The Upper Worlds (The Soul Survivor Series Book 1)

by Van Forson

  “I’m good. I don’t want you to get into any trouble. You’ve done so much for me already. Now go and give Ivan back his pass before he realises it’s missing.” I said. “Go. Go.”

  “Who me?” Max came through on the audio receiver.

  “No, Max you stay, Cindy you go.”

  “Good luck.” Cindy tottered back down the corridor.

  “Put on your IM so I can see what you see,” Max instructed.

  I clipped my IM to my collar giving Max a full view.

  “Good job. Got you on the aero pad.”

  In front of us were standard issue protective lab wear, white coats and safety goggles.

  “Put them on. Look like you fit in.” Max said.

  “Good idea.” I quickly put on a lab coat.

  Rows of decoder sticks were charging in a bank. I shoved one into my pocket.

  “What’s that?” Max asked.

  “It’s the thing they use to erase your memory at the end of the day,” I explained.

  “Wow! A real life nebuliser,” Max marvelled, “nice work, it could come in handy.”

  As I walked further into the room, Max could see the frequing area, the walls filled with hundreds of screens and the mixing desk.

  “See, this is where they freq,” I said.

  “Fascinating.” If Max hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would never have believed it.

  My head began to hurt immediately, and I quickly popped the patches on my ears and turned the dial to block out the signal.

  “Get to the mainframe pronto,” Max said. “I’ll process the freq room data at a more convenient time. Right now we have more pressing issues at hand.”

  A group of Techies walked in. I bowed my head and made myself look busy by James’ empty mixing desk. The Techies walked past chattering amongst themselves.

  “Phew.” I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “This is too close for comfort, get to the mainframe as soon as.” Max barked into my ear.

  I hurried past many other rooms set up identically to James’ with a mixing desk and hundreds of screens.

  “It looks as if the individual rooms are in a formation.” Max deduced. “From what I can see the rooms are set in a spiral pattern. Logically the mainframe would be placed in the centre, each room feeding into the core.”

  “So I need to get to the middle?”

  “Affirmative,” Max said.

  I ran around each room until I finally reached a room full of monitors and sensors. It was the hub of activity. The mainframe.

  “Bingo.” Max said.

  “What shall I do next?” I asked.

  Before Max could respond, a state of the art robotic Guardian seized me.

  “Halt! This is a restricted area. State your business?” Demanded the Guardian.

  I froze in panic.

  “I should have guessed that they wouldn’t leave something so crucial unguarded. Silly me, I should have been one step ahead.” Max cursed himself.

  “State your business.” The Guardian ordered again, scanning my router.

  Max typed furiously into his aero pad. “Stay cool Kid. He’s only running an ID check on your eye scan.”

  “You are work experience. You are in the wrong sector. Leave immediately, or I will annihilate you.”

  I knew his talk of annihilation was not an idle threat, but I was in touching distance of the mainframe. I would never get another opportunity like this again. I had to complete what I came to do.

  “I’m going for it, Max.”

  “What! Have you taken leave of your senses?

  “I've got to try.”

  “Give me a second!” Max insisted.

  I reached out for the mainframe. The Guardian harnessed his weapon. He had given me ample warning and was now well within his rights to end my life.

  Before the pop con fired, the Guardian slumped to the ground and shut down, as did all of the other android personnel in the building.

  In the canteen, the automated waitress collapsed into the protein pills she was serving. The robotic receptionists at the front desk ground to a halt mid greeting visitors.

  “What did you do Max?” I gasped.

  “I shut the Guardian down from the serial number on its neck. I’ve sent all tech at TEN into sleep mode, similarly to the way I did with your Auto Nan. But there’s no time for chit-chat. You’ve got less than sixty seconds before all systems reboot.”

  I ran to the mainframe and administered Max’s bug. Thousands of subliminal messages scrolled across the computer screen.

  'Buy this…’

  ‘Believe that…’

  ‘Eat this…’

  ‘Hate that…'

  I began to delete each line one by one.

