01-31-2016, 03:25 PM
Traveling through the Dataverse's incredible highway system had taken far longer than expected. Fortunately, they had Sesa present to guide them down each proper route, because Matrix and AndrAIa both realized that there was simply no way they would have found this place on their own. Even if Matrix could only begrudging admit it in his own mind.
The means of arrival aside, Matrix now stood inside the Databanks. AndrAIa and Frisket flanked him on either side, while Sesa had insisted on staying outside to make some important call. Of course, he wasn't an idiot. He'd taken the keys to the flying submersible with him, so she wouldn't be able to steal it. AndrAIa had been a little offended by the gesture, but he knew better than to trust just anyone.
They stood in an open room, one of many they had come across. Countless shelves of books were on multiple levels, and many hallways branched into other parts of the extensive library. Just finding where to start was a puzzle in itself. Patience wasn't Matrix's strong suit, though, so he finally just made a decision, for better or worse.
"I'll look this way, if you want to start reading over there," Matrix suggested, pointing in two separate directions. "I don't know what to look for. Just whatever makes sense, I guess."
"This place is supposed to have information on...well, just about everything." AndrAIa agreed, and then began to saunter off in one direction. Frisket tilted his head, and the canine followed after her.
Matrix simply nodded his head in silent agreement, then wandered off his own way. He walked past shelves of books, scanning across the various titles that seemed to cover countless subjects. An annoyed grimace crossed his face as he saw nothing worth picking up immediately. He worried they would be in here forever.
Suddenly, he looked to the end of the aisle and spotted an elderly man. The man stood out because he wasn't looking at the books, but instead was staring straight at the obviously confused sprite. Instantly, Matrix's defenses were up. He didn't like anyone staring at him with this level of interest. It had ended poorly too many times in the past.
"You made it," the man said as Matrix slowed to a stop. "Welcome to the Databanks, Matrix."
"Have we met?" Matrix was already weirded out by this man knowing his name. Unless he was an inhabitant of an island in the Vasty Deep, there was no reason he should be recognized.
"No, not yet." the man admitted. "But I was hoping we would. I am the Librarian AI, overseer of the Databanks. I'm here to answer your questions."
"My questions? Why me?" Matrix asked in a confused tone, although he was slightly more at ease knowing who he was dealing with.
"Anyone's questions, really, as long as they come here" The Librarian admitted. "But your case is an interesting one. Come with me."
The Librarian turned and walked down a hallway. Matrix looked uneasy, but with little other means to get answers, he followed the elderly man. They entered a large, empty room. It lacked the decorations that a lot of the other rooms had, as there wasn't even a painting on any of the walls.
"What is this?" Matrix asked, looking around the blank room. It was a stark contrast to the volumes of information that could be found anywhere else in this massive building.
The Librarian raised a single hand, and suddenly the room changed. The walls, floor, and ceiling all appeared to break away, and they were standing on nothing but blue skies. Matrix was stunned by the sudden development, but when he looked down he got the biggest shock. It appeared that far below them was none other than his home city of Mainframe.
"Mainframe?!" Matrix stuttered out just barely. "But how?"
"No, it's just a visualization," the Librarian was quick to correct him. "This is the world you come from, the world you know. Everyone has a home from before the Omniverse, but yours is one of the more unique ones."
Matrix slowly paced to the side, looking down at his home, while also keeping an eye on the Librarian. He didn't interrupt, content to let the man explain all he would.
"Your home is not like many others. It exists entirely inside a computer. Not entirely unlike the Dataverse we stand in now, compared to the rest of the Omniverse," the Librarian explained. He paused to give Matrix a moment to process that, but the sprite merely crossed his arms. This was shocking to actually hear, but he did not say anything because he didn't want the explanation to stop. When Matrix said nothing, he continued. "What you haven't even begin to comprehend is what the games truly were."
"The games were a menace, and ruined my home and my life," Matrix responded, his tone not hiding his disdain for the dangerous natural phenomenon of his own realm. "That much is obvious."
