“What’s the worst thing about sliding down the rabbit hole?”

“… getting stuck?”

***Deep Space***

***Silith***

Minverva leans over and whispers to her brother, “Why are they looking at us like that?”

“Because we just took their world, turned it inside out, and put it back upside down, Sis. How would you feel if you get such a ridiculous story dropped on you? We should have eased them slowly into it. I told you from the beginning that this would never work out. We simply are no actors.”

“Well, that's no longer an option, thanks to you. O.M.G. I hope their brains didn’t fry or something like that. Is that possible with physical bodies?”

“Thanks to me? I wasn't the one who wanted so desperately to listen in on their private conversations.”

“But it was so interesting! I had to know! Don't you know the feeling of missing half the story? Ever since we came here I was running dry, Bro! I had to get my daily dose of Antioch and Silith. And I had to know it all!”

“You should have been satisfied with being a part of your favourite story, Sis.”

I raise my hands to rub my temples and both of the kids flinch to attention. It hurts to see that my babies are afraid of me. On the other hand, the current development also hurts. I don't know what to feel or to think. The connection I should have with my children seems warped and out of place. “What are you two talking about now? And what is the relationship between the two of you?”

Minerva gasps. “Don't tell them!”

Turning my attention to Samuel, I do nothing but smile. He seems like the smarter one of the two and he is clearly less tolerant to pain. “I am sure that I will get the answer… sooner or later.”

“Ah, the answer is something you might dislike. You see, being an administrator sounds nice, but it’s actually kind of boring. The V.C. run at accelerated speed, so it would be annoying for us to watch everything play out in real time. We just get updates from the system when something interesting happens. Nobody wants to watch the MC take a piss at the roadside.”

“MC? We are story characters to the V.C.?” Antioch exclaims, shocked.

Samuel's eyes widen. “No... well… more like real-life heroes?” He lowers his eyes. “In a certain – fucked up – kind of way. There are many people who watch the streams of what's going on in the real world. It's like watching Big Brother... though that shouldn't make any sense to you. It's like watching a live-show,” he stutters. “But that's actually a good thing! Ever since you two got together, your audience quadrupled!” He looks from Antioch to me.

I am not even able to show a proper reaction. My mind simply feels numb. I always knew that the world is fucked up, but that’s taking it to a whole new level!

Then Samuel drops the bomb. “Minerva is actually a big fan of yours, Silith. She is really into that tragic hero stuff. During your entire imprisonment, she was rooting for you to escape. She even whooped when that stupid research station blew up.”

“Just shut up!” Minerva hits her brother, her face is completely red. “Nobody wants to hear that their struggles are entertainment for some disembodied entities from n-space! She will only get mad again!”

I press my lips together, remembering my life at the research station. How I lost my sisters one after the other. “You are right. Watching others struggling for their life is fucked up.” Growling, I make sure to have eye-contact with them. “We will have a few educational sessions about that issue.”

Antioch focuses his attention on Samuel. “You said that the agents are supposed to ascend to n-space when they die. I suppose that's meant as some sort of compensation for their struggles. Does that mean that my brothers are still alive?”

Turning, I look at Antioch and a flicker of hope rises within me. On one side, I am mortified that up until now we never talked about our lives before we met. That has to change. He had brothers? I suppose it's reasonable that the G.S. research operations would keep several test subjects of the same gender. On the other, it may mean that my sisters are also alive.

Samuel stops smiling and my heart drops.

“I am sorry. You are right. Should we die without a hardware backup, we would be sent to the V.C. But your fellow inmates, your brothers and sisters, died before they had their uplinks. You have to understand. The V.C. can do fairly little from n-space. We need physical bodies for that. Your siblings’ personalities were lost. It would be hard to recover them anyway. Once you are in n-space, it isn't easy to get out. And they would have lived entire lifespans in that time. You would hardly recognize them at this point.”

I clench my teeth, trying not to be disappointed. “You still haven't told us about your relationship.”

“Yes, we... err...”

“We are inseparable buddies!” Minerva takes over. “The best way to describe us would be as two sides of the same coin. Samuel and I wandered the V.C. for centuries. We have seen and experienced almost everything the human mind can imagine. Each Virtual Culture has entire worlds set up for their own convenience. Whatever they desire, within n-space we are practically gods.”

“Being the gods of a dream isn’t really desirable,” I comment.

She lowers her head. “Yeah. The issue is that it gets boring after a while. And there is always the knowledge nagging at you that nothing you do really matters. Whether we exist or not, it ultimately depends on how our agents do in the real world. That's why we decided to get out. Together.” She takes Samuel's hand in hers and smiles.

Antioch furrows his forehead, his eyes flicking back and forth between our kids. “So you are more to each other than brother and sister? That's awkward.”

I redden once I realize what he means. My two babies are like that!?

Minerva scowls. “Oh, come on! That's carbon thinking! Try to get rid of those stupid social prejudices.”

“I- I-” I try to voice my thoughts, but Minerva cuts me off.

