“What… does he want with us?” Alice asked, turning toward Jake as she slowly climbed down from the floating metallic plate, careful not to trip over the limp coils hanging lifeless around her. She’d heard the man across from her talking awhile now, bouncing to and fro with nervous excitement she couldn’t understand.


    “He wants us to sit and eat while we talk, probably has questions for us about how we got here if what Simon said is true,” Jake responded, rolling his head side to side as his neck cracked back into place.


    “What if Simon was lying, what if this is a trap?”


    “Well, there’s two of us and one of him so we can probably figure it out. As long as we can just stick close together, we’ll be fine. We just need to stall for…”


    “Are you two talking to each other?” Dr. Lewis asked, leaning forward slightly, his smile waning a bit as he watched the two captives in front of him begin conversing in a dialect he’d never heard before. “That’s quite rude to exclude people don’t you think? Listen, why don’t we just sit down and continue the discussion together? I know I… or rather the lab technically owns you now but please, I don’t want you to think of yourselves as captives. I’d much rather be your host, inviting my guests in for a meal and lively discussion!”


    Dr. Lewis finished his speech trying to sound as cheery and welcoming as possible, hoping the beads of sweat forming on the back of his neck weren’t visible anywhere else across his body. In truth he was beginning to grow nervous that the test subjects would turn violent, already they were plotting in a dialect he couldn’t understand. He hoped his calm invitation could de-escalate the problem before it even started, steering the three of them back toward the civil discussion the doctor had been hoping for. Instead, as he finished his invitation to the duo across from him, he saw the male prisoner stiffen, a look of intense panic and distrust flashing across his face as soon as they were referred to as his guests.


    “Was it something I said?!” Dr. Lewis asked quickly, already seeing the male prisoner backing off slowly, a slight shiver in his frame, “Please I promise I meant no disrespect! Come, let''s just… sit down, start over!” Quickly turning around, the doctor walked fast to the worktable he’d prepped early today, his hand sliding down toward the pistol resting comfortably at his hip. Standing ready by the worktable stocked with food and drink, Dr. Lewis waited for any sign of attack or resistance from the two.


    “What do you think we should do?” Alice asked in a hushed whisper, eyeing the odd way the elderly man was posed. Something about the way he stood, hand rested on his hip looked unnatural to her, unsafe.


    “Follow him for now. I want to know what he has to say.” Jake replied, still shaken up from the unexpected return of an unpopular nickname.


    “I agree. Plus, I’m starved.”


    Cautiously, the two inched slowly through the metallic confines of the lab, taking the chance to inspect their new surroundings. Largely, the space looked unimpressive. Jake had expected it to look more futuristic. A grim horrible place filled with scientific curiosity and horror that waited to torture the two of them. Instead, the place rather looked in disrepair. Large sections of the room sat in darkness or covered in tarps. He could see branching corridors in the lab that led out away from where they stood now yet saw no sign of life or anything else of interest leaking through said passageways.


    The surfaces of the lab not marred with dust or covered with tarps looked rather unexceptional. Plan metallic workbenches, computer monitors with bouncing screen savers or lines of text that filtered past at rapid speed. Across the way, he could see what looked like a local news station on mute and playing for no one. The futuristic lab the two were trapped in now looked to be almost abandoned, in need of repairs, and in some sense worse off than the modern labs he’d seen back home.


    For Alice, she was also thoroughly unimpressed with the lab’s shoddy state of affairs. It hardly held a candle to the sprawling wanders the two had been exploring earlier. Hell, even the prison cell looked better off than this dump.


    The duo finished with their unimpressive self-guided tour of Lab 458 and reached the workbench Dr. Lewis stood beside. A series of plush office chairs aged several years past their prime had been pulled up alongside the workbench. Atop the workbench sat a smorgasbord of fruits, meats, cheeses, and vegetables. A clear picture of water sat in the center of the workbench with several assorted mugs.


    “Go ahead, take a seat,” Dr. Lewis said, relief clear in his voice as he sank down into one of the many office chairs arranged at random around the workbench, “Have something to eat. I promise you, I didn’t poison it or anything. I mean, what use would you be to me dead after all!”


    Dr. Lewis let out a hearty laugh to himself while absent-mindedly grabbing a slice of some random cheese and popping it into his mouth. Both Alice and Jake sat frozen, hands filled with assorted bits of food. Sharing a glance with each other both realized neither one of them had remotely considered the possibility that the elderly man across them had poisoned their meal. Still, though, his words made some sort of sense and both were famished now, so following the doctor''s example they began popping random bits and bobs of food into their mouth with slightly more care than before.


