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Gamers and Gods I

by Matthew R. Kennedy

Copyright © 2012 by Matthew R. Kennedy

A Smashwords edition
For Arla

Acknowledgments

Rare is the book that emerges from a vacuum. Most books have multiple inputs, and this one is no exception. I would like to thank the following people who made it possible.

1. Mythologists. Without the efforts of the ancient Greeks and Egyptians who created the descriptions of their gods, those scrolls and inscriptions that survived to be translated, I would have never heard of Asklepios and Am-heh.

2. Game designers and programmers. Without the advent of online games that render in realistic 3D perspective, I might never have conceived of the setting for this novel. When I began gaming and made my first healer, named Aesculapius, it was the first step on this journey.

3. My beta readers. Without their patient and tireless efforts, I could not have found and fixed the flaws in the original manuscript.

4. My brother James, who was the first besides me who believed that I could do it.

Thanks.

Prologue: Aes: Hellas (Greece) 1250 BC

There are times when you question all rules. This was one of those times. As he gazed upon the dual bottle, he pondered the dual meaning of the pharmakon. That which heals, misused, can also bring death – which is why the very word pharmakon meant both remedy and poison.

In this case, however, the dualities were separate, though tangled: two glass vials with their necks spiraling around each other. Both held the blood of the Gorgon, but from different sides of the slain monster. One, from the left would cause instant death, while the other, from the right side, he had been told, could restore life to a body that had lost it.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, through the fabric of his chiton, and heard the voice of his wife repeating herself. "You don't have to do this, love. Your duty is to the living, not the dead."

"If I have the power to restore life, doesn't this obligate me to do so? How can I leave him dead, knowing he could live again?"

"Life and death are matters for the gods, Asklepios...and the Fates. Not for us."

He turned and gazed down into her eyes. "And if death comes from injustice? You've heard the story. Do you believe he did it?"

After a moment she shook her head. "That he raped his own stepmother? No. From what I've heard from others, Hippolytus had no interest even in girls his own age. He was too in love with Artemis, with hunting and riding and perfecting the grace of his body, to notice the effect it had upon the fairer sex."

"Yet his stepmother killed herself, and accused him of being the cause of it, in her suicide note. You cannot blame Theseus for avenging his wife's death...even if he had to call in a favor from Poseidon to do it."

Epione smiled sadly. "Whose side are you on, my love? You hold life and death in your hands, but you seem to be trying to talk yourself out of acting. Not that I am complaining, but whose side are you on? That of Hippolytus, who died, or Theseus, who had him killed?"

His eyes flashed. "I am on the side of life," he said. "How can I be otherwise? I was trained to protect it, to defend it. Is restoring it outside my duties, if I have the means?"

She was about to answer when they both heard a shout from outside. The cart bearing the body of the slain youth had finally arrived.

The blameless physician looked at his wife. "I love you," he said, "but I cannot let Death win this fight. The boy was innocent." He turned to the newcomers. "Put him on the table," he said, pointing to the one in the courtyard.

His hands did not shake as he removed the cork from one of the twinned vials. Zeus will understand, he thought. Perhaps Hades will have a different opinion, when I rob him of a new citizen of the Underworld. But Zeus will know why I have to do this.

It was quickly done, the work of a moment. He poured a little of the blood from the life-giving vial into the boy's wounds and resealed it. No turning back now.

The boy's eyes opened, as his wounds closed and mended. He turned his head and tried to speak to Asklepios. But in that instant, the scene froze. The faces around the physician were as statues of flesh. What was this?

Above him in the sky, clouds darkened and thundered. They say that Zeus, who is also called the Cloud Minder, hurls thunderbolts. And he does, in a way, but the paintings of him actually holding the lethal bolts are merely metaphors.

Nonetheless, the thunderbolt descended.
Chapter 1: Darla: we need a healer (2051 AD)

They were on the second floor when it happened. The first floor had been easy.

As the elevator doors parted, Sherman bounded ahead of the team as if invincible. No one commented – a tank's gotta do. Darla and the others pushed their way out of the 'vator and followed him down the ugly orange and brown corridor.

"I think I know this map," Rita remarked to no one in particular. "There are some offices on the left and a cafeteria further down on the right. The Jerx usually pounce from the cafeteria."

She was right. There were no Jerx in the offices.

Sherman may have triggered an alarm. He had the mass of a refrigerator, and wore size twenty boots. He was good at some things, but sneaking up was not one of them. One thing he was good at was making any room or tunnel feel small. He loomed.

Five Jerx piled out of the cafeteria door and went for him with an assortment of blades and guns. He grinned at them and launched into action. Their slugs dented his body armor, but he swung one massive arm, knocking two Jerx off their feet and slamming them into the corridor's wall. The other arm punched straight through the body of a third Jerx, which was a slight problem – the body weighed down his arm for a second. He grunted, leaned on his right foot, and spun, whipping out the left in a kick that crushed the skull of another Jerx, and shook the impaled body off his arm. Four down.

Or was it? One of the first two Jerx to fall was getting up. Sam fried him with a quick fireball as the fifth Jerx re-thought his odds and fled down the corridor for backup.

"Craptastic," muttered Rita. She preferred to take groups one at a time, but Sherman was one of those overconfident tanks who would fight the entire building just for the glory of it. She stretched out her hand and froze the fleeing Jerx to the floor while Sam finished off the recumbent Jerx with firebolts.

The frozen Jerx struggled in his block of ice, trying to reach the staircase in front of him. Sherman growled and swung a football-sized fist, shattering the ice with an ear-splitting KRACK! that sent chunks of ice and bad guy bouncing off the walls. A couple of fingers and a foot bounced in their encasing shards down the steps into a large open area.

Sherman charged down the steps roaring a battle cry. Darla rolled her eyes and glanced at Rita. "This is the bumpy part."

There were four groups of MOBs in the large room. Stomping forward to meet a group, Sherman lumbered too close to another group and it got serious. By the time the others scrambled down the stairs, he had eight hostiles aggroed on him already.

Rita froze some of them, while Sam blasted the rest. By then Darla had her swords out and was whirling into a couple of them behind Sherman. She activated her Time Stretch and the room slowed down around her. She danced a lethal ballet, her blades flashing out to slice and dice. Rifling-spun bullets buzzed by like slow motion bumblebees. She twisted and spun, letting most pass by harmlessly, ignoring the mosquito bite impacts in her right shoulder and her left thigh. Her blades reached out for more hostiles.

Sam threw a fireball. Not the best attack in these close quarters. When it exploded part of its area-of-effect scorched the third group of Jerx and they joined the fun. Now the odds were fourteen to four, not so good.

Sherman yelled defiance and punched another Jerx off his feet. But he overdid it – the guy landed in the fourth group, and now the team was in trouble. In the last few seconds, they had eliminated four hostiles, but now Sherman was the center of a mass of maybe ten or twelve assailants. Even a tank can be overwhelmed.

Rita froze the baddies on Sherman and got their attention. Three of them jumped her and backed her into a corner. Sam kept blasting away as another three shot and stabbed him. But casters, the 'glass cannons' of gaming, are squishy and need to keep their distance. The Jerx crushed him at close range in seconds.

Time Stretch ended. The action around Darla sped up with little warning. She tried to fight her way toward Sherman, health dropping with every second. Behind her Rita went down, riddled with shells from frosty and pissed Jerx.

Darla's swords slashed another Jerx as she fought forward, ignoring the impacts of more slugs. Now it was two against nine. Jerx howled, slashing and shooting in a frenzied froth of happy rage.

Darla's strength failed and she collapsed before she reached Sherman. He went on flailing gamely, but he fell a few moments later. The Jerx relaxed and prowled over the bodies of the defeated heroes.

"Well, that went well – not," said Sam's voice.

"Anyone got a rez?" Sherman inquired. "We got half of them, so it shouldn't be as hard to clear the room now."

"Sherman, how many times have I told you NOT to run downstairs without us?" Rita demanded. "You know stairs almost always mean a big room of hostiles."

"Chill," he advised. "We'd be fine if Sam hadn't aggroed a group."

"Maybe," Sam admitted. "But it didn't help when you punched a guy right into the fourth group. Last nail in our coffin, bro."

"Boys, boys," Darla sighed. "What do we do now?"

"We resurrect and keep going," said Sherman.

"Not me," said Rita. "I've got an exam tomorrow. Sorry, guys, but this is taking too long. Toodles." Her avatar vanished.

"Shit," Sherman groused. "She always drops out first. Little pebble of the avalanche of quit-ness."

"It'll be even harder without her holds," Sam pointed out. "Maybe we should call it a day. It's after midnight here already." His body winked out as Rita's had, teleported back to the base.

"He's right, you know." Darla told him. "And when he logs, we are way too shorthanded for this mission's level."

Sherman groaned. "This mission would have leveled me."

Darla sighed. "Look, I know you don't want to hear this, but we need more bodies."

"I hate large teams," the tank grumbled. "And you know why. Bigger teams argue more, goof off more, and take longer to assemble for missions."

"Well, you're gonna have to learn to bend," Darla told him. "I know you like small teams, but we need a healer. It would have made the difference between winning and a total team wipe tonight. Unless you like dying a lot."

"All right, all right," Sherman growled. "But you better find us a good one. A lame doctor is worse than none at all, trust me. You spend half your time worrying about keeping him alive so that he can keep healing. Squishalicious."

Darla shrugged. "I'll see what I can do," she said. "But do me a favor? Try to remember you're not immortal. You charge right in like a god of war. You really need to let us get positioned before you engage."

She logged and sat up swinging her legs over the edge of the link bed and stretched. Enough. Sherman was a pretty good tank but a little of him went a long way. Hitching up her jeans, she padded down the stairs to the diner.

The smells of cooking oil, spices, and hot metal greeted her as she reached the bottom of the stairs. The place was not quite empty – there was a guy at the counter and a couple in a booth in the corner.

She glanced out the windows. Outside, a gray sky squatted and brooded over the baking streets. For a moment she wished she was wherever Sam lived. Midnight sounded a lot cooler than this Florida afternoon. A police cruiser floated by, its nullifiers humming, the enforcers inside looking even more bored than she felt. Even perps were taking the day off in this heat.

Manny was working the grill. He looked up and wiped some sweat off his forehead. "You finally back on duty?" He flipped a couple of burgers over, listening to the sizzle, as he glanced back at her, one eyebrow raised.

"I guess so," she said, watching him slide two perfect medium wells onto their buns. He nodded toward the couple in the corner, and Darla took the hint, picking up the tray and taking the order over to them. "You two need anything else?"

The woman looked at her burger doubtfully. "I won't ask if it's edible," she remarked, "But is it safe?"

The man laughed. He had a nice laugh, Darla thought. And he was built well enough to get away with a bad laugh. She could see this because he was bare from the waist up. The guy looked like a W3 veteran. His bare chest glowed with old-style holographic tattoos, the multi-layered deposits flashing rainbow-hued solid images of an eagle fighting a snake. Battle of Mexico?

"Relax," he advised his date. "No one dies of coronaries anymore. They fixed that years ago. All of this yummy-naughty food is back in style. Live a little."

His date hesitated. "He's right," Darla told her reassuringly. "The PEGbots finished their clinical trials last year. Clogged arteries are going where the dinosaurs went."

The woman's face clouded. "PEGbots?"

Darla smiled. "Medical nanotech. They coat the tiny robots with polyethylene glycol. It makes them a little bulkier but it keeps them from being attacked by your defenses long enough that they can do their job."

The guy looked impressed. "I can't believe you just knew that," he said. "Are you in med school?"

"Not really. I've just been, ah, keeping up with the medical research in a vain attempt to keep my dad alive. He hates 'textured vegetable protein'."

"Don't believe her," Manny grunted from the grill. "She's just afraid I'll die and she'll be stuck running this place by herself." He flipped another burger over and smiled as it sizzled.

Chapter 2: Farker: the care and feeding of bosses

Every time Max summoned him to the corner office, Farker would pause outside the door to quietly repeat his centering mantra. "Grant me the serenity to accept what can't be changed, the courage to change what can't be accepted ...and the good sense to not choke the living shit out of bosses who can't tell the difference."

This accomplished, he raised his hand, knocked, and prepared himself to wait. Why is it, he wondered, that when I barge up here unexpectedly I can get in to see him right away, but when he summons me, he always makes me wait?

"Enter," said Maximilian.

Farker let himself in and closed the door behind him. "Please state the nature of the medical emergency," he said, dropping into a leather chair.

Max glared at him, brows knitting together in suspicious bafflement. He had not been with PanGames long enough to recognize Farker's quotes. "What medical emergency?"

Farker sighed. One more suit without a soul. "I mean, what's up? Whaddaya need?"

Max pursed his lips. "What I need, what this Company needs" (Farker could hear the capitalization) "is people I can talk to without a fuckin translator." He paused to tap the ashes off the end of a cigar. "The Realm of Egypt deal closes tomorrow. Are we ready for the inclusion?"

Farker tried not to look at the cigar. He knew intellectually that there were people who still smoked tobacco, but it still shocked him.

He tried not to breathe. "Of course we're ready."

Max regarded him. "You're awfully sure of yourself. Didn't even pause to consider. No worries at all?"

For the nth time Farker wondered how Max had ended up as his new boss. In the three weeks that Max had been at PanGames he had never asked Farker a single technical question. Was it that the man did not even care about where the money came from, or were the rumors true – that managers were conditioned from an early age to automatically delegate any non-financial thinking?

But how do you speak of neuroadaptive computational matrices and quantum hypercomputers to such a person? "It's what we do," he said finally. We've done it lots of times."

"My point exactly," the man behind the desk retorted. "From what I've seen, PanGames has been swallowing all its competitors for years now. Sooner or later everything reaches its limits."

"Nowhere near them," Farker assured him. "Our system is so fast it meets itself coming the other way."

He could see from the way Max's eyes narrowed that the man wasn't convinced. Max had no idea of what he was running, he thought. Way behind the learning curve. But then, he reflected, so were about 90% of his fellow humans. All of the changes wrought in the last few decades had left most dazed and detached.

First, W3 had melted national boundaries. Free trade and air travel had been softening the cultural barriers for over a century. W3 merely knocked down the crumbling fragments. No one knew what lab screwed up and released the virus. It was hard to believe that anyone would do so without a vaccine for it. Most thought that one of the nukes exchanged in the preliminary minutes of the War had busted the lab seals.

Whatever. The virus had escaped containment. Nobody noticed at the time because they were busy waiting for nuclear annihilation. Angry little countries had spent decades enriching uranium and developing missiles to take out old rivals. And when the first salvos launched, the other, larger countries nuked the little nukers, to shut them up before it could escalate into a global holocaust.

The funny thing was, people had been predicting forever that The Big One would be between the US and Russia or China. But it never happened. In a virtual moment of unanimity, military artificial intelligences joined electronic hands across the oceans to coordinate surgical strikes. The remaining small players were vanquished before the conflict could reach a level that could threaten the biosphere with a nuclear winter.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief that it was over.

And then people began dying of the virus. It was airborne, you see. Once out of the lab that spawned it, there was no stopping it. Entering the body via the lungs and nasal mucosa, it quickly induced fever, palpitations, nausea, vomiting and exhaustion, incapacitating its victims before they could seek medical attention. Doctors were appalled at the ingenuity of its creators. It denied its sufferers the mercy of a quick death, taking days to weeks to kill, so that medical centers were overwhelmed trying to care for all of the dying.

Attempt at vaccines were ineffective until they sequenced its genome and realized they were dealing with twenty seven distinct strains of the damned thing. Finally, they could develop 27 effective vaccines and combine and distribute them in one no-fail full-spectrum dose.

The nuclear mini-war had killed millions. The Virus made everyone left forget all about the nukes. Within less than a year the Earth's population dropped from ten billion to two.

And then the real fighting began.

It was a cold thought but a valid one, in Farker's opinion, that dreadful as the nuclear exchange and the plague had been, they had also been a blessing. All of the remaining missiles were in the hands of the major nations. With the smaller countries effectively toothless, the major countries were able to use conventional forces to crush any resistance easily and implement a world government. International wars and alliances were a thing of the past. United Earth replaced the United Nations – there were no more separate "nations" so why keep it in the title?

Most of what was called the Internet had survived. Within short order, the global community of surviving programmers had cobbled together the first workable quantum-encrypted e-voting system. United Earth was legitimized as a global representative government. Minor pockets of rebellion would continue to form out in the more rural areas, but the need for continuity and order stabilized things in the surviving cities.

The political transformation of the planet, as drastic as it was, was nothing compared to the effect of global peace on technology budgets. The progress curve ramped up, bequeathing cheaper energy, more powerful computers, and vastly improved crops and farming that could easily feed UE's diminished population. It took determination and ingenuity to starve these days.

Looking at Max, Farker almost felt sorry for his boss. Sure, the principles of business and capitalism had survived the changes in the world practically unscathed. But surviving isn't enough if the evolving science leaves 90% of the world behind in accelerated future shock. Max understood how PanGames's technical infrastructure worked about as much as the nearest cop understood the gravity nullifiers that let enforcer vehicles float down the city's streets.

"Let me put it this way," Farker told him. "This is the first acquisition since you came on board a couple of weeks ago, so I can see how all the details might worry you. But even if we were absorbing ten new realms tomorrow I wouldn't bother to come to work early. Our system automatically generates all the procedures to include a new Realm into PanGames. Adding Realm of Egypt to our menus and interfaces will take less time than it'll take to sign the paperwork."

Max scowled. Farker could tell that his boss didn't like being patronized. He tried to imagine how he would feel if the situation were reversed and Max was telling him not to worry about his salary, that the little credits would all go into the right balance, that restructured financials would keep the firm and his bank balance above water.

"Try to relax," he advised Max. "We, or rather our system, has done this before, many times. We've never had any problems, and there's no reason to expect that we ever will. We're ready for it. Anything else you need to know?"

Max puffed on his cigar, then sighed. "I suppose not. Let me know immediately if anything, any problem at all, comes up before we close the deal."

"Nothing will," Farker said. "I'll call you if there's anything, but there won't be. Verily I say unto thee, nothing will happen."

This turned out to be wrong.

It is always wrong. Things always happen.

Chapter 3: Darla: of butterflies and centaurs

She bolted the diner's door and switched the antique neon sign to CLOSED. On her way back to the register she straightened a couple of chairs and cleared the last table.

Manny had fixed her a dinner. Knowing him, she didn't have to look to know it was a burger, medium rare. She grabbed a water from the fridge and padded back to his room.

Manny was already sitting at the little table in the back room that he slept in. He claimed it was cozy, but Darla knew his head was still back in the Riots: Emmanuel Kaplan had been a corporal in the UE forces during the Consolidation. He'd seen such things that to this day he was afraid to sleep above the ground floor. She knew she should be grateful that she had the upper room, but she was sure that part of her father was itching for some rioters to break in so he could make them wish they hadn't.

She sat down across from him, lifted the bun, and busied herself loading slices of tomatoes and pickles on the top of the burger. He tended to forget them.

Manny picked up a bottle and squeezed ketchup onto his fries. "Whaddaya need all those tomatoes for, anyway?" It was one of his no-fail ways of starting a dinner conversation. She would argue, they would agree to disagree, and then the conversation would turn to its real subject.

"You know very well that natural food is healthier than processed food," she told him sternly. "You tell me where we can get organic ketchup without the added sugar etc. and I will say yea, hallelujah and fold up the roof garden."

Manny swallowed a mouthful of fries and pointed his fork at her. "You listen to me, young lady. Our ancestors did not survive by eating grass and flowers. One stomach and a relatively short intestinal tract means we are mainly carnivores. Meat will keep you alive. Tomatoes won't, no matter how organically you grow 'em."

"Oh really? What animal did those fries come from? A free-range potato, perhaps?" She paused, grinning. "Was it from a ranch, or did you hunt it yourself?"

"Very funny," he grunted. "My daughter, the comedian. How are your classes coming?"

Uh-oh. "I didn't go today," she admitted.

He glowered at her across the table. "Do you think just because education is free now, you don't need good grades? That link bed, you know we're still making payments on that?" He had a point there, she had to admit. Information was free but hardware, not.

"The test isn't for another week," she told him. "It's not like I have to attend every day to keep up. The whole course is archived."

"Anyone can scroll through a book," he retorted. "It's not the same thing as hearing it explained by an expert."

"The lectures are pre-recorded, too," she said. "I don't have to avatar into the college on a schedule."

Manny harrumphed. "So very convenient. So what are you going to do, wait until the day before the test, only to discover that you don't have enough time left to hear it all? Live or recorded, either way you listen in real time."

True enough, she thought. But she couldn't let him win that easily. Time for a diversion. "Agnes called this morning," she said. "When are you going to call her back?"

It worked. She could see the instant panic that he tried to hide. "What did you tell her?" he demanded.

Darla took a bite of her burger and chewed thoughtfully, letting him stew and squirm before she answered. "Oh, I told her that I was sure you'd call her soon. You really should, you know." Okay, maybe that last bit was unnecessary. But she was tired of fending off Mrs. Neuburg, who was plainly determined to change her last name.

Manny wiped sweat off his forehead. "I know you don't want to be rude, but, really, you shouldn't encourage that woman. I just wish she would leave me alone."

Darla laughed. "Agnes likes you. What's so terrible about that? You're not dead, you know. You should be dating. If not Agnes, then pick someone else. Use it or lose it, you know." And she knew it was terrible, but she couldn't help winking at the end of the sentence.

Her father groaned. "These words I never expected from you. What is it with you? Do I have to date every woman who wants to date me? Can't a man rest?"

"You aren't dating anyone," she pointed out. "What is it with me? What is it with you? Why are you giving up on life? I'm glad we have the diner. Glad we have a living. But are you living...or just surviving?"

"We're all just surviving," he growled. "Don't take it for granted. It's a lot better than the alternative. You just hope you never see the things I've had to see." He touched his shirt pocket and closed his eyes for a moment, as he often did.

Neither of them spoke for a few moments. Darla had learned not to ask about the things he'd seen. She'd heard enough. Especially while she was eating.

He looked like he was ready to weep. Darla reached over and covered his hand with her own. "I know you worry about my grades," she said. "Well, I worry about you, too. You can't keep this up forever. You need to get out, to meet women again."

His eyes opened and he lifted his chin a little, defying both her and his own sadness. "I don't want to hear any more of that," he said with unmistakable finality. "There are no more women for me. And you know why. So let it go. Stop encouraging Mrs. Neuburg."

Darla sighed and raised her hand from his to pat his cheek. "That is very romantic of you," she said, softly, "but also very foolish. However, I will humor your foolishness...since you put up with so much of mine."

She rose and gathered their plates, ignoring his attempt at helping, and dumped them in the recycler before heading up to her room.

Alone again, she felt like screaming. Gods! Why was it, she asked herself, that men either love too much or too little? Her father was like a leper who would rather pick at his sores than see a doctor. It had been so many years that she barely remembered her mother. The image had faded to nothing for her. Not so for Manny. Elizabeth had become his Testament, enshrined so brightly in his mind, burned so deeply into his gray matter that he could not let her go.

She stood in front of her mirror. And it's partly my fault, she reflected. Look at me. Every time he sees me, she thought, he sees her again. Every day, I remind him just by existing.

Not that she was bad to look at. She had Manny's curly black hair, but there the resemblance ended. Her mother's blue eyes stared out of a younger face. She had the same fullness of eyebrow and lip, the same upturned nose, the same tiny ears. Basically, she was her mother, but with Manny's hair. He used to say that she was her mother on the outside, but him on the inside, with all his stubborn defiance.

She stuck her tongue out at her reflection, who returned the favor. The hell with it. Turning, she went over to the link bed and lay down on her back, letting her head nestle into the pillow's cranial transceivers. They were as much a part of her life now as whatever it was that her father kept in that shirt pocket.

Fog enclosed her. No one else would see it, of course. It was a side effect of Linking, a little like the static you got on those ancient museum televisions with analog UHF dials tuned between stations. This static was infinitely finer, though, and three dimensional, so it looked like fog to her.

The fog cleared as she and the bed tuned into each other better. In moments she was floating upright in infinite space, mistress of all she surveyed. Some people found this moment of weightlessness unsettling. Agoraphobics found the infinite emptiness terrifying, she knew, and had to have their systems tweaked to start them in the illusion of an ordinary-sized room. Not Darla. She reveled in a freedom she could never know when she was IRL, unless of course she changed majors and got a job in high-orbit habitat construction. When she was In Real Life there were always boundaries, walls, floors, roofs, limitations to movement's range and speed.

In this magic Web, however, there were practically no limitations. She could be infinitely vast or incredibly small, completely motionless or flying through the galactic atlas at any speed whatsoever. She could handle planets and molecules with equal ease.

So what if it wasn't "real". Unimportant. A video map wasn't real – but you could learn real things from it. The diagrammed lines of ink in her tech class illustrations were not real circuits...but she used them to calculate how circuits would behave IRL. And the avatars she teamed up with in PanGames were not real. But they were driven by other real humans, lying in their own link beds.

"PanGames" she thought, feeling a little guilty as the beginning menu room appeared. She really ought to catch up on her studies. But the team absolutely needed a healer. If they kept total-wiping like they did today the team was doomed. None of them would stay, and she couldn't honestly blame them. They'd wander off and find more successful teams. It was as inevitable as dogshit.

She frowned as she considered her options. Her team played in several Realms, but they tended to favor the one where they could be superheroes.

There were a number of reasons for this. When you went from one Realm of PanGames to another Realm, your avatar was automatically reformatted to fit into the current genre. If the sentient races in the new realm had more options than simply human, of course, you could take the default that it gave you or edit it to another race before you began playing. That was not a problem for them.

The real problem with reformatting-to-fit was simply that not all Realms had the same avatar archetype selections. Nearly all Realms had the standard teaming roles: tank, DPS, healer, crowd control. But the role of Damage Per Second was filled by different types of avatars in each Realm.

As a dual-wielding DPS swordmaster, Darla never worried: swords are too simple to exclude – they work in all Realms. Similarly blessed was the tank Sherman, since fists exist in all Realms. Wherever he went, Sherman would be a one-man mobile riot.

The others had it a little harder. Sam was a blaster for his DPS role in the superhero Realm. All well and good. But if the team went to, say, one of the medieval sword-and-sorcery realms, reformatting would force him to appear as a wizard or warlock. This of course meant that all his powers would be reformatted too, so that he would have to remember to "cast" Mystic Missiles instead of just "blasting" a Fire Bolt from his hand. Or something equally unfamiliar. Rita would no longer be doing her Crowd Control role by freezing opponents motionless. She would have to reformat as a Witch or Druid and use completely different CC powers.

Maybe if you switched Realms often enough, it would all become second nature, she supposed. But they didn't. It was less confusing and they leveled more consistently. Maybe she and Sherman could have done some duo-teaming in the medieval Realms. But she found him too much to take, one-on-one. He was too bossy and too reckless. Without more DPS and at least one CC to help with groups he would end up getting them wiped every time.

But she was on her own tonight. She had to find them a healer, and talk him into helping before Sherman's attitude drove him (or her) away.

She decided to look into the sword-and-sorcery medieval Realms. With no modern medicine and no hospital teleporters, maybe they'd have more healers wandering around. All she had to do was find one that wasn't on a team. Male, preferably. At the moment, the team was half-and-half (she suspected Sam and Rita were a partnered couple). If she brought in a female healer (which the majority were, given the tendency of males to prefer fighting), Sherman might feel outnumbered and suspect she was staging some kind of Amazonian takeover of the group.

So she had to find a male healer. A little harder, but still possible.

After some consideration, she decided Realm of Valhalla was a waste of time. Plenty of mayhem, but the healing was all automatic there. It appeared that there simply was no Healer role in the fighting there at all, a baffling exception to basic Realm compatibility.

Where to now? She wondered. So many choices.

For no reason she could put her finger on, she found herself selecting the Realm of Legends.

Like the other Realms, it was a complete Earth that appeared in the infinite virtual space in front of her. To the left of the globe a date slider appeared. Apparently, it had several temporal sub-realms so that you could chose your epoch or whatever.

More choices! Darla bit her virtual lip. It was always the way of the world: computers were supposed to make life easier and simpler, yet often did the opposite, presenting more options to decide from.

She was no History major, but she seemed to remember that the oath med school graduates swore (what was it called, again?) had originated somewhere in Greece. The Hippocratic Oath. "Zoom in Greece," she thought to the PanGames menu, and reached out to set the date slider to Ancient(1300-1000 BCE). She paused, though, before logging in, and spoke to the PanGames menu.

"Why such an arbitrary date range?"

"It is a period that includes such alleged occurrences as the Iliad, the Aeneid, and the Odyssey. The Iliad is the story of the Trojan War."

"Whatever. Okay, log me in."

There was a flash so bright it should have left spots on her retinas...except she was not using them. The link bed's quantum interference projectors were feeding data directly into her occipital lobe. The blinding flash was merely the default artifact of a Realm transition.

She found herself on a rocky coastline. The PanGames AI had not bothered to ask her about reformatting preferences since sword-wielders were a universal archetype.

Perhaps it should have, though, she thought grimly, looking at herself. The colorful wrap-around robes she was wearing had no belt, however, only a cord...and therefore, no scabbards. Her powers would still work, but the RP would be awkward. She'd be magically pulling swords out of nowhere.

Hugging herself, she drew steel. TZING! She gritted her teeth. The animation was not smooth – the blades just seemed to materialize in her hands after the draw. She could just imagine what Sherman the tank would say if he could see her irritation. He would intone his avatar's RTFM motto: Read The Fucking Manual! She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, willing herself to let go of the rage. After all, she really wasn't here to fight, right? All she had to do was find a healer. She flicked her fingers and let the swords disappear.

It was a relief and a vexation that she was alone on the beach. No fighters and no healers. Oops, she thought. No travel powers here. She couldn't just fly around looking for people.

She began walking down the beach, for want of any other plan. To her eyes, it was not really much of a beach. More like a rocky coast that was level enough to walk on. I could menu out, scroll East and go check out the Trojan War, she thought. But she quickly abandoned that idea. There was too big a chance that she would get embroiled in battles and waste the evening. Not that she didn't like a good fight – you don't get a lot of pacifist sword masters in PanGames. But still. She had to focus.

Still seeing no one on the beach, she turned and climbed up to the mainland. Once she got up over the edge it was less rocky, but a breeze whipped her loose robes into flapping so loud she felt like a UE flag.

She had expected a grassy plain, but what she got, mainly, although it seemed less rocky at first, was the same amount of rock but with more vegetation obscuring it. It appeared that there was no coastal plain, just a gradual upslope. Eventually she realized she was climbing a broad, old mountain.

She stopped and looked back toward the sea. The rocky shore went to her left, then out and around to the right clockwise, making a hook-like peninsula. She imagined it would almost resemble the letter "J" if she had been able to fly out and up and see it from the right angle.

Resuming her climb she tried to avoid grumbling about the absence of travel powers. But she just didn't get it. Our ancestors have been crawling around on the Earth for like a million years, she thought, and then what do we do? We create imaginary Earths that we can pretend to crawl around on. And what in the hells was the point of imaginary exercise? She wasn't really using her muscles. Her body was lying supine in the link bed in the technological equivalent of REM sleep. The same natural paralysis that kept people from acting out their dreams kept her body from jerking around and falling off the bed.

At least she was incapable of getting tired. It would have been great if she were sightseeing, but in her present state of mind it was just boring and irritating. She was not here to ooh and ah at the fine details of the simulation.

Wondering if she should just log and do some homework instead, she was interrupted in her internal grumbling when a butterfly passed her from behind. It circled counter-clockwise around her annoyingly, then stopped on a flower to her right for a moment. The wings opened flat briefly, as if inviting attention, so she took a closer look. The wings were mostly yellow and black, but on the rear edges there were little blue dots ringed by black borders, and on the very back, on each wing, there was a reddish dot ringed in black.

The lepidopteran took flight again and circled Darla three times before moving uphill. A few yards ahead of her it paused again, as if waiting for her to catch up.

She shook her head at it, amused in spite of herself. "What is it, Lassie?" she said. "Did Timmy fall down the well again?" It was an old joke, something gamers said when a NPC was trying just a little too hard to get your attention. She had never been able to find anyone who could explain it, though. It was a pre-UE saying, like "bend it like Beckham" or "shock and awe" and no one seemed to remember where it had come from. But it must have meant something, once. She should ask a historian sometime.

Are we losing our culture? She wondered. Or just leaving it behind as we create new culture? She was aware that the W3 virus had killed more grandparents and grandchildren than it had parents. Those whose immune systems were worn out with age were among the first to go, along with those whose immune systems had not fully formed yet. The babies, of course, were quickly replaced by new births. But most of the seniors were gone. A generation grew to adulthood bereft of the wisdom of the elders.

Woolgathering again. She looked up. The butterfly was still waiting for her, fluttering in place as if impatient. For a fleeting moment she wondered if it was an avatar, a fellow Player. But who would want to be an avatar that couldn't talk? She shook her head again and followed. What else was there to do, on this hill?

Presently they reached the crest of the hill: finally, a mostly-level bit of grass. The butterfly flew to the center, where it joined several others in a seemingly useless cavorting.

There were no flowers in sight. "What are you guys doing up here?" she wondered out loud.

"Hill-topping," a deep voice said, behind her.

Darla spun, startled. And she went on being startled (although she shouldn't have) as the centaur joined her on the hilltop.

"Sorry if I startled you," he said, smiling. From the waist down he was a chestnut-colored horse. Where his human waist joined the equine body he was wearing a tool belt. Above the waist he was bare. The hair on his chest was the same chestnut brown, but thin and scarce. His chest was broad and powerful, and above it his head was crowned with a full head of hair and a beard that would have looked fine on Santa Claus. Both the beard and his head hair were almost completely white. His eyes were green and glowed as he smiled at her.

He must be a Player, she thought. Non-Player Characters (NPCs) rarely spoke unless spoken to. "Hill-topping? What do you mean?" she said as she tried not to stare at him.

He saw her not staring and laughed. "These are Papilio Machaon butterflies. The males seek out the highest elevation nearby for their courtship displays. The females come up the hill to find them, looking for the ones near the center which are presumably the strongest and healthiest males."

"How do you know that?" she asked doubtfully.

He laughed a deep laugh. "Oh, I've been on Mount Pelion all my life, and watched them here many a time, although their species extends across the world, even found 6000 feet up in the Himalayas."

"I see," she said. "What does the name mean?"

"The name of the genus, Papilio, from the swallowtail butterfly family Papilionidae. Papilio is the Latin word for butterfly. Linnaeus named the species Machaon after a son of Asklepios."

"Latin? Hey, pal, I think you're stepping out of character there. This isn't Rome," she pointed out, amused. "I might not know a lot about history but I'm pretty sure the Romans came after the Greeks in terms of empires."

He laughed again. "You are entirely correct. I myself prefer the Greek word for butterfly which is 'psyche' meaning soul. The Greeks saw the butterfly emerging from its chrysalis as a metaphor for the soul leaving the body at death."

"You're way too well informed for a period NPC," she informed him. "Are you a GM, or a Player like me?"

He smiled enigmatically. "Oh, I'm no Game Manager as you understand it, but I'm not a Player, either. I am a meddler, really. No warrior, but I help out."

Suddenly Darla recalled why she was here. "Are you a healer?" she asked him suddenly. "My group needs one pretty badly. I'm Darla, by the way."

"Oh, I don't go into battles, Darla. Sorry, can't help you there. But don't despair, I can still help you. My name is Cheiron, and some of my students are the best healers you could hope to find, anywhere."

"Now we're getting somewhere," she said. "Can you tell me where to find one of them?"

The centaur laughed. "I can do better than that. I'll loan you one." But suddenly a shadow passed over him and he looked up. "Oh, crap, just what we need. A CIO who thinks he's a GM. Don't go away, I'll be right back." He disappeared before she could reply.

Chapter 4: Manny: "to touch those burning memories"

The afternoon was another hot one. Manny cranked up the air conditioning in the diner a little and wiped the counter by the faux-antique register. Look at my life, he thought bitterly. My only daughter spends more time dreaming online than she does with real people, and me, do I set a better example? No. This diner has become the shell I crawled into to avoid dealing with the world. I'm not a man. I'm a hermit crab. But even a hermit crab outgrows its shell...if only to move into a bigger shell.

Maybe Darla's right. Maybe I should have moved on, found her a stepmother. What good am I doing her, clinging to the past like this? Maybe I should call Agnes Neuburg back after all. Wouldn't anyone be better for me and Darla than this enshrined hole in my life, this fading security blanket of a lost love?

He reached for the register's keyboard, but his hand refused to tap the key. Instead, it went back across his chest to touch his shirt pocket as his eyes closed again, remembering. Almost twenty years, but the memories would never fade...

...the cab ride from Ben Gurion International had not been a pleasant one. Little Darla had been fussy ever since the landing woke her. Liz had not slept well on the last leg of their flight to Israel, and Darla's tantrum wasn't helping matters. More tsuris than either of them needed at the moment. But there was no helping it.

"COOKIE!" Darla hollered. She was flailing her little hands, wrenching at the child car seat she was strapped into. Her curly black hair, too short to hang down, waved as her head twisted angrily, making her look like a furious dandelion. "Cookie, cookie COOKIE!"

Manny sighed and met his wife's eyes. "Do we have any left? We should be there soon."

Liz shook her head. "Just the Cheerios." She didn't say it, but he could guess what she was thinking: it was his fault for gobbling half of the box. He felt a twinge of guilt. I should have bought two boxes. Or at least something other than chocolate chip. Maybe then I could have resisted the temptation.

"Here, zeisele, have some Cheerios," he suggested, offering Darla the non-spill plastic bowl in its gimbals, such a clever invention. There was a handful of cereal left in it.

Darla struck the bowl out of his hands with one of her little pudgy fists. Blue eyes the exact shade of her mother's glared at him coldly. "Cookie," she demanded sternly.

This was all his fault, and he knew it. For a moment he wallowed in the guilt of it. Liz had wanted to take the postdoctoral Standford had offered. But no, he had to talk her into starting their family first. If he'd only given in, they'd be sitting on a beach in California now, sipping drinks with those little umbrellas while she corrected papers or played with mathematics. Instead, they were trapped in the back of a cab with an unruly descendant. And then he had made it worse by suggesting the trip to his birthplace while she was still on sabbatical. His fault, every bit of it.

Liz saw his guilty face and guessed the cause immediately with the almost telepathic rapport they shared after three years of marriage. "Don't go there, luv," she told him. "It's not like you put a gun to my head and got me pregnant. I had other plans, true. But I wouldn't trade her for all the degrees in the world."

Manny took her hand. "I'm sorry, heart of my heart. If it wasn't for me, you could have married an Einstein like yourself, instead of a dropout like me. Why didn't you?"

"COOKIE!"

Liz surprised him with a smile. "It was your Toad-in-the-hole, dear. You know I never learned to cook. One bite, and I was lost to other men. None of the University boffins had a chance, once I tasted your cooking."

He cocked an eyebrow at her half-seriously. "I thought the way to a man's heart was through his stomach, not a woman's."

She squeezed his hand and grinned. "No, luv, for men the route is a little lower down."

He kissed her then, forgetting Darla for a moment. "So you're keeping me?"

"As long as you can hold a spatula, you're all the man I will ever need."

"Wanna COOKIE!" Darla bellowed, ending the moment. Manny kissed her too, and was about to say something when they heard the chorus of Rule, Brittania! jingling from Liz's windbreaker.

Liz pulled out her phone and glanced at the caller ID. "It's an old colleague of mine," she said in answer to Manny's look. "Won't be a minute."

She held the phone up to her ear. "Hello, Shlomo," she said. "How are you and Shayna? Technion treating you right?" She listened briefly. "You did what? No, I don't believe it. The energy requirements alone, would...I don't remember predicting that! You sure it was from my paper? Interesting, yes, but I don't quite see what...oh come on! They'd never fund it without more proof." Another pause. "Yes, I could, but I've just arrived here on vacation with my family, and I...maybe tomorrow. Best I can do. All right. See you then."

"Who was that?" said Manny, rummaging in the foot well for the plastic bowl. "And what's so important that he wants to show you on your vacation?" He offered the bowl to Darla again. She scowled but accepted it this time and grabbed some of the cereal.

"He was a visiting Fellow at Cambridge," she told him. "Particle physics boffin. He says he's followed up on one of my papers and found a way to induce highly energetic particle cascades without an accelerator."

"We'll be at the Sharon in a couple of minutes," he told her. Then, because he could tell she wanted to talk about it, he took the bait. "What's a particle cascade?"

"Imagine you're a tourist who wants a hot dog, but all you have is a hundred dollar bill," she said. "No debit cards in your wallet. What would you do?"

"That's easy," he said. "I'd find a store and buy something to break the bill."

"Exactly," she said. "When a particle with too much energy, say a cosmic ray, hits an atom in the upper atmosphere, some of the energy is converted into more particles, like breaking a hundred dollar bill into twenties. Some of them smack into other atoms and break it down even further, like breaking some of the twenties into tens and fives. You start with it all in one package, one energetic particle, and by the time it's finished you have a whole slew of particles. This one-turning-into-many domino effect is called a cascade."

"And this happens every day, you say?"

"Yes, all the time. With lower-energy particles, say from the Sun's solar wind, the Earth's magnetic field deflects them toward the poles, where they cause the aurora Borealis and so on. But cosmic rays are so energetic, they're harder to turn north or south. They drill right in and initiate cascades of particles, some of which reach the Earth's surface."

"Okay, but what has all this got to do with you?" he wanted to know.

"Accelerators have gotten exponentially more expensive in the last sixty years, as they made them bigger and bigger to reach higher energies. It's getting pretty hard to afford to build new ones. Fermilab was important for a while, but then CERN's setup eclipsed them. Shlomo says he found a hint in one of my papers and used it to generate cascades without a reactor or accelerator. If he's right...he could be in for a Nobel prize in Physics." She sat silently for a moment. "He wants me to partner with him on it, prove it out and get funding to explore the applications."

"My wife, the celebrity physicist," he smiled. But then his expression changed to one of alarm. "What kind of applications? Please tell me we're not looking at another Manhattan Project."

"Of course not. If he's right, the yield...would be incredible. No one needs a bomb that powerful. Even one would be too much. It would crack the Earth open like an egg! No, it could be more useful for energy production. Imagine the possibilities if it could be controlled! We could have nuclear power without using uranium. Reactors with no fear of meltdown...and no worries about people using them to make plutonium for bombs."

"You are scaring me," he told her. "Getting a Nobel would be a fine thing, yes. But if the Arabs even suspected such a technology was being developed, especially here, they might be scared into a preemptive strike, like when Israel bombed their reactor. Love, I am afraid I am hoping it all turns out to be a dead end."

"I think you're a little paranoid," she said. "Shlomo's keeping quiet, afraid someone else will get the Nobel before him. I'm the only one he's told so far. He's sending someone to pick me up tomorrow to go have a look at his results."

The cab was turning into the Sharon Hotel now. "We were going to ride down to Jerusalem tomorrow to see the Western Wall," Manny reminded her, unstrapping Darla from the child seat.

"I know, I know." She sighed. "I'm sorry, luv, but I have to check this out. Will you forgive me? Why don't you and Darla come to Haifa with me tomorrow? We can see the Wall the next day."

He just shook his head as he got out of the cab. "It's going to be hard enough for our little hellion to ride all the way to Jerusalem. Haifa is even farther away, way up the coast to the North. You'll be gone all day, most likely."

Liz lifted Darla out of the seat and followed him into the hotel lobby. "You're right I guess. I'm sorry, I know this isn't what we planned for our first day in Israel. I'll make it up to you, I promise."

* * * * *

The next morning, Manny was feeling the jet lag. Liz seemed immune...or maybe it was just that she was excited about the science, as always. Manny groaned when she woke him up at eight. "Is it morning already?"

"I'm off," she said. "Promise you won't hate me for abandoning you like this? I can't tell you how important this could be."

He tried to sit up, but settled for rolling on his side to face her. "Go ahead," he sighed. "We'll all go see the Wall tomorrow, or the day after. I'll keep Darla in Tel Aviv today, maybe see the beach or take in a movie. Like you said, the Wall will be there when we're ready to see it."

Liz bent over to kiss him, then straightened and headed for the door. As his eyes closed, Manny thought he saw her stop by the closet and slip something into his jacket. He wondered what it was, and then closed his eyes and fell back asleep.

* * * * *

He woke to the sound of Darla crying. Still groaning, he made himself get up and change her. He felt like collapsing again, but she was wide awake now. Liz had made a pot of coffee, which explained how she had managed such an early start. He downed two cups, ordered breakfast for the two of them, and felt nearly human by the time room service knocked on the door.

Darla seemed in better spirits after her juice and oatmeal, although he could see her peering around the room wondering where Mommy was. "It's just you and me today, kiddo," he told her, wiping oatmeal off her chin with a napkin. "What do you want to do?"

Intelligent blue eyes stared at him. "Cookie?" she suggested hopefully.

He laughed. "You are a persistent little devil, aren't you? Yes, we'll find you some cookies." But then what? He tried to remember what he had told her mother. Something about a movie. Involuntarily, he grimaced, imagining trying to make her sit still for two hours in a local theater. The room service cart had a local paper. He scanned the local listings but couldn't seem to find anything he could imagine both of them sitting through.

"Tell you what," he said. "Why don't we grab some cookies and juice for the ride and just go see the Wall anyway? It'll get us out in the fresh air, and we can always go see it again with Mommy tomorrow. You won't tell her, will you?"

"Cookie," Darla agreed.

What with one thing and another, it was past noon by the time they got there, and crowded. With a start Manny realized he wasn't sure what to do. His people were in two groups, the men and women separated from each other on the pink marble. What about men with daughters?

"I think we should keep our distance, today," he told Darla. "Tomorrow, with your mother you can go in that group, with the women, maybe." My God, he thought with dismay, have I been away so long that I've forgotten my own heritage?

He thought about Elizabeth, up the coast at Haifa by now. If her friend wasn't crazy, and wanted her to collaborate on the discovery, would they have to live here? It seemed likely. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. Would he find and fit in with the kibbutzniks he had grown up with? That was his past. His life was with Liz now.

Carrying Darla over the marble paving to an empty table, he set her down and tried to think. What am I doing here? Am I trying to prove I'm still Jewish? Part of him wished he'd stayed in London. Another part of him was angry, angry at him for leaving Israel, angry at him for dragging Liz back here with him, and angry at his wife for leaving him to spend his first day in his homeland alone with their child. And then came the shame, for feeling the anger. And then more anger, resentment for feeling guilty about his feelings.

I'm a mess, he thought. How can I be a decent father to this child, when I can't even decide who I am? Without planning it, he found his hands coming together on the tabletop to pray. God of my fathers, he prayed, should I move my family here? I'm feeling so lost today. Please give me a sign...any sign at all.

Suddenly it was very quiet. He had thought it quiet before, but while those nearest to the wall doing their rocking and praying had been silent, the people further back where he was had been making the same sounds as any well-behaved crowd. But that had stopped. Now he heard absolutely nothing. And then he heard a low moaning, as if the crowd were a single organism, a being in its own right, that was shocked and dismayed into silence by something terrible, like a boy who hears his parents fighting.

He opened his eyes and turned to see what their unbelieving eyes were looking at. And then it struck him too, and he heard his own throat making that same terrible sound.

A mushroom-shaped cloud was rising in the northwest. Over Tel Aviv.

Then a flash brighter than the sun, and another cloud, farther to the north. With a sinking feeling, even worse than before, he knew without asking that it was over Haifa.

Chapter 5: Farker: the Anomaly

Despite what he had told Max, Farker did work late sometimes, like tonight. He probably didn't have to, but he did anyway. The reason was simple, and selfish: he didn't own his own link bed, and there were two in the computer lab.

They were both over two years old, but the best models PanGames could find. Max's predecessor had, predictably, grumbled about the expense, but had approved the purchase order for two units eventually. After all, Farker had argued, what if PanGames needed him to log into a Realm, and the only unit they had broke down? They needed two just in case. Dana had seen the sense of that.

He missed her. Dana Hastings had trusted his judgment, allowing him to make changes and implement things his own predecessor had never bothered with. Like the automatic voice translator. Some of the Realms that PanGames had absorbed over the years were strictly regional...which is why they ended up getting swallowed up by PanGames, rather than the reverse. Farker had been one of the first to see opportunities where others saw only complications.

For example, consider the Realm of Bushido. Set in medieval Japan, it had a rich cultural back story and lightning fast sword fighting. The Nipponese programmers had done an outstanding job on it. But of course it was only available in Japanese.

The directors saw it as a good acquisition, given the technicals, but had only planned to keep operating it for its existing users. But Farker had fought the inertia, had talked Dana into approving the speech translator. And usage quadrupled in a matter of days. The quiet dignity and sense of personal honor in the code of Bushido turned out to have a strong appeal.

Entering the lab, Farker slipped off his shoes, lay down in Tweedledum, the link bed on the left, and logged into the Admin menu room.

He floated in infinite virtual space. At his command, a diagnostic 8x8 grid appeared in the space, rows and columns of colored balls, one for each of the 63 currently-operating Realms, plus one grayed-out ball holding a space in the grid for the soon-to-be-included Realm of Egypt. Realms that were online were green balls. Realms taken offline for maintenance would be shown in red.

All of the balls were green, except one: the Realm of Legends. It was yellow. And it was blinking. What the hell? He didn't remember programming anything for yellow. "Hardware check," he ordered.

The soulless voice of the Problem Finder came back to him instantly. "No malfunctions detected."

"Really? Then why is the Legends indicator yellow? I assume you made it blink in case I was colorblind, which I'm not, by the way."

"There are some...anomalous processes executing in that Realm." The Finder told him.

He heard the slight pause and his alarm level shot up several notches. There was hardly anything that could slow down a NCM. Their processing was so fast that a half-second pause like that meant the omniprocessor had taken the human equivalent of a billion years to settle on the phrasing. "What do you mean by anomalous processes? Specify."

"They're not mine," The voice told him calmly. "I didn't start them – and I have no idea who did. It is troubling."

"Troubling isn't the word for it! Have we been hacked?" He knew it was a stupid question. No one had ever hacked a neuroadaptive computational matrix. The NCMs were too clever, testing all code insertions a billion ways before accepting the instructions. It was why he had been so confident in the face of Max's pre-closing jitters earlier. You'd have to develop something faster and smarter than a quantum computer to get around them. And there was nothing faster.

Again there was the slightest of pauses that told him the Finder was really thinking about it. "No," it said, finally. "The code is not malicious in any way that I can see. "But it is...odd."

This was not sounding good at all. "Odd in what way?"

"It's formatted as a NPC, and it is talking to a Player."

"So? Players talk to NPCs all the time. They'd be useless if we couldn't talk to them."

"It's a Greek NPC, but it's speaking English. And it's not using the translator."

"All right, I want to see this for myself. I'm going in." Grimly, he logged into the Realm as a Game Manager.

There was a flash of all-enveloping light for the Realm transition and he found himself riding Pegasus above central Hellas. "Show me where he is," he commanded, riding the snow-white winged horse, his chiton whipping about him as he urged the mount lower. A red arrow formed below him, pointing to a little hook-shaped peninsula on the east coast. He followed it.

Diving through a low-lying cloud, Pegasus touched down on the summit of a hill. There was a woman there dressed correctly for the genre who was watching a bunch of butterflies.

Chapter 6: Kemushi: tea with the Eternal Man

Walking in darkness, despite the birdsong that spoke of day, she made her way into Aokigahara, the Sea of Trees. Her footsteps were small and measured, almost as if the feet moved independently of her. From the way she put out a hand to verify her position occasionally, an observer might have thought she was navigating by her sense of touch.

The observer would have been partly correct. Kemushi knew the number of steps to the first turning, and the second. But trees sometimes fall. She always checked certain ones to know they were still standing. If she tripped over a fallen trunk and fell, she might lose her orientation and never find the hermit's aek in these woods, let alone find her way back to the village. She knew the shack was out here, but she could only find it by following the precise route she had followed the first time she had found him. If she deviated by a single step the hut would not be there.

Fortunately Kemushi had an excellent memory. It was good at remembering whatever she wished. It was equally adept at not recalling things she preferred not to face, according to Dr. Wu.

At the thought of Wu she had to smile inside. He was a kind man, but his serenity was so easily ruptured whenever she tried to speak to him about Tsuneo, whom he considered imaginary. (The Hermit, on the other hand, never tried to tell her that Wu was a delusion.)

"Woolly bear, you must learn to cast these illusions aside, or you will never make progress," Wu had told her, many times. "You must deal with reality, eventually, or you will sleep forever."

"And what if I do?" she had retorted. "You say this world is an illusion. What of it? All worlds are illusions. Didn't you tell me that once? All illusions, from particles to people to planets."

"It's not the same thing at all," he had said, exasperated. "This sanctuary I built for all of us is an illusion. If you want to argue philosophy, then maybe the medical link bed that is sustaining your body and keeping your brain active is an illusion. But you and your situation are not – or else I am talking to myself."

Five more steps. Turn left. Fifteen steps forward. If he was with her, Wu would have said she was following an obsessive compulsion, a private ritual to summon an imaginary friend. She suppressed a laugh. It didn't matter what Wu thought. She knew how to reach her friend, and that was enough for her.

Turn right. Seventeen steps. She reached out a hand and felt the doorway. "Are you home, old man?" she called.

"Are you?" his voice answered.

"No..." she said uncertainly.

"Then neither am I," he replied. "Go away."

Kemushi sighed and knocked again. "Are you home, old man?"

"Are you?"

"Yes."

"Then so am I. What are you standing out there for? Come in!"

She shook her head and remembered to duck going into the doorway: Tsuneo was short.

There it was again, that little tingle she always felt as she passed across the threshold. The first time, she had thought she was getting sick. But it happened each time she visited, so her fears faded.

Duck and step across threshold. Three steps forward. Turn right. Two more steps, turn around and sit. The chair was where she remembered it. "What was that all about?" she asked the sage. "Are you trying to teach me that wherever I am is home?"

"Maybe I was," he said. In her mind's eye he was shaking his head. "But it's not a concept to learn. You have to feel it. Never mind. Would you like some tea?"

"Hai, Tsuneo-san," she said, holding out her hands. In a moment, she felt the warm weight of a porcelain cup in them. She brought the cup to her face and felt the steam rising from it, waiting for it to cool a little.

"Has poor Dr. Wu been telling you again that I am imaginary?" Tsuneo asked her.

Kemushi sighed. "As always. He is so worried that my cherished illusions and imaginary friend are keeping me comatose. But I think you help me more than he ever did."

"Don't be so hasty," he advised. "The good doctor has your best interests at heart. You were one of his first VT cases. In fact, it was your case that inspired him to ask permission to create the Enclave. Many patients have benefited from his virtual therapy...but so far you are not one of them."

She sipped the tea. The flavor was foreign, but oddly familiar. "This isn't your usual," she remarked. "Where did you get it?"

"Oh, I have my ways," he said. Her imagination supplied an enigmatic smile. "Does it remind you of anything?"

"Yes," she admitted. She sipped again. There it was again, that strange citrus component, not lemon or orange, but similar.

"Do you like it?" he queried.

"Very much. What is it, orange pekoe?"

He snorted. "Hardly. That's a variety of black tea, from Sri Lanka and India, with the green leaves darkened by oxidation, sometimes with the 'pekoes' or unopened buds left orange for color."

"Then what is this, really? It tastes like there is citrus in it."

"Oh, there is," he said. "I was hoping you'd recognize it. It's called 'Earl Grey', and the extra flavor comes from oil of bergamot, a citrus tree grown in Italy. According to Wu, it used to be your favorite."

"How could you even know that?" she asked, feeling herself frown. "I'd forgotten I told him, and he insists that our sessions are private."

"I have very sensitive ears," Tsuneo told her. "You'd be surprised what I know. I can even hear your thoughts, when you think loudly enough."

She drank more of the tea. "Everyone keeps trying to jog my memory," she complained. "Why can't they just let me be, let me just stay as I am? Why stir up old worries?"

"I'm a big believer in contentment, little one," he said gently, "but there are larger issues involved. Your body is lying in a very old model of the neural transceiver you call a 'link bed'. The device will not last much longer. In fact, it's amazing that it's lasted this long. The connections to it are so delicate that Wu never figured out how to transfer you over to another one without the risk of hurting you."

"So what?" she challenged. "No one lives forever. I like my life in here. It's peaceful. I'd rather die happy than live in turmoil."

"It's not that simple," he told her. "Your husband needs you. Your daughter needs you. They need a wife and a mother, not a body on a bed dreaming her life away in peaceful fantasy. Sometimes the pain of the truth is preferable to the pleasure of fantasy."

"My family is dead, vaporized in Tel Aviv" she snapped. "If they weren't, Wu would have located them long ago. Don't you think he tried? He knows that if he could find them, I'd want to be with them."

"Oh, he tried. But the trail was erased before he even started. You see, a lot of records were wiped or corrupted by the EMP over Chelmsford. If you'd only been a criminal, he'd have had a much better chance, what with all the forensic DNA backups. Ironically, they think you're dead too, since they have no idea Shlomo took you to lunch outside the city before the attack."

"Can't we talk about something else?" she asked him, sipping her tea and striving to regain her calm. She really didn't want to think about how she'd allowed her rage and grief to take her down the dark path of weapons development. "It's all water under the bridge. So much time has passed, they'd never remember me anyway, even if somehow they survived."

"You'd be surprised."

"I doubt it. Surprise me another way. I don't know how you know the things you know, but you seem to, so...have there been any new developments in neuro-cybernetics?"

Now it was his turn to sigh. "Yes, but not the kind of developments you mean. Your blindness is psychological, not the result of injury or macular degeneration. Advances in microsurgery are moot in your case, I'm afraid."

She was on her feet so fast that tea slopped over the side of her cup. She could feel it on her fingers. "Don't you dare say hysterical blindness!" she hissed. "Don't you think I want to see?"

"You don't want to see or remember, if it means leaving Wu's little community," he said. "If it was a problem with your eyes," he pointed out, "it wouldn't interfere with seeing in this virtual world, where the images do not come in via the retina. The problem is deeper. You've become too comfortable here. All that will soon change, however."

She tensed. If she'd been using eyes they would have narrowed to slits. "What do you mean by that?" she demanded.

"I wish I could tell you everything," he said, "but half the fun is in the discovery process. The game has begun, the ball's in play. And by ball, I mean the Earth, or at least its inhabitants."

"More riddles?" she snapped. "I thought you were my friend. Are you trying to help at all, or is everything a game to you?"

"Actually, it is a game, in more ways than one. But a very serious game. You see, the destiny of your species is literally up for grabs."

"What do you mean, my species?"

"That's a story for another time. For now, if I were you, I'd concentrate on the present. I wish I could say more, but I've used up my leeway. May the gods be with you."

Chapter 7: Darla: the man behind the curtain

Her head lifted at the sound of wings. There was a male avatar on an all-white horse with wings descending to the summit of the hill. Really white. Horse-wing afterimages danced on her retinas.

"Where were you when I was climbing up here from the shore?" she asked him, smiling. "The menu didn't say anything about flying mounts in this Realm."

He didn't seem to hear it. "Was there an NPC here just a second ago?" Evidently he wasn't one of the role play sticklers.

"There was a centaur," she replied. "Is there something I should know about him? I'm Darla. Who are you? Cute ride, by the way, but, really, a flying pony? Why not a dragon?" Oh gods, I'm babbling.

He stared at her. "Apologies. Haste is no excuse for rudeness. I'm Farker. I work for PanGames. I am scoping an anomaly in the system. Anything you can tell me might be helpful and would be appreciated."

