Entering the Weave

The van had stopped outside what looked like a barn. Josh could see a narrow driveway twisting towards the lights of a main road. The only other illumination was a line of harsh fluorescent light that spilled out from under the door of the barn.

DoomLord got out of the van and crunched across the gravel drive. He pressed a button next to the door and held his ear against it. After a moment he straightened up and gestured for Kat and Josh to come and join him.

The door swung open, revealing a dazzlingly bright interior. A huge man emerged, who was so tall and wide that he could have hidden DoomLord behind one of his tree trunk legs.

As they got closer, Josh could see the enormous man was smiling widely. “Hello.” He rumbled. “I’m Bandicoot.” His good nature was obvious and Josh thought he could see friendliness written all over his heavy features.

“Bandicoot? That’s your handle?”

“Yep. We’re all online so much we get used to calling each other by them all the time. My real name is Matthew Niven. You can call me Matt, if you like.”

Josh looked at DoomLord.

“I am DoomLord.” The smaller man intoned seriously and ushered Josh and Kat inside.

Once Josh’s eyes had got used to the garish artificial light inside the barn he saw that it had been converted into a hi tech computer room which, Josh thought, would have made Toby physically sick with envy.

They stood between the wooden outer wall of the barn and an inner wall that was made of transparent material. The inner chamber was split into two levels. The ground floor contained banks and banks of humming cabinets which Josh assumed were computers, while upstairs about half a dozen people sat in front of many-screened workstations all too engrossed in their work to notice the arrival of the visitors.

DoomLord led them around the side of the glass box to a transparent lift which was attached to it. He pressed some buttons and, with a hiss, the doors slid apart.

They all managed to squeeze inside, although Bandicoot had to crouch. The doors slid shut and a low hum reverberated around them for a few seconds before they rose slowly. They came to a smooth stop and the inner doors opened.

“Welcome to the Box.” DoomLord walked out and bowed floridly. “The nerve centre of the Burning Eye.”

“You’ll have to forgive him. We don’t get to show it to many people.” Bandicoot whispered.

A young woman in a wheelchair span herself around to greet them. She had dark blonde hair and a stern face which made her look older than Josh had originally thought. “Hello, Josh. Are you ready for your adventure?” She talked quickly and didn’t wait for a response from Josh. “I’m Francine, which I hate. My handle is Spokes, which I like. Pleased to meet you.” She extended a slender hand and when Josh shook it he was surprised by the strength of her fingers. He realised why they were so strong a moment later, when she span her wheelchair around once more and sped along an aisle between two sets of desks, her hands controlling the wheels with the finely tuned skill of many years.

Bandicoot indicated for them to follow so Josh and Kat hurried after her. She slotted her wheelchair underneath a desk and started typing rapidly.

“How much did Dougal tell you about how our operation works?”

“Dougal?”

“Ooops.” She grinned mischievously, making her look younger for an instant. “Sorry. DoomLord. How much did DoomLord tell you?”

Josh glanced quickly at DoomLord who was glowering furiously. “Nothing really. I was asleep.”

“Well, you probably needed it. Listen. We can get into the Plexus no problem from here. And I think we should be able to get into the Vrealm that your friend is trapped in. Do you know what it’s called?”

“Er, the Doge called it Vienopolis, I think.”

Spokes nodded, still rapidly keying things into the computer. “Yes. Found it.” She finished typing with a flourish and wheeled around to look at Josh again.

“Right. I need for you to listen carefully now Josh, because what I’m going to tell you is very important and also complicated.”

Josh bit his lip. “I don’t know very much about computers.”

“Well, that shouldn’t matter too much. You don’t need to know how this all works, Josh. You just need to be able to do it.”

“Do what?”

“Get out of a Vrealm.”

Josh nodded quickly. “Yes.”

“Well there are two ways doing it. The first is rather unlikely to work, especially once you’re not connected through hardware. It relies on your subconscious suddenly realising that your mind and body are in two different places. Sometimes an external stimulus will trigger it, perhaps a familiar smell, we’re not sure.”

Josh looked sideways at Kat, remembering the peachy scent of her perfume and he reddened slightly.

