Mike Matlock Sardius Billie watched in shocked horror as a window outlined in red opened up in the eastern sky and a large fleet of fighter aircraft appeared suddenly and entered into it. Then the window closed again like nothing had been there. “What the hell was that,” Billie said to his companion on his left who had just entered the library. “It looks like Zalt has gotten into the Sardius. It’s a portal to another closed space the US military opened up a few years ago, stuffing it with nuclear explosives to destroy the world or any place in it. They then closed it up and left it there, ready to open up again at any time against anyone. “That’s only suppose to work if you open it up in DC, isn’t it?” Apparently Zalt had found a different way in. “Can it now be opened anywhere? Or just a few select places?” “We’ll have to find out. Going in is the only way to stop Zalt now. Look for an extra chip coder in the library. There has to be one here if it opened up this close.” Billie looked around. The large multi-floor library they were in had different open study areas around a stadium looking center. There were chairs and white tables with displays in the study areas, and numerous book units were against the outside wall extending up as far as the eye could see to the roof overhead, which was transparent. The walls were translucent. It was an open and airy place, and gave the impression of being a bright daylit area with undefined walls in the background and as you lifted your gaze up, an open sky above. It almost was like being outside. The sky in the east where Zalt had sent his planes was visible from almost any point in the library. “Let’s start looking on the this floor. You go back to the entrance, I’ll take the other side.” Billie started looking at book units. They were in white cases of all sizes with imprinted designs on the covers and contained books with audio recording, videos, movies, and other electronic information. Anything you could view on a particular work, be it books, music, movies, documentaries, and all the versions of each, were collected together in one place... now called book units. Billie started in.. there were a few people studying at the tables. More were on the couches near the stadium railings that faced the center, talking to each other and laughing, or were strolling between the walls and information areas between one study area and the next. He looked around. There was nothing in this area. He walked towards the next area. And the next. He made his around the circular path in the center area of the stadium like structure, connecting each study area. He wasn’t sure he’d find anything. He needed an analyzer. It had copy tools. If there was anything in a book unit to be found, it would grab the code automatically and let them duplicate what Zalt had done. That would be faster. Then they could cross over and try to disarm (or stop) whatever was on the other side. Suddenly Trent appeared again. “I have it!” - he yelled, waving. He was jamming a book unit into a VR display. Lights came on. “Get back! It’s going to explode a hole into the Sard if it works.” He started running to the other side of the walk through. Billie realized what he said moments later and started running in the same direction. The room around him was getting more and more lit. He didn’t know how far he’d get. He looked around for a desk he could dive behind to shield himself from whatever blew forth. He saw a solid couch attached to the floor. He dived behind it just as the room exploded in light. There was a vacuum suction sound. Some of the lighter books units and objects around Billie were pulled in. Looking back, a large gaping hole existed on the other side of the walkthrough where rows of book units had been a moment before. A reddish glow came from within. It was just hanging in the air where nothing should be, like nature had stopped working and disappeared into the paint of an unfinished canvas. Billie didn’t like it. He didn’t like being near it. “It worked!” Billie wasn’t as excited as Trent. What were they going to do? Walk through that? That wasn’t something he was sure he wanted to do. Was it stable? He didn’t want to be as close as he was now, that was for sure. TWO A voice in monotone was reading an encyclopedia entry. “Sardios from the name for red found in the apocalypse of Saint John. It’s also a type of stone. In the apocalypse, one of the cities is named after it, sardis. It…” The words halted. A blue screen with white letters replaced them on the wall. Windows - a fatal exception has occurred… Bill Gates - Gahgh... What? Wait, how could do this be? This is 2018. It couldn’t be that… could it? Billie slowly woke up. “Wha.. who put the blue screen of death there??” A voice laughed. “Sorry, Billie, I had to make it as unrealistic as possible so you’d wake yourself up. We’ve found suddenly waking up a person without them being a little aware at first was a dangerous thing.” Billie nodded, looking up. The voice Billie had been listening to in the VR was continuing on the sound system. “A revealing. A sardios stone is named together with Sardeis and is thought to be the odem, in Hebrew, a red stone on the breastplate of judgement inscribed with the name Reuben, the first born of Jacob and a tribe of Israel, and which means - reu-ben or behold a son. Reuben had the name, and it was even inscribed on a stone, but he did not have the birthright. Reuben lost it and only had the name. In Revelation, the church of Sardeis, ‘Sard’, also had a name which meant they were alive, but they were dead. Just having a name that you are alive doesn’t mean you are. “The son of God is the one that makes us alive, his righteousness, his death for our sins. It’s Jesus’s finished work on the cross that saves. The greatest act of love was his love, his work for us. Jesus’s righteousness. In a VR world we can do nothing, it’s all a computer program following certain rules - logic. In the real world, it can seem similar - we bring nothing into it, and can not take anything out of it. But we can have faith in Jesus’s righteousness and Jesus’s love towards us. Jesus’s work cleanses us from all sins and makes us white as snow. Washed in the blood of the lamb, because Jesus died to give us everlasting life. Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith,the alpha and the omega, brings us before his Father, and remembers us.” Billie looked at the screen into the simulation he had just left. And the heavens rolled up like a scroll. “So that’s where they got the name for the simulation. “Cogito, ergo sum, I think therefore I am. No matter what reality is or what eternity looks like there is in some sense a place where you are thinking, to think. Not perfect, flawed, and nothing you can do to the VR is going to affect anything. But you can think. You can’t stop the VR, it’s going to scroll up someday even if its the day you die. It’s inevitable.but you can put your faith in the son of God. and his righteousness will be yours and the eternal heavenly city, and into the presence of the Creator where Jesus Christ will remember your name. “I don’t know. Doesn’t it say we have to do…” The floor underneath Billie begin to melt away as he started to speak. The simulation was over. This was real life, and there was nothing he could do. No work he could perform, it was all melting away. THREE “So this is Defcon. Not what I dreamed about in the 80s.” Dave was talking to his friend. Not sure that is going to save the world and stave off the police state. His friend agreed. Seemed to already be here. “You know, I don’t think the have the spot the fed contest anymore.” “No, but they have the bust the hacker contest every year.” “Yeah. Well, let’s stick to what we know will save the world.” “Yep - Amen. God bless”