Entering the Weave
Freeing the Mind

“Why don’t we fly?” Josh asked suddenly. “This walkingmalarkey’s no good. It’s too slow.”

Once they had reached the road, it had become apparentthat the chain-linked fence that surrounded the factory was further away thanit seemed.

“I forgot aboutthat. This is just so real. Do you think we should? I mean we might be seen. Weare trying to be stealthy.”

“Well, we can fly low. No one will see us.”

“I suppose so.” Toby stopped and backed up a littlebefore running a few steps and throwing himself forward with his arms flung outin front of him.

It was fortunate that there was a lot of snow where hedecided to try to defy gravity, because his defiance only lasted for as far ashe could jump. He skidded headlong off the road in a jumble of flailing armsand legs. Josh couldn’t stifle a laugh as his friend came to a dead halt withhis head and torso buried beneath the snow and his legs waving feebly in theair.

“What happened? Have you forgotten how to do it?” Joshhelped his friend to stand back up.

“Yes.” Toby said crossly. “Yes that’s right. I’veforgotten. Why don’t you try? I’m sure you’ll remember how to do it.”

Josh paused and realised his friend was beingsarcastic. “We can’t fly here?”

“Nope. I think the programming is too strong. Myhacking has no control here, or as my online buddies would say, my Kung Foo isno good.”

“Are we safe? Can we still get out?”

“I don’t know. It’s different from a programmingperspective. The clapping controls the VR glasses, it just shuts them off, butthe flying code tries to control the environment we’re in. I think we’ll stillbe able to exit.”

“We should test it.” Josh was thinking about thewicked claws of the virus checker.

“We can’t. If we leave, we’ll never get back here.Geigerzalion brought us, remember?”

Josh nodded uncertainly, but Toby continuedinsistently. “Well, if we can’t get out by clapping now, it doesn’t make anydifference, because nothing is happening. If we can get out then our adventureends. I think we should go on, but keep a look out and at the first sign ofreal danger, we’ll leave.”

“If we can.” Josh said gloomily.

“I think it’ll work.”

“You thought you could fly!”

“Yeah, well that’s different. As I said.” Tobyshrugged. ”Come on. I’m getting cold.”

“Hang on a second. What’s this?” Josh was looking atthe snow where Toby had skidded to his rather undignified end. There wassomething dark sticking up out of the crumpled whiteness.

He brushed somesnow away and found to his horror that it was a glove filled with a rigid, icyhand. The hand was attached in the usual fashion to an arm and this wasattached to an entire body, frozen beneath the snow.

“Oh God!” Josh sat back and felt the cold snow soakthrough the seat of his trousers.

“Don’t worry Josh. Remember this isn’t real. Thisisn’t a real person.”

“Then why’s he here?”

“I don’t know.” Toby was examining the body. “Lookhe’s wearing a uniform.”

Josh’s curiosity was vying with his fear. “What doesit say on his back?”

The body was lying face down and Toby had onlyuncovered one shoulder and the head, but as he brushed more snow away threeyellow letters were revealed on the dead man’s back.

“What have the F.B.I. got to do with this?”

“Maybe they were investigating this place as well.They’ve got the biggest Computer Investigation Unit in the world.” Toby startedto dig more frantically. “Maybe he’s got some information about this place.”

Josh started to help, but no matter how much he toldhimself that this wasn’t a real dead body, every time his hand brushed againstit he would involuntarily flinch away from the contact. Toby didn’t seembothered by it at all and before long he had uncovered the whole body and wasstruggling to push it over onto its back.

Josh reeled back when he saw the man’s blue, iceencrusted face and staring eyes. Toby quickly opened the jacket and pulled outa battered black notebook which he riffled through. Josh, who was glad for anexcuse not to look at the body, peered over his shoulder but couldn’t make heador tail of what was on the pages.

“It’s all hexadecimal numbers.” Toby said. “It lookslike a memory dump.”

“In English, please.”

“A memory dump is a list of the numbers that are in acomputer’s memory.”

