SHIAM Conspiracy- Book 1 (24 page)

“The energy surges are probably interfering
with the video and audio feeds.” Zak continued preparing the four
workstations. “Virtual space seems to be intact though. I’ve
already checked.”

“But I’m not sure that the safety protocols
are operational,” the tech argued. “There’s no response from the
system’s safety timers. If the exit protocols fail, the system
won’t automatically shut down.”

“That doesn’t sound safe!” Harry’s voice was
thin with worry.

“It’s perfectly safe,” Zak said. “Trust me,
it’s what I do. If it comes to it, I can hack the system from
inside. We’ll be fine.”

Aakil gave him a doubtful look but said
nothing. After Zak was satisfied that everything was set and
everyone had been seated comfortably with headsets on, he ran a
last check on the computer.

“Okay, we’re good to go,” Zak said from his
seat. “Aakil, you just sit back and relax. Most of the local
controls seem to be working for these stations. Monitor our vital
signs if you need something to do.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay, here we go.”

“
O
h my!” Harry’s words echoed within the
large chamber they found themselves standing in.

The warehouse’s virtual setting was an
elaborate contrast from the small dingy security office they had
just left. A domed ceiling of stained glass crowned the room three
stories above them, sending kaleidoscopic shafts of light shooting
down from a sun that had been hidden from them in the real world.
The cathedral-like setting was in fact a grand library. The high
reaching walls were of rich dark oak, as were the tall archways and
ornate railings of the upper lofts. Row upon row of tall oak
bookshelves stood among red marble pillars throughout the expansive
lower chamber and upper lofts. The strangest part of the virtual
setting was not the elaborate architecture or the fact that the
virtual building was so vast. Virtual scenes were often luxurious
since the cost for the indulgence consisted of nothing more than
the cost of programming. The truly overwhelming part of it all was
the hard covered books lining the shelves. None of the group had
ever seen so many printed books before.

“I would guess this is the data storage
area,” Zak said, enjoying the unfamiliar scent of polished wood
interlaced with a musky damp smell of old paper. He wondered if
this was how the ancient libraries had really smelled. There had
been few books printed on paper over the last hundred years and
what few libraries still contained them were now under restricted
access in order to protect the aging volumes. Modern libraries
stored only digital books and, even though some offered a virtual
interface, few were anywhere near this extravagant. In fact, the
majority of modern libraries didn’t bother offering any kind of
virtual interface at all. Digital files were simply selected from
an online directory and downloaded.

“Why in the demon’s hell would anyone want
this archaic look for their data area?”

“Come now, Mashkkha,” Zak said with a grin.
“Have you no appreciation for antiquity?”

“Shouldn’t we have come in through the
security portal?” Mashkkha asked, ignoring Zak’s comment.

“Guess virtual security is down, as well as
the firewall. This place was most likely used by administration,
probably front office rather than the shipping office.”

“Well, the real offices have been stripped
clean, nothing fancy about them now,” Mashkkha said. “Even the
computers are gone.”

“It seems that virtuality has been affected
by what is going on,” Megan interrupted. “There is a hint of red in
the air. It’s not as intense as in the shipping office.”

There was, indeed, a reddish hue to their
surroundings. The effect reminded Zak of the dirty brown haze of
pollution that hovered over all modern cities. But in this case it
was a rouge-like coloration that hung in the air like suspended
particles and it had no odor that Zak could detect.

“Wherever we are, I feel no presence here
like I felt in the office,” Harry said.

Zak began looking around with more purpose.
“I’d better check the network again before we go too far into the
system and make sure the virtual settings are stable.”

He attempted to make verbal contact with the
computer system. Again, there was no response to voice commands. He
searched for a keyboard terminal, which he was able to locate
easily enough. He found it only a short distance away, at the head
librarian’s desk. These terminals were made to be discrete, nothing
more than ghost-like apparitions within the virtual world they
populated until they were accessed. By law, all virtual systems
were required to have both voice and keyboard access from within
virtuality. Zak’s fingers quickly danced over the keys in an
attempt to access the settings for the network as the rest of the
group watched him expectantly. Each attempt met with failure, and
with each failure he became more frustrated. After several attempts
he gave up.

