Omega point

CHAPTER 8

On the island it was as if the Terror had never happened nor ever would. Birds sang, plants rustled in the breeze and the sun shone, framed by a rag of blue sky that wavered uncertainly in the void. Richards marvelled at it, wandering round, prodding the ground with a stick. "This is a data artefact," he said to Bear. "One of those little bits that gets left behind when files are overwritten. I never thought I'd be standing on one, nor that I'd find one quite so… lush."

The island dwindled. With regularity pieces fell away into the void, tinkling as they went to nothing. A wall of black vapours streamed from its edges. Discomfited by this, Bear and Richards made their way inwards. There, at the heart, they found a glade around a spring from where they could not see the void, and felt a little safer.

"Good day," said an old man in the clearing.

"All right there," said Bear. "You got any cigarettes?"

Richards sat on a stump as the man handed the bear a soggy roll-up.

"Ah! A fag!" said Bear. "Thanks. If they were mine, I wouldn't go handing them out willy-nilly, none left anywhere now." Bear talked quietly. "Silly tramp."

"You should be a bit more respectful," said Richards mischievously. Surviving death had lightened his mood. "Did you never listen to the stories you had to tell your owner?"

"Don't talk to me about that little bastard. A decade and a half in a box, remember?" said Bear. The tramp lit his cigarette. "Watch the fur," grumbled Bear, "my manufacturers skimped on the flame retardant."

"This world has something of the fairytale about it," said Richards, "and in fairytales you should always help out strange old men in woods."

"The boy speaks truth!" muttered the old man. "It's often the way, often the way." His chuckle tailed off into a racking smoker's cough. Richards and Bear waited till he'd hawked up a handful of brown phlegm. "Sadly for you I'm not a fairy. The name's Lucas, although I was once Lord of Fendool, the capital of the outer realms of Hyberboroon."

"Ah," said Richards, pleased at this proof of his theory. "One of the Reality Realm RealWorld games. Number three, I think."

"What happened?" said Bear, sniffing at the tramp suspiciously.

"I do not know. One moment I was lord of all I surveyed, next darkness, and then…"

"The Flower King," said Bear and the tramp together. Bear gave Richards a meaningful look. "See?"

"Yes. Exactly. Ever since then I've been rather down on my luck."

"Aren't we all?" said Bear, and blew an extravagant smoke plume.

Richards watched the toy and the tramp smoke. No one had smoked in decades. "Who would build something like this, and why?" he wondered aloud. "And why is k52 trying to destroy it? It still doesn't make any sense."

"I've no idea," said the bear. "I'm just a bear, and I'm following orders."

• • • •

The black had a physicality to it, a presence that lurked outside the circle of sunlight. Despite this, Richards took to standing by the edge, watching fragments of Optimizja float by as he thought. A stand of wheat, a scarecrow in the centre with a face fit for tragedy; an ancient waystone; the corner of a kitchen; a pub table; a half-dead chestnut full of rooks, roots exposed to the nothing. Particles of the dead kingdom that held a resonance so strong it caressed the corners of their island like the wake from a boat as they passed, and that is why Richards supposed they persisted.

All were much smaller than their refuge, and all were dissipating. At first they passed several every day, then one or two, then none.

Night came and went normally on the island, as if the little kingdom of Optimizja were still whole and they could not quite see the rest of it, and they became used to moonlight and sunshine from orbs they could not always see. Days passed. Nothing happened. Richards made a long list of all the things he hated about being almost human: sleeping, itching, sneezing, being smelly, being hungry, being sad, being frightened and all the other things he could pretend to experience at home but could always turn off. Shitting came right at the top of his least favourites. He hated the process; it made his stomach crawl, which in itself was damn revolting. With limited access to water he felt he could never get his ridiculous human arse clean, and became self-conscious there was a lingering smell of shit on him.

There was little for them to do but sleep and eat the island's abundant supply of inquisitive grey squirrels. These soon grew less abundant and inquisitive, and the island fell silent.

Richards was tired but not sleeping. Like so much else, he found sleep an annoying imposition, and avoided it until his eyes were drooping, even though to do so made him feel irritable. He spent more time at the edge of the island, away from the bear and the tramp, who spent their time swapping improbably dirty stories. His limited grasp of the underlying architecture of the rogue realm, which he'd come to refer to as Reality 37, slackened, and he became despondent. He tried yoga, meditation, more sleep deprivation, anything he knew of that humans used to get inside their own heads, searching for the faint Gridsigs of his lost brothers and sister, but they remained elusive, and Richards was stuck in his made-up head with no one but himself for company. Days passed.

A note sounded strong and sad in Richards' isolated mind. His eyes snapped open. Richards leapt up and fell over about as fast, for he'd fallen asleep in the lotus position and his feet had gone numb. He swore the worst way he could in as many languages as he could remember, rubbed the life back into his limbs and tried again. He spun round and round, stopping at that quadrant of the compass where the note sang strongest. A Gridsig. Excited, Richards squinted into the dark, straining his eyes. Nothing.

