The rain gently slapped against the window next to my bed. The water trickled down, distorted light shining through to make dappled shadows on my wall. It was 2am, and there was no way I was sleeping tonight. All I could think about was the tech. Thought-casting. All I could think about were Winsford's words.

  Was it true? Were we defined by the struggle to exist? Was life just a constant battle to throw off the shackles of our limitations?

  I don't usually like thinking about this stuff to be honest. As far as I was concerned, the universe was a cold, heartless son of a... well, you know what I mean. Nothing I can do about it, so why waste time thinking about it? Best to make your own meaning and enjoy whatever you can. Nothing else to do is there?

  For me, it had always been about the games. I spent my childhood playing them, and I've spent my career creating them. More than anything, though, they were a chance to escape. Be what you want to be, do what you want to do.

  Was Winsford right? Was it possible to have more? Was it possible to escape this... life? What would you do in a world without limits?

  Make the perfect house, landscape the perfect property in an instant. Pools, spas, freaking paint-ball in your back yard. Scratch that, why not use real weapons? It's not like you can die anyway. Women without the effort of a relationship, cars, holidays in any location. Food, flying, super powers... what else was there? What else could there be? I know what you're thinking, you're thinking I'm a selfish jerk for making that comment about women, but every guy has thought it at some point – and I'm sure women have an equivalent. Whatever.

  It's all kinda pathetic when you think about it. We struggle our whole lives looking for the next hit, trying to get the next thing. Trying to get what we want but never having enough. Fact is, though, if we had it all it still wouldn't be enough. We would get bored. Everything has an expiry date. Life is an endless search for something we can never find. We spend a year saving for that thing we want, that experience we're after, but in an instant it's gone, and all we've got left is the hope of the next high. Eat, drink, work, sleep. Repeat. That's what life is, that's what it means to be human.

  Was Winsford right? Could there be more? What would we do in a world without limits? A world beyond limitations and the painful process of trying to get what we want? What if everything was there at the speed of thought? Is it possible to redefine what it meant to be human?

  I didn't know what the answer to that question was, but I was sure as hell not gonna miss the chance to find the answer. If there was one...

  .............

  The blur cleared from my eyes, and I looked up to see... an expanse. Endless flat ground, fading to a haze in the distance. It blended up into the colourless sky. It wasn't sand beneath our feet exactly, it was... dust? Yep, dust. An endless hard bedrock, fissured with cracks and covered in a thick layer of dust.

  Looking around, I noticed it was the same crew as yesterday with one extra. Winsford, Ross, Chen, short muscly old army guy, other dude who I still didn't know, and... some brunette chick – really good looking too. Ross had already sourced himself a sombrero, a deck chair (with umbrella), and an ice-cold pi?a colada. Kid's got style.

  "Welcome to... the desert. This is your mind's way of engaging the cast-construct, making sense of it. Technological mumbo-jumbo aside, this dust is the stuff of which constructs are made. As I said yesterday, construct durability depends on memory imprint. If you leave a construct long enough, it will eventually crumble and return to dust. Every construct ever made or that will ever be made is somewhere on this plain. Think of this space as an organizing principle, if you will, a construct grid. This 'space' lets our minds organize, or make sense, of this whole place. In theory, if you explored the desert long enough, you could 'find' every construct that's ever been made – provided it hadn't disintegrated already."

  "Why a desert?" said Ross, slurping noisily from his drink.

  "No one really knows why. First time we plugged in, there it was. Psychologists – like Sophie here – think it's some sort of primal manifestation of the human condition."

  "Huh, really? That's deep man."

  "No you idiot, it was programmed. Seriously?"

  "And just how wide is it?" I interjected, feeling just a little sorry for Ross.

  "Infinite."

  "So how do you find something you've previously created? I mean, if this space really is infinite, the chances of relocating any one construct are virtually nil." Chen this time.

  "If all you could do was search like you do in the real world, then I daresay you'd be right. But while this place might mimic a physical continuum, 'travel' here need not be so restricted. It can be, but it need not be. When it comes to locating people or previous constructs, the primary means of navigation is by mental and emotional linking. If there's a construct you've made or been to before, as long as you can remember it, you can find it – all you have to do is will yourself there and you'll be there at the speed of thought. Once a construct space has been shared between two people, they both have the memory imprint and can make it back. The memory imprint is what keeps a construct in existence once the caster leaves the system. Every time you access a particular construct space, it is 're-imprinted' and will last longer. If multiple people access it, it will last longer still. That tower you all stood in yesterday? That was a potent emotional experience you had there. It'll probably last longer than any of you live."

  "So why didn't we see this 'desert' yesterday when we were here?" Chen again.

  "As I said, the desert is an organizing principle for thought-casting. It's the mind's way of making sense of the interface. But remember – it only looks this way because you haven't created anything yet. When you start doing that, this reality will start warping and changing before your eyes. In theory, you could create any construct space you wanted and live in it endlessly – simply creating more and more as you push further into it. Given enough time, well, there's no limit on how large a single construct-space might become. As I said, this place is infinite."

