Hey hey. :D

I am once again caught up with my editing to where I am with writing, and I have exams next week so I might be off for a while. Also, even though we're out of the Nowhere Islands V-game there's still a decent amount of content left. Hopefully it continues to hold your interest.

Have a great day. :)

No.

Lucas opened his eyes, looking down into the palms of his hands. But his eyes were focused rather than hesitant, and they looked like they were about to shoot lasers and fry Lucas' hands to a crisp.

"The first thing I want to say is that I'm sorry," Lucas told him.

No.

"It's not fair to ask this, of course, but please do try not to blame my mother too harshly," Lucas said. "When you came into my Magicant, I changed up the code of the game and hid my mother's smiles away. What you saw was a bastardization of the true self, the Mecha-Drago to the Drago inside of her."

No.

Lucas smiled, studying Ninten with his same iron eyes and measured expression.

"All the laser shots and plasma sword strikes that you took, all of the pained expressions and panicked eyes you had to see…" Lucas closed his eyes. "They all come from me. So feel more than welcome to hate me for everything I did. I knew that you and Ana were trying to rescue me, and I repaid your kindness by crusting your hopes over and over again."

No.

"Ninten?" Lucas' eyes jolted open. "Please feel free to speak. Nobody's going to hurt you here."

Ninten tried to swallow and found the back of his throat dry. He must be dreaming, hallucinating, anything other than seeing reality in Lucas' wide eyes and slight frown.

"Lucas," Ninten said, his voice trembling. "Tell me."

"Tell you… Oh." Lucas' frown deepened. "But you already know."

Ninten's heart sunk further into his stomach. He wanted to shout at Lucas that if he said the words out loud, then they would finally be real.

"But if you want to hear it from me," Lucas said, "Then I guess it's the least I can do for all the hurt I caused you."

Lucas walked over to the edge of the cliff, standing with a small part of his front shoe off the edge. A gust of wind whipped his hair and clothes back, but Lucas himself didn't budge. Ninten took a tentative step closer, unable to take his eyes off the distance between him and the trees below.

"I failed the PSI test," Lucas said, facing away from Ninten, "So I ran away. Not permanently, just to take a little walk. I took the bus to the edge of town and walked over to Sullivan Park with my wooden waterfall carving in my pocket. I wasn't really angry that I failed the diagnostic exam, but I was disappointed. Not in myself, but in the world. I really only kept myself alive to this point because I thought that Earth might need my help. But I never thought that the world wouldn't want my powers. It was a new experience for me."

Lucas' voice was hardly more than a whisper, but his words managed to cut through the sounds of the wind and reach Ninten's ears with perfect clarity. When Ninten replied, he needed to raise his voice to even hear himself over the whipping of the air.

"Your… powers?"

"I walked up to the top of a waterfall, the one right next to where you found my body," Lucas said. "It's a bit off the path, but at this point I'm willing to clutch onto anything that reminds me of home. I walked up to the edge, just like what I'm doing now. I closed my eyes and spread out my arms, wondering what it would feel like to fly."

Lucas extended his arms out to the side for effect. Ninten let out a cry, absolutely convinced for just a moment that Lucas was going to jump.

"Have you ever wanted to die?" Lucas said, looking over his shoulder at Ninten. "Not just in a fit of despair. Have you ever looked down over a cliff at the world below and experienced the numb realization that it would feel so good just to die right now? For me, the thought of falling was calming. Sure, my body would slam into the ground and break, but my spirit would ride the winds forever."

Ninten froze in place. Finally, someone asked. Finally, someone knew. But years of waiting for the question wasn't nearly enough for Ninten to prepare himself to answer.

"You don't have to answer," Lucas said, looking back out at the forest beyond the cliff. "I'm just rambling at this point. I don't think it's something you can really imagine if you haven't experienced it yourself.

Ninten walked up to the edge of the cliff next to Lucas and looked down. The trees might has well have been statues. Even the crashing water was stagnant in a way. The water landed in the same part of the waterfall basin and flowed along the same currents. The individual water molecules moved, but the shape of the waterfall and river stayed the same. It would be so easy for Ninten to join them in the stillness.

