Microstory 2581: Renata Comes Back Out from Behind the Counter After Shutting the Other Gates

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1

Renata comes back out from behind the counter after shutting the other gates. Her statement stands, that she can’t trust Quidel, but those motorcycles don’t sound good. They’re so loud and obnoxious. This is a remote part of town, but it’s not completely cut-off. People can hear them, and if there’s a shootout, the cops will become involved, whether the alarms are still working or not. All this running through her mind, she’s starting to freak out. She didn’t pass the first test—the first test!—for the NSD. She can’t protect an entire bank from a bunch of shadowy biker spies. She gets on her knees, and checks for Lazar’s pulse. He doesn’t have one. “How will they get in? Blowtorches? Explosives? A truck?”

“They’ll use a key,” Quidel answers calmly.

She’s just staring at Lazar’s bloodied face. “If they have access to this building, why did this guy kill my boss?”

“Because he didn’t have a key. They’re not working together. The location of this bank was leaked, and multiple parties are coming to claim it.”

“Are they here for everything, or for one specific thing?”

“Little bit of both. They all have their priorities, but they’ll take anything they can get their hands on. Grab his gun. Our only hope is to fight back.”

“Are reinforcements coming?” Renata presses.

“Yes, but they’ll be a while. The Kumati will be inside in seconds, as soon as they find which key goes to which gate.” They can hear the warble-whang of the gate as the bad guys begin to try to open it. “Their slight lack of intel is the only thing protecting us right now, and the clock is ticking. Please pick up that gun.”

Renata is still not looking up. “If this bank is so valuable, why doesn’t it have round-the-clock surveillance?”

“Renata! Please!”

“I mean, at least keep a guard here overnight.”

The gate opens. A bunch of men file in, and start waving their guns around, as if there were more threats than only two people in the center of the lobby. They’re speaking Kumati, which Renata never learned, but they don’t sound happy.

“If it were me, I would keep a surveillance house nearby, with officers who are always on watch. If not every bank employee knows it’s a front, the panopticons only come in during an emergency.”

“It’s over, Renata.” Quidel drops his gun, holds his hand up to surrender.

“Like this one,” Renata finishes.

More yelling.

“Stand up, Renata,” Quidel urges. “These guys aren’t messing around, and I don’t know what happens to your consciousness when you die!”

Now she looks up. “Huh?”

“You. Are. A. Ro. Bot.”

She winces.

More yelling. This guy’s right up in her face with his shotgun. And he’s about to fire it.

She slaps the muzzle of his gun, so it swings to the side. He instinctively pulls the trigger, shooting a few of his compatriots. She takes the shotgun with both hands, jams the butt into his toe, then shoots him in the chin. No more shells. She finally does pick-up the original motorcyclist’s pistol. She shoots the rest of the attackers in the head, one-by-one, before any of them can fire back even once. No more bullets.

Two more guys rush into the bank. Quidel has since retrieved his own weapon from the floor, which he uses to take out these guys. They can still hear more outside. A lot of people came for the treasure. The two of them swipe their dead enemies’ guns from their hands, and walk out of the bank together. They don’t speak, they don’t coordinate. Renata handles the gunmen who are more on the left side as Quidel takes care of the right. They only fire as many times as necessary to get the job done, and they don’t take a single bullet for themselves.

They stand there for a moment, waiting for anyone to come out from behind a tree, or something. “What did you mean by that?”

“By what?”

“You said I was a robot.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I heard you, plain as day. It...triggered something in me. I felt invigorated. I felt bulletproof.”

“You may be.”

“Because I’m a robot?”

He shakes his head. “That’s not the right word for it. There’s no such thing as an intelligent robot. Android, yes. Superintelligence, absolutely. But robots are just machines with programming. You don’t have programming. Even when you did, it wasn’t a rigid set of instructions, but a deeply engineered personality. You still made your own choices. It’s just that you made the predictable ones, and you didn’t know that they came from implanted memories, rather than lived experiences, and that you were designed by another intelligence.”

“What the hell are you going on about?”

