Now past the once digital and dreary tract of country with the gravity-teasing clouds, the strange autumn foliage, the serene causeway, and the gothic archway, the teenage boy and the god entered the intact and young House of Usher. Another calming breeze from the lush lake whipped the tail of the numinous netrunning suit that belonged to Spiderland, its godly tatters pulling into the passageways ve walked into with Iker. It did not take long for the fated pair to reach the dreamlike library, and Iker's first instinct was to jump on one of the rolling ladders that were several stories high. As the teenager kept kicking the crimson carpet to glide faster across the overtall bookshelves while Spiderland observed him under the topmost and centermost chandelier, Iker was surprised to discover that the bookshelves did not have only old tomes. Indeed, there were compact discs, hard drives, vinyl records, comics, and books of many kinds, and it did not take long for Iker to notice what they had in common.

  None of the media was created past the year of two-thousand-twenty-five, which surprised Iker. He was expecting the splendor shelves to only have eighteenth century books.

  "What is all this?" Iker yelled, his rolling ladder picking up speed.

  "Come here. I am not going to have a conversation with you this afar," Spiderland commanded. Iker slammed his sneakers onto the carpet in response, eventually running to ve when the rolling ladder came to a stop. Too captivated by the rolling ladders and the shelves, Iker finally noticed the circular red couch at the center.

  "When I get my own house in a flying city, I want a couch just like this," Iker said, jumping over its back to lay on his stomach. Spiderland marched towards him and took a seat abreast from him while crossing vis legs.

  "This is a literal library to us, but a metaphorical one to the existing one," Spiderland explained. Ve dimmed vis glowing eyes, now a pair of voids returning to vis eyeholes past the tooth helmet.

  "I remembered something that happened before all the time shenanigans... I was an adult... in the past... weird..." Iker mumbled. "I saw the singularity. I was expecting it to be a computer but..."

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  "We are inside a book," Spiderland said. "And within a story, even a hard-science-fiction one, the singularity will always be the writer. God if you will. A four-dimensional human... four-dimensional to us at least."

  LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

  JULY 5, 2080

  RESETS: 0

  "What is this bullshit?" Alice asked. "So the reason God allowed all this suffering was because he was trying to predict the future? What's the point? Do you know how much black folk and indigenous warned how this shitty ass country was gonna fall? No one listened to us. Do you know what year Parable of the Sower was published? This author's mind were in is a lost cause. People will continue to call him alarmist, far left. Centrists will be like BOTH SIDES BOTH SIDES like the fucking retards they are. Centrists are the worst. They are the true reason this shithole became even worse!"

  "Nineteen-ninety-three," Iker replied a monotonal voice.

  "What?" Alice asked.

  "That was the year the book was published," Iker mumbled.

  Alice somehow got random memories from the author to play in the hotel room.

  "Can I ask you something this time?" Iker asked.

  "Iker... I know you're my employee... but calling this some kind of work task... will be the greatest understatement in human history," Alice said. "We figured out the reason we exist. Why this is all happening. Maybe we can convince the author to make me a trillionaire and be done with this shit. Fuck this. Let this world fucking burn. Did you see what the agents and beta readers told him? OH NAZIS WILL NEVER RETURN. YOU'RE SO PESSIMISTIC. No! He was telling the fucking truth! See I told you Latinos can be just as racist. That's who his whole family was, a bunch of racists, delusional, fucking naive sonsofbitches."

  "Alice," Iker said. "I don't know if you'll believe me, but I no longer remember my family. Like... their names are gone."

  "You were telling me about them during the flight... and you were sober the whole time," Alice said. She finally became aware of how many more drinks she ordered from room service, resting both of her pedicured hands against her temples as she steadied herself. While she ordered the drinks, she made sure the staff did not see the occult things she was doing with the odd tree branch and the hotel room.

  "I know I drank too much... but something strange is happening to my mind too."