Consciousness returned not with a gasp, but with the bland finality of a booting screen.
// SYSTEM_REBOOT_INITIATED...
// BOOT_SEQUENCE_COMPLETE.
// ERROR: No_Biological_Interface_Detected.
Noctar opened his eyes. Or, he willed the concept of having eyes to open. He was floating in a formless, grey void. A familiar synth track was still playing somewhere in the metaphysical distance. It was cut short by a dry, rattling cough.
"Finally. I was about to send a wake-up packet."
The voice was like gravel rolling over old bones. Noctar focused. In front of him sat a… creature. It was a skeleton, wearing a hoodie that somehow managed to look both ancient and comfortably worn. Where its eyes should have been, two pinpricks of cold, blue flame burned. In one bony hand, it held a universal remote pointed at a massive, flickering screen that hung in the void.
On the screen, in stunning HD 4K resolution, was his body. Or rather it was his former body. It was currently slumped over his keyboard in a pose that screamed "failed QA test." His eyes were wide and bloodshot, his face a lovely shade of puce. A thin trail of neon-blue Dragon-Punch dripped from his slack jaw.
The skeleton used the remote to zoom in on the face.
"A choke," it said, the blue flames in its sockets flaring with amusement. It turned its skull towards Noctar. "Really?"
The single word was dripping with so much condescending irony that Noctar felt it in a soul he currently didn't possess.
< Oh, for fuck's sake. A talking calcium deposit. Is this the cosmic IT department? Did I fucking bluescreen the afterlife? And yes, you spooky fuck, really. It was a very stressful day and clearly not meant for me. I'd just killed everyone. I hope this asshole doesn't expect a five-star review for this customer service experience.>
"First of all," the skeleton said, tapping the remote against its knee bone, "I am the God of Death. You can call me Mortis. Second, I can hear your thoughts you bloody twit. This is a judgment chamber, not a private therapy session. Your brain is connected to the main server. You can think of me as the admin."
Noctar, externally, remained perfectly still. His soul-form crossed its arms. "Where am I?"
"The loading screen," Mortis said, gesturing with the remote at the grey void. "The lobby before your next character select. Speaking of which..." He clicked a button.
The screen showing Noctar's corpse minimized, and a massive, spreadsheet-like interface bloomed into existence. It was titled KARMIC_LEDGER_v7.3. Billions of names scrolled past in a nanosecond before it locked onto one, highlighting it in a pulsating, angry red.
VILLE, NOCTAR
The number next to it wasn't just negative. It was a philosophical statement. It was a value so profoundly in the red it seemed to suck the light from the void around it.
Mortis let out a low whistle that sounded like wind through a crypt. His blue flames for eyes burning a tad brighter.
"Whoa. Okay. You didn't just break the system, you took a singularity bomb to the whole karmic economy. You've got the worst balance sheet since... the dinosaurs death by a meteorite and that was an act of God."
He scrolled through the attached log.
"Genocide, planetary-scale? Check. Theft of intellectual property? Pfft, negligible. But look at this, 'Gross Misuse of Genius-Level Intellect'? That's a major demerit. 'Unrepentant Attitude'? That's a multiplier."
Mortis clicked his tongue. "The standard package for your… demographic is a few cycles as a dung beetle or a slug. But for you? We need to make a statement. We need something poetic."
His bony finger scrolled through a list of options. "Ah. Perfect."The screen displayed a new entry:
// SOUL_REASSIGNMENT: SENTIENT_LANDFILL_#7341.
// SPECS: Eternal, conscious existence as a sentient mound of refuse on a hyper-industrialized world. Full sensory perception of decay, toxicity, and being slowly consumed by vermin.
Noctar looked at the screen. He looked at the smug, flaming sockets of the God of Death.
< A landfill. Great. So I go from being the trash of humanity to being literal trash. It's thematic. I can appreciate the narrative symmetry. At least it's quiet. No more bosses. No more demands. Just... garbage.>
He shrugged his soul-shoulders. "Fine."
Mortis's jaw actually dropped. The bone clacked audibly as it hit the divine judgment lobby floor. "...'Fine'? That's all you have to say? 'Fine'?"
"Will there be Wi-Fi?" Noctar asked, his tone flat.
"Wha—No! There won't be Wi-Fi! You'll be a sentient pile of plastic and rotting food!" Mortis said fixing his slightly loose jaw.
"Then it's a downgrade," Noctar said. "But acceptable. You may Proceed."
Mortis stared at him, utterly flummoxed. This was not how this was supposed to go. He recovered, straightening his robes with a huff. "Right! Well! Good! Let's get you compacted and shipped out—"
A sound tore through the void, the sound of a distorted guitar riff mixed with the screech of a dial-up modem connecting. The grey lobby was flooded with strobing, electric blue and gold lights .
"HOLD THE FUCKING PHONE, MORTIS!"
A new figure blasted into the space like a corrupted file forcing its way into a secure server. He was a glitch made flesh, flickering between a guy in a vintage // BYTE_ME // t-shirt and ripped jeans, and a being of pure, swirling data. Cables and fiber-optic threads snaked from his back, plugging directly into the fabric of the void.
The God of Death sighed, the sound of a thousand graves being dug. "Byte. I'm busy. Can't you see I'm mid-damnation?"
The God of Tech, Byte, ignored him completely. His eyes, glowing with the light of a dozen high-resolution monitors, were locked on Noctar.
"Is that him? It's him isn't it?! Noctar Ville!" Byte floated closer, peering at him. "The hack on the Planck Firewall! The recursive logic bomb you used on the global AI net! It was... beautiful. Brutal, inefficient and messy as hell, but beautiful nonetheless! It had style!"
Noctar stared back, unimpressed.
Byte turned to Death, gesturing excitedly. "You can't trash him, Morty! He's a national treasure! A one-of-a-kind legacy code! I'm invoking Divine Right of Salvage. This one's mine. He's my new envoy."
Mortis massaged the space between his eye sockets. "He's a planetary-scale war criminal, Byte!"
"Pfft. Semantics! He's a problem-solver! And I have a very big problem."
Noctar looked between the two bickering deities. A sliver of something that wasn't hope, but calculation, ignited within him.
The cold fire he'd felt in life flared in his soul. The vow solidified. He was never going to be a slave again.
"No."