Al let go of the water control orb in the water closet.

His body went numb, and he fell.

Darkness claimed him.

Al woke to a green light shining into his eyes. His mind felt stuffed with tinder and kindling.

His entire body ached in ways worse than the Day of the Emergency Room — the day he lost the use of his legs, the day of torture as the real world doctors struggled to save his legs.

The green light came from a green eyeball on a stalk — one of ten eyestalks coming off of a mottled brown beachball with one giant eye and mouth filled with rows of sharp teeth. The green light had an almost liquid quality, and it poured through his eyes and nose. The green light seeped into his brain felt much like it was going about making renovations.

He closed his eyes — or tried to. Nothing moved. “Don’t.” But his voice worked.

Must,> a rough voice echoed about in Al’s head. Soul-damage extensive. Intervention required.>

“Beyul, what is happening to me?”

“Developer Override Accept. Status Condition in Effect.

“Soul Depletion: When the energy of the soul is completely depleted, the individual begins to suffer mental and physical degradation until either the soul recovers sufficiently to support the mind and body or the individual dies. Some degradations will become permanent depending upon soul recovery.

“Some cultures and species have means to speed a soul’s recovery. Most methods involve consuming the soul of another being.

“Prognosis: Terminal.”

“Wait. At what rate do I recover?”

“Developer Override still in effect. Pious recovery: 0.0119/hour (First Human Standard).”

“How long until I recover enough … Pious for my soul to support my mind and body?”

“Developer Override still in effect. Pious recovery to minimum viable level: approximately 84 hours.”

“And I’ll die in?”

“Time to death: 0:00:00.01.”

Beyul’s timer remained fixed.

Al stared at it. “How long has the counter been stopped?”

The fearsome beachball tilted to one side.

An image appeared around Al. A length of twine twisted and looped about between two clocks. The clocks had a dozen hands sweeping across their faces. A bead traveled along the cord. But then it rolled off of the twine to wait next to it. The hands on the clocks stopped moving.

Out,> The fearsome beachball said. Repair. Correct. Prevent death.>

Al stared at the creature floating in the darkness of “Out.” He shook his head. “Thank you, but why?”

An eyestalk with a purple eye lifted a bottle with a purple light beam. Drink.>

Al removed the stopper and downed the bitter liquid.

“Error: Attempted Increase of Uncalculated Attribute. Error + 100 = Error,” Beyul complained.

Influence Tau. Prevent Tau. Prevent all-destruction.>

“Who is Tau?”

Another image appeared around him. A short being in an orange, semi-formfitting hazmat suit with a mirrored face mask walked along a corridor littered with dead silver-skinned angels. The being raised a hand and made a pushing gesture. Hundreds of angels charging at him were to be ripped apart by an unseen force. The corridor walls bowed and vanished showing empty blackness and stars. Tau closed his hand, and the corridor rebuilt itself.

Destroy Sea-of-Fate.>

The image of the galaxy with two huge pyramids touching the galactic core appeared before Al. A darkness spread from somewhere in the galaxy. Stars vanished. The pyramids cracked and crumbled. Within moments the image disappeared.

You stop.>

Al gaped at the beachball of eyes. “How?”

The beachball rocked side to side. Undetermined.>

Another liquid-filled bottle rose to Al.

Drink.>

This liquid was sweet with a hot cinnamon kick, and time oozed back on to Beyul’s frozen timer. “Time to death: 1:00:00.01.”

“Do you have another eighty of those?”

The beachball revolved back and forth to resemble a head shake. No. Too-many toxic.>

“I have an hour. Now what?”

It tilted as if puzzled. Now?> it sampled the word. Not-now. Out.>

Al shook his head. “What do we do next? How do we save me?”

The lid partial covering its giant eye opened fully, and its mouth made an “Oh” shape. Fulfill Pious-requirements.>

“Which are?”

The image with twine and the bead return, and the bead rolled over to the string and popped back onto the cord. Find sacrifices.>

“I’m not going to kill others just so I can live.”

Not-self. All.>

Something slammed into Al.

Leather creaked and metal rattle. The sounds had been like when he lifted himself up and then dropped himself back into his wheelchair — something he did often enough.

He opened his eyes and saw yesterday. No, the same day in the real world but reversed back to the morning, if his time dilation theory held. Day four of the school year.

