[CHAPTER 1011]

"... lot of it is flashing in the local vicinity…"

James Lovell

E.A.R.T.H.

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Harry Eisenhower tugged at the beige tie constricting his wide neck. For some reason, he hadn't taken it off since returning home that evening. Sat out in his small garden with the sun dipping below the horizon, he felt too tired to sleep.

'Shit.'

Harry had hoped saying the words out loud would have helped somewhat. Instead, it only made things worse. Scratching at his balding head, he wrung his rounded fingers in frustration. He paced back and forth the same stretch of grass over and over. Running from your problems lead you nowhere.

'Shit.' He tried once more. 'Shittity shitty shit shit.'

'I do not think that will help the situation.' Yana murmured in her plastic lawn chair behind him. She was sprawled out with a bottle of elderflower pressé in one hand, feet resting on a large plant pot. 'I don't want to be the person to say I told you so but th-'

'Yana. Not now.' The chubby man cut through, kicking the grass with a foot. Yana had very rarely seen her life-long work colleague and lone friend as helpless, confused, and as aggressive as he was now. Harry mumbled to himself as he talked through each and every possible outcome. Orange sunlight reflected off the solar panel tiling off the bungalow behind. Apart from the random call of a seagull, the hamlet of Pinvale was silent.

'Shit shittty shit shit.'

The tiny hamlet of Pinvale was silent this time of the evening

In the small bungalow behind, the young Richard was sleeping softly in his bed. In fact, the last time Harry had checked in on him the immerser was curled up tightly in a nest of blankets on the floor. He'd refrained from telling Yana how Richard had moaned in his drug-induced sleep. It was yet more evidence for the effect of the last bottling on the former-welder. Unlike previously, this time the safeguards on the bidirectional Neuralink connection had failed. Instead of uploading consciousness from Richard's brain to HORIZON, the virtual game had been downloaded into his brain. Nobody knew whether the immersion software caused the crash of the GOKIA system, or if HORIZON had tripped Booples. Nobody was prepared for the glitch, least of all Richard.

At least his brain hasn't gone to complete mush Harry hummed to himself. Richard might have been behaving very much like the Pokemon he had been inhabiting inside the virtual world, but he was still able to follow instructions. Mark had suggested that Richard's confused 'Liepard' state would wear off after a night's sleep. The GOKIA chairman couldn't hide behind such optimism however.

There was so much to think about that Harry struggled to think at all.

'Why does everything always go wrong...why me?' Harry groaned, rubbing at his forehead. The hopelessness in the man's voice was too much for Yana to bear.

'It's not like that.' She countered, 'These things happen.' It was a weak argument but the female programmer struggled to know what to say.

'Yeah? What...GOKIA tries uploading and then that fails. Then immersion...and now look at Richard! How long can we keep this a secret for?'

'What secret…' Yana trailed off. Taking a swig of her pressé, the programmer wiper her mouth with the back of her sleeve. She eyed Harry for a few moments. The man was only now realizing his mistake.

'What have you done?' Yana demanded, 'I'm being serious! You honestly think we can hide this? I know Richard, he might be undis...WHAT Harry!?' She acted out each motion with her hands, an angry display that only acted to spill some elderflower over her long skirt. The chairman of GOKIA had his back to the programmer.

With his hands in his pockets and his shoulders slumped, the silhouette of the man was all rolls. Sighing heavily, it was a wonder Harry admitted to the steps he'd already taken. At this point he no longer cared. The intrigue, politics, and fighting for technology in a world that refused it. It wasn't a game for Eisenhower any longer.

'I bribed the nurses not to share anything.'

'You...yo-?' Yana spluttered. Harry hadn't finished however,

'I also had to edit Richard's intern files...and change his medical history to make it look like extended periods off work are normal. I shut down the HORIZON platform uploading server, pretty much as soon as I saw what happened in complete breach of protocol. Well...not that we have any protocol for immersion itself. I had to payoff Susan in reception to clear the automated sign-in for Richard into work. I also-'

'HARRY! That's...that's not ok!' Yana managed to control her spluttering and yell at the man.

