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“God Waters?” She says it like it can’t be right.
The man to her left doesn’t stop or say anything, he just keeps flipping switches and pushing buttons, pecking away at some advanced control surface, making flicking gestures toward various displays, their content updating with data and logs and live feeds of other places. He’s locked in.
“That’s what it says, ya.” He doesn’t even look up.
You’re looking through a ceiling-mounted camera, staring down at the backs of these two individuals in white lab coats, side-by-side in a small control room, pecking away at the long and sleek console. Red light fills the ceiling.
You spam the controls; the camera angle changes.
Ok: you can pan, tilt, & zoom the feeds; fine. You get the feel of that for a second. Which button switched the camera? You spam the remaining: that one, ok: three angles to play with.
You cycle back to the wide-angle pointed at their faces like the camera’s in the console.
The young woman’s staring at the guy like she’s expecting him to say something — looking slightly agitated that he isn’t — watching him pull his sleeve back to check his wrist watch, then peel back the other cuff to reveal a second watch. The cuff and sleeve and placket all feature an intricate royal blue brocade trim. The girl’s white lab coat is plain.
She’s trying to stoke a reply.
“I mean—” she chooses her words. “It’s a weird choice though, right? God Waters?”
He’s definitely not paying attention; he shakes his head No and squints and goes, “weird?” — shifting his focus from one data feed to another — punching stuff in but constantly referring back to one screen in particular like a clock at school.
You change angles nd zoom in to get a better look at what he’s so fixated on: it’s just an empty webcam shot of maybe a bedroom — tough to say because the background’s blurred. The camera’s pointed at a gaming chair on which a big brown box is resting. In the background — mostly out of frame — someone’s unpacking stuff.
Another monitor — labeled CHAMBER #6 — shows a closeup of a large clear medical-looking device: like a sleek glass coffin or a euthanasia pod — titled at an incline like this forward-slash / about half-empty and filling up with a viscous bright blue liquid or gel — alone in the center of that sterile-looking room on the other side of the window wall opposite their console.
Someone completely out of frame just slid the gaming chair out of frame. The man clocks it and stops working altogether, focusing instead on the feed.
Foam packaging and wrapping material fly through the midground of the shot. The chair rolls back, revealing an unboxed sleek and nondescript machine.
Impatience spreads across the face of the young woman.
“Ya, like, weird like: impossible, you know?” She waits.
The man flicks a switch. A debug overlay throws colored squares over every object in the shot. He taps on the pink box around the machine in the chair: 99% confidence it’s a Nanofilter.
“What’s a nanofilter?” says the girl.
He turns off the debug view and calls up another screen and, without looking at her, goes: “we gotta keep moving: Confirm target sex.”
He shoots her a prodding glance; she nods and calls up the requested data with a few taps. Her interface updates.
“Hmm.” She scrunches.
“What’s up?” He doesn’t look up.
“So.” She chooses her words again. “I don’t know what this means, exactly.”
You move the camera around and zoom till you can also read the interface.
DATA CACHE MISSING. REIMPORT SCAN DATA OR MANUALLY ENTER TARGET SEX.
“It says it’s missing: reimport scan data; or manually enter target sex?”
He doesn’t even look up: “manually enter target sex.” He types something else and stops. “Actually, hang on—”
He taps on the webcam feed and brings up a panel along the bottom of the monitor and scrubs the timeline backwards — all the way back — until it blinks and starts playing forwards again.
“Nope. Welp, never mind; can’t really call it.” He hides the panel with another tap and the feed refreshes. “Oh, guess I do get to act like an admin after all.” He snickers. “No but: you’re lucky if this is the first time you’ve ever dealt with one: corrupt scan files are a huge waste of time. Unlucky for us to be honest, considering we’re already lagging a bit. Standard O-Series protocol, though: go nuts.”
The young woman looks a little lost and considers her reply.
“We don’t have anything else we can use to go off of?”
He laughs. “Very funny. C’mon just pick one. Let’s rip through Pre-Construction and make up some time.”
“Can’t we just reimport the file like it says?”
He winces. He’s looks at her a little differently. “Oh we definitely don’t have time for that. You know how long scan files take to process. That would take forever.”
The girl looks a little rattled.
“Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Umm, no?”
“Is this like—” He tries to phrase it. “How long have you been in Reassembly? Not long, right—” he’s hanging on the question, fishing for her name.
“Alana, ya— umm, are you—” She doesn’t sound taken aback as much as bamboozled but he cuts her off—
“I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be rude, it’s just—”
He leans in and almost whispers:
“I can’t tell if you’re being funny or not.”
“Ya.” She thinks for a second. “Same.”
“Ummmmmm. I can’t tell if you’re being serious right—”
“Chamber’s almost ready, Alana.”
Suddenly — no matter what angle you’re looking on from — heavy post-processing: chromatically aberrated motion blur and a little shake scores the camera’s quick slerp, sucking into the young woman’s skull and locking onto her first person POV: the anamorphic letterboxing clenching down on the full-frame as you stare: first over the console — at the sleek glass pod continuing to fill with that blue soapy liquid, and then down at your interface:
DATA CACHE MISSING. REIMPORT SCAN DATA OR MANUALLY ENTER TARGET SEX.
Ok: so you can look around — he’s staring at you, waiting for you to pick. You realize: when you let go of the camera control: your POV slinks back, centering itself again to that front-facing UI framing.
You can’t get up; you can toggle back and forth between male or female on the menu interface, highlighting one or the other.
You can click too. Confirm? No: you back out; you were just feeling your way around.
“You’re overthinking it, truly,” you hear him say.
“What happens if I’m wrong?” You sound like you definitely don’t want to fuck this up.
He laughs again. “Ya, like entropy cares about right and wrong.” When he finally looks up and realizes you’re not being dry, his expression and demeanor seem to shift, like he’s studying you.
