Here is Part 2 of a story I wrote based on a picture drawn for me by my good blogging friend, Sorina at Chosen Voice. You can read Part 1 here. It is a science fiction story based on a world where people live inside multiple virtual reality worlds in a program called Real World. They create the first one and then the computer creates iterations of it to go deeper in realism and intensity.

copyright Sorina M

The Horse Bridge, Part 2

I was ready to go into the 5^th iteration of Real World, the deepest I had ever descended into a computer-generated world. At first, new iterations could only be reached from the ones right before it; in this case the 4^th iteration. In the corner of my inner sanctum were a bunch of ropes hanging from the ceiling, each one a quick-jump link to a different world. I chose one of the 4^th iteration ones and climbed up.

I climbed up into a vast cavern, filled with dragons. The walls glowed with pink phosphorescence. In this world, I had set the physics so that I could fly and the dragons respected me as an equal. I flew across the cavern while dragons stopped and saluted me with jets of flame. The tool to make a gate to the 5^th iteration was in the form of a crystal bottle, with burning red liquid inside. I opened the bottle in mid-air and poured out a drop. It formed a glowing yellow orb that hung in the air like a miniature sun.

Before I entered, I pulled up a small menu in the air and selected Random Iterations. Every iteration enhanced and played off certain features of the previous one. If I wanted to, I could reiterate the dragons to make them more terrifying, more deadly, faster, anything. I could reiterate their reverence of me to make them worship me as a god.

That was where the danger of iterative computing lay—the computer could successively reiterate certain features to inhuman and dangerous levels. Many guys filled their home bases with beautiful women, then choose the iterations with even sexier women and more erotic fantasies. By the fourth iteration, the woman were like living goddesses: beautiful and sexual far beyond human limits. For some men, this was perfect, but for others, it destroyed them. It is not healthy to live in a world where you are a worm compared to all the other inhabitants; a tiny blemish on an otherwise flawless mural.

Other people went for darkness, choosing nightmare scenarios, and going for the darkest iterations until, deep enough down, the evil and sickness that they had purified through successive iterations drove them insane or to suicide.

When the settings were ready, I took a breath, and flew into the glowing orb.

I found myself on a flat, grassy plain with mountains in the far distance. The sky was overcast with clouds that twinkled with points of undulating light. Far away, a corona of purple hung over the hills.

For a moment, my senses were overwhelmed. It was not the otherworldly scenery, but instead just how real it felt. Real World had made amazing leaps in graphics and mood enhancers, but just like watching a movie in a theater, there had never been any doubt that it was a computer rendering. This, however, seemed like UX: for the first time, it felt like the real world outside.

I set off running and found that I could run at any speed. I jumped and then willed myself to jump further, which I did, rocketing a hundred feet in the air with each bound. Unlike other iterations, which had setup menus and parameter guides, the changes here were mind-controlled and instantaneous.

It was like a dream, I realized suddenly. I tried to change the landscape with my mind and the mountains rose up at my mental command. The clouds roiled and blazed with purple. I leaped into the air and started to fly, soaring over the landscape at the speed of a rocket. As I got higher, I saw that the entire world was on the back of a colossal dragon flying through an ether of milk and purple—the ridge of mountains was the ridge along its back and the plain was its hide.

I saw movement below me out of the corner of my eye. It was the white horse, galloping below me and matching my speed. Again I wondered if this was a feature of the 5^th iteration, like another Helper, but I didn’t like it showing up uninvited. I mentally tried to change it into an elephant. Nothing happened.

I started to wonder if it was a virus or a glitch. I changed the land under it to ocean but the horse ran on, its hooves barely touching the surface of the water.

I flew down to its level until I was running along the surface of the water next to it. Abruptly, it stopped and looked at me. Purple light encircled its neck and its liquid eyes gazed steadily at me.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I am a bridge,” it said. “I can take you places you cannot go on your own.”

“This is my world; I can go anywhere I want.”

“Not where I can bring you. If you want to try, then get on my back.”

This seemed like a waste of time, but I wanted to see what would happen. I climbed on and the aura of purple light surrounded me.

The horse took off running, the land sliding underneath it in one continuous blur. It launched itself into the air and kept running, treading the air with its pawing hooves and pulling itself higher and higher until the whole of the dragon-world was laid out below us. One of the glowing balls of light in the sky began to grow bigger and started swallowing up all the smaller lights around it. When the white light had filled the whole sky, a mist seemed to disperse in front of us and I saw a deep blue lake appear, surrounded by dark-green spruce trees.

The horse was descending now, aiming for one place on the shore where a tent was set up and a figure was cooking over a fire.

It was a man in his mid-thirties, dressed in a flannel shirt and khaki pants. He straightened up from the fire and smiled at me as I landed.

“Hello, Jeremy,” he said, holding out his hand. “You’ve got perfect timing. Come have some lunch.”

I stared at him. “Dad?”

(to be continued tomorrow)

A while back, my friend Sorina at Chosen Voice drew a picture for me and I promised to write a story for it. It took quite a while and since what I came up with was more a novel-length story than a short story, I had to restart it several times. As it was, I still had to break it into four installments. I will be posting them over the next four days so you won’t have to wait long to get the whole story.

