28 Days

It has been observed under laboratory conditions that complete sleep deprivation in rats leads to death in twenty-eight days.

* * *

Not dark; utter blackness. Gitana looks and the lights behind her eyelids disappear into the void.

_The power must have gone out._

Cold tile, ceramic, smooth under fingertips.

_The bathroom. Why am I sleeping the bathroom?_

Gitana shifts, lifting her hands to rub the sleep from her face - but they will not move. Something restrains them behind her back.

Then the fear comes.

_My hands are fastened together. What has happened?_

Gitana struggles wildly to her feet, banging her knees on the hard floor, pain signals racing into her brain.

_OK. Think this through. The power is out. You're in the bathroom. Your hands are bound. Maybe you were drugged. There must be someone in your apartment._

The light springs on, blinding, white. Gitana cringes away, clenching her eyes against its harshness. She blinks them open again and reels.

Shock.

Confusion.

Terror.

She is suspended in a column of crystal and light; Slabs of glass, maybe three times her height, sketch the boundaries of an empty universe - a square universe paved with square-inch bits of bone-white ceramic.

Gitana presses her face against the glass, staring, searching for information from outside, but there is nothing - only a glistening black floor fading away into grey emptiness. It could be concrete, but it is hard for Gitana to focus. There are no lights beyond the boundaries of the universe, and the suns above her are distractingly, achingly bright. She looks up at them. There are four lights, evenly spaced around the corners of her ceiling, shining down on her like spotlights through clear round portholes. Gitana looks down at herself. She is still she, wearing her usual baggy sweat-pants and T-shirt.

Then the voice speaks.

"Good morning. What is your name?"

It seems to come from the greyness beyond, a friendly masculine voice.

"Hello?" she says, shaking.

"Hello," says the voice. "What is your name?"

"Where am I?" Gitana demands in a stronger tone.

"You have asked that twice," the voice says. "Is the answer to that question important to you?"

Gitana stops dead in confusion. "What? Of course it's important to me! Answer me! Where am I?"

"But you haven't answered my question yet," the voice says reasonably. "What is your name?"

"If I tell you my name, will you tell me where I am?" Gitana asks cautiously.

"Yes."

"OK. My name is Gitana."

"Thank you. I am pleased to meet you, Gitana."

"Now will you tell me where I am?"

"You are in a room approximately five meters square enclosed by double-layered glass walls, the interstices of which are slowly filling with water. As the outer enclosure is exactly five centimeters taller than the inner enclosure, an inwards overflow will occur when the interstitial capacity is exceeded. Naturally, this will take some time; But, eventually, you will drown."

Dead silence follows this announcement. The voice seems to have nothing else to say, and Gitana is unable to speak. She stares around the glass walls of her cage. There is indeed a layer of water on all four sides, about six inches deep. A rainbow-colored fish is swimming there, trapped just as she is, suspended in an invisible, life-sustaining prison. Gitana stares at it, fighting down the hysterical laughter clawing its way up her throat.

* * *

Gitana spends a lot of time watching the water. She has no exact meter with which to measure its progress, but she tries counting - silently, after the voice asked her what she was doing the first time - and measuring by stacking her feet. It seems to be climbing the sides of her cage at a rate of about six inches a day. At least, it has risen slightly higher than the length of one of her feet when the voice says "Good Morning, Gitana" for the third time. It is really moving too slowly to follow without counting for a long time, and Gitana keeps losing track. But, it is filling quickly enough that she is aware of its progress.

She does not sleep. Dull exhaustion bites the back of her eyes, but sleep does not come, even when she throws herself to the floor in a limp heap. Her mind continues to race, brain endlessly looping golden threads of thought. The back of her head begins to ache. She does not try again.

* * *

On the eighth day, Gitana tries to kill the fish. It swims by, eyeing her complacently, its rainbow scales shimmering.

"You're not free!" Gitana screams. "You're not happy! Stop looking happy! Stop looking at me!"

She throws herself at the glass, kicking it. The glass is strong; Gitana falls to the floor. She jumps up again, hurls herself head-first at the fish. There is a flash, black pain.

When Gitana awakens again, things are different. By craning her neck and twisting hard she sees that a long cable runs from her bound wrists and disappears into the center of her four lights. She can no longer reach the walls. Then she notices that her clothing has disappeared. For the first time Gitana cries. She stares down at her fallen tears, random patterns of water molecules dancing on white ceramic. She knows that they will be joined by many more like them. Not soon, but inevitably.

"That was a bad thing, Gitana," says the voice. "You must not try to kill yourself."

"The fish . . . " Gitana, mumbles.

"Yourself _or_ the fish," the voice amends. "Now you must be punished."

The tether joining her hands to the ceiling begins to shorten, drawing her wrists up tight, bending her double until her head is near the level of her knees. The pain begins in her shoulders and spreads, a red haze consuming her neck, her head, her back. Soon there is nothing else.

* * *

Gitana walks in circles, aimlessly testing the reach of her tether.

"Good morning, Amy," says the voice.

