Chapter Contact in Cyberspace

Coel had never quite overcome his repulsion to Tssk’sphysical form. He, or more likely she, was one of the most remarkable lookingmembers of the Conclave, being formed entirely from crawling insects that creptand clambered over each other, constantly moving within some invisible boundarythat marked out her body. Even her facial expressions were mimicked by thedark, writhing mass.

“We have felt a presence within us.” Tssk’s voice waslike a million breathless whispers. “Something is changing our essence. Ournatural urges are mutating, and even I can feel something influencing me.Swarms that should not be are forming, colonies are dying and armies march outto war when none is warranted.”

A low noise rippled around the Conclave, and Coel sawthat it was a murmuring of agreement.

“I…feel…this…touching.” A water-filled voice emanatedfrom what looked like a shambling mound of moss.

N’rinde Bashala stood and the hubbub died down. Hecarefully placed his ancient spear on the round meeting table, and absentlyadjusted the bright beads that hung around his neck.

“There is an infection spreading throughout the worldwhich, if unchecked, will destroy us all. I have sensed it in the minds of thesmaller creatures and quick thoughts of the birds.” He bowed respectfully toTssk, and then again to a glorious golden eagle perched next to Coel.

“An infection?” A stooped Neanderthal got to his feet,his deep voice resounded off the walls of the Conclave chamber. “From within?”

“No. I think not.” N’rinde shook his wizened head.“This is not a part of the life sphere. This is not a natural process. Ibelieve…” He touched the beads again. “I believe that we are being attacked.”

There was bellowing uproar in the chamber. Most of thecouncillors were shouting how impossible this was, or brandishing theiroutrage, or trying to ask N’rinde how he could even suggest such a thing. Coelsat silently and saw that Tssk was not one of the protestors.

N’rinde raised his spear above his head and a blaze ofgreen fire erupted from the end. “I am the Shramanah! Hear me.”

Most of the councillors were silenced immediately, butthe Neanderthal was still on his feet. “You have gone too far with this,N’rinde. There is nothing outside the life sphere. This is heresy.”

“That is not true.” N’rinde said quietly. “There havebeen visitors before. It was long before the age of mammals, however, and wewere not as evolved as we are now. The memories of that time are well hidden.But, that is of no importance, I am convinced that a deliberate mind is behindthis invasion.”

Coel could see that many of the councillors werefinding it difficult not to argue this point again, but their respect for theleader of the council stopped them short.

“Even if I am wrong,” N’rinde conceded, “we must rootout the cause of this virus and stop it.”

“We have dealt with… illnesses before, N’rinde. Whatmakes you so sure that this is not just a natural evolution?” Coel tried tokeep his voice neutral.

“It is too perfect.” He said. “It has appeared fromnowhere, and seems engineered to insinuate itself into our minds.”

“Then what can we do?”

“I have searched the entirety of the Weave and theVale. I have even ventured into the artificial realms that mankind isconstructing and it still eludes me. The Gazetteer himself cannot locate it.

“So I believe we must lure our enemy into revealingitself. On our own terms I think we will be strong enough to defeat it. But ifwe wait too long, then when the final battle comes, it will have made too manyallies, created too many converts. Too many of our own will have beencorrupted.”

“What do you propose?”

N’rinde did not hesitate. “I have made preparations toAscend. With a new leader the council will seem weak. And the Weave will appeardefenceless and so, I hope our enemy will choose to strike too soon.”

“But we have only just started to look for yoursuccessor. We are years away from knowing if any of the candidates aresuitable.”

“You found the boy, Coel. He will be the perfect baitfor this trap.”

Coel slumped back into his chair. Josh was not readyfor this.

“I’ve found him.”

Toby was waiting for Josh at the school gates with ahuge grin on his face.

“Who?”

“Geigerzalion!”

“What do you mean you’ve found him.”

“Well you know that I tried to hack into your dad’s computers?”

