London 2027

Believe me, you don't know how insecure your life is until you take a good hard look. You're just living then it all unravels. Things have changed markedly in my life. I’m now living in Gary Preston’s apartment in Hampstead, London. A place I could never afford on my wages, if I had any wages any more. But he feeds me and houses me and says it’s due to my fantastic personality. And as you might remember, when Miskatonic Games tested my personality way back at the start of this, it lit up their systems and they all wanted me to join their gang.

But I joined Preston’s, not through ever wanting to join up with anyone, but because it was the only solution if I wanted to keep what remained of my shredded sanity.

Right now, however, we’re not in Preston’s house overlooking leafy Hampstead Heath, in fact, we are in an obscure part of Outer London, whose location must remain secret. Kept secret because the game developers Miskatonic are after us, in and out of the game iself; in real London 2027 and in game London 1927. It's enough to send a man crazy, the things that come out of the code and creep inside your mind, but we are fighting back. We are the Paladins of the Order of the Light -- Ordo Lux Lucis in game. And the game of course is Darkworlds. Where we are now is a laboratory. It is funded by the Order of the Light and so I am guessing there must be some wealthy members, because equipment like this isn’t cheap.

The doctor here, John Whittaker is cutting off the top of a man’s skull with a circular saw. It’s just like a saw you might do some woodworking with, except it’s specialised for bone. Dr Whittaker has a lady doctor assistant, I didn’t catch her name, but she’s one of us too. I know she's pretty because I saw her before she put on her protective clothing, but now she’s wearing mask and goggles so the spray from the cadaver doesn’t get in her mouth and eyes, as Dr Whittaker gets busy with his saw. 

My guildmaster, Gary Preston is sitting next to me in his nice suit jacket and pants, shiny hand-made shoes and a Saville rowshirt. I’m wearing camo pattern cargo pants and an old Hawkwind t-shirt. We’re masked too, because we don't want a mouthful of cadaverine either 

The whine of diamond-edged steel cutting through bone sets my nerves on edge. Then as Dr Whittaker puts down his saw, there’s worse to come. He asks the pretty lady doctor to help, and together they lift off the top of the guy’s head. They didn’t bother to shave his head completely, so lank brown hair is pasted to the skull top as it comes off with a pop. That pop is nearly the worst thing I’ve experienced, but the worst thing actually is the stench.  My stomach heaves and I put the back of my hand to my mouth through the nylon mask.

I retch. ‘Jeez.’

Preston’s  got his hand to his mouth too, shaking his head, trying to recover. The doctors seem to used to it. They give us a minute. They may be smiling under their masks. Who can tell.  I don’t really want to look at what they've uncovered, but a deviant fascination pulls my eyes to what’s in the unfortunate man’s head.  ‘What the fuck is that in his brain?’

Preston holds up his hands. He wants to ask some more polite questions but Dr Whittaker nods to me. ‘Whatever he’s got in his head, I’m betting you have it in yours too.’

Involuntarily, my hand goes to my head and I try to scratch the itch deep inside. It’s been there for weeks now, since I started playing Darkworlds. And it seems to be getting worse.

Preston says, ‘So this guy is one of the Cold Ones?’

Whittaker nods. ‘Recovered from their dump in Walthamstow.’

I turn to Preston. ‘Miskatonic has a dump for their game casualties?’  The Cold Ones are those of us who are unfortunate enough to die in the game. Though becoming a ‘Cold One’, as Miskatonic call them, might be better than becoming a Warm One. The Warm Ones lose their Sanity in the game and then Miskatonic ships them to lunatic asylums, both inside and outside Darkworlds for research and power. It seems the entities inside the game run on the combined neural power of the Warm Ones as they slip, slide and stumble inside their crazy dreams.

He nods. ‘A big dump.’

Whittaker bends over the unfortunate man. With steel forceps he begins to move aside the slimy grey corrugated neo-cortex of the man’s brain. My eyes are once again drawn to the threads of wet silk that run through the grey matter. I gesture, ‘Surely, that can’t be normal.’

Dr Whittaker speaks through his mask. ‘Increasingly normal. These are threads of gamma-amyloid protein.’

‘English?’ Preston says.

Whittaker shrugs as if forced to explain the rules of cricket to a dog. ‘Beta-amyloid protein tangles are what causes Alzheimer’s disease. They disrupt brain connectivity by wrapping round pathways. But these aren’t tangles, they are organised.’

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‘You said “gamma-amlyoid” though,’ I say.

Whittaker’s voice changes tone as if I’m a promising pupil. ‘I did. Similar to Beta Amyloid but more fiibrillogenic due to the C-terminal extension that adds two additional hydrophobic amino acids.’

I nod slowly. ‘Good. I’m glad I asked.’

Whittaker continues, ‘But these gamma amyloids are not tangles, they are not accidental, everything points to them deliberately growing to infiltrate all major brain structures -- the amygdala, important because the amygdala is central to emotional response, especially fear; the cerebellum, which has motor functions; and the brain stem which controls functions basic to life, like being awake, maintaining blood pressure and respiratory function. In part anyway.’

Preston says, ‘So it’s the spread of this protein--’

‘--this network of proteins.’

