仮想現実

Sweat poured down my back, chest beating like a warhorse marching on a lonely wooden trail. Left, right, left, over and over my fists sailed towards their targets–streaks of red barely visible in the simulation.

“One hundred points!” The game shouted out. Floating above me was a little imp-like thing, white with a bright yellow little nose. As the beat progressed it dropped small flimsy targets. Light glowed against each one: red, purple, green, every color under the rainbow. Didn’t matter to me. If it glowed, I punched the damn target

Each felt like paper falling through the sky–flimsy, yet with heavy backing. Even with all this they couldn’t match the feeling of real life.

“New high score! Would you like to try again?”

“Shut the system down.” My voice came out ragged. The targets may not have had that same feeling as real life, yet full dive VR was indistinguishable to the naked eye, and more than that. My ribs burned, lungs screaming. That familiar pain was unmistakable to any other day in the gym. If only my lazy body lying on my bed in real life would get the benefits, but a girl could only ask so much.

The wall stilted into falling dominoes, gray tiles that folded away into the void.

Beyond the cold sterilized walls lay a peculiar Victorian manor, its light beautiful balconies overlooked by vibrant gardens and trimmed hedges. The sky overhead stretched out, a perfect, endless light blue, with clouds sparsely populating space up above.

Outside the internet, such a building belongs in the realm of fantasy. Iero was a city of fifty million people! There wasn’t room for grand impractical gardens, houses larger than my lecture halls, or giant fields of grass.

Yet, digital simulations don’t care about such useless things as physical space.

I dragged myself towards one of the many corridors of flowers and vines. Elegant roses bowed as I walked by, perfectly round, almost a velvety smell coming from every petal. Here, I could almost wish away the stresses from outside–an impenetrable castle with walls of steel.

Almost. Not even the warm sunny sky could take Caspian away from my mind.

My week had been a string of busts and strikes, not a single home run remotely in play. The library was a filtered mess for one. Every book on the topic had the same generic talking points I’d heard since kindergarten–how the brave founders had come together and put aside their differences to rebuild in a world strife with conflict. Nothing but sunshine and rainbows.

No mention of Project Iero, Project Prometheus, project anything for that matter. Everything felt obscenely sanitized, any opinions scrubbed.

Yet, Iero wasn’t that kind of place. There wasn’t rampant censorship, government control, or any of those things found in a cyberpunk dystopian novel. One hint of corruption and the Prime Chancellor would get voted out in a heartbeat. Iero was created seven hundred years ago, even if there was some controversy around its founding no one alive would care.

“Becca,” I called out to my AI helper, the same little white imp that had been tossing me targets to hit. “How is Iero powered?”

“Iero’s powered by a variety of methods.” Its voice said, nasally with the slightest hint of a robotic undertone. “The main way Iero is powered is with nuclear reactors, followed by geothermal, solar, and wind electrical plants. Leftover energy is stored underground to save for emergencies.”

“Woah, revolutionary,” I said, shooing Becca away like a fly. “Look up the Prometheus project again…” I paused as an idea popped into my mind. “Restrict your search to internet forums. The sketchier the better.”

“There are seven hundred and forty-five results. Would you like to narrow down your results more?”

“Nah, let me take a look.” I snapped my finger, an ornate golden throne popping into existence from the air, hitting the grass-laden ground with a thud. Its velvet exterior felt softer than a cloud as I plopped down.

At first glance, I could feel myself sinking in disappointment. Forums were a gamble of quality, even the best of rolls requiring another to hit a jackpot. People with reliable information didn’t bother posting online where five people would see them.

The first five results were tangentially related at best, the next fifty a mix of crackpot conspiracies that no drug on earth could get out of me and random discussions about old-world media. What a waste of time from start to finish. Even arguing with the cops had somehow been more productive than this bullshit.

“Becca, delete anything mentioning movies from the list, or any creative media for that matter.”

“No problem!”

Three hundred and twelve results. I scanned through them, reading theory after theory less likely to be true than Caspian taking up street racing.

Yet one woman's trash is another’s treasure. My lips felt dry as I read the string of posts, equally unlikely as any other on the surface. Yet the more I read…

“LMFAO I was digging through some Iero gov bs and found some old ass shit about some Project Prometheus thing. More glitchy than an average fucking FA game though rofl."

“Another conspiracy? Haven’t we had enough of those?”

“Nah bitch, this shit’s legit.” Under it was a blurry screenshot, more pixelated than not. I held my breath as I clicked on it–a perfect physical replica of Caspian’s message. “Couldn’t get much else before those assholes kicked me out, but they have a shit ton of references to some energy ultimatum, whatever the fuck that means.”

There it was again, another comment about power. I frowned, tossing the screen aside and collapsing in my chair.

Too much to be a coincidence, too little to be anything concrete, now that was truly a great situation to be in. I wanted to believe Sky. There wasn’t any grand conspiracy, just my brother getting lost like the moron he was. Yet, the cards were not lining up.

Caspian, what the hell were you getting yourself into?