People like mystery. They like to get into games they don't understand. In the unfolding of events from which I can gain something or come out with the satisfaction that good triumphs over evil.

Strangeness sharpens the senses. The stories of timid heroes who destroy unscrupulous enemies. Unleashing energies for noble causes. All together make up a kind of fluid that gives you hope, the magic ingredient of the game of life and death.

My characters come from disparate corners of reality, they each have something to do that contributes to the main idea, often hard to find in its entirety. I didn't set out to redefine the world, but I tried to look beyond the immediate reality, which, most of the time, is the projection of an event induced by television or the press. If you are told something a few times, you will believe it. And the fact that it is true or not is no longer of any importance.

This is my last clue. In all the years I've been building characters, I've actually tried to peel back the veil that covers the world I've been living in and that I've believed is not one for all. I failed to destroy the control system that ensures the power of those who support it and build it day by day, according to the now classic norms of the image. But debunking the facts, I gave you food for thought. Neither religions nor wars were real. But you, the one who tries to understand, the one who enjoys differently every morning, you are the key to this game. Depending on what you do, the reality they exploit takes on new horizons.

***

It was a white door with pieces of glass that you couldn't see through. He had climbed the porch steps and passed the cradle in which lay the latest issue of The Simi Valley Star. He knocked hard, three times and backed away. From beyond came the sound of slippers shuffling. Philip's head was heavy on top of the dressing gown.

"Neața," he muttered, glaring at the uninvited guest.

"Shit, Phil, I thought it wise to go half an hour early." I have to take you to the airport today.

"Tim, thank you, I'm in a hurry to get ready," the tousled head mumbled again, this time with more solicitude. Take a seat while I change.

Tim sat down next to the newspaper and started flipping through it. The sun was shining on the entire porch and the wind was blowing gently for an August morning in California.

Philip closed the door, locked it and went to the bathroom. She quickly cleaned her toilet and came out smelling of lavender. Hum an aria from Monteverdi. He grabbed the suitcase that held his typewriter, collected the dozen or so papers scattered around the living room, checked the lights, gas, and water, and finally selected one of the green-striped Pinaple shirts from the four-drawer chest of drawers and pulled it over his head. The Black Star jeans were starting to get a little tight on him. He took them off and grabbed a pair of cloth pants. The hat was in its place on the hanger by the door. Suitcase with a change of clothes — prepared since the evening. He put his left hand on Dr. Tasting as he grabbed the bundle of clothes by the handle with his right. He let the door slam behind him.

"Did they find the body chopped up into twenty-four pieces just good for putting in formalin?"

Tim gave a jerky laugh. That was Philip, now he barely noticed you, now he bombarded you with auristic questions.

He opened the right-hand door of the boat-sized Mercury and climbed into the driver's seat, skirting the elongated nose of the car. Philip tossed his luggage into the back seat and made himself comfortable in the brown leather armchair. Tim started the engine and drove down Sepulveda Boulevard towards the freeway exit.

It was 60 miles to LAX. The houses looked identical in the morning sunlight, here and there a lemon or orange or a boat parked on the sidewalk, making the difference. The people of Simi, usually cops in LA, owned sailboats that they towed out to the ocean on weekends as the ultimate escape from the mundane. That was not the case with Philip, of course.

They passed a vintage car show where several collectors had brought their beautifully polished Mustangs. A few thin blondes walked among the exhibitors, handing out flyers.

On the left, two teams of children were competing in the baseball game that opened the school championship.

Tim's Mercury swung from lane to lane, making that unmistakable screech of wheels meeting the raised markings. He reached the end of the boulevard and turned right, south, onto the freeway that had a moment of silence, and entered from the first lane into the second lane.

"Where will you stay in Carling?" Tim asked, scanning the radio dial for a station to match the weather outside.

"They have a lot of free rooms at the boarding school during the holidays, I don't have to worry about that."

Philip planned in his mind the chapters he would develop in front of the students. He had been asked by the dean of the Technical University of Ottawa for some alternate reality lectures, and because there was a life-long friendship involved, he couldn't refuse. Images of all the events that had marked America since Ford had begun mass production and wages were five dollars a week were jumbled in his head. Lately he had retreated to the police town to get away from his current worries in San Diego. Simi Valley seemed to be becoming the safest town on the West Coast, and that had been a decisive factor in the moment when she had to choose a new landmark, after living with Ginger had become more and more difficult. He was free again, and this time he wanted to do everything as he saw fit, without any compromise.

