Virtual Reality : Dystopian Tales Online

016.3 | The Treasure Trove

"It's an AI," Frass said.

The private archive has been locked for many years. It is impossible for any humans to survive for so long without food and water. The individual that is giving off human vibes is nothing but a highly advances robot residing inside the archive. If they look closely, they could see some prominent metal furnishing common in robot AIs.

As to why this robot strikingly resembled Tristan Foster will forever remain a mystery.

It should be an ordinary surprise but this dealt a heavy torment to Adrian's exaggerated senses. The stimulation caused him to feel dizzy. He could no longer remember when is the last time he saw his father so seeing this image only made the blood in his body rush instantly to his brain leaving his body cold and sweaty.

Frass supported Adrian until his calm down. He let the nephew sit on a nearby chair to give him time to properly adjust.

The archive room is big. It is partitioned with a clear glass wall that divides the lounge area and the storage area. The robot is settled at the only passage towards the storage area - it is composed of shelves. Each shelf possesses four levels occupied with black boxes that could store a thousand yottabytes. All of them are blinking in glossy green showing that the data are in stable condition.

Xavier roamed in front of the glass partition. The robot is looking at him in with a smile as if asking if he requires something. Xavier hasn't approached him yet and merely observed the room beyond the glass. He estimated the number of shelves and the countless thousands of files they have to search. There is a lot, ah.

Though, at least, the black boxes can be connected to a main server where they could just type in some necessary words to filter the files. If it is in the ancient Earth, they will have to leaf every page to retrieve what they're seeking for. All they have to think of on how to determine the tags they could use.

"It may take time for us to find some leads," Xavier commented. "The files from the start-up until the current server have been stored in here. It could take about two days and a half to filter them all."

"Three days?" Frass frowned. "That's excessively long."

"We can't do anything about it. The stored data in here are estimated to contain more than fifteen years of memories. It's already a feat to execute it in three days," Xavier sighed.

The time is estimated based on guessing the correct filters. There's a chance that their first tries won't provide them adequate information. Speaking of which, they somehow envied Shin's efficiency. That guy's brain must not be good in comprehension, but he could drop out a memory on the spot. He even contained more precise information accumulated for more than twenty years.

Adrian pointed the robot, "Let's ask the AI. Probably it could help us sort some documents."

Xavier accepted the job and went close to AI. The robot is like a human being, moving flawlessly without jointed stops. Its eyes are blinking naturally with a smile contorted in a manageable smile. It looked at Xavier with concern, prepared to heed orders.

"Greetings, my name is AI-36450. How may I assist you?" A gentle voice asked.

Adrian groaned dismally, genuinely wanting to extract himself from his acute senses. He justly complained. “That robot also sounds like him."

The robot did not mind him, though, since it is programmed to barely respond to the closest person. Xavier asked, "I would like to know if there is any information about the Virtual Reality Game... under the Dystopian Tales Online Confidential Files."

"There is," The robot nodded amiably. "There are exactly forty boxes containing all the same wordings, about fifty black boxes for grouped wordings, and about seventy black boxes for individual word search."

Xavier looked back to the other two people. "That's already a lot. I heard there are only one hundred black boxes in this room."

"Correction," the intelligent robot suddenly interrupted. "There are one hundred and twenty black boxes recorded."

"One hundred and twenty?" Xavier frowned thoughtfully. "How could there be a hundred and twenty? I remembered that there were only a hundred in here. Did you not count wrong?"

"It's impossible to count wrong," the robot dutifully reported. "There are one hundred and twenty black boxes recorded in the system. All of them are recorded just a day ago."

"Just a day ago?"

Xavier looked at the robot weirdly. As what the robot says, it is impossible to count wrong. He is merely trying to probe the reason why there are an additional of twenty black boxes but did not expect to discover a more confusing answer. What was a day ago? That is twenty-four hours. Did someone deposit the additional twenty black boxes yesterday?

"How is that possible?" Adrian asked.

