The sound of the train whistle jolted Tempe awake. Sunlight streamed through the shutters of her room. She felt a weight on her chest and looked down to see the blonde hair of an angel. She took a deep breath and stretched, and the pounding in her head made her realize her error. She put her hand over her eyes in a futile attempt to block out the oppressive light. On her chest, she felt Dolores stir.

"Good morning, Sunshine," she said a pleasant voice. Tempe only moaned in response.

"Come on, Sleepy Head," Dolores continued, "You'll feel better once you're up and bathed."

Tempe finally removed her hand from her eyes. Dolores' head sat in front of the offending light creating a halo effect in her blonde hair that looked nothing short of celestial.

"Is that an offer," she asked.

Dolores coyly bit her lip, "Maybe. But you'll have to get up to find out."

Tempe finally sat up and was instantly overcome with a wave of nausea. Dolores suddenly looked concerned.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

Tempe shook her head and immediately realized that was a mistake.

A sudden knock drew their attention. A muffled voice from the other side of the door called, "Would you like a nice hot bath?"

Dolores looked to Tempe, who nodded. She called, "Yes, please."

"You have to open the door, silly," came the voice.

Dolores stood and wrapped the comforter around herself, leaving the sheet on the bed. She opened the door. On the other side was the girl Tempe had threatened the night before. She walked into the room without so much as a sideways glance and began pouring the large bucket of steaming water into the tub in the room.

An hour later, bathed and feeling marginally more human, Tempe made her way downstairs to the bar. As she walked up, the bartender noticed her and immediately reached underneath the bar, but Tempe held up a hand.

"Beer," she said, "And a glass of tomato juice. I need to shake this hangover."

He nodded and pulled a beer from a cold box hidden underneath the bar. Westworld might have been as immersive as possible, but the truth of the matter is that certain conveniences were too important to give up in the name of realism. Tempe took a long pull from the cold bottle and silently thanked whatever market research had told Delos that little detail.

The bartender returned with her tomato juice just as she finished the first beer. She took the glass and asked for another bottle. As she chugged her tomato juice, Clementine stepped up to the bar. She was thin, brunette, almost otherworldly. She was also the saloon's proprietor.

"That was quite a little show you put on last night," she said.

Tempe set down the glass harder than she'd meant to and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. Then she turned a cold glare on Clementine. "It's your job to make sure people don't barge into random guests' rooms."

"Don't worry, nobody got hurt," she said, "and besides, I haven't had that much entertainment in years."

Tempe took a swig of her second beer. "He was at least polite after that?" she asked.

Clementine scoffed, "He was unconscious after that. The poor bastard was so drunk, I don't think he'd have been able to get it up. At least my girl got paid. I'm more interested in you and the rancher's daughter. How is it that a woman who pulled into town yesterday got her attention?"

"We go way back," Tempe answered, pulling out a practised line, "We don't get to see each other very often, so when we do, it's intense."

After getting similar questions about her and Dolores from Clementine and other hosts who didn't remember her previous visits, she found it was easier to have a simple, vague line she could use. The hosts didn't delve where they weren't supposed to, so that was enough to dissuade them.

The sound of a door closing pulled her from her thoughts. She looked up to see Dolores making her way down the stairs. It never ceased to amaze Tempe how incredible she looked in that simple blue dress. She continued to stare as Dolores made her way across the dining room.

"Do we have plans for today?" she asked as she approached, "I should probably at least stop by my home so Ma and Pa don't worry themselves to death."

"Yeah," Tempe said, "I think I have something fun for us while I'm in town." She pulled out of her pocket the map she had gotten from the one eyed stranger the night before.

Standing on a hill, overlooking the herd, Tempe marveled at the sweeping beauty before her. This wasn't the creation of nature, or God, or whatever. Before her stood a sculpture of nature built by the practiced hand of a very talented, but ultimately human artist. More than any other achievement on the planet, Westworld stood as a true testament to the ingenuity of the human species.

"Do you remember what I taught you?" Dolores asked, pulling Tempe from her thoughts.

Tempe pointed to a steer, moving just ahead of the herd. "You mean about the Judas Steer?"

Dolores nodded, "So you do remember."

"Why do you call it that?" Tempe asked, "Seems like a cruel name for a cow."

"It is," Dolores admitted, "But it's appropriate. The Judas Steer is the one that will eventually lead the herd to slaughter."

That brought Tempe up short. In reality, cows were no longer slaughtered for meat, or even kept for milk. Hell, the company her dad owned, the one she would be working for when her vacation ended, grew all kinds of products previously produced exclusively by animals. Milk, meat, eggs, even collagen for things like gelatin or adhesives were all grown in labs nowadays.

"What's the matter, Cowgirl," Dolores asked in a teasing voice, "You didn't realize where that steak last night came from?"

Tempe smiled, "You know us city folk, we don't like to think about how our meat gets onto our plate."

Dolores chuckled, "I forget that you dress like a cowgirl, but that's about the extent of it."

