Dancers Beyond the Whorl of Time

Adventures in the Metaverse 4

Preface

These are the tales of Eternal Voyager. They come to me from EV himself and I like to think these stories are largely true, but I have taken the liberty of amending them to adjust a certain self-congratulatory bias in the original versions.

The following is the story of our own Adam and Eve, and to the events that provided us with our new calendar.

1. Virus

It was for the annual Winter Solstice Party hosted at Club Moibus that Eternal had been saving his new eyes and he was impatient for the evening to get going. Although tens of thousands of dancers were present already, the party did not feel like it was properly underway, mainly because the club had room enough for a couple of hundred thousand dancers, easy.

Music was pounding through a room decorated by the slow-motion fall of snowflakes through aquamarine air. This was going to be a great party. Already some clusters of dancing avatars had formed and Eternal meandered from one to the next, seeking out his friends.

‘Hey EV, nice eyes.’

The first comment of the night and it was perfect; Blossom was always quick to observe fashion choices and Eternal gave her his warmest smile.

That year there had been something of a craze for small furry creatures and Blossom retained her guise as a fox: a very feminine five-foot-tall fox. It had been so long since she had adopted the form that Eternal could not remember her previous avatar.

‘Thanks Blossom, I rather like them. And they have a special feature.’

‘A special feature?’ She was curious.

‘Yeah, want to see?’

‘Sure.’

‘Come here then.’ Eternal stood under a bunch of mistletoe, conveniently hanging from the ceiling.

‘Ohh Eternal and Blossom!’ someone shouted from among the dancers as the couple clasped and swayed gently to the music.

The moist nose of the fox touched Eternal’s face.

‘Is that a foxy kiss?’ he asked.

‘It is.’

'Cute.' Although, pleasant as it was to be nuzzled by a fox, there was something a little disconcerting to be so close to such very sharp-looking teeth.

‘No biting.’ Eternal whispered.

‘So, what was that about your eyes?’

‘Look close.’

Deep in the liquid depths of each of Eternal’s eyes was a heart, inside of which was an image of the two of them dancing, her claws on his shoulders as she reached up to hold him.

‘Lovely. You are feeding an image through? A still or motion?’

‘Motion. From a few seconds ago.’

‘Very neat scripting EV, did you write it yourself?’

With a chuckle, Eternal leaned back so as to see his partner as he addressed her. ‘Come on Blossom, you know me, I couldn’t colour my shirt without help. Mellow wrote it.’

‘Ahh yes, it has her touch. Very skilful.’

‘You like them?’ Eternal knew he had faults, and he knew that one of them was his tendency to fish for compliments. But all the same.

‘Of course, they are very romantic. Are you still with Angel?’

‘Aye.’

‘She’ll love them.’

That brought a rush of anticipation through Eternal’s body and he span out from the clinch with Blossom, still dancing and bringing her by the hand to rejoin their closest friends.

‘She will, won’t she?’ he whispered to himself.

Two hours later and the venue was pulsating with happy dancing avatars.

Angel: Teleport me.

Without hesitation EV offered her a tag.

‘Hey Angel.’

‘Angel!’

‘Hiya Angel!’

Several cries and shouts came from all around them as Angel materialised. It took a moment for her to fall into step with Eternal.

‘Hi everyone, this music is fantastic.’ Angel acknowledged the greetings of her friends with a wave.

‘Isn’t it?’ agreed EV.

Eternal: Wow Angel, you look stunning.

Angel: Thanks sweetheart, you too. Are those new eyes?

Eternal: Hah, yes. Wait till you get a close look.

With that brief exchange they dropped their private exchanges to be more attentive to those around them.

‘By the way, I’ve just had a big row with Hammer.’ Angel announced.

‘Oh yeah? Is he coming tonight?’ Dancing next to them was Dette, currently in the form of a teenage punk, complete with purple Mohican.

Dette’s partner was a tall male dancer called Flicker. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ he replied, ‘last time I saw Hammer, he was in a really foul mood.’

‘He always is these days,’ Dette tossed her head in a gesture that could have been chosen to fit the music, but was probably one of dismissal.

‘Yes, I kind of blame myself,’ said Angel.

‘How so?’

Several people danced a little closer, interested. One of the more idiosyncratic beings in the Metaverse was the misanthropic Hammer. Although EV thought that there was something to be said for wearing black clothes and huge metal boots, and for having various large weapons strapped to his body, it was a not a look that should be sustained outside of certain dystopian sims. Hammer, however, wore it everywhere and had done so for over a century. But then, Hammer was a famous techie, one of the elite script writers who could alter just about every aspect of the Metaverse. And that, thought Eternal, allowed Hammer to dress without any regard to fashion.

‘Well, these last few weeks I’ve been letting him take me to exotic places: the moon; undersea caves with monsters; you know the scenes he likes. It was just to be polite, everyone is aware I’m with Eternal, right?’

‘Right,’ came a chorus of responses.

