"Ah-hah!" The Doctor stood back a little, and read the legend revealed:

ALERT A MODERATOR

And underneath, a button. He pressed it.

The depressed button sent a pseudo-signal across the reality synapse, encouraging a real-world interface reaction on an electrical level. Or, to put it another way, the Doctor pressing the button made a light flash.

The light in question was one of a set of tiny neon bulbs arranged around the outside of an unbelievably powerful piece of equipment. It stood in one corner of a futuristic-looking control room, all metal panels and background hums. Various nondescript drones moved around this place, kitted out in depersonalising one-piece coveralls, as bland as their surroundings. Except for the small collection of people in the immediate vicinity of the equipment housing the Doctor's flashing light. There were three or four of them, dressed with a clear respect, even love, of individuality. As opposed to the faceless, humourless functionaries drifting around the room, this little group clearly had at least some idea of what 'fun' was. At the moment, however, hunched around their equipment, their faces were all clearly worried.

One of them, a tall, gangly man with a hard-to-ignore redness to his face (either a sign of embarrassment or of premature shaving) voiced the concern they all felt. "He'll be here in a minute. What do we do?"

"Keep our heads down, and look inconspicuous?" This, accompanied by a nervous giggle, came from a shorter, squatter, more bearded colleague.

Redface swept his arms around, indicating the uniform dull grey of walls, floors, ceilings, control panels, workers... and ending with the clashing colour and variety and simple non-conformity of their group. "Fat chance!"

The only woman in the group, and clearly their leader, took charge. "Look, you lot just look busy, look efficient" - another nervous giggle from Beardy - "OK, try and look efficient. And leave the talking to me. He doesn't care about us, so he won't want to hang about."

"No, just long enough to give us the heave-ho!"

The woman sighed. "Now look--"

What could have become a promising argument was forestalled by the fourth member of the group. Slim, short, outstandingly unkempt, and with a pair of glasses perpetually trying to slide off his nose, he had been concentrating on the equipment during the previous discussion. Now he straightened from it with a nervous cough, and held his hand vaguely in the air to attract attention. "Erm... Sorry to interrupt folks..."

"What!?"

Glasses recoiled slightly from the lady's fury, but stood his ground. Ish. "I don't want to add to your worries but, um, I think you ought to take a look at this..." He waved a hand to the control panel. The other three all turned to look. A light was flashing persistently on the panel.

"Uh-oh!"

"The room service here is appalling," complained the Doctor loftily. He pressed the button for the umpteenth time in as many minutes. His new-found lost one friend was looking increasingly concerned with each press, as though the Doctor was desecrating an altar.

"T-H-E-Y are busy. Please be patient. It is unheard of for the great button to be used - t-h-e-y may be angry."

The Doctor pressed it again haughtily. "At this rate I'll be angry." With a flurry of scarf and coat-tails the Doctor spun round to face his nervous companion. "Look, just what is this place? Hmm?"

The man paused, a look crossing his face which the Doctor couldn't help but label 'shifty' - as if he was keeping something from him.... Deciding to force the issue, the Doctor gave a sly look at the man. "Of course, I could always wait and ask your God-- sorry, Moderators." He turned back to the sign, clearly about to press the button again. And then again and again and again....

The lost one reached out as if scalded and grabbed the Doctor's hand. "Alright, alright!" The Doctor smiled to himself, as the fearful fellow said, "Sit down my friend, and I will tell you everything..."

"Well it's stopped now," said the woman practically.

The bearded man snorted: "But it was flashing, wasn't it. What does it mean?"

"Nothing, when it isn't flashing," she replied smugly.

"It means somebody is Alerting us," said Glasses.

"So," persisted Beardy, as all three men turned to their female leader, "what do we do about it?"

The woman, undeterred and pragmatic beyond the call of duty, answered without a pause. "Until he's been and gone again, absolutely nothing. Everything as normal, guys, got it?"

With varying degrees of reluctance her three colleagues agreed...

...and just in time, for with a piped muzak version of a trumpet fanfare, a pair of dull grey metal doors at the end of the chamber opened, admitting a grotesquely opulent procession. Two bearers, clad in the same uniform grey coveralls carried a platform bedecked in gold with glittering jewels inlaid around the edge. On the platform was a throne, again made it seemed of gold, with plush cushioning of a rich, ruby red. And on the throne a portly, corpulent figure, dressed in a sharp black-suit, his hair slicked back and as shiny as his patent leather shoes. A cringing, cowering, obsequious entourage of bespectacled and clipboard-carrying lackeys drifted in behind and around him, like flies around-- well, around something pretty nasty.

