What he loved about the web was not only its compellingly immersive properties but its potential to impart a man with a life and a trade. You had to manage your numerous, accessible contacts, test out the expressive characteristics of your character in safe but unexpected scenarios and build up an extensive OP; online presence.

He'd spent much time in business game sims' where every decision had a bearing on the direction that the game would take, so that a series of inappropriate ones made it harder and harder to succeed. But it was more than a game now. It was tied to a new form of reality that had real influence, real friends, and a real way to make real money....

And it was his enhanced avatar—his living, online profile - that was the key to the whole enterprise.

Where am I today? He thought, logging on to the Know-Zones, richly sensual, educational environments on the Linden Grid. He was unhealthy this morning—a proper student—with a strong coffee and cigarette both shedding their fumes beside his console. The smoke competed with the steam from the coffee and soon defeated it; teasing it, curling around it. He took a drag, dulling his mind that was too sharp and awake now from the coffee. Where he was, in his sound-padded lair, he could sit secreted away from the mad world, located above a shop selling computer hardware. No one would disturb him today, a sleepy Sunday. I've worked like a dog this week. Many hours had slipped by organising his online trade; a virtual store selling software downloads. At last it was set up and running but today he would cut himself a break and soak up some alternative online experiences.

However, as his equipment purred into life, the headset fastened around his primary senses, the landscape rendering swiftly before him was not any he had encountered before, and nor was the avatar he embodied.

He was on a precipice and it was dark; very dark. He felt uneasy. Before him the vista was also dark, until he made out a thin red line of a horizon and leading up to it, a mass of ill-defined shapes. And they were writhing. Oh....this was wrong. He double-checked the location he'd announced into the system, but the vision remained. Oh great.

Immediately he was worried. Worried for his entire, online life. This is a Hellworld if ever I saw one. Dull sounds of pain and from god-knows-what kind of tortured avatars were exposing themselves to thrills and mindless fetishes beneath him. He immediately made gestures to teleport away, to his Home location; to any location at all. But nothing. The thing was tampered. He'd been hacked and he knew it. Shit.

His avatar had been bred in the world. It had a DNA setting and a personality modelled from his own. It was certainly never supposed to malfunction; it was part of the whole system and he paid monthly for it. The cost would be more than a considerable amount of Lindens. The cost was also access to his worlds, his business, his friends, his data and memories, himself. Over the years it had learned about his ways, his preferences; his personality; a vital feature as it meant that whenever he wasn't directly present it could interact with others while he was offline. It could run his virtual store in his absence. A wandering profile. A Personal Interactive Profile. It walked like him, it talked like him; it was him.

It was also suposed to have extensive in-built security. But there were always ways.....He couldn't afford this. Not now.

He tried to speak to his profile but there was nothing; just the sinister sounds in the fallen gloom of this online underworld. The avatar he had found himself in was just a default version, blandly asking for settings; the cheapest possible. Was there a clue to be found here...in this place? Left by an enemy? By a religious fanatic? Someone ran passed him suddenly and dived off into the mass of bodies below, arms outstretched, seeking a perverted form of redemption. Well, I'm not going in there....

He dialled a number on his HUD, and at once a voice came to his ears.

"Second Police, Salvager Department, how can I help?"

He explained that he'd been sent straight to hell while his profile was now possessed and officially AWOL.

The official voice responded. "We'll get someone straight on your case....We've had quite a few reports coming in these last two weeks... Not many of them identity thefts perhaps....because believe it or not, the avatars that were recovered ...hadn't exactly been stolen."

"What do you mean?"

"It's as if they had become...self-aware...somehow. Acting on their own volition. I don't know, sir...we're looking into it. Anything's possible. We'll get back to you as soon as we hear more. For now, we advise you to contact your friends through your current avatar and be prepared for possible interference with your affairs."

He could only hope they could help. He'd backed up his information but it would be useless if someone juiced his profile and was now running loose in it. So much would need changing. So much would be lost. At least, no-one knew his avatar better than he. Or did he? One thing was certain. He'd stop at nothing until he got himself back.

Sentient profiles.....

Later, he sat back and nervously lit another cigarette. Staring out of the window, he thought about the morning, when all had been running well and he had finally been relaxing. He wondered where his avatar could be. He thought of the final scene to an old film called Tron.

Well...he had himself, here; his own character. And this reality. Yes, he could always fall back on that. Start over in a new life. A simpler one. At the mercy of no system. He could disconnect.

He sighed. What are we? Our talents, our skills and our experience; our knowledge. And the people we know or love... He'd lost many in pursuit of his online dream. And without the key, he was locked out of it. What do you do in such a scenario? You have to break back in somehow, and see what's been taken. Catch them in the act of taking....?

The salvagers might help, but it might not be enough. I can't take the chance, he decided. Opening a channel on his screen he left a message for Hoff, an old hacker ally now doing corporate security who might get him back into his virtual store. It was the only place his avatar might go if, indeed, it was now a highly valuable loose cannon; sentient.

He tried to keep calm and consider the possibilities... It was true that AI developments had been accelerating to the point where it would be difficult to control the new digital life forms that were appearing. There were some very powerful companies pushing now for more experiments with Artificial Life algorithms, but people were too concerned about the uncontrollable results. Rogue minds based on DNA personalities could grow beyond anything beneficial to mankind. They could grow beyond anything in the virtual webworlds, where conceivably, they could glean all they needed to know about reality - the Source - from its man-made reflection....

....But if they were somehow transferred illegally and implanted into avatars the crime would be blamed on identity theft. It was possible someone considered him to be a suitable lab rat. His profile might somehow have been infected with a sentient virus'. Or else, could sentience really be naturally developing within the coding of such sophisticated profiles? If so, he would be in for quite some compensation.

Whatever the case, someone was to blame, and someone would pay. Even if it was himself.