Project Frontier

Chapter 5

1

The Sheriff's Office looks like someone copied and paced a building from three different asset packs and hoped nobody would notice,

which, given the state of this entire simulation, was probably exactly what happened.

The front facade renders in sepia-ed photorealism, complete with authentic wood grain

and period-appropriate weathering. The left side wall is flat polygon gray with texture missing,

repeating in tiny letters like the world's most honest wallpaper. The right side can't decide if it wants to be adobe or would, flickering between the two

every minute or so.

It's some time after midnight, or what passes for midnight in a place where time moves like

a drunk snake.

After the blacksmith shop, Scott decided that this would be the best place to check for a way out.

If he were coding a back door, he would put it here or in a bank vault.

He really hopes it's not in the bank vault.

The street is empty except for a tumbleweed that's been rolling past the same storefront

for the last ten minutes, stuck in a path-finding loop that keeps bouncing off an

invisible wall. The moon overhead is full. Scott guesses that the moon is always full here,

and it casts shadows that fall at angles that would make a geometry teacher weep. Scott keeps to those

impossible shadows as he approaches, his boots making that weird, no sound pattern on the glitched floorboards that

extends from the saloon all the way down Main Street. Every seventh step is silent. He's learned to count,

to time his movements to those dead zones in the audio engine. It's probably pointless. The

MPCs seem about as to wear his furniture, but paranoia is the only thing keeping his brain from

...