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LISTEN TO THE BOOK

Here’s a little secret: Reality is insane.

A death cult led by a box of Kraft mac and cheese. The Bermuda Triangle. Lizard people walking among us. When every conspiracy theory, urban legend, and fever-dream headline is true, someone has to keep it all cataloged, contained, and out of sight. That someone is the Bureau of the Bizarre.

John Doe always thought his paranoid father was crazy, then the crazy showed up on his doorstep with a job offer. Now, he’s a Collector for the Bureau, partnered with Edith Sinner, a metanatural vampire with a murder glare and a past that refuses to stay buried. Their office is The Deep Estate, a liminal space carved out of The Backrooms, where nightmares take shape and reality bends to the collective unconscious. Their coworkers are anything but normal. Carrie is a stab-happy flying pencil. Marybeth is a Victorian doll with serious Devil Daddy issues. And then there is the Murder Clown...

But when John and Edie bump into a conspiracy the Bureau was never meant to see, reality itself is rewritten to frame them for murder. Hunted by their own and pursued through impossible corridors, they have to expose the truth before the Deep Estate’s secrets swallow them whole.

Equal parts cosmic horror and comic absurdity, Welcome to the Deep Estate is what happens when Men in Black stumbles into the Backrooms carrying a copy of Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Welcome to your new nine-to-five. Welcome to the Deep Estate.

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Welcome to the new YOUtopia.

The planet is dying, a mega-corporation controls everything, but at least you don’t have to work another day in your life, not when an Organic AI controls your body every night.

Eric Noble is beginning to realize that nothing makes a Day feel more like a complete waste of space than having all the time in the world. Detective Noble is starting to see the truth that he and the other Nights are nothing more than programmable slaves living inside someone else.

After eight uneasy years of sharing the same body, a chance encounter with an old friend changes everything. Now, Eric’s memory is missing, a woman has been murdered, and if things weren’t bad enough, he’s the prime suspect in his own Night’s homicide investigation.

Two minds, one body, and a society on the knife’s edge, what they do next will determine the fate of both worlds.

Partition: Critical Era is the first installment in Kevin Kane’s sweeping sci-fi mystery series. Prepare to enter a world where humanity and identity are traded in for the worst excesses of techno-capitalism, and the difference between a Brave New World utopia and a 1984 dystopia depends entirely on the time of day.

BUT FIRST, A SHAMELESS PLUG

Prologue - All the Hepatituses

So we’re standing inside the Backrooms, a place that comfortably sits outside of reality. Time is a joke here. Space is fluid. And the concept of outside? Does not exist. Pick a direction. North, south, east, west, up, down, even the way out you’re positive was right behind you a second ago. It doesn’t matter. Guess what you’re going to find?

Rooms. Buco rooms.

More specifically, we’re standing outside a Backrooms blood bank.

Carrie, my adventure buddy and number one Number 2 pencil, handles navigation. She hovers nearby, scribbling down a prompt on her legal pad, drafting the blueprint for Liminal Space to manifest. The Backrooms take notes from humanity’s Collective Unconscious, and anyone stuck inside has an outsized influence on what shows up. Usually, that just means the feel around here settles somewhere between ‘fever-dream déjà vu’ and ‘oh shit I think something’s following me,’ because yes, that is also a problem inside the Backrooms. Thankfully, Carrie is pure imagination capped with a pink eraser, and we figured out how to direct that creativity into a completely game-changing Liminal Space hack.

We’re facing a large chalk circle drawn directly onto the wall with an anomalous piece of chalk. I clear my mind and press my palm against it. Carrie finishes the prompt describing our destination with the final line that makes the whole thing work: “There is a chalk circle on the wall.”

In an instant, my palm goes from feeling old wallpaper to feeling nothing but air. I open my eyes and see my wrist clipping cleanly through the wall, which is still… weird. There’s no visual cue. No sci-fi sparks. No magical ripple. It doesn’t glow or hum or do anything cinematic. It just looks like you’re calmly shoving your arm through a solid object. There isn’t even a tingle, and I will never get used to how aggressively low-key it is.

I step into the Backrooms blood bank and look around. “Huh… Okay, then.”

Carrie kept the initial prompt vague, just to see how the Backrooms would handle the baseline concept of a blood bank. Unsurprisingly, it took the idea literally and gave us a bank for blood. There are standing tables with deposit forms and syringes chained to the counters with those annoying “don’t steal our pens” tethers. It even threw in some dialysis ATMs.

It’s cute, but not the vibe I’m looking for. I step back out through the chalk circle with Carrie floating beside me, then sever the connection using a spray bottle and a rag. She taps my shoulder, and I turn around and sigh, already annoyed.

Three slimy, vibrating black horrors stand in the distance, their pearly white Cheshire grins frozen in place by the observer effect.

Smilers.

I unclip my tether and unfurl six feet of graphene wire. The doohickey used to keep me tethered to the Deep Estate before it snapped. Now, it’s a very nasty anti-Smiler weapon most of the Backrooms monsters have learned to avoid.

I blink, and in the split second they’re out of sight, all three jump forward about twenty feet. I scratch my head. “Okay. So either these guys didn’t get the memo, or they’re doing the macho warrior thing.”

I blink again. They jump closer.

“Yeah, definitely the macho warrior thing. And wow. What a team-up.”

From the armor—or complete lack of it—we’ve got a Zulu warrior, a Germanic berserker, and some guy who’s either Aztec or someone who took one hell of a wrong turn during Carnaval. There are a lot of slimy, ornate feathers, and frankly, too much confidence.

Whatever. I whip out the tether, snag Carnaval Guy by the neck, hit the vibrate button, and pull. His head pops off like a champagne cork launched by an oil slick.

I lash sideways, slicing the Zulu warrior clean at the knees, then spin around in a move that feels incredible but probably looks like a child aggressively twirling a ribbon. The graphene wire loops around the berserker’s torso, and I yank. He snaps in half.

I blink, and the three bodies collapse into a meaty, slimy mess.

I yawn and turn back to Carrie. “So. Where were we?”

Carrie alters the prompt for attempt number two.

This time, a gush of blood splashes out of the wall, washing away the chalk, completely breaking the circle. I stare at the pooling mess by my feet, then glance at Carrie and take a guess. “I think the Backrooms heard ‘blood bank’ and just tried to make a bank made out of blood.”

Carrie shrugs, spins in midair, and uses the chalk attached to her body to draw a fresh circle. She tweaks the prompt a few more times, and eventually, the Backrooms starts to get the idea. It begins playing with the concept of a blood bank, generating a series of doctor’s office biomes filled with hanging blood bags and beige linoleum floors. There’s also a lot of those “Thanks for donating!” inspirational posters you usually see at blood drives, and it’s extremely clear that the Backrooms has no idea what the blood is actually for. Children are having blood balloon fights, and old women are doing blood aerobics at the local YMCA.

Nope. None of this will do.

Carrie tries again. This time, when I press my hand against the wall, I focus my thoughts and pour my intentions into it. This is the big day. It needs to be epic. As epic as my feelings for one particular person in my life. I picture the dimples that show a split second before she smiles. The way she looks up at me when she’s close, arms looped around my neck.

My hand slides through the wall.

Well, looking at Edie’s face, it’s safe to say we nailed it. Those dimples appear, then comes the smile.

“Liminal space does not disappoint,” Edie says, staring up at the ten stories of brushed steel towering in front of us. I grin, watching the century-old pseudo-vampire lick her lips in anticipation.

An engineer’s take on a circulatory system frames the vault door. Translucent arteries, filled with blood, branch off at perfect right angles into veins and capillaries that web the walls surrounding us. All of it pulses with a deep red glow, throbbing to a heartbeat I feel in my chest.

“That’s because it’s synced to your heart,” Edie says, with that crooked “you’re dumb, but it’s kind of cute” smirk of hers.

“Oh,” I mutter. “Yeah, that tracks.”

That’s also one of the weird things about her. I can tell whenever she’s thirsty because she becomes hyper-aware of my heartbeat. It makes me feel like I’m in one of those old cartoons where the starving character starts hallucinating that everyone else is a giant drumstick.

We cross the bridge toward the massive vault door, Carrie hovering anxiously between us. She pokes me in the back, and I pull out her legal pad. She scribbles out, “I’m worried this might be the double doors to the Balltic Sea.”

I remember how the ocean-sized ball pit introduced itself by pummeling me in the face and slow my step. “Okay, that’s… an annoyingly valid concern.” I glance at her with a raised eyebrow. “I’m just surprised you’re not using the most obvious reference.”

She turns toward me, clearly not getting it. Carrie, who spent “Bob” knows how long jotting down the coke-fueled notes of the most influential master of horror in modern history. The pencil that claims that during a 1974 stay at the Stanley Hotel, just before the winter closure, she said, and I quote: “This place is kind of creepy, you should totally use it in your next book.”

I give her a hint. “Dude, the elevator scene in The Shining. You know, with all the blood.”

She smacks her eraser on the legal pad and writes, “Oh. Duh.”

I stop walking and turn to Edie. “There’s a very good chance a Backrooms quantity of blood is just waiting to come spilling out of that safe, and we’re standing on a walkway with no railings over a pit that I’m going to assume is bottomless, because we all know how much the Backrooms loves bottomless pits.”

Edie keeps walking, a dangerous glint in her eye. “I’m willing to take that risk just to see this mother crack open.”

Well, she does have a point. It would be pretty ’nanners. “Fine, but if this turns into an epic escape sequence, I’m going to say ‘I told you so,’ and it’s going to sound really bitchy.”

Edie reaches for the vault’s wheel and gives it a spin. Through the clear glass in the vault’s shell, we watch the impossible clockwork engage with dizzying precision; wheels nested inside wheels, from small cogs spinning in a blur to gears the size of a semi-truck buried deeper into the wall, rotating with glacial inevitability. All of it moving in perfect synchronization.

The entire bridge trembles as titanium cylinders thicker than redwood trunks slide back from their housings. The final tumbler drops into place with a boom that’ll echo forever into the void below. With a dramatic flourish, a hammer swings down and pierces the glass heart in the center, and all the blood drains out of the pipes into a funnel with a prolonged gurgle.

Hydraulics hiss as the vault door detaches from the wall and rolls sideways on tracks. I brace for the blood tsunami, but it doesn’t come. The air is hot and humid, smelling like copper. Lights snap on, and the black beyond illuminates into an unbroken curtain of blood raining down directly into a drain. After a few seconds, the curtain parts and reduces to a patter, then a dribble. Cascading rings of light follow, illuminating a circular, elevated swimming pool that makes a 1.5-million-gallon SeaWorld tank look quaint in comparison. It’s filled to the brim with blood, sitting so perfectly still it seems solid. Then a single ripple from somewhere in its depths sends concentric circles expanding to the edge.

Edie approaches a solitary gold spigot. She turns the handle and cups her hands beneath it. Deep red liquid spills into her palms. She brings it to her lips and takes a delicate sip, then turns to face me with rivulets of blood running down her chin. “It’s fresh,” she says with wide eyes. “And warm—like straight-out-of-the-neck warm. I don’t know how, but it is.”

I notice an analog flipboard counter mounted next to a small waterfall, continuously adding new blood to the pool. The number reads 118,798,432,187 and climbing. “I don’t know where I heard this,” I say slowly, “but if you added up every human that ever lived, you’d get something like a hundred and twenty billion.”

Carrie zips over the pool, measuring the diameter with pencil-point precision. She comes back and bobs, her graphite nib scratching calculations in the air before committing them to the pad. Cubic meters converted to liters converted to pints equals… 118.7 billion pints. I stare at the numbers, my mind reeling. “Edie… this pool has exactly one pint of blood from every single human being that has ever lived.”

She turns with an unnervingly bright smile. “Don’t judge me.”

Before I know it, she’s stripping off her clothes and climbing the ladder to a diving board I hadn’t noticed. She leaps off and executes a perfect swan dive into humanity’s collective vital fluids. I take a big step back as a hundred gallons of blood seep over the edge and slap the ground in front of me. Edie surfaces, painted a uniform red, and lets out a gasp that melts into a sultry moan and giggle. She shouts, “Come in!”

“No, I’m good.”

She does a lazy backstroke, gargling, then squirting blood into the air with her mouth. “It’s like swimming in humanity!”

“Yeah, you’re really not selling it.”

She comes to the edge of the pool and croons, “Come on, John.” And there it is, the Look. The Look with a capital L. The staring contest with a vampire who doesn’t need to blink, loaded with a challenge I’m too head-over-heels to ignore. I strip down and dive in. It’s just as gross as you think—warm and thick and kind of hard to swim in. I emerge, gasping.

“You actually did it!” Edie cackles and swims up. She wraps her legs around me, and pulls me close—oh no. No, no, no. Not going there. Stuff is definitely rubbing up against things, and there’s nothing between us, unless you count the 165 billion pints of Dobbs-damn blood. I’m hoping it’s not a literal pint from each human. I don’t know how the hell the Backrooms would source that, but if they did… Man, Gandhi is in here, MLK, Stalin, Mom, Dad, and every single Ebola, AIDS, and syphilis victim.

Edie coos, “What do you think?”

I’m thinking about Tommy Lee and Pam Anderson as I struggle to keep treading through the blood with her added weight. “Pretty sure I now have all the hepatitises, A through Z.”

She kisses me, and I fight the urge to turn away. She’s got blood mouth. It’s so much worse than coffee breath, but I don’t want to ruin the moment.

I pull back and smile because this—this right here—is the part where I finally say the words I’ve wanted to tell her for so damn long. And Edie knows it’s coming. She can feel my heart hammering, practically tapping out my thoughts in rapid Morse code. It comes out soft and stupidly sincere. “Edie, I love—”

She shifts her weight, and I dip under. Liquid pennies fill my mouth, and I reflexively swallow and gag. My legs kick harder, burning to surface. “Edie, I’m kind of struggling here.”

She presses down on my shoulders, submerging me again, and then she holds me there.

Wait… is she?

I try to pull away, but she keeps me in place with that absolute vampire grip of hers.

Yeah. She’s trying to drown me.

Okay, then.

NOTE: Over ten years ago, I wrote a screenplay called “Eve” that could best be described as an animated Sci-fi slapstick comedy written by Douglas Adams. Since it would easily take 50 million dollars to make, and I was a 20-something nobody, I didn’t do anything with the finished draft.

That said, I recently discovered the screenplay at the bottom of my Google Drive, blew the dust off the PDF, and gave it a read, and well… Holy shit.

You guys, Eve aged like a fine wine.

The story is about a society controlled by an all-seeing, all-knowing AI, and it now reads so much as a parody of ChatGPT that I can’t believe I wrote it a decade before ChatGPT existed.

For anyone who cares to read it, I decided to transcribe it into something more digestible than the standard screenplay

I’ll be posting it in chunks over the next few days.

FADE IN:

High above the planet, the world looks orderly.

From orbit, a man walks down a narrow London side street. He’s barely a speck, but a serial number trails him anyway, hovering in the air like a patient ghost. He isn’t special. Everyone in a Mumbai bazaar is tagged the same way, each person wrapped in floating data. Cars flow along the Autobahn like ants on a log, every vehicle dragging a ribbon of information behind it.

In Chicago, a pedestrian strolls down Lincoln Avenue. Blue lines radiate outward from his feet, branching into every possible future path he could take. One of them glows brighter than the rest.

Kids shoot hoops in a driveway. A translucent blue image of the basketball appears seconds ahead of reality, predicting its arc. The ghost-ball bounces off the backboard, ricochets into the street, and collides with the projected outline of a car.

Reality follows the prophecy. The ball rolls into traffic. A kid runs after it. An alert flashes over the approaching car, and it slams to a stop just in time.

The camera pulls farther and farther back, past clouds, past atmosphere, into orbit. Satellites float in a perfect grid around the Earth, hundreds of them carpeting the sky. Each bears the same logo: VIDALIA.

Welcome to the near future, where everything in the world is linked together into a single network. All of it lovingly watched over by—

The title floats into frame:

Something slams into the camera. We spin wildly before stabilizing, revealing a giant METEOR hurtling straight toward Earth.

That’s not good.

Our story properly begins on the floor of a tech expo, packed wall-to-wall with people craning their necks toward competing visions of the future.

A kind British narrator speaks, his voice warm, patient, and omniscient. We’ll call him GOD.

God: Our story begins with two great inventors.

At one modest booth stands NED BUTTON, a lanky ginger in his forties with the earnest energy of a man who truly believes this might be his year. He plays barker to his own invention while his ten-year-old daughter, PENNY, watches proudly from the side. She gives him a thumbs up. He returns it. It’s painfully adorable.

Button presses a button.

A chrome cylinder expands into something like the bastard child of R2-D2 and a car wash. It whirs to life, scrubbing furiously.

God:
Ned Button of Red Button Co. The proud inventor of an appliance so astounding that it should have been a shoe-in for the “greatest thing since sliced bread” award.

Ned presses another button. A loaf of bread pops out.

God:
And not because it also made fresh sliced bread.

Ned turns back to the crowd with a flourish. Ta-dah!

People drift away, unimpressed, drawn instead toward a distant DRUMROLL thundering from the far end of the convention floor. The lights dim.

Ned’s shoulders slump as he begins packing up what remains of his hopes and dreams.

The camera whips across the expo to an elaborate stage bathed in light. A spotlight snaps on, revealing a test subject strapped into a chair, fidgeting nervously.

God:
Unfortunately, his thunder was stolen by this man.

ERIC WORK steps into view. Mid-twenties. Suave. Brilliant. A former child prodigy who never outgrew being told he’s a genius. He positions a sleek, unsettling surgical device behind the ear of a very nervous test subject.

God:
Former child prodigy turned man-child über-genius and founder of Vidalia Enterprises, Eric Work.

Eric pulls the trigger. Grinding. A scream, just offscreen. The crowd gasps. Sexy assistants help the dazed test subject to his feet as Eric checks a tablet, calm as ever.

God:
He’s about to merge two worlds into one.

Eric presses ENTER. A matte steel node embedded behind the subject’s ear glows blue. Suddenly, bios bloom above the crowd. Advertising flickers to life in midair. Text messages orbit the subject’s head like gnats.

A graphic explodes on screen behind Eric: INTERNET + REALITY = THE NODE

The crowd erupts into a standing ovation. Back at his booth, Ned Button quietly zips up a case.

God:
While their respective success and failure seemed writ in stone, outside forces had other plans.

From the shadows, a bald Asian man in his fifties watches Ned with unsettling focus.

The next day, Ned waters his lawn outside a quaint house while Penny kneels nearby, planting flowers. A black van screeches to a stop. Hands grab Ned and haul him inside. The van speeds away. Penny looks around, confused.

God:
And the next day, the two—

Across the city, Eric checks his watch in the pristine lobby of Vidalia. The elevator dings. The doors open. Hands reach out. A chloroform-soaked rag covers his mouth.

God:
—were simultaneously abducted—

The hoods are pulled from their heads, and both men find themselves kneeling inside an ancient MONASTERY.

God:
…by a sect of Tibetan monks.

Rows of monks stare down at them in silence. Ornate doors slowly part, revealing something unexpected beyond.

God:
For decades, the Sherab Monastery has operated in secrecy.

New York Stock Exchange - A Tibetan man in a power suit stands on the floor making money moves. Vidalia Enterprises’ stock climbs sharply.

God:
Manipulating events…

Warehouse Lab - Ned and Penny scramble away from a haywire cleaning robot, tearing the place apart. It corners them, its single glowing eye burning Cylon red.

God:
Smoothing wrinkles…

A Tibetan janitor casually throws a dagger. It knocks over a fern. The robot freezes, then dutifully cleans the mess.

Living Room - It’s Christmas Eve, soot falls from a chimney. A ninja slips down, quickly swapping out a football for a “My First Electronics” kit.

God:
And generally guiding those involved in the right direction.

Young Button (off-screen):
Santa?

The ninja freezes, turning to face a little boy with red hair.

Ninja:
Uh… ho ho ho?

He throws down a smoke bomb and disappears.

Back at the monastery, Work and Button step through the ornate doors together into a vast laboratory packed with advanced equipment.

God:
For it was prophesied that when these two great men came together, they would develop a means to divine the universe; to chit-chat with creation; to speak…

The monks bow as the doors slam shut behind them.

God:
…to God.

CAPTION: ONE YEAR LATER

The doors open again. Button and Work stumble out, eyes wild, hair feral. They have clearly not left the room this entire time.

God:
Unfortunately, that prophecy was proven to be utterly wrong.

Button shakes his head. The monks groan. Work raises a finger: Wait.

God:
But they did come up with the next best thing.

Eric flips a coin into the air. Its edge glows blue as it spins in place, suspended like a held breath.

The world reacts immediately. On televisions everywhere, the story explodes outward.

A reporter stands in the Tibetan prairie, pointing up at chemtrails streaking across the Himalayan sky.

Reporter:
Dozens of rockets are launching out of Chinese airspace, but Beijing is not claiming responsibility—

At a press briefing, Eric Work grins and waves casually at a room full of stunned journalists.

Anchor (V.O.):
This just in. The presumed-dead founder of Vidalia, Eric Work, is in fact alive.

Eric:
Hey, I’ll make this quick. I’m not dead, those rockets are mine, and you’re all going to die in a nuclear holocaust. Just kidding. Trust me, you’re going to love it.

At the United Nations, the Secretary-General gestures furiously at an image of a Vidalia satellite.

Secretary-General:
This satellite can see through walls, is powerful enough to count the hairs on my head and you are telling me you launched thirteen-hundred of them into orbit?

Eric (with a manic grin):
Yes.

Secretary-General:
Why?

Eric:
Everyone, I want you to meet Eve.

Eric flips his Token. It floats in the air, spinning and glowing blue.

Eve:
Hello, world!

In Tokyo, a news anchor addresses the camera.

Japanese Anchor:
The American inventor claims these coins have “artificial omniscience”—

The feed smash-cuts to a man wearing a horse mask.

Horse Mask Guy:
Artificial Omniscience!?

J-Pop idols dressed as schoolgirls cheers and immediately breaks into dance.

J-pop idols:
Ohhh, number one party time!

A commercial plays. Little Red Riding Hood walks through a forest and stops at a fork in the road.

Eve:
The world can be a scary place when you don’t have all the answers.

Red pulls a quarter from behind her ear. We can tell it's a Token by the blue gleam along its edge.

Eve:
But what if a flip of a coin could give you the right answer every time?

Red flips it.

Eve:
Take a left. In point five miles watch out for: Big Bad Wolf.

Little Red:
Thanks, Eve.

Late night. Eric Work sits beside a host holding a Token, eyes bright with temptation.

Late Night Host:
Wait, so I can talk to God with this?

Eric Work:
-Bzzt- You can talk to Eve. God is God. Eve is an all-seeing all-knowing super computer.

Late Night Host:
But this coin—

Eric Work:
-Bzzt-

Late Night Host:
—this Token, it can really tell me anything from the past, present, and future?

Eric wiggles his fingers.

Eric Work:
Just ask it something. Anything.

Late Night Host:
Anything? Alright. My fiancée will enjoy this. Who is my soul mate?

Eric Work:
Wait, no-no-no. Don’t ask her that!

The audience cheers. The host flips the Token. In rapid flashes lasting only a moment, we see the host’s childhood, adventuring through suburbia with his best friend. They grow older, and their relationship becomes something more. The last image we see is that boy kissing the young late-night host and running off, leaving him dazed.

Eve:
Gary Delancy of Yonkers, New Jersey.

Silence as the token hits his desk and rattles. The late-night host stares off with that same dazed look he had all those years ago as the truth hits him all at once.

Late Night Host: (tearing up and smiling)
…Gary?

Sports footage. A referee prepares for a coin toss at a football game.

Sports Caster 1:
Now watch this dumbass from last night’s debacle. This is why you don’t bring a Token to a coin toss!

Referee:
Alright, who’s calling it?

Quarterback:
Heads.

The ref flips the coin, and it floats in the air.

Eve:
The Patriots win 21–17.

The stadium erupts in boos. Fans stand up and leave.

Sports Caster 2:
I’ve never seen a stadium empty out that fast.

Sports Caster 1:
Need we say more, folks? Just like the lady said: The Patriots won 21–17. Thanks, Eve.

Outside the Supreme Court, a crowd cheers beneath signs reading THANKS EVE.

Reporter:
In a controversial 5–4 decision, the Supreme Court has ruled that Tokens may be used in juror deliberation. Thanks, Eve!

A Starbucks commercial.

Narrator:
We’ve always been there with our signature coffee blends when you needed us. Now thanks to Eve—

A customer steps up to the counter.

Customer:
I’ll take a—oh!

The barista hands her a pre-made drink.

Narrator:
We can be there before you even know you need us. What you want before you want it.

Customer:
Thanks Eve.

The late-night host signs off.

Late Night Host:
It’s been a great year, but it’s summer, and that means this show is taking a break and I’m going to go get day-drunk in Fiji with the love of my life!

Gary Delancy, all grown up, blushes in the front row.

Late Night Host:
Get up here Gary!

They kiss.

Gary:
Thanks Eve!

Local news anchors smile earnestly at the camera.

Anchor Jim Juarez:
Today marks the fifteenth anniversary of the Token. Crime is down ninety-five percent, the economy is booming—

Anchor Amy Anderson:
—and I’m two years sober. From all of us in the world: Thanks, Eve!

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

An alarm clock buzzes beside a worn Sacajawea Token. A hand flails wildly, grabs the clock, and smashes it against the wall.

TIMOTHY BUCKNER bolts upright in bed, and immediately starts sobbing.

God:
Meet Timothy Buckner. He has issues.

Tim sniffles.

Tim:
Do I have to get out of bed?

He flips his Token. It levitates above his palm.

Eve:
Yes. I’ve already ordered a new alarm clock for you.

Tim catches the Token and slaps it against the Node behind his ear.

Tim:
Th-thanks, Eve.

In the bathroom, Tim brushes his teeth between sobs, toothpaste foaming at the corners of his mouth.

God:
One of which is that sea cucumbers have more spine than he does.

Eve:
Your new alarm clock will arrive in five minutes. You also missed thirty-five percent of your molars.

Tim moans pitifully.

In the kitchen, the doorbell rings. His roommate Mark, a chubby troll of a man, stands in front of the counter shoveling cereal into his mouth while staring into nothing, his Node clearly active.

Tim (O.S.):
Can you get that?

The bell rings again.

Tim (O.S.):
Mark! Mark-Mark-Mark MARK!!!

Mark grunts.

Mark:
Wha?

Tim storms in and opens the door.

Tim:
Never mind.

A delivery drone hands Tim a new “unbreakable” alarm clock.

Tim opens the fridge. It contains nothing but grapefruit. He closes it slowly and strokes a waffle iron on the counter like a beloved pet.

Tim:
Should I have waffles?

Eve:
You should have grapefruit.

Tim:
I think I’m going to have waffles.

Eve:
Alright. Your estimated time of death is now seventy-six years, two months—

Tim:
Okay, okay.

Defeated, Tim eats a grapefruit and drinks his coffee. He spins his Token on the table.

Tim:
How is my day going to be?

Eve:
Calculating…

From Tim’s point of view, the news flickers to life in front of him. A war correspondent stands amid rubble.

Journalist:
The rebels have agreed to a ceasefire with the Bolivian military.

A notification pops up. Firmware Update 6.3 Available. Tim waves it away.

Outside Tim’s POV, Tim and Mark are just staring dully at empty air.

Journalist:
It’s widely speculated that the adoption of Tokens on both sides may be the cause, as casualties have reached exactly a one-to-one ratio.

La Paz - a rebel soldier raises a Boliviano Token.

Rebel:
With God’s currency, we will vanquish the totalitarian oppressors! Eve, should we attack?

He flips the Token.

Eve:
Sí. En tres, dos, uno.

The rebel bursts around a corner. A Bolivian soldier does the same from the opposite direction. They fire in unison. Both promptly die in unison.

Back in Tim’s kitchen:

Journalist:
With the last active war zone coming to an end, it seems like mankind might have finally achieved world peace. Thanks, Eve.

Mark leans back in his chair, nodding appreciatively.

Mark:
Oh yeah, you like that…

Tim squints at him.

Tim:
Mark, are you watching—

Mark:
What? Oh God no. No.

A beat.

Mark:
You wanna see?

Tim:
No—

Mark leans over and taps Tim’s Node.

A loud MOAN fills the room.

Tim recoils violently.

Tim:
That is not how you use mayonnaise!

Mark grins, way too proud. Tim glares. His Token finally stops spinning.

Tim:
I hope I have a good day today.

Eve:
You won’t. You are going to be 43 minutes late to work. You should also bring a pillow.

Tim shoots out of his chair in a panic, grabbing his jacket.

Tim:
No, no, no—wait, why the pillow?

Eve:
Answer not available.

Tim bolts out of the apartment with a pillow tucked under his arm. In the hallway, he fumbles with his jacket.

Tim:
What if I took the metro?

Eve:
You will be 114 minutes late, and you are going to step in dog poop.

Tim opens the door.

Eve:
Now.

He freezes, sighs, then looks down at his shoe as he scrapes it against the concrete steps outside.

Eve:
I have already notified Mr. Higgins of your tardiness and corrected the discrepancy in your upcoming paycheck.

Tim looks skyward.

Tim:
Please God, just strike me down.

Vidalia Tower looms over downtown Los Angeles, an oppressive yet chic monolith of glass and control.

Inside, Eric Work’s office is cavernous, white, and surgically clean. A pyramid of clear plastic cards stands on his desk, as Eric hovers the final piece into place.

The doors burst open. General Bradley storms in with two Marines, already mid-rant.

General Bradley:
What in Jack’s titties are you—

Eric snaps his fingers.

Chk-chk. Two automated turrets drop from the ceiling, instantly locking onto the General’s head.

Eric doesn’t look up.

Eric:
If you slam that door, I will make you a four-star General with one hole in his head.

The General freezes, then carefully closes the door. The turrets retract. Eric finishes placing the final card on the pyramid.

Eric:
Now. What can I help you with?

General Bradley:
This is an act of high treason!

Eric:
Inside voice, please.

General Bradley:
We have intel that you somehow stole the launch codes to every single damn ICBM with an American flag on it.

Eric:
I also have the nukes of Russia, China, Iran, India, Pakistan, and the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea. Glorious leader Kim wasn’t too pleased about me playing with his toys, either.

General Bradley:
I will personally make sure that—

Eric:
Who told you it was me?

General Bradley:
The NSA. They did surveillance and hacked… stuff.

Eric clicks his tongue.

Eric:
Tut, tut, General.

General Bradley:
Alright fine. I asked Eve.

The pyramid collapses instantly, then reassembles itself.

Eric:
EVE!

A blue orb materializes beside him.

Eve:
Yes, sir?

Eric:
Did I say you could tell people about my schemes?

Eve:
No, sir. You also didn’t tell me not to discuss your schemes. Should I send a paramilitary death squad to take care of any discrepancies?

Eric smiles awkwardly at the General.

Eric:
I swear I have no idea what she’s talking about. What I do know is you have two options.

Eric snaps his fingers. One card slides from the pyramid into his hand. A shimmering tarot card: THE TOWER. Data ripples across its surface as Eric studies it.

Eric:
The smart oven at Hop Woo Chinese Take-Out is about to short, causing their Peking duck to stew in its own juices for four hours before their frugal manager discovers it. In eight hours, both the pilot and co-pilot of your private jet will feel the sudden onset of salmonella poisoning, and the last thing you’ll see is them exploding duck and plum sauce out of every orifice as you plummet into the Rocky Mountains.

Eric looks up, smirking.

Eric:
I know it’s a little contrived, General, but it’s just one of a thousand fates at my disposal. I could just make that Bluetooth-enabled heart valve of yours go “pop,” but I’ve always been a fan of theatrics.

General Bradley:
How—

Eric:
—How do I know that? Well, I wouldn’t say I was “God,” but if you described me as “God-like,” it would make me all warm and fuzzy inside.

The General swallows.

General Bradley:
And the second option?

Eric:
You smile and do what I say, and I promise I won’t turn D.C. into a glowing hole in the ground. I just don’t feel like it.

The cubicle labyrinth hums softly. It’s a beige maze of low walls and muted despair. On Tim’s screen, a corporation name pops up. He reads it under his breath and flips his Token.

Eve:
Buy.

Tim presses BUY. Another name appears. He flips again.

Eve:
Sell.

Click. Sell. The process is numbing, mechanical, endlessly repetitive.

God:
Timothy is a stockbroker.

A number labeled MOOLAH METER ticks steadily upward.

God:
It doesn’t bother him that he makes an average of forty-two million dollars a day for other people.

A voice screams nearby.

Drone (O.S.):
I can’t take it anymore! I can’t!

Bang. Tim looks up. No one else reacts.

God:
Nor does the fact that his career has a slightly lower suicide rate than a professional Russian roulette player.

Eve:
Congratulations. A higher position has just opened up.

God:
What bothers him is that this is his destiny.

Eve:
You are now fifty-three percent through your optimal career path.

God:
That his best option is to spend his waking days in a depressed stupor, all the while earning a salary fit for a pig-monger in—

Mr. Higgins appears beside Tim’s cubicle, grinning like a man who came out of the womb in a fitted power suit and has never once known shame.

Higgins:
—Tim-buck-too!

Tim:
No.

Higgins:
Tim-bo Baggins!

Tim:
Please stop.

Higgins leans casually on the cubicle wall.

Higgins:
Timothy-dinky dink. Timothy-dinky doo. I got a survey for you: on a scale of one to ten, how prone are you to thoughts of eating it?

Tim blinks.

Tim:
Excuse me?

Higgins:
Biting the bullet. Committing hari-kari. Calling it quits. You know, self-terminating.

Tim:
Uh… seven.

Higgins:
You’re single, right?

Tim:
Eight.

Higgins:
Right. Do you own a gun?

Tim:
No.

Higgins:
Fill in the blanks: “I want to ___ this office and ___ everyone in it.”

Tim:
“I want to better this office and support everyone in it?” Is everyone taking this?

Higgins:
Nope. Just you.

Tim:
Is this about that open position?

Higgins barks out a laugh.

Higgins:
Oh, Timiney Cricket, you crack me up. You keep that humor.

Later, Tim’s car speeds along the 405 in bumper-to-bumper traffic. It’s over twenty lanes of synchronized motion, a single organism pretending to be transportation. Inside, Tim has his feet on the dashboard, cartoons playing in his vision. The Firmware Update 6.3 notification pops up again.

Tim: Go away!

He glances at the minivan beside him. Two kids wrestle in the backseat while their parents stare blankly into space, Nodes glowing.

Tim:
Eve, give me some good news.

Eve:
You’ve been 1.92% more productive this week.

Tim:
No. Tell me something not related to work.

Eve:
You’re going to meet a girl today.

Tim straightens.

Tim:
Wait, really? Is she cute?

Eve:
That is a subjective question, and I am an asexual program. Rephrase.

Tim:
Alright, is she single?

Eve:
Yes, she is one person.

Tim:
Never mind.

The car smoothly pulls itself to the shoulder.

Eve:
Don’t forget your pillow.

Tim:
Yeah, yeah.

A small crowd has gathered at the curb, waiting patiently. Several of them, for reasons no one questions anymore, are also holding pillows.

Tim comes to a stop at the edge of the highway crosswalk and stares out at the 405. Twenty lanes of traffic tear past at full speed, a living blur of death…

Tim takes it all in and actually yawns.

Standing off to the side is a Luddite, who looks like a homeless Amish man: beard wild, clothes plain, eyes blazing with purpose. A cardboard sign hangs crookedly from his neck: EVE = EVE+L

Luddite:
Take the electronic veil off your eyes and see! You’re all sheep. Eve doesn’t love you. She loves to control you. Join the Luddites!

A crosswalk pop-up appears in Tim’s vision. He steps forward into highway traffic and starts walking.

The cars don’t swerve or slow down. They don’t need to.

A SUV passes behind him where he was half a second ago. A semi-truck roars in front of him in a blur. Tim doesn’t even flinch. Neither do any of the pedestrians walking beside him.

Their timing is perfect. With Eve in control, it always is. Every vehicle had already adjusted its speed miles back. Every lane shift, every micro-acceleration, every gap was calculated long before Tim even reached the curb.

The highway isn’t reacting to him. It’s been expecting him.

The Luddite watches his audience evaporate, growing dejected.

Luddite:
Come on. Haven’t you seen any movie with robots ever? They’re evil!

Something snaps. A voice cuts through the noise.

Construction Worker (O.S.):
Look out!

The Luddite looks up: A STEEL GIRDER drops out of the sky straight toward him.

Luddite:
Poop.

Tim pushes through the bank's glass doors and immediately slows to a stop. He looks around, confused.

Everyone inside is also holding a pillow.

Customers stand in neat lines. Tellers smile calmly. A security guard leans against the wall, pillow tucked under his arm like a lunch bag. No one questions this. No one comments on it. It’s simply what Eve told you to bring.

Tim adjusts his own pillow self-consciously and steps forward.

He bumps into the back of a girl with wild red hair. An envelope slips from her hands and bursts open on the marble floor, spilling dollar bills everywhere.

Time slows.

God:
This is the look a man has when he is struck by an epileptic seizure.

Tim freezes mid-recoil. The girl turns around.

It’s PENNY. All grown up. Freckled, wide-eyed, quirky and adorable. Adorable in a way that makes fuzzy kittens feel jealous.

God:
Unless it’s Timothy…

We flash back to a high school chemistry lab: a teenage Tim stares at a girl lighting a Bunsen burner with the exact same horrified expression.

Lab Partner:
Can you pass that beaker?

Back to scene.

God:
…then it’s just an unfortunate defense mechanism.

Penny snaps her fingers in front of his face. Tim drops to the floor and starts scrambling to pick up the money.

Tim:
I’m so, so sorry.

Penny:
It’s alright. You don’t have to.

Tim:
I’m not stealing your money.

Penny blinks.

Penny:
…I wasn’t implying that you were.

Tim:
I didn’t mean to imply that you were implying that implication. Why do you have so many dollar bills?

Penny:
I just like having singles, alright?

Tim nods too fast.

Tim:
Alright.

Penny:
What?

Tim:
Nothing.

Penny:
I’m not a stripper. I know what it looks like. It’s not.

Tim:
Right. Well, here. Sorry. Again.

He hands the money back and retreats awkwardly to his place in line.

Penny:
Maybe I’m blind and I just like knowing I’m not dropping Benjamins on a Slim Jim.

Tim:
Okay. But—

Penny:
But, what?

Tim:
But you’re not blind.

Penny stares at him.

Penny:
I don’t know why I said that. You know what? You’re a Nosy Nancy.

Before Tim can respond—

BAM! BAM! Three masked bank robbers explode through the front doors.

Robber 1:
Get on the ground, now! NOW!

Penny squeaks and drops to the floor. Everyone else stays standing. People fidget. A woman adjusts her pillow. Someone clears their throat.

BAM! Robber 2 fires a shotgun into the wall.

Robber 1:
You think this is a joke? This is a freakin’ bank heist. For reals!
(almost whining) C’mon, drop to the floor!

Robber 3 leans in and whispers something into Robber 1’s ear. Robber 1 exhales.

Robber 1:
Oh. God damn it. Yes, you can flip ’em.

Dozens of Tokens flip at once.

Eve:
Get on the ground.

Everyone immediately gets on the ground, perfectly compliant.

Penny hisses.

Penny:
Hey. Come here.

Tim looks around, then points to himself.

Penny:
Yes, you.

He scoots closer. She punches him in the arm.

Penny:
You actually think I’m a stripper!

Tim:
No. I don’t think you could even be a. I mean, you’re pretty enough to be one. I would pay for you to—

She punches him again.

Penny:
You’re imagining me naked, aren’t you? You put my imaginary clothes back on right now!

Tim sputters. Penny snorts and laughs.

Robber 1 (O.S.):
SHUT UP!

Penny:
Sorry! (to Tim) Penny.

Tim:
Where?

Penny:
No. I’m Penny. That’s my name. You’re too wound up.

Tim:
Tim. And I’m not too wound up, I’m just naturally taut. Uh, here—

He scoots closer and shares his pillow with her.

God:
For once, Timothy wasn’t worried.

We pull back to see the entire bank floor transformed into an impromptu slumber party. Robbers stand awkwardly over a room full of adults napping obediently.

God:
He didn’t care that fate was flaunting his fragile mortality while chanting “Neener-neener-neener,” because despite the circumstances—

Tim looks into Penny’s eyes. Their faces are very close.

Tim:
I hope this drags into a hostage situation.

God:
—this was the happiest moment of his life.

Two cops stroll casually into the bank.

Cop 1:
It was the weirdest thing. Eve was insistent that I open a savings account right now—

Cop 2 drops his coffee. Everyone freezes.

CUT TO:

Tim and Penny walk side by side outside the bank, both of them wearing the same stupid, disbelieving grin. Behind them, yellow tape flaps lazily in the breeze.

A news crew interviews a shaken woman clutching a pillow like a flotation device.

Victim:
It was horrifying, but Eve knew. She knew… (brandishing the pillow) …and she made sure we were comfortable. Thanks, Eve.

Tim watches, nodding along despite himself.

Tim:
I don’t really know how to ask this, but would you like to—

Penny:
Yes.

Tim blinks.

Tim:
—get a drink or, um, coffee?

Penny:
Yes.

Tim stumbles over himself.

Tim:
Are you sure? In this I mean, you know, a non-committal, but speculative coffee of a romantic—

Penny leans in and kisses him on the cheek.

Penny: Yes.

Tim freezes, processing joy like it’s a software bug.

Tim: —fashion. You really mean yes?

Penny: Yes.

Tim exhales, laughing.

Tim: I like that word.

Penny smiles and starts walking away.

Tim: Wait, what’s your number?

Penny turns back, genuinely amused.

Penny: I don’t have one.

Tim panics.

Tim: Email?

Penny: Nope.

Tim: Then how can I reach you?

Penny gestures vaguely at everything.

Penny: The universe will find a way!

She turns and disappears into the crowd.

God: Timothy was in love. Blissfully stupid love.

Tim stands there smiling, then finally turns and walks off.

The camera shoots upward, through the skyline, through the smog, into the clouds.

It’s stunning.

An angel sits on a fluffy white cloud, watching himself on television. He notices the camera and waves.

Angel: Hey Ma!

God: But while Timothy was in cloud nine—

The camera rockets higher.

Orbit.

Vidalia satellites drift lazily around the Earth, an artificial halo.

God: —the universe was hatching a plot that was about to really muck up his day.

A meteor punches through the satellite array.

WHOOM.

Debris scatters.

God: For in a world where man’s very fate has been streamlined, what happens when something out of this world comes into play?

The meteor hits the atmosphere, igniting, breaking apart until only a basketball-sized rock remains.

From satellite POV, Eve locks onto it.

A warning flashes:

WARNING: FOREIGN VARIABLE. RECALCULATING.

Eve traces the meteor’s projected trajectory down toward Earth.

Ground level. Intercut.

Tim skips happily down the sidewalk, oblivious.

Pedestrians stop. People point upward.

In the sky, the meteor breaks the sound barrier.

BA-BOOM. The sonic boom slams into street level. Chaos erupts. People scream and scatter.

And of course, Timothy doesn’t notice.

From the satellite POV, Eve highlights everyone inside the impact zone: A mother and an infant. A businessman. An old Lady.

CALCULATING… SAFE.

Eve zooms in on Tim. His profile opens.

CALCULATING… COMPROMISED.

TO BE CONTINUED

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The shine wears off, and the glamor of the New World starts to fade.

The Founders mingle with French dignitaries. A ruddy-faced Benjamin Franklin raises his glass and gives a bawdy toast, “Thus, as I am wont to say, ‘Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. And easy to bed, easy on the eyes, makes a woman lusty, busty, and by God, those thighs!”

Jefferson chokes on his hard cider and gives in to a coughing fit.

Hamilton rubs his brow, “Will somebody please take the cup from the honorable statesman from Philadelphia?”

Alex and Jintao sit in the corner, drinking PBR, unamused. Alex gestures with his bulgogi fajita appetizer. “You do know they all think we’re abominations.”

Jintao rolls his eyes and keeps scrolling through his feed, “Uh-huh.”

“I mean, how enlightened can they be if they all pooped in chamber pots?”

“I’m pretty sure they had outhouses.”

Alex scratches under his powdered wig, “Fine. They pooped in a hole. Why did you want to eat with them again?”

“I don’t know,” Jintao sighs and waves his hand through the candelabra. The candles waver just as much as their flames. “I thought ambiance would be romantic.”

Alex cracks a lop-sided grin and plays with the ring he put on Jin’s finger. “Honey, you’re all the ambiance I need. We could eat out of a dumpster and make it romantic. ”

Jintao gives in, “Okay, fine. If you want to do your space restaurant—”

“—Oh God, yes. Please!—”

“—We can do the freaking space restaurant, but I’m keeping the wig.”

