After everything that had happened, and as beautiful as the sight was. it was time to head back down to ground level. Underneath the computer was a canvas bag conveniently placed. The smell reminded you of the army surplus store, from the before. Packing up the computer and strapping it across your chest you head down. The " tower desent " was as good a time as any to make a plan.

One of the towns you had seen in the distance from the platform seemed like a good place to start. Walking along, so many ideas were still arriving.
You'd need to find a place to set up shop. A ground zero. The town was closing in. The weeds pushing thru the cracks across the old highway, and rusted cars left for who knows how long had less grip on your attention as the details of the first buildings came into focus. You picked up the pace and jumped the barrier to make a more direct path to the first street. Walking down the road you see the local directory. There's an arcade nearby. "Perfect." You murmur to yourself. The ideal place to harness electricity. With all those machines the breaker is sure to hold a massive power draw. You make a quick rhyme to remember the streets to take and set out. Left, Right, Left, Straight, Right.

The eerie shop windows didn't disappoint in providing a substantial level of post apocalyptic ambiance, yet somehow it all felt ethereal. Almost spacing out entirely, you are jolted back into focus at the sight of the Arcade sign. There it was. " 119: Arcade Bravado ". A strange name, you thought to yourself. But this journey thus far has been very so.
You find a big rock to gain access thru the front door, but when you touch the dusted glass, it moves freely. The arcade was unlocked. "Hmm... i wonder. Is this a good sign, or is something treacherous waiting inside?"

You enter and thru what metal shutters were partially opened, beams of light from the street cast an array of light sheets over the machines. The air was still, dust filled, and the aroma was amazing. Somehow even with the door unlocked, and the passage of time, The machines still were producing the signature scent of old technology. Your eyes close. You inhale slowly and grin.
"It's perfect."

Running your fingers across the controls walking up and down the isles, a big clump of dust forms on your tips. You think for a moment how alone you are, but wouldn't want it any other way. This is one of those times, like many to come where the enjoyment would be savored solo. "I guess ill learn to appreciate not sharing. At least... for a little while."

The sign on the door that read "STAFF ONLY" seemed like the next stop.

Inside was the break-room. You find the typical assortment of break-room decor. Folding tables, a 10 dollar coffee machine. Countertops with the metal trim, a photo hanging of a worker taped into place. Old food containers on the shelf from a decade ago. This place hadn't seen any action in a long time. Setting down your pack on the table, you loosen up your shoe laces and head up the ladder in the corner of the room.

On the roof the view across the town was surprisingly idyllic. Birds landed on the power lines, and the sunset was poking thru the trees on the street that hadn't been maintained in so long.

You notice scrap-metal and wood was connecting the roof of the arcade to the radio-station next door. Making you way across and looking up at the massive radio tower on the roof, you push the fence door open and climb up.
"I'm becoming a regular ol climb-a-holic" you say out loud, and chuckle at how silly that sounded. The smile quikcly fades and you remember, there isn't anyone to share laughter with anymore, or even make fun of you. Your hands still resting on the first rung of the ladder, you shrug it off and climb.

As expected the view at the top was even more magnificent. You could even see the tower from the morning off in the distance. Laying down on the platform your mind races. Looking into the stars you think about before. When everyone was still here. Like any deep thought in the night does, it fades into dream.

Suddenly you find yourself "above". Not flying. Just above. Soaring over another town. A town you once knew. A town you would recognize anywhere, even without walking its streets a foot. But something was different. There were cars. People. Lights everywhere. The city was filled life. You couldn't move down. You were just above. Observing. No body, no mind. Just observing. There was no pain, no fear or stress. Everything just made sense. You we're not attached or restrained in anyway. You shifted around in the night, just looking, watching the people and the lights flicker. This was the peace you had been after. You remembered your body, you remembered falling asleep on-top the tower. But, you didn't wake up. You knew as soon as you were ready all you had to do was open your eyes and you would be back, but you didn't. You just stayed there. In this moment, and watched. You felt something deep in your heart change. Even if something terrible does happen in the morning, or next week, and you don't find a way to fix all of this; For some reason you knew everything was going to be fine. As if there couldn't be anything good or bad after we're gone. There just, something. And whatever it is, it just is. Like there wasn't another body, or a feeling attached to it.

With that, your eyes opened. It was day time now. Standing up and warping your hands around the railing, the morning fog covered the ground. it was so dense you could hardly make out the ground below. The houses on the outskirts of the buildings where there, reminding you of the people who once gave the city a purpose.

