A Fold in the Rift [need a better title]
A short story by A.C. Harrison

"Aw, shit, this is it," Zeke exclaimed, booting open the door to his studio apartment, the heavy electronic lock smacking a fresh hole in the wall, plaster raining down. He ignored the damage, knowing he’d have to repair it before the landlord found out. He could care less at the moment. Right now all that mattered to Zeke "Two Gun" Saad was his need to get wired. Stepping into the darkened room, he tucked the package he was carrying under on arm and then expertly tossed his empty wallet at the old fashioned light switch mounted further inside. The worn leather flapped against the switch, kicking on the single bare bulb that illuminated his tiny abode. Zeke jumped out of his shoes and stepped over scattered pizza boxes, his dingy socks somehow leaving the linoleum cleaner as he slid along the floor. Still under his arm was the cardboard box, sealed up tight with packaging tape and clutched like an infant. He set the box on a small end table that abutted a large, metal desk that was more like the hatch to a nuclear bunker, then he pulled out a dull pen knife, using brute force to slice the tape into ragged strips. Ripping open the box with childhood excitement, he lay eyes on what he had been eagerly working towards for so many months.

Hiding inside the drab and battered exterior of the shipping box was a gleaming case of injection molded plastic decorated in a mottled gray camouflage pattern. Pulling out the plastic container with reverence, Zeke ran a dark skinned hand across the metal placard attached to the front. Engraved on the gleaming black piece were the bold words: TEMPORAL RIFT v2.2.1 [hate this name]. Popping the latch on the front of the case, the hinges swung open on springs to expose a padded interior. Nestled in the middle was a strange apparatus that was composed of large, block-shaped goggles, matching headphones, various wire jacks, and coils of leads that ended in two-way sensor pads.

"Worth every fucking untraceable penny," Zeke grinned from ear to ear. “That fencer didn’t even know what he had.”

Setting the gray polymer unit down atop the case it came in, he turned his attention to his desk where his gaming rig sat. It was an alien computer configuration, devoid of monitor, keyboard, mouse, or speakers. The only thing that vaguely hinted at a functional computer was the flat black aluminum box case sitting under the desk proper, a soft blue glow rising and falling from LEDs embedded inside the box, the cadence of which mimicked relaxed human breathing. Atop the desk was a goggle unit like the one he had just received, but smaller and lacking the sheer quantity of connections and wires. Printed on the side of the elastic headband were faded letters that began "Ocul--" before fading out to nothing, worn from repeated use. On the flat front of the unit was the version number, this unit headset being the fifth iteration of the venerable unit that started the revolutionary trend in that was immersion gaming.

Zeke wasted no time in pulling the plug on his old immersion interface and setting up the new model, a task made difficult by the nervous energy which jumped through his twitching limbs and fingers, making him have to take several stabs at securing all the network connections and neural I/O links. When he was done, he stepped back and admired his work, the immersion set now sitting front and center on his desk, wires trailing off in all directions, the black tendrils of information that would soon push his brain directly into a light speed world of battlefield carnage, starship dogfighting, and alien slaying. Even better, his brain would be completely fooled into believing it was all real.

"Zeke, you should wait until you're not burned out from a day slinging wetware," Zeke told himself. "Yeah, fuck that."

Plopping his ass down in his black, clone leather recliner, Zeke slipped the TEMPORAL [as in the lobe, but I think people are going to mostly focus on time, which is certainly a part of the meaning] unit over his head, then got his hands over their respective motion tracking fields. A plain black filled his vision, completely real to his brain. Manipulating his fingers through airborne, arcane motions, he tapped the initialization icon that hovered in the top right of his field of view. For a brief moment nothing happened, then Zeke felt a sudden pressure at the back of his head, a low pounding as if he had stumbled and cracked his skull on the floor, only in this case it didn't hurt. A strange, icy tendril slithered down his spine, extending out to his limbs before ending in his fingers and toes. The feeling actually terrified him, but ended before he could even react to the sensation. A strange sparking flashed behind his eyes and he thought that he caught a vague whiff of smoke, but then all of the sensations passed and he was left alone inside his head.

At first there was only darkness. Then, Zeke thought, "Let there be light," and there was light. Beautiful, colorful light that danced and sang inside Zeke’s mind, composed entirely of his thoughts and emotions.

"Ho-lee-shiiiiiit," Zeke thought. "Wait until I shove this in Tyrin's face."

Yeah, so... my web editor somehow doesn't support strikethrough. That's annoying, to say the least, as I marked everything up in Word so that people could see the edits. As it stands, I deleted the strikethrough sections and just copied in the updated text. I will need to find a way to have all the notation in the blog so that readers can see the process more clearly.

A.C. Harrison
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