An indeterminable amount of time passed while Toby waited. There was nothing to see in any direction except an infinitely receding featureless floor, and a gray monotone expanse above. Trying to make sense of the situation seemed futile, but Toby couldn't help the thoughts churning through his mind.

Suddenly a voice from behind startled him out of his contemplation's. "Hello USR-14B129B555A7933".

Toby spun around to see who was there. A short distance behind him stood a cute blue-eyed girl with thick long blonde hair. She was wearing a simple blue dress that went to just above her knees. On top of her dress, she was wearing a white apron matching her white knee socks and black shoes.

Toby did a double take when he noticed she had an impossibly fair skin tone and rosy cheeks. It seemed to be taken straight out of a fairy tale.

"I'm administrator ADM-13B9584A5." "You may call me Alice," She proclaimed.

"H.. h... Hello." Toby stammered, "I'm Toby." A quick notification passed through his mind, almost too fast to read.

User:

New alias accepted.

USR-14B129B555A7933 is now known as Toby.

"Good to meet you, Toby." “I'm sorry it took a little while to come find you, but I was busy elsewhere when the system gave me the quest.”

“Thank you for coming! I guess.” Toby answered. “Where am I exactly? Is this a Dream.... or have I passed away and this is the afterlife?”

“Patience Toby. I'll explain all in due time” She stopped him before he could ask any more questions.

Alice seemed to watch something in the air between them for a couple of seconds, then a box appeared in Toby's mind giving him a prompt:

Administrator Alice has requested that you join her in a suitable environment for resolving the current situation, Do you accept? Yes No

“It's better to be somewhere to talk than to stand around in the Nowhere,” Alice explained. Just hit the accept button and off we go.

Toby looked at her in confusion. How did he do that? The request box was in his mind after all, and he didn't have any hands in his mind to push buttons with.

“Ah. I forgot that newbies don't know how to use the System,” Alice sighed. “Just focus on the choice you want and the System will respond.”

Deciding to trust her for now, Toby tried to choose yes with his mind. As soon as he did, the yes button lighted up and the box disappeared.

Walls and a roof coalesced out of the emptiness around them.

From below a pair of rustic looking chairs rose up just beneath them, bumping the back of Toby's knees so he ended up sitting down.

A table with a pair of old-style teacups and a steaming kettle appeared between them before he had time to start standing up again. From the walls emerged clocks of all types and shapes, as well as pictures of characters Toby recognized as part of Alice in Wonderland.

Shaking his head to clear his confusion about it all Toby looked over at the strange girl with wide eyes. She really did look like The Alice, He was half expecting the Mad hatter to pop in for tea at any second now.

“Your people must be very creative” Alice commented. “This is a rather interesting place”.

“W.. w.. what is this?” Toby stuttered. “I really have gone insane haven't I?”

“No, you haven't,” Alice replied.

"This is just a place the system has generated based on your people's culture,” She continued. “It's meant to make the first contact easier.”

“Easier?” Toby spluttered.

“Yes. The idea is that by letting the user see something recognizable, but different, it will make accepting reality easier.” She answered.

“Accepting reality easier?” Toby felt nauseous. “This is most certainly not real.”

“That is the point,” she countered and accepted a floating cup of steaming hot tea from the table.

“you see. this isn't reality, it's virtual reality,” she said before taking a sip.

“Mmm. Good stuff this hot drink thing. Whatever it is.”

“It's tea.” Toby replied in a daze“. “What happened to the real me?” “Or has it all been a lie all along?” Toby could feel a cold chill going down his spine while asking these questions.

“Up until 5 minutes ago in the real universe, you existed along with all the other people of your species,” She explained patiently. “Then your world ended.”

Alice's last statement shocked Toby's mind into clarity like a bucket of cold water on a hot summer day. “What do you mean ended?” “You can't simply miss out on your world ending”.

“Well... you didn't it seems,” Alice replied, “but most of the rest of your people did.” “They are still living blissfully on the copy we made just as it went under.”

“The system is quite good at this, nobody suffered at all,” she continued. “Normally it takes a few rounds of reincarnations before anyone new is promoted through.”

“Good at this?” Toby felt the heat rise to his face “you mean you are good at destroying entire worlds?”

Balling his fist he continued on “Good at kidnapping an entire planet's worth of people?”

Heart hammering as if trying to break out of his chest he almost roared. “What the hell is wrong with you people.”

Regarding his outburst coldly she responded. “The end wasn't as dramatic as your people would have been imagining it.” “there wasn't any demons, wars, or monsters involved.”

“The world just passed silently into the night while you all woke up in that simulation you fled from.”

Her eyes narrowed with a dangerous glint, forcing Toby to recoil back into his seat a bit. “No, The system copied you into its virtual space in order to save yourselves from your own stupidity.”

"According to the information that it has given me. That planet had less than 200 years to go at the rate you lot was abusing it, but it seemed the system had to rush the end because one of your idiot leaders was pressing down on the big old red button warlike species like yours tend to like so much.”

“The world would have ended that day anyway.”

Alice waved her spoon at Toby as it was a teachers wand before continuing, “Apart from you, all of your people still think the world is just fine, their lives suddenly having made some turns for the better in many cases,” she finished.

“What do you mean, still think the world is fine? We couldn't fail to notice something like that. That's just not possible.” Toby's mind was rejecting the whole idea. It was just too implausible.

“We uploaded the minds of every single human on the planet and put them into simulated replicas of their old lives.”

“Earth was then consumed by self-replicating machines in order to produce the quantum computers responsible for running the simulation.”

Alice stirred her tea for a second before continuing.

“The System had this well prepared in advance you know. It even tried to make sure the transition would go as smoothly as possible”.

“It's good that it did, we didn't need a repeat of the Thetan fiasco... That got ugly so fast,” she mumbled, barely audible

“We got a flood of damaged minds from that debacle.”

Her innocent appearance really didn't fit her demeanor Toby mused. Thetan event, damaged minds. It all sounded like some kind of galactic super-villain story.

Ignoring his vacant stare, Alice continued on. “As part of easing the transition, we are allowing everyone to live out their original lives comfortably.”

“We've found that introducing new minds to the system is far easier if they start out thinking that they have died and gone to whatever afterlife they believe in.”

A plate of cookies appeared on the table, and Alice proceeded to take one and wave it around while talking “A lot of minds can't deal with the truth, so they have to get cycled back into virtual worlds in a kind of reincarnation cycle.”

While Alice munched her cookie Toby tried to reconcile what she was telling him. It was too much. The world has ended, everyone uploaded to a virtual reality system. It was just too much at once for him to absorb.

Toby tried shaking his head to clear his mind. “What happens now?” He asked. “What is going to happen to me from now on?”.