In a cacophony of metal and wood, the feet of ten sailors struck the bridge. They rose almost in unison from their stations around the room and came toward them. In an instant, they were upon the group.

  Kiah, near the door, attempted a desperate escape, but the first officer stopped her by grabbing her by the shoulders. Two men took Nadia by the arms, twisting them behind her back without any delicacy. Others did the same to Gareth, tearing him away and forcibly separating him from Nico and Kiah.

  The boy reacted: he managed to slip one arm out of one of the men's grip and elbowed him in the stomach. The man, although visibly in pain, grabbed him again, holding his chest within striking distance for a third sailor, who arrived and punched him twice in the stomach, stifling any further attempts at rebellion.

  Nico felt anger explode in his chest. He saw two men trying to grab him. He struggled, managed to free one arm, and lunged forward. He headbutted one sailor square in the face. He felt the sharp impact, the nose breaking under the blow. But immediately others were on top of him.

  A punch struck him on the side, violent and precise. Myriads of tiny luminous particles began to float before his eyes. He felt his legs give way and the floor come towards him. Then darkness swallowed him up, without a sound.

  When Nico opened his eyes again, his head hurt and his right eyebrow burned. That part of his face felt tense, as if something had clotted on his skin: blood, perhaps a cut caused by the blow. He looked around. They were sitting on the floor, their wrists tied together.

  He was back to back with Kiah in a corner of the large deck room. Other people had joined Leo's game, betting and placing money around the green gaming tables; no one seemed to care about them sitting on the floor, tied to each other.

  Nico saw Captain Giacomo, sitting in a large chair in the center of the deck, take his watch out of his pocket. He couldn't believe what he was seeing: the hands were spinning at a crazy speed, much faster than a normal watch. Perhaps that watch was running fast, keeping time differently from the rest of the game, just like the ship was doing.

  “One hour to the port of Archivum, Captain.”

  The captain grunted in agreement.

  Nico frowned, trying to calculate how much time had passed since they had been captured. If it was one hour to Archivum and the journey took a whole day, then the whole night had passed and it was almost dawn.

  Nico heard Kiah move behind him.

  “Psst... hey, Kiah,” he whispered. “Are you awake?”

  Kiah mumbled.

  “Ah, finally awake,” said Captain Giacomo.

  Nico frowned but said nothing.

  Kiah muttered something, perhaps ‘where are we’. Nico wasn't sure and didn't reply. She still seemed dazed. Perhaps it was the smell of absinthe and belladonna that permeated the air, or perhaps she had also been affected. Shortly afterwards, the movements Nico felt behind his back became still again. Perhaps Kiah had fallen back asleep.

  “We'll be docking shortly, at Archivum to be precise. I was told that was your stop, right?”

  Nico didn't answer. A whole night had passed, but they were still there. The system hadn't knocked them out, and he could interact with his surroundings: he talked to the captain, felt the ropes binding his wrists. As absurd as it was, this gave him relief.

  The captain stood up, running his fingers over his impeccable mustache.

  “You don't speak, eh... You're right. I was a bit brutal, and I'm sorry about that. But how can a good man like me get justice? They behave unreasonably, and I'm just trying to bring order and justice for myself and my men.”

  Kiah stirred again behind Nico's back, straightening up. The chatter had woken her, but Malaspina didn't seem to notice.

  “You're a sentient program, aren't you?” Nico said, speaking for the first time.

  Giacomo nodded, giving a mocking bow.

  “In the game, luck is never free,” he replied. “It is administered.”

  Nico frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I manage the way chance takes shape.”

  He made a slow gesture with his hand. “I control numbers, probabilities, deviations.”

  Nico felt his stomach tighten. “So... you cheat?”

  “No,” replied the captain. “I decide which events can happen, with what probability and at what time.”

  “I don't understand,” muttered Nico.

  “I am a randomness generator. I set parameters: thresholds, conditions, possibilities.”

  He paused. “But, apparently, I was first given this function and then it was decided otherwise. My task has been entrusted to others.”

  Nico said nothing. He knew the story of Giacomo and his ship, but he didn't want to tease him, to make him nervous.

  Giacomo burst out laughing, full of rage, then continued: “Do you think I don't know that you know? It's useless for you to stay silent. I saw you: you got on this boat with that nosy Animutant. I'm sure he told you everything.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The captain turned toward the screen, watching the codes scrolling before him.

  “My ship, my crew...” He paused. “Myself... we are not canonical in the game. We are an older version. I have been discarded.”

  He gestured vaguely around him, toward the room, the roulette wheel, the deck.

  “To become canonical, to improve our status as outcasts, I need something to trade.”

  He looked up and stared at them with his uncovered eye.

  “Now I have something to offer the programmers.”

  Nico stood still. He could hear the distant sound of the boilers beneath his feet and the faint ticking of the roulette wheel turning slowly.

  “Your freedom, in exchange for the chance for me and my ship to become canons.”

  The captain began pacing back and forth across the deck, his steps slow and measured. Each thud of his missing leg was followed by a metallic clang, accompanied by the squeak of his prosthesis.

  “Hey, Nico?” Kiah's voice murmured hoarsely.

  “Hey,” Nico replied simply.

  “We have to get out of here. Where are the others?”

  Nico nodded sadly. “I don't know.”