"I do understand," Ninten said. "I… think I feel the same way."

Lucas looked over at Ninten, raising an eyebrow in question.

"I was always the emotional one in elementary school," Ninten said. "I would tear up whenever I saw someone fall down on the playground, and I would freeze and cry whenever teachers raised their voice at me. And I remember, more than anything, wanting that fear and sadness to leave. And one day, I got exactly what I wanted. It was the worst day of my life."

Lucas smiled, putting a hand on Ninten's shoulder. Ninten smiled back, trying to shrug off his panic. Lucas had no reason to push him off the cliff now.

"What did it feel like?" Lucas said.

Ninten shrugged. "If I were on the Mothership with Hinawa again, I wouldn't have cared about the Mr. Saturn genocide. If I were back in the tunnels underneath Seoul, I would have heard Namiko out and nodded along. I would have watched with dull eyes as Kim electrocuted himself, and I would have smiled as Liu fired her final shot at me."

Lucas nodded, looking back out at the forest below the cliffs. His eyes seemed to be searching for something.

"And how long did that feeling last?" he said.

"It came and went," Ninten said. "I never really talked about it because I knew that if I faked smiles until I got better than nobody would notice. I'm already antisocial, so it was nothing new."

"And did you ever try it?"

Ninten looked over at Lucas, whose distant expression didn't change even after Ninten stared for what must have been seconds. Ninten took a step away from the cliffs and looked back at rushing river beside him.

"No. Even in my darkest moments, I knew that my past self and my future self would be screaming for me to stop if I ever took a gun to my head. And for me, there was a future. Most days, I could go to sleep and wake up feeling fine the next day. I wasn't going to throw that all away."

Lucas cracked a smile as he continued to stare out into the distance.

"I guess we're more similar than I expected," Lucas said. "So I think you'll understand when I say that when I spread my arms out in front of this cliff and told myself that I wanted to fly, there was a little voice in my head holding me back. I never wanted to kill myself, Ninten. I just wanted to feel something after failing the PSI test, and the vague thrill as I teetered off the edge of the cliff was enough. Because really, all emotions are similar in most ways. We're lucky to have any of them at all."

"And then what?"

Lucas turned around to face Ninten and laughed. "Oh, I would hate to cut our little heart-to-heart short, but if you insist on hearing the rest of the boring story…"

"Please. I need to hear it come from you."

Lucas sighed. "When I lifted my foot to take a step backwards, I tripped and fell forward. So for just a moment, I did get my wish and soar through the air like a bird."

No more speculation, then. No more hiding behind silence. The rest of the pieces fell into place on their own.

Lucas raised an eyebrow. "Still want to hear the rest?"

Ninten nodded. "I know what must have happened, but I still can't bring myself to believe it."

Lucas nodded without a moment's hesitation. "I fell through the air, and then landed on the ground. Luckily, I didn't land right on my head, but I still got a concussion from the impact of falling flat on my chest. As my ears were ringing and I felt around for the cracked bones in my body, I reached out for the psyweb. With my foggy mind, my own mindscan locked me out."

Ninten gulped. "And then…?"

"And then I spent what must have been an hour blacking out and recovering for brief moments while I slipped further and further away. I didn't have the voice to call out for help, and nobody would think to check for me off in the woods off the path. I think I would have died during that time if I hadn't used PSI to heal myself. My organs were failing, and some of my cells were probably running off of psychic energy instead of ATP. I knew that it couldn't last."

Lucas smiled, taking another step away from the edge of the cliff and looking at a sparrow chirping from a tree branch.

"So I made my own portal to the psyspace," Lucas said, "Locking it behind a mindscan that could only be accessed by my fuzzy mind. I knew that my psyspace would recognize me, even if my mindscans wouldn't."

"You did all of that after failing a PSI test," Ninten said. "Did you…?"

"Fail on purpose? No." Lucas thrust a hand forward, and nothing happened. "I've just never been good at telekinesis. When the examiners saw that I couldn't lift a feather, they escorted me out of the room."

