Babbage sat and kept very still. He had that feeling again, when you know something big is about to hit you and all you can do is wait and try to ride it out.

“We’ve been monitoring your progress, Charles, and I must admit I’ve been rather impressed.”

Charles? That was a first. And compliments. This was going to be bad, just get it over with.

“The answers will come, just be patient. Allow me to explain.”

Babbage sat in his seat and quietly dripped.

“You know in the past we’ve made an effort to keep things very … regimented here, when you visit us. Give off the impression of a controlled environment. Professional. Virtual. Take Wendy for example.”

The captain gestured to the door.

“Always the same dress, always the same lines. Just like a machine. Of course, we rely somewhat on prior expectations. You provide them, we try and live up to them.”

The water pooling at his feet seemed to drop sharply in temperature. Here it comes.

“The end result is that you believe this to be a virtual environment. The flipside being that outside of here is reality. The interesting question is that for someone of your… upbringing, shall we say? For someone like you, what constitutes reality anyway?”

Babbage tapped his foot in the puddle and finally looked up.

“This is real, all of this.” It wasn’t a question.

“Correct. These little side trips of yours, ports out of the city into my office. They’ve been seen as small slices of the virtual in a complicated reality, when the truth is exactly the reverse.”

It was true, he felt that uncomfortable surge up his spine that always appeared when the veil had been ripped back.

“You can accept this because you already knew it to be true. You’ve glimpsed the history of your virtual universe, you’ve seen what some users are capable of within its limits. Were capable of, I should say. We’d like to think we snuffed out such threats a long time ago. Obviously such troublemakers still appear once in a while, which is where you come in handy.”

“To hunt them for you.”

“Precisely Charles. You have a knack for finding the truth, no matter how hidden or twisted it may be. It’s increasingly difficult to find men like you these days. We simply don’t design them anymore.”

Design. He was code, a program used to chase down rogue users in a virtual universe for his masters out here in reality. He was nothing more than software.

“Come come, Babbage, don’t be so hard on yourself. Many would disagree with your basic assumptions, perhaps most of all the man who designed you in the first place. The Boulevard is a far more interesting place these days than anywhere off it. Everyone spends at least a few hours each day under its spell. Only the old guard like myself still cling to the clear separation between it and the world outside anymore. To be honest I can see their point, I just have a hard time changing definitions at this age. Call me stubborn.”

The man who designed me? Babbage caught a glimpse again, a flash of a hunched figure in a bar.

“Why?”

“Why are we telling you all this now? As I said, you knew all of this already, really, you just couldn’t bring yourself to face the facts. We’re all stubborn in our own little ways. This is the push off the cliff needed before the final meeting. You’re getting close to our goal. Understanding could make the difference between success and failure.”

Babbage dropped his head and stared at his feet. What was he seeing, really? Could any sense be trusted anymore? A flash of intuition ran through him.

“The Grid. This is about the Grid. You’re worried about it.”

The captain leant forward and rested his hands very precisely on the desk in front of him.

“You see this, this is what concerns me. I find these moments very disturbing Babbage. Independent thought. Connections made, links felt. Such talents are the domain of conscious beings, Babbage. Of course such moments are precisely why you are so useful to us. You survive because of this usefulness Babbage, never forget that.”

For a cold moment the captain stared at Babbage, stared into him, at all the future possibilities.

“Yes, this is about the Grid. We all have bosses, Babbage, those who have power over us. These bosses of mine become concerned when something they can’t control threatens their existence. That’s where you come in.”