The Deplosion Saga

by Paul Anlee

  “So, when we enter Alternus, we copy in our full personas.”

  “Not really. It’s more like we inject or transfer them. There’s no copy left behind in our trueselves. When we leave Alternus, we’re moved back into our external body’s CPU again. It’s a move, not a copy.”

  “Okay. So what’s your point? What do you have backward?” asked Mary, perplexed.

  “I don’t think we left the Earth sim hardware and went into the GameRoom. I think Trillian’s interference pulled the GameRoom into Alternus.”

  “What? Why do you think that?”

  “Because I haven’t noticed any degradation in my thought processes. It feels like I’m still running on quark-spin hardware, not the standard stuff. If we’d injected our personas into the GameRoom without being able to access our trueself bodies, I’d feel slow as molasses here.”

  “I haven’t quite figured out how to make that interface yet, to the inworld quark-spin lattice. But okay. I believe you. We’re still on the Alternus hardware, not the normal inworld stuff.”

  “We’re separated from our bodies, but I don’t think Trillian is separated from his.”

  “If he hacked in from DonTon, then he would use the normal communication channels. His main processing would still be in his own body. Wouldn’t it?”

  “I think so, and that could give us an advantage.”

  “It hasn’t helped us much yet. He had more control over the Alternus Supervisor than you did.”

  Darya frowned. “You’re right, but he had a lot of lead time to plan and set things up. We’ve had almost no time at all to react.

  “You know, it’s possible our bodies may have been physically disconnected from the inworld recharge ports. That’s the only way Trillian could guarantee we wouldn’t get past a software blockade.”

  “But our bodies weren’t disconnected earlier,” Mary countered. “Unless, do you think he found our trueselves and placed them in custody? If that’s the case, we’re done. Where could we possibly go?”

  Darya stopped walking. She placed her hands on her hips and looked around at the infuriatingly confusing paths around them. “I have no idea...yet.”

  * * *

  Three exhausting hours later, they walked into the FRBNY building. Darya’s passkey got her into the lobby, where she confidently signed in Mary and Timothy as her guests. The three passed through the metal detector and security check and were waiting for the elevator when they heard a voice that chilled them to their virtual bones.

  “Ah, there you are!” Trillian said cheerfully as he walked toward them.

  Darian grabbed Timothy’s and Mary’s hands and pulled them “strangeward” then “redward” for a few steps. They emerged from inside an unknown building onto a sidewalk that ran alongside the United Nations Plaza. They ran another hundred yards, and came to a stop near a street corner where the sidewalk ran under some trees. Trillian was nowhere in sight.

  “Where do we go now?” cried Mary. “He’ll chase us until we have nowhere to run.”

  “I think we’ve lost him for the moment,” gasped Darya. “How did he find us so quickly?”

  The hotdog vendor at the corner looked up at them, smiling. “It wasn’t all that difficult.” He wore Trillian’s face.

  Again Darya grabbed her two friends and pulled them in a rapid succession of other-dimensional directions. With each change in direction, she ran a few meters. After half a dozen rapid twists and turns, they found themselves in what looked like an empty office complex.

  “What is happening?” asked a confused and angry Timothy. “How can he possibly follow us through this?”

  “He can’t,” answered Darya. “I think he’s found a way to use our city against us.”

  “He’s cloning himself into the Partials,” said Mary.

  “Yes. Before long, he’ll be copied into every Partial in the city. We’ll never be able to avoid him wherever there are people. He might even be overwriting some real people.”

  “He wouldn’t do that.”

  “I wouldn’t put anything past him at this point. He’s single-minded. It seems like Alum is really serious about getting to the bottom of our resistance.”

  Darya pondered their options a moment. “Listen, I think I have a way to get you two into trueself bodies, but I can’t do it from here.”

  “Okay, which way should we go?”

  “No, I mean not here in the GameRoom. We need to get to Vacationland.”

