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- Thread starter Jollyrei
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rb1956
Lone Wolf
well i guess...but anyone is better then Hillary!!!!!It's hard to imagine that anyplace could be far enough
D
Deleted member jedakk
Guest
Chapter 4: …and Christ preserve thy soul.
She huddled by the bed, shaking. Why had James’ message said she was safe? Did he lie to her? Why would he lie to her? She looked around the room. It looked the same. Same picture above the bed, same bed.
She crawled across the floor and raised her head above the window sill to look out. The sun was shining and the beach still looked inviting. The lagoon was turquoise and calm, the breeze was warm.
The phone rang behind her and she jumped and gave a little shriek. She dropped to the floor, backing up against the wall, staring at the phone receiver. It rang again, and again while she cowered against the wall, wide-eyed and staring. Finally it stopped. A small red light blinked on the phone. A message.
She wasn’t going to risk the phone. Let them think she was out. Out where? She had been out, and she strongly suspected that however far she tried to run in any direction, she would find herself back at cottage 4. What had James said? A maintenance box, not on the main network? If it was stand-alone, how had the “Roman” found her? Could he get in, or could he only phone her?
She simply didn’t know. If this was a box, and if she was the only “real” person here, shouldn’t she be able to control something? Wasn’t this her fantasy life? On the other hand, she had not been able to live without hunger. She had not been able to resist sleep. That seemed to suggest that she was a consciousness in a different sort of reality, but that the reality had rules to make it seem real. There might be a cheat code, but whatever it was, she didn’t have it.
She looked the blinking phone. She was calming down now. A cold calm. Time to think. How to survive. There were no Romans invading the resort so far, as far as she could tell. She hadn’t spoken to the soldier on the phone, or even let him finish his speech. His threat. Who was he? Was he “real” somewhere, or just a part of a program?
She hesitantly stood up. What difference would it make? Could she even hide from the other “people” in the box? She gingerly picked up the phone and turned over the receiver so she could see the dial pad. The message light blinked at her ominously.
She picked up the information card to check the services directory. “Box Monitoring and Programming” said the last line - #99. What? Had that been there before? She hadn’t really read the whole card before. She got stuck at activities and room service – hunger and boredom had overridden her curiosity.
She dialled “99” and let the phone ring. Now she was starting to feel angry. She hadn’t asked for this. She was, well she couldn’t remember what she had been doing, but she was sure she hadn’t asked to be nailed to a cross and abused, and she hadn’t asked to be stuck as a prisoner in this resort with nobody around for company except obsequious staff and elusive “other guests” who were being very private.
“Hello?” said a male voice.
“James!?” she asked in a loud whisper.
“No,” said the voice. “I’m Bill. Where are you calling from? Who are you?”
“I’m in a beach resort,” she said. “At least, that’s what it looks like. Where is James? James sent me here, I think. He needs to get me out of here.”
“James hasn’t been here in over a year,” said Bill. “I can’t really say more. Are you saying you’re in a box?”
“Bill,” she said, “I have to get out of here! I’m scared. I’m being hunted, and this box is really small.”
“I don’t even know which box you’re in,” said Bill. “I’m sure you’re not supposed to be able to call this number. You shouldn’t even want to leave the box. If you want to change your adventure, you should be able to do that inside and just switch programs in the normal way. Read your guidebook.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have a guidebook,” she hissed. She had a cold thought. “What do you mean James hasn’t been there in over a year? I’ve been at this resort for 2 days…”
“What’s your name?” asked Bill.
“I don’t know my name,” she said. Her voice was trembling. “Get me out of here. Even if I have to lie there as a mummy person in stasis, I don’t care.” She bit her lip to try to steady her voice. “ I can’t stay here where they might find me and nail me to another cross.”
“A mummy person?” asked Bill. “Nailed to a cross? You have some wild fantasies.”
“These aren’t my fantasies,” she yelled, “I’m in trouble here and you’re acting like…”
“Okay, sorry,” said Bill. “I can trace you from this call. Hang on.” There was a pause.
“Bill?” she said. There was no answer, but the phone sounded like the line was still open. “Bill!”