You choose male. Confirm? Yes.
“Target sex: male,” you say, cutting off his gear-turning in your clinical radio voice.
He pauses. He seems satisfied. “Ok then. Male. Moving on.” He punches it to the rhythm of his cadence, “and: that’s why we’re here.” He shoots out an avuncular smile. “To fill in the gaps.”
A male voice interrupts through a speaker:
Dean. Please. The mother just walked in.
You both look over at the muted feed but the shot’s still empty. Dean clicks the volume on. The mother and son are arguing off-camera about some items the son may (or may not) have purchased using the mother’s money instead of his.
“Hey, how bout that.” Dean mutes it again. “Sounds like a guy to me; guess you weren’t wrong.” He smiles.
obviously that line depends on which sex you chose earlier.He preps a few more controls. “Ok. So.” He reaches over and calls up another menu in front of you. He nods up into the ether. “Howard’s basically standing over us at this point, since we’re getting a little behind. Let’s try to make up some time.” He fixes his posture and shifts into his work tone again. “Target skin hue?”
The interface presents you with an array of skin tone swatches and a hue spectrum in case you want to move in between the presets. Dean looks like he wants a quick reply. You dial in a skin tone and hit confirm: “Hue code F,F,7,” C, E, zero six.”
“F, F, seven.” He logs it. “C, E, 0, 6. Great.”
He calls the next menu up: a generic 3D male face, its skin hue matching your selection.
The Facial Pre-Construction UI is a detailed face creator menu for customizing the face of your particular God Waters. You get to work sculpting.
“Oop. He’s back.” Dean’s looking at the webcam again — the young man’s torso, head just out of frame, is reaching across the foreground of the shot, fiddling with something behind the camera — above it — bathing everything suddenly in a purple dayglo — pulling away clutching a long tube of UV light and exiting the frame.
“You see that?”
“Ya, what was that?” you ask.
“No: his skin. I think you got that right too — I mean, not that you’re trying to guess but still — two for two, look.” He starts pulling up the timeline on the feed so he can scrub back and point out his forearm to you.
Hey Dean. Buddy. Come on man. Nobody gives a shit about that. Finish Pre-Synth. The chamber’s ready. I need you to get on Inbound Checks as fast as possible, ok? Soon as the mom’s gone, it’s Go Time. We can’t afford to miss this window because the chamber’s not online.
“Yep, understood,” he says, shooting you a glance that like: this is all your fault actually.
Nobody talks. For a bit, there’s just the clicking and clacking of you two seated at the console. As it stands, you’re tweaking God’s philtrum, playing with the slider that makes it more or less pronounced.
Suddenly you pipe up again, softly this time: “No but like, for real though: how did the target get the name God Waters?”
He’s ignoring you.
“You know?” You stare.
He offers a frustrated sigh keeps working. You keep forcing it:
“Since like technically that can’t be his name—”
“Technically?” he repeats, skeptically.
The controls give out as you see yourself lean into the console quickly call up two text files: FIRST_NAME_DATASET and LAST_NAME_DATASET.
You watch as you run a Find command for first name God: [0] results. “Ya,” you say, doing the same thing in the last name dataset for Waters: [0] results. “Technically,” you conclude.
Dean looks a little baffled. But you explain:
“I was looking this up earlier when we were getting started. These names aren’t actually in the dataset — not the first and not the last. So what gives?”
“Oh no,” says Dean, after mulling it over for a second.
“Exactly, thank you.” You lose control of the UI again as you turn spin your chair enthusiastically toward him, but he only offers an awkward, nonconfrontational smile that might be a mask for a growing concern. “So what do you think’s going on?” you ask, each word more unsure, more embarrassed, than the last, as you realize Dean’s judging you, which he underscores by simply turning back to his work with nothing but a drawn-out,
“Hmmm…”
You face forward again too. The controls work. You pick up where you left off, adjusting the distance between God’s eyes, moving the slider back and forth, trying to decide what you like best.
“I’m sorry — are you saying? He scoffs like he’s realizing something that’s been in front of his face the whole time. “Oh boy, Alana.” He does a whiny impression of you: “not the first and not the last.” He cracks up. “Ya: not the first and not the last time you’re gonna see an Override! I feel like more than half of every one I’ve ever worked has been O-Series protocol.”
You say nothing. You realize you’re still holding down the eye-distance slider and now his eyes are grotesquely close . You pull them back out a bit. Dean continues:
“You’ve never seen an override — you’ve never had a bad scan file: what’s going on? You’re telling me you’ve never seen this symbol?”
He taps on a little red icon stamped like an asterisk at the end of the target’s name along the top of the UI.
He’s judging you again.
“I um.” You clear your throat. “I didn’t — there wasn’t anything about overrides on the final—” Your answer produces a quick scoff as Dean mutters:
“Oh, when’d you take that, yesterday?”
“Huh?” you ask in disbelief, losing control of the interface again and facing Dean, still relishing his sick burn. You explain, “I’m saying I’m positive I didn’t study Overrides precisely because I took the final yesterday. It’s all still very fresh.”
After a moment of watching Dean’s frozen expression, you turn to the interface and are handed back the reigns of the face creator. You return to flipping through hairstyles. Dean scoffs.
“Are you messing with me?”
“What?” you laugh.
“You seem to have a very dry sense of humor.”
“I’m — not sure I’m following.”
“I’m sorry it’s a little jarring. Are you making fun of me: is that it?” He flicks some switches on the console.
“Ummmmmm, Dean, respectfully: what are you talking about?”
“No, I’m asking, like: is this an act? Are you trying to rile me up.” He checks his wristwatch: the digital one; you see it reads 11:38. “It’s distracting, honestly; and it’s making us fall further and further behind.”