"The games were inputted into your home by what you referred to as the User," The Librarian gently corrected him. "For fun, for pleasure."
"That was one of the rumors of why we dealt with the games," Matrix brushed off that conclusion. To him this was just another man explaining the unexplainable.
"It's the true one," the Librarian said. "To explain it in this land's terms, a user could be anyone with a Dataverse accessible device manipulating the realm from outside of it. Even you have done it in your short time here."
Matrix tilted his head as he tried to wrap his head around that statement. Everything he knew was just a tiny piece of a much larger world. It was replicated here, in a way, but he had access to all of it. Not the easiest thing to comprehend, and yet it all made sense.
"The games, anyway, are actual representations of countless other realities," the Librarian explained. "You have been given a glimpse to many other realms that people of the Omniverse hail from."
"They come from the games, like AndrAIa?" Matrix asked for clarification. After all, AndrAIa escaping from her game was an incredible feat, and the only one occurrence of such that he knew of.
"No, AndrAIa's game was a representation of another reality, without users and game laws," the Librarian clarified. "Somewhere there are people from that world, but they aren't digital like you and her."
Matrix shook his head. "I don't understand."
"Let me give you an example," the Librarian said in a warm tone, having foreseen that Matrix wouldn't be able to immediately comprehend these facts.
The helpful old man raised his hand again, and once again the room changed. They now stood on a war-torn, snowy tundra. Matrix held his hand up and watched as the snow hit it, yet he didn't feel cold. Sounds of battled echoed around them, and he looked to see soldiers clad in white fighting other soldiers. Ships flew overhead and giant metal war machines walked on two and four legs towards a massive generator. It was an unreal sight, but it didn't phase Matrix because he knew it well.
"Where are we?" the Librarian challenged the green skinned sprite.
"Level Eight. Battle of Hoth," Matrix replied without missing a beat. Many games were set to this universe, and he had become somewhat accustomed to the setting and technology. He'd never thought more about it than that.
"Ah, you see, the Battle of Hoth is a game's level to you. You've fought it many times on both sides. But, somewhere, in an entirely different realm, that battle happened, and it was a crucial turning point for a very real war. And yet, in another reality, it's just a game, a movie. Media," the Librarian explained. "And you, meanwhile, you come from a world where both of those things are true."
Matrix was beginning to understand the depths of the realities that Omni pulled people from. He watched again as the setting around the two of them changed again. Now they were in a destroyed street, with aliens of all sizes running past them.
"New Mombasa, level three," Matrix once again aced the test as he watched the Covenant forces disappear down an alleyway. "So people from the 'real' versions of these worlds are here in the Omniverse?"
"Precisely," the Librarian said. "You have a glimpse into many worlds, and also their powers."
"That doesn't matter," Matrix disagreed, double tapping his icon while he did. It beeped, but nothing more happened. "It's not like I can reboot and download game data here. Even if I know their powers and abilities, I can't utilize them myself, anymore."
"You have to think bigger, Matrix," the Librarian smiled. "With Omnilium, you can do exactly that. You can utilize all of your best powers and abilities from the games, and combine them with your normal abilities. The fact is, Matrix, that you have more potential in this realm than ever before."
Matrix held out his open palm before himself, and allowed a small orb of Omnilium to emerge from it. As it hovered before him, he thought of all the abilities and techniques from the various games he had participated in that he wanted to keep after it ended. Now he could. Not only that, he realized why he recognized certain species on Cinnabar. He had seen them all in games before.
"But be warned, Matrix," the Librarian said, getting Matrix's attention once again. "You know the worlds and the people in them. You even understand the laws that govern those realms, to an extent. You don't know the intricacies, though. No game can give you that."
"What do you mean?" Matrix asked, now hungry for information. His eyes had been opened and he wanted to know it all, now.
