[CHAPTER 100]

"...The sunlight's reflecting off the thrusters and whatever debris came away at the time of the mishap is still with us…"

James Lovell

E.A.R.T.H

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Richard had never been to Jersey before. In fact, he hadn't left Britain since getting a small job as a manual labourer in Carmarthen nearly four years earlier. It shouldn't have been possible to get jet lag from the short-flight down to Jersey, but he felt like he hadn't slept in days. The small channel island was a world away from his home in the welsh countryside.

'Whataya want?'

The young man, a former welder before he quit his job the day before, blinked but didn't respond.

'Hey Kid. Earth to Richard.' Harry interrupted the young man's daydreaming whilst fumbling in his pocket for his wallet. Richard reddened at the mocking tone, blood rushing to his face.

'I don't really drink coffee.' He admitted awkwardly, gazing up at the blackboard over the counter. Flaking white chalk listed the numerous variants of caffeine and sugar. To Richard it was all hieroglyphs, or maybe cuneiform. All he ever drank back at home was black tea. The habit had more to do with cultural identity that taste.

'You're lucky. There's not much to it.' Eisenhower grunted before turning to the cashier. 'Yeah...can we get two medium americanos?'

'You want the usual? Milk in one?' The young barista replied tiredly, already turning his back to the two of them. A surge of steam blasted out of the coffee maker as the attendant grabbed two cups.

'Yeah just a little.' Harry called over the desk, before turning to Richard with a sigh, 'Comfortable flight then? An hour from b'ham right?'

'Yeah.'

'The expenses should have been covered. That all came through fine?' Harry slapped his plastic cash to the reader. It was clear that Richard didn't frequent coffee shops as the businessman nearly had to drag the man over to the other end of the service desk. The two waited in awkward silence for their coffee to be poured.

'Money?' Harry had to remind the man. He was starting to worry if Richard was just shy, or spaced-out on drugs. It was surprising just how different the man was compared to his younger brother.

'Yeah.' Richard replied after a sigh, 'Came through yesterday.'

Although on the seafront, the Mooc Cafe was nearly empty but for an elderly couple at the front of the shop. Jazz music played from a speaker in the corner, but it did little to cover the rumble of the fridge out the back. After a short conversation with the barista, Harry got their coffee to go. A few minutes later and the two were walking the last stretch back to GOKIA offices.

Unlike Eisenhower (who was dressed in a rumpled shirt and tie) Richard wore loose grey trackies and a blue t-shirt. After his work overalls, the young man didn't have much choice when it came to casual wear. He'd resorted to packing what remained of his wardrobe, which didn't amount to much beyond a few sweatshirts. Walking alongside the chairman of GOKIA, Richard felt small. Then again, Harry was by no means a skinny man.

'So.' Eisenhower drained the top of his drink, hiding the fact he was slightly out of breath. 'You're James's brother. Get on well?'

'Estranged.' Richard clarified sourly, 'But yeah. It's complicated.'

'I've been dealing with your parents for the past three years. I can only imagine.' Harry forced a laugh but trailed off when seeing Richard's gloomy face. The young man hadn't even taken a sip of his coffee. 'You'll have to tell me later. I've got a full calendar for the next two weeks, what with being roped into this damn court case. I'm guessing you don't talk to your parents at all?'

Richard sighed. He had short cropped brown hair which he itched at absently.

'I don't think they even recognise I exist anymore.'

'Well that makes two of you.' Harry did his best to emphasize the irony of the situation. Either Richard wasn't paying attention, or the humour was lost on him. 'The office is just around the corner. I'll drop you off in the lobby. You know where you're going this evening right? Catch the seven or seven-a bus north. I texted you the address.'

The young man nodded, following Harry across the street and around the bend. Contrary to what Richard had been led to believe, GOKIA was a rather unpretentious. For one of the largest tech companies in the world, their offices were at the back of industrial estate which lacked anything close to a seaview. However, the building had undergone some upgrades with a neo-modern exterior of glass and concrete, partly obscured by a few protesters. A mottled bunch of new-world folk were sat around in the sunshine with banners.

'What are they doing?' Richard nodded towards the group of predominantly women. Eisenhower had to squint in the bright sunlight. Shrugging lightly, he wiped at his sweaty forehead wit the back of a hand.

'Like I'd know. They've been here most Thursdays.'

'I mean…' Richard felt stupid having to clarify his intended question, 'What are they protesting?'

Harry stopped in his tracks.

