Skye is the Limit by Phenomenal Pen (detective books to read TXT) 📗

The Imagineers contemplated these words.     

“Which leads to Rule No. 3: Always Stay Calm. Your dream is a living, thinking and evolving entity. It has antennae finely tuned to minute changes in your emotional state. It’s like that cliché in the movies: It can smell fear. And because A.I. uses fractal mathematics to make things appear more natural – landscapes, clouds, trees, rivers etc – it will do the same to mimic and anticipate brain states.”

<What does that mean?> Zacharie asked.

<Chaos Theory,> Rip muttered. Because the way he pronounced the English words were a bit off, Athena still provided the translation. 

“What’s that?” Lu asked anxiously.

<Simply put,> Rip answered, <things have a strong inclination to turn into a real (beep) storm.>

“Er, right,” Mr. Chase said. “Is any one of you familiar with the Native American story of The Two Wolves?”

No response.

“According to the story, a battle goes on inside people. This battle is between two wolves. One is darkness and fear, the other is light and hope. Which one do you think wins?”

“The one we feed,” Ellie said.   

“Exactly. Everyone else got it? Any questions?”

Silence from the Imagineers.

“All right. Let’s proceed to Rule No. 4. Complete the Quest.”

“What is the quest?” Lu asked.

“It varies depending on who the Nightcrawler is. Going back to Rule No. 2, the Nightcrawler not only shapes the dream space but also decides the parameters of the dream for everybody. You will all know your objective instinctively once you’re inside the shared dream.

“But what I can tell you is that, you guys will be helping us here at HQ with Performance Capture.”

“Performance Capture?” Ellie and Lu echoed, almost in unison.

“You know how in the Marvel universe, Josh Brolin plays both Thanos and Cable?”

“WHAT?” Ellie half-screamed; her shock quickly replaced by confusion. 

<Don’t you know?> Rip jumped in. The exact word he said was “Mollayo?” <Wade pointed it out in Deadpool.>

“Rip is right. During filming, Josh Brolin wore white spots called markers all over his face and spandex suit. The CGI team then tracked the position of these markers in space and attached the body of a digital character to them, thereby reproducing realistic body motion and facial expressions.

“What you’ll be doing for SKYE is something like this because Athena will be collating and analyzing your behavioral patterns once inside dream space. Your mission will be literally one small step for a man – and woman – one giant leap for mankind. Just multiplied, like, a trillion times over. You will be the trailblazers, bushwhackers and way-pavers. You will be the Kings and Queens of SKYE for all eternity and your thoughts will become the law of the land. No, more than that, you will shape how generations after generations of humanity will experience SKYE. 

“You will decide what’s good and what’s bad, what’s in and what’s out. You want a Starbucks or an EV charging station at every corner – boom – you’ve got it. You hate long lines, red tape and graft at the DMV, they’re–” Mr. Chase, looking feverishly excited, snapped his fingers “– gone just like that. Or perhaps something less mundane and completely unrecognizable, like unicorn troughs or dragon-proof bunkers in front of every tavern. Sandbox or a magic academy. As I said earlier, SKYE is the limit.”

Like a dud, Mr. Chase’s exuberance fizzled into the sound of crickets. Most of what he said just flew over the Imagineers’ heads, except perhaps Rip’s.

“Erm, sorry. I got a bit carried away there. Now, it’s true that, typically, dreams don’t have any definite purpose or goal, but since dream imageries and conflict resolution have been proven to bring about improved mental and at times even physiological health, the first ever session on SKYE will have a corresponding quest. At the end of the quest is an Extraction Point that will supersede the chronological time on your timer.”

<Can we lay off the jargon?> Zacharie said. <We’re not teeth to be extracted.>

“All right, fair enough. Just like what we did to Bev Stanton, we would be giving you a mild sedative. The sleep induced by the sedative will be your chronological time.”

<How long?> Zacharie asked.

“Six hours.”

<How long is that in dream space?> Rip asked, his head bowed in contemplation.

“Drawing from the experiments of LaBerge, we have determined that dream time and real time are approximately the same. But what I’m trying to tell you is, the time limit on your timer is the fail-safe. You wake up because you’re out of time. On the other hand, when you accomplish your dream’s quest, it will trigger a shot of IV fluid that will flush the sedative out of your bodies and you’ll be immediately up and about without any lasting effects.

“In the unlikely event that you can’t complete your mission easily enough, you can do it in installments by making sure you reach what we’ve trademarked as a Benben Stone.”