The Deplosion Saga

by Paul Anlee

  “It was on a private channel,” said Darak.

  Stralasi was still baffled but withheld any further questions as the teams entered the centermost field. A crowd of spectators popped into existence beside him and Darak, filling the empty seats all around them. Loud cheering broke out. Stralasi almost jumped out of his seat in surprise; Darak muffled his amusement.

  The Good Brother watched the team members take their positions on the field. As they spread out, they morphed into impossible figures. Arms transformed into legs; necks elongated. A few members from each team took on a starfish-like appearance while others became strange, four-legged antelopes with a human head atop a long, supple neck.

  “There are two traditional player body configurations,” explained Darak. “In the more radical versions of the game, any form is permitted. However, the more popular traditional game that we'll see here only allows these two forms.”

  “But if the Cybrids like to pretend to be humans, why not just keep a human shape?”

  “Too boring, I guess. These forms are vastly better at the game than human forms could be. But even these have significant physical limitations. I suspect it’s more from tradition than anything else.”

  The opening pass was made and their attention was drawn to the play. The starfish-shaped players could run on any pair of their equally spaced legs and switch directions remarkably fast by shifting to a different pair with a cartwheel motion. Antelope-shaped players were swifter overall and could pass the ball among all four legs to fool an opponent.

  The antelope players had a height advantage when delivering headers but it was almost impossible for them to get around a stocky defending starfish. Both goalies preferred the starfish shape but maintained one pair of gloved hands.

  One team wore blue jerseys and the other, yellow. A blue player leaped some ten meters up and landed on one of the floating patches of grass. Another jumped even higher and flipped in mid-air to land upside down on a different field a hundred meters closer to the opposing net. Their teammate kicked the ball straight up, toward a floating pylon.

  The ball neared the pylon, curved sixty degrees, and landed within easy reach of the first player. He maneuvered it past a yellow player who’d dropped into place in front of him, attempting to block his advance.

  The blue player kicked the ball off to one side, where it bounced at right angles off another pylon and flew directly to his upside down teammate. With a fairly open shot at the net some seventy meters away, the player launched a blazing curve shot that bypassed the goalie in the far upper corner. The crowd, including Stralasi, cheered wildly.

  Less than two minutes into the game, the impossibly long, loud pronouncement of the first "Gooooooooooooooooooal!” was announced.

  “That was incredible,” Stralasi yelled over the din. Darak smiled and nodded happily. “They must be very high-scoring games if they’ve already got one goal.”

  “I don’t think these two teams are very evenly matched,” Darak replied. “It’s unfortunate that there isn’t something more exciting. It looks like the blue team is going to dominate the game fairly quickly.”

  “I’m not sure that exciting would do this justice,” answered Stralasi. “That last play was astonishing! Unbelievable!”

  “Oh, I hope you believe it,” said Darak, “even if it is only happening in a virtual space.”

  “It is utterly impossible, and yet I saw it with my own two eyes,” Stralasi responded.

  “Your own two simulated eyes,” Darak corrected. “Remember, what we perceive here as reality depends on some easily fooled ancient sensory mechanisms. None of this is real.”

  Stralasi sat back in his seat and crossed his arms. Why is he always trying to teach me something?–he brooded. He continued watching the game but without his previous enthusiasm. After a while, his fatigue began to catch up with him and he found himself stifling repeated yawns.

  “Maybe this has all been too much for one day.”

  “I’m sorry; I’m suddenly very tired,” replied Stralasi.

  “You must be hungry by now, as well.”

  “Starved,” admitted Stralasi. “What time is it?”

  “Locally, it’s early afternoon. Let’s get you back to more familiar surroundings and find some food. You’ve had more than your fill of excitement for one day, I’m sure. We’ll depart on our journey after you’ve had a good rest and your brain has had a chance to catch up with the day.”