“What the hell are you doing in that program?” said Bill.
“I was out there in the dark, in stasis. I panicked and James sent me here,” she said. “I told you.”
“Oh,” he said. “You were the pullout.”
“Yes,” she said, “that’s what he called me too.”
“And you think you’re in danger? Well, the code for this is funny. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I can’t leave you there. That’s an old program with a really old interface. I have to check some things. Don’t go anywhere else in the scenario – stay in your room. That’s your base point. I can only get you out clean if you stay there.”
The phone went dead.
There was a knock at the door. “Room service, Miss,” said the voice of the Room Service girl. “Afternoon tea, compliments of the management.”
When would Bill get her out? Now? Later? Tea would be nice. She glanced out the window – the breeze was just rustling the palms and the sun was giving the lagoon a pleasant glow. It looked peaceful and inviting. She almost thought that perhaps she had imagined the danger. She opened the door, to see the smiling island woman placing a tray with a small tea pot and a plate of small jam cakes and fresh fruit on her veranda table. The veranda was surely still part of her cottage, wasn’t it? She stepped outside…
…into the dusty heat of a middle-eastern afternoon. The ocean was gone. The island girl was gone and she was surrounded by Roman soldiers. She looked around. Her cottage, strangely enough, was still there, the bed and her suitcase visible through the open door.
“Caught another escaped slave bitch,” said one of the soldiers, grabbing her arm.
“No,” she said, “I’m not a slave. You have to let me go.”
“Bitch!” said the soldier cuffing her on the side of the head. He didn’t seem put off by her shorts and blouse.
“Good,” said the officer, the soldier whose voice she had heard on the phone, “she’ll be on a cross before sunset. Take her to the Consul. He’ll be happy to see we’ve got another one.”
She was bundled through the streets, away from the cottage. This can’t be happening again, she thought. I’m on a beach resort. Where do these guys come from? The only comforting thought was that this showed that it couldn’t be real.
“On your knees, cunt,” said the officer. He struck her on the back of the head, and she fell almost prostrate on the ground. The pain felt real.
“Another one,” said a bored sounding voice. She was gasping for air.
“Yes, consul,” said the officer.
“Well,” said the bored consul. “Flog her and crucify her like the others. These heathen will learn they can’t escape judgement.” What did he mean, “heathen”?
She remembered she had been flogged before carrying the beam the first time. Oddly, she didn’t remember the actual flogging, only the aftermath. That was bad. She didn’t want to experience it for real, even if this wasn’t real. Something told her it would feel real.
She was dragged to her feet in time to see a balding man in a toga walk up some stairs into a whitewashed stone building that looked like it had come from an orientalist painting. In fact, when he walked inside, he disappeared before the door shut. This isn’t real, she thought.
She was pulled down the street to a square where there was a tall post set on a stone platform. Manacles and chains hung from the post. There was a flicker in the scene she was looking at. She was once again arriving at the square. This had happened before. This “reality” was not stable.
She was dragged to the post and thrown against it, momentarily stunning her. Her arms were stretched up and manacled into place above her head so she hung from the post, and the chains were pulled taut. She could just stand, her face against the post. Hands grabbed her shirt and tore it open at the back, and a soldier with a dagger cut it off her shoulders. Her shorts were cut as well and pulled off her and she stood naked against the post. This isn’t real, she thought, as a wave of humiliation hit her.
“No,” she gasped. “Why are you doing this?” She knew that she was complaining to simple AI characters. They probably didn’t even see anything except a slave girl. They were just part of a program.
“Slave whore!” said a soldier. “Now you get Roman justice.”
She heard the whistle of the whip, before it struck. The crack as it hit her back was followed by burning pain as the bone fragments tore the skin between her shoulders. She gasped.
“Give her twenty,” said the officer.
“No,” she tried to yell, but it came out as a winded gasp. She felt the nausea of terror, the helplessness of defeat. The whip struck again, across her buttocks, tearing the soft flesh. And again across her back. She was screaming now, when she could get a breath. She didn’t know that this was not real anymore. It was the only reality. Only pain. She fell against the post, her legs giving out. There were droplets of blood on the ground below her – her blood.
