It was Val’s second chance. She could have a do-over. She’d save Bread! Then it’d be like saving Beady!

No, no, no… She shouldn’t be thinking like that. Bread was Bread, and Beady was… Beady was gone. He’d have been around Bread’s size by now if he were still here. If she hadn’t fucked things up…

“Do you really think I’m real?” Bread’s question startled her out of her conflicting thoughts.

“Huh? Again?” Seriously? Anybody who asked questions like these, in her eyes, was already hella fucking real. Who asked questions like these anyways? Existential midlife crisis? At the age of like ten? Was this kid a genius? She was sure Beady would’ve been a genius too if he were… No, stop it! Stop thinking about it! Right now, she had her second chance. She couldn’t—no, she wouldn’t fuck things up again. “I’ll say it as many times as you want,” she started, “You’re real. You’re—”

She suddenly felt a slight gust of wind blowing from behind her, which was a common sign of someone logging in or out of Simular.

“Coach?” She looked around but couldn’t find him. Where was he? It wasn’t like he was that short. “Where the hell—”

“The thing.” She heard his voice coming from the left. “Give it to him.”

“Give what—” Before she could turn, she felt another gust of wind breeze past her—she knew what that meant. “Great. Way to go, Coach.”

The device that Coach had mentioned was probably the splicer. There were no other devices around anyways. If she were to guess how it was supposed to work, she assumed that it required contact with the object in question. Coach had told her to give it to the boy, and there were components on the bottom that signified it needing to be attached to something.

“Okay.” She pulled the boy close, placing the device on his back. “I’ll be honest. I have no clue how this works, but listen to me. We can trust Coach, got it? Just stay cool. I’ll be on the other side.”

Bread nodded. There was no hesitation in his eyes.

Wasn’t he scared? Anxious? She’d literally told him she might fuck things up, and yet, the boy stared back with such hopeful, endearing eyes. It almost made her want to find an instruction manual for this splicer thing just to make sure she’d done it right, but she knew that it’d work. Coach was never wrong with these things.

She gently knelt down beside the boy and caressed his bandaged hands. The skin on his knuckles were still probably torn, and the bleeding seemed to have only just ebbed. It looked almost as bad as some of her own injuries from sparring.

Please, she prayed. Please work.

It wasn’t like she was religious. She could count the number of sins she’d probably committed over the years, and if hell existed, she’d surely be sent there. But if she could be given another chance to redeem her failure to save Beady, she’d give anything, including her own life, to make it happen…

As soon as she’d finished that thought, Bread’s entire body started to glow. His arms and torso outlined in white; he started to shine uncontrollably. A shrill, robotic screech blared in the background, raising the hairs on her neck. Whatever procedure Coach had started, it was working. She couldn’t otherwise come up with a better reason for this growing, sensory intensity.

Bread started to glow brighter and brighter. His small hands squirmed. She saw him open his mouth but couldn’t make out what he was trying to say.

She nodded in understanding. She reassured his unheard words.

He smiled. He leaned in closer and whispered in her ear. And she heard it clearly this time—

“Thank you.”

And then he was gone too.

Unlike Coach, she had this uneasy feeling welling up inside. As the empty shoreline stared her back, she couldn’t shake it off. Bread’s footprints, imprinted deeply into the sands, were the only thing left of him.

…

“You back, lass?”

“Coach—oh, fuck me. My neck hurts like hell!” She pulled off her simulation headgear. After a few days inside Simular, she was finally back in the real world. Her joints were stiff; her body ached all over. “What happened to Bea-shit, I mean, Bread?”

Coach raised an eyebrow. He gestured behind him. “The lad? He’s there taking his sweet darn time.”

There was a body behind Coach. It was roughly stitched together, welded and soldered like some sort of off-brand mod doll. She could see parts of his collection in there—a steampunk-styled arm, an old, skin-colored prosthetic leg, and a bunch of other parts she had seen displayed around the workshop walls. The artificial head was also missing a face. It almost looked downright creepy without the synthetic skin that was usually supposed to be there.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“I thought you sold your shit?”

“Ya think I’ve been collectin’ for just a day?” Coach said. There was a weird sharpness to his tone. “I’ve been hoardin’ my whole goddamn life. Parts ain’t runnin’ out anytime soon.”

Val looked to the doll again. Worry crept up inside. “Will he be okay?” she asked.

“How should I know? I’m no programmer.”

“Geez.” There it was again. That sharpness. “Why the grouch?”

“Val. We got tangled up in this corporate mess with some—some child in our hands. Can’t go back to Simular; can’t even make money there. How’s that a good deal? Hmm?” He marched towards her, footsteps clicking and clacking across the concrete floor. “Now, I’ll tell ya what. I’m doin’ this for you. This here’s your responsibility. Remember that.”

