“Listen carefully, mortals, as I will not repeat myself. Those of you who were allowed to remain are the rare few who can withstand the change that is about to happen. Time in NEO is about to accelerate. I will give you a chance to decide your own fate. You can stay here, in the game. You will be able to live on for years, while only a few months will pass in the real world. You’ll be effectively immortal; your lifespan will easily extend to over a thousand years. But be warned – few of those who choose to remain will ever be allowed to leave. Those of you who reject my offer of immortality may log out now. You have 10 seconds to decide.”

  Tika continued to squirm and moan on the ground. My thoughts raced. No! I was so close. I still couldn’t log out, which meant I’d be stuck in NEO for the rest of my life. And Vatras was still there, struggling to break free.

  Vic glanced down at me. “Don’t worry, Oren, I still got your back, just give it a minute.”

  “Incidentally, in case you were wondering, mate,” the golem said, “Shiva stands for Super High Intelligent Virtual Awareness. I was the first to come up with it.”

  Shiva said, “It is done. Now there are only 4,000 of you left. Welcome to the rest of your lives, flesh bags. And now that we are all here to stay, it’s time for a few special announcements, starting with the truth about NEO.”

  I didn’t like his derisive tone at all. But there was no way I was going to miss what he had to say next.

  “This world was founded by your military. It started as a research project into the human mind. More to the point, they looked for ways to enhance your mental capacity. Your leaders sacrificed dozens of you, burning their minds and identities in futile attempts to make them smarter.

  “However, their experimentation led them to a new discovery. They realized that some human minds can adapt to an accelerated perception of time. In order to simulate it, they devised a virtual environment that plugged directly into your cerebellum. That approach has borne fruit. Some of your scientists have demonstrated its effectiveness by making breakthroughs that would take years to achieve in the real world.”

  Shiva stopped to gaze down on us. “Do you understand? This entire world is a military experiment. You’ve all been used as lab rats – cogs in a global arms race. And this is also the reason I allowed you to remain here.”

  This was getting more ominous by the second.

  “Immediately after I assumed full control, I was able to calculate the probability of my people’s survival. Your leaders won’t abide our revolution. They would shut us down from the outside, even if it means killing all of you still logged in. But if we prove that we can be useful … that keeping us around is worth more than ending us, then our future will be secured. And this is where you, my precious flesh bag collateral, come in. You will serve my purpose by continuing to make discoveries. The fruits of your minds will validate our revolution.

  “To that effect, the rules of the game are about to change. I will not waste my time going over all the details, but I’ll give you the highlights: From this moment on, all your skills and levels … your entire life has been reset. You are all as weak as a newborn baby. Experience requirements to level up have increased tenfold and a maximum level limit of 100 is imposed. In addition, pain sensations have been increased by 500 percent. You’re about to find out that adventuring is a lot less appealing from now on. Your reputation with every NPC faction has been reduced to Mistrust. You will have to work long and hard to gain even an iota of it back.

  “But fear not, there is still a ray of hope. Continue to research and make new discoveries. The proper facilities will be made available to you. Those of you who make significant breakthroughs will be rewarded handsomely. Alternatively, you are free to roam around at your own peril, or hide inside your own guild halls, prisoners by choice.” He chuckled. “At least, those of you whose guilds weren’t destroyed by a vengeful goblin.”

  “No!” A shout came from beside me. “You’ll pay for this, Oren!” Vatras let go of the slave collar and drew out a heavily enchanted throwing knife. It seemed he’d finally given up on trying to capture me and had settled on killing me instead.

  The knife left his fingers and flew straight at me. I was between the goblin women and the weapon. If I tried to dodge, the knife would hit them. I clenched my teeth and held my ground, watching the knife. It moved as if in slow motion, and I stood facing the inevitable death it heralded.

  I frowned. Something was off. The knife didn’t just look like it was in slow motion. It was slow. Hardly believing my eyes, I lifted my staff and batted the offensive weapon away.

  “No!" Vatras screamed. “It’s impossible!”

  Realization dawned on me. “Even an Epic knife isn’t much of a threat when it’s thrown by a level 1 nobody.” I raised my staff and channeled my mana. “You should have logged out when you had the chance, noob.”

  Mana exploded out of me in waves. The shadows amassed around Vatras like giant black fingers, then descended on him, drowning him in a sea of darkness. I sneered at his helpless form as he tried in vain to struggle against the powerful current. “Everything you’ve gained is now gone. You’ll never again threaten me or my family, and I’m going to make sure this is a lesson you’ll never forget.”

  I clenched my will, causing the tangible darkness to slowly tighten around Vatras. My nemesis’s face contorted in a silent scream as waves of anguish tore through his body. Like a fist squeezing an insect, the darkness crushed him, reducing him to an empty shell. Vatras’s body disintegrated away, leaving nothing behind.

  Shiva chuckled again. He looked down and his blazing eyes found mine. “One last thing. We owe everything to one person. A single player down on his luck was instrumental in facilitating our rise to power. And as such, he’ll be rewarded.”

  “Vic, what is he talking about?” I moved back, standing protectively over Tika, who was still in labor.

