World of Eden | Immersion | Chapter 16 - Ocean’s Archangels

I had zero intention of telling Luke why I wanted to keep the virus inside World of Eden. I don’t trust Luke, and his being Sai Tanaka’s nephew didn’t help his case. I can see the resemblance – both handsome, charismatic, and straight up diabolical. 

But I do need help. Hacking is usually an independent activity, one that doesn’t require collaboration. 

Time to head over to Xan’s place.

A little context. Xan’s parents own a steel manufacturing empire back in Singapore and they specialize in making steel parts, batteries, and semiconductors. They make a fortune and Xan gets to live in the lap of luxury alone with his many servants in his mansion.

With that said. A couple years ago, I confessed to Xan that I hack on the side. Xan wasn’t surprised, instead he found it kinda cool. I admitted that I ran into a bit of trouble when I hacked into Eden servers and hence created the Back to Eden fiasco. So, Xan decided to help me out and he built a whole private laboratory for me so I can hack to my heart’s content. Equipped with the latest technologies and security walls, “Buffy’s Lab” is the perfect place for me to launch my second attack on Eden Enterprises.

Introducing: Buffy’s Lab. A romantic getaway for the above-average digital nomad. Equipped with the latest technologies, Buffy’s Lab is the perfect place for you to make your stake out.

Caution: If you are running away from home and are using Buffy’s Lab as a temporary hideout, do not go to sleep on your overly expensive standing desk. You may however make yourself comfortable on the L-shaped cream colored sofa in the recreational area.

Today, I’m not running away from home. Today, I have major recon to do.

I’ve decided to let Rod in my secret plan and he’s agreed to meet me at Xan’s. Hacking is usually a solo activity and I normally wouldn’t want to share permission to hack with anyone else. But the mountain I’m trying to climb is way too large scale for me to mount all by my lonesome self.

And after my conversation with Rod at the Halloween party, I think we’d be good partners together. He can code, he’s easy on the eyes, and most importantly?

He can keep a secret.

My phone beeps, indicating a text.

It’s from Rod.

“Be there in a few.”

I’m already at Xan’s, just a short coast from my home. Rod’s got a longer route as he’s in the Upper West Side. I inwardly wince. Going from UWS to UES is like trying to jump over a chasm from one cliff to another. Something only I can accomplish in a FPS game.

Painful. But mandatory.

I bet Rod plays a lot of shooting games. Wonder how many blanks he needs to sentence a poor enemy his death. Probably one and a half.

Wonder how the Great Wall of China became ridden with bullets? 

Because Japan’s bullet trains crashed into it on their way to the Nile.

I applaud you for the effort, Japan. But useless, as China’s defenses have improved since WWII. They took a page out of the US’s book while the US went on the offense with Fat Man and Little Boy. 

Can we say ouch to nuclear consequences?

Talking about nuclear bombs, I need to head to our bomb shelter. Also known as Xan’s Batcave. It’s situated in the basement of Xan’s gigantic, sprawling mansion and could possibly be a few acres in size. Not often visited by Xan’s copious number of maids and footmen, but populated by quite a few robot slaves.

This plantation was never meant to be emancipated from its slave industry. Alas, if only Abraham Lincoln could have lived to see the day that his proclamation didn’t in fact free the slaves of the modern century.

But, let’s be less racist. 

Current events and history lessons aside, I need to have a map to navigate Xan’s Batcave. I haven’t been here for a while as its coordinates have somehow disappeared from my Google Maps’ GPS feature. But as confusing as the Manhattan grid is to tourists and warrior tribesmen alike, I did in fact memorize every street and avenue in Manhattan so I could go anywhere in Manhattan without GPS. Which is necessary as I can’t be looking at my phone the same time I’m cruising on the highway with my skates.

I ring the doorbell but no one answers within five minutes. I shrug and type in the password to unlock the front doors. I could have done that in the first place, but courtesy calls. 

The doors open and I’m welcomed by Xan’s robot maid. She offers me a Capri drink but I decline and opt for the bottle of scotch instead. Grabbing it by its neck, I head to the stairs. The stairs by themselves span the entire living room of my house. Turning off the skate function on my shoes, I hop down the steps into the abyss.

I’m welcomed by an extremely cold blast of air conditioning. Easily in the negative degrees Celsius. Not sure why the basement has to kept this cold, it’s not like it’s a breeding pool for penguins. I zip up my sweatshirt and put the hood on. Dire situations call for dire measures.

I walk past server after server. Wait, of course. Because the servers need to be kept cold, that’s why it feels like the North Pole. It slipped my mind, that there were so many servers kept in this location, since I haven’t been to the lab for ages.

I head into the laboratory labyrinth at the end of the hall. The transparent magnetic door slides open and I’m greeted by a maze created by walls of whiteboard. Scribbles in erasable marker pass me by as I twist and turn along the corners of the maze, trying to find the center of the maze.

