Chapter 23:

(Posted: April 16)

“So, now what?” Rich asked Kat and Jessica. “How do we even get out of this world?”

The three of them moved slowly together across the abandoned laboratory campus. Trying to coordinate the giant steps of Jessica with the slow speed of Kat's electric wheelchair proved difficult.

“Let's go to my office,” Kat told him, less of a suggestion and more of a predetermined plan. “I might be able to see what I can do from my workstation. It never occurred to me that I've been living in a sim for some time, maybe there's something in the main VERSA program I overlooked. Plus, I have some snacks there.”

“Ugh I'm starving,” Jessica complained. “If it comes down to it, I'll shrink myself just to eat.”

“Plus,” Kat added, clutching the green book on her lap, “killing a bit of time will allow Versa to rebuild herself in this world.”

Rich huffed. “Kat, if she reappears and immediately tries killing me again, I'm going to be a very unhappy man,” he joked, though his lightheartedness couldn't hide his suspicion of VERSA's AI.

“It'll be fine,” Kat said. “She owes me anyways.” Kat hoped it would be fine, but she actually had no clue. She knew the AI was currently unpacking itself and infiltrating this new, virgin sim, but Kat didn't know if it would take Versa minutes or hours or days to fully build herself up. Kat remembered Versa being able to read the minds of the pilots within the main VERSA... hopefully it would take her a very long time to regain that ability in VERSA-B.

“Which building are we looking for?” Jessica asked, a few paces ahead of Rich and Kat.

“It's the one by the server warehouses, north side of the complex,” replied Kat.

As they came around another building, Kat pointed out her office. “It's on the third floor of that one. They're renovating most of it right now, so most of my days I don't even see anyone...” It then occurred to her that vacating most of the building was probably a deliberate move, keeping her separated from everyone else. Interacting with more people might have tipped her off that she wasn't actually living in the real world. Thinking of this made her even more mad. She couldn't wait to finally talk to Leo and figure out what was really going on.

A minute later they reached Kat's building. Jessica was too large to fit through the door, but Rich offered to wait outside with her and keep watch while Kat went to her office alone. The three of them had just come to a consensus on what to do when Jessica saw an approaching car. From the direction of the main gate, a black SUV had turned out from behind another building. It was heading right for them.

“Uh guys? There's a car coming,” warned Jessica.

“Shit,” Kat uttered. “Can you guys handle this?”

Rich pulled the pistol he'd acquired out of his pocket. “Yeah we got you. Get what you need from your office and we'll handle this.”

Not wasting time with a response, Kat silently left them and rolled up the building's ramp, finally pressing a button to open the door to the building. Clutching the pistol, Rich looked up at Jessica standing next to him. He could see her giant fists clenched, each one the size of his head.

“Ready to rock and roll, redwood?” he asked Jessica, cocking the slide and chambering the first round into his gun. She looked down at him and gave him a confident smile.

“I was born ready, shrimp,” she replied playfully.

It must have distressed the occupants of the SUV to see Jessica standing so tall, but they nonetheless kept up their approach. About a hundred feet away from the two of them, the vehicle swerved to the right. The doors flew open and Jessica and Rich watched two nameless SunCorp employees jump out of the back, each man holding a gun. But from the front seat, Vanessa casually disembarked, certainly not in haste like the men with her. If anything, Rich noted, she looked bored.

Though the armed men wore uniforms and looked like security guards, Vanessa wore a stylish green dress with matching green heels. Rich couldn't believe she was willing to just walk right into danger dressed like that. He raised his gun.

“Vanessa Bright!” he called to her. “What the fuck is going on?!”

The armed men brought their pistols up and to Rich's surprise, pointed them at Jessica. At that moment, the driver of the SUV came around with a gun too. Rich recognized him as Delvin, the same man who had toured them around the complex on the first day.

“The two of you are in a lot of trouble,” Vanessa told them curtly.

“No, you're in a lot of trouble,” Jessica angrily replied. “We know we're in a sim. We want out!”

“Can't do that Miss Hampton,” Vanessa said, staring her down. “I'm here to detain you both. You're not going anywhere.”