Redface looked at his colleagues. "He's he-re!" he whispered.

"A Message Board?!" The Doctor's ghast had rarely found itself more flabbered than now.

"Simply that. I told you this place had no physical reality - what we see here is simply the senses' feeble attempt to apply normal logic and physics to the impossible perceptions they are receiving. The voices you heard were the postings, the threads, the constant and continuous virtual conversations..."

"And you, the lost ones?" The Doctor was trying to make sense of things, but he could feel himself heading towards a shocking conclusion. Or at least a shocking cliffhanger.

"Some posters forget their identities, other people drift away leaving their on-line identities adrift here. Still others find some digital blip severs their connection and they are left unobtainable forever. It happens... Who is to know? Or care?"

"But if what you say is true..." The lost one nodded, encouraging the Doctor to follow his train of though to the end of its line. "Then I..."

"Yes my friend."

The Doctor looked into the gloom, eyes wide - even by his standards. "I'm a fictional character?!!"

"I'm sorry."

The Doctor snapped out of his introspection in a second, leaping to his feet, his finger already stabbing at the Alert button. "I want to complain to the management!"

The visiting ruler had performed his duties at all the other stations and areas in the entertainment chamber. Finally, reluctantly, he arrived at the nervous foursome. His flies buzzed around him, their expressions carefully set to reflect and agree with their leader's. At the moment he was looking at the four individuals with a look of distaste - mirrored as a wall of disgust in his lackeys. "And what is this?" he asked, managing to somehow combine both complete disinterest with deep loathing.

Undeterred, the woman put on her best public face, crossing to meet him with her hand outstretched. "Delighted to have you here, DG. If I might explain just what we have here..."

(Behind her, and desperately trying to be inconspicuous, her three male colleagues stiffened in alarm. The flashing light was flashing again - andagainandagainandagain. Glasses swallowed nervously. "Whoever's pressing it," he whispered, "is certainly giving it a hell of a battering.")

(Within the non-existent void, the fictional Doctor was furiously pressing and repressing the abstract button. "Come out and show your ears!" he shouted.)

The DG cut through the careful rhetoric of the female leader. "Yes, yes, I know all about what the Message Board does. But what purpose does it actually serve? I'm not sure we're here to give dull, lifeless, anally-retentive people that nobody wants, a voice? If they do have opinions they can air them at their own expense surely."

She took a deep breath, essential to prevent her from laying him out with a single punch. And breathing out again, "It's not so much about the opinions, as the sense of community."

The DG snorted in disregard. Clearly this was no better. "How lovely and kind of us to provide a surrogate family for all these rejects." He smiled without any hint of humour, nor much suggestion of humanity. "And exactly what has that got to do with us? Wetnursing social flotsam is NOT in our charter."

(Glasses snatched his hand away from the panel. "The excess agitation," he muttered. "It's causing the lighting to overheat..." The three men exchanged glances. Beardy risked a peek over his shoulder, to see whether the DG had gone yet. No such luck. He turned back to Glasses. "Is there any way to stop the button being pressed?")

("Alert a Moderator!" scoffed the Doctor. "About as alert as a pack of tortoises!")

"Switch it off," snapped the DG peremptorily.

The woman was taken totally aback. "You can't!" was all she could splutter.

"I can!" he rejoined. "We're here to make a buck and entertain. This doesn't do either."

"But, but," she stammered, desperate to justify the Boards, "Our purpose is to amuse, simply to amuse... Nothing serious, nothing political..."

"Switch - it - off!"

(Glasses swallowed hard. "The only way is to remove the offending article." Redface visibly paled, becoming Pinkface with the shock. "We can't..." But Beardy was determined to show leadership qualities: "Do it!" Glasses hesitated.)

"Switch - it - off!"

(Beardy shoved Glasses aside. "I'll do it!")

("Oh this is intolerable!" snapped the Doctor. He reached out to press the button for what seemed the hundredth time...

...but froze, arm outstretched. The whole world seemed to fill with dazzling, dusty light as the roof far above was pulled back. A giant hand reached down to grab the Doctor!)