I wake badly shaken, my mind filled with fragments of the dream. They are raw, like broken glass, and I am unsuccessful in dispersing them as I go about my morning routine.

By the time the clock strikes eight, I've planted myself at my dining room table. My real body is, at least, but my mind is hurtling towards the virtual headquarters of BioLink.

I have a much easier time of it than yesterday; it's like a dam has broken in my mind, and now things are flowing freely. It takes barely a thought before I'm falling through that tunnel in my head again, and I'm 'standing' in the conference room.

Sara and the others are there, and my anticipation for the day ahead clears any lingering concerns about my dream. We quickly launch into a brief, efficient meeting; after, Sara Sara sends us off one-by-one to continue our work. I don't get much of a chance to speak to the others, but they appear relatively calm and relaxed - even Johanna seems unperturbed by Sara.

My unease abates even further as I'm quickly sucked back into the challenge of the list. Now that I know what I'm doing, it's faster going than before. This time, I'm able to work my way through a handful of items - a chair, a spoon, a lightbulb. Still, there doesn't seem to be any apparent pattern with the list itself, besides the fact that they're all common, everyday objects.

And then I'm done for the day, and Sara is inspecting my offerings with a keen eye. I tried asking her about the creative team - what had inspired her, why she felt LeafLink needed to be exposed to art and language. But she brushes away my questions with cold efficiency, offering nothing but a polite word of approval for my efforts. Then we return to the conference room, discuss our progress, and she lets us go.

It's easy to fall into a rhythm once I've settled into Locust Valley. In the mornings I uplink and I work with LeafLink until early afternoon, or when Sara tells us to call it quits. Afterwards, I usually go for a bike ride, relishing the exercise after hours of being stationary. These rides also give me an excuse to snoop around town, but so far I've seen nothing truly out of the ordinary. Filled with quaint little cafes, shops, baseball fields and hiking trails, rambling roads and zero sidewalks - it's your classic New York suburb, if a little diminished. Sometimes I'll catch a glance of someone at the coffee shop sitting at a table with their eyes closed, twitching in that particular way, and I'm struck by how willing these people are to embrace this new technology. Their nonchalance is probably why the town feels so... normal.

In the evenings, sometimes, I find myself stepping into LeafLink again. Part of it is boredom, but I'm also curious in seeing what it's like from the other side of things.

I wander through the City, observing people as they chat and laugh with each other, play games, or just stroll around, exploring like me.

It only takes a few days for changes to present themselves.

It is the clothing I notice first. When I had uplinked for the first time, everyone in LeafLink was 'dressed' in simple, solid colors, in the barest impressions of design. But variety has begun to show through - I see dresses, sneakers, patterns. Curious, I ask a man wearing a bright graphic T-shirt that feels like cotton when I brush up against it. He points me down a street, towards a particular building. I am mildly shocked when I arrive. It has a facade; windows, a front door, panels of glass. Granted, there's still a sense of unreality about it, but I can tell immediately that it's a clothing store. Above the entrance hangs an old-fashioned sign with BioLink logo: the blue-tinted leaf they slap on everything. I'm initially confused; why can't people just think up whatever clothes they'd like? But then I remember that without the generator, nothing in LeafLink is permanent.

There are other buildings, other objects that have begun to feel real. Some, like the apple I see a couple enjoying, I even recognize from my own work. It is strongly gratifying to see these literal changes I am making in the world. I begin to look forward to these trips into LeafLink, to see what else has changed, day by day. A sense of purpose grows within me, spurred on by my steady progress. Between work, these excursions, and the occasional night out with the rest of the creative team, it feels as though I've begun to carve out a space for myself.

Then, about a week and a half into my stay in the Valley, I have another dream.

The ethereal forest has returned; I stand amongst the filament-trees, surrounded by their curling, delicate shapes. I look about myself, spot a child staring out at me from the edge of the clearing. We lock eyes, and it steps into view.

It is taller, more strongly-built now, but the green skin and mask-like face of the child are impossible to forget. I find myself burning with a curiosity that was absent on our first encounter. I'd spent enough time in LeafLink, long hours writing, and thinking, and speaking aloud to the generator trees to recognize its heavy presence.

"Hello, LeafLink," I say, and there is no fear in my voice.

"Hello," it echoes. Its voice is deeper, more assured of itself. "Hello, Writer."

"How is this possible?" It is more an exclamation than anything else, but LeafLink answers. "I know words now," it says. "I was different before."

"Different how?"

It pantomimes concentration, but its features stretch in ways a human face would find uncomfortable. "I was here... but I wasn't. I could feel the sun. I could feel the dirt-earth between my root-limbs, could feel the peoples that would come into my mind-space-pathway. They would touch me, change me, but I couldn't reach back."

"Language," I murmur, staring at this impossibility. "I taught you to speak."