“I can’t access any of the network controls
from in here,” he said finally.

“You said this would be safe!” Harry’s voice
rose in near panic. “You said you could hack the system and get us
out of here if you had to.”

“Stop worrying!” Zak growled back at him. “I
said I could get us out if I needed to and I will.”

Mashkkha looked troubled. “So, there’s no way
to tell if the Rules of Engagement are on?”

“No,” Zak said reluctantly.

“You did not check before?” Megan said in
disbelief.

“Rules of Engagement?” Harry said. “What are
they?”

“You’ve never heard of the Rules of
Engagement?” Mashkkha asked in disbelief. “Man, what planet are you
from!”

“I study the paranormal,” Harry said
defensively. “I don’t go in for all this high tech rigmarole.”

“The Rules of Engagement are a set of safety
protocols required for all virtual worlds,” Zak explained, making
one more attempt at the terminal. “So no one can be seriously
injured or killed due to something they experience while in
virtuality. The rules were created primarily as safeguards for
virtual gaming.”

“What! You’re telling me we could die in
here?” Harry’s concern contorted his face as he looked over at Zak.
“But that doesn’t make any sense. All this...it isn’t real!”

“No, it’s not,” Zak said impatiently. He gave
up at the keyboard and turned toward Harry. “Without going into all
the technical
rigmarole
, it’s because of the way virtual
programs interact with our brains. On a logical level, we know that
all this isn’t real. But the programming convinces the rest of our
brain that it is as real as the outside world. All our
senses...sight, sound, touch, smell. They all confirm that what we
are experiencing is real.”

“But I still know that it’s only an
illusion.”

“Only a small part of your brain knows it’s
an illusion. But the program code is busy convincing the rest of
your brain to suspend that knowledge and to accept the program data
as reality. To those parts of your brain, the virtual world is no
different than the real world. That’s what allows us to experience
virtuality through our senses.”

“Humans can thank the Elves for this virtual
technology,” Megan said. “The original design for the neural net
interface did not work. It was only when Elves developed the
technology to reproduce the Transcendental Transference Frequency
associated with
mind
activities that Humans were able to
make their big leap forward with virtual programming!”

“I don’t think so...” Zak began.

“Well, I think so!” Megan snapped. “An Elf by
the name of Sylvanian was the first to identify the Transcendental
Transference Frequency in 5064. It took Dr. Sylvanian three years
after his discovery to develop the technology to duplicate the
transmission capabilities. Of course, Humans claimed the discovery
as their own and renamed it with their fancy-dancy catch phrase
Sub-quantum Modulation Frequency.”

“Oh, no...” Zak tried to object.

“Oh, yes! Check your facts.”

“I’ve never heard of either before,” Mashkkha
said, cutting them both off. “What is transcendental...whatever you
said?”

“Nothing more than Elf lore,” Zak said before
Megan could respond. “Virtual technology uses the Sub-quantum
Modulation Frequency to send data to the brain. Doctor Karl
Adderson,
a Human
, discovered the phenomena in 5063,
although he didn’t publish his findings until 5064. He also
developed the virtual neural net which used the transmission
frequency for the first time in 5074.”

“You are an ass!” Megan said to him. She
began briskly leafing through a book that she had found on the desk
in front of her.

Zak was pleased with her annoyance and it
encouraged him to go on. “It was Dr. Adderson’s advancements in
neural technology that allowed the virtual world to become
available to us. He discovered a sub-quantum carrier wave that
sends data to the brain, which he named the Sub-quantum Modulation
Frequency. His experiments proved that these transmissions
contained essential data that supplemented the grosser data our
brains receive, which basically defines the way we perceive our
world. It is like the glue that holds our reality together. Once he
learned how to control the Sub-quantum Modulation Frequency and
manipulate the data it contained, virtuality was born. Virtual
programs send data over the Sub-quantum Modulation Frequency
disguised as the normal supplementary sensory input the brain
normally receives from its environment. Since the brain isn’t
capable of questioning the validity of the data it receives on that
level, it simply accepts it and creates reality within those
parameters. That’s why we can sit on a virtual chair, smell a
virtual rose and enjoy a virtual meal.

