It was an hour before I got to the top, according to the Radio. The huge cave suddenly had a ceiling instead of blackness. The Radio had mentioned it would be night outside, so I didn’t get any daylight filtering in. But brightness seeped from above, bouncing off the stones as the stairs twisted around sweeping curves.

The exit was covered in dense vegetation. It was surprisingly small; I had to squeeze through in parts. I hadn’t remembered that on the way down. Gaps in my consciousness, perhaps; I didn’t know what Harrigan did with his paralysis zap or how it worked.

The cool night air was lovely. The sky was full of stars and what had to be the Milky Way, and fireflies spiraled slowly in the trees. It was good to be out of that cave. Out of that cage.

Distant classic rock thumped away to my left; Van Halen lamenting the woes of being Hot for Teacher. That would be the party, and I would be avoiding it.

Or would I? How would I be able to get Sean help, down there in the dark? Leave a note on a post-it? “Dear Doc H: Locked your kid in a cage five miles underground my bad LOL.”

Doctor Harrigan had seemed to hear my voice when the Radio had been watching him; could I get at him that way? It seemed dangerous to let him know I was free. Bad idea. I simply had to leave.

The ocean stretched out ahead beyond the trees. It was shimmering under an absurdly huge moon, one that had some unfamiliarity but still seemed like the moon I knew. I could sneak down to the beach, get that raft and belly flop on it, and if I got paralyzed the current could carry me away until it wore off.

So many assumptions. Was there a range to the paralysis effect? What if Harrigan just decided to fry me instantly with his green fire, as Mandy had described?

I asked the Radio, which had torn itself from a handy carven stone column.

“The range of Harrrigan’s Acetylcholine Receptor Antagonist Pulse was limited to a single kilometer, according to witnessed usage. Its effect is limited to seven hours maximum. This was what the Radio observed on his tablet, and was currently observing as Harrigan watched his partygoing campers.”

I held a finger to my lips, trying to ensure that I didn’t somehow transmit my voice again.

“Owen was currently off the air.”

“Mandy would mess this place up, I think. She’d help us get out. Is she around?”

“The Undine is currently in a days-long battle with the House of Fists. She is in combat with the The Venerable Trichinella Vanguard, and while she seemed to be prevailing the outcome was uncertain.”

I was on my own. “So I need to get a kilometer away at least without Harrigan knowing.” I could do that. I could do it easy. I looked at the shining ocean. It was inviting, calling me, begging me. Come out here, it said, and get that anime girlfriend. And maybe the chicken sandwich, finally.

But Sean was my responsibility. Did it matter if, as the Radio had said, he’d died many times? What was one more death-and-rebirth, really? He’d be back the next day in a better mood than I’d left him in.

I frowned. It mattered. I made my way through the jungle, past the ruins, to the thumping classic rock. I found myself in narrow tunnels of foliage. I passed a familiar spot: the patch of dead leaves concealing the lighter and that white plastic bottle of Kingsford. Things that Dead Owen had left here, I suspected. That guy got around.

Did I want to take those things? Start a barbecue, as the bottle had advertised, with odorless, easily-lit property damage?

I did not. It hadn’t worked last time. And the Owen who’d done it hadn’t seemed particularly optimistic. Let’s try something new.

The Radio faded behind me, and didn’t seem able to follow if there wasn’t a suitable stone surface. Or maybe it didn’t come along because it was a jerk. Some superpower.

Finding the party wasn’t difficult; it was loud and bright. The gathering wasn’t as much of a bummer as I’d thought; there were dozens of people dancing and waving their arms and performing courtship behaviors. Dancing was the important part. The girls shook their breasts, the boys punched imaginary foes. Good lord.

It was in a large clearing, and Harrigan had mounted a tinny speaker up in one of the trees. A huge bonfire blazed. Everyone was outlined in blazing orange and red. It all seemed appropriately festive-or-satanic, depending on what you were looking for.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

I looked for someone recognizable. A guy from the tent, maybe the stand-up fellow who’d crapped in my shoe, whoever had done that. Or Armand, he’d be okay. Or whatsername, the yoga girl, she seemed decent.

