Narrator: Seth

Reggie showed up at my door looking frazzled. I let her in and she immediately started babbling about moss or fungus or something?  I don’t know. She seemed  agitated. 

“Hey Reg, I’m kinda hacking North Korea right now, so... is there something you need?”

I didn’t mean to sound harsh, but there was an energy flowing off her that was deeply unsettling.  It made my skin crawl a little. 

Reggie scowled. “I NEED people to stop brushing me off!  You KNOW this isn’t really real. You could just pause and come back to it.  How many times have you done this part even!?”

“..I like hacking North Korea,” I replied sheepishly. 

“Yea well there’s more important stuff happening!!” Reggie bellowed at me. 

“Alright!  Damn!  Tell me about your plastic eating moss or whatever!”  

“Forget the fucking moss, Seth!”

“Alright!  Jesus!  What’s fucking wrong?!”

“Jack and Marcy are missing and Marco told me to ‘go home and relax’ but I can’t!  I fucking can’t!  We should be—“

“You wanna look for ‘em?”

“Yes!!”

“Come look at my screen.”  I turned back to my computer.  “I have *pretty* extensive surveillance on most of us.” 

“I’m sorry you have *what*?”  Reggie rushed behind my chair and gripped it as she peered over my shoulder. 

“Oh don’t worry,” I said, “I don’t get off on the, uh, personal stuff. Y’know.”

“There’s personal stuff?”

“Of course there’s personal stuff. But like I said: don’t worry, I’m not a creeper, I don’t watch it recreationally.”  I said, “so anyway, where should I be looking?”

“Um.. I dunno. I found Marcy wandering in that.. endless black shit.”

“You mean The Void,” I said and put my fingers to my keyboard. “So this was.. yesterday?  Three days ago?”

“Ish?” Reggie shrugged. “I’m not really sure. It’s so hard to keep track. It was recent though.”

“Is it this?”

A video played on the screen. Reggie approached the screaming Marcy and embraced her. 

“Yes!  This is it!”  Reggie leaned further over my shoulder. 

The figures on the screen were still for a moment, and then Reggie was screaming at Marcy—

“Wait go back!  We went somewhere there!”  Reggie reached around me to access my keyboard. 

“Hey!”  I knocked her arms away. “Personal space, man.”

“Right there!  When we’re frozen!  We went somewhere and I saw her attack Jack!”

“Ok well, I should be able to...” I went silent as I searched. 

We resided in a vast Mindscape. My surveillance system was less a series of recording devices, and more a method of accessing the data already stored in the fabric of our universe. I could theoretically access anything if I knew what I was looking for. 

“Ok, so when we travel by projecting (that’s what you’re doing there) or teleporting we give off this.. signal, I guess.  It’s like coordinates. So all I have to do is...”

I tacked on my keyboard for a second and a new video played. 

Reggie gasped, “That’s it!”

I turned my volume up so I could hear what Marcy was saying.

“Oh shit, she’s mad,” I uttered. 

Then I watched Jack disappear into the blackness, eaten by some kind of gross goo. 

“Oh. Fucking. Shit.”  I said. “Did Marcy do that or did he do that to himself?”

“I don’t know, Seth. Either way we gotta figure out where he is!”

“Okay. Okay.”  Keyboard clacking. “I’ll check if there’s a signal I can trace.”

I found something, but all it yielded was a  stream of static, both on my screen and blaring through my speakers. I killed the screen and took a deep breath. 

“God I hate that noise,” I groaned. 

“Me too,” Reggie grunted, and I noticed that she was also catching her breath. 

“And the.. pattern. It’s burned into my brain.  Like I looked at the sun!” I rubbed my eyes like I could scrub it out.  My heart was pounding as though a snake had just leaped from the monitor. 

“Do you have water?” Reggie asked me. 

I stood up and led her out of my computer room. I needed some air, and a change of scenery.  I took her to my kitchen and filled two glasses with water. 

“Ok so that was-“

“Intense.”  I finished her sentence.  “I feel like I just had a nightmare or something .”

“Yeah.  So is that a dead end?”

“Nah. I can keep looking. There’s information in the static.”