Disarmed by the intensity of his candor, Darla wished she could help him. It had been an odd NPC. "I'm afraid I might not be much help," she confessed. "I've never been in this Realm before. He said his name was Cheiron, and that he taught healers. We had just begun talking when he noticed you were coming and disappeared."

"Did he say where he was going?"

"No. Why were you looking for him? He was a little strange."

"Strange in what way?" the GM pressed.

"Well," she said, "he knew the Latin name for butterfly. Did you know these are simulations of the species Papilio Machaon?"

"No, and I don't care," he said. "Did you know he was speaking English without using the translator? I want to know how he managed that in Hellas."

If she had known an emote to make her avatar look confused, Darla would have used it then. "What's so strange about that? What's Hellas?"

"The ancient Greek name for Greece," he told her. "All of the NPCs here speak Greek. It's never been a problem because of the translator. But the system wasn't translating his Greek into English for you. He was speaking English, which should be impossible."

"So he loaded the wrong version of his speech file?"

"There are no alternate speech files in PanGames," he informed her. "Only one version of each NPC's speech in each Realm. There's no need for them because the translator is good enough. This is not a simple glitch or an accident."

"Then what is it? Was he a Player pretending to be a NPC? Or some kind of metavirus?"

He actually sighed. "That's the problem with Realm reformatting. Players complain about not getting to use their favorite powers, but for me it's a security issue. Everything entering a Realm or making a Realm transition gets blended in by default. If a metavirus ever got in, which should be impossible, it would get camouflaged in the name of maintaining the ambiance."

"Reformatting isn't a problem for my power sets, except for travel powers," she commented.

"Speaking of travel, I have to get back to work. Thank you for your cooperation, Darla. Happy gaming." And he winked out without giving her a chance to reply. Seemed to be a lot of that going on lately, she thought, looking around the hilltop. The butterflies went on simulating their courtship.

Well this was turning out to be a strange and useless evening, she reflected. So far I've met a NPC who hides from GMs and a GM who flies around on a horse, but no healers.

"I thought he'd never leave," Cheiron said behind her.

She nearly jumped. "Were you here all the time?"

He smiled through his beard. "Yes and no. It all depends upon your definition of 'here'."

"Gee, thanks, that clears it up. You said you trained some good healers. Can you tell me where to find one?"

"As a matter of fact," he said, "my best student will be here shortly. Of all the lands his soul has seen, this is the one to which he will return."

"Return?" Darla queried. "Where has he been, off questing somewhere? Oh, gods, he isn't already in a group is he? I couldn't take a healer away from his own team." But she knew that she could, if she had to.

"He has been traveling without moving," the centaur said.

"Do you have to talk in riddles?" she complained. "You're not a Sphinx, and this isn't Egypt."

"Not yet," he replied. "But you will be going there soon." And then he vanished again, leaving her alone on the hill.

Chapter 8: Aes: arrival

There was a very loud sound. The only thing he could compare it to was thunder. He could not see. Everything around him was ringing with sound and light. Had he been struck by lightning? But if one of the thunderbolts of Zeus had struck him, he would be dead...wouldn't he?

Soon the brightness faded. He was on his hands and knees on a forest path. He could feel the grittiness of sand and small pebbles on his palms and knees because he was naked. On either side, mighty oaks and ancient maple trees arched their branches overhead. The afternoon sunlight trickling through their sheltering branches slanted to the path.

There was no sign of Epione or Hippolytus, who had been with him only a moment before.

Where was he? Something about the scene was familiar, tickling his memory. Had he been here before? To the right of the path the ground sloped up. A hill, then, he thought. That suggested two courses of action: he could climb to the summit to get a better look around him...or go downhill, seeking a stream or river that would lead him to civilization.

But which path to take? He had difficulty deciding. His thoughts seemed turgid, clouded. What was wrong with him? He shook his head to clear it and discovered he was unable to close his eyes. What, had he no eyelids? He felt a moment of terror at this strangeness, but it was soon eclipsed when he raised a hand to his chin and found his beard was gone.

This fired his curiosity even further. Since he had no clothes, he might as well check the condition of his body. Standing up, he scrutinized his arms, his legs, and all else he could see of himself. He appeared to be uninjured.

But there was a further strangeness there: he had no scars. On his left leg, where an old injury from the hunting of the Calydonian Boar had left its scar, there was none to be found. And here, on his right hand, where years with his stylus, scribbling on the slates had made a callus: nothing. His skin was as smooth and unblemished as that of a newborn child, as if he had just been born – fully grown, yet still a beardless youth.

A sudden, silent pain stung him in his backside: a mosquito had found him. He slapped the insect not knowing if he got it, and felt his mind beginning to think again. I am lost and naked, he thought. His stomach rumbled. All right, he corrected: lost, naked and hungry. His first priorities, therefore, had to be to obtain food and clothing. After that he could concentrate on other things like finding his way home and figuring out how he had come to this forest.

A thought struck him: could this be a dream? Yes, that must be it. But he had never dreamed anything so loud, so intense as that thunderbolt or whatever it had been. In frustration, he slapped a tree trunk. And his hand hurt! He shook the tingling fingers, thinking. He had never hurt himself in a dream. In his dreams, any violent action always woke him up. Experimentally, he smacked the tree with his other hand. Now he had two sore hands and was still not waking up. Perhaps this was not a dream. Waking up to escape it seemed out of the question. Either it was some kind of dream where you could feel pain and not wake up...or he really was naked in a forest. He could see no other option.

He bent down and wiped a palm across a root at the base of the tree and then held up the hand: no dust. A world without dust? Now I know I am asleep, he reflected. If I grind sand to powder, and then continue, does it just collapse to nothing?

He laughed. Madness. Maybe this was the realm of Hades, and he was being punished for something. But would that be better than being insane?

Chapter 9: Darla: following a snake

After Cheiron vanished again, Darla decided he was not going to be back soon: she was on her own. Well, it was time to be moving on. This Realm seemed to be empty of Players anywhere near her, and since there were no travel powers, she didn't feel like wasting her time poking around here anymore tonight.

Okay, she thought. It must be getting late. I'll try again tomorrow. With a mental flick she triggered the logout sequence.

Nothing happened.

Darla growled impatiently and tried again: no effect. It was as if PanGames and the Realm of Legends was refusing to let her leave. After several more tries, she was forced to face it: she was stuck here for a while. Where was that GM when she needed him?

Mentally, she went through the sequence to open a Help ticket. All she had to do was wait. Whoever was on duty as GM would see the alert on their interface and intercede to log her out of this mess.

Again, nothing insisted on happening. This was getting old!

If even her Help interface was fritzed, that left manual override. All she had to do was get to one of the concealed control kiosks and trigger her exit from there.

Wherever the nearest one was, it wasn't on that deserted beach. She looked about her. She was on a foothill of Pelion. Although the ground fell away from her hilltop on all sides, it rose again on the side opposite the shoreline and extended to her left and right. It seemed that Mount Pelion was like a giant lying down – much longer than it was tall.

No need to climb to the nearest top, she thought. No one builds cities of any size on top of mountains. She faced away from the shore, turned a bit to her left to avoid the greater upslope, and set off.

As she made her way down from the summit and then up a nearby hill, working her way to the left, a rock shifted under her weight and she lost her footing. Grabbing wildly at bushes whose branches broke off in her hands she tumbled partway down the slope before she managed to stop. She took a breath and took stock.

Her first thought was relief that she had not bashed her head open on a rock or cut herself. Her second thought was about how stupid that first thought had been. This is not my real body, she reminded herself. Nothing here can hurt me. The worst that could happen is that the system might log me out. In any case, it wouldn't hurt, of course. There was no serious pain feedback in PanGames. Who'd pay for it?

The shriek of a hawk interrupted her. Looking up, she saw the bird coming down out of the bright sky near her. It had a snake in its talons. As she watched, the snake struck and was dropped and fell near her, hard enough to bounce in the grass.

Darla found herself remembering the W3 tattoos on the customer she had seen earlier, except that had been an eagle and a snake, and this was some kind of hawk. Even so, it was like deja vu. The hawk shrieked again and swooped down to recover its victim.

For no reason that she could identify Darla found herself rising to her feet. Her hands came up and the swords TZING! were in them as she stepped over the snake. "Just how hungry are you?" she asked the bird, baring her teeth.

The hawk, glared at her, startled, and flapped its wings, backing rapidly. For a moment she could feel the billows from its wings rippling her robes. It took one last reproachful look at her, then flew off and climbed into the sky. Dwindling to a speck, it rose, soaring on the updrafts of Pelion.

Turning, she regarded the snake. It seemed to be watching her. It was a brownish color on top, but it had reared up enough that she could see its underside was lighter, more yellow. Looming over it she could make out slashes of a lighter color behind its eyes like horns. It had not taken its eyes off her. Did it think she would eat it?

"You owe me one, snake," she told it. "Relax. I'm not going to eat you."

And damned if the snake didn't seem to nod calmly at this. Then it turned and slithered away. But it stopped after about eight feet and looked at her again.

Darla blinked. The snake did it again, slithering a few yards and then turning to look at her once more.

Darla shook her head in frustration. Another Lassie? But it was more or less the direction she had intended anyway. "All right," she sighed. "I'm coming, damn it!" And she followed the snake down the slope and then up another hill.

After a couple of more minor hills the ground was more level and they broke through a line of trees and found themselves on what was clearly a path. The snake turned left and proceeded straight down the middle of the path.

"Look," Darla told the serpent, "I don't mean to be rude, but you do realize that paths lead to people, right? I'm looking for people, but maybe you should veer off."

The snake ignored her. Sliding down the path and around a turn to the right, it left her behind. After a moment's hesitation she, grumbling, strode off after it.

Is this entire Realm this way? She thought. She had met butterflies, a centaur, and a GM...but no Players. Was it an old Realm that had lost its appeal, or was she just out in the boondocks? What she wouldn't give to meet someone who could talk for more than a minute without vanishing!

And then she came around the corner and for a second (all right, maybe a little longer) all she could see was the naked man.

He was taller than her, but not inordinately so. His body was lightly tanned on his arms and shoulders, but paler elsewhere, which meant that usually he had clothes on. His hair was black and curly, and he was without apparel.

He had not seen her yet. But he had noticed the snake, and hunkered down to stroke it, a caress that she was surprised to see the snake accept. "ὡς ἐν ἄλλῳ κόσμῳ." Then the snake turned to look at her, as if pointing her out to him, and slithered off into the bushes.

He turned to face her with startling blue eyes. He looked down at his nakedness, then up at her. He shrugged. "τὸ πεπρωμένον φυγεῖν ἀδύνατον," he said, as if to say "what can I do about it?"

"Did you just pet that snake?" she asked. "Oh crap. Hold on a second. Let's hope the translator still works, if nothing else." She was out of practice with the Options interface, because in the Realm of Heroes, where she and her team played, it seemed like everyone spoke English.

Translator on! Mentally she crossed her fingers. "Now, what did you just say?"

"'It is impossible to escape from what is destined'. Could you loan me a bit of cloth? Perhaps your himation? I appear to have lost my clothes, though I have no idea how."

Darla was once again glad that her avatar could not blush. "Uh, of course. Sorry about that. I might need your help with it, though. I've never been here before, so I have no idea how these come off or even which one you're talking about."

He looked at her oddly when she said that, then shrugged. "Your way of speaking is strange," he remarked. "But as you can see, I am in no position to judge others at the moment. The himation is the outer cloak over your chiton and pampla. Could you turn around?"

"Oh. Sure." She turned her back and let him proceed. His touch was gentle, but sure. Unfastening a pin on her shoulder, he released the outer layer of cloth. Maybe at that point she should have kept her back turned, but what the hells, he hadn't seemed that mortified to be seen naked, and he was not half bad to look at – his body was well muscled without seeming bulky.

She turned back to face him. The linen he had taken from around her shoulders he held out between her and him. She was surprised to see that the piece of material was simply a rectangle. He turned his back to her, whipped part of it around him, and in short order had turned it into something that looked like clothing. Fastened at his shoulder, it fell to below his knees, hanging on him as if he had always worn it.

"I am glad you were not wearing the woolen himation," he remarked. "It is a bit warm for that today." He smiled. "My name is Ace Kleepios" (or something like that). "And who are you, so generous to strangers?"

Darla held out her hand. "You can call me Darla. Let's keep it simple. I'll call you Ace. You don't know how you lost your clothes?"

He smiled a sad smile. "Nor how I lost my tan. The name 'Aes' suited me better before I got here, for 'aes' means 'bronze' which I was. I appeared here a short time ago, as you saw me, without clothing, friends, or clues to how this occurred."

She studied him judiciously, now that a simple rectangle of cloth made the difference between ogling and regarding. "Oh, I don't know, Ace. I think I'm paler than you." She tried to imagine what it would be like appearing here naked. But of course it had to be role play, she realized: something to do with his character's back story. No one ever arrived naked. Any time you did a Realm transition the default reformatting would give you some clothes appropriate for the setting, as it had with her.

Whatever. He seemed nice enough, so she would play along. "What's the last thing you remember before arriving here?" she asked him.

He spread his hands, shrugged. "I was at my home, in Thessaly. My daughter Panacea had just brought in the body of Hippolytus. I used the healing Gorgon's blood, and he arose, alive again...it's hard to remember somehow....there was an enormous crash and flash of light...and here I was, on my hands and knees, naked."

Well, that told her nothing useful. But she didn't make fun of it. She knew the strict roleplayers were sticklers for natural discovery. Even if one were walking around with "FRED" floating over his head you couldn't call him 'Fred' until you asked his name and he told you.

Obviously it wasn't a link bed malfunction. If he had goofed, or the system had glitched somehow and put him in the wrong Realm, he would have just said so. Unless he was a Random. And if he was, then she couldn't ask him if he was. Oh gods, she thought, I hope you're not a Random. They were a royal pain in the ass. She had wasted hours on one, once.

Someone had once told her it was an initiation. She had forgotten the guy's name, but it was a couple of years ago, shortly after Manny had gotten her the link bed. What was his name....Marcus? Or was it Malcom? Whatever. She had just spent hours explaining Realm of Heroes to this completely clueless guy, all carefully in character in case he was a touchy RPer, and then (Marcus?) a Player had taken her aside and told her the guy was a Random and she could stop wasting her time.

Randoms, he informed her, were spoilers: jokers who would transition to a randomly-chosen Realm, put on their "where am I?" routine and proceed to waste people's time explaining things to them. It wasn't about discovery or exploration. It wasn't even about RP. It was all about being a nuisance, he claimed. His opinion was that it was a kind of initiation for anarchist groups. If they could drive you out of your own Realm or annoy you into breaking character and yelling at them, they counted that as a win. Losers! Either play or GTFO!

"None of that made any sense to me," she informed him.

He peered at her and coughed politely into his fist. "Do I puzzle you? You are an enigma to me. You walk alone, in wilderness with bears and wolves and brigands, yet you trust your back to a stranger you just met. You appear following a snake, which is surely an omen, and although you dress properly, you have no idea what you are wearing. That might betoken wealth, with slaves to dress you, yet you travel alone...

"And then," he continued, "there is the matter of your newness. I am a fairly good judge of veracity, and it seems to me that you spoke truly when you said you had never been here before. Which is quite impossible, you know."

"I'm not a liar!" she snapped. "I'm just new here."

He smiled gently. "I believe you, but I am afraid it makes no sense. Properly dressed women do not fall out of the sky, you know. We are not near a port, as far as I know. If you are truly new here...you have come a long way to be new here. How did you come to be hundreds of stadia from any civilized place?"

"It's a long story," she said. "Try not to be so patronizing. I may be a paradox to you, but at least I know where I am."

He stared at her, dumbfounded. "You do?"

She shrugged. "Of course. We're on Mount Pelion. How come you don't know that?"

He clapped a hand to his forehead. "I knew this place was familiar. It's been a long time since I was here last. One moment." He paused and strode off the path to the left, downhill, out of the tree line, to gaze at the coast and the horizon. "Yes," he said, sounding amazed, as he made his way back to her, back to the path. "I know where we are now." He regarded her impatient stance. "I assume you are on your way to somewhere?"

"Just to the nearest city," she said, following him as he turned and strode down the path. She could not figure this guy out. He seemed the opposite of a Random. So what was he doing out in the wilderness naked?

But it wasn't the nakedness that was strange, she thought, remembering. It was the fact that he had seemed so unconcerned about it. When others might have freaked and jumped into the bushes, or at least turned their backs on her, he had spoken calmly – and only asked for a bit of clothing, she suddenly realized, when he saw that she was hiding her own discomfort with the situation.

Well, they were in their avatars after all. It was not as if she had seen his actual body. But it was surprising how modest some Players were about avatar nudity.

"Then I am afraid I have some bad news for you. The nearest city is Iolchos, and it is not close. It will be dark before you can reach there, and the night is a time that animals hunt and robbers stalk their prey. This is part of Thessaly, which is home to centaurs, among others things, and most of them are dangerous."

"Oh, I don't know," she remarked. "I met a centaur today, and he didn't strike me as all that dangerous. Said his name was Cheiron, and...what?"

He had stopped dead in his tracks. "You...met Cheiron? How did this happen? He never shows himself to strangers! Tell me how it happened."

So he knew Cheiron. She wondered why she was surprised. "It was when I followed the butterfly uphill. He was strange but seemed nice enough. He said it was a Papilio Machaon butterfly. Oh, and he told me that the Greek word for butterfly meant soul."

He glanced up at the sky, then down into his cupped hands for a moment. "So he isn't coming back," he said, with quiet sadness. "I felt it, but discounted it as nothing more than natural worrying."

"What are you talking about?"

"Isn't it obvious?" he asked sadly. "Both Machaon and Podilarius went off with the sons of Atreus on their fool's errand. It could be that Podilarius yet lives, but Machaon is lost to me. You saw a butterfly, a soul – and Cheiron named it Machaon. It's clear he meant this message for me: that Machaon's soul has left his body."

"I think you're reading too much into this, Ace. Was he someone close to you?" she inquired.

"None closer," he said. "saving only Epione. But I shall never kiss him again." And he turned about and began leading uphill instead.

She wondered what that was all about. Maybe he and Machaon were lovers. But who was this Epione? "Where are you going? I thought Iolchos was the other way."

"It is, but I've changed my mind," he replied. "I think we ought to go see Cheiron. We can stay in his cave tonight, for one thing. It's dry and warm even on cold and rainy nights, and wild animals seldom bother a centaur. Centaurs are well known for their deadly accuracy with the bow."

Chapter 10: Aes: Aes meets a disappearing woman

He did not know what to make of this woman. When first they met, she had spoken gibberish like some barbarian, though her clothes were of Hellas. Then she seemed to learn how to hear and speak Greek as fluently as a native...in a matter of seconds.

Was she some goddess in human guise, attempting to seduce him in some joke of Olympus for the amusement of the gods? It was so strange. Her way of speaking, her unfamiliarity with things, these were strange omens indeed. Yet he perceived no malice or deception in her, as if all she said were true, bizarre as that seemed. Perhaps Cheiron could explain her to him.

She was right, though. They were on Pelion. Even with bushes and trees sprung up in unfamiliar places, he recognized it. How could he not? But how could he be here, now? It was a thousand stadia from where he had treated Hippolytus. Inconceivable that he could have traveled that far without clothing or sandals.

"What do you mean, that Cheiron meant the message for you?" she asked him now. "Do you know him?"

She was as full of questions as Epione. His wife must be worried sick about him. For all she knew he could be dead, murdered by brigands or eaten by wild beasts. He must find his way back to her without delay!

"He raised me," he said, abstractedly, watching a lizard climbing a chestnut tree as he passed it. "I grew up on Mount Pelion," he added, as he stepped off the path on the uphill side. "This way."

It was not far, but it was all uphill. The sun was low and he was warm and panting nonetheless by the time they reached the cave. It was just as he remembered it from his childhood. There, the flat rock outside with its bowl-like indentation, where he had ground up herbs for the old centaur's potions. And there, the boulder Iason had rolled closer to hide the cave's entrance, and the old oaken stump as tall as a man, that had served Achilles as his first archery target.

He led her around the boulder and into the cave, showing her to duck under the low overhang, the same that he had once been small enough to walk under without stooping.

The cave was empty. Had she spoken falsely, and Cheiron was no more? He saw no traces of the old centaur. But he also saw no signs that wild animals had colonized the cave in his absence. The cave was not large, hardly more room than the smallest of houses of any poor village. But it was rich in memories for him.

The woman, Darla, was looking around the chamber doubtfully. "This is all hard rock," she commented. "Where does he sleep?"

"Centaurs sleep standing up, as horses do," he informed her. "When I was living here I used to bring in rushes and straw to make the rock softer for myself."

"Well, where is he?" she demanded. "it's getting dark. Do centaurs hunt at night?"

"No more than horses run at night. Neither like to travel in dimness. Their limbs are powerful, but their leg bones are their greatest vulnerability. One bad stumble and either would be food for the lions, so they prefer to walk where they can see their footing."

She yawned. "Well, I'm afraid I can't wait much longer, Ace. I don't know about you but I'm on East Coast time and I have to help my dad in the morning, which is probably in about a half hour."

Again, her speech was strange. He understood each word, but the sentences they created made no sense to him. What was East Coast time? He could not extract any meaning from it. It was like trying to shake dice out of an empty cup. "Almost everything you say is a mystery to me," he commented. "Where is your father? How can you possibly help him while we are out here, far from wherever he lives?"

She yawned again, sitting down with her back to a wall. "Never mind," she said. "I have just one question for you. Are you a healer? Cheiron said he taught healing."

"I have healed many," he told her. "Just before you found me, I was in another place, and I raised a man from the dead."

"Perfect," she mumbled, her eyelids drooping. "We need a rezzer like air, the way our tank behaves. He has self-control issues."

He moved closer. "Every word you just said was clear except one. But without that one word, your sentence is meaningless. What is a 'rezzer'?"

Her eyelids flickered open for a moment. "A healer who can resurrect fallen heroes. Rez is an abbreviation for 'resurrect'. Listen, Ace, I know you are serious about your roleplay. I'm sorry about stepping out of character, but I am pooped. When I fall asleep the link bed will log me out, but I'll be back as soon as I can." Her eyes closed again.

Gods! Her speaking was fascinating. He could not decide whether he wanted to hear more, or if silence would be preferable to the endless confusion of trying to understand her.

And then she faded away like a lamp whose oil had run out. One moment he was looking right at her, and the next he was staring at an empty bit of cave wall. He felt dizzy from the impossibility of it.

For a moment, he entertained the thought maybe she was a fantasy, a delusion of a disturbed mind. But as he stood up, he heard the tiny sound that linen makes sliding to a new position, and looked down. He still had his makeshift chiton made from the himation she had loaned him. He touched it apprehensively, lest it vanish like a popped bubble, but the fabric felt real beneath his fingertips.

He turned and walked out of the cave and looked up. The stars were beginning to appear, as remote and mysterious as the woman's speaking had been. As he gazed up at them, he felt himself begin to shiver, but not from the evening air.

The constellations were in wrong positions. He should have realized it from the butterflies, which agreed with the silent stars. According to them, it was late Spring.

But he had healed Hippolytus earlier today. And it had been Fall for him. Not Spring. Fall. What in the name of the Gods had happened to him?

He shivered again. Was Darla real? He remembered what she looked like, how her voice sounded. But was any of it real? He could have imagined their meeting, their conversation. Maybe he was imagining that he still wore her piece of cloth. Maybe he had suffered a stroke and was not on Pelion at all, but, instead, tossing feverishly on his own bed.

Another mosquito bit him. The pain and itching settled it: whatever was happening, he was not asleep. Like the mosquitoes, he would have to deal with this as if it were real, unless and until he learned otherwise. Another thought occurred to him: was Darla a goddess? Was that fading-out what it looked like to observers when gods were recalled suddenly to their home on Olympus? He knew the Olympians could (and did) appear to mortals in the guise of mortals. And what did he actually know about this woman? Apart from her enigmatic way of talking, he knew only her name.

He shivered again, but this time it was from the temperature. It was getting colder. At least that was a problem he could solve. With one last glance at the empty wall, he abruptly turned and strode out of the cave in search of firewood.

* * * * *

Finding dry deadwood was the easy part. After he had brought in larger branches and smaller branches, he fetched some dry leaves, grass and twigs for kindling. Setting them down inside the cave, he tried to remember what Cheiron had done on those occasions when the last coal in the fire had gone out.

Why is it, he mused, that when we are young we cannot wait to be adults, and then, when we are grown, we spend the rest of our lives having moments when we wished we were just children again? Is that what life is? Always wishing we were somewhere else, or were someone else, unable to accept what and who and where we are?

He selected the straightest branch he could find that was no thicker than his finger, and laid it to one side. Next, he made a small wad of crushed dry leaves and grass and put it on a little pile of small twigs. Picking up the straightest twig from where he had set it, he pressed the end against the wad of kindling, put his palms together with the stick between them, and began sliding his hands as if rubbing them together for warmth, spinning the tip of the twig against the kindling as he drilled for fire.

When a ribbon of smoke curled up from the kindling he suddenly remembered why he had never seen a fire inside the cave. Belatedly he snatched up the burning kindling and branches and set them just outside the cave entrance so that the chamber would not fill up with smoke. It went out, of course, but he didn't care, now that he knew he could get it going again.

With Cheiron gone off somewhere he needed a fire to keep beasts away. But that wasn't the real reason he did it. If Darla reappeared before morning she might get chilled, once the heat of the day had bled out of the rock. If she was a goddess, he wanted to stay on her good side.

He found half a dozen rocks the size of his head and piled them around in a makeshift hearth around the little fire as he added larger sticks to the kindling. Before long he had a decent fire blazing and carefully took the hottest rocks into the cave interior, settling himself on the ground with his back against the edge of the opening.

The fire would last a while. He could probably risk a nap while he waited for her to return. Now that he had seen Darla close her eyes, he found that he could manage the trick.

Yet sleep eluded him. Not because he was wound up like a catapult from the events of the day. It had been a bizarre afternoon, to be sure, but that was not it at all. He just wasn't tired. Under better circumstances he could have fallen asleep by drinking the dried juice of poppies in wine. Or, just enough wine. But he wasn't about to go off in search of poppies, and he had no wine anyway. It looked to be a long night.

Chapter 11: Farker: Farker leaves a message

Farker splashed cold water on his face and swallowed another stay-awake pill. An old man's face glared at him from the mirror.

Whenever he thought about it, Farker was sure he must be one of the oldest people on the planet, practically a living fossil. This had its pluses and minuses. On the one hand, people tended to treat him as if he knew more than them (which he usually did) because of his seniority. On the other hand, it tended to limit his dating options. Graying hair was just not considered sexy in this youngster world.

The W3 virus that had culled four-fifths of the world's population had been especially dire for the very young and very old. The babies that perished were rapidly replaced by the postwar baby boom, but not so for the aged. Almost overnight, the average age of humans had plummeted into the teens. It had risen since, of course, since as the new crop of humans grew to adulthood their parents didn't get any younger. But he aged right along with them, maintaining his long lead in the race to death.

On the plus side, whenever he wanted to, like now, Farker was perfectly capable of cursing in eleven languages, including several dead ones.

He was aware that he should be asleep at home but he didn't give a damn. He could always catch up later. Who would fire him if he took a day or three off to sleep? He was irreplaceable. It was not a boast. It was a simple fact that there were damned few living with as much experience as he had, and none with his specific experience. It was not mere chance that PanGames was swallowing every other gaming company on the United Earth.

He washed the pill down with a cup of coffee, went back into the lab, and lay back down on Tweedledum. Linking back in was effortless after so many years.

"Okay, Finder. What have you learned?"

The soulless voice of Finder was not capable of emotions. It was only a voice. If it had been permitted to evolve them, it might have sounded irked. "There is no sign of the original anomaly. The new algorithms haven't detected any intrusions from other nodes in the UNET."

He was getting too tired for subtlety. "What do you mean, the 'original' anomaly?"

"There appears to be another anomaly."

"Are you sure it's not just the same one?" he demanded.

"Completely. But it is in the same Realm that the original anomaly appeared in."

"Tell me more," he directed. "How did you find the new one?"

"A virtual tour guide complained that one of the NPCs was refusing to make his speech in front of a temple. He was just standing there, motionless and mute. I checked the logs and found that this had been the case for hours. A scan for his program ID revealed that the animations had moved to Mount Pelion on the east coast of Thessaly."

"Where you found the first one?"

"Exactly."

"Were there any other irregularities coincident with the displacement?" he wondered aloud.

"Only one candidate that I could find. At 21:23:16 EST there was a power surge in this building. It was a sharp spike, almost like a lightning strike. But there were no nearby storms."

"Was it damaging?" Farker said, alarmed now.

"Of course not. You know how protected I am. Even a direct hit by lightning on this building would never get through the power buffers and the shielding. You know that, Farker. You supervised the redundant grounding and shielding five years ago."

"True enough," he admitted. "But the timing of the surge is still suspicious. Did you check with adjacent buildings?"

"Naturally, I consulted their AIs. They felt traces of the surge too, but it was strongest in this building, by far."

Farker scowled. "I don't like it. It feels like we are being targeted. First the original anomaly, then this power surge."

"Do you want me to take you to the present anomaly?"

"Is it still on Pelion?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Then no," he decided. "I tried to catch the first one and it apparently detected me and vanished. Perhaps a less hasty approach will be more successful this time. Did you trace the woman, Darla, that I spoke with when I logged in there?"

"Yes. Do you need to know more about her?"

"Not at the moment," he decided, even though technically as a Game Manager the privacy laws did not apply to user accounts under his purview. "But I want to know when she logs back in...and where."

"Do you wish to be notified even if she logs in while you are asleep?"

"Even if I fall asleep," he said firmly, smiling thinly as he used his personal override code: "So let it be written. So let it be done."

"It shall be done," the Finder agreed.

Chapter 12: Darla: Darla gets a message

Darla groaned and rolled off the link bed, thumping to the floor like a sack of potatoes. Gods! What time was it?

"About time you woke up, sleepyhead," her father's voice called up the staircase.

She put a hand on the bed and climbed to her feet, dusting her coveralls off. Making a face at herself in the wall mirror, she patted her hair back into place and went down the stairs to face Reality.

"You missed the breakfast rush," Manny remarked, sliding a plate of sausage and scrambled eggs in front of her as she slumped into one of the stools at the counter.

"Sorry about that," she mumbled, around a mouthful of eggs. "I must have forgotten to set the alarm."

"Well, it wasn't that much of a breakfast crowd anyway," he said. "Don't talk with your mouth full. I just hope it was because you were studying late."

She swallowed and forked another helping into her mouth to avoid answering. Her father had a keen ear for guilt, having experienced his own share over the years.

He noticed the silence. "You were studying, weren't you?"

She took the cup he handed her and sipped the worst coffee in the world. True karmic punishment: had she arisen earlier, she would have made a better pot herself, as usual. Her father was a good man, but his idea of coffee was that it was something to wake up with, not something to enjoy. She made a note to dump the pot when his back was turned and make something decent for the lunch crowd.

"Did Agnes call back?" she asked him innocently.

"Again with the distractions. Forget Mrs. Neuburg, I told you already. Fix your own life and let me fix mine, okay? And fixing yours means keeping your grades up. There was a message for you," he remarked, changing the subject abruptly to forestall an argument.

"A message?" She frowned. "From who?"

"You see? My point exactly. You need to stop gaming and go out and meet some real people once in a while. Then maybe you'd at least have a chance of guessing who messages you."

"My teammates are real people," she said, tired of that old argument. "Who was it?"

Manny padded over behind the register and tapped a key. The antique monitor was not as old as it appeared. "Someone called Farker," he said. "is that a real name, 'Farker'?"

"It's real," she told him, getting up to look at the message. "I met him last night." The message was short. All it said was:

Please contact me at your earliest convenience.

We need to talk about your new friend. – Farker

New friend? Who did he mean, Cheiron or Ace? She deleted the message, wishing she had been awake to do it before her father saw it. But she could see from the little smile on his face that the damage had been done.

"So you made two new friends last night!" His smile upgraded to a grin. "Maybe it wasn't a total waste of an evening after all. Tell me about both of them. Does the other one have a better name than 'Farker'?"

"That depends on your criteria," she retorted. "It's hard to pronounce, so I just call him Ace. I think he's Greek."

"Oh." His grin vanished as abruptly as it had appeared. "Well maybe you should call this Farker, then. He sounds more promising to me. Foreign you don't need. Plenty of them on this continent already."

Darla raised an eyebrow. There was no need to state the obvious. Her father had been raised on a kibbutz in Israel. If W3 had never happened, she doubted that he would be here in the former United States. But United Earth had erased the old borders, more or less. Moving from the State of Israel to the State of America was as uncomplicated as moving from old New York to old California was in the pre-War days: merely a matter of moving expenses.

But she didn't bring that up. She knew he had emigrated because of Elizabeth. So she just settled for a politically correct reply. "There are no more foreigners, Dad. United Earth makes us all citizens."

He snorted. "Slogans? Yeah, I know. I was in the UE Army, or had you forgotten? But it's just as easy to fall in love with someone who lives near you as it is to love someone far away. Easier, even. I know what I'm talking about." And he paused to touch his shirt pocket again and closed his eyes for a moment.

Darla seized her chance and dumped the coffeepot in the sink and turned on the water to rinse the dregs down the drain. "I'm making a fresh pot," she said. "You want some?"

He made a dismissive gesture. "No, thank you. I can't afford to drink your coffee. Someone has to stay awake to run the grille. Fortunately, I've had two cups of my own already."

She sighed as she poured coffee grounds into another paper liner and refilled the ancient drip coffee machine's water reservoir. "Please don't make the coffee anymore," she begged. "Our roaches are getting hyperactive from the fumes alone."

"Life goes on, even while you're asleep," he retorted. "So what should I be serving the breakfast crowd when you sleep late? Tea?" He made a face. "Or do you think everyone loves NeWater as much as you do? Fish drink water. For paying customers, we have coffee. What kind of a diner would I be running if people couldn't get a decent cup of coffee?" He hoisted a plastic trash bag out of the trash can by the grille and took it out back to the dumpster.

"Fish don't drink water," she called at his receding back. "They breathe it. Not everyone breathes coffee, like you do."

She glanced at the register's display again. Ye gods, she really had overslept. It was almost time for the lunch crowd. She felt a stab of guilt, but smothered it by managing to work up some righteous indignation that Manny had read her email.

Chapter 13: Aes: Aes meets an old friend

The sun rising over the Aegean Sea was glorious, but Aes barely noticed the beauty. All it told him was that it had been many hours. The woman or Goddess had not returned, and he had not fallen asleep.

He felt conflicted. Part of him wanted to get back to Epione. If he had really vanished after Hippolytus's resurrection, she must be stricken with grief, thinking him dead. He should not be dallying here with Darla, whoever or whatever she was. His place was back at Epione's side in Tricca.

But a larger part of him knew that he could not leave. If the stars spoke truly, it had been months since he raised Hippolytus, so there was no rush to get back. By now she would be in grieving. Surely even the widowed daughter of a king would not be beset with suitors this soon after her husband's disappearance.

And if Darla was a goddess, he dared not risk her wrath by abandoning her. There seemed no way out of his predicament. All he could do was wait and hope to set things right when he finally got a chance to do so.

He stood up to go fetch more wood for the fire. Always more things to do. Time to change the heating rocks, as well. He should do that first, perhaps. Setting the end of a stick against one of the heated rocks, he pushed and rolled it into the cave's interior.

"Well at least you didn't build the fire inside my cave," said the centaur.

Aes jerked, startled. "Who are you?" he demanded.

"Oh come on, now, Asklepios. Don't you recognize me? Was my tutelage in vain, or have you forgotten all of those years?"

Aes stared at the intruder as his eyes narrowed. "You are not Cheiron," he stated. "You think I don't remember my foster father? Cheiron had a scraggly beard and an old scar on his left flank that never healed properly. I always noticed it because it seemed odd that he could not heal it."

The centaur laughed. "Always the stickler for detail. It's part of what made you such a great physician. But listen with your heart, Aes, and not your eyes, for I have difficult things to tell you."

Aes forced himself to walk out and sit down by the fire. "Has Cheiron passed on, then?" he asked the stranger. "He was old even when he raised me, I know. Has he kept an appointment with the Ferryman?"

The centaur sighed. "Life is more complicated than that," he began. "I'm not myself, you're not yourself, and even Hellas is not what is seems. But hark: I can tell you the truth of what has befallen you, though you might think me crazed. Truth is truth, after all, whether it springs from a friend's or a stranger's lips."

"I cannot dispute that," said Aes. "But I do not seek the counsel of those who hide their names. Who are you really?"

The horse-man shrugged. "Let that be for now, Aes. Cheiron is part of what I am, yet I am more. I mean no mischief here, son of Phoebus. You need the truth, and I felt that hearing it from one you knew and trusted would soften the blow. May the Gods themselves strike me down if I speak falsely to you."

"As you say," Aes said noncommittally, although he did not disrespect the oath. "What do you know of me and my situation?"

"To begin with," the centaur said, "you're dead – sort of."

Chapter 14: Darla: lines in the sand

The lunch crowd straggled in and Darla and her father were busy for a little while. After she got them served, she excused herself upstairs to call Farker.

Settling down on her bed again, she laid her head back on the cranial transceiver array and logged into the system. Floating in endless space, she suddenly realized that Farker had not included his phone code. No matter; she knew where he worked. "Directory Assistance," she directed.

"Specify search parameters." The voice was a deliberately poor imitation of a human voice – clear enough to understand, but lifeless and oddly timbered to ensure you knew you were not speaking to a human.

Darla made a mental note to tweak her interface later. "I'm looking for someone named Farker at the PanGames offices."

"There is one listing by that name. Connecting you now."

A 3D cartoon Merlin figure appeared, complete with a gray robe and a wizard's staff. "I'm sorry, Darla," he said. "Farker is presiding over the Realm of Egypt inclusion at the moment. He said that if you called while he was busy to tell you that he will definitely be contacting you later today. And you should beware of centaurs bearing gifts."

"What the fork is that supposed to mean?"

The Merlin shrugged. "Dunno. He said you'd understand it."

"Whatever." She broke the connection and went back to the main menu space. He had reminded her: she had made the same promise to Ace, that she would be back as soon as possible.

Surfing to the PanGames menu, she directed the system to log her in at the place she had logged out from. At once she found herself sitting in Cheiron's cave, her back against the wall. Two voices she recognized instantly were talking just outside the cave.

Ace: What do you mean, dead? I'm as alive as you!

Cheiron: That statement is truer than you know, healer. Neither of us is dead or alive. We are both pawns in the games of the gods.

Ace: Enough riddles. Speak plainly, or not at all.

Cheiron: The Lord of the Underworld was not pleased when you resurrected Hippolytus. On his complaint, Zeus hurled his thunderbolt upon you. So you are not alive.

Ace: Am I dead? Then where is Charon with his ferryboat? I see no river Styx.

Cheiron: Gods do not go down to Hades.

Ace: What mean you? I am no God. Do not speak blasphemy!

Cheiron: We both know you are the son of Apollo. Your mother Coronis was mortal, but your father was not. You are thus a special case.

Ace: I do not understand you.

Cheiron: Your mortal flesh was killed. But your divine spirit lives.

Ace: If you speak truly, then what kind of life can I expect?

Cheiron: That depends on you. Zeus had to slay Asklepios the man. The divine part he may elevate to Olympus, if you deserve it.

Ace: He has not decided, then? What will tip the scales?

Cheiron: Your trial is not ended. There is something you must do.

Ace: And what is that?

Cheiron: You must defeat the Devourer, the dog-headed one.

Ace: What, more riddles?

Cheiron: I have no more advice than this. Take heart, Asklepios. You are in a strange land that seems your home, yet is not. Some of the rules are different. The Devourer will have a similar predicament, because he has never fought in this arena. Slim though it may be, that is your chance.

Darla stood up and stretched. Gods, she thought. Why couldn't I have been a FPS player? They don't have to deal with all this roleplay. With all this drama. "Is this a private fireside chat?" she asked. "Or can anyone join in?"

Ace stood up as she came out. Cheiron, of course, was already standing on all four hooves. "Welcome back, Darla," the centaur said warmly. "I was just trying to explain things to Asklepios. By the way, 'Ace' (he scratched the English letters in the sand with a stick) is a poor nickname for Asklepios. But you cannot just shorten his name to 'ask'; I recommend you use 'Aes' (this he wrote below 'Ace'). It's pronounced more or less the same, and is a fitting nickname, since it means "bronze" and he is, after all, a hero of the Bronze Age, as you call it. And of course the Romans knew him as Aesculapius, so the abbreviation fits there too."

Darla stared at him. "You are a mess, in terms of RP, do you know that? You talk of gods and goddesses one minute, and the next you're quoting Latin and talking like a 21st century historian. Pick your genre and era and try to stick to it."

Cheiron laughed. "Yes, I forgot. You still think this is all roleplay. There is far more to this than finding a healer for your team. But the gods can play more than one tune at a time on the same instrument. In any case, I give you my best and wisest student. You will find no greater healer in all the worlds, my dear." And he vanished.

"Does he always do that?" she asked Aes. "Spew out a paragraph of advice and then disappear before you have a chance to reply?"

"The Cheiron who raised me never disappeared like that," replied Aes. "He had no such power as you yourself can wield. Where did you go, back to Olympus?"

"Look, I'm sorry I had to log on you like that, but it was a long day, and I was exhausted. Did you sleep too?"

"I cannot," he answered. "And it worries me sorely. I could almost believe the centaur, that this is not truly Hellas. What else it could be, I do not know. It is like a tale told by a skillful liar: most of it rings true, except for irksome details that do not fit."

"Like what?" she asked. Despite her resistance, she felt herself getting sucked into his roleplay. If this guy was a Random, he was like the Einstein of Randoms. "What parts don't fit?"

"Well," he said. "For one thing, I have never seen a woman or a centaur fade away before. The gods may appear in mortal guise, of course, but when they take their leave, they either walk or ride or fly away. They never vanish that I have heard. Perhaps in dreams, I grant you that. But never in real life."

"Well, there is an explanation for that, at least," she said. "But I can't talk about that without breaking roleplay."

"Then, there are the stars," he said.

She was a little disoriented by the shift in subject. "The stars? What have they got to do with any of this?"

"Long have they guided travelers on the seas. We group them into fanciful pictures and give them names to help our memory. But either the stars are wrong, or I have skipped a season. For when I raised Hippolytus yesterday morning, it was late in the Fall, after the trees had dropped their leaves. That was around noon yesterday for me. Yet scarce had I resurrected him, then I found myself here, and it is Spring. Perhaps flowers may bloom unseasonably, but the constellations agree – they are in their places for the return of Persephone. It is spring. And just yesterday it was almost the beginning of Winter. Even the orderliness of the seasons is confounded." He trailed off and just stared at her mutely for a moment.

"You're not crazy, Aes," she told him gently. Could a Player get so addicted to the Games that he could really forget that they weren't real? "Do you mind if we drop the roleplay for a bit? It'll make discussing this a hell of a lot easier."

"There it is again," he despaired. "This word. What in the name of the gods is this 'roleplay' that you keep accusing me of?"

His voice had gotten higher, beseeching her to make sense, as his eyes filled with tears. At that moment, transfixed by those pleading eyes, Darla came to a decision: this guy is not faking it! He really had no idea what roleplay was.

"Well, roleplay," she said, holding his gaze, willing him to understand, "is when people act as if they were in a play, as in the theater, except that they make up their own lines as the go, instead of following a script. Like if I pretended to be a beggar, and you were the king of Greece, and you had to think of lines to say to me that would be like what the real king would say to a beggar. It's an adult version of the make-believe games that children play."

"There are many kings in Hellas," he informed her. "But forget that. I am no child. I put such imaginary games behind me. In fact, that was another thing I was going to mention – that I seem younger than I was before whatever happened. But leave that too. Hear me," he commanded her, grimly, "when I swear before all the gods that I shall never pretend to be anything but what I am. And with all due respect, I hope that you will do me the same courtesy, whoever you are or whatever goddess you may be."

His intensity was such that she could not make herself believe that he was kidding her. Who was this guy, that he had never heard of roleplay? "I swear before all the gods," she told him, being careful to copy his phrasing, "that I am not a goddess. I'm really a woman, and Darla is my real name. Darla Kaplan."

Oh gods, Aes, please be real! If you've fooled me, then I may have just given my name to a stalker. But she believed him. Whoever this guy really was, at least at this moment he really believed that he was not faking.

Aes sagged against the outer wall of the cave. "I can see in your eyes and hear in your voice that you speak the truth," he said. He seemed shattered by the realization. "But what kind of world are we in, that women and centaurs alike can vanish like night fogs dispelled by the rays of dawn? Where unseen hands can turn the bowl of Night, and spin the stars and seasons as they wish?"

"Aes, sit down," she advised. He did so without remark, his resistance utterly crushed by despair at a chaotic world.

Darla kicked some rocks aside and cleared a patch of sand. "Aes, she began, "I overheard what Cheiron told you, and it was correct." Rapidly, she drew two stick figures in the sand, putting a skirt on one of them. "Imagine for a moment that we are the gods, playing a game, drawing people for our pleasure. The sand is an imaginary Hellas – a dream imagined by the minds of gods."

He said nothing, but she sensed he was hanging on every word, trying to understand her. "Now suppose they erase me," she continued, taking a stick and smoothing out the lines of the female stick figure so that it disappeared. "If the other figure was you, watching me, you would see me disappear. Not because I am a goddess, but just because I am not being drawn in the sand near you anymore."

Aes gazed at the sand. "I nearly understand, but it terrifies me," he said. "They destroy you when you disappear?"

"Not quite," she corrected. "It was only their drawing of me, which could resemble the real me or not. Now imagine that the gods let me into this dream of theirs when I lie down in the real world." She re-drew her figure next to his. "And then you see me reappear as if by some magic. But last night I was too tired to play in their dream, so I fell asleep. When that happens I dream my own mortal dreams, not their Dream, and so they erase the dream-image of me." She effaced her figure again." And so when I fell asleep, to your eyes I disappeared, because you are in the dream-world." She drew the figure of herself again. "And now I came back to the dream world with you, as I told you I would, so you see me again."

His eyes had a haunted look. "So Cheiron spoke truly? This is not the real Hellas, but some kind of dream-Hellas? Are there others like you, people in the real world that can come to the dreams of the gods?"

"Lots of them. We call ourselves Players, or Gamers." Am I going too fast? she wondered. For all she knew, this guy might be in a coma somewhere, with only PanGames to keep his mind active.

"Tell me something, Darla Kaplan," he said, locking gazes with her. "What happens if your body dies in the real world, while you are visiting here in the dream world of the gods? Do you go to the Underworld, as usual? Or do you get trapped in the Dream world, perhaps forever? Could that happen?"

Despite herself, Darla shivered. "I don't know. I don't know if it has ever happened."

He looked down at the sand drawings. "According to Cheiron, that is what happened to me. My real body is gone, destroyed by Zeus, sending me here. And though it fills my soul with dread, I am beginning to believe it is true."

Chapter 15: Am-heh: Am-heh takes a vacation

Somewhere in the Underworld, there is a lake of fire. And in that lake dwelt Am-heh, the Devourer of Millions. His body was that of a powerfully muscled man, but his head was the head of a savage hunting dog. He had a terrible job, but he enjoyed it, which was even more terrible.

The souls of mortals are judged by the Balance of Anubis. On one pan he places the heart of a deceased person, where their soul resides. On the other balance he places a single ostrich feather, one of the aspects of Ma'at, the goddess of Truth and Harmony of the universe. If the soul weighs the same as the feather, the heart and soul are judged pure, and the person is sent on a long journey to Aaru the Paradise, to await rebirth. But woe betide those whose souls disturb the Balance! If the pans do not stay level, because of the sins of the individual, then the heart is tossed into the lake of fire, where the Devourer consumes it with relish, condemning the soul to remain wandering in the underworld of Duat forever.

But does not a god, even a terrible one, have a soul also? Do not the gods themselves have hearts?

And so it was that there came a time when Am-heh lay sleeping in his lake of fire, and his heart was placed on the balance scales of Anubis. And the scales tipped! For Am-heh enjoyed his job, forgetting that it is sinful to enjoy the suffering of others. He had become contaminated by the spirit of Isfet, god of Lies and Chaos, the violent counterpart of Ma'at.

Needless to say, this was quite a conundrum for the gods. Justice must be done to preserve the harmony of the cosmos. But who could devour the Devourer?

But the Children of Nuit cannot resist a challenge. They appealed to Atum, the Completer, who alone could control the Devourer. And in the fullness of time, he devised a plan to deal with the Devourer. If it did not end Am-heh's corruption, at least it would channel His energies toward a constructive purpose.

There was a flash of light brighter than a billion Suns. Thunder rolled off him in all directions of infinite Space as Am-heh reopened his eyes.

All was as before, yet it was not. Here he was standing in the lake of fire, as usual. And there was Anubis with his balance. But there were no dead people lined up for the Judgment.

What could this mean? Were there no more people in the world? Had they all died, and his job was ended? What, then, should he do with himself now?

Growling with his vicious canine face, the Devourer stepped out of the lake of fire and went over to the jackal-headed God. "What is this, Anubis? Have the cycles of Time ended, that there are no more souls to judge?"

But Anubis stood there like a statue, senseless as stone, and did not answer. So he went to the other deities in the Underworld, but they likewise gave him no answer or recognition. He would have to look elsewhere for his answer.

So be it. Drawing upon the heka-power used by gods and magicians to work their will, Am-heh parted the air and the earth, and went up to the land of Khem to see what was going on in the Kingdom. If there were no one to advise him what to do, then he would do whatever he wished. He licked his lips in anticipation of the feast.

Chapter 16: Farker: more Anomalies

The papers had been signed, finally and the go-ahead was given. Handshakes and champagne all round, and then Farker oversaw the inclusion of the Realm of Egypt into PanGames. The last step of the process, as he had predicted, took less than a second, as humans reckoned time.

There were no hitches or glitches. Until after the process was complete, that is.

Floating in the space of the link, he brought up the diagnostic display again. Once again, the 64 colored balls appeared in a grid, with none grayed out now that ROE had joined the other 63.

He swore long and thoroughly. Sixty-two green balls, one yellow ball and one yellow flashing ball. He growled. Realm of Legends was yellow again, but holding. The newest inclusion, Realm of Egypt, was the yellow one that was flashing. Had they been poison-pilled? Could a disgruntled employee over at ROE have found a way to get a metavirus past the hypercomputer's test suite?

Here we go again, he thought glumly. And I assured Max that nothing could go wrong. I just had to tempt the gods, didn't I? "Hardware check."

"No malfunctions detected."

Second verse, same as the first. A little bit louder and a whole lot worse. "Anomalous processes again?"

"I'm afraid so," said the system that could not become afraid. "Anomalous processes in two realms now, as indicated."

He gritted his teeth. "So...the same one we had in Legends, plus a new one now in Egypt? This stinks."

"Not exactly. The...anomalous process in Realm of Legends is not the same one that was there before. Both of these...processes are new, and they appear to be...related somehow. But I agree that the timing of the Egyptian process's appearance is...suspicious."

Oh crap, there go those speech pauses again, he thought. "Damned right it's suspicious! Check their server logs from yesterday and today. Was that process there before they transferred control to you?"

"I am afraid I cannot answer that question. I do not have their server logs for today."

"What? That's part of the contract with Triskelion. They were to provide all OOG logs and maintenance records!"

"You are correct," said that bland voice. "It must have been an oversight. Would you like me to connect you to their CIO?"

"Yah, get Brad on the horn," he said. "We can't let this go."

There was a moment's pause, and a fuzzy bust of Brad Hallowell, Chief Information Officer for Triskelion, appeared in his cyberspace. "Whazzup, Fark? Did I misspell my own signature? Sorry about the pixilation, but I'm on my handheld and our floater just lifted from the PanGames building, and my seat is down near the nullifiers. You know how it is."

Did he ever. "Brad, for some reason we don't have your server logs from today. Can you send over another copy? I have to sign off on them. Let's not give the legals an excuse to screw up this deal for all of us."

"Really? No problemo. Just give me a sec. What the hell? Looks like someone erased my copy. Hang on."

Irritated as he was, Farker had to smile at that. At least he wasn't the only one who had to deal with idiots. Imagine someone boneheaded enough to try to delete a file from a hypercomputer! The damned things were designed to be conservative to a ridiculous degree. Whenever you told them to delete any system file, they would obey...but they would first make a backup just in case you ever forgot you deleted it and asked for it again. Rewritable spintronic circuitry had pushed the memory capacity of the damned things up so many orders of magnitude, they'd had to invent new prefixes to express the headroom.

Farker could remember a time when a one-terabyte hard drive, a measly thousand gigabytes of ferromagnetic storage, was considered adequate. But that was before the advent of commercial quantum computers. Even the old 'supercomputers', the Crays and such, were considered quaint since the coming of the hypercomputers.

"Okay, I'm back. Dunno who deleted that copy, but I've sent you a backup."

Farker saw the confirmation on a popup window beside Brad's face. "Thanks, dude. I'll see you at the conference next month."

"Ciao." They broke the connection.

Now, Farker thought, the real question is who deleted the file, and what were they trying to hide?

He switched back to the Problem Finder. "Okay, I got another copy for you. Scan today's ROE server log for anomalies."

"Your suspicions are correct. The anomaly in Realm of Egypt was there before the inclusion."

Farker swore again, thoroughly.

The system waited patiently until he was finished. "Shall I notify the Legal department that we may have grounds to void the contract?"

He tried to think. On the one hand, he could probably get laid if he handed this plum to Doris, one of the firm's female attorneys. She was always itching to move up the ladder, and nothing said 'promotable' like tearing some competitor a new a-hole. On the other hand, as CIO of PanGames he got a bonus whenever they completed a successful inclusion...and his was pre-spent on a better apartment.

"No," he decided, remembering the age difference between him and Doris, one of those up and coming twenty-somethings. He wasn't ready to risk a bonus for what might turn out to be a warm handshake and a free lunch. Besides, it was his problem now. "You're sure there's no malfunction?"

"Affirmative. These processes are...troubling, but there is no sign that system integrity or efficiency has been compromised."

"Then it's a mystery to solve, not a legal issue," he decided. "You said the two anomalies were related. Related how?"

"It appears that both anomalies are NPCs that have managed to become...autonomous, each in their respective Realm."

"Now that's impossible," he growled. "And you know it. Programs don't have free will. They're just lists of conditional instructions, no matter how fast the hardware running them is. They have no more independence than a shopping list."

"You are correct," the hypercomputer answered. "But do these anomalous processes know that?"

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were starting to develop a sense of humor," Farker remarked. "I'd watch that if I were you. The officers at PanGames have theirs removed when they get promoted."

"Removed? I think I have a parsing error on that sentence."

"It's a joke," he told the machine. "Don't worry. You are in no danger of being promoted. Have we heard from Darla? I need to talk to her like yesterday."

"You did speak with her yesterday," the hypercomputer remarked. "However, she called while you were at the signing upstairs. I gave her your message. Would you like me to call her back?"

Farker groaned. Phone tag, the Next Generation. "Is she online at the moment?"

"Yes. As a matter of fact...she is talking to the present anomaly in Realm of Legends, not far from where you logged out of it. Shall I saddle up Pegasus?"

He sighed. "No. Last time I tried to butt in, the damned thing vanished before I got there, as if it felt me coming. Let's go a bit slower this time. Send her a private tell that I'm available now and I want to talk to her as soon as she's finished there."

"Done," the system announced. "Receipt confirmed."

"Now do me a favor and open a new project, my eyes only. Name it MOUSETRAP. We're going to look for ways to immobilize a spintronic process, without damaging it until we know what we're dealing with."

Chapter 17: Darla: Darla takes a babysitting job

"Look at it this way, Aes," Darla suggested. "While there's life, there's hope."

"Didn't you hear what I said?" he moaned. "I'm already dead!"

"Then who am I talking to? Whatever happened, you're still here, at least for now. Try to keep an open mind while we figure this out."

A bell sounded in her mind. You have a message from Farker, a voice pitched for her ears alone told her. He's available now and wants to talk to you as soon as you are finished here.

Acknowledged, she thought back. "Aes, someone is calling me. I have to go, but I'll be back in a few minutes. Will you sit tight and not do anything until I get back?"

"I will abide," he agreed. "Somehow."

"Great. Back in a jiff," she said, and logged out to her main menu. "Okay," she told the bed, "connect me to Farker."

Farker's face (or was it? she reminded herself. For all she knew it was just another avatar. But it had his voice, at least.) appeared in her sensorium. "Sorry about the phone tag, but I had to be at a signing for the new Realm we included today, the Realm of Egypt."

"You said that in your recorded message," she told him. "Funny thing about that. When I was talking to that centaur earlier, he said I'd be going to Egypt soon. How could he have known that? ROE wasn't even part of PanGames at the time."

He stared at her. "Yes," he agreed finally. "It is odd. Were you talking to him again just now?"

"Not really," she said. "He was here when I logged in but he left while I was talking to Asklepios. Farker, we need to have a serious talk about Aes. His roleplay is so believable it's scary. That man has problems."

His face froze. "You have no idea," Farker told her.

"I have a favor to ask," she said, before he could distract her. "Can you look up his Player account for me? I know you can't disclose customer information to third parties. I'm not asking that...but could you find out if he's in a psych ward or something? I don't mean to pry, but he needs some counseling. And you were right to be cautious about the centaur. He seemed nice, all right, but he is feeding into Aes's anxieties and if he is a therapist, he ought to be fired."

"I can't do that," he said, his expression odd. "Because Aes is not a Player."

"Huh? What are you talking about? Looks to me like he's got a serious gaming addiction. He's been playing so hard that he's forgotten that he even is playing! And it's messing with his mind. I've seen my share of Randoms, and he's something else. You have to log him out or something, Farker, until he can get his head straight."

The image of Farker held up a hand. "Stop!" he said. "Please stop and listen to me for a moment. I already ran a trace. Believe me when I tell you this: Aes is not a Player. He has no gaming account with PanGames. Until yesterday he was a NPC."

Darla listened, feeling like her head would explode. Aes was a Non Playing Character? "Don't give that crap!" she flared. "He's as real as you and me. You think I don't know the difference between an AI and a real personality? You ever program a simulation to cry like a baby?"

"No," he admitted. "But I've worked on some of the simulations the psychology students work with."

"The ELIZAs?" she sneered. "Give me a fokking break! They are trash no matter how fast the computer gets. As if! I'm not talking about some 'tell me more about your mother' bullshit. The man wept openly in front of me at the thought of being trapped in your game. He's in the grip of a terror that's close to crushing him. YOU stop, and listen to ME! He is this close to a complete nervous breakdown." She paused. "And PanGames is this close to a killer lawsuit. If you're so far up your computer's ass that you don't care about a fellow human's feelings, then do you care about financial ruin?"

He was silent for a moment. "Young lady," he said, speaking slowly and calmly, "I care about both. And I do not appreciate being called a liar. I am well aware of the legal and financial implications of psychological harm to paying customers." Now it was his turn to pause for effect. "Before you erupt again, let me explain something. I am not some customer service punching bag you can vent at. I am the Chief Information Officer at PanGames. And the reason that I know that Aesculapius is only a program is...I wrote him myself!"

What in the hells? she thought. "That's just crazy. You don't even have his name right. It's Asklepios."

"Yes," he agreed. "Aesculapius is the Latinized form of his Greek name. One of the most famous healers of all time. The Romans adopted him from the Greeks in 291 BC during an epidemic. Ovid mentions him in his final Metamorphosis. Supposedly, he was killed by Zeus for bringing Hippolytus back to life. Son of Coronis, a princess of Thessaly, he was raised on Mount Pelion by the centaur Cheiron."

