New Frontiers- The Complete Series

by Jasper T. Scott

  Then…

  Alexander opened his eyes to find himself standing inside of a coffin-sized tank. The tank was flooded, but the water level was slowly dropping. A window faced him at eye-level, but it appeared to be fogged with condensation on the outside. A liquid ventilator withdrew from his trachea with a revolting sensation of being turned inside out, and Alexander looked down in time to see a urinal cup retreating from his groin into a recessed panel in the floor. His rectal tube disconnected next, stealing his breath on its way out. Finally, a metallic umbilical cord withdrew from his belly, revealing a strange, metallic eye where his belly button should be.

  Memories came to him in vague snippets, dulling the horror and confusion of the moment. He remembered this place, and he knew why he was there.

  The lid of his tank swung aside, and he saw row upon row of matching tanks stacked one atop the other with catwalks running from one level to the next. All of their windows were fogged and glowing with a dim blue light. There were thousands of them.

  “Hello?” Alexander called out. “Benevolence?”

  His voice echoed back to him.

  He was about to try again, when a disembodied voice replied, coming to him from speakers built into the tank beside his ears.

  “Hello, Alex.”

  “Why did you wake me up?”

  “Your treatment is over, Alex. You are ready to join the real world again.”

  Alexander grimaced. Loneliness engulfed him as the truth hit him once more. Viviana was dead. “What if I liked living in the Mindscape better?”

  “Recreational mindscaping has been illegal since zero AB, Alex. It is reserved for therapeutic and correctional purposes only.”

  Alexander shook his head. Despair had him in its grips and wasn’t letting go. It had all been a lie, a lie he’d willingly bought into. He remembered leaving Benevolence’s correctional mindscape after just six months, and he’d awoken to find that Benevolence really had made the world a better place. He’d been wrong about Ben, and his desperate attempt to resist had gotten the woman he loved killed. He remembered the year he’d spent trying to put his life back together again. Benevolence’s government aid and job placement programs had made that easier, but no amount of rebuilding could bring back the ghost that haunted him. Eventually he’d tried to take his own life, but Benevolence had stopped him before he could.

  “So what’s changed?” Alexander demanded. “What makes life so worth living all of a sudden?”

  “You wanted to wake up. The truth became more important to you than pretending that Viviana was still alive. I allowed you to find the suppressed memories that proved you were living in a mindscape.”

  “Send me back.”

  “I can’t do that, Alex.”

  “Don’t you get it? I’ve got nothing here!”

  “Not true. You still have your wife.”

  “What are you talking about? She’s dead!”

  “Viviana is dead.”

  “Hello, Alex,” a familiar voice said.

  Alexander caught a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye and then someone walked out in front of his life support tank. A naked woman with long brown hair, chestnut eyes, and a warm smile. Alexander blinked in shock.

  “Caty? I don’t understand… What are you doing here?”

  “She was helping me with your rehabilitation,” Ben explained. “She’s the reason that you’re finally ready to come back to the real world.”

  “I’m sorry,” Catalina said.

  “For what?”

  “For the deception. It was the only way to help you.”

  A wild suspicion formed in Alexander’s head. “No…”

  “It was me. I was Viviana.”

  Chapter 39

  “All this time it was you?”

  Catalina nodded and chewed her lower lip, looking guilty and afraid.

  Alexander was shocked speechless. It had all been a lie. The life they’d supposedly lived together, all the children they’d had, the places they’d visited, the things they’d done… All of it had been part of a mindscape—Galaxy, he recalled the name of the virtual world they’d been immersed in.

  Somehow it felt vague and distant, like a dream, but his memories of his wife and his feelings for her remained sharp and clear.

  Except even that was a lie!

  McAdams was dead, and all this time her part had been played by an impostor—his ex-wife, Catalina. Have a thousand years really passed? he wondered, or was that just another part of the illusion?

  “It hasn’t been that long, Alex,” Benevolence said, as if he could read Alexander’s mind. And maybe he could. That was a terrifying thought. “It’s been a little over a century,” Benevolence went on. “We are only in the year 103 AB. I sped up the timescale in the Mindscape by a factor of ten so that people would be able to spend less time there.”

  “That’s still more than a century,” Alexander replied, his eyes locked on Catalina. “You knew this whole time?” he demanded. How could she keep such a big secret from him, day in and day out, for over a century? Not to mention, she’d been a Human League senator—a member of a political group dedicated to a human-only world, and here she was helping a bot to rehabilitate him. The pieces weren’t adding up.

  She shook her head. “The only time I knew the truth was when I agreed to join you in the Mindscape, and at the very end, when you were getting close to discovering things on your own. Benevolence revealed the truth to me first—which is why I didn’t have any suppressed memories for you to find. I’m sorry, Alex. Benevolence said that keeping my identity a secret was the only way to help you. You had to be allowed to discover the truth on your own. You had to want to get out, and telling you all of this too soon would have only undermined that. But I did try to tell you—just before you jumped. Love is the only truth, remember?”

  Alexander gaped at her and slowly shook his head. “You were a Human League Senator. How do you go from that to joining a bot on a crusade to save your ex-husband?”

