Page 20 of Tapeworld Induction

“What sort of idle routines can I use then?” she asked.

“If you’re lying in bed, you can mock sleep. Makes the whole thing feel like a dream when you come out. Or have it look like you’re reading your tablet. Anything you can think of.”

Wrapping her head around the concept of faking sleeping, it dawned on her to ask him, “Where did this Tapeworld come from? Who made it? Is this a new game thing? You must have tried to figure it out?”

He turned serious. “All I know is that this is some real tech – 2001, monolith and the monkeys kind of thing.” He hummed the movie’s soundtrack, reaching out to an unseen mysterious obsidian object.

He was cute.

“What about the cops, the government?” she asked. “Do they know about this place?”

“I hope not.” He narrowed his eyes. “Can you imagine what those fucks would do to something like this?”

Dylan fought back. “We’ve got a decent group of people in power right now. It could be—”

“Don’t even think about it. You can’t tell anyone about it. I’m serious!”

“Like Fight Club?” she asked, having seen the movie as part of a teenager’s mandatory school curriculum on incels and the MRA movement that was disbanded in the 2030s. “Wait a minute,” she said with a playful look. “If this tape is so secret, how come you gave some to me?”

Isaak went red. “I…” He looked like he was about to burst, his face looked so intense. “Well, I wanted to impress you…”

Damn. He really had no idea how impressive he already was to her.

“Shit,” she said. “Well, I’m happy you gave it to me. Thank you.” She cleared her throat. “Consider me impressed, I guess.”

Isaak looked startled. “Well… Great. I mean, everything happened a bit fast last night. I wanted to make sure we’d keep in touch somehow.” He looked at the sand, hands in his pockets.

Dylan’s insides buzzed with a warmth that felt hard to describe. It’d been a while since she’d felt like this…

She smiled. “You could have asked for my StreetSocial, you know.” She reached out to take the collar of his ultra-high-definition, black, faux-leather jacket in her hand, but something made her stop. She let her arm go limp. This weird irreality felt very real right now. She looked away, then quickly flashed her eyes back to him.

It seemed like he didn’t know what to say. He stammered some words she couldn’t make out before she decided to intervene.

“It’s cool, I get it. Wow women with your fancy tech…”

“It’s not like that at all,” he said. “I’ve never given tape to anyone else. I just didn’t want you to think I was some shy guy with a limp trying my luck.”

Only then did she realise it. He’d been walking this whole time without a trace of his limp. This was somewhere he could feel like he did before. This Tapeworld was important to him, and he’d invited her in.

Dylan raised her hands to stop his defensive explanation. “I get it, Zak. I like this place, it’s fucking cool.”

They shared a happy chuckle.

Isaak smiled and swallowed.

She noted her clothes were already dry. The sun began to set on the horizon. A pair of purple-and-blue beach towels appeared out of nowhere, laid perfectly on the sand.

Isaak sat down on one. “A rest after all the excitement?”

He was so sweet. Forget flowers and opening the door for you, this guy could make sunsets.

“Is that…? Did you…?” she started.

He must have realised what she meant.

“Yeah, I made the sun set. This place is mine, so it’s easy to control. It’s a tape-space.”

“As opposed to the Tapeworld?”