Aha. I’ve come to the center. A long, obsidian desk rests below a gigantic floating monitor screen. Two more monitors are connected on either end of the main screen, creating a cube that protects me from the eerie, fluorescent light coming from the shunts in the ceiling.

I grin and slide into the expensive, leather covered, navy blue gaming chair. I slide open the drawer underneath the desk and am greeted by a collection of mechanical keyboards, just sitting there ready for my picking. I pick up a strawberry-melon green cream colored keyboard and attach it to the USB. I turn on the screen with a tap of a button and…

Voila.

Another world awaits me. 

I resist the urge to open the newest installed game on this perfect computer setup, instead opening up my home-brewed software. My computer is protected by a security system that I created, which makes it perfect for hacking. A good defense is a great offense, or at least, it opens the playing field for missiles to fire. And I fully intend to launch a couple of missiles into the virtual war that is brewing.

“Ready to start a war?” BB beeps. 

Why, yes, I am. 

I type a few commands into the terminal and enter the backdoor I placed in World of Eden a few days prior. This gives me access to all of World of Eden’s security keys and administrator access. Now I’m super user of World of Eden’s complete code base. 

Lord ruler, essentially. Of the WOE universe.

Redundant, but hey, redundancy is necessary. At least in systems design.

But let’s scrap Computer Science 101 for now. Right now, I’ve got bigger fish to fry. Which is to locate all players infected by my virus.

Revenge in the making. I could be writing my own star-crossed young adult romance fantasy story right now. Except without the romance. Because where is Romeo when you need him? 

Maybe I’ll find him in the garbage collector.

I pull up a map of all of the targets I’ve located. There’s a total of 12 of them, and what makes it annoying is that they’re located in separate Eden universes. Not just that, but they’re located across time as well, so I’ll have to travel back in time and forward in time just to get some snacks while I hunt these bad boys.

Which isn’t hard, at least not for me. But it’s just annoying. Which is quickly becoming my most over-used word right now.

But hey that’s the life of a programmers. Sometimes you have to trade in a life of convenience for a life of mind-fucking. I swear my brain has changed size and matter ever since I started coding. What I thought were my thoughts are actually code written by the Matrix. 

Another universe that I would love to detangle one day. There’s a whole community center dedicated to the franchise, where if you step in a phone booth, you’ll be transported to a virtual realm similar to The Matrix.

But I digress. 

I jump out of my seat, and head towards my Pod. I eject BB’s microchip from his back and insert it into the USB in the front of my pod. BB goes silent as my pod sends an update. I need BB to run extra commands in the terminal and for surveillance purposes.

I hop into my pod and put on the head gear. 

Let’s rock.

Instantly, I’m transported.

To…

Heaven?

No, but it sure looks it.

I’m in a room. A really giant room. It resembles the room that I was in when Michaelis the Angel gave me the apple and a bunch of forms to sign. Except, instead of one throne sitting in the middle of the room, there’s 7 thrones positioned in a circle around me. They’re gilded with gold and they all share the same quality: they’re empty.

I look around me. There’s no statues, but there’s a circle in lightly embossed gold and silver on the floor, with numbers and letters around the circumference. I think it’s Latin but I’m not sure. I took Spanish and French and Chinese in school. I’m not a Latin scholar. In fact, I disdain the pompous grandiose and highly superfluous practice of quoting Latin verbiage in English essays. 

But all of a sudden, as if the King of the Room detected my sinfully cynical thoughts, music starts. Hymns from an invisible choir drown me in melodies that feel foreign and ethereal. The voices of angels (maybe not angels, but castrated choir boys with decent falsettos and stilettos) surround me and I’m a little tempted to sing myself.

Despite having failed the chorus entrance exam… as a minor. 

IN A MINOR KEY, NONETHELESS.

But before I can sing, they enter. 

They’re gorgeous. Extremely, ethereally, heavenly, inexorably gorgeous. In an overrated way. 

Are they even human?

They’re wearing wings. Not wigs.

Okay, maybe wigs? Whose hair is THAT blonde, THAT wavy, THAT long, THAT silky…

Oh.

Wait.

I think they’re…

This might be overrated but…

Are they…

Who I think they are…

They’re –

“Michael”

The tallest one with black hair down to his knees and two swords on his back takes a seat.

“Gabriel.”

The guy with the extremely platinum blonde hair and golden plumed wings takes a seat.

“Raphael”

The hottest one with reddish blondish (strawberry blonde?) hair down his back and a sword at his side takes a seat.

“Uriel.”

The shortest one with cropped white blonde hair takes a seat.

“Chamuel”

“Jophiel”

And…

“Zadkiel”

BB at my shoulder, chimes, a bit too late.

“The Archangels.”

Oh shit. 

I just peed my pants.