Dizzy sped across the desert sands, flooring the gas, and thankfully, the NeuroScape’s virtual version of the Fangirl did not disappoint. She checked her rearview mirror — yup, the Elder God was still there, swooping down over them with its huge bat-like wings fully unfurled, its wingspan at least forty meters — and then engaged the car’s Repulsivator nacelles to lend it extra speed . . . and flight. The car bucked and groaned as the nacelles came online, and then slowly began to lift off the ground and gain additional speed as it rose into the air, its long coffin-nose leading the way.

  “Whoa!” said Astrid. “It flies?”

  “Yup,” said Dizzy, offering her a sly smile. “She certainly does. The real world version of her flies too.”

  “Damn, that is cool,” said Astrid. She turned around in her seat to look out the back window. “I don’t see the monster.”

  “Try lookin’ up, dearheart,” advised Dizzy.

  Astrid turned again and stuck her head out the window and twisted her body, looking upwards. “Aw shit.”

  The Elder God was soaring directly above them, pursuing them — no, pursuing her, Dizzy knew; it still wanted into her, inside her; well, it could want in one clawed appendage and crap in the other! — its enormous wings flapping, creating a phenomenal downdraft that pushed down upon the Fangirl as she clawed for altitude and Dizzy poured on more speed. It was a race. But to where? To what end? They had to break free of this level of the Simulation somehow . . . She had to wake up, zap herself back to that virtual, mad-science, star-chamber laboratory of Ravenkroft’s . . . But how? Where was this Simulation’s exit-point, if it even had one?

  She pulled back on the steering wheel to pull the car higher, up into the downdraft from the monstrous Elder God, and the car shook with the fury of the wind’s friction. Above them, the Elder God flew up and around in a giant, arcing circle, and then swooped down again and dove at them, and caught the car by the roof with one of its giant clawed hands, its talons digging into the metal with a loud squealing crunch as the steel ruptured. Astrid let loose a small cry as the roof buckled under the stress and the thing’s claws grazed her head — they grazed Dizzy’s too — but Dizzy kept her cool. Or at least tried too. Wasn’t easy. Gods dammit, the thing was persistent, she’d give it that. It lifted the car up off the ground, but she fought it, pouring maximum power into the Repulsivator nacelles . . . practically fracturing the spacetime continuum — or at least the NeuroScape’s simulation of space and time, if it was following the rules to the letter — at their focal point matrices. The beast roared in pain — the nacelles’ warp fields had obviously intersected its wrist or hand — and it let them go. The car zoomed away, Dizzy and Astrid both suddenly plastered to their seats with g-forces. Dammit, she’d forgotten to activate the gods-damned inertial dampeners! She reached forward — gods, it was hard, with such force pressing on her! — and switched them on, and both she and Astrid collapsed forward with a groan, the g-forces abating for the moment. Behind them, the beast opened its maw and roared at them, a powerful, ululating cry of archangelic fury.

  The monster dove at them again, and Astrid chanced another look up and out the window.

  “Uh, Dizzy?” she said. “You . . . might wanna know something.”

  “What?” said Dizzy.

  “Well, for one thing, that thing is still chasing us. It’s as fast as your car is.”

  “Not tee-totally surprising,” said Dizzy as she flew. “It is a god, after all, and this is Ravenkroft’s Simulation. His rules, primarily. So of course it’s catching up to us.”

  “And for another . . .” said Astrid, checking the view again, “I think that thing’s got an energy weapon in its face.”

  “Say what now?”

  “Dizzy, quick! Does this thing have force-fields?”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Well, yeah, but — ”

  “Turn them on! Turn them on now!”

  Dizzy leaned forward and hit the force-field generator’s power switch. Nothing happened. Apparently, the NeuroScape’s simulation of the Fangirl didn’t include its force-fields. Either that, or they weren’t working properly. She hit the switch again. Still nothing.

  “Uh, well shit,” said Dizzy.

  The pulse of energy slammed into roof of the car, causing it to buckle and rip open on the left side, just above where Astrid sat. She uttered a small shriek.

  Dizzy frowned and smacked the control panel containing the force-field switch. Ah — that did it. The lights above the force-field switch came on, winking and blinking like they should have. A soap-bubble like shimmer appeared around the perimeter of the car, just as another blast of purple witch-light flashed and the beast above them roared in frustration.