  With that, they were suddenly seated at a table in Rose’s, back in Alumston. Stralasi was becoming accustomed to the instantaneous shifts in his environment and hardly blinked. He was, however, concerned that word of their return would spread rapidly and bring another Angel to the planet. He whispered to Darak, “Is it safe to be here?”

  “As far as everyone around us is concerned, we’re not really here,” replied Darak. “I am interfering with their short term memory processing so that our presence will be forgotten within milliseconds of seeing us. I’m also damping their attentiveness so they'll have a strong tendency to just ignore us. Except for the staff, of course. Shall we order?” A server appeared at the table, pad in hand.

  Stralasi picked up the menu and set it back down. He leaned in close to Darak, so the waitress wouldn’t hear him. “Wait a second, how come Ilena can see us and not be surprised?”

  “She is not seeing us, exactly,” replied Darak. “I’m exerting rather more control over her perceptions than the others. She thinks we're just some random customers she knows, but not very well. I would’ve thought, by now, that you'd trust me in this. We’re completely safe from intrusion while we’re here.”

  Stralasi sat back, thought about it for a second, and shrugged his acceptance. He picked up a menu and ordered his favorite pulled pork sandwich. Within minutes, the two were chowing down. After the meal, a satisfied Stralasi leaned back and gave way to a loud yawn.

  “Oh! I must apologize. My mind is so completely overloaded; I feel I could sleep for days,” he said.

  “Why don’t we walk back to the Alumita?” suggested Darak. “You can rest in your own room until tomorrow.”

  Well fed and exhausted from his adventures, Stralasi followed Darak through the streets of the town to the Alumita residence. They were greeted by no one along the way. Whomever they passed found their gazes politely averted or disinterested. Soon, Stralasi was sitting in the dark on the edge of his own comfy bed, in his own familiar room.

  “But it must be too early in the day for you to sleep,” he said.

  Darak smiled kindly. “Don’t worry about me. I don’t need to sleep…much.” Stralasi heard the slight hesitation before he added the last word. “Anyway, I have some work to do back at the Garden asteroid, or rather, some work to assign. Why don’t you rest and I’ll be back when you wake up.”

  Stralasi couldn’t resist the wave of sleepiness that came over him. He fell back on the bed and was unconscious in seconds. Darak watched him for a minute and then disappeared with a small popping sound, leaving the exhausted Brother to his dreams.

  16

  KEV857349 drifted peacefully inward without engines or running lights for the last million kilometers.

  Running silent was a preference, not a necessity. He had no fear of being stopped shy of his mission. His target, the Cybrid-manufactured planetoid officially designated SagA* 358.102.714, carried no detection equipment. Here at the center of the Milky Way, there were no known threats to Alum’s Divine Plan requiring continuous surveillance, and the orbital path around the black hole Sagittarius A* had long since been cleared of dangerous debris.

  Kev’s supervisor thought he was out with a team, herding yet another group of asteroids into a more convenient orbit. Miners stood by, ready to extract construction materials.

  It was easy to slip away. He’d kept to the assigned flight plan until they were outside the heavy traffic zone, and then dropped behind the rest of the team, altered course, and set a hard burn for his target.

  Th
e others were inworld by the time anyone noticed. A simple message saying he wanted to be alone to work on some new design ideas sufficed to explain his absence from the group entertainment on the trip out. Nobody noticed his course change.

  Kev wasn’t sure when he’d first started hating Alum and His Divine Plan. His recent visit to the new Origin-like inworld had moved him to action, but the disillusionment had started long before then. The source of his earliest doubts was difficult to pinpoint; there were dozens and dozens of tiny cracks in the veneer of idyllic life, here and there, over time.

  When he had first discovered the fairytale kingdom of Lysrandia, all those niggling, inconsequential doubts found substance, form, and support. He became friends with one of Princess Darya’s senior acolytes, and no longer felt alone in his doubts; he was one of many, and the rebellion was taking root. On the recommendation of the acolyte, Darya granted him access to the Alternus inworld in its earliest iteration.