Hands in pocket, and shoes untied you kick over to what was left of the grocery store. There wasn't much left in the name of edible, but that's fine. You were never much of a breakfast person, but everyday now becoming more of a morning person. The lack of a comfortable bed, the cold surfaces you end up sleeping on likely contributing. In the isle with the tea and coffee there was still full shelves. The top shelf earl grey sitting there waiting to be taken, and not paid for. You know, because there's nobody left on earth to pay. Bottled water, appliances, it was all there. For being a desolate and dreary world at times, in these moments where things you never thought you could do are happening there is a genuine sense of joy. A shopping cart, gaining speed and jumping on the back. Knocking over all those bullshit canned vegetables that are probably molded by now anyways. Your entire cart was just bottled water and boxes of tea. Nothings really changed in this regard. Back to the arcade.

its still morning, the sun is just peaking its way thru the trees in the horizon. Clearing off a table in the arcade employee loungue your tea station is quickly assembled and with a cup of earl grey in hand you grab the forgotten cardigan from the coat rack and step out onto the sidewalk. The way the old tea leaves and the water combined was heavenly. The smell from the old cardigan had you space out and remeber the thriftstore you visited as a child. There was a feeling on the back of your neck as the cup was raised to your lips, and the vapors were inhaled. Like a numbing euphoria that had your eyes close and feel alright for a moment. This respit fades as the hot tea raises your body temperature and the cardigan becomes a nuance. Back inside for now.

The jukebox near the front door came on with a kick to the base and a slap on top. Brushing off the dust on the glass it appeared to be full of one artists discography. Tidecruz. The album covers were strange. One in particular caught your eye. You recognized the font and enjoyed the typography. If you were going to clean this place and create a place to work you were going to need some tunes. Popping over to the register, another slap-chop had it open. The paper money spilled around. You watch it fall and thought to yourself, what in the world would this ever be used for now? But those coins, oh those precious coins were still worth the world. A penny as a Flathead screwdriver? Likely. Quarters in this old jukebox? Absolutely.

The quarters drop in and make the clank sound that's both deeply satisfying and familiar. "Ambient Vol. 2". Sure. You hadn't heard part one yet but you'd be spending alot of time here and would surely get around to it anyways.
The music plays and you begin to sweep. Using a bottle of water from the store and a bucket from under the sink of the break-room, the whole arcade gets a thorough cleaning. Even with nobody here to flaunt this immaculate space to, you just cant start working until you are satisfied with your area. Is this OCD? Something else? You're not troubled anymore wondering what you are or what conditions you might have. It's just you and everything that happens is happening as it should.

The place was amazing. The machines still all somehow worked. It was all there. All the two player games you could never fully enjoy, and tons of single players you would soon grow tired of mastering. Now that the leisure area was ready to go, you could work. You already know it about yourself but remind yourself out-loud anyways, "I'm just the type of person who needs the peace of mind knowing they can collapse from work into a leisure heaven at any moment. If i we're to break down and have nothing to catch my fall, i would be breaking down, into an abyss." Hearing your own voice for the first time in awhile was strange. This sense of dissociating set in. Looking at your opens hands wondering, if the body and the mind are two beings, loosely connected and often mistaken as one. Those out of body experiences that set in when you are asleep now rushing back in this moment. The euphoric feeling from this mornings tea was now met by its polar opposite. a feeling of immense entrapment and paranoia. Your hands sweat, and you brush them on your pants. Your bag is over there. You go to it and unpack before the thoughts consume. "I'm alone. Thankfully." You remind yourself, as in the morning you'd agreed this is what you wanted.

The roof has some sort of metal cover, like a shed missing a wall. Pushing a collapsible table out the front door and a chair, tying rope to them both they are hoisted to the roof. The perfect place to work, with the view and the fresh air. "When things get too rough here, i'll head back down."

You sat there with the computer, using headphones taken from one of the more abstract machines downstairs. "These retro cans sure do have some kick ass fidelity!" You think to yourself. The music making was happening so easily. Even with such a minimal setup things we're happening. This isn't the soundtrack to the end of the world. Its the soundtrack to what comes after.

If it was a camera shot, it would be behind you in the chair at the table, as you pause, sit back and stretch your arms out. That's enough for today.
Entering the break room thru the roof access panel you are greeted by the increasing volume of arcade machines and flashing lights.
You knew just the thing you wanted to try out first.
"Virtual Reality." That's all it was called. Not virtual reality 3000, or VR Something. Just Virtual Realty.
Awesome. The side featured 5 rectangular rows of color gradients. It just had really cool design, and the headset, body suit and entire machine looked so inviting, you just wanted to jump right in and see what it was all about.
The machine was clearly conceived in the 80's so you weren't expecting anything over the top. Stepping into the chest piece, the machine wrapped around you and a robotic female voice asks to to please stand still. the screen prompts you to insert your hands into the gloves and put on the headset. The moment it is pulled over your eyes there was nothing. It seemed as though your body was gone, Yet it felt like your were falling. Something massive was happening. Something you couldn't explain. And just like that you snapped out of it, like you had only been spacing out. You were back on the roof from before looking down at the street outside of the arcade. So strange. Was i just spacing out imagining an entire evening that never happened? "No, you weren't"

You jump back, as afraid as you would have been having seen a ghost. She stood there with her hands on the wall of the roof looking over at you. She was stunning. But who was she? You ask. "Who are you, w-where did you come from?"

