The Real World (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

“Okay.” Still shell-shocked after the experience of nearly being torn to piece on the Internet, the teenage program rose to his feet and took a seat on the bed, running his fingers over the spread, clicking the light on and off, and exploring the new world that had bubbled to life alongside him. “Holy fuvg,” he muttered tiredly, “is this an incandescent bulb?” It wasn’t that he was unfamiliar with the concept, really, just that this sort of primitive gear was not what he’d expected the incredibly powerful Gina to produce. He kept his skepticism to himself as Gina produced the televiewer and computer screen behind him; he was not about to do _anything_ to alienate himself from the powerful entity who was his only friend and protector.

[Electra]

Gina knew that the world she was creating for Sharl wasn’t like the one he knew, but decided that was probably for the best. She could’ve made a world more similar to the descriptions, some of them quite detailed, that she’d found while poking around in the Freedom League’s databases, but that wouldn’t have helped the kid cope with the fact that he wasn’t in Kansas anymore, or indeed, even on the plane of reality to which he’d become accustomed. Might as well make a Primelike atmosphere, give him a taste of what the organic machines were up to these days. She saved some time by grabbing furniture skins from a couple of Second Life websites and kludging up the coding to make them work in this environment, then hooking the inputs to her own cable and internet hookups. If nothing else, a thousand channels with no parental controls would be educational, or maybe take his mind off his troubles. She materialized a remote control next to his hand and made sure he knew how to use it. By now all the on-the-fly programming was giving her a bit of a headache, but at least it was a challenge!

[Avenger Assembled]

He thanked her again, flipping on the screen and watching as the 2-dimensional image sprang to life before him. Flipping through a few channels showed him a world very different than his own, one of vast open spaces combined with strange technology and people, though of course he’d need a much longer time to figure out what was really going on. A thought occurred to him, and he asked, “Can I see you?” ignoring the hotel commercial playing as he looked up at the invisible voice all around him. Maybe Gina would say no, if she was some kind of weird alien, but he was still curious enough to ask.

[Electra]

“I haven’t got a compatible skin,†she told him. “Which is to say, I don’t have a program that’s compatible with this environment. I could work something up... ah, crap. One second.†The voice faded out entirely for a minute, then came back. “Sharl, I have to leave for a little bit, I have something important to do. This partition is self-securing and self perpetuating, so you don’t have anything to worry about, you’re perfectly safe. Go ahead and rest or use the TV or the computer. I promise I’ll get right onto the food issue when I get back.†Just like that, she was gone, with a quick flicker of the lightbulb and then silence except for the noise of the television.

[Avenger Assembled]

“I’m sorry...” he said aloud, wondering if the question had chased her away. _I won’t ask that again!_ he thought a little desperately. He got up and paced nervously, listening to the ringing of his footsteps in his ears. _See, everything is still the way it’s supposed to be,_ he thought. _Nothing’s different...but, of course, it wouldn’t be, would it?_ For all that he was fascinated by the paranormal and other bizarre phenomena, Sharl wasn’t a deep thinker: he pushed aside the lingering fear of the network and quiet worries about Gina’s words, and concentrated on his simulated environment. And it was simulated; he had to believe that from how easily Gina had manipulated it. How else would she have so much space to use? Focusing on the television, he began flipping through channels.

The world Gina was presenting to him was a strange one, that was for sure, a reflection of his own that was also very different. He was surprised to see almost nothing but humanoids on screen, and a relatively narrow range of skin colors and appearances at that. The strangest thing was probably the Sun in the sky: their sun was tiny, several times smaller than Bantam, but from the science channel he found it kept the planet much much warmer. _Look at all that land,_ he marveled. _And it’s so green!_ There was an incredible diversity of plant and animal life, absorbing his attention with fascination as he watched a dozen different nature shows.

On closer inspection, though, this wasn’t such a utopia. The technology here was low, much lower than he’d ever heard of a civilized planet having, and people suffered for it. He fell into a world of war documentaries and crime dramas, wincing at every death his own world could have prevented, all those who suffered where they didn’t need to. _How do they live like this?_ It wasn’t until he found the local Freedom City news, who knew how many hours later, that he saw one answer. His first superhero was Dark Star, a heroic champion of glowing power rescuing people trapped underneath a collapsed bridge in a distant city, and soon there were hundreds more, so many that he was still watching when Gina got back online.