“Unfortunately, that means the mind accepts
negative input as reality as well, like being stabbed with a knife
or being shot, for instance. While the physical body doesn’t
actually suffer a wound inflicted by a virtual knife or a bullet,
your virtual body does. And the brain believes the wound is real,
causing the same trauma to the physical body as a real world wound
would cause. If the shock is severe enough the body can die from
its belief in the virtual wound. In some extreme cases, the mind
becomes so convinced that the violence is real that it even causes
the physical body to take on the wound itself, as well as the
symptoms of the injuries.”

“And this safety protocol you’re talking
about prevents this?” Harry asked, still wearing a look of
panic.

“Early virtuality games caused a number of
injuries and deaths,” Zak explained, watching Megan flip through
the book as she sulked. Her quietly seething mannerism told him
that she was busting at the seams to interrupt him, but she forced
herself to remain silent. Her anger took nothing away from her
attractiveness. As he continued his explanation, a part of him
wondered why he seemed to enjoy antagonizing her. “There was a lot
of talk about banning virtuality and particularly virtual gaming.
But that wasn’t a realistic answer to the problem. Virtual reality
had become too popular and too wide spread. In 5093 the United
World Federation held the First World Conference on Virtual Safety.
It was a two-week think-tank with all the biggest and best brains
in the high tech communities around the world getting together to
draw up guidelines that would make virtual worlds safer.

“It was during that conference that the Rules
of Engagement were first proposed. It took a while after that to
actually develop the protocols. Since then it became international
law that any virtual environment must include a prescribed set of
safety protocols, which includes the Rules of Engagement. They
essentially act as a buffer between our senses and virtual
environments. They send subliminal messages to the deeper parts of
the brain, letting it know that the experience isn’t real, even
though the cognizant part of the brain is instructed to act as
though everything within the virtual setting is real. The code and
the science behind it are pretty complicated.”

“And you’re saying that you don’t know if
these safety features are working now?”

“Nope, I don’t.” Zak shrugged. “I can’t
verify that they are in place.”

“Technically your explanation is incorrect,”
Megan said, apparently unable to keep silent any longer. “The
Transcendental Transference Frequency, or whatever you Humans
prefer to call it, is actually a bi-directional broadcast network
that goes well beyond simple transmissions to the brain. It is the
communication system between the brain, the mind and Te Ente...the
One Mind. It is within the mind that reality is created from
external sensory data, not the brain. Creating a virtual reality is
quite similar to sorcery in that...”

As Megan was speaking, she looked up from the
book on the desk. A bewildered expression replaced her annoyance
and she obviously lost her train of thought.

“Do you see that?” she asked. “Something is
happening.”

Zak was preparing his rebuttal to her Elvish
biases when he noticed the same disturbance. Before he could react
to what he saw, it intensified. The reddish tint in the air grew
darker, now radiating in waves like heat off of asphalt. His
surroundings went opaque, as his senses were suddenly denied any
stimulus. It was as though he had been swept into a kind of limbo
where total nothingness prevailed over all else. It was not
black...it was not white...it was not anything that he could
describe. He had no way of telling how long he lingered in this
state of non-being. It could have been days; or perhaps only for
the blink of an eye.

“Good light of day!”

Harry’s gasp of dismay was the first sensory
input Zak became aware of.

The suddenness of it was startling. Then his
surroundings began filtering into his consciousness. They were no
longer in the virtual library. A dense forest of giant moss covered
trees now surrounded them. Streaks of sunlight permeated down
through the thick canopy, rendering the forest in stark contrasts
of light and shadow. The forest floor was carpeted in colorful
leaves and broken branches, dispersed among clusters of lush green
undergrowth. The entire setting was still filtered through the same
reddish tinge that had been in the library.