Alone, helpless, and exhausted, I keep walking through the strange room of buzzing servers, praying that I’ll see her again.
I’m not optimistic.
At the edge of the room are a few steps up to a higher level. I grab the metal barricade and start to walk up as if each step is quicksand trying to pull me under.
I reach a computer with a large holograph disc. Next
to it is a hand-scanner, which I abruptly use. A pleasant tone echoes across the room, and suddenly, each light turns on, one by one.
An image appears above, a little scrambled, but easy enough to see. It’s a set of files, a directory of the characters within the world above. Funny enough, it was sitting below the forest the entire time. I didn’t have to go very far to find this.
I scroll over the various cultists and hunters, the ravenous beasts that fuck and tease foul women, bots with hardly a mind at all. I thought we were bending the world to fit our needs, but everything is in their files. They were supposed to build the place leading into the other realm. The construction was in their code.
It was just as I thought. I was meant to lead her in there.
But when my curiosity exhausts, I scroll to my name. Kalxor, Alien Cyborg. I press my fingers down against the pad and watch the holograph playback a video reel of my time in the space station.
All of that was real, but it isn’t like I remembered it. There’s no record of my family. The scientists… they’re friendly. And Elon, well, he’s not even present. Instead, Ava’s father watches over me like a vulture, speaking with coders behind the glass veil.
This world, this bullshit simulation, had all the clues available for me to understand it. The shifting glass, the dark passageways leading toward robotic monstrosities should have been the first clues.
But as much as the truth hurts, I can understand it. This world was built to become autonomous. Eventually, its inhabitants wouldn’t need outside humans to run it. I’m not sure how Elon fits into this, but I’m going to find out.
“Yes, you are,” a voice says.
I turn, eyes fixed on a dark, hooded figure. My confidence solidifies. “Elon,” I say. “You’ve finally come. I’ve been looking for you.”
The man rolls down his hood, revealing an unexpectedly calm face. “Yes, Kalxor. It’s me.”
I stand still, but Elon steps forward. He doesn’t appear to be violent or cruel, but I can’t take my chances.
I can’t die. Not yet.
“Do you know why I made you?” he asks.
I chuckle, but nothing is really funny to me anymore. “I was the perfect combination of alpha and stupid,” I say.
Another step forward and Elon frowns. “Not at all,” he says. “You were my best and brightest. A creation above the rest. A creation to rule this land.”
I feel a great pride swell beneath my chest. I straighten my spine and lift my chin, but then I remember what I’ve seen and what I’ve been told.
Ava’s father dug into me as my designer. I saw the truth.
“You didn’t make me,” I say. “He did.”
Elon is now at my side. “Wrong again,” he says.
“Then tell me.”
“I know you were expecting a longer story. But there’s not much to know, I’m sorry to say. In the beginning, Ava’s father and I were partners. He made a set of characters, the cultists,” he says.
“Fuck ‘em to Hell,” I reply.
Elon’s lips form a smile. “Yes,” he says, idly. “Next came the hunters, whom I’m sure you’re just as keen to see again.”
“Hardly,” I say.
“I don’t blame you. They aren’t very welcoming, but I placed them in the forest in hopes you would find this place,” he says. “I believed they would drive you here, but my predictions weren’t correct.”