Peter walked outside of his moon research lab. Once again, as he crossed the threshold, stepping through the automatic sliding doors, more than just the environment changed. It wasn’t as abrupt as previous times. But he definitely noticed a change in gravity. He almost tripped as he crossed the invisible line. The only thing that stopped him from completely flying head over heels was the fact he had already planned to stop and take in the view when he got outside. If he wasn’t planning on stopping, he thought, he probably would be getting off the ground right now. He watched as a few other people seamlessly walked through the sliding doors without so much as a trip and wondered if they were just well practised or if they had a program that was assisting them with the change.
“Hey Peter!” Hezekiah yelled waving furiously out the window of a car.
Looking out towards the space around him Peter noticed he was in a dome, not a small dome either. Some sort of clear glass structure encompassed the entire moon city he was in. It kind of looked like he was on the edge of Central Park in New York. He could see many trees, a small pond, a park in the distance with tall buildings all around him. Then beyond the tall buildings was a clear glass dome. He could definitely see the moon architecture designs coming through in the buildings. Many of them looked like they were carved into the sides of a cave. Craters, circles, and jagged regolith featured heavily in the aesthetics of the buildings. The contrast between this world and Earth was huge—he was impressed. He looked beyond the dome, and couldn’t see a thing—nothing. Beyond the dome it looked like a night sky without the stars.
“You coming?” Hezekiah called out once more.
Peter nodded, the words pulling him out of his reverie. He jump/walked towards the car and hopped in. Hezekiah scooted over to make room.
“I’ve been doing some research,” Hezekiah said excitedly. “There’s a fight on tonight, and I think it’s the perfect final location to visit before we get going.”
“Why do you sound excited about this?”
“Just wait and you’ll see.” Hezekiah said as he pressed a button on one of the screens in front of him and the car began to move.
At first the car was just cruising along the road. Then it started to speed up and Peter worried their vehicle was going to hit a car in front of it. All the traffic up ahead had stopped, yet their car kept moving forward at an ever-increasing rate.
“Don’t worry,” Hezekiah said noticing Peters angst. “It’s impossible for these autonomous vehicles to hit anything. They’re always communicating with eachother.”
Peter knew that, but he noticeably relaxed after being reassured.
The car started to lift off the ground. Rising up as they flew right overhead of the car that was previously in front of them. Then the inners of the car started to transform. Getting larger and evolving once again into the helicopter that they started in.
“In the middle of this dome is a transport gate.” Hezekiah said. “So we can just cross that and we’ll be back on the Earth server. Faster than the way we came in.”
As the helicopter drifted upwards, the time gate became clearer. It looked like a work-of-art more than anything. The massive glass dome stretched up into the sky. And at the very top—almost as if it was a plug—sat a gleaming ring. The same design as last time only gold. Two counter-rotating rings. The outer ring was a thick chain. And it rotated in a ticking pattern. Each tick it made reverberated through the moon base and got stronger the closer they got to it. The inner ring had a perfect gold mirror finish—almost like the sun. It rotated smoothly in the opposite direction.
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In between that time gate was, what looked like a, small pond. It looked like the pond was covered in a soft mist. If the dome was turned upside down, no one would take a second look at it, everyone would have assumed it was where all the water collected. Since it was up in the middle of the sky, the floating pond defied Peters sense of physics. He was still getting used to this world outside of prison. If there was an internal consistency in the metaverse—he hadn’t yet discovered it.
They drifted towards the time gate, there were many many flying vehicles headed that way too. But the gate was gargantuan so finding a clear path was easy. They passed it with no incidence and found themselves floating above earth. Emerging from the same gate they left.
Hezekiah punched a few things into a screen right in front of him. He had a childish grin on his face.
“Okay what are we doing? Your face is too giddy?” Peter said.
“We’re going to watch Talos verses Kratos.” Hezekiah replied and before Peter could jump in, he added. “Don’t worry, it’s the perfect location to triangulate exactly where your matrix is. The stadium is on its own server, but conveniently that server is located directly between all the major ones.”
“This just sounds like an excuse for somewhere you want to take me.”
“Trust me Peter. It’ll be worth it.” Hezekiah said grinning from ear to ear.
Peter considered it for a moment. “Why is the stadium on it’s own server? Why does it need it’s own?”
“It’s all about latency. All the fighters get their matrixes transported there. So they’re as close to the server as possible. Especially fighters that use speed as their superpower – they really notice if they’re not directly connected to the server.”
Peter considered it for a moment. Maybe he could partake in a battle. If his current plan failed, maybe he could get his matrix relocated to the server for an exhibition fight. Then on the way escape. He put that idea to the back of his mind to test for later. “Can we head to London first? There’s something I want to checkout. Then let’s go watch your fight.”
Hezekiah pressed a few buttons on the control panel and they started their journey to London.
Sensing Hezekiah’s change of mood, and not wanting him to be too disappointed Peter changed the subject. “Don’t worry, you will get to show me one of these fights…” He said before pivoting the conversation. “What did you think of Ariana’s new brain?”
Hezekiah shrugged. “I’m unsure… If it really does allow her to understand quantum mechanics. Then I can see her progressing physics a lot.”
Peter agreed, “I think it’s the paradigm shift we need. Honestly, I’m disappointed in the rate of improvement since humanity embraced the simulation.”
“Did we not just teleport to the moon and back?” Hezekiah said looking confused.
“Don’t get me wrong, this world is much more impressive than before I went behind bars. But technology in the real world is so far behind the metaverse.”
“Maybe you’re right Peter. There’s no rule that says all technology must always improve.”
“It’s more than that. It’s like humanity invented simulated reality and then because it was indistinguishable from reality—we all became so obsessed with it we forgot about the real world.”
“I’d argue,” Hezekiah said looking at both hands, “that this simulated world, is better than reality. From your perspective it’s just as real.”
“But this isn’t reality. It’s not real.”
“It’s so strange hearing someone say that. You sound almost conspiratorial. What would you do,” Hezekiah asked, “if you found out that the betaverse wasn’t the base layer of reality?”
“That’s a good way to put it, the metaverse is not the base layer of reality. And to me at least, I want to be in the base layer of reality.”
“You didn’t answer my question. What would you do if we found out that the betaverse was just another layer of the simulation.”
“It’s the highest layer of reality I have access to now. And if later we find out it’s not. Then I’d want to go up another level. I want to keep trying until I reach the base layer.”