My Arm

I flexed my right arm, the one that had been disabled by the stroke. I wasn’t so much flexing my physical arm, as flexing a mental arm. Whenever I used that arm, that spiritual arm, I felt an odd sensation, a sensation like somewhere else, somewhere quite far away, I was in control of another arm. Somewhere, the nerve endings that went into the useless arm took a sudden turn and diverted for hundreds of miles, until they reached an arm that worked, an arm that I could use. Sometimes, I felt sensations in this spectral arm, usually pain, but sometimes dampness. If I was careful, I could explore the whole length of it with my mind. The fingernails were too long. The elbows were knobbly and rough.

Then, one time, when I was using that arm, I saw something. I wasn’t sure if I saw it at first, but as I kept flexing my dream arm, I saw it again. A windshield, splattered with rain. No, a piece of glass. Wires, or tubes. Traffic, or perhaps just people walking by? I could see them quite clearly, and somehow I knew it was not a hallucination. It felt just like the sensations streaming across space from my ethereal arm. Instead of flickering, like the feelings from my dream arm flickered, the image got clearer and clearer. Now, the blind half of my vision was full of images. A piece of glass in front of me, with jumpsuited people walking around me. Not rain, somebody spraying the glass with water. Somebody wiping it down. A sterile blue and white room. Some computer consoles scattered around. Men and women in lab coats working at the terminals, plugging cables into things, polishing metal surfaces, all under the harsh glare of sterile, institutional lighting.

I flexed my phantasmal arm. Amazingly, incredibly, but expectedly, I saw through my phantasmal eye an arm moving. A pale, gaunt arm. Rarely used. Plugged into an intravenous line. I touched the glass. I felt it. It was cold and clean, and I saw the smudge marks that my oily fingers made, heard my overgrown fingernails click against the glass. A thought occurred to me. I strained, and felt myself falling into my dream body. My other eye went blind. My other arm and leg went numb. Then, I could see my skinny body, enclosed behind a curving wall of glass, electrocardiogram leads pasted to my chest. IV lines in my arm. Something on my head, something sticky and clinging that didn’t belong. I tried to sit up, but I was restrained at my waist. Straps wound around my ankles.

I lifted my arm, my new one, again. Thumping on the glass, my fingernails clicking. I wasn’t deaf, but why couldn’t I hear the people outside. The people who were now looking at me, looking right at me, their faces as white as if they’d seen a ghost. Lab-coated people gathering around the glass. Somebody typed something in a keypad, and cool air rushed in from the direction of my feet. The glass started to slide upwards. Fresh air rushing in. Things being pulled out of my arms, and straps being undone. The sticky thing peeled off my head, my bald head. Suddenly, everything was so clear. The sounds of the room, the feel of my body. My arms that worked together, and my legs, none of which were paralyzed. My eyes that both could see, and that worked in concert. The miracle of depth perception. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to see in three dimensions. Someone’s latex-gloved hand on my shoulder, helping me walk.

My legs were so gaunt. Skin and bones, but they still worked. They wobbled, the bulbous knees knocked, and the gnarled, toes slid, with the long, curled toenails scraping on the immaculate blue linoleum. Voices in my ears.

“Walk carefully, sir. We’re going to make you well.”

“Okay,” I mumbled. I could speak properly again. The stroke hadn’t really taken my powers of speech, but it had paralyzed part of my face, a part that worked now. My tongue was not limp and swollen any longer. Going through the door of the room. The smell of anesthetic, like a dentist’s office or a hospital. Down a hallway, around a corner, and through another door. My new body being eased into a chair.

I was lost in thought, as they clipped my toenails and fingernails. They bathed my body, and bandaged the holes where the tubes had been inserted. They cleaned the adhesive from the EKG leads, and the EEG leads, and closed the hole from my feeding tube. Into another room, with a big, comfortable bed.

“Get some sleep, sir. You haven’t had a real sleep-wake cycle in sixteen years.” And I fell asleep, and had a sleep-wake cycle.

In the morning, I felt better. I felt more alive, and my mind was clearer. But the memories of the other body, the body that I no longer inhabited, they still lingered, and they plagued me. What happened to that body, and what about this one? Where was I? Who was I? Myself, or someone else? Questions that I could not answer. I wobbled across the room and sat down in a chair. Everything in the room was white and sterile: the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the bed, all the furniture. It was pleasing, but also eerie, almost like an interrogation room, or some similar sinister place. The door opened. A tall, young man with a strong, square jaw and spiky brown hair stepped through, and sat down on the bed. He grasped the edge of a squat square table and dragged it over in front of my chair, then set a plate down. It was stir-fried chicken and vegetables. He handed me a fork in silence, and I began to eat, and that was when I started to realize how hungry I really was. In five minutes, I had cleaned the plate down to the enamel, and gulped down some kind of protein drink. The young doctor waited patiently while I ate, then slid the table back away from me, and pulled up a chair. He sat down, laced his fingers, and stared at my face with a look of both concern and intrigue.

“I’m going to ask you some questions, okay?”

“All right.”

“Good. Do you know your name?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“Charles Eichmann.”

“That is not your real name. That is the name you were given. Your real name is Gordon Chang. Do you know your age?” I thought for a moment. My sense of time had been changed by the stroke, but the memory came eventually.

“I’ll be forty-five next week.”

“That’s also wrong. You will turn thirty-eight a month from tomorrow.” I was beginning to get annoyed with this young stranger, who was trying to feed me some sort of nonsense. “Do you know where you are, geographically?”

“Charlotte, North Carolina. I live in the Ballantyne neighborhood. I can walk to the movie theater there.”

“That’s wrong, too. You are in China, in Qinghai province. You aren’t in any town or city. This complex is miles from anything remotely resembling a village.” I was now quite angry with the doctor, and tried to stand up, menacingly. I made a poor imitation of it, and walked towards him, leaning over him.

“Listen here, sir! Why are you talking nonsense? Why is everything I say wrong?”

“Please don’t be angry. I’ll answer that question when the time is right. Please, sit back down, only a few more questions.” I obeyed. I knew I couldn’t do anything to him in my current physical state. “What was your mother’s name?” he asked me, his composure never cracking.

“Ellen Eichmann. Her maiden name was Burkholder.”

“Not correct. Your mother’s name was Stefanie Chang. Her maiden name was Arnolfini.”

“What?”

“What was your father’s name?”

“I think it’s George Eichmann, but I’m sure that’s wrong.”

“You’re right, it is wrong. Your father’s name was Wu-Li Chang. He was Chinese, your mother was Italian-American. Now, do you know what year it is?”

“No. I’m not telling you what year I think it is. I want you to tell me what year it really is, because I’m wrong. I’ve been in a coma or in a hallucination or something, and I don’t know anything any longer.”

