The NextWorld 02: Spawn Point (14 page)

She did it again. She gave me hope.

“A special domain? Where? What is it?”

Fantom leans back with a smile and says, “They call it the 'Trash Bin.' They'll store the game there until the timer runs out. We need to get in,
cut her from the game, and paste her into NextWorld.”

It sounds so simple when she says it, but I can't wrap my brain around how any of this could be possible. Although Fantom's hacking abilities have already proven that my version of possible is a bit outdated.

I start to accept the possibility of Cyren's face smiling back at me again when the truth threatens to destroy the fairy tale reunion I've been picturing in my mind.

“If the virus deleted her, then when we paste her into NextWorld it's going to be like a reboot,” I start, my voice faltering, “Cyren won't...”

“No,” Fantom says, looking away from me. “She won't remember anythin' stored in her Random Access Memory before the deletion. But whether she remembers you or not, she deserves a chance to live, yo.”

My mind won't allow me to accept the information. It really
is
too late. No matter what, the Cyren I knew is gone. That unique collection of experiences and thoughts and emotions is lost. Forever.

Yet I can't let that stop me. I need to push away every selfish thought I'm having. I'm going to save the woman I love, even if it means she no longer loves me.

“I still don't understand how we can do this. How can we cut her from the game? NextWorld doesn't offer that ability in the average account options. Copying data is illegal.”

Fantom shrugs one shoulder and gestures in the air, opening her inventory. She pulls a pair of scissors from the screen and holds them in front of me.

“It's a pretty basic hack, yo. I traded a friend of mine for a backdoor I opened in DOTxxx.”

“DOTxxx? Why would a hacker want to-”

“Don't ask. With those types of people, it's always better not to ask.”

I shake my head, trying to catch up to her plan. “Okay, but if we're going to use that program to cut her from the game and paste her into NextWorld, that means we still need to access the 'Trash Bin.'”

“First we'll need the location code for the game, which only DOTgov and the game company would have access to.”

“But the game company is in DOTbiz.”

“Now you're seein' the problem, yo. We can't get into DOTbiz unless we have an employee account.”

“Can't you just hack us in?”

“Don't think I couldn't,” she says, folding her arms over her chest and leaning back. “But DOTbiz has the best security that credits can buy. It's the best security that lots and lots of credits can buy. Even if I had a backdoor that could get us in, we don't have the time it would take for me to write up a new signal bounce to evade the domain's account tracker.”

“What about Grael? If he can get us into the company database, then we could-”

“Not gonna happen. The government enlisted him to keep your game world runnin', but I think they're blockin' access to him or somethin'. There's no text, audio, or video-cast capability on his site in DOTbiz. We're going to have to get inside the domain to talk to him.”

For a moment, I feel like it's over again. I lost. The rules are stacked against me. But I'm forgetting one thing. Now that I'm back in NextWorld, I'm no longer alone.

“You can enter DOTbiz with an employee account... or any family member of an employee. Right?”

“Sure. But your father works for DOTgov. That's not going to help us.”

“I'm talking about Raev. Xen's partner. Her mother owns InfoLock.”

Fantom smirks, knowing that we just found our loophole. “If she can get us inside, Grael can get us inside the company.

“Are you sure he'll help us? He wasn't exactly on board when we were in the game.”

“Those are his programs, yo.”

“The NPCs?”

“That whole world is his creation. No programmer is goin' to sit back while somethin',
anythin'
deletes their work.”

“Let's hope.”

“Either way, we need to get movin',” she says as she walks away.

I jog to catch up to her and say, “Okay. Right,” as I try to shift my brain back into gamer mode. I need to focus on the goal. I'm worrying too much about other people, trying to understand them. That's a hopeless battle for me. But saving Cyren? That I can do.

“If we need to find Raev, then we need to talk to Xen. We'll most likely find him in DOTgod.”

Fantom lets out a snort and says, “Oh, I'm sure we will.”

I open my inventory to see what I have for a vehicle. The screen appears in front of me, the empty white box glowing with blinding disappointment.

“Looks like I'm riding with you.”

