Hal was almost awake. Blindly spinning in and out of consciousness, his mind surged with energy then receded, back and forth like the tide in an ocean of darkness. He couldn't see anything except murky shadows encircling him in his magiton unit.

His first coherent thought was they had made it. They had survived the voyage between star systems. As an engineer and programmer, he was stationed in the archives, near the control center at the heart of the ship. All the ship's operations, programs, simulations, and backup systems were located near the central hub.

His joy was to be short lived. Hal set out to investigate the power fluctuations thinking it would be an easy fix. When he heard voices crying out in the dark corridors, he realized something was very wrong. Everything had been planned to the last detail and this should never have happened. He paused to evaluate his surroundings.

First of all, it shouldn't be dark, as the Sora was well-lighted. Even in his magiton unit, which had its own power source, the virtual reality was programmed to simulate light. He considered what sort of malfunction that might cause such a reversal. The cries grew louder and closer to him.

"No!,” screamed a voice. “What's happening..." There followed a shriek of pure terror, then a guttural cry cut short.

Something was killing off the crew. Hal's first instinct was to help, but he would be useless until he knew more. He needed to think it through and analyze the situation. He headed for his personal game park. The game parks were micro worlds created not only for amusement, but to remind a persona of their mortal existence before uploading and keep in touch with one’s humanity.

Hal probed it to see if the readout was normal before diving inside. First he set up an illusion of absence in his digital file position and attached his location signature near the scream he had heard. Thus disguising his escape, he entered a small wooded glade inside his program and virtually ran for cover. He knew of a perfect hiding spot deep in the interior. The simulation was from a real life place where he had lived long ago on Beldora.

Hal crouched down low, hiding and listening to see if anything followed him. He was torn between feelings of cowardice and cunning. On a gut level, he was certain this crafty move may save him from whatever fate had befallen the others. He desperately wanted to help them, but he wouldn't fare any better until he knew more of the enemy he was facing.

Interestingly, the light in the game park was fine which helped orient him again. That reinforced the idea something was creating the problem on the main ship’s grid. The game parks were low priority and in any type of power shortage would be the first function cut off. All available power would be routed to the main frame. Whatever was causing the darkness had done it very much on purpose. Hal couldn't think of a glitch that would do such a thing. Careful procedures were built in to prevent errors. The darkness was his best and only clue.

He had only been in the game park for a short while when a presence invaded the wooded landscape and drifted through the trees like a dark fog. It moved in the manner of a predator, searching, menacing, and evil. This certainly wasn’t part of his program.

Hal shaped shifted into a flat rock by the edge of a stream with thick moss growing on it. Blocking all emotion, he hid his physical form behind an illusion of nothingness and camouflaged his thoughts by thinking only of plant physiology

He waited until he couldn't tolerate it any longer, then stretched out his mind to probe the the park, searching for any hint of the dark presence. He found only the normal sunny field and babbling stream beside him. There was no trace of the fog.

Still he was cautious. The predator could now be hiding as a stone or tree for all he knew. All remained quiet. Hal decided nothing on the prowl would hang around so long. He couldn't stay there forever. He shifted out of the rock disguise and assumed his human form.

He considered making a weapon. He could get supplies from a cabin where he had stashed some items used previously in game play, but this was no game. What good would sprite replicated weapons be against an enemy such as this anyway? No, he would have to fight a program with a program.

It must be a broken, rogue program. A new entity so evil as this would never be allowed to evolve in their system due to the safeguards in place. It wouldn’t pass the creation algorithm.

If any other personas had survived, he must to try to find them. Time was of the essence, but first some reconnaissance. Hal recalled a small worm program he had made which allowed him to slip around in the main frame and work without disrupting any of the ongoing simulations. Disguised as a mundane maintenance program, he had learned to fragment himself and then reform at will.

The next step was to securely lock down any emotional output which could give him away. He set up a sleep loop for his emo string with a prolonged delay setting. He could keep calm for a thousand years if needed. Survival was the only thing that mattered. He had not come this far to fail.

Hal’s thoughts turned to his many good friends and dreaded to think what may have happened to them. He missed Greyla most of all, the girl he wanted to marry before catastrophe struck. He and Greyla had remained on Beldora in their mortal bodies, but had been separated. He realized he may never know their fates.

Only a few mortals left Beldora on board the Sora, including their former leader Jejliard. Humans had a very slim chance of making it on Beldora, but they weighed their chances there with that of surviving in deep space. At the last moment many refused to follow Jejliard and mutinied, fearing Sora's life support systems would not sustain them for the voyage.

Jejliard’s mortal life had ended tragically, leaving only his digital persona to fulfill the mission. Hal still wasn't clear as to what had really happened. The files had been sealed or destroyed.

Ultimately they were making a desperate attempt to survive in one form or another, and time would tell if their chances were better on Beldora or in the vast unknowns of space on an untested spaceship.

He slipped into the worm program and left the holographic game park. Outside was a far different world than he remembered. The darkness was gone and had been replaced with an eerie green glow. The only functioning programs were the maintenance ones. He had made a good choice of disguise.

The evil presence was palpable in the ship's corridor. He came across many dying and severely mutated creatures. He didn’t recognize anyone. Their identities were corrupted, psyches ripped from their program, with only dysfunctional husks left behind to dissipate or be absorbed.

Hal considered any resources at his disposal and thought of the mechs. They should still be intact. After Sora's launch they had repurposed the mechs, which were used to refurbish the ship, to perform physical maintenance and mine asteroids before leaving the Hellsaxe system. There were also some explorer pods, except there was no place to go within range.

If not for advanced technological knowledge from Widhbo, they would never have survived here at all. Widhbo! Of course. Memories flooded his mind. Hal needed to find Widhbo. The alien was egocentric and unpredictable, but also the mastermind who could save them. Widhbo would still be alive. He could survive anything. Come to think if it, Hal sincerely hoped it wasn’t Widhbo who had gone rogue.