Rooms Read online

  Rooms

  Book I of the Rooms’ Series

  Bob Stegner

  Cover Illustration and Design

  Greg Opalinski

  Copyright © 2019 Bob Stegner

  All rights reserved.

  Edition 2

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to my father and mother for their encouragement and faith in me and to Magda and Kendra for their hard work, support, and belief in Rooms.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1O-244

  Chapter 2R-131

  Chapter 3The Door

  Chapter 4Change

  Chapter 5Insight

  Chapter 6Obsessed

  Chapter 7Rad

  Chapter 8Zeer

  Chapter 9The Scree

  Chapter 10The Room: Level 1

  Chapter 11Into the Desert

  Chapter 12Shawn O’Reilly III

  Chapter 13The Room: Level 2 / Old Earth

  Chapter 14The Room: Level 2 / Transformations

  Chapter 15Rest

  Chapter 16Questions

  Chapter 17The History Cluster

  Chapter 18One

  Chapter 19The Decision

  Chapter 20The Room: Level 3 / War

  Chapter 21The Room: Level 3 / AmeriCorp

  Chapter 22Interlude

  Chapter 23The Room: Level 3 / Jana

  Chapter 24The Room: Level 3 / Above Earth

  Chapter 25The Room: Level 3 / Reprise

  Chapter 26The Room: Level 3 / Sparks

  Chapter 27The Room: Level 3 / Visionaries

  Chapter 28The Room: Level 3 / Healing

  Chapter 29The Room: Level 3 / Zeer

  Chapter 30The Room: Level 3 / The Meeting

  Chapter 31The Room: Level 3 / Crossroads

  Chapter 32The Room: Level 3 / The Plan

  Chapter 33The Room: Level 3 / End Game

  Chapter 34Home

  Chapter 35The Womb

  Chapter 36Awakening

  Chapter 37Another Beginning

  Chapter 38Earth

  About the Author

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I want to acknowledge everyone that has read or reviewed Rooms. All of your thoughts, comments, and suggestions helped immeasurably with the re-writes and edits of the book.

  Thank you!

  1

  O-244

  Ever since he was very young, Rad had always been able to see his life laid out in front of him very clearly. He would travel from one lifeglobe to another, do his job during the day, and then spend the rest of his time training, preparing, and educating himself to play the Rooms’ circuit at night and on free-days.

  Becoming an elite player was all that he had ever wanted, and as he conquered one Room, he would move on to the next. It was his identity, and it was what most young people inside a lifeglobe ever thought about. It took them places, holographically, provided experiences, challenged them, and gave them a sense of the universe that they otherwise could never have had. And as the Rooms improved and advanced technologically, they also became more demanding, enticing, and addictive. So what had happened? What had made him do what he’d done that night?

  ***

  Rad returned to his flat and looked in the mirror. His hair, although a bit disheveled, was still black and full, his eyes still pools of blue, and his skin more brown and darker than most who lived in a lifeglobe. But something was different. His face now carried a series of red blotches that made the memory of what he’d done come flooding back. And there was something else - something that no one else could see in the mirror but him. He had changed inside.

  Rad slowly pulled himself away from the reflection and sat down on his bed. He stared through the outview in his flat, looking out towards where it had all happened. It had only been thirty minutes or so since the event, but it had been long enough that it was beginning to feel a bit surreal. He could still see it in his mind, but the memory was slightly skewed and caused him to shiver. Why had he taken such a chance?

  As the minutes passed by, one word kept intruding on Rad’s thoughts, and eventually escaped his lips. “Outside…” Outside, beyond the barriers, the walls, and the plastishield dome lay a forbidden place – a dangerous place, wild and unforgiving - a place where very few from any lifeglobe ever ventured. Sure the maintenance crews, engineers, miners, and scientists had to go there at times, but the normal populace would never consider it. It had been an unwritten law throughout the galaxy for generations. You could fry your brains or be exposed to hazardous chemicals and toxins. You could easily die of exposure. Your survival suit could malfunction. There was no air, no water, no food… But Rad had done it. He had been there; he had survived, and he never wanted to forget it. It was more than just an experience, far more than a simple holographic Rooms’ adventure. He knew that it would forever be a seminal moment in his life.

  He stood and walked over to his desk, took out pen and paper, sat down, and started writing it all down – every feeling, every second, every thought.

  O-244 was my first assignment on a lifeglobe away from my parents. Everything was new and vibrant. I loved every part of it. I had a great job, was meeting people on my own, and this lifeglobe was a lot more exciting than the one where I’d lived with my family. I’d chosen this assignment because of its Rooms’ circuit, and it was also close enough to my parents home that we could visit each other once in a while.

  O-244 is a lunar planet. It has no atmosphere. It hovers far from its parent planet, which happens to be a gas giant. Its surface is rugged - its colors, black and tan from the minerals and rocks within its crust. Viewing it from inside the lifeglobe seems immediately mysterious and beautiful, and when I first arrived, I remember thinking, ‘I wonder what it would be like to walk outside?’

