Planet-H: The End of the Beginning

by J. T. Winterlord

  "Not really!"

  "I told you that I was a beta tester and ..."

  I interrupted him immediately.

  "Enough with the exploding bananas stories Sgrunfio!"

  He laughed, but continued,

  "Yes, it’s true, those bananas were really no good, but in the second version when we had a really smart guy heading project the bananas finally became edible. You must know that the second beta version included various types of scenarios, some of which still looked like cartoons but at least they seemed real thanks to the newly designed diffusers.

  The NPCs were friendly and explained what you could do in the game, you could do things for them and in return they gave you money, tools or objects that you could use, sell or exchange.

  An ordinary video game, with the difference that you existed inside. The lower diffuser was in charge of physical perceptions, it was so well done that you had the feeling of walking and running and you felt fatigue, sleep and hunger. The signals were sharper and more easily interpretable.”

  "But read on Kate," said Sgrunfio as Bones and Valdes watched and listened intently.

  I carried on with the reading.

  The launch of the first version of the Videogame was decreed an immediate success. The environments and characters were so realistic that an increasing number of players wanted to participate.

  In the next version people of different sex were madeavailable, so you could play in the guise of a man or a woman. You could play as a dwarf or an Ethiopian Watuso warrior if you so desired. The game was perfected to the point where the sensations sent to the five senses were perceived in their entirety. You could hear the sound of the waves and the smell of salt air while the water was lapping at your feet.

  The NPCs were provided with greater intelligence and mobility so that the player could start the game directly from childhood.

  Special NPC were included in the game to act as teachers, police, traders and shopkeepers in general.

  The latest update included some sensational news - it was possible to utilise a new and enjoyable experience, that of sexual ability, not present in previous versions.

  Sgrunff said,

  "Today the game is banned due to some harmful alterations inserted by the External Federation." He gave a sigh of resignation.

  A couple of images followed showing the economy and luxury versions.

  I paused to look at the luxury version. There was a beautiful dentist - style armchair with two arms holding the diffusers suspended above the area where the player was lying. The upper diffuser was in line with the head and lower pointed towards the navel. The chair with its diffusers was the player console and was known as the Tasker.

  When the player was comfortable in the chair and the diffusers positioned, the apparatus could be activated by way of a button on the left armrest. At that point the game started on a timer which automatically shut the game down.

  In case of necessity the emergency button located on the right armrest could be used.

  I looked at Sgrunff incredulously and he told me more.

  "See Kate, in the latest versions you can even choose the body you wanted before you entered the game. You interact with the NPCs and other players every time you meet. The players are distinguished from the fictional characters by a small tiara on the head and

  the purpose of the game is pure fun - the settings are the same settings as life on earth today. The advantage is that before the alterations you knew you were in a game and you could exit when you needed to.”

  Sgrunff paused. He looked around at all the people in the room, before returning again to catch my glance. I turned to Valdes expectantly for a clue. He seemed to be waiting for a signal to tell me something unpleasant.

  He said,

  "Kate, you are now in your Tasker which is in the room next to you. You are connected to Planet H."

  SHOCK

  A lot of information had been pushed at me - so much so that I could not take it all in - I lay back on the couch and passed out.

  When I woke up I found myself in the room next to the infirmary, the room where I had previously heard all these strange noises.

  I was standing next to Sven who was fiddling with some strange instruments in what I now knew was my Tasker. Looking at it, I noticed it resembled the pictures of the luxury version of Planet H, but this one had a transparent cover.

  I looked inside and again more carefully, but I saw nothing.

  I spun round and walked to the infirmary through the doors without opening them .

  "Hello Kate," said Sgrunff .

  "That Tasker is empty!" I shouted, pointing to the room behind me.

  "But you see Kate ....”

  I stared at him intently, feeling a cold fury erupt inside me again.

  I saw his little body trembling until it erupted into a thousand lights that vanished before touching the ground.

  I went to Valdes.

  I gave him a light push on the chest with the palm closed and he coughed.

  I asked him, 'Why?'

  "Don’t worry Kate, just control yourself."

  "But it's empty!"

  He smiled and just said

  "I know Kate."

  Matt and Sonia came in and I immediately railed off against them.

  "You’ve just been making fun of me, the Tasker is empty!"

  Sonia moved slightly to one side and began to tremble slightly.

  Matt asked me,

  "What should have been inside the Tasker?"

  I was becoming ever more irritable.

  "It's my Tasker, so I should be in it, but I'm not there!"

  Valdes too had also begun to tremble slightly like Sonia. Matt instead began to play the fool saying,

  "Oh crap, it seems like our Kate has got a little lost. Let’s help her find herself. Can you ask Diogenes to lend her his lantern?"

