Bring down the mountain.

"Hey Victor, wait up!" God I hate you. Don't ask me. Don't ask me. "Victor, where you goin?" "I'm busy Jenny, I'll have to catch up with you later" "Where you goin?" "Nowhere, just I'm busy, I'll see you later when I'm done" "Doin what?" "Nothin' can I explain later?" "uhh okay, call me..." God I hate you. Why'd I have to fuck you... I was drunk, mistake, fuck, she'll never let it go, always want to follow up somehow, closure or something, she'll make me break up with her or something then cry, probably hit me and tell her friends I'm such an a-hole. Whatever I'll deal later. Now I got stuff to do. Focus focus.

"Victor blew me off again" "Jenny, wake up... it was a one-night stand, a booty call.. sucks but you got to move on" "Yeah I know but, I hate him such a dick thinks he's too good or something. Asshole, why does he get to me like that" "It's only been a week, your heads still fucked up from hormones, just go get some from Andy and you'll forget all about Vic" "You are so right, thanks Amy." Amy finished putting her clothes on gave Jenny a kiss goodbye and left out of the door she'd come in 30 minutes earlier. "No problem, I'll see you after work"

"Ms. Andrews" "Yes" "Please bring Mr. 16 into the waiting room" "Yes Doctor"

I've got to just do it. But how, when. How do I tell people what i know, hell.. what they know. I know they know but maybe they deny it, how can they... we've all got the markings or whatever they are.

"Baxter, I'm telling you I saw something in that kid's eyes last night. He saw me. Pupil dilation, he focused, he saw me." Janice had hurried in to Doctor Baxter Warren's office, her director, with apprehension in her eyes and tension through her entire body. Baxter stayed sitting behind his desk, a mahogany continental styled in contrast to the glass and stainless steel clean room that was his office. "Bullshit, it was a long night Janice. You're not getting soft on me are you, not when we're weeks away from a solution, not now" "No no it's no that, just, hell Baxter I think he saw me, saw something, he focused - fuck - they're not supposed to do that when they're under, just lie there sedated and let us do our job, what we're here to do - you know, it just creeps me out to think that he saw me. You're probably right though, ahhgh that would seriously change things though wouldn't it? If one of them knew." Baxter, slowly standing up from behind his desk, stared at Janice intently, thinking she may be on the edge of breaking down. "Stop thinking about it Janice, it didn't happen, it can't happen - in 17 years it hasn't happened and it's not going to start now, you didn't tell anyone else this story did you?" Janice looked down suddenly worrying that Baxter didn't trust her. "Story? no what do you mean story." Baxter walked around his desk calmly. "You didn't tell anyone" "No." "Good, we can't afford for something like this to start a rumor that could get out to the investors," Baxter removed his glasses, tucking them neatly away in his official lab coat, too clean to have come from a lab, and sat again on his desk waiting her final answer. "No of course not, I haven't told anyone anything." Then seeing the look of dismissal on Baxter's face she turned anxiously and left, not sure what exactly had just happened or whether she could stop thinking about the whole damn thing.

Victor headed to Sally's thinking some liquid courage was just the pick up he needed, well a shot of whiskey and a cup of black coffee with an irish creamer to be exact... not quality but fast and right when he needed it. "Hey Vic!" Okay, Henry he could deal with. "What's up Henry, hey what are you doing here at 10 in the morning?! A little early to be at the bar eh?" Henry stopped short and winked. "Please Vic, you're here, doin what? Breakfast? " Then they shook hands with a quick cross hug. "I got things to do Henry, important things that need me to be open-eyed and relaxed." Henry stepped back and looked Victor up and down, seeing his tension. "Holy shit, that sounded serious Vic. Are you doing drugs? Coke, speed?" Victor's smile was a little late and a lot more of a grin. "Nah not Vic he's too much of a smart ass to ever pull that off, what's up man, you are serious about somethin' aren't you." Victor walked Henry to a table to sit down with his whiskey and coffee and try to say something that would make sense. "I'm okay Henry. Yes it's serious but I don't know how much I can tell you, god that sounded cliche... I mean it's complicated and I don't know if I can explain it good enough for you to get it the way I want you to." Henry sat back, slightly clenched teeth, "Okay. So tell me already, enough with the dramatics." "It's like this Henry...

"Wait. Have you written this down? This could be some sweet sci-fi Vic. Man, never thought of you to be a writer er director, anyways, you could make some real money with this story." Victor gave him another of those grins, not entirely patronizing, Henry was his best friend in this town, this place, where he grew up his entire life, never having left, ever. Where his entire known family lived, everyone he knew lived. Everyone except that doctor, he'd only seen her eyes behind the face mask (is that what they call them), but he knew that he'd never seen those eyes before and he didn't remember going to or leaving the hospital. He'd thought it was a dream at first but if it was just a dream, it had been the most boring predictable dream he'd ever had and the only time he'd ever dreamt anything remotely close to that. He fully remembered her standing over him looking down. When he'd looked into her eyes, she seemed surprised. Shocked even. Something she said, muffled, came out from behind her mask. Then he'd passed out or fallen a sleep or woken up or something. Victor wasn't quite sure what he'd seen but knew that it was real and that it didn't fit his life.

That's what he'd told Henry in more but different words. Henry might have gotten the idea somehow that Victor thought they were all asleep. That the only time Victor felt awake was for that brief moment when he looked into the eyes of a doctor standing over him with bright lights all around, a mask hiding her face from view, a brief moment that was beginning to fade from his memory even now. Victor may have given the impression that He and Henry and Sally and Jenny and all the rest of the town and anyone else around (who knew, there could be other towns, at least it seemed like there was a whole state and country and world out there - just he'd never seen it except on TV news and that never seemed real anyways), all of them - us, we're all asleep somewhere else. Maybe all hooked up somehow to a multi-dream where we could all do things together. Talk and work and eat together. Play sports, go to school - hell he'd fucked Jenny two weeks ago, shit one week ago, and despite the irritation of the consequences, it sure had felt real enough at the time, if a little fuzzy from the beer goggles. Yeah it's all real enough until you stop and think about it and look for the mistakes.

"Henry, don't you wonder why we're always the home team, never traveling to the other team's field?" Victor looked Henry in the eye like he was asking the most important question in the world. "Huh, you're right, wait, the last time we were supposed to go there had been a flood right? Their field was under water so we definitely couldn't play there. Funny that I really only remember the score for that game and that we had to stay here." Henry was starting to look around, Victor following his gaze. "There's more Henry but I can't quite believe it all. It's a good thing you were here, I needed to tell someone."

---

"So how do we wake up? If you're right then our real bodies are somewhere being kept alive while our minds are here doing what we're doing now." Henry finished his 3rd beer and noticed a few people had wandered in, it was almost noon and a lunch crowd was gathering. "Henry, you know this is all just some existential bullshit until we have proof right?" "Definitely Vic, I'm not saying we should kill ourselves or anything." "Exactly. We're NOT going to kill ourselves." "So what are we going to do Vic? This is starting to freak me out and I need to DO something about it." "Henry, first thing you need to do is slow down on the beers. Now, we're going to ask people we know if they've noticed anything different lately. I was thinking this through all morning and it made sense to me that since I just noticed things now, maybe something has changed... I mean I didn't notice it yesterday or the day before well not really anyways, though when I think back I can think of a few things I thought were weird but they just seemed that, weird... well now that I know I can't seem to un-know it." "I see your point Vic. Maybe people are noticing things more, I know I am now, after you described it all."