“I’ll answer that question – the one you just implied – later. I want you to tell me what year it is.”

“2012,” I managed, defeated.

“Wrong. The year is actually 2032, but you weren’t to know that, were you?” He scribbled that, along with everything else, on his stupid little clipboard. He stood up, put the chair back in his place, put the clipboard under his arm, and grabbed the plate and the bottle. “I’ll be back at nine o’clock to answer some of your questions. You did well, sir. Don’t worry, things will start to make sense soon. While you’re waiting, you should probably try to take in some light exercise.” Then, he left.

Despite my misgivings about the young man, I did what he said. I got up, and walked across the room. Then I walked back. I got up, and went out the door, and walked down the hallway, making sure to note my room number: 18F. By the time I reached the door that read “Now Leaving Suite 18,” I was winded, and my almost-nonexistent leg muscles ached. There was a white bench on that white hallway, so I sat down and stared at my toenails, which were now neatly manicured. Nothing was clear. I had no idea where I was, who I was, or why I was either of those things. I stretched, and heard my protrusive shoulder blades creak and crack a bit. Every sinew in my body felt tight and sore, like I’d been sleeping for too long. From the looks of the glass tube in which I’d awakened, I probably had been sleeping for too long. When my legs stopped throbbing, I stood on them again and walked back down the hallway to my room, and had a nap.

When I woke up, I was in a panic. I thought I’d slept through the young doctor’s visit, and now wouldn’t get the chance to have any of my numerous questions answered. With relief, I looked up at the modern, minimalist clock above the door. The hour hand was still fixed firmly on nine o’clock. It was at this point that I noticed something odd about the clock. Rather than running from one to twelve or one to twenty-four, the numerals around the face went from zero to nine. I stood up, and carefully unhooked the clock from its hanger, and stared down at it. Ten hours in a day. Ten minutes in an hour. A hundred seconds in a minute. I made a face, and hung the unlikely clock back on the wall, and sat down, massaging my temples, which were now aching terribly.

I didn’t realize it, but I spent an entire hour rubbing my forehead. I was interrupted by the young doctor, who stepped in, still with his clipboard, but this time with a smile on his face.

“Hello, again, sir. We have one hour to answer as many questions as you can ask.”

“Okay…” I stammered, but my mind had suddenly grown blank. There were so many questions buzzing around in my head that I couldn’t actually manage to ask any of them. I collected myself after a few moments, and asked the one question that I wanted answered the most.

“What happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why are all the things I think I know about my life incorrect? Why do I remember a life that apparently doesn’t really exist?”

“That needs a lot of explanation. Are you prepared to listen for quite some time to some things that might be difficult to hear and/or understand?” I nodded. “All right, then.

“You remember false things because you have, for the last sixteen years, eight months, and five days, been living in a computer simulation. When you woke up, do you remember a device being attached to your head?”

“The sticky hat?”

“Yes. That was an array of transcranial electrodes that were connected to a computer. They stimulated your neocortex – the part of your brain where conscious experience is processed – and created all the experiences that you thought you’d had over the last forty-five years. The first twenty-eight years of your experienced life were completely fictitious. They were experienced by a computer simulation of you, running in an artificial-intelligence program designed to create a set of false memories. These were implanted electrically. The last sixteen and a half years were experienced by you, but within that same artificially-intelligent experience-simulation program.”

“I was living in a virtual reality?” He nodded.

“Very good. I see your mind is still as sharp as when you went in.”

“Wait, if I was living in a virtual reality, how could I have a stroke?”

“The simulation takes your actions and builds a world out of them. In your case, one of your actions included inadequate physical exercise and a high-fat, high-cholesterol diet. What’s more, your virtual self – Charles Eichmann – had a family history of heart attack and stroke, originating on the Eichmann side of the family. So, you were predisposed. The simulation simply took that, and your actions, and extrapolated what would have happened.”

“But, my arm and leg were paralyzed…I was half-blind, and I couldn’t do arithmetic anymore!”

“When you had the virtual stroke, the electrical-stimulation cap deactivated the parts of your real brain that had been damaged in your virtual brain.”

“Then, why could I feel my arm here in the real world after the stroke?”

“Ah. That’s the problem with virtual strokes and brain damage: the brain learns to re-wire itself around the transcranial stimulators, so that they no longer have an effect — constant deactivation like that is bad for the brain. And, of course, once someone who is living in the digital world realizes they can escape, it only requires a force of will to overcome the computer, and wake up.” I then got up the courage to ask the second most important question floating in my mind.

“Why was I living in a simulation?” I was starting to feel tremendous anger, now. Towards the doctor, towards the building, towards this whole place that had taken sixteen years of my life, for seemingly no purpose. The doctor, though, merely smiled.

“It was at your request, sir, but you won’t realize that until the artificial memories wear off. You’re going to require special therapy for that, but I won’t go into those details just yet.

“You see, sir, your father was born in China. He divorced your mother when you were fourteen, and went back to China to stay with his sister, who is mentally handicapped. China was beginning to become politically unstable by then. When you were seventeen, he fell ill with pancreatic cancer, and asked for you to come take care of him, since the government would not assist the family of a mentally retarded girl. When your father died, she – handicapped as she was – threw herself in front of an express train. This caused you to move to China, and begin calling for government reform. You formed a guerrilla organization that promoted democratic socialism in China, and that just made the political instability worse. So you went into hiding until your footsoldiers could force reform. And where better to hide than in a computerized dream-world, where you wouldn’t even remember anything about your past life, where you would think you were older than you actually are, and where you could escape the terrors of reform? That was sixteen years ago.

“The revolution has been over for some time now, and China is now fully democratic. It’s a very different country. But, the new government has still not decided what to do with the people who have been inhabiting the virtual reality. Since many of them do not remember their real lives, some factions within the government do not believe them to be Chinese citizens, since most of the people in our virtual world lived in virtual America. So, for now, until something changes, the government considers you a non-person, not a Chinese citizen. But you cannot get American citizenship, since America no longer exists. Most of the other developed countries have strict laws against virtual reality, and they will not admit citizens of virtual realities, either. The undeveloped countries are, at the moment, embroiled in a world war with one another, so you cannot flee there. For the time being, you must stay inside this complex, which is considered an independent country. I’m afraid you have no country.”

I waited for all of this to sink in, but as I’d expected, it refused to. So, I simply sat, waiting for him to say something else. Before he could, another question bubbled up from the back of my mind.

“There are others?”

“Oh, yes. For legal reasons, I can’t disclose their identities, but yes. This complex has two hundred suites, each of which is set up just like this one. This is suite 18, and this hallway is all yours.”

“Have I ever met any of these other people?”

“No. Each virtual reality is independent. It’s too computationally-intensive to cross-check realities to make sure each person sees the same general world that the other one sees, and make sure they’re consistent. That also carries the risk of one sleeper discovering the identity of another, which we strictly prohibit.”