  “Come on, come on.” I panted.

  “Just press delete all!” Max wailed, “There’s no time to waste, twenty-five seconds.”

  I pushed delete all, and the screen went blank.

  “Get out of there! Twenty seconds.”

  My fingers trembled as I typed in the new message, which from now on would be encoded into all of TEN broadcasts across all media worldwide.

  I didn’t have time to think of anything clever or witty, so I wrote the first thing that came into my head,

  FREE YOUR MIND.

  I jumped over the Guardian and fled from the mainframe. There was utter chaos outside as the Techies struggled with their failed robotic companions and computers. Amidst the confusion, I kept my head down and rushed past them until I reached the first room and threw off my lab coat and goggles. I ran out the door into the darkened corridor.

  “Reboot successful.”

  I overheard as the door swung shut behind me.

  “Phew!” I breathed out hard, “that was close! But the Guardian read my router. He knows who I am.”

  “Just like with Auto Nan. He won’t recall anything that happened just before the shutdown. He did not have time to save the data. Your whole encounter will be lost.”

  “You’re a genius, Max.” I sighed, relieved.

  “I know.” He said.

  “You don’t belong here!” Techy James startled me, appearing out of the darkness in the corridor.

  “Erm, James, fancy seeing you here.”

  “How do you know me? I don’t know you. I’m going to report you to security.”

  I whipped out the eraser from my pocket and blasted him between the eyes.

  “Aaah!” James screamed, slumping to the ground.

  “Sorry,” I whispered stepping over him, “but at least you won’t remember.”

  I fled from transmission and fell in line with all the other workers in the foyer. Everyone was abuzz with news of the power failure. Nothing like that had ever happened before at The Eye.

  “We did it, Max.” I whispered before leaving the building.

  My work here was done and what an experience it had been.

  Write the lyrics to your own song,

  Sing it loud and proud.

  Dance to the beat of your own drum,

  Stand out from the crowd.

  Ten: Dot Pac

  Jets hands trembled as he looked up at the crowd gathered in our backyard. He bit the corner of his lip nervously. All eyes were on him. The small makeshift stage he stood on was a replica of the one in the Barracoon amusement Arcade. Max, Wain, Sal and Philippe had done a good job constructing it. Jet knew they had done it to impress Kid rather than for him, but he was grateful all the same.

  “Erm, is this thing on?” Jet spoke into the microphone.

  “Yes!” The crowd cheered.

  “Oh, ok.” Jet looked bashfully at the audience he had drawn for his first ever live performance.

  “Well, thanks for coming. On the drums is Nevaeh Skye and I’m Jet Monrova, and together we are Dot Pac.”

  Jet turned to Skye, who as ever, was by his side. She gave him the thumbs up bouncing on the spot. Jet smiled back, this time he was the one feeding off of her energy.

&nbs
p; “We hope you enjoy,” Jet said and with a confident motion strummed the strings of his guitar.

  Skye banged the drums and sang a raspy, soul filled tune. Her voice was mesmerising. The melodic sound was like nothing the crowd had ever heard before, and they cheered loudly in appreciation.

  The hairs on my arm stood up, and I got goosebumps like I always did whenever Skye sang. I grinned full of pride. It was only meant to be gathering for a few friends, but the word had gotten out, and people had travelled from far and wide to hear Jet and Skye play.

  “It’s funny,” I said to Sal, “It used to annoy me when Jet twanged that string thing, but it sounds different to me now.”

  “It's cool. What’s that music they’re playing?” Sal asked.

  “It's some old timers groove that Jet just kind of picked up naturally, without even being taught.”

  “This is like so much better than The Allstars nonsense,” Mindy said.

  “Ha! I thought you loved The Allstars,” Wain laughed.

  “So did you.” Sal reminded him with a smirk. “We all did.”

  “They’re like so-oo passé,” Cindy said.

  “Yeah, I deleted them from all my screen savers.” Mindy said.