“Hmmm. But I didn’t think you had managed it.”

“You’re right. It was massively protected. I couldn’tget all the way in. But there’s always something available to the persistenthackeroid.” Toby smirked.

“So did you get in or not?”

“Well I can’t tell you that, Josh.”

“Yeah, yeah, ‘cos then you’d have to kill me. Blahblah.”

Toby looked a little taken aback. “No, I can’t tellyou because I don’t know. I tried to get in again last night, but it was likebanging my head against a frozen firewall. No cracks, no backdoors, not asingle weakness.” Toby stared wistfully into the middle distance, contemplatingthe perfection of the computer security.

“But…?” Josh prompted him back to the real world.

“Yes, but there was some sort of artificialintelligence just sort of hanging around.”

“Hanging around?”

“Yeah. It was there, but not really in a conventionalway. I mean it wasn’t part of the actual web page. It was sort of in the webpage.”

“Like a virus?” Josh asked, picking up on a conceptToby had tried to explain to him a thousand times.

“Yeah. Exactly.” Toby nodded vigorously. “Well thisvirus, or Artificial Intelligence if you will indulge me, showed me what to do.I wouldn’t have got in without its help. I mean I had to download a completelynew program to even see anything on the site, but once I did…wow. It’s likecyberspace should be.” Toby’s eyes glazed over as he relived his experience.

Josh had to poke him this time. “Toby! Then whathappened?”

“Sorry. Well the AI took me through some tunnels belowthe level of normal web pages,” Toby mimed flying a plane through a canyon,“until we came to a place where there was just nothing. A void in cyberspace.”

“What? Banks and banks of zeroes?”

“No. Nothing was there. Well I thought nothing wasthere. In the middle of the void is Geigerzalion.”

“Did you speak to him?”

“No. You know I can’t understand your symbols.Remember you tried to teach me them once? They’re just not logical. Are youcoming round after school?”

“Yeah.”

From then on, the day couldn’t go quickly enough forJosh. Clocks appeared to tick backwards when he looked at them and his watchseemed to have turned into a calendar. Each lesson passed slowly and painfully.As usual French was the worst. Mrs Evans was in such a good mood that shedecided, as a fiendish treat, to tell them all about the sixth form’s trip toCherbourg in intricate and excruciating detail.

Eventually, though, it was time to go home and Joshmet Toby outside the science block. It had started to rain again, but Josh’smouth was dry with anticipation. He had rung his dad at lunchtime to see if hewas allowed to stay at Toby’s that night, and his dad had agreed heartily. Infact it worked out perfectly, his dad had said, because he was going to have togo into work on Saturday anyway.

“You’re not winding me up are you, Tobe? This isn’tone of your own programs is it?”

“No, honestly.”

“Hiya nerds. Wotcha doing this weekend?” Kat often metthem on a Friday after school. Sometimes they would hang out in the park untilKat went off to meet her cooler friends. Josh loved those Fridays.

“We’re going to play on my computer. Do you want tocome?” Even though Toby said it as a joke, Josh still cringed.

“Oh now let me think? Would I like to come and sit ina sweaty room staring at your cathode ray tube blasting Thargoids? Hmmm, let methink.” She put a finger to her chin theatrically pretending to seriouslyconsider Toby’s offer.

“Do you know what a cathode ray tube is, Kat?” Joshasked astonished.

“’Course. It’s not just you nerds who know stuff.” Sheobviously said it for Toby’s benefit, because she secretly winked at Josh andmade a face, which clearly said that she didn’t have the faintest idea what acathode ray tube was. “But I think I’ll choose life.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing.” Toby said.“Tonight could change your life. Tonight I shall reveal the Geigerzalion.”

“What’s that?”

“We have discovered an online life form. It’s calledGeigerzalion.” Toby said pompously.

“She doesn’t want to come.”

“No, no don’t be too hasty Josh. I mean if it’s goingto change my life…” Kat said suddenly sincere.

