Tex looked at his phone to see that it was about five minutes before the time they’d agreed to meet.

After making sure he had his wallet, keys, and gun, Tex crouched next to his fridge and opened the door. He'd taken out what little he'd had in the center rack the night before, so he would have an easier time getting through.

He reached a hand towards the smooth white back of the fridge. A tiny bolt of shock hit him when his fingers phased through.

The sensation wasn't painful. It didn't feel any different at all, in fact. After pulling his hand back out, Tex leaned forward and shimmied into the fridge so he could stick his head through.

He was greeted by the sight of a coastline.

It was a beautiful coast, clearly part of an island. Turquoise water met pale sand which met rocky land that was covered in short grass and a few of the most perfect palm trees Tex had ever seen. The only sign of human intervention to be seen was a round reflective laboratory-esque building, although Tex knew he was only looking at a small part of the land.

Tex glanced down at himself to notice he could only see the top part of his body, which appeared to be jutting out of the center of a triangular plate made of solid black material.

Using his elbows, Tex worked himself the rest of the way through the portal. He managed to only faceplant into the ground a little bit, but he already had at least a quarter pound of sand in his shoes by the time he'd stood up.

"Greetings." said a familiar voice.

Tex looked to his left to see Junji walking towards him from the direction of the sun. Tex was forced to shield his eyes, and not just because Junji was buck naked.

"Running a nudist colony?" Tex asked, causing Junji to wince.

"I am overheated." Junji replied. "Not unemployed.”

Upon closer examination, Tex saw that Junji wasn't completely naked, as he was wearing shoes as well as a thin mesh cover over his entire body. Tex assumed it was to keep the sun and bugs away, although he didn't have the will to ask.

"Would you like to see my experiment?" Junji wondered.

"Knock yourself out."

Junji pointed at the ground behind Tex. Tex turned to see the portal he'd emerged from.

"This is my experiment." said Junji.

Tex craned his neck to find that the triangular plate he'd come out of was actually just the bottom of a solid sideways pyramid. It was held up by a rod in the ground, but there was nothing covering it.

"You made a portal to my fridge." Tex stated.

"Yes."

"You said it bent three-dimensional space, or something."

Junji sighed.

"Do you have any writing material?" he asked.

Tex reached into his pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper and a pen, both of which Junji took. After drawing two dots about an inch apart from each other, Junji bent the paper.

"If you draw a dot here and another dot here, they're far away, but if you bend it," Junji explained, "the distance--"

Junji cut himself off and folded the paper in half before throwing it into the air.

"I'm bored." he finished.

Tex felt a smile break out across his face. He still wasn't used to having Junji back yet.

"How long do we have before the others arrive?" Junji asked.

Tex quickly checked his phone to see there were no new messages. He'd left his front door unlocked, so he wasn't too worried about it.

"Don't know.” answered Tex. “Probably at least a couple minutes, I got here kinda early."

"In that case. Would you like to see Ying?"

"Uh, sure. Has she been staying with you?"

"Yes. She's been conducting a series of her own experiments."

Junji turned and began to walk towards the building Tex had seen earlier. Tex was quick to follow.

The building was a small dome, about three or four times as big as a Starbucks. When Tex got closer, he saw that nearly the entire outside shell was made of thick tinted glass.

It blended in surprisingly well with the plants around it.

"You live here?" Tex asked.

"Yes."

The front door of the building was metallic and overgrown with vines. Tex stepped inside once Junji opened it for him.

The inside of the dome was cooler in temperature than the outside. The glass, tinted black when looking in from the outside, was now fully transparent. Directly before them was a simple table covered in papers. On the right side was a walkway that curved around and up out of sight, and on the left was another walkway that curved the inverse direction.

Junji stripped off his thin mesh suit and hung it on a rack by the door.

"We can have our meetings here." Junji said, pointing to the table. "Let me show you where Ying is."

Tex followed when Junji took off for the hallway. The two of them passed by a room filled with charts, a room with a robot assembling beakers, and a room that contained a full indoor habitat for a large collection of white mice before they got to Ying.

Ying was standing in an open area near the top of the dome, staring out the window. Tex followed her gaze to see a canopy of trees. On first glance, he didn't see what was so interesting, but he quickly realized the branches were populated with dozens of small tan monkeys.

"Howdy." Tex greeted.

Ying was also naked. Tex did his best not to stare.

"Hello." she replied.

Tex felt his phone buzz against his leg. He pulled it out of his pocket to see it was from Tala.