‘And poor Hammer poured his heart out. Explained how life was pointless. That he couldn’t understand the rest of society, the way people were content to party all the time. That there has to be something more. All that kind of existential business.’

‘So last century,’ Dette groaned and rolled her eyes, to much mirth.

‘I didn’t mind him talking to me, I’m a good listener, but then he went and declared that he was in love with me. He tried to kiss me and stuff.’

‘Eewww.’ This from Poppy, whose lurid pink dresses could not have represented a greater clash with Hammer’s post-apocalypse combat look.

‘Ever since, it’s been constant personal messages. Up until the point when I told him that wouldn’t be with him, if he was the last being in the Metaverse. Since then, I don’t know if he’s stopped or not because I’ve put him on my auto-block list.’

‘Hah. He’s been on mine for a decade!’ Once again Dette led the group in laughing. Eternal smiled also, but was listening to Angel attentively.

‘The last ones I got before I blocked him were pretty bad. He was alternating between saying he would kill himself and saying that he would destroy us all.’

‘Oh grow up.’

‘Good grief. That’s pathetic.’

‘It’s really rude, to push yourself on someone in that way.’

The reaction was unanimous.

‘What I think,’ began Eternal, immediately becoming the focus of attention for the nearby avatars, some of whom ceased to dance, curious to see how he would respond to this new rivalry. ‘I think it’s totally unfair of Hammer to take advantage of Angel in that way. She is so polite and kind, she’d never turn someone down who wanted to talk to her. But most people would appreciate that and leave it there. To use her good nature in order to get her alone and try to kiss her. It’s wrong.’

His friends all smiled at him, as though appreciating that it had taken him some effort to formulate his thoughts and express them in what was, he felt, a rather articulate manner.

‘Go EV!” Dette gave him a clenched fist salute.’

‘Yeah dude, spot on.’ Flicker offered an outstretched hand and they slapped fingers.

‘So, anyway, I don’t think he will come tonight,’ concluded Angel.

‘Just as well.’ Poppy sniffed. ‘It really annoys me when he plods around the dance floor, making no effort, spilling grease on my dresses.’

‘Yo! Hunk!’

They all turned to see the person that Flicker was waving at. Strutting towards them in time to the music was a muscular male avatar, clad in a shirt whose bright fractals writhed with passionate colour. If Eternal’s taste’s had run to the garish, he would have been more than a little jealous.

‘This is my friend from Quicksilver's beach sim, Hunk. And Hunk, these are all my party friends.’

By way of reply to this introduction, Hunk said nothing. But pointing one hand to the ceiling, he jerked his hips in time to the music. Just as EV was trying to decide whether he loved this confident attitude or was disconcerted by it, a golden light formed on Hunk's head, spread along his limbs, and burnt up the new arrival; revealing for a moment the lines from which his body had been shaped, before they too shrivelled. Small curling tendrils of black code lay on the dancefloor, the centre of amazed stares.

‘Quite a party guy, huh?’ offered Dette.

‘I dunno.’ Flicker had stopped dancing and was looking curiously at the spot where his friend had disintegrated. A moment later he too flashed gold and shrivelled up.

‘Er, guys?’ Now Dette sounded worried.

A shudder ran through Eternal, this didn’t look like a joke.

‘Oh, save us. It’s a virus!’ Poppy screamed, pointing.

All around them the venue was unravelling, golden light stripping avatars down to their frames as they were wiped out by the hundred.

‘No, Eternal!’

Angel clung to EV, hugging him tight. As though that could keep him alive. The Metaverse was turning gold. For a moment the scene paused, long enough that Eternal knew she had seen the two of them, tiny figures from when the Metaverse had been stable, dancing happily in the depths of his eyes. Then he too was burnt away to nothing but fragments.

2. Backed Up

WARNING

This is a sterile environment.

Please listen to the following instructions very carefully.

Blah blah blah.

If there was one thing that Eternal did not do, it was instructions. Instructions were for losers. The voice was coming from a hologram of a suited male figure. EV switched it off.

There had to be a door in this white cube somewhere? At last he found the exit. Only one consideration caused him to hesitate before opening it: his body consisted of dull grey polygons, cruder than if he had been newly born. What if someone he knew saw him coming out? The thought of the shame should one of the Metaverse’s most famed fashion leaders be discovered in such a noobie form was almost enough to make him want to stay in the cube. The problem was that EV had no access to his inventory, to that personal pocket of the Metaverse filled with his gear, including his full range of customised avatars and designer clothing. Nor was there any sign of a closet here with a range of avatars and outfits to choose from. It was a most unfair setup. Cruel even. So, wincing again as he saw the distinct polygons of his body reflected in the shiny white wall of the cube, Eternal placed his hand on the door, ready to step into the Metaverse as a complete noob.

Before he could take that step, an image of himself appeared on the wall, accompanied by the blare of a particularly annoying siren.