“And hexadecimal numbers.”

“Numbers represented in base sixteen rather than ten.”Josh’s face was a study in non-comprehension. “And that’s as clear as I’m goingto make it.” Toby added defiantly, daring Josh to ask further questions.

“Why’s that number got an ‘E’ in it?” Josh reachedover prodded the notebook.

“Get off. Look this bit’s been highlighted.”

“What does it mean?”

“Well, maybe it’s a two dimensional byte map of theterrain.” Toby muttered to himself. “These numbers represent the road, so thesewould be the perimeter fence I suppose.” As he traced his finger on thenotebook’s page Josh could see more digits appearing and disappearing next tothe original ones. There didn’t seem to be any pattern in the grid of numbers,but Toby was closely inspecting one corner of the page.

“What is it?” Josh asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s nothing, but… Yes. Thiscould be very useful. Come on.”

They walked on and the fence rose higher and higherbefore them as they got closer, until eventually they stood at its base and itloomed above them like a endless cliff.

“I wish we could fly.” Josh mused.

“This will be an interesting test.” Toby was rummagingaround in a small backpack that Josh hadn’t noticed before. He pulled out ahuge set of wire cutters with a magician’s flourish, as they were obviously fartoo big to fit in the bag.

He carefully placed them against a link in the fenceand pushed on the oversized handles, trying to close the blades. In the realworld the cutters would have had no problem slicing through the thin wire. Joshcould see the effort Toby was exerting; he was breathing heavily, but when hegave up there wasn’t even a mark on the fence.

“I take it, your ‘Kung Foo’ is no good here either.”

“I don’t understand it.” Toby panted. “This shouldwork.”

“Do you think clapping will work now?”

“I’m not sure actually. I tried to wobble my glassesbefore, but they don’t seem to be there.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know. Maybe our minds are so confused by thesensory input that they won’t accept the fact that our bodies are sitting in mybedroom.”

“Are you sure we really are in your bedroom, Toby?This all seems so real.”

“True.” Toby looked uncertain.

“Oh, come on. This is stupid. Let’s get out, Tobe.Geigerzalion will understand. He can’t even get this close to the factory.”

Toby’s face lit up, as if he’d suddenly had a greatidea. “That’s right! There may be too much security surrounding this place. Ifwe get far enough away from it I think clapping might work.”

“Really. After everything that’s happened you canstill believe that?” Josh asked doubtfully.

“Yeah. Look it makes sense. Geigerzalion can’t getnear here because there’s something powerful stopping him. That same thing iswhat’s stopping my hacking from working.”

“You’re not just saying that?”

“Nope.”

“I hope you’re right, Toby.” Josh felt uneasy ratherthan scared now. Nothing seemed to be immediately threatening and he rememberedthe desperation in Geigerzalion’s face and thought how he would feel if someonehe hinged all his hopes on, just gave up.

They trudged through the snow around the outside ofthe fence looking for a sign indicating what this place was, but there wasnothing to break the chain-linked monotony of the perimeter. Josh was beginningto think that they would be able to go back and replace Geigerzalion with a clearconscience. As soon as the thought entered his head, he felt ashamed.

Toby had stopped and was poring over the notebook,tracing his fingers over the pages again and occasionally squinting inapparently random directions.

“I think we need to go over there.” Toby indicated asmall hillock about fifty metres away from the fence.

“Why?”

“I think that’s where the backdoor is. Programmersoften build one into their systems. Just so they can get in and out withouthaving to go through their own security while they’re writing the code. Andmost programmers leave them open after the system is in operation so they canget into the system in an emergency.”

Josh nodded, surprised by Toby’s succinct answer, andthey crunched off towards the hillock. The snow was deeper and as they gotcloser they found themselves wading through waist high wet snow. Josh’s legsand feet felt like articulated blocks of ice.

Eventually they reached the base of the knoll and Tobyre-examined the notebook once more.

“I’m sure it’s supposed to be here.”

“Maybe they’ve closed it. Everything else seemssecure.”

