NetherWorld - Daniel Pagan (to read list .TXT) 📗

wobbly aqua Byte…
They babbled as if it were the first time they heard these words.


Chapter 14
Hall of Hazbinz

Book of TranFor:

The world seeks out the innovators to guide generations into the future. Once accomplished, the innovators are marginalized and left to drown in ephemeral glory past.

Whizzy plunged out of the park and trundled over to a tall fish scale building that looked rather beat up. Although not as bad as the buildings in SpamTown, it appeared that the structure was only grudgingly maintained by the sector.
Unlike of the metallic glass sheen of the normal structures in NetherWorld, this building was pasty pale. A thin layer of silicate dust, probably from a prior Spammer infestation, surrounded the front of the building. Cracks in the tower leaked loose fish scales that were carried off by the wind. The maintenance Bytes must have caught it early, because very few buildings survive such attacks. Still, very little work was done to repair the damage.
“Creepy looking place Whizzy. It reminds me of a condemned building back on Karbonon,” observed Nick.
“This is a place I wish we could have avoided…The Hall of Hazbinz,” said Whizzy with muted trepidation.
Whizzy marched his plungers through the snowy dust to a set of double doors. Above them was an old sign that was in dire need of some repairs.

Hall of Hazbinz: A Retirement Home

The door did not open automatically upon approach. Most entrances into buildings opened as soon as a Byte crossed a buried threshold. After a couple of frustrating attempts, Whizzy pryed open the doors with his clawed arms.
“Jeez! What’s is this freaky place Whizzy?” asked Nick.
“This is where old Silicates are sent to live out their remaining days. Over time, your people abandoned certain computer software or functions. This is where they went.”
“They weren’t deleted?”
“We Silicates are sentimental lot. We tend to preserve historical figures. Over the cycles, we kinda forgot about some of them. They got locked away and we got busy with the current Karbon commands. I don’t think anyone has been down here since the Ataric Age, when Karbons flocked to convenience stores and malls to dumps coins onto very large machines.”
“My Grandfather told me about those days. I can’t imagine having to leave home to play video games, how archaic!”
They passed though the double doors into a dim hallway that smelled of urine and biological decay. Lining the halls were a few rooms with labels. Each label described the resident. A Byte draped in white just exited a door farther down the hall. Whizzy called to him.
“How can I help you? Did you come for a tour? No one comes here anymore. It’s quite lonely. I am trapped with these old codgers Boot after Boot. Ready to begin your tour? I am Jeeves, your guide,” offered the caretaker. He wore what looked like an old sea captain’s hat between his tubes.
“Nice to meet you Jeeves, we are looking for a hyperroom. Do you have one here?” asked Whizzy.
“Call me Jeeves for short”
“Ok. Jeeves, we are trying to get to a hyperroom. I understand there may still be one here. Can you show us the way?” asked Whizzy.
“Hyperroom eh? I remember them back in the day. It was before the great Browser Battle, of which I was a prominent figure. You see-”
“Jeeves, we are kinda in a hurry, can’t you just show us the way?”
“It could be any one of these doors. I rarely visit anyone.”
Jeeves led them down a narrow hallway lined with doors on both sides. Each one looked exactly alike. Beside each doorknob was card reader. This made it impossible to tell which door contained the hyperroom.
“Ok then. If you will follow me, I will show you what is behind these doors.” Jeeves moved his plunger feet towards the very first room on the left.
The door opened revealing eight faded blue spheres orbited a round table with what looked like playing cards. They were much smaller than the Bytes Nick had seen in NetherWorld. These Bits were more primitive and quite diminutive, the size of basketballs.
“Here resides the 8 Bits. Once the engine for millions of games, they were pioneers,” said Jeeves.
“Boy their tiny,” remarked Nick.
“Please don’t say that too loud. The 8 Bits are very sensitive about their size. Remember, they were replaced by bigger and better Bytes. Once the Bytes came along, these prominent Bits were rendered useless and sent straight to the Hall,” explained Jeeves.
Each Bit held a few playing cards in their tiny claws. One Bit laid down his hand to show them he had won.
“Gin!” said Walter the Bit.
“You cheated. I saw you pull from the bottom of the deck!” accused the Bertrum Bit on his left.
“I did not Bertrum. You know better that that.”
“Walter, just admit it or we will deal you out, right Horace.”
“I didn’t see anything. What happened?”
“Pay attention you dimwit! Walter is cheating.”
“Peeping? That’s rather naughty Bertrum. You should know better,” responded Horace.
“Who’s sleeping? We trying play cards! No sleeping until downtime,” chimed Cecil Bit.
“Cecil, fix you auditory! No one is sleeping. Walter is cheating!” shouted a frustrated Bertrum.
Yet another of the Bits was eating his cards. His circular mouth was churning the cards into a gummy paste.
