Alternating Reality

A man in a robot suit is dashing through Manhattan. Rockefeller Center, stippled with lights from office windows, looms overhead. The neon marquee of NBC Studios streaks by. It’s dusk, and the district is lit with the starbursts of headlights and an overgrowth of signs.

“I just got a text from Chuck! She’s in Times Square. We’ve got to catch her!” he pants, waving his mobile in the air.

He stumbles onto Broadway. The suit, which is cobbled together from cardboard boxes and resembles a Halloween costume, is obviously bothering him. He stops to catch his breath. The bystanders look confused. Then he spots her. She is swathed in tangled red hair and a white T-shirt, heading toward the 42nd Street station. A brief trot, and the moment crescendos into a scene straight out of a movie: The one where the girl is getting away, and the guy who loves her—or, in this case, the robot—must catch her.