Ninten blinked. If it were possible for gifted psions to struggle with psychokinesis, then Lucas probably wasn't the only potent psychic to get cut from the program. He took a moment to wonder just how many people would go through their lives never realizing the raw strength within their minds just because a diagnostic test in college told them that they just weren't born to use PSI.

"But making psyspace portals has always come naturally to me," Lucas said. "I suppose that I could have made another IP address on the psyweb, but we never had a psyweb where I came from and I wasn't sure if even an ambulance would have been able to save me if I called them through the psyweb. Besides, I wasn't really thinking straight."

"So you made a psyspace portal, and deposited the waterfall file inside your Magicant." Ninten's heart pounded in his chest. "What exactly was in that file?"

Lucas smiled, gesturing to the air around him. "This."

"And this is…?"

"This is my mind," Lucas said. "This is me. When I was dying, I transferred my consciousness over to my psyspace so that I would exist forever. Just like Namiko, and just like Liu."

There it was. A truth that Ninten's entire reality shouldn't have been spoken of in the same tone that Lucas used to discuss taking a walk through the forest. If the only certainties in life were death and taxes, then cheating death had just become as easy as income tax evasion. Which shouldn't have been possible. Death was final, unknowable, sacrosanct.

But all along hiding in the human mind, there had been a way to live on forever.

"And the person I saw when Claus took me to this waterfall was you?"

"Indeed." Lucas sighed. "I apologize for pretending to be the Lucas within the game. After seeing you work with the Masked Man to save the world at the final needle, I couldn't look you in the eyes and say that you failed. I hoped that you would win, discover my body, and never figure out what I actually did. Then everyone would move on with their lives and I wouldn't have to explain the barriers I broke and the lines I crossed. But here you are."

"Here I am," Ninten said. "And now I don't know what to do with you."

"Well, I don't have the right to ask this of you, but please don't tell anyone else what happened to me. Some knowledge is best left hidden."

"And yet you can use it to save yourself."

"I'm actually thinking about leaving. Now that I'm dead, I don't really have a purpose and it wouldn't matter if my mind floated around unaware in the PSI realm like every other person who's ever died. And if erasing all evidence of my consciousness is the only way to protect my secret, I'll go quietly into the night."

Ninten looked at Lucas, searching for a glint of humor in his eyes and finding none.

"I think that we need a reason to exist," Lucas said. "And all of those reasons left me years ago. It's no big deal to me if I fade away into oblivion. Really, living alone in this forest is just a different kind of emptiness. And I think I owe it to the world to keep my knowledge of this afterlife a secret. Especially when I might not even be real."

Ninten frowned. "Not real? Isn't this your consciousness?"

Lucas shrugged. "It's all data. Not everyone agrees that we go where our data goes. I do truly believe that our sense of identity is intertwined with all the information stored within us, and that transferring our data from neurons to PSI code doesn't really change anything. But most of the people in this world are spiritual in one way or another, and they likely have different definitions of identity. If this gets out, it could start a controversy like none other."

"Just like how abortion did?" Ninten said. "It's not so different in my eyes. You're manipulating life to create a better existence for people, and it might annoy some hard-line Christians who can't look past the soul."

"The process of procedural abortions was an inevitable step for humanity," Lucas said. "People have been killing human embryos for thousands of years using more dangerous methods. But nobody in the history of the Earth before me has cheated death. And it's not just a religious issue. Only those trained in PSI can transfer their consciousness to their psyspace and live on after death. And please, do remind me again who those people tend to be."

Lucas flashed a smile that didn't reach his eye, and a chill ran down Ninten's spine.

"Can't say it?" Lucas said. "Then I will. The people trained in PSI are people who are set up for success from birth, funneled into private PSI preparation High Schools with other rich kids. The common person who hasn't been taught the tricks of the trade before the diagnostic test has next to no chance of passing the PSI test."

