The world swam slowly into focus as his eyes slowly opened. A familiar paneled, bookshelf-lined study. A small fire merrily burning in a fireplace. Even the filled drink and cigar in his hands.

  He grimaced and smudged it out again. Nasty thing. Then his eyes caught on the hand doing the smudging. Two hands for a moment. One with over 50 years of life, slowly wrinkling it. Scars and burns from over three decades of military service, fought with fingers elongated by typing up far too many reports. The other a swordsman’s hands. Wrists thick with muscle and carefully placed calluses, unwrinkled but well-lined with thin, dueling scars and abrasions. Even the fading remnants of a bite he could distinctly remember getting.

  But even as he watched, the second set faded away. To his eyes, if not to his mind. He could remember… everything. An entire life as someone else. Distinctly someone else, and yet he could remember.

  He considered the paradox for a moment.

  Fuck it.

  Then took a long drink.

  The sound of his highball landing back on the end table briefly echoed with similar sounds.

  He wasn’t alone in the room. Familiar, but slightly different forms sat in the chairs beside him.

  Blake back to a slim, glasses-wearing nerd instead of his majestically bearded and robed wizard. Guile, no McGuile, his slim, slight, dark-haired and skinned self again. No longer the red-headed giant.

  Each form the same and yet different.

  “That… That was amazing!” McGuile crowed, tossing back his glass of bonded Tennessee Bourbon as if it was posca. “It felt so real!”

  “Real is subjective.” Their familiar host smiled sadly. “And frankly a less then useful term. Is a sad movie less poignant for being ‘fake’? Is an interaction over a phone somehow less ‘real’ than one in person?”

  “Many say yes.” Andrew offered, taking a much smaller sip of his whisky.

  “Indeed. It's not a subject that has a definitive answer, even after centuries of debate.” The AI allowed. “And that, I think, establishes my point. You won’t find an answer to this question now either. Might as well allow yourselves to enjoy the show.”

  “I’ll drink to that!” Conner spoke, quickly linking words and action. “I feel like I just woke up and it’s far too early to discuss philosophy.”

  He ignored Leo as the man muttered about it not being too early to drink. “I’d rather try to hold on to that amazing dream.”

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

  “Very perceptive of you, Conner.” The AI allowed. “It was indeed a dream. That’s what is required for you to forget yourselves for a time and become someone else. It’s not an easy thing to do, to make a man forget his entire life. On the positive side, it also gives you all a small degree of control over the world we created.”

  “Interesting.” Leo offered, taking a small sip, “But why do we need to know? It works, and it was awesome. Can we go back in now?”

  “Unfortunately no.” He raised a hand at the squawked outrage. “Or rather not yet. And that is why the dream state is relevant. There is a ‘minuscule-’” The AI offered with a twinkle in its digital eye “-chance of personality fragmentation. Or ‘Burn Through’ as it's becoming known in the community.”

  He grabbed a folder from the side of the desk, one that wasn’t there a minute ago, Ethan could have sworn, and opened it as a prop. “You are not your dream self, but the dream self is you. And this shows in the occasional moments of bleed-through you all experienced in-world.”

  Ethan grinned, thinking back on the occasional odd thought or connection that hadn’t made much sense then, but was quite something else now.

  “If you stay under for too long, the reverse can start to happen. These mandatory medical breaks remove that chance.”

  “How long?” Blake asked leadingly. Clearly aware of most of this, but trying not to lord it over the rest of them.

  And doing it quite badly.

  He took another sip.

  “That depends on you, but on the very highest end 24 hours. If you demonstrate personality solidification before that, then…well then it’s up to you.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Ethan asked, frowning at the AI.

  “I am not a jailer. If you don’t like this world, we can discuss creating another.” An immediate protest and disagreement exploded.

  “Fuck no! We are going back in as soon as we fucking can!” McGuil’s voice fought with Conner’s and barely won. In volume, even if the contents were nearly identical.

  With laughter and good cheer, the room dissolved into nearly a play-by-play of their adventure.

  “Did you see that bow shot? On a charging Umbral Elite and right it its damn eye!”

  Was quickly followed by “Did you mainline Michael Bay movies as a child, Leo? That wolf kill, I can almost hear the Valkyrie’s singing about cool guys not looking at explosions!”

  Or “Damn but that little shit Adelbert was starting to grow on me.”

  “Who knew you needed to go digital to get your teaching fix? All da little boys and girls actually listening and turning into proper soldiers? Could your subconscious get any more obvious Conner?” Leo shot out with a dark grin. They dissolved into shouting and laughter for a moment before Leo turned his eyes elsewhere.

  “And you! McGuile and Ethan. One with more ladies around him than days in the week, the other with hellacious hotties that he turned down for a Librarian?”

  Ethan shrugged. Scratching at his chin. What did that say about him? Probably that when life was too good to be true, it probably wasn’t.”

  “What can I say?” McGuile shot back, unembarrassed. “I do love a place where women love military men! No bull shit 9V or preferences for some puling pussy.” He rubbed at his ankle hesitantly as he spoke.

  Andrew snorted, though Ethan noted that he hadn’t exactly been celibate either. “Very modern of you.”

  “Fuck Modern. And if that’s what my subconscious can produce?” McGuile offered, though that wasn’t quite how the AI had put it. “Then fuck ‘reality’ to!”

  Ethan half raised a hand, ready to bring things back down. But… there were no censors here. No political actors and no one left outside who gave a damn. Did he really want to return to that? Over the life he’d just experienced.

  Huh.

  He raised his glass, catching the eyes of the men around him.

  “Fuck reality!”

  The clink of glasses filled the room.