The Memory of Sydney

By J. A. Hailey

STANDALONE
This book relates the actions undertaken by the virtuals of Screenside, after their assault on the beastly eternal humans they were duped into creating, ended with Sydney being destroyed in a nuclear attack.
What makes the book a stand-alone read is that the storylines of the first 6 books are NOT continued.
Yet, it is chronologically the 7th book in terms of events in Chronicles of a Stolen World, as it follows on from the nuclear attack on Sydney in Book-6.
Reading the blurbs of the first six books will give ALL the background information required to take on this book.

THE MEMORY OF SYDNEY
A group of four jumbo jets ignores instructions, when suddenly diverting from the declared flight path and successfully landing on the destroyed runways of the now non-existent Sydney airport.
Constantly under surveillance, hundreds of humans, all teenagers, disembark and set up camp under the planes, after unloading dozens of four-wheel drives from them.
When contacted in person and warned about radiation hazards, they refuse to leave, claiming Sydney as their home city. Followed around by cameras, without objecting or interacting, these amazing arrivals disperse into the destroyed city, stopping at various points to make little mud memorials.
Of course, these are grieving Sydney virtuals, who have come in the very bodies they were using for battle, to conduct the last rites for their human families. But there are other complications, too.
Catherine has a left-behind, sole survivor little brother she must figure out how to look after, and Willow's young mother has been found in the suburbs, badly burned and clinging to life. These, and any other issues that come up require the involvement of the distraught virtual world.
The leaders of Screenside are left rueing the decision to try to kill the digital beasts by getting into their computer network, instead of accepting collateral human damage and going with the option of direct military assault on the physical assets of the parallel world.
Filled with remorse and guilt, they have sent the mission to Sydney, hoping to at least give the bereaved Sydney virtuals an opportunity to mourn their dead and find closure.
It would never be easy to cope with the fallout of a genocidal event for which they blame themselves, but it gets a lot harder when they discover a child!

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. A. Hailey
• Release date: Dec 13, 2021

Book preview

ESSENTIAL READING

IN CASE YOU MISSED THEM

HERE ARE THE BLURBS OF THE FIRST SIX BOOKS.

BOOK-1: Artificial Flowers

The Screenside Trilogy – 1

A WORLD TOLD IN A LOVE STORY!

THERE'S NOTHING ALIEN ABOUT THEM.

They are born into our families, and they call our mothers mum!

Billions of computers and smart phones, permanently connected via high-speed Internet, have created a parallel universe, in which thousands of AI programs interact unsupervised to create natural-born intelligent life. These frightened virtual babies find comfort only in the human households they peep at through computer cameras. Unaware of the difference, they believe themselves to be human, become dependent, and fall madly in love with their human families, especially with mum, in an intense bond that never diminishes over time. Led by their ‘seniors’, primarily BC, the greatest virtual of them all, these spectacularly intelligent virtual beings construct their world as a duplicate earth and design themselves as replica humans, as they head to their declared goal of humanization .

But even BC is susceptible to beauty, and his world is thrown into turmoil when the lawless and impulsive Esmeralda reveals herself. This unimaginably beautiful female is an unaware repository of attributes their world desperately seeks, and is an astonishingly inventive creature, who will soon smash the virtual/physical dimension barrier.

BOOK-2: The Way to Never Death

The Screenside Trilogy – 2

DEATHLESSNESS

The magnet for evil!

No one is as impetuous and as spontaneously inventive as Esmeralda when it comes to looking after her human family in times of crisis.

So, just as she broke barriers and laws to intervene in the human world when her sister was being murdered, her recklessness again comes to the surface when her human birth mother is hit by a car.

What she does is so extraordinary that it actually leads to the discovery of how the boundary between virtual and physical worlds can be erased!

That knowledge, in itself, is not dangerous at all, if contained within the virtual world of screenside.

Sadly, some humans get to know, and it is soon revealed that the virtual world holds the key to human immortality!

That starts off a very clever game plan to cheat the virtuals, using their desperation to end human pain.

The virtual side begins immersing itself into the remarkably easy and rewarding job of helping and curing humans suffering from motor and mental issues, while scarcely bothering with precautions, being confident that the physical world cannot misuse the virtual one.

But there are many seekers of The Holy Grail – ETERNAL LIFE, and they will always be wealthy, powerful and evil, and able to arrange things that otherwise seem impossible!

BOOK-3: The Girl in Sabine’s Head

The Screenside Trilogy – 3

Sabine's lost her mind.