Cassie. There she was, standing on the edge of the crowd with one of the ubiquitous recycled water bottles. She had zeroed in on me somehow as I lurked in the treeline. She gaped at me, then looked aggressively casual. She sidestepped over, inconspicuous as a road flare. I wanted her to go away; she was pantomiming indifference so hard I almost laughed out loud.

She’d done her hair up as nice as she’d been able to here; and the shirt was knotted over her flat belly. Shorts rolled around her waist to show more skin. Her eyes were wide; she was excited, hopeful. “You’re trying again,” she shouted over Van Halen. “Take us with you!”

“How would I do that?” I pointed my extra femur at the mass of twitching, writhing dancers. “Too many! I don’t have a damn cruise ship!”

I don’t know why I was surprised. Did she know the previous Owen Walsh who’d tried this had been burned up and remade? It seemed unlikely, but this wasn’t the place to discuss it.

She pointed at me, making an absurdly stern face, her big eyes bugged out and her mouth an angry line. Then she raised that finger in a gesture that said: you just wait here one moment, mister. And ran off.

God dammit. People again.

However.

Perhaps it could be done. I latched on to the idea. I could sneak some people out of here, past the kilometer limit of Harrigan’s zap. I could help. Come back, get more. Had Mandy been trying that?

Si puedes ayudar, hazlo, hijo mío. Time and again, that’s what Mom had said. If you can help, do it. Or face the chancla, kid. That philosophy had killed her.

However: okay.

As Cassie moved in the crowd, I saw a single point of light, a dot, in a color I couldn’t name. More-than-purple. It sat inside her skull, shining through it. As I watched it expanded. No, it didn’t expand, that’s not right. It contained more information than just a single pinpoint of color. As I watched the point of light, things popped into my head.

Imagine seeing a book on a shelf. It’s got cover art that catches your eye; in this case a fit, skinny blonde girl. Now imagine the book flies at your face and opens its pages. It’s full of words and illustrations.

I’ll put it into text here, but it was much more efficient in reality. Bolts of crystal-clear understanding stabbed into my brain. Like remembering something you hadn’t thought of in months. And here it was:

Cassie Erica Nillson.

Age at time of recording: 19.

Atlantic time zone.

Level one human.

Life expectancy 79-85.

OCEAN breakdown:

Openness 30

Conscientiousness 60

Extraversion 80

Agreeableness 40

Neuroticism 30

Iteration 43

Iteration age 979.30 hours

More kept flooding into my head. I didn’t understand a lot of it. Her favorite foods, her emotional triggers, Cassie’s family history. I jerked my face away from her and squeezed my eyes shut. The flood of data halted.

What.

I looked at another of the dancers. The glowing dot appeared in his head. And the same download began again, but this time from him:

Joshua Seth Benowitz

Age at time of recording: 17.

Atlantic time zone.

Level one human.

Life expectancy 70-81.

I closed my eyes, cutting off the flow of young Mr. Benowitz’ life story. I didn’t want to know.

Each of them, on inspection, had the all-knowing blinking star of personality traits and information. A summary of their personalities in cold jargon.

If I looked too long, I got a lot of information I didn’t comprehend in the least. Things like a Body Mass Index. Likelihood of Addiction. Familial Strength Matrix. Ambition Delta Wave. Sleep Deprivation Tolerance. Attention Span Duration. Impulse Control Measure. Depressive State Induction Likelihood. Information Retention Rate. Introversion-Extroversion Balance…

On and on. I didn’t want it. It was too much, too invasive. I turned away.

And of course, Doctor Jeff Harrigan was there, gaping at me. He was lit by the bonfire, flickering in the shadows of the dancers. The screen of that computer bathed his skinny face in blue light.

He gave me the gray smile. “How? How did you do it?” His voice was full of wonder. He tucked his cracked tablet under his arm and offered me a hand to shake. Pulled it back, and I swear he did a little dance of joy that spun him in place. “Do you know how long I’ve waited for one of you to…” He spun, shot a fist into the air, almost dropped his computer. Laughed.

He was overjoyed. The smile was sincere, possibly for the first time I’d seen it.