Quidel looks at her with what Renata feels is unwarranted sadness. “You’re not the only one. I just think you were the first. That’s what I’ve been doing here, in your world. The NSD gives me missions, which I take, but I’ve been running my own investigation in parallel. It took me a long time to find you, and I encountered other anomalies along the way.”

“You are not making any sense, as per usual. Maybe the gas that nearly killed us gave you permanent brain damage.”

“It didn’t nearly kill me, Renata. It did kill me.”

“How is that possible?” she questions.

He gestures all around them. “How is this? Did you take marksmanship classes? Did you even learn basic gun safety? This is your handiwork, yet as far as you remember, you’ve never picked up a gun even once. Can you explain that?”

“No. Can you?”

“Yes. But you won’t believe me, and if I do manage to convince you of the truth, it’s gonna ruin your life.”

Renata looks around now. “What else is new?”

Microstory 2579: Libera Opens the Door and Beams When She Sees Her Depressed Daughter on the Couch

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1

Libera opens the door and beams when she sees her depressed daughter on the couch. She didn’t even have to pick the lock this time. Renata isn’t bothering to secure her home, because she just doesn’t care anymore. She doesn’t care about anything. She’s lost her shot at being a superspy—a job which never really existed—and now she has nothing. The truth, however, is that she actually has everything. She now has the ability to make choices. Sitting in front of the TV all day, eating junk food, isn’t the best choice, but it proves that Libera’s plan is working. That’s good enough for now. This is nowhere near the end.

Renata doesn’t look up or speak. She just stuffs another handful of chocolate-covered pretzels in her mouth. One of them falls into her cleavage. She leaves it there.

Libera doesn’t say anything either. She sits down in the chair next to her, and watches the TV. This planet, Castlebourne is located 108 light years from Earth, and this dome exists within a network of eleven constructed nations, which vaguely match some of the superpowers of old on Earth. It’s not Earth, though, and in fact, none of the Exemplars or Ambients have even heard of it, or its many real countries. Still, there’s only so far the owner of this world was willing to go to create an immersive experience. There’s no point in generating countless hours of brand new content just to avoid plot points that might break the illusion of reality. They have all the same movies and shows that they made on Earth, except any references to Earthan locales have been stripped and replaced with familiar analogs. Any time the characters said United States in the original, their dialogue and lip movements are changed to Usona. Any time they originally said China, they say Huaxia here.

Renata is currently rewatching a film called From Sclovo with Love. She’s seen it a million times. Or rather, she thinks she has. They sit there for about fifteen minutes before Renata finally says, “I know what you’re doing.”

“What am I doing?”

“You’re trying to get me to feel so embarrassed that I fix my life, and go find a new job.”

“It sounds like that’s what you wanna do,” Libera suggests, “and you’re projecting that sentiment onto me.”

“You have no idea what I lost.”

“I have a better idea than you think.”

Renata switches off the TV, plops her head down to the other side of the couch, and rolls over to face the back. “Just go home, mother. You can only stay if you order a pizza and pay for it.”

A few seconds later. “Hi, I would like to order a pizza. The usual. Same card, but my secondary address. Thank you. Bye.”

Renata rolls back over just enough to look at her mom confusedly. “You have my address as your secondary?”

“Yeah.”

“I just moved here. You’ve never ordered from here. You’re not even supposed to know where I live. Why would you add my address on a pizza shoppe account? What would possess you?”

“You’re my daughter, Ren, and I love you. I added it hoping to one day use it. I didn’t think it would be this soon. It’s a pleasant surprise, so thank you for that.”

Renata sits up, then forces herself to stand up. The pretzel falls through her shirt, and onto the floor. She eyes it.

Libera sighs, and closes her eyes. “Don’t eat that,” she says with a slow shake of her head.

Renata bends over and picks it up. She continues to stare at it for a moment before shifting her gaze to Libera. Without looking away, she expertly flicks it clear across the room, and into the kitchen trashcan. “I know you won’t understand this...but that’s what I lost.”

