I awoke with a gasp of breath and clawed at my throat, straining to get air. My muscles trembled. My aches had aches, almost as if I had been exercising for hours on end. I began to panic and fell to the ground. I was hunched over on all fours. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, and soon after, each breath started to come a little easier. The aches that plagued my muscles washed away. I had been reborn.
I glanced around the room. Mr. Greene and the doctors were not around. The hospital bed and instruments were all gone. Simple furniture replaced what I had seen in museums during my human history fellowship. I hadn’t seen so much wood in a room since I had visited earth. The bed frame, wardrobe, desk, and chairs were all wood. On Mars, unless you lived in farming cities, you would never see so much organic material. The Mars government had strict rules on allowing people near their already limited supply of organic food and material. Organic material has always been a marker of individual wealth when seen outside of earth.
The room, windowless, had been well-lit by lamps made of brass and glass. The lamps hung in every nook and cranny to illuminate the full features of the room. There were two doors in the room—one parallel to the bed and the other to my left, after the wardrobe. Ornately carved furniture with swirling stems leading to carved flowers covered the entire room. Furs of animals and woven sheets lined the bed. The walls, a simple yet smooth stone, displayed paintings of nature, and floor space came aplenty.
A man dressed in a purple and red shirt hemmed with gold stitching burst through the door across from the bed. He looked like he had entered his late forties with peppered straight black hair tied into a top knot. His eyes were almond-shaped like those on Mars that had descended from East Asia. On his hip, he carried a sword, and in his hands, he held piles of scrolls. I ran toward the desk. Atop laid a quill and bottle of ink, so I snatched them and got ready to hurl the bottle, but he spoke up before I could act.
“Welcome, my lord to the capital. I am the king’s advisor, Reginald, and I’m here to direct you to the King’s bed-chamber. Your costume is in the wardrobe. It’s time to get dressed for your first small council meeting,” Reginald said.
“Where are we,” I croaked out. I knew I had entered the reality machine, but it all felt too real. There had been no warning. One moment I lay down on the operating table, and the next I was waking up in what seemed like the medieval times I had studied in university. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my silver coin, and read the phrase to myself before sliding it smoothly back into my pocket.
“We are in the Kingdom of Purellcet, my lord. We must hurry. The King is on his last breath and has sent for all the lords to meet him in his bedchamber before his passing. I will leave you to change while I finish the tasks the king set me to. Get dressed, and the attendant outside will lead you to the king’s chamber.”
Reginald rushed out of the room, leaving me to follow his instructions. I went to the other door first, partially to see what it led to and also to make sure no one burst in on me. The door opened to a small bathroom with a golden brass tub in the middle and a wooden toilet at the far side. I shut the door of the bathroom and came back to the wardrobe to inspect the clothes that they had prepared for me. The clothes, mostly, were colored a crimson red with gold stitching similar to what Reginald wore. I pulled the tight black pants up first and then a loose-fitted white shirt. Over the top of the shirt, I wore a crimson-red long coat with a tree stitched on the front breast pocket. I chose the jacket for the inside pocket; I slid my anchor coin into. I could feel its weight on my chest, and I found comfort in it.
One look in the mirror illustrated how horrible I looked in the pompous shirt and jacket. I preferred black and gray clothing, but that would have to wait till later. I looked the same as I always did, except my mini afro had shrunk into a buzz cut. Dressed up, I decided to scour the room for anything useful to defend myself: a letter opener and a thin cord weaved together from animal hair. Satisfied, I slid a pair of black leather boots on and peeked out the door that Reginald had burst in from. Standing right outside the door, a pale man with bright blue eyes and blonde hair held a lantern in his hand. He wore a white shirt like mine with a short brown tunic overtop. His features were so distinctive that they helped me remember that the world I had entered existed apart from reality. Except for a few religious cults that believe in the purity of blood, You are very unlikely to find people in the galaxy that are not an amalgamation of races from the earth.
