It was a tight spot where I ended up in Hew's car, squeezed between Mike and Matt with a huge pack of food in my arms. His jeep was for only four people, and I was sitting between the two seats on a small pseudo table.

"Are you okay there?" - Hew asked from the driver's seat.

I nodded.

"Where are your shoes?" - Matt asked with a raised eyebrow looking at my bare feet.

I shrugged:

“In your bathroom. Your mother insisted on washing my socks too...”

He rolled his eyes.

Hew chuckled: “Did she spill that coffee all over you?”

“Yeah. And it was already sweetened!” - I snorted - “Who does that?”

Matt tried to defend his mother:

“We don't have a coffee machine; ma brews her coffee with the sugar in it from the beginning. She says it tastes much better this way.”

I rolled my eyes as they laughed over my misfortune.

Matt tried to comfort me: “Everything should be dry by the time we get back."

I shrugged: "Where are we going?"

Mike explained, "Hew's parents have a cabin in the mountains about 17 miles from here."

That took me a bit by surprise: “In the mountains?”

"It's not really far. It's a shack in the forest at the foot of the mountains,” – Hew explained as he drove – “it's a pretty quiet place,” – he shrugged – “the best place to practice. Nobody for miles around! The cabin is basically empty; it hasn't been used over the winter. Good thing you picked up the food; we might need it if we get hungry!”

I nodded, satisfied.

“Hey, Lores? I heard you have a character in Mephisto! Is that true?” - Mike grinned inquiringly.

“Lores?” - I wondered, raising a brow

"Ahem!" - Tom chimed in from the front seat.

He got that seat being the tallest and needing legroom, which I envied him for. For the legroom, obviously not for being the tallest. Once he got my attention, he continued:

"Since you were in disguise at the show, we thought we wouldn't use your name to keep the suspense a little longer, so we talked about Lores and not Dolores..."

I shrugged and smiled back. The new nickname didn't sound bad. I hate it when people call me Doll... unless Joe does it.

“It's okay; thanks for baptizing me. I have a character in Mephisto; why do you ask?”

“We haven't agreed on a family name for your alias. Lores who? So Tom proposed to use your Mephisto title. What's your title there? Freeman? Swashbuckler? Lores Freeman? Eh?”

“Ahm. Do you mean the military title? It is warlord, and no, that's a title, not a name.”

“Looool! Don't tell me you are a warlord!! Is that not almost impossible to get? Lol, Lores Warlord!”

I protested: "No, no, no!"

“Let's name her Lores Doomlord? She doomed Matt already.”

Matt snorted: “Not funny, Hew!”

“Yeah, but you have to be back home in a couple of hours. You are doomed! Lol”

I ignored Hew teasing Matt and answered Mike's question:

“It's difficult but not impossible. Do you also play Mephi?”

“Sure. Everybody did. Our characters are twenty-something, but the game is unfortunately gone.”

“Gone? You don't think they'll fix it?”

Mike, sitting right of me, shook his head:

“No. It cannot be fixed.”

Now, this is getting interesting!

“Why do you say that?” - I wondered.

“Oh, well,” - Mike sighed - “I suppose it is not such a big secret anymore.”

“Secret?”

Tom raised a brow: “Don't tell me this has something to do with your father?”

“Why?” - I wondered

Matt explained from my left: “Mike's father is some big number in the army.”

“Oh. What has the army to do with the game?”

The car engaged on a shady forest road and shook us badly. I was repeatedly sandwiched between the two.

“Well, it does!” - Mike said - “Let me explain. We all know Mephisto's game is the core around which Dreamland was built. More than ten years ago, there had been that big crowd-sourced project to build a world based on Thorwal's book.”

Hew wondered: “Do you have to start with the beginning?”

He was driving now slower, the road slithering between trees.

Mike nodded:

“Yes. At the time, we had the first real AI programmes and a lot of Mephisto's world programming was done by newly conceived AI. It was the greatest project of the time. I don't know if there has been any greater project since then.”

Tom shook his head: “No, it has not been, but come to the point!”

"Well, the core has been fully coded and compiled by AI. On a funny note, not everyone knows that much of the rest of the project was controlled by AI, including buildings, server rooms, and connections. Crowdfunding has enabled a lot! That's why we have that strange architecture there.” - he shrugged - “One still can visit the core server area. Well, whatever, the problem is that we cannot duplicate or fix the core programs.”