He concentrated on moving his legs. Unlike before they twitched. He wiggled his toes. He pressed his feet against the metal footrests. He put his hands on the armrests to push himself out of the wheelchair.

The beachball looked like a movie ghost — little more than an outline with translucent filling — appeared next to him. Avoid disruptions.>

“Fine,” Al grumbled. And pressed the wheels and began moving toward the school building.

The midnight back-to-school sale was still being cleared out of the school’s gymnasium.

With over two-million people squeezed into a town of less than sixty-thousand sandwiched into the last mountain cul-de-sac before the plains, space was at such a premium that not even stores could afford to build. So, two clothiers, an office supply business, and Best Buy each took a quarter of the school’s gymnasium after school and for sixty-four hours on the weekend — except for sporting events.

Something had gone wrong, and Monday morning found the businesses still struggling to get their wares back into the stacked cargo containers consuming the faculty parking lot.

The weather in the mountain cul-de-sac was sunny, humid, and hot.

His three siblings had scattered, and even the kids of the five families renting out their bed-and-breakfast had gone to their own classes and schools which left Al spinning his wheelchair’s wheels up the ramp with a giant metaphorical target painted on him.

The sights, the sounds, the smells were flawlessly recreated around Al. And that left one horror:

Sandy Jerkins, linebacker, leaped over the rail onto the ramp behind Al and grabbed the wheelchair’s handles and started pushing. “You shouldn’t be out here all by yourself.” The deep menacing growl rumbled against Al’s right ear. “Someone might think you’re anti-special. Someone might take advantage of that.”

Sandy’s leeches, otherwise known as the defensive line, laughed like hyenas — too high and too forced — nervous.

No one threatened Al when Gus was within sight — Gus scared everyone; he made cops back down. No one threatened Al while Alex was nearby — Alex was too popular; he snapped his fingers, and everyone who was anyone materialized by his side. And Artie would turn anyone into a blood donation bag without mussing her hair.

Between his three half-siblings were seven black belts.

But, on this day …

Sandy pushed Al into the school and down a side hall, and the leeches blocked off part of the corridor. Sandy backed the wheelchair against the lockers and pinned Al’s arms against the armrests.

This time Al was not paralyzed. He could —

Avoid disruption.>

Fine, Al grumbled to himself. Besides if this was a flawless recreation, then Sandy didn’t actually do more than glare in his threatening way. He was safer than he had ever been with Sandy.

Connect. Sacrifice.> The beachball lifted one of its ten eyestalks. This one had an eye with a gold slitted pupil inside a white iris which rested against a cream sclera.

Al would be willing to sacrifice certain people if it meant others would live — or so he had imagined. And, Sandy vied for the top of his ‘for-the-good-of-others’ list. But Al flinched.

He felt one of the beachball’s beam splash across his forehead. Wait! He snapped open his eyes.

The beam reflected from Al and hit Sandy in the face.

Sandy stared at Al, unable to move. His mouth halted before he could say anything — lips just barely parted into a sneer. The same frozen expression from the real-life morning.

Impossible, Al wanted to scream.

But he then saw inside Sandy’s mind. A smokey environment filled with pain, humiliation, anger, and hatred. Love mixed with sickly embarrassment.

Memories of a life that Al wouldn’t wish on his worst … well, Sandy.

From a central stone, chains made of smoke and dark whispers snaked out to sink their glistening fangs into every humiliation and embarrassment which had stricken Sandy.

Al approached to find the stone to be a statue of someone who Sandy’s mind identified as ‘uncle.’ He touched a chain, and it broke apart.

Amazed, Al ambulated around the statue touching and breaking the chains. With the last chain dissolving into just smoke, Al was slammed back into his body in the wheelchair.

Like during the real morning staring contest, Sandy held up a hand to one of his pack of hyenas then pushed himself away from Al. Confusion mingled with the hate which Sandy always showed. “Let’s go,” the linebacker rumbled. He turned and walked down the hall.

The hyenas glared at Al but followed Sandy without a word.

The only difference between this reenactment and the actual event — each of Al’s fellow seniors had a diamond cut diamond between their eyebrows.

“Pious recovery: 0.0833/hour. Pious recovery to minimum viable level: approximately 10 hours. Time to death: 0:051:18.”