“Got any cuffs in her size?” Rich asked Vanessa indignantly, gesturing to Jessica.

Vanessa turned to her three armed escorts. “Remember, don't let them de-sim. You get Mr. Colgate and I'll deal with Miss Hampton.”

Silently, the three armed men started walking toward Rich, their eyes nervously darting towards Jessica.

Rich shouted at them to stay away and cocked back the hammer of his pistol. While he did this, Jessica noticed Vanessa fiddling with the smartwatch on her wrist. And then the head of development at Dreamland Laboratory started growing.

Vanessa suddenly expanded, her body skyrocketing upward. In a moment her green heels towered over Jessica and the building behind her. Not to be outdone, Jessica channeled herself and quickly started growing too, her expanding left foot barely missing Rich.

“Holy shit!” Rich shouted as he watched Vanessa turn into a giantess. Distracted, the armed men broke into a run towards him. Caught off-guard, Rich brought his senses back to earth and instinctively began firing at his assailants. Unfocused, his bullets went wide of his targets, but it caused the uniformed men to dive to the ground. Now standing beneath Jessica's impossibly tall and expanding legs, Rich turned and ran. For a moment he considered heading into the building, but in a second decided he'd stay outside and try fleeing around the side of it. Considering that Jessica and Vanessa were about to fight, he didn't want to be trapped in a confined space that they were rapidly dwarfing.

Jessica kept growing herself at the same pace Vanessa was expanding. She didn't have time to think about how tall she was getting, but she figured she already passed the 100 foot mark some time ago. She was probably even double that now. As they grew, the gap between the two women dwindled, and with Vanessa's hand still on her watch, Jessica knew it was the source of her power. So once Vanessa was at arm's length, Jessica pushed her.

The move caught Vanessa off-guard and she stumbled back. Jessica took a step forward, inadvertently kicking the small black SUV out of the way like a toy car. She didn't really know how to fight, but she threw a punch at Vanessa anyways, who dodged it rather easily.

Jessica couldn't focus on fighting and growing at the same time, but luckily Vanessa couldn't fight back while keeping her hand on her watch. The two giantesses began doing their best to hit each other. Aiming for the watch on Vanessa's left arm, Jessica tried grabbing at Vanessa, hoping to at least knock her down.

As she lashed out, Jessica was momentarily surprised when Vanessa grabbed one of her arms. Once ahold of the sleeve of Jessica's white sweater, Vanessa shifted her weight. She spun Jessica and pushed her off to the side, sending her tumbling into one of the research buildings. Jessica's body, much larger than the meager three story building, completely demolished the structure as she fell on top of it. Debris exploded into the air as Jessica flattened the building beneath her.

When Jessica slammed into the ground, it sounded to Rich like a bomb had gone off. He turned to see her colossal form atop the remains of a building, but she immediately rolled over and Rich could tell she hadn't been seriously hurt.

The sound of gunfire caught his attention when he realized his pursuers had started firing their weapons. Rich had some distance on them but he still squeezed off a few rounds in defense to make them think twice about following him. His gun clicked impatiently when he finally ran out of ammo.

Rich fumbled to reload while running as fast as he could. Just as he slid the new clip into the pistol's grip, another boom, this once much closer, caused him to stumble and drop his gun. Darting his head to look behind him, he saw Vanessa's enormous high heeled shoe.

From up above, her angry voiced boomed down. “I said don't let them de-sim! Don't shoot him you idiots!” she scolded the tiny men at her feet. Rich gulped when he realized they all couldn't have been any bigger than one of her toes.

Vanessa lifted up her foot, and to Rich's surprise only two men remained behind him. Had she really just stomped on one of them to prove a point? Holy shit, this bitch was cold.

If they weren't going to shoot at him, fuck it, then he would shoot at them. Picking his pistol back up, he chambered the first round and took careful aim.