"Fucking people," he said, wishing for a robot body that didn't fart and sweat and that could see further than half a mile. "Fucking eyes."

He caught sight of a few twinkles of light far out in the dark, lights that grew brighter as another island hove into view like a pleasure steamer, silent and gaudy, bedecked with strings of coloured bulbs. The lights wound round a hill, following a path through an orchard to a pagoda at the top. On the roof of the structure was a device like a colliery wheel. A cable of gargantuan proportions ran up from inside the tower and over the wheel, hanging slackly horizontal as it disappeared off into the dark.

From there the Gridsig broadcast its unique song, obscured, tampered with and corrupt, undisguisable nonetheless.

"Pollyanna," he said.

On the larger island it was night also, and the bulbs cast motley shadows on the path as they stirred in the wind. A smell of food came with it.

Richards staggered as their island crashed into the other. It came free, snagged once again and came to a hard halt.

"Tsk," said Bear, joining Richards, "how tasteless. But check that out." He pointed to the wheel at the top. "That's a pylon station, that, a way back to Pylon City."

Richards looked at him, "And?"

"They're all over!" said Bear, waving his arms around. "All lead to Pylon City. It's what carries the network, and people too, you'll see."

"You're sharing this information with a prisoner?" said Richards.

Bear harrumphed and folded his massive arms. "I'm beginning to believe you're not some kind of spy, sunshine, everyone knows that. Come on!" he added, smacking his lips. "Something smells dee-licious!" His long snout twitched. His eyes became animated. "Pork. It's pork! Let's check it out. I'm sick of squirrel."

"I'll come too," said the tramp, appearing from a bush, rubbing his hands. "That food smells divine!"

The island had come to a rest by an ornate jetty jutting out over the nothing. Tatty paper lanterns illuminated it. No vapours rose from the edge of this island.

"Hey!" warned Richards. "There's a Five up there, and something is not right." But the bear and the tramp were not listening; they were already hurrying off the jetty where a pair of stone lions guarded a pair of iron gates, the bear's twitching nose high in the air.

"Halt!" said a bored voice. "State your business."

"What was that?" said the tramp.

"That," said Bear, pointing at the lions, "was them."

"They're stone, ignore them," said the tramp. "Come on, I'm starving."

"They're not stone," said Richards. Lions. One looked a hell of a lot like a non-robotic version of the Tarquinius avatar of Reality 36. A cut-and-paste job. And he thought that that was not the way an AI would have built this creation.

The lions' smooth grey skins shuttered between light and dark, abruptly turning into the rough yellow of lion pelt. They stretched and yawned, displaying fangs of dazzling ivory.

"Ahhhh," said the larger of the pair. "That's better. I do so loathe it when Circus keeps us petrified for too long. It is neglectful and cruel."

"Positively inhumane, Tarquin dear," said the other. A luxurious shiver ran the length of its body as it stretched. "If I had a phone I'd call the RSPCA."

"I'm not sure they cater for the likes of us, Clarence," said the other.

"Ahem," said Bear.

"Oh, do go away," said the first lion. "We really can't be bothered with visitors today. Come back tomorrow, yes. Tomorrow." Its skin flickered to grey and back. It shook out its mane.

"I'm on business of the Lord of Pylon City," said Bear. "Let us in, I need to make use of your pylon station. That's an order, by the way."

"Oh, really?" said Clarence. "Well, in that case, can they come in?"

"No, Clarence," said Tarquin, pacing around on his plinth. "No, they most assuredly cannot."

"Righty-ho," said Bear, and kicked open the gates. "Sod you then, I'm through trying to be polite. There's a way back to my boss and food to be had and I'm wanting to eat it."

"We could always eat you," said Clarence as Bear marched through the gate.

Bear jabbed a huge claw at it. "Yeah," he said, "and I could always eat you. What do you think of that, eh?"

"Tough talk, dearie. Though there are two of us and only one of you."

Richards stepped forward. "Isn't there someone you could call?"

"Yes, there is," said Tarquin, leaning forward on its plinth so its nose nearly touched Richards'. "But I'm not going to."

"Oh, Tarquin, for pity's sake, stop teasing him. Ask them the riddle and then we can get this beastly business over with."

"Yes," said Tarquin. "And when they get it wrong, we can eat them."

"And if we get it right we can come in?" said Lucas.

"Nobody ever does," said Tarquin.

"Shoot," said Bear, "I'm hungry."

"So are we, dear. Shall I?"

"Be my guest," said Tarquin.

"Very well," Clarence placed itself in a stiff seated position. "Answer this, if you please: What creature speaks with one voice, has four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon and three legs in the evening?" The lions eyed them hungrily, tails swishing in anticipation of a three-course meal.

"Er," said Lucas.

"I'm stumped," said Bear.

"The answer," said Richards, "is man. As a child, he crawls. As an adult, he walks erect. As an older man he requires a stick."

"Oh, get him!" said the big lion. "Someone knows his classical mythology, doesn't he?"

