There are probably worse places to experience a break in reality than a fast-food restaurant. Probably. It starts small enough: numbers where numbers shouldn't be, patterns that feel a little too much like predictions, and the increasingly uncomfortable suspicion that other people's choices might not be entirely their own. Then she makes one. A real one. The kind that should change absolutely nothing beyond the rest of her evening. Instead, reality seems to lose track of what happens next. By the time she gets home, things have escalated considerably. Time isn't behaving correctly. Electronics have developed opinions. Something is running calculations she definitely didn't ask for. And then every screen in her apartment lights up. SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE She has questions. Her snake, meanwhile, is acting like this is the least surprising thing that's happened all night. Which raises a few more.