  “Why? What’s there?”

  “There’s a portal to an ancient radio transmission device. We used to use it for local communications, back before the broadcast lasers were installed. I can access it and transmit our personas back into our trueselves.”

  “Why not from here?”

  “Given enough time, I probably could.”

  Mary looked around the empty offices, calculating. “How much time do you need?”

  Behind them, the doorknob of the entrance to the offices rattled. Darya hustled the three of them into one of the smaller rooms off to the side.

  “More time than we probably have,” she answered. “That could be just another Partial or even a Cybrid, or it could be another Trillian clone. It won’t take me long to hack into Vacationland. I set up access to the ancient radio control room through one of the plantation service sheds over there.”

  “Service sheds again? Like in Lysrandia?”

  “I know, maybe I’m becoming too predictable. Anyway, I still have the interface pipe code that brought us here. It should be easy to alter it to take us to Vacationland.”

  Darya closed her eyes to shut out distractions and made some quick alterations to the code. As she was finishing, footsteps sounded in the hallway outside the office.

  They huddled behind a solid partition separating the two sides of the room and listened to the door opening. A few seconds later, someone uttered a disappointed, “Hunh,” and the door closed with a thud.

  Darya peeked around the edge of the partition. The room was empty. She breathed a sigh of relief.

  The sound of morning greetings in the outer office filtered into their room through the small louvered window above the office door.

  “We’d better leave while we still can,” whispered Mary.

  Darya nodded, “I’ve expanded the bandwidth using some of Trillian’s alterations to the original pipe. We can all go together this time.”

  “Without bringing all of this with us?” Mary swept her hand out to include the weird extrapolation of New York.

  “No, I’ve filtered that out, and I don’t think Trillian will be able to track us from here. Not very easily. The pipe winds near a few other inworlds, and I’ve opened a few side portals as decoys to throw him off. It’ll take him long enough to figure out where we’ve gone.”

  “Long enough to what?” asked Timothy. The poor man looked bewildered and exhausted, though he was doing his best to keep his signature “stiff upper lip” intact.

  “Long enough to get us into real bodies,” replied Darya. She could see a shadow reflected on the tile floor outside the door. Someone was standing there. She opened the transfer pipe above the three of them.

  As she activated it, Darya stood up to see who was entering the room. The last thing she saw before her persona transferred to Vacationland was Trillian leaping over the partition, trying to get into the pipe.

  The pipe snapped shut in front of him. Darya smiled in transition. Trillian flew harmlessly over the desk and crashed into the wall opposite the door.

  33

  Darya, Mary, and Timothy instantiated inside Vacationland at Darya’s favorite spot, the highest table at the Cloud 49 restaurant, overlooking ten kilometers of the best beach she had ever known.

  The restaurant was empty except for Partial waiters automatically setting, clearing, and resetting tables. The place looked like it hadn’t seen any customers for a while.

  Vacationland had changed since her last visit. The normally sunny beaches were dark today;
thick clouds roiled overhead, threatening rain at any instant. The water was choppy and dirty, washing seaweed and the occasional dead fish or jellyfish ashore.

  The huge waves on which surfers had once lined up to test their skills were now devoid of boards. That was no surprise. The waves were higher and more dangerous looking than ever, and something was…off with them. It took a moment before she realized they weren’t all moving shoreward in the usual way, with endless crest after crest in regular procession. The waves were rising randomly and setting out in all directions until they crashed noisily onto the sand and rocks or against the other waves. The resulting chaotic walls of water made it impossible for anyone to ride, even the most talented virtual surfers.

  Screams pierced the charged air. Darya looked to the sky, searching for the source. Sharks and piranha had replaced the usual playful dolphins and penguins in the overhead floating pools. The few swimmers left were being viciously attacked. The clear blue bubbles of floating water ran red with the blood of human and aquatic forms alike.

