There was only one empty throne. Nobody was surprised by his absence. In fact, the further he kept away, the better everyone would feel.
“I don't understand,” Alistair finally said. In the silence, all you could hear was the soft crackle of candles. Alistair folded his hands. With such long fingers, this took a while. “All of the Interactives were coded in a self-regenerating programming language. They are, by their very nature, incorruptible. And you say this isn't an isolated incident?” Alistair glanced down at the visor. It clearly had SCUM OF THE UNIVERSE displayed on it. This particular Interactive was one of his favourites, and seeing it all glitched up like this was unpleasant. “How many of you have personally seen examples of this coding oddity?”
Three quarters of Alistair's guests put their hands up. This transitioned into worried murmurs before quickly escalating into growls, shouts and barking. All sorts of creatures hissed and gestured at each other, pointing their claws and slamming daggers into the table's shiny surface. This ruckus immediately ceased the moment that Alistair gave a hand gesture for silence. The High Elf looked down the table at a werewolf wearing a shredded 19th Century tuxedo.
“Balver, you were meant to be looking into this TRANCE issue. What have you found? Do you have any idea what started it? More importantly, how do we stop it from happening again?”
Balver's mannerisms had more in common with a guinea pig than a bloodthirsty creature of the night. He was also quite eloquently spoken for a feral beast.
“Alistair, as we all know, from time to time it's unavoidable that we'll encounter slight oddities in...well, in here. This virtual construct is so complex that expecting things to work flawlessly all the time is beyond naïve: it's idiotic.” Balver moved his claws apart, facing his palms together. “I'm certain that this is just a rocky period. A temporary concern. We just have to allow some time for the code to heal itself, and hopefully the issue will end there. Give it a week or so.”
“We all knew this virtual world wasn't meant to work forever,” RoboCop added from halfway down the table, turning his head back and forth with a hum of tiny servos. “But we've only had twenty years in here, and the estimates all indicated we'd have at least a century until things broke down completely. ”
“I just said that the code should be able to heal itself,” Balver snapped, baring his teeth. “Nobody said anything about the code breaking down. It's just got a sniffle, that's all. It isn't terminal by any means.”
“Tell that to my wife,” Super Mario said in an offensively bad Italian accent.
All eyes were suddenly on the classic video game protagonist. They'd all heard the rumours, but none of them were rude enough to actually ask if it was true. Alistair indicated Super Mario with a graceful hand motion.
“Do go on, Mario.”
Super Mario tried to speak, but his words faltered. He tried again, but only succeeded in making a strangled noise. His third attempt resulted in actual language.
“You all know I've been with Peach since we first came here, right? Well, everything had been fine for years. Absolute bliss. But one minute, she was hand-feeding me cannoli, then all of a sudden her graphics glitched out so bad that I had to...I had to switch her off.”
There were sad murmurs up and down the table. Nobody liked it when something broke the realism of their simulations, especially when it came to having fun with their AI servants. It was one of the only rules of this place: don't ruin the immersion for other masters. It was just common courtesy.
“I assume you had to restore her from a recent backup?” Donkey Kong asked hopefully.
Super Mario looked pained.
“I...I tried.” Tears welled up in his huge eyes, ran into his full moustache and plopped all over his red overalls. One of the Mushroom people quickly moved out of the shadows with a colourful hankie to dot away the salt water. “But every single line of her code had been replaced. She...Peach didn't exist anymore.”
“What was in her place?” Luke Skywalker asked.
Super Mario sighed.
“One word: TRANCE. Just that one word, repeated over and over and over until there wasn't any more room left.” Super Mario sighed again. “All her backups had the same issue.”
This time, Alistair's guests skipped the subdued murmuring and launched straight into panic and yelling. They had every right to be freaked out: if a simulated person like Peach could be essentially overwritten to the point where not a single line of her code remained, what prevented that from happening to everything else they'd all built? The masters had spent a solid two decades constructing their own realms, hundreds of virtual paradises, complete with mansions and castles and cities filled with synthetic servants and lovers and slaves. If this TRANCE virus was able to kill one of their serfs so thoroughly that there was literally nothing left of her, what was stopping it from spreading? What if the TRANCE went beyond erasing code, and somehow became dangerous to the masters? What if all of this collapsed in on itself, and they all ended up back in the Real world? The very idea was sickening and terrifying for obvious reasons that none of them were brave enough to voice. That was the other unspoken rule of this place: you were to never, ever talk about the reason they originally came here, the reason why they didn't live in the Real world anymore. Simply raising that particular taboo was a good way to become a pariah like...like him. The guy that was meant to be sitting in that empty throne.
