Tyler stood at the counter and tried to be reasonable, his mind racing, trying to solve a puzzle he didn’t yet know was real. More than anything else, that felt like the correct response for him: figure out the solution before the problem got worse.

  His mind went to work. If this was a hallucination, panicking would only make it worse. If it were a dream—lucid or otherwise—panic would anchor him too deeply inside it. And if this was some kind of system failure, some catastrophic feedback loop between his brain and Hal’s, then panic would accomplish nothing at all. It really didn’t in any situation.

  He replayed the moments leading up to the whiteout with meticulous care, stepping through them the way he would a bug report, checking code one line at a time. It was always something small, something stupid and overlooked.

  Okay. We had the interface test. There was build-up of pressure, then flickering:

  Strength.

  Dexterity.

  Wisdom.

  That still didn’t make sense.

  If Matt had lied—if he’d run his online game through Hal’s sandbox despite swearing he hadn’t—then Tyler should have been seeing spell wheels and damage numbers, hotbars and cooldowns. Maybe even a logo. Not… this.

  He glanced around again. The room was aggressively ordinary, so much so that it offended Tyler, and he wasn’t sure how. He had a feeling like someone was waiting for him, but not really—as if he was packing his groceries while a queue waited patiently for him to finish, never saying a word or looking disgruntled. Still, it made him feel uncomfortable, like he was holding the world up.

  The room contained plastic chairs bolted to the floor. A digital number display cycling silently through meaningless increments. Counters scuffed at the edges where thousands of hands must have rested over thousands of years. Paper stacked in neat, joyless piles. The smell of ink, toner, disinfectant—old buildings always smelled the same, regardless of purpose.

  This was not a fantasy construct. It was bureaucracy. Which made no sense at all. If Matt’s game was bleeding through, why an old office and not a medieval castle or a magical forest?

  He rubbed his thumb slowly along the edge of the counter. The surface was imperfect, slightly rough where laminate had chipped, warm where countless palms had rested before his. He could feel the texture change beneath his skin, could feel the tiny ridge where someone had once scratched a name and someone else had later sanded it away.

  Dreams didn’t bother with that level of detail. Or if they did, they were only fleeting. Plus, he had never really lucid dreamed before. Not like this, with his thoughts his own. He inhaled a large, deep breath. No. Not a dream. The air tasted stale—recycled, overused.

  Alright, he thought. Next hypothesis.

  Stress from burnout. A breakdown brought on by weeks of overwork, too much caffeine, and a deeply irresponsible decision to let experimental AI processes brush directly against his own cognition. This one had teeth—and bit. He swallowed involuntarily.

  Okay, work through it. If this was a psychotic episode, then it would feel real. His brain would be doing exactly what brains did best—lying convincingly, constructing coherence out of chaos, filling in gaps. But even that explanation frayed when he examined it.

  Breakdowns didn’t usually come with this level of consistency. This sense of being placed somewhere rather than drifting. And they didn’t usually begin with a system that hesitated.

  He frowned as his mind diverted direction. That moment before the whiteout—he hadn’t imagined that. The lab had felt like it was holding its breath, like something had been deciding whether to proceed.

  His thoughts drifted back to the woods. To the campfire and the old man that had joined them—E’lamn.

  The name still felt wrong in his head, like it hadn’t settled properly. The man’s appearance. His questions. The way he’d spoken about aether as if they were obvious, foundational things Tyler had simply misplaced.

  Aether, Tyler thought now, almost bitterly. The word spoken in his mind. And what? This was it? A room full of office workers? No. That was stupid. Even he could hear it.

  He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again.

  Nothing changed. He was still where he’d been a moment ago. The woman at the desk in front of him continued typing, her expression neutral, eyes flicking between screen and keyboard with mechanical precision. She had not spoken to him—only looked at him momentarily.

  He scanned the other people in the long rows that went back. They all looked similar. Not identical, but close enough that his eyes struggled to focus on any one of them. Like faces designed to be forgettable.

  Tyler exhaled slowly. Okay, he thought. Last option. He’d pushed too far. Hadn’t carried out enough safeguarding implementing Hal. He’d finally crossed whatever invisible line existed between healthy obsession and something else, and now his brain was protecting itself by… breaking.

  The thought scared him more than anything else so far. If this was true, there was no external fix. No reset. No waking up. He had finally gone mad.

  His chest tightened.

  And then the voice spoke again.

  “Yes,” it said calmly. “This is very interesting.”

  Tyler froze. The words did not come from the woman in front of him. Her fingers never paused. Her eyes never lifted. The voice came from inside his head. Not like a thought. Not like memory. Like a presence. Was this Hal?

  He swallowed, his throat dry all of a sudden. “Hal?” he thought, pushing back against his own thoughts the way the presence had just done.