Fantom grins deviously and with a rather elaborate gesture of her hand, she opens what I assume is some kind of secret menu buried deep in her account. She selects something and an intricately designed rug unfurls in front of us. It lifts off the ground like a flying carpet, the tassels that surround it blowing in the wind.

“You have a flying vehicle? How did you come up with the credits to pay for-”

“Pay?” Fantom says with a laugh. “I don't pay, Cowboy. I'm a hacker.”

“Wow,” I whisper, my eyes darting back and forth. “This is
so
illegal.”

“Get used to it, yo,” she says as she climbs on to the front of the carpet.

I settle in next to her. With a tug on the edge of the material, the carpet lifts into the air. The air rushes past my head. The bandwidth speeds are incredible. I have no idea how she's bypassing the data cap, but I'm jealous. It's like she has all the cheat codes to the only game the entire world is playing.

When we exit DOTorg, the carpet swoops over DOTkid. Rainbows bend over the domain and brightly-colored mushrooms dot the rounded hills. Tiny avatars frolic in completely safe environments, sliding down candy canes and riding unicorns. Alphabet blocks construct pre-learning configurations, toppling over and bouncing like weightless feathers when one rather aggressive child decides to shove them. I remember fond moments with Xen in that place.

As we reach the center of the domain, I glance upward. Past the blue skies and fluffy white clouds, I see the metallic sheen of the spherical domain of DOTgov hanging in the sky, looking down upon all of NextWorld. Somewhere inside are the people responsible for my expulsion from NextWorld. The same people that are now hunting me down, ready to throw me into a mind prison for my escape back into this world. The same people that are going to delete Cyren. The single, red flashing light stares back at me.

“Don't worry,” Fantom says over her shoulder. “It can't see us. Hacker lesson number one.”

I take her word for it and flip my middle finger into the air.

On the other side of DOTkid is the glowing domain of DOTgod. We dive through the pearlescent gates and fly a few feet above the heads of the religious pilgrims hiking down the golden path that splits the entire domain. It doesn't take us long to reach the entrance of a site that would be hard not to find impressive.

Through the golden gate is a golden castle piercing the sky, disappearing behind golden clouds that break apart to shine golden rays of light down upon the fields of golden wheat gently blowing in the wind. The men and women that stand in the fields appear to be unique humanoid avatars, but they are all dressed like Xen, with the same orange, monk-like robes.

“What is this place?”

Fantom throws her hands in the air and impersonates a preacher's boisterous, dramatic voice. “Welcome to the Mega-church of Metaversalism! Where the good and evil in all our hearts can find the one, true bliss!”

The followers near us cheer into the air when they hear her declaration, not understanding the sarcasm she meant. She laughs carelessly, but I cross my arms with a certain level of skepticism.

“Metaversalism? I've never heard of it. Why do you think Xen would attend a church like this?”

“Attend?” Fantom says, stepping off the flying carpet. “Cowboy, he doesn't attend this church. He leads it.”

Fantom brazenly strolls through the crowds of Metaversalists, bumping shoulders and elbows as she makes her way to the front steps of the church. At first I excuse her brashness as I pass each avatar, but soon I'm distracted by the impressive sight of my best friend's accomplishment.

I'm having a hard time believing Xen leads his own church, no matter how fitting it is. There was a part of me that always believed, or maybe always hoped, that the rebellious side of Xen would breakaway from the dogmatic viewpoint of the church, not build an entirely new religion.

“I don't understand,” I say, calling after Fantom as she confidently strides ahead of me. “What is this? What is Metaversalism?”

“You'd have to ask Xen if you want a real answer, yo. All I know is that a small sect of Omniversalists broke away from the church and formed this. It has somethin' to do with a disagreement over the ten-thousand lessons of Omniversalism.”

“Ten-thousand? There are that many?”

The number seems ridiculous to me. No wonder he had a lesson for every situation.

“All the years you two were friends, I guess I figured you'd have learned a thing or two about his religion.”

I slow my gait, a little ashamed to admit that: “I mean, when I hear him talking, I'm usually waiting for him to stop.”