  More cries rose from the tropical forest below. Wild animals programmed to shy away from visitors had turned aggressive. Big game hunters panicked as they became the hunted. Those with weapons shot or hacked at the first wave of attackers, but there were too many animals in the jungle to fend off. Birds of prey, snakes, jaguars, and even the mythical dragons cooperated against their human foes.

  One of the big cats took down a heavyset hunter dressed in cliché safari garb, grabbing the man’s neck in its powerful jaws and shaking quickly to break it.

  Seeing and hearing the mayhem around them, remaining hunters discarded their sportsmanlike bows and arrows in search of more deadly rifles.

  From where they stood in the clouds overlooking the beach, Darya could just make out the innocuous service shed standing in the midst of the hotel cabinas. She pointed it out to Mary and Timothy. “Come on, run!” she called to her colleagues.

  The wind picked up and rain began to fall as they dashed down the treacherous crystalline staircase. A full-blown tropical storm was descending, making progress all but impossible. They clung to the handrail and to each other to avoid being blown down or, worse, right off the stairs.

  Against the howling wind, Mary yelled, “This was a lot easier when teleportation services were available!”

  Darya had to laugh in appreciation of her friend’s attempt to lighten the mood. “It looks like Trillian was expecting us,” she replied.

  “He seems to be expecting us everywhere we go. No doubt he’ll be showing up any second. How far away is that shed?”

  “About a klick, once we reach ground,” Darya answered.

  “If we reach ground,” Mary shot back.

  The trio fought their way down toward the beach. Driving rain pelted them and the wind tried its best to push them over the edge to certain death below. They moved slowly and cautiously, stair by stair.

  Voices, barely audible, drifted toward them on the wind. Wondering who else might be trapped here in the storm with them, Darya looked back up the stairs.

  The full wait staff, now all Trillian clones, were struggling against the storm’s might to rush down the stairs in pursuit, and they were closing the gap.

  “We have to move faster,” Darya cried to her companions.

  As they reached the next landing, another Trillian burst from the sheet of driving rain, screaming and brandishing a huge cleaver stolen from the virtual kitchens.

  The Trillian clone brought the cleaver down hard on the polished brass railing she’d been sliding her hand along. The blade slashed her as it sliced downward, cutting a gash into her forearm.

  The virtual pain was excruciating but she ignored it. She’d felt pain before; it just made her angry.

  Darya released her grip and swung her arm out and away, matching the motion of the knife to minimize its penetration. With her free hand, she gripped the Trillian by his throat, using his own energy to wrench him forward and further off balance. She spun and stepped backward down another stair, adding to the Trillian’s momentum. The clone lost his footing entirely, and he launched out over the rail into the rain. Darya didn’t look to see where he fell.

  Timothy and Mary rushed to Darya’s side. She stood huffing in front of them, applying pressure to her right arm.

  “You’re hurt!” The fight had lasted only a second or two, not long enough for them to intervene.

  Darya gritted her teeth. “Don’t worry about it. If we make it to the shed, it’ll fade into yet another virtual memory. If we don’t…well, I guess it won’t matter anyway.” She glanced back up the stairs. “Come on, they’ve gained on us.”

  They continued down the stairs with Darya doing her best to staunch the flow of her still-precious inworld blood while maintaining her grip on the rail.

  They landed on the beach ahead of their pursuers. After two breaths to orient themselves, Darya plunged into the deep jungle with Mary and Timothy in tow.

  The coconut trees lining the beach were leaning dangerously. Neither the trees nor the few low shrubs offered much protection from flying debris. All around them, the remains of wind-ravaged palapas and beach tents littered their path. The storm was making the way difficult, but it would be equally so for Trillian and his clones.

  The three took cover behind one of the denser bushes at the edge of the jungle and looked back to see if their pursuers were keeping up.

  The Trillians had done better than keep up. A dozen clones had spread out across a two-hundred meter stretch of beach and were moving systematically forward, checking possible hiding spots as they proceeded inland. She didn’t care for their deliberate pace.

