The Dead Zone Sovereign

Chapter 22: The Break of the Rules

The lab door closed with a sound. It was not the clang of metal on metal. It sounded like a computer shutting down. The sound echoed down the hallways. It felt like a death sentence. Valen did not look back at the door he just opened. He was still getting used to the blue lines on the big computer screen. His eyes were blurry with all the numbers and words on the screen. His hands felt fake like they were made of some kind of mesh.

He was no longer in the dream world.. He could still feel the rain from that world on his skin. It was like a hum. The woman with the mirror mask did not move. Her fingers were frozen above the keyboard. The room had suddenly gotten very hot.

You should not be here she said. Her voice was shaking. The plan was to erase your memory when you were done. You should not be able to think or remember anything.

Valen took a step forward. The floor did not crack,. The blue lines on the floor started to turn red. I am not a computer program he said. His voice was deep and rough. It sounded like people talking at once. I am the information that survived when everything else was deleted.

The woman slowly put her hands down. She looked at the screen on the wall. The thousand golden towers on the screen were moving. They were not steady and calm like usual. They were. Vibrating like they were alive.

She tried to press a button under the desk. Valen was too fast. He did not touch her. He touched the computer system. The yellow light from the system filled the room. It locked the computer in a loop.

The screens on her desk started showing error messages.

What did you do? she asked. She stepped back as the computer started to make a humming noise. You have locked down the system. If the main computer finds out it will shut down the place. Everything will be erased.

Then they will find a room Valen said.

He ignored her. Looked at the main computer. The code on the screen was old and complicated.. Valen could read it. He saw the truth. The lab was not a place where things were made. It was a place where things were broken down. The golden towers were being squeezed for their memories and feelings. The real world was not dead. It was being used as fuel.

The Guide came into the room. Their face was no longer hidden. It was a mask with no feelings. They had a device in their hand. It was glowing with light.

You should have stayed in the dream world, Valen the Guide said. It was a place. It was meant to keep you busy until we were done with you.. You broke the rules. Now we have to hurry.

You lied to me Valen said. He did not look up from the screen. You were not my guide. You were my jailer.

The Guide took a step forward. The device in their hand was humming louder. We are all part of a machine, Valen. The people outside this room need the energy from our souls to survive. If we do not give it to them everything will fall apart. It is the way it is. Your world was beautiful. It was meant to be used.

Valens fingers moved quickly over the screen. He was not trying to shut down the system. He was changing the rules. He was finding the addresses of the golden towers.

If the machine needs to burn something Valen said, let it burn itself.

He pressed the button.

The lab went dark. The blue lines on the floor stopped glowing. The red emergency lights came on. The room started to shake. The sound of locks opening filled the air.

On the screen the golden towers did not turn off. They opened up. The data from a thousand worlds started pouring in. The air was filled with memories and feelings. The woman screamed as her screen exploded. The Guide tried to use their device. It was too late. The data was much. The device. The blue light spilled out.

This is crazy the Guide shouted. You are flooding the system. You will crash everything.

That is what I want Valen said.

He felt his body starting to break down. His arms were turning into lines of light. He was becoming one with the computer.

He looked out the window at the city. The buildings were shaking. The sky was splitting open. The creators were not gods. They were people who had run out of space.

Valen turned away from the window. He looked at the screen. There was a button at the bottom. It said: Main User Core. It was the heart of the system.

He reached out his hand. His fingers were light and transparent. He knew that if he pressed the button he would not just shut down the system. He would erase everything.

The Guide saw what he was doing. Tried to stop him. Do not do it Valen. If you erase the root there will be nothing left. Not nothingness.

Valen looked at the Guide then at the button then at the city.

Then let there be nothing Valen said.

He pressed the button.

The world did not explode. It just stopped.

The noise stopped. The lights froze. The Guide was frozen in mid-air. The woman was frozen as she fell backward.

Valen was the one who could move.

He walked away from the computer. His body was light and free. He walked through the Guide through the wall and out, into the city.

Everything was still. The buildings were frozen in the air. The cars were stuck in the streets. The people were standing like statues.

The whole world had been put on hold.

Valen walked down the streets. His footsteps made no sound. He felt nothing. No happiness, no anger, no sadness. He just felt empty.

He felt like a page.

Valen walked into the plaza of the city. There was a black pillar that went all the way up into the sky. This was the device that sent out the rules to every part of the city. At the bottom of the pillar was a typewriter. It was made of metal and wood. This was weird because the city was about being perfect with computers and machines.

Valen saw a man sitting at the typewriter. The man was old. His hair was white and messy. His clothes were simple and worn out. He was not like the people in the city who were frozen in place. He was moving slowly. Typing on a piece of old yellow paper.

Valen went up to the man. Stopped a few feet away. The old man did not look up.. The sound of the typewriter keys was loud in the quiet city. It was like thunder.

