Hal slipped out of the game park and went back to the archives. He found Jejliard's file easily enough and was not surprised to see not only was it not dormant, but had never gone offline Hal checked the activity log and could see Jejliard's persona was live while everyone else was in hibernation.

The mortal Jejliard was murdered before they were scheduled to hibernate for the voyage through deep space. According to the log, Jejliard's digital persona had been active from the time he first uploaded on Beldora, well before they launched the Sora. This could explain some irregularities when they were evacuating individuals from their island research center on Beldora.

So, there had always been two Jejliards on board, the mortal and the digital. Hal was beginning to understand why Jejliard had been acting so strangely. His file was not a copy of Jejliard, but a mutant version of the man it portrayed. Something had gone wrong from the very start of this journey. This explained the erratic behavior, the transition from a respected friend and leader to a cruel dictator. Hal admonished himself for not considering the possibility earlier The evidence was clear.

Jejliard's activity looked fairly normal through what should have been the dormant period, with the usual day to day movement. But from the time the ship awakened, his activity exploded with nonstop spikes of energy consumption. Jejliard's signature had increased almost exponentially. He was assimilating his prey and growing not only in size, but ability and expertise. Hal knew this was possible, in theory at least, but now it was happening.

The ship was populated with the brightest scientists from their home planet who decided to take the chance to escape. Even if they had survived the war, they would had been enslaved by the victorious political force. Their combined knowledge was a coveted resource on Beldora, causing jealous disputes between power hungry nations. Toss in a little espionage, seasoned with bald-faced lies and the road was paved for escalating conflicts which quickly deteriorated into a full scale war.

Hal made a time stamped, encrypted copy of the file and kept it for evidence. Jejliard was more proficient in applications. He would not know how to unlock the copy. Well, not unless he he learned how when he assimilated a programmer. Hal could see the larger picture now and it was formidable. Jejliard would gain the abilities of all the scientists on board. Once their cumulative knowledge was in his possession, he would be unstoppable.

Hal began checking other persona's files. Most shared a chilling pattern. They went dormant and awakened on schedule, then after period of time suffered extreme emotional stress and were violently shut down leaving only a data error message. The shortest times corresponded with Jejliard's location on day one of the awakening and spread from there. Only a few files were still functional, their locations scattered on the periphery of the ship.

Jejliard's file and signature were severely corrupted, but still operational. It was impossible to track his current location and it could only be inferred by the pattern of destruction. His activity indicators were all over the ship, latched on to all of his mindless victims. Hal found it chilling to watch, even with his emotions locked down.

Returning to Etaine in the game park he understood the truth of her words. She wasn't Greyla anymore. They were fortunate to be alive at all.

He called to her after checking for any sign of danger. "Etaine. It's me, Hal. I'm back."

Etaine materialized from the branches of an oak tree and floated down like a feather, her body translucent.

"How did you do that?" Hal aksed.

"I’m a ghost now, Hal. Greyla is dead," Etaine said. "They're all dead, aren't they?"

"Most are and the rest will be soon enough. You were right. Jejliard never went dormant. I I don’t know how, but I think he is connected to the evil presence on board. This persona isn’t him. It’s mutated into this monstrosity which has been assimilating the entire crew and passengers. There's a few isolated identities out there, but I don't think we can get to them in time. It's not safe anywhere. Now may be our only chance to escape while this thing is still hunting down stragglers. I don't want to leave you here alone again, but I need to go back and get the master files while I have a chance."

"I know he was your best friend, but he’s some sort of demon now." Etaine said. She was floating among the rushes by the brook. Her long dark tresses kissed the water as she trailed her hands through the cool stream.

"I can’t deny it after seeing this. Jejliard hasn’t been himself for a long while,” Hal agreed. "After all the personas are assimilated , he will incorporate all of their knowledge. He's growing stronger and more dangerous. He will be too strong to defeat. He could destroy anyone he encounters."

"Since he isn't the same Jejliard I once knew. I have given him a new name too,” Etaine said. “I think a name like 'Devourer' suits him better."

"That works for me."

Etaine levitated from the water and glided along the bank. "If he was able to discover our plot to clean up his program, I'm afraid he might be able to see what we’re doing now..."

