Wake up, Mr. Robot

Valli could feel it. He could feel the anger, simmering just below. Of course he would be angry. Of course. He'd probably done a poor job of explaining it, but Valli wasn't quite deluding himself over that. The silence made it obvious, but really anything he done would have made it obvious.

How could he not be? How could he not be angry that his world was a simulation?

"Yes," Valli confirmed when Gask restated things. "I didn't design the simulation, so I can't say anything for sure. But most likely you were chosen because you were important. You were... you were the one who would bring Haven to its knees, after all. But on the other hand, Haven had no clear leader. Instead it was lead by many different factions, the majority... well, the majority of them were people from my world. The ones you met when we negotiated. Most of those, if not all of them, exist here as well."

But the Fire Eaters weren't needed.

"Faction leaders were more likely to be represented here, and the most significant faction leaders for the Fire Eaters were you and Pandora."

It was, all things considered, a better response then he had thought. He'd expected yelling and screaming. Valli had seen a lot of people in their worst moments, and he was under no illusions that this was likely Gask's worst. He had just lost everything, had it all jerked away... and yet Valli still could not regret it.

It was better than the alternative, even if it hurt.

"Well," Valli said, taking a moment to consider. "There isn't really anything you have to do. In the eyes of the government, you're a legal adult who can do as they please as long as you don't break any laws. I'm responsible for paying your way and making sure you're taken care of, since I was the one who... who brought you out."

Bought you felt gross to say even if it was technically correct.

"The island is large and there's plenty to explore. We have libraries and one of the very best schools in the world. It really depends on... on what you'd want to do, I'd say. If you want to do nothing for the rest of your life except read books, then that's okay. If you want to find a job, that's good. If you want to go to school and bring your education up to snuff, that's great."

Alright, maybe was Valli was making his preference a bit too clear.

"And I... I had Lawrence of Arabia." From his original, rather stupid plan. "If you wanted to watch the real thing."

He'd skipped over a lot of important parts, but he was letting Gask direct the conversation as much as possible. He was going to have to bring up the island's nature before long.

And his own.

For a moment, Valli wasn't sure if the comment about bribery was intended seriously, but a brief glance up confirmed that yes, it was. It was a joke, an attempt at being light-hearted during a very serious time, and Valli seemed to relax visibly afterwards.

"I guessed, yes. It was... It was actually one of the reasons I even had the idea. I imagined how you would be in a building larger then you'd ever been in before where the walls are stacked from floor to ceiling with books."

It was a nice though, a nice mental image. The man from the wasteland who had no more than a few dozen books in his lifetime having access to all of them.

"This world is... probably quite different from your old world, even before the end," Valli said. He had experience with discussing this topic at least, often having to help people through becoming acclimatized to the island. "I won't say it's perfect - far from it - but compared to the wasteland... the differences are stark. I don't know exactly what you've read, but modern society is more or less similar to how it was in the books you'd read on the mainland. However, this..."

Well, this was the tricky part, wasn't it?

"I imagine you thought the gods were false in your world, and they were. As far as I know no such gods existed in your world, since everyone was intended to be fully human. Here, however, there are gods, and demons, and angels, and monsters - all those things exist in the wider world, but hidden. People don't know they exist, although people often have faith they do. But here... This is the Manta Carlos Islands, where all those things live in the open, together."

Oh dear. Well... this was going to be awful. Gask was pushing himself too fast too quickly in Valli's opinion, but Valli wasn't going to say no, you can't.

"You should look at the city from in here," Valli said instead. "Get an idea of what it's like. You'll probably catch sight of some fliers from here, and... the city is quite large. I don't know if you went through the ruins of any cities in the Wasteland, but... it can be hard to imagine the scale."

The scale was likely to give him serious vertigo, even if he wasn't bothered in other ways.

"This is the top floor of a five story building, so we're about... fifty feet or fifteen meters off the ground, give or take. But this building isn't very large, but it's near a lot of larger buildings, not far from the downtown area..."

Was Gask even following all those terms?

"Most people live in buildings, whether those are homes or apartments like this, part of a larger communal living area."

He paused for confirmation before heading over, pulling the blinds up to let the light in and let Gask see out.

He had expected this, at least. He hadn't expected the rest, but he'd expected this, the sense of wonder and awe. He saw it all the time in people on the island, people from other worlds or even from this very world, who'd stared up at the buildings or the people or the sky in sheer awe.

Gask was like that, even if he was far from expressive about it. His eyes wide, scanning the scene, taking it all in. Valli expected questions about it, but not the question he got. Gask's focus on him was like a laser, unable to be swayed.

That was alright. Valli had never planned on trying to hide it, never planned to sneak around it and pretend to be something he wasn't. He had grown up being extremely up front about his nature, and there was no difference here.

"Mostly human," he said. "My grandfather - on my mothers side - was Baldr, a Norse god. I've never met him, but his blood still runs through me. For me it makes very little difference. I still age--I'm the age I look, unlike my mother--but I simply look more..."

Valli paused, making a small face. This part never got easier. What was the best way to describe it?

"A bit more put together. If I roll out of bed in the morning, I look like I put time and care into my appearance, for example."

Was that a metaphor he got?

"Or with... ah, that's a good one. The bruise." Valli's hand came up, ghosting over the fainted outline of the bruise. "It won't bruise much, and it'll never look like one of those ugly bruises. Just minor, and then it'll go away, attracting the least amount of attention."

It was true, although Valli had entirely missed a factor that he'd yet to realize.