The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 22, 2504

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“Who here likes music?” They were back at the Matic house now, sitting on lawn chairs in the front yard. Pacey had convened them, evidently thinking it was funny that they tried to break out of the simulation by examining blades of grass. While they were waiting to listen to his spiel, Mateo was looking at the grass himself since he wasn’t around for that test before. “I’m prepared to offer you a new home in a new dome,” Pacey finally started to say. “It’s basically a city, though the residences are minimal. It’s all about music. All the greats are there. Do you wanna see a live show with Elvis Presely? We have that, as an android who looks, acts, and sounds exactly like him. I can get you front row tickets. You can always have front row tickets. Any show from any artist, past or present.”

“What is this?” Marie questioned. “What are you doing here? Are you seriously asking how we would like to live as prisoners?”

“I mean, would you rather I just decide for you?” Pacey asked. “Seems weirder.”

“I remember you,” Leona pointed out, “but I don’t. You were...on a ship.”

Pacey sighed. “You were prisoners on that ship. You broke free, broke into my lab, and tricked me into giving you my technology.”

Their memories weren’t all there yet, but the most relevant ones seemed to come up when they were most needed. If they once had an adventure involving a ball of rubber bands, seeing a rubber band ball here would probably bring it back to the surface. But for now, it mostly had to do with their time on Castlebourne, and now Leona and Marie’s brief stay on a ship commanded by that Angry Fifth Divisioner who could not give his vendetta against them a rest. “What are you talking about?” Leona asked. “I didn’t trick you into anything. Yeah, I went in there to steal it, but you gave it to me instead.”

“You said that you were going to use it to protect a population in another universe,” Pacey said.

“Yeah, and we did,” Ramses interjected. “The Ochivari can’t get in there anymore.”

“Fair enough,” Pacey accepted, “but I told you not to use it for anything else, yet you did, didn’t you? You created something called a slingdrive, and you even managed to develop it enough for miniaturization and interdimensional pocketing.”

Mateo stood. “You’re right, he did, which is why we should be able to leave whenever we want. Right, guys?”

Pacey rolled his eyes. “I obviously put a dampener in the dome. You ain’t goin’ nowhere. So sit back down!”

It seemed unlike Pacey to get all riled up and intense like this, so Mateo did as he was told.

Pacey continued, “I don’t want to hurt you, which is exactly what would have happened if I had tried to extract the technology from these bodies. I might have asked you to switch to new ones, but that wouldn’t have solved the problem of you having this technology. You would have rebuilt it.” He dismissed it immediately as soon as Ramses opened his mouth to argue. “Even if you promised not to. Something would come up, and you would have to break our agreement. You already did! I asked you to use it once, then you explored your options. You can’t be trusted, so I’m keeping you on this planet. That is not in question. Your only choice now is which dome you want to live in. Some are obviously off-limits, like The Bowl and The Terminal. I thought Underburg was the best idea, because it’s pleasant, and inoffensive, but I guess you didn’t like how nice it was. So I’ve come up with some other ones, which is why I ask, do you like music? Melodome is the Music City...the real one.”

“How do you have control over all of this?” Angela asked. “Where’s Hrockas, and the rest of the staff?”

“They’re on the real Castlebourne,” Pacey answered. “That’s all I’ll say. Even though I’m gonna erase your memories again once it’s time to wake you up in the new dome, I don’t want there to be any memory of you understanding where you are in the cosmos. I can’t delete memories, I can only cover them up. It’s an ethics thing. I actually follow rules, even if I’m the one who came up with them.”

“What are our other options?”

“Boyd,” Romana scolded.

“What?” Boyd asked her. “He has the power. I recognize power, I’m a pragmatist.”

Pacey smiled with only a slight bit of relief, knowing that this didn’t mean everyone was on board. “Well, you can also just live in the Palacium Hotel; have any suite you want, whenever you want it. I’m sure you’re aware of all the amenities, like the swimming pools, the game room, and the spa.”

“Boring!” Boyd complained.

“There’s also Tokyo 2077.”

“I’m not familiar with that one,” Olimpia noted.

“It’s what Tokyo looked like in the year 2077. Your lives would be as interesting as you want them to be. I can even implant the Japanese language in your brains, if you don’t already speak it.”

“I don’t like city environments,” Olimpia said. “What else you got?”

“You’re not seriously entertaining this idea?” Mateo asked her, shocked. “He’s the bad guy here. We can’t just roll over.”

“What choice do we have?” Boyd posed. “As I said, he has the power. Don’t antagonize the antagonist. Isn’t that one of your rules?”

“Technically, it’s mine,” Leona said. “And technically I agree.”

“Et tu Brute?” Mateo didn’t know where that phrase came from. He just hoped that he was using it right.

“Yesterday, we thought that we were hopeless because we were in a virtual simulation, where we couldn’t even trust our own minds.” Leona paused dramatically. “That doesn’t appear to be the case. So we are not hopeless. Put us in whatever dome you want,” she said to Pacey. “We’ll get out again.”

“You’re welcome to try, but you won’t remember any of this.”

“Go on with your options,” Ramses spat.

Pacey wasn’t perturbed. “Canopydome might be nice. It’s a rainforest, but there are nice places to stay.”

“What if we refuse to choose?” Mateo asked.

“Then I’ll choose for you, and you might not like it. And if you continue to piss me off, you might really not like it.”

“We can’t just let him control us,” Ramses argued. “We have to fight.”

“You’re changing your tune,” Romana pointed out.

“It’s not hopeless anymore,” Ramses explained. “We’re physical, I didn’t know that. I can’t tell you all what to do, but I will say that I’m not going to choose my own prison. I reject it on principle.”

“I have a nice place lined up for you,” Pacey said. “Maybe pack a coat or two.”

“Do your worst,” Ramses volleyed.

“He doesn’t speak for all of us,” Angela said, trying to be clear on her concession.

“He speaks for me,” Mateo told him.

“Then you won’t all necessarily be together anymore,” Pacey decided. “But don’t worry, because most of you won’t remember each other anyway.” He glared at Mateo. “Most of you,” he repeated. “Some of you might even not be alone.” He stood there for a moment, in apparent deep thought. “Okay, I have your assignments. Go to sleep.”

His command was ineluctable. He said it, they did.

Mateo woke up with a start. It was dark, but he could see the foreboding crooked lines of bare tree branches above him. He was in the forest. It was soft and dry. He could not bring himself out of an intense feeling of fear. At first, he thought it was due to a nightmare, but he couldn’t remember having one. No, he was afraid of something here, in the real world. He darted his eyes back and forth, but he daren’t move a muscle. Something was around him, lurking...biding its time. He didn’t know what it was, but it was incredibly dangerous. This whole world was dangerous. Even if he managed to clear the most imminent threat, another would be right there in moments. He was so uncomfortable, though, on a root maybe. The more he adjusted his position—the more sound he made—the more enemies would be alerted to his presence, and his location. They weren’t just enemies, though. They were monsters. There were all monsters.

