Chapter 7

“An AI!” Oliver exclaimed. “Are you conscious?”

“Oh, how cute!” Mara exclaimed. “Do you have emotions?”

“Yes, and yes,” Microchip said. “I was designed with a similar psychology to yuman beings, but with a reduced capacity for boredom, anger, and sadness, and with boosted capacity for cheerfulness and good will. The negative emotions are there, of course, so that I can empathize with yumans, but they do not surface very often.”

“That is so amazing,” Mara said. Her face was alight with joyfulness. Oliver’s was similar.

“Uh, hi Microchip,” Conner said. “We’re looking for information on an elemental medallion called Chakrov. Can you help us find it?”

“Sure,” Microchip said. “Do you know of any associated key words or phrases that could help in the search, or what categories it might fall under?”

“Um, it’s one of the seven elemental medallions,” Conner said.

“It’s a talia,” Oliver added. “Or at least the plural is talia, I don’t know if the singular is different. And it is related to the Raquon.”

“Raquon,” Microchip mused. “That makes things easier, but it also makes them harder. The Raquon section of the virtual matrix is a rather confusing place. It is almost as if the mysteriousness of the Raquon has bled into their database. But let’s go and see what we can find. Oh, you probably don’t want to walk.” It made some beeping noises, and a hexagonal platform appeared, fifteen feet across, with railings. “Step onto here,” Microchip said, as the part of the railing between the walkway and the platform folded open like a gate.

“Could that railing have done that the whole time?” Conner asked as they stepped onto the platform.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Microchip said, “the railings are completely sturdy unless there is a safe place to stand on the other side.”

Once they were all on, the platform disconnected from the walkway, and the railing reformed where the break had been. They moved downward diagonally, to where the great wall had an opening like a doorway that went downward forever, and traveled into it. The platform landed on a rail and started moving along it, cruising at an even speed. Conner, Oliver, and Mara held onto the railing as they moved through tunnels, over voids, and around the blocky three-dimensional landscape.

“Now this is fun!” Conner said, holding his hands above his head and feeling and reacting to the motion of the ground beneath his feet. It gave him a thrill like what he felt on Oliver’s four-wheeler as they rode up the side of Mt. Gogh.

“Conner!” Mara said. “Please hold on with at least one hand.”

“Naw,” Conner said. “That would ruin the whole thing.”

Microchip floated in front of them. “We are approaching a gulf,” it said. “Please hold on to the railings with both hands.”

“But that’s not as fun,” Conner said.

“If you do not grab the railing,” the floating bot said, “I will stop this platform.”

“Oh, all right.” Conner placed his hands on the metal and curled his fingers around it.

“What is this gulf?” Oliver asked.

“You will see momentarily,” Microchip replied.

Ahead of them, the white blocky walls came to an end, and the rail turned to run along the outside. As they emerged into the open space, they saw what looked like a blocky island off in the distance, floating in a white void. A single rail ran to it. The platform they were riding rose at a diagonal angle toward that railing.

“We are about to leave the main hub on our way to the Raquon sector,” Microchip said. “Please ready yourself for rapid acceleration.”

“Rapid . . .” Conner said, puzzled.

“He means hold on tight and brace yourself,” Oliver said.

“Ah.” Conner gripped the railing tightly and set his feet.

The platform approached the intersection. “All right,” Microchip said, “here we---” there was a clunk as they changed rails toward the distant island--- “go!” Suddenly the platform shot off, accelerating to breakneck speeds. Conner’s body was pulled backward, and he took a few steps so that his feet were behind him. It was as if the platform had tilted, and he were standing on a slope, holding onto the railing on top. Next to him, Mara and Oliver had done the same.

“Now this is exciting!” Conner said, shouting over the air that rushed over them. In the distance, the island slowly grew, its blocky shape making it look almost like a city. After a short time, the acceleration eased, and they cruised along at a constant velocity, albeit a high one.

“How is everybody?” Microchip said, floating easily alongside them despite their high speed.

“I am fantastic,” Conner said.

“Me too,” Oliver agreed.

“How about you, Mara,” Microchip said.

“I’m good,” Mara said. She seemed relaxed, almost bored.

“You’re not excited?” Oliver asked incredulously.

“I guess so,” Mara said.

“You guess so,” Oliver repeated flatly. “I ask if you’re excited, and you say you guess so.”

“It’s just,” Mara said, “this place doesn’t have the vibrancy of the real world. It’s just so fake.”

“Fake?” Microchip said, wobbling in a way that somehow looked indignant. “This is where I live!”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to put you down,” Mara said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Microchip said, flapping one of its fins. “I just get that a lot.”

