Extropia

by Robin Bootle

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding. I need to speak with Mr Vanderboom.’

  ‘I’m sorry, miss. Mr Vanderboom gave the order himself.’

  She hesitated, as if assessing whether there was any way she could reason with the guard. And Edward could understand why. If they really were worried about any launch-day attacks, wouldn’t they be better off having Elizabeth armed? ‘Fine,’ she said at last, pulling her gun reluctantly from the small of her back and handing it over.

  The guard nodded her on as behind him the great golden doors began to shift apart. Beyond, a huge hall reached all the way to the very top of the palace, where glass domes let in the daylight. Edward stepped inside, his shoes tapping on a marble floor. A marble floor, he thought, that cost nothing. Men, women and even children – Extropia’s launch-day guests – ambled or stood studying the ornate paintings and the detail of the palace’s walls. Dotted throughout the hall, replica artefacts were encased in glass podiums. On the far side, a grand staircase widened from the first to the ground floor.

  ‘Welcome to the Great Hall.’ The voice made him jump. He turned to see the guard had followed them in. ‘There’s an elevator to the side of the stairs. You want the top floor.’

  On the far side, the elevator pinged as its doors slid apart, inviting them in. He followed Elizabeth inside and the elevator began to climb. His mind drifted to the last time he’d seen Vanderboom, at a meeting between lawyers. Vanderboom had been yelling at him from the other side of a boardroom table, more closely resembling a British Bulldog than a human being, barking and drooling for his blood. Vanderboom’s lawyers had laughed like they were genuinely enjoying the whole episode – the little teenager who had dared to take on the tycoon.

  ‘You okay, Edward?’ asked Elizabeth.

  He realised his anxiety must have been stamped all over him. In the sweat on his forehead. In the way his arms were wrapped around him as if it were cold.

  ‘You need to be confident. You should know as well as anyone, Vanderboom will eat you alive if you show any sign of weakness.’

  He took a deep breath, lowering his arms to his sides. Vanderboom holds no power over you now, he told himself, not now that James and Dad are alive.

  ‘Level six,’ announced the robotic voice of the elevator as they came to a stop and the doors opened. Outside, a young woman in a suit was waiting for them. They followed her left down a hallway, the balcony on one of its sides overlooking the hustle of the Great Hall. The hallway swung right. ‘Through there.’ The woman indicated halfway down on the left where two large marble doors were guarded by a round-bodied security guard in a black jacket.

  As they reached the marble doors, the guard raised his arm to block their path. ‘Just the boy,’ he commanded.

  ‘What?’ Edward snapped in alarm.

  ‘Vanderboom agreed to see us both,’ said Elizabeth.

  The guard shook his head. ‘You can see him afterwards, if it’s so important.’

  ‘First I lose my gun? And now this?’ Elizabeth’s face was burning. ‘Edward, we can do this another time if you want.’

  He looked back over the railing, down to the two golden doors. Beyond them, the red line, their exit, lay waiting. ‘No, there’s no point in delaying, is there? Who knows when he’ll let us see him again.’

  ‘Okay, but be careful what you listen to. The man’s a convincing liar.’

  The guard lowered his arm and now the doors seemed to loom over Edward, reaching several yards above his head. Ornate beadings lined the face of each door. He went to turn the brass handle but already it was moving away, the two great doors opening of their own accord. Beyond, a short corridor was barely lit. He glanced back in the faint hope that Elizabeth might yet come with him but she just nodded him on.

  He crept forward, his knuckles white and his fingernails digging into his palms. The fading light in the corridor told him the large doors behind were closing, further sapping his confidence. He hurried forward and fumbled for the large brass handle in front but again the doors began to open on their own, filling the corridor with blinding white light.

  ‘Enter,’ came Vanderboom’s unmistakeable, growling voice.

  He stepped forward, one hand raised to protect his eyes. It was so bright he couldn’t even see the walls. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Sit.’

  He hadn’t seen anywhere to sit. But as he looked around, he saw a small plastic chair two feet to his right. Still no visible sign of Vanderboom. The light, the voice – it all had to be Vanderboom’s way of forcing him onto his back foot. He was about to sit down when he stopped. ‘I think I’ll stand.’