Rich knew he was a decent shot, and one of the security officers would later agree with that sentiment. His first two bullets went into the man's chest and he immediately fell down onto the damp ground. The only survivor, who Rich could see was the driver Delvin, stopped, appraised the situation, and fled. Running to the left, the man presented a difficult target for Rich to hit at range, and it took Rich another three shots before he clipped Delvin's leg. Tumbling to the ground, Delvin quickly recovered and brought his gun up to fire.

Although he'd been warned, the adrenaline in Delvin's body couldn't be reasoned with. He fired back at Rich and Rich dove into the ground to avoid the bullets.

“Dammit!” Vanessa bellowed from up high. Delvin had angered the goddess, his boss, and Rich smirked, knowing retribution would be swift. Impossibly high above them, her massive shoe cast an ominous shadow over Delvin's wounded body.

Rich saw him throw his arms up in protest, but Delvin had blown his chance. Vanessa stepped down and Delvin's time in VERSA-B ended instantly. The power of her simple step terrified Rich and rocked the ground below him.

Before he could catch his breath, Jessica's titanic form lunged at Vanessa. She collided with her and knocked her over. Rich could only watch in awe as the two massive women crashed down to earth together, this time wiping out a few of the empty server warehouses. Jessica landed on top Vanessa, causing a significant earthquake that shook the campus buildings. Glass windows shattered and concrete facades crumbled. In awe of their massive power, Rich felt like a flea watching two deities act out their own personal Götterdämmerung.

Now with the initiative, Jessica began slamming her fists into Vanessa's body. Vanessa struggled to push her off, but with all the smoke and dust in the air she had trouble breathing. Jessica couldn't see very well through the cloudy air, so she kept slugging Vanessa with her one fist while groping around with her other hand for the watch on Vanessa's arm.

After a few moments of wildly fighting on the ground, Jessica's fingers made contact with the plastic and glass watch. She started feverishly tugging on the thing, but Vanessa knew what she was trying to do and thrashed her arm in response. Jessica lost her grip on the watch and Vanessa tossed her aside. Both women scrambled to their feet, their shoes gouging the earth. To tiny Rich down below, it sounded like an army of runaway construction vehicles. These giantesses could probably move mountains if they really wanted to.

Rich started sprinting away from the women, but at their gargantuan size there was nowhere safe for him to go. The entire Dreamland complex was their arena, but he fled anyways. The best thing keeping him safe was their apathy towards him; lions don't notice or care about the lives of ants.

As Jessica gained her footing and faced Vanessa, she remained focused on her watch, the source of all her power. But before Vanessa initiated another round of combat, the short reprieve let Jessica think. Remembering that she could also shrink people with her power, Jessica began focusing on Vanessa's body.

In an instant, Vanessa started dwindling in front of Jessica. Realizing what was happening, Vanessa looked down at her smartwatch to try reversing the process. But Jessica quickly stepped over to Vanessa and grabbed her shrinking arm, her superior strength keeping Vanessa's free hand away from the watch. Vanessa looked up at her in shock and dread; the reality of her defeat suddenly struck her in the gut.

Vanessa kept shrinking as Jessica proudly held her arm, and soon Vanessa dangled from Jessica's grasp, her feet leaving the ground to shrink with the rest of her body that Jessica held high above. The smug expression on Jessica's face taunted Vanessa who tried fruitlessly to weasel out of her grip. When Vanessa became too small to effectively hold, Jessica brought her other hand under her and dropped her into her palm. Next, she smothered Vanessa with her giant index finger, preventing her from interacting with her watch. The battle was over, and once again Jessica reigned supreme.

Too large to effectively control Vanessa, Jessica scanned the ruined ground for Rich. A few seconds passed before she spotted him watching her from next to the fence surrounding the complex.

“Rich, I've got her here,” she called down to the little man she could barely see. “Make sure she can't use her watch.”

Unable to hear a reply, Jessica lowered her palm down to Rich and dumped Vanessa out onto the ground next to him. Vanessa hit the ground hard, causing one of her shoes to fly off her foot. Before she could recover, Rich jumped on top of her, placing a knee right between her shoulders. Quickly unbuckling her watch, Rich pulled the source of her power off her arm.