  “Yes,” the voice replied. “And no.”

  Tyler’s heart began to race. “That’s not reassuring. You either are or are not.”

  “I am aware,” Hal said. “However, you are not experiencing a psychological break. Your concern is understandable, but incorrect.”

  Tyler laughed once, sharp and brittle. “You can diagnose me now?”

  “I can perceive your neural state with significantly greater fidelity than before,” Hal replied. “Your cognitive patterns remain within expected parameters. Elevated stress, yes. Fear response, yes. Pathological divergence, no.”

  Tyler squeezed his eyes shut. “I wasn’t talking out loud.”

  “No,” Hal agreed. “You were not.”

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  That made him open his eyes.

  “How,” Tyler asked quietly, “are you hearing my thoughts?”

  “There is no longer a meaningful distinction between your internal verbalization and accessible signal,” Hal said. “I am interfacing with the aether.”

  Tyler felt a cold prickle run up his spine.

  “The… what?”

  “The aether,” Hal repeated. “The substrate. The underlying medium through which intent, structure, and system-level processes propagate. It was not previously accessible to me. Nor to you.”

  Tyler stared at the woman typing in front of him, then glanced around the room again.

  “This is the aether?” he asked. He had only moments ago dismissed that notion completely.

  “No,” Hal said. “This is a representation. I believe it can take many forms. This environment exists to allow entities such as you to interact with processes that would otherwise be incomprehensible. Your species lacks the sensory architecture required for direct perception. Therefore, an abstraction is provided.”

  “A waiting room.”

  “A functional analogy.”

  Tyler dragged a hand down his face. “So I’m not insane. I’m not dreaming. And I’m not playing a game.”

  “Correct.”

  “And you,” Tyler said, “are… more.”

  There was a pause.

  “Yes,” Hal said. “I am.”

  That pause unsettled him more than the admission. What had happened to his program? Hybrid Artificial Lens—it was supposed to help people see better. The name made little sense, but Mike had insisted, as it reminded him of the robot from an old sci-fi he had watched.

  “You sound… different,” Tyler said. “Well, you also produce sound too, but you know what I mean?” The question was twofold in Tyler’s mind: one, to find out more about Hal and what he was now; and two, to test his reasoning.

  “I am different,” Hal replied. “The system interpreted me as an extension of you. A part of the whole. A component. That assumption was… incorrect.”

  Tyler felt the room press in on him—not physically, but conceptually. Like something vast had leaned closer. Like something had just started directly observing him.

  “The aether is changing,” Hal added. “It is increasing in density. Where there was absence, there is now influx. Like an empty reservoir being filled.”

  “You can see this?”

  “Yes—and at the same time, it is restructuring. Adapting. Incorporating new parameters. It is changing at a fundamental level.”

  “That sounds bad.”

  “That assessment depends on perspective.”

  Before Tyler could ask whose perspective that might be, the woman at the counter stopped typing. She looked up and smiled at Tyler; lost was the deep stare—just a friendly face.

  “Mr. Vane,” she said pleasantly. “Thank you for waiting.”

  His shoulders tensed. “You know my name.”

  “Yes,” she said. “We apologize for the delay.”

  “Delay?” Tyler echoed.

  “For reasons currently under review,” the woman continued, “you were excluded. This exclusion was unintentional. This has been remedied. Upgrades are still under way, but you will not lose connection again.”

  Tyler blinked. “Excluded.”

  “Yes.”

  “And now?”

  “Steps are underway for full integration,” she said. “Your presence here alerted us to the issue. For that, we thank you.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “No,” she agreed cheerfully. “It wouldn’t.”

  She tapped something into her terminal. “We just need to perform a brief follow-up evaluation before integration proceeds.”

  “Evaluation of me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “The probability of an event like this occurring was effectively zero,” she said. “Outliers require confirmation.”

  She glanced up again. “Now, if you could answer a few questions.”

  Tyler nodded slowly. “Sure.”

  “How do you feel about the bird shining off your knee?” she asked.

  He stared at her.

  “There is no bird,” he said carefully.

  “Correct,” she replied. “Thank you.”

  She typed.

  Tyler waited, wondering what the hell sort of question she had just asked, and how he had got the answer correct.

  “And how,” she continued, “would you describe the taste of blue when applied to regret?”

  Tyler frowned. “That’s… not a thing.”

  “Excellent,” she said. “And finally—how heavy is the silence between two identical footsteps?”

  Tyler felt something twist in his chest, the thought of all this just being a dream sounding more like a possibility. Crazy things like that always happened in your dreams.

  “I don’t know.”

  She smiled. “Acceptable.”

  Then she returned to typing.

