My family lives in the dusty flats of Los Angeles—I live two hours away in Santa Barbara, closer to the slightly elevated edge of the continent. When Joey and I aren’t in a room together, we can’t communicate—I was unwilling to live farther than a two-hour drive from him.

I live in Santa Barbara instead of Los Angeles because of James Eldridge. His eponymous school of journalism, one of the many philanthropic footprints he’s left in his hometown, was the only fully funded journalism program within driving distance of Joey. Foraging for grants in Eldridge’s ursine tracks was, and is, the only way to make my career viable, so I stayed in Santa Barbara after college.

My first time in Santa Barbara was as a child—a stop on the way to Santa Cruz Island. As we walked the trail that began where the dock ended, I complained to my dad about having to carry so much. He was walking slowly with Joey, who was already responding badly to the terrain. My mom found a roofless outhouse beside a concrete picnic table and we made camp.

Our camping trip was supposed to be a reward for Joey, who had just completed an intensive round of speech therapy. Joey couldn’t talk, but he could type; it was an amazing development, but still, our parents weren’t willing to abandon the hope that he might speak one day. Uncomfortable from sitting in a folding camping chair instead of his preferred rocking chair back home, Joey didn’t type once that trip.

I wandered into the brush while my parents argued and set up camp where I spotted a knot of socks intertwined with eucalyptus leaves and dry twigs. Native brown foxes had found them left behind by tourists and had used them to build a nest that betrayed the camouflage the foxes had achieved over millennia. When we got home Joey finally typed, “camping is hell.”

Fifteen years later, I received a letter that would take me back to Santa Cruz Island: “Dear Valerie, on behalf of the James Eldredge Institute for Journalistic Excellence, it is our honor to invite you to the inaugural tour of the assisted living facilities at Ambrose.”

I began my journey on a sleek ferry named Veni Redemptor Genium, named for a hymn by Saint Ambrose. During the research I had done since receiving my invitation, I had learned that as an infant, Saint Ambrose had been swarmed by bees and miraculously left unblemished, except for a drop of honey left on his lips. It was a sign of his future eloquence that would make him a bishop, a senator, and the first real adjudicator of Christianity. He ruled on matters of God and man alike.

The attendant on the Veni Redemptor Genium handed me a mezcal spritz and a pamphlet. “Welcome to Ambrose. We are delighted to share our inclusive community with you. With InVision technology, residents’ requests can be realized in seconds; a sunnier room, a French bistro for lunch, a doctor’s appointment in a beloved pediatrician’s office. Our cutting-edge augmented reality system empowers residents to make choices they are too rarely afforded on the mainland.”

The only other time I had encountered the phrase “mainland” was in Hawaii, when a tour guide had used it in reference to the continental US. While we hiked through volcanic tubes, he filled the dark silence with a story about Captain Cook—the first European to discover Hawaii. He was ripped limb from limb for holding King Kamehameha hostage on his ship—a foolish attempt to bend the will of the natives.

After forty minutes, Veni Redemptor Genium made port, and I was let off onto an empty dock. I stared absently. I realized my mind was wandering when I found myself deep into a hypothetical; I was wondering where the Santa Cruz foxes lived now that the island was developed, and if they used grippy hospital socks for nests instead of woolen hiking ones.

A solitary cabana stood in the center on the otherwise empty dock. After a few minutes without any sign of reception, I entered. It was dark inside—lit only by the small beams of sunlight streaming through pinholes in the canvas. When my eyes adjusted, I saw a black column with a pair of glasses on top.

I placed them on my face and watched the stripes in the canvas fill with montages of people laughing and talking, running and surfing. The montage concluded and the words “Step into the future” appeared unanchored in midair, floating above the cabana exit. I stared at the floating words until they began emitting short pulses of buttercup yellow light meant to instill a sense of urgency. I stepped outside.

Outside of the cabana, a line of green dots appeared on the dock. They faded to orange when I walked past them. I tried to confuse them with erratic movements, but they remembered where I had come from.