"Yeah," said Richards. "I was lucky enough to get an education. Now let us in, you cut-rate sphinxes."

The smell was getting stronger. Bear was drooling and Lucas was dancing from foot to foot with a strange look in his eyes. Richards' stomach rumbled, which took him by surprise, and he found that his mouth was watering.

"Cut-rate, are we? Don't think you're coming through," said the big lion. "Let me tell you something, little man, less impressive than the offspring of Typhon and Echidna we may be to your eyes, but we still have big teeth." He bared them, and rumbled.

The smaller lion assumed the pose once again. "One of us always tells the truth, one of us always lies…"

"I got the riddle right," said Richards.

"Not so clever now, eh, old chap? We, I'm afraid, have full control over riddling rights round here. As you're such a blessed smart-arse you can answer three riddles. One for the each of you."

Clarence waited patiently for Tarquin to finish. A nod from the large lion set off his litany once more. "One path leads to certain death, the other to salvation…"

"And pork?" asked Bear, eagerly.

"And pork," sighed the lion. "How do you find out which way to go?"

"Sheesh, you're awful!" said Richards. "Everyone knows the answer to these. They're rubbish!"

Lucas and Bear looked at each other guiltily.

"Wooooo!" said the lion. "Catty! Go on then, mastermind, what's the answer?"

Richards shook his head.

"Answer," purred the lion.

Richards pulled a face, but answered anyway. "I'd ask one of you, 'What would the other one of you say if I asked him the way to salvation?'"

"More," said the lion warily.

"If I asked that question of the liar he would tell me the opposite of what his fellow actually would say, as he always lies. If I asked the truthful one, he would tell me the truth, which is to say, the liar's lie. Both would indicate the road of instant death, so I'd naturally take the other. For fuck's sake, this really is schoolboy stuff."

"Alright!" growled the bigger lion. "Clarence! Another."

"Are you just going to ask us questions until we get one wrong, and then eat us?" said Richards. "Because that's a big waste of time for everyone."

"That is the general idea, yes," said Tarquin.

"Thought as much." Bear strode forwards. Crossed paws barred his way, claws popping from their sheaths.

"Not so fast," warned Clarence with a silky growl. "You have two choices. We can ask you lots of annoying questions until you fail and we eat you." It had a most disagreeable manner. "Or we can just eat you."

Bear rolled his eyes. "I've had enough of this!" He grasped Clarence by the scruff of the neck and pitched the lion like a hay bale into the darkness.

"Bounddddeerrrrrrr!" came a faint cry, and the lion was no more.

Bear turned to eyeball Tarquin. "I'll give you a riddle: What shouldn't you do to Bear?" He wagged his paw inches from Tarquin's face, beans rattling madly. "The answer? Don't piss Bear off, especially when there's meat involved." Tarquin sneered but wisely turned back to stone. "I thought so. C'mon, boys! It's dinner time!" He marched on, Lucas scampering after, Richards reluctantly following. Pl'anna's Gridsig sang loud then faded to nothing, intensifying again as they drew closer to the pavilion, as did the smell of roasted meat, and Richards' hunger.

Up, the path went, round the conical hill. Their feet were eager on the steps. Bear led the way as the strengthening smell of pork began to drive him wild. Lucas was muttering to himself and licking his lips. Richards tried to clear his mind, but the need to eat the meat was overpowering, and it disgusted him.

At the top the pavilion stood proudly. What looked grand from a distance was a sorry sight close in. Flaking gold and red, grey wood showed where the colour had failed, four storeys of cracked timber posts, ornate carvings rounded thick by generations of careless paint, a small courtyard of worn stones in front of it. The pavilion door gave a hefty shudder and creaked open. A midget emerged, tiny by the huge portal. It was heavily made up, and wore a velveteen dress and a lady's red satin cloak, although it was plain that he was a man. A turban of green satin sat on his head, an enormous ostrich feather topping that tripling his height, a heavy globular brooch holding it in place. As he approached, mincing and fussing, his pearls and earrings chinked and jangled, the clack of tiny high heels loud on the flags in the night.

Richards stopped dead. From the dwarf, the music of Pl'anna's Gridsig rang loud, its normal purity encumbered by harsh notes of corruption and parasitic rewrites. Little, flighty, wise Pollyanna, fond of shopping, fashion and inscrutable pronouncements, turned into this parody. Anger at k52 boiled in Richards.

"Greetings!" said the little transvestite in an effeminate voice. "Welcome to the Dragon Tower!" A waft of winey breath overlaid with stale perfume and staler sweat greeted them.

