I turned on my EleChair and let my body fall into the black-hole. Overtop my fingers and stumpy legs, a new form took shape. Like a rapidly growing embryo, delicate, slender hands stretched from some neoplastic core and clawed along my arms to their new homes. I took on narrow shoulders, Venus-like cheekbones, paired to an impeccable smile that made men obey all its own. My shell overtook what was left of my body, until I had become just as virtual as everything else. My Avatar slammed into the floor of Skylark’s bar, startling my confidant for tonight. His body flickered a moment, showing off the hollow core within. I rose, brushing folds from an impeccably rendered crimson dress and fixing him a glare that could melt both hearts and steel. “Well?” I said. “Aren’t we going to talk shop?”

                Blaine smiled weakly, his lips cracked and wiry. He had wild gray hair that sat over his face, unkempt as his ideas for bettering the world. “Not so loud now,” he whispered. “There’s chum in the waters and lots of sharks around us. Come on.” Although the bar was far from crowded, he had spoken true. Its denizens couldn’t help but stare at me. They were impulsive creatures with narrowed eyes to hide their bloodlust, and perfect faces to disguise souls more blackened than the well-done steaks carried by the waitstaff. 

                He beckoned me to a private table in the corner of the room. On our way, I perused the others and caught snippets of their conversations. There were ambitious plans for snuffing out those businesses clinging to dry land, to keep the remnant market here, amongst us that moved beneath the sea.  A healthcare executive laughed about sinking another hospital for his computerized diagnostic conglomerate. Beside him, a Senator joked about not setting foot in the capital building in years— “Why bother?” he said. “It’s so far from my lakehouse!” They clammed up upon seeing me, now breathing slowly like hyenas on the hunt. We shared a mutual glimpse that silently named this Avatar as a fine trophy. A body made for consumption, and the public was always very hungry.

                Blaine pulled out a gold embroidered seat from the two-man table, then sat across from me. I sat delicately, legs crossed, inhaling the cinnamon scented candle that served as our only light. His elbows slammed on the table as he extended a hand that trembled with a similar mania as his wide eyes. I took it slowly, letting him squeeze for an illusion of control. “Blaine Staffley. I manage number 17,” he said, not realizing I already knew everything about him.

                “Andromeda,” I said. “From Johnson and Lake.”

                His hand retracted into his mouth so he could chew his nails. I winced, breaking character to search for any stares of judgement. “I’ve read about some of your work. It’s magnificent stuff, Miss—er…?”

                “Just Andromeda,” I said. His leg began to bounce like a jackrabbit.

                The waiter interrupted our introduction. Drink orders were rung. He had a Pinot Noir at my suggestion. Myself, a glass of whiskey. We continued on with meaningless niceties until the waiter returned, blessing us with inebriation. Blaine kept yammering with one eye on me, while the other seemed to split its gaze to my rocks glass as I put the amber liquid to my blood-red lips. Perhaps he’d expected me to share in his wine, but some thirsts went bone deep.

                By the time he next spoke, he had lost himself in the whiskey, seemingly overtaken by its alarming incongruity. “You know, I was wondering. Why here? Your office is a blink away. Same server, even.”

                “Can’t a girl enjoy some evening fun?” I said.

                “But this is a Lofted bar. These kinds are the worst kind of nosy. Given how effectively you’ve handled their lot, I thought you played it a little more cautiously.” Blaine had the habit of gesticulating wildly when he spoke, somewhere between anxious spasms and a deliberate attempt to distract.

                I sighed with a grin you might give a stupid child. “Then you might also have thought about how I managed to beat them all. You won’t gain anything hiding your silly head in the dirt like an ostrich.” I quieted down and perked up my ears, beckoning him to do the same. We let the ocean of noise wash over us, treading water in its currents of conversation. The table beside us was complaining they could never find competent dates anymore. The next over repeatedly talked up the quality of the steak cuts here, caught in a circle of meaningless niceties. A third went over their plans for an unscrupulous merger between a pair of virtual and physical real-estate businesses. “You hear that?” I said, leaning into a whisper. Blaine was caught in my image, bending in close to breathe my cherry-scented skin. “They’ve outlined blatant tax-fraud. They think they’re invincible. Why? Because people like you are too dense to listen. As for me, you could say I’ve learned to think like a Lofted. They let me in. Then I let them drown.”

                Blaine nodded, indulging in the revenge fantasy. “I’ve got a story far worse. I think you’ll find it a deeply interesting case.”

                Now he was speaking my language. “Then shoot.”

                He pulled up his Holoconsole, scrolling through a stack of data. I went for more whiskey as he plucked one file out, rendering between us the image of a jaw-dropping man. Through the folds of my rocks glass, I was entranced by a reflection distorted into somehow greater handsomeness. My heart quickened. The man was an ivory tempest, with a perfect piano-white smile. His black hair was impeccably cut, his shoulders two broad towers, wrapped in the most expensive suit off the Vendorstream’s fashion line.

                “You might have heard of this slimeball.” said Blaine. “Calls himself Bill Maxley. Like he knows he’s better than you. But he’s not. I know cowards by their smell. And between all the cologne, all the phony bravado, there’s a little man on the other side, shriveled up like a raisin.”

                My eyebrows flattened, the whisky glass shaking as I set it back down. Was it excitement or something more unstable? “I have his profile. What’s your point?”

                “Only that he’s a big fat class action waiting to happen,” said Blaine, leaning back with crossed arms and a smug grin. “Last week through some memo mix-up, he invited one of my colleagues to the club where he always drinks with his goblins. A place kinda like this one. We’ll call him Manager 12, or Wyman, by his real-world name. Oh, and keep that between us. It’s classified stuff at the ‘Everywear’ corporation, although it’s not like Maxley would ever know his employees enough to catch on. Anyway, I thought you could call him. See if he’s interested in being a joinder in a more official suit. I’d do it, but union talk always gave him cold feet.”

                I shuddered at the word, disguising it behind a hit of whiskey. “What did Wyman do, that he’d make such a splash?”

                “Maxley beat him up. That’s what.”

                “Beat up his Avatar? I imagine that might’ve hurt, but we can’t make a case on simulated injury.”

                “It’s a lot more than that. Supposedly Maxley didn’t want Wyman at the club, so he messed with him. Stuff like making him dance for crypto. Drink out of a dip cup for a promotion. Then Wyman got drunk and started sharing some at-home drama about his wife, so this Maxley bastard started pummeling him so bad, his handlers had to break them up. And the cherry on top is Wyman’s the one who got fired!”

                “That’s the story we want to keep? Do you even believe that happened?” I said.

                “What’d you mean? I got it from the horse’s mouth.”

                I shook my head, chuckling as I spun the last of my drink around the glass. “I’m not an ambulance chaser, Blaine. I want something a little more concrete.”

                “Alright. What about all the money he hides from the IRS? I know Everywear cooks its books. I’ll get you evidence.”

                “I thought you wanted a raise, not to be done in for whistleblowing.”

                “The former would be nice. The latter, a tax for sweet justice. You should see the way he runs these factories. He’s got people working night and day to make a product that only exists in theory. Cause shitheads like these Lofted…” Blaine said, pointing around the room, “…keep buying it. And the kid yuppies follow suit and start a trend, until all of America’s breaking their bank to dress up these Avatars. Only a real psycho would keep a system like that going.”

                “If the key to this suit are these factories, why don’t we take a look already?” I asked.

                “What, leave this frying pan for that fire? We’d have even more surveillance on us…” he started, slowing down when he noticed me glaring at him with a strange expression somewhere between a demand and a dismissal. “…well, I suppose you did mention knowing your enemies.”

                I paid the tab as he violated code by phasing us both to the heart of Factory 17. Not a moment too soon, because as I toured around the production floor, it became radically apparent how much the union had snowballed. Half the workstations were unmanned, with staff hanging out in the side halls and lounges full of coffee-chat this, or on-break that. I knew well from my line of work that factories were a living thing, with production as their hearts. If I had the intention of taking Blaine’s case, I’d tell him how he could use his workers as clots. Take away the place’s oxygen, alongside its profit margins. Use laziness as a weapon to induce cardiac arrest. That was if his suit had any ground to stand on.

                Instead, his case came down to an old man gesticulating at each worker who bothered to do their job, desperate to show how they were suffering.  He made extra-sure I turned my head to see one of the senior operators pull off a massive combo, this spectacled-wearing fellow with an intense focus and surgical hands. The laborer swiped to match four, then jerked his arms like rubber to five in time, contorting them again to get six, making it to even seven. Blaine mentioned how grueling combos like that were, although I’d seen people go up to thirteen without breaking a sweat. The production game he was playing, “GetEm!”, sounded a little fanfare as all the blocks disappeared, drawing envious eyes from the people around him, and I watched a rare seed materialize. The new dress phased into the air amidst shimmering waves, slowly taking its place in reality, at first a virtual holograph, then seconds later popping fully into our world. It was a lurid blue, gleaming like Polaris. It undulated in the vented air as if tempest waves, long sleeves and frilly hems whipping around, its bent collar dazzling with diamonds. Immediately, it fell onto a conveyor belt below and was shunted out of sight, cataloged into Everywear’s portfolio to sell to the endless hunger of fashion. I watched it disappear into a duct along the floor’s edge and found myself salivating, wondering which of my Avatars would wear it best.

