“Looks like that’s the border.”
The MDT pointed towards the display as her voice carried a sliver of surprise.
Hao Ren gawked at the scene at appeared on the display before letting out a belated sigh of astonishment. “…It’s really like waking up from a dream.”
The Petrachelys glided through the silent yet bizzare space. Her speed was reduced to the point of atmospheric cruising. The border of the world appeared around the ship, and it looked eeriely similar to the space from a child’s dream. Bizzare, simple, blindingly white.
The Petrachelys passed through countless of celestial bodies, all of them tiny, yet colorful.
Hao Ren and the MDT had went to the Petrachelys’ observation deck to personally observe this virutal world’s edge. He saw groups upon groups of lights floated in space, all of them engraved with intricate markings or halos. Their diameter was no bigger than a meter and the egg-shaped gaseous stars went past him akin to those astral projection in the planetarium. They went around a strict orbit, shone as they went, dimming as they passed. The entire scene was almost like flying straight into a bullet hell. They were without volume or strength and as soon as they came into contact iwth the Petrachelys they dissipated after blurring out akin to a transmission disruption on a television. Hao Ren held his hand out to touch one of the blinding ‘stars’. He felt a slight warmth and a post-electric shock numbness. The star was being disrupted and after shuddering for bit, it disappeared.
“So this is the edge of the world.” The MDT said as she stood amongst the stars. Her blonde hair shone by the stars’ radiance. “A full holographic universe… and so small… almost like a tabletop model.”
“Because this is not too far from Zom.” Hao Ren looked down towards a light blue dot that shone beneath the Petrachelys. That was Zom, and it was still within sight. “At this distance, you would only need to sumulate a layer of virtual image, as long as no one flies here…. no one will realise that the skies above them is fabricated.”
“What if someone realise it?”
“The world will reset after a fixed period of time, that’s because it could not allow humans to develop techonologies too advanced, and it is also making it difficult for technology to progress… but the world’s programme dictates that is needs to follow the natural laws and cannot allow the world to develop anything that goes against that. Thus it’s only way to stop humans from going into space is to reset the entire map.” Hao Ren thought he had figured out the key point of the question, but there was something still missing. “But there’s plenty of ways to reset the map, and yet only Nolan retains her memory while everyone else is written anew unknowingly. So what’s the point of that apocalyptic battle?”
When the world started off a few thousand years ago, it was always a peaceful setting and humans enjoyed peace and prosperity. No one did never noticed anything that was amiss. But within the last ten cycles, the world started heading towards doomsday, and every time the world ended with the cacophony of war. Hao Ren felt that it was utmost pointless, if the world intended to trap humans within the virtual reality, a slow, stagnant and yet peaceful world would have been a better choice than war. So what was the point of the war?
“Even I can think of several scenarios that would have been much better. If the world was reset to a feudal setting you would not need to worry about human going into space for a few thousand years at least.” Hao Ren frowned as he shook his head. “So the world is not trying to trap the humans, not letting them reach for the stars is probably a security protocol…. My guess is that this place is a sanctuary.”
“Why are we not heading further to the edge?” The MDT suggested. “There’s still some ways to go and seems like this place is actually rather big.”
“I’m afraid of the potential data leakage.” Hao Ren said wearily. “If this world is simulated by a computer programme, trying to visit the edge of the world would probaby trigger a logic error.”
The MDT pondered for a moment. “Based onmy experience, such a complex system would definitely have some failsafe. If we try to breack the border, we’ll probably just rebound back. And even if the data were to leak as long as we retreat in time: Such a powerful programme shouldn’t be without a bug-fixing function right?”
Hao Ren considered the MDT’s suggestion before agreeing to go along and frankly, he too was curious on how the world’s edge look like.
The Petrachelys slowly accelerated again and this time around the advance was more cautious. Hao Ren and the MDT stood on the observation deck and controlled the ship’s advance remotely. The tiny celestial bodies that was floating in space were getting more and more concentrated beside the two ‘persons’ standing there. Their shapes too were getting even more bizzare. As they were now a distance away from Zom, these were probably too far for the telescopes to tell its properties. So these stars were crudely made, and some of them were simply a flat round cut out, with its shiny surface facing Zom.
As they headed forth, the entire star system too was a flat cutout, and holographic image moved above it.
Finally the Petrachelys came to a sudden stop. There was no pre-empt, no shock, nothing. The ship came to a halt as if someone pressed the pause button. Hao Ren noticed that the fore of the ship had lost its colours and looked no different than a 3D model without skins on it. Ahead of him was nothing but darkness, and the stars had dissappeared.
“This is the edge of the world.” the MDT said as she looked at the scene before her. “A zone without definition or rendering to it. Seems like this ‘space’ did not unravel because we appeared. Seems like we were worrying for nothing.”
“Now that we are here… the person behind the scenes have still yet to appear.” Hao Ren looked around the observation deck. The ‘space’ before him now was in two parts, the first was a curtain of darkness, and another filled with radiant celestial bodies. But as he had not heard anything from the creator of this world he shouted. “Hello? Anybody home?! We have arrived! The edge of the world! Don’t you pla to say anything at all?”
The MDT glanced at Hao Ren. “You think anyone will actually hear you? There’s no air on the deck.”
“You think the creator of this world needs ears to listen to the voice within a programme?”
“So you think that there is a controller of this virtual world?” the MDT asked.
Hao Ren raised his eyebrows. “You mean…”
“This is probably automated.” the MDT shook her head. “Probably there was one in the past… Wait up!”
Hao Ren grew nervous. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve just received the exploration droids’ signal!” the MDT pressed her hand against her forehead as she tried to focus on listening to the signal chain. “It’s a direct signal, very weak, and slightly distorted… but is direct transmission. Seems like some of my functions have recovered!”
“Recovered?” Hao Ren’s eyes widen as he looked around. “As it because we are at the edge?”
“Probably… seems like this is the closest to realspace, so there is a possibility to breack the firewall to contact to the outside world.” the MDT said in haste. “Or may be the programme’s control over this area is weak and the inhibitors had disappeared… Damn it, the signal is too weak.. I can’t hear them.”
Hao Ren immediately dropped an order. “Don’t waste bandwidth, can we launch a navigation signal? As long as we can do so!”
“I’ll try!”
“Quickly.” Hao Ren said as he looked towards the star clusters. He noticed that they were flickering, a scene not seen earlier and it was obvious something unexpected was happening. “Seems like something’s wrong with this place… Shit, the world programme is finally on to something!”
“I’m trying! I’m trying!” the MDT roared.
As minutes and seconds rolled by, the star clusters started flickering maniacally and some of them start disappearing at the rate which the eyes can see. Patches upon patches of dark zones started appearing before Hao Ren. A thought flashed through his mind: Disintegration.
This place was about to totally disintegrate!
“Transmission sent!” The MDT shouted. “Although only a part…”
“Then lets get the hell out of here!!”