Peter straightened his back. He’d always been a tall man but the subtle feeling he got from standing above the guard for the final time somehow made all those centuries behind bars a little more bearable. He smiled as he stood in front of the gate waiting to be released. He pulled his cufflinks out from his suit arm and suddenly felt more at home. His navy suit better matched his dark features than the orange overalls.

The guard slid a document towards Peter’s lawyer, who picked it up. He was a skinny man. Or at least he looked like a skinny man in a suit that was designed to make him look a bit bigger. After a few moments of reading the lawyer passed the document to Peter. “It’s your release documents. Sign them and you’re free.”

Peter did as he was instructed and was handed a clear bag. “What is this?” he asked.

The guard looked up at him confused. “It’s the stuff you had on you when you came in.”

“It can’t be.” He said examining the contents of the bag. Inside he could see a submariner watch that looked a lot like the one he had and a wallet with his initials on them. He jostled the bag to move its contents around and saw there was also a half-consumed pack of gum and a pen. “I was murdered in the real world. These are not my things.”

“They tell me it’s your stuff. So it’s your stuff. And you take it.” The guard said with a touch of annoyance.

“Let’s not relitigate your terms of release Dr Atreus,” the lawyer said grabbing Peters arm and hurrying him out the door. Then in a conspiratorial whisper he added. “You’re lucky enough they let you come back to life.”

As soon as Peter stepped through the door he had to shield his eyes from the glare. Two steps in front of him he could see golden sand. His eyes continued to adjust to the bright light slowly seeing a turquoise ocean. He could hear the crashing of the waves. He could smell the salt in the air. If prison had grey and muted hues. The place he was standing now was vibrant and alive. Caramel and turquoise colours made the view in front of him look perfect. He turned around expecting to see the outside of the prison complex. But instead, he saw an elevator door lowering to the ground. As if he had just walked out of a lift – even though he hadn’t.

Peter noted it was the first time he could tell he was in a simulation. All through his prison life he hadn’t encountered any discontinuity. Now simply by stepping out into the real world he was reminded that none of what he was seeing was real. Peter thought that maybe it was some sort of psychological trick. Increasing the contrast between prison and the world outside made prison look worse. Maybe it made people less likely to commit another crime if this moment stuck in their head more memorably.

The lawyer noticed his momentary confusion. “A team of experts customise this moment specifically to you. They designed this environment based on what an algorithm predicted would lower your probability of re-committing a crime. Anyways, Dr Atreus I have a car over there to pick us up.”

“I’m not going with you,” Peter said turning around.

“What do you mean? The whole board is waiting for you.”

“Do I still own the company?”

“Well yes. But –,” the lawyer replied. The slight puzzlement growing to concern on his face.

“Then, they work for me. I’m not spending my first day out of prison talking with my board,” he said as he turned back around and walked towards the beach.

He sat down and picked up a handful of sand. He admired how real it was. Letting some of the sand trickle down he could feel each individual grain flowing through his fingers. Every signal his brain was receiving told him the world was real. ‘Did I still have a brain,’ he mumbled to himself.

He picked up the clear bag with his supposed belongings. Reaching in, he pulled out the watch. Turning it around in his hands it felt worn. Like it had been used for many years. He noticed it even had the chip on the bottom of the ceramic bezel. Exactly like he remembered his own watch had.

Defeated the lawyer joined Peter in the sand. “Uncanny isn’t it?”

Peter held the watch up. “Why go through all the trouble of recreating my old Rolex in here? Do you know if I can get the real one back?”

“For all intents and purposes, it is your watch. Scanning it into here probably destroyed the original.”

Peter put the watch on his wrist. “So, this is my old-new watch.”

“What are you going to do now then sir?”

The sound of a chopper became clear in the background. Almost as if thinking of it brought awareness to a sound that was always there.

“I’m going to visit my other watches.” Peter said as he shielded his eyes from the helicopter as it landed in the sand next to the water. He could barely see with all the sand being flung through the air but he could tell it was a large helicopter different from any one he’d seen before. Rounder and he couldn’t see a pilot either.

Moments later the blades stopped spinning and the door rolled open and a man stepped out. Hezekiah Taper was a round American-Samoan man. A former offensive lineman in the NFL he had known Peter for years. “Sorry I’m late.” The big man said picking Peter off the ground and hugging him. “If I’d known they were going to let you out onto a beach, I would’ve drove.”

“It’s okay, I’m just so happy to see you.” Peter said turning towards his lawyer. “Do you need a ride somewhere?”

The lawyer shook his head and pointed towards the car that had arrived before waving as he left.

Peter stepped into the helicopter and Hezekiah closed the door behind him. And within seconds they were up the air. The inside of the vehicle was spacious, feeling more like a house living room than a helicopter. There two long sofas on either side of a table. Peter picked one and putting his hands behind his head he lay down. “Why is it so quite in here? I can’t hear the engine at all. But outside it was so loud.”

