She starts blurring. The hotel room melts. My body doesn’t feel my own. I am lunged backwards. The world races past me, faster than I can comprehend. Everything is a haze, is in front of me. Complete darkness envelops as I get more and more removed from the place I wish I could stay in. In that place, now less than a speck of bright in the distance, I know she’s just as disappointed and frustrated as I am.
“Just as it started to get good.“ I chuckle to myself and shake my head to no one in particular. Stark naked in a leather office chair, wearing only an older model VirtuCom helmet… Sure am glad no one’s watching me right now, not that I’d care. I unplug my headgear, saunter over to my bed where I put my clothes and begrudgingly redress myself.
As I struggle to get into my tight brown leather pants, the ones with bright-magenta strips on the back, I notice the A/C’s off. I’m beading with sweat, the choking urban heat instantly noticable. I look at my computer. Third Life didn’t crash, the power was cut off. “Ah, jammit.”
My door flies off its hinges. I fall on the bed and narrowly dodge it. Like a grenade went off, the door explodes against the north window, into a googol oakwood splinters. My desktop becomes a pin cushion, my prized digital display of E-rockstar Trish Rigs is skewered and glitches out. It starts displaying an ad for nerdcore act The Angry AIs and I begin to scream. My dog looks up to see what all the commotion is and goes back to sleep.
I roll off the bed and blindly grab under it, taking the first things I get my hands on. Electrum knuckles with integrated music player? Why do I even have these? I slide them on my left hand, put in the earbuds, and take cover against the south wall.
“You’re overdue on your debts, Mx. Cureleathers.“ I can hear the thick, gutteral voice booming over Trish Rigs’s 2087 hit single ‘Let Me Hack Your Soul, Baybee’. That one’s so good, I’m crying a bit. “And like cyberhell that’s your real name! Now you gotta pay up twice – once for the debts, and another to change that two-bit pseudonym of yours. Unless you want it listed in tomorrow’s obituaries.“
She bellows like a maniac at her own joke, which was actually pretty good. I’m laughing too, despite my situation. “Mate, you interrupted something real sweet. Come back tomorrow, alright?” I glance around the corner: the debt collector’s size isn’t as impressive as her boombox of a voice, but she’s still pretty big. Oh, gray plate on the throat. Of course, voice modulation. She also has a shotgun. That’s like, bad for me.
“How abouts I drag your broken body back to office, wrangle some Cybucks out of your pathetic ass?“ “Only if you’re plugging the USB in, doll.” The unmistakable sound of a shotgun getting cocked sends shivers down my spine. Or it’s that freakin’ draft from the window. I’m not wearing a shirt, just these sweet, sweet pants. A muffled footstep on my cheap carpet – I take a quick look at Data; still in her box, whew – the collector’s coming closer.
I take a deep breath and let Trish guide me to sweet survival, baybee. I sway around the corner and rush at the collector, singing the lyrics with full voice. I hit the SHOCK MODE button on my knuckles and prepare for the meanest left hook, ruder than social media. Right before my fist connects with her admittedly very fair face, the song abruptly stops, and a robotic voice nowhere as lovely as Trish’s informs me, “INSUFFICIENT BATTERY FOR SHOCK MODE”.
My fist on her face, a sheepish smile on mine. “Ah… jammit.” She aims her shotgun at my leg and pulls the trigger.