She heard the whistle of the whip again… There was a flicker in the scene.
…and she was thrown against the post. She was wearing her blouse and shorts.
The world seemed to stop just before she hit the post. Somehow she could see out of the corner of her eye. It was an opening between two soldiers. She needed that opening, but she was in the scene and couldn’t move. She needed to leap as soon as she could, if the scene would unfreeze, counting on the idea that the AI Romans couldn’t anticipate her move.
She felt her weight again and hurled herself to the side, just before hitting the post, rolling as she hit the ground and launching herself through the gap between the two soldiers. They couldn’t turn fast enough and she was past, running for her life.
“Slave bitch!” yelled the officer. Apparently this program gave the Romans only a limited vocabulary. Maybe that was to her advantage. The soldiers took off after her.
She ran down the main street, trying to stay straight. She knew it was not far. If only her cottage was still there. Bill had said, don’t leave the cottage. She could remember the whips and the pain. She rounded a bend in the main road, and almost laughed. This Roman box was so simple. One main road only. She ran up the veranda steps easily ahead of the Romans, encumbered by their weapons and armour. So even this Roman program was realistic. She darted through the door into the bedroom and slammed the door. Then she ducked down and looked out the window.
The breeze was still waving the palm trees and she could hear tropical birds singing, the evening light deepening the azure colour of the lagoon. This is your base location, she thought. No more opening the door.
“Room service, Miss,” said a voice.
“No thanks,” she said. “I don’t need anything right now.” She wasn’t going to fall for that again.
“Compliments of the management,” said Room Service.
“No,” she said.
“Afternoon tea, Miss,” said Room Service.
“Go away,” she shouted and collapsed into a sob.
The phone rang. She stared at it. Was she safe here? The Romans should have caught up to her ages ago. Why didn’t they just break down the door? It was a wooden door. But this wasn’t real. This was her base location, Bill had said. Maybe the Romans couldn’t get in here – their program depended on her coming out.
How had they caught her the first time, when she had been crucified? She had no recollection of anything before the painful walk up the hill. But she could remember those events. Why weren’t those memories erased now? All her memories before the crucifixion were gone. Now she could remember the first crucifixion, and the resort. The phone rang again.
Desperately she picked it up and hit the activation stud. “You’d better not be a fucking Roman,” she growled.
“What the hell are you talking about?” said Bill. “Where were you? You’re in danger…”
“No shit!” she yelled at him.
“No, that box is really small and now it’s been corrupted. When you left the cottage you activated something. It’s overwriting all the old code. Just stay put now. You’re sheltered inside the cottage, because it’s an old fashioned menu location that the virus doesn’t seem to recognize it to get at you. You’re in a blind spot. Hold the phone now and press 241 and then the star key twice.
“Just get me out of here,” she screamed at him.
“That’s what I’m doing!” he said. “241-star-star and you’re out.”
She pressed the sequence. And the world went black.
“It’s okay, you’re out,” said Bill, there was a tapping sound, like fingers on a tablet, “and I’ve wiped the resort box.” His voice sounded close to her ear. She once again had that feeling of floating and not being able to move. Even so, she felt relief. A sense of safety, even as she felt unhappy about the loss of her beautiful young body. “You are here now, right?”
“Thank you, Bill,” she said, and suddenly broke into relieved tears. “Am I going to stay out now?”
“I don’t know,” said Bill. “Do you want to? You’ll be out here for a bit anyway. We need to sweep for the virus again. James thought he had killed it, but apparently not.”
“What happened?” she asked. “How did they find me?”
“How much do you know about how the life boxes work?” asked Bill.
“Almost nothing,” she said. “I have almost no memories. A few days ago, I was nailed to a cross by some Romans. I thought I was a slave being punished. James told me that was a box. When the box went wrong, I heard James’ voice saying “get her out”, and I woke up paralyzed in the dark. I could hardly talk. I could only move my eyelids and my mouth. I couldn’t even swallow water. He showed me what I looked like – a skeleton wrapped in leather, it looked like, like a dried up mummy. I panicked and he sent me here to this beach house.”
