The dark grey channels of the virtual world were damp. Dark as in a womb and also as in a womb, sparkling virtual blood flowed down the walls, washing and cleansing. Threads of saprophages gave light in the narrow tunnels.

  ‘The Beyond Zone,’ Dog commented, ‘don't slip, you'll be flushed into a virtual fucking shithole.’

  ‘What's that?’ Spin squinted, trying either to get a closer look or to convince himself that it couldn't be.

  He'd never yet had the chance to verify that there was anything other than a fairy tale about virtual reality tunnels. A grey-green slime that smelled of mushrooms and young sweat flowed beneath his feet, but somehow left no trace on the varnished surface of his boots.

  ‘Damn,’ he cursed, ‘this can't be happening.’

  ‘You bet,’ the grey figure in front, his guide in this afterlife, grinned without turning around. ‘When they delete themselves, their psychic energy absorbed by the net gets here and staggers around for nothing. Like blood in the veins. Or like shit in the guts - you can choose either version.’

  ‘What are we now, then?’

  ‘I'm tending towards shit,’ laughed Dog, ‘though we're focused in our pixels for now - and they're not. That's the difference between life and death. Consciousness and unconsciousness. You haven't read Jung or Freud, by any chance?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Too bad, I'd like to listen. You can't find anything else on the net but links... tons of shitty fantasy and no real read. Although who reads nowadays? Personal experience is what drives you and me, Spin, to adventure. What, you want to hold a gun, or you want my ass?’ he turned around abruptly, intercepting Spin's mesmerized gaze wandering over the gold of the body-warm pistols. Warm? Really?

  ‘I wanna hold the guns,” he nodded.

  Dog slowly parted his lips in a smile. Quiet and tempting, like a snake child waking up in the desert dawn.

  ‘Come and take it,’ he said just as quietly.

  Spin swayed in his direction, tearing his foot off the grey slime that leaves no trace, but suddenly changed his mind.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  ‘No, thank you, I do not want to lose my illusions.’

  ‘Oh!’ giggled Dog. ‘What a bloody dumb thing to do! As you wish,” he turned around and walked forward again, indifferent and confident.

  The wind crackled from somewhere below, sparks flew green and the dark tunnel of the virtual world unfolded endlessly into infinity. Spin slowly followed Dog's pace and still shuddered inwardly as his eyes stumbled over the disdainful gold of the guns. Warm or not? Warm or not? Am I just imagining all this?

  ‘Hey, Spin,’ Dog interrupted the silence, after a long trance dance through corridors completely devoid of direction, ‘have we been wandering for two hours?’

  ‘Call me Carvey, that's my real name.’

  ‘Who cares?’ Dog said nonchalantly, gazing into the darkness ahead.

  ‘I do. That's my name. Carvey.’

  Dog didn't answer, and the name flopped to the dark, slimy cybernetic floor as a lump of soft dough.

  ‘Yeah, we've been wandering for almost two hours,’ Spin finally agreed, glancing at the watch hand glinting in his clothes.

  ‘Good,’ said Dog, pleased with something, and walked even faster. ‘Hurry up!’ he shouted, ‘before I shoot you. And you can call me any name you want - I don't give a shit.’

  ‘I'll call you Dog, it suits you best,’ Spin added a step unwillingly.

  ‘Why did you kill him?’ he finally asked, unable to choke his throat with the question.

  The sharp edges of it churned, bulging outward and causing sharp pain. And the pain was asking for space to unfurl its flowers. The ones that faced the supple little Fake, who was twirling in a patch of light in the middle of the darkness.....

  Dog stopped and turned sharply so that he was almost face to face with Spin. He stared mockingly at him with steel, impenetrable eyes.

  ‘He was so beautiful,’ Spin added pathetically, ‘so young.’

  ‘Did you like him?’ Dog smiled mysteriously.

  ‘What's that got to do with it?’

  ‘Everything,’ Dog winked at him, ‘you see, we're all here for two reasons: the first is sex.’

  ‘And the second?’

  ‘Boredom.’

  ‘Why are you here, Mr. Dog?’

  ‘I like sex.’

  Having waited for a tinkling pause, Dog drew his gun in an elusive movement and twirled it in his outstretched hand. Beautiful. Like a golden sun.

  ‘Beautiful?’ he asked.

  'Dog, you're a prick,' Spin admitted almost hatefully, 'and worse, a murderer.’

  ‘Oh, stop being so sentimental! King is a Fake. And his death is a fake, too.’

  ‘So he's not dead?’

  ‘Oh, my God! Well, for a while of course he's dead,’ Dog grinned. ‘He'll reboot the system and be alive and well again! He died well, by the way. Nicely,’ he continued to poke fun at Spin, twirling his golden toy on his finger. The sunshine of that yellow monster was hypnotizing.

  ‘So it's all fake?’

  ‘Of course it is. King is a Fake, and an extraordinary good one.’

  ‘What about you? Are you a fake, too?’

  ‘Me? One hundred percent!’ Dog holstered his gun and winked flirtatiously at Spin. ‘I am the best one of all.’

  ‘Unbelievable,’ Spin mumbled, ‘fucking unbelievable!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. I'm just horrified at the thought that death, too, might be a fake...’

  ‘Easy,’ Dog shook his head.

  But for some reason, Spin still felt the pain in his chest, as if the dead Fake was somehow dead for good.