From Gamer Gril

we're in your apartment

From Supreme Jackass

i went through your medicine cabinet

From Gamer Gril

how do we go through the portal?

Tex showed his phone screen to Junji. Junji tilted his head in consideration.

"I will go help Tala and Barton." Junji said. "I will return shortly.”

Junji turned and happily walked back the way they’d come. Tex opened his mouth in silent protest, but quickly closed it when Junji was no longer in sight.

"So, uh...whatcha working on?" Tex managed.

"An experiment." Ying replied.

Both Ying's face and tone were cold, and Tex felt himself frown. He'd hoped that she might have warmed up to him after everything they'd been through.

"Got any specifics?" Tex pushed.

Ying pointed off to the right. Tex followed her finger to see that off in the distance was a second group of monkeys in a new canopy of trees.

When Tex squinted, he saw there was a thin mesh divide separating the two groups.

''There are two groups of monkeys, the treatment group and the control group." Ying explained, pointing to the first group and then the second group. "Monkeys in the treatment group that show signs of psychosis are removed. Monkeys in the control group that show signs of psychosis are left alone. Both groups are subjected to the same ecological conditions, and I am recording and comparing their success as a pack over several generations."

Tex blinked.

"I will publish the results in my new book." Ying followed.

"You're eugenicsizing schizo monkeys?"

"Only in the treatment group."

Ying's expression was still empty.

"...You sure that's justified?" asked Tex.

"I would consider it to be."

"Is your book gonna say we should do this to ourselves?"

"That will depend on the outcome of my experiment."

Tex ran his tongue over his lower lip in thought.

"You don't kill the wack job monkeys, right?" he pushed.

"No. Here, I will show you."

Ying took off for the hall. Tex quickly followed after her.

The walk took a minute or two, as they had to go back outside. Ying took them behind the building to a fenced in area that stretched between two trees.

Inside the tree closest to Ying were three more squirrel monkeys.

"These three monkeys have been determined to be insane." Ying explained. "I keep them together so they do not become lonely."

One of the monkeys was valiantly dueling a purple flower. The other two appeared to be engaged in a conversation about different topics.

'Three friends!' Tex thought with his brain.

"Can I--uh, can I pet them?" Tex said with his mouth.

All of the monkeys were small, meaning Tex felt confident he could take them in a fist fight if he needed to. Ying opened a little chain link door and ushered the two of them inside.

"One and Two are harmless.” Ying explained as she closed the door behind them. “Three has not yet hurt anything besides flowers and eggplants, but I would be careful."

"You named them numbers?"

"I could not think of anything else."

All three of the monkeys flocked over to Ying upon her arrival.

“I don’t have food for you.” Ying told them firmly.

"Can I give them real names?"

"If they are not too egregious.”

Tex reached his hand out towards one of the squirrel monkeys. After a moment of hesitation, the monkeys butt its head into Tex’s palm.

"They boys or girls?" Tex wondered as he pet the monkey’s tiny ears.

"Those two are male, that one is female."

The monkey Tex had been petting jumped onto his shoulder.

"Hmm.” said Tex. “Think this one looks like a Waco."

The female monkey leaped onto the section of the cage to the left of Tex’s head. The other male watched from afar.

"I'll call her Ruby, and him Bundy." Tex decided.

"After Ted Bundy? The serial killer?"

"Nah, Bundy was one of the peacekeepers in my hometown. Always hated Ted for ruining his name before he even got born."

Ying continued to look at Tex, even when Ruby reached over and began to tug at her hair.

"Where were you born?" Ying asked.

"Oh. I was born in Hico, Texas."

"Texas is gone now."

Tex frowned.

"Yeah.” he replied. “That it w--"

"Dallas, are you there?" Junji’s voice called.

“He is over here!” Ying yelled back.

Tex’s eyebrows shot up into his bangs. He’d never heard Ying be so loud before.

“I will stay.” Ying followed as she took Waco off Tex’s shoulder.

“Oh.”

Ying opened the cage door for Tex. Tex closed it behind him when he left, not wanting any monkeys to get loose.

“Uh, catch you later.” Tex said as he left.

“Yes.”

Tex wasn’t sure why he felt so confused as he made his way to the front of the building. Once he’d arrived, Tex opened the door of the lab and stepped back inside.

Barton, Tala, and Junji were all crowded around the table.

"We went through the fridge." Barton greeted.

"Uh, were we supposed to be naked?” asked Tala.