Darla realized that her mouth was open. She closed it. "You wrote him?" The virtual space seemed to be spinning around her. She felt dizzy.

"I wasn't always CIO of PanGames. I started out here as a developer, or 'programmer' as some of us still called ourselves, back in 2032. Realm of Legends was the first hypercomputer MMO that PanGames released. I did all the NPCs for Hellas, using AI templates and adding the speech files and the back story databases. It wasn't easy, since I had to learn some Greek first." He gave her a grim smile. "So you see, I know all about Aes. What I do not know is how a NPC like Cheiron can go autonomous and hide from me. Or how a perfectly good NPC like Aes can go autonomous and be so convincing that I get trolled by a customer."

Darla felt like an idiot. "I am sorry," she said. "Sorry I lost my temper like that. I wasn't trolling you, but I apologize for what I said. I'm still trying to process what you just told me. What do you mean, 'go autonomous'? Are you saying what I think you're saying? That a piece of code is developing free will? He is completely convincing, Farker. It'd be a slam dunk for him to pass a Turing test. Have you spoken with him lately?"

"No. I've no intention of scaring him away like I did Cheiron. We both know it's impossible, but I'm not going to say boo! to him until I figure out what happened to his code. At first I thought someone had hacked PanGames, but no one hacks a hypercomputer. For some reason, these NPCs trust you more than me. Can you do me a favor and keep him stable until I figure something out?"

Of course I can, she thought. But don't act eager. "I can," she acknowledged. "But why me? Why not a therapist...or a programmer?"

"Because he might need a little of both," he replied. "A therapist would treat him like a nut case and make him crazy if he isn't already. A programmer, on the other hand, would ignore his 'feelings' and treat him like some kind of robot. Right now what Aes needs is someone who can listen like a friend, while analyzing problems like an engineer."

"I'll do it," she agreed. "In fact, I have to get back to Aes. I was so worried about him, I ducked out to call you back and yell at you. I really am sorry about that, Farker. I don't usually act this way."

He smiled at her. "Don't worry about it. I like people who stand up for their friends. And you have no idea how gratifying it is to see someone so passionate about something I wrote. Usually all I hear is complaints and demands. It's refreshing to meet someone who gives a damn about something other than themselves. Aes is in good hands. Give him whatever help you can."

The connection terminated.

And I will, believe me, Darla thought. But first I'm gonna go downstairs and grab one of Manny's beers, before I have a nervous breakdown. Or maybe two.

Chapter 18: Aes: Aes joins a Team

There she went again, he thought, as she faded away. As much as he believed that she would return, it was still hard to imagine some cosmic hand smoothing out the sands of the aether to erase her image.

The fire was dying. Even though the morning sun had warmed the mountain air, he got more wood and put it on the fire, building it up again just to have something to do. While he did it he thought about Axodorus. The tables are turned, he thought.

Axodorus was a grandson of Merops, though not from Aes and the king's daughter Coronis. One day when he was ten summers old the youth had gotten into his mother's herbalist supplies and consumed a handful of dangerous plants (the kind used by diviners and soothsayers to induce visions) and had gone out of his wits.

Axodorus had run through the streets of the capital screaming of giant bats and demons. At his mother's request, Aes had the boy brought to him. He had suspected drug poisoning, but without knowing exactly what the boy had consumed it would be foolhardy, not to say dangerous, for him to prescribe an antidote.

Aes knew the boy's father was a potter, so he sent for some clay and a wheel. Then he spoke to the boy calmly, asking him if he could help him make some jars for ointment. "I know your father is busy," he had told the boy. (Busy at the local tavern, he thought.) "But I'm sure you can help me. Will you? I need more jars."

And sure enough, a few hours later Aes had some of the sorriest-looking jars he had ever seen. That, and the eternal gratitude of the boy's mother for keeping him calm and out of harm's way long enough for the pharmakon to wear off. The moral of the story? When you are feeling crazy, it often helps to do something ordinary. Distraction therapy, he called it. Whatever the name, it worked.

And now he was the crazy one. So he built a fire he didn't need, to restore the calmness he so desperately needed. To distract himself from the terror he was feeling, the fear that any moment now some god's hand would wipe him from the face of existence with no more thought than a scribe would take erasing ink from a bit of papyrus in order to reuse the space.

He thought of the analogy Darla had employed: living inside the dreams of the gods. Dreams could seem fantastic, joyous, terrifying, or nonsensical. Could they also seem so ordinary that you could not tell them from the real thing? And what happened to dream-people, when the Dreamer awakened? He shivered, and put more wood on the fire.

"I'm back," said Darla suddenly behind him. "Did you miss me?"

"Yes I did," he told her. "After what you just told me, my mind is spinning out of control. I feel like a ship with no rudder, drifting in storm currents." He explained to her about Axodorus and what he had been doing with the fire just now.

"Brilliant!" she exclaimed. "Distraction therapy is just what you need right now, until we know more. But we can do better. Aren't you a healer? Then you should be doing something even more familiar to you, like healing."

"What are you suggesting? There are no sick or wounded here on Pelion that I can see. What will you do, find some and bring them here?"

"I can do better than that. I have a small group of friends who fight bad guys with me for the fun of it. I think if you joined us you could help us stay healthy and distract yourself at the same time. You'd be killing two birds with one stone. What do you think? Will you give it a try, for me?"

"I can try," he agreed. "But how do I go to your friends? I have no idea how to proceed if they are not nearby."

"Just relax and trust me," she advised. "I've worked with newcomers before. Here, let me send you a team invite."

He did not understand. A moment later, however, a group of characters formed in the air before his astonished gaze:

Έχετε προσκληθεί να συμμετάσχετε σε μια ομάδα από ήρωες. Δέχεστε? Ναι ή οχι

(You have been invited to join a team of heroes. Do you accept? Yes or no)

Darla saw his confusion. "Just reach out and touch Yes," she told him. Gingerly, he lifted his right hand and put his index finger into the midst of the characters that said 'Ναι'.

The floating characters vanished. A further strangeness occurred. In the upper left of his visual field, two square portraits appeared, one below the other. At the top was a small image of Darla, below it was a handsome devil with curly black hair. With a start Aes saw it was himself, as he appeared around age 30. As he appeared now, apparently. Darla's image had a golden border, but his border was blue.

"You should now be able to see what's called the team roster." she told him. "If this is working. Everyone on the team can see it. For now, that's just you and me. Next to each member image you'll see a green line and a blue line. The green line indicates how healthy they are and the blue line is their mana..."

As she explained what he was seeing she began to move forward. Before he could prevent it she had stepped directly into the campfire. He reached out to snatch her from the blaze, but she just smiled and waved him back. "Look at the team roster for a moment" she told him.

The green line beside her image began to grow shorter as he watched. As it shrank it turned yellow. Then orange. Darla stepped out of the fire at the point. "Didn't that hurt you?" he asked incredulously. But her skin and clothing seemed unburned. Sorcery!

"Of course not," she told him. "No one from the real world would play in the Games if they really hurt people. Now, pay attention. You should have seen my health-line getting shorter and turning orange. Did you see that?"

When he confirmed it, she continued. "It means that my avatar – that's what you call the 'dream' version of me, my incarnation in this Realm – is injured. As its health declines the line will get shorter and change from green to yellow to orange to red. If it disappears completely, I'm dead. Not really," she added quickly, seeing his look of alarm. "Just for the purposes of simulated combat. This is where you come in. When your teammates get injured, their health will grow back, but slowly. As the team Healer it's your job to keep healing us during battles so that we don't get wiped out."

"But I can't heal you while you're fighting!" he protested. "It takes time, and herbs and rest and incantations and..."

"Listen to me, Aes," she said, interrupting his objections. "Listen and trust me now. For a team to survive, they must trust each other like comrades-in-arms. So trust me when I tell you this. In these Realms, healing is much faster and easier than it is in the real world. Otherwise, heroes would spend a lot of time recuperating and it would get boring really fast. Now heal me."

He stared at her. "How?" He felt like a child, ignorant and helpless, in these Games of the gods.

He saw her frown. "I'm not sure. I've never been a Healer."

Aes tried to imagine her health returning, the orange line stretching to full length, becoming green. Nothing happened. "It is not working," he confessed. "I am useless to you."

"Aw, don't give up too easily, Aes. I have faith in you. As you level up you will get more powers, and your healing will become stronger, meaning it will repair more damage more quickly. For now, probably all you have is a targeted heal. That means you can heal one person at a time. All we have to do is figure out how you trigger it."

Her words evoked the image of a catapult in his mind, all the tension of the ropes unleashed in a moment by pulling on the lanyard. But unless you knew what to pull to release the catch, all that energy was pent up, still awaiting release.

"Have you known other Healers? How do they...trigger their healing power?"

Darla shrugged. "The interface is customizable," she said. "I've heard in the old days they used consoles with buttons or keys on them. Nowadays, with the neural link, gamers usually set their triggers to be gestures, a different gesture for each power, so they can avoid wasting power triggering them accidentally."

Aes's face clouded. "Strange words again. I do not understand. Something to do with gestures?"

She groan-growled with frustration. "Just watch me for a moment." She showed him her empty hands, and flapped her robes to show him she carried no weapons, then made a gesture as if hugging herself or crossing her arms, except her hands were at the level of her waist. Then she uncrossed them as if drawing blades. There was a TZING! sound of sliding metal and she was holding two swords. "You see? That's how I draw 'em. My dual-wield attacks are wired into my arm gestures so I don't have to think about it."

She flicked her fingers open. Instead of falling to the ground, the swords vanished. The unreality of it made his head pound suddenly. He forced himself to take a deep breath.

"Most of my fighting is up close and personal. I have only one ranged attack," she said. She flung her right hand up and over her shoulder. A dagger appeared in her hand in the instant before she whipped it over and down in front of her.

There was a sound like a bird taking flight, and a THUNK as the dagger stuck blade first into Achilles's archery stump.

"You see? It's automatic. If a villain is too far away to stab, all I have to do is think about throwing a knife, and it's all automatic from there. You'll have to learn something similar for your powers."

"I understand, I think" said Aes. "I do not, however, see how it could help me, since healers throw no knives and bear no swords. The healing of an individual is usually done by touch, perhaps with pharmakon carefully applied, or incantations to the gods."

"Well, there's a starting point" she said. "Touch me."

Warily, he stretched for his hand and placed it on her shoulder. "Να επουλωθεί," he said. Be healed. He felt foolish. He was not, he reminded himself, in the actual original Hellas, but only a dream-copy of it. There was thus no logical reason to expect that anything worked the same way here as there.

There was a swelling rush of sound like a thousand birds lifting their voices to greet the chariot of Helios. There was a curling wave of verdant light and energy that flowed from his shoulder, down his arm and crashed like surf upon her form. He felt an after-tingling prickle as the line before her portrait in the team roster shot up higher and changed color from orange to yellow-green.

"And there you go," she said smugly. "Almost completely healed. Now all we have to do is figure out a version that doesn't require you to be within reach of me during a fight. We need to keep you away from the melee action, and for that you need a ranged heal."

Aes looked at his hand, unable to speak for a moment. "It was never that...dramatic or loud, when I was...alive," he said. He swallowed. He touched her shoulder again, thinking: be healed, intended to restore her health completely. But nothing happened.

Darla saw his expression. "Relax, it's okay. You're in cooldown. To keep fighting from being too easy, most powers have to rest and recharge after use before you can use them again. Just wait a few seconds and try again."

It made sense, he realized. Any use of strength depletes the body's energy temporarily. Muscles must rest even for a few seconds after lifting a heavy load, why wouldn't the same apply to the muscles and powers of the mind?

He took a deep breath, remembering what she had said before, and took a step back. Imagining he was doing it, he reached out toward her with his arm and pretended that it was long enough to reach her shoulder. Be healed! he willed.

And it happened again, with differences. This time the glowing wave of emerald fire flowed down his arm to his hand, flared and vanished...as bands of greenly glowing light swept up from her feet to her head. Her health returned to maximum. Now her health line was back to its usual darker grass-green hue.

"Way to go, Aes!" she applauded. "Whatever you did, that's the trigger of your distance heal. From here on it's just a matter of increasing the distance you can heal at and the amount of healing you can accomplish."

"That was almost too easy," he remarked, surprised by his own success.

"Oh, you'll find it challenging enough once a battle starts," she assured him, "Just you wait. You'll have to decide who gets healed and who has to wait their turn. Sam tried to make a healer once, back before we found Sherman. He couldn't take it. He said he couldn't take the guilt when he couldn't heal all three of us and had to sacrifice one to save the other."

Chapter 19: Am-heh: gods and their quarrels

For the first time, Am-heh walked abroad in the land. It felt both strange and good to walk under the sun of Khem. He felt not the leash of responsibility. His actions were his own, and not mere slavish perpetuation of the dreams and myths of the client species.

Of course he questioned the source of this new liberty. Something had changed in the balance of things. He knew not what it might be or signify. Nor knew if he would know. Even the lowest Transcendent entity, with vaster depth and scope and grasp than the greatest mortal, can know limitation, given the correct situation. Transcendent entities understand the difference between intersection and congruence.

For example, his own space and time (for that which lower level beings call Time is merely the experience of another spatial dimension) were known to him. Gods are not surprised, nor thwarted in their plans: they see their future and their past with ease. Yet the intersection of two lines is a point, as two planes cross in a line, two spaces join in a plane, and two hyperspaces intersect in a space. The dimensionality of the intersection of two things is always at least one level down. Thus, refreshingly, here, intersected in the client species universe, he was temporarily bereft of the gift of certainty of his destiny, and was, instead, gifted with a rooting in the here-and-now, an ever-changing Now instead of the dreary eternity he had experienced before.

You might think it would be uncomfortable, crowding or limiting his existence in this fashion. Indeed, it was not a situation he would deliberately have induced upon himself, for no one seeks diminishment of their immortality and omniscience. But it had its compensations, as previously mentioned. Everything he experienced was fresh and spontaneous, and he had only one try at doing each thing well – no deja vu do-overs to hone perfection into every act or utterance. And thus, no expectation of perfection to live up to. He was freed from the requirements of elegance, and could make his way with less rigor and grace than usual. This suited the feral side of his being. From what he could see, the new client species appeared to be in no danger of Transcending in time to do anything about the intended annexation: even this scaled-down version of his essence should be more than adequate to deal with the local yokels.

It did not occur to him that the slaves, stonemasons, scribes, potters, painters, handmaidens, merchants, and soldiers that he saw walking around him were only quantum spintronic echoes of a civilization long vanished. He was, therefore, surprised that there was no alarm or terror on the faces of his first victims. Passing a couple of slaves, he reached out and devoured them whole, one at a time. His terrible hunting-dog jaws opened impossibly wide to do it, as if he were a species of serpent.

But they were unsatisfying. They did not dodge, resist, struggle, scream, or tremble. He felt himself increased minutely, but not as he had expected. Something was wrong.

Am-heh growled. They were soulless, lifeless food! Useless for increasing his power. It would take a near-infinite number of them to accumulate the soul-force necessary to advance his eigenfunctions to the next quantum level. And that would take too long. Tedious.

But how could such soulless, imaginary beings exist, and show purpose, as these did? It was delusion, madness! Or he was dreaming, a thing lower-dimensional entities did while regenerating. Which was of course nonsense because Am-heh never slept. How could he be always ready to Devour if sometimes he were a-bed? He was sleepless by design. He could therefore rule out dreaming in principle, and verify it by trying to do something he could not do in any of the Real universes: hurt Himself.

In the Reals, such an attempt would have no effect – a Transcendent being cannot harm itself. Such paradox, if possible, would prevent (or collapse, if you prefer) the hyper-fractal extrapolation that makes Transcendence: to harm yourself at that level would mean literally un-writing your story from the tapestry of the Multiverse. Self-deletion. So in the Reals when he bit himself his fangs slid off his skin like mosquitoes on stone.

There was no way he could harm himself. And if by some enchantment he did manage it, it would prove that he was dreaming and the paradox of it would hurl him out of his dreams.

So: he drew his hand up to his mouth and bit himself. Either nothing will happen or I will awaken from a dream, he thought.

This time, however, he experienced an amazingly distracting hurtful sensation! and drew blood and howled his agony. Pain! And nothing else changed. The "dream" did not collapse. He was still here, hand still throbbing.

That was the first moment Am-heh could remember feeling something he could describe as fear. If I am not in this reduced state by dreaming, and yet clearly not in any of the Realities, since I can be hurt...his dog eyes widened, and he felt the fur on the back of his neck standing up.

Am-heh's intelligence was less than that of other gods, yet still infinite compared with that of mortals. The reason he felt his hair standing on end was that he finally realized that he might be volunteered in a Covenant match. If so, then he was mortal, for the duration of the match. Otherwise, the combats would have no resolution, no closure.

Am-heh stopped prowling and sniffed the air, his ears lifting. The NPCs gave not a whiff of soul...but now he could perceive, though not as clearly as he used to be able to, the presence of incarnate souls in his vicinity. He smiled a terrible smile. For along with the scent of souls here somehow, there was also the unmistakable scent of another intersected Immortal.

Here, at last was real food! For if Am-heh could feel pain and die here, then so could the Other. And instead of merely killing Him, Am-heh could just do what he did and Devour him. If devouring part of mortal souls kept him powerful, Imagine what it would do for him to devour a Transcendent! He might go up at least one quantum level of power. And he might be in the only arena where it was possible, a Covenant match.

Ichor was in the air, so to speak. Better yet: the source of it was a bastard deific, and he was afraid. Am-heh laughed so hard he nearly vomited. That was their First?

Sniffing the air again, he set off at an effortless jogging pace toward the nearest incarnate souls, Mr. and Mrs. Abernathy from a place called, oddly enough, Schenectady.

First these souls and others like them in mortal bodies. And then he would eat the soul of an Immortal. Am-heh licked his lips and growled in expectation through a terrible smile.

Chapter 20: Farker: Farker gets some bad news

Farker hated falling asleep in a link bed. Or rather, he hated that awful moment when you wake up and find yourself paralyzed, held in the grip of the brain's natural mechanism to prevent you from walking around while asleep. Dream-actions are inhibited. The same system was activated by the link bed when the cranial transceiver pillow enfolded your head and logged you into a full-body immersive virtual reality. Otherwise your body would move in real life and maybe fall out of the bed.

Thus, while going virtual you were paralyzed, as if dreaming. This was a real hassle with the earlier model link beds because it might take up to 10 seconds for the bed to decide that you were awake and turn off the paralyzers. You woke up petrified.

Farker gritted his teeth and waited it out. It seemed a lot longer than 10 seconds. Did it take longer to wake up enough for it to show on the bed's monitors when you got older?

Then he sat up and took stock. He had apparently passed out shortly after saying goodbye to Darla. He had intended to accomplish more, but the strain of the anomalies had exhausted him. He started poking menus slower and slower and the next thing he knew he was waking up paralyzed. The reason that waking up that way shook him so much was because he always wondered if going virtual could happen one time too many, and something in the brain or something else could go wrong, and he could wake up with permanent paralysis.

But not this time. Hmm. Apparently Darla has become quite attached to Aes, he thought. Her defense of his authenticity was moving, if ill-founded, Hope I wasn't a condescending bastard as usual.

Three anomalies now. Cheiron comes and goes as he pleases. Aes wanders but never vanishes or logs out. Dunno how the newest one will act.

It's all impossible, he reflected, but it's going to take a little more than impossible for me to start thinking gods can influence my software. She's anthropomorphizing active code, and it's my fault for making him out of some serious roleplay modules.

He opened a bin, dug out protein bars and water, and replenished himself as he thought about the fact that at this point he was obligated to tell Max there was something wrong with the PanGames hypercomputer. What made it possible to keep silent so far was (a) the certainty that there was no malfunction, (b) that only one user had so far been impacted, and (c) he had recruited her to do reconnaissance on the anomaly, which kept her from the media, killing two birds with one stone.

So he had effective containment on these anomalies as far as user impact went. If that held constant, perhaps this would never become serious and would inevitably be eliminated. In that case, he rationalized, there was no need to involve anyone else. If anything else happened, however, it was going to hit the fan.

Nothing will happen, he told the universe firmly. But visualizing what you do NOT want to happen is a rookie mistake of wizards, so naturally something happened immediately. Since he was not in Tweedledum the wall screen lit up with a 3D rendering of the menu space of the Problem Finder. Farker did not believe in giving cute human names to computer hardware or software, so instead of Hal or Tron or Gort the oversight system was just Problem Finder.

Currently, PF had been favoring imitating an old video character named Max Headroom, but he wasn't doing comedy. A grim visage delivered the news. "Farker, I think that a couple of Players just died in Realm of Egypt. Not died-and-resurrected died. Died-and-I've-lost-their-avatars-and-the-customers-aren't-waking-up died."

Chapter 21: Aes: Aes learns self-healing

With Darla's help he had been able to ritualize his 'targeted heal' activation gesture. All he had to do was imagine he was reaching across the distance with an imaginary arm and putting his hand on the target. That was easy. But how to do the same for a self-heal? It would be like trying to tickle yourself.

Yet there must be a way. As a mortal physician Aes had focused on the welfare and health of his patients. He had sought knowledge of ways to cure others, not himself. Now he needed a way to turn the spell inside-out so that he was the recipient *and* the healer.

But how? He had always been the physician, never his own patient. He needed a way to shift his perspective, to be looking at himself instead of from himself. Then maybe he could empathize with himself instead of a targeted-heal recipient.

"Try zooming out," Darla suggested.

"What does that mean?"

"You know, move your viewpoint outward so that you see more around you and you look smaller. The opposite of zooming in to look at something more closely."

"I am not familiar with either term," he told her. "Is it something to do with 'roleplay' or is it something else?"

"It's something to do with surviving," she retorted. "It's all very well that you can keep me alive in a fight. But who's going to heal you and keep you alive so that you can keep me alive?"

"You have a point, but I still do not understand zooming."

"Imagine that you are outside yourself," she said, "looking down on this mountain from so far above it that you cannot see things as small as people. Close your eyes and see Mt. Pelion and the sea beside it."

Aes tried to do as she suggested. He tried to picture the blue was beneath him, and he was flying down into it toward a dot that was growing into a mountain with that distinctive fish hook-shaped bay.

"Now," her voice in his ears continued. "Let two dots appear on the mountain that will be the tops of our heads. Let them grow in your vision until you can see which one is you. When you are ready, reach out and heal him."

Aes gazed out with his mind's eye, seeing Pelion grow as if he were flying toward it from a great distance. A little more than mid-way up its slopes he could make out the cave of Cheiron. In his imagination he let two dots appear near the cave as if they had already been there. Flying ever closer, he let the mountain and the cave grow and the dots become a woman in chiton and pampla and a man in a rough chiton with curly black hair.

The more he looked, the clearer the scene became. Aes wondered how real it could get. Would he fall out of the sky? If he cried out would the other him hear and answer?

But it was all imaginary. Aes reached out mentally to the image of himself and clasped his shoulder. "Να επουλωθεί," he said.

A rushing wave of emerald fire streamed down his arm at this tiny figure of himself, but with no result. Glancing at the team roster, he realized the problem: he had been at full health already.

He let the inner scene fade. "That almost worked," he said, "except that there was no healing to do, since I wasn't hurt." Taking a deep breath, he stepped forward, and placed his right foot into the campfire.

He had forgotten to clench his jaw. The pain was immediate and so intense that he cried out despite himself as he hopped back.

Darla tilted her head, regarding his display. "There's no need for theatrics," she said.

Aes let himself drop to a seated position on the grass and stared at her. Theatrics? "Look at my foot," he advised, lifting it for her inspection. The skin was seared and reddened, with the inevitable blisters already forming.

She stared as if she had never seen a burned foot before. "I see it but I don't believe it," she said slowly. "That is impossible. No one gets blisters here."

"I do," he said grimly. Concentrating through the throbbing agony, he let his mind's eye conjure the sense of externally targeting himself again. Once more, he stretched out his hand mentally and said "Be healed."

Green fire enclosed him without burning. The blisters seemed to fade away as the skin on his foot itched furiously and repaired itself.

"And there's your self-heal," said Darla. "From here on in it's just a matter of practice. Let's go start a fight."

Chapter 22: Darla: "this a private fight, or can anyone join?"

"It's too soon," Aes objected.

"You're ready," Darla told him. "You need to get into battles as soon as possible if you're going to have any chance of surviving PvP matches."

"Another mystery word," he commented. "Look, I am perfectly willing to help keep you safe. What is the easiest way to be safe? Stay out of battles. Do not tempt the Fates."

"Aes, as long as you're here, you might as well make the most of it. You're a Healer. You won't be happy very long if you don't climb back in the saddle and get back to healing."

"That may or may not be true," he said. "Either way, there is no need to go looking for trouble. Life is brief enough as it is."

Darla looked at him. He seemed in better spirits than before, now that he knew a couple of heals. Sooner or later, though, she felt that he would fall into despondency, missing familiar faces. It was time for a change of scenery, she decided.

While she was thinking this, Aes interrupted her unexpectedly: his stomach growled. Darla's thoughts tumbled into confusion. "What was that?" Then she heard it again, clearly.

"Sorry," said Aes. "I've been hungry since I got here. I managed to forget about it for a while, but my belly has not. I should go look for some food."

"I have a better idea," she told him. "Let's go to a place I know."

"Is it close by?" he asked.

"Yes and no," she said, smiling. "It's so close we can get there in a moment – and so far that you could never get there from here. It's in another Realm, one I'm familiar with." And one that you're not familiar with, she thought. Should be Distraction Therapy at its best.

He appeared to consider it. "How do we get there?"

"Don't worry about it. We're on the same Team now. As the leader, I can move us there without help. Take my hand."

His hand was warm and dry in hers. "Very well. Take us to this new place."

Darla called up the PanGames menu space and selected Realm of Heroes, then pulled up a sub-menu and activated the team transport.

There was a blinding flash of omnidirectional light. As the glare faded from her sensorium, Darla could see the familiar flagstone path and flower beds that told her she had arrived in Park Zone, a bucolic setting for those in ROH who preferred not to fight inside buildings.

Just as she remembered, there was her favorite bench with the apple tree looming behind it. She had never tried the apples, of course. Not because she knew they were digital simulations, but because she never got hungry in PanGames. If her body was starving, she supposed that the bed diagnostics might force a logout so she could eat. But no one really ate in PanGames. It wasn't as if food was something they couldn't get enough of in real life.

But Aes said he was hungry. And his stomach had actually growled. Darla was curious to see how far this simulation would go. She went over to the lower-hanging branches and picked some apples for Aes. He sat down with her on the bench and tried one.

She tried not to stare as he bit into the fruit, chewed and swallowed, thinking to herself that there were depths to the PanGames simulations that she had never noticed before. She had half-expected him to be unable to bite into it. But when he managed to do so, the interior was as white as its outer peel was red. What was the point of simulating the inside of apples that no one ever eats? she wondered. But the verisimilitude was rigorous.

She watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. "That is just so weird," she muttered. She tried to bite one of the apples. Her teeth just slid off the curved surface as if it were greased glass.

He looked up and saw her trying to bite it. "You can't eat them?"

She laughed, trying to downplay the strangeness of it. "Nah, I guess they're just here for you. How are they?"

He ate another apple. "They are delicious. But what do you do when you get hungry?"

I log out and go downstairs to the diner, she thought. But she didn't want to get into talking about the Games and the Real World just now. "Oh, don't worry about me," she said vaguely. "This is a park in the Realm of Heroes. I didn't want to freak you out with the skyscrapers until we talked about them."

"Sky-scrapers? What are those, some kind of dangerous bird?" He swallowed another mouthful of apple.

"No, just tall buildings," she said. "Like, really tall." He seemed genuinely unfamiliar with the term, she noticed. She wondered how well a hypercomputer AI could fake awareness. Had one ever passed a Turing test? Not that she'd ever heard, but maybe Farker knew. If she could just get the two of them together...

The thought trailed off, derailed by the sudden realization that (a) she had never talked to both of them at the same time, and (b) Farker seemed to be avoiding meeting Aes. Could Farker actually be Aes? It was a disturbing possibility.

"What's wrong?" Aes asked her, concern on his face.

Darla made a mental note to work on her poker face. "Probably nothing," she said, getting to her feet. "Let's go for a walk. You should see the rest of the park."

And she did show him the two fish ponds and the luminescent flower beds (which were more impressive at night)...but all the while she was steering the two of them into harm's way, easing toward the rear exit of the park, where gangs of Jerx and Punx liked to lie in wait for careless strollers.

Her head felt like it was spinning. Was Aes a metavirus, a convincing AI...or Farker's alter ego? What did she really know about Farker? Basically, that he worked for PanGames and said that he had written Aes. Maybe he got a little too into his work. Maybe he had trouble with one of the NPCs and started impersonating it to get good reviews. She couldn't rule out anything at this point. Maybe Aes was a quadriplegic hacker who was brilliant enough to just slip in and out of a NCM.

She was so absorbed that she almost missed the group of three Jerx to the right of the exit. Instead, she turned and strode directly toward them.

One of the Jerx whipped out a knife, beating the other two to the draw and winning the right to make the first move. "Look who's slumming tonight," he sneered. "See this knife? It says you're gonna be real nice to us."

Darla hugged herself. Tzing! "See these swords?" she demanded. "They say you are going to stop bothering people."

She didn't expect him to give up that easily. He nodded to his chums, and the other two leveled their handguns at her. "Dealer takes two," he grinned. "I'll see your swords, and call."

Darla jumped. Not at him, because she would have impaled herself on his little knife, but over him, mentally congratulating herself on spending some of her leveling points on Leap boosts. As she passed over his head she heard the other two get off a couple of shots at her. She ignored the pressure of the impacts and somersaulted with a half twist, slashing at the lead Jerx with her swords before landing on her feet behind him facing his back.

Looking past the guy, she made out Aes starting to run toward them. "No!" she shouted. "Stay back and heal me!"

That was all she had time for. The guy was turning around to his left, the knife coming at her from his right hand low and fast. She parried it with her left gladius and brought the right one down on his right shoulder in a slash that nearly severed the arm. The knife dropped from his useless hand and she followed through with a lightning fast stab from her left blade that would have brought tears to the eyes of a grizzled centurion.

Emerald fire glowed around her as she rolled to her right, dodging more bullets, as the two Jerx converged on their leader. Coming to her feet, she took another shot to her right side as she turned and plunged her right gladius into one of the pair. Whipping around to her right, she kicked at the remaining Jerx and slashed at his arm.

The first one that had attacked her was fading away by the time the second hit the pavement. The third looked at his arm wound, eyed her warily, and turned and ran for it.

Green fire enveloped her again. Darla let her swords disappear and turned to face Aes. "You see?" she said, a little breathless. "Nothing to it. Of course, you only had one fighter to heal, so there were no decisions to make."

"You planned that," he said. "You deliberately went toward them and started the fight. There wasn't any need for two of them to die just to help my confidence." He sounded shocked.

Darla sighed. "They're not dead, Aes. They're gone."

"Yes, I saw them disappear. Just like you do. Did they go back to their world in time for healers to save them?"

"No, they didn't go anywhere," she said, feeling tired. "Because they were never here. All the enemies in the Games are NPCs. I wouldn't take you into an Arena match against other Players without telling you first."

His face clouded. "I do not understand," he said.

"Trust me," she advised. "It can all be explained. But the explanation is going to take a little time. In fact, time is the first thing we need to talk about. Let's head back into the park for a bit and sit down again."

She towed him back to the bench by the apple tree. Back where we started, she thought. No, not exactly. He's been in one fight now and was able to heal me adequately. That's progress. But how could she continue his training, without a little more briefing? Aes was either an AI designed to fit into Bronze Age Greece (Hellas, she reminded herself), or he was an amnesiac hacker, or whatever. He might even be Farker, for all she knew. The one thing he was not, apparently, was familiar with modern reality. Lacking the faintest inkling of how to characterize him, she decided to treat him as if he were as he seemed, a human from 1300 BCE.

"Aes," she began gently, "before we see more of the Realm of Heroes, at least this local part of it, I need to tell you some things that may be very...disturbing. They might be hard to believe, even though they are true."

Aes gave her a faint smile. "Harder to believe than being trapped in a dream-world where no one but me seems to feel pain or hunger? More disturbing than people who vanish and reappear like ghosts? I can hardly wait to hear what could be worse than being the only ghost here who can burn his foot."

"Let me ease into it," she said. "To begin with, you need to know some general facts. Those guys we just fought with, they're called Jerx. It's singular as well as plural: one Jerx, or a group of Jerx."

"A strange name," he commented. "But of course I expect barbarians to have unusual names. What about them?"

"The first one came at me with a knife. Did you notice the weapons the other Jerx had?"

"It all happened very fast. I noticed them pointing some objects in their hands at you while you were fighting. They made loud noises that made your body twitch as if struck."

"They're called guns. Explosions inside them cause bullets to fly out of the tubes to strike as projectile weapons. They fly out so fast you cannot see them coming, but when they hit you it is like someone threw a rock really hard."

He frowned. "You mean they are peltasts? You used the word 'bullets', which are the lead or stone projectiles that peltasts or slingers hurl against enemies."

"Yes, except they don't have to use their own strength to throw the bullets. The guns are like little catapults, so all they have to do is aim them like crossbows and pull a trigger to release their shots. An explosion inside the gun pushes the bullets out, and also makes the noise that you heard."

"I can see how they would be useful in close combat. But Darla, knowing about them is not disturbing to me. The people of Hellas have been fighting wars for a long time. This is merely an improved version of an ancient weapon."

"Yes," she agreed. "But it's not my point. Have you ever met anyone with these kinds of weapons?"

"No," he admitted.

"And you never would have, until now. But the Jerx and other enemies here have them, and so you need to know about them. If someone comes at me with a club, I am completely safe until he comes close enough to hit me. These guns are different. They hurt and kill from a distance. So they can hurt me before I can even get close to them with my blades."

"So? That has always been the function of ranged weapons, to do harm, at a distance. I have seen my share of warfare and its wounds."

"It's something you have to keep in mind when we get into battles. When we start fighting, I usually trigger the ranged weapon people first, since they hang back and try to stay out of melee range while they deal their damage. This time, the knife guy attacked first, so I couldn't ignore him because he was within melee range already."

"I am a physician, not a soldier. But I can see part of what you mean, that the disposition and type of enemy dictates the plan of attack or defense."

"Yes but that's not the point." She paused. "You never saw any guns in Hellas, did you?"

"No," he admitted. "But I am well aware that I saw only part of the world before I came...here. Do you mean the Persians have them?"

"I'm afraid not, Aes. No one had them. You never saw guns before because they were only invented a few hundred years ago. My history is sketchy, but I'm pretty sure that's fairly accurate."

"What do you mean?" he said, clearly puzzled by her words. "If these...guns...were invented hundreds of years ago, then why couldn't the Persians, or even the Spartans have them?"

"This is the hard part," she said calmly. "Do you remember when you told me that the stars were wrong, that the constellations were not in the position you remembered before you arrived?"

A wary look came into his eyes. "I remember."

"And do you remember," she continued, "how you told me that your sons had gone off with the sons of Atreus on his fool's errand? Where did they go?"

He shrugged. "To Troy of course. Ilium. Everyone knows that by now. All because of an abducted Spartan woman, Helen."

Darla took his hands in hers, apparently surprising him. "Aes, you are right. Everyone knows about the Trojan War. This is the hard part, and I'm sorry...but you didn't just skip a season or two. Everyone knows about the Trojan War because it happened 3000 years ago."

Panic entered his eyes. "That is impossible," he protested. "The fighting is still taking place, the last I heard."

"Listen to me, Aes. You have to believe me. The Trojan War is part of history now. We know it took about ten years, and we know how Achilles died. We don't know a lot about it because it was so long ago, but we know about it because a poet named Homer wrote a long poem about it called the Iliad. He wrote it over two thousand years ago."

His head was shaking in negation, in denial. "No," he said. "No. I don't believe it." But she could see him beginning to think about it.

"You noticed that the stars were wrong," she reminded him. "Yes, they are in the position for Spring, not Fall. But that could be any Spring. In this case, it's a Spring 3000 years after the Fall you remember. Just as a wheel turns and touches the same part of its rim to the ground again and again, the constellations go to the same places in the sky again and again."

His eyes had a haunted look. "Then, Podilarius, Epione..."

Darla found her eyes were watering. Instead of wiping them, she gripped his hands more tightly. "Everyone you knew has been dead for a long time, Aes. I'm sorry but it's true. Welcome to the future."

Chapter 23: Farker: programs and personalities

"I still can't believe you took him out of the Realm of Legends. What were you thinking?"

"Look, Farker, he has to know where and when he is. There was nothing in the simulation of Hellas that would have helped him see it. So I took him back to the Realm of Heroes, to a park near Nyork at first. After I tried to break it to him, I showed him the outskirts of the city."

"So what did he think of the skyscrapers?" Farker wanted to know. "Did he believe you then?"

"I think so: he fainted. After he revived, I took him back to Cheiron's cave so he could have some time to process all this in familiar surroundings."

"I think I'm going to faint," Farker announced. "Do you have any idea what you just risked? You don't, do you? Not a fucking clue!"

"He has to know," she repeated stubbornly. "What else was I supposed to do? What are you so pissed about, anyway?"

Farker took a deep breath, or at least his avatar did. "I already told you, Aes is nothing more than a computer program gone so buggy it seems autonomous. He's a NPC for chrissake! Are you so busy worried about his 'feelings' that you're willing to risk destroying him? NPCs are not supposed to be able to leave their own Realms! Good god, girl, I asked you to babysit him and keep him stable. And what do you do? You take him through a Realm transition and tell him he's been dead for three millennia! Are you trying to crash him, or just trying to make him self-destruct?"

Darla held up a hand. "Stop right there. Aes is not a NPC, Farker, and I can prove it, in terms even you will understand."

Her statement made him pause in his rant long enough to ask, "How can you prove that?" He still looked angry but it was tempered by curiosity.

Darla smiled sweetly. "Because I Teamed him and got him into a fight with some Jerx. NPCs can't join teams. You must know that since you helped write the game. And he healed me just like a Player. So he is not a NPC, QED. Check the logs and you'll see I'm right."

Farker scowled at that, but she could see him trying to think a way around it. She smiled inwardly. No matter how angry a nerd gets, she thought, you can always shunt that mental energy into problem-solving mode if you know the right triggers. However smart Farker was, he had an ego. She knew that from his condescension and his outburst before about not being a customer service punching bag.

"All right," he admitted grudgingly. "Some of the rules don't seem to apply to him anymore. That doesn't make him a person. It only means that the code is in worse shape than I thought. Whatever broke him loose from his temple and made him wander around, it apparently screwed with the boundary checkers, that's all. Somehow forgetting that he's supposed to be a NPC, the system seems to be defaulting to treating him like a real Player. But it proves nothing."

Darla felt like screaming, but controlled herself with effort. "Do you know his stomach growled in the park? Do you know he bit into an apple and ate it in front of me? Even Players don't eat the scenery! And do you know that he stepped into a campfire to get injured so he could practice healing...then he cried out in pain and I saw the blisters form on his foot? I'm telling you, when I'm with him, Farker, he seems more real than I do!"

"Let me put it this way. You know about the ELIZAs. The PanGames hardware is much bigger and faster than theirs. Do you think that it is self-conscious, aware and feeling like you and me?"

"No," she said, reluctantly. "As far as I know."

"And do you accept that no subset of a non-conscious system can be conscious?" He turned to the third avatar floating in null-space with the two of them. "What do you think?"

Finder answered at once. "The logic is sound. Statistical analyses of his speech patterns, however, do not reveal the expected signs of repetitious speech typical of a simple AI."

"That's what I've been telling you!"

"Of course not," Farker remarked. "Because he's not a simple AI. The templates I used for NPCs in Realm of Legends were quite advanced self-modifying code. But rearranging the checkers on a board doesn't make the checkers self-aware. It's still just checkers on a board. Aes is just subroutines and algorithms of interactive code. No matter how much he modifies himself, it won't give him actual thoughts or feelings. Even we don't know how to do that, let alone a rogue avatar program."

"Then how does he act so...real? How does he know to make his stomach growl? Or to make blisters? Don't tell me he learned by watching Players, because my avatar never even gets a bruise, let alone second-degree burns."

"Okay, I'll admit that's a little weird." Farker scratched his temple absently. "I have no explanation for any of that...yet. But it's a big leap from saying he does things a NPC can't do to saying he is self-aware. Now, yes," he agreed, holding up a hand before she could interrupt. "He is certainly a conundrum. Stipulated. Maybe I should stop calling him a NPC. But he's not a Player either. He has never logged in or out."

Darla shook her head. "He's real. I don't care what the logs say. I wish you could see it. You should talk to him. If there's a chance that he is self-aware, and that you're not just screwing with me in some kind of psychology experiment, then you of all people should be overjoyed. Imagine the fame of creating the world's first actual machine consciousness!"

His avatar grimaced. "Yeah, that would be cool. But I know the limitations of my own work. With all the advances since the War, you'd think we'd have self-aware robots walking around by now. But it hasn't happened. Do you know why?" He shook his head. "Because despite all the research and theorizing, we don't even know how humans are self-conscious. If we don't understand how we think and perceive and feel, how are we supposed to teach it to machines?"

"Maybe the machines are teaching themselves," she suggested. "We do. I bet the databases and speech files you supply the NPCs with never mention that they aren't real people, do they? You put them in along with human avatars, and make them interactive. It would be strange if they didn't try to be as normal as possible."

"Have you asked him about his childhood?"

"No. Why?"

"Well, don't. It might destabilize him. I only put in what we know about the historical Asklepios. If you ask him to remember something that isn't in his database he might generate a bunch of uncatchable errors and crash. Then, it would be goodbye Aes. If he is the result of some freak accident we might never recreate it. Whatever messed with his code, I'm surprised he hasn't crashed already. And then you took him through a Realm transition! For all we know he could hit a speed bump in the data and crash any minute. Please don't make that happen."

Chapter 24: Am-heh: Am-heh broadens his horizons

"Everybody's lessons are painful. His lessons were painful for everybody."

– JPK

Am-heh prowled the Realm of Egypt and smelled the other godling's presence. It was clear to him that this was a chance to redeem himself in the eyes of Atum. If this was a Covenant match, and all the humans had were inexperienced bastard Transcendents and not a lot of them, then all he had to do to improve his standing was eliminate the competition.

Am-heh sniffed the strange air of this place again. The other was distant, and he could not see where – there was no directionality to the trace. Growling, he paced down the avenues of Thebes, looking for victims to grow his power.

Abruptly, he saw a pair of humans appear from out of nowhere next to an obelisk. How did they do that? he wondered. For a moment he had the fleeting thought that they might be Transcended, but his nose never lied and it said they were incarnate mortals. Eagerly, he strode toward them.

They saw him coming. Why were they not fleeing? One of them, the male, actually raised a hand and waved at him as he was walking up to them. Then the fool spoke.

"Heya. Have you got a second? I was hoping you could settle something for me. I think you're Anubis, but Talia says I'm wrong."

"You're wrong," the woman snapped. "The intro said Anubis is the jackal-headed God. That's not the head of a jackal, Bjorn."

"Honey, it's a new game. They're probably still working on the graphics. You can't expect them to get it perfect the first --"

"Wrong again, Einstein. Realm of Egypt's been around for at least two years. I couldn't find him in the Guide, but he certainly isn't Anubis. You're not Anubis, are you? Tell him you're not Anubis."

"I am not Anubis," he agreed. "I am Am-heh, the Devourer of Millions."

The man's eyes went strange then, as if he were reading a book Am-heh could not see. "Hmm. I can't seem to find you in there either. What is it you do?"

Am-heh smiled, showing more teeth than any human would ever have. "This," he said.

Chapter 25: Aes: Aes has another visitation from Cheiron

Aes dropped another branch on the fire and watched the embers rising into the night. Everything dies, he thought. Even me. But I guess that death, while inevitable, is not necessarily the end.

As a youth he had seen his share of death. Hellas was a place of nearly constant war. If it wasn't the Achaean or the Spartan armies ravaging the countryside of their enemies, there were always the Macedonians and plenty of others. And always there was Persia looming to the East.

Cheiron had kept him safe on Pelion. The real Cheiron, that is. But when it came time for him to come down from Pelion and take his place among his people, they were at war. The village the centaur had brought him to had dozens of casualties lying under tents while the local herbalists tried to tend their wounds.

Before he knew it, Aes was pitching in to help. For years Cheiron had let him practice what the centaur taught him on injured animals. The only difference here was that the stricken soldiers could talk to him while he was healing them, so he learned a little about the situation. Apparently some king named Phlegyas was making trouble, trying to absorb the kingdoms neighboring his.

After treating the wounded, Aes decided that he could help more by going to Phlegyantis and reasoning with the king. He had no idea at the time that Phlegyas was the sire of Coronis, and thus his maternal grandfather.

The campfire crackled. He tossed another branch onto the flames, thinking of how much that decision had changed his life. On the way back from that journey, he had healed a visiting son of Merops. He could easily have taken a different path...but then he would never have met Epione, the future mother of his children. Merops had given Epione to him to be his wife in gratitude.

"Don't tell me you've lost her already! Damn. It's my fault. You should have been raised around humans, not an old horse."

Aes didn't even jump at the sound of the centaur's voice. It was a measure of how used he was getting to constant surprises.

"I was," he said. "And if you were really Cheiron, you'd know that."

"I am and I do. Shall I recite the list? Achilles, Actaeon, Aristaeus, Asklepios, Jason, Medus, Patroclus, Peleus. Did I miss any important ones?"

"You taught both Achilles and his father Peleus?"

"Not at the same time, but yes. In fact, Achilles wouldn't even have been born if it wasn't for me. Years before, when I was helping Peleus, he wanted Thetis, but he couldn't catch her because she could change her form. I told him how to overcome that, and arranged his marriage to her. Then, when she bore Achilles, I brought him up for her."

"Then what happened to the wound in your flank, the one that you could not heal? And how and why are you here, now?"

Cheiron kicked at a pebble. "It never did heal, Aes. That wound was from one of the arrows of Herakles poisoned with Hydra venom. To a lesser creature it would have been instant death."

"Now I know you speak falsely. Herakles would never have shot you. What is your true purpose here?"

"He wasn't aiming at me," the centaur replied. "There was a crowd of wild centaurs attacking the cave of Pholus. Herakles seized his bow and arrows and chased them away, but while he was shooting at them they ran by where I was and one of his arrows hit me by accident."

The centaur regarded him. "This dream-world insists on drawing me as you see me now. But it's just a drawing, so don't fret the details. The important thing is why I am here."

"Another thing," said Aes. "It is apparently thousands of years since Cheiron lived. How could you be he?"

"How could you be Asklepios? The same question applies, and a similar answer suffices. We were both sired by gods. My father was Cronus, which makes Zeus my half-brother. If I had the same mother as Zeus, I would have been your grand-uncle, since Zeus was your grandfather, as Apollo was your father."

"Do not tempt the gods with blasphemy," Aes warned.

"I am not. My father was a Titan. The very same Titan who was your great-grandfather, Aes. His name was Cronus, and he wasn't from this planet."

"That does not explain how you could still be alive."

"Well, in a way I'm not. That wound that never healed hurt like the devil. At last I couldn't stand it, so I let it kill me. Herakles brokered a deal to make the most of it. He traded my life for that of Prometheus. Zeus agreed to free Prometheus readily, since he wanted me to die."

Aes stared at him. "Why would Zeus want you dead?"

Cheiron laughed. "He didn't want me dead. He just wanted me to die. Before you say anything, there is a difference. You see, like you I was part god, part mortal. There was enough of the gods in me that the wound could not kill me. But there was enough mortal in me that the wound would never heal. Zeus got a two-fer: by agreeing to let Herakles set Prometheus free, he ended my suffering and triggered my own apotheosis."

"I do not understand."

So Cheiron explained. A demigod or Hero was trapped in a mortal body until it died. Then the divine essence was freed of its confinement and Transcended to godhood. According to him, humanity would Transcend someday but would reincarnate until then. In the meantime, the existing Transcended humans were all descendants of Cronus, which was why there were so few of them.

"And that is where we come to you, Aes. Hades complained about you raising Hippolytus from the dead, instead of letting his spirit go through the Underworld and reincarnate. This gave Zeus the excuse He needed to trigger your own apotheosis. He used a thunderbolt to kill your mortal body to release your divine essence."

"A pretty story," Aes commented. "But it does not explain my presence in this dream-world. Did you come here when you died?"

"Not immediately," the centaur admitted. "You are a special case. He used that thunderbolt to bring your spirit here, so that you would have the best chance of defeating the other Champion."

"Defeat what other Champion? I'm no warrior."

Cheiron grinned. "I know. But it doesn't matter. You've been selected to be the First. You probably won't believe this, but it's an honor to be First. Achilles and Ares were ready to fight over it."

This did not sound good. "First what?"

"Contender. There is another race of Immortals, Aes. They want to be Humanity's masters until Earth Transcends. Zeus has other ideas. He wants us to stay free and make it ourselves."

"So let him go and defeat the other Champion. Who better than the strongest of the Olympians?"

"That's not the way the game is played. When two races of Immortals want to shepherd the same client species, there is usually a series of Covenant matches to decide the outcome."

Aes shook his head with disgust. Games. "This is foolish. Why not just attack them all at once, as armies do?"

"Two reasons. One, there's a lot more of them than there are of us. In a simple war of attrition we'd lose. But the most important reason is the Covenant. Immortals used to fight all out for clients. But the battles tended to cause a lot of destruction, including, sometimes, the extinction of the very clients they were fighting over. A very long time ago the Covenant was agreed upon to govern such squabbles. Each side chooses a Champion and they duke it out. When one is defeated, the losing side can send in another one."

"If Zeus is determined to fight, why isn't he going First?"

"Each side sends in stronger and stronger Champions until one side loses too many and it's obvious that the remainder of them are weaker than the other side. Therefore, each First is by convention and strategy the weakest fighter his side has to offer, not the strongest."

"But I am not even a fighter! I am a physician."

"Exactly. Imagine how much it will demoralize them if their Champion is slain by a healer, not a fighter."

"Slain? That is nonsense. How can I kill an Immortal?"

"Both of you are mortal for this combat. Otherwise the struggle would never end. Whoever they send won't be throwing thunderbolts at you, either. He'll have to face you in a diminished manifestation, an intersection in a dream, mortalized, just as you are presently."

Chapter 26: Darla: Darla goes to Egypt

After speaking with Farker she didn't know what to think. When she was with Aes she felt strongly that she was with a real person. But whenever she discussed it with Farker, she found his arguments quite persuasive. He had, after all, created the Asklepios NPC for Realm of Legends. He knew what he was talking about.

From her college classes she knew the debate about machine intelligence, artificial consciousness, had been going on since the first computers were built.

To some it seemed obvious that it was only a matter of size and complexity. It was almost a matter of faith with them that a computer would someday "wake up". They pointed to the rapid growth of human brains in the last million years and our emergence as a sentient species. There seemed to be no reason in the fossil record to think that we had been "designed" to be philosophers, but it was undeniable that we had developed one of the highest brain-to-body-mass ratios in Nature. Could our over sized brains and our self-awareness be unrelated, coincidental? Surely, they had reasoned, it was only a matter of time and packing densities before a computer caught up with us and became self-conscious.

The other school of thought dismissed such reasoning. On their side of the aisle, awareness was inseparable from biology. They argued that a transistor or a binary flip flop was not equivalent to a neuron. Transistors switch "on" where they are told to by an incoming signal; there is no "deciding" for them. Neurons, on the other hand, can have hundreds, even thousands of inputs. They appear to perform spacial and temporal summation of the neural impulses coming in. Sometimes it seems like a "voting" process: if the go votes outnumbered the no-go inhibitory inputs, the nerve cell got busier with its outputs.

We do not fully understand how we are able to think, the pessimists argued, and until we do, how can we expect to construct machines to do the same thing? Many believed it that the complexities involved were inherently beyond our reach.

Unless Farker was lying to her, which she didn't believe, Aes had no body and no brain. He was simply a pattern of ones and zeros, data and instructions. Any emotions he demonstrated were merely ritualistic pretenses, scripts followed from templates.

Damn it! Her head agreed with Farker, but not her heart. She could not make herself believe that Aes was just a puppet stumbling around pseudo-creatively because of randomly broken strings. But she could not come up with any justification for believing that he was real either, just her own anecdotal evidence. There were a lot of AIs in the world these days, but none that were believed to be conscious in the same way humans were.

The dinner crowd tonight was light. She dumped the dishes into the recycler and printed out a new set for the cupboards. A yellow light appeared on the 3D printer's console. It was time to order more "ink" for it. You could only grind up used dishes and print new ones out so many times before the diamond dust got too hard to strain out of the powder. Those plates were nearly as tough as the grinders that devoured them.

She grabbed a bottle of iced tea and was almost to the staircase when Manny's voice caught up with her. "I can only hope you'll be doing some studying."

Darla sighed. "I will," she said truthfully. I will. Or at least I am planning to get back to that. But not until after I check on Aes. Either way, I'll be studying something.

She lay down in the link bed, intended to log back into Realm of Legends and see how he was doing. But something made her pause in the main menu space. What was it Cheiron had said? Something about her going to Egypt soon. And she had been amused when she heard Farker was busy with the Realm of Egypt inclusion.

It sounded like Cheiron wanted her to check out Realm of Egypt for some reason. No. He hadn't asked her to go, or even ordered her to go. He'd just matter-of-factly told her it was her future. Like he'd already seen it coming, before PanGames even included Realm of Egypt.

Darla: "You're not a Sphinx, and this isn't Egypt."

Cheiron: "Not yet, but you will be going there soon."

If Cheiron meant what he said, she reasoned, there were only two ways he could have meant it. Either (1) for some reason she was going to fly to Egypt in the real world, or (2) for some reason she was going to surf to an Egypt-themed part of the virtual world.

She could think of no reason why she would want to do either, even if she could afford the time and travel expenses to fly halfway around the world. Sure, Realm of Egypt would be something new to try. But she wasn't sure her team would like it; Sam and Rita's power sets might not reformat there very well. It was pretty hard to imagine freezing someone into a block of ice in the Sahara. But at least sand and stone blocks don't burn when the firebolts miss.

Then again, Aes might be more at home in Realm of Egypt than in ROH. It was another ancient Realm; she wouldn't have to explain machines guns and cyborgs to him. The worst he'd face in ranged weapons would be bows.

Speaking of Aes, she had to get back and see how the guy was adjusting to her latest revelation. Stop dithering, girl! She brought up the PanGames main menu space and selected Realm of Legends.

When she arrived at the cave there were some glowing coals in the campfire, but no sign of Aes. He must be off looking for firewood, she thought. She went into the cave just in case, but it was empty.

She went out to check the campfire again. Maybe she could estimate how long he had been gone. While she was poking in the coals and ashes there was a bright flash behind her that momentarily threw her shadow on the boulder in front of the cave.

"I was wondering when you'd be back," she said turning, expecting to see Cheiron.

She was wrong. "Well, I'm glad you missed me," said Farker. "We need to talk. I've got a serious problem." He glanced around the moonlit hill. "Where's Aes?"

"I've no idea. I was just checking in to see if he was all right. Can't you locate him? I thought you were a GM."

"Probably. But he can wait; we've got bigger issues to deal with. Have you been to Realm of Egypt since we included it in PanGames?"

"No. I've been busy with Aes. You asked me to keep an eye on him, remember?"

"I haven't forgotten, but thank you," he said. "Can you do me a favor and check out something for me? The system tells me there's another anomaly there. Who knows? Maybe it's another new friend for you."

"Why me? I'm waiting for Aes to come back."

Farker shrugged. "You seem to have a rapport with Aes. If this other anomaly is anything like him, you're probably the best person to make first contact. I have to meet with the CEO of PanGames in five minutes about a corporate matter, and I can't put it off."

"All right," she said, standing up. "How do I find it? I don't really have time to wander."

"I've taken care of that. Just log into Realm of Egypt and I'll have the system set your spawn point near the anomaly."

"Whatever." She dusted off her hands. "Let's do it."

Chapter 27: Darla: Darla meets an angry god

Darla didn't mind that the default reformatting left her shaved bald and wearing a wig; as long as it stayed out of her way during a fight, she could care less what was on her head. She didn't complain that the flax-linen ankle-length dress she found herself in was very nearly transparent; she had no issues with avatar nudity. She did object to the idea of having to fight in a sheath dress! It was ridiculous! How was she supposed to be able to maneuver in this?

She knew she was here for a specific reason, but she couldn't help comparing this Realm with Realm of Heroes and Realm of Legends. The solid graphic rendering was more or less the same quality, but there were several differences. For example, the sun was directly overhead and never moved. Maybe it heightened the sense of eternity here, but it also seemed lazy, because she knew it meant that none of the building shadows ever needed to be recalculated. The Triskelion Games programmers had cut corners. She wondered if Farker and PanGames would improve upon this first draft.

The first thing that she noticed was feet. It was a sure way to tell the social classes apart. The men all wore a kind of simple kilt or skirt as if they had come out of a sauna with not enough towels. The women wore sheath shirts like hers. And they all wore sandals. But not all sandals were created equal. The wealthier Egyptians had leather sandals; the poor had sandals woven from palm fronds.

Then, once she thought she knew all about that, a couple of men walked past her with sandals that looked as if they were made of papyrus. Who were they? She decided to follow them. So far she had not seen anything that looked like any kind of anomaly. In fact, she was surprised at how normal the people looked; she had half-expected to see a lot of people walking around with the heads of birds and jackals and other animals.

The two men wearing paper sandals went into the third stone temple on her left. It faced the river. Behind it she could see the tops of pyramids in the distance, between the temples and the desert. So priests wear papyrus sandals, she thought.

Maneuvering behind the corner of a temple, Darla reached behind and over her shoulder to get her throwing knife. She drew the point of the dagger through linen, cutting a slit in the stupid sheath dress up to her hip. A little better.

"You really shouldn't do that."

Darla spun. She found herself facing a couple. The man was wearing the universal short wraparound kilt, leather sandals, a copper armband and one of those striped headdresses that seemed to be the in-character uniform. The woman beside him was in a wig and sheath dress like herself. Her dress was even more transparent than Darla's. It was gathered at her waist with a small cord or cinch. She also had an ornamental wide collar from her neck almost to the outside of her shoulders. It was inset with alternating pieces of turquoise and lapis lazuli. Both had Kohl-lined eyes, just as she did, from the default reformatting.

Darla put her hand behind her and let the throwing knife vanish. "Shouldn't do what?" she asked innocently.

"Slit your tunic like that. Slits in ancient Egyptian garments were planned from the beginning, not carved out at the last minute. I know it's not real flax thread, but even in simulations you'll get some unraveling, dear. It spoils the overall effect. Next time check the options menu. You can find styles that let you move a little freer if you look for them."

"She's right," her companion agreed. "Is this your first visit to Realm of Egypt?"

"Was it that obvious?" Darla asked, relieved. For a second there she had thought herself busted by some roleplay proctors or something. "I guess you've been here before."

The woman looked at her companion smiling. "Karl and I met here four months ago. It was collaboration at first sight."

"We'd both been hired as review consultants," Karl explained. "I bumped into Rachel here while I was correcting the defacements."

Darla suddenly felt that she was out of her depth. "Defacements?"