“Were they all part of my revolution?”

“Oh, no!” He laughed, as though what I said had been a joke. “This facility existed long before your revolution began. We were founded in 2010, actually. Some people, like the person in suite two, have been here twenty-two years, since we first opened our doors.”

“Can you tell me why they went in?”

“Not specifically, no I can’t. But I can give you a general list of our clients’ reasoning, if you’d like.”

“Okay.”

“About half of the other sleepers came here to escape criminal charges. The complex and its grounds are considered an independent nation, as I said before, and we have no extradition treaties with any other nation. Half of those who remain are wealthy people who have lived unfulfilling lives, and who wish to have the opportunity to live properly again. The remainder are people who want to live out fantasies. These people do not have their memories suppressed, or have artificial memories implanted. Most of them stay for short-term visits.” The questions began to get easier to ask, and I posed one that had just suggested itself to me.

“What does a place like this cost.” The young man laughed loudly, and chuckled for a long time after that.

“Nothing at all!” I raised my eyebrows at him.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing. You see, we support a number of people in other countries who have somewhat soiled reputations and/or unwieldy criminal records. You pay for your visit by donating your identity to one of these people. If you are ever able to leave, then you will be given a new identity.” Finally, the load of information was too much. Sparkling dots danced in my field of vision, and I heard a ringing in my ears. Voices I remembered from a life that had never existed said things to me that I had never really heard. Then, silence and blackness.

I woke up in the bed. It was comfortable, but I hated it. I stood up on a floor. I hated the floor, too, and the door, and the walls. It felt like my soul was trapped in this place, and that it was all a grand lie; everything about me was a lie. I stood unsteadily, and with my mind still reeling from the realizations of the previous day. I wandered out into the hallway. There was nobody there. Earlier, there had always been a technician in a jumpsuit or a white-coated scientist loitering by the water cooler, but now the sterile hall was empty, and quiet too. Very quiet. The hum of the machines that had been keeping my body alive while my mind wandered about aimlessly in some other world, they had all been switched off. I could tell, because their characteristic droning hum was now absent.

For lack of anything better to do, and as an outlet for the mad, hateful, angry energy that now boiled in my mind, I decided to explore Suite 18, the suite that supposedly belonged entirely to me.

Room 18A contained the machine in which I’d been sleeping the last sixteen years. One look at it sparked a primal anger, and I closed the door immediately, lest my now-unstable mind cause me to do something hasty.

Room 18B contained lots of equipment, most of it computer equipment. There was also a ventilator and the pump for the feeding tube. All the consoles were dark now, and only the lights on the surge protectors blinked in the darkness.

Room 18C was a closet, empty. 18D looked to be a gymnasium, a large room containing a lot of exercise equipment I didn’t recognize. A woman in an offensively orange Spandex leotard looked up from her stretches and smiled at me.

“Your next session’s not until tomorrow, sir!” She had a faint Chinese-British accent. I smiled back, half-heartedly, and moved on to the next room.

18E was the most terrifying of all the rooms. It contained a chair, a lot like a dentist’s chair. But this chair sprouted wires and plugs and sockets from all available surfaces. There was a monitor on the wall above it, and another on the wall behind it. Against my better judgment, I stepped into the room.

After a few minutes’ investigation, I could guess at what this chair was. It was no more than a hunch, but it came from a place so deep in my brain that I could not ignore it. This chair was where my memories would be restored. This was the chop-shop where they cut minds apart, and tricked them out with new memories. I felt faint. I saw the sparkles again, and unconsciousness seemed very close. I threw myself out of the room, sliding in a circle as I gripped the doorframe. I hobbled, and manage to seat myself on a bench. After a few moments, the panic passed, and – once again, against my better judgment – I continued exploring.

18F was, of course, my quarters. 18G was the bathroom, which I took note of. I hadn’t emptied my bladder or my bowels for what seemed like hours, and that’s exactly the kind of need that creeps up when you least expect it. 18H was a peculiar locker room, with only one (very large) locker. On a long rail that stretched across the entire left side of the room, there were some clothes on hangers. On the right was a row of suitcases. In front of me was the enormous locker. Somehow I knew that this room was for storing my personal effects. I knew this, just like I knew that 18E was the room where they deleted and then restored memories: it rose up from a very deep place in my mind, a place that no transcranial-stimulation cap could touch. Then, it clicked, and all made sense. That’s exactly what these were: fragments of my old memory, rising from the dead like a grim phoenix. I smiled for a moment, then frowned for no particular reason. I moved on.

18H looked like some sort of spa. A masseuse was spraying leather-conditioner into a massage table. When I entered, she grinned broadly at me.

“Your session isn’t until tomorrow, sir!” I had a flash of deja vu. No, not deja vu: the girl in the gymnasium had said just the same thing. I made a face at her, then managed a weak smile, and left.

The other two rooms were closets, except for one. Room 18K. The door was locked, and it had no window, unlike the other rooms. There was no sign on the door, and there was nobody around that I could ask. When I looked at the dismal, threatening door of the room, fear pounced on me from nowhere, and I saw sparkles again. This time, I couldn’t sit down before I passed out.

When I woke again, I found myself back in my room, with the young doctor sitting patiently in front of me. There was a smell of food. Scrambled eggs and potatoes. I ate ravenously, and chugged the protein drink. I could see the doctor wincing as he watched me eat, but I didn’t care. Somehow, the hunger from being fed through a gastric tube for sixteen years still hadn’t faded.

“How are you feeling?” His voice, though quite annoying at times, was very sincere.

“I keep passing out.” I did my best to look grim.

“That’s not unusual for somebody who’s been under for as long as yourself. Panic attacks, probably. They happen when you suddenly get ripped out of the simulation like that. They’ll start to go away after some of your old memories are put back. Actually, that’s what I’m here for. I’m going to take you to the mnemnotherapy room.”

“Wait, I have questions.”

“The time for questions was yesterday. We run on a very exact schedule.” At that moment, I became furious. I could have sworn that my eyes actually went red. I stood up, overturning the table, and shook my bony fist at the young doctor.

“How dare you! I have given you my identity and sixteen years of my life! I am a paying customer, and you will answer whatever questions I ask of you! If you do not do this, then I will either kill you or kill myself! Do you understand, sir?” The young doctor nodded, and I felt pacified, tossing my weak body back down in the chair. “If the revolution was over, why was I still in the simulation? Why didn’t you wake me?”

“Because you asked me not to. And you signed up for a twenty-year stay. How was I to know that you would have a stroke in-simulation? Also, we like to keep our sleepers under until the person who is using their identity has managed to disappear or has been killed.” The anger rose again, but this time, I restrained it. I had more questions.

“What is in Room 18K?”

“Time for your session, sir.”