“Ok… I don’t really know how else to say this Dean, but it feels like you don’t actually know I’m FLOATing — like: you know it’s FLOAT week, right?”
He takes a few seconds to process what she said before replying, “are you being serious?”
You lose the controls again as you turn to face him, exasperated laughter accompanying your words.
“Are YOU being fucking serious, Dean? Oh man. I am freaking out right now. You’re supposed to be the one showing me the ropes here. Nobody told me you actually just get paired with someone who doesn’t even know it’s FLOAT week to begin with? This is like, a nightmare. Should we call Howard? Like, I don’t—”
“Of course I know it’s FLOAT week, Alana!” he bursts, before composing himself and continuing. “But FLOATers are only supposed to work sims! You see where this is going?” He’s nodding yes for you “Ya. This isn’t a sim. Did you know that? Did you even Fucking know that, Alana? It’s the real fucking deal! You know what that means?” He pauses to catch his breath and sinks. “It means a FLOATer is working a live Q Cap. This must be a mistake. Howard?” he calls into the ether. No answer. “Howard!?”
You say nothing. You turn back to the face creator. You pick up where you left off: fiddling with the blend strength of a few mole patterns and freckles, trying out a few variations.
Q: let's say I had already completed the face earlier and hit confirm. How would that have affected the trajectory of the dialogue?A: if you finish the face before all this plays out, your POV would simply pop back to the PTZ cameras, allowing you to cycle between the three shots and watch along until the game catches up to you.Dean’s brooding, staring into the empty webcam feed. There’s a long pause before you hear his almost dejected voice again.
“This should not be happening right now. This is bad. Very bad. Tell me you at least passed your final. HOWARD?”
“You’re asking me if I passed my final?”
He’s almost whispering.
“It’s a fair question, considering the circumstances and some of your comments so far.”
“Ok, well, I’m here aren’t I?”
“That’s my point. I think there’s been some kind of glitch.
Howard cuts in, calmly:
There’s no fucking glitch, Dean.
“Howard! You can’t possibly believe it’s ok to have a FLOATer on a non-sim reassembly. How did this even happen? We have a literal policy against it, because it’s — it’s — it’s dangerous! Not just for me, and her, but for the target — we could lose the target! Not to mention it totally undermines the sanctity of this post. This needs to be reported, Howard.”
Are you finished?
Dean starts to reply but doesn’t, focusing instead on the muted webcam feed, where God has just sat down and is now talking into the camera.
The thing about policies, Dean, is they can change. Now, the mother just left the room, which means we’re about to be officially in the green. I can keep her downstairs for a bit, buy you both a little more time, but you need to work fast. No more chit-chat. Alana? Please. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece.
You were basically done anyways, just giving the face a final once-over: seems good enough. Seems like a face you can live with, one you don’t mind seeing repeatedly in cutscenes for the duration of the campaign.
don't worry you can change this face later if you wish.You hit confirm; you switch into your work-voice again:
“Initializing biometric pre-synthesis.”
The UI updates with a biometric profile of the quantum target.
Dean’s still recovering from getting his feelings hurt by Howard. “Height?”
your SIZE stat informs all size-related dialogue choices. “One point seven one meters.”
“1.71,” he confirms in a semi-sulking tone.
“So how come we have height data but everything else is manual?”
He ignores the question. The red ceiling lights turn green, accompanied by a loud ding.
You needle him some more, almost triumphantly, since it feels like Howard has your back. “At any rate, he seems short — definitely sub-average — for here at least.”
“Weight?” He’s not amused; no-nonsense mode now. “You know what?” He slides across, encroaching your space with his portly build to he can better read the values for himself:
“Ok: weight.” He punches it in on his terminal. “DNA sequence hash: QH7X. 2J9Y. LMPQ. Quantum cellular resonance: 267.58 terahertz.”
He slides back over and goes “Biometric Pre-Synthesis complete. Inbound System check.” He calls up a new menu: a 3D visualization of the reassembly chamber, blue with tightly speckled yellow dots inside it like glowing pixels.
You glance over. He’s staring at you, waiting for your mark.
“Ya. Go for it. I’m ready.” You hear yourself take a deep breath.
He starts: “Network connection?”
You scan the interface for information about the network connection and highlight it as if it were a dialogue choice. You click.
“Optimal.”
“Reassembly Link?”
Same deal: you find it in the menu; you click: “Good ping.”
“Chamber fill-state?”
“Fill-state 100. Good seal. No errors; no warnings.”
“Density variation?
“0.0076—”
“Chamber Temperature?”
“15 millikelvin.”
He breaks cadence for a second like you messed something up: “Chamber pressure?”
“Optimal range.”
Another pause. “Good chamber.” He swaps out the menu like he’s turning a page of sheet music. “Agar ping threshold—”
“Optimal.”
He breaks character: “Ok, you’re supposed to say the threshold value.”
“92.”
“No, you say optimal, then you say the threshold value.”
“Optimal. 92.”
“Good ping. Initiate wake.”
You click the wake button. “Waking chamber.”
The yellow dots in the 3D visualization rapidly cascade from yellow to green.
“Nano-swarm online,” you confirm.
“Run firmware update.”
“Running.” The dots all turn from yellow to orange, before cascading back to green. “Good update. No errors; no warnings.”
“Coherence?”
You click the coherence value and read it back: “nine-nine point nine-seven percent.”
“Entanglement fidelity?"
“nine-nine point nine-nine percent.”
“Good coherence. Run Q state calibration."
“Running.” A waterfall of debug text appears on the ancillary screen real estate.
“Calibration complete. No errors; no warnings.”
“System check. Quantum processor?"
“Good ping.”
“I need the operational value.”
“Sorry. Good ping: 10 to the 6th qubits."
“Q memory coherence?”
