\ Distraction \

“Help!”

Marsia dragged herself behind Arufa, the colored wires on her outfit faintly illuminating her outline. She questioned why she hadn’t gone in front of Arufa—she was the one who could hear so clearly the source of Locri’s cries.

“You’ll take a right up here,” she called to Arufa. “We’re getting close, so pick up the pace a little.”

“Got it,” she replied. “By the way. We might have a problem.”

“And what’s that?”

“Is Locri… the kind of person to call out for help?”

Marsia pursed her lips and thought about it. “Well, not ordinarily. She’s very good at handling situations on her own.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. Like, I’d get if it were Skyler, but… Locri?”

“Or, what if she’s just like you? Strong in the simulation, weak and scared in the real world?”

Arufa remained silent for a bit as they continued forward. She took the right turn as specified. “…I’m not weak.”

“But you’re certainly scared. And so is she.”

Again, Locri’s calls rang out through the vents. “Help me!” she shouted again. Arufa dropped her flashlight and scrambled forward to pick it up.

“What a perfect demonstration,” Marsia said.

“Thanks,” Arufa spat. “But… I don’t think she’s scared.”

“Hm?”

“She sounds more annoyed than anything. And you know how neither of us shouted when we woke up?”

“Well–”

“Yeah, you wanted to, but you didn’t. Because it was dangerous. And Locri would know that just as well as any of us.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying something’s off. If we get there and it’s all fine, then that’s great. But I think she’s being held hostage, and I’m wondering if Agent White has anything to–”

Marsia smacked the side of Arufa’s thigh—the only part of her leg covered in cloth rather than metal. “She’s not being held hostage, Arufa. You’re overthinking it.”

“Agh! Ow!”

“My apologies. I needed something to hit, and the walls would not do.”

“Whatever—where do I turn now?”

“Right again. Then left, and the exit will be on the left again.”

Arufa let out a snort. “How do you even know that?”

“It’s instinct. I’ll try to remember how I learned it, but I can’t guarantee results.”

As they kept moving, Marsia racked her brain to recall anything involving her sense of hearing. She was a woman of imagery; scanning her own mind, she only found those same mental pictures of the blood on her hands.

But as she thought more and more, new images began to arise. They were blurry, hard to make out, but vastly different from her prior memories. She remembered a hospital of sorts—maybe a laboratory, actually—and a view of the blank white ceiling, fluorescent lights shining above.

She remembered the strong fear she’d felt in those moments. The crippling uncertainty of what was to come. Above all, Marsia valued certainty—being in control of her situation, or having confidence everything would unfold a certain way, even if it would end poorly. She had been like that in X2 as well, but her memories portrayed it differently.

“Marsia.”

The only issue was, she couldn’t quite remember what came next, or why she had been scared in that memory. Maybe she’d had surgery? But for what purpose, she hadn’t a clue. Her brain felt like a jigsaw puzzle; except she was missing too many pieces to connect any of them.

“Marsia!”

She snapped out of her daze. “Yes?”

“This one, right?” Arufa shone her flashlight at one of the vent covers.

“That’s right. Go on and give it a shove. You’re much stronger than I.”

She pulled herself into the crevice and wound up her arms, then delivered a swift blow to the metal cover. It flew off its screws and rattled on the floor below, but she immediately stopped in her tracks and began to twitch.

“God damn you, Arufa. I thought you were smarter than that,” Locri grumbled from outside. Marsia poked her head through to see what she meant.

Lit by the low purple floor lighting, Locri and Skyler were bound in wire, sitting back-to-back. She immediately noticed a striking difference in their appearances—Locri’s hair was curly and black, her skin desaturated and pale. Skyler was noticeably older, maybe even into their thirties, despite having been the youngest back in X2.

Standing over them were both agents, Ghiles unarmed and White with a pistol. The latter grinned like a madwoman and held her pistol towards the two of them.

“Get down and we’ll talk,” she said.

Marsia involuntarily moved back into the vent, at which she heard a loud bang and watched a bullet rip through the aluminum sides. She turned her head in horror.

“I said, get down. Unless you’d prefer death, in which case I’m happy to provide.”