  ‘Very well.’

  He turned as at last the lighting dimmed, revealing white walls all around. And now he could see Vanderboom himself, sitting in a leather office chair behind a wide, shiny white desk. At once Edward’s face was red with hate. The man who sat before him had tried to kill James and Dad.

  Vanderboom’s balding scalp had been recently shaved but had had time to grow back, leaving a rice paddy of sparsely dotted hairs. His skin was a blotchy red and his fat cheeks sagged on either side of his lips. He wasn’t snarling as Edward had expected, but frowning, the deep ravines in his forehead scrunched as he weighed Edward up, as if deciding what to do with him. ‘I’m glad you could be amongst the first to see it, Edward, to see your father’s work.’

  ‘Of all the things you could build, you build a castle? I suppose that makes you king, does it?’

  Vanderboom gave a wry smile. ‘VirtuaWorld is a blank canvas. Its users will decide what it becomes. For now, I prefer to think of it as a place where anything is possible. A place where dreams can come true.’

  ‘You can’t get hurt in your dreams,’ Edward snapped. ‘People will go running the moment someone is harmed. You’ll be sued to bankruptcy.’

  ‘I admit there may be some lawsuits… but they’ve never done any real damage, now have they?’ Vanderboom chuckled. ‘The people will come round. The truth is, there are upsides to this aspect of the technology, more than you know.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Vanderboom looked at him as if deciding how to respond. Then he said, ‘I think your father would be best placed to answer that. I’m sure he could give it more… passion.’

  ‘My father? Dad would never have come up with a technology that could hurt its users. If he had anything to do with it then it’s because you forced him to.’

  ‘Really? Perhaps you should ask him then, when you see him.’

  ‘I’ve seen him already. He’s hardly in a position to answer any questions!’

  A smile cracked across Vanderboom’s face but vanished amidst a fit of coughing, as if he was trying to clear his throat of an itch he couldn’t find. ‘Let’s get straight to the point, shall we? You’re here because you believe I have the password.’

  ‘I know you do. Give it to me and what you’ve done stays with me. I just want my brother and father back. In return, I leave you alone. You keep everything.’

  Vanderboom leant across the table, his chubby fingers interlinking in front. ‘Before we descend into more unsubstantiated accusations, perhaps we could take a step back.’ He lifted a loose fist to his lips and cleared his throat. ‘Edward, I would like to apologise.’ He chuckled, presumably at the stunned look on Edward’s face. ‘I can understand that might come as quite a shock. But, the truth is, I understand why you hate me. What I did to you is unforgiveable.’

  Edward was stumped into silence. Was this really the same man who had stood on the opposite side of the boardroom table, two hands propping him up as he leant over, barking at Edward, his eyes as red as his face?

  Vanderboom continued, ‘You must understand, I did what any man in my position would do. You see, that night, I watched as your brother arrived in Extropia, and I watched as he panicked, then left the build
ing in which he’d arrived. I don’t know why. It was as if he was looking for something. Naturally, your father followed him, leaving me alone in the attic, in charge of the experiment. The storm hit, and I thought they were dead. Can you imagine my horror? I, the one man who stood to gain from their deaths and who had also been responsible for their well-being? So I ran, panicked, to save myself from the accusations that were sure to follow if I’d hung around.’

  ‘And so you tried to pin it on me? An entire army of lawyers against one little kid? Every news channel suggesting I was somehow behind the death of my own family? Do you have any idea how that felt?’

  ‘I admit I was in part to blame – running was the stupidest thing I could have done. I made myself look guilty as sin. But your accusations were enough to ruin me, to send me to jail for the rest of my life. I had no choice but to discredit you.’

  ‘Discredit me? My friends turned against me. I spend every day hiding, worried someone will discover who I really am. Today was the first time in ten months that I’ve told anyone what happened to my family! And it was hardly therapeutic!’

  ‘Not therapeutic? To discover they are still alive?’