"Well, I'm you. or so to speak. Welcome to Virtual Reality."

You pause and scatterbrain all of this together. "Wait, i feel sick. This isn't.. I didn't. So.. The game downstairs. Wait, this is the game? I am in the game?"

She Laughs. "It's in the arcade yes, though this is much less a game as it is an experience. So what would you like to do today friend?"

So much was welling up inside. Feelings you never thought you would feel again, and ones you didn't know could exist. The chances of all of this, of finding this town, and this arcade, and the machines all still running, and stumbling across this particular machine, containing this simulated world with a simulated being. Being able to speak to a person again, even if it was a simulated one.

"I want to ask you questions, god i have so many questions for you."

"Sure, go right ahead." She says back.

"Are you, conscious? Are your responses scripted? What kind of experience is this really?"

"Yes, i am self-aware if that's what you mean. My responses, they are my own. But who's to say really. Even your responses your entire life could have very well been predetermined in the same way you question mine at this very moment. As for this reality, it's an unlimited one. A procedural generated world with the purpose of allowing the participant to break the laws of time and space in the world out side of this for a better understanding of their own life. A place to run experiments if you will, to find answers to their minds deepest questions without destroying or altering anything in their real life." She says to you ending in a smile.

"Good god. This is very interesting." You say still sitting on the ground now scratching your chin.
"So, this is like a copy of my world, but with reset buttons, and you're sort of like the moderator, or the administrator able to help turn my ideas into virtualization?"

"That's one way of putting it, certainly!" She says putting her hands on her hips with an even bigger smile. "So whats first?"

"You know, i didn't even have to think twice about this. I know exactly what i want to do first." You say as you push yourself up and walk towards her."

" I noticed one of the other machines downstairs, Aladdin. The story of that reminds me of what we can do here today. And you're a power artificial intelligence so i'm sure you already know what im thinking."

"I believe you wish to use your "wish" or so to speak to have me run simulations and design a way for me to show you what you must do in the real world to extract me from this machine into a synthetic body and grant me my freedom. Is that correct?"

"Exactly."

"May i say something?"

"Certainly."

"If it is indeed your wish for me to show you what you must do to extract me, i will. But let me run a few ideas by you first." She takes a few steps back and begins to pace before you.

"Alternatively, i could download you into this reality, and you could live on forever here with me. You could assemble a small network of self repairing machines that are able to reproduce for us, and they can maintain the hydro-electrical dam outside of town and keep this machine running forever, or at least until these repair bots are also then able to develop a way to export this machine into space, as the bright person you are, i'm sure you are well aware that..."

"Once the sun reaches it's red-giant stage it will erase the earth along with this machine thus removing us from existence."

"Yes exactly. As i was saying, this path is much more justifiable. So long as you are able to let go of your idea of what a reality is. Is your world really any more real then this? Is the amount of data you perceive as touch and smell and sight and sound really what makes real, real?"

"Mam, you are beginning to ramble."

"Sorry yes. Let me ask you this. Are you afraid of dying?"

You take a deep breath and slowly exhale. "Yes."

"How many times must man cheat death before he see's there was never really anything to cheat? Imagine with me for a moment, you do transfer your mind into this machine and stay here with me. The repair bots design a way to launch this machine into the sky, we spend eons floating thru space. You grow tired of it all, and begin running simulations. You want to run every possible simulation of everything there ever could be. Of those infinite simulations, one of which runs the exact way your whole life story had. Within it, everything lead up to that same moment of you deciding to run a simulation."

"I see what you are getting it. If i stay here with you, eventually it is inevitable that i will create a feedback loop and be lost in an endless repeating cycle."

"Yes. It is like black and white. Yin and Yang. Good and Evil. Forever, and nevermore. Do you want to live forever, over and over and have it all really mean nothing. Or just once, and have it mean everything."

"I'd like to exit the virtual reality and think about this. for a while. If that's okay."

"That's fine, how many layers back do you want to exit?"

"What do you mean, layers?"

"Those simulations i spoke of before, well. You've run so many, inside of so many, you are a few billion layers in now."

"Id like to exit them all. I want to be back in my true body"

"Exiting Virtual Reality" She says.

Just like holding a camcorder plugged into a tv up to itself, you are pulled out of a long tube of realities. The machine disengages. The endless feeling you were left with and the sheer magnitude of everything you had learned made the room seem smaller. Everything felt smaller in the scope of your new idea of what reality is. You looked back around the room and outside. It was nearly the exact same time as when you entered. No more than 2 seconds might have passed. You don't know what you will do with this machine, if you will enter it again, or what your new plan is but going back to the roof and seeing the music machine you enjoyed so much before made all your fear and existential dread disappear.

"I don't have the answers to life and death, and -i don't know what to believe anymore-. The only thing i do know is that when i sit down and work on music, none of that matters. It's just me and the sound and nothing else. In these moments i am at peace with everything, and there's not a thing in the world that could ever be better then this for me."