Science Fiction Home

Hailja (part 2) Hailja (part 1) 2. Back "Hell is usually a place we go of our own free will." - Kim Newman, Quorum She lay slumped up against a wall at the end of a tunnel. Brilliant pink point-sources of light hovered near the ceiling at intervals down the tunnel, disappearing as it curved to the left. The lights moved to and fro with a gentle seaweed motion; the pink glow gave everything the stereotypically sordid atmosphere of a strip-tease nightclub. She stirred, tried to move; either the system had decided that she’d broken her back when she fell or it was preventing her from moving. She wiggled her toes, shifted her leg and bent her knee, but didn’t get up. She felt content to simply lie there and listen to the echoes coming up the tunnel; metallic clanking, faint screams, whip-cracks, amorous moans, heavy doors slamming shut. Approaching footsteps. Another tall, thin figure with a hint of female hips; a veil of shadow depended from the crown of its head and flowed out behind as it moved. As whatever it was approached, this veil resolved into strands of glossy black hair. The figure was encased in a uniform of something tight, black and shiny; dozens of belts with large chrome buckles compressed arms, legs and waist to what must have been a painful degree. Mina supposed that it was a part of the system rather than an actual person. It came closer and stood over her. Hentai-anime cartoon-like features: thin, pale oval face with a pointed chin, a tiny nose and two pools of glittering blackness for eyes. One long, thin arm extended like the claw of a mantis, long thin fingers; Mina felt enough strength to be able to take its hand. The figure lifted her to a standing position as if she weighed nothing. It spoke, static-blurred rushing water reminiscent of the reversed voice of the blue glass demon: "Do you bring tokens?" Mina could only stand there, swaying slightly, a blank look on her face. The figure brought one hand up to Mina’s forehead, long spider-leg fingers waving slowly in front of her face. Three of the fingers curled in; the index finger hovered before her mouth and bent in a gesture which seemed to say ‘open your mouth’. Mina did so, and the index finger pointed at her tongue. "A token. This is worth thirty-two experiences. Are there other tokens?" Mina shook her head. "Very well." The figure drew her closer, leaned down and kissed her. This is a very kissy environment, she thought. A cool tongue probed between her lips, flickered underneath her own tongue, touched the stud, which vibrated and vanished. The figure released her; there was no passion, no feeling behind the kiss: it had been a mechanical transaction, nothing more involving than removing the token. Mina couldn’t help thinking that all this was a prelude to something very much more intense as the figure took her hand and led her down the tunnel, boot-heels clacking in the quiet. The tunnel was roughly triangular in cross-section; a flat stone floor surmounted by two curved walls which arched overhead and met. The pink lights batted back and forth between the two walls about a metre from the highest point. Spaced along each wall were heavy rectangular doors made of ridged wooden planks and metal braces with fist-sized bolts holding them together. Each door had dinner-plate-sized grill at eye level. Above each door, hovering in front of the stone shone four blue-green letters; the very first door on her right displaying 0FFF. The next, on her left, displayed 0FFE. The figure led her past these, presumably to cell 0FDF. Muttered voices sounded from behind some of the doors; occasional shrill screams from others. As they passed 0FF9 something howled with frenzied rage and threw itself against the inside of the door. There was an accompanying flare of white light through the grill, followed by the whickering of rapidly-moving blades and a gurgling sound. Looking back, Mina could see a dark liquid stain spreading from the base of the door. She couldn’t tell exactly what was going on in cell 0FF2, but it sounded like someone was being pressed up against the door and fucked from behind. Ever since entering this system Mina had been waiting for it to start playing with her emotional states, inducing slight hormonal changes in her body through the interface to generate fear, excitement, desire. She felt a twinge of voyeuristic curiosity as they left that cell behind, but she couldn’t tell if it was her own feeling or one that the system had placed into her mind. She’d experienced something like that once before – a rather sad system set up by an emotionally backwards adolescent who wanted to engender lust in everyone that entered; it was so obviously done that nobody took it seriously. Manipulation at that level was best done without overt chemical tinkering. The door to cell 0FDF was open. The figure led her towards it and gently ushered her inside. The door creaked shut, slammed with an echoing whoomph, stirring up a small cloud of dust at her feet. She stood near the door, peering into the gloom; the only light in the cell came through the grill, a faint red glow with a tinge of grey from the cell numbers. She stepped back against the door. Echoes from her footsteps told her that the cell was several metres deep; she had just summoned the courage to explore the darkness when a huge pair of glowing red eyes opened at the other end of the cell, near the ceiling. They half-closed; blinked, then looked directly at her. Something spoke, a profoundly bass rumble which conveyed an almost deathly lassitude. "Approach, child. I will not harm you." Mina didn’t move. Lids dropped over the glowing eyes, leaving two horizontal lines of banked fire; it sighed the world-weary sigh of someone who needs must explain rules to an unruly child. "There are four thousand and ninety-six cells in this structure. In groups, they teach particular lessons. You are in this cell to learn the lesson that it teaches; when you satisfy the conditions, you will pass onto the next cell. When you reach the final cell and pass its test, you will be released into the Arena." She