Chapter one and two

[Vas Niltere]

Chapter one
Land of Stainless Steel Streets

Someone said to me that the world is much bigger when you live in the sky...
That person lied...

The childhood writings of
Margret Thowe

"Can anyone tell me the events that led up to the signing of the Markam's Resolution?" The teacher asked; but if voice had form and figure then Mr. Margos's monotonous voice would have wandered into the middle of the room and sat down as if actually reaching the student's ears was a futile effort.

The answer to the question brushed casually across Vas's mind. As always, the answer came easily, but actually answering was far more difficult.

The silence from the rest of the students drowned out every little sound. It was the painful kind of silence and Vas could bear it now longer, so he scratched something into the air above his Holo Pat. Once the answer was in the computer program Vas relaxed. Just thirty more seconds he thought. If the full thirty seconds passed then someone at the back of the class would get a message from a mysterious account called "Hint Boy."

"Hint Boy" was Vas's attempt at making friends that had gone horribly awry. Vas made the program so that it would send whatever he typed into it randomly to some student in the class. Vas would input the answer to the question that the teacher gave the students into the program. Then after the allotted time was up it would appear on some student’s Holo Pat as a message from an account called “Hint Boy”. After the first few trials, the other students found the answers were accurate as they got good reactions from the teacher. In curiosity, rumors began to spread about some new cheat program that someone must have found. Vas tried to send a message that he had created the program and was the one giving it the answers, but no one believed him and assailed him with harassing notes. Vas hastily abandoned using the "Hint Boy" program, except only using it in times of greatest silence, like now. But even though "Hint Boy" rarely said anything, whenever a message from “Hint Boy” would appear, the students took it to heart.

The time counted down… slowly. It was like waiting for stratus ice to melt off the ring netting.

Thankfully the full thirty seconds did not elapse as one of the students had a sudden burst of confidence and spoke up from the back of the room. Vas hit the abort button on “Hint Boy” as the student began to answer.

"The first thing was that the master builder Zarphalanx proposed the idea for the sky towers, everyone in the costal nations of South and North America put an effort into making it, but as preparations began, tensions rose. People began to wonder what would happen if the sky tower fell. To ease the tension resolutions were passed, the benefits of the tower were greater than the sacrifices that were necessary to keep it safe, so many countries signed the many non combatant treaties and war was virtually eliminated. All explosives were banned in every operation except construction. Laser defense grids were built around the towers and precautions were set up…" The boy was speaking fast and almost without taking a breath. Vas knew the answer the student was giving as it was nearly word for word strait from a book that Vas had read on the subject.

Vas turned slightly to find out which student was speaking. To Vas’s surprise the student who was answering was not the kind of student that would memorize long passages of text books. Then the idea came to Vas, The student had not memorized it but was simply repeating it as it was being read to him from the networks through his bone phones. Vas shook his head and punched a few commands into his holo pat. Within moments the student stopped talking and a worried look of stupidity replaced his brilliant answer.

"And?" Mr. Margos asked menacingly. "Continue. What happened next?"

Vas continued the answer. "Economic warfare, though more secretive, came into play." Mr. Margos nodded.
"And how did the economic war fare lead to the resolutions?" Margos Added.

Vas nodded, "the Federation of Energy, formerly known as FoE, tried to use espionage and their private piece of equipment used in the tower to implement a plan to oppress the world. They threatened to cut power from any part of the population that didn’t comply with FoE demands." He paused for a moment. "But Hall Markam put a stop to that before it was allowed to happen. He uncovered their plot almost too late. He thought that he was too tied into the nefarious actions to be let go with a clean slate and almost attempted a wingless jump from the third level of tower 8. But he was more revered for uncovering the plot than hated for being part of it, that the courts ruled that any infractions of the law that he committed were committed in ignorance of any wrong doing."

"His record got cleared and Hall was thence forth put on a committee to come up with the resolutions that put into commission the Nitangible ensuring that no one is in a position to disconnect the power to any part of the world." Mr. Margos nodded unenthusiastically.

"Good answer. And the Nitangible are..." Mr. Margos went into an extended lecture about the Nitangible. But Vas had learned this lesson three times before and in boredom opened a small frame on his pat and began to play brain slash.

Brain slash was an intriguing game, a new puzzle appeared each time you played, the game doesn't tell you the rules of the puzzle or the objective. And so it is up to you to find out how to solve each puzzle. On the frame in front of Vas was a box with several dots moving in their own strait line across the screen a circle up in the corner was slowly changing colors as a line went around it, it was shifting from blue to green. Vas prodded one particularly slow moving ball and it changed direction by 90 degrees. Vas guessed the balls must go somewhere. He tried to herd the balls to the circle. Some of them bounced off and some disappeared. The circle began to change place around the box but after a few more minutes Vas had the puzzle figured out, the balls had to be coordinated to go into the circle at certain times as indicated by the color of the circle. No points were awarded for completing puzzles or games, the puzzles were just there to be solved.
After three puzzles had come and gone, Vas closed the game and opened a secret command window. He logged on his Mask account Vanir de Naiads. Vanir was Vas's new Brain child. If Hint boy wouldn’t work to get Vas some friends, then Vanir would divulge to him plenty of blackmail even though Vas was sure he would never use it. None the less it was another good source of entertainment. He had a rush, of sorts, when he was eluding detection while reading private journals and finding out how people thought of him.

