Two androids jumped Dev as he entered the room. He ducked and tried to unsheathe his knife but they stopped moving, a slicer solidly embedded in the back of their power supplies. Dev heard a yell, some kind of battle cry, and his friend jumped from a metal cable, landing on another android and jumping across to pick up his slicers. A cat ran after him, yowling loudly and dismantling anything that went near it with razor sharp claw extensions. Occasionally the sky was lit up by bolts of lightning that were thrown across the room, frying the androids' circuits, taking down four at a time. They came from a woman who stood calmly in the middle of the battlefield, her arm raised, bathed in an aura of power. Dev recognised it as Hyd Lucent. He gasped; he knew she had been here since long before their community had been created but he had no idea she possessed this kind of power. All his friends were here, all moulded in the image of this strange world, battling the endless horde of robots.
There was a small army of androids now, all attacking anyone they could reach, wildly firing lasers and making large holes in the metal walls. The room itself was a huge square chamber with several exits and a chute in the middle. A figure in a red travelling robe - the clothes of a Motavian shaman-priest - stood next to the closed chute. It was Gice. Occasionally he was attacked by an android but his hefty Laconian mace crushed their heads. He beckoned to Dev. He ran towards his friend.
"We've been waiting for you!" yelled Gice, "The lock on the door won't open for anyone except you. It works on voice recognition! Quick, we think Doran's down there!"
"OPEN UP YOU GODDAMN DOOR!" shouted Dev. Whirring, the door to the chute opened. Gice motioned to the others and they all jumped in, rushing past the androids. Dev watched the twenty or so insane robots as they ran towards him. Shrugging, he jumped in after his friends.
The chute went down a long way. It was pitch black and dusty, so dusty that he thought he might suffocate before he fell to his death at the end of the drop that must have been at least half an hour by now. He couldn't tell where his friends were. It seemed that time had frozen, that he was teleported to a different place, that nothing was the same as it had been when he jumped in the chute... He curled up into a ball and waited for whatever was going to happen. He hoped it was not too painful.
Finally, he landed with a soft thump and light invaded his vision again. He stood up. The fall can't have been that far- he wasn't even bruised. His friends were all around him, picking themselves up. Hyd looked upwards and Dev followed her gaze. They were outside, looking into the stars... no, they were on a balcony on some kind of space station, looking out into the infinitude of space itself. It was vast, cold, timeless. He saw, for a few brief seconds, how impossibly insignificant he was compared to those billions of terabytes of raw information of which he was barely a bit. He was so small, so cold, so alone. He wished Joan was here so he could at least hold her, protect her from the unearthly cold.
There was a low whine as a platform floated up to them and hovered there expectantly. Hyd stepped onto it and bid them all follow.
"What's going on?" whispered Che, "Someone just gave me a load of money to come down here."
"Remember Doran?" whispered Gice.
"Didn't she die?"
Dev had to admit he had completely forgotten Doran existed as well. It was such a long time ago now and she had never contributed that much to the community. They had their own lives to live, jobs to find, girlfriends to impress. As he was considering the implications of the existence of ghosts, the platform jerked to a halt and beeped at them until they stepped off it onto a thin metal walkway. In front of them was a floating... bin. It looked like a bin anyway. It was large and metal and white and had a recycle symbol painted on it, like the icon on the computer. Was this the heart of the Motavian Wastebasket - a giant bin?
"I think I know what this is." said Hyd, "We covered these in training but I never thought I'd have to go in one."
She pressed the panel on the side of the door and it opened with a smooth swish. They walked in. It was pretty much the same on the inside, very tall white metal walls. In one corner was a table, some chairs, a vending machine and a coffee machine, in the other a waiting room with leather couches, a coffee table and some magazines. Between them was a wall with a computer terminal with a very large display screen. On the screen was the image of Joan. She seemed to be floating in some kind of beam of light. She looked happy, almost serene, but for some reason Dev didn't like her being there.
Gice stepped forwards. "Doran, are you in here?"
As if in answer, there was a 'FFAUGLM!' noise. The air around them rippled and black waves of energy surged out at them, hitting everyone but Dev. His friends disappeared, disintegrated under the sheer force of the technique. The lights dimmed. He suddenly saw Doran again, floating in the air, an image of blue pixel-light.
"Now let's see how well you do on your own."
"Did you just kill my friends?" demanded Dev.
Doran raised an arm and the display screen changed. Now Che, Hyd and Mog were floating next to Joan.
"They are all dead. But don't worry. Death is not final in my world. They are in the Recycle Bin. They will not be irrevocably deleted unless someone empties it."
"You bring my friends back!"
"You like making this difficult, don't you? I remove all distractions and you'd still rather go on about someone else than talk to me." she turned around and started typing on an unseen computer, "Maybe I should just finish the job."
"What do you want, you evil ghost?" yelled Dev.
"I want full membership with administrative privileges and permanent accommodation." she said, "And I want my return from exile to be one of the top priorities of the community."
"You dragged me all the way to another world for this?" he bunched his fists up, "YOU'RE DEAD! HOW CAN I GIVE ADMINISTRATIVE PRIVILEGES AND ACCOMMODATION TO A CORPSE?"
"You've changed, Dev." she told him, "You're not the person who took me in all those years ago when I was an exile, lost and afraid. And its not just me. You don't care about any of us really, do you?"
"That's not true! I just don't have time to..."
"I think you want to keep it all for yourself." she said, "You're slowly withdrawing life support from us and shrinking the protective barriers. You're going to kill everyone in the same way that you let me die."
"You don't know anything about me!"
"You're wrong. I know enough to know that you aren't the same Dev I knew." her eyes narrowed, suddenly deadly serious, "If it wasn't for that, I would just delete you here and now."
"I'm not sure you're the same Doran." he said.
"I'm not the one on trial here." she snapped.
"I remember Doran." he continued, "Doran was a good person. She was friendly and wanted the best for people. I didn't know her well but she always seemed to be distant, like she was looking at something nobody else could see. If I'd known she was from another world, maybe I'd have understood that a little better. I remember when we were all getting drunk in the pub..."
"You... remember me?"
"We were too drunk to all get home so everyone stopped at my house and I made food because everyone else was too drunk..."
"You remember the old days?" He could see tears welling up in her eyes. He was remembering and he knew she was remembering too. A heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders and the room was filling up with light. He suddenly felt so exhausted. Exhausted but happy.
"I can't let you leave just yet." she said, "Because you'll just go back home and live as normal. I'll be stuck in this bin with nobody even to empty it and you'll let the server collapse. Let's sit and repent together, eh, almaty? Lament for the old days. Two exiles pining for our fuyodols. Companions in exile."
"When will I... when will we see our friends again?"
"When the event happens. It shouldn't be too long. I triggered it to happen in about ten minutes. Want to sit in the waiting room?"