Nico opened his eyes and found himself in the Pillar's room. It was dark, and he could only make out the outlines of objects: the chest in front of the bed, the table, the chair.

  The hands of time in the game moved differently from the real world. Nico tossed and turned in bed, his eyes wide open. It was midnight in the Pillar, yet his eyelids remained open. A sigh escaped his lips, he got up and went out to get some air.

  The corridors were empty and silent, only his footsteps echoed, breaking the silence, while dim light filtered through the windows.

  Attracted by a faint murmur of voices, Nico found himself in one of the inner gardens: a colonnade, a small area paved with stone slabs, benches, and flower beds.

  Nico saw them and stopped a step back. Both their faces were lit by a small oil lamp resting on the bench between them.

  Nadia was sitting on a bench, her shoulders stiff, her hands clasped in her lap as if she wanted to hold something back. Gareth sat a short distance away from her, his body bent forward, his elbows on his knees, trying to catch her eye.

  The tension between them was palpable, their gestures stiff and stubborn, while low murmurs escaped from her lips, the meaning of which Nico could not grasp. He felt out of place.

  Then Gareth stood up abruptly. His body tense, his voice hoarse:

  “Nadia, you mustn't do this. It's dangerous. You don't know what could happen.”

  Nadia didn't answer, her face a hard mask that Nico had never seen before.

  Gareth brought his hands to his face, growling like a wounded beast.

  A tear slid down her cheek. She quickly brushed it away with the back of her hand, then, once it was dry, her voice remained dry: “I've made up my mind.”

  She got up and walked away down the path without turning back.

  Gareth remained motionless, his gaze lost. Then he sat down, his hands on his face, desperate. After a moment, he began to move among the trees and benches, back and forth, like a caged animal. He punched the edge of a wall, muttering something Nico couldn't understand. It was all so real: him, her, so alive, so human.

  He saw Gareth dash to one side of the garden and grab a pole from the ground, perhaps a broomstick with the brush removed, since weapons were not allowed in the Pillar.

  In the center of the clearing, he began to repeat some movements. He swung the stick above his head, brought it to his side, and moved his body back and forth in fluid, controlled movements. Every movement was precise, measured, as if the stick were an extension of his body.

  Nico smiled to himself. A few hours earlier, with a different kind of stick, he had achieved his own small victory thanks to Gareth's teachings.

  Gareth darted forward, holding the stick outstretched at his side, and shouted in his direction, “Who's there?”

  Nico shrugged his shoulders, as if he wanted to disappear, then stepped out from the side of the corridor. He took a few steps towards the colonnade, allowing himself to be seen. Gareth lowered his stick and his body visibly relaxed. In his usual cold, dry tone, he said, “You're back.”

  Nico nodded slightly, then pointed to the stick. “Evening training?” he asked.

  Gareth grunted in agreement. He watched him for a moment, frowning, then added, “How long have you been back there?”

  Nico sniffed and shrugged. “I just got here. I didn't feel like sleeping, so...”

  Gareth grunted again, as if he understood. He turned to look over the parapet, toward some unspecified point in the landscape of hills and starry sky, and said, “Me too.”

  Nico took a few steps toward the garden, approaching Gareth, who had leaned his stick on the side of the parapet and was leaning over, arms outstretched and face turned toward the landscape.

  Nico took a deep breath; Gareth was just a program. Yet the time they had spent together, the way he showed concern, the emotions he revealed, the way he looked at Nadia... all this made him seem real.

  “Gareth, can I ask you a question?” he said.

  The boy grunted in agreement.

  “Do you feel love?” Nico asked, blurting it out.

  As soon as the words left his mouth, Nico regretted them.

  Gareth stood motionless, staring over the parapet.

  “Why are you asking me that?” he asked curtly.

  “After Erebos's work and the Archivist's cleanup...” Nico grimaced and shrugged slightly, his eyes downcast. “Well... let's just say I don't have much left of that...” He opened his arms to the landscape. Then he looked up at Gareth, hesitant. “But I see you looking at Nadia and... I was wondering if...”

  “If it's inherent in my programming,” Gareth interrupted.

  Nico nodded.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Gareth shook his head. “I don't know.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “It could be a computational simulation,” he said dryly. “An emotional pattern. Programs don't feel real emotions. What looks like affection or love is just a simulation, not a conscious experience. We have no subjectivity, no consciousness of our own.”

  He uttered those words as if he were reading them from a manual. Nico stiffened, not knowing how to respond.

  “Yet even your emotions are patterns,” Gareth continued. “Electrical impulses. Chemistry. Yet you call it love.”

  He put his hand to his chest.

  “I just know I feel something... in here. But I don't know where it comes from.”

  Those words hit Nico in the stomach. To him, what was between Nadia and Gareth seemed real.

  “What if one day I find out it's not love,” he asked, “but just a line of code?”

  Gareth smiled. A bitter smile.

  “Then I'd know where my feelings come from,” he said quietly. “But that doesn't make them any less real.”

  The sound of footsteps broke the silence in the garden.

