"Will you stop it with that?" I said. "There are no victims. Dewey and Louie are practising art, and I"m helping them. That"s all."

"Yeah?" said the demon. "What sort of art, exactly? Ma.s.s murder?"

"The aesthetics of burning," I said.

"Murder," said the demon.

"There"s no connection," I said.

"Murder. Don"t have any illusions."

"Say," I said, "who are you, anyway?"

"I," said the demon, "am the only element in this story who isn"t you yourself."

"Nu, seriously," I said. "Why are you banging on about murder?"

"Because you, apparently, don"t perceive those you kill as human beings."

"I don"t understand why you keep insisting I killed anyone."

"Mr Kalmanson, for example," said the demon. "What happened to him?"

"I have had enough," I said, "of this conversation."

And I went. And was brought back.

"As I said, you"re not going anywhere. We were talking about Mr Kalmanson, for instance."

"He wasn"t a human being," I said. "He was an a.s.shole bourgeoisie, that"s what he was."

"And the children in the park?"

"A symbol of the moral decrepitude taking hold of the young."

"A symbol?"

"Of course," I said. "Remind me, who are you?"

"I am your artificial consciousness," said the demon. "It looks like you can"t be stopped any other way."

"The establishment never looked favourably on alternative art," I said.

"The establishment never looked favourably on genocide," the demon said. "Now you tell me--who are you?"

"I"m Huey," I said.

"You made up Huey, Louie, and Dewey. You are the three of them together, or, to be exact, each one of them at any given moment."

"That is complete nonsense," I said. "It"s even stupider than your banging on about murder, murder, murder."

"Really? Do you remember how long you"ve been Huey?"

"Louie," I said.

The demon sighed. "This way we won"t get far. Tell me--can you call Huey and Dewey? Ask them to come here?"

"Sure," I said, and they came.

"Say," said Huey through a mouthful, "doesn"t it seem odd to you...."

"What?" said Dewey.

"That he, like, disappeared?"

"Who?"

"Enough of that!" said the demon and turned to me. "You"re only helping them, right?"

"Yes," I said. "I"m the technical guy."

"Very well," said the demon, pulled out a gun, and shot Louie and Dewey to death.

Smoke, without fire. Silence. Cinders.

"What have you done?"

"Now you don"t have anyone to help."

"But we have a lot more things...many more items for...our exhibition. There is still so much to do. Doing is every--"

"There is no exhibition!" shouted the demon. "Forget it! It"s finished! Gone! Enough!"

"Remind me--who are you?"

"I am your viral, artificial consciousness," said the demon. "You can"t get rid of me. I"m a piece of software running on your brain"s wetware, and based on your personality, just like Huey and Louie and Dewey, rest in peace. But them you made up, and me you haven"t."

"I didn"t make anyone up."

"Of course you did," said the demon. "The two--or three--of them are just aspects of your personality. I don"t know what drug or technology you used to create them, but they are definitely you. The loop you"re stuck in is probably some kind of side effect. Maybe you"re afraid of something and don"t want to move on."

"I don"t know what you"re talking about and I"m not afraid of anything," I said. "And besides, you said you"re also based on my personality."

"But I come from outside," said the demon.

"Outside?"

"Several of those who tried to stop you, extraneously, in the real world outside of your sick brain, are now in intensive care. The rest have already been buried. Not that there was much left to bury. And that"s why they created me."

"Who are you?"

"I...in one way, I am you. They scattered viral spores, encoded and tuned to your brain. You breathed in one of them, and it caused...created...me.

"You came to kill me?"

"No," said the demon. "To rehabilitate you. To cause you to heal."

"I"m not sick."

"Not really," said the demon. "You"re split. That is--you were split, until I killed Huey and Dewey. Now I hope you can stop. Return to reality. Exit the loop. Stop the burning."

"Burn."

"Yes."

"Burn."

Sparks and cinders. Smoke.

"Burn!" I said. "Oh, G.o.d! What have they done?"

"You did."

"I...did. I! Me!"

"Huey and Louie are fiction. They never were. You are the artist who was afraid to be an artist. Maybe that"s why there"s a loop."

The exhibition that would never come. Just more and more....

"I am...I am the artist."

"Who was afraid to be an artist."

"I am...the artist."

For doing is everything....

"Forget that. Welcome to reality."

"Reality," I said. "What have you got to do with reality?"

"I could ask you the same question," said the demon. "But it would lead us nowhere. Tell me--what do you see? Where are we?"

Spark and cinder, cinder and spark. Smoke. Darkness.

Light. A white room.

"A white room," I said.

"Tabula Rasa," said the demon. "A blank slate. A good place to start in. Now, all that remains for us to do is help you find the way back out."

"I am the artist," I said.

"You were," said the demon. "Were."

"Still am," I said. "Always have been and always will be."

Because doing is everything.

"Not any more," said the demon. "I am curing you. You are not an artist and have never been an artist. You were possessed of an artificial split personality with a growing superiority complex, but now everything should be all right. The white walls are a good sign. Now you need to create an opening in them."

"There"s something to your twisted logic," I said, "but I don"t think we"re going to do anything about it."

"What?" said the demon.

"He"s not right," said Dewey, and pointed at him.

"Don"t exaggerate," said Huey. "He did a very nice job with you here. Doing is everything."

The rest is nothing.

"No--yes--I mean, sure," said Dewey. "That"s not what I meant."

"But I killed them!" said the demon.

"You must understand," I said, "a man cannot die, but in fire. Fire is the life and the death."

"That doesn"t make sense!" said the demon. "But you said you didn"t kill anyone! No human being!"

"And you are, by your own admission, no human being."

"But--"

"Don"t be a pain," I said. "Instead, finish here."

And the white walls calcinated.