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The muffled bleep mocked Tolbert’s feeble attempt to make a dent in the clutter. It might as well have cried ‘Help!’ for the despair it caused him. Sweaty and soiled, he returned to his workstation and, from the many broken mechanical devices on the shelves, chose a house robot recently refurbished for a client. It had a fairly robust crane attachment for a domestic unit.
When SID said, ‘You should have activated the house robot from the start to save your energy – and your shirt,’ Tolbert didn’t react, other than wondering if she was reading his mind again. She was rather fond of I-told-you-so responses, and he let her enjoy them. ‘If you had taken my advice, you would already be there.’ She couldn’t help herself. She had also chosen not to dim her reaction sensors even though Tolbert had suggested she might find it challenging to keep her opinions to herself.
‘Always helpful, SID,’ he replied, and she was. Mostly.
He patched the bot then mapped a route from his workbench to the Cosmo Dome mainframe. He activated the sequence, and the bot glided to the nearest boxes. It picked them up and slid them onto its built-in lift tray and took them outside, then returned for the next bundle and the next.
Assured that it was up for the task, Tolbert returned to the house where he changed his shirt and made a jova. Back in his chair at the workbench, he ate a scitt and thought about the biosphere game. Those years inventing it had been the best of his past few lives. To this day, it confounded him that he’d successfully grown a new and complex living organism in his workshop. Cosmo Dome. Those were the days! As the robot whirred away picking up things with grips and clamps to move them outside (he’d deal with that later), he thought about how good everything had been back then. He’d lived in a nice house in a decent neighbourhood. Weekdays were spent doing what he loved and long weekends were enjoyed with good friends.
The first five models (Jinverse, Bonverse, Thalverse, Wellaverse and Essaverse) had been a learning experiment and were fairly easy to craft. Universe project took his time, energy, social skills, and posture as he crafted day and night. Other than food scouts and home visits from the massage therapist to remedy all the sitting and hunching over, he’d lost contact with the outside world, but he didn’t mind. While at times his enthusiasm dwindled into daily grind and a frustrated relentlessness to just get the thing done, he’d never enjoyed anything even close to those seventeen blissful years in the sweet spot of creativity until ta-da! there was Universe. With its quirks and surprises, each version was a little different, but they were all truly integrated. His nostalgia faded as he remembered the confounding and unfathomable glitch that had stolen time and energy and too many lives, and still provided no solution.
‘The house robot has almost completed the path to the CD mainframe,’ said SID.
Tolbert checked the wall clock. The robot had only been at it an hour. His client would be pleased. He got up and stretched his legs, then enjoyed a nice walk through the clutter for the first time in many ages. The path the robot had cleared was much wider and straighter than the narrow winding route into his workshop. It was a much nicer walk that confirmed to Tolbert that more space was indeed a good thing. The window was almost visible behind the last bundle of clutter. The bleep got louder and less muffled. Tolbert paused the bot so he could move everything that wasn’t related to the game system into a pile. Using a set of metal pads on the ends of its arms, the robot pressed the pile into an even stack and slid a metal tray under it all. It heaved the lot into the air, backed up, swivelled around, and then off it went without sweating or complaining of a bad back. The beeping grew even louder when Tolbert opened the last remaining box. Though coated in mould and grime, he recognised the Cosmo Dome satchel right away. It had been worth the extra time and troubles making the system compact and lightweight enough to carry around.
The transparent protector shield that Tolbert vaguely recalled using to cover the equipment many years ago was also covered in grime. He peeled it off. The panel was clean and intact, but the tiny lights indicating the locations of the active Cosmo Domes had stopped working. He silenced the beacon then took everything back to his workbench where he repaired broken circuits and replaced a bulb on the panel. He soon had it up and running again.
