There was not even a flicker of light or scattered magic to show that the hologram had been there at all.

“How? How’d you do that?” asked Joe.

“I just touched the barrier. Maybe it doesn’t trigger if you just use your power on it?” I speculated, though I discarded the idea just as quickly, “but that doesn’t track. Someone in the office would have touched it.”

“Yeah, I remember it in one of the other reports. We’ll have to try to reason it out at the office today.” Joe said.

“You mean you will, I’m not going back there unless they drag me. In any case, that is definitely not what I wanted to try, though now we’ve got confirmation that it doesn’t matter how we get past. Let’s try this again.”

I stepped forward again. If the tiles support those nearby, the corner tiles should be weakest and most susceptible to tampering. I touched the bottom left tile and, flexing my power, pulled. There was little resistance, the tile was removed from the overall pattern and appeared in my inventory.

And that was when it all started to go wrong. The tile I had taken grew back in its original place in about a second, and when I looked inward I found that the stolen tile had already replicated several more, expanding upward and rightward, a tiny segment of black bars already forming. Now that it was in my inventory, I had a much clearer look at what was going on, though in my panic only one thing was obvious: it seemed to be drawing in background magical energy of some sort in order to grow, I noticed the experience shards I had taken earlier were accelerating in the direction of the pilfered barrier segment. I certainly didn’t want an infinitely replicating, energy draining magical construct in my inventory, so without any further inspection I ejected it, along with its newly made tiles, right back in the general direction of the original barrier.

The tiles ended up badly misaligned, their presence disrupting and displacing other portions of the barrier. I stepped back as turbulent waves began to course back and forth in cycles through the previously placid surface. The neat, tessellated pattern warped and bent, as the two misaligned grids fought for control. A second set of bars materialized at a slight angle compared to the first, spreading rapidly. As the two sets of bars intersected, there was a terrible crashing sound, like a thousand shattering windows. The three of us stumbled back as we were showered by black shrapnel. We ran for the stairs when a second wave of crashing sounded behind us, and I half-turned to spot a sizable section of the bars sailing through the air in my direction. Reflexively, I brought my hands up to protect my face, and my power snapped out and captured the flying debris.

We made it to the stairs, and from halfway to the higher landing, we were able to observe the consequences of my clever plan without risking any harm more significant than light scratches. The invading barrier that I had placed had spread out and overtaken a patch of the original, leaving a section of bars floating freely and disconnected in places from the previous ones. There was no way anyone was fitting through any of the gaps, even if one didn’t account for the jagged glass or metal or whatever the bars were made of. It might be enough to slip some reasonably sized flammable object though, and with gaps in the magical barrier itself, I was confident that we could at least get Joe through using his fire teleport skill. The misaligned section of the barrier was starting to lose coherence, the gaps disappearing, but I could probably reproduce this result and create the window of opportunity again, once we were ready. I turned to the others to explain my plan when I felt a sharp pain in my abdomen.

I looked down to find that I was bleeding pretty badly from a small hole in my midsection. I checked myself over and found I had another small cut near my collarbone that didn’t seem deep at all and one on my arm that definitely was, a bit of black metal visibly sticking out. At least that one wasn’t bleeding too much. My pants seemed to have protected my legs, seeming no worse off for it. I brushed away the small flecks of material I found there and saw that the smallest bits were gradually turning to dust, which itself seemed to be disappearing shortly afterwards. The process reminded me of something, but I couldn’t quite recall as the pain in my gut was getting worse. I needed to get the fragments out sooner rather than just letting them melt away. I tried to pull the foreign material into my inventory, but it was a struggle. Every use of my power thus far had focused on my hands, and so I found myself momentarily stumped. Whether it was a natural limit to my ability, or just a bad habit I had formed, I was having trouble affecting the material that was in my wounds. It couldn’t be a matter of contact, I was definitely touching what I was trying to affect. I briefly considered trying to reach into my wound to touch the fragment, but squeamishness more than good sense dissuaded me from that course. Instead I looked at my arm, the foreign material plainly visible. I reached out using my power, deliberately keeping my hands still while I did so. I focused on how I wanted that thing that I was looking at, instead of thinking about the thing that I was reaching for. It felt like trying to flex only my pinky or my ring finger without flexing the other. It was possible, but felt much less natural than moving them together. The shard did vanish into storage though, leaving me with a pristine black fragment in my inventory, and a wound which was now bleeding much more profusely.

