Entering the Weave

Mrs Hawkins had been fretting in the chair by her son’s hospital bed for two full days. Occasionally she would stroke her son’s hair or hold his hand, but most of the time she just talked to him. The numerous holes in her usually perfect knitting indicated how hard she was concentrating on filling her voice with all the maternal reassurance she could manage.

“…and then Miss Goodison from down the road bought some curtains from the Oxfam shop. They were quite nice, but that snooty Mrs Moyes across at number sixty couldn’t get over the fact that someone would admit to buying something in a charity shop. So I bought some as well, just to show her. I mean, it’s for a good cause isn’t it. Better than making fat cats fatter, that’s what I say…”

“Mum.” It was hardly more than a whisper, but it stopped the conversational juggernaut in its tracks.

“Toby? Are you waking up, love?” Mrs Hawkins shot out of her seat sending her knitting flying across the room. She stared into Toby’s flickering eyes. “You’re going to be okay. Mummy’s here.”

“Mum!” The voice carried the strength of teenage embarrassment.

“Yes, dear?”

“Can you please shut up about the curtains?”

Mrs Hawkins threw her arms around her son. “Oh, Toby. I was so worried about you. The doctors said there was a chance that you might have something wrong with you when you woke up, but you’re just as cheeky as you always were. Come here.”

Even though Toby had regained some of his strength he was helpless to escape the bear hug. After a while she let him go and just stared at him with a huge grin on her face.

“You gave me such a scare young man.”

Toby smiled back and thought about the scares he had given himself. “I know mum, but it’s over now. I don’t think I’ll be messing around with my computers for a while.”

“What happened, Toby?”

Toby’s smile faltered. “I…I don’t know. I suppose I’ve finally succumbed to too many flashing lights. There are warnings at the beginning of loads of games.”

Mrs Hawkins put her hands on his upper arms and looked sincerely into his eyes. “You would tell me if there was something the matter, darling, wouldn’t you? I mean, you hear about teenagers having…troubles and so forth. You would tell me, wouldn’t you?” She nodded encouragingly.

Toby shook his head and smiled wryly.

“No, nothing’s wrong mum. I guess I’ve just been playing too many computer games. I’m ready to go home now.”

Spokes emerged into her body with a start. She ripped off her gloves and headgear before her eyes had focussed properly.

“Is Bandi okay? He was badly hurt online.” She was at his side in no time and carefully removed his visor. His eyelids were shut and there was no movement beneath them. Spokes could see livid bruises developing on his face, and she knew they would be all over his body. He had sustained too many injuries online. His body was obeying his mind’s commands and trying to repair the damage. Blood would be pumped to wounds that didn’t physically exist and his body would lose all its natural harmony.

Kat was kneeling by her side. “What happened?”

“Please, Kat. Just let me try and help Bandi. Go and talk to Josh. He’s not used to being online. It can be a bit of a wrench coming back to reality like this. He’ll need a friendly face to focus on.”

“Of course.” Kat got up and went over to Josh’s seat. DoomLord was already by his side and she saw instantly that there was something wrong. Josh’s visor had been removed and he had not woken up.

DoomLord shook his head. “He should have woken up first. He left the Vrealm with Toby. I saw him get out. We were just behind him.”

“What does this mean?” Kat poked DoomLord’s skinny chest.

“I don’t know. He might just be slow to wake up, or…” DoomLord trailed off.

“Or what?”

“Or he might have got lost.”

“Lost? Online, you mean?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know enough about it. I’m just a player really. Bandi and Spokes are the experts.”

“What about everyone else? They must be able to do something.” Kat was beginning to shout.

Spokes laid a hand on her shoulder. “Calm down, Kat. We’ll find him. Or he’ll find us. It does sometimes happen. He may have taken Toby all the way back.”

Kat sighed deeply. “I’m sorry. It’s just that...he’s important.”

“I know.”

“How’s Bandi?”