“Oh. That’s right, this is your first time out of the beta. You died there and went to prison in here.” He pointed at the ceiling. “I guess the engineers of this thing cheated. It’s all ones and zeros, so they can basically do whatever they want.”

“The beta?”

“The betaverse—the world you died in. You know they’ve been trying to figure it out. They’re not even sure that’s the base layer of reality. It’s definitely the most boring. You can’t even teleport out there.”

Peter realised how much knowledge had been filtered away from him when he was in prison. He felt confident that he had a lot of catching up to do around his understanding of this new world. “So can anyone design whatever they want in here?”

“In here?” Hezekiah said shaking his head. “No way. Definitely if you designed your own layer. But out here in the splash, you still have rules like gravity.”

That was an interesting word choice Peter thought. He remembered the word was used in games to mean the loading screen, the first screen you see when you first turn on a game. He assumed the term splash meant the main layer of reality. Or it could just as easily be the layer of reality with the sand and beach designed for him when he first got out of prison. He made a note to find the answer to that question later. “And who makes up these rules?”

“Didn’t you read anything while you were in prison? How do you not know any of this?”

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“They filter out a lot of what I had access to in there. There were even words I couldn’t hear,” Peter said before looking out the window. Below him looked like the cityscape of a country he’d never seen before. Buildings that defied the laws of nature he was used to. Squinting he realised the city was in the clouds. “How far away are we?”

“I figured you’d want to see this layer a bit more. But we can teleport there at any time if you’d prefer?”

“There’s something I want to do before exploring. So let’s teleport.”

Hezekiah pushed a button on the table and the helicopter with the two of them disappeared from space.

From Peters perspective nothing changed inside the helicopter. He didn’t feel anything, no change in movement, no change in time, no feeling of just being transported to another world. It wasn’t until he poked his head towards the window once more that he noticed the change. Outside the helicopter it was suddenly raining. The perfect blue skies were gone, replaced with grey and rain.

The helicopter was gently landing on the top of the Atreus Skyscraper in Seattle. Right in the centre of the large H letter.

“You know you don’t have to do this yet.” Hezekiah said as he slid open the fuselage door. The rain was pouring down hard and made it hard to hear.

“Yes, I do,” Peter said pointing up towards the sky a flash of lightening appearing poetically as he did. “My life isn’t meant to be in here. It’s out there in the stars.”

“Okay, I just wanted to check. Because once we start there’s no turning back. I’m coming with you, because I’m not risking being an accomplice.”

Peter nodded and the two of them stepped out the door. Hezekiah clicked his finger and pointed upwards and some sort of invisible bubble appeared over the top of both of them. Forcing the rain to hit a barrier and run away.

Peter admired the water running around them for a second. It was no wonder people found this world so satisfying. In the real world, people got wet when it rained. But evidently not in here.

They reached a red door on the other side of the building. Hezekiah scanned his wrist then opened the door. Lights flickered on, revealing stairs. They began the journey down and after what felt like forever passing multiple doors for different floors before Hezekiah stopped at the very last step of the eighty-seventh floor. “Stand on this step next to me.”

Peter did as instructed and Hezekiah scanned his arm once more on an empty spot on the wall. Then the view in front of Peter stretched. The stairs got longer then split adding more steps right in front of his eyes. It looked like a whole new floor was being added to the building. Because that’s what was happening. A hidden floor was appearing in front of them.

Once the stairwell stopped stretching and everything had settled they walked down the new staircase and found themselves in front of a new door. It had the words ‘eight-seven-B’ in front of it. Hezekiah scanned his arm once more and the door opened to reveal an entire floor of the building that was devoid of furniture. The office room was empty as if no one was using the building. Peter knew the building wasn’t empty, it was just this one hidden floor. As they walked inside Peter could hear the sounds of the rain hitting the windows of the building. And tucked around a corner there was a stack of computer servers and a desk with a laptop on it.

“Couldn’t we have teleported into here?” Peter asked.

Hezekiah shook his head as he sat down in front of the laptop. “Buildings get to dictate their security terms and even though you own this one. It would be a security risk to let people teleport in and out at any time.”

Hezekiah entered his password than offered a small pin like object to Peter. “Once you hold this, a screen will appear in front of you. It’s going to offer you a lot of warnings about installing an unofficial plugin that isn’t on the app store. Ignore those and install it. But don’t activate it yet.”

Peter took hold of the device, and sure enough a red screen appeared in front of him. It was warning him about the risked of installing an unverified plugin and suggested he look in the app store for a similar product that is verified. Peter trusted Hezekiah, but you didn’t get to his level without being cautious. He wasn’t going to install something without looking at the code. “Can I see how it works?” Peter asked.

“Sure.” Hezekiah said giving up his seat. “Here’s the…”

“It’s okay I can find my way around.” Peter said taking over the laptop. The ease at which his friend handed over the code was a good sign. That was the first test.