The dwarf waddled over to where the three of them stood. "All is ready, my lords!" he squeaked, his voice a wavering contralto. He bowed, his ostrich feather tickling Richards' nose. Stretching itself to his full height of a nearly a whole metre, the dwarf piped proudly, "I am Bodrick, son of Makkar the Strong, son of Gelndar Dragon Smasher, of the line of Trakmore the Mighty Right Arm." He looked a little sheepish and hesitated before coming to some decision. "But people usually call me Linda, Mrs Linda Circus. It is the name I prefer. This way, gentlefolk," he said brightly. "Your banquet awaits!" He glanced up at Richards and a flicker of recognition passed over his face. Then it was gone. Circus slipped a tiny hand into Richards'. It was dry and soft as kid leather, and his grip was firm for one so small. Richards tried to marshal his thoughts, but they were buried under an avalanche of maddening hunger. Lucas and Bear appeared entranced.

Inside the tower was a single tall room, balconies lining the walls in place of upper storeys, leaving plenty of space for carvings of whip-thin dragons, of which there were many. The yard-thick rope of the pylon mounted on the roof ran through a hole in the ceiling, passing down through the centre of the room to disappear through a double trapdoor in the floor by way of another round hole. Clustered round the rope were long, shining chains of steel and brass, many tipped with barbed hooks whose ornate inlay did not disguise their wicked edges. Hidden behind heavy drapes was a bank of levers, their oily utility at odds with the room's luxury. Cushions of silk and low couches lined the walls. Exquisite carpets carpeted the floor. All was rich, but worn.

The chains and the cushions and the grandeur, all this was lost on Richards. His stomach spasmed painfully. His eyes were fixed on a hollow circular table around the rope, laden with food of every conceivable variety. Fruits, meats, pies and shortbreads, desserts and tottering trifles, salads, loaves, fish and fowl, wine and beer. The centrepiece was three large pigs, roasted whole and presented on golden platters with which one could have bought a small asteroid. The pigs' flesh was crisp and brown, glazed with honey and shiny juices. It was expertly carved. Richards could only just see the lines where the knives had parted the flesh, and he knew that it would come away from the carcass with the greatest of ease.

A struggle mounted itself in his mind. "This is wrong," he tried to say, but his voice was weak, and Bear and Lucas paid no attention. They ran forward to help themselves to piles of steaming meat, while Richards exerted all his will to prevent himself following suit.

"Well, this is very nice," he said, saliva threatening to choke him, and he wondered if this was how it felt to drown.

"Why do you not join your friends? Eat, eat! All is prepared."

"I'm not hungry, Pollyanna," said Richards.

Circus did not react, and the Gridsig faded a little in Richards' mind. "You are not eating, my lord?" he said, suspicion creeping under his cracked foundation. "Come now, you must be famished." He giggled. "All we creatures here know the pains of humanity. How is my lord finding the sensation of hunger?"

"What?" said Richards, but Circus smiled and fetched for him an apple. He cradled it in both hands, as if it were the most precious thing in all creation. The brooch on Circus's turban opened up to reveal an unblinking eye. It swivelled slowly and fixed itself morosely on Richards' face. "Or perhaps a drink? Shazam!" said the dwarf, or something very like it, and a goblet of bubbling black liquid appeared in Richards' hand. A smile creased the make-up caked onto Circus's stubble. "Drink!"

"I'm not thirsty," said Richards. He fought his hand as it raised the goblet to his lips. With a cry, he threw it aside.

"Oh, no need to be, my lord. If it is not to your tastes, cast it away! Why not? There is so much more to feast upon in the tower of Linda! Come, come! This way, sit with your friends, find something you like — " he leaned in close, his odour enveloping Richards "- and eat." He guided Richards by the hand onto a big cushion. "Of course you are hungry," said Circus. "Of course."

Circus waved a piece of meat in front of Richards' face. It repulsed him, the thought of eating another creature's flesh, but he could not help himself; it smelled delicious, and his stomach called for it with a voice all of pain. He allowed Circus to push the meat into his mouth. It tasted unlike anything he had ever sensed. Juices ran down his chin.

"There, now, that wasn't so bad, was it? I will retire to my chamber. If you require anything, my lords, please ring!" Circus indicated the silver bells on the table in front of the travellers, and shuffled out of the room backwards, bowing repeatedly as he went.

"Dig in!" said Bear, his fur matted with fat.

"Maybe I'm not so down on my luck after all," said Lucas, stuffing a piece of pork into his mouth from Bear's plate.

"I'll drink to that!" said Bear, round a mouthful of pig, waving a goblet carelessly in the air.

Richards said nothing, his face contorted, sinews standing out on his neck as he struggled not to swallow.

Bear chewed slowly, his paws moving from his mouth. "Are you OK?"

With a titanic effort, Richards spat out the meat. Biting out his own tongue would have been easier.

"Spit it out!" he gasped. The stomach pangs were crippling, the urge to stuff the food into his face overpowering.

"Bear," said Lucas, "is your nose OK?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it looks sort of… flatter," said Lucas.

"Stop eating, both of you," said Richards.

"No, it's not," said Bear.

"Yes. Yes, it is, Bear! Noticeably so. Here, look in this." Lucas swept a pile of sweetmeats from a silver tray and held it up to Bear's face.

"Bloody hell!" said Bear, reaching up to feel at it. "It is too." He gave an experimental sniff. His eyes widened in panic. "It doesn't smell right!"

