Oasis (The Last Humans Book 1) (8 page)

“I’m not a freaking ghost,” the figure snaps. “I just used the resources you freed up to slightly improve our means of communication. I read in ancient literature that communication is primarily nonverbal.”

“I suspect when they talked about nonverbal communication, they meant facial expressions, which you lack,” I point out, shaking off the ghost idea.

“Yes, but I can do body language now, which definitely counts as nonverbal communication.” She demonstratively puts her hands on her hips.

On a whim, I walk up to the figure and try to touch her.

She doesn’t move away from my hand, but when I reach for her slender shoulder, my fingers go through the mirage of flesh the way they would with a Screen.

“I mastered more of the Augmented Reality controls—went visual on top of auditory,” Phoe explains. “What you now see works exactly like a Screen.”

“Okay, but is that what you really look like?” I step back from Phoe’s body. “And where are you now? Who are you?”

The ghostly figure shrugs. “I still don’t have a solid answer,” she says. “But I do know something far more important.”

“You know what happened to Mason?”

“Yes,” she says softly. “But I’m not sure if I should share it with you.”

“Tell me.” I say the words so forcefully that Phoe’s illusory figure backs away. I step after her. “Tell me, or you can forget about me lifting another finger to help you.”

“Okay.” She’s all the way at the edge of the platform, and her chest expands as if she’s taking a deep breath. “But Theo… you should know that what happened to Mason is worse than anything either of us could’ve imagined.”

T
he hairs
on my arms and nape rise at her words.

“I was hoping I could get you out of the Zoo building before we continued talking about that,” Phoe says. “Follow me.” Her graceful, shimmering figure approaches the steps and swiftly descends.

“No, tell me now.” I run down the first five steps, forgetting about my fear of heights. Then, more carefully, I descend to the bottom.

The Phoe silhouette is waiting for me by the exit. “I got you down without much fuss, didn’t I?”

Before I can reply, she hurries out of the building.

I run after her.

When I exit, she’s already halfway down the meadow.

I chase after her, my leg muscles burning.

“Theo, I need you to hide in the forest.” Her voice is in my head this time.

“Wait,” I think at her, but she’s already entering the forest line.

I run after Phoe through the pines for at least ten minutes before she stops and waits for me.

“Ideally, you should do the video game first,” she says. “They’re looking for you.”

I plant my feet firmly in the dirt and say, “I’m not moving an inch or doing anything until you show me what happened to Mason.”

The shadow-like Phoe looks down. “You’ll wish you hadn’t insisted.”

“It’s my decision to make. Stop delaying.”

“Okay.” She raises her head, as if to meet my gaze. “Bring up your Screen.”

I do the gesture, even though I know she could’ve brought up my Screen for me. She’s stalling. This realization sends another chilly tendril into my belly.

My Screen comes up, and I see our dorm room. Mason, Liam, and I are sleeping. The viewpoint focuses in on Mason and gets closer to him, as though whoever is recording just approached his bed. A hand reaches out and touches Mason’s shoulder.

“It’s a recording from the Guard’s visor,” Phoe says, answering the question I was about to ask. “I was only able to recover bits and pieces—whatever wasn’t deleted from temporary caches and video buffers during the Forgetting procedure.”

An explosion of snowy white static interrupts the scene on the Screen, and a new set of images follows right away.

Mason is walking on the wide road that traverses the pine forest I’m in. The viewpoint—one from the Guard’s visor, I guess—is staring at the back of Mason’s head. In the distance, I see the reflective surface of the Barrier. With its metallic mirror-like wall, it looks like an ancient blimp or a weather balloon—only it stretches through all of Oasis, marking the place where the Adults’ domain begins. Mason walks toward it, and the Guard follows.

“They took Mason through the Barrier?” I whisper as I extrapolate what’s happening. “But they never let Youths go there.”

Phoe doesn’t respond, so I watch as Mason approaches the supposedly impenetrable wall that is the Barrier, and it lets him through as though it were some kind of liquid silver bubble. The Guard follows, though, of course, the fact that
he
can pass through the Barrier makes sense.

“How did Mason even approach it?” I ask Phoe. “You can’t even walk once you get halfway through this cursed pine forest. I learned this the hard way.”

“The fear that the Barrier generates doesn’t affect Youths specifically.” Phoe’s voice lacks its usual vitality; she sounds older and wearier for some reason. “It’s merely a matter of the permission profile for the person trying to cross. They gave Mason access before…” Her words trail off.

“Before?”

She doesn’t respond. The scene on the Screen changes again.

Mason is strapped to a white gurney in a half-lying, half-standing position.