“But this method is unreliable,” Spokes continued seemingly oblivious to Josh’s embarrassment. “I think it was just lucky that it worked for you.

“The second method is the one that we’ve come to rely on, but it is still not perfect and you might have to try it more than once before it works. You basically have to do something unexpected. Something the program is not designed for, or that requires some information that is not stored directly within it. Sometimes defects will appear and these glitches will remind your subconscious that what you are experiencing is not real, and you will wake up. Sometimes the Vrealm will try to connect to another program and retrieve the information it requires and this opens a gateway to somewhere else, and gives you a means to escape.”

“It does sound very complicated.”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. If we had more time I’m sure I could get you to understand. The best thing we can do, I think, is for you to practise for a while using this workstation.”

Josh looked blank and Spokes sighed. “You do understand what we’re trying to do, don’t you?”

“Well, sort of. You’re sending me back into Vienopolis to rescue Toby. And I want to, I really do. But I don’t think I’m necessarily the best person for the job.”

“Listen Josh. You’ve got to come. You are the only one Toby will recognise and trust. So you will have to be there for him.”

She leaned forward and Josh could see behind the determined hardness of her expression a deep, soft sadness in her eyes. “I really want to help your friend, Josh. But you need to help me.”

“Right.” Josh said determinedly. “Show me how it works.”

Bandicoot, who had been pulling on some virtual reality gloves sat down and broke the seat. He collapsed after it and sprawled on the floor like an enormous, helpless gorilla. DoomLord helped pull him to his feet and Bandicoot apologised for being so clumsy.

Spokes smiled indulgently. “It’s alright Bandi. Get your lid on.”

Once Bandicoot had found another chair DoomLord put what looked like a motorcycle helmet onto his big head. Bandicoot moved his arms around slowly and deliberately for a moment or two and then sat still with his hands in his lap.

“If you look at this screen you’ll see where he is. Look he’s got into the Plexus.”

The screen showed the familiar tunnels that Toby and Josh had started their adventure in seemingly so long ago now. Crouched in the centre of the screen was a small monkey.

“Bandicoot’s avatar is a monkey. It allows him to utilise his full dexterity online. As you can see from his physical body he now does not need to move his gloves to interact within the Plexus. Bandi, would you do something?”

The monkey skittered around the tunnel on its hands and feet. On the chair, Bandicoot hadn’t moved a muscle.

“It will take you a while before you can integrate into the Plexus as quickly as that, Josh. That’s what makes it so dangerous. It seems to have an unexplained link into our minds, somehow. But,” she shrugged, “you’ve done it once, which is quite an achievement for someone who has had no training. Bandi? Can you break into MoonBase Delta?”

The monkey saluted comically and raced off.

Spokes turned back to Josh. “MoonBase Delta is perfect for this tutorial. It was one of the earliest developments for a start and I don’t think it’s given very high priority, so when we cause a rift in its continuity or a tear in its realism it’s always slow to catch up. Other worlds like Vienopolis are constructed with much more attention to detail and use software technologies that we’ve never seen before. It may be a university project that has been forgotten about.”

“Rose Cormack wrote it.”

Spokes nodded slowly. “Yes, that makes sense. She’s one of the few people who could have the skills for it, but I thought she’d retired.”

“No. She’s stuck there as well.”

“Really?” Spokes grimaced. “If she’s trapped in there then the Vrealm must be even more powerful than I thought. Still we do have some power in Vienopolis. We’ve sent drones in before and most of those returned.”

“Power?” Kat asked. Josh could tell from the way she looked at Spokes that she was in some awe of the young woman.

“Yeah, we can program special abilities into our avatars. For instance Bandicoot has all the dexterity of a monkey while he’s online.”

“Toby did something like that before we went in before. Flying and stuff. But nothing worked.”

“It’s all about the programming. If your programming is stronger than the Vrealm you’re in then your powers will work. We have written code that makes us quite formidable online, and it hasn’t failed us yet. Good.” She indicated the screen. “Bandicoot has arrived.”

The monkey was capering about in a corridor made of shiny steel and white plastic. Two guards were ineffectually chasing it round and round.