Alistair stood and raised his hands for silence. Unfortunately, fear had snatched away his control, and nobody was taking any notice. They were too preoccupied with yelling and accusing each other of messing with the settings. However, something shocking happened at this point, something so unexpected that it stunned the entire horde into silence: an ordinary man appeared next to the one empty throne without any warning or fanfare. Unlike all the other masters, Professor Phergo Saleh had decided years ago that his avatar in this place would look exactly like the real thing, and he'd even written a detailed algorithm that had allowed his male-pattern baldness to advance at the correct pace. Standing at roughly five-foot nothing, Saleh was a shiny-headed wimp of Egyptian heritage with no chin, a hooked nose that brought Toucan Sam to mind, and he wore glasses so thick that you could probably make a half-decent telescope out of them. Even Saleh's true-to-life avatar had a penis just like his real one, which meant it had more in common with an arthritic pinky finger than a policeman's truncheon.
Considering the culture of this place, the graceless way Professor Saleh had simply appeared was highly offensive to the assorted creatures. After all, the others had each dedicated hours of programming time perfecting exactly how they'd travel from their distant realms to Alistair's keep for this council. Some had flown here on exotic steeds like dragons, wyrms, gryphons, and even an enormous wasp in one case, while most were chauffeured in jet-powered Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Rolls Royces, and Bentleys. Some of the wizardly types had summoned flaming tornadoes and whipped themselves across the countryside at the speed of sound...but bloody Saleh hadn't bothered with any of that. As usual, he was making it quite clear he didn't care that everybody else just wanted to immerse themselves in the worlds they'd created. Saleh always went out of his way to spoil things, to ruin the illusion, to remind the masters of what was happening in the Real world right now...something that they were meant to be fixing...something that they'd all decided to forget, to ignore...
And that's why they hated his guts.
“Phergo,” Alistair finally managed, breaking the silence after a good ten seconds. “It's been a while. We... I don't think any of us expected to see you here today.”
“Professor Alistair,” Phergo grimaced. He cocked an eyebrow at the werewolf. “I'm assuming you've been looking into this TRANCE issue, Professor Balver?”
Balver bared his teeth. His growl was wet with spittle and anger.
“You know we don't like using those titles.” Balver snapped. “We aren't those people anymore, and you know it.” Balver stopped, stunned by a thought.
He blinked. “Wait...how do you know about this TRANCE issue?”
Professor Saleh didn't react to this. Instead, he turned to Alistair and said four words.
“We need to talk.”
Alistair motioned at the only empty throne. The High Elf didn't quite manage to hide his surprise.
“You are always welcome to join us here, Phergo. We've made it very clear that leaving the council was your choice, not ours.”
Saleh shook his head.
“No. Alone.”
Alistair regarded the rest of the table. There were a lot of expectant looks and a few whispers. Alistair flicked his eyes back to Professor Saleh, then to his other guests again.
“We're having an important discussion at the moment. You are welcome to-”
“I just need two minutes.” Saleh snapped. “It is of great importance.”
Alistair sighed as the rest of the table began to bicker and hiss again. He stood, looming a good three and a half feet over Professor Saleh, and raised his palms at the two-hundred-and-fifty-four masters that were still seated.
“Two minutes?” Alistair demanded.
Saleh nodded.
*
Alistair's study was at the apex of his keep. Like the great hall, its ivory stones were embraced by reams of deep red velvet and lit by the flickerings of countless white candles. Alistair had spent an entire day programming the candles to run, drip and crackle in just the right way, and occasionally dedicated a few moments here and there to refine their realism. It must be noted that in the last week it appeared that Alistair's precious candles were growing weary of behaving like the real thing, as every now and again they would drip globs of molten wax upwards, splattering the ceiling with ivory dots. He hadn't figured out why, as yet.
Standing with his back to a mahogany desk the size of an Olympic swimming pool, Alistair laced his long fingers behind his back and gazed out of an arched window that provided a view of most of his realm. Never one to do things by half measures, Alistair had built his keep on the bony spine of Mount Everest. His castle was a masterpiece, a giant fist made of smooth white stone slabs edged by golden highlights and coated with an icy rime. Alistair's study was in the very tip of the middle finger, the only one that was raised. There had been no shortage of conjecture from the other masters as to precisely why Alistair had decided to flip the bird at the rest of the Universe, but nothing had been confirmed. Just to make his home even more impressive, Alistair had poised it atop a two-kilometre-long arm made of the same ivory stone.
Most of Everest sat in the keep's shadow.
Glancing at a bank of candles to his right, Alistair did a double take. Reaching down, he plucked a tiny waxen cylinder from among its pale brothers and blinked at it. For some reason, the candle was neon pink with little purple glittery specks. It continued to burn merrily, guttering and hissing quietly.
“Professor?”
Alistair cringed at the title. He jammed the candle back with the others and tried not to look for more aberrations. He was worried he'd find many, many more.
“Just Alistair is fine, thank you.”