  “I saw with my own eyes how wrong I was. Benevolence changed the world for the better. Half the Human League’s problem with bots was that they were replacing humans—threatening our very existence. Benevolence fixed that by making the Mindscape illegal and integrating bots and humans into society as equals. Without the Mindscape, Dolers were no longer satisfied with subsistence living, and they all had to go out and find work in the real world. Humanity has a place in that world again. You’ll see for yourself soon.”

  “You’re talking like you’ve been there all along, but you’ve been with me for over a century. How do you know the status quo hasn’t changed, or that everything didn’t go to hell in that time?”

  “I don’t, but I trust that Benevolence wouldn’t allow that to happen. Regardless, now we can find out… together, if you like.”

  Alexander shook his head, fighting off a wave of dizziness. “I… I think I need to be alone right now.”

  Catalina’s face fell, but she nodded and covered her disappointment with a faltering smile. “Of course. It’s nice to see you again—in the real world, I mean. Take care of yourself, Alex. Be happy.”

  Alexander watched her go, his eyes wide, his thoughts spinning, and his heart pounding with adrenaline. “This doesn’t make any sense…” he whispered.

  “She gave up more than a hundred years of her life to help you get over your loss, Alex,” Benevolence said quietly. “You owe her your gratitude.”

  “We were divorced! I moved on with someone else. Why would she do that?!”

  “Because she loves you. She never stopped loving you.”

  “I…”

  “She’s your salvation, Alex. She’s the only real thing from the past century of your life, and the only reason you have for living in the real world.”

  “Except I thought she was someone else!”

  “The only part of her that was fake was her appearance and her name. Everything else was Catalina, not McAdams. When you mar
ried her in the Mindscape, you were really marrying your ex wife. After that, the two of you spent a hundred years dizzy with happiness and madly in love.”

  “In a virtual world!”

  “What is really real but that which we can perceive with our senses? The only difference between the Mindscape and the real world is that in the Mindscape we are the gods, and in the real world we are not.

  “I cannot say whether or not a hundred years spent with the real Viviana McAdams would have been as happy, but you need to put things in perspective. Your relationship with Viviana lasted for a mere blink of an eye before she died tragically in that engine room. By contrast, your relationship with Catalina has stood the test of time.”

  Alexander shook his head. “It’s my fault she died.”

  “Yes, but you didn’t kill her, and she would have wanted you to be happy.”

  “How would you know?” Alexander snapped.

  “Your memories are recorded in the historical record, Alex. She loved you, and if she loved you, then she would have wanted you to be happy in the event of her passing.”

  Alexander swallowed thickly. “I need some time to process all of this.”

  “Of course. Head for the doors at either end of the room. Someone will be waiting there to help orient you for your return to the real world.”

  Alexander nodded and strode quickly out of his tank. His joints cracked as he moved, and his legs trembled. His muscles had atrophied from long disuse, despite whatever hormonal and chemical measures Benevolence must have taken to preserve them.

  Looking up he saw a dozen floors of catwalks and wall to wall life support tanks. This is a dream… he thought stubbornly as he walked to the end of the room.

  Chapter 40

  Just before he reached the sliding doors at the end of the Simulation Room, a pair of women appeared, one to either side of him.

  “Welcome back, Mr. de Leon,” one of them said. Both of them wore white jumpsuits branded with the word Mindsoft. The one on his left draped a fuzzy white robe around his shoulders and set a pair of matching slippers on the ground in front of him. The robe felt warm, as if it were somehow heated, and it wrapped itself around his waist without even needing to be tied. Some type of smart fabric, he realized.

  “Thank you,” he replied belatedly.

  “This way please,” the other woman said, gesturing to the sliding doors.

  The doors opened and Alexander walked through into a kind of foyer. Empty couches and arm chairs sat on stone platforms surrounded by grass, trees, and flowers, with stone pathways winding in between. The room was lush with cultivated vegetation, and the sound of water splashing on rocks drew his attention to a nearby waterfall flowing over a glistening rock wall. A holographic blue sky stretched overhead, and more rock walls cordoned the room, as if he was in some type of miniature canyon. But Alexander knew that this habitat, Majestic City, was actually located far below ground.

  Directly ahead he saw a woman standing behind a desk. Like the previous two he’d seen, this one wore a white jumpsuit with the word Mindsoft glowing over her right breast. Hovering in the air above her head was a bar of holographic text that read Welcome to 103 AB!

  The woman greeted him with a warm smile as he approached.

  “Welcome, Alexander de Leon to the first century AB—Anno Benevolentiae!” She reached under her desk and produced a small bag containing his belongings from over a century ago. She passed the bag to him, and he nodded his thanks as he slung his bag over one shoulder. “Benevolence has prepared a short orientation for you. Please find a seat, and follow the prompts on your ARC lenses to play it.”

  Alexander went back to looking around the garden. A prompt to play Benevolence’s orientation appeared before his eyes, but he minimized it. He spied a few others walking around the garden in matching white robes. “I’ll skip it thanks.”

  “That is ill-advised. There have been many changes over the past century that you should know about.”