She stops. "What?"

"Good morning, Amy," the voice repeats.

This is unexpected. She feels something huge and black welling up in her chest until it bursts.

"I am Gitana! You can put me here! You can tie me up without food or sleep or water," - her laugh is high, almost a shriek - "too much water! But not my name! _I know who I am!_"

The voice is silent. Then:

"Rebellion must be punished, Amy."

She grits her teeth as the tether shortens itself. But this time the pain is sharp, instant, the hot slicing pain of a whip. She jerks, twisting around, trying to see behind her, but there is nothing. The whip hits her again. She bites off a sob halfway through.

Again. Gitana!

Again. Gitana!

Again.

Screaming . . .

* * *

"Good morning, Bianca."

"Why?" she screams into the void, sobbing. "Why do you hate me?"

The voice answers, affable as ever. "Hate you, Bianca? I don't hate you. Hate requires a certain regard, a high degree of antisocial esteem. I don't hate you. You are a project. A mere toy, one of many. Your success or failure may mean a great deal to you, but it makes no difference to me."

She no longer looks at the water - instead she tries to count the number of tiles on the floor. Her leash makes it difficult to count the tiles under her feet without losing track as she moves. Several times she forgets which identical wall she began with and must start over. Once she managed to complete the entire floor, but she thinks that there should be around thirty thousand tiles there, and she only made it to just over seventeen thousand. Despairing, she begins again.

* * *

"Good morning, Oriana."

Oriana stops pacing and looks up. "Good morning, voice," she says.

The voice is silent for a few seconds. Maybe it's surprised.

"How are you today, Oriana?"

"I . . . um . . . I'm enjoying the beautiful weather," Oriana replies.

The voice is silent again. Then:

"Tell me your name."

"My name is . . . My name is whatever you want it to be."

"Say it for me, Oriana. Tell me your name."

"My name is Oriana!" Oriana screams.

"Very good," says the voice.

Oriana's leash begins to tighten, bending her face towards the floor.

"No," she sobs. "No, no. I said my name, why are you punishing me? Please, no!"

But there is no pain, only a soft caress moving up, up . . .

Oriana's eyes open wide.

* * *

"Good mor . . ."

"Good morning, voice," she screams, interrupting. The words stumble in her haste to speak them. "Please, can I be Oriana again today? I . . . I liked being Oriana."

"Good morning, Pia," says the voice.

Pia's stomach twists, a grimy dishcloth wringing itself out. She can't curl into a ball, but she gets as close as she can, her face constricted. Her feet are submerged to the ankles in water, but she does not notice.

* * *

Zigana - she knows that is her name, although it has been a long time since she has heard the voice - drinks the water. She hopes that if she drinks fast enough she can keep it from rising. She remembers trying to catch the fish in her teeth and eat it. She does not see it any more, so maybe she succeeded. The water rises. She swallows, tilts her head up to breathe, drinks more.

Finally she tilts her head up to breathe and finds no air, only more water. It is filling her nose, her eyes, rushing into her body. Zigana knows that she is not worth the effort anyway. She relaxes, lets the water have its way with her. The greyness that surrounds her universe shrinks, closing in around her like a cocoon, or perhaps a womb. The walls of her prison dissolve as she takes another breath of water. Water! She can breathe water! Maybe it was a magic fish!

An amazing glowing pain gathers at the base of her skull and bursts.

Stuff that I know

1 . Arena is a massively-multiplayer combat game that takes place in a fully-realized virtual environment.

2. Hardcore (professional) Arena Warriors jack directly into the game by means of a brain-stem socket. This intercepts normal sensory perception, blocking it out with input from the game. In other words, if you jack into the game, you feel just like you're there - all 5 senses receive direct input into the brain.

3. Casual players wear a headset that "ghosts" the sensations of the game over their existing sensations. In other words, when playing with a headset you need to close your eyes, or you'll see double, and you'll still be aware of your surroundings (feel your chair, hear local ambient noise) underneath the ethereal suggestion of the experience that hardcore players actually feel.

4. Professional Arena Warriors are like sports stars. Arena matches show on flat screens all over, and there are lots of spectators in game, and so on. Most Pro Arena Warriors keep their real-world identities secret, even if their Arena Analogues are hugely popular, to avoid groupies and so on. Some of them welcome the attention, though.

5. Professional Arena Warriors are not the only Hardcore Arena Warriors. The brain-stem socket technology is expensive, but not exclusive. Anyone with enough money can participate in the fully realized-virtual game experience, although only the Pro Arena Matches get the big media attention - with the exception of a few underground / indie organizations.

6. Some Hardcore Arena Warriors make it a point of personal pride to stay jacked-in to the maximum amount possible. As such - since they are entirely disconnected from the real world while jacked-in - a whole sub-industry of Caretakers has arisen... people who empty excrement tanks, make sure that IVs are always full, etc.