  After I got here, I quickly settled into my first real job. I was part of the governing and planning council and enjoyed the work. We heard people’s complaints and problems and worked with the scientists, engineers, miners, and maintenance crews to help keep the lifeglobe running and functioning properly.

  In the evenings and on my free-days, I began my preparations to become an elite Rooms’ player. The Rooms are an incredible form of entertainment, but you don’t enter them without having prepared yourself. That is, unless all you want do is be an observer. If you plan on actually playing, you have to study and train. Competing against other players as well as advanced computer arrays, nanos, and holographic simulations is not something to enter into lightly. I studied yoga, meditation, and planetary history. I also did as much research into the development of the Rooms as I could, and during that process, learned a great deal about the human race’s ancestral home – Earth.

  I did all of that, and after living, working, and playing the Rooms on O-244 for over three years, I finally arrived at “now.”

  ‘Why? Why was life here not enough for me?’ I had friends. My work was satisfying. My training and education had gone well, and I was doing what I’d always wanted to do. I was an accomplished and talented Rooms’ player – not elite yet, but better every day.

  However, the confines of living inside a lifeglobe, along with a yearning that had developed from my studies, began eating at me. I was happy, and of course, I loved playing the Rooms, but something was missing. I found myself thinking about how the human race had once lived on Earth. Yes, they had to have shelters and clothes to protect them from the elements, but they were free to breathe the air, drink fresh water, eat food that had been grown from earth’s rich soil, and they could feel the sun, wind, and rain on their skin.

  As I went about my daily life, my mind fixated on that ancestral experience. It made its way into my dreams, and I found myself looking out through the domed lifeglobe at the surface of this beautiful moon, wondering how it
would be to walk outside on its surface without anything between it and me.

  So…the day came when I started planning. I spoke with a friend in maintenance who would lend me a survival suit and another, a scientist, who often went out to conduct some experiments. Because of my standing on the council, I was able to get permission to exit the lifeglobe on the condition that I would go with my friend to look at his experiments and then return after no more than thirty minutes. Everything was ready.

  The day came, and I met Charlie after work in the dressing room for airlock-12. We casually chatted for a while and then entered the airlock. My survival suit was gray with a simple, functional design that sealed my body from head to toe. An external airpack was on the back with tubes that connected to my helmet. The facemask was made from thick plastishield and was tinted with a dense, yellowish film to protect my eyes and face. The whole suit was designed to keep radiation at a minimum and yet light enough to not be too cumbersome. Charlie helped me into it, and I had him explain all of the connections and features so that I understood how it worked. I practiced taking the facemask on and off a few times just to make sure I could do it.

  Before we exited the lifeglobe, we checked each other’s suits and intercoms. Everything worked. Charlie put his code into the exterior door’s keypad. The door opened and then automatically sealed behind us. I can still remember the ‘whooshing’ sound.

  I immediately felt lighter and off balance. The gravity on the moon’s surface was about a tenth of what we were used to inside the lifeglobe. It was an awkward sensation for a short time, but with Charlie’s help, I adapted.

  Making our way to a shed nearby, we walked inside, and Charlie explained his low-grav experiments where he was growing certain types of bioengineered plants inside the protective structure. It was interesting, but of course, that’s not why I was there.

  When we were done, we started walking back to the airlock. I was behind Charlie. He didn’t notice that I’d stopped. The sun had just set. In the distance, I could see pinpoints of stars in the dark sky and a slight glow from the gas giant on the horizon. It would rise into the sky and begin to be visible soon. I could also see the edge of some craters and a series of low mountains several kilometers away. I knew that the colors of the soil and rocks should be black and tan, but through my tinted facemask the colors were distorted. That was also the case for the glow from the gas giant and the stars that were blinking on above me.

  The time had finally come. I glanced over my shoulder one last time, and Charlie had continued walking toward the airlock. I reached up and prepared to unlock and remove my facemask. My heart was pounding, and I could feel my hands shaking. I wanted this, but it was not going to be easy. I would only have a few seconds before I had to replace the optical shield once I’d removed it.

  I glanced once more towards Charlie, took a deep breath and unclipped the shield. I can still remember the sounds and sensations as it happened. There was a click as the shield released and a loud rush of air moved past my face. I kept my eyes closed for the first several seconds but then opened them and had a moment of utter astonishment. My strong emotions made it extremely difficult to hold my breath, but I steadied myself and focused on the moment. The clarity and beauty of the world that I now saw, viewed without obstructions or glass barriers, was glorious. The horizon was crisp, the mountains larger and more pronounced, the stars burst across the black sky clear and bright, and the glow from the slowly rising gas giant was massive and multi-colored as it began to stretch across the horizon – all of it magnificent and unbelievably crystalline and real.

  But then the hazardous nature of my situation overcame my excitement, and I began to ache from the severe cold that was threatening to freeze my skin. My lungs were throbbing from the need to inhale, and my eyes were watering and clouding over from the exposure to the elements. I hung on, but I was beginning to feel light-headed and dizzy - my head and ears pounding from the change in pressure.

