Rescued

(No sexual intercourse, or even innuendo, here. First chapter is mostly infodump, honest. I hope it's still interesting, regardless. But be aware! )

“I have to be the bearer of bad news today, I’m afraid. Your Universe was destroyed. All the galaxies you used to call Know Universe as much as the much larger portion that was beyond that. Your galaxy, and your planet in it. I am sorry for your loss”

That information was hard to digest in one moment. Along with the strange room surrounding us. The small lady with thick glasses resembled a librarian from some 1950 movie about judicial disputes. Her tone and expression showed sympathy, but on the same time delivered the clear message that is was part of her daily work. Not some unique tragedy that happens once in a lifetime. She also looked amazingly human in those clothes, British, redhaired, blue eyed, middle thirties human woman, as far as I would risk to guess.

In retrospective I feel stupid admitting it, but I had to ask if I was dead. To her credit she didn’t treat this question as a joke. Answer, was no.

“It was a Multidimensional even, that destroyed in one instant a little more than 600 thousand Universes populated by sentient beings, along with others that were not. My employers rescued as many people as possible, in those circumstances. You and your friends are among the rescued.”

To give you a bit more context, perhaps that is the time for it, my last memory of Earth was being in the apartment of a friend of a friend. There was a birthday party going on, and I didn’t knew most the people in this party. Sonia had invited Mark, her brother-in-law was the person celebrating the fact that he was today one year closer to his ****. Mark invited Eloise and me. Valeska is a friend of Sonia from childhood and she introduced Mark to both of us. Anyway, that apartment was located 500 meters away from Brigadeiro Station of São Paulo underground train system. At the hardcore hearth of one of the largest megalopolis on planet Earth.

I am not sure how far that is from anything that could pass for a jungle, or wild forest. I will risk to tell you that it is more than half a day on foot. Even if you run.

So, our situation demanded some sort of explanation. Because one moment we were there, standing, talking. The next we were on a dark and forest, in a clearing, surrounded by threes. The sky was clear, and could be either sunrise or sunset, but there was no star or moon to be seem. We where still dressed in the same way, some of us had half-empty glasses in your hands.

Only Sonia, Mark, Eloise, Valeska and me were visible. No other sign of human presence.

After a moment of panic, and disbelieve, we started digesting the situation.

It was sunset, because light was fading and we barely found time to collect enough wood to improvise a fire. Fortunately, I had a small bottle with cachaça in one pocket, and we had two smokers among us. Light the campfire was not hard.

Sitting around the fire, exhausted by the tension of trying to understand what was going on, we all slept fast.

Still no stars and no moon in the sky. Despite the absence of clouds.

I found myself standing up in the middle of the camp, after what to me felt like a moment. The fire was almost completely dead. Everybody was still sleeping in the same place they had been sitting.

Everybody, including me.

I immediately decided it was a dream, although a uniquely vivid dream.

Floating in the air one step away from my sleeping body there was the translucent hologram of some big, cartoonish, book. I touched it.

It turned into a cartoonish image of a man, who could perhaps represent me. And the surroundings changed into a large room of some public library. A bit like the National Library in Rio de Janeiro city, but cleaner and in better state of conservation.

Standing some thirty steps away the British librarian lady.

I touched the cartoonish image of a man, and it changed back to a book. I was again in the forest. Repeated the action, and there was the icon of a person, and the library. Repeated once more, and another, noticed that the woman was closing in each time. She was walking in my direction. First thing that occurred to me was that she would ask me to stop playing with that thing.

Instead, she cleaned her throat. Called me by full name. Presented herself as Mrs Magda, and gave me that bad news you already know about.

I don’t remember sitting, but I must have.

When I finally managed to say anything, a bunch of questions came in no logical order. What was that place? Why I was there alone? Everybody on Earth was dead, except the five or us? Why they dropped us in the middle of some jungle? Was that place safe, my friends were in any danger? Among other less well-structured questions that do not deserve your time.