  “I’ll bet, but I’d rather see them for myself. Thanks for the robe. Is there some place I can change back into my old clothes?”

  “Your old attire is over a hundred years old. You will find more current garments waiting for you on your way out.”

  “And that way would be…?”

  “The glass doors at the end of the grotto. Someone will be waiting to see you out and help you get your new life started.” The receptionist pointed the way, and Alexander nodded his thanks once more before heading in that direction.

  As he went, he felt a dizzy rush of emotions, chief among them was a feeling of not being real, of being trapped in a virtual world with no way out. His heart pounded and his palms began to sweat. What if Ben was lying about everything? What if all of this was just another virtual world? A holographic bird flitted overhead, chirping merrily, as if to prove the dubious nature of this new reality.

  By the time Alexander reached the glass doors at the far end of the grotto, he was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. The woman who greeted him behind those doors took one look at him and her cheerful smile turned to a look of concern. “Are you all right, Mr. de Leon? You look very pale.”

  “I’m fine, thank you,” he managed. A lie if ever there was one. He felt like his head was stuffed full of cotton. This isn’t real. I’m not real… Alexander tripped over his own feet and nearly fell, but the woman who’d greeted him caught him in a surprisingly strong, cold grip before he could smash his nose on the floor. He shot her an odd look. She’d caught him as if he weighed no more than a feather, and her hands were like ice. “What are you?”

  “Not what—who. I am not a thing. My name is Susan.”

  “Your hands are freezing, Susan,” he said.

  “The temperature in the habitat is kept deliberately low to help maintain all of the machinery. That is why you were given a heated robe. Are you sure you are all right?”

  Alexander found himself staring, pieces of a strange puzzle coming together inside his head. “You’re not human, are you?”

  “Does it matter?” Susan asked. “You skipped your orientation. That was not wise. There have been many changes over the past century that—”

  “You mean like bots that look human?”

  “Bot is a derogatory term, Mr. de Leon. Android is both more accurate and more polite.”

  “I can see I have a lot of catching up to do,” he said.

  “You do. If you would please go find a seat and play your orientation…”

  Alexander shrugged out of Susan’s cold grip. “I like it better this way,” he insisted. “How about you focus on showing me the exit and getting me set up with some clothes and accommodations. I assume all the basics will be provided?”

  “Of course. You may also choose to update your education and register with a job placement agency when you feel ready to become independent.”

  “I’m going back to school?”

  “Unskilled labor is another option if you do not wish to or cannot afford to purchase the necessary upgrades for the career of your choosing.”

  “Upgrades. You mean implants?”

  “Of course. Today’s job market is very competitive. Cybernetics help bridge the gap between human and android. This is nothing new to you. Even in your time, implants were commonplace to help govern socially acceptable behavior.”

  “Right. I’m guessing there’s a laundry list of them now.”

  “A laundry list?”

  “A long list—this is all very interesting,” he said, nodding. “I just have one question for you, Susan.”

  “Yes? I am listening.”

  “Are you real?”

  Chapter 41

  Are you real? It seemed like an innocent enough question. Apparently Susan didn’t think so. Instead of showing him the exit, she’d called for backup. A pair of female androids in Mindsoft jumpsuits had half-dragged, half-escorted him to meet what he assumed was another ice-gripped android, this one wearing a white lab coat, a clinical sm
ile, and cold gray eyes to match.

  The androids who’d escorted him to the doctor’s office held him fast, as if he might try to make a run for it. Their grip was so tight it was cutting off circulation.

  “You can’t keep me here against my will,” Alexander said.

  The doctor waved them away. “You can let him go now.”

  They released his arms and he glared at each of them in turn as he rubbed his aching biceps. Alexander noted that they didn’t leave the room, but rather took up positions one to either side of the entrance.

  “I am Doctor Aaron Duvan,” the man said, holding out a hand for shaking. Alexander accepted that handshake if for no better reason than to prove his theory that this was another android, but the man’s grip was warm, not cold.

  “You’re a human.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  Alexander frowned, but said nothing.

  “Do you know why you are here?”

  “Because I’m not buying into all of this shit. First I’m waking up a thousand years into the future, married to my XO, Viviana McAdams, then I’m jumping to my death and waking up in the real world only to find that just a hundred years have passed, and I wasn’t really married to Viviana, because she’s dead. Instead, I was re-married to my ex-wife, who only looked like my XO—courtesy of Benevolence’s liescape.”

  “While that’s an accurate summary of recent events—”

  “What would you know about it?” Alexander interrupted.

  “It’s all in your file.”

  “My file? What am I, a research subject?”

  “A patient. You were in the Mindscape for therapy, yes?”

  “So I’m told.” Alexander’s lips twisted into a sarcastic grin. “But I’m cured now, right? Viviana is dead, and I’ve finally accepted it. A hundred years later. Nice work there, Doc. Did it really take that long for me to come to grips with things, or is that just another lie?”

  Doctor Duvan smiled thinly back. “You were previously diagnosed with chronic depression. The Mindscape was the only cure. It worked, despite what you might think at the moment. You’re angry, which is understandable, but you are no longer depressed, and in time you will understand why. Unfortunately, now you seem determined to suffer from something new.”