[Restricted access, document contains classified information]

Please by advised that any information contain in this document concerning the agent Brenton Alexander is strictly classified Top Secret. It is not to be discussed in whole or in reference outside of the Continuum. In relation to this, there is to be no discussion about the nature of the Continuum itself or its purpose with anyone who works outside of the Continuum. Any violations will be dealt with by the Men In Black. We thank you for your cooperation in regards to this matter. - Ivory Tower Management

“I’m really worried about you right now,” she said to me. “Something is not right.”

“What? Me? It’s okay I’m just a little disoriented.” I told her. But I could have been saying anything, it was like I was a zombie. I was going through the motions because all of it still seemed so surreal.

“Then why are you looking at me like you don’t know who I am,” Sakura questioned. I must admit she did look pretty worried about it.

That’s because I’m having trouble remembering you! I kept that thought to myself. Coming home had been completely different experience than I had expected. What did my apartment look like even? There was no memory, yet some how I managed to find it.

Our apartment was high up, 63rd floor of the residential tower with a view of the Ivory Tower on the other side of the island. As soon as I walked in I was greeted by two young boys, 5 and 3 who were half white like me and half Japanese like Sakura. And then there was Sakura. I don’t know what to say about her except, oh my God, was she ever beautiful! She had the high cheek bones rather then the round face. She was short, obviously compared to myself. I kept thinking, I’m married to her? No way! I’m being pranked right now, sure of it. There was just no way someone this gorgeous could be my wife. But she greeted me warmly with a big hug and a kiss.

The kids were happy enough to see me, but it just did not feel right. At one point I even looked out into the hallway to see if it had changed color or not. It had not. It was strange, so strange. I’m in the Matrix, right? I have to be, nothing else makes sense. Maybe they changed the HUD so that something else changed color instead of the hall.

What was it that they said in Mr. Robot? Oh, yes “maybe it’s that feeling that all our heroes are counterfeit. The world itself is just one big hoax.” Yep, that will due, that summed up everything.

Shit! This is the fucking Matrix isn’t it? Are getting all of this? Have you read all the previous chapters? Or maybe you are in on it too. Which pill did you take?

“Listen, they had me on this drug that made the experience more real,” I tried to explained. but I probably sound a little crazy. Honestly, that could explain everything I was feeling right? “It’s got me out of sorts. There are people from the sim that are crossing over into the real world or maybe they are real world and crossed into the sim, I don’t know which anymore…”

“Can you tell me how we met?” She asked a serious question. She was trying to make me think, to snap out of it. It was not working… yet.

“I…” It was all just fog.

“Our first day on the job, remember?” She tried to jog my memory, but it was fuzzy. “We came into the Continuum the week before. I came from Tokyo, you came from Cascadia…”

“Wait, Cascadia is real?” Holy mother of God I thought that was just sim shit! Something the AI made up.

She sighed and hung her head. “Okay, technically you were born in America… California. But it’s Cascadia now.”

I nodded. “Yeah, okay. You’re right. I’m starting to remember.” Or was I just being lead?

“We met down at the shore, in front of the agency building,” she waited, hoping I would remember. When I didn’t say anything she continued. “It was our lunch break and we both ran into each other down there. I was a shy 23 year old struggling with the English language. You were a confident genius who had already graduated for UCLA when you were only twenty.” She was older than me by 3 years, okay, she’s right, I remember that detail now.

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“Wait UCLA? Not Princeton?”

She shook her head. “You wanted Princeton, but you were only 14 at the time you blew the interview and they felt you weren’t ready, but UCLA was willing to take you.”

“Okay,” I said. That was starting to sound familiar. Yeah, I fast tracked through school. I could remember that now. She was right again. “But why am I just doing data entry then?” I questioned. I was still missing something.

“Jaxson, this is the Continuum. Half the people here are geniuses, many of them much smarter than you. I was borderline myself, but passing their entry test is what’s really important,” she explained. “You wanted to be at home while the kids are young, but you know you are being groomed for an agency position or maybe even higher, right? You could be in Grey or white, instead of black.”