counted in her head. Four thousand and sixty-two cells to go. Even given that she was operating under accelerated time in here, she realised that her body would probably die of thirst before she escaped, assuming that the so-called ‘tests’ were fairly administered and could be passed. And there was the ominous-sounding Arena to deal with, as well... The bass voice laughed quietly. "Believe me when I say that there is no other way out. My thoughts were formed from those who built this system; I know what they knew. There are no shortcuts, no escape clauses. Shall we begin?" Mina bit her lower lip and sighed. "What do I have to do?" "Please me." "In what way?", thinking here comes the dick. That quiet laugh again; the red eyes widened a fraction then suddenly burned brighter. She caught a glimpse of a huge figure half-buried in the far wall; thighs as big around as her waist set into the floor; ridged stomach and chest merging into the end of the room. Its sex was as long as her leg; it dangled to the floor and flexed slightly, like a primed fire-hose. Mina shrugged, get it over with, I guess, moved closer and knelt before the figure. Its skin was smooth and cool, reflecting the faint light from the doorway like burnished metal. Finger-wide channels had been cut into it forming an elongated cross-hatch pattern with razor-sharp edges. She traced a channel from where it sank into the wall, up and over the front of its thigh, underneath the penis; it then spiralled down the shaft to the end where it met with several other channels. She ran her fingertips over the diamond shapes which became progressively smaller towards the end of the shaft. The surface blurred, briefly flashed grey-green; several textures surged past her hands from the end of the shaft into the body. Sandpaper, almost-liquid honey, kitten’s fur, rough cloth, concrete, human skin, a bundle of flexible rods, finally settling on a form composed of dozens of fist-sized spheres squeezed together. Mina almost started giggling; it was like a giant, elongated raspberry. It seemed to be made of a layer of flesh – one thickness of spheres – stretched over a core of similar material, like a roll of bubble-wrap over a condom full of marbles. She put her arms around it and squeezed; it swelled, the spherical nodules pulsing and squeaking against each other; the end lifted a few inches off the floor. By clasping it tightly near the base she forced it into something resembling an erection, but it was too large and unwieldy to manipulate effectively. She tried lying underneath it and wrapping her arms and legs around it; the slowly-stiffening shaft bent and she slid off the end. She shuffled back underneath the end, clasped her hands over it and squeezed the shaft with her thighs. It responded, lifting up out of her reach. "Gods, this is frustrating!" "How do you think I feel, human?" She lay on her back until the shaft dropped back within reach, then wrapped her arms and legs around it again, squeezing as hard as she could. With unsteady pulses, it lifted her from the floor; encouraged, she jerked up and down, wondering if there was really any point to this exercise. As her efforts grew more enthusiastic, she slipped off the end of the giant virtual penis again and landed on the floor of the cell. With an exasperated sigh, she got up and straddled the shaft, half-crouching, pressing her thighs against the sides of the shaft and rocking back and forth. She leaned forward and wrapped her arms underneath, lifting it up at about forty-five degrees; it swelled even larger and lifted up of its own accord. Mina leaned back, stripped off her top and hugged the erection to her, nestling it between her breasts. The wall-demon groaned. As its arousal increased, she found herself being pressed against its stomach, lifted off the floor. She attempted some more combined squeezing and humping; the penis writhed, shuddered and swelled, forcing her legs apart. Her feet dangled about a foot off the ground; she hooked one foot around the other and squeezed, bouncing against the base of the shaft where it met the body. Asynchronous spasms shook the demon as it tried to wrench itself free of the wall. It could only manage brief pelvic thrusts, but they were sufficient to push her almost a foot along the shaft of the penis, after which she would slide back down to the base with a thump. Wondering what else she could do to assist its climax, Mina tried wiggling her hips from side to side as she slid down on each stroke. The added stimulus was all the wall-demon needed. Its thrusts grew faster, inhumanly so; she hung onto the outer layer of substance while the inner one slid back and forth within so rapidly that it began to grow hot. She squeezed as hard as she could as a slow progressive swelling from the base forced her up towards the end of the shaft. Fluid began to ooze from the end, glowing white-hot, scintillating, sparks flying as it dripped onto the floor. Mina tried to stem the flow by forcing her forearms against the underside of the shaft. Almost immediately the violently bucking column underneath her swelled unevenly. The wall-demon roared in pain; in panic, she squeezed even harder. Her mount gave a wrench and then something seemed to burst underneath her; she was sent flying across the room to land before the wooden door. She glanced back and saw the wall-demon’s body distorted terribly, belly and upper thighs bulging out like the undersides of bath-tubs. Searing red light streamed from its slitted eyes. The penis – swollen to the size of a cannon – lashed from side to side like a mad snake, ropy strands of brilliant white flying from the end, painting lines of fire across the floor and walls. For a brief moment she saw the base of the twisted erection swell even further, then it exploded in a mad flare of white energy, torrents of it hosing against the ceiling, walls and over her. It burned her wherever it landed; within seconds, it had coated half the cell. She tried to jump up out of its reach but the stream was difficult to avoid; eventually she gave up and slumped up against the