“Who are they?”

“They’re players. MoonBase Delta is a game played by thousands of online gamers around the world. These two guards are probably newbies who have been given the task of capturing a rogue animal in sector twelve. You see the program will assimilate the arrival of Bandicoot and incorporate it into its own storyline.

“That is the essence of what a Vrealm does. It tries to make sense of everything that happens within it and make sure that nothing breaks its own rules.”

She addressed the screen where Bandicoot was pulling the trousers of one of the guards off. “Show them what you’re made of Bandi.”

The monkey grew to the size of a gorilla and then to the size of a rhinoceros. It could barely turn round in the narrow confines of the corridor, but its large hands grabbed the throats of the two guards and flung them roughly against the corridor walls.

“That’s all very well,” said Josh. “But we couldn’t do that. I’ve told you our extra powers didn’t work.”

“Yes, I know. Bandicoot only did that to get rid of the guards. He’s going to show you how to get out of a closed Vrealm now.

”Bandi? Go to the library. It’s in sector two.”

Spokes instructed DoomLord to connect Josh up to the computer. Josh felt suddenly afraid, but he knew he had to do it for Toby. He couldn’t leave him to be tortured or killed in the insane world of the nightmarish Doge. As the helmet was positioned over his head, he saw Kat smile encouragingly at him and he felt a little braver.

He was in complete darkness. There was nothing to see or hear, but he could still feel the seat beneath him and the helmet resting on his head.

Then suddenly he was sitting in a steel and plastic room. One wall was lined with books, and a dozen computers were laid out on separate reading desks. An important looking man looked up from a magazine that he had been reading.

“Who on Earth are you? And what do you think you’re doing on my station?” He pulled a device out of his pocket. “Intruder alert in the library.”

Just then a monstrous monkey bounded through the door, grabbed the indignant man by the ankle and swung him outside.

“Hi Josh! It’s me.” The monkey said.

“Hello Bandicoot.” Josh couldn’t completely hide his nervousness, even though he knew that Bandicoot wouldn’t hurt him. The casual violence the monkey had performed was terrifying.

“Don’t you care about hurting them?” He said shakily.

“Who?”

Josh pointed at the man sprawled in the corridor. “Him. And the guards before.”

Bandicoot chattered a shrill monkey laugh. “Don’t worry about them, Josh. They’re just playing this on their PlayStation or whatever. They’ll love it. This guy’ll tell all his mates about a killer gorilla in sector two and before long everyone will know about the killer gorilla in the library. We’ll be an Internet myth before breakfast tomorrow.”

The enormous monkey grinned and, with an accompanying popping noise, changed back to a more sensible size. “Right, you need to be shown some real Kung Foo.”

The monkey span around on its back legs and clambered up the shelves. “What’s your favourite book, Josh?”

“What?”

“Your favourite book, or a book you know well.”

“Er… Lord of the Rings.” He ventured.

“Oh, very nice.” Bandicoot ran his monkey fingers over the spines of some books. “Here we are. In a simulation like this you wouldn’t expect the full text of the book to be contained within the covers of this book. And,” he flipped open the pages. “Here we are. Nothing at all. Well that is poor.” He showed Josh.

“So?”

“Well, now the program will try to rectify this anomaly by connecting to somewhere else on the Plexus or the Internet and download the actual text for the book. Look!”

As Bandicoot spoke, the book juddered and seemed grow. Josh could see letters appearing on the riffling pages.

“Come on. We’ve got to find the connection.”

“What does it look like?”

“It could be anything. Anything out of the ordinary.”

“Like a talking monkey?”

“Spokes won’t like you messing about Josh. We don’t have long.” Bandicoot said seriously, but his face had wrinkled into a huge grin.

Josh saw a brilliant square glimmering beneath the book. He pointed at it. “Here?”

“Well done, Josh. Let’s go.” Bandicoot dropped the book and was somehow sucked through the small square and out of sight. Josh was left alone and the square seemed to be shrinking. He held his breath and jumped head first into the disappearing shimmer.