Al looked at the beachball. “What happened?”

The Al of the morning was hyperventilating in relief.

The beachball rolled into its questioning tilt. Accepted sacrifices.>

Al was faced with an uncomfortable observation. According to a psychology textbook he read, only children, who feel secure in the love of their parents, will scream, “I hate you,” at their parents. Looking inside Sandy, Al realized that neither Sandy nor he would ever so much as mumble those words.

Al sighed. He didn’t want to feel connected to his fellow seniors — especially after the years of torment. But in the reconstituted moment, he had done something, he had a responsibility. He hated the sound of his voice when he asked, “What about them? What happens to them?”

The beachball rolled forward and back like it was a nodding head. Observation.>

The day rushed by at high speed — hours passing in minutes.

But, instead of following the ‘historical’ Al, the beachball followed Sandy. Until Sandy rejoined his pack of leeches in the lunchroom.

They sat down at their table.

Roberto snarled at Sandy. “So, what? Are we supposed to be his friends now?” The tackle grimaced at the thought.

Sandy stared at the table and shook his head. “My father doesn’t have friends. He has assholes who do things for him.” He frowned, and his complexion was ashen.

“So, we’re his assholes?”

Sandy nodded. He glanced to Aaron and Brian and Bennett. “Here he comes. You two get the doors for him. And you push him through the line.”

Jude shook his head and struggled not to say anything, but, “I’ll carry his tray.”

Roberto growled. “So this is it? We just roll over for him? Let him steamroll us?”

Sandy stared at his hands as if he didn’t recognize them. “Do you have a suggestion?”

“No.” Roberto took in a shuddering breath. “What happened to us?”

Sandy shook his head.

Roberto nodded. “I’ll get his drink.”

“Milk.” Sandy head-butted the table. “He likes milk.”

Al remembered what happened next. He had been terrified when the defensive line had gathered around him. He had been sure at any moment the kindness would turn into yet another humiliation.

But they had glowered and had grumbled about what they were doing even as they moved. But they had taken no action to be anything other than helpful.

Al had never made it through the lunch line so quickly.

One tackle pushed him to the handicap table glaring down other students. The other tackle carried his tray. Sandy growled to a pair lounging at the handicap table, so Al could, for once, had sat in the spot assigned to him. Then Sandy sat near him, back to the same table, arms folded and stared down any who dared to approach — after all, Al had no friends. But, for that lunch, he had a surly bodyguard.

Perhaps, he had thought, my siblings ganged up on them. And he had prayed that the defensive line’s public display of kindness didn’t end badly for him.

From his point of observation outside of time, Al saw thin white threads connecting the diamonds between their eyebrows to the throat of his self in the wheelchair.

“So, they will remain like that? Helping but hating me?”

Not-hate. Devotion. New experience. Give time.>

Al’s head hurt. He wanted to believe this effect was real and in the real world— to believe that the school experience would be better for him going forward — to believe that he didn’t have to sulk through the halls while trembling in fear.

But this was just a game. Beyul had capitalized on a fluke. Somehow the connection suit had dragged out a memory, and Beyul twisted the memory for some story purpose.

This incident all but confirmed Al’s hypothesis zero.

In a way, Al expected to feel fear when he received the confirmation. Instead, he just felt small and sad. He didn't want hypothesis zero to be true. After all, eight of his hypotheses were based on his fears, and hypothesis zero was but one of those.

He packaged the threatening tears into its own display case. “That wasn’t enough. They weren't enough — nowhere near enough. If I did that to the whole school —”

No. Emotional-connection inadequate.>

Al considered the frozen lunch room tableau. “Because I don’t hate the rest of the seniors —”

Incorrect. Strong emotion. Negative-or-positive-but-not-neutral.>

Al nodded. Most of his classmates were just … there. Years ago, he had decided there was no reason to get mad at inanimate objects. Doors, ramps, stairs had no motivations, had no intentions. Anger would change nothing. From there, dumping most of his classmates into the inanimate-object category made his life a bit more bearable.

The beachball brought up another bottle. Drink.>

Al drank the warm, tangy liquid.

“Status Effect Cured.”

Al stumbled against the portal wall of the water closet.

