NetherWorld

by Daniel Quiles Pagan

  “Oh. Are they dangerous?”

  “Mostly harmless. Their tubes are totally blown. They can’t remember anything after a few ticks. They mostly dribble little bits of distorted wisdom over and over again.”

  “Why do they do it?”

  “They believe in worlds peace. A perfect place where Karbon and Silicate can just be.”

  “What?”

  “Be. They think the Karbons need to take taint as well. If everyone took taint, all the fighting would end. They have long abandoned their original protocols. Their rotted tubes can barely process data. The Randoms just hang out in this park all Boot talking of Virtual trips and Silicate séances with departed Bytes.”

  Nick could hear some snippets of the rambling Randoms through the sitar and bongo music.

  “Byte, I am feeling so Virtual. That is some serious taint! Who made that batch?” said a wobbly aqua colored Byte wobbling on the silvery grass.

  “That’s the Owsley, brother Byte. Careful with that dude, it sneaks up on ya. Then it all goes bad Byte…really bad. Do it right and you might be talking with AldAyn himself. Brother TimKes saw him last downtime. Right Byte?” answered another wobbly aqua Byte.

  “For sure. I went uber Cyber. AldAyn told me that there are layers, Byte…layers of life. We need to peel the layers and look inside. The Awakening is inside Byte. Under the layers. You rotate me?” asked TimKes.

  He appeared to the leader of the orbiting group. He spoke while swaying on his shaky plungers. They rest of the Randoms focus their clouded visors on him. His frizzy tubes were decorated with the dead black pyramid leaves for the Silver Forest. A few spys fell, or rather jumped, from his twined tresses to escape the unwashed horror of his cyber hair. Tiny grumbles trailed off as the bugs left for cleaner hosts.

  “Sounds like exactly what we’re looking for,” said Whizzy.

  “How ya doing? My name is TimKes,” he said plunging over to Whizzy.

  “Please to meet ya. Name is Whizzy. This here is Sticky,” said Whizzy pointing to Nick.

  “Cool Byte. Cool. So you lookin’ for some taint, huh. We can help with that,” said TimKes motioning with a shaking claw to the pile of cubes in front of them.

  “That’s great. Thanks a lot.”

  “We all need to tune in to the Awakened, brother Byte. Taint is the way. The Awakened feel us. They know our core. It’s all about our core,” said TimKes just before he lost his footing and dropped to the ground. He proceeded to roll around while vibrating in a violent matter. Yellow drool dripped from his mouth, staining the silver grass. The rest of the Randoms ignored this fit, proceeding to babble on without their leader.

  “What is happening to him Whizzy?” asked Nick, who was visibly disturbed by the scene.

  “He is seizing up. A side effect of too much taint. He should be okay. This happens all the time. Give him a few ticks and he’ll snap out of it,” replied Whizzy.

  “Are these guys on the right track about the Awakened and all?”

  “Sadly, they are a hunch of bisguided fools. The Randoms have been doing this for cycles. All of them eventually go corrupt. Their cores often rot before anything else. Their ideas are noble; it’s the execution that is lacking. They talk a good game, but they never actually get anything done. They are a helluva lot of fun though,” replied Whizzy.

  “Gotcha. We have people like that too. What are those others doing by the trees,” asked Nick. A couple of creatures that looked like spinning tops were drilling holes under the dappled shade of a silver leafed tree. Fish scales were scattering everywhere.

  “Those are Diggers. They are Data Miners demented by too much taint. They believe the Awakened are peeping underpound. I mean sleeping underground. It makes no sense. They just keep digging and digging until they go corrupt.”

  The Diggers plunged over to Whizzy and Nick. They were well equipped for mining, each with a menacing looking point in their south polar region. Whenever the Diggers dug, their plunger legs retracted, turning them into very efficient drills.

  “Pardon me. Have you seen him? AldAyn?” said Merry.

  “AldAyn. Have you seen him?” repeated Prank.

  “Sorry guys, haven’t seen him. If I do I’ll let you know,” replied Whizzy.

  “Groovy. I am Merry and that is Prank,” said Merry as he pointed to his drilling partner.

  “Yes. I’m Prank and he’s Merry,” parroted Prank.

  “If we find AldAyn, I promise we’ll let you know.”

  “He gots the vision, so we on a mission,” said Merry.

  “Mission for the vision,” parroted Prank.

  “Thank you, no. We have another mission. Wish you all the luck. Say hey to AldAyn for me when you find him.”

  “You got it!” said Merry and Prank in unison as they scrambled off to dig more holes.

  “Okay. So why are we here again?” Nick asked. These Randoms were wobbling around and babbling between seizures, while the Diggers appeared to suffer from a rather severe learning disability. If this was their best hope for securing a path to Join with Tera, the mission was in grave danger, thought Nick.

  “We need to score some high grade taint. The Owsley taint is the best in NetherWorld. Let’s go see if TimKes is coherent again,” said Whizzy as he went to check on the aqua colored Byte.

  “Sounds like potent stuff. What are we gonna do with this taint cube?” asked Nick as he followed Whizzy.

