Alright.

Deep breath.

Don't freak out. You're fine.

Everything's fine.

You discreetly wipe some of the blood from above your lip, then begin to navigate through the crowd of people you're as of recently more or less acquainted with.

Ezra's here, talking to Maria's dad.

"How's it going?"

"Fantastic!," says Ezra. "Mr. Emperatriz has agreed to assist me in bringing you that coffee table sometime tomorrow in exchange for a few items from my bottlecap collection."

Maria's dad nods. He helpfully pointed out earlier that Casa de la Salamandra might be more accurate than Casa del Salamandra.

"Th-thanks," you reply.

You wanted to invite Maria, but she was out when you visited the grocery store; you asked her dad to let her know about the potluck, but... well, still no Maria. Has he not seen her since then? You didn't even think about it, let alone ask, but--apparently like half your brain has been in another dimension all day.

You keep moving.

Bebe turns as you approach. "Giiirl I always thought potlucks would be lame, but this has been a blast! Good job, Plaire!"

Bebe and a friend of hers, whose name you sort of caught but she has a bit of an accent and it was loud in here and you would have felt like a huge asshole asking her to repeat it? So you've been hanging back and hoping her name just happens to casually drop in an unrelated conversation--

"Hey," says Lagi.

Lagi, who caught you off guard just by showing up but, as you should have remembered if you hadn't been in a fog Lagi IS Afu's older brother, it makes sense that Afu would invite him, and Lagi seemed surprised to see you so it's likely Afu didn't tell him exactly what it was, or underestimated how quickly you would get into contact with Lagi after Kate scored you his number.

Afu and Lagi's mom waves at you. You wave back. She is also here.

Either they have a really cool relationship with their mom, or this was unplanned and some hijinx ensued in the Afu/Lagi household. You learned her name quite clearly when she and Afu arrived, but you have forgotten it like a big idiot.

And the... uhhh

you actually blank a little on the last guest, currently chatting with Cici.

The uniform.

Furniture & Whatnot.

She was the employee that helped you find the flasks.

Yes. Her. That one.

You remember her, uh

vividly

and definitely remember the context of her being here.

. . .

Hmmmmnope you're full of shit, you actually have no recollection of talking to her post-flask acquisition. Brain, why are you like this

You unleash both a soft throat clearing and a suggestive head motion to Cici. She politely excuses herself from what definitely sounds like a conversation about anime (Furniture & Whatnot Girl's suggestions aren't bad but... they could be better) to open your bedroom door and guide you in.

Cici hazards one glance back to make sure nothing's going to explode in the living room before she follows.

. . .

Oh, right--Ezra, understanding the importance of both a ghost hunt and a potluck at your house in particular, let Marlow off work early so he could get things sorted. Afu arrived with his mom and has been helping Marlow set up the business. Marlow's wife--

ooooooh you do remember that pretty clearly, Mrs. Tuck is a little sassy and while you get the impression she does trust her husband (even with a house full of young ladies), she also knows that having his wife hanging around him all night would--well--the words she used were "bust his balls a little"

Marlow's been in good spirits, though, and in a brief moment where his wife was distracted he revealed he actually likes it when she comes along for ghost stuff, she's just not really into... well, ghost stuff. If it's something fun like a haunted zoo or a haunted nightclub (or a haunted potluck), she's eager to tag along, but otherwise Marlow can't get her excited about the paranormal.

The three of them, hearing the door open, turn toward you and Cici. Cici shuts the door behind her.

"We're about done setting up," Marlow begins. "I had to do some manual adjustments, since your house, it... well. I mean this in a technical way, but your house has weird energy."

You give a passing one moment finger on your way into the bathroom; crossing the crowded living room has sucked all the energy out of your body and you don't feel like trying to come up with a short, secret-keeping-type excuse for all present. Cici clarifies on your behalf. "We might have more weird going on."

"Afu?," Marlow asks.

"Yeah," he replies.

You don't see what ensues in terms of motions and signals, as you are grabbing toilet paper and dealing with your nosebleed, but you do hear some muttering and about two people walk out after presumably acknowledging this is either out of their depth or outside their interest, respectively. With a wad of tissue shoved halfway into one nostril, you walk back out to just Cici and Marlow.

