“What’s going on?” the Great God Avatar demanded across the virtual throne room, his unnecessarily majestic figure lounging on his ornate golden throne. The Great God’s human-sized subordinate looked worried. Dr Cheyenne Paley was not known for being easily distressed. In contrast to the Great God’s glowing virtual form with purple skin, long flowing robes and sixteen metres of height, Paley’s form was that of a thin, nondescript woman in a black pants suit and a white lab coat.

“It’s the Deus Interface, I’m sure of it. I just can’t figure out what it’s doing.” she said, turning from her work to look at the virtual form of her employer’s insufferable son. The swarm of hovering two and three dimensional projected viewers she had been working on continued to run through their respective diagnostic cycles. Beside her, her automated code-monkey, Snafu, continued to monitor one of the viewers, watching lines of code flying by faster than any human could read them.

Paley rubbed her eyes, her subconscious gesture coming through even though she knew they were not real eyes and couldn’t be tired.

“I told you to shut it down,” Jeff said without looking in her direction.

“I did. Or rather, I tried, but it’s being run from the inside.” Paley’s gaze moved from one viewer to the other and to the next frantically. “I don’t know what’s going on. It’s not responding.”

“Erase it.”

“What?”

“You heard me, Paley. Erase it.” He wasn’t going to let a computer program defy him. “Kill the functions and processes or whatever, and then reboot it from the back-up files.” The Great God returned his attention to his paused game of Wakka-Gnoll 3: Invasion of the Kamikaze Exploding Chicken Warriors he had been playing on his personal viewer, independent from the rest of the system. This was the third time he had had to pause it to listen to Paley prattling on about the weird flicker in the throne room environment they had observed about half an hour ago, and it was making him grumpy.

He was also grumpy that his new game wasn’t as much fun as Wakka-Gnoll 2 had been. But he always got a kick out of running the little gnoll, Wakka, from level to level through medieval towns bludgeoning things with oversized hammers.

“It’ll be fine, just reboot it,” he said over his shoulder without turning to look at her.

“Jeff,” she began. Instantly, he turned and glared at her. She took a breath and corrected herself, “Great God Avatar.”

“You don’t get to call me Jeff. You don’t call my dad Adam, you call him Mr Masters. When we are in my virtual environment, even if we are alone, you will refer to me as Great God Avatar, or Great One, if you like. I might accept sir, at a push.”

“Sir, we can’t just –”

“And there’s that word can’t again. I’ve told you before. I am the Great God Avatar. The word can’t is not allowed to apply to me.” Paley sighed, and massaged her temples with her thumbs. Jeff continued, “shut it down, erase it, and restore it from the backups.”

Paley took a deep breath and counted silently to three. “Great God Avatar, we can’t j –”

“You do not have permission to address me.” Suddenly behind Jeff’s majestic high-backed throne was an image of the vast purple face of the Great God Avatar, taking up the majority of the rear wall.

“What is this?” commanded Jeff. “Paley! What’s going on?”

“I think it’s the Deus Interface, sir.”

“I told you to turn it off.”

“Yes you did, and I tried to, but–”

“You cannot destroy me. I am the Great God Avatar,” bellowed the huge face.

“I’m Avatar!” Jeff jumped up from his throne and drew himself up to his virtual form’s full sixteen metre height, “You are just a program, now shut up and get out of here.”

“I am Avatar, I alone am God; none shall defy me and live.” The thirty-metre-tall face glowered down at Jeff.

“What did you do?” Jeff glared at Paley. She just stared back in confusion. “Reboot it NOW!” Paley’s hands moved frantically over the controls, but to no avail.

“I am Avatar; none shall defy me and live.” The controls in front of Paley evaporated in a bright flash that knocked her to the floor.

“What is this?” Jeff flailed his hands, unable to find a gesture that would properly convey his outrage. “You can’t just –”

“My will is done. I alone am God. I alone am Avatar.”

“You are not Avatar!” Jeff yelled. “I am Avatar. I am the creator of this world, and you will listen to me!”

“I alone am Avatar. I am the Creator, Director, Arbiter and Sustainer. You do not belong here. You will leave now. My will is done.” The monstrous face was not backing down. Jeff’s virtual body seemed to flicker for several seconds like an unprotected candle flame, before regaining its substance.

“You’re trying to erase me?” Jeff found a previously undiscovered level of indignation. “You can’t erase me.” He accessed his personal viewer, cancelling his game and accessing the throne room security locks. Now it was the massive face’s turn to flicker unsteadily, and then it vanished completely. Once it had gone, Jeff tried to regain his composure. “Now, for god’s sake, tell me what is going on!” He looked at Paley, waiting for an explanation which never came. Everything went black.

* * *

There was a flash of lightning. Thunder echoed across wide open plains, startling some birds, and then there was silence. There was a wisp of smoke curling up from a wide black circle burned into the ground around where Jeff was sprawled. The air was hot, dusty and immediately dried out his throat, but there was no hint of pollution. After a few moments he became aware of the smell of the trees, and he could hear the sound of a few warbling birds somewhere off to his left. The light was too bright, and not as artificial-looking as he was used to. It felt much too warm on his face. It was at that point Jeff realised that today was not going to be a good day.

Jeff got up and looked around. The ground was hard, cracked and rocky, broken up by patches of sparse grey bushes and a few randomly scattered small twisted trees. There were some violet coloured mountains off in the distance and the horizon on every side was obscured by a hazy mirage-effect. What happened? It took him a few moments to realise where he was. I was in my throne room, and then... Am I outside? Did someone unplug me? I wasn’t due to come out for ages. No, can’t be. There’s gotta be a medico around when you unplug. My dad would have their head. I must be in Utopia. He looked around. I’m in the scrub. Whatever that thing was, it’s booted me out of my throne room and dumped me in the friggin’ scrub.I wonder which continent I’m on. He looked around again. Bloody hot- dry grass, dead trees; probably the southern end of Dreyis, or maybe the northern end of Lokara or Kredyek… Doesn’t matter, I’ll just go right back.

He made a gesture with his hands that caused his personal viewer to materialise in front of him. He accessed the transfer controls to transport himself instantly back to his throne room in AltSpace … Nothing happened. He tried it again. Still nothing. He checked that he was entering all the right commands. Nothing. His access to the override system had been blocked. He would have to find another way into his throne room. He tried to contact Paley in Alt-Space, but there was no response. No help there. He was going to have to stay here a while until he could figure something out.

Next Chapter: iii 0000011-03