The man in the mirror was shivering.
I could feel the cold radiating off the glass. It wasn't the air-conditioned chill of The Cortex Club; it was the raw, biting cold of a rainstorm in November. I watched Adam’s knuckles turn white as he gripped the railing. I saw the way his chest hitched, sobbing without sound.
"This is a trick," Desi whispered. Her voice trembled, cracking the silence. "It’s a projection. A deep fake. Someone is messing with us."
She reached out to touch the mirror. She wanted to smash it, I think. She wanted to break the image before it broke her.
"Desi, don't—" I started to warn her.
Her fingers made contact with the glass. But they didn't stop.
There was no crash. No shatter. Her hand went through the surface like it was made of smoke.
"What the hell?" She yanked her hand back, clutching her wrist. "It... it bit me. It felt like electricity."
I looked at her hand. It wasn't bleeding. It was flickering.
Literally flickering. For a second, her fingers looked solid. Then they turned into jagged, pixelated static. Then they were gone. Then they were back.
"My hand," Desi screamed, staring at her own limb. "Leo, look at my hand! It’s buffering!"
"It’s not buffering," I said, my brain scrolling through a thousand terrible diagnoses. "It’s unstable data. You’re losing cohesion."
I turned to Greg. The big guy was staring at the mirror, mesmerized by the image of Adam on the bridge. But Greg wasn't solid anymore, either. He looked translucent. I could see the rows of liquor bottles on the shelf through his chest. He looked like a smudge on a camera lens.
"He looks so lonely," Greg murmured. His voice sounded like it was coming from inside a tin can. "We left him alone, didn't we? We all left."
"We didn't leave anyone!" Desi shouted, her glitching hand shaking violently. "We are right here! We are in the bar! We are having drinks!"
CRACK.
The sound wasn't the jukebox this time. It was the floor.
I looked down. The black-and-white checkered tiles near the entrance weren't just cracked. They were falling away.
A chunk of the floor, maybe three feet wide, simply detached. But it didn't fall into a basement. It didn't reveal pipes or dirt. It fell into whiteness.
A blinding, pure white void.
"Okay," I said, backing up against the bar. My heart was doing somersaults. "Okay. Hypothesis: The structural integrity of this environment is no longer compromised. It is nonexistent. The simulation is ending."
"Stop talking like a robot!" Desi grabbed my lapels. Her grip was weak, flashing in and out of existence. "Tell me how to fix it! You're the planner! Plan something!"
"I can't plan this!" I yelled back, my composure finally snapping. "Desi, look around! The tiles are falling into nothing. You are turning into a hologram. And the guy in the mirror—the guy who is supposed to be us—is about to step off a bridge!"
"He's not us!" Desi shrieked. "He's Adam! I'm Desi! I'm real! I have a scar on my knee from third grade! I hate cilantro! I listen to punk rock! I am a person!"
"Are you?" I asked, grabbing her shoulders to hold her steady. "Think about it. Really think. What is your last name?"
Desi opened her mouth. She froze. Her eyes went wide.
"It’s..." She frowned. "It’s... wait. It starts with M. Or... K?"
"You don't have one," I said, feeling a tear slide down my own cheek. "I don't have one either. Greg doesn't have a last name. We don't have birthdays. We don't have addresses."
I pointed at the mirror. At the terrified man standing in the rain.
"He has a last name," I whispered. "He has a birthday. We are just... parts. We are the noise in his head."
ns216.73.216.10da2
and then Add to home screen.