door while the painfully hot, thick fluid pasted itself over everything. As she struggled, slipped and fell into the stuff, it began hardening. She desperately wiped it away from her mouth and eyes; slipped again and fell on her elbows and knees as the stuff contracted and solidified. It had the consistency of polyurethane; where it was thinnest – around her neck and shoulders – she could push against it. Around her knees and forearms its hold was complete. Mina became fully aware of how vulnerable a position she’d landed in when she heard the door creak open behind her. Faint whispers; an odd, insectoid kind of clicking, high-pitched hissing laughter. She strained against her bonds, to no avail. Odd shadows were projected against the far wall of the cell, now undisturbed by the protrusion of the wall-demon; thin, stick-insect shadows. Two wire-thin jointed limbs which terminated in hooked scalpel-blades reached past her head, dipped down unsteadily, sank into the material which held her to the floor and sliced through it neatly. The blades cut an oval section out of the floor around her, the lip of the material peeling back. More whispers. A tug of backward movement. Deeper hisses, more tentative movement. She slid out of the cell in a hesitant, zigzag pattern as if they weren’t entirely up to the task of shifting her, knees, elbows and forearms scraping against the floor. They dragged her three doors down and across the passage into cell 0FD8. As they skittered past her and out, she glimpsed things like bunches of articulated violin bows. They’d left her uncomfortably close to the doorway, facing out; as it began to close, Mina thought it was going to bash against her nose. She glanced down; the threshold of the doorway was underneath her chin. Helplessly, she faced the door as it came closer. Yet when it struck the substance was as soft as foam rubber, pushing her head back at an awkward angle. With a couple of energetic shoves, she managed to push herself back from the door. What a way to run a railroad, she thought. Something passed by her cell outside, dragging something else along the ground that made a muffled moaning sound, occasional cracked howls echoing as they faded. She strained against the material encasing her body; it still held her fast. In the silence that followed, Mina became aware of the sound of breathing behind her. "What now?" she said, annoyed. Whoever or whatever was there didn’t answer. Mina felt something delicately testing the material along her lower back and hips, pressing against it and then releasing. The gentle pressure returned to the small of her back, pressed harder; she felt something cold pierce the material, hooking underneath it and slipping against her skin. It tugged downward, slicing open the material – and her clothing – in a line down between her buttocks, over her labia, finishing directly over her clitoris before it pulled away. The exposed edges of the material were carefully peeled back and held away. Mina couldn’t turn around far enough to see exactly what was going on. She was dragged into the middle of the room. Someone sat down, leaning against the door. A female. It was her, or at least another copy of her VR form. Most likely a mirror, generated by the system. Considering the degree of complexity it had shown so far, she wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that it had made a model of her responses and was using that model to drive this mirror-image. The mirror smiled at her, eyes closed as if in rapture; then it spoke in a halting, ecstatic fashion. Mina had heard her own voice before, and this was a good approximation of it: "A visage fair. And voice is rare. Affording pleasant charms. Which is with us. Most ominous. Presaging future harms." Mina blinked. Was it trying to say that it knew she’d come into the system with the intention of breaking out? That this might damage the system somehow? While she pondered this, the mirror leaned close and kissed her, first tentatively then with more enthusiasm. Mina returned the kiss, not being in a position to refuse; the mirror leaned into the encounter, moving its head in gentle circles, then lifting the edge of the layer of confining material and slipping its legs underneath. It was like being in a body cast. As the attentions of the mirror became more amorous, someone else came up behind her and placed its lips against her behind. Mina started, but couldn’t draw away; she was held fast while the mirror before her moaned gently and pushed against her lips and (she was certain of it) a second mirror behind gently bit her buttocks, nibbled the insides of her thighs and then ran its tongue inside her. Frustrated, she rocked within the shell; there was nothing she could do. By degrees, her cries of frustration became moans, then gasps... Mina remembered first learning how to use VR. She’d sat back on the mattress in her dingy little AnarchArtist’s cell, placed the interface next to the data-line which she’d dragged out of the wall, connected it to her interface ports and touched the contact on the top. At first, nothing seemed to happen, but she knew that the device was rapidly testing each contact in series, determining which ones were associated with which sensorium functions, building a standard interface map through which it could project a simulation of reality into her mind. Occasionally she felt odd twitches in her elbows; she saw hazy, flickering shapes in the corner of her right eye. For five minutes she heard the mechanical voice of a Bythian Law Enforcement Officer she’d passed on the street four years ago, repeating the phrase "Pass along, p-" over and over. She bore all of this stoically. Presently, faint blue-green sparkles had gathered in front of her eyes, dancing about in a maddening fashion, and a faint tune sounded in the exact centre of her head. It seemed to move first from left to right, then forwards and backwards, then abruptly, it was about two metres behind her and to the right. She’d closed her eyes and gritted her teeth; this was taking longer than expected. The sparkles went away; the