  So had I, the rest of the crew and everyone at school. Their music had lost its appeal since I had erased the subliminal messages at TEN.

  “What about DJ Dan? I asked.

  “Eeww he’s like so not my Type anymore,” Mindy said. “But Jet looks cute playing that music machine.”

  “Yuck!” I gagged.

  The Twins giggled. I made a puke face and turned to walk into my house. I needed to cover the outdoor sector. The noise from the cheering crowd was rising, and I didn’t want to get a decibel warning or violate any more Truths. I had already broken enough laws to last a lifetime.

  More importantly, I had promised my parents that I would be responsible and monitor this gathering while they were out. I guess there was some advantages of having a Compassionate Type mother. She was so thrilled that Jet wanted to have friends over, she had fully supported his gig and even convinced my dad to leave the house so we could have our ‘privacy.’

  “It’s a great turnout,” Max said.

  “Yep, I can’t believe my folks agreed to it.”

  “Indeed and not even Auto Nan here to watch over you.”

  “Exactly!” I laughed.

  “But you will tell your parents everything won’t you Kid?”

  “I said I would. The whole unedited truth from venturing to UC to hacking TEN. I’ll tell all, after the concert.”

  Max had said it a hundred times, and he was right. I needed to tell my parents, well my ma anyway, about everything that was going. After all, that’s what grownups were for; they guided you to make the right decisions. And I knew ma could be trusted with any of my secrets, although I doubt she’d ever let me or Jet out of her sight again.

  “Good to hear. I’m proud of you Kid,” Max said. “You’re doing the right thing.”

  “Got any refreshments yo?” Wain interrupted us.

  “Yep. Give me a sec,” I said giving Max a thumbs up before dashing into my house.

  I made my way into the kitchen and pushed the button for a roof to cover the backyard. The mechanical outer shell moved automatically over the outside perimeter. The transparent enclosure would soundproof the yard and prevent a neighbourhood disturbance.

  I stuck my head in the fridge looking for the H2O pouches for my friends. I located them crudely wedged between two vegetation test-tubed matters my dad was cultivating for a home project. I placed the cooled substance carefully on a tray. I was so happy the crew had come to support Jet and Skye. I hadn’t seen Brad yet, but I was hoping he would make an appearance later. I actually missed him as he hadn't been around a lot lately. I guess he had a lot of ball practice.

  “Be a diamond and give me one of those. I’m parched,” a wheezy voice said from behind me.

  Startled, I whizzed around. A woman with a mass of frazzled black hair and a long wart ridden nose was standing in my kitchen, so close she was nearly perched on my shoulder.

  “The concert’s outside. This is private property.” I informed the golden oldie.

  Without invitation, the woman took a drink from the tray, gulped it down in one glug, burped loudly and then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “Aaah that’s better,” she said smacking her lips together. “I’m not here for the music.”

  I looked at her in disbelief.

  “Then how can I help you?” I was irritated but tried not to sound rude.

  I recognised her from somewhere. Maybe she was one of the neighbours who had come to complain about the noisy gathering.

  “Well I hope you can help me,” the witchy looking woman said sitting at our dining room table and making herself comfortable. “I’m sincerely hoping you can help us all.”

  This woman had to go. Dad had made it very clear that no one was allowed into the house and I didn’t want to disobey him.

  “This is a private function, but you’re welcome to enjoy the music, outside,” I said trying to be cordial.

  The old woman leisurely put her feet up on the dining table. “I’m perfectly cosy here thank you. I believe you have something of mine.”

  I looked at her blankly.

  “A crystal ball. Shattered I'm told.”

  “What The Res gave me?” I whispered instantly on high alert.

  “Yes, Keziah. I’m Lady Zono, and I want my property back.”

  “Oh, my days.” Just like The Res, I now recognised Lady Zono from my dreams.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said shaking her bony hand.