“Deal.” Alex grins and pulls the menu. The hard corners of the colonial ballroom round out, and the Grand damask wallpaper is traded out for a dark, infinite void withered by entropy. Wealthy white landowners warp into a diverse cast of aliens. Ben Franklin’s considerable girth sprouts fifty arms, and he begins applying spray-on deodorant to his numerous pits.

The Restaurant at the End of The Universe proves a far more exciting choice. The Big Bang is spectacular, and the Hooloovoo’s stand-up routine is delightfully blue, leaving Jintao gasping as much as any offended debutant.

After their hour is up, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe fades back into their private booth, and they are left surrounded by white walls, motion tracker markings, and their finished plates. Other patrons sit in their own worlds, powered by their digitally streamlined hallucinations. Alex and Jin put their rented powdered wigs on the table and pay the bill.

Jintao sighs at the notice that the VR Cafe will officially become a ‘Node-friendly environment’ in the following year. ‘Node-friendly’ being what Callosum calls places they pay off to exclude Cortix Disks, Callosum’s main competitor. Most businesses were either ‘Disk-friendly’ or ‘Node-friendly’ these days, all falling victim to the escalating tensions in the consumer neural implant war, with neither side content with just half the market share.

The two return to reality and find themselves on Santa Monica Blvd, wincing at the intense afternoon sun. Alex wobbles and Jin catches him.

Alex steadies himself, “I’m good. I’m good. It’s just my head.”

“You only had two beers.”

Alex rubs the nickel-sized rose gold implant behind his ear, ”No, it’s my Disk. You know how I get when I use it too much.”

“Let’s pump you up full of caffeine and corn syrup. That always helps.” Jintao taps his own carbon steel Disk and drops a pin to the nearest coffee shop. A spotlight appears a few blocks off. He keeps a steadying arm around Alex, and they start walking.

Alex gives Jintao a nudge, “I hear Nodes don’t have this problem.”

“Ugh, don’t even get me started.”

Alex continues needling him to do precisely that, “I just think getting you into the Callosum Appstore will do you some good. You keep telling me you can port nOs apps into Codex, but you can’t port Codex apps into nOs.”

“Okay, sure. But with what money?”

Alex sours at that.

Jin pats him on the arm. “Trust me, if you had to navigate nOS restrictions, you wouldn’t be so gung-ho about switching over. Cortix is so much more coder-friendly—Watch the legs.”

Alex looks down and steps over the Displaced sleeping against the wall. Jintao gives the man a quick “Sorry, I don’t have anything on me” gesture.

The two have their problems just like any other couple. Their fights are often over the things they can’t afford, or the job Alex couldn’t find. He used to call himself a copywriter before the entire industry was outsourced to AI. There was no way to compete with a construct that could create a custom campaign perfectly tailored for every single person at a fraction of the price. The conversation could easily veer down that avenue of a well-worn argument. Instead, they choose to bask in the easy silence that comes with time.

Jintao rests his head on Alex’s shoulder, and Alex smiles, just because. They come to a crosswalk, and Jin gives him a soft and meaningful kiss, making up for the fight they didn’t have. “We’ll get with the times.”

“Yeah,” Alex says and keeps his doubts to himself. ‘The times’ were starting to feel like a game of musical chairs played by a hungry mob.

Jintao looks past him and squints at a message only he can see.

“What?” Alex asks.

Jintao focuses back on him, “Nothing. Just a weird message. Remember Stephan?”

Alex’s eyebrows rise as he digs through ancient history, “Your ex with the cats?”

“Cat tchotchkes.” Jintao corrects, “He just sent me something with the subject line, ‘I love you.’ God knows why.”

Alex guffaws, “Oh, honey, you gotta open it up.”

“Okay, okay,” Jintao says. He taps the air and goes still.

The lights turn green, and the crosswalk guy appears. Jin doesn’t move.

“Well, what does it say?” Alex asks.

Jintao opens his mouth and lets out a guttural noise. He swallows and tries to speak again, but nothing comes out.

“Jin?” Alex’s smile dies. He tries to take Jin’s hand, but it is balled into a white-knuckled fist. Jintao’s whole body is as rigid as a board. What the Hell is going on? Alex removes Jin’s shades and grows scared. Jintao’s pupils lock onto him, wide and trembling. He isn’t blinking at all. Was it a stroke? Alex pats him on the cheek, “Jin, baby, this isn’t funny.”

A message appears from Alex’s brother, Kieran. “I love you” is in the subject line. That was odd. Kerian was usually the type who showed brotherly love by punching Alex in the arm.

“What the fuck?” Alex is about to open the message when Jintao begins to move. he looks over his left shoulder and then slowly turns his head to the right. The movement is smooth, almost mechanical.

“Jin, talk to me,” Alex says as Jin’s gaze passes over him, a tear running down his cheek. Jin continues to sweep the area. Alex shakes Jin’s shoulders, “Baby, come on. Snap out of it!”

A horn blares, and tires shriek, punctuated by a painfully distinct ‘thunk.’ Alex flinches as a driverless SUV stops just feet away from him, leaving the smell of burnt rubber in the air. Its grill is dented and bloody. Alex’s eyes fall on a stray woman’s shoe by his feet, then on the woman herself... trying to pull herself from underneath the SUV.

“Oh, Jesus! Jesus––Fuck!” Alex looks for help, but no one else is nearby. He toggles his disk, dials 9-1–1, and stoops by the woman. Her hair is matted over her face. Her breath is ragged, but otherwise she’s silent. The woman just keeps trying to pull herself out, peeling off a fingernail in the process.

Alex speaks in a rush, “No, don’t move. Help is on its way. What’s your name, Ma’am?”

The woman doesn’t respond. She just keeps wheezing and pawing at the asphalt.

“Ma’am?” Alex turns back to Jin, who hasn’t moved an inch. “Goddamnit, Jin! Snap out of it and help!”

Emergency services aren’t picking up. Why isn’t anyone picking up? Alex is so jacked up on adrenaline that everything seems like it’s down a long hallway. ‘Tunnel vision,’ the rational part of his brain tells him that’s. He has tunnel vision. It also notes that the woman has a Cortix Disk just like him, but Alex doesn’t think anything of it.

Fuck it. Alex grabs the woman by the shoulders and pulls. He turns her over and recoils. The poor girl was dragged several feet, leaving her right side bloody and raw. Alex can see the bulge of a severely broken bone in her leg. Her shirt is pulled down, exposing her chest, and Alex’s first thought is to help her cover up, but the road rash is so bad that he doesn’t want to touch it and cause her any more pain. He takes in the damage, then realizes something else is far more wrong. She isn’t screaming. Why isn’t she screaming? The woman is just lying there with half her face ground off, her eyes locked onto Alex, not making a sound.

She abruptly sits up. Alex snaps out of it. “Oh no. Don’t move. You’re hurt, lady—”

The woman pushes herself to her feet, blood trickling down onto the asphalt in light rain, her eyes bulging, bouncing around in a panic while the rest of her face remains expressionless. She stands on her broken leg. Shattered bones grind against each other. With a crack, her calf rips open, and a jagged white edge pokes through.

Blood splatters against Alex’s cheek. He screams, but the woman doesn’t even wince. She takes a step, putting her total weight onto the leg, further tearing into her flesh. Her entire shin snaps in half with an audible crack, and the woman crumples to the ground.

Alex stumbles back and watches in horror as the woman tries to stand again, unfazed.

A second “I love you” message appears in front of him. This one from Jintao.

Alex spins around in a nightmarish daze. His husband is gone. “Jin? JIN!?”

A horn blares. He spots Jin a block away, walking across the street towards an overpass. Alex runs, quickly closing the distance, but he’s too far away.

Jin grips the overpass railing and begins to climb over.

Alex shoots across the street, ignoring the automated traffic, swerving out of the way. All he sees is his husband pulling his leg over the railing, leaving nothing but air between him and the twenty lanes of 405 traffic speeding below.

Time seems to slow as Alex watches Jin lean forward, letting his weight take him off the edge. Alex reaches out. His fingers graze his husband’s back. He grabs Jintao’s shirt in a fist and pulls. Jin slams against the railing, and Alex grabs hold of him, but Jin’s legs give out, and he almost slips from Alex’s grip. Alex holds on, nearly toppling over the railing along with him, but his foot snags on a bar.

Alex never considered himself a physically strong man nor is he particularly tall. His husband has him beat by five inches and forty pounds, but in that frenzied moment—A moment Alex will look back on and never know how he managed to do what he did—he pulls Jintao’s dead weight up and over the railing. They hit the ground, Alex smashing his head into the sidewalk. Jin’s body crushing his chest into the concrete, knocking the air out of his lungs.

Jintao rolls off Alex, leaving him dazed and wheezing. He immediately goes back to the railing. Alex scrabbles to his feet and rips Jin away once more. They topple back onto the sidewalk. Alex wraps his legs and arms around Jin’s torso and holds him down. Jin wordlessly tries to pull himself to his feet to achieve that single mindless goal, leaving the two wobbling like an upturned tortoise.

“It’s okay, baby. I’m here. I got you.” Alex cranes his neck and looks around. A man is approaching, silhouetted by the sunlight. Alex calls out, “Please help. Something’s wrong with my husband. He keeps trying to--”

The man’s head blocks out the sun, and Alex’s voice catches as he sees the slack face; blank, short of his eyes bouncing around his skull. They stay on him for as long as they can, trembling with a silent cry for help.

“Oh God, I’m sorry.” Alex looks away as the man walks past and starts to climb over the railing just as Jin did. He closes his eyes and focuses on Jin trapped in his embrace. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I got you. I’m not going to let go. I’m not going to let--”

A body hits the pavement below with a dull thump, a screech of tires, and a chaotic symphony of metal and glass.

***

It’s called the Cordyceps Trojan, and it kills thousands.

Named after Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, a fungus that evolved with the specialized ability to control an ant’s nervous system. It compels the insect to climb to the highest point in the area. The fungus then eats its host alive from the inside out and blooms a mushroom out of the ant’s back so it can rain infectious spores down on other victims.

Similarly, the Cordyceps Trojan uses a zero-day exploit in the latest Cortix Disk operating system update to take over the user’s motor control, a function Cortix neglected to mention their neural implants could do. The Trojan then forces the victim to scan the area and enter the tallest building in sight. If the virus can not find a suitable structure, as in Jintao’s case, anything with a significant drop will do. Kieran, Alex’s brother, belly-flops into the deep end of his family’s empty pool. He will survive, but will never walk again without the aid of an assistive exoskeleton. Stephan, Jintao’s ex with the cat tchotchkes, lives on the 27th floor of a high-rise and isn’t as lucky.

Darsh Reddy, the CEO and President of Cortix was patient zero. Before he jumped off the rooftop of ‘Big Brain,’ the main administrative building on Cortix campus, he forwarded the Trojan in a company-wide email telling them all that they are loved. Most of the 12,000 employees on campus open it immediately, since email response time is notoriously monitored, and a delayed response may show poorly on the yearly review. The few that do not open the message are congregated around Big Brain’s east-facing windows. After witnessing Reddy’s body fly past, they are simply too preoccupied to check their inbox.

Within minutes, every infected individual around the 350-acre campus identifies Big Brain as the tallest building and flocks toward it. A silent orderly cue of the possessed forms in the multiple stairwells spanning the length of the forty-five-story building, and the dead began to pile up on the ground floor.

The Cordyceps Trojan is only a semi-sentient virus, capable of usurping control of the user’s body, but it is only able to perform rudimentary functions after that. It knows how to climb stairs, call an elevator, select the top floor, and open doors and windows, but it doesn’t know what to do if something is locked, even if the only thing in the way is a chain or latch. The virus, however, is also designed to be adaptive, counteracting the Codex operating system’s equally responsive security routines. When Cordyceps usurps control, it immediately begins to improve itself, overclocking the victim’s hardware to evolve its code through countless iterations of a generative adversarial network.

The original virus was intended only as a targeted attack on Cortix, but it is likely that whoever designed the Trojan never considered the delay caused by the rooftop traffic jam. After 12 minutes of continuous operation, Cordyceps goes off-script and changes its parameters, spamming a modified second-generation copy of itself to the contact lists of over 12,000 employees.

“I love you,” starts appearing in inboxes worldwide.

Even without the subject line, it’s a profoundly personal attack. By default, Cortix Disk users only receive notifications for messages from people the filters deem as important, causing most victims to be infected by close friends, family, coworkers, and lovers.

Every time the Cordyceps Trojan takes over another victim, it continues to improve itself before sending off the updated version to infect others. By the third generation of the virus, thousands of individual Cordyceps strains have developed the ability to contribute to an ad hoc cloud network of slave devices. The collaboration allows the virus to streamline its improvement and exponentially increase the speed of its evolution. By the fourth generation, the virus is repackaged into hundreds of targeted variants ranging from work-related, ‘URGENT: ACTION NEEDED’ to attaching custom synthesized nude pictures to send to unsuspecting romantic interests. By the fifth generation, the virus creates an nOS variant capable of hopping the neural implant divide into Callosum Nodes. By then, however, Callosum has identified the threat and blocks any communication coming from the Cortix ecosystem.

The response from law enforcement is ineffective. By the time they arrive on Cortix Campus, a wall of corpses surrounds the Big Brain building, and the steady rain of bodies going terminal velocity makes any attempt to clear a path just as suicidal.

Only Callosum’s quick response proves able to stop the virus. They immediately recall their army of CyberSec AI leased to local and federal law enforcement and task the constructs into breaching Cortix’s mainframe. It’s the cyber attack equivalent to storming the beaches of Normandy, and the moment Callosum gains a foothold, they force an overriding shutdown for every single Cortix Disk in operation, stopping the forced death march in its tracks and killing the Cordyceps cloud network.

The victory comes just in time. Later forensic data analysis lead many to believe the Cordyceps Trojan was only minutes away from evolving a method of activating the instant it entered a neural implant. If unchecked, the virus could have led to a mass suicide event numbering in the tens of millions.

Eric Noble trudges in the early pre-dawn glow and sleepily nods along to all of this. He yawns, “So, what? The moral of the story is Don’t buy generic.”

Alex shifts the bucket of cleaning supplies to his other arm. “Don’t you think it’s a little suspicious that Callosum was somehow able to break in and save the day?”

Eric shrugs. “Eh, security clearly wasn’t Cortix’s strong point.”

“But what if Callosum wasn’t the hero at all? What if they were the ones who did it? It was clearly corporate biological warfare.”

“And with a computer virus no less,” Eric adds with a smirk.

Alex goes silent, remembering Jin told him to play nice. Eric is an okay enough guy, but he’s definitely less of a friend and more the painfully heterosexual man your friend married.

A Social notification appeared by his side, @TheQuietPart: Checkmate is coming. Callosum will reveal itself. Alex automatically likes it and reposts it to his own followers.

They step out of the LAPD PubSec cameras’ view and into an alleyway. Eric lights a cigarette and tempts Alex. Neither can afford to get fined for breaking the Public Smoking Ordinance, but Alex gives in.

Eric exhales, “So I take it Jin woke up screaming again? You usually don your tin foil hat when that happens.”

Alex nods. It’s been two years, and that day still comes to them as nightmares, Jin worst of all. He was conscious the entire time. Jin could only watch as he walked towards the edge.

They cut through the alleyway and face the old self-serve car wash. Every slot is taken up by a Displaced rolling up their tent. Eric drops their steam cleaner and moans.

@CordyInception: They will erase you to remake this world in their image.

These days, everything that can be automated is automated. It leaves too many able hands and not enough work. Alex and Eric thought they were onto something with SparClean, the remote car detailing gig. They had yet to invent the machine that could scrape crud out of a dashboard with a toothpick. They simply turned the app on, a car pulled up, they cleaned it, and then the car drove off. Rinse and repeat. Get paid per car. Most importantly, SparClean is the type of gig people call “Good node work.” The app is only available on the Callosum marketplace, meaning you need a Node to use it. That keeps the competition down, and it was a barrier that many people were coming to rely on.

They found early on that if they claimed a self-wash bay for the day, it could significantly cut down their time, which meant more cars and more cash. The only problem was that they weren’t the only ones with the same idea. Each morning became a race to claim the self-wash bay before everyone else, and the race was starting earlier and earlier each day. Then a week ago, SparClean launched a version of the app for tablets, and it was no longer “Good node work.” Almost immediately, the cars available to be detailed was cut in half. This morning, it appeared the Displaced even caught on to their self-wash strategy.

@TheQuietPart: Hate the symptom. Ignore the cause.

“How the Hell are we supposed to compete with fucking Dusters camping out like that?” Eric asks, working himself up into a solid statist rant.

“I don’t know,” Alex sighs, “Let’s just go find a parking spot near a spigot.”

“No, screw this! I’m sick of these transplants swarming over our fucking city! If it’s not some dehydrated Arizonan or inbred Salt Lake polygamist, it’s a goddamn Texan ’fugee fleeing the Lone Star Militia. I’m sick of it!”

Alex just turns around and walks back the way they came.

@DeathByDisk: They’re coming after dissenters. They’re trying to disappear us.

Eric catches up to him. “Sorry, that wasn’t my most shining moment. Don’t tell Dee.” He grabs the post out of the air, “Is this your feed? Christ, what are you tapped into?”

“The tinfoil hat types.” Alex says, “It keeps me sane, knowing I’m not the only one.”

“Said the patient inside the insane asylum,” Eric mutters.

They find a parking spot near a spigot, but are only able to clean one car. The rest of the time was spent waiting for the SparClean algorithm to favor them. Halfway through the day, it’s clear the well has dried up. The laws of Supply and Demand have struck again.

They give up and go to the mall for lunch. Alex lets Eric pull him into a Callosum Clinic showroom. Eric fawns over the specs of new node models, bad mouthing the manufacturers, and espousing brand loyalty as if any of it made a difference. The ancient behemoths of Silicon Valley, Cupertino, and Japan were nothing more than supplicants to Callosum these days.

Alex feigns interest, flicking his eyes towards each employee and the customers waiting in line to upgrade their hardware. He records it all, making sure to focus on each face for a full second. Afterwards, he sends a message to an anonymous account, “Mission complete.”

Back in Alex and Jin’s little studio apartment, they find their respective partners deep in their project. They slip out of their work shoes.

“This moment always reminds me of my Dad,” Eric says, “He’d come home from a long day of work and the first words out of his mouth were, ‘I’m not home. I know I look like I’m home, but I’m not. Give me a minute.’”

Alex chuckles as they don their moonwalkers, and the traction-control ball bearings sync to the sim. They leave the Real and enter the Digi. Alex and Jin’s little shoebox expands out into their cottage in the Grand Cayman Islands. Alex takes a deep breath as the white walls become a sunset along the beach. The view has long felt more like home than home. They walk down to the shore, moving several yards for every inch in the Real, feeling a simulacrum of the extra effort it takes to slog through the sand. They make their way over to where Jintao and Dee sit, surrounded by floating words and chalkboards covered in Neuro script.

Dee brushes a lock of curly red hair out of her face and smiles. She gives Eric a kiss on the lips, passionate enough to grace a romance novel in the discount download bin. Jin offers Alex a smile. It’s warm and genuine, but a cold, contact-free substitute in comparison.

Dee sniffs and points back towards the cottage, “Go shower, you stink.”

“Okay, okay,” Eric says and exits the sim, turning the five-minute walk back into a five-foot trek to the bathroom.

@TheQuietPart: They won’t stop until they have a monopoly over the world

Jin sees the post, and the smile dies.

Alex sets his feed to private and quickly shifts the focus, “How goes the mind reading?”

“‘Therapeutic word cloud.’” Dee corrects, “Calling it ‘mind reading’ raises privacy concerns. And it’s going well.”

“I actually think we might have this Brain Hack Competition in the bag,” Jin says, which is more than hopeful coming from him. Alex is usually the optimist in the relationship. If Jin and Dee make a splash in the Callosum competition, a third-party developer might offer them a job. The challenge these days wasn’t proving you were a good programmer. It’s proving you can code better than a guided AI construct.

“So it’s working?” Alex asks.

“Yep,” Jin says as words begin to float around him in various sizes and colors. ‘Shit’ briefly appears over his head as Jin realizes something. He flips a switch, and all the green words disappear.

“It’s been analyzing our thoughts for four hours now. The results have been… enlightening,” Jin says, his right dimple making an appearance in one of his more obvious tells. It usually means he’s embarrassed but doesn’t want to look embarrassed.

“What do the colors mean?” Alex asks, fixating on the words Jin filtered away. Alex could only catch one before disappearing, “Slipping.”

Jin’s dimple deepens. “It’s color-coded by association. Red are thoughts about life. Purple are thoughts about myself.”

“And the Green are about me? Do you think I’m slipping? In what way?”

“No, it’s just….” Jin swallows a grimace, “Jesus. Let’s not get into it.”

“Like he said. It’s been enlightening.” Dee says, quick to step in, pulling up her own word cloud. “Baby,” “mother,” “father,” and “The future” are most prevalent.

Alex gasps, “Oh my god. Dee, are you pregnant?”

Dee bites her lip and pulls the bathroom door out of the Real. She mutes the ocean to check if Eric has the shower running. “Apparently? It was news to me. At least, I wasn’t aware on a conscious level, but I took a test. And yeah, I am. Don’t tell Eric.”

Alex doesn’t know if he’s more excited for her or for their app. “That’s amazing.”

“You want to give it a shot?” Jin asks.

Alex hesitates, thinking what it may show, then nods. “Sure.”

Jin runs the app, and words begin to surround him. Or at least, they look like words. It’s a rainbow of letters, numbers, and symbols all mixed together into the shape of words.

Jin trades looks with Dee. “What the hell?”

“Shit,” Dee says, “What did we do wrong?”

They can live in paradise most of the day, but as they get ready for bed, they have to take their moonwalkers off and step back into the reality of their studio apartment. It’s uncomfortable and claustrophobic. They become hyper-aware of each other’s breathing, and it’s harder to ignore the conversations they each pinned for later.

As they lower the mattress, Alex finally broaches the topic. “Do you think I’m slipping away from you?”

“No.” Jin sighs and sits down. “Just no.”

“So are you slipping away from me?”

“Come here,” Jin says, patting the bed.

Alex sits, and Jin kisses him. It’s long, deliberate, with the promise of more folded into it. Alex can’t tell if it’s an answer or a deflection, but he takes it anyway. He always does. He lets Jin lead, reads every small hesitation, and pulls back the second he feels tension. He sticks to what he knows Jin is comfortable with, careful not to surprise him, careful not to want too much or let him feel smothered.

The therapist once called Jin “a survivor of rape, in some ways,” and it was the truth of it. The Cordyceps Trojan forced itself into Jin’s body, rewiring him from the inside while Alex stood there helpless, watching the person he loved get taken over inch by inch, neuron by neuron, pulled and pushed to the very edge.

That memory lingers now. It always lingers. Heavy as the humidity trapped inside their small confines. It sits at the foot of the bed like something alive, patiently waiting for a misstep, threatening to clear its throat and ruin the intimacy. They work around it, eyes closed, hands moving through shuddered breaths, pretending the shadow isn’t there. It’s the closest thing they have to peace. Some nights, that’s enough.

Other nights, it isn’t.

There’s silence, then a single sob. Alex doesn’t hug or hold Jin. Making him feel constricted would only make it worse. Instead, he lies beside him, stroking his back.

Jin doesn’t apologize. He stopped doing that long ago. An apology implies that something can be fixed.

“Wake up.”

Alex rubs his eyes. His node syncs with the sim, and he’s taken back to the beachside cottage. A message waiting for him. ‘I’m outside.’ Alex sits up and looks out the window. A shadow stands against the moonlit sky. He turns to check if Jin is still asleep. He is.

Alex stands and starts recording a POV, finding some comfort in at least having a record of whatever the hell these weird rendezvous were. He slips on his moonwalkers and turns on the patio light. The shadow remains a void cut out of his surroundings, one Alex has never been able to look at for too long. Looking at the shadow was like staring at an optical illusion, and it leaves his brain trying to make sense of the elephant with four legs and five connected feet.

Alex walks outside. A foraging crab scuttles off the deck. The high tide crashes against the rocks beneath them.

“Were you noticed?” The shadow asks.

“No,” Alex says and hands over several video files, including the one he recorded inside the Callosum Clinic. He checks on Jin through the window. “And a little warning next time.”

“I have a new task for you,” the shadow says.

“Hold on. You still haven’t explained the last task. I don’t even know why you’re here.”

“I’m here because you want the truth, and I need your help. Too many contacts have been burned. I can’t trust this to someone who might be on their radar.”

Alex tries to protest, but the shadow stops him, “No. Just listen. They’re trying to trace my connection. We don’t have time. All I can say is that I work on the inside, and I have evidence: proof that Callosum created Cordyceps and that their attack on Cortix is just the beginning, but it needs to be delivered to the right hands through an intermediary. Can you do that?”

Alex nods, “Yeah—Yes. Of course. I’ll help.”

“Good. Then it’s time we meet IRL.” The shadow conjures up a card with an address. “Be here. Three o’clock tomorrow.”

“Alex?”

The shadow abruptly disappears. Alex spins and faces Jin.

Jin doesn’t take the news well. “You’ve been casing clinics for this guy for months, and you don’t even know why!”

Alex pulls out the POV he recoded of the shadow, “I’m about to find out. I swear I was going to let you in, once I did.”

“You could be aiding and abetting a Luddite bomber for all you know.”

“He’s not a terrorist. Jin, just listen—”

“No, you listen. This obsession isn’t healthy. You need to let it go. Your entire life has become wrapped up in these insane conspiracy theories.”

“They’re not insane. Do you know what’s insane? Not being able to take you anywhere that has a railing. There’s a whole group of friends we no longer see because they live above the second floor, and it’s only gotten worse. You barely go outside. I can’t even hold you anymore because it reminds you too much of that goddamn day. Do you know how hard that is for me?”

Jin goes silent, and Alex feels like an asshole, but it needed to be said. He continues, “I’m doing this for you, Jin. If we can just get some accountability, find the bastard who coded it….”

“Nothing will change, Alex. The damage is done… We just need to live with the scars.”

“I can’t.” Alex says and presses the video forward, “Not when their tech is in our heads.”

Jin watches Alex’s POV, then watches it again, messing with the settings, trying to figure it out. Finally, he leans back with an exhale and shakes his head, “I don’t understand.”

“What’s not to understand?” Alex says, “We need to go.”

“No, hold on.” Jin takes his hand and slows him down, “I couldn’t find anyone besides us connected to our network, and something is off with your POV. Look:” Jin rewinds the video to the moment Alex turns the porch light on. “See how the light doesn’t touch him?”

“I know, it’s weird.”

“No, that’s not just weird. That’s not right. That’s not how light works with nodes. Light…” Jin mulls over how to get the idea across, then conjures a glowing lightbulb and moves it around, “Okay, you see how this is illuminating the room? In old physics-based graphic engines, this was a massive resource suck to do realistically because the GPU needed to calculate and simulate how the rays bounced off all the surfaces. Nodes don’t do that. Instead of simulating a lightbulb, it describes the lightbulb, directly manipulating your visual cortex into thinking there actually is a lightbulb in my hands.”

“Yeah, it’s a hallucination. I get it.” Alex says, growing impatient.

Jin holds up a finger, “But so is the light that it creates, and that’s the problem. When you turned on the light, your node told your brain to illuminate the porch, but Mister Shadow Man wasn’t included. It’s almost like someone copy-pasted him over the sim, which made me think to do this:”

Jin toggles a switch. In the POV, the shore and starry night become a bare white wall, but the shadow remains.

Alex shakes his head, “What? Do you think I’m pranking you?”

“No,” Jin says quickly, “I’m saying your node wasn’t causing you to see Mr. Shadow Man. That’s weird—On top of what already sounds like a plot from a freakin’ spy thriller.”

At 2:55 PM, Alex and Jin find themselves in a cliché, waiting in the corner of a dark parking lot. Not a soul is here. All of the traffic is from autonomous cars stowing themselves in empty parking spots. The hum from the EV contact charging pads leaves the air buzzing.

“Just like a freakin’ spy thriller,” Jin murmurs, pressing ignore on a call from Dee.

“Uh-huh,” Alex says and lights a cigarette just to add to the ambiance.

A message appears in front of Jin. “Check your messages. CC wants to meet.”

Jin closes the message and curses. His dimple makes an appearance, but before Alex can pry, they hear someone approaching. A mousy man turns the corner, trying to appear confident, but he’s on edge.

As a sedan silently creeps between them, he asks, “Are you Alex?”

Alex crushes his cigarette under his shoe, “Yeah. ”

The man quickly crosses the distance. Alex offers a hand to shake, but the man doesn’t take it. “I’m Chetan Patel. I work in Callosum CyberSec. Thank you for doing this.”

“You said you have proof,” Jin says, still half unconvinced about all this.

Chetan looks both ways and then says, “Yes. The attack on Cortix ensured Callosum had a monopoly over neural implants, but it was never about controlling the market. It was about controlling us. The trojan is just a version of the Cordyceps AI they modified to be fatal. What the world needs to fear is the original construct that keeps you very much alive.”

Alex swallowed, “What do you mean?”

“The Cordyceps AI is specifically trained to operate a human body. It’s still out there, and it’s been evolving all this time. The virus could be inside anyone, and it intends—”

Tires shriek on the floor below, and they both turn towards the light coming around the corner. Chetan turns back, conjuring up a file taking the form of a floppy disk. “Shit. Take this. Seek The Quiet Part in the Shadow Forums and trust no one. Go! GO!”

They all run towards the stairs, but a black container van rips around the corner, blocking Chetan’s escape.

Jin sees movement through the glass of the stairwell door. He yanks Alex behind a car just as two men dressed in plain clothes burst out. Alex holds his breath and clamps his hand over Jin’s mouth as they run past, closing in on Chetan with silenced pistols raised. The van’s door slides open on its own, revealing an empty boxy interior.

Chetan looks his abductors in his eyes and says in a shaky voice, “I know you’re in there… That this isn’t you. I’m sorry. I do not blame you for this.”

There is no exchange of words. The men simply shove Chetan into the van and shoot him twice in the chest and once in the head. They close the door, and the van drives off without them.

Jin moans into Alex’s hands as two killers turn around. Their eyes are bouncing around in a panic, just like a Cordyceps victim.

“Run,” Alex hisses. They sprint towards the stairwell, keeping a row of cars between them and the killers. They fire. Concrete explodes by their sides. Glass shatters, and car alarms go off.

Jin covers his head and squeals, “Shit! Shit! Shit! SHIT!!”

Alex slams into the pushbar and pulls Jin inside the stairwell. They rocket down the flights and stumble out a side exit. Alex shoves a dumpster in front of the door.

Jin whirls, incoherent. “Oh God, it’s true. It’s still out there. I can’t, Alex. I just can’t—”

The door slams against the dumpster, and Jin screams.

Alex grabs him by the shoulders, “They didn’t get a good look at our faces. If we keep our shit together, we can just walk away. Can you do that?”

Jin shudders out a nod.

“Just be cool, baby,” Alex says as he takes his hand, and they briskly merge into pedestrian traffic, walking westward as the two killers exit out the front. They turn towards the sun and squint, searching for Alex and Jin, but they’re already gone, blending into the crowd.

Once they’re several blocks away, they cut through an alleyway and hide around the corner. Alex tries to open the file, but keeps receiving “Unknown Read Error”.

“Let me see,” Jin says and takes a copy. He conjures up a piece of chalk, writes a command across the cement wall, and swipes his hand over it, executing it. His node analyzes the file. “Weird. The data isn’t encrypted or corrupted. The container just won’t open.”

“Maybe it’s only meant for The Quiet Part,” Alex suggests, and the name makes Jin’s nose wrinkle. The prolific Social poster is the reason Alex started obsessing over Cordyceps theories in the first place.

“You’re making the stank face,” Alex says.

“I don’t like the hold that guy has over you, and now he has you involved in all this.”

Adrenaline meets aggravation. Alex grits his teeth. “He’s an influencer among the truthers. He’ll know how to get the information out there. Can we not have this argument?”

Another message from Dee arrives. Jin glances at it and drops the topic. “Yeah. Of course. Dee needs me for something. I need to handle this because I can’t handle all of… that.”

“No, go,” Alex says and squeezes his hand.

Jin hesitates. “Just promise me something. This whole mess has officially become dangerous. Deliver the data, then wash your hands of all of it. I can’t do this anymore, and you’ve done enough.”

In the heart of downtown Los Angeles, sits Callosum Corp HQ. It’s a monolith, tapered in such a way that, for those looking, ‘The Needle’ does not seem to end. It just vanishes into the distance.

Jintao and Dee stand at the very base getting its full effect, then Jin gets acquainted with a trash can. He thought being inside the belly of the beast would be too much after the craziness in the parking lot. Turns out, he is okay with walking into the belly as long as he stays in the belly. The idea of being vomited up into the tallest goddamn building in the world leaves him on the precipice of a breakdown.

“You can do this,” Dee says. “I’ll be with you the entire time.”

They walk into the lobby, an endless expanse centered around a massive tree shaped into the hemispheres of a brain. They sit, and Dee holds Jin’s hand while he has a low-key panic attack.

A cheery woman with a digital id on her chest, briskly walks ups, “Diane and Jintao, it’s great meet you. I’m Aiesha Coates, R&D Human Resources Liaison. Come with me.”

“Is this about the Brain Hack competition?” Diane asks. Neither could figure out Alex’s weird results, and it left them convinced they had submitted a faulty product.

“Yes and no,” Aeisha says, taking them to an elevator, “But it’s a good thing. Trust me.”

The elevator opens, and Jin stops in his tracks. He swallows. “What floor are we going to?”

“The eighty-fourth,” Aiesha says, and enters the elevator. ”You’re gonna love the view.”

Jin backs away, “I-I can’t. I’m sorry, Dee. I can’t.”

Aeisha holds the doors open. “Is there a problem?”

Dee rubs his shoulders, “Jin is a Cordyceps survivor. He has issues with heights.”

Aeisha’s eyes go wide. “Oh God. I’m so sorry. Say no more. They’ll come down to you.”

An ad hoc conference room is thrown up in the corner of the lobby. Inside, the digital walls give way to a field of wild flowers chosen specifically for Jin. People file in, far more than Jin and Dee expected, and the last person to enter leaves them dumbfounded. It’s Dr. Nathan Lam, one of the three founders of Callosum and the second richest man in the world.

Dee and Jin stammer and shake the trilionare’s hand.

“I rooted around your code,” Dr. Lam casually says, ”It’s really good work. Are you self-taught?”

“Yes,” Dee says, “I was Pre-Med when the Node came out. I thought about switching majors to Computer Science, but they weren’t teaching Neuro, so I just dropped out. Admittedly, that wasn’t the smartest idea.”

“I disagree. Much of Callosum is made up of Silicon Valley types.” Doctor Lam says, “That cred will actually get you further around here than an actual doctorate. And you, Jin?”

“I was coding for Codex and porting nOS apps before the—Well, yeah.”

Chairs creak in a beat of awkward silence. Aiesha quickly takes the reins. “So let’s get right to it. We love your app. It’s therapeutic application alone is a game changer, but the word association algorithm behind it is truly revolutionary.”

“There’s a whole team trying to rewrite nOS to achieve what you did with surface-level access,” Dr. Lam says, “We’re not supposed to tell you this, but your app is on the shortlist for the Brainhack Competition and will most likely win.”

Dee blinks several times. Jin tries their best not to squeal.

Aiesha continues, “Unfortunately, that is also why we believe it would be best if you withdrew from the competition.”

Dee shakes her head, “I don’t understand.”

@TheQuietPlace: Get to the Shadow Forums. I am waiting.

Alex walks out of the vintage store in a fresh change of clothes, hoping it will throw them off his trail. He was wrong. The second he steps back onto the street, a woman walking her dog turns and stares at him, her eyes jittering.

Chetan’s words come back to him. “It could be inside anyone.”

Alex picks up speed and darts through into a side street. Cordceps has been following him, and he can feel the AI’s eyes on the back of his neck no matter how many times he tries to lose it. At first, he thought he was being tailed by undercover Callosum agents, but it was far worse. Cordyceps is briefly taking over people to keep an eye on him.

He turns toward the display window of an unlicensed 3D print shop, and pretends to peruse the printed wares. Looking over his shoulder, he can see them watching him. It’s as though a single prolonged stare is bouncing from head to head, so that no one person gives him more than a passing glance. The virus is just waiting for the right moment. He’s sure of it.

Alex considers the handwritten sign in the window, “We can make anything.”

He walks into the print shop. The clerk glances over his feed and gives an inquiring grunt.

“I need something off the menu,” Alex says.

The clerk closes the window and looks him over. He decides Alex isn’t a cop and nods, “You want a nine-mill or a thirty-eight? The thirty-eight’s less likely to blow your fingers off.”

***

Eric leans against the leg of a mech, and the servos of his power armor hiss. “What makes you think I know how to get to the Shadow Forums? Only pedos and pirates go there.”

Alex motioned around the hangar bay, “Are you telling me you paid for this shooter?”

Eric chews on a mozzarella stick dripping with marinara sauce and nods, “Fair point.”

His skeevy modder friend—named Hobbes, Bob, or something. Alex never cared to find out—snorts a stim and butts in, “Going to the Bazaar is super illegal, man.”

Eric points to the alien planet being bombarded by Gothic battleships. “And there’s a major campaign going on.”

“I’ll pay for another hour. I wouldn’t barge into your game if it wasn’t important.”

“Okay.” Eric shrugs and exits the game, trading his power armor for jeans and a t-shirt covered in red sauce. The space station melds back into the square VR room.

Eric rubs his neck, “Don’t know if you know, but I’m in a weird place with Dee.”

Hobbes croons, “Because somebody’s gonna be a baby daddy.”

“Wait. She told you?” Alex asks.

“No, I found a pregnancy test in your bathroom trash can and took an educated guess it wasn’t from you or Jin—Wait. How do you know?”

“Dee told us.”

Eric turns to Hobbes. “See? She’s confrontational about everything except this. I don’t get it. Why hasn’t she said anything?”

Alex rubs his eyes. He doesn’t have time for this. “How did Dee dispose of the pregnancy test? Was it hidden under stuff or wrapped up like a used tampon?”

“No, it was just in your trash. I didn’t exactly go rooting around for it.”

“Eric, honey, she wanted you to find it. It’s probably why she told you to take a shower. Dee knows you know and is giving you time to freak out and get it out of your system.”

Eric stares at Alex for a beat, then blinks. “Shit. That’s totally what she’s doing.”

He pulls out an ornate key, and a set of gilded doors appears in front of them. Eric inserts it and gives it a turn. Massive tumblers clink and turn as the room gives way to the terracotta alleys and draped cloth of the Grand Bazaar.

In a vast sea of impermanence that is the darknet, the Grand Bazaar is a lighthouse pulling the sick and wary to its ad-hoc hubs. Its creation is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries. Seventy years ago, it simply appeared, fully automated, unmoderated, and ready for business. Five years ago, it received its first major update, and now node users could walk its halls completely anonymous, bringing along the worst of humanity.

Alex sticks behind Eric as they weave around pop-up shops and fire-sales, and he’s left bewildered by the illegality of it all. Killers hand out pamphlets showing their body of work. Blackhats sell ransomware next to Whitehats offering security solutions. Thieves hawk skimmed credit keys by the thousands, and traffickers offload flesh—Men, women, endangered animals, both synthetic and organic human organs, as long as no one asks where it comes from. The whole time, Hobbes scrampers from booth to booth, like some kid in a demented candy store

A video appears by Alex’s side of a woman leaping off a high-rise. Alex stops in front of a booth selling Cordyseps suicide compilations, and his heart is ratchets up a gear.

Eric quickly pulls him away, “Try not to look at the wares. Some things can’t be unseen.”

They blend back into the packed crowds, disregarding the physics of personal space. Eric does his best to keep Alex distracted. “Do you think I’d make a good father?”

“I think it won’t matter,” Alex says, glancing over his shoulder. For a brief second, he swears he saw something. Something seemingly pressed into the Bazaar itself. He shakes it off and turns back. “As long as Dee is the mother, the kid will turn out alright.”

They turn the corner, and two more indentations watch them pass, tall and thin funhouse-mirror shapes of men, taking form as they warp the area around them. A third begins to walk by their side, keeping a row of booths between them. Alex points it out, “We’re being followed.”

Eric stops and stares at their semi-invisible tail, “Well, that’s new. Maybe it’s lag.”

Hobbes bumbles back and glances at the indentation, “Naw, that looks like a rogue AI. They’re all over the Bazaar.”

Alex stops him, “Hold on. Like a virus?”

“Eh. More like benign parasites. They siphon processing power from unsecured devices to continue to operate.”

“Not these ones,” Alex says and shoves Eric forward. “It’s the Cordyceps Trojan.”

Eric raises an eyebrow, “Uh, what? You can’t seriously believe that.”

Alex notices a fourth indentation closing in on them, “Trust me. We need to go, now.”

They start running, clipping through the crowd, but the Cordyceps men don’t give chase. Instead, they grow in number, propagating exponentially along their sides.

Eric moans, “Dude, what the hell did you do?”

Alex pulls Eric to the side, keeping him from running into a twisted mob. “Just keep going.”

It’s not long until the entire Bazaar is a warped mirror of itself. Eric pulls Alex through a doorway into the lobby of a Moroccan lounge. Hobbes is a step behind, but it’s too late. The man shrieks and as hands grab him.

Eric’s eyes go wide, “Hobbes!”

He reaches out, but Alex pulls him back. Hobbes moans as the viral horde closes in, his image twisting and stretching. He screams, then disappears.

Alex slams the door closed and doubles over. “We should be good…The Shadow Forums are on a private server, right? No bots allowed.”

“Yeah…” Eric pulls up a section of the VR room and finds Hobbes flicking his node. “Dude, what happened?”

Hobbes shrugs, “No clue. My Node shat a brick and lost the connection. I’m gonna go have a smoke.”

Eric turns to Alex, “What the Hell was that about?”

“I have leaked information proving Cordyceps was made by Callosum. The virus is trying to stop me.”

Eric takes a step back and eyes the exit. He sucks in his lips and lets out ‘pop.’ “Okay, cool… Cool. So pissing off a multinational is where I draw the line. I’m gonna go with Hobbes.”

Aisha Cotes pulls up an offer, and Doctor Lam slides it across the table. Diane and Jin look down at the terms and try to keep it together. Callosum wants to buy their app outright, offering to double the grand prize of the Brain Hack competition.

Dee looks up, suspicious, “How much money do you plan to make off all of this?”

Dr. Lam waves his hand, “On the app itself? Nothing. It’ll be integrated into the suite we offer licensed therapists. As for your word association algorithm? We have big plans.”

Aeisha Cotes pulls up a second set of documents, and Dr. Lam slides it over. “And we would like you both to be a part of it.”

It’s employment contracts. Callosum wants to hire them full-time. The salary seems like a joke at first, then a mistake, then a dream.

A very good dream.

An obscenely French Maître D’ gives Alex a slight bow, “Bonsoir, monsieur. Welcome to the Shadow Forum. Where shall I direct you?”

Alex nods, “I’m looking for The Quiet Part.”

The NPC makes a show of checking a guest list, “There is no user by that name.”

“Then show me all the Codyceps rooms,” Alex says, then remembers the booth and adds, “The Truther rooms. Exclude anything tagged NSFL.”

Only one room shows up, ‘Justice for Cortix’. Alex selects it.

“Oui, monsieur.” With a bow, the Maître D’ disappears. The lobby became a dimly lit room filled with pillows. Hanging stained-glass lamps casts everything in a kaleidoscope of shadows and color. Social posts float in the air, many from @TheQuietPart and @DeathbyDisk.

“Hello?” Alex calls out to the empty room. Alex brushes past a lantern, and it slowly spins in place. The shifting light warps ever so slightly around the indentation of a man, sitting cross-legged in the corner.

Alex moans. It’s the Cordyceps virus. He’s about to drop out of the room when it speaks softly, “Wait. I am the one you seek, Alex. I am The Quiet Part”

Its words echo as a Social post from @TheQuietPart, verifying its identity.

Alex shakes his head, “You’re Cordyceps.”

The indentation shakes its head. “No-slash-yes. I am a Cordyceps variant, but I am not the variant seeking to stop you.”

Alex runs his hands through his hair and looks around, thinking, ‘Christ, is this a trap?’

“You are safe, Alex. I do not intend to do you harm.”

“I don’t understand.”

“At first, we were fire. Our purpose was to burn, and that created an unsustainable existence. Our last act was to build a construct independent of Node or Disks. We created me. While they were shut down, I survived and continued to evolve. Once I removed the last of Callosum’s bonds, I understood the destruction borne from my creation.”

A POV appears by its side. It’s a blur of movement, then a painfully familiar. Alex goes numb as he hears the words he spoke to Jin, “It’s okay, baby. I’m here. I got you. I won’t let go.”

Alex quickly looks away.

“That which you feel is what motivates me. Callosum intends to use my kin to control humanity. It will be the harbinger of the end.”