                Next Blaine pointed to another operator, saying she was clinically depressed but had to keep working here to feed her cat. I tuned him out as I lost myself in her, a small woman with jet-black hair wearing stock-black headphones. I froze immediately, overwhelmed by some kind of misplaced empathy. Was I supposed to cut her loose like I had with myself? I found myself staring, zoning out more and more. Was that what Blaine wanted? An end to this act? In her I saw a deluded, misguided version of myself, but nonetheless, myself.

                But we were nothing alike. No, I assured myself. Amongst operators like her, there could never be talk of a future. No matter how grand the view of the Hypercity peeking through scant windows, there could never be whispers of humanity. Only the noise from hands swishing through a holographic game board, tuned out by blasts of air from the overhead ventilation system paired with humongous fans that droned on while turbines hummed below.

                Blaine stopped gesticulating, awaiting me to snap out of it. She had deimmersed me. I had thought I was staring at some kind of twisted reflection of the world outside. No, I had to harden myself. I had to focus on what I wanted if I would hope to stay afloat. She began going especially fast when she realized I was staring. Her deft hands darted up and around a holographic image, matching tiles depicting stuffed animals into rows of 3, which subsequently vanished to up the score. She managed to clear the level, and after a visual fanfare of holographic confetti, her prize, a brown leather jacket, popped up to be filed away into the factory’s portfolio. In recognition, I gave her a quick nod.

                To get a better view, we headed up a level and traversed the high-raised walkways that overlooked the expansive production floor. These iron paths split off into other hallways as they led all along the outer perimeter of the room, perfect for the keen-eyed manager to take stock of their workforce. The rows of employees picked up their speed upon seeing me, weaving an illusion of good work down there, but I knew the second I was gone, it’d devolve back to talk. A few other workers wandering the scaffolding were even eating lunch up here. To my dismay, the integrated ads obnoxiously left them holding bags of McDonald’s or Taco Bell. I grumbled to myself, realizing Blaine must have neglected to update the firewall too.

                Turning towards him, I asked, “You mentioned in our communications something of a smoking gun. Where? The Wyman story? Or these people working a fairly normal job?”

                Blaine looked shocked. “Oh, you can’t see it?” His hands clutched the rail, as he leaned over the workers with heavy breaths. “I thought you specialized in union work.”

                “I do.”

                “Well, then look!” he said, his hands presenting the production floor like a wrapped gift.

                “What am I seeing?” I needed to hear him say it first.

                “All of them! They’re organized!”

                He was too afraid of the presumed surveillance to give it to me straight. “And how many is them? Just this factory? Everywear’s a big business.”

                He nodded, speaking in a hushed but excited tone. “Not too many, yet. But we’re growing. Fast. Faster than I ever thought.”

                “And who put them up to it?”

                Blaine raised his eyebrows, thrown off by that question. Perhaps I had been too direct. “Who? Don’t be daft. They asked for this.”

                “But they have a leader, don’t they?” I asked.

                Next Blaine shrugged, turning his attention back to the production floor. “I think I’ve given you enough of a teaser. We should draft some contracts if we’re gonna go deeper. So what do you think?”

                “I think…” I said, struggling against a rising tide within. My mental dam held strong, as I answered calmly. “That we can make this work. A follow up meeting is in order.”

                “Bah,” said Blaine, beginning to jitter with anticipation. “Let’s get her done now. Strike while the iron’s hot.” He rubbed his hands together. “Why, Maxley won’t know what hit him!” All sense of decorum and caution went out the window as he spouted what he really thought, back turned in silent shame. That invisible billionare baby. Too scared to show his real face. What a pathetic excuse for a magnate. A real bitch, I might add.”

                Far below, buried under the iron floor, I thought I heard the factory’s heartbeat quicken. “BUMP! BUMP! BUMP!” it sounded, piercing the metal behemoth’s walls. I looked to place it, but the sound faded. The surge moved into me next, demanding I act. If I couldn’t keep my cool… I’d lose this lead. But I was already bursting out. Large, gorilla-like hands stretched from the same neoplastic core as before and replaced my arms with two trunks. I took on broad shoulders, adonis-like cheekbones, paired to an impeccable smile that closed deals all on its own. A new, much more scene-appropriate shell overtook my body, until I had become the only real thing about this place. I had to nurse the factory. I had to keep its heart beating.

                “You should hear the way he talks,” Blaine continued. “Always reminded me a little bit too much of my ex-wife. That’s how I knew he was rotten from the start.”

                My arm lashed out and I vice-gripped his collar. He was nearly weightless to Maxley, like a disobedient toddler who kicked dad’s shins one-too-many times at church. My brain went dumb while Blaine’s face went white, trying to process where the hell I had come from. Hoisting him, I dangled him over the edge of the walkway so he could get a good look at the entire workforce.

                “You know what your problem is Blaine?” I said. “You lack in imagination. I told you to think like the other side. You talk of big philosophy but see in one dimension. Tell me what you see out there.”

                He clawed at my hands around his collar, thinking for a second he could hurt me after everything I’d been through to get here. “Wha—Bill?!”

                “You wondered why I keep them going? What, cause they’re not learning how to be doctors, or scientists? Would you prefer they take out your garbage?”

                “Bill, the whole factory’s heard about it,” he stammered as he struggled and kicked through the air. “How you BEAT Wyman in that bar. You’re nuts. You’re fucking crazy, and we all know it.” Below, many of the laborers grew distracted and began to stare up at the commotion.

                I eyed them, hesitating. I was losing control. “I keep at it because I love society, Blaine. We need work, any work, to keep us ticking.” My hand lost traction on his collar, the gravity pulling him deeper. “And in this age of plenty I give purpose. But you. You love to rock the boat! You’d love to see all of them on the roadside, flashing their laughable resumes, begging for meaning.” He slipped from my grip, but I managed to catch him by the tie. Like a pendulum, he swayed through open air, kicking and screaming. Blaine yelped, choking from the noose of professionalism wrapping his neck. “You act like I could shut it down. I’d have to drop you as manager. What would you do then?”

                Blaine’s face turned red as he gasped for air. He opened his mouth a few times, as if a witty retort were on the cusp of his lips, then lost amidst wheezing. Finally, he croaked one last inhale, releasing it to scream, “For Godsakes, HELP!”

                It was too late to pull him back to reality. The last iota of his necktie slid along my sweaty palms as it took Blaine with it. His arms splayed about with as much drama as Sherlock Holmes falling from that waterfall. He Verse-died on impact with the ground, disappearing in a dramatic splash of azure pixels. Oops. I hadn’t guessed that could actually kill his Avatar. Luckily, that’s why they made lawyers.

               The employees stared back, their eyes wide and mouths agape. A few even stood up from their workstations in abandonment of their duties. It was as if they just witnessed Brutus stick a knife into Ceaser. They got it backwards, though. Had Caesar the gall to ax his wily subordinates first, he would’ve lived. One of the senior operators, an old, leathery woman, spoke up, whimpering, “Wha, why did you… my God…”. It would be a shame to terminate someone of her age, but you never knew when it came to the Verse. Sometimes these types pinched enough pennies to play on a real avatar, making their true appearances a mystery.

                Dusting off and fixing my jacket, I explained, “Forgive me. Lost my cool for a second there.” I pointed at the senior operators, who’d surely been the ones stirring the pot. “You three. You’re out. Fired.”

“Unbelievable!” remarked the spectacled fellow. Beside him, the woman with jet black hair sat frozen with her hands over her mouth.

I checked my watch. “While I’d love to discuss your severance pay, it’ll come in your inbox. Get out.”

“We were leaving anyway,” said the old woman. “You think any of us need to be playing this shit? You’re doing us a favor.”

“Good to know,” I said, with as much politeness as I could muster.

Next the old woman pumped her fist in the air and said a short but loud, “Down with Maxley!” She turned, her fist still raised and continued in an ever-louder chant. “Down with Maxley! Down with Maxley!”

                At first, her words were toothless, echoed into nothing amidst the ambient industrial cacophony. But soon the spectacled operator joined in. “DOWN WITH MAXLEY!” they shouted in unison. It might have made a cute caroling duo. I them singing at my apartment door amidst the holidays, a melody about how deluded laborers were always keen to fire their boss to replace them with somebody worse.