He could remember what happened now. The current antagonist dropped him under this dome with full memory of all that happened in the dome before. He even found himself being able to distinguish the true experiences from the implanted memories that Pacey used to reinforce the illusion. As Mateo lay there, still too fearful to make a move, he found his old memories returning as well. His unremarkable origins in the 1980s, growing up with his adoptive parents, being turned into a time traveler, unintentionally erasing himself from the timeline, exploring space, fighting villains, changing the past. He was Mateo Matic, husband to Leona Delaney, and father to Romana Nieman. And he had to get back to all of his friends. Get up. Get up!

Mateo sat up, at first thinking it prudent to stay on his rear, but realizing that to be the most vulnerable position. At least when he was on his back, he was theoretically concealed. So he quickly shifted to a crouch. He looked around, not seeing anything in the foliage, but knowing that they were there. Pacey never specifically said where he would be sending him, but there was only one place it could be, given recent developments. Hrockas named this one Bloodbourne. Take every horror film killer, and stuff them in one metropolitan-sized environment. That was the idea, to incorporate visitors into a world full of real danger and violence. On Castlebourne, there were safeguards in place, chief among them being every visitor’s ability to have their consciousness transferred to a new substrate whenever the old one became too damaged. It wasn’t so much an ability as a requirement. It was just as illegal to let oneself die permanently and for real as it was to kill someone else. According to Pacey’s cryptic words, though, this wasn’t really Castlebourne; it was somehow just very similar to it. Perhaps those safeguards weren’t around. The only thing to do now was to find a way to survive.

Something was in the brush. There could be rabbits here, like that common trope in fiction where that was what it turned out to be; a misdirect for the audience to let their guard down just before the true jumpscare emerged. Or it could be something genuinely frightening. Mateo didn’t want to stick around and find out. There was no reason to approach the shaking leaves, like the idiot protagonist in a movie. The only choice was to run. Cautiously, but still quickly. He took off, deftly dodging tree trunks, and avoiding getting his feet caught in exposed roots. Where was he running to? Well, the scope of these domes were limited. They each had a radius of 41.5 kilometers. So if he just kept going in any direction, he would eventually hit the wall. Now, whether he would be able to find an exit, or if there was even one to find, was a different question. Either way, it was the only logical way to go. Of course, he could already be next to a wall, and running in the complete opposite direction, which would mean he would have to travel the full 83 kilometers, but there was no way to know that.

Perhaps this was the wrong call. Maybe movie characters had the right idea by investigating one unknown at a time. His running has evidently awakened a number of monsters in the area. At first, only a couple of them showed up, but then more. And more, and more, and more. Pretty soon, two dozen creatures were chasing after him. He couldn’t run from them in a straight line either, because some of them were actually ahead in his path. So he was zigging and zagging, and desperately doing everything he could to avoid being caught by even one of them. Then he saw something in the corner of his eye. It was a human, and something about her figure made her seem less threatening than the others, even though there were plenty of human killers here. It was the mask, or rather the lack thereof. Most horror genre killers wore some kind of mask, sometimes to conceal their identities, but also to instill dread in their targets. For franchises, it was a way to become iconic, and differentiate themselves from their competitors, even though the formula was pretty much the same throughout all of them.

She wasn’t wearing a mask of any kind, and it didn’t look like she was looking to attack him. No, it looked like they were chasing after her too. Pacey said that not all of them would be alone for their assignments. But it wasn’t Leona or Romana. Not Olimpia, nor either of the Walton twins. Holy crap, it was Paige. Paige Turner, at an age that he had never seen her before. “This way!” she cried.

She seemed to know what she was doing better than he. Mateo turned when she did. They rounded a thick grove of trees, and found themselves coming up on a cliff. He couldn’t see the elevation just yet, but based on the beautiful scenic view beyond, it was probably pretty high. “You got a plan?”

“Don’t stop!” she replied.

He trusted her, though to be fair, it could have been a shapeshifter. Those belonged in horror films too. Just as he leapt over the edge, she stopped for half a second. This was just enough time for him to get ahead of her. After she jumped, she reached for Mateo’s shoulders and held on, digging her knees into his back. He wasn’t one to make a good guess at a falling height even when he was in the middle of it, but it was surely over fifty meters. He maybe could have grabbed some branches below to break his fall, but Paige might get tangled up in them, so he stayed on the straight path, and just let himself crash land on the relatively smooth ground below. He lay there for a few minutes while the nanites flowing through his body started to affect their repairs. It didn’t sound like she was worried, so the monsters probably hadn’t taken a leap of faith behind them. Once he was healed enough to move just a little, he turned over on his back. She was sitting next to him, still catching her breath. “It’s nice to see you, Paige.”

“That’s not my name,” she responded. “I go by Octavia.”

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The Seventh Stage: Rock and a Hard Place (Part III)

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Ezqava ‘Effigy’ Eodurus has had a storied past. Much of it, she prefers to forget. She was young and stupid at the time, and very vulnerable. She placed her trust in someone who turned out to be so much better than her, she never wants to feel that judged again. She truly doesn’t understand her own mind. She’s mischievous and unpredictable, and even sometimes violent. That’s why they locked her up on Earth, and now on this random remote penal colony. Colony isn’t the right word for it, though, since she lives here alone. It’s not too bad. She has a nice home with a pool. The weather is always tame, but she can see storms range in the distance, which is interesting. They’ve provided her with countless hours of entertainment, but no means of communication. She can see what’s going on all over the universe, but can have no effect on it. Unless someone comes to talk to her. Which they do, all the time, though less so in recent days. When she was trapped in her cage on Earth, no one visited her. Most people didn’t even know that she existed. Here, she’s so popular. Here, they value her knowledge. Sadly, they don’t value her as a person. It’s her fault, and she knows it, but it’s still been difficult.

It won’t always be like this. Effigy doesn’t have the power to see the future, but with all the data that she’s collected, she’s pretty confident in her predictions. Hers is not the only transcendent power in these lands. There are two others, and based on the trajectory of their dealings, it won’t be long before they meet. The only question then is whether she can convince them to join forces with her. In the past, she would attempt to gain allies through trickery and subterfuge. Her ability to shapeshift into any human form has always been too tempting to ignore, and too easy to abuse. Her usual methods won’t fly with Clavia and Echo. Not only will they see right through it, but they actually have the power to turn on her. The reason she was in a cage for centuries was because none of her combatants knew how to kill her. The Cloudbearer twins do not suffer the same shortcomings. They have more power than her, and it’s hard to tell how they’ll use it. They’re good...for now—if there even is such a thing as a good person. That doesn’t mean they won’t fight her. If she wants them to trust her, she has to be honest, good, and honestly good. That’s why she has spent the last several years helping leaders of this pocket universe. She’s been asking for favors in return, but only because that’s what they expect. If she did it for nothing, they would be suspicious of her.

