However you look at it, people are divided into winners, and losers. Call it whatever you want, whatever terms help you sleep at night: the players and the NPCS, the awake and the asleep, the human beings and the automatons, the robots, the golems - whatever words you use, the meaning is the same. Some people are special, and some people aren’t.
I’m not special. You need to know that before we start.
-
I’d never felt more alone than I did at that moment. Afraid, confused, panicked, and lost - but more than anything, alone.
I could feel the dry grass crunch under the feet of my suit as I ran. I tried my best to avoid the sandier patches, the ones I could easily slip on, sealing my fate. I was breathing heavy, hardly used to this sort of sprint. My suit said the air was breathable, so I pressed a finger to a button near my neck, activating the helmet release. I threw it off, exposing my face all at once to the foreign air. I sucked it in greedily.
Behind me, a massive dust cloud was being kicked up, not by me, but by the white horse-sized monster chasing me, a creature reminiscent of a boar, but with uncurving tusks pointed straight forward like two medieval lances. The boar-thing did not make me feel less alone.
Just that morning, I had woken up on the floor, in my own room, in my own dimension. Sure, the floor was uncomfortable, I was past-due on my share of rent for the room, and the dimension had never seemed to treat me particularly well - but I’d never had to run for my life before.
I wanted to turn around, catch a glimpse of Tom, and see what he was doing. I was certain that whatever it was, it was a better idea that what I was currently doing - running blindly, straight away from the monster. But I hadn’t seen Tom before the boar-thing rushed me. And it was unlikely I could spot him now, through the dust.
-
That morning, up early before work, I had been in the living room, idly listening to an audiobook about Napoleon while throwing away old mail, when I spotted a piece that looked like it might actually not be spam. The bastards who sent spam got better and better at getting me to open their credit card offers and refinancing ploys, but Tom had given me some tips on how to spot them and not waste my time. Because it was a waste of time. Even these bottom-feeders wouldn’t give me a loan anymore.
Whatever the case, this one piece of mail in particular had looked important. I had time. I opened it. It was about my student loans, apparently.
In light of recent federal policy changes, we must inform you that your debt is no longer in deferment. Please make your first payment of the below amount by March 25th…
“What?” I said aloud to myself. I read it again. And again. There must be some kind of mistake, I thought. I grabbed my phone, paused the audiobook, and dialed the number printed at the bottom.
After 20 minutes I got to a human being. I gave her my information. She pulled up my account.
I asked my question. She repeated the bad news.
I was screaming at her by this point. “What the hell do you mean, I have to pay? I can’t pay that! That’s more than my entire salary every month! What happened to my loan being in deferment?”
“Sir, please calm down,” the woman repeated. “I’m just telling you the way things are. I didn’t write the law.”
“Well who did?” I asked, as if that detail would help me somehow.
“Do you watch the news, sir?”
I laughed, despite it all. What year does she think it is? “No,” I said.
“Well, if you did, you would have heard about this. The new administration has reversed the policies of the previous ones. The deferments granted previously have been revoked. That’s from the president, the senate, and the house, not me.”
I didn’t know how to argue with that. “What happens if I don’t pay?” I finally asked, softly.
“In the event that a borrower does not pay,” she said, like she was reading from a script, “the borrower’s wages will be garnished, up to and including the full dollar amount of the minimum monthly payment.”
“But that’s all of it,” I said. I felt like crying. “That’s everything I make! Don’t you leave me anything?”
“The full amount, sir,” the woman said. “The full amount.”
My mind was racing. I couldn’t afford that. “What am I supposed to do?” I asked. “How am I- what- if- how am I supposed to live?”
“This is a student debt hotline,” the woman said, clearly fed up with me, “not a life coaching service. How you manage is your own problem.”
“But I’ll be homeless!” I was yelling again. “I won’t be able to pay rent, buy groceries, anything! Am I just supposed to starve?”
“The government provides many services for the less fortunate,” she said, coldly. “Kitchens, shelters, all kinds of assistance for situations like these. I suggest you use them.”
There was nothing left to say. I hung up.
I sat there for awhile. If only I had more money, I thought. If only I was more successful. If only I was special.
Everyone in my life has screwed me, because they could. The schools. My classmates. My job. And now the government. Even Tom, in some ways. The entire world has conspired to ruin my life.
I hadn’t noticed before, but Tom - my roommate, friend since childhood, idol, and now coworker - had walked into the room sometime during the call. He was sitting nearby, looking at me expectantly.
“Did you hear?” I asked him.
“Most of it,” he said. He looked nearly as sad as I felt. Not as angry, though.
We sat in silence for awhile.
