Brave New Worlds

gardens. As they gently floated towards the lobby at the bottom of the shaft three well-built men, the kind who obviously trained their bodies up on the rim of the wheel, turned the corner.
    They carried stun guns. Non-lethal, but still menacing.
    Stanuel heard a click. Pepper held out a gun in each hand. Real guns, perfectly lethal.
    "I'd turn those off," Pepper said to the men, "and pass them over, and then no-one would get hurt. "
    They hesitated. But then the commanding voice of Pan filled the gardens. "Do as he says. And then escort him to me. "
    They looked at each other, unhappy, and tossed the guns over. Pepper threw them off into the trees. "You're escorting us?"
    The three unhappy security men nodded. "Pan says you have an electromagnetic pulse weapon. We're not to provoke you. "
    Stanuel bit his lip. It felt like a trap. These traitors were taking them into the maw of the beast, and Pepper, as far as he could see, looked cheerful about it. "It's a trap," he muttered.
    "Well of course it is," Pepper said. "But it's a good one that avoids us skulking about, getting dirtier, or having to shoot our way through. " the mercenary followed Pan's lackeys into the elevator. He turned and looked at Stanuel, hovering outside. "And Pan's right. I do have an E. M. P device. But if I trigger it this deep into the hub, I take out all your power generating capabilities and computer core systems. "
    "Really?" Stanuel was intrigued.
    Pepper held up a tiny metal tube with a button on the end. "If I get to the tower," Pepper said. "I can trigger it and take out Pan, while leaving the rest of the station unaffected. "
    Stanuel had weathered five days of his beloved Haven under the autocratic rule of Pan, the trickster.
    He'd travel with Pepper to see it end, he realized.
    He pulled himself into the elevator.

    For five days Haven's populace had a ruler, a single being whose word was law, whose thoughts were made policy. Pan stood in the center of the command console, its face lit by the light of a hundred screens and the reflections off the inner rim of Haven's great wheel.
    Pan wore a simple blue suit, had tan skin, brown eyes, and brown hair. His androgynous face and thin body meant that had he stood in a crowd of Haven's citizens, he would hardly have been noticed. He could be anybody, or everybody.
    He also flickered slightly as he turned.
    "My executioner and his companion. I'm delighted," Pan said. "If I could shake your hand, I would. " He gave a slight bow.
    Pepper returned it.
    Pan smiled. "I've been waiting for you two for quite a while. I apologize for sending the rover up the exhaust pipe. "
    Pepper shrugged. "No matter. So what now? I have something that can take you out, you have me surrounded by nasty surprises. . . "
    Pan folded its arms. "I don't do nasty surprises, Pepper. I'm not a monster, contrary to what Stanuel might say. You have an E. M. P device, and if you were to set it off further down the tower, you would shut all Haven down. True, I have backup capabilities that mitigate that, but your device presents a terrible risk to the well being of the citizenry. With the device and you up here, the only risk is to me. "
    An easy enough decision, Stanuel thought. Trigger the damn device! But Pepper glanced around the room, maybe seeing traps that Stanuel couldn't. "If you don't do nasty surprises, what stops me from zapping you out, right here, right now?"
    "I would like to make you an offer. If you'd listen. "
    Pepper's lips quirked. "I wouldn't be much of a mercenary if I just accepted the higher bid in the middle of the job. You don't get repeat work very often that way. "
    Pan held its hands up. "I understand. But consider this, I am, indirectly, the one who hired you. "
    Stanuel had to object. "the resistance. . . "
    "I run it," Pan smiled. "I know everything it does, who it hires, and in many cases, I give it the orders. "
    Stanuel felt like he'd been thrown into a freezing cold vat of water. He lost his breath. "What do you mean? You infiltrated it?" they had lost, even before they'd started.
    Pan turned to the mercenary. "Stanuel is bewildered, as are many, by what they created, Pepper. I'm merely the amalgamated avatar of the converged will of all the simulations made to run this colony. The voter simulations kept taking up energy, so the master processing program came up with a more elegant solution: me. Why run millions of emulators, when it could fuse them all into a single expression of its will