Chapter 7: Awakening
"It's all blank.. All I can remember is that Majima guy pulling the trigger. But wait what are these… Letters saying?" thought Jin
The screen was showing:
"Ivar prison: logged out patent-988117"
"Proceeding awakening..."
Jin opened his eyes once again and found himself in a room in the sky, he was sitting on a device called "Mirg transporter".
A door opened right in front of him, from it came out a man in his fifties with cold eyes and a scar on his cheek, he said: "it's me, you know me as Majima but in the real world my name is James I am an agent, sorry about later, and all those deaths but here in the real world you only have one chance no more deaths than one"
Jin answered: "How… Is this? That Ishin guy told me that we weren't in the real world, so this must be it, and my life was it all a lie?"
James: "It is, but I think you had a life before... Ivar and everything… I went through your files and weirdly found nothing."
Jin: "But How?"
James: "Save your breath kid I am going to explain what is happening" James poured himself a drink and lit a cigarette then continued: "This room we are in is in the highest floor of what we call a skyscraper: a very high building that goes higher than the clouds…Technology have advanced in this era and a group of scientists created the Mirg Grid, it is some sort of numeric shared dream, I will show you a movie that explains this grid thing it's called the Ma.." while pouring a drink and handing it to Jin
"The Matrix.. yes he told me" answered Jin. He then snatched the glass and gulped it down in one shot
James answered with a smirk: "I see that Ishin told you much more than that...now listen in the Grid you can take every appearance and name you want, and that is convenient for a guy like me because you see Jin, I am an agent that is one of the heads of international security, if I need to take a blind eye I do it but when I must eliminate someone for getting on my way I do.. And I think that you can deduct by now that you are the obstacle.. "
James threw a menacing look at Jin before smiling and then continued: "But… It seem you have something that Ishin wants deliberately, now I won't tell you why we want that guy, it's classified"
He continued: "The Mirg games are events created by Artificial intelligences in the grid, those machines are so strong and powerful that they control many things in the real world and the grid, they are similar to deities. For some people, there are even cults worshipping them. Those events are created but they need something in exchange, for example a Mirg game can be a wager between two big companies, or some sponsored championship. See the Grid can be explored any time but you would not get anything rewarding, contrarily to the games where there is always a prize, a champion to snatch his power from and many more"
Jin:"This is gullible, but what about those powers and Ivar, so all those guys were real or were they fake? "
James: "Powers.. I'd call them programs or maybe hacks, those can be built or found on the grid, but as I told you,most of the big prizes are in the games... now about those guys they were all programs acting as humans, but there is one thing that is fishy, we were four real people apart from me, you and Ishin but from all those programs there was another real person blending in as a program. "
James then took a serious tone and continued: "One last mystery I don't get is what you were doing in an Ivar prison. See you were in the most securable prison in the world where the mind is the prisoner, I guess this is something we can answer another day but for now I need you to bait Ishin. Enough from the revelations now I will tell you my version of things and you will get the big picture."
"You will also be working with me from now on, let me introduce you to the team."
The door opened foreshadowing four people entering the room.
James: "go one stand up and say hello to them"
Jin stood up, and while walking to them he faced a mirror in his left.
Surprised and confused he remarked:"This…This is not my face"