#((programmer's notes))

Oh. Oh, there is NO going back, is there? In any direction… I'm telling you, my buttercup, you wouldn't even believe what was happening now…

Of course, this would be better if I started from the start, huh?

Firstly, the first ten of these entries are just pseudocode and notes, because I was experimenting. You do work, you keep notes. I know that, you know that. Heck, even wizards do it, what do you think spellbooks are? So, there's that.

But… how did I even get here? Simple answer is dumb luck, really. I had escaped… somehow, but stuck around the facility. Felt familiar, I guess. Especially the computer labs. Lots of dark places to hide. Kinda fun being some kind of… ratman in the walls. I had even found these strange glasses. They clear my head up REAL good. I… I almost feel like me again.

My memories had been so… thin, up until then. I blink… and its the Circus. I blink again, it's the facility. I blink once more and I'm at home, in my chair, reading a science journal and listening to you chat with the kids about college or life… It's all been… so confusing. But some… streak of sheer, organic luck has landed me… here. With all the clarity in the world. And I will not waste a second of it.

… And then there was the other thing I found. Strange blueprints. Detailing a… helmet? A set of goggles, good quality micro-monitors, integrated stereo sound, electrode sensors AND emitters, and high density data lines running all through the danged thing. Wiring… In formations and configurations that I've only spied at electronics conference lectures and experimental demonstrations…

… Caine's little… 'escape' escapade was pure fiction (from what I… remember?), yes, but this… this was tech that all actually existed. In excruciating detail. Whatever this world and this facility is, it's not Caine's work. His style can reach these levels of stimulation, but that isn't his focus… Everything here is too… detailed. Too realistic. Down to a T. The errors are far fewer and farther in-between. There are working, LOGICAL plumbing and electrical systems, weather patterns, day-and-night that don't feel like a forced contrivance, NPC routines that videogame companies would fall all over each other for.

But then there's the other schematics... One for some... thing called an End-to-End Energy Transducer...? For 'Micro-to-Macroworld' energy transfer...? And a... Fragmented Item Materializer? They couldn't be serious, right?... Some of the schematics could pass as real, but those last few... lack... any base in reality. Data, energy, and matter DO NOT WORK LIKE THAT.

I mean, the protos I watched them test work HERE, in the virtual world, just fine, but it feels like their intent is to... make it real? To somehow jump from here... to the real world... ... ... This... This is not Caine. It can't be. His goals are a little lop-sided, but not full on demented.

One of the other AIs? Perhaps… Some… residual wave from the collapse of The Circus, causing the data to knit together to form all of this… just by coincidence? Sightly more unlikely…

Absolutely no idea. Not important. Not right now, anyway. Especially since they had planned to test and use that tech on, what appeared to be, innocent NPCs.

Listen… Before you even say it, Honey; this world, whatever it is, is still A world. I couldn't just… skulk around and watch it happen. Not this time. Not again. Never again…

… Remember that one book on making bombs that your cousin joke-gifted you? It, uh, kinda came in handy, dear. Thanks for that one. You're an inspiration, always. Even if by accident. ;P

[Something scribbled out. about three lines of gibberish, then heavily, HEAVILY scribbled into a small pool of black. Vaguely, the words 'mind', 'body', and 'soul' could still be made out underneath bits of it. The rest; inscrutable. The pen had almost ripped the paper towards the end of it…]

… That… was strange…