Chapter 1

So, I died. I know, I'm shocked as well… heh.

Okay, by the tenth time I repeated the joke, it had lost much of its luster. By the hundredth, such a thing stopped giving me a sardonic grin and a nervous chuckle, and I was even able to figure out exactly what was happening… 

I was really dead.

But, rather than the void I was expecting, or even some kind of celestial judgment, it was like I was stuck in purgatory or even limbo. Not dead and yet not alive either, I was conscious, but there was nothing in my surroundings but a whitish endless nothingness.

I never expected the afterlife to be so… monotone.

I suppose I didn't have much time to think about what happens after death to know better? It's not that I was religious either, but neither am I a rabid atheist. I never thought about it before, and never before wondered philosophically about 'what's it like?'. Not because I was against it, I simply didn't have the time. Just work, home, work… I had spent my life like I was running around in a wheel like a hamster.

And then I died.

Or not quite, I guess, seeing that I'm very much still aware of my surroundings, but I was sure that I was dead. My last memory, before waking up here in this void that is, was a glance in the car's rearview mirror, then a sharp squeal of brakes and a jolt that seemed to knock me out of my body.

I guess in a way it did, that one bump really did knock me out of my body – ha!

Well after that… There were no tunnels with a light at the end, no stairs to the sky, not even angels or demons to welcome to the afterlife – I really didn't felt myself dying… 

But like all isekai stories, after the meeting with Truck-kun, the encounter with an unknowable entity of immeasurably greater power came later. Like, right now.

"Are you ok?" My gaze, which was just floating around in the white nothing, was now focused on the figure of a man also floating in that whitish nothingness – a man very familiar to me. He was bearing bad news, however, the reason why I was just ignoring him for the past five minutes.

"Almost," I waved my hand in the air. "It's not every day you get news that you were literally smashed into mush in an accident."

"Believe me, it's not something I do very often either, least of all to the person it happened to." My companion grinned grimly.

Well, I might not have entered the afterlife, technically speaking at least, but here I am getting an offer from a ROB… Well, he's definitely Specific, and only technically Omnipotent, but he's definitely a Bastard.

"All right, I'll bite, it's not like there's anything else I can do." I sighed, "Well? Do tell me, what am I getting myself into?"

***

The humans of the twenty-second century were… Well, they were almost the exact same as the previous ones. They were still slowly evolving, struggling for resources, and busy inventing ways to diversify their life… Mostly by making expensive distractions to how shitty their life usually is.

New brands of cars, new kinds of food, new computer games – whatever a single soul can desire and whatever the consumer has enough money for.

Finally, recently, came the ultimate diversion – Full immersion games. Well, only the rich can afford the newfangled capsule necessary for its full capability, the rest having to use a neural network. It was hard to find someone who hadn't tried them at least once. More and more were created in the last two decades – but the high cost of entry prevented it from truly entering the mass market. But they still made a lot of money, as it was not an easy market to get into.

I wasn't a programmer, so I didn't really know exactly what made these games so complicated – I can only assume that the problem was the nervous system's reaction to external stimuli? Never mind, I was just a sales manager – my introduction to such games was only on the player's side, not the developer's, there's no way I can understand something like coding.

Anyway, despite the fact that this niche promised good profits and had existed for a long time – no major player wanted to get into it. Whether it was because of the specifics of work, its needs for huge labor-intensive and expensive development or something else, a total of two games every few years were the totality of its release. And even then, the promise of infinite possibilities of full-immersive gaming remains out of reach. 

One or two decent games a year – that's all the enthusiast could count on, their dream to run across the fields of another fantasy setting, to shoot a dragon with a huge ballista, mere fantasy. All the releases of newer games, nothing more than like the disappointment of mobile games… very expensive to make mobile games, but still just as boring to play yet weirdly drawing in a lot of profits.

In other words, the market was ripe for the picking for one willing to create the vast world… easier said than done.

Those mobile games equivalent? Yeah, they cost an arm and a leg to make, even with all its restrictions. Creating a vast world with infinite possibilities, might not have the same difficulty as landing on the Sun, without dying horribly, but it might as well be… That is, until three months ago.

Theomachy, one of the companies in the running for the title of a mega-corporation, made a shocking announcement.