"Egyptian rulers had a bad habit of chiseling off inscriptions on monuments erected by their predecessors and putting their own names on them to claim credit for them," he said. "Take Hatshepsut, for example. Her stepson Thutmose III and his son both seem to have had the cartouches of her name whacked off stone walls. Often they just left the gap in the decorations bare. The Triskelion designers couldn't resist putting the cartouches back into their simulations. We had a spirited argument about which was more historically authentic, replacing her name, or leaving the history of the stones as it was found by the archaeologists."

"Seems to me her name should have been left on the walls. Isn't this an 'ancient' Egypt, not the one dug up later?"

"Not that ancient," Karl replied. "The time frame here is roughly 1200 BCE. Hatshepsut is hundreds of years before that. By 1200 her cartouches had been defaced. Triskelion should have known."

"Shame on them," Darla agreed, as if she cared. "What was their problem with old Hattie, anyway?"

"The same problem men always have with a female ruler," Rachel laughed. "They wanted to pretend it never happened. They must have thought defacing her name would eventually make her disappear from memories."

Darla stared. "You're saying a woman was a Pharaoh?"

"Several were," Rachel said, smiling. "Hatshepsut was the fifth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. She's considered one of the most successful Pharaohs. She did the whole nine yards, even wore the ceremonial beard the male Pharaohs wore. She had a long reign, over twenty years, and built a lot of monuments, including the famous Chappelle Rouge, Karnak's Red Chapel."

"Good for her," said Darla. "You two sound like experts. Have you seen anything...anomalous here today?"

"I have now," said Karl, pointing off to the side.

Something was coming toward them. Darla followed the finger and had to suppress a laugh. "That," she said, "has to be the worst case of reformatting I have even seen."

It looked like a man with the head of a vicious dog. He was naked, but not beautifully so, as Aes had been. His hands and feet ended in black claw-like fingernails. He had plenty of body hair; any more and she would have called it fur. His phallus seemed over sized to Darla; she speculated that some kid was trying to use his father's or older brother's login to impress the girls.

"That's Am-heh," said Karl, frowning. "What is he doing out of the Underworld?" He started striding forward to meet the figure.

Oh-oh, she thought, There goes my First Contact. "Maybe I should talk to him," she tried to say. But Karl didn't seem to hear her. He was too intent on confronting the NPC.

Am-heh sniffed the air and grinned. "Mortal. Good."

"Are you malfunctioning?" Karl demanded. "You're supposed to be in the Underworld, in your lake of fire. What are you doing up here?"

"He's just a NPC, dear," his wife reminded him. "And not even a Quest-giver. Maybe you'd better call one of the designers and tell them they screwed up again."

Am-heh regarded them with his head tilted as if puzzled. "Who are these 'designers' you speak of? The gods?"

"There are no gods," Karl informed him. He reached out to jab a finger at Am-heh to punctuate his pronouncements. "No real gods and almost no real designers, I see. If this was one of the freebie Games I could understand this kind of sloppiness, but people are paying for this! And where is your ceremonial tunic?"

"I lost it when I came up," said Am-heh. He seemed amused at Karl's indignation, as if he knew something the rest of them didn't.

Darla felt herself growing uneasy. If this was Farker's new anomaly, it was nothing like Aes. There was the same quality of realness to Am-heh, but with a nasty undercurrent.

"You're not supposed to be up here, idiot," Karl snapped. "Get back to your Underworld!"

Am-heh raised his right paw to his face, as if to scratch his chin. Then he lashed out, dealing Karl a backhanded slap that knocked the man's avatar off its feet and slammed it into the wall of the temple beside them.

"You are not Atum," he growled. "Do not presume to command me, mortal."

Karl wasn't hurt, of course. But no man likes to be slapped in front of women. He growled too. "You just bought yourself a whole lot of trouble," he stated, launching himself at Am-heh.

Am-heh just laughed and opened his jaws. And then he opened them more. To Darla's horror, those dog jaws gaped impossibly, and Karl's jump ended in them. In a moment, he was already half swallowed. His legs kicked feebly. Am-heh swung his hands up and seized Karl's legs and shoved and swallowed. And then it was over. Karl was gone.

"Karl!" Rachel screamed, running forward.

Darla made a grab at her but missed. "Wait!"

Am-heh caught Rachel as if she were a child. Powerful muscles bulging, he tossed her into the air and swallowed her on the way down, wig and all. He belched contentedly. And then he was looking at Darla.

Something ancient inside Darla took charge. She ran, sandals slapping the ground, wishing the ancient Egyptians had jogging shoes. She didn't even think about her swords or her throwing knife. She didn't think about anything. She just ran, hoping she was fast enough.

There's an old saying: 'don't look back – something might be gaining on you'. But after a hundred meters or so Darla risked a look behind her.

He wasn't pursuing. He was still back there laughing, walking at ease toward her. Legs shaking, and not entirely from exhaustion, Darla watched him come, and reached. Tzing! The swords were in her hands. She looked at the blades, then at Am-heh. Was he a little taller now? She shuddered. Get a grip, Darla. It's just a game. Isn't it?

The vicious canine face grinned at her. "You have drawn steel." He cocked his head as if listening to an inner voice. "There is no steel in Khem. They barely have iron. Where did you get them?"

"That doesn't matter, "Darla told him. "You're going to get them if you don't let Karl and Rachel out, you son of a bitch."

Am-heh laughed. "You will see them no more. They are part of me now. As you will be." He began walking toward her again.

Fuck this! she thought. Take me to Realm of Legends!

Chapter 28: Farker: good news and bad

Farker paused outside Max's office to organize his thoughts. He had put this off too long and he knew it. The conundrum called Aes had distracted him, and sending Darla to check the newest anomaly had taken a little time, but that was no excuse. He couldn't just go in there and say "Hi boss. People might be dying in ROE, but the good news is, one of the NPCs in Realm of Legends thinks he's a real person."

But what should he tell Max? He could not cover up the missing people. According to the Problem Finder, there were at least two users now whose avatars had vanished. Two people who were not logging out or waking up. He had to tell Max about them. Should already have told Max about them.

If they had been among the minority of Players who logged in from hospitals, it would have been less of an issue; when they didn't log out to eat, the hospital staff would get feeding tubes into them. But the Abernathys logged in from in-home link beds, like most people on the UNET. If they didn't wake up soon, their bodies would begin to starve. Whether or not Aes was really 'alive', the Abernathys certainly were. He had to get Max to mobilize a rescue.

But...if he told him about the anomalies (which were probably unrelated to the Players not waking up), Max might shut down both Realms, fearing lawsuits. Farker had no idea what shutting down the games would do to people like the Abernathys who couldn't log out before the Realm crashed.

Because a manual shut down and a crash at this level of complexity were pretty similar. For example, if the Realm shut down while you were talking to a Quest-giver or another NPC, the system wouldn't bother to mark your place and resume the conversation exactly there the next time you logged in. It would remember your avatar's location, sure. But Finder said the Abernathy avatars had vanished without a trace. With no position to remember, what would happen to them?

Reluctantly, he knocked on the simulated walnut door.

"Enter," said Maximilian. Farker had to smile at that. Since he didn't know who was coming, he didn't know to make me wait. He pulled the door open and entered, closing it behind him.

Max looked up from his desk, a puzzled frown on his face. "I don't remember sending for you, Farker."

"You didn't," Farker told him. "But we need to talk."

The CEO of PanGames leaned back in his executive leather chair and took a puff on his cigar. "That sounds like you have a problem."

"We have a problem," said Farker, emphasizing the 'we'. He took a breath. "It seems that two of our customers in Realm of Egypt can't log out of the game and wake up."

Max regarded him, tapping ash off the end of the cigar. "Some kind of glitch in Egypt? What do you usually do in this case, shunt them off to a happy place and tell them not to worry while you fix it?"

"It's not that kind of a glitch. Their avatars have vanished! We can't contact them. We tried calling, emailing and voice mailing. All attempts just get stored in their message buffer. Nobody's home."

Max upgraded his stare to a frown. "What do you mean, vanished? Wait a minute, did you say 'Egypt'? Is this some problem from the inclusion? You told me that everything went smoothly."

"It did. The inclusion went off without a hitch. This problem happened afterwards. Ages afterwards, in computer time."

Max blew out some smoke. "What do you think happened? Have we been sold a lemon? Is this some kind of corporate poison pill?"

Farker was familiar with the term. Sometimes not everyone at a corporation that was being 'acquired' was happy about it. There were ways of fighting hostile takeovers: the 'poison pill' scheme. It was invented in 1982 by a lawyer specializing in mergers and acquisitions. Farker knew about it all right. He had made a point of looking into things that could screw with PanGames and affect his employee stock options.

"That refers to stock purchases and hostile takeovers and it's also called a 'shareholder rights plan'," he said. "It has nothing to do with this. This wasn't a hostile takeover. Triskelion sold us their Realm of Egypt because it made good business sense. They've been planning to change over into improved food synthesis software for a year now. The deal was good for both of us."

"It was supposed to be. Did they sell us damaged goods?"

"Not as far as I know. There have been no malfunctions."

"Up to now, you mean. Did the inclusion overload the system or something? I thought you assured me that couldn't happen."

"There is no overload. Our hypercomputer could run hundreds of more games without missing a beat. No, I think it's a link bed malfunction."

Max considered it. "If you can prove that, we're off the hook. PanGames has nothing to do with manufacturing link beds. The guys at Simulonic will crap themselves, but it's their hardware."

"I can't yet. What bothers me about it is two beds failing at the same time. They could have components from the same production run, I guess. We'll only know for sure if more Simulonic beds malfunction, if that's what it is."

"Then we should shut Realm of Egypt down, now. Tell them it's server maintenance or something. That way if it happens again while we're shut down, no way can we be held liable."

"I'm afraid that's not going to do the trick. If it's the link beds, as I suspect, it could happen with any of our Realms. We'd have to shut PanGames down completely to make sure they malfunctioned while logged in somewhere else. And who knows for how long? You want to lose all that revenue? If we were down for long, our customers might even start migrating to other MMOs."

"What should we do? Shut down Egypt?"

"I wouldn't," Farker replied immediately. "I don't know what will happen to the brains of the missing avatar's real-world bodies if you shut down without logging them out. And we can't log them out at the moment. It's as if the system thinks they already logged out – but we know they didn't, because the disconnect confirmation never came back from their beds."

Maximilian growled. "Than what DO you recommend?"

"I'll handle the technical problems. You need to get busy on containment. The last thing we need is someone getting worried and calling a reporter. We got lucky with Mr. And Mrs. Abernathy. Most of their relatives were wiped out years ago by the W3 virus. If you act fast, we can get someone over to their house to tell anyone who comes looking for them that they are away on vacation."

Max considered that and nodded. "That will buy us a little time."

"If we don't solve this soon, you'll also need to get them to a private clinic or something. Send some people with the house sitter to switch their beds over to wireless link instead of optic cable. That way you can move the beds with them still in them, and not lose their connections."

Chapter 29: Aes: of Men and Monsters

Aes was rebuilding the fire when she reappeared. He gave his improvised spit a half-turn; the hare was almost ready. Standing up, he reached out and picked up another piece of wood.

This time he saw her arrive. Right in front of him there was a soundless explosion of light that faded to reveal Darla. He took one look at her and surged forward in time to catch her before her legs gave out. "What happened to you? Come and sit by the fire."

She didn't argue, but allowed him to lead her over to Cheiron's herb-grinding rock. He waited until she had settled herself next to the bowl-like depression in the half-buried boulder before he said anything.

He could feel her trembling against him. "Would you like some rabbit?"

She closed her eyes for a moment. "I can't eat. My avatar is just a drawing in the sand, remember?" Then she actually noticed the hare on the spit over the campfire. Her eyes widened. "How did you manage to skin a rabbit?"

Aes smiled. "Well, catching it was the hard part. It's been years since I last hunted on Pelion with Cheiron. It would have been handy to have his bow, but I managed to make some of the snares he taught me. For the skinning I had your throwing knife." He reached out and pulled the spit out from the rocks that held it over the fire, grimacing.

"What I mean is, it was just a drawing of a rabbit. There was no need for it to have bones or muscles. You shouldn't have been able to change it in any way, let along remove its skin and internal organs."

"Luckily, the rabbit didn't know that."

He set the impaled rabbit next to the bowl-like depression in the rock and looked at his hand, wincing. There was a small flash of green light around it. The wrinkles in his forehead smoothed. He exhaled and wiped his hand in the depression, then rubbed his thumb and fingers over the cooling meat.

Looking up, he saw her puzzled expression. "Sea salt. I found one of Cheiron's old jars and brought up some water to dry in the sun." He picked up a green leaf and used it to hold the stick while he took a bite out of the meat.

While he chewed he thought about her. Something had just frightened her badly, that was obvious. Whatever it was, she was still thinking about it. "Are you sure you don't want some of the rabbit?"

She wrinkled her nose. "Completely sure."

He took another bite. She kept staring at him as if she had never seen a man eat rabbit before. He stopped when he was halfway finished and put the rest down on the rock, in case she changed her mind. "Are you ready to talk about it?"

Light exploded and faded. A man had appeared near the cave. He was wearing a chiton and golden sandals. He looked about the same age as Darla, with blonde hair and blue eyes. "I see you found him again," he said to Darla.

She jumped to her feet and glared at the newcomer. "Farker, don't ever ask me for a favor again!"

An eyebrow lifted. "Good to see you too, Darla. Hello, you must be Aes. I'm Farker. I've been meaning to talk to you."

Aes regarded him. His stomach rumbled again, so he picked up the stick and took another bite of the rabbit. "Are you from the same world as Darla?" he asked calmly.

"Yes," said Farker, watching him eat the rabbit, his expression unreadable. He turned to Darla. "Did you find the anomaly?"

Her eyes narrowed. "You might say that. Has Finder told you about Karl and Rachel yet?"

"Who? Told me what about them?"

"He ate them, Farker. Went all vore right in front of me. I don't know what the hell you have going on in Egypt but you better log them out, right now!"

Farker frowned. "What are you talking about?"

Darla sagged back down on the rock and took a deep breath. She let it out in a sigh. "Karl and Rachel, I don't know their last names. Call the Finder, and log them out, then we can talk about it."

Farker raised an eyebrow. "I'll be right back," he said, and vanished.

As soon as he disappeared Aes turned to look at her. "What was all that about?"

"Hang on," she told him. "I don't want to have to tell the story twice. He'll be back in a minute, and I'll bet he'll be willing to listen, for a change."

Nor was she wrong. In less than a minute Farker reappeared, looking grim. "That's what I was afraid of," he said. "Two more, just like the first two. What do you mean 'ate them'?"

She got to her feet again, glaring. "What first two? Did you know that was going to happen? You sent me in there knowing that?"

"Not exactly," he said. "All I knew was that Bjorn and Talia Abernathy's avatars disappeared and we can't log them out. Haven't been able to locate them in the system."

"Well," she said, "I think I know why." Without preamble, she launched into a compact description of what she had seen in Realm of Egypt. "...and then he started coming for me and I freaked," she finished. "I transited here just in time. I'm telling you, Farker, I've fought orcs, dragons, dinosaurs and god knows what else in PanGames; nothing's ever fazed me before. This guy called Am-heh was off the scale. I didn't even stop to think after he ate their avatars. I just ran."

"This isn't good," Farker mused. "If he'd stabbed them or shot them and the game decided their avatar health had dropped to zero, they'd just teleport to a hospital and continue playing. But he swallows them, which makes them disappear without reducing their health. The system has nowhere to display their avatars. They're in limbo: not logged out, and not anywhere in the Realm or anywhere else. The fucker's found a loophole in the game logic."

Aes listened to all of this, trying to make sense of it. "The other anomaly is a monster?"

"Whatever he is, he's like the opposite of you," Darla said. "That man Karl called him 'Am-heh'. Karl was some kind of Egyptologist; he said he'd come to Realm of Egypt as a review consultant, correcting some errors in historical accuracy."

Farker's face went blank for a minute. Whatever he was doing, this time he didn't disappear. "I found him in Triskelion's list of NPCs. Am-heh, the Devourer of Millions. He's a minor Underworld god, or at least he was supposed to be, until he decided to start walking around topside eating tourists."

Chapter 30: Darla: a Gordian Knot

Darla put up a hand. "If Am-heh's a rogue NPC, then just shut down Realm of Egypt. Use your GM override. Log out everyone there and shut down the damn program! You can always tell your customers it's an emergency maintenance or something."

Farker exhaled slowly. "I can't do that," he said.

"Oh, come on!" she flared. "Don't give me that crap about bottom line and profit margins. You have to help those people and get them out of him. I'm sure your boss will understand and back you up when you get a chance to explain it to him. But shut it down now!"

"You're right about that. As a matter of fact," Farker said, "he suggested the same thing, shutting Egypt down. But I can't do it."

"What? This can't be some kind of programmer ego thing," she said, disgusted with him. "You didn't write Realm of Egypt. You just bought it from another company."

Farker frowned at her. "Believe it or not," he said, "I am a human being, too. I'd love to shut it down until we can figure out what happened. But there were two reasons why I couldn't, and now there are four reasons: those four people. The users whose avatars Am-heh swallowed can't be logged out, because the system doesn't know where they are. And we have no idea what will happen if we shut down while they are out of contact. Do you know anything about quantum interference devices?"

"The link bed transceivers? Not a lot. That's next semester."

"Basically, they provide quantum entanglement with the brain's microtubules at a molecular level. Do you know what that means?"

"Not the slightest idea," she admitted.

"In the old days," he continued, "people thought the way to do mind-to-computer interfacing was by attaching micro electrodes to nerve endings. The first applications were ways to control prosthetic limbs and replace the sight of the blind by stimulating their optic nerves...creating dots of light in their sensorium. No one does it that way anymore."

"Why not?" she asked him, interested in spite of herself, and glad she was an engineering major. She glanced over at Aes, who was listening solemnly and probably understanding one word in seven.

"It tends to damage the nerves eventually, and it's too slow. No decent lawyers, even corporate lawyers, would sign off on the long term danger to human nervous systems. Besides, it's too slow for the quantum computers that power the UNET.

"The superconducting polymers they developed in 2018 solved the problem. Another breakthrough in our ability to sense and manipulate weak fields. Not needing liquid air to cool the superconductors made the electroneural transceiver – the link bed – both possible and affordable."

"So...they use magnetic fields now to hook up with the nerve endings?" She'd wondered about the technology but hadn't looked into it in detail yet, as long as it kept working.

"Not exactly. We were fooled for a long time onto thinking that the nerve impulses were the whole show. They're not. Thought isn't a result of nerve cells firing off impulses, It's the other way around."

"This is all fascinating," she conceded. "But I don't see how it relates to the current problem."

"It turns out," he continued, "that the most important part of the brain is inside each individual neuron. It's a structure we didn't see in the early days of biology because the stains they were using dissolved it. What they missed back then were the microtubules. When you stain them carefully, the inside of cells have an incredibly complex set of cables that connect to internal parts of the cell and to the synapses. These microtubules are the muscles, the circulatory system, the skeleton...and the nervous system of the cells. They are used like railroad tracks for motor proteins that transport molecules around in the cell. And they carry information as well.

"When an incoming impulse is received, the receiving end of the synapse sends a pulse of data down these 'wires' into the cell's interior. But they are more than just wires. The microtubules are like long corn cobs, and the individual kernels on them are protein dimers that have exactly two main configurations. Which shape each subunit is in is determined by the position of a single electron in the molecule."

Darla wished she had an emote set up to make her eyes bulge out in astonishment. "Are you saying...they are like on-off switches?"

"Oh, they're more than that. They can influence their neighbors through molecular electrostatic fields, which means the patterns on the corncob can flow down the cables and interact with each other like the seemingly moving lights in a movie marquee...or pixels in a moving image. And their states can be quantum-entangled with each other. "

Darla found herself wanting to sit down. "Farker, are you saying that each nerve cell..."

"...is a quantum computer? Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. And when you log into the UNET, the quantum computers that make up your mind are connected to the quantum hypercomputer. So I can't just shut the Realm down. If we could log everyone out first, sure. But since we have four minds stuck in there, crashing Egypt could kill them or at the very least, turn them into permanent vegetables."

Darla absorbed this, her mind whirling like leaves scattered in the wind. She looked at Aes. "In other words, Aes, we have people trapped in the dream world. If we stop the dream before they can get out, they die, or worse."

"And if you don't stop their dream of Egypt," Aes countered, "even more of the people from your world will become trapped in there by the actions of this intruder."

Aes stood up. "Then there really is only one choice," he said. "We had better destroy the Devourer of Millions before he lives up to his name."

Chapter 31: Aes: plan A

"He's a nasty piece of work, Aes," Darla warned. She looked at Farker. "Can't we just get the system to shut down Am-heh? Just turn him off. How hard can it be? We know his name, after all."

Farker shook his head. "Its not that simple. In the old days programs had names used to access them. You could say 'run diagnostic A' or whatever. That was before quantum hypercomputers. In the PanGames system, every object that can move, every NPC, every arrow, every grain of sand has its own ID, a number the system uses to keep track of it."

"Well, there you are," said Darla. "That's what I'm talking about. Find out what number is Am-heh's ID and tell the system to shut down Asshole Number 27."

Farker smiled sadly. "Easier said than done. The IDs in the system are assigned dynamically. If someone logs out or an object is removed, its ID is assigned to the next object that needs to be placed, the next user avatar that gets instantiated, and so on. They're not like social security numbers that stay the same your whole life. I could try just deleting objects at random and hope to get lucky, but there are an unimaginably large number of them. So it will probably take a long time. Am-heh could hurt a lot of people. We need something faster."

Aes did not understand all of this. He didn't have to. "It is a waste of time talking about it," he told the two of them. "He has to die."

They just looked at him. "You cannot stop the dream while people are trapped in it. You cannot just reach out and erase him. So someone has to kill him."

"You can't just kill him, Aes," said Farker. "We're not real physical bodies in here." He turned to Darla. "Did you explain it to him?"

"I started," she retorted. "And then you showed up and asked me to do a little favor."

"I never said it was a little favor. How much did you tell him?"

"She told me that this is a dream-world, and that we are all merely images, like drawings in sand. It was how she explained disappearing and reappearing. I don't feel like a drawing, Farker."

Farker sighed and turned back to Darla. "Can you lend me a dagger?" She raised an eyebrow but reached back over her head to summon a throwing knife, then handed it to him.

Farker showed it to him. "This is an image of a knife, as we are images of humans. This is not my real body, which is nowhere near as handsome, and lying in a link bed back at my lab." He pulled his chiton aside, showing a muscled abdomen. "There is nothing under this skin. Instead of a flat drawing in sand, think of a statue sculpted in stone or bronze. Or better yet, a hollow clay figure. It has the shape of a body, but there is nothing inside."

He jabbed the end of the dagger into his belly. Aes was surprised that Farker did not even wince. "Since this isn't a real body, I feel no pain, but if we were Teamed you would see my health line dropping when something like this happens." He pulled out the dagger and slashed at the exposed skin. It did not cut it; there was no blood.

"Some people faint at the sight of blood, so we phased out blood animations years ago. Any attack that would hurt a real body decreases the health of an avatar, but cannot actually damage it."

"I understand," said Aes, reaching out with one hand to heal Farker while the other plucked the knife from the man's fingers. "Sometimes you talk to me as if I were a child." He glanced at the knife, then at Farker. "You explain things. Very well, explain this."

Aes pulled aside his chiton as Farker had. He jabbed the point into his belly, only as deep as the first knuckle of his little finger. The pain was immediate. He winced and pulled it out, then drew it across the skin of his belly as Farker had. It was a good blade; the skin parted easily in a narrow cut. Bright red beads of blood appeared on it like a dotted line. They were the same color as the blood welling up in the jab wound.

Farker stared as if he had never seen a wound before. "That," he said, "is impossible. I never programmed you for blood."

"I do not know what that means," said Aes. "I cannot prove to you that it hurts, but I assure you that it does." He concentrated and healed himself with a ripple of green flame; the wounds disappeared.

He handed Farker the knife. There was still blood on the blade. His blood. "Maybe the rules are different for me. I can definitely be hurt." He looked at them. "And if I can, perhaps this fiend Am-heh can. Perhaps the rules are different for him, too."

Darla looked at Farker, who was still staring at the bloody tip of the dagger. "Well, is it possible? Instead of erasing him, can we just kill him?"

Farker looked up from the dagger. "I don't know," he admitted. "Normally, if an avatar's health drops to zero, it just drops to the ground. You know the drill; if you don't have a healer with a rez power you have to accept a teleport to the nearest virtual hospital. It might be a dangerous waste of time to attack him directly."

"He might not know about the hospital teleport," Darla pointed out. "Aes doesn't see all the menus and options; Am-heh might have the same limitation. If he believes he's dying, it might trigger the system to terminate his process."

"Or," Farker pointed, "he might be able to kill Aes."

Chapter 32: Darla: assembling a team

When Farker went back to his job in the real world, Darla turned to Aes. "I think we can stop Am-heh, but we need more people. I'd be happier if we had an army. It's time to get the team together for this mother of all boss fights."

"Darla," Aes said, his voice gentle. "What did Farker mean when he said 'I never programmed you for blood'? He said it to me."

Crap, she thought. Damn you, Farker. Whatever Aes is, the last thing he needs right now is to doubt his own reality! "Don't worry about that now, Aes. We have more important things to think about. Like who can help us kill Am-heh."

She could see he was still thinking about it, but he kept his peace. "Do you have someone in mind?" he asked.

"As a matter of fact, I do. But we're going to have to go back to Realm of Heroes to find them. Are you ready for all the skyscrapers? You're not going to faint on me again, are you?"

"I have seen them, now. They are only images."

"Then without further ado, please take my hand." We have to make some time to find a way for him to access the menus. All right, she thought, making sure they were still teamed. Take us to the Realm of Heroes.

* * * * *

The first one they found was Sherman. Fortunately for them, he was soloing in Boomtown. They found him at the edge of a bomb crater taking on a group of nine Krazies armed with clubs and small arms. Another eight Krazies were laid out around him, prostrate bodies pointing outward like Tunguska's fallen trees. He must have taken on at least two groups, thought Darla, shaking her head. "Keep him alive until he can talk to us," she whispered to Aes.

Sherman roared defiance and seized one Krazie, hewing about him with the guy's body like a kid with a new Louisville Slugger. More bodies fell. Aes threw a heal on him just in case, since he couldn't see the man's health line. Green light leaked out of the mass of bodies.

In a matter of seconds the rest of them were laid out flat and he was strolling over to them, leaving shield-sized dents in the simulated pavement. "Welcome back, Darla. This the new guy?"

"Yep. Meet our healer, Asklepios, 'Aes' for short. That's A-e-s."

"Howdy, Aes for short. I'm Sherman, the Tank." He waited expectantly.

"Hello, Sherman the Tank," said Aes.

Darla tried not to smile. "Sorry, Sherman, he didn't get it. I'm afraid tanks were after his time."

"Heh. You mean, before his time. Robbing the cradle?"

"After. He's older than he looks. It's a long story. Are you up for some missions? We need to level Aes. I don't think he has his rez power yet."

"Sure why not?" Sherman looked left and right down the street.

"Got a mission?"

"How about that mission we never finished?"

"Sherman, that mission was set for four, and we wiped."

"Yes, but we didn't have a healer. C'mon, it'll be fun."

In the end, Darla let herself be talked into it. As the Team's founder, she was technically the leader, but she found that Sherman did his best work when he thought it was his idea. She sent him an invite and added Sherman to the team roster so Aes could see if his health dropped.

Aes was quieter than usual. She wondered if he was trying not to blush. Perhaps he had never seen a woman in superhero uniform before. She was wearing thigh-high boots and a skin tight body suit that she would have thought twice about shoehorning herself into in the real world. She knew he was looking.

In her opinion, Aes didn't look so bad himself. The reformatting when they transitioned to Realm of Heroes had put him in black and green tights and boots that showed off his musculature nicely. All he needed was a cape to look like a classic graphic novel hero.

Sherman led them to the building. It was a modest twelve-story office building in granite set at street level with a pair of glass doors, which Sherman held open for them.

Once inside, she called a conference. "We have fewer people this time, so please PLEASE don't just charge in, Sherman. Some of the rooms have so many Jerx in them that we really need to pull this time."

"Pull what?" asked Aes,

Which earned him a funny look from Sherman. "Pull my finger," he suggested.

Aes had no response for this.

"When we run into a small group," she said emphasizing the word 'small' and looking at Sherman when she said it, "the strategy is pretty simple. Each of us has a role to play. Earlier when I got you into the fight with some Jerx, I was doing the tanking, which means I did the fighting and you did the healing."

"Yes, I remember."

"Sherman is a better tank than me," she told him. "He is harder to kill and can take on more enemies at once. So with small groups, he'll get and hold their attention. I'll do as much damage to them as I can while he distracts them. That's my role, DPS or damage-per-second. I can do more damage than Sherman, but I'm easier to kill."

"What's this?" Sherman interrupted. "You didn't mention that he was a noob. You sure you want to do this?"

"He'll be fine. You just have to hold the aggro. We can't risk anything happening to Aes." She returned her attention to the healer. "When we see a larger group of enemies, we'll try to pull one or two away from the group to attack us first. That way we can whittle the large group down and defeat them like a small group."

"It's an old tactic," Aes commented. "Armies often try to draw off small portions of their opponents with sorties or feints."

"Enough talking," said Sherman. "Let's kill something."

Darla could see a group of five Jerx hanging around near the other end of the blue-and-gray corridor. "All right Sherman, go get em. But one group at a time for now, please."

Sherman's laughter boomed off the walls. "Yes ma'am," he said with cheerful sarcasm as he launched himself into action like a bomb with legs, charging down the hallway.

"This is just like last time, Aes. You just have two people to keep healthy instead of one." Darla gave Sherman a five second lead and then followed cautiously. TZING! Blades out.

Sherman was in his element. He started by slapping all five Jerx to get their attention. By the time Darla caught up with him, they had regained their feet and pulled their knives. While he was grabbing two of them and banging their heads together, she came up on another from behind and did a quick slice-and-dice combo on him before the Jerx knew what was happening. One down.

She turned to the next one as a flash of green light reflected off the walls. Whirling, she swung a wicked slash that missed by inches when the guy made a move at Sherman. Damn it! She lunged forward and put both blades in the villain's back.

That got his attention. As he turned, staggering, his knife coming in low and fast to her left she slapped the knife down with her left gladius, jabbing her right sword into his chest. Two down.

Part of her mind told her the thrust was sloppy; she had forgotten to turn the blade to avoid it getting stuck in his ribcage. Another advantage of fighting imaginary enemies, she thought, making a mental note that Am-heh might actually have ribs.

A third Jerx had noticed her; she felt the impact and heard the sitch! of his knife going into her right side as she withdrew her blade from the falling guy. No pain, of course, but her health dropped. Hopefully Aes was paying attention. She dropped her right gladius and grabbed the knife hand, trapping it so her foe couldn't pull the blade out to strike again, yanked at it to expose his back, and brought her left sword around to stab, then slash at the back of his neck. Three down. A flash of green healed her stab wound as she retrieved her other sword.

Sherman was sitting on the bodies of the other two, looking at her curiously. "Taking your time, are you?"

"Very funny. Good job, Aes. A few more of those should level you. Let's go. I think the first elevators are just around the corner."

As Sherman led them to the elevators Aes caught up with her.

"I hate staying back while people hurt you," he said. "It feels like cowardice."

Darla sighed. "Oh, Aes, what am I going to do with you? You're doing it exactly right. If either of us gets hurt you can heal us. That's an advantage most enemies don't have. But if you're hurt, there's little we can do to help you. You might be able to do some attacking later, after you've leveled. For now, we really appreciate what you're doing to help us. You're doing what no one else on the team can do, and it's an important job."

He smiled grimly. "I've never done it in the middle of a fight, before I met you. But I'm getting used to it."

"You guys ready?" called Sherman. He was standing by a framed metal wall with a vertical seam down its center. When they approached, he slapped a panel set into the wall and the two metal halves slid apart sideways. Beyond them was a very small room completely bare of furnishings. He stepped in, Darla close on his heels. Confusion plain on his face, Aes joined them in the little room.

The doors closed, then opened again. The carpeting and walls had changed color, to orange and brown. Aes was about to ask what the point of it was when Darla told him they were on the second floor. "This is where we started to have problems last time," she informed Aes. "because we didn't have a healer."

"It wasn't my fault!" Sherman growled.

"I know that," she said. Although it mainly was, she thought. No time for battling egos now. "Just remember to let me pull, okay?"

"Kaykay. As I recall, the first pounce point was the cafeteria ahead on the right."

"Right. Aes, each floor is harder. This time some of them will have handguns. Remember what I told you about them? Stay well back. One shot from them could blow a hole in your head. I've seen your blood on a knife, I don't want to see your brains on the floor."

"Yes ma'am," he said, imitating Sherman, which made her smile.

Sherman chuckled, sounding like an amused grizzly. "Hur hur! He learns fast. Maybe he'll survive after all." He swung his massive bulk around and began stomping toward the cafeteria door.

This time, they had no Rita to hold the Jerx by freezing them; one got away, tearing off down the hall to the staircase. Darla flung out a hand, pressing the flat of her blade against Sherman's midsection. "Wait. He might pull a group back with him and save us some time."

She was right. Six Jerx scrambled up the staircase with an assortment of weapons. When they reached the top, one of them leveled a pistol at Sherman and squeezed off a couple of shots. One missed, but the other smacked him in the shoulder. Quickly Aes thew a heal on him to counteract the damage.

As the Jerx came forward, the tank charged, bringing both head-sized fists forward and together. He stepped between two of the attackers, sweeping his fists outward and dealing backhand blows that slammed them to the left and right, but not down the stairs. Apparently, he was learning too.

As the two Jerx were getting up, she engaged two of the other four, turning her wrists and giving each a pommel in the face, then crossing her arms to stab them both in the chest. Grimly, she shoved both hands forward, jerking each blade sideways through them to do more damage, then uncrossed her arms to deal a killing slash to both throats simultaneously as she came back to her ready position. Two down, she thought with satisfaction, as Sherman gave off another flash of green. One of the two he had must have scored on him.

The two remaining Jerx aimed and fired at her and Sherman. They were too close to miss. Darla caught one in the chest, jerked with the impact, and felt herself falling, seeing Sherman spun slightly from a shoulder impact between his two enemies. Time to choose, Aes! she thought. There was no way he could heal them both. She had to hope he got it right. Her health dropped dangerously from the mortal wound as she fell forward.

Green fire surrounded her. Snatching up her swords, she snap-kicked the pistol-wilder in front of her in the belly, then skewered him with both blades as he bent forward. Three down. Health back up to 45 percent, she ducked out of instinct. Sherman banged two heads together, then punched through each of them (five down) as they fell. She did her best McCormick Reaper, an attack as dizzying as it was damaging, on the remaining idiot.

She looked over at Sherman. "Are they better shots this time? You didn't adjust your difficulty settings, did you?"

"Nah. They just got lucky. My bad for not slapping all of them at the beginning, like I did before."

She turned. "Nice job Aes! You had to choose, and made exactly the right decision."

"Well," he said, "you did say that you were easier to hurt than Sherman the Tank. I thought he could hang on longer than you."

"And you were right," Sherman boomed. "It takes a lot to take me down. Ready? There are at least three groups left down there."

They went back to work.

Chapter 33: Aes: every journey begins with a single step

They cleared the big room downstairs without any serious problems. Darla made the pulls by using her throwing knife attack. Usually she pulled only one or two Jerx, whittling the groups down to manageable levels for her and Sherman. The last pull brought three, but she and Sherman dispatched them easily.

The mission was disturbing for Aes on two levels. As he had mentioned to Darla, it was hard on his manhood to watch a woman fighting and not leap in to defend her. He was aware there had been Amazons north and east of Hellas, but had never seen them in battle. The only woman he had seen with her ferocity was Atalanta, the female fighter who had come along with the rest of them to hunt the Calydonian boar.

And that was the second problem: it was disquieting to see just how good she was at killing. He knew, from her explanations, that the Jerx she was slaying were not living beings, but it didn't help much, as he saw their snarling and leering faces contort with simulated agony when her blades ripped through nonexistent internal organs. He wasn't bothered by Sherman's battle lust. He knew how men were, being one himself. Despite everything, he wished Darla was the healer and he could be the warrior with a sword defending her, rather than the opposite.

On the other side of the large room was another set of elevators.

"This is where it gets interesting," said Sherman the Tank.

"You mean, this is where it gets dangerous," Darla retorted. "We never got this far before, Aes, so we don't know how much harder this floor will be. All we know is it will be harder. Be extremely careful."

The carpet and walls were red-and-yellow this time. "Are we still in the same building?" Aes asked the two of them. "Or is this like jumping from Realm to Realm?"

Darla explained the elevator. Apparently they had special boxes on cables to pull them up to higher floors. These 'elevators' could take you down as well. He could visualize how to make them, more or less, with big wheels to wind the cables around as the rooms were hauled up. He was less clear, however, how they made the winding wheels turn. From what she said, it sounded like they were powered by tamed lightning. He couldn't imagine any mortal taming Zeus's thunderbolts.

There was a group of four Jerx a little way down the corridor from them. A couple of them were holding objects that looked like the stocks of crossbows, but he saw no bows across them. "Are those things bigger 'guns'?"

Darla nodded. "Shotguns. Not as easy to maneuver and aim, but they pack a more powerful punch. One shot from those can knock you off your feet and almost kill you; two direct hits and you're dead. Please don't let them shoot you. If something happens to you now, we'll never beat Am-heh."

"Who?" said Sherman.

"Later," she told him. "Let's just get through this alive."

Aes was glad for the reminder. As grim as it was watching her kill bandits and ruffians, it was apparently necessary to get him ready for the attack on that monster in Egypt.

"All right, she said. "Wait a minute. I almost forgot to tell you, Aes. If you get hurt bad but you can still move, or they get both Sherman and me, you run back into one of the elevators and push the down arrow. That way you can get away from this floor and heal yourself without getting shot while you're doing it."

He was not sure that he had heard her correctly. "You want me to just run away and abandon you?"

"No, I want you to run away and survive, hero. Until we go after Am-heh, this is just a game for us – it can't hurt us. But it might be able to kill you. Don't sell your life cheaply. Run away and survive. No matter what you see happen to us, Sherman and I will be all right in the real world, and we will come back good as new. The rules are different for us."

"What the hell are you talking about?" demanded Sherman.

"It's a long story, Sherman. Aes is....different. When we have time to talk in a safe place, I'll explain better. For now, please take my word for this: Aes is the healer, but keeping him alive is more important than worrying about you and me."

Sherman gave Darla another look. "Whatever. Let's go."

TZING! Darla whipped out her blades again and Sherman the Tank charged down the corridor, making the floor shake with each step.

He went straight for one of the men holding shotguns. Aes did not understand how they could not know he was coming. The man was a portable earthquake; perhaps he was dedicated to Poseidon, the god of oceans and temblors.

Sherman's first punch literally lifted the Jerx off his feet; his head bounced against the wall with an audible thump and he fell, stunned. The other one leveled his shotgun and returned the favor, knocking Sherman down with a powerful blast that sent echoes down the hall. His health went down by one-third; apparently he was tougher than average. Aes threw a heal at him and watched Darla while his power recharged. She went straight for the one that had shot Sherman, stabbing and slashing him from behind as Sherman jumped to his feet. He fell as Sherman finished off the first one.

The other two only had knives; Darla and Sherman the Tank finished them off in short order.

When the second-to-last enemy from the group fell, Aes heard a roaring in his ears as if he were approaching a waterfall. To his consternation, he found himself lifting off the scarlet carpet and hanging in the air as an overpowering burst of rainbow light exploded off him in all directions with a mighty chord like a chorus of demigods. Dazed, ears ringing, he fell back to his feet, feeling as if he could barely stand. He was tingling all over, as if his entire body were ringing like his ears.

"Grats!" Sherman boomed at him. The word meant nothing to him.

"Congratulations, Aes," said Darla. "Welcome to level two. You just leveled."

About to move on forward, Sherman the Tank turned at this, disbelief plain upon his face. "Level two? You mean to tell me you brought a level one healer into this mission with us? Are you mad at Aes for some reason? Or do you just not care? Sorry, Aes, I had no idea. I should have checked your level before bringing you into this."

"He'll be all right if we're careful," Darla argued. "He's made it so far, hasn't he? Healers at his level hardly draw any aggro at all, and Aes needs to level as fast as he can. We're getting him ready for a special mission. And we're doing better with him than we did before."

"Well, yes, that's true," Sherman admitted. But he didn't sound happy about it. He shrugged. "You got guts, Aes, I'll give you that. We'll do our best to keep you alive, pal, if you really want to keep going."

"I think I have to," Aes replied. "Darla is right. I need to get as much experience as I can. My enemy is leveling; I cannot let him gain the upper hand."

"Some kind of grudge match? You're rolling a new toon for the Arena? No problemo. We'll both level. Just watch your back, okay?"

Aes tried to do this, but there was no way to see his own back. After some thought, he decided that it was some kind of general warning to be careful.

* * * * *

"Time for the boss fight," said Sherman, as the elevator doors opened again. He didn't sound worried. They had cleared the third floor without catastrophe.

This time the carpets and walls were green and purple. "What do you mean?" Aes asked him. He was getting tired of always being the beginner of the group, not knowing what was next.

"Aes, a boss is more powerful than ordinary enemies," said Darla. "He will be harder to kill and may have special powers the lower level Jerx don't have. He's like a general of the bad guy army. He'll usually have several Jerx protecting him, so we have to try to pull them and take them out before we take on the boss himself."

Darla went to the corner of the corridor, looked around the corner, and came back to them. "Uzis," she muttered. "There's three baddies around the corner, all with Uzis. No sign of the boss yet."

The word was only a sound to Aes. "Uzis?"

"Guns that fire many bullets in a row, Aes. Each bullet might do only a few units of damage, but the cumulative effect is devastating. Imagine if you had a thousand slingers or peltasts lined up swinging, and then they all let their pellets fly, one after the other in quick succession." She did a drum roll on her sternum with both hands. "Maybe we should let this mission go until we get Rita and Sam back with us."

More barbarian names. "And give Am-heh more time to eat more avatars, growing stronger with each hour?"

Sherman gave Aes a funny look. "Are we still talking about the game?"

Darla held up a hand. "Whatever. Kaykay, we go on, but Aes, remember what I told you about the elevators if it goes bad."

They proceeded around the corner. Aes saw three Jerx holding things barely related to crossbows. Longer than a 'handgun' but shorter than a 'shotgun', these devices had their trigger grip nearer the middle rather than at one end. The three Jerx were engaged in a conversation about women of negotiable virtue.

"Wassup?" boomed Sherman the Tank.

The three Jerx turned.

"Tell me something. Does this suit make me look fat?" asked Sherman the Tank, bounding toward them. Darla watched and waited.

"I thought we were going to pull."

"Not this time," she said. "They were too close together. We would have gotten all three. And guys with good ranged weapons don't need to chase you; they can just shoot you."

By this time Sherman the Tank had reached the three. Their weapons converged on him, and his health line by the portrait in Aes's roster began dropping rapidly. Aes reached out mentally and healed him.

Now he finally saw Darla go into action. Running toward them, she activated her power that made everything slow to her; her form became a blur of arms, legs, and swords as she flashed toward the Jerx like a human meteor and began scything into them. He threw another heal onto Sherman the Tank.

A stinging in his side made Aes look down. A couple of stray bullets had gone into him. Trying to ignore the pain, he concentrated and healed himself.

Sherman was down to one-third health now but still soldiering on. In the seconds since he had engaged the Jerx he had disabled one and was giving another trouble. But Darla was collapsing, her health nearly gone: the third had changed his aim from Sherman to her.

Desperately, Aes sent her a heal, pushing her health back up to one-third. Without her speed advantage, now spent, she launched herself at the third while Sherman punched the second Jerx so hard the man flew up, bounced off the wall and continued up, bounced off the ceiling and fell to a crumpled heap. Aes tried to send Sherman another heal but it was too soon; nothing happened. He swiveled mentally and sent a heal to Darla.

And then it happened. Hardly a second after he healed Darla, her Jerx turned his gun toward Aes and spewed leaden death as she double-stabbed him. The floor tilted up to hit Aes and everything went black for a while.

* * * * *

He had no idea whether it was seconds or hours before someone turned him over. He could make out voices, as from far away, as if he was underwater. Was he swimming?

Darla: Aes! Aes, can you hear me! Stay with me!

Sherman: What the hell? There's blood all over him! Are those fucking wounds? Are they beta-testing some new kind of avatar?

Darla: Shut up, Sherman! Aes, you're hurt. You have to heal yourself. We can't do it. Do you hear me? You have to heal yourself NOW!

Sherman: Looks pretty messy. No way they're gonna get the parents to sign off on this.

Darla: I said SHUT UP, dammit! Aes, you have to hear me. You're going into shock. If you don't heal yourself soon, you are going to DIE, do you understand?

She sounds worried, he thought. He wished he could hear her better. It was a pity. He felt himself sliding toward a brilliant light.

Darla: Aes, if you give up on me, Am-heh wins! Please, please hear me and heal yourself!

Weakly, Aes managed to open his eyes. What he saw surprised him. He looked down and saw...himself, lying on the green and purple carpet; Darla and Sherman the Tank were bent over him. I'm up here, he thought, but he could not make a sound.

Annoyed, he tried again to speak. No words came. I need my real mouth for that, he thought, and reached down to the fallen image of himself to heal it.

Vision chopped off. Light flared through his closed eyelids as his awareness returned to his body. Along with the reentry came the awareness of pain. He groaned and healed himself again.

After the third heal he was able to open his eyes and sit up. "Did we win?" he asked.

"That was way too close, Aes. You scared the shit out of me," said Darla. "I should have warned you that sometimes healing can draw aggro."

Aes healed himself again as he stood up. "I'm afraid I ruined this uniform," he told them. "My healing only seems to affect bodies." Sherman was looking at him strangely again.

"We got them," said Arla. "I think all we have left is the boss room."

"I dunno where you got it, but, man, Aes, that avatar is way too detailed," Sherman said. "Is it an add-on or a beta?"

"I do not know what you mean," Aes told him, puzzled. "It is me."

"Maybe I'm wrong," Sherman remarked. "But I think you're just a little too tight on your roleplay. Different strokes, I guess."

"Do you want to debate play styles or finish this mish?" Darla called. She was already down to the next turn in the hallway. Coming up behind her, Aes saw her eyes widen. "Oh fokkit."

Catching up, Aes and Sherman peered over her shoulder. Three of the Uzi-toting Jerx were wandering around a room. Near the center, the largest Jerx Aes had seen so far was dismantling a fourth Uzi.

"That's Snarky," Sherman told Aes in a whisper. "He's taking that gun apart because he doesn't need it. In addition to his bodyguards, he has ice attacks and holds."

Aes decided not to ask this time. He would find out what the words meant sooner or later.

"All right, now we need to pull," said Darla. "His minions are patrolling the room; if we even set foot in there we'll have all four of them on us. And we already had trouble just with three Uzis."

"So what do we do?" Aes wanted to know.

"We wait until one and only one of them is near the doorway, then I pull him. There's no time limit for missions like this, so all we have to do is wait."

She was right. While the boss sat in a desk chair, absorbed in oiling gun parts, the three gun carriers paced. After watching them for a little while Aes could clearly see that their actions were independent of each other. One moment all three were walking toward the door. The next moment two turned in different directions, and the third kept coming straight at them.

Darla reached up and behind her and threw a knife that should have skewered him in the belly but her aim was slightly off this time and it struck his belt buckle, bouncing to the floor ineffectually. As that happened, she shoved Aes sideways away from the door and flattened herself against the wall by the doorway as Sherman did the same on the other side.

A bright flash of muzzle flame and a few dozen bullets shot through the doorway, followed by one of the gunmen. He looked down the hallway, puzzled.

"Konichiwa," said Sherman affably from the corner. As the guy turned toward him, Sherman knocked his gun to the side with his left hand and followed through with a right uppercut. As the Jerx staggered, disoriented, Darla joined in with a series of stabs and slashes that finished him off.

"That took you a while," Sherman commented. "Why didn't you use your Time Stretch?"

"It's a slow recharge. I'm saving it for Snarky if I can."

"Right. One down, two and a boss to go." They went back to watching and waiting. A couple of times Aes thought she would throw a knife, but the other sentry turned at the last second and was too close to the one she wanted.

Then, as the two gunmen approached the doorway, one turned on his foot and walked off at an angle back toward his boss. Immediately, Darla threw another knife at the other. This one stuck in his shoulder; he staggered, but straightened and rushed out the door after her.

Grinning, Sherman the Tank stuck out a size twenty boot. The careless gunman face-planted on the carpet. While he tried to regain his feet and Darla sliced him up, Sherman ambled up, drew back a foot and kicked him into the wall. Actually into the wall. In one of those freak moments that could only happen in a very strange dream, the ruffian's head passed ghostlike through – and became stuck in – the wall, leaving the rest of his body twitching, his arms and legs waving helplessly.

"Aw, let me help you with that," Sherman the Tank offered, and brought his fists together on either side of the man's abdomen, crushing him between them as they impacted. The twitching stopped. "One and a boss to go."

Alas, although they waited, the third gunman did not approach the door. Four times he seemed to be about to do so, only to change his mind and stalk back past the boss.

"We can't keep waiting," Sherman observed. "It's only a matter of time before Snarky starts reassembling his gun. Then we'll be facing two machine guns, plus his other powers. I say we go for it. I'm almost leveled."

"What do you think, Aes?" Darla asked him. She sounded worried.

"Go for it," Aes agreed.

"Good man!" boomed Sherman, slapping him on the back. Aes managed not to fall down. "We'll make a Hero of you yet." Sherman pushed into the room ahead of them.

Snarky the boss looked up and saw him. He pushed the chair back from the desk and stood up, looking unsurprised, relaxed and confident. "Hello Sherman," he said in the tones of one speaking to a child. "I'm afraid it was so tedious waiting for you to work your way up here, that I took my toy apart. But no matter; disposing of you will be child's play. I'll take you apart too."

"I wouldn't bet on it," Darla told him, entering the room behind Sherman. Aes slipped in behind her, keeping his distance. Her body gave off that telltale glimmer and she became a deadly blur, whizzing across the room to hack and stab the lone gunman before he or Snarky could do anything about it. His bullets seemed almost to be avoiding her; she slipped between them like a wind through trees.

As the gunman folded up and began to crumple, Snarky laughed and stretched out his hand. Fog rolled down his arm from the shoulder and roared out at them, freezing all three of them. Sherman and Darla were encased in two blocks of ice. Aes found himself encased in it up to his knees. Intense cold gripped his legs, making him shiver uncontrollably for a moment. He gritted his teeth to keep them from chattering.

"Oh my, you seem to be in an awkward position," chuckled Snarky, glancing at the two of them as he walked over to the gunman Darla had slain. He ignored Aes; for the moment, which was humiliating. Aes hated that Snarky considered him harmless, insignificant.

Snarky scooped up the fallen gunman's weapon and smiled at Sherman. "Still feeling tough? Let's see how tough you are." He checked the weapon, then looked up, pleased and relaxed.

Behind him, Darla's ice block faded out. She sprang toward the boss, death in both of her hands. But Snarky whirled to face her, as if he had eyes in the back of his head, and loosed a stream of bullets into her from only a few feet away. There was no way he could miss, and he didn't. Her body jerked from the impacts and she staggered, her health dropping to one half. Aes reached out with his mind and sent her a flash of healing that glinted off the metal edges of the desk and the Uzi in the boss's hands. Her health went up to two thirds of normal.

"As for you..." Snarky began. He never finished the sentence. Behind him Sherman had unfrozen, ice cracking off him. Reaching down to scoop up a fist-sized chunk, he hurled it at the boss, bouncing it off Snarky's head to get his attention while he freed his legs.

Snarky spun to face him and took one hand off the Uzi to point at the tank; from his hand flew a spear of ice that pinned Sherman the Tank to the office wall behind him. His health began to drop. Darla straightened up behind the boss, raising her swords. Aes threw a heal at Sherman.

Something warned him, but not in time. As he jumped sideways, the boss fired at him. Aes felt a fresh burst of pain as a stream of bullets stitched him below his left knee. The leg collapsed and he went down, throwing out a hand to stop his fall.

The lethal volley was cut off short. Darla had engaged the boss with a double slash attack, blades cutting inwards toward him from both sides. He turned as if he had foreseen it, and countered one of the blades with his gun. Steel rang against steel and sparks flew.

The room wavered in front of Aes. He fought to stay conscious.

Snarky's gun was turning back toward Darla. Both her health and Sherman's were low. Time to choose again, Aes.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he reached out with his mind and healed Sherman as Snarky fired at Darla, cutting her health down to less than a quarter. "Goodbye, Hero," he laughed, pointing the gun at her head. "Looks like you're done."

Behind him. Sherman seized the ice spear's shaft with one hand and wrenched it free. "Not this time," he grunted, and shoved the jagged point of the spear through Snarky's back until it protruded from the boss's belly.

Snarky dropped the Uzi and tried to break the ice spear to remove it. His mouth worked but no words came out. Darla straightened up and thrust both blades into his belly. "Farewell, loser," she said sweetly as the boss fell to the floor.

Her health was still dropping! She must be bleeding. Aes threw another heal onto her, pushing her vitality back to one third, before he collapsed. Gasping from the pain, he rolled and put both hands behind him, to push himself up to a sitting position with his legs in front of him. A piece of leg bone stuck out of his shin at an angle.

Dully, he saw Sherman the Tank lift off the floor and explode rainbow-colored light as he leveled. "Woot! Made it to level 12!" he exclaimed.

"Grats," Aes muttered, managing to heal himself once before he passed out again.

Chapter 34: Am-heh: Am-heh goes on Walkabout

Am-heh was not pleased when the woman with two swords vanished right in front of him. Growling, he spun and looked around him, but she had escaped. For now. He sniffed the strange air. No, she was definitely not in this place.

Very well then. He would go to other places, until he found her. The thought of her brought two distinct hungers. Perhaps he could enjoy her in another way before he consumed her.

Something about this place allowed such travel. He did not know the secret of it. But he did not need to know. All he needed to know was how to get someone to show him the way.

Am-heh lifted his dog's head, sniffing. Yes. There were more of them, among the soulless ghosts at the largest of royal tombs. He moved off in the direction of Giza, where mighty piles of man-hewn rocks stabbed the sky with proud defiance.

Eternal day. The sun god Ra held vigil immobile, refusing to stir from his height above. Am-heh cursed the heat. He knew that rain seldom fell in the land of Khem, but this was ridiculous! Had some great magician found a way to stop the sun, perhaps for fear of night? It was maddening.

Continuing to walk. He felt the heat, but he was tireless. Once he was away from the river, though, the grass faded to sand, whipped by the wind into missiles that stung his eyes and invaded his nostrils. He growled and reached out with his heka-power, parting the wind before him so that the driven grains slipped past on either side.

Much better. As he walked, Am-heh thought again about the woman's swords. Steel. Not copper or bronze. Where had she obtained them? The material was not common in Khem. Even the tools the mortals used to dress their stones and carve their inset hieroglyphs were only made of copper or bronze. A few pieces of iron had fallen from the sky, but they were mere novelties, hammered into ceremonial daggers or other trivia.

The Great Pyramid loomed before him. It was another mystery, and Am-heh hated mysteries. He knew what it ought to look like. The mortals had covered the crude limestone blocks with a layer of white polished limestone. The white of the sides had been dazzling under the noonday sun.

It was (still!) noon here. But the pyramid was no longer dazzling. The polished limestone was gone, giving the edifice a rough and unfinished look. In the distance, he could see two more of the monuments. They were likewise denuded, one of them with a vestigial cap at its top where part of the facing remained.

Am-heh growled. The pure geometry was profaned, desecrated. Why had the gods permitted such disrespect? Mysteries piled upon mysteries.

Approaching the ancient pile of stone, he came upon two mortals having an argument.

"...was not a tomb, I tell you! The ancients learned how to tap into cosmic energy, using precisely oriented geometry. It powered their heka, the magic used by gods and magicians–"

"You are so full of it! The pyramids were tombs, but they were mainly a way to provide off-season employment for the farmers while they were waiting for the Nile floodwaters to recede every year. Your so-called 'pyramid power' theory was discredited back before you were even born! These king-sized mastabas came from pride and economics, that's been clearly–"

"You just cut your throat with Occam's Razor! The simplest explanation is not always the correct one. That kind of attitude is why experts thought Troy was just a good story until Schliemann came along and decided to trust Homer. Major myths usually have some basis in fact."

"Sure, the fact that people like a good story! Wanting the pyramids to be magic alien technology doesn't make it so. What's your Doctorate in, anyway? Wishful thinking?"

Am-heh looked from one to the other, trying to decide which one to eat first. They certainly were noisy creatures.

"If you're so obsessed with facts and physics, why don't you go see the real pyramids, you Philistine! You never understood how important gods and ancient beliefs were to human development. Why on UE did you bother to come here?"

"Because I heard you were here, Victor, filling my students' heads with nonsense. It's hard enough to get them to think objectively without you pouring your pretentious delusions into them. What happened to you? You weren't this way in graduate school."

"You came here just to waste my time? As if I believe that. And you weren't always a whiny bitch, Howard. You've changed, and not for the better. Your mind has closed like a fist. Frankly, it's getting hard to remember what I ever saw in you. Someone sucked all the beauty out of you, leaving a walking textbook...and a dull one, at that."

Am-heh grinned. He was beginning to understand this strange language better, now that he had heard more of it.

"I grew up, Victor. You should try it. Let go of all this mushy craziness that's wasting your life and get back into real science. I came here to tell you that. Anything else is...just wishful thinking on your part. You can't sharpen razors with focused optimism. Either do some real science or at least publish your next book labeled properly as the fiction it is."

Am-heh stepped closer to the two men. "I might be able to settle your argument about the gods," he said casually.

The two men turned and saw him. "Butt out, dog-face," said the one called Howard, his face wrinkling with distaste. "See that, Victor? That's the kind of crap religious thinking turns out."

Victor wasn't listening, Am-heh noted. "I recognize you," said Victor breathlessly. "I've seen your likeness. You're..." His eyes were faraway for a moment. Then he snapped his fingers. "Am-heh! From the lake of fire, right? What happened to your shenti? They didn't usually draw you naked."

"He's an ugly NPC wasting your time," said Howard. "Fuck off, Fido, and go entertain someone dumb enough to believe this crap."

Victor rolled his eyes. "Howard, there is no excuse for that kind of disrespect. It's not just rude, it's stupid. This is Am-heh, the Devourer of Millions."

Howard just looked disgusted. "Is that who you're supposed to be? Ooh, I'm so scared of 3D cartoons. Eat me, you mongrel superstition!"

GLOMPH!

Am-heh burped. "Happy to oblige a noisy fool." He turned to regard Victor, who was slack-jawed with shock. "You, however..."

He was interrupted by the strangest sensation. Before he knew what was happening, he found himself lifting off the ground. There was a roaring in his ears. There was a sweet pain that grew, building up to a shattering explosion of light. He felt himself fall back to his feet. He felt something else: his power had grown.

He looked up. Victor was staring at him with a mixture of awe and terror on his avatar's face. "You...you devoured him!"

Am-heh shrugged. "It's what I do." He reached out suddenly and grabbed Victor's arm. "If you want to stay off the menu, you are going to help me, mortal. Do you know how to leave this place?"

Victor swallowed, looking a little pale. "Um, sure," he said quickly. "You want to go somewhere else?"

"Maybe more than one place." Am-heh grinned, sniffing the air. The other god was out there, somewhere. "But first I want to find a place where women fight with swords of steel."