“Optimal. T2 time: 1.2 milliseconds.”
“Good coherence.” He calls up a new menu. “Error correction check. Surface codes?"
“Active.”
“Logical error rate?
“Optimal. Ten to the minus fifteen.”
“Network latency?"
“Optimal. 0.8 nanoseconds.”
“Q state?”
“Classical.”
“Good state. Entanglement distribution rate?”
“Nominal. Only slightly above Bell pair threshold.”
“Ok, flag that.”
You click to flag it. He continues:
“Good rate. Initialize reassembly buffers.”
“Initializing buffers.” The menu updates. “Optimal capacity.”
“Good Q System. Inbound Checks complete. Initializing Outbound System check.” Another menu. “Local swarm density?”
“Umm, nominal. 16% above minimum threshold.”
His tone changes. “Really? That can’t be right. You sure?”
“Ya, look.” You point at the value on the screen.
“Hmm.” He ponders.
“What does that mean?”
“No I’ve just never seen anything below 30.” He thinks some more. “Well, should be fine though technically. Ok. Let’s keep going, we’re almost there. Initializing Local Swarm Pre-Activation.”
The voice buts in:
Pre-Activation complete. All pings successful — outbound nano-firmware updated — swarm is online, standing by. Sorry, I took the liberty of helping out — let’s get the chamber into superposition.
Dean, hustles to call up the appropriate menus and continues:
“Q State is good. Initiate Hadamard gates.”
“Hadamard sequence running. Qubits entering superposition.”
A progress bar visualizes the percent complete.
You wait till it fills then confirm: “Superposition set.”
“Decoherence time?”
“T2 at 1.5 milliseconds and holding.”
“Magnetic field stability?”
“Fluctuation below 1 picotesla. Stable.”
“Initiate entanglement spread.”
“Spreading.” You wait for the progress bar to fill. “Complete.”
“Bell state fidelity?”
“Optimal: ninety-nine point nine-nine percent.”
“Good state. Run quantum tomography.”
“Tomography in progress.” The progress bar fills. “State vector confirmed.”
“Ok. Good superposition. Howard: standing by to freeze chamber on Q lock.”
Very good Chamber 6. Stand by for Q lock and data packet.
Nice recovery people, thank you.
You breathe a sigh of relief that ends in a gurgle of light laughter. “Woooooo. That was fucking sick!”
Dean chuckles. “Not bad, Alana.”
“Thanks man. Ugh, that ruled! I don’t know what I’m gonna do if I don’t get this assignment.”
“Well. Don’t get your hopes up just yet. You still have a lot of blind spots. I’m sure you’ve done that part a million times in the sims.”
“Ya, fair enough.” You take another deep breath. “Man! I can’t believe I’m about to see a live Q Cap! Dean, how many of these have you been on?”
You turn; he’s checking his watch again, watching God in the muted webcam feed.
“Mm, I don’t know. 100? 150? It’s been years though since I was on a live one.”
“How many sims do you think you’ve done?”
“Oh, decades.”
“Well when was the last live one?”
“That’s privileged information. You’ll find out if and when you actually get assigned to this ward.”
“Gotcha.” Your hands plop into your lap and twiddle anxiously. “So like — you worked on Gen One then!”
“Ya but only towards the end.”
“But you’re Gen 1 though, right?”
“Why, do I look Gen 2? I actually get that a lot: people thinking I’m younger than I am.”
“How old— Can I ask?”
“47.”
“Oh wow. What’s your secret?”
“Must be my skincare routine. Or maybe it’s all the nanobots coursing through my veins.”
You laugh. “What?”
“Kidding.”
“Oh…”
“Or maybe I’m not.” He smiles. “Maybe I’m just piling on info I know’s gonna get pruned in sanitation. You ever had a heavy prune?”
“No. I don’t think so at least.”
“Really? You never got headaches when you were taking Reassembly? Whenever you’d leave class?”
“Shit you know what. I was having headaches all last week when I was studying — every time I left the Castle.”
“There ya go.”
In the webcam feed, God’s gesturing in the air as he talks to the camera, like he’s pointing at stuff that’s composited around him but not visible in the pre-composited feed you’re watching.
“So who did your reassembly then?” you ask.
“I don’t know.”
“Somebody else on the ward though, right? You probably know the person who did it.”
“Ya, definitely. But like I was saying. They wouldn’t know anyways. It all gets pruned.”
“Ohhhhh. I see.”
Dean checks his watch again.
“There wasn’t FLOAT back then?” you ask.
“No.”
“So how’d you learn all this stuff?”
“I already knew it.”
The short silence must be you trying to process what that’s supposed to mean exactly, though you seem unable to do so and move on: “Crazy. I wonder if you did my parents!”
Feels like Dean’s ability to engage with your exuberance is waning. “I don’t know; it’s possible.” He reaches for the webcam feed. The young streamer’s animated, gesticulating wildly. Dean clicks on on the volume:
“…So that’s Thor de las Moscas, bosun of The Fertile Croissant,” explains Waters, pointing up above his shoulder. “Listen to how he describes the disappearances of Archie and Paul Morreaux — who, by the way, were set to be announced as the new Co-CEOs of Castle after the death of its longtime matriarch, their auntie—”
A grating alert sound honks. The green ceiling lights turn back to red; Dean cocks his head to the side and gazes up with a furrowed brow.
“His mom’s back?” you ask.
“I don’t know, maybe,” he replies, watching as the young streamer taps something on his keyboard.
Dean turns the volume up a bit more. God continues:
“Of course they’re denying it. I don’t give a fuck. Chat, somebody drop the article. For anyone who didn’t see it: typical banger from WOW. Chat! Shoutout real quick to our friends over at WOW Network though, for real — for continuing to deliver top quality, hash verifiable content — like the story in that link or like this interview with the bosun — hosted and published independently of Castle Media—”
“Did he say castle? Like our castle?”