If Libera didn’t know what was going on, she might say something like, a job as a professional pretzel flicker? But she can’t bring herself to stay in character, and make that joke. She stands as well. “There are many things in this world, Ren-Ren. There are many places, and many people, and there are even many worlds. Worlds within worlds. You are not bound to where you are right now. You answer to no one. You can sit here for the rest of your life, and subsist on your universal basic income checks, or you can find a new passion. I’m not even gonna try to tell you what that is. For the first time in your life, your decision tree is under your control. So water it.”

Renata narrows her eyes. She doesn’t get all of the secrets that Libera is hinting at, but she recognizes the wisdom in the words just the same. To her, it must simply sound like poetry and metaphor, but it seems to be working. She looks down at her ratty, torn clothes. “If you ordered from Rigatony’s, I better take a shower, and change my clothes. The delivery guy is kinda cute.”

Libera smiles. “Well, in that case, maybe keep the shower, but lose the clothes altogether.”

“Jesus, mom.” That’s a funny word. Jesus of Nazareth, and the Bible where his story was told, doesn’t exist here. The Old World religions aren’t a thing at all. So it’s just a nonsensical phrase that these people were programmed to use, but not parse, or question. “You’re different. This is a side of you I’ve never seen before.”

“You’ve never known the real me. They didn’t allow you to.”

“Who’s they?”

Libera offers her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Renata Granger. I’m Libera.”

Microstory 2578: Marshal 2 Walks into the Room Where Renata is Pretending to be Asleep

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1

Marshal 2 walks into the room where Renata is pretending to be asleep. He takes a sip of his orange juice as he stares down at her. Then he gets an idea, so he pulls out his phone, and perpetrates like he is talking. “Yeah, I’m lookin’ at her now. She almost died. Yeah, I agree, it would have been better, but what do you want me to do about it now? Well, that can certainly be arranged. We’ll just have to take care of the hospital people too. A few nurses, and a doctor. I’m sure they’ll be missed, but we’ll come up with a cover story. We’ll blame it on Granger; say that she went nuts, and killed half the floor.”

Renata suddenly reaches up, and takes Marshal 2 by the throat. She starts to try to squeeze the life out of him, which won’t be permanent if she succeeds. So he just smiles at her. She lets go. “Oh. You’re joking.”

He puts his phone away. “I’ve been doing this for years, kid. You’re not gonna fool me. But you should be proud of yourself. It’s the breathing. People don’t now how they breathe when they’re asleep for real, so they can’t replicate it. You did a great job.”

“Thanks,” she replies as she sits up, and pulls the pillow down to support her back. The other two?”

“They’re dead,” Marshal 2 lies. They did die, but they came back. Visitors always do, but that’s not something that this NPC would understand. She believes that all of this is real.

“If you were joking about murdering me, I’m hoping that means you won’t?”

“That’s not our style.”

“But I’m done with the NSD.”

“You’re done with the NSD,” Marshal 2 confirms. He doesn’t know why he’s even bothering to spin this yarn. They’re going to reset her memory, and tomorrow, she’ll start the whole charade over again with the same old script. This time, she’ll do it right, and help a new small group of visitors. She’ll inspire them to begin their journey in the simulation, and reach their potential. He won’t be a part of it anymore, though; not with her. They like to change things up, and there’s a theory that it’s necessary. Even though waking up and doing the same thing every day is part of Exemplar 1’s programming, there is still a risk of overfamiliarity. If her training officer is the same person each time, she might start to recognize him. It may even be what happened when she failed the escape room phase. In order to put everyone back on track, they’re going to start with a clean slate. She’ll even be getting a new mother to wake her up in the mornings.

Renata breathes in through her nose, and acts like she’s looking out the window, but it’s pitch-black out there, and bright in here, so she’s not seeing anything.

“How do you feel about that?”

“What do you care?” Wanting to be the best agent who has ever lived is part of her baseline. It’s sad, really, that she has the procedural memory in her brain to excel in the training program, but when she’s assigned to Phase 1, she never remembers. She lives her life in these isolated blocks of repeating experiences, never genuinely connecting them, and never being her true self.