“He’s come out, but his wounds are terrible. He’s sleeping normally now, which is the best thing for him. All being well he’ll wake up with just a few aches and pains, but...”

“Can we do anything for Josh?”

“We need to wait for a while, first. If he doesn’t wake up in a hour, then we’ll go looking for him.”

Josh brought his hands up to his face to remove the visor, but there was nothing there. It was dark and he was curled up in a field of springy grass. He rolled onto his back and looked up at a night sky ablaze with stars much brighter than he had seen before. He didn’t know much about astronomy and the only constellation he could ever remember was Orion. He had always teased Toby about how they didn’t look anything like what they were meant to represent. Dot-to-dot puzzles for idiots, he remembered saying. But this sky was different. The constellations were made up of thousands of stars and their twinkling made them look like they were moving. Orion was striding brightly across the heavens, directly above Josh, and beneath the hunter a huge dog chased a fleeing rabbit.

“It’s amazing isn’t it?” A voice to Josh’s left startled him.

“Yes. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Josh sat up and looked at his fellow stargazer. “You’re the farmer from Trinity Vale.”

The grizzled old man laughed. “Probably. I’m never really sure who I’ve been.”

“Pardon?”

“Well you know how it is. When your mind is almost infinite and your memories so vast, sometimes it’s hard to keep track of who you actually are.”

“You made more sense when you were a farmer.”

“I am trying. I’ve brought you here now because I want you to understand.”

“Really?”

“Yes, you weren’t ready before.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m called the Gazetteer. It’s my job to keep the World balanced. The Earth is a complicated system that requires careful tending. Too many fruit flies in an orchard can spell disaster for a gardener.” The Gazetteer winked at Josh.

“What have fruit flies got to do with anything?”

“It was supposed to be a metaphor, but I’ve never really got the hang of that style of human communication. I seem to miss the point.”

“You’re not human?”

“Not really. Part of me is, but I’m just a part of Trinity Vale.”

“You look human.”

“Yes, but I change from time to time. It’s only recently I’ve taken on this form. It seems to fit in quite nicely now with this World and I must say it does feel rather comfortable. Although I always used to like being a turtle. And, obviously, there’s nothing quite like stamping around when you’re a diplodocus. Come on, I’ll be able to explain things better in my hut.”

Josh got to his feet and followed the Gazetteer through the springy grass and out of the meadow. He could feel an excitement churning his stomach. Partly he thought it was because now, perhaps, he was going to get some answers to everything that had been happening to him, but mostly he knew that somewhere out there in the dark was his mother.

They climbed over an old wooden stile and into a copse of some dark trees. He shivered and stayed close to his guide when he remembered the rich variety of life he had seen the last time he had been in Trinity Vale, and wondered what might be out there in the darkness watching him.

“Don’t worry Josh. Nothing will harm you here.”

“I wasn’t worried.” Josh said too hastily to be convincing.

The Gazetteer’s hut stood in a small clearing and was basically a wooden pyramid with stilts at its three corners that lifted it about ten feet off the ground. There was something strange about it which Josh could not put his finger on until he realised that the stilts were actually huge chicken legs that were straining to keep the hut aloft. As they approached a door slid open and a rope ladder unrolled itself like a lolling tongue.

Josh stood at the foot of the ladder wide eyed, while the Gazetteer clambered up into the hut. Josh followed tentatively, feeling like he was climbing into the mouth of an enormous beast.

Inside, however, apart from the gently swaying, it was almost normal, although Josh was a little bewildered about the dimensions. It hadn’t looked quite as big from the outside and the room they had entered into was square. And, Josh noticed, there were passageways leading off into the distance.

The room was furnished with exotic rugs on the wooden walls and wicker furniture. A copper kettle swung over a small fire in the centre, the smoke from which disappeared through a small hole in the straw ceiling.

The Gazetteer had seated himself in the most comfortable looking chair. He looked at Josh over steepled fingers and pursed his lips. “I think it might have been better if I’d told you everything when I first met you.”

