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It was a shame things weren't going to work out between us. We complimented each other, both smart in different ways. Perfectly cynic and real. It would have easily lasted till we were old and bitter.

She sipped a cocktail. I had an iced tea. I suppose it would have been easier to follow through on the night with something alcoholic. At least this way I wouldn't be drunk when I killed myself.

"Do you ever feel like you were born at the wrong time in history?" she asked.

"No, not particularly," I said.

"It's like--you know what it's like?" she asked. "It's like I have a fear of missing out. I want to live to see the future. Problem is, the future is always somewhere up ahead. Like that Greek guy always trying to roll the boulder to the top of the hill?"

"Sisyphus."

"Probably?" she said.

"But the future isn't always just ahead," I said. "One day, all the matter in the universe will be inside black holes, then the black holes are going to Hawking-radiate away. From then on, the future will be the same as when the last hole vanished."

"But what about all the stuff between then and now?"

"What about it?"

She shook her head, making a face like I had something in my teeth. "What do you mean, 'what about it?' Don't you think--I don't know--don't you think it'd be great to be around when the first Engines push some inhabited systems into Andromeda? Wha- who knows what they're going to find all the way out there."

"More hydrogen," I said.

She rolled her eyes. "Ha."

"The universe is on rails," I explained, "A really big bang happened, so then another thing happened, then another and another. Eventually, some molecules called Life found a better way to increase entropy a little faster."

"God jazzed up the water a bit," she added.

"Then the humans came along, wanted some more individuality, and some of us went back to fur or scales, and--"

"And here we are," she mused.

"And here we are," I said. I sipped my drink. "Watching the stars fade away."

She was slouching on her paw, looking at me. There was something about the glint in her eyes.

"You're really going to stay sober after all that metaphysical crap?" she said.

"I'm really only supposed to have the tea tonight."

"What do you mean?"

I looked at the clock. Metaphorically speaking, anyway. There was always a clock ticking away somewhere in my canine skull. I sensed time like I sensed impending doom.

"I mean I know how the night plays out. We share a drink, we talk it up, then you ask that question. Then I tell you to look behind us. There's three tomcats walking in."

She humored me, turning. "Huh. Okay, I see them."

"The one in back is going to trip over a stool. Two seconds."

"Yeah, right."

The third cat was distracted by a couple of vixens at a table. He flashed them a sly, toothy grin, clicking his tongue. He then promptly crashed over a stool. Everyone else in the bar turned towards the sound. I didn't bother.

"Well, this is probably the weirdest stunt someone has pulled on me," she said.

"I don't know him," I told her.

"Sure you don't, dude."

"Well, I could calculate it, but that's not my point."

She shook her head. "Whatever, you know?"

"Honestly? It stopped being fun a few months ago."

But she was gone. She rejoined her friends at the other end of the bar, about to tell them how ridiculous I was. I left the bar and entered the maze.

The orbital city was dark, slick, empty. Footpaths sprawled. Black buildings towered well above and sank far below. I inhaled through my snout, welcoming the still air. I started walking.

For decades, physicists were convinced the Theory of Everything was done, science completed like a trophy collecting dust. We had mastered faster-than-light travel, atomic manipulation, stellar engines. What else could we wish for? In many ways, we were the gods of our own universe.

But gods are not trapped in their creation. They're not forced to go into the rising tide of entropy. I sought a way out. I built a model more powerful than any before it. I gave it a near-infinite list of all the known particles in the universe. I created a way to store untold amounts of data in less than a single atom of space.

By building the most complete model, it wasn't a model anymore. It was Real.

Eventually, I had to look myself up. Morbid curiosity. That was when I found out that I was going to throw myself over a bridge tonight. That I was going to die.

Real didn't predict the future. Real told it. One thing happened, so then another thing happened. My death was just one of those things that happened.

I went through every stage of grief, even added a couple of my own. I studied myself, how my body refused to deviate for a single second off the predicted path. I studied this night: the path I took, the timing of everything. The people I would see. But knowing every detail was impossible. If I tried to walk a different path, the fabric of the universe bent to put me back on it.

