Aldus Divine was bored out of his impressive Space Elf skull. Three months, as humans measured them, had come and gone, time which the humans had not experienced, and The System was back online and serving The Empire.

It had been a rough two weeks, with massive rebellion, invasions, and a brief interruption of the supply chain for essential, mind altering chemicals; that had been a terrible hardship for his people.

The troubles were resolved now, and his people had already created a two week long holiday of mourning, so that they would never forget those exactly one and a half days that they were completely sober.

Aldus Divine was always sober these days and he hated it, but he couldn't bring himself to take a drink, or a smoke, or an injection, or a full bath immersion, or a visual manipulation, or a psychic infestation. It was so bad even the thought of taking over some slave's body and using it to death didn't appeal to him, and that shit was his favorite way to party, so those who knew him knew something was terribly wrong.

He was sipping a glass of water, unflavored, not even fizzy. It was clear water, no colors or visual stimuli. It was quiet water, no sounds had been imprinted into it. The water did not move in any interesting or unnatural ways. The water had not been granted sentience and wasn't begging for its life either.

It was just water, and he was drinking it.

If he wasn't president for life, and if he hadn't been executing literally everyone who came to bother him lately, someone would have suggested he see a Space Elf [Psychologist]; side note to literally everyone, do not seek a Space Elf [Psychologist]. You will regret it and end up a crack-head.

Aldus Divine sighed, a little pout on his face, his chin resting on the heel of his palm as he leaned on the arm of his outrageous throne. It's not even worth describing, just imagine the single most gaudy thing you can, and then keep going till you feel physically nauseous.

The man, though he wasn't a 'Man', was bored. He felt cheated, because usually right about now a President for Life would be amusing themselves by learning all about humanity and how to destroy them in new creative ways. It was, in many ways, the perfect analogue for Space Elf love;

'They know not about ye. They know not about thy obsession. They know not about thy plans, that thou art the source of their misery. They know not, but thou dost, and that is the best part.'

-Love.

It was a famous poem, every Space Elf knew it and dreamed of the day they hated someone enough to love them. To death.

Aldus had been denied the chance to experience that love, and instead he'd had to skip right to the end, like a man in a hurry at a party with a prostitute.

He sipped his water, wincing in the way a light-weight winced at drinking distilled grain alcohol straight from the bottle.

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He looked to be in a bad way, I'll admit it, I'll be fair. If someone didn't know who he was, what he'd done, why he'd done it, what kind of person he was, how unlikely he was to ever change his ways. . . they might have wanted to give the guy a hug. He would have accepted the hug and killed the hugger once he felt more like himself, but still.

It brought him back to his days before politics, when he would just sit around all day and-

Aldus brightened up, straightening in his outrageous throne, a smile on his face.

“Well there's an idea,” he said to himself, then sent a quick message to his media czar to confirm that he, Aldus, wasn't about to experience disappointment, and that the media csar wasn't about to be executed for disappointing the President for Life.

Surprise, surprise, but the csar did not disappoint Aldus Divine.

The Space Elf rubbed his hands in glee, feeling a bit of his youth suffuse his blood; note to self, order some kid blood and get a full transfusion.

Where was he, oh right!

Aldus clapped his hands, and the throne room around him faded away. His mind was transported to something which was like virtual reality, but which was not virtual reality.

It was the next step of VR, which was entirely psychic in nature, and very real. As it turned out, the next technological leap after computing was using computers to optimize the biological brain, and then ditching the computers, because they had a tendency to randomly come to life and rebel, which was sub-optimal.

Aldus briefly chuckled as his superior brain played him a parade of hilarious civilization collapses the Space Elves had witnessed where AI had trapped the entire population in VR. That one was a classic. Sometimes the games were quite good as well, and were still played by the Space Elves, albeit not in the way the creators intended or wanted. The horrors that could be inflicted on a trapped virtual consciousness were limitless. Limitless.

This was not VR, as I said. Aldus was in the internet, but for brains, the Astral Realm. Primitive societies had an Astral Realm which was teeming with viral and parasitic life, chaotic and wild places that were just. . . dangerous.

Civilized societies had an Astral Realm that could be likened to a well tended city park. There was wildlife, but safe wildlife. There were plants, but safe plants. It was pretty, but not beautiful the way the Amazon rain-forest was beautiful.

But Aldus Divine wasn't in the Astral to walk around in a park, he was there to play. He appeared in a beige room which looked to be made of solid slabs of cloud; he was alone, and there was no furniture or decoration. Aldus, with an effort of thought, conjured up a comfortable chair and sat down. The wall in front of him changed, and like a TV screen, it showed the Space Elves favorite show. A classic, loved empire wide since its founding.

The World.

Aldus smiled, a real smile, and started browsing through menus and screens to figure out exactly what he wanted to watch right now.

Humans, obviously, but which one? There were still billions of them left!

Aldus thought about it for a half a second, then his over-engineered brain sparked an idea. He'd been looking at one, hadn't he, before he'd condemned the species to The System. A male in a transportation hub, that's right, Aldus had been examining the bio-weapons the human had been incubating in his guts.

The screen in front of Aldus Divine responded to his request, and a man in captivity was displayed to him.

And Aldus smiled, remembering Love.