“I’m sorry,” Tom said, eventually.
“It’s not your fault,” I said, even though I didn’t fully believe that.
Another long pause. Then finally, Tom again: “I think I know a way to fix this,” he said. He stood, walked over to me, and patted my shoulder. “Let’s get to work. I have something to show you.”
What else could I do? I followed Tom.
-
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“RENA!” I yelled, hoping beyond hope that the communicator hadn’t fried on the way through, hoping that the predictions were correct and I could still send a signal back home. They had assured me over and over again that it would work.
A voice, seeming to come from inside my own head, began to speak to me. “Hello, Miles,” the cold, female-sounding voice said. “Do you have something to send back already?”
“What do you think?” I asked. I stole a glance over my shoulder, even though I didn’t think Tom would have, didn’t think Tom would have doubted himself. The boar-thing was still charging. “You can see what I’m doing, can’t you?”
I didn’t understand exactly how it worked, but the contact lenses I was wearing had more in them then just my prescription. They were actually tiny cameras, which wirelessly communicated with the device in my ear.
“That is correct, Miles,” the voice said. “The feed is coming through clearly, audio and visual. But it isn’t as if I can spend all day watching you.”
I doubted that. The processor running RENA had more cores than any computer on the planet, apparently. I couldn’t see how multi-tasking would be a problem.
“Well I’m running for my life, RENA. In case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I see that, Miles.”
“Well get me the hell out of here, RENA! Before I’m skewered.”
There was a pause. As if the AI was confused. As if the AI was thinking. I knew it was just a trick to make the user feel like the AI was a real person. It annoyed me.
“I would like to clarify, Miles: are you asking to abandon the mission?” RENA asked.
“Yes!” I screamed. “I am asking you to get me the hell out of here!”
“Are you sure you would like to abandon the mission?” RENA asked again, reminding me of the screen you get when you try to quit a video game. “This action would void your contract with Dimen-X in regards to your loan repayment.”
“What? Why? I just want you to take me out and put me back in. Preferably somewhere that doesn’t have a bloodthirsty pig waiting for lunch.”
“That isn’t in the plan,” RENA responded. “I would have to get approval. If you wish, I can consult my approval matrix and schedule a meeting-”
I’ll be dead by then, I thought. “Fine, never mind! Just patch me through to Tom.”
Another artificial pause. My chest was hurting now. My throat felt hot, scratchy. “I am unable to complete that request at this time.”
“RENA, this is not the time! Don’t you do this to me, don’t you screw me like this!”
“Miles, I am not refusing you. I have attempted to patch you through, and was unable to.”
“RENA, are you telling me that I can talk to you from another fucking dimension, but you can’t patch me through to Tom, who is probably still right where we entered?”
“That is correct, Miles. I have lost contact with Tom’s feed.”
Despite the heat and the sweat, my blood froze. “What do you mean? What happened to Tom?” It felt as if my last hope was being pried out of my dying hands.
“I have no audio, video, or any biometric data incoming. I cannot confirm Tom’s current status. It is possible his communicator malfunctioned during the trip. There are also other possibilities.”
Where the fuck are you, Tom? Taking a nap? Hiding? Leaving without me? I’m not letting you abandon me again. This parasite isn’t letting go, damnit. Not now.
-
Once we had arrived at the Dimen-X building, Tom said he had to get to a meeting, but that he would meet back up with me shortly. I went to my desk, answered some emails in the meantime, tried to act like it was a normal workday. Eventually - a couple hours later - he found me, and we took the elevator down. Down to the lab, the one where he had built RENA - and the others before that model - and where he was now using RENA’s computational power to pursue the company’s real goal - whatever that was. I’m sure I could have figured it out, if the meeting notes didn’t put me to sleep with buzzwords. But I didn’t care enough.
He brought me to a room that looked more like the lair of a mad scientist than the laboratory of a cutting-edge start-up. Ignoring the strange, twisted forms of metal and circuitry, ignoring the flashing computer screens and discarded VR headsets, he brought me immediately to what looked like an empty metal door frame. A desk was set up next to it, the monitor on it showing what looked like a high-desert landscape.
And I get to spend all day upstairs in a cubicle, editing the AI-generated transcripts from pointless, endless meetings. Same degree, same college, same grades. And yet he’s on the inside, and I’m not. What’s your secret, Tom? What am I missing?
“I was going to tell you soon, anyway,” Tom said. “Thought you might be interested in coming with. I already spoke to Rhett. He liked the idea better than trying to get convicts.”
Rhett, I thought to myself, focusing on the detail I understood. He’s talking about Rhett Nash. The billionaire. The founder of the company. He’s talking about him like he’s an old friend. First name, no Mr. Nash, nothing.