Effigy has been trying to get better, but without an unbiased third party to assess her progress, she can’t know if it’s worked. Her self-improvement was driven by her desire to regain the power and freedom that she once had. Is this a paradox? Is it impossible to be worthy of the power that one seeks if they seek it? Is ambition inherently evil? More importantly, how will the god twins see it? Earlier, she planted the seed of her answer when an old friend came for a visit. Either she’s about to get a third visitor in one day, or her friend is back.

She watches as the personal pod streaks across the sky, and lands somewhere on the other side of the wall that keeps Effigy from seeing the ocean. She’s tried asking for a tower to have a better view of this world, but she’s never given anyone enough intel to warrant such a gift. She’s going to play it differently this time, not like she did before with Bariq. She’s going to be cool and composed, but genuine and professional. The door opens. Two women walk through. One is the friend, but the other is a stranger. “You have returned,” Effigy begins, “sooner than I expected.”

“The term sequence that you provided was right,” Tekla replies. “It took me to an evidently unused Nexus, which allowed me to travel to Origin, where I met an apparent god, who connected me with this one here.” She gestured towards the other woman.

“Hi, Francis Deering,” she says, offering her hand.

Effigy reaches out for it, then pulls back in horror. She forgot to shapeshift into the form of a human. She looks like her true self still...a white monster. “I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t mean for you to see me like this. I didn’t realize.” She takes a breath, and transforms herself into a woman she once knew by the name of Slipstream.

“It’s okay,” Francis assures her. “You don’t scare me.” Her skin begins to vibrate and ripple. Within seconds, she looks like a masculine version of herself, perhaps a twin brother, or something. She—or he—seems as surprised as Effigy and Tekla do. “Wow, that was much faster than it is where I’m from. Your world is interesting.”

Effigy smiles. “May I ask, what are your pronouns?”

“She/her when I’m in my female form, and he/him when I’m like this.  If you’re talking about me in a more general sense, and you’ve encountered me in both forms about evenly, you can use they/them.”

“Can you turn into anyone, or just this one guy?” Tekla asks him.

“I’m not turning into a different person,” Francis explains. “I’m both people. Nothing about who I am as a person changes when I’m in one form or the other. They call me a dimorph; both male and female. I can only have one reproductive system at a time, but my mind and personality maintain continuity.”

They nod.

“I can shift back, if you’re more comfortable...” Francis offers.

“No, it’s whatever you want,” Effigy assures him. “Is that why you chose him?” she asks Tekla. “Because he’s a shifter.”

“I explained the situation to the god, Senona Riggur, who suggested a therapist would be of some use to you. This is who they chose.”

“So, you’re from another universe?” Effigy asks Francis.

“Am I?” Francis volleys. “No clue. I just go where they tell me.”

“Well, I really appreciate you coming here, and I would appreciate more of your time. You see, I’ve traditionally not been so great of a person. As you saw, I’m not a person at all. I think that I’ve learned the error of my ways, but self-assessment can only get you so far.”

“You say you’re not a person. What do you mean by that?”

“Well, you saw. I’m not human.”

“Just because you’re not human doesn’t mean you’re not a person.”

“Do you know a lot of non-humans where you’re from? I mean, more intelligent beings than just dogs and cats.”

Francis smirks. “I know a few.” She takes a beat. “Let’s get into this. Is there somewhere we can talk?”

“Yeah. Tekla, do you need to get back to Judy before she gets suspicious?” Effigy asks, worried. Maybe she is better, worrying about others.

Tekla laughs. “You think I took the Nexus to a hostile unknown location without getting my boss’ permission first? She went with me. She was granted her own wish alongside mine. Don’t ask what it was, though.”

“I see. Tell her thank you. She’s always been more supportive and understanding with me than other people.”

“I will pass along the message. Until then...” Tekla starts to say, “I’ve never skinny-dipped before, but I hear that’s how it’s done in this pool.”

Now Effigy is the one to laugh. “You can if you want. I also have suits in the cabana. We’ll be in the solarium, if you don’t mind a little sun, Mr. Deering. The windows are rated high for UV shielding.”

“That sounds lovely,” Francis replies.

The two of them head to the other side of the house to discuss Effigy’s issues, and her self-doubts. In the spirit of my agreement with Dr. Hammer to stay out of the therapy sessions that she has with her own patients, I cannot relay what Francis and Effigy discussed in private. While Dr. Hammer did not technically ask me to maintain the privacy of all of my characters, I believe that she would prefer me to respect therapist-patient confidentiality across the board except for conversations which are integral to the plot. Suffice it to say, Francis’ wisdom was very helpful in Effigy’s quest to not only become a better person, but to understand what that truly means, and how to measure her own progress, as well as recognize her successes for what they are.

Effigy looks up to the sky again. “You’re in my head.”

Is she talking to me?

“Yes, Superintendent, I am talking to you. You are writing this story from an omniscient third-person perspective. You know everything that I’m thinking. The fact that you chose not to watch my therapy session is meaningless. You still know exactly what happened. You could always just pull it straight out of my thoughts.”

“Who are you talking to?” Francis asks. They’re currently strolling around—

“No, no, no,” Effigy interrupts me. “You’re not going to ignore my question by droning on and on about the minutiae of our current behavior, just to reach some arbitrary word count goal on this installment. There’s vivid imagery, and then there’s pointless and trivial details. We’re walking back to the other side of the house. There. Done. That’s all you need to say.”

I wasn’t ignoring your question. You didn’t ask one.

Effigy stops to think for a moment. As she does so, a beetle-like insectoid crawls along the leaf of a plant hanging from a pole on the side of the building. A spider-like creature is on the underside of this leaf, and the question is whether one will notice the other, both each other, or neither. No one is looking at these organisms, but it’s still happening. Things like this are happening all the time, all around you. If Effigy weren’t blinded by her frustration with me, she might have the capacity to take a moment to admire the beauty. She’s standing next to it right now, stewing. She’s choosing not to look over at the insectoids, knowing all too well that if I wanted her to look at them, she would goddamn look at them. For as powerful as she thinks she may be, she is nothing compared to the might of the author. I could erase her from the story with a few taps on my keyboard. She would never connect with Clavia and Echo. She would never realize her full potential. She would never really know if she became a better person, or if the leopard simply can’t change its spots. I already spent years not mentioning Effigy and her exploits at all, and I can do it again. I could do it forever if I like. Her past as the final boss in the Springfield Nine franchise may never have happened. I could erase that too if I wanted. And maybe I will.