  As an early participant in the game, he had the advantage of scouting the environment ahead of others and choosing an advantageous position.

  He discovered he had a knack for using his initial bankroll to generate more “money” in the “markets.” In a few short inworld years, he was equally adept at betting against other Alternus Cybrids as he was at betting against the slower-witted human Partials.

  He liked to think his success was due to his exceptional skill and shrewdness but, every once in a while, it also helped to cheat. His experience as a mid-level investment banker on the simulated planet exposed him to the corruption and disillusionment that inevitably came with wealth and power.

  Kev developed relationships with other powerful players and with Partials who had not yet been inhabited by Cybrid minds. These relationships gave him access to numerous political decisions well before they were general knowledge. He became aware that politics and investment outcomes were closely tied. He learned to listen carefully to what his political friends told him; sometimes they permitted him to influence their decisions in ways that improved his returns on investment even more.

  After all, Alternus was a sim world, a game, and someone had to win. He never let ponderous questions about the point of it all prevent him from basking in this inworld life, rich with excitement, travel, and luxurious acquisitions. More than anything, he enjoyed winning.

  In addition to the standard economic and financial statistics, Kev collected data on social attitudes around the inworld. His charts showed fear and distrust surging through societies all over Alternus. People segregated themselves into arbitrary groups according to differing economic or ideological belief systems, each of which Kev considered to be equally replete with unprovable claims.

  It was hard to say what the leaders of the different ideologies were up to. Were they using the many incompatible but equally irrational belief systems to manipulate their populations into eternal, unwinnable wars? Or were they simply unable to control all the channels through which such beliefs took hold of their people?

  At any rate, it was clear to Kev that Alternus had become an unmanageable mess. On a personal level, he was largely unaffected by troubles that ruined other people’s lives. The elite looked out for themselves, their closest friends, and their family. He had been diligent in making all the right friends. He’d read somewhere that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. His observations certainly supported that hypothesis.

  In the outworld, Alum was the only power that really mattered. If ever a single authority could have been said to rule absolutely over the known universe, it was Him. Therefore, Kev extrapolated, He must be one of the most corrupt individuals ever, Living God or not. Perhaps all the more so, because who could question the will of God?

  Kev had kept his own questions mostly to himself until he met like-minded people on Lysrandia. His activities on Alternus were a natural progression. He recalled the warm summer inworld evening when he’d left work from his downtown Manhattan office, and a smartly dressed young man handed him a flyer calling him to a meeting to discuss what was happening in the outworld with Alum’s Divine Plan. He’d almost discarded the flyer. Almost. Talking about the real universe inside a simulated one was so gauche. But something about it piqued his interest:

  Alum’s “Divine Plan” Reveals Alum’s Great Ego

  Urgent: Your life is in danger! Not just your inworld sim life, but your real life in the real world, where there will be no reset. Largely unopposed in the real universe, Alum is about to make Himself unopposable by rebuilding the universe in a manner more pleasing to Him. Come and discover the true nature and purpose of Alum’s “Divine Plan” and the asteroid-sized machines being built near the center of our galaxy. We have a plan to halt Him, but your help is desperately needed. Your very existence depends on it!

  The Deplosion, they’d called it, Alum’s Divine Plan. Kev wasn’t sure why the idea of such a meeting had appealed to him. Normally, the notion of subversive activity would have sent him running in the opposite direction. This was Alum they were talking about, the All-Powerful, the Almighty. But something about the pamphlet drew him to attend the meeting later that evening.

  If he had realized that his decision was not entirely of his own free will, would he have been any better able to resist its pull? Probably not.

  * * *

  The foyer of the nondescript meeting hall held about a hundred people. Most attendees looked just like him, Kev noticed, business men and women who were curious but uncertain of the wisdom of attending a gathering to plan a rebellion. Like him, they may have felt uncomfortable about Alum’s plans, but they were not inclined to get directly involved in any opposition movement.