Harry shrugged, still failing to turn around. It suddenly became clear to Yana just how willing the middle-aged man to bend the rules. In fact, he seemed almost too prepared to immediately break them. Yana, who had been so consumed by her own programming for the past few years, had failed to see the transformation in her work colleague. No, this wasn't the same man who she'd met as an intern nearly two decades ago. This wasn't the same man she'd toiled with endlessly over years to build GOKIA, the figurehead of modern technology businesses.

Harry had grown weary of the world he toiled within. This man had been broken by the endless years as a lone CEO of the largest technology company in the western world. Without knowing why, Yana had been tricked by a cold exterior for so long that she forgot about the lone man inside. Harry Eisenhower had once been young, fit, and full of enthusiasm. Now all she saw was a bored, tired businessman who had still failed to get over the loss of his wife.

When Corey and Harry split, the young technology genius had simply thrown himself into work. Their breakup destroyed him and for months he was rarely seen outside of his office. That wasn't unexpected, given how close the two had once been. But unlike many men who would mourn their loss, Harry never seemed to let go. Work became his only escape. GOKIA was a thriving business giant not because of brilliant teamwork or lucky market maneuvering...but as a testament to Harry Eisenhower's unceasing lament. GOKIA was a company not of success, but of grief.

After the silence had dragged on for a few minutes, Yana became uncomfortable.

'You think this is exDEV then? Not only is it alive...but capable of...this?'

Harry sniffed,

'I have no fuckin' clue. exDEV was a creation years ago that I was barely involved with...beyond some considerations with integrating it into present systems. They shut it down. The only way it could still exist is…'

He trailed off, turning round to face Yana. The programmer tried to ignore the fact that there were tear tracks running down Harry's cheeks. She couldn't stop her eyes glancing back to his face however.

'The concern is whether Baba could have evolved into something like exDEV.' Harry confirmed at last, rubbing at his red eyes, 'Whether she is developing similar traits.'

'There must be an alternative.' Yana argued, immediately becoming standoffish whenever the artificial intelligence was mentioned.

Harry just shrugged, too tired to argue.

'That's our job now. Find each and every alternative until...until we know for sure what is happening. Anyways.' he went to clear his throat but it turned into a hoarse cough. 'You...you better get off. You ok to drive back?'

'Not like I have any choice.' Yana grumbled, pulling herself out of her white plastic chair. The infamous furniture was nearly a hundred percent recyclable and had a habit of dissolving if left out in the rain. She kicked it to the other end of the patio before making her way to the front gate.

The programmer would normally have slipped out quietly without a second thought. But tonight was different.

'Look after yourself Harry.'

'Huh?' The aging man turned around to find Yana, with a worried expression on her face. The programmer suddenly became all too aware of the extra attention and scuttled off. Eisenhower was too consumed by internal worry to care. A minute later and Harry heard the crunch of tires on gravel as her little electric car took to the road.

The balding man turned his attention back to the sunset. It was hard to forget just how similar this evening was to the same night, years ago, that Corey had left him. So much had happened since then, yet also so little.

Harry didn't sleep that night.

He found himself sat at the kitchen table at four in the morning, still in his business clothes, with a cold cup of coffee pressed between his palms. In the background, the news channel was muted on the television barely visible in the living room. Images of the hysteria from the HORIZON crash seemed to appear every twenty minutes or so. Harry no longer cared. The rest of the news was depicting water shortages in Turkey, or further sanctions on Amazonia.

Only once the sun was up and he'd both cooked and eaten all the bacon in his house did the man approach Richard's room.

Harry had the decency to knock first. It wasn't that he was expecting an answer, and nor did he wait for one. The spare bedroom door opened slowly as the man poked his head around. Faint blurry outlines sharpened as his eyes adjusted to the darkened room.

Richard was already awake. The young man eyed Harry over a small nest of pillows and blankets. The immerser frowned as he studied Harry, vision narrowing on the man. There was a glassy look to Richard's expression, not the confusion that Harry had noticed the day before.

'Richard?'

The former welder tilted his head to the side suddenly, eyes widening.

'Richard?' Harry tried again, ignoring how much his voice shook. 'How are you feeling this morning?'

There was a long pause.

When the man did at last speak, his small voice confirmed all of Harry's worst fears.

