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

almost foretold. If he continued with his futile attempts, he would simply End up like a pathetic cockroach flattened against the wall.

Then he saw a peculiar mark on the harlequin doors, it was the same as the one on the cult of Kazuk Mon. It couldn't be!

- "Kazuk Mon Senpiro Manus!," he roared.

The guards stared impassively and moved away silently but respectfully.

Archie walked past them. But he had to open the doors. The guards did not obstruct him at all and did not care for him. They had simply backed away.

Archie tried anything. Then he remembered that if he touched the middle of the symbol and made an imaginary circle along its main line, that might help. And he wasn't wrong. The doors opened.

A strange smell and light emanated from inside, so bright it was simply unnatural.

Archie hesitated, but decided to continue. And walked through the open doors.

THE SECOND LEVEL

 

CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE: THE SECOND LEVEL

 

The first thing the young man felt in his head was a hellish and unbearable pain. And nothing more. The pain intensified and soon he felt it in his throat, chest and scrotum. It was like something was squeezing him hard and wanted his brain to explode. It was unbearable.

At first Archibald saw nothing worth seeing and heard no sound. But he soon realized that going from first to second level was like comparing a first grader to a master. The difference was approximate. "If this is the second level, how much harder is the next? And how many levels are there in general?," he thought.

The interface at this level differed greatly on a number of parameters, and it had to be admitted that few people had even hung around it.

There was no beautiful greenery or high mountains here, and there was a lingering military atmosphere with elements of nostalgia for something irretrievably lost.

The more things he saw, Archie convinced himself that not everyone would be able to bear to be here, but he couldn't. He had to act, and act immediately.

He looked around at the strangely oppressive atmosphere, much like the last war for Au Kaktir. There were out of commission speeders, huge Ziruarx that had been turned into a honeycomb of plasma shards of fearsome weapons, and many other ruins. But there were also some things not found on the planet Zegandaria at all.

At one point, Archie saw a massive pylon and the sign of Kazuk Mon that was stuck on its top. The young man snorted. Apparently this level had something to do with the Archpriest, but somehow, it shouldn't have been too obvious.

On the second virtual reality level, the young man began to get a real sense of how wrong everything was. The green hills and mountainsides seemed to him to be a manifestation of rather bad taste, and the beautiful river was like a misplaced blue streak in the middle of something.

Somewhere in there he felt that the second level was the level of sadness, of those things that just couldn't be undone.

Now was the time to find a place to explore and get a feel for what had really happened on Zegandaria over twenty years ago. But then he realized something else. Not everything had been said and shown in those years. The new generation had no knowledge of the events surrounding that war.

No one cared, and they wanted to live out their strange cybernetic dream as fully as possible, without thinking about unnecessary details and someone else's arbitrariness.

The grotesque thing in this case was the utter doom of most in this life and the next. They were the walking dead who wouldn't admit it. Had they known it, they would have ended their "lives" almost instantly. But then they would have fallen into a peculiar and cruel trap, for they had forcibly interrupted their own development.

V&A architects were highly regarded, and the profession had roots so old, by today's standards, that it could almost be compared to craftsmanship. The V&A architects created and managed the El Worlds thus created, but there was something else. There, somewhere for the experienced eye, the profanity and underdevelopment of not the graphic part of this illusory world, but the soullessness and lack of salvation within it, was apparent.

Back when they were building it, Om Gur Nal had ordered them to leave at least a small chance of salvation, not for any scruples, but to have some pro forma fairplay[62].

The architects responded to him rather bluntly that if they really allowed that, then their whole design would go to the movies and it would be far more realistic and just, building this whole world to be like Hell, or more accurately like real life, and not Entitled to second chances.

Om Gur Nal mentally agreed with this reasoning, though even he found it a bit cruel. But he decided to trust their expert opinions. For better or worse it gave a boost to the further development of all this.

After some wandering, Archie stumbled upon that same naked man seen by Om Gur Nal himself on the fifth level.

He looked grotesque and his bones were almost charred. At this level, he had to suffer and feel the pain, with no right to salvation. Archie looked him over and didn't even show sympathy. It was as if this pitiful human rag deserved his fate. It struck him that some remnants of his clothes were still visible. He took it upon himself to do his own little research into what had actually happened.