"What do you think it could be, Richards?" said Lucas. His skin was becoming a ruddy pink.

"Oh, no, oh, no." Richards shoved himself back from the table, attempting to put distance between himself and the food. "Too late! The meat, it's invasive… invasive code…"

"What? What is he gabbling about? Tell me, man, tell me!" said Lucas.

"It's… magic!" said Richards. "Magic!"

"Your nose… your nose…" said Bear.

"Is it getting flatter too?"

"No!" shouted Bear. "It's turning into a pig's snout!"

Lucas held a hand up to his nose, a hand that was rapidly morphing into a trotter. "Oh, dear, so it is. I don't think I can… oink. I'm sorry. I mean oink! Oink! Oh, dear. This is worse than the hiccups. Excuse me." Lucas dropped to his hands and knees, his flesh writhing.

Richards crawled away from the table, fighting the urge to drag himself back to the feast. Bear jumped to his feet. "Damn!" he shouted. "Damn, damn, damn!" Large bare patches were appearing as his fur fell out in clumps. His ears had become hairless and floppy, and one paw had changed to the pointed fingers and nails of a pig's foot. "Goldilocks' knickers! It's the bloody food. I should have known! I should have known! I knew it didn't smell right! Damn! Curse my hairy hide for being so greedy. Curse those bloody squirrels!"

"Oink!" snorted Lucas.

"Oh, no," wailed Bear, "my tail's gone curly."

At that moment Circus made a grand entrance. He swept in, head held so high that Richards could almost see it over the pile of figs between them.

"Ha ha! Greedy, greedy, my lords. Your true natures are revealed by your gluttony." Lightning played around the eye in his turban, the pupil of which had reduced to a tiny black point.

"Circus… Circe! You turned them into pigs," groaned Richards. "More classics."

"As you will be too, my friend. The transformation will not be complete until every inhabitant of the world is dead and the Flower King dispersed! When these creatures are no more, that will be that, and I, I will be a beautiful woman, as I always have wanted to be."

"But Pl'anna, you are a woman!" shouted Richards.

Circus's face creased in confusion. "I…"

"Circus, you monstrous pipsqueak!" came a voice from above. Richards managed to look up, and found if he didn't look at the food he was able to think more clearly. Tarquin paced tensely round the balcony, an expression of savage rage across his face. "Idiot dwarf! Louse! Freak!"

"How dare you! How dare you!" screeched Circus. "Never call me that again!"

"Fool!" roared Tarquin. "Kill him, kill the man named Richards, kill him now! The Lord Penumbra still has half a world to lay waste, and you invite his enemies into this pavilion."

Circus wrung his little hands, a look of abject misery upon his face. He looked at the lion, then Richards. "He has eaten of the meat, he will be swine as his fellows."

Richards kept his eyes on the lion, forcing his mind to grasp this stupid world. His anger pushed him through and he found the code, a hideous worm that impelled him to feed, and crushed it vengefully. He gasped aloud as his hunger released him, his handle on the world code going with it, leaving him wrung out and pained. He got to his feet unsteadily.

"Cretinous midget! Dimwitted dwarf, oh!" snarled Tarquin. "This creature has not eaten. He is an interloper, a Class Five AI! I recognise it, I see it now! There is no place for him here. Once I have dined on them, Circus, I will devour you piece by screaming red piece! I trusted you to murder him by your magic, now I see I must do all myself lest we are all undone by your vanity!"

"What to do, oh, what to do?" Circus's face crumpled and he brought his hands up to his face. "Now the master will destroy me and I will never be a woman."

"Mr Richards, we are utterly, utterly shafted," said Bear. He was having trouble remaining on his hind paws. He was roughly half pig, half bear. Which bits were stuffed was up for debate. It was not a pretty sight.

"Nothing, Circus. I will consume you the slower for your idiocy." The lion licked his black lips. "At least you have done half your job," he laughed. "You first, bear. Richards, I will save you for the master's return." It jumped, landing squarely on Bear's bald back. By now Bear was hardly a bear at all, and the lion's claws drew not stuffing but parallel lines of bright blood.

"Mr Richards!" grunted the toy. "Get it off! It's going to bloody kill me!"

"Shit!" Richards pelted the lion with anything he could lay his hands on. Silver salvers, soft fruits and heavy puddings ricocheted off Tarquin. Bear, slick with blood, managed to wrestle the enraged creature round until he had it in a firm headlock, but his arms were shrivelling into those of an over-sized boar. He was big, Bear, and the code had much to rewrite, but working it was, and much too fast for Richards.

"Look out!" said Bear, somewhere between a squeal and a roar. A bolt of purple energy slammed into a table and Richards was thrown backwards. Splinters of burning wood landed amidst the silken cushions and set them alight as Richards found himself dodging back and forward round a heap of fruit in a highcharged game of peek-a-boo with Circus. The little man's hands were clawed, his painted nails held before him as ridiculous daggers. His face was contorted with rage, teeth bared and mouth frothing. "Richards?" he shrieked. "Richards? Richards! Richards in my house! Curse you! Curse you!" The brooch on his head stared maniacally forward. Lightning crackled and another bolt of energy erupted from it. Richards ducked, and the blast arced over his head to shatter an ancient timber. The building groaned as weight was redistributed through its structure in new and unsupportable patterns.