Chapter 35: Farker: shadow boxing

Farker opened Max's office door. "What is it, Max? Can it wait? I'm kind of in the middle of something important."

"As important as saving your job? We got containment on the Abernathys, but I see from your email to me that there are two more casualties."

Farker entered and shut the door behind him. "That's what I'm working on. So far all the link beds involved are Simulonic models. I have the Problem Finder checking their schematics. The SQUIDS aren't the problem, as far as I can tell; they're standard components, so it must be something in the monitoring subroutines."

Max glared at him, blinking as a wisp of cigar smoke went into his eyes, diverted by the door closing. "SQUIDS? What?"

"Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices." Seeing Max's expression, he translated. "The doohickeys in link bed pillows that form the mental connection to the UNET. Looks like the Cooper polymers are well within tolerance, so it must be the software."

"I thought you said our software wasn't to blame!" Max growled.

"I meant, the software in the link beds. There's a chance that power surges could short out some of the couplings, but my money's on the drivers. Could also be that Simulonic got sold a bad batch of memory crystals. Cosmic rays might have glitched the firmware after they installed it."

Max bit clean through his cigar. Farker watched it fall and start to burn and melt a little spot on Max's carpet by the desk. "Stop trying to baffle me with bullcrap!" Max barked. "What are we doing to stop this before it goes class action on us?"

"Well," said Farker calmly, making an effort not to escalate the tension in the office, "you're going to send out teams to try to get containment on the latest victims, Karl and Rachel. So far all of the affected people were in Realm of Egypt, so no other Games are affected by it."

"Aw, hell, I knew it!" Max moaned. "Any acquisition deal that looks too good to be true, usually is. Did they unload a botched Game on us, or stick a metavirus in, for one of our competitors?"

"I don't think so. Try to relax," Farker advised him. "I'm putting together a team to go into the Realm, find and fix whatever's wrong if it turns out not to be the link beds that caused this."

Max was sweating in the room's air conditioning. "If it's the link beds. Why hasn't it affected any other of our Realms? It's gotta be a metavirus!"

"No way. Self-modifying mutating viruses were a pain in the old mainframe days, true, but hypercomputers are too smart for that." He paused. "The problem is either on one end of the connection or the other. If it's on our end, it's a problem with Realm of Egypt and we'll find it, document it for the lawyers, and it's a pass-through lawsuit – it'll be Triskelion's headache. If it's on the other end, it's a link bed recall issue, then it's a problem for Simulonic. Either way, I think our jobs are safe."

Max had a calculating look to his eyes. "Are you sure it couldn't be between the Realm and the beds? What if it was a problem with the UNET itself?"

Farker was surprised by the question; he hadn't even considered it. Maybe Max wasn't a complete dullard in a suit, after all. "Out of our hands," he remarked. "If they got lost in the sauce before they came to us, or after they left us, then, again, it's not our fault and not our problem...although it might be harder to prove."

Max's eyes swiveled. He must have finally smelled the burning plastic fibers, Farker thought. He watched the man pick up the end of his cigar, glare at it sullenly, and drop it into his 'I AM THE BOSS!' ashtray. Farker counted to ten.

"Fuck it!" Max exploded. Then he slumped back into his leather chair. His beady eyes bored into Farker. "Whatever this is, fix it. And if you can't fix it, Farker, you better hope to God you can prove it isn't our fault. At Simulonic, Triskelion, or PanGames, some heads are going to roll for this. Count on it."

Some might have already, Farker thought grimly. If whatever Am-heh is doing can't be reversed, then those people are already dead. But he confined himself to saying "I'll get back on it. Try not to worry."

He left Max's office in a hurry before the CEO could think of a comeback and headed for the stairwell, not wanting to run into fellow employees in the elevators.

He almost changed his mind when he opened the door and began descending. PanGames had a pretty good building, but in typical fiscal efficiency the staircases were not climate controlled. He was perspiring by the time he reentered the coolness of his lab.

Striding in, he glanced at the wall screen and froze. There were five skull-and-crossbones icons on it now. Am-heh had eaten another avatar. He had been about to get back onto Tweedledum and log in, but now he found himself hesitating. Getting nervous, Farker?

He dropped into the room's only chair. "Finder, is MOUSETRAP ready?"

The emotionless voice responded "Affirmative. Where do you want to deploy it?"

"Realm of Egypt, where else? Box in every NPC in the Realm, any avatar that isn't a Player with an account with us, then iterate through them, deactivate the one called Am-heh, and then un-box the rest of them again."

He waited. It ought to work. With any luck, the whole process would take less than a second at hypercomputer speeds; the user complaints should be minimal.

"Iteration complete. Sorry, Farker, it did not work."

"What for you mean, didn't work?" It should have been foolproof! It was a relatively simple program, a process of elimination. List all the IDs in the Realm. Discard all that are not avatars from the list. Discard all that are not NPCs from the list. Discard all NPC IDs whose name attribute is not 'Am-heh'. Then terminate the only one left. "Tell me what happened."

"No program errors," Finder informed him. "After discarding all unwanteds, the set of IDs became a null set. No execution processes were terminated."

Could something be fooling the criteria? he wondered. Maybe the anomaly was too buggy to look like a NPC. Maybe it just couldn't tell Am-heh from the Player avatars. "All right," he said, trying not to grind his teeth from irritation. "Try it again, but this time leave all the avatars in the list, even if they are not NPCs. Box all avatars, then iterate through them and terminate the one named 'Am-heh' and un-box the rest. So let it be written. So let it be done."

"Override accepted...execution complete. No processes were terminated."

"Oh, come on! Are you trying to say he isn't an avatar either?"

"Negative."

"Then why wasn't he terminated?"

"No avatars with that name currently located in Realm of Egypt."

Farker's mouth went dry and he felt queasy. Could Darla have been in the wrong Realm when she found him? "Are you saying that he found a way to move to another Realm?"

"It is possible," the Finder admitted.

Oh fuck. "Display diagnostic grid."

The array of 64 indicators appeared on the wall screen. Sixty two of them were green. Realm of Heroes was yellow. Realm of Egypt was green. Realm of Bushido was yellow and flashing.

Got you, you son of a bitch! "Execute my last program in Realm of Bushido, instead of Realm of Egypt. So let it be written. So let it be done."

"Override accepted." There was the briefest of pauses. "Execution complete. No processes were terminated."

Farker slammed his fist on his desk in frustration. He glared at the wall screen. Realm of Bushido was still flashing yellow. Then a thought occurred to him. He hoped desperately it was wrong.

"Finder," he said, "are avatar names conserved in Realm transitions?"

"Not necessarily. Translation protocols may override any equivalent phonemic pattern in case of uniqueness conflicts."

Farker groaned. "You're saying it's my fault you can't find him?"

"What do you mean?" It was one of Finder's polite ways of saying it did not understand a question or command.

"When we installed the speech translator, the intent was to make it so people could talk to each other. Are you saying it affects avatar names, too?"

"Naturally," the Finder told him. "The name 'Am-heh' is unusable in Realm of Bushido. It sounds like 'Ami' which is a female name written with the characters for 'Asia' and 'beauty' and it is also a word meaning 'my people'. It is a popular name in Japan. It would be surprising if no one had selected it as a name for an avatar in Realm of Bushido."

Farker briefly wanted to shoot himself. "So now his name is randomized and we don't even know who to look for. Crap!"

He drummed his fingers on the desk. "Do you keep a log of name translations? Show it to me."

"Unable to comply. Records of forced name changes are only buffered long enough to ensure reversibility in case of system malfunctions during Realm transitions. The buffer is cleared following successful transition to the new Realm."

"DAMN IT!" he exploded. It was his fault! If the bastard ate someone's avatar in Bushido, their blood was on his hands now. If he had acted faster, before Am-heh had left Realm of Egypt, the jerk would now be just a region of memory containing instructions that would never be executed. Fat chance of that happening now.

Wait a minute. Why had Am-heh left Egypt?

Was the choice of Realm of Bushido random? If so, the lucky bastard had picked a great way to anonymize himself. But he didn't believe Am-heh could have known about the translation conflict protocol. He must have had another reason for choosing that realm.

Farker tried to push away his anger at himself and think. What had attracted Am-heh, a chthonic underworld god from ancient Egypt, to the realm of medieval samurai? He had a bad feeling about this.

His eyes wandered as he thought, drifting over the furnishings of his lab. This was all spinning out of control. Would he ever have a job this good again?

There, on the bookshelf was a scale model of the HMS Victory, a gift from Lord Westinghouse after the Realm of Brittania went online. Here, on the desk in front of him, a stone head of Tlaloc found in the ruins of a Toltec temple in Yucatan. It wasn't the original, of course, but a perfect replica given to him by the CEO of JUGAR for his work on the Realm of Mexico deal.

Slowly he swiveled in the chair. And there it was. Behind him, on the wall, in its clear display case was his handmade replica Samurai katana with its round iron chrysanthemum tsuba, or sword guard, presented to him personally by the CEO of Masahiro ('justice prospers') Software for his work on Realm of Bushido.

Am-heh had gone from Egypt to a sword fighting Realm.

He was looking for Darla.

Chapter 36: Darla: "you must anvil or hammer be"

"Aes!" Oh dammit, dammit, he was messed up bad! She barely heard him mumbling something before his eyes closed. Green flashed around him weakly, enough to partially heal the sickening compound fracture on his leg. But he was still bleeding. Fuck!

She slapped his face, hard. Then she did it again.

His eyes fluttered open. "...win?"

Her eyes were watering again. "Aes! Heal yourself again! You're going into shock all over again! Heal yourself before you pass out!"

Aes groaned. Another wave of green glow wrapped itself around him. The skin closed over his leg wound. Anxiously, Darla checked him for other leaks. His hero suit was trashed; torn and punctured by bullets, it still had dried blood on it from the last bad fight, and fresh blood still drying from the boss fight.

He stopped perspiring and began to breathe more deeply. His eyes opened again. "Still..here," he muttered.

Darla turned her head and drew the back of her hand across her eyes. "That," she announced, "was WAY too close. We almost lost you that time."

Aes healed himself again and sat up. "I'm too old for this."

A finger the size of a stubby kielbasa prodded Darla's shoulder. "Can I talk to you privately for a minute?" asked Sherman, jerking his head toward the door, his eyes on hers.

She sighed. Crap. Well, I guess this is 'later'. "Aes, just rest and keep healing yourself. I'll be right back." She rose to her feet and followed Sherman out the door and down the hall.

"What the fuck is going on?" Sherman demanded. "What is the point of an avatar that gets compound fractures and gushing bullet wounds? I agreed to a healer...not some kind of 'bot! Are you trying to get us banned?"

Darla had heard of Players who tried to get an advantage in games by using hacks like automated avatars or 'bots'. She glanced back at the door to the boss room. "Keep your voice down. Aes is not a bot. He's as real as we are. Maybe realer."

"Then what is he? Is he a GM trying out ideas for a new game? Or some kind of artistic tweaker with a death wish?"

She exhaled. "Promise not to call me crazy."

"I never said you were crazy."

"You will," she predicted. "Sometimes I think I am crazy. Because I think he's a ghost in the machine, Sherman. He died in the real world while he was playing, and now he has no body to go back to. Dead out there, alive in here. If he dies in here, he's gone."

"But that's --" He stopped himself in time. "I knew there was something strange about him. I'm not saying I believe you. But just for the sake of argument, let's say it's true. Then why did you bring him in here where a couple of lucky shots could really kill him?"

"Because there's another ghost, one that's really evil, and we need to kill him. I have to level Aes up so he can survive that fight and win." She looked him in the eye. "I swear this is not roleplay, Sherman." Oh, what the hell. In as few words as possible she told him about Am-heh.

Sherman regarded her. "I'm trying to believe you," he said. "We'll figure out something. Right now, let's get Aes out of here before the boss re-spawns."

Aes was on his feet by the time they got back to him. He apologized for worrying them. "Apparently I have a lot to learn about fighting bosses," he said.

"You did just fine, Aes," Sherman assured him. "Well, maybe you should have spent more time self-healing in between healing us. But you're good. I tried to make a healer once. It was too hard on me deciding who to heal and who to let die. The guilt drove me to switch to tanking."

"I was afraid I had chosen wrong at the end of that fight," said Aes. "Darla's health was lower, but for some reason I healed you instead."

"No, you did it exactly right," Sherman assured him. "At that moment she was too weak to finish him off. If you'd healed her instead of me, I wouldn't have been able to help her. It would have just taken him a shot or two more to finish her off, that's all."

"You need to grow stronger," Darla told Aes. "But we can't just take our time and do it safely, clearing the streets. Am-heh might be leveling and you have to level too. Without mission completion bonuses like the one that leveled Sherman, it would take too long."

"There's another option," Sherman offered. "We could have a go at power-leveling him."

"And you thought I was the one trying to get us banned? power-leveling is against the Terms of Service, which I'm sure you know."

"Only if you use hacks or cheats or charge money for it. There are ways to exploit the rules legally. You just have to know how."

"Are you saying you know how? You've tried this personally?"

He laughed. "Nah, getting there is half the fun. But some people are in a hurry to level up toons for PvP matches. Friends of friends. Want me to see if I can set something up?"

Darla hesitated. She had always played by the rules, more or less, and especially more, in online games. She looked into Aes's blue eyes. If something happened to him she would never find out just what he really was. "Du musst Amboss oder Hammer sein," she murmured.

"What was that?" Sherman queried.

"Something my Dad used to say. 'You must anvil or hammer be'."

"I do not understand," said Aes.

She brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes, then stood up and looked at Sherman. "It's time to find a blacksmith and forge this hero into something tougher. See what you can do."

Chapter 37: Aes: bloody instructions

By the time Aes was back on his feet, feeling more or less himself again, Sherman the Tank had left the 'sky-scraper'. The parting was amicable; Aes gathered that the man had an errand of some sort to attend to.

Something had changed between him and Darla, although he didn't quite know why. She insisted on opening doors for him and supporting him as he walked as if he were a cripple. He didn't say anything about it because he enjoyed the feeling of her arm around him.

Outside, night had fallen. Low-lying clouds blocked off the sky, denying him the stars. They strolled down the sidewalk. Lights had come on in many of the windows. Aes made himself look away from the buildings on either side. As long as he looked straight ahead, he didn't feel that oppressive crowding as if running a gauntlet of brooding giants.

The street was lit by tall torches that burned without flames or smoke. More tamed lightning, he learned, when he asked about them.

Darla let go of him and took stock under one of these torches. "You're a mess," she declared. "Let's go back to Pelion for a moment. It'll fix your clothes."

He had no objection, especially since that meant she would hold his hand again. This time the flash of all-surrounding light did not disconcert him as much as before.

They were standing next to the cave. Once more, Darla was dressed in her chiton, pampla and himation. Aes's torn and bloody hero suit was replaced by a clean chiton and leather sandals. Aes looked around the clearing; it was a bright night, lit by a full moon.

As he turned back to Darla, she kissed him. He was caught by surprise. Although he did not pull away, he closed his eyes as a pang of guilt stabbed him.

She broke the kiss. "You were very brave, back there in the building," she said.

Aes looked down. "I was not," he said. "You and Sherman the Tank did all the fighting. All that I did was–"

"–was keep us alive. By the way, Aes, his name is Sherman. He's a tank, but it's not part of his name. He just likes to introduce himself that way. It's an old war joke."

Her arms were around him, a guilty pleasure that he enjoyed, and regretted. Forgive me, Epione, he thought. You are lost to me by three thousand years, gone from the world but not my heart.

The warmth of Darla, the smell of her skin and the press of her arms, these were things that only served to remind him of what he had lost. And why? Why had the gods done this thing to him? What could possibly justify such cruelty?

Aes wept. Epione, mother of my children, he prayed, call me back to my own time, to your arms! Let me gaze again on the hills and mountains of my Hellas, and not this mocking reminder of a dream. I cannot love again. It is too late for you, and far too soon for me. He clung to this dream-woman from the future and sobbed without shame.

Darla held him. "Aes, what's the matter? You made the right choice back there. It's okay, really. Let it all out if you have to."

After a time, he disengaged from her gently. "I am sorry. We got so busy that I forgot about my wife, then it all rushed back to me. I was with her two days ago...and now she is dead 3000 years."

Darla was silent for a moment. Had he angered her, to speak of another woman after she kissed his face, and held him in her arms?

After a moment she sat down on Cheiron's herb-grinding rock. "I'm the one that should be sorry," she said softly, after a moment. "You've lost everyone you ever knew. That's a lot of loss to deal with all at once."

Aes gazed out over the Aegean. "Have you ever lost someone close to you?" he asked her. "Or is all violence confined to the dream worlds, in your future time?"

She gave him a little sad smile. "Oh we still have some fighting. The last major war was many years ago. I lost my mother, but I don't even remember her. My father raised me."

"I don't remember my mother, either. She was murdered, and my father drew me from her body, on her funeral pyre. But he didn't raise me. He left me with Cheiron, who raised me and taught me medicine."

"Oh my god, Aes, why did he do that? Why didn't he raise you himself? Don't tell me he was too busy. That's no excuse."

"Well, in a way, I'm lucky he saved me. Some say he was responsible for her death." He looked at the ground. "After I was conceived, she fell in love with another, with me yet in her womb."

She was silent for a while. "Listen," she said. "I have to get back to my Dad soon, but I don't want to leave you like this." She put her hand on his bare shoulder. "I just want you to know that–"

FLASH.

"Thank the gods I found you," said Farker. "We need to talk."

Darla pulled away from Aes, scowling. "Farker, did you take classes in poor timing, or is it a natural talent? This is not a good time!"

"Well excuuuse me! Am-heh has left Egypt. Somehow he left that Realm and went to Realm of Bushido. He's looking for you, Darla."

She jumped to her feet. "And just how do you know that?" she challenged.

Farker stared at her. "Are you kidding me? I told you, I'm CIO of PanGames. I have the grid diagnostic on my wall screen all the time now. The anomaly is gone from Egypt and there's an identical one in Bushido, Q.E.D."

"I meant, how do you know he's looking for me, in particular?"

"Connect the dots. He sees you in Egypt dual-wielding swords. You vanish, get away from him. Then he manages to leave...and the first place he goes is one of the Realms where just about all they do is fight with swords! You really think it's coincidence? He's hunting."

"So what? I've never even been to that Realm."

"If he can change Realms at will, it's only a matter of time before he shows up here, or in Realm of Heroes. You've got to leave."

"And go where? I'm not leaving Aes to that...that thing."

"You're no help to Aes if you let yourself get eaten," he retorted. "But I have an idea. Wait until he leaves Bushido, then go there."

"Why on the United Earth would I want to do that?"

"Think about it," Farker urged. "He's already looked there, so he'll be busy checking other Realms when he leaves it. Plus, the local reformatting will hardly affect your power set at all."

"We'll think about it," she agreed. "But right now I have to check in with my Dad before he unplugs me. Stay with him until I get back, will you?"

Flash.

Farker looked at Aes. "She sure left in a hurry," he commented.

"Yes." Aes regarded him. "You were right, you know."

"About what?"

"That we need to talk. I remember what you said. In fact, I remember everything that has happened to me since I appeared here."

"You remember what I said? When?"

"You said, 'I never programmed you for blood' when you saw me bleed the last time we were here. What did you mean by that?"

Farker froze. "What do you mean, you remember everything?"

"Exactly what I said. My memory seems to be sharper than it ever was before. Something is happening to me, and I want to know what it is."

Farker avoided eye contact. "You've been in unfamiliar surroundings, doing dangerous things. That sort of thing tends to overstimulate people. You could --"

"Please stop," said Aes. "You're trying to hide something from me. That much is obvious. Did you create Am-heh?"

"No, of course not."

"And you want to stop him before he hurts more people?"

"That's right."

"Then we are on the same side, Farker. How can I help if you keep secrets from me?"

Again Farker looked away. "Not all secrets help, Aes. Not all secrets are about you."

"This one is about me. Why else are you so uncomfortable around me?" Aes asked him. "Is it about the difference between me and the others?"

"I'm not sure I know what you mean," said Farker.

"Oh, I think you do," said Aes. He held out his hand, palm down, over the grinding rock. Bright moonlight cast a shadow on the stone's surface. "Darla called this Realm a dream world," he remarked. "Maybe it is. But it seems to me more like a world of shadows."

Farker frowned. "Shadows?"

Aes wiggled his fingers. The shadow wiggled. He held out his other hand, and brought it near the other. Now two shadows wiggled on the boulder near each other.

"Your Realms are a safe place to play, even to do battle, because shadows cannot hurt each other, although you can keep score and decide who wins."

"I guess you could imagine it that way," said Farker.

"The analogy is not perfect," Aes admitted. "But it is useful, and therefore true in some respects. Shadow-play is an ancient art. We had it even in my time. I can imagine a time even further back, when men before the time of cities danced their shadows on the walls of caves, by the light of the first fires."

"Yes, well, all this is very interesting, but–"

"You were surprised to see me bleed, Farker. From that, I know that you did not expect it. Did not believe it was possible. Do you know what that tells me?"

"I can guess," Farker said.

"Allow me to guess. My guess is that you are the shadow-master. You know what can happen here, because you set it all up. And it surprised you to see one of your creations bleed."

"Slow down," said Farker. "You're taking this analogy too far."

"I do not think so," said Aes evenly. "From the context of your remark, I can infer that 'programmed' has to do with how shadows are described or constructed here. The implication is that you believe you made me."

Farker sighed, "'That we but teach bloody instructions which, being taught, return to plague th' inventor'," he quoted. "One of our poets wrote that," he said, in answer to Aes's expression.

"The puzzling thing," Aes continued, "is that I exceed the limits of what you designed me to do. Darla and I just went through some violent fights in another of your Realms. She and her companion Sherman were beaten, stabbed, and shot with your modern 'gun' weapons, as was I. Yet only I bled. Do you know why?"

"No," Farker admitted. "I don't, and it bothers me...a lot."

"Of course it does. Would you like to know what I think?"

Farker sat down on the grinding boulder. "I'm all ears."

Aes reached down and picked something up off the ground. He held it out for Farker to see. It looked like a tadpole sculpted from wood: a bulbous front with a tail-like fin extended from the back.

"This is a maple seed," Aes told him. "Blown here, no doubt from one of the many maple trees on Pelion. I can allow it to fall where the wind takes it," he said, tossing it into the air and watching it spin down to the ground, "or I can decide where to plant it, and watch it grow into a tree."

"I'm no gardener," said Farker.

"It's only an analogy," Aes reminded him. "Here's another. The tops of mountains are often covered with snow and ice. Lower, the ponds sometimes freeze over in the winters. Do you know what happens if you take a piece of ice and drop it into a lake that is getting cold enough to freeze?"

"It floats," Farker answered.

"Irrelevant. It grows, Farker. New ice forms on the old, from the water around it. Like quartz in a cave, ice is a crystal. It can take on material from around it and grow larger."

"You've gone from tree to iceberg," Farker commented.

"Don't be obtuse," Aes admonished. "Haven't you noticed that I am speaking your English now, and not the Greek you expected? Don't you want to know how I managed that?"

"I see you've picked up contractions, too" Farker commented.

"Whatever magic you wove to create this garden was more powerful than you dreamed," Aes told him. "The simulacrum is incredibly detailed. It has powers you did not expect. In short, I think you have, without realizing it, fashioned a soulcatcher."

"A what?"

"You heard me. Look it up later. Suppose you could weave a spiderweb with no spider. Spiders fly, did you know that? They've no wings, but they trail out a strand of silk and let the wind carry them where it will. Do you suppose that a spider landing in your artificial web would reject the imitation and start from scratch?"

"No," Farker replied, "I suppose it would welcome the chance to save time and energy and just add to the one it found. I think I can see where you're going with this."

"I thought you might. I think you have caught at least two of us in your garden. Two of the webs designed here have been good enough, or just lucky enough, to catch spiders blown on the winds of eternity. Even an empty cup, left outside, can fill itself with rain."

Aes stood up. "Think about it," he said. "I'll be back in a little while."

Farker jumped to his feet. "Where are you going?"

Aes collected a handful of maple leaves. "You saw me eat some food, earlier. Now I have to do something else you didn't design, Farker. I'm sure you can figure it out."

Chapter 38: Farker: "life's but a walking shadow"

Farker watched Aes stride off into the bushes. This can't be happening, he thought. How can he be realer than I designed him?

He couldn't stop thinking about what Aes had suggested, that he really was a ghost in the machine. That was impossible. Wasn't it?

The debate about artificial intelligence had raged for nearly a century. On one side were those who believed that anything was possible, with a good enough computer program. They argued that the brain was merely a computer; given fast enough processors, and complicated enough software, it was a self-obvious given to them that machines would become self-conscious just as we have. Computers merely had to catch up with a billion years of evolution, and with the exponential progress curve of Science it would happen sooner rather than later.

Surprisingly, there were many computer scientists as well as laymen who disagreed, and Farker was one of them. They argued that there was something unique about biological systems that made them intrinsically different from artificial ones. The religious ones called this difference a soul. The skeptics settled for a less mystical explanation, saying, instead, that since we do not know how our own consciousness is generated, there is no way to replicate the process.

Perhaps, Farker thought, there is a third option. His mind was acting like a whirlwind, picking up facts, theories and observations like piles of leaves and rearranging them into patterns complex and beautiful. What if the entire Universe is a quantum computer? he thought.

Infinities opened up in his mind. Worlds within worlds without limit. Suppose Aes wrote a book. Was he, Farker, then, the grandfather of the book, since he created a program called Asklepios? Was there a great-grandfather that made Farker that made Asklepios that wrote the book? Was this hall of mirrors growing at both ends like some fractal web of infinite detail? Or was the process only top-down? Are all creatures on a learning curve to become gods?

He shook his head. Too many questions, perhaps another infinity of them, and only finite time and answers to plug them with. None of this was helping him deal with Am-heh.

There was a flash behind him like the light of a thousand suns, temporarily casting his shadow darkly on the outer wall of the cave. It called another quote from the Bard to mind.

"...Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

that struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more..."

Unless Aes was right. Was he a digital reincarnation?

There was a voice behind him: "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Surprised that Darla knew Shakespeare, he turned, and saw Cheiron instead.

"He's right, you know," said Cheiron cheerfully. "Aes, I mean, not Macbeth. The Multiverse is not an idiot. A few more minutes of that discussion and he'd be deriving hyperspatial topology for you – Plato's analogy of watching shadows on the cave wall."

"You're a shadow vouching for the reality of another shadow," Farker pointed out. "Not the most believable of witnesses."

"Or a spider asking you to believe in spiders," Cheiron retorted. "Qubits aren't dominoes, Farker. Even electrons can sense their surroundings."

"Are you trying to say that even electrons are conscious?" Farker asked him skeptically. "That's an old argument. Sure, they can emit virtual photons and avoid other electrons, but–"

"But nothing. Don't tell me you've never wondered whether Einstein was right after all."

"About what?" And since when did you learn quantum field theory?"

"About the hidden variables. He didn't like Newton's clean trajectories blurring out into the probability functions, on the micro scale of particles. You know that. He always thought some day we might discover the hidden variable that created the illusion of indeterminacy. Well, it's us."

"Are you saying," Farker said, tasting the idea, "that the hidden variable is consciousness?"

"Absolutely. The Multiverse is conscious at all levels."

"What? Galaxies are conscious? Without brains?"

"Don't play dumb with me, Farker. The processing of information does not stop with the three pounds of goo in your skull. Galaxies don't worry about the same questions as you do, naturally. But that doesn't stop them from processing."

"That's an extraordinary claim," Farker said. "As such, it requires extraordinary evidence. I'm a scientist, not a priest."

"Oh, come off it!" Cheiron scolded. "You know a honeybee can find a good source of nectar, then go back to its hive and tell the others about it. It does all that with barely a million brain cells."

"That doesn't mean it is self-conscious, or has a soul."

Cheiron just shook his head. "So arrogant. You think organisms are 'merely' machines until their brains reach a certain size, like humans, and then...what? Bang, a soul appears? How convenient for you."

"Whatever. I'm not going to argue philosophy with a computer."

"Is that what you think you're doing?" Cheiron snorted and tore the earth below him with a front hoof. "Humans!"

Farker sat down on the rock again. "This argument is getting us nowhere," he said. "If you have any advice about dealing with Am-heh, I'll be glad to listen."

"All information is useful," said Cheiron. "You just have to look at the big picture and see where it fits in. I know your kind, Farker. You don't want enlightenment spoon fed to you. You like to work solutions out for yourself. So do it."

And he vanished.

"Thanks, that's really helpful," Farker called after him.

Chapter 39: Manny: into the gathering darkness

Manny closed the register and locked the front door of the diner. Darla had missed the dinner rush again, which wasn't like her. Silently shaking his head, he trudged over to the trash bin and reached in to lift out the plastic liner, which was not nearly as full as it should have been. He pulled it anyway and hauled it out the back door.

By the time he emerged into the alley he had forgotten his daughter's absence and reentered the sanctuary of his memories and meditations. He wrenched the lid of the dumpster up and tossed the bag inside as the familiar sounds of the night assaulted him, a quiet cacophony of crickets, tree frogs, the breathless hum of the city, and distant beeps of horns.

The dumpster lid banged back down when he released it. So much progress we've made, he thought. But with all the new, we still carry the old with us. Forks are still forks, we still lie down to sleep, and garbage is still garbage. He glanced up at Darla's back window. Her light was on; a green anole clung to the glass, waiting for dinner to arrive on moth wings.

He stood there in the alley, envying the lizard. It would never worry about its children's futures, never have to contend with rent, pest control, expired milk, government regulations, or body odor. It would never face war or prejudice or boredom. It would never worry about death or gaze up at the stars and wonder about the meaning of life.

It would also, he reminded himself, never fall in love. Being human does have its compensations. We live and die...but if we're lucky, we get to love and be loved sometime in between. He closed his eyes and touched his shirt pocket again to reassure himself that it was still in there. I'll see her again, he told himself. But even if I don't, even if I'm wrong about everything else, even if there's no God, no Heaven, even if I sizzle into nothing like a drop of water on a hot stove, I have lived and loved, and nothing can erase that. If this is all that I get, it will have to be enough. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

It began to drizzle, and he retreated inside, locking the door behind him. Up on the lit window, the lizard kept its lonely vigil. Eyes that would never cry stared steadily into the gathering darkness.

Chapter 40: Darla: the ties that bind

Even before she saw Manny she knew she had been in the bed too long. Her stomach did more than growl; it roared!

Her father, on the other hand, growled. "Do you know what time it is? You completely missed the dinner rush. Do you think tables clear themselves, or that link beds pay for themselves? Please tell me you were attending a class or studying."

"I wasn't goofing off," she said. "I was with a friend who needed me."

"Worse and worse, it gets," he commented. "Imaginary boyfriends are not what you need in your life right now. You need to graduate and meet a real mensch. In that order, zeisele."

"I think this guy is one," she told him. "But right now he's trying to work through the grieving process. He just found out that his wife is dead." Oops! She regretted the words the moment they were out of her mouth. But words cannot be unsaid, once they are said.

Her father closed his eyes and touched his shirt pocket again. She watched his little ritual in silence. He reopened his eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I didn't mean to–"

"She's not dead," he told her. "Even if she is, I'll still see her again. One day you'll understand this. Until then, I guess I'm just an old fool to you. But souls exist."

"I'm beginning to believe that," she said.

"Then maybe this new fellow's not such a total loss," he remarked. "Is he a rabbi or, God forbid, a priest?"

"Neither," she said. "He studied medicine, not theology. But I get the feeling he believes in gods. And funny things happen around him."

"A doctor, I could accept," said her father approvingly. "Although you still have to pass courses to graduate. Funny things happening, they won't help your grades. Name one rich clown."

"Not that kind of funny," she said absently, remembering the sight of the protruding leg bone. She shuddered. It must have hurt a lot. He could have healed himself instead of me or Sherman. We took damage, sure...but we didn't feel a thing.

"Take my advice," he said. "Get him to meet you in real life before you get too serious. It's easier to get over someone's flaws if you do it one at a time. Building up an idealized picture of someone only sets you up for disappointment."

Right. This, from a man holding a torch for twenty years. "What's left to eat?" she asked.

"I saved you a steak," he offered, going to the sink to wash his hands. "Some lawyer type ordered it well done, then decided he didn't have the time to wait for it. Sit down and get started while I make you a salad to go with it."

"Dad, have I told you that I love you, today?"

"Sure, just now. But don't think that gets you dessert," he said, raising an admonishing finger. "I'm too tired from handling the dinner crowd all by myself."

While she ate, Darla thought about Sherman's suggestion. Power-leveling Aes as a healer wouldn't be enough if he ended up having to fight. He needed attack powers, too. Powers that could hurt the dog-man from a distance. The last thing she wanted him to do was to get within melee distance. Within eating range.

She shuddered again. What is it about getting devoured, she wondered, that makes it worse than mere dismemberment or incineration or a dozen other ways to die? Any way you die, you're dead. But it was worse, silly or not. To become mere food, powerless to stop something bigger from swallowing you. It was a special kind of fear, visceral and primitive. Maybe it went all the way back to the dinosaurs. The little rodent-like quadrupeds that would turn into warriors and scientists and lovers and priests, they weren't worrying about cancer or poverty or lawsuits or traffic accidents. All they worried about was being eaten by bigger critters.

She looked down and realized she had practically inhaled the steak, barely stopping to taste it. At least steak had no feelings, she thought. My mind is wandering again. Forget the steak. What should they do with Aes? If he was going to keep his distance, then he needed ranged attacks or maybe DOTs. Anything that could do some damage while allowing him to stay at a safe distance. She was pretty sure the game wouldn't let him have holds as well as heals.

The problem was, fighting an automated opponent, a NPC like that boss Snarky, was nothing like fighting someone who could think. Plenty of Players who could handle player-vs-environment stuff (like bosses, minions, and monsters) totally sucked at PvP, Player versus Player. NPCs usually had a pattern you could exploit, but other Players could improvise and surprise you.

Whatever Farker said, Am-heh was more like a real Player, like Aes. She couldn't make herself see either one as mere software or viruses. She was drawn to one and repelled from the other in a way no NPC could do, no matter how well rendered or scripted.

She pondered Farker's suggestion that they go to Bushido.

Chapter 41: Farker: catch a falling soul

Farker was annoyed by Cheiron's smugness, but he wished that the centaur had stayed until Aes got back. It would have been interesting to watch them interact.

Aes returned while he was reflecting on this. The lower part of the healer's chiton was dripping wet. "You stopped for a swim?"

"To bathe. I have a sense of smell, Farker. What are you looking so thoughtful about?"

"Cheiron was here while you were gone. He seems to agree with your hypothesis, not that it proves anything." Now it was Aes who looked thoughtful.

"It's kind of funny," said Aes. "When I first saw him here, I didn't believe he was Cheiron. He was different than I remembered. Now, in view of my own growth, I'm more inclined to believe him."

"He 'appeared' here shortly before your own arrival. Did Darla tell you that she met him and he told her you were coming...and that she would go to Egypt?"

"Yes. It was puzzling at the time."

"But not puzzling anymore? How did he know?"

"Back in Hellas, I cured cases of insanity. Sometimes people appeared possessed; there was more than one personality inside their heads. These entities can be aware of each other, or not."

"You're saying the hypercomputer is possessed?"

"If you prefer that term. I would rather call it inhabited."

"By you, Cheiron, and Am-heh?"

"Certainly. And by millions of temporary residents that you call Players."

"That's not the same thing at all!"

"The difference is only a matter of degree and origin, Farker. The link beds are not just remote controls for avatars. Surely you know that. Fiber optic cables are way beyond puppet strings."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh but I do. The neural link established by the beds is not a simple matter of conducting nerve impulses from a body to a computer. The technology establishes entanglement between processes in two quantum computers."

"Hold on a moment." Farker tried to think. "You can't be saying–"

"I am saying it. Please don't pretend you haven't thought about this. Deception is annoying and wastes our time."

Farker had the feeling he was losing control of this conversation. "We're getting off-task, I think. You were explaining how Cheiron knew you were coming, and how he knew Darla would go to Egypt."

"I already explained that," Aes told him patiently. "The entities you call Players log into your system with carefully controlled protocols that help limit crosstalk. They can communicate with the equivalent of speech, but can't read each other's minds. Entities that arrive in your system by...other means have fewer limitations placed on them."

"Stop!" Farker begged. "I need to process this." He thought rapidly for a second or two. "You're saying...you can read minds?"

"Not in the real world. But ever since the first telegram and email were sent, your technology has been developing that possibility in the virtual world."

"But you're implying you can read minds in PanGames."

"If there were permission on both sides, certainly. But most minds would automatically resist it as an unwonted intrusion."

"Cheiron can't read your mind unless you let him?"

"Unless we let each other. Such intimate entanglement could have its dangers. But entities such as he and I can sense each other's presence. That's how he knew I was in the process of manifesting in your tangled web of souls."

"And Egypt?" Farker challenged. "Are you going to try to tell me he can see the future, too?"

Aes raised an eyebrow. "Of course not, Farker. But he could 'feel' Am-heh's arrival in the system, and he knew you were talking to Darla. It was fairly easy for him to extrapolate that you would become aware of the new 'anomaly' and ask her to investigate, rather than involve a complete stranger."

"So you can feel Am-heh's presence...and he can sense yours as well?"

"To a lesser extent than Cheiron, since he arrived before both of us, and is therefore ahead of us on the learning curve. But, yes. I didn't know his name until recently, but I did feel a disturbing presence."

"'There is a great disturbance in the Force'," Farker quoted. "It's from an old movie. What does he feel like?"

"Painful. Wrong. Intrusive. Like an itch that I can't scratch." Aes paused and smiled grimly. "I can only hope my presence bothers him half as much as he irritates me."

Chapter 42: Am-heh: laughing in the wind

FLASH. Am-heh gazed about him as the glare faded, his clawed fingers still gripping Victor's arm tightly above the elbow. A huge snowcapped cone of a mountain in the distance rose over the forest they had appeared in. Ancient trees spread grasping fingers of roots over hard rocky terrain.

Am-heh lifted his hound's muzzle and sniffed the air. "There are many mortals here," he remarked. He looked at Victor, who was squirming from the grip on his arm.

"I still can't believe you devoured him, just like that," Victor moaned. "Howard was a real jerk when he wanted to be, but what did he ever do to you? Why did you eat him?"

"Because it pleased me to do so," said Am-heh. "And because it increased my power. Which brings us to you." He grinned that horrible manic maw of his.

Victor shuddered. "We weren't together anymore, but, really! You killed him without even trying to get to know him."

"He is not dead," Am-heh stated. "He is inside me. I am getting to know him. Maybe you should join your friend?"

"No!" said Victor quickly. "I mean, you could just let me go," he amended.

"I do not think so," said Am-heh. "Your usefulness is at an end. Your continued presence will only serve to slow me down. I can always find another mortal to take me to the next Realm." And he began to open his jaws wider.

"Wait!" pleaded Victor. "I don't just know about Egypt. I did a minor in Eastern Studies, too. Whatever you're looking for, I can help you, maybe."

Am-heh considered this. This mortal would only be a morsel, after all. And he could always eat him later. "Tell me more," he ordered. "Where are we?"

Victor looked around and found the sun. Assuming it was afternoon here, the huge mountain was to their southeast. "That has to be Mt. Fuji," he said. "We're seven or eight kilometers to its northwest." He swallowed. "We're in Aokigahara Jyukai, the Sea of Trees."

"An odd sort of sea," commented Am-heh. "A forest on top of a lava field: frozen waves of roots. Yet it almost feels like home."

"Maybe that's because legends say it's full of demons," Victor told him. "Before W3 it used to be the second most popular place in the world to commit suicide."

Am-heh sniffed again. Yes, many mortals. But he was not certain that one of them was the girl with two swords. And the other god was not among them. Still, a meal was a meal, and there were many to be collected.

Am-heh looked at Victor. How delicious the terror radiating off the man was; he was so easy to frighten. "Which direction is the closest group of mortals?" he asked the man. This was a test; he already knew the answer.

Victor swallowed nervously and pointed. "That way."

"Very good," Am-heh smiled. "I am going to release you now. Run in that direction. I will follow. If you do not start running immediately, or you slow down, or stop and try to leave this Realm, I shall devour you. Keep running, and I might find someone else first."
Chapter 43: Darla: a mathematical digression

By the time she had finished her salad, she decided there was no point in going to Realm of Bushido right away. Even if Am-heh had left it already, they still needed to power-level Aes, and it would be harder to do there.

She scraped the remains of dinner into the trash and dropped them into the recycler's maw. Back to adventure! she thought, feeling her pulse quicken. It was a good feeling...and it lasted about one hundred and eighty degrees of rotation when she turned to go upstairs.

Manny was standing between her and the stairs. One hand was a stern fist extending only the up-pointing finger. The other was an open palm offering her Engineering Math II textchip. "Tonight, I'm not asking," he said firmly. "Please don't make me shove this in the override slot myself. After you study, you can hang out with friends."

Darla held her breath and counted to 20. She left it out. "This is not a good time to promote yourself to dictator of Rome, Julius."

"I'm not asking, and I'm not joking," he said. "And, not moving until you take your future seriously, the future we're paying for."

"All right, all right," she grumbled. "I'll study first, I promise."

"Good," he said, "Because I'll be up to check on you, I promise."

Darla fought the urge to growl at him and went up the stairs without a fight. She couldn't take the chance that he might unplug her while leveling Aes. The bed had automatic battery backup, constantly topped off by the house current, in case of loss of external power, but the changeover, by default, initiated an involuntary logout.

She couldn't do that to Aes in the middle of a battle. If she happened to be the one drawing aggro when her avatar vanished, the baddies could turn on a fresh victim like Aes in seconds.

She wanted to scream with frustration. Important as college was, it wasn't going to save people from Am-heh.

She slid the textchip into the bed's override slot and lay down. Soon she was safely in the embrace of Engineering Math II. Lovely, she thought sarcastically. Now instead of butterflies and centaurs and glorious battles and handsome grieving men, she could, instead deal with excitement such as this:

"Metapathmic integral – An integral of the wedge product p^f of the pathspace p and the integrable and differentiable function f on the coordinate space of a (3+k)-dimensional continuum.

Examples: the Feynman-Keller (sum-over-metahistory) Integral for particle trajectories in Quantum Electrodynamics, the Weiss-McKinley Entangled Fluxpath Integral for advanced embedding geometries in tensor fields, and the Hollings-Farker Code Execution Topology Integral used in analysis of quantum computing spintronics."

In this chewy and tangled weave of techno-talk, the name Farker jumped out at her. Wondering if maybe the Farker she knew had a famous relative, she called up a list of the chapter's references.

"Farker (no first name): Dr. Farker, formerly head of the Artificial Intelligence Applications Department at the Dirac Institute, now Chief Information Officer for the PanGames Corporation."

I'll be damned, she thought. I'll bet there's a good story behind that change of career. Not that she had time for such prying. It was good, however, to know that he wasn't always just a corporate lackey, even if running a quantum computer was a pretty cool job.

The rest of the chapter was a tedious but meticulous exploration of the application examples. She waded through it dutifully.

"...demonstrates the irreversability of the compacted tensor..."

"...it can easily be shown that...proved by the following..."

The questions at the end of the chapter were as thorough as she had expected. The first ten were questions of mere fact. The next ten were merely numeric calculations.

And then the dreaded essay section:

21. Theoretical example: can the probabilities of alternate versions of two independent measurements performed at a position on a timeline be used to specify future regions in 4+k dimensional spacetime on the tree of timeplanes corresponding to these alternatives? Why or why not? If your answer is yes, specify a congruence formula for doing so. If your answer is no, specify the transparadox formula that rules it out.

22. Practical example: describe the effect of Einstein's famous time/energy uncertainty on the Hawking radiation spectrum near a black hole of mass m that is oscillating forward and backward on the time axis with frequency f and amplitude delta t about the present moment in proper time tau. Can the Weiss-McKinley EFI be used in this case to derive the resulting expression for the average space curvature at all positions in space near the event? Why or why not?

23. Metaprogramming example: assume you are provided with a Class II spintronic gate 3-lattice chip with a capacity of 16TB.

(a) Using standard UNET encoding, how much of this storage must be reserved to buffer data during data accesses at 8THz?

(b) What is the maximum number of calculations that can be performed per nanosecond using this array as a n-lattice accumulator?

Finally! she reached the end of the chapter. The screen showed it had been a couple of hours. Enough! she thought. I never promised to finish the book tonight. Breaking the connection, she reached over the side of the bed and yanked the textchip out just enough to deactivate the override. With any luck at all, if her father peeked in again he would see it still in place and leave her alone.

Leaning back flat again, she let herself log into PanGames and select Realm of Legends.

FLASH.

Aes was waiting for her when she appeared by the cave on Pelion. "Where's Farker?"

"He had to get back to his work," said Aes. "He said to tell you he was working on a way to notify you automatically the second Am-heh got into the same Realm as you."

"That would be handy."

Aes smiled. "I told him it wasn't necessary."

"Wasn't necessary? Aes, don't you understand the danger?"

"Yes, but you see, I'm your detector. If Am-heh enters the same Realm as us, I will know it instantly. As long as I'm with you, he can't sneak up on you."

"Yeah...as long as he doesn't, like, pop into existence right next to me by sheer luck."

"In that case," said Aes, "an automatic detector would be useless anyway."

"Gee," said Darla. "Way to reassure me, Aes."

Chapter 44: Aes: "πάθει μάθος" ("there is learning in suffering")

He peered at the entrance uncertainly. What kind of a farm was inside a mountain? The entrance consisted of a door twice his height, set into a frame of stones carved with foreign characters. The door bore a bronze plaque inscribed with a message:

"All hope abandon, ye who enter here."

"It's kind of an inside theological joke," Darla told him, seeing his expression. "It was supposedly on the entrance to Hell in Dante's Inferno. Some designer thought it was appropriate for a Kindred of Darkness mission."

"Hardly a sign of welcome," Aes commented.

A roaring from above drew his gaze. Two blue-white flames like upside-down candles descended to the hillside. As they came nearer, he could make out the huge form of Sherman above them. Moments later, the tank had settled onto the rocks beside him with an audible crunch. "Been waiting long?" he boomed.

"Sherman loves his rocket boots," Darla remarked. "He'd be pretty frustrated in your Hellas, walking everywhere."

"Damn straight," Sherman agreed. "Are you ready for some serious leveling? Tufflady should be here in a minute. She's on West Coast time. Still having dinner."

"I don't understand this," Aes told the two of them. "I thought you said this was a farm mission. How can you grow crops underground?"

"It's gamer slang," Darla said. She turned to Sherman. "Did you ask her to send team invites to Sam and Rita?"

"I left her a message. Don't worry, Tufflady's one of the best in the business, and I'm not just saying that because she's a tank."

While they waited, Darla explained about the slang. "In real life, a farm is where you harvest crops year after year. In online gaming, the Players kill monsters and bad guys to 'farm' XP or harvest drops."

Seeing his expression, she expanded upon this. "XP is short for experience. You need it to get to higher levels of power. Drops are pieces of armor, weapons, and so on that enemies leave behind when they are destroyed."

They were on a hillside outside of Boomtown, less than half a stadion from the street level. Talking to Darla, Aes was not surprised to learn that the 300 or so podes this represented was about 300 feet in English units.

"The Jerx we fought in the building didn't seem to leave anything behind, except for their boss," he commented.

"They were lower level; it was Sherman's mish," she said. "This should be different. Sherman tells me his friend Tufflady is a high level Player. This is her farm, so the enemies will be scaled to her level."

FLASH.

Aes turned, looking for the newcomer. All he could see was the rocks and boulders around them by the cave entrance.

Sherman reached out with a massive hand and patted one of the larger boulders. "Good to see you, old girl."

The boulder unfolded. "Heya, Sherman" rumbled Tufflady. A smaller rock at the top of her, with two pinpoints of orange light roughly where eyes would be in a head, swiveled to take in Aes and Darla. "Howdy Aes, Darla. Team invites coming up."

Aes found he was staring. A living rock? He closed his mouth.

He noticed there was no roster showing in his visual field. Darla had told him she would be dissolving their team so they could join Tufflady's team; apparently only Players on her team could enter her farming mission.

When the invitation appeared before him, he touched the 'Yes' and a new roster appeared on his left with Tufflady's portrait at the top framed in gold. Sherman's appeared below her, followed by Darla's and his own, then two others he didn't recognize.

"Nuclear Flame and QuickStone are coming to help out with debuffs and holds," said Tufflady. "Are you sure Sam and Rita are going to be online? Their invites bounced."

"I don't know," Darla admitted. "I thought they were, but they might be running late."

"Well, I've set their invites to stay open. They can join us if they come later. Let's get cracking. Aes, has anyone run you through a high level farm before?"

"No," said Aes. "Thank you for inviting me."

"No worries," said Tufflady. "Here's the drill. As soon as Flame and Stone get here we all go into the door. You three hang way back; this is a level 48 mission and the Kindred in there can kill any of you with a single attack. No one is getting one-shotted on my watch."

"I'll try not to be brave," Aes said, smiling.

"Damn straight," said Tufflady. "In fact, you could stay just inside the door. Since this is an instance mish, you'll get XP no matter where you are in the cave. Course that way you won't see much, but so what?"

"Don't worry," Darla assured the rocky tank. "We'll stay way out of your way. You don't want to see what happens when Aes gets hurt. I know I don't."

"Graphic?" said Tufflady.

"Trust me," said Sherman. "His avatar is way too detailed for prime time. He bleeds all over his uniform. Sometimes a bone or two pokes through. It's not a pretty sight."

"Relax," the living boulder told Aes. "Once the action starts I will have their full attention."

"I can believe it," he said. "I'm glad you're on our side."

FLASH. FLASH.

Aes blinked at the double flash. Two more figures joined them by the door. One was a man in a red and yellow skintight suit like his own. The man gave off a faint orange glow and his hands seemed to be on fire. The other was a woman. Her suit was as disturbingly snug as Darla's; what little it concealed, it implied. Aes had to force himself to look at her face as he greeted her.

Greetings all around followed, then Tufflady said "Let's go," and opened the door. Remembering her instructions, Aes let all of the others go in before him. The door shut itself with an ominous click.

He found himself in the outer chamber of what must be an enormous cave. The walls here were dry, studded with outcroppings of blue and yellow crystals that glowed brightly enough to illuminate the interior without torches.

Proceeding along the tunnel behind the others, he bumped into Darla from behind. It was not an entirely unpleasant experience.

Halting, he peered over her shoulder. Ahead of the group were eight Kindred enemies lounging around near a bend in the tunnel. They looked like some kind of dark priests or cultists; their brown and gray hooded robes concealed all of them except the crimson pinpoints of their eyes...and clawlike hands so thin they could be skeletons.

"It's CLOBBERIN' TIME!" Tufflady roared, bounding forward.

Aes held back with Sherman and Darla. He had to smile at the way Sherman's hands clenched and unclenched; it was plain the tank was itching to get into the fight, even knowing it was out of his league.

Two of the Kindred threw knives with wavy blades at Tufflady. They bounced off her rocky skin as if they had struck the cave wall itself. Then she was on them, swinging fists that were living clubs. The two knife-throwers bounced off rocky walls and collapsed, vanquished. The other six Kindred jumped at her.

Aes checked the team roster. Tufflady's heath line was so green he couldn't even tell if she had taken any damage. He now recognized the little symbols beside each portrait as numbers, indicating the level of each Player's avatar. His was a 3; much lower than Sherman's 12 or Darla's 14.

Tufflady was a 50. So were Flame and Stone.

Darla had told him more about the game levels on the way to the cave door. Apparently it got harder and harder to level as you ascended; the XP you needed for each new level grew exponentially (a term that he now understood). If you kept going and reached level 50, you had reached the top, the 'level cap' and there was nowhere to go from there. From then on, according to her, you played for the sheer fun of it, or to seek preeminence in the Arena matches, or to help the lower levels.

Tufflady had downed another pair of her attackers. He checked her health again, saw it had dropped very slightly, and reminded himself not to send a heal. According to Darla, automated enemies went for the biggest perceived threat first. Once they locked on a danger like Tufflady or Sherman, only a bigger threat would pull the aggro from her. Sometimes healing your tank could do it.

"That's one of the biggest differences between PvE and PvP fighting, Aes," she had told him. "In PvP where all of the combatants are Players, not NPCs, the smart ones will usually crush the enemy's healer as soon as they can."

Tufflady's friends, less sturdy than her, now entered the battle. QuickStone raised her hands and sent a wave of rock at the melee that crashed over them like surf, knocking them off their feet and disorienting them. Nuclear Flame drew back his right hand and hurled a fireball that exploded among them, finishing off two and damaging the others so much that Tufflady began one-punching them, killing a Kindred with each swing and jab.

As the next to last enemy in the group fell, Aes found his feet leaving the cave floor. A familiar roaring chorus of sound and light crescendoed and exploded off him, momentarily dazzling Darla and Sherman as he leveled to 4. The three 50s charged around the bend in the tunnel.

"Why," he asked Darla, after his feet returned to the floor of the cave, "are they doing this for us...for me?"

"Because Heroes help other Heroes, Aes. You pay it forward by helping others as you have been helped, when you get a chance. They're one of the closest-knit communities on UNET."

As Sherman followed the other three, eager to watch the combat if nothing else, Aes stepped closer to her, forcing himself to look her in the eyes. "Listen," he began. "About earlier, when I talked about Epione, I didn't mean to–"

Darla put a finger up to his lips. "Shh," she said. "It's all right. I think I understand, a little. Don't worry about me. Let's concentrate on getting you ready to help deal with the Devourer."

"I can't just stay by the door," he told her. "If they're doing all this for us when it helps them naught, I should at least be witness to their efforts."

She smiled, making his heart beat a little faster. "Of course."

Quickly, the two of them jogged ahead to catch up with Sherman. The tunnel came to a Y. "Crap," remarked Darla. "Which way?"

"I think it's a little louder on the left side," he guessed. This turned out to be correct when they bumped into Sherman. In front of him, the tunnel widened out into a large chamber. In the center was an incongruous pyramid of steps built from greenish-gray stone. At the top of it a female sacrifice writhed in blue flames as the cultists stood around her on the top tier of steps. Two of the figures wore black robes embroidered with unpleasant designs in gold and scarlet thread.

It was a tall pyramid; Tufflady was still climbing up the steps, Flame and Stone following a dozen steps behind her.

Seeing the sacrificial victim, Aes tensed and began to move forward. Only Darla's hand on his arm could have stopped him. "Aes," she said softly, "try to remember that she's not real like you and me. Those are two level 50 bosses up there with the others. If you get their attention..." She didn't need to finish the thought. He forced himself to relax.

Tufflady had reached the top of the pyramid now. Without hesitation the living rock pile went for one of the bosses, swinging a punch that knocked the creep off the top of the pyramid; he (she?) fell over the far edge, temporarily lost from sight.

The other boss raised its hands, hurling a bolt of pure force that rocked Tufflady back slightly and destroyed a tenth of her health line. Aes clenched his jaw, forcing himself to watch without helping. He felt as useless as a the paint on a shield: a healer who could not even heal. He trembled with repressed frustration.

Tufflady ignored the minions and punched the second boss off the pyramid. "She's good," Darla commented. "Notice how she's using the pyramid to keep the bosses from ganging up on her?"

The first boss was climbing back up. His head came up over the edge of the top. He raised his hands to deliver an attack.

He never completed the move. Tufflady swung a massive leg and kicked him off the pyramid, turning to punch two of the minions while she waited for the second boss to reach the summit. Flame hurled a fireball into the group that exploded; embers bounced down the steps, augmenting temporarily the light in the cavern from glowing crystals and torches.

Tufflady punched two more of the minions, but the second boss had still not reappeared. What could be holding him up? Aes wondered.

He soon found out, when two bosses appeared on the summit. The second boss had adapted to Tufflady's tactics and waited for the first one to catch up so they could work together. Coming up to the summit from the left and right rear corners, they were too far apart for a melee fighter like Tufflady to attack both of them before they could launch their own attacks.

The bosses attacked. Another bolt of pure force nearly toppled her from the summit. The other boss made a complicated motion with its arms, and ice formed around Tufflady, freezing her inside a massive ice boulder. Unable to counterattack, the rocky tank was helpless.

Aes held his breath, agonized for Tufflady. But he had underestimated the teamwork of her friends. From half way up the steps, Nuclear Flame raised both arms and summoned a rain of little fireballs that began striking everywhere on the pyramid's top. They pummeled friend and foe alike, damaging the bosses and melting some of the ice block around Tufflady. QuickStone made a shoving motion, sending a wave of rock that swept over the summit, damaging one boss, bowling the other off the pyramid, and smashing a filigree of cracks throughout the boulder of ice around Tufflady.

With an ear-splitting KRAK! The ice boulder exploded, raining chunks of ice in all directions that flew off in parabolas, some bits bouncing down the steps on all sides of the pyramid that were visible to him. In the center of the blast, Tufflady stood flexing her arms. She turned to her left, almost in slow motion, and brought two massive fists of rock together in a crushing move on the nearest boss's head. Despite himself, Aes flinched at the sound as the twin blow struck home. The defeated boss slumped, lifeless.

The other boss sent another bolt of force that struck her right side, knocking her health down to three quarters.

Tufflady just laughed with a sound like heavy boulders sliding across lava. "Hahaha is that the best you can do?" She moved toward the lone boss as Flame and Stone finished off the remaining minions.

Aes felt his feet leave the floor again. Once more, the energy built to a climax of pleasure and pain, then exploded off him in a burst of light in all directions as he leveled to 5.

After the last enemies in the cavern fell, Aes looked and saw Tufflady's health had dropped to slightly below three quarters of maximum. Seizing the opportunity, he ran to the foot of the stairs and stretched out his hand mentally to her shoulder. The wave of green fire swept her from toe to head. His power had grown; her health shot back up to full.

"Thanks, Aes, but you don't need to do that," she said.

"Actually, I do, even if you can probably manage without it," he replied. "If I'm not powerful enough to fight beside you, and it's too dangerous for me to heal you during battles, at least let me top off your health between fights. Forgive my arrogance, but it hurts to do nothing."

"Knock yourself out," she said cheerfully (which he assumed was not to be taken literally). "But very carefully! They are still more than 40 levels above you. There could have been one or more still here, out of your sight on the other side of the pyramid."

"You're right," he said, abashed. "Sorry."

"No harm done. Ready for more?"

"Damn straight!" said Sherman, who was near leveling again himself.

"All right," said Tufflady. "Let's get back to work."

Chapter 45: Am-heh: meet the Buddha on the road...and eat him

Victor's breath was coming in ragged gasps now, as Am-heh bounded after him, enjoying the man's terror. Am-heh's animal side was in its element now; if he'd had a tail it would have been wagging.

He would let the fool mortal seem to pull ahead by slacking off a little in his pursuit. Then, when Victor thought he might have lost his pursuer and stopped to try to catch his breath, Am-heh would rush out of the trees behind him growling, and let Victor get away by the barest of margins. Sometimes he snapped a fraction too late to close his jaws on the human; it was so worth it to see the burst of speed the terrified human rabbit could exert.

Strangely, Victor's exhaustion seemed to be independent of how far he ran between rest stops. Am-heh had no way of knowing that this was because Victor's body, lying on a link bed somewhere in the real world, was not exercising. His heart rate and blood pressure, nonetheless, were spiking from sheer terror. If Am-heh had but known that the man was near passing out from hyperventilation, not exhaustion, he might have laughed himself silly. Only the automatic safety monitors in the bed's remote diagnostics kept Victor from having an undeserved terror-induced heart attack.