  My brain shrieked at me to replace the plastishield orb and re-pressurize before I lost consciousness, but even then, even though my body pulsed with pain, I maintained for a few more seconds. Alive. I was alive and this was beyond my wildest dreams.

  I replaced the cover just in time. My suit and helmet rapidly filled with oxygen, and my burning lungs took it in. I immediately felt the warmth of my suit as it relieved the incredible cold. Then a hand forcefully grabbed my shoulder, and turned me around. I looked up into the frightened eyes of my friend and heard him yell, “What the hell were you doing, Rad? Is this why you brought me out here? You could have easily died. You crazy bastard! Damn you!”

  I recovered and did my best to explain, but he was still angry and refused to discuss it. I did get him to say that he would keep what had happened to himself, but I think I may have lost Charlie as a friend that night. Even so, seeing and experiencing the world without anything blocking or limiting me was a phenomenon that I would never forget. Everywhere I’d ever been, there had always been the necessity to look through something – some barrier continually protecting me from the “out there.” Everyone was forever protected from the "out there.”

  2

  R-131

  Lying quietly awake, Rad looked through multiple transparent barriers to the world outside. The night was coal black and still, as the wind, sand and silt no longer pummeled the exterior of his new home on R-131. A calm had finally set in following the violent storm that had raged on for days since his arrival, and at the edges of his sleeping area, the artificial glow of the nightshines sent out faint waves of light, giving it a warm, comfortable feeling. He was safe and protected from the harsh planet, living in a beautifully unique and new lifeglobe.

  From his bed, he could not only see the city inside the dome, but he was up high enough in his building to have an unobstructed view of the planet’s undulating, rocky, and reddish-brown surface as it lay stretched out towards the horizon. Even farther in the distance under the bright light of two of R-131’s moons, he caught sight of the stark outline of the Sharp Mountains reaching up into the night sky.

  Within the dome and directly outside his flat lay the vast city. It stretched several kilometers in every direction like an octopus with tall, angular buildings shooting upwards, creating a cityscape of diverse and architecturally unique structures. The lights in each blinked on and off, and the Center – the cultural and business hub of the city – lay before him with a patchwork of colored signs and hectic activity that, for this time of night, surprised him.

  It was an intriguing and inimitable new home for Rad. It was much larger than any of his previous abodes and was the first to actually have an atmosphere. It was toxic and at times meteorologically dangerous, but an atmosphere nonetheless. He had even read that at one time in R-131s past, it was believed that water had covered much of its surface and that some still existed in subterranean caves.

  Rad hadn’t been able to sleep much since arriving on R-131, and tonight was no exception. The move had not been easy for him. It had taken a full year in sleep-mode to reach it - the longest he’d ever remained in that state. It would more than likely take him awhile to recover, but he thought that he could probably begin work in another two or three days. He would have to see.

  But since sleep was only coming sporadically, it gave him a lot of time to think. He couldn’t help but look back on his life, especially at what had happened on O-244. That event had had a huge impact and was simply part of him now. He couldn’t get it out of his mind and kept thinking that there had to be a better way to live, but he also had a practical side and knew that living as humans had once lived on Earth was a pipedream. It had been hundreds and hundreds of years since his species had abandoned their diseased and dying home, and in all of that time, no other planet like it had ever been found. The human family was now spread out across the galaxy simply doing its best to survive and living on any rock that fit its needs. Survival in these raw and dangerous places necessitated barriers, walls, a
nd survival suits. He simply had to accept that. The type of life that he had dreamed of would never come again, and he knew it.

  On the other two planets where Rad had lived after O-244, he had thrown himself back into his work and obsessively trained and educated himself in order to become an elite Rooms’ player. He had succeeded in both of those areas. He was well known for his abilities as a council member, and on his free-days and nights, he had achieved renown as an elite player. But even with all this, he could seldom shake the loneliness or sadness that he often felt, except when he was consumed by work or playing a Room. The games had become an addiction that could alleviate and numb his quiet pain, but afterwards…afterwards the feelings always returned.

  That was the main reason that Rad had made this move to R-131. He had decided to leave the Rooms’ circuit behind and go to a place that had more to offer – more that could distract him from his addiction. It would not be easy on R-131 either, though, since some of the most dynamic and technologically advanced Rooms in the galaxy were located there, but he’d made up his mind.

  He would change his habits and decided that one way would be for him to become more active. On P-19, his previous lifeglobe, he had noticed people riding speedcycles. They intrigued him. He knew he’d love the speed, and it would be a good way to get more exercise. So before leaving for R-131, he purchased one and brought it with him.

  There were other things that Rad could do to occupy his time on his new home as well. He wouldn’t play any longer, but he could visit some Rooms and watch and would continue to work hard at his job. He could study more history, which he loved, and make some new friends. There was no way he was going to allow himself to become obsessed again. Never again!