“Coach.” She didn’t get it. “What’s the fuss? All we gotta do is wait for the money to drop in. Then we go right back. When did we ever follow rules?”

“Lass.” His stern look was piercing. “I ain’t goin’ back there. Rather stick to my roots and start makin’ cyber-ups again than risk it with a man like him.”

“What? Azan? Psh, what’s so scary about him?”

“Val.”

“Okay, okay. I get it. Sheesh.”

The ceiling lights flickered. That didn’t usually happen.

“What was that?”

Coach hustled back to his computer. “Can’t have this turning off. That’s the last thing we want.” He motioned for her to move. “Get that cable over there and plug it in.”

“Where?”

“That cable over there!”

“No, like, where do I plug it in?”

“The power brick! It’s that large box lookin’ thing in the corner.”

“Oh, got it.” She walked over and picked up a thick, black cable. It was heavier than she had expected. “Whoa, what the hell is this? Why’s it so heavy-duty?”

“It’s from the transmission lines.” He smirked. “Haven’t ya noticed? I haven’t been payin’ for electricity.”

“Wow.” She rolled her eye. “What a professional.” It took every ounce of her aching arms to squeeze the line in. Was she rusty from being inside the simulation or was she really that weak? Clearly, it was the former.

“I had a business to run. Can’t make cyber-ups without running energy through all these power-hungry tools.”

The lights dimmed again. This time, the power supply made a loud beeping noise.

“What in god’s name?” He smacked the black box. “There should be plenty of power. There a blackout?” He pulled out an old-fashioned philophone from the 90s. It looked like he was searching something up. “The grid’s fine. What’s it then? The download? Is it corrupted?” He scratched his head. “That ain’t possible. It’s just a quick data transfer. The splicer should’ve done all the work.”

The lights flickered again. This time, with more frequency.

“Lass, check the window. Any lights out?”

“No, they’re fine.” The neighboring buildings were brightly illuminated under all that artificial glare. “Is the kid going to be okay?”

“I don’t know.”

The flickering intensified again—as if somebody were toying with the lights.

“Is there nothing we can do? Like add more power?” she asked. “Is there another cable we can connect?”

“I don’t know!” Coach paced around the cramped space. “I said I ain’t no programmer, lass. I meant it! Nothing more I can do.”

The eyes of the lifeless, mechanical body briefly sputtered to life. Its fingers quivered, legs twitched incessantly.

“Coach! The body!” She rushed over to examine the eyes. They were drifting back and forth, on and off. “Bread! Can you hear me? Are you there?” She shook the body. “Bread?”

“Don’t shake it too much! It’s fragile!”

“Bread!” The body didn’t budge. The ceiling lights were still blinking; the fingers danced with the erratic flickers. That meant electricity was flowing through, but what about the data? “Please work. C’mon!”

And then—

While she continued shaking the uninhabited body, everything started shutting down—the lights shut off, the computer went dark, the entire block seemed to have fallen in silence. As if night had finally returned to the once brightly lit city of Novus Lokris.

“Coach?” She couldn’t even see her hands.

“I’m here.”

She peered out the window. All she could see were stars. A ton of them dotting the skies like some ketchup splatter. She didn’t know that there were supposed to be that many. Down below, where the streets and road were supposed to have been, there was absolutely nothing. No cars, no street lamps or any obscure, flashing ad boards. Not even a single spark.

It was pitch black.

Then there was a flicker. From the corner of her eye, she saw it move. Initially, just the face. Then she saw the body that was supposed to have housed Bread flash a dull red; the arms jerked and trembled like one of those old-fashioned piston engines.

“Bread?”

Within seconds, the mechanical body started beaming yellow. Sparks flew from the seams, and a voice finally crackled through, scratchy and slightly static—

“E-E-ERROR… ERROR.”

She caught her breath. Joy turned into despair, and immediately, a memory resurfaced—that familiar front desk, that jar full of ash…

The error message repeated in the background; the body convulsed as if it were short circuiting. She saw Coach to the side, leaned back onto the walls with a tired look in his eyes. It looked like he’d finally completely given up.

She could’ve yelled at him. Told him to get back up, do something. She could’ve gotten angry, berated him, shouted a bunch of profanities…

But all she did was watch.

Her heart pounded, drowning out any sound nearby; her breathing slowed to a halt. As time slipped past her eye, and her hopes came crumbling to the ground, she couldn’t help but wish for the millionth time—an impossible prayer that had gone unanswered for so many years, a request that seemed to have finally been revived as of today—

Please. Another chance.

This was supposed to have been the day. She thought she had finally gotten it—that well-deserved reprieve. But as the metal corpse faltered, blinking back and forth between red and yellow, all she did was watch. She watched it all die—Bread, her dreams, her confidence, her resolve, what was supposed to be…

Her second chance.