NetherWorld by Daniel Pagan (each kindness read aloud .TXT) 📕

out of the way, shaking off the smelly blood. Whizzy and Nick decided this was a good time to move on. They never noticed a high flying flock of Batchers over head. The robotic birds release a nearly invisible net that descended upon the duo. The net was composed of tiny little rings, too small to notice with naked visor.

Whizzy and Nick walked past a gaggle of green Bytes bickering over some sort of dice game. To their left, down another shaded alley they began shoving each other. From a distance, the dice looked like tiny spheres with odd markings on them. Two greenies struggle to collect the dice. A large Byte named Slap, the apparent leader, broke up the scuffle and settled the group down.
“Enough already! Sodder was not cheating. He rolled a set of circuits fair and square. Now pay up Wank!” ordered Slap.
Wank handed Sodder some sort of chip and the circular dice. The game resumed again as the rowdy Bytes rolled the strange little spheres.
“What’s going on over there Whizzy?” asked Nick.
“They’re playing Scarp, a gambling game that is all the rage in Silicate Slums. It’s outlawed in all the other sectors. If you look around, you can see Bytes playing it til downtime,” answered Whizzy.
“What do they gamble for?”
“What else? Data. Certain pieces of data have great value on the Blue Market.”
“Blue Market?”
“The Blue Market trades stolen material. All kinds. It’s run by some gnarly Bytes. It’s an organized orbit that hangs down there,” said Whizzy while point to down a hill so steep, the stream was nearly converted to a jaba fall. “Down there are the Docking Stations. That is the hub of Blue Market. Even the Blue guard won’t go there. Too many scary dudes.”
“So there’s a mob in NetherWorld?”
“Close enough. Now let’s plunge along before anyone notices us. They do not like strangers watching their games.”
“Gotcha. Whizzy, how much further to this Flash Playas?”
“Not far. We’ve got to head down to the Docking Stations.”

Whizzy and Nick walked past a gaggle of green Bytes bickering over some sort of dice game. To their left, down another shaded alley they began shoving each other. From a distance, the dice looked like tiny spheres with odd markings on them. Two greenies struggle to collect the dice. A large Byte named Slap, the apparent leader, broke up the scuffle and settled the group down.
“Enough already! Sodder was not cheating. He rolled a set of circuits fair and square. Now pay up Wank!” ordered Slap.
Wank handed Sodder some sort of chip and the circular dice. The game resumed again as the rowdy Bytes rolled the strange little spheres.
“What’s going on over there Whizzy?” asked Nick.
“They’re playing Scarp, a gambling game that is all the rage in Silicate Slums. It’s outlawed in all the other sectors. If you look around, you can see Bytes playing it til downtime,” answered Whizzy.
“What do they gamble for?”
“What else? Data. Certain pieces of data have great value on the Blue Market.”
“Blue Market?”
“The Blue Market trades stolen material. All kinds. It’s run by some gnarly Bytes. It’s an organized orbit that hangs down there,” said Whizzy while point to down a hill so steep, the stream was nearly converted to a jaba fall. “Down there are the Docking Stations. That is the hub of Blue Market. Even the Blue guard won’t go there. Too many scary dudes.”
“So there’s a mob in NetherWorld?”
“Close enough. Now let’s plunge along before they notice us. They do not like strangers watching their games.”
“Gotcha. Whizzy, how much further to this Flash Playas?”
“Not far. We’ve got to head down to the Docking Stations.”

This scene repeated for some time. The tiny little rings were special creatures that manipulate small periods of time. Anything encased in their little bubble will relive a recent span of time until they break free. Eventually, everyone affected begins to realize the trap as the déjà vus pile up.