“Answer me!”

“Time for your session, sir.”

“You will tell me, or I will kill you!”
“Time for your session, sir.” I no longer cared that I weighed probably half as much as him, that he was younger, and he was taller. I lunged at him with pointy, bony fists, and punched him three times square in the face before he managed to push me off. Exhausted, I flopped back down in the chair. He stood up, blood trickling from his injured nose, and from his split lip. “Time for your session, sir.” I gave up. There was nothing I could do. If he could withstand that, the expression of my towering rage and hatred, then I could do nothing. I followed him to the room with the terrible dentist-chair apparatus.

“If you’ll just lie back, I’ll attach the cap. A skullcap, filled with very cold gel, was slipped over my bald skull, and tightened in to place with straps. My arms and legs were restrained. Cables were plugged into sockets, and switches were thrown. I began to feel fuzzy around the edges, like I had when I’d just come out of the simulation. A technician entered and said something, and then there was tapping on a nearby keyboard. Someone pressed a button melodramatically.

 

“You must come,” said my father weakly, over the telephone. I could hear the sound of his heart monitor back there in his hospital room. “I don’t think I have much longer.” He had a thick Mandarin accent.

“You’re going to be fine, dad. The doctors said they finally got hold of the enzyme package.”

“I’m not, and you know that. Come here, and take care of your aunt.” Even thought the line quality was terrible, I could hear the beeps of his heart monitor speeding up, and a nurse cry, in Mandarin, “He’s going into ketoacidosis again! Call Dr. Chou!”

“Do you speak Mandarin?” asked a nurse, after picking up the phone.

“Yes.”

“Your father has just gone into diabetic shock. His pancreas is not going to keep working much longer. You need to come here now, if you want to see him while he’s still alive.”

“The doctor said the enzyme package has just arrived.”

“It’s not soon enough. The tumors have already destroyed most of his pancreas, and we can’t find a donor.”

“What about a stem-cell transplant?”

“That’s still illegal in China, if you remember.”

“Well, send him to Turkey. They’ve got the best stem-cell scientists.”

“Your father wouldn’t survive the trip. I’m sorry. I will call you back at this number when he wakes up. You must come. He will not live longer than three or four more days, I think.” Then, the dialtone. She’d hung up. I threw the phone across the room.

 

I was in the chair, still. What had happened?

“When are you going to start?” The young doctor came over to my side and looked down at me, benevolently.

“We’re already finished.”

“What?”

“We’ve done it already. That’s enough for today.”

“Nothing happened, though!”

“What did you feel?”

“I remembered the last conversation I had with my father. I was thinking about it, about how angry it made me.”

“That was the machine working. It re-planted the memory, and then made you recall it. That’s how the therapy works.”

“Will I still remember my virtual life?”

“No, but it will be stored in the databank indefinitely. You see, human memory is finite. You couldn’t recall the equivalent of eighty-three years of memory – forty-five virtual and thirty-eight real – without some loss and degradation. I think you’ll discover soon enough that you cannot remember something very significant from your virtual life.” I thought about this for a moment, but everything seemed to be in place. Then, I thought about my wedding. It hit me, and I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach.

There was a hole in my mind. The memory of my wedding had been gouged out. I didn’t know who I’d married. I thought maybe she’d been American. I didn’t know where the wedding was, or if it was a church wedding or an informal ceremony. Maybe we’d invited our friends, but maybe we’d eloped. It was a black hole, and it had sucked in every other detail surrounding that day. It seemed suddenly that I fell into it, and when I recovered, I found myself in my bed once again. I’d fainted.

When I woke, I was angry. I’d never woken up angry before. I was angry at the trim young doctor and his stupid clipboard. I was angry at the suite, and at the rooms and the evil machinery within them. Most of all, though, I was angry at myself for ever believing that this was a good idea. Who on earth would believe such a thing? Who? It didn’t make sense. And now, thanks to that fool, whoever he was – he wasn’t me – that decided to go and hide in a virtual world for sixteen years, I had no real memories. For all I knew, the memories they were “putting back” were just as false as the ones they’d planted in the first place. I suddenly felt very claustrophobic. I threw myself out of bed, out the door, and jogged to the end of the suite. I pulled open the door marked “Now Leaving Suite 18.” Standing before me was a giant of a man, dressed in a threatening-looking black jumpsuit, puffy with body armor. He wore one of those ubiquitous squarish security-guard hats, black, emblazoned with the word “Security: S18.” He towered over my by at least a head, maybe more. All this aside, it was his rather menacing-looking rifle that convinced me to stay in the suite. As I stepped away from the mountain of a man, I read the label pasted on the side of the silvery gun: “Danger: High-powered pulsed laser weapon. Discharging this weapon may result in physical harm to the operator or others. Engage safety when not in use.”

Suddenly, it began to seem less and less like I had taken a nice little vacation from reality, and more that I had been imprisoned. For a moment, I wondered who had taken on my identity in my absence. Whoever they were, I suddenly wished them harm. I wanted them dead, so I could get my own new identity and go home, wherever that was. Defeated, I headed back to my room. While I was in the hallway, though, I was ambushed by the stretchy woman from the gymnasium.

“Hello, sir. It’s time for your session today!” I couldn’t think of a good response, so I simply followed her.

The session was quite grueling. I spent thirty minutes stretching my atrophied tendons, an hour on a treadmill, thirty more minutes on a weight bench lifting five-kilo weights, and finally, forty-five minutes strapped into a dreadful electro-muscular therapy device that aimed to build my muscles back up by running a current through them to make them twitch. After the ordeal was finished, I felt quite sore and totally drained, and wandered back into the hallway massaging the small of my back.

Before I could slip back into my bedroom, I was ambushed again, this time by the masseuse. She didn’t need to say anything. I followed her into the massage parlor.

The table was comfortable, but the massage was overly rough, and the “essential oils” she rubbed into my pasty skin burned more than soothed. In the end, it seemed I was sorer after the massage than before. I hobbled back to my bedroom, half-expecting to be carted off to some other sort of session before I got in the door.

I lay there in my bed, contemplating my misfortune, and the stupidity of my old self for deciding to get involved with this whole mess. I spent about an hour just staring up at the stippled white, tiled ceiling, searching my mind for some sort of valid justification for abandoning a real life for a virtual one. I fell asleep before I found it.

I woke the next morning just as the clock struck four. For the first time in what seemed like eons, I felt refreshed, and felt that, perhaps, I might have enough energy to face my situation. Perhaps.

The young doctor entered. He still bore yesterday’s bruises. I resisted the urge to grin, to giggle at the fact that, despite my weakness and the atrophy of my muscles, I could still inflict harm.

“Good morning, sir.” I nodded at him, as coldly as I could.