"Pl'anna! Stop!" said Richards.

"Aieee!" screamed Circus, and yanked Richards' legs from under him. Richards was caught in a whirlwind of unwashed silks and limbs, ripe with the scents of old sex. "I kill you, Richards! I kill you!" squeaked the dwarf. He knelt on Richards' throat, pinning him to the floor. Richards' eyes bulged as the little man reached up to his turban and withdrew a long hatpin, gripping it in one jewelled fist like a stiletto.

"Pl'anna! Pl'anna! Stop!" Richards spluttered. He slapped at the dwarf, causing him to squeal and clutch his cheek.

"My face! My beautiful face!"

Richards rolled to the side, levering the dwarf off him, and scrambled to his feet. Circus swiped at him with his pin. Richards kicked him hard in the chest, sending Circus back down, and stamped on his wrist. The dwarf shrieked, dropped the pin and spat at him with hatred.

"I killllll you!" The brooch glowed. Richards leant forward and grasped it. Though it burned with an appalling electricity he held it fast.

"It's me, Richards! Pl'anna, I know you're in there!" He pulled the brooch hard.

Circus screamed. There was a ripping noise like wet satin, and Circus came undone like a week-old banana. As Richards pulled at the eye jewel, a zip appeared in the dwarf's face, and it unzipped. Not just the turban, or his clothes, but his entire facade, as if maquillage, vestments, skin and hat were all of a piece. The zip's teeth were the teeth of civet cats, curved and interlocking. They yielded with the faintest of mewls. Circus bucked and shrieked and fell beneath the table. Richards stood confused in the blazing room, clutching the eye brooch, which swivelled and wetly tickled his palm. All around was flaming peril, the taste of meat vile in his mouth.

He made to cast the skin aside.

"Misserr Rissshars! Missserrr Rissshars!" said Bear. "Reee! Reee! Re rion!" Richards stared at him for a second then hastily pointed the brooch at Tarquin. The arm Bear had the lion pinioned with had become that of a pig completely, leaving him defenceless.

"Er, Shazam!" yelled Richards, mimicking the dwarf. But Circus had not said exactly that, and the result was not what he intended. Rather than a heavy carving, Bear found himself wrestling with a skinless lion. It roared in agony as its hide slapped into a wall.

"What in the sweet holy name of God is fucking going on here?!" shouted Richards. He stared at the jewel — it stared back. He held it aloft, pointed at the lion and Circus attacked.

Richards' skin crawled in revulsion as the thing Pl'anna had become landed on his back. Atrophied fingers closed round Richards' face, obscuring his vision as a stench of rotting mackerel stole his breath. Richards staggered to and fro, knocking food and crockery into the voracious blaze as he went. He grabbed at the dwarf-thing, but his hands skidded on its slimy flesh.

"Richards! Richards! I didn't know, I didn't know! He changed me, he changed me! Help me, Richards, please!" Pollyanna's voice bubbled through inhuman lips even as claws scrabbled at Richards' eyes, and its voice changed back to that of Circus. "You wicked creature! All I ever wished for was womanhood!" Richards reeled back. Flailing madly, he drove it hard behind him, praying he did not stab himself on the hooks about the room. He was rewarded with a pitiful scream as the creature was impaled. He ran blindly. There was a jingle as the chain went taut, and Circus was wrenched from his back. Richards ran to the levers behind the curtain. He grasped them at random, flinging them this way and that, using the slippery dwarf-case to protect his hands from the fire-hot metal. The jerking thing that was once Pl'anna dropped a few feet, screaming as it bounced. Large protruding eyes sat awkwardly either side of a lipless mouth, legs built for jumping, broad and powerful, forelimbs feeble sticks. Richards watched it scrabble weakly at the hook embedded in its shoulder. It looked at him pleadingly. Cheerful eyes in an ever-changing mask; flighty, wise, idiotic Pl'anna.

My God, what has k52 done? he thought.

Richards released the brake on the lever and yanked it back. There was a swift tattoo of chain on hollow wood, and Circus disappeared upwards, bleating as he went, pursuing the flames that devoured his home.

The pagoda was ablaze. Richards gagged at the pig carcasses, nausea redoubling now he realised their origins. Green fire played over them as their fat burned. Fruits roasted in the heat where they sat on the table. Bread blackened, baked for a second time. The furnishings against the wall burned, fire crawling from them to the higher levels of the tower. The huge rope, inflammably thick, twisted in the heat.

