by Jay Toney
"A splendid choice for a simulation, I will prepare it right away."
"What you are doing is cruel and inhumane. I demand you release the souls you have taken!" Persephone yelled. "The minds of those in a simulation will remain in the simulation. That was their choice."
"A choice made by a trickster. Fear me mortal. I am Persephone, Queen of the Dead. I will see to it that you spend eternity being tortured for your crimes."
"You are but a hologram, nothing more. Your time for choosing has passed."
The librarian pulled a small disc from his pocket. He pushed a button on the wall, a panel slid open, and a gurney slid out. The disc he carried was placed into a computer terminal at the foot of the bed. Then he laid down on the gurney, placing his staff of office at his side. Once he was comfortably situated, he placed a headset on his head. His eyes closed, then the gurney retracted into the wall and the panel sealed his body in a small chamber.
Persephone went to a computer console, bringing up the library's records. Image after image of bodies in suspended animation appeared on the viewscreen. There were tens of thousands maybe even millions of people trapped in computer simulations.
"This is intolerable! It's an atrocity that should never have happened. How could so many people be such fools? Astrea, come to me!"
"I am here sister, how can I help you?"
"Astrea, these poor souls are in torment. They need to be released. The one called Jonathan, who is the librarian is responsible for their suffering. He must pay for his crimes."
"I thought these people were living out their lives in a simulation of their choosing, living out their fantasy. I thought it would be something that would give them happiness."
"That is how they were tricked into accepting this form of hell, Nathaniel. Time spent in the computer simulation is not the same as real time. In as little as an hour, they would have lived their entire lives only to relive it again and again with each passing hour. It is hard to tell how many lifetimes they have relived. Each life that is repeated loses more and more of its luster. It becomes boring, with no way to change it. Boredom leads to torment, knowing that you are destined to repeat life over and over again without change."
"I guess that would be kind of hellish."
"It is much worse. There is no escape. Even if they kill themselves in the simulation, the simulation would just reset and start again."
"Persephone, I can free them from their torment, but there will be no judgment or reward for them in the afterlife. This process has made it impossible for their souls to make the transition. I can only offer them an end to their torment."
"Better that, than to continue as they are."
"Very well, I will need the help, of the being that can bring them peace. Thanatos!"
"I am hear cousin. Why did you call me away from my office?"
"Who is he?"
"You can see him, Nathaniel?"
"Of course, why shouldn't I?"
"I'm sorry. Only those close to death can see him."
"I recently faced a situation that was much worse than death."
"Yes, your change to a biomechanical being. That may account for it. Thanatos?"
"You called to ask about this man?"
"No, but while you are here, is it his time?"
"His time has not yet come for me. The fates have much more for him to do."
"Thank, the gods," Persephone wept.
"You are welcome, cousin. I am very busy. What brings me here?"
Persephone activated the viewscreen and showed Thanatos the chambers filled with bodies, in cryogenic storage. "Their spirits are trapped in an endless loop, living in a computer simulation."
"What about those responsible for it?"
"The librarian lies in this chamber. I have something special in mind for him." Persephone pointed to the panel sealing the librarian in his private chamber.
"I have never had the need to reap so many lives, in a single harvesting of souls. It troubles me that these people chose such an end. I will bring them peace."
Thanatos's image changed. When he first appeared, he looked like a normal man, of perhaps 30 years of age. He was muscular, stood six foot tall, had dark wavy hair, and bright blue eyes. Thanatos was also very plain looking, able to blend in with other people and move about unnoticed. He wore black pants, a white shirt with a black vest, and black boots. Now he took on a more skeletal look, his clothing transformed into a dark robe, its hood covering his head. A scythe appeared in his right hand. He tapped its handle on the floor, and the blade turned to flame.
"It is time to reap these poor Souls." He vanished. "Nathaniel, what the hell is going on?" Nugget asked.
"An end to the torment these people are suffering. Didn't you see Astrea and Thanatos?"
"The only ones here are you and Persephone. I seem to be missing out on events happening around us."
"We will be done here soon. Persephone, what about the librarian?"
"I have something special in mind for him." She hacked into the librarian's computer. "I'm not supposed to be able to do this."
The viewscreen showed the librarian in a harem. It was full of very beautiful women.
"How typical of a man like him?" Astrea commented.
Persephone made a few adjustments to the simulation's program. Instead of kissing and caressing the librarian, the women started biting him and feeding off of his blood.
"I thought of how the Vamps treated you, Amber, and Jewel. I figured that I would start with that."
The librarian didn't seem to notice the women feeding on his blood. Then their feeding turned into a frenzy. The women tore the flesh from the librarian body with their teeth and claws. They clawed at his abdomen, ripping out his organs and feeding on them while the librarian screamed and convulsed in pain.