“Hmmm.” Toby was lost in thought again. Josh knewthere was no point in trying to distract him from his calculations, so heclambered a little way up the hillock trying to get a better view of thesurrounding wintry landscape. It was hard work and he had not gone far when thesnow suddenly gave way beneath him and he fell into a shallow depression in theside of the mound of snow. The wind had been knocked out of him and it took hima few seconds to recover.

“…and according to my calculations there should be ahole right about… here. Ah, Josh. You’ve found it.”

Josh’s fall had created a small avalanche which hadrevealed an old fashioned wooden door that wouldn’t have looked out of place asthe entrance to a secret garden.

“Is it locked?” Toby asked as Josh hauled himself ontohis numb feet.

There was a brass handle on the door that Josh triedto turn, but he pulled his hand away quickly as if he had been burned. “It’sfreezing.” Even though he had pulled his fingers away as soon as he had touchedthe handle the extreme cold made his hands feel raw.

Toby produced a pair of huge, scaly gloves from hismagic backpack and pulled them on.

“I hope these work. They’re my best dragon hidegauntlets from Shiver. They cost me a thousand galactic credits.”

“They’re from a different… virtual reality world?”

“Oh Josh you sound like such a noob when you say stufflike that. You may as well call them Vrealms, seeing as though we’re in one.But yes, they are from a different Vrealm. None other than Rose Cormackprogrammed these. If her programs don’t work here then nobody’s will.”

Toby reached for the handle tentatively and Josh heldhis breath, absently rubbing his still aching fingers. Toby’s hand wrappedaround the handle and he grinned as he heaved the heavy door open.

“Ha!” Toby exclaimed. “At least we have some powerhere. We can touch cold things.” He reverently placed the gloves back into hisbackpack.

Behind the door there were steps leading intodarkness. Josh looked questioningly at Toby who shrugged and cautiously theybegan to descend. As they picked their way down the stairs it got darker anddarker until they could barely see each other. Water dripped rhythmically inthe darkness and Josh hoped that the ragged breathing he could hear was Toby’sor his own.

They continued blindly, trailing a hand along the wallof the tunnel and stretching the other ahead to ward off anything they might beabout to bump into.

The end of the steps took them by surprise and Josh,who was leading, felt his knees buckle as the floor levelled out. He stumbledagain within a few feet when they came to some steps leading back up. It waseasier going up the steps. Josh clambered up them on all fours like he hadclimbed stairs as a child.

Then, painfully, Josh banged his head against theceiling. The stairs had ended abruptly. They groped around in the dark butcould replace nowhere to go except back they way they had come.

“Perhaps we missed a side tunnel.” Josh whispered, notwanting anything unseen to hear him.

“I don’t think so. Can you push upwards? There must bea trapdoor or something. It might just be stuck.”

Josh squeezed as far up the steps as he could andpushed up with his back against the ceiling. He strained for a moment and feltsomething give. He collapsed back panting.

“It’s too heavy, but it is moving.”

Toby clambered up beside Josh and after a count ofthree they both strained against the trapdoor. Inch by slow inch, the door roseuntil suddenly there was no resistance and they burst out of the hole. Therewas a loud crash as a barrel that had been resting on the trapdoor toppled overand began leaking its dirty contents into the pristine snow.

Toby and Josh crouched low expecting alarm bells andsearchlights to erupt from the stillness of the night, but silence settled backover the complex and they started to breathe again.

Heartened by their success they climbed out and crepttowards the nearest building, which squatted darkly ahead of them. The buildingwas low and wide and made of rusting iron. Huge rivets held it together at thecorners. Josh had never seen anything that looked so solid and secure. Therewas no sign of an entrance anywhere. It might well have been a block of solidmetal.

“We’ll never get in there.”

“Perhaps it’s just a generator or something. There areplenty of others to look at.”

Most of the buildings were the same as the first andthese were interspersed by tall chimneys that reached up dizzyingly high intothe black sky, but soon they found one that looked like an office building. Ithad glass panels covering it and, more importantly, a door.