  Focus, Dizzy told herself. Okay, think of a plan.

  And in an instant, she had one.

  “Okay,” she said, “this is gonna be tricky. But I think I’ve got an idea of how to beat this thing.”

  “Okay, how?” said Astrid.

  Dizzy engaged in evasive maneuvers as the monster grabbed for the car again, just barely avoiding getting caught in its claws. It grabbed at the car with its other hand, and she zoomed out of the way just in time again, cutting their velocity just enough to avoid capture then racing past its claws and around them. It fired another energy pulse from its tentacled maw and the blast ricochetted off the force-field, and the car shook. The force-field flickered on and off, on and off. Astrid gulped. Dizzy let out a long, slow breath. Please hold, she thought. C’mon, girl. She willed the Fangirl simulation to function properly, to keep the field turned on. C’mon girl; real or virtual, I know you can do it.

  “Well,” said Dizzy, as she banked the car in the air to avoid capture yet again “the NeuroScape simulates reality, right? All aspects of reality. Or rather, of experience. And it links those experiences together into a simulation of reality. So I’m going to pit the logic of Ravenkroft’s simulation — and the logic of this alien god’s presence within it — against the logic of the NeuroScape’s fundamental reality-simulation programming. Prepare yourself for a trip into the eighth dimension, Astrid.”

  “Say what?”

  “Well, okay, a simulation of what the eighth dimension is supposed to be like. The real Fangirl, back in the real world, doesn’t have one of these, o’ course. But I made sure when I programmed this baby that I included this little ‘dealer’s option.’ Just for funzies. Never thought it’d be a life-saver . . . All hail Earl Mac Rauch! In the sacred name of Buckaroo Banzai, we pray!”

  “Oh I get it,” said Astrid, nodding. “You’re insane.”

  “I try.” Dizzy reached over to the area between the driver and passenger seats, to a small dodecahedron-like metal cage that sat suspended between the two, which contained a strange-looking little device that bore a slight resemblance to an oblong, oddly-shaped, ergonomic-style computer mouse; festooned with tiny red, yellow, and blue lights, it had wires and hoses running into it, and a small dial and three switches sitting next to it. While flying the car one handed, Dizzy flipped all three switches and carefully rotated the dial three turns. The little computer-mouse-like device began to whirl and rotate along all three axis within its metal cage, emitting motor-like whining sounds as it did. The touch-screen display on the Fangirl’s dashboard popped up a window that showed the car rotating in three dimensions, with a graphical outline around it that slowly closed in on it from all sides, encasing it like a cocoon; beneath it, the words “SINED . . .” and then “SEALED” appeared. Dizzy frowned. “Okay,” she said. “I hope that Mr. Cthulu’s face-mounted energy beam didn’t damage the Helium-Neon laser mounted on the roof. ‘Cause if it did, we’re kinda sunk here. Ready for anything, Astrid?”

  “Uh, what exactly are we doing?”

  Dizzy grinned, and put both hands back on the wheel, and avoided the monster’s claws one more time as it grabbed for the car once again. It had lousy hand-eye coordination for a god.

  “I’ll tell ya on the flip-side,” said Dizzy. “Hold onta your butt, girlfriend.” She yanked back on the steering wheel as hard as she could, and the car tipped upward. And suddenly, they were staring at the belly of the beast, the stomach of the Elder God. Its leathery skin gleamed with sweat and slime. Dizzy pushed a button on the steering wheel, and a green laser beam shot out from the roof of the car and hit the god’s abdomen, lighting up an area there, but not penetrating it. Then Dizzy cried out, “Engine room! Gimme ramming speed!”

  The car shot forward, headed straight for the beast. The tiny mouse-like device emitted several high-pitched beeps.

  “Dizzy, what are you doing!” screamed Astrid.

  “Alpha-Velveeta-Knuckle-Underwear, we are a go for phase two!” cackled Dizzy, still grinning. The car seemed to leap forward then suddenly, in a savage burst of velocity that plastered Astrid to the seat harder than any other had so far.

  And at that moment, they hit the Elder God’s skin . . . and just as Dizzy knew they would, they “crossed over” into the NeuroScape’s simulation of the Eighth Dimension.