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Maliek opened his eyes and rolled to a sitting position. Jana and Fejan stood nearby, the Azzaro doubled over with his hands on his knees. Fejan stepped forward and offered her hand to Maliek. He shook his head, clearing it, before accepting. She pulled him to his feet.
As he took deep breaths, the pain in his ribs and face subsided; the guard had beaten his avatar, not his actual body. In the sims, he experienced pleasure, pain, the greasy goodness of burgers, but the sensory inputs soon dissipated.
“I should’ve expected they’d watch you,” Fejan said, her horns pale.
Maliek had suspected they might watch him, but he’d let down his guard in Jana and Fejan’s company. I can’t forget this place isn’t safe again.
The guard had disappeared into the crowd. Others patrolled in the area, though none were close. But guards might not be the only ones listening in.
“Why do the Bazij even have guards here?” he asked. “Who would want to be stuck here in the closed system?”
“Oh, they aren’t from our government,” Fejan said. “They’re part of the government that formed here in the closed system.”
“Why are they concerned with keeping us here? If they’re all prisoners, wouldn’t they want to escape?”
Fejan shook her head. “I doubt it. Why would they? Returning would mean changing their identities. Keeping a low profile. Here they’re in charge. They’re the gatekeepers controlling access to all the sim worlds in the system, and they want to maintain that power.”
Maliek scrunched his nose. “Gatekeepers? Why would you need gatekeepers? Why would you need to control access to the sims? Everything is plentiful here. You can go wherever you want. Do whatever you want. Food is abundant. If you want more, code more into existence. It’s a world with unlimited resources.”
“It is,” Fejan confirmed, “but that doesn’t stop the most powerful from putting controls in place. They are the only ones with unlimited access. Access to all the worlds. To food, drink, and anything else they want. Meanwhile, even our home size is dictated. Based on our position, we’re told what size home we live in and how many resources we’re allotted.”
“Everyone goes along with it?” Maliek asked, disbelieving. “No one tries to fight against it?”
“Most are too lazy to rebel.” Fejan’s horns pulsed dark green. “It’s not like anyone’s homeless or starving. Eating is a luxury. Their bodies are well tended in the covums in the old world. No one’s forced to work. Everyone can do what they want within the limits assigned to them. They see no reason to fight against the restrictions.”
“No one’s cut off from visiting other sim worlds,” Jana added. “Just limited in how often they can travel.”
“Is there anyone who doesn’t submit to government control?” Maliek asked, frustrated that everyone seemed okay with this existence. Particularly the non-Bazij held here for committing no crimes other than living.
Fejan hissed at him, her eyes darting, suspicious of everyone around them.
“Sorry,” Maliek said, again chastising himself for his lack of awareness. He needed to calm down, before he angered himself into another beating. Or worse.
“This way.” Fejan lead them along a side street to another block and into a skyscraper food court.
Overhead, hundreds of floors held countless restaurants, bakeries, and shops, with food from planets and races all over the universe. Such abundance could never exist in the real world. But here, without constraints, it was no wonder so many didn’t struggle for freedom when the cost was so high.
“Let’s hide out here for a bit. Get some food,” Fejan suggested.
Wanting something familiar, Maliek chose a cheeseburger topped with chili and chili fries. Fejan grabbed fried nuggets with a yellow vegetable and soup. Jana selected a sandwich.
They found an empty table. The juicy smell of the hamburger with melted cheddar cheese topped with lettuce and tomato made Maliek’s mouth water. His stomach grumbled. As he tore open ketchup and mayo packets and applied them liberally to the burger, he wondered if he was actually hungry or if the smell tricked his stomach. He hadn’t eaten in more than a day, but then the covum must nourish his body to keep him alive.
Whatever the answer, he bit into his burger. His excitement soured at the bland, weird texture of the meat and the nutty taste of the cheese.
“What is this?” He scowled at the burger, noting the inside looked nothing like meat.
“Veggie burger,” Fejan answered around a spoonful of soup. “Bazij are vegetarians.”