sound cut off. Mina had opened her eyes and typed out the address of the orientation routine with her left hand. She tapped the ‘enter’ sequence with thumb and index finger, and suddenly she was not alone. Standing before her, as real as any of her meagre furnishings, was a cubistically-rendered female figure with crazy black hair and emerald-green eyes lined in kohl. The eyes widened; the cartoon figure grinned at her and said, "Hi. I’m Lydya, and I’ll be your guide through this orientation session." The figure paused and glanced at her expectantly. Mina nodded, and the figure grinned back at her. "Good. If you experience any difficulties in hearing or seeing me, please speak up. Occasionally, the sensorium contacts shift during the orientation process, resulting in minor errors in perceptions. Now, I’m going to show you a number of objects, and I want you to identify them as best you can. Are you ready?" Mina nodded again. Lydya clasped her hands together, then spread them apart; a glowing blue ring of light appeared between them. She reached into this ring, produced a pockmarked orange sphere about the size of a fist and tossed it to her. She held out her hand to catch it, felt it land in the palm of her hand, felt the weight and heft of the object, the slick texture, smelled the citrine aroma, and yet she could tell it wasn’t really there; it was an illusion. "It’s an orange," she said, "but it doesn’t feel as if it’s all there." Lydya nodded. "You’re still routing perceptions through your body. I’ve jumpered into your mind to produce my image, but it’s being overlaid on reality. I want to test the range before I introduce the sensory cut-out, which can be a bit scary at first." Mina smiled. "You are a wonderfully complex program." Lydya smiled and curtsied. "Thank you. Now, what’s this?" The door to the next cell had seven diamond-shaped gold plates set down the outside edge, each with a key-hole. Arranged around the inside of the cell were seven recesses set at shoulder height, detailed suspiciously like the mouths of fanged beasts; when she dared lean close to them she could feel faint warm breaths against her face. There was just enough light to reveal a glittering gold key lying on the back of each bluestone tongue. Mina had found herself in this cell, clothed as before, the frankly carnal experience she’d just had only a memory. She stared into the jaws; she knew better than to simply reach in and take the key. She carefully poked an index finger towards the first mouth, drawing back as her nerve failed. It’s only VR. It can’t do any permanent damage. As the tip of her finger passed over the end of the tongue, the jaws flexed slightly. Audaciously she jabbed at the middle of the tongue, jumping back to the middle of the room, clutching her hand to her. She smiled with relief, but when she moved back within range of the jaws, the stone lips pouted and drew back, revealing three nested rows of sharp incisors. The teeth seemed to grow out of the jaw and towards each other then settle back, leaving a gap no larger than her own mouth, faint glint of metal at the back now only just visible. She waited, watched; the jaws eventually relaxed to their previous state. Mina decided that it was one of those situations where you just had to dive in as quickly as possible; it always came down to the hesitant pause while she decided that one time was as good as any. Then she darted her hand into the first recess. She managed to touch the ring and hook it part-way out of the jaws before they snapped shut, trapping the key and perforating the last joint on her index finger. She quite distinctly felt two teeth crack through the finger-bone (this had to be the most detailed VR environment she’d ever been in!) and click together, holding her hand. It hurt. It hurt a lot. She gave a surprised shriek and cringed between drawing her hand back and giving in to the pain this action caused. She froze, standing as far back as her pinioned hand would allow. It wouldn’t let go. She exhaled raggedly, blinked, then made up her mind. Moving closer to the jaws and bending her elbow to minimise the pain, Mina tensed then threw herself backwards. She screamed with pain; her arm straightened out and her finger tore free, leaving the last joint in the jaws. The wound didn’t bleed; when she examined the ragged end it pulsed and glowed as if her body was made of optical fibre, a tiny flat scene playing like a miniature monitor on the exposed end. After a few moments, she recognised it; a performance of Tube-Fed Repose. How quaint. Mina hugged the wound to her and wondered if the same play was showing in other cross-sections of her body. Within a few minutes, the jaws had relaxed open again. The end of her finger and the key lay on the tongue. She easily hooked them out. When she pressed the ruined ends of the wounds together, they knit closed and the pain vanished. She flexed her hand, now whole again. That wasn’t so bad. She lost her arm up to the elbow three times before she retrieved the next three keys. After this, she realised that she could hook the others out by using the keys themselves. She retrieved the rest of the keys and tried one in the uppermost of the locks; it went in but wouldn’t turn. She tried it in the next one down; no luck. With mounting concern she tried the rest of the locks; the first key she’d tried opened the second-last lock. She tried to remember which key had come from which mouth, failed; she eventually tried them all in sequence. The door opened. Mina couldn’t see or hear anyone coming. If she made a run for it she might be able to skip a few of the lessons they had in store. Most likely they’d just drag her back here, but it was worth a shot. She took a few deep breaths before realising the futility of trying to oxygenate a virtual body, tried to remember the few strategy games she’d played, then ran out into the corridor, bare feet slapping against the stone. Almost immediately a horrific screech sounded: an alarm. Something was chasing her; several somethings. She didn’t waste any time looking back. She kept running along