The Restart

Chapter 6

After a few minutes of walking (which felt like an eternity), we reached the library. It was in pretty good condition, well, compared to the rest of the neighbourhood it was. A few broken windows, and that was about it. We wasted no time and took the risk of walking straight in. Jess went first (she insisted) and I followed her. I think she learned from her mistake, because this time I had a knife. Holding it in my good hand, I let my bloodied one droop down. The pain was still excruciating, but the bleeding had calmed down, and I had pretty much gotten used to it.

Slowly, we both made sure not to make any sudden movements. Viruses were unpredictable. Inside, all the lights were out, but there was plenty of light coming in through the broken windows. As we entered, there was the front desk; abandoned. I leaned over the desk to check it was clear. It wasn't. Under the desk there was a woman, I assumed to be the worker; dead. The worst part was how she died. Her skull had caved in and she was lying face down in a pool of blood. Next to her was a book. It looked bloodied and damaged. I was no expert, but I could guess that this woman's head was bashed in with a hardback novel.

"Shit... Jesus fucking Christ"

Jess quickly turned to see what was wrong, but she was so calm and acted like it was an everyday occurrence, and carried on walking - gun poised and ready.

In front of us were dozens of book shelfs. Apart from the dead librarian, everything seemed ok. It was... quiet.

Back-to-back, we walked over to the broken window to see what happened. As we came out of the shadows and into the light, we saw them.

Three bodies.

One was lying on the floor, face up, with a huge shard of glass going through his heart.

Another one, just next to it, had a shard stuck in his thigh. That shouldn't of killed him, but it looked like he had bled to death.

The third body, I wasn't sure how it died. There were no cuts, no blood. It wasn't even near the broken window of the shards of glass. Peaceful, was how he looked. He looked like he died peacefully. How he died was a mystery to me.

I guess we were in luck, if you could call four dead people luck. The library was deserted.

The computers were near the back of the library, and as we went there, we still kept our guard up - just in case. The library computers were pretty shit, compared to some of the other technology that's being released at the moment. Nevertheless, they would do the job fine... I hoped.

As soon as we reached the still in tact computers, I instantly sat down and let my fingers do all the work while Jess stood by my side, still watching out for Viruses.

In a fairly short amount of time, I got past all sorts of firewalls crazy shit leading up to the final bit before all the governments secrets were mine. Jess mainly stood there looking baffled and amazed, well, at least I thought that's what she looked like from her reflection in the computer screen.

Frantically, I hammered in the last bit of code that should have gotten me into the government records. But of course, it didn't work. Trying not to panic Jess, I cursed under my breath, but she still heard it nonetheless.

"What? What's happened?" She said worryingly.

"I can't get in. Shit. I knew it wasn't going to be that easy. It was a shit plan."

"No, no it's ok," Jess comforted. "We can try something else. Think. Ermmm.... is there nothing else we can hack into? Someone else who might have some information on this freak show?"

Then it hit me. Graham Grey. He had to know something. He was always sharing his crazy theories about how the world was going to end or how none of us actually exist. Granted, his theories were pretty fucking crazy, but I think it was out best shot.

Straight away I leaped Into the labyrinth that is the World Wide Web, and eventually came into possession of Graham Grey's email.

If there's gonna be any answers, it's got to be in here.

Almost as if the Gods actually liked me (which we all know wasn't true), I found something.

An email, addressed to hundreds of people. The subject was:

PROOF

At the top of the email, there were many files, images in fact - what I assumed to be proof of whatever he was talking about. It looked like drawing, calculations; science-y stuff. I wanted to look at it, I really did, but what I needed to know was written below. Whatever it was must've been really important to require that much proof, and to be sent to that many people.

In the email that Graham Grey was about to send but never got the chance, was written:

WE ARE ALL IN A SIMULAT-

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