All he knew was he wished he were back on the St. George on his way home right now. He nodded anyway.

  “So, when you wake up, I want you to remember this: Lakeside Terrace. Meet me there. It’s a restricted area, but you will be punched in with full access.”

  “But how will—”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, glancing back at the door, “but there’s no time.” She pulled out her gun and pointed it at him.

  “Wait, wait, wait!” Taven pleaded with his hands outstretched, but there was no stopping her.

  She shot three times. Taven barely felt the floor as he hit it and the lights went out.

  CHAPTER 15

  TAVEN’S CONSCIOUSNESS RUSHED back to him, but his body seemed disconnected. It was like he was under water in a pool with all the lights turned off. He struggled to reach the surface, but he couldn’t tell if he was even moving.

  Then, he broke through. Bright lights from the bathroom sink greeted him, and he gasped for air.

  He clutched the sink and dry-heaved over it. Nothing came out, and quickly Taven realized all his physical sensations, all of the dying pains weren’t physical at all; they were left-over neural echoes from the last world, the world where Ferah shot him.

  Slowly, he righted himself, straightening his back, and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked great on the surface: better-than-real physique, new clothes, etc. But on the inside, he was troubled. His soul felt stained or, at least, tired from all he’d done.

  The mirror’s message came up again asking him if he wanted to delete the prior memory. Now, he understood why people would want that option. It was too much, too intense to live this way.

  He denied the memory wipe and exited the bathroom. As he passed through the kitchen to the dining room, he noticed the maple trees outside. They weren’t in autumn anymore. Instead, the leaves were undersized, still growing in early spring. He looked at the green grass, its glow the color that only appears at the time of year when everything’s goldilocks perfect: not too hot, not too cold. He saw there was some dampness to the ground that the bright sun was hurriedly evaporating. It must have just rained, he thought, and he could imagine how clean the air must smell outside.

  The construct was changing for him again, he realized. It was providing the environment conducive to his desires, at least it was here in his home. The fresh spring scene promised hope and newness of life, washing away the old and replacing it with verdant new growth.

  Just what his soul needed, he thought. But all of this was for naught. He would be leaving this place soon enough…if he could find a way out.

  More memories from the previous construct came to him suddenly, like they had just now finished downloading. He reached for his chest and found the medallion under his clothes. He still had it. That was odd, he thought. This was the first item besides his body that had transferred from one construct to another. Ferah must be right.

  Ferah! He was supposed to meet her, he remembered. He walked toward the door. And as he passed through the living room, he noticed a freshly wrapped sandwich and sweating, cold bottle of beer on the coffee table. He knew it was an Italian sub, the same kind he’d gotten before and hadn’t been able to finish. And the sight of it made his stomach growl.

  “Wow,” he said, “this place knew I was hungry before I did.”

  He thought for a moment about wolfing down the meal before heading out but decided against it. He wasn’t really hungry, was he? His hunger was nothing but a series of ones and zeros.

  “Let’s get this over with,” he said, moving to the door.

  After entering the doorway, the wall consoles listing all the constructs appeared as expected. He checked for incoming messages from Mack, but he couldn’t find any blinking red lights like before.

  Where was he? he wondered. How long did it take to respond to a message? Taven had lived and died since sending it.

  Mack would be getting a piece of his mind when this was all over, Taven decided. Maybe, Mack thought he didn’t have to respond since Ferah was in the construct now. Maybe she brought all the answers with her.

  He scanned the listings. He was still blocked from all the restricted worlds, which were the majority of them. Then he spotted it. In the middle of a block of blacked-out restricted rooms was Lakeside Terrace.

  As he began to press it, he hesitated, some part of him associating this act with all the violence he’d experienced. He hoped this time all would go smoothly.

  The lights swirled, and Taven was transported to the new world. His first sensation was the feel of sand on his bare feet. When his eyesight returned, he saw he was at the base of a small mountain.

  His path up the hill was made of sand, but to his left and right and behind him was deciduous forest. He wore shorts and a comfortable untucked button-up shirt, and in one hand, he held two light-weight loafers.

  What a wardrobe change, he thought as he began climbing. As he did, he felt his heartrate rise, the blood pushing through his veins, and his breath became labored.

  Each step was hard won, the sand shifting and his foot receding partway down from where he’d placed it. He raised his eyes to the top of the hill and was struck by the beauty of the cloudless blue sky on the horizon. He maintained this upward focal point. It helped him push through the discomfort of the climb.

  As he approached the hill’s crest, the wooded sides of the trail dissipated, gradually turning to sand. His ears buzzed with the new sound of water, waves crashing against some yet unseen shoreline.

  Crossing the hilltop, he felt exhilaration at the simple pleasure of seeing the water. He gained traction, the sandy mountain leveling out as he crossed over its zenith.

  From there, he froze and simply witnessed the grandeur of the view: A massive lake—so large it had its own waves—stretched out before him as far as he could see. And an all-sand dune covered the backside of this small mountain. No trees, nothing like the side of the mountain he had traversed.

  Sometimes Taven thought in words, but not now. Now, the moment didn’t bother transferring into language but stayed in its raw unfiltered medium. Sight as sight. Sound as sound.

