Adam opens the bag and passes out the flexis we bought, while briefly explaining to Trent and Chris how they work. We spread out between the two trucks. I sit against a huge tire and hold the flexi in my fingers, feeling the thin plastic membrane. The others all start to apply them, but I still hesitate. I don’t want this thing poking around in my brain, but if it’s the only way…

I fit it on my face, around my eye and up onto my forehead. There’s a bit of tightness as it sticks to my skin, like it has tiny invisible suckers on it, and then I don’t feel it at all. I remove my hand and it stays there, attached to my face.

Immediately, an image pops up in front of me, making me flinch. The message lies on top of my normal vision, but I have no trouble seeing the truck in front of me either. It has two options: Sync or Create Profile.

I might as well try syncing to see if it can find a profile for me. “How do I select something?”

“Just picture yourself touching it,” Adam says. “It’s all very intuitive.”

I lift my hand to touch the button and it lights up. For a moment it just says Syncing…but then I get the message No profile found. Create one?

“I’m not in this system either.” I click on the Yes button. This time I do it mentally, without my hand.

“Nope, me neither,” Trent says.

“This shit is messed up,” Chris says, but I hear awe in his voice too.

When it asks for my name, I create a fake one, and the letters appear as soon as I visualize them in the box. A minute later I have a fake profile connected to my brain waves and DNA, and all sorts of icons crowd my vision. I don’t know what I’m doing and I somehow select one of them with a penguin on it.

Colors and images rush toward me and I try to shrink back. A second later they resolve into a game, where tiny cartoon penguins with boxing gloves slide around on ice and try to hit each other. I hear music and strange little chirping sounds coming from the penguins, and I’m hit with the smell of frost and the feel of cold wind on my face. Behind the game, I can still see the faint image of the truck, but my body is telling me I’m in the snow with the penguins.