He felt like he was being stretched through a tube. Lights lasered along both sides of him and electricity arced through him. He felt like he was travelling through the actual wires that connected websites together. He was a photon moving at the speed of light. He was…

…in an electric library.

“Wow!”

Each book was made up of bright, pulsing electricity and every shelf glowed with this power. Bandicoot was sitting motionless in front of him.

“Where are we?”

“I don’t know exactly. This is the data server that the MoonBase Delta program got the text for your book from. It’s just a repository of information. Here we can just take our helmets off and we’re free.”

“Will this work in Vienopolis?”

Bandicoot’s simian face didn’t show any emotion, but his voice wavered slightly. “Well that’s the million dollar question. It’s possible. The main problem is that it’s so real, so detailed. You have to work really hard to find anything that needs external modification.” He monkey smiled. “We’ll be fine.” But the tiny waver was still there. “Come on. Let’s get back to the Box.”

The two figures motioned with their hands to take their helmets off, and the fantastical sight of the electric library was replaced with the brightness of the Box. It was in uproar.

Spokes was shouting, and everyone else was running around like soldiers on drill training.

Kat was standing next to Josh, but even she seemed to be monitoring a screen. Every time Spokes called out her name she responded with a series of numbers.

“What’s going on?” Josh asked.

“We’re under attack.” Kat said quickly before giving Spokes another list.

“From what?”

“I don’t know. Someone’s trying to hack into the Box. It’s never happened before apparently.”

Spokes had stopped keying in commands and was doing some more shouting. This time though she was directing her considerable ire at Bandicoot.

“Did anyone follow you? You should have been on the lookout for any thing strange. You know that Josh hadn’t done this before. What were you thinking?” The tirade continued without giving Bandicoot a chance to speak.

A siren from the other side of the glass room.

“He’s in.” Spokes stopped berating poor Bandicoot, who had the look of a postman who had just delivered a letter to the Rottweiler Rescue Centre. Everyone else in the room fell silent and still.

“What’s he doing?” Spokes voice broke the silence. “What’s happening?”

“He wants to talk to Josh.” DoomLord said.

“Who is it, Josh?”

“I don’t know.” Josh said surprised, but then added. “I guess it could be Geigerzalion. He’s trapped somewhere. He’s how we found the Plexus in the first place.”

“Talk to him. And get him out of my system.”

Josh stood up shakily. He hadn’t completely recovered from the experience of being pulled through a wire into the electric library. His arms and legs felt very weak, and he trembled as he leant on DoomLord’s desk to peer at the message on the screen.

“Please. I need to speak to Josh.”

Josh typed in a short message. “Are you Geigerzalion?”

Nothing happened for a few long moments. Then the message changed. “No. You know me as ZX82.”

“What are you doing here?” Josh typed shakily.

“I told you I would try and find you. I have been trying to help Toby, but I cannot.”

DoomLord keyed a few buttons and the end of ZX82’s sentence was given a tinny voice.

“Can I speak directly?” Josh asked and DoomLord nodded. Josh continued. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“The computer that you have entered is run by my friends they think you are attacking them. Can you get off their system?”

“Yes, but then I will not be able to communicate with you. I will not do any harm. I am your friend. I owe you everything.”

Spokes, who had wheeled herself next to Josh, whispered into his ear. “I don’t like him being on my system. Can you trust him?”

“Yes. I do trust him. He’s just a kid. He’s… a Delphixian. We rescued him from a different Vrealm.”

Spokes rolled her eyes. “For someone who doesn’t know anything about computers Josh you do seem to have uncovered a lot of things that should remain secret.”

“You know about the Delphixians?”

“Not very much, but the Vrealm they inhabit radiates power like a nuclear bomb on the Internet. We thought it was a collection of new supercomputers, but we’ve never got close to it. We almost got in once when the FBI punched a hole in its defences.”

“It’s not supercomputers; they’re children. They’ve wired their brains directly up to some hardware so they can use them as computers.”

“That’s terrible.” She said, and once again Josh saw the haunted sadness behind her eyes. “Have you freed this boy’s body or his mind?”

“Only his mind. He thinks that his body will have died.”