Arufa slipped out of the vent first, landing on her feet and nearly crumpling to the floor. Hesitantly, Marsia followed her, standing upright beside her. She put her hands on her hips and looked the mad scientists up and down.

Agent White was taller than she remembered—maybe since she’d worn high heels so often. Her short silver-white hair blended into her coat, adorned with neon purple reflectors and indigo accents. Most striking were her laser-yellow eyes, stabbing at her with a piercing stare. For a scientist, she was fairly young, looking around her mid-twenties, the same as Arufa.

Ghiles, on the other hand, shrank into the background somewhat. His styled caramel hair and spectacled blue eyes were much less radiant, and he had a much less imposing aura. The expression on his face emitted regret—for what, she wasn’t sure. Maybe having let Arufa escape in the first place?

“Good. Ghiles, you said Four was fast asleep. Care to explain?”

He scratched at the back of his hand. “She… was. When I checked on her, at least.”

“Alright, well, we’ve learned one thing from this, at least,” White said.

Marsia raised a brow. “And that is?”

“Ghiles, you are a terrible liar,” she grumbled. “Your reasons for letting her out of your grasp are beyond me. And to be frank, I don’t care. So don’t give me an explanation.”

His eyes darted around the room. “But–”

“How many times do I have to repeat myself?! You’re all idiots!” she snarled. Ghiles quickly shut up.

Arufa was petrified, not even trembling like she had been before. Her eyes were locked on White’s—though the scientist paid her no mind, circling the two subjects and twirling her pistol on one finger. Locri rolled her eyes; Marsia figured she was annoyed by the lack of gun safety.

“To thank you two for so eagerly falling right into my little trap, I’d like to explain some of what’s happening,” White began, “because I’m very confident that, in an hour or so, you’ll have forgotten it all as usual.”

“What do you mean, ‘as usual’?” Skyler spoke up. They kicked their feet a little—White stomped in front of them, and they yelped.

“Dr. Ghiles and I are researchers for Nock Laboratories. For the past six years, we’ve been running an experiment on the four of you—Skyler, Marsia, Locri, and Arufa. For the record, though, we only need your brains intact to run it. So get cocky, and I’ll shoot you right in the chest and start it all over again, got it?”

All four subjects remained dead-silent.

“I’m not going to say this again. Got it?”

“Got it,” Arufa whimpered.

“Thank you. At least someone has manners.” She slid the gun into its holster, concealed by her lab coat. “As I was saying, we’ve been trying to understand the nature of consciousness. We’ve come a long way thanks to you all, but we’re not done with you yet. Ultimately, we’ll put you right back in those pods of yours and delete your memory of this.

“But I’m not heartless. To give you all a smidge of satisfaction, Ghiles and I will answer one question for each of you. That’s four questions in total, and every question counts, even trivial ones. No conversing with each other about it, and we’ll go in the order of your testing numbers. That means you’re first, Skyler.”

Skyler’s breath quickened—they weren’t prepared to be put on the spot. “Uh, I… uhh…”

Ghiles kneeled down next to them. “It’s okay, take your time. I know Dr. White’s scary, but there’s no pressure.”

In the time Skyler took to think, Marsia’s thoughts raced. She initially wondered why Skyler looked so much older—and in turn began to wonder if she looked the same way herself. Her own mental image was at the brink of collapse following this notion, so she dismissed it as best she could.

“Okay, I have my question,” they said. “What was X2?”

White shrugged. “Ghiles, you wrote a paper on this one. You tell them.”

He nodded, still kneeled, and turned back to Skyler. “Simulator X2 is a preserved brain that we control with a bunch of electric nodes. Those pods and wires let us project your consciousness into the brain, where we’ve been conducting the MWP for the past six years. It’s sort of like collective dreaming, except at the end of the day, we’re in charge of what happens.

“Nothing in there was real except your souls and ours. It made sense while you were there, but artificial gravity is completely impossible here. Same as a space colony with no energy source, or anti-memetic tattoos, or time travel—but you already figured out they were just illusions. That’s all it is: a thousand illusions just vivid enough to convince you they’re reality.”

Skyler’s face went blank. They seemed distressed in a way they could not physically express. An existential crisis, perhaps? Marsia understood the feeling. Though, she’d always been skeptical of the pop idol bit—she really was a dreadful singer. Maybe next time they’d put her in a less challenging role.