Dean shushes you. God continues:
“If you’re just coming into this stuff, get to know WOW — seriously —check them out, subscribe, support them if you can – and while you’re at it — if you haven’t already — check out my recent collab with them called ‘Faking the Fall,’ a little documentary we put together to mark this 50th anniversary of the single greatest deception ever perpetuated on the world — our jumping off point. Chat! That’s right. Pun intended. You all know his name: Thaddeus Morreaux. Your parents know exactly where they were when they heard the news — we all know the story — the official story — greatest inside job in the history of man — my bread and butter, the reason you’re here with me now—” he stops talking and looks off-camera all of a sudden, mouthing something indiscernible.
Howard chimes in:
Stand by, let’s see if she heads back down.
God picks back up, cueing something up on his end.
“Sorry about that. What was I saying? Ya. ‘Faking the Fall,’ check it out — great primer for anyone just getting into this stuff, really proud of how it turned out and all the work that went into it. Now.” He claps. “Back to our bosun. Listen to how he describes the moment— Actually, Chat, let me back up.”
The ceiling dings and the lights turn green again. The young streamer’s cueing something up and goes:
“Let’s back up, I want you to get the full context of this thing.” He plays the video. You hear another male voice in the feed coming from his speakers:
“…no we just waited, you know. It’s not really atypical for them to wake up late after a night of entertaining guests – I mean: they don’t usually take breakfast with the guests anyways; we just leave a tray outside their door but, you know — morning after a big party: it usually comes back untouched; and then, lunch was the same thing; so, it only really started becoming a discussion when they didn’t turn up for dinner service — and they weren’t answering any courtesy calls — so: the captain called a quick leadership meeting about how to proceed and it was decided that obviously, this was now feeling like a safety concern and we needed to go in there and check on them.”
“So like,” you pipe up again. Dean turns the volume down a bit. “Here’s what I don’t get. How is the window green again if he’s not actually alone?
“How do you mean?”
“Like, isn’t he talking to people right now? Isn’t the first rule that the target and all associated networks should be isolated or otherwise cordoned off completely from outside observation.”
“Was that a question on the final?”
“Ha ha.”
He smirks. “Maybe you did pass after all.”
“So what’s the deal?”
“The deal,” he says, pulling up a data visualization screen showing a top-down triangulated map of concentric circles and network signal strength, “is that he’s not actually talking to anybody. We have complete control of all associated networks and traffic right now. He may think he’s talking to people — but whoever’s on the other end: that’s just Howard spoofing.”
“Whoa. Really? Sick. Can I see it?”
“See what?”
“Whatever he’s looking at.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Honestly, what do they even teach in Reassembly these days? I’m genuinely curious.”
“Ok, I thought we were past this, Dean.”
“This may surprise you, Alana, but I have had FLOATers before. You’re just.” He chooses his words. “You’re just the first one to command a bare minimum understanding of what we do here. I’m serious. It’s uncanny.”
“Ok well — first of all: ouch. Second, I’m not sure you can command a bare minimum. And third: when did I ever say I took Reassembly. All I said was I passed the final.”
“Now I know you’re messing with me.”
“I’m not. I didn’t get into Reassembly.”
Another short pause.
“Well that’s disconcerting,” says Dean, about to turn the volume back up—
“One more question. So if he’s technically already alone right now: what are we waiting for? What’s Howard waiting for? Can he not pull the trigger himself? Why does he need us anyways? Like, you saw how he just finished Pre-Activation for us, why doesn’t he just do it all?”
“You obviously don’t get it, which isn’t really surprising considering your entire frame or reference here is confined to what was on the final. You know — no offense — but I’d be shocked, honestly, if you do end up getting this assignment. Maybe you should ask Howard to go back actually take Reassembly. Don’t get me wrong, it’s impressive you were able to pass it in the first place, but like — you still have a lot to learn about what we do here.” He turns the volume back up.
“Chat: someone drop a link for whoever needs it — So — awesome, thank you — so: new subs: that is a database I started years ago when I first got serious about all this — that catalogs every instance I could find of cases where — there’s been a disappearance — all unsolved by the way — or like, in the case the Morreuax brothers, which — if you saw the news yesterday: the search is now officially over — three days after it started — now being ruled as a drowning, which as we’ll hear in a minute is, according to de las Moscas, not just unlikely but like, flat out impossible. So — ya: still unsolved in my book, regardless of what’s in the news. And — ya! So the database is made up of like, interviews, police records, video transcripts — all sorted and tagged based on the one weird thing they all have in common: the smell at their last known location, or in the vicinity of. It’s rarely in a public place unless you know, alone: a city park, an alleyway: but mostly it’s private spaces like a bathroom, a bedroom, home alone, um, a guy working late at the office — a yacht cabin: all described in some capacity as having a strong lingering smell of — listen to this: Spice, spices: over 2,000 hits; cinnamon: over a thousand; baked, baking: almost a thousand; incense: 400; 100 candles and then a bunch more like dessert, cookies, pie, nutmeg, cooking, food, seasoning, allspice, and so on. Chat! Are we listening? Is that not fucking insane! Five-thousand and twenty-seven instances — no: 5,029 now including the these two Castle fuckers. Over 5,000 on-the-record accounts — you can go through them yourself, that’s why I made it in the first place — 5,000 documented cases where someone goes missing from somewhere and that somewhere suddenly smells like someone’s baking. 5,000 of these? And I’m the one who’s crazy? Fuck that. Fuck that chat. Like, it’s kind of impossible to overstate—”
God leans forward, reading something off his screen: “what are the police supposed to do, arrest the smell?” He types something on his keyboard. “Hilarious. Haven’t heard that one before. Here. Wanna hear something else that’s hilarious? Bam. There ya go: one week ban.”
