When Starbug was attacked by the Despair Squid and sprayed with his venom, the ship crashed into a sandbank and the resulting explosion killed the crew. They awoke in an Artificial Reality suite and were told by a recorded voice that they had spent the last four years playing a computer game. There were slots for four different characters, each of which had various bio-feedback devices and tubes for feeding (and relieving) the player's bodily functions. When the machinery disengaged itself, the Boys (who thought they were) from the Dwarf realised that they were not the people they remembered.