the slight curve, wondering if the structure spiralled in upon itself or if it was geometrically inaccurate. She passed cell number 0FB0. Beams of brilliant white light streamed out of the peep-hole grill; she had just enough time to notice them burning into the opposite wall and just enough sense to duck under the beams. The clack of hooves and the clicking of claws on stone behind her diminished briefly, then resumed. Either her pursuers had been caught in their own trap or they had to slow down to duck under the beams. She started looking at the doors as she ran, hoping to see an open one that she could hide behind. Despite her earlier decision, she looked back over her shoulder. Dozens of different forms leaped in pursuit; vaguely man-like shapes made of translucent jelly, giant toads with the legs of horses, two-metre-tall hermit crabs running up on the tips of their legs and, behind them all, something that resembled a set of teeth. A huge animated shark’s jaws which eagerly snapped shut, perhaps imagining her squishy soft virtual form impaled on the needle-sharp teeth. She stumbled backwards a few steps, then turned and ran. She’d only gone a couple of steps before she saw the discontinuity in the floor ahead. The tunnel ended less than half a dozen steps before her. It continued after a gap of perhaps twice that distance, like the gap between two high-rise buildings. She had no time to think about it; she simply ran at the edge and jumped forward, hoping to at least catch the edge of the other side. She looked down as she passed over the gap. Far below a myriad of tiny figures swarmed at each other. Faint roars and screams came up to her ears. She could tell from her trajectory that she was going to make it, at least to the point of being able to grab hold of the edge. Suddenly, something dragged at her feet and she fell flat on her face, skidding and rolling across – the floor? She scrambled to her feet and kept running. The gap was an illusion; the texture of the floor-stones was set to be transparent, structures far below showing through. A hurried glance behind showed that the creatures chasing her had been similarly fooled; one of the larger, more venturous toads was only now tentatively trying the surface with a hoof. Mina turned back to watch them test the invisible path. They weren’t simple props. Most environments had animated wildlife known as wallpaper creatures, almost like the animatronic dummies placed along the side of the tracks in 20C ghost rides. Most such creatures were only smart enough to play up to the script for that section of the ride. These things, on the other hand, were smart. They could interact with each other and with the environment. For example, they expected the ground to look solid before they’d walk on it. Mina supposed that it would be asking too much to be able to communicate with them, or reason with them. If she only had some kind of weapon – Mina almost smacked herself on her forehead for missing that. She quickly checked her internal controls and examined the "supernatural effects" bank, which she hadn’t bothered to check. The register was empty except for a single indicator almost at the very end: Flame Breath, level 10. A special effect usually found in VR dragons. With that level of capability, she could throw a plume of fire five metres long, continuously. Quickly she activated it. The orange-yellow flare almost blinded her. It emerged from the air about half a metre over her head. She imagined that if she was a dragon, the flame would have been coming out of her mouth. Making a mental note to mention this bug to the author she bent forward, spraying the fire over the gap, waving her head from side to side, fanning the flames back and forth. Most of the creatures on the other side backed away warily. Mina took three steps forward. They retreated, hung back uneasily. Mina stepped backward with her arms out, feeling for the edges of the tunnel behind her. When she had gone far enough around the curve of the tunnel to be out of their sight, she relaxed the flame effect and blinked, trying to get the glare out of her eyes. When she opened her eyes she saw that one of the things hadn’t retreated with the others: a jelly. It was standing over her, pseudopod-arms raised over its head, then it fell on her and engulfed her. That’s another very revealing aspect to all this, she thought. Whoever wrote this world had some kind of weird drowning-in-jelly fetish. The jelly-thing spread over her in a foot-thick layer, leaving a narrow gap around her nose so that she could breathe. Like a powered suit on automatic, it forced her legs to move in walking motions – back towards the other creatures. In desperation she turned the flame effect back on. It didn’t touch the thing she was trapped in, but it did push the other creatures back down the other tunnel. Mina glanced down. The jelly-thing was standing on the invisible bridge, and if that bridge was as wide as the tunnels it spanned, then...and just as she worked out where the edge of the bridge would be, the jelly-thing slid towards it. They balanced there for a moment, she straining back as hard as she could, the jelly-thing elongating and leaning its excess over the edge to try and overbalance them both. They toppled over slowly but instead of falling, a pad of jelly adhered to the bridge and she slid down the elongated section. The end near her head waved about like a snail searching for something to latch onto. It found the wall of the tower, a slightly curved expanse of undetailed stone tiled with a rather dull black-flecked grey pattern. The end of the jelly-thing adhered to it and slowly wormed its way down the side of the tower, with Mina caught inside – hanging upside-down – like a fly caught in a rivulet of sap. It oozed downhill for about ten minutes, long enough for Mina to become very dizzy. Thankfully she was spared the unpleasantness of having her blood rush to her head; that effect was rarely included in VR models unless it was an important part of the environment. At one point she struggled, kicking and punching at the