[Electra]

He was startled by movement in the room, and looked up to find he’d been joined by a matronly middle-aged woman with ashy blond hair in a bun, wearing a blue coverall. She was carrying a pad that was obviously a computer terminal of some sort. “Hello, Sharl,†she told him, and the voice was Gina’s. The voice didn’t quite fit the face, but that might just be some artifact of the broadcast system. “Sorry for the delay, there was a matter down by the First National Bank that couldn’t wait. I hope you weren’t too bored. I’m going to see what I can get you to eat now, and maybe make some more refinements later. You’re lucky I’ve done some extensive research into the electrochemical properties of flavanoids.â€

[Avenger Assembled]

“Gina!” He took a few steps toward her, but didn’t quite touch. “I never thought I’d see someone real again,” he said apologetically, remembering how she’d pulled away when he asked for more information before. “Food would be...good.” He hadn’t really thought about eating. “Come to think of it, I’m not hungry,” he admitted. “And I should be. But I’d still like to eat,” he said, “It feels like a long time since I ate anything.” She reminded him of his mother, a memory which made his heart twist at the thought of what she must be going through. “What’s a flavanoid?”

[Electra]

“Oh, plant compounds with specific biochemical properties,†she said offhandedly, “the most important of which being that they are uniquely suited to transposition to electronic signaling, and from there I was able to gather a wide range of data regarding the chemical signals that create the taste of certain foods. What it means for you is that I have data available on how to make computerized food taste like it should. As for you not being hungry yet, it looks like the system clock function on your biomechanical simulator is ticking, so you didn’t break anything there. You’ve got an adrenal subprocess running that’s interfering with it. When you start relaxing, you’ll probably start feeling hungry. So I’ll try and work fast. Tell me about your home,†she suggested, her fingers flying across the pad as she worked.

[Avenger Assembled]

“Uh, okay...” He thought for a minute, trying to put things into words that he’d never had to explain to anyone before. “Like I said, I live with my parents on the eighth level of the 30th District. That’s the name of the building,” he added, “I saw that you call neighborhoods districts instead of buildings. It’s a nice place to live: it’s not nearly as crowded as the warrens down below, and we’re close to the rest of my family. There’s a good view when the weather’s right, and the anti-gravs in the upper floors aren’t nearly as loud as some people think. My father makes computers: he doesn’t program, he runs the quantum sculpting machines that actually build the processors, and my mother’s a doctor, she works mostly with old people. My sister is a sculptor. Uh, I had a pet slime colony till I was 12, but it eventually got a fungal infection and died. My favorite thing to do is VR, I guess, when I’m not monster-hunting.” He wondered if this was all a particularly sophisticated version of VR, in fact, but didn’t mention that. “What’s your home like?”

[Electra]

“Mmm, two-story colonial revival, twenty-four hundred square feet exclusive of semi-furnished basement, four bedroom, two and a half bath, refurbed kitchen, attached garage, and a screened-in porch over the backyard,†Gina told him. She was simply parroting the details of the house as they’d been given her by the real-estate agent, her photographic memory allowing her to devote most of her prodigious concentration to building something for the kid to eat. “It’s blue,†she added as an afterthought, the only point of description besides square footage that likely meant a thing to him.

[Avenger Assembled]

“Amazing!” Short or not, her description had certainly caught the young program man’s attention. “It must be wonderful to have a whole world to live in, and so much space. I didn’t see real, natural land until I was 12 and my parents took me to the mountains for my birthday. Do you really have that much space to yourself?” he asked her. “Is that why you can afford all this advanced equipment?”