We talked for about two hours before Mrs Magda excuse herself and leave to deal with other rescued. You will excuse me for how little I registered from those hours in my mind, I hope, if I remind you how recent was to me the impact of complete destruction of my home planet. Not to mention the Sun, other planets, and the Universe around it.

Mrs Magda was no British Librarian, she was the avatar of an AI. This room where I we were, sittings and talking, was not a physical place. Just a computer simulation. I was not there at all, I was in the clear, sleeping. More precisely in a state similar to coma, no one could awake me and would be impossible for me to awake myself if my life depended on it.

The place where my body was by the side of Sonia, Eloise, Valeska and Mark, was on the surface of a artificial planet named New Home.

‘NeHo’, for short, is an artificial planet. Perfectly spherical, with a surface 17 trillion times larger than the surface of Earth was. It is alone in an empty Universe. Placed here artificially by the same people responsible for rescue us. The ones Mrs Magda calls “employers”, since “creators” has uncanny religious connotations she would ratter avoid. To replace the sun they placed a tower somewhere, of some hight, with a sort of lamp on top. Able to generate enough light and heat to play the role, under the circumstances. The light goes on and out in regular intervals, to simulate more or less the effect of Earth’s sun.

There are other such towers, on other parts of NeHo surface. Simulating different conditions, for natives of different worlds. Some from distant planets in my own Universe, most for natives rescued from other Universes.

There are little less than 2 billion humans nearby, rescued in the same second we were. However, “nearby” is used in a weak sense in this instance. They are spread across a ring-shaped region more than 5 times larger than the surface of Earth used to have, around the tower that provides us days and nights in cycles of 24 hours. 12 hours each.

Only people where rescued. The plants and animals surrounding us are product of genetic engineering build from basic elements and stored data from countless worlds. It was not an exact copy of Earth biosphere, but close enough to sustain human life.

The “Employers” have amazing technology but they do not have infinite resources.

I was intrigued by their decision of spread us in such a vast territory, and leave us in what looked like a wild land. After having so much trouble to save our lives, this procedure could end up costing the lives they just had saved. Another question I had was about the rules our rescues expected us to follow in their land. Those two questions have answers that are deeply connected.

Yes, it was a quite wild land, and many of us would die in the first days and years. Eaten by predators, and by other causes. That was expected. They wanted us to survive or die by our own means, and govern ourselves by our own rules.

“Do not worry about areas ‘beyond limits’ to your people. There are many, but every place or information that you are not supposed to have access to is locked. Behind doors you have no chance to open. If you ever find yourself in a place your people is not supposed to be, the fault will be ours, not yours”_ Mrs Magda clarified.

This loose approach to administration of their refugee camps, or perhaps natural reserves, was important to the Employers.

As for my presence in this room, alone, while the other four where just sleeping normally, explanation was simple. They had selected a percentage of individuals and granted to us access to this virtual space, where we would find useful information. To improve our chances of survival.

Every night my body would enter the state of coma, that lasted for 4 hours. The inconvenience of that in a unknow and wild land was way too obvious to me.

On the other hand, for the bright side, there was vast supply of information here. Means to improve my chances of survival the rest of the time. I only needed to find what I needed by myself. No librarian would be available to help me, usually.

I was not happy about that privilege. Putting my defenceless state during 4 hours a day on scales against the opportunity of doing research, I was inclined to ask for refund.

That option was, goes without saying, not available. However, Mrs Magda had an additional information that changed my perspective about the whole thing.

My subjective time during those 4 hours was different from the passage of time in real life. Each night I would have 320 days to pass in the virtual simulation. That meant broadly 1.920 hours in virtual reality for every hour my body would remain in coma. And almost one year of experience, every night.

More than one year, considering that in this simulated reality I don’t need to eat or drink, don’t pee, and don’t sleep.