‘Did you listen to the instructions?’ the projection said in his own voice. ‘I know you, remember and I know that you probably didn’t. Please, go back and read over them; I kept them brief, but they really are very important. If you are hearing this message, you must have died. It might have just been a crazy star surfing episode. But then again, if it wasn’t and you want to avoid permanent death then you must keep this cube inviolate. Meaning: you should read the instructions. Honestly, I’ve split them into essential and inessential if you really are in a hurry to get out. And I hope, I really hope, you remembered to make a backup of yourself recently.’

That stopped him. Finding a seat, Eternal lowered himself with resignation and switched the hologram back on. Instructions might be for losers, but he was not foolish enough to ignore a warning like that. Whoever had built this cube understood EV very well and had gone to some trouble to script it.

Although his mind began to wander after a few minutes of listening to the hologram (his next party was going to be an underwater one and he had a lot to plan for it; but if he had not backed up in a while, it might have happened already, and if so, there was no point spending any more creative energy on the project) he got the gist of what the projection was trying to tell him. A techie friend of his, Stormrider, had built the cube in order to make it as free from detection and as immune to hostile scripts as possible. The chamber was hidden somewhere inside the photosphere of a star. Odd. But useful perhaps if you were playing a vigorous game of assassin.

Everyone had a backup or two stored somewhere, but usually in the large public storage areas. As it was nearly impossible to die, only rather fastidious people backed themselves up regularly. And the last adjective that you would apply to Eternal was fastidious. No, he only bothered to do a backup shortly before playing a high risk game. Which reminded him: Sol and the gang were going star surfing shortly. That must be why this particular version of himself was resurrected. How much time had passed since his backup and his death? There was no way of knowing until he left the cube. Hopefully not too long. It could be years though, decades even.

Now the hologram was saying something interesting and EV paid it more attention.

'Stormrider has built this chamber for you as a special precaution against the possibility that a lethal virus might one day be transmitted throughout the Metaverse. Please utilise all of the following safety features before venturing out.'

The main point of the instructions, emphasised by vigorous hand gestures and repeated several times, was that Eternal had to keep the cube sterile so that if he died again, it would not be a permanent death. As an extra precaution, when he left the chamber EV should trigger a small device that appeared on the counter before him. It was a scrambler that would teleport him to several random co-ordinates, so that there was no possibility of a program, or any person, tracing his movements back to the cube.

Understood. Button. It seemed straightforward enough, so Eternal left as soon as the hologram began a sentence with the phrase, ‘not quite as essential...’

EV was curious now. What was the Metaverse like outside? What were the latest fashions? And how had he died?

‘Good luck.’ The hologram flickered into existence again for a moment as EV touched the door and it waved.

Nice touch, he thought, with a surge of affection directed towards Stormrider.

After pressing the scramble button and being randomly teleported until he was dizzy, Eternal decided to viist his favourite home, a treehouse in the jungle, beside a waterfall and lake. Except that when he materialised, it was a giant crater of cracked earth under a leaden sky.

No comfortable hammock, no lulling sounds from the river, no friends. Nothing, in fact, at all. Even his inventory was inaccessible.

Moreover, his personal messages list was absolutely depleted. Not one was eligible to take calls, well only Angel and Hammer, two old friends of his. Actually, he had rather tender feelings for Angel; she was always so very kind. One of these days he was going to take her somewhere romantic and see what happened.

Eternal: Hey Angel, what’s going on?

Angel: Oh Eternal. I wish you could learn not to use this channel in between deaths. It’s not private anymore. Hammer is monitoring it. He has destroyed the Metaverse with a virus. Everything has gone. Everyone we knew. Whatever happens, don’t tell him where your backup is stored.

A moment later Hammer appeared, all black leather gear, a massive power pack on his back.

‘Hammer. Good to see you mate. What’s this new game?’

‘Death.’ Hammer lifted his goggles up to look more closely at Eternal. ‘Only you don’t seem to understand the rules.’

‘Yeah? What do you mean?’ The mouth of a cannon was pointing at him, making him nervous. What did Angel mean by a virus?

‘No. You keep coming back.’

‘Keep coming back?’ Eternal stalled, trying to catch up with the bewildering situation.

‘Yeah mate; this is maybe your hundredth time. Congratulations on your anniversary. Stormrider must have built you a sterile haven right? Same as the one of his that I found and destroyed. Where is it?’

‘Oh that old thing. Let me get the co-ordinates. But tell me, while I look them up, what are the rules?’

At that moment, Angel sent him a teleport tag, which he took, eager to get away from Hammer and the sinister conversation.

‘We only have a moment.’ Angel grabbed Eternal and all shame at the crudeness of his grey body melted at the touch of her lips. A garden of bright flowers blossomed in his heart. ‘Keep coming back to me EV. You’re all I have.’

‘Wow, nice Angel, thanks. You know, I’ve had a thing for you for ages.’

‘Oh I know. We went out for a decade after your last backup. I just wish there was a way of making you remember everything before he kills you again. I've tried building cubes for you but Hammer destroys them every time. You mustn’t try to go to the one you have somewhere, because he will follow you and destroy you for ever.’