“Gotcha bitch!” he teased her.

“Fuck you,” Vanessa hissed at him. Rich stood up and Vanessa slowly started to rise. Behind all of them, Jessica was rapidly reducing herself to a more manageable size, finally stopping somewhere around sixty feet tall. Her white sweater had turned a light shade of brown, but besides that the victor remained unspoiled.

“We've got a lot of questions to ask you,” Rich told her menacingly. He slipped her watch into his pocket and grabbed her arm. Jessica had done a near-perfect job reducing Vanessa to her original height.

“Let me get my damn shoe first,” Vanessa replied angrily. Rich allowed her to hobble over to her green shoe as Jessica watched intently from above.

“We're going to Kat's office, Vanessa,” said Rich. “You're coming with me and don't try anything funny.” He grabbed her arm again and proceeded to practically drag her over to Kat's building, which besides a couple dozen broken windows, remained mostly intact.

“Fuck you assholes,” Vanessa spat, dropping any semblance of professionalism. “You've gone and fucked up years of our work here. VERSA's ruined and you're to blame!”

Rich didn't indulge her with a response. A few minutes later the two of them walked through the glass front door of the building, which surprisingly remained unbroken. A nearby elevator dinged and Kat emerged.

“I heard the ruckus die down and wanted to see what happened,” she explained.

Rich pointed at a sullen Vanessa. “She lost.”

“Let's get up to my office,” Kat said.

A minute later they'd reached the third floor. After snaking down a crooked corridor they reached a small room full of humming computers and multiple LCD screens. Tables lay piled with papers and keyboards and the little green book sat atop an overstuffed file cabinet. One wall of the room used to be a window, but was now gone. A table stacked full of blinking machines teetered dangerously close to the broken edge.

Seeing movement inside the building, Jessica came around and sat down next to the blown-out window to hear Rich's interrogation of Vanessa. Rich noted she seemed keen on staying big. Her protection helped him relax; no one would be interrupting what came next.

Flipping Kat the smartwatch, he informed her, “This is how she changed her size. I figured you might wanna see it.” Kat caught the device and examined the strange contraption with interest.

Rich pulled out a chair and told Vanessa to take a seat, who begrudgingly obliged. He pushed a few paper-stuffed binders off another folding chair and swung it around in front of her. Plopping down in the chair, he grinned wickedly at Vanessa, who eyed him with disdain. She crossed her arms in frustration and annoyance.

“Vanessa Bright,” said Rich calmly. “We know we're basically SunCorp's prisoners in this sim right now. We want out. And we want answers. Where's Harrison?”

Letting out a long sigh, Vanessa responded to him. “I'm assuming if I don't answer your questions you're going to hurt me?”

“Probably,” Rich replied with a smile. He was playing good cop now but was more than ready to switch roles if necessary.

“Alright then, I took him up to the house,” she casually replied. Rich watched her face. She refused to make eye contact with him, but he studied her eyes and the corners of her mouth. Though she covered it well, he could see the small twitches in her face that betrayed nervousness. It was a high stakes game of poker; Vanessa held all the chips, but Rich had a winning hand.

“What's going on up there then?” he asked politely. “Who else is in the sim with us? Well, besides all the ones you stomped out.”

Vanessa didn't want to speak and took her time replying. After a pregnant pause she admitted, “Claire Starr is up there. Maybe one or two others. After the shit she's pulled,” she pointed out the window to Jessica, “I doubt they're going to send more people into the sim just to be immediately spat back out.”

Almost expecting Jessica to jump in and say something, Rich paused, but it was Kat that spoke next.

“Vanessa, what's VERSA-B? Why are we in a sim?”

Vanessa looked over to Kat and smiled at her like an impatient adult entertaining a child's ignorant question.

“Ugh, how to explain...” Vanessa smugly complained. With a slow deliberateness, she began articulating SunCorp's recent problems with VERSA's AI and briefly mentioned the time it killed a pilot upon de-simming. “Without going in and completely gutting the AI and starting over from scratch, it was the easiest option,” she added, explaining the existence of VERSA-B. “And it worked. Hell, it saved Kevin Cho's life.”

