw that he was in a RealWare medical facility, which presumably meant he had
fainted; he could remember nothing after the flash of purple light.
"Ah! Mr. Newland! You’re awake." A
RealWare doctor strode towards him, conjuring up a scanner from his robes. He
ran a glowing instrument down the twenty-seven year-old’s body and examined a
few figures as they flashed across the display above the bed. "Hah! Just as I
expected!"
"What?" came Werner’s bemused reply
"There is absolutely nothing wrong with
you, aside from the headaches you seem to be still having, but we’ve dealt with
that" said the doctor. "Were it not for the fit you pulled in that conference
room…"
"I pulled a fit in the conference room?"
"You went into convulsions, followed by
insane ramblings that went on even while you were carried, twitching, to this
medical bay." Seeing that Werner’s expression, he quickly added, "You don’t
remember it, because the problem has something to do with your brain chemistry…" He
paused, and then furrowed his brow. "At least, I think it does. I am absolutely
certain that you don’t know a word of RealWare Medical Protocol 452-B, so you
wouldn’t know that neurological scans are absolutely forbidden thanks to their
experimental nature and 79% chance of resulting in permanent brain damage – and
because your neurochemistry is the only thing that could be causing the problem, I
can only guess as to exactly what’s wrong with you."
"This is all interesting doctor, but I really don’t care. How do I stop it?"
"Not being sure of the diagnosis, I can't prescribe you anything; but,
there are non-conventional options you could pursue. For example, many patients
under stress have reported great success with the Nipponese style of meditation;
ever tried it?"
Werner shook his head mutely. His time
in Nippon had been spent entirely on art galleries, art conferences, and running
an art and design course in his spare time to collect some extra En.
"Well, your workstation has entered into
a subscription to the meditation class segment of the Nippon Advertiser. You may
want to look into it. Oh, and there was one more thing your superior told me to
convey...what was it? Oh yes: you
have three weeks off work to ensure that this never happens again." He switched
off the restraining field with a dismissive wave. "Good day," was all he said
before he left.
Werner stood up and looked at the now empty
ward. How odd, he thought. He knew that RealWare doctors were the best
that money could buy and were thus insufferably arrogant, but this one was much
more arrogant than the usual bunch. Werner slowly walked out of the medical bay,
pondering what it all meant.
One thing the doctor said rang true,
however – Werner had to neutralize the problem, and soon, or he’d lose his job.
RealWare disliked employees that were constantly ill, and even his many
awards would not save him from being sacked should he continue to be in this
condition. He decided to return to his apartment, and call it a night.
Ω Ω Ω
The doctor walked slowly to his
office, attempting to control his nervous excitement. He knew he had to
contact them, but how might he explain the situation? A direct video link would
be out of the question; the leader would understand, of course, but a lackey
would probably do something rash. No, a text
message would be the best way to do it. He switched his Workstation on and
loaded up encryptor programs three, seven, and nineteen. After cracking his
knuckles, he began to type.
Ω Ω Ω
The city of Nagasaki, Nippon, was famous for its neon-lit streets; they bathed the
surrounding countryside in an eerie glow. Tourists would travel miles to see the neon art
that pervaded the city – Edo’s local laws forbade the exhibition of some of the
wilder types of neon, in the name of allowing its residents to get to sleep
without having to blacken their windows. In Nagasaki, however, the lighting laws
had been overcome by dissidents using very cunning
strategy of ignoring them. As a consequence, the night sky over Nagasaki was
permanently lit by the muddy violet colour of countless neon signs,
which made the city a heaven for those who appreciated modern art and a hell for
the 852,000 people who actually lived there.
ARE YOU TIRED OF HAVING
YOUR JOB JEOPARDISED BY YOUR POOR PSYCHOLOGICAL MANAGEMENT?
As he walked, Werner thought back to the doctor's
comments, and back to when the symptoms began. The truth was that these seizures, visions if
you will, had been happening more and more frequently, as he became more and
more renowned for reality design. He thought back to the night when they began; it was just after he had been released from hospital after the
infamous Hermes Disaster. It was the night of the Batesies (or, as they were formally
known, the RealWare Awards for Excellence; they were called the Batesies because a Bates always chose the recipients, a Bates presented the
awards, and a Bates started the thousand-year-old tradition). As he ascended the
stairs to the stage to collect the Award for Best Reality Design, he suddenly
felt the sensation of a purple flash, and the
chiming of a gong, and then he was back in reality; his riviere lasting only a
moment. At the time, he put it his trance down to excitement,
and forgot about it. However, as his designs became better, his visions became more common. Soon, his head began to ache
whenever he drew up a design. He had taken headache tablets; copious quantities of
headache tablets, to no effect. Just before he had the fundamental insight that
led to the creation of a Reality whose gravity was entirely subjective (which
led him to receive his 5th Award for Best Reality Design), he had his
most painful vision yet. The visions all had something in common; they all began with
a purple flash, and the chiming of a gong. But they never lasted more than a few
seconds; it appeared that his latest one lasted minutes. He looked at his watch again; it was already 22:04, and he had only reached
number 1710. He began to jog down the street, when he saw...
Ω Ω Ω
Common belief, for those in the know, established that Mortimer Fallsworth was
the supreme leader of the Society for Normal Reality. And this was true. But it was also
true that the Society had many cells, and each of these cells had a leader. One of
those leaders was standing in the wreckage of no. 1932, The Street of Cunning Artificers,
Nagasaki, Nippon, and he was not pleased. The police had come, drawn utterly
incorrect conclusions, and left the politicians to mop it up. The mopping had
been done, and now the leader of a cell of the Normalizers was looking,
displeased, at the devastation. The object of his displeasure was swinging open
and shut slowly, creakily, and for the last time. He turned back to another man,
whom we can safely assume to be an associate.
Ω Ω Ω
As he expected, Jessica was the first
person to speak as they left the Healing Ward. The music was louder out here,
filling every corner of the cloister with sound.
Ω Ω Ω
After two days Werner had regained
consciousness permanently and began to start walking again, much to the
satisfaction of the Healer; although he was forbidden to leave the ward. The
constant choral music was not helping his mood.