But then again Vas already knew what almost everyone thought of him. Just like each and every time Vas answered a question in class, a stack of virtual notes were stacking up on the corner of his pat, he checked the names swiftly finding none of them of any importance, and then shoved them into the cyber oblivion, known as VOID, that lay beyond the boundaries of the Holo pat. He pressed yes on the "sure?" message and they were gone and lost.

He did not need to read them anymore; he knew what they all said. he opened one once, thinking that it would be a friend writing, but instead a roll of paper, like those that were delivered in ancient times, appeared where the envelope was, it unrolled for nearly three minutes only to be almost completely blank except the three lines at the bottom on which was dashed repeatedly. "Jump off and return to your own colony you Sea salt sucker." the others had "SSS" on it repeatedly, which stood for "sea salt sucker"

Vas got these insults because there was a great rivalry between the two people, the Aquanauts and the Aeronauts. (Those who live on the ground, the Terols, are ignored as being too old fashioned.) The Aquanauts and the Aeronauts hated each other with a passion, more as a joke then as validity, but the play insults still hurt deep.

Amidst the passionate hate, a debate of which sphere of life was better arose. And so a group of people set up an exchange program so that people who had lived in all three areas could finally settle the argument.

Vas was one of the three exchange children. One from the sky one from the ground and one from the ocean, who would rotate one place each year. Each was sure to get razzed by those in their new settings. He didn’t know or contact the other two kids personally but had contacts who watched over them.

Vas used Vanir to talk publicly with his contacts and check up on the world. Vas used Vanir to check private journals of people with his god status access. Vas used Vanir, to make a change. Vanir du Naiads, God of the water nymphs, had only been stopped spying once.

There was only one peculiar person who Vanir had no access to, some privately made account, whose profile allocated to a local server. That person was named Emperor Aerate. Vas had been scanning the accounts and had come across the peculiar name so he decided to pop in and see if he could find out who it was; just as he did, the Holo pat shut off. The security system he ran into was incredibly more powerful then he had ever conceived. He tried multiple more times, each time he was shut down no matter what he tried. But he got glimpses at the security; it was Archaic, written in a long forgotten computer language, not in the modern NHCP code.

Vas looked at the message count on Vanir's account. 3 new messages were in the queue. He brought the first one up; it was the Martyred Sage giving him an update on things.

Lo Vanir,
The Muddy child is holding up well down here beneath the deep, he has made friends and has even opened up and become more bold. He misses the natural sun and still finds the new lighting conditions... well... let us just say that his tan hasn't yet set in yet to put it nicely. Things aren’t pretty down here though. Word has set around about some conspiracy theory. Certain big mouths have been getting unmarked messages about an explosive cache that has been supposedly discovered on the southern coasts of Brazil. I and the other Cyber Chade members have been trying to trace the message back to its source. But the source is another tech whiz. we cant trace him back more than 4 terminal routings, then the path gets scrambled into about 14 other places, possibly more. Bits of incomplete message were sent along different routs and merged then sent through 4 more stops before being sent to their final destination. We have tried to trace the individual pieces back but they disappear almost completely into the system as if a Phantom had put them there.
Things just don’t look good. Martyred Sage out.

The next note was from another friend who was living in a port city on the horn of Africa.

OI Vanir...
The sea’s blowing in beautifully today. All is well except that little cretin from up above is making a ruckus down in tees parts.
Your buddy from on high has been a royal pain in the hind quarters if you know what I mean. I won’t sugar coat it, he has really been trying to boss around the Terols. And the Buford Clan is bout to stick him in front o a Doubl E emitter and launch his molecules into oblivion.
I tell you if it does come to that, I am going to help. He actually tried to order me to do something about two days ago.
In lighter news there was a breakout from the Hetakare Penal colony not more than last night but the officials are cracking down quickly. All Tazers are flashing tonight. I hope all those Ozone breathers see the show from up there.
Till another day
Stealth Blue

Vas always liked the messages from Stealth Blue. They were colorful to say the least.

As he read through the last message Vas’ eyes widened in disbelief.

I Know what your doing...
~Sheryl Moccite

The parting Tones rang and all the students moved lazily out of their chairs and filed out the hatchway.
Vas quickly moved with lithe that was hard to come by. Sheryl Moccite was a classmate of his, though they were only in the same room for 2 periods; during Ethecology and Advanced Mathematics.

He would have to try to contact her there in person. Till then he would ignore that she had sent anything. Too many great plans were revealed on a bluffed first enemy move... Vas thought in his mind. He quickly made his way through the blinding Ferriplate streets to his alcove.