The Librarian explained to me that I would feel tired fast, while reading. Dedicate time and effort to any subject would be hard to me, at first. With practice I would get used to the effort, and this issue would no longer exist. There was recreative spaces behind some doors, and access to common areas where I would be able to meet other rescued.

**** was impossible, or ratter useless, here. There was no reason to worry about this sort of threat in this environment.

There was information about Neho here, and it was neither locked nor hidden, I only needed to look for it until I was able to find. I should be able to find other people in this habitable ring that way. And those with access to the virtual world should be able to find me as well. Whether or not that was a good thing, there was no way to know.

A lot of ground and natural resources was available to us, we could cooperate and explore it for common benefit. On the other hand, there was no building, no tool waiting to be used. No tamed beasts to ride and put to work for us. Under those circumstances would take hard and dangerous work to just survive from the land. Even with the accumulated knowledge provided by those whit access to virtual space.

Those who rescued us didn’t imposed any law. We could **** each other, kill each other, punish any behaviour we decided to consider criminal with any punishment we elected to apply. Our choice.

I had almost 7.678 hours waiting for me when Mrs Magda excused herself and left.

My first concern was end up insane. Locked for one year inside this library. Alone. With nothing to think about except my defenceless body lost in the middle of a wild land. And the **** of about three in each four human beings of Earth. To say nothing about all the dogs, cats and cockatiels.

After a couple of hours wandering without a plan, and worrying about things beyond my reach, I started a list of what I needed to learn. What could help improve chances of survival for myself and for the other people around that fire.

I found the door to that recreation room eventually. And virtual tools to improve the quality of my research, help me remember a larger volume of information. There was a logic in the organization of subjects in this library, but is was no system I had even heard about. Tool me months to understand why some books where side by side. During this period, by chance, I found the mechanism to keep track of time in this place.

Only 45 days before my time in the library end for than night I found the information about a place in this virtual world where was supposedly possible to improve the body. Not my virtual avatar, my actual physical body. Through stimulation, apparently, electric or otherwise, I should be able to make myself stronger and improve my chances of survival. There was also places to practice hand-to-hand combat against dumb AIs, bow and arrow, the conditioned reflexes should transmit to my real body somewhat imperfectly but they would transmit.

I was unable to find my way to those virtual places that night. And could not find the door to any common area either.

What I got was just a lot of information about survival strategies. The local fauna and flora. Geographical accidents, weather, that sort of thing. Useless culture to cheap talk in parties, when you are in a big city living an urban live. What was no longer my situation.

Another thing I found was a list of names. The archive of all people from Earth brough to NeHo.

Was in this book that I realized that each book in this library contained a lot more information that what any physical book could ever have printed. There was ways to research those books, akin of spells from fantasy video games. That allowed access to additional layers of information. There was not just names there, but complete biographies, with uncanny details and some subjective analysis that didn’t looked like something a human being could have written. Likely because it was not the product of any human subjectivity.

Needless to say, the first archive I looked for after learn how was my own. Then I gave a broad look in what they had about each one of my friends in the fire camp.

I came back to my senses almost two hours before the “sun” turn on again.

There was no incident that night, and no one realized something our of ordinary was happening with my body.

For the moment I decided that my friends had enough to process without the need to ask themselves if I was mad and dangerous or just mad. In the light of that consideration I took the decision of not mention anything about the virtual world. Better to test if what I learned was correct and useful, before say anything.

That day we managed to find ourselves enough edible mushrooms and roots to sustain us for a few days. We also managed to expel a sort of bearlike beast from a hollow tree and claim the place for ourselves, scarring the beast away. And we started sort of fence around the entrance of that place, that once finished should give us good protection. Considerably reducing the risk of large nocturnal predators end up eating us one night. All that was possible thanks to that information I had obtained in the library.

There was some suspicious surrounding all those luck guesses I was providing this day. However, our situation was so difficult that everybody was too worried and too tired to look the gifted horse in the mouth.