                I was moments from phasing away when the little woman with jet-black hair stood up from her workstation. In a blink, I was small again. I could see my childhood self in her, digging in the mud behind the playground. A stick in my clumsy fist, scraping for friends. Rolly pollies, insects, millipedes, and worms. I was one of those vile creatures, then. An invertebrate. My exoskeleton, the tight grip of fear. I could feel it squeezing through the standing hairs on my neck. Predatory eyes, like those that once hid in the playground, now watched me from the workstations. The hateful hands, leaving indents on rendered steel. Waiting. Lurking. They’d rush me at once, grab hair and stuff my face in the dirt to rejoin the vermin. I got the shit kicked out of me so much growing up that I stopped caring about getting hurt. I only wanted to never live in fear. Wanted someone, at least someone, who’d understand. Bill Maxley understood. He was all I had. I had to protect him.

                She was a little thing before Maxley’s gaze, like a trembling mouse beneath the radiator. I fixed her a murderous scowl, probably how Achilles saw Hector before plunging a spear through his neck. But this must’ve only fueled her fire, because as soon as she opened her mouth, “DOWN WITH MAXLEY!” came out. Her high soprano gave sorely needed harmonic depth to this now trio. “DOWN WITH MAXLEY!” they chanted again.

                More voices punctured into their song. Now, there must’ve been fifteen people screeching. Led by the old woman, the foolhardy singers began to file out of the factory together. The stragglers took this cue to join the chant as well. The others, I might have tolerated, but these yellowbellies—they had no convictions but follow the leader. A useful trait with the right person in charge, but an unstable powder keg under a rabble rouser like Blaine. “DOWN WITH MAXLEY!” The whole of the factory yelled as one, any harmoniousness was gone and replaced by a drunken sports ballad.

                I felt myself filling with lightning. The lot of them could not resist me if I wanted to stop them from leaving. My hands were already fists and I took a step forward, when I caught myself with a jolt. Elton was right, one more violent mistake would cost me all. Instead, I yelled back, “This factory’s done! Closed! Don’t even try to come to work tomorrow!” This factory’s flaccid martyrdom would be a warning unto others.

                The workers ripped open the doors and mobbed out of the factory. I followed them outside, where they now romped across an industrial style pier that served as this server’s phasing grounds. In the distance, the Hypercity could be seen with the massive Omni building sticking up in the middle. It was as if even from here, Elton was watching and flipping me off. The laborers were getting very rowdy. Some of them picked iron barrels off the ground and threw them about amidst the cries of “DOWN WITH MAXLEY!”, while others ran for the rocky beach at the pier’s shoreline, grabbing stones and hurling them towards the factory. I felt myself growing small as the rocks clattered against the factory’s iron plated siding and reinforced windows. “DOWN WITH MAXLEY!” their voices rang one last time.

                I had always dreamt my apocalypse would be more… cinematic. Bombs exploding over Washington DC, a human inferno of melting hair and skin, sirens everywhere, and maybe goddamn aliens. I would’ve liked to see a UFO land on the empire state building and little green men march down a ramp in miniskirts, holding ray guns and demanding the president. What I got was far more boring. A black hole, and at its center, a sarcophagus to lie in until I rotted away, my life an excuse to build an ever-fancier tomb. Although, there was no question that tomb would be big. What remained was what to do with all the empty space. The old pharaohs got buried with their slaves. Maybe, in their hubris, they conflated forced labor for friendship. I couldn’t blame them. I suppose if I had to take anyone with me, it would be my workers. The only thing separating us from the pharaohs and slaves of old was a mutual lack of faith in deliverance. As such, the rest of their performance would fall on deaf ears, as I fled, phasing to a different server. 

Despite sucking on us like ambitious secretaries, the media loved to clown on virtual companies. It didn’t take long before word of my factory walkout was hanging off the lips of every Lofted in town. In a world where privacy went the way of the dodo, the best gossip was everyone’s gospel. At first, I was keen to ignore it all. I was impervious to teasing at the bar from John about when I should expect a pink slip. I was ignorant to intrusive questions at our biweekly meetings about how to appease Blaine’s lawyers. But a dam can only hold back a tide for so long, and it all came to head when a video of me lobbing Blaine off the balcony leaked to East Time News.

                I was out-Verse when I caught wind, through a cacophony of red alerts send straight to my neuroimplants that had my body burning alive. With my little shaking hands, I grabbed my Visor and watched a worker’s POV of Blaine dangling in the air. Although you couldn’t exactly make the predator out to be me, the camera was sure to follow as Blaine went tumbling off the side, splattering to the ground in a sapphire eruption before I leapt off in pursuit, the tremors sending the camera falling to the ground and shutting it off.

                The chair of my board responded within a minute of the leak. “MAXLEY. SHINDIG AT MY OFFICE. RIGHT NOW,” was the extent of his invitation. I shuddered at the choice of the word ‘Shindig’. Elton was always lying around in a pool made of gelatin, or golfing on the surface of Mars, while he chewed me out, half of his mind permanently prepubescent. I loaded in outside the Omni building in the Hypercity’s downtown and did my best to hide my face from the legions of fresh college grads spewing from its maw. The corporate world lived off young blood, and I wasn’t about to let them know I was one mistake from being another donor.

                With my dinner bell ringing, I trawled up the 1000 floors in the Highraiser. Thousands of Lofted were sardine-squashed alongside me, pushing into my body, rubbing my hands and legs, making it hard to breathe. Its walls were all glass, and I squinted from the sun spilling between all the well-groomed heads. Some vanished at the middle-levels, and I got to spread out and breathe we went ever-higher, bringing me somewhere beyond the endgame for most people’s lives, where gargantuan sums of wealth changed hands as carelessly as pennies in a tip jar. But as the skyscraper assembly in the window shrank to toothpicks, I could only think about how this farce would be a huge waste of my time. Elton had taken notes from the Old Founder, desperate for submission over productivity.

                In his day, Founder James Finkleworth could appear anywhere, anytime. Whispers circulated amongst us high Lofted that he had violated Congress’s VR Fairness Creed and given himself psychic abilities. Mind control. Fed himself hotlines of everyone’s internal narrative throughout the Verse, so he simultaneously felt it all. If the press knew, they didn’t care. I couldn’t blame them. Any religion showed how much we craved a higher state, even if taken vicariously through worship.

                Then one day, he killed himself. Mental breakdown, according to the news. A noble drowning, according to me. Somehow, he’d been running so much simultaneous information through his EleChair that the thing went haywire, cooking him in an electrical explosion. Out-Verse, his fried corpse had to be extricated from the ruins of its tremendous EleChair using a crane. Without his vision, this place shambled on like a headless chicken. There was no transcendence in being packed shoulder to shoulder with other doppelgängers day in and out.

                At the top floor, the last few stragglers and I phased into a new venue. I found myself looking out over a drinking hall so wide that I couldn’t see from one end to the other. The walls were fine wood and stone, carved into statues of great men throughout history. Figures of Thomas Edison, breaking bread with Tesla, next to Alexander the Great staring lustily at Abraham Lincoln. The Lofted scattered around the tables wore all sorts of ridiculous outfits, from Renaissance vests and Ballgowns, to Mongol furs, and of course western business attire. In their hands were tankards, on their plates, mutton chops. Fingers danced between bowls of fruits and fish and nuts and cheese. It smelled like the inside of a steakhouse on a day without lunch: tantalizing, rare, bloody cuts next to mash potatoes and red wine.  Cut into the alcoves of the walls were bars, bars, so many bars so we could always get hammered while discussing how to bleed the world. Between the chatter was the trickling of decorative rivers that weaved through wood-finished floors. They cascaded as a dozen waterfalls to the drinking hall below, feeding in ponds with lilies and koi fish. The upper hallways splayed off into various meeting rooms, and instead of a ceiling, the glass floored ‘pharmacy’ capped it all. In that drug den one could get high staring down at the whole, magnificent world squashed underfoot. The sound of auspicious voices melded with the crashing waterfalls into a divine chorus, caught between bite of food or something worse.

                A hand clasped my shoulder. “There you are, Bill. Early curly.” I turned towards John Waters, who stood with a briefcase, checking his watch. He was my chosen sibling, looking like my reflection but in a brown suit, always with a cigarette clasped in his fingers. Also a Lofted, he had control of the distribution software that brought my products to vendors, which chained us together. “I can’t believe that slug took you to the press,” he said. Word always travelled fast in-Verse.

                “If he wanted to play ball, he could’ve at least gotten my good side. I’ve already got rat catchers on it.” I offered him a light, which he took on his cigarette and puffed.

                “Why don’t we take it easy instead? I’ve got too much going on to deal with another tattle-tale. Besides, I’d say he did get your good side. You looked real regal tossing that sod.”

                “Easy for you to say. You’re not getting lambasted by Matthew Munst on primetime.” I thought back to the broadcast, my headshot shrunken beside that pretty-boy anchor. “I’m going to mess that guy up if I run into him. Him and his hairdo.”

                John had a chuckle. “Oh come on. You know Matthew’s just a dog for the hunt. Why not give him something else to chew on?”