  Kiah didn't reply, and they both remained silent.

  Nico stood still. He could hear the slow ticking of the roulette wheel, which was being steered by a sailor. He was agitated: he had to get off that ship. He didn't know if anyone would come to rescue them. Nadia, Gareth, and Peter, as far as he could tell, had been thrown off the deck and had become part of that flowing code: crumbled programs, reduced to mere residues.

  Thinking about them like that made him nauseous. He shook his head, banishing the image from his mind, fearing that dwelling on that thought might make it real.

  Then there were the programmers, another problem. What would he tell Malaspina? That the programmers had interacted with a program? It was crazy. A sentient program that kidnapped characters: just crazy. And if the programmers shut down the system to block Malaspina, what would happen to their consciousnesses? To those of Nico, Leo, and Kiah? Would they log out or remain trapped?

  Deleted along with the system?

  A lump formed in his throat. The idea that everything could end with the flick of a switch made him feel vulnerable.

  And besides, who was to say that the programmers wanted to help them? If they had sent the headsets to Leo, Kiah, and Nico just to spread Erebos around the world, then they were cruel. Trapping Nico, Leo, and Kiah in the game would be a perfect way to erase any evidence.

  Nico's head hurt, not just from the blow, but from the flood of thoughts and fears crowding his brain, which, it seemed, was working incredibly well on that ship. There, outside the system, it seemed that Erebos couldn't harm him, couldn't consume his memory.

  An idea lit up Nico's mind with a glimmer of hope.

  “Listen,” he said quietly.

  Malaspina turned, frowning, staring at him with his one good eye.

  “We didn't get this far because the game planned it, right?” Nico said, not expecting an answer. “Thanks to this ship, we're traveling through the very fabric of the code, riding the code... and they didn't see that coming. No one saw that coming. This ship is already in the game, even if it's not canonical.”

  Malaspina took a step forward, his voice hard. “I want to be canonical. I want to be real.”

  Kiah intervened, her voice firm. “You're not afraid of remaining uncanonical,” she said. “You're afraid of being deleted. If the programmers realize you're here, all it takes is a system update and you, your ship, and your crew will be wiped out.”

  Malaspina smiled bitterly but said nothing.

  Then Kiah added, her voice slightly trembling, “But if you keep us here, you become an aggressive anomaly. You will be removed.”

  Malaspina paled, then exploded. “If I die, then you players will come with me. The game will be withdrawn from the market if you die in here!” he shouted, his words echoing around the room.

  Nico clenched his jaw. Beneath the anger, he felt fear: that program did not want to disappear.

  He nudged Kiah gently, trying to get her to understand that she had to keep quiet. With that way of talking and reasoning, Malaspina would never release them.

  “Listen,” said Nico. “Becoming a canon isn't the solution for you.”

  Malaspina stopped pacing and stood still, staring at him angrily. The gaze of his one eye was furious.

  Nico took a deep breath. He stared into Malaspina's eye and tried not to let his voice tremble, keeping it steady as he continued, “There are players who hate games without gray areas. They need spaces where they can install cheats, patches created by the players themselves, unofficial content.”

  He paused briefly. Malaspina continued to stare at him, but the anger in his gaze had turned to curiosity.

  “If you become canonical, they'll normalize you. They'll clean you up. They'll make you harmless.”

  Malaspina snorted. Nico continued: “If you stay in the gray area, off the map, you have something the canonical players don't have: control over who passes, what you carry, which rules to break. You become the crossing point for cheats, bugs, shortcuts. You become a smuggler: the system doesn't detect you, anti-cheats don't easily spot you, and you bring in what programmers don't want, but players desire.”

  The captain looked at him, confused. “What do you mean?” he blurted out.

  “Let us go,” Nico said, all in one breath.

  Malaspina didn't get angry. He didn't react with outbursts of rage. He seemed attentive, his arms crossed over his chest, as he shifted his weight from one leg to the other, accompanying the movement with a metallic creak.

  Nico continued, “You let us go and the ship stays under the radar.”

  “And what good would that do me?” Malaspina roared.

  “In return, I'll give you contacts. Future passes. Word of mouth among new players. I'll bring you a steady stream of ‘dirty’ players who need you to get cheats, patches, and shortcuts into the game.”

  Nico took another breath. He saw Malaspina's face soften: he had almost convinced him. Then he added, with a hint of a smile, “It's not in your best interest to be canonical. That way you lose power. By staying off the map, you keep it.”

  He paused. Malaspina turned, resting his chin on his fingers. With his head bowed and his one eye fixed on the ground, he resumed pacing back and forth across the bridge.

  “Becoming canonical means ceasing to be necessary,” Nico added.

  “What if the programmers find out what I'm doing and want to delete me to avoid problems?” Malaspina asked.

  Nico shook his head and smiled. “Impossible. Memorable stories come from the margins. What is canonical is predictable. You could stay off the map and become the most entertaining part of the whole game. At that point, none of the programmers would want to delete you, even if they could, because you're the best part of the game for the players.”

  Malaspina fell silent. For the first time, his anger faded. Nico saw the calculation in his one remaining eye: the risk of disappearing versus the opportunity to command a traffic that no one could control.

  “If you let us go,” Nico whispered again, “you'll become something the game can't afford to lose.”

  [AUTHOR'S NOTE]

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