“Look, you’re already making new friends,” Latch grinned.

  Rec studied the flying fedora and recalled where he’d seen it before. It was the AI assistant that had guided him through the initial registration in Wysina Dreaming. After recording his name and date of birth, it gave him a quick rundown of the game mechanics, then retired to his menu like any standard info bot that could be summoned as needed.

  “Good timing, I could use some orientation,” Rec said and waved at the hat.

  As if to answer Rec’s call, the fedora left the balcony and flew over. It stopped just out of Rec’s reach and hovered over his head. The bowl under the hat lit up and captured Rec’s face in a cone of light, scanning him up and down while taking a good second to decide if it liked what it saw. Then it killed the light and descended to Rec’s eye level. A face emerged on the sphere, drawn in pixel art typically seen on toy bots for kids. Its neutral expression suggested that it was in a peaceful mood and not experiencing any strong emotions.

  Then the thing started talking.

  Identity verification unsuccessful. Present your registration to complete handshake.

  In the Beta copy, the fedora spoke in generic cartoonish bleeps, and had quite a few lively expressions and movements to make the admin part of the game less tedious. Combined with a design that was kind of cute, that temperament reminded Rec of those mascot characters that would make funny noises when they walked. But now, he wasn’t sensing any of that on this bot. The voice was crisp and upbeat, yet there was a certain coldness underneath.

  Identity verification unsuccessful. Present your registration to complete handshake, the bot repeated.

  “Um, okay, if you could show me the prompt—”

  Resistance to identity checks is considered hostile behavior. Use of maximum force is authorized to eliminate potential threats as appropriate under the circumstances.

  “Really? You just jumped from ‘license and registration’ straight to death threats?”

  This exchange may be recorded for training purposes.

  “O…kay?” Rec put his hands up in surrender for the second time today and spoke slowly. “Registration… sure, that’s a thing… and I totally have it.”

  He peeked at Latch. The bastard had retreated into the shadows when the fedora arrived. Right now, he was smiling and making no effort to conceal his excitement. Rec’s mind raced to come up with something that could get him out of this one, and the bot closed in.

  A meow broke the silence and drew his attention to the phone lying on the ground. Jo Jo Remington III had woken up from her nap, and demanded unconditional love.

  “Ah, there it is.” Rec put on the harmless smile he always wore to business meetings and pointed at a spot behind the hat. “All my papers are in my digital wallet… Do you take QR codes by any chance?”

  The fedora swiveled around and stared at the glowing square for a moment, then it glided over. As it hovered above the screen, Jo Jo Remington III stretched her back and let out a yawn with her eyes closed. She then licked her front paws and proceeded to clean the backs of her ears with them. The cracks dimmed her usual appeal by about 20%, which was still overwhelming.

  The cartoon eyes under the fedora widened, and the tiny mouth that used to be a straight line formed a perfect “o”.

  Cats—the only creatures that could conquer all worlds, across time, space, and species.

  Rec quietly peeled his jacket off the wrinkled white shirt that should’ve been in the laundry, then he held it up like a fire blanket and tiptoed toward the flying hat. When he was two steps away, the bot sensed the incoming danger and flipped one-eighty upside down. Its narrowed pixel eyes gazed at Rec with an unimpressed frown.

  Rec whipped the jacket at the hat, knocking it to the ground. Before the thing had the chance to regain its balance and ascend, Rec pounced, swaddling it with the jacket and keeping it earthbound. Like a bird caught in a net, the bot struggled violently under the cover.

  Insurrection! Insurrection! it cried in the same upbeat voice. You have been warned! You have been warned!

  Rec wrestled with the bot and kept it contained. He gathered the sleeves and the hem and clutched them like the opening of a sack. The fedora fought harder, and Rec was losing his grip. In the heat of the moment, he swung the jacket with full force and smashed the bot against the wall.

  Insurrec—

  The crisp voice cracked mid-sentence, then broke down to incomprehensible bleeps and static. “Sorry!” Rec shouted as he repeated the strikes. The bot continued to thrash and flutter, though its struggle grew weaker, and eventually came to a stop. Rec thought he heard a sound like glass shattering.

  He twisted the handful of fabric in his grasp and tied it into a knot, leaving no visible exit for the bot to escape. Holding the package with two hands, he found a clean spot along the wall and laid it gently on the ground.

  “Let me just… put you here.”

