Immersion

Free Thought Brings No Profit

The credit was still in the slot, another game over. Half an hour until work, another life shouldn't be too detrimental.
Start; jump; fire; talk; grab; persuade; love; kill; die. Within the confines of the following 20 minutes, as the rest of the world and it's intricate cogs turned at their steady rhythmic pace, Gerald Berkensoft was in a state of IREM. 2 non-existent months crammed themselves into these TARDIS-esque 20 minutes, in a forced dream-state, his Virtual Immersion-Reality Universe Seat - forcibly titled in order to gain the abbreviation VIRUS - held him sleeping to infinitely stretch his lunch-hour. And his chances too. In IREM, very nearly anything is possible, so long as you have no wish to turn the lights off.

Only 11 minutes left. Comatose in the reinforced leather chair, eyes flittering as if to follow the path of a woodpecker's nostrils. Although not a particularly large man, the middle-aged balconies of stomach-fat ironed his pale-purple skin of a shirt into several orderly horizontal creases to compliment the larger collection on his grimacing marinated forehead. The energy absorbed from breakfast showed no sign of being worn off, and so began to assimilate into the idle mansion of lard, throbbing as he dreamt his way through the minute-years on a TaskDream.

A TaskDream was a fixed 'program'. That was the beauty of the VIRUS; not only could your dreams be free, but you could set yourself tasks, objectives, levels if you will. A fully immersible computer game, without the need to create the game itself, nor the time needed to play it in. Gerald designed remarkable machine himself - coincidentally enough, the idea was imagined and created in a dream. He remembers it clearly, because he woke up... well, he prefers not to mention it. It induces unpleasant memories - uncontrolled dreams have a habit of going that way.

However, when IntraCom, the computer company he perspirantly pitched it to, accepted his idea, he dedicated his life to bring the cliché of 'making his dreams a reality' some deserved significance. Within 3 years, VIRUS had sold 200,000 units, to large businesses, town rallies, even some luckier-financed individual homes. Companies throughout the civilised world had been working on fully-immersible virtual-reality consoles for a significantly loathsome amount of time, to little or no avail. They were too big, too complex, liable to failure and - more importantly from the companies' avaricious gazes - much too expensive. The genius of the VIRUS is that it's almost dangerously simple. A small MRI device is strapped to the head-stock of the chair, purpose-developed semi-anaesthetics are administered and small electrical impulses barrage the body's synaptic nerves to dictate the nature of the program and dominantly simulate muscle movement. No large computers are needed to make visual representations of buildings, locations or people; the mind does all the work, and this can be held in check from rampant surrealism with relative ease.

Gerald, at this time, indulged in a pre-programmed packaged-meal of a disk, designed for dreamers with no imagination. Lucidity in dreaming is all very well, but without an idea to set the wheels in motion, there's no point to it. The current ready-meal being devoured was none other than his own 'Shoot-em-up' skeleton, KURE. A painfully shallow korma, whereby the main objective is to eliminate the bland poppodom world of the 'scourge of higher power', receiving points for the more important and significant slaughter. For Gerald, and his new-found profession in the 'menta-gaming' industry, TaskDreams are a priority, but for those with a more heightened sense of imagination, there is FreePlay.

Gerald recalled many of the previous stunts he'd performed in FreePlay before he was rudely lassoed into the world of retail - free-thought brings no profit. In an experiment to see whether he could slow the spin of the earth, he and a thousand other dream-figures he'd rallied drove their numerous vehicles due east off a trail of cliff-line. Their vehicles plummeted towards the earth, zombie-like in their uniform death-relish, they were pre-organisedly saved by innumerable parachutes. As the display of a titan's thousand poppodoms fell onto the spiced juices of the sands below, the momentum they momentarily thrifted from the earth's spin was transferred to the surrounding air, as opposed to returning to it's rightful cosmic owner. As the Earth slowed, the winds accelerated, dramatically. After significant repetitions, the effect could be considered catastrophic; villages were blown to shrapnel, chapel roofs speared nearby fields, telephone masts littered the land as matchsticks on a modeller's workstation, all so this man's curiosity could be proven.

These zombified participants continued their dirgious death-tempt up to the nth repetition as he had calculated, then they silently went back to their respective ruins, whilst Gerald waited, although not idly; circling the limping Earth, running around after smaller errands (stealing major artworks, tunnelling across the Atlantic and invading Spain) for 4 years, he observed the world's behaviour, mapping it's universal position and so forth, until his physical imaginings were confirmed. He had increased the length of each day by an average of 59 seconds, thus eliminating the need for a leap year. It was at the expense of civilisations and x-thousand lives (he was always fond of mathematical substitution), but that didn't matter. Induce a shock, and he'd be back in reality, unhurt, without consequence and after a fleeting jiffy of time passed.

Although without consequence, these sessions aren't without observation; the internet, an already incredibly vast brain-network, absorbed this technology whole-heartedly. With the advent of VIRUS came the race to develop dream-recorders (fortunately not created by Gerald), which were then copied, mass-marketed and applied to the contraption for later viewing. Oddly for a viewing platform, the viewing went by in the same time it took to make - less than three tenths of a second - which, (alongside the duration of the adventure), whilst fantastically convenient, leads to a high-capacity file. The solution was significant; of the 12 servers that controlled the hub of the internet's workings, a 13th was added, purely for the discourse of 'Dream Mappers'. Websites were now irreleveant, this social phenomena had an entire branch of the internet for it to run rampant in.