“You’re joking!” Josh said.

“No.” Kat smiled. “Come on. I’d like to see.”

Josh couldn’t believe it. Toby had asked Kat to comeback to his house in the most ridiculous way possible and she had agreed. Joshhad concocted hundreds of cleverly constructed scenarios, all designed to leaveher with no option but to spend some more time with him, but he had never quitehad the nerve to try them out.

“And who says I don’t have it with the ladies?” Tobygrinned at Josh.

“Just remember I’m only interested in your cathode raytube, Toby Hawkins!”

Toby’s bedroom was an uncomfortable blend of the messthat only a teenager can produce and the precise tidiness required by anengineer. Half of his walls were covered with posters from his favourite filmsand bands, while the others were covered with images that showed computergenerated men saying things like: “There are 10 types of people in this world.Those who understand binary and those who don’t.” Clothes were strewn around soliberally and completely that Josh wondered if there was actually any furniturebeneath the various piles of socks and T-shirts.

Amidst all this chaos, however, was a pristinely tidycorner that contained the computers. There were three screens, each onedisplaying lines of tiny writing which Josh knew were segments of Toby’s computerprograms. An oscilloscope waved greenly from between two of the monitors andwires and circuit boards were stacked neatly along one side of the workbench,along with some tiny tools.

“Welcome to my humble abode.”

Kat picked her way through the mess on the floor andstarted to sit on the chair in front of the computers.

“Not there!” Toby yelled and deftly skipped throughhis room, feet unerringly finding the few clear spaces on the floor. Kat spanaround surprised. “Well where can I sit?”

Toby stopped and looked around. “There’s plenty ofroom.” He moved a pile of clothes the size of a small hippopotamus off what wasrevealed to be another chair. “See?”

Josh laughed. “Have you still got that set up, Toby?You let me sit there the first time.”

Toby looked a little sheepish.

“What’s this?” Kat grinned at them.

“Well…to stop anyone touching my stuff, I’ve sort ofbooby trapped this chair.”

“Oh what does it do?” Kat looked excited.

Toby grinned back at her. “Please allow me todemonstrate. If you would stand back please.” Toby pulled them away from thebooby-trapped chair and threw a crumpled handkerchief onto it. The small squareof material drifted slowly through the air and settled gently onto the back ofthe chair.

All hell broke loose.

Sirens blared out from all corners of the room,accompanied by flashing red lights. The chair itself was flipped over andpulled towards the ceiling by a rope and pulley system that had appeared fromsomewhere and the armrests had pulled together, trapping anyone sitting there.

Toby pressed a couple of buttons on one of hiskeyboards and the sirens and flashing lights stopped, but the chair continuedto swing creakily from the ceiling.

“…and the really clever thing is,” he produced hismobile phone from his pocket, “it calls my mobile and sends me a picture of theperson I’ve caught!” Toby showed them the image on his phone. It showed Katwith her eyes wide and hands over her mouth.

“Toby, Toby? What’s going on now? You haven’t capturedJosh again have you?” A thumping on the door accompanied Toby’s mum’s franticquestions.

“No mum, I’m just showing Katrina how it works.”

There was a silence which was made all the more acuteby the fact that there had been so much noise before.

“Have you got a girl in there, Toby?”

“Yes, mum.”

The door burst open and Mrs Hawkins, a rather plumpred-faced woman stumbled through.

“Katrina, this is my mother.”

“Ah, hello dear. How are…” Mrs Hawkins stopped andstared at Kat’s dark and severe makeup.

“I’m fine, Mrs Hawkins. How nice to meet you.” Sheextended a black finger-nailed hand to Toby’s mum, who shook it gingerly andthen seemed to wind herself up for the next barrage of questions.