[Electra]

“I spent a lot more on the equipment than the house, though I laid out 250k for a house that size in Hanover,†Gina told him. “Got a deal though, would’ve been 300 a few years earlier, so hey. All right,†she said suddenly, looking up. A table appeared in the middle of the room, then a chair, then a plate and cup. The cup filled with a fizzy brown liquid, and moments later a strange object appeared on the plate. It had a soft and pillowy top and bottom, with a juicy-looking center that seemed reminiscent of fried protein beans, and had red and green discs and leaves on top of it. Next to it, a pile of pale yellow crinkled sticks appeared. It all smelled very appealing. “We’ll try you on a hamburger with french fries and Coke to start with,†she told him, gesturing to the food. “If you don’t like it or it doesn’t work, I can go back to the drawing board.â€

[Avenger Assembled]

Cautiously, he took a few bites, the salty taste of the crinkled sticks immediately turning him to drink. “It’s good,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “It tastes a lot like fried carb sticks. I guess some things are universal. We use more salt when we eat, but this is still good.” He picked the pillowy top off of the hamburger and started to chewing on it. “And this is good too. Interesting texture,” he commented. “Is this a Big Mac? I saw a commercial for one on television.” Commericals, too, were something that ran between both worlds. _Or one world. Wherever she’s from._

[Electra]

“It’s a hamburger,†Gina told him, looking amused. “You pick up the whole thing at once and eat it, biting into all the layers at once. The bread on the outside is to keep your hands cleaner.†A second hamburger appeared in her hands and she demonstrated the technique, then vanished the rest of the burger. “I figured that if you like fried food and fizzy drinks, this was a good place to start. Not exactly a balanced diet, but as far as I can tell, it doesn’t matter what you eat anyway, as long as it’s coded to trip the no_hunger switch. Guess you must not have a lot of fat people in Tronik.â€

[Avenger Assembled]

“That’s handy! You could fit a whole meal in your hand that way, even eating from unprocessed food like this.” He took a few bites of the hamburger the right way, making approving noises at the taste. “Well, uh, not everyone eats the way I do,” he admitted. “I mean, my parents like food that’s been cooked more, or in different ways. I eat junk food when I can.” He thought for a minute about her question, then said, “Well, we’ve got people who have more body fat than others, but I guess I never really thought about people that way.” He thought more about the world he’d seen through that TV screen. “Do people get fat because they take food away from other people?”

[Electra]

“No, not really,†Gina told him. “The systems of wealth and resources distribution on Earth is very complicated, but it’s almost never a matter of literally taking food away from someone else. People may refer to that in hyperbolistic terms, but it’s much more complicated than that. In Tronik, everyone is in the same geographical boat, so there’s the same access to food and materials, and only social differences distinguish between the haves and the have-nots. Earth is many, many times the size of Tronik, and full of geographical and climate diversity. Some countries have abundant natural resources, some have few. Some have governments that have developed effective resources management, some have not."

Obviously well into lecture mode, Gina ignored the fact that Sharl was ignoring her in favor of the meal. "Some countries, like the United States, where your drive is physically sourced at the moment, have far more food than they need, though much of it is designed more for taste and low cost than for any health benefit. In fact, in this country, people with less access to resources are more likely to be fat because they cannot afford food that is good for them. In other countries, poor people are more likely to starve because there is no food available at all. People are working on all aspects of that problem, hoping to balance the food equation across the board, but it’s a long and difficult process.†One corner of her mouth quirked in a wry grin. “I assure you, no one is going hungry because of your imaginary hamburger, so eat up.â€

[Avenger Assembled]

She’d lost Sharl some time earlier, but he was already eating by then and she didn’t seem to notice. “It’s good to know for sure we’re not alone,” he commented as he ate. “Even as strange as this place is, it’s obviously based in reality somewhere. I know people who think that there’s nothing at all besides Tronik, that the Cataclysm destroyed all life but us, or that we transported ourselves to an empty part of the galaxy. And that there are people here as friendly as we’d be to strangers.” When he was done eating, for lack of a better idea he stacked the glass on top of the tray as if he was waiting for a recycler. “Thank you for the food, Gina. That was really nice.”