'Right...I guess you haven't got around to reading the files I sent you?' The large business man practically groaned, loosening his pale blue tie. The welder was surprised just how disconcerted Harry looked. 'You do know why you're here right?'

'Duh.' Richard was a little taken-aback at Harry's blasé tone. It was one thing being scolded by an older man, but something else entirely when said man was four inches taller and twice your weight.

Eisenhower just raised an eyebrow and said nothing.

A few moments later and they were climbing the steps up to the main GOKIA offices. Harry greeted the few police making their presence known near the revolving doors. Britannica police, unlike those from UK, dressed in grey. They also weren't afraid to wear guns in plain sight. Richard didn't have time to feel uncomfortable as he was whisked inside through a metal detector and a quick bag search. The lobby beyond stank of coffee, lilies, and the metallic tang of air conditioning running twenty-four hours of the day.

'Well there we go.' Einsenhower took an inch off the top of his coffee before waving Richard towards the front desk.

'Try not to upset anyone. Don't break anything. Yana likes anything with chocolate, Jean loves bad puns, and Mark...Mark talks too much. I'll see you tonight. Susan here'll help direct where you need to go.'

Harry didn't look back, pulling a softscreen out of his pocket as he headed towards the stairs.

Richard wasn't sure if he'd just been ditched.

Stood in the middle of the GOKIA welcome hall, an untouched coffee in one hand, wearing stained grey joggers he hadn't washed in a week - it sure felt like it. The young man man was starting to feel like this might not have been one of his better ideas.

'Hi! You must be Richard.' The receptionist called from the front desk. 'Do you want to take a seat? I've notified Mark that you've arrived.'

'Uhh...thanks.'

With nothing else to do (and not wanting to look awkward stood in the middle of the foyer), Richard sat next to the front windows. Along with his own sofa, there were a couple more dotted around a small coffee table in the corner. A large blue-tinted window looked out across the road and the exterior of a screwfix opposite. Richard amused himself by scanning the numerous pictures hanging on the lime-rendered concrete. Many depicted dull industrial scenes which looked strangely like rocket launch pads. It reminded Richard of his brother. James had always had a passion for understanding the earth and other planets.

Richard was starting to wonder why he was here at all.

The call had come through four weeks ago from Harry himself. How the businessman had found his personal details was beyond Richard, though it did discomfit the situation. The welder had seen in the news that his younger brother had been involved in some fabled uploading scheme relating to the gaming platform HORIZON. However, the media didn't have much beyond the basics. The combination of few facts, and his own chosen isolation, meant the less he knew the better.

That was the mentality of four weeks ago - before Harry had offered he come to GOKIA to take part in some top secret program. In hindsight, reading through the terms and conditions before he started might have been a good idea. He accepted so quickly partly out of respect for his brother, and partly in spite of his parents. They were currently in Rotterdam fighting with GOKIA headquarters over manslaughter, false information, and everything else they could possibly conceive involving James. Richard didn't find that particularly surprising. His catholic parents had a bad past of overreacting to everything. Sheesh, their stupid outbursts were the very reason his life had gone downhill.

But if he was in a mess, then his brother was in deep shit. Locked in a video game? The world debating if he was alive, or if the GOKIA corporation had slaughtered him! All because of a dumb drinking and driving accident. In one sense, Richard was kind of glad that he'd been kicked out of the family five years earlier. It made the regret easier to handle. Because just how different would James's life have been if he'd had a responsible big brother to look after him - rather than a jerk that cared more about that fact he was named after the wrong Beatle.

'Hi. You must be Richard!'

The welder had been so involved in his own thoughts that he hadn't spotted the man coming. All of a sudden, a short asian-heritage male was towering over him with his hand outstretched. Richard had to jump to his feet, shake the man's hand, and offer a rushed greeting all in the space of a short breath.

'I'm Marcus, though everyone calls me Mark.' The man introduced himself, 'I'm assuming Harry has done a formal introduction?'

Upon seeing Richard's blank face, Mark had the audacity to grin.

'Yeah I didn't think so. He's in a sour mood at the moment. I'll leave him to discuss that. For now, our lab's down in the basement. It's where you'll be doing most of your stuff. You can meet our first team, and maybe we'll give you a proper tour tomorrow when the other team are here as well.'

'Uh...Sure.'

Mark beamed, 'Great. Might as well get straight to it then!'

Richard left his coffee behind, following Mark towards a pair of lifts. After rather awkward small talk in the elevator, the former welder was surprised when the lift went down to minus four.

'This isn't some crazy nuclear bunker of anything right?'

