“Enaya!”, her mother shouted,  “Enaya get those to your uncle”, as she proceeded to give her daughter a bag of groceries. Enaya takes them and dishes out a very subtle grunt, but she graciously takes the bag and gets on her bicycle. She rides swiftly, as always, as if someone is following her, she was never a person who likes things smooth and easy, she likes things quick, and the destination is the race. She rides from the undercity, and the scenery changes from poor and decaying buildings to more modern “nice looking” ones, from tents and vandalized stop signs to trees and mailboxes, and dogs shitting and people picking up the remains. But don’t be fooled, her uncle isn’t that rich, he just has a watch shop in the good part of town. He was doing well for himself though.“Hey, Ammo” Enaya shouted as she barged into the shop,” These are for you from mother.” Her uncle was steadily fixing an old watch and didn’t even flinch until he got the last part in place.

“Thank you dear,” he said. He quickly took out an orange and started peeling it, he separated a slice and gave it to Enaya. “Times are changing my dear,” he said in a very picturesque kind of way.

 Enaya amusingly, says “‘Cause you are a watchman, and you work with watches.”

 Her uncle grunts, “Listen child, something is happening, be careful out there.”

 Enaya dishes out a “Sure ammo(means uncle)”, goes out and rides her bicycle back to the undercity.

Back home her mother was making dinner, it was just another day, like always. Enaya opens her biology book, she is studying to become a doctor, Enaya is smart, not book smart but smart. Even though she thinks of herself as dumb and can’t memorize anything, she got numerous diseases memorized and is well on her way to understand all the machinery of the body. Pathology was her thing, she likes to understand how diseases work, and how they disrupt the system of the human body. After dinner, she got onto her bed and slept tight, great things were waiting for her. 

While she slept, little didn’t she know that Khaled had started working on the machine; and that Adam was starting to remember, that the undercity was going to hell, and it’s the kind of hell that you don’t want to live in. 

The next day she wakes up and goes to university on her bike. The ride was normal and nothing different. In class, she hears Adam talking about chaos, and she is bored out of her mind, English writing was an elective she mistakenly took. She didn’t talk to many people, she doesn’t even know the names of half… maybe all of her class. She knew Maher though. They sort of had a relationship once, then all went to hell, and they decided to be friends. There is always this airy doomed feeling when they are together, not knowing if they are ever coming back together, but they are so dependent on each other that they can’t fall apart.

She meets him outside. “Hey beautiful,” he says in a cheesy manner.

 “Don't call me that, I'm really not,” She replies.

 “ Hey ugly,” he continues.

 “That's more like it,”  she says with relief. Maher is doing pre-med like Enaya. She then continues to ask him

 “I didn't see you yesterday what's up with you disappearing lately” 

“Promise you won't tell,“ he says. 

“Tell what ?, oOkay I promise,” she replies 

“I’ve been playing the games lately,” he said proudly 

“No way, I never understood them I have no idea what they are about,”  she said, wanting an explanation.  

“I'm playing the games, it's the best way to get money. “ he said with excitement.

“What are the games?” She asks. 

“That's too complicated to explain,” Maher says. 

“Please I could actually use the money, I have no idea how I'm going to pay my tuition,“ she said assertively

“Okay. Imagine you are playing with people like puppets, and it's in real life and you are affecting them. But it's all like a chess game. You can affect their memories, how they respond to things and even how they act.” 

“I don't understand how this is possible, and you actually affect the person ?“

“Currently the game has been crazy, we are playing on the highest stakes possible, we are playing for Adam” 

“But again how is this possible, Aand who is Adam ?” she asks.

“The one who controls the simulation we are living in. And everyone is playing the games so that he remembers everything.” He answered. 

“So we are living in a simulation? But again you have been dodging my question, how is this possible?“ She asks. 

“They teach you all that in the beginning, and I haven't been dodging your question, you're just too eager, it's complicated. It has to do with quantum entanglement,” he says. 

“Okay, we studied Quantum Entanglement in physics, it's the cosmic connection between particles, where the spin of an electron light years away affects the spin of another, but I still don't get how this has to do with memory or the games!” Enaya exclaimed.

“The universe is not local, meaning electrons can affect each other from a distance, what are our memories and thoughts other than electrical pulses going through the brain? and that electron in the electric pulses are entangled with things in the world and entangled with everything, and as you said to change the spin of one electron the other spin changes. “ Maher says 

“That's just too complex to comprehend, and to think you can manipulate and call it a game,” she says. 

“There is the supercomputer that does it for us, and it does all the computing and predicts the future. We really live in a deterministic world that can be computed,” Maher said. 

“ Okay you are playing with forces I do not want to be part of, but give me an example of the game. How does it work?“ Enaya asked.

“Right now the games has been all about antibiotics, and how the body fights pathogens, Adam is going to get poisoned with salmonella and E coli, and we need to nudge his body, cell by cell so that his body fights it, this is happening worldwide with millions of people playing.”

“Wait what? his body how to fight it? “
“There are angels and demons, and stakes are high.” 

“I still can't comprehend how this works. Please explain more.”

“Remember the phrase it takes a village to raise a child; well, in this simulation we live in, it takes the whole world. Everything going into a specific pattern to make something happen. We take a pill that connects us to the computer and the computer entangles us with a part of Adam’s body, your brain and the electrical pulses in your brain become entangled with Adam, and we try our best to imagine the scenarios of which things happen, like the pathogen entering the cell, we research the mechanism, and the more accurate we are with our understanding, the more likely we are going to be effective. Demons on the other hand make changes and mutations, and they really fuck things up. Like not only are they playing on Adam but they are playing on us as well, mutating our understanding of the mechanism, and changing it ever so slightly so that we miss a sentence and dont read a particular word. The game requires huge amounts of will power to focus and understand.

So right now in Adam’s case, we lost to the demons and he is going to get salmonella and E coli, we also affect what happens in real life by the way, like actual events. And in the last game we lost to the demons, and no matter how hard we tried he still takes a bite from the burger. But what we can change is how his body reacts to the pathogens. The demons are trying to let the disease win, we are trying to make the body fight it “ Maher said 

“That is just wrong on so many levels, like the ethical implications of this are unbelievable, I'm out I really want to stay the hell away from it.”

“But you see, Adam controls our destiny, and we have a say in what happens to us. That's how the world works now, and there is a lot of money especially if you are studying medicine or something in the sciences.” Maher said, understanding that it is not ethical at all. 

“No thanks, I gotta bounce I have a shit ton of homework to do” Enaya was confused on what to do when she was leaving, and she in a very awkward way kisses Maher on the cheek to say goodbye “Okay here you go“ after she gave him the kiss “Just promise you'll be careful.“Maher was quite thrilled and said “I promise.”