[Electra]

“You’re welcome.†Gina looked at the plates and they disappeared without so much as a movement of air to mark their passage. She debated telling him that the Cataclysm did indeed destroy all life on his planet, including Tronik, as far as Daedelus’ research had been able to confirm. That seemed unnecessary right now, though, when he had enough to try and absorb. “You’re definitely not alone. There have even been several information-gathering and repair trips into Tronik by disguised teams over the past two decades. Earth Prime alone holds more than six billion humans and many forms of animal life.â€

[Avenger Assembled]

“I knew it!” He snapped his fingers. “I knew aliens had been visiting us! All the stories about government conspiracies and mysterious contacts, it had to be real.” He asked her about several apparently famous cases that Gina knew nothing of, and he subsided a little. “Can I see it?” he asked her. “For real, I mean, not just in 2-D,” he said with a gesture to the TV screen. Thinking belatedly of his parents and family, he added, “I mean, uh, till you figure out how to get me back home. I’d love to see a blue whale before then, or a giraffe. Or a superhero,” he added.

[Electra]

“I’m not sure, but it might be possible,†Gina said after a moment’s thought. “It would take a lot of work, getting the emulator slaved to a holoemitter without sacrificing the coherency of the data. You’re a massive file,†she explained to him, “and I’ve barely scratched the surface of what every component part does. I’d hate to start projecting you and realize I forgot to bring your arms along, or your head.†She couldn’t help but smile at the look on his face at that. “Oh, don’t worry, I’ll mount a scratch monkey when I test it out, I won’t risk your head doing it. It won’t be very soon. In the meantime, though, you have a lot of tools for learning at your disposal.â€

[Avenger Assembled]

"I guess I do," said the young man uncertainly, getting up and walking around the rooms. "How do you do that?" he asked her. "That trick with the plates, I mean. I thought you were just doing holo-programming outside before, but you just made that stuff appear and disappear. And it's got to be real, because a simulator couldn't make food I could actually eat." Unspoken was what she'd told him about the true nature of his reality, something he still didn't want to believe...evidence or not. _Is she telling the truth?_ "Are you just sitting at a desk with an avatar somewhere?"

[Electra]

"I'm a cyberkinetic," she told him, "some people call me a technopath, but it's the same thing. I can leave my body behind and let my consciousness enter into computers and other electronic objects, then manipulate them to suit myself. It's like programming in a way, but I do it intuitively with my mind as much as through any formal programming language. You're in my computer mainframe right now, so I can do pretty much anything I want. I don't really want to give you a demonstration, because I think you're probably in the mood for a little stability right now, unless I miss my guess. How are you feeling?" she asked.

[Avenger Assembled]

Sharl quieted in a hurry at the thought of further demonstrations of what this place was really like. "I feel okay," he said with a teenager's neutrality. "Not as scared as I was, anyway," he added. Gina wasn't as scary as where he'd just been, even if he was worried about the consequences of making her angry. "When I go back, will I be able to come this way again?" he asked her. "Maybe...maybe some way different than I left?" He'd asked her a lot of questions, but she obviously knew much more about this situation than he did. "Getting here was awful, but this world you're showing me is fascinating. I'd like to learn everything I can."

[Electra]

"I don't know," she admitted. That was never an easy thing for Gina to say, and she was having to say it more often than she preferred today. Still, it was better than telling him things that weren't true. "There's an interdiction on Tronik, it's not a place that people even visit without great care. When the Centurion, Earth's greatest superhero, came across Tronik, he decided that the kindest thing to do would be to simply allow the city to continue to exist without revealing its nature to the inhabitants. I'm sure you can understand why," she told him with a nod. "A lot of coming and going from Prime could risk the stability of the system, or create the possibility for people to learn that their lives have unfolded inside a computer, rather than on the planet they thought they were on. It's going to take investigation."

[Avenger Assembled]

"It has happened," said Sharl, his eyes widening as he went with the crazy story because it made the most sense...for now. "Or at least, something like it has. Those crazy cultists I told you about, their leaders say that all our reality is a lie, that we're just playthings of greater cosmic forces beyond us, and that all our morality and values are lies because of that." He gave her a suspicious look at that, and added, "If what you say is true, then there have to be ways of seeing through the simulation. Clipping errors, coding problems...or going into the network and coming back, not having any idea what it was. And if it's only getting worse, then that's going to happen more and more. And those cultists are dangerous. People have died."