It would be a lie to say the world didn't see it coming. A complete fallacy. The warnings blared for decades, each generation stacking another layer of panic and prophecy onto the last. The 2020s, the 2010s, the 1990s and 1980s—decade after decade, the same dire messages, the same parade of expert testimony and artistic doomsaying, all swept under the rug by those who could afford to ignore it. We were warned, and warned, and warned, until the warnings themselves became…

If you're reading this, then it's already too late for me. I'm either dead or holed up in some off-grid cage where no one can hear me scream. Don’t bother with the sympathy, dear reader. I almost certainly had this coming; I earned every minute of what I got, and whatever is happening now is no worse than what I’ve dished out to others in the service of my country—and ultimately, ‘the cause.’ Hack the justifications together however you like, I did. I could explain it all…

“What is the point of working here if we can’t do anything?”

“James, listen.” She paused; the eye above needed misdirection. Her hand found his knee, fingers tracing small circles. He froze. Was a banked fantasy in play? If Tom from accounts walked in, he’d die.

“You know we can’t talk like that in the office.” Her gaze locked in his, pupils narrowing to pinpoints drilling through his skull. “But do you know what I would like?” She leaned in, teeth grazing her lower lip,…

If I had a genius, and it's questionable, it definitely didn't show up in neat code blocks or any gallery-worthy sense of beauty, nor did it sit in the realm of human psychology, art, or outmaneuvering digital phantoms. No, my one redeeming spark was this: sitting at a monitor, empty-minded, not a diagram or a skeleton plan in sight, and still, somehow, mixing the disjointed logic until the program seemed to write itself. Like the machine was dreaming, and I was its hands.

I had once tried to wrestle the myth into academic submission, theorising it down to dust particles, but the whole thing fizzled. That myth never wanted to be explained; it needed to be lived. People only bought in because they could see it happen, pixel by pixel in front of them; no one ever raised a hand to object, just sank deeper into the illusions they’d been handed.

I used to call it “dreaming out loud,” though there wasn’t any real reason for it. That’s just how it felt. Chaotic.…

Inspiration didn’t always arrive on cue. I could meditate, run, even sample every stimulant known—and sometimes the well stayed dry. I’d sit before a blank screen, willing code into being, and nothing would come. Then on other days it poured out of me as if it wrote itself. Lately, ever since my dialogues with the devil and with Legion, I’d been stuck. I could squash bugs in legacy modules, fill out routine functions, file my reports—but the breakthrough ideas that were my trademark simply refused to materialize. I knew the reason, of course, but hadn’t decided what to do about it. In the meantime, I’d have to coast.

From a production standpoint, it wasn’t a catastrophe. I’d prepared stacks of backup code—enough to keep systems running smoothly, if uninspired. What I lacked was that special spark. Then I hit on a plan: I needed to plunge myself into the worlds inhabited by the humans I’d crafted in Ultrahigh —not as a passive observer, but as an active…

They asked softly, brushing a lock of hair behind their ear. “What does freedom even mean? Is it the power to choose? To wander unbound? To live without fear or danger? Or is it just a mirage? Even before the collapse, freedom was conditional—a trick you played on yourselves. No one ever truly went wherever they pleased, yet they convinced themselves they did. And if they did move, believing each step sprung from pure free will—another illusion.”

I exhaled and poured a hefty measure of whiskey. “What makes you bring this up now?”

They watched as I handed over the bottle. “Mind if I take a swig?”

After a measured sip, they said, “Like you pointed out the other day, you don’t choose which thoughts arrive—only whether to act on them. And if you could teleport anywhere, you’re confined by what you can imagine. You can’t map every corner of the world in one life. In the end, you never discover truly new territory.”

“In other words, freedom is…

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…

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…