I can't argue with her logic, I guess.
“We've timed this out so that you'll be taken by a waste disposal unit that has another stop in the neighboring tower that houses the mind prison.”
“They keep it right here? Next to all the other towers?”
“Hiding in plain sight. Why would anyone think this tower was different from the prison tower?”
“Smart.”
“You know I love our conversations, but I need you to let go of the walls if you're going to catch that ride.”
With a moment of hesitation, I release the pressure and my stomach lunges into my throat as my body free falls, hurtling down the shaft into the dark abyss below me.
01100101
I drop for a few seconds, my feet paddling the open air, instinctively searching for something solid to stand on. When I strike the surface of the liquid, it's thick and gelatinous. I sink into the warm goo, keeping my nose plugged with one hand and trying to swim up to the surface with the other. I can't allow my mind to envision what I'm swimming through. The reality is too disgusting to comprehend. My feet kick through the syrup-like substance, but every movement is a struggle. The surface feels so close, yet I can't reach it. My lungs burn, unable to hold in the breath of air any longer. I release it into the pool of liquid as I hear a noise, muffled by the coagulated excrement, like a bubble being sucked through a tube. My body is pulled with the flow as the dense fluid around me is flushed out the bottom of the pool. A series of large tubes carry me along with the fecal matter until I'm distributed into a large container attached to a waste disposal unit.
My feet hit solid ground and as more of the disgusting ooze pours around me, I gasp for breath inside the metal chamber. The liquid continues to flush into the container as the surface level reaches my knees. With Cyren's mental shove, I'm able to push myself toward the tube's opening and slam the hatch shut, cutting off the flow of waste and leaving myself in complete darkness.
There is a moment of silence before I puke, my stomach expunging every last drop of vitapaste inside me. My vomit only adds to the horrific substance floating around my legs. I fall against the wall of the chamber, trying not to inhale the smell that fills the air, but my body demands more oxygen, and every time I take a breath, my stomach lurches upward.
“Shut it off,” I gasp the words, pleading with the NPCs. “Please shut it off.”
Suddenly I smell nothing. I taste nothing. The NPCs flipped a switch inside my nanomachines. It's a strange perception, the lack of those senses, like a wall in my brain that I can't push through. But right now, it's the greatest feeling in the world to no longer know what this smells like.
“I'm sorry,” Cyren says into my ear.
I don't reply. I try to wipe the sludge from my arms, but it smears across my flesh. I'm embarrassed for Cyren to see me like this. Will she ever be able to find me attractive again? Will she ever want to touch me again? Will she be able to look at me without picturing this?
“You know what I find attractive?” she asks with a whisper. “What you're willing to do to save your friends.”
I brace myself against the wall as the waste disposal unit lifts into the air. It banks to the left and right a few times, but takes a minute or two before settling onto something metal.
“When that hatch opens again, you need to move fast. Crawl out before the tube attaches to the opening.”
I position myself under the hatch and wait. I hear a grinding noise on the other side, then a series of beeps. The hatch pops open and I lunge for the exit. My arms are so weak that I'm barely able to lift myself up, but when I look out and I see the mechanical tube stretching toward the opening, threatening to flush more waste into the chamber, desperation surges through my body. I launch from the opening and collapse onto a metal landing platform underneath. The tube barely misses me, swiveling and tightening its connection with the waste disposal unit before I hear the thick fluid pumping through it. The waste disposal unit lifts off the landing, its propellers buzzing with an increasing intensity as it flies out of a large exit in the side of the building.
I wobble a bit before standing, my body wiped from the violent vomiting I experienced, but I'm finally able to scan my surroundings. An intricate system of plastic tubes runs across the massive room like a web, all leading to a giant metal sphere in the center. That sphere has one tube leading from the bottom which empties its contents every time a waste disposal unit lands on the metal base where I'm standing. There must be a sewer system like this at the bottom of every tower.
Cyren appears next to me and says, “Even with a DOTgov account, you can't go walking around covered in... that.”
She points toward a walkway that leads under the plastic tubes and toward some kind of operation center. Next to the entrance, I see a lit sign that reads: Chemical Shower. My stumbling walk turns into an all-out run, and before I know it, I'm stripping naked, jumping under the nozzle, and yanking on the chain hanging from the device. A spray of purified water washes over me, rinsing the brown sludge from my pale flesh. I scrub with a ball made of coarse wire, digging and scraping against my skin as much as I can. I'm sure the stink will stay with me for days, but I can't smell it and I feel clean. That's what matters. When I let the chain go, I notice Cyren standing to the side, staring at my dripping wet, naked body with a smirk curling her black lips. I instinctively cover myself and her smirk bursts into a laugh.
“What's so funny?” I shout.
“A little late for modesty, isn't it?”
“This body isn't... my avatar.”
She rolls her eyes and says, “I live inside your head. The things I've seen you think about? Quite a bit more embarrassing than your nudity.”
She points to the wall behind me where I find a shelf of janitorial uniforms. They're made of the same paper-like material that our citizen clothing is made from, but with an extra thickness to it. Like it's been made with a triple-ply layer for protection.