The portal irised open leaving him to tumble through on to Noble Master Radimael’s floor.

After a few moments, Al realized that he was back in the time stream, back in the refugee capital, back in Noble Master Radimael’s residence slice. He just lay on the floor. His head pounded, his body shook, his heart raced, and he was cold.

“What happened?” The old demon asked as he limped over to Al.

“I can’t do it,” Al gasped between chattering teeth. “The sword, the armor, too much. Soul…” He moaned.

The old demon knelt and placed a hand on Al’s back.

Warmth flowed into Al’s body.

“Forgive me,” it said. “I let my anger at the situation and circumstances blind me to your condition. You are more advanced than any one of your age should be.” It shook its head. “You are physically too young. Your body is not yet ready to handle the strains. Give yourself a half-dozen years …” His Noble Master shook his head. “That should do that. Let’s get you back on your feet.”

Al staggered up to his feet, then steadied himself against a wall.

“Now how are you feeling?”

Al shivered once more. “Better.” His goose bumps had faded. “Sorry, Noble Master, I don’t think I can … the armor without …” He hung his head. He needed to be a slave paladin, but he nearly killed his avatar to accomplish the task. The experience had given a vague sense of his soul’s condition — weak, too weak to summon either sword or armor.

“I will power the armor. You summon it.”

Al looked into his Noble Master’s eyes with their Y-shaped pupils. “Really?”

It nodded. “Later we will work on soul exercises. You have an important meeting to attend.”

“Yes, Noble Master.”

Al jogged between the two columns of the High Guard of the squad escorting him through the refugee capital. As was often the problem, the adult-sized demons marched along with much longer strides and quicker pace than was normal for Al. At best, Al, the slave disciple, the slave paladin, the slave without authority, the twelve-year-old high school senior, had to find a way to compensate for the larger beings on either side of him.

The High Guard struck the butts of their polearms against the walkway — the left side of the formation, then the right side — alerting everyone to their approach.

The High Guard were the semi-invisible guardsmen for the Emperor and Princes. As for the marching squad around Al, only the leading pair and trailing pair were visible with their glowing, black chitinous armor attached to their embedded crystals. Red dye on their horns matched the red of their red and black face masks, and their rune-etched, red penis sheaths. Each guardsman, according to custom, had their instructor tattoos injected with copper.

While Al could see the four on either side of him between the leading and trailing ends, the middle eight guardsmen were invisible to those who watched the procession screening the gawkers from his sight.

But the gawkers could clearly see him.

The clomp of the twelve pairs of boots and the striking the butts of their polearms against the walkway insured there were plenty of gawkers.

Al worked at keeping his expression neutral and his breathing even. And he desperately struggled to collect all the important pieces of his father’s angry and bitter tirades about politics from his memories.

But none of the man’s comments seemed to apply to Al’s particular problem.

Al needed to become a trustworthy agent of the demons, and that meant he needed to determine the most advantageous group with which to align himself. At the moment, it seemed to be a question of the Heir or the Council.

From Noble Master Radimael’s comment, it seemed the Heir was in a weakened position of power.

Thus, for the short term, the Council appeared to be the better choice. The choice became less clear for a long-term gambit.

If Al wanted to upset things, he would need to be associated with the Heir, to rise to a position to advise and influence the Heir and to prompt the Heir to gain the upper hand. After that, he could show the Heir ways to improve the demon society.

If Al’s hypothesis zero was valid, then the long-term Heir gambit was the only reasonable option.

But his father’s diatribes — no matter how well reasoned or researched — on the failings of American politics — were of no benefit to a slave looking to defect.

But from Noble Master Radimael’s comment, the Heir was likely to make rash choices which placed it at a greater and greater disadvantage with the Council.

And if the Heir didn’t understand the current climate, real-world history suggested the Council might directly order the assassination of the Heir’s power base — probably through bogus charges, streamlined legal processes, and loyalist or bribed arbitrators.

Based on Noble Master Radimael’s comment, the Council would move against those whom the Heir had shown too much favor. The lower on the social rung the recipient stood, the less tolerance they would have — like bullies and teacher’s pets.

Ordering the Noble Masters to take on a twelve-year-old slave might already be a chasm too far.