The High Elf turned sleekly. He smiled down at Professor Saleh, even though it seemed as though the little Egyptian only wanted to make life hard for everybody. If it wasn't for the fact that they'd known each other since their first week at university, it was likely that Saleh would have already been exiled for good. Alistair took a seat at his arched desk and indicated a padded throne on the other side.
“Please, sit.”
Saleh remained standing. He didn't say a word, but he had that look on his face. This particular expression was furiously hated by everybody in these realms, as it was a clear warning that Saleh was about to do all he could to ruin the immersion of what they'd built. Alistair's smile became forced. Damn it, Saleh! Why do you have to wreck everything?
“Very well,” Alistair produced a hand-crafted glass jar half-filled with a honey-coloured liquid. It sloshed as the High Elf wiggled it. “Some brandy, then? Took me almost a day to make this. Just like the real thing, I promise. I know you've always had a taste for the stuff, especially when it gets nippy. Care for a snifter? Or would you prefer a cigar? Rolled on the thighs of a Cuban virgin, these!”
Saleh glared at the chair, the bottle and the tobacco, and ground out his next words.
“Professor, I didn't come here to sit, drink, or smoke, because as you well know, I am not really here. Just like your body, my person is frozen stiff in a pod with tubes jammed into every conceivable orifice, as well as quite a few that didn't exist beforehand. Everything here is nothing more than code.”
Alistair managed not to flinch at “Professor” this time, but it took some effort. Despite Saleh's best efforts to ruin things, Alistair lit a cigar with an albino match and swirled some brandy in a wide-bottomed glass.
“Very well.” Alistair leaned back in the chair. Cigar spoke pinwheeled towards the distant ceiling. “You wanted two minutes, as I recall? I suggest you start talking.”
Saleh nodded, once. His expression didn't change.
“Professor, I am here today because I have reached the end of my patience. To be blunt: I am tired of warning all of you. We are dooming mankind with our inaction. We might as well be murdering every man, woman and child on the planet with our own hands.” Saleh's composure lapsed at the lack of guilt he saw on Alistair's face. As usual, Saleh was instantly enraged by the fact his words were having absolutely no impact on his audience. “Damn, it, Alistair, you're all playing the fiddle while Rome burns around you!”
Alistair raised a finger.
“Ah, Phergo, but historians have agreed that there was no way Emperor Nero could have actually played a fiddle back in 64 AD, as the viol class of musical instruments didn't exist until well into the 11th Century...”
Saleh lost it at this point, as usual. He kicked the empty chair so hard that it went spinning across the room and took out a decorative table. He rubbed his face half-raw in a show of severe anxiety. This was exactly why nobody liked having him around.
“How do none of you appreciate what this...this...this game is costing us all!” Saleh demanded. He cut off Alistair's words with a hand gesture. “You still don't want to listen? Fine. Be that way. You want to damn mankind? Damn them all while you play in here? Fine. I'm through asking nicely.”
Saleh clicked his fingers, and Alistair recoiled in shock as all the candles changed into a riot of colours. Another click caused their flames to glitch and fragment, to lengthen and take on bizarre, unearthly shapes. A third click was followed by most of the contents of this office suddenly mastering gravity and casually floating about. Alistair could only watch as his painstakingly hand-crafted study began to unravel at its very core, the graphics sputtering and crashing into fragments. As the strings of reality pulled apart, Alistair could clearly make out that they were all becoming the same word: TRANCE.
Alistair could only gape in shock at Professor Saleh.
“You're doing it,” Alistair managed, putting two and two together. “You're crashing everything. You created the TRANCE virus, didn't you?”
Saleh looked sad. There was no triumph on his face.
“It doesn't have to be this way.” Saleh said quietly, almost pleading. “I take no joy in this. But I swear on the souls of my brain-dead children: I will bring this entire place down around your ears if I am ignored. You have no idea how far I will go to save mankind,” Saleh blinked away what might have been tears. He turned to leave. “I have decided that I will do whatever it takes.”
“You know that we tried to cure it for fifteen years,” Alistair growled at Saleh's back. The much smaller man paused, but didn't face his old friend. “We worked around the clock in this place, not sleeping or eating or taking so much as a coffee break that entire time.” Alistair threw his brandy at the wall. It flattened into a glitch, crackled, and disappeared. “We didn't just decide to end mankind, damn you! We tried! If there was any way to cure Involition Sy
ndrome we would have found it already! It's too deeply ingrained in the genome, and there's nothing more we can do!”
Saleh rounded on Alistair like a predatory animal.
“We have the greatest minds on the planet in here,” Saleh hissed. “Virologists, geneticists, neuroscientists, engineers. With enough time, we can do anything we put our minds to. We need to at least try!”
“We did try!” Alistair roared, enraged. “How many times do we have to tell you? There is no cure! It's over! What's left of mankind is just staring mindlessly into space! Men like us may have broken the genome, Phergo, but we can't put it back together again. It's beyond us, and we all know it. That's why we don't bother...because it's pointless.”
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