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After an hour in the glass room with only the mountain ranges for company, the door opened. Maliek jumped to his feet, ready to greet Igata, but her name died on his lips. Instead of her, the AI droid had returned.
“Where’s Igata?”
Something had gone wrong. Had she changed her mind? Had her family prevented her from leaving the sims?
“Small plans change,” the droid said. “I will escort you to Igata now.”
“Great,” Maliek said, relieved that he’d still be seeing her.
“If you’ll follow me,” the droid said.
It returned him through the cable-covered hallways to a platform resembling an elevator. The back wall rose to waist height, revealing a massive room on the other side. Countless artificial spheres, about three meters in height, filled the place. Myriad cables surrounded and connected with the bronze orbs.
“What are those?” Maliek asked.
“Covums. For the Bazij,” the droid replied.
“Are all the Bazij kept here?”
“No. There are eight hundred sixty-three facilities on Melathia.”
“How many Bazij are here?”
“Ten million three hundred ninety-eight thousand, six hundred and twenty-seven,” the droid replied.
“All in this one room?” Maliek asked, reeling at how large this cavern must be to hold them all.
“Other storage rooms exist within this facility,” the droid replied.
The platform descended, carrying them past hundreds of covums. This was where the Bazij kept their bodies while living out their lives in the sims. Had he met any of the Bazij stored here?
Then he realized of course he had. Igata—
“Are you taking me to Igata’s covum?” He hadn’t expected to see her removed from the sims. Would she come out naked? The droid wasn’t carrying anything. “Do we need to get clothes for her?”
The lift stopped at a narrow floor, covums attached to the wall all along the perimeter. They exited to a floor which provided little walking space between the covums and the low wall looking out over the vast cavern—a sight at once daunting in its enormity, yet also vulnerable. A giant nest. If a predator got in, he wouldn’t want to put his faith in this droid to save them.
The droid stopped before a covum. It pressed one finger into a hole in the side, and the covum hissed as it opened.
Was this it? He glanced into the opening, then diverted his eyes, unsure what to do. This wasn’t how he expected to meet Igata in person.
But it was empty.
“Get in to see Igata,” the droid commanded.
Maliek took a step backwards. “What? No. Igata’s visiting me here.”
“Get in the covum to see Igata,” the droid repeated.
“No way!” Maliek’s stomach churned. “This isn’t what we agreed to.”
His eyes shifted from the droid to the empty covum and back. He retreated toward the lift. What was going on?
“Insertion assistance protocol activated,” the droid said. Two other droids appeared, seeming to materialize out of nowhere. They seized his arms.
“Stop!”
He struggled to break free as they dragged him toward the open covum. He recalled Velos’s warning about hackers. He didn’t have his wrist-comp with personal information. Had someone devised another plan to exploit him?
“I don’t want to go in the covums. You can’t force me.”
Except they could. None of his efforts to fight free worked. He reached for his wrist-comp, but the droid holding his left arm jerked it behind his back. A jolt of pain shot through his arm.
“Send message to Velos,” Maliek shouted.
A droid’s hand clamped over his mouth, silencing him.
He planted his feet and push backward, fighting for leverage. The droids lifted him clear off the ground. Suspended in the air, unable to make a sound beyond a moan, he kicked futilely as they deposited him inside the covum.
They strapped his arms and legs in place, then covered his mouth as well. He screamed, panic flooding through him, as the covum closed, locking him in darkness. He fought against his restraints, which only made them tighter.
This couldn’t be happening. They couldn’t do this to him.
A white screen appeared before him asking if he’d like to initiate the sims insertion sequence. He struggled against his bonds. When that didn’t work, he shouted, voice muffled by the gag. “No, I don’t want to go in the sims. I want out.”
The ‘Yes’ button blinked and a loading sign appeared.
“No! Stop. Let me out!”
A stinging scent filled his nostrils, making his eyes water. Too late, he tried to stop breathing. All sensation of himself, his body, his prison evaporated. He felt his consciousness pulled under.
The void lasted only a moment before he appeared on the outskirts of a giant city stretching one hundred meters or more into the sky. Bright lights pushed back dark skies. The covum and his restraints had vanished. A familiar rush of energy welled up inside him.
Igata approached, but she was different. Older. Expression flat. There was no warmth in her demeanor. Her gray skin seemed paler. Her three horns, always so bright orange before, had dimmed like light bulbs running low on power.
“What’s going on?” Maliek asked. “Why did they put me in the sims? I thought we were meeting on Melathia?”
“I’d never enter the old world,” Igata said, nose scrunching in disgust.
“Then why invite me here?”
“To save you. The covums are more suitable for permanent insertion.”
The word ‘permanent’ sent a chill sliding down his back. “What are you talking about?”
“I brought you here to live in the sims, same as we do.”
He stared at her in shock. “Is this a joke?”
Her face had a hardness about the eyes. No hint that this was a prank. Or misunderstanding.
She gestured into the city. “It’s a wonderful place to live. So many opportunities.”
Why was she doing this?
He backed away from her. “You can’t keep me here. I’ll contact Space City, let them know where I am and request help.”
“This is our closed system,” Igata said, unperturbed. “There is no means of contacting anyone from here.”
He grabbed his wrist-comp, the avatar version of it, which worked inside the sims. He typed a message to Velos.
“Your message won’t go anywhere. You’re cut off.”
He finished the message and sent it. “Velos knows I’m here. When I don’t return, he’ll know something’s wrong.”
Igata sighed, as if she was tired of the conversation. “Velos is a recruiter. He will inform no one.”
He shook his head, mind scrambling. This had all been a trap. A plan to lure him here and imprison him. Had Velos betrayed him?
“Let me go. Please,” he pleaded.
Rather than respond, she disappeared, leaving him alone on the edge of the city.