Ω Ω Ω
The ward’s door opened out to a large
cloister; a vaulted and decorated corridor-like structure that was missing most
of a second wall; the wall seemed to consist only of small, slim, stone pillars. The
Sensei led him between the pillars to the large, open space at the centre of the
building. It was only then that Werner understood. "One of our
temples, by the by." "...ok...there was a mobile waiting for me?"
Ω Ω Ω
Jessica walked into the Elevator, and
the doors closed behind her. She spun around, and looked at the undisguised
Elevator control panel. It was covered with the many symbols that would need to
be entered in the right combination for it to traverse the multiverse, or, in
this case, to travel to one particular reality, and then back to Idéa, without
being detected. Of course, it had the best in cloaking technology; the precious
points that were so coveted on Idéa had been spent almost exclusively on stealth
technology. She looked at the long list of symbols she had painstakingly
calculated some hours ago. The Elevator was a MANUAL mobile; and while it could
be programmed to, say, teleport into one reality, wait five seconds, and then
teleport back, it had to be specifically programmed every time it was used
thanks to security protocols. So, her calculations had to be written in the
source code that made many qualified Reality Engineers run away, screaming.
Soon, however, she had keyed in the symbols; the Elevator shook, and she was
there, safe and whole. She breathed a sigh of relief, which turned into a cough
when she stepped out. The atmosphere on this reality was a little more acidic
than usual.
Jessica nodded slowly. "And the other thing?"
Duke consulted his workstation. "Oh, right. The OTHER thing. You'd better come
with me; I have to show you how this stuff works. You can’t fool around with it,
it’s dangerous."
"May I present the multiverse’s last surviving…"
Ω Ω Ω
Although it looked to be of brick
construction, the Shrine of Id, situated beneath the Ki, was actually one big
hollowed out piece of stone. The far wall was not stone; however, it was the
trunk of the tree, the Ki. The shrine was bare and totally dark aside from two
features. In the centre of the circular shrine was a dais, and on that dais was
a pool, with a pedestal standing tastefully to one side. The room, unlike the
rest of the reality, was utterly, utterly, silent.
Ω Ω Ω
Jessica, now back in her natural form, pushed open the doors of Duke’s
Munitions with a thought and strode out to the deserted wasteland, humming a
little tune. She hadn’t had so much fun for years; it was also satisfying to try
out the procedure she had been honing for seven months on a living subject.
There, at least, the Sensei was absolutely right; a small force could move
mountains. Or, at the very least, knock out a man for nineteen hours in a second.
Soon, she would have her revenge.
Ω Ω Ω
Werner, like most of the moderately
wealthy citizens of Nippon, was entirely desensitized when it came to stories
that involved mysterious rites of passage, secret oriental societies, and
ninjas. Of course, he knew that ninjas did not exist. However, he was expecting
his rite of passage to be one that would involve hardship, pain, suffering, and
revelation. He did not expect to find himself in a pleasant, airy room; lit by
soft light, furnished in an ancient Nipponese style. The high windows showed a
tiny part of a massive tree; although it looked like it was winter at the time.
He was sitting cross-legged on a mat, facing another man who was sedately
pouring mint tea. The man had the odd slicked-back purple striped hair of the
Sensei, but his stretched and worn face betrayed a much greater age.
Ω Ω Ω
His full name was Edmund Wesley Bates,
and he was the younger brother of Arthur Jacob Bates, then the CEO of RealWare
Inc, slightly over eight hundred years before the present. Arthur J. Bates was
moderately concerned about his brother’s continued existence; like all dynasties
in human history, the Bates family had already accumulated a motley bunch of
disreputable cousins who were constantly on the lookout for a way to seize the
family fortune. Arthur perceived that, should he die before his children-to-be
were old enough to rule the roost, his brother would take over the business to
his posterity's detriment. Thus, Arthur decided to attempt to remove his brother from the
competition, so to speak, and paid a ninja to kill him silently, unexpectedly,
and (because the target was family), relatively painlessly. The ninja, confounded by the elaborate security around young Edmund, concocted an
elaborate plot involving a reality engine, a strange letter, a mysterious break
in, and a delicious breed of Peruvian mountain llama.
However, the attempt was botched thanks to the fact that Edmund had secreted a
small transporter on his person, which led to the ninja’s untimely death and
Edmund’s inconvenient survival.
To derive the funds for his
expedition, he published an extraordinary book of his musings: The Little
Book of Calm. It was a very little book, and it was filled with sayings
designed to stimulate calm. It was also a better depressant than the most exotic
drug you could buy in the slightly seedy reality of
Paradisia. The book immediately topped the Urbana Times bestseller lists;
trouncing the bestselling Hitchhiker's Guide to the Multiverse to stay at the top of the chart for a record ninety-six
weeks.
The philosophy really began to flourish
when he found a book titled "An Analysis of Modern Religions: Buddhism" sitting
in an airtight room in the huge, abandoned monastery. After reading this ancient
text, he developed a philosophy based around kindness, charity, poverty and
personal enlightenment. He felt that humans were locked in a great wheel, where
their obsession for their own little lives enslaved them to an eternity of
perpetual reincarnation. He believed that Reality Adepts alone had the power to
break this cycle, and so his life’s work was set out for him – to find those who
also possessed his abilities, and to assist them in reaching the Place Beyond
NullSpace, where he theorized there would be a paradise beyond the wheel of
damnation. He also made a vow; to ensure that the Gift of the Adepts was not
used to harm non-Adepts, and to keep the existence of the Gift a secret for fear
of the panic it would cause.
They also were more capable of using their power than their un-Avowed Adept
brethren; because of a strange truth discovered by Id. Just as the small pebble
in the right place and at the right time can move a mountain, so can a small
power move a multiverse. The dangerous excesses of power that
Adepts used to change reality were unnecessary; only a small change and the
desired outcome would result.
Ω Ω Ω
"So, you see, I apparently found enlightenment shortly after I downloaded myself
into this device. This meant that I couldn’t tell his followers how exactly he
got there, which was really annoying. But we’ve pretty much been spending our
time here in isolation. No-one could get to where my creator got on his path;
they kept dying. So, knowing that, what do you think?"
Ω Ω Ω
Werner emerged from the holographic pool, and stood on the dais. The Shrine was
totally empty, and utterly silent. He walked out, bemused. He saw
the crater, carving a great hole in the ground that stretched from the shrine to
the monastery. It seemed that the Society had struck again. Note: there is an
actual company called
RealityPrime, providing consulting in VR
and game technology. It is not associated with Unreal Estate: Open House.
