I’m writing this all down because I don’t know what else to do with it. This whole experience has been so completely insane that I must record it so people in the future can understand what is going on. Maybe someday someone else can make sense of it. Maybe that person is you, I have no idea.

All I know is the world is not real. I don’t know what it is or why we are all here, but don’t trust it. Whatever you see, hear or feel, do not trust it. Some people might compare this to the Matrix, or maybe the Matrix was so long ago you don’t know what I am talking about. I could tell you more, but what would be the point? You probably wouldn’t listen to me anyway. It will be better for you to figure it out for yourself. My account here should be a good place to start. I can’t speak for others who may have had a similar experience, I can only speak for myself and what happened to me.

Anyways, I’m probably getting way ahead of myself. You’re never going to understand me or what I’m trying to tell you unless I start at the beginning. I will let you judge for yourself if I’m crazy, or on to something important about the nature of our reality.

I awoke suddenly, startled, as if from some feverish dream, or at least that how it began. I was sweating but didn’t know why. The sheets were all tangled around me constricting my movements like a white linen python. It took me a moment to cast them off. I threw them across the room as if fearful they would try again. The room dimly lit but not completely dark. The curtains were drawn, but there was daylight peeking through the cracks.

Something in the back of my mind was telling me that I should not go into work that day. Call it a sixth sense, call it intuition, call it a message from God, call it what you will. Whatever it was, I knew it was right.

I checked my smart watch that sat on a stand recharging next to the bed, my phone lay next to it. My AR glasses were… somewhere!? Anyway, the watch read nine-thirty. Well now, it seemed I was already late for work as it was. Oh well, I guess I had one more reason to skip out that day. To top it off it was spring, it was a sunny day. I could go on, but I had already convinced myself I wasn’t going in so screw work! Am I right? Would you have gone in?

I grabbed my phone and called the office switchboard. It was a courtesy I know, but at the very least I felt I should report my absence. A recorded message answered saying that all lines were busy. That was odd… very odd. We hardly ever received calls at work. The switchboard was never busy. What was going on? I wondered. In fact, I stared at the phone for a moment in disbelief. The message continued to repeat unabated.

I hung up and decided to text my friend and co-worker, Frank, directly. I typed; late for work decided to skip, switch is busy. What’s up? -JR Yes, I included the punctuations. It’s the kind of person I am. I like the attention to detail, even when texting on a cellphone. Social convention had turned texting into a form of shorthand. I hated it. It was making us all a little dumber every time we used it. I always gave the English language the respect it deserved.

By the time I was done mental berating modern society for its collective failings when it came to texting, Frank called me.

Again, I was stunned. He actually called me! What was going on today!?

The phone rang twice before a realized I should answer it.

“Hello?” I said meekly.

“JR, its Frank. You’re not at work, are you?” He sounded off, just a slight hint of anxiety in his voice. Did he not read my message? His voice made me uneasy, but I didn’t know why. There was no specific tone in it I could decipher. The fact that he called and didn’t text back, scared the hell out of me.

“No, I overslept. Aren’t you at work? What’s going on!?” My voice steadily rose in pitch. My hand was shaking. I didn’t know why. I just could not control it.

“I had the day off. You mean you don’t know what’s going on? You didn’t check the net for news on turned on the TV?” He questioned.

“No, I just woke up. I called in, but the switch just gave me a message. I texted you, that’s it!” I did not like what he was implying. Then it came like a hammer.

“The place was raided. An hour ago. I don’t know the details, but it made the news this morning,” Frank’s voice had no hint of emotion, just cold hard facts.

“Holy shit!” I swore.

“I know!”

“Holy shit!” I repeated.

“I know!”

“They got the lab!?” I was stunned for probably the third time in the ten minutes since I awoke.

“They got the whole operation,” Frank confirmed. “All the way to the CEO of the company.”

“Frank, we worked there!” I stated. The conclusion should have been obvious.

“Don’t worry. We were off the books. No one’s real name was ever used in any documents. The police won’t be looking for us,” Frank tried to reassure me.

I could not be reassured. “We have co-workers! They could talk!”

“They won’t talk,” he seemed confident in his assertion.

“They could!” I countered. How the hell could he be so sure!? I wondered.

“They won’t,” Frank said firmly in a calming voice. “Listen, can we meet for lunch at a restaurant downtown?”

“Frank I can’t eat right now! I think I’m going to be sick!” I exclaimed into the phone. What the hell was he thinking!? Shouldn’t he be freaking out like I was?