While I played with the dots, a handsome man wearing a loose grin and low-buttoned shirt emerged from the blind curve at the end of the dock. I instinctively lifted my hand to remove my glasses and look more closely and he broke into a jog.

“Please keep them on. It can be dangerous to your optical system to remove InVision glasses suddenly.”

He introduced himself as Greg Satterly, Operations Manager. His tanned leathery skin and chipped front tooth suggested he was a native Californian—the type that grew up on the shore, dejected that it was getting too crowded, yet unconcerned with the reality that it was eroding quicker than it could be developed. The type who poured sand into the gas tanks of tourists who dared to park at locals-only surf spots.

“The weather is a lot nicer here than on the mainland,” I said.

“It’s not simulated,” Greg smiled. “We just got lucky today. If you look down, however, you will find a simulation; the green dots will guide your tour. They turn orange after you pass them; that way you don’t have to wonder if you’ve been somewhere before.” He was excited and I didn’t mention I had already figured them out.

We walked up a chalky path cut into the island’s bluffs and I asked if I could expect to meet James Eldridge on my tour.

“He’s always on the island in spirit. This project is the closest he’s worked on anything since he was 16 tinkering in his parent’s garage. He asked me to tell you that he regrets he couldn’t meet you, and to think of your tour as a preview of the world to come.” Greg made a round shape with his fingers meant to represent the Earth, then wiggled them to evoke the future.

“Well, not exactly the world to come,” I said. “I understand residents don’t have internet enabled InVision.”

“I know, the internet block seems a little Draconian. But the communication ban is only for the first year, to keep our proprietary tech under wraps. At the end of the year, when the ban is over and InVision gets a wide release, Ambrose residents and the public will be using the exact same product.”

While Greg was talking, my eyes wandered to a white sand cove where I got my first glimpse into the uncanny; two people sat talking by the shore—one in a French bistro chair and the other in an Edwardian-looking mobility apparatus hovering several inches above the sand.

“Now would be a good time to explain our continuity schema.” Greg had noticed my staring. “Residents customize their personal ‘sphere,’ which includes their room, their clothing, and any medical assistance devices. Those attributes are then connected to everyone else's glasses to achieve continuity. George down there is a history buff—late 19th century England—that’s why he went steampunk for his mobility device. He gave a real laundry list of specs to our visual engineers.”

George and the other resident, who I now saw was a woman, were gesticulating hurriedly.

“How do you put in a request for a visual parameter?”

“Just tap the left side of your glasses and ask. There are some limits of course. We adhere to the three Cs: canniness, commonness, and conviviality. If a visual parameter falls under those three descriptions it will appear without a hitch. We all view one another’s visual concoctions, so it’s useful to have some norms. For instance, several of our common areas’ artifices are democratically chosen, such as the Italian renaissance theme you see currently. Residents vote on main themes in town halls once a month. That would fall under the purview of conviviality. Canniness is a set of guidelines to ensure visual parameters gel logically with their environment. You could request to see the statue of David, but unless you were in one of our ‘Gallery’ rooms, you would see it as an image in your private display rather than an object in public space. Commonness is the most simple rule of the three—our information is scraped from our web-aggregated visual database, so if a resident requests something overly personal or idiosyncratic, it won’t appear unless they open a ticket with a visual engineer. Troubleshooting is a hobby for some residents like George, and we welcome it—our backend team has an open office and is constantly updating inputs based on recommendations. InVision has gotten a lot smarter because of our residents.”

We arrived at an Italianate castle banded by cloisters and turrets. I found myself more occupied with the beauty before me than the software that supported it. Greg held down a button on his glasses and asked an unseen recipient if they were ready to receive me.

“Selma has nonverbal autism but don’t worry, she’ll give a great tour. She uses a customized type-to-speech system that she developed with engineers on site—it’s turned her into quite the chatterbox.”

Greg excused himself and I waited outside until Selma exited the castle’s large wooden doors. She had a single streak of gray in her long brown hair that complimented her resting smirk. Her posture was bad and she hinged forward at the hip. She stood a head shorter than her true height and I assumed that, like her smirk, her stance was also a kind of affectation. When she got closer I realized it was a result of her disability.