  “Congratulations Keziah, you completed your first mission. You took out the first eye of the beast, The Eye Network. By taking down TEN, they'll no longer be able to push garbage into everyone's brains with their broadcasts. You have liberated minds. Free will reigns.”

  I blushed. I couldn’t believe it. I had achieved the first eye – just like the Arcadians believed I would. Maybe there was something in this Prophecy. Could I really be the Soul Survivor? Put on the planet to save all souls?

  “Your brother is playing a rocking set. I haven’t heard anything like this for aeons.” Lady Zono said as she bopped her head to the music. “Jet is excellent on the guitar. Let’s hope he’s able to develop skills quickly in other departments too eh?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Oops!” Lady Zono covered her mouth as if she had said something she shouldn’t have. “Don’t mind me. I'm just an old gal, speaking out of turn. Let’s not run before we can walk.”

  Lady Zono jumped up, and half dragged me out of my kitchen and further into my own house.

  “Now down to business, where is my glass rock?” Lady Zono clumsily changed the subject.

  “I’ve kept it safe in my room,” I said.

  “Righty-O.” She said as she led the way upstairs.

  ***

  The shattered crystal was hidden from Jet, my parents and the rest of the world, in a sock underneath my bed. I fetched it and carefully poured the gemstone into Lady Zono’s palm. The jagged pieces reflected the light creating a kaleidoscope of colour. She cast her hand over the fragments and the crystal magically reformed into one solid ball.

  “Oh I have missed you dear one,” Lady Zono said puckering up and kissing the ball. “I have my babies strewn all around the world for safe keeping. Far too dangerous to have them all in one place, don’t you think?”

  “Er, I guess so.”

  “Thank you for looking after her for me.”

  “You’re welcome,” I was pleased to be of service.

  “You know why I keep the crystals away from each other don’t you?” Lady Zono asked, peering at me intently.

  “Er, no.”

  “So Zyclon can’t get his hands on them. They’ve got far too much juice, tell too many truths. Who knows what he would do if he could see the secrets the crystal balls tell me.
”

  “Ok.”

  “You know who Zyclon is don’t you?”

  “Er, no.”

  “He’s the one behind the scenes trying to control this world. He’s wicked and cruel, and there’s nothing he wouldn’t do to get what he wants. You know what he wants, don’t you?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “For this world and everyone in it to belong to him. If that happens all souls will be lost, and the world will cease.”

  “I'm not sure I follow,” I said not understanding a word Lady Zono was saying.

  But she continued anyway, “He already has a stranglehold on this place, the Upper Worlds. Everything is holographic simulation this and virtual reality that. One, zero, one, zero, zero, ones, binary code all over the place. No actual authentic reality in sight. But as long as Mother Nature reigns in the land of Freeca and even our very own little Commania, we may have a chance. Not everything is going exactly according to his plan. Haaa ha Haaa!” Lady Zono cackled startling me.

  “Alrighty then,” I said, not sure whether to be frightened or enlightened by this woman.

  “Each one of my balls is a very rare and precious crystal. They know many things. Now let’s see what this one wants to tell me about you.” Lady Zono peered deeply into the crystal; her eyeballs magnified in the glass.

  Bright rainbow colours shot out from the ball and surrounded me. I watched in awe as the colours began to paint a scene in my bedroom as if an invisible artist was creating a masterpiece. I found myself amidst an illustrated forest, with bright flowers, a vivid lake and hut houses.

  “Wow.” I was amazed as the natural woodland scene enveloped me.

  “I see leafy green trees and a nation at ease,” Lady Zono narrated the drawing.

  “Pardon?” I said, revelling in the luminous, vibrant scenery.

  “The future has revealed itself. You will discover the next eye with Dr Stoneway and the Saps in Commania.”

  "Commania?” I echoed. “But from what I know that place is hidden in real nature! All of the greenery in the Upper Worlds is either GM or a virtual simulation. I have never stepped foot in real, living nature before. Why do I have to go there? How would I get there? What will I do there?” I asked panicking.