"Do as you like.” Junji replied. “I should probably get dressed, considering we may be heading out."

“Wait, I have undercover clothes.”

As she spoke, Tala turned her bag upside down and dumped the contents on the floor.

“What are we going undercover for?” Tex wondered.

“I told you there was a dot going on and off every Tuesday, right?” Tala replied.

“Yeah.”

“Well, I found out that every Tuesday there’s some savant academia club. Same time and place as the dot.”

Tex scratched the back of his head. Club meetings weren’t usually what first came to mind when he thought about tetragramming.

"What do you know of the location?" Junji asked.

"It's in the Bay Area, pretty close to Stanford." answered Tala. "There's some academia savant club that meets every Tuesday, so I'm assuming they're related to the dot."

"How prestigious?"

"Pretty prestigious. There's about a hundred guests, and you need a card to get in."

"...Are we going to sneak in?"

"Yeah, although we're going to have to make some clothing changes."

Tex and Junji both approached the pile. Tex grabbed for a shirt.

"No, those are for Junji." Tala said to Tex. "Yours is the black one."

Tex tossed the shirt to Junji before grabbing the other one. After turning it around, he found it was a simple black T-shirt with the caption MEME LORD floating above a troll face.

"I got a question about the shirt." Tex stated.

"No you don't." Tala replied. "Here."

Tex was handed a pair of jeans. His face twisted with disgust after seeing how tight they were.

"I ain't wearing those." said Tex.

"Tex, you need to look younger." Tala pushed.

"Man, I thought I saw some femboy in skinny jeans by Target the other day." Barton announced. "I almost ran him over."

"Why didn't you?"

"When I got closer, I realized he was just a goth."

After a bit of a fuss, Tex ended up staying in his own pants and turning the T-shirt he'd been given inside out. However, Tala still made him wear a terrible beanie to cover the grey in his hair as well as some skin colored paint on his face to mask the tiny lines next to his eyes.

"How do I look?" Tex asked Junji, who was wearing a pair of tight khakis and a gothic My Little Pony shirt.

"You look younger and less handsome." answered Junji.

"Why do I look less handsome?"

"Because you look younger."

Tex raised his eyebrow and kept it raised until Junji noticed.

"The most attractive thing any person under sixty-five could ever do is age." Junji explained.

Tex opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off when Barton started to speak.

"You're not gonna slap any make-up on me, are you?" Barton asked.

Tala frowned.

"No, Barton, you're too old." she answered.

"Oh no, I can't come to the frat party." Barton replied, clunking her feet up on the table and opening a newspaper.

"We still need you to go in case we have to kill someone. You can be the security guard, that way you can let us into the party."

"I didn't sign up."

"I already made you a fake resume and applied you a few days ago. You have the job."

Barton's mouth went completely flat.

The ride to California was short and uneventful. Tex sat with Junji on the train so he could ask a couple of burning questions.

"You really letting Ying do this?" he asked when Barton had fallen asleep. "With the--monkey eugenics and all that?"

Junji sighed.

"Ying and I are partners.” he replied. “I'm not her superior."

"Ain't it your money?"

"She is funding herself."

Tex frowned.

"Do you gotta let her use your land?" he pushed.

"She would likely just go somewhere else. And truthfully, I have bigger problems to deal with."

"Seems like it could spiral."

Junji half-shrugged and shook his head no.

"Ying isn't going to start a political revolution.” said Junji. “Ying is going to write a book."

Tex was unsure how to respond.

"If you want Ying to shut the experiment down, it's her you will have to convince." Junji finished.

The conversation ended. Tex didn’t feel better, but he didn’t feel worse.

All they had to do after the train ride was rent a couple of Zipcars. Tex ended up driving Tala and Junji, while Barton drove herself so she could get to her post on time.

They got to the neighborhood a few minutes early. Tex began to feel like too much of a father after buying Tala an ice cream cone.

"Did you guys hear they got rid of the Oxford comma?" Tala asked as they made their way down the sidewalk towards the address of their target.

"What do you mean, got rid of?" Tex replied.

"Writers aren't being told to use it anymore."

Tex frowned. He knew he was biased from having learned the Oxford comma as a necessity when he was a child, but he couldn't help but feel doing away with it could ruin the rhythm of sentences and make things more confusing.

The building they were looking for was in an inconspicuous location between an auto-parts shop and a salon. As they grew closer, Tex got the feeling the space was either a dance hall or roller rink that had been rented out.

