The Admin sat in a ferris wheel car, watching the ceiling draw closer. Next to him, Emmy watched the park drop away.
As far as he was concerned, Floor 93.5 was perfect. Something was bound to go wrong eventually, but at the moment it was good. Given that all the rides were packed out, everyone else seemed to think so, too.
“Hey, I have a question,” Emmy said slowly, turning to him. “I don’t know if you know, or if you can answer, but… where are all the kids?”
The Admin stiffened. He couldn’t answer.
“I mean, a lot of people died, right? That’s why we’re here, right?” she asked. “I… I think I remember drowning. If there was a tsunami, some kids must have died. And if kids died, they’d love to come to a theme park.”
He sighed. “Yeah. There’s a couple demographics I’m missing, if you look.”
“What… what happened?”
The Admin felt the car stop. They were three stops from the top. At the very top, someone over five feet tall could reach up and touch the ceiling.
“Calvin? Can you not answer?”
“Not supposed to,” he said softly, then looked at her. “Long story short, north-east of Hawaii there’s a new volcanic island. Umm, it kinda ripped the north-east corner of the Pacific tectonic plate away from the North American plate. Everything from the San Andreas fault to the end of the Alaskan Peninsula was yoinked seven feet in the direction of Hawaii. Earthquakes, tsunamis, fires, floods, freaky weather, all that jazz.”
She stared at him.
He coughed nervously, trying to fill the silence. "Technically there's a plate between those two, and it's... bigger now? Or something. One of the Admins was a geologist, and says the area that was revealed will be a great boon to the scientific community. As soon as, y'no, people stop dying and they can explore it."
Emmy watched him for a few seconds more, thinking. “How many died?”
“In the first two months? More than fifty million, less than seventy-five, then everything settled down. That’s all I know. About 80% were in the US and Canada. Souls are separated by native language, so I don’t know what happened to… the other 20%.”
“So…” She paused as the car started moving again. “Big crisis happened, lots of people died… Did you die, too?”
“No, I died about six years ago.”
“And you were chosen as an Admin because of your altruism and people skills,” Emmy guessed, smirking.
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He smiled. “One of the language options is JavaScript. I chose that, thinking it was funny, and got asked if I’d rather live in an RPG world or build an RPG world. Said build, and got put to work designing a new planet.”
“Ok,” she said, getting serious again. “So there was a big disaster, lots of people died, and…”
“There wasn’t enough room,” he said. “Everyone over the age of sixty-ish had a place ready and waiting. With a few outliers, most of them are already living their lives. For this event, since lots of families died at the same time, they kept them together and shoved them onto the planet with all the old souls. When the planet reached capacity, souls were separated into three categories: people with children under eighteen, people in committed relationships without children, and childless adults not in a relationship. I, as a relatively new coder with zero social skills, got given a share of the single people. I’ve never dealt with souls directly before.”
Emmy nodded as the car stopped. "What about people who died after that? We've been here a couple years, right?"
"I don't exactly know. I think a decent amount are being sent off to worlds that weren't affected as much, like... French world or Swahili world. But there are a couple minor dungeons where souls are being continuously placed."
“Why dungeons? Why not just put people to sleep?” she asked.
“Souls who sleep for long periods of time get…” He debated. “Freezer burn. They forget… Basically, keeping a soul asleep for longer than two months is how you get supervillains.”
“So this place is just stalling while the real world gets made?”
“While the real world gets finished, yeah. There are a couple other details; things we’re looking for in people. Leadership qualities and stuff so we can drop souls into a ready-to-go infrastructure framework. Usually worlds are started with small isolated communities, but this one will get cities and countries. Also, the admin who makes the best dungeon gets a promotion.”
She smiled faintly. “I hope you get it.”
He stood as the car began moving again, reaching for the ceiling. “If I got it, I’d be cut off from you.”
“I hope you don’t get it.”
The Admin shrugged. “At this point I’ll have all my memories erased and be shoved onto the world with everyone else.”
“Good.” Emmy’s smile dropped. “Hey, my brother was seventeen. What… are the odds that I’ll see him again?”
His fingers touched the ceiling. “Low. I can’t ask where he is; different set of Admins.”
She thought it over, frowning. “Will he be with my mom and stepdad, or my dad and his girlfriend? Or will my mom and dad be put together again?”
“For the record, I’m not telling you any of this,” he muttered. “I don’t know exactly how it works with minors. There’s a couple different age ranges that get asked different things. An actual person talks to them, so your brother will be asked about his parents and family life. Adults get a series of questions, like ‘do you have kids’ and ‘are you in a relationship’. If you say yes, then it asks you to type in names. If there’s a conflict, like two people not in a relationship claiming a kid, that gets flagged and an Admin pulls everyone together to sort it all out.”
“Mom would have said I’m her kid,” Emmy said. “I was 23, but I’m still her kid.”
“That’s expected and would have been ignored.” He sat down as the ceiling moved away. “If it’s any consolation, they probably don’t remember you exist. By the time we get to Cycle 100 you won’t be able to remember anything before Cycle 10. So you won’t remember them, either.”
“That’s… horrible.”
The Admin smiled bitterly. “Yes. Yes it is.”