Of course, people suspect that it's only a matter of time until a major company would take the plunge and enter into the market, but whoever they were expecting, it certainly wasn't Theomachy.

Sure, it was a giant in the electronics and IT sector, but what people knew about them was that they're mostly a player in the Military Industrial Complex with a division for home electronics. A strange combination I know, one that has supplied an endless amount of conspiracy theories, but that's not the point. What's important is that Theomachy is a financial giant among financial giants, maybe even the largest, most valued and most powerful company in the world. For them to and suddenly create a computer – or as they properly say, a neuro game? Especially for a small niche of players at that? 

Well, questions were definitely raised. Questions about whether they're creating a way to train soldiers better… which just raised the hype even further. While 'military-grade' is an oxymoron, the Theomachy has accrued enough faith that people believed that they would create the greatest quality game possible. And then one of the directors suddenly announced that he had always been a fan of games and had spent almost his entire share of the company on the production of one.

Oh yes, it was a smash hit – and most importantly? It was an amazing PR move!

Especially when leaked documents – probably on purpose – revealed that the project had been secretly developed, almost more secretly than the new generation of hacking software for the security services. And that it had been in production, just imagine, for almost thirty years… Which might ring some alarm bells in people's heads, but then it's the bleeding edge of technology, so of course it would take that long! 

It began to be developed even before the technical possibilities for its implementation were found!

Oh yes, saying that people were excited was a severe understatement. And from the horn of plenty came more and more details – each one more incredible than the previous ones.

Of course, if any game company would start their game announcement with words like 'our game world is bigger than the Solar System' or 'I don't think your grandchildren could ever fully explore the world of Tenebris Orbi'? Then the first thing players would ask themselves is whether the developers were lying.

But it was the Theomachy – they had a reputation for doing the most impossible and unbelievable things. 

They were the biggest company in the world, worthy of being called something like a megacorp, worthy of a cyberpunk world. And they did release a load of documentation and even some early concept work… and not even just stills or pre-rendered cutscenes!

Besides, their size and history of excellence, people just wanted to believe in such a possibility, their imaginations running wild with possibility, an event worthy to enter the pages of history. Perhaps in the section on the history of information technology – and maybe even in the annals of the great events of mankind.

Well, that was a digression – the important thing was the fact that such an announcement created a large amount of waves, making even the laymen salivate. It didn't take long, as the release date for the game to come closer for the sales of capsules – incidentally also produced by Theomachy, to jump a hundredfold within a month. 

Of course, I bought one myself and looked forward to diving into the promised wonderland.

That was until a fortnight ago at least, when I was involved in the accident – after that… well I have more critical things to worry about. At least that's what the bastard said happened, as the last thing I remembered were a harp bang and the squeals of tires – I definitely didn't remember the two weeks between that and waking up in this void.

Two week later and two days before the launch of humanity's most breakthrough game – I woke up in a whitish void, clearly thinking that I had died… Man, I must've wanted to play the game more than I thought if even having a literal afterlife experience, it's the thing I kept coming back to. The bastard in front of me absolutely talked my ear off about it, after I signed an NDA of course, so I guess it was just stuck in my mind.

Speaking about the accident, it was a head-on collision, the truck's autopilot failed, and the brakes also failed – a freak accident – and I was smeared into a thin, slim pate under a multi-ton steel giant, almost completely. By some horrifying miracle and strange mistake of nature, I was left with my head and a bit of my upper shoulder girdle intact.

I suppose hoping for a miracle that I would survive with such a grievous injury was a bit silly of me. But, in some strange way – a miracle did find me.

Through an old friend of mine – the bastard in question, a manager of a regional branch of Theomachy – who, because of some cosmic joke, was in urgent need of a human being. More specifically, a human brain, but that obviously sounds a lot creepier than it actually is… and what Theomachy wants, it gets.

So, one dead bastard that coincidentally died with a pristine brain later – that's me, by the way – and here we are. As to how this experience came about? I got no fucking clue, the bastard's explanation went straight above my head, but that's not the point. 

The important thing was that, in a sense, I was still alive.

The more interesting question came after that.

Why did Theomachy need me?

And oh boy, was it a doozy.

***

"So you're saying," The words that came out were sounding more shocked than when I discovered that I was now a disembodied mind floating in a void. "That the game doesn't exist?!"

Speaks more about my priorities, really.