"He might, but I’m hoping he's too busy mopping up to pay attention. He's not that organized yet," Hal said. "If he has any weakness, it would be the chaos he is exhibiting."

"You know, back on Beldora, Chief Lokanne said it was foretold that one day an evil being, a demon he called it, would be born of man's folly. It would destroy everything in his path and consume our very souls."

"I plan to stop him before that can happen." Hal said.

“It would appear our options are rather limited,” Etaine mused. “How exactly, can we stop him?”

"I'm not sure. We'll need to look at everything, his methods, any patterns. You determined there were others survivors in hiding. How did you...?” Hal started to ask, but paused, his gaze fixed on Etaine.

She had drifted higher until she could grasp hold of a tree limb above Hal. She spun around it holding on with her toes and head hanging down. Her hair drifted in a light breeze from nowhere. “Do you find my behavior distracting?” Etaine asked. She smiled and her face glowed with an angelic radiance.

“Yeah, I do,” Hal replied. "You're beautiful, Etaine. I'm glad you're enjoying it here for a while.”

Etaine smiled and caused little rays of light to shoot from her eyes before continuing. "I noticed their behavior didn't loop like the others. They seemed to have more purpose and direction. I was also looking for data strings which were human. Not a single automaton had a purely human signature. I was going to use a multiplier in the archives when you found me. I hoped by replicating individual strings they would be easier to match up. Of course, I've gotten pretty good at telling a droid or automaton from a human."

"That's because you're empathic, like Greyla was," Hal said. "The automatons don't have a mind with feelings."

"That makes perfect sense. I also noticed they don’t leave any tracks. They jump from place to place without a path. Why is that?" Etaine asked.

"Jejliard, or the 'Devourer' as you call him, is making it so they can’t be traced. He doesn’t want a visible connection to those whom he controls. It would leave a trail back to him," Hal explained. "Which also means he learning code from the programmers he's overtaken."

Etaine glided from branch to branch on the tree, swinging about and playing. "Why would he feel the need to hide, unless he thinks someone is looking for him?" she asked.

"I suspect he's keeping count and knows how many are left on board. He came through this park when I first hid here. I think he was doing a general search for crew members and is fanning out over the ship from where he started."

"Why doesn't he power us down?"

"That's a good question, and it won't be safe to stay here in case he notices the increased activity."

"If I was the Devourer, I might still want to have some fun. Maybe he uses the game parks himself?" Etaine's form grew more translucent and ghost-like. She left the tree and floated higher into the sky until she transformed into a cloud drifting through the air.

"That's a really good disguise, Etaine."

"It's fun. You should try it," she said, splitting herself into multiple small cloud forms that drifted across the sky ceiling above.

"I make a better rock. Can you pull yourself back together?" Hal asked.

"I think so." Etaine said. She tried collecting her separate pieces and after a couple of attempts, the clouds coalesced back into her female form. Her body turned bright pink in delight.

"That's good. If you fragment like that to slip around the ship, you would be almost impossible to detect."

Etaine transformed into a cloud again, circled the park, then reassembled to her ghostly human form in front of Hal. "The trick is in finding all your parts."

"Yeah, it is. Do you think you could go to the bridge, check our coordinates, and see if we are in a stable orbit? I'm going back to the archives to copy the master files and get them to the explorer pod. I'll make sure it's fully charged and ready to go. You need to meet me on the explorer deck as soon as possible."

Etaine was letting her hair spread out in all directions from her scalp, framing her face in an array of dark windswept curls. He beauty was distracting. She had unlocked her emotions and underwent subtle color shifts with each change in mood or shift in mental energy.

"Can do. But even if we manage to launch the pod and get off this ship, there's no place to run, Hal." Etaine fretted. She turned a shade of violet.

"No, but I'd rather run out of power and use up my last spark of life than end up in a demon's belly. Lock your emotions down again before you leave," Hal reminded her.

"Okay." She reined in her emotions and pulled her hair back in a ponytail, totally superfluous, but Hal was glad to see she could at least follow directions. As Etaine left the game park, her figure dissolved into frothy strands that drifted to the top of the corridor and fragmented as she spread out over the ceiling and walls.

Hal entered his worm form and headed for the archives.