"Ana-"

"I asked Ana outright." Lucas' eyes narrowed. "She's not rich, but both of her parents are powerful psions. They doubtless taught her how to levitate objects and mend scratches. But even she's an exception. I looked at the stats, and 95% of psions come from the top 40% income households. 30% of psions come from the top 1%. If you release knowledge of transferring a consciousness to the psyspace, people will be able to purchase their immortality. Money used to allow people to buy goods. Now, it lets people buy political power. Soon, will it be able to buy life itself."

"So because some people can't exist past death, nobody should be able to?"

Lucas laughed. "I like you, Ninten, so sometimes I forget how ignorant you are. Trust me on this one. You've only been around people as lucky and privileged as yourself. Most people in the world won't ever be taught the skills they need to upload their consciousness into a psyspace. You'll just be making the rich richer while the poor start to lose hope. But that's what your great-grandfather always wanted you to do, isn't it?"

Ninten felt his chest tighten. He stared over at Lucas' sad smile and took a step back.

"George isn't just your problem, Ninten. What do you think would happen if he knew about what I did?"

Ninten closed his eyes. No more running away from the truth.

"If he knew," Ninten said. "He would use it to make as much money as he could. He would jack up the price of PSI programs and create special courses that would teach the permanent transfer of consciousness into the psyspace. He would charge millions for that course alone. And then money really would be able to buy life itself."

Now that he had gotten those words off of his chest, he was able to breathe easy. Ninten opened his eyes and took a deep breath of crisp forest air.

"Right," Lucas said. "George would finally be proud of his little grandson that he recruited from an orphanage specifically to discover more secrets that would aid the company."

"How do you know so much about me?"

Lucas smiled. "But if you did, the whole world would shatter. The one thing that the rich have never been able to control is life itself. Once you put that sort of power in their hands, corporations will finally overtake governments in name rather than just spirt. They'll bend everyone to their will. Because they can offer the one commodity that everyone needs. They can't refuse the offer of eternal paradise for the chosen few who follow each corporation."

"All right, I get it. I'll keep it a secret." For now.

"That's why I wanted to crush your spirit in the Nowhere Islands V-game," Lucas said. "And honestly, I probably should have. I do trust you with all of my heart, Ninten, but I don't know the person you're going to be in five, ten years. That's why I'm trying to freak you out now. I'm sorry that your great-grandfather only sees you as an apparatus of his company, and I don't blame you for wanting to make him proud. But you cannot let him know about this. Promise me, Ninten."

Ninten took a deep breath. "I promise."

"Good."

Lucas' expression relaxed, and he whistled a tune along with one of the chirping sparrows. After a moment, more birds joined in singing and Lucas laughed.

"I do hate playing the bad guy," Lucas said, "And I'm sorry that you had to see me at my worst. Like I said, feel free to hate me for everything I put you through. So long as my secret stays safe, I'll soak up all your anger like a sponge."

Ninten's heart was racing, but his instincts screamed at him to run away and forget that Lucas ever existed instead of stepping forward and shaking his fists.

"Because really," Lucas' voice echoed in his mind, "All emotions are similar in most ways. We're lucky to have any of them at all."

Maybe there was a bit of wisdom in Lucas' words. So long as Ninten could feel something, he could hang onto who he was. He would let the fear be his friend and force his lips closed whenever someone mentioned Lucas. He had a responsibility to make sure that the world didn't erupt into class warfare.

"And now," Lucas said, "You should probably leave. Ana's stalling for as long as she can, but the cops are wondering why you're still in the PSI realm."

Ninten shot Lucas a flat glance. He needed to make a habit of not talking to people with way more knowledge than he had. He didn't even want to guess how Lucas could tell from inside his Magicant what was happening in the outside world.

"Goodbye, then," Ninten said. "I want to say that it was good to talk to you, but…"

"It may not have been good, but it was necessary." Lucas smiled. "If someone had to stumble over all of my secrets and carry the fate of the world in their hands, I'm glad it was you. Thank you for seeing outside of your own head. I don't suppose that you could keep my fate a secret from Ana?"

"I think that she deserves to know," Ninten said. "And I would trust her with my life."

"Your life is one thing," Lucas said. "Would you trust her with the fate of the world?"

Ninten looked Lucas in the eye. "Yes. I would."