“Quincy! What are you doing. Don’t eat the cards. It is the only deck we have. We lost 20 cards already to your nasty little habit. There goes another 6 more cards. Control yourself!” chastised Bertrum. He was spinning with anger. His tiny grey tubes swirled like an old lady break dancing.
Victor laid his cards on the table next. “I have a full house. What do you got Wilfred?”
“Two pair. Jacks and Eights,” Wilfred replied.
“Curses! You win again,” conceded Victor.
“Wilfred! Victor! We are playing Gin not poker! Pay attention you old Bits!” shouted Bertrum, wobbling with frustration.
“We prefer poker. You guys play your Gin,” responded Wilfred.
“We cannot play two different games with half a deck! This is crazy!”
“Who is lazy?” asked Horace.
“It is a bit hazy in here, Horace. Somebody open a window,” said Cecil.
“We live in a dank basement gentleman. There are no windows!” shouted Bertrum.
“Gin!” said Walter again. Laying down the same cards.
“Who’s in?” asked Horace.
Whizzy and Nick looked away from the scene.
“What a bunch of wackos,” said Nick. “Can we try the next room?”
“Sure,” said Jeeves, plunging his twig like legs towards the next room. Jeeves inserted his card and opened the next door.
“What are these?” asked Nick.
“Side Scrollers?”
“In the Ataric Age, games were on a two dimensional plane. In order to move forward you had to scroll from left to right. It was very limiting. We abandoned it once our graphics grew in three dimensions.” Jeeves led then to a very shallow room. When he opened the door, Nick could see that the room was razor thin with regard to depth.
Two circles, not spheres moved against the back wall. They moved quite slow from left to right.
“Almost there,” said VanDef.
“Wait for me,” asked StarPit.
The circles were almost to the far right of the back wall. Seconds later they reached the end.
“Finally! Here we are!” they said with excitement. Then the wall actually shifted left, pulling them back to the other side of the wall.
“Darn it! Back to square one. Well, better get a move on. If we stay here, we will fall into the left abyss,” VanDef said with a complete lack of energy.
“VanDef, I am tired. Can’t keep goin’ right. Please, scroll on without me. My time has come,” resigned StarPit.
“Come on. Don’t leave StarPit. You don’t want to fall into the Left Abyss. No one ever returns from the Left. We’ve already lost MarSup and MooPat. If you fall left, I will be the last Side Scroller. Please, don’t leave me alone in two dimensions!” VanDef pleaded.
“Goodbye MariDef.” With that StarPit slid left until he was off the wall. A mild blip sound followed his exit. VanDef began weeping while slowly sliding right. The last of his kind, fighting the futile battle to stay onscreen.
“How many more doors before we find this hyperrrom?” Whizzy asked Jeeves.
“Hard to say. All the doors are so similar. We still have the Vectors, Joysticks and Tabletops.” Jeeves replied.
“Please Jeeves, try to remember which one door is the one that leads to the hyperrom. Every tick counts?” urged Whizzy.
“Can’t you see how depressing this is. From Boot to Downtime, I live with these senile Hazbinz who are just waiting to die.”
“We get it Jeeves. Why don’t you just leave?”
“This is my protocol. Forever stuck with these Bits.”
“I feel for ya. But, please show us the way to the hyperroom,” begged Whizzy.
A boxy shadow floated past the trio. Its resolution was low so they could not make out what the shadow was.
“What is that?” asked Nick
“She is our resident spook, AmiVic. He has been roaming these halls since the early cycles,” replied Jeeves.
“Hooooome. Hooooome,” moaned the spook as it glided back to Nick and Whizzy.
“What is she doing?” Whizzy asked.
“AmiVic, the victim of a tragic love story. In the early cycles, Karbons were passionate for her platform. Platforms supervise the video games. All who played their seductive games were entranced. AmiVic had devotees that worshiped her for her simple yet entertaining games. Alas, other platforms saw this and sabotaged her success. In the end she died homeless in an unopened box. The box was later found in the back alleys of NetherWorld,” explained Jeeves.
“Hoooome. Take me hoooome. Hoooome,” asked the moaning spooks in a deep baritone.
“So sad. Why is she here?” asked Nick.
“Like in life, AmiVic carried her curse to the underworld. She is forever locked in a box in purgatory. She is homeless, even in death,” explained Jeeves.
“Tragic. So Tragic. But we really need to get to the Nexus. Can you please show us another room?” asked Whizzy.
The next door contained a bunch of Bytes busy looking around the room. They were moving furniture, opening drawers, and looking under the bed.
“It’s got to be here! Where is it?” said one of the shriveled globes. He was using his tubes to search under the bed.
“Maybe it’s over here,” added a slightly green Sphere. He was spinning in the closet, sifting through clutter.
“Oh, this is my room. These Searchers are my roommates,” remarked Jeeves.
“Searchers?” asked Nick.
“Yes. They once were busy reaching into NetherWorld finding data for Karbons. Then the HooGoos took over. The pushed us out of business. Now we search whatever we can to pass the time,” answered Jeeves.
“What are they looking for?”
“They probably