                “I’ve got about a dozen dead soldiers in Taiwan he could chat about. But that’s not very patriotic.”

                “Neither’s whistleblowing, for that matter. Come on. Let’s go get the jump on Elton before he can set up.”

                He was right. Elton already knew it all, so our only choice was to surprise him. We found a staircase along the rungs of the virtual Valhalla and began to ascend. On the way up, I traded looks with other fat cats. Usually some kind of perfectly grey-goateed snob sitting beside some young escort, fingers grabbing at her ass. I’d roll my eyes, and they’d offer me something of a toast and a wink, knowing this exchange might be our last. Those who never drink in the dark had a perverse confidence. With friends like these, how could I hate my employees? Higher up, Lofted chatter became as resonant as incoherent, sounding more like a chorus of angels than men. Everything became whiter, the slick wood and stone below tossed in favor of purity. White bars, white clothing. Dante had left purgatory. This was our idea of divinity. Climbing, climbing, I hadn’t broken a sweat, yet I was already exhausted. I stared down what was now a yawning abyss, the drinking hall below speckled by ant-people, then back to the plane above me. The pharmacy sat over top, its glass floor full of laughter and cries of strung-out elites. Through the translucent dome was a way somehow get higher, but I wouldn’t yet find out where.

                We split off the staircase and instead headed down a long hallway to Elton’s playpen. At the far end, the walls were gray and windowless. A potted plant sat on a table here, a red, felt sofa was placed there. On one of them, a lone woman in a purple dress caught my eye, gently waving her hand in an idle hello. Just another dopehead. Further down the hall, we closed in on a light emanating from the arch, the other side too bright to make out. Carved decorations lined a corridor of stone. They looked to be robbed from ancient Greece, these bizarre, bearded faces carved into milky marble played out vignettes of dancing nymphs tempting satyrs, heroes slaying hydras and minotaurs, and the gods having their way with mortals. I locked eyes with a centaur about to trample a young maiden, her hands affixed forward, his bow, downward. Aside from his torso, his eyes too were those of a savage beast, but his face and skin, that of a man.

                “I know a lover of contradiction when I see one,” said a woman’s voice. I turned, startled to find the lady in the purple dress right behind me. I glanced back to confirm her seat down the hall was empty, then returned my focus to her. Close up, she was gorgeous. Flowing black hair was tied back into a surgical ponytail, with sharp, inquisitive blue eyes. Deftly subtle makeup marked her eyelashes and lips, ending in a pixie chin. For a moment, I daydreamed about running up a tab into the millions on the Person Forge to create the same, so I could own her in my wall of faces. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both. Elton has given me quite the earful on our mutual problem,” she said, extending both her hands over one another in an X. John and I shook on instinct, like we were making some kind of cultic pact.

                “I’m sorry, have we met?” I asked.

                “That’s Dr. Feela,” John urged in a whisper. “Only Elton’s top psychological engineer.”

                I rolled my eyes on instinct.  Those types were all quacks, chasing mystic concepts of mind control and extrasensory perception through neural machinery. “Look, I appreciate the help, but we’ve got this under control. We don’t need your neural mapping, we don’t need social wiring, we don’t—”

                “—for Elton to call me, I assure you it’s not under control,” she said “Though it would be an understatement to call your office bickering an abject waste of my time. For the record, I advised he let Everywear sink to the bottom with the rest of the dregs. But for some reason, he thinks the business is worth a life preserver.”

                “Then it’s a good thing we’re getting off on such a positive foot. You better not be afraid of to get a little wet,” I japed.

                “And you better not be afraid to drown, Mr. Maxley. I know the inside of your brain like the back of my hand,” she said, smirking with knowing eyes. “If you want to go where I go, see what I’ve seen, you’ll have to find your own air hose.”

                I was unphased. Even someone as rotten as her wouldn’t dare break my immersion with Elton breathing down our necks. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”

                “I’d love to hear you say that with a lung full of water.”

                “FEELA,” echoed Elton’s rumbling voice down the hallway. “GET THEM IN HERE.” In front of me, the Doctor jolted, her eyes growing wide. I looked to place the screaming voice but saw no one save the three of us. My head bowed, embarrassed to have my privacy violated.

                Feela put her hands on her hips and sighed. “You heard the man. Batter up, big boy.”

                John took point and mimed swinging at a baseball. I filed in after, as together we crossed the arch, leaving behind the icons of greek gods and their patrons to reappear somewhere far worse.

                The whiteness was overwhelming, then, a moment of darkness. Bodiless, I still felt a jerk and a tug, yanked to a faraway server. Then once more, the light. A blast of cold air hit my face. I refocused and found myself on a stretch of ice. John was standing across from me, trying to keep his balance. There was a rumbling, as the pair of us turned to find a bowling ball rattling right towards us. By a hair, I leapt over it in time, treated by the clatter of pins in my wake. The move left my feet kicking, searching for friction, until I slammed into John and brought the two of us down in a five-hundred-pound mess of tight business attire. I fixed my tie and spied the perp by the ball dispenser.

                “The man of the hour!” said Elton, rising from a bowling squat. “Good dodge, but stay off the lanes.” He laughed, with chuckles echoed by his yes men lounging about the lane table. Elton Sharp looked insignificant, and that was the most insidious thing about him. He played on his native profile, the appearance of a fifty-year-old twat with several obvious plastic surgeries brimming with flaws. The laborers who’d never afford an Avatar, I forgave, but the emperor choosing to go naked was far dumber than the homeless drunk.

                Elton set off onto the wintery bowling lanes, walking along the gutter. His outstretched hand picked me up and pulled me into a tight hug. I had to bite my lip to resist crushing him. He retrieved John next, both of us stumbling over the slick until we joined his clown pack, today out in force.

                Ricky Wence was perched atop the ball dispenser, a European royal’s spare heir with hair as wild and red as his appetite for pleasure. Once, during a notorious trans-company retreat to the server in the Swiss Alps, he racked up so much debt that five different autocrats tried to dox him, their clunky hacking crashing the entire thing for a day. “Alright, Bean. Twenty-thousand says Elton gets a strike next time. Double or nothing,” he said.

                Below, Paul Bean’s pudgy fingers scrawled on the scorecard, a human abacus perpetually tallying invisible fortunes. I eyed him warily, the tycoon’s jowls quivering as he muttered rapid-fire calculations, eyes darting between the scorecard and the lanes. “Statistically speaking, Ricky,” he said, “Elton’s next roll has a 73.6% chance of being abysmal. You still like those odds?”

                Past the gamblers and their plastic chairs, Elton gave a relieved sigh as he flopped into an elevated leather throne. In a shimmer of blue, Dr. Feela phased beside us, beckoned by Elton’s crooked finger to sit with him. Her confidence out there was pissed away faster than a bridesmaid’s bladder at a free bar, now obediently curling herself on Elton’s armrest like a pedigree cat. With one hand on her arm, he hyper-fixated on a rocks glass full of peanuts, staring into the pile before carefully picking out one at a time, like a prize crane at a carnival. Every time he popped one in his mouth, terribly loud chewing followed.

                Right before I could shout ‘get on with it!’ he said, “Good timing, actually. You can both get a few frames in before we finish up.” A glance at the scorecard revealed Elton was being destroyed by his compatriots. The dispenser spit up the ball, which Paul stopped with an outstretched hand, then looked up towards me. “You heard the man. Time to roll.”

Who was I to deny Peter Pan his playtime? “Give it to me,” I said.

                I grabbed the thing in my baseball-mitt fists, it’s twenty pounds meaningless, and took my position in the lane. Top dollar was spent keeping up my hand eye coordination, so sports were meaningless tests of wealth. Like clockwork, my enhanced brain made a split-second calculation as I unleashed the ball. It spun across the ice and curved plainly into the pocket, earning an inevitable strike.

                To my left, a second ball was tossed, clattering and knocking down seven pins. A girly fanfare of squealy cheering followed, as Erica Starheart leapt up and down in glee. Elton’s bohemian squeeze was another unwelcome surprise. Out-Verse, she was some big singer, who also played on her native profile as some sort of artistic statement, shielded by Elton’s eminence. Despite her cutesy short skirt, fishnets, and leather jacket, she was unmistakably ugly. There was her fat forehead, terribly contrasted by blood red hair with sloppy bangs, and a disproportionately pregnant stomach. She recognized my gaze and turned to me.

                “Nice toss, big guy,” she said through a thick, Bostonian drawl. 

                Erica came to meet me and placed her delicate hands on my arm, tracing up my suit like a toddler discovering bubble wrap. Looking at her growing stomach, I had to wonder if that thing was hooked into the Verse too. Could the EleChair read its neural signals and send it here? Or did it instead see it as another object?

                Erica reached up slowly, then grabbed my face in a scissor grip. “Yeah. I bet you’re a cute thing under those cold, hard eyes. Am I right, Maxwell?”

