We walked the wasteland, for a while.
I finally could appreciate its beauty. It was like an expansive desert, behind us, the wall covering the forest, in front - another wall just like it.
"So who created the walls anyway," I said, sitting on Dragan's shoulder pad, moving my legs back and forth.
"That would be Zomearon himself."
"Oh, so is he like a great wizard or something!?" I asked as Dragan took a step, it almost felt like a little earthquake, I got used to it after a while, it was fun. It was like riding a BMX or a 4x4.
"Not at all, only a great technaut, in fact maybe one of the bests," he said.
"What's a technaut anyway?! Does this have anything to with the archive?!" I said.
"You catch on quick," he said with a smile. "The archive is where the technaut's go."
"Is it like a temple or a church or something?" I asked.
"It's not a real place," said Dragan.
"Huh? I'm not sure I follow," I was confused.
"It's like a metaphysical space," stated Dragan.
"Okay" I was even more confused. "And how do they go there?!" I continued.
"They need an empathy controller,"
"What's that?!" I was actually bewildered.
"Did you're world have VR, Virtual Reality?"
"I mean kinda, it was only starting when I died, but yeah," talking and walking in the wasteland was making him have a heavy breath.
It was like walking in the snow but in hot weather.
He stopped and started wheezing, his glass helmet started fogging up.
Dragan placed both hands on his waist and swallowed.
He took a breather.
"You okay?" I asked.
"Yeah, just need a moment, we're almost there," He continued walking, and started explaining.
"Well an Empathy Controller or EC, is sort of the next big thing after VR, AR and all of those Spatial Computing devices - it's fully immersive, all five senses," he took a beat, but didn't stop walking. He continued.
"Most people use it to traverse the archives, but they need to alter your nervous system, it's a very costly operation only certain people can do. In our world becoming an EC is committing to a whole new lifestyle, you're imprisoned and treated like a slave. You lose your liberty, and if you don't meet your quota, it's a quick death," he said. It was all so morbid sounding.
I could see the wall clearer now, and I could see people through it too, semi-transparent, fields for farming, a waterfall, a windmill, people hustling and bustling.
Dragan took another breather.
"This trek is always the hardest part," he managed to say. "I know it sounds grim, but some people die for that life," he continued walking.
"And how come you're not able to be a technaut?" I asked. "You said something like that earlier."
"My blood," he answered. The hill suddenly inclined.
"It's not compatible with the software, they never updated it for AB negative, AI run the archives now, they say they can't create a patch for it, it's against their protocol, they can only run the archives in it's current version - something having to do with perpetuity." he said in between heavy breaths.
That AI sounded scary, almost like it was sentient, I felt like there was so much more to this story, but this was all so confusing. My brain could barley keep up.
What exactly where they gaining by continuing to run the archive? Was it in as a server somewhere? I had so many questions, but I couldn't ask them. There was no time.
Suddenly we were here.
Just seconds from entering.
"You ready?" he said.
"Let's go!" I said, perking up. Dragan ran towards the wall, then suddenly we hit it, passing through.
Like a bubble bursting we passed through.
It instantly regenerated behind us. Dragan had to dust off the sand from his clothes.
Finally, we were here, Tarragon Village.