Protections The Batesies, or RealWare Awards For
Excellence Nagasaki
To the Representative of the Society of Normal Reality…
This was always a safe move; while he
wanted to send the message to Mortimer, his underlings always seemed to take
offence at someone going over their heads. Anyway, an operative hidden in the
bowls of RealWare was not really on the level of the leader of the Society, even
if that operative was a leading member of the multiverse’s medical community.
Werner was a regular visitor to Nagasaki
(despite the fact that his home and workplace were both located in Edo), and,
like all regular visitors to the City of Lights, he took the precaution of wearing a
pair of infra-red goggles – the lights were so surreal that it was virtually
impossible to see where you were going without them.
In his hand, he carried a crumpled
print-out of the advertisement he had found blinking on his
Workstation desktop. That an ad could get on his Workstation in the
first place was a bit of a mystery; RealNet SpamBlockers had a 78% success rate
when it came to filtering out unwanted messages. And yet, this Nihongo message was
waiting for him when he got back to his apartment (presumably part of a stream
the doctor had ordered):
His Workstation translator had slaved for nearly an hour on the last bit, with
no discernable result. Intrigued, Werner had decided to go to the class. He
didn't understand why, exactly, he wanted to go there, but it seemed as good a
thing for him to do then to stay in his apartment.
As he reached an intersection, he glanced up to see the signpost. Corner
Paradise and Cunning Artificers; it being 21:52, Werner turned into the street
with a slightly brisker pace. To his left was a small shop, number 1466 - he
still had
quite a ways to walk.
A purple flash, the chiming of a
gong. A rain of lead, and three concentric circles. An exotic perfume, and the
sun filtering through the trees. A searing pain in his right shoulder…
Suddenly, Werner was back in reality, now with a bullet embedded in his shoulder.
He was being shot at! He tumbled in anticipation of
another shot; glancing behind him, he could see two figures, clad in black, both
equipped with serious-looking guns. He heard the pattering of feet behind him, and he began to run.
The light flitted, and formed crazy
shapes that seemed to mock him as he ran; two bullets whistled past him with the
wind. His head began to throb; a dull pain in his shoulder accompanying the
excruciating pain of his headache. He ran.
He could see the street number signs
beside him as he ran; the last one was 1712, and then he saw a glimmer of hope –
he knew that 1984 would be safe… or would it? Perhaps this was all a setup?
Even so, the street stretched the length of the city, and the residents of the
storefronts seemed to be in bed. Trap or no, it was his only chance. So he kept
running.
1928 now, but his aggressors seemed to
be catching up on him. However, they were conserving their fire – the street was
no longer deserted. Here and there, people were walking along the street,
looking at the beautiful (or irritating, in the opinion of the residents) neon
displays. Werner kept running, his tall stature and thin build assisting him in
weathering the increasingly large crowd.
1964, and he was almost there, but so
were his hunters; they couldn’t be further than a few feet behind him now, as he
almost skidded on the pavement, he eventually got to…
1986. What? He darted a glance at the
shop next to it, a small bakery, number 1982. Where was 1984? Knowing he had
precious few seconds left, he nevertheless darted a glance at the printout.
"1984, The Street of Cunning Artificers". But it wasn’t…
1984. A dingy red brick building
sandwiched between the towers opposite. He could hear the footsteps slowing
down as his aggressors caught up to him; but they were in a large crowd of
hard-core artists, and were momentarily disoriented. He bolted into the building,
ran through the glass door
despite the pain, and then saw it. It was a very small box, with a very small
label, which said, in very small print; "C9 Explosives"; and a very small timer
was counting down a very small number to a very big explosion.
Danger if he stayed; danger if he left; the aggressors were now pouring bullets
into the window. The room was otherwise bare, aside from a door at
the end that had, against all probability and common sense, a piece of card,
hung on a bit of string, with two words written in large letters.
"Open Me."
As time seemed to slow, he lurched to the door, opened it, and stumbled into a broom
closet The door closed behind him. There was a whirr, and a brief sense of
disorientation. And the door opened.
"So."
The word seemed to sum it all up.
"We find the ‘temple’, and shut down
its advanced cloaking device thanks to the abnormal your superior found for us, and we
normalize the four abnormals there, as well as destroy anything they had in the
temple. Apparently, the abnormal that unwittingly got rid of their protection
finds a Reality Engine for Mobiles in a broom closet" here he indicated the now
forlorn door "and gets into the festering heart of the whole movement."
His associate nodded mutely. He knew
what was coming next.
"Now, in ordinary circumstances, this would’ve been fine. However, our
enlightened operative, in his excitement, neglected to put a tracer on him. So,
all we can ascertain from this incident is that a reality engine for mobiles
left this space. That leaves us with one navigational symbol, and that leaves us with nine tenths
of the multiverse left to investigate. This would take roughly seven thousand
years to do."
His associate tensed himself for the
inevitable.
"You know what, Artemis? I’m not going
to worry about it," the leader said.
A look of disbelief and relief began to
creep onto Artemis’s face
"I’m going to let Mortimer deal with you."
And, as Artemis was lead away by his
former comrades, he understood why this must be; in the crusade against an
omnipresent foe, the Society could not let incompetence bring them down.
A purple flash, the chiming of a
gong. Voices, above him, whispering?
No. Yelling.
"For the love of Id, he’s the only living witness to an attack that could befall
any of our temples at any time. Wake him up!"
"And if I wake him up, there won't be any living witnesses left! I will tell you
when it’s safe to revive him!"
"Healer, I am inclined to support Jessica’s case in this instance. Please revive
him."
"Very well, Sensei, but only for a minute. After that, I want you all out; the
patient needs rest!"
Werner slowly opened his eyes. He was on
his back for the second time that day, looking at a vaulted stone ceiling, and
listening to two people close to the feet of his bed argue. He
closed his eyes. He felt like he had
just woken up the morning after a particularly egregious party. Perhaps
this was what had happened; he had the taste of ashes in his mouth, the
excruciating headache,
The dull pain in his shoulder.