  Rec let out a sigh of relief and strode toward the exit of the alley. He’d like to get out of this place as soon as possible. One thing he’d learned from sci-fi movies was that, when you saw one drone, a dozen more were on their way.

  “Thanks for the help,” he grumbled as he walked past Latch.

  “Anytime,” Latch said and raised his gun.

  A buzz came behind Rec, followed by the sound of fabric tearing. Rec turned around; his jaw dropped open. The jacket wrapping the drone was floating in midair, with its back slit open. Two mechanical tentacles extended from the opening, wielding the scissors at their tips and gliding across the remaining surface, shredding the jacket to a tattered curtain. As the pieces slipped off the bot and piled up on the ground, Rec saw the eight tentacles hanging down from the fedora, curling and swaying, turning the hat into a jellyfish. A grotesque crack ran across the black sphere, along which shards of glass had fallen off. The pixel art face had disappeared. All Rec saw was the unforgiving, accusatory gaze of the red dot.

  Before Rec could react, two tentacles with needle-sharp ends lashed at him. He jumped sideways and dodged one, while the other grazed his arm, leaving a heated sting. The two tentacles attacked in alternation, each strike aimed at Rec’s throat. Rec no longer felt bad about hammering the bot against the wall earlier.

  In the blink of an eye, the fedora propelled over Rec’s head and positioned itself behind him. Immediately, Rec felt a prick on the nape of his neck. He snapped around and found the hat wielding a tentacle with a rattlesnake’s head at its tip, showing off the sharp fangs. Rec realized this thing had bitten him. His vision turned blood red, and a system warning blared in his mind—

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Authentication error. Access denied.

  Authentication error. Access denied.

  His legs wobbled, as if he’d finally stepped onto land after drifting at sea. As Rec fell to one knee, the fedora whipped out another tentacle and tightened it around Rec’s neck, turning him purple within seconds.

  Use of maximum force is authorized to eliminate potential threats as appropriate under the circumstances, the hat repeated calmly.

  When Rec felt his eyes were about to burst out of their sockets, a bullet struck the glass bowl under the fedora, extending the cracks across the surface to a full circle. With a loud snap, half of the bowl fell off, revealing the concealed core: an intricate ball of wires resembling the ridges and grooves of a brain. Rec swore he saw a heartbeat.

  The agitated bot wound its tentacle, attempting to crush Rec’s windpipe. Another bullet pierced through the exposed core. Sparks erupted from inside the sphere with a pungent, burning smell. The tentacle lost its ferocity and slithered limply off Rec’s neck.

  Rec sucked greedily for air on all fours, gagging himself into a cough. His breathing steadied, yet the red in his vision did not fade, and the system continued to chant the same warning—

  Authentication error. Access denied.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder and found Latch by his side.

  “This can’t be good.” He clenched Latch’s lapel and gave him a look of mixed panic and confusion.

  “Calm down. You got encrypted, that’s all,” Latch said and helped him up.

  “What does that even mean?”

  “Think of it as a pair of handcuffs,” Latch said. “And only the ones with the encryption key can unlock them. This is how the Luminars make arrests.”

  “So… where can I find that encryption key?”

  “It’s not a physical item lying around. Either you know it because you’re a Luminar, or you figure out a way to crack it. Locksmiths are hard to find. You have to catch them in the wild.” Latch let go of Rec’s arm and poked the immobile bot with the tip of his boot. Once he was satisfied that it did not need another bullet, he turned to Rec and gave him a beaming smile. “You’re in luck. I know a good one.”

  Rec had yet to see a map of Wysina, but he suspected they’d been circling the outskirts of the city. From the backseat of Latch’s motorcycle, he saw nothing but desolate wilderness, a stark contrast to the urban sprawl where he was assaulted. Occasionally, they’d pass a row of houses, but judging from the dilapidated exterior walls, it was unlikely that anyone still lived there. The view reminded Rec of those deindustrialized towns, where hope had departed along with the factories. They hadn’t met another drone on the way, which relaxed Rec a little. He closed his eyes and felt his body boiling. The crimson dizziness had progressed to a fever, and the same system warning continued to pinch his brain every other minute. Now he understood why people went insane after hearing voices for a prolonged period of time.

  “We’re here.” Latch tapped Rec on the shoulder.

  They arrived at an onion-shaped building. One entrance, no guards. Although the place seemed empty and shabby, the grandiose plaza in front of the gate and the carefully arranged lines of poplars on the sides suggested it was once important.

