Jessie pats Patrick on his shoulder and says, warmly looking into his eyes, “I guess we did it. You saw the sign, right? Must be true…” He whistles. “Something from nothing. How about that? Ex nihilo.” He kicks a rock out into the street where vehicles stream by. “I don’t know what to feel about it, honestly.” He shuffles awkwardly, rubs his eyes. Patrick says nothing. Looks at his hands. A car pulls up to a slow stop next to them, “You got stone?” a voice asks. Patrick appears to come to life. He steps toward the car, cocks his head to peer inside. Rolls up his sleeves. “What are we talking, for all of ya? You gotta be kidding” his eyes focus on each face for two seconds. There are four faces. They remain silent. Patrick stuffs his hand into his jacket, jerks out a bag. “I need gold.” He makes sure all the faces see the bag, so he does another round looking into each set of eyes. Someone offers a brownish nugget. The exchange is made. The car moves on. Patrick and Jessie begin walking briskly. “So what I don’t understand— you got a two-sided marketplace with voluntary participates who need each other. But it’s not a product. It’s, what then-it’s like energy? Oh resources, then, right? So it’s politics. I dunno I’m kinda thinking how does this change anything.” Patrick hops up onto the curb to avoid a stream of shit in the street. “I’ll say this, you and I are in the wrong industry, though. We gotta get moving to capture this, like all this free energy, I mean basically free.” “You and I, a couple a shit heads, you’re saying we’ll be rich?” Patrick twists his lips in an incredulous way to express doubt at Jessie. “What the hell if we’re rich? Seriously. Nah, I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying we live in a time—“ Patrick and Jessie suddenly burst apart, their pixels fly through the clutter of the street, blending in with the dust collected on the screen.

“Expletive!” Kirk spits. He rips off his headset and stretches his back while his eyes readjust. “Ok I have no idea what happened that time,” says Tim, coming out of his headset and setting it down. “My haunting sense says interference. . . “ He peers around the darkened room, his eyes landing on the old man in the corner booth who sharply flicks a fly out of his face. “Well, I’m lost,” Kirk consoles. “Like the whole game hasn’t even been that difficult. We could have completed it days ago if it weren’t throwing us out every 10 minutes.” “Pretty clever design, I gotta say,” Tim says, tipping his can back to draw the last swig of his beer. “Make the rules mysterious and vague, drive the stakes uber high, but the gameplay is so simple.” He chuckles, “I guess it’s kinda working on us like a slot machine or something.” Kirk laughs, “Yeah definitely. You want another?” Tim claps his chest, “Hit me.” As Kirk shuffles off to the bar, Tim sits back and breathes slowly out his mouth. For the hundredth time, he imagines what he’ll do with the coin they’ll win. He wonders if he really needs Kirk, or if he’s being stifled by him. As he thinks, he presses his fingertips together, forming an empty orb with his hands. He looks rather domineering watching Kirk approach a corner of the room, pulling the brim of his hat down over his eyes. Yet again his pondering brings him to the same place - Kirk isn’t exceptional but he’s the only one Tim’s got. In the dark corner, Kirk utters a few short sounds outside a closed door. The door is opened and two bottles are extended out of it, cold steam rising off their opened tops. Kirk hovers his hand over them for a moment, then takes them. In the center of the industrial, dusty and dimly-lit room, a performance takes place. There are about three people paying attention to it. Everyone else with their own headsets inside their separate pods gives no signs of life. Kirk slides around the scene without being noticed. He comes back around and places a bottle in front of Tim, “I guess they won’t give us anymore of that dark stuff, this is a fraught and pithy ass lite.” Tim lifts it to his lips, “At least it’s cold.” Kirk watches Tim approve of his first sip, then his eyes move over the room, and his thoughts move beyond it. He tracks the movement of a dancer at the center of the room. Her fingers, her elbows, send out sparks as she moves them fluidly through a show of light. She is meant to suggest presence, but instead, with only one attendant to her performance and the rest of the room, all male, otherwise engaged, she highlights the absence, the loneliness. Kirk tries to recall the last time he was in a room full of people. It wasn’t recent. For a short-fused flash, the haunting image of ‘family’ rushes into his head. He shakes it off. “I guess that gets me thinking, you know,” Tim looks up to see Kirk is ready to deliver a monologue, he pauses the voices in his head to listen. “I don’t know if I’ll ever want to leave the grum behind. Not all the way. Not forever. Is that what we’re trying to do?” He sniffs, he leans forward, his beer sloshes. “Even though it’s like, sure, we have no soul here, right? but carrying on all this time without one means you get used to it. Like, ya know,” Kirk shrugs, “it’s not the best, but what’s better? What is that? You get used to how it is. And you replace the soul cartridge with something else, I guess, I mean I don’t know. I know my cavitiy isn’t empty. But who knows? The fathoms of that are too far out.” He coughs, shifts in his seat. “Forget that, that’s the dark liquid in your cords.” Tim spits after another long sip. “I don’t know how to deal with you having anything close to a fathom.” Tim rubs his hands over his clothes. Kirk looks down at his hands. “No I mean, you really haven’t been anywhere. So, your assessment is missing some facts.” He taps his headset impatiently. “Pick it up, let’s get back in.”