VR to the VR
Part 3 of Significantly Advanced Tech
By Jeffrey Von Hauger
Lo-fi hip hop beats pulsed a mellow vibe across the dim living room as a fuzzy computer monitor dripped streams of code in sleep mode. The hard knocking at the door jerked Shorty out of a pleasant couch surfing dream. He reached under the cushion for a gun that wasn't there.
"Fuck, man."
He stumbled across the dark room jamming his big toe into the coffee table. The pounding on the door continued as he hopped on one leg over to the peephole.
"Shorty, you in there? We got trouble down at the lab." It was Chauncy the night manager's assistant.
He opened the door to yelled at him.
"What the fuck are you banging on my door for? In the middle of the night, like the motherfucking police!"
"Look, I'm sorry to wake you but we need you. This shit is serious. Delphine told me if I didn't come back with you, not to come back at all."
"Well, I guess you're out of a job then."
Chauncy was big, blue, and dumb. He didn't get many skills from his Zorr mother; his human father passed all his dumbass genes straight into him. He made a sad pathetically desperate face.
"Come on, man. We wouldn't ask you if we didn't need your magic."
Shorty wiped his hand across his face. He was 95.2% human but had his great granddad's bright blue eyes. It was probably the only reason he got the consultant job in the first place.
"Let me find some pants."
"Thanks, Shorty, we really appreciate this. We're in big trouble."
01110100 ~ 01110010
Ten minutes later they both walked into the Virtual Reality command center. Delphine was there monitoring two hundred VR chairs with two hundred blissed out people living the good life. She was Zorr and wore her azure blue dreadlocks in the long traditional style. She smiled when she saw Shorty walk in with his bright white joggers and green spacer pants, dark brown dreads tied back, and a T-shirt that said "Fuck the Man" in bold letters across the front. He was without a doubt her favorite human.
"Shorty, our savior."
"What's so important you drag me in here in the middle of the night?"
She pulled up two pods on the monitor board.
"These two crossed their signals and are in a meshed freeform delusion and it's some seriously freaky shit." Delphine leaned on the control console gesturing Shorty to take the seat next to her.
"What!? You woke me for that? Slide them into some happy program and they'll be fine."
"It's not that easy, they're both redlining. They're off the charts. They could die."
"Whatever, they signed the waver. How many times do I have to say don't let 'em freeform when they're on Jakz Juice?" Shorty folded his arms across his chest underlining the message on his shirt.
"They're all on Jakz Juice. That's not the issue."
"Then what's so important about these two?"
"Well, for starters, the first one, Murphy, reads as human." Delphine brought up the live feed of a young girl thrashing about in the VR unit.
"She looks pretty pale to be a human."
YOU ARE READING
Tevun-Krus #67 - Virtual Reality
Science FictionPossibly the most ubiquitous of the sci-fi sub-genres in our real life. Who hasn't seen or read or played something that utilized a VR concept? And it's very much in our own lives now, with the Oculus Rift and other VR gadgets.