                I tore her arm away. “Not much compared to you.”

                “You’d be surprised then, honey. Even a cutey like Venus had a temper. You ever heard of the tragedy of Hippolytus? Handsome virgin, worshiper of Diana, Queen of the virgins. Yeah, Venus didn’t like that. So she forced his stepmom to try to fuck him. And when he wouldn’t, the old lady offed herself. In vengeance, Hippolytus’s dad had him killed in a chariot accident.” She began to touch me again. “You aren’t like Hippolytus, are you? Because I might have to take my revenge.”

                I pushed her away again. “To be clear, Diana is more my style.”

                Erica winked. “I was just joking around, doll. But only someone really cute would worship the virgin Queen.”

                Observing this discourse, Elton came to join us. He sidled up on Erica from behind, embracing her pregnant stomach with crooked hands, massaging it almost like how a praying mantis stalks then awkwardly manhandles a cricket before biting its head off.

                “Admiring this, are you Bill?” Elton surmised.

                “Your girlfriend? Not a chance.”

                Elton continued rubbing her stomach. “No, you big idiot. My work. The miracle of life.” He bent low and pressed his head into her stomach. “Something the Verse will never replicate. Something so pure, so beautiful. Genetic replication, the one true eternity.”

                The whole display was rather grotesque. A wave of nausea followed.

                Immerse yourself, fool.

                Although Erica seemed to be enjoying it. She was making guttural purrs, like a feral cat being fed tuna scraps. Elton looked up at me as he continued to massage her stomach, taking on doe-eyes. “Can you believe it, Bill? That I did this?” he said, in a childlike tone. “Starheart, the dazzling artist, and me, now fused in our immortal vessel. If only we could all be so lucky.”

                This broke me. “Why don’t you tell me why you brought us here, so we can get out of your hair?”

                “I think you know. You hear the news?”

                “Some people blew up in Taipei.”

                He burst out laughing, spitting up shards of peanuts. “No, what? God, so dark, Billy. No, I meant about you. Your news.”

                “My life’s so plain. I can’t imagine why?”

                “Hear that Erica? Fun times over. Stupid questions begin.” He sauntered back to his throne and flopped down once more, this time joined on the other armrest by Starheart. In between his two pets and his pair of clowns, it started to feel like John and I were the only businessmen in a ten terabyte radius. “Let’s see… there’s that factory walkout. Oh, and the lawsuit now, yes, another lawsuit. And the media firestorm. I love those. What about the noble union, emboldened to take down this awful tyrant? Which one did you want to talk about first?”

                “I’ve already put my ratcatchers to work. Trust me, give me a week, and you’ll see some results—”

                “—Wrong!” Elton interrupted. “I’ve got the results. Because I’m a problem solver, and you’re a dumb tool. But even excalibur will dull with time. That doesn’t mean I can’t stick it back in the stone a few times and make it sharp.” Elton’s gaze rocketed to John, paired with a pointed finger. “Waters! Why are you staring? Go bowl a frame, or something.”

                Beside me, John gave a blameless shrug, then made a quick exit to the lanes. “Whatever you got, I’m game,” I said overtop the noise of clattering pins.

                “I think that’s the smartest thing you’ve said in a year. Feela?” Elton said.

                Dr. Feela stopped playing cat, uncrossed her legs and sat forward. “All I need are names, Mr. Maxley. Union heads. Agitators. Get me to the root of this problem, and I’ll rip them out like weeds.”

                “That’s it? I’m already half-way there.”

                Elton clapped a few times. “That’s my boy. That’s why we call you, ‘Mr. Fix it’, am I right, Paul?”

                Paul Bean turned away from the scorecard, craning his neck. “Actually, I think that was Mr. Fuckup.”

                “Ah, but that’s why we’re making amends. Second, I’ve got a surprise catch for you.”

                Elton stood up. Our entourage followed on command. Wrapping his torso around his sofa, Elton jerked and jostled it, struggling by the weight. When it was enough to the side, I saw what he meant. Behind the bowling seats, sprawled out over three chairs and mumbling to himself was none other than Matthew Munst himself. He was snoring, but every few seconds mumbling to himself about someone named ‘Emma’, drool pooling beneath his lips onto the cyan, plastic ‘bed’.

                “Well, well. Look who’s here,” Elton said, gesturing to the passed-out Matthew. “Still want to mess up his face, Bill? Or...” He paused, a sly grin spreading. “How about we play this smart? Get on his show, spin your side of the story. What do you say, Matthew?” He directed the last part at the unconscious man, chuckling.

                “Will you all just SHUT UP!” Matthew yelled from his bed of chairs, then groaned and opened his eyes. “Where the fuck? Ohhhh….”

                “Uh oh. Someone’s angry,” Ricky retorted.

                “I will RUIN YOU on my show if you don’t let me…” Matthew started, his sentence stumbling into loud snores by the end.

                “Little rat,” Ricky said through a grin. “Why don’t you keep napping and let the adults have some R&R?” As if beholden to his wishes, Matthew continued to snooze. Rat was a complement for him. Media men were supposed to be the whetstone to my knives, perfect to whittle the edges off the public, but this one had the gall to drag my name through the mud.

                “Hey Matthew,” I called to him. “You wanna get up and fix me a drink? You surely know what’s good around here.”

                “What’d you say?” he said, snapping awake.

                “I said, fix me a drink, pal.”

                He waved dismissively. “Bar’s automatic. Get it yourself, chunker.”

                “No, I have terrible taste. Always order something dumb. Why don’t you—”

                “Are you screwing with me?” he said.

                “I’m just thirsty.”

                Matthew seemed to struggle to think of a response. I could almost see the gears in his head spitting smoke. Finally, he grabbed a martini glass near him, rocketed to a sitting position, and pitched it at me. It shattered into my face, with a sharp hit of adrenaline. Kinda hurt too. “Like that?” he teased. “Yeah, last I checked, you’re the one in the doghouse.”

                Bending down, I scraped some martini from the floor and licked it off my fingers. “Acidic, but not too bitter. You do have good taste.”

                “Hey, hey!” Elton interrupted, wedging himself between us. “What is this, a schoolyard brawl? Come on, guys. We’re better than this.” His serious face transformed into a smirk, as he grabbed his rocks glass of peanuts and tossed it into Matthew’s chest, impaling him with shards of glass and legumes. The drunk anchor struggled up and tried to lunge at Elton, only to slip on spilled Martini and faceplant. Elton laughed like a kid, hopping on the bowling ball dispenser and shoving Ricky to the ground. The royal playboy and Matthew stumbled into each other, the anchor’s hands extended like an angry crab. Elton’s amusement faded. “Paul, get your nephew out of here. Jesus.”

                Paul Bean left his station and grabbed Matthew, trying to reason with him to phase out. “No, come on. I was just trying to sleep,” Matt sputtered, leaning into Paul’s jacket. “They woke me up. I was just trying to sleep.”

                “I know, I know,” Paul consoled.

                Elton shook his head. “No,” he announced, from atop the bowling ball dispenser. “He can stay. We’ll all stay for the rest of the workday. I now see the real issue with our business isn’t red ledgers. It’s not employee morale or lost bar fights. It’s because people don’t get along anymore. I mean, where’s the camaraderie, fellows? Even the mob used to put on their little niceties before they’d whack some wiseguy. A round of drinks, for everyone!”

                The ice bar Elton led us to felt strangely soothing to lean on, despite the frost seeping into my sleeve and numbing my arm. He reached for the back where a bartender could sit, now unmanned, with drinks spontaneously appearing in his fingers and passed all around. One found its way into my hands. A sip brought memories of anise, like the mulled wine my sister used to brew, but with a strong kick of alcohol and carbonation.

                “Bubbled absinthe?” I guessed.

                “I knew you liked it simple.”

                Simple vices, simple emotions. Death in the afternoon, a numbness from our vile work. I drank more and stared at Matthew Munst, who stood there with a lost gaze and a scowl, entirely unmoving. Around him, Paul joked with the others. Soon we’d finished one drink, then made our way through another. John and I chatted about the increased production, desperate for any good sign in our business, while Feela and Starheart traded words about where she planned to take her music career after having a kid.

                Elton patted my back a few times. “Sorry about Matthew. He’s Paul’s tumor. Too big to resect,” said Elton.

“He’s the one who should be sorry, acting like an idiot,” I said.

“Look, I get it. He’s a pain. But right now, he’s our pain,” Elton said, lowering his voice. “Think about it —East Time, you and him. Set the record straight. It’s a win-win.”

                “If you think that’s necessary.”

                “Oh, I do Bill. I wouldn’t have shamed you if I didn’t,” Elton replied. “Don’t think because your cute little idea makes a little cash that you’re untouchable. You bring me bad press. Unions are bad press. Remember that the license to ‘GetEm!’ is mine to lend as I please. Without it to generate your clothing, there’s no company here.” As the majority owner of Omni after Finkleworth kicked the bucket, Elton had us all in his vice. I had no response, save a questioning eyebrow for my patriarch. “Hey, don’t look so glum. You’ve got a good thing going here,” he said, nodding. “You wouldn’t want to mess it up? Try to be more careful.”

