NetherWorld

by Daniel Quiles Pagan

  Victor laid his cards on the table next. “I have a full house. What do you got Wilfred?”

  “Two pair. Jacks and Eights,” Wilfred replied.

  “Curses! You win again,” conceded Victor.

  “Wilfred! Victor! We are playing Gin not poker! Pay attention you old Bits!” shouted Bertrum, wobbling with frustration.

  “We prefer poker. You guys play your Gin,” responded Wilfred.

  “We cannot play two different games with half a deck! This is crazy!”

  “Who is lazy?” asked Horace.

  “It is a bit hazy in here, Horace. Somebody open a window,” said Cecil.

  “We live in a dank basement gentleman. There are no windows!” shouted Bertrum.

  “Gin!” said Walter again. Laying down the same cards.

  “Who’s in?” asked Horace.

  Whizzy and Nick looked away from the scene.

  “What a bunch of wackos,” said Nick. “Can we try the next room?”

  “Sure,” said Jeeves, plunging his twig like legs towards the next room. Jeeves inserted his card and opened the next door.

  “What are these?” asked Nick.

  “Side Scrollers?”

  “In the Ataric Age, games were on a two dimensional plane. In order to move forward you had to scroll from left to right. It was very limiting. We abandoned it once our graphics grew in three dimensions.” Jeeves led then to a very shallow room. When he opened the door, Nick could see that the room was razor thin with regard to depth.

  Two circles, not spheres moved against the back wall. They moved quite slow from left to right.

  “Almost there,” said VanDef.

  “Wait for me,” asked StarPit.

  The circles were almost to the far right of the back wall. Seconds later they reached the end.

  “Finally! Here we are!” they said with excitement. Then the wall actually shifted left, pulling them back to the other side of the wall.

  “Darn it! Back to square one. Well, better get a move on. If we stay here, we will fall into the left abyss,” VanDef said with a complete lack of energy.

  “VanDef, I am tired. Can’t keep goin’ right. Please, scroll on without me. My time has come,” resigned StarPit.

  “Come on. Don’t leave StarPit. You don’t want to fall into the Left Abyss. No one ever returns from the Left. We’ve already lost MarSup and MooPat. If you fall left, I will be the last Side Scroller. Please, don’t leave me alone in two dimensions!” VanDef pleaded.

  “Goodbye MariDef.” With that StarPit slid left until he was off the wall. A mild blip sound followed his exit. VanDef began weeping while slowly sliding right. The last of his kind, fighting the futile battle to stay onscreen.

  “How many more doors before we find this hyperrrom?” Whizzy asked Jeeves.

  “Hard to say. All the doors are so similar. We still have the Vectors, Joysticks and Tabletops.” Jeeves replied.

  “Please Jeeves, try to remember which one door is the one that leads to the hyperrom. Every tick counts?” urged Whizzy.

  “Can’t you see how depressing this is. From Boot to Downtime, I live with these senile Hazbinz who are just waiting to die.”

  “We get it Jeeves. Why don’t you just leave?”

  “This is my protocol. Forever stuck with these Bits.”

  “I feel for ya. But, please show us the way to the hyperroom,” begged Whizzy.

  A boxy shadow floated past the trio. Its resolution was low so they could not make out what the shadow was.

  “What is that?” asked Nick

  “She is our resident spook, AmiVic. He has been roaming these halls since the early cycles,” replied Jeeves.

  “Hooooome. Hooooome,” moaned the spook as it glided back to Nick and Whizzy.

  “What is she doing?” Whizzy asked.

  “AmiVic, the victim of a tragic love story. In the early cycles, Karbons were passionate for her platform. Platforms supervise the video games. All who played their seductive games were entranced. AmiVic had devotees that worshiped her for her simple yet entertaining games. Alas, other platforms saw this and sabotaged her success. In the end she died homeless in an unopened box. The box was later found in the back alleys of NetherWorld,” explained Jeeves.

  “Hoooome. Take me hoooome. Hoooome,” asked the moaning spooks in a deep baritone.

  “So sad. Why is she here?” asked Nick.

  “Like in life, AmiVic carried her curse to the underworld. She is forever locked in a box in purgatory. She is homeless, even in death,” explained Jeeves.

  “Tragic. So Tragic. But we really need to get to the Nexus. Can you please show us another room?” asked Whizzy.

  The next door contained a bunch of Bytes busy looking around the room. They were moving furniture, opening drawers, and looking under the bed.

  “It’s got to be here! Where is it?” said one of the shriveled globes. He was using his tubes to search under the bed.

  “Maybe it’s over here,” added a slightly green Sphere. He was spinning in the closet, sifting through clutter.

  “Oh, this is my room. These Searchers are my roommates,” remarked Jeeves.

  “Searchers?” asked Nick.

  “Yes. They once were busy reaching into NetherWorld finding data for Karbons. Then the HooGoos took over. The pushed us out of business. Now we search whatever we can to pass the time,” answered Jeeves.

  “What are they looking for?”

  “They probably could not tell you. It’s been so long, they are just happy to be searching.”

  “Ok. Let’s hope it’s the next door.”

