A month had passed quickly.


    And now they were back on the train. The same train where, more than a month ago, they had first touched the park. But now it somehow felt different. The excitement was gone, the thrill was missing. They were going as a part of it. Part of the team, not just as guests. They were probably like those who had pretended to be robots last time. Did they feel the same way back then?


    The other difference was the train itself. Daniel remembered the chaos from the last time. The people… even those two women who turned out to be together and, for a moment, had fooled Jasper.


    Now, there was no one. The entire train was theirs alone. No one else. No guests, no technicians.


    The last month in the park had been intense. Jasper had completely set aside his old job and focused entirely on the work in the park. Hugo Barnes kept his word and provided Jasper with five people to train. Of the five, two were women. And to make him fully comfortable, Barnes had told Jasper to model them to his liking. And more than that—he had chosen how they would look himself. Hugo wasn’t random; he carefully picked his people. And he researched them. He knew Jasper’s weak spot. And he took advantage of it. Jasper went to his new job with pleasure.


    But not everything was smooth sailing. Especially for Jasper. They went together, but for his friend, there wasn’t much work. Hugo and his team had a lot to catch up on with the robots, spending all day constructing and designing new ones. The finished robots came to Hugo’s lab, where Jasper and Daniel often stayed. Hugo would place them on the robot platform and begin a long tuning process. Stu, a young guy who was something like Hugo’s assistant, came to his aid, following his every move. Stu carried out orders and sometimes seemed more like Barnes’ slave than his helper.


    Hugo would place a finished robot on the platform, call Stu, and the two of them would grab a tablet each, starting the lengthy setup. First, they checked if every part of the body worked. They started from the bottom—testing the toes, ankles, thighs, and up to the eyebrow movements. Then a dark-haired woman would come in, monitoring the robots’ behavior and facial reflexes in different situations.


    Finally, together with two physiotherapists, they’d exercise the robot—or rather, their task was to see if every muscle adapted correctly to movement.


    All this happened separately with each robot, and Hugo never called the same people from the same department twice. Only Stu was always there.


    Daniel stayed there, mostly watching. Hugo didn’t give him any tasks. Sometimes he’d ask him to talk to the robot once it was activated and ask if he thought it was functioning well. Daniel loved chatting with the ones from the medieval park. They had interesting stories crafted by the creative team and implemented by the AI specialists. One of the robots was going to be the king of the place. He was majestic, and once they dressed him in royal garments, he seemed even grander. Hugo put more effort into some robots than others. He had his favorites too.


    The finished robots didn’t travel on the train like them. They went down one more level and were loaded onto a special underground rail line. They had their own sort of metro. While traveling along that line, they could only stand, walk, and sit. Their conversation functions and any attempts at something more complex were disabled. And in each park, their functions would be automatically activated via the company’s tablets.


    At first, Daniel regretted agreeing to this. Hugo had made him stay by his side and do nothing. It was killing him, in a way.


    Jasper, on the other hand, was at the opposite extreme. After a slow start at the company with no work, Hugo suddenly began paying him more and more attention. When he gave him the ready assistants, Jasper was in his element. He dove headfirst into training the robots that would assist him, taking them to imaginary locations. He even convinced Hugo to provide ten more robots to act as people wanting to buy apartments. They rarely saw him over the last month, but according to Hugo, Jasper was doing well.


    By the second week, Daniel started getting into the work too. Hugo slowly began to value his opinion and introduced him to the AI technicians. The team’s lead director was a tall Black man named Luke, bald and clean-shaven. At first, he was a bit standoffish, but then he realized they spoke the same language and loosened up. Daniel wasn’t too far off from what they were doing with their projects. It was more complex and labor-intensive, but at its core, it was something he’d been working on for years. A few days before the park officially opened, Luke quit. He didn’t say anything to Daniel or call him, despite how close they’d become. Daniel just found out from Hugo that he’d left.


    And all of this led them to the train. Where they were no longer going as outsiders. They were going as part of the company.


    Jasper and Daniel stared out the train window, barely speaking. Where there had been emptiness last time, now there were new buildings matching the era—trees, forests, roads, street lamps, mysterious caves, huge animals, and smaller ones too. He felt what he had felt before. As if they were moving through time.


    This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    "Bro, I was skeptical, but now I can’t wait," Jasper broke the silence first.


    "Do you think it’ll be like last time? I’m still not sure."


    "There’s no reason it won’t be. Yeah, we’ve got other tasks now, but Hugo said to play it like before."