Mark laughed,

'Nah. But computer security? Best in the world. Yana wrote some of the code herself I think.'

'Yana?' Richard questioned, having heard Harry mention the name earlier.

Mark nodded, exiting the elevator as the doors opened smoothly. They had to pass through two sets of fire-doors before entering a chilly office corridor. Compared to the barmy spring weather outside, the floor was practically freezing.

It didn't take long to find out who Yana was.

'You're late!' Was the first thing the short, eccentric woman said, 'Harry told me you should be here a fortnight ago!' The words were matched by a remarkable amount of arm waving. Her accent sounded central Euopean, mangled even further by her frantic spluttering of words.

'I…I had difficulty getting a flight.'

Yana waved off the excuse, dragging the man across a small room full of computers in to what appeared to be a back cupboard. She didn't even introduce him around the small team, forcing him through a doorway with the words 'DO NO ENTER' stenciled across in purple sharpie. Richard was already in the midst of spouting excuses as the woman threw him down into an armchair. A moment later and she flicked the lights on.

'Aren't you...you know…'

'Introductions later. First we need to calibrate the SONY. Booples needs time to warm up.' Yana dumped a bundle of strange electronics into Richards arms. 'Harry forwarded the information? Correct?'

It was too late for Richard to admit he hadn't read any of the emails.

'Uhh…'

'Correct?' Yana emphasized, skipping between a laptop resting haphazardly on a pile of folders and some gigantic machine.

'Uh...kinda.' Richard admitted,

'Too late now.' Yana cut through with startling speed, a cheeky grin spreading across her face. One foot was tapping the ground as she worked.

'What is that thing?'

For some reason that only made Yana grin widen even further. Tapping a few keys with overly large movement, she nearly danced over to the young man.

'That!' She picked up the SONY headset from Richard's lap. In one smooth motion she plopped it on Richard's head. 'Is the most advanced virtual immersion device made. Sploosh! Unreleased SONY. Infinadeck. Full haptic feedback. The future…' She spun round to wave her hands over a bunch of cables which seemed to be duct taped to a ventilation system, 'Much excite. Wow!'

Richard just stared, worried at the very real chance of encouraging the unstable woman.

'So time to get you in.' Yana announced firmly, in time with a loud cooling system kicking into gear.

'Wait! Now!' The man went to object, nearly knocking the headset off his head. Up to this point, he'd never had the money or mixed with the right friends to even try virtual reality. He was surprised at just how light the goggles were.

'You're late as it is.' Yana shrugged, 'And we can leave it to calibrate and start project fully tomorrow.'

Richard realised it was too late to start objecting. This was what he'd signed up to do. However, the situation was so surreal that he just went along with it. This morning he'd been sipping his breakfast tea in Carmarthen. Four hours later he was in some highly technical bunker with a mad woman who wore purple Dr Martins and a VR headset trailing around her neck.

The whole sequence of getting prepared for what Yana kept calling full immersion took almost an hour. This was the first time the whole setup had been tested, with Mark and a mute Frenchman named Jean coming in to help with the remote communication between the subsystems. Richard got to meet the whole office during the process of dressing in a haptic feedback suit. The material was made to simulate the sensation of touch everywhere possible across the body. It was like dressing in a wetsuit three sizes too small.

Out of all of them, Jean was the most willing to help him wiggle inside.

'Uh thanks…' Richard mumbled, flexing his arms to get the blood returning to his hands. Jean just clapped him on the back, the haptic feedback suit amplifying it to a sharp stinging sensation.

Then there was the fiasco of getting hooked up to the treadmill. It took a few attempts to get the correct height, given that Richard was suspended from the ceiling on a complex pulley system. Yana and Jean had a prolonged conversation over that. Given that both were speaking in sign, it looked more like a dance-off - or a twisted form of Capoeira. Meanwhile, Richard hung limply over a few million pounds worth of kit.

'Ok!' Mark interrupted at last, calling out from across the room. He was leant back with a laptop precariously balanced on his knees, 'Let's just connect you up. If things are wrong with the interface, Baba can stitch it up from inside. Let's check the SONY is talking to the neuralink.'

'Booples.' Yana replied in exapersation, 'We're calling it Booples.'

Mark sighed, rubbing at his forehead,

'Let's just get the headset on Richard.' It was only that he spoke to me directly, 'We're going to chuck you in the deep end and do a full systems check. Things might be a little crazy.'

'Crazy?' Richard mouthed, eyes flicking between the three computer engineers. Their version of crazy was likely to be insanely bonkers.