“Yeah, there was a major system problem about 18 months ago. James was looking into it. He said it was a virus, an attack on the system. He thought he had it solved, before he…, well, before.”
“And you say he worked on this for a year and then disappeared?” she said. She suddenly felt abandoned again. “How could he leave me there like that?” she started to cry. The only real person she had ever known had left her for over a year, even if that was only 2 days to her. Now he was gone and she was alone again.
“It was the safest place to put your consciousness,” said Bill, “or so we thought.”
“Nobody cares about me,” she wept. “I’m just a thing to you, a skeleton hooked into your system, or an artificial thing in your boxes. You just forget about me, and I’m here, and I’m alone. He didn’t even pay attention to what was happening to me. The Romans phoned me to threaten me…”
“You got a call from a Roman?”
“Yes, he said I couldn’t escape and they would get me, or something.”
“That explains the virus,” said Bill. The phone is a communications sequence across the grid. The resort itself wasn’t linked to the main networked system of boxes, but that comm sequence is. James must have forgotten about that. The virus is programmed to probe down that sequence and when it gets contact with a real consciousness, it replicates onto that box. Then the Romans capture whoever is there. When you picked up the phone, you let it in.”
“I thought you said James had killed the virus,” she said.
“I thought he did,” said James. “But if we miss a buried sleeper code, it might replicate itself.”
“It was different this time,” she said. “The first time I was just led up a hill and crucified. This time there was an actual capture, a trial, and they started to flog me before there was another glitch. I get lucky with these glitches.”
“You were in a really old test box at the resort,” said Bill. “The virus is programmed to work with the newer interface and isn’t backward compatible. You got lucky because the virus couldn’t completely hack the old coding and glitched. If you were in a modern box, with the newer menu systems, you’d be gone now.”
“Maybe that’s why I can still remember things now,” she mused. “What would have happened if the virus hadn’t glitched?” she asked.
“It eats people’s souls,” said Bill, “well, their consciousness really. It starts by erasing your memory of events, so you lose your past life. Then as you die on the cross, it simply erases the rest of the person, and when they die, it wipes the box they were in. There’s nothing left of the original person to bring back.”
She shuddered, or would have if she wasn’t held in the stasis field.
“So, if I’m going to live here, outside, for a while,” she said, “can anyone find out who I am? I know I’m not a slave girl,” she said, “if that helps. I know my favourite colour is green. I like seafood and pineapple. At the resort I was pretty fit.”
“Not a lot to go by,” he said, “but when I traced your signal, that should also include metadata from your physical plug-in, and we should be able to run a diagnostic on where you’ve been inside – you know, which boxes – as well as trace your entry record. That will tell us who you are.”
“What happened to James?” she asked quietly. Bill sighed.
“There’s a lot to explain,” said Bill. “Let’s find out who you are, first.”
to be continued...
She huddled by the bed, shaking. Why had James’ message said she was safe? Did he lie to her? Why would he lie to her? She looked around the room. It looked the same. Same picture above the bed, same bed.
She crawled across the floor and raised her head above the window sill to look out. The sun was shining and the beach still looked inviting. The lagoon was turquoise and calm, the breeze was warm.
The phone rang behind her and she jumped and gave a little shriek. She dropped to the floor, backing up against the wall, staring at the phone receiver. It rang again, and again while she cowered against the wall, wide-eyed and staring. Finally it stopped. A small red light blinked on the phone. A message.
She wasn’t going to risk the phone. Let them think she was out. Out where? She had been out, and she strongly suspected that however far she tried to run in any direction, she would find herself back at cottage 4. What had James said? A maintenance box, not on the main network? If it was stand-alone, how had the “Roman” found her? Could he get in, or could he only phone her?
She simply didn’t know. If this was a box, and if she was the only “real” person here, shouldn’t she be able to control something? Wasn’t this her fantasy life? On the other hand, she had not been able to live without hunger. She had not been able to resist sleep. That seemed to suggest that she was a consciousness in a different sort of reality, but that the reality had rules to make it seem real. There might be a cheat code, but whatever it was, she didn’t have it.