  ‘This is all a big joke to you, isn’t it?’ Edward stormed forward and slammed his fists on the table. ‘You ruined my life!’

  ‘Enough!’ Vanderboom pushed himself to his feet as he glared back at Edward.

  ‘No! Not enough!’ Edward screamed. ‘You…’ and he would have kept on, and on, if it hadn’t been for what was happening to Vanderboom.

  The strain of rising to his feet, of yelling at Edward, seemed to have produced a fit of coughing. ‘Edward, please, it’s time for me to let you in on a little secret.’ Vanderboom tried to straighten his back amid a splutter of coughs and growls. ‘I can’t hide it any more anyway, judging by the look on your face. You have won, Edward. I, Werner Vanderboom, your old nemesis, am dying.’

  Edward was stunned, his anger knocked clean away. Everything he thought he knew about this man, about how he’d thought this conversation was going to go, had been blown away with a simple puff of air from Vanderboom’s dying lungs.

  ‘The day of the test I’d been held late at the hospital.’ Vanderboom lifted his index finger towards one side of his forehead. ‘I’d had a small but unrelenting pain in my head for some time. I at last went to see my doctor and a week later she told me I had cancer. That was the same day I went to see your father. I was in a state of total panic by the time I arrived – she’d described it like a time bomb, that one minute everything would be fine, the next I would be weak and would have only weeks to live. And as you can see, that time has come.’

  Edward knew he should have felt some sense of pleasure, or satisfaction. To have Vanderboom finally admit to being there that night. To hear that Vanderboom was dying. But instead his response was one he had absolutely no right to offer. He couldn’t believe his own lips when they peeled apart and he admitted, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Well, thank you, Edward, for what it’s worth. Can you imagine a doctor telling you you’re going to die? It changes your perspective on life, let me tell you. Suddenly, all I wanted was to know how I would leave my mark on the world. That’s why I made your father rush the test. And that’s why I had to defend myself so ruthlessly against your accusations – I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in court. But as my time draws near, I realise that not even Extropia matters. When Death finally smashes his way through the front door, it is a clear conscience that I need. And so the truth is, I want to help you, Edward. I want to help you bring back your father and brother.’

  It was all so bewildering. Edward reminded himself who he was talking to: a convincing liar. ‘If you want to help me, you can tell me the password,’ he replied. ‘You must have had it if you were set to jump.’

  ‘Ha!’ The cackle caught at the back of Vanderboom’s throat and set him off coughing again. ‘I’m afraid it’s not that simple. Your father never had time to give it to me. My help comes merely in the form of information: if I didn’t cause the accident, then who did?’

  ‘Let’s pretend for one second that I believe you,’ Edward said. ‘If it wasn’t you, then what’s to say it wasn’t the storm? Why does it have to be someone else?’

  ‘The storm remains a possibility. But several weeks ago, a new theory came to light, from someone you’ve already met twice today. Tell me, Edward, did your friends at the NCCU inform you about the one that went rogue, the one I like to call the dark agent?’ The white wall behind Vanderboom disappeared, replaced by a photo of a man that nearly filled Edward’s view. Edward recognised him at once. It was Mr Hound, in a still captured from CCTV, again dressed all in black.

  ‘His name is Michael Hound. Oriel’s been looking for him for six weeks. Probably the same time for which Hound has been looking for you.’

  ‘Who is he?’ asked Edward.

  Vanderboom hobbled towards him, his close stare drawing Edward’s attention away from the picture. ‘Until last month, Hound worked for the NCCU.’

  ‘Impossible. He was on my doorstep, trying to stop the NCCU from reaching me!’

  ‘Yes… and so begins my warning. Hound was the one leading the effort to hack into Extropia’s code, to see if there was another way in besides the password. He was close to finding one, it seems, when he disappeared. Simply vanished, without a trace. But why? Why would the very agent charged with finding a way into Extropia turn rogue? Could it be that, like your father, he became scared of what he found?’ Vanderboom’s words slowed to a crawl, as though delivering the answer to a complex riddle. ‘Edward, Hound believed the accident was caused by something inside the game itself – one of its characters.’