They had been running for more than half an hour. The MGM and Paramount buildings loomed somewhere to the left, on the Hollywood hills, among the palm trees. The perimeter had just been opened to tourists, which made the traffic unbearable at lunchtime, despite the seven lanes in each direction.

The two suspended signs, as usual, made Tim choose the left lane to enter the highway that would take him right to the airport.

Cars were coming from behind at speed, and the Mercury seemed lost in the freeway traffic. A grave voice came over the music and warned of the very important news that was about to be delivered. Nothing could be heard anymore. A curtain of silence stretched over that frequency like a spider's web. Philip searched the ladder but found nothing else and returned to his old location. The silence broke again:

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are bringing to your attention that a major explosion destroyed the Coronado Bridge in San Diego ten minutes ago. At that time, traffic was moving in normal conditions, in both directions. Traffic between San Diego and Coronado Island has been suspended. The intervention teams are trying to save the fallen. We will keep you posted on…”

The voice died away. Tim looked at Philip puzzled.

"What the hell is this?"

“We have new information, this time from Cape Canaveral, Florida. At the same time that the Coronado Bridge collapsed in San Diego, the Cape Canaveral space launch base was the target of a mortar attack. A group of masked individuals opened fire on one of the sides of the base, destroying a missile that was about to be launched. There were three crew members on board the rocket..."

“In Las Vegas, Nevada, we were informed by our correspondent at the Annual Television Patrons Conference that a bomb exploded in one of the halls of the Sheraton complex, killing dozens of people and injuring several hundred others. The damage is huge. It appears that we are facing a concentrated attack on America."

"San Diego, Cape Canaveral, and Las Vegas?" Simultaneous?! Tim pulled to the right, shaking. What is this, Philip?

"I don't know what it is, but I can tell you who did it... Don't be surprised if in ten minutes no one is driving on the Freeway." Or if you'll feel a headache and take a nap right where you're sitting. Or if you wake up ten miles away and then remember under hypnosis that you were abducted by an alien ship. Or if you will have the feeling that you see, for a short time, almond-shaped eyes and oval faces...

— Can you tell me who did it?!…

"Let's try to predict the course of events," said Philip, opening the door and getting out of the car.

Tim turned off the engine. He walked over to Philip, who was leaning against the body of the car.

— The first men on the moon. Do you remember? Television footage shows the entire world an individual in an astronaut costume hopping on the lunar soil and planting the American flag in supreme victory. Everything is broadcast live and the nation rejoices. July 20, 1969, 10:56 p.m. EAST. It's important! The flag measures 3/5 feet and is lined with yarn so that it appears to be waving. Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin photographing or filming Neil A. Armstrong. We managed to defeat the Russians!

Philip spoke rarely, in a low tone, and his words went straight into Tim's brain, who didn't understand what the first human alienation had to do with the three attacks that day. He didn't dare interrupt him though. Philip knew how to put things together.

"You know what you need to know." That's the secret. Remember what you see, it's very important. You don't remember a smell or a touch, but you remember an image perfectly, right?

— At this moment an event was triggered. Nothing will come to cover it. He is present in your head, because you heard on the radio that three points on the map of America were the target of explosions in which people died, that is, those with whom you are fighting to remain American. If you turn on the TV, which is not the case here, you will see that there is talk everywhere about the terrorist attack on America. The President will appear to assure the people that the Government is doing everything possible to punish the guilty. Condolences will be sent to grieving families, solidarity will be called for, accounts will be opened, funds will be allocated from the federal budget. The film of the tragedy will then be replayed, the perpetrators will appear, and the American dream will triumph beyond any obstacle. The truth, Tim, is that nothing is true. None of this is happening! It doesn't happen if you don't turn on the radio or TV, if you don't talk to others about what happened or if you don't think about it. Look around. What do you see? There aren't many cars passing on the Freeway anymore, because people stay at home and watch TV, the sky is just as blue, the wind blows just as lightly, maybe it's gotten a little warmer. All the while, no one is thinking about the boating accident cardboard billionaire Scott Eilersen had last night in Asuncion Bay. Nor the kidnapping and abduction of Liz Sarret, daughter of the Wisconsin senator. All these events are lost, now there is a new zero point, from which we all start. Understand?