I also wrote this as a tribute to fathers since it’s Father’s Day coming up on Sunday in some countries. This story is partially dedicated to my father, who is one of my best friends.

copyright Sorina M

The Horse Bridge, Part 1

Yesterday was New Year’s Day, 2084, but I didn’t go out. No one goes out anymore, at least not when they can help it—out to that disturbing real outside where you’re not in control of anything and nothing is customizable. We call it “UX” in online speak, for “UnCustomizable Space.” In is the craze now—further and further in. That’s the challenge, the goal of life: to make your own digital world, and then move deeper, down to stronger and stranger realities.

They say that UX is the place of unavoidable necessities, the kind you don’t talk about—like using the bathroom or going to a doctor. So, that afternoon, when I had an unavoidable necessity to attend to, I simply told my friends that I was “UXing” and they didn’t ask the details. Everyone has unavoidable necessities that take them away from their real life.

I disconnected the inputs to the computer and pulled myself out of the chair with a groan. Two steps across my 10’x10’ apartment brought me from my input chair to the shower stall, where I washed off and dressed. Then my car drove me over to the Tall Maple nursing home.

When I opened the door to Room 406, the wispy-haired resident with blistered and scarred skin was sitting on the bed, staring towards the door. I forced a smile onto my face.

“Hi Dad,” I said. “How are you today?”

“Hi, Jeremy,” he said. “Is it raining out?”

“I don’t know, Dad. I took the car over—it’s all underground roadway.”

“Is it raining?”

“Yeah, it’s raining.” I didn’t know, or particularly care. “Happy birthday, Dad.”

“Is today my birthday? I thought I had one already.”

“You get one every year. You’re 45 this year.”

“45?” Abruptly, he began to cry, although I wasn’t sure if it was because he thought this was too old or too young. Or maybe he was crying just because. Honestly, I didn’t really care. They told me that my father was a hero for all the work he had done researching the environmental meltdown and finding ways to start reversing the effects. All I knew was that he had not really been my father for the last eleven years. I didn’t know him—had never known him well—and I was always glad when I could say good-bye and head back to my real life.

“What’s that, Jeremy?” he asked suddenly, pointing.

“That’s the door, Dad.”

“How do you use it?”

“You just put your finger to that button and it opens,” I said, then stopped. “Well, not for you.”

“I want to go out,” he said, and got up to lightly brush his finger over the door button. It didn’t open for him. “Do you think I could go hiking again someday? Maybe canoeing?” I never answered those questions when he asked them. “Why don’t you get out more, Jeremy? You look so pale.”

“Outside’s not much fun anymore, Dad—not the kind of place you want to go. I go in, deeper and deeper—”

I stopped when I saw his blank look. It was pointless trying to relate to him. Once, when I was feeling ambitious, I explained to my dad about the fractal nature of life programs like Real World, the one I used. I explained how you created your home base and then the computer created iterations of it, emphasizing some things, and expanding hints and implications of the home base. These resulted in hundreds and thousands of custom-made worlds that were often beyond the user’s wildest imaginations but perfectly suited to them. I explained all this and he seemed to understand, until I finished and he asked, “But why?” After that, I gave up. My dad would always view computers as tools for work and play, not places to live.

I stayed with Dad another hour, reminded the nurses that it was his birthday, then went down to my car. It hummed along the underground roadway on its own while I plugged in and went to Darktower, my home base. It was a massive tower, soaring thousands of feet over a midnight landscape. I made it so that the sun never rose and there were no stars or moon. Outside the windows, it was pure black, but inside the tower, it was cheery and bright.

I went into my hall of mirrors, to see if any of my friends were available. Rashid was there. The mirror showed a glimpse into his home base, which was in the middle of the sun. His avatar wore sunglasses all the time.

“’Sup, Baron?” Rashid said. He leaned back against a wall of roiling orange flame. “Did you hear the news from Real World?”

“I just got back from UX. What’s hot?”

“They released a 5^th iteration,” Rashid said. “The creation software is totally new, they say. It’s a big secret how it works. I’m going down tonight. If I find anything amazing, I’ll send you a wormhole to come join me.”

“Which world are you going to iterate? You going to try another Miranda?” Rashid only nodded, a wicked grin on his face. He had around 30 iterations of Miranda, his computer-generated girlfriend. Each one had a slightly different personality, depending on his mood.

“You should introduce a girl too,” he said.

“Maybe later. I want to test it out first.”

I talked to Rashid a bit more, then picked up the 5^th iteration upgrade from Package Depot. It looked like an egg and I threw it against the wall to start the update. Everything shimmered for a second, as it always did with large updates.

I started up the tower towards my inner sanctum at the very top. I could have installed a jump to get there instantly, but I liked to walk up the long, winding stairway and feel the distance increase below me.

I had gone halfway when something walked into view far below me on the ground floor. It was some sort of animal—large and white, with a purple corona around its neck. I snapped my fingers to summon the Universal Helper and it appeared next to me in the form of  a small dragon.

“What is that?” I asked, pointing at the animal below me.

“I’m sorry, Baron Darktower, what do you mean?”

“That animal-thing down there. What is it?”

“I don’t see any animal,” the Helper said.

“There, it’s walking away. Now it’s gone.” The Helper spread its small wings and flew out into the open space and then back. “Oh, you’re hopeless,” I said, and dismissed it.

When I got up to my sanctum, I got the Helper back and had him show me pictures of animals. Five minutes later, a picture came up. It had been a horse. I had never seen an actual horse, and only a few times even in Real Life. It must have come in with the upgrade, although the fact that the Helper could not see it worried me. I hoped it wasn’t a glitch.

(to be continued tomorrow)