In a Really Strange Land: Part One by Phifi |  |
Did you ever awake in the middle of night, after dreaming really
wild things you cannot remember, and being totally disarranged then? So much
that you do not even know where you are nor what is happening for a few seconds?
If yes, you certainly know what I am talking about when I write
about what Shamathia felt the moment she awaked after she thought she had closed
her eyes forever ... a perfect darkness surrounded her, so deep that she could
see nothing at all in fact. In addition, it was totally silent, no even the
slightest sound could be heard. Shamathia wondered, what had happened?
The last thing she could remember was that she had fallen asleep on a hill,
being as tied as never before in her life. Where was she? In her house in Faerieland?
No.
And then the memories came back all at once and stoke her like
a lightning. She had been in a mysterious castle in the Evergreen Forest, in
the heart of Neopia Central, together with her friend Antanie. She had found
a terrible mutated NeoPet which was sleeping a sort of never-ending magical
sleep. And because she had had such a strong desire to have the tornado ring
the creature was wearing, she had tried to steal it but managed to awake the
mutant instead. There had been a fight, and with a trick and great luck she
had managed to escape the beast. But she had been injured, so much that she
had been certain she was going to be a goner.
So many unanswered questions. Shamathia wanted to get up and
switch on the lights but only when she wanted to put her feed on the floor,
she realised that there was no floor. In fact, there was not even a bed sheet
nor a pillow, well no bed at all. There was only darkness around her, and now
Sammy noticed that she was flying, or hanging in the dark nothing. It was a
strange feeling, not uncomfortable, but just new and different. Wild thoughts
crossed Sammy's mind, was this the something that was waiting for all mortal
beings after their passing away?
Her thoughts were interrupted by a voice she was suddenly hearing,
or more having in her mind. It was her owner! A feeling of great relief went
through Shamathia's body now that she heard a familiar voice. But how very extraordinary
she could not see him.
"Sammy? Can you hear me..?" He seemed a bit unsure, which was
nothing that happened seldom, actually. Because she did not thing about anything
more clever to do, she just replied: "Sure, very good, but where are we here?
The last thing I can remember is that..."
Before she could go on, she was stopped by Andy. "Shh, don't
speak too much, your status is not that stabile. Just listen and I will explain
everything to you. You must be having quite some unanswered questions."
And so Shamathia just listened while her owner told her the
most bizarre story she had ever heard. She wouldn't believe in it, wouldn't
it be herself being the main character...
After her fight with the mutated NeoPet in the hidden-castle,
she had been destroyed indeed. Shamathia knows about the fact that all creatures
of Neopia, yes even Neopia itself are only a giant computer-program, a game,
made for the pleasure of the owners and so Andy explained her in a very detailed
way what happens when NeoPets sleep away. Their program, which is only a tiny
piece of the whole Neopia program, does not get deleted, it only becomes inactive.
And this is also what had happened to Shamathia: Due to her severe injuries,
the main NeoPets matrix had deactivated her code. This was quite something out
of the jar for Shamathia, because if it was that easy to "deactivate" NeoPets,
it certainly wasn't much more difficult to reactivate them... well, of course
only the creators of Neopia could do that because only they have the power to
change the program-code, but to say it in a word, they have powers about the
living and the non-living.
Back to Shamathia: Her owner had been horrified to find out
what had happened to her and had tried everything to convince the creators to
reactivate Shamathia again, after all, she had discovered the hide-out of thieves.
Still they refused to do so, because if they did it once, they would have to
do it again for other owners who lost their pets and again and again. So somewhere
one had to set a point of how far the support of the creators went and where
the borders lay. Andy had been really upset about this and after some time he
made a decision. He would reactivate Shamathia or rather her program, himself
and if it was the last thing he did in Neopia. With Sammy gone he had nothing
left to loose anyway and so he was willing to take any risk. However, reactivating
the program had turned out to be far more difficult than he had ever expected.
Hours and hours he spent reading books about computer technology, security and
software development only to find out that he just was not able to do it. The
program-code of Neopia is very well secured and, besides the creators, no one
can change it in anyway except by playing the game...
***
Things turned worse when after two weeks of owner-world time,
Andy had been kicked out Neopia because he had refused to take a new NeoPet
He did not want to have a new one for he still hoped to be together with Shamathia
one day, but there was a rule for owners that one is obliged to have at least
one NeoPet or one was not allowed to come to Neopia any longer.
And at this point, when things looked as bad as they just could,
the stories took a drastic change: Andy did a practical training in the bio-informatics
core facility of an University. Shamathia did not quite understand what "bio-informatics"
are good for, but the people working there are true masters of computers and
of everything having to do with it. So, Andy did a practical training there
and for he did it really good, the researchers asked him if they could do him
a little favour. They did not actually reactivate Shamathia's program right
away but they showed Andy a way of how to get into the program-code of Neopia
without being noticed and make changes on it.