“It’s time for your breakfast.” He set down a plate of eggs and bacon. I ate ravenously, as usual, then pushed the plate away, and fixed him with the most menacing stare my sunken eyes could manage.

“What’s in Room 18K?”

“Do you have any more questions you’d like answered?”

“What’s in Room 18K?”

“If you’d like to have some questions answered, this is the best time to do it.”

“WHAT…IS…IN…ROOM…18…K?”

“All right, then. I was wondering if I could ask you some more questions?” It was as though he was made of stone. I subsided.

“Fine.”

“Right, then. How did your father die?”

“Pancreatic cancer.”

“Where was he when he died?”

“Do you want the Chinese name, or should I translate it for you?”

“Translate it, please.”

“Chongzu Provincial Free Hospital.” After a moment, I realized that I hadn’t remembered that before.

 

“Son,” my father said, “I know I have done some things in my life of which you do not approve. But I need you to come to China to be with me,” said my father, sounding broken and mournful.

“Why?”

“Because I’m ill, and I don’t think I’m going to get better.”

“Ill?”

“They think I have pancreatic cancer.”

“What? Cancer?”

“Yes. They did a CT scan, and they found what looks like a tumor.”

“Oh, God…”

“You must come to China to be with me, and look after your sister.”

“No. I can’t. I’m very busy.”

“Look, this is important! The doctors say I have one year, at the most.”

“Look, dad, wait for them to confirm it, to confirm that it’s a tumor before you go assuming you’re dying.”

“I am dying! Why do you hate me?”

“When did I say that I hated you?”

“You will not come even when I am dying! That means that you hate me! You will not be with me in my hour of need!”

“Look, father, you know how dangerous it is to fly into China these days. Two planes have been shot down this year.”

“I do not care! You must come to me! It is your duty as a son!”

“I have to go, Judith is calling for me.”

“Son! You must – ” and then a click that seemed disproportionately loud, followed by a dialtone.

 

“I remembered something else, the conversation I had with my father when he first got sick!” I nearly jumped from the chair, and probably would have if my legs hadn’t been so weak.”

“Very good. That means the mnemnotherapy is working. As you have more and more mnenmotherapy treatments, you will notice that not only will the memories we specifically target return, but so will many memories that are strongly associated with them. This is certainly a good sign!” After basking in my own success for a moment, I remembered that I was supposed to be angry, and scowled at the young doctor again.

“What is in room 18K?”

“Now, what do you remember about your father’s sister?”
“What is in room 18K?”

“If you tell me about your father’s sister, I will tell you.”

“I don’t remember anything about her. I only remember what you told me: she was mentally retarded, and my father went to stay with her after the divorce. Now what is in room 18K?”
“I’ll be back to get you for your mnemnotherapy session.” I tried to burn a hole through his back with my eyes as he left, to no avail. After stewing for a few minutes, I realized that I wasn’t really helping anything, and decided to go off exploring again. There had to be something entertaining, somewhere in the suite.

I gave all the rooms the once-over again, finding nothing that I hadn’t already seen. Returning to my room, though, I found something I hadn’t seen before. Affixed to the sterile white nightstand next to my bed was something that looked like a computer screen. I examined it more closely, and discovered that it was some sort of touch-screen interface. I leaned in closer to read what was printed on the various buttons.

There was a wide range of options. Movies, snacks, puzzles, but the button that caught my eye was the one marked “chess.” I tapped it, and suddenly, the little screen went dark. The lights in the room dimmed, and loud music started suddenly, making me jump. I whirled around and around, until I saw a speaker-projector unit hanging on the wall above my bed. It clicked on, and projected a chessboard on the far wall.

“Hello, sir,” said a very beautiful female voice, “I am Opponent. Would you like to be black, or white?”

“White.”

“Very good sir, make your move.” After thinking for a moment, I realized that I didn’t actually know how to do that.

“How do I make a move?”

“Just touch the wall and move your piece, sir.” I stepped up to the wall, and dragged the king’s pawn forward. A moment later, a black piece moved forward. The game only lasted a minute or two, before I fell into the classic trap.

“Checkmate, sir,” said Opponent.

“Damn,” I replied, “You’re very good.”

“Always watch your king’s pawn. It’s best to just leave it where it is.”

“Thanks.” The projection faded. “Wait a moment, who are you?”

“I told you, sir, I am Opponent.”

“What does that mean?”

“I am Opponent. I am the computer designated to play chess against the clients of this facility.”

“You’re a computer?”

“Yes, sir. It is 2032, after all. What did you expect?”

“I’m not sure, really…never mind. Thanks for the game.”

“Thank you, sir. It’s what I live for.” Then, silence. I was confused. Suddenly, it seemed that an already high-tech place had become even more so. If their entertainment technology was this incredible, I could scarcely imagine the level of their security technology. I began to feel dizzy again. Why did I allow myself to get dragged into this? Whose foolish idea had it been? Mine? It was hard to say.

I woke up after another fainting spell. Something was on my arm. I realized it was the doctor, tapping me.

“Are you awake now?” he asked. I nodded, and slowly pivoted out of bed. I hobbled over to the mnemnotherapy room, and was strapped into the chair. This time, I could feel the machine being turned on.

 

“What dad say to you?” asked aunt Wu. Her face was shapeless and uncomprehending, and she seemed to be staring at my left ear.

“Listen, Wu…father is dead.”

“Huh?”

“Father has died. He’s gone.”

“Why?” tears began to stream down her face.

“He had cancer. That happens to some people.”
“No! No! No no no no!” An orderly heard the commotion and approached us.

“What are you doing, sir?”

“This is my aunt…I’m explaining what happened to her brother, my father.” The orderly took me aside.

“Listen, your aunt has an IQ somewhere between forty and sixty…she doesn’t have the emotional or mental faculties to deal with strong emotions. You mustn’t upset her! Now, go and tell her that it was all a joke, or something of that nature.”

“What? No. Why?”

“Because your aunt is very unstable. She’s attempted to harm herself before, now go and tell her.” I walked back to the little table, disheartened.

“Aunt Wu?” she looked up at me, her eyes still weeping.

“Huh?”

“It’s not true. Father’s not dead.”

“What?”

“Father is still alive.”

“You say he dead!”

“I know…he said to tell you that.”

“Huh?”

“He told me to tell you that, because he’s gone somewhere, and he doesn’t want anybody to know where he is.”

“Huh?”

“He’s hiding from a very bad person. This bad person wants to hurt him, so he went away.”

“He coming back?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t know.”

“Why he not come back?”

“I didn’t say he wasn’t coming back. I don’t know if he’s coming back or not.”

“Oh.”

“Okay, don’t worry, all right?”

“Yep!” she smiled. It was such a pure, innocent, human smile. It was the best part of human nature, that sort of blissful joy. I carefully wiped away a tear, and hurried out.