“Nice to meet you. How long have you known Toby? Wouldyou like to stay for tea? And you Josh of course…” She gabbled away as if herlife depended on it gathering speed and momentum with every word. “Would youlike a drink now? A nice cup of tea? Orange juice? I think we might have somecoke…”

“Mum!”

“Yes dear?”

“Could you get us some orange? And some biscuits wouldbe nice.” Toby was guiding his mother out of the room. “Josh and Kat will stayfor tea I think.” They nodded in agreement, and Toby closed the door.

“Fresh orange or cordial?” A muted voice asked frombehind it.

“Either.” Toby shouted.

“Right-ho, dear. I won’t be more than a minute.”

Toby let out a huge sigh. “Mothers!”

“She’s lovely.” Kat smiled.

“You don’t have to live with her.”

It took nearly an hour for Toby to recover his chairfrom the ceiling and take the tray of drinks and biscuits from his mother,without letting her actually come back into the room, and to find another chairfor Josh to sit in so that they could all see the screens, but eventually theygot themselves settled. Toby was sitting in the middle with one hand resting onthe keyboard and the other on the mouse. Josh and Kat sat on either side of himleaning forward and trying vainly to understand what he was doing.

The middle screen had started off by showing a normalweb page with a few pictures and some text. Toby had loaded another program andthe web page had spiralled around to create a whirling tunnel leading into themonitor. They started to descend through the swirling web page. Colours flashedpast them and Josh felt a giddy sensation of speed as they dived deeper andfaster.

Then blackness.

The abrupt transition between apparent movement andnothingness made Kat and Josh start forward in their chairs.

A tiny speck of light began to grow in the centre ofthe screen, and as it got bigger its edges became less distinct. Pale, ghostlyshapes merged and span within the growing light.

As they grew to fill the screen the spinning shapesbegan to slow, but they didn’t become any more focussed. Josh realised thatthey were all contorted faces, screaming out their torment and he recognisedGeigerzalion.

“See?” Toby stopped doing whatever he was doing on thekeyboard and sat back.

“Is that Geigerzalion?” Kat asked.

Josh nodded absently, as he gazed intently into theswirling image. He could feel that it was trying to communicate. Then a symbolglowed at the side of the screen. It looked like a backwards ‘e’ with somespikes jutting out from parts of it, but Josh knew it meant welcome. He pressedthe screen where the symbol had appeared.

Nothing happened.

He pressed the screen again.

“What on Earth are you doing?”

“Well, I don’t know really.” Josh said helplessly.“When I pressed the symbols in my dad’s study, they would change their meaning.That’s how I communicated.”

“Can you use the mouse?” Kat asked.

Josh moved the mouse pointer over the symbol he hadtouched before and it glowed and fell to the bottom of the screen, just as ithad in his father’s study.

More symbols were flying about the screen now and Joshmoved the mouse to meet them.

“What’s he saying?” Toby asked.

Josh just shook his head. He was trying to concentrateon the conversation he was having with Geigerzalion, but using the mouse wasnot natural enough. As soon as he caught an inkling of what one symbol meantanother had taken its place and he had to start again.

“Can you make it easier for me to communicate?”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t get my ideas across. The symbols are comingtoo fast for me to click on them with the mouse. I’m just not fast enough.”

Toby scratched his chin, and peered into the screen.The symbols were becoming less distinct, and the tortured faces were lookingincreasingly frenzied.

“Hang on a sec.” He rummaged around underneath hisdesk and found what looked like a pair of sunglasses and two gloves. “Put theseon.” Josh did as he was told, although when he put the sunglasses on he foundhe couldn’t see anything. The gloves were stiff, like old leather that has beenleft in the sun.

He felt Toby placing something into his ears and thenheard the clickety click of the tapping of keys.

Suddenly a horizontal white line appeared in front ofhim, accompanied by an electrical fizzing sound. The line expanded verticallyto reveal the eye-bending spinning image that was Geigerzalion. It looked morethree-dimensional now, and Josh instinctively reached out to touch it and saw adisembodied version of his own hand reaching towards the shape. He snatched itback hurriedly, but saw that the symbols had started to appear again.

