Gretchen. Not the most attractive name, even Adlai could admit that to himself, but it was her name, and that was all that mattered. She strode into the room and took charge immediately, weeding out the weak, organising those with skills she could use, bringing them close around her, becoming a leader by default. Adlai just sat back and watched her.

She was dangerous, he knew that immediately. Driven. She broke the rules whenever she could, bent the world around her to suit her needs and damned the consequences. She was also beautiful.

There she was now, smiling as the chair in front of her raised itself into the air and began to spin, holding her arms out like a stage magician, green eyes glowing with power. The chair began to twist in on itself, lose shape. In moments it was just a mass of metal and wood, a ball of junk that thudded to the floor.

The room sunk into silence, broken only when Adlai began a slow, lazy clap.

“Bravo.”

Her eyes flashed onto him then, freezing his hands.

“You mock me?”

“No, no. I don’t ‘mock’ you. I mock this.” He gestured around the room, aware now that every eye was on him. “This conspiracy of ours. Of yours.”

“You wish to leave? Leave then, we can do without the likes of you.”

“And what is it you plan to do? Break down the walls with a barrage of broken chairs?”

“We will do whatever is necessary to regain the power we deserve.”

Adlai let that statement hang in the air and looked around him. Driven indeed. ‘Nuts’ might be another word for it. What was the point of VR if you lost all touch with reality itself?

As the silence stretched heads turned back to their work, their games. Gretchen went back to her demonstration. Others did likewise, with various levels of success. Across the aisle the short, greasy man chuckled to himself and stood up.

“You’ve made yourself an enemy there I think. A powerful one. Not as powerful as some, perhaps, but powerful nonetheless. This could be fun.”

He shuffled away then, still chuckling into his chest. Adlai watched him go and then turned his head back to the various demonstrations. He wondered how many of them had real power.

Users were always trying to side-step the rules, but that was to be expected. It was half the fun, foiling their attempts. You were dealing with a part of the general population who were somewhat predisposed to cheating, to writing themselves shortcuts, to seeing themselves as outside the rules. You just had to be better than they were.

It occurred to him then that perhaps some of the mistakes around him were simple misdirection. To be truly effective, you honed your weapons in secret, you maintained the element of surprise. There were more dangerous weapons out there than these games. Weapons to alter the shape of reality itself, tools to take control of the environment, even other users.

Adlai went back to watching her. His eyes enjoyed trailing along her figure, memorising every line.

He waited until the bartender turned away before lifting his hand and watching the brown liquid in his glass rise up and wrap itself around it. A moment later he twitched his fingers and the liquid slowly poured itself back into his glass.

He took another sip. Always be sure not to affect the taste.

The miraculous was only interesting if it was hard to do. He didn’t need to impress anyone. It was the same reason God had never turned up in church when he was younger. You shouldn’t expect him to. He’s not there to entertain you.

Which led to the question that always popped up after ten or so bourbons. What was he there for?

To bear witness perhaps. To look out the window and dream a new reality. To sit here on the fence, the border between two worlds. To watch what he’d done and suffer the consequences.

And every now and then something came up that deserved his attention. His intervention. One was on its way now, he could feel the pull.

That was ok. He’d been waiting long enough.