The Reality Thief Read online

  A thin, glassy layer of water flowed continuously down the steps from beneath the top of the dais and disappeared into the decorative grate covering the gutter encircling the perimeter.

  The cool, weighty formality of a polished marble terrace separated the throne and dais from the larger plaza and gathering crowd.

  Behind her, the imposing white stone of the palace keep rose majestically into a cloudless sky. Along the other three sides, smaller quartz towers peeked above formidable walls of green granite. Jade Corinthian columns, ten meters high and topped by an open parapet, decorated the granite walls.

  A pair of dazzling diamond strips, four meters wide, arched high above the Grand Plaza at perpendicular angles, intersecting over the center of the square. The smaller of the two connected the lower side walls. The larger one marked the longer path stretching from above the onyx gates at the far end of the square to the pinnacle of the massive keep. The structure was designed to impress.

  Outside the walls, a bridge of stepping stones floated freely several meters above the moat and meadow, spanning the distance between the entrance gate and the parking area more than a kilometer away.

  Princess Darya embodied the classic fairy tale princess of the Han dynasty. From her throne, she observed the crowd with an air of supreme tranquility and benevolence. Her satiny tresses, black as raven feathers, were gathered in an intricate braid running down her slender back, and her elegant silk robes moved softly in the breeze.

  Only scholars of ancient history might frown at the incongruous clash between the Princess and her castle. Such scholars were practically unheard of among her people, dismissed as eccentric hobbyists.

  The crowd looks eager…hungry, even. That’s good—she thought. The risk of being discovered in the Lysrandia inworld fueled their sense of exhilaration. They knew that getting caught by the authorities would result in censure or reintegration assignments but, by the looks on their faces, you’d think they were attending a championship sports event. I guess, in a sense, this isn’t much different.

  Darya did not share in their excitement. For her, being caught by the authorities would result in a full personality wipe, that is, if there was anything worth wiping once they’d finished with her. I just hope my security precautions buy me enough time to finish both the sermon and the combat before the Securitors arrive.

  The Princess stood and raised her hands, bringing silence to the crowd. She motioned to her acolytes to begin the ceremony. They walked out to the edges of the dais and lit the burners. Flames shot skyward, filling clear, fifteen-meter tall tubes that were wider than her arm span. The roar from the crowd surpassed that of the flames. The show had begun.

  The acolytes brought out the symbols of the Alumita—the silver cup, the red robe, and the wooden staff—all soon to be reduced to atoms in the Furnace of Chaos.

  “Symbols of the False Church of Alum, return to the Chaos from which you came!” Darya incanted. The crowd grew silent, expectant.

  The acolytes placed the sacred items on the dais a few meters from the Princess. Darya moved her hands, encasing the items in an invisible spherical shield and stepped back as they burst into flame. The warm red flames changed to hot blue plasma and the luminous globe rose a few meters above the dais.

  “From fire you come, and to fire you shall return.” The plasma grew brighter as the crowd looked on. The ball of plasma sputtered and shrunk, then blazed with the brilliance of a new sun. The crowd muttered an appreciative, “Ahhhhh!”

  The temperature inside the protective shield grew as the sphere continued to rise until it matched the heat found in the first few seconds following the Big Bang.

  “Return to the primordial plasma of the early seconds of our existence,” Darya intoned. The sphere shone with the light of a nascent universe, filled with so much energy that even protons and neutrons could no longer hold together. Only the containment shield kept the crowd from being incinerated by the heat. As the light intensified, they donned protective glasses.

  “Reveal the Chaos of which you are made, and then be gone,” she cried. The inferno ceased abruptly, and the sphere was filled with profound darkness that mimicked the complete absence of light in the original Chaos. The black orb began to shrink, slowly at first, and then more rapidly until it was gone.

  “From Nothing it came. To Nothing it returns,” spoke the acolytes, who were scattered among the crowd. Onlookers who had visited before chanted along.

  Princess Darya signaled for the next phase to begin. Originating from the apex of the glittering arches, a black screen descended on all sides, blocking out the sunlight. The darkness expanded, following the curves of the arches until it reached the walls of the square.

  “Let the Chaos envelop us all, as it surrounds our universe,” said Darya. Solemn music filled the square. The gathering grew still. They had heard there was to be a show but aside from the dragon battle, most had little idea of what to expect.

  A projection of stars blinked into view on the darkened inner surface of the giant planetarium encompassing the square. An appreciative murmur rose as the onlookers took in the projection.

  “For all we know, Space is infinite,” Darya began. “However, our observable universe is only some ninety three billion light years across.”

  The stars appeared to grow closer and fly by the spectators as if they were riding in a giant spaceship traveling faster than the speed of light.

  Stars near the edge of the screen fell out of view, and those near the center grew larger until it became apparent that what had at first appeared to be stars were actually individual galaxies.

  The field rotated and zoomed in until the galaxies of the Virgo Cluster were centered against the backdrop of the observable universe. “Oooooh,” came the appreciative chorus.

  The camera panned toward a smaller cluster of galaxies below Virgo, and continued to zoom in until one galaxy became prominent. In a gush of pride, the crowd broke into applause upon recognizing their own Milky Way.

