In the middle of a hotel hallway I ran into my old group from my old firm having a meeting. I looked around. While most of the faces were new, of course, a few were familiar. A few were there who had left before I did.

I was looking at a display of boxed tchotchkes, mostly pens, when one of the old office managers, apparently recognizing me, told me not to take any and hinted strongly that I should leave. I had some papers and one of the tchotchkes in my hand, but I didn’t remember taking it; I think someone who had talked to me had given it to me. I tried to hide it from her in the papers. Her attitude seemed unduly belligerent and offensive, the opposite of mine. I was mainly curious.

Then a young man was introduced whom I knew to be a temporary administrative assistant. His computer screen was projected; it was a simulation of a battle. His side went into retreat immediately and could not recover, and I was embarrassed for him since he was supposed to be an expert. The person who had introduced him said, “Consolidate your forces!” so he rammed them altogether on a beachhead at twilight in a massive pileup.

I remembered what had been said of me (I was told) when I left, that I had walked out abruptly, without warning or notice, and how no one had believed such an obvious fabrication. I still resent it.

I was on a bus full of people from work who are below the AVP level. I knew this, although I recognized only two of them — the director of projects and the applications manager. They told me that we had been at the Palo Alto community to work on “resident documentation.”

I couldn’t remember being at the community. I couldn’t remember flying to California. I did not know why these two would manage such a project — the nature of which I couldn’t imagine — or why so many people from so many disciplines would be involved. I couldn’t remember getting on the bus. All this continued to puzzle me, along with the fact that I didn’t know anyone else.

The bus was barreling over a series of hills, complete with steep slopes and twists and turns. The time seemed to be on the cusp of darkness, the tricky dusk during which so many accidents occur.

To add to my sense of disorientation, the bus was misdirected several times by signs, lines, and barriers diverting it dangerously across multiple lanes of traffic from the far right to the far left, or into impossible areas that made no sense.

On a steep downhill slope with curves, I saw the driver leave her seat and disappear into the back of the bus. I didn’t know how I could get to the seat in time to prevent a catastrophe, even if I could get control of the steering and brakes and could figure then out.

I found a middle-aged woman had taken over and felt relief, but then she left, too. By now, I had noticed there were no accidents even when no one was driving. The next time I spotted someone driving, a middle-aged woman with a particularly frowsy permanent, I said without thinking, “You could get pulled over and into trouble for driving without a bus driver’s license. I heard someone agree and someone disagree. She left the seat, but I still could not take over. The repetition of the circumstances, and the murkiness behind them, made it nightmarish.

I was lying on the floor of a large, bare room at least three stories high. It came to me that I was an agent, my partner was dead, and the villain, Orson Welles, was contemplating whether I were alive or not. He was regarding me from high up and seemed deceived, although I could not believe it since my breathing, even though controlled, seemed obvious to me. He and others left me for dead.

After a while, I cautiously found my way out of the room. I remembered that my colleague and I had been sent here to find out what was going on. She had been killed when we were captured, but I was stunned only.

As I was examining one of the yellow industrial drums that seemed to be everywhere, a group of four or five women came along, chattering. They paid no attention to me or my clearly suspicious behavior, and did not question me when I joined their group. I put a plastic bag that I had pulled out of a drum into another one nearby that seemed to be full of liquid nitrogen. Instantly “mutations” popped into my mind. With a sense of horror, I thought that I would now be responsible for one.

The women, who were workers, seemed to be able to go anywhere. I clung to them for safety, answering that I had not seen a particular movie when they asked.

I did not know what I was looking for or what I was seeing. Thoughts of the dead colleague haunted me. Then we came across a man, a scientist, with pieces of something, including blue and yellow membranes. He told a large group gathering, including mine, that he was going to reconstruct and bring back to life an enormous (and unnatural) spider. I watched with horror and fascination as he did so. A sixth sense felt that I was being surrounded and would be trapped again.