He has been contacting the people from the office since a week ago so he knows that the building has been abandoned. There is, moreover, the restriction placed by the federation, keeping the people to remain in their homes than go to work. The state of the building is not looking good due to the integration of the worlds, so it is impossible for the office to be accessed.

Adrian stood up and confronted the robot while Xavier took a step back. The periphery has subtly changed its operational command. The AI executed a short scan of the person in front of him that caused the robot to smile. It might be due to some program formulated on the AI that when it discerned Adrian, it purportedly showed a rather satisfied smile.

"You had grown up," it suddenly said. "You had lived long enough than he expected."

Adrian is about to ask some question but halted from the phrase. He took a good look towards his father's doppelganger and heaved a sigh. He grew up without his parent's guidance, and what is only left are their pictures. Even though he could still remember their faces and traits, they weren't there when he needed them.

The robot seems to be a fond remembrance left by his father before he went missing.

When he thought about it, a driven spike of interest suddenly came up in his mind. Adrian sought the robot, "Is there a file stored under the name of Adrian Foster?"

The robot processed the request very quickly and nodded affirmatively. "There is one file associated under that name. The file is confidential and could only be opened by Adrian Foster."

So he did leave something for me?

The three looked at each other. Adrian wasn't so sentimental, but he is keenly interested with what his father left for him. Hence, he requested the file to be taken from the storage. The robot only had him taken his DNA by scanning his eyes and thumbprint. After recognition, a small microchip is promptly handed to him.

Frass and Xavier are curious but they have no desire in crossing Adrian's privacy. They merely observed Adrian place the microchip on his terminal. The transfer process took at least ten minutes before Adrian returned the empty chip.

"You want to see it?" Frass asked.

"No, I will do it later. There is more important matter we need to check."

Adrian asked the robot once again about the specific deposit date of the last black boxes. It is impossible to obtain the additional files since the building had been abandoned for two weeks. And if there are indeed people still working, what kind of information they are going to store?

The game has stopped operating, and the official announcement of the administrators in Disboard has not been refreshed. Adrian concluded from all the evidences that they indeed had traveled to a new dimension and the administrators were not able to cross over.

Various information flooded in Adrian's mind. Much information is passing creating connections and agreements to other events. It happened so quickly, so fast, that his environment had collapsed to a state of silence. Adrian is familiar with this set-up. When his brain is working at its usual capacity, everything around him will start to get slower.

Hence, you can justly say that under typical circumstances, Adrian never thinks that much.

"The two dimensions are similar," he eloquently stated. "We can only follow the possible timeline of the more complex dimension with the same set-up..."

They could only cross over to the dimension following the same thread of a line. It is because entering the wrong dimension might affect the system of the universe. Some people are nor born in other dimensions, while others died early. There is on top of that the possibility where humanity was not able to endure the nuclear winter and died.

Fortunately, they were not capable of choosing a wrong dimension since it bears no connections to their previous dimension. They could only step-up an entire entity following the same world as theirs. It is like ascending stairs. There is only one way up because they're the only one connected.

"If that idea is true then... huh?" Adrian stopped thinking.

Everything returned to normal. The pace of time in his eyes is slow, but it is the constant pace he could follow. He looked at Frass with an unusual face as if he had something stuck in his head.

"Did I not long ago say that we crossed the dimension?" Adrian asked.

Frass and Xavier did know what's on his mind so they just nodded. Frass confirmed, "You said that we had crossed the dimension successfully. And with Leon's findings, the dimension and the game world is integrating."

"That is true," Adrian agreed. At that time, he added, "Why is it nobody tried to disagree with my assumption?"

"Is there something to disagree about?" Frass is confused.

Adrian nodded. "I am also human. Everything I say might sound correct but there will be times where it becomes questionable. And what I asserted earlier is extremely questionable."

"How sure are you?" Xavier timidly asked.

"Because I wasn't thinking. Everything I said is based on what I concluded is possible but when I thought of it, none of those makes sense. Crossing dimensions... world integration... We are mistaken from the start... I am mistaken from the start," Adrian admitted.

He walked towards the robot and requested for the camera feed yesterday. Cameras surrounded the topmost floor, so there should be footage of yesterday's events. He wanted to see if someone really deposited twenty additional black boxes and what are the contents of those.