  With these words he started to rummage around below a flower vase. He repeated,

  “It’s not here!”

  He looked inside the pocket on Bones’shirt and with an ever-more desperate air said,

  “Damn, it’s not here either!”

  I watched this comedy in a daze,

  "Oh holy shit, it's not even here!"

  At that point I found myself looking again at the couch and my body was there, seemingly asleep.

  Something very strange happened - I felt I was being dragged backwards, captured by an invisible net, right into the Tasker.

  The lights inside came on, I had only a few fractions of a second to realize what was happening and I was catapulted into the body lying on the couch.

  I opened my eyes. Sonia and Valdes were no longer shaking, they were just holding back the laughter that now freely flowed.

  Bones was next to me with a clean bucket. What a genius, I was thinking. I grabbed it from him and promptly threw up, stuck the bucket under my arm and made my way towards what appeared to be the bathroom.

  In the meantime, Sgrunfio entered. He seemed more cheerful than ever.

  But hadn’t I just blown him up?

  I stopped thinking for a moment and concentrated on rinsing my face, trying to recover.

  THE GYM

  I did not have the strength to ask questions, so I sat down on the couch and watched my friends, waiting for someone to explain it to me.

  I had the sensation of suffering from some kind of personality disorder. I thought that perhaps I really was possessed.

  Matt told Sgrunff to switch on the screen in the study room where we had our lessons and to access my analysis.

  Then he asked me to sit down. The video showed my notes on the work done in the days before and he asked me,

  "What truths do you think you have found among the writings you examined?"

  I thought for a moment, looking at the page I had written. I said,

  "There is a Creator and there are two minds, the animal mind and the superior mind."

  This is the fifth relative truth:


  Nothing rises from nothing, so something or someone is the architect of his own creation.

  Matt said,

  "Okay Kate, what do you mean by the Supreme Being?"

  "It makes me think of a Higher Being, a kind of spiritual entity, but I can’t give any sensible explanations about this subject."

  Matt, after hearing my answer, asked,

  "And what does the phrase written at the beginning of your analysis signify?"

  I re-read the sentence, I was well aware of my choice because I believed it to be true, but at the same time I knew that I had chosen it because I liked it.

  Matt did not wait for my answer. He said,

  "You already know, you just have to remember, this is one of those white balls that’s heavier than the other. You were able to find it among other balls of the same colour and the same size, but you haven’t yet understood what truth it is you are looking at."

  He waited a few seconds to give me time to reflect, then added,

  "If there's something you want to ask about, please do."

  I wanted to surprise him. Oddly I felt quite jokey so I asked,

  "Yes - who is the Creator?"

  Sonia, who was standing behind us said,

  "The creator is Sven!"

  I turned to her.

  "Come on Sonia, stop teasing me, tell me the truth."

  Sonia looked at me calmly and told me,

  "You're right Kate, you have a right to know the truth. Sven is just the brilliant mind who has reviewed all the original designs and added all the improvements. To realize the entire project he made use of a staff of seventy two qualified people. So the correct answer to your question is that Sven and his work team are the Creator."

  I could not believe my ears. Matt turned to Sgrunff and asked him,

  "Sgrunfy, did you ever tell her about when you were a beta tester?"

  The memory of the exploding bananas made me burst out laughing. I didn’t really know what was true any more.

  Sgrunff approached me, smiling under his walrus moustache. He said,

  "Tomorrow will be a busy day, rest and try to relax as much as possible."

  He said goodbye and left the classroom.

  Sonia told me that the next day a small demonstration would be prepared for me. She had asked Sven to prepare a little something in answer to the multitude of questions buzzing around my head.

  They all said goodbye and left me alone with Valdes who took my arm and accompanied me towards the exit. He told me,

  “You don’t have to go home tonight, accommodation has been prepared for you here,” guiding me down a long corridor.

  I was always distracted in his company so I didn’t really note my surroundings in any great detail. We stopped in front of a door which he indicated would be my lodging. He was in the room next door. A kiss on the forehead and he left me.

  Once inside I saw that the space was quite large.

  I was again experiencing the strange feeling that time had a different value - the day seemed to be a lot shorter than usual.

  So I stretched out on the bed, exhausted with thoughts swarming around in my mind like snakes in a confined space.

  I had the impression that a small and not unpleasant vibration had started in the moment I lay down.

  I woke up the next day remembering only having experienced what I now knew to be a very realistic dream on the previous day. I remembered flying but nothing else.

  I tried to figure out if what had happened yesterday really was just a fantasy. I back-tracked over everything that had occurred that strange afternoon and realized that it was all true.

  I walked across to the bathroom shower and switched on this technological marvel that was awaiting me.

