Disconnected

2 - Waking Up

Riggs took a deep breath before opening his eyes, like a diver before an icy plunge.

The artificial lights hurt his eyes. His head hurt and every sound made it feel like it was being bashed by his own gnome-hammer. He forced himself to sit up. The effort wearied him. He rubbed his temples, tracing the skin around the smooth nodal implants that made the virtual world he'd just been severed from even possibly. God bless the guy who'd came up with nodes.

He looked up to survey his surroundings. A medieval dungeon had been replaced by a more modern one. He and the other rooms occupants looked at each other bleakly. Each was thin and exhausted. Ghoulish. It was almost always like this. Zombies in blue unitards rising from their hi-tech virtual reality couches. Slightly less emaciated medical technicians scurrying about, helping the awakened unhook their catheters and IVs.

He watched impassively as a man three couches down from his began screaming and sobbing in hysterics, begging like a child for just five more minutes. A lot of people preferred their virtual selves. Some eventually snapped, going full blown psychotic or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, completely catatonic in their desire to deny reality even one more second.

While the medtechs tried to calm the hysterical man down, a janitor tried to hop into the man's couch and wire in. A security klaxon sounded almost instantly, bringing the sound-sensitive hatchlings to their knees. The external doors burst open, letting in a trio of loud and demanding police robots. They injected the interloper with a sedative and carted him off to jail.

Riggs scoffed. All that guy had done was extend his real-time. What an idiot. He was on the work cycle. He was almost at the prize.

The klaxon ceased and a synthetic announcer advised them that shuttles were arriving to transport them to their rehab cycle. As Riggs fell in step with shuffling humanity, he sighed deeply. He didn't know any of these people. Every man and woman was a stranger.

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