“An Alternative to Avatara”

KNIGHTMARE-GRIMM IS BACK.

Grace's scattered mind returned to the conversation. She'd missed the past ten to twenty seconds of what Pixel said; thinking about Knightmare-Grimm and seeing images of him in her head. Her back was tight and she felt so tense she couldn't blink.

"We've been monitoring activity at Sheldrake since his death and the details of the situation is that after his death, a soul has been living in the Avatara system and directing its activities," Pixel continued.

"Sheldrake have been testing human bodies and cybernetic bodies in their labs for the past six months."

"We think he's building an army," said Qwerty.

"Where is he?" Grace said.

"Grimm?" said Pixel.

"No, I mean Snow Globe."

"I'll take you to him, he's waiting in his car" replied Pixel.

Grace did not refuse. Her heart pounded. The mention of Grimm and Knightmare caught her off guard. Though not impossible, it was unlikely that these guys were lying and to have such kind of intel alarmed her.

Grace and Pixel left the boys in the skatepark. Pixel led Grace towards the edge of the park past a signboard and through a patch of grass. Ahead there were the shining rear lights of an exquisite black saloon car.

Grace stopped in her tracks and looked at Pixel.

"Trust me Grace," said Pixel.

"I can't just get inside a car, not after what I've just been through today already."

"Look, I'll show you." Pixel walked to the right rear car door and opened it. She peered inside and spoke a few words that Grace managed to recognise as Japanese.

How does she know Japanese?

Grace concluded that Pixel must have spent some of her childhood in Japan and maybe her parents were English teachers, diplomats, financiers or something else of an international flavour.

Pixel adjusted her glasses on her nose bridge. "Mr Snow Globe says it's ok for me to be present in your meeting."

"He needs to step outside the car, Pixel," Grace said. Given her recent experiences her personal safety was paramount and on an unconscious level, she decided not to be naive.

Pixel gave her pleading eyes again but this time Grace did not budge. Pixel turned back to lean in and talk to the man inside the car. The front driver's seat opened and a tall chauffeur stepped out of the car and tipped his hat towards Grace. He walked round to the left side rear car door, opened it and out the man they called Snow Globe stepped.

A particularly short man, appearing to be around seventy years of age, wearing a black turtleneck sweater and a grey blazer came onto the pavement at the roadside and stood opposite Grace. He wore a pair of small black rounded sunglasses.

Grace looked at Pixel. Pixel smiled and nodded. Grace recognised this man instantly.

"Hello Grace Shelley," said Snow Globe.

He is Sadayuki Suno! The head of Kawakami corporation!

A stunned Grace murmured hello back. It's not commonplace for individuals to know the introverted company president of large corporations, but Kawakami's status as a leading virtual reality technology company peaked Grace's interest. She also knew Kawakami's position as a donor to Sheldrake Enterprises, specifically Q division.

He did not introduce himself. "I understand your apprehension regarding meeting me," he said, with a clipped manner of speaking. "Indeed I would be disappointed if you were not so. But I need your help and there may not be much time."

"Why do you need me?" Grace said.

"Pixel told you about him being back," said Snow Globe.

"Grimm?" Grace said.

Snow Globe's face remained almost expressionless though Grace perceived a subtle pouting of his lips. Snow Globe looked up and around at the sky as if someone could be watching.

"Let's speak in the car," he said. "Pixel you can sit in the middle. It will make Grace more comfortable."

Grace felt uncomfortable but Snow Globe beckoned her to the other side of the car. With the tall chauffeur, not menacing but well built and Pixel also present, she felt pressured to get in. Pixel gave her a wide genial smile, which did nothing to put her at ease. Pixel got into the backseat and shuffled up to allow space for Grace to sit next to her. Snow Globe sat to the left of Pixel.

The chauffeur closed the right rear side door behind Grace after she got into the air conditioned vehicle. Then he got back into the driver's seat and started the car.

"We can talk more freely in the car, though Mr Grimm will probably escalate his behaviour once he realises I am dialogue with you. He is now my enemy after all."

Snow Globe did not elaborate and Grace did not ask any questions. Pixel's arms were folded and she looked directly ahead at the front window.

"Have you texted Byte and Qwerty to say we have left?" said Snow Globe.

"Yes," replied Pixel. "I did while you and Grace were talking outside the car."

"Very good and very fast," said Snow Globe. He smiled at Pixel and then redirected his attention back to Grace.

"My real name is Sadayuki Suno, company president of Kawakami corporation," said Snow Globe. "But Pixel and the boys call me Snow Globe. I only allow them to because they are so clever and so much fun!" Pixel chuckled as if she was trying to make the atmosphere more relaxed.

"The boys I have only known since last year," said Snow Globe. 'But Pixel I have known since she was a little girl. Her parents worked for Kawakami."

Pixel shifted the position of her glasses but did not offer comment. She looked ahead through the front window again.

"They are good people," said Snow Globe, practically leaning over Pixel to talk to Grace. "And they have probably told you they are great hackers, known as Escape Key." Snow Globe sat back in his seat again with a wide grin, baring two rows of white teeth. He laughed.

"The first part is true, they are great hackers, the second part is not, no one knows them as Escape Key. If they're well known, they wouldn't be top secret. It's name they give themselves to feel cool."

"Snow Globe!?" said Pixel.

"It's true!" he replied. "I knew you would sell yourself as the James Bond of hackers."

Pixel shook her head but clearly took his statements in jest. She relaxed a bit more.

