Chapter 16

James felt his fingers tighten around the glass in his hand. Part of him worried he might break the glass. Was that possible in Hades’ space? How real was the area? Either way, James felt his mouth go immediately dry, as a pit opened in his stomach. He regretted not taking the extra liquor that had been offered to him.

“What do you mean, my funeral?” James asked hesitantly. He didn’t want the answer. But already his mind was swimming. Hades wasn’t the kind to joke. He wasn’t like Steve, he wasn’t like Rue. The man was nothing but serious. And James had no doubt, that wasn’t just a turn of phrase. From what little interaction he’d had with Hades, he knew the man was careful about the words he said, and the way he said them.

“Exactly what I said.” Hades responded coolly. “Though, technically it’s not just your funeral. The world as we know it is coming to an end, and” he poured himself another drink, swirling the liquid about as he did, “unless something is done to stop it, Ninety-nine percent, if not more, of the worlds population will die in the next two days.”

“How could that,”

“Though I suppose die in this manner isn’t quite the proper term.” Hades said as he cut James off. “Physically, their bodies will be dead. Their connection to their flesh and blood severed. But digitally they’ll remain.” He took a drink.

“I suppose that’s the silver lining; the justification for it all. It’s not mass murder if you don’t kill the conscious mind, is it? Giving everyone the opportunity to be seemingly immortal, after all, isn’t a crime, is it? Even if the people are condemned to a virtual world against their choosing. In the end, the opportunity to end their consciousness, their being, will still remain on them and not those who destroyed their bodies. Their lives, their agency over themselves, as conscious, thinking creatures, will remain, in their hands…” He chuckled darkly, “it’s a moral grey area, isn’t it? A dilemma, created by technology, in a world that by all means is much too advanced for its own good.”

There was a ringing in James’s ears as he tried to process what Hades was saying. His fingers were numb, the glass no longer present to the now bloodless digits. His vision had narrowed onto Hades, as his mind tried to comprehend what he’d just been told. What was Hades saying? What was he rambling about?

“I can see this news isn’t sitting well,” Hades stood then, leaning far over the table to fill James’s glass once more. “Go ahead and drink and take a few breaths. I’m not done with what I’ve got to tell you yet, and I believe you’re going to want to listen to all I have to say.” He sat back down as James obediently lifted the drink stiffly to his quivering lips. The burn of the liquor sent a shock through his system and helped center him. “Then again, no one says you have to do anything with what I tell you. Knowledge is purely that. It’s information, short and simple. You can hold onto the secret; you can share it with those around you. And, in the end, it’s a matter of if the struggle against the impending fate would even be worth it?”

James took a few breaths, as Hades waited, watching him. Once he had calmed his heart, albeit only a little, he opened his mouth, trying to form a coherent sentence, and spoke.

“You’re saying the entire world is going to be killed off in the next few days?” he asked slowly. “How? Why? And how do you know that?”

“Good questions. Short answer, greed.” Hades sighed, “it’s always greed. Always has been, always will be. Those in power crave more of, well, everything. Sadly, the world we live on, the resources available to us, are all finite. And, for the longest time, that meant there would always be a struggle, some give and take, with regard to these very resources. “Now though,” he smiled sadly at James, “there’s a way for those elite to finally have it all. To have their cake and eat it to.” He swirled his drink in his hand, “thanks in part to your parents groundbreaking robotics skills, and of course, the brilliant mind who created the Sleeping Beauty pod, proving a mind could, successfully, be fully uploaded, that is.”

James flinched at that. His parents were involved. He remembered his last message from his parents, the concerned look on his father’s face. James was supposed to call them again soon, once this immersion session ended in fact. They told him to use Dagr to enter their workspace at his home, and then, he was supposed to call them. Was this what they were planning to tell him? He felt sick. They couldn’t possibly be involved in a scheme to kill people. They weren’t bad people.

“I can see on your face I’ve struck a nerve,” Hades smiled at him, and it was a gentle, pained smile, even as his face continued to flicker, “but no, your parents aren’t actively engaged in this. Are they aiding in the plan?” He nodded his head as he continued, “yes they are. But not as willing participants mind you. Their only crime is their passion. They wanted to see how far they could push the realm of robotics, and they did just that. The Government used them, much as it uses all such people, and before they realized it, they’d gone too far. And, of course, they couldn’t even back out if they wanted to. After all,” he tipped his glass in James’s direction, “they need to keep you safe. Same as Rue’s father, and his own technology. If there is one skill those in power have mastered above all others, it’s finding what a person cherishes most, and using it as a tool to control them.”