Whizzy and Nick walked past a gaggle of green Bytes bickering over some sort of dice game. To their left, down a dark alley they began shoving each other. From a distance, the dice looked like tiny spheres with odd markings on them. Two greenies struggle to collect the dice. A large Byte named Slap, the apparent leader, broke up the scuffle and settled the group down.
“Enough already! Sodder was not cheating. He rolled a set of circuits fair and square. Now pay up Wank!” ordered Slap.
Wank handed Sodder some sort of chip and the circular dice. The game resumed again as the rowdy Bytes rolled the strange little spheres.
“What’s going on over there Whizzy?” asked Nick.
“Wait. Wait. Haven’t we done this before?” asked Whizzy.
“I think so. Yes. Yes. This has definitely happened before,” replied Nick.
“Oh no! Ohhh no!”
“What? What is it Whizzy?” Nick stared at Whizzy, who looked terrified.
“Loopers! NazKlan, I’m sure!”
“What are Loopers?”
“An airborne virus that traps you in time. You can lose entire Boots in one of these bubbles! We need to break the cycle. Stop walking.”
Nick came to a sudden halt as ordered. He looked to Whizzy for the next move.
“We need to turn around and go in the opposite direction. If we stay on course the bubble will pop and release us.”
“Whatever you say man.”
They turned around and began to carefully retrace their steps. Nick saw a grey figure that looked just like him and another that looked like Whizzy.
“Cool. Are these us in the past?” Nick reach out to touch the grey figure. Whizzy quickly slapped his hand away.
“Don’t touch that! Never ever touch a shadow! One touch and they become unhinged. You never want to separate from your shadow.”
“Shadow? Ok. You mean our shadows are really some separate being?”
“Of course. Your shadow goes everywhere you go. Different angles of light sometime expose them. Most of the time they stay hidden beside you. Your shadow is your opposite in the other place. The place we can’t go to. We call it the Grey Area.”
“Ok. Why do they travel with us?”
“No one knows for sure. But we think they keep us in balance with the other dimension, the Grey Area. When we lose our shadow we become Tweens, beings unwelcome in either dimension. We begin to fade away. We can’t feed on Jaba or touch anything in our world. Eventually, we disappear completely. So, we don’t need to be losing our shadows at this point. Got it!”
“Got it. If Tweens fade away where do the shadows go?”
“The shadows head for the Ether just outside the Silver Forest. The Ether is loaded with unhinged shadows. Some say they are waiting to get back to the Gray Area. We really don’t know because anyone who walks in Ether never comes back.”
“Well, thanks for saving me then!”
“No problem. Now let’s get going. The Duke awaits us.” The duo plunged down the steep hill to the wharves of the Docking Stations.

****

The Docking Stations of the Walled City looked a lot like the harbor docks in any of the seafaring towns. Under the grey pallor of thick murky clouds, a vast green sea of jaba fed the harbor. Viscous ripples from the passing ships lapped against the wharves. High above the ships circled the Batchers; alert for any unauthorized Data dumps. Once Bytes spoil, sailors release them into the harbor to free up valuable space. This keeps the Bin Batchers quite busy plucking the corrupt corpses for a one way trip to the Shredder.
Most ships resembled large commercial freighters Nick saw back on Karbonon. All large concentrations of data had to travel by ship. No single Byte could efficiently move the information. Instead, they were transported via the ZipLiners. These large freighters carried special group of Bytes capable of carrying compressed data. Each ship was packed with these compressed Bytes.
Worker Bytes scurried about, unloading ships and preparing others for a new voyage. They were a motley crew of seaman. They looked quite a bit dirtier than the Bytes he had seen thus far. The whole while they worked, Nether curses flowed from their salty lips.
The smell of rotted fish permeated the harbor air. A humid fishy breeze made Nick purse his face in disgust at the offensive smell. Nick was instantly remind of the trash cans by the shore on Karbonon. Fisherman would often clean and cut their catch before heading home. Every day the cans filled with fish guts and other unwanted oceanic body parts.
Looking around, Nick noticed all of the Bytes were disfigured down here. Some hobbled with a peg leg instead of a healthy set of plungers. Others wore hooks instead of the normal clawed hand. Still others wore odd patches over parts of their visors. None of them looked directly at Whizzy or Nick. An undercurrent of fear fed the wharves of the Docking Stations. A large collection of clouds overhead cast a large shadow over the entire area.
Up ahead a very large globe opened up and swallowed a much smaller Byte. He seemed to be threatening the Byte now trapped inside him. Whizzy signaled Nick to scoot off to the side. They hid behind some large boxes of compressed Bytes.
“We need to avoid that dude up there,” said Whizzy.
“Why?” asked Nick.
“He’s a Shakr, one of the cruelest Bytes of the Blue Market. They deal in dirty information. Nothing moves through the Docks without a Shakr knowing about it.”
“What’s he doing to the Byte trapped inside?”
“Data shake down. He forces Bytes to release that data they carry. He then sells the hijacked code to the top bidder. We can’t risk him seeing us and telling NazKlan.”
Shakr wobbled up and down making the Byte inside him screamed in pain. From afar it looked like a rather sloppy version of The Twist.
“Stop! Pleeeeease! I will tell you what you want to know,” surrendered the tortured Byte.
“Who is traveling with the Chosen One?” said Shakr with a voice reminiscent of Bogart.
“WhizzyWig! WhizzyWig! Now let me go!” pleaded the tortured Silicate.
Shakr flashed a wicked grin. “Just one more shake for good measure.” He then proceeded to wobble until the screams reached new heights of discomfort. Then his body opened up and ejected the tortured Byte.
He was a sorry sight. His flesh sizzled and smoked, smelling like meat left far too long on the grill. Apparently Shakr was filled with salt from NazKlan’s desolate Sector. The salt worked much like acid and burned the Bytes inside. This poor fellow lost an entire plunger leg. His visor was also half dissolved. The salty shakedown was commonplace down here in the Docks. It was the most effective way to ply data from normally tight lipped Silicates.
Salt was used in such large amounts,