They were expecting it to be locked, so they were morethan a little surprised when it slid open invitingly as they approached.

“This must be a trap.” Josh whispered.

“We can just peek inside. The whole place seems to bedeserted anyway. Perhaps there’s nothing here at all.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Josh had begun to feel a bit safer nowthat nothing had happened for so long.

They crept through the open doorway which closedsmoothly after they passed. Reassuringly though, it reopened when they steppedback towards it. They had entered a reception area furnished with black leatherand steel couches, low tables covered with magazines and a high desk whichcurved out from one wall. Two corridors stretched away into the distance andJosh realised that they were much too long to fit inside the building.

Toby picked up a magazine and showed it to Josh.“Look! It’s a corporate brochure. Tech-Tonic own this place. It makes sense Isuppose, they are one of the biggest computer companies in the world.”

“It doesn’t make sense, Toby.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Tech-Tonic are trying to help Geigerzalion Ithink. That’s what he told me, and yet he thinks this is the place that’shurting him.”

Toby shrugged. “Yeah. Well maybe he’s wrong. Let’stake a look down one of these corridors. We’re bound to replace something.”

They made their way slowly along the seemingly endlesscorridor until they came to a junction. Another corridor stretched out beforethem, again impossibly disappearing into the distance. This one, however, hadcountless doors on both walls.

“Let’s look into the first one Josh. It can’t hurt.”

“You keep saying that, but sooner or later I’m sure itwill.”

“Come on. There’s no one here.”

Josh rolled his eyes, but he did want to see a littlebit more, so he said nothing.

The door was shiny metal with a narrow window ateyelevel and a keypad positioned in the centre. They peered through the slitand saw a bright cell containing a central glass column connected to the wallswith hundreds of cables and tubes. Within the column, floating in a cloudy,luminous liquid and surrounded by more tubes was a child.

Help me.Please help me.

The child’s voice echoed in Josh’s head.

“Did you hear that?”

Toby nodded. “We’ve got to help.”

“How?”

Let me out. Please.

“How can we open this door?”

You must have the code. Do you have it? There was a note of desperation in the question that was so pure thatJosh couldn’t answer. Toby was rooting around in his backpack again and thistime he pulled out the notebook they had found in the F.B.I. agent’s pocket.

“We may have.” Josh said.

Hurry, I can feel the guardians stirring.

Toby had found the page where the highlighted numberswere, and he ran his finger along the lines and lines that followed. There wasa serial number on the door above the keypad and Toby kept looking from thenumber and back to the notebook.

“It’s almost too simple.” He mused. “This numbercorresponds exactly with the numbers in the book.”

A sudden metallic shriek made them jump. It seemed toecho from all around them.

They are coming.

The grating scream was getting louder and louder. Joshcould not work out if whatever was making it was between them and the entranceor if it came from further down the corridor.

Toby had pressed some numbers on the keypad and thedoor, accompanied by a sudden outpouring of steam, slid upwards into theceiling.

“Get in!” Josh shouted. A metal claw had appeared atthe cross section of the corridors and more sharp metal was following it. Thetwo boys dived though the open door, which immediately slid shut behind them.They heard the grinding, shrieking thing pass the door without stopping.

“What was that?” Josh gasped.

“It looked like the virus checker. Only worse.”

They are the guardians. They protect this installationand keep us prisoners.

“Who are you?”

The boy in the glass column could not have been anyolder than nine or ten. His arms and legs were painfully thin and Josh couldsee blue veins through his translucent skin.

I am ZX82.

Toby was inspecting the surrounding panels of thedoor. The whole room was made up of complicated looking equipment, but therewas nothing that resembled the keypad lock that they had used to get in.

“Can we open this door from inside?” Josh asked.

No.

“So we’re trapped?”

I can open it. But you must release me from thiscocoon. If you free me I can help you.

The voice was pleading now, and Josh could see the boytrying to clutch his hands together in the column, but the numerous tubes andwires made the movement impossible.

“Can you live without all this equipment?”

I…I think so.

“How can we get you out?”

