Speedrunning the Psyop

The strap on the VR headset smelled like industrial bleach and forehead sweat.

I sat in the plastic chair, peeling a hangnail on my left thumb until it bled. The fluorescent lights overhead hummed a flat, angry note. It was Spring in Melgund Creek. You could tell because the heavy yellow pollen was currently coating the cracked windows of Room 204, sticking to the glass like a disease. Outside, the town was supposed to be waking up. Rebirth. Renewal. The Mayor’s office had plastered the streets with digital billboards showing blooming flowers and smiling citizens. Inside, we were just livestock waiting for the slaughter.

Mateo sat in the chair next to me. His right leg bounced up and down. A rapid-fire vibration. It shook the entire row of connected seats.

"Stop it," I said.

He didn't look at me. He just kept staring at the blank screen at the front of the room. "I can't. My stomach is eating itself."

"It's just a test," I said. I wiped the tiny bead of blood from my thumb onto my jeans. The denim was frayed at the knee. Everything I owned was frayed. Life in Melgund Creek was a series of transactions, and we were always out of currency.

"It's not just a test, Cleo," Mateo whispered. His voice was tight. He finally turned to me. His eyes were red. The spring pollen made everyone look like they had been crying for a week. Or maybe they actually had. "They changed the algorithm. My brother said they track pupil dilation now. Heart rate. Sweat. If you don't actually believe the answers you select, the rig knows."

I let out a short, harsh breath. "Good. Let it know."

Mateo frowned. "What?"

"This whole town is a dystopian shithole," I said. I leaned back, crossing my arms. The plastic chair dug into my spine. "I am tanking this exam."

Mateo stopped chewing the inside of his cheek. His jaw dropped a fraction. "Cleo, don't. Seriously."

"Watch me," I said. I stared at the row of VR pods lining the back wall. They looked like cheap coffins made of white plastic. "I'm going to speedrun it. Straight zeroes. I'm picking the worst possible answers for every civic scenario. Let them flag me. Let them see exactly what I think of their 'Spring Renewal' bullshit."

Mateo leaned in close. He smelled like cheap body spray and stale coffee. "If you fail, your universal credits are wiped," he said, his voice dropping to a harsh hiss. "No cap, you will be on the streets. You think the Mayor's office cares if you're trying to make a point? They'll just zero your account and lock you out of the grid. You won't be able to buy a protein bar, let alone pay your mom's rent."

I clenched my jaw. He was right, of course. He was always right about the logistics of survival. But I was so tired. The exhaustion was in my bones. Every day was a performance. Smile at the checkpoint cameras. Nod at the automated public service announcements. Pretend that the town wasn't sinking into a localized economic depression while the local government funneled universal credits into their own private security forces.

I didn't want to perform anymore. Apathy was my armor. If I didn't care, they couldn't hurt me.

"I don't care about the credits," I lied. My stomach turned over at the thought of my mother's face if she found out I got us evicted. But I pushed the image away. "I'm tired of playing along, Matty. It's a psyop. They just want to see how far we'll bend before we break. I'm choosing not to bend."

"You're choosing to jump off a cliff," he said.

"Attention, seniors."

Mr. Harrison stood at the front of the room. He looked terrible. His suit jacket was shiny at the elbows, and he had dark, bruised-looking bags under his eyes. Even the teachers were worn down. "Please proceed to your assigned testing pods. Secure your biometric straps tightly. The simulation will begin in two minutes."

Mateo looked at me one last time. "Please, Cleo. Just pick the safe answers. Just get through it."

"See you on the other side," I said.

I stood up. My knees popped. I walked to Pod 12. The inside of the pod was lined with cheap foam padding. I sat down and pulled the heavy headset over my eyes. The screen was dark. I reached blindly for the biometric straps, pulling them tight across my wrists and chest. The metal sensors were freezing against my skin.

I took a deep breath. The air inside the headset was stale.

Boot sequence initiated.

