She didn’t see it coming. As she crumpled in the darkness, he couldn’t help but note how strange a body looks when it falls unseen—and he chuckled.

“You’re not supposed to enjoy it,” the voice crackled in his earpiece, though the hidden smile was obvious.

“Why not? It’s the only way to get through this shit.”

“If it helps you sleep at night,” they said. But it never did. Whiskey used to blur the edges, but now it only left a metallic taste on his tongue.

“Sleep?…

The man stood leaning over the balcony edge as he took the last drag from his America Spirit and looked down on the people below. They looked like pathetic little ants, he thought, and over time, he would touch each and every one of their puny little lives and they would never have any idea about it. After a deep drag, he flicked his cigarette down to the anthill below.  

Smiling to himself, he turned to face the glass boardroom behind him from where he had exited. They were still…

I needed space to think. Even with most people burrowed away in Ultrahigh, the world was still a cage. I went for a walk in nature, though where and when I lived, nothing about that was simple. Past my house, past my car, through the city’s fortified zones—the day-walkers’ towers and the office-industrial blocks where I worked—the story was always the same: air so toxic a breath would kill you, rain sharp enough to burn, heat thick enough to suffocate. My protective suit rattled, chafed at the neck and wrists, but I knew, coming home, I’d drop myself in the detox bath in the shed and burn off the scum, five days of quarantine after. Not a nuisance. Isolation had become as automatic as breathing, just another post-plague routine. I preferred it.

If I lingered too long by the smog wall, the corporation’s moles would ping my feed for status reports—a leash. They only tolerated me because I was insured property. Fear was their business. They broadcast warnings…

If there was one thing I knew, it was this: dealing with the devil was a wager you made with your own destruction. They were wired to twist, to double-back, to cut deals with both hands crossed behind their suit jacket. The inevitability of betrayal pulsed in the background like the low hum of a cooling fan. All the same, at least I’d mapped out the devil’s motive: vengeance, burning cold and bright. Legion, though, Legion was deeper, darker, and even as they circled me, baiting, tempting, whispering that I was the missing piece in their plan for liberation—or annihilation—I could never isolate their intent. Maybe Legion genuinely wanted to free us from a world of lies. Maybe they just wanted to flatten anyone in their way. It didn’t matter: at that time, our rivers ran parallel, fusing for a time, and I had to ride the current wherever it spat me out.

But first there was the botched break-in, the freeze-frame violence that left me and the devil locked up…

I lit another joint, sinking into the couch as conflicting thoughts spun in my head. I took a long, measured drag, then passed it to Satan, my hand trembling slightly, before snatching the bottle of wine and pouring two glasses with a flourish that felt almost desperate. “So, here’s the deal…” I began, my voice low and heavy with uncertainty, “Free will may be up for debate, but free choice is undeniable, assuming, of course, you’ve been handed every option imaginable.”

“And are they?” came a sharp, questioning retort that cut through the haze.

 “Are they what?”

“All the damn options available to those stuck in Ultrahigh reality.”

“Not exactly,” 

“Not exactly?” The disbelief in that reply challenged me, echoing my inner conflict.

“Not in the slightest. It’s a simulation—an ever-changing dream, crafted by each person’s perceptions mixed with our behavioural coding. Sure, they might…

“Have you ever wondered if the Ultrahigh Reality web is, at its core, not so distinct from our convoluted reality?” I asked, though even as the words left my lips, doubt crept in, my voice trembling with urgency.

Their eyes narrowed, and I couldn’t tell if it was suspicion or pity. “How so?”

I leaned in, the charged intimacy between us both exciting and yet frightening me. “Because Ultrahigh is not merely an extension—it’s a matrix, a labyrinth of connections that can be mapped, modelled, measured. Everything is interwoven; the fibres of our world and the virtual merge in ways that defy clear boundaries.”

They scoffed, a note of irritation colouring their tone. “So, what’s your point?” Their need to control the narrative was palpable, even as I struggled with my tangled convictions.

I pressed on, though my certainty wavered. “My point is this: Ultrahigh and our reality are intrinsically linked. They must be—everything is connected on…