“We didn’t have time. I woke up, didn’t I? I met my mother and I woke up.”

The old man smiled and the deep lines in his weatherworn face made Josh wonder how old this man was, until he remembered that he wasn’t really a man at all.

“That wasn’t the first time we met Josh. The first time we met was at your back door. I looked considerably different then, though.” He smiled and rubbed a hand against his chin.

“Mr Oakhampton. The tramp?”

“Yes. I can enter an individual mind and use the physical body as my own. I don’t like doing it. The mind has to be emptied first to make room for me.”

“So what’s happened to him now?”

“Well I left him in a ditch. Somebody should find him. He’ll be taken to a hospital, where hopefully they’ll realise who he is and then he’ll have the best care money can buy.”

“That’s as bad as killing him.”

“It’s worse, Josh. That’s why I don’t normally do it. I’m sorry Josh, but he was a bad man. He might be the source of all our problems.”

“They’re not my problems. I wouldn’t have any problems if you hadn’t pulled me into all this.”

The hut began to shake and Josh thought the stilt legs had collapsed beneath them. The fire had flared up so that it looked like it would consume the straw ceiling. The flickering red light gave the old man’s face a sinister quality.

“They are your problems Josh. This affects the whole World. If Trinity Vale falls, then there will be nothing left of life on this planet Josh. Living things tread a fine line between survival and extinction. The ecosystem is an immensely complex machine that needs constant tuning.” The flames had receded and the hut had returned to its previous slow swaying. “I’m sorry, Josh. I didn’t mean to frighten you. This isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about. I’m not used to dealing with individuals.”

“It’s alright.” But Josh’s heart was beating ten to the dozen. He had seen something inhuman in the old man’s rheumy eyes that had chilled him to the bone. It wasn’t cruelty, rather an indifference to suffering that no human could possess. “Why are you telling me this? I’m just a boy.”

“Well, that’s true, but your age doesn’t matter. You have an attribute that most adults of your species have lost. ”

“Like what?” Josh snorted.

“Your imagination. When you read a book, you create a world inside your head that seems as real to you as anything else, don’t you? And you love writing stories. Sometimes your head’s so full ideas you can’t write or draw them fast enough into one of your notebooks.”

“So? There must be loads of people who do that.”

“There are, but only a few can get into Trinity Vale while they are still living.”

“But what is Trinity Vale?”

“It’s a dream. A shared dream of every living thing that exists on the Earth. But it’s more than that. It encompasses all your memories and fantasies and hopes and fears and creates a living world out of them. Instead of using cells, like your primitive brain does, Trinity Vale uses the minds of all things. Instead of neural pathways to carry information between cells, it uses conversation and books and any other means of communication available. Every random spark of thought will find its way here and add something to the rich tapestry of the dream.”

Josh shook his head. “So I’m inside this dream?”

“Yes.”

“But... what’s it for?

“It calculates the way the entire physical world should work.”

“How?”

“By regulating the entire ecosystem. You don’t think the world runs at random do you? A system as complex as that would break down before it really got started. Trinity Vale controls the world just as your subconscious mind controls your body.”

“Um…” Josh was trying desperately hard to follow what the Gazetteer was saying. “So Trinity Vale is a consciousness made up of all humanity that controls the world?”

“Yes. Yes that’s right, although it’s not just humanity. It’s all life.”

“So it’s like a computer? And looking at all this is like looking at a website on that computer?”

“If you like. Although technically I suppose it’s more like a visualisation of an operating system and it’s the most complicated example ever created on the most powerful computer imaginable.” He chuckled. “I don’t mean to joke.”

“That was a joke?”

“Never mind. This brings us back to Mr Oakhampton. His company created a bridge between the Internet and the Weave.”

“Hang on, what’s the Weave?”

“Oh, now that’s a bit tricky.”

“And the rest of what you’ve been saying is simple, is it?”