“What’s happening?” Dimly he heard Kat asking thequestion, and Toby answered.

“I’ve set up the display to go through my virtualreality glasses. He should see the same as we see on this screen here, buthopefully he’ll be able to manipulate his environment better.” Toby continuedto speak, but Josh was now fully immersed in his communicating. It started tofeel like he was talking with his mind, rather than through the symbols.

“Hello.”

Josh understood that just like normal speaking thismethod of communication could convey emotions, and he was frustrated that hecouldn’t read the extra level of meaning that Geigerzalion was trying to conveybehind his question.

“I have, but he didn’t really let me finish. He seemedquite excited about it though.”

“My friend, Toby, found you. Something led him from mydad’s company’s website to here, but he doesn’t understand you.”

“Why do you look like this?”

“But you look so unhappy.”

Josh became aware of sound, almost too quiet to hear,like the distant rumbling of thunder or huge machinery grinding away beneath amountain.

“What’s coming?”

The noise was now much louder. It sounded like anenormous drill.

“Where are we going?”

The ethereal shape moved away slowly. Josh leantforward in an instinctive action of movement, but he remained stolidlystationary.

The noise had reached almost deafening levels now andlightning cracks had appeared in the surrounding darkness.

The symbols and meaning streamed out behindGeigerzalion as he started to speed away. Josh threw his hands forward and hisbody lurched after them.

He followed Geigerzalion through the disintegratingblackness that had previously seemed so complete. He felt like he was flyingand if it had not been for the thing that was breaking through the wall ofdarkness into their void he would have found the experience thrilling. Instead,he found that he was terrified. His heart thumped inside his chest and hisbreathing had become ragged. He stretched his hands in front of him as far ashe could to get more speed.

Behind him light had completely obliterated thedarkness and a shape was whizzing out of the light and after them. Ahead ofthem, uncountable writhing pipes rose out of the nothingness like a field ofcorn waving in the wind. The insides of all these pipes looked like the tunnelhe had arrived through.

Josh strained to stretch further forward to gain morespeed, but he could still feel their pursuer closing the distance between them.He looked over his shoulder and saw a huge, eagle gliding swiftly towards them,its cruel beak open and seemingly large enough to swallow him whole.

Almost too fast to see Geigerzalion dodged to one sideand disappeared into one of the pipes. Josh wrenched his arms around andfollowed him. He had to veer suddenly to avoid careering into Geigerzalion whohad come to a stop someway down the tunnel.

Geigerzalion’s avatar was pulsing with a golden innerlight and bright tendrils began to worm their way from the eyes and mouth ofthe screaming faces. The tendrils quickly extended to the sides of the tunnel,where they attached themselves and tautened. Slowly, but inexorably, the tunnelbegan to collapse.

Josh did not need telling twice. He thrust forward asfast as before, wildly racing through the tunnel like it was a roller coaster,twisting and turning until his arms ached and his chest was heaving as muchfrom effort as it had been from fear.

After moments or minutes he felt the presence ofGeigerzalion at his side.

“What was it?”

The two of them were now falling through what appearedto be a snowstorm. Josh threw his hands forward, but he couldn’t fly anymore.Gravity had re-established its influence over him with a vengeance.

“What’s happening?”

“But we’re falling! Are we going to land?”

“But I can’t fly?”

Josh could see trees rushing up from the ground athim. Panic swelled within him and he tried to scream, but the snowy air wasrushing into his lungs. He flailed his arms around. Branches started to breakbeneath him and the world tilted away from him and then suddenly he saw Toby’sroom again.

Even though the room was fairly dim, it was a lotbrighter than the midnight blizzard that he had just been tumbling through, andhis eyes took a few seconds to become accustomed to it. His side hurt where thevirtual branches had hit, and his cheeks stung from the snow. He pulled thegloves off and rubbed his face.