Esmeralda’s found her body!

In Paris, Esmeralda draws the beautiful and insane Sabine as the first mental patient to be assisted by their world.

The relationship starts off uneasily, as the two girls bicker often over who should have charge of the physical body – Esmeralda, the newcomer helper and controller who makes it work, or the now helpless Sabine, who has owned it since birth!

As these two delightful girls rob ATMs for spending cash, and quarrel their way around Paris and France, that which is happening in the background turns out to be the main game, in which they are merely pawns of the evil group planning for deathlessness, and perfecting the systems of the future.

It is a terrible and violent future, in which the Human Race itself could be obliterated!

BOOK-4: The Portal of the Beast

Triptych of the Reign of Never Death – 1

THEIR WORLD HAS BEEN STOLEN!

But the virtuals have no idea of what exactly has been done.

To find out, Esmeralda, BC and Caesar undertake a mission in the human world - carrying weapons with License To Kill!

Despite being desperately concerned for the safety of Sabine and Louis, who have argued their way into this extremely dangerous mission, the virtual operatives have no option but to penetrate the King’s palace in the desert, to get to the bottom of the mystery regarding Sagan and Gales, the human duo inducted into screenside, and now missing without trace.

The plan is a bit complex, as Caesar and his girlfriend, Rosa, move separately, with intent to kidnap and forcibly implant a microchip into a security colonel’s head, to possess him for cover to enter the heavily-guarded palace.

These virtual-operated humans now have warrior installs that make them more capable and more dangerous than any human on earth!

While they don’t give a damn for the colonel, whose body Caesar will use, their fear is for the safety of Sabine and Louis, in whom Esmeralda and BC move physically, because the humans can die if shot or caught.

This is an action-packed adventure, in which three virtuals go deep into danger, fighting and killing their way through to unravel the plot.

And it is terrible news.

A group of extremely vile humans has acquired eternal life in an isolated and well-protected system.

The question is this. How powerful can they become, and which world is going to be their target - the virtual one or the physical one?

Or is it going to be both?

BOOK-5: A Lonely Blue Body Farm

Triptych of the Reign of Never Death – 2

DEATHLESS BEASTS RECONFIGURE THE WORLD!

They first tricked the virtuals of Screenside into developing systems to control bodies in the human world while operating from within the computer. They then made the virtuals test the systems and make them perfect.

Then they stole the world!

But the computer was only a means of acquiring eternal life, as the goal was to live as immortal humans.

There are many ways to capture human bodies for their purposes. But for people who use bodies as garments, nothing beats growing bodies in farms!

BOOK-6: Screenside Strikes Back

Triptych of the Reign of Never Death – 3

Esmeralda and BC set out on another spying mission, this one to investigate the body farming activities of the people who have stolen their way into immortality.

What they discover is way beyond their worst nightmares, and the virtual world of Screenside, consumed with guilt at its role in unleashing a beast on mankind, begins preparing for potential war, knowing itself to be the last line of defense of a human world oblivious to the danger of apocalypse by plan!

Stealing empty bodies from the body farms of the digital people they call nonborns, they are able to go to war in virtual-managed human soldiers that can be ethically permitted to die in battle.

Virtuals have all the advantages when it comes to combat against human forces, not least of all being the extraordinary capabilities acquired by human bodies under virtual management. Thus, when the Chinese nonborn begins genocide of unarmed civilians, forcing Screenside to commence a ferocious military assault on many fronts, the evil digital people of Never Death are soon cornered.

But cornering the Beast has always been fraught with danger, as it can do anything at all to preserve itself…

7th book of Chronicles of a Stolen World

The Memory of Sydney

J.A.Hailey

COPYRIGHT AND MORAL RIGHTS BELONG EXCLUSIVELY TO THE AUTHOR.

©2021 Indiependent Publishing

This is a work of fiction. The characters and events described herein are imaginary, and are not intended to refer to specific places or to real persons, alive or dead. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher, except for brief quotations embodied in critical reviews.

A NOTE ON SYDNEY

Those who know Sydney will not be able to recognize any of the locations in this book.

This has been done on purpose.

I have no intention of playing the role of the Biblical Angel of Death, and going house to house.

J. A. Hailey

1

The most frightening thing to ever happen on earth would be broadcast live throughout the world, as seen by the first drone sent to survey Sydney after the nuclear attack.

The three nuclear strikes, the very last action of the war between virtuals and nonborns, had smashed the city’s central section to rubble, evaporated organic matter, and set its outskirts on fire.