She looked the blinking phone. She was calming down now. A cold calm. Time to think. How to survive. There were no Romans invading the resort so far, as far as she could tell. She hadn’t spoken to the soldier on the phone, or even let him finish his speech. His threat. Who was he? Was he “real” somewhere, or just a part of a program?
She hesitantly stood up. What difference would it make? Could she even hide from the other “people” in the box? She gingerly picked up the phone and turned over the receiver so she could see the dial pad. The message light blinked at her ominously.
She picked up the information card to check the services directory. “Box Monitoring and Programming” said the last line - #99. What? Had that been there before? She hadn’t really read the whole card before. She got stuck at activities and room service – hunger and boredom had overridden her curiosity.
She dialled “99” and let the phone ring. Now she was starting to feel angry. She hadn’t asked for this. She was, well she couldn’t remember what she had been doing, but she was sure she hadn’t asked to be nailed to a cross and abused, and she hadn’t asked to be stuck as a prisoner in this resort with nobody around for company except obsequious staff and elusive “other guests” who were being very private.
“Hello?” said a male voice.
“James!?” she asked in a loud whisper.
“No,” said the voice. “I’m Bill. Where are you calling from? Who are you?”
“I’m in a beach resort,” she said. “At least, that’s what it looks like. Where is James? James sent me here, I think. He needs to get me out of here.”
“James hasn’t been here in over a year,” said Bill. “I can’t really say more. Are you saying you’re in a box?”
“Bill,” she said, “I have to get out of here! I’m scared. I’m being hunted, and this box is really small.”
“I don’t even know which box you’re in,” said Bill. “I’m sure you’re not supposed to be able to call this number. You shouldn’t even want to leave the box. If you want to change your adventure, you should be able to do that inside and just switch programs in the normal way. Read your guidebook.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have a guidebook,” she hissed. She had a cold thought. “What do you mean James hasn’t been there in over a year? I’ve been at this resort for 2 days…”
“What’s your name?” asked Bill.
“I don’t know my name,” she said. Her voice was trembling. “Get me out of here. Even if I have to lie there as a mummy person in stasis, I don’t care.” She bit her lip to try to steady her voice. “ I can’t stay here where they might find me and nail me to another cross.”
“A mummy person?” asked Bill. “Nailed to a cross? You have some wild fantasies.”
“These aren’t my fantasies,” she yelled, “I’m in trouble here and you’re acting like…”
“Okay, sorry,” said Bill. “I can trace you from this call. Hang on.” There was a pause.
“Bill?” she said. There was no answer, but the phone sounded like the line was still open. “Bill!”
“What the hell are you doing in that program?” said Bill.
“I was out there in the dark, in stasis. I panicked and James sent me here,” she said. “I told you.”
“Oh,” he said. “You were the pullout.”
“Yes,” she said, “that’s what he called me too.”
“And you think you’re in danger? Well, the code for this is funny. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I can’t leave you there. That’s an old program with a really old interface. I have to check some things. Don’t go anywhere else in the scenario – stay in your room. That’s your base point. I can only get you out clean if you stay there.”
The phone went dead.
There was a knock at the door. “Room service, Miss,” said the voice of the Room Service girl. “Afternoon tea, compliments of the management.”
When would Bill get her out? Now? Later? Tea would be nice. She glanced out the window – the breeze was just rustling the palms and the sun was giving the lagoon a pleasant glow. It looked peaceful and inviting. She almost thought that perhaps she had imagined the danger. She opened the door, to see the smiling island woman placing a tray with a small tea pot and a plate of small jam cakes and fresh fruit on her veranda table. The veranda was surely still part of her cottage, wasn’t it? She stepped outside…
…into the dusty heat of a middle-eastern afternoon. The ocean was gone. The island girl was gone and she was surrounded by Roman soldiers. She looked around. Her cottage, strangely enough, was still there, the bed and her suitcase visible through the open door.
“Caught another escaped slave bitch,” said one of the soldiers, grabbing her arm.