I just did. Effigy who?

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 21, 2503

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Mateo and Ramses didn’t leave the scene of the crime because they didn’t want to get caught, but because they didn’t want to get caught yet. They still needed to give their friends enough time to conduct their more precise experiments and examinations. As far as the two of them were concerned, though, they had enough proof. Nobody looked over the edge of the ravine to see if they were okay. That was how a lot of video games were, once you passed out of a certain area, you were free, even if any pursuers should still be able to follow you. NPCs were programmed to stay within a particular radius, because it was easier to code them with specific context than as individuals with freedom of movement. Of course, that didn’t make much sense here. The simulation was so incredibly sophisticated that they were all fooled for years before getting the hint that something was off, so why would there be such limitations? They still didn’t understand how any of this worked. It just seemed so inconsistent.

“What did you mean back there?” Ramses asked as they were back up onto the road. “You didn’t think that this was a simulation?”

“No, I said that I didn’t think that we were in a computer,” Mateo corrected.

“Okay, and why’s that?”

“I dunno.”

“You don’t?”

“My memory has been erased, remember? I think I remembered something just before we hit the wall, but now it’s gone again.”

They continued to walk a ways in silence. They ended up in a sort of downtown area, situated on the opposite side of where they lived from where they worked. Mateo had never been here before, but a new memory was coming in. This wasn’t mission hills, or the area surrounding it. In the real world, it was very suburban. It wasn’t located between two urban centers like this. This was wrong. Everything was wrong. More evidence, which they managed to ignore all this time until they had no choice. Someone left their skateboard on the sidewalk. Mateo picked it up, and sent it through the window of a clothing shop. No one was hurt, it just landed in the display case. The shopkeeper came out, and started waving his hands, just like the construction workers. He didn’t say anything, though, probably because there was no reason to program these particular NPCs to speak.

Ramses kicked the sideview mirror off of a car as they were passing by. The driver got out, and said, “hey!” but that was it. He didn’t try to stop them, or anything. It did look like he was calling the cops, though, so that was a minor improvement. They jaywalked across the street, blocking traffic, and forcing drivers to honk their horns. There was a small restaurant here with outdoor seating. Mateo grabbed a burger off of someone’s plate while Ramses took a drink right out of their hands. “Ugh,” he said. “I hate this flavor.” He just dropped the glass on the ground. They were becoming a real nuisance, but still, no one tried to do anything to stop them. It was getting dark now, perhaps a little earlier than it should for May? Or was it September? It was impossible to know, since none of this was real.

They turned into an alley, and opened a random door. It took them through a kitchen, and into what appeared to be a dance hall. They could see a woman in a white dress, and a man in a tuxedo. Classic wedding reception. Mateo grabbed the microphone from the DJ, who wasn’t even playing anything. He was just bouncing to an imaginary beat, and pretending to scratch at the records. “I’m really happy for you, Imma let you finish, but Kanye had one of the worst videos of all time!”

“Who?” one of the bridesmaids asked.

“I dunno,” Mateo said. The rapper didn’t seem to exist in this reality, though he was rattling around in Mateo’s brain somewhere. “Love is a joke, and none of you are real, I mean it!”

Ramses grabbed the mic, and put it up to his own lips. “Is real.”

Mateo took it back. “What? What does Israel have to do with anything?”

“No, none of you is real,” Ramses tried to explain.

“That’s what I said.”

“You said are real. That’s wrong.”

“No, it’s not wrong, they’re not real. Look at ‘em!” Mateo pointed to the crowd. They were watching and listening intently, smiley as ever, like this was a usual reception, and nothing strange was going on. They weren’t engaging at all. He could say anything, and they would still just stare up at him like he was making sense. “Whatever. I’m outtie...five thousand!” He reached down, and tipped the DJ’s table over. The DJ just kept bouncing to the music that wasn’t playing, and pantomiming his job.

On their way out through the front, both of them grabbed a handful of wedding cake, and started stuffing their mouths. That was when Mateo’s phone rang. “What up?”

“It’s Boyd. You crashed my car. Now the cops are talking to me at the station.”

“How’d it go with the grass?” Mateo asked him.

“They’re all unique,” Boyd answered. “The grass is real. Everything is real.”

“All right. We’ll be there when we can, but as you said, we crashed the car, so we’re movin’ a little slow.” He barely got the word out before they opened the door to find themselves surrounded by cops themselves, all pointing guns at them, like they were criminal masterminds, or something.

They just stood there for a moment, frozen, not out of fear, but apathy. These cops weren’t real either. They may have thought they were, but it was a lie. The world was a total lie. Ramses reached out towards them to offer them, “cake?”

“Gun!” one of the cops cried. They all started shooting.

It was comical how they unloaded their bullets into Mateo and Ramses’ bodies. They were shaking uncontrollably with each shot, but never did fall down. They didn’t have to. The bullets weren’t real! Finally, someone managed to shout, “hold your fire!”

They all stopped, except for one guy. He just kept firing, slowly but steadily. He wasn’t even hitting either of his targets. They were good shots, though. Mateo and Ramses looked over to the wall a meter away from them. Dust blew out of the bullet hole each time, and it really was just the one bullet hole. He managed to hit the exact same point every single time. Definitely a computer program. Definitely.

Once one of his mates managed to stop him, it was he who placed the handcuffs on the suspects, and drove them off towards the station. Some of the other cruisers followed with their lights blaring, and their sirens going off. The others dispersed, and continued to police a world that didn’t need their help, since everyone could simply be programmed to follow the law at all times.

“I stole his car, let him go,” Mateo demanded. They were sitting in the interrogation room now; all three of them. A piece of plastic from Boyd’s car was sitting in a baggie on the table, presumably to intimidate them into confessing.

“You don’t make the demands here,” the detective argued.

“You don’t make the demand here!” Mateo yelled back.

“Yes, I do!”

“Yes, I do!”

“Stop copying me!”

“Stop copying me!”

“Detective Sanchez, he won’t stop copying me!”

“Detective Sanchez, he won’t stop copying me!”

“All right, all right,” Sanchez interrupted. “Why did you steal his car?”

“Seemed like fun,” Mateo replied.

“All right, all right. Why did you steal his car?”

“You got them both in a loop,” Ramses said with a laugh.

“All right, all right. Why did you steal his car?”

“Why didn’t you?” Mateo asked her accusatorily.

“What?”

“Oh, give it up, Sanchez,” Mateo began. “They know you’re dirty, and working with us. They’re trying to catch you in a lie.”

“I’m not dirty, I take a shower every night!” she contended, slamming her hand on the table. She darted her eyes only to one side, thinking about her own comment.

“Prove it!” Ramses shouted.

