The NextWorld 02: Spawn Point (24 page)

“Take it easy.”

“Did... it... work?” I ask through panting breaths.

The two men glance at each other, checking to see if the other one knows what I'm talking about.

“Did what work?”

I close my eyes and use all of my strength to lift my head from the pillow. “I have to contact Fantom. I have to find out what to do-”

Ekko pushes me back against the mattress. “You need to rest.”

I try to fight against him, but it's obvious he spends most of his time in the real world doing a real job. His arms are thick and muscular, his skin worn and toughened by the abrasion of physical activity.

“Close your eyes. Let your nanomachines do their job. They'll have you feeling better in no time.”

I want to believe him, but I'm not so sure. I have no idea what kind of reaction uploading all that data into the microscopic machines inside my body will do to them. As far as I know, no one has ever attempted anything like this before. I guinea pigged myself.

I should be more worried about me, to Cyren, and to the NPCs, but I can't stop thinking about Xen and Raev. Who knows what they'll do to them for aiding and abetting a known cyberterrorist?

The DgS will lock Fantom and Worlok in mind prisons for sure. It would be easy to blame all of this on them, but they gave me a second chance at saving Cyren. We couldn't have done any of this without them. Is it possible Fantom was being sincere when she said that she was trying to save me from a worse fate when she infected the game world with the virus?

I hear Ekko and his partner talking on the other side of the family-size tower room.

“What happened to him in there?”

“I don't know. I've never seen someone have that kind of reaction to a log-out.”

“Something went wrong with the E-Womb. Maybe... maybe this was a mistake.”

There's a pause before Ekko says, “Maybe. But what else was I supposed to do? This kid saved me. He saved everyone that was trapped in that game. If he wants to use our son's E-Womb then...”

I force myself to sit up. Ekko and his partner rush to my side.

“How do you feel, kiddo?”

“Better.”

“What happened to you in there?”

I open my mouth to answer him. I owe him the truth, after everything he's done, after everything he's risked. Harboring a fugitive is no small crime. Harboring a cyberterrorist? A lot worse. But I choose to keep it to myself. The less he knows, the less they can blame him for.

“I need to use your screen. I need to contact Fantom. She'll know what to do.”

They exchange concerned looks again, but I don't wait for their approval. I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and push myself to my feet. They both grab on to my arms and help me up. I wobble at first, but my legs manage to move me across the room.

I tap the screen, which still recognizes me as one of Fantom's ghost accounts. I select an audio-cast request for username: Fantom, but stop myself when I remember she's using the name “Rayth.” The screen loads for a few seconds, then returns an automated message that reads: This account has been disconnected.

I try Xen and Raev, but I get the same response. I try their mega-church of Metaversalism and receive a message that reads: This DOTgod site has been closed.

My heart slams against my chest. My hands are shaking. A cold sweat drips down my back. This is what fear feels like.

I type Grael's name into the audio-cast menu and suck in a deep breath when it connects. His voice is hesitant and nearly a whisper.

“Arkade? Is that you?”

“Grael, you've got to help me. Do you know what happened? Where is everyone?”

“Pick a news-cast, kid. It's all over NextWorld. They're saying cyberterrorists tried to steal data from DOTgov, but a data insurance company called InfoLock thwarted them. They named everyone. Including you.”

I take a deep breath, trying to keep my mind in the game. “Wait. Did they call me Arkade?”

Grael pauses to remember and says, “Yeah. They named you, Xen, Raev, Rayth, and someone named Worlok. But they said they had all of you in custody. How are you contacting me?”

If they called me Arkade, that means they never scanned me. They're assuming it was me, but Fantom's ghost account is still clean. Which means they can't track me back to Ekko's tower room. The fact that Ekko and his partner are safe relieves me, but my friends are still lost, captured by the same people who nearly put me in a mind prison just for playing a game.

“Now what?” I ask into the air, posing the question to an absent Fantom. Even if I succeeded in removing Cyren and the NPCs from the Trash Bin, I don't know how to get them out of my head.

Thinking I'm talking to him, Grael answers, “I don't know, kid. If you didn't copy the NPCs...”

“I got them Grael. At least... I think I did.”

“You did?” His voice perks up, quickening with excitement. “Did you paste them into NextWorld?”

“No. But they're safe.”

“Where are they?”

“Grael, if I can get back inside NextWorld, I'll explain everything to you. For now, you're just going to have to trust me.”

I slap the END button on the screen and lean against the sink. I feel defeated. I've been putting all of my trust in Fantom, but now there's no way for her to help me. There's no way for her to tell me what the next step is.

Ekko's hand sets on my shoulder. He gives it a short squeeze and says, “I don't know what you're involved in, kiddo, but it sounds serious. Maybe you should consider staying out of NextWorld until this all blows over.”

I pull away from him and sit down on the bed. Ekko steps toward me, but his partner grabs his arm. When Ekko looks at him, his partner shakes his head as if to say, “He needs to be left alone.”

That's when it sinks in. I
am
alone. Playing solo.

Ekko's partner talks him into joining him for a visit to one of the tower's communal areas. Ekko agrees, but not before he tells me to make sure to eat something and get some rest. I agree, happy to have some privacy.

I close my eyes and try to block out every thought that's threatening me. I try to center myself, like all of Xen's lessons I've ignored throughout the years. But beyond the usual cacophony of noise, one thing echoes in my mind. Instead of an idea or an emotion, this is a recognizably gentle voice that's familiarity soothes me to my core.