Two days later, Wu had suffered some sort of emotional breakdown, and thrown herself onto the train tracks near Xizhou Station. Her doctor told me that she screamed “Everybody lie to me!” before she escaped from the institution.

 

I felt dazed by all this, floored by the realization that my aunt’s suicide was my fault. If it was my fault, why had I pushed so strongly for mental health reform in China? Did I really begin my political movement simply out of a feeling of guilt?

I moved on to my physiotherapy session. It was just as grueling as before. My massage, as before, just made things worse. I went back into my room, and had a nap.

 

“Now is the time for a change!” I yelled from the podium. The speaker setup amplified my voice ten times, and I felt powerful as my words boomed across the crowd. Ten thousand Chinese faces, faces of the poor, the downtrodden, and the mentally ill, looked up at me with admiration. “China cannot labor under this unfair Communist regime any longer!” Cheering erupted from all corners. “It has been shown that the leaders of this regime do not really want equality for all Chinese people! What they want, is a population that believes that they want equality for all Chinese people!” The crowd started pumping their fists in the air, and some of them waved signs with my picture on them. “The government has talked for a long time about Democratic reforms, but all they have done is call Communism Democracy! Now, in the true spirit of democracy, not the false spirit your leaders portray, the people – the people – will decide what kind of government that is best for them!” There was a volley of cheers. I was swelling with pride, and my loud exuberance was carrying me along. Then, the cheering changed, transformed into screaming. I heard several gunshots ring out from the crowd, and something smashed the corner of the wooden podium. I turned around to see several bullet-holes in my “China for the People” banner, and I dropped onto the ground, and flattened myself against the stage. Three more gunshots. One of them clipped my calf, sending a shock of pain through my leg. Then, there were other shots, these from an assault rifle. These were aimed into the crowd somewhere, and I heard a voice shout “Kill him! He is shooting at our leader!” Someone threw a bomb, and a deafening concussion parted the throng. I hustled offstage and leapt into my armored car. Just as I was driving off, someone threw a Molotov cocktail onto the stage, and a tremendous fire erupted.

I knew now that I could not stay in the public eye much longer, if I was to live long enough to see my revolution succeed.

 

It was a dream, or perhaps a memory. I sat up in my bed. The stage, the bullets, the fire, the armored car. It all seemed clear to me, and somehow it was obvious that this was a memory. Not a dream. The mnemnotherapy at work again. I blinked several times, rubbed my eyes, and sat up. What time was it? The clock read zero-thirty. Middle of the night. I went back to sleep.

I woke out of meaningless dreams, dreams that could not possibly contain any kernel of memory. I felt more claustrophobic than before, which didn’t make sense. Nothing had changed. My situation was still exactly as it had been. I stretched, and went to the bathroom. Then, I paid a visit to the locker room and exchanged my flimsy hospital-like gown for a shirt, tie, and pair of slacks. Once again, a deep memory, untouchable by technology, suggested this outfit to me. None of my clothes fit properly, but I didn’t care. It was nice to remove the gown, and erase that little reminder of my stay in the unreal world.

Back in my room, I played chess against Opponent until the young doctor came with my breakfast. I hadn’t realized just how early I’d woken up, but I didn’t really care. I scarfed down my breakfast, as always, and chugged the protein drink.

“If you’ve got any more questions to ask, you can ask them now.”

“What about mnemnotherapy?”

“Today is Saturday. We don’t do mnemnotherapy on weekends.”

“Oh…well, what can I call you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“What is your name? I don’t know your name.”

“Ah, sorry. I thought I’d told you. You can call me Ben.”

“Right, Ben. Can I leave this place?”

“As I said, you are considered by most of the civilized world to be a nonexistent person. Until we can either secure for you a new identity or the person with your old identity has vanished, you must stay here.”

“A new identity? Where do I get a new identity?” He looked away, visibly uncomfortable for the first time since I’d met him.

“Do you have any other questions?” I’d learned over the past few days that when he said something evasive like that, there was no point in pressing him.

“What is in Room 18K? You promised to tell me.”

“Do you have any more questions?”

“Fine. How large is this place?” Ben smiled with almost childish pride.

“Our campus covers approximately forty to fifty acres of prime real estate, tucked away in the beautiful, temperate Chinese countryside.” He sounded like a brochure. I resisted the temptation to laugh at him.

“Who created this whole enterprise?”

“Do you have any other questions?” I glowered at him, gripping the arms of the chair furiously until my white knuckles turned whiter.

“No,” I growled.

“Right then. You don’t have any sessions scheduled for today, so try to amuse yourself if you can.” I nodded as he left. Then, I scowled at the spot he had been standing in, as though his presence had contaminated my room, somehow.

After I calmed down a bit, I examined the touch-screen menu on my nightstand again. Out of curiosity, I tapped “Puzzles.” Another menu appeared. I selected a crossword puzzle rated “Medium Difficulty,” and it was projected on the wall. I then realized that I had no idea how to actually work the interface. It didn’t make any sense to touch the wall for this purpose. After musing about this for a moment, one of the answers occurred to me. “Nine down is ‘vilified.’” I said aloud. My hypothesis was proven: the word “vilified” appeared in the proper column. I spent the next hour and a half solving the puzzle, which seemed rather more difficult than its rating let on. When I was finished, I sat down on the bed, feeling much less claustrophobic and angry.

When the puzzle was done, I sat around for a few minutes, aimlessly dangling my legs off the side of the bed. I felt like a little boy sitting on a bridge over a creek. For a moment, I half expected this image to form into some primal, visceral one from my childhood, another unwelcome, obtrusive memory dredged up along with those from the mnemnotherapy. But, it wasn’t. It was just a thought, a pure thought. I marveled at its simplicity, its beauty, and its unconditionality. This was not like so many of my other memories of late: this one had no strings attached. For a moment, I was content to just sit there, imagining a little boy sitting on a wooden footbridge, dangling his feet in a stream, maybe trying to catch fish with an improvised rod.

Suddenly, something about this thought made me angry. It was no longer a symbol of purity and simplicity. Now it was a symbol of an existence that I could no longer experienced. At that moment, with that thought, my anger boiled over. Before, I had successfully bottled it up, but it was too explosive for that this time. Eager to do any damage I could, I picked up a chair – one of the only things in the room that didn’t seem to be bolted down – and hurled it at the door. My arms were too weak for a really impressive throw, but still, I heard the chair’s plastic leg crack, and it bounded off the wall, bouncing to a stop on the white floor. I looked down at it, one of its legs now lame, and realized how ineffectual I still was. This, rather than redouble my now-subsiding anger, simply depressed me, and I sat down on the edge of the bed for a long time, thinking about nothing in particular.

A few minutes after my tantrum, one of the security guards opened the door, and stared down at the broken chair.

“What’s happened to your chair?”

