Two weeks later I have a new driver’s license and credit cards. I am early for the milonga. It is in the heart of the city, and I am having coffee and a doughnut at a Spanish café that specializes in spicy potatoes and espresso. It is eight p.m. and the dance starts at nine; I’ve got an hour to kill.
Much to my surprise, Anya walks into the café and heads straight for my table.
She fires off an order in Spanish at the barista and drops into the chair across from me with theatrical exhaustion. She’s breathing hard, dressed in what appears to be the same torn T‑shirt from the last time we met—though it doesn’t look dirty.
“What’s good, fossil?” she says, flashing a grin. “Miss me?”
I blink at her. “What a coincidence. In a city of eight million people, you just happen to appear at the same café as I am?”
She waves a hand. “Relax. It’s not fate, it’s Wi‑Fi. I pinged your phone, slid into your carrier’s HLR, and voilà. You’re trackable. It’s basic cyber sleuthing, honestly.”
I nearly choke on my coffee. “You hacked my phone?”
She nods. “Home Location Register. Every carrier’s got one. Once you’re inside, it’s basically admin mode. I toggled your GPS so I could follow your vibe in real time. You’re welcome.”
“Turn it off,” I say. “Immediately.”
She studies me for a moment, then shrugs. “Okay, okay. Boundaries. We love to see it.”
I lean forward. “I got some info you might find interesting but first, what did you want to talk about?”
“If it’s about the purse snatcher,” she says, lifting one eyebrow, “I’m already there. She’s still running around. Honestly? It’s chaotic.”
I hesitate. “All right. I wonder how we should proceed now that we’ve discovered a brave new world.”
She leans in, lowering her voice. “Here’s the meta. We’re in a game. Step one: figure out who coded it. Step two: figure out if we’re playing checkers or 4‑D chess. Step three: move accordingly.”
She taps the table lightly. “Egyptian mythology is trending on the other side. Heavy theme. So far I’ve clocked three main entities: Ma’at—you’ve met her—plus Isis and Ra. I’m ninety percent sure they’re running the server.”
“And that means?”
“It means we’re not glitching randomly. There’s structure.”
The waiter arrives with her espresso and a cannoli. She thanks him and stirs the foam.
“It’s a whole new operating system,” she continues. “We’re alive over there, which suggests it’s relatively safe. Or we’re just lucky and something big and mean hasn’t noticed us yet. Could go either way.”
She takes a sip and closes her eyes briefly. “Also, side note: there are octopi.”
“Octopuses?”
She shakes her head. “Octopi. Plural, dramatic. They’re everywhere. In water pitchers, flower vases—anywhere there’s water. It’s subtle but once you see them, you can’t unsee it.”
“That’s… unsettling.”
“It’s aesthetic,” she replies lightly. “Unsettling aesthetic.”
She brushes foam from her lip. “Anyway, the thief boosted a Hermès bag at Leslie’s milonga across town. An actual Hermès. The energy in that room? Nuclear. Leslie’s going to need emotional support after that.”
I sit back, absorbing mythology, cephalopods, and high‑end fashion crime in equal measure.
“How many people know about this?” I ask.
“Low-key, a ton of people tap into it,” she says, pointing in the air with her tiny spoon, “they just don’t clock what’s happening. It’s like their brains don’t have the update installed. They feel something glitch, something bigger, and instead of leaning in they just vibe and call it chemistry.”
She shrugs.
“I can sense them when they phase in, but it’s faint—background noise. They’re wrapped up in their partners, stuck in soft-focus mode. But you? When you crossed over, it was crystal. Full bars. No lag, no distortion. That kind of signal? Basically mythic. You're special.”
She tilts her head. “Here’s a glitch. I can’t move freely over there. I’m mostly observer‑mode. Limited mobility. It’s kind of frustrating. Like, NPC to the max. ”
“Same here,” I said. I only understood about half of what she’d just explained, but I caught NPC—non-player character. Video game terminology. That I could track. “Maybe we should talk to the thief directly. I think I danced with her last week. My wallet disappeared afterward.”
Anya’s eyes went wide. “Whoa. Okay—hard whoa. She really ran your pockets? That’s feral behavior, fossil. But you’re not wrong. We need intel. What’s her build on our side?”
“She’s tall. Nearly my height. Blonde. Big bouffant hair. Skin stretched a little too smooth—Botox, facelift, fillers. Meticulous work. Almost… curated. But she could dance. Effortless.”
Anya nodded. “Villain with aesthetics. Got it.”
“It may not have been her,” I continued, “but it felt like her. When I tried to cross over that night, something blocked me. Not random resistance—intentional. Like someone holding a door closed.
“And then it opened. Suddenly. I crossed. I have the distinct impression she allowed it—just long enough for me to glimpse her aura. The difficulty is, on the other side, I can’t always match the glow to the body. Energy doesn’t map neatly onto faces.”
“You think she was playing you,” Anya said.
“Yes. I do.”
We agreed to make contact.
She took my phone, entered her number—Anya Curie Denydov—and paid the bill before I could object. For a man raised to believe the bill was his territory, it was mildly emasculating. My pension relies heavily on Social Security, so gratitude won out over pride. Also, she was young and beautiful, I would forgive her everything. That's how it is between old men and young women.
She left for the milonga. I followed shortly after.