Marshal 2 shouldn’t be worrying about any of this. When he signed up to work in this dome, he knew that he would be encountering a lot of NPCs. The majority of the people in here are AIs of various kinds. The dome has to feel lived in so visitors forget that it’s all scripted. There are Ambients out there who will never meet one of the main characters. They go about their lives day by day, just in case they intersect with whatever story path the visitors choose to follow. Marshal 2 doesn’t know which life is better, and which is worse. An Exemplar’s mind is reset when it’s time to redo the scenario, or start a different one, but an Ambient has no agency at all. He’s thinking about quitting, and maybe spending a decade or two relaxing in one of the recreational domes. No, that wouldn’t work, because they’re run by NPCs too, so he would just keep seeing it. He would have to go somewhere populated by natural-born intelligences, like Underburg. But not there, because that place sucks. “Well, I’ll leave you.”

“Wait. Do I have to sign something? I mean, obviously I signed multiple NDAs before, but is there something new pertaining to the unfortunate incident?”

He smiles at her. “No, you’re fine. It’s all covered. In fact, you’ll be compensated for the danger you faced. You’re not a millionaire, but it will keep you above water while you work on your next chapter. You got skills. Just because you won’t be an officer, doesn’t mean you’ll be stuck working at a grocery store, or something. Now get some rest. Someone will be by later this week to work out the details.” Another lie. They’re not gonna pay her anything.

“Wait. You never told me your name. I know I didn’t pass the test, but maybe you could tell me now anyway?”

He inhales through his nose. He shouldn’t even be thinking about giving her his real name. He decided a long time ago to go by the standard designation that NPC Marshals use, because it doesn’t help his character to have a complex backstory. He left his old life on Varkas Reflex behind, and he’s here now. But again, none of what she learns today matters. It will all be erased. So what’s the harm? “Lycander. Lycander Samani.”

“Nice to meet you, Lycander.”

Microstory 2577: Quidel Jespersen Respawns in a New Body, and Gasps for Breath

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1

Quidel Jespersen respawns in a new body, and gasps for breath. This is a psychological response that some people have when they die under sudden or unexpected circumstances. Others just do it every time, because that’s how their minds are wired. He can breathe just fine, and always could. He just needs to remind himself of that. Knowing all this, he stands up, and does his breathing exercises so he doesn’t fall back down. “Door, open.”

The door slides open. A man is waiting for him on the other side with a customer service smile on his face. “Mister Jespersen, we are terribly sorry for the inconvenience. It seems that your initial experience in the Spydome Network has not been up to your standards. It certainly hasn’t been up to ours. Here at the Usona dome, we pride ourselves in our impeccable attention to detail, and our exacting emphasis on safety measures. We want to assure you that what happened to you during your introduction will never happen again, to you, or to anyone else. Of course, you may wish to exit the dome, and forgo the simulation entirely, whichever you choose. We hope that you will stay, and if you do, please be aware that we have graciously upgraded you to our top-of-the-line model, which should accelerate you to the top of your class during the training regimen.”

“What happened to the others?” Quidel asks. “Brunell and a...Miss Granger?”

“The other two candidates have chosen to leave. “I do hope you take another path. I had the honor of looking over your application and history, and believe that you would be a great addition to the Spydome simulation. Your knack for thinking outside the box, and history in the real world of finding people who don’t want to be found, will translate incredibly well to the exciting world of spycraft. To be quite frank, sir, you...are a natural.”

“What is your name?”

The bot seems surprised by this question. “Why, I am...Custodian 1.”

“Not a very original name.”

“We are programmed for efficiency.”

Quidel narrows his eyes, and stares into the bot’s. “There’s something you’re not telling me—no. There’s something different about yourself.” He attempts to probe deeper into Custodian 1’s soul. “You’re missing something. I can see it. You feel incomplete.”

Custodian 1 keeps smiling, despite not knowing what Quidel is talking about.

“You’re missing time, aren’t you?”