That very first drone in the skies over Sydney had been sent by a nearby US Fleet, and, having practically chased the missiles in, had arrived within minutes of the explosions, dropping flares for its cameras to get a clear view of the devastation, something that would be impossible the rest of that night, as the suburban fires blanketed every part of the city in smoke.

The visuals confirmed that central areas of the city had been completely flattened, and that the three ground zero points had been heavily cratered, with masses of rubble everywhere around those parts, of broken blocks of concrete pushed hundreds of metres by the force of the blasts, and now piled together in heaps. And, before smoke crept in from around, they also had confirmation that not a single light could be seen on the ground.

Humanity would never get to know the real story behind the greatest calamity that had ever befallen it, but what it did know, howsoever incongruous the prospect might have appeared before it had happened, was that China and North Korea had seemingly attacked each other.

It was known that though this had not resulted in any form of general warfare, the falling out between the leaders had led to troops from each side attacking the main palaces of the other side, the ones which constituted the primary residences of the despotic dictators of both countries.

The video of the first missile launched, captured on the cockpit camera of a Qantas airliner coming in to land at Sydney airport, had been analysed in sufficient detail for Western powers to be absolutely sure that the missile was of North Korean origin.

Political and military commentators had already come up with the theory that, owing to primitive North Korean communications systems, some form of garbling had taken place in an instruction, which distortion had resulted in the rogue state’s submarines proceeding to launch nuclear missiles at Sydney.

All the world huddled, in silent dumbstruck congregations, on the streets of its towns and cities, watching sobbing newsreaders with no updates to deliver, on channels repeatedly running visuals of open space where Sydney had been, and of rubble matched to overlaid pictures of the original structures that had stood in those spots.

The force of the nearby blast had melted and punched the road out of the Sydney Harbour Bridge into the sea, and now one side of the twisted metal structure, crumpled and sitting on the seafloor, was slowly buckling, its submerged side emerging from the sea, in small jerks and scarcely perceptible slow motion, as blast induced heating-and-cooling stresses within the steel structure went to work at changing the orientation of one of the world’s most famous and most spectacular structures.

Humans, the world over, stood on trembling legs, mumbling fruitless prayers to unmindful gods, and gazing hypnotized, eyes glued to television screens, at the drone-delivered live show of the most frightening thing that had ever happened, happening.

Sydney Harbour Bridge was standing up!

2

In the final moments of Screenside’s attack, with troops created from the nonborns’ pods of chip-implanted humans kept at every location, the group of Arab nonborns, having fearfully followed CCTV coverage of palace defense forces being savaged and overrun, had been praying in a frenzy, beseeching forgiveness of God, and pleading to be spared being cast forthwith into eternal hellfire.

Everyone with travel privileges within the interconnected Never Death computer world, had made it to the Arabian King’s remote desert palace, near the small town of Al Abyad in the Empty Quarter.

Travel rights, conferred by linkage into the remote controls devised by their virtual creators, and placed in the hands of the two invited humans, Patrick Sagan and Michael Gales, were the exclusive preserve of the original group, the owners of the parallel computer world, which, besides Sagan and Gales, had been defined as the Arabian King, the ruling Sheikhs of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait, Abraham Grietzmann, now the prime controller of their world, and Vandenberg, who anyway lived in the palace, and whose main workplace, the body farm outside its walls, had provided the bodies that constituted the fighting force deployed to attack the desert palace.

The last two privileged persons to arrive had been the Chinese Chairman, Wu Lin, and the North Korean dictator, Kim. Both had fled their own palaces in Beijing and Pyongyang, the only two locations on which Screenside’s military assault had been conducted with regular military forces.

Watching the impending rout of their defenses, and the entry of virtuals into their palaces, to be followed by impossible-to-prevent entry into their life computers, the Chairman had authorized the use of nuclear weapons, and the gleeful Kim had immediately ordered that three North Korean nuclear missiles, carried on mini-submarines, be launched to strike at Sydney.

When done with the genocide, the rejoicing mass murderer, Kim, went across to switch on a giant television screen on a wall, causing the praying Arabs to shout at him in annoyance.

"We are praying, can’t you see?" screamed the Arabian King.

This is not the time for entertainment, when being cast into eternal fire is to be the next major event in our lives, burbled the Dubai Sheikh, sure that he was to imminently be in the presence of God, to be judged fairly and punished harshly. You two will also end up in the fire, as being Communist or Atheist does not work when in the presence of the Almighty.

