[532] In the Coder (3)
Rian, Fermi, and Marsha followed Miro past the curtain of sunset.
In the pitch-black space, vertical lines of blue light raced like a night sky, and along them glittering motes descended like falling stars.
"I don't get the sensation of falling."
"Strictly speaking, information is being transmitted. Gravity doesn't apply."
Rian walked toward where Miro stood.
"This is the ?"
"You could call it the entrance. Since we left Drimo, our data is treated as minority conceptions. Once the Dream Star's effect fades, we'll be disassembled too."
"Is that dangerous?"
"No. Our incarnations aren't damaged. They won't be merged with other information, so they'll arrive intact."
"And Arius?"
Now that she mentioned it, the blue-furred dog was gone.
"He wasn't an incarnation. He was an illusion projected through our mental channel. The mind can't reach this far, apparently."
Miro shrugged it off.
"It's fine. He'll find a way to get in touch. If he can't, then there's nothing to be done."
When the Dream Star's effect wore off, the four bodies began to break into sparkling particles.
As the disassembly moved from limbs through torso until only faces remained, Fermi said, "See you at the intermediate layer."
"What do you mean by—"
Before Marsha could finish, the others' bodies dissolved into dust of light and slid down along the .
"Ow, my head."
Miro grimaced and collected herself; Rian, Fermi, and Marsha wore similarly strained expressions.
"What do you mean by intermediate layer?" Fermi asked, looking around.
"This is it."
The square room—about a hundred pyeong in area—was lined with hundreds of mirrors.
"This is the intermediate point of the , a virtual space built by humans. It recycles junk information discarded in Drimo to create small worlds. If an incarnation's form is an intact human, it passes through a filter and ends up here."
Standing before the human footprints stamped into the , Marsha was struck anew by how obsessed humans are with exploration.
"So what are these mirrors?"
"They're passages that link to virtual worlds designed by architects. We call them links. Mirrors are the communication protocol they chose."
"Hm. So each mirror connects to a different virtual world. What kinds of worlds are there?"
Fermi cast a Depreciation Transaction.
A chip painted with a honeycomb of four-by-four flashes slid down his throat.
"Information magic—Information. It decodes the intermediate layer's protocol into real-world data."
When he opened his Spirit Zone, the surfaces of the mirrors revealed the virtual worlds' names and their designers' codenames in plain language.
"At the entrance to the intermediate layer are links to the most popular virtual worlds. I'll read some—pick whichever appeals to you."
Fermi listed the world names and designers' codenames.
Human Taste — ID: Shitting Pig
A Love Story Between Dogs and Humans — ID: Animal Lover
Limbs Optional — ID: Only the Head Remains
"Stop!" Marsha held up a hand as if there was no point in hearing more.
They seemed trivial at first glance, but the more she considered the titles, the clearer it became that these were things utterly unacceptable in reality.
"Worlds where you eat human flesh, have sex with animals, mutilate bodies—those sorts of things," she thought.
What was worse were the designers' codenames attached to those worlds, which betrayed no hint of remorse.
"It's a banquet of every minority conception imaginable. If you enter one of those places, can you actually do those things?"
"Some people just watch; others actually play. It's about fifty-fifty."
"Of course it isn't free?"
Fermi snorted at Marsha's question.
The very idea that someone made these worlds expecting profit was a sign that Marsha was sane.
"Unfortunately, eighty percent of the content is free. Most designers are just crazies with no ties to the real world. If you pay for content, you use Dream Star credits. All they want is Dream Stars—and those can be exchanged for currency in reality."
Miro said, "I get the gist. So where do we go?"
"No matter which link you take, the information keeps falling. You can pick anywhere, but the terminus is always The Abyss."
"Then let's go there."
Miro pointed to a large mirror. Fermi checked it with Information magic.
The Dead Don't Speak — ID: Flabby Corpse
It was a world that toyed with corpses, and Fermi judged it suitable for beginners.
"Moving via a link is simple. It's the principle of a hidden world. Just place your palm on the mirror like this—"
Fermi's figure vanished.
"Huh. That is simple."
When Miro put her hand on the next mirror, her real self and her reflected self reversed, and the scenery flipped.
It felt as if the reflection had always been the real self, and Miro understood how the hidden-world principle worked.
"Convenient. With this you could transfer information wholesale."
Fermi, waiting nearby, shrugged. "Exactly."
Soon Rian and Marsha arrived, and the group began to descend through the intermediate layer in earnest.
The human-made virtual worlds varied wildly in size, makeup, and environment, but they shared one trait: horrific acts that would be unbearable to witness in waking life.
Screams of agony, revolting deeds, faces of people gone mad with pleasure or pain—these were no longer human.
By the time they reached the fortieth linked world, even the steady Marsha was mentally spent.
