Part 3: Final Boss / Chapter 32

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You may be asking, “Had I decided that my whole world was a CGI ripoff of reality because I couldn’t accept that I was powerless to save Robbie in regular reality?”

Maybe yes. Maybe no. Maybe shut your face.

I know this sentiment is probably getting redundant by now, but amidst all the questions that had been raised over the last couple of days, all the impossible dangers that had come out of the woodwork, all the existential angst that had materialized, there was only one thing I knew for sure: if there was a snowball’s chance in hell that any of this crap could help Robbie, I was all-in.

And yet, I couldn’t help but wonder . . . why? Why was all of this happening? Supposing our reality was a simulation, what was the point? And more pressingly, what could possibly explain the game within a game that I was experiencing? Why would the system powering the universe as we knew it suddenly whip up a sub-reality that broke all the rules—a micro-verse that diverged from everything we’d believed to be true for all of human history?

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The answers were nowhere in sight. But as I’d told Darla, it was time to go to work. And that wasn’t just a bad-ass way of saying that I was going to kick some RIP ass. I really was going to work. The collateral damage factor had given me an edge in the Russian mob’s warehouse, but I doubted Google maps could point me to another Bratva stronghold. So I needed a controlled environment with plenty of space and no one around to get hurt when my next adversary arrived. My empty office was the best option I could think of.

That said, don’t get me wrong, I was planning to kick some RIP ass.

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Meanwhile, Darla was sitting in Robbie’s room, having told Margaret that I had something “very important” to do and I’d be back as soon as I could.

At the moment, Margaret was too preoccupied to interrogate her about what could be more important than what was happening right there, right then. So, for the time being, no more explanation was needed. That left Darla sitting there counting the minutes, wishing there was something she could do. Then, as her eyes fell to the printout sitting on the chair next to her, she realized there was something she could do.