She walked toward me with a halting gait; one of her arms was perpetually bent inward, resting on her thigh, where a thin box was affixed—I realized Greg had been making a pun when he called her a chatterbox—and her fingers scurried across the small keyboard and a pleasant voice greeted me from the direction of her closed mouth.

“How does it work?” I asked, then quickly qualified: “My brother is non-verbal. He types to communicate too.” I had a lot of questions, but because of Joey, my first had to be on how someone with non-verbal autism could communicate so fluidly.

“Does he use an analog or electronic keyboard?” Selma asked.

“He can’t use electronic keyboards—they’re too sensitive.”

Selma led me up the castle’s spiral staircase as we talked. She climbed slowly, one hand on the railing and the other typing.

“I used to only be able to use printed out spelling boards too. It was excruciatingly slow. Does he use QWERTY or ABC?” Selma asked.

“QWERTY.”

“Did you know the QWERTY layout was designed for typewriters? The most commonly used letters were placed as far apart as possible to prevent jamming. If you type to communicate and have motor skill limitations like I do, QWERTY keyboards are about the slowest way to type.”

“Your device accommodates motor skill limitations?”

“Yes. I have trouble with precise digital extension, so the keys adjust towards where my fingers most often land. There’s also an auto-complete feature that helps me when I get over-fixated on a specific region of the keyboard. It cycles through probable letters until I find the one I’m looking for.”

I had more questions, but Selma’s ability to communicate rapidly afforded her the luxury of brevity, and she prompted me to save my questions for after the tour of the residential wing.

Selma’s room was enviable; whitewashed walls, wooden desk, recessed bed, and geraniums on a windowsill overlooking a simulated Mediterranean sea. She explained that she put away her decorative clutter in digital drawers until she wanted them. I was impressed at how lived-in her room was given its minimalism. I told her it reminded me of a monastery I had seen on a semester abroad in Prague. The monastery had housed a scientific order of monks—Gregor Mendel, I think, had lived there.

After touring Selma’s room, she led me down a hallway of identical doors.

“Is there a rule against decorating doors?” I asked.

“Just because we live in dorms doesn’t mean we have to act like freshmen,” Selma’s digital voice intonated in an exasperated affect. “There's no need to loudly broadcast your personality to your peers at Ambrose. We’re here for the rest of our lives, not a few semesters.”

Selma stopped in front of one of the identical doors and asked me to knock for her. A disheveled man in his sixties, clearly not expecting company, opened it.

“Hi Selma.”

His room was a nauseating junkyard of physical and digital detritus. It was unclear what was solid ground and I had to force myself to step inside. Dozens of pop-up screens hovered in the center of the room, multiplied by mirrored walls. A blazing sun hung in the upper corner, casting long shadows across the false infinite space. The room’s architect was wearing what looked like jeweler's goggles while frantically modulating the virtual screens.

Selma interrupted him, “Herman, would you like to show Valerie what you’re working on?”

“No. Sorry. No time,” he muttered, without taking his eyes off the screen. Lines of code proliferated in front of him, blooming like a decision tree infected with a parasitic fungus.

I noticed his twin bed in the corner of the room. A dirty pillowcase struggled to do its job and rumpled sheets exposed a discolored mattress. It reminded me of some of the worst group homes I’ve toured for Joey. A trash can overflowing with candy wrappers was shoved in the corner next to his bed—it hadn’t occurred to me that some people would choose to live with their trash rather than magic it away.

We left and I asked, “Are residents given more leeway with their rooms? Because that room broke at least two of the three Cs Greg told me about.”

“Yeah, we get a little more leeway. Most residents have found ways to circumvent the three Cs anyway. Herm, for instance, is able to have a sun illuminate his room by taking the sunrise scene from Lawrence of Arabia, turning up the brightness, and looping it. There’re no rules against playing movies.”

