Chapter #3False alarm by: Yote   Looking down the rows of VR bunks, you see that the flashing blue light that indicates which user is requesting assistance is currently flashing over an empty bunk. Another false alarm, the third this week. With a system this complex and finely tuned, it's understandable that there would be a few glitches here and there, the odd ghost in the machine. That remainds you, you've got that great new Ghost in the Shell sim to try out this evening!
You switch off the warning for that bunk and head back to the front desk. The workload continues but around mid afternoon it starts to calm down as students log out and hurry off to their exams. Around 6pm you check in the blue room to find one of the students logged-out but asleep in his bunk. You poke him awake, remind him of the time and he runs away crying.
At 9pm, you flick the Open sign on the door to Closed, leaving the door unlocked so that the last few customers in simulation can wander out as their time expires. There are days when you stay open later but you figure the system needs time to cool down after an intense day. As do you. You pour yourself a coffee and start to tidy the place up. Dad's body tries to help. The rudimentary Body Guard program in his brain finds a broom and begins to sweep away at the floor with stiff, robotic strokes, moving back and forth across the shop with the simple pathing of a roomba. Mum's body, also inhabited by a Body Guard, gathers the used cups from the tables, and manages to only smash two.
Popping open the till to do a count of the day's takings, you marvel at the thick piles of crumpled notes. As you do, the doorbell tings.
"Sorry, we're closed," you say.
A Tescos carrier bag is thrust into your hands while a large knife is thrust beneath your chin. "Put everything in the bag and nobody gets hurt!"
You look up into bloodshot eyes set in a head adorned with scars and open sores. The guy is twitchy as hell, strung out on something, and the knife is shaking alarmingly. "Sure thing, buddy," you say soothingly, taking handfuls of notes and begin to stuff them into the bag.
"Hey, don't move, bitch! I said don't move!"
To your horror, you see mum wandering obliviously towards the counter, coffee cups in hand. The robber turns the knife towards her.
"Wait, she doesn't know what she's doing," you cry out. "She's just got an AI in her head; she doesn't understand what's happening!"
"Don't come any closer, bitch!"
"Don't stab my mum!"
The coffee cups clatters to the floor. With a sickening crunch, your mother grabs the robber's wrist and drives down on his arm with her elbow, snapping the bone in two. The knife flies upwards, spinning in the air. With the mechanical precision that only a computer program could wield, she pulls it smoothly out of the air and drives it clean through his other arm, severing nerves and arteries, sending a spray of blood over the chintzy chairs.
Dad's body sweeps at the blood, smearing it over the floor.
The robber howls in agony, slumping away into a table. You leap over the counter as fast as your flabby, asthmatic ass will allow (probably would have been quicker to just walk around) and carefully take the knife from your mother while trying to appear as non-threatening as possible. Who knew the self-defence prototols on the Body Guard would be that effective.
You point the knife at the guy but all of a sudden it hardly seems fair. His arms hang limp and he's losing a lot of blood.
"Oh shit, what do I do?"
Mum smiles serenely and returns to collecting crockery.
"Alright, move," you bark, waving the knife in the direction of the blue room. He obeys, sullen and teary eyes. "Lie down and strap that on."
"The hell you doing, man, I need a hospital," he sobs, bleeding all over your nice clean VR bunk. As he straps the headset on, the neural clamps immobilize every muscle from the neck down, rendering him floppy. You lower the knife and slide out the keyboard next to the bunk.
"I'm going to strip out your personality and upload a bodyguard program. They come with first aid training; it'll be able to stop the bleeding."
"What the fueargajerkdunhdhuhsdneefurguuweeeeee," he blurts, the human equivalent of an old dial-up modem, as his consciousness is sucked down a wire.
[Download at 100%] displays the computer. You heave a sigh of relief, knowing the guy is now safely stored in your hard drive. Even if his body bleeds out, you're covered. | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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