  This transfixed moment ended when he spotted the tiny speck down on the shore. It was a house. And somehow, he knew it was hers.

  CHAPTER 16

  TAVEN GRABBED THE patina covered brass ring on the wide wooden door and used it to knock. He had been convinced this was Ferah’s place—she had told him to meet her here, after all—but as he knocked on the door, he felt pangs of anxiety on each impact of the knocker, fear that he was making some irrevocable mistake, though he had no idea what.

  A moment passed as Taven listened to the sound of the wind and the small waves crashing against the beach. Then he heard footsteps from the other side of the door. More panic.

  The wide door creaked as it opened, and then Ferah appeared.

  “There you are,” she said, smiling. “I was afraid you got lost.”

  Taven’s heart fell into his stomach at the sight of her. She wore a brown dress, soft and smooth, that matched the earth tones of her skin and hair.

  “Well, I didn’t know I’d be hiking in,” he said, pointing a hitch-hiker’s thumb up the hill.

  “I thought it was a nice touch. Adds an element of realism to the place, like we’re a million miles from anywhere else,” she said.

  They looked at each other for a second, then she opened the door wide and said, “Don’t just stand there. Come in.”

  Those were familiar words, something like what she’d told him in the last construct. But now they seemed to have new meaning. They were welcoming and signaled he was no longer in danger.

  Taven entered the home, and Ferah brushed by him after closing the door. “Let me give you the tour,” she said.

  As his eyes adjusted to the darker interior, he watched her walk before him, her figure swish-swashing in her cotton dress and her footwear lightly tapping against the hardwood floors. He followed her.

  She wasn’t the same Ferah he’d seen in the last construct, the one that had been war-hardened and tough as nails. She was softer now. Beautiful as always, but softer. And she wasn’t the Ferah he knew from the St. George either. That one had been shy, unsure of herself. Where had she gained this newfound confidence? he wondered.

  They walked down a hallway with closed doors on each side and walls adorned by lit candles. No wonder he could barely see, he realized.

  Then the corridor opened up to another room, a brighter room. Though his eyes again had to adjust, he instantly knew what he was seeing: a one-hundred-eighty-degree view of the lake.

  “Wow,” he whispered.

  “Not bad, huh?”

  “Not bad at all.” He walked toward the wall of windows. He noticed the wrap-around deck outside the windows and the water smashing against the rocks down below.

  “Everybody gets what they really want,” she said. “Well, nearly so.”

  “How do you figure that?” he asked, turning his back to the water.

  “I mean, your home is the way you want it, ultimately.”

  “I won’t say I haven’t noticed a few idiosyncrasies, but I dunno,” Taven said.

  “Sometimes we don’t know what we really want, you know?”

  “I guess,” he said. Suddenly, his nose distracted him. “Are you cooking something?”

  “Oh, blast it,” she said, “the steaks.” She rushed to the kitchen.

  Taven followed her. “I didn’t know this was a dinner date,” he said.

  She smiled as she flipped the steaks in the pan. “Well, after what we went through, I knew you’d be hungry. By the way, I hope you like your steaks well-done.”

  “Hey, I thought everybody gets what they want around here.”

  “I said nearly so, didn’t I?” She laughed at herself, and Taven wondered why he’d never noticed her laugh before. It made him ache inside, a kind of pain he wanted to hang on to.

  She turned off the stove and pulled out a dish from the cabinet, setting it beside the steaks. “That’s that,” she said as she reached up and opened another cabinet door. “Here,” she said, handing Taven plates, “help me set the table.”

  When he returned to the dining room table, he noticed a bottle of champagne sitting there. It was a rosé, the same kind he and Amy had discovered on their honeymoon. What were the odds? he thought. And he wondered if the bottle was out because Ferah had placed it there or because the construct had anticipated what he wanted.

  “Alright,” she said, placing the serving platter of steaks down with one hand and a heavy casserole dish full of potatoes and asparagus with the other. “Think that will do?”

  “I don’t see why not,” he answered as he pulled out a chair for her to sit in.

  “Why, what a gentleman.”

  Taven realized he was taking this dinner date thing a little too far. He’d not done anything wrong, he told himself. Not really. But he felt the warning signal, the sound-off that meant he should be careful.

  He sat down and didn’t make eye contact with Ferah. He was still on a mission, and so was she. They needed to get down to business, he decided.

  “Ferah—”

  “Eat before it gets cool,” she insisted.

  He took an obligatory bite of steak, assuming it was over cooked, but either Ferah had exaggerated how much she had overcooked it or the construct had changed its inside to a delicious juicy pink center.

  He looked up with surprise, and she beat him to the punch. “Told you we get what we want,” she said, pouring the champagne in his glass.

  Taven’s stomach growled and his appetite roared at the first taste of food. He didn’t know if it was even necessary to eat in this construct, but he enjoyed every moment, every delicious bite.

  After cleaning his plate, Ferah poured his second glass without asking if he wanted it. Truth was, he did want it. And he was glad he didn’t have to feign modesty by pretending not to want it.

  “My compliments to the chef,” he said.