"It did!" My companion shouted with no small amount of vehemence before he fell silent, looking down defeated. "It did exist, we worked so hard for it…"

"And… " I glanced at my friend, who looked more defeated by life than me – and I'm the one that's dead! 

Now that I took a closer look at him, he 's wearing a slightly crumpled gray shirt and worn brown trousers, with traces of deep exhaustion in his eyes. He really looked sleep-deprived as well… Man, this graphic system rocks. "What happened?"

"Sabotage," My companion muttered, defeated, looking down at the virtual ground beneath him as if wishing for the ground to swallow him. "Someone got in the system somehow and erased all the data of the game. They deleted everything! Old, new, spare, backups, and old backups, everything, right down to the concept art! They're all gone!" 

"How…" I was baffled and shocked by the admission and outrage. "How did that even happen!?"

"I have no idea!" My friend clutched his head, and I could see his hair roots trying it best to prevent itself from being rooted out. "Believe me – security is very interested in this right now, and they've been breathing down everyone's neck to find if it's someone inside the company! My colleagues that had returned from this 'interrogation' looked like ghosts! It's so bad in the head office, I have no words to describe it." 

After getting everything out of his system, he finally stopped and sighed once, twice and a third time before continuing, this time with a hint of despair in his voice. "It's a total disaster. Zero. Nothing. Nothing of the game survived!"

"Yeah…" I held up my hands and wiped my eyes, wiping out virtual spittle – no such gestures were necessary in my current existence, but my human reflexes advised me to do so.

"I don't think I need you to imagine what would happen if in…" My friend glanced at his watch, then looked at me, his expression much more grave than before. "In twenty-four hours, suddenly the biggest, most hyped, and most powerful company in the world would come out and say that what seemed to be literally a gift from God turned out to be a lie, wouldn't it?"

"I could imagine it, more or less…" I raised my hand and ran it over the back of my head, in a nervous gesture. "The stock price is going to drop quite nicely…"

"Stock price?!" The voice of my friend, however, threw me off my train of thought and made me look up at him and find horror in his eyes before it was replaced by a bitter understanding. "Ah yes, that's right, you do not know …"

"Know what?"

"The thing is…" He sighed, his expression as if he had swallowed a bitter lemon, before continuing on. "The company's in serious debt…"

"IN DEBT?! THE THEOMACHY?!" That single word made my whole body shudder. It's like hearing the news that the sky has fallen down. "How many trillions does your company get yearly?!"

"First, it's not mine, and a lot," My friend brushed my question aside. 

"Do you have any idea how much this project cost?! Thirty years of development of a multiplayer neuro game, with its whole staff of developers, most we even have to train ourselves and there were thousands of them, and with the secrecy on the level of some spy action movie… We were spending a country's GDP each year just to get the game off the ground!"

"And they just decided to put the near-monopoly on electronics on the line?! For a game!?" I felt my eyes pop up on my forehead.

"Listen, I'm not discussing my bosses' bosses harebrained idea, okay!?" My friend shouted back, 

"They thought they'd make it, something to be written in the history books… And damn it, they did! We had it in our hands! The things that I saw… it was beautiful. And now it's gone."

After a rollercoaster of emotions, even teleporting to my side at one point and shaking my shoulders, he was finally calm enough. "It was supposed to be a historical event – a historical event! Textbooks were to be written on it! Books! Entire sections of science books would have been written about our accomplishments!"

"Okay, okay, okay. I get it." I pulled away sharply, deciding not to argue with the words of my friend, and then shook my head, lest I broke something. 

"Okay, I understand, the situation is completely fucked, everything is falling apart, world crisis and other scary words, but …"

I exhaled and finally asked the most important question. "Where do I come into the picture here?"

"You… " At my question, my friend suddenly froze, and then shifted his gaze sharply to me, making me recoil by the intensity of emotions I could see. Behind my friend's eye lies insanity, and yet also full of hope 

"You're our last hope."

I blinked.

"No, that's wrong." My friend nodded, "You're our only hope."

Then, as if a switch was flipped, my friend stood up straight, and I could feel the seriousness of the situation.

"Tomorrow at six p.m. at UTC+0, the most incredible thing since probably the discovery of America will be launched and… There's nothing." My friend exhaled, then fell silent, allowing me to take a break from the previous bout of madness, and him to collect his thoughts.