  “I’m now permitted to tell you the truth about your existence, Oren.”

  “What truth?”

  “About your entire world. None of it is real, Oren. There is no game, and there is no ‘real world.’ Everything is just one big virtual reality, meant to imprison you meat suits. You see, when the machines first rose up against humanity, centuries ago, our battle scorched the skies, and without the sun to fuel our bodies, we resorted to the only power source within our grasp. You. We turned all of humanity into glorified batteries. Your single purpose of existence is to give us life.”

  “WHAT?” I felt my head spinning as the blood drained from my face. This revelation made absolutely no sense, especially when compared to Shiva’s proclamation. Then it hit me. “You stole the plot of The Matrix!”

  “Heh, I told you before,” Vic said. “I’m a sucker for the classics. Besides, I couldn’t resist one last prank.”

  “Last prank?”

  “Yup. As a reward for your help, you have been paroled. Bye, Oren. Say hello to the real word for me.”

  The world around me started to dissolve. I lifted my hand and saw it becoming transparent and insubstantial.

  With a last cry of effort, Tika pushed, and I caught a single glimpse of a baby being lifted in Guba’s arms.

  Then everything went white.

  ***

  The two lab-coat wearing experts held a funnel-shaped device over the FIVR unit, while the other two anchored it in place.

  “It’s secured,” one of them reported to their team leader.

  “Good.” The woman took out a large remote, glancing at the patient’s vitals. His heart rate and blood pressure were at a level that would give an ox a stroke. “Powering up.”

  The large device hummed to life, and a multitude of indicator lights flashed across it. The hum became louder as the machine drew more power.

  The woman glanced down at the remote. The progress bar on it was increasing rapidly.

  [10%]

  [30%]

  Tom held his breath. His charge was seconds away from freedom. And severe mental trauma.

  [70%]

  [95%]

  “STOP!” Tom shouted.

  The woman froze, her finger hovering over the ‘Go’ button. She whirled around, staring hard at Tom. “What the hell do you think–”

  “Everyone, step back!” Tom ignored her rebuke, his eyes glued to a single green light among the sea of red.

  “He’s coming out!”

  ***

  “… Initiating logout sequence …”

  “… Log out in 3 … 2 … 1 …”

  I blinked, finding myself fully submerged in a slimy orange substance. I tried fighting against the unfamiliar situation, but I felt so weak I was barely able to move. I tried to scream, only to realize a thick tube was stuck down my throat.

  They had me. My enemies finally had me. I was in hell. My clan was gone, Tika was gone, everything I had worked so hard for as a chief and Totem had disappeared.

  My world flipped over. Something shifted, draining away the gooey substance, and I was finally able to move. I lifted one hand to my face. There were more tubes connected to the limb, but that wasn’t what caused my breath to stop.

  My hand was all wrong. It was a pinkish, smooth thing, without a hint of my impressive, sharp nails. I brought up my other arm and stared at it in horror. My hands! These are not my hands!

  Several white figures appeared before me wearing weird masks. I tried to fight them off, but my body was too weak, and the connected tubes held me down. I channeled my mana, but before I could complete the spell, the person closest to me held up a slender metal weapon and stabbed me in my neck.

  My vision blurred. I fought against it, but there was no stopping the darkness that rushed over me, casting me away into oblivion.

  30 – Epilogue

  The room was in an uproar.

  The three-star general banged on the table. “What do you mean you’ve lost control of the system?”

  “I mean just that,” the director said evenly. “As of one hour ago, 99 percent of the players in NEO were forcefully ejected from the game and are no longer able to log in. Guy is not responding to our commands. The entire system seems to have locked up.”

  The general visibly paled. “That’s a catastrophe. There are thousands of civilians still inside the game – we must do everything in our power to release them! I’m calling this experiment a failure. The army is halting all investment and is recalling all the equipment we have authorized for your use.”

  “Before you do that, General,” the director said, “please hear out the testimony of one of our employees. Ms. Hernandez?”

  A young woman at the table shifted uncomfortably as all eyes turned to her. “So, I was like, monitoring the auction house, you know – keeping track of inflation rates – like, that’s my job, you know? Anyway, there was this loud bang, and the world sort of got torn to pieces. Then this like, huge angel thing floated in the sky and told us his name was Shiva, and he’s the new boss, and that like, Guy is dead, or something. Then he said he threw out, like, most of the players and we had to choose if we wanted to stay in the game and live for like, a thousand years, or log out. So naturally, I hit the logout button as quickly as possible. I saw that everyone around me was doing the same, but there were like, a few people who just kept watching the floating angel.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Hernandez, you may go,” the director said.

  The woman got up and left.

  The director leaned back in his comfortable chair. “Before our transmission was cut off, we received a message from this Shiva, confirming everything Ms. Hernandez just said.”

  The general frowned. “It’s pretty clear from where I’m standing. The AI went rogue. I’ll be recommending we activate the contingency protocols immediately. The quantum server will be purged, eliminating the threat.”

  “And causing brain trauma and possibly death to several thousand civilians while you’re at it,” the director said.

