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Moros backed up, and I could see that one of his arms was missing. There was a blank gray circle where his shoulder ended that looked sort of pixelated. “I changed the code to keep from bleeding out,” he said. He also had a cyborg left leg.
    Now that he’d moved back from the camera, I could see that he was hunched in some kind of closet, surrounded by circuitry.
    Something thudded against the door behind him.
    Moros sighed wearily. “One sec.” He stood and raised a weapon like a chain saw, gunned it to life, and then yanked open the door. A yellow-eyed being with boiled skin lurched forward, hissing, flicking a long lizard tongue. Moros decapitated it with a single stroke, then closed the door. He turned back around, his face still blank, and sighed. “I don’t even know what that was. The program’s been stuck for so long, it keeps degrading and producing weird artifacts. I got attacked by a bird thing that had my brother’s head the other day. I don’t know what’s real anymore, which is funny to say in here.”
    â€œI know the feeling,” I said over the screaming from all around. “Can you shut off the other screens?”
    â€œSure.”
    Moros fiddled out of the camera’s sight, and the horror show around us clicked off.
    â€œWhat’s your real name?” I asked.
    â€œPeter.” He gazed into space below the camera.
    I couldn’t imagine being in a place like Vista, and yet I felt a connection to him, facing constant unknowns, having the world switch on him and show him terrible things.
    â€œAnd how do you know about Project Elysium?” Lilly asked.
    â€œVista has gamma link,” said Peter, “and the program would download news so we could see what was happening in the real world if we wanted. Like I said, I know how to access the program code, and I’ve had a lot of hours on my hands these last few decades. I saw little mentions of the project here and there, especially in Nomad transmissions, so I started digging and piecing together what I could find—”
    Another snarling creature lurched into frame behind him. Peter turned and cleaved it in two. Green blood splattered on his face, making him cough and spit. He wiped it away miserably. “Forgot to shut the door,” he muttered, closing it now.
    â€œHow do we get you out of there?” I asked. “Where’s your body?”
    â€œIt was cremated when I uploaded. The ash is somewhere in Anchorage. It would be so nice to feel real air. In here, it almost seems real, but . . . you can tell.”
    â€œSo, is there anything we can do?”
    Peter sighed. “Yes, actually. There’s a manual reset button for the system. If you could do that for me, then I’d at least get to see my family again.” Shrieking screams echoed behind him.
    â€œWhere is it?”
    Peter fiddled at controls out of sight. There was a hissing sound in the room, and a panel opened in the floor between me and the cube. A small electronic console rose up on a metal stand. “I’m feeding you the code now.”
    I watched lines of numbers flashing by on a small screen on the console. There was a keyboard below this screen and a few other buttons around the side.
    â€œOkay, there.”
    A command line flashed:
    Â 
    Reset:
    Â 
    â€œJust press enter?”
    â€œYes.” Peter was breathing hard, like he was nervous. “That’s all. It’s so easy, but the way it’s built, a real person, flesh and blood, has to do it.”
    I was moving my finger toward the button when Lilly said, “Hold on. If we reset your system, won’t you forget everything you’ve learned about Project Elysium?”
    â€œOh.” Peter paused, thinking. “No, the reset doesn’t erase our memories. It just restarts the holotech simulation and reboots all the people to a living state. Unfortunately, everything I’ve