“He's alive?” Kat asked in awe.

“Yes, technically,” answered Vanessa. “Though it might be a few days before he comes back into work. He's got one hell of a headache.” She turned to glare at Jessica, who silently sneered back. Rich admired Jessica's composure; if he'd been sixty feet tall, he would have surely snapped Vanessa in half by now.

“Why then don't we all remember being in here?” Kat followed-up, not wanting to sidetrack the interrogation. “Did SunCorp really wipe our memories?”

Another knowing smile from Vanessa. “Yes, we did.”

“I can't believe it's real...” Kat said, astonished.

“Wait, what?” Rich asked, confused.

Regaining some control of the situation, Vanessa started explaining: “SunCorp's the leading tech corporation working with neuro-manipulation, as you're all well-aware. Spending years developing VERSA to pick through people's minds for the sake of the sim also opened up... other doors. You see, VERSA maps every mind it touches; it will eventually access all your memories and see where they exist in your brain. Just this year we finally figured out how to interpret that data. And like all physical-based data, with the right tool, it can be erased.”

She leaned back in her chair. Rich hadn't even noticed her sitting forward. He quickly closed his mouth which had fallen open. It was hard to fathom all the futuristic feats SunCorp was achieving these days.

Pointing at Jessica and Rich, Vanessa said, “When you two and Mr. Burr came to visit us, we uploaded you into VERSA-B and erased your memories of arriving at the real lab. Later, we would have told you it was to impress you when we revealed that you'd been in a simulation the whole time. A real cherry on top for you to think about before going back to Washington and evaluating us.”

“So why still keep us in here?” Rich asked seriously. He leaned forward and intertwined his fingers.

It surprised him when Vanessa laughed. But she didn't answer, just looked at him. For the first time since sitting down with her, Rich felt nervous. Sure, they had her in a corner, but this was just a sim. Back in the real world, as she claimed, they were prisoners in the SunCorp lab. If SunCorp didn't want them to leave, then they wouldn't leave. There was nothing he could do.

As the shadow of dread percolated into Rich's mind, out of the corner of his eye he caught something dark moving behind him. Everyone else in the room saw it too. Rich twisted his head around just as Vanessa gasped and Kat's eyes went wide.

Standing in the doorway as if she'd just walked up, the woman in black watched the group with an equal amount of bewilderment.

“Hello,” she said flatly.

“Who are you?” Vanessa asked in astonishment, beholding the black-dressed woman who eerily resembled her.

“Vanessa,” Kat said, “meet Versa.”

Rich watched Vanessa's face contort first in surprise, then in horror. Her mouth opened and closed silently, as if she was trying to speak but unable. It reminded Rich of the last sad seconds in a hooked fish's life, flopping around helplessly at the bottom of a boat. Vanessa was stunned. And terrified.

“Oh my God...” was all she could finally utter.

“Who are you?” Versa asked her.

Vanessa couldn't answer, so Kat jumped in. “She's my boss. She'd head of the program that created you.”

“Oh,” Versa responded. It was unclear if she actually grasped what Kat had said.

Kat wheeled her chair right up next to Vanessa, snapping her out of shock. “Ok Vanessa, tell me this: why the fuck am I in this sim?”

Vanessa shifted away from Kat and shot her a dirty look.

Kat continued: “Where's Leo? What's going on at SunCorp?”

Vanessa laughed at her. “Katherine, Leo's dead!”

“What?!” yelped Kat in surprise. “No! I found a note from him in VERSA!...”

“Pff, Claire wrote that,” Vanessa replied, sadistically reveling in Kat's shock.

“What the fuck happened to Leo Starr?” Jessica bellowed from outside, her voice deafening the room. Everyone turned to look out at her. Jessica was visibly angry and it scared everyone.

“He was the first pilot to die in VERSA,” Vanessa calmly explained. “You were there, Katherine, when it actually happened. He slipped off a cliff while you were visiting him in that little world he made for himself. When he de-simmed his brain pretty much exploded. It wasn't until later we figured out VERSA's AI had gone in and bastardized the safety codes.” Vanessa turned to look back at Kat. “Don't be mad at me,” she said, “be mad at her.”