The Disk world was interesting at best, barren at worst. No structure stood more than a story and a half high, most of the housing space lay under the top surface of the disk. The material it was made out of did not rust but instead reflected light like polished chrome. When the sun hit the right angles a person could go blind just looking down the street.

Vas quickly found his humble abode and punched in the door key and stepped into his realm. It was a magical little realm even as tight and confined as it was. Vas had taken the liberty to decorate it however he chose. Shells from the sea intertwined with colored fiber optic wires hung lazily about the room. several pictures his little brother had drew him before he left were magnetically stuck to the south wall where on the north wall was an old computer which served him well.

Crumpled up near the west wall were 3 sig suits. Vas found the suits uncomfortable. These Aeronaughts had an early 20th century style that was carried almost to an idiotic extreme. Even the clothes had exactly even edges and the smooth but ridged uniform grey of metal. Vas pulled off the top part of the sig suit that he was wearing almost before he was completely through the door. He despised the suits. They itched and made Vas sweat. Vas stepped over to the west wall and pulled open a compact closet and withdrew a pair of loose fitting dark brown pants and a short sleeve blue button down shirt. Vas put the shirt on but left it unbuttoned then changed out of the sig suit pants into his normal clothes.

Now that Vas was comfortable he could work on the problems at hand, in particular the Sheryl problem. Vas sat on the cot that was positioned by the east wall and thought. “She knows what I am doing?” he asked to the open air. “She has to be bluffing.” Vas tried to reassure himself but doubt still lingered there. “What do I know about her?” he questioned in search of proof that she was bluffing. He sat up and put his bone phones and voice catcher on. “Begin Recording” Vas’s music man player doubled as a personal recorder. “I know that Sheryl’s dad works for a data processing company that processes power consumption levels and pattern analysis and that his hobby is boats in a bottle. He is pretty much a number cruncher with a dream of the waves. Her mom is a work at home mom with an affinity for thread and needle. She weaves beautiful rugs. I remember seeing her net space once. Sheryl is friends with Merk Morgund, who is a New Astrus, Vas hater.. But then again she is friends with the Kidrow Twins who both seem really nice and at least don’t harass me. So I guess she can’t be caught as guilty by association.. Hold Recording” Vas stopped for a moment. “I really don’t know much about her. She has been so silent and unobtrusive in my life that I passed her right over.” Vas realized with dismay. “Well that is going to change.”

Vas started up some techno music to get in the mood for his net excursion. Vas sat down at the computer, which had its own more advanced holo consol, and turned it on. Multiple screens one stacked on top of the other appeared in the air. Each one was a security program or a maintenance program that Vas always left running. He pushed them out of the way and opened a command box. Logging onto Vanir, Vas began to scan the public profile records, Moa Mocad Mocite.. There it was. Vas clicked the profile and to his surprise found a blank screen hovering before him. Nothing was there. “She blocked me out. Clever girl” Vas said. “But there is always a back door.” Vas went back and searched other records that she might be in. Vas found one from the school but as he went to check it, “Nothing!” Vas yelled and pulled the cord from his music man player. The techno instantly died. Vas tried other records and with each record he found he found a veritable wall of nothing.

Vas leered at the blank screen for a moment longer then a grin spread slowly across his face.. He put a program in place that would passively scan the profile of Sheryl. Then he turned off the computer and let the program do its work. Vas tended to other matters for a few minutes then came back to the computer and checked the progress of the program.

Vas grew grim at what he saw. Letters were scattered across the screen but when they were put in sequence they spelled out, “I Know what your doing Vas.” Vas aborted the program and sat back. Vas plugged the cord back into the music man player. “Resume Recording… There is one thing I know for certain about Sheryl Moccite, She doesn’t bluff… End recording.”

* * *

Vas spent the rest of the night going back and forth between games of Brain Slash and his latest piece of equipment. Vas had started a project the day he saw the sig suits. He hated the suits, the way they felt and especially the way the sig suits looked. Vas hated the grey and immediately tried to dye it, only to find that the material would not accept dye. So Vas turned to holographic modification. It took Vas a month to scrounge up the holographic parts to even begin assembling it, and he scrounged it up from old holo pats that the school was shipping to be recycled. Technically it was illegal but Vas really hated the sig suits. Vas hoped that one day he could walk around with a regal looking blue robe on while walking outside in the streets and still having the protecting qualities of the sig suits. Holograms were the only way Vas could see to do it.

In the middle of a particularly challenging puzzle of Brain Slash the alarm clock went off. Vas looked at the time only to discover that he had stayed up far longer than he had expected. Reluctantly Vas pulled out a few Hombre’s frozen breakfast burritos from the food compartment in the west wall and cooked them in the microwave oven that was also placed in the west wall. As they cooked Vas changed back into the sig suit. Vas quickly ate his breakfast and stepped once more into the land of the stainless steel streets…