But, if the black angel from the desert was the Heir returned to them, Al might have already be declared himself. So he had to wait without a plan and look for an opportunity.

But if his hypothesis zero was valid he needed to earn his citizenship quickly, and that meant physically becoming a demon.

Al compared his skin color to the memory of his real-world skin color. The skin now and the skin then were the same. And he knew he had neither claws, wings, fangs, nor horns. How long did the mutagen take?

He jerked himself out of that thought line.

Determine not to worry about things he could not change, Al reviewed the commands Noble Master Radimael had foisted upon him.

Technically, hypnotists could only make suggestions. But, what Noble Master Radimael had done to him seemed to be more than mere hypnosis.

But this was a game with a war between angels and demons and a whole bunch of lousy story ideas. Way too many old TV shows had a character brainwashed, which might have been good drama but would be horrid for playing.

So he carefully reviewed his memory.

Noble Master Radimael had commanded Al to honor the demon ranks even in his thoughts. Al cringed at the constant referrals to Noble Master Radimael instead of just Noble Master Radimael.

He almost growled in frustration, but instead, he considered if he wanted to rewrite or remove the interlinking commands. It will probably keep me out of trouble with the various demons, he thought. So, he moved on but decided to erase them once he left the Abyss.

He checked the next set of commands his Noble Master had given him.

The chunk was a relatively standard stage-act hypnotist antic to trigger another hypnotic episode. On the stage, the post-hypnotic suggestion was almost a safety feature to ensure the participant could be reigned in if something went wrong.

But Al was unwilling to be so generous with his Noble Master Radimael.

He just about erased all of the ‘suggestions’ just because of how annoying it was to think the full title of the Noble Master.

But this ‘return to hypnotic state’ command set was more problematic than a mere annoyance.

With no respawn, he had to keep his twelve-year-old body safe from obvious deadly harm. To give a reason for either Noble Master to demote him was one such obvious deadly harm.

He had no idea about where his relationship with Noble Master Radimael stood.

But he was afraid that it would take very little to antagonize the Noble Master into demoting him.

If he were demoted, he would have to undergo a ‘testing’ to prove his physical worth — testing which could prove fatal to his twelve-year-old avatar.

With reluctance, Al gave that command set a pass — for now.

And it wasn’t like that any of this had any impact on real life, unless hypothesis 196, which was still viable, was valid.

He wanted to rub his forehead but dared not.

Admittedly, his classmates would pounce on any sign of weakness. And having a hypnotic trigger was the type of weakness every single one of them would abuse. His half-siblings would abuse it even more, especially now that he was … walking …

Dang, it. He fell for this feeling real, again. He inwardly sighed.

This whole verisimilitude was troubling. Hypothesis 196 and two dozen other hypotheses were the result of his in-game interaction with Sandy Jerkins. None of them should be valid.

Besides, the public announcement was that Beyul connection suits were still struggling with reading the brain. Electromagnets were only useful for stimulating brain sections and not for thought shaping. But Beyul had dragged a flawless memory of the day’s events into the game. Someone was lying, but the motivations behind the lie were less … obvious.

For the moment he would give the reenter-hypnotic-state order set a pass. But only until he passed the apprenticeship stage.

Given the meandering path down through the spheres, Al estimated he had time to review one more set of commands his Noble Master had given him.

This set caused him to stumble. The old demon had walked Al through an exercise to ignore and cope with the pain associated with being branded. Even now he knew he was still suffering, but he maintained a light meditative state to banish the effects of the pain. There were lots of easier ways to keep Al from expressing the pain he felt, but his Noble Master had chosen to help him form a skill to resist torture.

So, what was the demon’s motive?

Al shook his head slightly.

He did it, again.

Noble Master Radimael was nothing more than a collection of scripts or maybe an advanced neural net with a rule-based engine. Either way, the Noble Master taught the skill because it was a game requirement.

Satisfied, Al looked up at the extra wide portal opening along the side of the ramp — wide enough for a party of eight to walk abreast with two columns of High Guard escort on each side. Al with a mere twelve guardsmen filled less than thirty percent of the available space.

On either side of the portal were additional High Guard.

The guardsmen at the portal raised their halberds to be vertical and tapped the butts against the wide ramp. The High Guard escorting him did a sharp facing change and led Al into the throne room.