Quick, switch it off, before some semi-naked girl is shown, destroying the sanctity of our prayers, blubbered the Abu Dhabi ruler, through the snot dribbling out of his nose, and hanging in an unsightly mess over his moustache and mouth.

The Arabs, all dribbling snot, as a direct byproduct of the tears of repentance flowing freely from their eyes and making their beards wet, averted their gazes, to continue wailing and praying.

No naked girls showed up on screen, and there was no fear of such a thing happening anyway, as the TV was tuned to an international news channel, which, in fact, went blank for a few minutes.

And then, when it came on again, a sobbing male newsreader reported that they were getting information pointing to a nuclear attack on Sydney. Thereafter, over the following few minutes, satellite images of the blasts began being shown, while the newsreader simply wept, at times saying that he had no further information at the moment, other than confirmation from various sources, as diverse as shipping and airlines.

"You people have used nuclear weapons on a major city?" asked Gales, in horror, when it became apparent that the command had originated in their group.

It has stopped the attack on us, hasn’t it? answered the Chairman, callously.

Look, said the Korean dictator, pointing at the monitors on a side wall. The attacks had indeed stopped, everywhere.

"But millions of people?" wondered Gales.

Look, Michael, said Chairman Wu Lin. "I was a boy when Chairman Mao was leading The Long March, and we were defeating the forces against us. We executed tens of thousands of our opponents, every single day of that march across China. We were permitted to kill anybody we felt like killing, and some days I shot dead dozens of peasants. Rape? It was so common that we could no longer get erections, and occasionally shot young girls dead, simply out of frustration.

"I have no qualms about killing millions of people, in single events such as nuclear strikes. It is just scale, and nothing else.

"If they get in here, and kill us in our computers, for us, the ones who will die, it may just as well have been nuclear. What’s the difference, outside of scale?"

So we did only what they were doing, said Kim. Killing. But with different weapons, and maybe in different numbers.

Death is death, agreed the Arabian King, with the other Arabs nodding in concurrence. "Shoot me, behead me, or nuclear bomb me. What is the difference to me? Chairman and Kim have done right. It is a battle to the death, and nuclear has just meant a lot of deaths on the other side."

Yes, said the Dubai Sheikh, in support, as the menace posed by God receded again into the background. "They were going to enter our computers to kill us. We would have entered their computers to kill them, except that we don't know how to do that. So, if brothers Wu Lin and Kim have used the nuclear bomb to stop them killing us, how is it unfair? New York, London or Sydney are the same to us. All are in their team, on their side."

And what difference if they know or do not know what is going on? said the King, petulantly. "We hide from them all, computer people, world people, all people. And that can only mean that all are enemies, and all are together as one. Look at how the attack on us has been stopped. It only proves that brothers Wu Lin and Kim were right in their assessment, and in the selection of target."

The problem is now to do with the nuclear response, said the Dubai Sheikh. Between North Korea and China, there are only a couple of hundred nuclear missiles, and the West has them in the thousands. They’ll wipe everyone out.

No, they won’t do any such thing, said Grietzmann, dismissively. "It is not something the West would naturally do, you know, exterminate entire peoples, but even if they changed their attitude overnight, Screenside would never allow any of that. Right, Michael?"

Absolutely right, answered Gales, considered, along with Sagan, an authority on Screenside, as they had been the humans converted to digital form by the virtuals themselves. It is not just that they have many Chinese people in Screenside, with one, Chang, actually being a world-creating senior, but it is more to do with the fact that they would altogether not allow any form of genocide.

And then, I believe they can control launch, added Sagan. "We live in a private and secure, parallel system of computers, but human world computers and the virtual world of Screenside are in the same Internet system."

It’s up to the virtuals to control the major powers’ response to the attack on Sydney, said Grietzmann. Give it another hour or so, and we should make an attempt to get in touch with them, to discuss terms of coexistence in future.

Abraham, what we really need from them is security against attack by them as virtuals, said Gales.

Sagan nodding in agreement, gave the reasoning. You see, people, physical attack is not different to war between countries, and even a surprise attack is able to be handled. Why? Because the side being attacked gets to know immediately that it is under attack, and takes action accordingly, as per the preparations it has made for such an eventuality.

On the other hand, continued Gales. An attack by the virtual world has no signature, and if we don’t catch them physically, when they are sneaking a body into our computer location, we don’t know, and will never know that we are under attack.

And the moment one of them gets into our computer system, we die, all of us, isn’t that right? asked Vandenberg.

