text: It's now eight o'clock on Friday night and we are gathered at Ze's place in Chelsea. For the good and the bad of it, we are going to attempt this. Ze and Jimmy have been literally closeted away, plotting a strategy for over an hour, but there's no point hurrying them.
  
  The three of us, Jean, Aaron and Mae Ann, are also present and waiting. I am happy to report there is no sign of Xing. Unfortunately, Vikram is with Marcus and Imani, finalizing the scale set piece for tomorrow's test runs, wherein our bots need to get into position and scale the wall. It's one of the trickiest parts. Scott is covering, but I'm sure I will have lots of recoding tomorrow. Ugh.
  
  I'm not sure where Ari is, but since she can't game it's reasonably irrelevant, so we are our own slim crew with a very narrow window to get past the virus and into the cave.
  
  And even though we make, at best, a very minimal raiding party, and Ze's apartment is, by NYC standards, an incredibly spacious studio, it is becoming increasingly oppressive for me.
  
  "Lah Sid," Mae Ann giggles, scrunching her whole body, from her nose to her toes, including her shoulders, "this is so great. So exciting."
  
  Need I say more? It's a simper-fest. More air sucks out. I try not to cringe.
  
  Oh irony, how bitter you are. Mae Ann is right, this should be. Exciting, that is. It should be intense and awesome and huddle-worthy. And maybe for everyone else it is, but for me, not so much. I have detested the twincesses since their third grade arrival, and I was right then, and I am right now, and I don't care about their sad story, and I don't care about Ari's nudging, but for now, it's too late. I am trapped in twincess hell. At least until we break Ze through the plague-guarded cave entrance.
  
  I manage a half grin, before repositioning my chair so she can't get any closer. I'm not risking that.
  
  "Okay." Ze makes zir way out of the closet, followed by Jimmy. Everyone immediately listens up. "It's time."
  
  "Here's the plan." Jimmy crosses to the table under the front window, motions me out of my chair, which he immediately moves so everyone can see over his shoulders, opens his tablet and starts x'ing and o'ing.
  
  "We figured out which items will give us the best chance to succeed. In its most basic sense, we are going to execute a kind of end-around. Sid, you and Mae Ann are the front line. You two have to engage the contagion, bringing enough fire, and taking enough fire, to hold it on the front line." Jimmy draws four rows of o's against two x's, which represent the two of us. "You will get all our available tranq guns, anesthesia loads, and sedation stun grenades. Use them all. You have to slow it down.
  
  "Now, Aaron and Jean, your job is to come up, take what they are holding, and string it out, weakening the center. You're each going to have a share of the antitoxins. Since we don't know what's coming at us, it's a guess as to whose potion will let them survive longer. The odds are, neither is really the right one, but they should buy a couple of extra beats, so once Sid and Mae Ann slow it, everything else has to move incredibly fast." Jimmy quickly draws two x's, one on the outside of each of our x's, and then from there each one gets an arrow extending out, demonstrating their route.
  
  With this, Jimmy takes a quick pause to make sure we are all still with him. At our nods, he continues. "Okay, now Ze is going to come from the far side, crossing behind all this, where ze will find me, holding the last payload, our shield wall. I will pass it to Ze, and then dive straight through what should now be our weakened middle, clearing the way for Ze to make a break."
  
  So Ze's x comes from behind where Jean is, the arrow extends half wayacross, until it is behind my x, where another x, which is Jimmy, awaits. Then from Jimmy's x, two lines crash through right between Mae Ann and myself, and through the o's to the cave. "Between our damage to their line, and the shield wall, Ze should be able to get in."
  
  "Okay everyone." Ze walks into the middle of the room, bumps zir fists together and then splays them back à la an explosion. "It's showtime." Ze looks down at zir watch. "We go in two minutes."
  
  Before I can get to my screen, I see Mae Ann tossing me another scrunchy, lip-purse-y grin thing, and I take a minute to remind myself that her getting killed by whatever plague is coming at us, or by me, won't actually help our goal.
  
  So instead, I take a deep breath, and it's time.
  
  We're off and moving through the worlds. Mae Ann finds me, and as we make our approach, we move slowly, steadily, feeling our way, carefully carving out a path to the cave. Deep olive green and purple mists begin to stir and rise up from the long, uninhabited meadow, standing between here and there.
  
  The closer we get, the faster the swirl; the faster the swirl, the more force they exert, challenging our ability to withstand them. At some point, as they spin, they begin coughing out gobs of viral goo. As we inch closer in, the cough picks up a violent streak, transforming into hacking puke. A chunk of puce vomits past us, followed by a ribbon of chartreuse.
  