  Before they could become too sentimental, the scene plummeted toward Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy.

  “Our Milky Way is but an insignificant speck among over two trillion known galaxies, each containing hundreds of billions of stars.”

  The scene zoomed in toward the active cloud of gas within eight light-years of the galactic center, and picked out a single star orbiting close to the center.

  The crowd cheered as they recognized the star S0-102, their current home system and the implementation center for Alum’s Divine Plan.

  Shifting from the star, the scene focused on the orbiting belt of planetary debris, and closed in on a single average-sized asteroid. The cratered surface grew to fill the screen as their virtual spaceship plunged toward it. The crowd gasped as they pierced through the surface and came to rest inside solid rock.

  The magnification increased until vibrating molecules of alloyed atoms became visible. The ship moved among the atoms and their overlapping electron clouds, targeted one, and dove inside.

  “The ‘solid’ matter that constitutes our homes and workplaces is not really solid at all. What we experience is actually the interaction of fields generated by the electrons that fill the vast void between nuclei.”

  They passed through the electron cloud and the tiny nucleus became visible. A rapidly vibrating proton was selected and again the view expanded into a scene more marvelous and strange than any of those preceding.

  The greater magnification did not reveal yet smaller particles inside the proton. Instead, colorful nebulous clouds appeared, merged, pulled apart, and disappeared at random.

  “At the smallest scale,” said Darya, “clouds of virtual particles arise and disappear faster than can be observed. Although they don’t exist in the sense that normal matter exists in the universe, their interacting energy fields are responsible for the order in everything we know. Orderly natural laws that we see in the
universe at every scale, from the smallest to the largest, are built on a foundation of Chaos, of something arising spontaneously and randomly from nothing.

  “The apparent determinism, the Order we perceive in matter, is an emergent property of the underlying randomness of quantum foam. Order emerges from Chaos. Matter and energy are created from this chaotic nothing according to natural laws.

  "It is the eternal natural laws that bring about Order in the universe. Not a god. Not Yov. Not Alum.”

  The crowd gasped. This was heresy! While they chattered nervously, the magnification of the image overhead reversed. The view withdrew from inside the proton, and sped progressively outward: the encompassing atom, the alloyed minerals, the rock, the asteroid in which it was embedded, the star it orbited, the center of a small galaxy, the insignificant cluster somewhere in the observable universe. The stars faded away, and the black screen lifted.

  The audience blinked as sunlight flooded back into the square.

  Having completed the science lesson, Darya launched into the inspirational section of her address.

  “People of Lysrandia, I come before you today not only to talk to you about how wondrous our natural universe is, but to tell you that servitude to your Lord, the Living God, Alum, is not your inevitable destiny. There is a way to throw off your shackles and free yourself from your slavery to The Plan, and that way is through the search for Truth, for Knowledge that exceeds even the magical powers of Alum.

  “In ancient times, times forgotten in the tens of millions of years that humanity has been spreading throughout the universe, there was a path to this Truth. That path has not been lost.

  “We know much about how to use the natural laws that govern the behavior of matter, energy, and information in the universe, and yet we understand so little about the laws themselves. What are they? Where do they come from? Why are they as they are?

  “Over millions of years, we have faithfully practiced the crafts developed by our ancestors. We have passed the knowledge of these crafts to our descendants so that our descendents may continue in service to Alum.

  “Sadly, during all of this time, we have added practically nothing to the knowledge of our ancestors. We have become technicians—mindless implementers of old technologies—not discoverers.

  “Have we forgotten how to be curious? Have we forgotten the joy of discovery? Have we come to know everything that we believe is worth knowing? Or have we become so complacent with our inworld entertainments and so satisfied with our station under Alum that we no longer feel the need to understand?

  “Is it enough to enjoy the power of gods in our simulated worlds? We do real work in the real universe. But all of our best thinking, our most ardent creativity, our loftiest ambitions and dreams, those are trapped inside our imaginary inworlds.

  “People of Lysrandia, the real universe is infinite in variety. Its wonders should be ours to discover, not Alum’s to constrain and mold into His version of Perfection.

  “We are taught that Yov made the People, and that the People made our ancestors in their image. Yet, everywhere we have gone in the universe, in whatever work we have performed in Alum’s name, we have found life in tremendous variety. We have encountered alien intelligences in distant galaxies. Most of them were subjugated to Alum’s Plan. Others, to our eternal shame, we helped Alum to eradicate.

  “Clearly, the universe has its own path, and the life within it has its own evolutionary potential. Alum’s Plan is not the path of the universe.

  “We were born in chaos. As you have all just seen for yourselves, chaos, randomness, and indeterminism still form the root of all matter and all energy in the universe. Alum’s Plan to bring serene security and predictability to the universe is an abomination, an affront to the laws of nature."

  “Are there any among you who can see that Alum’s Church, the Alumit, has replaced knowledge with faith? That they have suppressed our deepest selves, our curiosity to explore what is novel? Are there any who will join me today and begin their own search for knowledge, truth, and freedom? Any who will oppose Alum’s Plan?”