'Liiiiepaaaard…?'

The Pokemon sound was freakishly accurate, something that resembled a rather pointed refusal of whatever Harry had asked. Can he even understand me the large man pondered as he crouched down a little, knees shaking as they suddenly carried his entire bulk.

'Uh…' Eisenhower racked his brains for what James had been calling his Pokemon. 'Ba...Bagheera?'

The young man's eyes sparkled.

'Pard?' He asked quizzically. 'Pard?' the confused man tried again when Harry failed to respond. In fact, the latter's mouth had dropped agape. Pushing away the discomfort rattling his tired mind took more effort than the man cared to admit. This is my fault etched itself into his subconsciousness.

'Uhh...Out of bed then Bagheera. Did you want any breakfast?'

As if commanded, the man hopped off his bed onto the floor. Instead of standing, he seemed more than content on all fours, looking up at Harry with empty eyes. Or at least, eyes empty of any humanity. The chubby man had to look away, pained by the vacant expression. Richard's butt lifted into the air and waved back and forth merrily, making up for the absence of a tail. The man was still dressed in his shirt and boxers, the scant clothing only emphasizing his lack of humanity.

Harry puffed out a sigh.

'Breakfast?' He suggested, not wanting to patronize the man. However, it was quickly becoming apparent that the sparkle of intelligence normally ubiquitous to the man was failing to surface.

Bagheera, for that's how Richard now saw himself, was overjoyed at the prospect of breakfast. He bounded into the hallway without even considering his mess of limbs. Hands tangled with feet and with a crash the man went flying into the wall opposite.

'Richard!?' Harry couldn't respond quick enough, but was met with a small mew of 'Lieeeee…pard.'

Harry shooed the man through into the kitchen. It took a long time to tempt Bagheera into a chair, and even longer to get him sitting upright. Now outside of his nest of blankets, the man began to shiver in the morning air. Rubbing at tired eyes, Harry coxed the confused man back into his old purple fleece. Bagheera gnashed his teeth the whole time, making it very clear how we felt about that..

Scents of toast brought Harry back to reality. Popping the stainless steel toaster before the bread could burn, he weighed giving the food to Bagheera plain or spreading it lightly with butter. In a moment of confusion, Harry had to remind himself the man was still human.

Richard, Bagheera, or whatever the young man now responded to at last sat peacefully at the kitchen table. He chewed on his food with great interest. Pushing bread around his mouth, he crunched on the toast with his mouth open and crumbs flying everywhere. Bagheera's nose twitched with each mouthful. He was too invested in his meal to notice tears moistening Harry's eyes. The later turned his back before Bagheera noticed.

Harry stood at the kitchen sink for some time, scrubbing at the bacon fat over a number of different plates. Warm morning sunlight streamed through the window, although it only seemed hollow somehow. Harry's attention was drawn to the lone photograph sat on the window sill. Corey smiled back at him.

'You warned me something like this would happen.' He told his ex-wife solemnly, 'You warned me.'

'Liiieee?' Richard responded, perking up at the sudden noise. Harry slid another plate of toast over but didn't say anything. He slid another slice of bread into the machine.

The businessmen ate mechanically, chewing and swallowing without thought.

An awkward silence fell upon the house.

Harry was almost glad when his softscreen buzzed with an incoming call nearly ten minutes later. For a moment he was tempted to ignore it. Groaning in acceptance, he prodded at the screen. A video feed opened up displaying a rather sharp-faced Madison. The old lady's ready smile was in bleak contrast to Harry's look of utter exhaustion.

'Hi! Just checking to see why you weren't in today?' The aid asked calmly. She was doing he best to keep a straight face as she studied the broken man gazing back at her through the screen. Grey stubble dotted his round chin.

'I'm working from home today.'

There was a long pause.

'I see.' Madison replied, 'Are you sure that's the best idea, given the circumstances?'

'No. It's not the best idea!' Harry snapped, 'But I'm juggling everything at the moment. Did you get my email? Yes? A formal announcement will be made later this afternoon. I trust you can filter out important messages through to my account? Yana's leading the team through the logs, and the other branches are working to get us online as soon as possible!'

