Play of Shadows

3.12 Shame on You

The man's touch burned.

Ann grabbed K's wrist. K's fingers were hooked under the edge of her mask. She tried to push the man away and felt as if she was trying to move the sun.

"Don't," she pleaded with sudden desperation she didn't understand. It was just a mask - a piece of code. K wouldn't care who she was underneath. Hell, the man should already know!

The thought needled out a spurt of ire, overwhelming the unexplained fear that had Ann shrinking in K's grasp. "You don't even remember me!" she said, poking an accusing finger in K's face.

K's eyes slid from Ann's mask to the gloved finger thrust under his nose. "Ah," he said.

Ann crossed her arms with a snort. "Let me go," she demanded.

Unexpectedly, K did just that. Ann blinked owlishly at the man as he took a step back. A shiver went through her, making her realize how cold she was.

"We're here to save you," Ann said.

"You might think you are," K replied calmly.

Ann huffed in frustration. "This is not the time to be cryptic, K! Tell me, what do we have to do to get you out? What's keeping you here? Where is the threat?"

K laughed. When he spoke, his words were laced with dark amusement.

"No one keeps me here, little fool. No one can. As for the danger -" He leaned close and tilted his head to speak in Ann's ear, the words mockingly sweet.

"Did you not bring it to me yourself?"

Ann's anger, rekindled and burning merrily as the man carried on, went out in a billow of smoke. The pieces fell together at once and she saw at last the ending she had been building with her own two hands.

The games, the rescue mission - it was all a ruse. Bait.

"What was VELES building?" Ann asked.

K did not reply. He watched her much like a snake would prey that had strayed too close to its habitat.

Ann wasn't cowed. She carried on, talking to herself as much as to K as she pulled threads from various worlds within the VELES universe, tying them together. "It's not about the games, it's about the players," she realized, "How fully they can be immersed. How long they can stay. How young -" she spat out "- they can be and what might happen if - if..."

She trailed off, turning horrified eyes to K.

"Dead City," she said softly.

K watched her still. His silence was as good as an admission.

"Did you know?" Ann asked. Her voice rose as she spoke, plaintive and accusing and angry all at once, "You must have noticed. You must have seen what was happening, who it was happening to - kids, kids like you and Alexander once- Why? What the hell did you think you were doing?!"

"Building heaven," K said simply.

Ann rasped out a disbelieving laugh.

"It was just an idea, at first," K continued, undisturbed. "A challenge. Cheating death - doesn't it sound like fun?"

"Not so funny now," Ann ground out.

"I suppose not," K agreed. "But it hardly matters. It cannot be done."

"What?" Ann asked, taken aback by the easy capitulation.

"Death," K said. "It cannot be avoided. There is no life in the machine, little fool. Only code obeying a programmer's will. It doesn't matter how closely the code matches data that once belonged to a living player, or how loosely it is governed by the system. Code cannot advance as a human would. It follows logical paths and inevitably, it converts to predetermined endings. In the end, the singularity of the original soul is lost."