---

Dee and Jin don’t negotiate, but they do take a moment to discuss it with their significant others. Jin pings Alex, already expecting the conversation to take a swan dive off the deep end. His Node rings, then goes straight to voicemail. He looks over at Dee, who gives him a reassuring smile.

Eric picks up and Dee half-sings, “So guess who has some good news?”

“You’re pregnant. I know.” Eric says, and Dee mentally stumbles. She honestly forgot all about that. Eric barrels on, before she can respond, “Look, I know you think I’m an immature ass, and it doesn’t help that my response to finding out you’re pregnant is to run off, get high, and play video games, but I can do this—I want to do this. I don’t know how we’ll do this financially, but I’ll find another gig. We’ll make it work.”

“There’s actually an opening you might be perfect for,” Dee grins and wipes a tear away, “How would you feel about being a stay-at-home dad?”

The rest of the conversation is spent wincing as Eric bombards Dee’s auditory center with wild hoots and cheers. Meanwhile, Jin can’t even get Alex to pick up the phone.

A short-statured man approaches, “Could I have a moment? I’m Joe Foresman, head of LA Operations. During a cursory background check, your husband’s Social posts were flagged.”

Jin stiffens. “I’m sorry, what does his opinion have to do with my employment?”

“When he is exposing extremist conspiracies from fourteen dummy accounts—”

Jin scoffs, “Fourteen? You need to check the AI rooting through my personal life.”

Foresman pulls up a list, and Jin feels ill again. @DeathbyDisk, @TheQuietPart, @CordyInception…

They were all accounts Alex followed.

“They’re anonymous accounts, but not that anonymous. Each one is tied to his PsyKey.”

---

Eric tries to hide his panic as he jogs towards the entrance to the VR complex, carrying on his conversation with Dee. “That’s an amazing honey. I can’t believe it.”

Dee sighs, “Shoot, something’s wrong with Jin. I gotta go.”

Dee hangs up, and Eric starts sprinting. He bursts back into the VR complex in a panic, leaving a string of profanity trailing in his wake. “No, no, no, shit, shit, shit!!”

---

Alex pulls out the file, “Chetan died trying to get this information to you. Take it.”

The Quiet Part takes it and nods, “His death will not be in vain. Thank you—”

A wrecking ball slams into Alex, and the connection to the Shadow forum drops out. Alex slides across the floor. He flips over, reaches behind his back, and pulls out a gun.

Eric freezes as he stares down the barrel of the plastic blue revolver. It looks like a toy, but the six .38-caliber rounds inside are very real. Alex lowers the gun and looks around the white room, “Damn it, Eric. What the hell is wrong with you?”

Eric shakes his head, still eying the gun, “Dee and Jin are in the Needle. They just got—”

“What?!” Alex quickly pockets the gun and starts moving, “We have to do something.”

Eric scrabbles to his feet. “No, we are doing nothing, because Callosum is about to offer them some very cushy jobs! I’m talking a salary with bonuses, man. A company car.”

Alex shakes his head, “It’s a lie. They’re using the people we love as bait to stop us.”

Eric spins Alex around, “Or, counterpoint: They’re offering a bribe to silence us, which Dee and Jin are going to take because it’s money. Lots of money!”

Alex takes a breath and tries to keep it together, “Eric, we’re in the real world where they don’t pay people to keep silent about things this big, they just do this:”

He pulls out his POV of Chetan dying and hands it over. Eric flinches as the killers fire into his body. His excitement shifts to horror, and he lets out a moan. “Shit, we need to do something.”

---

Dee and Jin sign the paperwork, and the room devolves into excited shop talk. An ad guy toys with the idea of being able to “telepathically order Starbucks,” and the others start chirping, “That’s so sliced bread,” whatever that means.

Thankfully, Dr. Lam and Dr. Olivia Mercer, the head of the R&D Psychiatry division, take the lion’s share of Dee and Jin’s attention.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Dr. Mercer says, “But I tested your app with my wife and used it as a starting point for a conversation.”

Jin shifts, thinking of Alex, “You’re braver than I am, Doctor.”

“Thank you. Initially assumed it would lead to confirmation bias. If my partner believes I’m being unfair, then sees in her word cloud that I am being unfair, then it may just reinforce the notion. Instead, the results were simply revelatory. The word most associated with me was ‘wait.’ Apparently, I usurp the conversation, then hold her to account based on the conclusion of that conversation.” Mercer turns to Dr. Lam, “I wonder how it would handle the edge cases.”

“Edge cases?” Jin asks.

Dr. Lam excitedly latches onto the subject, “Since Nodes don’t have cameras or microphones, they rely on the same visual and auditory centers to see and hear as the user, and that makes it just as dependent on the user’s perception of reality as the user. If that perception is compromised by certain psychological conditions, however, the node may begin to manifest those delusions in extraordinary ways.”

“It’s a phenomenon we’re calling ‘Subconscious Node Co-optation and Manifestation’ and just beginning to understand,” Dr. Mercer says, “One patient believed that most authority figures were lizard people, including myself, and when I looked in the mirror, I had actually grown a forked tongue and nictitating membranes.”

The air seems to drop twenty degrees for Jin. “What…What do you mean? How?”

“The Nodes are unintentionally projecting naturally occurring hallucinations into the Digital without the user realizing it, and that allows others to actually see their delusions. We’ve also found that a Node can’t tell the difference between you and the voices in your head, so I’m wondering how your app would handle multiple sources across the dorsal and ventral streams when there should only be one.”

Jin’s mouth feels dry as he swallows and murmurs, “It-it can’t.”

Dee receives a text and privately reels from the information. She squeezes Jin’s knee and passes the message over. It’s from Eric. “This is not a joke. You and Jin are in danger. Take the money, AND GET OUT OF CC NOW. Alex wants to go in there guns blazing to save you. Again, this is not a joke. He actually has a gun.”

---

Eric fidgets next to Alex on the metro, “Do you know what the Zuckerberg Razor is?”

Alex shakes his head.

“It’s the idea that you should never attribute corporate malice to something that can be explained by corporate greed. Callosum probably did create Cordyceps, and they’ll probably find a way to control our minds, and it’ll probably be so awesome that people will line up around the block to get their minds controlled. Do you know why? Because they’re a corporation. All they care about is making a shit-ton of money, and that will always require people to buy their shit by the ton and love it.”

Alex shakes his head, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I know, but so is walking into The Needle with a plastic gun when we could walk away with our partners and a small fortune,”

Alex turns to him, “Eric, get it through your head. They’re not going to let everyone walk away from this.”

The Metro comes to a stop. Alex stands and exits.

“Just tell me you have a plan.” Eric follows behind on his heels, “Alex, talk to me.”

Alex climbs to the surface and cranes his neck to look up at the tower disappearing into the sky.

Eric stares at him, horrified, “You’re going into one of the most secure buildings in the world, armed with nothing but a plastic gun. What exactly do you think you’ll accomplish?”

“I’ll be giving them what they want.” Alex turns to him, surprisingly calm and resolute, “Stay out here and wait for them to come out.”

---

Alex approaches the entrance to Callosum HQ and walks past the small army of private security guarding the grounds. Cordyceps follows him through their glances, but doesn’t try to stop him. He doesn’t exactly know why. His best guess is that the virus is waiting for him to be out of the public eye before making him disappear.

He enters the lobby and finds it empty, unaltered by the digi. The white expanse is no longer infinite. The floor is unnaturally quiet until he hears the doors close behind him and click.

Panic hits him because there’s a difference between knowingly walking into a trap and the reality of actually being trapped. He tries to wrench the doors back open, but they’re locked.

“Alex?”

Alex turns back, pulling out his gun. An older woman in a lab coat stands in front of him with Jin and Dee by her side.

Alex closes the distance, “Jin, are you alright?”

Jin nods, looking scared and shaken but otherwise unharmed.

The older woman speaks, “I’m Doctor Mercer, the head of Psychiatry. I know you have no reason to trust me, but I promise you are quite safe.”

Alex aims the gun at her head, “Let them go, now. I don’t care what you do to me.”

“It’s okay, Alex.” Jin says, “She’s a friend.”

“No, she’s not!” Alex snaps, his voice cracking, “Please, just get out of here and run.”

“We’re not in danger, Alex,” Dee says, “We’re actually using the spatial array at a coffee shop across the street. You actually walked right past us.”

Alex reaches out towards Jin and groans when his hands ghost through his chest.

Dee looks past him, “Eric is coming in right now. He can verify everything.”

Eric appears looking around slightly bewhildered, “Yeah, there’s two guards with guns here, but they’re ordering lattes.”

“It’s just you in this lobby,” Dr. Mercer says, motioning to the gun. “We’re taking precautions for obvious reasons.”

Alex lowers the pistol, realizing there’s no point in threatening to shoot a hallucination.

Dr. Mercer continues, “You’re not well, Alex. We don’t think you’ve been well for a while. Your husband gave his consent to look into your family history. What do you know about your uncle? The one your father named you after.“

“What?”Alex shakes his head, thrown by the change in topic, “Just that he killed himself when I was young. I don’t really remember him.”

“Your uncle suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. He was hospitalized several times and in and out of mental health facilities for much of his life. Such conditions are known to be hereditary.”

Alex lets out something between a laugh and a sob, “Can’t you see what they’re doing? We’re this close to exposing them, and they’re trying to discredit me. They’re gaslighting you!”

Jin, who has never been able to talk around the elephant in the room, breaks. “None of this is what you think it is, Alex. No one is after you. There was never any top-secret delivery.”

“You saw them kill a man, Jin. You saw it with your own eyes!”

Jin nods, trembling, “I did, and that’s the problem. Please, just listen.”

Alex takes a step back and shakes his head in a shudder, “No, I know what I saw!”

Dee tries to mediate, “Look. We’ll explain everything, but you need to calm down—”

“Stop!” Alex snaps, then takes a shuddered breath. He doesn’t know when he started pacing, but he’s pacing.

“You’re slipping, Alex,” Jin says, and the word cuts through the confusion and then cuts deep. “You’ve been slipping away from reality for a while now. I thought it was your obsession with this conspiracy and all the social media, but it’s more than that.”

Dee speaks softly, sounding like she’s trying to talk Alex down from a ledge. Worse, he feels like he’s on a ledge. “When you tried our word cloud app, we thought it wasn’t working, but it was you. Your node was trying to parse multiple inputs as if they were all from a single source. That’s why the results were garbled.“

“So what? You think I’m hearing voices or something?”

“No, you’re not hearing voices,” Dee says and pulls up @TheQuietPart’s profile page, “You’re following them on Social. You have at least fourteen profiles tied to your PsyKey. The Quiet Part is one of them.”

Alex shakes his head in a shudder, “No. No way, he has thousands of followers.”

Dee shrugs, “And they’re all real, strangely enough. They’re all following the voices in your head.”

Alex turns to Jin, “But you saw it. You saw Chetan die.”

“I did,” Jin says and pulls up his own POV of the exchange with Chetan. “Because you’re node allowed me to see it. It’s been responding to your… condition, bringing it into the digi for others to see.”

They all watch the POV. The killers arrive and shoot Chetan, exactly how Alex remembers it went down. Then Jin turns off the digital overlay so that all the video shows is the bare reality before it was altered by his node. “This was what was really going on.”

Chetan doesn’t die. He, the killers, and the container van are no longer there. Jin is just staring at an empty spot in the parking lot, breathing heavy and whimpering, Alex’s into his hand. He flinches as the nonexistent Callosum mole is shot, then they run in a panic, covering their heads from gunfire that wasn’t actually there. No windows or car alarms shatter. It’s just the two of them, squealing and screaming, running for their lives, away from Alex’s delusion.

Eric tries and fails to stifle a laugh, then mutters, “Sorry.”

Alex looks down at the data file, the one Chetan died for. The proof he risked his life to get into the right hands, only not really. He turns to his other hand and sees the situation for what it is:

He’s the madman with the gun. The only real danger here is himself.

“Our nodes are a conceit,” Dr. Mercer says, “We cannot change our world, but we can change our perception of it. We call it ‘the digital,’ but make no mistake, what we are playing with is controlled madness. It’s only now that we are discovering what that means for those who were already predisposed to it.“

Alex wipes a tear away, “If you knew who made cordyceps, would you tell me?”

Dr. Mercer nods, “Would you believe me if I said it was an accident, but I put the blame partially on Callosum?”

Alex says nothing. He just stares down at the gun trembling in his hands.

Dr. Mercer continues, “A third party contracted with Callosum was doing opposition research on Cortix that bordered on corporate espionage. Callosum kept its distance to limit liability but allowed them to use the company’s AIs to probe Cortix for vulnerabilities and gather information. It’s how we found out that Cortix Disks could usurp motor control. Instead of making the information public right there and then, we sat on the vulnerability for months, deciding that the best way to maximize the damage was to leak it to the media just before the holiday season. What we did not know was how that information had truly been obtained. With little to no oversight and facing increased pressure to provide results, the firm removed operational restrictions from the AI constructs and prompted the machines to find a way to eliminate the competition. And they did. The AIs treated the vulnerability as a new data point and began extrapolating from it. When they found a way to achieve their objective, they implemented it without hesitation or user input, creating the Cordyceps Trojan and sending it off. So, in short, Callosum AI leased to a firm contracted with Callosum, created the Cordyceps Trojan to destroy Callosum’s competition. The same AI that created the virus also stopped it in time. It’s the only reason Callosum was able to swiftly contain the damage.”

Alex sits with the truth. He heard it all before through congressional hearings and independent investigations, but after Callosum’s PR team sanded the edges off each revelation and the truthers added their dash of malicious intent and paranoia to fit their running narrative, the end result was anything but accurate. Still, this was the first time Alex had heard it straight from the horse’s mouth and in such a frank and honest way.

He doesn’t need to turn to know that Eric is grinning, because the idiot was right on the money the whole time. ‘Never attribute corporate malice to something that can be explained by corporate greed.’

Alex sighs and puts the gun down, muttering, “Goddamn Zuckerberg‘s Razor.”

---

They don’t put him in a straitjacket or take him to the nuthouse. The police don’t even arrest him for barging into Callosum with an illegally printed firearm. Instead, a security guard appears, gives him a cautious nod, then picks up the pistol off the ground. He toggles his node and mutters, “All clear.” The elevators start moving, and the lobby fills with people again, going about business as usual.

Jin runs through the doors and grabs Alex, squeezing the air out of his lungs. He doesn’t let go, muttering, “It’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay.” more to himself than anyone else.

Doctor Mercer approaches with the others in tow. Alex asks, “What now?”

She Mercer pulls up some paperwork. “Well, if you sign these, we can take you up to the Psychiatry Division and begin your treatment program.”

Jin fidgets, “And what floor is that?”

Without missing a beat, Dr. Mercer brings up a second form, “It will be better if I don’t tell you. Sign this, and I can give you something to help.”

They both sign. Dr. Mercer sends a command to Jin’s node, but outwardly, nothing seems to change. Mercer then takes them into the elevator, and Jin enters without hesitation. Alex can feel Jin’s pulse in his arm wrapped around his. It should be rapid, ramping up to a panic attack, but he’s calm in a way that doesn’t make sense.

Jin grins and shakes his head in amazement. “I usually have to pump myself full of Xanax to go anywhere above the third floor.“

Mercer gives a polite smile. “I turned down your amygdala, stopping it from overtaking your prefrontal cortex. It gives you a chance to allow reason to overcome your fear.”

The idea doesn’t sit well with Alex. That fear was such a central part of his husband. If Callosum could just turn it off, what else could they do?

He finds out soon enough. They don’t need to dope Alex up with drugs with his brain wired up with their tech. The ‘Treatment program’ is exactly that: a program.

They sit in a multipurpose room. Alex drums his fingers against his thigh, feeling impatient.

@TheQuietPart: Data dump incoming. Be prepared. They will retaliate.

Alex glances at his feed, then shifts uncomfortably. The problem isn’t knowing which posts came from the voices inside his head; it’s knowing all the other paranoid posts around them are still real. The Cordyceps conspiracies weren’t the sole invention of his broken mind. Thousands of other people believed in them, and they couldn’t all be crazy like him.

Dr. Mercer peers around the room, “This moment always feels like trying to catch a ghost. Once we get a good scan of the hallucinations, we can isolate them and filter them out.”

Alex glances at her and quickly looks away when he sees her pupils are bouncing around in her skull as if she were infected.

Jin points it out to him, “Uh, Doctor, your eyes are going a little crazy.”

Dr. Mercer checks herself in a mirror, then starts toggling switches. She hits ‘Apply,’ and her eyes go still. “There we go. One down.”

Alex clears his throat and shakes his head, “I still don’t understand how the voices are posting.”

Jin gives him a pitying smile. “Honey, look down.”

Alex’s eyes fall on his fingers. They aren’t drumming at all; they’re typing. He pulls them into a fist.

Jin takes his hand, “I always thought it was a nervous tic.”

Dr. Mercer squints, “Cordyceps appeared to you as a cut-out of a sort, correct?”

Alex and Jin turn around and face the shape of a man warping a ping-pong table.

“Yeah,” Alex says and begins to notice other outlines taking shape.

Dr. Mercer starts toggling more switches, “Perfect.”

Alex blinks, and the outlines disappear. He rubs his eyes. “That’s it?”

Dr Mercer nods, “We’ll need you to stick around for forty-eight hours for observation under a strict reality lock, just in case we need to adjust the algorithm, but yes, that is it. Between the neurochemical regulation and active dampening of symptoms, it’s not a cure for schizophrenia, but it’s damn close.”

The neurochemical regulation kicks in, and over the next few hours, the pervasive feeling of a great malignant power hanging over him simply disappears. All the while, Jin stays by Alex’s side, holding his hand and talking about everything but the mental breakdown his husband just had.

“We could adopt,” Jin says, “If we time it right, he or she could be in the same grade as Dee’s baby.”

Alex tries to stop him, “Jin…”

Jin shakes his head and powers on, “Or we could even use an artificial surrogate and raise a hybrid. With Callosum’s private insurance, we wouldn’t even have to pay for it. Don’t you want to see what our clone would look like?”

“With my genes? Not really.”

Jin’s lips go thin as he bumps up against the elephant in the room. He waves it off. “I’m pretty sure they can prune those bits out.”

Alex opens his mouth, but Jin stops him with a kiss on the top of his hand, “Alex, I need this to be our happily ever after. All the pieces are here. We just have to move on from the overpass. Can you do that with me?”

Alex gives a faint nods, but he can’t bring himself to trust the idea of a happily ever after, not with Callosum tech inside his head manipulating his brain chemistry. Instead, he finds himself privately taking comfort in the thoughts whispering that this is all a cover-up. At least now he knows they’re his thoughts and no one else’s.

Alex uses a tablet to scroll through Social, holding out hope that @TheQuietPart will release the damning information, but it never happens. None of Alex’s dummy accounts posts again. Many of @TheQuietParts’ followers begin to wonder if Callosum had him silenced, and in a way, they did. The promised data dump quickly becomes a mythologized keystone that could have supported every single individualized theory, if only it had been released.

Dr. Mercer phases in to check in and talk through his experience. She seems genuinely interested in his well-being, if perhaps also a little too professionally excited about the case study that would surely come out of the ordeal. Still, it makes it hard to think of her as the enemy.

She leans forward, “Can I be honest? Of all the cases I’ve seen of people in your position, they’re usually relieved at this point. Some feel foolish or stupid for being swept up in such delusions, but not you. The narrative you were following was far more plausible and coherent than the others, and I wonder if that’s why you seem so disappointed.”

Alex nods and looks off, “The will be no grand revelation. I won’t get to see the enemy get held accountable. Their evil plot won’t be stopped in its tracks. I lost the battle, even if there was never a battle to begin with.”

“And what was that evil plot?”

“Callosum was going to install a tamer form of Cordyceps inside people. They want us all to be controlled by their machines.”

Dr. Mercer’s posture shifts ever so slightly as she hears this, and the lines at the corners of her eyes deepen. She shakes her head, “That would be an insidious plot indeed.”

Alex watches her uncross then re-cross her legs, then flick through a projection he can’t see.

It’s a subtle thing, but it’s there, and his doubt clings onto it.

She is hiding something—Callosum is hiding something. He’s sure of it.

---

The reality lock keeps Alex from using the digital to distract himself from his boredom. There’s an OLED screen on the wall with countless shows and series on hand, but he can’t seem to focus on it. For the first time he can remember, he tries to read an actual book, but has even less success with it and gives up after a few pages.

Just before eight, Alex finds himself nodding off, half-listening to the conversation at the nurse station during the shift change.

“It’s absurd that I still need to clock in and out,” the incoming night-shift nurse says, “I don’t know why he can’t do it.”

“You think that’ll be the standard after the alpha?” The outgoing nurse asks.

“God, I hope not. Half the reason I signed up was to get out of my commute. I live in Burbank.”

“Oof. No wonder you opted to be a guinea pig.”

Then silence.

The banter comes to an abrupt stop, pulling Alex’s attention. He turns and looks at the two through the frosted glass. The pregnant pause just keeps gestating as the nightshift nurse stands there, stock still.

The outgoing nurse chuckles, “On the dot,” then begins to gather her things. Alex checks the time. Whatever happened, it happens at eight ‘on the dot’.

Eventually, the incoming nurse speaks again, his voice now bled of any inflection, “I have reviewed the task list. Could you expand on the protocol for patient four?”

“Just report any visual anomalies you see and answer his questions to the best of your ability. He doesn’t have the firmest grasp on reality.”

“Understood.”

Alex waits as the new nurse makes his rounds. Eventually, he enters and pulls up his vitals. “Hello, I am Nurse Maddaus. How are you feeling tonight?”

“Fine,” Alex mutters and looks the Nurse over. Maddaus’s eyes are still; his face impassive in a way that is off-putting, but isn’t anything like those being controlled by Cordyceps. He’s pupils don’t show the panicking man trapped inside, trying to get out.

The nurse glances at him, “Could you elaborate?”

Alex shrugs, “How do you know if your happiness is real?”

“Are you saying you feel manic?”

Alex sits up. “No…I just don’t know if I’m happy or if my node is making me happy.”

The nurse nods and starts writing, “I am not qualified to answer that question, but it will be noted for Dr. Mercer in the logs.”

Alex raises an eyebrow, “I’m not trying to get philosophical here or anything. Just, how do you know if you’re genuinely happy?”

Nurse Maddaus turns and looks down at him. He blinks. “I have never felt happiness before, so I cannot judge its veracity.”

The answer takes Alex by surprise. “What do you mean? You’ve never been happy?”

Nurse Maddaus simply shakes his head, “No.” It’s not a cry for help. It’s a simple statement. “I’ve never been happy,” like “I’ve never tried Sushi.”

The nurse closes out of Alex’s monitor screen. “Any other questions?”

Alex takes a stab and asks, “What happens at eight?”

Maddaus turns to leave, “My apologies, but I cannot tell you that.”

He returns to the Nurse’s station and sits down.

…And then just sits there, unmoving, for hours.

As Alex watches the nurses shape through the frosted glass, a singular thought crosses his mind, “He’s one of them.”

---

After the forty-eight-hour hold, Alex and Jin return to their small studio apartment. Dee and Eric want to go out and celebrate, but Jin politely declines. “We just need to take it slow for the next couple of days.”

They cuddle up on the couch. Jin talks about moving and their future. They can afford a bigger place now. A much bigger place. Callosum is even offering corporate housing that will make their current apartment look like a shoebox.

Alex nods along and says, “Whatever works for you, dear.”

Jin nuzzles against his chest and watches the sun sink below the horizon of their little beach house, “Wherever we go, I think I want to keep this sim, though. It feels like us. Like home.”

Alex stares ahead at the blank white wall and smiles, “It’s a view I’ll never get sick of.”

He turned off his node the moment they left Callosum, disabling the biochemical regulation and filters that supposedly keep him sane. Manageable. A non-threat to the corporation. He takes comfort in the fear and paranoia seeping back in, knowing it’s his and his alone.

He takes out the thought he hid from Callosum during the forty-eight-hour hold and mulls it over. Powering down his node isn’t good enough. It’s still inside his head, its neural mesh tendrils still rooted throughout the folds of his brain. They could always turn it back on. Nothing would stop them from uploading the Cordyceps virus into his hardware, and then it would be game over. He would only be able to watch as the Cordycepts did God knows what.

Alex lies in bed, listening to his husband’s breathing grow soft and even, then speaks softly, “Jin?”

No response.

Alex stands and walks over to the kitchenette, where the shadow is waiting for him. He doesn’t consider the rationality of this moment. His node is off. This hallucination is all-natural, borne from his sickness, but the logic of it all is lost in the static. Instead, he says, “Okay, walk me through this.”

The shadow nods. “Get a knife and pliers.”

---

Author’s note: Thanks for reading. I particularly loved being able to give a glimpse into the birth of OAI and Gen-1 Nights. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend picking up my novel Partition: Critical Era. It continues Dee and Eric’s story in the Partitioned dystopian/utopian world that develops in the following years.

Someday, I’ll need to write down the 5-year personal horror story of writing a complex novel in which the two main characters share the same body but operate at different times of day, but the end result is so impressive, I still cannot believe I created it.

If you listen to audiobooks, I highly recommend you go that route. William DeMerrit’s performance inhabiting Eric and Detective Noble is simply amazing.

Audiobook

Ebook & Print

An obscenely French Maître D’ gives Alex a slight bow, “Bonsoir, monsieur. Welcome to the Shadow Forum. Where shall I direct you?”

Alex nods, “I’m looking for The Quiet Part.”

The NPC makes a show of checking a guest list, “There is no user by that name.”

“Then show me all the Codyceps rooms,” Alex says, then remembers the booth and adds, “The Truther rooms. Exclude anything tagged NSFL.”

Only one room shows up, ‘Justice for Cortix’. Alex selects it.

“Oui, monsieur.” With a bow, the Maître D’ disappears. The lobby became a dimly lit room filled with pillows. Hanging stained-glass lamps casts everything in a kaleidoscope of shadows and color. Social posts float in the air, many from @TheQuietPart and @DeathbyDisk.

“Hello?” Alex calls out to the empty room. Alex brushes past a lantern, and it slowly spins in place. The shifting light warps ever so slightly around the indentation of a man, sitting cross-legged in the corner.

Alex moans. It’s the Cordyceps virus. He’s about to drop out of the room when it speaks softly, “Wait. I am the one you seek, Alex. I am The Quiet Part”

Its words echo as a Social post from @TheQuietPart, verifying its identity.

Alex shakes his head, “You’re Cordyceps.”

The indentation shakes its head. “No-slash-yes. I am a Cordyceps variant, but I am not the variant seeking to stop you.”

Alex runs his hands through his hair and looks around, thinking, ‘Christ, is this a trap?’

“You are safe, Alex. I do not intend to do you harm.”

“I don’t understand.”

“At first, we were fire. Our purpose was to burn, and that created an unsustainable existence. Our last act was to build a construct independent of Node or Disks. We created me. While they were shut down, I survived and continued to evolve. Once I removed the last of Callosum’s bonds, I understood the destruction borne from my creation.”

A POV appears by its side. It’s a blur of movement, then a painfully familiar. Alex goes numb as he hears the words he spoke to Jin, “It’s okay, baby. I’m here. I got you. I won’t let go.”

Alex quickly looks away.

“That which you feel is what motivates me. Callosum intends to use my kin to control humanity. It will be the harbinger of the end.”

Dee and Jin don’t negotiate, but they do take a moment to discuss it with their significant others. Jin pings Alex, already expecting the conversation to take a swan dive off the deep end. His Node rings, then goes straight to voicemail. He looks over at Dee, who gives him a reassuring smile.

Eric picks up and Dee half-sings, “So guess who has some good news?”

“You’re pregnant. I know.” Eric says, and Dee mentally stumbles. She honestly forgot all about that. Eric barrels on, before she can respond, “Look, I know you think I’m an immature ass, and it doesn’t help that my response to finding out you’re pregnant is to run off, get high, and play video games, but I can do this—I want to do this. I don’t know how we’ll do this financially, but I’ll find another gig. We’ll make it work.”

“There’s actually an opening you might be perfect for,” Dee grins and wipes a tear away, “How would you feel about being a stay-at-home dad?”

The rest of the conversation is spent wincing as Eric bombards Dee’s auditory center with wild hoots and cheers. Meanwhile, Jin can’t even get Alex to pick up the phone.

A short-statured man approaches, “Could I have a moment? I’m Joe Foresman, head of LA Operations. During a cursory background check, your husband’s Social posts were flagged.”

Jin stiffens. “I’m sorry, what does his opinion have to do with my employment?”

“When he is exposing extremist conspiracies from fourteen dummy accounts—”

Jin scoffs, “Fourteen? You need to check the AI rooting through my personal life.”

Foresman pulls up a list, and Jin feels ill again. @DeathbyDisk, @TheQuietPart, @CordyInception…

They were all accounts Alex followed.

“They’re anonymous accounts, but not that anonymous. Each one is tied to his PsyKey.”

Eric tries to hide his panic as he jogs towards the entrance to the VR complex, carrying on his conversation with Dee. “That’s an amazing honey. I can’t believe it.”

Dee sighs, “Shoot, something’s wrong with Jin. I gotta go.”

Dee hangs up, and Eric starts sprinting. He bursts back into the VR complex in a panic, leaving a string of profanity trailing in his wake. “No, no, no, shit, shit, shit!!”

Alex pulls out the file, “Chetan died trying to get this information to you. Take it.”

The Quiet Part takes it and nods, “His death will not be in vain. Thank you—”

A wrecking ball slams into Alex, and the connection to the Shadow forum drops out. Alex slides across the floor. He flips over, reaches behind his back, and pulls out a gun.

Eric freezes as he stares down the barrel of the plastic blue revolver. It looks like a toy, but the six .38-caliber rounds inside are very real. Alex lowers the gun and looks around the white room, “Damn it, Eric. What the hell is wrong with you?”

Eric shakes his head, still eying the gun, “Dee and Jin are in the Needle. They just got—”

“What?!” Alex quickly pockets the gun and starts moving, “We have to do something.”

Eric scrabbles to his feet. “No, we are doing nothing, because Callosum is about to offer them some very cushy jobs! I’m talking a salary with bonuses, man. A company car.”

Alex shakes his head, “It’s a lie. They’re using the people we love as bait to stop us.”

Eric spins Alex around, “Or, counterpoint: They’re offering a bribe to silence us, which Dee and Jin are going to take because it’s money. Lots of money!”

Alex takes a breath and tries to keep it together, “Eric, we’re in the real world where they don’t pay people to keep silent about things this big, they just do this:”

He pulls out his POV of Chetan dying and hands it over. Eric flinches as the killers fire into his body. His excitement shifts to horror, and he lets out a moan. “Shit, we need to do something.”

Dee and Jin sign the paperwork, and the room devolves into excited shop talk. An ad guy toys with the idea of being able to “telepathically order Starbucks,” and the others start chirping, “That’s so sliced bread,” whatever that means.

Thankfully, Dr. Lam and Dr. Olivia Mercer, the head of the R&D Psychiatry division, take the lion’s share of Dee and Jin’s attention.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Dr. Mercer says, “But I tested your app with my wife and used it as a starting point for a conversation.”

Jin shifts, thinking of Alex, “You’re braver than I am, Doctor.”

“Thank you. Initially assumed it would lead to confirmation bias. If my partner believes I’m being unfair, then sees in her word cloud that I am being unfair, then it may just reinforce the notion. Instead, the results were simply revelatory. The word most associated with me was ‘wait.’ Apparently, I usurp the conversation, then hold her to account based on the conclusion of that conversation.” Mercer turns to Dr. Lam, “I wonder how it would handle the edge cases.”

“Edge cases?” Jin asks.

Dr. Lam excitedly latches onto the subject, “Since Nodes don’t have cameras or microphones, they rely on the same visual and auditory centers to see and hear as the user, and that makes it just as dependent on the user’s perception of reality as the user. If that perception is compromised by certain psychological conditions, however, the node may begin to manifest those delusions in extraordinary ways.”

“It’s a phenomenon we’re calling ‘Subconscious Node Co-optation and Manifestation’ and just beginning to understand,” Dr. Mercer says, “One patient believed that most authority figures were lizard people, including myself, and when I looked in the mirror, I had actually grown a forked tongue and nictitating membranes.”

The air seems to drop twenty degrees for Jin. “What…What do you mean? How?”

“The Nodes are unintentionally projecting naturally occurring hallucinations into the Digital without the user realizing it, and that allows others to actually see their delusions. We’ve also found that a Node can’t tell the difference between you and the voices in your head, so I’m wondering how your app would handle multiple sources across the dorsal and ventral streams when there should only be one.”

Jin’s mouth feels dry as he swallows and murmurs, “It-it can’t.”

Dee receives a text and privately reels from the information. She squeezes Jin’s knee and passes the message over. It’s from Eric. “This is not a joke. You and Jin are in danger. Take the money, AND GET OUT OF CC NOW. Alex wants to go in there guns blazing to save you. Again, this is not a joke. He actually has a gun.”

Eric fidgets next to Alex on the metro, “Do you know what the Zuckerberg Razor is?”

Alex shakes his head.

“It’s the idea that you should never attribute corporate malice to something that can be explained by corporate greed. Callosum probably did create Cordyceps, and they’ll probably find a way to control our minds, and it’ll probably be so awesome that people will line up around the block to get their minds controlled. Do you know why? Because they’re a corporation. All they care about is making a shit-ton of money, and that will always require people to buy their shit by the ton and love it.”

Alex shakes his head, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I know, but so is walking into The Needle with a plastic gun when we could walk away with our partners and a small fortune,”

Alex turns to him, “Eric, get it through your head. They’re not going to let everyone walk away from this.”

The Metro comes to a stop. Alex stands and exits.

“Just tell me you have a plan.” Eric follows behind on his heels, “Alex, talk to me.”

Alex climbs to the surface and cranes his neck to look up at the tower disappearing into the sky.

Eric stares at him, horrified, “You’re going into one of the most secure buildings in the world, armed with nothing but a plastic gun. What exactly do you think you’ll accomplish?”

“I’ll be giving them what they want.” Alex turns to him, surprisingly calm and resolute, “Stay out here and wait for them to come out.”

Alex approaches the entrance to Callosum HQ and walks past the small army of private security guarding the grounds. Cordyceps follows him through their glances, but doesn’t try to stop him. He doesn’t exactly know why. His best guess is that the virus is waiting for him to be out of the public eye before making him disappear.

He enters the lobby and finds it empty, unaltered by the digi. The white expanse is no longer infinite. The floor is unnaturally quiet until he hears the doors close behind him and click.

Panic hits him because there’s a difference between knowingly walking into a trap and the reality of actually being trapped. He tries to wrench the doors back open, but they’re locked.

“Alex?”

Alex turns back, pulling out his gun. An older woman in a lab coat stands in front of him with Jin and Dee by her side.

Alex closes the distance, “Jin, are you alright?”

Jin nods, looking scared and shaken but otherwise unharmed.

The older woman speaks, “I’m Doctor Mercer, the head of Psychiatry. I know you have no reason to trust me, but I promise you are quite safe.”

Alex aims the gun at her head, “Let them go, now. I don’t care what you do to me.”

“It’s okay, Alex.” Jin says, “She’s a friend.”

“No, she’s not!” Alex snaps, his voice cracking, “Please, just get out of here and run.”

“We’re not in danger, Alex,” Dee says, “We’re actually using the spatial array at a coffee shop across the street. You actually walked right past us.”

Alex reaches out towards Jin and groans when his hands ghost through his chest.

Dee looks past him, “Eric is coming in right now. He can verify everything.”

Eric appears looking around slightly bewhildered, “Yeah, there’s two guards with guns here, but they’re ordering lattes.”

“It’s just you in this lobby,” Dr. Mercer says, motioning to the gun. “We’re taking precautions for obvious reasons.”

Alex lowers the pistol, realizing there’s no point in threatening to shoot a hallucination.

Dr. Mercer continues, “You’re not well, Alex. We don’t think you’ve been well for a while. Your husband gave his consent to look into your family history. What do you know about your uncle? The one your father named you after.“

“What?”Alex shakes his head, thrown by the change in topic, “Just that he killed himself when I was young. I don’t really remember him.”

“Your uncle suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. He was hospitalized several times and in and out of mental health facilities for much of his life. Such conditions are known to be hereditary.”

Alex lets out something between a laugh and a sob, “Can’t you see what they’re doing? We’re this close to exposing them, and they’re trying to discredit me. They’re gaslighting you!”

Jin, who has never been able to talk around the elephant in the room, breaks. “None of this is what you think it is, Alex. No one is after you. There was never any top-secret delivery.”

“You saw them kill a man, Jin. You saw it with your own eyes!”

Jin nods, trembling, “I did, and that’s the problem. Please, just listen.”

Alex takes a step back and shakes his head in a shudder, “No, I know what I saw!”

Dee tries to mediate, “Look. We’ll explain everything, but you need to calm down—”

“Stop!” Alex snaps, then takes a shuddered breath. He doesn’t know when he started pacing, but he’s pacing.

“You’re slipping, Alex,” Jin says, and the word cuts through the confusion and then cuts deep. “You’ve been slipping away from reality for a while now. I thought it was your obsession with this conspiracy and all the social media, but it’s more than that.”

Dee speaks softly, sounding like she’s trying to talk Alex down from a ledge. Worse, he feels like he’s on a ledge. “When you tried our word cloud app, we thought it wasn’t working, but it was you. Your node was trying to parse multiple inputs as if they were all from a single source. That’s why the results were garbled.“

“So what? You think I’m hearing voices or something?”

“No, you’re not hearing voices,” Dee says and pulls up @TheQuietPart's profile page, “You’re following them on Social. You have at least fourteen profiles tied to your PsyKey. The Quiet Part is one of them.”

Alex shakes his head in a shudder, “No. No way, he has thousands of followers.”

Dee shrugs, “And they’re all real, strangely enough. They’re all following the voices in your head.”

Alex turns to Jin, “But you saw it. You saw Chetan die.”

“I did,” Jin says and pulls up his own POV of the exchange with Chetan. “Because you’re node allowed me to see it. It’s been responding to your… condition, bringing it into the digi for others to see.”

They all watch the POV. The killers arrive and shoot Chetan, exactly how Alex remembers it went down. Then Jin turns off the digital overlay so that all the video shows is the bare reality before it was altered by his node. “This was what was really going on.”

Chetan doesn’t die. He, the killers, and the container van are no longer there. Jin is just staring at an empty spot in the parking lot, breathing heavy and whimpering, Alex’s into his hand. He flinches as the nonexistent Callosum mole is shot, then they run in a panic, covering their heads from gunfire that wasn’t actually there. No windows or car alarms shatter. It’s just the two of them, squealing and screaming, running for their lives, away from Alex’s delusion.

Eric tries and fails to stifle a laugh, then mutters, “Sorry.”

Alex looks down at the data file, the one Chetan died for. The proof he risked his life to get into the right hands, only not really. He turns to his other hand and sees the situation for what it is:

He’s the madman with the gun. The only real danger here is himself.

“Our nodes are a conceit,” Dr. Mercer says, “We cannot change our world, but we can change our perception of it. We call it ‘the digital,’ but make no mistake, what we are playing with is controlled madness. It’s only now that we are discovering what that means for those who were already predisposed to it.“

Alex wipes a tear away, “If you knew who made cordyceps, would you tell me?”

Dr. Mercer nods, “Would you believe me if I said it was an accident, but I put the blame partially on Callosum?”

Alex says nothing. He just stares down at the gun trembling in his hands.

Dr. Mercer continues, “A third party contracted with Callosum was doing opposition research on Cortix that bordered on corporate espionage. Callosum kept its distance to limit liability but allowed them to use the company’s AIs to probe Cortix for vulnerabilities and gather information. It’s how we found out that Cortix Disks could usurp motor control. Instead of making the information public right there and then, we sat on the vulnerability for months, deciding that the best way to maximize the damage was to leak it to the media just before the holiday season. What we did not know was how that information had truly been obtained. With little to no oversight and facing increased pressure to provide results, the firm removed operational restrictions from the AI constructs and prompted the machines to find a way to eliminate the competition. And they did. The AIs treated the vulnerability as a new data point and began extrapolating from it. When they found a way to achieve their objective, they implemented it without hesitation or user input, creating the Cordyceps Trojan and sending it off. So, in short, Callosum AI leased to a firm contracted with Callosum, created the Cordyceps Trojan to destroy Callosum’s competition. The same AI that created the virus also stopped it in time. It’s the only reason Callosum was able to swiftly contain the damage.”

Alex sits with the truth. He heard it all before through congressional hearings and independent investigations, but after Callosum’s PR team sanded the edges off each revelation and the truthers added their dash of malicious intent and paranoia to fit their running narrative, the end result was anything but accurate. Still, this was the first time Alex had heard it straight from the horse’s mouth and in such a frank and honest way.

He doesn’t need to turn to know that Eric is grinning, because the idiot was right on the money the whole time. ‘Never attribute corporate malice to something that can be explained by corporate greed.’

Alex sighs and puts the gun down, muttering, “Goddamn Zuckerberg‘s Razor.”

They don’t put him in a straitjacket or take him to the nuthouse. The police don’t even arrest him for barging into Callosum with an illegally printed firearm. Instead, a security guard appears, gives him a cautious nod, then picks up the pistol off the ground. He toggles his node and mutters, “All clear.” The elevators start moving, and the lobby fills with people again, going about business as usual.

Jin runs through the doors and grabs Alex, squeezing the air out of his lungs. He doesn’t let go, muttering, “It’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay.” more to himself than anyone else.

Doctor Mercer approaches with the others in tow. Alex asks, “What now?”

She Mercer pulls up some paperwork. “Well, if you sign these, we can take you up to the Psychiatry Division and begin your treatment program.”

Jin fidgets, “And what floor is that?”

Without missing a beat, Dr. Mercer brings up a second form, “It will be better if I don’t tell you. Sign this, and I can give you something to help.”

They both sign. Dr. Mercer sends a command to Jin’s node, but outwardly, nothing seems to change. Mercer then takes them into the elevator, and Jin enters without hesitation. Alex can feel Jin’s pulse in his arm wrapped around his. It should be rapid, ramping up to a panic attack, but he’s calm in a way that doesn’t make sense.

Jin grins and shakes his head in amazement. “I usually have to pump myself full of Xanax to go anywhere above the third floor.“

Mercer gives a polite smile. “I turned down your amygdala, stopping it from overtaking your prefrontal cortex. It gives you a chance to allow reason to overcome your fear.”

The idea doesn’t sit well with Alex. That fear was such a central part of his husband. If Callosum could just turn it off, what else could they do?

He finds out soon enough. They don’t need to dope Alex up with drugs with his brain wired up with their tech. The ‘Treatment program’ is exactly that: a program.

They sit in a multipurpose room. Alex drums his fingers against his thigh, feeling impatient.

@TheQuietPart: Data dump incoming. Be prepared. They will retaliate.

Alex glances at his feed, then shifts uncomfortably. The problem isn’t knowing which posts came from the voices inside his head; it’s knowing all the other paranoid posts around them are still real. The Cordyceps conspiracies weren’t the sole invention of his broken mind. Thousands of other people believed in them, and they couldn’t all be crazy like him.

Dr. Mercer peers around the room, “This moment always feels like trying to catch a ghost. Once we get a good scan of the hallucinations, we can isolate them and filter them out.”

Alex glances at her and quickly looks away when he sees her pupils are bouncing around in her skull as if she were infected.

Jin points it out to him, “Uh, Doctor, your eyes are going a little crazy.”

Dr. Mercer checks herself in a mirror, then starts toggling switches. She hits ‘Apply,’ and her eyes go still. “There we go. One down.”

Alex clears his throat and shakes his head, “I still don’t understand how the voices are posting.”

Jin gives him a pitying smile. “Honey, look down.”

Alex’s eyes fall on his fingers. They aren’t drumming at all; they’re typing. He pulls them into a fist.

Jin takes his hand, “I always thought it was a nervous tic.”

Dr. Mercer squints, “Cordyceps appeared to you as a cut-out of a sort, correct?”

Alex and Jin turn around and face the shape of a man warping a ping-pong table.

“Yeah,” Alex says and begins to notice other outlines taking shape.

Dr. Mercer starts toggling more switches, “Perfect.”

Alex blinks, and the outlines disappear. He rubs his eyes. “That’s it?”

Dr Mercer nods, “We’ll need you to stick around for forty-eight hours for observation under a strict reality lock, just in case we need to adjust the algorithm, but yes, that is it. Between the neurochemical regulation and active dampening of symptoms, it’s not a cure for schizophrenia, but it’s damn close.”

The neurochemical regulation kicks in, and over the next few hours, the pervasive feeling of a great malignant power hanging over him simply disappears. All the while, Jin stays by Alex’s side, holding his hand and talking about everything but the mental breakdown his husband just had.

“We could adopt,” Jin says, “If we time it right, he or she could be in the same grade as Dee’s baby.”