  “Hey. Am I interrupting a philosophical moment or can I come closer without risking being stabbed?”

  Nico turned around. Peter emerged from the hallway with his hands in his pockets. He had a crooked smile and feverish, perpetually excited eyes that moved constantly.

  “What are you doing here, all alone?” he asked.

  His gaze slid over to the stick not far from Gareth, then back to Nico. “Is he training you to become a lightning-fast virus destroyer like him?” he said, snorting derisively. “You saw what happened to the building where this guy lived, right?”

  Gareth snapped.

  In an instant, he grabbed Peter by the throat, keeping his other fist outstretched, ready to strike. Nico froze, not knowing what to do.

  Peter burst out laughing, raising his hands in surrender. “Come on, my dear, good friend. We were just joking, right?”

  Gareth let him go with an angry jerk, shaking his head.

  Peter adjusted his collar as he looked around. “Pff, what a bore. You can't even make a joke without...”

  Gareth turned and glared at Peter, who looked back at him with puppy-dog eyes.

  Nico let out a laugh but disguised it as a cough so as not to irritate Gareth.

  “Cough? Great!” said Peter, grabbing Nico in a tight embrace. “How about we go for a drink?”

  Nico looked first at one, then the other, uncertain.

  Gareth pointed at Nico with a curt nod. “I wouldn't mind, but he can't move.”

  Peter nodded, bringing his hand to his chin, deep in thought. Then he winked. “I want to show you somewhere.”

  Gareth pointed to Nico again.

  Peter raised his hands in surrender. “In here.”

  Peter insisted, as if to emphasize his proposal: “So? Would you like to take a look?”

  Then he added, raising his hands again and looking at Gareth, “I promise, cross my heart, it's nothing dangerous. Just... strange.”

  Nico walked beside Gareth, while Peter led them through the corridors of the Pillar. They were isolated, dark passages, irregularly lit by a few windows that filtered a sliver of light. The echo of their footsteps broke the silence in a slow, almost hypnotic rhythm, while the corridors seemed to repeat themselves endlessly.

  Then the landscape began to change. The corridors gave way to narrower tunnels, steep stairs, and passages behind low doors. It seemed as if they were descending, lower and lower. Finally, Peter stopped in front of a small wooden door with a lock.

  He turned toward them, his feverish eyes lit with enthusiasm.

  “Here we go,” he said with a beaming smile.

  Suddenly, Peter changed. His arms retracted into his chest, shrinking, his legs shortened. Antennae and other protuberances sprouted from his head and hips. Nico backed away, his heart pounding as a sharp pain shot through his temple.

  Gareth muttered, “You're disgusting.”

  The cockroach crawled along the door. “At least I'm beautiful in my original form,” he snapped.

  Nico inhaled, realizing only then that he had been holding his breath, his hand still pressed to the side of his head.

  “But what...”

  Gareth turned to him, his eyebrows arched. “What: ‘what’.”

  “He...” said Nico, pointing uncertainly at the cockroach.

  The little insect began fiddling with its legs near the lock.

  “Ah, yes. He's an Animutant, he can do...” said Gareth, pointing at Peter, “this nonsense.”

  Nico nodded, puzzled.

  The cockroach added, “And I'm also an Anti-cheat, a sentient program, if you want to call me that; just like this one here or his friend.”

  Nico took a deep breath and nodded uncertainly. Immediately afterwards, there was a click.

  Gareth pushed the door open, while Peter resumed his boyish form. A dark corridor opened up in front of them, lit by a soft light at the end. They crossed it, drawn by distant, slightly distorted music and indistinct voices.

  The corridor opened onto a large room. On one side was a counter made of beds tipped on their sides. Behind the counter, a short creature with an enormous head and disproportionate glasses waved tentacles in all directions as it mixed liquids of different colors.

  Nico shook his head, not understanding what he was looking at.

  A woman sitting at a table with a seal and a pillow had her hair standing on end, as if charged with electricity. Nico squinted when he saw the pillow grab a small glass with a corner of the pillowcase and bring it to what might have been a mouth.

  Elsewhere, animals sat at tables as if they were people; in other places, people moved like animals, crouching or scurrying.

  A man approached Nico. He was dressed as a waiter, but his hair was long on the sides like a dog's. The man barked at Nico, a friendly smile on his face.

  In one corner, a man was tirelessly mimicking the gesture of digging the earth, while others around him seemed to be betting, watching him.

  Peter spun around, taking in the scene with his eyes, his face lit up with a mask of happiness. Gareth was the opposite: his face tense and frowning.

  “What is this place?” asked Nico, his eyes as big as saucers, scanning the entire room.

  Peter grabbed Nico and Gareth by the arm, shaking them. His eyes darted in all directions, excited. “Do you understand what this place is?” he exclaimed, his tone full of enthusiasm.

  Nico shook his head, speechless.

  Peter snorted excitedly, “I've wanted to come in here for ages!” Then he turned to the dog-man and barked back.

  [AUTHOR'S NOTE]

  Log updated: readers are invited to provide comments and ratings.

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  Log closed: the system observes.