A person wearing white is standing next to him. This person also has white hair, which reminds me of the gray hair on the old people from ancient movies—gray hair even the oldest Adults don’t possess.

“I thought we didn’t age to the point of gray hair in Oasis,” I think both to myself and as a question to Phoe. “Is he an albino?”

Phoe’s new shape slowly shakes her head. “He’s one of the Elderly.”

I look back at the Screen. Everything else in that room is also white, which gives it a medical feel reminiscent of the nurse’s office.

In front of the mysterious Elderly man is a big Screen. On the Screen is what I assume is Mason’s neural scan.

“His thought patterns have changed since we spoke with him,” I tell Phoe. “It looks like he’s going through some positive emotions.”

“It’s Oneness.” She turns away from the Screen as if she can’t bear to look at what’s happening. “They’re running Oneness on him nonstop before…”

“Before what?” I ask, my chest tightening from an awful premonition.

Phoe doesn’t answer.

On the Screen, the Elderly man comes closer to Mason and looms over him. He’s holding something. I squint and get so close to the Screen that my nose almost goes through it. It takes me a moment to understand what I’m seeing.

The Elderly man is holding a syringe.

As I watch in shock, he sticks Mason with the needle and presses the plunger.

For a couple of breaths, nothing happens. Then Mason begins to convulse on the table. On the big Screen in front of his head, the brain patterns change.

They get slower.

My eyes feel glued open. I can’t blink.

Mason’s neural activity slows some more.

I take a raspy breath. “What’s happening?” I look at Phoe. “Is Mason falling asleep?”

She doesn’t respond. She just stares at the dirt beneath her feet.

Droplets of cold sweat bead on my forehead as I look back at the Screen. Mason’s neural activity continues to slow until it, impossibly, ceases completely.

Phoe covers her face with her hands—or, more accurately, she covers the place where her face would be.

“What—” I begin, but the strange activity on the Screen distracts me.

Mason’s body disintegrates, as though it was made of sand and a strong wind was blowing on it. It takes less than a second for his body to completely dissipate.

The white bed he was strapped to just a moment ago is empty.

The Elderly man turns to the Guard whose helmet recorded the scene. He says something, but I can’t hear him. He then wipes tears from his ancient-looking eyes.

The Screen in front of me goes blank.

On some level, a purely rational part of my brain already knows what happened. The rest of my mind refuses to catch up with that realization.

I feel like screaming, but no words, not even in the form of a subvocalization or a thought, come out.

My muscles tense, and my body begins to tremble.

“Breathe, Theo,” Phoe says from what sounds like a distance away. “Breathe, or you’ll go into shock.”

I take a breath that hurts as it enters my chest and step back. “It can’t be.”

“I’m sorry I showed this to you.” Phoe’s voice is even more distant. “I was afraid it would be too much. You‘ve never faced death before.”

Death
. That’s what she just said.

That sinister word snaps something in my mind, allowing it to begin wrapping itself around the fact that this horrid concept is the best explanation for what I saw.

Except it doesn’t make sense. Death doesn’t happen. It’s been eradicated in Oasis. It’s an ugly, theoretical construct from yesteryear, like torture and extinction.

Mason can’t be dead, can’t be gone. The idea is as incomprehensible as the notion of Forgetting him. I can’t imagine it. It’s like trying to picture the complete absence of matter and space.

I take another step backward and feel the rough bark of a pine tree against my back.

“I’m so sorry, so sorry, so sorry.” Phoe’s words are like a meditative chant.

I shake my head vigorously, as though to shake meaning into my brain.

“Calm down.” Phoe’s tone is soothing, but her words feel like acid on my skin.

“Stop trying to handle me,” I say out loud. “Why should I calm down? If this isn’t the time to freak out, when is?”

“I need you to stay calm because you’re also in danger.” Phoe’s voice still holds a pacifying note. “I need you to help me keep you safe.”

“Is he really dead?” I’m still speaking out loud—almost shouting, in fact. “Could those videos be a prank of some kind? A cruel trick? A way to teach me a lesson?”

She steps toward me. “No, Theo. As horrible as it seems, this is how Forgetting people works. The person stops existing. Both in memory and in reality.”

Rounding the tree, I back away again, but my foot catches on one of its roots. I fall hard, my confused state not conducive to good landings. My teeth snap together with a loud clink, and a shock of pain reverberates through my back, followed by a wave of nausea.

After a moment, the worst of the pain fades, but I don’t attempt to get up. I feel like I want to lie here forever and not think. The crowns of the trees above me sway, and I stare at them without blinking.

Phoe looms over me, blocking my view of the trees and the sky.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice is like an echo. “I wish you had time to properly mourn, but I’m afraid you don’t. They’re searching through these woods as we speak.”

