The Viluverse - Chapter Three

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Jensen walked down the corridor like he owned the place, the walls occasionally flickering translucently to reveal strange creatures swimming in them before turning metallic again. He grinned; sometimes, a dreamer could override the overall dream matrix, if only for a second, to see little surprises that had been left there.

The dream architects, as they were called, were a select group of people who maintained consistency within the Vilu. They were of a higher IQ than normal, and rumors abounded that they had been imbued with some kind of genetic modification to aid this process. Nobody really knew whether that was true or not, but their identities were unknown save for a few, and truth be told, Jensen didn’t really care.

As long as he was free to live and dream inside this universe, he was cool with it and whistled as he popped outside Meridian’s room.

“Anybody home?” He called out, seeing and hearing nothing as he saw the ship neatly laid out on a table behind him. It was gorgeous, a sleek black thing, with two nasal fins at the back, which curved into slimmer wings as one got near the front, meeting with the curved cockpit area. It shined in the corridor light.

He picked it up, savoring it, before putting it into his right jacket pocket.

“Oh Jensen…” A voice softly called out to him as he turned around to see thought bubbles in the air.

“Can’t catch ya now,” they read, “got called out to do a special job for someone but be advised, the ship is armed and ready to roll, had to make a few modifications but should be good to go. Hope you have fun on the moon; I hear there’s some wild stuff going down. Be seeing ya.”

The thought bubbles disappeared, and Jensen rolled his eyes: Meridian was a man in hot demand and sometimes did these unpredictable disappearing acts, but he had a sense of humor at least, and Jensen contented himself with being as fully prepared as possible.

The Sanktar pirate ships were renowned for their firepower. Just one blast from a concentrated dose of their energy field, which surrounded the whole ship, could penetrate even the toughest ship hulls; even the station, one of the largest and most heavily defended in the sector, could take damage from one of these monsters, and Jensen wanted as much in his pocket as he could possibly muster.

Danner’s Mount had once been a major trading post and space sport on a moon near Centura, a huge gas giant. It dealt in iron ores and other, more exotic materials but had fallen into disrepair following a localized war that had broken out between two warring tribes of mercenaries, and had since been inhabited by a gang of pirates, long since disappeared, or so it was rumored.

Their leader, Mendos, was a nasty SOB; rumor has it he’d brought something up from a particularly nasty nightmare of his, and it had attached itself to him, leaving half of him in a deep shadow that sometimes reached out to destroy his enemies in particularly nasty ways.

Nobody had seen or heard anything from him or his gang, The IDs, in quite some time, though, and for now, Jensen was happy to keep it this way. Still, if trouble did come, he was prepared and made his way to the discharge bay, which lay a few levels down.

The station was relatively quiet, and he gazed out at the deepness of space from the window of the lift. The Vilu was the only thing he knew now, his previous life on board the ship…whatever it was called, a distant memory. That one could do anything was a drug he found impossible to resist, although the dream architects ensured that at least a semblance of normality and basic physics was in place to keep people grounded.

The theory was that if anyone could do anything at any time, it would quickly turn into the equivalent of one giant acid trip, and people would eventually tune out completely. To at least have the semblance of normality, which could be hacked or broken when certain benefits were bestowed, ensured that people felt they were in a real world beyond the monotony of what it could be and gave them the impetus to explore further and be productive.

Brain activity from time spent here was used to feedback as electricity into the ship, as a means of operating certain systems, and to aid computational power. Sometimes specific people would be chosen for tasks they would undertake, serving some unknown simulation purpose for industry or the like.

Jensen didn’t particularly care either way: he was a rogue operator and preferred to keep it that way, and Tycer, his main contact, always ensured he had a steady supply of “fun” missions to complete. Whether Tycer was real was of no consequence: sometimes, people could be projections of one’s psyche, but Jensen was too far gone at this point to give a damm. As long as he had fun, that’s all that mattered, and he was sure this latest mission would be just the ticket.

He reached the discharge bay: a large, grey hanger with grid patterns all over its surfaces and one gigantic entrance with a rectangular light surrounding it. Nobody else was in, and Jensen set to work, taking the ship out of his pocket, throwing it ahead of him, and letting it drift.

As it moved forward, it began to enlarge and was soon life-size, hovering there as Jensen walked under it. The circular hatch above opened, and he quickly levitated inside, fitting snug as a rug into the compact cockpit, smooth surfaces with light indicators where his hands should rest. He rested them in place and grinned, the long, curved window in front of him forming smooth lines of light which guided him in the right direction.

He’d already memorized the instructions, and with a simple press of his hands and an impulse, the craft took off, and he was flying out of the station, the gigantic structure soon disappearing in the distance as he prepared himself for the trip ahead and cloaked the ship.

The Vilu seemed to meander on by as the ship drifted through it. As a vehicle, it was ideal for this sort of mission: compact, lightweight, and if he lost it, no big deal; Meridian could just supply him with another one. He knew every ship he used was a big advertisement for Meridian, who had a steady supply of clients, and for Jensen, he was willing to make special considerations.

Jensen relaxed. He was in no rush, the station had long been dormant, and he figured if there were any ships, they were probably just scavengers looking for easy pickings. He saw a distant speck of light grow larger into a gaping hole, a slit in the Vilu before it disappeared again. Sometimes craft would take shortcuts to get from one part of the Vilu to another. Not exactly wormholes, just creative expressions of inner desires.

He stared at stars that seemed inviting, promises of new worlds as the collective subconscious of millions of souls worked together in harmony to create this beautiful place he called home. He was tempted to drift again, to reenter Holos and dig for more insights and memories, but that could wait. Instead, he brought up a visualization on the screen of Danner’s Mount, so he could familiarize himself with it.

It looked like the surface of a dead moon, circular structures jutting out around three grey circular landing pads, forming a triangular formation with distant spires of rock in the distance. No movement, no life, as the stars twinkled distantly above. He considered them and then went into a deep meditative state as the Vilu drifted around him.

He became aware of the Danner’s Mount in what felt like a short time after; the grey moon, hulking in space, loomed ahead of him as he brought himself back to consciousness. He readied himself, then thrust the ship forward into its atmosphere. The impact jolted him as thick grey clouds buffeted the ship on either side, winds tossing it from side to side as he pushed it further into the atmosphere.

The grey lunar landscape soon greeted him as he plunged beneath the thick clouds, a grey whooshing sound filling his ears as the stars now appeared above the surface, belying the illusion of the clouded mystery that had initially greeted his view. Of course, moons weren’t usually clouded, but this was another artistic touch that the inhabitants of the Vilu liked to indulge in sometimes.

No lights could be seen as the distant spheres of the spaceport appeared in the distance, rising above this grey cratered landscape that saw only eternal night. He swept around, taking the ship into a circular landing pattern as he looked for anything resembling life.

Not a thing as his binoc vision registered no heat signatures, no life as he set the ship down upon a rocky promissory just outside one of the big domes. Then, with a heavy “thunk!” the ship landed, and he levitated through a hole above him, surveying the distant landscape as he set himself down beside the ship.

As many sensory scans continued to survey the scene, his binocs glowed like rings in the dark, attached by a forcefield to his head. Nothing still, as the giant, grey dome ahead of him made him feel like an ant in the land of giants, his footsteps treading softly on the dusty, grey surface below him. Nothing could be heard, nothing could be seen, as he trudged on ahead, keeping all of his senses active as the quiet greeted him with repose.