Back at home, Andy had tried it and almost managed to reactivate
Sammy's program, but then there had been a security control he had not noticed
and which did not permit him to do the change. It would have been a great change
on the Neopia program if had tried to disable that security control and so instead
of reactivating her program, he had moved it out of Neopia to his own little
computer. Of course, he could not make a copy of whole Neopia for it is far
to large to be stored on a personal computer like Andy's. This also explained
the darkness and silence around Shamathia. Her program was now on its own,
away from Neopia and all the other pets.
Shamathia was really overwhelmed by this news. After considering
things over for a while, she was not sure what to think about it. Of course,
it had been really kind of her owner to make all this effort to help her...
but for which result? She was all alone no, all of her friends as unreachable
as possible, she was banished from Neopia and could certainly never visit it
again. The only thing she still had was her bare life.
"Shamathia, are you still there?" Andy asked. "I know this
must be really hard for you know, but it is not that bad. You needn't stay in
my computer much longer. I got a robot in shape close to an Aisha, except it
has only one pair of ears, which is almost ready to use! You know, before I
activated your program again, I spend months and months building this robot.
As soon as it is completed and the final tests prove that it is safe, I will
upload your program in it so you can live together with me in my world! Believe
me, as soon as you are here, you won't miss Neopia any longer!"
Shamathia still had tons of questions to ask but before she
had time to, Andy went on "Please excuse me that I have to deactivate you now,
but on my computer your program runs a bit unstable and I do not want to risk
anything, so close to success. Don't be afraid, you will not even notice."
Andy was right, Shamathia did not notice at all that she was
deactivated for another three and a half weeks because the robot still had some
smaller problems to be fixed. When she heard Andy's voice in the darkness again,
she felt as if not a single moment had passed by since their last talk.
"Shamathia, are you there?" he asked.
"Yes I am, it is good to hear you again... wow, that was really
quickly, did you make progress on that robot-thingy?" Shamathia replied.
"You're good," Andy said, "It's been almost a month now since
our last talk and I am happy to say that the robot is completed now, absolutely
ready for you to use it."
"Wow, this is great news, but before we go on, I still have
some questions about..."
"Sorry but not now, we can talk later on as long as you just
want to but right now I would like you to try the robot. I will upload your
program into the robot and I will also add some new subroutines so that you
will be able to use all the new functions. Are you ready?"
Shamathia really did not feel as if she was but she still said,
"Yes, I am."
The darkness suddenly turned into a swirl of colours floating
around her, and she could hear the most funny noises but then the upload was
already over.
Slowly and carefully she opened first one eye, and then the
other. She was standing on a desk, next to a large computer screen and had a
small cable dangling from her left front leg. She turned her head and looked
directly at her owner Andy.
"Are you feeling all right?" he said, "I mean, does everything
work?" He really seemed excited.
Shamathia made a quick system-check and noticed that everything
was working. "Yes, I am working absolutely fine."
"Great, then welcome to the owner's world, my little darling!"
Andy said.
Entering a strange dimension
Shamathia looked around in the room she was in. It definitely
was her owner's room, she had seen it on photos Andy had shown her. But everything
looked so strange, so different from how Neopia had looked. Maybe this was because
now she actually was in the true reality and not in a computer-made virtual
reality? She looked out of the large windows in a garden which looked as if
it could need a bit more care. The sun was shining and on a cherry-tree nearby
she saw bunches of ripe fruits. Obviously, it was around summertime. When she
had discovered the hidden castle in Neopia, it had been autumn.
"Just take your time to have a look at everything, it must
be really new for you," Andy said. "Would you like to discover my room a bit?"
Shamathia said yes and Andy removed the little cable from
her leg and lifted her from the desk to the floor. In Neopia, she could have
jumped easily down, but as a robot she was not strong enough to resist even
the slightest shocks... she looked around in the room again, and then walked
two or three meters forward. It was a strange feeling to walk, far not as smoothly
as an Aisha but mechanical instead- as though a robot which she now was. "Andy,
I think before I go on with wondering how different everything is, you should
explain me quite a lot. First of all, how where you able to build such an terrific
robot?" Sammy asked.
"All right, come over and sit here on the couch next to me,"
Andy answered, "The robot was the most difficult part actually. I did build
it all myself but the parts I got from... well, let's say I just 'found' them,
OK?"
