Demonworld (27 page)

Wodi rose and walked among the pillars. He wondered if there were eyes watching him, recording him. He stopped at the far wall. He saw the cracks of another door set within the wall.

“
May I pass?” he asked.

THE UNIVERSE DOES NOT REWARD POTENTIAL

Wodi pushed against the door, knocked on it. “Open, please,” he said. “Open, door.”

The voices in the thunder were only chaotic rumbling.

“
How do I open the door?” said Wodi.

Now the voices dimmed altogether. Wodi wondered if they still spoke, but so quietly that he could not understand, or if the hushed rumbling was only his memory replaying the sound.

“
Is this the third test?” said Wodi. “To open this door?”

Silence. Wodi turned away from the door. Then his blood chilled, for he saw that the entrance had reopened without his knowing. The red chamber and the wreathed skull stood before him. It took a long time before he could gather his nerves to step toward the red room. Finally his anger and frustration boiled over, and he said, “The demon take you!”

The voice of the thunder returned with violent force.

THE DEMON IS GENETIC BLASPHEMY

IF EVER ONE ENTERS MY PURITY

BURN I WILL, AND

BURN... YOU... TOO!

Terrified, Wodi shrieked and ran from the flashing white room, through the door of the skull, through the red room, and back into the natural cave. He ended up shuffling on his hands and knees. Back in the darkness, going through the motions of survival, his memory of the chamber in the cave seemed unreal, a nightmare, a side effect of the tree’s drug, and it began to slip away from his conscious awareness. He began the work of forgetting.

Strangely enough, despite his terrible fear, some small part of him wanted to
return
. He laughed, and did not understand why he laughed.

* * *

Thirty Years Ago: The Birth of Project

“
Behold!” said Korliss. “The greatest video game every made!”

Didi held the controller and stared intently at the monitor. The two watched as a rugged, long-haired young man raced across a frozen wasteland with black, forbidding mountains on the horizon.

“
Don’t try to sway me,” said Didi. “I’m not one of your wide-eyed students that can be bullied with a word.” Didi gasped, then put his character into a defensive posture as a rider on a giant wolf drew near, watching him with red glowing eyes. Korliss wondered what his friend would do next.
Gods of Thunder
was marketed toward the thirty-to-forty-something gaming elite, with a deep story and a punishing learning curve that did not reward bravery until the third act, when the player finally unlocked his character’s potential as a reborn god with fantastic powers of creation and destruction at his disposal.

“
I’ll admit, this is fun,” said Didi, cycling through his character’s inventory. “I’m just glad that you were able to balance your University duties
alongside
your work with the Entertainers on this game.”

“
Boredom is hell,” said Korliss. “For me, it’s a lot easier to stay busy than to relax.”

“
Still,” said Didi, “after a hard day’s work in the lab, it’s nice to relax with about seventeen hours of solid gaming.”

The door to Korliss’s apartment swung open and Sevrik stomped inside. “What are you boys up to?” he said.

Korliss glanced at Didi, then said, “Didi’s playing a new game. Come and see.”

Sevrik watched the hero charge at the wolf-riding fiend. “Graphics look dated, color palette is uninspired,” he said. “Let’s play
Dome Cleaver
. I’ve just put together a combination that arms the Mad Monk with the philosophy of Amor Fati that I can guarantee will whip the tar out of
anything
you can throw at it.”

“
You knucklehead!” said Korliss. “This is my game that I’ve been working on for months, and all you can say is ‘the graphics look dated’?”

Sevrik gritted his teeth and Korliss studied his face intently. Didi’s character staggered under the assault of the wolf rider, then rolled to the side just as the enemy flung his spear out in a killing blow. “Now, you know,” said Sevrik, “that judgment was in my brain only a millisecond before it left my mouth. But, Korliss, why go for the scaled progression model of character development? Games that use that tactic can be really slow, really tedious.”

“
I wanted the player to constantly upgrade his character along multiple lines of power. His body, his items, his status – all increase through hard work. That way he gets the feeling that development comes through overcoming difficulties. Isn’t happiness a result of challenges overcome and the feeling that power is increasing? Not only that, but giving the player a character who’s fairly weak early on can only add to the joy of wielding power later on.”

Sevrik laughed, then said, “Perhaps, but it could also reinforce the idea that autistic focus along clearly defined paths can result in victory. Shouldn’t the people be reminded that overspecialization and weakness go hand in hand?”

“
I wanted to plant the idea of growth into the player’s experience,” said Korliss. “I don’t know if spending my time like this with the Entertainers is the best method of helping our species… but it’s… certainly… one method.”

They watched Didi’s battle in uncomfortable silence.

Finally Korliss said, “Your child, how’s he doing?”

“
Got all his arms and legs and no serious diseases,” said Sevrik. “He’ll be taking gene therapy for tanner’s hide, which would have gone undiscovered a few years ago.”

“
Hm. And you, Didi?”

