The Children of Zegandaria by Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov (top novels to read .TXT) 📕

Young Peos slowly began to open his eyes. The truth was more than simple, but he had avoided it for so long.

"Оh! That man is gone. If I meet the man whose face you spat on, I'll give him your apologies. To this man who is here now, you have done nothing wrong."

Buddha

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT: AT LARGE

Jonathan Sacklin wanted to get away and somehow managed to pass unnoticed through the first post of ghost guards, but there was a real danger of being recognized at the door by his idEntification with the narenzianan chip. He realized that all of this could have gone right out his nose. And his attempt had worked, but only somewhat.

The ghost warriors sniffed it out, but since they weren’t sure, decided to check it out. Even they couldn't afford killing an elite medic like Sacklin pretended to be - otherwise it would cost them their own heads.

Their uniforms were so beautiful, and their faces were hidden behind massive helmets.

If you're really who you say you are, you'll be able to enter the fourth level of virtual reality.

Sacklin realized that he had really screwed up. They immediately tried to poke into his head, which was a real shock to him. They'd been poking a special part of his skull looking for the chip, which was more than humiliating. Mentally, Sacklin was screaming and he was going to die on the spot. But outwardly he steeled himself and tried to judge the situation correctly.

There were fewer ghost warriors than usual, which meant that maybe some of them were spread out in another part of the city where they were needed.

Sacklin felt that the cold kevlarite fingers, reinforced by the hydraulics of their suits, would shatter his skull to pieces.

He now clearly realized that his pathetic attempts to wring the truth from that hopelessly dying patient were, if not laughable, certainly not the best solution.

The deviation in consciousness was also playing a role, and Sacklin wasn't sure exactly what was happening to his own.

The ghost warriors seemed to suddenly calm down and even motioned for him to pass. Sacklin realized that something had saved him.

The moment Sacklin walked through the reinforced front door of the hospital facility, Archie felt a sort of tingle. His mind had connected in some strange way with Sacklin, who needed to know the answer. They had both clutched at each other like drowning men at straws, but their combined efforts had proved enough.

Sacklin stepped out into the street.

- "Compassion," he muttered. "What does that simple and elementary word mean. So this is childish. We live on one of the most technologically advanced planets, and we're dealing with moral issues that don't even have much bearing on my case."

He was so smitten that he almost collided with an Avarone Nirangaiter, which nearly ran him over. Sacklin, however, did not come out of his reverie even now.

He continued down the street, and just then came upon the second team, led by Zerdakil himself.

The bunch dragged him somewhere before he came to his senses.

They took him to see Doctor Gad ‘Di Enn  in person. Sacklin was blindfolded. He couldn't even hear because of the insulating plugs in his ears.

But he was receiving the doctor's nerve impulses through the narenzianan chip he'd swiped from the hospital.

- "So you dared to infiltrate the fourth level?," the doctor's calculating voice asked him. "And how, dare I ask, did you unlock such extraordinary abilities in yourself? If it were only up to the IQ, at least a dozen geniuses would do better than you. But you killed a patient in the strictly walled hospital of the Emvor Na polis. You even tricked the ghost warriors. But let me tell you, I've been watching you for a long time and I know all about you, Jonathan Sacklin. Your broken family pushed you into this line of work, and you've entered dangerous territory."

Gad ‘Di Enn had freed his goons. He didn't want them to witness such a spectacle. Not that he cared that much, but there was no point in them learning about his activities in detail.

- "Very simply, sir," Sacklin, who had nothing much to lose, replied coldly, "you know very well that the fourth level is high, but what even you don't know is that above the fifth are the so-called hidden levels of consciousness. I'm almost certain you've never, ever been there."

The doctor gasped. Why so much confidence in this pal. He should have ordered Zerdakil to knock the smoke out of him. He was just a little scholarly prig and nothing more. But that wasn't how Doctor Gad ‘Di Enn acted - he was different.

He wanted to drain his victim and get maximum pleasure. Overexcited to have the opportunity to not only learn her secret, but also get what many called déjà vu.

Sacklin was in no position to stretch, but he was no fool either. He was going to do his part.

His life was turning into a lie, but for the first time he felt the doctor's voice in his head didn't sound very confident. There was a subtle note of barely perceptible groping for ground that wasn't entirely familiar to him.

