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

all clicked off, and Om Gur Nal made him his first advisor. No one had ever stood as close to power as this little peasant who rose to these vast and impressive heights. Not even the great Gad ‘Di Enn  indulged in the excesses which Archibald could do at will, protected by the supreme lord. He did not have a bad heart or harbor malice towards anyone, for in his heart he could not hate. He tried to love, but it wasn't that easy. Somewhere in there he managed to learn the secrets of the people who were nothing more than puppets pulled up by the supreme power.

His friends were Azoson and Makayla, who truly cherished him, and later others joined the company.

Asoson was the son of a prominent banker, and Makayla leaned on his uncle's connections in the educational sphere of the polis because, as the rumor had it, he was going to become a PR man for the major corporations and defend their interests against bags of e-credits. But by then he still had another dozen or more years.

So Archie had everything on his plate, and he was only twenty-five. In just nine years, he had outpaced his peers and proven his genius status. But then something in his soul cracked! And he understood why Emborian was struggling in a hellish whirlwind and suffering like a tree.

There was another world waiting for him down there, one that didn't care for his excellence or impress with his knowledge of physics and mathematics. There the new reality was beginning. And for Archie it was not a very pleasant one at that. Of course, the demons didn't visit him directly, but he saw them at his patron Om Gur Nal while secretly watching him. And he realised the full simplicity of his existence. He had lived all in all fourteen years. Well, it was true he had lived wonderfully and excellently, but only that much. And his former friends Azoson and Makayla didn't even think of him. They were watching their own lives.

They had once walked around the beautiful sights of the city, but that was long gone. Archie had become very engrossed and eager to achieve something big and great to wow everyone with. And he noticed how Om Gur Nal's attitude towards him was changing slowly and gradually. The threat he posed was more than evidEnt, but Archie pretended that everything was fine.

Time passed and nothing changed. Once they had arranged to go out for a bite to eat and the weather was excellent.

They sat down to eat and Azoson asked him openly:

- What is your secret to being so successful? And how did you get to Om Gur Nal?

Archie froze in his seat and said nothing. But he understood the subtlety of the question.

He very cleverly tricked him and from then on he just became a different person.

He understood that all over the Academy they were preparing to purge him, but they didn't dare yet because they didn't know how it would work.

He had graduated a long time ago, but he would visit this place from time to time and impart his knowledge to the underclassmen.

Azoson had taken it upon himself to eradicate it, and as quickly as possible.

Makayla didn't say a word. She simply joined him in helping to wipe out her now former friend.

But Archie beat them to it. Forewarned of their plans, he stalked them and blasted them with his plasma blaster. Well, there were no witnesses, but suspicion fell on him.

There was a small wetland near the Nal Rhys Moon Academy. He hurried to hide the corpses and make it good. Soon, however, he was sniffed out and the trail, albeit slowly, began to lead to him. That's when Om Gur Nal stepped in and saved him. He felt that his protégé had not wiped out two people just like that and surely sooner or later they would reach him. And again triggered the mysterious assassin who would liquidate Shame much later. That was his specialty.

After the incident, the others backed away from him and began to sense his vengeful nature. Thus, he developed a special reputation and gained an almost legendary status.

Production was going more than well. Peos' integrated circuits were down to the micron. This was very convenient, because in a smaller area one could fit an almost countless number of componEnts and place the circuit board deep into the receiver's brain.

Archibald didn't particularly care and realized exactly what was going on. Om Gur Nal seemed to withdraw from the conflict and remained slightly passive, but something rather unpleasant was sunsequently discovered - the other classmates secretly suspected the boy. And it wasn't about the conspirators, it was about the others. So he was left completely isolated and alone.

At first he didn't care and shut himself in his own bubble, looking around at the changing social reality. But one day he saw something astonishing.

VIS GOD 114

 

CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT: VIS GOD 114

 

Not until he began developing his unique virtual reality integrated circuits did Archie have a chance to encounter the new dope being sold by shame. And in industrial quantities at that. He'd heard of its effects and wanted to be sure it wouldn't harm anyone in the virtual reality - at least while he was there. Being an excellent businessman and inventor, he set about researching the matter in depth.

He realized that when you were high, it had an effect on your perception of virtual reality and your brain could glitch[60] - it was horrible.