"Hey," Tempe said a little indignantly, "I think I've done pretty well for a college educated city girl."

Dolores laughed, "That you have. Come on. We should get back to the ranch before my parents send out the marshal after me."

The pair rode up to Abernathy Ranch just after sunset. Several cows milled about near the front gates and around the property. Dolores looked around in panic.

"Father would never let them roam this close to dark," she said. That phrase caused a twist of fear to form in Tempe's stomach. Dolores normally used that line in her regular loop with Teddy. Tempe had been told years ago by a friend who had worked at Westworld that the line was actually a throwback. Dolores and Teddy were originally supposed to arrive at Abernathy Ranch just before sunset, but the narrative team discovered that most guests who wanted to be involved in the bandit story line, the one that resulted in the raiding of the Abernathy Ranch and the rape of Dolores, preferred to do it under cover of darkness. The team adjusted the timeline, but had never bothered to change Dolores' line because most of the time the only one who heard it was Teddy, another host.

"Dolores, wait," Tempe said. A flash of light combined with a sudden bang confirmed Tempe's suspicions. The bandits were in the house. The sudden fear in Tempe's gut had turned to rage. This part of Dolores' narrative, the part where she loses her both her parents in a senseless act of brutality, was supposed to be on hold while she was here. She didn't want her pretend paramour to be hysterical with grief. The whole point of Westworld, at least for her, was to have fun adventures with a woman who had, for all intents and purposes, already fallen in love with her. This was a complication that she neither needed, nor wanted.

Another flash of light, another bang, and Dolores spurred her horse toward the ranch house. Tempe gritted her teeth and followed. The hooves of the horse beat out a steady rhythm as the ranch house drew ever closer in her vision. Tempe was surprised to see no bandits or roughians loitering about. Just as the two slowed, the screen door opened violently and a man dressed from head to toe in black stepped out. He pulled off his hat and bowed in an elaborate greeting.

"Dolores!" he called, "I was starting to wonder about you. Rebus didn't show up, so I had to do the work myself."

That caught Tempe up short. Rebus was the leader of the gang that, under normal circumstances, would be ransacking this farm. Which meant that, assuming this man was a guest, he was a regular visitor.

The man had to be in his early fifties. He had grey hair, but despite his best efforts, his receding hairline was plainly visible. His face, clean shaven, showed that he had either just arrived at Westworld, or that he had been here so many times that shaving wasn't a problem. Tempe pulled the rifle from her saddle holster, braced the butt against her shoulder, and rested the barrel over her off forearm, a trick her dad had taught her the first time they had vacationed in Westworld.

"I don't know who the hell you think you are, Cowboy," she said through gritted teeth, "But you had better back off right now. Or you're in for a world of hurt."

"Oh, a brave girl," the man said, holding his revolver causally in his hand, "Good, let's have some fun."

The pistol suddenly came up, but Tempe was ready for it. Her own firearm rocketed in response. The man fell backward, stunned, but uninjured. This confirmed Tempe's impression that the man was indeed a guest and not a host.

Tempe jumped off her horse and ran at the man. He coughed once, as though he'd had the wind knocked out of him. Before he could sit up properly, Tempe straddled his waist, pushing the barrel of her revolver between his eyes.

"Don't fucking move," she whispered harshly, "I know these things aren't lethal to guests, but I'm guessing that at this range, they aren't fun."

The man in black stopped struggling and put his hands, palm up, casually beside his head. The smirk on his face infuriated Tempe, but at least he was trying to kill anyone anymore.

"I want you to know," Tempe said, "You probably ruined my vacation. My father pays a lot of money for my experience here, a big chunk of which involves Dolores. If this little stunt of yours ruins my experience in any way, you had better be sure that I'm going to make sure Delos charges you for this and any future trips my family might make to Westworld."

The man laughed. He laughed right in Tempe's face.

"You have know idea who I am, do you?" he asked between gasps of air.

That angered Tempe. In all her time in school, first as an undergrad at Stanford University, then as a PHD student at CalTech, had she ever once weaponized her family name. There were a lot of people with the last name Michaels, that alone didn't have to tie her down to the family business. Sure, she had pursued the specific degree she had for the purposes of working in her father's company, but that didn't mean she wanted to trade on her father's name.

Tempe brought the butt of her gun down hard onto the man's face. A cry of pain and satisfying crunch told her that she had broken his nose.

"I don't give two shits who you are," she said, "You could be James Delos. I still don't give a shit. If you fuck up my vacation more than you already have, I'll beat you to death and sue Delos for the inconvenience."

Temp stood up and, when the man didn't move, whistled for her horse. That was probably one of Tempe's favorite touches. If one were proficient at whistling, Delos could program a horse to respond to a number of commands based on tone, pitch, and length.

The animal walked up to her and she pulled herself into the saddle, still pointing her gun at the offending bandit.

"Do yourself a favor," she said, "Ensure that we never cross paths again."