"You know the Jedi, not the Jedi code. You know the various mutant powers, but you don't know the persecution they face," the Librarian explained. "Those details are just as important, because they govern how people use their abilities. A game takes all the rules out of the equation."
"I think I understand," Matrix said, clenching a fist and absorbing the Omnilium back into himself.
"I'm sure it will take a bit. I welcome you to stay and learn all you desire from these archives," the Librarian AI said as the African city faded away, and they were back in an empty room.
"Thanks. Thanks for everything," Matrix said with a nod. He was genuinely appreciative of this knowledge he had been given, which was certainly a rarity for an anti-social type like him.
"Of course," the kind old man said as he walked past Matrix, and departed out the door.
Matrix stood in the empty room for a few moments, processing the revelations that had been given to him. He only shook himself from his thoughts when he realized he needed to find AndrAIa and share this information with her. The Librarian AI was simply one source of information, but he believed the man. It all made sense, in a surreal sort of way.
Exiting the room, Matrix walked back down the hallway he had come from, finding his way back to the large, open room he had split from AndrAIa in. He looked around, and then up. She was standing in front of a bookshelf on a balcony a story up from him, reading a book. Frisket, meanwhile, was curled up by her feet, incredibly bored by these proceedings. Matrix smiled for a moment as he watched her intently study the book, but then gave a sharp whistle.
AndrAIa turned and looked down at him curiously, and he simply waved her down. She closed the book and put it back on the shelf, while Frisket stood back up. Although Matrix expected his girlfriend to go find the stairs and walk down to him, he was surprised when she placed her hand on the railing and vaulted over it. She gracefully landed in front of him, not phased in the least by landing on her high heels. Matrix was amazed every time she managed to move so easily in those things. Frisket, meanwhile, let out a bark and ran off to find the stairs.
"I was reading a fascinating book about Coruscant's tier systems," AndrAIa sarcastically said, but then her tone shifted to a more curious one. "Did you find something out that fast?"
"I ran into the head of this place, he explained a lot to me," Matrix briefly surmised. "About how the games we played are representations of other realities, and how we're from the 'Dataversere' of our own world."
"Then...my game is...?" AndrAIa immediately thought back to her own underwater world.
"Somewhere, that's a real world. There may even be people from it here in the Omniverse," Matrix nodded.
AndrAIa was floored by that revelation. She thought about her place of origin every so often, but never about meeting anyone from it. She'd left it behind, after all. The first thing that came to her mind, though, was meeting people from the real world that her game was a copy of. Even more terrifying, was a there a more complete and better version of herself out there?
"You alright?" Matrix asked, noticing her head sink a bit. "I know it's a lot to process."
"I...yea," AndrAIa decided not to bother Matrix with that. Even if there was a more real version of herself out there, it didn't mean Matrix was going to run off with her or anything.
Frisket joined them, letting out another bark as he did and earning some annoyed glances from the other patrons of the Databanks. AndrAIa forced a smile up, while Matrix returned an equally hostile look to some of the researchers.
"Come on, let's go then," AndrAIa decided. She needed some air anyway. "You can explain it all on the way back."
"Alright," Matrix agreed, then looked down to Frisket. "Come on boy, let's go home."
The three of them began to depart. All of a sudden, however, a wave of disorientation shot through Matrix's head. Balance became a chore, and he stumbled to the side, knocking over a chair and slamming one hand onto a table as he struggled to stay on his feat.
"Matrix!?" AndrAIa looked over in surprise and worry. She didn't know what had come over him. "Are you alright?!"
Matrix looked up to AndrAIa, struggling with even his own speech. He couldn't muster out the truth, which was that he had no idea what was happening. AndrAIa grabbed him by the shoulders to help steady him, but he weighed far too much for the far more lithe girl to effectively maneuver.
His vision began to fade, and he got a glimpse of Frisket looking at him in concern, but also scanning the room to see if there was a hidden threat nearby. Matrix then looked up, making eye contact with AndrAIa. To say she looked scared was an understatement.