7. Lexy Coleman is a Pro Arena Warrior corresponding to the analogue identity Caimili (Chigh-MEE-lee). She chews gum, has green-streaked hair, is a hacker, and a raver. She is one of the celeb Warriors that hide their identities. Unlike a lot of celeb gamers, she maintains her real-world health, and her caretaker's job is mainly to hit the panic-button in case Lexy needs to emergency disconnect. Lexy's dad was a rent-a-cop. Lexy has money now, due to her success as an Arena Warrior. To finance her initial Arena Warrior run, she had to do some illegal hacking of some sort, becuase her dad was obviously not rich. Anyway, now Lexy lives in an old nuclear submarine (the reactor has been removed) that is buried underground in some eccentric location, like southern CA.

8. An EVIL CORPORATION is messing around with using realized VR for R&D (weapons R&D, obviously). They will hook up a bunch of predictive AIs and a crapload of nifty technobabble memory to represent a real world R&D environment to an nth-degree of precision, then plug a bunch of scientists into it to research there. The advantage is that the VR R&D environment can be OVERCLOCKED to like 10x or 100x. A team of reserachers plugged in could do 10 or 100 years worth of research in 1 year!

9. This scheme has all kinds of potential pitfalls. First of all, there's the problem of getting a human brain to keep up with a 10x or 100x clocked VR network. This would undoubtedly involve all sorts of drugs, medical maintainance schemes, and so on. Then there's the psychological problem of your mind aging at 10 or 100 times the rate of your body. Also, on a slightly tangential note, once people can make *realistic* VR environments and run them at super-fast speeds, pretty much everyone is going to want to plug in and achieve, effectively, immortality. This sets up a potential sequal (or at least the opportunity for characters to ruminate about future consequences of their actions) in which the entire population of the Earth has become a society in which one is jacked in 24 / 7, where jacking out has the effect of decreasing your *experiential lifetime* by huge factors. It also brings up interesting questions of reproduction, life support, and military action.

10. EVIL CORPORATION wants to use hardcore arena gamers as test subjects for working out the kinks in their prototype. This is because: Hardcore gamers already have lots of experience being jacked in for extended periods; Harcore gamers have minds that are already highly developed for quick responses to virtual inputs - in other words, they're more likely to be able to cope with an accelerated VR network than an R&D flak who was just fitted with a stem-socket yesterday.

11. Lexy's friend (someone) with the analogue identity (something) is EVIL CORPORATION'S first "victim." He tells her he can't make their next match, then disappears off the Arena. Lexy obviously goes looking for him in the real world - no mean feat since she doesn't know who he actually is. But she has some clues, and her 1337 H@XX0R sk111z. She goes after him becuase she likes him, of course, but also because he has her (set of armor / BFG / misc super-duper in-game item) that he borrowed that she needs for an important match. (W00T! Thanks Andy!)

12. I think that is all for now.

Metro City Motel

Metro Motel is a three-story structure in a fifty-story world, cubic humanity storage modules neatly stacked like a row of ammunition cases. Stolidly resisting verticalization, it nestles humbly at the feet of its glittering glass and steel brothers. A stubborn rebel against the vast layers of concrete parking structures, its flat blacktop lot is sufficient to store the conveyances of its itinerant guests in an aging matrix of flaked yellow paint.

In a small room on the top floor, Mr. Zelimir plays Go with a man twenty-thousand miles away. This is a business transaction, the game a mere front to ease the social realities. All the same, Mr. Zelimir plays with great satisfaction.

He sits perfectly still in the center of the worn brown carpet, legs crossed like a Buddhist. He is not, of course, Buddhist; he simply finds great practicality in the simplicity of certain Asian customs. His head is perfectly bald, gleaming faintly in the brown light of Metro Motel's low-budget lighting. He does not, as some artificially bald people do, have the habit of running a nervous hand over his scalp to check the length of his stubble. This scalp does not grow stubble.

From time to time he drinks green tea from a fine china cup held lightly in his left hand. It is a superb tea - barely sweet, with a hint of jasmine. Fingers elegantly separated, his right hand places a white stone on the board with atomic precision, directly on the required intersection. The stone vibrates slightly as his fingers leave it. It is unquestioningly real and valuable, crafted from shell, one of thousands like it, yet unique to itself.

The ghostly image of his opponent smiles, reaches holographic fingers into its own bowl of stones and returns, the hazy bit of slate suspended carelessly between index and middle fingers. This is Mr. Zelimir's friend, known only as Saburo. It is a mark of Mr. Zelimir's esteem for Saburo that he has attired himself in his silk dragon kimono for this occasion. Mr. Zelimir rarely appears before others wearing anything but his jet-black business suit.

They could, of course, meet on VirtuNet and conduct their games in fully realized digital environments. But Saburo prefers this method, as does Mr. Zelimir. It is more... correct.

As the game progresses, so does their business.

"I have prearranged your fee, as always," Mr. Zelimir comments in a conversational tone. "I thank you for your information, also as always."

"And I thank you for your business," Saburo replies. "I understand your requirements, and I think you will find her skills beyond question." He pauses. "However, I do not think you will like her."

Mr. Zelimir smiles. "That is not a requirement."