Sci-Fi Web Serial by Kyle Pollard
Continued from Blood of the Narlack: Part 3
This may be hard for you humans to understand as you all live closed loop lives. Only the insane among you carry on conversations with other people that exist in your mind. For us, it is different. With transhumanism eventually comes intracranial communication and a literal opening of the consciousness.
With Ultnobe, it was different from the start. I was a big believer in and user of VR meet-ups in virtual space. With inter-cranial VR commonplace, it was not unusual to be in the physical world one second, and transition to the virtual the next. With the latest beta builds, you could exist in both planes simultaneously. That is if you don’t mind running your brain on beta software. Not for the squeamish. In Ultnobe’s protected space, impenetrable firewalls held me tight. Keep-alive packets still passed to my body on the beach in Karbackus. Otherwise, I would be stranded and locked in my current digitized existence. There was, however, no sense of freedom. No ability to move with the data currents as they flowed through time. I was, as you earth clan would say – stuck in the mud and going nowhere fast.
Network time protocol communication was also blocked. My internal systems, the code in which made up my entire digitized self in transit through the dark web, began self-calibrating time the instant I became trapped within Ultnobe’s bosom. Time sync is critical if I ever hope to make it back to my host body laying on the beach back home hundreds of light years away.
At 97 hours, seven minutes, and approximately 6.3333321547 seconds, Ultnobe sent me a VR Chat request. I looked at the icon slowly pulsating on and off. I approved the request instantly. What did I have to lose?
A door appeared. I hesitated for a minute before opening it. I attempted to set my avatar but was unable to set a lock in any appearance commands. Everything still blocked. Some internal systems too as avatar set does not require interfacing with any outside systems. I was going in just as I look in the physical world – balding head, large black eyes sans pupils, and scraggly beard. My wife always told me to take in more physical activity, but I was a “perfect” physical specimen in VR so why bother?
I wanted to perhaps beef up a bit before entering. Add a few inches of height. Lose a few pounds. That was not possible, so I cautiously opened the door and stepped into what appeared to be the main room of a Palace. The ceilings were ornately decorated with geometric and flower patterns. The floor was a hardwood of indeterminate origin. I walked into the room cautiously. Have you ever had a dream where you forgot to attend a college class for the entire semester and you were now sneaking in to take the final? That’s how I felt as I walked through the threshold.
Ultnobe sat at a desk positioned at the far end of the large Victorian styled room. From panels on the wall behind her 30 or so thick data cables fed into her head. She had no eyes and wore no clothes. Her skin shimmered and glowed with a translucent gold hue. This lasted for but a second when that avatar of Ultnobe was replaced by one not tethered to a desk by cables running into her noggin. She stood and walked towards Lars. Her eyelids opened to reveal cybernetic eyes that spun as they focused.
When Ultnobe spoke her voice was like the last taste of honey at the bottom of a cup of chamomile tea: “Lars, Take my hand.”
Lars complied and took her hand in his. She guided him through an ornately carved archway that led to a small alcove. Once inside the room Ultnobe let go of Lar’s hand and motioned to one of two large leather chairs that were positioned to look out the three windows of the small alcove. The chairs were side by side with a little cherry wood table positioned between them.
Lars sat down and looked out the windows. The ship was in low orbit over a planet. He could clearly see an atmospheric layer and a swirling mass of clouds covering continental land masses. Lightning strikes lit up the clouds at random intervals. The view, as it always is in low earth orbit, was strikingly beautiful. On the small table between the chairs steam from two porcelain cups filled the room with an intense and surprisingly aromatic smell.
“What is the liquid?” Lars asked.
“On earth it is called coffee. Try some.”
Lars picked up the cup and cautiously took a sip. “It is good,” Lars said after carefully setting down his cup.
Ultnobe turned her head away from the star port and faced Lars: “I cannot let you return to your body on Karbackus.”
Before Lars could respond she made a motion with her hand and the data connection between Lars and his body on the beach of his home world was severed.
Background Photo Credit: “Best-ever Ultraviolet Portrait of Andromeda Galaxy”
by NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler (GSFC) and Erin Grand (UMCP) is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Image resized and cropped to fit required size.
[…] Continued from Blood of the Narlack: Part 4 […]