Detailed instructions for how he should disconnect thecables and tubes, and how to drain and open the cocoon flashed through Josh’smind like a film playing at high speed. For a moment, he staggered from thesudden influx of information, sure that his mind could not accept this muchinformation, but when it stopped he remembered everything that he had to do.

He moved to the first console and his hands raced overthe strange buttons and switches as if he had done it a thousand times. Tobyhad given up looking for a way to open the door and came to watch what Josh wasdoing.

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Yes. He told me.”

“In the same way that Geigerzalion communicates withyou?”

“No. He just put the information I needed into mymind.”

“You’re letting him out? I thought you were openingthe door.”

“No. We’ve got to help him.”

Josh’s hands had not stopped moving while he spoke andjust as Toby finished speaking he pressed the final button.

All the lights went out in the room, which meant thatthe only illumination was a thin sliver of light from the corridor. Pressurisedsnapping noises punctuated the darkness as the cables and tubes fell away fromthe central column that contained the boy. There was a bubbling, gurgling soundas the cloudy liquid started to drain away and clouds of gas or steam billowedaround the floor. A rusty scraping signalled the opening of the column and asit twisted the last remains of the liquid splashed out onto the floor, followedby the crumpled body of ZX82. He looked even frailer without the liquidsurrounding him.

He lay there as still as death.

Then a claxon started to wail and the lights blazedback on. In the distance the unmistakable shriek of the guardian rang out likean savage hunting horn.

“What have you done, Josh?” Toby breathed.

They were both too frightened to move. They just stoodthere with the sirens howling and the grinding and shrieking getting closer andlouder. Then the door slid open.

Josh suddenly knew what he had to do. He must shut thedoor and keep the guardian out of the room. Images flashed once more throughhis mind and he raced across to a different console and let his hands race overthe controls. The door slid shut again, but it was too late. A mighty claw hadstopped the door from closing all the way. With the high pitched screech ofmetal scraping against metal the claw rotated and started to open, which forcedthe door upwards. Another claw joined the first, and another and slowly,inexorably the door was folded away as easily as a tin opener opens a tin ofbeans.

Toby’s legs had folded beneath him and he was nowsitting with his back against the wall, staring hopelessly at the metal monsterbreaking through the door and frantically clapping his hands together.

“Please, work. I want to go home. Please.”

Josh pressed a few more buttons, but he knew theywouldn’t do anything and a few seconds later the guardian had come completelyinto the room.

It stood perhaps eight feet tall on four powerful legslike a dog. Metal, segmented tentacles writhed out from around its head allending with sharp snapping claws or lethal blades of varying sizes. Morepowerful, solid arms jutted forward from its sides. But its head was the mostterrible thing, because unlike the shining cybernetics that made up the bodythe head was human and Josh had never seen an expression of such malicioushatred.

“Intruder alert in sector ZX!” The monster’s mouthwrithed.

It looked from Josh to Toby assessing the dangers ofeach of them and an evil grin spread across its face. It advanced towards Josh,each leg pounding the metal floor as it moved closer.

Then a bright light erupted from the centre of theroom and the tiny, emaciated form of ZX82 was standing between Josh and themonster. He held his hands outstretched in front of him and a shimmering nimbussurrounded them. The aura elongated into a blade and with a strength Joshcouldn’t believe came from the small, wasted body, he plunged it into themonster’s chest.

The monster’s mouth opened inhumanly wide, and a howlof frustration and pain emerged from within. The guardian’s front legscollapsed beneath it and it fell forward in a shower of sparks and arcingelectricity.

“We must go.Quickly. Many more will come. I am too weak to do that again.” ZX82 whisperedhoarsely.

“Where to.”

“There is a way out.”

Josh’s mind was filled again with a kaleidoscope ofimages. They were mainly of drains and sewers and long corridors, but instantlyJosh knew the way out of the complex.

“Come on Toby.”