Kat was standing before him with the virtual realityglasses in her hand. She looked as though she was going to cry.

“What happened?” He asked.

Kat shook her head. “You started freaking out.Thrashing about in your chair, as if you were really falling through thatsnowstorm.”

“I was.” Josh said flatly.

“What do you mean?”

“When those glasses came off, my side hurt where I’dcrashed into the trees and my face felt cold as if I’d been outside for awhile.”

“That’s impossible.” Toby piped up. “You can only seeand hear stuff through them. They don’t affect your other senses.”

“They did. Or I was there.” Josh felt his side, butthere was no pain at all there now.

Toby frowned. “I guess if it looked so real your brainjust told your body how it should feel.”

“Is that possible?” Kat asked.

“I dunno.” Toby shrugged. “No one knows that muchabout the way the mind works. It certainly controls the movement of our bodiesso perhaps it can also control the way they feel.” He sat forward in his chairwarming to his theme. “I mean when you’re worried about something you get afunny feeling in your stomach, don’t you. Perhaps your mind can affect otherparts of your body just as easily.”

Josh and Kat looked at each other. “No I don’t knowwhat he’s talking about either.” Kat said.

Josh was surprised at Toby’s straightforwardacceptance of what had just occurred. He felt like he had been drawn intoanother world, and that fantastical event could not be rationalised away like amaths problem.

“It was so real, Tobes. Why has everything started tobe so weird? Doesn’t anything ordinary happen anymore?”

Kat laughed. “You’re normally complaining that nothingexciting happens around here!”

“Well, exciting stuff can just stop happening aroundhere for a while as far as I’m concerned. I think I could have really died inthat fall.”

“But you didn’t.” Toby said.

“No. Only because Kat pulled those glasses off mebefore I had a chance to crash into the ground.”

“I’m not sure I trust this Geigerzalion, Josh. Youcould have died.” Kat said.

“It’s not his fault someone’s after him.”

“Yes, but why are they after him?”

Josh couldn’t answer. He understood nothing of whathad happened and hated the idea that he might argue with Kat.

“Can you find him again, Toby?”

“I don’t know. He found me the first time. Orsomething did.”

“Josh, I don’t think you should go back in thereagain.” Kat reached over Toby and squeezed Josh’s arm. “I saw the look on yourface after you came out of the … wherever it was, and you were terrified. Idon’t want anything to happen to you and I think you should just be careful.You know?”

Josh found a smile on his lips.

“Are you going to start kissing or what? ‘Cos if soyou can do it as far away from my room as…”

“Are you ready for your tea now dears?” Mrs Hawkinssqueaked at them from behind the door.

“Not for me Mrs Hawkins. I’m really sorry. I’ve got togo.” Kat called.

“Oh.” Mrs Hawkins was silent for a while. “Just twothen. It’s ready now, if you want to come downstairs.”

Josh looked at Kat. “Where are you going?”

“I’m sorry Josh. I completely forgot. I’ve got to goto Ally Brimble’s party tonight. I don’t really want to, but…”

“Well don’t go then.” Josh blurted the words before hecould stop them.

Kat’s eyes softened strangely. “Oh you’re so sweetJosh.”

“What she’s trying to say, dorkmeister. Is that she’scool and we’re not. She might lose some precious social standing if she doesn’tattend such a prestigious event.”

“Thank you for putting it so sympathetically, Toby. IfI could get out of it I would. Really. I’ll make it up to you. What are youdoing tomorrow?”

Toby grinned at her. “You don’t have to make it up tous. We’re just joking.”

Josh was not sure if he wanted to grin at her, but hedid. “We’ll see you in the park, if you like.”

“Sure.” Kat winked them. “See you tomorrow.” She slungher bag over her shoulder and picked her way out of the room. Josh watched hergo while Toby pretended to be sick the whole time.