  They exchanged nervous, flitting glances as they took their seats. Few were sure why they were there. They crowded to the quiet corners and the back of the room until the only seats remaining were near the front. Last minute arrivals trickled in and, before the speaker appeared, the room was filled.

  “Thank you for coming,” the woman began. “We understand how much courage it took for you to walk through those doors.” She made deliberate eye contact with as many among the audience as possible.

  “Tonight is one of many such meetings we’ve held like this. Word is getting out. Over five million of us have now received the message about Alum’s Deceit.”

  The crowd murmured and looked around nervously. You could almost hear people fighting the urge to bolt from the hall and report this conspiracy to the authorities before they could be considered complicit.

  “If you have spent any significant amount of time here inworld, you have learned that sooner or later most leaders tend toward corruption, acting in the interests of themselves and their friends rather than for the majority of people over which they rule.

  “For the tens of millions of years during which Alum has led us, we have always trusted that whatever He did was best for The People, both Cybrid and Human.

  “But it is impossible to understand how Alum’s plan to utterly destroy this universe, the real universe as Yov originally created it, could be in our best interest. This, we cannot accept.

  “Yov’s infinite universe is a place of endless variety and surprise. Some of the things we encountered as we expanded from Home World and into the broader universe came as unpleasant surprises. But through these hardships, and through the occasional conflicts with powerful enemies, we learned. Think of these trials as Yov’s test of our suitability and determination. For our perseverance through these difficulties, we were rewarded with endless bounty, beauty, and joy. We learned things about ourselves, about unfamiliar stars and planets, and about Yov’s great Creation.

  “Though Alum is the Living God, we must always remember that His authority comes from Yov, the Creator. Alum’s Divine Plan breaks with the ways of Yov’s Nature. He seeks to form a new universe, one more suited to His own senses and desires. He is not content that The People worship Him and do as He bids. He demands even more, a universe in which to contemplate doin
g anything but worship Him will be physically impossible. He desires a simpler universe, void of Yov’s surprising variety.

  “Alum’s corruption, His desire for limitless power to the exclusion of Yov’s Nature has become insupportable. Therefore, we must act.

  “Alum cannot be overthrown, nor do we wish such a thing. Who, besides Yov, Himself, could replace Alum as God? This is not our goal. We only wish to provide a voice that will demand He reconsider His Divine Plan. We only wish to delay the completion of the plan, so that He will allow the wisdom of Yov’s natural universe to shine forth. These meetings, tonight’s and the many others like it, are to find those who will have the courage to do what is right, to defy the Living God.”

  The Speaker looked for questions, doubts, or agreement. Many people cast their eyes downward, unwilling to meet her challenge to confront Alum’s corruption. A handful met her gaze confidently, some nodded, and a few raised a closed fist in solidarity. Kev was among the latter.

  “We won’t ask more of you than you can give. For most of you, we only ask that you think about what I have said and about the material in your brochures. Tell others about us. Invite them to one of our weekly meetings.

  “If you would like to become more involved, if you’d like to find out how you can help with the resistance, please stay for a while to discuss how to become an active member of the inner circle. Thanks again for coming out.”

  With that, the speaker stepped down from the small platform and moved into the audience. She sought out the individuals who’d held her gaze seconds earlier. They gathered in a small group near the front of the hall while the others quietly filed out of the room.

  Kev stayed behind with the conspirators. He had no idea what possessed him to stay. He had a new girlfriend waiting for him at a local bar.

  He recalled a princess back on the Lysrandia inworld giving similar but uninspiring scientific talks about how everything came from nothing, natural processes, and how Alum was perverting all that. But the princess, pretty as she was, wasn’t as inspiring as this speaker. Working against the natural universe was one thing; working against Yov’s Natural Universe was something entirely different. Kev found himself hating Alum.