    “Is it good?” Dr. Lewis asked while leaning back in his office chair and crossing his arms behind his head, “I wasn’t sure what you eat… wherever you’re from so if you need something else just let me know, I’ll do my best to…”


    “Dr… Lewis, wasn’t it?” Jake interrupted, doing his best to remember the name Simon had mentioned offhandedly, “What is it you want with us exactly?” Dr. Lewis froze before slowly leaning forward in his chair till he sat straight and proper. A sly smile sat on his face now that seemed utterly different from the kindly and doddering expression he’d maintained thus far. Reaching next to him, Dr. Lewis lifted a datapad previously unseen amidst the clutter of the table and tossed it toward the surprised duo.


    “Let’s start with this, shall we? Peruse at your own leisure but I’ll go ahead and give you a quick summary. What you hold in your hands right now is the official government report on your little accident today.” He paused a minute while Jake picked the sleek pad up and skimmed through the reports, eyes widening with each sentence he read. Alice glanced toward the pad Jake was looking over before quickly realizing she couldn’t make sense of what was written on it, leaning back to wait for Jake’s translations.


    “The official reports are always dense, filled with useless legalize but here’s the bottom line. According to the government, you two managed to cause over one hundred car accidents in the span of just twelve minutes. In that time, you also managed to cost the Centralized Government millions in damages when you crashed into three separate buildings. Worst of all, your actions led to the deaths of over a dozen people and maimed hundreds more.”


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    “Oh god…” Jake said in a low whisper, hands shaking as the datapad fell free of his grasp his head sinking into his hands. “What have we done…” He’d never expected the consequences of their crash to be so severe. No one had properly explained to them their charges or their crimes. When they were locked away all that kept being repeated was destruction of property and theft. Never murder.


    “What is it?!” Alice asked, panicked to see the sudden shift in attitude from before as she grabbed hold of the datapad desperate to try and derive some meaning from the useless symbols displayed before her.


    “This, according to the government, is a fact now.” Dr. Lewis continued, leaning forward till he rested comfortably against the workbench. “However, there is a different fact I know all too well. The Central Government lies. This official report, released only thirty or so minutes ago, is nearly completely different from the initial reports of your accident. Those reports list you miraculously causing only a few minor accidents and causing only superfluous damage to a single building before finally crashing down and destroying the roof of a parking deck. Do you know why the details of your crash changed so drastically?”


    Jake slowly lifted his head from his hands. He was stark white as tremors of terror and regret shook the foundations of his very being. Even hearing Dr. Lewis''s continued explanation could do little to calm him down, all he could manage was to shake his head no.


    “It’s because your crash was public, loud, and attention-drawing. More and more people flocked to it, and so the Centralized Government twisted the truth till a narrative they liked was reached. A narrative that sensationalized and buried the truth. I watched your crash live, and while Simon was busy arranging your little… visit… here I was busy investigating your crash myself. I can tell you personally that your crash more closely mirrored those results listed in the initial accident report. Rather, your crash was likely even less severe than what was listed there.”


    Standing up from his chair completely now, Dr. Lewis paced around the workbench till he stood beside the still fear-stricken Jake and still desperately confused Alice.


    “I tell you this so you’ll understand, most believe the truth presented to them by the Centralized Government. Hell, they largely helped to forge it themselves. You’ll likely find no one else who is willing to help you. Only me. Try and leave this lab and you won''t find a nice meal waiting for you, rather it’ll be torture and execution instead. All I ask, now, is a little help in return. Some honest answers to some questions I have. We can work out the rest from there, I’m sure.”


    “Let’s start easy, how did you two get here? Was it a manual breach or did you accidentally slip through one and end up here by mistake?”


    “What… what’s a breach?” Jake asked, still pale in the face. Dr. Lewis shook his head from side to side, sighing and muttering something under his breath that sounded almost like “idiotic intern” to Jake while he circled back around the table and retook his seat.


    “Lab 458… ‘Project Breach’… did Simon not explain any of this?” Dr. Lewis asked while sinking into his chair, rubbing his brow in an exasperated fashion.


    “No, he just said you’d have some questions for us…” Jake said, still reeling from the shock of the datapad on their crash and really wishing Dr. Lewis would just get on with it.