  “There’s probably more of them up ahead,” she yelled to Mary and Timothy. “But it’s okay; we don’t want to move too far inland, anyway.”

  They stayed low and ran as fast as they could inside the tree line. Pushing through the lush vegetation in gale force winds was wearing them out, and they had to pause every fifty meters or so to catch their breath. The third time they stopped, Mary fell to the ground, panting heavily.

  “Just go on without me,” she gasped.

  Worry creased Darya’s brow, but it was less on account of Mary’s fatigue than the implications she drew from it. A person’s physical limitations or condition had never been, or was not supposed to be, a concern in Vacationland; that should be irrelevant here.

  Darya felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her virtual stomach. “Oh, no. I think the Alternus physics must have seeped in here from the GameRoom.”

  Mary took a few more deep breaths. “What do you mean?” she wheezed.

  “Look at you,” Darya replied. “Your body style is simply an affectation here. At least, it should be. In Alternus, where it mattered, we all selected lifestyles where it wouldn’t be too much of an issue, nothing too physically strenuous. I didn’t think to change your body to something more efficient before we left; it shouldn’t have mattered!”

  Mary was slowly recovering her breath. “I’m keeping you two back. You need to move as fast as you can. I’ll catch up later.”

  “No, we can wait. Trillian has no idea where we’re heading. He thinks we’re moving deeper into the jungle; I’m sure he’s planning to head us off. But we’re moving laterally; we’ll be past his line of people on the beach after our next dash.”

  Darya assessed her options. The few real people she’d seen since materializing in Vacationland all seemed to be in a panic. Only the Partials seemed calm, and many of them had already become Trillian clones. That’s it! Maybe if we can….

  She disguised her identity and opened a channel to the Vacationland Supervisor. Trillian’s taking over the Partials as clones. We should be able to create a few of our own for misdirection.

  She shared her plan with her companions. “I can clone each of us into a few Partials and send them out to misleading target destinations all over the place to distract the Trillians from the real us. I just need your permission to copy a persona frag
ment.”

  Mary instantly gave Darya access to her physical parameters and an isolated persona fragment. Timothy looked at the two of them blankly. “What do I do?”

  Even in the pouring rain and with Trillian bearing down on them, Darya had to laugh.

  “Here, permit me,” she said and dove directly into Timothy’s persona to get what she needed. Not surprising in one so freshly minted, she found nothing but the most basic of security routines protecting his essential being. As she left, she installed versions of her own anti-corruption protection in his concepta.

  “Oh, okay. Now I see.” Timothy’s eyes brightened with the information Darya left behind. “Thank you,” he said, but then his eyes clouded over as he realized the implications of Darya’s tinkering. Things he believed and thought he knew were subject to outside intervention. He felt the truth of what Mary and Darya had said: his very essence was merely “software”.

  Taking over Partials up and down the beach, Darya set up five groups of clones in seconds. Wow! However he did it, Trillian’s intervention has made the Supervisor unusually compliant!

  She assigned each group a different route and set them free to run. That should keep the Trillians busy for a while!

  “Hopefully, that’ll buy us a bit of time.”

  Mary noticed Timothy’s face; he was obviously put off balance by the cloning process. “Welcome to the world of Cybrids,” she chuckled, intentionally lightheartedly. “Don’t worry. No one else will ever be able to do something like that to you again, except with your explicit permission. Right, Darya?” She looked pointedly at her long-time friend, mentor, and co-conspirator.

  Darya thought guiltily about the belief-virus she’d programmed, the one she’d used to infect the conceptas of millions. The greater good is truly a pain in the butt sometimes—she thought.

  She disliked manipulating her friends, even those she barely knew. But the fate of the universe was a concern that overrode her usual ethics. Life is so much simpler when you don’t really know what’s going on—she reminded herself.