  To her disappointment but not to her surprise, no one stepped forward. They'd come to witness the spectacle of battle, not to be recruited to some philosophical cause.

  "Anyone?"

  There was a stir in the plaza. A few individuals were pushing their way through the crowd. “I’ll join you,” one shouted, and then another.

  Princess Darya’s guards permitted them to pass to the dais where she greeted them, and passed them along to her acolytes. When no more recruits came forward, she raised her hands and drew in the crowd’s attention once more.

  “We all fear the wrath of Alum for indulging these heresies,” she said. “Yes, even me.” Her confession carried to all corners of the square.

  “Alum is powerful. Of that, we have no doubt. However, He is not all-powerful. I have already defeated four of His dragons that patrol this inworld realm of Lysrandia. I have done this to show that knowledge alone will not free us. We also need courage, strength, and cunning if we are to cast off our shackles.

  “In the name of knowledge and courage, so that one day we may all be free of the faith, I now challenge another of Alum’s dragons!”

  The crowd erupted. This was the reason they had come. And as much as she hated the spectacle, it was the best way to ensure that new faces kept showing up to hear her message.

  9

  It was nearly 10:00pm before Dr. Holden trudged back to the three men in the waiting room. She was in no mood for their misdeeds and drama. The men stood up slowly, with Paul in the middle.

  “Mr. Leigh, I’m sorry."

  Paul collapsed into his chair. “No, this can’t be happening.”

  “Your wife has lost all signs of brain activity, and is unable to breathe without a ventilator. The head trauma caused extensive bleeding and swelling throughout the brain. We were unable to save her.”

  She took a deep breath before proceeding. “Sharon’s heart and other organs are functioning, but the only thing keeping her alive is the ventilator. We’re maintaining treatment for the baby’s sake but, by law, we’ll have to make a decision as to whether we continue.”

  “What do you mean, by law?”

  “Hospital policy doesn’t permit us to deny medical care to a pregnant woman, but state law says we need to ask your permission to maintain biological function for the benefit of the developing fetus.”

  The blunt legalisms hit Paul like a physical blow. So that's what it all boils down to? A showdown between the doctors and legislators? This was his wife they were talking about!

  He couldn't wrap his brain around it. He didn't even want to try. The decision they were asking of him was beyond impossible.

  Sharon had always been strongly against extraordinary medical intervention. They both were. The memory was strikingly clear, as if it had been last week. They’d been lounging in bed one lazy Saturday morning, wrapped in tousled, sun-drenched sheets, and they’d sworn that if the situation were ever to arise, they'd allow the other to pass in peace.

  And now, inconceivably, here they were. Sharon’s spirit was gone, that had been their firm belief. But they'd never discussed this complication. How could he keep his promise? If he let her go, as they'd both wanted and believed was right, the baby was likely to die as well. Sharon did not believe in church; she didn't believe in any organized religion.

  His own faith was of little help when it came to a clear answer in ambiguous situations. A lifetime of sermons and devotion to his church had not prepared him for a conundrum like this. If he were to let Sharon go now, as she’d instructed him, would that amount to abortion? How could abortion by failing to act to save their baby—their baby boy, he reminded himself—be any less a sin than if he cut out the fetus himself? His church considered both taking life through abortion and prolonging life through artificial means to be equally abhorrent. What decision was he to make? There was no
right answer.

  It didn't help that this mere hope of a baby she was carrying had been emotionally diminished by the doctor’s own words to being no more than a developing fetus, totally dependent on his wife’s soulless body for the slightest chance of survival. The whole process sounded so…clinical, so…parasitic.

  If by some miracle the fetus managed to survive, there would be no guarantee that it wouldn't suffer critical, lifelong complications. Who knows what effect these DNNDs might have already had on Sharon, and on the baby's development? The experiment had no place in God’s plan. Maybe the accident was fate, or maybe it was God's will—maybe the fetus was not meant to survive the accident.

  And if he gave permission for the ventilator, what about Sharon? The staff did their best to assure him she would be in no pain, but how could they know for sure? What if they were wrong? He couldn't bear the thought of making her suffer any longer. What about her soul? Just because she didn’t believe in organized religion, didn’t mean she didn’t have a soul. Was it even now wandering around lost in some dark limbo, alone and scared? How could she rest in peace if her heart was still beating? How could he justify torturing her eternal soul, however briefly, by forcing her body to carry on?

  “Doctor, how much longer would the fetus…the baby need?”

  “We could deliver by C-section now but at only twenty-three weeks, the baby would have no more than about a thirty percent chance of survival, at most, especially given the trauma. If we can keep your wife alive another four to eight weeks on the ventilator, it would give the baby more time to recover and continue developing. It isn’t likely to make it to term, but every week substantially increases its viability.”

  “By how much?”

  “Well, I’m not an expert but I consulted with my colleague, Doctor Andrews, who tells me that after twenty-seven weeks, a baby’s odds go up to about ninety percent. That could be way off. We have no idea how these dendies affect development.” She glanced at David and Nick.