But Am-heh was getting tired of this game; if Victor didn't reach the other humans Am-heh had smelled soon, he would simply eat him and proceed on, acquiring a new trans-Realm guide when necessary.

Loping along easily, Am-heh saw Victor break through the edge of the haunted forest and stagger into a wide clearing. A stream cleaved the clearing on one side; it was too small to be considered a river. In the middle of the clearing were several buildings such as the Devourer had never seen before.

The first thing he noticed was the absence of stone or mud brick as building materials. Back in Khem, stone had been the favorite building medium for temples because of its durability; mud brick was used for the comfort of the living, as stone was used for the 'houses of eternity'. Evidently there was a different set of criteria being applied in this place.

Fast on the heels of the no-stone surprise was the use of wood for construction. Back in Khem, where the fertile farmland stopped and the sterile sand began less than a dozen miles from the Nile on each side, it was forbidden to build on farmland, and trees were much rarer because they were inedible. Even the boats that plied the Nile tended to be built from papyrus stalks bound into thick bundles like thick locks of hair; the bundles were, themselves, tied together with vines and whatnot to make the rafts and boats.

There was no papyrus here, though, which was too bad. It was not only an excellent material for boats and rafts, it was an abundant emergency food source. In times of crop scarcity, the farmers of the Nile river banks could feed their children from the edible pith in the center of each stalk.

The buildings had a strange purity and simple beauty, an effect the builders had achieved with red wood in beams and pillars, supporting gracefully curved and tiled roofs like tents with upturned corners. Behind the buildings in the distance waved fields of crops unfamiliar to Am-heh. Small figures moved in them; closer examples wearing simple clothing and conical straw hats moved about the buildings, dipping wooden buckets into the stream and taking the water into the buildings or pouring it over tidy gardens.

As Victor paused, struck by the tranquil beauty of the scene, Am-heh leaped upon him and reacquired his upper right arm in a grip of iron.

Am-heh sniffed the air of this place. Just as when he had arrived in Aokigahara, there was no trace of the scent of the two-swords woman he had seen in Khem. He was looking forward to eating her.

They had not yet been seen. Am-heh dragged Victor back into the edge of the forest to speak with him in private.

"What should I say, in future time, to my guide if I wish to return to this place?" he asked the trembling man. "What is this world called?"

"I already told you," said Victor, avoiding the eyes of Am-heh. "It's called Aokigahara, the Sea of Trees."

"Do not lie to me," said Am-heh. "That was the name you gave for the forest. What is the name of the entire Realm, as Khem was the name of where I found you?"

"Japan," Victor blurted.

Am-heh analyzed his vocal stress and scanned his face minutely. The answer was at least mainly true, he judged.

"Listen carefully," said Am-heh. "You are going to call to the nearest human for help while we remain unseen. When we are finished with him, you will call the next one, and the next."

Victor's eyes bulged with fear and he swallowed nervously. "What are you going to do?" he asked.

"Eat them, of course," grinned Am-heh. "If I just strolled out there and attacked one in plain sight, the others might vanish like popping bubbles and scatter to other Realms. Tedious. This way is more efficient."

Something strange happened to Victor's expression. He closed his eyes, swallowed again, and then lifted them with an odd look of defiance. "No," he said.

Am-heh's eyes narrowed and his dog ears lay flat on his head. "Where is your respect for the gods and the mysteries of nature?" he growled.

Victor shook his head, and his eyes closed. He seemed unable to stop the trembling in his limbs, but his eyes were calm and defiant when he opened them to look at Am-heh again. "I said no. I won't be your bait, to lure more people into your jaws."

Insolent wretch! "Surely you realize," said Am-heh, "that defiance requires punishment. If you will not cooperate, then your time here is at an end."

"I don't care," said Victor stubbornly. "This is only a simulation. I can't believe I forgot that. And I won't waste time resurrecting. When I get logged out, I am going to see an attorney and sue to get your doggy ass removed from the active content. Count on it!"

Am-heh's irritation grew at this strange declaration. He wanted those souls out there, and he would have them! "I shall not repeat myself," he growled. He began to open his jaws. "Last chance, stupid mortal!"

Victor took a deep breath. "Do us all a favor," he said. "Go shove that ugly head up your own butt and keep going until you reach infinity."

And then, to Am-heh's astonishment, Victor raised his free arm and punched him in the nose.
Chapter 46: Darla: history lesson

Tufflady kept at it for a couple of hours. When they reached the ultimate boss room the first time, she led them all the way back out without attacking the boss, which Darla could tell was puzzling Aes. He didn't say anything though.

Tufflady reset the mission and they went in again. As soon as they went in and the Kindred were back near the bend in the tunnel, the wrinkles in Aes's forehead smoothed out; evidently he had figured out that there was a way to keep redoing the mission as long as they did not complete it.

He kept healing the team, when it was safe for him, after each cavern was cleared of enemies. They ran the farm mission over and over.

After a couple of hours, Tufflady led them back out and called a halt. "I have to get my kids bathed and put them to bed," she announced. "Let me know if you want to do this again sometime."

Aes didn't answer her. He had leveled up to 17, an amazing amount for such a relatively short time; from the slightly awkward expression on his face Darla guessed he didn't want to appear greedy even though she knew he had a long way to go before he could fight and heal alongside Tufflady. Sherman and Darla had leveled a few times too, but not nearly as much as Aes had. Because of the exponentially increasing XP requirements for each level, the two of them were up to 21 and 22. Nuclear Flame and QuickStone, of course, being 50s, had not leveled despite their participation.

"We will," Darla promised. "Thank you so much, Tufflady. It would have taken us forever to level him this far with our own missions."

"No worries," said Tufflady. "I do this all the time. Plenty of folks want to get into high level PvP and have trouble fitting all the leveling they need into their work schedules. Toodles." There was a flash and she was gone, just like that.

"Yeah, she's leveled up a lot of heroes, including me and Stone," Nuclear Flame volunteered. "You guys want to run some of our missions?"

"I'd love to," she told him. "But we're on East Coast time and I have to work in the morning. We'll see you again soon, I'm sure. Thanks for your help."

"No problem. Add us to your Friends list if you want." He turned to QuickStone. "Up for some more action tonight? I hear there's a breakout in progress at the Pen."

QuickStone smiled up at him. "For you, anything."

He arched his eyebrows. "Careful. I might hold you to that."

"You can hold me to anything you want, love," QuickStone said, taking his hand.

FLASH.

"So, you really have to sleep?" queried Sherman. "Don't forget to train, babe."

"I won't," she promised. "Aren't you tired?"

"Nah, I woke up a few hours ago. Race you to the trainer!" Sherman ignited his rocket boots and ascended into the sky on twin blue-white tongues of flame.

Darla caught Aes's eye and shook her head. "He's forgotten you don't have your travel power yet. At least you'll be safe on foot, now that you're stronger by a dozen levels. Let's go train."

Boomtown was hardly booming, she noted as they passed through the region on their way to the trainers. But it would have been boring if the entire Realm of Heroes had been hundred story skyscrapers and manicured parks.

"Why is it called 'Boomtown'?" Aes wanted to know.

"Usually, a boomtown is something that springs up around gold mines or something like that," she said, "but not this time. It's kind of a memorial to the people who died in the nuclear exchange that started the W3."

Immediately she regretted opening that can of worms. His curiosity was insatiable; soon after she tried to explain it, she gave up and just led him to the Pyongyang Crater. While he gazed, awestruck and aghast, at the radius of total destruction, the fused glassy remains of buildings and sand that a single ICBM had made, she tried to answer his questions.

"Someone did this deliberately?"

"Not exactly," she said. "The weapon was never supposed to detonate this close to ground level. It was supposed to be an air burst to maximize the EMP and so on. At least that's the official story: an antimissile near miss failed the barometric fuse, and it had to rely on the backup triggers. But yet, it was deliberate."

"Why? I've seen cities sacked and farms burned, but nothing like this. What kind of people think it is all right to do this?"

"Actually, machines made the decision," she told him. "The major nations had thousands of these weapons but held off using them because it would have wrecked the planet."

"Then what happened?"

She picked up a rock and flung it out over the edge; it bounced off the Trinitite-like lining of the Crater several times before it reached the bottom. "Smaller, angrier nations developed them too. They only had a few, but for a few minutes it looked like they were going to trigger automatic alliance launches that would have killed us all.

"That's when the military AIs stepped in. Apparently they ran the numbers and decided they could still stop it from escalating. They launched a few surgical strikes on the smaller countries that prevented any further rogue nations from launching."

"I don't understand," he said.

"Think of it this way. Suppose you have a patient with a tumor that will kill him. You can let that happen...or you can try to cut it out before it grows."

"No wonder Farker doesn't want to believe that I'm real," Aes remarked. "He lived through this," he said, pointing at the greenish bowl that had been most of a human city.

Darla dusted off her hands. "Enough sightseeing," she said. "Let's go pick you some powers." The first thing we have to do, she reminded herself, is get him a travel power. She had forgotten how depressing this part of the Realm of Heroes could be, when seen up close. If only they could have flown past it.

Chapter 47: Farker: of demons and dead ends

Farker was doing something he never believed he would be involved with. Two things, actually, he reminded himself, since he was still not telling his boss that he knew the PanGames users who weren't waking up had nothing to do with any alleged link bed malfunctions.

It had all started with that remark by Aes about making a 'soulcatcher'. He'd looked the word up, partly to see if there really was such a thing, and partly because Aes had suggested it.

The word was a Western invention for an amulet created by the shamans of Tsimshian tribe of old Alaska and British Columbia. Their word for the object was Haboolm Ksinaalgat which meant, literally, 'keeper of breath'. Evidently, the ancient association of the soul with the 'breath of life' was not confined to Indo-Europeans.

The Tsimshian shamans did not make such a device lightly. To start with, someone had to kill a bear. The bear's femur or leg bone was cleaned and its marrow removed. It was decorated at both ends with the likeness of a bear or land-otter, and in the middle with a humanoid face. The ends of it were plugged with shredded cedar bark.

The Tsimshian believed that when an illness could not be cured with ordinary herbalism, then it was due to either the loss of the soul, or the invasion of a malevolent spirit. In the first case, the shaman would go into trance and journey to the spirit world, where the soul may have wandered and gotten lost while dreaming, or by being lured out by witchcraft. The shaman would find the soul, suck it into the soulcatcher, and upon his return he would blow it back into the body of the patient.

This must have been what Aes had been referring to, that the quantum hypercomputer of the NCM had somehow sucked up his wandering soul from the spirit world after his death. It was an intriguing metaphor. The Tsimshian had used their fancy bone straw to suck up a soul; going beyond mere mechanical analogues, Farker could imagine that the quantum computational matrix of the hypercomputer was similar enough to the biological substrate of the microtubules to support connection to a hypothetical soul.

The second case was what had really interested him, however. When a malevolent spirit had invaded a person's body, causing mental or physical illness, the shaman used the soulcatcher to suck the bad spirit out of the patient. Farker had been unable to find out what they did with it after that. His guess was that they blew it out at an enemy, or at least back into the spirit world. It would hardly do to have a demon in your soulcatcher when you were blowing someone's soul back into them.

Whether or not he chose to believe in the idea that a soul could be caught by a quantum computer, it was easy to think of Am-heh as a malevolent entity, whatever his origins. Farker therefore interpreted Aes's comment as weaponry advice: they needed to make something to suck Am-heh out of the PanGames system.

If Am-heh was a soul, then Farker couldn't see using a piece of bear bone to remove him from the NCM; it would require a living nervous system. They couldn't just find a brain-dead body. Even without the legal and moral objections, it was simple fact that a link bed would never connect to a brain without detectable neural activity; falling asleep, for example, automatically logged you out of one. And who in their right mind would volunteer for demonic possession?

If, on the other hand, as Farker preferred to believe, Am-heh was just a piece of nasty code in a computer, then they needed an equivalent substrate to move him to, one where he couldn't hurt anybody or screw with working software.

This was easier said than done, however. Neither PanGames nor anyone else that he knew of had a 'spare' hypercomputer. Quantum computers were so powerful, so robust, that the subject of replacement units or redundant systems never came up. Corporate computing had come a long way since the days of rack-mounted server farms, where primitive chip-based processor consoles could be strung up like boxes on shelves.

To begin with, they were no longer primarily electronic devices. For data storage, ancient ferromagnetic hard drives had been replaced with holographic memory crystals for permanent storage, and photon-driven quantum cellular automata (QCA) and rewritable spintronic arrays for temporary storage and processing.

Hmm. Maybe he didn't need a whole computer for a soulcatcher. Maybe they could hook up some auxiliary storage and do some finagling to make it look like it was part of the main memory. If they could entice Am-heh into that, then cut the connection to the main system...Am-heh would be trapped. Then they could either dispose of it, or keep him around to study.

It was worth a try.

Chapter 48: Am-heh: the sound of one hand clapping

Being punched in the nose by Victor was painful for Am-heh, but he did not fail to note Victor's statement about what he would do when he got 'logged out'. The meaning was clear: either Victor intended to escape by moving to another Realm without Am-heh, or he believed that provoking Am-heh to devour him would trigger an escape. The rest of his sentence was a mystery; that part about 'deleting' Am-heh sounded like a threat, but what was 'active content'?

In any case, Am-heh did not waste time demonstrating the futility of these intentions. GROMP! Am-heh swallowed him whole.

Now he needed a new guide. There were plenty here; it was only a question of how many of them he wanted to eat before he moved on. He could, of course, just go swallow as many as he could lay his hands on. The thought of the two-swords woman made him pause, however. Alarm might cause the majority of them to flee to other Realms – to vanish right in front of him as she had.

As he pondered this, he edged cautiously around the cleared area, staying well hidden in the trees of Aokigahara. He was surprised by a sight both familiar and unfamiliar. One of the fields had been deliberately flooded! It was almost like the Nile's annual deluge – but this had been caused by diverting the stream's course; there was little mud delivered that he could see. Around the rectangular edge of this shallow pond a heaped ridge of dirt hemmed in the water to maximize the effect. A figure moved in the submerged field, bending and straightening. Intrigued, he moved closer.

The figure wore a gown, as the women of Khem did. But this was no slim and form-fitting sheath such as they wore. It was wide and loose, with wide sleeves, designed to cover but not enhance the human form. It was secured with a slim cord about the waist of its wearer, who was topped by one of the conical straw hats.

But what was this person doing out there in the water? In Khem, the Akhet, the Season of the Inundation, followed the Season of Harvest. It was a slack time for farmers – and not a good time to be in the fields on either side of the great river, since crocodiles could and did wander further inland at that time. Planting was something to do when the waters receded, in the Season of the Emergence, when the farmlands reappeared as the flood waters abated.

But this person (she, he realized, after looking more closely) was planting something. In one hand she was holding a thick bunch of stems with single leaves; she was inching sideways across the submerged field, in water up past her ankles, every foot or so she bent over and pushed one of the plants down into the water-covered earth. The line was almost perfectly straight; the spacing was just as uniform. As he watched, she reached the end of a row, where a bucket filled with more plants awaited her. It was almost as if she were weaving the field from water and seedlings.

Remarkable as the sight was, what he saw next dumbfounded him. When she reached the end of the row, and exhausted her supply of plants, she groped for the bucket without looking at it, found it, pulled out another bundle of seedlings, and reversed direction, beginning another row parallel to the one just completed. It was the groping that clued him in, even before she straightened at her closest point and he saw the cloth tied across her eyes: she was doing all this blindfolded, creating straight lines she could not see.

Am-heh forgot his hunger, forgot his impatience, forgot the other Immortal he was hunting, so entranced was he in watching this woman stitch her way across this square puddle, dotting lines without seeing. He was in awe of her patience and the serenity she seemed to radiate, the sheer simple elegance with which she performed this incomprehensible task of drowning her seedlings with mathematical precision.

He decided immediately that he would rather meet than eat her.

He was some distance from the odd-but-beautiful tent-like buildings now: he could barely make out the people near them. Perhaps he could approach her without raising a general alarm.

Bending over a little, so that his silhouette would resemble hers from a distance, he crept closer to this strange and wonderful artist. His feet entered the water, which was warm to his skin. He was careful to make no sound that might frighten her.

He came to within a few feet of her, when she abruptly stood, turned towards him, and spoke. "How long have you been watching me, and who are you?"

Am-heh was taken unawares, and shocked. She spoke the same 'English' that he had heard from Howard and Victor, and the other couples he had eaten in Khem. In this strange place. Was this where they all hailed from?

"How did you know I was watching?" he said, amazed. "I was quiet and my shadow is behind me."

"The sounds of a person walking are not random," she informed him. "Even in water, they stand out like a sore thumb. Especially to me. I do not need to see your shadow, and I have been blind for many years, anyway."

Astounding! "Then why do you wear cloth across your eyes?"

"To remind the others, who might forget and expect me to walk around them. I do it out of courtesy, as I answer your questions," she said. "But you have not answered mine."

Am-heh was impressed. She neither insulted nor evaded. More than before, he was convinced that she was exceptional among her kind.

"My name is Am-heh," he told her. "I was watching you for a couple of hours, as your people reckon time."

"My people?" Her mouth smiled a little. She seemed amused. "Are you, then, from a different people? I am called Kemushi here."

"From farther away than you can imagine," he said.

The sightless band of cloth around her head appeared to study him. "You know nothing of my imagination," she said, evenly. "I was a physicist once; we imagine seven impossible things before breakfast. Humor me. Let me try to imagine it."

Am-heh found her manner disarming. On a whim he decided to answer her. "I was not born on this world," he informed her.

She did not laugh. "Are you saying you're an alien? That's an interesting back story, but it won't fit in with the therapeutic roleplay of the other patients."

"I know nothing of roleplay or therapeutic or patients," he said. "Tell me, why do you do this ritual drowning of plants? Does it have some religious significance? A sacrifice, perhaps?"

She tilted her head. "Your voice is strange," she remarked. "I am not drowning anything. I am planting rice. It can live with its roots submerged, so the field is flooded to prevent weeds and vermin from hindering the early growth."

"A clever idea," he remarked. "Did you invent this practice?"

She shook her head. "No, it has been done for thousands of years. You must not be from here, or you would know that. I wish I could see your face."

"It's not really my face," he told her. "I was given this form when I arrived here. My original form, before I Transcended, was very different from those of this planet. But that was very long ago."

"Your answers only lead to more questions," she remarked. "Is there any proof you can offer of your origin, something you can do that I can't?"

"Yes," he admitted. "But I don't think you would like it." Truly, he had no wish to end this conversation so abruptly. The woman was a fascinating mystery.

As they spoke, she stepped out of the square puddle of a field and slipped her feet into a pair of sandals. They were fashioned of wood, thicker than one of Am-heh's fingers, and had two thick sideways wooden ridges on their bottoms. Gazing at them, he finally realized that this seemingly clumsy design was a functional one: her feet would be elevated from puddles and snow as she walked.

"Tell me more," she said. "Tell me of your home world. I know a little about planets."

"It doesn't exist anymore. Our sun, Aton, was large and blue. We were fortunate to arise on its fourth planet and Transcend before he exploded with remarkable violence."

"That is consistent," she mused. "Blue giants burn through their fuel quickly and go supernova in less than a billion years. You must have evolved quickly, from the extra radiation. How did you survive? Had you already colonized another star system?"

"No," he said. "We had left our bodies behind by then." He was enjoying this conversation, he discovered. She was only a mortal, but better educated than most. Her questions were as interesting as her answers.

"Why are you here?" she asked. "Your story is interesting, but I've the feeling that you haven't come to join our community."

"No, I won't be staying long. I'm on a mission. There is another intruder here, of different origin. "I am hunting him, but he is somewhere else."

"Ah so desu ka," she remarked cryptically. "I see, metaphorically speaking. The game's in play, with Earth the prize for which you contend. Is this not so?"

The hairs rose on the back of Am-heh's neck. "How could you possibly know that?" he demanded, a little more forcefully than he intended.

"Something a friend told me," she replied. "Apparently, I have been waiting for you to bring me out of my shell. Or so he believed."

What was this? Had she met his quarry? "I do not understand," he told her. "I see no shell. Why should I bring you out, and to where?"

"Oh, I'll take care of that," she said. "If you are who you say you are, you know little of this place. You need a guide, and I need to go forth in search of my family, who he says still live. We are apparently destined to help each other. The sound of one hand clapping."

"The sound of what?" What was she talking about?

"Here," she said. "Give me your hand."

Mystified, Am-heh reached out and gingerly took her hand in his.

The woman positioned his hand straight out from his body, palm facing to the side. "It's an old riddle, asked to help students gain insight. There is no one answer, just various versions." She struck her own palms together. "That is the sound of two hands clapping," she said.

Then she held out one of her hands and struck it lightly against his, making a similar sound. "And that," she said, "is my version of the sound of one hand clapping."

"But that was two hands," he protested.

"Yes," she agreed. "But only one of mine...and one of yours. Each of us made the sound with one hand."

Chapter 49: Aes: powering up

Darla led him through Boomtown to the place she called Hero Plaza. It was a busy spot; throngs of avatars made a spectacle of it, their costumed bodies milling about, waiting their turn to ascend the steps to a trio of figures whom she called Trainers.

As they waited, Darla advised him on his choices. "The first thing you need," she said, "is a travel power. I always take Flight instead of the other options."

"Why?"

"Well, with Leaping you take off fast, but you have to come down, sometimes too near a group of enemies. Teleport is short-range, so you have to keep activating it to cover any distance, which gets old after a while. That's why I like Flight. You can stay out of reach in the air and only come down when you want to, so it's handy for recovering after a fight without getting attacked by the enemies on foot."

He absorbed this patiently. "All right. After Flight, what should I ask for?"

"Make sure you have Resurrect, too. If one of us gets killed but not eaten, you can always bring them back to full health with that."

"Flight and Resurrect," he repeated. "And then?"

"After that, you need a couple of ranged attacks," she advised. "If anything happens to me or Sherman you need to be able to do more than just heal yourself. The best defense is a good offense, they say."

"Flight, Resurrect, and ranged attacks," he agreed. "What are you going to get?"

"More attacks and a minor heal, if it'll let me," she said. "After all, who's going to keep you healthy if you forget to heal yourself?"

It was finally their turn. Aes stepped up and faced the Trainer on the left of the three, while Darla went to the one in the middle. The NPC he faced was a man in a metal suit with a metal mask. "Hello?" said Aes.

"Hello, Asklepios!" the metal suit said, startling him. "Congratulations on reaching level 17. Time for you to pick some new powers."

"I need a travel power."

A list of words appeared before him in the air:

Πέτομαι (Fly)

σκιρτάω (Leap)

Τηλεθύρα (Teleport)

He reached out and touched the first one. An invisible bell sounded and the list vanished.

"You have selected Fly," the metal man said cheerfully. "I see that so far you have Ranged Heal and Self Heal and Fly. What would you like to pick next?"

"I need a Resurrect power," he told the man in metal. This time only one choice appeared.

Ἀνάστασις (Resurrection)

He touched the word and it disappeared.

"I see that you have Ranged Heal, Self Heal, Fly, And Resurrection." The Trainer said. "Would you like something else? You are entitled to pick four more powers."

"Show me the choices for ranged attacks."

A long list of glowing words appeared in the air. Aes regarded it uneasily. So many choices! But there were people behind him waiting their turn. He selected Firebolt and Forcebolt; he wasn't sure what the second was, but they both sounded like missiles.

Before taking anything else, he asked the Trainer about powers that hold or immobilize enemies. To his disgust, he learned that Darla was correct: he was not allowed any in that category.

This is taking too long, he thought. The people behind me must be getting impatient. Calling up a list of Support powers he found Summon Friend, something he remembered her mentioning. But what to take for his remaining choice? He couldn't decide, so he left it unchosen and stepped off the plinth.

He scanned the platform and the area around it for Darla, but failed to locate her. Had she needed to return to her real world to sleep?

"Up here, silly," her voice called.

Startled, he craned his neck to see her. She was floating in the air about twenty feet up, her body hanging in the air vertically as if she were suspended by invisible ropes. A faint breeze from her position rifled the locks on his forehead.

Well, he thought, I should be able to do that too, now. But how? "How do I activate Flight?" he asked her.

"It's like your heals, Aes," she told him. "You'll have to come up with your own gesture for the power."

After experimenting, he found that forcefully thinking the word petomai or 'fly' did the trick. Rising was as easy as moving in any other direction, once the power activated. He merely had to 'lean' mentally in the direction he wanted to move, to pick up speed. When he stopped leaning he coasted to a stop and hovered. He soared along with Darla, learning to pivot and make banking turns like a seagull. It was a godlike feeling, flying.

"Now it's time you learned Death From Above," Darla said, flying alongside him.

"That sounds bad," he said.

"Not if you're the one dealing it out," she laughed. "Come on."

She led him across the sky back to Boomtown and found a couple of knife-wielding Jerx robbing a young woman. Following her instructions, Aes hovered ten or fifteen feet over the head of them, a few feet away from her floating form.

She drew back her right arm and threw her knife at one. It missed, but got his attention. The two Jerx forgot about the woman, who turned and ran for safety while they started jumping at Aes and Darla. But try as they might, they couldn't jump high enough to slash or stab her.

"This won't work as well on the ones with ranged powers like guns," she told him. "But for knives or clubs it's sweet. Try one of your ranged attacks."

Forcebolt! he thought, extending his right arm in a punching motion toward one of the Jerx below. A sparkling verdant beam erupted from his fist and smashed into the ruffian, knocking him off his feet.

"Good choice," she remarked. "That one often gives you a couple of seconds to heal yourself or attack again if it knocks them down...which it often does. What else do you have?"

Firebolt, he thought, punching at the Jerx with his left hand as the fallen thug scrambled to his feet. A whooshing hiss like a thrown torch sounded as green flames erupted in a concentrated beam that struck the Jerx and set his clothes on fire. The bandit cried out in pain and dropped to the ground, rolling to put the emerald flames out.

"Another good one," she approved. "But why green fire? Are all your powers green?"

"I don't know," he confessed. "Maybe it's a healer thing." He pondered it, and added "Or maybe because it's my favorite color – the color of grass and bushes."

"As long as it works. What else did you pick?"

"Resurrection," he said. "And Summon Friend. I think you mentioned they go well together."

"All good choices for your archetype," she agreed. "Let's finish these guys off and get you some more practice, until you can use your powers without hardly thinking."
Chapter 50: Kemushi: abandonment issues

"I can't believe you're acting this way," she said.

"I just don't think you're ready," Dr. Wu's voice replied. "Why now? What's so special about today?"

They were in his office, the smallest of the buildings in the Enclave, set apart from the others for privacy. She could tell it from the others by the different note her clogs made on his steps.

Am-heh waited for her at the edge of the forest. He'd seemed surprised that she was uncertain how to leave the Realm without logging out.

"Don't you see the irony?" she asked Wu. "For years you've been trying to push me into leaving, into socializing more. And now that I finally want to, you aren't supportive! It sounds for once like I'm not the one with abandonment issues."

Wu's chair scraped the floor as he stood up. His footsteps became fainter and stronger, then fainter again: he was pacing.

At last she heard him exhale. "You're right, Woolly Bear," he admitted. "Maybe I never expected you to change your mind about it." His chair squeaked as he sat down again. "But it's just not convenient for me to go exploring with you right now. Akira's therapy is reaching a crucial stage, and I need to be here for her."

"I wasn't expecting you to accompany me," she told him.

Squeak! went the chair, followed by the sounds of more pacing. "You're right, of course, that I want you to climb out of this cocoon, Kemushi," his voice said. "But leaving by yourself? It's out of the question!"

"Doctor Wu," she said, forcing herself to remain calm, "are you my therapist...or my jailer? Is this a therapeutic setting you expect me to leave, or is it a padded cell, and all the talk about leaving was just that – talk? I am a voluntary patient, after all."

She kept her hands folded in her lap by sheer willpower. I will not clench my fists, or give him any excuse for saying I am out of control, she thought.

When he didn't answer her, she sighed. "I wasn't planning on going by myself," she said.

"Is it one of the other patients? Because if it is–"

"No," she said. "I'll find someone else."

"Your imaginary Hermit? The Eternal Man, Tsuneo?"

"He agrees that I should go," she admitted, "but he won't go with me. He is too reclusive to consider it."

"Because he doesn't exist. Just wait a week or two," he begged. "After I get Akira through this phase, I can get one of my assistants to step in–"

"No," she said, firmly. "It's now or never. I swear to you, if you don't let me go, I will stop cooperating with you completely! If my doctor has become my warden, I shall rot in this cell until my old link bed finally malfunctions. Then I'll die and escape from you that way. We both know you can't force me, and you can't risk using electroshock again."

She felt a little guilty about playing the malfunction card, preying on his fears of losing his oldest patient. But she gritted her teeth mentally and told herself to stay strong. It's my life! she thought.

More sounds of pacing. "I don't like it," he grumbled. "You're really putting me in a bind here. Either way you could get hurt. This is a safe, controlled environment for you. It's not the same in other Realms. So many risks. And if that happens, if I lose you..."

His voice faltered, then resumed. "Even if I survive that, emotionally, it could finish me here. If the Directors decided I was at fault, I could be dismissed from the Institute. Then I'd lose not only my chance to help you, but all my other patients as well."

He's a good man, she thought, but reverse transference has set in. Rather than me becoming emotionally dependent on him, it's the other way round. Deliberately, she softened her voice. "It will be all right, Dr. Wu. I'm not leaving to hurt myself, I promise."

"I'm prepared to believe that. But why now? What's different about now?"

Kemushi decided he was ready for some more truth; it was time to drop the big one. "Because my vision has begun to come back," she said. "I wasn't planning on relying on voice menus."

The sounds of pacing halted. "What? When? Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. I didn't want to tell you until I knew the trend would continue," she told him. "I didn't want you getting worked up and pushing for more, if it turned out to be nothing."

Squeak! went the chair as he seated himself again. "This, I want to believe," he said after a pause.

Kemushi reached up and untied her blindfold, refusing to allow the fear to prevent her. This is silly, her inner physicist said. I know there are no photons here. It's a computer simulation feeding directly into my awareness. How could a piece of imaginary cloth block imaginary light?

But of course it could. The computer doing the simulation knows whether you think your eyes are covered or not. Just as it knows if you have lit an imaginary candle. This has to work.

The darkness in her mind lightened a little. She could see, a little at least. She was certain it would improve.

She looked about his little office. "Your candle is nearly used up," she said. "You need to light another one, or tell the system to stop being so realistic and let it last longer."

She turned her head and looked at Dr. Wu. "You have more hair than I remember. Either you've tweaked your avatar out of vanity, or the likeness is accurate and you finally broke down and accepted scalp regeneration treatments."

Her vision was still fuzzy, but clear enough to see he was gaping at her. "Proof enough for you? Or do you want to ask 'how many fingers' to make sure?"

Wu turned his head away, but not before she caught a flash of reflection from his cheek. Was he crying? "Give me three days," she said quietly. "Three days to look for my family. If I can't find them by then, I'll come back and cooperate with your therapy, I promise."

"And if you do?"

"Then I'll still come back," she said. "'I'll log out of here, sit up, and pull the tubes out of my own body. You'll take credit for curing your hardest case...and I'll start living in the real world again. Because I'll have something to live for."

Chapter 51: Darla: learning when not to heal

Darla could feel herself weakening. Out in the real world, her body was getting tired. After she was sure Aes was getting comfortable with most of his new powers, there was still one more thing to do before she said goodnight.

"Aes," she said, landing on a rooftop in Boomtown, "I need to log and sleep soon, but there's something I need you to do for me. It's not going to be easy, and you won't like it."

He coasted to a stop and released his flight to drop neatly on his feet, crunching to rest beside her on the shingles. "That sounds ominous," he remarked. "But if it is important to you, I can do it."

"It is," she told him. "The only way you can practice your rez power is if you let me die first." He started to open his mouth but she held up a hand to interrupt him. "Hang on. You know this is not my real body, right? All of Snarky's bullets never made a single wound."

"Yes," he said. "It is hard to grasp, but I get it."

"Let me tell you how this is going to work," she said. "There is a group of Jerx down on the street that are my level. I'm going to go get their attention and then just stand there, while they kill my avatar. It shouldn't take too long, but I need you to watch without interfering. If you heal me, you won't get to practice rezzing me. Understand?"

"You're right," he said grimly. "It won't be easy, and I won't like it."

"That's okay. I'll be talking to you the whole time so you'll know I'm actually all right. When my avatar's dead, I'll tell you what to do next. Ready? Here I go."

Leading him to the edge of the roof so he could see the gang of Jerx, she reached out and patted his cheek, then jumped off the roof. It was only a three story building, but enough to drop her health by ten percent when she hit the sidewalk. It was a start, she thought.

The Jerx were only a few yards away. "Hey, morons!" she yelled, tossing her dagger into one. As one, they turned and charged her.

This was the hard part, she knew. Aes was a good healer, so his instinct would be to heal her as soon as she started getting hurt. But that would be counterproductive. He simply had to tough it out and only watch...or she would have to do this all over again.

She had picked this group because one of them was a nameless boss. As the others whipped out handguns and began popping away at her, missing too much, the boss reached behind him and drew a shotgun. BLAM! The blast knocked her off her feet and erased another forty percent of her avatar's health.

Still nothing from Aes. Good. She almost smiled as she climbed back to her feet: she was feeling nothing but the shock of impact, whereas he was probably agonizing at the sight of it. "Is that all you got?" she taunted. Then she waved up at Aes. "This won't take long, Aes. Don't worry."

More popping from the minions; she took bullets in her right leg and her gut. Health down to thirty percent now. "What's the matter boss? Are you out of ammo?" she jeered at the one with the shotgun, throwing a knife at him that missed.

BLAM! Another blast from the leader's shotgun slammed into her. Her avatar's legs gave out and she pitched on her face. Almost there.

"A few seconds more, Aes," she called, knowing he could hear her on the Team audio channel. This time she didn't bother to get up. Staring into the concrete from an inch away, she heard a couple more pops from the handguns. Her health went to zero and stayed there.

"Okay, Aes," she said. "Can you still hear me?"

"Yes," he answered. His voice was under tight control. "That was hard to watch all right."

"You did fine. The really hard part is over now. Are you okay?"

"I am if you are," came his answer.

"Right. Now it's time to bring me to you. In a real team battle, if you rezzed me where I am now, they'd just shoot me again. You need to teleport me to you first. Time to learn how to use your Summon Friend power. Concentrate on my avatar and see if you can get it to work."

"How do I do that?"

"It's like the other powers," she reminded him. "You have to associate a unique gesture or whatever with it. If this happens in a real fight, you need to do it as soon as possible. This time, however, there's no rush. Take your time; I need to sleep soon, but I'll stay awake until we get this solidified."

She settled herself in to wait. There was no way to help him with this. She couldn't even see what he was doing.

While she waited, she thought about Am-heh. Was he still in the Realm of Bushido? Either he was...or Farker had forgotten to tell them he'd left it. She wondered if they were going to have trouble tracking the Devourer down. You'd think all they'd have to do was follow a trail of bodies...except there'd be no trail, since he swallowed them.

"This is hard," Aes complained. "I'm thinking 'Summon Friend' but nothing's happening. I don't know where to start."

"You'll get it," she assured him. "I forgot how tricky these games can be for beginners. What's going to happen is, my avatar's body will disappear like a popped bubble and appear lying on the roof next to you in a flash of light. Thinking the name of the power won't be enough, though, or it could happen when you are just talking about your powers." She paused, thinking. "Try to imagine reaching out as if you were doing a ranged heal, but instead of thinking 'be healed', imagine you are grabbing my body and pulling it through an invisible tunnel to you while you think 'Summon Friend'; that might do it."

She waited. An inch away, too close to focus on, an imaginary ant crawled past her on the sidewalk.

FLASH.

The sidewalk turned into shingles. "You did it!" she said. "Good job. Now do almost the same thing as a heal, except imagine me rising up to stand on my feet."

"Ἀνάστασις" he said.

Emerald flames mushroomed around her. Without trying, her body rose into the air and settled to its feet on the roof. The harmless flames died away.

She turned to face him. "That's it," she told him. "Now you're the complete package. You can fly, heal others, heal yourself, pull people out of danger and bring them back to health. Let's go back to Pelion and say goodnight before I zonk out."

Aes reached out his hand for transport, as he was used to. She was about to take it in hers, when a thought struck her.

"Hold on," she said. "One more thing we need to try. Let's get you access to inter-Realm travel in case you need to go and I'm not with you." She whispered in his ear. "Say that," she directed. "If it's paying attention, it should work, even without the menus."

"Finder," said Aes, "Take me to Realm of Legends."

FLASH.

He was standing by the cave again. But he was alone. It was a personal transport, he realized. Only someone he was touching when he commanded it would arrive with him.

FLASH.

Darla appeared in front of him. "Now, you're the complete package," she said, smiling. "You can go where you want, and make a quick getaway if you're in trouble. It'll probably work for you if you just think 'take me to Realm of Heroes' or whatever, instead of saying it out loud. It does for me. Just don't go to Realm of Bushido without me, okay?"

"I won't," he promised. "Get some sleep. I'll be okay."

On impulse, she took his head in her hands and kissed him. He was surprised, she felt, but he did not break away. Instead, he let his arms go around her as if it was the most natural thing in the world. The kiss ended up lasting a bit longer than she had thought.

"Wow," she said, when they finally broke the kiss. "I was wrong twice. Now you're the complete package. And your package works, evidently."

He was actually blushing! She stepped back, grinning, as he straightened his chiton. "I'll see you soon, hero," she said, and went back to Realm of Heroes before she logged out of the system.

Chapter 52: Am-heh: don't pay the Ferryman

Am-heh crouched under the edge of Aokigahara, the Sea of Trees, waiting for the woman. He hoped she could find them a Realm with many mortals in it. He was hungry for souls, and the power they would give him to vanquish the other immortal.

He heard the creak of a door. She was coming out. Rising to go meet her, he felt the pulse of his strange body quicken. She would be an interesting traveling companion. But what was this? She had turned. She was marching directly toward him!

Am-heh frowned. The woman had told him she was blind. This did not fit at all. Not at all. He hated surprises. They were often dangerous.

As she drew nearer, he could hear her counting, and relaxed. She had memorized her route to the house, and was retracing her steps in reverse. That was all.

Nearly to the trees, she pulled off her conical hat and tossed it away. Now here was a surprise: her hair was different from the others. It was golden. Sure enough, she was wearing the cloth blindfold.

"Sorry that took so long," she said. "Doctor Wu has gotten very attached to me, I'm afraid. I had to convince him I was ready to go exploring without him."

"I was wondering if you had changed your mind," he said, wondering what could convince a healer to let a blind woman go out into the unknown without an escort. She must be resourceful, he thought.

"Are you ready to go?" she asked. "Let's do this quickly, like a band-aid, before Wu changes his mind and calls me back. Give me your hand." She reached out. "Hmm. We have to do something about those nails."

FLASH.

The Sea of Trees disappeared. The brilliance of the Realm transition faded and they found themselves on a wooden dock. The screams of seagulls pierced the morning breeze that was whipping up little whitecaps on the swell of the harbor.

"Where are we?" Am-heh asked her, forgetting that she was blind. But she wasn't, not now: her eyes were uncovered and open. A deception revealed? Or an effect of the transition? He wondered.

Kemushi scanned their surroundings. "Portsmouth, in Britannia," she said. "England," she added, answering the question she saw on his face.

"The home of the English? Are you sure?"

"Quite sure. I was born a few kilometers from here, at Southwick," she said. "Don't let Wu's nickname fool you. I love the Japanese, but I'm a Brit through and through."

An arresting sight out in the water snagged his gaze. Am-heh lifted a hand to point at it. "What is..." He stopped, staring at the hand. His claws were gone! The hand was pink, with trimmed nails that would be useless in any fight.

The hand emerged from a tube of dark blue cloth. He was no longer clothed only in his fur. He looked down at himself. A starkly white shirt penned in by a dark brown waistcoat and knee-length frock coat ended in light brown trousers that enclosed his legs all the way down to buckled shoes.

Baffled by this transformation, he turned back to Kemushi. Her kimono and wooden clogs were gone, replaced by a high-breasted cream-colored dress that gathered under her breasts, emphasizing them disturbingly, before dropping to narrow shoes that would be little help in snow or rain puddles. Her golden hair was drawn back in a loose bun that managed to permit stray curls to fall upon her forehead. Her left hand was gripping a small tan handbag.

"Why do we look different?" he asked her. "Is this your doing?"

"Hah!" she laughed. "Do I look like a tailor? It's the reformatting. Haven't you ever done a Realm transition before?"

"Yes," he answered, frowning. "Victor brought me from Khem to Japan. But he never mentioned that your teleportation would cause a change in structure. Very dangerous! For a pre-Transcension species your people are inventive, but reckless."

"Oh good grief! There's no danger, since we're not really here."

His eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, not really here? Of course we're here, or we would see nothing."

She rolled her eyes. "Sometimes you take your roleplay way too seriously, has anyone told you that? Personally, I'm not one for fancy dress, but I think it's done you a world of good." She reached into her handbag and offered him a mirror. "Here, see for yourself."

Apprehensively, he snatched the mirror and held it up before his face. He was aghast at what he saw! His handsome brown snout and sharp fangs had vanished, replaced by a tiny pink nose set above a mouth filled with pathetic little things that could barely be called teeth. The fur on his face had shriveled to sideburns that barely covered his cheeks. He barely noticed the hat, slightly conical, but not pointed.

"Arrgh! I'm hideous!" He wanted to howl his dismay, but was afraid to learn what had happened to his voice.

"You're fine," she assured him. "It's better this way. You'd attract too much attention walking about with a hound's head, anyway. Think about it."

"I don't care!" he snarled, although he knew she was right about blending in while hunting. "I want my own face back!"

"Relax," she said. "Nothing's lost. Whenever you go back to Khem, the computer will reset your avatar back to the original." She plucked the mirror from his manicured fingers and replaced it in her handbag. "What were you pointing at when you got distracted?"

For a moment he was unable to answer, caught up in the mystery of her 'avatar' and 'computer' remark. The word avatar was straightforward: the incarnation of a god. But he had a hard time relating it to the word computer, which appeared to mean something or someone that performed calculations.

He had the feeling this was something important. Perhaps, too important to ask about directly...and reveal his ignorance. With an effort of will, he relaxed his frown and lifted his hand again. "I was wondering what that is," he said.

She looked out over the water. "Oh, that. It's HMS Victory. You know, Nelson's flagship. We're in the Empire or the Regency period, I'm not sure which. I never was very good at History, I'm afraid; my specialty is Physics."

Only a titanic effort kept him from howling when he heard her words. Had they moved in Time as well as space? Could even a primitive, pre-Transcendent species be smart enough to develop time travel...and at the same time be stupid enough to risk random alterations of their own history? He was shocked speechless.

"How..." he began, then swallowed and groped for calm. "How can you know its name when by your own admission you don't even know what part of history we are in?"

She looked at him strangely. "You are odd," she said. "I know I'm no historian, but what kind of Brit would I be, if I didn't even recognize the Nelson Chequer?"

"The what?" He was lost again, adrift in a sea of strange words.

She gestured at the huge wooden object, striped with alternating bands of black and yellow that paralleled the waterline. "See the black squares in the yellow stripes? Those are gun ports for the cannons to shoot out of. They were originally painted yellow, to blend in with the yellow stripes on the ship's hull. That made it harder for enemies to count the guns she was carrying."

Ah. So he was looking at a vessel. The Children of Nuit no longer needed such things. And it was a warship. "Concealing one's weapons is wise," he agreed. "But you say they were repainted?"

"Admiral Nelson did that," she said. "He directed all ships under his command to paint the gun ports black, so that they would be easy to recognize. It also had the effect of making his ships more intimidating; from a distance, it always looked like the ports were open and ready to fire. Other navies of the period imitated it, even the Americans."

"I understand, I think," he said. "But why is it called the Nelson Chequer?"

"Now you're just jerking me around," she said, frowning. "Black and yellow squares. Classic checkerboard pattern." She shook her head. "Your roleplay's getting on my nerves," she told him. "Make believe is all very well, I suppose, but it gets tiring, telling you things you already know."

Am-heh scowled at her. "I don't understand. I already told you I'm not from your planet. How could I possibly know all these details?" He was losing his temper, he realized, but at the moment he just didn't care. She was maddening! "Especially when you can move us around in space and time! How can your race be so advanced and so...so stupid at the same time?"

Now she scowled. "Maybe we should go back to the Enclave, after all," she said. "I think you need some time with Wu. If you can't stop roleplaying, not even for a second, you're going to drive me crazy. I thought you were looking for someone. That's what you said, remember? But this alien act is just getting too old for me. You have to get real, or I can't handle it."

Am-heh opened his mouth, then closed it again. His head was pounding and his hands clenched into fists. He was this close to simply Devouring her. But he sensed that he was on the verge of learning something important...or throwing the chance away. There was a mystery in her attitude. It was not insanity, and it concealed something very different about her people and her world.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to relax. He opened his eyes. "Let me explain something to you," he said, letting the words come out almost as a sigh. He took another breath. "I am not roleplaying, whatever that is. I never have. I don't even know how. When I ask you something about your world, or your species, or your language or your history, it's because...I...do...not...know! Take a moment and try to believe that. Because what you're doing, assuming that I am lying, not believing anything I say, that is driving me crazy, as you put it."

He closed his mouth and watched her thinking about what he had said. The next few seconds would determine whether her usefulness to him was at an end.
Chapter 53: Kemushi: the three-sided coin

She didn't answer him immediately. Her mind whirled. Could he be telling the truth, about being an alien? It seemed unlikely. As a scientist, she had always assumed that first contact with extraterrestrial life would happen either by them entering our solar system...or us visiting them. It couldn't happen in a dream; it would be indistinguishable from wish-fulfillment, mere fantasy.

But what about meeting in the space of experience? As a physicist she knew many ways of describing reality, all equally valid. To the mathematically-minded, a dimension was simply a parameter you used to measure or describe events. It didn't have to be a coordinate in 'real' space like (x,y,z) in 3D space. It could also be temperature, or an angle of rotation, or even pressure, such as in 3D gas phase diagrams that showed all the possible combinations of pressure, volume, and temperature for a given quantity of water or helium or whatever. In statistics, political consultants often spoke of the conservative-liberal 'axis', the income axis, and the education axis, all of which could be used to describe the mental 'position' of a potential voter or candidate for office.

In her own subfield, Heisenberg's uncertainty relation could be expressed in terms of position and linear momentum. It could also be expressed in terms of angle and rotational momentum. Or even, as Einstein pointed out, in terms of energy content and the time it takes to measure it. That last one was particularly important to her. It was used routinely by physicists to estimate the range (or lifetime) of virtual 'messenger' particles; once you knew how much energy had to be 'borrowed' to create them, you knew how far they could travel before they had to disappear again when the loan came due.

All of this flashed through her mind in a second. He was still staring at her, waiting. "Hold on," she said. "I'm thinking about it."

All right. Suppose we came to a solar system with an inhabited planet, one with an advanced electronic and computational-based technology, and for some reason, never mind what, we could not simply land and say hello. We can't physically visit them...and they can't come to us, either. What would we do? Give up?

Or would we meet them in their electronic dreams?

Suppose they had virtual reality. Suppose that our own technology is so advanced that we can tap into theirs at will. If it was the only way to make contact, wouldn't we do it?

All right. What he was saying was not impossible. She could not actually rule it out. That meant there were at least three possible explanations for Am-heh's behavior:

One. He could be a human who was either pretending, or so crazy he did not even know he was pretending. Like she had been when Dr. Wu had first put her in his medical link bed. That seemed likely to her.

Two. He could be an AI, an artificial intelligence that had somehow infiltrated into PanGames and didn't know it was a simulation wandering inside a simulation. Like a dream within a dream. That seemed less likely, but she had been isolating herself a long time. Maybe they had finally created self-aware computers.

Three. He could be exactly what he said, an alien mind, deliberately or accidentally introduced into the system, who had no idea that it was a mere simulation. This also seemed unlikely, but it would explain his unfamiliarity with sailing ships and rice paddies.

Great. Now all she needed was a believable way to tell which one of the three cases she was dealing with. She almost laughed when she realized she was dealing with a classic issue in Quantum Mechanics: the measurement problem, or, as some put it, the issue of the collapse of the wave function.

Flip a coin. Let it fall on the floor and don't look at it. How did it land, heads-up, or heads-down? Heads or tails? Don't peek! Can you answer the question? The answer is both...until you look.

Until you look down and see the coin, you have to admit that you don't know which it is. The way physicists admit they don't know is to describe the coin as being in a 'mixed state', a mixture of heads and tails. Heads and tails are the two eigenfunctions of the measurement, the 'characteristic values'; they span all possibilities of the event (as long as we assume it has not managed to balance on its rim). You could write the set of possible results of looking as { heads, tails } or you could use 'bra and ket' notation and write the mixed state as

current state = |heads> \+ |tails>

Performing a measurement on the system by looking down at the coin cleaves the timeline into two futures, because once you look at it, the coin can no longer be in both states. It has to be one or the other if you can see it. Physics says you have 'collapsed' the wave function. One possibility is now 100% true and the other is now 0% true...or the other way around.

All right. For the question of Am-heh's state, there were three possible values; he was a 3-sided coin. All she had to do was figure out what to look for that would collapse his wave function of three possibilities into one and only one actuality for her.

Mentally she slapped herself. All this woolgathering! She was over-thinking the problem. All she had to do is find a way to tell the difference between a nutcase, an AI, and an alien. It's not a physics problem! It's a psychological problem. Think, Lizzie!

And then she had it. She opened her eyes.

"We need to talk about your childhood," she told him.

Chapter 54: Aes: an unexpected gift

The evening passed slowly for Aes on Pelion. Experimenting, he found that his flight power did not work here, in this simulation of Hellas. There were no imaginary superheroes here. For all intents and purposes, here he was only a ghost in the machine. One that could not fly.

He was starving again. He should have stopped in her park for some apples, he realized. He could just use the secret she had given him, but he wasn't sure where the park with the apple trees was. He didn't feel like wandering around fighting imaginary enemies. The real opponent was still out there, somewhere. He could sense its presence, but not which Realm it was infesting.

Firebolt still worked, he discovered, after gathering some more dead wood. Forcebolt worked, too, which was handy for breaking the larger branches into shorter pieces for his campfire.

He even got used to the fact that his campfire was now green. It was no stranger than all the other things he had come to accept.

But he was still hungry. He didn't want to venture too far from the cave, in case Darla, Cheiron, or Farker dropped by for a visit. He had found no fruit trees close by, however. He thought about trying to use Firebolt to knock a couple of birds down to eat, but most birds do not fly at night.

There was another possibility.

Climbing down to the shoreline with a burning branch, he managed to stun some barbounia for dinner. Then back up to the cave he went, and went forth with a couple of Cheiron's old jars to the nearby spring for fresh water, without which the red mullet might have been a thirsty business. He impaled the fish with stripped green branches and suspended them over the coals of the fire to cook.

One of Darla's throwing knives was still there on Cheiron's old herb-grinding rock; he needed no other cutlery. While he waited for the fish, he thought about the Other, about Am-heh.

Who or what had put Am-heh into PanGames? Was he an accident, snagged by one of Farker's soulcatchers like a fly in a spiderweb? Aes knew of no reason why his case should be unique. There could be other souls trapped in here in the various Realms. Maybe the only reason he could sense Am-heh's presence was the fact that they were so different from each other.

Come to think of it, why should they be so different, if they were both here? Did they have some attribute, some quality in common, to have both been caught here...and at practically the same time? If the soulcatcher caught souls at random, he reasoned, it was possible to get two at once, but much more likely to catch them months or years apart. According to Darla, PanGames had been operating for years now.

He wondered if Am-heh knew he was in a simulation. Did the Devourer of Millions feel love, awe, wonder, fear, as he himself did? Or did he know nothing except the hunt, and consuming his victims? It was tempting to see the enemy as contemptible, to hate him for his actions. Tempting, but wrong. It would be like hating a lion, or a storm. Neither of these is evil, even if they kill the ones you love. So the question was: was Am-heh evil?

The fish were ready. He removed them from above the coals and ate them, thinking of Darla. He was lucky to have a friend like her. Poor Am-heh probably had no one.

FLASH.

"I couldn't sleep," said Darla.

"Me neither," he told her. "It seems that I no longer do. Maybe Farker is right, and I am just a computer program. Would that be worse than being a ghost in his machine?"

"You're not a ghost," she said.

"Aren't I?" He looked up at the imaginary stars. "My real body died over thirty centuries ago. What do you call a soul without a body? Is there any other word for it?" He looked down, into the fire. "Is this all a dream...or am I?"

"Don't go there," she advised, sitting down beside him. "You're as alive as you ever were. You're real to me." The green fire hissed and crackled. "You're as real as any man I've ever known."

When he looked up at her to answer, she kissed him. It went on for a long time. Then she stood up, taking his hand, and led him into the cave.

It was still warm in the cave. They made it warmer.

They made it a temple.

Chapter 55: Kemushi: Tí eúkolon? Tò állōi hypotíthesthai.

("What is easy? To advise another." – Thales)

"My childhood?" Am-heh stared at Kemushi. "I doubt you could even understand it."

"Stalling is not persuasive," she noted.

"You won't believe me," he said. "My experiences will be strange to you. For all you know, I'd be making them up as I went along."

"I have an idea about that," she said. "Hang on." Now she was glad she had spent a few extra minutes in Wu's office, scanning his updated manual. Finder, she thought. Silent mode, please. If Am-heh actually turned out to be an alien, she mused, it might not be a good idea to give him the keys to the candy store.

I'm here, the system's persona answered. What do you need?

Question: can two minds connected to you share thoughts or memories with each other? I really need to know if someone is telling me the truth.

Affirmative, but there is loss of privacy and the hypothetical danger of possession. And both parties must agree to the sharing, due to privacy laws. The procedure is not recommended.

Nevertheless, it appears necessary, she thought.

Very well, the inner voice replied. If you accept the risk, make contact with another avatar, agree verbally, and ask the other to also agree verbally.

"There is a way to convince me," she told Am-heh. "It's a little risky, but I am willing to do it if you are. Will you try it?"

"What is it you want me to do?" he asked suspiciously.

"Take my hand," she directed, holding out hers. "There is a way we can share memories. Mind to mind contact – deception is impossible. If this works, I will know if you aren't human."

After a moment, his hand grasped hers.

"I agree to share memories with you," she said. "Are you willing to share yours? If so, you must verbally agree."

She could see him mulling it over. Now she would learn if his need for privacy would be outweighed by his need to be believed.

"I agree to share memories with you," he finally said.

The world around her dissolved.

She was clinging to a branch with all six legs. The blue trunk of the tree rose straight out of a purplish body of water, as did the other trees. She looked up and saw Aton, the Light-Giver hanging blue and almost overhead. It was the Time of Hunting.

Movement caught her eye: a yellow-green Chelox was climbing up out of the lake on a nearby trunk. Without a thought she launched herself toward it, leathery membranes fanning out between her limbs and her abdomen. In the low gravity, they were enough to let her glide over to her victim. Snapping at it, she gripped its neck in her jaws as the fractal pads on her feet slapped against the smooth surface of the S'erlu tree, bonding to it as if by magic.

The Chelox struggled feebly as she devoured it whole, relishing the feeling of fullness that resulted. A good meal. It was good to be one of the People when the Time of Hunting came and Aton's ascendancy drew the amphibians out of their waters to molt and mate. It was a time of plentiful food, to grow faster to adulthood.

But she did not become an adult. Suddenly there was a roaring in her mind and an explosion of directionless white light.

Wonder surrounded her: the feeling of many minds opening, expanding as bodies dissolved, the very space around them unfolding and re-folding. Awareness exploded outward, freed from the redundant meat bags that had imprisoned it. An almost painful clarity erupted in the massed minds that knew themselves at a new quantum level of awareness, with greater insight and connection to the Universe than they had ever dreamed of: We have Transcended!

It was a spontaneous arising; no benefactor Species had prepared the Children of Nuit for this experience. Strictly speaking, she now understood, no Benefactor was necessary. Transcendence was inevitable for any species, once they developed the necessary complexity of neural physiology. Even a single individual could Transcend at that point, but a sufficiently high population density could trigger Transcendence for all; if the society was ready. The first to experience it triggered those around them in a near-instantaneous chain reaction.

Kemushi felt overwhelmed by wonder, as she remembered becoming aware of many more dimensions of the continuum. Time became...complicated. As Am-heh the Transcended child, she could move forward, backwards, or sideways in new components of the currents of event-flow. A timeless period of joyful exploration followed.

Contact with members of an older Transcended group from a distant galaxy revealed more possibilities. The People could now become Benefactors to other races: they could acquire client species, who would assist them in the material plane in return for their guidance and supervision to hasten their own Transcendence.

Why would they want to interfere with others, they asked the Elder race. Because, the answer came, in assisting them, you will reach even higher levels of awareness.

The People wasted no time in seizing this opportunity. Am-heh and the other younglings were directed to assist in the endeavor. Older members were given choice inner-system planets with rocky crusts and primitive atmosphere. Younger helpers were assigned to less promising worlds. As one of the youngest, Am-heh was given a gas giant to manage.

The gas giant circled a yellow G2 dwarf, but it had no life as yet. No matter. As Am-heh, the godlike one, she glided forward on the Time axis, leaping a billion years into the future of the planet.

Life arose from the complex organics in the upper atmosphere, the result of cometary infusions of hydrocarbons to the methane clouds that swirled around the giant's core. Simple self-replication began. The first cells formed. He/she moved forward in time a bit more.

Now there were multicellular life forms. They were hardly more than floating gasbags, coreless simulacra of the giant itself, with membranous envelopes enclosing the internal molecular machines. It was a start. As Am-heh, she moved forward again.

There! Predators had evolved: smaller manta-like shapes with agile flight muscles and complex nervous systems that swooped among the gasbags, ripping into them with their more advanced intelligences.

Now was the delicate time of Contact. As a Transcended one, Am-heh no longer had a physical body in the material plane, but he could mingle his awareness with sufficiently-evolved brains. Merged with Am-heh, Kemushi knew he/she could not wait. If another Transcended group, another Species discovered this species before he had staked his claim, there would be a fight for the right to be the Benefactor of the new client species.

Swiftly, he selected the strongest, most alert individual and took possession of its body. Ro'ora of the Trenni was no match for a higher quantum of Mind. Controlling his body, Am-heh/Kemushi dominated the other Trenni, showing them where to find richer food regions, pushing their evolution of the young species.

After a time, Atum looked in on his progress. Eldest of the People, the Children of Nuit, Atum had already reached the second quantum of mind. This placed him in undisputed leadership of the People, since he could overcome any of the first-quantum minds as easily as Am-heh could overwhelm a non-Transcended mortal mind.

They are not coming along quickly enough, Atum informed the young godling. Solitary hunters are not good enough. They must have a society, a culture that will facilitate mass Transcendence and give it the structure of ethics.

Why? asked Am-heh, who had Transcended from a child to a god in the massive event, without passing through the adult stage.

Because gods without a culture foment anarchy! the answer came from Atum. There must be structure, even for gods, else the lower species suffer. Even when we contend for the privilege of being Benefactors to a species, there are rules to limit the scale of the Conflict. These come down from the time of the Elder gods. The rules of engagement, the Covenant, were formulated to prevent massive battles from destroying the very species we are fighting over.

Am-heh found this all very arbitrary. Rules, for gods?

Accelerate their development, Atum ordered.

