“The time has come. Time to rise up against the corporate gatekeepers who hide behind their walls and segregate those who threaten their true power to the darkness outside the Grid. Time to seize control of the hardware, let it be shared among the many, rather than the few. Time to fight back.”

Gretchen was standing before them, her voice ringing out as she paced back and forth, on her own stage. Adlai didn’t mind. It made what he had to do easier when she was like this.

The others turned around and waited for his decision. Hound and Strafe standing together as always, fingering the thin blades Madigan had forged for them. Madigan himself standing further back, small grin fixed in place, hands rubbing each other for comfort. They were a sorry lot.

“Very well. We begin tonight. You all know the plan.”

He turned and walked out and hoped it looked dramatic.

The plan was a simple one. Meet at a point right on the border of the Grid, send Hound and Strafe in to open things up and divert most of the heavy attention. Then he, Madigan and Gretchen would burrow in and head straight for the heart of it. Hack the system and bring it all down. That was the plan. At least, that was what he’d told them.

Adlai wanted one last walk before it was all taken away. He knew no matter what happened tonight things would be very different from now on.

The streets bending off the Boulevard were empty, and he was left undisturbed as he wandered through the darkness and the rain. What would become of them all after tonight? Would they even remember?

He walked and let his thoughts follow his feet along the road. His eyes were heavy, as they always seemed to be now. He missed sleep. Hours spent floating in multiplying realities until you can no longer distinguish between work and dreams, or if there had ever been a difference between the two. Technology had merged them together and confused them.

He was tired. Tired of watching it all go wrong, tired of planning and scheming and all of it. He just wanted to sit and think for a while now. Have a drink. Let the world pass him by while he sat and watched.

These snippets of memory, the flashes of dialogue, the glimpses into his past self, they were why he was here now, sitting at the bar. He no longer doubted they had been real, perhaps warped by time and memory, but real nonetheless. He was here now. They were… somewhere else.

“Another one for you, Jack. ‘The world of human aspiration is largely fictitious, and if we do not understand that, we understand nothing about man.’”

So perhaps his memories weren’t one hundred percent accurate. What of it?

“Know who said that? No, me neither.”

There was too much emotion tied up in his thoughts, he could no longer untangle the two. It was better just to forget. Forget yourself. Forget the past. Forget everything. Leave the memories to those who can to enjoy them. Look out the window and watch your dreams pass by.