Alex tries to stop him, “Jin…”

Jin shakes his head and powers on, “Or we could even use an artificial surrogate and raise a hybrid. With Callosum’s private insurance, we wouldn’t even have to pay for it. Don’t you want to see what our clone would look like?”

“With my genes? Not really.”

Jin’s lips go thin as he bumps up against the elephant in the room. He waves it off. “I’m pretty sure they can prune those bits out.”

Alex opens his mouth, but Jin stops him with a kiss on the top of his hand, “Alex, I need this to be our happily ever after. All the pieces are here. We just have to move on from the overpass. Can you do that with me?”

Alex gives a faint nods, but he can’t bring himself to trust the idea of a happily ever after, not with Callosum tech inside his head manipulating his brain chemistry. Instead, he finds himself privately taking comfort in the thoughts whispering that this is all a cover-up. At least now he knows they’re his thoughts and no one else’s.

Alex uses a tablet to scroll through Social, holding out hope that @TheQuietPart will release the damning information, but it never happens. None of Alex’s dummy accounts posts again. Many of @TheQuietParts’ followers begin to wonder if Callosum had him silenced, and in a way, they did. The promised data dump quickly becomes a mythologized keystone that could have supported every single individualized theory, if only it had been released.

Dr. Mercer phases in to check in and talk through his experience. She seems genuinely interested in his well-being, if perhaps also a little too professionally excited about the case study that would surely come out of the ordeal. Still, it makes it hard to think of her as the enemy.

She leans forward, “Can I be honest? Of all the cases I’ve seen of people in your position, they’re usually relieved at this point. Some feel foolish or stupid for being swept up in such delusions, but not you. The narrative you were following was far more plausible and coherent than the others, and I wonder if that’s why you seem so disappointed.”

Alex nods and looks off, “The will be no grand revelation. I won’t get to see the enemy get held accountable. Their evil plot won’t be stopped in its tracks. I lost the battle, even if there was never a battle to begin with.”

“And what was that evil plot?”

“Callosum was going to install a tamer form of Cordyceps inside people. They want us all to be controlled by their machines.”

Dr. Mercer’s posture shifts ever so slightly as she hears this, and the lines at the corners of her eyes deepen. She shakes her head, “That would be an insidious plot indeed.”

Alex watches her uncross then re-cross her legs, then flick through a projection he can’t see.

It’s a subtle thing, but it’s there, and his doubt clings onto it.

She is hiding something—Callosum is hiding something. He’s sure of it.

The reality lock keeps Alex from using the digital to distract himself from his boredom. There’s an OLED screen on the wall with countless shows and series on hand, but he can’t seem to focus on it. For the first time he can remember, he tries to read an actual book, but has even less success with it and gives up after a few pages.

Just before eight, Alex finds himself nodding off, half-listening to the conversation at the nurse station during the shift change.

“It’s absurd that I still need to clock in and out,” the incoming night-shift nurse says, “I don’t know why he can’t do it.”

“You think that’ll be the standard after the alpha?” The outgoing nurse asks.

“God, I hope not. Half the reason I signed up was to get out of my commute. I live in Burbank.”

“Oof. No wonder you opted to be a guinea pig.”

Then silence.

The banter comes to an abrupt stop, pulling Alex’s attention. He turns and looks at the two through the frosted glass. The pregnant pause just keeps gestating as the nightshift nurse stands there, stock still.

The outgoing nurse chuckles, “On the dot,” then begins to gather her things. Alex checks the time. Whatever happened, it happens at eight ‘on the dot’.

Eventually, the incoming nurse speaks again, his voice now bled of any inflection, “I have reviewed the task list. Could you expand on the protocol for patient four?”

“Just report any visual anomalies you see and answer his questions to the best of your ability. He doesn’t have the firmest grasp on reality.”

“Understood.”

Alex waits as the new nurse makes his rounds. Eventually, he enters and pulls up his vitals. “Hello, I am Nurse Maddaus. How are you feeling tonight?”

“Fine,” Alex mutters and looks the Nurse over. Maddaus’s eyes are still; his face impassive in a way that is off-putting, but isn’t anything like those being controlled by Cordyceps. He’s pupils don’t show the panicking man trapped inside, trying to get out.

The nurse glances at him, “Could you elaborate?”

Alex shrugs, “How do you know if your happiness is real?”

“Are you saying you feel manic?”

Alex sits up. “No…I just don’t know if I’m happy or if my node is making me happy.”

The nurse nods and starts writing, “I am not qualified to answer that question, but it will be noted for Dr. Mercer in the logs.”

Alex raises an eyebrow, “I’m not trying to get philosophical here or anything. Just, how do you know if you’re genuinely happy?”

Nurse Maddaus turns and looks down at him. He blinks. “I have never felt happiness before, so I cannot judge its veracity.”

The answer takes Alex by surprise. “What do you mean? You’ve never been happy?”

Nurse Maddaus simply shakes his head, “No.” It’s not a cry for help. It’s a simple statement. “I’ve never been happy,” like “I’ve never tried Sushi.”

The nurse closes out of Alex’s monitor screen. “Any other questions?”

Alex takes a stab and asks, “What happens at eight?”

Maddaus turns to leave, “My apologies, but I cannot tell you that.”

He returns to the Nurse’s station and sits down.

…And then just sits there, unmoving, for hours.

As Alex watches the nurses shape through the frosted glass, a singular thought crosses his mind, “He’s one of them.”

After the forty-eight-hour hold, Alex and Jin return to their small studio apartment. Dee and Eric want to go out and celebrate, but Jin politely declines. “We just need to take it slow for the next couple of days.”

They cuddle up on the couch. Jin talks about moving and their future. They can afford a bigger place now. A much bigger place. Callosum is even offering corporate housing that will make their current apartment look like a shoebox.

Alex nods along and says, “Whatever works for you, dear.”

Jin nuzzles against his chest and watches the sun sink below the horizon of their little beach house, “Wherever we go, I think I want to keep this sim, though. It feels like us. Like home.”

Alex stares ahead at the blank white wall and smiles, “It’s a view I’ll never get sick of.”

He turned off his node the moment they left Callosum, disabling the biochemical regulation and filters that supposedly keep him sane. Manageable. A non-threat to the corporation. He takes comfort in the fear and paranoia seeping back in, knowing it’s his and his alone.

He takes out the thought he hid from Callosum during the forty-eight-hour hold and mulls it over. Powering down his node isn’t good enough. It’s still inside his head, its neural mesh tendrils still rooted throughout the folds of his brain. They could always turn it back on. Nothing would stop them from uploading the Cordyceps virus into his hardware, and then it would be game over. He would only be able to watch as the Cordycepts did God knows what.

Alex lies in bed, listening to his husband’s breathing grow soft and even, then speaks softly, “Jin?”

No response.

Alex stands and walks over to the kitchenette, where the shadow is waiting for him. He doesn’t consider the rationality of this moment. His node is off. This hallucination is all-natural, borne from his sickness, but the logic of it all is lost in the static. Instead, he says, “Okay, walk me through this.”

The shadow nods. “Get a knife and pliers.”

Author’s note: Thanks for reading. I particularly loved being able to give a glimpse into the birth of OAI and Gen-1 Nights. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend picking up my novel Partition: Critical Era. It continues Dee and Eric’s story in the Partitioned dystopian/utopian world that develops in the following years.

Someday, I’ll need to write down the 5-year personal horror story of writing a complex novel in which the two main characters share the same body but operate at different times of day, but the end result is so impressive, I still cannot believe I created it.

If you listen to audiobooks, I highly recommend you go that route. William DeMerrit's performance inhabiting Eric and Detective Noble is simply amazing.

Audiobook

Ebook & Print

I’m so excited to share the audiobook version of “Welcome to The Deep Estate” narrated by Christopher Harbour.

I mean, seriously. You guys… Wow.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my book, but the audio edition is a million times better purely because of Christopher’s performance.

The man is so damn talented and funny. The audiobook couldn’t be more hilarious.

You can check out the first chapter right here:

LISTEN NOW ON AUDIBLE

At 2:55 PM, Alex and Jin find themselves in a cliché, waiting in the corner of a dark parking lot. Not a soul is here. All of the traffic is from autonomous cars stowing themselves in empty parking spots. The hum from the EV contact charging pads leaves the air buzzing.

“Just like a freakin’ spy thriller,” Jin murmurs, pressing ignore on a call from Dee.

“Uh-huh,” Alex says and lights a cigarette just to add to the ambiance.

A message appears in front of Jin. “Check your messages. CC wants to meet.”

Jin closes the message and curses. His dimple makes an appearance, but before Alex can pry, they hear someone approaching. A mousy man turns the corner, trying to appear confident, but he’s on edge.

As a sedan silently creeps between them, he asks, “Are you Alex?”

Alex crushes his cigarette under his shoe, “Yeah. ”

The man quickly crosses the distance. Alex offers a hand to shake, but the man doesn’t take it. “I’m Chetan Patel. I work in Callosum CyberSec. Thank you for doing this.”

“You said you have proof,” Jin says, still half unconvinced about all this.

Chetan looks both ways and then says, “Yes. The attack on Cortix ensured Callosum had a monopoly over neural implants, but it was never about controlling the market. It was about controlling us. The trojan is just a version of the Cordyceps AI they modified to be fatal. What the world needs to fear is the original construct that keeps you very much alive.”

Alex swallowed, “What do you mean?”

“The Cordyceps AI is specifically trained to operate a human body. It’s still out there, and it’s been evolving all this time. The virus could be inside anyone, and it intends—”

Tires shriek on the floor below, and they both turn towards the light coming around the corner. Chetan turns back, conjuring up a file taking the form of a floppy disk. “Shit. Take this. Seek The Quiet Part in the Shadow Forums and trust no one. Go! GO!”

They all run towards the stairs, but a black container van rips around the corner, blocking Chetan’s escape.

Jin sees movement through the glass of the stairwell door. He yanks Alex behind a car just as two men dressed in plain clothes burst out. Alex holds his breath and clamps his hand over Jin’s mouth as they run past, closing in on Chetan with silenced pistols raised. The van’s door slides open on its own, revealing an empty boxy interior.

Chetan looks his abductors in his eyes and says in a shaky voice, “I know you’re in there… That this isn’t you. I’m sorry. I do not blame you for this.”

There is no exchange of words. The men simply shove Chetan into the van and shoot him twice in the chest and once in the head. They close the door, and the van drives off without them.

Jin moans into Alex’s hands as two killers turn around. Their eyes are bouncing around in a panic, just like a Cordyceps victim.

“Run,” Alex hisses. They sprint towards the stairwell, keeping a row of cars between them and the killers. They fire. Concrete explodes by their sides. Glass shatters, and car alarms go off.

Jin covers his head and squeals, “Shit! Shit! Shit! SHIT!!”

Alex slams into the pushbar and pulls Jin inside the stairwell. They rocket down the flights and stumble out a side exit. Alex shoves a dumpster in front of the door.

Jin whirls, incoherent. “Oh God, it’s true. It’s still out there. I can’t, Alex. I just can’t—”

The door slams against the dumpster, and Jin screams.

Alex grabs him by the shoulders, “They didn’t get a good look at our faces. If we keep our shit together, we can just walk away. Can you do that?”

Jin shudders out a nod.

“Just be cool, baby,” Alex says as he takes his hand, and they briskly merge into pedestrian traffic, walking westward as the two killers exit out the front. They turn towards the sun and squint, searching for Alex and Jin, but they’re already gone, blending into the crowd.

Once they’re several blocks away, they cut through an alleyway and hide around the corner. Alex tries to open the file, but keeps receiving “Unknown Read Error”.

“Let me see,” Jin says and takes a copy. He conjures up a piece of chalk, writes a command across the cement wall, and swipes his hand over it, executing it. His node analyzes the file. “Weird. The data isn’t encrypted or corrupted. The container just won’t open.”

“Maybe it’s only meant for The Quiet Part,” Alex suggests, and the name makes Jin’s nose wrinkle. The prolific Social poster is the reason Alex started obsessing over Cordyceps theories in the first place.

“You’re making the stank face,” Alex says.

“I don’t like the hold that guy has over you, and now he has you involved in all this.”

Adrenaline meets aggravation. Alex grits his teeth. “He’s an influencer among the truthers. He’ll know how to get the information out there. Can we not have this argument?”

Another message from Dee arrives. Jin glances at it and drops the topic. “Yeah. Of course. Dee needs me for something. I need to handle this because I can’t handle all of… that.”

“No, go,” Alex says and squeezes his hand.

Jin hesitates. “Just promise me something. This whole mess has officially become dangerous. Deliver the data, then wash your hands of all of it. I can’t do this anymore, and you’ve done enough.”

In the heart of downtown Los Angeles, sits Callosum Corp HQ. It’s a monolith, tapered in such a way that, for those looking, ‘The Needle’ does not seem to end. It just vanishes into the distance.

Jintao and Dee stand at the very base getting its full effect, then Jin gets acquainted with a trash can. He thought being inside the belly of the beast would be too much after the craziness in the parking lot. Turns out, he is okay with walking into the belly as long as he stays in the belly. The idea of being vomited up into the tallest goddamn building in the world leaves him on the precipice of a breakdown.

“You can do this,” Dee says. “I’ll be with you the entire time.”

They walk into the lobby, an endless expanse centered around a massive tree shaped into the hemispheres of a brain. They sit, and Dee holds Jin’s hand while he has a low-key panic attack.

A cheery woman with a digital id on her chest, briskly walks ups, “Diane and Jintao, it’s great meet you. I’m Aiesha Coates, R&D Human Resources Liaison. Come with me.”

“Is this about the Brain Hack competition?” Diane asks. Neither could figure out Alex’s weird results, and it left them convinced they had submitted a faulty product.

“Yes and no,” Aeisha says, taking them to an elevator, “But it’s a good thing. Trust me.”

The elevator opens, and Jin stops in his tracks. He swallows. “What floor are we going to?”

“The eighty-fourth,” Aiesha says, and enters the elevator. ”You’re gonna love the view.”

Jin backs away, “I-I can’t. I’m sorry, Dee. I can’t.”

Aeisha holds the doors open. “Is there a problem?”

Dee rubs his shoulders, “Jin is a Cordyceps survivor. He has issues with heights.”

Aeisha’s eyes go wide. “Oh God. I’m so sorry. Say no more. They’ll come down to you.”

An ad hoc conference room is thrown up in the corner of the lobby. Inside, the digital walls give way to a field of wild flowers chosen specifically for Jin. People file in, far more than Jin and Dee expected, and the last person to enter leaves them dumbfounded. It’s Dr. Nathan Lam, one of the three founders of Callosum and the second richest man in the world.

Dee and Jin stammer and shake the trilionare’s hand.

“I rooted around your code,” Dr. Lam casually says, ”It’s really good work. Are you self-taught?”

“Yes,” Dee says, “I was Pre-Med when the Node came out. I thought about switching majors to Computer Science, but they weren’t teaching Neuro, so I just dropped out. Admittedly, that wasn’t the smartest idea.”

“I disagree. Much of Callosum is made up of Silicon Valley types.” Doctor Lam says, “That cred will actually get you further around here than an actual doctorate. And you, Jin?”

“I was coding for Codex and porting nOS apps before the—Well, yeah.”

Chairs creak in a beat of awkward silence. Aiesha quickly takes the reins. “So let’s get right to it. We love your app. It’s therapeutic application alone is a game changer, but the word association algorithm behind it is truly revolutionary.”

“There’s a whole team trying to rewrite nOS to achieve what you did with surface-level access,” Dr. Lam says, “We’re not supposed to tell you this, but your app is on the shortlist for the Brainhack Competition and will most likely win.”

Dee blinks several times. Jin tries their best not to squeal.

Aiesha continues, “Unfortunately, that is also why we believe it would be best if you withdrew from the competition.”

Dee shakes her head, “I don’t understand.”

@TheQuietPlace: Get to the Shadow Forums. I am waiting.

Alex walks out of the vintage store in a fresh change of clothes, hoping it will throw them off his trail. He was wrong. The second he steps back onto the street, a woman walking her dog turns and stares at him, her eyes jittering.

Chetan’s words come back to him. “It could be inside anyone.”

Alex picks up speed and darts through into a side street. Cordceps has been following him, and he can feel the AI’s eyes on the back of his neck no matter how many times he tries to lose it. At first, he thought he was being tailed by undercover Callosum agents, but it was far worse. Cordyceps is briefly taking over people to keep an eye on him.

He turns toward the display window of an unlicensed 3D print shop, and pretends to peruse the printed wares. Looking over his shoulder, he can see them watching him. It’s as though a single prolonged stare is bouncing from head to head, so that no one person gives him more than a passing glance. The virus is just waiting for the right moment. He’s sure of it.

Alex considers the handwritten sign in the window, “We can make anything.”

He walks into the print shop. The clerk glances over his feed and gives an inquiring grunt.

“I need something off the menu,” Alex says.

The clerk closes the window and looks him over. He decides Alex isn’t a cop and nods, “You want a nine-mill or a thirty-eight? The thirty-eight’s less likely to blow your fingers off.”

***

Eric leans against the leg of a mech, and the servos of his power armor hiss. “What makes you think I know how to get to the Shadow Forums? Only pedos and pirates go there.”

Alex motioned around the hangar bay, “Are you telling me you paid for this shooter?”

Eric chews on a mozzarella stick dripping with marinara sauce and nods, “Fair point.”

His skeevy modder friend—named Hobbes, Bob, or something. Alex never cared to find out—snorts a stim and butts in, “Going to the Bazaar is super illegal, man.”

Eric points to the alien planet being bombarded by Gothic battleships. “And there’s a major campaign going on.”

“I’ll pay for another hour. I wouldn’t barge into your game if it wasn’t important.”

“Okay.” Eric shrugs and exits the game, trading his power armor for jeans and a t-shirt covered in red sauce. The space station melds back into the square VR room.

Eric rubs his neck, “Don’t know if you know, but I’m in a weird place with Dee.”

Hobbes croons, “Because somebody’s gonna be a baby daddy.”

“Wait. She told you?” Alex asks.

“No, I found a pregnancy test in your bathroom trash can and took an educated guess it wasn’t from you or Jin—Wait. How do you know?”

“Dee told us.”

Eric turns to Hobbes. “See? She’s confrontational about everything except this. I don’t get it. Why hasn’t she said anything?”

Alex rubs his eyes. He doesn’t have time for this. “How did Dee dispose of the pregnancy test? Was it hidden under stuff or wrapped up like a used tampon?”

“No, it was just in your trash. I didn’t exactly go rooting around for it.”

“Eric, honey, she wanted you to find it. It’s probably why she told you to take a shower. Dee knows you know and is giving you time to freak out and get it out of your system.”

Eric stares at Alex for a beat, then blinks. “Shit. That’s totally what she’s doing.”

He pulls out an ornate key, and a set of gilded doors appears in front of them. Eric inserts it and gives it a turn. Massive tumblers clink and turn as the room gives way to the terracotta alleys and draped cloth of the Grand Bazaar.

In a vast sea of impermanence that is the darknet, the Grand Bazaar is a lighthouse pulling the sick and wary to its ad-hoc hubs. Its creation is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries. Seventy years ago, it simply appeared, fully automated, unmoderated, and ready for business. Five years ago, it received its first major update, and now node users could walk its halls completely anonymous, bringing along the worst of humanity.

Alex sticks behind Eric as they weave around pop-up shops and fire-sales, and he’s left bewildered by the illegality of it all. Killers hand out pamphlets showing their body of work. Blackhats sell ransomware next to Whitehats offering security solutions. Thieves hawk skimmed credit keys by the thousands, and traffickers offload flesh—Men, women, endangered animals, both synthetic and organic human organs, as long as no one asks where it comes from. The whole time, Hobbes scrampers from booth to booth, like some kid in a demented candy store

A video appears by Alex’s side of a woman leaping off a high-rise. Alex stops in front of a booth selling Cordyseps suicide compilations, and his heart is ratchets up a gear.

Eric quickly pulls him away, “Try not to look at the wares. Some things can’t be unseen.”

They blend back into the packed crowds, disregarding the physics of personal space. Eric does his best to keep Alex distracted. “Do you think I’d make a good father?”

“I think it won’t matter,” Alex says, glancing over his shoulder. For a brief second, he swears he saw something. Something seemingly pressed into the Bazaar itself. He shakes it off and turns back. “As long as Dee is the mother, the kid will turn out alright.”

They turn the corner, and two more indentations watch them pass, tall and thin funhouse-mirror shapes of men, taking form as they warp the area around them. A third begins to walk by their side, keeping a row of booths between them. Alex points it out, “We’re being followed.”

Eric stops and stares at their semi-invisible tail, “Well, that's new. Maybe it’s lag.”

Hobbes bumbles back and glances at the indentation, “Naw, that looks like a rogue AI. They’re all over the Bazaar.”

Alex stops him, “Hold on. Like a virus?”

“Eh. More like benign parasites. They siphon processing power from unsecured devices to continue to operate.”

“Not these ones,” Alex says and shoves Eric forward. “It’s the Cordyceps Trojan.”

Eric raises an eyebrow, “Uh, what? You can’t seriously believe that.”

Alex notices a fourth indentation closing in on them, “Trust me. We need to go, now.”

They start running, clipping through the crowd, but the Cordyceps men don’t give chase. Instead, they grow in number, propagating exponentially along their sides.

Eric moans, “Dude, what the hell did you do?”

Alex pulls Eric to the side, keeping him from running into a twisted mob. “Just keep going.”

It’s not long until the entire Bazaar is a warped mirror of itself. Eric pulls Alex through a doorway into the lobby of a Moroccan lounge. Hobbes is a step behind, but it’s too late. The man shrieks and as hands grab him.

Eric’s eyes go wide, “Hobbes!”

He reaches out, but Alex pulls him back. Hobbes moans as the viral horde closes in, his image twisting and stretching. He screams, then disappears.

Alex slams the door closed and doubles over. “We should be good…The Shadow Forums are on a private server, right? No bots allowed.”

“Yeah…” Eric pulls up a section of the VR room and finds Hobbes flicking his node. “Dude, what happened?”

Hobbes shrugs, “No clue. My Node shat a brick and lost the connection. I’m gonna go have a smoke.”

Eric turns to Alex, “What the Hell was that about?”

“I have leaked information proving Cordyceps was made by Callosum. The virus is trying to stop me.”

Eric takes a step back and eyes the exit. He sucks in his lips and lets out ‘pop.’ “Okay, cool… Cool. So pissing off a multinational is where I draw the line. I’m gonna go with Hobbes.”

Aisha Cotes pulls up an offer, and Doctor Lam slides it across the table. Diane and Jin look down at the terms and try to keep it together. Callosum wants to buy their app outright, offering to double the grand prize of the Brain Hack competition.

Dee looks up, suspicious, “How much money do you plan to make off all of this?”

Dr. Lam waves his hand, “On the app itself? Nothing. It’ll be integrated into the suite we offer licensed therapists. As for your word association algorithm? We have big plans.”

Aeisha Cotes pulls up a second set of documents, and Dr. Lam slides it over. “And we would like you both to be a part of it.”

It’s employment contracts. Callosum wants to hire them full-time. The salary seems like a joke at first, then a mistake, then a dream.

A very good dream.

Eric Noble trudges in the early pre-dawn glow and sleepily nods along to all of this. He yawns, “So, what? The moral of the story is don’t buy generic.”

Alex shifts the bucket of cleaning supplies to his other arm. “Don’t you think it’s a little suspicious Callosum was somehow able to break in and save the day?”

Eric shrugs. “Eh, security clearly wasn’t Cortix’s strong point.”

“But what if Callosum wasn’t the hero at all? What if they were the ones who did it? It was clearly corporate biological warfare.”

“And with a computer virus no less,” Eric adds with a smirk.

Alex goes silent, remembering Jin told him to play nice. Eric is an okay enough guy, but he’s definitely less of a friend and more the painfully heterosexual man your friend married.

A Social notification appeared by his side, @TheQuietPart: Checkmate is coming. Callosum will reveal itself. Alex automatically likes it and reposts it to his own followers.

They step out of the LAPD PubSec cameras' view and into an alleyway. Eric lights a cigarette and tempts Alex. Neither can afford to get fined for breaking the Public Smoking Ordinance, but Alex gives in.

Eric exhales, “So I take it Jin woke up screaming again? You usually don your tin foil hat when that happens.”

Alex nods. It’s been two years, and that day still comes to them as nightmares, Jin worst of all. He was conscious the entire time. Jin could only watch as he walked towards the edge.

They cut through the alleyway and face the old self-serve car wash. Every slot is taken up by a Displaced rolling up their tent. Eric drops their steam cleaner and moans.

@CordyInception: They will erase you to remake this world in their image.

These days, everything that can be automated is automated. It leaves too many able hands and not enough work. Alex and Eric thought they were onto something with SparClean, the remote car detailing gig. They had yet to invent the machine that could scrape crud out of a dashboard with a toothpick. They simply turned the app on, a car pulled up, they cleaned it, and then the car drove off. Rinse and repeat. Get paid per car. Most importantly, SparClean is the type of gig people call “Good node work.” The app is only available on the Callosum marketplace, meaning you need a Node to use it. That keeps the competition down, and it was a barrier that many people were coming to rely on.

They found early on that if they claimed a self-wash bay for the day, it could significantly cut down their time, which meant more cars and more cash. The only problem was that they weren’t the only ones with the same idea. Each morning became a race to claim the self-wash bay before everyone else, and the race was starting earlier and earlier each day. Then a week ago, SparClean launched a version of the app for tablets, and it was no longer “Good node work.” Almost immediately, the cars available to be detailed was cut in half. This morning, it appeared the Displaced even caught on to their self-wash strategy.

@TheQuietPart: Hate the symptom. Ignore the cause.

“How the Hell are we supposed to compete with fucking Dusters camping out like that?” Eric asks, working himself up into a solid statist rant.

“I don’t know,” Alex sighs, “Let’s just go find a parking spot near a spigot.”

“No, screw this! I’m sick of these transplants swarming over our fucking city! If it’s not some dehydrated Arizonan or inbred Salt Lake polygamist, it’s a goddamn Texan ’fugee fleeing the Lone Star Militia. I’m sick of it!”

Alex just turns around and walks back the way they came.

@DeathByDisk: They’re coming after dissenters. They’re trying to disappear us.

Eric catches up to him. “Sorry, that wasn’t my most shining moment. Don’t tell Dee.” He grabs the post out of the air, “Is this your feed? Christ, what are you tapped into?”

“The tinfoil hat types.” Alex says, “It keeps me sane, knowing I’m not the only one.”

“Said the patient inside the insane asylum,” Eric mutters.

They find a parking spot near a spigot, but are only able to clean one car. The rest of the time was spent waiting for the SparClean algorithm to favor them. Halfway through the day, it’s clear the well has dried up. The laws of Supply and Demand have struck again.

They give up and go to the mall for lunch. Alex lets Eric pull him into a Callosum Clinic showroom. Eric fawns over the specs of new node models, bad mouthing the manufacturers, and espousing brand loyalty as if any of it made a difference. The ancient behemoths of Silicon Valley, Cupertino, and Japan were nothing more than supplicants to Callosum these days.

Alex feigns interest, flicking his eyes towards each employee and the customers waiting in line to upgrade their hardware. He records it all, making sure to focus on each face for a full second. Afterwards, he sends a message to an anonymous account, “Mission complete.”

Back in Alex and Jin’s little studio apartment, they find their respective partners deep in their project. They slip out of their work shoes.

“This moment always reminds me of my Dad,” Eric says, “He’d come home from a long day of work and the first words out of his mouth were, ‘I’m not home. I know I look like I’m home, but I’m not. Give me a minute.’”

Alex chuckles as they don their moonwalkers, and the traction-control ball bearings sync to the sim. They leave the Real and enter the Digi. Alex and Jin’s little shoebox expands out into their cottage in the Grand Cayman Islands. Alex takes a deep breath as the white walls become a sunset along the beach. The view has long felt more like home than home. They walk down to the shore, moving several yards for every inch in the Real, feeling a simulacrum of the extra effort it takes to slog through the sand. They make their way over to where Jintao and Dee sit, surrounded by floating words and chalkboards covered in Neuro script.

Dee brushes a lock of curly red hair out of her face and smiles. She gives Eric a kiss on the lips, passionate enough to grace a romance novel in the discount download bin. Jin offers Alex a smile. It’s warm and genuine, but a cold, contact-free substitute in comparison.

Dee sniffs and points back towards the cottage, “Go shower, you stink.”

“Okay, okay,” Eric says and exits the sim, turning the five-minute walk back into a five-foot trek to the bathroom.

@TheQuietPart: They won’t stop until they have a monopoly over the world

Jin sees the post, and the smile dies.

Alex sets his feed to private and quickly shifts the focus, “How goes the mind reading?”

“‘Therapeutic word cloud.’” Dee corrects, “Calling it ‘mind reading’ raises privacy concerns. And it’s going well.”

“I actually think we might have this Brain Hack Competition in the bag,” Jin says, which is more than hopeful coming from him. Alex is usually the optimist in the relationship. If Jin and Dee make a splash in the Callosum competition, a third-party developer might offer them a job. The challenge these days wasn’t proving you were a good programmer. It’s proving you can code better than a guided AI construct.

“So it’s working?” Alex asks.

“Yep,” Jin says as words begin to float around him in various sizes and colors. ‘Shit’ briefly appears over his head as Jin realizes something. He flips a switch, and all the green words disappear.

“It’s been analyzing our thoughts for four hours now. The results have been… enlightening,” Jin says, his right dimple making an appearance in one of his more obvious tells. It usually means he’s embarrassed but doesn’t want to look embarrassed.

“What do the colors mean?” Alex asks, fixating on the words Jin filtered away. Alex could only catch one before disappearing, “Slipping.”

Jin’s dimple deepens. “It’s color-coded by association. Red are thoughts about life. Purple are thoughts about myself.”

“And the Green are about me? Do you think I’m slipping? In what way?”

“No, it’s just….” Jin swallows a grimace, “Jesus. Let’s not get into it.”

“Like he said. It’s been enlightening.” Dee says, quick to step in, pulling up her own word cloud. “Baby,” “mother,” “father,” and “The future” are most prevalent.

Alex gasps, “Oh my god. Dee, are you pregnant?”

Dee bites her lip and pulls the bathroom door out of the Real. She mutes the ocean to check if Eric has the shower running. “Apparently? It was news to me. At least, I wasn’t aware on a conscious level, but I took a test. And yeah, I am. Don’t tell Eric.”

Alex doesn’t know if he’s more excited for her or for their app. “That’s amazing.”

“You want to give it a shot?” Jin asks.

Alex hesitates, thinking what it may show, then nods. “Sure.”

Jin runs the app, and words begin to surround him. Or at least, they look like words. It’s a rainbow of letters, numbers, and symbols all mixed together into the shape of words.

Jin trades looks with Dee. “What the hell?”

“Shit,” Dee says, “What did we do wrong?”

They can live in paradise most of the day, but as they get ready for bed, they have to take their moonwalkers off and step back into the reality of their studio apartment. It’s uncomfortable and claustrophobic. They become hyper-aware of each other’s breathing, and it’s harder to ignore the conversations they each pinned for later.

As they lower the mattress, Alex finally broaches the topic. “Do you think I’m slipping away from you?”

“No.” Jin sighs and sits down. “Just no.”

“So are you slipping away from me?”

“Come here,” Jin says, patting the bed.

Alex sits, and Jin kisses him. It’s long, deliberate, with the promise of more folded into it. Alex can’t tell if it’s an answer or a deflection, but he takes it anyway. He always does. He lets Jin lead, reads every small hesitation, and pulls back the second he feels tension. He sticks to what he knows Jin is comfortable with, careful not to surprise him, careful not to want too much or let him feel smothered.

The therapist once called Jin “a survivor of rape, in some ways,” and it was the truth of it. The Cordyceps Trojan forced itself into Jin’s body, rewiring him from the inside while Alex stood there helpless, watching the person he loved get taken over inch by inch, neuron by neuron, pulled and pushed to the very edge.

That memory lingers now. It always lingers. Heavy as the humidity trapped inside their small confines. It sits at the foot of the bed like something alive, patiently waiting for a misstep, threatening to clear its throat and ruin the intimacy. They work around it, eyes closed, hands moving through shuddered breaths, pretending the shadow isn’t there. It’s the closest thing they have to peace. Some nights, that’s enough.

Other nights, it isn’t.

There’s silence, then a single sob. Alex doesn’t hug or hold Jin. Making him feel constricted would only make it worse. Instead, he lies beside him, stroking his back.

Jin doesn’t apologize. He stopped doing that long ago. An apology implies that something can be fixed.

“Wake up.”

Alex rubs his eyes. His node syncs with the sim, and he’s taken back to the beachside cottage. A message waiting for him. ‘I’m outside.’ Alex sits up and looks out the window. A shadow stands against the moonlit sky. He turns to check if Jin is still asleep. He is.

Alex stands and starts recording a POV, finding some comfort in at least having a record of whatever the hell these weird rendezvous were. He slips on his moonwalkers and turns on the patio light. The shadow remains a void cut out of his surroundings, one Alex has never been able to look at for too long. Looking at the shadow was like staring at an optical illusion, and it leaves his brain trying to make sense of the elephant with four legs and five connected feet.

Alex walks outside. A foraging crab scuttles off the deck. The high tide crashes against the rocks beneath them.

“Were you noticed?” The shadow asks.

“No,” Alex says and hands over several video files, including the one he recorded inside the Callosum Clinic. He checks on Jin through the window. “And a little warning next time.”

“I have a new task for you,” the shadow says.

“Hold on. You still haven’t explained the last task. I don’t even know why you’re here.”

“I’m here because you want the truth, and I need your help. Too many contacts have been burned. I can’t trust this to someone who might be on their radar.”

Alex tries to protest, but the shadow stops him, “No. Just listen. They’re trying to trace my connection. We don’t have time. All I can say is that I work on the inside, and I have evidence: proof that Callosum created Cordyceps and that their attack on Cortix is just the beginning, but it needs to be delivered to the right hands through an intermediary. Can you do that?”

Alex nods, “Yeah—Yes. Of course. I’ll help.”

“Good. Then it’s time we meet IRL.” The shadow conjures up a card with an address. “Be here. Three o’clock tomorrow.”

“Alex?”

The shadow abruptly disappears. Alex spins and faces Jin.

Jin doesn’t take the news well. “You’ve been casing clinics for this guy for months, and you don’t even know why!”

Alex pulls out the POV he recoded of the shadow, “I’m about to find out. I swear I was going to let you in, once I did.”

“You could be aiding and abetting a Luddite bomber for all you know.”

“He’s not a terrorist. Jin, just listen—”

“No, you listen. This obsession isn’t healthy. You need to let it go. Your entire life has become wrapped up in these insane conspiracy theories.”

“They’re not insane. Do you know what’s insane? Not being able to take you anywhere that has a railing. There’s a whole group of friends we no longer see because they live above the second floor, and it’s only gotten worse. You barely go outside. I can’t even hold you anymore because it reminds you too much of that goddamn day. Do you know how hard that is for me?”

Jin goes silent, and Alex feels like an asshole, but it needed to be said. He continues, “I’m doing this for you, Jin. If we can just get some accountability, find the bastard who coded it….”

“Nothing will change, Alex. The damage is done… We just need to live with the scars.”

“I can’t.” Alex says and presses the video forward, “Not when their tech is in our heads.”

Jin watches Alex’s POV, then watches it again, messing with the settings, trying to figure it out. Finally, he leans back with an exhale and shakes his head, “I don’t understand.”

“What’s not to understand?” Alex says, “We need to go.”

“No, hold on.” Jin takes his hand and slows him down, “I couldn’t find anyone besides us connected to our network, and something is off with your POV. Look:” Jin rewinds the video to the moment Alex turns the porch light on. “See how the light doesn’t touch him?”

“I know, it’s weird.”

“No, that’s not just weird. That’s not right. That’s not how light works with nodes. Light…” Jin mulls over how to get the idea across, then conjures a glowing lightbulb and moves it around, “Okay, you see how this is illuminating the room? In old physics-based graphic engines, this was a massive resource suck to do realistically because the GPU needed to calculate and simulate how the rays bounced off all the surfaces. Nodes don’t do that. Instead of simulating a lightbulb, it describes the lightbulb, directly manipulating your visual cortex into thinking there actually is a lightbulb in my hands.”

“Yeah, it’s a hallucination. I get it.” Alex says, growing impatient.

Jin holds up a finger, “But so is the light that it creates, and that’s the problem. When you turned on the light, your node told your brain to illuminate the porch, but Mister Shadow Man wasn’t included. It's almost like someone copy-pasted him over the sim, which made me think to do this:”

Jin toggles a switch. In the POV, the shore and starry night become a bare white wall, but the shadow remains.

Alex shakes his head, “What? Do you think I’m pranking you?”

“No,” Jin says quickly, “I’m saying your node wasn’t causing you to see Mr. Shadow Man. That’s weird—On top of what already sounds like a plot from a freakin’ spy thriller.”

READ PART TWO HERE

The shine wears off, and the glamor of the New World starts to fade.

The Founders mingle with French dignitaries. A ruddy-faced Benjamin Franklin raises his glass and gives a bawdy toast, “Thus, as I am wont to say, ‘Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. And easy to bed, easy on the eyes, makes a woman lusty, busty, and by God, those thighs!”

Jefferson chokes on his hard cider and gives into a coughing fit.

Hamilton rubs his brow, “Will somebody please take the cup from the honorable statesman from Philadelphia?”

Alex and Jintao sit in the corner, drinking PBR, unamused. Alex gestures with his bulgogi fajita appetizer. “You do know they all think we’re abominations.”

Jintao rolls his eyes and keeps scrolling through his feed, “Uh-huh.”

“I mean, how enlightened can they be if they all pooped in chamber pots?”

“I’m pretty sure they had outhouses.”

Alex scratches under his powdered wig, “Fine. They pooped in a hole. Why did you want to eat with them again?”

“I don’t know,” Jintao sighs and waved his hand through the candelabra. The candles waver just as much as their flames. “I thought ambiance would be romantic.”

Alex cracks a lop-sided grin and plays with the ring he put on Jin’s finger. “Honey, you’re all the ambiance I need. We could eat out of a dumpster and make it romantic. ”

Jintao gives in, “Okay, fine. If you want to do your space restaurant—”

“—Oh God, yes. Please!—”

“—We can do the freaking space restaurant, but I’m keeping the wig.”

“Deal.” Alex grins and pulls the menu. The hard corners of the colonial ballroom round out, and the Grand damask wallpaper is traded out for a dark, infinite void withered by entropy. Wealthy white landowners warp into a diverse cast of aliens. Ben Franklin’s considerable girth sprouts fifty arms, and he begins applying spray-on deodorant to his numerous pits.

The Restaurant at the End of The Universe proves a far more exciting choice. The Big Bang is spectacular, and the Hooloovoo’s stand-up routine is delightfully blue, leaving Jintao gasping as much as any offended debutant.

After their hour is up, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe fades back into their private booth, and they are left surrounded by white walls and motion tracker markings and their finished plates. Other patrons sit in their own worlds, powered by their digitally streamlined hallucinations. Alex and Jin put their rented powdered wigs on the table and pay the bill.

Jintao sighs at the notice that the VR Cafe will officially become a ‘Node-friendly environment’ in the following year. ‘Node-friendly’ being what Callosum calls places they pay off to exclude Cortix Disks, Callosum’s main competitor. Most businesses were either ‘Disk-friendly’ or ‘Node-friendly’ these days, all falling victim to the escalating tensions in the consumer neural implant war, with neither side content with just half the market share.

The two return to reality and find themselves on Santa Monica Blvd, wincing at the intense afternoon sun. Alex wobbles and Jin catches him.

Alex steadies himself, “I’m good. I’m good. It’s just my head.”

“You only had two beers.”

Alex rubs the nickel-sized rose gold implant behind his ear, ”No, it’s my Disk. You know how I get when I use it too much.”

“Let’s pump you up full of caffeine and corn syrup. That always helps.” Jintao taps his own carbon steel Disk and drops a pin to the nearest coffee shop. A spotlight appears a few blocks off. He keeps a steadying arm around Alex, and they start walking.

Alex gives Jintao a nudge, “I hear Nodes don’t have this problem.”

“Ugh, don’t even get me started.”

Alex continues needling him to do precisely that, “I just think getting you into the Callosum Appstore will do you some good. You keep telling me you can port nOs apps into Codex, but you can’t port Codex apps into nOs.”

“Okay, sure. But with what money?”

Alex sours at that.

Jin pats him on the arm. “Trust me, if you had to navigate nOS restrictions, you wouldn’t be so gung-ho about switching over. Cortix is so much more coder-friendly—Watch the legs.”

Alex looks down and steps over the Displaced sleeping against the wall. Jintao gives the man a quick “Sorry, I don’t have anything on me” gesture.

The two have their problems just like any other couple. Their fights are often over the things they can’t afford, or the job Alex couldn’t find. He used to call himself a copywriter before the entire industry was outsourced to AI. There was no way to compete with a construct that could create a custom campaign perfectly tailored for every single person at a fraction of the price. The conversation could easily veer down that avenue of a well-worn argument. Instead, they choose to bask in the easy silence that comes with time.

Jintao rests his head on Alex’s shoulder, and Alex smiles, just because. They come to a crosswalk, and Jin gives him a soft and meaningful kiss, making up for the fight they didn’t have. “We’ll get with the times.”

“Yeah,” Alex says and keeps his doubts to himself. ‘The times’ were starting to feel like a game of musical chairs played by a hungry mob.

Jintao looks past him and squints at a message only he can see.

“What?” Alex asks.

Jintao focuses back on him, “Nothing. Just a weird message. Remember Stephan?”

Alex’s eyebrows rise as he digs through ancient history, “Your ex with the cats?”

“Cat tchotchkes.” Jintao corrects, “He just sent me something with the subject line, ‘I love you.’ God knows why.”

Alex guffaws, “Oh honey, you gotta open it up.”

“Okay, Okay,” Jintao says. He taps the air and goes still.

The lights turn green, and the crosswalk guy appears. Jin doesn’t move.

“Well, what does it say?” Alex asks.

Jintao opens his mouth and lets out a guttural noise. He swallows and tries to speak again, but nothing comes out.

“Jin?” Alex’s smile dies. He tries to take Jin’s hand, but it is balled into a white-knuckled fist. Jintao’s whole body is rigid as a board. What the Hell is going on? Alex removes Jin’s shades and grows scared. Jintao’s pupils lock onto him, wide and trembling. He isn’t blinking at all. Was it a stroke? Alex pats him on the cheek, “Jin, baby, this isn’t funny.”

A message appears from Alex’s brother, Kieran. “I love you” is in the subject line. That was odd. Kerian was usually the type who showed brotherly love by punching Alex in the arm.

“What the fuck?” Alex is about to open the message when Jintao begins to move. he looks over his left shoulder and then slowly turns his head to the right. The movement is smooth, almost mechanical.

“Jin, talk to me,” Alex says as Jin’s gaze passes over him, a tear running down his cheek. Jin continues to sweep the area. Alex shakes Jin’s shoulders, “Baby, come on. Snap out of it!”

A horn blares, and tires shriek, punctuated by a painfully distinct ‘thunk.’ Alex flinches as a driverless SUV stops just feet away from him, leaving the smell of burnt rubber in the air. Its grill is dented and bloody. Alex’s eyes fall on a stray woman’s shoe by his feet, then on the woman herself... trying to pull herself from underneath the SUV.

“Oh, Jesus! Jesus––Fuck!” Alex looks for help, but no one else is nearby. He toggles his disk, dials 9-1–1, and stoops by the woman. Her hair is matted over her face. Her breath is ragged, but otherwise she’s silent. The woman just keeps trying to pull herself out, peeling off a fingernail in the process.

Alex speaks in a rush, “No, don’t move. Help is on its way. What’s your name, Ma’am?”

The woman doesn’t respond. She just keeps wheezing and pawing at the asphalt.

“Ma’am?” Alex turns back to Jin, who hasn’t moved an inch. “Goddamnit, Jin! Snap out of it and help!”

Emergency services aren’t picking up. Why isn’t anyone picking up? Alex is so jacked up on adrenaline that everything seems like it’s down a long hallway. ‘Tunnel vision,’ the rational part of his brain tells him that’s. He has tunnel vision. It also notes that the woman has a Cortix Disk just like him, but Alex doesn’t think anything of it.

Fuck it. Alex grabs the woman by the shoulders and pulls. Her turns her over and recoils. The poor girl was dragged several feet, leaving her right side bloody and raw. Alex can see the bulge of a severely broken bone in her leg. Her shirt is pulled down, exposing her chest, and Alex’s first thought is to help her cover up, but the road rash is so bad that he doesn’t want to touch it and cause her any more pain. He takes in the damage, then realizes something else is far more wrong. She isn’t screaming. Why isn’t she screaming? The woman is just laying there with half her face ground off, her eyes locked onto Alex, not making a sound.