Barton was waiting for them at the door.

"Papers, please." she greeted.

"Barton, it's us." Tex replied.

"I know. Where's my bribe?"

Tex signed and handed Barton five ten-dollar bills. He then hurried forward and encouraged everyone to do the same, knowing he only had about half a minute before she noticed that the four bills on the bottom were just paper strips that he'd ran through a colored printer.

"Do we have a plan for cover?" asked Junji.

"If anyone asks who invited you, just give an Asian name that's hard to pronounce and they'll be too scared to ask around about it." Tala answered.

Tex nodded absentmindedly and examined his surroundings.

The hall was maybe two thousand square feet and lacking in tables except for the edges. About a hundred people roamed the shiny silver floor, but Tex was more interested in the buffet table. His eyes drifted past plates of cocktail shrimp, barbecued ribs and macaroni and cheese.

Above the table was a banner that read Techno Charity Banquette: help bring Technocracy to developing countries.

The only other thing of interest in the room was a small monitor in the corner that was presumably attached to a computer that was out of sight. It gave the innocent appearance of just being a piece of equipment that was only used when the hall wasn't being rented out, but it was what Tex was most interested in.

No one seemed particularly suspicious of them.

"So." Tala said. "Let's mingle."

"Um." Tex replied.

Tala took off once she had finished talking. Junji broke away as well, leaving Tex alone with his thoughts and the realization that he was at a total sausage party.

Tex knew his best bet would be to talk to someone to see if he could get any information. He'd always liked talking to people, although living in the city for so long had gotten him out of the practice of approaching other humans.

"Hi." a voice greeted.

Tex looked in the direction of the voice to see a man.

The man looked like he was in his mid to late twenties. He was on the thinner side, and he had a name tag on his shirt that told Tex his name was Blair.

"Hello." Tex said in response.

"You're standing in front of the water fountain." Blair replied.

"...Oh."

Tex took a few steps to the side. Blair nodded thankfully and began to fill up his water bottle.

The bottle was ceramic. Wrapped around it was a graphic of a forest, along with the words As a child, I never imagined the real monsters of the world would be humans.

"Nice, uh, nice water bottle." Tex lied.

"Ah, thanks. You got a sharp eye, nobody ever notices it."

"It sure is a--sentiment."

Blair let out a sharp, quick laugh.

"Yeah." he chuckled darkly. "Humans; just a bunch of privileged, materialistic apes."

Tex felt his eyebrows scrunch together.

"Ain't this a charity banquette?" asked Tex.

"It is, but here's the thing: we give to charity, and we get a healthy dose of self-righteousness." Blair said as he sucked in a draw from a vape the color and shape of a flashdrive.

"...Seems a little pessimistic."

"Thank you."

As he spoke, vapor began to pour out the sides of Blair's mouth. Tex's eyes widened in alarm when the vapor curled into words.

"W--what?" Tex stammered, staring straight at the wispy letters.

"Oh, that's just the url for my podcast."

Tex was unable to respond.

"Yeah, me and a couple of guys get together and spend a whole hour analyzing every twenty minute episode of South Park." Blair followed.

"Even the ones that--ain't that good?"

"The what?"

Blair's eyes were full of curiosity, but all Tex could do was shrug and wave it away.

"Anyway." Blair continued. "I think you'd like it; you seem pretty well read compared to the other rural guys I've met."

"Aww, bless your heart." Tex replied as he left, giving Blair a tiny salute.

It was only after Tex had gotten halfway to the buffet table that he realized he hadn't managed to get any information out of Blair. He might have been upset with himself, had he not been so relieved to leave the conversation.

The buffet table was a good thirty feet long. Tex settled near the end of it after noticing Junji was next to the salmon. As he casually panned his eyes over and around the encounter, he saw that Junji was engrossed in a conversation with a taller man with a shirt that read:

The earth is round.

Vaccines don't cause autism.

Science is real.

You don't solve shit by praying.

Tex served himself a plate of Caesar salad, biscuits and gravy and fish and chips while he pretended not to eavesdrop.

"...been teacher's assisting a Biopsychology course since I know a lot about the subject." the taller man finished to Junji.

"I enjoyed Biopsychology." Junji replied.

"Uhuh. Did you know that when you have an emotion, you're only having that emotion because of the chemicals in your brain?"

"Yes, that is what emotions are."

The man nodded.

"That means that when humans help each other, it's just cause of the chemicals they get that make them feel good for doing it." he continued.

