“We all ran outside to the parking lot. Then two people wearing suits—a man and a woman—stepped out of the shuttle and asked for me by my full name, which was weirdly humiliating, like getting called to the principal’s office or something. They said they needed my ‘assistance with a matter of urgent national security.’ What was I supposed to do? They were riding around in a spaceship from a videogame, and I knew I couldn’t spend the rest of my life wondering what it looked like on the inside, or where it was going to take me—so I went with them.”
