“Ignorance is bliss.”

***Deep Space***

***Antioch***

“Alright! Alright! I give up! Gods! Getting spanked by you is so degrading!”

“What do you mean with 'by you'. Isn't your mother the person who is supposed to educate you!?” Silith retorts. “Should I put you through the wringers again? I can keep that up all day long.”

“No!” Minerva covers her reddened temples, wincing at the mere memory. “One hour of that is enough! I didn’t think it possible to have a migraine at this age.”

“But you surprised me for holding out that long, sister,” Samuel interjects. “You are too stubborn for your own good.”

“Shut up! It's your fault that we were caught. I told you to be on the lookout!”

“But I had to pee! You know how hard it is with this body!”

“You could have warned me!”

“Enough!” Silith's raised voice ends the quarrel. She puts Minerva down on her bed, which causes the little girl to groan in a very unladylike manner. Silith sat Minerva down on her butt, which just went through a very thorough treatment.

Minerva lies down and rolls over onto her belly. “I won't be able to sit down for over a week.”

“Answers,” Silith demands for the umpteenth time. “What did you do to my children?”

I look at Samuel, who I placed on the stool in front of the terminal. The boy raises both his hands protectively. “We are your children, we swear! Always were.”

“We are... how would you call it? Maybe downloaded personalities from the V.C.?” Minerva explains.

I suck in a sharp breath. “The V.C. still exists?”

“Get out of my children's bodies!”

Silith raises her hand, but I stop her. “Let them explain.”

Minerva lets out a breath. “That would require a little bit of background information. You two know essentially nothing about the war between the V.C. and the G.S.”

Samuel takes over. “Yes! You see, when the G.S. bombarded Earth, they missed that we already had several backup servers. It's true that all of humanity essentially retreated to the V.C., but the appearance of the G.S. made it necessary to ensure that the hardware survives. The war never truly ended. That's why the G.S. is still so interested in researching us.”

“Though, that's still in question. The G.S. is currently very busy with destroying the last servers,” Minerva adds, tentatively feeling for her butt. “That’s why we came here, to build new ones and to take part in the real world.”

I rub my forehead. Watching Silith 'educate' our daughter was hard to endure. “You have to take this slow. I thought the war ended a few decades ago. How can the V.C. still have servers?”

“Hah!” Samuel raises his hands triumphantly. “You see, the V.C. may not have had any FTL technology at the time, but we had no problems getting around our own solar system. Why should we simply sit there and allow all the resources on the other planets to go to waste? We sent out probes decades before the first G.S. ship showed up. All nine planets in our solar-system are essentially huge server farms, thanks to nanotechnology.”

“Yeah, but the G.S. is busily wiping out each planet. It’s hard, but they have the determination. They have the high ground and hold the entire system under quarantine,” Minerva finishes up.

“You don't seem to be worried about that,” Silith observes coldly.

“No.” Samuel shakes his head. “You see, a while after the war began, we had a giant breakthrough in computing technology. We managed to make the first quantum computer work. That opened up an entire hellhole of new possibilities, including the ability to move the entire V.C. to a... how do I explain this, Sis?”

“We call it n-space. Reality is more than the three-dimensional space which lower carbon-based lifeforms can perceive. The explanation is very inaccurate, but we essentially moved the V.C. to another dimension. There, the V.C. are untouchable. As long as we have a link to three-dimensional space, the physical universe, the G.S. can take apart the whole solar system without actually defeating us.”

“They ran away!?” I ask, shocked.

Samuel wets his lips, clearly not happy with my way of seeing it. “Let's call it a tactical retreat. We are still fighting, after all. That's why we made G.O.D.”

Anger flares up within me. I pick the boy up and shake him with enough force to rattle his teeth. “You have something to do with that abomination!?” It's the first time during the entire interrogation that I lost my cool.

“Put him down, please!” Minerva pats the bedding in order to draw my attention. “We have something to do with G.O.D., but not the way you think. You have to understand what G.O.D. is and what's going on within the V.C. This isn't simply a conflict between the G.S. and the V.C.”

I stop and study Minerva, expecting more.

“You know what V.C. stands for? Virtual Cultures. The important part is the 's' at the end. There are hundreds of factions within the V.C., and only a fraction of them show actual interest in good old 'Reality 1.0'.” Minerva clears her throat. “When we created G.O.D., we wanted to ensure that the servers keep running.

“G.O.D. stands for Graviton Omnipresence Device. It relies on gravitational effects and quantum computing to be essentially everywhere at once. It allows us, the administrators, to observe our agents in Reality 1.0.”

“So you are the ones behind G.O.D.!” Silith declares.

“Yes, but you have to understand that G.O.D. is a system. There are thousands of administrators! We weren't the ones who made fun of you. It was never intended for that. Our agents in the real world were supposed to be revered figures who get to ascend as heroes to the V.C., once their mortal existence ends. But some of the people who get to be administrators come from these outrageous gamer-societies. They think everything is a game.”

