Ryan's World, Page 2
David Garlock
be gone.”
Jennifer chuckled. “Good luck with that. C’mon, Ryan, we’re out of here.”
The Director pointed a long, bony finger at Ryan. “Stop right there, boy. If you take another step you’ll be wiped so fast …”
Jennifer tossed her head back and laughed loudly. “You are so full of crap. We’ll be long gone before you can get a message all the way up to the Control Gods.” She tugged on Ryan’s sleeve and moved toward the door. “Let’s go!”
Following Jennifer’s lead, Ryan backed out of the room. Soon they were running down an alley through an industrial area that Ryan didn’t recognize. About midway down the long block, Jennifer stopped and pushed Ryan into a narrow passageway between two brick walls. The passage ended after about twenty feet in a deep, black nothingness. Ryan hesitated, but Jennifer pushed him through from behind.
He fell forward through the blackness as if through molasses. Just when he thought he should hit the ground, he stumbled into a brightly lit clearing ringed by towering pines.
Ryan was trembling uncontrollably as he considered these new surroundings. “Where are we?” he stammered.
“Your new home,” she replied. It’s an old abandoned piece of the World. I don’t think anyone can find us here. At least no one has found me yet. I’m pretty sure they’ve forgotten about this place, so we don’t have to worry about it going to Distribution.”
Ryan dropped to the soft, grassy ground. He stared up at the girl, a totally blank look on his face. “Distribution? What’s that?”
“Gods!” she exclaimed. “You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what,” he asked.
She crossed her ankles and lowered herself to the grass next to him. “This is going to come as a shock to you. I was really shocked when I figured it out myself.” She took a deep breath. “O.K., everything you think you know about your life is fake, an illusion. Think about this, what is the earliest memory you have? How far back can you remember?”
Ryan considered this. “I remember my parents. I think I used to have a grandmother, maybe.”
“I mean specific things. Do you remember what you got for Christmas last year? Or the year before? How about your first day of school? Do you remember that?”
He shook his head. “I do remember that big food fight in the cafeteria last week. That sure was a mess!”
Jennifer laughed. “Yeah, I was there. That was the first time I ever saw you. Can you remember anything specific before then?”
He shook his head again. “No, I don’t. What does that mean? What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying that we don’t remember those things because we aren’t as old as we think we are. If I figured it out right, I’m only about five months old. I must have been born just as I am now. I have a feeling you’re much younger than that, probably just a couple of weeks.”
Ryan bit his lip. “That’s crazy. People aren’t born as sixteen year olds.”
Jennifer leaned back on her hands. “Maybe they are. Had you ever seen the Director before today? You seemed pretty confused back there.”
“He seemed a little familiar, but I don’t know. Who is he, anyway? How did he just pop out of the wall like that?”
“I don’t have everything worked out yet, but as far as I can tell, the Director is the one who tries to make everyone do what the Control Gods want them to do. If things get messed up, the Edit Gods fix everything. It seems that people aren’t ‘born’ like we think. I heard some people talking about ‘coding’. They said that people are ‘coded’ by the Creation Gods and placed in the World.
If the people in a particular place do everything they’re supposed to, the whole place and all the people go to ‘Distribution’. They disappear and go live in another World somewhere. Like some kind of reward.”
Ryan’s head swam with confusion. For many moments, he tried to reconcile what Jennifer told him with the few concrete memories he possessed. Finally, he asked, “What does it mean when you get ‘wiped’?”
“That means you just vanish. You just poof out of existence.”
He sighed. “This is just too weird. But, I can’t think of a better explanation, considering what happened today. What do we do now? We can’t just live out here in the middle of nowhere.”
Jennifer pushed herself from the ground and held out her hand to Ryan. “C’mon, I have something to show you.”
She led the boy out of the clearing and down a narrow dirt path. A couple of minutes later they emerged from the trees and were standing in front of a little log cabin, no more than twenty feet on a side. Jennifer pushed open a heavy plank door and pulled Ryan into the structure.
The interior was divided into two rooms, one much smaller than the other. The main room contained a long bookcase, filled with volumes of various shapes and sizes and a small table with two straight wooden chairs. Through a door less frame, Ryan saw a crudely assembled wooden bed frame covered by a lumpy mattress that resembled a stretched out laundry bag more than anything else.
Jennifer stretched out her arms and turned slowly in a circle. “Isn’t this great! We can talk and read. When we get tired of that, we can take walks in the woods or just sit and look at the trees. Oh, Ryan, we’ll be so happy here. And the best thing is that nobody is here to tell us what to do and what to say. Isn’t it wonderful?”
Ryan wasn’t convinced that it would be wonderful, but considering the alternative would be to return to face the Director and be wiped from existence it didn’t seem too bad.