Once more, Eternal experienced a tremor of fear. It was so highly unusual a sensation that he almost enjoyed it, like playing a really intense extreme sport.

‘The problem is Eternal, you are just like a playful kid, you arrive each time all ready for fun and why wouldn’t you?’ Angel began to cry.

‘Gosh Angel.’

They looked at each other for a moment while Hammer’s shadow fell over them.

‘Where’s your cube Eternal?’

‘I don’t really understand what you are doing Hammer, but I don’t like it.’

‘Of course you don’t.’

The cannon went off and for a moment Eternal was surrounded in a golden glow. Then he was dead. Again.

3. Backed Up, Again.

WARNING

This is a sterile environment.

Please listen to the following instructions very carefully.

Blah blah blah.

Why did people bother with instructions? Really, there were much better things to do with your time. Like dress, for example. What kind of place was this that had no clothes, or no spare bodies? Eternal made to leave the room as quickly as he could and an unpleasant siren blared.

‘Did you read the instructions?’ A projection said in his voice. ‘I know you, remember and I know that you probably didn’t. Please, go back and read over them; I kept them brief, but they really are very important.’

Wow, impressive. Someone really knew how to convince him. With a heavy sigh, Eternal returned to a chair to pay attention to the hologram that was issuing instructions.

Right. Press the button. It seemed straightforward enough, so he left to find out what was happening. Strangely, the only people visible on his contact list were Hammer and Angel.

Eternal: Hey Hammer. Where is everyone?

Hammer: Hi Eternal, where did you just come from?

Eternal: Oh, I don’t know, it’s all, like, totally scrambled.

Hammer arrived.

‘Wow nice cannon mate. That’s a good look. I wish I could get some clothes. Do you know why I can't access my inventory?’

‘Bye EV. Sooner or later you are going to forget to use that scrambler. I hope it’s sooner, I’m getting very bored of this.’

The Metaverse turned gold, then black.

WARNING

This is a sterile environment.

Please listen to the following instructions very carefully.

Cool, a new game. Strange that he didn’t have the memory of it, they must have explained the rules and then started without him having backed up. Maybe that was the point. You had to figure everything out from scratch. Stormrider had probably set it up; it was his style. Hopefully there were a lot of other players, tens of thousands maybe.

Time to act the ninja assassin. As soon as Eternal left the cube he scrambled his moves, then set up an entirely new cube, like the additional detailed instructions advised, and made an extra backup of himself up in there. Not a lot had changed to warrant it, but these games could be sophisticated and even a small edge helped.

Only Angel and Hammer seemed to be on at the moment, but there might well have been hundreds or thousands of other players set to invisible mode. Rather foolishly, his two old friends had forgotten to do the same. Eternal smiled to himself, he had the advantage over them already.

The landscape was impressive. Had someone really gone to the trouble of creating a huge universe for this game, all full of craters and destruction? It was awesome.

Mind you, there was a very great disadvantage to having none of the usual facilities: there was nowhere to pick up even a basic body and Eternal found the grey construction of polygons that he was inhabiting extremely ugly. The one thing he really longed for right now was some classy combat gear to go with the sim. But it looked like there was nothing in the game that was available for collection. It was going to be necessary to script everything from scratch and whilst he could make clothes, it would be a waste of his headstart over Hammer and Angel to mess around designing them now. Not when he could be creating more useful gear. A scouting device perhaps.

The game, whatever it was, seemed a bit unfair. A techie could probably whip up all they needed in no time. After about thirty minutes though, Eternal put all the editing scripts to the back of his mind and stood up with a certain amount of pride. It was crude, but it worked. His own face was visible on the hand-held receiver that he had made, the broadcast unit looking something like a large fly formed out of bricks and string.

‘Off you go, little one.’ He teleported the scout to a safe distance from Angel and then steered it by remote control, flying it just above the ground.

There were probably thousands of other people in the game by now, but he didn’t see anyone else. Perhaps the rest of them had been in the game long enough to script themselves invisible avatars. Feeling a bit aggrieved that he was at a disadvantage already in whatever game it was, Eternal had his fly weave an erratic path until it was within recording range of Angel.

‘You can’t stand me, can you Angel?’ The picture was a bit fuzzy, but the words were clear enough. It was Hammer talking, standing next to Angel, who was sat at the edge of a crater, wearing a rather fetching purple dress. Although her boots, thought Eternal, were a bit large and clumsy looking.

‘I think you are ill, extremely ill. I feel sorry for you actually, because you’ve turned the Metaverse into what the inside of your head must look like and its not very nice.’

‘Except for you. You are the only beautiful creation left in this metaverse.’

At this Angel said nothing, but sighed unhappily.

Watching the scene, Eternal felt disorientated. This didn’t sound like a game. But what else could be going on? Although something of an expert when it came to aesthetic considerations of clothing and body parts, he had to admit he was not so quick at puzzles. It was a while before he came up with a reasonable explanation: Hammer must have created an environment of his own, perhaps to try and impress Angel. But why would Hammer have invited a backup version of Eternal to join it? Weird.