White’s glare shifted to her. “Marsia, it’s your turn.”

“Easy. What’s the point of this experiment?”

“It involved quantum physics initially, though thanks to Ghiles, our research has leaned more toward psychology lately. The truth is, you’re all very different people than your memories in X2 have led you to believe. All four of you are criminals in one way or another. A couple of you even landed on death row. If you find that hard to believe, it’s because our experiment worked.

“By changing the initial condition of your consciousnesses, we were able to form you into entirely new people. Marsia, you in particular changed radically. Finding yourself in great wealth, you were newly willing to give to others, and even though your sympathy was never particularly strong, you bided closely in Locri here, which brought you some much-needed stability.

“But the truth is, Marsia, you’re cold-blooded, just as all of you are. You come from a world of terrible desperation, where you slaughtered your way to survival. The only certainty you had was in the demise of others. Given a different life, your morals changed drastically. You should be proud of yourself.”

But she wasn’t proud of herself. Inside, she felt a violent pang of despair, a twist so tight it tugged on the backs of her eyes. She was a philanthropist, someone always willing to help the needy. But that was a fake, illusory version of Marsia Lilia. She knew the real Marsia now: violent, power-hungry, insatiable.

She almost drowned out Locri’s question in her turmoil, but despite the pain, she needed to know more. So she held her head high amidst her internal suffering and listened.

“Alright, my turn. I don’t care about the murderer crap. Why do we all look so different? I mean, Arufa’s got that fuckin’ mane over there, Skyler’s a grown-ass adult. Marsia’s face just looks… off, and my hair’s suddenly black for no reason.”

Marsia crossed her arms. “My face looks off?”

“I mean, it’s not bad or anything. Just different. And those eyes are way too red.”

White cut in before they could continue. “Yes, your bodies are different than you remember. There are lots of reasons for that, different for every single one of you. Recall that you aged as the simulation went on; six years is enough to have a noticeable effect on anyone.”

Locri waited for her to continue, but she instead moved to Arufa. “Now wait just a damn second,” she said. “You’re gonna give me the short end of the stick just ‘cause my question’s more complicated?”

“I have the right to withhold any information I please. Ghiles can tell you more when he takes you back to your cells, which are right over there.” The scientist jutted a finger down the hallway, towards two adjacent doors.

“Yeah, bitch. I have the right to know what the fuck you did to my body, so spit it out!”

She clicked her gun and held it towards her, not even looking in her direction. “Talk back one more time and I’ll fire. Arufa, it’s your go. Last one—make it count.”

Arufa blinked and looked over at Marsia, trembling. Trying to pocket her crisis for later, Marsia gave her an awkward thumbs-up. “You got this.”

She turned back to White with a determined look on her face. “…I remember you.”

Marsia barely caught it, but for just a fraction of a second, White’s composure broke. She saw a vile hatred behind those electric eyes. She was sure Arufa had seen it, too.

“That’s not a question. Try again.”

“Fine,” she spoke slowly, gaining confidence with each word. “I’ll ask you a real question. I heard Ghiles say something about it earlier. So, tell me. What does ‘MWP’ stand for?”

White was stunned silent. She didn’t immediately have a comeback as she’d had every question before.

“It’s tattooed real bold on all of our necks. Right there, Skyler’s got ‘MWP1’ written there. Marsia’s got ‘MWP2’. Locri has ‘MWP3’, and it logically figures ‘MWP4’ is written on mine. I would have asked about the other tattoo over my eye, the one from X2, but I don’t think that’ll give me anything helpful. So that’s all I’m asking: what does ‘MWP’ stand for?”

“…No follow-up questions, understood? We’ll be escorting you back to your cells after I tell you.”

“Loud and clear, Dr. White.”

“Marsia and Skyler, you’ll come with me. Locri and Arufa, you’ll be with Ghiles.”

Arufa’s gaze darkened. “Are you deflecting?”

“No, I’ll tell you now. MWP is the name of this experiment, the one that’s had you four trapped in X2 for six years. The digit beside it is the order we primed you for it. It was only for labeling purposes, nothing more.”

“You didn’t answer her question!” Marsia retorted. “What does it mean?”