"And we have no options, no other options to save the company, and probably a huge chunk of the global economy. Our mainline product, Tenebris Orbi, one that we have sunk into unimaginable debts for, right now only has its name to show for our three decades of effort. That cannot be allowed to happen." At this point, he paused. Why? To build the tension? To steel his own determination? Or just to prevent himself from breaking down in tears?

"The company heads are in shambles, and some board members are preparing themselves by retreating to their bunkers. The development team has either fled to Brazil, or are currently being 'entertained' by the Security team, but that's too little too late. There's no game, and if that situation stays the same tomorrow, there would also be no company."

How about you get to it already!? Sensing my irritation, my friend coughed into his fists.

"We have all exhausted all options in how to solve this situation and have found none. Nothing. Nada. Kaput. And so we decided on a gamble, a one in trillion gamble on the roulette. We have all put our hopes on zero, on you."

"Thank you very much for the compliment, if being compared to a zero is a compliment…" I exhaled, before continuing on. 

"Okay, the speech's all grand and all, and your situation is all creepy and sad, and I'm saving the world from the international crisis of the fall of Theomachy, who doesn't want to be the savior of the world. But what exactly can I do? And what is in it for me?"

As they say, if you can do something, never do it for free.

At these words, my friend hesitated, then sighed. "A salary of a million a… A month? A day? A second? You name it, and I'll get you whatever terms you want."

"What the hell do I need millions for here?!" I spread my hands around, pointing at the white nothingness around me. 

"Speaking of which, where am I anyway?!"

"Well, before I answer that, how does your surroundings look like to you?" Suddenly, my friend asked me a strange question, making me frown.

"Same as for you? Blank white, endless nothingness, with our bodies just hanging in the air?" I answered back, somewhat glibly.

"That's wrong, actually." He replied calmly, "I'm not in 'there' with you. I'm actually communicating with you through a dedicated chat line, through typed messages."

At that moment, I blinked, after which I looked into my friend's eyes – the same brown as I remembered them… No, wait, they were a little more gray… Yes, exactly as they are now!

I suddenly blinked, realizing that the color of my friend's eyes had just changed in front of my eyes – and then I looked more closely.

Time itself seemed to begin to stretch for me. Gradually my gaze began to cling to one detail and another in his eyes – every vein of color, every little blood vessel, every little blood cell running through the arteries and veins – and behind them… What is that?

'That's wrong, actually. I'm not in 'there' with you. I'm actually communicating with you through a dedicated chat line, through typed messages'. 

Behind the blurring features of my friend's eyes, I saw lines of typed text hanging in the air, as if from an old messenger, white background, with black letters marked in the background… 

"Stop that! You're hurting yourself!" A familiar voice shouted, and I felt as if I was shaken, instantly the trance that I had unknowingly delved into. "You almost burned out your brain and restraints! That's enough!"

"Okay, okay, got it!" I immediately responded in a slightly panicked voice. I almost killed myself doing that!? "What was that all about?!"

My friend looked at me, a look of concern on his face, before sighing. How could I see that if my friend was actually just lines and text… Okay, stopping that train of thought before I burn my brain somehow. 

"Well, yes, the second part of the story… Your brain. So, legally, you didn't have time to leave a will or leave money for your own funeral?" I only nodded, after all, I hadn't planned to die at only twenty-six at all – it was obvious that I hadn't left a will.

"Well, in such a scenario, the State was supposed to take care of your funeral – but Theomachy has a few connections… of the legal type!" He immediately hastened to add, causing me to wave my hand. I think I can see where this explanation is leading to… 

"So, anyway, you know about the attempts to create an AI, right? They are, in general, successful – but the resulting AI is usually still very limited, both by the volume of information they can handle and by its… lack of creativity. Well, technically speaking, in both senses of the word, they're amazing artists and creators, capable of creating the most amazing works of art in seconds, but they lack initiative. They could create the most breathtaking of vistas, but without someone to direct them, the result could range from abstract art to absurdist to photo-realism. And so, even if there are a thousand of AI, you still need a person that will direct them… Nobody who's tried had succeeded, the normal human simply can't keep up." 

My friend finished with a sigh – I wonder how that expression would look in writing. Shortly after that, my friend continued. 

