A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO TIME TRAVEL
(Chapter 30)
It’s not difficult to understand why The Age of Cataclysm is such a popular VR game. Even without the five free lives they give you, I’m pretty certain people would’ve still bought into it, because it has so much more to offer than other VR games. That’s because people are interested in the past; and not just the past 3500 years since the Cataclysm, but the years before that, as well. All the events that you come across when you’re playing the game, happened at one time or another. The Slaver Wars lasted for twenty years, but we purposely didn’t buy into that package because we wanted to experience what life was like before the revolt. The Slaver Wars take place seventy years after the events in our own time line.
The world—the world we presently live in—has changed drastically following the Cataclysm. Governments falling was hardly an issue with whole countries disappearing without a trace. Ninety-five percent of the world’s population was wiped out in a single, world shattering, event. History, as we know it, changed forever in the year 2163; before that, history is referred to as Before The Cataclysm, the Pre-Cataclysmic Age—an idealized Age of Innocence—whereas after, well, it’s simply referred to as After The Cataclysm. If you study history—and there are endless branches you can go into—you discover that the technology of the ancients survived enough to bring the world out of what people now commonly refer to as The Darkness. The Darkness lasted a full two centuries. That’s when the world was locked in its mini Ice Age. When the ice finally melted, it brought forth a strange new world.
Those that emerged after The Darkness, were more than just emaciated. They were also free of all the bonds that held them. Those few who kept the knowledge and wisdom of the ancients were able to rebuild the world anew. By 526 ATC, we’d advanced, as a civilization, beyond all imagining. We’d even recreated manned flight. Over the next 3000 years, we rebuilt the world and genetically re-modified life itself. With the development of AI, life changed. While some will say it changed for the better, others—like Sandy’s parents—felt the societal strictures that were being forced on what they called a docile population, had to be fought against.
The more radical of them refused to take part in the Nano program. It was artificial intelligence as it was meant to be. As the child ages, the Nano-bots grow and reproduce within the host’s body. They fight childhood diseases, mend broken bones, and increase life expectancy itself. Those few radicals who refused to accept the gifts AI had to offer, usually died of diseases those of us who accepted the gifts, hadn’t seen for generations.
That’s the side of life I know. At 37 years old, I’ve lived what could only be called a privileged life. My credits have been inherited from past generations. It seems one of my ancestors was instrumental in the development of Nano-tech. I couldn’t tell you what he did unless I looked it up; I’ve never been interested enough to do that. All I know is that there are enough credits for my family to survive another one hundred generations. I have everything a man could want. I’ve travelled and lived a life of leisure and ease. I’ve been to the Martian colonies; spent two years of my youth on Moon-base Alpha; seen the underwater cities on Titan. So when The Age of Cataclysm was introduced, why wouldn’t I want to try it out? Why wouldn’t I want to own the game myself?
Why wouldn’t I buy it?
The first time we looked into booking time in the game, we took my private sky-bot to the Elite Gaming centre. It was a short, twenty-five minute flight. I always insisted on being allowed to fly it myself, of course, which the AI always refused to permit.
She was starting to get on my nerves, and I told her.
“It’s for your own protection, Steve,” she said.
I’ve always liked the view of the city from above, though; the greater the height, the better the view. Maybe it’s because I like to distance myself from the false dichotomy of what life is like down there in the real world? It’s a hard one to call. But as the sun came up over the distant mountains, striking the buildings and reflecting off the windows, I could feel my heart racing in anticipation.
Like I said, I’ve lived a life of golden privilege. Sandy’s childhood was the complete opposite of mine. Her parents lived without the influence of technology. They lived within the realms of what you’d call the Wastelands, or what’s left of them. Civilization has encroached, Sandy’s father once said to me. I suppose that’s the reason we chose the Game program we did. Sandy was drawn to the idea of what life was like outside of the city’s influence, while I was intrigued with the idea of living in the wild; I did wonder how I was expected to survive with no worldly experience, though.
The SID was the one to show us all the options we could choose from, before we went into stasis for the first time. It also set up our initial introduction to our two avatars—Whit, and Jaleen—explaining that it’s always better to make allies and travel in groups. It helped us write out our past life information, before sending us out on our Hero’s journey.
“But if we’re going to know all of this before going into the game,” I pointed out, “won’t that spoil it for us?”
