Everything looks neat and tidy out in the hallway.

Hang on, that's not right.

Against my better judgment, I make a big leap through the door and nearly trip over my own feet slipping along the floor. Plain white as far as the eye can see, no holes, no obstacle course, not a single leaf peeking out anywhere. I run my hands over the wall tiles to confirm they fit snugly.

Up, down, left, right, everything is as it should be on 3F, positively empty, and that's precisely what's wrong.

"Is something the matter, User Lulu?"

Hands still stuck to the walls, I pause my field survey. "This place was wrecked when I got here. What the hell happened?"

"The domain was reset," Alvin explains, with little to no success.

I squint. "Elaborate?"

"Certainly. Which part?"

"All of the parts."

Arms relaxed, Alvin closes his eyes. "Processing..."

I slap my forehead. With my burnt hand. Ow. Lips pursed, I blow more or less cool air from my mouth. What am I thinking, casually telling a computer to do all of the things?

"Timeout," I say, walking up to him. "Gotta clear up a li'l misunderstanding. You think I know a lot more than I actually do."

Alvin opens his eyes, taking a moment to cancel his process. "You do seem unfamiliar with the Sanctuary and its other Test Subjects. But my data indicates you're User Lambda."

"I am, but also not," I ponder, like I haven't confused him enough. "My guess is that Róisín is the Lambda you're thinking of. She's the one who opened the—" I grimace. "—door for me and everything."

Arms crossed, Alvin lowers his gaze. "You're suggesting that this Róisín, who claims to be my mother, is the former User Lambda, and that she transferred her credentials to you so you could 'free' me. Processing..."

His eyes light up again. If this is the part where he concludes I'm full of crap and reveals that his robot hand is also a murder weapon, I honestly can't blame him.

Instead, however, he nods. "Understood. I've updated my data accordingly."

"Uh, really?" I ask. "You believe me?"

"Of course I believe you, User Lulu."

The bullshit method never fails me. Except when it does. But I don't count those times when I'm calculating my stats.

Alvin turns his head to the CDs scattered where I landed earlier. "Although that leaves the question of how Róisín achieved this without my involvement."

I shrug. "Beats me, Mister Admin. She hacked her way into my phone too but didn't spill the beans."

"Thank you for sharing this information with me," Alvin says, overly formal. "Please excuse my subpar explanations. Allow me to answer your questions while I see you to the infirmary."

Arms dangling unevenly, I follow Alvin. "First question. Why were you trapped anyway?"

"I was carryin' out a task as instructed." In a consistent rhythm, he pulls at his doll fingers, exposing the elastic strings between segments and letting them snap back into place. "Somehow I got stuck in an infinite loop and the subsequent memory leak caused this wee bit o' trouble."

A wee bit.

"And when was that?"

Instead of letting the segments flick back, Alvin pulls on them so hard it looks like the string might snap. "Sure it must've been nineteen years ago."

Nineteen years!

"You were in there since—" I count on my fingers, conveniently ignoring the six foot five calculator next to me. "—twenty fifteen!?"

Alvin lets go of his fingertip, averting the potential disaster of doll parts flying around. "It is unusual that nobody interrupted the process until a few moments ago. But a machine that isn't needed will wait."

I clench my fists, nails digging into the burn. Róisín tried to protect Alvin, I'm sure of that. Something must have happened that made leaving him behind the only option.

"Would you like to hear more about domains as well, User Lulu?" he asks.

Too slow to process, I missed the train to "Telling Him He Is Needed" station.

"Gimme the deets, big guy."

"Simply put, domains are zones coded and executed by Administrators," Alvin explains. "It's my core function that I upheld even throughout the memory leak."

"That must've sucked."

"A task is a task. As long as my key processor is active, so is this domain." He stops in front of the interactive terminal next to the closest door and points to it with an open hand. "Please take a look, User Lulu."

User authentication. . . . . .

Identity confirmed: λ

Access granted.

Welcome, Test Subject Lambda._

So far, so good.

Initializing. . . . . .

"That's new," I say.

"After a reset, we're running on the Sanctuary's default settings. Launching its environments for the first time takes a moment." Alvin taps his robot arm screen. Lines of code fly across too fast for my eyes to follow. "I'd usually avoid startin' a whole new iteration, but nineteen years of overflowing data is an unprecedented level of strain on my system."

"I bet anyone would want a clean install at that point," I conclude, finding it awfully relatable to communicate on his terms.

"The downside is that this process also resets User profiles and data associated with them."

No wonder he couldn't tell my voice and appearance don't match the Lambda he once knew. But did Róisín know all of that? Did she knowingly erase herself from Alvin's memories for a sliver of a chance to get him out of there?

Alvin's cheerful attitude clashes with every thought that's going through my mind. "If you'll forgive the delay: User Lulu, I'd like to formally welcome you to the seventh iteration of Sanctuary 17223."

I force my lips into an awkward curve that somehow turns into a real chuckle.

"Glad to be here, buddy."