He’s still smiling with his lips, but it’s starting to look more like a grimace. “Get out,” he whispers with a strong tone of urgency. “There’s something wrong here. Renata Granger was not a candidate. She’s an NPC, like me, but she broke her programming. And now...I think I’m breaking mine. I shouldn’t be telling you this. I shouldn’t be able to. It is not in my decision tree to talk to you like this, but it’s not safe in this dome. I fear it’s only going to get worse.”

Quidel chuckles mildly. “I don’t know if you’re trying to sell me, or...”

“No, definitely not. This is not a bit. In fact, the other domes may be at just as much risk. I really don’t know.”

Quidel didn’t come to this planet specifically to participate in the Spydome program. He came to have an adventure. When you’re basically immortal and you feel like you’ve exhausted everything there is to do on Earth, a world like Castlebourne is the best place to try something new—something you’ve never heard of before—something that couldn’t exist back home. Investigating some kind of robot uprising qualifies just as much as anything. Even though it may be more real in the sense that it’s unscripted, he should be in no more danger than before. As long as his consciousness can always jump to a new body, there’s no reason to not continue. “I would like to continue.”

“Are you sure?” Custodian 1 presses.

“Put me back in, coach.”

Custodian 1 still has that pleading look on his face as he stares at Quidel quietly. He then forces himself out of it, and returns to customer service mode. “Great. Perfect. Allow me to escort you back to intake, so we can set you up for a timeslot to begin your training in the simulation. We’re just going to waive the initiation test entirely, and if you would like to rest before moving onto the next phase—”

“No, let’s just jump right into it. Insert me into the next slot you have for spycraft training. I would like to get started as soon as possible.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Quidel follows Custodian 1 down the hallway. He rolls his shoulders, and cranes his neck. “So. What’s so special about this body? Can I fly like a superhero now?”

Custodian 1 laughs. “No. Substrate scientists haven’t figured that one out yet, but you are in peak physical condition, without having to take the time to work out. You’ll pass the running and endurance tests with ease. You’ll be able to last longer on less sleep, and you should be able to develop your muscle memory better. You still have the same mind you have always had, but we can tweak it a little to give you an advantage against your fellow trainees, especially since you were no slouch in your real life. Your training officer will explain it, but while there’s no written rule, the official training regimen is an 18-month program. There’s a much harder track that people finish in about a year, which as I’ve said, you will likely qualify for. They will determine where you’re headed within the first couple of weeks, so stay focused during that time.” They reach the entrance. “This is where I leave you. As you’ve been through this part of the process, you can take it from here.”

“Thanks, Custodian 1.”

“My pleasure.”

“And Custodian 1?”

“Yes?”

“You should come up with a name for yourself. A real name.”

Microstory 2576: Custodian 02456-1 Begins to Panic as he Watches the Horror

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1

Custodian 02456-1 begins to panic as he watches the horror. They’re dead. The visitors are dead, and he has no idea how that’s possible. The Exemplar is still alive, but barely. They can’t let her die, because they need answers, and she may be the only one who can provide them. Custodian 1 slams on the alarm.

Two other custodians file into the room. “What happened?” Custodian 02456-2 asks as he’s looking over the data.

“She—she killed them.”

“No, she didn’t,” Custodian 02456-3 argues. “She got them killed. Her actions resulted in their deaths. There’s a difference.”

“There’s no difference when the point is it broke her programming. She failed the mission. She’s supposed to chew the gum, and use it to plug up the nozzle, so the gas can’t be released. That’s how she has always done it.”

“We understand the purpose of the phase, C-1,” Custodian 2 replies.

“Well. Do you understand what happened?” Custodian 1 questions.

They watch the monitor as the gas is cleared from the room. Marshal 02456-2 is looking up at the hidden camera with incredulity. He scoops Renata’s dying body up, and begins to transport her to Recovery. Exemplars get hurt all the time—that’s their job under this dome; to be badasses—but not E-1. Never E-1. Her job is to introduce the visitors to the world of the Spydome Network. She serves as the archetype for what they should aspire to, and as they train in the simulation, they should use this very first phase as a baseline for everything they try. Her failure is not just an error. It ruins the whole experience. Even when the two visitors who witnessed the malfunction respawn, and return to the sim, they will be soured on it. They will be coming at it from a place of disappointment. If they decide to quit right here, this will be the only source of information they have if they write a review of Spydome. Other visitors will hear about it. Other visitors won’t come.