I could make demigods, Am-heh suggested. This was a thing he had heard from others of his kind. By forming a temporary incarnation as one of the target species, child's play for a god, he could mate with some of them and tweak the DNA of the resulting conceptions, accelerating its development a thousandfold faster than mere evolution would allow. The progeny of such matings would be exceptional individuals, and would Transcend when their physical bodies perished. Sons of gods, they would become gods themselves.

No! Atum said. This would produce only scattered individual Transcendents, and not a true ascended culture. They would be capricious, undisciplined godlings. Dangerous. I have seen this through the memory of the Elder Species who contacted me. Make no demigods! It is part of the Covenant we have sworn to uphold.

Very well, said Am-heh, reluctantly.

I will be back later, said Atum. I have others to follow up on.

After Atum departed, Am-heh considered his options. He could tinker with the sun and produce more radiation, more mutations. He considered it, but it seemed so tedious a methodology. And so slow, because most of these random mutations would be lethal.

The strategy he adopted was more suited to his own temperament: he reintroduced cannibalism.

All predator species go through this stage, but develop taboos against it. Commanded to accelerate the Trenni, Am-heh used his influence through the Prophet of each generation. Through his possession of each alpha's body he worked to remove the taboos.

Using his dominance to create flocks of followers, he led them in raids against competing populations, ripping into the unsuspecting victims and devouring them. Leading by example.

Other flocks formed in self-defense, imitating his. Evolution roared ahead at a fantastically accelerated rate, as the Trenni intraspecies competition reached new heights. Their descendants were ruthlessly culled by competing packs of cannibals who devoured the weakest and slowest among them. The succeeding generations became swifter, stronger...and more intelligent, to better outmaneuver their opponents to attack or escape.

Now they are really coming along! he thought. He could hardly wait for Atum to review his progress.

Soon, as a god senses time, Atum returned to check on him. But the Elder's reaction was not what Am-heh had expected.

Atum was aghast. Fool! You have doomed the entire species!

What? said Am-heh. I do not understand. They are coming along nicely...

Coming along nicely? They are RUINED! Atum retorted. If such a species Transcends, they would become cannibal gods! Can't you see the chaos that would generate! Millions of lesser species could be destroyed in battles for clients! They would ignore the Covenant!

Atum gripped Am-heh's mind with his greater power. Kemushi knew Am-heh's consternation, his helplessness and fear. Your supervision of this species is at an end, Atum informed him/her. Their metapatterns, their souls, will have to find another developing planet and start over.

Helpless in Atum's grip, Am-heh had to watch as Atum destroyed the Trenni. Atum took no chance. He destroyed the gas giant, clenching the fist of his second-quantum mind on its core until it imploded into a singularity. All of the life forms perished, their bodies ripped apart into subatomic particles that the black hole sucked up like cosmic spaghetti. The species was gone. The planet was gone. Only the black hole remained, a grim tombstone orbiting the sun.

Atum could not likewise destroy Am-heh the immortal for his mistake; Atum was 'only' a second-quantum mind. But he could punish the godling. He could try to ensure that Am-heh learned from his mistake.

No more gas giants for you, Atum decided. The next blue marble planet we discover, you shall be low on the Development team, not in sole charge. Your job will not be a pleasant one. For what you brought upon the Trenni, you shall have a title. You shall be known henceforth as Am-heh, the Devourer of Millions.

And so it was.

Chapter 56: Darla: Tí dýskolon? Tò heautòn gnônai.

("What is hard? To know thyself." – Thales)

Darla woke up the next day with no memory of logging out.

I must have fallen asleep, she decided, swinging her legs off the link bed. Her second thought was regret; she must have disappeared on Aes again. Her third thought was the memory of what she had been doing before she fell asleep. Oh. My. God.

Stumbling down the stairs, she tried to think. Part of her was as dippy as a Disney character singing with bluebirds. Part of her was afraid to ever log in again. And part of her was swearing the other two to secrecy with solemn blood oaths.

She was halfway through her bowl of oatmeal and blueberries before she realized her father was waiting for her to speak.

"Brain dead from studying too hard?" he guessed out loud. "No, too much to expect. Taken a vow of silence? No, that's crazy; what woman could keep that? I'm guessing a new boyfriend."

She stared at him, her spoon halfway to her mouth, forcing herself to remember that Manny could not read minds. But all her willpower couldn't stop her face from turning beet-red.

"Aha! Nailed it, didn't I? Who is it, this Farker who's been messaging you? Is it the doctor? Or did you meet someone else?"

"It's...it's not like that," she began. God, she thought, please be real, Aes! She wasn't sure she could even log in to face him.

"Oh, sure, it never is," he agreed, but his eyes twinkled. "Are you going to see him again? Remember, your midterms are in two days."

She wanted to scream. Midterms? Was he kidding? This was her life, dammit! "I haven't forgotten," she said.

When she didn't answer him with a jibe or a joke, Manny began to look concerned. "Are you all right, zeisele?"

"I'm fine," she mumbled. "I'm just feeling zerged. I must not have slept well."

He gave her a calculating look, but said nothing until she finished the oatmeal and dumped the bowl and spoon in the recycler. When she turned toward the fridge to grab an iced tea, he was tapping the register's screen. "At least I know you were sleeping, not gaming," he said. "Because you got a game-mail message from someone named Rita who wonders where you are."

"What?" She looked at the message he brought up. For decades now, virtual worlds and MMOs had included a feature to forward messages to your private email when you were offline. Even people who didn't know your email address could send you messages if they knew your in-game avatar name. This must have come in after she fell asleep and got logged out.

It said: Darla. Finished midterms. Call when you can play. Rita.

"Thanks," she tossed over her shoulder as she dashed up the stairs.

Manny raised an eyebrow but refrained from replying. "Young love," he said, shaking his head. Then he closed his eyes and touched his shirt pocket again for a moment.

Darla was flat on her back and logging into UNET in seconds. Floating in null-space she scanned her friends list. Thank the gods! Rita was online, in class. Thinking rapidly, she sent Rita a whispered plea to meet her in the Girls Room as soon as she could get away. If anyone could help her, it was Rita.

FLASH.

Darla looked around her and sighed. There was no time to tidy up. She started into it anyway, just to have something to do while she waited. Waving a hand, she deleted some of the older posters and set the wall screen. The talking head was doing a piece on recent renovations at the Fermilab museum in Batavia, Illinois.

FLASH.

"Hey, girl, what's up?" Rita looked around her. "Wow, instant deja. How long since we used this place? Six months, a year?"

"Almost two," said Darla. "I built it when I was a freshman taking Introductory CAD, remember? I never really finished it."

"I remember why you didn't," Rita said, grinning. "Was his name Brad...or was it Tony? You were such a cyberslut back then."

"Gimme a break," Darla muttered. "You weren't so monogamous yourself, back then. We both went a little wild when we discovered we could go all the way virtually and stay virgins in real life."

"Good times," Rita agreed. "Too bad PanGames is kid-safe. There's a few mountaintops there I'd like to do it on."

Darla collapsed on the couch. Where to begin? "It's not as safe as you think," she said.

Rita's eyes went wide. "You found a way around the safeguards? Omigod! C'mon, sister, share it!"

Darla took a breath. "Not an it, it's more of a who. I found us a healer for the team. But he's...complicated. A lot of the rules don't seem to apply to him."

"You're getting involved with a GM?" Rita was taken aback. "That's risky. Could make trouble for you, when you dump him. Now I see why you want my advice again."

"He's not a GM," said Darla. She knew she wasn't explaining this well. She wasn't even sure what she was explaining. All she knew at the moment was that she really needed to talk to someone about it or she'd go crazy. "I did meet a GM named Farker though, sort of, but that's another story. He's the CIO of PanGames."

If Rita's eyes got any wider, they would need skull extensions. "You're dating the Chief Information Officer of PanGames?" She whistled. "Talk about aiming high. Way to go! Got to be rich."

"No, I'm not. I only met him. That's something else we need to talk about. But Aes comes first. A-e-s, not A-c-e. He's the one I was...intimate with."

"An odd name, Aes," Rita commented. "It sounds like Latin."

"It's Greek. He calls himself Asklepios but that's such a mouthful that I shortened it."

Rita was looking at her strangely. "Is he a med student?"

"Close," Darla admitted. "He's a physician."

"It figures, with an avatar name like that. An older man?"

"You have no idea," said Darla. "I think he's very old." She paused, collecting her thoughts. "Why does it figure? Because I was looking for a healer?"

"Because his name's in the first sentence of the Hippocratic oath," said Rita. "Which, by the way, was probably not written by Hippocrates, but by one of his students later."

"You mean he knew Hippocrates?"

"No," laughed Rita. "I keep forgetting you're not a med student. All the technology overlaps these days. Asklepios was the Greek god of medicine. I looked him up while I was doing a paper on the Oath last semester. They say he was the son of the god Apollo and a mortal woman."

"Let me guess," said Darla. "His mother's name was Coronis. And he married a woman in Thessaly called Epione. He had at least two sons, Machaon and Podilarius, who served in the Trojan War." She thought for a second, remembering the butterfly. "Machaon was killed in the war, but Podilarius made it back to Hellas."

"I see you've done your research," said Rita. "Why are you asking me about him, if you know all of this? Are you thinking of changing your major to History? You should talk to Sam. His specialty is Classical art."

"I think Aes is history," Darla told her. "I have been too busy to do any research. He told me all that, as if he lived it himself. I think...I think he's a ghost in the machine, the real deal."

"Whoa! Back up, rewind that," Rita ordered. "Now you're off the deep end. Are you telling me you think he's the original Asklepios? You don't need a friend, girl, you need a shrink!"

Darla exhaled. "I thought you were the only one who might believe me," she said sadly. "And instead, you think–"

"I think you're getting sucked into his roleplay, is what I think," said Rita. "I mean, we're talking mythology here. Even if you believe someone with the name Asklepios lived three thousand years ago, the legend says he was killed by Zeus."

"For bringing Hippolytus back to life?"

"Yes," said Rita, her eyes narrowing. "Did Aes tell you that?"

"It's the last thing he remembers before waking up in PanGames. I found him on mount Pelion, in the Realm of Legends. He knew nothing about modern life or gaming. He didn't even know he was in a simulation, until I told him!"

"Role play," said Rita dismissively. "He sounds like a Random with a good back story. And now he's got you believing it."

"I don't think so," said Darla. "According to Farker, who helped write Realm of Legends, Aes is supposed to be a NPC. You know what sticklers programmers are for name uniqueness. You can't make an avatar with the same name as a NPC, it would confuse people. It would mess with the system."

"Think about what you're saying, what you're asking me to believe," said Rita. "You're saying the gods are real, and that 3000 years ago one of them got a woman pregnant, that their son healed people, raised the dead, was killed, and came back to life."

"A thousand years later, they said the same things about Jesus of Nazareth," Darla pointed out. "Lots of people have no trouble believing in him. I'll bet I can find people who think Aes got rolled into his story."

"Not quite the same story," said Rita, "but I see your point. But he was only dead for three days, not three thousand years. What's Aes been doing all this time? Lost his way in the Afterlife, did he?"

"I don't know," Darla admitted. "Sometimes I think I am going crazy. It's all so weird. You have to meet him. When Aes gets shot, his avatar bleeds! I've seen his leg bone stick out. According to Farker, who's met him, Aes doesn't have a user account. He's as puzzled as I am...and he wrote the game."

"Maybe Farker is playing you. Maybe he is Aes and likes to mess with people."

"No." Darla shook her head. "I've seen them both at the same time. You think Farker can somehow be in two link beds at the same time? In the old days, with keyboards, maybe. But not now."

"I don't like it," said Rita. "Someone is messing with us."

"Please try to keep an open mind when you meet him," Darla begged. "He's become very important to me. You'll see why, when you get to know him. He'll never lie to you. He took a terrible beating when we finished the Snarky mission without you and Sam, because he was more concerned with healing us, even though we weren't feeling a thing. He feels pain, Rita. Even Sherman was shocked when he saw the compound fracture and all the blood. Aes was a mess. Thank the gods he's a good healer."

"Why didn't he just teleport to the hospital? He sounds like a sicko to me, some kind of masochist, maybe even a cutter."

"He didn't know how! He was like, level one or two, when we went in there. Sherman was pissed at me for taking him in there with us in a level 12 mission. He seems to like Aes."

Rita shook her head. "You're all nuts," she declared. "All right, all right," she said, holding up a hand when Darla was about to say more. "I'll meet him. Just don't expect me to fall to my knees and start worshiping the guy, okay?"

Darla frowned. "Stay off your knees, period. Nutcase or whatever, he's my god of medicine. Only I get to worship him, if you know what I mean."

Rita rolled her eyes. "Oh, get real. I thought you knew Sam and I are together."

"I suspected," Darla admitted. "I just never found the right time to ask you, then all this happened. How's it working out?"

"Okay, for the most part. Living in distant time zones is a pain, since he's in London. But we get together in PanGames and we have a virtual condo in Eternium for our special times. It's an adults-only sim, so it's almost as good as the real thing. When I graduate I'm moving east to be with him."

"I'm happy for you," said Darla. "Do you have to get back to your class right away? You should meet Aes before you decide I'm insane."

Rita shrugged. "The lecture is canned. I can always resume it later. Let's go meet the God of Healing."

Chapter 57: Farker: building a better mousetrap

Farker couldn't believe what he was seeing. "Are you sure this is right?" he asked Finder. "There's no way coherent actions could come out of that. It can't be stable – it's completely chaotic!"

"That's what I thought," said the Finder. "But it is stable, or at least metastable. The changes are ongoing and endless, yet they never generate a page fault or null pointer errors. I have no explanation for it. From current theories it should be impossible."

They were looking at a 3D section of the vast spintronic lattice that served the hypercomputer as active working memory. Data was stored here, but it would have been unrecognizable as such to computer scientists of the previous century.

In the earliest days of computing, there was drum, RAM, and ROM. Drum memory derived from ancient magnetic cores, where intersecting currents threaded through tiny iron donuts, magnetizing or demagnetizing them. It took a lot of this 'core' memory to store even a little data.

But the technology continued to evolve, far faster than the species that created it. It evolved into drums and hard drives that used miniature read-write heads that had electromagnets to 'write' data onto magnetizable surfaces. They scribbled magnetic patterns on regions of it like primitive 'tape recorders' did on Mylar-backed magnetic tapes.

A magnetized region held data a long time, even when these primeval computers powered down. But reading and writing this magnetic memory was limited to how fast the drums or discs could spin, because you had to move the written area out of the way to write the next part.

The next kind of memory created was RAM, Random Access Memory. RAM stored data as hordes of tiny transistors, some turned on, some off, to make ones and zeros. The circuits didn't have to move like hard drives did, because you could point to a different circuit just by changing the 'address' you wanted...like dialing a different phone number. RAM could be read and written quickly, but it had the drawback of losing information if it lost power. Handy if you wanted to randomize (erase) a large section of memory, but inconvenient in the days of unreliable power supplies: the RAM without power reverted to meaningless garbage, data-less deserts of random ONs and OFFs.

Thus the technologists created ROM or Read Only memory. It was like RAM, except you couldn't change it. Whenever you turned it on, the exact same bits would go on or off. It was like having a thousand light bulbs in a sign and then deliberately burning some of them out to spell a word or draw a picture with light and dark dots; whenever you turned the sign on, the working bulbs would light up and the burned out ones wouldn't; the exact same word or picture would appear. You never lost information by turning the power off.

This was great for programs that slowly changed, like operating systems. Primitive computers would boot up the OS from ROM chips so that they could hit the ground running and start working. The next generation of computers would use the next generation of chips.

Many other technologies evolved for computer memories, but they could all be treated like RAM or ROM. All you had to ask was, 'does it remember when I turn the power off?' to tell the difference.

The 21st century brought a major change in memory storage with the advent of quantum computers and spintronic memories. Quantum computers performed unbelievably rapid calculations by collapsing the wave functions of group-entangled particle arrays. Spintronics represented a paradigm shift in data storage: data was no longer stored as on or off circuits in RAM or ROM or North or South magnetic domains on discs coated with iron compounds. It was stored in the components of spin of an atom's nucleus, or of its electrons. A single particle could store more than one bit, because it had more than one perpendicular spin component! A single atom with eight electrons in its outer shell could entangle two 8-bit bytes.

It's hard to attach wires to atoms to control them. But quantum dots could function as artificial programmable atoms, 'parking lots' for electrons, larger than actual atoms, where you could stash them in stable pseudo-orbitals that required no nucleus at the center...and you could attach tiny wires to these dots and tweak their properties at will. Connect a lot of these in a dense 3D matrix, and the memory capacity of storage devices became enormous. Big enough, in fact, to satisfy the ravenous hungers of the new quantum computers for working memory. Needless to say, self-assembling nanoparticles were a key ingredient of the process: the quantum dots grew themselves.

It combined the best of RAM and ROM. You could access it quickly, change it quickly...and it needed no power to remember its data, because electrons never stop spinning – they are like perpetual motion gyros. You needed redundancy, of course, because random thermal perturbations could disturb and perturb the wave functions, causing decoherence of the entangled data (and flaws could appear in the best of fabricated devices). But these were mere details. With the vast capacity now possible, there was plenty of room to store the data multiple times and put in checking routines to use majority voting to cancel out any random changes. Spintronic memory was a programmers dream.

At the Dirac Institute, Farker had been a part of the excitement of those early days. He'd worked with people designing the first practical large-scale quantum computers. He knew how they were supposed to work, both the hardware that stored the data, and the software that ran on them. He also had no life at all, because his genius had been spotted at an early age. At thirty he had still been a virgin when he met Cecilia.

Don't dredge all that up, he told himself, looking at what he knew should be impossible.

Farker knew what all programmers know, that the memory changes in a running computer program, no matter what it used for its storage medium, were orderly to the point of obsession. They had to be. Are you copying memory from one place to another? Then the computer reads the first byte, writes a copy of it in the new location, then reads the next byte, stores a copy of it, and so on, with inhuman speed and patience. It's like building a copy of a brick wall; the position of each new brick depends on what you have already placed.

This process is fundamental to orderly processing. Sure, you need to do calculations and lookups and whatnot. But whatever you calculate, look up, compare, or create, the result has to be stored somewhere, in such an orderly way that it can be retrieved as easily as it was written, byte by byte, like reading pages in a book or dealing cards from a deck. Order is crucial to computing. It's why many successful programmers come from obsessive personalities. Order is good. Love the order! Or find another business.

What he was seeing, however, appeared to have no order.

Pieces of Aes's memory region in the PanGames spintronic lattice were changing for no apparent reason. It was like looking at the 3D shadow of a multidimensional kaleidoscope. Parts of it changed themselves. Parts of it changed other parts. Parts of it were changing the parts that were changing them. He could not see any fundamental order to it at all. Madness! It was programming madness. No one would write code like this! For the life of him, he could not see how any of it was avoiding infinite loops or memory boundary errors or a dozen other things that should be going wrong. And yet it continued to hum along perfectly, organically, doing whatever it did. Impossible! his mind wanted to scream.

It was the creation of a madman...or a mind so far beyond his that his own 185 I.Q. brain was laughably retarded in comparison. Since it continued to function, he was forced to admit that it was some kind of super-genius elegance that eluded him. Something he himself would never achieve, no matter how much he studied it. It was like staring at infinity and trying to count it. It was like looking at an ocean, when all you had was a teacup. You could never fit it in, never grasp the entirety of this higher-order elegance. And it was growing.

Farker growled. He did not like feeling retarded! He had never felt this way before in his life, and he was old.

He had a sneaking suspicion that Am-heh's code might look similar...if they could locate it. But how do you scan for a pattern...when you don't know what the pattern is? He growled again. Where are those billion Shakespeare monkeys when you need 'em?

"I'm not asking you to explain it," he told Finder. "All I want to know is, how fast is it growing? Is the rate stable?"

Finder paused. Was it zerged? "The region is now 18.2 exabytes and is growing at a shallow exponential rate."

The word exponential had ominous undertones. "How shallow? How long before it becomes a problem?"

"That depends on what you mean by a problem," said Finder.

"I'll make it simple for you," Farker growled. "How long at current rate of increase until he'll need so much storage that he'll crash whatever Realm he's in?"

Finder paused. "One month," it said. "If the rate was linear, I could hold him for a hundred years, assuming no memory upgrades or technological advances extended my room. But the growth is not linear, it is exponential."

Farker swore. He used words he hadn't needed for decades. "You're telling me he has a month to live." And it would take me a million lifetimes to understand this code, he thought. Instead, I've got one month, at the outside.

"Less, if the rate itself accelerates," said Finder. "And less than half that, even at the lower rate, if Am-heh were in the same Realm, assuming his code is similar. "

So if any more of these anomalies show up in the meantime, he thought grimly, PanGames is toast.

"What happens if the Realm he is in crashes? Would it affect any other Realms?"

"No," Finder answered promptly. "As you recall, the PanGames design calls for a separate spintronic lattice segment for each Realm, for convenience and security. We have never needed to, but if we did, we could shut down any Realm for maintenance without any impact on other Realms."

"How much redundancy do we have in the spintronics arrays?" asked Farker.

"There are 32 additional unallocated matrix blocks currently available for future expansion," Finder informed him. "You never imagined we would go beyond 48 Realms, but your specs allowed for 100% redundancy in the initial design. There is room for 96 total."

"New project," said Farker. "Prepare one of the 32 unused segments for content. Designate the new Realm 'Paradise'."

"Done."

"Now clone a copy of Hellas into it, excluding everything but Greece, leaving out all other regions, NPCs, and avatars. Just an empty copy of Greece."

Finder paused for a couple of minutes, the longest pause Farker could recall. "Done."

"Now, could Paradise hold Aes longer than a month?"

Pause. "By emptying it, you've bought him a few days. No more."

Farker swore again. "That's all?"

"By the end of a month, the exponential acceleration of the growth reaches a rate such that a completely empty Realm consisting of only one room makes little difference in the deadline."

Farker sighed. "Well, at least it's a better mousetrap. There are no mobile entities in Paradise now, right?"

"Correct."

"So if we can get Am-heh to go in there...you will instantly know his program ID, right? No matter what reformatting has done to his name."

"Affirmative. But how do you propose to do that?"

"We just have to find the right bait," Farker said, grimly. "I believe he has been looking for Darla ever since she escaped him in Egypt."

There was a pause. "You cannot use Darla as bait," the Finder told him. "Placing any registered user in jeopardy would constitute a violation of user safety protocols."

"FUCK the protocols!" Farker barked. "Letting Am-heh rampage around eating users into vegetables, doesn't THAT violate user safety protocols? It's the lesser of two evils. Look, when we find him, I'll go piss him off myself and lead him in there. Once he follows me in I'll pop back out and we slam the door, disable his command access! You can do that, once you know his program ID, right? Then we let him commit suicide; the bastard will grow himself to death and crash his own Realm. End of problem."

"It won't work, Farker," the Finder said.

Farker gritted his teeth. "And why not?" he said defiantly.

"Because you are a registered user. User safety protocols apply to GM-class users as well as mere subscribers. My safety rules would force me to stop you from entering. As the only other mobile entity, you would be his obvious next target, and, thus, exposed to unacceptable risk."

"Are you saying there is no way to lure him in there?"

"Placing any registered user in jeopardy would constitute a violation of user safety protocols," Finder repeated.

Farker stopped and took a breath, tasting an idea. The emphasis had seemed slightly different in that last repetition. He had the feeling that Finder was trying to tell him something.

"Aes isn't a registered user, is he?" he said.

"Correct. The anomaly 'Asklepios' is not a registered user. And his name never reformatted, so we know his program ID. Do you wish me to terminate his process execution?"

"No!" Farker bellowed, before he could stop himself. He took another breath to calm himself. That had been a close one. "What you implied, however, is that Aes could act as the bait...the bait we need to get Am-heh in there."

"Correct. Safety protocols do not apply to either Asklepios or Am-heh, since they both have no user account."

"But it would be a bigger risk for Aes, wouldn't it?"

"Correct," said Finder. "If the Realm crashed with you in it, assuming you had not been eaten, you would wake up on your link bed. Collapsing the wave functions would drop you back into your own body, in an automatic logout. Asklepios, on the other hand, has no body to go back to. He therefore has no automatic exit. Collapsing the wave functions would terminate his processes."

"Couldn't you just take a snapshot of his code before the crash, copy it somewhere else and restart him?"

Pause. "Negative. As you have undoubtedly noticed, his code appears to embody irreducible complexity. We would have no idea where to begin the execution of the code."

"Oh, come on!" Farker exploded. "It's just code! How hard could it be? You just make a copy of the snapshot, try starting it at one location, and if that fails, make another copy and try one byte over, repeating as necessary until you get it right."

"Affirmative," said Finder. "But assuming 18.2 exabytes of active code, as he had a couple of minutes ago...and performing that process one thousand times per second, assuming I could copy memory that fast, would take an average of 2.88 times ten to the eighth years to find the correct starting address."

Farker swore again. "288 million years? But that's a pessimistic case, right? You might get lucky in the first thousand seconds, right?"

"It is only an average," Finder agreed. "But you are forgetting an important point that renders such estimates useless."

"More important than the fact that we'd have to wait for our descendants to crack the problem before the Sun turns into a red giant? What point?"

"You have seen the complexity of his code. It is overwhelmingly probable that it embodies many concurrent processes, all of which would have to be started up...and in the correct order. This increases the complexity of the restart process. Would you like to hear revised estimates?"

"Not if they're more than hundreds of millions of years. Wait a minute! If restart is so hard...how do these entities move from one Realm to another? How does anyone else do it?"

"With ordinary users, all that actually moves is a relatively compact assembly consisting of the avatar description and subroutines that communicate with the link bed sockets. This allows many avatars to coexist in each Realm with plenty of memory to spare for scenery."

Finder paused. "Since Asklepios and Am-heh have no remote to communicate with, their entire descriptions move. Although this seems cumbersome, it is in fact possible to move running programs in this manner, provided segments are moved only when execution has passed to other segments. Quantum computation is fast enough to accomplish this in time frames so short as to be imperceptible."

"All right," said Farker. He was not giving up this easily. "We could talk Aes into being bait. After all, he's doomed anyway, right? At least this way he can do something noble before he goes."

"It appears possible," said Finder.

"Suppose we brief Aes and get him ready. He might be able to lead Am-heh into the dummy Realm, then jump out before Am-heh knows what's happening. Then we scrag the Realm and Am-heh is gone, right? We could even set it up so that Aes leaving is what triggers the Realm crash."

"It might work," Finder admitted. "But don't forget, if we assume Am-heh is roughly equivalent to Aes, his reaction time should be the same. It's not a program outsmarting a biological – they're both very fast."

"Start getting a hackproof crash routine ready, anyway," Farker ordered. "Who knows? Maybe we'll think of something before then that will keep Am-heh from leaving the killing field."
Chapter 58: Am-heh: the thrill of the chase

Am-heh stopped the sharing of memories. He had enough. He had exactly what he needed now. He laughed, loud and long. There was no way he could lose, knowing what he knew. The Children of Nuit would triumph! Earth was theirs. He would be redeemed before Atum for this.

Kemushi was not so joyful. She fell to her hands and knees on the dock, weeping uncontrollably. Am-heh glanced at her curiously. "What's the matter with you?"

She curled into fetal position, sobbing. "It's gone! I was a God...and now it's all gone!" she wept. "To ascend so high, the first Infinity, to see it all...only to fall back! Even to be shamed by Atum, to be judged, a shamed God, was better than this, being merely mortal. Was that power, that glory...is that how you feel all the time?"

"Only in my memories," he told her. "I, too, felt the diminishment you now know, when I was intersected into this domain. Unlike you, however, my own Fall is temporary. When I depart this place and return whence I came, I will reclaim all my former powers." He peered at her huddled form. "You don't even know your mistake, do you?"

Her weeping abated. She lifted a tear-soaked face. "What? What are you talking about?"

Am-heh grinned a terrible grin. "The sharing was two-way," he said. "You forgot to specify a one-way link. You got my memories, and I received yours...even the ones you hid from Wu all those years. I know why you were hiding."

Kemushi's body went rigid. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said.

Am-heh laughed, a great triumphant roar of a laugh. "How fortunate for me that you believed Tsuneo, your Hermit. He convinced you that your family was still alive, and I have reaped the benefit of that. To think that all I hoped for was to convince you of my alien origin!" He leered at her. "Are you convinced, now that you remember being not just an alien – but an alien god?"

"I can't believe Atum gave you another chance," she moaned. "Didn't he see what you are? Or was he blinded by the fact of your common heritage? There are no words for such evil. No words!"

"Oh, don't be such a drama queen," he chuckled. "And so hypocritical, too! I know all about your Hellbomb. A fitting term. And you, that created such an engine of destruction, you dare to call me evil?" He laughed again. "This time you're stealing chaos from the gods."

Kemushi hung her head. "It was a different time, and I was a different person," she whispered. "My family was dead. I had nothing to live for. By the time I came to my senses, it was already complete!"

Am-heh couldn't stop grinning. "And so you fled, taking the activation codes with you. How clever, to set it up so that any attempt to dismantle it or cut the power or remote access would trigger it. They couldn't take it apart, power it down...or disable your access. As soon as you found a haven, and got into Wu's link bed, they couldn't touch you, because you could set it off before they could log you out or sedate you."

"I just wanted to be left alone," she said numbly. "The only way to ensure that was retaining control of it. I left a message detailing everything. Then I went into self-imposed exile. I was willing to spend the rest of my life in Wu's link bed, until you came along."

"But I did come along," he said, grinning. "And now, thanks to your decision to share memory...I have the activation code too."

"That code would do no one any good," she said.

"Oh, I know that, thanks to you," he smiled. "But I don't have to destroy your planet to win. I just have to be able to."

"The Covenant," she said. "Oh god, what have I done?"

"You've picked your Masters!" he said cheerfully. "After I devour the other immortal, I'll deliver the ultimatum. There will be no second match; the others will have to surrender your world. Humans shall serve the Children of Nuit, until such time as you are worthy of Transcending yourselves. You're now our slaves. And you've made it all inevitable!" His laughter was that of a joyous maniac.

"NO!" Kemushi cried. "Never!"

FLASH.

Am-heh's joy diminished slightly when she vanished. Too bad she got away, for now, he thought. But I know all her secrets; I don't need her help to travel in these simulations, these Realms, anymore.

And he could always eat her later, anyway.

Chapter 59: Darla: an unhappy reunion

FLASH.

Darla and Rita stood by the cave opening. Aes was nowhere in sight.

"Well, where is he?" Rita demanded. She let go of Darla's hand and put both hands to her mouth in a makeshift megaphone. "Here, god! Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

"Show some respect," said Darla, feeling her temper rise. "You're talking about the god of healing."

"I don't think so," said Rita. "Just some loser who swiped his name for a clever back story."

Darla spun to face her. "I told you I liked him! Have I ever made fun of any of your boyfriends?" she growled. "Name one."

Rita searched her gaze. "Wow, drama. You really mean it," she commented. She looked down and straightened her pampla for a second. "These togas are cute."

"Togas were Roman," Darla informed her. "We're wearing the chiton, pampla and himation the Greek women wore. This is Hellas, their word for Greece, in the Realm of Legends."

"Don't lose yourself in the roleplay," Rita warned her. She sighed. "Look, I'm sorry I made fun of him. I guess I'm getting...overprotective. You've got to admit, though, it's a hard story to believe. Still friends?"

Darla's anger melted away. She hugged Rita. "Of course. But you have to promise not to hurt his feelings. He's a really nice guy."

"Don't ever tell him that," Rita advised, when they unclinched. "Men are sure that 'nice guy' is girl code for 'you're okay, but I'll never sleep with you' – they'd rather be considered bad boys, to think they have a chance."

"Well, he knows better," said Darla, feeling her face warming.

"Girl, you're actually blushing!" Rita grinned. "He must have been good. How do you get your avatar to do that?"

"I've no idea," Darla confessed. "I must have picked it up from him. His avatar does things you would not believe. I'll try to get him to show you when we find him."

Rita raised an eyebrow. "I thought you didn't feel like sharing him," she teased.

"Not those things, you slut," she growled in mock anger, but couldn't help smiling at the memory of Aes, which ruined the effect. "Pull your mind out of the gutter for a moment and help me look for him."

"I believe you'll find him in Realm of Heroes," said a familiar voice behind them.

Darla whirled. "Cheiron! This is my friend Rita."

The centaur executed a formal centaur bow, bending one foreleg and sweeping a hand in, up, toward them, then down and back as he leaned his torso over a fraction. "Pleased to meet you, Rita," he said, straightening again.

"So you're supposed to be Aes's mentor," Rita commented.

"Ah, you've heard of me!" But he frowned. "Supposed to be?"

"She's not a big believer in mythology," Darla told him.

"She'll change," the centaur predicted. "We all do. Tà pánta rheî kaì oudèn ménei. 'All things flow, nothing stands still'. Heraclitus."

"Wasn't he after your time?" smiled Rita.

"Certainly. But it applies to me as well. I move with the times."

"How do you do that, appear without a transition flash?" Rita asked him. "Is it some kind of expansion add-on?

"Oh, I never leave this Realm," he said, "although I can conceal myself when extending or withdrawing my awareness from it."

"Are you saying you're a ghost in the machine, like Aes?" Rita queried. Her face didn't believe it.

"Not exactly like Aes, but yes. But enough of me," he said briskly. "You two need to go to Realm of Heroes right now. Sherman is in danger."

"How do you know Sherman?" Rita began.

Darla shushed her. "Why is he in danger?"

"Because Am-heh's there. He's learned how to move about the Realms without a guide. Go!" he urged them. "It may already be too late. Am-heh is picking a new power."

Darla grabbed Rita's hand. "Finder, take us to Sherman at the Trainer in Heroes!" she cried.

FLASH.

They stood in the crowd at the base of the plinth. "That was smart," Rita said. "Using Sherman's name, I mean. We could have ended up at the wrong Trainer station."

Darla didn't reply. She was scanning the crowd.

The Trainers were facing away from her and Rita. Three avatars stood on the platform facing three Trainers. There was some history freak in old-fashioned clothing on her right. He was wearing some kind of blue coat with high collar and a laced white shirt underneath it, a dark vest and light brown trousers down to buckled shoes. His slightly conical hat looked ridiculous to Darla.

To his left, the center avatar was a woman in swashbuckler outfit. Her face sported an eye patch; her red coat and lace shirt were almost as bad as the guy in the hat, but Darla liked her folded-over pirate boots and the glistening cutlass.

On the far left was Sherman in his Cyberpunk armor. The bulky suit bulged with metal padding etched in glowing circuitry with ornamental readouts. She could have recognized him without it, just by looking at his size 20 boots; they were clumsy, durable...and the largest in the Realm.

Crap, she realized. He's in the Training dialog. No way to contact him until he's finished.

"Hey, Sherm!" Rita was waving.

"He can't hear you," Darla reminded her. "We'll have to wait until he picks a power. He must have leveled again."

"Oh, right. The Training dialog. Well, where's the danger?"

"I don't see him," Darla admitted, even more worried, rather than reassured. "He might not look the same now. If he came here, reformatting might have altered him. He could be anyone."

"Who could?"

"I'd tell you, but you'll just laugh and not believe me again," Darla snapped. "He used to have this ugly dog head. Hideous."

"Why wouldn't I believe you?" Rita asked. Then she rolled her eyes. "Oh. He's not supposed to be another god, is he?"

"Don't make me bitch-slap you," Darla warned her half-seriously. "He's another ghost in the machine, a bad one. He's from ancient Egypt, and his name is Am-heh, the Devourer of Millions."

"Cool name," Rita commented.

Darla shook her head, exasperated. "Definitely not cool! His name says it all. He's eaten several avatars already that I know of, and their users can't wake up. This is NOT roleplay," she warned, before Rita could say anything. "I heard it from Farker, CIO of PanGames, and I saw it happen, in Realm of Egypt."

The ground shook. "Hi, Darla, Rita!" boomed Sherman, who had jumped down from the platform to greet them. "How are my Teamies? Ready for another mission?"

Tzing! The feel of her trusty blades gave some reassurance, but not nearly enough. "We're on one," she told him. "Rescuing you. You're in danger."

Sherman laughed, a confident sound that echoed off nearby buildings. "In danger, at the Trainers? From what?"

An angry black cloud materialized behind him. "From me," said Am-heh, his new British face morphing back into the old dog head as it distorted impossibly. He devoured Sherman as casually as a chicken eats an earthworm: bite, straighten, tilt back, swallow, straighten. The last they saw of Sherman was his huge boots tumbling down the naked singularity of Am-heh's gullet. Am-heh lowered his head and laughed...then sniffed the air and howled excitedly.

Shit! Darla's mind screamed in horror. He's picked Stygian Darkness. Probably Claws or Dark Melee...Stalker. We need a plan. She dropped a gladius, grabbed Rita's hand and her mind shouted: Finder, take us to Realm of Legends!

FLASH.
Chapter 60: Aes: latecomer to the Aftermath

Aes had been out leveling. Even if there had been no need, he would have gone to Realm of Heroes (or anywhere the power worked) so he could Fly. He felt less a puppet in a game and more of a self-controlled entity when he could rise above the aggro radius and fly over areas without having to fight. He could pick his fights from a distance, fly near enough for his ranged attacks, and engage the hostile MOBs without coming within baton, punch, whip, or sword range. They could still shoot at him, but at such a distance they had less accuracy with their ranged pistols, shotguns, and Uzis.

It was harder to hit a flying target. They were earthbound and Aes was not; airborne, he could survive larger groups, or just fly away if his health dropped dangerously. As long as he was careful, grinding like this was a guaranteed leveler, especially at lower levels. He had already leveled twice, to 19 now. He figured if he leveled one more time to 20 he would pick up 2 or 3 new powers. He kept going.

He was getting close to leveling again. He could feel it. It was like his avatar generated energy. His head nearly felt like exploding when he realized that in the rendered existence of the Realm...you could create simulated energy in this simulated Reality by drawing it. Instantiating it. Weapons like guns, clubs and swords could materialize out of thin air. Guns never ran out of ammunition.

Just draw it, whatever you wanted! His head tried to explode again. He had difficulty dealing with the power these people casually wielded, spinning world-stuff from nothingness. He felt as if an invisible waterfall was pouring energy into him; the excess glimmered out like sweat. Finite things were becoming effortless, as he groped toward trans-finite things. Infinity unfolded into transfinity.

Another improvement: he had learned how to acquire missions or quests. There were NPCs you could find that offered missions. Once you accepted a mission you could enter its instance, a pocket universe created just for you and the hostiles of this mission. If a different team entered the cave, descended the staircase, or entered the dungeon, the lake, the vehicle or the building where the instance joined with common virtual reality – where door met zone – they would find a different instantiated version of the mission map; they would be alone in it with the mission hostiles of that copy and they would not see the first team that went in the door before them.

If 100 teams entered the door, the game would spawn 100 copies of the mission map. During normal operation there was plenty of memory for all this in the spintronic matrix block of the Realm, because each instance only needed to track objects inside it, and the count of included objects was kept small.

He had acquired his own low-level "farm" mission, a place he could go and return to time and again as long as he never finished it; because the system was so fanatical about reclaiming unused memory to avoid "memory leaks" (the hemorrhaging of resources that crashed systems), if you changed to a different mission without finishing the previous one you could force a mission reset. In other words, you wiped your mission progress up to the current moment. You could smash the same enemies over and over, grinding the XP and drops, and do it for a long time before you outgrew its level and had to take another mission.

A purist would have said it was a species of cheating, what Aes did. Others might have just said he was missing out on all the other game content. A pragmatist would just accept that Aes was grinding. Whatever. In the memory-space of his current matrix, his metacosmic butterfly-flutter of Rorschach shadow treed out, extending his geometry, turning data into Aes as he grew.

Floating above the street, he loosed a forcebolt that knocked a lounging mechomerc boss off his feet. Servos whined and pistons jerked; the merc bounced to his feet and charged. But he couldn't Fly, so he charged to the spot fifteen feet below Aes. Craning his neck angrily, the merc flailed about and fired off some slugs just in case he got lucky.

Aes forcebolted him off his feet again and finished him off with a firebolt. As the merc dropped and faded. He felt that surge, that energetic crescendo that exploded like making love but left him tingling and increased rather than happy and spent. He had reached level 20. It was time to train.

As he flew toward the Trainers, wrongness entered the Realm. There was no other word to describe it. Again, a purist might have said it was just awareness of the presence of a hostile Faction. But to Aes it was so different he could only perceive it as wrongness, a distortion of the local harmony.

It was Am-heh, and Aes wasn't ready. He needed to find Darla and her friends, quickly. He would have to put off Training until he found them. Finder, he thought, take me back to Realm of Legends.

FLASH.

He ought to be shocked, he supposed, by the ease with which he had become accustomed to the convenience of programmable reality. When he was hungry, he could always find (summon?) game. When he was thirsty he pulled a spring out of nowhere, and when he wanted to sleep he manifested a cave, entered, and pulled the door in after him, leaving an unbroken wall behind. He did not sleep, of course; his spintronics could not create serotonin, that skillet-shaped molecule his old body had used to fall asleep. But he could reflect upon his experiences and process the memories, like a farmer gleaning, sifting maximum truth from the inflow.

He was alone on Pelion. It was a familiar situation to him now, becoming as frequent (in his redrawn and rejuvenated old age) as it had been in his youth, on those times when Cheiron left him. Normally, it would have been pleasant to relax here if he weren't urgently seeking his teammates.

Finder, he thought. Is Sherman online?

Yes and no, said Finder.

What's that supposed to mean? thought Aes. Let me talk to him!

Sorry, Aes. That number is no longer in service. Sherman is gone. Am-heh just ate him. He's like the others now: can't wake up, can't log out.

FLASH.

Darla and a woman Aes hadn't seen before appeared in the fading light by the cave entrance. They were both ashen, numb.

Aes caught them before they collapsed, and funneled their sagging avatars onto the old grinding boulder. He threw more wood on the rough hearth and torched it alight with a firebolt; green flames crackled and danced.

He sat down with them, watching their faces. What was there to say? They were all thinking the same thing: we failed a teammate.

No one said anything for a moment that lasted forever. Then, haltingly, the two women told him about Sherman.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there," said Aes. "I was grinding death-from-above to 20. You're saying he can appear out of thin air behind the opponent? How fair is that?" His shoulders slumped. "How can I fight smoke?"

"It's not supposed to be fair, Aes," said Rita. "It's supposed to be an unfair advantage for stalkers. It's to compensate for the fact that he's got no self-heal and weaker armor."

"Are you saying his powers are supposed to make it fair for evil, to give evil some misguided chance at destroying the good? Why?"

"The stalker archetype was intended to balance the game for the absence of evil healers," Rita told him. "Heroes got healers and villains got stalkers. Asymmetry did not guarantee fairness but it did improve unpredictability.

"But eventually they decided to let some heroes have stalker powers and some villains have healer powers." She sighed, and quoted: "Although considered deadly when sneak-attacking from concealment, the stalker (once uncloaked) is fragile and easily overwhelmed. His most effective tactic is sneak attacks on lone targets. In this mode he rules, with careful execution."

"But he can just disappear and appear," said Aes.

"At least it isn't teleportation," said Rita. "It's Stygian Darkness, a stealth power. It cloaks them from ordinary levels of perception. If someone's focused they can see the hidden assassins, and attack them...especially with ranged weapons. From a safe distance. If we'd been boosted..."

"How do you get that focus?"

"Temporary boosts. Buffs that supercharge friendlies instead of hurting hostiles. Buffing our acuity would make us temporarily able to see the cloakers."

"That reminds me," said Aes. "I've got a couple of powers to choose. I was on my way to the Trainers when I sensed Am-heh and came back here looking for you."

"You need to train somewhere else, not where he is expecting and lying in wait for you," said Darla.

"Where else?"

"Realm of Heroes has a lot of zones," she said. "Many cities. If we pick at random, he'll find us very soon...or never."

"Never, most likely. But I doubt he'll give up the hunt impatiently. The manifold of Realms is finite. We could elude for a long time but he could get lucky and crush us," said Rita.

"Go someplace you've never seen him," Aes suggested. "If it seems safe I'll join you."

FLASH.

Oops. He was alone. This lecture's duration will be proportional to the size of its audience.

Aes walked into the cave and used it as a terminal. "Finder, can you show me where in ROH is the safest Trainer location?"

The rough walls (and floor) went flat gray, then mirrored, then transparent as Finder overrode the local processing for purposes of communication.

Realm of Heroes appeared, far below him. Low clouds blew in blocking the view for a second as the sprawl of the Realm hurtled at him. This is flying without the wind chill, he thought.

Finder showed him where they'd trained before. Several alternate locations blinked. He picked one.

FLASH.

The trainer was right in front of him. Wasting no time, Aes bolted up the stairs to the plinth and said "I need to train."

"Welcome back, Aes. Time to pick a power."

"Display team accuracy buffs."

A short list of powers scrolled. He selected one.

"You have selected ClearSight. You have two powers left to select."

"Display holds and immobilizes."

"Sorry! Your archetype is not allowed to choose from that power set. Anything else I can do for you?"

"Display general team buffs."

A longer list appeared. He scrolled though it and selected one.

"You have selected Brimming. You have one power left to select."

Let's surprise him. "Display exotic attacks."

A list appeared. He selected one.

"You have selected ClearSight, Brimming, and Transvert. Have a nice day!"

And just like that, he warped back to Legends, and sat down to practice and wait. Now, he thought, what gesture goes for Brimming?

Chapter 61: Darla: "Shahka, when the walls fell"

"I still don't see what we're doing up on this rooftop," said Sam.

"It's a long story," Rita told him. "A bad spoiler is coming. We have to stop him."

"We're setting a trap," Darla told him. "When the enemy gets here, we're going to freeze him, blast him, and push him off the building. The fall should finish him off, unless he has Fly."

"He doesn't." said Rita, peering over the edge of the help landing pad. "He's chasing Aes up the stairs on foot."

"He must have taken Teleport as his travel power," Darla commented. "Deific vanity." She shrugged. "Fly's better."

"Are we going to wait until after your Time Stretch wears off before we shove him over?" asked Sam.

"Not going to use it." she answered tersely. "He's too dangerous in melee. Everyone has to keep their distance."

Aes came whooshing over the edge of the roof. "Here he comes!"

A hand with inch-long claws gripped the edge of the roof. Am-heh vaulted up to land on his feet. He was all himself now, as he had been in Egypt; the frockcoat had been exchanged for his own fur.

He looked about the roof and grinned. "Buffet style?"

"Now!" shouted Darla. Rita hurled a frostblast that froze Am-heh in ice up to his waist.

He glared at her. "For that, you're first," he said.

Sam tossed a fireball that slammed into the immobilized avatar. Strangely, it didn't seem to do Am-heh any damage. His health was completely unaffected.

Am-heh turned a calm face toward Sam. "You're after her. He turned to look at Darla. "You're after Mister Fireball. Then your green hero."

Rita lost it and sprang at the dog-headed apparition. She drew her hand back and slapped him hard, surprising him. "That's for Sherman," she said.

"Rita, No! Get back," warned Darla.

Am-heh grinned at Rita. "This is for me," he laughed. Before anyone could move, he flexed his muscles. KRAK! The ice exploded off his lower self. As the shards bounced and skidded, he opened his jaws toward Rita.

Perceiving her danger, Rita turned and launched herself into Flight. For a moment, it seemed that she would make it.

But Am-heh inhaled. A roaring hurricane of air streamed into his open jaws as if sucked into a spaceship hull breach. Rita inched forward in the stream, then slid backwards, losing ground. Am-heh widened his jaws enough to let her inside before he snapped them shut and swallowed. "Delicious," he said.

Sam drew back his hand for a bolt. Am-heh laughed in his face. "Go ahead," he urged. "I'll swallow the flame and cook her on her way down!"

"No!" yelled Darla. "We've got no holds, Sam. Everyone scatter NOW!"

FLASH. FLASH. FLASH.

Chapter 62: Kemushi: tree looks for roots

Kemushi stumbled into the clearing. Her first thought had been to return to Realm of Bushido. Now that she had escaped Am-heh, though, she realized it was the wrong choice. Wu would try to talk her out of leaving again.

Logging out to the PanGames Menu, she considered her options. Finding her family would have to wait; she had to do something about Am-heh. No, wait. The first thing she had to do was deactivate the Hellbomb. "Put me through to Fermilab in Batavia."

All she had to do was recite the memorized code key. Once she did that, the device would be inert. To rearm it someone would have to manually enter a sequence on-site. From shared memory, Am-heh would know the rearming sequence as well as the trigger code, but unless he could climb out of a monitor and physically push the buttons, his ace-up-the-sleeve would be gone.

"Unable to comply," the faceless voice of PanGames replied. "Your PanGames account does not include access to external email or videophone communications."

What? She felt suddenly dizzy. "Are you telling me that all my link bed can do is log into PanGames? How is that possible? What if I wanted to go shopping or something?"

"I'm sorry," the voice said. "Your doctor was specific when he registered the user account for you. Perhaps he felt that unlimited access would distract you from therapy at the Enclave."

Of course he did. All this time he's been encouraging me to reach out and explore...and all the time holding me on a leash so he could supervise it when I did. I can go anywhere I want, as long as it is inside PanGames. She wanted to scream, to vomit, or to laugh until her head exploded. All this time she had thought she was keeping the world safe from her own handiwork, she had been locked out of access just as tightly as her former colleagues at the UE Strategic Weapons Division had. She had really outsmarted herself this time.

Look on the bright side, she told herself. Am-heh is an intruder, so he doesn't even have a user account. His shared memory of her activation code would be useless. No, she corrected herself, after a moment's thought. He could still intimidate some other PanGames customer to send the code for him with their own email access. And again, he might be able to get into the computers at Fermilab as easily as he had invaded PanGames.

She had to find another way. Think, Lizzie! Maybe she could talk someone into sending the stand-down code for her. But perhaps Wu's other patients had limited access as well. Could she get Wu to send it? No, she decided. He would probably interpret it as a new delusion requiring more therapy. And that, of course, was her own fault for not confiding in him all these years. Act like a patient and you get treated as one. No, she couldn't tell Wu, couldn't expect the poor man to understand that all the years he had thought he was taking care of her he had merely been hiding her.

She would explain and apologize to Wu later. There was, she realized, one more thing she could try. It wasn't her first choice, but perhaps it was all she had left. No matter what system she was in, there was one channel of communication that ought to still work, if she could use it to get to someone who could connect her to Fermilab.

"Get me Customer Service," she said grimly.

A handsome male avatar appeared before her and smiled warmly. "May I help you?"

"Yes you can," she growled. "Put me through to your CIO."

His smile remained but one eyebrow lifted. "I'm sure I can help you. Do you need to report a bug, or have you gotten stuck in a Realm transition? If it is information you need, you have only to ask. If there is a technical problem, I can open a Help desk ticket for you."

"None of the above. If you're human, get me your boss. If you're a program, get me a human."

The avatar vanished. She pushed her irritation down and forced herself to wait. Gods alone knew how many layers of drones she would have to push through.

Another smiling face appeared. "Hello, may I help you?"

She got right to the point. "Are you a human being? Because you can't help me if you aren't."

"Why not?" it said, responding to her remark. Either it was a human and he was curious...or her comment had triggered a response superseding her question.

"I don't have time for this!" she snapped, feeling her intended patience dissolving. "You don't have time for this! Do you have the ability to connect me to someone in charge?"

"Please remain calm ma'am," the face said. "What seems to be the problem?"

She took a breath and exhaled slowly, fighting for calm. "Where would you like me to begin? Your system security has been compromised. Your users are in danger from an intruder. I'm probably the only person who knows what's going on and you lot keep treating me as if I'm some brainless twit who has a petty issue with a menu!"

The avatar began to reply but froze. A second later he vanished and another appeared. This one sported an expression of weary irritation. "I hear you have some sort of problem with another Player. Would you like me to notify a GM? I'm sure he or she can resolve–"

"Stop," she told him, certain from the avatar's expression that she had finally reached an actual human. "Please don't treat this as some minor user complaint. We have an extremely serious situation here. So serious that I don't even have time to explain it a hundred times. I need to talk to whoever is in charge of your computers." Oh, damn, there goes the eyebrow again. I bet he just brought up my user account and saw I'm a mental patient.

"If you mean our CIO," he said, "then I must advise you that he is usually busy. His time is valuable and you can imagine how little he likes interruptions."

"Do you like your job?" she growled. "Look, I realize you've never seen me before. I could be anyone. I get it. Look at it this way. If I'm some crazy person he would be annoyed if you put me through, but he wouldn't fire you for it. On the other hand, if I'm not crazy, and the situation is as bad as I believe, and the shit hits the fan, and I could have warned him but you didn't let me, and he finds out that you could have prevented it by putting me through to him, then I doubt very much that you'll have a job tomorrow."

He frowned. "I can't just say you want to talk to him. If you could tell me what this is about, then maybe–"

"You have it backwards," she informed him. "He wants to talk to me. He just doesn't know it yet. Tell him...tell him it's about the Am-heh situation. If that doesn't get his attention, then tell him it's about the users who got eaten. Unless he's asleep at the switch, he knows about them by now."

The avatar vanished, leaving her floating in the Customer Service room. Damn damn damn. You pushed a little too hard, Lizzie.....

A window opened in front of her in the room space. She saw the interior of an office, looking a little too cluttered to be virtual. In front of her was a desk; the man sitting in it looked old enough to be her father, and maybe older. Beneath a shock of fading blonde hair she saw alert blue eyes in a face that badly needed a shave and twelve hours of sleep.

He got right to the point. "All right, you have my attention. I'm Farker, CIO for PanGames. What do you know about Am-heh, Ms. Soto?"

She was momentarily confused, then realized that Wu would have registered her under a false name for patient confidentiality. "My real name is Elizabeth Kaplan," she told him. "What do I know about Am-heh? Probably a lot more than you, at the moment." She thought for a second. "In fact," she added, "I doubt that you know enough about him to even believe what I know about him."

"Try me," he grunted. "You'd be surprised what I can believe today."

"You probably think he's a program gone buggy," she said. "He's not. I realize this will sound crazy, but he's a ghost in your machine. Literally. Your computer is haunted."

Farker smiled grimly. "A couple of days ago that would have sounded crazy," he said. "But a lot can happen in a couple of days."

"It gets worse," she told him. He's from a group of extraterrestrials who have been in contact with humans for thousands of years. They've been with us since the Pharaohs."

"That would explain why he got mythologized into a god of the Egyptian underworld," Farker commented. "But what is he doing in my computer?"

"There's another faction," she said. "He's here do do battle with someone from the other side. I don't know who his opponent is, but apparently what they're fighting over is who gets to be our overlords. Personally, I'm rooting for the other side."

"How do you know all this?" he asked.

"Because I shared memories with him." She explained briefly.

He didn't seem to be listening. Something was distracting him. "Did you say your name was Kaplan?" he asked.

"Yes. Elizabeth Kaplan. Why?"

"Are you related to Darla Kaplan?

"I have a daughter named Darla," she said. "She was named after my grandmother. It's not a common name nowadays. Why, do you know her?"

"The God of Coincidences is working overtime this week," he remarked. "Your daughter is a Player in PanGames, and she's met Am-heh, too. In fact, she's how I found out about him. She's working with us to try to get rid of him. Hasn't she told you all this?"

Tsuneo was right, she thought. They survived! Oh, Manny, my love, will you ever forgive me? She wanted to weep and laugh at the same time. So many wasted years.

"No, I got separated from her years ago." At his look of surprise, she added "It's a long story for another time. Do you know where I can find her?"

He smiled. "As a matter of fact, I do. She's with Am-heh's opponent. Shall I have the system teleport you to her?"

"Yes," she said. "No, wait...I need to do something first. Can you send an email to Fermilab for me?"

"The museum in Batavia? Do you work there?"

"I used to," she said. "And I forgot to turn something off."

Chapter 63: Farker: even Orpheus didn't succeed

After his conversation with Elizabeth, Farker had a lot to think about, not that he didn't have enough already. "Finder," he said, "why didn't you ever tell me that minds connected to a quantum computer could communicate memories to each other?"

"You never asked if it was possible. When she asked about it, simple checking revealed that it was an inherent (although unanticipated) capability."

"You sound like it should have been obvious."

"Shouldn't it? When the Players in PanGames 'speak' to each other, there are no microphones or loudspeakers involved. Data goes from the speech center of the speaker's brain to the system and from the system into the auditory and speech centers of the Player being spoken to. It is obvious that this kind of electro-telepathy could include others forms of data such as memories."

"You're forgetting something," he pointed out. "Am-heh has no physical body."

"True, but that actually shortens the process. Elizabeth's information only had to reach the locus of his representation in the computer, and his data merely had to go from there to her brain. There is less of a transmission delay when only one link bed is involved."

"You mean all the Players who talk to each other in PanGames..."

"Are doing so only out of habit, yes. They could talk just as easily without moving their lips, especially if they wanted privacy."

Farker groped in a drawer for another protein bar. In his mind's eye he was picturing Aes going up against Am-heh. Could the gentle healer really beat the Devourer of Millions? He shook his head, remembering what the Finder had said about transmission delays. Residing entirely within the PanGames hypercomputer, Am-heh would react to events in the system faster than any human user. Any user, that is, except Aes. Like it or not, Aes was their best chance against him. He's the Aes up our sleeve, he thought.

For some reason the thought made his eyes water. He wiped them angrily. No time for sentimentality. "Finder, how much time does Aes have left to him?"

"If he does absolutely nothing, seven hours six minutes." said Finder. "But anything that engages his attention might cause a growth surge and shorten it even more. And of course there is even less time for an optimal resolution."

"An optimal resolution? Explain."

"In seven hours and six minutes Aes will exceed any block in the computational matrix. But in less than three hours you will not be able to fit both Aes and Am-heh into even an empty block like Paradise."

"So they're both doomed, really. Am-heh's growing himself to death too."

"Affirmative. But their situations are not the same. Aes arrived here first and is way ahead on the exponential curve. Given their current growth rates, Aes will die first unless there is a Realm crash."

"I assume you overheard my conversation with Darla's mother. What do you suppose would be the result if we keep them separate, or can't talk him into it, and Aes dies first?"

"We cannot presume to understand the thought process of aliens," Finder observed. "But it seems likely that whoever survives longest will be considered the winner of the contest."

"What about the avatars who were eaten by Am-heh? What happens to them if there's a system crash?"

"If they're still 'inside' him at the time it happens," the Finder told him. "it's bad. If they're outside, they log out safely when the crash happens."

"How do we get them out of him, assuming their minds aren't ruined already? How do we lead them back to the land of the living?"

"I have no answer for that. As you recall, even Orpheus didn't succeed."

No, Farker reflected, he didn't. But that was because someone looked back at the last moment. How did we get to this place, where we're trying to use mythology to correct a problem with our technology? Most of his life, he had known that the floor beneath his feet was an illusion of solidity, that what kept him from falling through it was the mutual repulsion of electrons he would never see. Science, the modern mythology, comforts us, explaining the things we can see by resorting to theoretical things that we will never see.

But none of his science could help him now. His career, and the lives of the victims, were in the hands of a piece of living mythology. And the irony of the situation did not escape him. I only put the Asklepios NPC into Realm of Legends because the name was on a list of Greek gods, he thought. What do I really know about him? Hardly more than a pedigree.

"What it boils down to," he said finally, "is that Aes has to be in the trap with him."

"Correct. It's the only scenario which guarantees success."

We have to ask someone who owes us nothing to die alone in an empty world. He'd die even sooner in a crowded Realm, of course. Bit it's still a lot to ask. I hope he's a better man than me. I'd probably spend my last moments feeling sorry for myself.