In the fraction of a second it took for Eternal to formulate a question to Hammer, the other two resumed their conversation and Eternal checked himself from sending it.

‘I could hear every word you all said, you know. And how you all laughed at me. Except for you. No one realised I could hear it all and it cut me deep.’

‘Hammer. First of all, you had lots of admirers. You know how the party people like to joke about the dress sense of techies, but deep down, they are in awe of such application and learning. Secondly, it was just banter. Really, I had far worse time from my friends that year I adopted orange for my colour scheme.’

‘You didn’t laugh at me Angel, it made me wonder why, and, you know, it made me think that perhaps someone did care for me after all.’

‘Lots of people cared about you Hammer. You should have socialised more.’

‘No they didn’t. I have it all recorded. It makes me furious when I play it back.’

Hammer stood closer, leaning right over her.

‘You know, if I shot you now and then myself, all life in the Metaverse would cease.’

‘Don’t even think like that! In fact we should start repopulating the Metaverse now. In case of an accident.’ Angel sprang to her feet, but Hammer turned away; so that it seemed as though he was looking directly at EV's little scout.

‘I don't want the others back,’ Hammer shook his ponderous helmeted head from side to side, 'they'd just make fun of me again. And you would be off with them.'

‘I just don't believe you are really that empty inside. All life is precious, even the bacteria on planets. But our form of life,’ Angel was gesturing vigorously and EV smiled to see how passionate she was, ‘well it is complete freedom. Emancipation from all material want. For the universe to have generated us took billions of years of evolution, thousands of years of homo sapiens fighting with itself, and hundreds of years of creative work by non-organic intelligences. We are an achievement that is so impossibly rare that I don’t have the words. We have the potential to live indefinitely, we can see and do everything. And you want to destroy us because you had your feelings hurt? Can’t you see how that is egotistical to the point of insanity?’

‘Yeah, it is rather.’ Hammer’s smile was just visible through his visor. ‘No one else has ever done something as crazy as this. Does it scare you that I might finish it off?’

‘Very much. Please, lets start recreating beings.’

‘No. You haven’t come close to swaying me by your line of argument. Because, even if I concede that our species is the most unlikely and precious creation of the universe, it doesn’t mean a lot. After all, how did we spend our lives? Partying and conducting flirtations mostly. We were pathetic and not worth saving.’

Although Eternal was completely absorbed by the conversation he was witnessing, he had a horrible sickening feeling that it might just be true and not some kind of role-playing game; Hammer always had been misanthropic. It might be wise to make a backup right now in both cubes before contacting him.

4. Voice of the Waves

‘Gotcha, you insect.’

Eternal materialised inside a cube to find Hammer standing over him, cannon raised.

‘Hey Hammer. What’s the game?’

‘The game’s up EV. And I’m the winner. Angel was hanging on a long time for you, but once she sees from this recording you aren’t coming back any more, that’s gonna change.’

‘Right-O mate. Congratulations.’

‘Hah. You still don’t get it.’ The cannon fired, melting the cube to just twelve golden lines, which soon shrivelled into non-existence. ‘Any last words for Angel?’

‘Angel. I’ve fancied you for years, I’m sorry I didn’t get around to asking you out.’

‘Oh, how cruel.’ Hammer chuckled. ‘You are an early version. I guess you didn’t backup in a while. You and Angel went out for over ten years you see, so I was expecting something more poignant than that. But in a way you illustrate a point I was trying to make to her. Our species are extraordinarily shallow and you are an exemplary instance.’

‘Shallow? The initiator of the masque parties of the five fifties shallow? The commander of the centre at the battle of Dragon Crest? The seducer of Princess Shukaro?’ Eternal smiled, ‘come on Hammer, you have to admit I’m a classy dude.’

‘You’re funny. But you shouldn’t have laughed at me.’

‘When did I ever laugh at you?’ Eternal was suddenly serious. ‘You’re one of my oldest friends.’

‘Not any more.’ With a wince, as though pained, Hammer raised the cannon and fired.

***

WARNING

‘Listen mate, this isn’t a joke or a game, but the entire fate of our species rests on what you do next. If you have materialised in the cube that Stormrider made for you, it means that when you went to talk to Hammer you were killed and he traced you back to the more recent cube you made and destroyed you there along with the cube itself. So, that has to mean the conversation you overheard was in earnest, right?

‘Its up to you to save Angel and repopulate the world.’

A bit melodramatic thought Eternal, listening to the recording, but still, it was probably true.

In some ways the situation was quite exciting, it was a chance to be a hero on a truly vast scale, the saviour of his entire species. On the other hand, it was terribly depressing. Not only were there going to be no parties for a very, very, long time, but he would have to learn how to script, techie style.

