The Children of Zegandaria, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov [first color ebook reader txt] 📗

- "Otherwise it'll get worse," Equius pulled out his goat, "you'll just end up bankrupt when you declare insolvency on the redemption of the plots."

- "But you have reserves," they pleaded. "You can cover the deal with some sort of guarantee."

- "Well - I haven’t," shrugged Equius, "but I've got my head on my shoulders - so - act! At once!"

The others looked at him dumbfounded. He was in command of the situation. But for how long?

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE: THE SECRET OF OM GUR NAL

The Lord prepared to enter the fifth level - where no one walked. No one was admitted, but Om Gur Nal had a great fear of being detected while transferring the vast resources of the illegal transactions he was conducting through Equius's company.

It was not so easy to achieve such a move and many made the mistake of rushing in, but Om Gur Nal was playing it safe.

The board did not have the money to cover the buyback deals and he provided them low interest loans and later robbed the lion's pie.

The scheme was more than simple - the fools got fictitious virtual possessions, Equius kept an eye on the parade, the board obeyed him because he was the only one against whose name they were given unsecured loans from the banks in the so-called Outer Ring - the scam was complete.

Equius was a parvenu, but only he knew that, he didn't demonstrate it to others because he was aware of how dangerous it could be.

"Anyone can step askew," he liked to say, "the question is whether you can go on afterwards."

The board was a little sluggish, but it still coped well enough with Equius's demands. There was, however, one small but terribly important formality.

Om Gur Nal couldn't help but notice - they had to come up with a plan to buy more time.

Equius knew he was in danger of losing his head, but he thought he was smart еnough to slip away and win.

Before he entered the fifth level of virtual reality, Om Gur Nal was always doing something that wasn't even known to the Doctor - he was clearing his mind for what was called a deep dive. Without this measure, he too would have failed and even perished like many fools who tried this before him.

The brain was set up in such a way that certain functions could be maintained in its various lobes under certain conditions, but in level five virtual reality there was a danger that the pituitary[45] would burst from the excess brain load.

Then things got complicated and there was a danger of even so-called brain death occurring.

In the depth of his idea, Om Gur Nal had created a specific inferiority complex in others through which he skillfully managed them.

The cleansing of the mind took place in a special emeoran chamber which helped him to purify it of all negative patterns and doubts.

The key to the existence of the fifth and highest level of this reality offered the complete and unquestioning freedom that few possessed. This was the crown of human development unEncumbered by deep negativity.

Om Gur Nal had adopted the special method, and his pure consciousness helped him to "glide" through these virtual realms like a swan on the mirrored surface of a lake.

This was how he was able to keep an eye on the traffic of cash that the board had been transferring all these years. This level was a sort of advanced cloud technology, however, where you could go anywhere and do anything you wanted.

Om Gur Nal's patience was wearing thin because he had transferred enough holdings to the outer planets. So much was going to go to hell if he couldn't make the last transaction. He had to try - at least this time.

The reason why so many people were banging their heads trying to break through at that level was something else.

They couldn't understand that the reverse exit also required cleansing from the "deadly negative influence" of the amarodes, the strange-creature guards placed by Om Gur Nal. He knew the password and had never allowed himself to be attacked by them and receive brain damage. Just in case, he was also astute enough to test the stability of the level every time.

Om Gur Nal knew of a rather telling instance when the Arleon gates had missed one of the fools, but only to show him that his brain wouldn't last long in that place.

When the doors spat him out a few moments later, his brain was missing, and what exactly had happened even Om Gur Nal didn't understand. It made him think that this level of cyberspace had developed its own artificial intelligence that had become unmanageable. And maybe he wasn't too far from the truth.

He had followed the instructions, performed the mind-clearing procedures, and „dived in.“

It was great and divine - like swimming like a baby in its mother's amniotic waters.

The new Om Gur Nal was less than thirty-five years old and had been in power for only five. But he had established iron rules.

Arleon's gates were the truest of sentinels - brutal and merciless - they could crush like pincers the most brutal intruder.

Om Gur Nal opened his cybernetic eyes - these were special eyes that were only placed when he stepped on the level. There was no way to get his bearings in the fog all around.