  Even in the midst of this chaos, I can hear my devil's advocate brain asking, "why would anyone play this game?"
  
  Mae Ann and I try to hold our line, shooting antitoxins and tranqs back at the venom, attempting to minimize its ferocity, while ducking the viral hits and somehow not ceding our position.
  
  I can hear Jimmy from the recesses of the closet calling out, "more left, Sid" and "Okay, Mae Ann, you got this."
  
  As we hang in, suddenly Jimmy yells, "Now Aaron, Jean. Go, go, go."
  
  And with that they are in here and spreading the virus out. And they are good. I can actually see the aggressive middle chunk thinning, almost like a fire is burning through its middle and eating fuel sideways.
  
  Suddenly an orb of infection hurls from beyond the front line.
  
  It hits Mae Ann dead on, not killing her outright, but causing her to drop back.
  
  "Don't stop, Sid." Jimmy yells. "Ze and I are going now. Mae Ann, regroup and head toward Jean. Let's pull as much of the virus that way as we can. No, Aaron, not you. You have to hold your end!"
  
  I lob three grenades, trying to daze the center.
  
  Jimmy continues barking directions, and faster than I could imagine ever playing, he sweeps by me, Ze on his tail, already having executed the end around and going in. As I watch, Jimmy is surrounded by the attack, letting Ze push through with the shield wall engaged.
  
  "And I am in."
  
  And with that, we all rush the closet.
  
  Triumphantly in the cave, Ze adds the signature we built on our own fake mah-jongg tile: Sunday. 3:00P. ER. Vik. Day. Time. Location. Vik.
  
  While she is signing, we're all high-fiving and cheering and then, well, then it happens. Mae Ann throws her arms around me and says, "Lah Sid, this is so cool."
  
  Freeze.
  
  Whoa.
  
  And while the would-be, might-be, but definitely not tonight, grown-up part of me knows I need to deal with this, I instead survive until I can make my way home, the whole way convincing myself this is no big deal. Telling myself over and over, we were just all caught up in the high. It's a perfectly normal part of being in the moment.
  
  I also ignore the seven different texts she sends.
  
  And I'm okay with all this, because Sunday at 3 p.m. we are all due back at Ze's, and then we will solve this mystery and everything can just return to normal. So it's not like I'm trying to do a friendly fade, or going ghost, or something. I mean I am going to see her in another day. All I have to do is not surface until then.
  
  Yeah, so sometimes I suck. And sometimes I hate my life. That's probably a good, normal thing, practiced by zillions of people all over the world.
  
  So I'm definitely not going to obsess about this. No. I'm going to practice the art of denial. During which time, I am going to write my English paper.
  
  Come on, we're only talking about one day. Until Sunday.
  
  Just one more day. Even if that day feels like a week. Or a month.
  
  But I make it. And so does everyone else, including the star of our show, Vik, as well as Ari and Imani. Thankfully, even Mae Ann was smart enough to keep her distance and just let me be.
  
  Because now is so not the time for drama. You know, we're all a bit on edge. Even as we are waiting, we're all keeping an eye on any activity in the dungeon. So while there's lots of checking our phones, getting up, moving around, grabbing a soda, and eating things with sugar— lots of sugar— there's truly virtually no talking.
  
  And finally the appointed time comes. Nothing. And then the appointed time goes. Nothing.
  
  A huge no-show.
  
  And as we realize he's not coming, we all try to bolster each other with about a hundred reasons why. Maybe he isn't in the same time zone so he didn't know when our three o'clock was. Maybe he thought it was three o'clock in the morning. Maybe he just never got back to the cave to see it.
  
  But none of it really matters. We are nowhere. Again.
  
  Maybe we are even worse than nowhere. For the first time I have to give credence to the idea that we are victims of some psycho dude's game. But I didn't buy that then, and I don't believe it now.
  
  I look up, checking out the room. We are the perfect picture, dictionary definition of crestfallen. Although I have to say I prefer woebegone.
  
  Jimmy finally stands up, shrugs, and reaches for his backpack. "I'm really sorry, Sid. We gave it the best we could."
  
  And right behind him, Vik comes over. "Thanks for trying, Sid. I really do appreciate it."
  
  And with hugs from Imani and Ari, who thankfully takes Mae Ann with her, the apartment empties. Until there is just me and Ze. And then Ze turns to me. "I'll keep an eye out; you never know."
  
  And just like that, it's over.