It all came flooding back, now. He remembered the bullet piercing his shoulder blade, the splintering wood frame,
the people who were chasing him, and the explosives on the floor of 1984, Street
of Cunning Artificers. And then the strange door, and then… a large, stone
building with a vaulted roof? He opened his eyes again, and found his vision
entirely taken up by a large, good natured face of a man, presumably the Sensei,
who looked about twenty-something years old. Small, sharp blue eyes bored into
him, but these were mere distractions when one saw his hair; it was an slicked
back black, with a loud and conspicuous purple stripe going right from the
fringe to the very back. It was frightening hair. It was also infuriating; it
meant that a return to the real multiverse was probably not forthcoming. He
dearly wanted to go back to sleep, and wake up in a normal reality; a reality
where he didn't have headaches, or unusual seizures, or chases into broom
closets with ridiculous signs hung to them
But he wasn’t. At least, he mused, he
wasn’t being chased or shot at.
The Sensei turned for a moment to an
unseen presence behind him.
"Can he hear me? Good", the Sensei
turned back to Werner. "Hello. You’re probably a little disoriented right now;
the Healer tells me that the neurological damage was extreme. In just a moment
we’ll let you rest, but we need to ask you a few questions. Can you try to sit
up a little?"
Werner attempted to speak, but the words
seemed to slur in his mouth. Groggily, he pushed himself up a little. The bed
was more comfortable than he had appreciated, and, from his new position, he
could gain a greater understanding of the room he was in.
It was a small, vaulted room. The walls,
the roof, the floor (he guessed) were all made of stone, stone bricks that had
been sculpted and fitted together so exactly so that mortar was not required.
There were two rows of windows in the room, one row above and one row below his eye line;
although they were really just decorated holes in the walls. Muted
sunlight was flowing through them, lighting the small room with a soft glow.
There were beds either side of him, and three beds opposite, in addition to some
wooden carts which all together suggested a medical ward. Despite his headache,
and despite the uncertainty of his future/present, Werner couldn’t help but be
impressed. If this room was anything like the rest of the reality he was in, it
was one designed by a master. Take, for example, the stones that made up the
walls. Each one possessed a plethora of minute details; some parts were chipped
away, the tension on each stone was properly accentuated, and the whole wall
seemed to stand on its own accord. That wall alone would probably take a week of
intensive programming, if a designer wanted to put that level of detail into every stone in it.
Such was the quality of the ward’s
design that Werner ignored its inhabitants; although the bed was empty, there
were several persons within. Directly ahead of him was Sensei. To his left was a
man whose expression of stern disapproval at his patient’s premature awakening
and long white gown immediately marked him as a doctor, or "Healer", as he
seemed to be referred to. Behind him, and looking at the whole spectacle with an
indecipherable expression was a red-haired, tall, and immensely imposing woman, who
nevertheless looked very young. Behind these three were a collection of men and
women, who were wearing cowls on their robes and looking on in interest. In
fact, each and every person there aside from the doctor was wearing a purple
robe, belted by a rope at the waist. Even Werner was – his other clothes were
stacked on the tray next to his bed.
Although they occupants of the room were silent, he heard a great noise; massed choral music that, while soft, seemed to be endless; a sea of
sound and emotion that filled the soul. It was heart renderingly beautiful.
His attention turned towards the man
with the frightening hair, who was watching his observations keenly.
"What do you think?"
"Different" Werner mentally kicked
himself. What a stupid thing to say.
The Sensei shrugged. "I’ve heard worse."
He continued. "I’d love to have a long, extended chat with you, but the doctor
tells me that you need to get to sleep soon; so I’ll try to keep this brief. You
are currently safe, on a reality called Idéa. You suffered from massive neural
trauma. You need to tell us what happened five days ago, when you found the
temple in Nagasaki…have I said something wrong?"
"Fiiiive days?" Werner’s eyes darted
around the room. "I’ve been asleep for five days?"
"Just tell us what happened and you can get some rest. Please? Lives
are depending on it."
Deciding to go with the flow, Werner
related his story. There was a low murmuring as the people around him took it
in. The woman leant forward to speak, but the Sensei put up his hand.
"Thank you. Now, we will rouse you when
the Healer says it is time," and with a dismissive wave of his hand, Werner’s
multiverse went black as a gong chimed in the distance, and the song faded away.
"You see, Sensei? You see what your so called ‘defence’ idea has led to? Four
deaths! We can only thank Id that the Society did not get here in that little incident.
These ‘Normalizers’ are far more intelligent than you give them credit for, and
far more ruthless. They won’t stop until they kill us all, and after this
atrocity I would have thought you'd agree with me!"
The Sensei was silent as they strode
along the long cloister bordering the Ki; their underlings keeping a respectful
distance behind. This was a pivotal moment, and they all knew it.
The Sensei folded his hands. "What would you have me do? Declare war on this
Society, and attempt to defeat it with force? They have huge quantities of money
behind them, and have honed their abilities to a fine point. We would only incur
greater losses if we assaulted them directly. And, as I have attempted to
explain to you, that is not what we should do – look at us! We are merely
pilgrims on the road to enlightenment, beings of peace and tranquillity. We are
not soldiers, or aggressors. We do not let our ability isolate us from the
people; we do not tear power from the realities, but seek to make our waves in
concordance with the eternal dance."
"And we will soon all be dead. This
reality? Destroyed. The sacred texts? Burnt. Our art, our culture? Stamped out.
Your pacifism is a luxury, and one we cannot afford to have while our very
existence is threatened!" She stopped, and the procession stopped with her.
"That man lying in the Healing Ward has just told us that our time is up. The
Society knows that we exist, they know what we are, and they are gleefully
picking off our brethren one by one while we dither and try to confound them. We
must fight back, and drive them off while we still have the time."
"Let’s say you’re right. Let’s say we go and kill a few of them. What then? It
will come down to who has the most people and the most resources. We have about two hundred men and women we can draw upon to fight. They
can draw upon the population of the multiverse. We have about five hundred
thousand points, and struggle to stay in the black. They have rich, powerful
donors who regularly sign over to them twice that amount in a month. We count
among our number scientists, philosophers, theologians, artists, and poets. They
count among their number armed vigilantes, ex-RealWare Special Operations men,
and veterans of many wars, who can kill hundreds without compunction. We have
dozens of potential warriors who would possess exceptional skill. They have
hundreds of armed thugs – who only need to get one bullet, one explosive, one
poison into one of our people, and our forces are diminished by a significant
quantity for one hundred years. We could kill one hundred of these people and
have no effect on the society except to spur them on in their efforts to kill
every last one of us. Our only advantage - our Gift, would result in the main
body of the multiverse coming after us in arms, and no-one, no matter what their
power is, can last for long against such a formidable force. That is if we do
not kill them all first by causing their engines to spontaneously crash."