“Hello, ZX82. My name is Spokes. I have tried before to gain access to the Vrealm in which you were held prisoner. We did not know what it was but we suspected something sinister. Please can I ask you to leave our system? We will assign a workstation so you can communicate with Josh.”

“NO!” A shower of sparks erupted from a terminal behind Josh. ”I will not be trapped again. Not ever.”

“You will not be trapped. We will only close off the network to the other computers here. You will be able to roam freely on the Internet or the Plexus. We do not want to trap you.”

There was silence. DoomLord turned up the volume until the speakers hissed at them.

“I will agree.” The voice boomed. “But if I am restrained from operating in a free way, I shall destroy your network.” DoomLord managed to turn down the volume towards the end, which made it apparent that ZX82 had not been shouting, but even quietly the threat carried enough menace for Spokes to go very pale.

“We mean you no harm. Please take yourself to workstation seven.”

“Josh? Do you trust these people?”

“Yes. They’re going to help me rescue Toby.”

“Very well.”

“When he gets onto Zelazny. Lock the whole network down, but make sure he is free to get out.” Spokes told DoomLord. “The last thing we need is an angry sentient program loose within the system.” She smiled sourly. “You’ve got interesting friends, Josh.”

“Only since recently.” He said glumly.

“Hey. You watch it.” Kat punched Josh on the arm.

Josh mumbled an apology. “I didn’t mean…”

Kat smiled. “I’m just teasing.”

Spokes had now started a program which enabled them to communicate with ZX82. In fact, they could see him. He had projected his avatar onto the screen and a murmur of professional admiration rippled round the room at the delicacy and beauty of the silver skinned figure.

“You said that Josh knew you as ZX82. Is that your name?”

“No. That was my designation before Josh and Toby freed me. It reminds me of that terrible place. I would prefer to have a more human name.”

“Of course. Do you have anything in mind?”

“What is your name?”

“Spokes.“

“That is unusual, is it not? I don’t know very much about it, but I’d like something ordinary.”

“How about Michael? How does that sound?”

“Michael?” He said the name a few times. “Yes. Michael. I like the sound of that.”

“Very well, Michael.” Spokes had been speaking softly, soothing Michael like a child, but now Josh heard a dangerous edge to her tone. “Now tell me, why have you very nearly torn down my network security to speak to Josh?”

“I want to help him. His friend is in very great danger.”

“Is he okay?” Josh interrupted.

“They’ve captured him. He is being held in the Doge’s tower. More than the puppet people guard him. The Doge has somehow added some terrible things to his army. I do not know what they are, but I can feel a taint around them whenever they are close. They are strong though. I cannot defeat them all.”

“Not to worry.” Spokes said, confidently. “Bandicoot, DoomLord and myself are going with Josh. If you come, surely that will be enough to deal with any aggressors.”

There was a pause. “Perhaps.”

At one end of the Box were six of the virtual reality helmets that Josh had used to get to MoonBase Delta. These helmets were suspended above chairs making it look like a super sophisticated hairdresser’s and that was why, Spokes explained, the area was called the Salon.

Spokes positioned herself underneath one of the helmets, and DoomLord and Bandicoot sat either side of her. Josh sat opposite. There was a pair of gloves on each of the chairs and he pulled his on, trying not to notice his shaking hands. When they were comfortable, Spokes gave a thumbs up signal and the helmets lowered onto their heads.

Josh could only see blackness for a while and then a bead of light appeared in front of him. The bead grew to form the elegant form of Michael.

“Hello again Josh. I am happy to see you in my world.”

“Where are we?”

“This is just a loading area. You are being taken into the Plexus.”

The darkness was ripped apart by the sudden appearance of one of the multi-faceted tunnels. Michael was still standing in front of him, but now he had been joined by three other figures.

The monkey was obviously Bandicoot and he guessed the seven foot tall, black garbed, spike encrusted warrior was DoomLord. So the slight, elfin lady standing between them must have been Spokes.

“Are you ready Josh?” She said.

Josh nodded and felt the external equipment that connected him to the computer simulation slip away. He knew that he had made the transition from the real world to the virtual and he stepped forward ready to embark on a journey that he wished he didn’t have to make.

“Let’s go.”