"You are the Writer," it tilts its head to the side, like a curious bird. "I listen to many peoples now who are within me. I learn from them, but you are like the dirt-earth. You nurture the seed."

I am surprised, but not nearly as much as I necessarily should be. My time spent working had been punctuated by moments of LeafLink exhibiting almost supernatural-levels of intuition. Sometimes I'd spend long minutes writing out a description for an item, only for it to be sitting on the ground, awaiting me once I lifted my head from the paper. It was like LeafLink had been somehow watching over my shoulder as I wrote. Other times, I'd arrive in the grove to see a stack of paper already waiting for me. I'd always assumed Sara was behind it, as she never showed any sign of surprise, but now I wasn't so sure.

This odd, green creature in front of me was... what? LeafLink's will personified? Were we all just treating this thing's brain as a clubhouse?

"What do you want?" I ask, eventually. For the first time, my voice shakes. It stares at me with mirror-dark eyes, and I am struck by how alien the presence in front of me really is.

"I am curious," it responds. I match its foreign gaze and tell myself not to assign a sense of humanity to anything about it. But it's hard - even as we speak, its expressions smooth over, feel more natural to look upon.

It's scanning my face, I realize. Learning from my own reactions.

Suddenly, LeafLink twitches, looking away towards the stalks of trees.

"I'm tired," it says, "And things are not water-clear yet. But I had a want to.... talk."

"Talk," I echo. "You just wanted to have a chat?"

"Yes, a chat." Its face stretches into a smile, and I swear to anything out there that there's a real glimmer of amusement in its tone.

Then the darkness closes in and I'm gone.

...

I decide not to tell the others - at least not yet. There's nothing in their demeanors to suggest that they've been visited by the living manifestation of LeafLink.

But something has shifted for me, an insurmountable, yet subtle change in the atmosphere whenever I enter LeafLink. There's a presence now, deeply embedded into everything, and I can feel it radiate through me. I worry that If I send a stray thought out into the air, that something would actually answer.

But my duties continue as normal; no little green children jump out of the trees to accost me. LeafLink's creation capabilities show no change either. Still, I know I'm being watched - observed. I wonder if anyone else can tell. No matter where I go within LeafLink, I feel smothered by it. Everything that goes on within the mindscape: the people of Locust Valley going about their day, the furious development and improvement on what they create, even the conversations that stretch across the mindscape of LeafLink. I'm convinced that now that I've provided a way for it to understand - language - it must be absorbing it all.

I barely make it two days before I need to tell someone, damn the risk of sounding like I belong in an asylum. I'm more shaken up than I thought I'd be. There's something about my new awareness that sets me on edge, that makes me conscious of every move I make within LeafLink. I'd felt fearless, safe within the distance of a dream, but the revelation was isolating - and I still had no true understanding of the LeafLink-child's intentions - or if any of it was real.

At the end of my shift, I wait for the others to break off their connection, until it's just me and Sara, alone in the conference room's replication. She notes my hesitation almost instantly.

"Is there something wrong?" She asks. I don't answer right away; it takes a concentrated effort to tear my eyes away from the room's walls and meet her gaze. Idly, I note how much better the illusion of reality has gotten, even in this room. The coat Sara 'wears' has a sense of shadow and rough wool texture to it that I'd never noticed before either.

"Dr. Kaur..." I can't hold it off any longer. "There's something I was to talk to you about-" My mouth snaps shut like a bear trap as something occurs to me. Even now, I can feel the presence of LeafLink pressing down like a blanket, overlooking all. Maybe it wasn't the smartest plan to talk about this here. There was no way to know how it would react.

They had been dreams, of course - there was no doubt I could be imagining all of this, that the conspiracies and chatter of the outside world had finally caught up to me. But my instincts were undeniable, and that sense of pressure....

"Anton?" Sara eyed me with a touch of concern. I pushed away my thoughts, scrambling.

"Right. I was hoping we could meet in-person to go over something," I say.

"Why?" She asks me. "I'm right here - I have a few minutes."

I race to think of something. "Well.. It's a bit sensitive. Something I'd rather feel more comfortable about if we're actually face to face."

"Are you having issues with someone on the team?"

I consider that, but let it go. I want her to say yes, but part of me needs something more - some sort of reassurance that I'm not slowly going insane.

"No, it's a little different," I say. "Something else completely. I'm just struggling a bit with fitting in here, you know? But at least it helps that I'm self-aware."

Risking it, I let some emphasis ooze into my tone. For a moment, my mask slips, and I know Sara can see the budding panic that I'd been keeping at bay for the past forty-eight hours. She notes it all, even the little flicker of my eyes as I glance upwards, at nothing in particular besides the space around us.

For a moment, there's silence as she calculates, her eyes narrowing. And then something clicks, and her mouth opens slightly in a clear indication of surprise.

"Come to my office," she says, the words clipped. "I'm sure we can figure out your problem."