"Mhm. I find it quite optimistic."

The man's face twisted with confusion.

"What?" he asked.

"I said I found it quite optimistic. I would find it pessimistic if humans inherently valued sabotaging each other. Because they do not value this, I feel the opposite."

"...We're all just machines, man. That's supposed to bother you."

"I love machines. I consider it an honor to be one."

After shooting Junji a look of disbelief, the taller man turned and left with a scoff.

Tex did his best not to chuckle as he scooted up next to Junji, just for a moment. Junji looked over.

"That was cute." Tex muttered.

"I don't understand what happened." Junji replied.

The two of them parted ways. Tex realized his only options were to try to get into another conversation, or drift towards the computer he'd seen earlier.

The computer was on the other side of the hall. Tex only got about halfway before deciding to take a pit stop and pretend to look at his phone, mostly because he didn't want to seem too suspicious but also so he could eavesdrop on a conversation Tala had gotten herself into nearby.

Tala was talking to a man her age with a full beard and brown hair that had been drawn into a small bun that sat on top of his head like a pea balanced on a model of Jupiter. When Tex scanned the scene over the top of his phone screen, he saw that the man had a tag with the name Peyton over his shirt that read Some people use words to understand concepts. I use concepts to understand words.

"Man, you're really funny." Peyton said to Tala.

"Thanks I steal all my jokes from greeting cards." Tala replied.

"Ha; that reminds me of something from The Will to Power. Do you know it?"

"Is that a book?"

"Yeah, by Nietzsche. You probably haven't heard of Nietzsche, but--"

"Friedrich Nietzsche?"

"Yeah."

"You're right, I haven't heard of him."

Peyton nodded, unsurprised.

"He was an author and philosopher who wrote about existentialism, postmodernism and post-structuralism." he explained.

Tex mouthed Peyton's response to himself, unsure if postmodernism and post-structuralism were separate things or part of a single title.

"Postmodernism, huh." said Tala. "Is that like postpartum depression?"

"But he was best known for atheism. He's the 'god is dead guy' that all the Catholics hate."

"Catholics are the guys who invented religion, right?"

Peyton snorted. Tala's expression stayed blank.

"No, religion's been kicking for a long time, across every culture." Peyton answered. "Some people just can't cope with how cold reality is, so they had to invent Santa Claus for adults."

Tala nodded.

"Oh, yeah, I've heard that before." she replied.

"...What?"

"I said I'd heard it before. I think it's a pretty common opinion."

Peyton blinked.

"Has anybody ever told you that you're a rude fucking bitch?" he asked.

"A what?"

"A rude fucking bitch."

"Who?"

Disbelief passed over Peyton's face. He opened his mouth, but quickly closed it and simply walked away before any words came out.

"Oh, hi." Tala greeted when Tex began to walk over to her.

"Hey." Tex replied. "You checked out that computer over there?"

"I was about t--"

"Excuse me, excuse me?" a new voice called. "Can I get everyone's attention please?"

Tex's attention turned towards the voice as the conversations in the room each died out. Without needing to coordinate, Tex, Junji and Tala all drifted to a spot together near the back of the room.

The man who'd called for attention made his way towards the center of the room, and the other occupants stepped back to give him space. Tex watched in confusion as he dropped a small disk on the floor that had two cords coming from it, one attached to a remote in his hand and the other heading towards the computer in the corner.

"Who's ready for the main event?" the man asked.

The question was met with a chorus of cheers. The man pressed a button on the remote.

What happened next was puzzling, even after everything Tex had seen in his life. Without warning, an old-fashioned circus cart popped into life.

It was carrying two people. It was also transparent, and so were the people inside. It floated about a foot above the disk on the floor.

"The hell?" Tex muttered.

Both of the people in the cart were well-built, mid-twenties Caucasian males. The larger one had short blond hair the same color as his skin, and the handsomer one wore a pair of shorts that had the word 'based' written over his asshole.

The crowd immediately started to boo.

"Ah!" the larger male said with distress. "Don't do this to us again bros, please."

The plea was only met with laughter.

"And now we watch the apes in their natural habitat." one of the academia guys called.

"Hey monkey, you want a banana?" another asked.

The handsomer male bared his teeth and flexed his giant bicep.

"Come over here and I'll break your twig neck." he threatened.

"Ha, Chadington and Bradington don't understand the physical state of their own existences." a man with a As a male feminist, I… shirt mocked.