Reggie laid on my couch while I poked around. 

Hidden in the static was a lot of different videos feeds from a lot of different times and locations.  What seemed consistent was the mood of the people in them. They were all in a self-destructive state of depression. Dante was in a lot of them.  That black goo was even there sometimes.  

I saw a clip of myself from right after my best friend went away to military school. I was sitting at my computer, motionless, staring. The black goo began to ooze from my pores and drip onto the floor. I shivered and closed the screen. 

I analyzed the file and found a signal that felt *familiar* somehow. I stared at my screen and thought. 

Then I analyzed a couple other video files of myself, and I found the signal there as well. I looked at other videos of other people and searched for the signal, but didn’t find it. I did, however, realize that every person has their own unique signal, and every video they appeared in had that signal. 

“Reggie!  I know how to find him!!”  I called.

By the time Reggie got to my room I was already streaming video of Jack’s current location. Well, it was Jack’s current reality. The view was from such a close angle that all I could see was his face.  There was still goo clinging to him and he was staring vacantly at us. 

“Oh my god where the fuck is he?”  Reggie said from behind me. 

“Not sure,” I hummed. “I could maybe build a program that takes coordinates from these feeds and puts them on a.. like a grid or something. Like a map, or a web maybe?”

“How long would that take you?”

“Uuuuh, I’m not sure. Time is weird.”  I shrugged. 

“But it’s not like a ‘next ten minutes’ kinda thing, is it?”

“Oh god no.”

“Right, well—“ Reggie turned around stared for a moment. “I’ll just.. be out here then, I guess.”  She wandered back out to my living room and laid down on a couch. 

I was still trying to figure out how to construct a map of this place when an idea struck me.  I gasped and jumped up and ran to the doorway. 

“Reggie!  I’m a fucking genius!  We live in a *mindscape*!  We can manifest things here!”

Reggie stared at me. “...ok.”

“So I can just manifest a door!  I’m such an idiot I didn’t think of it before— I mean I’m a genius, but I’m an idiot doing all this stupid busywork —“

“A door?  Like a door to anywhere?”  Reggie was getting excited. 

“Yes!  Like a door to anywhere!”  I shouted.

We picked a spot in my house for the door to live. I already had a door for extra-reality visitors. [That’s people who don’t originate from my world. Universe?  Reality. Well that’s why I called it extra-reality to begin with, I guess.] The door opened directly into the Void from my computer room.  It seemed easier to manifest an alteration on an existing door than to creat a whole new door. 

Also, seriously where would I put it?

The plan was to give the door an input panel. A place to give the door coordinates. [We made a Stargate, ok?] 

“So manifesting is just an expression of will. I want to raise my arm, so I do,” I raised my arm. “I want a glass of water,” I held my hand as if to receive a glass of water. Nothing happened. “Ok well,” I laughed, “that’s because what I actually want right now is to smoke a big fat jay.”  A burning joint appeared between my fingers. “Oh hells yes! It’s also sort of easier to do if your a lil bit toasty.”

“So what your saying is we need to focus our intention?” Reggie asked me. 

“Basically, Yeah.  I made this door in a dream so..” I shrugged, “total accident. But we’re essentially in the matrix. ‘There is no spoon,’ and all that jazz.”

Reggie held my hand and touched the door.  I followed her lead. Her eyes were closed and I supposed she was probably *focusing* or something?  I tried to focus. 

Nothing happened. 

“Ok,” I said, “let’s try something more.. literal.”

I bustled around the room then taped a sheet of printer paper to the door.  I scribbled on it in pen, “THIS DOOR GOES HERE:” and then under that a rectangle. I leaned over my computer chair to look at the screen and copy down the coordinates from one of the videos.  I taped that scrap of paper into the rectangle. 

I stood back and looked at my door. 

“Do you think that’ll work?” Reggie asked skeptically. 

“Well I *want* it to work.”

Reggie huffed. 

“Only one way to find out,” I said. 

I reached for the knob, and I took a breath before I opened it. 

It wasn’t the void. 

I didn’t recognize the room I was looking into, or the person occupying it.  I had just picked coordinates at random. 