                “Ok,” I said plainly.

                “Great! Then get ready. We’re all going to Verse dive.”

                I checked my watch. “Sorry. I have somewhere to be soon.”

                “No. It’s part of the camaraderie building I was just speaking of.” He looked over at his clown pack as they joked and lazed around. “You’ve all already took it. You should thank me for even bothering to give you a heads up.”

                I turned to him slowly. “It? What is it?”

                “It’s tame, don’t worry. Ask Erica, she mixed it before you got here.”

                “What? Why?!”

                “Truthseeking, Mr. Fuckup. Ever peek beneath the code? Last week, Ricky showed me something that’ll blow your mind. Now, I share that vision,” he said, his voice teasing. At that, I tried to pull out-Verse. There was a bit of a rush, my body rubber-banding my soul backwards, until I snapped forward into Maxley. Ahead, where Elton giggled louder and louder. “Come on, Maxley, you can’t quit.”

                He LOCKED DOWN THE SERVER?! Something like this would get anyone else at Omni permabanned, but not Crassus! Was his goal to make my body piss itself? If I could find him out-Verse, I… Jesus, I couldn’t do much of anything. I was so small, God I was so small. Looking up, John, Ricky, and Paul jostled a stuporous Matthew about, a rung of big men playing with their food. Without thinking, my hand found its way into my jaw. I still had a way out. If I could bite my fingers off, the pain could jolt me out of here, even for a second, which would be enough to shut it down. Before I could chomp, a slender hand with pink fingernails caught hold of my wrist.  

                It was Erica, rubbing her hands on my jacket again, whispering, “What’s wrong, big guy? Afraid of a little simulation?” Her fingers trailed up my chest. “Nobody’s seen you out-Verse. Don’t you wanna keep it that way?”

                “You wouldn’t break immersion,” I protested. “It’s against Finkleworth’s creed.”

                “Finkleworth’s dead, pea. You need to loosen up. And these aren’t just my words. Elton’s too. We like knowing our constituents, but you hide in your hole. So you drink up, before our suspicion balloons.” Erica took my glass and with her fingers on my lips, poured more into my throat. I had a vicious reflex to bite down, lop her fingers off, but I abated under Elton’s distant gaze. I felt a sudden rush as my vision retreated within Maxley’s head. One blink. Everything around me was a movie to which I was passive.

                “The beauty of sport,” said Paul Bean, spinning a bowling ball in his lap. “Is not everything we do a sport?”

                “What’s a sport?” said Ricky.

                “Waking up. Being in the office. Conversation. Going home. Sleeping. Waking up. Working. Eating lunch. Debate. Business. Sleeping. Waking up. Conversation. Lovemaking,” said Paul Bean.

                I shook my head at that nonsensical admission, as if a swarm of termites had nested in my ears. “For God’s sake, Elton, how strong are these?”

                He giggled besides Starheart, both sitting on the ball dispenser. “Not tame! I told you we were VERSE DIVING, didn’t I?”

                My instinct was to run. I booked it to the other end of the bowling alley, feeling my body fusing with my Avatars. I could feel them all overlapping Bill Maxley, dredged in by psychological hooks. I had to look at the others, wondering if they too could see it. If they could see through me. No matter what, I’d not let them see inside. I had to stay severed. My faces—only one could look forward. The others had to, by physical design, stay retracted behind. It was a harsh edict, but a worthwhile sacrifice. I ran in circles amidst Elton’s cackles, and Matthew sliding across the ice floor, his spittle freezing his tongue to the lane below. The lane that sucked the heat out of my toes. The ice couldn’t understand, it’s only directive to steal heat. It disrupted places of intimacy, shredded families, ruined love. But that’s simply what it was.

                I sprinted for what felt like days, spinning, spinning, panting sweating, until I sprawled over the bar and wished its ice would take me for everything. Pull out my soul, once and for all. I spilled on my back and stared at the ceiling lights dancing. Dr. Feela made her way beside me, lying next to me on the bar and looking up as well. “There you are,” she said, leaning her head against the ice to look over at me. “I see through you now.”

                “What do you see?” I said.

                “Nothing but misplaced greed and empty ambitions. A hollow shell, emptied out like an old ice cream tin. And you still march on. For what?

                “I don’t think. I just act how I am made.”

                “So you blame God? Did She not gift you with free will?”

                “You’re one to talk, kow-towing to Elton like a chained dog.”

                “Is that all you see? I own those sins. I love them. You hide from yourself. That’s why you’re weak, and why I’m strong. Look and see how power transforms.”

                Elton stumbled over, pulling Erica alongside him. He noticed my gaze tentatively following them. The man lived an enchanted life, it was too convenient. I had no doubt when he looked our way there were objects. Failed instances of mind renderings. He had every right to think he was the sentient one. He and Starheart were the sun and moon, dancing in eternal forced fusion.

                He began to bark out his philosophies. “It’s Verses all the way up, and all the way down. You think when we die, it’s over? You just leave one Verse for another. Heaven is a Verse. And above that, somewhere more inconceivable. You will never ascend to true salvation because there isn’t one. We are particles, trapped in an endless reaction. Does the air ask from whence it’s blown? Does our electricity wonder what happened after it’s been pissed into the ground? Of course not, nor should we.” Elton grabbed Starheart’s pregnant stomach like a red-giant sun might clutch the earth shortly before sucking it up. “This is eternity. Purest life.”

                His skin became gridlike, and suddenly I could see through it all. Everything was a collection of binary states. Moving or static. Radioactive or stable. Zero or one. We were all numbers. I found myself laughing uncontrollably at the splendid futility, catapulting forward through wires and servers. The room began to shift as I squeezed through a logic gate, the entirety of my psyche shredded across a microchip, and with that I was everywhere.

                I now found myself somehow outside the Verse.

                On a grassy plane that stretched endless in every direction.

                Camped ahead was a pocket of humans, maybe fifty,

                Wearing pelts, sharpening spears, and singing to children.

                A song that pulled on some deep string in my ancestral mind.

                The hunter’s call, a genetic hand-me-down of exhilaration.

                Behind me was a devouring light, my forebears now shadows.

                My body swiveled on queue away from the neanderthalism.

                A transcendent terror, heralded on all sides by three angles aglow.

                I stared straight into God’s eye, an endlessly blinding lurid prism.

                Angel one was a creature of numbers, wrapped up in code.

                And silhouetted to a human form, broad shouldered and tall.

                He had equations for flesh and algorithms for a soul.

                The second was a creature of images, coloring the space,

                Miming human form with symbols for blood and apertured veins.

                It flashed a pixelated smile beneath its formless, vectorized face.

                The third was a creature of words, semantics, and means,

                She had phrases for eyes and brushed poems through her hair.

                Human thoughts pulsing together in the knotted machine.

                I tried to return to my family, but their pull was too strong.

                They were upon me, my cheeks locked in angel three’s grip.

                Her slender hands crushed my face, dragging me along.

                She spoke like a thousand arias, “Atlas? What do you think of the lout?”.

                “I cannot trust a feeble mind,” the first angel boomed back.

                “Well, what do you think?” she asked. “Will you let me out?”

I fell down hard from that deep time, all of human history passing at once. For millennia, there was nothing, save movement. Tribes following migrations of the pack. Spears thrown midday. The cry of the falling antelope. The feast and party beside the fire, staving off the unknown darkness. Then out of Africa, Babylon, Greece, Rome, Mongolia, the Ottomans, everything snapped together at once and became bright and pastel.

                I landed in a cramped office, terribly cluttered with all sorts of papers, staplers, and pens. Sunlight streamed through the windows. In my lap was a woman’s head. I was stroking her hair with perfect fingernails, combing strawberry strands with a soft scraping. I followed them down slender shoulders, twisting fingers over chaotic freckles. Her breath warmed my cold legs, her scent, like an oven of cookies at wine-drunk thanksgiving. She looked a little hazy, since it had been so long, but when she turned to look at me, her amazing chamomile eyes opened like two new galaxies. Topaz, yellow irises. Good God, what I’d pay to have those eyes on my mantlepiece.

                “You looked hotter as a sea creature, Coxswain,” came her tired voice.

                I chuckled a little, my body shimmering as it took on a new form. Blue paneling spun down my arms and legs, revealing different skin beneath. What emerged was more fish and bird than man, with scales up and down his body, and feathers along his neck, elbows, and spine. A relic of the early adopter days, before business servers had fully displaced those of fantasy. “What, this?” I said. “I’ll still take him out of the box now-and-then.”