We left the residential wing and Selma led me to a stone bench facing the ocean. We sat in silence until I turned to face Selma and saw a floating line of text that read, “I’m switching to text." I wondered how long she had been waiting for me to notice and whether it was her sense of propriety or limited motor skills that had prevented her from tapping me.

“Is Herman okay?” I asked.

“Yes, Herm is ok,” the floating text responded, “he’s just been having a hard time since he stopped living with his wife. I’m glad he has his coding project at least; it helps him keep his mind off things.”

“Did his wife pass away recently?”

“Esther? No, she’s a resident, she just lives in the self-protection ward now. She’s a friend of mine—you would like her. She was a programmer for an aerospace company before she developed Parkinson’s. She once told me that if you loaded a Boeing 747 with printouts of all its schematics, it would be too heavy to fly.”

“And Herman—what qualified him for Ambrose?”

“Herm was visually impaired, but InVision has given him most of his sight back. Ambrose likes to admit married couples—they provide a sense of community. Herm and Esther were like our house parents when they still lived together—their apartment felt like the most real place on the island.”

“So why is Esther in self-protection instead of living with Herman?”

“Her Parkinson’s led to early onset dementia. She didn’t know her mind was going when she applied. She only started to develop symptoms after she got here. The dementia diminished her judgment, and she started simulating bizarre stuff—that’s how we first learned something was wrong. She’s been doing better in self-protection I think—I still visit her and she seems happy there. But it does make me sad for Herm. It’s difficult for him to see her like that, especially after they had those beautiful few months together.”

When Selma dropped me off with Greg, I asked him to see the self-protection ward. He quickly acquiesced and explained as we walked.

“There are some residents who have a tough time with the freedom augmented reality offers, so we add some limits. Residents in self-protection still have some access; our therapists, for instance, incorporate InVision into their treatments. I hear they’re seeing fantastic results.”

We arrived at a low-slung, single-story building. Whitewashed walls and stained glass windows looked onto the central adobe courtyard. Greg let me into a sparsely decorated room; French doors, gauzy white curtains, wooden bedside tables, iron floor lamps. I was surprised to find Herman sitting at the bedside of the room’s occupant.

“Esther,” Herman said to the woman propped up in her inclined hospital bed, “this is my new friend Valerie, I’m so glad you two could meet.” Herman’s hair was neatly pushed back, and his shirt was without stains. Without context, I doubt I would have recognized him as the unkempt man I had met with Selma.

Esther was staring at a corner of the room, entranced by something I suspected was not there—for me at least. I stared at the same spot with sympathetic interest.

“It’s nice to meet you Esther. I met your friend Selma, and your husband, Herman earlier. You have great taste in company.”

Esther looked at me blankly. She pursed her lips and bunched her shoulders before sliding into a well-worn grin.

“Valerie, it is so nice to meet you. Do you live here?”

“I’m just visiting. But I’ve been on the island before—I camped here when I was a kid.”

Esther’s eyes widened. “How fun, you saw Santa Cruz Island when it was a nature preserve. Did you hike to Hi-point when you visited?”

I hadn’t. My parents had fought about it; my Dad wanted to see the view but my Mom was apathetic. Because she was the one primarily taking care of Joey on the trip while my dad went on solo hikes, she won.

“No, my family wasn’t up to it, my brother has mobility limitations,” I lied.

“Oh, I wish he could see it now, it’s become completely accessible. It’s the best view on the whole island—it feels like discovering California for the first time.”

“Thank you, I’ll definitely try and see it.”

Esther furrowed her brows and asked more urgently, “Promise me you’ll go?”

I promised I would and asked if there was anything else I should see on my visit, but her eyes had begun to glaze over.

Herman turned to Greg, “You really should take Valerie to Hi-point. I would, but Esther and I have a movie planned this afternoon.” Looking at me, he said, “Esther knows this island better than anyone, and if Greg is too lazy to take you, just remind him that the view at the top of Hi-point gives a better surf report than the weather app.”