I was looking into a small apartment with a bed in one corner and a kitchen in the other. There was a man lying face down on the mattress, on top of the covers. His arms and legs hung over the edge, and his fingertips touched an empty glass bottle on the floor.  

I could feel the depression rolling out of the room.  Slowly the man began to ooze black tar. It looked at first like he was melting, but it grew out of him and encased him. 

Then he moved suddenly. He grunted and jerked himself upright. It looked like he was fighting through the tar. He leapt out of his bed with a startling cry. The man yelled at nothing for a moment, then he shattered the glass bottle against the wall. The angrier he became the more the black tar retreated back inside of him. The man fell to his knees and panted for breath. The tar seeped out of his pores.  He sobbed and covered his face, and the tar embraced him again. 

I shut the door. “So it seems like it works,” I turned to look at Reggie.  There were tears on her cheeks. “Oh shit, are you ok?”

“He was so..” Reggie gestured meaninglessly. 

“Oh,” I said, “sorry. I’m less empathic than other people here seem to be.”  I opened a few drawers and eventually found a box of tissues. “You alright?”

Reggie nodded. 

I went back to my computer and found the video stream from Jack’s current location.  I copied it down and taped it to the door. 

“Ready?”

Reggie pocketed her tissue and nodded her head. I opened the door. 

Static overwhelmed my senses. I turned away from it and covered my ears. The sound bored through me. I could feel it inside my body. I could see it even when I closed my eyes. 

After the initial shock I scrambled to slam the door shut again. 

​

Reggie wrapped her arms around me and squeezed. We caught our breath. 

“Now what?” Reggie asked. 

“I don’t know.  I’m sorry Reg.  Maybe I can figure a way to zoom out on that video feed and we can see what’s going on?  I dunno, man. I’m sorry.”

“Shh,” Reggie hushed me.

Then she kissed me, and I was sort of confused by that.  I pulled away. “What are you doing?”

“We aren’t getting anywhere with this, and Marco told me to relax so I thought I’d try that again.”  Reggie tried to press in again and I stopped her. 

“Ok but.. I don’t really like you that way, tho..”

Reggie rolled her eyes.  “What are you?  A twelve year old girl?  We don’t have to be, like, *in love* to fool around.”

“I mean I’d prefer to be,” I said, “And it sort of depends on how far you wanna get, ‘cuz after a minute you might want a part of me that’s not playing ball.”

“So what, you can’t get it up if you don’t have *feeligs*?”

I didn’t appreciate the way she said that. 

“I’m demi,” I said, and she stared at me. “Demisexual?”  She continued to stare and I sighed, “It means I generally don’t get it up if I don’t have feelings.”  

She laughed. “So you DO need to be in love or something!”

I stepped away from her. “Hey, I dropped everything to help you out today. The least you could do is *not* fuckin’ laugh at me.”  I walked out of the room. 

“Ah, shit.”  Reggie came after me.  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I did’t mean to-“

“Mock a sort of *core* aspect of my identity?”

“Yea. That.”

I stopped and looked at her. “I know you’ve been under a lot of stress, Reggie, but I gotta tell you: you’re a little mean sometimes.  If you’re gonna be this self-appointed ‘guy who keeps tabs on everyone all the time’, then you might wanna check yourself.  Go get some rest. Some actual rest. Because this,” I gestured at Reggie, “isn’t cute.”  I went to my living room and flopped down on the couch.

Reggie left and didn’t come back for three days.  She seemed better when She showed up again.  She knocked on my door and I watched her for a moment through my screen. 

“Seth, I’m sorry.  Can you hear me?”

“Yeah I can hear you,” I said. 

“I’m sorry for laughing at you. I didn’t mean-“ she paused and reconsidered. “I didn’t *feel* like I was laughing at *you*. I didn’t want to hurt you, and I’m sorry.”

“What exactly did you think you were laughing at?”  It was a genuine question, but my terse phrasing and my hard tone made it sarcastic. 

“Can.. can I just come in and talk to you?”

“I’d prefer to do this remotely,” I said, “Ideally I’d prefer this were text based, but you’re already here soo..”