"I've been in another fucking dimension since we talked at the library," you blurt out.

"Yeah," Cici concurs, "you have seemed kinda out of it--"

"NonolikeI--" you interject, "I have literally had some significant fraction of my mind existing in another reality for the back half of today." ... Given a small, shocked silence from the room, you clarify a bit. "Okay, literally might not be a word that applies here because I think the whole place was constructed out of allegories and feelings and shit, and it might not have been a whole reality at all, it might have been between two of them. ...But part of my brain was there while the rest of it was in the real world."

To your slight surprise, Marlow's the first to respond. "...So you only projected part of your mind, and only got part of the way to your destination?"

Cici joins you in stopping to stare at Marlow.

He gives a small shrug. "I've read a thing or two about astral projection. What you're describing's new, but the logic sounds pretty solid."

He's not wrong; you didn't fall asleep, per se, but if Darkness was right you might have disassociated, which probably switches around at least a few similar parts of the brain. Given all the arbitrary rules and odd... er... design choices in this entire dream world powers system, it wouldn't be too out there for the house to think ah, she's having an episode, that's basically 15% of a sleep. The only catch is...

"I wasn't in the house for a lot of today, though," you mutter, checking your bloody tissue. "I wasn't even in the house when this started, we were at the library. Like, the new one, the one Cici works at. Normally I can fall asleep all the way outside my house and not go into the dream world, why did wigging out today take any of me outside my body?"

"New library's haunted," Marlow suggests.

"I'd have noticed, thank you," Cici replies. "Trust me, I've heard a looot of rumors and I have a looot of free time. I'd have found SOMEthing!," she says, before turning her attention to you. "Maybe you're learning how to do the thing without the house! Wait, what happened to the you that was halfway there, then?"

There's a tinge of concern in her question that punches you right in the chest. It takes you a second to realize she might be afraid you ended up where she and Kate did, in the dream proper but outside the dome. You quickly clear it up.

"It was dark," you begin, "not just visually, but like... I don't even think I had a body when I first woke up." You try to tell the story quickly, as there is still a potluck going on in the living room--but it's a lot of ground to cover, and several times you have to pause because you genuinely struggle to recall the events. It feels like they happened to someone else, at times, while other moments you remember better than anything that happened to your actual... you. You manage to cover the basics, though--the Grandiose Paradoxes, Human Survival Instinct, the Between, the Choir, the fact that you were unceremoniously one-shotted by the alleged weakest member of the trio--

"But why try to take the HAT?," Cici finally asks.

"Dunno," you reply. "It seemed funny at the time? It just kind of popped into my head? I thought maybe if I could hold onto the hat while I got knocked out, I could see if it came back to the real world with me."

"The Theory of Human Survival Instinct," Marlow mutters.

"You've heard of it...?" You remember Marlow being familiar with the work of Dr. Leopold Finch, so you had hoped he might know something about this.

Marlow gives a short nod. "When he was starting to become a big deal, Finch was invited to a few scientific conferences. Rarely the same place more than once, 'cause his talks were always wild, but he did give some talks and a few managed to get streamed. One of those talks was about..." He pauses, smiles a little, trying to word it correctly. "Okay, so in science fiction humans are always average, right? Or in fantasy, or in... anything. Dwarves are tougher, orcs are stronger, elves are more dexterous. Aliens are always smarter, or they live forever, or they bleed acid or... something. Something. Humans are never magic and never the most advanced. We're never the best at anything. We're just kinda there.

But--if you believe in aliens, or that elves are real and just in another dimension, or what have you--hell, even if you don't believe in all that, think about evolution, all the other animals in existence and how our brains work and all the horrible stuff we've invented, and ask yourself--how the hell are we still here? Top o' the food chain, haven't bombed ourselves to death or burnt out the sky, haven't been conquered by anything from another world. Mankind lives despite everything."

"I mean," you chuckle dryly, "not for lack of trying. Mankind lives despite mankind."

