Page 30 of Tapeworld Induction

He smiled and shrugged, like he wasn’t convinced.

I wish he’d see himself like I see him. She kicked the sand, grains spreading in the air, each of them shining impossibly brightly as they caught the moonlight. “You must have spent a long time doing that.”

“What, thinking?” he asked with an awkward swallow.

“Yeah. It’s not all philosophy, you know?”

He started laughing. “You’re the one who brought up Baudrillard like you were trying to trip me up!”

She joined in the laughter. It felt like a release of tension, loosening her chest and letting out the air she’d been inadvertently holding in.

But she noticed Isaak was still fidgety, encircling his wrists with his hands. Nervous tick, it looked like. At least he was laughing and smiling again. She worried the introspection would make him retreat further into himself and away from her.

Maybe spending more time with her would help him find some confidence… “Take me to the Boulevard.”

“What?”

“You’ve been talking about this Boulevard place, and I haven’t seen it yet. Take me there.”

It was like he’d frozen.

“Are you beachballing or what?” she joked, waving a hand in front of his face.

He shook his head. “No, sorry, I’m just… I’m happy that you’re interested! Let’s go. You’ll like this!”

Isaak got up off the sand and drew a circle in the air.

Bright blue-hued particles rushed into existence in front of him, roughly following the shape he’d drawn, and enlarged to a circle bigger than he was tall. A matrix of dots filled the space inside, and then she couldn’t see through the circle anymore, but instead into a tunnel of a blue effervescent material that looked like neon mixed with artificial fireflies.

Were they meant to walk through that?

“Come on, then.” He took a step into the tunnel, answering the question she hadn’t spoken out loud.

“A portal!” Dylan took a hand to the wall as she stepped inside, fingers crossing streams of multi-bright luminescent blue particles.

“Eh,” Isaak replied, shrugging as they walked through it. “It’s more like a tube.”

“Lemme guess,” Dylan said, “a tape-tube?”

He laughed. “Yep.”

She was going to make another joke, but they were already at the other end. “A hop and we’re there.”

Ahead of them was the Boulevard of Broken Dreams – or the BBD, as Isaak had sometimes called it. The blue glow of the tape-tube’s circular exit gave way to pink clouds and purple lighting, the ground paved in continuous dark slabs, the road lined with one and two-storey buildings.

They stepped out of the tape-tube and it disappeared behind them like her castles in the sand.

“This looks…”

Isaak grinned. “Amazing?”

“I was going to say insane, but that works! How long have you been coming here?”

“About a year. It still feels just as cool as my first time.” His face went red when he realised his phrasing. “Uh, my first time here. I mean, my first time in here. The first time I came here. Fuck—”

She let out a hearty laugh. “You’re funny. I had no idea.”

“What do you mean?”