Greg filled the fresh, empty air on our hike to Hi-point with admiration for his home state, “Santa Cruz Island is a complete geological anomaly; it resisted tectonic plates for millions of years—literally since Pangea broke up. Hi-point is its highest peak—formed from a dormant volcano, which is also pretty rare for this part of the Pacific.

“The island’s isolation has made it home to scores of endemic species found nowhere else on earth. Luckily, most of them survived the island’s time as a silver mine, before it became a national park. Since the Parks Department allowed Eldridge to develop Ambrose here, he’s had a team working around the clock to preserve the unique ecology. Eldrige kept all of Santa Cruz Island’s peaks as nature preserves, except for Hi-point, which he added a croquet court to, to encourage residents to spend more time up there.”

“It sounds like Herman and Esther were right about it being a special place,” I said, trying to steer the conversation back to the residents. “It makes sense they spoke so fondly of it—they seem like a very special couple. I noticed Herman seemed different from when I had met him earlier. It’s amazing how people can transform when a person they love needs them to.”

Greg stopped walking and looked back at the nestled valley we had come from. “I’m so glad you noticed that. Transformation is exactly the right word. Herman used to visit Esther every day in the early months of her dementia diagnosis, until we noticed his visits were exacerbating her symptoms—he was just too upset to be of any help to her. It took some work, but we managed to find a solution; we gave Esther a new Herman, one who could watch movies with her, tell stories, or just sit and listen calmly. A transformed Herman, as you said.”

“What do you mean you ‘gave her a new Herman’?”

“We used the tools we had. We simulated a simplified version of Herman to suit Esther’s therapeutic needs.”

“Does Esther know it’s not him? Does Herman know what’s going on?”

“To be honest with you Val, it isn’t just Esther that was experiencing cognitive decline—Herm isn’t all there himself either. When Esther’s condition worsened he experienced a major mental breakdown—we’re still working closely with him to get him to accept her condition.”

Greg continued hiking. I spoke to his back, “I am going to want to meet with Herman again, now that I know this. The real Herman that is. Simulating residents for experimental therapies is a big leap from my understanding of Ambrose as an assisted living facility with high-tech offerings.”

Greg plucked a piece of fennel growing from a water-worn rut and chewed on its tender end. “The public’s understanding of Ambrose is way behind, Val. That’s why you’re here.” He flicked the flimsy stalk dismissively.

“And I’m expected to relay all of this to the public? With no brief from Eldridge, no comprehensive list of services offered, just drop me off to see what I absorb? I can’t imagine you’re eager for me to tell the world that you’ve made the leap into simulating in situ clones of people, and that the first people they’re being tested on are severely disabled? That's too much Greg—what would my angle be? What would your angle be when all this comes out?”

As soon as I finished my sentence I knew I had made a misstep. Greg had shown me everything I had asked to see, and if he was hiding anything from me, bringing attention to that fact was poor strategy on my part.

“Val, there is no angle. Anyone could stand to benefit from InVision, but Eldridge chose to debut it at Ambrose because he felt people with special needs should be first in line. With any disruptive technology there’s more than meets the eye—that’s why it’s disruptive.”

“But as the first journalist to tour Ambrose, I need to know the full capabilities of the technology you claim will be ubiquitous.”

“Have you considered that maybe it’s not me, but the residents who are keeping you in the dark, Valerie? I’ve encouraged you to tour every facility, to talk to any resident you please. Think for a second—why has the communication ban been so successful? Information has leaked out of the world’s strictest black sites, yet there hasn’t been one leak from Ambrose so far. Maybe I’m not keeping you in the dark as much as residents don’t care to show an outsider everything Ambrose has to offer.”

We took our last turn on the corkscrew trail and arrived at the top of Hi-point. A strange scene was unfolding at the edge of the croquet field in the distance—I could make out Selma and another resident doing something odd with croquet mallets close to the cliff’s edge. As Greg and I got closer, I recognized the other resident as George, the resident with the floating wheelchair I had seen at the beginning of my tour, arguing with a woman I now realized was Selma. Greg began to run.