“Phoe… If you’re making this up, if he isn’t really dead and you’re just manipulating me into doing this thing you want me to do, please just say so,” I think at her in desperation. “I’ll do whatever you want. Just please tell me Mason is alive.”

“I can’t.” She sits down on the ground next to me, pulls her knees to her chest, and hugs her legs. “I wish I could.”

I shield my eyes with my palms and lie there, trying to even out my breathing.

“That’s it,” Phoe whispers. “Breathe.” Her voice is like a cold drink on a hot afternoon. “We’re lucky it’s only been a day since I disabled their tampering. All your happy hormone levels are well above those of the ancients. This should help you cope.”

Her words make no sense. How could the ancients survive feeling worse than I do at this moment?

“According to what I’ve read in the archives just now, they went through some of the same things you’re going through—denial, anger, bargaining, depression—before eventually reaching acceptance, the last stage of grief.”

I lower my palms to glare at her. “I will never accept what I just saw.”

“Nor should you.” Phoe’s hard tone matches mine. “Under the circumstances, of those five stages, anger might be the most productive response.”

I replay the image of the white-haired man giving Mason that shot, and my fists clench. If the man were in front of me, I’d hit him and kick him until I saw blood.

“You probably wouldn’t,” Phoe says. “And I mean that as a compliment.”

“You don’t know what I would or wouldn’t do. The bastard deserves to get punched.”

“You’re right, and, more importantly, you’re on the right track.” Her voice takes on Liam’s signature conspiratorial quality. “Channel your anger into the next task. Trust me, learning whatever it is that stupid game is preventing me from remembering will be huge. Beating it will help a lot more than hitting an old man.”

“Fine.” I sit up. “Let’s do this thing.”

“
F
irst
, I need you to calm down some more,” Phoe says. “Try eating.”

“I don’t feel hungry.”

“Try to eat anyway.”

Almost on autopilot, I make the palm-up gesture that makes Food appear, and the familiar bar turns up in my upturned hand. I take a bite, and for the first time in my life, normal Food is completely tasteless, almost as though it’s one of those punitive Food bars they serve during Quietude.

“There you go,” Phoe says soothingly. “Food can be comforting, which is good. The calmer you are, the easier the game should be.”

Since my mouth is full, I ask mentally, “Why?”

“Because of the nature of this particular game,” Phoe responds out loud. “What you’re about to experience is a complex neural analysis, adaptation, and response technology. The ancients called it IRES—Immersive Reality Entertainment System.”

“I don’t understand what that means,” I pointedly think at her.

“Immersive Reality is like Virtual Reality, only, well, more immersive. Additionally, the world you’ll enter is tailored to everyone who joins the system, which in this case will be you.” She points at my chest.

I take another bite of the Food bar and think, “That still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

“Your teachers have done a number on you guys.” Phoe sighs. “How can I dumb this down?” She sits still, apparently thinking, then says, “Think of it like this: the game will analyze your head. It will look at your memories and experiences, and from them, it will create an ultra-realistic world meant to entertain you as much as it can
.
Does that make more sense?”

“Sort of.” On the third bite, the Food starts to taste a little better. “How do I win?”

“Maybe the word ‘game’ is misleading,” Phoe says as I continue chewing. “This thing is meant to be an interactive, fully immersive entertainment extravaganza. Its purpose is to provide a one-of-a-kind experience to each and every player, not to only choose a winner.”

“But if more than one person is playing—”

“If multiple people play, the competitive component is enhanced. The game will create a world that’s a conglomeration of elements based on the analysis of each player’s mind. That’s why this thing is so complex; it can support hundreds of interwoven players. Out of that mess, it will create a hodgepodge of a world for them to play in. But you don’t need to worry about that, since you’ll be by yourself.” Phoe pauses as if to catch her breath. “I hope this explains why we have to end its operation. I chose this game as our target because the computational resources it consumes are truly staggering. Plus, since no one uses it, no one will miss it.”

“Well,” I subvocalize between bites, “what I really want to know is what will happen to me when I enter this game. What can I expect there? How do I do whatever it is you want me to do?”

Phoe’s hands fidget in front of her. “What you’ll see is very hard to predict, as is what you’ll need to do. Suffice it to say, you’ll need to play to the end. When you beat the game, you’ll get the opportunity to stop it from running. When that happens, make sure to actually select that choice and shut it down.”

“Why is this thing even running?” I ask.

“To eat up resources.” She puts her arms around her chest as if giving herself a hug. “I think someone tried to find the most resource-intensive piece of software they could get their hands on, and this was it.”