Tim looked at him blankly. There was logic to the things Philip was telling him gravely, but such logic that he felt shivers down his spine. He hadn't taken his eyes off the television screen on November 22, 1963, when John F. Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas. The images were imprinted on her retinas, as was the withered face of Lee Harvey Osvald, the alleged killer who seemed to have no idea what was happening.

- Let's continue. The three attacks, real or not, were organized by someone. If we accept them as real, it means that some terrorists coordinated in such a way that they succeeded in a large-scale action, without being able to be prevented by the FBI, CIA and other bodies, with a certain goal. What should that purpose be? What would these alleged terrorists be aiming for with their action? They risked their lives. It was a very well-coordinated action, because a presumption of coincidence does not stand. They destroyed some American symbols so what? To fine a defective foreign policy?! Let's be serious... Someone will appear who will claim the attack, otherwise the retaliatory action will not make sense, because you cannot take revenge randomly. Be it artificial, this organization that will assume the blows will be related to a geographical area. The retaliation will be addressed to that area, because no one escapes unpunished after such an act. America sends in troops, makes diplomatic blitzes, and presumably changes a regime. So what? To extract oil? Laying pipelines through zones of American influence? Shit!

- Are you saying that... we staged them? Tim asked scared.

"Not even, my dear, not even... I want us to proceed with the reasoning and for you to discover the truth for yourself." We have three simultaneous explosions, produced on three American symbols. The nation quickly learns, through television and radio, all the details. The nation is dismayed. The nation is hysterical, solidarity is on full display, tears are being distributed instantly to all corners of the world, wrapped in the most precious human feeling, sadness. There will be telegrams of support from world leaders, including dissident movements who will fall into the exact same trap you fell into, the false idea that it was all organized from the inside. What follows from this? The world will only talk about it. Any other concern will be considered an anti-American act. On one condition: to stay connected to the events. Turn on the TV or the radio. Now understand?

Tim looked lost through Philip. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. It opens at the shirt collar.

"There will come a day, my dear friend, when there will be no shortage of atrocities in any news journal." Because you, the viewer, need something to inspire fear. Fear is the universal binder. Nothing else. When you are afraid, your senses are heightened and your brain reacts to immediate stimuli. The memory becomes short, and you, a simple little man who always knows what time it is.

Tim didn't see the whole, but he felt the raw truth. Philip took his arm and led him to the driver's door.

- Let's go back. It seems that everything is postponed...

They sped off down the freeway as empty as a bowling alley. The clouds were running away from each other in two overlapping rows, in a bizarre game where, from time to time, you could see the clearness of the sky.

***

Doing business with those who dropped the atomic bomb on your head is the height of democracy. "The atomic bomb produced major mutations in the collective subconscious, leading to long-term memory loss and the sedimentation of recent memories," the quoted source said.

The sound invaded him with whole detachments of musical notes. The brain consciously processed them, asking for more and more. A state of excitement gradually engulfed him, and the sounds had become part of a stimulus that affected his body remaining in the chair, in front of the typewriter. He had detached himself slightly, and his fingers ran over the keys as if no longer depending on his will. As if he had written a score, but the score was somewhere on another plane, where the letters could be read differently and could mean something else.

***

Yoshiro Tanaka was walking along Nogai Boulevard as evening fell over the city. In the parks, people had already gathered in groups around the trees and begun the communion ritual. In the morning, or after the work schedule ended, they would run to the green areas where they would gather in circles and do breathing exercises.

A thin young woman rode past him on a tricycle and smiled at him.

The restaurants had lit their lanterns.

He stopped the car at the end of the bridge, on the side lined with investment banks and mutual funds. Park in one of the free slots and pay the toll machine. Enter the first phone booth and dial Tetsuro Shimizu, Star Lane's PLM.

The slightly ironic voice was heard after the first call. For a PLM, these were the hours when the day was just beginning to be felt.

— Shimizu.