Jean was trying to contain some rather exaggerated silent laughing. Otherwise, there was no explanation to what they meant by the deep end.

These people are nuts was all Richard could think as, with trepidation, he pulled the headset over his eyes. The world instantly turned to night. Suspended over the moving treadmill, padded out in his haptic feedback suit, Richard was completely detached from the world. Even the earphones of the headset muted Yana humming to herself.

But underneath all the fear and anxiety was a twinge of hope. Knowing that possible within a few minutes he'd be able to see his brother once again. And maybe, to set a few wrongs right.

That's when things started to get crazy.

The Neuralink was originally designed to be a brain implant. After a few failed tests on mice, the Musk foundation decided to fund a pad that ran an external uplink from behind the neck. This mimicked the induction of REM sleep, sending the brain into a hybrid state between waking and sleep. It was a condition which Tibetan Buddhists had been practicing for millennia as lucid dreaming. Within a heartbeat, Richard's mind was tumbled through the effects hypnagogia and the world disintegrated into a kaleidoscope.

He blinked.

The world came into focus slowly as he trembled, having lost all perspective of his body. Everything felt fuzzy...and kind of wrong somehow. Richard's limbs reacted as if pulled out into strange there was his spine. This appeared to be twitching as if taking on a mind of its own. It was hard to recall how his body should feel but he didn't think everything should be this sluggish.

'Hey buddy.' Somebody spoke.

What was most alarming was that his ears jerked upwards in response. The sensation felt too real to be imaginary. It was as if somebody had remoulded his ears like putty, moving them up higher up his head. Even now they twitched at the faint sounds of fans and a computer beeping. Richard blinked again, slowly becoming aware of the sights and sounds around him.

Why was he in a hospital?

'Are you sure he's awake?' A female voice replied tiredly. The sounds of scraping chairs across a tiled floor once again made his ears twitch. Something must have gone wrong with the headset. Virtual reality was supposed to be like a perfect simulation, not this!

Richard tried to rub his eyes, but his arms didn't want to move in that direction.

'See!' Somebody spoke and all of a sudden a face appeared in front of me. I yelped, pulling back in surprise at what appeared to be a huge human head. Two bright blue eyes watched Richard warmly as he flailed.

'I told you he was awake.' The male continued. The structure of the words, even the simple tone behind the voicing prodded at a painful memory in the back of my head. Blinking slowly, I tried to focus on the character only for my face to drop.

No way…brother!?

'He looks terrified.'

Why were they talking to him like that? Trying to sit up, it was as if Richard's arms were too short. Curse Yana and that stupid skin-tight haptic feedback suit! Looking down to work out what was wrong, everything started to fall apart. Purple fur? Wait. And paws too? Yellow fluffy paws? They couldn't be serious. No. Seriously?

Richard tried to swear profusely, but all that came out was a cute little yaps of the word 'liepard' from his feline throat. No, no … no.

Since when was he a Pokemon?

James leant forward to pat the feline's head gently, completely unaware of the internal dialogue running through the creatures mind. The new Pokemon trainer scratched at the fur of the Liepard's head with a small smile touching his lips, 'It's ok little guy.'

No. Richard thought, it's really not. Although he may not have read the fine print, he was under the belief he was here to see his brother. Here to help progress the virtual reality of whatever. The former welder had left everything, including his job, to be turned into a fluffy Pokemon?

But least James was alive!

Not only that but he was smiling. Maybe not for the right reasons but still. Richard had made him smile. That alone made all of this worthwhile. To bring even a touch of positivity into his life after everything Richard had taken away from his brother made it worth it in the end.

'There there bud.' James continued to scratch behind the new feline's ears, 'Everything's going to be alright.'

'Lie...Liepard…' was all Richard could say in reply.

END

This chapter should be the last one introducing major characters, with all the main players now in the fiction. R'Love was also a big help in ensuring the quality of this chapter, so once again a shout out to them for their collaboration.

There isn't too much technical jargon in this one (unless I start talking about Coffee). However, I have adapted the concept of the Neuralink so that it is similar to the experience of dreaming - both for the logistics of writing and the additional comparisons made throughout EOrRROR. I may expand on this in future chapters. The 'Musk foundation' frequently mentioned should be fairly obvious, given the Elon Musk is the founder of the present day Neuralink company. Be aware the usage and description of the Neuralink in this story are purely fictional.

In following chapters, this story will flick between Jersey and inside HORIZON itself. Enjoy!