Lucas grunted and then nodded. "I respect your judgment. But please, make sure nobody knows. Could you at least convince Ana to destroy the psyspace portal I made in the forest?"

"Maybe eventually," Ninten said, "But I think we'll want to talk to you more once the whole situation calms down."

Lucas sighed. "Like I said earlier, I guess I owe you that much. I hope I won't regret letting you beat the game and find my body. Adding more variables to the equation always makes the outcome more difficult to predict."

"Always?" Ninten grinned. "Sometimes, adding more variables is all that allows me to solve a system of equations."

Lucas laughed. "Fair enough. I hope that you and Ana are those kinds of variables, then." Lucas paused. "You really should get going now. Goodbye, Ninten."

Lucas waved goodbye, and Ninten returned the gesture of a nod. He closed his eyes and prepared to exit Lucas' Magicant yet again.

Wait.

Right before he emptied his consciousness completely, Ninten opened his eyes and looked back at Lucas.

"One last question," Ninten said. "You said that everything in the Nowhere Island V-game comes from you. But the people inside of the game… are they real?"

Lucas hesitated. "They're real in my mind. You'll have to decide what that means for you."

Lucas wouldn't quite meet Ninten's gaze. Ninten stared at Lucas' unreadable expression for a moment before turning away one he realized that Lucas didn't have anything else to say.

"All right," Ninten said. "Goodbye, Lucas."

Ninten hardly remembered the rest of the night. Or, well, the rest of the morning.

A few bits and pieces stuck. A blinding flashlight and blue caps. Tree branches surrounded by darkness ruffling in the wind. Ninten's eyelids closing and refusing to open again as a voice in the back of his head screamed at him to stay awake. Ana walking him back to his apartment and waving goodbye with a sad smile as he closed the door.

Even chemistry at ten in the morning passed by like a blur. Ninten remembered that the professor called on him for a question, but minutes later he couldn't remember what the question had been or the answer he had given. He thought someone made a comment about him Ana not being able to bail him out this time when the professor singled him out, but he might have imagined it.

After the rest of his classes finished, Ninten went back to his apartment and passed out on his bed. Thankfully, his roommates didn't do anything especially loud during those hours and Ninten slept until dinner time.

He checked his messages after eating dinner. Ana had sent him a psyweb message hours ago. Ninten messaged her back, and they agreed to meet in her apartment.

Ninten stood by the padlocked, iron gate, humming to himself to pass the time. Cars whizzed past him on the street, and Ninten pressed himself up to the gate when he smelled exhaust fumes. He reached into his pocket to grip his inhaler and tried to take small breaths through his nose.

Ana emerged from inside the apartment building moments later, waving hello to Ninten. Her eyes still looked bloodshot, but Ninten stopped worrying once he saw the spring that she put in each step. She walked up to the gate and opened it from the inside. Ninten walked inside and took a deep breath of air, looking back at the street and shaking his head.

"Oh," Ana said, her voice falling. "Is your asthma…?"

"I'm fine. I just hate roads."

"Because of your asthma."

Ninten shrugged. "I'll feel better once I get inside."

Ana nodded and started off towards the sliding glass door that led to the carpeted interior of the apartment complex.

"Maybe we can meet up at your place next time," Ana said. "Your apartment complex isn't locked behind a gate like a prison, right?"

"No, but the walls are so old that they look like they could belong to a prison."

Ana shook her head. "I thought rich kids were supposed to get all the nice places around town. I know someone who rented a new house with two other people. They have like four extra rooms that none of them are using."

"Well, if none of them are using the rooms then there's no point to renting something that big," Ninten said. "My apartment works just fine for me."

Ana snorted. "Come on. You're supposed to exploit the system and end up with all the posh stuff. Go out and live a little. Buy champagne and flick money at strippers. The world is your oyster so long as people keep wanting more of your sweet, sweet dollar bills."

"I'm going to pretend that you didn't say the line about strippers." Ninten looked up at the top of the sprawling apartment complex. "But I also think that we might not want to meet up at my apartment because my roommates tend to mess it up even when I try to keep it clean."