Tex frowned. He couldn't say he liked Chadington and Bradington, but the fact that they hadn't tried to make him feel bad about his intelligence yet made them more sympathetic.

"All you soy boys are just mad that we could take all of you combined." said Chadington.

"Yeah." Bradington added. "Your spines are so curvy from your beta posture that I could chuck you over the fence and you'd come back."

The man with the remote chuckled and pushed his black-rimmed glasses up.

"So aggressive." he mused. "But let's see if you're still aggressive after we bring out the big guns."

Immediately, the torment in Chadington and Bradington's expressions deepened.

"Not the poetry!" Chadington begged. "Anything but that!"

"What did we ever do to you?" asked Bradington.

"Last week we caught you manspreading on the public bus." the man with the remote replied. "Just yesterday we observed you unironically yelling the phrase 'Pickle Rick' at a volume of over seventy decibels."

While Chadington and Bradington continued to beg for mercy, a man with a red beard and a scarf stepped forward. Tex wondered what public bus Chadington and Bradington had been observed on.

Everyone else took a step back. The man with the beard reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of folded paper that had managed to pick up some of the blue dye from his jeans on account of them being so tight.

"Thank you." he said when people started to clap. "Today I will be reading a poem called Nerd Porn Auteur; written by Sir Ernest Cline."

The bearded man took a deep breath.

"I've noticed that there don't seem to be any porno movies that are made for guys like me." he read. "All the porn I've come across was targeted at beer-swilling sports bar dwelling alpha-males. Men who like their women stupid and submissive. Men who can only get it up for monosyllabic cock-hungry nymphos with gargantuan breasts and a three-word vocabulary."

The agony hit Chadington and Bradington’s faces immediately. Tex found the scene increasingly difficult to watch.

"Adult films are populated with these collagen-injected, liposuctioned women." the bearded man continued. "Many of whom have resorted to surgery and self-mutilation in an attempt to look the way they have been told to look."

"These aren't real women. They're objects. And these movies aren't erotic. They're pathetic. These vacuum-headed fuck bunnies don't turn me on. They disgust me."

"And it's not that I'm against pornography. I mean, I'm a guy. And guys need porn. Fact."

"Fact." said Tala.

"'Like a preacher needs pain, like a needle needs a vein.' Guys need porn. But I don't wanna watch this misogynist he-man woman-hater porn. I want porno movies that are made with guys like me in mind: Guys who know that the sexiest thing in the world is a woman who is smarter than you are."

"You can have the whole cheerleading squad, I want the girl in the tweed skirt and the horn-rimmed glasses: Betty Finnebowski, the valedictorian."

"Oh yes. First I want to copy her Trig homework, and then I want to make mad, passionate love to her for hours and hours until she reluctantly asks if we can stop because she doesn't want to miss Battlestar Galactica."

There was a rattling sound as Chadington jumped onto the side of the cage and began to shake the bars with his thick arms. Behind him, Bradington seemed to be attempting to go Super Saiyan.

"But do you ever see that kind of a woman in a contemporary adult film? No. Which is why I'm going to start writing and directing Geek Porno. I shall be the quintessential Nerd Porn Auteur. And the women in my porno movies will be the kind that drive nerds like me mad with desire."

"I'm talking about the girls that used to fuck up the grading curve. The girls in the Latin Club and the National Honor Society. Chicks with weird clothes, braces, four eyes, and 4.0 GPAs. Brainy articulate bookworms, with MENSA cards in their purses and chips on their shoulders."

"My porn starlets will come in all shapes and sizes. My porn starlets will be too busy working on their PhD to go to the gym. In my kind of porno movies the girls wouldn't even have to get naked."

"They'd just take the guys down to the rec room and beat them repeatedly at chess and then talk to them for hours about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle or the underlying social metaphors in the Aliens movies."

"Imagine not knowing how to search for softcore." Tala whispered to Junji, causing him to snicker.

"Buy stock in some hand cream companies because there is about to be a major shortage."

"What should we do?" Tex whispered. "We can't kill everyone here."

"Yeah, and even if we shut down the simulation they might just start again." Tala replied.

"...And I will make you a star." the bearded man finished.

The applause was immediate. The bearded man gave a tiny bow and retreated from his position. Tex felt like he'd just witnessed a man violently stroke himself off while somehow missing his penis.

"How could you speak of porn during no fap November?" Chadington bellowed.

Chadington's words were met with laughter once again, but his expression stayed strong.

"Are you primates really still doing that?" a voice asked, and Tex recognized it as Blair.