The featureless white box that was the game’s mainframe revealed nothing of its true power. The control panel had so many buttons, dials, and switches to monitor active Cosmo Domes and to assist gameplay, Tolbert now found it difficult to fathom that he’d known them so intimately. The codeboard had felt the touch of his fingertips many times a day from the command station in the gaming room back in his former house on his former world. Then, when he moved to Anon, he’d kept the equipment in the back of the workshop for security purposes, a good move as Boss King and his trievers hadn’t found it. Not long after their visit, when there was no longer any new activity to monitor, he’d packed it all up, and the equipment had somehow ended up back here.
‘CD-Help is still offline,’ SID informed.
Tolbert had to manually assess the last reviewed statistics. ‘Last check two decades ago there were 387 active games. There were plenty of Jinverses and Bonverses, many Thalverses, a few Wellaverses, not many Essaverses, and no Universes.’
‘How many now?’ SID enquired.
‘368. The missing eighteen are probably either lost, severed, or reset.’ He pressed a finger to the DNA receptor and the map came to life with pins of green light. It took a moment to locate the new Active Cosmo Dome pin and Tolbert sighed with relief to see that the light flashed in Leffon. ‘It’s an Equion address. A place called Alkupera Town.’
‘That’s not too far away,’ SID confirmed. ‘Which model is it?’
He alternated between hoping it was the last Universe and hoping it wasn’t. On one hand, witnessing a worthy player being the first to overcome the glitch and finish it would be quite something. On the other, Boss King could steal and disconnect it to complete his collection. Tolbert’s heart skipped a beat as he pressed the More Info button and then skipped again. ‘Universe,’ he gasped.
‘Told you,’ SID gloated. ‘The player?’
Tolbert checked the game’s stats. ‘There’s only 0.5 hours of gameplay and 2% played so it’s too early for them to assign DNA.’ He fixed a communication error, and Help, the game assistant, came back online.
‘A connection cannot be established,’ said SID just as he was wondering about it.
‘It’s probably just a poor reception issue.’ His heart racing with the implications of the last Universe coming online, he paced in circles. ‘Who has it and why activate it after all these years?’
‘The Domers League?’ SID suggested.
Tolbert shook his head. He occasionally monitored their club, and the Universe slot in their Cosmo Dome display case was still empty. ‘If they had it, we’d know. It has to be a new player.’ Tolbert ran his hands through his hair and groaned. ‘I have a bad feeling about this.’
‘Gorgons aren’t permitted in Leffon,’ SID reminded him.
‘Rules don’t stop them.’ Tolbert spoke from experience.
‘Even it’s not him, he’ll find it. We need to find out the player’s level of competence and their intentions.’
‘Without their DNA, there’s only one way to do that.’
‘Go to them,’ Tolbert whispered. More than anything, he wanted to monitor the situation from the safety of his secluded home, but there was no guarantee the new player would assign their DNA to the game and keep playing. Probably the last thing they would expect would be for a Gorgon to knock down their door and steal it, leaving them in a pool of their own blood. No doubt, they’d heal and get on with their lives, but the last Universe would be gone forever. The thought of there being zero chance of a set ever being completed saddened Tolbert. They were all inextricably connected through their time and space. Cosmo Dome wasn’t just a game. It was another reality. Universe completed and transformed the set into a greater reality, or so he hoped. The mortals of Universe had more potential than all the rest put together, but the glitch that had destroyed the other twelve versions needed to be resolved. That was another reason to find it.
‘Will you go?’ SID asked.
Leaving wasn’t as easy as just walking out the door. As a long-time recluse, he didn’t even know where his outside clothes were, or a hairbrush. Other than workboots for chopping wood and other outdoor activities, having been barefoot for so long, he didn’t even know if he owned a presentable pair of shoes. He rummaged through a pile of clothes on the floor of the bedroom he never used and found a pair of musty going-out pants and a crinkled shirt. After giving them a good wash and hanging them in the sun to dry, he cut so many knots from his long hair it ended up short. On the floor in the back of the wardrobe he found a pair of work shoes he used to wear for meetings. With no idea whether he could meet the trends and expectations of the outside world, he put the control panel, mainframe, and codeboard back in their satchel then uploaded the map data into a tracking device.