Miro could withstand it with little feeling, but she hadn't expected Fermi to be humming with enjoyment.
Miro glanced at Fermi and asked, "You seem pretty familiar with this place. How often did you use the ?"
"I don't come here anymore. I was totally hooked when I was about twelve, but I've lost interest lately."
"Twelve…"
Though she'd only met her niece after twenty years, Miro was already sure Fermi was not an ordinary person.
Unfazed by the dreadful screams, Fermi went on, "I was once a designer here. The world's name was 'Vengeance Is Mine.' You could instantiate the object of your hatred and take revenge to your heart's content. Aunt, I tormented you quite a lot there."
Even if it was only virtual, walking with the one who'd created a replica of you to torture you would be chilling.
Miro laughed instead. "Hohoho! That must've drawn some attention."
"No. At first it reached the top thousand in the intermediate layer's popularity rankings, but guests dwindled. If a world didn't get fresh information, it couldn't hold in the intermediate layer—so the world I made sank into The Abyss."
"Hm, that's a shame."
"At the time it bruised my pride. While I was thinking how to attract more popularity, I realized one thing. Was torturing and killing you fun? When I thought about it—no, it wasn't. Want to guess why?"
Miro tapped her chin, thinking. "Um, because it wasn't real?"
"No."
Fermi stopped and turned to Miro. "Because you 'know' it's not real."
Only being trapped makes something real. The moment the lid opens, every concept spills out and mutates into something else.
"The instant you think you can leave anytime, all sensations become fake. That's when I stopped coming. I'm a realist—this place doesn't suit someone like me."
"You can leave anytime," Miro repeated, tasting the words.
In human-made virtual worlds everyone understands that fact, but in waking life there would be few who could truly mean it—not even her.
"We've arrived. This is the last virtual world."
They stepped through the link and found a place where people amputated parts of their bodies and grafted them onto others. Why anyone found pleasure in it was beyond comprehension: the limbless were ecstatic, and humans with extra arms wore expressions of rapt self-satisfaction.
When they left that realm behind, they entered a dim room with a single mirror.
Fermi decoded the information.
Warning. This is the exit of the intermediate layer. If you do not wish to go to The Abyss, awaken from the dream.
"...That's what it says."
"To awaken from the dream—do you just wait?"
"There's a special method. Anyone who enjoys the knows it. But even that only works because these are human-made worlds. The Abyss is an automatic collection of minority conceptions. No information there will look out for us."
Fermi offered one last warning. "Once you enter The Abyss, I don't even know how to get back. Maybe there is no way."
"No, there definitely is."
Miro said, "My friend came back. So there must be a method."
Of course, there was no need to add that the friend had returned only to go back again.
Marsha asked, "Before we go, I want to know exactly what state Shirone exists in inside The Abyss. If it's a totally different world, there's the matter of adaptation. I don't imagine there'd be a magic academy there."
"Patterns of information merging are unpredictable. He'll be combined into whatever form best fits The Abyss's world. If there is a magic academy there, he'd likely be one of its students."
"So he exists as a combination of the most familiar pieces of information."
"Yes. That's why two people are necessary."
The two meant were Marsha and Rian.
"Because we had intense bonds in reality, our informational affinity with Shirone will be high?"
"Yes. The closer your information can penetrate, the better the chance of restoring Shirone's damaged data. In short, you sever the information tied to The Abyss and inject your information."
"Okay, got it. Let's go in."
The four stood side by side before the final mirror to The Abyss.
There was still no clear way back, and the worlds inside would surely be packed with information worse than anything in the intermediate layer.
"The terminus of information—the end of this world."
Even Fermi, who treated the like a daily haunt, had never descended into this unknown realm; tension was inevitable.
Miro took a deep breath and pointed at the mirror. "Okay, who goes first? Who wants to be the first tourist in hell?"
Without giving anyone else a chance, Rian stepped forward.
"I'll go down and wait."
Rian extended his hand; two versions of Rian met palms at the mirror's edge.
The Rian in the mirror became real, and the body that had been in reality vanished as if it had been an illusion from the start.
"Wow, he's a man after all."
"Hah, let's go. It can't be worse than death, can it?"
Marsha stepped through the link next. Miro glanced at Fermi and grinned.
"You're coming too, right? You need to make money, don't you? Or were you planning to send only me and bail?"
"No way."
Fermi smiled bitterly and placed her hand on the mirror.
She'd thought about revenge, but she didn't actually believe she could settle the score with Miro just by dumping her into The Abyss.
"Take it slow and steady."
As Fermi entered The Abyss, Miro smiled at her reflection in the mirror.
"It'll be okay. It's where you are."
Leaving behind words others couldn't understand, Miro took her first step toward the endless, sinking hell.