"In any case, I've had Escape Key, monitoring Sheldrake and thanks to them we discovered Grimm's activity and got to you first. I planted Pixel as your guardian to watch over you because it's only a matter of time Grimm comes after you trying to get those Avatara kernel codes."

He knows about the Avatara Kernel codes! But Grace tried to act like it wasn't a big deal.

"And now his Avatara has merged with the hacker called Knightmare," Snow Globe said. "He has computer programming capabilities to match our own and possibly yours. Multiply that by the fact that he is essentially a spirit living in the Avatara server, you can see the complexity of the situation."

The car stopped at a traffic light. There were three people in avatara form crossing the street. Two looked like large furry animals and the other looked like a goblin. From the way they jaywalked across the road, they were probably kids in real life.

Their forms reminded Grace of Knightmare's avatara. If the state of an avatara reflected the subconscious nature of a person, were the avatara of young people especially terrifying because they have become more soulless, angry and vapid? Grace considered a more forgiving hypothesis instead, that regardless of the generation teenagers have always been full of angst and uncertainty in their attempts to discover who they are.

One avatara that looked like a vulture jumped onto the hood of Snow Globe's car. Making a thudding sound as it did, made Grace shudder. It laughed, shouting some words and pointing at his windscreen that it probably couldn't see through.

Inside the vehicle the chauffeur turned back to look at Snow Globe.

"Shall I sir?" he said. Except Grace did not understand as he said it in Japanese.

"Do we have one?" replied Snow Globe.

"A prototype in the glove compartment," said the chauffeur.

"Go ahead," said Snow Globe. "Miss Shelley should see this."

Grace, of course, understood none of their exchange. Nonplussed, she witnessed the chauffeur taking out a gun. He opened his door to step out.

"Wait what is he doing?" Grace said with alarm.

"Taking care of the nuisance," Snow Globe said in English.

"He's trying to kill him? Guns don't work on avatara."

"It's ok Grace, trust me," said Pixel. She squeezed Grace's left hand with her right.

The chauffeur pointed his gun at the beast looking avatara. It growled and swore at him. Grace could see in the distance that other avatara were cheering it on. Then it leapt at him.

The pulsar blast of the gun hit the avatara full force and split it. Its dust particles went up in a puff of smoke and the creature disappeared. The chauffeur directed it at the other avatara and they ran off.

Grace felt such shock and sheer disbelief that she didn't realise her mouth hung open. She trembled.

"What did you do? What did you do?" she said.

"Grace is ok, he's not dead," Pixel said.

Grace remained confused.

"He shot him with a KSG," Pixel said.

"KSG?" said Grace.

"Kawakami Shock Gun," said Snow Globe.

The traffic light had been green for a while and another car behind them hooted its horn. Snow Globe's chauffeur, never rushed, returned the KSG to the compartment and readjusted his hat and then gently put the car into gear to drive.

"It splits the bonding of an astral projection from real matter particles," he continued. "We will sell to police forces to break down these avatara. The real body is not harmed and with the shock disruption, the soul simply returns to its body."

Snow Globe stayed quiet for a moment before he continued to speak.

"It's not only Sheldrake Enterprises that has been working on astral projection like technologies. Several companies across the world have been competing to be the first to harness the properties of 'consciousness translation', including my own."

Grace noticed Snow Globe looked upwards out of the window, peering at the several avatara flying in the sky. "By releasing Avatara to the public without any control, you really turned everything upside down. But maybe that's for the best, as it has given some power back to the people," he said. "The politicians and public have pushed back against avatara existing in the real world sphere and yet many are getting illegal copies of your application, with some programmers having mild success in manipulating it and enhancing avatara."

Then his tone changed. "There is a demand for virtual living," he said. "People want to live more fantastic lives and we can make that happen in a way that is safe for all."

"Snow Globe wants to tell you about the alternative to Avatara," said Pixel.

"Oh Pixel," said Snow Globe, with a wry smile.

"Come on, you have been going on and on without telling her about what we plan to do," said Pixel.

"I'm doing what they say is called painting a picture," said Snow Globe.

"There's no time for that," said Pixel.

"Ok," said Snow Globe. He grinned. Then he cleared his throat.

"Avatara allows people to virtualize themselves and do things in the real world a normal human could not. However my company's creation allows people to transport their minds into a totally immersive virtual world that is almost indistinguishable from the real world. They can be whoever they want there and it does not affect the real world. When we shut down Avatara we can give them it as an alternative."

"So that's what you want me for," said Grace. She said it as a statement not a question. "To shut down Avatara so can release your own toxic product, that will get people addicted to virtual life."

"It's a controlled system," Pixel interjected. "People are not allowed to stay long enough to get addicted."

"Why don't you try it for yourself?" said Snow Globe.

"What? now?" said Grace.

"Yes," said Snow Globe. "We have a console and two head stickers, for you and me. Pixel will monitor us inside the car."

"I am not doing that," said Grace.

"Fair enough," Snow Globe said. "Then I will go in first. You can decide whether to follow me or not."

He opened a box in between the two front car seats and pulled out two stickers. The console sat within the larger box. It looked unremarkable, just a black box with a red flashing light on its bottom right.

"The sticker is placed in the middle of the forehead, it allows connection to a signal from one of our servers." Snow Globe stuck the sticker on his forehead; quite a large red circle.

"This console contains a version of the software which connects to our servers to Tokyo. After I press this button, in ten seconds my consciousness will shut off from the real world and connect to our virtual one. I hope to see you on the other side, as I selected that we should both share the same virtual space."

Snow Globe glanced at Grace and smiled. He pressed the button and then leant back in his seat. He breathed gently and within seconds he passed out.