    “Fine, fine. Short version for now, breach is the term coined for rips in reality, “Project Breach” is study of these breaches, how to travel through them, and anything that may have fallen through them. Now, how did you two get here?”


    “It was an accident, at least I think it was…” Jake said, not quite sure how to explain what was happening to them, “I’m not quite sure what’s been happening but every day at sunrise I just sort of… fall… into a new world along with everything I’m holding at the time of sunrise.”


    “You, fall? Is that what it feels like?” Dr. Lewis asked, sitting up excitedly and hurriedly jotting notes down into a datapad he’d procured from next to him.


    “Yes.”


    “What about her, is it the same for her?”


    “No, she only fell because I was holding onto her. Where not really certain what would happen if I let go now, but probably I’d leave her behind.”


    “Wait, she’s not from the same reality you’re from?” Dr. Lewis asked with excitement quickly realizing these two subjects could be far more valuable than he’d initially realized.


    “No.”


    “Can she answer some questions herself? I’d like it if she could please describe the sensation she feels when... falling...in her own words.” Dr. Lewis made a separate file in his notes, ready to take the girl convict''s testimony.


    “Sorry, she can’t understand us.”


    “Wait, she can’t understand us at all? Simon reported no issue in communication?”


    “Wait, now that you mention it, that is weird…” turning toward Alice who’d now set the datapad to the side and was eyeing him with annoyance he asked, “You sure you can’t understand this guy?”


    “Now you remember me?” She snapped back, with a small eye-roll “Of course I can’t understand this guy, what you think I’m just sitting here like an idiot for the fun of it?”


    “Ok, Ok!” Jake said, gesturing with his hands he understood before looking back toward the doctor, “She doesn’t understand you, sorry.” Dr. Lewis buried his face in his hands, frustration with Simon boiling up for a moment before he looked Jake in the eyes again.


    “Can you catch her up to speed then? Ask her my question?” Shrugging, Jake turned back toward Alice.


    “Hey, he wants to know…”


    “Forget that!” Alice interrupted, before waving the datapad around in front of his face, “What the hell is on here that has you so spooked?”


    “Oh, that…” Jake said, voice dropping. “It''s details on our crash, it says we caused a lot of damage. Hurt some people too, killed others.” Alice sat in silence, her heartbeat quickening as she let the datapad slip free of her grasp. She felt like she could be sick.


    “He, Dr. Lewis, says it’s probably not as bad. Claims the government here lies all the time, that he investigated our crash personally and there was hardly any damage and no one was hurt.”


    “Do you think we can trust him?” Alice asked, a hint of hopeful desperation clear in her voice.


    “… No. Maybe. I don’t know. I want to.” Jake replied sinking lower into his chair. He wasn’t sure what to think about the crash anymore, his mind kept flipping on the issue every time he tried to think on it. The Dr.’s questioning had given him a brief respite to ignore the problem. Now that respite was over.


    Truthfully the government’s official report seemed excessive to Jake. He remembered that crash, been a part of it, and knew for certain he only crashed into one building, max of two if they were counting whatever the car slammed into after he lost consciousness. Yet at the same time, he couldn’t believe a crash as crazy as theirs wouldn’t result in injury. No matter how much he wanted to believe it.


    “What… should we do? With him, I mean?” Alice asked, despair clear in her voice. It seemed obvious to Jake she didn’t really care anymore; she was lost in thought wrestling with bigger issues.


    “Let’s just answer his questions for now, see where it leads us. I mean, what else can we do till sunrise?” Turning back toward the doctor Jake simply said, “Fells like falling, she gave the same answer as me.”


    “I see…” Dr. Lewis replied, a small grimace forming on his face as he took note of the unremarkable answer. What followed next was a tennis match of questions, each seemingly less important than the last. Dr. Lewis seemed keen to draw out every last piece of information he could from the two, while the duo still wrestling with the aftereffects of their crime had little interest in answering any questions at all.


    “Last question, for now,” Dr. Lewis said as he set the datapad he’d been scribbling notes into for the last hour or so. “You already said you got here on accident. That tells me you didn’t come here with a goal in mind, so tell me what it is you want exactly?”


    “What do we want?” Jake repeated back, surprised to hear a question so open ended, “We… we just want to go home…”


    “I see…” Dr. Lewis said, leaning forward into the table, his hands laced together a near sinister-looking smile tracing itself across his jaw “I do believe we can come to an… understanding…strike a deal if you would.”