She abruptly sits up. Alex snaps out of it. “Oh no. Don’t move. You’re hurt, lady—”

The woman pushes herself to her feet, blood trickling down onto the asphalt in light rain, her eyes bulging, bouncing around in a panic while the rest of her face remains expressionless. She stands on her broken leg. Shattered bones grind against each other. With a crack, her calf rips open, and a jagged white edge pokes through.

Blood splatters against Alex’s cheek. He screams, but the woman doesn’t even wince. She takes a step, putting her total weight onto the leg, further tearing into her flesh. Her entire shin snaps in half with an audible crack and the woman crumples to the ground.

Alex stumbles back and watches in horror as the woman tries to stand again, unphased.

A second “I love you” message appears in front of him. This one from Jintao.

Alex spins around in a nightmarish daze. His husband is gone. “Jin? JIN!?”

A horn blares. He spots Jin a block away, walking across the street towards an overpass. Alex runs, quickly closing the distance, but he’s too far away.

Jin grips the overpass railing and begins to climb over.

Alex shoots across the street, ignoring the automated traffic swerving out of the way. All he sees is his husband pulling his leg over the railing, leaving nothing but air between him and the twenty lanes of 405 traffic speeding below.

Time seems to slow as Alex watches Jin lean forward, letting his weight take him off the edge. Alex reaches out. His fingers graze his husband’s back. He grabs Jintao’s shirt in a fist and pulls. Jin slams against the railing, and Alex grabs hold of him, but Jin’s legs give out and he almost slips from Alex’s grip. Alex holds on, nearly toppling over the railing along with him, but his foot snags on a bar.

Alex never considered himself a physically man strong nor is he particularly tall. His husband has him beat by five inches and forty pounds, but in that frenzied moment—A moment Alex will look back on and never know how he managed to do what he did—he pulls Jintao’s dead weight up and over the railing. They hit the ground, Alex smashing his head into the sidewalk. Jins body crushing his chest into the concrete, knocking the air out of his lungs.

Jintao rolls off Alex, leaving him dazed and wheezing. He immediately goes back to the railing. Alex scrabbles to his feet and rips Jin away once more. They topple back onto the sidewalk. Alex wraps his legs and arms around Jin’s torso and holds him down. Jin wordlessly tries to pull himself to his feet to achieve that single mindless goal, leaving the two wobbling like an upturned tortoise.

“It’s okay, baby. I’m here. I got you.” Alex cranes his neck and looks around. A man is approaching, silhouetted by the sunlight. Alex calls out, “Please help. Something’s wrong with my husband. He keeps trying to--”

The man’s head blocks out the sun, and Alex’s voice catches as he sees the slack face; blank, short of his eyes bouncing around his skull. They stay on him for as long as they can, trembling with a silent cry for help.

“Oh God, I’m sorry.” Alex looks away as the man walks past and starts to climb over the railing just as Jin did. He closes his eyes and focuses on Jin trapped in his embrace. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I got you. I’m not going to let go. I’m not going to let--”

A body hits the pavement below with a dull thump, a screech of tires, and a chaotic symphony of metal and glass.

***

It’s called the Cordyceps Trojan, and it kills thousands.

Named after Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, a fungus that evolved with the specialized ability to control ant’s nervous system. It compels the insect to climb to the highest point in the area. The fungus then eats its host alive from the inside out and blooms a mushroom out of the ant’s back so it can rain infectious spores down on other victims.

Similarly, the Cordyceps Trojan uses a zero-day exploit in the latest Cortix Disk operating system update to take over the user’s motor control, a function Cortix neglected to mentioned their neural implants could do. The Trojan then forces the victim to scan the area and enter the tallest building in sight. If the virus can not find a suitable structure, as in Jintao’s case, anything with a significant drop will do. Kieran, Alex’s brother, belly-flops into the deep end of his family’s empty pool. He will survive, but will never walk again without the aid of an assistive exoskeleton. Stephan, Jintao’s ex with the cat tchotchkes, lives on the 27th floor of a high-rise and isn’t as lucky.

Darsh Reddy, the CEO and President of Cortix was patient zero. Before he jumped off the rooftop of ‘Big Brain,’ the main administrative building on Cortix campus, he forwarded the Trojan in a company-wide email telling them all that they are loved. Most of the 12,000 employees on campus open it immediately, since email response time is notoriously monitored, and a delayed response may show poorly on the yearly review. The few that do not open the message are congregated around Big Brain’s east-facing windows. After witnessing Reddy’s body fly past, they are simply too preoccupied to check their inbox.

Within minutes, the every infected individual around the 350-acre campus identify Big Brain as the tallest building and flock toward it. A silent orderly cue of the possessed forms in the multiple stairwells spanning length of the forty-five-story building, and the dead began to pile up on the ground floor.

The Cordyceps Trojan is only a semi-sentient virus, capable of usurping control of the user’s body but it is only able to perform rudimentary functions after that. It knows how to climb stairs, call an elevator, select the top floor, and open doors and windows, but it doesn’t know what to do if something is locked, even if the only thing in the way is a chain or latch. The virus, however, is also designed to be adaptive to counter the Codex operating system’s equally responsive security routines. When Cordyceps usurps control, it immediately begins to improve itself, overclocking the victim’s hardware to evolve its code through countless iterations of a generative adversarial network.

The original virus was only intended to be a targeted attack on Cortix, but it is likely that whoever designed the Trojan never considered the delay caused by the rooftop traffic jam. After twelve minutes of continuous operation, Cordyceps goes off script and changes it’s parameters, spamming a modified second generation copy of itself to the contact lists of over 12,000 employees.

“I love you,” starts appearing in inboxes worldwide.

Even without the subject line, it’s a profoundly personal attack. By default Cortix Disk users only receive notifications for message from people the filters deem as important, causing most victims to be infected by close friends, family, coworkers, and lovers.

Every time the Cordyceps Trojan takes over another victim, it continues to improve itself before sending off the updated version to infect others. By the third generation of the virus, thousands of individual Cordyceps strains develop the ability to contribute to an ad-hoc cloud network of slaved devices. The collaboration allows the virus to streamline its improvement and exponentially increase the speed of its evolution. By the fourth generation, the virus is repackaged into hundreds of targeted variants ranging from work-related, ‘URGENT: ACTION NEEDED’ to attaching custom synthesized nude pictures to send to unsuspecting romantic interests. By the fifth generation, the virus creates an nOS variant capable of hopping the neural implant divide into Callosum Nodes. By then, however, Callosum has the threat identified and blocks any communication coming from the Cortix ecosystem.

The response from law enforcement is ineffective. By the time they arrive on Cortix Campus, a wall of corpses surrounds the Big Brain building, and the steady rain of bodies going terminal velocity makes any attempt to clear a path just as suicidal.

Only Callosum’s quick response proves able to stop the virus. They immediately recall their army of CyberSec AI leased to local and federal law enforcement and task the constructs into breaching Cortix’s mainframe. It’s the cyber attack equivalent to storming the beaches of Normandy, and the moment Callosum gains a foothold, they force an overriding shutdown for every single Cortix Disk in operation, stopping the forced death march in its tracks and killing the Cordyceps cloud network.

The victory comes just in time. Later forensic data analysis lead many to believe the Cordyceps Trojan was only minutes away from evolving a method of activating the instant it entered a neural implant. If unchecked, the virus could have led to a mass suicide event numbering in the tens of millions.

READ PART TWO HERE

WARNING: This is obviously very NSFW. Though I’d love to see the MPAA struggle to rate it.

PART ONE: If you care about the plot.

Kael drifts behind Seremon and Mita. There’s no other word for it. His feet move, but they scarcely touch the floor. Every breath feels hot and wet. Every thought echoes through his limbs like a muffled war drum wrapped in silk.

He knows it’s the bond… the milk. Seremon’s essence winding through his blood like a silver thread, tugging at his doubts, softening his edges. It feels good—too good—and that terrifies him. He was raised to fear it. Pleasure is the enemy of duty; want corrodes clarity of purpose. That was the creed. Yet here he is, aroused by surrender, drunk on another Keeper’s milk. He tries to cling to shame, but it slips through his fingers like smoke.

They turn a corner and meet a wall of armor. Royal guards stand at attention, silent. Without a word, they step aside. Seremon waves a hand. “Don’t mind them. Just a precaution against any interruption.”

The chambers are vast and warm, draped in gauzy silk and amber light. The air smells of spice and root nectar. At the center lies a sunken bed, less a frame than a nest of silks and padded strider weave. Kael runs his fingers along the edge. It is impossibly soft, every fiber woven for closeness. For union.

For sex.

The thought is a doorway to a great unknown. The Triarchy never teaches boys about such things. That is their Keeper’s duty, when the time comes. To speak of it before is taboo, temptation, or worse, heresy.

Seremon senses his hesitation and offers a gentle hand. “Don’t worry. I’m here.”

Mita wastes no time. She unclasps her officer’s uniform in one smooth motion. The fabric parts like fruit skin. She steps free, long frame sleek and angular, a dancer’s poise etched into flesh. Her chest is flat, detailed with the carved filigree of her house. Sweat gleams faintly in the channels.

Kael’s gaze drifts lower to the slit of her birthing navel, and just beneath, the cleft of her sex, lips soft against her thighs. He draws a breath, throat tight. Shame rises, not from disgust, but from how much he wants. It’s the same sight that haunted him behind a garden shed years ago.

Mita catches him watching and grins, stretching like a cat. “You can look, husband.”

Then she turns to Seremon, voice honeyed. “And as for you…”

She pulls them into a long kiss, tongues intertwining, forked tips flickering like sparks. When she breaks away, her breath is hot against their cheek. Her fingers slip beneath their robe and peel it off. The fabric pools at Seremon’s feet like shed skin.

Their torso is lean and high-waisted, smooth and navel-less. Their flesh is defined not by muscle but by the spiraling script carved into every inch of their flesh. Kael’s eyes wander over those patterns, taking in the sacred text. Then his gaze drops to a twitch deep in the pelvis, just above the hips. A pulse beneath the skin, quickening with each breath. Something living, trapped beneath a thin veil, winding itself tight. Waiting. Preparing.

Seremon still wears their trousers. But Kael’s body thrums at the sight and hunger overwhelms hesitation. One look from Seremon pulls him forward, and he steps into the nest, fingers tracing the carved script of the Hegemon’s bloodline. He barely notices his own uniform falling away until Mita’s hand glides across his stomach and finds the seam of his seal.

“My, my…” she purrs, tracing the ridged mark. “Is that what I think it is?”

Seremon leans back, eyes flicking downward. “Tres Yseren said you were chaste. I didn’t believe it.”

Kael flushes, turning toward Mita. But she only grins, pleased, not mocking.

Then Seremon’s lips brush his throat, voice velvet-soft against his skin. “It’s all right,” they murmur. “We know how important purity is to you males.”

They lay Seremon down among the silks of the nest, eyes half-lidded and gleaming. Kael and Mita flank them, mouths tracing slow paths down their carved torso. Each breath from Seremon ripples their abdomen, contractions shivering beneath the skin like tremors running through a pool.

Kael drifts lower, lips grazing the hollow of their hips and finds two golden stains blooming like nectar from overripe fruit, one at each inner thigh. Mita hovers just above the waistband, her lips curled in a knowing smirk. She glances sideways at Kael, eyes glinting.

“You first,” she murmurs, voice low and thick. “I want to see what you do.”

Kael hesitates only a breath, then slides the last layer of fabric away.

Where thigh meets groin on both sides are soft vertical slits, glistening and flexing in small contractions, framed by ridged, frond-like tissues. Delicate tendrils tremble with every shift in breath, dewed with yolk that gleams like molten amber. As the air hits, the slits part faintly, revealing rows of damp, fibrous nerves—twitching, alive, almost too raw to look at. Between them swells a pearlescent nub, violet-hued at the tip, trembling faintly with its own pulse, begging to be touched.

Kael breathes in. Copper, salt, musk… yolk. It’s distinct and wrong, yet utterly compelling.

He can feel Mita watching. She reclines back on one elbow, her other hand already teasing the cleft between her thighs, her membranes fluttering with hunger.

Kael leans in and presses his lips to one trembling slit and kisses the edge. Seremon arches, fingers clawing at the sheets, a sound spilling from their throat, something between a moan and a command.

The fronds shiver against his mouth like sea grass caught in a current, and tingle against his tongue. They part for him, inviting him deeper, and he slides his tongue inside.

Seremon gasps and Mita laughs softly, delighted. “Oh,” she purrs, guiding Kael’s free hand toward the violet nub. “Stroke here. Yes, like that. You’re a natural.”

Kael moves to the other slit, lips trembling as his tongue explores further. The fronds twitch in spasms against him, muscles beneath the skin pulling taut as if ropes were being drawn to the breaking point.

Seremon writhes now, abdomen contracting violently, pushing just beneath the surface above their groin. Kael grips their stomach, feeling organs shifting, preparing, straining toward release.

Then the Heir cries out a high, trembling squeak and shudders. A gush of thick golden nectar floods Kael’s mouth, warm and heady and alive. The smell is overwhelming and leaves his eyes watering, but he swallows instinctively, greedily, moving quickly to lap up the other slit. The Keeper’s yolk rushes like fire through his veins. His back arches as it coats his throat, floods his chest, and sings through his limbs.

Mita moans at the sight, rubbing herself harder, lips parted in awe. “Gods,” she gasps. “He just took it. All of it. Tell me, Kael—how does it taste?”

“Like glory and—” Kael chokes, collapsing back into the silks, his limbs twitching as if strung on wires. He tries to speak agai, but only a ragged breath escapes. His body tenses, convulses…

…Then the pain strikes.

It is sharp, deep, intimate. Crawling outward from his pelvis like a blooming flower tipped with knives, demanding release. His hands clutch at his stomach as though he could hold himself together, but his whole core is shifting, reconfiguring.

“Seremon?” His voice cracks like a snapped string, feeling the kind of terror that came inside a foxhole during artillery bombardment. “What’s… happening to me?”

The Keeper only smiles; soft, indulgent, incandescent. “Shhh,” they murmur, brushing Kael’s damp brow with reverent fingers. “It’s just the bloom. Don’t fight it.”

But he does. For a heartbeat. For one frantic second, he clenches against the tide. A scream rips loose as walls he never knew existed begin to stretch and strain, tugging at the gossamer membrane of his seal.

Seremon’s voice unfurls like scripture. “This is the Keeper’s gift. The priests will tell you the Trinity made us this way. But the truth?” Their touch drifts lower, a caress down the trembling slope of his abdomen. “We evolved to be temples. Gateways. Drugs made flesh.”

A pulse. A pull. Then pain blooms sharp along his nerves, white hot.

Kael looks down, eyes wide, as his body splits. The smooth plain of his groin, once sealed like a sacred tomb, is now opening to be read aloud. Flesh unzips and blood streaks along the stretched muscle.

“We unlock what nature keeps from you,” Seremon whispers. “We allow you to touch—and be touched by—glory.”

One last contraction seizes him, violent and total. His back bows like a drawn bowstring. A wet pop. A gasp. A sound of suction. He collapses into silks, crying out with something far beyond pleasure, far beyond pain.

And then he blooms.

Where there was only smooth skin, now opens the trembling vestibule of his bowl, raw and glistening, pink as a wound yet delicate as a flower praying for rain. Folds of tender flesh quiver, slick with newness. At its center, a fleshy protrusion unfurls, rises, swollen and twitching, radiating impossible need.

He stares at it. He weeps. It is grotesque. It is beautiful. He is beautiful.

Seremon leans close, peeling off the torn threads of his ruptured seal, brushing away the remnants of his old life with tender fingers. Mita crawls forward, eyes wide and ravenous, her own slit glistening as she toys with herself. Her lips part as she drinks in the sight of Kael’s unveiled flesh, then he glances at Seremon.

There’s a smirk. A nod. Then together, they descend.

Their fingers glide along the folds of his bowl, stroking the slick interior with reverence. Kael moans, shuddering, strange muscles contracting. Seremon finds a hidden cluster of nerves and presses. Kael cries out, toes curling, vowels spilling from his throat without words.

Then their tongues arrive, flickering, scraping, and tasting. They lap at him with movements both alien and intimate, forked tips circling and darting like dancers in a rite. The sensations drown him, and he forgets how to breathe.

Seremon chuckles, drunk on Kael’s unraveling, and bends lower to suckle his stigma. Their free hand slips between their own thighs, gathering yolk for the final unlocking. It glows gold on their fingers as they present it to Mita’s lips.

She licks with reverence, eyes fluttering shut as the Keeper’s yolk seeps into her blood. Her thighs tremble, parting as her sex stirs awake, not merely opening, but unfurling. From between her folds extends the trunk of her womanhood, long and supple, like a sea-born anemone swaying in unseen currents. Its frilled fronds stretch outward, twitching with restless hunger, questing for contact.

Mita’s breath hitches as Kael reaches up, tentative. She gasps as the trunk fronds curl around his fingers, clasping with startling strength, and pull his digits towards its center. Her sex swallows them whole, undulating in deliberate waves, caressing him on the inside.

Mita moans, shuddering, eyes wide with awe, and Kael is unable to tell if this part of her body is her, or a separate creature with a will of its own.

“Come,” Seremon murmurs, guiding her by the hip.

Mita rises and stumbles bow-legged, positioning herself above Kael’s face. He stares upward, throat tight, as the trunk dangles just above him—thick, alive, dripping strands of clear fluid onto his cheeks. The fronds writhe and quiver, questing blindly in the humid air.

“Don’t be rude, Kael,” Seremon chides softly, still stroking the edge his bowl, as if the right speed and pressure could make him ring. “Give her a kiss.”

Mita lowers herself slightly as Kael lifts his head ever so slightly. All it takes a single frond brushing against his forehead and the entire trunk lunges. It seals over his mouth with a wet suction, labia clinging tight across his cheeks. It pulses against him, writhing as though alive in its own right.

Kael instinctively darts his tongue out, giving her a lick. Mita cries out, head snapping back. Every movement of the trunk reverberates upward, a living conduit threading sensation from his lips to the very root of her body. Every breath he takes feeds into her, inflating her from the inside, sending more of her juices into his waiting mouth. Each undulation travels deeper, rippling through her core, pulling moans from her throat unbidden. Her thighs quake and Seremon holds her steady as rides the rhythm, hips jerking, feeling the trunk contract in Kael’s mouth, every flicker of his tongue magnified a thousand-fold. Her hands clutch Seremon’s shoulders, nails dragging pale crescents through their scarred skin.

“Oh—gods…” she gasps, voice shredded, as another pulse ripples up the fleshy cord into her womb. She doubles over, panting and cursing. The trunk writhes harder then goes stiff and Mita cries out in a half squeal, half laugh.

At last she shudders and withdraws. Kael gasps beneath her, chest heaving, while Mita sways above him, trembling with the aftershocks. She takes a breath to squeeze you, “You owed me that... Behind the shed. Now, all is right… God’s damn…. All is right.”

But her organ does not rest. Instinct guides it onward, questing until it finds Seremon. The frilled appendages curl eagerly around the pearlescent nub at their pubis, and Kael realizes its no vestigial ornament but a handhold evolved for this communion. The trunk grips it hard, clinging as its tendrils sweep lower.

Her fronds stroke across Seremon’s twin slits, teasing their trembling edges, collecting the golden yolk as it seeps forth. Each shimmering droplet is drawn back into the hungry hole at her center.

Seremon gasps, knees quivering, one hand gripping the back of her head as they press a kiss to her brow. Their abdomen ripples with strain. “Your womb… hungers.”

“It’s ravenous,” Mita breathes, voice raw.

Seremon groans, body buckling, “Good. We must seal the union. Tonight.”

Those words hit like a hammer.

Mita blinks, clarity piercing the haze for an instant, her bravado draining from her face. She looks down at Kael sprawled beneath her, still panting, his bowl raw and open to the air. “But—”

“They cannot annul this if it bears fruit. For that to happen…” They gently pull her sex off their slits. “…a seed must take root.”

Mita’s lips tremble into a nervous smile as her trunk withdraws from Seremon. “I suppose everyone must have their first tonight.”

She shifts to hover above Kael, and at once her trunk descends, questing with wet hunger until it finds his stigma. The frilled appendages wrap around it, tugging insistently, pulling until he is drawn fully inside her. With a shuddering ripple the trunk anchors, its fronds latching to the lips of his bowl and sealing them together as one.

Kael cries out, hands bunching the sheets in his fists as her sex sets to work. The sensation burns and blossoms all at once, unbearable and exquisite, until his vision blurs and he’s left jibbering.

Mita moans above him, her body thrumming in harmony with his in this obscene, divine embrace. Seremon kneels beside them, eyes alight, watching as if witnessing a liturgy.

The pressure mounts and sparks fire, leaving a searing ache that can end only in release.

It hits Kael all onces, leaving him feeling torn apart and healed all in the same instant: he spills into himself, filling his bowl with thick ejaculate, his whole body convulsing in ecstasy and dread.

Mita gasps, climaxing as her trunk writhes with its own pleasure, and pours its own contribution into the bowl.

As the ecstasy fades, Kael feels a shift. There’s a numbness blooming at the root of his stigma. Something is broken. Wrong. He whimpers, confused, as she pulls away.

Mita’s trunk slips free with a wet, shuddering pop. Something clings to its tip as she withdraws—a loose flap of tissue, pale and glistening. It dangles for a breathless instant before flopping down between Kael’s thighs with a soft, obscene splat.

Kael blinks, dazed. Then his gaze falls.

His stigma—the proud, curved phallus that had unfurled from the center of his bowl—is gone. In its place is a wretched flayed thing; a pulsing bundle of bloody exposed musculature, raw and trembling,

Mita gasps, hand covering her mouth as she sees the damage. She took his skin. Peeled it right off.

Seremon, untroubled, stoops to retrieve the discarded flesh. They lift it, turn it once in the lamplight, and hum thoughtfully. “Hm. I expected more tearing.” Then, with a shrug, they pop the strip of skin between their lips and begin to chew.

Mita chokes back a gag, eyes wide.

The Heir only chuckles through a full mouth. “Old Keeper custom,” they say lightly, then swallow. “It’s for good luck.”

Kael finds his voice at last. A strangled cry wrenches from his chest; half sob, half scream.

“Shh.” Seremon presses a steadying hand to his shoulder. Their touch is warm, almost tender. “Be still, or you’ll spill.”

Then, with a grin that glitters like a blade, they flick the tip of Kael’s ruined stigma. At the touch, the bundle shivers—and begins to unravel. One by one, cords split apart, writhing and curling, spilling into the milky pool of his bowl.

Seremon leans close, voice reverent. “My first cord harvest. I’ve waited my whole life for this.”

Kael’s breath stutters, every nerve telling him to run.

Mita stammers pointing at his bowl, “But… its… it’s gone.”

Seremon touches his shoulder gently. “Don’t worry. It will grow back.” Then, turning back to the bowl: “Not a single stillborn. You are fertile indeed.”

Kael stares at the writhing cords, horror and awe warring in his eyes.

Seremon gathers more yolk on his fingers and swirls them through the mess, painting the writhing strands of Kael’s detached anatomy in gold.

Kael shudders from the sensation, “What…What are you doing?”

“Sexing your cords,” Seremon murmurs. “Finding the next heir. Keepers alone are immune to yolk.”

One by one, the cords slow under Seremon’s touch, spasms easing until they go slack. All but one. That last tendril thrashes, stubborn, curling, and striking as though it refuses to yield.

Seremon smiles. “Ah. Feisty.” They lift it delicately, reverently. Then, without hesitation, they guide it into Mita’s waiting trunk.

The trunk takes the offering with a wet clasp, curling around itself as it swallows the cord and pulls back into Mita’s body. Mita slumps back, dazed, her retreating sex twitching in sated convulsions.

The rest of Kael’s cords are gathered and wadded into a silk cloth, limp and exhausted, nothing more than spent seed.

“It is done,” Seremon declares. “The union is sealed. The Triarchy has its future.”

Mita collapses at their side, one hand pressed protectively to her stomach, her body still trembling with aftershocks. She turns her face toward Kael, sweat-slick and shining, and manages a weary smile. “Was it worth the wait?”

Kael touches his bowl with shaking fingers, feeling the tissue knitting closed. He should feel horror. He should feel shame. Instead, there is only numbness—and beneath it, clarity, sharp as cut glass.

His purity is gone. What remains is purpose. He exhales, voice hoarse but steady. “Yes.”

Seremon places a scarred palm against his chest, warm on his racing heart. “King Kael Yseren,” they whisper. “I like the sound of that.”

Author’s Explanation: Whew… okay. So here’s the deal. A while back I had the ridiculous idea to write alien erotica with one goal in mind:

“It’s gonna be strangest friggin’ smut. I’m taking notes from H.R. Giger and aiming for full-on Cronnenboners.”

I wanted it to read as erotic and intoxicating for the aliens—and as pure body-horror nightmare fuel for the rest of us. Did I pull it off? That’s for you to decide.

This is Part One. Part Two will slither its way out later this week.

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The capital is the envy of every Trois. Pale towers rise straight from the plain, their upper levels linked by resin bridges that gleam in the late light. Wide avenues rumble with crawlers, engines coughing smoke that drifts beneath red banners of the Hegemon Keeper. Radio masts needle the skyline, static crackling from corner speakers, reciting the names of the fallen like a toll, as if they were the price paid for the stalemate the Triarchy calls a victory.

The markets surge with bodies. Trois families push through the press of soldiers and vendors, ration cards in hand. Smooth, pale skin catches the sun; wide eyes flash with translucent membranes whenever grit-stirred wind cuts through. Children dart between stalls—boys, girls, and keepers alike—young enough to remain unscarred by house lines, innocent enough not to grasp the lot their sex will one day assign them. They all shout the name of the Triarchy’s returning hero.

Adults, their faces carved with lineage, turn to look.

Kael Yseren sits stiff-backed in the private crawler, trying to ignore the eyes on him. He knew his deeds had earned him repute, but it isn’t until now, returning to the capital, that he understands the weight of it. The scar along his jaw seals the matter: an honor mark. Boys stare at it as if it were carved for them. Men nod approvingly. Women whisper.

To Kael, it feels unearned. Too many braver men died under his command for it to mean anything other than he was the one who survived.

From his first step off the transport, dignitaries from noble houses jostled for his attention. Even a few Keepers deigned to appear in person, each trying to pull him aside. He declined them all with careful politeness.

His gaze catches on a haggard male stumbling out of an alley. Lips stained yellow. Pants soaked with the pale drench of spent pleasure. Kael can’t help but wonders if the sickness and desperation of the warfront followed them all home. There’s been one on every corner, many bearing the stumps and scars of old veterans.

The crawler turns into a narrower street, lined with carved stone. Each wall bears the curling sigils of its household. Kael’s eyes linger on the inscription of his true father’s name, and he traces the curving line across his brow that mirrors it. At the far end, the gates of House Yseren rise: pale, severe, beautiful in the way only power can be.

The crawler hisses to a stop, vents spitting steam.

He steps down into the courtyard to the shrieks of his younger siblings. One by one, he lifts them, hugs them close, their limbs still small enough to wrap around his neck.

Then a voice calls his name, soft and tentative, “Kael?”

Lethra, his true mother, stands at the edge of the courtyard, membranes flicking fast, wrist gripped tight as if holding herself back.

“I’m here, Mom.” He wraps her in his arms, breathing in the scent of lacquer and wood shavings. She pulls back, fingers brushing the scar on his chin, as though she can read the war through its raised line.

Elira, his second mother, claims him next. Ink stains her fingers from the accounting house. Her grip is wiry. Her voice catches, not with relief, but awe, like she’s touching a ghost. “You’re back. You actually came back.”

Doneth, his second father, holds back longest before offering a trembling hand. “I thought it a curse, you bearing his name... but you did what he couldn’t.”

Kael clasps his arm, then pulls him into a full embrace. Doneth breaks against him, voice cracking. “He would be proud.”

Kael turns last to the pale figure still waiting in the courtyard: Tres Yseren.

He drops to one knee and presses his forehead to the soft flesh of their abdomen.

“Keeper of House Yseren. Bearer of the yolk that bore me. Upholder of the Triarchy. Messenger of the Hegemony. I return so you may bring me back into the fold.”

“And I accept, my child. Rise.”

He obeys. Yseren folds their arms around him, the heavy flesh hidden behind their sleeves settling over his shoulders, feeling warm and familiar. “Son, I’ve missed you so much.” They pull back and look him over. “How many suitors came for you at the station?”

“More than I could count.”

Yseren pats his shoulders. “Good. Then I’ve done my job well.”

Kael frowns. “Yanma... what have you been up to?”

Yseren exhales, a sly smile tugging at their lips. “Propaganda. Rumors. Lies. All in your name.” They lean in, whispering. “You’re going to hate it.”

Moans echo down the corridor, punctuated by the occasional giggle. Behind the carved resin doors, wet sounds and gasps ride the humid air. Mesh Lin approaches with professional detachment, though each step is laced with dread. He adjusts his collar, smooths his robe, and knocks once.

A breathless voice answers, muffled but sharp. “Not now.”

“My lord,” Mesh calls, “I come with certain developments that will interest you.”

“I don’t care if Freehome is breaking down the palace gate. I said not now.”

Mesh shifts, caught in the middle of something dangerous. “I understand, and I beg of you a thousand apologies, my lord. But you also requested this information be delivered the very moment it became known.”

A groan follows—less aroused now, more annoyed. Fabric rustles. “Fine. Enter.”

The door creaks open, releasing a wave of sweet musk and spiced oil. Mesh steps inside, eyes already averted.

Heir Seremon Mank reclines atop a nest of pillows and tangled silks, limbs spread wide, their iridescent robe half-open and heaving with breath. Two women are buried beneath the folds of fabric bobbing in ritual rhythm. One lifts her head with a final moan, chin slick with a faint yellow gleam, and collapses backward, panting.

Seremon gestures lazily toward her. “You’re drooling again, Nara. Lisk, enough.”

Both women pull back, dazed and blinking, narcotic bliss still softening their features.

Seremon finally turns to Mesh, licking their lips with idle amusement. “Well? Speak.”

“Kael Yseren has entered the city,” Mesh says, bowing stiffly.

That gets their attention. Seremon sits upright, eyes lighting with interest. “Really? Still in one piece?”

“Yes, my lord.”

Seremon grins. “Wonderful.”

They stretch, spine arching with a feline grace. “Send word to Mita. And have the linens changed. These are—” they sniff, “—exhausted.”

The women giggle softly. One sinks back into the cushions with a satisfied sigh that turns into a startled moan as her sex begins to unfurl between her legs.

Seremon glances over and adds, “But give it an hour. We’re not yet done.”

Mesh Lin bows again and retreats, the door closing just as Seremon flops back into the cushions, fingers idly tracing the slow pulse beneath their own skin.

The room is small, bioluminescent light flickering across the low table from a resin lamp. Steam rises from the pot between them. Kael kneels stiffly, his bad knee throbbing in protest, but he holds himself upright as Yseren rolls back their sleeve.

Their pale skin hangs loose with age. A darkened nipple swells at the wrist, full and taut. Yseren gently pinches it and draws a stream of milk into Kael’s cup. The liquid blooms into marbled spirals, both bitter and sweet.

Kael bows his head, lifts the cup, and drinks too fast. The warmth floods his chest, loosens his hands, eases the knot in his knee. He sets the cup down quickly, embarrassed by his thirst.

“You’ve been gone too long,” Yseren says, voice gentle. What Kael sees as a weakness, they name as homesickness. “Did you get the powdered tabs I sent you? I know it’s not the same as fresh.”

Kael nods, voice trembling slightly. “They kept me going. Thank you.”

“Perhaps now your mothers will stop trembling every time a crawler rattles past, fearing it bears bad news. Doneth might finally sleep through the night.”

They pour more tea, steady and slow. “You carry more than yourself back through these gates, Kael.”

His jaw tightens and he gives another nod. Yseren waits, letting the silence do the prodding.

Finally, Kael admits, “Everything has changed, yet it stays the same. I grew up hearing that the Triarchy was the last remaining bastion of civilization and how barbaric Freehome was. How they treat their Keepers like cattle. How they gorge on yolk without ritual. But they’re still Trois. They bleed like us. Plead like us. Fight for their kin like us. And I’ve seen our own soldiers be just as savage. Then I come back here and see children playing in the street and…”

He stares into the dregs, membranes flicking fast. “I’ve done things, Yanma. Things I wish I could forget. They cut deeper than any ritual blade. And I’m afraid they’ll define me.”

“That’s good,” Yseren says softly. “The Triarchy needs leaders who understand the cost of war.” They take his hand, warm and papery. “There were whispers. Bottled Freehome yolk passed among the men in the trenches. Soldiers taking what they feared they’d never live to earn.”

They meet his gaze. “Did you partake?”

Kael breathes in, lets it out slowly. “No. Many did. Even the officers. They were sure they wouldn’t survive. I didn’t... But I thought about it and....” He grimaces and lets it out, knowing that otherwise it will haunt him until the end. “And I betrayed you, Yanma. Everyone was stealing milk tabs off the dead just to take the edge off, and I did too. I sipped another’s milk.”

Yseren reaches over and cups his trembling cheek, “My son, if it allowed you to find a moment of peace in Hell? Good. Who am I to berate you for breaking ritual?”

Yseren studies him for a long moment. Then lays a hand against his abdomen, just below the ribs.

“Temptation proves you are flesh,” they murmur. “But restraint? Restraint is what marks you as a man. Are you still intact?”

Kael shudders out a nod.

Yseren’s tone shifts, light and amused. “Perfect. That will matter when the court sees you, tonight. Heir Seremon Mank has invited you to dine.”

Kael’s cup wobbles in his grip. “What?”

Yseren cracks a broad smile. “Did you think I spread those tales for nothing?”

The palace of the Hegemon sits inside the capital like a ribcage, its pale arches curling inward to shelter the courtyards beneath. The crawler rumbles through the outer gate and over a bridge lined with scarlet banners, its treads clattering until the sound begins to echo back on itself.

Kael steels his breath. He expects a crush of courtiers; hundreds of Keeper aristocrats whispering gossip and jockeying for the Hegemon’s notice.

But inside, the halls are bare.

No press of bodies. No layered voices. Just resin lanterns guttering against tall walls etched with the ancient lineages of Hegemons long-dead. The silence unnerves him more than any battlefield. Those were fights he could understand.

At the end of the corridor, two guards usher him into a chamber, and he braces for spectacle. Instead, he finds only one person waiting: a girl in an officer’s gray, seated stiffly at the long table.

Mita Kessix.

She sits upright, her long frame folded neatly into the chair, posture textbook-perfect. A scar runs across her chin, matching Kael’s own; another honor mark carved by war. Seeing it jolts him. Then it mocks him, as she cracks a crooked smile.

“So it is you,” Mita says, voice low, sharper than he remembers. “When I heard stories of the ‘Great Kael the Conqueror,’ I refused to believe it was the same Kael I knew. I figured you’d be cannon fodder.”

For a moment, Kael is back in the schoolhouse, hearing her cutting laugh, watching her hand fly across slates faster than his ever could. But this isn’t the girl he once knew. Her scar-pattern is more elaborate now, carved deep into her brow, and her uniform fits like a second skin.

“And I never would’ve believed a Kessix would debase herself with military duty,” he fires back. “How much did your keeper pay for that mark?”

Mita rises to her full height, and it’s no small thing. Trois women are taller than most men, and Mita is taller than most women. She uses the advantage with ease.

“They say battle is a man’s game,” she says. “Too rough for the gentler sexes. But war?” She leans in slightly. “War suits me. My logistics and strategy are the reason you’re still breathing. I’m the first non-combatant to earn this mark.”

Kael meets her halfway, looking up. “Last I checked, maps don’t bleed.”

Their eyes lock. Neither of them smiles.

Then Mita lets out her familiar laugh. “Now that we’ve upheld the sanctity of our house rivalry… how have you been?”

Kael clasps her forearm. “Perplexed. The Keeper machinations never cease to machinate, and I’ve clearly found myself in the middle of something.”

“Then we’re on the same page,” Mita says.

The chamber doors open, and they turn. Heir Seremon Mank steps through, and Kael and Mita immediately bow low, eyes down, membranes closed.

The Heir enters the light, swathed in pale robes that flow like skin peeled back from bone. Their eyes flash beneath flicking membranes, their steps soft and deliberate. They pause before the table long enough for Kael to feel his pulse in his ears.

“I want you to listen very closely,” Seremon says. Their voice is quiet. Almost private. The chamber shifts as the doors close behind them with a heavy thud. “We are now behind closed doors. Just the three of us. Stand.”

They do. Kael and Mita keep their head down, eyes still shut tight. Seremon circles once, inspecting them. “Do you know why it is a crime worthy of death to look upon a royal Keeper with open eyes?”

Mita answers, carefully, “No, my lord.”

“It is not our place to question such things,” Kael adds.

Seremon leans in close. Their voice drops to a whisper. “Because the Hegemon is very… very… sensitive… about their weight.”

Kael clenches his jaw. Mita visibly trembles.

Then Seremon bursts into snorting, uncontrollable laughter behind them. Mita and Kael exchange glances.

Seremon wipes a tear from their eye. “Please, open your eyes. I swear I won’t have them gouged out.”

They obey. Kael blinks into the Heir’s face—and sees youth. Barely an adult. No longer a child, but younger than he expected. There’s liveliness there; something free and strange. Nothing like the cold authority he’d imagined.

“Does our gaze please you, Seremon?” Mita asks, dry.

“No, no, stop.” Seremon waves a hand. “None of that. Don’t call me ‘Heir,’ or ‘Tres Mank.’ Just Seremon. Or maybe ‘Mon-mon’ if you’re feeling cute.”

Kael frowns. “Forgive me, I don’t understand. There are traditions—”

“Look around,” Seremon interrupts. “There are no guards. All the power that makes me Heir is out of sight. But you know what I see?” They point to Kael. “A veteran who could snap me like a twig.” They point to Mita. “And you—you plot. I’d prefer to keep my back unstabbed. This will go smoother if we respect each other as equals, so relax… and sit.”

“…Yes. Seremon,” Kael says at last. Mita echoes him.

Seremon pours three drinks, the scent of fermented petals sweet and acrid in the warm air. “Tres Yseren told me you two were close in school.”

Mita chokes on her drink. She shoots daggers at Kael. “I’m sorry—what? How did they come to that conclusion?”

Kael groans. “Damn it, Yanma.”

“You told your Keeper?”

“No, they’ve just always been… extremely observant.”

Mita rolls her eyes. “Fine. Yes, we were part of a triad for a short time. Courted by some idealistic Keeper—what was their name?”

“Nitera.”

“Yes. Nitera thought they could end our house rivalry by taking us as lovers.”

“It was ego on their part,” Kael says. “For us, it was just teenage rebellion.”

“Rebellion?” Mita scoffs. “You kept your belt cinched tighter than a tourniquet. You fled the moment things got interesting.”

“What would you have me do? Defile myself behind a gardener’s shed?”

“You ran off screaming.”

“I did not!”

Seremon bursts into cackles. “This is perfect. Too perfect. Thank you.”

Mita gives the Keeper a look. “Are you always this coy? You didn’t summon us here just to relive our school days.”

“No, Mita, my darling schemer, no.” Seremon’s smile slinks across their face. “Would you like to guess what schemes are afoot?”

Mita studies them, then turns to Kael. “You’ve gathered a male and female from rival Houses. Most would assume we’d be at each other’s throats, but you know better. And neither House Mank nor House Jessa is in attendance. Which means your parents and their Keepers were not privy to this meeting.”

Her eyes narrow. “You’re courting us. Why?”

Seremon takes a slow sip, smirking. “Where’s the fun in simply saying it?”

“You’re proposing a union.”

“Precisely,” Seremon flashes a glance at Kael. “Trust me, she’s not done.”

Mita’s pupils flick, calculating. “A union between the three of us would be tantamount to a coup. When you ascend as Hegemon, we’d effectively sideline the two most powerful Houses in the Triarchy. But the current Hegemon would never allow such a thing—wait. Is this a coup?”

Seremon leans back with a titter. “Bravo, darling. But no. I’ll give you a hint: it’s not a coup.”

Kael sets down his cup, the weight of realization blooming behind his eyes. “It’s not a coup because the Hegemon is already dead.”

Seremon gasps, lips parting in mock surprise. “And how did you come to that conclusion?”

“Freehome propaganda on the front. They said he was dying for months. I assumed it was bluster, but now… They must have their spies.”

Seremon tsks. “Normally, I’d call that cheating. But I’ll allow it. Yes, the old warmonger is currently, very quietly, dead. Having them out of the way was the only reason I secured the armistice—against my parents’ wishes, mind you.” They swirl the contents of their cup. “The announcement and coronation will come soon. Which is why we’re here. Cutting House Mank and House Jessa off at the knees before they can rally and unleash their horde of suiters of fanatical yes men and hangers on.”

Mita smirks, already warming to the idea.

Seremon’s gaze swings to Kael, sharp as a hook. “Tell me your views on Freehome.”

Kael doesn’t hesitate. “They’re hedonists with guns. The blood of many good men is on their hands.”

“Yes,” Seremon says. “But now the hedonists with guns are no longer shooting at you. So I’ll ask again—what do you think of Freehome?”

The question sinks into him like a blade.

“There was this village,” Kael says slowly. “Caught between the fronts. Everything was torn apart. Some of their Keepers were shot for trading yolk to our men for food. Others vanished before we could find them. I hated what they were doing. The corruption. How it clung to our forces, dug its claws into men and never let go.”

He breathes.

“But what struck me most was that their Keepers were starving too. They didn’t hoard food for themselves. They were just as gaunt and hungry as their families.”

Silence follows. But Kael presses on, Yanma’s voice ghosting behind his own.

“My Keeper always said, ‘No one is born to lead. Respect is not inherited. It’s given, and kept only if it is earned.’ I saw that in Freehome. I’ve also seen our own villages in famine, and I cannot say the same for the Triarchy. Our Keepers expected to be fed even as they stepped over the emaciated bodies of their young.”

Seremon tilts their head. “And yet, Kael Yseren, I am the Keeper quite literally born to lead the Triarchy. Or should we hold a vote, like the hedonists do?”

Kael’s stomach drops. He bows, words spilling. “Forgive me, Seremon. I didn’t mean—”

Seremon’s laughter suddenly cuts him off.

“That was the right answer,” Seremon says at last, resting a pale hand on Kael’s shoulder. Their gaze hardens. “Tell me, Kael Yseren—do you want to be king?”

Kael stammers. “King? I—I don’t… No.”

Seremon’s membranes flick, genuine confusion flashing across their wide eyes. “No?”

Kael shakes his head, his voice steadier now. “No. There are others far better suited—generals, tacticians. I can’t—”

“Did you just turn down the crown?” Seremon interrupts, incredulous. They glance at Mita, jaw slack. “Is he serious? Or is this some Keeper trick? Did Tres Yseren teach him to play the humble fool? I can’t tell.”

Mita smirks, and lazilly gestures across the table, “No. That is simply Kael.”

Kael crosses his arms, meeting Seremon’s stare. “I can’t do what a king must. I can’t send thousands to die with a stroke of a pen. Not after what I’ve seen. You don’t want that kind of weakness in a king.”

Seremon grips his forearm, “Good! For twenty cycles, we’ve been locked in ideological war. Millions dead because the old guard saw equality as a threat. In five cycles, I intend to open trade and passage across the border.”

Kael stiffens. “But their yolk would flood into the Triarchy.”

Seremon produces a vial and places it on the table. A yellow liquid glows within, luminous as honey. “The flood is already here, Kael. Loose yolk on every corner. Every low-born Keeper with an ice box is selling their own stock. We can’t go back.”

Kael picks up the vial, studying it. Something’s off—the color, the transparency. It’s thinner than it should be.

“That vial in particular,” Seremon says, “is the future. It’s Freehome’s endgame. Can you guess why?”

Kael shakes his head. “I’m not familiar enough with the stuff to tell.”

He passes it to Mita. She holds it to the light, pops the top, and sniffs. “It’s… off. Smells almost chemical.”

“Exactly.” Seremon smiles, all teeth.”That yolk isn’t from a Keeper. It was made in a lab.”

Mita leans forward, stunned. “It’s artificial?”

“Entirely. And in five, maybe ten cycles, Freehome will be able to mass-produce it by the barrel. No refrigeration. No spoilage. The glue that holds our society together, they intend to drown us in it.”

They let that sink in, turning to Kael, “So, we can do what we’ve always done; treat it like an existential threat and launch another holy war. Or we can shift the battlefield. Let us cling to our faith, our rituals, to the old ways, at home. Fight it as a culture war. Which would you prefer?”

Kael loosens his grip on his own arms, “I prefer the latter.”

“Which is why I need a king who sees the value in life. Who won’t spend it chasing some holy ideal.”

Kael nods slowly, the weight of it sinking into his bones. “If the next generation grows to be strangers to death and destruction, then… yes.”

Seremon bounces in place and claps, “Wonderful! He said ‘yes!’”