A loud digital chime rings twice in the room.
“Noooooo, no no—” you hear yourself whine.
“Aw.” Dean mutes the feed. “Unlucky, Alana.”
“Ugh, you gotta be fucking kidding me.”
“Welp.” Dean’s enjoying himself again. “I guess if you do manage to make Reassembly you’ll get your chance to see a live one. Look on the bright side though: headache won’t be so bad.”
An overlay appears: like a retinal projection display, like a new quest objective, like a minimal HUD across your field of view:
1:58 🌦 71°|42°
Exit the room. You groan. There’s a yellow icon in your periphery; you turn to it: it’s pinned to the door. You let out a deep, dejected sigh as you reach over to grab a crumbled satchel lying on the ground beside your chair.
You stand up, slinging it over your shoulder. “Ughhh, this is so: Annoying.”
Oh shit. You can finally move around.
“On the other hand,” Dean reflects. “When the next live one’s gonna happen is totally unpredictable. A few days ago there were two actually: back-to-back. But the one before that was over two years ago. And the one before that was almost 20 years ago.”
You’re walking around the console. “Oh ya? I thought you said you couldn’t tell me that stuff.”
“And the ones before that were over 30 years ago.”
You look back. He’s grinning.
“Oh. Cause you’re trying to give me a headache?”
His smile just widens like he can neither confirm nor deny.
“Weirdo,” you mutter, before letting out an exasperated “Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh. So unfair.” You turn back to the large glass wall separating you from the chamber room.
“Ya well. Welcome to FLOAT week. And the real world.”
You’re staring at that blue-filled glass pod, stark and sleek in the middle of that sterile empty room.
“So. What do you have next?” he asks.
You’re walking back over. “Rehab.” You can’t seem to run even though you’re sure you invested a point in RUNNING.
Your HUD updates with a mild haptic beep:
1:58 🌦 71°|42°
Exit the room now and report to the FLOAT Session 2 in the Rehabilitation Ward or risk arriving late.“Rehab? Where you going after that, Retail?”
You walk to the door and go, “I’ll see you around, Dean.” It opens with a cold pneumatic tff—
A red scanline washes down the open threshold of the doorway with a low electric hum. It runs down your field of view, rippling the clock font and quest objective text of your retinal HUD, rendering another notification on a new line below with a subtle haptic beep:
Sanitation (Complete) 
You hear yourself wince. There’s a quick fuzzy halo of post-processing, a throbbing radial blur and some color fringing, and a crescendo of swiftly attenuating ringing in ears. The door seals behind you with quick tuft of air.
“Oh, we do not like that.”
Your hands reach up and rub your temples. The VFX resolves almost entirely.
“We don’t like that at all.”
1:58 🌦 73°|42°Location: Reassembly WardFLOAT Session 2: Rehabilitation Ward (2:00)Get to the elevator49 new notificationsYour HUD comes alive, transitioning smoothly from its minimal state into a frenetic backlog of semi-opaque popups and pulsing notifications that almost clog your ability to see down the hall, though it’s impossible to miss the newly rendered AR path, which has set off down the corridor and disappearing around the corner up ahead, along the floor, yellow and pulsing, leaving a trail presumably in the direction of that elevator.
URGENT: You have (3) Biometric Advisories, please review the...URGENT: Water Recycling Maintenance at 4:00 tonight be advised that...The urgent notice briefly flashes red before moving to the edges of the screen.
1:58 🌦 73°|42°
Location: Reassembly Ward
FLOAT Session 2: Rehabilitation Ward (2:00)
Get to the elevatorThe left edge of the screen feels categorically social: below the urgent community message: (3) missed calls from Joan; (16) new messages, also from Joan, with scrolling previews of each, cycling.
Below all that, a group chat icon has a red (28) badge, with message previews scrolling and cycling too.
Below that: a small grid of miniature livestream previews loop sans audio, each with a little pulsing red dot in its corner.
Finally, below that is a zone of small, scrollable cards cycling previews of newly posted content by other people seemingly more or less your age.
On the right side of your HUD there’s a yellow indicator dot that reads: Hydration.
Below that, a yellow indicator dot reads: Bladder; Below that, a yellow indicator dot reads: Bowel; Below that, a dopamine spike notification indicates that a spike occurred recently. Below that, a neural hyperactivity notification indicates that a spike was just detected. Below that, cranial stress was just detected. Below that, a small icon says (9) decisions were made on your behalf and (12) tasks were automated.
Blink twice to interact with your HUD. “Ah shit, are you serious?” you mumble, annoyed. “Did my settings cache get cleared?”
<Press ▯> As soon as you press it, the AR path’s opacity dims, textured now by a striped diagonal pattern scrolling at a decent clip in the direction you’re all of a sudden walking, autonomically, down that sleek and sterile corridor that’s buzzing loudly with other young people, all wearing the same white coats over their outfits, which are unique, and remarkable, like a fashion born of (or at the very least, deeply evocative of) an aesthetic that’s giving medieval peasantry — but in a way that’s slopped (profusely), infused or remixed even, with a style that feels designer, but casual; athletic, but also strangely agrarian.
Your movement axis allows you to navigate your gaze-based UI, letting you to highlight the various elements of your retinal overlay.
bing
TIP: To open your HUD without triggering Autopilot, hold ▯ instead of tapping it.“Oh, come on. No. SKIP!”
bing
MORE INFO: Tapping ▯ with an active objective (Get to the elevator) will engage Autopilot, enabling total HUD immersion while transiting“Stop fucking: skip,” you mutter, “SKIP, skip all, please. Save setting.”
Blink (3) times to minimize your HUD“Are you serious? Stop! End tutorial.”