I knew we had around seven nights to sleep her. Which was about two nights less than what that predator evicted by us would have stayed. Because we are slower than the bearlike being.

After seven nights we needed to be in our way, to reach a place beyond the route of migration of some small nasty monkeylike carnivore. There is no way to hide from those things with the resources we had available, and no chance to survive the passage of those beasts. There are way too many of them and fire doesn’t scare them away. I had expended many hour planning this travel the better way I could. There was two rivers to cross, and the second was a serious challenge. After that we had to take a path up, entering a mountainous territory for a while. Hard to find food up there, and we would need to have some sort of improvised weapon to have a chance against the predators.

But after two days we would be looking at a isolated valley where we should be safe for months. Not completely safe, but in considerably less danger. Probably.

There was still a dangerous maze of poisonous trees between the mountain passage and this hidden valley. Would take some effort to cross that, but on the other hand that was the main reason why we should find less large predators in that valley. Besides, the poisonous trees also provide good protection against flying hunters, for animals inside the maze. It should do the same for us.

I wasn’t sure about when and how mention the subject of that travel.

My “coldness” was starting to disturb the others, in small ways. What was last night to from their perspective was much more distant in my mind. I was seem this forest for the same time, like everyone else, but unlike anyone else I had studied it.

They had no clue about what this place was, how and why someone had **** or hypnotized the five of us and transported us here. Wait for rescue or try to find civilization where the prevalent ideas in discussion. We should look for a river and then follow it. That is the best chance one can have to find civilization, sensible idea, Mark was insisting on it, while Valeska insisted in go back to the clear, build the larger fire possible, and wait for some helicopter to pass by. I knew for a fact by now that both strategies would get us killed.

Was my access to privileged information what gave me that conviction. Considering what they knew about the situation, both plans had merit.

According to what I had found in the virtual library there was no rescue coming. We had been rescued already, this was our destination. We would find no civilization waiting for us anywhere. There was an entire high-tech structure bellow our feet. It was trillions of times larger than Earth. But it was separated from us by kilometres of rock and dirt. And we would not be able to find any way in, even if we could reach the structure.

Other human groups on this place had arrived as recently as we had. I had not yet found any way to locate them on the maps, but given the scale involved was unlikely for any person to cross our path by accident in our first year on NeHo.

An important information that was also missing still was the number of people like me. How many humans in this place had access to virtual libraries?

My best guess had to be one in each five, because that was what the evidence available to me suggested. Could be 100 times more, or 100 times less. I really had no way to know.

I was imagining they would be in small groups or about five individuals, but that was also a bold generalization. From the only case I had to use as reference.

To leave people alone in a place like that, specially if they were without access to virtual library, would be as close to **** as any action can be. However, the people behind our rescue are clearly aliens. They don’t show any **** in place humans in dangerous situation. How can say which level of risk they would consider too much to be acceptable?

Almost 2 billion human beings is a huge lot of human beings. And we are a very adaptable, resourceful, specie. When pushed against a corner.

There was no doubt in my mind about the chances of survival of humanity. Was a mathematical fact to me that we would survive under those circumstances. Even without the access to virtual libraries, humanity was facing no risk of extinction here. We would find our foot, grow, and prosper.

After a few generations lines of train would be surrounding the entire ring. And our descendants would be flying airplanes over the zones of darkness to make contact with other rings. Find other towers.

Probably not during my life time.

The situation at hand involved the problems of relationship inside our group. Tensions were rising by the end of that day. Despite the fact that our objective situation had improved.

We had food to not die too soon, there was water nearby (not exactly clean, but as clean as we could hope for). We would sleep inside a shelter, instead of completely exposed. All that was not enough to relax us. In the previous night this situation felt too unreal, too much like a dream, to cause panic.

I was not sure if keep the library as a secret had been the right decision. But I kept that decision until the moment when I closed my eyes to sleep.