He continued walking across the lifeless field, surveying the remains of the devastation.

On a rusty electronic sign he read the following inscription "I made you a present!"

The boy felt a strong headache and a definite malaise in some of his internal organs and decided it was time to leave this level, but he wanted to look around some more - even at the risk of his life.

Far ahead was some semblance of a castle, or at least a very large building. Archibald started that way.

THE CASTLE OF AK DIN

CHAPTER NINETY: THE CASTLE OF AK DIN

 

Ak Din's castle was done in a futuristic oriEntal style. This castle was truly impressive despite its relatively modest size. Inside was the master of the second level

Virtual Reality, which was called Ak Din[63]. Ak Din was a famous by his fearsome nickname, the Torturer, because he tortured and castrated all suicides on the level Entrusted to him.

He looked like an Arab and his cruelty was proverbial - many had perished from his brutal temper of a merciless judge.

Archie entered his castle, producing an idEntification card one of the guards had given him. It was then that he realised something terrible - Ak Din was a eunuch. He himself liked to torment others to compEnsate for his own inferiority. Of course, he was a eunuch only in virtual reality, not in real life.

- "Who are you, young man?," the man with the look of an Arab asked him.

- "I am Archibald Peos, the designer without whom this reality would be impossible," Archie modestly spoke.

The Arab stroked his beard, which was artificial. The testicle-deprived could not have full facial hair.

- "You do know that I can castrate you at any time and take away your manhood?," the Arab asked him without a drop of shame.

Archie answered him:

- I have defeated thy guards at the gates, and the harlequin gates have revealed thy secrets to me.

The Arab leaped up in a rage and seemed to want to kill him, but he began to realize who stood before him. Then more softly he said to him:

- Be it as you say! As you have decided!

He then motioned for the guards to stand aside and led him to a side of his chambers.

The two of them struck up a four-way conversation.

- Why are you here?

- "I want to find out how many levels there actually are," Archie answered shortly.

- That is my main objective.

- "You have a very narrow mind, my friend," laughed Ak Din most amiably. "If you're only interested in them, that's another matter, but I think you came for something else. You're hardly risking that much just to realize what a thing VR architecture is."

Archie grunted.

- "Om Gur Nal's enemy is not my enemy," he said shortly.

- "So be it, you've stayed here too long," Ak Din lowered his voice.

The lord's chambers were richly decorated with expensive and excellent-quality shirrels, and the satin bed and furnishings showed that Ak Din spent most of his time in sweet and pleasant sleep. He also didn't like to give himself much of a hard time, which he thought was killing his enjoyment of life.

- "Where are the military's developments?," asked Archie.

- "Well, they, such as that," the Arab stammered. "Do you see that hill behind my palace? - There's a virtual version of Area Nine in there somewhere. Well, it's not quite the same as the real one, but you can get some idea."

Archie snorted. It meant he was about to figure out what was really going on.

Ak Din's castle was built on sand and so brutally fortified that a chicken couldn't get through. The architects had reinforced the bottom further so that this futuristic construction would not sink deep into the bowels of the earth. Deep down, Archie could feel something. The lord had surrounded himself with a chain of castrati that raised his stallion ego, but at the same time, he hadn't even stepped outside his castle.

This clever head who was a titled knight of knowledge and the protector of the Second Level Virtual Realm was just like dust in his eyes. It took him a while to realize exactly what was going on.

The deaths of the brutally beheaded wretches didn't move him because he was building his paradise on someone else's suffering. Many had to die for him to live. But how long could this pattern be maintained? He was extremely unstable.

Ak Din ruled all in all five provinces that brought him a steady amount of e-credits and he relied on them. He wanted to be a real stallion. He rode his women like mares. But that didn't bring him satisfaction. He was extremely lonely and sad because he couldn't get out of the palace. He was a complete failure in his own eyes, but he was trying to shine in front of the others and that filled him with dignity.

Archie honestly didn't want to be a part of this whole thing. He wanted to leave as soon as possible and get an idea