The Earth is My Prison Read online

  Standing atop a mountain of slain foes a knight in gore-stained armor stands at the ready. Unspeakable entities emerge from smoking pits in the earth to do battle with him. This is Rygar, the VO tells us, the Slayer of the Damned, and this is his Last Stand.

  The view then switches to a more mundane reality showing a montage of people in living rooms and basements. They're wearing tight black pyjamas covered in little white ping pong balls. They duck and weave like demented mimes, swinging an invisible sword in sync with their virtual selves. Out of shape, they pant with exertion. The VO explains these are Ember players who've made it to the final stage.

  Rygar's bravery and skill with a sword is for naught against the legions of Kandar. A Great Black Goat gores him with its horns, sending his guts spilling out like overcooked pasta. In his final moments he reaches his arms skyward as if beseeching some Heavenly Host. To no avail. His lifeless body tumbles down the flesh mountain to land in a puddle of ichor. His enemies take a moment to defile his corpse before leaving him to the Hell Maggots.

  In the real world the players have also fallen to the ground, as if in sympathy. Some twitch spasmodically before becoming still. One man has a seizure and bites off his own tongue. One by one they die. A monitor connected to their game system displays the message: “YOU'RE DEAD” in bloody letters.

  Xander Matthews walks through the Hellscape, immune to the chaos and death. He pays his last respects to the fallen warriors then taps his finger to his temple three times, causing the scenery to burn away. He is standing on a stage in the real world, in front of a crowd of adoring fans. He peels a small silver button from his temple and hands it to an aide, who places it in a box and runs offstage.

  “I got the idea when I was studying game history, well, playing Pac-man on my lunch break. [Crowd laughs] Games had never been as fun as in those early days in the arcades. I wanted to know how a game like Pac-man, with its rudimentary graphics, could be as fun as one of our multi-million-dollar VR experiences. Then it hit me, they were fucking hard. When you died you lost your quarters and had to go home. But what if the stakes were even higher?”

  [Cut to footage of players being placed into body bags. Crowd cheers.]

  “It took some very clever manoeuvring from our legal team but we were able to include a clause in our EUA that meant people were literally handing over the rights to their life to our company. Thus, PermaPermaDeath was born.”

  [Montage of headlines: "Matthews World's Richest CEO."]

  “I remember my PR team saying: “Matthews you're crazy, you can't kill your customers, that's bad for business. I just said

  “Well, God does it all the time.’” ‘’’

  [Footage of protests outside Castle E-Scape.]

  “Some people started complaining that our game was ravaging the younger population. But let's face it, most of them wanted to die, we just gave them a more fun way to do it.”

  ~

  A message flashed on the screen: “Mr. Matthews will see you now”.

  The door opened into a small stuffy hall. The hall led to another room, inside was a black armchair and a table with a small box on it. I opened it and there was a shiny silver button resting on a bed of cotton.

  I read the instructions for the VR Interface Button:

  Peel off protective backing and attach to temple

  Allow five seconds for synaptic synchronization

  To exit game, tap button twice in quick succession

  I peeled off the backing and placed the button to my temple where it clung to my skin. I felt a tingling -

  - and was somewhere else. An office much nicer and less run down than the one before. Standing before me, arms outstretched, was Xander Matthews, looking only slightly older than he had in the video. He was framed by a floor to ceiling window which showed the most remarkable view of rolling valleys, bathing him in a perfect halo of sunlight.

  He motioned to a chair and we both sat down.

  He smiled beatifically.

  “Hello, young man. And who do I have the honour of addressing?”

  “Tag. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Matthews.”

  “Doing the one name thing, nice. You look nervous, buddy, would it help if we changed things up?”

  He snapped his fingers and we swapped places. I was now where he was a moment ago. I felt nauseas even though I hadn't moved.

  “I hate hierarchies,” he said. “All that stuff stopped making sense a long time ago. We all have something to teach each other, don't you agree?”

  “Eh, I guess.”

  “Some things about the ritual I like. Like the nice duds.”

  I looked down and saw I was wearing a suit and not the embarrassing underwear I had come in with.

  “Is this real?” I asked.

  "As Larry Fishburne said, reality is just electrical signals interpreted by your brain.”

  I had read books about Virtual Reality, like Simulacrum-3 by Daniel F. Galouye but they were so horribly out of date that I didn't want to mention them.

  “Tell me about You,” he said with what sounded like genuine interest.

  I gave him the PG version of life in the Prison, leaving out parts that made me sound like a psychopath. He stared at me for a minute, not saying anything. Maybe he didn't believe me. The whole thing did sound made up, even to me.

  “You turned your back on everything, everything you knew, everything you were ever taught. You went into the unknown with no clue what to expect. Wow.”

  “I guess,” I said, feeling embarrassed.

  “I’m an instinct guy Tag and right now my instincts are telling me you’re gonna fit in great here.”

  He stood up and he shook my hand so hard I thought it would fall off.

  “You're not gonna make me regret this are you?” he asked.

  “No, Mr. Matthews.”

  I still didn't know what was happening.

  4.