I fell to my knees. Fuck, this hurt. I resolved to remember to include in my report how excess realism in a game like this was a terrible idea. Joe was saying something, but I wasn’t paying attention. All my focus was directed inward, both to avoid feeling so much of the pain and to hopefully do something about the injury itself. I found the shard of material I pulled from my arm, and the section of bars that I had caught earlier, and moved them near one another in my internal space. The larger section was visibly corroding, the smaller shard was not. Was it contact with my blood that kept the shard from my injury intact, as part of some sort of grim magic or crafting system we hadn’t seen yet? It could be more simple than that. Maybe the game culled temporary objects like bodies or magically created matter more quickly if no one was looking. I could definitely sense something intangible, which the smaller piece had a lot more of. I looked at the disintegrating piece. I focused my attention on it. I scrutinized it, trying to push out any thoughts but those related to this object. Eventually, gradually, the corrosion slowed. I could feel that intangible quality within the material rise, though it seemed that something was wrong with it. I couldn’t stop the corrosion entirely. Maybe material flagged to despawn couldn’t be stopped? Maybe it was the blood after all. Whatever the case, I knew that by virtue of interacting with me, and occupying a significant amount of my thoughts through the pain it caused, the shard in my abdomen was almost certainly going to stick around for a while. If I wanted it out I would have to do it myself.

I maintained my focus internally, as it really seemed to cut down on the pain (and resulting distraction), and tried to figure out how I was going to do this. I couldn’t target the fragment visually, another crutch I had been relying on. I wondered for a moment if my power gave feedback when storing things. Other than the resistance I felt when trying to do something difficult, I couldn’t remember that ever happening.

Then I had a moment of inspiration. It was an interesting little fact that they tossed around during the orientation classes when you get your first set of augs installed: human brains see tools as an extension of the body, unlike any other higher primates tested. We didn’t have a ‘tool’ part of our brain, because we just used our normal body control parts. Or something. It didn’t matter, what was important was that if this was a conceptual limitation instead of an actual limit on my power, I had a crutch I could use to get around it.

I returned to my external self, a small pool of blood having formed under me. The pain was still present, though distant. Everything seemed a little distant actually, as if I wasn’t entirely in my body at the moment. That… probably wasn’t good. I summoned the dull silver knife thing I had found on the first floor, and I slowly, carefully maneuvered it into the wound on my abdomen. Pain flared, but I felt no physical resistance, so I continued. Then, I felt the tip contact something hard. I reached out with my power, stored whatever it was, and then stored the knife. A slender shard of black material, even smaller than the one from my arm, was now safely out of my wound and in my inventory. I gave it a mental scowl and tried to turn my attention outward again, but I was suddenly having trouble making much sense of where I was at the moment.

Some time later.

My thoughts were still swimming, and my neck hurt. There was some sort of fabric under my head, and I sent my unkind thoughts about the poor state of my neck directly into it. Strangely, my head was suddenly resting on something much more comfortable. My compliments to the chef. Or whatever makes soft things to sleep on.

Later still.

I opened my eyes. Awareness gradually returned to me. I was lying on room temperature concrete, my head on something soft like a pillow. All of the black material had evaporated from my inventory, I couldn’t find a single piece. I looked down at myself, and found quite a lot of dried blood. I flexed my power, and stored as much of it as I could, then recalled it to my hand in one compact piece. I was about to toss it, when all the ways blood could be used against someone in various magic systems flashed through my head, so I stored it instead. My shirt was still hopelessly stained, though it would probably replace itself tomorrow. My pants were stained from the knees down, but they were magic, so hopefully that included gradual self-cleaning. I did not, however, find any wounds. My abdomen, arm, and collarbone were totally healed. Lindsey was seated, cross legged, a few feet away from me. She had her eyes closed, probably working on something related to her power. I sat up with a groan.

“Feeling better?” she asked, opening her eyes.

“Yeah, how long was I out?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, with a sardonic drawl, bringing her wrist up in an exaggerated motion, “let me just check my...” her words abruptly ended as her eyes landed on the wristwatch that she was indeed wearing. She blinked. I burst out laughing.

“I, you see, I don’t wear one of these normally, I had forgotten…” she stuttered, her face reddening.