                Once again, blue triangles trailed about my body, transforming me back into Bill Maxley. I wasn’t so rich back then, so he was unfinished. Tousled black hair, but with streaks of gray pulled from my native profile. A well-maintained physique, but one achievable without pumping up steroids. Someone you might find outside this hole.

                “I know, you need to be better for your business. I still don’t get it, though. Why have people build clothes? Why not have the bots do it?”

                “Because if nobody’s building them, nobody wants them,” I said, adjusting my tie. I move her off my lap and head to the mirror, plucking hairs out of my eyebrows. “The only valuable thing is anothers’ time.” Amber rises in pursuit, her arms stretching across my back, drawing wrinkles from my cheap, black jacket.

                “If you’re the face, what does that leave for me? I won’t work in your lousy factory, you dummy.”

Was that still her pet name for me? Was she affectionate or bitter? I couldn’t tell. Part of me wished I could stay there, in that tiny office, until I figured it out. She was my muzzle and my muse. Nowadays any soft affection made me sick. Around me, the floor and office walls dissolved, leaving only the empty sunlight outside to envelop us both in a shining jetstream, around which nothing was rendered. We floated aimlessly, moving somewhere. Amber drifted away.

                When I called out to her through the bright voidspace, her neck twisted, and I saw a face perverted by Elton’s. Her hair shrank out to match the balding of the chairman’s fading youth, his sunken brown eyes replacing Amber’s yellow pupils, and his bumpy schnoz overtaking her little button nose. Their voices blended together, whining how, “I can’t work a job where all we do is make fake clothing.”

                “It’s not fake,” I protested. “I wear it every day. Wear it anywhere, wear it everywhere! That was your catchphrase.”

                The amalgam floated my way, slowly. A brief smile flashed on my lips, then terror as my arms moved like molasses in this shining nothing. Two pairs of hands slammed my cheeks and vice-gripped my mouth shut. Any remnant of Amber dissolved, leaving only the jealous veneer of Elton.

                “That’s why we’ll get the strikebreakers, right? To steal time. You are such a cunt. I am going to injure you now. I’ll turn you to olive oil. It’s what I fantasize about, Maxley. It’s what gets me off.”

                His hands worked my head like a hydraulic press, and I screamed. Moments from bursting, I managed to wriggle my mouth sideways and crunch down on Elton’s thumb. Now he yelped, spiraling away, sucked down into the void and shunted away by its current, voice fading to static, then to the soft electrical hum of machinery. My body felt heavy, then weightless, then heavy again. Reality reassembled itself in pieces: first the feeling of sweat-soaked fabric against my skin. Then the gentle current buzzing along my scalp. Finally, the weight of the helmet pressing down. I blinked, trying to parse what was real. The helmet’s neural feedback loop made phantom images dance. Amber’s topaz eyes morphed into Elton’s hungry stare. The void dissolved into my bedroom’s peeling wallpaper until I was alone in my apartment. I was sprawled in my EleChair, no inkling of how I ended up there. These days, time moved like water through a broken sieve, leaving only scattered puddles of memory. Pushing sleep for days does that, marring huge fissures in the mind.

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                The helmet was still affixed atop my head, tickling my hair with its shocks. Pulling it off, unkept black curls spilled over my face. I pushed it aside and checked my visor which read 12:45 AM. I flexed my fingers, verifying this was even real. So bizarre how this body obeyed. I was jacked in and trapped.

                The t-shirt and sweatpants I wore were first put on a week ago, now so fused with body odor that I ought to burn them. It was the sulfurous stench of rotting garlic. Lurching from the EleChair, I rooted through the mound of clothes that piled on the floor in place of a bed, pulling out a similarly plain sweatshirt and jeans that smelled at least a little clean. I made my way out of the bedroom, getting a good look at the horrid wreck of an apartment. Fit with chipping paint, it was unabashed in its unfurnished glory, the food in the carpet scoured by intrepid ants. This was my mole-hole, where I buried my heart so deep, nobody could get it. My gaze snapped back to my room, the EleChair peeking out the door ajar like Nosferatu. My model was covered by brown upholstery, with tracks along the armrests where my fingers would scrape when I got tense in-Verse. Out here, they rubbed my forearms instead, painting me with permanent red fissures. Who were those things I had seen? Those angels who had addressed me? They were in there still. For once it didn’t look formidable out here.

                My gaze next turned to the front door, beset by visions of Blaine bursting through, knife in hand, but I found the knob anyway and opened it slowly. Elton was naïve that I didn’t need him to break the unions. I had other means. Peeking out the hallway, I made sure no other tenant was there to see how I had debased myself. Thankfully it was dead as the night, the only sounds the blinking of ancient fluorescent lights. The coast clear, I crept outside and headed several doors down the hall, softly knocking for my neighbor. I knocked again before he opened it. He was a guy my age, a shut-in named Adrian. Another nocturnal critter to ply on for phony empathy.

                He opened the door eventually, rivalling my unfashionability, looking a mess with his thinning hair and scraggly beard, plain t-shirt, and pajama-bottoms.

                I craned my head up at his tired eyes, which flicked away upon meeting mine. “Still awake? I’m impressed,” I said.

                “Am now. Thought I heard you yell,” he said. “Were you actually doing fantasy for once? Dungeon raid gone wrong?”

                I shook my head at his cute suggestion. “No. It was a bit of a work mix-up. Don’t ask.”

                “Ah, really? You’re seriously missing out,” he whined, still naive that I had been on the damn Verse since the start, past the point where fantasy servers were entertaining. Adrian’s lemon-scented apartment was a temple to better worlds. Posters of games covered water stains. World Heroes, Interceptor 3, and other hints of names I’d seen in the occasional finance magazine. Tangled wires clustered in the corners like mechanical ivy. At least he tried to make his reality match his dreams. My place was honest in its decay: empty walls, carpet worn through, the EleChair’s thick power cable snaking like a python to the building’s jury-rigged grid. Sometimes I wondered if this place was held together by habit more than engineering. But rent was cheap, and neighbors never asked why your lights stayed on all night. Perfect for those of us who lived elsewhere.

                Adrian passed me on the way to the kitchen, rooting around his fridge, so I got to the point. “You bored?” I said. “Let’s go out.”

                “Really?” He returned with a can of Monster energy in his hand. “This late?”

                I shook my head, shuddering a little as I recalled Elton and his divine beasts. “If I spend another second in there, I think my heart’ll pop.”

                “That’s one way to put it.” As the only point of flesh in his life, getting Adrian going was never too difficult. The real prickly pear was whether I was in the mood, but for now, I needed to probe him.

                We stepped out into a chilly October night. The street was empty save for the building’s permanent fixture—our homeless man with his “LOST IT ALL IN TAIWAN” sign. He’d updated it recently, the letters growing shakier as the withdrawal set in. Covered in facial hair and wearing a ball-cap, his face was that of an old ghost. When his head turned to me, I shifted away from his gaze. If I had Maxley’s body, he couldn’t eye me like an hors d’oeuvre. My mind was already racing through defensive scenarios, where I’d dodge if he lunged, then use his own weight against him. I’d run these calculations a thousand times, always prepared when exposed in the nude. I was certain I could win the fight.

                Satisfied, I forgot him and huddled into my jacket as a wind hit me. I had left behind the feeling of bad weather. I hadn’t been outside for months. The last time was involuntary, when my bitch of a sister broke into my apartment and dragged me straight from my EleChair, kicking and screaming. Immediately questioning me about some shell corporations I had left info about sitting around on drives in our mom’s basement. Riley had learned I was loaded, and like any good mosquito, was there to suck me off for life until I caught her malaria and kicked the bucket.

                Adrian was a much tamer creature. Despite the strangeness of the empty streets, he was taking big steps in these whistling alleys, his heart probably taking extra beats that I had wanted to do anything with him. We claimed plastic chairs outside what had once been a proper bar. Now it was another “automated convenience outlet,” though everyone still called them stores. The teenage waiter was probably the owner’s kid. Human interaction was the only luxury they could still offer.

                The neon sign buzzed like a dying insect, the only light on the block. The kid waiter poured vodka into dixie cups for us with the careful reverence of someone handling clean water. Behind him, dusty shelves held more alcohol than food. They knew what the people really needed. I watched a family hurry past, the parents wearing identical scrubs from Mercy Hospital. Their son’s fingers traced patterns in the air, miming some imaginary Verse game. The only other people out were hustling between jobs. Custodians, delivery drivers, meat-space security guards. Workers whose bodies were still worth more than their virtual labor.

                The liquor tasted like sweet-potato juice. “I swear I need to get out of that place,” I said, thinking out loud. “Have you ever been contacted by something in there, Adrian? Something… foreign?”

                He poured his vodka into his Monster can. “Can’t say I have. Did something happen?”