The island was now close enough that it filled most of the field of view in front of them. Up ahead, Conner could see where the rail branched into several, going in different directions through the blocks the island was made of. As they approached, Conner realized they must have been slowing down for some time, though at such a low rate that he hadn’t noticed.

In contrast with the central hub, this island seemed to have a fair amount of solid ground, rather than crevasses that led down into the infinite void below. The coloring was different too, with more grays and some blues mixed in with the white. All in all, this sector felt a little bit more like a place they might find on an exotic planet, rather than the city-sized spaceships aesthetic of the hub.

“We are now entering the Raquon sector,” Microchip said cheerily.

“Remind me what the Raquon are?” Conner said.

“An ancient advanced civilization,” Oliver replied. “Remnants of their works are found all over the galaxy. They seem to have been capable of feats of engineering on the planetary scale. They left behind some writing here and there, all poetry and myth, but no one has ever found a hint of the technology they used. The script I showed you back on Moebius about the medallions was Raquon.”

“Did they make the medallions?” Conner asked.

“I thought so at first,” Oliver said, “but after we spoke to the Dooku Flower, I realize that’s not true. Nobody made the medallions. They and all of the other talia have existed into the eternal past, traveling back in time to previous galaxies on the chain, becoming their past selves and living their existence over and over again. But the Raquon knew about them, which suggests that the Raquon were time-travelers.”

“But if the Raquon were time travelers,” Mara asked, “wouldn’t we still see them around?”

Oliver looked at her, his mouth opening several times as if he were about to speak and then stopped himself. His eyes lit up. “You’re right! Maybe once we’ve dealt with the Disease, we should go looking for them.”

“Well leave me out of it,” Conner said. “I’ll need to get back to tennis before they knock me out of the rankings.”

“And I will want to head back to my family and friends,” Mara said.

“Oh come on, you’re no fun,” Oliver said.

The platform entered an octagonal station, with eight rails coming in from each side and meeting at the middle. They slowed, and then stopped at the intersection. Above them, a large screen flickered into an image of Electrobolt. “Hello there,” he said. “I am glad you made it this far without any trouble, How are you all doing?”

“Just great,” Oliver replied. “It’s a lot of fun in here.”

“Good to hear. All right,” he looked down, “the key words you are looking for are ‘Chakrov,’ ‘elemental medallions,’ and ‘talia,’ right?”

“That’s right,” Oliver said.

A clicking sound came from the screen as Electrobolt typed, his hands out of view. Then a ten-digit display below the screen started cycling through a bunch of numbers. “All right, let’s see where the matrix takes you.”

The numbers slowed, and then stopped on one which started with a seven, and the rest of which Conner didn’t bother to read. One of the platform rails lighted up with a hum.

“All right,” Electrobolt said. “I’ll check in with you every so often.” He reached forward as if to press a button off-screen, and the monitor went dark.

“Let’s get going!” Microchip said cheerily. The platform started moving along the glowing rail, which took them out of the room and around several giant blocks before coming to rest by a road, or walkway, or something, Conner was not sure what to call it. It was ten feet wide, and ran along the side of a blocky building like a road along the cliff side of a mountain.

Several dark lines ran along the wall, and one of them was lit up like the rail they had just ridden. “Let me guess,” Oliver said, pointing to it. “We follow this.”

“That’s right,” Microchip said. “If we’re lucky, it will lead us straight to the information we are looking for.”

They followed the light trail along the path and into the building, around a couple of turns and down a flight of stairs. Some of the rooms they passed had bookshelves. Others had technical equipment of various kinds. Microchip explained that some of the information was not easily accessible, and required fiddling around with devices to understand. One room they passed had a holographic representation of the galaxy floating in the air, and another, just a sheer drop into an empty dark abyss.

When the glowing line led them into a doorway, there was a spiral staircase on the other side, winding around a ten foot diameter pole. The line led downward, so downward they went, around in a circle, step after step.

After a while, Conner looked ahead and noticed that the glowing line on the wall stopped. “Uh, guys,” he said, pointing.

Microchip hovered over to the spot. “Well,” it said, “at least it breaks off in a place where there is only one way to go. I’ll check ahead.” He hovered farther down around the bend of the stairway, out of sight.

Mara and Oliver looked at each other. “Should we wait?” Mara said.

“I don’t see why we would,” Oliver replied, “seeing as there’s only one way to go.”

They got around ten steps down before Microchip reappeared. “Good news,” it said, “the signal reappears not too far down. We’re on the right track.”

They kept descending, and sure enough, the light signal reappeared on the wall after a little while. They kept following it, until it disappeared again. However, since there were still no exits to the staircase, they kept going. As expected the light signal reappeared once more.