This was the first time there had been such a phenomenon here, he wondered, but remembered that the perverted virtual reality of level five reacted even to words and shut his mouth.

- "Who are you?," he heard a cold metallic voice.

Om Gur Nal remembered that the virtual reality reacted to even an innocеnt thought and tried not to focus his mind on anything in particular.

- "You are destined to stay here forever," that voice laughed. "You will be the only inhabitant of the level forever. You, the mightiest among mortals, and the most daring..."

- "I've been here before," Om Gur Nal snapped. "I've never heard of you. Nor have I seen you."

- "Ow?," the voice boomed. "So you created me, remember?"

- "I?," the lord rather ineptly tried to defend himself.

- Well, you - I didn't exist in the beginning, so to speak, and now I'm in a sort of material form because of you. I've been watching you carefully and studying you, and I'm striking a blow at you just now. Now, when you deserve it.

- "But why?," puzzled the lord.

- "Because such are the laws of nature and the world, my dear Om Gur Nal," the voice said, not very calmly.

- "And how shall I perish, if it be no secret?," he asked.

- "Well, actually it isn't!," the voice snapped at him.

- If you were some common criminal, the Arleon gates would crush your skull and your brains would leak out like a rat's. But your consciousness is on a much higher level, and that is unlikely to befall you. You know very well what is expected of you. Finish your last stroke and I will not stop you from doing it. But you must pay the price for it. Every ten minutes you will lose a portion of your memory, but you will lose it selectively, at my will, and only while you are in this level of virtual reality.

- "If that is the price of my freedom, I accept!," roared Om Gur Nal.

- "That is the price of fulfilling your last wish," the voice announced chillingly.

Om Gur Nal gasped.

- "You will not die so easily, lord - you will simply feel pain that will show you what your mere mortal subjects feel," the voice sternly barked. "It will humble your soul and you will see the world around you more clearly."

Om Gur Nal had never heard anyone speak to him like that. Not even some artificial intelligence from the fifth level of virtual reality. He was just freaking out, but he restrained himself because he didn't know what his unseen adversary had in store for him.

- "Wait a minute," Om Gur Nal sneered, "as perfect as you are, you're based on a certain algorithm."

He heard no reply. He decided to be a little more brazen.

- And if I actually taught you, then I was better than you! Suddenly, he felt a beastly pain in his ears, and a sort of scratching-like feeling in his eyes. The pain was intensifying. He did not believe that voice - he knew he could die at this level, and relatively easily. And he decided to try a trick.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR: THE STRATAGEM

When programming code was written, the data first had to be connected to the source - it judged that this artificial intelligence was also drawing its "power" from somewhere and had to make the best use of that fact.

Deep down, he suffered for having allowed this level to generate its own consciousness to evolve to such an extent.

Om Gur Nal remembered how as a child he could slip away from his pursuers who chased him through the narrow streets - it had been so long ago. Now he was contemplating how to slip away from this perverted artificial intelligence and make his last money transfer.

- "Money won't save you," the voice trailed off.

Om Gur Nal had activated his hidden weapon to break the invisible enemy. It was a specially written virus that identified any level anomalies and dealt with them seamlessly, blocking the source from which they were downloaded into instant memory - just like that. There was a huge supercomputer that ran this savagery, but only Om Gur Nal knew about it. He had gone to great lEngths to convince the others that simple chipping was enough to maintain the well-known „virtual illusion“.

The hidden superintelligence was programmed by him personally. And many ghost warriors guarded it.

- "I perish," the voice murmured somewhat lazily, with a slight reproach to Om Gur Nal.

- "So it falls to you," the lord turned on him mercilessly.

There was a peculiar crackling sound and he knew he had broken it. The virus was rearranging some of the elements on the core and thus 'crippling' any anomaly that appeared.

Gradually, the hitherto invisible was visualized to Om Gur Nal's cybernetic eyes. And he saw a clean naked man with his head bowed. Wires were coming out of his head. He was bound with chains on which there were electronic padlocks.

His tall wiry body was hunched over with spasms caused by overexertion - apparently it was