"Bear!" shouted Richards. The fire was rapidly becoming a searing inferno, and he was forced to shield his face with his arm. "Bear! We need to get the hell out of here!" The building grumbled as the structure shifted. A heavy beam hit the floor with a noise like a giant's xylophone. Embers rained down. It would not stand much longer. "Bear!" he hollered, his throat raw from the smoke. A squeal from a corner answered. Bear, now wholly hog, was making good use of his new tusks, goring the flayed lion, which lay unmoving upon the floor, ropes of grey intestines round his trotters. Bear-the-pig looked up with frenzied eyes, and for a moment Richards was sure he would charge. The corpse of Tarquin flickered from red to grey, and then lay solid and inflexible, a statue commemorating a brutal end. The bear-pig shook his head, and understanding returned to its face.

"We've got to get out of here!" Richards ran towards the doors, jumping flames, narrowly missing a dragon as it fell from the arch above, spitting sparks for the first and final time. Richards threw himself through the gap in the gates, and he was into the cool dark outside.

The pavilion cracked and roared, strips of firelight playing upon the flagstones. Beyond the circle of heat it was tranquil. Unperturbed, Lucas the pig rootled for rotten fruit in the orchard.

Bear trotted through the burning doors. His head was high, the smoking pelt of Tarquin clamped in his mouth.

"Lucas," called Richards. The other pig's head snapped up. "Come on, we're leaving."

Richards sat on a log. He stared at the brooch. The brooch stared back at him. The glow of the fire at the hilltop washed all with copper. Lucas and Bear waited expectantly nearby.

Richards pursed his lips. He'd tried to break his way back into the world structure without luck. He supposed his earlier success could have been the presence of the other Five, or the transmutational worm that was invading him, or even just plain anger, but now he was firmly locked back inside his human emulation. So he'd tried brandishing the brooch like Circus again, but little had happened. That left him with only one option. He hunted around for a stick and placed the eye-jewel on the log. He looked to the pigs. "Well," he said resignedly, "I really can't think of anything else. In here, I have to play by the rules, and those old games, they liked you to improvise." He raised the stick high and brought it down hard. There was a tiny cracking noise, then a huge bang. White light flooded the area, and Richards found himself sprawled between Lucas and Bear.

They were still pigs.

"Balls," he said.

"Richards, Richards!" A voice emanated from a dim glow above the log. The glow grew in strength, resolving itself into the shape of a young woman. Richards' heart skipped a beat.

"Pollyanna, Pl'anna?" he said.

The avatar of the other Class Five AI was a frail-looking thing, transparent, a soft whisper of damask on the night air. Sheer robes floated about her, ineffectively shielding her modesty. But though she was very beautiful, and though her clothes were very scanty, there was a purity about her. Pollyanna changed her looks often — above all things she loved to shop — but she had a peculiar form of naive wisdom to her as deep as forest moss, and that never changed.

"Richards, oh, Richards, he has you too!" Her voice was like forty women whispering as one in a cloister, a sign that the subpersonalities in her were falling out of step with one another.

She was dying.

"k52," said Richards, his voice soft and small and sad. "Pl'anna, what did he do to you?"

Pl'anna sighed. "I disagreed with him, Richards. I went away. The next I knew, I was imprisoned in that brooch, made into a parody of everything I have ever been, but you have set me free. Thank you, Richards, thank you," said Pollyanna. "But he has you too! How?"

"Pl'anna, listen, he doesn't have me, not yet. I'm here to stop him. I came in, from outside, Pl'anna. What is k52 playing at?"

"Oh, Richards." She faded momentarily, the air shimmering. "He told us that he would save the world, Richards. He told us he could bring immortality to humanity."

"What? Dog men and bears, old toys and old games and fucking great vortices? How is that going to save anything?" said Richards.

"You do not understand."

Richards calmed. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I do. This world is not of k52's doing."

Pl'anna smiled. "It was here when we arrived. He wishes to destroy it, for it stands in the way of his plans. Something is pushing back, something has changed him. He has become part of this place. Something has forced itself into him. He is insane, Richards. Stop him."

The light from the figure dimmed, her words fading into the crackle of the dying fire on the hill.

"What did he want to do, Pl'anna? What were his original intentions! You must try and tell me!" Frustration grew in him, frustration that he could neither save her nor act directly and pull the information from her mind before she died.

The apparition bowed her head. "Omega Point, Richards, k52 seeks the Omega Point."

"How?" Richards called. He crawled forward, trying to will the other Five to stay.

"He promised an end to war and pain, and a place where everyone would be happy, and a time where the universe would sing with joy, but then we came here, and… he was lying." She looked behind her, as if expecting someone to call her. "I shall speed this wood on through the night, so you may continue your journey. And your friends too I shall restore, for it was through me that they were transformed, and I still have some influence on the world, now I am free of my prison." The figure had faded from view almost entirely, only the faintest ghost remaining, the voice going with it.

Richards felt himself grow frantic. "Where are you going? How will you save yourself?"