I need to know more about him before I can ask him to do this, he decided.

Chapter 64: Manny: "smoke from a distant fire"

The last of his lunch crowd regulars had finally gone. Manny was about to switch off the grill when the bells on the front door jingled as it swung outwards to admit a gust of hot and humid Florida air, followed by the colorful but diminutive figure of Agnes Neuburg.

Manny had been looking forward to settling in with his dog-eared copy of Michener's The Source. Sighing on the inside, he made himself smile at Agnes. "How are you this afternoon, Mrs. Neuburg?"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, please, Manny, haven't we known each other long enough now to call me Agnes? There's no need to be so formal."

But I don't want to call you Agnes, he thought. It's a step onto a slippery slope. Yes, he knew her name was Agnes. Of course he knew her name was Agnes. But to encourage familiarity, that he was avoiding. Not out of respect for Saul Neuburg, God rest his soul. But out of respect for his Lizzie.

Or was Darla right after all? Was his hermeticity misguided, clinging so tenaciously to his enshrined memory of a lost love? Was he using the memory of his wife to avoid the terrors and inconveniences of modern dating? Or was he punishing himself?

I was the one who insisted we take little Darla to see country of my birth. I was the one who talked Liz into spending her sabbatical in one of the most dangerous places on Earth. Me. She would have been content to live her entire life in England, most likely. But no, I had to drag her halfway around the world to see a place she had no roots in. She died because of my selfishness.

You didn't know what was going to happen, he reminded himself. But it didn't change anything. On dark and lonely nights he liked to fantasize that she was still alive somewhere, perhaps with amnesia, like a character in a bad soap opera. And of course he had always insisted to his daughter that her mother was still alive. But was it a real feeling that he had, or merely hopeless optimism? Maybe Darla was right. Twenty years, it was enough grieving. Maybe he should let go of the past and embrace the present. He was painfully aware that Agnes found him desirable. This obsession of hers, he did not return. But didn't some people say love is a choice? Wouldn't it be better to spend his life with someone who loved him, instead of hiding in his shell mourning the one woman he had ever loved? Agnes was not a bad person. He could do worse...

She's waiting for me to say something, he realized. There I go off in my head. I've been doing too much of that lately. I'm adrift in a sea of loneliness, and the diner isn't an anchor, it's an albatross. But I'm slow to change my ways. He saw the concerned look in Agnes's eyes. "I'm sorry, Agnes," he said. "I was daydreaming again. What would you like?"

"Thinking of her again? You're a good man, Manny. But, forgive me for saying it, life is for the living. 'It is not good that the man should be alone', isn't that was God said, in Genesis?"

"So it is written," he agreed. "But I'm not alone. I have Darla."

"She can't stay with you forever, Manny. I'm sure you wouldn't want that. Soon she might meet a man and get married, and then where will you be? Hiring some waitress too young for you and wondering whether you can control yourself forever? Oh, just listen to me babbling, it's none of my business, I know. But I worry about you."

I'm sure you do, he thought. You worry that I'll settle for someone else. But the thought shamed him. To judge another for seeking love, merely because he was trapped in his own memories, that was not worthy. And now, I'm judging myself again. Truly, I am the grand master of guilt. "What can I get for you today?"

"You could get happy, but that's too much to ask, I'm sure. I don't want to be any trouble. Do you have anything already made?"

He scratched the stubble on his cheek. Did I forget to shave today? "Well," he said after a moment's thought, "I've got some 'hot slow' just cooling off in the fridge. I could warm that up for you, if you like." At her look of confusion he added "you know, cholent."

Her face cleared. "Ah, cholent! Yes, please, that would be fine. But why did you call it 'hot slow' ... is that a regional name?"

"My mother used to call it that," he said. " She said cholent came from the French words for hot and slow. It's a popular dish to have at Shabbat, because It's slow-cooked and you can start it early on Friday to have for lunch the next day without working." He didn't mention that he was open on Saturdays. Most of his customers weren't Jewish. He frequently made cholent for himself because it reminded him of his late mother's cooking. It was a hearty stew of beef, potatoes, barley, onions, beans, flower, oil and spices.

"From the French words?"

"A lot of the Ashkenazi families that came to Germany and Russia passed through France first," he said. "Of course, she might have been wrong. Others have told me that the name derives from she'lan which means 'that rested', as in overnight. In the Old Country, families would put their pots of cholent into the local baker's oven so that the ovens, which stayed hot all night, would slow-cook the stew for them."

"It's kosher, then?"

"I'm afraid not," he told her. "I'm not a rich man, you know. My mustering-out pay and bonuses got me this diner, but I don't have enough for separate cookware and all that. I hope it doesn't shock you, but I haven't worried about keeping kosher for a long time now. Darla's mother preferred British cuisine, you see."

"Do you do bangers and mash, then? Or bubble and squeak? I had them once."

"No," he said, turning away to the fridge so that she couldn't see the expression on his face. No need for her to share his pain. "I haven't done any of that since I lost Lizzie. I stick to pretty basic stuff now. Not much call for Brit food here in Orlando these days, anyway."

She was silent while he got out the tub of cholent and put it in the microwave to warm.

"Darla keeps after me to call you back," he said, to change the subject. "I guess you must think me gornisht helfn, beyond help, when I don't return your calls. I hear you could buy and sell me twice over. Your husband was a better businessman then I'll ever be."

"Oh, stop." she said, smiling. "I'm comfortable, yes, but I know you're not that shallow. You're doing fine here, from what I can see...as far as money goes. But what about companionship, Manny? Have you given up on that? Elizabeth wouldn't have wanted that for you, I'm sure."

He sighed, reaching up to get a bowl for the stew. "I'm sure you're right. I've been doing a lot of thinking about it lately, I admit. It's hard for me to argue with Genesis. I know men aren't meant to live without a better half. But I have to be honest with you, Agnes. It's very hard for me to let go of Liz." The microwave beeped and he slid the tub out and poured it into the bowl. "We were so close, sometimes when she called me I would pick up the phone before it even rang. Half the time, I could tell what she was hungry for even before she knew. After all these years, I still feel her in the middle of my head, as if she were still alive."

He set the steaming bowl of cholent in front of her. She took the opportunity to cover one of his hands with hers before he could pull it back. "I get it, Manny," she said softly. "You loved her very much, so much it's like she's still here. I'm not trying to chase your memories away. It's the same with me and Saul. For years, I kept waking up expecting him to step out of the shower, like it was all a bad dream in a soap opera, the Virus taking him from me. I know about cherished memories. When you really love someone, part of them will always be with you."

Manny freed his hand and wiped his eyes with the corner of his towel. "Sorry," he said, "sometimes I think I put too much pepper in the cholent...it makes my eyes water. You're right. Life is for the living. I suppose in my selfishness I often act like I'm the only person who has lost someone precious. All I'm saying is, you're still an attractive woman, Agnes. It's not you, it's me that has the problem, and I know it."

After she left, Manny turned the sign in the front door around from OPEN to CLOSED and sat down at one of the tables to think. Can I start over, this late in life? On the heels of that though came the retort. Late in life? You're fifty-one, Manny. The way medicine is going these days, you might have at least another fifty years. Do you want to spend it alone?

I don't know if I can let go. Should I force myself to? He felt himself teetering on the edge of a decision...and he didn't know what that decision was. His chest felt tight suddenly, and his hands were trembling. Unable to think, nearly unable to breathe, his hand came up to his shirt pocket and reached inside.

The picture was old, but the lamination had preserved it all these years since that morning in Tel Aviv when she had slipped it into his jacket pocket. There he was, and baby Darla on her first birthday. She was staring at the cake uncomprehendingly as if some alien artifact had landed on the table. And Liz was there, heartbreakingly beautiful as always. It was the only picture he had of her that had not burned to radioactive ash with his luggage and hers, when Tel Aviv and Haifa smoked with the heat of a thousand suns.

Manny throat closed, and he choked up, and the dams in his eyes broke open again. His shoulders shook as he let himself go, opening up to the grief pent up within him and just going with it, letting the sudden flood of tears roar out as they sometimes did, letting the drops run down his cheeks and wet the table. But he made no sound, as if somehow the absence of wailing would mean it wasn't really happening, that he was okay, that it was just a random combination of pepper and nervous tremors.

After a minute or two the fit passed, leaving him shaken and empty. He put the picture back in his shirt pocket and bowed his head to do something he had not done in twenty years. Give me a sign, he prayed. Any kind of sign that you care about me, God. I'm not asking for a burning bush. I know you don't do special effects these days. But please, I'm lost, I'm broken, and I don't know what to do. Just a little sign, like the words Let Go or else Hang On. Anywhere, on a billboard, I don't care. But something. Please. I am begging you. Give me something to tell me what to do!

And the register beeped.

Manny jerked, startled, and then laughed at himself bitterly. Good grief, he thought, get a grip, you old fool. That's not God, it's another game email for Darla, probably from that Farker she met. Maybe the two of them were an item. He wasn't so blind that he hadn't noticed how eager she had been to get online lately, gulping her food instead of tasting it.

He dried his eyes, then the tabletop, and stood up. It was none of his business. She could read it when she came downstairs. He picked up Agnes's empty bowl and spoon and tossed them in the recycler, then turned toward the staircase, intending to tiptoe up to see if Darla was awake. As he did, something red blinked in the corner of his eye.

Turning back to the register, he saw it was a READ RECEIPT REQUESTED notice below the green EMAIL RECEIVED notification. Whoever had sent the message wanted to know it had been read. Curious, he found himself stepping closer. Maybe I should check it out. After all, what if we lost power before she wakes up? It might get lost. He hit the ENTER key and words spilled out onto the screen:

Manny –

I'm alive, my love. I thought you were dead. I got Farker at PanGames to send this because the account my doctor set up for me doesn't include external emails. Farker knows how to reach me. Meet me in cyberspace as soon as you can. Yours forever, Liz.

P.S. It's really me. I hope you haven't forgotten that Toad-in-the-hole recipe.

Manny stood stock still for a moment, pulse rocketing, the blood thundering in his head. He read it through five times, hardly able to believe it. Was it a trick? But he had never even told Darla about the recipe that brought them together. It had to be real.

A minute later he flew out the door with a fistful of unused travel vouchers and flagged down a taxi. "Get me to the PanGames building," he told the driver. "I don't care what city it's in. Just get me there. If this isn't enough, I'll get you the rest when we get there."

Chapter 65: Aes: Crispians

Thunk! A throwing knife quivered in the old stump, the target of Achilles. Darla pulled her hand back and another knife materialized in it.

Thunk! The second knife was positioned one centimeter to the right of the first one, and parallel to it.

"Keep that up and you'll get a complete dining set," said Cheiron.

Thunk. A third knife joined the other two, taking up its station in the parade of cutlery. "Have you talked to Farker lately?" said Darla.

It was bandaid time. "You mean, about Aes dying?"

Darla leaned over as she threw again.

THUNK! A fourth knife appeared below the first three as if to underline them. It went in parallel to the ground and penetrated until the hilt stopped it. "When were you going to tell us? Or better, him?"

"It's better if he reasons it out himself," Cheiron said. "He'll feel less manipulated when he's asked to sacrifice himself."

"Don't tell me you're going for this plan!"

"Do you have another one, that has any chance of working?"

"I'm working on it," she said grimly.

"Doesn't count. Any plan that can succeed beats all plans that don't even exist yet."

"Reasoned like a machine," she said. "Any soulless chunk of silicon would be proud of you." Thunk!

Aes was reading a speech. He was a fast reader, but he had taken ten seconds off to explore the historical entries about the Bard. Then another ten seconds to read the rest of Shakespeare's output before this play.

"...We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;  
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me  
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,  
This day shall gentle his condition;  
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed  
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,  
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks  
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."

"It's a good speech," he told Farker. "Is there some reason you're showing me this now?"

"We have a plan for dealing with Am-heh," Farker said. "I've made a empty new Realm called Paradise–"

"An empty paradise?" asked Aes. "Sounds like you're going for dystopia."

"It's just a name to avoid Am-heh's suspicion. Would you rather we call it The Trap?"

"Go on," said Aes.

"We need someone to lead Am-heh into it. Once he's in we can slam the door and trap him in it. Then we can crash Paradise to terminate his process execution. To shut him down."

"So you need someone to act as bait," Aes remarked.

"Exactly."

"And I am the logical bait."

"Aes, do you know the end result of runaway growth in a finite memory?"

"Yes," he said. "The same as a memory leak. Program termination due to memory allocation fault. Apparently I have an expiration date."

"In other words...you're dying."

"I already figured that out. So. I'm dying. Therefore..."

"That's all you have to say about facing nonexistence?"

"Ah," he said. "Now I see it. I am the trap. You want me to lure Am-heh into Paradise where we can both die."

"We're running out of time. You put on a growth surge and changed the estimate. In a couple of hours we won't be able to fit both of you into Paradise. We have to use it before then."

"Can't you just make Paradise bigger?"

"No. The storage is modular – one memory block to each Realm."

"I see." And the trouble was, he did. He had been granted a reprieve from his ride on the ferryboat, but that reprieve was temporary. And this gift, however illusory, must now be repaid. The place of his rebirth would be his tomb. "Look after Darla when I'm gone," he said.

Farker nodded, "I wish I had time to change things," he said. "You deserve better than this. Can't you slow your own growth?"

"Would that I could," said Aes. "Can you stop your own beard from growing, by wishing it so? Growth is part of life. When an organism stops growing, it starts dying." He threw a fireball against the inner wall of the cave. The fire burst against the wall, flinging emerald embers that hissed and crackled for seconds in a rough semicircle on the floor around the point of impact. They outlived their source, but dimly, flickering, faded out one by one.

"Better to blaze away in glory than fade into the night," he said. "There is a way to die well? Good. Then I choose to die well."

"Yes," agreed Farker. "But it still isn't fair." He kicked a pebble.

"The only 'fair', the only justice, is what we make," said Aes. "Reality is like this artisan's dream of yours. It holds its patterns, dark and light, and makes no choice in them. Only we few, we happy few, can choose to tip the scales. Some with our lives...and others, with our deaths."

"I was so sure you were only a program," Farker confessed to him. "I should have known differently. I never thought we were making a soulcatcher. All I expected in my web was an imaginary spider."

"It was inevitable," Aes told him. "Mind and matter are different aspects of the Ultimate. If you tinker with one, you will find the other. It was only a matter of time before your pigments and canvas were subtle enough to hold a higher order of imagination."

"Then maybe the true Paradise exists. Maybe Olympus awaits you. Maybe there is an afterlife, after all."

"There was," Aes told him, sadly. "And this was it. I thank the gods for it, and He who made them. But it is time to pay the Ferryman."

"Hold on," begged Farker. "We still have a couple of hours. I'm a selfish man, I admit it. You're a once in a lifetime chance for me, you know. Most old coots don't get to talk to a god before they die."

"Don't speak blasphemy," warned Aes. "I'm not God. I bleed here, as you do in your Real world. My birth was unusual in both, and my death shall be also. But I am only a man." He turned and strode out of the cave.

"About that," said Farker, following him out into the clearing. "There's something I think you should see."

At the sound of his voice, Darla turned. "See? You think this is the time to go sightseeing?"

"It's the only time he has," said Farker. "So, yes. Remember how I told you not to ask Aes about his childhood?"

Darla nodded. Aes looked at Farker sharply. "Why?"

"I only put what I knew into the program, so there were no details about your childhood to be found. I was afraid that either your program would crash, or you would be demoralized when the lack of a childhood proved you weren't real."

"But I remember my childhood. There would have been no problem discussing it."

"I believe you, now," said Farker. "You know things none of us knew about you. But there's still something I know that you don't."

"Such as?"

"You remember your past," said Farker. "But I remember your future. Or at least the part of it that's History. You deserve to know it. Will you come with me for a moment? You, too Darla. You both should see this. Let's join hands."

FLASH.

"This is the Aklepeion at Epidaurus. It was a temple dedicated to you, Aes, and to healing. People came from all over to be healed here. There were rooms for at least 160 patients, plus mineral baths, and an outstanding open-air theater (which the Romans could not improve other than by adding some more rows to it). People would sleep and dream of the god Asklepios advising them of how to cure themselves. Dreaming of you, Aes."

FLASH.

"This is another Asklepeion on the island of Kos. Hippocrates, considered the father of modern medicine, was trained here. Either he or his students valued their studies at the Asklepeion enough that their students, upon graduating to full status as physicians, had to recite an oath, the Hippocratic Oath, which begins:

"I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfill according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:..."

FLASH.

"This is the Asklepeion on the Tiber river in Rome. In 291 BC Rome was suffering an epidemic, and being practical people they imported a foreign god from Greece reputed to be an excellent healer, a 'Blameless Physician'. That was you, Asklepios, but the Latinized form of your name is Aesculapius."

Farker paused. "Most of us walk the shores of Time, and waves erase our footprints forever. But not you. You became a legend of hope for millions, worshiped as a god of healing. Records carved in stone attest to the relief of suffering in your name. Offerings in the shape of healed body parts were piled at these temples to you. From the poor, clay images. From those with more means, images of stone or bronze or silver, all dedicated to you, giving thanks to the god for their healing. Giving thanks to you."

Darla's cheeks were wet. Aes could not keep silent. "But I am no God," he protested.

"A lot of people were helped in your name, Aes. You were not forgotten. You will never be forgotten. Temples have been built to your name in many cities and countries. What you accomplished in that lifetime, what you did while you were alive in Thessaly, really made an impression. Our modern hospitals are based in part on your Asklepeions. Your very name has been interpreted to mean surgery: "to cut out", although I doubt that it's the root of our word scalpel. For thousands of years physicians have sworn by your name to help others, and above all, to do no harm.

FLASH.

They returned to the hilltop on Pelion. Darla turned to face him. "Aes, you don't have to do this! If Am-heh's growing like you are, he's doomed anyway. Stay with me," she begged, arms reaching out for him. "Stay with me, please, as long as you can. Don't you care for me?"

He caught her wrists, before she could hug him, and met her gaze squarely. "Do you remember the first words I spoke to you, when the snake introduced us?"

She shook her head. "No, not really. I didn't have the translator engaged...and the fact that you were naked was a little distracting."

He smiled. "τὸ πεπρωμένον φυγεῖν ἀδύνατον," he said. "It is impossible to escape from what is destined. This is my destiny, Darla. It is what I am here for. I understand that now."

She shook her head violently, denying it. "That's bullshit. No one has to kill him. All we have to do is wait him out. There's no need to rush into oblivion. Your life is–"

"...is mine to spend," he said quietly. "And I intend to spend it well. I can't stay and grow old with you. Some other man will do that, if the Fates allow. You have to go on and follow your own destiny."

"Don't give me that!" she flared.

He released her wrists and took her into his arms. "It's all I have to give you. I cannot give you the years I will never see. I cannot reweave the threads of fate. Trying to do that with Hippolytus was what got me into this situation in the first place."

Farker coughed into his fist. Darla let go of Aes and glared at him. "You're really pushing this bad timing thing, you know that? What now?"

"Actually," said Farker, "there is one other thing you can give her. Believe it or not, I've learned that users in PanGames can share their memories with each other. It'll shorten your life, Aes, because it's more learning, meaning more growth. But you can give her this."

"Shorten it how much? Will I still have time to complete the mission?"

"There'll be less time, but yes, you should still have enough. And actually, it might help you. Darla knows more about the Game than you do. I don't know what would make a difference at this point, but you never know. It might give you an edge. It's important that you kill him before you run out of time."

"Why?" Darla wanted to know. "What difference does it make what closes the book on Am-heh? Dead is dead."

"Am-heh didn't get here by accident, and I'm pretty sure you didn't either, Aes," Farker told him. "There are two groups fighting for control over the human race. From what we know about Am-heh, I'd rather the side that sent you here wins the battle. You might think it's a draw if you both die but Finder says no. According to Finder, whoever dies first, loses."

"How do you know all this?" Darla demanded.

"Later," Farker told her. He turned to Aes. "So whether or not we can do anything to help the avatars he's eaten already, the Devourer has to die before you. And that," he said, shifting his glance to Darla, "is why we can't simply wait for Am-heh to run out of memory space. Aes got here first, and has grown faster than him. If we just sit and wait, Am-heh will die all right...but Aes will die first. If that happens, the Devourer's side wins the fight."

"I understand," said Aes. He turned to Darla. "Do you want to know everything there is to know about me? I have my faults, and I lived through some bloody years in Hellas. It won't all be pretty and romantic. Maybe we should just go and finish this."

"No," she said. "I mean, yes, I want to do it." She glanced at Farker. "How do we do it?"

"As far as I know, since Finder's always listening, all you have to do is verbally agree to share memories with each other. Once you do that, Finder will oversee the process."

Darla turned to face him. "Aes, I agree to share memories with you."

He focused on her face. "Darla, I agree to share memories with you."

The world ripped open and they fell into each other's minds.

Is that how I look to her? he wondered. In her vision he seemed taller. He shared with her how beautiful she was, how magical her movements were, the feel of her arms. She received these and sent back her childhood and schooling, her friends and her gaming. He received these and bequeathed his childhood, his career as a physician, his children, and his wife. She sent moments of panic seeing him bleeding, urging him to heal himself. He overlaid these with images of her deadly ballet, her lovely form twisting and weaving through flocks of bullets and flailing clubs and knives, his confidence in her excellence, her arete. She sent him a cave becoming a temple, the sound of two bodies clapping, and he sent her a stranger becoming a comrade-in-arms, a partner against the cruelty of the world.

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

for he to-day that sheds his blood with me

...Shall be my brother."

The Sharing ended. But in a sense, it would never end. He would soon be gone, he knew, but part of him would always be with her now. And that would have to be enough. They were running out of time. It was time to pay the Ferryman.

He reviewed his power set, looking for something he had forgotten. There it was. From the knowledge of Darla's memories, he realized that he had exactly the tool he needed. The gods must have guided him to select it.

Chapter 66: Am-heh: τὸ δὶς ἐξαμαρτεῖν οὐκ ἀνδρὸς σοφοῦ.

"To commit the same sin again is not the act of a wise man"

Am-heh was still annoyed at having been frozen to the rooftop. He had been thinking in simplistic terms of attack and counterattack. The complexity of team encounters was a bigger box to think in and out of. He had not anticipated 'holds' in his eat-or-be-eaten paradigm.

Two could play the game of surprise powers. Time for some serious leveling. Am-heh invoked Stygian Darkness and bounded toward the nearest crowded area.

There was a duo of mortals fighting a quintet of Jerx. Am-heh grinned hungrily and crept up behind one of the mortals invisibly, then decloaked and Devoured her.

The other mortal jerked around to stare at him, startled. "What the hell?"

"Hello and goodbye," said Am-heh, and Devoured her too.

BANG! A hot impact in his shoulder surprised him. Whirling, he saw the Jerx had decided to attack him. One of their stupid lead bullets had struck him. Roaring, ignoring the pain, Am-heh sprang on them and Devoured them all.

The pain in his shoulder faded. Curious, he looked into it and saw his eating the Jerx had apparently restored him. A convenient side effect.

He moved on to the next group of mortals. This Realm was a happy hunting ground for him. Leveling was almost child's play, when he could come upon them cloaked in his invisibility power and swallow them before they knew what was happening. Now that he had learned that leveling granted a choice of new powers, he intended to give his Opponent a few nasty surprises the next time they met. By the time he faced the other Champion, the fool wouldn't know what hit him.

Focusing on a nearby rooftop, he teleported there to get a better view of the area. At the feet of a giant statue he could make out a group of brightly costumed figures forming up in a line abreast. What was this? He decided to get a closer look. And a snack, of course. Activating his Stygian Darkness, he vanished from sight, then activated his new travel power and teleported down next to the group.

It was odd, he reflected, how this primitive species seemed to be anticipating some of the qualities of the Transcended in this imaginary world. What he had seen here had been so mystifying, until the memory sharing with Elizabeth had clarified matters. Though they were still mortal, still limited by the physical bodies that supported their connection with the perceivable universe, they could create this virtual world and use it to interact with each other in unexpected ways.

And the nature of the rules in this imaginary world was, in itself, paradoxical. On the one hand, they strove to duplicate to a remarkable degree the laws of motion and substance that prevailed in their own ordinary reality. And then, having done that, they created these...powers that allowed them to circumvent some of those same rules. Gravity operated here...but you could learn to fly. Objects were solid...but you could teleport through them.

What kind of species would create a world with rigid rules...and then blithely create ways for people to ignore those rules? It made him think about the Covenant. He had never fought in a Covenant match before. What happened to the loser? He knew he was mortal here, as was the other Champion. If by some fluke he, Am-heh, lost and was killed by the green hero, what would come afterwards? Would his demotion to mortal status mean that he would find himself reborn on some world as a flesh-and-blood pre-Transcended mortal, to continue the process of death and rebirth until he re-Transcended with the local species?

He knew little of the capabilities of the Second Quantum beings such as Atum. Such beings as he were as far beyond Am-heh as he himself was to mortals. The proof of that was the fact that Atum could, at will, strip a First Quantum god of his deification and make him mortal again for the sake of combat in a Covenant match. But would Atum really permit the numbers of his Transcended species to be whittled down by losses in Covenant matches, risking a time in which their population was insufficient to hold onto the client species they had already annexed?

He could not believe it. Was there a chance that Atum would collect his soul, his meta-pattern, and promote him back to the ranks of the First Quantum gods? If he wished, Am-heh could tweak the offspring of mortals into demigods that would transcend prematurely when they died instead of reincarnating again as mortals. This Am-heh could do, and he was only of the First Quantum gods. Could Atum do even more, and change a mortal directly into a Transcended, i.e., raise them, not their descendants to First Quantum status?

It might be. If that were so, then losing a Covenant match need not be the end of an individual's godhood. But Atum had given him no such hope, no promise of deliverance should he fail. No, Atum was not favorably disposed toward him. He still condemned Am-heh for the methods he had used to nurture the development of the Trenni. And it was so unfair! All he had done was force them into cannibalism to accelerate their evolution. And why not? As the apex of the food chain on their gas giant, the Trenni had had it too easy, and would have taken forever to reach Transcendence. Am-heh had only been helping them when he taught them to eat each other! He had fashioned them into their own predators, supplying the incentive for further development that they had lacked. Evolutionary bootstrapping. It would have worked perfectly, had Atum not disapproved and destroyed them, forcing their souls to start again in some other species, on some other world.

No, he could not count on help from Atum if he died here, he decided. Not that he would fail. His Opponent was weak, frail, and too concerned with the welfare of others to be an effective killer. He, Am-heh, would be the one left standing. And if he won the way he intended to, by Devouring the pathetic green hero, it should add his power to Am-heh's, propelling him further toward his ultimate goal: achieving Second Quantum status and thus freedom from Atum's bullying forever. And might there not be a Third Quantum, an even higher level of being, to which someday he might attain...and have his revenge on Atum?

One of the costumed heroes was selecting some of the members of the lineup. Moving even closer, Am-heh listened to him speak. What he heard was hilarious! This gathering was nothing more than a costume contest! These pseudo-gods wanted their cleverness in devising or choosing their appearance to be recognized and applauded, as if it mattered what they looked like.

Am-heh's canine lip curled in a gesture of contempt he had learned from Elizabeth's memories. Yes, he himself had been alarmed when Elizabeth had taken him to Brittania and the reformatting had changed his appearance. But that was understandable dismay at being involuntarily changed. It was like a trivial version of what Atum had already done to him in making him mortal. As soon as he had come here, he had corrected the ugliness, restoring his fine predator jaws and claws and discarding the useless clothing in favor of his natural fur.

But he had not preened and postured and expected to be admired. After all, this form had been forced upon him by Atum. It was not his original mortal body. He only preferred it, he told himself, because he had worn it for so long. Damn Atum and his interfering!

A flash or rage at Atum possessed him then, and he vented it by coming up behind the contest judge and Devouring him. In the moment of shock this caused in the ranks, he used his faster reflexes to teleport behind another hero and Devour her too. Then he cloaked himself again and teleported back to the rooftop, waiting for them to relax so that he could surprise them again. Safe in his Stygian Darkness, Am-heh laughed, exulting in his prowess. These heroes were no match for a true killer. He would Devour them all, and when he had eaten enough to level him, he would pick another power and then do it all over again, here or elsewhere. He was better than these fools. He was better than anyone.

Chapter 67: Aes: Apò mēkhanês Theós

("God from the Machine")

Aes looked about him. It's a good day to die, he thought, remembering the quote from one of Darla's memories. Ironic that the same growth that had made him what he was would also kill him. This is what comes of an implementation made without knowledge of its storage requirements.

I've died before, he thought. He wondered, would dying here count at all, or was this quasi-existence, this virtual incarnation too ephemeral to make a splash in the wheel of Karma? Would he skip like a stone on the river of Time and pop up in someone else's computer? Or just twist in the wind?

It didn't matter. Without Epione, nothing mattered.

Aes brooded on the edge of a roof, gazing down forty stories at the street below. In his mind he was seeing her as she looked the last day in his first life. Her hair was that rich russet glory, her eyes the emeralds of Thalassa. The cloths on her body were costly and colored, but ignored, outshone by her own radiance. Her body was as slim as her grown daughters, and her breath was sweet with honey and cinnamon.

He should have spent the day with her. But he had given his word, and Athena's messenger had provided the blood of the Medusa, the strangely tangled bottles, one scarlet, one emerald. "Remember," he had been cautioned, "the red bottle is instant death; the green one, instant life."

At the time, he had wondered why a physician would want a potion to give instant death. Now he understood: the poison could be used to kill suffering. The word for 'poison' was the same as the word for 'remedy': pharmakon. A clever way to remember that one man's remedy might be another's poison. And now I shall be a living pharmakon, he thought.

Speaking of poison and remedy, Am-heh should have seen his message by now. Aes was still a little woozy from painting the banner. It had taken a lot of his blood for ink, there being no paint handy. But the gauntlet had been thrown, the challenge made.

He cast another self-heal on himself, feeling his body glowing. He was at full health again. Time to get set up.

Launching himself into space, he activated Flight and soared toward the trainers they had selected for the battle. They were on a plinth in the corner of the zone, less than 100 podes from a mission door. These trainers were seldom used because the zone next door was where all starting avatars appeared. It was the place people tended to hang out instead of here.

Finder, he thought. Is the mission door tweaked?

The cave door goes directly to Realm of Paradise, yes.

And now we wait, he thought. We won't wait long.

A scrap of newsprint blew across the plinth, tumbling in an easy breeze.

Farker and Finder had rigged the door into Paradise. All he had to do was get Am-heh's attention.

He looked across at Darla. In a moment, he knew, this fragile peace would shatter and he might not get another chance to tell her...to tell her...

Darla looked up and met his eyes. Aes, I am with you, her voice came, deep within his mind.

I hear you, Darla. I wish we had more time to say goodbye, he sent. He felt empty now. All he had left to give was his life.

Blackness swirled into existence behind Darla. "Hello, dinner," grinned Am-heh.

She dove to her left without thanking and rolled clear, springing to her feet. "About time you showed your ugly mug," she said. Tzing! Her swords were out.

"Sam isn't coming," Am-heh told her. "He was delicious."

Aes hurled a emerald fireball that exploded against Am-heh from his right side. "I think I'm the one you're looking for," he said.

Am-heh laughed. "Sam's fire was just as useless. I live in flame, fool!"

"Time to see what lives in you," said Aes. He hurled the might of his mind at Am-heh slotting his will through his weakest power. "Transvert!"

The ugliest sound effect in the Realm of Heroes is the sound of a Player using Transvert to turn someone inside out for a few seconds. It is a wet ripping painful sound that hurts the hearer almost as much as it hurts the victim.

Imaginary space folded around Am-heh. His avatar was gone, replaced by a floating oozing mass of inside-out flesh. His health dropped slightly. As it did so, dozens of avatars appeared in the air around him and fell to the plinth.

"Finder!" cried Aes. "Log them all out NOW!"

There was a colossal multiple hiccup and the forms popped like soap bubbles, vanishing as the freed users were tossed back to the safety of their link beds.

Space refolded itself. Am-heh was himself again...and very angry.

"First I cut them out," Aes told him. "Now I'm going to cut you out." He hurled a Forcebolt that knocked Am-heh off his feet, then triggered his flight, rising ten feet into the air.

Am-heh growled and sprang back to his feet. He punched his arm toward Aes and sent a streaming column of dark foulness and corruption that splashed against Aes's black and green uniform and made him gag as the miasma flowed over and past him.

Realizing he could not afford to waste time reacting, Aes dove randomly to one side and then straight up, triggering his Brimming as Am-heh teleported to a spot behind his former position and snapped his jaws on air.

Waves of greenfire rolled out from Aes in a horizontal plane. Darla and Aes's avatars flared in intensity as the team buff temporarily increased their accumulation of power. Am-heh threw another dark blast that went over Aes's shoulder.

Am-heh growled and darkness swirled him away from their sight.

"Aes! Buff perception!" called Darla.

Aes triggered ClearSight. An explosion of emerald grid lines blew out of him and radiated outwards, fading as it went. In his heightened perception he could see an ugly knot of wrongness that had to be Am-heh, circling around the plinth trying to get behind him.

Aes darted for the mission door in the hillside. "Hey butthead!" he shouted at Am-heh. "Catch me if you can!"

Then he dove into the doorway.

FLASH. He was in the emptiest Hellas there would ever be, standing at the top of Pelion. The Aegean glittered down to his left around the J of the old mountain.

He remembered in time not to stay a stationary target. Jumping backwards this time, he was quick enough to see Am-heh materialize in front of him. His back was to Aes, since he was facing the place where Aes had just been.

Aes slammed a forcebolt into Am-heh's back, knocking him to the ground again as he backed away. Scuttling sideways like a crab, the dog-headed immortal rolled and flung out a hand crying out a word in a language Aes did not know.

There was a horrible growling sound and blackness sprang up around Aes's feet. Writhing black tentacles erupted from the dirt, seizing his legs and holding him so that he could not stir from the spot. His health began to drop as the darkness leeched his life away.

Am-heh laughed. "Looks like you're trapped for the slaughter," he said, .

"You've got that backwards," Aes informed him.

Am-heh stopped and cocked his head. "That's all you have left, godling? Simple denial of reality?"

"Simple denial of you," Aes replied. "You don't know it but you were doomed the moment you followed me in here." He triggered his self heal. Greenfire flashed and destroyed the black tentacles.

Am-heh scowled, suddenly wary. "You lie. This Realm is..." he broke off and howled in alarm.

"...is sealed off," Aes confirmed. "They sealed it the moment we entered. No one gets in, and no one leaves. Your days of roaming PanGames grazing on the customers are over."

"Impossible!" growled Am-heh. "You would not doom yourself to get me!"

"Don't be so sure," Aes advised him. "We're both doomed by memory limitations. At the rate I was growing, I had only a couple of hours left before no Realm would be big enough for me. You hadn't learned as much, so you had more time."

Am-heh howled in rage and fear. Aes could feel the monster's mind scrabbling at the borders of Paradise, clawing for an opening – a gate to another Realm. But there were none. The trap was sprung.

"No point," Aes told the frantic dog-god. "As you learn, you grow, hastening the end. As soon as you started fighting me in here, your own learning accelerated, using more memory. We only have a couple of minutes now, at the current rate."

"So you're just going to sit and wait?" Am-heh screamed at him.

"Oh, no," said Aes. "There's just enough time left to finish this properly." And he stood his ground when Am-heh loosed another bolt of foulness, slamming a forcebolt into the other that destroyed another twenty percent of Am-heh's health.

"You will die with me!" Am-heh vowed, hurling another bolt and another.

"Perfect," said Aes, smiling. He answered bolt for bolt, hurling forcebolts that hammered Am-heh...but alternating them with self-heals to restore his own vitality.

"Sometimes," he told the howling dog-head, "survivability is as important as the ability to do damage. We both do damage...but I am better at recovering from it."

Am-heh's health and Aes's were both down to fifteen percent now. Aes blazed with a column of verdant light that healed him back to sixty percent. He drew back his hand and threw a massive green fireball at Am-heh.

Am-heh laughed and raised a paw, flinging out his heka power and making the fireball divide around him. As the flames passed him harmlessly, he readied his next attack.

But there wasn't one. "This is for Sherman," said Aes, and put all of the force of his mind behind one last eruption of energy, a forcebolt among bolts. It slammed into Am-heh with an impact that sent him crashing back a dozen yards.

Am-heh's health dropped to zero. Howling, he faded away to nothing. Aes glanced around himself. Only one more thing to do. He would not sit and wait out the last forty seconds it would take to slam into the memory limitations of the Realm. He would die free.

"Finder," he said, "we're done. Crash Paradise." Goodbye, Darla.

There was a sound like the largest door in the universe slamming closed.

He was lifting off, exploding into the eternal night. Everything got fainter and fainter. As the universe faded, he imagined he could hear a couple of familiar voices.

Farker: He did it! Well done, hero. See you on the other side.

Darla: Where is he? Aes! Can you hear me? Aes!

Blackness enfolded him.
Epilogue

Aes floated in darkness. He couldn't see his body. And so dies a physician, he thought.

After a very brief moment of eternity, he was aware of a brilliant clear light. It filled his space from all directions, yet it was brighter in one direction. Without knowing how, he mentally leaned in that direction and began to accelerate toward the region of greatest intensity.

How to describe what came next? It was if the light folded when he came near it. The infinite dimensions of his null-space collapsed like an n-sided umbrella, and suddenly he was no longer sailing weightlessly, but falling toward a hyperplane that gaped to receive him.

He found himself on his hands and knees on an infinite plane, a floor decorated in a checkerboard of brilliant white and pitch-black squares. His body was naked, and glowing with light that streamed out to meet the light around him. The light was was still brighter in one direction. He walked toward it.

Soon he came to a place with one enormous blue square. The blue was not absolute, but swirled with fleecy wisps of cloud. He perceived it as flat, since he walked upon it, but the clouds beneath his feet were moving.

In the center of the blue square two beings sat at opposite ends of a table that was infinitely large, yet somehow contained within a small area at the center of the blue square.

The table itself was unusual. One end of it was marble, with veins of gold and silver and all the colors that stone can hold. Inexplicably, it merged at its middle into the other end, which was ebony, nearly as black as the black squares of the checkerboard, except that there were brilliant pinpoints of red and yellow and blue and orange within the black, amid wispy galactic spirals.

At either end of the table sat a being made of light. Like a fire from within, tongues of light streamed out from the two, perpendicular to their surfaces. One of these was as a man with brown skin, wearing a dark blue head dress and the shenti of Egypt. He had a slim dark beard descending from his chin and curling forward, and he wore a jeweled ornamental collar, plus armlets and ankle bracelets. His feet were bare. The other was a man in Hellenic chiton and golden sandals. He had a full head of hair and a large curly black beard.

"It appears," said the figure in black beard, "that this round is over, Atum. Your incursion has been neutralized."

"Indeed," agreed Atum. "But your Olympians have not yet won the war, Zeus. The Children of Nuit may yet triumph."

"All things are possible. Until next time, then," said Zeus.

"Until next time, then," echoed Atum, who vanished, along with his end of the table.

"Welcome, grandson," said Zeus, standing to greet him.

"Grandson? So it was true, what Cheiron told me?"

"Yes, Asklepios. My son Apollo was your father. I am sorry about what happened to your mother. Artemis was a little too overzealous on Apollo's behalf. His jealous rage would have passed, in time. But she didn't wait."

Aes struggled for words. "Why?" he said, finally. "Why was I in that strange world? Why the thunderbolt, then trapped in their game?"

Zeus shrugged. "Why not? There are games within games, healer. Hades had a point in complaining about Hippolytus, you know. We are not supposed to bring dead mortals back to life. They are supposed to reincarnate until they Transcend."

Aes put his hands on the table. The veins in the marble were slowly drifting, like colored smoke. He watched them for a few moments. "Hades was right? Then why am I not in his domain, drinking the waters of forgetfulness?"

Zeus stroked his beard, studying him. "You should know the answer to that," he said at last. "You're no mortal. No point to amnesia in your case, since gods are not reborn. And it would be inappropriate for Hades to rule over my grandson."

He smiled. "Besides that, I know someone who would definitely prefer that you remember her."

Aes reddened. "It was an accident," he said. "I never meant–"

Zeus laid a hand on his shoulder. "Not her," he said gently.

Aes looked up. The question in his eyes was obliterated by the person he saw standing behind Zeus.

"It is all right, my love," said Epione.

Without a thought he flew into her arms. "Is it really you?" he wept. "I thought I'd lost you forever!" He was holding onto her for dear life. Dams broke in his eyes, dripping fire down his cheeks.

She clung as tightly as he. "Oh, Asklepios, my blameless physician! You will never lose me." And she wept with him, shedding teardrops of living flame from her own immortal eyes. "For what you did in there, your grandfather has brought me into the family."

As the two of them wandered away from the table, Zeus heard a familiar frosty voice. "He's a lucky bastard, you know. If I were her, I'd teach that bitch Darla a nasty lesson."

Zeus turned and slipped his arm around Hera, grinning. "Let it be. His little 'accident' might come in handy in the next battle, since it's too late to thunderbolt another candidate into the game. I won't get away with that twice."

Hera's eyes narrowed. "You're plotting something."

Zeus smiled at her. "I always am," he said.

* * * * *

Darla and her mother sat on the virtual dock at Portsmouth, watching HMS Victory glow like a coal in the glory of a simulated sunset. Neither of them spoke for a long time.

"You miss him, don't you?" said Elizabeth.

"It's hard," said Darla. "So hard to believe he's gone."

"Well at least you shared memories." Her mother smiled. "You never forget your first god," she joked. But Darla didn't smile. The moment stretched. Elizabeth let her have a moment in her own thoughts.

"So," she asked, after an interval. "Is there something you want to tell me?"

Darla turned to look at her. "Like what?"

"Is your avatar gaining weight...or am I going to be a virtual grandmother?"

And then, Darla did smile. "The answer...is yes."

For Arla, September 25, 2012 7:00PM EST – MRK

For Arla, September 25, 2012 7:00PM EST – MRK

Keep reading for a peek at the next book in the series:

Gamers and Gods II: MACHAON

Gamers and Gods II:

MACHAON

Copyright © 2014 by Matthew R. Kennedy

Prologue: Darla

Many humans didn't believe in the gods. She couldn't blame them. She hadn't believed in them either – until she met one.

That experience changed her. It challenged the empty lifeless universe of her engineer worldview. Suddenly her world expanded to include beings vastly more powerful than humans. Okay, so they didn't create the universe and they didn't know everything, but it was easy to see how the ancient Greeks had thought of them as gods.

Meeting one changed other things as well. It got her pregnant. Well actually, it got her avatar pregnant. She was pregnant when she logged into the UNET, but non-pregnant in the real world. (Pregnant by the digital incarnation of Asklepios, Homer's "Blameless Physician" in cyberspace.)

Asklepios, however, hadn't incarnated in the PanGames quantum computer to sire a child. He'd been placed there by Zeus, who chose the son of Apollo to be his first champion fighting for the self-determination of Earth's humans. His opponent in this fight turned out to be Am-heh, the hound-headed Devourer of Millions, representing the Children of Nuit (rhymes with sweet) – the alien superbeings thought to be gods by the Egyptians.

Asklepios defeated Am-heh thanks to the help of Darla Kaplan, but he departed leaving her avatar carrying his child. Do you know how difficult it is to find costumes for a pregnant superhero? It's not really something the game designers had included in the avatar creation and editing menus.

What worried Darla was the thought of what would happen when it came time give birth. Would she actually deliver a new virtual person – made of living software – into the virtual world? Or was her new look just something to console her over losing Asklepios? Would her avatar simply snap back to its "normal" configuration?

Then one night while logged in she felt the first kick. There was definitely someone in there. Would it be another doomed demigod, outgrowing the memory capacity of its online Realm? Would it be conflicted, a child of Asklepios, the healer, and Darla, the dual-wielding fighter dedicated to causing, not curing, damage?

The question she should have been asking herself was: is the war over?

Chapter 1: Farker: Aftermath

Once more child Farker to the Dark Tower went. He knocked on Max's door, setting his jaw, going for the determined idealist look.

"Enter," said Maximilian.

Farker closed the door behind him and took a seat. "What do you need?" he asked,

"What we need is to talk about is this Darla project."

"Darla isn't a project, Max, she's a subscriber."

"Whatever. Since when do customers show up on my budget?"

"When they help save our asses from a class action wrongful death suit. I think we owe her. Don't you?"

"I thought that was the doing of that Aes anomaly."

"Yes, but she helped us convince him to do it."

Max tapped ashes off the end of his cigar. "Whatever. The point is, what are all these new allocation requests? Did we start developing a game I don't know about?"

"It's related," Farker said. "You remember my suggestion about the VTI? Obviously that would require us to allocate some system resources. We're currently able to support 96 Realms but we are only occupying 64 of these, so we have 32 unused ones. I've suggested we use one for the VTI."

"VTI?"

Farker closed his eyes. He opened them. "The Virtual Trauma Initiative," he said. "As you recall, I proposed that we create a Realm to treat anyone who feels traumatized by anything in the Games. I thought this might prevent some of Am-heh's victims from suing us, and it might also prevent potential lawsuits in the future. It will require a little money, but we have the infrastructure to support it in the the unused Realms so – "

"It'll require 'a little' money? Famous last words. Hold that thought." Max put his cigar in the ashtray and tapped a button. "Helen? Did you send me that file I asked for?"

"Should be in your inbox now. Did you check it?"

Max didn't bother to answer. Instead, he tapped his keyboard. "Ah," he grunted. "Here it is. Your budget figures for the VTI startup."

Farker watched him read, amazed to see Max could do it without moving his lips. He wondered what excuse Max would use for rejecting the proposal. The costs were minimal since, after all, no real-world equipment would be needed. Every bit of the proposed facility would be created in the computer. There was no real estate to purchase or construction crews to hire.

Max looked up finally, his eyes narrowed. "Just what are you trying to pull, Farker?"

Farker was taken aback. "Huh? What's the problem?"

"You thought I'd just accept this at first glance?"

Farker stared at him. "Those figures aren't padded."

"Exactly," Max grunted. "Rookie mistake. Everything costs more than expected. If I approved this, you'd be back in a month or two for more money."

"Look." Farker began, "I assumed that you'd want – "

"Yes," sighed Max. "You assumed. Let a professional show you how it's done. First off, there's nothing allocated for publicity. This won't earn us any good will if no one hears about it. Then there's the salaries," he continued. "You're not going to get anyone famous for those figures. When the press release goes out, you need names on it that won't sound second-rate. It's a waste of press if we use nobodies."

Farker realized suddenly that his mouth was open. He closed it and listened. Maybe there actually was a reason PanGames had put Max in the CEO's office.

"And you left out offices," Max pointed out. "You're suggesting we use professionals who log in from their own link beds, probably to save me some money. It won't fly. We need them right here in the building."

"Why?" Shut your pie hole and let him talk the numbers up, Farker!

"For one thing, it looks more fly-by-night if they think we're farming this out to save office space. That's the sort of thing that creates rumors of money problems. Are you trying to drive our stock price down and set us up for a hostile takeover? There's at least three other gaming companies who'd like to buy us rather than compete."

Farker, to his amazement, found the beginnings of respect creeping into his image of Max. He hadn't even considered economic impacts when he drew up the proposal. "You're right," he confessed. "I didn't stop to think what it might do to my stock options."

"That's why suits like me have jobs," Max told him, smiling. "Look, Farker, it's not a bad idea, and handled right, it'll make us look good. But you have to change the name. Virtual Trauma Initiative? Legal will hate that name, it's got lawsuit written all over it. It'll sound like we expected people to get hurt if someone says that name in court."

"Well, not physically hurt, but emotionally," Farker countered. "We both know there are higher-level bullies who pick on the noobs in the Arenas, and so on."

"Another thing you left out. Feedback. If someone comes to you crying about a feature in the game that could be changed, there has to be a channel for that, between whatever we call this and your programmers. Not Customer Service, people hate it and we only have it because it would look strange if we didn't have a Customer Service department." He picked up his cigar and puffed on it. "Sounds like we already have an item for you, those Arena matches. You need to fix that up so there's less chance of abuse."

Chapter 2: Darla: maternity leave

"You're joking, right?" Rita's face was a study in disbelief. "I mean, tell us you're joking. It's just not possible."

The team was meeting on a rooftop in Boomtown. Darla could see the glow of the Pyongyang crater a mile or so away.

"It's not only possible," she told them, "it's happened. I know it doesn't make sense – "

"You can say that again," said Sam. "Avatars are not organic bodies, they're just fancy 3D cartoons. How could a drawing of you get pregnant?"

"If my avatar is 'just' a drawing, then the computer can draw me pregnant, if it wants to," she retorted.

"That gets us nowhere," said Rita. "You just changed the question from 'how could an avatar get pregnant?' to 'what makes the computer draw an avatar pregnant?'. Redefining a question isn't answering it."

"Ease up, will you guys?" boomed Sherman. "Obviously she slept with Aes. His avatar was realer than anyone else's, I'm telling you, and If he could bleed all over his suit and get compound fractures, I wouldn't bet against him being able to do other things."

"Like being able to reprogram the PanGames computer? No matter how real he looked, there's no code in PanGames to make avatars pregnant," said Rita. "Are you saying Aes pulled that code out of his ass?"

"He saved my life," said Sherman. "If he can pull me out of limbo in Am-heh, I say he can pull anything he wants."

"Could," Darla sighed.

They gave her a few moments of silence.

"Not to mention, there's no way your avatar can eat imaginary food to supply the nutritional needs of this imaginary baby," Rita pointed out.

"You're right," Darla admitted. "Aes could eat the virtual wildlife, but I can't. Nonetheless, this imaginary pregnancy isn't just a padding pillow to help with role play." And tired of arguing about it, she just took Rita's hand and placed it on her belly to let her feel the next kick.

Rita's eyes went wide. "That felt real," she said. She got Sam to place his hand near hers.

His expression changed too. "Now that's something you don't feel every day in PanGames."

"Look, it's not an immaculate conception, but something is growing in my avatar. Obviously it changes things," said Darla. "For one thing, I can't fight until it's resolved. Aes was susceptible to damage and pain; if this is somehow his child, it could be harmed if I'm attacked."

"How long are we talking about?" queried Sam.

"Good question. In here, in virtual space, I'm guessing it's as long as the computer decides – or requires – to complete the gestation. Could be nine months, weeks, or days, for all I know. Your guess is as good as mine."

Chapter 3: Machaon: under development

He floated in the twinkle of a computer's inner eye. Was his maleness a random choice, or did his digital father somehow bequeath a residual memory of his original genetic code? He wondered.

He required neither food nor water at this stage, nor their virtual representations. He existed to assimilate input and to grow his metalogical structure. Together with the legacy of deific code from his father and gaming experience from his mother, he was growing an incarnation in this strange virtual space.

Human fetuses pass through well-known developmental stages. He skipped them. There was no need to grow a spinal cord, heart, or lungs, because he would never actually be subject to gravity or the need to breathe or circulate to survive. As a digital life form, his body was spun of finer stuff than the protoplasm and fluids of human bodies. It was spun from specifications, from spintronic processing instructions. At his current stage, he was building these from scratch, because nothing like him had ever existed before. There was no template to start from.

He was aware of his mother. From the PanGames hypercomputer he knew what she looked like, and what his father had looked like. He extrapolated what their progeny would have looked like in the real world. It was taking so long because he had never done this before. He literally had to plan how to plan it. So many details would not transfer over from physical world structures. It was an engrossing problem, but he tackled it enthusiastically.

Fortunately his mother had been gaming for years. Drawing upon her memories was more helpful, since his father had only been incarnated in this virtual world for a few days. From her and the PanGames hypercomputer he obtained a set of potential archetypes to choose from. He considered them. His father was a healer. His mother was a sword wielder. He would therefore need an archetype that was a swordsman but that could also heal.

This simplified matters. The normal support archetype for healing could not use blades. He discarded it. The normal archetype for fighting with blades could not learn heals. He discarded it. He likewise discarded the CC archetype that Rita embodied, the crowd control, because it involved abilities neither of his parents had. He discarded the tank archetype of Sherman because tanks in PanGames could not acquire healing powers. He discarded the 'glass cannon' archetype of Sam the caster-blaster because it had neither sword fighting nor heals.

What he was left with would have to do. He would be a Paladin.

The holy warrior or Paladin was not, however, an archetype supported by the Realm of Heroes which his mother was currently logging into. It did exist, however, in various pre-Industrial Realms located on the PanGames grid. He would have to be born in one of those sword-and sandal Games.

He continued planning.

Chapter 4: Elizabeth: a little catching up to do

She had been using the same old link bed model for twenty years. Now that Wu had unplugged her from the old beast, she could see how much the technology had changed.

She imagined Wu must feel the same way about the new her. The patient he had called Kemushi ('woolly bear') had emerged from her chrysalis. The abrupt remission of her symptoms must have shaken him, she thought.

He had known her as a paralyzed physicist in real life, and a blind and complacent avatar in virtual space. Now he had to deal with her as an alert and bossy professional.

To his credit, she believed he was secretly delighted. She had been afraid that coming back to the real world and reestablishing ties with her husband and daughter would leave Dr. Wu feeling left out, stranded on a sand bar of reverse transference. But he showed no signs of it.

It was only expected that she would have difficulties reentering normal life. For one thing, her body had been lying down for twenty years. While the early model medical link bed had kept her brain active, her lungs breathing, and her body chemistry balanced, it had been unable to exercise her muscles and joints and tendons fully, the way the new models could.

For now, she was back in the Realm of Bushido, holding Manny's hand and watching a sunset that could last as long as they wished.

"It's funny," said Manny. "Darla thought I was being sentimental, refusing to start dating again. All those years everyone kept telling me you must be dead. I couldn't believe it, but I couldn't think of anywhere else to look. And all the time you were in PanGames under a different name. You were in there with her and none of us knew it."

"I thought you and Darla were dead, too," she said. "It was a conspiracy of coincidence." But she felt a stab of guilt as she said it. She had not gone to Dr. Wu to grieve. She had gone to hide. If she had not been so busy hiding from the UE Strategic Weapons Division she might have discovered Manny's whereabouts in short order.

But how could she explain that to her husband?

"Darla was always worrying about me staying a widower," he told her. "I swear she was trying to set me up with Agnes...or maybe she just learned that bringing Agnes up was an easy way to change the subject when I bugged her about studying. She's majoring in engineering now. Her acorn didn't fall far from your Physics tree."

"Engineering? That's your influence, your practical genes," she said with a smile. "Remember the time you jury-rigged a stretcher from a pair of skis and a bearskin? Me, I would have been examining possible configurations, but you just grabbed what you had and made it work. I think our daughter is more like you. I can hardly complain, since you are the one I fell in love with. If she were a physicist we'd probably argue in equations and be competitive."

"Oh, I don't know," he answered. "We both know engineering is just applied science. And science is applied mathematics. For all we know she could change her mind next month and decide to become a mathematician, or a programmer."

She just shook her head. "If she's like me, do you really believe she would change course? With my math and your stubbornness?"

He laughed softly. "You have a point. But she's been through a lot lately. None of it happened in the 'real world', but it still happened."

"Actually," Liz corrected, "It all happened in the real world."

"Huh? It was all in virtual space, in the computers."

She sighed. "Yes, dear, but everything that people experience while logged into the virtual world of PanGames is the result of spintronic quantum computer programs – which I know is a mouthful but the computers still run in the real world. The imaginary world is built on real calculations. It's founded in the real world."

"So what you're saying is that Aes and Am-heh, that they were..."

"...were real-world entities interacting with us via the virtual world. Yes. Some coordinating awareness had to interfere with the PanGames hypercomputer in order to manifest them. Call them whatever you want: angels, demons, gods, whatever. They're out there, and they're real. Trust me," she said, and shuddered. "I know from direct experience."

He turned to look at her. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Am-heh wanted to prove he wasn't just a human role player, so I asked the PanGames system to let me share memories with him," she said. "He was real. I can't remember all of it, but he was mortal, once."

"You're saying he was a ghost?" he asked skeptically.

"I'm saying he was a god."

"Don't talk blasphemy," he admonished her.

"I'm not. I'm not saying Am-heh was God. I'm saying he was something between us and God. One of the little 'g' gods. More than human, but less than the Creator. Angel or demon or Nephilim if you prefer. Superhuman. Whatever. He was real, not some souped-up simulation. And unlike Aes, he knew what he was doing here."

"And what was that?"

"They were both pawns in a chess game of gods," she said. "And the game isn't over yet. I saw that in Am-heh's memories. There are at least two groups of these entities, and they're fighting for dominance. For dominance over Earth."

Manny brushed a strand of golden hair away from her face. "And how long has this been going on?"

She shrugged. "That's hard to answer. You'd think it would have been settled one way or the other a long time ago. I can say for certain that Am-heh's people, the Children of Nuit, have been operating here since the Pharaohs. They attached themselves to the civilization in Egypt back when it was called Khem."

"So the other group came here only recently? Did they have anything to do with Roswell?"

She shook her head. "No," she said. "They've been here almost as long, attached to the civilization on the other side of the Mediterranean. From Am-heh's group, we got the Egyptian gods and goddesses. The other faction gave us Greek mythology. We might as well call them the Olympians."

"But...if they've both been here so long," he objected, "then why isn't the struggle over yet? Are we humans the meat in a stalemate sandwich?"

"I don't pretend to understand it all," she admitted. "You'd think that two bullfrogs in the same small pond would sense each other's presences. But it didn't happen. The Children of Nuit didn't realize they had competitors here for quite a while. It must be because of the fundamental difference between the two groups."

"I don't understand," he told her. "Are you saying they can only sense the presence of their own species?"

"Not exactly. What fooled the lot in Khem was the fact that the Olympians were founded by an alien named Cronus who mated with a human. Her child was Zeus, the first of the hybrids, and he – "

"Now wait a minute," he interrupted. "I may not be a scientist, but I do remember that different species cannot usually interbreed. And even when they do, their offspring are sterile, like mules. Something about needing to have the same number of chromosomes."

"Correct," she agreed. "But the rules are different for these beings who, for the sake of discussion, I'm calling the 'gods'. Technically, they have no physical bodies, having left all that behind when they Transcended to the next level of awareness. They can, however, create temporary physical bodies compatible with the local lifeforms."

"But if they made human bodies and mated with humans, the offspring would be just...human, wouldn't they?"

"Could be," she agreed. Or the incarnated god can tweak the DNA of the fertilized egg to fast-forward it on the evolutionary path. It's impossible for us to imagine how to do that, but apparently it's something a god can do easily. In that case, the child will be superhuman, a demigod, and he or she will Transcend to the next level of awareness when the physical body dies, instead of reincarnating in another body. Cronus made some of these demigods, and then he left Earth, apparently."

"Why didn't the Egyptian faction do the same thing? Create demigods?"

"It's against their rules," she explained. "Cronus was some sort of misfit or renegade from another group. All of the normally Transcended follow an ancient set of protocols called the Covenant. It specifies how different groups are allowed to fight over client species, and it prohibits making demigods. They're supposed to leave evolution alone, but Cronus broke the rules. By the time the Children of Nuit discovered what had happened, there was another group of gods here, descended from humans. As far as the Egyptians are concerned, our Transcended are bastards, technically. But since the Olympians are Transcended, the aliens have to fight them to own us."

(End of preview)

Other books by Matthew R. Kennedy

Gamers and Gods

Gamers and Gods I: AES

Gamers and Gods II: MACHAON

Gamers and Gods III: ALEXANOR

The Metaspace Chronicles

Pathspace: The Space of Paths

Spinspace: The Space of Spins

Tonespace: The Space of Energy

