End Of Grey
I popped open the tab on my noodle soup. It fizzed as the sachet released its score of vitamins. Taste calibration molecules began to color the clear white algae. There was a beauty to this, jellyfish changing color at dawn. My room was cardboard cutout, same as hundreds I had slept in. A pallet, a tray, a box for personal toiletries and extra clothes, of which I had none. I had rented the room for a week, rare, because I moved around a lot. I needed a fixed address this time, however, damn the expense. A knock. I put down my bowl, unfinished. My last friend this side of the world crawled in, wearing his physician's smock. He had his briefcase, full of the drugs I had paid for.
He charged, normally: a fee well beyond me. But this was gratis. It was the last service he would render me, in the real world. On the other side, I was about to become immortal. The Guild Lords had invited me to join their rank, an honor elevating me above thousands of gamers. I was crossing over, total virtuality, to live forever in the Guild World.
It was a moment of celebration. There had once been small ceremonies, honor amongst gamers. Too many crossovers later, there were only two of us left of our original clan; the rest scattered, throughout other cities, some trapped in real life, some shifting into other games, finding other loyalties. We hugged awkwardly. He wanted to smoke a ritual cigarette. I didn't care for it, but lit one anyway, and we shared it in silence.
He rolled up my sleeves. Tranquilizers at first, then drugs to lower the metabolism, blood pressure and body heat, then antibodies, and finally Necroxin, proven to stop muscle atrophy in space monkeys. Then, because he was my friend, he gave me a little LSD, a bon voyage.
I jacked my pod into my neck. The Total ImmersionTM software started to interact with my optical nerves. The gray room began to fade, superimposed by the giant redwoods of the Guild World. Mini novas of sunlight burst my eyes, clean light, as it had been in the beginning. I relaxed. Details got sharper. The canopy was ten stories above me, sparkling like stars, heady with the promise of dark green. Filtered air faded from my lungs, and the flavor of the new breath was sharp with the wingbeats of insects, of peat and fresh dew and woodsmoke.
Nostalgic, I focused through the trees to my room, saw the shadow of my friend packing. He set my body in a dignified pose, inserting IV packs into my arm. He would leave me there soon, and when the week was up, the landlord would call the city medical services, to cart me to an assisted life ward, one of many.
It was over. I walked barefoot on the loam, felt the brand new earth beneath my skin for the first time.
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