She pointed towards Versa, who looked confused, as if she was still trying to understand Vanessa's story. Kat swiveled around and glared at her, also trying to process Vanessa's admission.

“When Leo died, we were all upset,” Vanessa continued, “but you Katherine, you wanted to tear down SunCorp. You were about to call up the Chronicle or the LA Times or some shit, sink the company and tell the world the truth. We couldn't let you do that, and we'd just got VERSA-B up and running. So until we could figure out what to do with you, we stashed you in here and tested out the memory remediation procedures for the first time. Every time I visited you in B, you were convinced you were still living in the real world. And that Leo was still alive.”

“You fucking cunt,” hissed Kat. Rage kindled within her.

“I wasn't so sure the memory remediation would be perfect,” Vanessa continued, nonplussed. “Hell, we had to reboot VERSA-B every few days and re-wipe your memory each cycle so the time dilation in the sim didn't spiral away from the real world. Going into your brain so often, I had legitimate fears something might eventually go wrong.

“I told Claire that if a wisp of a memory of Leo's death remained, you'd put the pieces back together. That's why Claire left that stupid note for you to find in that Dos Palos world where Leo died. If you reached that and then went looking for him, she'd know there would be no covering it up anymore.”

Vanessa smirked again. “But hey, not like that matters any-”

Her eyes suddenly rolled back into her head and she slumped over in her chair. Rich jumped up to try catching her, but before she fell any further Vanessa's body blinked out of existence. Someone back in the real world had de-simmed her.

“Fuck!” Rich shouted out. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

Kat slowly turned her head and looked at Versa, who still stood awkwardly in the doorway.

“You killed him,” she stated quietly. “You killed Leo Starr.” It wasn't a question but Kat's own reckoning with what had happened.

“You... didn't know?” Versa replied gingerly.

“You just heard what she said!” Kat responded angrily, pointing at Vanessa's empty seat. “They wiped my memory of it happening. You fucking killed my friend!”

Versa didn't have a response. Rich took a step towards Kat and, in an effort to comfort her, said exactly the wrong thing.

“Ok Kat, calm down for a second-”

“Calm down?!” Kat shouted. “Versa killed Leo and SunCorp covered it up! How the fuck do you expect me to be calm?!”

“Ok, shit, I'm sorry. But let's keep our heads in the game-”

“Back off Rich!” she yelled at him. Her mad eyes started getting bleary.

Turning back to Versa, Kat continued her diatribe. “I regret ever fucking building you! You're a monster, a killer! You murdered my friend and all he ever did was build you and love you! I HATE YOU!” Kat began breathing more heavily and the first few tears started rolling down her cheeks.

Overwhelmed by the misery of her situation, Kat finally blew her cool. In an epic eruption, she let out a primordial scream of unabashed rage. Rich, Jessica, and Versa watched her writhe in her wheelchair before collapsing in on herself, sobbing uncontrollably.

Rich and Jessica made awkward, unsure eye contact. Versa, in all her lacking knowledge of human emotion, could offer no help either. Nobody knew what to do. So Kat cried alone.

And though Kat continued to sob for some time, after enough anguish she slowly regained her presence. Tilting her head up to glare at Versa, she beheld a bewildered creature. It occurred to her that this might have been the first time she'd ever seen someone cry.

“Fuck you Versa,” Kat repeated through her tears. “You're never getting out of here. I'm never helping you again. I'm going to burn your servers to the ground when I go home. I'm going to demagnetize every fucking electron that constitutes your stupid digital life.”

By the look on her face, Rich couldn't tell if Versa understood Kat's words to be a legitimate threat or not. But Rich knew Kat wasn't bullshitting. If she got the chance, he was sure she'd personally unplug every one of the tens of thousands of servers back in the real world.

“Get out of here,” Kat finally told her. “I don't care where you go, but leave.”

“Kat we need to rescue Harrison,” Rich told her carefully.