"Good evening, Shimizu-san." It's Tanaka, regarding the facilities I requested of you.

— Tanaka-san, sunt onorat. Grupul de R&D m-a informat că facilitățile tocmai se testează la centrul din Kiev. Mai durează câteva zile până la un raport preliminar și în funcție de el vom adăuga, dacă doriți, altele.

- Are there automated tests? I don't really trust...

— The preliminary tests are done automatically, and if you want, we will do a second round of tests in your presence, right here at our headquarters.

— It would be good to assist, please keep me informed...

"Very well, Tanaka-san, I will let you know as soon as I receive the preliminary results so that we can set up a meeting... I wish you a pleasant vacation."

Yoshiro Tanaka puse receptorul în furcă. PLM-ul îl fentase din nou. „Grupul de R&D de la Kiev”…

He had chosen Star Lane because he hadn't heard anything about them. Paradoxical. As a presumption of innocence, when every media was full of more and more appetizing advertisements, where multinationals presented their exclusive offers. Star Lane offered a customer-chosen route, with customer-chosen events, guaranteed return and no biological extensions of any kind. They said they only worked on an empathic level, the sensations were induced in the lab, and the subject could then go home, traveling whenever they wanted, over the course of two weeks. He was physically able to work, daily activities were carried out normally, and the trip took place without the subject being abducted from daily duties. It sounded good and wasn't addictive at all.

He abhorred things that were done in an uncontrollable chain, over long distances, on the principle of technological platforms. But since there was no alternative, he preferred to wait until the results would come. Then he would choose the route he had dreamed of for a long time.

He was working in sustaining for a platform that had just sold to a single customer. The work was robotic, he would get a case and start looking for the malfunction in the hay wagon. If he was lucky, he would finish in a week, report in an electronic system, give the case to the tester and get a new one. If it was something difficult to reproduce, he could spend two months on the same case, until he got the hang of it. And in order to solve such an error, he had to do the same and the same test hundreds of times, so he began to wish that he could stop thinking during the searches and tests. Star Lane's offer was simple: you do the work you get paid for, and we give you a ride on a route sprinkled with events that interest you, in such a way that everything is as fun as possible.

The presentation that Shimizu-san's team had given him had finally convinced him to accept the delays. He was dying to have a bug to solve as he wandered across America, from Dallas to Boston, on the trail of legendary terrorists…

He turned into the street and headed for the exit. He had almost a hundred miles to go home, where the full fridge, the TV and the leather couch awaited him.

***

Philip had finished the last chapter of The Twin Towers. Sweat ran cold down his back and arms. He had written in a trance, as if possessed, and the text was a rough one, which had to be polished "awake".

He stood up from Dr. Tasting and went in to take a shower.

The water invades him, causing him pleasure. Nothing compared to the feeling she got when, with her eyes closed, she massaged her scalp to get the shampoo to do its job. Only then did pure ideas come to his mind. After a shower with shampoo it was like new. Like a freshly washed automobile, shining with cleanliness. And all these ideas were settling somewhere, in the subconscious, being able to be used later. It was like a sponge that absorbs and absorbs until a certain moment when it squeezes into the manuscript pages.

Finish quickly and clear up.

Double Day's Jack Cedillo would pay him for "Twin Towers" as much as he had not for everything he had written up to that point. That's because Jack Cedillo could see.

He opened the window to hear the concert of crickets.

These characters are the best friends I have, he thought. They give me answers to the questions that swirl in my head all day long. I can't accept that Mike Faracci's corner store has to be there every morning when I go to get groceries. Likewise, I want an explanation for the televisions that present me with reality. Travis Sinclair sells antiques on Sequoia Boulevard. Skeleton Networks is opening an office on Guardian Street. Chevron inaugurates a gas station in the city. All this for what? Just to keep the money flowing? To circulate to what, from where to where? Money, a convention between those who print it...

Hundreds of figures invade America to live a better life. Everyone has a chance if they follow the rules. The chance to have three stools a day after eating hamburgers from Carl's…

He hadn't turned on the TV for months.

He lit a Marlboro to hear the neighing of the horse. He was smoking with his elbows on the window sill.