"I thought about the cyborgs, and how they treated Nathaniel and the pain that they caused. They didn't change him into a cyborg to be cruel, they thought they were helping him. Then I thought of the bugs, and how they enjoyed tearing my body apart and devouring my flesh, while I still lived. That gave me the inspiration I needed for the librarian. This is the fate he will suffer for all eternity. He know that I am the one responsible for it."
Persephone encrypted the computer, so no one would ever be likely to change its programming again. "Let us be away from this place. We still need to see what the archives have in storage."
Astrea vanished and Persephone led the way to a different elevator. We rode the elevator up to level 77.
"Someone needs to explain what has been happening," Nugget requested.
"Nugget you wouldn't believe me if I told you. To start, you might consider saying a prayer to Astrea, asking her to appear to you. If she chooses to appear, you will find her a very charming and beautiful woman. You will like her. Once you meet her, you will be able to have a better understanding of what has happened today."
"I'll pray to her, but only because I want to meet this lady."
Level 77 of the archives had a musty smell. The air smelled stagnant as if no one had been here in a very long time. A thin coat of dust covered everything. There were no footprints or tracks of any kind on the floor. Rows of books and documents covered shelves as far as we could see.
"We need to find section alpha. Look around to see if you can find any directions."
"I am the librarian. How may I be of assistance?"
"We are looking for section alpha, row 219."
"That section is restricted."
"Jonathan sent us."
"That is peculiar, I will have to check wi
th him."
"He is no longer available, he has entered his simulation."
"That is odd... come this way." Jonathan's hologram lead us down the rows of books. He made a left turn, and we walked quite a distance before he made another left turn. We only walked a short distance before we were at row 219.
Three books adorned the shelf, enclosed in glass cases. They were the original handwritten journals of three of the ships captains who made the journey to this galaxy. The journals were from the Federation of Free Planets Discovery, the Hope, and the Voyager. They were just a few of the ships that made the voyage to this galaxy.
These are just the books we needed. I reached for the books but was stopped by a forcefield, that snapped on before I could touch them.
"Those books are priceless, and cannot be touched by human hands," the librarian said.
"They are what we came for, and we will take them with
us."
"May I offer a suggestion?" Nugget interrupted. "Why not provide an exact copy, perhaps in digital form?"
"No such copies exist."
"Are you telling me that in all the time you have had these documents in your archives, you haven't researched their information and made digital copies?"
"Our goal is to preserve them in original form, not reproduce them."
"Then your programmers were fools, Nathaniel take the books. He said that they weren't to be touched by human hands, he didn't say anything about bionic hands."
I reached for the books again. The forcefield snapped back into place. I pushed against the forcefield harder. Pain shot up through my arms. A message flashed in my mind, "Overriding sensory receptors." The pain vanished.
"Stop at once!" the librarian shouted.
I continued pushing my arms through the forcefield. It began glowing red, and so did my arms. "Damage superficial." I grabbed the first glass case. The forcefield overloaded and collapsed. "Releasing nanites, estimated repair time 30 minutes."
With the forcefield down, we were able to easily get the two remaining journals.
"Fiends, you will be stopped."
"Who will stop us? As you once said to us, you are nothing but a hologram."
We headed back to the elevator, and took it up, as far as it would take us. It stopped near the surface. We followed the exit signs to a flight of stairs and climbed the stairs another 50 feet. On the landing at the top of the stairs was a single door. We exited through the door and found ourselves back on the surface, a short distance from my ship.
We boarded my Marauder and flew back to the Persephone, another successful mission. After landing we headed to the bridge. We brought the books into the anteroom that served as my office and conference room. Persephone and Nugget opened the first book and began reading the journal. Most of it was trivial information, but it did include some astrogation data and information about the systems they visited. They made special note of this information.
I joined Amber and Jewel on the bridge. "So, how was your visit to the library?"
"It was very exciting. I got to see Astrea again and we met with Thanatos briefly. Together we freed millions of people, who were imprisoned in a hell of their own choosing, and punished the librarian for putting them there. The three of us also found three journals that will help us on our journey."
"Who is Thanatos?"
"He is informally known as the Reaper or Death. He is actually the God of a Peaceful Death. His sisters are the ones who reap death through war and destruction."
"It sounds like all of you had an exciting time. We should have come along. How did you manage to cheat Death?"
"I didn't need to. He didn't come for me. It seems that the fates have a lot more in store for me before it is my time."
I plotted our next course. It would take us to the Nevis System. There wasn't anything in our database about this system, nor did I recall ever visiting it during our raids. Jewel sent the course to the rest of our fleet, and we entered hyperspace.
What In The Nevis!
