The man in white had watched the whole thing, smiling. Still shaking, Jonathan & Steve brushed past him and headed out to the back porch.

"Play," Jonathan said. "Just...play. Maybe there's a key to all this. They left us the instruments."

"Get your head out of your @$$," Steve said, his voice low. "You really trust 'em?"

But Jonathan was staring in horror at his hands and the piano...

The man in white had followed them out to the porch, now accompanied by a woman who kept making eyes at Steve. "Yes," the man said. "Go on. Play. And play well, my dear Sims. If you can."

"We," Steve said, "are NOT --"

"You are," the man said. "Welcome to Simville, Steve Perry and Jonathan Cain. Sims you are, and most welcome, indeed. A welcome that you will never leave."

Jonathan stood up. "Get out."

With a slight smile, the man and the woman walked out.

Later that night, Neal finally got up from the kitchen table and made his way out to the back porch. The others were curled up in the decrepit beds, trying to get some rest after all the shocks. But Neal couldn't sleep. He picked up the cartoon Gibsim; he knew it was only pixels and light, but it felt solid enough. He ran his fingers over the frets...

...and only scales, halting & unsure, came out.

"No," Neal whispered, trying to make his fingers pick out Wheel In The Sky. He knew the riff, he KNEW it, he could feel his fingers playing...

...only slow, halting scales.

The guitar dropped from his hands, and Neal backed away, running for the bedroom and dropping onto the nearest empty bed. He curled up, staring into the dimmed colors for a long time before he finally fell into exhausted unconsciousness...

The next morning, the green numbers were even lower. For a moment, the band just stared at them, until Jonathan shoved Neal and Smitty towards the porch.

"Jay..." Neal said. "We can't...they..."

"I know," Jonathan said. "I found out last night with Steve. Just play. We'll figure 'em out somehow."

"And THEN what?" Smitty said.

"There's a computer," Jonathan said. "And a newspaper. And other people exist here, sort of. There has to be some way to make those numbers go up. There HAS to be."

"I feel like Dorothy staring at the Wicked Witch's ball," Smitty muttered.