Blink (4) times to turn your HUD off“Skip all tutorials and save setting. Acknowledge.”
A brief pause.
Tutorials disabledYou sigh. “Thank you.”
You turn the corner.
You can turn tutorials back on at any time in the Settings menu.“Ok. Very funny Howard.”
;)You minimize your HUD. You stop, idling in the middle of the hallway. The AR path glows brightly again, textureless, pulsing along the floor and disappearing around another corner. Seems the Autopilot disengages if you hide the HUD. Ok.
You follow the path yourself. You wonder if it’s possible to use Autopilot while walking. Like now, for instance. You wouldn’t mind offloading walking and closing the HUD so you can just take in the very specific and ubiquitous fashion aesthetic everybody’s got going on. It’s loud. You realize you’re the only person not chattering.
“I should call Joan back,” you hear yourself suggest.
These outfits go crazy: a young man in a workwear-inspired coarse-wool coif; another guy in a nude linen durag, in a burlap-sack-looking long sweater; a tall girl in an ultra-contemporary, high-vis performance-kirtle, barely muted by her plain white coat.
New message (Joan): “Bitch, hit me back. I got OF!” (1:59) 
New message (Joan): I know you're out of Reassembly (how was it?) CALL MEEEE (1:59) Lots of tunics here and there — clashing patterns, mostly muted earth tones — some all black stuff though — a style of urban streetwear built around braies and girdles — aprons, chemises — cloaks, hoods, and hoodies. Sneakers abound — ballcaps and beanies and straw hats with brims — maybe a theme or two of logos and print designs: ostentatious sheaves of wheat, a word, an expression, sometimes oversized or repeated (maybe in a way that’s supposed to be ironic or subversive).
New message (Joan): fuck you answer (1:59) Only a few older people dot the halls, easy enough to pick out — yes for their age but also because their lab coats have that same brocaded trim, blue like Dean’s back there, though you just spotted a guy with red brocade instead.
Incoming call (Joan)...You highlight the incoming call and accept, triggering an additive animation of you slinging your bag around to the front. You pull a handheld mirror out: a vintage-core, ornate-looking oval-shaped one. You run your other hand through your hair, fluffing it and looking into the mirror as you start walking on Autopilot again.
The call renders Joan as a sleek and see-through picture in a picture on your HUD. You see the borders of her own cool mirror.
“Yo!” you answer.
“Yo yourself bitch!”
“Wait so you already got assigned?”
“Yep. Check it out.” Joan lowers the handle from her face and turns, facing a mirrored wall and holding out her arms to showcase her own long coat, just like Alana’s in style but tan, and with an orange-brown brocade.
“Oh shit, look at you,” you laugh, turning the corner.
“I know! Crazy, right?” Joan turns away from the wall and starts walking too. She brings the mirror back up to her face. “But get this: I still have to go to my other FLOATs.”
“What? Shut up. How’s that supposed to work?”
Joan looks away from the mirror — at an older, coatless guy approaching her with a goofy smile, his arms outstretched to greet her. You watch them exchange a lover’s kiss from Joan’s very-closeup POV.
“Whoa—” you gasp, snickering. He’s ogling her as she slips his jacket off her one shoulder, swapping the hand that’s holding the mirror and pulling her arm out of the other sleeve. She hands it back to him. They kiss again and say bye one more time. One more kiss.
“I cannot with you right now.”
After one last smooch he backs away, giddy and dumb-looking. He winks at Joan. She pulls the mirror close to her face again and stares at you with a goofy triumphant smirk, pulling her wadded up plain tan coat out of her own bag with her free hand, all in-stride.
“Please tell me that was your OF administrator,” you say, walking up to the elevator bay where a few others are waiting.
Joan laughs, “noooo. Just a new friend I met on the ward.”
“You’re so good at making friends.”
“Excuse you!”
“Hey. You do you girl.”
“Maybe if you had your own friends now and again you wouldn’t be such a grumpy cunt.”
“Wow. Ok,” you laugh. “So? Was Order Fulfilment as dumb as you hoped?”
“Oh.” She pulls the mirror close. “Alana. It’s literally perfect. It’s — so fucking easy—”
You laugh. “Obviously.”
“No but it isn’t boring. At all. People are so fucking weird.”
“Ya, I can see that.” The AR path terminates up ahead at a bay of elevators where a few people are shuffling on and off. “They do much pruning down there?”
“Oh. Like — minimal — that’s the thing. Just personal information. You know what a dildo is?
“A what? No. What’s that?”
“Alana.” Joan’s cracking up. “Let’s just say it’s a little friend.”
Another elevator car arrives and empties.
“What does that mean. Ohhhhhhhhh. Damn.”
You enter with a gaggle of other FLOATers, and a few employees of the Reassembly Ward — everybody chatting, on their own calls presumably — the noise: amplified by the boxy elevator as the doors close.
1:59 🌦 74°|41°
Location: Elevator
FLOAT Session 2: Rehabilitation Ward (2:00)
Get off at the Rehabilitation Ward“Ya, listen to this,” Joan says, reciting: “a smooth, ergonomic handheld tool designed for intimate use, with a gentle, contoured shape that fits comfortably in the hand.”
“Hey-o.”
“No, shut up, wait: the object should be flexible yet firm, with a sleek, seamless finish. Include subtle detailing for grip and texture, with a soft curvature for maximum comfort and utility.
“Utility.”
“Make it discreet, with dimensions optimized for personal relaxation and stress relief, focusing on ease of storage and user-friendly functionality.”
“Damn. Sign me up.”
“Riiiiight! Anyways, I thought you’d appreciate that.”
“It’s pretty good.”
“So! What the fuck? How was Reassembly you fucking legend? Tell me everything! Do you get to remember any of it?”
“Ya kinda. I remember my admin was kind of a dork, kind of an asshole.”
