“Wait, no! Could you give me the thimble back? The Amazon is my actual favorite. Try this one,” Cara exclaimed. She handed me a miniature figurine of a young woman holding a sword and shield. The weight of the silver trinket pressed down on the center of my palm as I studied the figurine's depiction. It showed the miniature woman crouched down, hiding behind the shield with her sword poised to strike forward with a lunge. Just as I began getting a feel for the weight, Cara snatched the metal trinket out of my hand and placed a new one.

“Sorry! That was so stupid of me. I doubt that is the anchor for you.”

Cara slapped her hand against her head to admonish herself and continued grabbing new metal trinkets to hand to me. The process had been going on for the last ten minutes, and every time I tried to speak up, she would cut me off with a new trinket. Cara carried so much excitement with every phrase that I never knew when to cut into the conversation. Her conversational beats started and ended with her.

I had always had trouble interacting with ultra-positive people, but Cara took it to the extreme. I did not know whether to be annoyed or amiable. The drugs they pumped into my system made my heart spin and my brain fuzzy, so I found myself more agreeable than usual. After two more minutes of the process, I put my hands up to stop her from handing over a metal poker chip.

“Cara, can we hold off on the trinkets? My head is pretty fuzzy, and I need time to think about everything that has happened.”

“Sorry, but we have to choose your anchor before you can go under for the surgery,” Cara replied while pushing the chip into my hand.

“What do you mean by anchor?”

“Oh, you know an anchor.”

“I don’t know. That’s why I asked,” I replied. Cara seemed to be an even bigger mystery than Mr. Greene due to her absent-mindedness.

“I can't believe I let it slip my mind. I always forget the explanation part. Thanks for reminding me.” She reached into a pocket on the side of the cart and pulled out a black leather-bound notebook labeled ‘Important Memories.’ She licked the edge of her finger and flipped through the pages. Her eyes rapidly scanned each page before moving on to the next. “Here it is!” Cara emphatically pointed to the page and flipped it around to show me a page full of illegible words scribbled haphazardly.

“I can’t read your handwriting.”

Don't worry about it. You don't need to know how to read to choose an anchor, but I am surprised. I thought everyone knew how to read, but It’s no problem.” Cara flipped the back to herself, and I let the insult fall to the wayside as she began to read earnestly.

“An anchor is a metal object, usually able to be held in the palm of a hand, that is used as a mental bind when participants enter the reality machine. The reality machine transfers the human consciousness of multiple people into an unlimited space that is programmed to act in certain defined parameters, but its vastness presents a problem. That problem is the limited capacity of the human mind.” Cara pointed her finger to my temple at the mention of the human mind.

“Your mind,” Cara continued, “ Is not strong enough to maintain your thoughts and memories without aid. To counteract this effect, we give every person who enters the game a metal object to focus on before we conduct the surgery. That way, when you exit the machine, you are still the same person instead of an amalgamation of made-up thoughts and memories. Hence, The term anchor.”

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“How would such a process work? If my mind is being moved to a separate space away from my body, I wouldn't be able to focus on the object in the real world.”

“After the surgery, we will begin a process of tying your mind to a mental projection of the object, kept on your person in the reality machine. You will be unconscious from the point of the surgery due to time constraints. During this time, we will make the object so familiar to you that it will appear with you in the reality machine. You will keep that object with you at all times while in a separate reality.

“What happens if I don’t keep the anchor on my person while in the game?”

“Your mind will begin to fade. It won't happen immediately but the longer you spend separated from the anchor, the bigger the risk of your mind being overwhelmed by the reality machine. It’s not fun, I promise you. If you want to stay your original self, keep the anchor with you always.”

“That’s just great. I might die or go insane. That’s not groundbreaking technology. I could find loads of inventors who came up with technology that produced similar results,” I said. She shut her book and slid it back into the side. My choice of an anchor had become very important. It couldn’t be something I’d lose easily or that others might be able to identify. I didn't particularly, like signing on to give myself an Achilles heel, but it beat going insane.

“Does it matter what the anchor is?”

“Not really, but I recommend choosing something that resonates with you.”

I leaned over to look at the tray with renewed interest. At least a hundred anchors were on the metal tray of varying shapes, sizes, and meanings. The objects that stood out the most were the chess pieces, a ring, and the poker chip. They all had meanings that related to me, but I wasn't sure if they resonated with me. As I scanned the tray once more, my eyes landed on a stack of coins that varied in size. They were just out of my reach.

“Can you hand me the stack of coins?”

“Of course!”

The galaxy had used physical money once, but as we extended past mars, it fell out of use. My professor in college collected a variety from different periods in history. My professor put his collection on display in front of his office, and he would beam with pride whenever someone made it a point of conversation. I did it frequently to pass his economics class. His premier coin came from the former Earth superpower, the United States, and had a value of over a trillion dollars. Hyperinflation had caused the value of the dollar to depreciate so much compared to other currencies that bread and eggs cost millions. He loved to brag to his students about how in the United States, he could be considered a trillionaire.

In the stack of coins, a thick silver coin stood out to me. It looked similar to the trillion-dollar coin my professor had bragged about. One side had a man sitting atop a chair with twenty-two stars around the edges. The other side showed the image of a naked man holding the Earth above his head with one arm. A Latin phrase repeated multiple times around the edges on the second side read Alea iacta est, which means ‘The die has been cast.’ I had reached the point of no return, and I hoped I would not live to regret the decision.

“I’ll go with this one,” I said while holding up the coin. The coin was heavily weighted so I wouldn’t lose track of it easily. The Bishop and poker chip stood out too much, and the ring worried me about having the key to my sanity in plain sight.

“That’s a great choice! I wanted you to choose that one all along. I’ll leave you to play around with it and get a feel for it. Make sure to study it as deeply as you can. Bye!” Cara walked out with a wave and left me stunned. She had left the cart she pushed in and her notebook. She carried herself like a whimsical fairy I read about in fables. The door slid shut behind her leaving me to dwell on my thoughts. Thoughts I wished I could ignore.

I wondered how Analise and Angie would deal with life without me around. My wife might struggle to work under Mr. Greene. Nobody in Mr. Greene’s organization used technology from what I could see, and Annalise had an addiction to her screen. I had a similar habit, but the rush I got at the casino beat any programming she might be immersed in. It made me wonder how Angie had grown a love for writing letters with us two as parents. They might find it easy without me, but I secretly hoped they didn’t. It might be selfish, but I like those I care about to miss me.

I had escaped the albino man, but I still felt the anxiousness of the future weighing heavily on my shoulders. It had all come so fast that I felt Ill prepared for what the future held. In my head, I planned to do my time in jail while slowly paying Keenan off, but everything escalated into a cascade of life-altering events.

The drugs had fully set in, and my eyes began to drop low. I flipped the coin with my thumb and caught it in my palm. It landed on tails and could not help but read the proverbial phrase out loud. “The die has been cast.”