  "Ummm... so why didn't we see this 'desert' when we were switching between spaces yesterday?"

  "When you're inserted, you and whoever you're with get randomly placed somewhere in the desert by default. Alternatively, someone can lead your placement into something that's already been constructed. My skyscraper was, of course, a set up. You were all immersed once you got into my actual 'elevator' in real-space. Once you stepped in and we insta-tranqued you in real-time, we hooked you up and reinserted you in an identical construct in exactly the same situation. A microsleep was all you will remember, if anything. As for switching between spaces while you're in here, while you can transport between constructs any time, generally what you create will 'cluster' in one place. If you then transport back to an old construct, any new constructs will cluster with that one instead. The locales from yesterday, for example, are all in one "place," and if you were there and moved close enough to the border of any of them, you would eventually be able to break through into a neighbouring construct. Ok, enough of the boring stuff."

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  "You know why you're here, you know what we're trying to do. But before we even think about that, I want you to get a feel for this place. I want to give you a chance to road test this thing, see a bit more of what she's really capable of."

  "About the equivalent of 1000 miles due east from here, there is a city. My city. It's called Winsford-topia. Don't even think about dissing the name. Somewhere in that city, one of you will find a small, elusive orb — a fast-moving, winged sphere, kind of like a tiny, magical drone."

  "Wait, wait, wait... you mean a snitch?" Ross asked.

  "Exactly. Don't bother trying to create your own and pass it off as mine — mine has a unique energy signature only I can recognize. Besides, as soon as someone finds the real one, you'll all know about it. Anyway, as I was saying, one of you will find the orb. Whoever holds it first needs to keep it for a full minute in real time."

  "Why call it one minute real-time? Why not just call it one minute?"

  "This is not like all those trashy sci-fi movies – though I pay my respects to Inception. You don't plug in, use up four days, and wake up one hour later. The mind can only move as fast as the mind can move. In here, however, we're not slowed down by meat. Time here might feel two or three times longer in comparison to real-time, but that's only because our minds are generally faster when only dealing with thoughts. One minute real-time, for example, might feel like two or three in thought-time."

  "Anyway, as I was saying. Find the snitch, hold it for a minute, then the snitch will open up and the next step in this 'exercise' will be revealed. Whoever finds the snitch, and whoever held it for the full minute will have an advantage going into the next-stage."

  "Wait, there's a prize, right?" Ross, again.

  "Prize? You realise where you are right? Okay, the challenge begins... now."

  We all looked dumbly at each other for moment. The Commander was the first to move. He sourced a compass, and started running. Damn! Guy could move. Ummm... ok, time to move myself.

  I launched straight up into the air at 500kph! Higher and higher I soared. I looked down, the horizon expanded for miles in every direction. The others were all following Everett. Some flew, some were on suped-up motorbikes. Chen was flying on a freaking broom stick. Me? I just went higher... and gave myself ... what do you call it? Micro-vision? Anyway, I could see stuff far away. Higher, higher... there it was in the distance. Winsford-topia. Really? Did he really call it that? Anyway, I had a visual, and that meant I could instantly transport there.

  Buuuutt... transport is boring so I decided to fly instead. At break-neck speed I zoomed straight down again, skimming across the ground – a storm of dust following about three seconds behind me. Almost faster than my mind could comprehend, it was insane!! "WWOOOOOHOOOOO!!!!" I gave myself a sound-barrier boom just cause I wanted one. This was... AWESOME. Speed, wind... I could definitely get used to this! I was the last one there of course, but I like to think that I had more style than the rest.

  Gotta hand it to Winsford though, this place was pretty nice, he knew how to make a city look good. Time to get moving. Where to start? Probably some wanton destruction is a good idea. I sourced a bazooka and fired it at the nearest tower. My rocket sailed, leaving a trail of jet-stream annnd.... KA-BOOOM! The explosion was eminently satisfying, but as the smoke cleared the building looked like it hadn't been touched.

  Winsford himself materialized next to me. "If I spend an hour building every construct in this city with total focus, do you think some fluff-ball rocket launcher is really going to take it down? Use your brains Peterson. It might feel like reality, but the rules are different here." I looked over at him again, only... it wasn't Winsford, it was some middle-aged Asian chick. What the...? She was gone, he was back in an instant.

  "What are you waiting for? Get moving!"

  Right. Don't know what that was, but it was going to have to wait. Ok, so first thing's first. What were the others doing? I soared up again, right up until I basically had a bird's-eye of the city. Chen was flying around lazily – still on her broom. Ross and the other guy who I didn't know had teamed up, they were building joint constructs – seemingly in the hope of developing something that could more easily destroy Winsford's buildings. Couldn't even see Everett, guess he was underground somewhere. Evidently Sophie the Psychologist was an observer rather than a participant, and... wait... underground... that gave me an idea.