"Which means you’ll do nothing." Jessica
spat the final word.
The Sensei was yelling now, "Until we can devise a better method of defence, it
is the only thing I can think of doing. If you can come up with an idea that
won’t result in our utter annihilation, do feel free to tell me!"
With that, he turned and walked out to
the Ki. Half of the crowd followed him. The other half surrounded their leader,
who stood there, unmoving.
"That was his last chance," she
muttered. "Sensei or no, someone must protect us." With that, she continued
along the cloister to her quarters. Arrangements had to be made.
"Why can’t I leave?"
The Healer looked at him incredulously.
"The Sensei has requested that you stay in the ward until we can be sure that it
is safe for you to know more about Idéa than you already know."
"I wish you people would stop concealing
things from me!" Werner surprised himself by shouting. "Look, I’ve just spent
the last week in a reality I’ve never even heard of, recovering from a bullet
wound and some brain damage; both of which come from things I don’t know about.
I’ve been chased, shot at, chased, threatened with explosives, chased some more,
and now I’m in some sort of primitive hospital run by people wearing purple
robes who are in some sort of war with some other people and I really am getting
fed up!"
The Healer looked at Werner with an
sympathetic expression. "I understand what you’re going through; believe me,
everyone here could probably relate to that. Hah!" he shouted, "I remember when
I first found my way here, when I accidentally saved someone’s life. Of course,
I was trained as a doctor, but RealWare pays attention to temporal
discontinuities and the engineer just happened to have a wristwatch…but I do go
on." The Healer cleared his throat. "The Sensei has told me not to tell you
anything that isn’t connected to your immediate medical concern, and unlike
some others, I trust his judgement."
Werner felt like he was missing
something. "Who’s this Sensei you keep mentioning? And why don’t others trust
his judgement?"
"The Sensei," the healer paused, and
sighed, "Let’s just say that he’s our leader, and yes, he has the really weird
hair. As to the problems we’re having…I’d rather not talk about it." He sat down
on one of the empty beds. "Tell me, why hasn’t someone done a neuro scan on you?
The symptoms were clearly manifest long before we found you."
"The RealWare doctor said that neurological scans, or whatever they are, were
banned."
"No. They are quite permissible, but almost never used – a general brain scan
almost always finds the culprit. I wonder why your doctor said…although, if he
was an agent for the Society, it would explain a great deal…"
"I hope that you’re feeling better,"
said the Sensei as he came into the ward. He turned to the Healer. "I was
wondering if I might give Mr. Newland the grand tour; that is, if he is fit to
leave your care?"
The Healer bowed. "Certainly. I want him back in three hours for another check;
but I think the healing process is complete."
With that, the Sensei gestured to Werner
to follow him. Slightly irritated at this imperious gesture, Werner nevertheless
complied; he knew that the answers he wanted so desperately were only a few
minutes away.
In front of him, and above him, and
below him was a oak tree; whose trunk looked at least a quarter of a mile thick
at its thickest, whose branches began some hundred feet above the ground, and
continued to push out to the furthest reaches of the sky. The quad in which
Werner and the Sensei were standing was roughly a mile square, and there were
many purple-robed men and women sitting under the canopy of the great tree,
either meditating or pacing slowly, in thought. However, there were many who
were singing; despite there never being a group of the singers larger than
three, they sang in complex melodies that seemed to reverberate and resonate
throughout the entire reality.
The ground was level until the great
trunk of the tree at its centre began to soar up. Werner looked back at the
monastery, and saw that it too was underneath the shade of the great tree – the
branches extended as far as the eye could see. In front of them, just before the
trunk rose at almost a ninety degree angle, was a small, circular shrine;
tastefully rendered in stone. On top of the shrine was a large gong, big enough
to be seen at the distance Werner and the Sensei were at. As they watched, the
gong chimed.
Werner was astounded. He looked at his
feet, and saw thousands of leaves scattered on the ground; in this reality, at
least, it was autumn. Each leaf was incredibly detailed, and their dynamic on
the ground was amazing. Even more amazing was the tree – it was clearly
something that had been programmed with the reality; but it looked like
something real, something growing, something alive! This reality was clearly the
work of the greatest Reality Designer of all time. The Sensei noticed his
expression of amazement.
"It is beautiful, isn’t it?"
"It is. Speaking as an artist, I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as this
reality…ever! I’d love to see the Reality Engine that powers this thing; the
coding behind this is far beyond what I do, and I liked to think that I knew all
there was to know about Reality Design."
"Yes…nine time winner of the RealWare Award for Best Reality Design?"
Werner raised his eyebrows. "You did a background check?"
"Good guess! Although it is rather annoying to have to go off-Reality and I
assure you that the budget isn’t particularity robust at the moment, we still do
one for every person here. You are one of the interesting cases, I have to say."
"You’re referring to the visions you no doubt know that I have?"
"Precisely! But the visions were really
more just by-products of your true condition, the Healer tells me. Let’s walk
and see the Shrine of Id, shall we?" The Sensei pointed towards the stone
structure beneath the tree. They set out.
"Your Reality Engine is there?" Werner
gestured to the shrine.
"Oh my goodness me no, it is somewhere much safer than that. But let us talk
about why you are here!"
"I’ve been meaning to ask about that."
"Hah! Well, where should I begin?"
"How about why, when I ran into that building in Nippon..."
"That was pretty simple; we got a distress call through a complex and probably
overly convoluted communication system; we sent our only equipped mobile on
automatic pilot to attempt to rescue any survivors; in this case, you."
"Were there any other survivors?"
"No. We were probably too confident; we had perfected a shield that only someone
with the Gift could penetrate, reasoning that the Society that desires our
destruction would have none on staff. However, we reckoned without their
brilliant use of other adepts who were not affiliated with us. The message you
received on your workstation wasn’t from us; it was from them. They used
subliminal harmonics (those strange characters), which are specific to one
target, to compel you to find us. You did, and our people lost their protection
when you believed that the place existed."
"What is this Gift you keep mentioning?"