“You won’t remember any of this,” the SID said. “The game wipes your mind clean,” it went on. It could see that I was about to raise an objection, and quickly corrected itself. “The machine doesn’t really wipe your mind clean—not in the way you might think it does. From what I understand, when you’re in stasis, it’s like sedation. Your mind’s a blank—okay, let’s say it’s a clean slate—that’s probably a better way of explaining it. When you’re in the game, you’re making a different set of memories. New memories. You’re not going to remember the first week or two of your adventure, because the game’s actually creating a history for you. You’re going through what they call an orientation. It takes about fifteen minutes. That’s why the first time is always a little longer. Seventy-five minutes, instead of sixty.
“Just so you know, nothing dangerous is going to happen, yet,” it added. I suppose it was trying to sound ominous, and failing, but I had to give the SID marks for at least trying. “The scenario you’ve chosen involves building a complete history for your avatar—of you—based on the details of the past that you’ve provided, and whatever details we pick up through public records, of course. You’re not going to be doing much of anything.”
“So if you’ve been involved in a crime, say, it’s going to be reflected in the game somehow?”
“Right. Say you choose to be a warrior; it tells you that you’ve always been a warrior. In fact, you come from a family of warriors, and have an ancestry that goes back hundreds of years. You know how to use a sword, and a bow. It’s doje the way it works.”
“What happens when you die?” Sandy asked.
“You simply start over again. But not in the same timeline. You can’t beat the game by thinking you know what’s going to happen because you’ve already done it once. It’ll be the same scenario, sort of, but with a few minor changes. Say you die because there’s a landslide, and you didn’t see the clues?”
“What kind of clues can there be with a landslide?” she said.
“There’re always going to be clues. When you go back into that timeline again, you can be sure you’ll be looking for clues. Only this time, there’s no landslide. Instead, there’s a flash flood, or else a thunder storm and you get hit by lightning, or maybe there’s a stampede. You see what I mean? You gotta be smart, sure, but you also gotta make the right choices.”
“How am I supposed to know what’s right, and what’s going to kill me?” I asked.
“You don’t. That’s the thing about it. You learn as you go along. You are a barbarian, in a barbarian world. You have the same instincts. Wanna be a huntsman? You’ll be able to smell the scent of an animal on the wind. You’ll already know how to make traps, and how to skin an animal. The game isn’t replacing your memories, it’s giving you new ones. You don’t know anything about this time—you don’t even know it exists—because you believe you’re living in that time.”
“So if we go in together, we’ll probably be mated up in some way?” I said.
“Probably.”
“How long will it take to install?” I asked.
“That depends on how much space you have, doesn’t it?” the SID said, closing the brochure and sitting back. It took one last look at the contract before sliding it into the file folder. It slid the brochure across the table to Sandy, giving the file folder to a service droid.
I wondered if it was possible for a machine to feel smug about itself, having just nailed down a huge commission. And who gets that? I’ll bet it goes to Dwayne. I’d asked the SID if he could have everything set up by the end of the week.
“I have lots of space,” I added.
“Well, if you already have an area selected, it should only take a day or two, at most. I can have four associates working on it by the end of the week.”
“And will you be coming by and doing all the adjustments?”
“I’m pretty sure it’ll be Dwayne doing that,” the SID said. “It’s what he does. I’m just a sales rep. He’ll be overseeing the whole thing.”
“So we’ll be up and running by Saturday?” Sandy asked, scanning the brochure for the third, or maybe the fourth time.
“Guaranteed,” he said.
“That’s what I like to hear,” I said, standing up.
“I thought you were going to listen to what Jen said about staying out of the game for a while?” Sandy asked as we left the building.
“She didn’t say that, exactly,” I said, a playful smile as I looked down at her walking beside me.
“Oh, she didn’t, did she?”
“She suggested that we stay out of it for a while,” I reminded her. “But that was when we were going to Elite. We’re not going there anymore, are we? If whoever it is, is hacking our game through the Elite feed, then having our own feed should keep him out.”
“And why would you think that?”
“Why not? How’s he going to know we’re using our own feed?”
“And what do you know about hacking, or splicing, or whatever they call it these days?”
“I don’t. But I know if you’re hacking from one feed, you pretty well have to stick to it.”
“That might be true—I can’t say I agree with it—but it makes sense in a strange sort of way, I guess.”