    "Have you thought about what the guests will be like?"


    "Oh, if last time there were some who thought they were above everyone else, I expect they’ll be even worse now. They’ll have paid a fortune to be here and will demand the best."


    "Then I don’t envy you with the sales," Daniel tried to be funny.


    "Bro, I can’t wait. I’ve sold apartments to plenty of rich people. These guys won’t bring me down. And we’re people with money now too."


    Jasper had never brought up the topic. Neither had Daniel. They’d agreed on it with a single message. And yes, Hugo had sent them two hundred thousand dollars each. Just like that. Just because they’d agreed to help. Sure, it wasn’t a massive amount, but it wasn’t something anyone just handed over. Had Hugo tried to bribe them? Daniel thought so at first. But then he realized he’d have accepted anyway. And the experience he’d gained there in a month was immense. Watching hundreds of robots being assembled before his eyes and having their AI integrated with Luke’s help, in theory, Daniel could assemble a robot himself. In practice, though, things weren’t quite that simple.


    "It’s going to be tough for us once they figure out we’re part of the park."


    "Isn’t it a bit weird for humans to be part of the park? I mean, we reacted pretty strongly to that when we were there. Now we’re on the other side."


    "The difference is we’ll tell them we’re human and just have authority."


    "You’ve got authority with the houses. I don’t."


    "You’re an important part, bro. Don’t you see that Barnes keeps you close? Along with that… Stu guy."


    "Yeah, but this trip to the park… I don’t know. People pay for robots, not for us."


    "He’s got something in mind, trust me. I can tell I know the old man by now. He never does anything he hasn’t thought through. And of course, he won’t tell us everything. He’ll let us… what was it? Live the story." Jasper smiled.


    The train approached and stopped at the familiar station. And in front of it stood an even more familiar figure—Sheriff Jake.


    He was standing the same way as last time when he’d greeted the guests for the first time. Leaning against the wall of the house where the train stopped, looking down, chewing on a hand-rolled cigarette.


    The two of them stepped off and headed straight toward him. The sheriff raised his head and smiled:


    "Daniel? Jasper? Where’d you boys disappear to?"


    It surprised them both that he recognized them. Jasper turned to Daniel:


    "This is Hugo’s doing, no doubt."


    No one had told them the robots would remember them. Hugo was surely sitting somewhere, laughing.


    "Come on, boys, the others are here. You’re the last ones."


    Jake started walking with the brisk stride of a true sheriff, and they followed him toward the town center.


    The farms along the road were the same, except now at least one person peeked out from each one. Except at Reed’s.


    Reed’s house stood empty in the distance.


    "Reed’s gone, boys," Jake said, as if reading their thoughts. "He hasn’t come back since he ran off. I knew you’d ask about him."


    "He hasn’t come back? No one’s heard from him?"


    "Nope."


    "What about his daughters?"


    "They’re here. But they’ve got some troubles."


    "Troubles?" Jasper nearly jumped. Daniel was amazed at how quickly his friend slipped back into character.


    "What about Violet?"


    "Violet? Violet… she’s in the village, but she doesn’t live at the bar anymore."


    "What? What happened?"


    Jake didn’t answer. He kept walking. The two followed. They passed the fountain too. The place was empty, which slightly worried Daniel. If everyone had arrived, why wasn’t it bustling with people? Last time, this had been one of the busiest spots.


    Another new thing was the signs. Now there were signs for every path. They saw the one for the bar and headed that way. Not that they needed it, since they were following Jake, but at least they were sure he wasn’t pulling some trick on them.


    But something still bothered Daniel. It was too quiet.


    Violet’s bar was still in its place. And its name was the same. Violet’s name stood proudly above it.


    Daniel caught Jasper’s questioning look a few times. He was sure Jasper had a hundred questions too. But neither of them spoke.


    Jake entered the bar first. Daniel could’ve guessed earlier that Violet didn’t let Jake inside. At least not the last time they were here. And if they remembered them, the stories were probably unchanged too.


    The bar was empty and seemed dustier. Only two men sat on two chairs, holding rifles. Rifles pointed at the entrance where they now stood. Both wore wide-brimmed hats and big grins.


    Daniel recognized them. It was Wade and Bart.


    "Jake?" Jasper turned to the sheriff. "Got something to tell us?"


    Jake didn’t respond. He walked forward and sat on a third chair next to the two men.


    "We meet again, fools. And this time, you won’t get off so easy."


    It was one of them. Jake didn’t draw his weapon. But he looked more scared than anything.