Beyond the Metaverse

[Hiro Protagonist]

The column of light begins to flow up and down and resolve itself into a human form. Actually, it is four human forms, female nudes standing shoulder to shoulder, facing outward, like caryatids. Each of them is carrying something long and slender in her hands: a pair of tubes. A third of a million hackers stare at the women, towering above the stage, as they raise their arms above their heads and unroll the four scrolls, turning each one of them into a flat television screen the size of a football field. From the seats in the amphitheater, the screens virtually blot out the sky; they are all that anyone can see. 

The screens are blank at first, but finally the same image snaps into existence on all four of them at once. it is an image consisting of words; it says "IF THIS WERE A VIRUS, YOU WOULD BE DEAD NOW. FORTUNATELY, IT'S NOT. THE METAVERSE IS A DANGEROUS PLACE; HOW'S YOUR SECURITY? CALL HIRO PROTAGONIST SECURITY ASSOCIATES FOR A FREE INITIAL CONSULTATION."

That's it....no more Snow Crash. And if YT and Enzo did their jobs...no more Rife either. 

Hiro's avatar floated in the white empty void inside the program core, devoid of any feature or sensation. He couldn't view anything outside of it, and when he reached up to remove his Metaverse goggles, his hands slid over a complete absence of tech. 

Wait. Wait. Why can't I...get....out? 

He pawed at his head, his avatar's arms moving but his own body not responding, most likely comatose in the dirty storage cell of his apartment. Fuck. So he had to wait for Vitaly to get home from one of his stupid noise gigs and unplug him manually. He'd probably demand a six pack in return for the heroic rescue too. All I have to do is just wait here and hope I didn't shit my pants.

But time passed, and although none of his information readouts were working, Hiro could tell it had been more than an hour. Then, just as he became aware of how much time had passed, the whiteness around him immediately polarized into an abundant blackness, like someone had pulled the plug on a TV. 

"Hey, what the fuck!" Hiro said aloud, momentarily surprised that he could issue voice commands again. There wasn't any software written for the interior of the Metaverse to allow that, and he would know since he helped write the damn thing. "The hell is going on now? Didn't I just save the world? No breaks for the hero?"

Almost as if to answer his question, a white silhouette faded in from the darkness, a grinning daemon of some sort. Hiro raised his voice in objection to the new development, but the words stuck in his throat and he remained suspended in the black void.

“My name is Omni. This is not the world you know. This is the Omniverse. You interest me, so I have made you part of it. The Omniverse is a place that reflects the wishes of those who are part of it. But! There are rules. I will explain them only once, so listen carefully.” 

Omniverse? Oh, hell no. What kind of third-party Tadjikistani ripoff of the Metaverse kinda name was that? And not the world you know. Hiro was about fifty fifty on that, considering he'd already encountered several things beforehand that he would have never dreamed about before. And some kind of mental reflection shaped the world? It was a good thing he'd already gotten his "bullshit tolerance" meter soaked and increased in capacity with the neurolinguistic hacking mumbo jumbo and the mind controlled fanatics.

The grinning apparition handed him something shiny and pliable, explaining it's use.

“This is Omnilium. It’s what ties the Omniverse together. Without it, you are nothing. With it, anything you desire can be yours. But you will need more than this. If you desire it enough, you will find it. You will find that using it comes naturally. Just think of what you desire most. 

“You will not be alone in the Omniverse. There are others. Of course, they, too desire Omnilium. Do not fear death. For as long as you interest me, you will be reborn. 

“That’s all you need to know right now. You’ll figure out the rest soon enough. I’ll be watching … and waiting.” 

Omni faded away and Hiro found himself in the blackness again, holding the orb. Well....that was certainly a lot to take in. Maybe he was lying in his apartment in a coma, and this was his dying dream. Maybe he'd gotten his brain patterns wiped and lost in the Metaverse. Whatever it was, he'd find a way out eventually. Or never. But if he could have whatever he wanted, hell, it'd be a better living than the one he'd had so far. Being a freelance hacking swordfighter was great in the Metaverse, but in real life it barely paid the bills. Might as well make the best of this "Omniverse". Ugh. Just saying the name felt untrue.

As he was ruminating, Hiro realized that the blackness in front of him was no longer the utter darkness of Omni's void, but merely the kind that came from closed eyes. He sat up, opening them, and then immediately shutting them again as he was assailed by searing whiteness, just like in the core he had been floating in.

"God damnit! Where the hell are my..." The hacker patted his coat pockets, not feeling the familiar weight of his goggles resting on his head. Empty. No sword, no goggles, no arachnoweave gloves, nothing. But then again...there. That orb that Omni had given him. Anything you desire can be yours, huh?

Several minutes later, after cupping his palms like an idiot and thinking about the picture he'd seen on the billboard, Hiro had a brand new shiny pair of tinted lenses. The absolute top of the line in analytical, tactical, and commercial hardware, just one pair of EnSyte lenses had cost more than a brand new Kirosawa motorcycle. And now Hiro had a pair, for free! Slipping them onto his face, he thumbed the power button and breathed a comfortable sigh of relief as the blinding whiteness of his new location was filtered and dimmer. 

"Excellent...now....hm. 'Dataverse Access?' Let's see.....Ohhhh. Fuckin' ripoffs, man!" The Omniverse had it's own internet. Clicking the buttons on his glasses, Hiro scrolled through a page or two before groaning in frustration and putting his hands together in front of him again. A few minutes later, there was a very nice pair of black, arachnoweave gloves on the ground in front of him, complete with sensegel grips and haptic feedback interface. "Much better." 

