Excerpt:

When I was a kid I always looked forward to Simulation Day. The parents at school always were talking about it, making preparations. It was a big, planet-wide fuss. Everything else shut down for the experience.

I remember my first time; it was pretty stupid, of course. Hey, I was a kid. There wasn't much I wanted to experience, you know? Christmas was in a month and my family didn't have a lot of money, see. So my sister Emily and I weren't really expecting to get much; we knew better.

There were advertisements for the new big toy on some of the TVs in town. Small hovercraft sleds, and now that I look back on it, they were kind of stupid.

Anyway, when my first Simulation Day came, that hovercraft sled was on my mind. I spent the entire day with the simulation designed that I was the only kid who got one and everyone was envious of being my friend and trying it out. Then the next day I went back to our little, ancient seeming-home (we couldn't really afford most of the new age tech) and got ready for school.

God, those were the days.

My last Simulation Day I tried to create a haven where Earth would always be in existence and the hive would never reach us, but that was ripped out of all our hands. Now if only I could get the queen's face out of my nightmares.