Reggie pulled her phone from her pocket, and a message appeared on my screen. “I can do text.” It read. 

“What did you think you were laughing at?” I repeated my message in type.  I watched Reggie as she stared at her phone. 

“It’s just one of those myths they tell little girls, y’know.  You have to pick the right one. Gotta be in love. Gotta get married.  And if the guy you ‘give it up’ to turns out to be a jerk then you picked the ‘wrong one’ and it was a ‘huge mistake’, and if you pick too many wrong guys then suddenly you’re a slut or something?... It’s just patriarchal bs that I stopped believing in a long time ago. I didn’t think anyone actually.. worked that way.  *And* you’re a boy. They don’t even target that crap at you guys. I wasn’t laughing at *you*. I swear.”

I sighed and rubbed my face. I wanted to be mad but she had a pretty good explanation. And she happened to bring up something that made me realize why I wanted to be mad. So I sort of had to concede. 

“It’s sort of the opposite for boys.” I typed, “After a certain age they expect you to wanna fuck everything you see. And I just didn’t?  Y’know boys will be boys, but I never really was.”

I waited for her to read, and begin typing, before I opened the door. 

“Hey,” she said as she stepped inside. 

“You look different,” I noticed. 

“I’m a little older,” she said, “but I feel like this is a pretty fragile state so.. don’t get used to it.”  She paused and we just looked at each other. “I’m really sorry,” she said again.

“I know. That’s why I let you in.”

“And I want you to know that your feelings are valid and shit, but I don’t have a way to say it where I don’t sound like a tool.” 

I chuckled. “It’s ok, Reg.  I wanted to show you something.”

I brought up the video stream I found of Jack. 

“You’re still working on this?” Reggie asked. 

“Of course,” I said, “it’s important.  Now look, I figured out how to zoom out.”  I tapped on my keyboard and the view on the screen pulled back. 

“Oh my god that’s our- her- that’s her bedroom!”  

“Marcy’s?” I looked over my shoulder and saw Reggie gripping the back of my chair. “Hey, why don’t we take a lil breath, huh?”

Reggie breathed and paced a little.  I pulled up another video stream I had to show her.

“I found something else,” I said and waited for Reggie to come look at the screen. “It’s a stream from Jack’s POV.”

“How.. How is that possible?”

“We’re in a mindscape, remember?  Jack is essentially a hub of information. So now that I found him I can gain access to all his data streams. Which in this case is his audio/visual perception. Cool, right?”

“Way cool..”

“So hey,” I turned in my chair. “I saw that fight you had with D a while ago.”

“Oh god, that wasn’t pretty.”  Reggie covered her face. 

“Yea well I was thinking I know what his secrets are,” I said and Reggie gasped. “But then I thought it’s morally questionable to tell you,” I continued and she sighed.  “*But* then I noticed a way for you to figure it out on your own.”

Reggie stared at me. Waiting.  

“Go Outside,” I said. “Anything he’s remembered out there will be accessible to you, and maybe some extra if you get lucky.”

“Extra?”

“You can trigger a download by thinking about someone too hard. And if you download too much, you can trigger a switch, so be careful with that. Because he would definitely remember what you were up to, and I assume he’d be *crazy* mad.”

“So isn’t telling me this morally questionable?” Reggie asked.

“Maybe.  But I’m a hacker. I’m kind of all about having information someone doesn’t want me to have.”

“So then just *tell* me— no wait.”  Reggie touched the bridge of her nose. She breathed. “I get it. It’s my decision. If I wanna know so bad I can do the work.”

“If you do it, you should really resist the urge to use it against him. You can’t just throw it in his face when he makes you mad. You need him to trust you, and he never will if his information isn’t safe with you.”

Reggie nodded. “Yeah. Ok.  Gotta be chill-Reggie.”

“You should really default to chill-Reggie.”

“If only that was a setting I could select in a menu somewhere.” Reggie grinned. 

“For real though, Reg.  I’ve seen a lot of his footage.  He’s intense about his boundaries, and snooping definitely crosses a line.  Be careful.”