“Liz, I have a job for you.”
“That’s rare. You never ask for my help.”
“It’s the perfect job for you, my dear lil’ sis.”
“Dear lil’ sis? Something’s fishy. What kind of job is that?”
“I need you to do a little spying on our rival company.”
“Mh? Why me? Or rather, they’d know I’m your sister.”
“I’ll get you a fake ID. One they can’t crack that easily.”
“May I ask you where’d you get the idea? And why?”
“Well, you know how are we experimenting with that new platform?”
“The one you’re unable to make stable enough for beta testing?”
“Yeah — that one. Well, looks like the OmniSoft beat us to it.”
“Didn’t see that coming. So, what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to apply for beta testing.”
OniSoft HQ. A towering building of glass and concrete. Ugly.
I visited my brother’s company once. Nice, cozy buildings spread across a campus with lots of greenery. Tastefully painted in soft, pastel colors. Informal atmosphere. Playfully colored and shaped furniture. My brother, too, sported a casual outfit and demeanor at work.
The double-glass door slid open and I walked across the algid hall. There was still a chance the fake ID my brother gave me was not going to work, but it was too late to back down.
A receptionist sporting the company’s anon pearl-grey uniform came to fetch me.
“Miss Elize Hodsgon? You signed up for our beta testing program.”
“Yep, that’s me.”
“We’ve been waiting for you. Here, let me show you to your room.”
“My room?”
“Why, yes, sweetheart. We’ll monitor you during the testing phase.”
She ushered me to the elevator and pusheed the thirteenth floor button. We get off in a glass corridor with a row of doors on the left side. She brought me to a door numbered 105. The door slid open on a hospital-like bedroom with a bed, a wardrobe and a desk with its chair.
The receptionist handed me a pearl-grey tracksuit with the OmniSoft logo.
“Put this on, sweetheart, will you? There’s the bathroom if you need it. Are you hungry?”
“Uhm — I’m cool, thanks” I said, changing into the suit.
“Great, then come with me. I’ll introduce you to the team.”
The catastrophe happened sometime at the end of the XXI century.
Wait. Why was I remembering that crap? We lived in the mid-XXI century and the world was perfectly fine! We had orbital colonies, underground cities on the Moon and Mars, advanced technology and we were making ready to launch a generation ship to Gliese 581. We were even experimenting with an Alcubierre drive and building a communications system based on a technology which made use of the Einstein-Rosen Bridge. We lived peaceful, comfortable lives.
An experiment went haywire at the Geneve Research Center for Advanced Technology. It had to do with dark matter, cosmic energy and time travel.
The bit about the GRCAT was right but time travel? Seriously?
The scarred surface of the Earth. Many died and the survivors lived off of what meagre scraps they can fetch from non-contaminated areas.
The Earth wasn’t scarred! Were those memories from a VGame or something? Wait, I was wearing a plugsuit but — it was ridiculous!
What if someone tampered with my memory? And the bit about awakening on a grassy hill in the middle of nowhere and ending up in a spooky mansion? Where did that come from?
“Wait! I’m gonna need surgery?”
“I told we’ll implant a chip in your brain, but we’re not gonna crack open your skull. It’s a nanochip. We’re injecting it. But first, we’ll make a full 3D scan of your brain. We need to map it, see? So we know what we do when we inject the chip.”
“I guess it’s too late to opt out?”
“It’s totally safe! You’re our tenth test subject. We already did it tons of times!”
He was sweet-talking me into implanting a crappy nanochip into my brain! And I hated his cheerful gay-like tone — wait, I hated him. Period.
“All right, you’re gonna shoot a chip into my brain. What happens next?”
“You’re going to wear these clips, see? They transmit data to the chip.”
They looked like clips I saw wearing by a kid piloting a mecha in an old anime once.
“You’ll fall asleep and then the magic happens!”
Some brainiacs foresaw the catastrophe and made preparations in advance. They built a network of shelters to prevent life from exstinction. It was called the Organic Life Preservation Project.
Again with that crap? Did I remember having a — chip implanted in my brain?
Now comes the tricky part. I’m just a small cog in the huge mechanism that is the Organic Life Preservation Project - or, as we call it, the Project.
Not me. Maybe another — how did that engineer called her? Test subject.
She called her a test subject. A guinea pig!
“I’m gonna give you a piece of my mind, Daniel!„
“The magic?”
“Lucid dream. That’s how we call it. It’s like dreaming. But you’ll be aware of yourself. You can interact with the environment, the story, the people. Everything! Isn’t that just wonderful?”
“I can alter the plot?”
“Of course! You’ll be the master of your own dream! Now, come. It’s time for your scan. Aren’t you excited?”
“I’m dying not to go through with all this, you scumbag. Daniel, you set me up, you bastard!„
I woke up with a start. My chest was burning, my head hurting as if it was going to crack open.
I was covered in sweat, sheets and nightdress drenched and sticky. Nightdress? Not pajamas?
I glanced round and the spooky mansion was still there. The snoring maids, too.
Great, I was still trapped inside that — lucid dream-thing.
If what I recalled was right, it wasn’t even the only layer of reality the dream was comprised of.
There were multiple layers of reality.
YOU ARE READING
Codename: Angelus
Science FictionAt the end of the XXI century, a catastrophe happened, that brought the world to its demise. Wait! I'm living in the mid-XXI century and the world is fine! The Earth isn't scarred, we have adavanced technology, space colonies, underground cities on...