  Behind the next door, was a bunch of confused looking semi-transparent Bytes. They all have morose expressions as the wandered aimlessly about the room.

  “Help me. I can’t feel anything. Please!” pleaded the nearest sphere.

  “Have you seen it? It looks just like me, only grey. Tell me you’ve seen it,” asked an almost invisible figure.

  “I’ve got to find it before it travels to the Ether,” said a desperate looking and fading sphere.

  Nick turned to Whizzy. “Whizzy what are these?”

  “Tweens. These are what are left of Bytes after our shadows have been unhinged,” answered Whizzy.

  “Like back in the Silicate Slums, right.”

  “Exactly. Many flock here until they fade completely away. Most of these globes have only a few Boots left.”

  One of the ghostly Tweens travelled right through Nick into the Hall, leaving a chilled tingling that set butterflies flittering in his stomach.

  “That felt really weird. They can go through us?”

  “For the most part, yes. Some of the less transparent ones get stuck in Bytes sometimes. They ended up bound to the Byte until the Tween fades enough to pass. Jeeves, if you don’t mind, let’s move on. Stuck is the last thing either of us needs,” said Whizzy.

  “Sure. The next door is just a bit further,” he replied.

  Jeeves opened the next door, which revealed a mirrorred closet of sorts. The metallic sheen of the small closet rushed to light an otherwise dimly light floor. This was the hyperroom they were looking for..

  “Nicky, this is it,” said Whizzy. “Jump inside. I’ll insert Tera’s pass card to enter instructions on where to send this thing.”

  Nick walked in the closet waiting for Whizzy. Once he was inside, the door slammed shut. A voice came out of unseen speakers.

  “You have been redirected. Standby for transport.”

  “Wait. Whizzy is still outside.”

  “That is of no consequence. Transport is about to begin.”

  “Wait! Whizzy! Let me out!”

  Whizzy and Jeeves tried everything to open the door. Nothing seemed to work. They could hear the hyperroom powering up. Nick was being hijacked. “NazKlan must be behind this thing!” exclaimed Whizzy, pounding on the door with his clawed hands.

  The closet interior dislodged and plummeted down a seemingly endless tunnel. The forces of grav
ity rumbled Nick’s stomach. There was no window for him to see where this closet was headed.

  Chapter 15

  The Madness of Thrasher

  Book of TranFor: An evil grows in the Great Bin. No Byte will be able to delete this scourge. He will eat his own and give birth to unspeakable creatures. His will seep into sacred places.

  In the early days of NetherWorld, the Bin was made to dispose of corrupt and aged Bytes. All Silicates had finite lives. Over time they decayed and could no longer process their code. When this happened, they were removed from NetherWorld.

  Batchers are the Undertakers of NetherWorld. Black crow-like creatures, they fly through the clouds in search of these corrupt Bytes. When they find one, they remove it and transport it to the Bin. No Byte but Thrasher can access the Bin. The only way in is on the wings of a Batcher.

  The Bin sits upon a fault line dividing two TechSonic plates. Over time these plates shift to reform the land masses within NetherWorld. At the moment, there was only one large circular land mass surrounded by an ocean of jaba. Sprinkled throughout the Cylent Sea are a myriad of islands isolated from all who dwell within the Walled City. Over the cycles, the islands of the Cylent Sea became known as the Outer ROM.

  As the plates shift, sonic quakes shake the very foundation of NetherWorld. Rumbling thunder noises riddled the Bin as unspeakable acts transpired. The shifting TechSonics created a subsuction zone that pulls silicate waste material into undiscovered spaces in the SubRoots. Thrasher had cordoned off a series of unexplored SubRoot tunnels and turned them into his own personal torture chamber.

  When the Silicates built the Bin, they created the Shredder. This massive machine ripped corrupt Bytes into thousand of strands of data. These strands of data were then returned to Nether Nursies to be recycled into new Bytes. This was the natural sequence of things in NetherWorld.

  Thrasher was once an ordinary Byte. He worked tirelessly to fulfill his tasks. The Servers recognized his fervor and thought him the perfect choice to run the Shredder. In the Bin, Silicates built a destructive machine called the Shredder. When Bytes can no longer function to an acceptable level of efficiency, they were taken to the Shredder for reformatting.

  Running the Shredder was a taxing job. All previous Silicates assigned to this task were driven to madness and ultimately had to be shredded themselves. Each time, the High Council named a successor, hoping he would last beyond a few cycles. Thus far, no Byte had served beyond twenty cycles.

  Thrasher was honored by this selection and promised to work as hard as he could to make sure the Bin was model of efficiency. When he entered the Bin, Thrasher felt an instant connection. At that time, he knew, he would never relinquish his post.

  Cycle after cycle, Thrasher shredded his fellow Bytes, returning the strands to the nurseries. As time progressed, he began to decay. Before long he would have been tossed in the Shredder. He had to find a way to stop his physical decline.