“No,” she said, “I’m not a slave. You have to let me go.”
“Bitch!” said the soldier cuffing her on the side of the head. He didn’t seem put off by her shorts and blouse.
“Good,” said the officer, the soldier whose voice she had heard on the phone, “she’ll be on a cross before sunset. Take her to the Consul. He’ll be happy to see we’ve got another one.”
She was bundled through the streets, away from the cottage. This can’t be happening again, she thought. I’m on a beach resort. Where do these guys come from? The only comforting thought was that this showed that it couldn’t be real.
“On your knees, cunt,” said the officer. He struck her on the back of the head, and she fell almost prostrate on the ground. The pain felt real.
“Another one,” said a bored sounding voice. She was gasping for air.
“Yes, consul,” said the officer.
“Well,” said the bored consul. “Flog her and crucify her like the others. These heathen will learn they can’t escape judgement.” What did he mean, “heathen”?
She remembered she had been flogged before carrying the beam the first time. Oddly, she didn’t remember the actual flogging, only the aftermath. That was bad. She didn’t want to experience it for real, even if this wasn’t real. Something told her it would feel real.
She was dragged to her feet in time to see a balding man in a toga walk up some stairs into a whitewashed stone building that looked like it had come from an orientalist painting. In fact, when he walked inside, he disappeared before the door shut. This isn’t real, she thought.
She was pulled down the street to a square where there was a tall post set on a stone platform. Manacles and chains hung from the post. There was a flicker in the scene she was looking at. She was once again arriving at the square. This had happened before. This “reality” was not stable.
She was dragged to the post and thrown against it, momentarily stunning her. Her arms were stretched up and manacled into place above her head so she hung from the post, and the chains were pulled taut. She could just stand, her face against the post. Hands grabbed her shirt and tore it open at the back, and a soldier with a dagger cut it off her shoulders. Her shorts were cut as well and pulled off her and she stood naked against the post. This isn’t real, she thought, as a wave of humiliation hit her.
“No,” she gasped. “Why are you doing this?” She knew that she was complaining to simple AI characters. They probably didn’t even see anything except a slave girl. They were just part of a program.
“Slave whore!” said a soldier. “Now you get Roman justice.”
She heard the whistle of the whip, before it struck. The crack as it hit her back was followed by burning pain as the bone fragments tore the skin between her shoulders. She gasped.
“Give her twenty,” said the officer.
“No,” she tried to yell, but it came out as a winded gasp. She felt the nausea of terror, the helplessness of defeat. The whip struck again, across her buttocks, tearing the soft flesh. And again across her back. She was screaming now, when she could get a breath. She didn’t know that this was not real anymore. It was the only reality. Only pain. She fell against the post, her legs giving out. There were droplets of blood on the ground below her – her blood.
She heard the whistle of the whip again… There was a flicker in the scene.
…and she was thrown against the post. She was wearing her blouse and shorts.
The world seemed to stop just before she hit the post. Somehow she could see out of the corner of her eye. It was an opening between two soldiers. She needed that opening, but she was in the scene and couldn’t move. She needed to leap as soon as she could, if the scene would unfreeze, counting on the idea that the AI Romans couldn’t anticipate her move.
She felt her weight again and hurled herself to the side, just before hitting the post, rolling as she hit the ground and launching herself through the gap between the two soldiers. They couldn’t turn fast enough and she was past, running for her life.
“Slave bitch!” yelled the officer. Apparently this program gave the Romans only a limited vocabulary. Maybe that was to her advantage. The soldiers took off after her.
She ran down the main street, trying to stay straight. She knew it was not far. If only her cottage was still there. Bill had said, don’t leave the cottage. She could remember the whips and the pain. She rounded a bend in the main road, and almost laughed. This Roman box was so simple. One main road only. She ran up the veranda steps easily ahead of the Romans, encumbered by their weapons and armour. So even this Roman program was realistic. She darted through the door into the bedroom and slammed the door. Then she ducked down and looked out the window.