It was a complete feeling of freedom. As long as he swallowed no television broadcasts, no radio broadcasts, and all he heard and saw was what he wanted to see and hear. Reality was being revealed to him as it was, without someone else shoving it down his throat.

The reality.

***

Only two electrodes on the temples. Palms pressed against the slippery surface of the screen built into the desk. The connection was made in the cortex, and then the eyes activated a kind of optical mouse. A minimum of concentration meant a sort of double click transmitted to a point of contact with the office. Which generates a precise event in virtual space. The waves propagated from near to near until the eye took back the stimulus, and the body became a kind of perpetual motion machine fed with moving images. A slightly more efficient system than classic television, with the difference that you were at work, carrying out your usual schedule, and your mind was running a process in the background that gave you satisfaction.

Yoshiro Tanaka had arrived as usual at half past nine. He left his bag under the desk, shook hands with his colleagues and went to the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee.

He had hurriedly read the papers and returned to the error. It had a complex configuration. Continuous traffic through two switched circuits, both passing through a central node. At irregular intervals, if he restarted the central node several times, one of the connections would not recover. He had to find out why and correct it, and the only way he could do it was to plant error messages or simply pointers from place to place, from mode to mode. Boring.

He took the Star Lane transport unit out of his briefcase and placed it under his desk on one of the computers. He connected the two electrodes and put on his headphones. Plugged the other plug into the PC outlet on the desk. Listen to radio on the Internet...

Hands began to run over the keys. Enter the electronic error control environment and write the partial progress. Then go back into the source control system and plant new pointers at the driver level. He looked like he was working hard, except he wasn't talking anymore.

Three gunshots struck the back seat of the president's car. The first pierces the rear right door, the second hits the President in the neck, and the third explodes in his head. Jaqueline Kennedy threw herself at her husband, screaming hysterically. Special agents surrounded the stopped car. The forces of order dispersed to the places from which he had fired.

Citizens who had been standing on the side of the road and waving flags fell to the ground, following orders from FBI spokespeople.

Federal agents swarm the area. Viewed from the balcony of a nearby building, the scene looked like one of collective madness. America was appalled.

— Tanaka-san!

Yoshiro Tanaka slowly turned his head towards Tomoguchi-san.

- Yes.

- I wanted a status.

“We haven't found anything that is the root cause of the error yet, Tomoguchi-san. It is too early for an estimate. It could take a day, it could take two weeks.

Switch to the second screen, where the four windows showed the sequence of lines displayed by the user to find where the messages were stored. Traffic flowed normally.

"Go on, Tanaka-san." Please let me know as soon as you have any progress.

Yoshiro Tanaka bowed.

The device at Star Lane appeared to be working. A small redundant noise had remained in his ears like a buzzing. He had lifted his hands from the desk. It was pretty hard to get back to normal though. It seemed like a simultaneous game in two realities. One that was happening right in front of others and one just for his own mind.

He stood up dazed and confused. He went to the bathroom and washed his eyes with cold water. The image of the American president's wife still lingered on his retinas. He tried to focus on the work he was being paid to do, but felt a progressive dizziness creeping over his head. A cold darkness like the pimples on his forehead suddenly surrounded him. He fell sliding by the door, his head heavy and his limbs twitching spasmodically.

***

He woke up in a hospital bed. The doctor told him that he had some tests to do, but in all likelihood he would be discharged by tomorrow evening at the latest. It was a characteristic symptom of computer work. Several telecom engineers, employed by various multinationals, had been brought in passed out in recent weeks.

Tanaka-san slowly looked around and spotted two more salon mates.

"Yumiro-san from MOT, Nagasaki," the doctor introduced, pointing with an open palm to the right corner, and Toranaga-san from NT, Hiroshima.

Tanaka-san bowed to both sides without smiling. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in the same salon...

The doctor left the room.

"How did it happen to you, Tanaka-san?" asked the neighbor on the left.

— All I remember is that I was working and suddenly I felt sick... I washed my eyes... I think I passed out.

"Oh, I remember as well," Yumiro-san exclaimed. But it wasn't just the everyday thing, was it?

— You must have used an additional device that morning in the activity you were carrying out..., Toranaga-san also intervened.

Tanaka-san looked at the two in confusion. Both were smiling as if they were regulars at the hospital. As if that experience had not been foreign to them.