“You will eat, and you’re not going to be sick,” Frank’s voice was calm, almost jovial. “Just relax. Take a few deep breathes. You’ll see. I’m right. Take a shower, get dressed, you’ll feel like a different man. Trust me. We can meet at Pascal’s.”

“Pascal’s!?” I complained. “That a little expensive and I don’t like the waiters. They’re snotty little assholes!”

“See! You’re already feeling better!” Frank laughed. I kid you not, he laughed. At a time like this!? “You’re already agreeing to lunch! Alright, you pick the place.”

“Alright,” I responded. “Stevenson’s, near Central Park.”

“A pub? For lunch?” Frank snorted and laughed.

“I need a drink,” I demanded. “You said it was my pick!?”

“You’re right. I did,” Frank replied. He chuckled. “I’ll meet you at eleven. Don’t keep me waiting. You know how I hate that!”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said flippantly and hung up. Did I just agree to go to lunch? How does that bastard do it!? I marveled. Frank had that way with people, it wasn’t just me.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

I did as Frank had suggested. I took a long hot shower. I picked out some comfortable clothes. Nothing flashy or too expensive. I did not vomit once. I still had time to kill before the taxi got there.

I managed to find my AR glasses I sat on the couch and put them on. I pulled the Metaverse into the room so that it became part of my reality. Then I opened up the Syndicate app that I use to aggregate all of my social media sites into one feed and scrolled through that for a while. Then I watched some quick YouTube videos before checking out the news from Cascadia. That's where I'm from. Well, I was born in California which use to be part of America before it fragmented in to several federations, one of which became the Federation of Cascadia.

I don't know when you are reading this so Cascadia might not exist anymore. I hope it does. New York is of course part of the New England Federation, where I have been living the last five years after I finished university.

I had some really good pot and I needed something to take the edge off my anxiety, so I vaped a bit of it while I read. Frank was right, there was a brief news article about the raid, but there were few details.

At eleven o’clock on the dot I was seated in a booth at Stevenson’s, an old school British style pub complete with nice leather seats and oak tables. A full pint of imported beer already in front of me. Frank was buying. I insisted. I sat across from him. I was in full-out pout mode. If he said the wrong thing, I was going to lose my shit on him.

Frank was a man of about fifty, bald on top with a ring of greying hair. His steel blue eyes never betraying what he was thinking or what he did for a living. No one in that pub knew that I was sitting across from one of the best Crystal Methamphetamine cooks in the country.

This guy was a real Walter White, only nicer. He wasn’t a gangster, and neither was I. We were just employees, and I was quite happy to leave it at that. If you already know who Walter White is, then you know what happens to him in the end and if you don’t, well I’ll wait here while you look it up. Up to speed now? Good. Frank was not going to end up like Walt. He was smarter than that, also he had watched the show.

The organization we had worked for was supplying most of the east coast with a product we both helped to produce. We earned a lot of money and had been doing it for years, but we kept our lives low key so as not to raise any interest from the law. So far everything had worked out in our favor.

I kept it simple, living in a modest apartment in a middle-class neighborhood. I had saved some money, as much as a could without alerting anyone. I had more money than I could spend, but that wasn’t the point. I did it because I was good at it and it filled the days with something I enjoy, chemistry.

I didn’t think the point of life was to just exist, consume and serve no other purpose. I wasn’t a housecat. Besides, how would I explain the million in cash sitting in my closet or the dozens of bank accounts I had at various banks? I need a normal life. I just wanted to work a routine, nine to five like everyone else. If not for a cover, then my own sanity.

“Relax, stop worrying,” Frank started right away with the reassurances. He drank from his own pint and picked up the menu. As if this wasn’t the end of the world or the end of our careers or even the end of our freedom should the police put it all together. He just sat there nonchalantly and sipped at his beer.

“How!?” I replied trying to keep my voice down. “There are people out there right now, being questioned by the police, who know we worked with them, that we worked there… In the lab!”

“JR,” he said looking over the top of the menu at me.

The way he said it just irritated me. I thought, who does he think he is…? My father!? Or how about a mentor like Gandalf or Yoda? No none of that. He was just a good friend and co-worker, nothing more.

He peered down his reading glasses at me and spoke. “We are ghosts in this world. There is no record we ever worked at the lab. We were paid in cash, off the books and we never gave anyone our real names. Even if someone did say something that got us arrested, it’s their word against ours.”

“So, you’re sure we are safe?” I questioned.

“Totally safe.”

“Alright,” I said. Frank seemed totally calm. I downed nearly half the beer before the waitress returned to take our order.

“Look, we’re not totally pooched here,” Frank said after perusing the small menu and ordering the fish and chips. He looked out the window to the street, where his Tesla Roadster was parked. Seriously a Tesla, I mean, could he be any more generic? It was like a cheap writer had just thrown him together!