I tilt my head. “But why?”

“That’s what I’m hoping to find out,
after
you beat this thing.” She mirrors my head movement. “I don’t want to make unfounded guesses.”

“Okay,” I say slowly. “But why don’t they let anyone play this game? If it’s running already, wouldn’t it be logical to use it?”

“Since when do Adults go for logical ideas?” She shakes her head dismissively. “If I had to guess, this game is probably on that super-long list of forbidden technology.” Phoe’s voice lowers, as though she’s worried someone might overhear her despite us being alone in the forest and her speaking in my head.

“Great.” I catch my hands tightening, squashing the last bit of Food. “Forbidden tech—sign me up.” I stuff the tortured piece of Food into my mouth.

“There is nothing to worry about. The Adults are total worrywart-luddites when it comes to technology.” Phoe’s voice takes on those passionate pet-peeve overtones. “Under the pretext of avoiding the next cataclysm, they label harmless stuff as—”

“Okay. Never mind. Just tell me how to play this thing.”

“We’ll need to hack you in.” Phoe jumps to her feet. “How else?”

“I assume you don’t mean hacking a bar of Food into pieces,” I subvocalize and clear my throat.

She bobs her head. “Correct. I mean the kind of hacking that lets one do things one isn’t supposed to do.”

“Right. Can you be a bit more cryptic?” I exhale audibly, the way I would while meditating. “Please just tell me what this ‘hacking’ will entail this time around?”

“To start, I need to tap into your brain or, more specifically, into the nanocytes that interface with your neurons.”

My eyebrows go up, and I squint at her.

“Okay, even more super-specifically, do you remember what you were doing the day we met?”

I nod. How can I ever forget that day? It all started when, on a whim, I gestured for extra Screens after having noticed that if you gesture for one after you already have one in front of you, you get two Screens. On that day, I decided to push that discovery further. I gestured for a third, then a fourth Screen, and kept going (I was very bored while learning about the evils of the Industrial Revolution). Sometime during my three hundredth Screen, the world around me momentarily blurred, and that was when I heard Phoe’s voice for the first time.

“Yes, bringing up those Screens created a buffer overrun that I was able to exploit,” Phoe says. “So this time, I need you to do the same thing: bring up a ton of Screens. I already created a safe virtual reality space for you to inhabit, a place that will let me pipe you into the game.” More quietly, she adds, “In theory, at least.”

Not feeling particularly confident, I do as she asked and start bringing up Screens.

“Just a few more,” she says when I feel my wrists beginning to ache from the repetitive gesture. “And you could summon these screens mentally, you know.”

I decide to play along and mentally summon another boatload of Screens.

When I get to about three hundred Screens again, the world blurs the way it did on that fateful day, and I’m no longer sitting in the forest.

I’m flying.

Or falling.

Whatever motion this is, it’s happening incredibly fast.

I’m bodiless, like a ray of light. The world around me is a surreal white tunnel, and I fly/fall through it, heading somewhere.

The experience reminds me of those ancient rollercoaster park commercials, only scarier.

Just as suddenly as the feeling started, it ends.

I have my body back.

I’m standing in a new space.

To call this a room would be the understatement of the decade; it looks more like an ancient cave. It’s dark, except for the shadowy light coming from luminescent creatures crawling on top of majestic stalactites and stalagmites. On my left are a couple of big barrels. One has the word ‘Gunpowder’ written across it, another has ‘Gin,’ and a third barrel has a skull-and-crossbones sign.

I try the usual illumination-summoning gesture by folding my index finger into a hook and flicking it up, the way the ancients used to turn on light switches.

To my relief, the cave brightens, and I can see details more clearly.

The cave is filled with a medley of forbidden objects, from guns and swords to posters of nude ancient models. Ancient magazines are scattered on the floor, and throughout the cave, Screens are playing violent movies and video games.

“What do you think of your ‘man cave’?” Phoe asks from behind me.

“It’s something,” I say, turning to look at her. “It’s like a—”

I don’t finish my thought, because I can actually see
her
. I have to force myself to blink a few times as a rush of adrenaline tingles through my body.

She’s changed.

She’s no longer the ghostly presence she’s been since the Zoo.

She looks real now, if ‘real’ can be applied to a woman who’s unlike anyone I’ve ever seen.

She looks as though she stepped out of an ancient magazine. With her pixie-cut blond hair, overlarge blue eyes, and small, delicate features, she reminds me of Tinkerbell.

“Hey now.” She flaps her long eyelashes at me. “That’s insulting. I’m five foot nine—hardly as tiny as a fairy.”