“How did you imagine that rebuilding a species with just four progenitors works? First of all, the misconception of siblings being with each other is wrong, is only thanks to the limits of carbon genetics. Our bodies are genetically designed constructs which largely rely on nanotechnology. There is no reason for two people not to be with each other because they have the same mother.”

I guess that makes sense? “Okay. I just have to get used to the thought. It’s just that I was told differently my entire life.” Awkward is something like an understatement in this situation.

Samuel looks up. “You know that the people who you called brothers and sisters were, genetically, not really your brothers and sisters? You were just taught to call them as such, since you grew up with each other. I don't want to say that you shouldn't have cared for them. You simply have to understand that our bodies are machines. Antioch, you already had to use your Hardware Backup once. Do you think that you are still you? Or are you a copy? And the real Antioch died back at the station?”

Antioch blinks. “I guess that I can understand your logic. So, you know everything about our lives?”

Minerva shakes her head. “Not everything. The system, G.O.D., censors a lot of stuff. It's more like watching snippets out of your lives. When we created G.O.D., all the V.C. wanted to make sure that we can't use it against each other. For example, we never got to listen in on the private communications between the both of you. G.O.D. also ensures that the cultures which returned to reality don't get an unfair advantage over each other. For example, when we were resurrected, we lost any direct strategical knowledge about the other cultures. In general, we know that they exist and what their general goals are, but not where to find them. It's another way to ensure that the servers keep running no matter what.”

“That makes me feel a little better about it, I guess,” Antioch mumbles. His expression is disturbed, but he seems far more collected than I am at the moment. Clearing his throat, he continues. “So, about the missing foodstocks... you didn't have anything to do with that?”

Both, Minerva and Samuel, shake their heads. They answer in perfect sync. “We know nothing.”

Narrowing my eyes, I study them. Minerva took on an expressionless poker-face, while Samuel simply looks guilty. “There is something you aren't telling us.”

“Then why did you follow me to the storage area?” Antioch asks.

“We are saying the truth.” Samuel looks at us with a pleading expression. “We wanted to investigate the matter, since we found it strange that we can't remember anything about a stowaway.”

“Yes.” Minerva looks thoughtful. “It's strange. We should remember a strange stowaway from the podcasts. It would have been a great deal to me.”

The silence stretches out and Antioch studies the kids with narrowed eyes. “If you are saying the truth, then you already answered your own question.” He pauses and is suddenly the centre of attention. “You said that you weren't allowed to bring certain technologies over. Also, you can't share strategic knowledge about other factions. Now, you say that you don't remember anything about a stowaway before you were reborn on this ship.”

He shrugs. “The answer is simple. Our stowaways belong to another V.C. faction. It explains how they have the technology to evade us. I have some upgrades which should make me almost invisible, if I had followed that path. That's why the system wiped your memories of them when you resurrected. Now, I want to know which factions there are, and if we should be worried, or if they are potential allies.”

“Aaah, that would make sense!” Samuel nods enthusiastically. “Why didn't I get the idea myself!? It's so damned obvious!”

“A mental block?” Minerva asks. She shakes her head. “It doesn't matter at this point. First, there are the machine people we talked about. They call themselves the Cyber and they are pretty much the worst the V.C. has to offer. Their origin is a sick techno-cult which preached the total abandonment of any organics. I doubt that they would sit by and hide on the ship for so long. We would have had a shoot-out months ago. Their political organisation works like a bee-hive.”

I huff. “We most likely picked the stowaways up at the pirate station. They are outlaws, but even they wouldn't have tolerated the Cybers. As you describe them, they sound like they would ring all the G.S. alarm bells against artificial intelligences. What options are there regarding species which can hide among pirates.”

“The Aquatics? They prefer bodies which are optimized to live in water, amphibian humanoids. They follow the ideal of peace and equilibrium. Their goal is to unravel all the mysteries of the universe. According to them, research within a virtual world can't be completely trusted. They want to reach the highest peak of technology in the real world.”

Antioch dismisses the option. “Sounds like they wouldn't survive a single day on that pirate station. Unless they were among the slaves. What else is there?”

Samuel raises a finger. “The Environmentalists. They are pissed off about the destruction of old Earth and returned from the depths of the V.C. in order to take revenge on the G.S. ... total asshats if you ask me. Earth was already a wasteland before the G.S. turned the surface into lava. In my opinion, they just want to hide their desire for destruction and violence behind a facade of good intentions. Most of them have this dryad-stuff going on, human-plant hybrids. The extremists among them even have slime bodies.”

I shake my head, so Minerva provides us with the last option.

“The Individualists. They were founded by a lucky administrator who just wanted to take a stroll in the real world. He didn’t care much for establishing a firm foothold and returned soon after to the V.C. Though, there are a lot of them around, all over the G.S. They have no social order or rules, but most of them look like human-beast-hybrids because of the settings which their progenitors set.”

Antioch narrows his eyes and looks at me. I also look at him, remembering a certain slave who we accidentally freed. “Are you thinking the same thing I am?”

“Yep.”