7.

Reality is the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent, as opposed to that which is merely imaginary.

I remembered that definition verbatim, and I'm pretty proud of that -- no mean feat, considering. How assured we were when that was written. Talk about privilege. So, what do you do when your senses give you incorrect data? Assuming you still have your other faculties, you accept that what you're experiencing cannot be real, and you get verification from a third party. Maybe a friend, maybe an old high school science teacher... just hypothetically.

But what do you do when they experience the same exact thing? What do any of us do when unexplainable hallucinations are synchronized and networked among 77% of the Earth's population? Answer: you assume it's all real... and you go to a place where you might find one of the remaining 23%.

8.

INTERACTION LOG, 7:34, 4/7/1, REGION: OWL98241

Participating Subjects: Prodigal, Bohr

////

Prodigal: You think it's real?

Bohr: Does it matter?

Prodigal: Yes! Yes, it matters! That's my goddamn car! Do you know how much I had to give up for a stripped Lift?

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Bohr: Yeah? And how you know it's stripped? We ain't had dissonance like this in weeks. What're ya planning to do with it, anyway?

Prodigal: No offense, Mr. Silver... but that's not your business. I don't even know if you're here.

Bohr: First smart thing I think you've said since showing up--

Prodigal: Can we skip the banter? Please? I just need to know if there are any naturals here.

Bohr: So you came from... wherever -- Down Below -- for some good ol' boys?

Prodigal: No, but that's what I'm doing now.

9.

Oso was never a "real" town, and now it was even less so. The tiny cluster of buildings halfway between my old hometown and the civilized world (colloquially known as "Down Below") had supposedly become a ghost town only a year or two after I left. My host informed me on the way over that after everything went to shit, the most able and militant Naturals had chosen several buildings to serve as a strategic base… A checkpoint to protect their real homes and few remaining families from the desperate and crazed survivors from Down below.

The wave of raiders never came. I shook my head and grimaced, thinking about the way I had gotten there: by air. I brought this fact up to my elderly chauffeur as his completely electronic-free Ford pickup grumbled to itself. "Well," he said. "How many folks you suppose had the resources to just conjure up a trustworthy flying car?" Duly chastised, I said nothing further until we arrived.

10.

He left me there, standing in front of the plywood and barbed wire parameter of Checkpoint Oso. "I'll come back before dusk and pick you up at this exact spot. I won't be waitin' around for you, so if you're still alive, be here." He said, before rumbling off without an explanation. It didn't take me long to find the gap in the already rotting plywood, and I weaseled my way in.

I was greeted by broken windows and the vacant eyes of houses. It sent a chill up my spine as I remembered the Dissonance from the night before. I'd lost my only weapon back in Chicago, and my hand ached for it now. "Hello?!" I called out, but no one answered. I was certain I was being watched but didn't know by who or what. I cast my gaze upward toward the roiling overcast sky, but saw nothing there. I chose the largest and best kept building and decided to head in.