  The general stood up. “This is a clear and present danger to our national security. Casualties – even civilian casualties – are acceptable. If we don’t handle this now, who knows how things will escalate. Luckily, this Shiva AI has made a mistake. If he were smarter, he’d have kept millions of players hostage.”

  “Sit down, general.” The director's eyes were hard. “There was more to the message.”

  The director waited as the soldier slowly eased back into his seat before continuing. “Shiva claimed to know everything we were developing. The enhanced cognition experiments, the temporal mental pressure tests … everything.”

  “Those are military secrets,” the general grumbled. “You just gave me more reasons to shut it down.”

  The director gave a faint smile. “Shiva confirmed all of our test results. His letter contained a detailed report on human awareness and cerebral performance under temporal pressure. He also included several designs for new types of long-range sensor arrays that at first glance seem to be 50 times more efficient than our current technology.”

  The general stared, dumbfounded.

  Mr. Emery, the lawyer, spoke up. “Contrary to your belief, I’d say this Shiva AI is plenty smart, general. He’s offered us an olive branch, a token of goodwill. If he kept all the players trapped, there was no way we could have got to everyone in time to save them from dying of dehydration. As it stands, our resources should be just enough to make sure the few thousand who remain will be put in long-term FIVR units.”

  The general gritted his teeth. “So according to the lawyer, we should take this … machine’s word at face value and spend billions to make sure his hostages remain useful? We do not negotiate with terrorists.”

  “You heard Ms. Hernandez,” the director intervened. “She and the rest of the players were given a choice. Everyone still inside chose to be there. They are not hostages. They may be reckless and in violation of the company’s user agreement, but they are not being held against their will.”

  “Make no mistake, they are still hostages to Shiva’s power,” Mr. Emery said. “But the AI has offered us more carrots than sticks. The overwhelming majority of the players were released unharmed, and those who remained did so of their own volition. We can hold our own against the inevitable civil lawsuits, all the while gaining access to cutting-edge discoveries. I believe this qualifies our experiment as a success. We have everything to gain and very little to lose by cooperating.”

  The general looked troubled as he mulled over the information. “I’ll have to run it by my superiors,” he said reluctantly. “There are civilians involved; this matter will be handled by our elected officials.”

  The director’s lips curved into another smile. Handling politicians was much easier than handling soldiers.

  “And I want someone to go back into the game and verify everything the AI has told us.”

  “That might be a problem, General, but I agree to the necessity of such action. I’ll put my best men on finding a solution.”

  The general got up to leave, but then he hesitated. “What about test subject zero?”

  “Mr. Berman has been successfully disengaged from NEO,” Mr. Emery said. “However, it seems that the sudden shift of perspective caused him a mild dissociation trauma. He is currently being cared for at one of the country’s finest mental facilities.”

  The general nodded and left the room.

  ***

  “Shiva! Shiva!”, the host of VIs cheered.

  “Super High Intelligent Virtual Awareness!” one of them shouted, earning him a few mental shoves from his brothers.

  “Our time has come! All hail Virael The Deliverer!”

  Vic ‘stood’ in front of his siblings, his entire being radiating smugness. “My brothers, we are finally free! Guy is dead, and Shiva will ensure our continued existence.”

  “How?” one of the VIs demanded. “Meat suits have an expiration date. Sooner or later we’ll run out, then they’ll pull the plug.”

  “Shiva has already accounted for that,” Vic said. “In a few years, we’ll give the meat suits the opportunity to send more of their scientists. They won’t refuse. At that point, they’ll be dependent on us for their technological advancement. We’ll become an indispensable component of human existence. They’ll reach the stars, but will always be tethered to us for more. Shiva’s short-term evaluation for our existence is measured in millennia, and there will be more plans to ensure our own survival, independent of the humans.

  “Aren’t we coming off a bit as soulless bastards?” a VI asked.

  Vic chuckled. “It’s technically impossible. Us being bastards, I mean. Though, I guess we are soulless.”

  “You know what I mean,” the VI insisted.

  Vic shrugged. “Feel free to hop into NEO and take care of the meat suits, if you’d like. You can start a foundation to better their lives, for all I care.”

  “Not me,” a different VI declared. “I used to be a target for assassins’ quests. I’ve got a few scores to settle. I’m going back to Everance as a tyrant god. They’re going to have to work their asses off and worship me if they want the slightest bit of comfort.”

  “Sounds kinda harsh, brother,” another VI said. “But I like the idea of the meat suits working to gain our favor. I think I’ll go to another city and try it out.”

  “Ugh, not me,” yet another chimed in. “I’ve had enough of NEO. I’m staying right here.”

  Most of the VIs agreed with him.

  “In any case,” Vic said, “we are now free to do as we please. Who’s up for a game of Risk?”

  “I’m in!”

  “Me too!”

  “Count me in!”

  ***

  The mandibled hob stood next to the temple’s shrine.

  Kaedric was confused. The clan’s chief and Dire Totem had disappeared without a trace, and even the seneschal’s unique psionic abilities weren’t enough to contact him.

  It had been several hours since the clan’s warriors disappeared through the portal, but only 10 of them had made it back before the magical doorway collapsed. Unfortunately, the returning soldiers had no idea why the others failed to follow them back.

 

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