He tried to reach a hand out to touch her, but his vision was fading. AndrAIa was screaming his name, but it became quieter and quieter each time.
Soon, there was only darkness and silence.
The means of arrival aside, Matrix now stood inside the Databanks. AndrAIa and Frisket flanked him on either side, while Sesa had insisted on staying outside to make some important call. Of course, he wasn't an idiot. He'd taken the keys to the flying submersible with him, so she wouldn't be able to steal it. AndrAIa had been a little offended by the gesture, but he knew better than to trust just anyone.
They stood in an open room, one of many they had come across. Countless shelves of books were on multiple levels, and many hallways branched into other parts of the extensive library. Just finding where to start was a puzzle in itself. Patience wasn't Matrix's strong suit, though, so he finally just made a decision, for better or worse.
"I'll look this way, if you want to start reading over there," Matrix suggested, pointing in two separate directions. "I don't know what to look for. Just whatever makes sense, I guess."
"This place is supposed to have information on...well, just about everything." AndrAIa agreed, and then began to saunter off in one direction. Frisket tilted his head, and the canine followed after her.
Matrix simply nodded his head in silent agreement, then wandered off his own way. He walked past shelves of books, scanning across the various titles that seemed to cover countless subjects. An annoyed grimace crossed his face as he saw nothing worth picking up immediately. He worried they would be in here forever.
Suddenly, he looked to the end of the aisle and spotted an elderly man. The man stood out because he wasn't looking at the books, but instead was staring straight at the obviously confused sprite. Instantly, Matrix's defenses were up. He didn't like anyone staring at him with this level of interest. It had ended poorly too many times in the past.
"You made it," the man said as Matrix slowed to a stop. "Welcome to the Databanks, Matrix."
"Have we met?" Matrix was already weirded out by this man knowing his name. Unless he was an inhabitant of an island in the Vasty Deep, there was no reason he should be recognized.
"No, not yet." the man admitted. "But I was hoping we would. I am the Librarian AI, overseer of the Databanks. I'm here to answer your questions."
"My questions? Why me?" Matrix asked in a confused tone, although he was slightly more at ease knowing who he was dealing with.
"Anyone's questions, really, as long as they come here" The Librarian admitted. "But your case is an interesting one. Come with me."
The Librarian turned and walked down a hallway. Matrix looked uneasy, but with little other means to get answers, he followed the elderly man. They entered a large, empty room. It lacked the decorations that a lot of the other rooms had, as there wasn't even a painting on any of the walls.
"What is this?" Matrix asked, looking around the blank room. It was a stark contrast to the volumes of information that could be found anywhere else in this massive building.
The Librarian raised a single hand, and suddenly the room changed. The walls, floor, and ceiling all appeared to break away, and they were standing on nothing but blue skies. Matrix was stunned by the sudden development, but when he looked down he got the biggest shock. It appeared that far below them was none other than his home city of Mainframe.
"Mainframe?!" Matrix stuttered out just barely. "But how?"
"No, it's just a visualization," the Librarian was quick to correct him. "This is the world you come from, the world you know. Everyone has a home from before the Omniverse, but yours is one of the more unique ones."
Matrix slowly paced to the side, looking down at his home, while also keeping an eye on the Librarian. He didn't interrupt, content to let the man explain all he would.
"Your home is not like many others. It exists entirely inside a computer. Not entirely unlike the Dataverse we stand in now, compared to the rest of the Omniverse," the Librarian explained. He paused to give Matrix a moment to process that, but the sprite merely crossed his arms. This was shocking to actually hear, but he did not say anything because he didn't want the explanation to stop. When Matrix said nothing, he continued. "What you haven't even begin to comprehend is what the games truly were."
"The games were a menace, and ruined my home and my life," Matrix responded, his tone not hiding his disdain for the dangerous natural phenomenon of his own realm. "That much is obvious."
"The games were inputted into your home by what you referred to as the User," The Librarian gently corrected him. "For fun, for pleasure."