“You guess? I’m glad to hear that,” I smiled again. “Let me take you out for lunch, and celebrate.”
I chose a nice place, well established in one of upper levels of the city. I love the city. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those high-end, entitled pricks who looks down at the other levels. I’ve never done that. My parents never allowed that sort of behaviour. But that’s all history of another sort, isn’t it, family I mean? But still, I always get nostalgic whenever I walk the streets.
Not many people these days walk the streets for pleasure anymore. The ones who do, usually have a securo-drone with them that’s armed—almost as if they’re going down to the lower levels. Those are the ones they warn you to stay out of, and I generally listen to warnings like that. I’m not a fool. I’m not about to go down to the lower levels for kicks—although I have. But they tell you...
Don’t go down to the Lower Eight.
I’ve heard it all my life. And like I said, for the most part, I listen when people tell me that. I’ve got friends who have other friends, who know that sort of people—or know people who know that sort of people. If I want to get the latest psi drugs, I know who to ask. That’s what it’s all about in this world, knowing who to ask. It’s nothing like Ricky’s world.
“Do you remember your—I don’t even remember her name—but the avatar in your game?” I said. “Do you know her name?”
“Jaleen?”
“The other one. The Cop.”
“Helen? I haven’t thought about her in a long time.”
“She’s all I’ve been thinking about,” I said. “Well, there’s one other thing I’ve been thinking about a lot,” I smiled, and she laughed.
“Settle down there, ligera,” she smiled.
I growled at her, leaning in and biting her neck.
“It’s funny,” I said after a moment. “I just now remembered his name. The SID said it’d be like that. We wouldn’t remember everything right away, but slowly over the week. We’ve been what? Two? Three times?”
“Three.”
“Three? And it feels like I’ve already lived a lifetime. Do you come out of there feeling bruised and battered up?”
“I told you, I didn’t have a good first day. Not until they fixed that glitch,” she said, and I felt like a loser forgetting what she’d been through. At least I’d had Jen with me.
And Jimmy.
“We’re going to have to figure out who Jimmy is,” I said.
“Why? You mean he’s not your brother?” Sandy laughed.
“No. I mean, we have to find him before he finds us. Who ever this killer is, he’s already tried to kill Jaleen in the real world—in point of fact, he already has—but now he has to go back into the game and kill her there. I don’t know why he has to—”
“Because she’s still in a coma,” Sandy said. “And he knows that.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s not dead in this world. I’m guessing the only reason he knows that is because they keep playing it on the holo. His only thought is that back in the VR world, she’s still alive. Maybe until she’s dead in the game, she’s a ghost image? A shadow on the screen, so to speak.”
“So?”
“So, when you’re in the game, you’re alive, remember?”
“You lost me,” I said.
“The AP didn’t tell us she’s still alive—not at first—but maybe he knows that because he hasn’t killed her in the game, like he did with Whit? She can’t die out here until she’s dead in the game, and he knows that. He kills her in there, she dies out here.”
“You know how impossible that sounds, right?” I said.
“I’m sorry, I’m kinda making this up as I go along,” she said.
“So what are you saying?”
“If we want to catch him, we have to get him inside the game.
“We?” I said.
“We can’t let him kill Jaleen. He kills her in there, she dies out here.”
“That almost makes sense,” I said.
“What do you mean, almost?”
“What about the AP? Jared? He died. Twice.”
“But that was the game doing it to him. Remember? They were letting him play along in real time. They didn’t tell him that he was playing a part in the game. That’s what Jen was saying. He died in the game, because the game killed him. Maybe Jimmy didn’t know he was with the AP until after he killed him? Maybe Jimmy thought he was just part of the game? He died before Jimmy showed up, so maybe he didn’t know about him, and only found out after?”
“And he found out because he was checking Jen out? Because he wasn’t expecting to meet another Time Guide?”
She nodded. “So he killed him. Called him up on the roof and bashed his brains in. He didn’t die right away, though, not until he drowned in that puddle.”
“We have to go into the game and rescue Jaleen because that’s the only time we’ll be able to get in there without him piggy-backing in on our feed.”
“And then what?”
“How do I know? Like you said, I’m making this up as I go along.”
Three days later, Dwayne showed up with a crew to set up the game in a spare room we’d cleaned out.
