I couldn't fathom why. Why this tiny elite cadre of uber programmers would want to make me one of their own. Surely, someone with my rudimentary once-upon-a-time game programming skills, which had mostly consisted of amateur poking at now-ancient VGA hardware, would hardly be up to the challenge. But somehow, for some unknown reason, it was true. I was being offered a job at Loki.

I had been given the grand tour of the place, which was surprisingly huge for a company of only 4 (or is it 5?) employees. Well, most of it wasn't used for development anyway. These days, the lower floor of the (Was it a castle? No, not quite.) place was merely a tourist attraction, where the occassional kindergarten class could go on a field trip to oooh and ahhh at the wonder of the mecca of Linux gaming.

Maybe at one time, before the company downsized, it had all been used for actual development. But now, the lower areas were vacant most of the time.

Not so for the upper chamber. A large and open, yet dark and enclosed area, where the few remaining had plenty of space to hack at their computers, hang out, and practice the black voodoo magic that is Linux game programming. With the exception of the computers, the place looked more like a medieval alchemist's lab than a software company.

Even Scott Draeker was present among them. We met, shook hands, and he welcomed me to the club. He looked just like I had remembered him from the CLIQ; like many geeks, slightly chubby, wearing a tshirt and jeans, and still bore the stubbly almost-a-beard facial hair. This couldn't be real.

Of course I, like pretty much everyone else in the world, had heard the reports. People who had worked for months on end without wages because the company hadn't had money to pay them. Some even taking on personal debt to finance the operations, coming away with bitter stories of betrayal. If I accepted, would I be joining their ranks?

Possibly, yes. But a risk I was willing to take. Because this was something that mattered. This was the place that was forging the future. These were the people who were going out on a limb to allow users to play games on their computers without being forced to endure that thing known as Windows.

I took my place, and prepared to forge into the unknown future.