"That was one of the rumors of why we dealt with the games," Matrix brushed off that conclusion. To him this was just another man explaining the unexplainable.
"It's the true one," the Librarian said. "To explain it in this land's terms, a user could be anyone with a Dataverse accessible device manipulating the realm from outside of it. Even you have done it in your short time here."
Matrix tilted his head as he tried to wrap his head around that statement. Everything he knew was just a tiny piece of a much larger world. It was replicated here, in a way, but he had access to all of it. Not the easiest thing to comprehend, and yet it all made sense.
"The games, anyway, are actual representations of countless other realities," the Librarian explained. "You have been given a glimpse to many other realms that people of the Omniverse hail from."
"They come from the games, like AndrAIa?" Matrix asked for clarification. After all, AndrAIa escaping from her game was an incredible feat, and the only one occurrence of such that he knew of.
"No, AndrAIa's game was a representation of another reality, without users and game laws," the Librarian clarified. "Somewhere there are people from that world, but they aren't digital like you and her."
Matrix shook his head. "I don't understand."
"Let me give you an example," the Librarian said in a warm tone, having foreseen that Matrix wouldn't be able to immediately comprehend these facts.
The helpful old man raised his hand again, and once again the room changed. They now stood on a war-torn, snowy tundra. Matrix held his hand up and watched as the snow hit it, yet he didn't feel cold. Sounds of battled echoed around them, and he looked to see soldiers clad in white fighting other soldiers. Ships flew overhead and giant metal war machines walked on two and four legs towards a massive generator. It was an unreal sight, but it didn't phase Matrix because he knew it well.
"Where are we?" the Librarian challenged the green skinned sprite.
"Level Eight. Battle of Hoth," Matrix replied without missing a beat. Many games were set to this universe, and he had become somewhat accustomed to the setting and technology. He'd never thought more about it than that.
"Ah, you see, the Battle of Hoth is a game's level to you. You've fought it many times on both sides. But, somewhere, in an entirely different realm, that battle happened, and it was a crucial turning point for a very real war. And yet, in another reality, it's just a game, a movie. Media," the Librarian explained. "And you, meanwhile, you come from a world where both of those things are true."
Matrix was beginning to understand the depths of the realities that Omni pulled people from. He watched again as the setting around the two of them changed again. Now they were in a destroyed street, with aliens of all sizes running past them.
"New Mombasa, level three," Matrix once again aced the test as he watched the Covenant forces disappear down an alleyway. "So people from the 'real' versions of these worlds are here in the Omniverse?"
"Precisely," the Librarian said. "You have a glimpse into many worlds, and also their powers."
"That doesn't matter," Matrix disagreed, double tapping his icon while he did. It beeped, but nothing more happened. "It's not like I can reboot and download game data here. Even if I know their powers and abilities, I can't utilize them myself, anymore."
"You have to think bigger, Matrix," the Librarian smiled. "With Omnilium, you can do exactly that. You can utilize all of your best powers and abilities from the games, and combine them with your normal abilities. The fact is, Matrix, that you have more potential in this realm than ever before."
Matrix held out his open palm before himself, and allowed a small orb of Omnilium to emerge from it. As it hovered before him, he thought of all the abilities and techniques from the various games he had participated in that he wanted to keep after it ended. Now he could. Not only that, he realized why he recognized certain species on Cinnabar. He had seen them all in games before.
"But be warned, Matrix," the Librarian said, getting Matrix's attention once again. "You know the worlds and the people in them. You even understand the laws that govern those realms, to an extent. You don't know the intricacies, though. No game can give you that."
"What do you mean?" Matrix asked, now hungry for information. His eyes had been opened and he wanted to know it all, now.
"You know the Jedi, not the Jedi code. You know the various mutant powers, but you don't know the persecution they face," the Librarian explained. "Those details are just as important, because they govern how people use their abilities. A game takes all the rules out of the equation."
"I think I understand," Matrix said, clenching a fist and absorbing the Omnilium back into himself.