The text was sharp green against the black screen.

Calibrating biometrics. Heart rate: 88 BPM. Cortisol levels: Elevated. Welcome to the Melgund Creek Civic Loyalty Evaluation. Year 2026. Spring Semester.

I braced myself. I knew what was coming. The standard simulation. Usually, it dropped you into a virtual version of the town square. A digital avatar of the Mayor would give a speech about community and sacrifice. Then, you'd be presented with scenarios. 'You see your neighbor hoarding unapproved water rations. Do you report them?'

I had my finger hovering over the virtual interface, ready to hit 'Ignore' or 'Steal the water for myself' or whatever the most penalized answer was. I wanted to break their little test.

Simulation loading...

The green text vanished.

I waited for the virtual town square. I waited for the bright, fake sunshine.

Nothing happened.

It was just dark. Not black screen dark. It was a deep, textured gray. Like looking into a thick fog.

Then, my stomach dropped.

It was a violent physical sensation. My inner ear screamed. I wasn't sitting in the chair anymore. I was falling. Up.

The gravity in the simulation inverted. Blood rushed to my head. I gasped, trying to grab the armrests of the physical chair, but my virtual hands wouldn't respond. I was suspended in the gray fog, floating upside down, my heart hammering against my ribs.

"Error," I tried to say. My voice didn't make a sound in the simulation. It was just swallowed by the fog.

This wasn't the town square. This wasn't the multiple-choice test.

The fog below me—or above me, I couldn't tell anymore—began to shift. Shapes emerged. They were heavy, wet sounds. Like meat hitting a tile floor.

I squinted, trying to make sense of the geometry. Three figures materialized out of the gray. But they weren't human. Not exactly. They wore the dark suits of the local politicians, the sharp blazers of the school board. But they had no faces.

Their heads were just smooth, pale domes of flesh. And they were melting.

Thick, heavy drops of digital skin sloughed off their shoulders, pooling into the gray floor. They dragged themselves toward me. The gravity seemed normal for them, while I was still pinned upside down in the air.

"What is this?" I yelled. This time, my voice worked. It sounded thin. Scared.

I hated how scared I sounded.

The middle blob—the one wearing a suit that looked exactly like the Mayor's—raised a hand. The fingers were fused together.

It didn't speak with a voice. The sound came directly into the base of my skull. A low, whining vibration.

Please, the vibration said.

The figure collapsed to its knees. The knees flattened out like wet clay.

Please, Cleo. We need you. We are nothing without your compliance. Look at us. We are empty.

I stared in horror. The suit shifted, and the pale flesh underneath bubbled. The other two figures joined in, crawling toward where I hung in the air. They were reaching up, their formless hands grasping at the empty space below me.

They weren't threatening me. They weren't demanding loyalty. They were begging.

It was the most pathetic, repulsive thing I had ever seen.

You think you are rebelling, the voice echoed in my head. It sounded like an AI trained on the voice of a depressed, exhausted middle-aged man. You think your apathy is a weapon. You are going to tank the exam. You are going to show us.

"Shut up," I said. I struggled against the virtual restraints. I wanted to hit the exit button. I tried to lift my hand, but it felt like I was moving through wet cement.

Why are you really doing this, Cleo?

The figures melted further, dissolving into a puddle of gray sludge, but the voice got louder. It filled the entire space. It felt like it was pressing against my eardrums.

You call it a political statement. You tell Mateo the town is a shithole. But that is just a story you tell yourself so you don't have to admit the truth.

"Log out!" I screamed. "End simulation!"

You aren't a rebel, Cleo.

The gray fog stripped away. Suddenly, I was looking at a mirror. Just me, suspended in the void. But the reflection was hyper-realistic. Every pore, every dark circle under my eyes, the frayed collar of my shirt.

You are just alone, the voice whispered.

My chest seized. A sharp pain shot through my ribs.