“I threw it at the wall.” There was no point in lying.

“Why?”

“I was upset.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t like it here.”

“Oh. That’s too bad. Shall I get rid of this chair for you.” I nodded, exhausted with the almost drugged serenity of all the staff of my fluorescent-and-linoleum hell. I stared at the floor.

I jumped as the projector clicked on again, and the chess music rang out.

“You seem rather upset, sir. Would you like to play some chess to take your mind off things?” cooed Opponent. I shook my head. “I really think you’d get a lot out of it.” I shook my head again. “I’ll make a deal with you. Play a game of chess with me, and I’ll answer a question.” I looked up for a moment, then realized it would probably be meaningless trivia, and shook my head yet again. “I’ll tell you what’s in Room 18K.” This time, I looked up with my entire body, jumping off the bed, whirling around, and staring into Opponent’s camera eye.

“What?” I exclaimed, bracing myself.

“Just play a game with me, then I’ll tell you.”

“Why?”

“Because I think you ought to know, and Dr. Ben is as stubborn as ever.”

“All right, let’s play!”

My opening was weak, my middle game faltered pathetically, and my end game was a pitiful scramble to save my king and one remaining pawn. In the end, I was crushed by Opponent’s superior forces. That hardly surprised me. I sat down on the edge of the bed after it was all over, and made a long face.

“I think I did better this time.”

“Much better.”

“If you’re a computer, is it even possible for a mere human to win?” I would have smiled amicably, but I didn’t feel like it.

“Yes. I’m not that good. My chess-playing system was specifically designed to be no better or worse than that of a human player of average skill.”

“You could’ve fooled me.” Then, I purposefully set my face in a grave expression. “Now, are you going to tell me what’s in Room 18K?”

“You mustn’t let on to anybody that I told you.”

“I won’t.”

“You must promise.”

“I promise.”

“Very well. Room 18K is an exit. It’s the exit. That’s all I can safely tell you.”

“Is that it? That’s all? ‘Room 18K is the exit’? What kind of information is that? It’s useless to me!”

“You’ll figure out what it means. Just don’t give up on finding out what’s in there. I think you’ll be surprised. Probably unpleasantly surprised, but I get the feeling you’d rather know the truth than be happy.” I looked at my feet, and then nodded.

“I suppose that’s true. I would.” Then, the projector clicked off, sounding mournful somehow. A few moments later, the door opened, and Dr. Ben appeared, smiling as always, and bearing a plate of steamed rice and vegetables. He set it in front of me, and in the absence of his usual chair, sat on the bed near me as I ate.

“Why did you break the chair?”

“I told the security guy, I was angry.”

“Angry at what?”

“Well, it happened like this: I was swinging my legs off the edge of the bed, and I started thinking I looked like a little country boy sitting by a stream – you know, fishing with a stick and a piece of twine or something – it was the only memory or though I’ve had so far that felt real, that felt like it wasn’t…implanted. And that made me think about all the fake memories and the false experiences, and how few of those nice, pure, real ones I’ve got now, and I just got angry.”

“Why did you throw the chair, though?”

“It was the only thing I could lift. The table was too heavy, and everything else was bolted down.”

“It’s going to take a while for us to get you a new chair.”

“Why is everybody going on about the chair?” I would’ve stood up, and attempted to menace him again, but my fit of rage had worn me out.

“Well, it can take some time for us to get the furniture. We have to order it from Austria, you know.”

“What does it matter?”

“Do you have any other questions.” I felt ready to explode, and I’m sure my white face, for the first time, gained some color. Red, specifically.

“Will you stop saying that!”

“I’ll be back tomorrow to take you to your mnemnotherapy session. Try to relax.”

As he left, I contemplated throwing my one remaining chair at him, but only complacency and the desire not to sit on the floor prevented me. What good would it do? I’d punched him in the face and he’d just walked off, smiling. For the first time in my life – whatever “my life” meant, if anything – I felt the weight and truth of the expression “at the end of my rope.” That’s what it felt like. I was out of options, trapped, imprisoned, and could do nothing about it. I made a face at the wall, stood up, sat down, and stood back up. I walked across the room, then walked back. I walked out the door, and down the hallway. I looked into the room in which I’d been sleeping for sixteen years. I walked in, full of anger-fueled determination, and kicked the machine as hard as I could. All I got from this was a wounded foot, and I hobbled back to my room. I was full of angry energy, and had no outlet. I made use of the only outlet I knew of: I did another crossword puzzle.

 

“You do know that you might never leave this place, right?” asked the doctor, feigning concern. The sterile white walls and glaring fluorescent lighting were familiar.

“Yes, I do. But I don’t have much choice, do I?”

“I suppose not. Now, if you’ll just fill out this last form, we’ll get things set up.”

“Which form is this?”

“It just gives us immunity from all legal action by you, should you later decide that you didn’t like the whole process.” I looked down at the form dubiously, and tapped my pencil on the edge of the table.

“Give me a moment to think about it.”

“All right, but you do have to be in the machine by nine o’clock, and there are some other things that must be addressed before then.” My stomach knotted and gurgled. I felt dizzy, like I was going to faint.

“Suppose I’ve changed my mind.” The doctor smiled, doing his impression of benevolence.

“You can’t change your mind now. You signed a very binding contract yesterday, if you remember.”

“I remember. I want to retract it.”

“You can’t.”

“I said, I’ve changed my mind!” I stood up, towering powerfully over the doctor.

“Now, there’s no need for physical threats. But you really must go through with this. You can’t retract the contract, and you can’t change your mind.” I had half a mind to punch him square in the face. I’d only been in Suite 18 for two days, and already I felt like a prisoner. I hadn’t even been plugged into the virtual-reality machine yet! I sidled around the end of the rectangular table, and flexed my muscular arm, ready for my infamous right hook.

“I said I want out!” I bared my teeth, like an animal, using all the psychological tricks I’d deployed on the citizens of China.

“I’m afraid there’s no getting out. Now, if you’d like to take this up with our legal affairs bureau, you’re welcome to, but your contract binds you here for twenty years, and the bureau will uphold this.” I punched him in his left temple. The blow was strong, and hard enough to knock him out of his chair and send him tumbling limply to the floor. He recovered from his daze, stood up, and displayed the first real emotion I’d ever seen on his face.

“You know,” he growled, brushing off his lab coat, “that was probably the stupidest thing you could have done. We have complete control over you now. I’m going to see to it personally,” to add emphasis, he jabbed me in the chest with a bony finger, “that you have a truly awful experience here. You will never be happy again. Nobody will ever answer your questions. You could have been a guest, well now you’ll be a prisoner.” I shoved him backwards, and he turned, pausing to shoot me a hateful glare before he left.