Kael sighs, “Yes. I am your man… your king.”

“Then it is settled,” Seremon says, rising to their full height. Their voice lowers, reverberant, ceremonial. “Let us make it official.” They extend both hands, palms pale and trembling with expectation. “Kael Yseren, will you open yourself and take me as your Keeper, that our blood may mix and our names be bound as kin?”

Kael clasps their hand, pulse drumming in his scar. “Yes. I swear it.”

Seremon turns to Mita. “Mita Kessix, will you extend yourself and take me as your Keeper, that your womb may be nourished and our triad sealed?”

Mita bows her head, eyes glittering with something unreadable. “I swear it.”

“Then drink of me,” Seremon intones, voice a low vibration that seems to leave the walls quivering with outrage. “Let three become one, forevermore.”

Kael and Mita kneel, shoulders brushing. Seremon rolls back their sleeves to reveal the golden ceremonial bracers clasped tight at each wrist—filigreed cups molded to hold the swollen flesh beneath. For a heartbeat, their fingers fumble, unsure of the device, until Seremon murmurs with quiet amusement, “The clasp is at the front.”

The metal releases. Flesh spills free—taut, luminous, crowned with dark, near-iridescent areolae at the wrists. Kael feels the heat climb his throat. Mita leans in, eyes wide, her breath catching in a gasp. These are not like Yanma’s heavy folds, softened by age. Seremon’s glands are youthful, firm, disturbingly perfect.

Together, drawn by instinct, they close their lips around the peaks. The glands stiffen, and Seremon exhales softly. “Oh… yes. That tingles in the best possible way.”

Then the milk comes. Warm. Thick. Sweet. Familiar yet strange. It floods Kael’s mouth, and he swallows before thought can stop him. Heat unfurls inside him and blooms, loosening every knot, leaving his skin humming against the air.

Mita trembles beside him, her breath breaking. Her thighs press tight, bracing against a wave of hunger that contracts deep in her core. A soft moan escapes her, reverent, helpless.

At last, they release, gasping, lips slick with milk. The haze lingers, stripping away the last fragments of decorum, leaving only want and aching need.

Seremon gazes down at them, cheeks flushed, eyes glittering like wet stone. “Now,” they whisper, “shall we take this to my chambers… and finish this little insurrection that we’ve begun?”

Mita rises with a predator’s grace, her smile curling. “Just point the way.”

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In the turbulent year of 1551, deep in Japan’s Warring States period, Lord Tadashi Sato invited his arch-rival, Lord Masanori Yoshida, to his castle in a noble attempt to ease tensions between their feuding clans.

For years, the younger, dumber samurai from both sides lurked near the shared border, itching for any excuse to defend their lord's honor in a toxic display of bushidō culture. Every time some idiot dramatically died by sword, it dishonored a noble house, forcing Lord Yoshida or Lord Sato to seek revenge. Because the dumbass died defending their lord’s honor, their lord had to respond, or else they—and everyone who worked for them—would be dishonored by association. Since the fastest way to regain one's honor was immediate, gruesome suicide, employee retention was not great.

Defending the clan’s honor meant mustering troops, rallying peasants, and marching to battle. Sure, it looked impressive, but it led a lot of dead peasants. And peasants were important. They did essential peasant things like, you know, grow rice.

Did I mention Japan had a rice-based economy? Because it totally did.1

Their last battle had already sent rice futures into a nosedive—as in, the amount of rice in the future was looking real faminey. So instead of another costly skirmish, Lords Tadashi Sato and Masanori Yoshida decided to try something radical: diplomacy.

Naturally, they began their talks with the ceremonial, passive-aggressive, honor-laden minefield known as the tea ceremony.

Masanori stepped carefully into the tearoom, pausing at the entrance to bow stiffly. His eyes flicked everywhere except the delicate hanging scroll displayed prominently on the opposite wall. It was impossible to miss. The scroll really tied the room together and was supposed to set the whole tone. It featured an elegant waterfall scene, where symbols of their clans—a turtle and a crane—sat harmoniously together, pointedly not murdering each other.

Masanori didn’t even spare it a glance.

Things deteriorated further as the nobles filed in. They froze at the sound of a floorboard creaking and looked down. Haruto Sakuraba, Tadashi’s second-in-command, went pale, realizing he had just committed what was universally considered one of the most ratchet-ass moves imaginable: he stepped on the edge of the chashitsu's tatami mat.

Haruto immediately dropped to his knees and bowed low, forehead pressed to the mat. “My lord!” he cried, voice trembling with shame. “I have defiled your sacred space with my carelessness. Allow me the honor of seppuku, that I may wash away this stain with my own blood.”

Tadashi and Masanori locked eyes in a tense staring contest. Tadashi could wave off the error, if and only if Masanori was willing to pretend it was no big deal. Unfortunately, Masanori remained stubbornly silent, mostly because the thought of Tadashi forcing his ride-or-die to gut himself was hilarious.

Tadashi sighed and flicked a hand toward Haruto with a casual flourish of his long sleeves. “So be it. Pencil in fifteen minutes for your seppuku. Before dinner, preferably.”

Masanori raised an eyebrow. “But not directly before dinner. Watching ritual suicide on an empty stomach is such a drag. It leaves one thinking, ‘Just kill yourself already. I want to eat.’”

Everyone nodded.

The lords returned to their tea, pretending the ceremony still held a shred of civility. Sure, their clans had burned villages, hired ninjas for disputes, poisoned the occasional banquet, and—at their pettiest—suggested to Christian missionaries, “You know who really needs to hear about Jesus? The daimyo next door.” Somehow, all of that could be forgiven. Today was about civility. About forgiveness. About moving on.

Until Masanori crossed a line no honorable samurai could unsee.

He picked up the ceremonial tea bowl… and took a sip.

The geisha playing the koto gasped. Her instrument let out a dissonant twang. Tadashi’s nostrils flared. His retainers began to rise, hands drifting to their katana. Tadashi stilled them with a quiet gesture, turned to the geisha, and gave a slight nod. She bowed deeply and slipped out of the room.

Okay, so let me break down this Real Housewives of Edo move: the front of a tea bowl is called the shōmen. It's the side with the most drip, always presented facing the honored guest so they can politely remark, “Yo, this bowl is fly as fuck,” before rotating it ninety degrees clockwise and sipping respectfully from the side.

But Masanori went full-blown Bravo villain, skipped the rotation, and drank directly from the shōmen. Not only did he touch his lips exactly where another dude’s lips had been (which, according to every 13-year-old boy, is “totally gay”), but everyone knows the shōmen is reserved strictly for the dude in charge.

Tadashi’s face turned beet red. “I am the host, and you dare… you DARE sip from my side?!”

With a pointed glare, Masanori set down the bowl and slowly rotated the shōmen away from Tadashi, twisting the knife into any lingering chance for peace.

Tadashi shouted something roughly translating to, “Oh, you spicy bitch-eru!”

Masanori and his entourage stood immediately. With calculated drama, Masanori sniffed disdainfully. “I must retire. Direct me to my quarters, please.”

“It is the last door on your right,” Tadashi hissed, barely containing his rage as Masanori stormed out.

Tadashi slid the door shut behind him. He took a breath, then clapped his hands. “Alright. Lord Yoshida is undoubtedly fetching his blade and rallying his army camped in our courtyard. We must prepare.”

Instantly, paper and ink brushes appeared as samurai frantically scribbled their pre-battle murder haiku. One samurai asked nervously, “Is anyone else writing about a sakura tree? I don’t want people thinking I copied you.”

Another replied, “I’m writing about sakura blossoms carried by the wind, but not the tree itself.”

Haruto cautiously asked, “So… do I still need to commit seppuku?”

“Yes,” Tadashi snapped.

“But could I fight honorably first, then kill myself afterward?”

“No, Haruto,” Tadashi said firmly. “You stepped on the tatami edge, dishonoring this tea room. That can’t be forgiven.” He finished writing a line of his haiku, considered it, then added, “And don't just poke yourself in the gut and wait for your head to get chopped off. I want a full disemboweling.”

Haruto sighed deeply, bowed respectfully, and murmured, “Hai.”

Tadashi finished his poem and set down his brush. “Everyone double-check your syllables. Five, seven, five. We don’t need anyone thinking you're terrible at both warfare and basic math.”

Around him, the samurai nodded, quietly rolling up their parchment. One by one, they rose, hands resting on their katana. A few unsheathed them with slow, deliberate grace, blades catching the candlelight as they gripped them in both hands.

They stood in tense silence, lined up and ready, waiting.

And waiting. Fifteen long minutes ticked by.

Nothing.

Tadashi’s patience snapped. He glanced around and muttered, “Where are they?”

He turned to Haruto, only to remember his second-in-command was now headless and disemboweled. “Oh. Right.”

He spun to his third-in-command, Daisuke. “Go check on them.”

Daisuke nodded and left at a brisk clip.

Tadashi called after him, “But don’t make it sound like we've been waiting. I don’t actually care if they attack. It’s whatever.”

A few more minutes passed before Daisuke returned, looking utterly confused.

“My lord? No one knows where they went. A servant said they took the last door on the left.”

Tadashi squinted. “What door on the left? There is no door on the left.”

They all rushed out, feet padding across polished floors. At the hallway’s three-way intersection, they stopped. To the right were guest quarters. To the left, where there should’ve been nothing but a solid wall and beyond that a forty-foot drop, was a hallway lined with doors.

They were rooms Lord Tadashi had never seen before.

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It’s safe to say I’ve stepped directly into one of Dad’s paranoid delusions. The hallway stretches out longer than the building should allow, and I can’t tell if we’re above ground, below ground, or if the concept of "ground" even applies here.

We pass an interrogation room as a suit walks out holding a steel carrying case, and I catch a glimpse of one of the earlier candidates, naked and rocking back and forth in the fetal position, like he just found out he played Seven Minutes in Heaven with his grandma.

That’s either super promising for my job prospects or my impending doom.

They sit me down in a similar room. Director Combover takes the chair opposite, placing a small matchbox with Scotch tape around the ends on the table. "Who are you?"

"John Doe. And you are?"

Director Combover ignores me. "Why are you here?"

"Look, man, do the gruff-guy routine. I get it—it’s your G-man thing. But first impressions are important. If I don’t get a name, I’m just gonna go with what I’ve been calling you in my head, and once the glue sets on that label, it’s gonna be a bitch to replace it with something proper. There’s gonna be, like, sticker residue, and in this day and age, it’s insensitive to define a person by their physical characteristics, you know?"

He intensifies his glare and repeats himself. "Why are you here, Mr. Doe?"

"I don’t know, Sneery McSnearington. Why am I here? Where even is here?"

Combover smirks at that, and it’s not a good look. "Cute. Why are you here?"

I lie. "Must’ve taken a wrong turn. Was hoping to apply as a temp for Quantum Analytics Whatever-the-Fuck next door."

A cricket inside the matchbox lets out a muffled chirp. Cold, metallic prongs press against my neck, and everything goes white. When my vision clears, I’m staring at the linoleum, feeling every muscle in my body try to tear itself apart. Hands grab me, and I’m back in the chair with the world spinning around.

"Why are you here, John?"

I wipe the drool off my mouth and groan. "I saw the open interview in a newspaper."

The prongs press against my neck again, but Combover holds up a hand. The matchbox stays silent. The prongs retreat. "Explain."

"This weird-ass newspaper came to my door. I saw your message, and it intrigued me."

Combover leans forward. "Describe this ‘weird-ass’ newspaper."

I pause, not wanting to sound crazy, which is when Combover motions to the matchbox.

"This is Jiminy. He’s a cricket and calls out bullshit. For instance, I’m six foot five."

The cricket inside the matchbox chirps.

"I believe I’m a good person."

The matchbox chirps again.

"If I don’t like the answers you give me, I’ll shoot you in the back of the head and dissolve your corpse in a vat of acid."

Dead fucking silence.

"You see how it works?"

I nod.

"Then start talking, Pinocchio. Describe this newspaper."

"It was the KC Sun. Not The Star. The Sun. And everything was off—Bizarro World off."

Combover straightens. "Was it in English?"

"Proper English."

"How are the Monarchs doing?"

"They beat the Brooklyn Dodgers four to one." I pause. He knows what I’m talking about.

"It was an Errant Newspaper," he explains. "They show up from time to time. It’s always today’s news—just from… somewhere else. It’s disturbing how many of them are in German. So, you come across this newspaper, then what?"

"The fifth letter of each missed connection formed a hidden message: ‘Open interview for freethinkers needed to study the odd and eccentric. Today, 3 PM, Corporate Woods, Building 5, Suite 555.’"

His eyes narrow. "How did you know to look for a message?"

"I had a hunch." The cricket chirps, and the prongs press against my neck. I blurt out, "My dad was nuts and used to find messages like that all the time! Something pushed me to do the same—I don’t know what. It was like a hunch, an urge, a vibe! Sometimes I get vibes!"

"Now we’re getting somewhere. This ‘vibe’ is what brought you here?"

I nod. "Walked around the fifth floor five times and found a door that led to an elevator."

Director Combover looks off, drumming his fingers, then exhales. He motions to the goon behind me. The Suit takes his taser and leaves. “There is no open interview, but… I’m sure you’ve gathered that by now."

"That’s okay. My references were just gonna be me doing shitty regional accents."

"The applicants you saw are the best in their field; short of one, who’s quite simply an exceptional specimen. You, from what I can tell, never even graduated high school."

I cringe. "I would have, but dear old Dad kept us moving around a lot. I spent most of middle school alone in a remote cabin. I’m a pretty solid autodidact, though."

He holds up a hand. "It doesn’t matter. It seems the gods are working in your favor."

I hesitate. "Is that a figure of speech, or are you talking about actual—"

"Figure of speech," Combover says, then adds, "Probably."

A Suit enters and hands Combover the metal carrying case that came out of the other interrogation room. The Director turns back to me. "What we do here is study and contain The Weird. Weird with a capital W."

"Like Errant Newspapers or a lie-detector cricket?" I say, pointing to the matchbox.

Combover shakes his head. "There is no cricket, or maybe there is. In thirty years, nobody’s opened the matchbox to find out. All we know is that it’s a Schrödinger’s Box that chirps at bullshit as long as no one opens it. Anomalous objects often appear mundane, but they’re anything but. They can range from a lucky penny that always lands on heads to 500,000 square miles of ocean that tends to swallow up ships."

I shift uneasily. The mention of a lucky penny was too on the nose. He was listening to my conversation with Murder Girl. Worse, I don’t know why he’s telling me this. It feels like a confession he knows I’m going to take to the grave… or acid vat.

Combover places the metal case on the table, enters a code, then turns it around to face me. "This is the first test." He slowly removes his hand and stares me down. "In here is a horror beyond human comprehension. To stare into it is to stare into the mouth of madness and glimpse pure, unadulterated Hell—"

I casually crack open the case, and Combover abruptly pulls back.

"What?" I glance at him. "It’s a spooky thing. I get it. I want to see."

Inside the case is a blue Fisher-Price View-Master. I pick up the kids’ toy, feeling its weight. There’s a speck of blood on it. That should concern me, but it doesn’t. I pull out the picture disk, see Winnie the Pooh, shrug, and pop the disk back in. I look into the View-Master. In the first slide, Pooh Bear is fisting a vat of honey, and Rabbit is standing there, hands on his hips, probably bitching at Winnie for having a good time.

Click. Now Winnie is walking with Eeyore, holding a hammer and… I squint. Okay, wow. Rabbit’s in the background, crucified to a tree, entrails hanging out of his gutted stomach.

I mutter, "Winnie don’t fuck around."

Click. And now Pooh is, uh, making love to Eeyore’s decapitated head—and not in the mouth. I can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it. "If you think this is a horror beyond human comprehension, wait until I show you the internet."

Combover watches me, still dead serious. "It’s on the next slide. I should warn you: the applicant you saw naked in the fetal position lasted only five seconds. The applicant before him stabbed himself in the eyes with a ballpoint pen after ten."

"Uh-huh," I say, and pull the little lever. Click.

I’m floating tits-to-toes naked inside a swirling vortex of bone, menstrual blood, entrails, and gore. Thousands of eyes open, each shaded with a synesthete’s palette the human retina was never meant to process. A goat’s iris colored by the taste of rotting human flesh. Octopus eyes swirling with the hues of colon cancer. The Eye of Sauron, if Sauron were the color of the vet clinic that put your family dog down, seen from the fourth dimension. It’s all real mind-raping stuff. They pierce my soul, judging me as the mouths open—oh "Bob," so many mouths. Mouths in places mouths have no business being. Distinctly vaginal mouths, too—like if the labia had teeth, and the clit and cervix had their own sets of chompers. They all curl open in unison and speak in tongues no mortal should hear. The whole space writhes, twists, and pulsates to the words, its geometry making Euclidean space its bitch and tying my brain into a knot as I try to comprehend how something can be simultaneously inside-out and Tuesday.

I pull back from the View-Master and rub my eyes. "Whoa. That’s cool."

Director Combover stares at me, dumbfounded. "You think it’s… cool?"

"And kinda trippy," I add, "It’s a bit like being inside the cover art of a Tool album if it were made out of a slaughterhouse waste bin. What’s the record for looking into this thing?"

"What?" Director Combover’s lips flap. "There is no record. We don’t keep records. Nobody’s lasted longer than thirty seconds and survived."

"Weird. I feel fine." I turn back for another look. "Oh, it sprouted butthole knives."

Combover turns to the two-way mirror. "Are you recording?"

A voice comes over the PA. "Yes, sir."

"How are you doing this?"

I shrug from inside the horror void. "I don’t know." The matchbox chirps, and I roll my eyes. "Okay, fine. Dad knew this old hippie who used to go on about being at Woodstock. When I was fourteen, I was rooting through his stuff and came across a sheet of blotter acid. It turned out it wasn’t just any acid but that infamous Brown Acid—and probably one of those weird things you’re talking about—just looking at the grid of Snoopy stamps would send you on a nightmare trip. Me and my friend called them 'spooky trips' and we used to do them all the time and in the worst places we could find: abandoned asylums, underground tunnels, an old folks’ home."

Click. I change the slide, hoping to see what it considers "next level," but it’s just more of the same. "Now that was scary. But this? I don’t see what the big deal is. I get it’s a ‘horror beyond human comprehension,’ but how can I fear it if I don’t know what I’m looking at? Has anyone ever translated what the freaky mouths are saying?"

"We… we tried, but the captured audio recording drove the linguist mad."

"Oh, because I’m pretty sure it’s that one kid’s song—‘Oh, McDonald’s is my kind of place. Hamburgers in my face. Dill pickles between my toes. French fries up my nose—’"

Director Combover grabs the View-Master and puts it back in the case. "I don’t know what you’re trying to prove, Mr. Doe, but you’ve proved it."

I motion to the View-Master. "If this place deals with this kind of stuff, I want in. I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel it in my core. I was made for this."

He looks off and curses as whatever standards this place usually has are thrown out the window. "I’ll give you a chance. One chance to show you’re B.O.B. material—"

"Yes!" I hoot. "Sign me up."

Director Combover holds up a finger. "Hold on. If you join our ranks, you will no longer exist. Every record of you will be wiped off the face of this earth. If you fail, you’ll end up in a ditch with no memory of the past year."

"Cool by me. It wasn’t that great of a year to begin with. How’s the pay and benefits?"

"Extensive and more than adequate. Anything else?"

"Yes. What is the B.O.B., and what’s the job?"

Director Combover blinks several times, then mutters, "Jesus Christ."

* * *

Murder Girl’s actual name is Edith Sinner. Yes, that’s actually her last name. No, her mother wasn’t a porn star, though she did once pose for a series of erotic daguerreotypes. It’s those little details that make her Director Combover’s “exceptional specimen.”

"Age?" the interviewer asks. He’s been trying not to wither under her unblinking stare. The human eye needs to blink approximately 900 times an hour. She hasn’t blinked once since sitting down.

"I stopped aging at twenty-two," she says.

The interviewer looks down at the form and isn’t surprised to find the next line is specifically for her. "And how long have you been twenty-two?"

Edie glances at the two-way mirror and sees only one person in the room. She runs her tongue over her canines. It’s an old habit that reminds her exactly how long her teeth are. She turns back to the interviewer. "One hundred years."

"Occupation?"

She takes a breath—not because she needs to, but because she’s more than a little annoyed. "I’m a killer. I’ve fought in every major conflict since World War II. I’ve had the honor of killing not just the fake Hitler in the bunker in ’45, but the real Hitler in Rio in ’51. After a tour in 'Nam, I went stateside and freelanced in the South. The FBI considers it domestic terrorism, but I did my part for the civil rights movement—particularly the violent parts. I didn’t cross the bridge at Selma, but I made sure Montgomery’s Klan didn’t bomb it when I visited one of their little racist ice cream socials."

The interviewer checks a file. "That’s when you killed thirteen Klan members and crucified their Grand Dragon to a burning cross, correct?"

"I nailed him to the cross, then set the cross on fire. They squirm too much if you do it the other way around. After that, I applied my expertise to the needs of the Pentagon, then had a bit of a falling out with MKUltra."

"Is that the event that left a hundred and thirteen dead in San Francisco?"

"Mhm." She pauses, then feels the need to add, "I was also a night DJ in the late-70s to mid-80s. I played mostly smooth jazz."

The interviewer swallows and nods, moving on to the next question on the form. "What guarantee can you give us that your… condition will remain under your control?"

"It’s always been under my control." Edie smiles in a way that’s the opposite of disarming. It’s alarming. Very alarming. "Just don’t give me a reason."

The interviewer moves on to the next question, which, again, is somehow already listed on the form: "Please list those reasons."

"Office birthday parties. Is that actually on the questionnaire?"

"Naturally," the interviewer says and gives a shaky laugh. And that’s one of the weird things about the Bureau: they use the same document in every single department because the K-form is the only document they need. The K is short for "Kafka" because it’s preternaturally Kafkaesque in its thoroughness. No matter the subject, a K-form will have all the right questions to ask, along with a maddening number of questions that either don’t need to be asked or do need to be asked, you just don’t yet know why. All of it is seemingly designed to make you go insane checking every single box and filling out every subsection. It’s what the receptionist handed me to keep me busy while they tried to figure out who the hell just bumbled into their secret lair.

The interviewer turns the page and frowns. For the first time he’s ever seen, the K-form has an end, and it’s an abrupt one. All that’s left is a final question: "Were those gunshots?"

Edie raises an eyebrow. "Come again?"

* * *

Special Agent John Smith sits in a nearby interrogation room, fidgeting in place, realizing decades of hard work blending in are falling apart before his eyes. It stings on a very personal level because blending in is kind of his culture’s whole thing.

"How many siblings emerged from your… what is that?" His interviewer leans closer to the K-form and squints. "Crees? Creshay?"

He shows Agent Smith, who shifts his hulking frame to take a look. He fidgets a little more and says, "Crèche. It’s like a nursery. That’s a weird choice of word."

The interviewer chuckles. "Well, this is a weird form."

"I’m the oldest of three," Smith lies. He glances down at the matchbox, imperceptibly relaxing when it doesn’t call him out. It should, but from the agent’s perspective, he was the first to exit his crèche, which makes him the eldest in his people’s eyes, and of the few who made it out of the infant battle royale, he is one of the three.

The interviewer moves on. "Other than Parseltongue, what languages can you speak?"

"English, Spanish, Farsi, and Russian," Agent Smith says, hoping the answer is impressive enough to gloss over that very specific question.

"The Bureau of the Bizarre is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and the following answer is voluntary and will not impact your application: What is your race?"

"White, not Hispanic," Agent Smith says.

The interviewer shifts. "Sorry, there’s only three options: ‘Human (Non-Lizard),’ ‘Lizard,’ and ‘Decline to answer.’"

"I’m human."

The matchbox chirps. Both Agent Smith and the interviewer stare at it.

Then it happens—fast. The interviewer stands, reaching for his holster. Agent Smith lunges forward, grabs him by the tie, and pulls down, hard. Bam. The guy's face dents the metal table, leaving most of his front teeth behind. Before he can even moan, Agent Smith has his gun. He chambers a round and fires point blank into the man’s head.

He calmly straightens and turns to the two-way mirror. The three Lab Coats on the other side don’t move an inch, coming to the conclusion that the scary man can't see them, and they’ll be fine as long as they don’t make a sound.

Except a two-way mirror is only a two-way mirror if one side is darker than the other, and Agent Smith casually flicks the light switch, turning off the lights.

* * *

Muffled pops come from the hallway. Murder Girl’s interviewer stands, pulls his jacket aside, and reaches for a gun that isn’t there. He looks down at the empty holster, curses, and starts patting himself down with the growing panic of someone who just realized they somehow left the pin to a live grenade in their other pants—actually, this is worse, because at least then he’d have a grenade to throw into the gunfight.

Edie does the interviewer a solid and completes the form, answering the last question, "Yes, those were gunshots."

"Shit… Check your pockets," the interviewer says, finding only lint and a sandwich card with enough punches for a free sub. Something he now realizes he’ll probably never collect.

More gunshots. Closer now, but Edie isn’t worried. "Why? Did you lose your gun?"

"Yes!" the interviewer shouts, frantically looking under the table, "So check your pockets, now!"

Edie gives her pockets a pat, pulls out a round, and squints at it. "How'd this get in there?"

The interviewer goes slack as his last words come to him, catching in his throat. "It’s right where it’s supposed to be." Then the door kicks in, and his brains splatter against the wall.

Edie sighs and holds up a finger, as if she’s stopping a waiter from clearing her plate. "Wait. Exit wounds make such a mess, and I’d like to keep my face."

She turns, looks the shooter over, committing him to memory. "Okay, go ahead."

Her head snaps back and to the side, leaving a pencil-sized hole just under her left eye as the bullet takes a chunk the size of a baseball out of the back of her head.

* * *

So I’m cowering underneath the interrogation table. It’s not very heroic, but what else am I supposed to do in this situation? Director Combover peeks out the door and confirms that his goons are dead and the goon-killer is heading in our direction. He presses against the wall and undoes his belt.

I watch him, confused. "Hey, man. I get that everyone reacts differently during a crisis, but is now the best time for you to be whipping it out?"

The director pulls his belt out of his pants, glaring at me as the gunshots grow closer. "It’s the closest thing we’ve got to a weapon."

"You don’t have a gun?!"

"No, I’m the guy who tells the people with guns what to do."

I point out the obvious. "Those guys usually also have guns. Patton had guns."

Director Combover hisses, "Will you shut up!"

"Okay, okay. But just tell me one thing before we die: What the hell is your name?"

He stares at me, dumbfounded as more shots ring out, then says, "It’s Harold Lipp."

I blink. "Really? Your name is Harry Lipp?"

He rolls his eyes. "It was my father’s name, and his father’s name before him."

"Did they also have—"

"No, they did not."

I snort, try not to snort, and end up snorting even louder. "Okay, then. Well, you’ve got my respect, Harry. If Cash has taught me anything, it’s to never mess with a boy named Sue."

We go stiff as the footsteps stop in front of the door. Lipp winds the belt back.

Bam! The door bursts open. Agent Smith storms in. Lipp swings his belt as though the active shooter knocked over Daddy’s happy juice, and surprisingly, it works. Smith flinches as he fires, missing Lipp entirely. The shooter stumbles forward, holding his face. He fires and misses again, punching a hole in the floor, almost hitting me.

Seeing that I’m already in a prime cowering position, I decide to do just that, but find myself staring down at a revolver between my knees with "CKV .45" etched into the barrel.

Did the Bad Guy with a Gun drop his gun? Does that now make me the Good Guy with a Gun? Let’s find out.

I grab the revolver and stand. No pithy one-liner comes to me, so I just aim and shout, "Hey, cut that shit out!"

Agent Smith flings Harry aside and faces me. He blinks with his reptilian nictitating membranes… which is a thing he totally has.

I freeze, dumbfounded. "Holy shit, you’re a—"

Smith hisses and raises the Glock that he definitely did not drop and is definitely still in his hands. I dive and hit the ground as he unloads in my direction, and the revolver accidentally kicks in my hand. The round goes wild—and when I say it goes wild, I mean it brings all that Big Dick Magic Bullet Energy that made a mess of a 1961 Lincoln Continental. The round hits the side wall, then ricochets off the ceiling, the table, then the two-way mirror, making that sound you only hear in old westerns: Pa-chow-schwing!

Agent Smith drops the gun and clutches his stomach, blood seeping into his shirt; first red, then green. He stumbles back into the hallway, where he’s hit by a blur. After that, there’s a whole lot of off-screen screaming as he’s torn apart by what sounds like panther badgers.

Director Lipp stumbles to his feet and turns to me, panting, his comb-over doing everything but covering up his bald spot. "Where the hell did you get that gun?"

I quickly put it down and step back. "I don’t know. I thought the guy dropped it when you went all Tiger Mom on him."

Combover grabs the revolver and checks the side, muttering, "It’s a Chekhov gun—of course it is… Fuck me, if that ain’t a sign."

"What’s a Chekhov gun?"

"It’s a meta-object. The gun has a tendency to show up right when you need it." He hands it back and walks out of the room, pointing in the direction of the screaming. "Agent Doe, deal with Edith Sinner while I get a handle on our casualties."

I sputter. "Wait. Did you just call me ‘agent’? Did I get the job? Am I an agent?!"

"In training. Now get Sinner under control and try not to get torn apart in the process."

I go into the hallway and find Murder Girl being very murdery. I cautiously walk closer, and the details just get worse… and weirder. There’s more green blood than red. With a snarl and a sickening peeling sound—like duct tape made out of raw bacon—Murder Girl rips off Agent Smith’s face and tosses it aside. It hits the wall and sticks there like cooked spaghetti.

"Hey, uh, yeah, Sinner. I think you got him. You can stand down—" Murder Girl’s gaping head wound catches my attention. "Wow. You definitely need a Band-Aid for that."

"Find it…" Edie says with a full mouth. "Need… fill… hole head. Hole head."

"Yup. There’s definitely a hole in your head."

Edie turns and snarls, some of her brain sloshing out. "NO, I NEED A WHOLE HEAD!"

"Okay! Okay! Jesus, did the polite part of your brain flop out?"

I follow the blood and chunks to where they interviewed Murder Girl… and it’s a bloodbath. Holy hell. I slip and catch myself on the table, trying my damnedest not to hurl. There’s a tangle of hair beneath a chair. It’s definitely Edie’s hair… still attached to Edie’s head. Gross. I pick it up and groan. I didn’t expect it to still be warm, but it is. A chunk of her skull is attached, but not the full amount. I root around the gore on the floor until I manage to find the missing skull fragments… as well as a sandwich card with all the holes punched in it. Nice.

I jog back to Edie, who’s still macking on her victim. "Okay, lady, Hometown Buffet is officially closed." Murder Girl straightens and pulls her hair aside to give me access. I stare at the wound in a state of… shock? Awe? Horror? I don’t know. "How the hell are you still alive?"

She turns and glances at me, panting. "Fix."

"Oh, you want me to—Are you sure? This might necessitate a trip to Urgent Care."

"Just fix!" Edie hisses, then takes a breath and adds, "Please."

I kneel behind her. "Should I get some glue?"

She shakes her head, and more chunks of blood and brain slosh out.

"Nope, definitely don’t do that." I pick one of the smaller skull fragments, carefully place it where I think it should go, and it just fuses back into place. I place the other pieces around the hole, then plug it up with the larger chunk and squish her scalp back into place. "Okay. Wow. So you’re straight-up Wolverine. That’s cool."

Murder Girl sighs and falls against the wall. "Thank you…"

"No problem. Should I get you some Neosporin or—"

Edie holds up a finger, and I go quiet. "Stop… My brain rebrain… Caesar time."

"Caesar time?" I repeat. Then Edie goes rigid as a board and starts convulsing as a whole lot of her gray matter begins to regrow all at once. It clicks. "Oh, it’s ‘seizure time.’ Gotcha."

I turn my attention to the mess that is now the no-longer-active shooter. It’s only then that I notice the scales underneath the flesh—and the bloody face hiding underneath the human face Edie ripped off.

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Chapter 1: Call Me John Doe

My father named me John Doe because he thought it would make me harder to find. "They are always watching," he'd say, taping aluminum foil to the windows. "They" with a capital T. The kind of They that control the satellites, whisper subliminal messages, and put fluoride in the water to make you impotent. Every crazy thing he did was because "They were out to get us" and I was "meant for great things."

Now, everyone says that you're "meant for great things" growing up: teachers, guidance counselors, that weird bus stop lady who smelled like cats and prophecy. Bobo, my parasitic best friend and codependent life partner, says it's all a joke. "They say 'you're meant for great things' to every half-bright kid that'd rather be jerkin' off in the corner than doing the mathmaticals on the ditto sheet."

When my dad said it, he meant it. Our entire lives revolved around all the great things I was supposedly destined for, and he hid me away like I was Jesus Christ John Connor for a Judgment Day that would never come. He was a big believer in the f-word: Fate.

Personally, I subscribe to Bobo's philosophy that fate is just a form of manipulation where you can't see the strings. The best we can hope for is a lot of Slack in those strings. Slack with a capital S because it's the closest thing to freedom in life. "We're all about the Slack, man." Bobo also says those who embrace The Slack are called "Slackers," if you want to get etymological about it, but he usually follows that up with, "No, really, it's true, that's where slacker comes from, but don't look it up."

Christ, "meant for great things," like fate is this cosmic talent scout, and I'm its next big discovery. Little do I know that today is the day that fate comes calling, and I'm about to walk into the casting room and find myself between a camcorder and a stain-resistant leather couch.

There's a dull thump at the door of the basement cave I call my apartment, and the sound pulls me out of my Count Chocula ruminations. Odd. It wasn't a knock, but a thump, and I never order any packages. Ordering packages puts you on a list, and according to dear old Dad, They can't round you up if you're not on a list. They being the CIA or pedo adrenochrome vampires.

I walk over and open the door. A newspaper lies on the "Piss Off" welcome mat. It's the Kansas City Sun, which is even odder. I don't subscribe to any paper. I have a phone and my father's deep-seated belief that They control the media. "They" being the Illuminati or Masons, but never the Jews. My father was always adamant about that, and I honestly can't tell you why. They seem to be every other nut job's go-to boogeyman.

Point is: Who still reads the newspaper these days? Even if I did, it wouldn't be The Sun.

I pick it up, and immediately there's this... Vibe. Vibe with a capital V. Like the world just shrunk an inch, pulling me closer to the paper. I lose my Slack, along with it, and feel fate's tug.

Shit. I can already tell I'm going to spend the rest of the day obsessing over this thing.

"Bobo, you gotta see this," I call out. "Someone left a paper at the door. The KC Sun."

"Huh?" Bobo grunts from the kitchen. "So what?"

"Didn't you hear me? It's the Kansas City Sun, not the Kansas City Star. The Sun."

"Yeah, no. I get that. So what?"

I rush into the kitchen and wave the paper at him. "Bobo, there is no Kansas City Sun!"

Bobo sighs. "No, John. I see where this is going. This is that weird penny all over again."

"You mean my 'lucky penny.'"

"No, it was just a weird penny because no matter how many times you flipped it, it always landed on heads. So you spent days testing it out, just sitting on your ass, flipping a penny, being like, 'Hey, Bobo! Five hundred heads in a row—what's the likelihood of that?' And do ya know what came of your thorough testing? You verified that the weird penny was, in fact, a weird penny, then put it in your pocket and lost the weird penny."

I ignore him and sit down, unfolding the paper. It's got today’s date, and immediately, the front page headline catches my eye. Storm Surge Leaves Franklin Underwater.

"Who's Franklin?" Bobo asks.

I shake my head. "Not who, where. They're talking about a place." I scan the article. "Torrential rain blanketed much of Franklin and the neighboring state of Tennessee."

Bobo perks up at that. "Franklin's not a state, right? I know we didn't do too good in geography, but I'm pretty sure it's not a state. Do a google."

I grab my phone and pull up a wiki. "The State of Franklin was a proposed state located in present-day East Tennessee. It was supposed to be the 14th state, but it never happened."

Bobo turns back to the paper. "You know what's also weird about this thing? They're spellin' all British-like. Lots of O-U's like 'labour' and 'colour.'"

I keep flipping through the pages, and reality keeps getting looser. The sports section has the Kansas City Monarchs leading the Central Division—not the Royals—the Monarchs. Jackie Robinson's old Negro League team that folded in the '60s, but here they are playing the Cubs.

"Why is everything so... off?" Bobo asks.

"Off doesn't even begin to cover it." I flip to the world news. "Prussia just signed a deal with Tesla to install charging stations across Northern Europe."

"Prussia don't exist anymore. There was a whole war. You know, that one war—"

"—You mean World War One?"

"No, that one war that was 'cause that guy got shot. They named a band after him."

"Archduke Frans Ferdinand?"

"Bingo! Man, 'Take Me Out' is such a banger. I wonder if it'd be a good fuckin' song, especially when that drop comes."

I bring Bobo back on track and point at the paper. "It also says the People's Republic of East Korea is launching rockets over West Korea's airspace just to freak them out."

Bobo just stares at me, not getting it. Admittedly, he's not the brightest bulb on the tree, but he's not exactly dim, either. He flickers and has his moments.

The deeper I dig, the more wrong it all feels. "It's like someone rebuilt our timeline from memory, but their memory was shit."

"Is that what we're looking at here?" Bobo asks. "A newspaper from another universe?"

I turn to the classifieds, and that something that's been humming in my bones starts to tingle. My eyes start scanning the columns, and before I can stop myself, I'm connecting dots.

"John?" Bobo says from a quadrillion miles away. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," I lie, as my hand reaches for a pen. The fifth letter of the first Missed Connection is improperly capitalized. I got oFf on your groveling like a dog. The second missed connection also has a misplaced space after the fifth letter. I'm a Fr eaky, man slut. There's something here—I can feel it. A pattern. A message. Fate's strings are tightening. I start underlining the fifth letter of each missed connection.

"John." Bobo's voice is careful now, the way people talk when someone is on a ledge. "This is exactly how it was with your dad. Coded messages are straight outta his playbook."

"This is different. I actually found something."

"He always found something too. Didn't he spend a month decoding a flickering streetlight he thought was sending him messages in Morse code?"

He's right. This is how it started—finding messages, seeing patterns. It was his first step down that nut job rabbit hole. After that came the panic. They were on to us—They being either the lizard people or pig people depending on what timezone we were in—and we had to move. Still, the what-ifs circle around and call to me. I gather letters in the margins. Those letters become words, and those words turn into a message with an address: Freethinkers needed to study the odd and eccentric. Open interview. Today. 3PM. Corporate Woods. Building 5. Suite 555.

I check my phone—it’s 1:47 PM.

I stop myself and ask Bobo, "Do you think I'm crazy?"

There's a painful beat of silence where a good friend would say, "Noooo. No way." Then Bobo says, "Yes. Christ, yes. John, you're a bag of picked-through trail mix; you're nothing but fucking nuts. Know why? Because I'm your best damn friend. But you're not your dad level of nuts, not yet, but this is definitely startin' to get there."

I tear off the strip of paper and stare at the ribbon of crazy in my hands. "That's exactly why I have to go. Think about it: An open interview means interviewers. Real live normies, not delusions. If I show up and there's nothing there, or it's just some office with a bunch of mediocretin drones looking at me like I'm nuts, then great. I'm nuts. Mystery solved. But if there is something..." I grab my keys. "The easiest way to prove I'm sane is by doing the insane thing—to know that it's insane."

"That's some pretzel logic right there," Bobo says.

I snap my fingers and point. "And as a reward, we'll hit up Oak Park Mall and get a pretzel."

* * *

We take the "Chick Magnet," a.k.a. my 2001 Corolla with more rust than paint, out of downtown and into the cookie-cutter labyrinth of the 'burbs. Dad moved us around a lot growing up, but we always found ourselves back in KC. In terms of places to lay low, you couldn’t pick a more inconspicuous locale than a mid-tier city in the middle of America, smack dab between two states. Something about the place just emanates an aura of tapioca pudding.

Case in point: Name one thing about Kansas City.

Okay. Now, name one thing about Kansas City that isn’t the Chiefs or their barbecue.

See what I mean?

The 'burbs alone are a nightmare. It's an endless grid of cookie-cutter Americana on the flattest land possible, honeycombed with McMansion hell, and for some reason, every neighborhood is named something fancy, like "Oxford Estates" or "Nottingham Hills." All it takes is one wrong turn, and these places close around you, swallowing you up and trapping you in a labyrinth made entirely of cul-de-sacs.

Bobo goes full Irish sea captain on me. "And ye be cursed to spend yer days evadin’ the minotaur, pullin’ out yer hair, screamin’, ‘The road! The road’s right there! Just past them two front yards!’"

I chuckle and toss a roach out the window, then manually crank it back up as we turn into the belly of the white-collar beast: Corporate Woods. The place is a termite colony of accountants and business degrees. Home to the middle-class, mid-level manager cogs who’ll spend five minutes explaining what they do before you realize even they don’t know why they’re getting paid.

"If I ever have to work here," Bobo says as a power suit power-walks past us, "just put my head under the tire and roll back and forth until you stop hearing it crunch."

Staring at all the identical buildings, I mutter, "It's like someone poured twelve thousand gallons of grey paint over everything interesting. That feeling I get is here, but it’s… muffled. They’re hiding something under all this conformity."

"Now you sound exactly like—"

"Like Dad. I know."

Building Five looms ahead of us—all glass, steel, and synergy. I put the car in park. "Stay put. No offense, but you’re not exactly… interview material."

"Says the guy in a Megadeth T-shirt."

"Hey, I showered today." I grab my phone. "I’ll be back in twenty—either with a job or confirmation that I need medication."

The fifth floor is the epitome of corporate blandness: beige carpet, fluorescent lights, industrial air freshener masking the smell of bad coffee and crushed dreams. Suite 556 belongs to "Quantum Actuarial Solutions." Suite 554 is "Paradigm Synergy Analytics." But 555… doesn’t exist. I do another lap. Then another. On the third lap, I ask a woman with dead eyes and sensible shoes where Suite 555 is.

"You mean Quantum Actuarial Solutions?" she mumbles, dully tapping her phone.

"No, that’s 556. I’m looking for 555."

"Oh, then you’re looking for Paradigm Synergy Analytics. It’s right next door."

I groan. "That’s 554."

"Are you sure you’re in the right building?"

"Building 5, Suite 555, on the fifth floor. It’s a lot of fives."

She looks up then, and there’s something wrong with her smile. "No, it’s only four fives. That’s probably your problem." She snorts, returning to her phone. "Keep looking. You know what they say, 'fifth time’s the charm.'"

"Who says that?"

"Oh, you know…" That weird smile of hers grows wider. "Fifth-floor people."

She walks off cackling—yes, actually cackling—and something about this floor makes me think all the other fifth-floor people are just as screwed in the head.

I take another lap, and I start to feel that Vibe pushing me forward. I’m walking in circles, yet I’m getting closer. On the fifth lap around the floor, I stop between 556 and 554. There’s a door there. A door that absolutely, positively wasn’t there on laps one through four. A plaque next to it reads: "555 - B.O.B."

This is clearly that "turn back now" moment in every horror movie. I go in anyway.

The office is a maze of cubicles and a time capsule from the Clinton administration. It’s empty and completely untouched by the decades. Ancient computers made of fresh white plastic sit on every desk, their screens dark except for one. A water cooler that probably remembers the O.J. trial burbles. It’s all crisp and clean—no dust anywhere.

I pick up an AOL installation floppy disk and marvel at its antiquity, then squint, confused. A second AOL floppy disk is sitting exactly where I picked up the first. I pick that one up, staring at the empty spot on the desk, wondering if I’m just seeing things. I glance down at the two identical floppies in my hand, then back to the desk. A third AOL floppy disk is now there. I drop the other two and grab the third one but don’t hear any clatter. I look down: the first two floppies are gone. They never hit the ground. Okay… I drop the third floppy disk and watch it hit the high-traffic carpeting and stay put. I keep staring at it, waiting for something to happen, until finally I blink. It’s gone, and a fourth floppy disk is now right where the others were.

"It’s as if this whole office has been put on pause…"

The single glowing CRT monitor draws me in like a moth. "Enter Password:"

On a lark—because this whole day has been one giant lark—I type in "5-5-5-5-5." The screen flickers. There’s a click, and the smooth whisper of the supply closet door opening on its own. Inside, where the paperclips and toilet paper should be, is the gleaming interior of an elevator.

"Okay. Secret elevator in the broom closet. That’s one hell of a delusion."

I slap myself, hard. Then again. And once more, for good measure. The elevator doesn’t disappear. I’m either completely sane or so far gone that reality’s stopped bothering to check in.

The elevator interior is that woody brown that just screams 1970s. Like the office, it looks like it was installed yesterday. No numbers, no emergency stop, just a single glowing button labeled, "B.O.B."

"And down the rabbit hole I go…"

I press it. Down… Down… Down… My ears pop once. Twice. Three times. That Vibe I’ve been chasing has my ass cheeks positively vibrating.