Peter scanned through the code for a while. He knew that if Hezekiah wanted to hide something from him he would have needed to make the program unnecessarily complex. Hezekiah was a good programmer, so would have done it in the most efficient way possible.

Peter didn’t fully understand the code, it had been a while since he’d looked at any. But he understood it enough to know there weren’t any hidden documents and links to scripts. “And you wrote this yourself? No help from any AI or program?”

Hezekiah nodded.

The code was actually quite simple. Which was another positive sign in Peters mind that it wasn’t malicious. It basically measured the response time of a ping. “So am I understanding this correctly. This measures the exact latency between me thinking of moving my arm and my arm actually moving.”

“Yes, correct.”

“I get it. So right now, we are in Seattle. But my brain matrix is stored somewhere else. So, by measuring how long the response time is. We will know how far away my matrix is from the Seattle servers.”

“Correct. And then we just need to visit two more locations and we should be able to triangulate exactly where your matrix is being stored.”

Satisfied that program did exactly what he expected and there wasn’t anything out of place he nodded at Hezekiah. “Okay, I think I’m ready.”

“One thing, I don’t know how much time we will have after you install that programme. The government will definitely be alerted that you’ve installed an unauthorised app. So we’ll have to move onto the next location quickly.”

“After this, we need to go to my research centre on the moon.”

“And after that let’s go to London. There’s a star system I want to show you that’s emitting some strange light.”

Peter stood up and took hold of the little pin object once more. As he did a screen appeared in front of him and he scanned it looking for the obligatory ‘I understand the risks button’. The process was easy. But the number of steps required to install an unauthorised plugin was painful. Requiring him to click through five different screens until he was able to accept the right one.

After he accepted the final message the pin he was holding transformed into a small screen. The screen showed black and white text saying ‘collecting data’. He held it towards Hezekiah.

“It’s recording pings. As it collects more data it will give us an updated probability on where it thinks your matrix is.”

“Have you already done this for yourself?”

“I don’t need to. You might have more money than everyone I know, but you’re still on parole. I know where my matrix is stored. Yours is still owned by the government.”

Peter was about to respond when a message screen popped up in front of him. It was very intrusive and had a ticking timer counting down from ten, nine, eight. The message read ‘your parole officer Elgin Yellow is calling you. You cannot decline this call and will be connected in five seconds’.

Peter put a finger up to his lips. “You were right. My parole officer is calling me. Don’t say anything.”

Elgin was a grumpy man. Old, even by Peters standards. He was always hunched over and probably would have been in a retirement home if it wasn’t for the technology to upload is mind.

The call connected and through his ears he could hear Elgin’s voice. “Dr Atreus.”

“Elgin, how can I help.”

“Are you in a game? I can’t locate you on the map.”

“Why?

“Never mind why. Are you in some sort of world that masks your location?”

“I’m at one of my offices. Why do you want to know that.”

“You’ve installed an application that isn’t approved. And while that isn’t strictly forbidden. I have a sneaking suspicion you are doing something you aren’t meant to. Send me your location right now, I’m sending someone to you.”

“Why did you call me in such a way that I had to answer? I don’t appreciate being interrupted while I’m in an important meeting.”

“Dr Atreus. You’re a celebrity. Normally someone who committed a crime like you did wouldn’t have gotten a second chance. My job is to make sure you don’t waste that second chance. I am well in my rights to check in on you. Now send me your location and I’m coming to you myself.”

Peter needed to put the officer in his place. If Elgin could simply force any call to be answered then getting everything he needed to complete done soon would be tricky. He decided to try putting the fear of god into this man. It was an approach he’d used before and in this situation, he couldn’t win any other way. “No I am not going to tell you where I am. I’m visiting my company offices and sorting out my personal affairs.”

“Either I come to you. Or we get the police involved.”

“No, you speak to my lawyer before you do anything else. If you call me, don’t ever force me to answer it again.” He paused giving the older man time to process what he had just said. “And Elgin. If you don’t call my lawyer now or you call me again without running any questions by my law firm first. You better hope to god that you followed every procedure and law down to the letter. Because I can think of at least three that you broke right now. And I have a lot of lawyers who would love to make sure you spend the next few centuries relitigating that mistake. Think of the billable hours. They would get rich, just dragging you in and out of court.” Peter abruptly disconnected the call. “Let’s hope that worked.”

Hezekiah raised an eyebrow at Peter. “What are the three laws he broke by calling you?”

Peter smiled. “No idea, but sometimes it’s better to let people think they’ve done something wrong.” He picked up the new screen device and walked towards the door. “We better find the location of my matrix before Elgin realises it was a bluff.”

The rest of the book is available for reading on this Royal Road link: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/74325/a-new-god-sci-fi-ai-aliens-space-mystery-adventure

I created another book, rather than adding to this stub. So continue reading it at the link above.

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