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know him. This guy named Dean.”
“Dean?” she repeats, thinking about it. “Wait.” She pauses and scrunches her face. Her eyes scan around.
New message (Joan): [image]“This Dean?” she asks, as Dean’s profile pic comes in, enlarged for a second before shrinking and moving to the left edge, into the stack of messages from Joan.
“Oh, yep. That Dean.”
“Dean. Ya I don’t know him. Oof. Pleasant Inn alert.”
“He lives at the Inn?”
“He does.”
“Shit that makes so much sense.”
“What does passionate horologist mean?”
The elevator stops at the next floor. People get on and off.
“Where do you see that?”
New message (Joan): [link]“It’s on his page. Why are all his streams about clocks and watches?”
“I don’t know, he was wearing two of them today, one on each wrist.”
“What a fucking loser. Awww. I’m sorry about Dean. Did he ruin it for you?” Joan asks intently.
“Mmm, not really. He was just kind of a dick.”
“That sucks. Well aside from Dean, was it sick? Do you love? Do you think you’ll get it?”
The elevator stops at another floor. You get out.
2:00 🌦 73°|42°
Location: Genetics Ward
FLOAT Session 2: Rehabilitation Ward (2:00)
Go to Cognitive Observation #3“Wait why am I getting off at Genetics?” you ask.
A haptic rumble kicks you off Autopilot. You stop. The AR path leads down the hall and turns a corner. You start following the path.
“What’s up?” asks Joan, holding her mirror close.
You hold yours up to your face. “No it’s just I had autopilot on and for some reason it took me to Genetics instead of Rehab.”
“Weird.” Joan’s walking through large pair of industrial double-doors, into a sleek agricultural factory with a massively high ceiling.
“I think there was so much pruning that my settings config got wiped by sanitation somehow.”
“Ouch. Is that a thing?”
“I don’t know. It was making me go through all the tutorials and shit.”
“Damn. Do you have a headache?”
“Big time.”
“Now it’s taking me to some room called Cognitive Observation #3.”
“Where?”
“Cognitive Observation #3. I don’t know. This is fucked.”
“Ya something’s definitely fucked — I can’t understand you. Every time you try to repeat whatever you’re saying, it goes fuzzy.”
Joan’s staring out from a balcony at the sleek, highly automated, multi-tiered vertical farming complex whirring with drones and conveyor systems that seems to be cultivating and reaping and threshing and processing wheat on an industrial scale.
“Listen,” she adds. “I think I gotta go figure out where I’m supposed to go. Call me after!”
“You’re insane. I can’t believe you actually put down Agg. What if you accidentally get it?”
“There’s no way. I’m going to act like a total fucking dumb-dumb.”
“Ya but like—” you laugh. “That’s everyone in Agg.”
“Not like this though. This is gonna set a new bar. Soon as I check in, I’m just gonna check the fuck out. Agg Ward tourism.”
“There’s no way this is gonna work, Joan.”
“Watch me. Speaking of: full network privileges down here in Agg, meaning I’ll be watching whatever the fuck I want.”
“Major perk, ya,” you admit. “Probably the last thing the sweet people of Agg Ward need to be allowed to do though, but hey.”
“You’re such a snob,” she laughs. She sees an Agg Ward tech and goes: “Where do we check-in for FLOAT?” She holds the mirror back up and waits till she’s a safe distance from the Agg tech then adds, “But ya, basically my plan is to just catch up on some content, maybe hang out with a few boys—”
“More new friends?”
“Some existing ones, ya. The ones in the rotation.”
You share another laugh.
“Well good luck with all that: it’s a bold plan. What are you gonna do for your third FLOAT then? You have to bomb that one too right?”
“Technically, yes,” she replies, gazing up at the towering rows of vertical farms with their slow-moving carousels of thick wheat.
“Did yours come in yet?”
“It did not. Still pending.”
“Really? Mine too! Hm.”
“I know, it’s a little frustrating. I feel like everybody else already got theirs.”
“Weird. Ya. Well: have fun making a fool of yourself I guess. Zero chance Howard’s not already onto this.”
“Oh, fuck Howard,” she says brashly: undertones of sarcasm bubbling through your shared laughter. She adds, “just kidding Howard: I love you: please just give me OF — don’t fuck me. Don’t fuck me Howard!” She looks up. She’s met instantly with a half a dozen disapproving glances from other Agg FLOATers and Ward administrators. She hangs up.
The path terminates up ahead, the marker pinned to a door labeled Cognitive Observation #3. The room adjacent has a large window looking into the corridor. Inside, you see a young girl, maybe three — maybe five — sitting at a kid-sized table in an empty padded room with a large mirror on the wall behind her. She’s staring blankly at a small goldfish in a glass bowl. There’s a large hematoma on her forehead — though it could be a large birthmark.
Beneath the window, tucked along the wall, is a sterile metal serving table, on which an orange plastic tray holding a plate of cookies and a glass of milk has been placed.
The door to Cognitive Observation #3 unseals as you approach it. Inside, a young man in a plain white lab coat turns to see who it is, along with a middle-aged woman whose coat has a green brocade.
You step through the doorway.
2:00 🌦 69°|42°
Location: Cognitive Observation #3
FLOAT Session 2.1 - (2:00 - 2:08)
LUNCH - (2:08 - 2:18)
FLOAT Session 2.1 - (2:18 - 2:38)A red scanline washes over you with a mild beep.
Sanitation (Logging)entering Focus modeGood luck, AlanaYour retinal overlay is gone.
CUTSCENE:
“You found us,” says the lady admin, offering Alana a warm smile and gesturing to the empty seat. Alana smiles back politely then acknowledges the other FLOATee, returning his goofy, devilish smirk with a wide, sarcastic grin.
