April May has done some buck-wild shit in her life. She has done big things and brave things and impressive things, but I was never prouder of her than I was right then when she told her parents that she needed them.

“OK, I’m sorry I can’t see you now. But soon. And I’ll explain everything. And you’ll be proud of me, I promise.”

They talked for a little while longer before she thumbed off the phone and then turned to me. Only half of her face was wet because only half of her face made tears. I reached out instinctively to wipe them away because that’s just who I am, and then she collapsed into me.

“That was really hard,” she said.

“I know,” I replied, wanting to say more but not wanting to mess up this moment.

And then she let me go and looked me in the eyes and said, “What do you think of my face?”

“You’re still beautiful,” I said, doing my best not to look away.

“I need you to be honest.”

“You’ve always been a realist about the way you look. A lot of the women I know, they’re beautiful and convinced they aren’t. You have the confidence with the beauty. It’s … attractive,” I said.

“But?” April prompted.

“But, OK, to be real with you, it’s a little … not scary. It’s intimidating … a little.”

Her head tilted forward, her hair falling over her face. I fought to give her the space to talk, and eventually she did.

“I was never proud of being beautiful,” she said. “I just knew it was a thing, and I knew it made people treat me a little differently. Maybe a lot differently sometimes. Sometimes I resented it, even. And then sometimes it was a tool, and at least it was useful.” Then she looked up at me and said softly, “But I don’t want to be scary.”

“It’s not scary,” I said honestly. “It’s just … intense. Though with you looking at me through your hair like that, it’s also sorta adorable-puppy at the same time.” I smiled.

She smiled too. Oh god. That smile. I wanted to kiss that smile.

I was rescued by a monkey.

“We need to start getting ready to leave this place. I have set up a new home in a suitably unpredictable location, and we need to go there now.”

“Now like I’m going to get shot again, or …” I asked, only half joking.

“Now like there are going to be about two hundred students in this building in four hours, and if they see you, my brother will know where you are and then, yes, someone will probably shoot you soon after that.”

I guess I wasn’t even half joking.

Internal Communication from Peter Petrawicki to All Employees

Hello Everyone,

This might come as a bit of a surprise to some of you, and as always I apologize that we have to be so secretive here at Altus, but eight days ago, Altus’s Open Access software was released publicly to the entire world. Anyone with access to a headset was able to find their way into the world of the Open Access Space that most of you are already so familiar with.

First, we just want to thank everyone who worked extremely hard to hit this very aggressive launch target, and managed to pull it off entirely seamlessly. It’s an accomplishment that many did not think was possible, but we did it, because we are extremely good.

Soon, the fifty users who have earned the most AltaCoin by selling objects they created will be given access to the Altus Premium Space. Very few of you even know about Altus Premium as it has been a highly protected project, but it is going to launch very soon. There isn’t really a good way to explain the Premium Space, but guess what, all of you will have access to the Premium Space on your existing headsets starting tonight between 9 P.M. and 6 A.M. Use of Altus Premium mimics the effects of sleep, so don’t worry too much about logging off.

An additional note. Altus, having proved its technology in such a fantastic way, has just raised $2.5 billion in Series C funding that values the company at over $500 billion. This isn’t just the fastest a company has reached a hundred-billion-dollar valuation, we hit a half-trillion-dollar valuation faster than Facebook reached a billion-dollar valuation. Each of your hiring packages includes, at minimum, 1 basis point, meaning that each of you now owns a minimum of $50 million of Altus stock.

Congratulations, this is a big day for our company, but it is also a big day for the future of humanity. Altus is blazing the path to an entirely new frontier, and when you open up the Altus Premium Space tonight, you will understand how significant the work we’re doing really is.

We are going to have to work hard, maybe harder than the staff of any other company in the world, but we’ll do it because the impacts and rewards are greater than anything that has ever been created.

I am honored to work with you all,

Peter Petrawicki

MIRANDA

Part of me wasn’t letting myself believe that April really was OK. The hope had brightened, but also, maybe I had misinterpreted. What I felt more than anything was lost and alone. I wanted to be back with my friends, not with these people who I had to lie to every moment of every day. The fact that I was starting to like some of them only made it worse.

Before I even got to my lab bench that morning, I was intercepted by Peter Petrawicki himself.

“Miranda, exciting day, huh?!”

I shot up, shocked by the timbre of his voice. He was talking almost like he was onstage. “Uh,” I managed, “yeah. That’s for sure.” I was doing my best to project the aura of an excited team member.

“If it’s OK with you, I’m going to take you away from your work. I’ve got a few things I’d like you to see.”

“OK,” I said, trying not to look too scared or too eager, though I was both of those things.

Peter took me through the massive building, every person we passed giving him, at minimum, a big smile or a “Good morning, Mr. Petrawicki.” Soon, we were outside, headed away from the giant C shape of the main campus.

“Are we going to the server farm?” He was walking a little ahead of me, no matter how hard I tried to catch up.

“We are! But also, and this is a secret, it’s more than just a server farm. All of our most high-security projects are housed there.”

“Huh! I’ve always wondered why it was so big!” I said.

“We like to keep everyone guessing,” he said without turning back to look at me.

Soon we were at the big, windowless cinder block rectangle. The building must have been at least twenty thousand square feet. A guard stood outside, a pistol visible on his hip. He turned aside for Peter, who hit the keypad and then pulled the door open.

Inside was a desk, and behind that desk three doors were evenly spaced on the wall. We waved to the person at the desk and went through the door directly behind him. And then I found myself in a long hallway. It wasn’t like the rest of Altus: This hall had lush green carpet and dark wood-paneled walls, with molding on the floors and ceilings and framing each of the dozens of doors in the long, straight hall.

“The first thing is in here.” He opened the first door on our right. Inside was a calm, cool room with a single recliner that I recognized from my first trip into the Altus Space. “I want to show you the Premium Space. I’m going to leave you in here and come back in around an hour. That should give you the idea.”