Page 29 of Tapeworld Induction

Slowly sand sprouted from the golden pile, accumulating into a small mound. She felt every grain of sand touch her fingers, a light caress, despite her hand being a metre away.

“Nice!”

The swelling in her chest was cut short when Isaak moved his hand away, putting the small distance between them again.

They continued their walk, and she kept practising. She experimented with directing the sand in different ways, creating hills of sand in all kinds of shapes, adding ramps and even making walled castles.

“This feels incredible. Creating like this.”

Isaak beamed. “VR doesn’t work like this at all, you know? I could do a similar thing in a VR world but it wouldn’t look nearly as realistic, or feel as incredible, like you say. It must be the way the tape communicates with the brain. It’s not just a screen in front of your eyes.” He sighed. “At least, that’s my theory.” He turned to look back down the beach.

Dylan glanced back too. Around the line they’d created along the shore, she counted some forty tiny little hills, forts, and castles.

Suddenly filled with an urge to try something else, she stretched both her arms outward towards the row of hills. “Whoosh!”

All of the sand structures were impacted by an invisible wave of energy flying from her hands, derezzing into particles of light, exploding out in all directions, each grain becoming nothing.

“Oh my goddess!” Isaak said. “What the hell have you done?”

Her cheeks instantly warmed in embarrassment, concerned that she’d broken some rule she didn’t even know about, but when she glanced at Isaak he was smiling.

“You’re teasing me?” she asked, letting out a breath of relief.

He chuckled. “Yeah. Sorry.”

Seeing him so playful, rather than his more usual serious self, Dylan suddenly felt brave – she summoned a chunk of sand off the floor with her outstretched fingers, conjured it into a snowball shape, and tossed towards him, aiming roughly at his torso. “And this? Am I allowed to do this?” But she missed and the sandball hit him in the face. Oops.

“Ow. Hey, come here, you!”

She ran away up the beach as Isaak started chasing her, trying and failing to conjure another sandball because she was laughing too much.

The rest of the evening was spent in idyllic play. As the night progressed, Isaak got quieter.

“How many people know about the Tapeworld?” she asked, trying to break his thousand-mile stare.

He jolted awake from his pensive trance. “Oh, uh… not many at all. They tend to gather in the Boulevard. I’ve mostly kept to myself, really.”

“What? Don't you want to talk to these folks, try to figure out the tech? Are… Are you shy, Isaak?” She felt her cheeks blush even asking him.

He looked away. “I don’t know. I didn’t come here to chat people up.”

“You chatted me up.” Not that she minded.

He smiled and looked at the ground. “That was IRL. Here, I don’t know who to trust.” The night-time lit him up beautifully, shadows and the light of the bright moon enhancing his every feature.

“And you trusted a random woman drinking at Aftershock?”

“I…” He was clamming up. “I don’t usually do that…”

“It’s fine, I’m joking.”

He smiled and looked at the horizon again. “The world is defined by the structures we create,” he said. “We derive meaning from symbols, where there might be none. An influx of people wouldn’t do the Tapeworld much good. Especially when we don’t really know much about this place. I just don’t want the attention.”

“Awfully introspective…”

“I have been told my head is in the clouds. Not in a positive way.”

“There’s nothing wrong with thinking about things.” She liked that he was thoughtful, a thinker. It was upsetting to see him put himself down. “Especially mind-blowing things like this,” she added, gesturing to the scintillating beach around them.