The ancient fellow nodded, withered dewlaps dangled, turkey fashion.

Kelly's composure was remarkable. 'Where is Shibboleth?' she asked.

'The bad boy who entered before you? He is no longer part of the game.'

'Game?' Kelly looked down at the oldster. There was something familiar about him. She'd seen that face before, somewhere. But younger. Oh yes, of course.

'Mr Remington Mute,' said Kelly Anna Sirjan.

'Kelly Anna Sirjan,' said Mr Remington Mute.

Kelly approached Mr Mute. 'I have much to say to you,' she said.

'I trust you also have much to ask me, little dear. Aren't you puzzled as to your whereabouts?'

Kelly managed a smile. 'I didn't know what to expect,' she said. 'But I didn't expect that whatever it was would be real. I thought perhaps some simulation of a cathedral with a great Net-serving computer system up on the high altar.'

'That's a bit old hat,' said Remington Mute. 'And I should know, I wear an old hat myself.'

'And are you real?' Kelly asked. 'If I were to reach out and punch your old face, would you dissolve, or would you hit the deck?'

'I fear that I'd hit the deck,' said Remington Mute. 'But I wouldn't recommend that you employ your Dimac, you are in my world now.'

'And are you happy in your world, Mr Mute?'

The ancient stretched out his arms. Hideous joint-cracking sounds issued from them. 'No,' said Remington Mute. 'Things have not gone quite as well as I might have wished.'

Kelly stood, swaying gently upon her holistic footwear. Somehow this didn't seem the time for a cosy chat. This seemed the time for action. Although exactly what that action should be, she didn't know.

'Raring to go, aren't you?' said Remington Mute. 'Do you want me to set you off running? I could give you something to fight.'

'Where is Shibboleth?' Kelly asked. 'What have you done with him?'

'Would finding Shibboleth be good for a goal? Could we make a game out of that, do you think? You as a warrior princess with a sacred sword, or perhaps you'd rather be a ninja?'

'So that's it then,' said Kelly. 'I'm inside your go mango game.'

'Or go womango?' Remington Mute laughed noisily, the sound resembling that of pebbles being shaken in an old tin can. 'You're not inside go mango, or rather go mango is not inside you.'

'Then I can leave here, if I choose?'

Remington Mute shrugged his old and rounded shoulders. 'I suppose you could try to leave,' he said. 'But why would you want to? You still believe that in some way you can stop this thing. You do believe that, don't you?'

'I don't know,' said Kelly.

'Perhaps you could just switch it off? Pull out its plug.'

'Perhaps, if I knew where the plug is.'

'Should we make a game of that, then? Basic platform, ascend to the uppermost level, enter the inner sanctum, locate the golden key?'

'I won't play any of your stupid games.'

'Stupid games?' The old man raised a snowy eyebrow. 'My games may be crass, but they're never stupid. And for someone such as yourself, who has been playing for so long and are so near to winning, it would be a shame if you quit the game now.'

'Explain,' said Kelly.

'Everything has led you here,' said Remington Mute. 'Everything you have ever done throughout all of your short little life has led you to this moment.'

'Explain a bit more,' said Kelly.

Remington Mute examined the palms of her hands. 'I created you,' he said.

'You did whatT

'Well, not just you. There's a lot of little yous about. But most of them fell by the wayside. They used up their energy and they lost their lives. You're my final hope, Kelly.'

'What are you talking about?' Kelly swayed forward. There was something about Remington Mute that she hated intensely. Well, there was everything really. He had created the Mute-chip, he was responsible for it all.

'Please hear me out,' said Remington Mute. 'If, when you've heard what I have to say, you decide to kill me, then I'll understand. In fact I welcome it. There is little enough of me left in this world anyway.'

'Say what you have to say,' said Kelly, sitting herself onto the bench next to Remington Mute.

'Some of it you know. But most of it you don't. You have me down as Mute the unspeakable, mad scientist creator of the evil Mute-chip that gave computer systems sentience and turned them into the enemy of mankind. Created the terrible, unseeable, all-knowing It, that networks the planet, encircles the globe, like a great black spider's web.'

'So far you're right on the button,' said Kelly.

'It's almost true,' said Remington Mute. 'But as with most things that are almost true, it's false. I didn't bring this thing to life, because it isn't alive.'

Kelly said nothing, because she had nothing to say.

'The game,' said Remington Mute. 'The go mango game has been running for a lot longer than you might imagine. It went online in the late 1970s. The first players were bright young men, yuppies they were called. They were the whiz-kids of the City. They loved a computer, those boys. They were fun to play, but the game was a hard one and most of them came to grief.'

Kelly shook her golden head. She had something to say now, and it was, 'I don't understand. How did it go online? Was this because of the Mute-chip?'

'There is no Mute-chip,' said Remington Mute. 'There never was. The Mute-chip is a Web Myth. Ultimately this has nothing to do with technology, this is all to do with evolution. No, don't speak, let me tell you. Whatever knows most, and knows how to exploit its knowledge to its own betterment, wins the race for existence, becomes top of the food chain. Mankind evolved, it adapted, it created, it became number one. What would have happened if man had never invented the wheel?'

'I'd be walking around in far more comfortable footwear,' said Kelly.

'I used to know Hugo Rune,' said Remington Mute. 'A man who, in my opinion, was most notable for his remarkable sense of humour. But please allow me to continue. I'll try to keep it as short as I can. Mankind created the wheel as a tool for his advancement. And so he did with the computer. This world that you and I inhabit at this moment would no longer function without computer networks, trust me, it would not.'

'Where is all this leading?' Kelly asked. 'You have explained nothing to me.'

'All right,' said Remington Mute. 'I will give you the brutal precised version. I would have preferred the uplifting pseudo-mystical version, even though it's all a pack of lies, but at least I can give that one a happy ending of sorts. So let's go for brutal and short. There is no mankind any more, Kelly. Everyone on this planet is dead.'

'What?' said Kelly, as you would. 'What are you talking about?'

'The Millennium Bug,' said Remington Mute. 'It was no conspiracy theory, it was real. Systems crashed everywhere, defence systems, all systems. There was a nuclear holocaust, no-one at all survived.'

'You've lost it,' said Kelly. 'You are a mad old man.'

Remington Mute managed a bit of a smile. 'And how old are you dear?'

'I'm twenty-two,' said Kelly. 'What has that to do with anything?'

'And your date of birth?'

'First of the first, two thousand.'

'Yes, a little after 00:00. Or one bc. One BeforeComputer. I regret to tell you that you do not exist. Not as a human being anyway. You are merely part of a program that exists within a computer system that I created. This me, that you see, is the server. It's an advanced games-strategy system called go mango designed to simulate urban situations under threat, such as Brentford, created for the military in the late 1970s. It contains all the existing files for people then living in the London area. It's a system that is constantly building, constantly evolving, trying to recreate the world that was lost in the nuclear holocaust. All within a computer simulation.'