But when the signal disappeared a third time, Microchip called a halt. “This doesn’t seem right,” it said. “I have a hunch that something bad is happening, and I’m going to check it out. Stay here.” It flew ahead, down the staircase and out of sight once more.

“What do you think the problem is?” Mara asked.

“Beats me,” Oliver replied. “I have no idea what kind of problems could happen in cyberspace.”

“Do you think we got on the wrong staircase?” Conner said.

“I was afraid of this.” Microchip’s voice startled them, and they turned around to see it floating down from above them. “We’re caught in an infinite loop.”

“What does that mean?” Conner asked.

“It’s like when a computer program keeps trying the same thing over and over again,” Oliver said, “but nothing changes, so it never stops. Right now, this staircase goes on forever, because every time we take a certain number of steps, we end up right back at the beginning.”

“That’s right,” Microchip said.

“So if we’re in an infinite loop,” Mara said, “how do we get out?”

“Let me see if I can break it,” Microchip said. It pulled its fins tightly against itself, giving a strong impression of concentration. The wall glowed and gave off an electric buzz, before a green-rimmed portal stretched open in it. The other side was the size and shape of a train car, with another green portal on its far side leading into another train car that was tilted so they could not see to its end. “All right, I’ve found us a linked list. Hopefully we can find a node that is close to where we’re trying to go.”

It floated through the portal, and Conner and his friends followed. Mirochip paused, hovering in the air, and then said, “Nope, lets try the next one.” They followed it into the next car, where it paused again.

“What exactly are you doing?” Oliver asked.

“Trying to figure out how close we are to our goal,” Microchip said. “The nodes of this linked list aren’t next to each other, rather they are spread out all over the Raquon sector. Every time we enter a new node, I’m interfacing with the sector coordinates, transforming the hash code with our position to see how close we are to our address route.”

“What does that mean?” Conner asked.”

“Every time we walk through one of these portals to a different room, we’re teleporting,” Oliver replied. “So he looks at the map to see where we are.”

“No, that’s not . . .” Microchip tilted and sank about a foot, before wobbling and rising back up to where he had been. “Oh all right, I guess that’s close enough.” It turned and faced them. “Anyway, this node is not anywhere near the medallion’s information. Let’s keep going.”

They walked from boxcar to boxcar. Sometimes the ones ahead were aligned so that they could see several cars forward. Other times, they were at angles to one another. After about thirty-eight cars---or it might have been forty-three, Conner lost count---Microchip called them to a halt. “This node is by far the closest to our path. Hrrg!” It tensed up again, and another portal appeared, this time in the side of the car. The room on the other side was dominated by a computer monitor, with a console beneath it. Many lines passed through along the walls and floor, one of which was lit up, showing that they had found their way back on course.

Microchip was the first one through, followed by Oliver, and then Mara. When Conner stepped through, a beam of static color crossed his vision, and for a moment, he could not move. A jolt of panic made the moment seem like it lasted a long time, but then he was standing on solid ground.

Or rather, he was standing ten feet above solid ground, his companions below him. Around him was blackness, except for the halls and rooms to the sides of the one below him. “Uh, guys?” he called.

“Conner?” Oliver said, looking around. “Where are you?”

“I’m up here,” Conner said.

Oliver looked up, this way and that. “Where?”

“I am literally straight above you,” Conner said.

Oliver looked almost directly at him. “All I see is the ceiling.”

“Ceiling? What ceiling?”

“Oh,” Microchip said. “I think I know what happened. Conner, can you see into the room, but otherwise you’re surrounded by blackness?

“Yes,” Conner said.

Microchip clamped its fins to its body. “You’ve clipped out of bounds. We must have triggered a glitch somehow. Watch your step. Don’t go anywhere that doesn’t have a room or hallway below it, or you’ll fall into eternity, and we’ll have to pull you out of the virtual matrix.”

“What are you talking about?” Conner asked.

“I think,” Oliver said, “he means you are standing on top of the ceiling right now. You can see through the ceilings and walls into the facility, but we can’t see out.”

“That’s right, Microchip said.”

“How do I get back in?” Conner asked.

“You’ll have to find a place where a wall or ceiling is only one-way,” Microchip said. “Hopefully that won’t be too difficult. These facilities were generated to keep people in, not out, so there are bound to be holes here and there where you can slip in.”

Conner looked around at the three hallways that connected to the room, and the places they led. Before he could take a step, though, the screen in the room below flickered to life, showing Electrobolt’s face.

“There you are,” he said. “I lost track of you for about twenty minutes. What happened to you?”

Microchip told him about the infinite staircase and the linked train cars, and noted Conner ending up on the roof.

Electrobolt’s face took on a worried look. “This seems fishy.”