  Another smile from the host. “I’m glad you liked it. Fortunately, we must have similar tastes.”

  “Apparently,” he said, looking over the top of his glass. She looked back at him, and it became apparent to Taven that they were both conscious of the moment, that they both knew exactly what they were doing, that a man and a women had no business locking eyes that way unless it meant something more.

  Finally, he broke the silence. “You said that this was what counted.” He grabbed the medallion through his shirt. “Why? What’s it for?”

  For a slight moment, Ferah looked disappointed, but she quickly regained her cheerful demeanor. “It’s what everyone is after. It’s the key that gets you access to the Hudson Colony’s leader.”

  “Cat. The green-eyed woman.”

  A surprised look. “Yes, that’s right. How did you know her name?”

  “Everyone’s been telling me to take it up with Cat since I got in here. Just figured she had to be in charge.”

  “To say she’s in charge might be an overstatement. She’s the leader here. She has more power than any of the others, but she’s rather hands-off about most things, from what I can tell.”

  “Well, she’ll get more motivated when she hears the trouble they are all in. She better if she knows what’s good for her.”

  “Perhaps so, but there’s another thing. That medallion gets you into her private abode. Most Hudsonites call it the Temple.” She rolled her eyes.

  “So, it is a cult,” he exclaimed.

  “Not from what I can tell. There’s no official religion here. It’s more of a common belief, a shared ideology. Back to the Temple—the medallion is the key that gets you in, but getting there won’t be easy. It will make what we did gaining the medallion look like child’s play. People camp out at this place, waiting for the next sorry sap to try to get through. It’s the one construct where the medallion won’t pass through with you if you get killed. If you die, it goes back to the rubble hill.”

  “Sheesh,” Taven said. “Can’t we just call her somehow, send her a message? Seems like a rather ridiculous setup if you ask me.”

  “If we want to speak with Cat, it’s the only sure way to find her. I mean, it’s possible, I guess, for her to just show up somewhere. But I get the distinct impression she doesn’t leave the Temple. At least not in any form where people know it’s her.”

  “Great. Not only is she holed up in a high-security facility surrounded by bloodthirsty killers, but if we find her, she may or may not even look like herself.”

  “Pretty much,” Ferah said flatly. Then she picked up dishes and left the table.

  Taven wondered if he’d said something wrong. She had seemed suddenly cool.

  He grabbed a couple dishes and followed her to the kitchen. She passed him coming in the other direction, and when she did, he noticed her expression had changed again. She didn’t look upset or angry, but she was different somehow. He was beginning to think she was unstable. But, of course, he thought that about most women he knew.

  After placing the plates in the sink, he followed her back to the dining room. When he got there, he realized she had stepped outside the wall of windows, onto the deck. He noticed she had carried the champagne bottle with her.

  He grabbed his half-finished glass and went through the porch door. When he opened the swinging glass door, the wind caught it and threatened to pull it open wide. Juggling his glass in one hand and the door with the other, he closed the door, turned, and went to Ferah.

  “Isn’t it gorgeous?” she asked, pointing toward the horizon.

  The sun was setting, and the orange-red iridescence illuminated the western clouds like Chinese lanterns in the sky.

  “I didn’t know we’d been inside that long,” he said.

  Her eyes still fixated on the sun; she gave a gentle smile. “You know, time is all relative. Some people are notoriously bad at being on time.”

  “Yeah, like Mack. He’d be late to his own funeral.”

  “And some people can slow down, savor the moment, make it last.”

  Taven wasn’t sure about all that. He wondered if the construct was causing changes to Ferah’s mind the same way it had changed the rest of their physiology. It had to change you, one way or another, he figured. It wasn’t natural to get killed twice in one day. Who knows what the long-term effects of this place were, and maybe she was feeling them before he did.

  “Another sip?” she said, offering him the bottle.

  “Oh, I don’t know.”

  She poured another one for both of them, emptying the bottle. “Make a wish,” she said.

  Taven didn’t have time to understand, let alone make one before she reared back and threw the bottle into the lake.

  “Hey, aren’t there laws against littering around here?”

  “The bottle won’t exist tomorrow,” she said.

  He took a long sip of the champagne and watched the sun disappear below the edge of the lake. An involuntary yawn took hold of him, and Ferah yawned too.

  “Hey, stop that. Those are contagious,” she teased.

  “It’s been a long day,” he said. “Is it really a day? I mean, I have no idea how long I’ve been here.”

  “Felt like a day to me.”

  “So, are we going to do this?” he asked.

  “What exactly did you have in mind?” she asked stepping closer to him.

  “Go find Cat. Break into the Temple.” He yawned again. “Looks like I need some rest first.”

  “Is that what you really want?” she asked.

  “To rest or find Cat?”

  “Both,” she said with a raised eyebrow.

  “Well, I don’t know what choice we have,” he said. “I can’t seem to talk any sense into these yahoos. The only hope they have is if we can get through to their leader.”

  He paused and took in the last moments of warm light. “But I guess it can wait until morning. If it’s as hard as you say it is to get into the Temple, I’ll need to be at my best.”

  “So, tomorrow?” she asked.

  “I guess so.” He set down his empty glass. “I should probably go.”