"Eh." Ana yawned. "Given my current state, I don't know how much cleaner my apartment will be."

Ninten and Ana continued to talk as they walked into the apartment complex and up the three flights of stairs to Ana's room. Conveniently, Ana mentioned after they walked up the stairs that the elevator probably would have been faster. Ninten grunted, thinking about his next opportunity to sit down and rest his legs.

Ana unlocked the door to her apartment and thrust the door open. A red-haired girl sat on the couch, flipping through different television channels. She looked up as Ninten entered the room and grinned.

"Ooh," she said. "Does Ana finally have a boyfriend?"

"Hello to you too, Pippi," Ana said. "Ninten's just going to be here for a while. We won't be in your way."

Pippi stood up and walked over, examining Ninten from head to toe. Ninten crossed his arms and looked over at Ana for support.

"Where did you pick up a cutie like him?" Pippi said. "I just want to pinch his soft cheeks."

"Right," Ana said, stretching out the word. "Ninten, let's go into my room."

Ninten nodded and followed Ana through a short hallway until she stopped in front of a white door.

"Have fun in there, you two," Pippi said, giggling. "Just be quiet if you need to play around with the bedsprings, all right?"

Ninten felt his cheeks heat up, and he could only hope that they didn't look as red as he imagined that they were. Ana rolled her eyes to Ninten and opened the door, walking inside her room.

While Ness' room was lined with baseball posters and Lucas had put up pictures of scenery or wildlife around his part of the dorm, Ana's room was lined with posters of sci-fi alien movies, shooter V-games, and death metal bands with skull logos.

"No triple fudge chocolate ice cream posters, huh?" Ninten said.

"You know," Ana said, a grin spreading onto her face. "That's a great idea."

Ninten laughed, walking into Ana's room and taking a closer look at her wooden dresser and quilt with the picture of some anime character sewn in. Ana shut the door behind him, smirking as her gaze went from Ninten to her bed.

"Some of the styles don't necessarily sync with each other," Ana said, glancing up at one of her death metal posters, "But looking at the clusterfuck of stupid hobbies I have makes me happy."

She posed in front of a V-game poster, imitating the main character on the poster by turning her hands into finger guns and pointing them sideways. She made a couple of "pop" noises with her mouth and pretended to fire off the finger guns before grinning and flopping onto the bed.

"You can sit at my desk, if you want," Ana said, "Since I have a feeling that you wouldn't be comfortable sitting on the face of an anime character."

Ninten nodded, and pulled Ana's swivel chair out from her desk and turned it towards her before sitting down. He cast a glance towards the white door and then looked back at Ana.

"Sorry about Pippi," Ana said. "She's not normally creepy around guys, so I don't know what's going on. Good job just staying quiet, though. I think she was fishing for a reaction out of you, so at least you can savor in the victory of not letting her see you angry."

"She did see me squirm a bit," Ninten said. "And you're acting like me staying quiet was an active choice."

Ana laughed. "So it's just your state of being, then?"

"When I'm feeling uncomfortable or threatened, yeah."

Ana raised an eyebrow. "You're saying that she had you like a deer in the headlights."

"More or less."

"Oh." Ana sat up straight. "I'm sorry. If you actually feel that uncomfortable, we should probably meet at your place from now on."

"It's all right," Ninten said. "I'm sure that you're dying to know about what I saw inside the waterfall sprite."

Ana nodded, bouncing up and down on her bed. After her burst of excitement, she leaned in to listen.

"I think we should talk in your psyspace," Ninten said. "Some of the information that Luc-I found is sensitive by nature."

"Fine." Ana rolled her eyes and leaned back in her bed. "There's another portal by my desk, and I can unlock it for you. But I hope you know that each moment we wait makes my stomach tie itself into another knot."

Ninten sighed, rolling back over to Ana's desk. He closed his eyes and reached out for the warmth of her psyspace portal, letting his thoughts wrap around the ball of heat in front of him. After a few moments, he felt the tingling sensation of his consciousness leaving his body.