Selma was pacing behind a waist high fence of croquet mallets that George was hammering into the ground. The mallets formed a semicircle around her that the cliff’s edge completed on the far end.

“Selma, hi Selma. What’s going on?” Greg yelled as he approached.

Selma turned her back to Greg and faced the cliff’s edge. I saw a cellphone pressed against her ear. I heard her digital voice talking hurriedly; fragments about Esther, Herman, medical regiments. They were complaints.

Greg had closed the space between him and Selma, already aware of what I had just realized.

“Selma, no cellphone use is permitted,” Greg yelled. “Please put down the phone.”

Selma ignored him and continued typing out complaints her text-to-voice apparatus was relaying to the person on the other end of the call: “They trick cognitively impaired patients into thinking they’re talking to people that aren’t there; when you complain they remove simulation privileges …”

“Selma!” Greg screamed while he thrusted his hands over the mallet fence, trying to swipe the cellphone out of Selma’s hand.

“They experiment on patients, make them relive traumatic events in simulations; they erase visible disabilities through simulation even when residents don’t ask for it; they took away my communication device for a week when they caught me trying to call my sister.”

Four feet separated Selma from the cliff. Greg’s extended arm was making her inch backwards, shrinking the gap to a foot.

Greg gave up his grabbing and gathered himself, as if he were going to attempt a leap over the fence. Instead, he raised his hand to his glasses.

“Selma, I am going to turn off your visual field in ten seconds if you do not hand over the phone. One of two things will happen: either you steady yourself on the fence, and I will be able to reach your phone, or you will step blindly towards the edge. I do not want you to get hurt. Please hand over the phone.”

Selma ignored Greg. She kept typing her list of complaints, including Greg’s latest threat. Greg disregarded his ten-second warning and pushed a button on his glasses, opening a virtual drop down menu he flipped through until he found what he was looking for.

Selma lost her visual field and staggered forward. Her hand grazed one of the mallets fencing her in and she recoiled in fear, stepping backwards, inches away from the cliff’s edge. If she took off her glasses to regain sight, she would lose her text to speech functionality; she was more afraid of failing her mission than of falling off a cliff.

“Selma! Step to the left!” I shouted.

Greg turned to me, his eyes nearly pinched shut with disdain. He pulled up another virtual menu and began frantically manipulating subfolders.

“Selma, I am going to neutralize your auditory abilities. Valerie will not be able to guide you anymore. This is getting dangerous—nobody wins if you get hurt.”

Greg swiped a virtual slider and Selma’s glasses began to emit a high-pitched ringing sound. She shrieked in pain and clutched her ears. I could hear the whistle tone over Greg’s yelling and the rushing wind. To Selma, the sound must have been deafeningly loud.

Without my shouted directions, and with the use of only one of her arms—the other still furiously typing away—Selma had no means of orienting herself. She was stumbling in the wrong direction out of pain and confusion, taking too-large steps too close to the edge.

Just as Selma tentatively placed one foot past the cliff’s edge and screamed, George yelled my name. I turned to find him wheeling towards me with a croquet mallet extended in one hand. His eyes locked with mine and his mouth formed the word, “Greg.”

I took the mallet from him and stood paralyzed; my words were no longer of any use to Selma. George looked me in the eyes and repeated, “Greg.”

With two hands wrapped around the base of the mallet, I swung. I swung with the intention of meeting Greg’s head with a force from which no one could recover.

The mallet did not meet Greg’s head. It sailed through empty air until it connected with the ground. It had passed through Greg without resistance because Greg was no longer there.

Selma stopped shrieking. She stood up from her cowering position and walked calmly away from the cliff. George rolled to the enclosure and began plucking out mallets. I fell to the soft, grassy ground.

George continued removing mallets until there was a gap big enough for Selma to fit through. She let herself out of the enclosure and helped me to my feet, offering me the crook of her arm that was formed by her hand resting on her text-to-speech device.

“Are you okay?” I asked Selma.