I nodded. She was probably right, but why was I struggling to remember it all? Why did the whole place have a surreal quality to it? It all felt like I was living in a dream and at any moment I might wake up and find myself someplace completely different. Maybe I’m actually on Earth right now in a bed in L.A. and this is all just a figment of my imagination.

“None of this feels real,” I told her in defeat. I was quickly becoming depressed.

“It’s not supposed to be,” she told me. She smile. It was so soft and gentle. “The whole Continuum is artificial, remember? We are here to win the war, to stop the invasion to protect humanity.”

“Stop it. You sound like a propaganda billboard,” I complained.

“What else is there? This is what we signed up for?” She questioned. There was a little frustration creeping into her voice. I couldn’t blame her. I was frustrated with myself.

“What if we can’t win the war? What if we aren’t supposed to?” My head was spinning. What if that was it?

“See? You sound like an agent already,” she smirked. “These are the questions that the Ivory Tower is supposed to sort out.”

“Or maybe they aren’t. Maybe they are just wasting time and playing games with a simulation,” I retorted. “Maybe it’s all bullshit and they don’t actually know anything!”

She back off. “Okay, I knew you might come home agitated, but I didn’t expect an full existential crisis.”

“Look I’m sorry, I know they told you it was 60 hours, but for me… in that world… it was four months and it felt like four months,” I explained. At least I hope I was making sense and not just freaking her out. She didn’t look frightened, just deeply concerned. “I was a different person in that other world. It wasn’t me. It was someone else.”

“No,” she said shaking her head. “You’re a different person right now.”

“Maybe it’s because I’m awake finally,” I commented.

“You Jaxson, you were never asleep,” she countered. “That why you are here. That’s why we are all here.”

“I don’t understand,” I confessed.

“Its the real world, Earth, that keeps changing because the Continuum is constantly tinkering with the timeline,” she explained. “Subtle changes, things you don’t really notice in the timeline you are from because that seems normal to you. But if you went back now even to the time you came from… You would notice differences, changes that the Continuum has made over the years. Things that agents have done to change things. The multiverse is insane their are so many timelines all playing out and eventually were will find the one where Earth wins.”

I nodded dumbly.

“Look, how about tomorrow you go back and see the psychologist. I don’t think you are ready to return to work yet. You need more time, that’s all,” she told me. “All your memories will come back. They are just tangled up in the sim memories. You know I have been think about giving it a try myself? See what the fuss is all about? Was it fun?”

“Yeah,” I said to her. “It was kind of fun and different than this world. Like I knew it wasn’t real and yet I totally bought into it. It was a real trip. And they have a multitude of different sims you can play.”

“Okay, maybe I will apply to be part of the experiment,” she said think about it. “I could use a vacation.”

There was this song that came to me. One that was written a recorded a long time ago in a place that was just as crazy and artificial as this one. I kept hearing it in my head over and over again. I must have heard it once on the radio, Spotify or some bullshit service that no longer exists. But the lyrics… Man, the lyrics were just as relevant today as they were when they were written, maybe even more so. I think they went something like this; And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack. And you may find yourself in another part of the world. And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile. And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife. And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”

How did I get here? How did I even end up in the Continuum? She mentioned a test, was I involved in one without knowing?

Oh my God! It’s Enders Game isn’t it? This place, the sims everything… we are playing a game, they are testing us to see who has the skills to figure this whole thing out.

What happens after 2332? What if there is no alien invasion and they are lying to us? Wow, I never thought about that before!

Maybe that’s what you have been thinking all along. Maybe you already figured it out and you have been waiting for me to catch up. I bet there is no Brenton Alexander and its all part of some fucked up test, right? Fuck, I think I just figure it out!

“Alright, I will see the doctor tomorrow,” I told Sakura. “She’ll have the answers I’m looking for.”