“That will help you blend in, but you're going to need that service cart too.”
I see a push cart full of janitorial supplies and once I'm suited up, I get behind the cart and make my way through the exit into a chamber full of machinery being run by a dozen men and women all wearing the same uniform as me. I keep my head down and no one takes notice of me. There's so much anxiety pumping through my veins that I have to mentally force my feet not to break into a run.
“Act normal,” Cyren says in a calming tone.
“I've never been good at that,” I mumble as I push a button to summon an elevator.
Once I push the cart inside and the doors close, I let out a breath and try to relax, but when I notice the account scanner mounted in the corner of the ceiling, I straighten back up, stiff as a board. The NPCs lead me through the facility, telling me which floor to ride the elevator to, which hallway to push the cart down once I arrive on the correct floor, and which doors to go through. I pass by more employees of the prison, but no one makes eye contact. Everyone is lost in their own job, flipping through document screens or repairing network wires. The guards appear bored, taking no notice of yet another janitor walking past. It feels too easy, until I remind myself what I did to get inside.
“Here,” Cyren says. “This is it.”
I stop at the end of the hall and see a set of double doors labeled: Prisoner Storage #0804. A guard stands on either side, wearing the usual navy blue armor and mirrored shield over their faces.
“Our friends are on the other side of those doors,” Cyren says and I can hear the excitement in her voice. She must sense my hesitation because she assures me, “Don't worry. We'll tell you exactly what to say.”
When I push the cart toward the guards, one of them is ready with his screen to check my account, but he stops to lift his visor and cover his nose.
“Looks like there's a clog in one of the disposal hoses,” I explain to him, just like the NPCs are telling me. “I'm supposed to get in there and clear it out before it caus
es a biological backup. Nasty way for someone to die, even a cyberterrorist.”
The guard sneers with disgust and hooks his thumb toward the door as he says, “Just move before I have to smell you anymore.”
I hear the guards laughing with each other as I pass through the doors, but I'm smiling to myself. I realize then that my stench is part of my disguise and I wonder how much of this the NPCs planned.
I push the cart into a chamber that scans my body to make sure I'm not bringing any contraband into the room, then a second set of doors slides open. When I step into the prisoner storage room, the sight strikes fear into my chest. So much so that I unconsciously back step, my body wanting to leave the room as fast as I can. But when my back hits the doors, I stand firm and push myself forward.
Pillars of transparent tubes rise into the air like towers, each one a stack of coffin-like chambers. The bodies of hundreds of hackers and cyberterrorists lie strapped inside, fully connected to feeding and waste disposal tubes. These are E-Wombs, but like none I have ever seen. Harsh and utilitarian, built to contain the body and nothing else. Each mind is lost in a deprivation of stimuli. Conscious, yet feeling nothing.
I scan the faces, wondering which ones are the friends I know inside NextWorld. Which of these bodies house the minds that control those avatars I've grown to know so well?
A single screen rises from the floor in the center of the room and blinks to life when it detects my presence. I hurry to it and press my palm against the screen. When my nanomachines interface with the display, the menu on the screen glitches as Cyren and the NPCs get to work hacking through the system. My heart races, anticipating the look on my friends faces when they're released from their mental confinement and see me waiting to greet them.
When the menu stops glitching, I hear Cyren in my ear, her voice quiet and weak. “This isn't going to work.”
“What are you talking about?” I shriek, slapping my hand against the screen again. “Get them out.”
“The mind prison is a virtual world. We can't physically disconnect them, and they were logged-in for a life sentence. The system doesn't allow a log-out without global presidential authorization.”
“Just do it!” I slap the screen again, trying to physically force them to interface with the menu.
She speaks slowly and calmly, trying to help me reach the painful truth. “Arkade... we can't duplicate Global President Chang's account. The only other way they'd be logged-out is if the mind prison was completely deleted from the system, and we don't have that kind of control from this menu. It isn't-”
She stops talking as the plan in my head forms. She can hear me thinking. They all can. They know what I'm about to do.
“You don't even know if that will work.”
“Do you have a better plan?”
I can tell that she hates her own silence, as she tries to force the NPCs to come up with anything else.
“We're running out of time. Seal the doors. Lock this place down and ready one of these E-Wombs.” I gently press the palm of my hand against the menu and announce, “I'm going in.”
01100110
“We can log you in for data analyzation, but your access will be limited,” Cyren explains as I step into an empty E-Womb and the transparent glass closes around me. “This mode of entry is meant for questioning prisoners.”
I close my eyes and say, “Log-in.”
A point of light grows from the center of my vision, rocketing toward me until it fills my field of view. My avatar stands in a white box with a single red doorway in front of me.
I look down and see my father's hands. It's a strange sensation, being in someone else's avatar, but being in my father's avatar is beyond abnormal.
I gesture in the air to open my menu screen and see the multiple options that are given to me as a data analyst. One screen is labeled: Information Gathering, but when I open it, I see a list of software meant to break the will of prisoners. Pain amplifiers, phobia simulators, sensory overloaders and deprivers. It's a horrifying list and I get lost in my own imagination, thinking of my friends being exposed to this virtual torture chamber.