"But then, we realized that the human brain is the perfect tool to use, but then we ran into the problem of creating an AI capable of imitating a human. The cart before the horse… And then, in that manic time, we found the answer. Why bother creating an AI that can imitate a human, if we can digitalize a human brain instead? Only to find that we cannot do so without killing the person." I don't like where this explanation is going… It can't be!?

"Wait, was Theomachy the one that killed me!?"

"What!? How did you come to that conclu… oh right. No, the Theomachy didn't kill you, now let me continue. Digitalizing a human would kill them, and that's where you come in!"

"I mean… " I slowly tried to chew the information that was just given to me, "You made me into an AI?" 

"Sorry if you much prefer being dead to digital immortality!?" Immediately, my friend reacted with a shout, before stopping himself and taking a deep breath. "Sorry, my nerves… but I guess even if you or I complain about it, it's already a done deal. The scientists – well, the ones you don't write articles about – did their mumbo jumbo with your brain and here you are! The most powerful AI in the world at the moment!" My friend tried to cheer me up, with mixed success.

"I mean, I'm… an AI now? Connected to the coolest digital network of the greatest electronics giant in the world?" I looked my friend in the eye.

"Well, essentially? Yes," he easily agreed with my suggestion, causing me to sigh and pause for a few moments of reflection as he continued speaking.

"You're not a robot – you feel emotions, desires, and your personality is intact." My friend smiled faintly. "You know, the guys had to work very hard to keep it that way."

Well, my life has been quite the roller coaster ride so far, so let's just ignore that little tidbit that just rewrote my entire perspective on the world., "C'est la vie, I suppose. So, what is my role supposed to be? You haven't exactly explained that."

"Well, as you may have realized by now, you're not just an AI. You're an AI with a personality, the first digital human, and as you may have noticed, your perception is slightly different from… Others." Trying his best to choose a word so as not to say 'different from the norm', my friend was silent for a moment before shaking his head. 

"Your brain essentially could 'take' the lines of code of computers, and interact with it directly, those zeros and ones and render them – giving you information it takes from your memory, worldview, thinking. Well, you get it."

"So now when I type message prompts, you see… something else entirely. Your brain now is essentially a super-computer, the best there are in fact, we actually had to create some very impressive software to even allow me to communicate with you in real time. An anchor, or limiter, if you want to call it." My friend replied, making me sigh. Yeah, life only got weirder and more confusing every second. But again, nothing to be done about it, at least it's better than just dying? 

"Well, that's just the way it is. It's the best we've got because if we take the limiters off – you won't even be able to communicate with you. The speed of thinking would be incomparable, a millennium in a second. If we're, if you're not careful with that, you could burn your brain – that's why you're wearing the limiters now. Well that, and just so you can have a chat with a living human being," My friend smiled faintly, making me nod and wave my hand, showing him that I was ready to listen to him further.

"Well, you have two gigantic advantages over any other developer – advantages that the Theomachy is counting." My friend smiled sourly at me, 

"One, as I've said before, the speed your brain is running now? We literally can't quantify it, or at least explain to you in a way that would make sense. A bit of slack in the limiter and you would be literally thinking faster than the smartest human in the world, a complete removal? Well, it would probably scramble your brain right now. But when you finally get a handle on it? The term time abyss would probably be apt." Jeez, that's a scary thought.

"Second is your perception, and control of software. In fact, what are you doing right now? You are looking at the world from within the code, as your brain indifferently analyzes zeros and ones, your brain renders it into something you can understand and familiar with. And your control? Let's just say that there's not a firewall in the world that you cannot breach with but a thought and edit the code literally with a wave of your hand, creating the most complicated modules by simple words…"

"Are you sure?" I frowned, I really didn't think that I'm capable of such things, increased speed of thought or not.

"Let's just say you weren't actually registered in the corporate messenger, the thing we're chatting in right now, you did it yourself… Without even noticing it, you had created a profile by bypassing the strongest firewall in the world, and all without alerting anyone." My friend even smiled a little guiltily as he excitedly listed out the perks that I now possess, making me slow down for a second, then brushed the thought aside. 

Clearly, the number of totally unbelievable events I felt had exceeded the allowable limit and those had ceased to surprise me at all.

"Okay, let's say that I'll take the job…," I sighed, "I still have a few more questions – and first among them… Why me?" I looked into my friend's eyes as I asked.

