We were all a little punch-drunk, so someone began giggling. Within a few seconds it was everyone. Laughing at the absurdity of it all, of that night, of these weeks, of the fact that it was us. We had no right to play this role, but here we were playing it. There was whooping and recapping and fist-pumping, and Andy roused from his grogginess long enough to let a smile take over his face.

Once everybody’s cheeks hurt and we had rehashed the whole night one more time, I opened my notes app and started writing a script, which I recorded on that car ride to our hotel while Andy and Miranda slept, Miranda’s head lolling on Andy’s shoulder.

“We chased Hollywood Carl’s hand down Orange and into the Magic Castle, a club for magicians, where we were denied entrance. Staff there, however, reported seeing the hand enter the establishment. It would appear that our interpretation of the Freddie Mercury Sequence was correct, and that presenting Carl with americium or iodine or both either caused or allowed Carl’s hand to disconnect and move independently around Los Angeles. We do not know where the hand is now. It’s now evident that every Carl on every continent has lost his right hand, but while Hollywood Carl’s hand was observed running away, multiple videos show other Carls’ hands simply vanishing at the exact same time. We don’t know what this means and, honestly, we don’t know what we’ve done. But they asked us for materials, and we provided them. It occurs to me now”—this had only taken so long to occur to me because I had actively prevented myself from thinking about it—“that we took a number of actions today on behalf of all humanity and maybe should have asked for some kind of permission first . . . or let the government decide if this was the correct course of action. I did not do that. I did not think that the result of our experiment would be so substantial or significant. I have no reason to think, however, that the Carls are anything but friendly at this point . . . Well, maybe they are also very, very odd.”

And that’s how I ended that video. I looked into the back seat. Miranda’s head was resting on Andy’s shoulder. It looked like the right thing to do, so for the last five minutes before we got to our hotel, I went to sleep, and that was the first time I had the Dream.

* * *

—

I am in the lobby of a fancy office. Shiny and bright and brand-new. Light comes from everywhere, but there are no windows, just wood-paneled walls and gray carpeted floors. There’s music playing, but I don’t recognize it. No one is around except, at a check-in desk, there’s a small robot. Well, not small, human-sized. It looks smoother and sleeker than Carl, blue and white and no chrome at all. It’s approachable, so I approach it.

“Hello,” it says in a smooth, human-sounding male voice.

“Hello, I’m here to see Carl,” I say.

“Do you have a passcode?” the robot behind the desk responds.

“No?” I reply, skeptically.

Then I woke up to find that we’d arrived at our hotel. Discussions had occurred while I was unconscious. Miranda needed a place to sleep, so Robin offered to get her a room at our hotel just to save on driving around. Andy’s and my flight was leaving in six hours, so we would actually get to have a solid four hours of sleep in real beds! We were all zombies, but Andy and I more than anyone. Andy was humming a weird little tune as we waited for Miranda to finish at the check-in desk. The song was familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.

We all rode the elevator up together. Miranda was humming the same weird song Andy was.

“God, what is that song? It’s so familiar. You’ve both been humming it,” I said to Miranda and Andy.

“Um,” was all Andy could manage.

“Sorry, I didn’t even realize I was humming,” Miranda replied sleepily.

I looked at Robin since he was good at solving problems. “Sorry, April, it doesn’t sound familiar to me.”

We all headed to our separate rooms.

I did not take off my clothes, but I did take out my phone. I stared at the gobs of tweets coming in. I’d added more than ten thousand followers since I posted about the hand. I wasn’t even interacting, I wasn’t learning about my audience, I was just watching it grow. My phone felt like it weighed ten pounds in my hands, and I almost fell asleep, but then I realized I’d been neglecting Facebook, and I hadn’t checked my email. I copied my tweets and posted them on Facebook as well, and I watched the post grow there. This whole other audience seemed completely unaware of the situation, and the post grew just as fast there as on Twitter. I checked my email and told my parents I would call them tomorrow. Then I switched back and forth between Facebook and Twitter, checking to see if there was any news, what people were saying to me (and about me.) My phone booped with a text from Maya. See you tomorrow, I guess, it read. I was so tired, and that sounded like drama that I did not want to deal with. I swiped it away. And then I kept poking and swiping my phone before sleep finally won its war for my consciousness.