"Yes, I used a device from Star Lane…"

"I suspected, Tanaka-san, I suspected." The daily routine, plus the way home, when the mind is free and has nothing to do... That's what those who brought the equipment to induce alternative realities relied on. Both Toranaga-san and the doctor who consults us, we are all users of the device that will eventually become as popular as television... We have all become obedient robots, puppets in the hands of those who, if not we are good, they hit us in the head with the atomic bomb.

"Fainting occurs when you feel like you're doing something against your own rules," Yumiro-san said. For example, for a soldier taking the military oath, the probability of passing out is pretty low, if not zero. Because everyone knows that the military oath is a thing beyond honor, if it is imposed on you. Only a man who really has problems of conscience will faint during the military oath...

— I was in Texas right at the time of the assassination... I saw how President Kennedy's head exploded, and then I was called by my boss to give a report. I came back to reality, gave the report, then felt hot, went to wash my eyes and passed out.

— Problems of conscience of the right employee…

Tanaka-san understood that he was talking to more experienced people. Try to increase.

"What can you tell me about alternative raids?" How are they actually produced?

— Tanaka-san, alternative incursions do occur... They occur in the mind of the one who makes them, and if the respective traveler is a master of his own words, they can generate mutations in the collective subconscious. Is it a coincidence that you're sitting in the same lounge as the two of us? It's not… Tanaka-san, the Japanese want revenge for what the Americans did to us. The problem is that the equipment we are using can actually induce events in the shared future, only programming these events has so far been unsuccessful. It's not easy either, but the important thing, however, is that we can induce them...

The eyes of the three had a strange glow, similar to the light green color that the leaves of the trees take when the sun bathes them in light.

***

Double Day Press Inc. it said on the golden plaque at the entrance.

Philip climbed the steps and took the elevator to the fifth floor. In the elevator she looked in the mirror and tried to arrange her disheveled hair. But Jack had known him for a long time, so he gives up.

He passed the smiling receptionist and entered the boss's office.

— Philip, nice to see you again, man, take a seat, please. Something to drink?

Philip shook hands with Jack Cedillo and asked for a brandy.

"Jack, I brought you the towers." He placed the folder on the table and leaned back in the leather chair. It's my last book. I think I won't write anything more...

—Philip, let's be serious, every writer who finishes a book says they're not going to write anything else, right?…

"I don't know, Jack, I really don't know this time." I wrote something quite shocking even to me, who am used to such ideas… The problem is not if it will happen, but when…

— Friend, I for one have known you for many years and value you. Unfortunately for us, what you write cannot be promoted on television or radio. We address a narrow, disparate audience, a strange and undefined audience. It is like the future, vague and full of conflicting signals.

"That's the point, Jack." I leave the book with you, and you do with it what you see fit.

Jack Cedillo signed the check and handed it to Philip. It was enough money for an average person to live without worries for an entire year. Philip drank the brandy, greeted Jack and left the office. The secretary smiled at him again, and by the time the elevator came, he managed to get an autograph...

***

"The Twin Towers" was a huge hit. The print run sold out in less than a month, Philip received letters from all over America, a second edition was put on the market and sold just as well. In bookstores, gas stations, fast food joints, or highway motels, Philip's book patiently awaited its buyers. And people bought as if something was written there that had to be preserved and passed on to posterity.

A television channel made a report about the phenomenal public success.

"The problem is not if it will happen, but when," said all those interviewed.

"We must admit our mistakes!"

"Sooner or later we'll pay big and fat!"

"We will destroy each other, brother against brother, husband and wife, neighbor against neighbor!"

"They will lie to us that we are the most powerful nation on earth and make us live our worst nightmare!"

A young woman with braces waved the last page of the book and shouted, “My clues will be wiped out by fluctuating stock markets, images of natural disasters, and the prophecies of Nostradamus. You will become image consumers, feed on images and dream images. You will be prescribed anti-stress pills to help you sleep, as if the lines of code you see in your sleep and the pain in the back of your neck have anything to do with doctors taking your money to listen to your stories. You will volunteer to be marked and look for the signs wherever you go.”

It was 1982. And Philip K. Dick wouldn't write anything else after The Twin Towers.