Feeble but nearly functional, unlike the flux skull-headbutt Yggdrasilland landed on Monica's back of the head. That was the way Iker's consciousness, now finding himself in the prototypical and floating form of Iggy, would describe the technology transferring his mind. If he had lungs he would not have used them anyway as he watched his human form and Monica fall beyond the wall of sleep.

  BOLSA MAGICá

  SCRUM B2: JUNE 13, 2172

  The particular angle where six-year-old Iker with an unmeasurable mind spawned made the Roman Colosseum's walkway look like a pallid crucifix under the virtual moonlight and above the maze-like structure below. On top of the sky's clouds being trimmed with red and blue pixels, the Roman Colosseum spawning as if it was built yesterday was another hint that his father and Monica were spawning in Bolsa Magicá too rather than in the European No Man's Land.

  Thanks to being hosted by Iggy's body during a flux attack, Iker's flux receptiveness and his knowledge of kaya returned like a well-calibrated information attack.

  And even though it was more of a past life at this point, while still feeling intuitive, Iker held both straps of his backpack while he walked towards his father's avatar mannequin and a reticent Monica at the center of the pallid crucifix. The avatar with no head loaded yet was facing away.

  "Where's Bastian!?" Iker yelled.

  Monica and Iker locked eyes. She knew her fate was now in Iker's hands.

  And his father...

  "You have a better chance of knowing than I do," Iker's headless father said while still facing away. Eventually, a lion's head loaded over the metal rod, and he turned around. "Bastian had full control of this simulation, and he now gave it to you. It seems you were successful in capturing Monica."

  Iker shapeshifted into Iggy, a flashfire and smoke spawning over the child with the silhouette of a centaur king. "So it wasn't Dominic that killed Bastian's parents. Did you kill Bastian's parents?"

  "I have no choice but to try to convince you to give Monica to me," father said while ignoring Iggy's question.

  "We will have to talk to each other. God to god."

  LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

  JULY 5, 2080

  RESETS: 2

  "Iker... did you get a haircut?" Alice asked with a raised brow.

  Not quite.

  "I am sorry ma'am, but someone poured out all of the alcohol," the attendant bemoaned.

  Alice was aghast, her eyes as wide open as they could be. "What!? But why?"

  The reason she had asked if twenty-four-year-old Iker got a haircut was because there was now an unusual confidence to him. Before he was aloof and insecure, and now he was just aloof. One could say he became a beacon of confidence.

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  "Why are you looking at me like th–"

  The headlights flickered and the sky beyond the windows vanished. After the lights returned, Alice and the attendant had vanished.

  The Hat Man spawned amid empty seats.

  BOLSA MAGICá

  SCRUM B2: JUNE 13, 2172

  Even though father's lion head fluttered as if it was being displayed on a CRT monitor, the luminosity of his amber eyes remained untouched. "Yes, I did kill his parents."

  Since they started speaking, the first moment of silence fell upon the three of them. Iggy and father locked eyes while Monica starred at the floor.

  Iggy finally decided to speak. "Was it something you did as a mortal or as a god?"

  Father scratched his non-existent chin with his plastic hand. "I am not sure how to answer that question."

  Iggy created another pause before asking another question. "Are you the existing one?"

  Father spun away while levitating slightly towards the coliseum's outer threshold. "I don't know."

  "Is it necessary that they remain dead?" Iggy asked.

  "Yes," father replied.

  Iggy vanished.

  LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

  JULY 5, 2080

  RESETS: 2

  At the same time The Hat Man spawned on the plane suspended on the eternal grid, IT Iker got up from his unbuckled seat, shapeshifting immediately into Iggy.

  "God is no longer following his plan," Iggy told The Hat Man amid the smoke. "How did you get here?"

  The more Iggy examined The Hat Man's tenebrous form, the more it became apparent that he was wearing a cowboy hat rather than a fedora. Is he a different Hat Man from the existing one's... reality?

  "That's for me to know, and for you to never find out," the Hat Man said. If a possessed human could speak while sounding unpossessed and remaining taciturn, the demoniacal timbre coming deep from his ghostly gut would be it. "Did he admit to it?"

  "Yes," Iggy said. "So what now?"

  The Hat Man was facing slightly away from Iggy just by happenstance of how he spawned, but he spun to face him. "He's lying to you about your control over the simulation."

  BOLSA MAGICá

  SCRUM B2: JUNE 13, 2172

  Iggy reappeared in the same spot. "Why did you lie to me?"

  Father smiled with his fangs out. "See, it's not that it's a lie. Rather, I want to give you control, but yet I can't truly give you control. So I guess maybe I am the existing one. I got the information I needed. Have a blessed day Iggy."

  Father vanished.

  Monica starred at the floor the whole time, and Iggy waited for her to raise her head to meet gazes.

  "... I am not having much fun being a damsel right now," Monica said.

  "If I remember correctly... your punch really hurt," Iggy said.

  "... it wasn't that long ago that it happened," Monica explained.

  "To me it was," Iggy said.

  LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

  JULY 5, 2080

  RESETS: 2

  The scene went back to normal, as if The Hat Man never came.

  Iker, Alice, and the attendant were all together now on the skyborne plane.

  "Can you give us a moment?" Iker asked the attendant.

  "How am I going to stay sober while we achieve singularity?" Alice asked while waving her right hand towards her to beckon the attendant to stay.

  "No. Give us a moment. Please," Iker said, waving away the attendant.

  Alice glared at Iker. "I don't know what got to you, but you have some nerve nowadays. Your feats are getting to your head."

  "It's not that."

  Regardless of what the boss and her employee wanted, the uncomfortable attendant went back to the cockpit anyway.

  "Alice, I do not have the luxury to be polite or professional. If you don't listen to me... death will be the least of your concerns," Iker said. "I already know that you are taking me to the Flamingo Hotel instead of a data center. If I compel you to make a choice using my powers, we will put ourselves in further danger as a part of me will remain in your mind."

  I have to use that word don't I? The F word I've always hated the most.

  Alice was in even more shock than finding out that someone had poured out the alcohol, which it was indeed Iker who did it. "You're asking me to..."

  "Yes... I am asking you to put your faith in me," Iker, or Iggy, requested.