Suddenly, a horrible suspicion began to creep into Werner’s mind. "Does that
have something to do with my visions?"
"I believe you were one of only seven survivors of the infamous Hermes Disaster,
when the prototype Hermes Engine imploded?"
"Yes. I always thought that it was a
very lucky break, although…the other six all died recently. Six bizarre
accidents, but…" Werner’s eyes widened.
"You’ve put it together, I see."
"So you’re saying that the people who were chasing me in Nippon were the same
that killed the other six survivors?"
"They were."
"But who would want to kill off people who were involved in Reality accidents?"
"Because the Gift is always given in a
reality accident; and given the propensity of reality accidents that we are
plagued with, many have it. You see, in these reality accidents (in your case,
the Hermes Disaster), the drive water (the water which is responsible for the
wave refraction that creates a reality) fuses into you; you become a
walking, talking Reality Engine…are you alright?"
"I’m fine; why?"
The Sensei was impressed. Generally,
after they found out that they were Reality Adepts, acolytes hyperventilated, or
screamed, or (in extreme cases) fainted. This one was promising, indeed.
"Generally, you see, people who find out that they are like reality engines tend
to react quite violently."
"Oh. Should I?"
"No, that’s quite alright." The Sensei
felt that he was no longer master of the situation. "I just wondered why you’re
so particularly calm."
"Ever designed a Reality?" Werner felt
on safer ground here
"Can’t say I have." the Sensei muttered.
"Well, the one thing you find is that often you’ll find a little bug, somewhere,
that means you have to go back and effect changes absolutely everywhere, and the
deadline for the beta is in about seventeen hours. And the thing to do in that
situation is not to panic; otherwise, you’ll have a heart attack and will
definitely miss your deadline. So I don’t really panic much."
"With that sort of mentality, you’ll fit in well here."
"Though I am worried about being a Reality Engine."
"It’s not much to worry about. Essentially, you are in tune with the harmonics
the reality engine produces; think of it as being able to, in an instant,
re-write the source code of an operating system of a computer, without being
near the computer. Your sub-conscious mind takes care of most of the fiendishly
difficult calculations necessary to use your power to any effect, which is a
pleasant bonus."
"So I can do pretty much anything a Reality Engine can do."
"Not quite. The Gift is a difficult thing to manipulate, and most do it very
badly. You have to experiment, to adapt; hence the reason that we call ourselves
Reality Adepts, by the by. But Adepts have one, large, problem."
"You can’t have two reality engines in the same reality running different
programs?"
"Exactly. This means that the less flexible engine crashes if there’s too much
incompatibility between the reality the Adept is imposing on it and the reality
it is programmed to use."
"Ok, but I’ve never done any of that stuff. In fact, I’ve only been in one reality
crash, and that was the Hermes Disaster."
"The Gift generally attempts to make
itself useful. Because you weren’t fighting for your life on Tribal Alpha, or
struggling against RealWare in the ORM, or doing anything remotely physical
aside from gym workouts; you never really needed to make your enemies explode,
or to get an Open engine to work with five seconds before a fatal crash; or win the Aquarius marathon. So, your Gift takes a different route; you
need inspiration and immense brainpower to design really cutting-edge realities,
thus, it begins to warp reality around your brain."
"What?!" Now, Werner was really worried. "Are you saying that I'm giving
myself brain damage?"
"Exactly. No need to panic, we’ve cured you. Your brain went into a state of
hyperstimulation. Thus, the hidden potential of your mind was unlocked."
"Isn’t that a good thing?"
"Have you ever wondered why it is that we only use 20% of our brains?
There’s a very good reason."
"Oh. And the visions…?"
"Was the response the sub-conscious, which was fighting for dear life, sent to
the conscious in an ultimately successful attempt to stop it from exerting that
sort of pressure on it…and, we’re here!"
They had come to the base of the trunk,
or, rather, to the shrine at the base of the trunk. It was about 3 yards cubed,
and, now that he was standing below it, Werner could see the huge, golden gong,
hanging in a stone frame above the arched building.
"What is that gong for? I keep hearing it ring."
"It chimes the hours. We don’t keep a calendar or have any timepieces; besides,
this reality is on a different time setting than UST, so the numbers of the
hours are pretty irrelevant to us, but we need to mark time somehow."
Having said that, the Sensei led Werner
into the darkened shrine.
It was called Aboria. It was once a
paradise, like Idéa, but two polarized factions ripped it to pieces thanks to a
lack of understanding and an abundance of pugnacious
evangelism. Seeing this reality again after so many years made Jessica pause and
question, again, whether doing what she was doing was a good thing. Perhaps the
Sensei was right, perhaps they needed a new approach, perhaps what she was about
to do would kill everyone she cared about and turn her beloved home into
something like this, like Aboria. But what was the price of inaction? No, she
had to do this, and stave of this threat. The Sensei would come around to her
way of thinking eventually, and forgive her.
She cleared her throat, made a brief
hand gesture, and stepped out of the Elevator. It melded seamlessly into the
background, ready to be summoned into total existence when she needed to leave.
She walked with slow, deliberate steps to a large building, with a flickering
neon sign denoting the place to be "Duke’s Munitions". She pushed open the
double doors, and strode into the lobby.
"Hey! Welcome to Duke’s Munitions! Um…I haven’t seen you before; and its kind of
cutting it fine right now, I’ve got an appointment…"
Jessica punched herself inwardly. While she
understood the value of a good disguise, she neglected the value of a good
consistent disguise. She had made the appointment in a woman’s voice. She
was disguised as a man. Damn. Well, she might as well make the most of it.
Making sure to pitch her voice extra high despite her outwardly appearance, she
said
"Yeah, the appointment was with me."
Duke’s eyes popped out in surprise.
"Umm, well, you see, I kinda thought that…"
Jessica didn’t have the time for this.
The Sensei was spending time with the new acolyte, Wernam something, but he
wouldn’t be distracted forever, and if he called for the Elevator…
"Look," she stated bluntly. "I’m here to pick up what I paid for."
"Ok, ok, no need to get angry. First," he heaved a large, black
briefcase up on
to the counter, "fifty pounds of finest trilithium explosive. Classic,
easy to use, no problems there."