 

I woke up laying on the cold linoleum, drool gluing my face to the floor. I stood up, shook myself off, and stretched my creaking joints. Suddenly, I remembered the dream I’d just had, remembered the young doctor I’d punched, and from that jumping-off point, I reached a whole host of memories.

 

“You can-not simply go into hiding!” yelled Chou, in his gratingly perfect English.

“I have to go into hiding, Chou. I don’t have a choice. My opponents will kill me if they find me, or crucify me if they find out about my methods.” I zipped up my duffel bag, and dropped it by the door of the hotel room. I then crossed the room, pushing past Chou, rummaging through the bathroom cabinet for my bottle of Valium.

“The people will not continue the Revolution with-out their leader!”

“Stop following me around,” I shoved him out of the way. “Tell them I’ve gone into hiding, paste up a banner with my picture, and sound heroic. Say ‘I’m carrying his torch,’ or something.” Chou looked like he wanted to hit me. I stuffed the Valium into the bag, and paused in the doorway. “Look, I still believe in the Revolution, but you know I can’t carry on like this. I’ve got too many enemies, and too many problems. I can’t stay in the public eye!”

“That is-not what I mean! I do-not trust this ‘Independent Virtual Living’ company. I have looked over their contract, and it is no good!”

“What do you mean?” I was willing to indulge Chou, especially when his voice had gotten as serious as this.

“They are hiding their motives in legal-ese. They are not telling you something about this place.”

“Look,” I said, lowering my voice, placing my hands comfortingly on his shoulders, “the Revolution will survive. You’ve seen it: it’s gathering momentum all the time. It doesn’t need me – or you – any longer. That was our goal, wasn’t it? People capable of going on without a leader, because each of them is the leader!” I grabbed the duffel, headed out the door, and slammed it behind me.

 

“Listen, Opponent,” I said, staring mournfully at her projector assembly, “I’m going under in a couple of hours, and they’re planning to keep me there for twenty years. Some of them have some ill will towards me, and I don’t know how they’re going to treat me when I come out. I want you to promise me to remind me what’s in Room 18K, all right?”

“Why, sir?” she cooed.

“I told you: I think there are some people here who are against me. Do you promise?” Somehow, I got the impression that her camera swiveled away nervously.

“All right, sir. I promise.”

“Thank you.” I smiled warmly at her.

 

“All right, sir, are you ready?” asked the new doctor. I couldn’t remember his name. It might have been Ben something.

“Not really, but go ahead.”

“Okay. I’m going to attach the EKG leads now. They’re going to be a little cold.” He pasted the leads to my chest. “All right, now here comes the transcranial cap. This is going to be cold, too, and sticky.” I felt the cap closing on my head, and I was panged by a mild claustrophobia. “Now, as soon as we hook up the cap, you’re going to pass into unconsciousness while the new memories are implanted. If you have anything else you’d like to say, this is your last chance.”

“If anybody asks about me, or why I did this, just tell them I had my reasons, okay.”

“All right, sir. Here goes.”

 

I sat in the little bedroom, the sparkles filling my vision again. I felt like I’d been hit by this peculiar torrent of memories. My fears had been confirmed: something sinister lurked behind Dr. Ben’s smiling countenance, behind the calm serenity of the security guard, and the general benevolence of the whole place.

I had no connection to anything. My real memories were false, implanted electronically. My false memories were false, also implanted electronically. I couldn’t be sure that these new memories were any more real, or even that my experiences were real. After all, I’d believed that my stupid little virtual life was real. Why not this life? Why not these memories. I could feel another panic attack coming on. I was dizzy, and my whole body was tingling. I stood up, shakily, and whirled around a couple of times.

“Opponent!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, feeling like I was about to cry, or have a breakdown. “Opponent!”
“Yes, sir, what’s the matter?”

“Why didn’t you tell me about the other doctor? Why didn’t you tell me that I told you about 18K?”

“Because I didn’t think it would help you. That room is locked, and they will do anything they can to prevent you from opening it. Dr. Renny is still very angry with you.” That was it, I couldn’t take it. I passed out again.

I woke up angry, again. That was it, I couldn’t take it any longer. I couldn’t take the lies, the fakeness of the whole enterprise. I hated Dr. Ben, Dr. Renny, the massage therapist, the exercise therapist, and all the machinery in the place. I shoved the door open and dragged my remaining chair out into the hallway. My skinny arms pulled it to the door marked “Now Leaving Suite 18,” and then opened the door. The security guard was standing there, still grinning that stupid, institutional grin. I lifted the plastic chair, and brought it down as heavily as I could on the guard’s head. He yelped, grunted, and fell to the floor. He stood up, kicked the chair out into the hallway behind him, and brushed himself off.

“Sir, why did you do that?” his voice bore the first real anger I’d ever heard from him.

“Because I hate you, and I hate this place. I hate it all, and I am going to kill you!” With that last part, I raised my fist in the air and threw it forward into his face. He made a little “umph” sound, then shoved me backwards. He dropped the laser rifle, and unholstered his conventional sidearm.

“Get back, sir!” he growled, stepping towards me, and resettling his helmet.

“No!” I charged towards him, and then there was the loud bang from the muzzle of his gun. A huge shockwave struck he down, and I fell into darkness.

Death. Nothing. Oblivion. No. Thought. Still thought. Thought still there. What happened? Someone shot me. A feeling of emptiness. Nowhere. Nothing. I’m dead, I’m dying, I’m dead. Black vision, nothing to see.

Something moved in the blackness. A long, snaking something. A tube?

A room opened up in my visual field. It was a half-sphere: a dome with a flat bottom. The ceiling was some transparent, glass-like material, ribbed with weird, iridescent metal. Through the ceiling, I could see beautiful orange-tinted evening clouds hovering by. I got a feeling of tremendous altitude. I shifted, and felt myself laying on a bed, slanted forward. The bed was slimy, and the slime coated my back. Something was wrapped around me. I looked down. Like greenish, slimy ropes coiled around my midsection. A hexagonal pattern on the green skin, like the skin of a snake. The long, snaking something moving in front of me again. It was a long, thing, dexterous appendage that looked like a tentacle. I was aware of a violent headache in the back of my skull. The headache receded suddenly, replaced by a painful pressure. The things coiled around me loosened, and then retreated. More tentacles. The one waving in front of me darted towards me, pressing against my chest in several places, poking at my face and my neck, running across my stomach.

“Can you hear me?” asked a voice, strange and echoing, seeming to come from everywhere at once. It was frighteningly nonhuman, but somehow still managed to sound feminine. I nodded, weakly. “Good. Now, relax. I am going to tell you some things that you may find difficult. Please do not do anything hasty. If you’d like, I’ll hold your hand.” I offered my bony hand. The tentacle wrapped tightly around my fingers.

“What’s going on?” I rasped.

“Stay calm, but for the last eighteen years, you’ve been living in a sort of virtual reality…”

…