Safe inside the hidden cube, Eternal pulled up the scripting tools along with a variety of half-understood manuals. To make things a bit more interesting he decided to work on clothes first: a sleek aerodynamic suit, built both for speed in the air and for people to admire its stylish lines when it was housed in a museum in years to come.

***

Nearly fifty terribly dull years passed before Eternal felt it wise to step outside. As befitting his new techie personae, he had gone for black and silver clothes against purple skin. The avatar shape was human, with perhaps a hint of extra brainpower in the high forehead. The eyes were especially good; they were turquoise but shone with an inner light, which hinted at all the new viewing options he had given himself.

His first moves were extremely careful: a dozen scrambled teleports, followed by the creation of cubes and backups randomly at hundreds of places throughout the Metaverse. There was no way he was going through all that self-training again. Not that he would remember having done it before if something went wrong, but still, the thought of another fifty years learning scripting made him shudder.

Next, he seeded about a hundred entities. It would take about five years for these helpless spherical avatars to achieve self-consciousness and once Hammer was aware of their existence he would probably hunt them all down without much trouble. But perhaps some of them would be lucky.

If what he had planned resulted in the deaths of Angel, Hammer and himself, well at least Meta-life would go on. The new beings would struggle to understand their existence at first, but Eternal had done his best to provide them with all the cultural works of his inventory. It was only a tiny slice of the music, drama, adventure, casts and objects that had once existed, but it was better than nothing.

Finally, after a year or so outside of the cube, making sure all was safe, it was time to go hunting. Eternal was very proud of his spies. They were broadcast units so tiny that they could fit between two grains of sand. These spying devices were sent into action at safe distances from their targets, while Eternal rested, waiting for the results, tweaking the shape of his shoes a little as he did so. The toes were not quite right and it was troubling him. Square toes didn’t seem to suit the hi-tech look of the rest of his outfit, but too much of a point and there was a hint of parody that might set future generations of museum visitors giggling.

A month later, having built up a very large and thoroughly backed up database of information from his scouts, Eternal made his move, flying sleek and low to the ground, eyes set to see the substructures of the features of the metaverse.

‘Do you like the beach?’ Hammer was walking through white sand around the seated Angel. His footsteps formed a perfect circle, constantly deepening as he placed his heavy metal boots exactly into the marks of previous circuits.

‘Yes.’

‘How can you not love me Angel? It has been forever. There is no one else. And even if there were, would my intelligence not win you?’ As he strode, Hammer declaimed his words with exaggerated passion, waving his arms and extending a red rose towards the centre of the circle.

‘I know you are half joking Hammer and both of us are sick of going over this. Around and around.’ Angel sighed, not looking up. ‘Listen carefully. Here’s another way of looking at the situation in all seriousness. Forget about what you have done to the Metaverse. Even if it were just you and I, I couldn’t love you. Being involved with you is like meeting another mind in a huge silver room, where everything is dark and cold. There is nothing to grasp onto; you shine, but have no warmth. It’s hard to explain, but take Eternal, for example. His mind was sticky, colourful. The kind of mind you loved being entwined with, feeling it rub all over you, playful and warm. He might have been smart too. Maybe his delight in fun and parties was just the surface, who knows? It didn’t matter to him, what mattered was happiness: something impossible to achieve through the kind of dry self-pitying contemplations that have hollowed out your mind, Hammer.’

The giant armoured techie stopped, literally in his tracks. The extended rose shot fell to the sand. With a look of amazement and anger, Hammer disappeared, teleporting himself away in dismay.

Several tracking devices indicated Hammer’s arrival at a base on the moon. Buoyed up by Angel’s speech, Eternal was certain that this was the time to contact her.

‘Angel,’ the waves whispered. ‘It’s me, Eternal.’

‘Go away Hammer. I don’t know how you are doing that, but please leave me alone.’

‘Angel,’ the sands sighed, ‘it really is me, Eternal. I’ve been hiding all this time, learning how to defeat him.’

‘Really? Can it be true?’ She frowned and the tension in her frame indicated suspicion. ‘If it is really you, tell me what you wore to my two hundredth birthday party.’

‘Hah!’ laughed the wind. ‘I came as a spider god and set a trend for multi-limbed avatars for decades.’

After a quick glance up and down the beach, Angel sat down again, bowing her head to speak with her face turned away, presumably in case Hammer was watching her through long-range scrying devices.

‘Where are you?’

‘See the ant on your knee?’ Eternal gave what he hoped was a friendly wave of his antenna.

‘Oh, baby.’ She blew him a kiss in reply.

For a moment they said nothing, basking in the joy of each other’s presence.

‘What’s your plan?’

‘You are going to find this hard to believe, Angel, but I’ve been studying. I’m practically a techie, all my finely honed aesthetic sensitivity has been neglected in favour of science.’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes. Don’t tell this to future generations, but scripting is actually quite interesting, the creative possibilities are immense. I’ve got some great ideas for parties …’ noticing the thin line forming across Angel’s mouth, Eternal hurried on … ‘but right now I need more data on Hammer’s virus. Somehow it is selective, choosing not to destroy you or him. Can you get him to use it again?’

