POV - [TOTALLY AWESOME DUDE]

And that was the weirdest dream. I felt the last vestiges of sleep ebb softly away. Waking up after an op was a somewhat familiar feeling for me and I always treasured that last little bit of drowsiness before I had to wake up and face the bitter realities of a failing body.

An insistent blue strobing light was getting more and more insistent. Someone needed to shut off whatever malfunctioning equipment it was. I stubbornly resisted opening my eyes and groped for the call button. Actually now that I was a little bit more aware I realised another disparity. The constant beepings of the various machinery monitoring my vitals was ominously silent. I paused. Yes, it was deathly silent. I could hear my own breathing and… nothing else. My eyes sprang open. I was dying. Quick, where’s the nurse? Where’s my pulse? I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. I wildly cast my eyes about, thrashing in my bed and discovered there were no sides on the bed at the same time as I threw myself bodily off it with a jarring thump.

“Nurse…”

My call died in my mouth.

I was not in any hospital. At least if I was, it definitely wasn’t the one I was used to. It was a small, simple room. Almost rustic. In fact it looked just like a cell of a spartan monastery. There was the roughly hewn bed with a thin mattress that I had so recently vacated with such alcracity. A simple shelf ran along the side of one wall with a saw horse of a bench alongside it. The other side was bare except for a couple of pegs knocked into the wall, one of which had a garment of some sort hanging on it. The walls and ceiling were unadorned, unvarnished rough sawn wood and the floor looked to be some sort of slate flagstone tile. A single door with a simple latch was on the wall opposite. Thankfully it was closed.

This prompted me to check my current clothing. Yep, that familiar operating gown. Bane of my dignity. The shelf had two small piles on it. Standing up I grabbed them both and sat down again on the bed. It was an extremely basic pair of pants, with a rope belt threaded through the material. I wasn’t going to complain though. This was a thousand million times better than my current pantless state. I stood up and slipped them on, clinching the rope around my hips to prevent them sliding off. The second bundle; an equally shapeless tunic in a matching non-color nondescript greyie-brown. With some relief I discarded my hospital gown, happy to be rid of it, and pulled on the shirt. Like the pants the sleeves weren’t quite full length, stopping midway down my forearm. Now all I needed was some footwear but I felt great. In fact I was feeling totally fantastic.

I felt the high tech anaesthetic gadget through my sleeve. No need for this anymore. With no small relief I carefully detached it from my arm. It looked a bit different to what I recalled. Where before it had been a totally sealed system with just a single button on the side I could now see several buttons and that quite clearly was a catch where you could open it up. Hmmmm. My memory must be playing tricks on me. It must have always been like this. As I was staring at it, I nearly dropped it in surprise as a blue screen popped up in front of me.

>Object:

T.A.D. [Blank]'s individual Automatic Potion Dispenser (iAPD)

> Grade:

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Unique

Vinaceous Gray

> Status:

Slot1

Empty

> Description:

Soulbound

[Expand?]

Say what? A small piece of me started jumping around in excitement. I vaguely remembered a garden? No, a grove. A clearing with towering redwoods. And the System! The uplift. The removal of illness and age. It was coming back to me. It wasn’t all a dream. Though I still was a bit, …no more than a bit, foggy on what had happened since. Last thing I clearly remember was that wisp startling me and then… Nope, I was drawing a blank. Maybe I was still dreaming. I gave myself a hard pinch. Ouch! And that was a definite owie! And if I were dreaming I definitely would have already woken when I fell out of bed.

My attention returned to the window hovering in front of me. It had faded slightly as my attention wandered but it firmed up again now.

I mentally affirmed [Expand?]

Huh, That sounds pretty good. No description of how to use it though. Hang on, it says ‘planet of origin’! That sort of insinuates I’m somewhere else now. A different planet? Another plane of existence? It doesn’t feel different. Gravity? - check. Air? - check. I couldn’t see the sun so I couldn’t check that. Shelve this for later Nige, I prompted myself as I mentally dismissed the info box.

Getting back to the iPAD, no, the iAPD… It was currently empty so it wasn’t going to do much good until I worked out how to fill it up. Meanwhile, I suppose the easiest thing to do would be to put it back on. I didn’t have anything to carry it in did I? No pockets in these garments that was for sure. I looked around. Nope, the item hanging on the peg was a heavy cape. I couldn’t identify what it was made of and despite staring at it no interesting blue boxes appeared. I strapped the iAPD back on my arm, positioning it under my sleeve carefully ensuring that it was fully concealed. I wasn’t sure what info other people might be able to pull up concerning it so better to keep it hidden for now.

As I finished strapping it on I realised that the blue flashing alert at the edge of my vision hadn’t actually gone away. It had faded somewhat as I was focused on other things but now that I had finished my inspection of the room and my surroundings it brightened up again. I focused on the blinking light.

> You have 43 new notifications

> View first?

> View latest?

Hmmmm. That seemed like a lot. Where to start? From the oldest to the newest? Or the reverse?

As I hummed to myself a fresh ding sounded.

> You have 1 new message

> Read?

Who could be messaging me?

> Sender: [Zorbling.786123]

Who? And what on earth is a Zorbling?