For the most part, reality had reasserted itself. Except for the fact that everything had a slightly warped look to it, as if I was viewing the room through a fish-eye lens. That, and perhaps the fact that I was standing outside my own freaking body, but at this point who’s counting?

Also, at this point, should I even be surprised?

So you spontaneously discovered a means of astral projection. Not the weirdest thing to happen today.

Okay, so it’s pretty weird. What are you going to do about it?

Let’s be real; it wasn’t astral projection. I’ve never been much for meditation or spirituality, anyway. Such phenomenon can be reasonably attributed to drugs, anyway, right?

Yeah, it was obviously the drugs. Whatever they had put in me, just now. Not that this made me feel any more equipped to deal with the situation.

I couldn’t move. I could feel my phantom body, and my vision was at about head height. But it was as if the signals traveling from my brain to my body were getting cut off midway.

I kept trying, though.

C’mon. Take a step. Do something.

Nothing.

While I struggled to move, my real self—in the chair—seemed like a happy camper. He was sitting up straight with an alert posture, his eyes on the Stool man.

I’m a freaking teacher’s pet.

“We’re going to show you some videos here today,” Stoolman said, once again consulting the clipboard. “Should be interesting to see how you react to them. But before that, we have an interactive portion of the experience, for you. Are you ready, kid?”

In my mind’s eye, I could see the opening to Spongebob Squarepants.

That line. ‘Kid’ instead of ‘kids’, but otherwise the same. Even spoken with the same rhythm and intonation. It had to be an intentional reference.

What a sick freak.

But my dissociated body—in the chair—was already nodding eagerly.

Aye-aye, Captain.

“I’m going to go through some phrases, and you’re going to repeat them after me. Make sense?”

He flipped one of his stupid pages. “Ready?”

My body nodded again.

Stoolman made direct, confident eye-contact with my body as he spoke. “I am a product of my environment.”

For some reason I had been expecting some kind of Winter Soldier style code phrase—a string of words that, though meaningless, would activate some dormant effect in my brain. What I was getting instead was not only an intelligible sentence, but a philosophy itself, and laced with meaning.

“I-” There was a slight hesitation, before my body continued. “I am a product of my environment.”

No. I thought. That’s not right.

It used to be. I was just a junkie, hopelessly addicted, with now way out of my condition. That was what I thought.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

No one wants to feel like they’re directly responsible for the bad things in their life.

Some things had been outside of my control, obviously. The car accident was just that—an accident. My parents had passed away in a mess of smoke and tangled metal. The result of some mistake, some careless driving maneuver obviously, whether on the part of my father or the driver he crashed into, or both. But I had just been a passenger, a shadow in the backseat, not a participant. I had not acted. But in a way, I had been acted upon.

Using sketchy brain-altering tech in the backroom of an arcade? Totally on me. I should have known, really. No matter how desperate I was for an escape. Some mistakes are just mistakes, and sometimes, even if it’s deep down, you know it’s the wrong move.

Same with roping my friend Oscar into it. Same with involving Jackie. Same with lying to Evelyn, day after day, week after week. Same with stealing her money, right out of her wallet, while she was busy making me dinner, caring for me, having taken me in under her roof.

When I started feeling the side effects from Rithium, I could have come clean at any time. I could have sought help. But I didn’t. I wanted to stay in the escape. I didn’t want to face reality.

But I could have.

And if I had, everything would have been different.

So no, it wasn’t true. It just wasn’t.

Just as I had this thought, my body twitched in the chair, as if something had just occurred to it.

“I do not act.” Stoolman said, reciting the next line from his clipboard. “I am acted upon.”

In a way, this was true. I had been held against my will and experimented on for several years, at times not even aware of the context, or the reason why. My mind was not my own. It could be twisted and manipulated, and had been. But did it have to be that way?

Suddenly I could remember. The words Oscar spoke to me, when I asked why the memory erasure hadn’t worked on him.

“You live in a world of your own making, Kit. You always have. You think it protects you, but it doesn’t.”

“I do not...act…” my body said, but the words were slurred, as if it was struggling to get them out. “I am acted...upon.” It twitched again, neck rolling sideways against the shoulder, as if to scratch an upper arm itch with its ear.

Stoolman nodded and flipped a page. He paused after reading the next phrase, as if for emphasis, and as if this one was especially important. “I have no agency.”

I felt a sudden, impending sense of urgency, that this moment needed to count. I focused on my body, trying to exert my will over it.

My body didn’t move. It was frozen, stuck between two equally assertive directives.

I strained, and I could feel myself moving, my hand—or what I perceived to be my hand—extending toward the chair, as if I was about to use the Force, or perform some psychokinetic trick.

I am not just some product of my environment, I thought, slowly, with emphasis on each word in my mind.

I am not some particle in a test tube. I may sometimes be acted upon, but I can act as well, and it is my actions that define me.

I decide who I am, and what I do. I have agency.

I’m no junkie. Not if I don’t want to be.

And as much as I love Rithium, it doesn’t define me.

I don’t need it. I can walk away. I know that, now.

I will walk-

*****

I blinked. I had just tried to move my arm, like before, and found that I could not. Because it was strapped to the arm of the chair.

I was still lightheaded and a little woozy, but overall, reality seemed to be….well, real.

Stoolman seemed to be taking notice of my sudden and obvious lucidity.

His eyebrows scrunched together, his mouth dropping open into a confused ‘O’ shape, and the clipboard dropped, smacking dramatically against his bare knees.

He looked from each of the two henchmen on either side of me, as if it was their fault.

In my peripheral, I could see one of them shrugging.

“Why didn’t you repeat the words?” Stoolman said, to himself more than me.

I laughed. A full and hearty laugh—not of despair, but of excitement and exultation.

I was free. Finally free. Even though I was restrained in a chair, surrounded by guards, several levels underground, I was still free.

Wasn’t that a weird thing.

Stoolman adjusted his glasses, observing me curiously. “What the hell are you laughing at?”

“Is this…” I said between snickers, trying to catch my breath, “All of it?”

Stoolman cocked his head, not understanding.

“Plans...” I said, more to myself, remembering what Samuel had said. “...Within plans, within plans. So is this a plan, or a plan within a plan?”

Stoolman must have understood something of what I was saying, because his jaw locked.

I was finally starting to catch my breath. I grinned. “What I’m saying is, what’s next? Whatcha got, Doc?”

The man on the stool looked from one henchmen on either side of me, to the other, as if they might know the answer. Then, he sighed. “Well, shit.”