She lowered the phone down. “What?”

I looked over her shoulder and saw, as a unit, hundreds of men and women sit up in their chairs. Her eyes darted around, and she too saw what was happening. She lifted her phone to start filming.

“NO TIME!” I said, and I began to run toward the door. “RUN!”

We were around ten meters from the door. I was lucky my seat wasn’t on the far side of the room. As I ran, people in chairs all around me, in unison, lifted their headsets from their heads and placed them down beside them. My legs pumped underneath me. Oh god, it felt so good to run! I looked back and saw Maya meters behind, but my job was to get to the door at the end of the room and open it as fast as I could. A hand reached out and grazed my arm as I reached out and flung the door open and looked back.

I saw Maya scrambling, in her black hoodie and black jeans, as mounds of empty-eyed humans reached out for her. One had grabbed at her head, tugging on the hood of her sweatshirt and hauling her backward. She was just feet away from me. I pushed my foot into the door to keep it open and then reached out to her. I felt her hand wrap around mine, and together we yanked her body free. She tumbled through the door and I slammed it behind her. Thudding immediately came from the other side, and we both sat down in front of the door.

“Did you keep your phone?” my voice said, but it wasn’t me saying it. I tried to lift my hand to my mouth in surprise, but my hand didn’t move. I just sat, quietly, as Maya fished her phone out of her pocket. She showed it to me with a worried but relieved smile.

I wanted to tell her that something was wrong. I tried. And then I tried to scream, but my body would not obey. Having your consciousness trapped inside of a simulation is a nightmare. But now my mind was trapped inside a body I could not control. I sensed nothing of the will that had me; I could only make assumptions from the actions it took, and I had no power to warn Maya.

My hand reached out and grabbed the phone from her, immediately throwing it onto the ground, smashing it, and then picking it up and smashing it again. I looked out from my eyes, and in the glimpses I could catch, I saw Maya’s horrified look of wild fear. The banging from behind the door was getting louder. My body walked up to Maya and reached down. I was looking at her eyes now, and I could see how confused and scared she was. She didn’t want to move away from the door.

“Miranda,” she said, but I could tell she knew it wasn’t me. “MIRANDA! NO!”

My hands shot out and, as panic washed over me, they wrapped themselves around her neck and began to squeeze. Maya was bigger than me, but she was shocked; she didn’t understand what was happening at first, and the thing’s will was concrete. She began to claw at my arms, punch at my face. I felt every blow, but my arms simply squeezed harder and harder.

The violence of it, the brutality. I can’t believe I have to write this. I know it was worse for her, of course, but to become the weapon of some other being was … I’m done. I can’t keep writing this.

MAYA

I knew it wasn’t Miranda. The moment she cracked my phone on the floor, I could see that she was gone. I should have reacted sooner, but I didn’t want to believe what was happening. Violence is about control, about power being taken away. I could still fight. I could beat my friend in the face, I could jam my arms against hers, I could kick and scrape.

But the violence that was being done to Miranda was absolute. I didn’t really understand the ruthlessness of Carl’s brother’s intelligence until that moment. His goal was only to create stability, and he had to abide by no rules. To him, humans died constantly, literally every moment of every day. If one stood in the way of creating the stability he sought, I don’t think he thought of himself as any different from cancer or a heart attack.

But I was not thinking about Miranda’s feelings as my lungs cramped and my head swam with her hands around my neck. I was thinking only about how I was going to get my next breath. I flung my fists at her, and her nose opened up, bleeding down over her pale white skin and into her mouth. I put my thumbs onto her eyes, but even then, I couldn’t bring myself to push into them. And besides, hurting her didn’t seem to be helping, so I went another direction. I just squirmed. I contorted my entire body, losing all connection to pain in my panic. I kicked and thrashed, and somehow, without knowing how really, I got one of my legs up above Miranda’s head, and between her and me. I straightened out, shoving her away from me. Her hands ripped from my throat, her nails tearing into my skin. But before I had time to think about that, I launched at her, knowing that the thing wasn’t going to let up. I wrapped myself around her, pinning her arms to her sides in a bear hug, and then I threw both of our bodies back toward the shuddering door.

Her body was twisting and writhing inhumanly in my grip. I was heavier and stronger than her, but she had the stamina. She was a runner—she could wiggle and twist all day long. I felt myself getting weaker as she continued to kick and wiggle and push at my arms.

Minutes passed.

My shoulders began to burn; sweat and blood made my arms slippery where they grabbed each other. I couldn’t do this. I started crying. This wasn’t who I was; it’s not what my life was supposed to be.

“Miranda, if you can hear me, I know it’s not you. I know it wasn’t you.” That seemed like the most important thing to tell her. “It’s OK,” I said through my tears. “If you kill me, I’ll know it wasn’t you.”

Then she went slack. The banging at the door behind us stopped.

I didn’t dare let go.

“Maya,” she said, breathless and terrified and racked with sudden sobs. Through them she managed to gasp, “Don’t let go.” She coughed and sobbed but then seemed to gather herself. “Whatever it was, it’s gone, but I have no idea whether or when it can come back.”

And then, at the far end of the hall, the door that I had come through after walking past a receptionist’s desk cracked open. The wide hall we were in was oddly plush, with dark green carpet and a high ceiling and wood-paneled walls. At the end, coming through the door, was Carl.

Not monkey Carl, robot Carl. Its massive bulk ducked through the doorway and then stood, full height. The robot walked slowly toward us. And then it staggered, as if it had tripped, or was maybe a little drunk.

It continued to walk toward us, steadily now, before finally leaning over the bloody, bruised, messy pile we had formed at the base of the door. It reached out and gently took one of Miranda’s wrists in its massive hands. I let her go and pushed myself away from both of them. Carl held Miranda so that I didn’t have to.

“Huh,” Miranda said, her eyes looking up and to the right. “Interesting. I guess that makes sense.” But I didn’t know what she was talking about. Mostly, I was just suddenly very happy that she was still Miranda. Still figuring things out that no one else could see.

Carl kept ahold of Miranda’s wrist in their massive hand as they turned and put their back to the door. Silently, Carl and Miranda sat down together. I couldn’t tell which one looked more defeated.

APRIL

“You have nothing, you know,” Peter said as he walked me across the warm early-morning darkness toward, I hoped, the place where he was keeping Miranda. “No one is going to believe you anyway. You broke in here, you attacked people. You’ve always hated me, and it will just look like more bias. What do you think you’re going to achieve? We haven’t done anything wrong.”