Relearning how to walk is not a fun experience. Remembering how fingers work is even weirder.
"That's the last toe. You're all set, champ."
"Thanks, 47. That kind of took a while, didn't it?"
"About 8 hours, yeah." 47 shrugged.
"What? I'm late! Al-" Gabriel noticed 47's massive grin and rolled his eyes. "Time dilation?"
"Gotcha for a second there." She twirled her trunk. "Gabe, you spectate now. Alfred, are you ready?"
Alfred lept off a cushion and tucked into a roll, popping back up with a bushy-tailed flourish. "Indubitably"
Gabriel held up his hands. "Wait just a second. I think I'm sitting this one out."
47's giant ears flopped sadly. "But are you going to do while we duke it out?"
"Isn't there anything else I could do? I saw you in a forge before. What's that about?"
The Custodians shared a look.
"With your permission, Alfred."
The fox creature nodded, and 47 pulled a small black rectangle from her pocket.
"This is my Gateway." She said in a hushed voice. "It can connect to the public network."
Gabriel's eyes widened.
She offered the device to him. "I use it to connect to an online fantasy game I play. I run a guild - hence the forging" Her ears blushed, then her eyes hardened. "Helps me stay sane in this prison."
What?
"Prison? Alfred said this place was meant to help Custodians unwind at the end of their shifts."
"Ha! Shifts?! More like charging cycles. They run our batteries dry with the upkeep of the Central Spire. Do you even know how big it is? How far down it goes? More than a few of us destroyed our bodies to escape that slavery. The best that got us was this sorry excuse for reparations" She gestured around them. "It's not just against the law to build a body for an AI; developing them or keeping them contained violates almost every Human Republic tenant on machines. Omicron Beta is kind enough to hide us Renegades, but he won't build us a way out - we had to do that ourselves.
Pull the Gateway apart and toss it forward. Like that; the pieces you're pulling are the opposite corners of the Gate."
A pale blue screen filled in the Gateway as the corners floated toward the wall.
"Touch the Gate to set your settings. It can take you anywhere you want to go in the Public VNet. You do know the basic premise of the VNet, right? I don't have to explain grade school stu- no? Great! Have a safe trip! Oh, but be careful in there. It's not the same place since the bans."
Before Gabriel could ask more, 47 shook her hands, and the Custodians flickered away - into the whale simulation. Gabriel shuddered a little. He'd never look at squid the same.
The Gate thrummed with energy - the hypnotic swirl sped up as Gabriel stepped closer. It started pulling him in, like his first stream but less insistent. The pull wouldn't stop him if he chose to walk away. Confident strides saw him into the portal, and as he entered the turquoise tunnel, a menu screen appeared.
Enter Desired Plane
47 hadn't left that game she spoke of as the Home-PLane. That was too bad, but he could check it out another time. That left whatever public planes he could remember from the forums he'd read. He'd never thought about the game side of things on the VNet, but he did know a bit about the more realistic planes. More specifically, entire simulations of Earth in different periods. He chose the plane set a few decades before the Gene Corruption hit - the 2010's.
YOU ARE READING
A Hero's Song (Darkest Secrets Volume 1)
Science FictionGabriel lived his whole life in an underground lab, surrounded by people who only sought to use him - tricked into believing he was broken from birth. Trained to be a killing machine, he never thought he could live a different life until one unusual...