The robot listened to his instructions and played the scenario. They watched the playback in fast mode. They finished watching the whole day, but no one deposited the twenty boxes. Adrian asked the robot about the records. The one hundred boxes changed to one hundred twenty yesterday.

"Nobody is there," Frass pointed at the video. "But the record says it accepted the twenty additional black boxes. How is that possible?"

"How could something that doesn't exist in this world will suddenly show up?" Adrian pointed to himself. "If we existed here now, then, where is the version of us in this dimension? Could it be that they also did the similar thing as us and crossed a higher realm?"

He did not wait for their answers. They were not capable to give answers anyways.

"There is no higher dimension. There is no world integration. After all, it is impossible from the start. The idea is preposterous, like what the scientists had remarked. We could never cross a dimension since it is meant to be in that way."

Leon is right. The project will only fail.

"Could you elaborate what you are saying?"

Frass gathered Adrian and prodded him down to sit in the chair. The youth is getting frantic again. He placed his hands on Adrian's temples in an attempt to massage it but Adrian flung his hand away. He stood up once again and started pacing around.

"Following the stepping up theory, it should be true that the version of us in this dimension also did the same trick and crossed a higher realm. The reason why none of our family members worried is because we transported the moment they left."

That idea is possible, but it doesn't add up. There are discrepancies in many directions. The first question is the record for the black boxes. Second, the said integration of the two worlds. Third, their sudden existence in this world. And lastly, the nerve gears connected in their necks.

"Have you never thought the possibility that this could be the sixth server?"

"The sixth server?" Frass inevitably found it funny. "How could it be the sixth server?"

"How could it not be?"

"How sure you are that it is?"

"A hundred percent," Adrian said.

He opened his terminal and tried contacting the administrators but like before nobody acknowledged his calls.

"I assumed that the reason why we weren't able to connect with the administrators was that we left them in our dimension. If we did crossed the dimension, there should be a version of them present in this timeline. Yet, we could not contact them. That's the hole in this dimension. They should have existed since our dimensions are similar."

"They are not here, which means we indeed did leave them out. Probably, right now, they are trying to make a connection between us. The additional twenty black boxes is due to their effort of programming this world to be accessible. The seamless integration of the dimension and the world is a way to create that connection."

"Hold up," Frass barred him. "Are you saying that we are still inside the game?"

Adrian nodded. "We have been up until now is in the game. We did not cross any dimension but got locked to the sixth server."

"If that is true, then why did we not wake up in our characters?" Frass pointed out.

"Have you forgotten something?" Adrian merely shifted his look towards Xavier. "What is the description of the sixth server?"

Xavier lagged. "I ... um... to construct a reality in the virtual world-"

"Exactly, we were able to create a reality in the virtual world. In the real world, we are just ordinary humans. That's why we display ordinary human traits."

Adrian chuckled. He thought it wasn't complicated at all. It's like a big joke.

"My father lied to you. He did not intend to cross a dimension. Instead, he planned on creating one."

"If that is true, does he intend to lock us in this dimension?" Frass is suddenly in a rage. "Who would want to get locked in an imaginary world?"

"Who would not?" Adrian stared at Frass seriously. "Who would want to return to that world?"

Frass and Xavier both gasped silently. They are aware of Adrian's thoughts from the start so hearing such answer is expected. In fact, this is what they dread since Adrian is always critical. Adrian, however, merely shook his head. He walks towards the entrance of the door that was closed automatically when they entered.

"But I could not be selfish," he said with a sigh. "My father wanted to lock a reality in this world, but that is not the version of everyone's reality. Nobody will be happy."

That's right, nobody will be happy.

Adrian opened the door. Frass is about to restrain him when a hot breeze slapped in their anxious face. They subconsciously took a step back, desperately trying to avoid the increasing temperature. Frass forced himself to look up just to see Adrian still standing in front of the door with arms spread wide. A crazed expression is drawn on his face.

Who wanted to go back in that world?

Not Adrian and he never will.