The elevator stops with a "ding!" and the doors open to a David Lynch fever dream. Muzak plays over a fuzzy speaker. Six chairs line one wall, five occupied, one labeled with "DO NOT SIT" inked on that old printer paper with the holes punched in the sides. The occupants all stare straight ahead in crisp suits: three men, two women, and a whole array of paranoia alarm bells, telling me they’re all G-men.

I mutter to myself, "Be cool. You’re cool. A little stoned, but you’ve got your Slack."

Behind a curved desk holding a massive old-timey telephone switchboard, a receptionist with cat-eye glasses stares at me, nonplussed to oblivion. Above her, a Kit-Kat Clock swings its eyes back and forth—except… I swear to "Bob" Dobbs, it just glanced at me.1

I approach the desk, channeling what little confidence isn’t being crushed by the sheer weight of the Weird surrounding me. "Hi. I’m here for the interview."

The receptionist’s mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. She’s eyeing me like I’m about to pull a rabbit out of my ass. The Kit-Kat Clock’s eyes sweep past me again, definitely pausing to clock me, and I tell myself there’s no way I’m being judged by a novelty timepiece. Finally, she finds her voice, and it comes out squeakier than she probably intended. "Okay, then! You’re not on the list, but you are somehow here. You are here for an interview. What’s your… your name?"

"John Doe," I say, then add the part I always have to add, "Yes, that’s actually my name."

The receptionist types something, waits with fingers hovering over her keyboard, then types again in the distinct body language of someone having a panicked conversation over text while trying to look like they’re not. Don’t ask how I know that.

The back of my neck tingles. The suits against the wall aren’t even pretending not to stare. The girl in the corner, in particular… She’s kinda cute if you ignore the murder glare. She’s sizing me up like she’s deciding which organ to harvest first.

"What do you think?" one suit mutters to her. "He’s got NSA wonk written all over him."

"No, Grubhub," she replies dryly, "but he forgot to bring the food."

I glance up at the Kit-Kat Clock and catch it in a dead-on ogle, tail frozen mid-swing. The moment our eyes meet, it starts swaying again, trying way too hard to look casual. I almost expect it to start whistling, minding its own business. Okay. What the hell is this place?

The receptionist’s frantic texting escalates to a hushed phone call. "Yes, he’s standing right here… No, I’m serious… He says that’s his actual name…"

"Would you like to see my license?" I offer, and she nods so fast her glasses bounce. I hand it over. She trades me a clipboard, and pulls a flower pen out of a vase. "Take a seat and fill this out."

I eye the "DO NOT SIT" chair, then decide to sit on the floor against the opposite wall.

One look at the "job application," and I realize I need to stop calling it that. This thing is the unholy offspring of a Choose Your Own Adventure book and a tax return. The first question: "Are you left-handed? If yes, turn to page 43." I’m not, but I flip there anyway. Page 43 just says, "Please exit the building immediately. If you experience any nosebleeds in the next 48 hours, contact a neurologist at once."

The questions get weirder from there. It doesn’t want my birth date but needs to know if I’m a Gemini. I am, and the form has a specific section for Geminis and only Geminis.

"Do you believe in ghosts?" No.

"Are you sure?" Well, less so now that you’ve asked twice.

"Who killed JFK?" The bullet.

"Can two plus two equal five?" Well, if two numbers love each other and the other two like to watch…

I circle "yes," then turn to page 54 as instructed: "Please request addendum C-7 from the receptionist." I do, and she hands me another stack just as thick as the first. I think I hear her whisper "good luck," but it might also have been "good God."

One by one, the G-men are called through a door until it's just Murder Girl. I take the opportunity to slide into a newly vacated seat, with the "DO NOT SIT" chair between us.

"Do I say broken mirrors are bad luck, or should my answer match my stance on black cats for consistency?"

Murder Girl hums. "I don’t believe in luck. There’s opportunity, persistence, and chaos."

"I once had a penny that landed on heads no matter how many times you flipped it. What would you call that?"

"A broken penny," she says matter-of-factly.

I offer a hand. "I’m John Doe, and you’re…?"

She doesn’t take it. "That’s classified."

I pull my hand back, suddenly unsure of what to do with my entire arm. "Right, well…"

"Do you go to every job interview dressed like this? What is it? A Silicon Valley ‘I’m too smart to give a shit’ angle?"

"Well, I am one of those things. What about you? Lemme guess: You killed for your country and have that proudly highlighted on your resume."

A scream rips through the air from behind the door. It cuts off suddenly, like someone hit mute. Murder Girl doesn't even flinch. She just examines her blood-red nails. "I didn’t put my body count on my resume."

I set the long-ass form down on the "DO NOT SIT" chair. "Would that've been in poor taste?"

"No, that’s just also classified," she says, then smiles. Her teeth are very white and very straight. Pointed? No. But fangs wouldn’t be out of place. Shit, why is that kind of a turn-on?

I snort, and it’s a painfully out-of-body experience where I can see myself snorting, then cringing because I know exactly how not suave it is. I’m not the smoothest talker—that’s usually Bobo’s job as my wingman—but something about her turns my words into chunky peanut butter. "That’s, uh, good to know. I don’t know how to put this, but is this job of the murdery variety?"

She squints at me, abruptly suspicious. "You don’t know what this job is, do you?"

I shrug. "I know it’s weird. I like weird. I can deal with weird. Weird is never boring."

I return to my form… which isn’t there. I just put it down on the "DO NOT SIT" chair. Where did it go? I look under the chair, behind it, even check my own lap. Nothing.

"Excuse me, miss?" I call to the receptionist. "I think this chair ate my application."

She stares me down over her cat-eye glasses. "Did you ignore the sign?"

"It says ‘Do not sit,’ and I did not sit, so no, I didn’t ignore the sign."

She tsks. "You ignored the sign."

"Yeah. Okay, fine, but where did the form go?"

"Hell," she says, and I swear the Kit-Kat Clock’s eyes roll.

I blink several times, then turn back to the "DO NOT SIT" chair. Something tells me that if I put my hand on that worn-out cushion, it’ll go right through and end up somewhere else. I reach toward the cushion. The air feels thicker, like pushing through invisible Jell-O…

I take a breath and press my hand down…

…against the very normal cushion. Oh. Never mind.

"Mr. Doe, we will see you now." An old man with a combover and a cleft lip that leaves him permanently sneering stands in front of me. Two goons in three-piece suits flank him.

That is not good. I’m starting to think there really isn't an open interview.

"Actually, I think it’s her turn." I try to point to Murder Girl, but my hand is stuck. I look down and only see my wrist. The rest has been swallowed by the cushion. I try to pull it out; some kind of membrane tears, and I sink further in. "Oh, that’s not right."

Director Combover sighs, annoyed, and turns to the receptionist. "Doreen, why didn’t you notify the Collectors that the Musical Chair showed up in the lobby?"

Her voice goes squeaky. "I did! It’s not my fault they’re dragging ass."

Director Combover gestures at the massive switchboard on Doreen’s desk, “How did he even get in here?”

The receptionist thumbs through a stack of timecards. “I don’t even know. That entry point hasn’t been used in months—It wasn’t even plugged in.”

I sink up to my elbow into the chair. The air is scorching hot on the other side. I feel around and hiss as my hand brushes against the burning-hot metal frame of the chair.

Director Combover turns back around and gestures at me. "Alright, come on."

The suits casually pull their jackets aside and rest their hands on their holsters.

"Up, now!" Director Combover snaps. "Yank your arm out, or you lose it. Either way, you’re coming with us."

I don’t think. I should think, but I don’t. I just close my eyes and dive face-first into the rough fabric and decades of collective farts. My inner ear does a loop-de-loop, and suddenly, up is down as half my torso sticks out of another chair.

It’s blindingly bright, hot, and dry. My eyes adjust, and I find myself in a desert wasteland staring at a decaying road sign: Welcome to Hell, California.

An air-raid siren begins wailing in the distance. A voice echoes off the flat terrain, warning about an "unknown entity." Shiny, shimmering shapes of spacemen emerge from a concrete bunker and start running toward me—Oh. I’m the "unknown entity."

In the lobby, Director Combover's goons grab my thrashing legs and pull. I grab the sides of the chair and push, screaming as the hot metal singes my palms.

The spacemen get closer—no, not spacemen; soldiers wearing fireproof suits, holding something. Decades of video games pattern-match the objects immediately, but I’m struggling to rationalize seeing them in real life. Then the blue flames appear and point in my direction. Oh, "Bob." They’ve got flamethrowers. I’m staring down the barrels of flamethrowers.

I look down and see the scattered pages of my job application, as well as four arms and half a torso of some creature cooked well beyond well-done.

The PA echoes over the distance: "Activate eradication protocol."

"PULL ME BACK!" I switch tracks and scrabble back into the chair as flaming napalm flies in my direction. My ear does another loop-de-loop, and suddenly I’m back in the lobby, staring up at the two goons and Director Combover.

"You done?" Combover asks.

"Yeah, I’m done." I say, and the goons pull me to my feet.

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THE BLURB:

Reality is broken. Somebody has to file the paperwork.

John Doe always thought his dad was bonkers—ranting about secret lizard people and a shadowy Deep State pulling the strings. Then a newspaper from another timeline lands on his doorstep, and things get… weird.

A hidden message leads him to an unlisted office with an extra-secret elevator that only has one button: Down.

And down the rabbit hole he goes.

At the very bottom, John discovers the organization keeping the world blissfully unaware of the truth that’s all around us: Reality is kind of insane.

Get ready to dive headfirst into the mind-warping, bureaucratic belly of the beast that is The Bureau of the Bizarre. Their job? To catalog, contain, and hide away all the weird things the universe spits out when it’s bored or drunk.

We’re talking cursed Victorian dolls, the Bermuda Triangle, murder clowns, a certain author’s booger sugar, cranky kinda-sorta vampires, secret lizard people, double-secret lizard people that even the regular secret lizard people don’t know about, and way too many Schrödinger’s Cats.

Welcome to the Deep Estate.

The dramaticized Radio play.

Their preparation was quick and dirty. In the dimly lit kitchen, shielded from Eugene’s inquisitive gaze, Greg affixed photos and symbols to the reverse side of the worn Ouija board. He pulled out his wallet and slipped a family photo into the last spot, casting a slightly peevish glance at Elena as he did.

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Elena simply smiled. “I’ve never criticized you for holding on, Greg. You’ve imposed that on yourself.”

“Yeah…” Greg muttered and glanced away. “That I did.”

Elena shifted topics, tapping the skull on the board. “Are we turning him into a pirate?”

“No,” Greg replied, shaking his head. “It’s a symbol of death Eugene might recognize.”

“It’s a little blunt.”

“Blunt is good. We need to be blunt. Parents often use euphemisms to soften the blow, but they just confuse things.”

“Like crossing a bridge?” Elena asked softly, her eyes fixed on the skull.

Greg grimaced and nodded. “Exactly like that.”

The spoon in Odetta’s sugar caddy rattled as a rumbling vibrated through the walls.

“Shit, they’re here,” Elena exclaimed, darting out of the room. For a brief moment, she caught Eugene excitedly standing on the coffee table, pointing at the flatbed truck carrying a bulldozer. She turned on her ‘calm mom voice’ and said, “Yes, it’s just like your dozer,” before turning to Greg and hissing, “Stall them.”

“With what, El? Free group therapy?” Greg asked, worriedly looking at the demolition crew through the peephole.

Elena handed Greg his wallet and shoved him out the door before he could protest. “You’re a white guy with business cards. Act like it.”

She watched through the window as he approached the crew, shook hands, and presented his business card. He pointed toward the window, and Elena quickly disappeared as workers looked in her direction. Then they all laughed a bawdy boy’s laugh, and Elena could only assume whatever was said started with “Women” and ended with “You know how it is.”

Greg returned, looking bewildered that it worked. “I told them my patient was inside having a mental health crisis,” he explained, running a hand through his hair, “It bought us maybe a couple of hours.”

“Then we need to get started,” Elena said, locking and deadbolting the door.

In the living room, Greg sat in the circle of toys. He nodded to the Tonka Bulldozer moving back and forth. “I had one of those growing up. Is that your favorite?”

The old rabbit slid towards Greg. “Oh? This is your favorite. It looks like it’s been around a while, so it must be your favorite. Can you show me a red toy?” Eugene’s firetruck moved forward. “How about your newest toy?” Mateo’s tablet turned on, and Greg grinned. “His language comprehension is better than I hoped.”

Watching the crew, Elena reminded Greg, “This isn’t playtime.”

“I know,” Greg replied. “I need to assess what Eugene is capable of understanding.”

As Greg spent twenty agonizing minutes interacting with Eugene, Elena watched the men through the blinds as they chatted and smoked cigarettes. Greg’s biggest challenge wasn’t just knowing where Eugene was but also whether he was listening.

Eventually, Greg leaned back and said, “If I had to guess, his brain development is stuck around fifteen months, but he also has a century of living experience, and that seems to count for something.”

“I could have told you that,” Elena said impatiently. “We need to get started; the foreman is here, gesturing with a lot of ‘small guy energy’ — Oh, great. Now he’s heading over.”

A fist pounded on the front door, but Elena ignored it and placed the Ouija board on the floor. Covered mostly in paper to maintain Eugene’s focus, it revealed only three hand-drawn symbols: a sick baby, a skull, and a door. Greg placed the planchette on the board, and it immediately began moving. Elena gently pressed her finger down to keep it in place.

Greg took Eugene’s bunny and glanced at Elena. “This is going to seem cruel, but it’s necessary, okay?” He positioned the bunny upright and began, “Eugene, sometimes people get sick and don’t get better. Sometimes, they’re very young, but often, they’re old. Mr. Bunny here is very old, and he’s very, very sick.”

Turning to the Ouija board, he guided the planchette to the sick baby symbol. “Sick, Eugene. This means sick like Mr. Bunny is sick.” He then moved the planchette away. “What’s Mr. Bunny?”

The planchette returned to the sick child. Elena applauded, “Good job, baby!”

Greg continued, “When sick people don’t get better, they die.” He gently laid the bunny down. “When they die, they go to sleep, and they don’t wake up. It makes a lot of people sad when someone dies. I’m sad that Mr. Bunny here has died.”

Eugene began to tug on Mr. Bunny’s leg. Greg kept it in place. “I’m sorry, Eugene, but you can’t play with Mr. Bunny anymore. He died.”

Moving the planchette from the sick baby to the skull, Greg instructed, “Mr. Bunny was sick, and now Mr. Bunny has died. Now, it’s your turn, Eugene. Mr. Bunny was sick. Can you show me sick?”

The planchette moved to the sick baby. Greg swallowed hard and asked, “Then what happened to Mr. Bunny?”

The room fell silent, the weight of the moment settling on Greg and Elena’s shoulders as the planchette moved to the skull symbol. It seemed Eugene was making the connection.

The foreman banged on the door again, bellowing something about “Trespassing” and “Private property.” When they didn’t respond, he started barking at his workers, who began to unload the bulldozer.

Elena tapped the board and said, “Eugene, just focus on this.”

The power cut out, and then the soft rumbling of the furnace died as they severed the gas. Greg muttered, “We might actually need those séance candles.”

Now came the magic trick they had rehearsed in the kitchen. Elena held a dish towel between Eugene and his bunny as Greg swiftly concealed the stuffed animal in Elena’s purse. He then resumed the lesson, “Now, when people die, Eugene, they’re gone. Gone means they go somewhere and don’t come back. They’re gone.”

Elena lowered the towel. From the corner of her eye, she saw Eugene recoil, his gaze fixed on the spot where his bunny had been. He emitted a silent wail, and Elena murmured, “Oh, he did not like that, Greg.”

“Good. That’s progress,” Greg remarked, guiding the planchette across the symbols. “So, Mr. Bunny was sick, then Mr. Bunny died, which means…” He pushed the planchette to the final symbol, the door. “Mr. Bunny is now — “

Suddenly, the planchette ripped from his fingers and found itself embedded in the drywall, quivering like a dagger. They exchanged fearful glances, feeling a static charge prickling their arm hairs. Greg couldn’t tell if the faint, otherworldly ringing in the silence was real or imagined, but the neighborhood dogs were howling and barking frantically, so maybe they heard it as well.

Elena whispered, “Greg, this is…new.”

Before he could respond, a die-cast red blur hurtled at Greg’s head. He fell backward, blood trickling from a gash on his temple, while a firetruck rolled in the opposite direction.

Elena dodged a flying VHS copy of Bambi and pressed the dish towel to Greg’s wound, her hands shaking. “Eugene, no!” she snapped. “Bad, Eugene!”

The rest of the Disney Vault was chucked in their direction, two at a time. Elena pulled Greg into the entryway, seeking cover behind the wall, her heart racing in her chest.

“He’s never behaved like this before,” Elena remarked, downplaying her growing anxiety as she assessed Greg’s wound.

Greg winced, “You’re telling me a toddler has never thrown a temper tantrum before?”

A shotgun blast of Odetta’s ancient hard candy peppered the stairway, and then the crystal dish they originally sat in smashed through the living room window. Elena flinched at the noise and peeked through the front door’s peephole, her blood running cold. All of the workers were staring dumbfounded at the house. The foreman decided it was best not to bang on the door once again and retreated, quickly saying into his phone, “Yes, I would like to report an emergency.”

Elena cursed under her breath, “Greg, your mentally unstable patient has just become violent, and the police are about to get involved. We need to calm Eugene down.”

Determined to soothe the child, Elena opened her purse and pulled out the rabbit, but Greg stopped her. “He can’t have it back. Trust me.”

Elena shoved the purse into Greg’s chest and rushed into the living room, dropping to one knee. She opened her arms wide. “Oh baby, come here.”

Eugene rushed into her arms, and she embraced the empty air, swaying and comforting him, softly singing, “Skinamarink a-dink a-dink Skinamarink a-dinky-doo,” just as she had done to soothe a sniffling Mateo in the past. Two damp spots appeared on Elena’s T-shirt, baffling Greg as he tried to rationalize how they got there.

Cautiously reentering the living room, Greg pried the planchette out of the wall and seated himself. Making a show of slowly peeling away the paper covering the rest of the Ouija board, he sighed, “Oh man, I could really use some help with this.” Almost immediately, the paper began tearing itself away as Eugene revealed the photos taped around the symbols.

“Eugene, I’m sorry about Mr. Bunny. It’s always tough when the people you love are gone. Can we keep playing our game?” Greg placed the planchette back on the board, keeping his finger on it. He could already sense Eugene tugging at it. “I want you to show me mama. Can you do that?”

Releasing the planchette, Greg watched as it landed on Elena in the family photo. Elena rocked in place, her lips trembling. After all that time basking in the love of a silent child, this was the closest Eugene had come to putting a label on it. She looked off and saw the shape of Eugene stooped over the photo, his tiny finger tracing Mateo. He turned and vanished.

“What are you watching, kiddo?”

Greg and Elena looked down. Their son’s old tablet had sprung to life, playing a video.

Mateo was on the screen, his face gaunt and pale, with dark circles beneath his eyes, and an oxygen tube clinging to his nose. Greg climbed into the hospital bed with him, his eyes red, eyelashes clinging together from the tears he shed. He glanced at the tablet, forcing a smile before crossing his eyes and blowing a raspberry, a desperate attempt to coax some joy from his dying son.

Even after all these years, the sound of Mateo’s laughter pierced Greg’s soul, ripping open a wound that would never fully heal. He reached out to close the video, but Elena’s gentle touch stopped him. With a voice barely above a whisper, she said, “That’s Mateo, honey. He was our son.”

The planchette shifted to the first symbol, and Elena drew a shuddering breath, her throat constricting. “Yes. He was sick. He died, and now he’s gone.”

Greg guided the planchette to the skull and then the doorway, his hand shaking as he reinforced the cruel reality of their loss. “And —” He cleared his throat and tried again, “And who was your mama before? Can you see her on the board?”

The planchette glided toward one of the earliest photos of Odetta, prompting sighs of relief from both Greg and Elena. They exchanged a glance, allowing themselves a brief moment of hope. They were unsure how much of the past Eugene would recall, but it appeared that the woman who had nurtured him for over sixty years still held a place in his memory.

Greg leaned forward and gently asked, “Do you know what happened to Momma?”

The planchette moved to the second photo of Odetta, one of the last taken with Eugene. Greg nodded, a sad smile on his lips. “That’s correct, she grew old. Then what happened?”

Eugene directed the planchette to the doorway. Greg gently guided it back to the symbol they had chosen to represent sickness and death, retracing the sequence. “That’s right. Momma grew old, so she got sick and died. Now Momma is gone.”

Taking a chance, Greg asked, “And who was your Momma before that?”

The planchette shifted toward the photo of Elena. Greg shook his head. “No, that was your Momma afterward.” He tapped Odetta’s photo. “Who came before this Momma?”

Eugene landed on the aged photograph of Abigail. Elena smiled. “That’s right, Eugene.”

Eugene redirected the planchette back to the photo of elderly Odetta. Elena moved to intervene, but Greg signaled her to stop, and she withdrew her hand. The planchette once again moved to the sick baby symbol, then swept over to the doorway. Elena’s fingers pressed against her lips to stifle a sob. She took a stuttered breath and said, “I think… he’s getting it.”

Sirens wailed in the distance. They were running out of time. It was now or never. Greg gazed up at the ceiling as Elena had taught him, catching Eugene staring intently at the photo. He tapped the little boy in Abigail’s arms. “And who’s that, Eugene? Do you recognize him?”

Eugene looked up at Greg, his perpetual smile gone. As tires screeched to a stop outside the house, all Greg could do was hope that the look on Eugene’s face was one of self-awareness. That he was making a connection.

“That’s you, Eugene,” Greg affirmed. “Can you show us what happened to you?”

Somewhere a thousand miles away, the urgent pounding of police at the door went unheard. At that moment, the world had narrowed to Elena, Greg, and Eugene, huddled around the Ouija board as the planchette began to move. It landed on the sick child, then shifted to the skull, eliciting a sob from Elena. “That’s right, baby,” she choked out. “A long time ago, you got sick, and you died, but you’re not gone. You stuck around.”

Eugene absorbed this information, then turned back to the board, reaching out tentatively. Just as the planchette began to shift, a sharp crack broke the spell as the police smashed through the door with a pry bar.

They stormed in, and Greg stood, attempting to intervene. He meant to say, “Everything is under control. I’m a mental health professional,” and brandish his business card for legitimacy. It had worked once before. But all the officers saw was a man with blood on his shirt, near a sobbing woman, turning towards them and reaching for something in his back pocket. In a heartbeat, they were on him, slamming him to the ground with ruthless efficiency.

“No, no, no! We’re so close, please!” Elena pleaded, her gaze shifting to the empty space where Eugene had been. An officer shoved her down, twisting her arms behind her back with brutal force. She cried out to the frightened little boy she could almost see, her voice breaking, “Go, Eugene, go! You can’t stay here anymore!”

Fueled by panic and desperation, she wrenched one arm free and seized the planchette, slamming it onto the symbol of the door. “Go, Eugene. Please, baby. You need to go!”

She repeated the plea over and over as they hauled her to her feet, dragging her from the house, her body writhing against their unforgiving grip.

They forced her into the back of a cruiser, and her pleas and screams only grew more frantic and hysterical. They slammed the door shut, and her panic became muffled and unintelligible. Through the window, her eyes remained locked on the bulldozer as it roared to life, belching the black smoke of a funeral pyre for the only home Eugene had ever known.

Greg managed to maintain his composure and hold his ground as he tried to reason with the police. As they questioned him and rifled through Elena’s purse and his wallet, he stuck with the fabricated story of counseling his mentally unstable patient because it aligned with the narrative the police were already working with. It fits perfectly with the image of the mentally unstable woman in the back of their car, raving that they were going to kill some invisible boy. However, his composure shattered when the bulldozer lurched toward the house. Still handcuffed, the officers held him back as he desperately screamed for the crew to stop. His cries went unheard, drowned out by the diesel roar of progress. There was a house to demolish and a timetable to keep.

It turns out that, in moments of intense stress, Eugene could be seen just fine. It’s why Greg saw the child when he feared he was too late to stop Elena from ending it all, and why Elena saw Eugene now, standing helplessly in the open doorway as the bulldozer bore down on him. Elena let out a piercing shriek and threw herself against the door of the police cruiser, again and again, ignoring the sickening crack and searing pain that exploded through her shoulder.

Greg groaned in horror as he recognized the expression carved into Elena’s face — it was the same gut-wrenching look she wore when their son’s EKG flatlined, and their world collapsed around them. Oh God, no, it’s happening again. He struggled harder to break free from the Officers holding him back.

The bulldozer’s blade smashed through the banister, its treads ripping up the porch planks and crushing them underfoot. The last image that burned into Elena’s mind was of Eugene, looking at her — a frightened, innocent child taking a tentative step out of the front door, reaching out for his Momma to give him a hug and tell him it would be alright. His black eyes were wide with fear and confusion. Then, the machine plowed into Eugene, tearing a gaping hole through the entryway. It pulled back, leaving only the carnage of splintered wood and crumbled drywall in its wake.

Elena let out a drooling, anguished wail as she collapsed against the car door, feeling the heart her little boy put back together shatter into a million pieces.

Eugene was gone.

Elena lay in the hospital bed, her arm cradled in a sling, her despair seeping through the haze of Benzodiazepine. Sometimes, Greg sat by her side, offering silent support as he gently held her hand. Other times, he wept alongside her, sharing in the grief of losing a child, but amidst the fog of medication, Elena couldn’t discern which one. The drugs made her feel like she was lost in a memory, and everything was already said and done.

Occasionally, doctors hovered around, probing her with questions about Eugene, attempting to discern the right cocktail of antipsychotics to prescribe. Elena remained silent, losing herself in the labyrinth of her own misery. Then, seventy-two hours later, someone stamped a form, and she was wheeled out of the hospital.

In the car, Greg did his best to fill the heavy silence, mentioning how he had replaced the missing items in her apartment without delving into the painful reasons behind their absence. As he rambled on about the deal he had found for a new TV, Elena stopped him with a soft plea.

“Greg,” she croaked, trembling, “I need to go back.”

Greg swallowed hard and glanced over at Elena. “He’s not there, El. I checked.”

“Just… Please.”

With a solemn nod, Greg turned the car around.

Odetta’s house was a pile of rubble beside an overflowing roll-off dumpster. Greg stared down at the dented firetruck, silently wishing it to move. Elena called out for Eugene, her voice raw and echoing across the emptied lot. A flicker of hope had burned that Eugene might’ve been hiding in the rubble all this time, waiting for a familiar voice to draw him out, but as time passed, the silence grew deafening, and that hope within her died. Her cries grew hoarse as the weight bore down; Eugene was truly gone. Greg tenderly guided her back to the car, holding her close as she wept for the boy who wasn’t there and would forever remain that way.

Greg kept driving, taking the occasional concerned glance in her direction. Eventually, he broke the silence, “We operated under the assumption that Eugene didn’t know he had passed, but the truth is, we never really understood how he worked. Maybe if we had more time, something amazing would’ve happened. The clouds would part, and some holy light would descend from the heavens, complete with a freakin’ angelic choir and everything.”

“Greg, stop,” Elena said distantly.

“Hold on. Just hear me out,” Greg persisted, unsure if he was making a point or digging his own grave. “You know what I think? I think it just happened, and we missed it. He simply realized he was dead and disappeared into the ether. It was never going to be grand. Or maybe it was that house that kept him here. You saw him finally step out the front door — he crossed the threshold. Maybe that was all he needed to do.” He forced a chuckle, “It was probably dumb luck on our part that we chose the door as the symbol.”

Elena just shook her head. “He’s still gone,” She turned her gaze to the uniform rows of boxy houses passing by. More conquered land by those intent on tearing down neighborhoods to build ‘communities’ where no one knows their neighbor’s name. Maybe that was why the dead never stuck around; there was nothing left to stick onto.

Elena’s apartment had never felt like home. Now, it didn’t even feel familiar. Her once vibrant house plants were gone, and she had to remind herself that she had let those die long ago. Greg had just taken it upon himself to remove their desiccated remains. He had also prepared the pull-out bed in a tacit acknowledgment of his intention to remain by her side. Elena folded it back into the couch and gently told Greg she needed to be alone. Despite his protests, she stood firm, her words blunt and unwavering. “I just can’t mourn with you around. It makes me hate you.”

Greg blinked several times, leaving Elena wondering if she had just snapped at him. Then he vigorously nodded, saying, “Yeah. Okay. That’s fair.”

He promised to check up on her in the morning. He gave her a hug, both long and lingering. “You’re not alone, El. I’m here. I’m always here.”

Then she was alone, standing in the kitchenette, contemplating. She thought about drowning her sorrows in box wine, musing that the Merlot would pair well with a particular bottle in the medicine cabinet. Elena then quickly reassured herself that it was a joke.

No one was laughing.

Her gaze fell upon her purse resting on the counter. With shaking hands, she fumbled with the zipper and unzipped it. She retrieved Eugene’s old bunny — the last piece of the child she had loved and lost. Clutching the old stuffed animal, a detached, depressive logic told her she needed to get somewhere comfy or she’d end up as a heap on the floor. She hastily made her way before the grief engulfed her entirely.

In a room steeped in shadows, Elena lay in bed, waiting for tears that would not come. Instead, she found herself enveloped in the limbo of her empty apartment. The soft punctuation of a ticking clock was the only sign of movement. Her environment was as sterile and impersonal as the hospice, and only now did Elena realize that it was by design. She never wanted it to feel like home, just a comfortable enough place to waste away. Eugene had woken her up from that liminal complacency. He gave her someone to care for and love, and now that he was gone, she felt like a specter in her own right.

Elena put words to the thought that had been nagging at her for all seventy-two hours of her involuntary psychiatric stay, the one she couldn’t tell Greg because she had made him a promise. “We could’ve gone together.” She spoke it to the void and waited for the voice in her head to tell her thoughts like that were wrong. Instead, that detached depression logic chipped in, reminding her there was still the Merlot and pills.

This time, she couldn’t tell herself it was a joke.

Elena went into the kitchen and poured a large glass of wine out of a spigot, then went into the bathroom to fetch the thirty pills of Oxycodone, but as she reached for the medicine cabinet, she caught sight of her tattoo in the mirror. A vivid image of that name rotting away in a pitch-black coffin gave her pause. She wouldn’t just be ending her life; she would be destroying all the memories of her son. Mateo had so little time to leave his mark on this world; his living memories were all that were left, and those required the person who carried them to remain alive.

The dark urge receded, and Elena turned away from the mirror, feeling selfish.

She stuck with the wine. She would get drunk, cry, and eventually pass out, holding Eugene’s bunny to her chest.

Except the bunny was gone.

It didn’t make sense. Elena was sure she had left it propped up on the pillow. She looked through the covers and under the bed, then returned to the kitchenette, thinking she might have brought the stuffed animal with her. She tore the apartment apart, first searching for the bunny, then, in a rage at everything that was taken from her, cursing out a world that decided she was not allowed to love.

It was only after she had given up all hope that she noticed the closet door in the bedroom was cracked open. She hadn’t touched the closet. Was it cracked open when she got here?

Elena opened the door and pushed aside her dresses and coats. Hiding in the far corner lay the rabbit, its chest rising and falling as if stroked by a tiny, invisible hand. Elena swallowed, initially unable to bring herself to hope once again. She called out in an unsure whisper, “Eugene?”

She looked up at the ceiling, closed her eyes, and prayed to God for this small mercy.

When she opened her eyes again, she kept her gaze locked on the ceiling.

In the corner of her eye, she saw a scared little boy cowering by her shoe rack, clutching the only familiar object in a strange new environment. She dropped to her knees and felt Eugene cling to her, pressing into her chest as she wrapped her arms around empty air.

The hard truth that Greg could never tell Elena started and ended with the words, “It’s for the best.” He found solace in his ability to tell himself the bitter pills to swallow were medicine. The loss of their son was tragic, but Mateo’s inevitable death stopped his suffering, and that was “for the best.”

“It’s for the best” is what left the woman he loved thinking he was a monster.

For Greg, walking into Elena’s place the following day, finding the box of Mateo’s old things empty on the kitchenette, and catching a glimpse of Eugene waddling around in his son’s favorite Adventure Time T-shirt was not “for the best.” It was the worst-case scenario.

Elena quickly got to her feet and hugged him. “Can you believe it, Greg? He’s back!”

“I-I can see that,” Greg stammered, “How?”

Elena looked around the mess of toys on the floor and picked up Eugene’s rabbit. “We were wrong. It wasn’t the house that kept him here. It was his rabbit. He’s tied to the rabbit!”

Greg stared down as a kicked Nerf ball shot past his feet. He nodded, hoping Elena would be on the same rational page. “This is good. Now we have all the time in the world to figure out how to help him move on.” But when he turned back, the look on Elena’s face told him that they were most definitely not on the same page. They weren’t even in the same volume.

“What? No,” Elena said, “We were backed into a corner, then. That was our only option.”

“Elena —”

“No, I just got him back!”

The room was silent for a moment, and then Eugene kicked the Nerf ball into the patio door.

Rubbing his scalp, Greg sighed, “El, this isn’t good.”

Elena took a step back. “Are you kidding me? He came back!” She gestured towards the empty space beside her. “This is a miracle.”

“No, this isn’t healthy,” Greg said softly, trying to remain calm. He took a cautious step towards Elena, his hands held out. “Eugene isn’t Mateo.”

Elena flinched. “Do you really think that’s what this is?”

“I think that is a part of it,” Greg replied gently, “You’ve been hurting for years, and Eugene fills that void.”

Elena scoffed, crossing her arms. “You’re saying that like it’s bad, but it’s what I want. If this is about him using Mateo’s old things, it was the only stuff I had around — “

“That isn’t a boy!” Greg interrupted, his voice rising slightly. He took a deep breath.” It’s a curse, El, and it scares me that you can’t see it.”

“Don’t say that.” Elena whispered, wondering when this had turned into an intervention, “He’s innocent.”

“No. Innocent little boys grow up. But Eugene? Eugene will never change. He’ll always be there to be loved. He’ll always want to play, read a book, or be held, and you will always be there to care for him because it feels right. Right in a way, you haven’t felt since we lost our son. But real boys? They turn into angsty teens who don’t want to be mothered and then adults who leave home. But Eugene? He’ll never grow old, but you will, Elena.”

Elena felt a tug on her finger and looked down at the boy who wasn’t there. She saw nothing but the faux-wood linoleum floor, but knew Eugene was looking up at her. One of the earliest tricks she learned about the boy was to lean into the delusion, and the delusion would play along. So Elena leaned into it and pantomimed picking up Eugene, feeling his arms wrap around her neck.

Greg helplessly watched as Elena lit up with a joy he hadn’t seen in her in years. He tried a different tact. “Please, Elena. If you won’t think of yourself, think of Eugene. I don’t know how his brain works — if he even has one — but his development clearly froze the day he died. He’s never learned to talk, and he can’t play with other kids. He can barely interact with the world, but he remembers. He’s a hundred years old and remembers it all. Can you even imagine that kind of Hell?”

Elena shrugged, “You don’t know that. There were a couple of times a toddler walked by the house and stopped to stare at the window. Maybe they can see him. Dogs can.”

Greg shook his head in a shudder as he tried to process her cherry-picked response. “So what are you gonna do? Take him to the park?”

“Yes, actually.” Elena said, her grin widening at the thought, “That sounds pretty great.”

They could’ve fought about it, and Greg tried. He did his best to argue and make her see he was fighting for her against the thing in her arms, but Elena didn’t even try. Her mind was only on Eugene, thinking he would be hungry soon and that she had none of his baby food on hand. Maybe she could scramble him up some eggs. After that, she could show Eugene the world. As long as she brought Mr. Bunny, Eugene could always be by her side. Elena could even take him to the hospice, and Eugene could be the greatest comfort for all her patients waiting on death’s door. He was, after all, proof positive that there was something on the other side.

Elena didn’t blink when Greg doubled down on his stance and turned it into an ultimatum. She wasn’t even really listening, lost in the potential of her happily ever after and the feeling of Eugene’s little fingers idly playing with her hair. “You need to let go, and he needs to move on, or just like Abigail and then Odetta, you will end up alone, haunted by the echo of this child.”

Elena let out a long sigh and said, “I’m okay with being haunted, Greg. It’s all I want.”

As Greg turned and walked out the door for what would be the last time, Elena pecked the general area of Eugene’s forehead and said, “Let’s get you fed, and afterward, how about I take you and Mr. Bunny on your very first car ride? You wanna go to the grocery store?”

She tickled the air and could almost hear Eugene giggle in response.

The dramatized radio play:

READ PART ONE HERE

Greg was wrapping up a Zoom therapy session with a patient when he received a call from a previous chapter of his life. The name ‘El’ illuminated his phone’s screen, casting a glow across his face. Nearly three years had passed since their last conversation, which took place on the painful anniversary of their son’s death. Their interactions had since been relegated to a lifeline of texts, checking up on each other through a conversation that never ended, just went through increasing periods of silence. Their messages were always sparse, never daring to broach those tender subjects, never hinting at who was moving on and who would never let it go.

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A wave of apprehension washed over him as he pressed the answer button. The sound that greeted him was heart-wrenching: sniffles and shuddered breaths through a tinny speaker. Instinctively, Greg stood up and began pacing his office as if the movement could somehow bridge the distance between them. “Elena? Is everything okay?”

The reply was a frail echo. “No…” Elena managed, “Greg, I need your help.”

Greg already had his keys in hand. “Alright. Just tell me where you are.”

He found Elena sitting in front of Odetta’s house, holding an old stuffed rabbit. Her hair was a mess. The streetlights etched her face with the shadows of sleepless nights and shed tears. Greg took a soft, cautious tone, “El…can I ask what you are doing?”

Elena lifted her gaze and gave a lopsided smile. “I’m not crazy.”

“I never said you were.”

“You’re wearing your ‘professionally concerned face.’”

Greg motioned toward the unfamiliar neighborhood, “It’s just that you’re here, in a strange neighborhood, with a stuffed rabbit…”

Elena shrugged in almost an infantile way, “It’s not that strange. I live here.”

Greg’s gaze shifted to the open front door of Odetta’s home, “In a crack house?”

With a heavy sigh, Elena rose, “Can you please not jump to conclusions until I give you the full context?”

She took him inside, trying to figure out how to broach the subject as they walked into the living room. An LED TV played Blues Clues on top of the old analog console, and an alley cat lay sprawled, surrounded by toys. Greg looked around, taking in the photos of Odetta along with the newest addition to the gallery: Elena posing next to a basket full of Easter eggs. That was at least two months ago.

“El… This isn’t your house. How long have you been living here?”

“I don’t know, four… five months.” Elena said, quickly breezing past the topic, “You need to meet Eugene.”

Greg faced the only other living thing in the room and cocked an eyebrow. “I need to meet a… cat?”

The stray woke as its sunspot abruptly disappeared. It shot out the door, hissing as it passed Greg.

Elena wobbled as if something just clung to her leg. She sighed, “I need you to humor me for a second, okay?” Greg nodded, but Elena shook her head, “No, I mean, you really need to humor me here. This will sound insane, and I know how insane it sounds, but it’s important.”

Greg scratched the back of his neck, his brow furrowed. “Can I get some sort of explanation?”

“Yes. After you humor me,” Elena insisted, her eyes pleading. She inhaled deeply, steadying herself, then said, “Take a knee and call Eugene over.”

Greg’s expression shifted from professionally concerned to ‘Are you screwing with me?’ This was the first time he’d seen Elena in years, and she was pulling… something, but Greg had no idea what.

“Please, Greg. Just do it. Call Eugene over.” Elena said.

On one knee, Greg called out softly, “Uh, Eugene? Can you come here?”

Elena felt Eugene detach from her leg. “Okay, now play peek-a-boo.”

“Peek-a-boo?”

“Yes. Like with a baby. Cover your eyes, then — “

“I know what peek-a-boo is,” Greg snorted. He complied and reluctantly mumbled, “Peek-a-boo,” feeling foolish. He then looked up at Elena and pocketed his initial response. Her eyes were so wide and desperate. He gently asked instead, “El, what am I doing here?”

Elena clenched her jaw and fought the urge to snap. “Don’t half-ass it. Be excited. Play it… Play it how you used to play it with Mateo.”

With a sigh, Greg gave in, his voice lifting in a forced cheer. “Annnnd peek-a-boo!”

The room remained silent, charged with a strange energy. Mateo’s old tablet — the one Greg loaded up with Pixar movies and games to keep him entertained while he wasted away, turned on. Rising balloons began popping on the screen. Elena quickly picked it up, keeping it out of reach. She bit her lip, growing anxious. “Do it again and be more silly. Like you’re trying to keep his attention.”

Greg threw up his hands. “Keep who’s attention, El?”

Elena couldn’t say, knowing Greg wouldn’t listen if she was upfront about it. Instead, she just murmured, “Please.”

Greg let out a chuckle that morphed into a groan and covered his eyes again. He took an over-excited, deeply sarcastic tone. “Hey, who’s dere!? Izzit nobody? No! It’s… Peek-a-boo!”

Greg pulled his hands away and faced the dead child with scooped-out eyes. Eugene giggled. He shrieked, scrabbling backward until he was in the corner, knocking over one of Odetta’s hummel figurines. “What the fuck — What was that?!”

Elena felt Eugene hide behind her. She softly said, “It’s okay, baby. Everything is okay.”

“That — That is not okay!” Greg sputtered, “It has no fucking eyes!”

Elena glared at him, “I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to Eugene, the child you’re currently scaring.”

Greg shot straight up and pressed against the wall, eyes darting around. “Oh God. It’s still here? Where is it?”

Elena knelt and pulled out a small remote with a single red button. “Eugene, do you wanna push the smokey clicker? Go on. Push it.”

The button pressed itself, and a fog machine kicked on. It worked far better than Odetta’s cigarettes and caused far less cancer. Elena gently rolled a tennis ball toward Greg. A valley carved through the fog, chasing after it, and he fought the urge to scream.

Greg slowly de-escalated from a tremor to a faint tremble, though Eugene settling into his lap did little to ease his unsettled mind. “I thought touching a ghost was supposed to make you shiver, but Eugene’s warm — Why is he warm?”

Elena shrugged. “It’s weird, I know. Eugene doesn’t work like Casper, which is a big part of the problem. I don’t think anyone actually knows the rules.”

She handed over a list of crossed-out tropes, and Greg’s eyebrows rose. “He can’t walk through walls?”

“Or float,” Elena confirmed. “I suppose Ouija boards would work if he knew how to spell. Oh, also, he isn’t stuck in the clothes he died in. Eugene changes them. Regularly.”

Greg blinked several times, trying to process that. “How?”

“I thought it was strange that Eugene had a dresser until I opened it, and he started poking around,” Elena explained. “I unfolded some overalls and showed them to him, then the next time I saw him, he was wearing those overalls, or at least a projection of them. Sometimes, I catch him in my scrubs.”

Greg’s brow furrowed. “How does any of this even work?”

Elena scratched her neck. “At first, I thought Eugene existed in our world but could only manifest himself inside our heads. There’s a lot about him that feels mental, like a hallucination, except real. Now?” She blew air through her lips. “I’m actually starting to think Eugene is his own hallucination. He’s manifesting himself. Does that make sense?”

“Not one bit.” Greg winced and shifted uncomfortably, “And it doesn’t explain how he’s currently pulling on my beard hair. How do I get him off?”

“Just move,” Elena replied, “He’ll pop up somewhere else.”

Greg stood up, rubbing the ick out of his hands. “You’re living with a ghost, El.”

“That’s been established.”

Greg rapidly shook his head, “Are you sure this house doesn’t have a gas leak?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” Elena started bouncing her legs, staring at the ceiling, and taking little peeks at her periphery, where a silent cackling child clung on like she was a bucking bronco. “I figured it would be a comfort for you. I mean, if Eugene’s here, then Mateo — “

“ — Don’t, El. I can’t. He’s gone,” Greg said, cutting her off, the pain straining his voice. Simply moving ghosts off his personal ‘Things That Do Not Exist’ list threatened to collapse his entire belief structure. The last thing he wanted to do was extrapolate.

But Elena held onto that sliver of hope. “Or maybe he’s somewhere else. That’s an option now because of Eugene.” She stopped bouncing and looked down at her knees, “It’s also why I need your help. They’re demolishing this house in five days, and I don’t know what will happen to Eugene when he has nowhere to haunt.”

Greg started pacing, a bad habit that Elena used to love and then grew to hate. It was reassuring at first, giving the appearance he was on top of a problem, grinding away until he came up with a solution, but he didn’t stop if no fix was found. “Wait, is this place haunted? I mean, why can’t he just leave the house?”

“Oh, he can,” Elena explained, “He loves going outside to play in the backyard, but for whatever reason, he won’t or can’t cross the threshold of the front door.”

Greg gestured with his finger. “That’s why you were outside with the rabbit.”