Microchip moved in a way that looked kind of like a shrug, if a floating silver football with fins could shrug. “It’s the Raquon sector. Strange things happen with unusually high frequency.”

“Still,” Electrobolt said, “I think it might be possible that the virtual matrix is being hacked. I am going to run some scans, and if I find anything, you should all disengage as soon as possible.”

“Hacked?” Conner said.

“Mithra,” Mara said quietly. “Maybe they’ve come after us.”

“Are our bodies safe?” Conner asked.

“One hundred percent,” Electrobolt said. “We keep tight security at HiTeq headquarters, and the interface room on the top floor has the tightest of all. Do not worry. I will set up an investigation, and keep you informed. In the meantime, be careful.” He signed off.

“What should we do?” Mara asked.

“Figure out how to get me back inside,” Conner said.

“Actually,” Microchip said, “Having you up there might give us an edge. You can see ahead, so if we run into any more trouble, you might be able to help out.”

Conner thought about it, and said, “I guess that makes sense, for now.”

“Just don’t accidentally step off into nothingness,” Microchip reminded him.

“Right, I won’t.”

They followed the glowing line, Oliver, Mara, and Microchip in the halls, and Conner on top of them. Although Conner had not been able to tell which direction along the line was forward and which was backward, Microchip seemed to know. As they went, Conner found he could see into the tops of the rooms nearby. A couple of times when the glowing line disappeared, he could see where it started back up after a few turns or up a staircase.

In one instance, however, the line disappeared, and Conner could not see where it appeared again. Microchip told them to wait, while it went and scouted out the possible directions. Conner watched it go, until it passed into a hallway that was blocked by a room. It was very strange, the view from up here. He could see into rooms through their walls, ceilings, and floors that were closest to him, but he could not see out the other side. It was as if the entire network had been set up as a movie set that would be viewed from his position.

When he looked down, he saw Oliver and Mara sitting on the floor next to the walls across the hall from one another. Oliver was fidgeting with his hand, looking up at Mara, then down at his hand, then up at her again.

“Um, Mara,” Oliver said.

“Yes?”

Oliver was silent for a few seconds, his hands seeming not to know whether they wanted to fold or clasp or rest on the ground. Finally, he spoke. “You’re really smart. And, uh, fun to talk to. And I always thought that you were . . . I mean, from the moment I first saw you . . .”

“I’m still here,” Conner said loudly.

Oliver jumped hard, smacking his head against the wall. He reached up and rubbed the spot, making sure to look in a direction that was away from Mara. “Don’t scare me like that! Anyway, I wasn’t, I mean, I was reciting a play. Yeah, I was remembering a play I saw a while ago, and I guess I accidentally said some of the lines out loud.”

“Right,” Conner said. “Totally.”

A little while later, Microchip returned. “Good news,” it said, “I’ve found the way to go.”

They followed Microchip down the halls, and soon the glowing line appeared again. Conner traced it forward, until it went into a large, two-story-tall cylindrical room. With a start, he realized that there was only one entrance to the room. “I think I see the goal!” he shouted excitedly, and started to run toward it. Over the tops of the hallways he bounded, until the room was right in front of him.

Through the wall, he saw a modern art sculpture, a candle whose stick and flame were carved out of wood. It stood in the center of the room, tall enough to reach almost to the ceiling. In the middle of the flame, an oval was cut out. Where the second floor would have been, a catwalk ran around the rim of the room, with a ladder leading down to the floor.

Someone was in the room.

Conner saw their legs through the door in the hall below him. He leaned backward to try to get a better look, but they moved out of his field of vision. He craned his neck to try to see over the catwalk, and put his hand forward to steady himself on the wall. But the wall wasn’t there, and he fell into the room onto the catwalk with a loud clatter, his head and one of his arms hanging over the edge.

The person below looked up at Conner with eyes shining brightly in a face as black as night. He wore a dark red helmet, with a microphone attached to the jaw, like that guy from the mysterious ship. Before Conner could move, he said, “Get me out of here,” and the next moment, he vanished.

That wasn’t a Mithrassi agent, Conner thought.

Below him, his friends entered the room, looking at the statue in the middle. Conner waved. “Hi guys.”

They looked up. “Hi Conner,” Oliver said. “Glad you made it back in-bounds.” Mara waved back.

Conner pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, looking back at the wall he had fallen through. His feet were still on the other side, making it look like they had been cut off. Out of reflex, he turned over and sat down, pulling his feet out of the wall. Curious, he gave it a kick, and found it to be quite solid from this side.

“It’s not the Mithrassi who are hacking the virtual matrix,” Conner said, as he slid down the ladder to join his friends on the ground. “It’s the Tarrans.”