So many things had changed in the meantime that you could have guessed straight away.

But the funding for his developments hadn't stopped. On the contrary, interest was increasing. The youngsters were mad to be let in at least at the first level, where they could let their imaginations run wild.

Over time, they began to get used to certain rules and restrictions. But the drug had entered widely and began to show its dark side as well. Archie had never raised this issue with Om Gur Nal. And he wished to keep his position intact - at least for a while. He was not living in dreams, but he was clearly aware of the end of his days. The youngsters would soon have no need for his vaunted integrated circuits because Om Gur Nal had taken over certain parts of the industry through his henchmen and was planning to do some secret developments. Soon Archie would have no need for it. But because he was a technical genius he had a chance to survive for another year or even two while Om Gur Nal dealt with his remaining opponents.

VIS GOD 114 was prepared from mandrake roots and thus the psychoactive alkaloids hit the receiver straight in the brain. But rest assured, Shame was unaware of the drug's side effects.

One day one of his dealers came up to him and told him he was going to stop selling. When Shame asked him why - no answer followed. Soon they found that same dealer murdered in a back alley.

The police never investigated anything. Nor did anyone raise a voice. But the street understood that Shame wasn't kidding. Whatever flaws it had, VIS GOD 114 was going to sell and that was that.

Shame hung up and lost track of where he was - not that he cared about the merchandise, he just wanted to be better at what he did. And to sell. And then everyone saw the dark side of that substance.

When they entered the first level, the youngsters saw the so-called distributor, which allowed them to "shuffle" around different places in the virtual world. Some didn't have the necessary skills to cope and just perished, but only in the virtual world.

This led to a strong outflow of customers and Om Gur Nal was not happy at all. He got Archie to be careful and took over the organisation of the whole process himself.

He decided that if he just mixed the mandrake with vicodin[61], it would ease the pains of those daredevils who wanted to go around the entire first level.

It was divided into many sectors and all sorts of things could be done there. Om Gur Nal really liked that level, though he had never been there for obvious reasons.

And what was most interesting, Shame had an obvious fear of going there.

His scrotum cringed at the thought that they might know of his weakness and what would happen to him on this level of virtual reality.

On the first virtual reality level, there was a huge river and beautiful mountains covered in greenery. The youth loved running on these slopes, undisturbed by anyone and having the feeling of complete freedom. The high mountains had different climates conditions at the summit and at the base, and this enabled their ascent to be organised.

On Zegandaria man inhabited the lowlands, but here he could touch the sky - if only for a little while.

There was also a market town on this level where one could go and shop for some virtual reality items.

Here one could also gather enough knowledge for the second level, which was the maximum allowed for mere mortals. From there on out, virtual reality was cut off for commoners, but they made up for that fact with a solid amount of dope.

On the second level, the military had set up a pretty solid outpost of virtual guards to keep cyber reality safe from the Encroachments of amateurs, who happened to wreak enough havoc as it was.

For once, though, Archie went to see with his own eyes what was going on. He toured quite a few places in the first level of virtual reality. He took in the wondrous beauty and was in awe of the majesty of nature - albeit artificial.

He hadn't used drugs, and his mind was razor sharp. He decided to take it to the next level, but wondered how he could get past the post.

The virtual guards were particularly vigilant, and there was no joking with them. Even Archie could easily perish in virtual space, but he had taken some precautions.

They were dressed in ultramodern nanomaterial uniforms with hussar motifs and were in something like speeders. The helmets on their spacesuits were copper-bronze red and cast lazy glares.

They didn't even look at Archie when he made to approach, but remained passive. A moment later he noticed a strange anomaly in their bodies - their heads stood not as if cut off, but with a peculiar downward tilt as if they dared not look at him.

The young man wondered why all this was happening and decided to use a ruse.

He had heard enough from General Zorin about the guards in question. There were six of them and they looked imposing. Behind them were the mystical Arleon doors through which one went further into the next part of this twisted reality.

Archie knew that with them you couldn't just bug their schematics, because they were built on an entirely different principle. Om Gur Nal held their so-called 'keys', but Archie suspected there was another way to overcome them.

He tried of course to overcome them by brute force, but one of them nearly crushed his head. He realized it was useless to try that way. The result was