Slipping them on and fiddling with a few more buttons on the glasses, Hiro enabled the 3D Overlay feature and was soon making dumb gestures in midair to navigate through the Dataverse, like any proper hacker should. He spent more than an hour reading about the different verses and their inhabitants, dangers, and possible rewards, and watching old news broadcasts about recent events. The one about the burning skeleton man made his stomach turn, viewing the scenes of carnage and violence dappled across where he was sitting now. He didn't see the fountain depicted in the video, but where it was standing in the film; in real life there was a stack of obsidian cubes stacked on each other in a triangular pyramid. He'd been leaning against them while he browsed. The code that the Dataverse used was strange, and different than any kind of code he'd seen before; but there were enough commonalities that he was sure he could get the basics down in no time.

That video about the "Harbinger" had put a bit of animal awareness into him. So, this was a paradise where everything you wanted could be yours, sure.....but just like always, there was the big stompy jackasses who could fuck you day up if they felt like it. Without his katana, he was defenseless against any sort of giant stompy jackass. So, glasses glinting in the non-light of the featureless white void, he thought long and hard about his swordfighting experience, his mastery, and his potential. Why limit yourself if you can make anything? Hiro Protagonist grinned, and spoke aloud to himself. "Somebody call me Vulcan, because I am going to forge the shit out of this thing."

Another hour passed, and feeling drained, Hiro held his creation aloft. It was a thing of beauty, a long gray scabbard made of fiberweave titanium for sturdiness and flexibility. Near the top was a series of ripples and nubs; these held the mechanics of the interior microforge, which generated extra base material and superheated it for quick,  easy repairs and resmoothing. Two lights, one red and one green were on the very tip of it, just below where the hilt of his actual sword was locked it. The red light died as the green one came on, and Hiro drew the katana in a quick, wide slashing arc. The newly forged blade trailed yellow-white sparks in the air, trace amounts of the  magma that, when cooled, provided a monomolecular cutting edge. Nearly three and a half feet in length, the katana was made of transparent aluminum and volcanic glass. 

Holding the new sword in front of him, Hiro began a series of slow, dutiful swings and pivots. This kata was one of his most basic, which he used whenever he'd gotten hold of a new sword. Although the loss of his father's battlefield souvenir was an emotional wound, Hiro was confident this new blade would serve him just as well against the danger's of the Omniverse. Using his scabbard in conjunction with the sword slashes and sheathings, the hacker ronin felt confident. He was already adapting to this new environment and expanding his sword style as well. Resheathing the glass blade and affixing the scabbard to the quick-release clip on his belt, he began walking in a specific direction, coat trailing in the air behind him. To Coruscant. To a technological city. To where he thrived.

[Hiro Protagonist]

It was after about twenty minutes of travel with no visible progress Hiro decided (if he could summon anything he thought of) that walking was for chumps. Which explained why there was now a narrow blur motoring across the Nexus, kicking up clouds of holographic dirt. Perhaps it was too much, but Hiro was a programmer by nature, and it had always irked him when constructs and models lacked that little touch of real life that kept them from being too unrealistic. He'd gunned the motorbike several times to the redline, but the speedometer never budged above 80 mph. Another one of Omni's rules, perhaps. If so, the smiling omniscience was arbitrarily courteous. No breaking the sound barrier here.

"Post 32, this is Nexus Gate Alpha, come in. We have an approaching vehicle, possible Prime."

"We read you, NGA. Received and acknowledged, response team is on green standby."

The trooper lowered his goggles and turned to the two other white-armored soldiers sitting stiffly on some plastic crates. They were already standing up and reaching for their blaster rifles, leaning against the low wall of the barricade in front of the large portal to Coruscant.

"Look lively, men. Possible Prime approaching, and this one already went right for the vehicles. Let's hope he's not too thickheaded."
They both saluted and took up positions flanking their commander, rifles at their sides but at the ready. They didn't have to wait long before Hiro pulled to an easy stop in front of the barricade, bike turned sideways.

They stood about fifteen feet apart, neither side moving. The hacker flipped out the kickstand and leaned the bike to a resting position, while his brand-spankin'-new lenses took in the scene, noting the type and layering of their armor, the composition of their barricade, the make and year their blasters were produced, and all manner of interesting, though needless information. A small 3D model rotated in the corner of Hiro's view, marking these men as Stormtroopers of the Empire.

It was the commander who spoke first while Hiro was drinking in the info from his HUD. Almost in a bored tone of voice, he spoke as though he'd committed these words to heart, although he was by no means lackadaisical in his manner. The armed troopers next to him spoke to that. 

"Unknown-Prime-you-are-now-at-the-gate-to-Wondrous-Coruscant, envy-of-the-Omniverse-and-especially-those-dirt-eating-bastards-in-Camelot. If-you-would-like-to-enter-our-fine-verse-you-must-submit-to-a-search-and-registration-by-the-Empire-Peace-Division. If-this-is-agreeable-please-disarm-and-approach-the-barricade."

Hiro looked at the commander with a blank stare, although it wasn't immediately visible due to his lenses. He flipped them up to rest on his forehead, revealing his slightly rounded eyes. Stepping off the bike and reached down to his sword belt, unfastening the scabbard and holding it by the lengthy case.

"Wow...uh. You get a lot of visitors, huh?" He was ten feet away now as the commander nodded. 

"Yep."

"I mean, I read about the registration and what not, but uh....you guys really have it down to a T. Been doing this long?"

"....yep."

The commander looked down at Hiro's sword, and made a 'pulling apart' motion. Hiro obliged, revealing the shiny glass blade within. Both stormtroopers looked over their officer's shoulder at the blade, looked at each other, and nodded. They gestured towards the portal with the tips of their blasters, and Hiro closed his sword, looking at the portal. 

"So...I just go through, then? Guessing they'll do the registration inside..."

The commander looked at him one final time and opened his mouth before Hiro stepped through the swirling incandescence.

"......yep."