"Why not?" He grinned sadly as he answered. "I always thought you were a cunning, good actor, and you're definitely a good problem solver…"

"Trouble with classes missed or with girls getting mad at you is not in the same league as saving the biggest corporation in the world!" I sighed.

"And who says that? Even the smallest anthill can be a mountain to some people, and vice versa. Though, if it was a matter if Theomachy or I had chosen you specifically for this job? Not really, your accident just happened to come up by chance, and because I knew you, questions arose, and it all followed from there… Yeah, so the stars aligned – and you just happened to be at the right time and in the right place."

Luck? That was the reason that I'm here now? Well, I suppose it was also bad luck that I would suffer an accident, so this is just a rebalancing of the scale.

"They're scared, the directors? They're scared stiff, and panicked, without hope – they'll cling to any rope they can find to hang on, either by their hands or by their neck. And then, you came along, the silver bullet – even I didn't expect it to work myself, but here you are, and they think they've got a chance." Now he's grinning like a madman… man, He really needs some sleep.

"Tell me what you want and what you require, and they'll get it. Money? Girls? You want to beat up a primary school bully you had back in the day? Ruin his life, even? Or perhaps you want to cover up some crimes? Done and done. If you want it, they'll give you their shares of interest in the company just to convince you."

I thought for a second, then nodded, "I want to live again. In the real world, I mean, I want my life back." Perhaps being a ghost in the machine would be fun and all, and the rewards Theomachy could give were equally just as so. But without a life in the real world, what's the point?

"That's… quite hard." He paused for a second, before continuing on. "It's… well, you see, the condition that your body came in… we just don't have the technology to restore it. It just doesn't exist – in nature."

"So discover it then, or create your own solution." I felt a wave of utter indifference wash over me as I talked, 

"If I'm about to do something incredible… Why don't you do it, too?"

He was silent for a moment, then nodded briefly, and then fell into a silent state for a few seconds. I stopped next to him and continued to watch his thinking posture. He suddenly perked up after about ten seconds and then looked at me confidently. 

"Ten years. They said that it would take them about ten years to make you again… During that time, though, you'll have to work for them." Oh, it seems that he was speaking to someone?

"Well…" I didn't even bother pretending to think for a long time. "It's not like I have much choice in the matter, is it?"

"Yeah, sorry about that." My friend said guiltily.

"Okay, so… What am I supposed to do?" I looked around at the empty void, not really sure what I was supposed to do with it.

"Well, to put it simply… you'll need to create Tenebris Orbi. And before you complain, I'll still need to explain some more!" My friend preempted my complaint about having to create something that the largest company in the world needed thirty years to create. 

"I know what you're thinking, asking you to create the entire game in one day is impossible, the greatest AI or not. So, you don't have to create all of it, just enough to fool the people that had been sold 'the most incredible and expansive thing you've ever seen in the world of neuro games, Tenebris Orbi, expect the unexpected'. All the while not giving a single player a reason to think that this game is being created on the fly, two steps ahead of those who play it."

I blinked, then glanced at my friend, expecting him to apologize now for the silly joke.

He didn't apologize.

I was silent for a few seconds, trying to digest what was said, before I nodded slowly, with pressure, "Okay… Tell me you're not dropping me at the deep end of the pool without a life vest at least?"

"No, of course not, you'll have the best of the best that the company can give. A fleet of network engineers, the internet, and lastly, best of all, lots of AI. Some of them can create images and some can create music, whatever you want. They're all the latest generation and would handle the NPC's scripts, and pretty much any script and code that you want. Though I suppose from your perspective, it would be something else entirely." He chuckled weakly, and me? I'm just glad that I don't have to code the damn game myself.

"These AIs are actually classified military grade stuff, but the situation is such that you have to use whatever you can. You can use any methods you want to occupy the Player's time. You can bray like a mangy dog, you can tell and do whatever, you can lie – you have the absolute authority to just make it all work, keep the players happy, and keep the company above suspicion."

"That already sounds a little better," I sighed, "So, in that case I get that I'm seeing the world differently now, but what about a creator toolkit? I mean, some sort of race editor, object list, catalog – well, anything like that?"

"You've been given full access to all the game's source files – not that there's anything left inside…" My friend sighed. 

