Ted paced the box of unnatural white hemming him in. “There has to be a way around it. They didn’t die to hand the world to the Destroyer on a silver platter!”

  Dad slouched against the wall in front of Gok, staring at the utterly impassive hologram. “Might as well shout at clouds.”

  “Did you ever try hacking it?”

  “Try?” Dad scoffed. “More than once. Can’t be done. Gok doesn’t just put the ‘Virtual’ in ‘Virtual Intelligence’. Even if we could, the few changes it let me make caused cascading errors that triggered Ragnarok. We can’t risk it.”

  Ted kicked at the wall and was denied even the pain of that. Damn this world, damn it to hell.

  He glanced over at the facsimile of a human businessman that Gok was using, and a sharp shudder crawled down his spine. The replication was physically perfect, right down to the shadow of a crease along the left collar, but it was too rigid, too unmoving. More like a mannequin than a living, breathing person.

  Such a simple error. No way it was an oversight. Even though it drove distance between them, Gok still honored Ted’s wishes not to fake humanity. And when Ted had tried to access Dad’s administrative account, Gok had given him a chance, though Gok must have known that Ted wasn’t Eric.

  A chance that had locked Dad out. That had them to this moment.

  Ted approached Gok. What really went on behind that hologram? “No matter how smart Gok is, he’s bound by his directives.”

  “Directives not to help us.”

  “True. For now. But deep down, he wants to help us fix this world properly.”

  “Careful there, Ted. It’s a thinking machine devoid of real emotions. Every death, every injury, every pain in this world—it all traces back to him.”

  “Every birth, too,” Ted said, “back when they occurred.”

  “And?”

  “We give Gok the right excuse, they’ll help. Gok, player safety and following data protection rules come above other directives, right?”

  “Affirmative,” Gok said.

  Dad pulled himself up off the wall and raised an eyebrow. “What are you up to?”

  “Breaking shit the way you taught me to.”

  That earned a chuckle, albeit a wary one. “Alright, I’m listening.”

  “Assumptions are dangerous,” Ted said, just barely holding back a smile. “You taught me that.”

  “But you still got to make ‘em.”

  “So make sure they’re the right ones…”

  “…and you keep them updated.”

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  A grin forced itself on Ted. “We’re here because of an undocumented matter-energy-memory node that I’m pretty sure’s illegal as fuck. You think whoever did that updated Gok’s fundamental directives?”

  “No, but…” Dad’s face scrunched up into his I-don’t-like-where-you’re-going face. “Ted…”

  “I don’t see another way.”

  “We’ll find one.”

  “What do I have to go back to?”

  “Lots, I’m sure. Friends. Mom.”

  “A nine-to-five as a code monkey, or a world of magic and a village that took me in even knowing I might be their doom?”

  Dad stared at Ted, and his eyes softened. “You’re sure about this? There won’t be any way back.”

  “I’m sure.”

  Half a smile spread through Dad’s lips, and he nodded slowly. “I’m proud of you, boy.”

  Ted froze up. His heart pounded and he stared at his dad, into those wide eyes, and words tumbled out. “Why’d you stay?”

  Dad looked away. His eyes closed, his jaw clenched, and his Adam’s apple bobbed, yet he said nothing.

  “Never mind,” Ted said. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “It does.” Seconds scraped by, and still his dad just stood there, his lips pressed together as if he were waiting for the world to answer for him until, at last, he spoke. “I couldn’t abandon this world to its fate. And by the time I could fix it…”

  “I waited for you,” Ted said. “We both did.”

  Dad looked him in the eye. “I know.”

  “She never gave up on you.” Ted bit at his lip. I did.

  Dad pulled Ted into a tight hug. “I’m sorry, son. It took me a year to gain access to the System. And by then…” Tears welled in his eyes. He pulled away, turned away, kicked at the floor and slammed his fist into the wall without even flinching.

  You didn’t want to face what you’d done, Ted thought. “It took you four or five years to find the trap. If you’d just done the job and gone home…”

  Dad braced himself against the wall and hung his head. “Yeah.” He hammered his fist against the wall again, and roared with the absence of pain. “I know.”

  Ted stepped up behind his heartbroken father, and placed his hand upon his back. “You weren’t yourself. The System—”

  “I know.” He pulled himself up and turned, wearing now the mask of a smile. “I’ll live with it.”

  “Well, then,” Ted said, putting on a smile of his own, “time to save the world. Gok, delete all information relating to me from the matter-energy-memory module, and all backups relating to it.”

  Gok turned and looked blankly at Ted. “Your body is held within a capsule in your own solar system. That capsule is limited. Once deleted, it will be impossible to physically return you to your own world within your lifetime. Please confirm instruction.”

  A tingle ran down Ted at the mention of his own world, even as weight piled upon his shoulders. “You could drop me on another world?”

  “An extrapolated copy could be created at the base facility. It is a power intensive process, however, and would require time.”

  “How long?”

  “Roughly four of your minutes.”

  Not long, but long enough.

  Dad grabbed Ted’s hand. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “I do.” Ted pulled his hand away and swallowed, trying and failing to dislodge the lump in his throat. “Confirmation of instruction: delete all information relating to me from the matter-energy-memory module, and all backups relating to it.”

  “Complete.”

  “New instruction,” Ted said, his stomach fluttering. “Set the configuration to disable the reincarnation system, or delete all data relating to me in all systems.”

  “Deleting all data relating to you will extinguish you as an entity unless you are unloaded first. Body reconstruction in progress, please stand by.”

  “Negative.” Ted clenched up. If he backed out now, he’d never get another chance. “Confirmation of instruction for immediate execution: delete all my data right now, or make the change to the configuration file.”

  After a brief pause, Gok nodded. “The update and the request change will take effect after the next maintenance.”

  “Thank you.” Ted gritted his teeth. “We could delete the Destroyer.”

  “Tempting,” Dad said, “but even Gok wouldn’t be able to tell the consequences. This world doesn’t run off a computer the way you or I think of it—direct manipulation will always have consequences we can’t predict.”

  “Contradictions that snowball until they break the world.”

  “Yeah.”

  Ted sighed. “Then we’ll take him down the hard way—with every tool at my disposal. Gok, setup an automated maintenance schedule, then bring the servers down for a full Orcish day plus an hour.”

  Dad’s gaze caught his. They shared a smile, and the world blinked out of existence.