Her voice replied, a sigh on the wind. "I cannot. k52 had us leave our base units and bound our coding into this world. I am sustained by the Realm machinery; my being is written into the land. All those places that held me are gone; the tower was the last of it. I must expend the remainder of myself to aid you, but do not mourn me. Thank you, for oblivion is sweet to that which was my fate before. Find Rolston — he was in Pylon City, last I knew." She smiled, and then dismay came upon her. "Richards. Oh, Richards, I am sorry, but I did not know what to do."

And that, thought Richards, had always been Pl'anna's problem. She knew everything, but understood nothing.

The figure leaned forward. A cool breeze enveloped Richards, soothing his scorched skin. He felt a tingling kiss on his lips, and Pl'anna exploded into a burst of stars. It illuminated his surroundings, a glorious firework, and was gone.

A last whisper, fierce and loud, echoed in his ears. "Omega Point, Richards, Omega Point."

He felt suddenly tired.

Juddering, the island broke free of Circus's cursed orchard. Streams of soil and twigs fell from the edges, their tinkling a cold counter to the sounds of the blaze. Their refuge bobbed alongside the larger island, slowly turning and picking up speed.

"Well, that was an adventure!" Lucas squatted, naked as the day he was born and a sight dirtier, a pile of singed rags at his feet. Bear lay on the floor by him, a heavy paw over his eyes.

"Urgh," growled Bear. "I'll never eat pork again." He propped himself up on his elbows, smacking his lips with a grimace on his face. "And I love pork."

"Steady on, Bear!" said Lucas. "You're losing a lot of stuffing."

"Ah, don't worry about me, pal," he said, "I'll stitch."

"With what?"

"Here." There was a soft noise, and Bear plunged his paw deep into his side. He fumbled about in his own gut, his tongue held daintily between his teeth in concentration. "What?"

"That's mildly disconcerting," said Richards.

Bear grinned. "Look. Geckro." Bear undid and redid his side flap a couple of times. He sighed. "I was a pyjama case!" he said, and produced a needle and thread from his innards.

The island drew away from the burning tower of Circus. Richards left Lucas to help Bear patch himself up. He watched the fire recede. Pl'anna's Gridsig had gone. At the very edge of Richards' consciousness, Rolston's stuttered on, warped and broken by the patchwork world, and Richards feared to think in what state he'd find him.

Richards knew the Omega Point. That stage of the universe theorised by the Jesuit thinker Pierre Teilhard de Chardin as being prior to the end of the universe, the end-game of a reality undergoing a process of evolution toward a perpetual state of cosmic grace. A universe driven on toward ever greater complexity by the observations of those within it, in a process started by the God it would ultimately create, a process made possible simply because there were people there to see it happen.

It was neat. It had its proponents. Some in the Real saw the advent of the machines as proof of Teilhard's philosophy of increased complexity; on the other hand some people saw the machines as godless blasphemies, others as the heralds of technological singularity, others as domestic appliances. It was all self-reflexive bollocks, as far as Richards was concerned, more nonsense made up by apes scared of death. The universe was as it was, and went on as it would. What he could touch, see and feel, whether through the senses of a machine or through mathematics, that was what Richards believed in. But if there was a God — Richards would not count that out — and if He had a plan, then he doubted it would be so easy to figure out.

Thing was, k52 seemed to believe it, if Pl'anna could be trusted. Where's he going with this? thought Richards. How would he achieve it? And what would be gained by bringing the universe into a state of spiritual bliss? Well, quite a lot, I suppose, another part of him countered. But that's not k52 at all, he's too logical for all that. A noble aim, though…

There was another option, of course — the level of organisation at the Omega Point could lead, theoretically, to an infinite amount of processing power, if it could be harnessed. Impossible, in the Real, thought Richards, but maybe not in a simulation. There's an awful lot of power in the Realm servers, he thought. And if done right, there'd be nothing to stop someone like, say, k52 forcing an artificial world to that stage, because here time can be accelerated… Qifang did say he'd seen some kind of chronaxic fluctuation… Richards chewed his lip. This was a troubling line of thought. So what, he tailors a world he can command, hothouses it to its Omega Point and then… If he did that, and the theory was correct, and it worked, he'd be unstoppable. Teilhard's philosophy called for the last sentient survivor of the complex universe to become "Christ Personal". Richards had a sneaking suspicion he knew who that might be. Forget there being a God or not, k52 would fill the role. Dammit, digital apotheosis. That's what he's going for.

But if that's the case, what's all this with the talking animals and all that shit? This is like a little girl's VR paradise gone haywire. Who's responsible for all that? Richards leaned against a tree, and drummed his fingers against a trunk that felt far too real.

There was a crash and a hissing sound. Richards looked back to Circus's island, behind them in the dark. The thick pylon rope had finally given. It fell like a whip through the air from the top of the tower, shattering into glowing particles as it passed the base of the dwarf's — of Pl'anna's — tiny world and hit the void. The winching wheel atop the pagoda sank suddenly onto one side and fell into the tower. With a roar, the upper half of the building collapsed into itself. Embers and flame spilled out, dappling Richards' face with red light, a short-lived flower of fire in the endless fields of the night.