Maliek groaned, dropping the burger on his plate. “Veggie burger? This is all simulation.” He stabbed at the burger. “This is nothing more than lines of code. Couldn’t they make it like the real thing instead of an imitation?”
“Could, yes, but we don’t eat meat,” Fejan replied, horns pulsing again.
“What about the rest of us?” Maliek picked at the chili fries. “Couldn’t they change some programming for those of us who do like meat?”
“They do that a few floors higher.”
“What? And you couldn’t tell me that before I chose the fake burger?” As he said it, he realized the silliness of the last part of his question, which only annoyed him more.
Fejan popped a fried nugget in her mouth, ignoring him.
With a huff, Maliek turned his attention to the fries. At least they tasted like warm, crispy potatoes. And the chili covering them, though meatless, was well done.
“You know, I’ve been wondering,” Maliek said around a mouthful of fries. “What made the Bazij decide to live in the sims? I know you’re concerned about safety, but there had to have been something that first drove you into the sims.”
Fejan stirred her soup with a spoon, watching the steam rise off it. “No choice. We’d ruined Melathia. Our ancestors had the choice to live in the sims or die.”
Maliek pushed away his plate, appetite curbed by the disappointing food. “Ruined how?”
Fejan sipped her soup before answering. “Overpopulation drained Melathia’s natural resources. We’d destroyed our forests and turned much of the land into dust bowls. Pollution killed off three fourths of the marine life in our oceans. If our world governments hadn’t put a stop the endless wars over the precious few remaining resources and created the covum facilities and sims, we would’ve wiped ourselves out two hundred years ago.”
“Why go into the sims? Why not leave the planet?” Maliek asked.
Fejan’s horns dimmed to a pale green. “And ruin another planet the way we had Melathia?”
Maliek didn’t have an argument for that.
“Besides, we hadn’t the technology to travel to another viable planet. We’d made contact with the Azzaro but they didn’t trust us enough to help us. So into the sims we went, a place we couldn’t destroy.”
Fejan focused on her food, and for several minutes she and Jana ate in silence. Since he had little interest in his own, Maliek observed those around them. A young Bazij girl bounced in her seat at a nearby table while eating Razia, a light pink fruit no larger than a berry. Juice dribbled down her chin. As she bounced, her head rocked from side to side as if to music only she heard.
How had she ended up in this sim? She was too young to be a sympathizer. Had she been born here? The start of a new society among the condemned. He couldn’t imagine that her parents, sitting on either side of her, liked that she had to live here, cut off from the outside world.
Leaning over to Fejan and Jana, Maliek whispered. “How do we find those two sympathizers you mentioned earlier? Or anyone else who might help us?”
“The Oomael,” Jana suggested, keeping his eyes trained on his food.
“What?” Maliek asked.
“The two you’re talking about live among the Oomael,” Fejan replied, before sipping soup from a spoon.
“And they are?”
“The Oomael are Bazij who didn’t go with us to the open system,” Fejan said. “While most of us wanted the new system and to interact with others in the universe, some stayed behind. They viewed the open system as too risky. They liked the security of the closed system.”
“If they like this place, why would they help?” Maliek asked.
“They wanted the system to themselves,” Fejan said. “Once the government started rooting prisoners here, the Oomael retreated to a restricted corner of the system.”
“How do we find them?” Maliek asked, sitting straighter.
“I’d be wary of asking for their help,” Fejan said. “They keep to themselves. They don’t welcome outsiders.”
“Still, it’s worth a shot, right?” Maliek asked. “At least to find our two leads.”
“Maybe.”
At the entrance to the food court, a half dozen Bazij guards entered, all armed. Maliek thought he recognized the guard who had attacked them earlier. The guards appeared to be looking for someone.
“Uh, guys...” Maliek broke out in a sweat.
Fejan looked at him before spinning to look behind her. “Time to go. Follow me.”
Leaving her food and tray, she led them at a steady pace deeper into the food court.