You

Chapter Forty-Five



Late on a Tuesday night I was trying to set up three boulders just right to fall on players as they came up a trail. But they fell too soon or too late, or not at all, because the simulation had no interest in my wishes whatsoever. Lisa knocked on my desk.

“Come here,” she said. “I want to show you something I got running.”

“All I want to do is kill,” I said. “It’s all I want now.”

“Come on.” She grabbed my sleeve and pulled.

“Okay, okay.” She led me to the outskirts of the cubicle settlement, where a table was piled with ugly-looking hardware. Virtual-reality headsets; bulky, dorky motion-sensing goggles.

“Why do we have these?” I asked.

“We get them free for supporting them. I’ve got it running now, try it out.”

I picked one up. “This weighs, like, ten pounds. Who buys these?”

“As far as I can tell, nobody ever in the history of the world,” she said. “Come on, I spent two days on this.”

“I’m going to look stupid.”

“Everybody does. Even the models on the side of the box do.”

I put it on. The display was like having a pair of tiny, low-resolution TV screens two inches from your eyeballs. It was showing bright static. “Jesus,” I said. “Just tell me when I can open my eyes.”

I heard her typing. “Now.” I opened them.

“So?” It was Endoria on a tiny low-resolution screen.

“Turn your head.”

I did, and my view turned, too.

“I… oh, my God.” It was stuttery and low-resolution, but it was as if the borders of the monitor had fallen away and the rendered world spread to engulf me. I looked down at myself, half expecting to see a medieval tunic. I looked up into the blue sky and right into the sun, which gave fake lens flare, as if seen through a nonexistent camera. The air of the office felt Endorian. The hair on my arms stood up; a part of my brain was afraid and yet very, very happy.

“How come nobody knows about this?”

“Because everything about it sucks.”

I felt weightless. It felt like—

“Did Simon ever get to try this?” I asked.

“No.”

“Where are you?” I said.

“Here.” Somewhere back on earth I felt her take my hand, tightly. For a minute, I felt like Simon wanted to feel.