  I closed my eyes and focused.

  If I can do anything I can imagine here, there should be no reason why I couldn't change the spectrum on which I was seeing things. Let's try x-ray. I opened my eyes and focused on a building... it worked! The first layer became transparent. Wow, Winsford had taken some time building this place... but not that much time. To build a "real" city, he would have had to focus upon every single detail at some point or another, and he was not the sort of guy that had time like that to waste. Most of the buildings had rooms inside of them, but hardly any were decked out.

  No way the snitch was gonna be in some empty sector of the city. All I had to do was search out the city for Winsford's "hot-spots," places where he obviously spent more time. It was the same as every single other free-roam game, you're never really free-roaming, you just feel like you are. What you're always looking for though, whether you like it or not, is the game-caster's trail. The average gamer doesn't know what to look for, they just keep searching and enjoy the ride. As a game-caster, however, I knew I just had to find a way to spot the trail. Hence the x-ray vision. What I needed to find were the places he'd spent a bit more time creating, places that were more developed, where there was more content in the environ. If I could find them, I'd find where that snitch was hiding... unless he was the sort of guy who enjoyed watching a bunch of people waste a few hours searching for something just for kicks.

  I soared all over the place, peeling back layer upon layer with my x-ray vision. The only real problem was the sheer mass of construct. My abilities weren't limited, but my attention was. My point of focus could only be in one place at any one time. Wonder if there was a way of doing something about that? I kept searching.

  As you would expect, most of the city was pretty "empty," but there were a few places Winsford had obviously spend more time constructing. He had a massive condo at the top of the tallest tower in the middle of the city (he was relaxing in the pool, said the snitch wasn't there anyway), there were a few nightclubs, some sports stadiums, and what seemed to be some kind of a massive research and training facility.

  WHHOOOOSHHH!!!!!!

  In a blur, Chen screamed past me... the flying ball was racing ahead just beyond her grasp. So much for my plan. For a second, I thought about 'porting into its flight path, but instead I sourced a net into Chen's path. She flew straight into it, and went into a downward spin as she struggled to free herself. Then I ported into its flight path, the snitch landed neatly straight into my hand. Ha! What was she thinking?

  Ka...CHOOOOMMMM!!!!

  All of a sudden I was enveloped in flames, careening across the cityscape. I slammed into a building, smashing through it and a few walls. The force of the blow was so violent that I lost hold of the orb! Our avatars might be indestructible, but my head was rattling and... that actually hurt. A lot. I guess it made sense. For us to feel pleasure in this place, pain had to be possible too.

  I stood up, plaster scrap falling from my body. Soaring out into the city again, I looked down to see Ross and the other dude wrestling over the snitch. Huh. Apparently all bets were off now! Chen was soaring in as well, ready to join the fray again. I had to find a way to grab that thing and hold onto it, and all out brawling was clearly not a great option. First thing's first though, I had to actually get my hands on it.

  Chen leaped down from her broom, hit the ground, and... tripled herself. There were three of her making their way into the fight. Fakes one and two attacked Ross and his mate, while the real one went straight for the snitch – which she deftly snatched while the other two were struggling with her doppelgangers. Time to make a move. She was already sprinting away which, it was becoming quickly apparent, isn't a good tactic. I sourced a massive ball and chain and attached it to her legs. As she looked down in surprise, I used her own trick by sending a double of myself to distract her. She blasted him with some sort of energy blast from her hand, and he was obliterated instantly. Hey, I didn't need him to be invincible, just a distraction! Meanwhile, I grabbed her wrist, and manifested some flames in my palm. It wouldn't permanently burn her, of course, but the initial shock sensation of burning made her let go of the snitch. I grabbed it, and in an instant manifested about a million snitches in the air around us, one of which I grabbed in my hand after pocketing the real one.

  Chen's other doubles had obviously also been fragged, because Ross and his mate were flying back in on us. I had to think of something while everyone was distracted by my snitch stunt. As it turned out, I didn't have to, cause at that moment the ground rumbled, and Everett burst through the ground. Only, it wasn't just Everett, it was Everett at about 200 times normal size. He was colossal!! Everyone looked up in stunned surprise.

  In that moment I knew I had to change the game. This was gonna be an endless game of maxed-out superhero tag if I didn't do something new. In an instant, I was standing alone inside the conference room of Winsford's tower. I looked out across the city through the window, and I could see Everett in the distance towering between the skyscrapers. Apparently Winsford's tower was part of his city. Now all I had to do was stay out of sight long enough to win this thing.

  "Thank you for playing contestants, I'm calling the winner right now. Peterson, congratulations." In an instant, Winsford was there – along with everyone else.

  "Go ahead, open it up." The fake snitch in my hand disappeared as I pulled out the real one. I held it out in my hand, and the sound of compressed air fizzed out as I watched it open slowly.