"Exactly!," says Marlow with a point. "Right now, I can guarantee somebody's got a weapon that could wreck the whole world. Radiation and prevailing westerlies, that's all it takes. There's been so many egomaniacs, and zealots, and general lunatics to pass their finger across the button, but--here we are. That's one threat out of... I dunno, billions, maybe countless. Asteroids, gamma rays... evolving viruses, big-ass solar flares, black holes. We're past due for a shift in the magnetic poles, I hear. Dr. Finch put down two reasons for this: one, extraterrestrials might be keepin' us alive for a lot of the same reasons chickens are doing so well."

Cici squints. "Aliens are taking our eggs...?"

"Not--" Marlow has to keep from laughing, "not that, necessarily--"

"Fuck," you add, unashamed to laugh about it, "they're turning us all into flaky, crispy sandwiches."

Marlow sighs, fighting back the grin, and continues. "There's all kinds of... chemicals and energies and god-knows-what that are pretty unique to humans. Now imagine not all aliens are meat-based, or even carbon-based, or even three dimensional and it's easy to picture a universe where Earth is basically the farm that farms itself."

You point out, "We'd notice if aliens showed up every time we're about to blow ourselves up, though."

"Right," agrees Marlow, "which is where Finch's second idea comes in: the Human Survival Instinct. Short version: all humans are tied to a collective unconscious that goes into alert mode when we're about to extinct ourselves. One person alone can't see the full domino effect that could lead to something like that happening, but all sapient minds on the planet working together without realizing it? We'd be damn near psychic. All it'd take is one gut feeling or a random decision to go left instead of right, and after that the butterfly effect kicks in and bam, humanity saved."

"So humankind is invincible," you jest. "I can stop worrying about climate change."

"Well... no, not yet," Marlow chuckles. "Dr. Finch also speculated it might start failing us--technology's moving faster than evolution, and it's a biological function, not a magic spell. Given time we could figure out a way to kill ourselves even the Survival Instinct can't stop until it's too late. ...Then you take into account all the scientists out there trying to make things that are almost human, but not quite--"

"Hey now," Cici rapidly interjects.

Marlow puts his hands up quickly. "No, I don't mean clones or genetically engineered people like WE'RE familiar with, I'm talking much stranger. People are editing their own genes on livestreams and printing little monsters with stuff they bought online, and don't get me started on what the next big bioweapons look like. I'm sorry if this comes out wrong, but--"

He hesitates, visibly.

Cici is bracing, visibly.

Marlow, seeming to recognize that no Survival Instinct will save him should he choose his next words poorly, instead holds up an index finger.

"Plaire," he says quickly, "can I borrow your internet for a second?"

You also hesitate. "...Ssssure."

He keeps that finger skyward until he reaches your computer, where he quickly opens a browser, navigates to a video uploading website quite familiar to you, and does a quick search. He brings up a video. He maximizes the window.

You see a man in a suit. You don't recognize the man; he looks like... every single pale old male politician thrown into a blender and left to melt in the sun for two weeks. He's doing an interview in front of the national capitol, all but confirming he is in fact a pale old male politician.

The man states, quite clearly in response to an unheard question, "...We must confront the truth, that attempts to grow the perfect worker with modern science have mostly lead to disappointment. There were a number of unexpected legal hurdles. Lab grown assets have under-performed in every field. Some of the best people I know are working on the next stage, though--it's a marathon, not a sprint, and I am confident that with more of these projects being taken into the private sector where there are fewer restrictions and a freer flow of ideas, the lab-grown workers of tomorrow will be more dedicated to their roles, more consistent at staying on task and less contentious--"

"Who is he?," Cici asks in her normal cheerful tone but much, much louder.

"Keaton Scott," Marlow replies, stopping the video. "Cheatin' Keaton's our current Secretary of Commerce--before that, he was Attorney General of Misuschaqua. Sixteen federal investigations just during that period, and he skated by on all of 'em. Assholes like that are mad that you are a human being," he says to Cici. "Think about the words he used--more dedicated to their roles. The engineered are quittin' the jobs they were 'made' for left and right--striking out on their own and doing their own thing, and that's bad for the bottom line. Corporations rigged the game from the start, but y'all are winning anyway... so they're trying to push it farther. They want to use the same process to make something less capable of making its own decisions. They tried to stop you with laws and contracts, and that didn't work, so now they want to cut sapience itself right out at the source. There's companies right now trying to build something only pseudo-human out of human DNA, like a brain dead golem or a... a meat robot."

