Page 19 of Tapeworld Induction

“Oh, right. Yeah. Honestly, it just came out.”

“Oh…” Nerves taunted her resolve. “You didn’t mean to tell me?”

His face flushed and he paced around. This place was incredible – the level of detail, how real everything looked.

“And?” she asked.

“Well, I… And what?” Isaak turned back to her, confused.

She chuckled. “You checked for wireless traffic, and…?”

“Oh, that! There’s nothing. Not a single packet.”

“Maybe it uses a different frequency?” She had heard of nanocomputers. That tech always seemed to be just around the corner, but never quite there. Maybe someone had somehow fitted them into the roll of tape, some gadget hidden in the cardboard roll. She felt like it was probably a stretch.

“I’m telling you, it’s not VR. It doesn’t connect to the net. There’s zero lag, no connection drops, no beachball, no loading screens!” He smiled. “So, welcome… to the Tapeworld.”

Dylan chuckled. “That’s the best you could come up with? It sounds a bit too much like ‘tapeworm’ for me, eugh.”

He chuckled, hand on the back of his head. “No, no, it’s the Tapeworld, as in a world of tape – a world you get to through the duct tape.” He looked flustered. “And I didn’t coin it, someone else did.”

“Who?” she asked. “Who else is using this?”

“A few people. I see them sometimes at this hangout. It’s like… a lobby? The Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”

She cringed. “That’s such a—”

“Cheesy name,” he completed. “I know. I didn’t name that either. The Tapeworld brings out the romantic in people, I guess.” He shrugged with a sly smile, and winked at her.

That’s when night became day. The tide magicked itself around them, water flooding everywhere, and Dylan had to paddle to keep herself afloat. Isaak was standing on a surfboard that came out of nowhere, his grin almost outshining the sun behind him.

“What the—” she yelled, mouth half full of seawater.

“Changing the time of day is easy. Just got to be careful with your surroundings!” he said, sounding so sure of himself and of his little prank.

Paddling over to his surfboard, Dylan hit it with a hand, flipping him off of it, and he splashed into the sea. Digital wizard my ass, she thought.

Gargling the water out of his mouth as he rose back up, he waved a hand and the sea around them slowly receded, like flushing down an ocean-sized toilet.

“You gotta make your mind up!” she pleaded with him, bent forward with her hands on her knees on the wet sand, out of breath. She was completely soaked. “It’s not like my brain is not blown already.”

The strider – she found she liked to think of him that way – looked at her and laughed, shaking the water out of his hair. “Sorry, Dylan. I admit it was maybe a bit much for your first time!”

She liked hearing him say her name, but… “Call me Dee. That’s what my friends call me.”

She definitely saw him blush. She wondered if he could feel himself blushing in here?

“Sure, of course.”

“What about you? Do you have a nickname? Can I call you Zak?” The diminutive sounded cute to her.

“Oh. Sure.” The exchange of cute nicknames seemed to paralyse him for a moment. He shook his head, shaking himself out of it. “You know, if someone had come into your bedroom while you’ve been in here, they would have seen you flail around like a fool on your bed.”

“Oh.” She realised she hadn’t even thought about how she came to be on that beach for the last few minutes. She just was. There was no telling this world apart from real life, bar the more vibrant colours, and the weird tricks Zak kept pulling off.

“So what do I do about it?” she asked. “Aren’t you flailing around, wherever you are?”

Isaak explained again about idle routines. How you could script your behaviour out there, while you were in here. It sounded mad: programming your own body to do things.