The Far Dawn Read Online Free PDF

Vista. Moros was born here in Vista.” His tone thickened. “Born in blood.”
    Lilly flashed me a glance. “This is an upload colony, right? You’re a digital version of yourself, and Vista is a holotech world, like a program that you inhabit?”
    â€œYes. We all uploaded a few decades ago. Ziiiip! My dad was a programmer for Quarkle. He helped build the Vista environment. It runs on a fusion battery that should last for as long as the sun lights the earth. The idea was utopia forever, no aging unless you wanted to, no dying, no— Guh!”
    There was some kind of snarl and clangs of metal. Feedback whined over the mic, followed by a grating sound and something like wailing in the distance. When Moros returned, he was panting.
    â€œWhat’s going on in there?” I asked.
    Moros sighed. “Dying. Chaos.”
    â€œIt doesn’t sound much like a utopia,” said Lilly.
    Moros laughed between deep breaths. “No. It was, in the beginning.” There was a rumble like a distant explosion. “I will show you, but I warn you not to look for too long.”
    â€œI’m not sure I want to know,” said Lilly under her breath.
    All around us, the wall panels came to life, each displaying a camera view of the virtual world inside Vista.
    Lilly was right.
    Everyone was screaming. Either in terror or in rage. Each screen was like a scene from a different nightmare, combat footage from the end of the earth: a city on fire, smoke everywhere; meteors hurtling to the ground and blowing up homes; a man, screaming, being eaten alive by a pack of zombies or vampires—they were maybe somehow both; another scene of screaming and terror that involved chains and naked bodies; two children crying in a corner, a shadow falling over them. . . .
    Lilly shut her eyes and shoved her hands against her ears. I tore my gaze away and focused on the cube, trying to unsee the images and yet I felt them burning into my brain forever.
    â€œI’m over here.”
    I tried to pick out the whispering voice among the horrors and found a face on one of the screens, up close to the lens. “Yeah, here.” He was a few years older than us, his face gaunt and streaked with ash and blood. One eye was swollen shut. The other hid deep in a hollow socket and darted around like a frightened animal. His chest was crisscrossed with straps of ammunition.
    â€œThe problem with Vista was that everyone got bored,” said Moros. “After about ten years in here, utopia just wasn’t that interesting anymore. So, the programmers started adding these survival challenges to spice things up—like an asteroid hit, a zombie uprising, and also twisted stuff, perversions—but they were just games and each one had an end. The last survivor would be declared the winner, and then the system would reset back to normal ol’ Vista. So, you’d maybe get your face eaten off by a demon, but then in what seemed like a blink, you’d wake up and find life back to the way it used to be. And then we’d read about what had happened and who had won and watch replays and it was all kind of a rush.
    â€œBut then . . . it warped everyone’s minds. Made us monsters. The programmers started increasing the challenges, everyone feeding off it, until . . . I don’t know what happened. Everybody lost it. I guess . . . who wants to play golf and raise your kids when you could be slitting the throats of your friends and tying up your neighbors? The system got overloaded, and all the terrors started happening at once. And now, the program won’t reset. All the programmers are dead. My dad is dead. I’ve been on my own for . . .”
    His gaze went blank. “Years. But I’ve figured out where the ports are for interfacing with the program—my dad had taught me some stuff before he died—so I can hide and . . . adapt.”