“You're not alone.
”

When the voice speaks again, I don't hear it with my ears. I don't hear it at all. It's like a thought I'm not thinking.

“I'm here, Arkade.”

I try to convince myself that maybe Fantom has hacked into my nanomachines again, only this time she's able to use an audio-cast instead of text. But I can't deny what's happening, even though it's impossible.

I know that voice.

“Cyren?”

“Hello.”

I grab a hold of my head and press both palms against my temples. I kick my heels into the bed, pushing myself against the wall. I try to focus.

“Don't be afraid. I know this is strange-”

“How... how are you doing this?”

“You did this, Arkade. You saved me. You saved all of us.”

It takes a second for me to accept what she's saying. I'm almost afraid to make her clarify, but I need to know.

“It worked? The upload worked?”

“More than you can imagine. The human mind is vast. There is more room here than a million game worlds. The information that is stored here is beyond any library. Thoughts and emotions and memories even you don't know you still have.”

I touch my head with my fingertips. Unable to comprehend what's inside me, I try to put it in some kind of physical terms, but it's impossible. Like thoughts or dreams, the digital ether doesn't exist in the real world.

“The virus deleted you. It deleted your memories. How do you know who I am?”

“I may have lost my memories, but you still have yours. That's all I needed to remember. You. Us. Our past. Everything.”

“You can read my mind?”

“I am your mind. I see myself through your memories. I see your love. I see our love.”

“Cyren.”

I whimper the name more than speak it. Tears pour from my eyes. Tears of joy. Tears of relief. Tears of acceptance. My body shakes with a ferocious mixture of excitement and exhaustion.

“I missed you so much.”

“I'm here now. I'll always be here. With you.”

I feel her embrace. I feel her arms wrap around me like a ghost. Her head rests on my shoulder.

“I can feel you. How are you doing this?”

“We have complete access to your nanomachines. Your mind and your body. Just like in NextWorld, we're able to affect your senses however we need. I can make you feel anything, smell anything, taste anything.”

There's a pause.

“I can make you see anything.”

She appears in front of me.

My face swells with emotion, my eyes gushing tears as I see her porcelain skin, her spiky blond hair, and those black lips smiling back at me.

I reach out to her, tears dripping from my lips as I say, “This can't be real.”

“What is real?”
she asks, her lips never moving to speak.
“Am I any less real here than I am inside the game? Inside a virtual world?”

I rush toward her, throwing my arms around her and burying my face into her neck. I can't be close enough. She's here with me. Again. Maybe only I can see her, maybe this is all in my mind, but I don't care. We're together. That's all that matters.

“There's no need to fear us, Arkade.”

It's like she knows what I'm thinking before it registers in my conscious mind. My mind is no longer a closed book. Of course I'm scared. I handed over control of my reality to thousands of NPCs.

“You're a part of us now. We'd never harm you. We are one. We are you.”

I've been alone for so long. With all of my heart I want to believe that there is an entire world of minds and voices and emotions and thoughts on my side, protecting me. I hug her closer.

If I could, I'd stay there forever, in that moment, but Cyren keeps me moving forward.

“We need to save our friends. They put themselves in danger to help us. We must do the same.”

“How? How can we do that? I don't even know where they are.”

“We need to access NextWorld. We have already learned much from you. Your mind has stored a vast amount of knowledge, but there is more for us to learn. If we can access the data banks of NextWorld, we should be able to learn what we need in order to save them.”

I try to imagine what it will be like, having that kind of processing power inside my mind. A thousand minds thinking for me with infinite multitasking capabilities to perform instant calculations.

I reach for the hatch to the E-Womb with an excitement I can't contain.

“You need to eat.”

“I'll be fine,” I say as my stomach growls.

“Arkade. Please. Your physical body is our only hope now. You need to take care of it.”

She's right. I can no longer be selfish. I'm responsible for a thousand lives, not just my own. An idea like that would have given me anxiety in the past, I'd have seen it as a burden, not as the wonderful gift that I see now.

I jam my fingertip into the sensor below the mirrored screen and wait for my tube of vitapaste. I down three of them before I crawl inside the E-Womb. The virtual image of Cyren crawls inside with me, holding me as I curl up on the floor of the sphere.

The lights turn on, but the voice repeats: “Error. Error. Error.”

“It doesn't know how to communicate with my nanomachines now that you're filling the storage.”

“Just give us a moment.
”

Exactly seven-tenths of a second later, the voice stops. I hear a chime signifying that the E-Womb is ready for my command. My mind is already processing what's happening at an accelerated rate.

Cyren holds me closer.

“I love you.”

“I love you too. Always.”

I take a deep breath and say two words that will change NextWorld forever.

“Log-in.”

Jaron Lee Knuth was born in western Wisconsin in 1978. Suffering from multiple illnesses as a young child, he was forced to find an escape from his bedridden existence through the storytelling of any media he could find. Science fiction and fantasy novels, television programs, films, video games, and comic books all provided him with infinite worlds for his imagination to explore. Now he spends his days creating stories and worlds in the hope that others might find somewhere to escape as well.

He would love to reply to any questions or comments you may have for him at [email protected]. You can also check out his news and updates at facebook.com/jaronleeknuth or follow @jaronleeknuth on Twitter.