“Look at the monitor, Miles. Do you see that?”
I looked. It was still a desert landscape. Cracked earth, dry grass yellowed by the sun, blue sky without any clouds. “You brought me here to show me your screensaver?” I asked.
“That, Miles, is another dimension.”
I snorted. “Very funny, Tom. Do you have a way to help me pay my debt payment this month, or not? If not, I should get back to work.”
“I’m not joking, Miles. We sent a camera through, and were finally able to get the feed to send back. RENA tried countless times before it worked. That is a live feed from another dimension.”
I looked again. “It looks like a live feed from Arizona.”
“This is what Rhett was looking for this whole time. This is it. It was all hypothetical before, but now - now they want to send someone in.”
“Someone with nothing to lose,” I finished. Dots were starting to connect in my head. Convicts. The debt. Human experimentation. A lot of the buzzwords used in the meetings made sense, suddenly. Vague allusions suddenly given context.
I knew Tom well enough to know he was telling me the truth.
“Let’s say you’re not pulling my leg. Let’s say this is really a portal to another dimension. You want me to go through because I’m disposable, is that it? A guinea pig?”
“I got them to agree to pay your debts off,” Tom said. “If you bring back something of value, they’ll give you a commission and put it towards your debt payments.”
“What good will that be when I’m dead, Tom? We’re talking about - I can’t believe I’m saying this - we’re talking about another dimension. Does the air even have oxygen in it? Does gravity work the same way, or will we just float away into other-dimensional space? What about temperature, pressure, radiation?”
“We’ve tested-“
“Fuck you, we’ve tested. Why aren’t you going in, Mr. genius inventor?”
“I am,” Tom said. “I volunteered already.”
“Oh.”
Tom smiled. I could see him shimmering, right then. I could see that barely-perceptible spark, the little details that told me he was a special, important person. Unlike me.
“It’ll be easy, Miles. In-and-out, just like that. Anything we bring back is bound to be worth a fortune. We’ll go in - grab some precious gem, or some fruit that doesn’t exist on Earth, or some cute furry animal we can sell as an uber-exotic pet to the elites - and then leave. And we’ll be rich. You can pay off your debts and then some. Unless you’ve got a better plan.”
I didn’t have a better plan. I had no idea how else I could scrounge up enough money to avoid starving. Maybe Tom would lend me money for rent for awhile - shit, unless he’s not even in this dimension - but I couldn't get him to pay everything. Eventually I’d be on the streets, sooner rather than later.
I guess that settles it, I thought.
Also, I have to admit, the idea of striking it rich was deeply alluring. I thought about the photo, and about escaping. And about having no debt weighing down my every thought.
I sighed. “If you’re in,” I said. “I guess I’m in too. Sounds simple enough. For inter-dimensional travel, that is.”
He smiled again. “Happy to hear that, friend. There’s no one I’d rather go with.”
“Me neither,” I said. I certainly meant it.
-
For the first time in what felt like years, I couldn’t just do what Tom did. I couldn’t try to ride his coattails into success - into college, into Dimen-X. I couldn’t even ask him for advice. But I need to, I thought. Or else I’m going to fuck everything up again.
I couldn’t keep going. I was running off of adrenaline, but my body was telling me it was time to stop. It was telling me this quite loudly. I could only press my body into service for so long. Soon, it would start disobeying orders.
I had an idea. “RENA,” I said again.
“Yes, Miles?”
“You were programed by Tom, right?”
“That is correct.”
“So you kind of think like Tom, right? You’re based on his thought processes, right?”
“I’m not certain I comprehend what you’re asking me, Miles.”
Can an AI be special? I thought to myself. Can an AI have a spark? Can it borrow one, at least, like I do?
What other hope do I have?
“RENA, I need you to tell me right away, as quickly as you can: what do you think Tom would do in this situation?”
“I am operating on incomplete information,” RENA said. “But I think he would probably stop running and utilize the firearm that each of your suits was equipped with.”
The gun. I felt like an idiot - which is what always happened with Tom, when he pointed out the obvious solution I had missed.
Good enough for now, I guess. Let’s kill this thing and find Tom.
I stopped in my tracks, spun around on my heel, and drew the revolver from my hip. The revolver clashed with the futuristic suit I was wearing, but it was deemed, because of its simplicity, to be less likely to get damaged or jammed in transit between dimensions than something more complex.
The boar-thing - Tom’s cute furry animal, I thought - was perhaps 100 feet away, maybe more. It wasn’t the fastest animal, but it was persistent, and didn’t look anywhere near as winded as I was.
I took aim.