  Eons of isolation began to twist and torment his mind. Thrasher developed an intimate bond with death. Pitiful pleas and delicious screams became the only pleasures he would know. The Servers tried to send replacements for Thrasher, but he shredded them all. No Server was brave enough to travel to the Bin and face the Thrasher. After numerous futile attempts to remove him, the Servers relented. They determined that Thrasher was efficient, disturbed, but efficient.

  Thrasher began to explore unholy of ways to extend his life. What better way, he thought, than to consume the fresh strands of shredded Bytes. From the first taste of shredded Silicate, Thrasher was hooked. As he chewed the spongy strands of data, yellow fluid congealed at the corners of his mouth. He stuffed more and more Silicate spaghetti in his mouth, while yellow juice frothed around his lip. Since Thrasher had a circular opening for a mouth, there was just one continuous lip. The internal teeth masticated the strands releasing more and more of the yellow fluid. After his first complete meal, Byte blood drooled from his round mouth.

  “I can taste their code. Part of them no lives within me,” he hissed.

  Bytes were never conditioned to cannibalize each other. By eating the strands, Thrasher did stop his decay. Still, he never returned to his previous health. The regular consumption of strands had some strange side effects. His healthy blue sphere gradually darkened and morphed into black lumpy mass. Thrasher looked a black moon with severe tumors that breathed in and out. With each tumor breath, odious air bubbles escaped. The floated around the Bin until they popped, releasing the deathly smell. His silver tubular tresses became scaly red vipers with forked tongues. Bytes shivered at the sight of this grotesque cannibal with slithering snakes growing out of his deformed globe.

  The strands also impacted his mind; slithering pure evil into his delicate psyche. Thrasher became more and more macabre. Over time his speech developed a strange affect. He stretched the “s” sound as he spoke. His intellect declined quickly, making him a perfect pawn in NazKlan’s plan.

  Most of the strands made it back through to the Nether Nurseries. There was no room in the Bin for all of them. Faulty strands were rejected and sent back to the Bin. Thrasher kept these excess strands. Most were far too corrupt to be used for any future formatting. Still, he found a way to use some of the strands he was unable to eat. He began making creatures from the shredded Bytes. These creatures would serve only him. They were primitive Bits, not nearly as evolved as the Bytes.

  This process of building these creatures created a waste product that could never be used by anyone. A percolating pool of irradiated liquid grew as Thrasher made more and more creatures. He flushed the murky brown effluent into a well above the subsuction zone. The waste material flooded parts of the SubRoots, seeping between the fault lines. This further aggravated the subsuction zone by eroding layer after layer of silicate material supporting the foundation of NetherWorld. Thrasher was unaware of the geological damage caused by this toxic waste material. With no place to put the ungodly byproduct, Thrasher dumped it into the one place that could contain it.

  Sparks scattered over Thrasher as he welded tainted strands together for these creatures. Zapping the strands with his charged viper tubes brought the reformatted strands to life. Before falling to the ground, they formed into swarms of Sprites. They looked like green locusts as they flew in great numbers above the Bin and into the surrounding tunnels. These little insects followed only the protocols of their maker.

  In time, he built an entire Army of Bits. Most were the Pixals that NazKlan used in the dome. He also built smaller versions of himself, black lumpy globes with red scaly tresses. These were slightly more complex that Bits. Thrasher called these his Minions. It time, he taught his Minions how to make Pixals. This grew his army by the thousands.

  As his code twisted into perverse formations, Thrasher devised interesting ways to torture corrupt Bytes before they met the Shredder. He ordered his army of Pixals and Minions to carve out elaborate tunnels from the original SubRoots. They were dug in a way that created mind bending mazes. Bytes dropped there by Batchers got lost for cycles. As the corrupt Bytes decayed further, their minds entered into a paranoid psychotic state. They experienced a myriad of delusions. Some became violent and attacked other corrupt Bytes navigating the tunnels. Other Bytes were paralyzed by fear. Terrified spheres rolled into dark corners while mumbling muted prayers.

  Some Bytes died before they faced deletion. Their cracked corpses oozed green gooey blood. This was a sure sign of viral infection. The onslaught of viruses greatly added to the number of corrupt files. They provided a veritable feast for Thrasher. The dead infected Bytes became playthings for other insane Silicates lurking the tunnels. Eventually the green gooey blood found its way everywhere. It stuck to the ceiling. It dripped from the walls. It collected in puddles on the ground.

  Echoing screams and hideous laughter travelled the tunnels; often crashing into each other. It was said that if you waited long enough, your own voice would return after travelling the maze. The return of one’s in
itial ramblings eons after arriving sent most Silicates over the edge.

  “Help me!”

  “They are all corrupt. Kill them all!”

  “Is there a way out?”

  “Let’s make a deal. I hold critical code”

  “Is there anybody out there?”

  “Just shout. I will find you”

  These were the typical early ramblings that sailed the maze of tunnels. Subsequent babble sent nonsensical rants in every direction. Over time, the constant barrage of desperate Bytes destroyed any remnant of Silicate soul. The tunnels were baked with terror and psychosis. Blood of the victims shrouded the halls. Echoes of insanity swallowed all hope. Sour smells of rotting milk and moldy cheese overwhelmed doomed victims.