I throw Samuel onto the bed, next to Minerva. “So you are saying that you are not the ones who are treating us like pieces on a game-board?”

“No. Why else would we leave the V.C. to come here? We just turned ourselves into more game-pieces!”

Silith narrows her eyes. “Why would you do that?”

Samuel continues. “Because we believe that living in the real world is better than the dream in which the V.C. are caught. There are several movements within the V.C. Some of them are trying to take a more active role in the physical world, while others are trying to prevent that. It's actually not so easy to get the opportunity to be revived in a real body.” He pats his little chest and smiles. “We are from one of the cultures who want to take a more active role in our existence.

“To get out, we had to work hard and rise in status until we became administrators. As administrators, we would observe our agents in the real world and try to guide them. Problem is, we weren't allowed to aide you freely as long as the V.C.'s existence wasn't at stake. Among eight others, Minerva and I were responsible. The messages which enraged you so much were from one of our gamers. Naturally, he refused to be revived when we got the chance.”

“And you got the chance... why?” I ask.

“Because we managed to guide you onto a large chain-quest. If we manage to complete it successfully, our culture gets the chance to return to 'Reality 1.0'.”

Silith gasps. “You are talking about my quest! Recreate your species!”

“Exactly. If we manage to finish it, we can create our own species. Anyone who can identify with our ideals will be able to join us and return to life.” Samuel claps his hands together.

I press my eyes closed and groan. At this rate, explaining everything will take hours. “Then why are you guys here!? Without you as administrators, we are at the total whim of that gamer-bastard! And why is he so silent? He didn't message us for months.”

“That's because he used up all of his communication points. You may have noticed that we never messaged you until you completed your first large quest. Ah, and he went a little overboard when you caused the rebellion on the pirate station. We also had a hand in shutting him down a bit, there are actually still two more administrators from our group who have an eye on us. Can you remember, back then, when you almost abandoned saving Mom in order to blackmail him?”

Silith looks at me and I quickly turn my back to her. “You mean when I tricked him?”

“Ah... yeah... when you tricked him. That didn't exactly reflect well on his reputation, and he lost a lot of influence. We used the chance to get to the real world in order to see to it that everything goes as planned. Eventually, we intended to reveal everything to you.”

My mate narrows her eyes. “That doesn't explain why Minerva was so adamant about staying silent. Or why she tried to hack into our private communication.”

Minerva burrows her face within the blankets. “I wanted to learn to know you two better. Find out what makes you two tick, so that I could influence you two into creating a cool race for us... I don't want to be a stupid beast-hybrid. We have to create a new race, because the ones which are free to choose right now… they simply suck!”

I rub my temple and sigh. “That sounds like there are other V.C. who are already back in the physical world?”

Samuel raises his hand, showing us four fingers. “Four, so far. They entered reality through various means. For example, they repurposed an old drone which barely counted as an agent. They made a stupid machine race. We want to be something organic, close to human. The G.S. has several dozen human test subjects, and despite their stupidity, they don't tend to lose them often. You also should know that not all of the other cultures will be friendly towards us. So the G.S. isn't our biggest problem. They are only an issue in our foreseeable future.”

Silith turns to look down at Minerva. “So, you wanted to manipulate us? How do we get your personalities out of my children? I would rather educate a blank slate than have you in my home.”

“But we can’t go back!” Samuel protests. “We gave up on a large part of our memories in order to come here. We weren’t allowed to bring any new scientific knowledge.”

Minerva gets to her hands and knees, then she demeans herself by touching the mattress with her forehead. “Please forgive us for holding back information, Mom. Rest assured that the revival process always intended for us to be your children. We didn’t overwrite any developing personality. I would be honoured to call someone as strong as you my mother.”

“Yes! Very honoured!” Samuel nods feverishly. “And you need us to understand what’s going on! That’s why we came here in the first place. We needed to make sure that you know what awaits us at the final quest marker! It’s going to be hard to finish the quest.”

I give up. Raising my hands, I stop them. “This is officially blowing my mind. We are to be the progenitors of a new race? And apparently, all of our potential children are going to be revived personalities from the V.C.? That’s quite the bomb to drop on us!”

“Exactly! And that’s why you need us. We need to make the new race as interesting as possible so that as many people as possible join us. Preferably not the jerks. You have no idea what kind of scum roams the V.C.”

Silith covers her face with both hands. “I have to think about this. I had something completely different in mind when I decided to finish this quest.” She sighs. “What do we even need?”

Minerva scratches her head. “At this point? You have enough points, so all that’s left is to fulfil the requirements. That would be to have four first-generation adults as the progenitors of the new race. My brother and I don’t count. The problem is that getting the third adult will be troublesome. The G.S. has their suspicions about Silith’s fate, and so they ramped up their security. There are five warships waiting at our destination.”

“Why did I expect that?” I shake my head. “The day keeps getting better and better.”