That’s true. She’s almost as tall as ancient models were, with the same kind of legs that seem to go on and on. As I stare at her, I also get a better view of her slim hourglass body—more than what was possible when she was ghostly. Her proportions are those of the ancient models too.

Something about her appearance fascinates me, but I can’t tell what it is. I look her up and down, my eyes oddly drawn to the cleavage of her dress—something else I’ve only seen in movies, as Oasis girls don’t wear anything that shows that much skin.

“Stop it. You’re making me blush.” Phoe gives me a mischievous smile. “Your hormones are starting to work the same way as those of an ancient male your age.”

She’s not really blushing, but I am. She’s insinuating all sorts of taboos that I don’t even want to think about, so I just say, “Okay, now that we’re here, what’s next?”

“First, I want to test whether you can come in and out of this virtual space, your man cave, with a gesture I invented for the occasion. I don’t want you to have to bring up the three hundred screens every time.”

“Okay,” I say, ungluing my eyes from the place where her red dress meets her slender shoulders.

“Take your middle fingers and stick them out like this.” She flips me off with both hands, the backs of her middle fingers sticking out triumphantly.

“Hey.” I narrow my eyes at her. “Did you design this gesture to ensure I get into Quietude every time I use it?”

“Well, if you mentally say, ‘Fuck fuck,’ it’s the equivalent to the physical command.” She chuckles. “But we both know you prefer gestures. In any case, you obviously shouldn’t escape to this place when you’re in front of other people, since in the outside world, you’d be as cognizant of your environment as a rock. So it doesn’t matter what the gesture is.” She examines the red nail polish on her middle fingers—something I also stare at since I’ve only ever seen nails painted red (or any color) in ancient media. “I had to invent a gesture and command that isn’t already in use, and, well, this was available.”

“Right. Usually, like right now, I just want to give you a single-finger gesture,” I say and flip her off, even though a part of me instinctively cringes at the accompanying memories of lengthy Quietude sessions.

“That’s almost it,” Phoe says, her expression deadpan. “You just have to do it with both hands, like this.” She double flips me off again.

“Never mind.” I make the double-middle-finger gesture just so we can stop conversing about it.

In a whirl of whiteness, I’m bodiless again. I fall through the surreal tunnel and experience the disorienting effect that accompanies the fall.

With startling suddenness, the white tunnel becomes the green of the pine trees around me.

“Now try going back the same way,” Phoe’s voice says in my head.

I do the gesture, and the trip starts anew.

When I’m back in my virtual man cave again, I say, “Okay, that worked. How do I do the next part?”

“That’s easy,” Phoe says. “I created a similar gesture.” She makes the double flipping sign sideways, and then connects her middle fingers together in front of her chest. “You have to do this, but it will only work from here. You can’t get to the game directly from the real world.”

I begin connecting my middle fingers together.

“Wait, Theo.” She walks over to me, getting so close that I can smell a hint of roses.

Perfume is another thing Youths don’t wear, a rational part of my brain thinks. The more irrational part is not thinking at all, particularly when Phoe gets even closer, hugs me—a social interaction from the movies—and pecks me gently on the cheek in another movie-only action.

My breath catches. I feel as though energy is flowing from where her pouty lips are touching my skin. It’s moving down through my whole body and into somewhere in my crotch region. I feel a strange urge to grab her and bring her closer to me.

She steps back. “No time for that now. The search party is getting closer.”

My heart is beating faster than when I ran through the forest.

Is this what the ancients felt? Again, I wonder how the poor slobs functioned on a day-to-day basis. Then again, whatever I felt from her nearness was not unpleasant.

“Focus, Theo.”

I blink at her. “How do I beat this thing? What should I expect?” I say, trying to, literally, get my head back in the game.

“I honestly don’t know,” Phoe says. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some kind of a puzzle or quest you’ll need to complete, or a phobia you’ll need to face. It might be the usual fare of video games, or it could turn weird on you. I simply don’t know for sure. Your mind is a key component in this. Colorful, recent, and traumatic past events can play a large role—”

“Sounds lovely.” I almost manage to convince myself that my nervousness is related to the upcoming task.

“No matter what happens, it’s no more real than this place is.” She sighs and gives me a regretful look. “If there was an easier way, I assure you, we’d do
that.
”

I suppress the urge to wet my lips. “And if I get killed?”

“Nothing scary would happen in that case.” Her tone is gentle. “You’d simply return here and have to start the game over.”

“Okay, I’m ready,” I say with a confidence I wish I actually felt.

“Once you’re in the game, I’ll do my best to patch myself through and talk to you,” she says.

“Wait, I’m going to be by myself?” I’m unsure why, but this idea scares me more than anything else. “I thought you’d be with me from the start.”