By the time Ascension Day arrived, I was a hollowed-out shell of my former self.

  In the days just before, I had been holed up in my bungalow, skipping daily activities entirely as I descended into a swirl of self-recrimination and grievances.

  This, true to my nature, did earn me some paltry metric points in the Delight and Enjoyment categories, seeing as there was nothing I liked more than blaming myself and others for the problems in my life.

  By the time the eager crowd arrived, ready for my speech, I had almost gotten a few of the categories into the negative hundreds.

  "If you carried on like this for a few more years," Meg informed me, in a calculation I demanded she make, "I suppose you could theoretically eventually Ascend."

  For a second, I genuinely considered this path. Maybe I could blow the whole thing off. Maybe if I just drew the curtains, word could be put out to some shrewd propagandists that I'd decided to retreat from the world in some kind of noble act.

  "Meg," I started, suddenly animated by this prospect, "can we get word out to the Council of Objective Truth that I'm taking a sabbatical for, I don't know, a reason less cowardly than what I'm actually doing?"

  I jumped to my feet, the first time in days I'd done so.

  "They were the ones who came up with the Holiness of Halitosis, right? I figured they could spin this pretty well if we start now."

  "We could do that, Ludo."

  I rubbed my hands together like a cartoon villain.

  "Or, you could finish what you started."

  Suddenly, in a nasty flourish of omniscient power I hadn't seen since MegaTech?, Meg somehow made my entire bungalow melt away.

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  I found myself standing amongst the stunned masses, my toga still tied up into the funny little crop top that helped me unwind.

  "Remember, Ludo. The System rewards sincerity."

  **

  I frantically worked to fix my toga to be presentable as the silent crowd attempted to integrate this effete quirk into their conception of me.

  I was left without a choice. It was time for me to speak.

  A scribe appeared and asked me if On the Principles of Pacification would be a fitting title for the compendium of my sayings and teachings within the Garden.

  I had always rather hoped to call my first published work Twizted Greetingz From the Ludoverse, but figured at this rate there would be plenty of later occasions to get my true, off-kilter sensibility out there.

  This moment wasn't about that. This moment was about putting myself forward as the foremost proponent of good, old-fashioned “hanging out” (a euphemism I find particularly hard to fathom, given some of the unfortunate experiences I'd had with steel-reinforced rope and spaceship windows).

  As I opened my mouth to speak, I reflected on the fact that this was a subject I knew nothing about and had absolutely no opinions of substance on. This was not unusual to me, seeing as I had pretty much bluffed my way through every conversation I'd ever had.

  This topic, though—tranquility, happiness, contentment—these were particular blind spots for me. I had failed in spectacular, unprecedented fashion.

  I suppose it was always going to end this way, I thought, as I attempted to stall by clearing my throat repeatedly. This discomfort with comfort was practically woven into my DNA.

  To relax, I'd been taught from the time I was very young, was to let one's guard down, opening yourself up to all of the cruelties of the world. As the words emblazoned on my family's crest put it, "That's When The Getters Get Ya."

  I'd internalized this logic as a fact of life.

  But standing there, staring out at a crowd of blissed-out demigods in meat suits they’d designed for themselves without a hint of self-consciousness, as I prepared to perform tranquility to save my skin—

  For maybe the first time ever, I wondered: what was actually stopping me?

  Meg's insistence on authenticity rang out in my head, not least of all because she was muttering inside my frontal cortex like a deranged stage mom.

  How far, really, had this philosophy gotten me? Hadn't the world done plenty to punish me even as I kept myself ever-vigilant?

  The Getters had long ago been locked away, consigned to the dustbin of history for their crimes. And yet I still carried the scars of my ancestors.

  I let the warm breeze wash over me. For the first time since I'd gotten here, I became aware of my body. The sensations, in that moment, were not just strange quirks of a new layer of the System.

  I was flesh and blood.

  Alive.