"You call us primates but you're the ones who can't go five minutes without jerking it! We keep our perversions in check to embrace traditionalism and reject--modenininity!" Bradington managed.

"Modernity is the word you're looking for." said the bearded man.

";" a man with a scarf added.

"You only laugh at us because you've been brainwashed by The Feminist MediaTM." Chadington stated. "You'll never know the true meaning of family and god!"

A collective 'ooh' filled the room. Bradington responded by tearing off his shirt and bouncing his pecs, and then looked over to make sure Chadington had noticed.

"I guess we can add the denial of science to your charges..." Blair trailed off.

"What?" Bradington asked.

"Science proved that god wasn't real in 2035 when Bill Nye killed Pope Francis in gladiator combat." said a man wearing a shirt that read if god is real why do i get tingly when i rub my peepee?

"How can you say that when you have created sentient life?" a familiar voice announced.

It took Tex a moment to realize that the words were Junji's. When he looked towards the voice, he saw that Junji had taken a few steps away from him and Tala, most likely in an attempt to distance themselves if things went south.

"Excuse me?" the man with the remote replied.

"You cannot denounce the entire concept of a god when you are all gods to Chadington and Bradington." Junji pushed. "You created them, did you not?"

Junji's words were met with a few chatters, but they quickly died down.

"They're not sentient." said the man with the remote.

"I don't believe you." Junji replied. "Explain yourselves."

"Boo." Peyton jeered. "Everyone, boo the theist."

"Boo." Blair called to Junji before looking over to make sure Peyton had seen him.

Chadington and Bradington's expressions both shifted towards angry confusion.

"What do you mean, we're not sentient?" asked Bradington.

"I mean, you're not sentient." Peyton said before turning back to Junji. "They're not alive, they're just programs."

"No, I'm totally sentient. I get all three emotions, and the combinations of them too."

No one replied to Bradington. Several people looked away.

"What did you do?" Junji pushed.

"Okay, okay." said a man from the crowd wearing a Hello World T-shirt. "All we did was upload the brains of a couple guys at the gym and some Stacys. Then we put them on a little planet and let them reproduce and then we sped up time a couple hundred years and found some Chads that we isolate every Tuesday for poetry night."

Junji touched his chin.

"So you two live in a whole world?" he asked Chadington and Bradington.

"Yeah, and they wouldn't believe us if we said we regularly get abducted by a bunch of cuckboys." Chadington answered.

"Also we're too embarrassed to tell them." Bradington added.

Again, no one replied to Bradington. Junji sighed.

"Even if they truly aren't sentient, torturing them seems like far too great of a risk." Junji argued.

"Look, we don't mess with anybody else on the planet." the guy in the programming shirt replied.

"Yeah, they don't even know we exist!" Peyton added.

Some of the expressions of the crowd turned guilty. Tex's attention was turned back to the cart when Bradington broke down into tears.

"I--jus' wbant to bee hap(y and raiise a fammily--w'th a horseggirl." Bradington sobbed, summing up life for Tex.

"...Awww." a few people from the crowd muttered.

The bearded man stepped forward. Chadington took off his shoe and raised it high.

"Hey, stay back!" Chadington threatened. "My boy's trying to work some stuff out right now."

"...Awwwwwww." the crowd muttered again.

"I feel bad." the bearded man stated.

"We're sorry we enslaved you guys." said the man in the programming shirt. "We didn't realize you were really alive, but we should've been more careful."

"Yeah." another voice added. "We'll set you free."

To Tex's surprise, Chadington and Bradington both nodded with understanding.

"Thank you." Chadington replied. "You know, maybe we're not so different."

"Yeah, we both care more about what other men think of us than women..." Bradington trailed off.

Someone broke down crying. Tex looked over to see it was Blair.

"Chadington, I wish I could be as true to myself as you." said Blair.

"What's stopping you?"

It took Blair a moment to collect himself, but he managed.

"People have always treated me like I was less than them, and the only thing I value about myself is my intelligence so I use intelligence to try to feel better than other people but then that just makes people think less of me again." he choked.

"It's a never ending cycle." Peyton added.

"But I admire things about you, too." Bradington replied. "I wish I could remember the order of the alphabet without singing the song."

"My penis is so big that no one will have sex with me." Chadington sobbed.

While Chadington and Bradington joined in a passionate embrace, the rest of the room's attention turned to the computer in the corner.

