Jean tensed and he felt the hackles rise on the back of his neck. The menace radiating off the plain looking man was literally a bad taste in Jean’s mouth. “Umm, I honestly have no idea what’s going on. Literally thought I was the disembodied consciousness of Jean-Luc. But, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’d make an excellent dupe. There is no shortage to the number of unwitting things I can be. Unwitting betrayal is not off the table.”

George snorted. The tornado siren didn’t drown it out, loud as the siren was. It was as though the two sounds weren’t over overlapping. Like listening to music in one ear, and someone talk in the other ear. Except he could clearly hear both things in each ear. Likewise, when George grabbed Sam by the arm and hoisted him to his feet, Sam had no trouble hearing him. “'Unwitting' you say. Well it’s a fine act. I could almost believe it, except for the large number of holes in your story. This collar will keep you from dying and let us track you if you try to flee.”

”What do you mean it keeps me from dying? I thought that was one of the perks of being digital, being immortal through perfect reincarnation?” Jean asked. George was leading him out of the shack and into the town. People were running in all different directions on the street. Most didn’t look panicked. But Jean wasn’t sure they would with the cultural translator filtering everything. “And why would you put an immortality collar on me? Wouldn’t it make more sense to perma-kill me?”

”No such thing, can’t be done. The Wardens kill pirates on sight. Pirates only survive if they’re strong enough or have the right equipment. We don’t last long if we don’t avoid dying. If you die you return to your spawn point. For most of us, that means being returned to our virtual home worlds. Which are prisons, if you recall. Escape is harder each time, and there are other dangers besides the Wardens. As an aside, you aren't digital, you're analog, subjectively anyway, Also the reason I’m not wearing a collar? I don’t need one.”

The taste of menace fouled up Jean’s mouth again, Jean raised his right hand up and hand-Sam spit in disgust and said “Honestly, what is that?” Jean nodded along, “It’s terrifying and gross, but I have no idea what it is. It’s an eldritch horror of taste.”

”Again, is something wrong with your cultural translator? It is my menace.”

”Yeah but, we don’t taste menace or intent at all where I’m from.”

”You don’t? Weird, that seems like a pretty big cultural hole that could hide even more secrets right here in the conversational translator, the one spot you were masking from the beginning. Very odd indeed, and definitely not even more suspicious.”

The taste of menace only increased in Jeans mouth, so he tried to just not breath through his nose and not think about it. Jean didn’t know if it was like a pheromone, something that wouldn’t translate in a way that would make a lot of sense, or some method of projecting intent, but he was getting the same foreboding dread that he felt when Clipboard George explained how it was very possible Other George was maliciously digging around in, and even destroying, people’s digital brains.

The sirens kept blaring and, out under the sky, Jean could see dark green clouds rolling in from the ocean. They were moving much too quickly and at times, the clouds would glitch into a polyhedral version, that reminded Jean of the Nanobot swarm that killed Sam. Or-

Sam was alive. Was Sam alive? Jean looked at his hand-puppet, “Hey buddy, so I think you might be alive.” He looked over at his tutorial-pirate-captor.” Hey, so, if the thing that I thought killed me, also seemed to have killed my friend. Does that mean that friend is in here somewhere.”

George was leading Sam toward a low 2 story building made out of red brick and with bars on the windows. Also, It was painted like a bar code, also, Jean was one hundred percent certain it was a Bar. “Why are you taking me to a bar?”

”It’s not a bar, it’s a bunker.”

”Dude, that place is a bar, I would stake my life on it.”

”Fine, it’s a bar. It also has, and is, a bunker.”

The clouds were getting closer, and Jean could tell now for certain. The clouds were identical to the nanobot swarm. “Hey George.”

”I’d tell you to shut, except talking is really your better strategy. So, what then?”

”Is the swarm of nanobots rolling in like storm clouds a cultural perception filter thing, or is that real.”