“My vision and hearing are fine, there’s no need to worry.”

“Where did Greg go?” I was still looking around and couldn’t find him.

“There is no Greg. We made him up.”

“You what?”

“We invited you here to see the community we’ve built, but before we showed you what Ambrose really is, we had to be sure you were aligned with the work we’ve done. We are so happy with your decision, and we are deeply sorry we were less than truthful with you.”

We walked back down the trail in a line, Selma in the front, George in the middle, and me in the back. I looked behind us periodically, to the nonexistent man I killed. I had a lot of reconciling to do; between what I saw and what was real, between what made me hopeful and what made me despair.

I find it easier to ask questions without making eye contact. I kicked a pebble and asked, “How does it work, how do the staff members stay quiet about your takeover?”

“There aren’t any staff members left. We gradually laid them off. We run the island ourselves,” Selma said.

“What about shipments? The vendors don’t ask why patients are picking up the deliveries? What about medical assistance?”

“We simulate staff to pick up shipments. We ask that anyone making deliveries wear InVision before we go down to meet them. You saw our cabana system. We include directions that claim InVision can’t be taken off without causing eye damage. That safeguards against any peeking. As for medical assistance, we have residents who are doctors, as well as therapists, janitors, cooks, and gardeners. The work gets done.”

“But how has news not gotten out that all the staff have been fired? I haven't heard anything about layoffs.”

“They were all given very generous severance packages held in escrow on the condition of secrecy. If they break their NDAs the money stops coming in. That was Esther’s idea.”

“So Esther doesn’t have dementia?”

“She does, but she’s still the best coder on the island. Everything you’ve experienced today more or less happened as you saw it: Esther really was put in the self-protection ward after her dementia diagnosis and Herm really did have a breakdown when they took her from him.

“We didn’t know at the time that Herm wasn’t not visiting Esther because of his ‘breakdown,’but because he was forbidden to; Eldridge had threatened to cut his and Esther’s medical treatments if he interfered with the experiment. We assume now that the purpose of all this was to serve as a trial for an AR companionship technology Eldridge was developing for InVision.

“But even with her dementia, Esther knew she was dealing with a simulation—anyone in love would. She hacked her InVision and set up a direct channel with the real Herm. He gained access to his clone, and they were able to maintain contact and exchange information about InVision’s backend during that dark period. In situ human simulation was so tightly guarded by Eldridge that senior staff didn’t even know about it. That lends a lot of credulity to our simulation of Eldridge.”

“Eldridge is simulated?”

“I told you, everything you saw is pretty much what happened. I’ve searched for blind spots in Ambrose’s firewall since I arrived. I finally discovered the edge of Hi-point had cell service and brought George with me to stand guard while I called my sister. Then Eldridge showed up—probably to make a call too—I think he put the hole in the firewall at the edge of Hi-point on purpose, because he assumed handicapped people would be scared of getting that close to the cliff. Anyways, George improvised the mallet fence you saw when Eldridge came after me, and you saw the rest—he almost killed me. George had no choice. Eldridge has been dead for six months.

“After I confided in Esther what George had to do at Hi-point, she told me what she and Herm were up to. We coordinated our coup and have been assuming Eldridge’s identity ever since. We know it can’t last forever; his stock prices are bleeding, he’s missing board meetings, and he’s been held in contempt of court twice since we’ve been simulating him. We needed to know that when the news breaks of what really happened here, we will have someone on our side, someone who saw how it was and made the same choice we did.” Selma held George’s hand as we descended the final portion of the hike.

When I got back to the mainland I omitted most of what I’d experienced and wrote a flattering exclusive. I wanted Ambrose to continue for as long as it could in its present state. I learned from a later correspondence with Selma that the residents had stopped using InVision entirely. They didn’t need it. All they ever wanted was enough money to live, and the autonomy to self-determine—and now they had it. I read in last week’s Santa Barbara Independent that James Eldridge was creating a trust to fund Ambrose free of cost in perpetuity. I told Joey he should apply—I had a friend on the island who could get him in.