“Maybe I will,” she returned

“All right, all right,” the dude detective interrupted. “Why did you steal his car?”

“I didn’t steal anything,” Mateo defended. “You’re the one who stole it.”

“Is this true?” the detective’s eyes teared up as he was looking over at his partner.

“No, they’re joking,” she insisted. She looked back over at Mateo. “You are, aren’t you?” She sighed, and went over to sit in a chair against the back wall.

“Where were you last night?” the guy went on to ask.

Sanchez came back over, and pointed at Mateo. “You know where I was!”

“Don’t you lie to me!” the other guy urged.

She mouthed his words as he was saying them, then grabbed the evidence bag from the table to take it back over to her little wall chair. Meanwhile, the man nodded with a smirk on his face. “We got you. Your partner confessed. He’s in the other room right now, giving you up.”

“My partner,” Mateo asked, “who’s sitting right next to me?”

“That’s the one,” the detective corroborated, still smug.

“Well, I’m giving him up,” Mateo decided. “He stole my pencil in first grade.”

Both of the detectives’ eyes widened. “He is?” they asked, perfectly in sync. They scowled at Ramses. “We’ve been looking for you for years, you..son of a bitch!”

Mateo just remembered something else, from a movie that didn’t exist in this reality, but did in the real one. “I think there’s been some kind of mistake. We’re actually supposed to be getting out of jail today, not going into it.” Could this even work?

“Ugh,” Sanchez said. “You idiots.” She started to undo their handcuffs. “Come on.” She led them out of the room, and to the exit without any further issue.

“Need a ride?” a voice asked from the wall as they were passing by. It was Pacey. “My company specializes in that. I’m kind of a big deal.”

“Your computer simulation is breaking down,” Ramses gloated at him.

Pacey chuckled once. “It’s not a computer simulation, and it’s breaking because I let go of the wheel.”

“So it was you,” Mateo accused, “this whole time.”

“Depends on what you mean by it,” Pacey reasoned. “Some things were real, some things were scripted.”

“Who am I?” Mateo asked. “Who are we? What did you take from us?”

“I didn’t take who you were,” Pacey started to explain. “You’re in love with Leona, and Olimpia. Romana is your daughter, and Ramses is your friend, as are the Waltons...though, they’re not exactly twins; it’s more complicated than that.”

“Marie is four years older than Angela,” Mateo recalled.

“Heh. Yeah. Time, right?”

“What did you do?” Boyd pressed.

“I held them accountable for their actions,” Pacey said. “And you? You’re just a dick. I consider bringing you in here to be a public service. A bonus.”

“Let us out,” Mateo ordered.

“Yeah, I will,” Pacey agreed. “This dome was broken as soon as you went on your joyride. If I had let the scenario play out, you would have ended up in jail, and that’s not really what I want. I could have reset the premise, but it’s clear that Underburg just isn’t working. I’ll be moving you somewhere else, however, I’m not sure where yet.”

“The dome,” Mateo said out loud. That triggered something in his mind. His memories weren’t flooding back in, but a few of them were squeezing through the barrier. Dome. Dome, dome, dome, dome, dome. “Castlebourne. We never left.”

Pacey was surprised, but not shocked. “Oh. I need to tweak my memory suppressing machine yet again. Your brains; I can’t figure them out. Your stronger than you should be. But to clarify, you’re not technically on Castlebourne, so don’t expect Hrockas or Bran to swoop in and save the day. Ain’t nobody here but us chickens. And the androids,” he added.

“So, it really isn’t a virtual construct,” Ramses determined. “We were wrong. This is base reality.”

“It’s a reality,” Pacey corrected. “There’s no such thing as base reality. It’s all about your perspective. Are you but ones and zeros on a chip? No. Never were. Never crossed my mind to do it like that. Probably wouldn’t work very well because of your patterns.”

“So our patterns are intact?” Mateo was remembering more about their real lives.

Pacey nodded. “You jump forward in time every day. But I mess with your memories on an as-needed basis. Sometimes you think it’s been a day, and sometimes a few weeks. It just depends on what I need, and how much I’m willing to fill in to account for the extra time that never really happened.”

“Why are you doing this?” Boyd asked, basically the same question as before, just worded a little differently.

“Half-punishment, half-reward. You’ve all done enough. Buddy, you’ve done enough bad. I took you out of the timeline in my own way, because while the rest of you have done some good, you’ve also been meddlesome. Just stay here, and no harm will come to you. Just accept your new reality, and live your life.”

Mateo listened to Pacey’s words carefully, all the while also remembering where they knew him from in the first place. But if this guy knew the first thing about them, he wouldn’t be asking such a dumb thing of them. None of them was the type to roll over, and let someone dictate their lives. “No.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 20, 2502

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Everyone was home now, and they were having a meeting. Even Boyd was here, because while he felt like a separate unit, it also seemed like he was somehow part of this. He and Romana exchanged awkward glances, which were annoying to Mateo, but he didn’t want to overshadow the purpose of this gathering. Marie had the floor right now, because she studied this in school in multiple classes. “Simulation hypothesis,” she began. “It’s a modern flavor of one of the oldest philosophical conundrums in history. Since the dawn of man, we have been asking ourselves what reality is. Is it subjective or objective? Do we all share the same reality? Are you real, or just a figment of my imagination? I think, therefore I am, so I know that I’m real in some sense, but I can’t say the same thing about you. Or this couch. Or anything in the world. Maybe I’m dreaming...remembering. Or maybe we are all real, but everything else is some kind of construct. What we’re concerned with today is specifically whether we are in a computer simulation, and it’s not necessarily full sim hypothesis. Perhaps, it’s all about us. Everyone in this room feels connected. Olimpia, you don’t remember applying for the role of Mateo’s assistant, you just know that you did.”

“I...I must have,” Olimpia decided.

“Must you have?” Marie asked rhetorically. “We all have weird memories, and we all look at each other with this familiarity that shouldn’t be there. Mister Maestri, you and I only met today, yet I feel like I’ve known you for a while.”

“Is that a good thing?” Boyd asked.

She cocked her head to the side, and regarded him. “No. I don’t like you. Anyone else feel the same way?”

People grimaced, or they looked away. Everyone was uncomfortable.

“Well, I feel like I like all of you,” Boyd defended. He crossed his arms, and started to pout. “But whatever.”

“Yeah, and...I get that,” Marie went on. “You don’t feel the same way about us that we feel about you. But...those kinds of feelings should come from history, not first impressions. I don’t know anything about you. That’s why I think that it’s not really simulation hypothesis. That’s why I think...we’re stuck in a virtual environment. Just us, and everyone else is an NPC.”

“NPC?” Romana questioned.

“Non-player character,” Leona answered. “Just a program, coded to act like an independent entity, but ultimately only an extension of the system.”