Toby was just sitting there clapping feebly. Josh ranacross to his friend and tried to pull him up to his feet, but he was tooheavy. “Come on, Toby. We haven’t got time for this.” Toby looked up at him andJosh could see tears in his friend’s eyes. “I can’t move, Josh. I’m tooscared.”

Another howling shriek came from the corridor, quicklyfollowed by another.

“Look, ZX82 can get us out of here. He’s shown me theway, but we must go now! More of those things are coming. They’ll catch us ifwe stay here.”

Toby hauled himself to his feet and looked aboutwild-eyed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Josh turned and made for the wrecked doorway. Hethought he would replace ZX82 outside, but he was nowhere to be seen. Toby crashedinto his back.

“Oh, great. Where is he?” Toby had regained somecomposure, but he seemed dangerously close to panicking again.

“He’s gone. But it doesn’t matter. I know where to go.Come on.” He dashed down the corridor further into the building, hoping heunderstood the information ZX82 had downloaded into his mind. They ran as fastas they could until Toby started to wheeze and fall behind.

“Where are we going?” He panted.

“Just a little further. We need to replace the controlroom for this sector.” Just as he said this the corridor opened up into a largeroom, with dials and screens lining each wall. There were thousands of them,but Josh immediately selected one particular control panel and pressed a fewbuttons.

There were four corridors leading out of this roomstretching into the distance. Josh thought now he could see movement down allof them. Metallic things a long way away were coming nearer and nearer.

“Josh, they’re everywhere. And they’re coming.”

“It’s alright. We’re going to get out a differentway.”

The grinding and shrieking was getting louder andlouder, accompanied by stamping metal legs coming from every direction.

Josh opened a panel next to a double set of slidingdoors. Behind the panel was a large red handle, which he pumped vigorously. Thesliding doors jerked open revealing an empty elevator shaft. He sank down tohis hands and knees and pushed his legs backwards over the edge of the shaft.

“Come on.”

Toby didn’t need telling twice.

There was an access ladder on the inside of the shaftand they scrambled down as quickly as they could. They slipped occasionally,but their fear gave them strength.

The shaft was getting darker as they got deeper andfurther away from the light of the control room. Then suddenly it got darkerstill, and looking up Josh could see that something huge was blocking theentrance to the lift. He could see the glint of numerous claws extendingrapidly down the shaft after them.

“Come on. Faster.”

They tried to speed up, but that meant they startedlosing their grip more often until eventually Josh lost both feet from a rungand was left dangling by one hand. Still the claws extended towards them.

A dazzling whiteness suddenly blossomed from the topof the lift shaft and everything started to disintegrate as if it was beingsucked up by a gigantic vacuum cleaner. Pieces of the walls broke off and flewup and away out of sight. The disintegration of the world continued and theremains whorled around in a vortex of chaos. The rungs of the ladder trembledand it became harder and harder to hold on until Josh’s fingers were rattledfree and he fell backwards into the seemingly infinite lift shaft. Toby held onfor only a few seconds more and with a terrified scream he followed Josh.

Let yourselffall. You will come to no harm.

They fell away from the light until eventually itbecame nothing more than a pinpoint in the velvet blackness; a single star inthe dead of night.

And then they were surrounded by water.

They didn’t fall into it or break any surface; onesecond they were falling in air, the next they were submerged in water. Theirepic fall was slowing as the viscous liquid cushioned them, and somehow theycould breathe. The light above them was growing again and shimmering as thoughit was just at the surface of the water.

As they began to rise they tried to struggle backdown, but the water forced them up until, exhausted, they gave up and floatedto the surface. Their heads emerged into what looked like a torch lit swimmingpool. There was no sign of the destructive white light that had chased themhere.

They swam to the side and hauled themselves out ontothe cold granite slabs and lay there panting.

“Where are we now?” Josh said eventually.

“Vienopolis.” The voice was deep and hollow.

They both scrambled around to see who had spoken.Three cowled figures stood on the opposite side of the pool, the one in themiddle was two or three feet taller than the others.

“Whatare you doing here? This place is forbidden to everyone except the Doge and hisservants. Explain yourselves immediately.”