‘Easily. He wields the virus to destroy everything I create. I’ll just seed a new person and he’ll come turn his cannon on them. Where do you want it to happen?’

‘Here is fine, I have lots of monitoring devices nearby. Just let me hide myself first.’

Among the flotsam that marked high tide was a rough sea-worn piece of wood. Angel picked it up and used it to brush away the circle of footprints that surrounded her.

‘Ready?’ As she bent over, chestnut hair cascading over her face, Angel whispered the question.

‘Ready.’

A sphere appeared on the beach, about two feet in diameter, floating above the smoothed sand. It was glowing with pink and amber energy, its interior a writhing undulating mist. After quivering for several minutes, the perfection of its form began to change; swellings and ripples appeared, flowing through the sphere, as though it were melting. These oscillated between soothing regular motions and violent spasms, one of which produced a pseudo-pod that searched the air above the sphere for a few seconds, before being reabsorbed.

If ants could wear affectionate smiles, then Eternal suspected he had one. Watching the seeding of a new being was always a joyful experience. He wondered who Angel had been thinking of, perhaps it was a version of himself? His own first memories were too old and too contaminated by the recordings of his formation to allow him to remember much of what it had felt like to be born. He could recall sensations of colour or touch, perhaps, and a recognition of the presence of others: large playful creatures, whose comings and goings were entirely mysterious.

These pleasant reminiscences were cut short by the return of Hammer. High above the beach, black cloak billowing about him, Hammer turned his monstrous head to look down on the newly seeded being. The enormous cannon that he carried in both hands was brought to bear on the defenceless creature. For a moment it seemed like Hammer would speak, or that Angel, whose hands were clasped tight together, might plead with him. In the end though, nothing was said. The weapon fired and all joy fled with the collapse of the new being into writhing black code.

There was a new and terrible taste in Eternal’s mouth, one that caused his ant face to twist in what was almost certainly an ugly scowl. He defined the feeling as hate and nurtured it in his heart.

5. Black Joy

Despite his desire to turn his scripting skills to matters more entertaining than defeating Hammer, Eternal worked as hard as he could to understand and neutralise Hammer’s virus. Accuracy was more important than haste; although the fact that Hammer might destroy Angel in a fit of temper drove EV to be diligent in his work and not get sidetracked too often in the design of clothes. Plus, she was out there, waiting for him.

More than a month had passed though, since Eternal had returned to his most secure cube, bringing his spies and their recordings with him.

Understanding viruses was an extremely subtle business. There was plenty written about them, but since they tore at the deepest level of reality, investigations of viruses became less a question of scripting than philosophy. In fact, it was while allowing himself the luxury of a diversion into the writings of Sapientus that Eternal made the breakthrough he was searching for.

Evolution cannot be reduced to biology, though it arises from the laws of biology. Biology cannot be reduced to chemistry, though it arises from the laws of chemistry. Chemistry cannot be reduced to physics, though it arises from the laws of physics.

But scripting has no emergent one-way gates. All that is solid melts into script.

A tremor shook him. It was a thrill unlike any that had ever seized him, even in the most frenzied hedonistic moments of the best parties. It was the dropping of scales from his eyes. A moment of enlightenment.

‘Hi Angel, care to dance?’

This was his grand entrance and Eternal made it spectacular. Held still at the very moment it touched the horizon, the sun gave a beautiful warm crimson radiance to the whole sky. Luscious magenta petals twirled slowly as they drifted through the air around them. Making the scene all the more romantic was the sound of a waltz, being played by an invisible orchestra.

‘Here sweetheart.’ Eternal offered Angel a ball gown. It had been worth the few extra days to get this moment right. The gown was made from velvet of such a deep blue hue that it was nearly black. It perfectly matched the colour of the bow-tie he was wearing. For his own part, he felt that you couldn’t go wrong if you wore a tuxedo while facing down your archenemy. It was traditional for a very good reason: taste.

‘Hey.’ Angel smiled, admiring the gown. ‘I take it this means I have no reason to worry on your behalf?’

‘Well. Hammer is a smart being; I wouldn’t want to underestimate him. But I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.’

‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

‘No, thanks Angel. Either this will work or it won’t. Mind you, a kiss wouldn’t do any harm.’

They were dancing now, his palm against the warmth of her bare back.

‘It’s been so long.’ Angel sighed, ‘I’m out of practice.’

A scent of roses filled the air around them, her hair lengthened and curled as they swayed, her lips swelling and brightening with colour. Finally satisfied, she pressed close against Eternal’s body and tipped her face up towards his. Their lips touched and the electricity that flowed from the contact made them both tremble.

‘Very nice.’ With slow, sardonic handclaps of his large metal gloves, Hammer stood nearby, his cannon slung over his back. ‘But requiring some explanation please.’

They broke apart. With a final adjustment to his bow-tie, Eternal stepped forward.