“We’re all part of the system,” Ramses argued. “If we are in a virtual reality, and our minds have been messed with, it means that we can’t even trust our own thoughts. I may not have a choice in saying what I’m saying right now. The programmers could be feeding this into the program, and forcing me to say it. While Marie is right, we all feel real, and we feel like everyone else here is real, in contrast to everyone else, we’re just as vulnerable to the code. We’re just as hopeless.”

Marie was loudly quiet.

“Marie?” Angela prompted.

She looked at her sister with a smile. “It’s true, what he says. That’s why I studied these concepts in my philosophy courses, not computer science. It’s unverifiable. Any evidence we find one way or another could merely be what the overlord wants us to see. I use that word, because maybe it’s not computer programmers. Maybe it’s an evil demon. Maybe it’s God.” She chuckled. “Maybe it’s me.”

“So, what do we do?” Boyd asked, trying to be involved, and maybe get on people’s good side. “Is there anything we can try?”

“We can certainly try,” Marie encouraged. “You can always try.” She took a breath. “Simulations are expensive, there’s no way around that. Coding an entire reality is a lot of work. Even if you ask an AI to do it, you’re just shifting that work to the AI. It still has to get done, and it’s not really easier for that AI, it’s just theoretically better equipped to handle the workload.” She carefully pulled a red hair from the arm of her chair. Leona’s. “I can put this under a microscope, and see all the fine details. I can put it under a stronger microscope, and see even finer details. I can put it under the strongest microscope in existence, and resolve atoms. Can you imagine how much work it would take to program a simulation so detailed that it can be broken down into all the atoms in the universe? Some theories say that that’s not really what’s happening. The simulation renders basic visible objects most of the time, and only generates smaller bits when they become necessary. If I were to actually procure that transmission electron microscope, only then would the program say, okay, let’s code a few billion atoms. Well, perhaps there’s something there. If we want to test the boundaries, we could start pulling random things, breaking them down, and testing how detailed they look. If we do it fast enough, maybe the servers that the construct is running on don’t have enough bandwidth to keep up, and we’ll start seeing low-res results.”

“Should we be talking about this out loud?” Romana asked. “Could someone be listening right now?”

Ramses laughed. “If they are, it doesn’t matter what we do. Again, we’re helpless.”

“You said hopeless before,” Olimpia reminded him.

“It’s both,” Ramses agreed.

“All we can do is try,” Leona said. “We might as well run whatever tests we can think of.”

“Sis, what were you talking about last night?” Angela asked. “Geo—geometric—”

“Geometry instancing,” Marie helped. “That’s another thing; related.” She gently kicked the end table. “When you went to the store to buy this, you might have seen multiple copies of the same model. In the real world, you would have to manufacture each one separately. You might use machines—I doubt it’s handcrafted—but you can’t just copy and paste like you can data in a computer. But if we’re in a computer, then you can! So all the other end tables that are just like this one were probably only coded once, and literally re-rendered whenever it was necessary. Because, why wouldn’t you do it like that? Why bother wasting your time writing the same code over and over again? Even if two things aren’t exactly alike, but very closely similar, copying and pasting will help you get the work done faster before you tweak the modifications. Imagine doing this with the houses on this block, or the trees.”

“Or blades of grass,” Romana offered.

“Yeah, grass is perfect,” Marie confirmed. “People don’t pay attention to grass. It all just looks the same. A programmer, trying to save time and resources, might only come up with a dozen or so grass blade models, and just reuse them repeatedly. That’s how I would do it.”

Mateo had been very quiet throughout this whole thing. It wasn’t only that he was listening, but if they were truly at risk of being overheard—by a simulation developer, or a scientist with a bunch of vats full of brains—then someone should be staying quiet, and not give anything away. If they could read his mind, it wouldn’t matter, but on the off-chance that the overlords were limited to audible speech, he was gonna play it close to the chest. He looked over at Leona now. She turned to meet his gaze. Still, he didn’t say anything. He just stared at her. He didn’t know what he was trying to tell her, just...maybe only that he couldn’t tell her anything. She would have to come to her own conclusions, and do it totally with his help.

Leona’s eyes suddenly widened. “Marie, Angela, go get a microscope. Start breaking things down. Olimpia and Boyd, you’re with me. We’re gonna touch grass.”

“What about me?” Romana asked.

“You have a final exam to study for,” Leona reminded her daughter.

“If we’re in a computer simulation, then I don’t,” Romana reasoned.

“If we’re not, then you do. Why are we arguing about this? The whole point of running these tests because we don’t know the truth. Go study.”

“Fine,” she huffed.

“And me?” Ramses asked.

“I thought you said we were hopeless and helpless,” Leona said to him.

Mateo deliberately stared at his wife again.

“Keep my husband company,” Leona decided. “He doesn’t have a job either.”

Mateo stood up, and finally said one word, and it was to Boyd. “Keys.”

Boyd was confused, but Mateo was his boss, so he handed him the keys to his car.

Mateo went outside without saying anything else.

Ramses followed, and then got in the passenger seat. “Where are we going?”

Mateo still didn’t speak.

“Gotchya.” Ramses didn’t know what was happening, but Mateo was his boss too, so he chose to trust him.

Mateo just started driving, going the speed limit, and following all traffic signs. After about ten minutes, he realized how much danger he was putting Ramses in, as well as his family. If they turned out to be wrong, their lives would be ruined. “How confident are you that none of this is real?”

Ramses did nothing for a moment. Then he placed a hand on the door handle. “Keep driving. Don’t stop.” He opened his door, and let his right arm hang over the edge, scraping against the asphalt below. After fifteen seconds, he pulled his arm back in, and closed the door. He sighed as he examined his bloodied hand, front and back. “Pretty confident.”

“Doesn’t hurt?”

“Not really,” Ramses replied. “I can already feel myself healing. It looks worse than it is.”

Mateo nodded. “Good enough for me.” He slammed on the accelerator, and while this wasn’t the fastest car in the world, he was going over a hundred miles per hour before too long. Cars were honking at them as they were whizzing past. He was an administrator at work now, but he still knew how to drive. He didn’t even put two hands on the steering wheel. He was as cool as ever, fully in control. Even at these speeds, they were in no danger of crashing. If that was going to happen, he would have to do it on purpose. He just couldn’t put anyone else in danger. Just because they thought only their small group was real, and everyone else was an NPC, didn’t mean it was true. It was still possible for them to be in a simulation, and these other people were just as real, and just as oblivious. Their connection to each other could be something else, or just because they happened to be the ones who were sensing the inconsistencies. Mateo thought they made a movie about that once, but he couldn’t remember it. Maybe that was in a different world altogether.