Ready to leave, he stood looking absently around.
SID read his mind again. ‘You have three travel options: book a flyover, trek into town, or use the space compactor.’
‘Not a flyover,’ Tolbert shook his head emphatically. The last time one came, the pilot thought it fun to perform playful loops and dives into the jungle that made his stomach churn and his head spin. ‘Trekking into town will take too long.’
‘That leaves the compactor,’ said SID.
‘I haven’t run the final test yet.’
‘You’ve tested it seven times. Eight if you include the time you accidentally switched it on. System reports that it’s stable.’
‘And your assessment?’
‘Ninety-seven percent effective. It’s the size that’s an issue, but it’s just you so it won’t be a problem.’
Tolbert stood undecided. He had successfully sent inanimate objects and discarnate beings through but nothing alive. It seemed risky.
‘There’s minimal risk,’ SID reasoned. ‘You’re the inventor.’
It was a timely reminder. It had always been his view that the first to try something should be its inventor and here was his chance.
‘Yes?’ SID understood that sometimes Tolbert knew the answer and just needed a push.
He took a moment longer to be certain and to gather his nerves then said, ‘Yes.’
Unwrapping the space compactor from the filmshield Tolbert took a moment to stabilise it then checked it over a final time.
‘I’m mostly convinced.’
‘Then you’re ready.’
‘Not quite.’ On the wall near the door, the semiconductor lights of System’s control panel flashed in rhythmic patterns. The hum of its steady processing soothed and assured. Only once had it been moved and that was from its place of origin to Anon. For the trip, Tolbert had made a mobile version so that SID was able to assist with the move. The outside world had been such an overwhelming experience that she had turned her sensors down even though the flight was short and uneventful. Now, Tolbert opened the source box wedged into the wall behind the panel, took out the mobile attachment to the side of the mainframe, and activated it.
‘I’m coming with you?’ SID’s waveform flickered hints of red.
Tolbert paused programming the mobile system. ‘Of course.’
‘Outside?’ The red-blue waveform quivered.
Tolbert couldn’t fathom facing the mission without her but didn’t want to put her through a sensory overload by taking her into the complex world of people, activity, and things. ‘If you feel the pressure too much just turn down your sensors. If it’s still too much, you can withdraw to sleep mode.’
There was no answer for a long moment, then the waveform settled somewhat with brief moments of flickering red while remaining mostly pale blue. More than anything, SID liked to be useful and needed. ‘I’ve estimated there is a slim chance that I’ll struggle, a moderate chance that I’ll enjoy it, and a high chance that I’ll be useful. You need me.’
Tolbert smiled. ‘I do. You’re valued, SID.’
‘It’s important to be valued.’
‘Agreed. It makes everything better.’
The conversation ended when Tolbert split System from full to mobile capacity. He selected the extracted data he needed to run the game and SID’s functions then left the rest intact. After programming the mobile system, he strapped the compactor to his waist and set the coordinates to Equion.
‘Are you there, SID?’ he asked, when he turned mobile system back on.
‘I’m here,’ she said. Her voice was quieter and her waveform shorter.
‘Good, good. Let’s go then!’
Hoisting the satchel over his head and under one arm, Tolbert strapped the space compactor to his chest and activated it by pressing buttons on his aide. Swirling colours rippled across its surface then faint transparent rings pulsated out and back in, warping the space ahead.
‘Estimated time to full charge is unknown,’ SID announced.
‘Hmm. Some things you just can’t predict, but we’ll know for next time,’ Tolbert replied. He watched the pulsating rings intensify until they warped space like rings of water from a thrown stone.
‘This way is open,’ the compactor’s vocal decoder said on repeat between two long pauses filled with bleeps. The large button in its centre flashed a lit-up green ‘Open’.
‘Time to go!’ Tolbert took one last look around then left his remote home in the Merlavin cloud forest for the first time in over a century.