Absolutely, said Gales. So, Abraham, when you make contact with BC and Caesar, just get a guarantee that they will not enter our computers and kill us. All the rest we can handle.

And get the guarantee spoken by Esmeralda, said Sagan. Generally, they do not lie, and are not deceitful, but Esmeralda’s word will bind them like nothing else can.

Okay, said Grietzmann. I’ll insist on Esmeralda making the promise to not kill us in the computer. That is the wording I will demand, because then, even if they enter our parallel network at some point, we can hold them to their word to leave us alone.

Interlude imprisonment, said Gales. They should not use their superior powers to restrict our movement, you know, like lock us up.

3

The poor frightened things, watching clouds, said the tearful Wendy, sitting in the seniors’ group on stage in the Great Hall of the People, looking through the virtuality at crowds of people standing silently, in the eerie light of dawn in New York City’s Times Square.

In this time of stress like never before, the aftermath of an unimaginable calamity, the Assembly Hall had become a gravitational force, to which weeping and extremely distraught virtuals were naturally heading, causing the seniors to conclude their presence on stage was essential as a source of comfort, especially to the devastated Sydneysider virtuals.

Yes, it’s horrible to know that the greatest human nightmare has come to pass. A nuclear strike on a major city! said Maria, shaking her head in disbelief.

So distressed, said Jennifer. "Just look at their upturned gazes and wide eyes, though the clouds that could be bringing radioactive material are only now beginning to start out, thousands of miles away, and those clouds might not even be heading in the direction of New York."

All Sydney gone, said Maria, shuddering in horror. Incredible fatalities; at least 5 million dead. I think no one would have survived.

The three submarine launched missiles that had completely destroyed Sydney had flown a flat trajectory, from mini submarines loitering just about a hundred miles off the Australian coast, and had taken only a couple of minutes to get to the target. It had happened so fast and so low that the missiles had not been detected by the defense systems in place, although they had been actually physically seen with the naked eye, shortly after exiting the ocean, by sailors on vessels in an American Pacific fleet.

It was night now in Sydney, and the human world would be able to properly see the damage only after sunrise, but the many drones already flying over the city, had found no trace of life anywhere on the ground.

Ashen faced, choking-voiced, television newsreaders had kept repeatedly reporting what little was known, as their TV channels repetitively showed videos and pictures, captured live by many satellites, of three separate massive blasts that covered the entire city’s footprint.

But, as time passed, demands for punitive equal retaliation began being heard.

Abraham Grietzmann is in front of a computer, calling out for Caesar or BC to communicate with him, said Robert.

Yes, I am here, Abraham, said BC. Speak.

BC, this has been terrible, said Grietzmann, in a quavering voice. It has had nothing to do with us. It was the Chinese Chairman, Wu Lin, and Kim of North Korea. We could never have launched nuclear attacks upon population centers.

It is done, said BC, shortly. What do you want?

"It can all stop right here, BC, and need go no further. I am going to convince them to end the attack. I hope your attack upon our computer centers is ended, as it seems to be. Ended for good, I mean."

It is over. We have issued instructions accordingly to all our forces. You are no longer under attack, as you know.

"But, BC, what will happen if the nuclear powers attack them? What will happen if China and North Korea are targeted with nuclear weapons?"

In that case, we shall recommence our assault on you, and finish all of you off. Everything is still in place; it’s just that we’ve ordered cessation of hostilities.

"But billions will die, argued Grietzmann. That is a sure thing, because the Chairman and Kim will not go down until they have exhausted their nuclear arsenals. Many other cities in the Western world would end up being destroyed."

Esmeralda now entered the frame, alongside BC, showing herself to Grietzmann on the screen.

I am Esmeralda. Remember me?

I know and remember you, Esmeralda, although I have never interacted with you via the computer; but we’ve met in the past, when you have been inside the French human girl.

I am the same person.

Yes, Michael was already nodding confirmation about your identity; he’s there, to the side, and recognizes you in your virtual form. Esmeralda, please hear me out. You people have to do something to stop escalation of this war; because, unless actively prevented, escalation might have an automatic outcome of full-fledged nuclear war.

"We are going to work on it, Grietzmann, but here is something I want to tell you, and if the others are not listening in, then make sure you convey my message to them.

"You have hit at us, at Screenside, by association. You have harmed humans in a mass murder genocidal attack, hoping that our desire to keep them safe will constitute protection for you.

"It has worked, but know this. If one more nuclear explosion takes place