She’d heard stories about it around the office. Fellow workers had ventured out, explored the darker corners, went wandering away on the Boulevard into the areas off Grid. Made excuses to do it on company time or simply headed out and damned the consequences, safe in the knowledge their bosses knew less than was good for them.

They had the top hardware, that meant they should be able to handle whatever the outside world threw up at them, right? Cass smiled to herself at the thought. It was the usual company blind spot. Hardware is just a vehicle, an environment, what’s important is what is running on it, the software, and how much it is able to bend the rules.

There had been a few casualties. Eyes staring out of windows in meetings, staring off into other universes where something important was left behind. Haunted, drawn faces who answered distractedly and stared down at their feet. She knew. She’d been living that life since the accident, since the nightmares. She figured nothing the Boulevard threw up could out-do reality.

The Boulevard for Cass had begun as a place to hide from reality, to forget, to dream in peace. She spent her time on Grid, wandering the same brightly lit streets, lazing on impossibly beautiful beaches, indulging in unlikely fantasy. It was safe and warm and never quite enough. It gave her happiness, at least the semblance of it, from the moment she lay down her head till the time her alarm screamed her awake, but did nothing for the hours spent stuck in reality. The nightmares came back then, scratching at the backs of her eyes, waiting for a distracted moment to tear back into her.

The ones who ventured off Grid, something stayed with them. You could see it. If something out there screwed with them that much it had to be worth trying.

Making her mind up was easy, the hard part was actually doing it. It wasn’t just a matter of deciding to go off Grid. The corporations didn’t let you out that easily. They knew what was most likely to happen out there. It wasn’t safe. They wanted their users to return, again and again. The only solution was to keep them locked in, for their own protection. The walls around the Grid weren’t just there to keep the monsters out.

There were some subversives. Scrawled graffiti on walls if you knew where to look. ‘Free the dreamers. Free the dreams.’ It never lasted long.

Cass had some advantages. She knew a few things, could try some tricks. None of it worked. Eventually she even resorted to asking other users for help. Most just smiled and walked away. The few who understood what it was she was asking for, they didn’t bother with the smile.

Of course when the answer came it was all too simple. Cass saw a user, older, slower, or perhaps he just chose to take his time, wandering down the centre of the Boulevard, staring at his feet. Head down, not bothering with the bright lights around him, a slight grin on his face. When she approached he simply raised his hand and pointed down the centre of the road.

Cass’s shoulders slumped and she was about to turn away when an amazing thing happened. She heard him speak.

“Always remember that the Boulevard is not on the Grid, it is the Grid which lies on the Boulevard.”

She’d stared at him in numb shock. There was no way she should hear him, not here. He’d simply smiled and walked into her, through her, somehow disappearing before he got to the other side.

Cass was used to amazement, this place was awash with it. But this was the first time she’d actually been surprised.