Here, Yusuf calls out to me that first day at the artist residency, and I turn in slow motion like I’m flipping a blond mane of hair off my shoulder, leaving Yusuf swoon-struck. “Can they really escape their own future?”

Except no dreamy baritones chimed in with helpful exposition while I followed Yusuf from the guts of the Compound and outside to a small field of green pavement where twenty or so four-bedroom modular homes baked in the heat. Yusuf, Kaori, and the other staff all lived in their own houses, and now that I was officially one of them—probationary, Kaori kept reminding me—I needed more permanent digs.

We walked up the folding metal stoop of one house and inside to find a doctor’s office waiting room of a shared living space, a kitchenette, and two bathrooms. One of my housemates was a woman named Lana who worked the custodial staff. I picked one of the empty bedrooms and dropped my duffel on the twin bed.

“It’s a good thing I dig minimalism,” I said, zooming Scarlett across the room, with its single chair and desk. Someone had left me a potted cactus as a house-warming present. At least I had a window that looked out over the red desert and the security fence in the distance.

“You’ve had a camera this whole time?” Yusuf crossed his arms, frowning.

I shrugged and panned over to him. “Smile!”

After unloading my bag, he left me at a security office where I got a fancy official badge, which let me into the inner ring of the Compound. I followed the painted line—the blue of the electricity that buzzed in my veins—up a couple flights of stairs to the Video Mezzanine. A door waited for me at the top of the stairs, its brushed metal like a dull razor. I pushed through.

The dim room was lit mostly by an enormous slanted window that overlooked the Theater, like the mezzanine of a theater where you’d watch actual plays. The FantiSee screen projection of a forest canopy cast a greenish glow into the room, adding to the light from the workstation screens at three long tables. Twelve people wearing headphones like warring DJs sat hovering over keyboards. I was lucky number thirteen.

A few pairs of eyes flicked up at me. Then more—widening as I toed the ground. Screens flashed with footage of a wide gray room where people in dusty green coats puttered around an Envisioner, which must’ve been Figueiredo’s Theater. In more than one screen, I saw him talking with the green coats, or waving wildly at the machine, mid-argument with someone who was definitely losing.

No wonder the footage team looked scared of me. I might as well have crawled, horror-movie style, out of their screens.

“I should’ve brought popcorn,” I said, trying to clear the air.