“Well, no. I don’t suppose it is. Your human languages are not very well equipped to communicate these ideas I’m afraid. The Weave is the network of minds that dream Trinity Vale. It’s like the difference between software and hardware, I suppose. The Weave is the computer and Trinity Vale is the program that runs on it.”

“Are there other places in the Weave? Other programs? Like Trinity Vale?”

“Perhaps there are. Perhaps your friend comes from one of these other places.”

“My friend? Geigerzalion?”

“Yes. He does not belong in Trinity Vale. He has extraordinary power on the Internet and it may not be long before he visits us here.”

“He says he’s a prisoner.”

“He may well be, Josh. I can’t know anything about things that aren’t part of Trinity Vale. I know nothing about him or his situation. I just know he is there.”

“So, how does Mr Oakhampton fit in. How did he create this bridge?” Then it dawned on Josh that he knew the answer to this. “It’s human computers, isn’t it. Michael and the rest of those poor children.”

“Very good, Josh. The fusion of electronic and organic thinking created the link between the two systems.”

“So that’s why we stay ‘online’ even when we aren’t connected to a computer. Because we were connected by the Weave to the Internet. Our minds were all we needed. Is that what Tech-Tonic are trying to do?”

“No. They have no idea what they were dealing with. Or the power they are unleashing.”

They sat in silence for a while. Josh’s mind churned away trying to make sense of what he had been told. He wasn’t sure whether he was still connected to the Internet or if he was dreaming this, but he thought perhaps he was beginning to understand.

“So what do you need me for?”

“As I said before there is an imbalance somewhere. It may be caused by your friend Geigerzalion or it might be happening because of the connection between the Internet and the Weave. I don’t know what it is exactly. But you are at the centre of it.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then how do you know I’m at the centre?”

“Well I have a computer that shows me.”

“You’re joking. Surely computers are part of your problem.”

“It’s not the same thing.” The Gazetteer sighed deeply. “Because people on Earth know about computers, and in fact some of the people who reside here are computer experts, I can use one. It’s powered by the dreams of the cleverest computer scientists in the world, so it’s pretty good.”

“I can imagine.”

“Yes, you can. That’s why you’re here.”

Josh frowned. “I just meant… What does this computer tell you about me?”

“I’ll show you. That’s actually why I brought you here.” The Gazetteer twisted his fingers in the air and one wall of the room lit up showing millions of shining lights as brilliant as the stars outside.

“What is it?”

“It’s life. All the minds in the World.”

Josh couldn’t make any sense of what he was looking at, until the Gazetteer filtered out everything but humans and then the familiar outlines of the continents blazed at him. A few specks of light that must have been ships or aeroplanes travelled across the dark oceans. The map then zoomed in to focus on England and got closer until there were gaps between the lights.

Josh was peering at some twisted lines that connected the larger, blazing areas. Light flowed along them, and Josh realised that they were busy roads. They looked like twinkling veins connecting the glowing organs of a vast creature.

“There you are. That’s West Hackett there and you are currently over here.” He pointed out two small concentrations of lights on the map.

“It doesn’t mean much to me.”

“It should. West Hackett has more than a thousand people living there, and the barn that your body is currently sleeping in houses about ten. You burn as brightly as a thousand people, Josh.”

Josh stared at the map. “Well, then perhaps I’m the imbalance in the system.”

“Well done.” The old man smiled at Josh like an indulgent dog trainer does to a bright pupil. “I’ve thought of that, but I really don’t think you are. I’ve seen similar luminaries before and they haven’t affected anything. You are the brightest I’ve seen since the computer was invented though.”

“But what does that mean?”

“It means two things. One is that you have an enormous capacity for imagination, it shows how much mental energy you are supplying Trinity Vale with. The other thing it indicates is that you are a vital node within the system. You will be involved in great events, Josh.”

“Like what?”

“Hopefully saving the world for one.” The old man laughed a comfortable laugh and reached over and slapped Josh on the back. “I’m sure it won’t come to that Josh. Don’t worry.”