"We've created a whole world." the guy with the programming shirt said to the man with the remote. "If Chadington and Bradington are alive, that means everyone else is too."

The man with the remote rubbed the top of his hairline.

"We should just--let it float." he stated. "We shouldn't have created it, but since we already did, we won't intervene anymore."

In the end, Chadington and Bradington were told they could return to their planet to live the rest of their lives free from upper-world shenanigans. Tex watched with interest as the Chads were moved from the hologram to the computer monitor in the corner that everyone had to crowd around to see.

"We won't tell our kids about you guys." Chadington promised as they waved goodbye on the screen.

"Yeah, the secret of the soyboy gods dies with us." Bradington added.

Chadington and Bradington had been dropped off in a forest near the edge of a town where a pair of pure white stallions were waiting for them. After mounting the horses, the two of them took off, a single tear rolling down Chadington's cheek.

"Go, be free." Tala whispered as the boys rode off into the distance.

Most of the party died down after the monitor was turned off, leaving Chadington and Bradington free from surveillance. Tex hoped that the experience would have a positive effect on the mental health of the room.

Tala and Junji both caught up to Tex next to the buffet table. Tex stepped slightly to the side to give Junji room, and the three of them took off towards the door.

"That could've gone worse." Tex muttered.

"I wish I could live in Chad land." Tala replied.

"The Republic of Chad."

Tala chuckled happily. Tex almost didn't notice when a young man passing by looked over at them.

"Woah, hey, are you Tala Locklear?" the man greeted.

Tala looked the man up and down before replying.

"That depends on who's asking." she answered.

"I'm asking." the man explained.

"Who are you?"

"I'm a Harvard graduate. I remember seeing you a couple times in the paper while I was there."

"Oh, yeah, that happened."

"Tell you what. The administration still talks about you. They'd probably be down to interview you about some of your accomplishments, if you're into that."

Tala shrugged.

"Sure." she replied.

The two of them exchanged contact information. Tex stared at the floor so he would have something to do.

"Oh, and hey," the man said, turning to Junji, "thanks for helping push us to sort out--that whole situation."

"It was my pleasure." Junji nodded. "I also hope I helped you humor the possibility that God could exist, considering the other occupants of your universe will never have any reason to believe in your existence despite the fact that you do."

The man pursed his lips.

"Yeah, but that's different." he stated.

"How is that different?" Junji wondered.

"We used science to make the world, not religion."

Junji frowned. When he didn't respond, the man gave them all a wave goodbye and was on his way.

"That man had questionable opinions." Junji said once he'd left.

"A lot of people at Harvard have that attitude." Tala replied.

"...Do they."

Junji's expression was suspiciously devious. Tex might have said something, had Tala not opened her mouth.

"Come on, let's just go get Barton." said Tala.

Tala led them the rest of the way out the door. Tex felt a wave of relief to be leaving. As glad as he was that they'd come, he could only watch grown men cry for so long before he started to get anxious.

The first thing Tex noticed when they'd left the building was that Barton was no longer by the doorway.

"Uh oh." Tex muttered.

"Look." Tala ordered with a point of her finger.

Tex followed Tala's finger to see two figures about thirty feet away. He immediately recognized the smaller one as Barton, and when they got closer, he saw that the other was one of the academia guys from the party.

The academia guy was wearing a Bernie beanie and a Che Guavara shirt.

"I think religious people are idiots." he said to Barton.

"Me too." Barton angrily replied.

The two of them started to circle each other.

"I think society should be controlled by the smartest and most innovative people." said Barton.

"Me too."

The academia guy shoved Barton. Barton shoved him right back, twice as hard. Tex began to jog over in case he needed to defuse the situation, but he was beat by Junji.

"I like to punch Nazis." the academia guy spat at Barton.

"Me too."

"Go to hell!"

"You go to hell!"

Junji sighed and lunged forward to grab Barton before she could possibly kill him. Tex hurried over and backed Junji up, and the two of them dragged Barton away from the encounter.

"Fuck you, I died in 'nam." Barton yelled.

Barton and the academia guy still had a few words for each other, but Tex tuned them out until they'd gotten back to the car.

"Barton, are you alright?" Tala asked.

"Yeah, I guess." Barton replied. "I made like two hundred dollars."

"We going home?" Tex wondered.

"What state is Harvard University in?" asked Junji.

Tex bit the inside of his cheek.

"Massachusetts." he answered.

"Hmm." Junji replied.

The rest of the trip home went a lot smoother, but only because no one asked any more questions.