The threat of violence hung over the city like a chandelier hanging from a thread. Many people went back to their routines. There were sounds of violence, particularly at the beginning of the day, but it was almost as though people were just testing the electric fence for weaknesses.

Life didn't go fully back to normal either. When lunch time arrived we went out for food. Lots of restaurants turned us away because too few of their staff had come in. Fortunately, we found a great deli and grabbed plenty of take out to satisfy our group.

We also saw the first signs of people's lab experiments gone wrong. But better than that, I got to see Noa kick some ass.

On our way back to the Physics building something that looked half man, half dog came running up to us. If I were to guess, the man... manimal? Sweet name. The manimal consisted of 1 part pitbull, 1 part dumbass human. I guess I shouldn't say that considering my success merging with my computer was dumb luck.

The manimal ran up to us barking and snapping. I froze. It was a hypnotic sight. Fortunately Noa knew better. Noa kicked it in the nuts before it could attack us. Manimal went down.

Even though she was standing next to me I received a chat message from Sara, but then I realized it wasn't just to me. Somehow she had figured out how to send a message to all of us and O on a group chat.

"Hey O, any interest in a half man, half dog DNA sample?"

"Yes!" O responded.

I looked at Sara quizzically. She answered, "I took a couple of his DNA sample kits, figured we might get a little more leverage on O."

How the hell had I gotten so lucky to connect with Sara.

She took out a kit, swabbed the nose of the man dog and tucked the sample away.

We returned to the lab, ate without talking, and plowed back into the task of disassembling the machine and storing it into our inventories. I was happy to see the others were still not totally comfortable just absorbing their food.

"Why aren't we just storing this entire thing into inventory?" Sara said for the umpteenth time.

I sighed, "We tried. It didn't work. We don't know why. But by all means, ask us again in twenty minutes." I looked over at Sara, "Hey, aren't you supposed to be getting us a place to camp out?"

"It's done. There is a building near the water that my bank helped purchase, but the buyers are mired in zoning hell. They estimated a year or more before they could do any work on it. The building is abandoned, and I already received the fence lock code from my colleague who worked on the deal."

That didn't sound particularly stable. "What happens if someone comes to kick us out?"

"I'm banking that with all this change, they might never get to that building now."

"And if they do?" I asked.

"Then we move." Sara slurped on her smoothie to indicate the conversation was over.

I walked over to Wen and started working on the machine parts near him. "So Wen, why did you post a job asking someone to build a magnetic containment field?"

Wen leaned over to whisper to me. "Do you know anything about quantum computers?"

"A little. I do work on algorithms, so I know the promise they hold of processing data billions of times faster than traditional computers."

Wen smiled, "Yes, good. This machine we are taking apart, it is one of the most advanced quantum computers in the world."

"I see. And you want to use magnets to control the spins on the atoms you are using as your machine?"

Wen shook his head, "Based on what we now know, that we are all in a simulation, this machine is total crap."

"Wait? The machine we are spending all this time on is crap?"

"Yes, excrement. Everything around us is just information and energy. There are no such things as atoms. That makes this machine worthless."

I thought about how much time we had just spent taking this thing apart. "Then why are we taking this machine apart and bringing it with us?"

"I plan to rebuild it. Now that we know there are no such things as atoms, we can really focus our build on the electromagnetic spectrum."

"And you hope to gain..."

"If we can figure out how energy works in this world, maybe we can figure out how to tap directly into it. Not with this stupid conversion of potential energy from pretend things." He pushed a big pipe across the ground. It screeches. "If we get access to the source, we could make a sun."

Making a sun didn't interest me, but the idea of following the flow of energy to a source... maybe we could find a way out of this simulation upriver, so to speak.

"Hey, is anyone there?"

I looked at my messages. The question came to the group chat Sara created with O and our team.

Sara responded. "What's up O?"

"I could use some help here." O messaged.

The one thing I hated about text messages was the loss of emotion. O could have been sipping a Cognac or running from zombies.

"What seems to be the problem?"

Sara probably fumed with impatience, so I guess dropping emotion from chats had its benefits too.

"I placed some want ads for mixed species people and there are a bunch of people outside my office door trying to get in. They think I can cure them. They are getting mad at me."

Sara walked over to Wen and I. "How close are we?" She asked.

Wen looked around, "Two more days."

Sara glared at Wen. "Two days? No. I am not sleeping here. We will come back for the rest another time."

Sara messaged before Wen could object, "O, we should be there in 20 minutes. Take everything that you can into inventory and wait for us to give you the all clear."

We cleared out and made our way over to Little Jefe. Night descended on the city and the streets were more crowded than ever. People were exploring their new found abilities. Little groups dotted the park in front of their building. Some were trying to combine objects in their lab and spit them back out again. The group would clap when the new object pleased them. Others looked to be swapping skills. I couldn't see the transaction but they would often try to do something like a backflip or draw a picture after paying the other person money.

We stuck together and made our way straight back to the truck. True to Charlie's word, no one had messed with it. I realized that just as we had put the machine from the physics lab into our inventory, someone could have done the same to our truck. We would need to do it ourselves as soon as possible, that way if someone stole a part we'd have a way to recreate it.

It took us almost forty minutes to get through traffic to the NYU lab. Charlie, Wen and Noa stayed with the truck. Sara, Eyal and I entered the building. We heard yelling upstairs and quickened our pace.

We saw five of them. I couldn't tell whether I should be scared or laughing. Each looked to have merged with a different type of animal. I saw a man with tiger arms, a woman covered in cat hair, a woman with fish scales all over her body, and an old man with rabbit ears. There was also a man who looked half horse, but not in a cool Centaur like way. He looked all human, no horse hair, just shaped like a horse. I wanted to vomit.

"You all need to leave," Eyal commanded.

"Ok," I said.

"Not you," he replied.

"We aren't going anywhere until the doctor cures us. His ad promised us answers if we came and gave him DNA samples."

I bet he did. Dummy.

"I might need some backup," Eyal said, "I've never fought someone with tiger arms or someone who is half horse before."

Before I could object on the grounds of wimpiness, I received a message from Eyal:

Eyal offers you +10 Krav Maga. Accept?

"Only 10? Why not the max?" I asked annoyed.

"Job security." Eyal said.

Damn him. I accepted. I assumed that Sara did the same.

We made our way up to the door and began nudging these manimals away. It turned out we received no trouble from Tigerman or Horsehuman. What I hadn't expected was that I got fish smacked. A cold, scaly hand across my cheek.

"I am not going back out there looking like this," and the woman fish smacked me again.

I could have stopped her. I could visualize the moves I could make that would lay her flat on her back. No, she deserved to be able to express this anger. I could be strong enough to take it.

She cried and walked away. I looked at them. How many more people would end up like this? Who would guide them? I felt a purpose. I would help them. These people, and anyone else I could.

Sara sent a message to O. "It is safe to come out now. We are here."

The door opened a crack and O looked through nervously. Then he opened the door the entire way and walked towards the front door without acknowledging his change of heart. We followed him.

Everyone was tired now and we drove in silence to the address Sara messaged us. When we arrived, a different sort of silence fell upon us. We parked in a lot next to a train yard and climbed out.

"What is this?" Charlie asked.

"This," Sara responded, "is the West Side Railyard. It is a twenty six acre property that once hosted a major rail stop for Manhattan. There are a series of abandoned rail cars on the property with full apartments in them. The developer thought they would drum up a big buyer. Unfortunately for them, interest rates skyrocketed and development dried up. Their pain is our gain. I suggest we camp out here until we decide what we do next."

It would be perfect.