  “Tick it in your rocket for now.” replied Whizzy. His speech continued to decline. He was able to figure out that Whizzy was saying to stick the Taint in his pocket. Still, the more he declined, the harder it was to make out what Whizzy is saying. The onset of corruption was in full force. He was more green that blue by this time. He had less than a Boot before the Batchers would whisk him away to a shredded fate. “Hey brother Byte. Got any more of that Owsley stuff?” Whizzy asked TimKes who had apparently recovered from his tainted seizure.

  “Who’s askin’ brother?” responded TimKes distracted from his circular conversation with another Random.

  “Hey brother, we just need a taste of taint. Can you peel me?” replied Whizzy trying to speak the lingo.

  “Wow, you sound nearly Virtual Byte. My name is TimKes. Please to meet ya. You sure you can handle it?” asked the forgetful Random.

  “I’m Whizzy and this is Nick. So do you have that Owsley?” repeated Whizzy. He recognized that it could take a series of introductions and seizures before he actually got the taint from TimKes.

  “Yes brother Byte. I even inserted stolen code straight from the lost verses of the TranFor. Genuine script from the profit hisself…AldAyn.”

  “Don’t spin me the wrong way. I will suck your core right out Byte,” said Whizzy, slinging the slang of the Randoms.

  “Look, let me download a taste for ya. Always a pleasure to initiate another Byte in the Random fold,” replied TimKes.

  “Have at it brother.” With that Whizzy and the Random connected tubular tresses. This was how the Bytes transferred data to each other. When Bytes enter room to get or deliver data, they plugged their tubes into the shared drive. As Bytes began to break down their tubes become less efficient at transferring data. Healthy tubes are essential for healthy Bytes.

  The Randoms had very poor tube hygiene. They still functioned, but cycles of taint abuse have eaten away at their once healthy tresses. They still worked, but the read a lot of data incorrectly.

  Whizzy froze with a series of crazy sensations. Senses merged into a swirling funnel that rewrote some of his code.

  “Whew! Alright then. Yep. That’s the stuff,” said a weakened Whizzy. The purified taste of taint only hastened his inevitable decline to a total greenie.

  “You just tasted my Owsley Special Reserve purified taint. Take the taint cube and you will see AldAyn hisself.”

  TimKes then passed a cube of taint to Whizzy. He gave to Nick for storage.

  “Thanks TimKes. We won’t forget this, my Byte.”

  “Anytime, m
y Brother. Hey, wanna sit in with us and get Virtual?” asked TimKes.

  “Tanks Brother, but we are looking for the underground way to Nexus. You know it?” Whizzy replied.

  “Don’t tell a Byte, but I heard the only underground way to Nexus is through the Hall of Hazbinz. A hyperroom in the Hall will teleport you to the Nexus. No lie.”

  Hyperrooms were once a popular means of transportation for the Silicates. They were designed by the Quantum Mechanics. At first, they were all the rage. Bytes were basically teleporting from place to place by hyperroom. This allowed them to traverse vast distances in mere ticks. After a while a serious flaw was discovered. The rooms would occasionally disappear into an unseen dimension. When they returned, the hyperrooms were often filled with very agitated otherworldly creatures. This cross dimensional travel was deemed unfun by the High Council, so the hyerrooms were decommissioned. A few functional rooms remained in unlikely places in case, the Silicates ever wanted to revisit the technology.

  Whizzy looked irritated. “A hyperroom eh. Thought the High Council got rid of them all. Well, not the safest transport, but it seems like the only way we can get to Tera without NazKlan getting in the way.” Whizzy knew that NazKlan was closing in on them. It was only a matter of time. Despite the cross dimensional risk, this was their best option. All the same, he decided it better not to alarm Nick with cross dimensional risk.

  “The Hall of Hazbinz? Rest home for outdated video games and unwanted, once famous Silicates? Isn’t there any other way?” Whizzy asked.

  “Sorry. Only way is through the Hall.” Answered TimKes.

  “Okey dokey smokey. Thanks a bunch.”

  “Spin easy, Byte. May you find the Virtual path.”

  “I feel ya. We gotta go. Thanks again. Come on Nick, pump in.” Whizzy reverted back to a saucer and motioned Nick to jump inside with teacup shaped body. Nick settled inside Whizzy, glad that they were leaving the smelly park. The body odor was almost too much to take. They spun back into the stream and surfed away as fast as they could.

  The Randoms resumed their wobbly ways exchanging sentences they would soon forget. Nick could just hear them repeating the conversation he heard earlier as the sitar and bongos played on.

  “Byte, I am feeling so Virtual. That is some serious tainted stream! Who made that batch?” said a wobbly aqua colored Random.

  “That’s the Owlsey, brother Byte. Careful with that, it sneaks up on your code. Then it all

  goes bad Byte…really bad. Do it right and you might be talking with AldAyn himself. Brother LeaTim saw him last downtime. Right Brother?” answered another wobbly aqua Byte…

  They babbled as if it were the first time they heard these words.