The bridge spanned out in front of me. My paws stepped me onto the wide railing. I couldn't see the rocks far below me, hidden in the dark.

It didn't matter what I did. My creation of the Real was contained within the timeline. Every particle was accounted for.

My butt sat down on the top of the cold metal. My legs dangled above the abyss.

I often wondered something: was my lack of free will--the fact that I couldn't control my own actions--what put me on the path to suicide? It was a useless exercise, but one that I repeated. What Real doesn't explain, it couldn't answer.

I reached the end of my train of thought, thoughts I examined months in advance but couldn't stop myself from thinking. The incessant, maddening thinking.

I took in the city for the last time. A clear carbon lattice encapsulated the rock I lived on, a refined sort of nature. The white dwarf hovered overhead like an enormous moon, never giving the city enough light to see itself. The lack of clarity gave it beauty. It made it worth trying to see. But that was the thing: I had clarity.

I stared out for what must have been a second too long. I was supposed to have jumped by now. But maybe time probably passed slower near the end.

But no, something was wrong.

No. Something is wrong.

"Can you help me?" someone says behind me. I turn.

They aren't dressed. Why aren't they dressed? Why don't I know why?

All I can do is stare at them--her, I assume. Her arms cover her chest.

"Wait, are you okay?" she says.

I hop down. "Follow me," I say.

We leave the bridge, and I shake my head. "Who are you?" I grunt. My mind is flies, buzzing around in my skull.

"Beck."

I shake my head. "Beck, wear this."

I take off my jacket. It's damp with sweat. She put it on without much thought.

"What happened?" I ask.

"I don't know," she says. She throws the jacket hood over her ears. "I just need to be around someone right now."

The air moves against me, pushing me this way and that. The coat I gave Beck flaps in the wind. It's cold, but I don't feel it.

"We should get you somewhere safe. There's a station up ahead," I say.

"No cops," she says.

"Why?"

"They couldn't help us."

"Us?" I repeat.

She nods.

I'm wondering who I'm helping. I'm worrying that it's a mistake. For once, I don't know what someone's going to do.

"Okay, where's safe?" I ask.

She shrugs.

"Are you from around here?" I say.

"I think so," she says.

"Then where do you live?"

She shrugs again.

"My place is close. Do you want to talk this out? I can get you some better clothes."

I look at her. Streetlamp light catches her eyes, exposing her black, feline face. "Thank you," she says.

My steps carry me differently. I still have no control of them, but for a new reason. Now it's because I didn't have any room left to think about it.

Somehow, we end up in my penthouse. I don't remember seeing the concierge robot, or taking the magnets up. We're just here.

She looks at my walls, the ceiling, the floor. "What do you do?" Beck asks.

"I'm in business," I say.

"The business of what?"

I shake my head. "I'll show you the closet."

She steps in and I give her some privacy. I only have a pawful of clothes neutral enough to pass as women's, but she says she'll be fine.

My eyes stare at the door. My fur stands on edge. I take a few careful breaths, waiting to feel the air in my lungs again. I stumble into the kitchen and turn on the stove. I grab a pot and add water. I catch my breath, paws leaning on the edge of the stove. By the time I have the tea bags, it's boiling, so I turn it off again. I start steeping two cups. For three whole seconds, I don't wonder five million things. Then I wonder how long it will take for her to dress herself, because I don't know the answer to that either.

I wait outside my bedroom at a small table. My tea warms my paws. The extra cup sits across from me, cooling rapidly. I probe my subconscious, and I try to answer again how long it will take her to open that door. My subconscious is a wall.

Beck eventually comes out.

"The tea is yours if you want it," I say.

"Smells... good," she decides.

I nod, then pause. I can't think of what question to ask first.

"What do you actually do?" Beck asks.

"Oh. Models, predictions. A lot of money in knowing the future."