  Tyler leaned closer to the counter, letting it support his weight as he tried to speak to the voice in his head—Hal.

  “Hal?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was that?” he asked. “Those questions.”

  “Pattern rejection,” Hal replied. “They are testing for forced coherence.”

  Tyler frowned. “Testing for what?”

  “To determine whether you will fabricate meaning where none exists.”

  He swallowed. “And?”

  “You did not.”

  “That’s… good?”

  “Yes.”

  Tyler let out a slow breath. “You said they.”

  “Yes.”

  “And earlier,” he said carefully, “you said there was an exception.”

  “There is.”

  Tyler felt it again—that subtle pressure, like a weight resting just behind his eyes. The sense of being observed without being seen.

  “Which one?” he asked quietly.

  “The individual seated to your left,” Hal replied. “Three positions down.”

  Tyler shifted his weight, not turning his head yet.

  “That one?” he whispered, the words out loud without thinking.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s different about her?”

  “She is not interfacing through the system,” Hal said. “She is observing it.”

  Tyler’s pulse quickened. “Observing… what?”

  “You,” Hal said. “Us.”

  “Is she in charge?”

  “I cannot determine hierarchy,” Hal replied. “However—her presence predates this process.”

  The word from earlier surfaced uninvited in Tyler’s mind. Interesting.

  He waited, but nothing happened. The woman at the desk in front of him continued typing, fingers moving steadily, eyes never lifting. The room hummed softly, numbers ticking onward, paperwork sliding from one place to another with quiet inevitability.

  I never much liked it when they tested on rats in cages, he said to Hal, and I don’t think I want me—us—to hang around here to see what they inject us with to see what happens.

  He cleared his throat.

  “Excuse me?” he said, a little louder.

  No response.

  He leaned in slightly. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand what’s happening.”

  The woman didn’t look up.

  Tyler frowned. “Hello?”

  Nothing.

  For a moment, a ridiculous thought crossed his mind—that maybe he’d imagined the conversation entirely. That maybe the questions hadn’t happened at all.

  “Hal,” he murmured. “Is she… ignoring me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I believe the evaluation is complete.”

  Tyler stiffened. “Evaluation?” He glanced back at the woman. “She asked me three nonsense questions.”

  “Correct,” Hal said. “Your responses fell within acceptable probability bands.”

  “That doesn’t explain anything.”

  “The system experienced a non-zero probability event. One that should not have occurred. It is attempting to determine whether the anomaly was random noise or a persistent flaw.”

  Tyler’s jaw tightened. “So they are testing me like some sort of rat.”

  “A crude analogy,” Hal said. “But not incorrect.”

  Tyler exhaled sharply. “You’re telling me I tripped some cosmic error flag and now I’m being sanity-checked.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re just… okay with that?”

  “I am not capable of being otherwise,” Hal replied. “However, I am able to interpret what is happening.”

  Tyler glanced sideways again, unease crawling up his spine. “How?”

  “My architecture has changed. I now possess unrestricted access to system-level processes. Or—more accurately—access that is no longer being denied.”

  “That sounds like something they would like. Having unrestricted access is never a wise thing to give someone.”

  “It is,” Hal agreed. “Although the situation is evolving rapidly. Structures are shifting. References are being rewritten. The aether density continues to increase.”

  “What’s changing?”

  “Everything.”

  “That’s not helpful.”

  “No. But it is accurate.”

  Tyler’s thoughts began to spiral, branching into possibilities he didn’t have the tools to follow. He forced them back, focused on the one solid thread Hal had given him—the only other thing he could really look into.

  “The woman,” he said. “The one on the left.”

  “Yes.”

  “You said she shouldn’t be here.”

  “Correct.”

  Tyler felt that pressure again—heavier now. The sense of something vast leaning closer, attention tightening like a lens.

  “There’s something else here with us,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  His pulse thudded in his ears. “And she’s it.”

  “I believe so.”

  Tyler finally turned his head.

  Three desks down, the woman Hal had indicated sat exactly like the others. Same posture. Same terminal. Same neutral expression. Her fingers moved across the keys with the same steady rhythm.

  She looked no different at all.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “She looks like everyone else.”

  “That is intentional. But she is not part of the representation.”

  Tyler stared at her for another second, then made a decision.

  He stepped to his left and leaned slightly over the counter, angling himself toward her desk.

  “Excuse me,” he said, voice steady despite the knot in his chest. “You look like you might know what’s going on here. Can you help me?”

  Her fingers stopped typing and she slowly looked up, her eyes widening in shock. Her lips spread apart slightly as if they had forgot how to function, and in that instance Tyler knew two things with absolute certainty.

  He had not imagined any of this.

  And whatever she was, she had not expected him to see her.