  ‘A character? That’s impossible – game characters are just simple pieces of code. They wouldn’t be able to do anything dangerous, let alone anything beyond the game.’

  ‘That’s exactly how Oriel responded. But let me tell you, that night, before we jumped, your father told me that the mechanism through which we would leave Extropia was a small stone he’d stored near the place of our arrival. The Tartarus Stone, he called it.’

  ‘Tartarus?’ repeated Edward, feeling once again disarmed, knowing that yet another one of his theories was about to be left in tatters – that Tartarus was the virus that Vanderboom had used to sabotage the test.

  ‘The Tartarus Stone, Edward, is the player’s portal back to the real world. His exit, and his communication link. Imagine what would happen if that stone fell into the hands of one of the game characters?’

  Edward was lost for words. Could a simple game character really be in a position to cause damage to the real world? It seemed unlikely, even with this Tartarus Stone in their possession. But on the other hand, Vanderboom’s theory did explain why Dad and James couldn’t escape – the mechanism they had meant to use to return had been found by a game character, rendering them trapped.

  ‘And now for the bitter pill,’ continued Vanderboom. ‘If this stone is in the wrong hands, then do you actually believe it possible that Oriel and Elizabeth would risk their lives by entering Extropia? They too could get stuck there forever.’

  ‘But they told me that’s why they brought me in – to help them get in!’

  ‘They brought you in to keep you out of harm’s way while all this blows over. Oriel needs to show his superiors he has everything under control. He doesn’t think for a second that you, a young boy, could succeed where he has failed and find a way into Extropia.’

  ‘No… I don’t believe you! You’re up to something!’

  ‘Edward, the attacks on the schools have caused billions of pounds worth of damage! But so far even that is not enough to turn off the life support of two men. But what if there was another attack? What if someone were to be killed? How long do you think he’ll wait before he decides the safest thing to do is to switch off Extropia, an
d with it, end your father and brother’s lives? No one outside the government even knows Extropia still exists.’

  Oriel’s voice crackled in Edward’s ear, making him jump. ‘Elizabeth, get him out of there, now!’

  Vanderboom’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘It’s him, isn’t it? You see, Edward? They must have been listening in. Oriel doesn’t want you entering Extropia.’ He grabbed Edward’s arm and yanked him close. ‘Listen to me, Edward. The only person who’s going to help bring back your brother and father is you. You have to find a way in. Find the stone and bring back your family!’

  Behind him, the door burst open. Elizabeth ran towards him and grabbed him by the arm.

  ‘Let go of me!’ He shrugged her away.

  ‘We need to go, now!’

  ‘Why? What’s going on?’

  ‘It’s Hound. He’s here!’

  The world began to spin. Hound, a rogue NCCU agent, was here. He needed to get away, from all of them. Without another thought, he ran from the room.

  ‘Think, Edward,’ Vanderboom yelled as Edward neared the grand marble doors. ‘Think hard on the inscription. If anyone knows the password, it’s you.’

  * * *

  Edward ran down the hallway, his mind entwined in confusion. Could it really be true? Had Vanderboom just been a half-honest man made to defend himself against accusations of murder? Vanderboom had been so convincing, and it all circled back to the same unavoidable question: Why would a dying man lie?

  He reached the elevator ahead of Elizabeth and slammed the button for the Great Hall. As the doors began to close she ran through, forcing herself inside. He could scarcely bring himself to look at her. ‘You lied to me. Why didn’t you tell me about Hound?’

  ‘We didn’t want to worry you. You’ve had enough to deal with without needing to know that one of our own was after you.’

  ‘Hound’s been spotted in the Great Hall, heading your way.’ Oriel’s voice was again in Edward’s ear as the elevator began its descent. ‘VirtuaCorp security are tracking him. Unless you want to find out exactly what he wants, you need to find another way to the exit. Get off at level one and take the stairs.’ Oriel stopped talking, leaving only the subtle fizz of an open connection. The sound of his heavily drawn breath came through before he spoke again. ‘Elizabeth, be careful. Hound is armed.’