"Like a fortune-teller?"

"Of sorts."

Beck wears my old black hoodie, something I owned before I could afford everything. The threads showed, always being pulled out as with the same the inevitability as gravity. But I couldn't bear the thought of throwing it away--even if it was just going to get thrown out by some robot after I died. If I died.

Beck sips the tea I made.

"Did someone do this to you?" I ask.

"I told you I don't know," Beck says.

"Then what do you know? What actually happened?"

The cat sets down her drink. She squints, pressing a paw on her forehead.

I ask a third question. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I think this universe just doesn't appreciate me being in it."

"You too, huh?"

She answers my original question. "I think you did this."

"Did what?" I say.

"No, the more I think about it... I know it somehow. I was coming home from work. I remember my boss wishing me goodnight. Then it's a big blur, like a bad trip or something. Or a nightmare."

She looks up to me. "But you were in my head."

"What do you mean that I did this?" I ask.

"Because you did!" she asserts. Beck winces. "My head is spinning. What's in this tea?"

"Nothing, it's just tea!"

Her paw lets go of her head; her arms fall to the table. "Then what did you do? "

"I don't know," I say. "I don't know anything anymore."

"Anymore?!" she sighs. "You're not telling me everything."

"If I did something... I-I didn't try to do anything. I just want to figure this out!"

"My roommates are probably wondering where the fuck I went. I need to go."

Beck stands up, walking past me. She's muttering, still holding my head.

"Please just wait," I say. I put my arms in front of me, pleading. She dodges me, but my hand brushes against her.

She slows and stops. "What the hell,' she mutters.

"What?" I say.

"My headache just went away. Right as you touched me."

I shake my head. "Coincidence?"

"No," she says. Beck grabs my shoulders, staring into me. "What aren't you telling me?"

As she looks at me, furious but scared, a page opens up from my subconscious. My eyes open so wide. So rarely did I rely on myself to tell me what I had to remember, that I wasn't sure it was even my memory.

"Hello?!" Beck insists.

But I realize that I did know Beck. I know her from after I died. When I was examining my own mangled body in the rocks, she was the one who would find my body.

I saw how terrified she would be. I saw what it would do to her in the days and weeks after, how her friends and coworkers would comfort her, how the sight of me was a permanent feature in her mind. If I went far enough ahead, I saw how she would talk of me and wonder who I really was, years after it happened.

But now that hasn't happened. Now she is in front of me, and I'm alive.

In the days leading up to my death, I'd cry a lot. I would cry, feeling detached, like the tears were someone else's, wetting someone else's fur. But as Beck looks at me for answers, I hide my face, and I cry tears that are mine. I take relief in feeling my face scrunch up and my snout start to leak snot. I can't look at Beck because I'm actually embarrassed, not hiding behind the façade of someone pretending to be.

"I'm sorry," I say. Then I say it again, more shaken than the first time.

Beck holds onto one shoulder, but her grip has softened. "No. I'm sorry. It's okay."

I sob some more. I take comfort in her paw's warmth, and slowly I'm able to speak. "I'm going to sound crazy," I say.

"That's okay, too."

I push to regain myself. Her hand feels like a fixed feature on my shoulder, one that I'm taking for granted. Once I can hold my tears, I begin. "I wasn't always a modeler."

She laughs a small laugh. "No?"

"I was a physicist. I worked on a project with miniature black holes. Except we weren't trying to generate electricity, we were interested in data storage."

I paused, expecting a question.

"Is that the crazy part?"

"Not really."

"Well, keep going, then."

We sit down again. Tea calms my throat. I speak quietly, slowly. "Black holes were interesting for us because they compact material almost infinitely. We discovered that the information you feed it can be preserved."

"But how do you read a black hole hard drive?" Beck asks. "I thought the whole point is that light can't escape them?"

Even in my melancholy, I smile like the smug scientist I used to be. "Normally, you're right. But if we spun a black hole in its containment field fast enough, it loses its event horizon."