Jennifer wrapped her arms around Ryan’s neck and pulled him close to whisper in his ear. “We’re two of a kind, you know. We don’t think the same way those other people do. We don’t belong there. We belong here, together.”
Ryan returned the hug and remained in her embrace for many long moments. When at last they reluctantly pulled themselves apart, they joined hands and took a long walk through the forest.
It was already ten minutes past twelve and Jack Kellogg was anxious to get to lunch. A frown on his face, he leaned forward in his chair and peered at the long list of files on his monitor screen. A moment or two later he leaned back and called over to the next cubicle.
“Hey, Ted. You gotta a minute?” he asked.
A chair slid over from the other side. “Sure, Jack. What’s up?”
“I was looking at these new MovieWorld files and I found one way out of date sequence. It’s over a year old. It should have gone to Distribution a long time ago.”
Ted smiled. “Well, send it. I’m sure it’s ready by now. Make it a freebie, since it’s so old.”
“O.K., here it goes.” Jack pressed a button on his keyboard and the file disappeared from the screen.
Sixteen year old Jason Kimball sat in his big, cushy swivel chair in a small darkened room in the family basement, his eyes less than three feet from his new thirty two inch LCD monitor. Wiping the mouse back and forth across the desktop, he zoomed and panned, searching for some other activity on the screen.
Just then, his best friend Wayne Wilson drifted into the room. “Hey, Jay! What’s up?” he asked.
“Check this out,” Jason replied.
Wayne surveyed the screen for a few moments, and then asked, “What is that? It looks pretty boring.”
Jason continued to pan. “It’s a new MovieWorld – free download. It is pretty boring. I can’t find much going on.”
He panned to the left and zoomed in on a little log cabin among a grove of pines. “O.K., look at this.” He clicked on the cabin’s wall to enter the cutaway view and zoomed in closer.
All I can find is these two kids in the cabin. They don’t do anything except read and talk. No wonder it was free.”
Wayne rubbed his chin while he thought. “Why don’t you wipe them and see if the program will spawn new characters?”
Jason nodded. “Why not? What can we lose?”
&nbs
p; In a series of rapid movements, Jason right clicked on each of the two figures sitting in the cabin and selected ‘delete’. In an instant, they were gone.
A few seconds later, the two boys watched as a grizzled and burly rancher bounded out of the cabin carrying a shotgun. He took refuge behind a thick tree as three masked bandits rode into view.
In the coming hour, Jason and Wayne enjoyed views of the ensuing gunfight from a multitude of camera angles.
###
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Jennifer chuckled. “Good luck with that. C’mon, Ryan, we’re out of here.”
The Director pointed a long, bony finger at Ryan. “Stop right there, boy. If you take another step you’ll be wiped so fast …”
Jennifer tossed her head back and laughed loudly. “You are so full of crap. We’ll be long gone before you can get a message all the way up to the Control Gods.” She tugged on Ryan’s sleeve and moved toward the door. “Let’s go!”
Following Jennifer’s lead, Ryan backed out of the room. Soon they were running down an alley through an industrial area that Ryan didn’t recognize. About midway down the long block, Jennifer stopped and pushed Ryan into a narrow passageway between two brick walls. The passage ended after about twenty feet in a deep, black nothingness. Ryan hesitated, but Jennifer pushed him through from behind.
He fell forward through the blackness as if through molasses. Just when he thought he should hit the ground, he stumbled into a brightly lit clearing ringed by towering pines.
Ryan was trembling uncontrollably as he considered these new surroundings. “Where are we?” he stammered.
“Your new home,” she replied. It’s an old abandoned piece of the World. I don’t think anyone can find us here. At least no one has found me yet. I’m pretty sure they’ve forgotten about this place, so we don’t have to worry about it going to Distribution.”
Ryan dropped to the soft, grassy ground. He stared up at the girl, a totally blank look on his face. “Distribution? What’s that?”
“Gods!” she exclaimed. “You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what,” he asked.
She crossed her ankles and lowered herself to the grass next to him. “This is going to come as a shock to you. I was really shocked when I figured it out myself.” She took a deep breath. “O.K., everything you think you know about your life is fake, an illusion. Think about this, what is the earliest memory you have? How far back can you remember?”
Ryan considered this. “I remember my parents. I think I used to have a grandmother, maybe.”
“I mean specific things. Do you remember what you got for Christmas last year? Or the year before? How about your first day of school? Do you remember that?”
He shook his head. “I do remember that big food fight in the cafeteria last week. That sure was a mess!”
Jennifer laughed. “Yeah, I was there. That was the first time I ever saw you. Can you remember anything specific before then?”
He shook his head again. “No, I don’t. What does that mean? What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying that we don’t remember those things because we aren’t as old as we think we are. If I figured it out right, I’m only about five months old. I must have been born just as I am now. I have a feeling you’re much younger than that, probably just a couple of weeks.”