Beckoning her forward, he led her
through the back of the shop, behind several steel doors, thick concrete walls,
impressive alloy shielding, and so forth. He was exuberantly explaining his
defence systems as he walked, making him an irksome companion. Jessica suddenly
longed for a few hours of meditation, contemplation, perhaps even some Choir
duty. Even a chat with the Sensei would be nice, despite them being in such an
adversarial position at the moment. But Duke went on, and on, and on, and on.
Considering that she could just punch a hole in the building with a thought, she
was less than impressed.
"…and these trinium doors can withstand a blast of fifty megatons, which still
probably wouldn’t be enough if the thing you asked for goes off without warning.
But, we’re here!"
Duke, after keying in a twenty-digit activation code, pressing his thumb to a
gel pad, holding open his eye to allow a retina scan, and humming the tune from
"Oh, Wouldn't It Be Nice If Everyone Was Nice", had opened a huge, metallic
vault door to reveal… a chamber, about the size of a clothes closet. In it were
a small black briefcase and some computer equipment. He looked at his customer,
and took a deep breath. This weapon was more devastating than any he had in his
arsenal; one step down from a weapon that could destroy a reality. This weapon
would make the most jaded killer in the multiverse gibber in fear. This weapon
deserved a speech.
Werner walked up to the pedestal. It was
simply an angled stone atop a small stone spire. He bent down and looked at the
pool. It was simply a pool of water, perhaps about three feet deep. He extended
his hand to touch the water…
…and unlike clichéd movies, which would have the
water to be a hologram and therefore be utterly insubstantial, this water was not. He quickly pulled back his
hand, and wiped it on his robes. The Sensei, who had been
watching this with some amusement, decided to intervene.
"It's not a hologram, you know. It's more like a water-based viewscreen."
"I thought as much; this is some sort of workstation?"
"The only one we have. We generally use slide rules and abacuses for any
mathematics we need to do, and that’s the only thing we would use a Workstation
for anyway. You see, we don’t have a link to RealNet – no-one can find this
reality without knowing about it first. It’s the same sort of protection we had
around the temple you found in Nippon."
"Oh, I see. What does this have to do with me?"
"It was created by the founder of our order so that initiates could learn
exactly what this reality was about. It also allows us to perform maintenance on
our twin reality engines, which thankfully doesn’t require it too often.
However, all initiates must go through this before they become one of the
Avowed."
"Hang on. I wanted to understand why I’m being shot at and having all these
problems, but join this…group? And, from what I’ve seen, spend my whole life
here? I have a really promising career, a career that could see me design
realities even better than this. I want to meet people who aren’t monks, who
don’t spend their time meditating and singing. Hell, I might even want to raise
a family some day. I can’t spend my life here. So while I’m very appreciative
for all that you’ve done for me, and I’d be happy to repay you for your
generosity, I don’t really want to be part of your religion thingy."
The Sensei looked at him, directly in
the eyes.
"Then you will die. Either you will kill yourself by cortical hyperstimulation,
whatever that is, or you will push your abilities too far, and explode. Many
Adepts end their lives in that way. And if you do experiment, even years from
now, your engine could still crash, and kill you and everyone you care about.
Even if you try to swear off ever using your power, it will happen
subconsciously; and you will probably take a lot of good people with you."
Werner tried to open his mouth to speak,
but he was practically hypnotised. The Sensei plunged on.
"And now there exists a group of vigilantes who are dedicated to our destruction,
a Society for Normal Reality. They will hunt you down, Werner. And, before they kill you, they
will wring every last secret from your screaming body on us, on our location,
and the merciless killers; people who would kill children in their mother’s arms
simply because they had the so called "taint", people who would destroy an
entire reality if the population of those with the Gift outnumbered "normal"
citizens there; these merciless killers would descend on our paradise and
destroy all we hold dear, all that every Adept holds dear in his heart of
hearts. They would deny us a chance to join our founder in the Place Beyond
NullSpace, simply because of our potential."
Tears were now glistening in the
Sensei’s eyes. "I will not allow eight hundred years of striving, and caring,
and toil, to be destroyed by puritanical bigots. Wether you have the Gift or not
has nothing to do with who you are inside, just like what reality you live in,
or the colour of your skin." He stopped, and pulled himself together. "So, I
can’t let you go back to the multiverse. And you can’t stay here without being
part of us; your Gift is not controlled, it could destabilize the reality. If we
can ever throw off the yoke of the Society, then you can get back to whatever is
left of your life. But I’m afraid that fortune has condemned you here for now."
Werner looked into the pool distantly,
hard at thought. "I guess I don’t have much of a choice…fine."
"Just a moment," came the Sensei’s
reply.
Saying this, the Sensei walked up to the
pool, bowed, and then walked to the pedestal. He pushed in his hand, palm down.
The stone began to melt, to meld, to change, until it had assumed a different
shape entirely. Nothing happened. The
Sensei took his hand away from the pedestal, and turned towards Werner. The
Sensei raised his hand.
"Sorry for this in advance."
With a jerking motion, the Sensei pulled back his hand as Werner suddenly fell
forward into the water, slipping into the pool without a ripple. Knowing how
long his predecessor liked to talk, the Sensei decided to go to his office and
get some paperwork out of the way. Every road, even the one to enlightenment, is
strewn with large quantities of paperwork.
Because the Idéans generally shunned
violence, and needless extravagance, Jessica was slightly shocked at the sheer
enjoyment she had
gained by punching a hole through each and every door that closed in her way as the
automated security system, linked to Duke’s bio-signs, swung into action.
Nevertheless, it would have been intolerable for Duke to see what happened to
her disguise as she neared the weapon. In addition, she had to delete the
message she had sent the arms merchant to protect the people in the inevitable
inquiry that would spring from what she was about to do. Carefully carrying the
suitcase with the weapon under one arm, and the suitcase full of explosives
under her other arm, she telekinetically summoned the Elevator, and walked
inside. As she keyed in the address for Idéa, she smiled to herself. Duke would
attempt to trace her and get revenge, of course; which was why she took the
precaution of detonating an explosive of her own. When the Elevator left, there
would be no device left on Aboria that could communicate with the multiverse.
Eventually, a worried well-wisher would transport in and he'd be freed, but none
would come for a few days. That would be time enough.
"Tea?" asked the elderly man
"No thanks. I guess it’s probably useless asking why I’m here, seeing as this is
some ancient rite or something similar."