‘Sure. This network of proteins. It’s that that turns people crazy?’

Whittaker shakes his head. ‘Not exactly, though I doubt it helps. The protein seems to be promoting the excretion of dopamine and serotonin and another neurotransmitter that seems quite novel. In any case, they are stimulating the D2 and S1 receptors and it’s those that are implicated in both auditory and visual hallucinations and also the growth of paranoid delusions.’

Preston sits back. ‘Hmm.’

Whittaker takes off his mask, revealing a surprisingly young face. He’s got reddish-brown hair and he only looks to be about thirty. His assistant takes off her mask and she really is pretty. Blonde and blue-eyes, but a strong, high cheek-boned face like she wouldn’t take any messing. Whittaker's smiling. ‘You won’t know this, but in my spare time I’m into communication systems. Electronics and such like.’

‘So neurosurgeon by day, radio nerd by night?’

‘Kind of. But I’m a neuropathologist really,’

‘Sorry?'

He jabs a finger towards the cold guy’s exposed brain without looking at it. ‘Thing is, that network looks like a control system.’

It’s Preston’s turn to talk. I don’t know how tight the Order of Light keeps its information, but it seems that what he’s about to reveal is news to Dr Whittaker.

Preston scratches his chin and begins, ‘So, we believe that the protein network is a receiving system and that its growth is enhanced by the wearing of Miskatonic’s neural nets.’

‘The ones you wear to play the game?’  the pretty young doctor asks. This is the first time she’s spoken. She has a nice voice. Light, but confident and clever.

‘Exactly. Probably also its growth is speeded up by the use of the Dreamland Inducer tablets that you take to get the full ‘realer than real’ experience from Darkworlds. It’s this network that seems to allow the entities in the game--’

I add, ‘--the so-called Great Old Ones.’

Preston frowns at my intervention, then continues. ‘--To begin to control people in real life.’

Whittaker scratches his head. ‘But we’re seeing the growth of these protein networks in people who’ve never played Darkworlds.’

Preston nods. ‘Yes, they are starting to inhabit wifi networks. So anyone who is in range of a wifi network is going to see the development of the proteins in their brains, just it’s faster when you wear a neural net.’

Whittaker slips his mask back on. ‘By the way, did you see this?’ He picks up a scalpel and taking it with his forceps casually cuts into the cadaver’s brain, going deeper as if to find the root of the protein strands. I stand up to get a better look. Peering into the brain to where he’s holding apart the glistening white and grey jelly, I see what looks like a pure white hen’s egg. He prods it with his forceps and it wobbles. ‘That’s the middle of it. That’s where it starts.’

‘Like it’s been implanted.’

Preston shakes his head. ‘Not planted. Seeded by things beyond our understanding.’

The lady doctor asks, ‘But what’s all this for?’

Preston’s face goes grim. ‘So they can take us all over, both inside and outside the game.’

Fifteen minutes later, we’re out of the path lab and sitting in the small kitchen area that the staff use. I don’t now if the Order of Light owns this whole place or whether we’ve just got people we trust here.

‘By the way, Adam, this is Dr Fell.’

The blonde woman nods and smiles. ‘Sally to my friends.’

We’ve got coffees now and the steam spirals up from my cup. I introduce myself. ‘Adam Harker.’ I'm very curious about these protein receivers in our brains. I say, ‘So the clever thing is not to play Darkworlds so you don’t get stuff growing in your head.’

Whittaker shakes his head. ‘Like I said before, it grows anyway, just quicker with the neural net headset and the tablets Miskatonic provide with the game pack.’

Preston says, ‘And in fact, the clever thing is actually to play Darkworlds. In fact it’s the only possible solution.’

‘Because?’  Sally asks, brushing her straight blonde hair from her forehead. Her eyes are light blue like Robin’s eggs. She has a dusting of freckles on her cheeks.

‘Because these entities don’t yet exist outside the game.’

‘Yet,’ I say.

He shrugs. ‘It’s a matter of time before they come out. They are already extending tendrils into the Interweb, but weakly so far. Darkworlds is their home. It’s in the Darkworlds code that they first came to sentience. They're still hiding in the trillions of lines of code. That’s their home.’

She's clever. ‘So the only way to combat them is to go and find them in the game?’

‘And beat them,’ Preston says. He smiles at me. ‘That’s our job. Your job.’

I've never really been a joiner. I'd always seen myself as a lone-wolf, but I know that without the support of Preston and the Order of Light, like Dr Fell and Dr Whittaker I stand no chance, and I'll go under. We'll all go under. I'm scared. These things have killed people, sent them mad. But I know I need to step up before it's all too late. I say, ‘But where do we start?’

‘In Paris. They have a research hospital there.’

‘How the hell am I going to get to Paris? I don’t even have access privileges to get into Central London and that’s only a few miles away. People like me aren’t allowed to travel across national borders.’

Preston shakes his head. ‘You’re misunderstanding me, Adam. I agree, it would be too difficult to get you into real inner Paris. But that’s not where they are anyway. They’re in the game.’

‘So where is the research hospital?’

‘We don’t know exactly.’

‘Okay.’

‘But it’s somewhere in Paris in 1927.’