Ryan bit his lip. “That’s crazy. People aren’t born as sixteen year olds.”
Jennifer leaned back on her hands. “Maybe they are. Had you ever seen the Director before today? You seemed pretty confused back there.”
“He seemed a little familiar, but I don’t know. Who is he, anyway? How did he just pop out of the wall like that?”
“I don’t have everything worked out yet, but as far as I can tell, the Director is the one who tries to make everyone do what the Control Gods want them to do. If things get messed up, the Edit Gods fix everything. It seems that people aren’t ‘born’ like we think. I heard some people talking about ‘coding’. They said that people are ‘coded’ by the Creation Gods and placed in the World.
If the people in a particular place do everything they’re supposed to, the whole place and all the people go to ‘Distribution’. They disappear and go live in another World somewhere. Like some kind of reward.”
Ryan’s head swam with confusion. For many moments, he tried to reconcile what Jennifer told him with the few concrete memories he possessed. Finally, he asked, “What does it mean when you get ‘wiped’?”
“That means you just vanish. You just poof out of existence.”
He sighed. “This is just too weird. But, I can’t think of a better explanation, considering what happened today. What do we do now? We can’t just live out here in the middle of nowhere.”
Jennifer pushed herself from the ground and held out her hand to Ryan. “C’mon, I have something to show you.”
She led the boy out of the clearing and down a narrow dirt path. A couple of minutes later they emerged from the trees and were standing in front of a little log cabin, no more than twenty feet on a side. Jennifer pushed open a heavy plank door and pulled Ryan into the structure.
The interior was divided into two rooms, one much smaller than the other. The main room contained a long bookcase, filled with volumes of various shapes and sizes and a small table with two straight wooden chairs. Through a door less frame, Ryan saw a crudely assembled wooden bed frame covered by a lumpy mattress that resembled a stretched out laundry bag more than anything else.
Jennifer stretched out her arms and turned slowly in a circle. “Isn’t this great! We can talk and read. When we get tired of that, we can take walks in the woods or just sit and look at the trees. Oh, Ryan, we’ll be so happy here. And the best thing is that nobody is here to tell us what to do and what to say. Isn’t it wonderful?”
Ryan wasn’t convinced that it would be wonderful, but considering the alternative would be to return to face the Director and be wiped from existence it didn’t seem too bad.
Jennifer wrapped her arms around Ryan’s neck and pulled him close to whisper in his ear. “We’re two of a kind, you know. We don’t think the same way those other people do. We don’t belong there. We belong here, together.”
Ryan returned the hug and remained in her embrace for many long moments. When at last they reluctantly pulled themselves apart, they joined hands and took a long walk through the forest.
It was already ten minutes past twelve and Jack Kellogg was anxious to get to lunch. A frown on his face, he leaned forward in his chair and peered at the long list of files on his monitor screen. A moment or two later he leaned back and called over to the next cubicle.
“Hey, Ted. You gotta a minute?” he asked.
A chair slid over from the other side. “Sure, Jack. What’s up?”
“I was looking at these new MovieWorld files and I found one way out of date sequence. It’s over a year old. It should have gone to Distribution a long time ago.”
Ted smiled. “Well, send it. I’m sure it’s ready by now. Make it a freebie, since it’s so old.”
“O.K., here it goes.” Jack pressed a button on his keyboard and the file disappeared from the screen.
Sixteen year old Jason Kimball sat in his big, cushy swivel chair in a small darkened room in the family basement, his eyes less than three feet from his new thirty two inch LCD monitor. Wiping the mouse back and forth across the desktop, he zoomed and panned, searching for some other activity on the screen.
Just then, his best friend Wayne Wilson drifted into the room. “Hey, Jay! What’s up?” he asked.
“Check this out,” Jason replied.
Wayne surveyed the screen for a few moments, and then asked, “What is that? It looks pretty boring.”
Jason continued to pan. “It’s a new MovieWorld – free download. It is pretty boring. I can’t find much going on.”
He panned to the left and zoomed in on a little log cabin among a grove of pines. “O.K., look at this.” He clicked on the cabin’s wall to enter the cutaway view and zoomed in closer.
All I can find is these two kids in the cabin. They don’t do anything except read and talk. No wonder it was free.”
Wayne rubbed his chin while he thought. “Why don’t you wipe them and see if the program will spawn new characters?”
Jason nodded. “Why not? What can we lose?”
&nbs
p; In a series of rapid movements, Jason right clicked on each of the two figures sitting in the cabin and selected ‘delete’. In an instant, they were gone.
A few seconds later, the two boys watched as a grizzled and burly rancher bounded out of the cabin carrying a shotgun. He took refuge behind a thick tree as three masked bandits rode into view.
In the coming hour, Jason and Wayne enjoyed views of the ensuing gunfight from a multitude of camera angles.
###
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