oppressively thick substance. She made enough room inside for her to turn half-way around, but was trapped in a bent-over sitting position with her shins pressing against her face when the jelly-thing contracted, squeezing her in an unpleasantly intimate fashion. It had reached a small window –barely an access hatch – and was squeezing into it. The window was just wide enough for her to be able to fit her head in but the jelly-thing didn’t seem to care. It wanted to push all of her through. Soon the bulk of the thing had passed through the gap and she was left on the outside, being crushed into a ball small enough to fit through. It was about to cause serious injury to her knees when there was the feeling of a thunderbolt overhead, a dry, cracking sensation. For a brief moment there was the total overload scream of her terminal feeding her white noise, then it settled – This was a very different world. She’d only noted the lack of any background noise after she’d been torn from the active section of the Dark System when she’d been brought here. This world was silent, the unnerving God-is-watching-you silence of an Extian cathedral. Mina imagined that if she tried to shout here, her sounds would be muffled and immediately swallowed in oppressive thick quietude. It would be almost like drowning. She floated in darkness, arms and legs outstretched, an almost unbearable weight crushing her flat. It was more than just weight; it was the mathematical impossibility of any forward or backward motion. She couldn’t even turn her head – that would have implied motion along her Z axis. Cautiously she experimented; she could move her arms and legs up and down, in and out, but only along the sharply-defined limits of a plane. She wasn’t breathing. Once she’d recovered from the surprise she began to think about it. "Motion along the X-Y plane, but I seem to be facing in a direction at right angles to them both... if this is another attempt to simulate different dimensions, it’s a pretty sad one." Hello. The sound drifted in from above her head, somewhere. It was hard to tell without the VR form’s usual binaural cues; even sound in this place was constrained to two dimensions. It was a stock synthetic voice, configured to sound male. Can you hear me? Hello? "Hello. Where am I? Still in the Dark System?" You’re still in the Dark System, but you’re outside the influence of the structural routine. If you want a real-world metaphor, we’re cockroaches hiding under the couch. Or rats in the walls. "Under? Where are we?" Mathematically, we’re inside the single noxel border between outside resource and the inside of the Dark System. Mina had to think for a moment before she remembered the term. A noxel was a notional element, in the same way that a pixel was a picture element in graphics and a voxel was a volumetric element in ray-tracing. The structures of virtual reality environments were measured in noxels. Most systems kept a border one noxel thick all the way around the environment in an attempt to cushion any accidental operations outside the environment’s program space. Whoever these players were, they’d found a way to occupy that space, two-dimensional though it was. My name is Checker Mishny. Let me welcome you to purgatory. It was a hiding place. The environment had cracks through which the wary could slip and long ago, a player trying to crack this system had managed to find one. Once in there, this player had been able to drag others in. Currently, nine players were hiding in the skin that surrounded Hailja. There had been others but they’d faded like clouds of steam when their bodies, on the outside, had died. Of the nine who remained, Mishny had been there the longest, long enough to have learned almost everything about the system. Living in the border between inside and outside gave you a unique perspective of the whole thing. Just by sliding around the edges, you could slip between the spaces between rooms like a ghost, always facing inwards, unable to reach in and touch or to even make a sound. They’d all had to watch passively as hundreds of people entered the system and got into situations that shocked them into catalepsy. A very minor few had the fortitude to get as far as Mina had. Surviving that long was enough for them to risk exposure by rescuing her, bringing her into their peculiar world. Actually, we had something of an ulterior motive for doing that... Spread atom-thin, Mina flitted around the edges of the Spiral Tower, its four thousand and ninety-six rooms mostly occupied with screaming virtual forms. She moved around until she could see into the room through a gap between two bricks. What she saw in those rooms was all the more distressing for knowing that they were probably going to die like that. Mishny and someone else (he hadn’t introduced himself but Mina privately called him "Fent", because his speech was peppered with that word. He was a casualty of an illegal advertising plague which had struck a couple of years ago with the aim of burning the client’s name into peoples’ brains. Needless to say, "Fent" were no longer in business, but their victims survived) had told her of their plan. This is all preliminary to the Arena, Mishny had said. This system is set up so that no one survives it. Most players are eliminated on the way through the Spiral Tower. It’s remotely possible that by pooling their resources, the dozen or so people currently in the Arena could get one person through and into the control space, but it’s never been done. "And we’re going to do it?" We are. Once you are in the Arena we are going to monitor you. If anyone attacks you, we’ll pull them out of the main environment, into here, then release them back. You can hit them, but they won’t be able to hit you. Reduce their defences to the point where you can take them easily, and claim their tokens. When you have twenty-three battle tokens, you can ascend to the core and enter the control space. Once in there you will be able to contact one of our friends on the outside and they can get us out of here. Pass them this list (subtle sensation of a structure