The throne room consumed an entire large sphere. Two other large portals along the floor were the only other entrances. In the center, a large cylinder dais rose thirty feet into the empty space. Three sets of long, wide, shallow stairs rose to meet the cylinder. Over each rising stairway, sets of gigantic ivory tusks formed nine arches.

Al realized that none of the other large spheres allowed one to accurately determine their size. Curtain farms or smaller habitation spheres or floors or walls kept the massively ridiculous scale from overwhelming the individual. But the throne room made no excuses for its horrific waste of volume.

“Not a refugee camp,” Al had said to Noble Master Radimael, “An emergency capital.” And now he had the confirmation.

The High Guard escort marched Al toward the base of the nearest stairway.

Each of the white stairs had swirls of inlaid silver characters. Beneath each of the tusks, a nearly transparent wall shimmered.

The High Guard marched to a stop, and, with a clang of the butts of their halberds, they faced him. They took five steps straight backward. A heat shimmer filled the distance between Al and the stairs. Two hundred guardsmen wavered into existence. Another two hundred metal boots took a step forward behind him and tapped their polearms against the white floor of the throne room.

Al swallowed. He knew there were now two immovable walls of High Guard forming a corridor from the portal to the stairs.

The portals to the rest of the spheres closed, and the giant chamber outside the High Guard corridor and the raised column darkened. The various defensive force fields glittered like sheets of stars. Nine star-sheets formed spheres inside spheres protecting the hidden throne.

Al concentrated on breathing and walking. He hesitated for a heartbeat at the first stair.

Each step was designed to give space for the guardsmen to fight in defense of their Prince or their Emperor.

Without stepping on to the first step, Al pounded his fist to his heart and placed the back of his hand to small of his back. He knelt and bowed with his forehead against the cold white floor. No matter the honor, a slave could not ascend within a hundred stairs of the Prince or High King.

The voice at the top of the stairs spoke, “Rise and ascend.”

Al swallowed. This was bad. He shakily got to his feet and stared at the stair.

“Ascend,” the voice demanded.

Al nodded and put his foot on the step. With a deep breath, he forced himself to walk across the space to the next rise and mount that one too.

With each stair, the High Guard on the stair wavered into visibility.

Although the High Throne in Tezapenapiel had one thousand stairs, here in this emergency shelter there were but one hundred.

Al mentally shook his head out of the information which had been in the amethyst knowledge stone and which now filled his head with as much information as he had of the forests, the Lake, the lakes, and Lake City in real life. The last thing he wanted to remember was …

The March of Heroes was the only time the High Guard made themselves visible. There were variations of the March which could make his life a torment beyond anything his classmates could imagine.

And while he could hope the demon upon the throne was not that sadistic, each step made his stomach wobble with worry.

There wasn’t a question about obeying whatever order was given — disobeying the High Nobility was akin to treason. And, the gem’s lore indirectly stated that the developers took an ‘all-of-the-above’ approach to all the horrors real life had to offer in tortured-to-death options plus a few new ones.

Al was worried not so much about the present but the aftermath.

If Noble Master Radimael could turn down Princes but had to acquiesce to the demon on the throne, the demon at the top of the steps was turning Al’s life in something worse than a post-apocalyptic nightmare.

Al managed to keep the frown off his face. He knew he shouldn’t expect a mere Artificial Intelligence to be any better at understanding the bottom rungs of the social ladder than a human. But, he had so wanted this to be a place where he could just be himself, where he didn’t have to compensate for others’ mistakes, where he could be free.

On the top step, before the edge of the dais, he again knelt and bowed, fist-to-heart, hand-to-small-of-back, forehead-to-floor.

He heard it.

The hundreds of the High Guard pounding fists against their metal breastplates, dropping to one knee, and bowing at their waists.

He closed his eyes.

It hurt to breathe.

Above a certain rank, the nobility didn’t bow to each other except to the High King. And the High King bowed to no one.

But, there were isolated occasions when such nobility felt the need to honor someone. Then they had servants bow in their stead.

The High Guard were never servants … except —

The High Guard never bowed … except —

Please, no, Al thought. Don’t toss my pitiful existence into a social black hole. Please.

“Rise Paladin of the Realm.”

Oh, I wasn’t expecting that. That … that is so much worse.