The old man shook his head, smiling. The
teapot floated up on its own accord and sailed out the window. "This is simply a
computer simulation that you are interfaced with."
"Really? I suppose that asking how this works is just a waste of time."
"Damn straight. You wouldn’t believe the
number of people who ask that. It seems every time I get a visitor it’s
always how does this work? Why am I here? What is the meaning of life?" the
elderly man leaned back, laughing. "They ask all these questions, and they
expect a computer program to answer them. Take it from me, my friend. Computers
are not the way to enlightenment."
Werner couldn’t think of a reply to this
extraordinary statement. The man went on.
"By the by, I’m the computer simulation of the First Sensei of this reality; you
can call me Id."
He held out his hand. Werner shook it.
"Werner Newland. I was a Reality Designer a week ago, but RealWare have probably
cut off my pay by now."
"Hah! Don’t even talk to me about RealWare. But if I started talking about RealWare, we’d be here all day.
The whole reason my creator recorded my entire life into a Workstation was to
talk to acolytes about Id. Are you ready to listen a long, boring story with probably
no point to it by the time it’s finished?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"Clever lad! No."
Of course, no-one suspected any foul
play, because everyone knew that ninjas did not exist. Edmund had disappeared in
the fiasco; and, because he reasoned that vanishing was really the same thing as
dying, Arthur Bates was
satisfied.
Edmund had ended up on the streets of
Urbana with nothing but the clothes on his back and his remarkable abilities.
However, he knew that his brother wanted him dead and the RealWare eight
centuries was considerably less suave and business-savvy; the RealWare Defence
Corps were always lurking around the corner, waiting for someone, anyone, to
step out of line. In fact, RealWare’s utter disregard for morals, ethics, and
human life made a great impression on Edmund, who reflected that the whole of
humanity was heading on a downward spiral towards spiritual devastation.
Thus, he decided to search for
enlightenment, and bring it to his fellow man.
At the end of it all, its now wealthy
author purchased a powerful workstation, a bunker, and a Reality Engine for
Mobiles, then went off on a journey towards spiritual enlightenment.
The journey isn’t really relevant, so
we’ll skip it.
But at the end of the journey, he
returned to Urbana with a host of experiences, musings, and findings related to
life, the multiverse, and everything. And it all pointed to the same conclusion; that the multiverse
was losing its way. He reasoned that he was the only person who truly understood this
because he was the only person (that he knew of) that had remarkable abilities
over reality; he was a Reality Adept.
His Adept abilities had grown
tremendously over the years he spent on his journey; although he had to keep a
very, very low profile thanks to their inadvertent side effect of causing huge
reality errors whenever he used them. However, when he returned to Urbana, a
drunken brawl caused a partial crash in Urbana’s engine. This was Urbana eight
hundred years before the present, and its engine was not as robust as it is now;
the crash killed several thousand janitors, criminals, and other such low-lives.
Although RealWare did not suspect an
Adept, Edmund lapsed into severe depression. Overcome with despair, he set his engine to
manual, punched in some random co-ordinates, and pulled the lever. Ordinarily,
this would have catapulted him into NullSpace, and to a quick and painless
death, but he instead emerged in…
…a very large, very beautiful reality
that was dominated by a gigantic tree. And as Edmund saw the tree, and felt the
incredible tranquillity of the place, he knew that he had found the place of
enlightenment.
He disassembled his mobile home, and
moved in to the deserted monastery that surrounded the tree. He spent much of
his time meditating, and working the fields beyond the monastery to keep alive.
For five years he lived in solitude
underneath the tree, and pondered the reason for this reality. The fundamental
problems were as follows:
There were many theories advanced over
the years that would follow as to why this was, but nothing was ever truly
substantiated; and, over time, the search for the origins of Idéa became
meaningless - what mattered was that it was the perfect place for a Reality
Adept to live.
So saying, he went back to the
multiverse and began to search for those who shared his gift. They were easy to
find; one need only look at the RealWare repair logs to find a malfunctioning
reality and, sure enough, there would be an adept there. Of course, it wasn’t
always adepts, sometimes it was poor programming or another manufacturing error.
But the strike rate was high enough to make the search worthwhile. Soon, there
were many Avowed, called so because they shared the vow of their leader; to
never use their abilities to harm others, and to keep it a secret.
This was all very well and good, but Idéa ran on a RealWare engine, and RealWare
was becoming interested in its once-forgotten reality.
However, Edmund (now known as Id) determined that RealWare was not the best
company for a group of living reality engines to owe any degree of allegiance to and as the population of Adepts on Idéa
rose to twenty-five, he teamed up with a bunch of disgruntled reality hackers
and raided Reality Prime. In exchange for two engines and no questions asked, Id
used a combination of surreptitious reality alteration and Bates family
knowledge to break through Reality Prime’s security. They stole nine hundred and
ninety-eight engines, but did not get away entirely without loss. Their
"consultant" as he had introduced himself was captured by Reality Prime forces,
and taken before the CEO, where there was an unpleasant realization that the
supposed leader of the thieves was in fact the sibling of the most powerful man
in the multiverse.
Id returned to his followers the next
day, with two stolen engines, hacked to avoid RealWare’s bugs. The Reality’s
program was transferred into a two-engine system, and, aside from the occasional
secret membership drive, Idéa cut itself off from the multiverse entirely.
About fifty years later, Id came from
his quarters, summoned his followers (who now amounted to about one hundred) and
said unto them these words.
"I know the way!"
And with these words, the prophet left
them in a huge burst of light and the smell of roasting flesh. A new Sensei was
elected, and the journey went on.
"It’s really weird, I have to say. But I think I understand now; why I’m here,
and why you’re being attacked by the Society for Normal Reality. I have to
admit, it’s pretty scary."
"Not really. Just follow the path that’s been laid out for you, that’s what my
creator always said. I suppose that I’d better get going though; the only power
source in this reality is the Ki, and a gigantic tree doesn’t provide that much
power. It’s been nice…"
Because this story is the first of three acts, it ends on a semi-cliff-hanger, and the
sequel is entirely dependant on the unexplained
stuff in this story, no new material introduced here can be used without Berayu's permission,
with the following exceptions:
You can't stop the Batesies, or have them presented by anyone who's not a Bates.
They occur every year.
Nagasaki cannot be destroyed. The constant mind-warping neon lights can't be turned off.