  I looked down and the floor was gone, the trees in the valley tiny beneath my feet. I screamed. Then I fell and spun around and threw up. I watched my vomit make a little stain on the grass below.

  “By the War!” I shouted.

  I was now hanging in the air through no obvious means. Matthews, who was floating next to me, slapped me on the back.

  “Stay calm, Tag. Try to think of a cherished childhood memory.”

  “Will that help?”

  “No.”

  I had somehow managed to turn myself completely upside down.

  “Please help,” I implored.

  “Okay, bud, we just have to get you oriented. Take my hand.”

  I took his hand and flew alongside beside him, holding on for dear life. Soaring through the air, it wasn’t long before my fear gave way to Joy. I felt boundless and free. Matthews didn't seem to be jaded by the experience either.

  “This is my world, isn't it beautiful!?” he yelled.

  We glided above every conceivable terrain; lush greenland, molten rock, and island-dotted lakes before eventually arriving at an imposing walled city. The streets were abuzz with people and livestock and if they were alarmed by two hovering men in business casual then they didn't show it.

  In the middle of the city was a castle sitting on a hill. Nestled within its walls was a high keep, and Mathews brought us in to land on the summit.

  As fun as the flying was it felt good to be on solid ground. I peered over the battlements. Women were going to market, kids were playing, and chickens and pigs were walking around with no particular cares. The attention to detail was incredible, it was easy to forget none of it was real.

  “It's like the Middle Ages,” I said stupidly.

  “Yeah, but with a lot less shit. You see these shoes,” he said, pointing to a pair of fine Italian loafers, “there was no way I was going to get shit on these shoes. Come inside, I want you to meet some people.”

  He brought me inside the Keep to a grand banquet hall where his people were waiting. They were sitting around an oak round table and s
tood up respectfully when Matthews entered. Here he was known as “Matthias”. I wanted to hide behind him in my awkwardness. With a quick snap of his fingers he had transformed from his modern suit to a finely pressed tunic that gave him the look of a feudal Lord.

  “Tag, meet the Knights of the Round.”

  They were an eclectic bunch, who looked like they had jumped from the pages of my old fantasy novels. There was a Wizard, a Dwarf with glowing armor, even a Barbarian. Despite their wildly different costumes they all had the same red pentagram badge on their lapel. The names came thick and fast: “Rincewind”, “Firebeard”, “Slaine” and I knew I would forget them all in the excitement.

  One of the party remained cross-legged on her seat and gave me a jokey but warm salute. She was colorfully dressed, with a miniature top hat, a black petticoat and a worn looking red skirt. Her eyes were of differing colors, one green, one orange, both burning bright. She humbly introduced herself as Lady Code, Sorceress Supreme of Ember.

  I joined the group at table and Matthews left us to get acquainted. The table was inscribed with a red pentagram with seats at the five points. I took the only empty one.

  As part of the introductions everyone took turns giving a bit of backstory about themselves. Before coming to E-Scape they had all wandered the Wastes like me. I was not the only one with a strange past. Slaine, the muscular barbarian covered in animal pelts, was the first to go. He had a very soft voice. We leaned in to hear his tale:

  “I come from back East, where we had the Zombie Wars. There's a thing my people do to the boys. They take you on a trip, tell you you're gonna see New York. Then they drop you in Zed Central, with no weapons and no way home. You have to make it all the way back to base without dying. That's how you become a man. I made it but my brothers didn't.”

  He looked down at the table.

  It didn't seem appropriate to ask questions.

  The craziest was Rincewind the Mage(named for the Terry Pratchett character. He came from an area of the Midwest that had been taken over by Gelatinous Cubes. They grew bigger the more they consumed until some were as big as a house. He had seen one digest a whole family and their pet Chihuahua. As a result, he had developed a phobia of Jell-o.

  Eventually it got to be my turn. I kept the part about my Mother to myself but told them everything else. They all nodded gravely but the very fact that they didn't react like it was a huge deal made me feel better. I was glad I wasn’t the only one with a crazy story.

  Firebeard was the last to go. He had a fine red beard and just like his virtual persona he was a dwarf. He belonged to a group that lived in an abandoned nuclear fallout shelter. They enjoyed a decent standard of life until radiation started to leak into their water supply and drove everyone crazy.

  He mostly drank beer so the radiation didn’t affect him. He got bullied a lot over his size so had found places to hide which saved his life when things went bad. After my story he became very interested with the architecture of the Prison and asked lots of questions.

  “So the walls are reflective so nobody can see it until they're really close? Awesome.”

  “They must have been really isolated to think there was still a war on,” Rincewind commented.

  “There wasn't?” I asked.

  “No, that thing ended, what?” he looked around the table, “twenty years ago?”

  The rest agreed.

  "Who won?" I asked.

  "No one."

  I can't say I felt any real surprise. Still, it felt shit to be lied to.

  “Wish someone would have told us,” I said, laughing it off.

  The others felt my pain and gave me a few encouraging slaps on the back.

  Code didn’t reveal anything about herself, which just made her more fascinating.

  Things were getting heavy, so food and drink was called for and the conversation changed to something less heavy.