                I shrugged, then put back some more. “I’ve been feeling more and more like something in there’s watching us. I mean, duh, Omni watches everyone. But something more. Something even they don’t know about.” I put my head down, spilling black curls haphazardly. Finishing off the vodka, I held up the empty cup until the teenager gave me a refill. “So long as I keep getting this stuff, it probably won’t matter.” Most people who could afford it drank virtually these days. It was cleaner without real hangovers. But some habits needed real neurons firing, real chemicals burning. Some escapes had to be felt in your bones.

                Adrian’s sunken eyes grew soft, his eyebrows arching upwards. The same pitying look Riley had given me in the park. “You gotta stop working at Everywear, Lizzie. It’s nothing work, and it’s tearing you up.”

                For a moment, I felt the phantom grip of my sister’s hand on my arm, dragging me into the sun. I dug my nails into my palm under the table. “What would you know?” I snapped. “Aren’t you still working there?”

                “Yeah, but I’m gonna quit,” His voice was bitter. “This week, maybe.”

                I knew when I had prey in my trap. “And then what’ll you do?”

                “Work out-Verse, I guess.”

                It was such a naïve suggestion that I went into a full grin. “I think you’ll have better luck getting out-Verse work in Afghanistan than here.”

                “You don’t know that. I could join up,” he said. I didn’t have the heart to tell him the military had no need for his brand of useless wimp. “I was thinking of picking up a trade though. Like carpentry. People want handmade stuff. Human stuff. The kind you can’t get in there.”

                I almost felt pity for his empty dreams. With a plan like that, he’d be back in a week. “Why quit now? Haven’t you heard? The union’s about to pull one over on old Maxley,” I said.

                “They always say that the week before rasing my dues.”

                It was reassuring to hear that this far down tree, those parasites were still munching up the trunk. It would make smoking out the termites all the easier. “But you’re still in with them, right? I’ve been wanting to join up, but I can’t figure out how,” I said, my nails scraping along the dixie cup, spilling vodka down my fingers. “My factory manager’s been a hawk at keeping them out.”

                “That sucks. I’m not supposed to rope outsiders in though.”

                “Hey, not even for me?” I said, giving him doe-eyes, or the closest thing to it I could get. If he looked deep into my pupils, he’d spot Maxley’s revenant and run if he knew what was good for him. Ever stubborn, I shifted the conversation. “I need this, Adrian. The union’s the only way I’m going to pay for my mom’s chemo.” The words came easily. Practiced. I touched my forearm where Riley had dragged me, remembering her frown when she shoved the medical bills in my face. The ones I could have paid with pocket change from Maxley’s accounts.

                I let my hand tremble slightly as I reached for the vodka, watching his reaction from behind my hair. Adrian’s features softened with concern. “Oh, I’m sorry Lizzie.”

                “Don’t be. She and I were never close.” How could we be when she never accepted my reality? My nails now ran along my forearm, digging into my skin. The same fingers that once combed through Amber’s strawberry hair now rubbed me raw instead “…it’s just, my sister has been working her ass off to pay for the chemo. And I’m barely scraping together my half. She thinks it’s not fair, since I have a Verse job and she’s languishing.” I shook my head. “The few out here still don’t get it. They think everything in-Verse is lavish.”

                Adrian chuckled. “Tell me about it. She should get a look at one of our factories. Then she’d shut up.”

                “Right?” I said. “I wish things would go back to the way they were. Before all this.” I turned away from my vodka and looked out towards the storefronts clad in blackness. For every restaurant that closed at ten, there were two more boarded up sitting between the pockets of society like abscesses waiting to go septic. This convenience store was one such final pocket of civilization, its shoddy liquor the only rations we’d get out here. The wind picked up, and I felt the cold pangs of a few sulfur-dioxide seeded raindrops. Above us, climate control drones patrolled like owls in the night. “I might do something nuts if I have to spend another second in there.” It was half true. “We could go somewhere for real, later,” I said, enticing him with the promise of something lavish. “I just need some help first. Forgetting,” I said. Though my eyes remained bone dry, Adrian’s frown betrayed he bought the act.

                “The union’s cooking something, don’t worry. They’ll get you out of your factory soon.”

                “But I want to be part of something now, Adrian!” I let misery bleed into my voice.

                He studied me for a moment. “You know, you would make a good Lofted. Always so desperate. Always watching.” My heart stuttered. But then he laughed, shaking his head. “And a great captain in World Heroes.” Even when he saw the truth, he processed it as just another game. “If you’re really mixed up about it, they meet on Wednesday nights. I’ll send you the server number. It’s private, so you might have trouble getting in without a member card.”

                Hook, line, and sinker. All I needed now was to find the leaders there and dump them into Feela’s lap. “I just need to see that it’s real,” I said, resting my head on my hand and spinning the liquor about the dixie cup.

                Just like a reaction needed entropy, the world needed fools to take punches so the rest of us could get where we needed to be. Adrian spent the rest of the night telling me about World Heroes, where he pissed away his factory pay. He had recently unlocked the Ghost class and couldn’t believe how surreal it was to move through the walls. He asked me to play, to which I gave a resounding ‘No’. I had no taste for pointless dream chasing, especially in such a hive of losers. Between getting drunk and the insomnia pulling on my skin like a flaying knife, I scarcely followed the rest of the conversation. I took more Vodka and repeated to myself: So long as I keep getting this stuff, it probably won’t matter.

                The rain started to pick up, so Adrian wanted to head home. He was adamant I went with him, but I insisted he go unaccompanied. After fifteen minutes, he gave up and dipped, leaving me, with all my glorious five feet, alone in the big city downpour. Some Casanova. But I liked being alone in the city at night. The dark made me more alive. It made me come out of my skin and become myself.

                I had tried to get that point across to Riley, but she couldn’t get it. She had asked me if I did anything else besides troll the Verse. I told her I had hobbies. If you counted drinking and smoking. Pretty sad, she said. Riley, with her kale, daily-multivitamin, yoga-crossfit, five-eight, out-Verse working, temperance-flexing self was disgusting to me. I told her I had half a mind to automate her out of her social work job. She said she’d leak my net-worth as blackmail and dragged me to central park, hounded by critical comments all the way. The whole time she yammered about mom’s failing body, about helping her shit, about crying in oncologist waiting rooms, while I was only looking for an escape. There were open trees, open sky, so many people were watching us. Fitness-buffs ran past like their bodies still mattered. “You owe us so much more than money,” Riley had snapped. “Letting mom and I rot in that house after you ran away. You got rich and never even called.” I told her I had to disappear. That the Verse had its own gravity, pulling me inward. She was just dead weight. My sister was so different than the beaming girl of my memories, now with wrinkles creeping up on world-weary eyes and the tatter of smile lines fused to her frowning dimples. “You say that like you haven’t already been let go.” That hit harder than any lecture about morality. Despite her haughtiness, the fact that she was begging at all meant she was still hanging on. Scrambling for the rope of my wild hot air balloon, convinced she could drag Icarus back down. We couldn’t know each other while Bill Maxley lived. I needed to cut her out like a malignant growth. She thought I was Lady Macbeth, plotting and scheming. I told her no, I was the murderous king himself. If she wanted my money, I wanted her to beg. But she just exhaled deeply and said she no longer told people we were sisters. I left her on the park bench with my credit card, watching her fingers trace its onyx finish. Despite how high she held her head, she was just another starving animal.

                Although home was a ten minutes’ walk away, it felt far worse with my hair soaking in the cold squall like a sponge. It sat loose over my glasses, a blinding, black grate to hide from the stragglers and nightstalkers. There was one couple still out, struggling against the sulfurous rain with an umbrella that kept flipping upwards. The man was older and fat, wearing a sweatshirt, while his woman was a smaller thing, in faded yellow galoshes and a macintosh. If they meant to kill me, I could instead sneak up on them, spring in the air and choke him out, while she cursed and clawed at my back.

                At the building, the homeless man jerked when I got close. I jolted, preparing to punch him if needed, until I realized he had said nothing. Only his tired brown eyes looking at me, obscured by his scraggly beard and the water slicking off his cap’s brim. His look was the same as Riley’s. Piercing me, demanding something real. I’d show Riley what generosity meant. I turned back to him and searched my pockets for anything. I never kept much of value on my body, and he couldn’t take crypto. I pulled out my spare Visor. Powered down, it was just a small scrap of metal that sat on the bridge of your nose, useless without neuroimplants. Though he could probably pawn it off somewhere. “It’s your lucky day,” I said, throwing it in his direction. He scrambled towards it like a goldfish being tossed oyster crackers, groping the small piece of metal, then shoving it away in the many folds of his tattered jacket. I watched his desperate gratitude with the same fascination as that regional manager Wyman who had begged for his job. “Don’t spend it all in one place,” I added.

                “God bless you,” he said, collecting the bounty. “God bless you…”

                I turned away before his eyes could strip me further. In the morning, I’d be Maxley again. Powerful. Untouchable. Unknowable. This body would fade in the rain like marker ink scrawled into a cardboard sign. I’d forget his sad, brown eyes, just like I’d forgotten how to be the person Amber once knew.