076.
Inspired by this.
Kyuhyun knows that he's one of the better testers, though he has the potential to be the worse. He keeps things bottled up inside when he eventually descends from virtual to real reality, making quiet corrections of how things were wrong -- I requested a Maltese, not a Pomeranian, and it was colder than I specified -- even as he feels the headache building, the frustrations of a perfect world just out of reach.
Sometimes, when he's bored, he tries to remember the first sim he had accessed. God, it feels so long ago, back before they had linked the sensors with smell, touch, and feel. The feeling of opening his eyes, not knowing what to expect.
In truth, his first dream had been big -- a broken down, dilapidated castle with a pet dragon, obedient only to him and with fire that froze rather than burnt. In truth, the virtual reality had been a blood-red sky, the air tasting of blood and the floor made of ice with a lizard in his pocket and being surrounded by a wasteland. He's learnt to dumb it down for the machines, wait until they've worked out their kinks until he's ready to try that again.
Ten years down the track, he's gone from consumer to developer, watching the progress of the virtual world move from pure sound and sight to incorporating the smell of woodfire smoke and the cold touch of snow.
Most days he specifies something simple that he had never been able to experience; a quiet night on a hillside, watching the stars as crickets chirp; the feel of the horse's reins as they gallop across a paddock, the night air painful as it streaks through the sweat running down his face; the feeling of untainted sand between his toes and the fresh scent of a sea breeze.
He can't tell how real they are, but the fact that some small, subconscious part of his brain acknowledges that it isn't 100% real helps him. He's read the reports; testers refusing to take off the helmets, becoming addicted to the cocktail of drugs shot straight into the vein and refusing real sustenance and nutrients, preferring to live off simulations of fruit and meat.
When he takes off the helmet, he has no inclination to pull it back on, to be honest. Reality is meant to be real; he savours the artificial air the flows through his lungs and the purified water he swallows between sessions. It's not great, but it's the truth, and he would favour that over any lie anyday.
Still, he knows the day they perfect the simulators he won't be able to stop the addiction that'll overcome him to live and relive his perfect world, minute by minute, hour by hour. Day by day and year by year until he's gone.
Kyuhyun knows that he's one of the better testers, though he has the potential to be the worse. He keeps things bottled up inside when he eventually descends from virtual to real reality, making quiet corrections of how things were wrong -- I requested a Maltese, not a Pomeranian, and it was colder than I specified -- even as he feels the headache building, the frustrations of a perfect world just out of reach.
Sometimes, when he's bored, he tries to remember the first sim he had accessed. God, it feels so long ago, back before they had linked the sensors with smell, touch, and feel. The feeling of opening his eyes, not knowing what to expect.
In truth, his first dream had been big -- a broken down, dilapidated castle with a pet dragon, obedient only to him and with fire that froze rather than burnt. In truth, the virtual reality had been a blood-red sky, the air tasting of blood and the floor made of ice with a lizard in his pocket and being surrounded by a wasteland. He's learnt to dumb it down for the machines, wait until they've worked out their kinks until he's ready to try that again.
Ten years down the track, he's gone from consumer to developer, watching the progress of the virtual world move from pure sound and sight to incorporating the smell of woodfire smoke and the cold touch of snow.
Most days he specifies something simple that he had never been able to experience; a quiet night on a hillside, watching the stars as crickets chirp; the feel of the horse's reins as they gallop across a paddock, the night air painful as it streaks through the sweat running down his face; the feeling of untainted sand between his toes and the fresh scent of a sea breeze.
He can't tell how real they are, but the fact that some small, subconscious part of his brain acknowledges that it isn't 100% real helps him. He's read the reports; testers refusing to take off the helmets, becoming addicted to the cocktail of drugs shot straight into the vein and refusing real sustenance and nutrients, preferring to live off simulations of fruit and meat.
When he takes off the helmet, he has no inclination to pull it back on, to be honest. Reality is meant to be real; he savours the artificial air the flows through his lungs and the purified water he swallows between sessions. It's not great, but it's the truth, and he would favour that over any lie anyday.
Still, he knows the day they perfect the simulators he won't be able to stop the addiction that'll overcome him to live and relive his perfect world, minute by minute, hour by hour. Day by day and year by year until he's gone.