”It doesn’t matter here. Part of the reason George is able to make such a complete translator here is because nothing here is fully processed. Like a dream, the edges are foggy. The translator uses these soft edges to blur the truth. Intent is by far the most important. Of course, it’s difficult to have intent without a framework to built it off of. That’s what the translator does, it creates a starting point for intent..”

”Oh. Also, you’ve captured me and think I lead the Wardens here, why are you telling me things and still being mostly helpful?”

”Well, for one thing, this is all pretty readily available information. For another, a drawback of intent is that it makes it a lot harder to actually do the thing you broadcast your intent to do. Don’t get me wrong, I could still crush you like an insect, but I wouldn’t enjoy it as much after using so much intent. And finally, sorry, but this is gonna hurt. DOOR!” George yelled the last part, just as he shoved his hand in Jean’s mouth, curling his hand around Jean’s upper teeth. In a spit second, he had thrown Jean by his mouth, head first at an opening door in the bar.

The door didn’t open fast enough, Jean’s face planted into it, followed closely by his body, the door or Jean’s body crunched and snapped, and Jean went rolling across the floor. The pain was surreal. He couldn’t move from the neck down, but he could feel his eye was popped out, Apart from that only his whole head hurt, and he could see blood pooling on the floor. Jean would have screamed if he could get a breath. Actually, he realized he was screaming.

”Somebody shut him up, feed him this, but keep him close, he’s a fish with hair and no tail.”

Jean whimpered in pain as a hand shoved a pill in his mouth and got him to swallow it somehow. The pain was intense, and he desperately wanted to go back to the numb disconnect he’d felt even hours ago. Try as he might, he seemed stuck, fixated in this moment. He seemed alive.

Groaning, Jean felt sensation return to his lower body. At first, this just added to the pain he was feeling. He wondered if George knew he was going to do something like this, and that’s why he put the collar on him. Or maybe it was because he was planning to do something worse, and wanted to make sure they didn’t accidentally kill him too soon. This was the first real pain Jean had had in a long time, the first time he’d felt the immediacy of it in centuries. Even taking the taste of menace and the chills he’d gotten, this was the first time he’d felt fear since the night he died, and really the only other time, was the night his sister had been hit by the drunk driver. The terror in knowing only that she was rushed to the hospital, and that his mom was crying and his dad looked dazed. The knew more than Jean, they knew she had massive head damage and likely wouldn’t survive. She didn’t. And then, neither did he. It didn’t bode well for his near future.

Jean heard explosions coming from nearby and could see flames reflected in the glass windows. Fighting to ignore the pain, Jean stood and shuffled toward a window. He needed to know what was happening.

”Don’t try anything, just sit tight till George comes back for ya.”

Jean looked around. There was a half dozen people in the room, a few others were looking through a window to the right of the entrance. The floors were a dark black tile outlined in gold, and speckled with gold throughout. There was just one large seating area, with a stage and a window to the left of the entrance. Behind the bar the was a door that went into a back room, The man who spoke was standing behind the bar, he was thin and lanky like a scarecrow and had a handlebar mustache and wore a cowboy hat. Jean gave him a baleful look, but didn’t reply. He didn’t have the strength. But he did want to know what was going on.

Jean’s eyes widened as he looked out the window. There was a literal wall of fire encircling the bar. It flared up in the shape of a dome if the swarm came to close. Jean could see specs flitting about amid the occasionally-polyhedral swarm cloud, emitting bursts of violent light and thunderous sound. “Is George fighting the Wardens?”

”Not currently. Luckily that’s not a warden, but it’s bad enough.” George said, a shorter man in overalls with an overly large smile was following in his wake. “Holt, George and I need to borrow your freezer to talk with the new guy, that ok?”

”100 Stipe, and you clean up any messes.”

”Your raised the rate.”

”You broke my door.”

”I said ‘DOOR’”

”After you threw.”

”Fine, 100 Stipe, Jean, George and I are gonna have you answer some more questions.” Behind him, George was beginning a low intermittent chuckle and staring at Jean with glee.

”Umm, George, that might have to wait, Look at the harbor. a Warden’s here.”