“But I’m just not important. Most of the people at my school don’t even know who I am.”

“That’s true. And even if you save their ungrateful lives they still won’t know you. Most people live out their lives without seeing the real world happening around them. But you are destined for great things nonetheless.”

“What do you want me to do then?”

“We need more information, Josh. We need to find out what is causing the imbalance. You’re the only one who has had any contact with this Geigerzalion as you call him. See if you can find out what he is and where he’s from.”

“What about Michael and his friends?”

“They need to be freed. There is no doubt about that. Their suffering is spilling into Trinity Vale. The Black Valley is growing more dangerous and restless. Their pain seems to feed the power that resides there.”

“The Black Valley?”

“All things in Trinity Vale aren’t necessarily good, Josh. Since the evolution of the larger brained species, malice has slowly infiltrated our paradise. There has always been anger and fear along with all the other bestial, natural emotions, but hatred and greed have only appeared relatively recently. We try to keep these feelings contained, along with particularly foul memories and nightmares, within the Black Valley.”

Josh leaned forward and stared at the floor for a few moments. “I’ll need time to think about all this. I want to help, but I need to get things straight in my head.”

“You can’t take too long Josh.” The old man smiled and Josh thought it was probably meant to be encouraging, but it was not enough to relieve the enormous weight of expectation he felt from looking into the Gazetteer’s frightening twinkling eyes.

“I won’t. How do I get out of here? Click my heels together?”

“Not exactly, but it is just a question of willing yourself home. Close your eyes and imagine yourself waking up.”

“That’s it?” Josh snorted incredulously. He had expected some specific, complicated instructions.

“Yes. Try it.”

Josh closed his eyes obediently and waited.

Nothing happened.

He opened his eyes and saw Kat’s worried frown transform to elation. “He’s woken up. He’s back.”

The van was cold enough for Josh to see his breath billowing, but he had been shivering since he had left the Gazetteer in his chicken-legged hut. A deep ache had spread through his body topped off by a throbbing headache. He slumped with his head against the cold window and watched the orange streetlamps reflecting off the wet road.

He felt miserable and alone. He didn’t know whether he was going mad or if the fate of the world really did depend on him. Either way his future didn’t look very promising. The only glimmer of pleasure he had felt had been had seeing the look on Kat’s face when he had woken up.

She was nestled into his shoulder now, asleep and peaceful. He looked down at her and felt some of his sadness lifting. Perhaps things might work out. He raised a tentative hand and stroked her soft, black hair. She stirred slightly, snuggling in tighter to his side with a smile on her dark lips.

DoomLord was driving them home, constantly squinting through the rain-lashed windscreen and muttering about funds for a new van. They swung around the corner into Josh’s street and he suddenly wanted this journey to continue for longer.

The van swayed to a stop and he tried to gently extricate himself from Kat’s embrace. She woke up with a start, and then smiled broadly at him.

“Where are we?” She stretched.

“My house… Do you want to come in?”

“No, I’d better not. I’m really tired.”

“Yeah, me too, but it’s not worth going to sleep now, is it? It’s almost time to get up.” He clambered out of the van and looked back up at her. He was suddenly embarrassed, although the rain cooled his burning cheeks.

“Oh, Josh...“ She was going to say something else, but DoomLord interrupted.

“Come on, Kat. Let’s get you home. It’s freezing.”

Kat smiled apologetically. “I’d better go. See you tomorrow?”

Josh nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” He turned and walked along the path to his house. The van door slammed shut and the van rumbled off. Involuntarily he turned to try and catch one more glimpse of Kat and found her standing in front of him.

“Josh, I… There’s something I need to tell you.”

He looked into her eyes and for a wonderful, lurching moment he thought that she was going to kiss him. Instead, she wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his shoulder. Tentatively he hugged her back and felt her shivering in his arms.

“Are you okay, Kat?”

“I’m fine, Josh. Come on, we’ll freeze to death out here.”