Sci-fi Novel - The Dream Artist - Part 25

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15
Part 16
Part 17
Part 18
Part 19
Part 20
Part 21
Part 22
Part 23
Part 24

Part 25

After reading articles on hypernet for a few hours, I got out of the office, got on my quadcopter and set off to Selim Özben's House in Beykoz. There was an unstable autumn air out there, and the sun appeared and disappeared among the clouds, and the wind was often changing directions causing the quadcopter to sway. During our previous visit, our laser balls were able to draw a map of all possible locations as the rooms of the building were continually moving. In fact, there were four floors and a suspended ceiling inside the building, which looked like three floors from the outside. On each level, there were eight rooms with five feet of width and height. The stories made the equation more complicated because they could be positioned half-fold up or down from their original position. So the laser balls depicted the building as eight-story. The combinational change of the rooms with each other in the horizontal plane increased the number of room composition. The person who entered such a place with hundreds of times more positional arrangements than a Rubik Cube had to rely heavily on the central control computer and its software. When I was deeply concerned about the contents of the building and their possible connections to Selim Özben's dreams and disappearance, I was intrigued by the opening of the door of my quadcopter. When I got off the quadcopter, I saw that Marlo, which I left locked up in the last meeting, heading towards the flying track.

I was happy to see him as I saw an old friend and said, “Last time I pushed you a little too much, my mission requires that, sorry, man.”

“We androids have been programmed to be stable and self-sacrificing beings in service, not to be arrogant,” said Marlo.

I said, “I'm grateful to the programmers, Marlo, that you're going to be a good fellow to me on my trip to the house.”

“I would like to express that I do not have the authority to open the gates inside the labyrinth and that my software will not do anything to find a way,” Marlo said as we walked home.

“Is there another android in the labyrinth?” I asked.

“No,” Marlo said, "except for the cleaning machines."

"So how did you find your way to serving Selim Özben?” I asked.

"The algorithm is straightforward, enter through the pop-up door if you have a job in the room and wait for the other door to open."

I said, “I love to walk around historic buildings with guidance, else I need to spend a lot of effort. Whether it's people, android or computer software, agents in this world use the least effort logic to achieve the result they want, and they don't want to waste their energy.”

“It is an uncontrolled environment and has risks because it is designed to create excitement,” said Marlo.

“The main gate is going through the maze, isn't it?”

We walked through the main gate and get in the elevator without climbing the spiral staircase. Marlo didn't press any button, but the elevator moved. Since there was no guiding light, I couldn't pinpoint our location clearly at first, but according to GPS measurement of my mobile computer, the elevator was two floors above. The wooden parts of the room we entered were covered with blue seats in the Baroque style painted grey, the walls and floors were black. Although it was furnished in a classical style that did not appeal to me, the room reflected strongly the elegance we used to see in Selim Özben's dreams. When we were not able to examine the place, a door opened in the direction we entered, and we passed through the door to the next room. The walls and ceilings of this room, where the floors were covered with wood-colored parquet, were pink and there was no furniture in it. After a few minutes in the room, I sat on the floor and watched the walls. I wore my hypernet glasses because it was difficult to continually look at the mobile computer to keep track of the direction.

“Is there any way to communicate with the host?” I asked Marlo.

“I suppose he can hear us; we can communicate with him over the network.”

“Can you tell him to open the door to keep going?”

“I don't think he will be sensitive to my demands because his hierarchical position is above me; he is the boss here.”

"I wonder if his hierarchical position is higher than mine?”

“I don't know that,” Marlo said.

"Where is this system physically located?” I asked.

“We're talking abıut the issues that a robot like me can't know about, but it's on hypernet, and I've never seen a computer server anywhere around here.”

“Do you think this system is fully automatic or Galip is watching us somewhere far away and having fun?”

The door to the left opened while I was awaiting his response. Before I get up and get to the door where I was headed, our room moved up and forward, and three steps appeared in front of the door. When we went down the stairs, we had a room that was twice as big as before. “I like this place,” I said, tossing a kick to the sphere in the size of the football ball.

“Selim Bey liked to spend time in this room,” Marlo said.

I went to the roulette table in the middle of the room and put the only chip on the table in 17. I turned the roulette with all my strength under Marlo's confused gaze. The ball rolled for a long time and then fall 15. I said, “it's not about winning; it's about trying.” The room was lowered and moved towards the north, and when the door opened, we encountered daylight. “We haven't completed our tour yet, can you tell that stupid host to direct us back in? Noone has the authority to prevent a public official's investigation,” I told Marlo.

“He wants you to leave the house."

“I will show him that this effort is in vain and that he will not intimidate me by such childish obstacles.

"Have you tried to meet Mr. Galip?”

"Mr. Galip does not respond to my messages. I have encountered a lot of self-righteous fools and psychopaths who have been disconnected from reality by my profession, but he is an exceptional case.”

Marlo only listened to what I said, and of course, he did not comment. I said, “Apparently, I'm going to spend the night here, so can you go get me some food, please?"

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