“Jackeye! Jackeye! Wake up!”

Steffen’s brain started to shut down as he looked for the voice in the dark. It was like a drop of water falling into a pond, impossible to define where the sound started and where it ended. His mind had a thousand tiny fissures, her voice a tiny stone that rolled into crevices unseen.

When fingers brushed near his right ear, he let out a yell. He opened his eyes and raised his torso, struggling to get as much oxygen as he could. The air tasted stale and sour on his dried-out tongue.

“Where am I?” he muttered with his hand on his neck.

“According to E00, this planet’s atmosphere has high quantities of oxygen. He advised me to carry you outside of your quarters when I found you there unconscious.”

Jackeye looked around. His bottom rested on the leafy grass, and C1313 stood upright next to him. The aching in his skull wouldn't go away. It crept down his neck, through his shoulders, and into his joints. He touched his face and felt the familiar features.

“I’m alive…” He looked at C1313, who stood motionless, her hands still hidden behind her back. “Thank you.”

He remembered the invader's voice. It sounded calm and smooth, like a lullaby or the murmur of rolling ocean waves. Maybe there was something, a clue of who she was. Jackeye cocked his head to the side, recalling her phrase modulations, but he couldn't make out much more than sound waves.

"Jackeye?" C1313 asked, her voice monotone. “You spaced out for a while.”

"Huh?" He looked at the robot, then back at the sky. A broad grin stretched across his face. "I'm okay."

“I know. Seems like your brain activity has stabilized for now. I’ve also analyzed your vitals. They’re back to normal.”

“Yeah. Wait, no. Can you do that?”

"A driver must know the state of mind of the passenger to drive accordingly, make small talk, and put the right ambient music."

Tejeda's voice cut her short as it pierced the air from the bay entrance. "What are you doing here, you two? E00 informed me that Jackeye was on the verge of death."

As he recalled his near-death experience, Steffen swiped his long fingers through his blonde hair, his nails piercing into his scalp. His stomach churned with a terrible knot of dread. Logically, none of this could be true. But he couldn't get himself to believe it wasn't.

“I am a skilled hacker and one of the top hoodlums and racketeers in the universe. No one ever cracked my world.” He felt the need to cry, but these damn golden eyes couldn’t create tears.

Tejeda's chin hurt from yawning so much. "Sorry. It's not that your story is uninteresting. I experienced a disturbing underwater experience, and the repeated shifts left me dizzy and drowsy."

"Shifts? What exactly do you mean? Am I in a simulation?" Steffen mumbled as he gazed up at the sky. His head flailed and tilted.

"Hey, hey, hey," Tejeda reached for him and held his shoulders. "It's okay."

"It's obvious he's not well," C1313 said, looking at Tejeda and then at Steffen.

“Jackeye, you’ll find out soon enough about the nature of my race,” Tejeda said with a soothing voice. “Let’s talk about your world. How did someone get in? How does it work?”

"This should never have happened. I set up several traps to prevent any inbound assaults or threats." Jackeye smacked his hands on the grass, causing a blade to burst from the ground. "I might have been killed!"

“It’s a risk any entity has to take every second of consciousness,” concluded C1313.

Jackeye raised his attention to the snatches of the smooth silver sky that poked out from between the trees. “This chat has increased the intensity of my headache.” He sighed. “Everything felt genuine, like the dull ringing in my ears and the pounding in my mind. The warm air dried my cold sweat. The heat of her palm as it brushed against my skin.”

He wiped his face, feeling the sweat that wasn’t there. “Everyone has a world in their head that is created by their consciousness. Imagine a room. This room is your mind. It’s dark, and there is no top or bottom, just a horizon that you can’t see. A person can change the location of this room at will, and every time the room changes, a new world is created. It’s a process that works on a subconscious level. Very few manage to create it consciously as I do.”

Tejeda's lips curled in a mocking grin. "You know so little about the world you live in. Our consciousness is more than just a state of mind. It's a manifestation of our existence." He looked at his right palm and rubbed it, digging his nails into it. "Our minds don't create a world. It creates a representation of a world. An algorithm does the rest. It needs a set of instructions. A program."

"A program?" Jackeye inquired. He tilted his head back and peered up at the sky, hoping for a sign, anything to confirm that all was real. That he wasn't still trapped within his own head, overpowered by that woman's constructs.

"Yes." Tejeda's pupils constricted into slits. "And it makes no difference how many traps or security layers you have; if someone cracks the root code, your world is over."

Jackeye could feel his anger rising like bile in his throat. He thought about his world, the one he had created. The one he had shaped and that had shaped him. The one that had been violated. Now, his anger had run its course. He sat there for a while on the grass. His golden eyes darted back and forth. He felt his heart throw itself against his chest.

He stared out towards the woods. As the trees swayed in the wind, their branches groaned and whined. Animals yowled and slithered through the forest. His golden eyes twinkled with fury. He made a deep, guttural hiss. "I'll hunt her down!"

For a single second, Tejeda's eyes were empathetic. Then, like a fever, darkness swept across his face. His lips twitched. "Are you certain it's a she?"