Towards reawakening, Iker heard the familiar hums of quantum servers and powerful cooling units. It was still rather dark but his returning vision caught more of the light from the blinking interfaces surrounding him. By instinct alone, and without knowing why, he checked how old he was now and what he was wearing.

  Fourteen years old. I am wearing exactly the same hoodie and shorts I was wearing in Pueblo.

  When he turned to his side from a supine position, Iker discovered that the ubiquitous technology in this basement was not just made of metals and plastic alone. Indeed, mystical bark was part of the architecture that connected it all together.

  "Do you recognize any of this?"

  The voice was quite recognizable but deeper than usual. Upon flipping on the opposite side by virtue of following the comforting voice within this unknown place, was twenty-one-year-old Bastian.

  "Where are we... you look like shit by the way," Iker mumbled, waiting for his fuzzy vision to focus. Indeed, Bastian wore all the timeloops he lived through under his dark blue eyes. "There's things I already know about you... yet I can't remember how I know it."

  Bastian managed to smile. "Do you know why I look like shit?"

  "How many resets has it been? Where are we bro?"

  Iker threw in the word bro because Bastian began to break halfway through his questions. He managed to lay a hand on the bruised knee Bastian was bending on before he broke eye contact. His adoptive brother, at least in certain timelines, flared his teeth while his eyes were in shadow.

  "I can't do this anymore Iker."

  "Talk to me. I'll do anything for you. You know that."

  "There's nothing you can do, especially not at this age. You're not a hacker anymore are you?" Bastian asked.

  "No... I have no memory of that."

  Before Iker could finish that sentence, Bastian already had gotten up on both of his feet, revealing to be more than six feet tall. He grabbed a crate full of cables and tools and lunged it at the only portion of the basement that had concrete wall.

  "FUCK!"

  Upon catching his breath, Bastian bent both his knees at the same time the crate crashed onto the ubiquitous roots of the mystical tree. He pressed both of his open palms over his shaved blonde hair while he straddled himself in frustration. "That was my final gambit. Everything depended on you still being able to hack."

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  "Wait... this is the arcade in Bolsa Mágica ain't it?" Iker asked. "Some memories I attained from different timelines are coming back to me. Perhaps my knowledge will come back too?"

  Bastian stopped panting, but his frown remained. "Ameen and Ember were set on making you forget in the past reset. And there's something I have to tell you too."

  "What is it?"

  Bastian gulped as his gaze fell towards the ground. "I lost my ability to return to my fourteen-year-old self."

  "Your ability? You mean the red pixel tech," Iker explained. "You found the red pixel with Fatima."

  "You remember that?" Bastian asked.

  "I remember you telling me that. Where's Fatima? Now that I think about it... there are contradicting memories of which classes she was in with us," Iker replied.

  "Now that I think about it Iker, it might be... somewhat pointless to try to remember everything. Memories are becoming dreams, closed timeloops are becoming books, books are becoming places, places are becoming people... we are having our own reality war too."

  "Reality war too?" Iker asked.

  Incoming game. Incoming game, the virtual skies outside proclaimed.

  "I figured you were short on time," Iker tried to say reassuringly.

  "Yea... I didn't know what to do," Bastian lamented. "I gave up earlier. I knew I only had a few minutes but I had no strategy on what information to give you."

  "Tell me about who's trying to invade Bolsa Mágica," Iker instructed.

  "Iker... I realized you sound like older you."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You would have gotten angry as a kid at me for wasting time... but you're staying calm," Bastian replied.

  "Yea, we need to use what we can."

  Bastian shook the frown off his face, now possessing a focused glare. "Primetime. Primetime is coming."

  "She is the second strongest supersoldier in one platoon," Iker said. "We need to beat her before her flux from the physical world gets here."

  With newfound purpose and his consciousness fully online, Iker jumped off the ground and went into a sprint. While he spoke of the second officer of one platoon, he looked for and found the stairs to the ground floor of the arcade.

  "Wait! Fatima asked us to specifically not look at the game screens! Don't look at any of the arcade machines!" Bastian yelled from the basement.

  "Got it!" Iker yelled back. He kept his eyes on the floor after he jumped across the dark steps, staring at the red carpeted floor that reminded him of movie theater floors. Upon exiting the dark arcade and before being spawned into the game where they will face off against the invader, Iker wanted to know one thing. He found the Felix Estate in the middle of the cartoony town of Bolsa Mágica, a chateau that once upon a time even housed his microbial ancestors. However, he did not need to be entranced by its opulent and sturdy towers to find where his father Maverick was.

  Past the laser field that kept him out of the vicinity of Fatima's arcade was the talking lion Maverick himself. He wore his decadent black suit that displayed his assimilation to humankind, yet it could not hide the misanthropy at the core of his feline heart.

  "Good luck against Monica my son, but it's all over," Maverick said, his amber eyes gleaming with divinity.

  "I already won."