The businessman hadn't noticed that he'd been raising his voice until the end of his sentence, when he found himself shouting at the softscreen. Even in his exhausted state, Harry had the decency to apologize for the outburst. Madison waved it off.

'I think you need a rest.'

'Yeah no fuckin' shit. You think you can hold off the media until this afternoon? That should give us long enough to at least work out why HORIZON crashed…I'll be in later.'

Harry winced as soon as he mentioned returning to work. That was the last thing he wanted to do now. In truth, it would have been preferable to roll into a ball and cry for a few hours, maybe with some sad music in the background. But he was chairman of GOKIA and, like it or not, couldn't simply run from his problems.

'Smarten up and have a shave.' Madison suggested, 'You've got-'

'See you later'

The call ended suddenly as Harry locked his softscreen. He contemplated the blank screen for a few seconds before turning the device back on. A while later and a blanket email had gone out across most of the company saying that GOKIA services would be paused until later that afternoon.

'Liiiiie.' Richard warbled behind, playing with the plate in front of him. Having grown bored, he started pushing the cutlery off the table one by one. Harry had to jump in to rescue his plates before they too crashed onto the floor. It meant dragging himself away from obsessively checking his email, praying for news from Yana.

In truth, Eisenhower knew he shouldn't hope for any messages from the programmer. Work wouldn't start for another hour or so, and it would take a long time to run through the HORIZON crash reports.

Unlike what Harry may have expected, Yana didn't go home last night. She'd checked back into the GOKIA offices around midnight and had been cooped up in her office ever since. It was sheer worry that drove her through the endless hours of coding to find any small issue in the HORIZON software.

The computer genius was so consumed by the laptop resting on her knees that Yana didn't even notice Jean wander in. The french technician had waved, but failed to get a response. Eyeing Yana sat on the floor with her back against the immersion treadmill and a tangle of cables around her feet, the mute lifted an eyebrow in worry. Jean closed the door loudly behind him, hoping the sound for rouse Yana from her frenzied typing.

Jean took a slow sip from his coffee whilst he waited.

When it became clear that Yana hadn't noticed him, Jean had to advance to plan B. He downed the remaining coffee in his cardboard cup before taking aim. With a surprisingly elegant motion for the clumsy Frenchman, he lobbed the drink directly at Yana's ginger head.

The cup colliding with a loud BONK before landing on the floor. Yana jumped in fright rather than pain, cursing under her breath as she surveyed the room. Her eyes narrowed on the suspected culprit stood before her. Jean, however, was also eyeing the crime scene. He glanced around the small room as if somebody else had thrown the container.

Yana sighed, too tired to even acknowledge the joke, glowering at the man.

Jean tried a smile. Morning the large man signed. Almost in complete acceptance of the stereotype, he was wearing a striped shirt. It was a snug fit around his large frame.

'Hi Jean.' Yana mouthed, too tired to speak, 'I'm going through the logs to try and understand the crash. You know why it happened?' The programmer tried to sign her words alongside, but her weak hands and tense shoulders failed to convey the emotion like they normally did.

Jean was particularly sensitive to such changes in body language. Giving Yana yet another worried frown, he popped out of the room to grab his laptop, before taking a seat on the floor next to her.

The two programmers worked in silence. They didn't even notice when Mark came in late, poking his head around the door to see both Jean and Yana hard at work.

'Missing textures...' Yana threw her head back in annoyance, 'Aghhh why does this make no sense!?'

Jean shrugged,

'You're not helping.' Yana grumbled. This only seemed to anger the French man who shot her a flat look. With a slow and very exaggerated motion, he turned his laptop to face her before pointing at the screen. Yana rubbed at her eyes before trying to make sense of the multiple coding windows squeezed onto the screen. Why had she convinced herself it would be a good idea to pull an all-nighter?

'Wait.' Yana pushed her computer off her knees before snatching up Jeans. 'What's that?'

Shaking his head in bemusement, Jean leant over to point out the latest script running.

Yana watched the script run through to completion. There was a minute of silence as she stared at the result, her eyes flicking between the laptop screen and Jean's worried expression. Her sleep addled mind failed to accept the result in front of her. So much so that she only snapped up her softscreen ten minutes later. It took her that long to convince herself of what she was seeing.