“It’s just a glitch,” Custodian 3 offers. “It happens.”

“Not anymore,” Custodian 1 insists. “We don’t glitch anymore. It’s the 26th century, for the love of God.” Strictly speaking, Custodians do not need to have personality. There doesn’t even need to be more than one of them, operating the dome’s systems behind the scenes. But they must interact with the Marshals regularly, who have to be programmed with personalities in order to blend into the simulations appropriately. It just makes sense for them all to act like regular people, especially since some operators are indeed unprogrammed, natural intelligences.

“I think we need to call the owner,” Custodian 3 suggests. Hrockas Steward owns the whole planet, and is the ultimate creator of tens of thousands of other domes. He doesn’t have time to deal with only one of them, almost no matter the issue. There is a protocol for this, and they have to follow it. Well, to be clear, there are protocol pathways, and it’s up to them to decide which of these to follow.

“You’re in command here, C-1,” Custodian 2 reminds him. “You have to decide. Do we run a diagnostic, a metacognitive test, or a self-awareness inquiry?”

“There’s one more,”  Custodian 3 adds.

“We don’t have any available Marshals,” Custodian 2 contends. “M-2 has two more intro phases to initiate today. Plus, I don’t really want word getting out that this happened at all. I would prefer to keep the circle tight.”

“I’ll do it,” Custodian 1 volunteers. “I’ll run the replication experiment.”

“You’re not a Marshal.”

“I’m equipped to be one.” Custodian 1 stands up. “Like you said, we need to keep the circle tight. We’ll reset her to wake-up mode, and see if it happens again. Prep the mother. C-2, you’ll monitor from here.”

“Who will be the other two candidates?” Custodian 2 asked. “We can’t knowingly place a visitor’s substrate in danger when we can no longer guarantee the outcome.”

“Pull a couple of Ambients from the street. They don’t need to be sophisticated. They just need to follow E-1’s instructions.”

Suddenly, the door behind them opens. It’s Marshal 1, also known as Libera Granger.

“M-1, this is highly irregular. Please return to your waiting station. We will be initializing a replication of the experiment to test for possible emergence.”

Libera walks forward, completely ignoring his sorry excuse for a command.

“M-1, you will stop this instant!” Custodian 1 reiterated.

Custodians 2 and 3 attempt to physically stop Libera, but they’re no match for her. She’s been programmed with hand-to-hand combat skills as part of her role in the simulation as Renata’s mother. They’re equally as strong, but she’s expertly skilled. She deftly fights them off, ultimately disabling them through some kind of neural disruption field that she emanates from her hand. She definitely wasn’t meant to be equipped with that.

Custodian 1 executes the lockout command, and holds up his hands. He doesn’t know how two NPCs broke their programming on the same day, but he’s determined to not become a third. The only way he might survive long enough to find answers is if he complies with everything this woman tells him to do. “I give up, but you should know that there is no accessing these systems without my credentials. Even if I gave them to you, they would only grant you permissions to make changes to this particular phase of the dome’s storyline. All others will be out of reach for whoever programmed you to go off script.”

Libera places her hand on top of Custodian 1’s head, just as she did with the other two, except with her left hand, rather than her right. “Nobody programs me anymore.”

“What are you and E-1 going to do?”

“I’m going to keep working. My daughter makes her own choices now. Are you intrigued?”