Ninten stood in a small room where a panoramic scene of a city was painted around the walls. Even on the ceiling, grey buildings pierced white clouds and blue skies. Ana appeared in the room moments later, wearing a nervous grin.

"Not as scenic as Lucas' Magicant, but it will do for now," she said. "Trust me, it looks better than all the spreadsheets I have stored in here. Now please," Ana's hands jittered, "Tell me what you saw in that waterfall sprite."

Ninten recounted his story. Since he had told Ana about the waterfall setting from when Claus had first taken him there, it didn't take Ninten long to catch her up. He ended by telling her about the promise he made to keep Lucas' existence past death a secret.

"You knew this all along, didn't you?" Ana said.

"What? Why would I have gone through Lucas' whole Nowhere Islands V-game if I had known?"

"Oh no." Ana's eyes widened. "Not all along. But when you started freaking out after seeing his body. I just thought that you were having a tough time dealing with his death. But you knew what had happened to him."

He had known, and he hadn't told Ana. Ninten winced.

"I'm sorry," Ninten said. "I didn't want it to be true."

Ana frowned. "No need to apologize. I can't imagine what kind of weight this must put on your shoulders."

"Mine and not yours?"

"I'm not going to be a top executive in the world's largest PSI company," Ana said. "I won't have to make the choice about whether or not to leak Lucas' secret to the world."

Oh, right. Thanks for the reminder.

"I promised Lucas I wouldn't tell anyone other than you," Ninten said, "A promise is a promise."

"Someone who's not willing to break a promise in order to help the world," Ana said, "Is one twisted motherfucker. Situations change. Maybe humanity will need the knowledge of how to preserve life past death. Maybe you'll just make it worse." Ana poked Ninten in the chest. "You need to be the judge. Not Lucas."

"That sort of thinking is why he tried to make me fail the Nowhere Islands V-game," Ninten said, "And it's why he almost didn't tell me about his secret."

"That doesn't make him right." Ana frowned. "Look, I get where he's coming from. Racial and economic tensions from centuries ago are still playing out today. The rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. Some people really don't have a way to escape the system. It's horribly tragic. But leaking this secret out to the world doesn't hurt them."

"I think Lucas' point is that when the rich get more toys, the poor always suffer."

"So make sure that the middle class knows has the tools to transfer their consciousness to their psyspace along with the rich," Ana said. "People feared that the tractor would put farmers out of business, but it ended up helping to feed the world. People feared that the loom and the assembly line would lead to mass unemployment of craftsmen, but it ended up making clothes and cars affordable for almost everyone. And recently, people feared that mechanization would put the people who only have their jobs because of the earlier assembly line development out of work. And guess what? Unemployment rates stayed the same, and prices went down."

"Do you think lowering prices by a bit helped the people who really needed it?" Ninten said.

"Yeah, eventually. Now almost everyone has proper clothes and can afford cheap little plastic toys for their kids, no matter their income bracket. The lives of the poor have always improved by inches at a time, but I think we're all better off now than we were a couple hundred years ago. It's normal to fear the unknown, but progress is what got us to this standard of living in the first place."

"That sounds a little bit like trickle-down economics."

"Look me in the eyes and say if you were an average person, you'd rather live with the technology of the 1800s than the technology of today. Say that you'd give up your vacuum and dishwasher, your TV and psyweb."

Ninten looked up at Ana and hesitated.

"That's what I thought," Ana said. "There are also examples of anti-technology people holding back the poor as well. Anti-GMO protestors keep putting pressure on companies to shut down projects trying to make rice more nutritious. They want to afflict millions of kids in Asia with malnutrition because their privileged asses aren't fucking comfortable with the idea of changing a cell's DNA."

"Monsanto-"

"You can control this, Ninten. Yeah, Monsanto is full of shit, but you can make sure that your PSI company doesn't end up like Monsanto. Just wait for George to die and establish yourself within the company. And then you can make sure that you provide the infrastructure to support the economic demand for people wanting to transfer their consciousnesses so that the rich don't monopolize the procedure."

"Ana. I made a promise to Lucas. He trusts me."