Jesus Christ.

"He didn't just say cops, either," you mutter as you stare at Keaton Scott's gruesome lich face. "Or even soldiers, he said workers. ...Even non-engineered workers have been demanding better pay, cheaper medical and shit like that, and it's been an uphill battle the whole damn time. Fuck giving workers what they deserve when you can just replace them, right?"

Marlow nods. "I'm old enough to remember the whole plan being pitched as supercops, stronger and faster than your normal police... but a lot of people saw which way the wind was blowing from day one. AI's been kind of a crapshoot so robots are out, and replacing all the workers with genetically engineered people... well, it turns out they're still got dang people. The fellas at the top won't be satisfied until they have workers that'll never quit, workers that won't ask for raises, workers--"

"--That don't dream," Cici finally states. "...I get it. I mean, I don't get it-get it 'cuz it's terrible and crazy, but I get that it's going on. They want more muscle and fewer brains."

You adjust your glasses. Mull it over for a moment. "...And if the Human Survival Instinct is in the brain..."

"Then we'd be screwed, as a species," Marlow affirms. "That generation of engineered folks would be blind spots in the collective unconscious... and you can bet your ass they'd sell like hotcakes, too. I think Leo Finch gets a little carried away sometimes, but he's been right on enough so far that, uh, I'm not comfortable gambling on him being wrong about this. Even if he IS wrong, it all still bodes real badly for workers' rights and tube people rights and... hell, human rights, ALL of 'em."

"The Grandiose Paradoxes were definitely talking like the Survival Instinct is real," you point out. "Like, name-dropped Dr. Finch and everything. My only question is... what the fuck is the Choir, then?"

A brief pause.

Marlow shrugs. "Truth be told, I don't remember him mentioning any Choirs. It HAS been a minute since I watched those talks, though."

"Are you sure you even have it?," Cici asks. "Just because those three were hanging out between dimensions don't mean they're right about anything."

"I..." you pause.

Hoo boy will this be something to try and explain

"...Yeah," you finally conclude. "My mind was kind of... stripped down in there. I could hear the... they're not voices, but like, concepts. Ideas. Urges. Suggestions. It all blends in with mine--none of it's telling me to like, burn the house down or anything, and the ones that feel more off also feel the weakest, if that makes any sense. It'd be indistinguishable from my own brain if it wasn't for like--"

You hesitate, because this is about to sound even more questionable than hearing voices already does, but--

"--I... I think they might remember things I don't. There's some... vague, passing familiarity with the previous ally of the Choir that I... I don't know if I just can't access it myself or if I'm fucking AFRAID to because god only knows what happens if I just dive in and crowdsurf this weird fucking hivemind, but they know something, and now I'm looking back at all of our problems remembering shit--like the back door, and I'm wondering if that wasn't the Choir helping somehow. Or the girl in the photo--would I have seen her without the Choir, or would I have struggled like Ezra did? Like... I don't know. I don't know shit about fuck. I don't know what it is and I don't know who they are."

"Sounds like a positive to me!," Cici replies. "We've got enough freaky stuff to fight, if some other freaky stuff wants to help I say let 'em. As long as they're not trying to take over your body or anything, don't worry about it!"

"Could just be another feature of the house," Marlow suggests. "It keeps secrets, it projects your mind to another world... can't say I'd be surprised if it boosts your brain power, too. Maybe it's giving you cleaner access to the collective unconscious, or maybe all those ideas you're getting are actually yours, just bigger and better put than you're used to thinking them. ...Or it's an alien presence acting like your own ideas to lull your into a fall sense of security, I don't know."

Cici gives him a stern glare.

Marlow puts his hands back up. "I said I don't know! I'm just trying to cover all the bases here."