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He sighed, heavily at that. “Nothing is sacred, and no one is safe, in that regard.” He chuckled then, a dark, bitter laugh. “Unless of course, a person purposefully makes sure they’ve nothing to cherish. Nothing to hold sacred or dear. But then, what type of person would willingly live such a life? A sane one? Certainly not.” He looked at James, and for a split second, the face stopped wavering. It was a face of wrinkled skin, dark eyes, and white hair. Frail features, emaciated, sunken, hollow. Then, the shifting, ever changing appearance began once again. “Only a madman, who’d choose to live amongst the dead, would ever truly be able to escape the government and their designs.”

“You didn’t answer my questions.” James began slowly. “None of this makes sense.”

“In due time, all will make sense.” Hades flicked his wrist, and a holographic image of the Earth appeared above the desk. There were various landmarks easily visible, and James noticed it had been sectioned off into an incomprehensible number of grids. There were flickering lights here and there, and then larger markers, denoting the various countries that had a major stake in the world’s government.

“You see all those grids, all those lights,” he said to James, “those are the population centers. The areas they’ve crammed the people into. The areas of land they are able to keep hospitable through extreme terraforming, while the rest of the world suffers from the last century or more of greed and power struggles.”

He waved his hand again, and all of the lights disappeared. The lines glowed with different lights, each corresponding to one of the massive governing countries, and spread outwards. “That space is what becomes immediately available if the terraforming isn’t needed. If conditions, you understand, for life, aren’t needed. If the government can eliminate the biological bodies of people, and say, transfer their own consciousness into hyper realistic, immortal, robotic bodies… all of a sudden, they’ve once again full access to the entire world. All, mind you, in their own hands.”

“So, what,” James tried to grasp the situation, “they’re going to kill everyone just so they can inhabit the world? Isn’t that what the Zone was for? To give people access to worlds, feelings, events, everything that’s not humanely possible in the real world. There’s no need to eliminate the population. It makes no sense.”

“It makes every bit of sense, if you consider the effort, the work, the resources, that go into running not just the Zone, but the real world entirely. It’s a hassle, it’s work. It’s a tightrope they must tread carefully, balancing between the carrot and the stick, to keep the people in line. The zone is the same. Too many avenues that can pose a risk to those in power. Especially with the rise of new hacking groups, of skilled operators who can navigate the immersed world with impossible skill. Keeping on top of all of these things, is a monumental level of work and managing. And if there is a single lesson, learned time and time again, that history has taught, it is one simple truth. No government, no matter how powerful, can rule forever. Eventually, something will give, something will change, and the people will rise up. Unless…” he snapped his finger, and the globe disappeared.

“You can eliminate all of the people. But, again,” he smiled at James, and it was twisted, crazed, “until recently, such an action would be barbaric, monstrous. Inhumane and impossible to even consider, at least, if they wanted to keep their conscious somewhat clear. Not all of the good folk in the Government, after all, would condone widescale mass murder. But” he trailed off, looking at James expectantly.

“If they transferred everyone’s consciousness,” he repeated what Hades had said earlier, “and didn’t kill their minds. Then… they weren’t murdering the people?”

“Exactly.” Hades said, clapping his hands together. The sound echoed dully around the room. “If they can give everyone a virtual existence to replace their physical one, an existence in a world just as real as the one they’re leaving behind, where they can exist for longer than they’d ever be able to live in the real world, then they wouldn’t be committing a sin. In fact, they’d be able to argue, they’d saved the world. Saved them from all the worries of the flesh. No more worry of food, water, housing. No sickness, no ailments. People would be, quite literally, freed from their mundane existence, in order to live, forever, as long as they wanted to that is, in a virtual, never ending, world.”

He paused and looked at James, who was processing everything. This was, to say the least, a lot to take in. More than that, it sounded like pure fantasy. And yet, there was something about it. Some strange, sick, twisted reasoning to it.

“They’ll do this action,” Hades said softly, “and pat themselves on the backs, saying they’ve saved the world. They’ll kill everyone, and yet in their eyes, be able to justify it as freeing everyone from the worries, the struggles, the difficulties, of existence. They’re going to murder everyone in two days’ time and tell themselves that what they’ve really done was save the entire world and planet. All so they, in the very end, can do what no others have done before them. Claim the entire world, as their own.”