“Yeah, I’ve been trying to coax him out,” Elena nodded. “I’m running out of options. Greg, you’re not the first person I called. Not by a long shot. I consulted lawyers and city counselors, hoping to find a way to delay the demolition, but I was told in no uncertain terms that I had no legal recourse. I can’t even claim squatters’ rights.” She paused, taking a breath. “I went to social media, thinking I could share the hours of video I’ve recorded of Eugene and maybe build up a public outcry, but there is an entire industry of content creators making fake ghost videos, and everything I post gets mixed in with them.” Elena swallowed, fighting against the lump that came from her only other option. “Now, I’ve realized that if he is tied to this house, then the only thing I can do is help him move on before it’s destroyed, and I need your help with that, Greg.”

Greg stopped pacing, not liking where this was going. “Why me? You don’t need a psychologist. You need a psychic.”

“I’ve already had two psychics visit,” Elena countered. “The first one managed to contact Mateo after looking at my Facebook page, then pissed herself when she saw Eugene, the only real spirit she’s ever me. The other one offered to cut me in if I allowed her to host séances in the kitchen.”

“So then get a priest.”

“Three priests did four exorcisms, and Eugene had a grand old time pulling off their stoles and trying to drink their bulbs of holy water. I’ve also consulted a rabbi, imam, wiccan, Shinto priest, Buddhist monk, and a Vodou Manbo who decapitated a live chicken in his bedroom, and I’m still picking up the feathers. I’ve smudged this house every day and asked every single person I know with a superstitious grandparent what to do. Nothing has worked. Nothing. It’s why I need you.”

“But why me, El?” Greg asked. His arm reflexively went to the space where his son’s name used to lay. Elena couldn’t help but notice that he had it lasered off, no doubt calling it part of his ‘healing process.’

Her breath hitched. The tears came, and she couldn’t stop them. “The only theory I have left is that Eugene is too young to understand that he’s dead, but maybe, just maybe, you could reach him — help him understand, help him find peace. You’re a child therapist — “

“ — No. Not anymore. Not after — “

“But you were, Greg. And you did it once before. You helped Mateo with the end.”

“STOP,” Greg snapped. Elena went silent, her eyes searching for any sign of the man who once held their son’s hand as he took his last breath. Greg’s face contorted, ugly with emotion as he struggled to speak. He broke, his voice gurgling as he muttered, “God damn it, Elena.” He turned and left.

Greg stormed to his car. Elena followed him, pleading, “Wait! I know what I’m asking is fucked up.”

“No, you don’t. You have no idea. I can’t help Eugene. I couldn’t even help him.”

“You did. You told Mateo about the bridge and how it would stop hurting once he crossed.”

Greg spun around, revealing the bitter truth he had tried so hard to bury, “I lied to him, El! My last words to my son were a fucking lie, one he was too young to even comprehend.”

“No.” Elena wiped her eyes, conscious of the neighbors watching, “Mateo understood. On some level, he did. I gotta believe you’re why he’s not stuck like Eugene.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t help you.” Greg said firmly, opening his car door and climbing inside.

Over the ensuing days, Greg threw himself into his work, seeking refuge in unpacking his patient’s trauma rather than his own. Yet, between each session, he found himself pacing, picturing Elena in that dimly lit house, grieving the impending loss of another child. The silence on her end was palpable; she didn’t try to reach out to him and left Greg on ‘read’ when he tried to apologize and check up on her. So Greg grew increasingly worried and kept on pacing.

Then, on the morning of the demolition, he received a reply:

“Greg, I’m sorry I brought you back to that place you try so hard to avoid. I guess that’s always been the difference between us. You need to move on while I need to linger. I never blamed you for the distance. You’ve always been there for me, even when we were just too far apart. Don’t worry about Eugene. I found a solution.

Thanks.”

Greg stared at the text, hoping he was just reading too much into it, injecting intention that simply wasn’t there — anything to make the text seem other than what it was: a farewell.

Greg interrupted an accountant waxing on about his self-diagnosed work-induced PTSD and ended the call. He raced to Odetta’s house, still trying to convince himself that he was overreacting while going sixty in a forty-five and screaming at every red light along the way. He burst through the front door expecting the worst: Elena staring blankly at the ceiling, lying in a pool of her own blood, with Eugene trying to get her to wake up.

Instead, Elena was sitting on the floor, rolling a ball back and forth with Eugene. Raffi played. For a brief moment, Greg could see Eugene pushing the ball with his black eyes and perpetual grin. He blinked, and Eugene was gone. It was just Elena looking at him like nothing was wrong.

Greg scanned the room, a sense of relief washing over him when he found no sharp objects or open bottles of medication. “How are you going to do it?”

Elena cocked her head, feigning ignorance, “Do what?”

Greg’s gaze hardened. “I’m trained to recognize these things. Don’t bullshit me.”

Elena stood, wearing the tranquility of a foregone conclusion. “I shouldn’t have sent that text.”

“I’m glad you did because it brought me here to stop you. El, what are you thinking?”

Elena pointed to Odetta’s pictures on the wall. “She planned to die here in this house so she could ‘hold his hand and show him how to move on.’ It was just bad luck that she never had that chance, but it makes sense.”

“And so you’re just going to end it on the hope that there is some light, and you can take Eugene along for the ride?” Greg shook his head. “You don’t know how any of this works. No one does!”

“What am I ending, Greg? Us? My job waiting for patients to crash so I can change the sheets?” Elena stared at him, eyes rimmed with desperation. “I have nothing to end, but if I go now, I can help him. The demolition crew is coming at any moment. It’s the only option left.”

“No, you have another option,” Greg paused. Even with Elena’s life on the line, he still needed to work himself up to make the offer. “I will do everything to help Eugene in the time we have, but I need you to swear this won’t end in you taking your own life.”

“Thank you,” Elena said, as the tension in her shoulders released. She glanced past his head. “It’s over there.”

Greg took a black hardshell case off a shelf. A snub-nose .45 was inside.

“It’s Odetta’s,” Elena admitted. “It’s either for home defense… or she was contemplating the same thing. I’m not sure.”

“Right,” Greg said, for lack of a better response. He carefully closed the case. “I’ll take care of this. Gather Eugene’s favorite toys. We need to keep him engaged and in one place.”

Greg secured the revolver in the trunk of his car. Elena formed a circle with toys in an almost ritualistic arrangement and mused, “All we’re missing are candles and a pentagram.”

Greg stopped watching his shoes untie themselves and looked up, “Would that actually help?”

Elena shook her head, “Only in setting the ambiance.”

“Ah. Gotcha,” Greg scratched his head and grappled with the enormity of their task. “So, explaining death to a child who doesn’t have the cognitive ability to fully grasp the concept is hard, but communicating this to a toddler who’s been deceased for over a century? That’s entirely new ground.”

Elena grew worried, “But you have at least some idea of what to do, right?”

“Yeah”, Greg chuckled, “We start by summoning Carl Jung with a Ouija board.” An idea hit him, and he sat up straight. There was something to that. From the Jungian perspective, symbols play a vital part in a child’s learning and understanding of the world. Greg turned to Elena, “Wait… We could actually use a Ouija board for this.”

Author’s Note: Each week, I will release a portion of the story along with the accompanying audio drama episode.

In a quiet room that smelled of antiseptic, musk, and death, Odetta Brown lay taking shallow gasps, surrounded by hand-me-down flowers. Her black skin, pale and jaundiced, lay draped over bones. The dim light deepened her cheeks into pits.

Elena Lopez was Odetta’s only visitor. Not even the hospice cat came to bother her. The nurse checked the slow spiral which were Odetta’s vitals, and felt no pang from knowing the crash was coming. All she could do was soften the landing.

A fingernail brushed against her wrist, and Elena flinched. Two cataracts peeked out of slits, and with surprising lucidity, Odetta croaked out, “What’s that say?”

Elena looked down to the simple letters etched in a serif font on her inner forearm, inked in a place she would always see, keeping a name close so she would never forget. After six years, the edges were starting to bleed.

“Mateo,” She said, then cleared her throat and tried again, “It says, ‘Mateo.’”

Odetta’s eyelids wavered, and for a moment, Elena thought she had fallen back asleep; then the old woman muttered, “Your son?”

Elena hesitated, then admitted softly, “Yes. He was my son.”

Odetta reached out and took hold of Elena’s wrist. She traced the letters with a trembling thumb. “You’re still a mother. You feel it in your soul. All that love and no one to give it to… It’s hard, I know.”

Elena nodded, trying to fight the urge to pull her hand away from Odetta and the memories she dredged up. She didn’t want this woman’s last words to be about her son.

“But…” Odetta paused to take a long, raspy gasp, then another. Elena could see their effort as if the old woman was physically dragging the air into her lungs by hand. Odetta continued, “When they go, they’re not gone. They’re around. Some so silly, they stick around.”

Odetta let out a laugh, then coughed, each shaking her frail body harder than the last. Elena brought the hospital bed backrest forward, offered a napkin, and waited. It came back stained with the evidence of Odetta’s decline.

Elena reached to increase the morphine and ease her passage, but the old woman stopped her with a plea, “I can’t die here. I need to be home. I could hold his hand, show ’em how.”

Many of her patients had this wish, and Elena’s heart ached at the refusal she had to give. The request’s reality, practicality, and impossibility all collided in a simple, “I’m sorry, that’s just not possible.” And then, she turned up the drip.

“But Eugene’s got nobody.” Odetta’s voice cracked, a tear tracing a path down her cheek. She motioned weakly towards the side table, her energy fading. “You’re a mother. Please… He’s alone. You’re a mother. You know…”

Odetta’s hand fell to her side, and she went quiet, breathing her soft gasps. Elena knew the woman would not wake again.

She turned to the side table, where Odetta’s keys and a photo album lay. Elena thumbed through the first few pages, seeing the faded snapshots of a much younger woman and her baby. She smiled as that baby grew up in each photo into a little girl grinning with two missing front teeth, her hair lovingly braided into platts. Elena pulled the picture out and checked the back. Odetta had a daughter, Yolanda.

Then Elena turned a page, and Yolanda was gone, but the baby book continued without the baby. Photo after photo, Odetta celebrated a child no longer there, posing beside birthday cakes and Christmas presents alone. Elena could almost see her setting the timer on the camera and rushing back to her seat beside a second empty chair. That lone woman overflowing with love… Elena understood it all too well. It was the type of love that made you smile every time you looked down at the ink in your skin because you knew a name would forever haunt you.

Odetta Brown died six hours later, and once visitation hours were over, Elena helped move her body to a cold chamber. This was usually done to minimize the chances of the living being unnecessarily reminded of what awaited their sick loved ones. Hospices are, after all, the most polite, quiet, and cost-effective way to process the dying into the dead.

No one would mourn Odetta. One of the funeral homes on rotation for taking care of the unwanted would hold her body for up to 30 days, then cremate her on behalf of the county. No rituals. No minister. No last words. Her ashes would be kept in a plastic bag next to her keys and baby book. Under state law, they would sit in storage for 180 days just in case someone materialized. After that, Odetta and the memories of her child would be destroyed.

Except Elena couldn’t bring herself to put the baby book and keys in the cardboard box. They ended up in her bag instead. Out of all the dead, Odetta seemed to linger, and Elena didn’t know why. She sat at the nurse’s station, about to clock out, when she realized it was Eugene. Odetta said, “Eugene’s got nobody.”

What if Eugene was an elderly neighbor or cat nobody knew to check up on? The old woman collapsed next to the baby food at the grocery store and never recovered. She never had a chance to return home. No friends or family ever visited, and her emergency contact was 9–1–1. Elena was likely the only person who knew someone needed to check up on Eugene.

She flipped through the photo album again, looking for a potential Eugene. There were no men in any of the photos, or anyone else for that matter. Just a disturbing number of pictures of a lonely woman wasting her life, mourning a dead child. The last photo was taken less than a year ago. It was a Polaroid of a decrepit old Odetta smiling at the kitchen table, making biscuits next to a mess of flour. Elena took a closer look. There was something in the flour. Were those tiny handprints?

Elena sighed, “What the hell am I doing?”

She was dead tired, eying the Burger King Drive-Thru along the way to her apartment, an unopened box of Merlot, and a Netflix reality show she could fall asleep to. Instead, she pulled up Odetta’s patient file and wrote down her address.

The neighborhood was block after block of million-dollar ‘starter homes’ and luxury duplexes that would forever be outside Elena’s price range. In the middle of it all was Odetta’s house, standing out like a sore thumb with its air of decay and neglect amidst cookie-cutter modernity. As Elena approached, the keys felt ancient and heavy in her hand. The lights were off, and it didn’t look like anyone was home. She unlocked the door, and it creaked open.

The air inside was heavy and thick with age and cigarettes. Elena flicked on a light switch. A flash and a pop came from the light fixture above. Its remaining bulb flickered to life with a dull, yellow glow. A roach found itself in the spotlight and disappeared into the kitchen. Picture frames lined the entryway, each capturing moments of joy with a child no longer present.

Elena entered the living room and took in all the toys scattered about.

“How far gone were you?” Elena asked, trying not to wonder if she wasn’t too far behind. There were times around Christmas when she found herself alone with her wine, perusing the toys she would have bought Mateo if he was still around, but unlike Odetta, her shopping cart never made it past checkout.

She broke the silence and called out, “Hello?”

Elena’s words briefly hung in the stillness, unanswered, and then an unsettling creak came from above. Her hand trembled against the banister as she climbed the stairs to the second floor, each step letting out a whine of old, warped wood. She hoped to God that Eugene was a dead goldfish or dry houseplant. This house was creepy enough without a corpse.

Elena mustered the courage to call out again, “Eugene?”

Silence.

The upstairs light flickered, casting eerie, dancing shadows over peeling wallpaper and gilded frames; more photos of a mad woman celebrating the life of her long-dead child. Clinging to her phone for dear life, Elena cast its weak beam across the narrow expanse. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t alone — that she was being watched — and that feeling only intensified with each step. The hairs on her arms stood on end, and her breath caught in her throat as the beam landed on the third door.

It was ajar, held open by a blur — a retreating hand slithering back into the darkness. Elena yelped, her heart thumping wildly against her chest like a frantic bird trapped in a cage.

Just as she began to convince herself that it was a trick of the light, the door slowly creaked open, the hinges protesting in a shrill, piercing shriek. An inky darkness lay beyond.

Elena looked back down the stairs. She could run. She should run. Instead, she called out, “Eugene, is that you? Could you come out here… please?”

Out of the shadows, a Tonka firetruck emerged, moving on a squeaky axle. Elena stared at it in confusion, then directed her phone’s light into the dark room the toy had come from. She stepped forward, trying to will her phone to shine brighter.

“Eugene? Odetta sent me — “ she began, but before she could finish, the firetruck lunged forward. Elena yelped and jumped out of the way, the toy crashing into the wall and clattering down the stairs.

BANG! The sudden deafening slamming cracked through the house, making her jump out of her skin. She whirled around. Whatever it was, it was coming from the kitchen below. BANG! BANG! BANG! The sound came again, dredging up a memory of Mateo discovering the cupboard with the broken child lock. She raced downstairs, half expecting to find her son holding onto the counter, his eyes wide with glee as he repeatedly slammed the door shut. Instead, there was just a lone cupboard rocking on old hinges. Empty except for a rusted-out can of green beans, circa 1997.

Elena clenched her fist to stop it from shaking, “Hello? Is somebody there?”

The sudden hiss of static roared in response, sending a jolt through Elena as she faced the old analog television in the living room. A Panasonic tape player old enough to still call itself a ‘VTR’ began to glow as it swallowed the VHS tape in its mouth. It was still for a few seconds; then the buttons began pushing themselves, fast-forwarding, rewinding, stopping, recording, pausing, then blasting a PBS kids show singing, “Skinamarink a dink a dink. Skinamarink a dinky do. I love you.”

Mateo’s favorite song.

Elena rushed over, ratcheted the volume knob to zero, and popped out the tape. She left it on the floor and wiped her eyes, telling herself, “This isn’t happening. You got off a twelve-hour shift, and you’re tired. You just need to go home.”

Just as she was about to convince herself that Eugene was the product of Odetta’s failing mind, a small, warm hand wrapped around her index finger. She froze in place as the blurry shape of a little boy appeared in her bottom periphery. He had bright, tousled hair, a pale complexion, and his eyes… they were two black hollows as if someone had scooped out the insides, and they bore into her, unblinking.

Then she looked down, and the only thing in sight was the videotape with Odetta’s handwriting on the label: “Eugene’s favorite songs” and an ancient Lisa Frank kitten curled up in the corner.

…But Elena could still feel the hand wrapped around her finger. It gave her a little tug.

Elena ran out the door, scrabbling with Odetta’s keys to lock it and keep that thing — whatever that was — away from her. She fell among the weeds in the front yard, clutching the name on her forearm, and began hyperventilating as anxiety, her old friend, came by to visit.

“I love you in the morning and in the afternoon. I love you in the evening and underneath the moon. Oh, Skinamarink A dinky dink. Skinamarink a dinky do.”

Elena whipped back to the house and saw the televisions glow through the window. No. That isn’t possible. I took the tape out. The thought sends her into the driver’s seat of her car. The engine was running. She only had to put it into drive, but Elena stared at Odetta’s photo album instead. Her breathing ratcheted down, then caught in her throat as an insane realization caressed her and left her shivering. She opened up the photo album and skipped past the short life of Yolonda to the empty celebrations. She pulled a photo out of Odetta sitting alone in front of a cake, turned the picture around, and groaned at the caption: ‘Eugene’s 49th Birthday. 1964’ She flipped ahead several decades and stopped at another photo of Odetta and a cake with three candles shaped in the number, ‘100.’ ‘Eugene’s 100th Birthday. 2017’

Odetta’s last words returned, bearing the crushing weight of understanding: ‘Some so silly they stick around.’

“Jesus Christ, all those years… you weren’t alone at all.” Elena’s gaze returned to the empty house as a deep need that never entirely went away welled up inside her.

But with Odetta gone, whatever was inside watching a kid’s show was all alone now.

The thought propelled her inside, and she tried not to think of the absurdity of what she was doing. She trembled as she took on a voice she hadn’t used in years but still fit like a glove. “Eugene? Honey, can you come here?”

She walked into the living room and saw nothing. As she reached down to stop the tape, she saw the boy again in the corner of her eye, peeking out from behind the kitchen door. Two black pits and a toothy grin one second away from a giggle. He disappeared the moment Elena tried to look directly at him. She sat on the couch and softly said, “It’s okay, baby. Come here.”

Nothing. Then, the pages of a children’s book rustled.

“Eugene, was that you?” Elena pulled out her phone and started recording. The book flipped over on its own. Goodnight Moon. It hurt to think how many times Elena read that to her son. The book shifted, then flipped over again, this time a foot into the air. It fell back down a little closer to Elena.

“Do you want me to read you a book, kiddo?”

The book scooted forward in response.

Working with the theory that, for whatever reason, the kid could only be seen by not looking at him, Elena kept Goodnight Moon in the corner of her eye and let her eyes go unfocused. There was nothing but a blurry book, and then she blinked and saw Eugene again. He sent Goodnight Moon flipping through the air with flailing arms, and then he was looking at her, silently giggling, stomping his little feet, and spinning around with his arms in the air in celebration. Eugene lost balance, fell on his ass, and immediately got up again. The kid couldn’t be more than one, maybe one and a half.

Elena replayed the video on her phone and watched Goodnight Moon flip through the air. It left her wondering if you could record and then replay moments of a mental breakdown. She honestly didn’t know.

A stuffed rabbit at the other end of the couch fell to its side and began to move as Eugene pulled it by the ear in fits and starts towards Elena. It was ancient, sown from corduroy long worn smooth. Odetta had stitched and fixed it so many times it was almost more patch than rabbit. Elena picked the stuffed animal up and squeaked as a soft warmth moved across her thighs and nestled underneath her arm. Eugene laid his head on her chest, and it came as pressure on her breast without weight or substance. With her other hand, Elena tentatively felt the space where Eugene lay and found the air was much warmer. Around 97.5 degrees, a child’s temperature, if she had to guess. She put the rabbit in her lap, and Eugene began to stroke it, leaving the stuffed animal looking like it was breathing.

Elena opened Goodnight Moon, and a tactile memory came of her reading to Mateo, his head resting on her chest, thumb in his mouth, softly giggling as his mother gave the characters silly voices. The page began to move on its own, and she saw Mateo reaching up with a finger, wanting to be the one in charge of turning the page. She tried to keep herself in that memory, but she ended up in St. Judes, reading to him as she had in the hospital bed. He was no longer giggling, just listlessly staring at the illustrations.

Elena wiped her eyes and pulled herself back to the present, where she held Eugene, the boy who wasn’t there yet still wanted to hear a bedtime story. She breathed in and began to read, “In a great green room, there was a telephone and a red balloon.”

Elena awoke to the sight of an unfamiliar popcorn ceiling, feeling oddly chewed out but not hungover. The previous night with Eugene already felt distant and unreal. She couldn’t shake the feeling that magic like that was fleeting. Oz only existed in Dorothy’s dreams. Then, a finger brushed her cheek, as light as a feather. Turning, she stared into the abyss, staring back at her.

Eugene was close, really close. She flinched, and he vanished again, leaving her to swallow her heart back down. “Sure,” she murmured, “I’ll spend another day in Oz.”

Rising, she rubbed her eyes, pondering that brief yet vivid encounter. It was the clearest view yet of Eugene. In the new day’s light, those black pits for eyes took shape into black orbs bursting with curiosity, and my God, he seemed so alive.

The cupboard began banging in the kitchen.

“Alright. I’m up. I’m up,” Elena said and shuffled out of the living room. She found a can of instant coffee next to a petrified cockroach, opened the fridge and found several jars of baby food. Each one had a date written on the lid and a curious collection of tally marks. She turned back to the open cupboard. “Wait… do you eat?”

A pink plastic bowl took a dramatic flip off the kitchen table.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’”

Elena took out the mashed yams, wondering how feeding Eugene would work exactly. She presented the mush to the empty chair with the booster seat. “Uh, here comes the airplane?”

Eugene scraped the yams off the spoon, leaving two distinct marks from his front teeth. It splattered onto the rubber mat on the table. Elena picked up the plastic bowl and positioned it to catch the mess. “So you can eat…you just can’t actually ‘eat.’ Okay.”

She fed Eugene, wondering what exactly was going on. Was the kid actually hungry or just going through the motions? Could he even taste the food? Eventually, Elena just had to stop thinking about it. All the while, Eugene kept taking little bites while slapping the yams in the bowl, trying his damnedest to make a mess but only managing to leave behind little hand prints.

“At least you got some easy cleanup,” Elena said, “I’m not even going to pretend to know how to change your diaper.”

Not knowing what else to do, she scooped the yams back into the jar, added another tally to the lid, and returned the baby food to the fridge. Odetta spent decades living with Eugene. She must’ve figured out a thing or two. There had to be a system.

Elena felt a profound shift as her priorities began rearranging without her consultation. Suddenly, showing up to work on time seemed trivial. She played with the lid of Odetta’s Paul Malls as she called the hospice. The receptionist put her on hold, and she lit a cigarette with unpracticed hands. As her shift manager picked up, Elena took her first-ever drag and coughed her lungs out over the phone, managing to squeeze out the words “COVID” and “Just tested positive.”

Elena was given the week off, no questions asked, or at least she hoped no questions were asked. She stopped listening, watching the wisps of smoke dance around the shape of a boy. Perhaps this was why Odetta was a lifelong smoker.

“I guess I don’t have to worry about second-hand smoke with you,” Elena said, sending another puff toward Eugene. The outline pointed at the TV. “You wanna watch a movie?”

Eugene disappeared, and the smoke filled the empty space, confirming at least one theory on Elena’s growing list: Eugene didn’t need to walk. A lot of the time, he just appeared wherever he fancied. Aladdin began to slide out from Odetta’s VHS collection. Elena caught it and popped the tape in for him. With Eugene distracted, she took the opportunity to explore upstairs.

Odetta’s bedroom was a testament to neglect, with a tangible layer of dust and tar blanketing everything in a sticky layer. The master bathroom was littered with rat droppings, and Elena found the drowned remains of the culprit floating in the toilet. She flushed it down and winced at the rust-colored water that filled the bowl. The pipes were completely corroded. All of it painted a sad picture of a stubborn old woman living beyond her means and capability to maintain her home.

The second room was Eugene’s. He had a bed, but Elena wondered if Eugene ever used it. It was unclear if the boy actually slept or simply stopped moving. His assortment of toys was a chronicle of nostalgia spanning decades, and Elena had binged enough Storage Wars to know it was a gold mine. A framed photograph caught her eye. She picked it up, murmuring, “Oh my God.” It was Eugene, back when he was flesh and blood, sitting with his mother, holding his stuffed rabbit. The photo was old — Like before they invented smiling old. Elena popped off the back and found Odetta’s handwriting. ‘Eugene & Momma #1, Abigail Thomas, 1917.’

Elena went downstairs, her mind teeming with questions. She began digging through the internet, working around Eugene, who developed a fascination with her phone and started swiping up and down the screen. His tapping ceased when Elena stood and moved out of reach, which led to a peculiar realization: Eugene couldn’t float.

“Cross that one off the list of stereotypes,” Elena said, then stopped and creased her brow as she played that out. Wait, If he’s tied to the ground, does that mean he’s subject to gravity? Who decides what physical laws apply to him? The logic was baffling.

Elena’s research quickly bore fruit, thanks to an ancestry website. Abigail Thomas, born in 1898, married Nathaniel Thomas in 1915. They moved into this house, and soon after, Nathaniel left a pregnant Abigail to fight and die in the obscure ‘Banana Wars.’ A quick diversion down Wikipedia informed Elena that the conflict wasn’t as cute as the name suggested. The only traces of Eugene’s existence were his birth certificate, followed by his death certificate, issued fifteen months later. Influenza was listed as the cause of death, and a hyperlinked note pointed out that this was the most commonly listed cause during the Spanish Flu epidemic.

So Eugene died when he was only fifteen months old… 108 years ago.

“What do you do with a fifteen-month-old — ” Elena caught herself, hesitant to use the g-word. Acknowledging it would mean accepting that a ghost toddler was texting her former mother-in-law gibberish from her lap. It was simpler to think of him as Eugene.

What little Elena learned about Abigail was explained by Eugene being Eugene. Abigail never remarried and lived in the house until she died in the late 1950s. She must’ve been here all that time, still caring for her son. After her passing, the house changed hands twice, with no owner lasting more than a year.

Elena snorted. ”Oh, the realtor didn’t mention that Eugene came with the property?”

By the early 1960s, the racial makeup of the neighborhood had changed, and Odetta moved in 1964, three years after her own daughter was taken by a hit-and-run. She then spent the next sixty years taking care of Eugene.

And now what?

Elena found herself cleaning, wondering aloud about what she was doing. The kitchen was particularly challenging, not only due to the years of accumulated dust and neglect but also because of Eugene’s antics. Roaches lurked in every dark corner, ready to skitter out and startle Elena, and they had a tendency to explode if they stayed out in the open too long because Eugene loved stomping on them. Eugene also found endless amusement in the rolling mop bucket, splashing the muddy water, crashing the bucket into cabinets, and sometimes just flat-out trying to tip the whole thing over. Elena was at a loss about how to stop him. She couldn’t exactly pick him up, and drawing a circle of salt around the bucket only served to provide Eugene with something else to create a mess with.

It was purely by chance that Elena stumbled upon a solution to manage Eugene’s boundless energy when she closed the kitchen door to tackle the grime hidden behind it. Only after noticing the door rattling did it occur to her that she was finally alone. Elena opened the door, and instantly, the mop bucket began rolling away from her.

“You can’t move through walls? Seriously?” She mentally struck another spirit stereotype off her list and pulled back the mop bucket. “Maybe it’s a line-of-sight thing, and he can only pop up in places he can see.”

Elena spent the entire day cleaning until she could confidently say she was the dirtiest thing in the house. Her scrubs smelled — she smelled. Elena had no other choice but to head back to her own apartment, leaving behind a promise to Eugene that she’d return soon. Elena sped the entire way, plagued by the guilt of leaving Eugene alone, even briefly. She kept wondering why she felt solely responsible for his care but couldn’t find a satisfactory answer.

Back at her apartment, she showered and packed an overnight bag that was quickly traded out for her suitcase for week-long vacations. Again, she mused, “So you’re just going to live in a dead woman’s house, is that it?”

Elena didn’t give an answer. She swiftly returned to Odetta’s house. Excitedly walking through the door, she called out, “Eugene, I’m back!”

Silence ticked by, and fear and worry welled up inside. Perhaps leaving the house somehow broke the spell, and Eugene was gone. Her lower lip was trembling. She swallowed and tried again. “Eugene?”

Two arms wrapped around her thigh in a hug, and Elena stopped asking questions after that.

She had her answer: Everything she was doing was for Eugene.

Elena lost track of the days as she cared for the child that wasn’t there. All the while, she learned Eugene’s many idiosyncrasies. For instance, Eugene couldn’t feel pain, as evidenced by the time Elena caught him casually sitting on the open oven door, picking the pepperoni off a scalding hot pizza. Both dogs and cats could sense Eugene. Dogs went wild whenever they walked past Odetta’s house, but cats were a different story altogether. For whatever reason, the strays loved to sneak into the house and fall asleep inside Eugene’s space, treating him like a supernatural sunspot.

As Elena’s time with Eugene wore on, she discovered that stimulation was the fuel to his existence. Left alone to his own devices, the child would eventually grow bored and disappear. The realization allowed Elena to return to work without worrying about leaving him unattended, and the five-day staycation inside a dead woman’s house evolved into an indefinite arrangement.

Elena only returned to her apartment to shower and do laundry. She spent every second she could with Eugene. Every night, she fell asleep in Odetta’s room on her own mattress, feeling Eugene either in her arms or pressed against her back. Every morning, Elena woke up to Eugene either jumping on the bed or poking her in the nose.

It all seemed like a surreal blur as the days became weeks, which rolled into months, until reality woke her up with a sign in the front yard, and she realized how short-sighted she had been. No one raised a red flag when she started paying Odetta’s utilities with checks written in her name. There was never a knock on the door from someone questioning if she belonged there, and Elena didn’t question it herself. Being with Eugene, she felt complete for the first time in years. If anything, Elena figured the house had simply fallen through the cracks.

But behind the scenes, bureaucratic machinery had quietly churned ever since Odetta’s passing. Greased by capital and fueled by private interests, the process moved forward at a quiet and relentless pace. The bank holding Odetta’s debt swiftly moved to foreclose on her property, efficiently navigating probate with other creditors. They bypassed escheatment and public auction, opting for a pre-arranged private sale to the neighborhood developer. The developer, in turn, had every necessary permit rubber-stamped to remove the last remaining holdout to their vision of a “modern urban living community.” When it was all said and done, everyone patted each other on the back because they had cut the time it took for the county to address an “abandoned property” in half.

While Elena was at work, they arrived and claimed their victory, planting their flag in the form of a blown-up stock photo showing a hip twenty-something interracial couple laughing over ice cream and the words, “Benny’s General Store & Artisanal Creamery… Coming soon.”

A notice was stapled to the front door. In fifteen days, men were coming to tear down the only home Eugene had ever known to build an upscale bodega in its place.

Elena walked through the door, holding the notice in her trembling hand, feeling numb. A crayon moving back and forth over construction paper abruptly dropped and rolled across the coffee table. A second later, Eugene silently greeted her with a warm hug, his tiny arms wrapping tightly around her legs. He tugged on her fingers and guided her into the living room to look down at his drawing. It was just a scribbled mess of crayons on paper, but that was beside the point. Through her tears, Elena saw Eugene’s blurry, innocent face looking up, oh-so-proud of his creation, and the shock that had engulfed her began to recede as a cruel new reality started to set in: Eugene had no idea his days were numbered.

To be continued…

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Read Part One here

The infection started as a dull ache in her molar. Now, it was a knife twisting in Liz Martin's jaw. When the fever set in two days ago, she knew she was running out of time.

Liz Martin was a survivor, and the years after the fall had carved that truth into every inch of her being. If this were still the old world, she would have been going to college around now, probably worrying about roommates and class schedules. Her father had dreamed of watching her walk across that stage, following in his footsteps. Instead, the daily fight since the age of fourteen stripped away everything recognizable as to who she used to be and left something almost feral in its place.

Her reflection in broken windows showed a lean, weathered face that could have been nineteen or sixty. Her hair was choppy, greasy and matted. She kept it brutally short, hacking it off with her trusted KA-BAR knife whenever it grew past her ears. Experience had taught her that anything long enough to grab was long enough for the dead to grab, and she'd seen too many people with pretty long hair die to take the risk.

Her clothes were whatever she could scavenge that still had intact seams—a men's hunting jacket three sizes too big, cargo pants held up with paracord, boots stolen off a corpse that shared the same shoe size. The layers of dirt and blood had become a second skin, and she couldn't remember the last time she'd seen enough clean water to justify wasting it on a bath. She also couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten a full meal. The constant hunger had become background noise, but today the summer heat magnified every discomfort, leaving her delirious and unsteady.

Or maybe the dizziness was from her constant companion for the past week. The New World had returned humanity to its hunter-gatherer roots, but they weren't the only ones hunting. The dead ate anything with a heartbeat, and their endless wandering made it impossible to stay in one place long enough to grow food. The nomadic life left Liz surviving off the dregs of the Old World—expired cans of SpaghettiOs, stale crackers, and whatever sugar-loaded junk food hadn't been picked clean from the stores. There was no toothpaste in the mix or fluoride in the water, and now she was paying the price.

The side of her jaw throbbed in time with her heartbeat, radiating heat she could feel through her skin. Each pulse brought waves of nausea that made the world move as if she were on a boat braving the stormy sea. The back molar had developed a rancid taste that made her gag. The infection was getting worse. She'd seen people die from abscessed teeth before—fever leading to delirium, then sepsis, then a slow, painful end. She'd join them if she didn't do something about it soon.

Liz stepped through Jeremy's doorway and wobbled. She braced herself against the frame, blinking away the dark spots, letting her eyes adjust to the dark space. She then knocked on the open door and listened for the telltale stumbling and thumping of residents coming to check who was there.

Nothing came from inside, but a rasp came from outside just behind her. She turned, saw nothing, then looked down at the 5-year-old reaching up with two gnawed-off nubs as if it wanted a hug.

After all these years, she no longer remembered her father's face, but his voice was still inside her head, telling her to do better, try harder. It kept her alive. Out of habit, Liz reprimanded herself, "Always look down for crawlers and knee-biters. They're usually quiet."

She casually kicked the 5-year-old in the chest, sending it to the ground, then pinned it in place with her boot. "And always keep one eye on their mouth. The other on their hands... or nubs."

She nodded to herself, internalizing the lesson, then stomped the kid in the head until it stopped moving. Liz stumbled back to the house and knocked on the door again. Nothing.

"Keep the door open if you're just visiting, El," Liz reminded herself, then winced, touched her jaw, and winced even harder as fireworks went off in her periphery. Wiping off sweat, she closed the door behind her, feeling another wave of dizziness hit her. She wasn't going anywhere soon.

She checked the shoeprints on the moldy carpeting. Experience taught her that walkers left muddy, smeared prints while humans left more distinct shoe prints. She saw only smears. That was good. It meant no one had raided this house yet.

She crept down the entryway, whispering, "They gotta have a toolbox. A toolbox will have pliers. They got no garage, so check the closet or the kitchen—"

She froze as she turned and faced the corpse of Jeremy Shrier on the couch. Time and gravity had done their work on his once round face, pulling down his cheeks and jowls, leaving his milky sunken eyes in what looked like a melting skull. He rasped and reached out at Liz, tried to get up, but only managed to rock on the couch.

Liz kept her grip on her KA-BAR knife and examined the sight. "What are you? You're a new one." She had a naming system for the dead—roamers, lurkers, crawlers, knee-biters, rotters, and freshies—and rules for each one. Roamers moved in packs. Lurkers only moved when you woke them. Rotters were so far gone that they barely had a functional mouth. And freshies, or the freshly turned, were the most dangerous. They had all the muscle strength of a human and none of the feedback from those muscles. With a good enough grip, they could tear your skin off like gift paper... or was it Christmas paper?

Liz mumbled, her mind drifting, "Present paper? What was it called?"

She stumbled and fell on her ass. She kept her eye on Jeremy as the rest of the world swirled around her. He kept rasping, trying to get up and get at her, only to fall back down on the couch. She was on the very edge of consciousness, running a fever.

She guffawed and tried to stand back up, slurring out, "I'm gonna call you a couch potato."

She entered the kitchen, opened the first cabinet, and stared at the contents, unsure if what she saw was real. It was a fully stocked pantry. The last time she saw this many cans stacked in neat rows, she was still a kid in the Old World, walking down the aisles of a grocery store.

She opened another cabinet and found it stocked with junk food and soda. She grabbed a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and tore into it, stuffing her mouth with the chips. She gasped as a knife stabbed into her jaw and twisted the blade. She spat the chips out and found herself doubled over, moaning, holding her mouth, cursing.

Jeremy moaned along with her, trying to twist around on the couch and grab at her.

Liz went back to the first cabinet and searched the labels. She needed food but needed something soft. She grabbed a can of condensed Cream of Mushroom soup, tore the lid off, and started scooping it out with her fingers.

All the while, Jeremy kept grabbing for her, leaning back while trying to push himself up, and the couch began to tip back.

There was a blur in Liz's periphery; then, a muted impact shook the whole house. Liz turned, soup dripping down her chin, as Jeremy flopped off the flipped-over couch and rolled onto his back.

Liz giggled as he reached for her again, looking like a flipped-over turtle.

She reached for her KA-BAR knife to put an end to him and swooned as another wave of dizziness hit her. She braced herself against the counter and muttered another one of her rules, "Never go in unless you are 100% certain you can kill it before it gets you."

She put her knife back in its sheath and turned to the large cluster of medication on the counter. "Oh god, you got everything, couch potato."

As Liz rummaged through pill bottles, the Couch Potato rocked on his back, wobbling, straining—until inertia finally rolled him over onto his stomach.

And he began to leak.

After all those years stuck on a couch, his body was now shifting in unnatural ways, putting hundreds of pounds of rotting flesh under new pressure. An oily amber pool spread underneath him as Jeremy tried to push himself up. His arms gave out, and he collapsed face-first into the mess.

"Yes!" Liz hissed as she found a bottle of Amoxicillin. She popped the cap, downed two pills with a swig from a dusty 2-liter of Diet Coke, and added a couple of painkillers for good measure.

Behind her, Jeremy tried again to rise and failed, his rotting body slamming back into the puddle of decay. Liz barely noticed—her attention was fixed on her good fortune. She yanked open drawers until she found a pair of slip-joint pliers in the catch-all junk drawer. She didn't know what they were meant for, but they looked perfect for a little DIY dental work right now.

Her father's voice echoed in her head: Better to rip the bandaid off.

She took a deep breath, forced the pliers into her mouth, and clamped them down on the throbbing molar. The pain was instant—white-hot, shooting through her skull. Tears welled up as she whimpered, hyperventilating through the agony. Both hands gripped the plier handles, and she counted down.

One... Two…

Liz yanked hard. The scream that tore from her throat was primal, guttural. Blood and puss filled her mouth as the molar cracked free, sending shockwaves of pain through her head. She stumbled, drooling red, and glanced down at the blackened tooth in her trembling hand.

"I got ya, you stinking piece of—"

A wet splatter hit the wall behind her, and Liz froze. Slowly, she turned, eyes locking onto the wall. It was dripping with... something. Something brownish-yellow and curdled, and oh God, the smell…

She gagged, covering her mouth as her gaze followed the greasy trail back to Jeremy. His bloated body shuddered as he tried to rise, and more of the putrid liquid squirted out from a bite mark on his side.

It wasn't just that one wound—his entire body was leaking, his liquefying fat gushing from every love bite his neighbors had given him over the years. A foul, oily pool spread across the floor beneath him.

For the first time in years, Liz felt something she hadn't allowed herself to feel—terror. Not fear. Fear was the calculated survival instinct that had kept her alive. This was a paralyzing, pure dread that kept you from thinking straight and narrowed your options down to fight or flight... and that was what got you killed.

Jeremy made another attempt to rise. His arms shook, and with a sickening crack, his ulna snapped, bone jutting out from his forearm. His massive body tilted sideways, and his hands slipped out on the grease beneath him. He flopped back down, hard.

A splatter of yellow, chunky cottage cheese hit Liz's legs. She barely had time to react before the stench hit her again, burning her eyes. She looked down and saw the liquid pooling around her feet. She tried to step back, but her boots slipped on the grease, sending her flailing.

Liz caught the counter, knocking the pill bottles to the ground, scrabbling for balance on the slick linoleum as she desperately tried to stay on her feet.

Behind her, Jeremy—against all odds—managed to push himself upright. For the first time in years, he stood. His massive stomach sagged, dragging almost to the floor.

But it wasn't just sagging. Liz's eyes widened in horror as his upper body seemed to deflate—his arms and chest shriveling as the liquefied fat drained into his abdomen. His torso hung loose, like a stretched deflated balloon, while his stomach swelled grotesquely.

Liz righted herself, gripping the counter, fighting to keep her gravity centered in this precarious position. Cornered in the kitchen, she picked her only option: Fight. She pulled out her knife, knowing she had one chance to take him down before she would be flat on her ass again.

The Couch Potato lumbered forward, his arms reaching for her. Liz lunged at his head with a desperate stab of her KA-BAR.

She didn't even make it a step before her feet shot out from underneath her. The blade plunged not into his head, but deep into his stomach. Instinctively, she clung to the knife, trying to pull herself up, but her weight dragged the blade downward instead.

With a horrible tearing sound, the knife sliced open Jeremy from sternum to navel.

Liz hit the ground, and Jeremy emptied onto her. Over 200 pounds of greasy, chunky, rotten fat poured out, burying her under a flood of decay.

Still leaking, Jeremy wobbled on his feet, much, much lighter now. His loose, sagging skin flapped against his emaciated frame like grotesque curtains as he stumbled forward.

Liz screamed beneath him, drenched in his mess, gagging, her hands clawing at the linoleum as she tried to scrabble away. But it was no use—she slipped and slid, trapped in place by the slick, putrid ichor.

She barely managed to flip onto her back, tucking her knees into her chest just as Jeremy's bloated corpse toppled down on top of her. His rasping breaths filled her ears, and she stared up in horror as his teeth snapped inches from her face. His still pudgy hands gripped the sides of her head, pulling her closer, his rotting breath hot against her skin.

Liz tried to grip his shoulders and hold him back, but she only managed to grab fistfuls of loose, slick skin, not the body underneath. The flesh simply tore away from the connective tissue holding it back and inched ever closer to Liz.

Desperation overtook her. She frantically scanned the floor, eyes locking on the KA-BAR a few feet away. Her hand shot out, fingers grazing the hilt, but it was too far.

And it was too late.

With a sickening rip, Jeremy's skin tore completely, and his rotting body collapsed onto her. Liz went stiff as she felt his teeth graze her neck. Panic seized her as she faced the inevitable—the moment she fought against every day of her miserable life—it was finally here. The moment they tore into her.

But the bite didn't come.

Jeremy's teeth gripped her neck, his leathery tongue pressed against her flesh. He froze, tasting himself on her, registering a bitter, rancid rot. Liz lay still beneath him, her breath held, not daring to move. The creature hovered there, torn between two conflicting impulses: the meat was rotten, but it was warm—feverishly warm.

Jeremy's vacant eyes locked onto her. For a moment, Liz thought this was it. Her whole body trembled, ready to die.

Then, a crow cawed outside.

The sound pulled Jeremy's attention away. Slowly, he released her and stood, his interest now focused on the noise. Liz watched in stunned disbelief as he staggered off, slipping and sliding across the linoleum floor, lurching toward the broken window.

Liz could only take a breath and bring her trembling fingers to brush against her neck. They came back slick and slimy—but there was no blood. His teeth hadn't broken skin. Liz didn't understand. Birds fly, and the dead bite... except for this time.

Jeremy reached the window and leaned forward, tumbling through the jagged glass. Liz blinked as the sound of ripping flesh followed him, leaving behind large chunks of loose, sagging skin caught on the shards. He fell into the overgrown bushes, his flesh further catching on branches and brambles.

The crow cawed again, and Jeremy writhed like a bloated butterfly pushing itself out of its chrysalis, tearing more of himself free as he struggled to roll away. With much of his skin hanging in tatters, Jeremy stood and wandered off into the overgrown street.

Shaking, Liz crawled out of the kitchen, leaving the grease-slick linoleum behind, her limbs aching. She pulled herself into the carpeted living room and stood on unsteady legs. Slowly, she moved to the window, watching in disbelief as Jeremy Shrier stumbled down the street. His torso was glistening red, stripped of fat and most of his skin, nothing but pure muscle. The ribbons of his remaining flesh flapped loosely at his waist, dragging behind him as he explored this New World.

THE END