“I know, I know, don’t worry about it. It wasn’t the joke you intended, but you made me laugh all the same,” I said with a smile. “Anyway, good thing they’ve got a functional rest system, or I’d be a goner, I think. I just wish it were a little less realistic here. I would never have designed it this way. This whole thing would be a lot less of an ordeal if the wounds and injury were more abstractly represented.”

“I think that it is meant to be,” she said, her composure already restored.

“Meant to be what?” I asked, not following.

“An ordeal. I think this game may be a rite of passage, of some sort,” she said.

“Rite of passage? Like in primitive societies? Like, you have to go through some random difficult thing and then you count as an adult?”

“Not only in primitive societies. Does your society truly have nothing similar?” she sounded slightly reproachful. I thought about it for a moment.

“Ohhh, maybe finishing high school and qualifying to enter the corporate workforce! The legal age of adulthood is eighteen, but people tend to look down on those who haven’t got their certificate of qualification, so that is functionally similar even though legal adulthood is handled separately.”

“Yes,” she said with a nod, “we have something similar in the European Union, and those of my status have a few additional things that are expected of us which serve a similar function.”

“So you think we’re… what, being given a chance to prove our adulthood to the galaxy?” I could see sense in what she was saying. There were many aspects of this game that made it more work than fun, even ignoring my additional contractual obligations. That said, the sheer potential to play around with magic powers in such a realistic sandbox would probably make it extremely popular despite the unpleasant aspects.

“That is my current thought,” she said, leaning forward to snatch the thing I had been laying on. It was a silver, silky pillow.

“Where’d you find that?” I asked. She furrowed her brow.

“You made this, from that dress I found earlier,” she said.

It took me a few moments to recall briefly waking, and suddenly being more comfortable after being initially angry at whatever I was laying on.

“I was just mad about it not being comfortable.”

“I was certainly angry about its previous shape, I can assure you,” she shot back.

“Maybe try to suggest a different form instead? And you really need to push your thoughts out to the dress… pillow… whatever, you know what I mean.”

Lindsey held the pillow at about eye level and took a breath. Suddenly the fabric burst outward into the form of a hooded sweatshirt. A beaming smile lit her face, and in a smooth, practiced motion she put it on. It was a little large for her, hanging shapelessly down to just above her knees. She took another deep breath and I could almost feel tension evaporate from her.

“Much better. Thank you, Will,” she said.

I nodded and stood up. She stood with me.

“So where’s Joe? And why’d you stay here with me?” I asked, stretching my arms after my unplanned nap.

“Joe is ‘farming’ giant roaches on the ninth floor. I did not join him because… roaches. Also, I do not know that fighting would do more to expand my power than reflecting. It did also strike me as wrong to just leave you, even knowing that you would almost certainly recover, despite Joe’s insistence that it would be fine.”

“It would probably have been fine, but I appreciate the gesture nonetheless.” I said, “How did you know I would be alright though? I don’t remember noticing any hints that we heal faster here.”

“It was yesterday, after you left. I collected valuables from the office, after which I noticed that many of my injuries had already healed. I knew for certain today when I noticed the smaller cut near your neck healing visibly as you slept.”

“Cool. Let’s go get Joe and get through this barrier.”

“Nope. Your way is definitely the backup plan,” Joe said, standing on a mountain of blackened bug corpses, each the size of a roomba. “My eyes are set closer to the sides of my head, so I’ve got pretty good peripheral vision in this form. That shrapnel explosion was crazy. We were lucky to come away with only one of us seriously injured.”

In the time that I had been out, Joe had slaughtered the entire floor, which resembled an abandoned office, overrun with rot and pests. In the boss area, a decrepit pit in the center of the floor, he had found another magic folder and another golden box in an intact crate. The box had contained a hard, woody vine that was now wrapped around Joe’s forearm, opposite his geometry defying bracelet, which registered to his interface as a ‘living tool’. He had said that he’d check out the documents just before we logged off, so they would be fresh in his memory for his report.

“So you’d rather fight the Hollow Men?” I asked.

“Yep. A clear risk that you can actually fight against is way better than leaving it up to fate and just hoping that you don’t die instantly from a huge fragment of metal to the brain.”

“Well, when you put it that way...”

And with that, we set off to the tenth floor. Looks like we would have to fight the Hollow Men after all.