Gamers and Gods: AES

by Matthew Kennedy

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.