  Some of the townspeople were there serving us mead, roast meat and bread rolls. I didn’t know how virtual alcohol could make you drunk but I liked the feeling as it warmed my belly so I didn’t complain.

  I was not the only one to like Pre-War Media. We all had our favourites. Firebeard loved computer games, Slaine comics and Code's medium of choice was old movies. Rincewind was into books as well but his genre was fantasy. We got into a long conversation about the merits of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.

  I kept stealing little glances at Code. She was talking with Slaine and knocking back impressively large draughts of mead. Slaine was showing off his strength, picking up a bench in one hand with a laughing serving girl sitting on it. Of course, their conversation sounded more interesting than ours.

  I knew I would regret it if I didn’t speak to her and when Rincewind and Slaine went to the bar at the same time it gave me my chance. I sidled over to her, half expecting her to tell me to fuck off for being creepy. I wasn’t sure how to start the conversation but knowing that she liked movies I mentioned the only one I knew: Battleship with Liam Neeson.

  "It sounds terrible," she said, laughing.

  "Well, we had nothing to compare it to so we thought it was pretty cool," I replied.

  She laughed and got talking about the worst movie she had ever watched: Snowpiercer, a post-apocalyptic movie by a Korean director. I told her the plot sounded very similar to Inverted World. I could tell she was really listening and I relished the opportunity to bore her.

  I couldn’t believe my luck, being able to talk to her uninterrupted like this, I didn’t dare get up to empty my virtual bladder, in case I lost the moment.

  A few times I felt guilt for speaking to another woman so soon after Sophie, but I pushed it away. I was just working up the courage to ask her where she was from when the other Knights joined in and the moment was gone.

  ~

  The Knights were hard drinkers but taking it easy on me they called it an early night and Firebeard offered to show me to my room. I liked him. I couldn't relate to being a dwarf but I did know what it was like to be the wrong shape for life.

  “I was thinking my gaming name could be Deathbringer,” I confided in him.

  “Hmmm, don't think it really suits you, mate.”

  “Okay, I guess not,” I said, disappointed.

  We reached my room and he opened the door. It was pure luxury, with a king-sized four poster bed, a large armoire and thick carpet.

  “Fit for a king,” I said.

  “Or a Knight,” he replied.

  I was about to turn in when I noticed a large red box at the end of the corridor.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “That's the soda machine, man,” he said.

  After he left me, I went down the corridor to investigate. On my way I passed an open door, looking inside I saw a study where Matthews was working. It was as sparse as the scripture room of a medieval monk with only a few books on the wall. I glanced quickly at the titles; Awaken the Giant, Who Moved my Cheese?

  In front of Matthews was a strange window on which cascading lines of numbers cast a greenish glow.

  “Tag!”

  He closed the window with a wave of his hand and offered me a seat.

  “How do you like your room?” he asked.

  “Very nice,” I said.

  “Glad you like it. The design is based on something for a duke, or a lord or something. Thought it would suit you.”

  I grinned bashfully.

  “And the people?” he asked.

  “They’re nice too.”

  “They are. They’re my family. They’re survivors like you. I found them, brought them here, gave them a purpose, a quest. We all need a quest. Something to bring our lives meaning. What’s yours, brother?”

  I was afraid he’d laugh at me when I told him.

  “To find out where my Mother came from,” I said.

  “Do you have a place to start?” he asked.

  “I have a picture. She had black hair. She came from somewhere East.”

 
It sounded hopeless.

  “You sound like you’ve given up already,” he said.

  “Sorry, it’s just not much to go on.”

  He turned to face me, clasping his hands between his legs.

  “I had nothing when I was a kid, Tag, nothing. None of the other kids liked me. My own parents didn’t even like me. But I had my drawing and my writing and my ideas and eventually…I made all this.”

  He put his hand out and lightly touched my chest.

  “Everyone has a spark inside them, Tag, something that makes them great. Most people bury it, so no one can find it, not even themselves. But I can see yours, its burning and it’s very bright.”

  I looked down at myself, almost expecting to see something.

  Matthews smiled at me, his speech was hokey but despite myself I was getting inspired. I felt like I could go find my Mom right then if I wanted to.

  “East, huh?” he mused, “I used to fly all over before the War. We’ll find her.”

  That old traitor hope fluttered in my chest.

  “You’re a good man,” he said. “It’s getting late, you better get some sleep. We’ll talk more Tomorrow.”

  I took a Dr. Pepper from the vending machine and brought it back to my room, placing it on the bedside table. I stretched out on the vast covers.

  Screw reality, I thought.

  5.

  I woke up feeling refreshed with sunlight pouring through the window. I had had pleasant forgotten dreams and gave a silent prayer to Morpheus as I threw myself out of bed.

  Walking down the corridor, I was surprised to see Matthews still in his study.

  “How long was I out for,” I asked, yawning.

  “About 5 minutes, I took the liberty of speeding up your sleep cycle. Come with me.”

  ~

  Matthews brought me to a meeting room with modern décor that overlooked the castle baily. Code was there and gave me a solemn look as I sat down.

  “Tag,” Matthews began, “we know this is all new to you and we wish we could give you more time to adjust but that's time we don't have.” “Code.”