The voice across the room remained silent for quite some time. Sacklin sensed that this was not an awkward agreement, but some important secret he was about to hear.

The voice was silent, and he was clearly finding it difficult to find it in himself to continue.

- "Didn't it strike you that only the hopelessly ill patient and the soldiers selected to have paranormal abilities noticed you," he asked very quietly.

- "What do you mean?," roared Sacklin in confusion.

- That no matter how hard you fight, you're just a lonely lost soul who will disappear. For too long you existed on the back of society, not I would say as a parasite, but rather pretending others didn't notice you. And that's sad.

- "I'm not a leper!," roared Sacklin.

- Worse. You're doomed to disappear forever. And that's why it's not Zerdakil's fault, nor his men, who incidentally they met by relative chance, though I don't believe in chance. You're just an anomaly.

- "In virtual reality?," squeals Sacklin like a pig at slaughter.

- "In life!," was the doctor's reply. "Let me give you a simple diagnosis. You were dead before you were born."

Here Sacklin shuddered as if he had been rebuked.

- "But why do you tell me this?," he muttered, somewhat helplessly.

- "Because you have very little left," he caught the disappearing voice in his head.

- "But if what you say is true, how have I lasted so long?," he muttered, quite desperately.

- "And then you will be disgusted by the terrible reality that even now creeps slowly into your mind. This is the key to your salvation. Or more accurately, to the alleviation of your anguish. You may yet briefly experience a semblance of that feeling, if you are capable of it at all!," continued the doctor insensitively.

- "So I don't exist?," concluded Sacklin gently.

- Not exactly, but somewhat. You were just the handy man I chipped almost twenty years ago. Now you'll be able to realise exactly what's going on, though it's not much of a secret. Your ambition was pushing you in a direction advantageous to my purposes. I allowed you to infiltrate a level four virtual reality. However, I do not deny that you have qualities. And the patient...perhaps you would be interested to learn who he is? Or more accurately, his mind?

Sacklin couldn't guess.

- "It's good old Durnyam Shetstone. Or at least a copy of his mind. I got it from a special place. That is to say, you weren’t dealing with a purely human consciousness, but a duplicate of it that had undergone certain mutations, or to put it another way, it inevitably affected your experiments. It was a small precaution on my part," the medic continued brazenly.

- "But how?," said Sacklin, puzzled.

- "Well, it's plain as day," Gad ‘Di Enn repeated to him rather boredly. "The demonic mind cannot exist freely in a virtual environment. This is known as Hans Auslander's first paradox. It sounds silly, but it is. But what would happen to it in symbiosis with a human!"

- "So demons have been roaming among us for a long time?," squeaked Sacklin his concerns.

- In your case, it doesn't concern you, because you will go to neither Heaven nor Hell, my dear Jonathan. I will personally send you to your dead brother.

- "But you lie to me! It is not possible to implant even a duplicated consciousness on a hopelessly ill person. His body won't take the strain!," he fumed.

- "You're wrong again," the doctor countered. "Why do you think "Emvor Na" is so high? A whole thousand storeys! You're that demon, Jonathan Sacklin! You and no one else! I used everything I had to find you! I searched for you! And in the end, you fell into the trap yourself."

- "But you said you had me chipped," Sacklin apologizes. "You're contradicting yourself!"

- "You fool!," roared Gad ‘Di Enn. "I know very well what I mean! You just have to accept that the mind of the real Jonathan Sacklin has been with us for a long time. You've replaced it. You contacted the patient at the hospital, too. If you hadn't become "friends", he might have survived at least another five years if not more. You... you're the craziest demon of all."

At that moment, the voice that had sounded on the Emeranium nanospiral in the naredzi chip faded away. A drop was heard. Silence. Then the drop dripped again. It was blood. Gad ‘Di Enn had gasped.

Sacklin had gone into shock. His hands were shaking and he was trying to steady his breathing, but it wasn't working. Some stranger, on the other handa doctor, had said so many things to him that he still couldn't accept. Well, he had paid with his death!

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINE: KICKLUK SOR

Some people say that money means everything and it is the meaning of their whole life - they get up, go to bed and just think about it. This is not true. Sometimes these people come out of the dream in which they live, out of their folly in which they stubbornly believe. All