The breeze was still waving the palm trees and she could hear tropical birds singing, the evening light deepening the azure colour of the lagoon. This is your base location, she thought. No more opening the door.
“Room service, Miss,” said a voice.
“No thanks,” she said. “I don’t need anything right now.” She wasn’t going to fall for that again.
“Compliments of the management,” said Room Service.
“No,” she said.
“Afternoon tea, Miss,” said Room Service.
“Go away,” she shouted and collapsed into a sob.
The phone rang. She stared at it. Was she safe here? The Romans should have caught up to her ages ago. Why didn’t they just break down the door? It was a wooden door. But this wasn’t real. This was her base location, Bill had said. Maybe the Romans couldn’t get in here – their program depended on her coming out.
How had they caught her the first time, when she had been crucified? She had no recollection of anything before the painful walk up the hill. But she could remember those events. Why weren’t those memories erased now? All her memories before the crucifixion were gone. Now she could remember the first crucifixion, and the resort. The phone rang again.
Desperately she picked it up and hit the activation stud. “You’d better not be a fucking Roman,” she growled.
“What the hell are you talking about?” said Bill. “Where were you? You’re in danger…”
“No shit!” she yelled at him.
“No, that box is really small and now it’s been corrupted. When you left the cottage you activated something. It’s overwriting all the old code. Just stay put now. You’re sheltered inside the cottage, because it’s an old fashioned menu location that the virus doesn’t seem to recognize it to get at you. You’re in a blind spot. Hold the phone now and press 241 and then the star key twice.
“Just get me out of here,” she screamed at him.
“That’s what I’m doing!” he said. “241-star-star and you’re out.”
She pressed the sequence. And the world went black.
“It’s okay, you’re out,” said Bill, there was a tapping sound, like fingers on a tablet, “and I’ve wiped the resort box.” His voice sounded close to her ear. She once again had that feeling of floating and not being able to move. Even so, she felt relief. A sense of safety, even as she felt unhappy about the loss of her beautiful young body. “You are here now, right?”
“Thank you, Bill,” she said, and suddenly broke into relieved tears. “Am I going to stay out now?”
“I don’t know,” said Bill. “Do you want to? You’ll be out here for a bit anyway. We need to sweep for the virus again. James thought he had killed it, but apparently not.”
“What happened?” she asked. “How did they find me?”
“How much do you know about how the life boxes work?” asked Bill.
“Almost nothing,” she said. “I have almost no memories. A few days ago, I was nailed to a cross by some Romans. I thought I was a slave being punished. James told me that was a box. When the box went wrong, I heard James’ voice saying “get her out”, and I woke up paralyzed in the dark. I could hardly talk. I could only move my eyelids and my mouth. I couldn’t even swallow water. He showed me what I looked like – a skeleton wrapped in leather, it looked like, like a dried up mummy. I panicked and he sent me here to this beach house.”
“Yeah, there was a major system problem about 18 months ago. James was looking into it. He said it was a virus, an attack on the system. He thought he had it solved, before he…, well, before.”
“And you say he worked on this for a year and then disappeared?” she said. She suddenly felt abandoned again. “How could he leave me there like that?” she started to cry. The only real person she had ever known had left her for over a year, even if that was only 2 days to her. Now he was gone and she was alone again.
“It was the safest place to put your consciousness,” said Bill, “or so we thought.”
“Nobody cares about me,” she wept. “I’m just a thing to you, a skeleton hooked into your system, or an artificial thing in your boxes. You just forget about me, and I’m here, and I’m alone. He didn’t even pay attention to what was happening to me. The Romans phoned me to threaten me…”
“You got a call from a Roman?”
“Yes, he said I couldn’t escape and they would get me, or something.”
“That explains the virus,” said Bill. The phone is a communications sequence across the grid. The resort itself wasn’t linked to the main networked system of boxes, but that comm sequence is. James must have forgotten about that. The virus is programmed to probe down that sequence and when it gets contact with a real consciousness, it replicates onto that box. Then the Romans capture whoever is there. When you picked up the phone, you let it in.”
“I thought you said James had killed the virus,” she said.
“I thought he did,” said James. “But if we miss a buried sleeper code, it might replicate itself.”