"A naked singularity," Beck says.

My head shakes. "I thought you didn't--"

"I-I don't!" Beck says. "I have no idea why I said that."

"Hmm," I grunt.

"So what did your team do with one, then?" she says.

"Nothing," I say.

"Nothing?"

"Our funding was cut. Miniature black hole research turned into a big fad. Too dangerous, too much risk of them eating the lab, then the street, then whatever planet you were working on. I agreed, but that didn't stop me."

"You continued the project yourself. You stole lab equipment," Beck says, wide-eyed.

"No. How?" I demand. "How could you know that? I've never told anyone."

"I said earlier that you were in my head, but I'm starting to think that I might have been in yours."

I shake my head, standing up. "Maybe you're right. We should figure this out tomorrow. Maybe things will make more sense then."

"No!" Beck says. "No, you have to finish your story."

"Why would I? You already know it."

"Trust me, I don't."

"I can walk you home, if you want."

"I can walk myself."

"Suit yourself," I say.

Beck scoffs. She tilts her head back and drains her tea, standing up with me. "On second thought, fine. You can walk me home. But you have to tell me what happened next."

"Fine," I say.

We leave my penthouse. I remember going down the magnets this time, and I remember seeing the concierge bot. But there seemed to be something off with it. Usually it's talkative, a bit eccentric even. This time it didn't say a thing, hardly even nodding.

"Does anything seem off to you, Beck?"

"Yes," she says. "Everything."

"I meant the bot."

She grunts to herself. "Just finish your story, will you?"

"Are you hurting again?" I ask.

She grabs my paw with hers. I don't say a word. I look up from her paw to her face, and she's already looking at me. "What happens next?" she says.

"Nothing--not immediately, anyway. I don't know how long I spent working on it, getting nowhere. It felt like decades. I needed a way to process all that data. Most machines were just destroyed by the raw complexity. To process it all, I needed something malleable, something that wouldn't just shatter."

"You didn't," Beck says. She somehow knows what I was about to say, and that I'm telling the truth, but still she denies it.

"It was the only way. It worked." I scratched my head, feeling for the scar.

"Did it?" she says.

"It worked too well. It gave me enough processing power to simulate the entire universe. I found out what I was going to do. Do to myself."

Something gave way in her mind. I could see it in her expression, mouth open in shock. It's a dam that broke, sweeping away the city.

"No. The bridge. That ledge. I stopped you from doing it." Beck had been squeezing my paw hard, but then broke away from me. She stopped, and I looked back.

She shakes her head in disgust. "How could you do that?" she says. "How could you just do what you were told?"

"I didn't have a choice. We never really do," I say.

"Then how? How am I even talking to you?"

"I want to know too! Nothing makes any sense!"

I turn away. I close my eyes hard enough to hear rumbling in my ears, tears on the corners of my eyes. When I take a breath and open them, the rumbling is replaced by the sound of ambient static. Our furs meld with pinks and yellows and greens. Delicate neon holographs are suspended in front of the nearby stores, humming with electricity. But the city should be buzzing with people, not just lights.

"This can't be real," I say. "Have you ever been here before?"

Beck wiped her eyes. "I think so."

"Then where is everyone?" I ask.

"Where is anyone?!" she says. Beck struggles to stand in place.

I grab her arm again. "Beck, somehow you're connected to me. You have to know something I don't."

"I've told you everything," she says.

"There has to be something we're missing. None of this is possible."

The feline is looking straight into me. Her fur and my old hoodie both blend into the sky. Even her eyes seem dark and invisible. "I'm worried. Maybe it's not real."

"Real," I pause. "Of course we're real."

Beck stops me with her expression. "I can't describe what it felt like right before I ended up in front of you, but when that was happening, I wasn't here. I wasn't anywhere. And now, everything I do seems to be controlled by you."

I shake my head. I shiver.

"I can't stop touching you without feeling like my skull is going to split. I didn't trust you, but now I can't stop myself from feeling like I need to take care of you! It doesn't make sense."