While Didi’s character backtracked and lured the wolf rider into a cluster of boulders that would limit his maneuverability, Didi said, “I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a new department. It would work alongside the DoS, but with greater focus and an emphasis on results. I would call it the Department of Research. I believe it would hasten our progress and introduce a little more competition and vitality into the system. I would be the de facto Head of the DoR, since I made it. I don’t think I have the political savvy to be Head of the DoS - but it would be results that count in the DoR, and that I
can
do.”

“
And what results have you been producing lately?” said Korliss.

“
I’ve been doing a lot of work studying the human and demonic genome. There are still a lot of puzzles. A lot of things we don’t understand.” He sighed, then said, “There’s a lot to do. The work continues.”

Korliss turned away. His expression hardened. “Are you moving into law enforcement?” he said to Sevrik.

Sevrik shook his head slowly. “As a Colonel with combat experience, I could do that, easily, and get a pretty cushy position. But the power-potential tapers off too quickly. I’d be working around tenured officers and defective humans all day long. I want to stay in training and work around people with potential. Even though...”

“
What?”

“
I don’t know,” said Sevrik. “Nevermind.”

Finally Didi trapped the wolf rider in a narrow ravine, then climbed atop a boulder and lopped off the rider’s head. The wolf frenzied and fled from the area, leaving Didi with a bag of loot to sort through. There was little fanfare in the victory, only the lonely sound of the wind across the frozen earth.

“
It seems as if we are all doing well,” said Didi, turning to his friends. “We are advancing in our fields. We are ‘growing in power’, I guess. But. But.”

“
But the excitement is gone,” said Sevrik.

Korliss’s head snapped in Sevrik’s direction. The Guardian returned his look. Finally Korliss turned away, his face to the window, his breathing labored.

“
We did something wrong,” Korliss said quickly.

“
What do you mean?” said Didi. “We’re doing everything we set out to do. Some days are just… a continuation of the day before. Sometimes the work is just that: Work. We’re getting older, Korli. Sometimes-”

“
No,” said Professor Korliss, “there was a time in our lives when everything felt right, and because it was right, it was exciting. We were exploring our potential in a way that few humans ever do.”

“
Aren’t we still doing that?” said Didi.

“
Didi, we have to admit that we don’t yet understand the true nature of reality, the true nature of the human experience. We grasped a few of the rules, and we followed them, we stayed true to our original intent... but we did a lot of it unconsciously.”

“
But we discussed everything,” said Sevrik. “I don’t see that we did anything unconsciously.”

“
Then let’s discuss this now!” said Korliss. “Why are we not happy?”

Masks of surprise clung to the other two for a moment, then fell away. Didi nodded and set down his controller. Sevrik pumped his fists at his sides.

Korliss turned away and paced the room for a moment. “We never allowed a politician into our circle,” he said.

“
Of course not,” said Sevrik. “They’re simpletons! They crave power for the sake of power itself. You were just talking last week about your colleague who’s gotten into trouble for his idea that a surprising number of politicians lack qualities that most would consider innately human.”

“
Exactly!” said Korliss. “We’ve always respected power, and the pursuit of power, but we never sought power for the sake of power. The three of us are too intelligent and too self-aware for anything like that.”

“
Then, Korliss,” said Didi, “what do you think we
should
be doing?”

“
Look at what we’re doing now,” said Korliss. “In addition to my teaching and studying, I helped make a game with my philosophical ideals at its core. Sevrik made a child, a human in his own image. Didi, you’re about to create a new department with a new focus.” He paused, then said, “You see? We three have all
made
something. We’ve given vent to some creative drive within ourselves!”

“
We couldn’t have made anything,” said Sevrik, “if we didn’t have power. I couldn’t afford a child, Didi wouldn’t have a chance at changing the system, and you couldn’t have gotten into bed with the Entertainers if we didn’t have power in the first place.”

“
That’s true,” said Korliss. “Don’t think that I’m attacking our struggle for power. I’m just trying to get our minds around this idea of creation. I’m beginning to think that it’s just as important as our… our quest for power. In fact, it may even be the very reason for that quest.”

“
The alliance,” said Didi, almost under his breath. When the others looked to him, he said, “We’ve created little things, on our own. But the very thing that’s made us happiest in life... is our alliance with one another.”

“
And we’ve ignored our alliance,” said Professor Korliss. “Our alliance is stronger than the individual parts we contribute to it - but we unconsciously followed our creative principle and created little things on our own.”

Immediately the three drew up chairs close to one another. They felt the fire of the old days coming back.

“
It seems so obvious,” said Didi. “We dreamed of power in our fields when we were young and unconscious, then figured out the rules consciously. We walked the paths of power as few men have. Now, we must do the same thing with the creative principle.”

“
So, we create something,” said Sevrik. “All of us, as one. But that begs the question... what do we make?”

“
That’s easy,” said Korliss. “What is our highest value?”

“
Pro-human!” said the others.

“
That settles it, then. We make a person who... I mean, we shape a human being into our ultimate ideal. In essence, we create... a hero.”

“
Amazing,” said Sevrik. “I can’t imagine what this means. But then again, I couldn’t imagine where the road would lead before, when I first set out on it. Let’s do it. Whatever it means, let’s do it!”

“
But, what does it mean?” said Didi.