being passed to her, string of knobby links like knucklebones) and they’ll do the rest. The address is at the head of the structure. You might want to add your name to the list, otherwise they won’t be able to get you out as well. Mina felt along the strand of text until she got to the end, held the last link between thumb and forefinger and issued a copy command. Another link appeared at the end; she squeezed this and altered its properties, inserting her name and physical address. Acting on a hunch, she moved back along the linked list and repeated the process near the middle. Her name was in there twice, just in case something happened to it along the way. Mina spent the next few hours watching the Arena, trying to work out how things operated there. For the first few minutes it looked like a standard combat sim. Then she saw a player stalking another through a grove of things that looked like trees made of polished silver. As soon as they’d both cleared the grove, the trees quietly morphed into fronds of crimson, thin-tentacled seaweed. The fronds lashed at the pursuer and removed the back of his head, revealing low-res simulated innards. The player collapsed to the uneven ground and his form gradually flattened out, the complex geometric forms simplifying until there was nothing left but a shadow and a single glittering token rotating in the air where he’d stood. His victim hadn’t noticed. She felt a touch at her fingertips and sensed that Mishny was there beside her, watching. Not a very fair system, he sent. If the author thinks you’re doing too well it does something like that, sends you back into the Spiral Tower stage. "I see. I guess I’d better be damn careful when I’m in there." Yes. I’ve been meaning to say, you should get started as soon as you can. I’ve been in here almost a week, and I think my body on the outside is about to die. "I’ll get going right away. Any last words of wisdom?" Free us. Free us all. She landed in the Arena with the same feeling of fearful anticipation that she’d felt when first entering this system. They’d put her down near the grove of seaweed, where the ring-shaped battle-token from the player who’d been sent back was still hovering at waist height. She reached forward and touched it; with a soft ping sound it vanished and became a golden hexagon hovering near her right forearm. She glanced around. The grove of seaweed behind her was slowly turning grey, the fronds moving more slowly with each passing second. Presently they stopped moving. Abruptly, a five-sided section of the sky dropped down, extruded from the ceiling, crushing the fronds into fragments like glass. She jumped and barely restrained herself from running out of the grove. Just as well; a virtual animal – a wallpaper creature, there to add to the background detail – ran out of the grove and across a circular expanse of lawn in front of her. She only saw it for a moment – some kind of multi-legged grazing animal – before the lawn abruptly folded in half like a flatbread sandwich, trapping the beast inside the grassy folds. Mina suddenly realised what a dangerous situation she was in. Locate another opponent, she thought. Focus. Almost as she thought this, she heard the sound of footsteps through undergrowth, staggered as if trying not to sound like footsteps. Thankfully, she still had that flame-breath weapon. She lay on her stomach, head up, thinking that to present the most unusual attack profile possible would be best; wait until they got within range and then flame them. Seconds later, something emerged from the shattered remains of the undergrowth which, even now, were being engulfed by masses of some kind of rapid-growth digital vine. It looked like a chromed, abstract cross between an elephant and a tortoise. Twice as tall as her, gleaming silver shell with four large, flexing spikes for legs. A fifth spike rose from the front of the thing and served as a kind of head. A waist-thick strand of vine sprouted directly in front of the thing; it gave a painfully high-pitched squeal, impaled the vine with its head-spike and tore it from the ground, shaking it about violently in order to throw it off. The vine dropped to the ground and tangled about the thing’s rear leg-spikes. The front spike was aimed directly at her. Stepping daintily out of the entwining embrace of the vines, the creature approached her. Mina suddenly wondered if her sole weapon would be any use against this thing. Oh, shit. She raised her head a little more and turned the flame on. It gushed out of the air and played out against the thing’s reflective front. It didn’t seem to damage it at all. It waved its head-spike as if curious and stepped closer. Mina got to her knees. With a motion so smooth that only a machine could have done it, the head-spike extended to twice its length and pierced her chest. It didn’t hurt as much as an injury like that would have in the real world, but as soon as the spike was fixed in place she felt a dreadful sucking feeling towards the wound, as if the thing was somehow inhaling her substance. She arched her back and groaned, her vision dimming. Apparently Mishny and his friends chose that moment to intervene; the thing vanished and re-appeared several metres up, directly over the grove of vines. It fell into them and they curled about its shape affectionately, wrapping around the bases of the spike-protuberances as if sensing that this would give the best grip. The thing squeaked in rage. Mina stood nearby and watched with mixed fascination and dread as the vines contracted about the thing, straining against some built-in structural constant. She imagined a variable incrementing in some remote register, representing the strength of the vines; it would be compared to a certain constant, representing the integrity of the elephant-tortoise’s shell. To make it complete there would be another constant: the maximum strength that the vines could apply. She didn’t bother to stick around and watch this particular game play out. As she moved away, trying to look in every direction at once, Mina wondered if she could have burned the vines away, and if doing so would have earned any gratitude from the elephant-tortoise. Probably not; being nothing more than another wallpaper creature, its reasoning faculties would be limited. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too hard to tell the animals from the sentient players in here. As far as she knew, most of them took on reasonably humanoid forms. Somewhere off to her right, an explosion disturbed the foliage. She turned just in time to see another player several hundred meters away, rising into the air, feet kicking against vines. The player was firing an energy weapon that spat blue pulses of light when half a dozen spears pierced the body from several different directions. Judging from the angle at which they penetrated, they had been thrown by something – or several somethings – flying at the same height as the player. Perhaps that was the system’s way of saying "stay on the ground". Mina came to another grove of plants, this one consisting of smooth, mirror-surfaced tubes about two metres in diameter which reached from the ground up into the roof of the simulation, far above. She could see her reflection in their bases, drastically narrowed. She moved closer and peered at her own body. No longer wearing that light-grey clothing, she was clad in form-fitting black with mirrored plates at the joints. Looking closer she saw that her usually free-flowing hair had solidified into an elongated helmet. Her eyes glowed red. Turning to one side she discovered a rudimentary tail about half a metre long extending from the base of her spine. She’d been in this crazy system for so long that it was beginning to affect the way she looked. She examined her hands; the ordinary skin was developing faintly limned hexagonal plates, almost like scales. The nails were definitely longer and were aspiring towards being claws. I have to get out of here while I can still recognise myself, she thought. This is probably doing dreadful things to my parasympathetic map. A handful of bright crimson goo splattered into the side of the mirror-tree next to her. It looked exactly like the remains of a fist-sized egg. Another flew past her face, broke open on the edge of the tree she stood before, the remains hitting another tree. She turned to face the attacker and only just managed to bring her arm up in time to deflect another missile. It broke open against her forearm, which instantly became rigid from the fingertips up to her elbow. She leaped forward, aimed her head down at its feet and applied flame to the attacker even before she got a good look at whoever it was. This time, the flame was much more effective; the figure staggered back, trying desperately to beat the flames out. Mina kept apace of the burning victim, applying flame to its mid-section. Within a few seconds, it had accrued so many damage points that it could no longer reasonably expect to stay in the system, and with a drawn-out clashing sound, it fragmented into blackened pieces, each one rotating in the air along a different axis. The pieces melted away, leaving for a moment an odd kind of annular distortion in the air. It was the same size as a battle-token, and only after it too evaporated did Mina realise that this was the system’s way of saying her victim had carried no tokens. "Well, it was kind of easy. I guess I have to pick harder targets." As the player vanished, the rigidity in her arm eased. After an hour’s nerve-wracking stealing about in this environment she had only met two other players. She’d defeated one – claiming one token – and the other had run off. She’d tried climbing a tree to look out for others (despite the threat of flying spears), but the details of the environment were too confusing. While the Arena was divided up into hexagonal sections, there was no similarity between any one section and its neighbours. What could have been plant-life in one section might very well be hidden players in another. She’d tried starting a forest fire, but most of the forms of plants were like the mirror-trees and didn’t burn at all. Several times she had avoided being caught in a trap of some kind only by the narrowest of margins. One time she lost her left leg up to the knee in the jaws of something that was rooted in the ground like a cross between a rabid clam and a Venus-flytrap. Fortunately, her new alien physiognomy allowed the limb to grow back. Seeing the stump slowly extend itself down from her knee, she smiled and waved her new tail. She saw another potential target hiding in a strand of glowing aqua ferns, a bipedal shape almost three metres tall. She moved towards it and it gave a shriek and ran off, stilt-like limbs making far better time than she could. She pursued it until it blundered into a web that had been strung across a small clearing, by a spider as large as a small horse. Mina waited until the spider was busy chewing down the length of the victim’s legs and then flamed them both. This yielded one more battle token. This is taking too long. She looked up at the blackened strands of web which had clumped together like burning plastic. As they dripped to the ground, she thought she could see faint words spelled out in them. Perhaps this was a message from Mishny. She looked closer and thought she saw the words gather... all... the centre. That didn’t help much. While structurally a long, wide rectangular space, the Arena was plotted over the shape of a giant torus, the north end wrapping back around to the south end. If you walked east long enough, you’d come back to where you started. Where was the centre? Abruptly the ground lurched up at an angle beneath her feet and a loud groaning sounded, like the stressing of thick wooden beams. Looking around, she saw the landscape twisting, some areas rising relative to the others, some of them contracting down into narrow triangular sections, trees being uprooted, wallpaper creatures being thrown about like small toys. She thought about what Mishny had said: if it thinks you’re doing too well... hailja 3

( top ) All work on this site is © Nikolai Kingsley unless otherwise stated.