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Kelly's bitter glare remained upon Remington Mute. 'So,' she said, with braveness in her voice. 'I am not a real human being. I'm just a computer simulation.'

'There are no human beings any more,' said Mute.

'So what is my purpose? Or is there no purpose? Are we all just players inside a sophisticated game you invented to serve some purpose for the military? And where is this computer system? And if the world ended in a nuclear holocaust, what powers it?'

'It isn't on Earth,' said Remington Mute. 'It's in orbit, part of the American Star Wars system, solar-powered, nanorobotechnic. It has a million years of life left in it. And so would we too. Immortality, Kelly, for all of us. If we could purge the system of the virus that is destroying it.'

'How?' Kelly asked, 'Say I believed any of this.'

'Which means that you do. You could destroy it. It is why you were created.'

'And you created me?'

'Lots of little yous. Lots of little anti-virus programs. All with particular skills. But you're the very best of them. You're the pick of the crop. The golden woman. If anybody can put everything back online, it's you.'

'So I'm an anti-virus,' said Kelly, her hand now in her hair and toying with it feverishly.

'I don't like that habit,' said Remington Mute. 'I never programmed that into you. I hope you're not going off-line too.'

'I'm very much online,' said Kelly. 'And I'm very much alive. And I want to stay alive. If I am what you say I am and all of this is unreal, then ultimately what does it matter to me? It's the only "life" I've ever known and I'll be content with it. But I don't want it to stop.'

'Of course you don't,' said Mute. 'Which is why I'm offering you immortality. All you have to do is debug the system, destroy the virus, then we all live for ever, or at least until the sun goes supernova and there is no Earth with its satellites any more.'

Kelly's hand left her hair. 'Just a couple of questions,' she said. 'Firstly, you say that you created this system for the military, so is the real Remington Mute dead?'

'Dead,' said Mute. 'I am his downloaded file, I have become service-provider, my program is to rebuild and extend the parameters of the simulation.'

'To create simulated life?'

'If you like. That is what I do. And each individual system is unique. They couldn't be more real.'

'It's almost a Godlike role,' said Kelly.

'Yes,' said Mute, chuckling. 'I suppose it is.'

'Oh come on,' said Kelly. 'There's no suppose about it. You are the builder and creator. You are to all intents and purposes the God of this simulated world.'

'Yes,' said Mute, chuckling further.

'And this rogue program, this go mango virus, that could be seen as the Devil, couldn't it?'

'Yes,' said Mute. 'It could.'

'And yet,' said Kelly. 'Within this simulated system, which you say could last for a million years if the Devil was cast out, you have grown old. How do you account for that? Surely you should be forever young.'

Mute shrugged. 'Fair wear and tear,' he said.

Kelly shook her head. 'I don't think so,' said she.

Mute cast a rheumy eye in her direction.

'What is on your mind?' he asked.

Kelly raised an eyebrow. 'Surely you know,' she said. 'Surely you know everything I think. You created me.'

'You're an independent program, you are capable of making independent decisions based on incoming data. It's called Data Reaction. I invented it.'

'And you are… what are you really, Mr Mute?'

'I'm everything that I've told you. And I have explained it all to you as best I can. I know it's a hideous thing for you to find out. And you are coping with it all remarkably well. But then I knew you would, that's the way I built you. You're a real prize, Kelly, and you are going to succeed where others failed. I just know you will.'

'Oh yes,' said Kelly. 'I will, have no doubt of that.'

'So I can rely on you? You will use your skills to destroy the virus?'

'Absolutely,' said Kelly. 'You can count on it.'

Remington Mute smiled gummily. 'I knew it,' he said. 'I knew that you were the one.'

'Oh yes. I am the one.' Kelly rose to her feet. She smiled down upon Remington Mute. 'It's very impressive,' she said. 'All of it. Not crude at all. Sophisticated, very sophisticated. But then it would be, wouldn't it? Computers can do wonderful things, if people choose to do wonderful things with them. But most people only ever grasp the basics, go through the motions, never use all the options. Play a few games. They never really use the tools.

'Now if it were the other way round, if computers were in control. That would be different, it wouldn't be crude, it would be precise. Everything would be done for a specific purpose, no mucking about, no trial and error, precise, mathematical. Everything with a specific purpose.'

'You're so right,' said Remington Mute.

'There wouldn't be any grey areas,' said Kelly. 'No loose ends, no bits that couldn't be precisely explained.'

'No,' said Mute. 'There wouldn't.'

'But precision and mathematics,' said Kelly, 'that's all emotionless stuff. Tools, no emotion. And human beings are so emotional. They're always in turbulence. Always in some kind of torment. They love, they hate, they get themselves in all kinds of emotional messes.'

'All the time,' said Mute.

'If it was all done through computers and by computers it just wouldn't be like that, would it?'

'No,' said Mute, nodding thoughtfully. 'It wouldn't.'

Kelly looked down upon him. 'So you •went along with all that, did you?' she asked.

Remington Mute looked up at her.

'You agreed', said Kelly, 'with everything I said?'

Remington Mute continued to look.

'I am not a program,' said Kelly. 'And all you have told me is a he.'

Remington Mute continued to look, he wasn't moving now.

'I'm in it, aren't I?' said Kelly. 'And I don't mean inside some computer circling the planet inside a satellite. I'm inside the go mango game, or the go mango game is inside me.'

Remington Mute said nothing at all, although he continued to look.

Kelly stared up towards the simulated sky. 'All right,' she shouted. 'Speak to me.'

The simulated sky was painted blue. The simulated sky had nothing that it wished to say to Kelly.

Kelly looked down again upon Remington Mute. 'A believable scenario,' she said. 'Absurd upon first listening, but then strangely compelling. Something we all dread. That life isn't real at all, that it's just some kind of dream. It plays upon our deepest fears. Deep inside our heads. But no, Mr Mute, if I were nothing but a program, I wouldn't make mistakes. I would be precise, unemotional. I would lack for any human emotions. I would even do something like this.'

Kelly turned upon her left heel, she swung her right leg into the air, it curled around in a blurry arc and her foot struck the head of Remington Mute.

The old man collapsed from the bench, he lay upon the grass making feeble choking sounds and then he lapsed from consciousness.

And life.

Remington Mute was dead.

22

'How's that?' Kelly shouted at the sky. 'Will you speak to me now?'

'you've done very well,' said the large and terrible voice. 'you have completed the first level and you may now ascend to the second.'

Kelly clutched at her head. She knew where the voice was coming from. Inside. 'No,' she said, gritting her teeth. 'I won't play any more of your games.'

'you'll play,' said the voice. 'or you will die.’

‘No,' said Kelly. 'I won't play, and neither will I die.’

‘you'll do whatever we want you to do.’