“Come again?” I asked.

“Look, I’ve been in this business for quite a while now,” Frank explained. “I know people. I have connections. Good connections that we can exploit.”

“Connections!?” I queried. “What does that mean?”

“I know of another place that we can go and work. They already tried to recruit me earlier this year, but I had turned them down,” he replied.

“What!? You never told me that!” I exclaimed. I was supposed to be his friend, why wouldn’t he tell me something like that?

“Ah, I didn’t think it was important at the time,” he replied shrugging his shoulders. “I didn’t plan on taking the job.”

“You think they will want you now?” I questioned. I tried to get over the fact that he never told me any of this earlier.

“I know they do,” he asserted. “It was an open offer. I can take it anytime and they will take you to.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Because you work with me. We have skills JR, valuable skills,” Frank assured me.

“Where is this place?” I inquired.

“Chicago.”

“Chicago!?” I complained. “That’s halfway across the continent!”

“Do you have commitments here in New York that are so important?” Frank questioned.

I thought about it while our food was being delivered. When we were alone again, I said. “I guess not.”

“You see!” Frank exclaimed. “It just like I said. We are ghosts here. We have no family around. I have no wife or kids. You have a girlfriend I don’t know about?”

“No,” I sulked. I did not need to be reminded of that fact.

“See my point? We can just leave. Don’t you want to leave this city?” Frank was enthusiastically embracing this new opportunity.

“After today!?” I replied. “I’m afraid to go back to my apartment!”

“See what I mean?” His eyes had a manic glitter to them now. He was really getting into this idea. I could see it was real to him even if it was still a mystery to me. He continued. “Then let’s just get on a plane? Let’s go! Let’s get away from here!”

“What about all my things, back in my apartment?” I questioned. This was moving along too fast and making me uneasy. I had a lot to consider. I felt like I had almost no time to consider it.

“Who cares!?” Frank exclaimed. “Leave the stuff here. We’ll buy all new stuff. Better stuff!”

“Start completely over in a new city? That sounds like a lot of work…” I said, but even as I said it, it was sounding better and better. A clean break, put some distance between us and the lab we had been working for.

“So, hire someone to buy all the stuff for you if it’s too much of a hassle. Or get an apartment already furnished,” Frank pulled out his phone. He unfolded it until it was the size of a standard tablet. He connected to a travel website.

“Really Frank?” I said to him. “Why don’t you just get a pair of AR glasses like everyone else? Who needs tablets?” My AR or augmented reality glasses were sitting over my Yankees baseball cap that I wore. The glasses just Bluetoothed into the phone and displayed whatever you wanted over top of reality.

“Sorry, I’m old school. I like tablets,” he explained. “I like things I can touch and feel. They are real to me. The glasses make everything seem too fake. Nothing is really there. Why do you want to live in a fake world?”

Man, what a dinosaur! Am I right?

“Yeah,” I tried to explain. “But that’s the point…”

Frank wasn’t paying attention. He found what he was looking for. “Look we can have a pair of tickets to Chicago, leaving at six o’clock, today?”

He looked at me, expectantly. What was I going to say? That this sounds too good to be true? I was at a loss, so I replied. “We are really doing this, aren’t we?”

“You got a better plan?” He questioned.

I shook my head. “I don’t want to over think this. Let’s do it.”

Frank put on a wide smile and slid the tablet over to me open to another website. “They are called The High Castle Corporation. You’re going to love their set up.”

“THC… C,” I said looking at him like he was insane.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Frank laughed. “It’s a coincidence, I swear!”

“The word high is in their fucking name!” I exclaimed. Seriously!? What was he laughing at? I wasn’t laughing. Are you laughing? Probably, you’re probably three hundred years in the future and understand all the things that I’m just learning about now.

“I know!” Frank was in stiches now.

“This is not a time to be laughing,” I pointed out. Then I gave up. “Whatever, dude!”

Not that it mattered that much. Marijuana had been legalized in fourth-eight states. I’ll give you three guesses who the two hold outs are. If you guessed Utah for one of them, you would be right! Or maybe in your future it’s legal everywhere in the world, who knows!

It was settled. I tried not to over think it. Six hours later we were on a flight to Chicago. Bye, bye New York City!!!

The reality was I had no idea what I was getting into. Frank could probably talk me into anything at this point. I just wanted to run away and hide. That why I need this record, why you need to keep reading. It gets crazier, trust me. The nature of reality… it’s not what you think it is. I implore you to keep an open mind. There’s much more to this that you need to know!