The video link went through almost instantly.

'Yana?' Baba responded, the render of a perfect (if slightly freckled) pale face appearing on screen. A backdrop of green trees and a forest landscape was present behind her narrow shoulders. 'I saw you going through the crash reports from the various subsystems. You come-'

'Yes yes.' The Czech woman cut through the AI, 'This is from outside the system? Correct?'

Baba appeared to ponder the question, faint wrinkles appearing across her computer-generated face. The intellgence had a distant expression. It likely meant that the true AI under the facade was churning through data faster than any technology currently in existence. A few seconds later and angelic woman let out a small tut.

'You're right. It's linked across a few users...overloading an unusual space in my servers. You think this is malicious? It may have been an accident?'

Jean mimed out betrayal but Yana shook her head,

'We can run the simulations through HORIZON later, for now let's try and locate those users and run their logs. They might be bots.'

'Agreed.' Baba bobbed her head, 'How is Richard by the way?'

Yana paused,

'Well.' She stated after a few uneasy seconds.

'Well what?' The AI's frowned, watching Yana through the softscreen camera in an attempt to read her emotions. The programmer guessed that was happening and relented.

'He's recovering from the bottling. It had some lasting effects from the accidental feedback during the crash so he's acting a bit, uhh...catty.' Baba's face dropped but Yana kept talking before the AI decided to intervene, 'How's James?'

'Catty?' Baba didn't take the bait, 'You don't mean he's…?'

The sombre expression of the computer programmers face told everything she couldn't put into words. Jean glanced across, confused at Yana's unusual shyness.

'There was an issue with Richard being tagged in the system before the crash.' Baba hummed to herself, 'I don't think it caused it, but I'll run some simulations. How bad was the bottling?'

'Bad.' Yana mouthed, 'How's James?' She tried again.

'He's here actually.' Baba reached forwards as if to move the camera on her side of the call. The video feed bumped back and forth before settling on the two of them side by side. The young man gazed into the camera, adjusting the neck of a black hoodie.

'Oh…' Yana didn't know what to say. The rather blatant expression of I'm screwed did run through her head a few times.

The uploader quickly filled the silence.

'Richard?' James asked quietly. There was a harsh angle to his chin and a fiery look in his eyes as he regarded Yana through his virtual softscreen. 'My Richard?'

'Well...there might be something we...uh, failed to mention.' Yana backtracked, waving her arms in a windmill motion before the screen. Jean shuffled away, regaining possession of his laptop once more whilst keeping his eyes glued to the floor.

'This is my brother we're talking about, right?'

Yana tried to think through a million ways of how to deny the fact. However, there was a pleading look in Jame's expression she couldn't say no to. Although James should technically be dead right now, he was effectively trapped inside a computerized world. The teenager's brother was one of the few ties with the real world that Yana knew she couldn't deny the uploader.

'Yup.' She admitted meekly, 'Your brother.'

'And he's...he's been bottled?' James rolled the word around his tongue, 'Richard was playing as Bagheera right? That cheeky bastard.'

'Bottled.' Yana repeated, before explaining in her naturally frantic manner. 'We were using a new setup to connect...Booples? It's like, linking the brain.' but yeah. Richard was playing. He's...He still thinks he's inside the simulation.'

Yana's arms dropped to her side.

There was a long pause.

'Right then.' James turned away from the video feed to wipe some moisture out of his eyes. At this moment it was all too much to even imagine his brother having been by his side this whole time. Richard, the brother that had effectively ruined his life and left without apologizing? Maybe it was time he got a second chance...

James cleared his throat.

'What can I do to help?'

END

This chapter took a little longer than expected, partly due to me being busy with yet another side project. From what I can see, there is nothing unusual in here that needs to be explained. I've been pushing character development for the last few chapters rather than worldbuilding, though there may be some more of the latter to come! As always, a huge thanks for reading this far, as well as to those that have recently added this to their follow and/or fav list! Yet again, a massive thank you to R'love for helping co-write sections of this story and for providing some great ideas and inspiration! The next chapter should be out in a fortnight's time. Enjoy!