As Neera stood up from the desk, the unexplainable wave of transparency affecting the wall in front of me radiated outward and quickly consumed the rest of the once seemingly solid structure to reveal the characteristically red terrain now surrounding us.

At some point during the world-class disappearing-act I had been the unwilling participant of, I’d stood up from my chair to get a better perspective on the alien landscape set out before me. After what felt like an eternity of staring blankly out toward the horizon, with my mouth hanging open like a botched lobotomy patient, Neera snapped her fingers in a quick succession to regain my attention. I snapped back to reality, or rather, back to whatever you’d call this dreamscape I currently found myself inhabiting.

“Still with us Sam?”, said Neera, clearly concerned that her parlor trick had broken my fragile psyche.

“What… the… fuck?”, I said utterly flabbergasted at the quick succession of “mind-fucks” my new friend Neera had so casually lobbed my way. Or perhaps the more accurate term would now be “cube-fucks”?

That was going to take some getting used to to say the least.

While a normal person’s next move in this scenario would understandably be to begin a growing concerto of weeping or laughter that, either way, ended with the person in question on the ground in the fetal position rocking back-and-fourth and sucking their thumb, I was not a normal person.

I was a geologist.

I stepped a few feet away from the desk, and like a falcon eyeing its prey from the sky above, I spotted the nearest baseball-sized Mars rock on the ground below me and reached to grab it with as much speed as I could muster. As I moved in to close my hand around the rock, my fingers seemingly phased through its surface with no resistance, and my open hand became a closed fist occupying the same space as the sample I so dearly wanted to inspect.

“Oh come on!”, I shouted as I retracted my hand in defeat.

“Sorry Sam.”, said Neera. “You can’t interact with the environment like that here. At least not yet.”

“Not yet?”, I said, a glimmer of hope shining weakly through my voice.

She held out her empty hand as if to present something, and a small chunk of stone nearly identical to the one I’d just failed to pick up appeared out of nowhere.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Try this one. It was collected nearby.”, she said, forcefully tossing the sample in my direction.

The specimen glided through the air on a trajectory set to make direct contact with my face. My eyes sealed shut as my entire body flinched and my arms instinctively shot up to protect myself.

After a few seconds and no headache, I opened my eyes to see the rock, seemingly encased in a weakly shimmering bubble floating in the air just a few inches away from my face. With a cartoonish “POP!” the bubble disappeared, and the rock dropped to the ground in front of my feet.

After unclenching every muscle in my body, I bent down and gleefully scooped up the apparent gift. Unlike my first attempt at the same motion a few seconds earlier, this rock proved to be tangible, and I held it up to my face for a closer look.

Had it not been for its supposed place of origin, it would’ve been a largely unremarkable specimen of sandstone. I carefully examined the well-sorted iron-stained grains making up the matrix of the rock, as I slowly rotated it in my hands trying to use the weak sunlight to my advantage.

I instinctively reached for my chest to grab the jeweler’s loop I almost always wore around my neck while in the field, and quickly realized my mistake. Much to my surprise, my trusty hand-lens had appeared out of thin air and was now in my free hand ready for use. I chose not to question it and moved in to give the sample a closer look.

“Frosted grains. Definitely aeolian.”, I said with complete confidence, “But that’s to be expected given the apparent locality.”

“Good eye.”, said Neera, again tapping her tablet.

I moved to pocket the rock as I had with thousands before and was again surprised to find my pants now had pockets! I grinned, and quickly looked up so that my eyes locked with Neera’s.

“Alright. Round two.” “Stop me when I’m wrong.”, I said, ready to bust the case of my new existence wide open.

“I died on the trip to Death Valley and my body was frozen by CryoEterna. Simple enough.”

“Then a few years later, a group of far-right religious extremists took over America, and after stealing my body, melted my brain and turned me into that thing.”, I said gesturing to the glowing cube still sitting on the now out of place pristine white desk in the middle of an alien desert.

“Right so far…”, said Neera, seemingly amused with my act.

“Alright then. So at some point after being ‘cubeified’ by those F.A.I.T.H. maniacs, I was again stolen, this time in cube form, by the lovely people of the ‘United States of Eurasia’, THEN---”, my statement was cut short.

“Rescued!”, interjected Neera. “’Rescued’ by the lovely people of the U.S.E.”

“Okay.”, I said, internally questioning the truth of her statement.

“Then the people who ‘rescued’ me shipped me to Mars like the good little ‘geologist-in-a-box’ I now am, woke me up, and now I’m in some kind of virtual-reality environment participating in this song and dance with you. An orientation of sorts.”, I said completely sure of myself.

“Oh… So close!” said Neera in a mocking tone.

“What did I miss?”, I said, my ego only slightly bruised.

“You’re right about this being VR-space, and most everything else, but there’s one key part to your version of the story that still isn’t quite right…”, she said with a sly grin.

“WE didn’t bring you here Sam.”, Neera said, again pausing for dramatic effect. She was enjoying this.

“We found you here.”