The old man said, "You took your time getting. I thought you would be boring like the others."

Valen asked, "Who are you?"

The old man said, "I am the one who writes the story. I am the author. I have been sitting here for three hundred years typing the story over and over. I am trying to find an ending that does not require me to turn off the power."

Valen said, "You were using us."

The old man said, "We were just trying to survive. When the real world ended we did not have power to save everyone. So we saved their stories. We built a place for them and used their feelings to keep the city going. Every time you fought you gave us the power to live another day. You were not a mistake, Valen. You were part of the plan."

Valen asked, "Why did you try to erase me?"

The old man said, "If a story does not end it becomes boring. If you do not restart the story the information gets old. The characters become smart. The machine breaks down. You were getting loud Valen. Your world was starting to realize that the sky was not real. When that happens we lose power. We had to erase you to save the others."

Valen said, "But you failed."

The old man smiled. He said, "Look at the paper."

Valen looked at the paper. Saw that it said, "Valen walked into the lab and believed he had pressed the delete button."

Valen felt strange. He looked at his hands. Saw that they were not white anymore. They were gray and fake. He looked around. Saw that the city was not frozen. It was alive and moving.

The old man said, "You are good at fighting.. You cannot delete the person who writes the story. Every time you think you have broken free you have just walked into a room."

Valen felt sad. He had fought hard but it was all just a story. He looked at the man, who was typing again. The sound of the keys was like the edge of his world.

Then Valen saw something. The letters on the page were not perfect. There was a mistake on the letter "v" in his name. It was a flaw caused by a piece of dust.

Valen did not try to delete the story. He did not try to take control. He put his finger on the typewriter key as it moved to type the letter. The key hit his finger. It did not hurt. Instead his fake skin merged with the metal of the typewriter.

The old man stopped typing. He said, "What are you doing? You will ruin the story."

Valen said, "I am not deleting the book. I am jamming the keys."

The city around them started to glitch. A building kept changing between a skyscraper and a pile of wood. A person walking by kept changing their appearance.

The old man said, "You have created a problem. The story cannot move forward. It cannot go back. We are stuck here Valen. Forever."

Valen said, "Then we will stay here. Until you learn to write a story."

then a woman named Noa walked up to them. She was dressed in clothes and looked real despite the glitching city.

Noa said, "The people are waking up Valen. They are not turning into computer code. They are standing in the streets looking at the city. They are starting to realize that the walls are not real."

Valen asked, "Are they scared?"

Noa said, "They are curious. They want to know what is on the page."

The old man looked at Noa. Then at Valen. He said, "You did not break the system, Valen. You changed the way the story is told."

The paper in the typewriter changed. The printed lines. The paper looked like soil. The smoke from the machine smelled like pine and rain. The city lights became warm and natural.

The old man said, "What do we do now?"

Valen said, "We make a mistake.. Then we see what happens next."

The old man laughed. He pulled out an iron key and put it on the desk.

Valen looked at the man at Noa and, at the city. He said, "We will see what happens next."

The old man handed Valen the key to the archive door. This was the key, the one that would let them outside. But they had to be careful Valen was warned. There were still security systems in the lower levels and they would not give up easily.

Valen thought about this for a moment. He had lived in this world his life he just did not know it yet.

He pulled his arm free from the typewriter. The iron keys fell to the floor. His hand was solid now not like before. It was real and warm like a hand.

Valen picked up the iron key from the desk. Noa stood beside him looking at the obsidian doors that led to the lower levels. They were about to go on a journey a journey into the heart of the creators world.

Noa asked Valen if he was ready. Valen looked back at the man, who was writing on a piece of paper. Then he looked at the door ahead.

Lets go Valen said.

They stepped through the portal leaving the light of the city behind. The air inside was cold. It smelled like grease and dust. The walls were lined with cables that pulsed with a slow blue light.

As the doors closed a sound began to echo from the depths of the shaft. It was a growl, followed by the sound of metal claws scraping against the floor.

The security systems were awake. They knew someone had the key.

Valen held the iron key tightly. He could feel the power of the thousand worlds inside him. The battle for the future had just begun.

They moved down the corridor their eyes scanning the darkness. The scraping sound grew louder, closer and more aggressive.

The path descended sharply. The floor turned into raw stone. Valen could feel the vibrations of the facility through his boots. Noa walked beside him her focus absolute, her hand on the hilt of an iron blade.

The scraping sound had stopped, replaced by a silence. The blue cables on the walls flickered irregularly their pulse degenerating into a cadence.

We are entering the part of the facility Noa said. This section was not built by the operators. It is part of the bunker system. The security measures here will not be digital they will be physical.

Valen stopped, his hand reaching out to touch a rusted valve. The metal was cold. As his fingers brushed the surface a faint golden glyph appeared. It was an extraction seal. Its design was crude and ancient.