There's an awkward silence as she glances over her shoulder at me, judging me and my friendship, but she doesn't say anything. She hops up the set of stairs that leads to the main doors and when she reaches the top of the steps, a golden avatar steps in front of her. When it holds out its hand to stop her, I notice that it's designed to look like nondescript version of Xen, lacking the detail of his avatar.

“I'm sorry,” the avatar stopping us says, “but I can't allow you to enter this site until you register.”

I step up to the avatar and say, “Tell Xen that his friend Arkade is-”

“Don't bother,” Fantom says. “It's an NPC.”

“How are we-”

“Not a problem.”

Fantom swipes her hand in the air, opening that secret menu of hers. With a few selections, she pulls a key from her inventory that's crackling with electricity. With a single, strong thrust, she plunges the key into the NPC's chest, her arm disappearing all the way to the elbow. The Metaversalist avatars standing near us gasp in horror as the golden avatar writhes at the end of her arm. She twists the key inside and the NPC's face distorts, its eyes roll back in its head, and as it continues to repeat the registration protocol, its voice lowers and slows until the words are inaudible.

“There it is,” Fantom says to herself, ripping her hand free.

The NPC stands up straight again, adjusting its eyes with a few blinks before noticing us.

“Welcome to the Mega-Church of Metaversalism,” it says, motioning both hands toward the door and bowing at the waist. “May you find eternal bliss.”

The grand, golden doors open with the sound of strumming harp strings.

“What was that?” I ask in a panicked whisper as I follow her through the entrance, glancing over my shoulder at the Metaversalists who are watching us with shocked looks.

“It's a simple registration key crack, yo.” When she glances in my direction and sees my worried look, she rolls her eyes again and says, “You're goin' to have to man-up and get used to this. I got a whole lot more illegal activities planned for us.”

“I just... I mean, we did it right in front of all those avatars. Aren't you worried that-”

“Not really,” she says so nonchalantly that I think she means it.

The entrance gives way to a long hall with a ceiling hundreds of feet above us. I notice words carved into the walls and eventually realize they are the lessons that Fantom was talking about.

“Light may produce shadows, but it can also destroy them,” I read aloud as we pass. “No person is good or evil, they are the sum of their actions.”

I continue to read the lessons as we travel through the hall, more to myself than anyone else, but after a while I can't take anymore.

“I don't understand how anyone can read this stuff and find guidance for their life. I mean, you could interpret this stuff to mean anything. People read this the way they want to read it. I bet if you asked a hundred Metaversalists what one of these lessons meant, you'd get a hundred different answers.”

Fantom doesn't say anything, she just points at the last lesson on the wall before we step through another set of giant golden doors.

“Words mean nothing. Listen to your heart above all things. That is your truth.”

I let out a frustrated shriek, “So they're actually admitting none of this matters? Why does Xen have all these lessons memorized if words mean nothing?”

“Maybe you should ask him,” Fantom says.

Conducting a ceremony from a cross-legged position on a golden orb high above the entire congregation is Xen. His orange robes hang on his frail body and his eyes droop like he can barely see straight. He's manipulating music tracks on a large screen in front of him as the congregation sways back and forth below him. It looks more like a dance club than a church, but the sight of his avatar gives me a sense of comfort that only familiarity can achieve.

If I'm being honest, I'm drawn in for a moment. His music is commanding, booming against my chest, reverberating off the stained glass walls of the church with the pounding drum line and wobbly bass. There's a spiritual impressiveness to everything that makes me understand, for a split second, how someone could give up their logic and fall into the uplifting nature of something like this.

He's
good
.

“Xen,” I mumble to myself.

Fantom swipes her hand in the air and checks some kind of display screen. “Well, apparently not. It's a prerecorded duplicate, yo. That's pretty strange. He doesn't even have a live session on the schedule.”

“So where do we find him?”

She smiles as she looks over my shoulder and says, “I think
he
found
us
.”

I spin around and see Xen and Raev descending a staircase. Raev doesn't notice us, but Xen stares at both of us with his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide. A group of Metaversalists swarm around him, asking him for blessings and answers to their questions. He pushes past the mob of followers and approaches us with a stumbling walk. As he gets closer, his walk turns into a wobbly jog, then a bouncing run. When he's a few feet from me, I realize his approach isn't aimed at me, but Fantom.