Cyren appears next to me, placing her hand on my shoulder to bring me back to the present. “You should be able to select which prisoner you'd like to summon.”
When I scroll to the first screen, a list of names drops down from the top. I swipe my hand down the list until I see Fantom's name, hovering over it for a few seconds of hesitation. I want her here. I want her help. I need her competence. Her confidence. But right now, I know there's nothing either of us can do as long as this mind prison still exists. I swipe harder on the list and scroll to the bottom until I see the name I'm looking for.
Worlok.
“You're sure about this?”
“It's the only idea I have.”
“Maybe we don't need him. The NPCs and I could try to-”
“How much time do we have before this password expires? Twenty? Thirty minutes? Do you think you could whip up a virus in that amount of time that you would be positive could finish the job?”
She pauses. “No.”
I tap on Worlok's name and after the screen asks me if I'm sure, he instantly materializes in front of me. His faceless avatar jerks awake, spinning around like he's disoriented by his surroundings. He looks the same, the graphics of his avatar unchanged. He's still faceless. He still has long white hair that matches his tuxedo, the only color being his red bow-tie. Yet something is different. At one time, his relaxed confidence infuriated me, but now his stance is slouched and weak. He doesn't look at me with any smugness or superiority, instead he cowers.
“No!” he growls. “Not again! I can't... I won't! I told you everything I know.”
“Worlok!” I shout, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him. “It's me! It's Arkade!”
He tries to pull away from me, but he's powerless.
“The player-vs-player rules in here are one-sided,” Cyren explains. “You can do whatever you want to him, but he can't do anything against you.”
“You're terrible at this, you know that?” Worlok says with a nervous laugh. “If you're going to lie, you could at least put some effort into it. Maybe design an avatar that looks a little something like Arkade? A cowboy at least. Not this crusty old politician-type.”
“Listen to me, Worlok. It really is me. I'm using my father's avatar and-”
“I already gave you everything you need to find the rest of the hackers, but I've told you a thousand times, I don't know Arkade. If you're trying to find information on him, you need to ask Fantom. Or Xen. They're his real friends. I was doing a job. Getting paid. Nothing else.”
I'm a little taken aback by how quickly he's willing to turn on Fantom and Xen, but I don't have time to dwell.
“I don't want information. I want your virus.”
There's a pause as he tilts his head to the side. I let go of his shoulders and he takes a few steps away from me.
“What are you talking about? What virus?”
“The worm virus. The thing that deleted DangerWar 2. You won't be able to access your inventory, data is cut off between here and NextWorld, but you should be able to write the code again and-”
“What is this?” he asks, looking around the room. “Is this some kind of joke? Some psychological trick that's supposed to twist my emotions or-”
As he keeps rambling his conspiratorial theories, Cyren feels me losing my patience and whispers in my ear, “Are you sure you trust him?”
“No. I'm not. But right now, I have to.”
She looks into my eyes, considering for herself if she's willing to follow me to the end of this plan, but finally lets out a sigh and says, “He doesn't need to believe you. In here, we can force him to switch accounts.”
I reach out and grab the lapel of Worlok's tuxedo. His avatar freezes again as Cyren and the NPCs get to work. It only takes a few moments. There are no firewalls on his account anymore, no hacker tricks to keep us
out. With a blink of darkness, I'm suddenly looking out from the eyes of his avatar.
He stumbles backward, looking down at his hands, the hands of my father's avatar, mumbling to himself, “What... how...”
“I told you this is for real. Now, we might not have much time. I need you to get to work. I need you to replicate your worm virus and delete this place. All of it.”
He looks up at me as the truth dawns across his face. “You're... really him?”
I shout at him, “Worlok, we don't have time for this! You need to get coding. Now. It's our only hope of escaping this place. Everyone is counting on you.”
He gestures in the air, opening a menu that I can't see. “There's a log-out option. I could-”
“I told you. We shouldn't have trusted him.”
Cyren's analysis of people is usually flawless, but I still hold out hope for Worlok.
“Could you actually leave the rest of us in this place? After what they've done to you?”
He hesitates for far too long.
“Fine,” I say, disappointed that he needs convincing. “But if you log-out, how would you get out of the tower that houses this mind prison? Do you have a plan for that?”
He doesn't react. He just keeps swiping through menus, searching his available options.
Eventually he lets out a defeated sigh and says, “Whatever. So you want me to delete this place?”
“The worm virus. Do you think you can code another one? Replicate what you did before?”
He shrugs his shoulders. That annoying, disconnected confidence of his is back in all its glory.
“Sure,” he mumbles, sitting down cross-legged and opening a coding screen in front of him.
“We need to be fast about this. We've got...” Cyren pops a timer up in the corner of my view. “...ten minutes.”
He doesn't respond. His fingers dance across the screen, inputting letters and numbers, twisting 3D representations of mathematical computations.
I lean against the far wall and watch him work. I try not to be impressed, but without Cyren and the NPCs doing the heavy lifting, I could never be as good as him. It's annoying.
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