Shamathia knew perfectly well that he was not telling her the
whole truth, but she could sense that he did not want to tell it for some reason
or the other. "Of course, my friends helped me a bit and also my dad was of
great advantage. He knows so much about electronics... Now let me explain you
some of the features your new body has and some things you have to take care
of. As all robots, you need electricity instead of food. You are equipped with
two very powerful Lithium-Ion Batteries which keep you going for about 14 hours
depending on how much you move. Afterwards you have to charge them. Look, I
have installed to charger over there in the corner next to the bookshelf, so
it is a bit private. You just have to insert your left front paw into the charger
and the rest goes automatically. It takes the batteries about 1 and a half hours
to get charged, and you can view the progress on a little menu in the upper
left corner of your view. I will talk about the in-view menus later on. If you
happen to be away from the charger and the batteries get flat, don't worry,
you also a tiny generator working with hydrogen. When the hydrogen reacts with
oxygen, no exhaust fumes are created, only a bit vapour. The hydrogen tank is
not that big for it is very flammable, so with one load, you can walk around
maybe 48 hours. Please, do not use the generator except in emergencies for hydrogen
is not that easy to get. Let's come to the features I added to your body. Unfortunately,
you cannot use any magic abilities longer for this world is absolutely non-magic,
well as much as I know." He smiled at Sammy who was a bit too puzzled by all
this new events to react. Andy went on "But instead of magic, we humans use
electricity and computers for almost any purpose. Sometimes with success and
sometimes not... however, I changed your program a bit so you can control the
robotic body perfectly. Furthermore, you can now understand and also speak five
different languages of the owner world, which is even more than I do. In your
memories you find maps of the local area and the whole city we are living in,
only for the case you get lost. You are equipped with night-vision goggles which
allow you to see in the dark but consume lots of electricity. Use them with
care. You also got a digital camera to take photos you can show me or others
later on and the best thing is, you have a function to send me e-mails! I disassembled
one of these extra-small cell-phones and added the components to your body.
The address of my pager is the address-book, but please do not use this function
too often for I still have to pay for the phone-company. Wonder what they would
say if they knew what happened to their cell-phone.... All right, this should
be everything should care of, now let's talk about how to behave in this world.
Unlike Neopia, most inhabitants aren't that friendly, or at least here where
I live. Always remember that the parts you are built of are very expensive and
that you might get stolen if you do care enough. For the case you are in a really
dangerous situation, you can electrify your entire body with high-voltage but
only for a very brief time. If someone tries to touch you while you are electrified,
he / she will get a severe shock which will disarrange them for about 20 minutes
so you can escape. I repeat, use this really only in situation of death and
life for you could harm somebody seriously. OK, because this world is quite
unfriendly, I would like you not to leave the area of our house and the garden
for the next week. After you have gotten used to everything, I can take you
on excursions to other places. But please try not to get seen by other people
then my family and me as well as our neighbours. It is for you own safety. And
for the case that you cannot avoid direct contact with other humans, never ever
speak to them. If they find you what skills you got you might be in serious
trouble for... uhm, let's see so modern robots like you are very uncommon."
"Well," said Sammy, "I am not too interested in meeting to
many other people now anyway, first I have to get used to everything. It is
sooo different here than in Neopia, don't know, even the sky looks different."
Shamathia was right, the owner's world was looking very different.
Neopia is only a program after all, even if a very good one. Virtual worlds
can be as well-programed as the can, but never they are as detailed, as colourful
and as lively as the true reality. They are only a image of the real world,
combined with imaginations and fantasies.
"One last word before I show you around a bit," Andy continued,
"The fur you are, let's say wearing, is artificial, so don't worry if it gets
dirty or wet. As long as you aren't getting soaking wet, it is waterproof and
we can simply put it in the washing-machine if you feel like. Don't look so
scared, of course I'd remove it from the rest of you first. Do want to see the
rest of the house now?"
Shamathia wanted to and so they went through the house, which
was quite large but not as much as Sammy's house in Faerieland. Andy explained
everything to her, from the cat door at the entrance to the garden he had built
only for her to his own room with the two desks. One for making experiments
and one for the dull homework as he said.
Shamathia knew that Andy was still going to school, but seeing
the desk with all the text books, dictionaries and exercise-books on it and
the large bin under it was strange.
"Are you on vacation?" she asked.
"I wished I were. It is Saturday and so I have no school, but
on Monday I have to go. Don't worry, school is from 7:35 am to 1:30 PM so I'll
be back early. In the meantime, you can roam around in the house and the garden.
And the weekends are completely free," Andy replied, "And also my summer-vacations
starts in only five weeks."
Shamathia startled, "Oh really? But when I went out for the
hidden-castle it was just over... how long have I been deactivated??"
"I knew you would ask me sooner or later," Andy said, "And
I think it is the best to tell you the truth. Are you prepared for a really
big blow?"
Sammy nodded weakly.
"Almost two years now, I am sorry."
Later, Andy showed Shamathia the garden and explained some
things she should never ever try to do for it might be harmful, like swimming
in the pond of the neighbours or climbing on trees. After all, she was quite
heavy for the major part of her body was build of titanium pipes and screws.
The garden itself was very beautiful, with flowers everywhere
and many dark hedges and bushes to explore. Under a small shed Shamathia saw
a little cave she would explore later on. After playing hide and seek in the
high grass of a meadow for almost an hour, Sammy's batteries where quite empty
and so they went in to charge them. The charging process felt somehow very relaxing.
Shamathia's new life in the owner's world was certainly going
to be more difficult and dangerous than her old life in Neopia had been, but
it certainly was also going to be far more exciting and enjoyable. She was free
now, not depending on anything except of electricity maybe, and there was so
much to see and do.
To be continued... |