  Chapter 14

  Hall of Hazbinz

  Book of TranFor: The world seeks out the innovators to guide generations into the future. Once accomplished, the innovators are marginalized and left to drown in ephemeral glory past.

  Whizzy plunged out of the park and trundled over to a tall fish scale building that looked rather beat up. Although not as bad as the buildings in SpamTown, it appeared that the structure was only grudgingly maintained by the sector.

  Unlike of the metallic glass sheen of the normal structures in NetherWorld, this building was pasty pale. A thin layer of silicate dust, probably from a prior Spammer infestation, surrounded the front of the building. Cracks in the tower leaked loose fish scales that were carried off by the wind. The maintenance Bytes must have caught it early, because very few buildings survive such attacks. Still, very little work was done to repair the damage.

  “Creepy looking place Whizzy. It reminds me of a condemned building back on Karbonon,” observed Nick.

  “This is a place I wish we could have avoided…The Hall of Hazbinz,” said Whizzy with muted trepidation.

  Whizzy marched his plungers through the snowy dust to a set of double doors. Above them was an old sign that was in dire need of some repairs.

  Hall of Hazbinz: A Retirement Home

  The door did not open automatically upon approach. Most entrances into buildings opened as soon as a Byte crossed a buried threshold. After a couple of frustrating attempts, Whizzy pryed open the doors with his clawed arms.

  “Jeez! What’s is this freaky place Whizzy?” asked Nick.

  “This is where old Silicates are sent to live out their remaining days. Over time, your people abandoned certain computer software or functions. This is where they went.”

  “They weren’t deleted?”

  “We Silicates are sentimental lot. We tend to preserve historical figures. Over the cycles, we kinda forgot about some of them. They got locked away and we got busy with the current Karbon commands. I don’t think anyone has been down here since the Ataric Age, when Karbons flocked to convenience stores and malls to dumps coins onto very large machines.”

  “My Grandfather told me about those days. I can’t imagine having to leave home to play video games, how archaic!”

  They passed though the double doors into a dim hallway that smelled of urine and biological decay. Lining the halls were a few rooms with labels. Each label described the resident. A Byte draped in white just exited a door farther down the hall. Whizzy called to him.

  “How can I help you? Did you come for a tour? No one comes here anymore. It’s quite lonely. I am trapped with these old codgers Boot after Boot. Ready to begin your tour? I am Jeeves, your guide,” offered the caretaker. He wore what looked like an old sea captain’s hat between his tubes.

  “Nice to meet you Jeeves, we are looking for a hyperroom. Do you have one here?” asked Whizzy.

  “Call me Jeeves for short”

  “Ok. Jeeves, we are trying to get to a hyperroom. I understand there may still be one here. Can you show us the way?” asked Whizzy.

  “Hyperroom eh? I remember them back in the day. It was before the great Browser Battle, of which I was a prominent figure. You see-”

  “Jeeves, we are kinda in a hurry, can’t you just show us the way?”

  “It could be any one of these doors. I rarely visit anyone.”

  Jeeves led them down a narrow hallway lined with doors on both sides. Each one looked exactly alike. Beside each doorknob was card reader. This made it impossible to tell which door contained the hyperroom.

  “Ok then. If you will follow me, I will show you what is behind these doors.” Jeeves moved his plunger feet towards the very first room on the left.

  The door opened revealing eight faded blue spheres orbited a round table with what looked like playing cards. They were much smaller than the Bytes Nick had seen in NetherWorld. These Bits were more primitive and quite diminutive, the size of basketballs.

  “Here resides the 8 Bits. Once the engine for millions of games, they were pioneers,” said Jeeves.

  “Boy their tiny,” remarked Nick.

  “Please don’t say that too loud. The 8 Bits are very sensitive about their size. Remember, they were replaced by bigger and better Bytes. Once the Bytes came along, these prominent Bits were rendered useless and sent straight to the Hall,” explained Jeeves.

  Each Bit held a few playing cards in their tiny claws. One Bit laid down his hand to show them he had won.

  “Gin!” said Walter the Bit.

  “You cheated. I saw you pull from the bottom of the deck!” accused the Bertrum Bit on his left.

  “I did not Bertrum. You know better that that.”

  “Walter, just admit it or we will deal you out, right Horace.”

  “I didn’t see anything. What happened?”

  “Pay attention you dimwit! Walter is cheating.”

  “Peeping? That’s rather naughty Bertrum. You should know better,” responded Horace.

  “Who’s sleeping? We trying play cards! No sleeping until downtime,” chimed Cecil Bit.

  “Cecil, fix you auditory! No one is sleeping. Walter is cheating!” shouted a frustrated Bertrum.

  Yet another of the Bits was eating his cards. His circular mou
th was churning the cards into a gummy paste.

  “Quincy! What are you doing. Don’t eat the cards. It is the only deck we have. We lost 20 cards already to your nasty little habit. There goes another 6 more cards. Control yourself!” chastised Bertrum. He was spinning with anger. His tiny grey tubes swirled like an old lady break dancing.