"There must be something," I say.

Beck grabs my other paw around the wrist. I'm forced to look at her. "What's inside a black hole?" she asks.

I can't make my damn mouth move. She's too close.

"Tell me," she insists.

"It doesn't have a good answer," I say.

"What if we're in one right now? What if this is all some way for you to stop yourself from dying?

"I would know."

"Would you?"

The question sits there. My fur stands on edge, goosebumps under my fur. Beck is only inches away from me.

"I wouldn't," I whisper. "I could be falling off that bridge right now, and I wouldn't know. I might already be dead."

The neon lights reflect off her dark pupils. "You're not dead. The lights are still on in there," Beck says.

"Then what do we do?" I say.

"We need to get out."

"What good would that do me?" I say. "I'm just going to die."

Beck's paw is on my cheek, holding me steady. "People used to tell me life was like a bunch of splitting paths, that you could go anywhere. I still believe that."

"Nothing will stop me from hitting the ground," I say.

"No. I still don't believe that either. Maybe you've just been picking every path the Real gives you."

"You think I wanted to die?"

She kisses me. Her lips just graze mine. "Maybe you did."

I open my eyes, wondering if her lips were ever really there. But the weight of her paws are gone. She is gone.

It's just me and the lights.

I sit down in the middle of the road. When I close my eyes, I still see the lights seeping through my eyelids. I wipe my tears away. My bones are uncomfortable on the concrete. The air is cool.

Then I feel more air--wind. It roars past my ears, my heart pounding.

When I open my eyes, I'm weightless. The ground is below me, coming closer with each beat of my heart.

I beg it to stop. The rocks don't hear my pleas. It keeps coming faster. It's inches away.

Finally, nothing. I can't tell if my eyes are really open.

But they adjust. The rocks are there. They're inches from my eyes. My paws are stretched out. When I bring them down to touch the rocks, I push off from them. My whole body floats, turning until my feet are hovering above the ground. I'm swimming in air.

Gravity returns in full force. I fall and land on my ass and my hands. The rocks are sharp; they're cold and damp. I grunt and stand on two wobbly legs. I brush the pebbles out of my fur, looking out to see a footpath just above me, cutting through the rough rock. Above that, there's more, a whole city of lights and paths and buildings.

One bright light shines close above me with a door opening. Someone walks out. They sigh with the tiredness of a long workday, leaning on the rail guarding from the crevice I found myself in. I stare at them in awe. Eventually, they stare back.

"Are you okay?" Beck says.

"I think so," I say, "I'm not sure how this happened."

"Are you stuck?"

"I don't know."

I start to climb the steep embankment. The pain in my joints dulls as I crawl up. I swing under the railing. Beck backs up a few steps, holding her arms.

"Thanks for uh, getting me out of there," I say.

"I think you did that," she says.

I pause. Someone's walking past us. I don't know who, just a beautiful stranger.

I turn back to Beck. "Do I know you from somewhere?" I ask.

"Well, I don't think I know you."

I nod. "Then it was good to meet you."

The black cat looks at me, not saying anything, not even nodding or shaking her head. I walk away. I brush off more dust from my jacket, shaking my head clear.

I make it a few seconds away before she jogs, catching up to me. "You really don't remember how you ended up down there?" she says.

"Really. It doesn't make much sense to me either."

"Well as long as we're both confused."

I laugh. She smiles, just for a second.

"Well, if you're ever curious, I can try to remember over a drink."

"I see," she laughs back.

I tell her where I drink too much tea.

"You're all the way up on the top level? Now I really am curious what happened to you."

We both stop walking. We both want to go in different directions.

"I mean it, by the way," I tell her, "Thank you."

She nods. "Don't mention it."

Beck turns and leaves. I leave too. I leave, hoping that I would get to see her again. I wonder about it for most of my walk home. I wonder about it as I try to get some sleep, and it keeps me awake. But I'd rather be awake then know for sure.