  As soon as I crossed over the shower threshold I noticed right away that the water was not actually wetting my body. I didn’t understand how water could actually be dry but it was just wonderful.

  I closed my eyes and enjoyed the pleasant streams of freshness passing over and inside my body. Over time the streams of water were transformed into small waterfalls that seemed to sweep away every negative feeling, cleansing everything they encountered.

  I had a feeling of total cleanliness, that odd shower seemed to want me to clean down to my internal organs.

  The small waterfalls increased their intensity over time until I felt overwhelmed by a waterfall, at which point my head began to spin slightly.

  The waterfall grew even stronger and I could no longer move.

  A hand pulled me out from under the shower. It was Valdes! I found myself naked in front of him.

  I felt light-headed, my nakedness seemed to me completely normal.

  He threw me a robe and said,

  "I think a three-minute energetic shower is more than sufficient for your current physical condition."

  I put on the robe and I recovered slightly from my daze. I felt an odd cleanliness, a very deep cleaning, beneficial.

  Valdes told me to get dressed - he would accompany me to‘school.’

  I watched Valdes and thought about how he had changed from the day of my arrival. His proud look that concealed a slight melancholy had altered.

  He had started to smile and joke, in his eyes was the same light that illuminated the eyes of Matt and Sonia.

  The melancholy that had hung over him before was gone and in its place I saw sweet tenderness. Did he love me?

  I held my breath, feeding my hope a little.

  I let him guide me to the classroom where Sgrunff was waiting for me.

  My instructor handed me a light sweat suit, pointing to where I could change.

  When I left the locker room, I asked him what he had in mind.

  Instead of answering, he asked me to explain once again according to me how the animal mind worked.

  He also said that he thought the term‘lower mind’was better simply because it was located beneath the‘higher mind.’

  I thought this was sensible so I changed the name and used the term‘lower mind.’

  I continued, adding that this was the mind responsible for the functioning of the body. From here the survival stimuli depended. It had to do with movement, with all those functions over which we do not have a direct and conscious control. The control of the circulatory system, the digestion of food, the swallowing stimulus and everything that physically kept the body working.

  At one point I felt in my mind that information was criss-crossing. I remained silent for a moment then asked,

  "Is it the diffuser?"

  Sgrunff nodded and told me that the lower mind was directly responsible for the sensation of movement.

  The illusion of moving, walking and running, and in general of any action madeby the body depended on this mind, or diffuser.

  I asked him what he meant by‘the illusion of moving.’

  He told me that the suit I was wearing actually could prove the illusion of movement.

  I was curious to know how he could prove it to me but he just said with a laugh,

  "Enough with the questions, I have a timetable to respect. So let’s go! "

  He took me to Bones who gave me a big glass of transparent red liquid, explaining that the drink contained everything necessary for a day’s nourishment.

  I had not had any breakfast that morning, so I drank the liquid down.

  It had a nice flavour so it wasn’t a struggle to finish it all.

  Sgrunff opened the door to the gym, saying,

  "Today we will continue working on your analysis, on the treadmill."

  "Are we going to do some gymnastics?" I asked curiously.

  "Not just gymnastics, we have to trick the lower mind."

  I asked him how such a thing was possible such a thing and he told me it was actually very simple.

  "Since the mind is responsible for the movement to deceive it you have to make an action monotonous and repetitive."

  This means the lower mind would put the movement into action automatically and wo
uld become totally disinterested.

  It was necessary to walk at an optimal speed for a sustained period of time that ranged from half an hour to an hour.

  The duration depended on the subject. We would take the middle ground - around forty five minutes.

  He got me onto the treadmill and asked me to adjust the walking speed of walking to a brisk pace so that I was not forced to run. He said,

  "It must be a brisk walk and be careful just to think about your movement!"

  He advised me again not to think about anything - I should just clear my mind and remain focused on the movements that I was performing.

  The whole exercise seemed pretty useless to me but I didn’t object to doing a little movement.

  After forty five minutes Sgrunff asked me how it was going. After hearing my reply he told me to take a shower and a quick sauna, then shower again and go back to the treadmill.

  I did what was asked of me and went back to walking. Sgrunff said,

  "This time we'll do fifty minutes. Stay focused, just walk quickly."

  So I diligently did as he requested.

  At the end of the fifty minutes, I stopped and got off the machine.

  This time the feeling was really strange, I did not respond to Sgrunff’s requests but began to move around the gym in a way that felt oddly robotic.

  I felt I was walking, but at the same time I had the distinct feeling of being always static in the same place.

  Directing myself to any part of the gym, I noticed that I was not moving but the surrounding environment moved towards and around me.

  I turned my head towards the entrance door and the wall with the door was suddenly before my eyes.