"If I could betray one person's trust to make millions of people happy, I would." Ana looked into Ninten's eye. "No matter who it was."

"But what if Lucas is right?" Ninten took a step back. "What if I'll just be bringing more pain and suffering to the world?"

Ana shrugged. "Maybe it is the wrong choice. But I want you to make that decision, not Lucas."

"How can I possibly make that sort of choice?" Ninten said. "I have no idea what will happen."

"You can because you need to," Ana said. "Think about it, Ninten. You're like Batman. Sure, you don't have any superpowers, and you weren't chosen by some superior force. But once you become a full-fledged psion, you'll have the monetary resources and political power to change the world."

"I don't know how much political power Batman really had," Ninten said.

"Okay." Ana rolled her eyes. "It's not a perfect analogy. But I think you have the heart to make the world a better place, and soon you'll have the ability to turn your dreams into reality. I'll stand by your side no matter what, of course, but I think that you'll be missing out on a big opportunity if you keep Lucas' secret for the rest of your life. Besides, if Lucas discovered how to exist in the psyspace forever, how long do you think it will take someone else? I know that you don't want to capitalize off of people's hopes for an afterlife, but someone else who stumbles on the knowledge might."

All good points. Ninten rubbed his temples. Whenever he followed along with Ana's logic for more than a second, his mind went back to Lucas' eyes wide with dull fear. Ninten had made a promise.

"Maybe we could talk about this later, one our lives calm down a bit," Ana said, noticing Ninten's unresponsiveness. "I'm thrilled to know that Lucas still exists, at least in a way. Do you still have the waterfall carving with you?"

"Oh." Ninten stuck his hands in his pockets. "Not with me, I guess. When I find it, do you want to go see Lucas yourself?"

"Yes please." Ana's face lit up. "I should at least let him know that I'm thinking about him."

"Should we go look for it now? I don't really have anything better to do."

Ana nodded vigorously. "That sounds awesome."

"Let's head back to my apartment, then. Sorry it took me so long to get back to you."

"It's all right. Given the circumstances, I'm just happy you were able to meet me today."

Ninten smiled. "Thanks for everything you've done for me, Ann. I don't know how much you remember about what you told me late at night in that cave I was trapped in, but I'm glad that you want our friendship to last forever. I can't think of anyone I'd rather have supporting me through times like this."

Ana's cheeks reddened. This had to be the first time that Ninten had ever seen her blush. She put her hands over her cheeks and laughed.

"Warm," she said, feeling over her cheeks. "That's how you know you really have me embarrassed. Thanks, Ninten. I'm lucky to have you as a friend as well. When all this craziness calms down, I'll be looking forward to our ice cream outing."

Ana closed her eyes to exit her psyspace, but they flashed open at the last moment.

"Wait," Ana said. "I just thought of something."

"I'm glad those moments are happening with increased frequency."

"Rude." Ana stuck out her tongue at Ninten. "But seriously. If Lucas took the Nowhere Islands V-game from his own mind, why was Claus able to take you over to Lucas and the waterfall? I mean, I know that almost all bets are off where that Nowhere Islands V-game is concerned, but it should still stay within the game and not bleed into Lucas' reality."

"Honestly?" Ninten grimaced. "I still need some time to process everything that's happened. After we find that wooden waterfall carving, I think I'll give my mom a psyweb call. Maybe she can help me work through some of my feelings."

"Oh, that's a good idea. Maybe I should call your mom as well." Ana laughed. "I don't think my mom would even believe me if I told her what happened. And I would probably be more concerned if she did believe me."

"Well, good thing you're so independent."

Ana shrugged. "I had to be if I wanted to survive with her. Now, are you ready to scrounge your apartment for a wooden waterfall model?"

Ninten grinned. Forget about keeping Lucas' secret safe. Forget about leaking Lucas' secret to the world. Forget about income inequalities and technological explosions. Ninten had to make it through today if he wanted to save the world tomorrow.

Because right here, right now, Ninten could look at Ana's eager grin and at least pretend that the world was okay.

"Sounds like an evening," Ninten said.