As the light dimmed, it took with it my new office. In pce of the four walls, desk, and monitors, I found myself in a sprawling, epic ndscape.

  Like the Scottish highnds, a low-hanging mist swaddled rocky formations which towered above grassy vales. Their stone was dark, wearing only a skirt of green as they ripped away from the verdant soil. Despite an overcast sky, the world was vibrant, its colors rich.

  “What just happened?” I wondered aloud, my breath emitting a puffy white cloud of fog.

  “You did what I expressly told you not to!” Guy replied in what I now understood to be his trademark inscrutably genial tone.

  I raised my hands to my ears to find the headphones had come along for the ride. Only, the band and microphone disappeared, leaving just the cups, which didn’t budge when I tried to adjust them. It was like they were screwed into my head.

  How can that be? A thought occurred to me. Perhaps, through some advanced neurotechnology, the headphones linked with my consciousness and projected me as an avatar into a—

  “Incorrect!” came Guy’s exuberant interjection.

  “So you can read my thoughts,” I concluded.

  “Only when you think so incredibly loudly,” he replied.

  How the hell does someone think loudly?

  “Like that!”

  I felt my cheeks flush. “Sorry, I’ll try to, uh, turn down the volume on my thoughts. Can you tell me where I am, then? And how I was able to get here?” I spun in pce to observe a full three-hundred-sixty degrees of here, spellbound by its breathtaking splendor.

  I hadn’t explored much in my life, having rarely stepped foot outside Regal Falls. The handful of times I did venture beyond my hometown, I didn’t make it very far, never once leaving the tristate area. So I was taken aback by the beauty of this pce, with its majestic, mossy canyons mantled by fog.

  And then, in the midst of my appreciation, a curious sound echoed forth from the distance. Squinting, I spied several figures marching through the vale. One pumped their fist in the air. But it was more than their fist. Clutched within it, the long, wooden shaft of a spear.

  As the spearman brandished his weapon, he bellowed a guttural sound, which sounded suspiciously like a battlecry. I listened intently to its repetition as the others joined in. “Wee! Wee! Wee! Wee!”

  “Are they chanting the name of the pnet?” I wondered aloud.

  “The answer to that question takes more time than you presently have,” Guy replied. “Jonny, as your Guide, I would advise you to fucking run!”

  “Noted.” I spun round and sprinted away from the fast-approaching brigade of spearmen. My final glimpse of them before turning tail revealed rudimentary dress, fur covering half their bodies. What are they, cavemen?

  “That would not be an inaccurate description,” Guy commented.

  “Quit reading my thoughts, dammit!”

  “Again, don’t think so loudly. Also, I would caution you against expending breath on berating your Guide while running for your life.”

  As I bored up a grassy incline, I took this advice to heart. Nevertheless, questions abounded, some more pressing than others, and I presented the first in a “loud” thought. Where the hell should I be running to, Guy!?

  “My recommendation would be the Engine,” he replied, his voice obnoxiously calm.

  What the hell is the Engine?

  “I think the more important question is where the hell is the Engine.”

  A spear whistled through the air and buried its arrowhead in the soil directly next to my foot.

  Okay, can I get the answer to that question, then?

  “I ck more detailed knowledge of the pnet,” said Guy, “as you have not yet downloaded the Overseer persona. Once you have, I’ll be able to provide an accurate map. In the meantime, I can tell you the Engine is due east.”

  Cresting a rise, I scanned the skies for the sun. A thick bnket of cloud cover obscured the heavens. Not even a fuzzy orb glowed behind the overcast.

  Then again, even if I could see the sun, that didn’t necessarily mean I could tell which was East was. For all I knew, this pnet could’ve orbited two suns, and they both rose from the north.

  Little help? I thought my request as loudly as possible while racing away from my atavistic pursuers.

  A green, three-dimensional arrow appeared in my field of vision as if projected from my own eyes. It angled at the left horizon, which, like every other horizon, vanished into mist. Who knew what I’d be running into, but I knew what I was running away from.

  I threw a gnce over my shoulder to see the spearmen closing the gap. “Shit, they’re fast!” And they achieved their speed wearing archaic footwear. My sneakers gave me no advantage.

  Another spear unched forth from a powerful tribesman, sailing in a long arc toward my head. I ducked to avoid having my skull cracked open like a watermelon, but in so doing took a tumble down the backside of a hill. The wet grass facilitated my slide and no amount of thrashing arrested my fall.

  I only stopped because I crashed into the legs of another cavewoman. Scrambling back, I apologized with words I knew meant nothing to her, but couldn’t stop myself from offering. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hit you, I just kind of lost my footing—”

  She raised her spear above her head and shouted. It was the same guttural cry as the others, though not directed at me this time. Instead, she fixed my pursuers with an intense gre.

  I looked back to see their response and was surprised to find they’d stopped. A half-dozen lined up on the hilltop, scowling back at us. But more than anger burned in their eyes. A twinkle, too, of fear. Really? I thought. There were six of them and two of us. And one of us was useless in a battle of spears.

  But then a battalion of cavemen made themselves known, emerging from the mist behind my protector. A hundred easy, they wore fur skirts and tooth neckces. Not human, thank God, but teeth stolen from the jaws of something more ferocious.

  This lot were true warriors and these misty hills, I presumed, belonged to them. Whoever I’d pissed off in my arrival likely belonged to a neighboring tribe who’d overstepped their boundary by giving chase.

  A brief standoff ensued, culminating in the smaller brigade’s retreat. They turned back, heading off the way they’d come. Relief was short-lived. I turned toward the small army and their wall of stern faces.

  The woman who stood out ahead of them gave me a once over, her green eyes registering bemusement. I grinned wryly back at her. “Uh, hello?”

  “Wee!” she bellowed.

  Nodding slowly, I replied, “That’s the extent of your vocabury, huh?”

  “That’s correct!” said Guy. “The locals suffer from a nguage deficit. One of the reasons the Supra Corporation’s intervention was requested.”

  What am I supposed to do about that?

  “Get to the Engine.”

  The arrow pointed beyond the tribal army before me. Something told me they wouldn’t allow me free passage through their nd.

  I looked at their ostensible leader and wondered how I was going to communicate with her. “Oh boy…”

  “Wee!”

  I sighed. “Yeah, that too.”