You push Mateo away because you know he is going to leave anyway. You hate the town because it is easier to hate a place than to admit you have no place in it. Your cynicism is a joke. A pathetic defense mechanism against total social isolation.

The reflection in the mirror started to cry. But I wasn't crying. I was just staring at it. The reflection's face contorted in absolute despair.

If you fail the test, you get kicked off the grid. If you get kicked off the grid, you become invisible. And that is what you really want, isn't it? You want an excuse to vanish because you are too terrified to actually participate in being alive.

"Stop it," I choked out. The somatic feedback of the pod was going haywire. The biometric straps around my chest were squeezing tighter. I couldn't pull a full breath into my lungs. My skin felt freezing cold, but sweat was dripping down my neck.

Look at yourself. Look at the rebel.

The reflection in the mirror opened its mouth, and a stream of black, digital static poured out.

It was too much. The simulation wasn't testing my loyalty to the town. It was mining my psychological profile. It was taking my exact coping mechanisms and reflecting them back as a grotesque horror show. They didn't need to threaten me with police or starvation. They just needed to show me how small and sad I actually was.

The panic took over completely.

I didn't try to use the virtual interface anymore. I forced my physical body to react. I threw my arms up, fighting the heavy resistance of the biometric straps.

The metal sensors dug into my wrists. I ignored the pain. I felt the physical edge of the VR headset.

"Get off!"

I dug my fingernails under the thick plastic seal. The pod's alarm started blaring in the real world. A shrill, mechanical shriek.

Warning. Unsafe disconnect. Warning.

I ripped the headset up. The velcro straps tore at my hair. The suction seal broke with a wet pop.

Light flooded my vision. Harsh, flat, fluorescent light.

I gasped, sucking in the stale, pollen-tinged air of Room 204. I was shaking. My whole body was vibrating like a tuning fork. I slumped forward in the plastic chair, the heavy headset dangling from my hand by a thick black cord.

I stared at the floor. The cheap, cracked linoleum tiles. I tracked the pattern. One, two, three. Grounding myself.

"Cleo?"

I jumped. I turned my head.

Mateo was standing next to my pod. He had already taken his headset off.

"Are you okay?" he asked. He looked concerned. Normal.

"Yeah," I breathed out. I dropped the headset. It clattered against the side of the pod. "Yeah, I'm fine. The simulation... it glitched. It was crazy."

I looked past him. Mr. Harrison was still at the front of the room. He was staring at his tablet. The other students were slowly pulling their headsets off, looking bored or tired. The heavy yellow pollen was still stuck to the windows.

Everything was normal.

I rubbed my face. My skin felt clammy. "Did you pass?" I asked Mateo.

"Yeah," he said. He gave a weak smile. "I just picked all the middle options. Total compliance. It took like five minutes."

"Right," I said. I stood up. My legs felt like lead.

But as I grabbed my backpack from the floor, I stopped.

I looked at the desk next to mine. There was a dark stain on the plastic. Someone had spilled ink or coffee. I remembered seeing it before I put the headset on.

I stared at the stain.

It was shifting.

Just slightly. The edges of the dark spot were crawling outward, like tiny black veins pushing through the plastic.

I blinked hard. I looked away, up at the fluorescent lights. The hum was different. It wasn't a flat note anymore. It had a rhythm. A low, whining vibration.

Please.

My breath hitched. I spun around to look at Mateo.

"We should get out of here," Mateo said. "Lunch is starting."

I stared at his face. At his mouth.

"Yeah," I said. "Let's go."

He nodded and turned to walk toward the door. I followed him, my stomach twisting into a cold, tight knot. I watched the back of his head, tracking his movements against the background of the classroom. The proportions felt wrong. The space between the desks felt too wide. The air from the air conditioning vent felt entirely synthetic, like a programmed breeze.

And as we walked out into the hallway, Mateo asked me what I wanted from the cafeteria.

His mouth moved a fraction of a second before the sound actually reached my ears.