I am in the shiny office lobby, the song is playing, the robot waits behind the desk, I approach it. “Hello,” it says again.

“Hi, can you tell me anything about you?” I say, hoping to engage it in conversation.

“Do you have a passcode?” it says.

“No, but . . .”

And I woke up. But at least now I knew where the song was from: It was the one playing in the dream lobby. It sounded a bit like an elevator music instrumental of a sixties pop song. Like “It’s Not Unusual,” but it wasn’t that. It had 100 percent earwormed into my head, though, and would stay there for pretty much the next six months straight.

I must have been singing it in the car, I thought. That’s how Miranda and Andy had heard it. I’d gotten it stuck in their heads.

I’d never been one to have recurring dreams. Certainly, there was that one about not going to class all semester and then having to take the test, but everyone had that one. This was the first time I could remember having a dream that seemed so entirely the same as one I had had before.

But if there was a part of me that thought this was weird, it was not a loud enough part to prevent me from going the fuck back to sleep, which I did immediately.

And you know what I didn’t do? I didn’t open my phone to look at my text messages. If I had looked, here’s the sequence of texts I would have seen from Maya over the past twenty-four hours.

April 2:00 AM: I need to talk about some stuff

Maya 9:52 AM: What’s up hun

Maya 12:12 PM: April?

Maya 7:02 PM: Are you OK?

Maya 9:30 PM: Poke?

Maya 12:12 AM: See you tomorrow, I guess.

* * *

—

I didn’t even see Miranda the next morning. Somewhat heroically, Robin met us in the lobby and corralled us all the way to the airport and then through airport security, and it wasn’t until we were boarding that I realized that he had booked a last-minute ticket on our flight back to New York. He had also, amazingly, upgraded me and Andy to first class.

“Did you sleep at all?” I asked him after they’d given us our fancy kooshy seats.

“I did not, I had a lot of emails to send. You’re going to want to get a book deal,” he added abruptly.

“Why?”

“It will help you sway public opinion. Every person who reads your book will be far more likely to be on your side. Books are the most intensive of all current media. People are willing to spend hours and hours with a book. Additionally, people are still willing to pay for them.”

“I’m getting paid for my YouTube videos already,” I said as I scrolled through my Twitter. People were freaking out. I started to type out a tweet because I couldn’t help myself: “Video coming later today, editing now. Very weird. Very excited.”

Robin continued as I typed: “You get paid very poorly for your YouTube videos. You get a fraction of a cent for every person who watches a video. I’d bet we can get you more than five dollars for every person who buys your book.”

This made my ears perk up. “And how many people do you think would buy my book?”

“Hundreds of thousands.” He paused before saying, “Conservatively.”

“I’m going to want to get a book deal,” I told him. “I’ve also been thinking, I’d like to get an apartment on Carl’s block.”

“Oh! Interesting idea. I like it. You can watch over him, stay informed. I can look into it. Any requirements?”

“Like what?”

“Price range, style . . .” He paused. “Number of bedrooms?”

Oh, right.

“Maya and I,” I said to Robin. “It’s weird, we’re roommates, but we’re dating, but we’re not really at the ‘moving in together’ stage. We just already were moved in together when we started dating.”

“That sounds difficult,” Robin replied.

“Well, I would like your advice.”

“I don’t know that I can give you any. I know that you’re going to have a very complicated life in the next weeks and months, and that you won’t have time for much else. But I also know that having someone that you care about and who cares about you might help keep you connected to reality.”

“Every time I play the scene in my head . . . I just can’t imagine asking Maya to move in with me. It’s like imagining dropping a penny through a lead brick. My brain won’t do it.”