"I'm sure it will take a bit. I welcome you to stay and learn all you desire from these archives," the Librarian AI said as the African city faded away, and they were back in an empty room.
"Thanks. Thanks for everything," Matrix said with a nod. He was genuinely appreciative of this knowledge he had been given, which was certainly a rarity for an anti-social type like him.
"Of course," the kind old man said as he walked past Matrix, and departed out the door.
Matrix stood in the empty room for a few moments, processing the revelations that had been given to him. He only shook himself from his thoughts when he realized he needed to find AndrAIa and share this information with her. The Librarian AI was simply one source of information, but he believed the man. It all made sense, in a surreal sort of way.
Exiting the room, Matrix walked back down the hallway he had come from, finding his way back to the large, open room he had split from AndrAIa in. He looked around, and then up. She was standing in front of a bookshelf on a balcony a story up from him, reading a book. Frisket, meanwhile, was curled up by her feet, incredibly bored by these proceedings. Matrix smiled for a moment as he watched her intently study the book, but then gave a sharp whistle.
AndrAIa turned and looked down at him curiously, and he simply waved her down. She closed the book and put it back on the shelf, while Frisket stood back up. Although Matrix expected his girlfriend to go find the stairs and walk down to him, he was surprised when she placed her hand on the railing and vaulted over it. She gracefully landed in front of him, not phased in the least by landing on her high heels. Matrix was amazed every time she managed to move so easily in those things. Frisket, meanwhile, let out a bark and ran off to find the stairs.
"I was reading a fascinating book about Coruscant's tier systems," AndrAIa sarcastically said, but then her tone shifted to a more curious one. "Did you find something out that fast?"
"I ran into the head of this place, he explained a lot to me," Matrix briefly surmised. "About how the games we played are representations of other realities, and how we're from the 'Dataversere' of our own world."
"Then...my game is...?" AndrAIa immediately thought back to her own underwater world.
"Somewhere, that's a real world. There may even be people from it here in the Omniverse," Matrix nodded.
AndrAIa was floored by that revelation. She thought about her place of origin every so often, but never about meeting anyone from it. She'd left it behind, after all. The first thing that came to her mind, though, was meeting people from the real world that her game was a copy of. Even more terrifying, was a there a more complete and better version of herself out there?
"You alright?" Matrix asked, noticing her head sink a bit. "I know it's a lot to process."
"I...yea," AndrAIa decided not to bother Matrix with that. Even if there was a more real version of herself out there, it didn't mean Matrix was going to run off with her or anything.
Frisket joined them, letting out another bark as he did and earning some annoyed glances from the other patrons of the Databanks. AndrAIa forced a smile up, while Matrix returned an equally hostile look to some of the researchers.
"Come on, let's go then," AndrAIa decided. She needed some air anyway. "You can explain it all on the way back."
"Alright," Matrix agreed, then looked down to Frisket. "Come on boy, let's go home."
The three of them began to depart. All of a sudden, however, a wave of disorientation shot through Matrix's head. Balance became a chore, and he stumbled to the side, knocking over a chair and slamming one hand onto a table as he struggled to stay on his feat.
"Matrix!?" AndrAIa looked over in surprise and worry. She didn't know what had come over him. "Are you alright?!"
Matrix looked up to AndrAIa, struggling with even his own speech. He couldn't muster out the truth, which was that he had no idea what was happening. AndrAIa grabbed him by the shoulders to help steady him, but he weighed far too much for the far more lithe girl to effectively maneuver.
His vision began to fade, and he got a glimpse of Frisket looking at him in concern, but also scanning the room to see if there was a hidden threat nearby. Matrix then looked up, making eye contact with AndrAIa. To say she looked scared was an understatement.
He tried to reach a hand out to touch her, but his vision was fading. AndrAIa was screaming his name, but it became quieter and quieter each time.
Soon, there was only darkness and silence.
Quote:Matrix has departed for the Graveyardverse.