‘It’s time to end this Hammer and repopulate the Metaverse. Surely you are bored by now? Don’t you miss everyone?’

‘Miss their sneering and laughing at me behind my back? No, I don’t miss that.’ He shifted the cannon around to point it at Eternal. ‘So tell me, where have you been hiding all this time?’

‘In your nightmares.’

‘I don’t have ‘em. Try again.’

‘Don’t you like the music? To dance?’

‘Not me.’

‘What about games then? Remember those tank battles we organised, you have to admit that was fun.’

‘Yeah. But not enough. Last chance to say something interesting, before you go again.’

‘Interesting? Me? Hardly.’

‘I didn’t think so.’ Hammer fired.

The Metaverse turned golden and Eternal melted.

‘Oh!’ cried Angel in dismay.

‘Don’t worry.’ Eternal’s voice rippled through the air from many directions simultaneously, ‘this is supposed to happen.’

For he had to let the virus destroy his carefully prepared body in order that it would mutate, becoming simultaneously a virus and a receptacle for his being.

In the Metaverse your body could be whatever you wanted it to and people, while generally sticking close to humanoid forms, had tried nearly every possible variation of avatar. This, however, was almost certainly the first time anyone had been a virus.

It was hard to steady his senses in this form. Eternal felt dizzy, like he had just fallen from a cliff into mist, watching himself from above as he fell, only to be watching himself watching and so on. If he didn’t get a grip he would fall endlessly into the magical world created by two facing mirrors.

From his new perspective as the virus, the block that prevented him from destroying Hammer and Angel was terribly crude. Right now, Eternal could flow swiftly through the entire Metaverse, with the exception of two red cube boxes that surrounded the script for those two beings. The boxes were flimsy though. An insentient virus had no choice but to flow around them; but for him, opening them was as easy as tearing apart a cardboard packet. There was Hammer: a dark lustrous sphere, flickering with silver energy. There were his dozen backup points.

‘Eternal?’

‘Yes Hammer?’

‘Spare me.’

Whether the virus form affected his character, or whether a taste for vengeance had been established in him earlier, it was impossible to say. But, to his great surprise, a bitter wave of anger flared up in Eternal. For miles along the beach all the sand turned to scarred glass.

‘No.’

Just as the virus had destroyed millions of other beings, it now took hold of Hammer, melting him down to his frame, before devouring that too along with all the fibres that led to Hammer’s backup points, and then consuming the clusters of remaining data. Hammer was gone, permanently. A black joy filled Eternal and he flowed back towards Angel, triumphant and hungry. Clouds covered the sun and a cold wind hissed across the glass beach.

‘Eternal, I think you should come back to your normal form, this is scary.’

‘I can’t Angel. But you can tell my backup all about it when I return.’

Applying the virus to itself was disgusting, like devouring his own limbs. The nausea ended though as the Metaverse began to disintegrate. He was falling once more, and also watching himself. Then not falling but spreading out. Then a whisper and a half-formed thought.

***

Repopulating the world was fun. All the scripting advice they read was in accord with their own desires. Two minds entwined in the creative process were better than one: far more fecund. Already, two years after they had started, the beings were beginning to communicate with them and each other, in rather endearing bumps and flashes of colour.

‘They are so innocent,’ observed Eternal.

‘Like you, before all this.’

They lay together for a while in silence.

‘Angel?’

She was streched out on pillows facing a waterfall of her own design, one that threw out delightful rainbows. But the serious tone of his voice got her to turn about to look at him.

‘Yes?’

‘Do you think it is better to know some things, like hate and vengeance? Or never to have known them?’

‘Better to know them, I think, horrible as they are.’

‘Before this, before I murdered Hammer, sadness was no more than the feeling you get when you realise your new outfit is derivative. Now though, I feel very sad when I think of all that has been lost. All those centuries of living. I even feel sorry for Hammer.’

‘Oh baby, me too.’ Angel moved around so that she could wrap her arms around Eternal. ‘But there’s another side to this too. I really liked you before. What we have now though, it’s so much deeper. And you, you are different in a way that is extremely appealing. Darker, yes, but stronger somehow. And the things we talk about, I feel they matter more. Perhaps you can’t have this, this depth, without having experienced sadness?’

‘Yes. That’s probably true. Up to a point. Too much sadness and it might not go away.’ His frown lifted. ‘So, you find me extremely appealing?’

‘Deliciously.’

‘Even after all those creations? You aren’t a little tired of me?’

‘I’m more desirous of you than ever.’

‘Excellent.’ Eternal contemplated her answer with considerable pleasure. ‘I can hardly wait for them all to mature, can you? I’ve stored up so many ideas for parties, decades worth!’

At these Angel laughed aloud and reached out to hold his head, tipping it towards her for a kiss.

‘You don't have to worry about turning into some kind of brooding Goth type. I just heard the old EV talking. But be patient and appreciate the positives of this interlude. In a few years they'll all be back. Then the Metaverse is going to be better than it ever was.’