“It was different this time,” she said. “The first time I was just led up a hill and crucified. This time there was an actual capture, a trial, and they started to flog me before there was another glitch. I get lucky with these glitches.”
“You were in a really old test box at the resort,” said Bill. “The virus is programmed to work with the newer interface and isn’t backward compatible. You got lucky because the virus couldn’t completely hack the old coding and glitched. If you were in a modern box, with the newer menu systems, you’d be gone now.”
“Maybe that’s why I can still remember things now,” she mused. “What would have happened if the virus hadn’t glitched?” she asked.
“It eats people’s souls,” said Bill, “well, their consciousness really. It starts by erasing your memory of events, so you lose your past life. Then as you die on the cross, it simply erases the rest of the person, and when they die, it wipes the box they were in. There’s nothing left of the original person to bring back.”
She shuddered, or would have if she wasn’t held in the stasis field.
“So, if I’m going to live here, outside, for a while,” she said, “can anyone find out who I am? I know I’m not a slave girl,” she said, “if that helps. I know my favourite colour is green. I like seafood and pineapple. At the resort I was pretty fit.”
“Not a lot to go by,” he said, “but when I traced your signal, that should also include metadata from your physical plug-in, and we should be able to run a diagnostic on where you’ve been inside – you know, which boxes – as well as trace your entry record. That will tell us who you are.”
“What happened to James?” she asked quietly. Bill sighed.
“There’s a lot to explain,” said Bill. “Let’s find out who you are, first.”
to be continued...
Boris Spider
Guard
Superb mystery, brilliantly told. 
Story line? It's not so much a line as an etch-a-sketch pattern.
Oh good. Because I feel tense. Where to go next...
jacksjg89
PROCRASTINATOR
This is a great story jungleStory line? It's not so much a line as an etch-a-sketch pattern.
Oh good. Because I feel tense. Where to go next...
D
Deleted member jedakk
Guest
This has the potential to be one of the classic stories of the crux genre! Up until this chapter, I had thought that the "boxes" were physical containers that held the bodies of these "sleepers." If I understand correctly now, a box is a virtual environment where a sleeper's consciousness resides, providing a simulated version of reality. When the main character moved from her room at the resort into the ancient Roman environment, she moved from one box to another. Is that correct?
I love the use of time compression, the reverse of what I did in Altered States. Her reality moves at a much slower rate than actual reality. This girl might have been in these boxes for a very long time, especially since she has no memory of her life or experiences prior to being crucified.
One point of constructive criticism, bearing in mind that I have done a lot of editing in my real-life career, so these things jump out at me: You wrote a lot of the whipping scene in passive voice, and it would have delivered more impact, desperation, horror, etc. if it was in active voice and used more modifiers. i.e. instead of "She was dragged to the post and thrown against it, momentarily stunning her," something like "The soldiers roughly dragged her to the blood-stained post and slammed her up against it, hard. The impact stunned her momentarily."
Just a thought. It's your story, you're a very good writer, and you should write it as you wish. Can't wait for the next chapter, like those New Yorkers in 1841 when the ship bearing the final installment of Dicken's The Old Curiosity Shop arrived, storming the docks and shouting "Did Little Nell die?" I can't wait to see if this Little Nell dies on the cross or escapes these single-minded Romans!
messaline
Crucified Amazon
I also was thinking that ... But, explain to me why this sleeper is moving to a bad environment if she wish not to do ...
I'm a little lost in this story, perhaps due to the fact that I'm french and obliged to translate, what it's never good for the understanding ...
She's not really in control. She only knows what you know. She knows she has to escape the Romans again. She has only one option - no good options. Perhaps she trusts too much.I also was thinking that ... But, explain to me why this sleeper is moving to a bad environment if she wish not to do ...
I'm a little lost in this story, perhaps due to the fact that I'm french and obliged to translate, what it's never good for the understanding ...
D
Deleted member jedakk
Guest
Perhaps she trusts too much.
Interesting...
I think I don't like the name Nell for this story. She doesn't feel like a Nell to me.