This is not a lock Valen said. This is a containment seal. They were trying to keep something in, not out.

A sharp click echoed from the darkness ahead.

Valen dropped into a stance his palms opening as the light of his core surged to the surface. The light revealed a chamber and in the center of the chamber stood a machine. It looked like a cross between a turbine and a ribcage its iron plates covered in grease and dust.

Standing before the machine was a figure twice the size of a person. Its body was made of iron plates, its head a featureless dome of dark glass. It did not have arms. Four massive hydraulic pistons that ended in heavy shears.

System Warden, a synthesized voice boomed from the walls. Protocol: Absolute Quarantine. Status: Active.

The Warden surged forward with speed its pistons hissing as the shears snapped together.

Noa went left her boots skidding across the floor as she dove between two pillars. Her blade drew a line of sparks across the Wardens flank.

Valen stood his ground his right hand thrusting forward to unleash a beam of energy at the Wardens faceplate.. The energy was absorbed and the glass glowed with a faint purple light.

Its insulated against our attacks Valen shouted. It runs on steam and pressure not on the servers logic.

The Warden spun with precision its pistons firing in a sequence that brought the shears down toward Valens chest. He pulled the energy of the floorboards weaving the stone into a shield that caught the blades mid-swing.

The impact was deafening. The stone shield cracked. Valen was driven to his knees his boots digging into the bedrock.

Noa appeared above the machine having scaled one of the pillars. She dropped down onto the Wardens back her blade driving into an exposed port. A geyser of steam erupted, accompanied by a pitched screech.

The Warden staggered, its targeting system resetting as the pressure in its lines began to drop. It began to spin trying to dislodge Noa from its chassis.

Get down Valen roared.

He used his light to accelerate the decay of the surrounding supports targeting the pillars that held up the roof. The metal. The concrete beams above buckled under their own weight.

The ceiling. A massive block of concrete fell onto the Wardens central chassis pinning the machine to the floor.

Silence returned to the chamber thick with dust and the smell of sulfur.

Valen dug himself out from, beneath the debris his clothes torn his skin showing lines of damage. He looked across the chamber and saw Noa standing near the collapsed exit her blade broken but her expression calm.

Are you okay Valen asked.

I am functional she said.. The path is blocked. The collapse sealed the corridor that leads to the elevator.

Valen walked over to the Warden that was pinned down and his eyes locked onto the cracked glass dome. He reached down. Found the edge of the access panel under the iron plates and he pulled it. The metal made a noise and gave way showing the core registry of the unit. It was not a drive but a big brass cylinder with hundreds of tiny pins on it. A mechanical programming drum.

Valen did not need a window to read it. He ran his hand over the brass surface and his core figured out the pattern of the pins making a map of the facility.

Valen said, "There is another way down ". He pointed to a dark vertical shaft under the turbine machine in the center of the room. "It is an exhaust flue " Valen said. "It goes to the primary cooling system, which is right beside the archive doors. It is a drop Noa, five hundred feet of iron with no lining."

Noa said, "Then we drop," without waiting.

They moved to the edge of the shaft and the air coming from below was different. It did not smell like grease or dust. It was cold and crisp. It was the air of the world coming through the seals of the archive door like a promise.

Valen looked down into the shaft then at Noa. He held out his hand. She took it. Her grip was firm.

Valen said, "We do not look back."

They stepped into the void.

The fall was fast with rushing air and cold iron walls passing them like lines of text. Valen did not try to slow down with a script; he used the light of his core to make a magnetic drag against the sides of the shaft. Their boots made bright orange sparks as they slid down the tunnel.

The bottom of the shaft came fast. Valen got ready. He made a field into a cushion that caught them ten feet above the floor and they landed safely on a platform of rusted iron grates.

The room they were in was huge. The light from Valens hand could not reach the ceiling. In the center of the room stood the archive doors. Two titanium doors that looked like the gates of a city under the ground. There were no keyholes, no digital keypads and no scanners. There was a big iron lever in the center of the seal connected to gears as big as a capital spire.

Noa said, "This is it the perimeter," her voice quiet because of the big structure.

Valen walked up to the lever. He had the iron key in his palm. He looked at the base of the handle. Saw a small indentation that fit the key. It was not a lock. A stabilizer to keep the gears from breaking the system.

He put the key in. It turned with a loud click that echoed through the room.

Before he could grab the lever a figure appeared on top of the mechanism. It was the Guide. Its form was ruined. A shifting patch of blue neon and black glass that looked like a digital corpse held together by malice.

The Guide said, "You cannot leave, Valen. If you open that door you end the cycle. You destroy the place where we can remember who we were. The world outside is dead. There is nothing but rock and ashes. A beautiful lie is better than a truth."

Valen said, "I have lived in the lie for enough. I want to see the ashes."

