Up to Me: Bandersnatch

10

*Two days later*

"Hello?"
I answer the phone that hangs on the wall next to our kitchen doorway.
"Hi, is Mili there?" I hear Stefan's voice on the other side of the receiver.
"Yeah Stefan, it's me."
"Oh. Good. I really need to talk to you. Something's happened." His voice is low and loaded with concern.
"What? Stefan, you're scaring me!" I say.
"Meet me at WHSmith- you know where it is?- and I'll explain everything. I can't over the phone. I think, I think they might be listening."
"Who? Stefan-" I stammer, but the line is already dead.

I hang the phone back on the wall and look up to see Anwir standing in the hallway.
"Who was that?" He asks.
"A friend." I say, walking past me.
"Mili," He stops me by grabbing my arm, "Be careful okay. Don't trust everything he says. Isn't he a bit of a loony?"
"How do you know-"

"Oh good, you are both here." My mum walks into the kitchen with grocery bags in both arms, "help me put these away would you?"
I look at "my brother," but he's just smiling as if nothing happened.
"I can't, I have to meet a friend." I walk as fast as I can to the front door and am outside before my mum can stop me.

...

When I walk into WHSmith, I see Stefan towards the front. He's looking at two records in his hands. I walk up behind him and give him a kiss on the cheek. He jumps a little before turning around and smiling in relief.
"Oh, Mili. You scared me." He sighs.
"Whatcha doing?" I ask, taking one of the records from his hands.
"Phaedra?" I read the names of the album.
"Yeah. A couple weeks ago I came in here to buy a new record and I chose this-" He holds up the other album in his hand: Bermuda Triangle.
"-for some reason." He mutters.

"So." I put the Phaedra album back on the shelf, "what do you want to tell me?"
"Right." He takes my hand and leads me to the back of the store where there are less people.
"You remember Colin Ritman?"
"The video game designer, right?"
"Yeah. He um. He's dead."
"Oh my gosh. That's awful. Stefan, I'm so sorry." I say.
"Yeah, well. I- I was there. When he died. He jumped off his balcony."
"Stefan..." I don't know how to respond.
"But that's not what I wanted to tell you," Stefan continues, running his hand through his brown hair, "He told me something before he jumped. I'm pretty sure- I don't think we're crazy Mili. I think someone is controlling us. I'm pretty sure we're being manipulated as part of some government simulation."
I look at him blankly.
"Think about it, Mili! You say you don't believe Anwir is actually your brother. What if they replaced the real Anwir with this new guy to keep tabs on you?" Stefan is dead serious.
"Okay. Say this is true," I humor him, "what do we do about it?"
"I mean, I guess we have to stop them. I think my dad is in on it too. Last night I looked at these files he keeps in his room and they were all about me. Like he's been researching me."
"Why us?" I ask.
"I don't know. But Colin somehow knew about it. He's been warning me all this time..."

"So we should just kill them? Your dad and Anwir?" I propose.
"And find the root of the simulation, yeah."
What did we just get ourselves into?
.
.
.
*continue to chapter 11*