  Inside the onion was an atrium supported by a circle of twelve pillars. Vines climbed up along the stone and converged at the dome, weaving patterns like a bird’s nest. Below the dome erected a statue two stories high. The deity sitting on the throne had a human body, but the head of an ibis, holding a scepter in one hand, and a writing palette in the other. A curved wall cradled the throne. Lines of faint, short inscriptions were carved into the stone, resembling rows of names on a solemn roll of honor. Sunlight rained down on the deity through the perforated skylight and the web of vines, contrasting the otherwise dim hall and adding a sense of majesty. Latch stopped before the statue and glanced around, then he drew a deep breath and shouted at the top of his lungs—

  “The Flying Schr?cat Monster has destroyed all encryption!”

  There was a rustling behind the stone, followed by a muffled thud as something fell to the ground.

  “But it’s not supposed to be today…” A broad-shouldered figure emerged from the shadows, grumbling and yawning as he slowly approached the two of them.

  “Hi, Caesar,” Latch grinned.

  Against the light, Rec saw a scaled-down version of the statue, with the body of a human and the head of a bird. When he got closer, Rec realized that the ibis face was a helmet, and under that muted field jacket and cargo pants, the skin was forged in the same black titanium that gave Rec his new limbs. He was a head taller than Latch, and Rec would never want to be struck by those arms. As Rec marveled, the helmet cracked open and the beak of the ibis retracted backward, cradling the crown of the head and revealing very little of the face underneath except for the tawny fur. Caesar had the eyes of a wild beast, and he was examining Rec like a king whose territory had been disturbed.

  “Rec is new,” Latch said. “But he’s here to stay.”

  Rec tried to come up with a decent self-introduction, but his noodly legs weakened and he fell on his butt as another system warning kicked him between the eyes—

  Authentication error. Access denied.

  “Enough already…” he groaned and clawed at the side of his head with one hand.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Caesar asked.

  “Luminar,” said Latch.

  “A hat?”

  “Yeah.”

  Caesar nodded and crouched in front of Rec. He flipped Rec’s hand over and located a port on the inside of his wrist that Rec hadn’t discovered. A thin cable swam out of Caesar’s thumb and found the point of connection on its own, then clicked into place. Rec heard a ping, then a large amount of input flooded his system without forming a discernible message. Caesar gazed into the space between them without a word, as if staring at an interface that only he could see. Latch left Rec in Caesar’s hands and turned his attention to the mysterious deity. His face stern, his mind clearly faraway.

  The processing of the input was labored at first, then grew easier. Rec counted several minutes passing and synchronized his breathing with his electrical pulse.

  Authentication err—

  A popping click cut the error message off as a wave of clarity rushed through him. The crimson fog in his vision cleared, and the swelling sensation behind his eyes dissipated. Rec let out a soft sigh and felt his strength return.

  “Are you a god?” he asked.

  “Nah, this one is pretty basic.” Caesar shrugged and broke the connection. “The hats are Luminars’ budget crawlers. Their ‘random keys’ aren’t really random.”

  “No, I mean—” Rec glanced at the statue.

  “I just live here,” Caesar chuckled. “Nobody asks me to pay rent, and I appreciate the tranquility.”

  “This is cool anyway.” Rec smiled and tapped the crown of his head, referring to Caesar’s bird helmet.

  “Handy too,” Caesar said and the retracted ibis beak jabbed forward without a warning, almost poking Rec in the eye. “If you want to protect your personal space.”

  “Totally,” Rec wiggled out of the way of the sharp end, then drew his hands closer and brought back the holographic interface. He supposed the encryption was akin to being poisoned or paralyzed in this world, and he wondered if he’d see anything in his system reflecting the damage. In the top right corner of the screen was an icon that looked like a faceless headshot. He tapped it once and opened a dialogue box.

  Instantiation complete

  Environment: Wysina

  Class: Undefined

  Status: Dormant

  There were no separate attributes for his health, but there was something else.

  The timestamp at the bottom read 08:43. Rec frowned. He remembered that, when he first opened this interface, the clock said 12:00. He hadn’t paid much attention to time given how his day had unfolded, but he would’ve noticed if a night and a dawn had come and gone.

  Then right before his eyes, the timestamp jumped to 08:42.

  It wasn’t a clock.

  It was a countdown.