Freedom TM

came to a colorful glow surrounding a virtual portal. He killed the Ducati’s engine, dismounted, and walked toward the portal. The metal cleats on his calf-high black boots rang menacingly as he walked across the gravel in the echoing tunnel. He soon stopped before an alcove in the tunnel wall.
    In real-world, three-dimensional space, this was just a dark stone archway over an alcove—a place for railroad workers to shelter against oncoming trains. But on the base layer of D-Space, laid atop the GPS grid, this was also a gate between worlds. In this case between D-Space and one of Sobol’s game worlds—
Over the Rhine
, a World War Two–themed online game. It was here where a level map Loki knew well intersected with D-Space. As he looked ahead of him, he could see projected onto reality a view into the Monte Cassino game map through a spiked and studded virtual portcullis.
    There, standing behind the bars, was an old opponent—Herr Oberstleutnant, Heinrich Boerner, the infamous virtual SS officer in a long trench coat, with an Iron Cross hanging at his throat from the stiff collar of his tunic.
    He was just a game bot. An electronic figment of the game designer Matthew Sobol’s imagination, but even so, the villainous Boerner was deviously clever. While playing Sobol’s game, Loki had been virtually killed by this bot more times than he’d care to remember. And now here Boerner stood.
    As always, Boerner wore a monocle over his right eye and heclenched a long black cigarette filter between his teeth, exhaling volumetric smoke as he nodded in greetings—his voice coming over Loki’s earpiece. “
Mein Herr
. So gut to see you again.”
    Ever since he reached fiftieth level, Loki had been receiving darknet messages from an AI claiming to be Boerner. While he initially ignored them, they had become more persistent. As Loki’s reputation score continued its decline, Boerner’s messages became more relentless. Loki recalled what a comforting refuge the game
Over the Rhine
had been for him during difficult times. In some sick way, Boerner was almost like an old friend. An old friend who had killed him thousands of times.
    “What do you want, Boerner?”
    “Ah, you haf done vell for yourself, I see.”
    “You don’t see shit. Your eyes are bitmaps. Get to the point.”
    “Mein Freund, I can only understant simple concepts.”
    Loki simplified. “Why did you contact me, you fuck?”
    “Vy?” He spread his hands expansively. “Because ve are kindred spirits, you und I.”
    “You’re a 3-D model with a scripted psychosis. You’re nothing to me.”
    “I cannot understant you.” Boerner wrapped his gloved hands around the bars—his fingers becoming suddenly much more real as they extended out into D-Space. “But your tone sounded … unfriendly. Is zis vy you are so unpopular?”
    “Fuck you.”
    Boerner laughed his familiar, evil cackle. “Yes. I think so. But they do not understant you as I do. Perhaps I can be of some use to you in your vorlt?”
    Loki felt suddenly concerned. He remembered just how devious Heinrich Boerner was. “
My
world?”
    “D-Space, Mein Herr. You could free me from zis tiny vorlt. I could serf you, Mein Herr. If only you vould release me.”
    Loki stopped cold.
Seriously?
The sociopathic Boerner AI was asking Loki to bring him into D-Space—and thus, into a world where he might be able to control real-world machinery and software? Not likely. “Fuck off.”
    Boerner paused for a moment, then grinned, teeth still clenched around his cigarette filter. “Mein Herr, you are all alone in your vorlt. Your mechanical servants, just stupid beasts. They can be destroyed. But I cannot. I vill always be zer for you. To protect you. To vatch over you.”
    “Bullshit. You’ve shot me in the back more times than I care to count.”
    “Loki—may I call you Loki?”
    Loki realized that the AI was only scanning his responses for keywords, so he stopped speaking in full sentences, opting instead for simplicity. “Why me?”
    “Because only vun as powerful as you can free me.”
    Loki knew it would require a powerful
Gate
spell to bring Boerner into D-Space. He’d looked into it, and he had the spell stored in his listing. He wondered why he’d done that. Was it Sobol’s manipulation again?
    Loki examined the digital Nazi’s subtle, scripted movements, swaying in place, drawing on his cigarette, and exhaling digital smoke. But Loki knew that whatever AI construct was