Tom snorted:

“You want to tell me that ten years old technology is still the creme de la creme, and we cannot even update it? There have been many updates to Mephisto's world. We've made a lot of progress in AI programming too! Whoever sold you that theory was making fun of you! There are various other implementations of Mephisto's world!”

Mike shook his head:

“No. Listen. You know that there are a lot of spin-offs and alternative versions, versions designed for children and so on, but none works as perfectly as the good old original, isn't it? The old hardcore version is still unparalleled! I am talking about the core programs that run the events and run the whole world. What you have seen as updates were only the interfaces between that core and the dream interface itself. Let me ask you one question: Why has there been no story update or change in the hardcore version? It just goes on and on; even the characters age, there's no reset, no updating of the world!”

Interesting, that is true, but...

Matt wondered:

“Now that you say it, yes, true, but was that not a gag? A marketing thing?”

“No. It was a well-kept secret, and they've been trying to figure out how it works ever since. They still don't understand it in full! For instance, how did AI eliminate the lag problem? The hardcore version is the only one that has it completely eliminated. There can be no inconsistency there caused by lags. Why and how does it work?”

There were a couple of moments of silence. In the end, Hew asked:

“How can that be? How can old technology be better?”

Mike shrugged.

“You know, a lot of people talk about the singularity that computers will bring when artificial intelligence overtakes us. Other people say it already happened. Well, when was the last time a human could beat a computer in chess? Long ago. It is history. Mephisto's world was a singularity. The problem is, it is still working, but some functions went bust.”

"OK, not so perfect after all! So the AI made a programming blunder after all! Good to see that they are not unfailing!”

We arrived, Hew parked the car, and now we had to walk about one hundred meters up the hill to the cabin. Mike sighed and explained further:

“No. It is actually working as designed. I mean, the program itself works, and the world itself works, but some functions added to it no longer work. You know we had those saints introduced to make resurrections. Those are additions to Thorwal's book. Some events happened inside it that disabled those functions, and we have no control over it to re-enable them. The resurrection does not work because of it. Somebody destroyed the things that were supporting it. Children's protection does not work anymore, and it cannot be enforced. Main NPC resurrection was not working for some time.”

“And they gave up on it because of that? What if they recompile the whole set from the beginning?”

“And reset the whole world? They even tried that, as stupid as it sounds. It does not work; nobody understands why. Even upgraded and more modern AI are not able to tackle it.”

“Uh, I can see why they are keeping that secret, but how can that be? How can technology be lost?”

“Well, just search lost technologies on the internet, and you'll see there are some very recent, even from the moon landing there are lost technologies. Shit happens!”

“Fuck. Don't come with the moon landing now!” - protested Hew

Mike shrugged. I was watching him attentively. Can this be true?

“So you say all that was updated was only the interface? Was the core always the same? I mean, the NPCs were always like this? So real like?”

“I think that it depends a lot on the point of view, on how you see them. If what you see is a cartoon, you think that they are cartoon characters. I don't know all the details. All I know is that nobody understands how to change back the functions that have been modified. That is one problem, but there is also a second problem. It seems that the core program can somehow infect the human brain.”

“Infect human brains?”

“Now, this should remain between us” - Mike looked around. It was obvious that he was not comfortable with sharing this information, but we were in the middle of the woods - “All I know is that it has some relationship with Bounty County. Those guys over there don't think straight anymore.”

“Oh.”

“Probably once the evacuation is completed, that zone will be cleaned up by the army.”

Tom was taken aback:

“You mean the terrorists? Were they not negotiating with them? No hope of closing the negotiations? The infection story is new to me...”

“Look, there is a lot I do not know, and my father does not tell me. All he told me some time ago was to not play Mephi anymore, and when I asked why he told me about infection and Bounty County, but maybe he just told me that... I don't know why...” - he sighed - “The point is that the game will not come back.”

Matt shrugged: “Well, sounds like the end of an era...”

Hew asked: "So, we stay with Lores Doomlord?"

Matt shook his head.

"No. The band's name is Fata Morgana; Lores Morgana sounds better."

"Lores Doomlord Morgana..."

"Hew..."

We arrived in front of the cabin. It had one big room, a kitchen, a bathroom and a huge terrace.