He was about to hit traffic, so Mateo jumped up onto the median, and started driving on that instead. Cars continued to honk, but after he drove past, everything just looked kind of normal. They went back to their daily lives, now that the game players were no longer triggering their preprogrammed responses. The traffic jam ended, so Mateo got back on the road, but not before running over a couple of small trees, and an orange sign warning drivers of an upcoming construction zone. Perfect. He saw what it was talking about. They were building a new high rise on the corner, and having to close down one of the lanes next to it, probably to work on the sewage line. For a few seconds, they were Tokyo drifting when Mateo made a sharp turn, and then blew through the fence. The closest call was when he nearly ran into another car who was probably coming in to work here. Construction workers waved their hands in dismay, but again, just went back to what they were doing before he showed up. Man, if this wasn’t a program, something had to be going on.

Mateo continued to drive on the rough dirt non-road, splashing in the mud, and sideswiping some kind of big white and yellow machine. It slew him down, but he didn’t stop. There was a dirt ramp up ahead. He smirked. “I’ve always wanted to try this.”

“It might be the last thing you do.”

“Hashtag-worth it!”

“What’s a hashtag?” Ramses questioned.

They drove right onto the dirt pile, and jumped over the far side of it. It was short, and low to the ground, so they didn’t land on the moon, but it was still pretty fun while it lasted. And luckily, it wasn’t enough to stop them in their tracks. Mateo kept driving, but had to swerve to avoid a small group of workers on their lunch break. They didn’t even seem to notice, reinforcing this hypothesis of theirs. “You wearing your seatbelt?”

“Nope,” Ramses answered.

Mateo pulled the bar under his seat, and pushed the seat as far back as it would go. “Ready to eject.”

“Ready,” Ramses confirmed.

The concrete traffic barriers were coming up fast, but he never wavered. He did grip the wheel with two hands now, though, in anticipation. At the very last second, he remembered something from his past that he didn’t think he was meant to. The truth. A look of horror fell upon his face. “I don’t think we’re in a computer!” Crash.

The car stopped suddenly. Both Mateo and Ramses did not. They flew up, and through the windshield. There was a reason those concrete blocks were there. They were trying to prevent people from going over the edge of a ravine. The two of them arched over the barriers, and down that ravine, onto the dirt and rocks below. They lay there, bloody and mangled, for a couple of minutes. Then they stood up, and instinctively began to reset their own bones. Mateo noticed that Ramses’ leg was twisted the wrong way, so he stepped on his foot, and twisted Ramses at the hips to get it back in place. They looked up at the top of the ravine.

“We’re in trouble,” Ramses mused.

“We’re a distraction,” Mateo said. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 19, 2501

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Leona, Olimpia, and Romana were on a trip together in Portland. They checked into a hotel for one night, but then they left to rough it in a cabin in the woods far outside of town. This was a bonding experience meant to strengthen Leona’s relationship with Olimpia, and create a relationship between Olimpia and Romana. The former seemed to be okay with the three-person arrangement that her parents had, but she hadn’t spent much time with their third. They weren’t intending on her becoming a second mother—especially not since Romana was approaching adulthood—but it was important for them to get to know each other better.

“Do you still know where you’re going?” Olimpia asked. They were on a hike now, straight away from their cabin.

Leona checked the satnav on her watch. “Absolutely, I do. Not far now.”

“I hear the highway,” Romana said. “We’re not in the middle of nowhere anymore. If we need to stop and ask for directions, I’m sure it’s fine.”

“That you can hear the highway is a good sign,” Leona said. “The surprise isn’t remote.”

“What is it?” Olimpia asked for the umpteenth time, knowing that she would not receive an answer this time either.

“Just be patient.” We’re really close. She wasn’t wrong. Ten minutes later, they were passing through the trees, and onto the edges of some town. “Welcome...to Kansas City.”

“We walked all the way back to Kansas City?” Olimpia questioned. “What did we do, teleport?” She laughed.

“Kansas City...Oregon,” Leona clarified.

“Is that even a thing?” Romana asked.

“Clearly. You may now look at your phones.”

They both pulled them out, but Romana was faster. “There’s, like, fifteen people here.”

“I know. Cool, though, right?” Leona said with her hands on her hips.

“This was the surprise? A few people moved here from Missouri, and were too unoriginal to come up with a new name.”

“Well, I thought it was interesting.”

Olimpia turned around. “I’m headed back.”

“Oh come on, there’s a pool hall,” Leona whined.

“There is a pool hall,” Romana confirmed, still looking at her phone. “It’s pretty much all there is at this point. There isn’t even a restaurant.” She dropped her hand, and stood there with a blank face.

“There’s a school too.”

“No, it closed down.”

“Since when?”

Romana lifted her phone again. “Today.”

“Oh.”

“They had to finish up some summer schooling, but now it’s over.”

“Well, I’m sorry I wasted our time. I thought we could take a picture in front of the town sign. Ya know, like what people do when they go to a small town that shares its name with their surname?” She looked out, and blocked the sun with her hand. “It should be somewhere on that other road over there.”

“No, they took the sign down too,” Romana explained to her. The county stepped in, because it’s an unincorporated community, instead of a real town. So they weren’t allowed to have a sign anymore.”

“Fine,” Leona lamented.

“It’s all right, I still got my steps in today.” Olimpia looked at her own watch. “Eleven kilometers, not bad.” She patted Leona on the back. “That’s reason enough to come here.”

“Can we just take some pictures at least?” Leona begged.

“Sure. Let’s walk closer and get some more steps.”

They took a few photos of each other near one of the few buildings, which must have been a barn, or something. They went to check out the pool hall, but it was very smoky, and gross, so they didn’t even play one round. They just left, and started hiking back to the cabin. Leona was more upset than any of them at how anticlimactic this was. She kept walking with a frowny face, which the other two kept trying to pull back up at the corners. Eventually, she was able to forget about the whole thing, and get back to normal. It was only one day, and the hike was still lovely, so it wasn’t like it was a total waste of time. Besides, they would be able to laugh about it later, and tell a decent story at parties. Or so they thought, until Olimpia fell.

They were on a narrow trail on a ridge, switching their order organically and unintentionally. Each new leader would warn those behind of obstacles or dangers awaiting them. Unfortunately, this meant that one of them would not enjoy any given warning. Before Olimpia had the chance to inform the other two of a loose rock in the soft dirt, she became the victim of it. At first, she believed that she was okay. She caught herself on a whip tree, and even had enough time to say, “I’m good” before the pole trunk snapped under her weight, and dropped her over the edge. She fell so far, Leona and Romana couldn’t even tell how far it was. She kept tumbling and tumbling down the hill, ultimately disappearing through the forest, but they could hear the sounds of her knocking against things as she kept going, and her screams.

“Stay here,” Leona ordered her daughter.

