Memory is my weapon. I remember some things the room does not know. The ring, for example, has seven smaller gems, but the room thinks it’s five. I can count to see if I’m in a sim. The ring box too, the room messes it up, gives it a smooth surface, but I remember it was velvet. I only have ten such clues left, although I had many more.

The room is smart. I was reckless at first and looked at Naomi’s fork every time. In the sims, tomatoes were always impaled at once. They could still slip along the plate, the physics were perfect, it was Naomi that was messed up. She struck them with too much precision, applying force exactly at the center of mass, not a micron off. Tomatoes died without a fight, unable to break the symmetry.

The room fixed it. The sims got better. Naomi now struggles as the real one did. The room, I think, notices somehow what I look for when I try to tell if the sim is real or not, and adjusts it. I began hiding the clues I had. In the sims, I looked around, I looked at everything and at nothing at all so that the room couldn’t tell what I was looking for.

The room went wild in response. The restaurants were a little different every time, some details were absent, some were added, some sims only had one thing in common with the original, some none. The room hoped to figure it out one thing at a time, but I prevailed.

It got tough though. Things morphed a little too smoothly. The faces, the temperature, the food taste, shades of Naomi’s hair, undertones in frat boys' voices – the room changed them from sim to sim so subtly it was hard to keep my memories pure. The sims seeped into them, distorted them. I could not rely on anything vague anymore, only things with names, things concrete. Like the champagne which the room thought was Chardonnay, like the sharp bevels on the ring which the room thought were smooth, like the velvet box which the room thought was glossy. Those can not merge. It’s either Dom Perignon or Chardonnay, either velvet or gloss, there is no in-between.

###

I held on. I cherished the few clues I had, I never relied on any one of them alone, not to give myself away. One I haven’t used at all, the velvet box. I checked on it from time to time to see if the room still gets it wrong, but never based my decision on it.

And yet, year by year, no matter how careful I was, the sims were zeroing in on reality. I’d even lost Dom Perignon, the room figured it out. Don’t ask me how. With only nine clues left, I felt like it might get me, after all.

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But then I won. I don’t know what happened. Maybe it short-circuited, divided by zero, I don’t know… But the room gave up, and the sims went all over the place, not even close to what they mimic.

Now, for example, it again threw me into something bizarre. The woman across the table does not even look like Naomi – she’s younger, but has no class; a piece of flesh to spend a night with, if that. Perhaps not – she has nowhere to rest eyes on, let alone find beauty. No matter where the sim makes me look, there is something repulsive: the fake lashes and a mindless gooey stare, a thick layer of tonal that fails to cover acne, a desperate push-up bra under a gaudy see-through blouse. None of it says woman.

The frat boys laugh – thank God, I’m glad to be distracted – but it’s not a guffaw it was, more of a chuckle, and the three of them are not the bratty muscular types with chiseled jaws and imposing forearms, but balding middle-aged men with beer bellies. One of them looks at me and says his lines. This time I can’t even blame him — this “Naomi” looks like an underage drug addict: one must have some kind of fetish to date that.

The sim walks me to the man, makes me reach for the bottle. Control comes back a bit later than usual, in the middle of the swing. I redirect the bottle away, it chinks, brushing against his hairless crown. The swing leaves me open. The guy grabs a steak-knife from the table and lunges forward. He limps in the midst of the strike and I only feel a feeble poke against my ribs which does not even cut my shirt. The man hugs me and clings to my jacket to keep his balance. Automatically, I help him upright. He looks at me, and, I swear, there are tears in his eyes. He sobs and borrows his head into my chest. A muffled “I’m sorry” comes with bits of snot and tears, leaving a wet spot on my shirt. His buddies stop laughing and stare at us.

“What next?” I ask the ceiling. “Are they going to be kindergartners? Naomi will be a mannequin? This is pathetic, you’re out of ideas!”

I look around, waiting for the restaurant to disintegrate, but the sim drags on. The sobbing man pulls me by the sleeve to sit down in his chair, pours me a shot. His buddies cling to their beer bottles as if needing some support to go through with what they are seeing. Naomi, or whatever this teenage slut is called, approaches me and runs her bony hand along my back.

“How many?” the frat-man asks, struggling with his drunken tongue.

“How many what?”

“I got ten, thirth— thirthy total,” he whimpers, ignoring my question. “I'm sorry for all that, I really am, man,” he says, leaning onto my shoulder, breathing his confession into my face.

“What is it?” I yell, spreading my arms and looking up “What do I need to do to pass? Give him a fucking therapy session?”

The guy squeezes my hand and takes a long look into my eyes. “I’m so sorry,” he says and bursts into sobs again.

All of this gets on my nerves. Something is off with this sim. Everything feels sticky, gross; I want to vomit. I fidget on the chair, I sweat, my pants stick to my legs, it itches. The girl rubs my damp back, trying to make her clumsy touch alluring. I shiver in disgust. Something is very off. Long-abandoned neurotic habit trumps all precautions. I reach into my pocket.

The box is there.

Velvet.