The Carpacia, now renamed as the Persephone handled like a dream. Very few minor problems occurred, leaving the crew little to do. I had the maintenance droids turned off in the ships gardens, and turned the gardening over to our crew just to give them something to do. Half of our female population was already pregnant, given little else to occupy their time. Amber and Jewel were still talking about babies when they thought I couldn't hear them. I didn't need to. Persephone liked to gossip. Amber and Jewel wanting babies was her favorite subject. I wanted a large happy family, but I wasn't ready just yet. I needed to keep my eyes on them, and their birth control implants.
My wives blackmailed me into wearing a uniform again. I was given a choice; either wear the uniform or become a daddy. It was a tough decision, I stayed awake all night thinking about it, before deciding on the uniform. They thought my decision was a wise choice. In truth, it was an act of cowardice. They were serious.
I made my way up to the bridge, where everyone was waiting, and took my seat. The bridge was modern, and well thought out. All controls were made by touch screen, there were no buttons, knobs, or levers. No one had to change their positions on the bridge to operate a different station. They simply had to pull down a menu and select which station they wanted to operate.
Persephone did most of the work, cycling through the menus and functions faster than we could blink. It was second nature to her, and she did so without thought. She let Nugget, Amber, and Jewel operate their consoles, just to give them something to do. She monitored them while they were at their stations to make sure there were no errors. Occasionally she made corrections to the few errors they made.
We needed to stop for supplies. Mike was harvesting his crops now, so we didn't have a need for fresh fruit or vegetables. In fact, we had a surplus that we could use to trade or preserve for later use. The saying, "What goes in must come out," applied even to our Niffids. It didn't matter what they consumed. Everything they ate was converted into little pellets of ammonia nitrate. They were kind enough to use a corner of their environment to leave these pellets, making them easy to gather. Their waste was one of three components needed for the fertilization of our gardens, and crops.
The storage in the Sequoia's biospheres had some fertilizer, but not enough to last. We also needed fertilizer aboard the Persephone for its gardens. The Niffids produced an ample amount of ammonia nitrate, but we still needed potassium or potassium nitrate. Our Deevils helped us out with that. That left us needing a source of phosphorous. It would either have to be mined or traded for. If worse came to worse, we could replicate it, but Mike preferred getting it from a natural source.
We had plenty of Niffids and Devils aboard the Persephone now. Like my last ship, the Niffids were isolated in the hydroponics tanks and our rubbish collection centers. the Niffids made recycling much cleaner and easier for us, by digesting any organic product. They were also essential for cleaning up any hazardous material.
Persephone took us out of hyperspace. We were now in the Nevis System. Its red sun was unnaturally dim, too dim for the seven planets that orbited it.
"Captain, you need to take a look at the second planet." Amber brought the image of the second planet up, on our main viewscreen.
"What the hell is that?"
"It is or was the second planet. There is freighter traffic heading to a facility orbiting near the sun, and returning to the planet," Amber continued her report. "Communications between the freighters and Nevis II are limited to command instructions. The freighters are either being operated by droids or are robotic."
"Nugget, bring us in closer."
The view on our viewscreen wasn't of a planet or a natural one a
nyhow. It was what looked like a miniature Dyson sphere, only it wasn't so miniature being planet sized. I had heard about the existence of Dyson spheres, but had never actually seen one, or knew of anybody who had ever seen one. They only existed in theory, until now.
The one we approached was much smaller than a true Dyson Sphere. In theory a true Dyson sphere would englobe a star between ninety million and one hundred million miles from its surface. This one orbited the sun at the same distance. Whether it was a solid structure was unknown. It was even possible it surrounded a planet, like the Ringworld we visited.
"Captain, they are hailing us."
"Put them on the main viewscreen."
Our main viewscreen was huge. It stood 5 meters tall and 20 meters wide. Everyone who appeared on the viewscreen made me feel small. It was just an illusion, but it still had that effect on me. A humanoid appeared on the viewscreen. He was definitely not human. He was taller and had broader shoulders. The proportions of his body were slightly different. His head was larger, sitting on a shorter neck, and his arms were longer in proportion to his body. His torso and legs seemed to be of similar proportion to our bodies. He wore a simple tunic, and pants. He was also without any body hair that I could see.
"Travelers, welcome to Nevis. I presume you are here to trade."
"I am Captain Roberts of the starship Persephone. We are in need of supplies, and will gladly trade for them."
They spoke our language, so undoubtedly they had human contact in the past. "We welcome your trade. Your fleet is clear to dock in docking bay 74."
A huge door began opening, surrounded by green flashing lights. As we eased into the structure each of our ships was guided into separate docking births. With the Persephone moored in place, I shut down her engines. Docking technicians hooked up hoses and umbilical cables to our ships. They began pumping in fresh air, and water into our ships. The ship's power was switched over to the sphere's power source. Gantry with umbilicals for passenger and cargo were positioned at our hatches.