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“Hello, my lord. My name is Kible, and I'm your attendant. Sir Reginald directed me to lead you to the king's bedchamber so he may impart words on you and the other lords before his passing,” he said. Kible bowed and took a step back from the door.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kible. My name is Wesley Howard.” I stuck my hand out for a handshake, but Kible stared at it in confusion. Kible had to be a part of the AI, but I found it surprising that the AI wouldn’t recognize a simple greeting. It made me eager to reconnect with those coming from my reality, even though I had never been much of a team player.
“Lord Wesley, time is urgent, so please follow me?”
“Yes, of course. Lead the way.” I stepped out of my room and followed Kible down a grand hallway made of gray patchwork rocks and wooden beams. A red carpet that stretched the entire hallway covered the center walkway of the wooden floor—the walls adorned with lamps, paintings, and a tapestry. I noticed as I walked that most of the artistry and stitching on my jacket depicted an old oak tree.
“Kible, is the oak tree our heraldry?” I learned about the term in my human history class about Western civilization. It had been a way for wealthy families at the time to distinguish themselves from others.
“Yes, my lord,” Kible said eagerly. “The oak tree has been the symbol of the Kingdom since its foundation.”
“And when was this foundation?”
“Over a hundred-fifty years ago after the dissolution of the empire.”
Kible took great pride in his extensive knowledge and had been eager to share with me his gratitude at his position here in the castle. He explained that we were in the capital city of Lambeau in the Purellcet kingdom.
Judging from what I had already seen, the world of the reality machine took place in a time similar to the war-plagued era of earth before the introduction of the internet and thousands of years before the unification of Earth. Kible had led me through the maze of hallways and doors to a spiral staircase that I followed him up. The staircase walls had stained glass windows that allowed me to look into the night sky. Far below, I saw a sprawling city with bright lanterns and torchlight illuminating the thousands of buildings below. The rooftop tiles seemed to glow gold against the lantern lights, and the stone and wood buildings looked sturdy. Kible had noticed I stopped to stare and turned back around.
“The city looks beautiful at night, does it not, my lord.”
“It does. How many people live here?”
“I’m not sure, but I can find out for you later.” Kible led me to the top of the staircase and into a much grander hallway than we had started at. It had high ceilings and ornate chandeliers of glass. Four men with swords, dressed in matching crimson-red colors, stood guard in front of a large door at the end of the hall.
“My lord, we have been awaiting your arrival. Hurry, the others are already waiting for you to join. Kible, go help master Bertram and the other attendants; they require more hands to prepare for the princess's coronation,” A stocky guard with a thick beard the color of leaves in the fall said. His voice filled the hall, and Kible and I jumped in shock when he called out to us.
“Best of luck, lord Wesley. I will find you when your matters have concluded,” Kible whimpered before rushing back down the stairs. His expression had carried one of fright which did not bode well for my impression of the men in front of me. I stuck my hand in my coat pocket and fingered the coin rather than the letter opener I had hidden next to it. My nerves calmed as they always did. I stepped forward, and the four guards parted ways for me to enter.
The door opened, and inside I observed a bedroom much similar in setup to mine but offered much more in terms of aesthetics. A room characterized by jewels, portraits, and superior craftsmanship, to my untrained eye, to name a few. It had ceilings the same height as the hallways and chandeliers made of gold. There were large glass windows on both sides of the room that stood two men high and as wide as three doors that reflected flecks of the silver moon onto the marble floor. A long sword, mounted on the wall behind the king, had the phrase ‘strength is a virtue’ etched above with golden paint.
Three men and two women huddled around the bedside of an ailing older man, quietly observing him. The older man in the bed had tight pasty white skin that looked like a vacuumed sealed bag around his bones. One of the men, Who quickly identified as Reginald, kneeled next to the older man holding his hand and weeping. Reginald turned to me. “Come in! Come in! We must do this at once before the king loses his wits. Time has addled his brain, but he has a vision for all of you.”
The lead guard gave me a jolt and slammed the door behind me before I could turn to glare. I stepped into the room and glanced around at the others. These men and women would be a part of my team.