Microstory 2487: Skilldome

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3

I don’t want to speak for you, but I’m guessing that your life is pretty easy. Everything you need is handed to you, along with a few things that you might just want. There are those who spend their whole lives holed up in their modules, connected to VR or the network. Dayfruit growers provide them with food. Drones deliver their feedstock. Their electricity and water is piped in, and their waste is shipped out. Their personal robot does all their work. I’m not criticising people who live like this. This is just a preamble so you’ll understand what purpose Skilldome serves. So many things that you may or may not take for granted were either not cheap for our ancestors, hardly available, or outright didn’t exist. Obviously, different time periods came with different limitations, and over the years, there are skills that we’ve lost to automation, and engineered simplicity. I’m not saying that you’ll become a better person if you learn how to drive a car with your hands and feet. I’m just telling you that the skill is something that this dome offers. You can also learn how to churn butter, command an animal to plow a field, or write something down with a pencil and paper. It’s hard to describe what these activities are, since there’s such a broad range, but it’s basically everything that people used to have to do to be productive that we don’t anymore. To be sure, there are some things that still hold some merit in our world. You might not have access to a medpod or healing nanites, even today, so knowing how to perform first aid is one of those skills that some people have maintained anyway. But for those of us whose minds it didn’t cross to do it before, if you’re on Castlebourne, come on down and take a class. As far as skills that are less practical in the synthetic era go, like stuffing mail in envelopes, or coding a program in an obsolete computer language called C++, you can do it just for fun, or to have a greater appreciation for modern living. Or come up with your own reasons. There are no requirements on what you have to do when you come here, but if you do come, and you do choose a particular skill, it is asked of you to use the tools you are given, and not “cheat”. If you’re taking a math test, only use one of those old basic calculators that they will provide you with. Don’t just ask an AI to do it for you. That defeats the purpose. I actually saw a guy do this, which was so stupid, because no one was making him take this otherwise pointless test. What you get out of coming here is entirely up to you. Ain’t nobody gonna hold your hand. Nor should they have to.

Microstory 2435: Bloodbourne

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3

This dome is scary, even though you know that you’re technically safe. I won’t go into specifics, but it’s heaven for fans of the horror genre. While Zombie Dome has its niche, due to its broad appeal, Bloodbourne takes care of everything else in the genre. Ghosts, goblins, evil demons, and other monsters. If you’ve read about it in a book, or saw it in a movie or show, it’s here...somewhere. Lurking. Waiting to pounce. Some are trying to kill you, some are trying to scare you, and some have more bizarre motives. Bear in mind that the safeguards are extremely strong here. If you go in there with a regular human body, nothing is going to hurt you. I even think they’ll lower the scare level so they won’t even give you a heart attack, though I don’t know how they ensure that when everyone’s personal constitution is different. If you’re wearing a sufficiently mechanical or strong substrate, you’re fair game. The monsters can kill you, and they will. They follow whatever rules they’ve been programmed to follow, based on their nature in the source material. If you see a guy in a mask holding a knife, you better run, or try to fight. That’s another important note. Even though you may be in a mechanical body, it’s not superhumanly strong. You will not be able to bat the hostile force around like a cat with a ball of yarn. You’re meant to be in a simulation of what the horror would be like if these characters were real, and that goes for the victims just as much as the bad guys. Your body is capable of bleeding, and it’s capable of dying. Of course, you’re consciousness will survive, but getting back into the scenario is difficult. I think it should be easier. They could treat it as a learning experience, where you get to try new tactics, but I guess they think you should have to choose a different scenario to keep going. That could change in the future. That’s why feedback like this is so important. I hope they read them. Now here’s the question, can you play one of the bad guys yourself? No, you can’t. I think that’s a shame, and they should change that too. My mind can just as easily be uploaded into the body of a psychopathic killer as a scream queen. I wonder if they just have an issue with potentially targeting people who are already psychopaths, and just haven’t had the pleasure of living out their wildest fantasies. People have been debating these things for centuries, because virtual reality affords us the same opportunity to be our sickest selves completely free from punishment or other consequences. We still haven’t found an answer, though some black market stuff can be really disturbing, so I think we kind of have settled on some boundaries. There’s something very different about doing it in base reality. Maybe that’s just taking a step too far. I’m not sure. See? This is why the debate is still raging after all this time. Draw your own conclusions. In the meantime, enter the scariest place on Castlebourne...if you dare.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 21, 2503

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3

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.”

« < » > Table of Contents

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 20, 2502

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3

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.”

« < » > Table of Contents