The ballroom ceiling soared high enough to echo stray laughter. By the time I arrived, Anya was already dancing. Four tables to my right sat a woman in an enormous hat—so large it concealed her face with the slightest tilt. I caught a glimpse of her profile. Recognition stirred my spidey-senses, that part of my Id that identifies with Spider Man.
The tanda ended. I laced my shoes and went hunting. I met her gaze and offered a cabeceo. She accepted. Up close, I was certain. She was the Botox Lady.
Navigation proved difficult; her hat was a steering hazard. I guided us toward the center of the ronda where space opened. Once our rhythm settled, I easily transcended to the other side. It was getting easier the more I did it.
On the other side she shimmered. Her aura burned a muted violet, less open than Anya’s but unmistakably aware.
A voice unfolded—not heard, exactly, but felt.
“You peer with such earnest confusion,” it said, each syllable elongated, almost musical. “How quaint.”
“Terpsichore,” I murmured as her identity revealed itself to me.
“Yes.”
She disclosed herself in layers. Terpsichore. A quantum symbiont. The host—Victoria Van Hovencamp—anchored her to this plane. My wallet materialized between us. A blush of rosey red spread through her aura.
“Your anchor. We borrow only what vibrates.” She extended it to me with an invisible hand.
I hesitated—then took it. The weight felt real. Solid. I slipped it into my back pocket. Interaction. I had done it. When my fingers pressed the leather, I snapped back into the ballroom, still in Victoria’s arms.
She was difficult to look at but exquisite to dance with. She folded into me with practiced precision. Breath quick, palms warm and sweaty. There was a heat to her—controlled, deliberate.
When the tanda ended, she lingered within my embrace.
“That was lovely,” she drawled softly. “You may ask me anytime.” Her gaze dipped with bold appraisal to my very visible arousal before she returned to her seat.
Near midnight, just before a visiting Argentine couple was scheduled to perform, I found Anya again. She was pacing.
“I can’t cross,” she muttered. “It’s like the door’s patched.”
Before I could respond, she seized my hand and pulled me into a side antechamber—then into a coatroom heavy with the odor of wool and perfume.
Her frustration was kinetic. Urgent.
What followed was less choreography than collision—impatient, searching. I barely understood how we reached the floor. I only knew she was intent, focused on breaking through whatever barrier had locked her out.
When she climaxed, her body went still—then distant.
I felt it when she went quantum. Less than a second later, she returned, collapsing on top of me, breath shuddering. She rolled off me and we lay there in the dark.
“What was that about?” I asked finally.
“I couldn’t get across all night,” she said, staring at the ceiling. “I was desperate. Turns out intensity is the key.” She glanced at me. “You good, boomey? I might’ve gone full send.”
“I have asthma,” I said, apologetically, “but I survived.”
She huffed a laugh. I don't know why I felt I had to apologize for anything. What happened was a wonderful gift for an old man. I was happy just to stay hard enough for her to finish. It felt like marriage sex. I came first but stayed turgid until I knew she was close and let loose on my second orgasm with enough drama to make her buzzer ring.
“She was there,” Anya continued, shifting onto her side, we were in total darkness but I could feel her eyes staring at my face. “Hard to read, but I caught something. She’s into identity anchors—objects that stabilize narrative selfhood. Wallets, bags, heirlooms. She’s not stealing for fun. She’s calibrating.”
“Calibrating what?”
“Balance. What for? I don't know. And get this—she’s a Zombot.”
“Come again?”
“Zombie host. Quantum symbiont. Dual occupancy. It’s a whole ecosystem.”
That aligned with what Terpsichore had shown me but I think I understood it better now that she reaffirmed it.
Anya’s thoughts spilled out rapid-fire.
“She’s aligned with Isis—balance-keeper vibes. And Ra’s in the mix. The octopi are agents, I think. Gatekeepers? Surveillance? I can’t hold the full architecture in my brain at once. It’s like trying to run twelve tabs on one processor.”
She stood, adjusting her clothes in the dark.
I switched on my phone’s flashlight. The light carved her out of shadow—sharp, alive, unapologetically present. Her pert breasts bobbled as she pulled her T-shirt down and flashed me a quick grin.
Applause echoed from the ballroom.
We slipped back into the crowd. She insisted we dance again.
“Now that the blockage is cleared,” she said, “I want to test range.”
During the final song of the tanda, she caught the quantum wave—then pulled me through with her. The transition was smooth. Our auras merged—interlaced like binary stars. Together, we were amplified.
The octopi were everywhere now, luminous and watchful.
A new presence formed in the room: an old man’s aura, spherical and complete—less vapor, more planet. He radiated a life fully inhabited. He seemed confused. Blinded by something we could not see.
The octopi all turned toward him, one eye open, bright, glowing, pupils wide. A door opened by the water pitcher at the back of the room. White light poured out—impossibly bright and white.
The old man hesitated, then stepped through. The door slammed with a vacuum crack that shook the air. Thunder clapped and were expelled.
The music ended and we sat down together. Moments later, a man collapsed in the center of the dance floor. It was the man we had seen in the quantum realm.
Screams. Someone shouting for space. A defibrillator. “Clear!”
The body jerked.
Again. “Clear!”
Paramedics flooded in. The room emptied in stunned silence. The dance was over.