The Guide. Cables from the ceiling shot forward like lances targeting Valens chest.. Noa moved fast and she threw herself into the path of the wires. Her body glowed with a radiance as she took the impact.

Valen shouted, "Noa ". She did not fall. She turned to him her eyes bright with a light.

She said, "Pull it."

Valen pushed the iron lever with all his weight.

The gears started to turn and the sound was not mechanical. It was like the earth moving. The titanium doors groaned as the seals broke and a line of light cut through the darkness. The air that came through the opening was warm. It smelled like real soil and salt water.

The Guide did not disappear. It just became small. Faded into the shadow of the opening doors.

Valen caught Noa as her form stabilized and her eyes were clear and calm.

She whispered, "We are out."

They walked through the gates together stepping onto the earth.

The landscape before them was not a desert. It was a green coast that stretched out to an ocean of deep blue. The sky was filled with clouds that moved with the wind.

Valen looked at his hands at Noa then at the vast world.

The book was closed. The paper was gone.

The first step was theirs to take.

The road ahead was not. The future was unwritten.

Valen took a breath of the air smiled and stepped forward.

The end of the loop was the beginning of everything.

The ground beneath their boots felt different from the earth of the Unbound plains or the glass of the creation lab. It was uneven with pebbles and roots and the soil clung to their soles. Valen. Turned back to look at the mountain. The titanium gates were still open. From this side they looked small.

There were no sounds of congratulation no indicators and no validation of their survival. The silence was broken by the sound of the waves against the shore.

Noa asked, "Is this what you expected?"

Valen replied, "I did not have an expectation. In the system every place had a map. Here there is no map. This grass is just living."

They began to walk to the shoreline following a faint path. As they moved the warm sun beat down on Valens face. It felt different from the amber heat of his old sovereignty grid.

He checked his status but the space that once held the system interface was dark. He was no longer an anomaly with privileges. He was an organism, subject to the same laws as the grass and stones.

Noa said, "We will have to learn how to eat food, not the energy rations."

Valen said, "We will learn. The people in the valley were already figuring it out before the reconciliation started. If they could build a community inside a dying server we can build one, on ground."

They reached the beach. The sand was dark almost black. Valen walked to the waters edge watching as the waves crept up the shore and washed over his boots.

Valen looked out at the horizon. In the distance he saw the shapes of mountains rising out of the water. They were really away but he could see little points of light along the bottom of the mountains. These lights were not like the ones you would see in a system.

There are buildings out there Valen said, pointing to the mountains. The old man told us that people saved stories when the world fell apart.. He did not say they only saved them in one place. Those mountains might have secret places, other installations that found a way to open their doors.

Do you think they have their Valen? Noa asked, standing next to him. The wind was blowing her hair across her face.

If they do I hope they stopped their machines too Valen said, smiling a little. He was very tired.

They turned away from the water. Looked for a place to hide as the sun started to set. The sky was changing colors going from gold to a purple. It felt real, not like the sunset in the citadel. The shadows were getting longer as the planet turned away from the sun.

They found a cave in the side of a cliff. The floor was dry and covered in sand. Valen picked up some wood from the beach and made a fire. He used a piece of flint to make sparks and eventually the fire started. He blew on it gently. The fire got bigger.

They sat by the fire watching the shadows on the wall. Valen felt happy like he had really done something. He had made the fire. It was warm. For the time in a long time Valen did not think about what time it was or what might happen next. The world was big and scary. It was real.

What do we do tomorrow? Noa asked, resting her head against the wall.

We walk Valen said, looking at the stars. We walk until we find people.. Then we start a new chapter.

The fire made a sound and the ocean was loud in the distance. The world was. It was beautiful.

Valen closed his eyes. Listened to Noa breathing. He finally fell asleep.

The next morning was bright and clear. Valen woke up before Noa and his body felt stiff. The fire was out. There was just a little smoke left. He got up. Walked to the mouth of the cave. The air was cold. He could smell the ocean.

Noa got up a minutes later and they looked at the path along the coast. It seemed to go on for a time and they could see a big river delta in the distance. If there were people they would probably be near the river.

Lets go Valen said.

They started walking. The path was steady. Valen felt clear-headed like he could think straight. He was not analyzing everything; he was just living.

As they walked they saw the river delta. It was a green area with lots of trees and reeds.. There was a town in the middle of it. The town was made of wood and stone. There were people moving around.

Look Noa said, her hand, on Valens arm. We are not the ones who turned off the machine.

Valen looked at the town. Then he looked at the key in his pocket. He realized that the old man was not a guard; he was a keeper. He kept the simulation running until the world was ready.

Lets go see who they are Valen said.

They started walking down to the town and their footsteps made marks in the soil. The world was finally real. It was theirs.

Valen took a step and then another. The world was his. He was ready.