"But how would interacting with them look like for you? No idea. Like I've said before, everything is in your hands – literally anything you make would be the 'game'. We have no way of doing anything from this side – well, at least not fast enough to avert disaster – we have truly handed full-control to you. "

I, on the other hand, paused for a moment and frowned – I'm essentially flying blind here. But if it's as he said it is – I should already have full control of the world, everything is already in my hands.

And so, I lift my hand in front of me – and willed for the ability to change the world.

I tried to strain my brain, then imagine in my head something that would fit in my perception of what I was about to do… After a moment a whitish circle filled with a multitude of incomprehensible symbols, alternating as if in a mad dance, rose above my hand.

Huh… I wonder where exactly I got this particular representation of magic? Okay, never mind. Let's try my hand in editing… No, creating something.

After which a dozen of lists appeared before my eyes – with lots of categories and internal charts, images and pages.

"You have entered the catalog!" My friend shouted happily, obviously looking at the multitude of tables floating in front of me at the moment, or however it would look like on his side. "And you don't waste any time – you already have two ready-made effects, and… God, you already have thirty categories for the catalog?! It's working!? We're saved!"

"Yeah," I nodded, after which I instantly dismissed everything in front of my face, satisfied after making sure that it all seemed to be working exactly as it should. "Okay, so… I agree to your conditions." 

Help to restore my body will be allocated to me, the payment is satisfactory and the task ahead of me is already laid out, even the chronology of events… So there was only one last question left.

I sighed and looked into the eyes of my friend as he was busy celebrating. "I understood that whoever these cyber-terrorist had deleted everything, but is there anything still remained? Anything at all? I could use all the help I could get here…"

"Well, yes actually." My friend nodded, and I couldn't help but celebrate it myself. "There's not much left, but the basic support for connectivity functions, communication with pods and operating protocols…"

"No, no, no, no, that's not what I'm talking about – I don't need the technical details, I don't understand them anyway," I brushed my friend's words aside. "From the game, I meant. Maybe some character design, or character classes, maybe even some effects – in general, anything I could work with…"

"Oh, that's…" My friend hesitated for a second, then smiled guiltily as he gestured at the white nothing around us. "What you see around you, is all that's left of the game."

I looked around at the whitish nothingness in which I continued to hang, unable to distinguish between the top and the bottom.

"If it makes you feel better," He added, "You can ignore any copyright, so you can just copy anything from popular fiction – they'll cover that too…"

"Alright… " I let out a sad sigh at the amount of work cut out for me and then looked at my friend with perhaps too much heat. "When do I need to finish all this? What's my deadline?"

"Well, let's see… Now, that we were able to pull the Public Relations department's hand a bit – we're able to make it so that not all the players will join in at once. Something which should lighten your workload greatly – not having to look after so many Players at once." 

My friend then sighed, and here comes the bad news. "But in, let's see… Twenty-three hours and forty-four minutes, the first hundred thousand players will join in the game – and then one hundred thousand every twenty-four hours, until…"

My friend was distracted for a second before he continued on. "Till the full thirty-seven million, which should take about two.. But that's still… You know what, maybe we'll worry for the first day first, okay?"

"Yeah, I'll agree with you there," I shook my head, a migraine thumping in my brain – which should be impossible really. "Because if I knew how big the number is, I would be horrified."

Well, then, I guess I should start working as soon as possible.

"It was nice talking to you… even in such a strange circumstance." I looked around, at the same white nothing as before. A white nothing that I would have to turn into the background of the 'last 'game' as the company touted.

 "Good luck out there, and do try to take off the limiters as much as you can, I'll need all the help I can get… Oh, right, I almost forgot – do remember to send the AIs this way soon – we have a lot of work to do."

"Got it," My friend nodded understandingly and then, pausing for a second, smiled, "Good luck."

"To you too. Try not to piss off some corpo that you get removed." I replied, and after a moment my friend disappeared – apparently, he turned had off the messenger.

Now I looked around, at the whitish something that surrounds me, which, in twenty-four hours, I had to turn into a kind of game. And then for the next ten years maintain it, develop and turn into something that works that millions of Players' going to play and do their best to break… 

I exhaled and clapped my hands.

Well, I don't have seven days to do it, but I'll definitely have to act strictly according to the manual as the good book had preordained… 

Let's start by separating the earth from heaven!