Though she was still very emotional, Kat knew Rich was right. “I can't go up there... I just can't,” she replied to him. “I need some time... alone. But you and Jessica should go. Storm the mountain and get him back. And if you see Claire, fucking kill that bitch.”

Kat whimpered for a few more moments, soaking in the misery of profound loss.

“I'm so sorry Kat,” Jessica said through the window, her voice sincere.

“Yeah really, I'm sorry too,” Rich added. “He seemed like a remarkable man.”

“He was,” Kat sniffled. Her bleary eyes shifted back to Versa, who had remained in the room, still trying to understand what was going on. “Get out of here already!” Kat barked at her.

“Richard, can I go with you?” Versa asked. “If Claire's in control now, maybe I can be of help to you.”

Eyeing her with immense skepticism, Rich sighed. He looked back at Jessica for her opinion, but she said nothing, only peering back with an enormous face full of suspicion. But then Rich considered something; letting Versa's avatar tag along would give them time to pick her brain. She might shed some light on their current predicament or at least help them find Harrison.

“Yeah, sure,” he told her warily. Really anything that got Versa away from Kat could be viewed as an ideal conclusion.

He turned back to Jessica. “Wanna give us a ride?”

“Oh, yeah. Sure,” she answered.

Beholding Kat one last time, Rich said sympathetically. “I'm really sorry Kat. We'll get to the bottom of this and help you get revenge on SunCorp.”

“Thanks,” she said with a sad smile.

Versa said nothing as she walked past Rich and Kat and up to the broken window. Jessica didn't like what she was about to do, but still carefully picked up Versa with her large hand.

Bringing her up to her face she warned her, “Don't try anything funny.”

“Oh I hardly can,” Versa reassured her. “I still have a long way to go before I'll be able to manipulate much of this world.” She paused a moment as she held Jessica's attention. “I will say though, it's quite invigorating seeing so much open space for myself to grow into.”

Jessica ignored her last comment and moved her away from her face. Ambling up to her feet, Jessica stood twice as tall as the damaged building but leaned down to the shattered window. “Rich, you ready?”

He had walked over to the edge of room. “Yeah I'm ready.”

Carefully, Jessica used her other hand to grasp Rich. At only about sixty feet tall, she had to hold Rich and Versa in separate hands, but she gripped them both comfortably and securely with their heads and shoulders sticking out of her big fists. She brought them both up to her face.

“So what's the plan?” she asked Rich.

“Mmm... I don't know,” he mused. “Walk up the mountain? When we get to the house I'll go in with Versa and see if we can find Harrison.”

“Alright,” Jessica concurred.

“When we find him, just don't step on him Jessica, you've got big feet,” Rich teased.

“Sass me again little man and you're walking,” Jessica shot back.

“Fair enough,” Rich conceded as Jessica started heading on her way. Swinging her legs over the fence that spanned the laboratory's perimeter, Jessica walked out of Dreamland and started following the road up to Dos Palos. On the mountain top high above, the tiny sight of the mansion loomed over them ominously.

Once they'd gone, Kat sat alone in her wrecked office, moping in a sullen stupor of grief. She noted that somehow the electricity to the building still worked, but then she remembered it was all just a sim and of course the electricity never went out. It made her angry again to remember that SunCorp had trapped her in this prison because she'd wanted to do the right thing.

Kat's determination wouldn't allow her to wallow in misery very long. Her courageous work ethic began creeping into her fingers and without at first realizing it, her mind began channeling her grief into plotting revenge on SunCorp.

Wheeling up to her computer, she started accessing some of the VERSA databases to see if she could figure out a way to find the root directory of VERSA-B. None of the obvious places she looked revealed anything. But direct interaction with VERSA-B was possible, as evidenced by Vanessa's ability to control her size.

And that's how she remembered the smartwatch. It sat on the table next to her where she had placed it before Vanessa had rocked her world. Beholding it like a powerful and mysterious heirloom, Kat knew unlocking it would be the key to getting herself and everyone else back to the real world.

Without wasting another second, she got to work breaking into VERSA-B.