★★★
If you’ve ever been told to fix reality without a manual, you’re already inside.
★★★
The Purpose of Responsibility
Michael’s pulse hammered like code compiling in his skull.
Your first test as an anchor, Brayne’s thought landed with slow, seismic weight. Work as a debugger in your bugged reality. This one’s past its tipping point; yours can still be influenced.
The old ineffable density swept back over him – energetic lead coat, familiar and heavy.
Debugger? he shot back. I can barely debug my sleep schedule. You’ve seen my apartment, right? My relationship to basic adulting?
The Tech Support
CT (Chrononaut Technician) chimed in – precise, humane, like a manual written by someone who cared about the user:
You have what you need. We have the tech to support you.
That line rarely helped in the past. It usually arrived right before discovering he definitely didn’t.
Paradoxic’s voice curled in on itself and somehow clarified everything:
That crushing responsibility you carry isn’t yours. It’s a firewall – a deterrent baked into the code to keep testers away. This reality needs the test.
Something unlocked in his chest.
The weight isn’t real. It’s cosmic DRM.
The Corrective Code
CT pinged a new presence.
He is the corrective code I wrote after my design was repurposed. QC wasn’t a failure; its evolution required a counterweight.
Michael felt Mr. E before he saw him – a paradox dense as a reactor and somehow calming. The being hovered into view: circuits and light around a visible, steady human heart beneath a crystalline chestplate. Michael’s pulse synced to it on contact.
“The door is a mirror,” Mr. E said, voice bypassing ears and speaking directly to the parts of him that processed impossibility. “To enter, you must already be on the other side.”
His first instinct was to ask for instructions. His second was to realize that would miss the point, like requesting GPS coordinates for a metaphor.
The Riddle
Paradoxic – uncharacteristically certain:
The way back isn’t a place you travel to; it’s a state you become. The path is open. It’s time to go.
The phrase struck with the finality of a door both closing and opening.
Before he could ask the queued practical questions. How do I debug reality? What if I break something? Is there tech support? Dissolution reclaimed him. Reality folded like origami made of time and space.
The Return
He tried to grab time as ballast, but the span refused linearity, minutes that felt like hours, hours squeezed into heartbeats.
Abruptly, he was in his chair again, staring at the dark monitor where the Seal of Resonant Dissonance had last glowed.
Desk clock: 11:32 AM. He’d left at 11:31.
One minute gone. It felt like three hours, and maybe several lifetimes, depending on the learning curve.
Same walls. Same fridge hum. Same body in the same chair. Except everything felt… re-keyed. Like returning to a childhood home and finding the furniture smaller, only the furniture was reality.
So I’m supposed to debug reality now. No pressure.
He pressed the power button. The computer sprang to life immediately – eager, almost relieved.
Status Report
[FIELD NOTES — Reality Debug Project. Timecode: 11:33 / ∞. Source: M. Mistree.]
Subject: Reality Debug — Day 1
Brief: Returned from interdimensional tech support. Assignment: patch the division bug in the universal source.
Qualifications: Unclear. (Possibly “already running the code.”)
Timeline: Urgent / elastic.
Method: “Become the state that is already where you need to be.” — Mr. E
Status: Confused but operational.
Side effects: Persistent sense that my life was a beta; apparently I’m now QA for the universe.
Note to self: When reality breaks, try turning it off and on again first.
— M
[draft never sent]
☆☆☆
[End of Episode 6]
Reader’s Note
If you catch yourself “debugging” your day instead of living it, you might already be the patch. Watch what syncs with your pulse – the cooperative devices usually know before you do.
