Bagman gestures wildly on the television screen. This is the ad for the Reality Situation you've seen before.

Bagman gestures wildly on the television screen. This is the ad for the Reality Situation you've seen before.

A strange feeling courses through you.

The man you shot lives on. Not just in this advert, but in the minds of those who watch it.

His ideas will spread across the city, passed down through generations, like paranoiac family heirlooms.

His death will make him a martyr of the truth.

It'll be easy for his supporters to take hold of this and run away with it.

They may not even mourn him. Someone else could just wear the bag, adopt the title.

Or they could use his death as proof that he was onto something.

The screen warps, and colour shifts. Between clips of Bagman talking, a phone number flashes urgently.

This 'Bagman' must be behind the theft of my red disc.

Either him or one of his so-called 'partisans'.

Perhaps an enthusiastic grunt, acting on their own initiative, to please their commanding officer.

This Bagman must be behind the attack on me in the rocket silo.

Who... and what... is this?

"I am Subcomandante Bagman, and this is 'The Reality Situation'. No breaks. No filters. No cowards!"

A professional would at least alter their voice.

Subcomandante? Who gave him that rank?

"... this is a war, and I don't take orders from anyone. Especially not Reality..." He glares into the camera, paper slot wide.

Careful, he's about to prematurely oraculate.

This man is a lunatic.

"...the moon is a projection beamed from the seafloor by machines so advanced they look like rocks..." He holds up a photo of a single rock.

(Nod.) Finally, someone who says what we've all been thinking.

The word 'FLUORIDE' appears in bold, white letters. They pulse once, then scatter outward, as if detonated by unseen forces.

The excitement, the anticipation, it's all got you feeling a little on edge.

But doesn't reality outrank most military structures?

Above Bagman's head, the words 'PSYCHIC CONTROL GRIDS' scroll across the screen.

Salute Bagman.

He salutes you back.

Alternative wording

He salutes you back. The bag on your head makes a crinkle sound in your ear.

For a second, you see a third eyehole open in his bag. But then it goes.

THE PEOPLE. UNITED. UNDER ONE BAG.

This is the kind of bag-on-bag action the villains at the top want to deny the world.

He salutes you back.

Alternative wording

He salutes you back. The bag on your head makes a crinkle sound in your ear.

Keep watching.

"I know all about the boars. The techno-fascist imprints who secretly rule La Luz. Weaponised nostalgia. Microbial microphones. Lunar obfuscation programs."

"Now ask yourself: Why is the man with the bag on his head the only one saying these things? 'The Reality Situation': Airing until they shut us down!"

A mish-mash of conspiratorial nonsense commonly found in most of the Developed World. One exception: the boars, which may just be a local oddity.

What else are they hiding from us?!

Wait, what was that about 'imprints'?

"For 300 years, the Luzian elite have been producing psychic copies of themselves, all to preserve the consciousness of one man -- the original techno-fascist!"

Write down his number.

You jot down the digits as Bagman watches on.

Turn away from the TV. [Leave.]

The sounds from the commercial fade.

I didn't kill him after all.

Physically, you did. Whether you did in any other way is yet to be seen.

A child sits cross-legged, giggling at 'the funny man' on-screen. Her parents look on, glad she's there and not caught up in any trouble -- not realising how much their overprotectiveness will cause in years to come.

I didn't wang him after all.

This is what he always wanted.

To escape the trappings of reality, but to also ripple down its timeline as a voice immemorial.

He'll be forgotten. Just like everyone else.

But his ideas may not. They tend to have a longer shelf life, especially if they're co-opted by others.

The screen flickers. Static turns to black. A booming voice emerges:

"Did you know water covers approximately 63% of the world, but the sky covers ONE-HUNDRED PERCENT?"

Obviously.

"WRONG! The sky is only 98% sky. The other 2% is used to cover up the fact that they replaced the moon. Four times!"

On screen there appears a man with a paper bag over his head. He gesticulates wildly.

A brown paper bag. That can only be...

"But they don't want you to know that. That's why they're coming for me -- but not before I tell you the truth."

The screen warps, and colour shifts. Between clips of the bagged man talking, a phone number flashes urgently.

(Narrow your eyes.) What's the world trying to hide?