“You’re not going after her.”

“Of course I’m going after her.”

“You’ll die too! You think it’s gonna be easier for you to get down than her?”

“She started on her back, and gained too much momentum,” Leona reasoned as she was dropping her pack. She took out her trekking poles, which she so far hadn’t bothered using. “I have the luxury of being more careful. We can’t just leave her.”

“I’m not saying that. We need to call for help.”

“Yeah, you do that,” Leona said as she was starting down the hill. “We don’t know how long that’s gonna take, though. I need to go assess the situation. That’s why we brought radio transceivers in addition to the sat phone. I’ll stay in contact from down there. Call S&R.”

“Be careful,” Romana warned, as if that could ever help.

“Yeah.” Leona cautiously walked down the hill with her four appendages, but it was taking too long. If she were going up, she could just keep climbing and climbing, but facing forwards, she had to be mindful of where she placed the tip of her pole. It could sink into mud, or slide on a thick leaf, and then it would literally be downhill from here. Momentum was Olimpia’s problem, but it was going to be Leona’s solution. Now that Romana probably couldn’t see her anymore, she started to slide—not uncontrollably, but more like she was on a snowboard. She went as fast as she could, leaning back to keep herself from tipping over. She still used the poles to slow herself down a little, and occasionally catch herself on a tree. As she got the hang of it, it actually started to be less like snowboarding, and more like skiing. She could just about glide down like a pro, like this hill was designed for it. Then she hit an invisible root, which reminded her why boot skiing wasn’t a real thing. She did tip over, and fell right on her face. Her ass flew up over her, and sent her rolling farther down, and just like Olimpia before, she couldn’t stop herself. She kept going and going until she felt a sharp crack in the back of her neck, and the lights went out.

“Mama! Mama!” Leona could hear. It was Romana.

Leona fluttered her eyes open to see that pretty face looking down at her. “Roma,” she whispered.

“She’s awake,” Romana said to someone out of view.

Olimpia’s equally pretty face appeared above her. “How is that possible? Her neck was broken. I swear, it was broken.”

“Clearly not,” Romana argued.

“Help me up, daughter.” With Romana’s aid, Leona got into a seated position. She leaned back against a boulder on the edge of a creek, and looked up at Olimpia, who was absolutely covered in blood; not quite like Carrie White, but not entirely unlike her either. “How are you alive?”

“I don’t know,” Olimpia replied. “I guess we’re both lucky.”

“Where’s the rescue team?” Leona asked.

“They’re not here yet,” Romana answered. “They said that it would be a couple of hours.”

“That’s funny,” Leona began. “They would be your only way down here since I explicitly ordered you to stay up there.”

“I’m younger than you two,” Romana reasoned. “I have better balance. Even with these things.”

Leona scoffed. Ever since Romana’s boobs came in, she was always talking about them...like Leona ought to be jealous. “You’ll get sick of ‘em.” She struggled to stand up all the way. “I’m all right, I can do it,” she insisted when Romana tried to help again. She looked up at the sky as if she would see a helicopter on its way. “You need to wash yourself off. You survived something that you probably shouldn’t have, and we don’t need people asking questions.”

“What are we?” Olimpia asked. “Superheroes, or something?”

“I’ve never saved anyone in my life,” Leona replied.

“Yes, you have, you’ve saved trillions,” Romana said.

“What?”

Romana flinched, and took a beat. “What?”

That wasn’t true, yet it did sound right somehow. Leona turned back to Olimpia. “Get in the water.”

“I don’t wanna get dysentery.”

“Just don’t get any in your mouth, you’ll be fine,” Leona assured her.

“You could also use these,” Romana countered. She removed a pack of wet wipes from the side pocket on her pack, which she managed to keep on her person.

“Thank you,” Olimpia said, graciously accepting them from her. “I’m gonna need them all, I think,” she decided, looking down at the mess. “And a change of clothes?”

“I can afford it,” Romana told her, “and certainly. How do you feel about pink crop tops?”

Olimpia stripped down and cleaned herself up. In the meantime, Romana tried to cancel search and rescue, but that went against protocol. They said that they couldn’t just turn around and erase the mission from their logs. She could be under duress, or suffering from a concussion that made her confused. They received a distress call, and were obligated to go out and investigate. Welp, they would have to lie and say that it wasn’t as serious as they thought. Romana wasn’t lying about the crop top, though. For Olimpia’s larger frame, however, it was extra croppy; more like a bra. They opted to climb back up the ridge. It wasn’t safe, but they seemed to be some kind of invincible, and they were hoping to find Olimpia’s bag along the way. They did, which allowed her to change into her own extra set of clothes instead.

They found Leona’s bag back up on the ridge trail. After taking a stop to drink water, they simply continued on their way. Oddly enough, the rescue team didn’t show up, and never called back. Concerned, Leona called them again an hour later, but the line was dead. “The phone number you are trying to reach is unavailable, or has been disconnected. Please check the number, and try your call again.” They tried a few more times, and still got nothing. That was super bizarre, but not their problem anymore. They just returned to the cabin, and collapsed on their respective bunks.

The next day, they got back in touch with the boys back in the regular Kansas City area. They immediately confessed what happened to them on that ridge, which prompted Mateo to admit that something similar happened to them, though less accidentally. There was something going on between the four of them, and their neighbors, the Walton twins. Even though they had no clue what was happening, their instincts were telling them that Romana was a lot more fragile, and her durability should not be tested with stabbings, falls, or surge protector strikes. Still, she was one of them, and other than Boyd, and maybe Pacey, no one else was. The more they thought on it, the more convinced they were that they were in a simulation. They had customers and clients and employees, but none of them could relate any specific story about one of them. They couldn’t remember the last time they were at the dentist, or a conversation they had with a classmate. There was something wrong with their memories. That was what it all came down to. And Pacey. He knew something. They could feel it.

The girls boarded their plane, and went back home, or at least that was what they believed. They didn’t have any memory of that either. Not clearly. They returned with the impression that a sufficient amount of time had passed between Portland and Mission Hills, and it seemed like they were at the airport, and then on a plane, but they had no recollection of it. They needed answers, and they needed to find a way to get those answers without their memories being messed with again, if that was really what was happening at all. They didn’t know. They didn’t know anything. Maybe confronting Pacey wasn’t the right call. Maybe all they could do was go out and push the boundaries. If none of this was real, there would be clues. There would be little rendering mistakes, and coding copies. Ramses called this geometry instancing. If they were in a virtual environment, each blade of grass would probably just be a copy, repeated from a single block of code. Through enough examination, they should be able to detect this, even though they obviously couldn’t read the code directly. Hopefully, whoever was watching over them—if anyone—wouldn’t catch them in the act. Perhaps a distraction was in order?

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