But without this time-lapse hindsight, it wasn't quite as smooth a development as this. Anaesthetic and impulse test-subjects suffered terminal nausea, persistent insomnia or persistent narcolepsy, alongside more random specimens of effect; the bends, an inability to sneeze, althelete's ear, continuous haptodsyphoric reactions and even loss of limbs. Almost every ailment beneath the proverbial fireball. Most complained, however, of the unspeakable nightmares they experienced in these tests. The sort of sepulchral imaginings that posses some fraction of your conscious mind at every given time, warning you that it might repeat itself within the confines of physical reality. Some lived with it, some went insane, but this was no burden to Gerald; his company was after a profit. Eventually he took up the testing himself, and several debilitating near-misses, and many perspirant hauntings later, he hit upon the chemical, the shock-voltage and the time period he needed. Unfortunately, a lag of 19minutes and 38 seconds still remain between immersion and 'play', but this he hoped to remedy this by the end of the year.

For now, however, after being killed in the eye of a tornado by a passing albatross, Gerald was reminded of his suggestion to the board for padded head-stocks, by awaking suddenly, catapulting head-first into the seat's helmet. After administering a placeboic massage to the afflicted area, he looked at his watch. 9 minutes until he has to get back to work.

A decision was quick to raise it's transparent and obvious head, with one bejewelled ear clearly more tempting than the other cauliflowered cyst; As he was on a period of - fastidiously lied - 'fact-finding missions', should he count this as a correct use of time? Possibly. He hadn't yet typed up his report on the Japanese 'NIHON V' branch and wide-spread consumerism. However, a report on his new 'Headcount XIX' project would be equally worth his while.

It wasn't long, and he was on the streets of a major cliché-designed city, Baretta in hand, mercilessly slaughtering the stunned populous. From his many hours of research, headshots were a dead-cert; no longer a pleasure, merely proving as a disappointment when they don't arise. Reports of dreamplay earned him bonus points, administrative speeches unlocked side-objectives. Alleys became shortcuts to the greater goal, the high-rise building with it's head suffocated by noxious fog. He heard it's cry for air, and headed as the proverbial flew, with similar speed and fixed determination.

At the building, he massacred his way through a packed reception of unresponsive businessmen, a feature he forgot he added into the game, but relished in the realisation. An ornamental sword he picked up from a broken window of a high-street store carved it's way into sagging middle-aged flesh of their throats with a pleasing slurp, and tingling vibration in the handle. Limbs flew to the side, one stray forearm even flailed it's way into a trashcan, of which he was significantly pleased. The building went into lock-down. The upper floors sealed, the roof calling to all nearby airborne transport. For Gerard, this was but a minor inconvenience, if not even a thrilling challenge; windows were smashable, walls climbable and points still wholly attainable.

Exiting the building for the climb, he pleasantly registered the screams of the surrounding city, and the screeching of tires driving to or from the scene. He thwacked the sword's side against the concrete edge of the entrance, shattering it to a stub of truncated steel. Driving this as a pick into the ice of the building's facade, he began to climb. Edging his way from window-ledge, to vent-cover, he crawled his way up several floors. A congregation of citizens were held back by a hastily formed police barrier between them and the 5-minute mass-slaughterer. Bullets began to ricochet from the cement around him. Sweat cascaded from his forehead to his eyes, the saline stinging his pupils. His motored arm was hit by a marksman's 9mm. Now bloodshot in several senses, his arm flung outwards relinquishing it's grip on the 7th floor windowsill - This experience was odd for him. Normally wounds triggered return to reality, but he had since introduced a higher pain threshold, allowing the experience to last longer.

Mono-manually clawing his way up to a window-cleaner's pedestal, he sheltered above a thin piece of plywood and aluminium sheeting - mere paper to the cut of a whirring round. Cradling his arm, the pain began to get to him. With what little grey matter still idle from the wound, he made a mental note to dull down the lingering agony that now plagued him, in a program touch-up session the following day. For now, though, it was more than his body could handle, so his used his remaining strength to clamber his way up to a vaguely upright position, and flay his body to the hail of metal. Plummeting forwards, plunging 56 feet to the floor strewn with scattering policeman and motionless bullet cases, the cheesegrater fell. As the drain-covers appeared ever-larger, he re-reminded himself to reduce physical trauma. Sometimes painlessness is better than length of play.

---

The world's media had a proverbial field day. Countless headlines spoiled themselves with puns around 'VIRUS Inventor' being 'Infected' by bloodlust, or some-such similar murderous metaphor. Those scattered lobbies of game-hating worriers rallied together for a protest against the increasing violence in computer games; they had received their holy grail of a murderous rampage about downtown Tokyo, and 48 dead, ironically relishing in the peace-bringing victory that only such a bodycount could give them. IntraCom went into administration, following countless cases of suing from the many users of VIRUS devices, under grounds of potential mental damage, alongside product returns and failed investments in pre-made units.

2 months elapsed, the seat of the VIRUS occupied by Gerald that evening still retains it's original fate-stained composure. The imprint of his over-sized buttocks still dully scar the leather. The congealed sweat stains still linger on the MRI head-piece. The electrical impulse generators retain their buzzing death-throes, snapped by the jump, and will remain so until the power is cut. The syringes of anaesthetic remain on the side, prepared and ready to inject a dose of unadministered immersion.