Jake pushed himself away from the table, seizing the steak knife from his plate and backing against the wall. With his free hand, he felt at the protruding metal.

Shad remained seated, not seeming altogether alarmed about the knife in his ward’s hands.

“What the hell is this?” Jake shouted.

Shad just nodded casually. “Check the ones on your arms too.”

Jake frantically pulled up one of the sleeves of his navy jumper. Three more metal disks were embedded into his forearm. It was the same with the other arm. Each disk was circular, maybe an inch in diameter, with fine ridges spanning from the center where there was a small divot.

His fingers shook, barely able to keep hold of the knife. “W-what did you people do to me?”

“Now, see here, boy. You best get a few things straight real quick. First, we didn’t do nothing to you. That was the folks upstairs. The suit and ties. Second, you don’t get to question how anyone treats you. You’re a damn felon. You’re scum. You killed an innocent young lady.”

“B-but I—”

“Shut your mouth, boy,” Shad said, rising to his feet. He crossed over to where Jake was standing. “Third, even if you could take me with that knife, it wouldn’t do you any good.” Shad reached for him, and to Jake’s amazement, the man’s hand passed right through him.

“What is going on?” Jake asked.

Shad laughed. “A hologram, boy. If you really think anyone would be stupid enough to give a knife to a convicted murderer while he was alone with one guard, then you won’t last a day down here.”

Jake paused, taking in the information. All holograms he’d ever heard of had to be projected from something. He glanced up at the ceiling. No drones. No flashing lights in the ceiling. No obvious source at all.

“Where the hell am I?”

“Sure you don’t want to finish your meal first?”

Jake eyed the steak and potatoes. There were still a few bites left, but he had lost his appetite. “I want to know where I am. And I want to know why. What happened to that girl?”

“You sure about that?”

Jake pictured the blonde girl one more time, and this time he let the image linger. She’d had flush cheeks and deep brown eyes that made him shudder as he pictured the life fading from them. “I need to know.”

Shad leveled his gaze at Jake, not hiding a hint of disdain. “You were at a party, Jake. You were drunk out of your mind, and you drove. She was crossing the street, coming home from a late shift at a restaurant downtown. I’m guessing you never even saw her, you were so blitzed.”

Jake definitely did not want to eat anything else. A new image filled his mind—of blonde hair flying through the air, her head smacking the concrete. He pictured himself stumbling out of the car, the hood splattered in blood. Dripping hands as he slipped in the crimson pool on the road and realized with horror what he’d done, as those beautiful brown eyes settled on him, as he watched her chest rise and fall for the last time.

Was it a memory? Had the truth jerked him out of his mental fog? Or was he just imagining it? His mind filling in the blanks to help make sense of the unfathomable.

He just could not believe he had done something like that. Sure, he had never been one to shy away from a few drinks, but it just wasn’t like him to drive. And the one time he did…

“What was her name?” Jake asked, unsure why it mattered. But somehow, he felt he owed her that much.

“Alex Keynes,” Shad said evenly. “Pretty girl. Wrong place, wrong time. All on surveillance. Open and shut case. You got offered a deal for a shorter sentence in exchange for coming to this particular prison. And here you are.”

“A deal?”

Shad chuckled. “That sedative really does a number, don’t it?”

The airlock doors behind Shad’s hologram shifted open with a whooshing sound, and the sight outside the holding cell took Jake’s breath away.

Beyond the doors, a broad window looked out over a massive underground dome that must have stretched for a couple of miles at least. Enormous pipes jutted from the ground into the stony ceiling hundreds of feet above. Wires and thick cables stretched above short buildings, and all around there were huge turbines and power stations. A thick, mechanical droning sound filled his ears.

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“Welcome to Grid Eight. Powering the world above, one prisoner at a time.”

For a minute, Jake said nothing. He merely stared out through the window at the strange expanse.

“Get used to that view, kid. This is your future. Well, the real one anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“This is where you will work, sleep, eat, take a dump. Call it the mercy of the great state of Washington. You did the crime, now we take your time and make it worth something.”

The holographic guard made his way down the hall, but Jake did not follow.

Surely, this could not be real. A labor camp? That has to be illegal.

Shad reached another door and turned back.

A shock surged down Jake’s spine, and he fell back against the window. He grabbed onto the small sill, barely managing to avoid falling on his ass.

Shad smiled in a satisfied manner.

“Y-you did that to me?” It was difficult to speak. Jake’s tongue felt like a bloated fish in his mouth.

“No,” Shad said. “That thing in your neck serves a few purposes. Lets the folks upstairs know where you are. Lets us track your work. And if you do something stupid, like attack another prisoner, or refuse to do what you’re told… well, I think you understand just fine.”

Did he ever. Jake’s arms were raw and shaking, and he wasn’t sure he could feel his legs. But his feet moved, which was a huge relief. His thighs began to tingle, and slowly, sensation returned.

When he was able to get back to his feet, Shad waved him over, and this time, Jake followed without hesitation.

They passed through another set of doors, which reminded him of the blast doors in sci-fi films. Jake had always preferred VR games, but his dad had been a huge cinephile, and Jake had spent many a night watching old sci-fi movies with his family growing up.

A dark pang coursed through him at the thought of them. Oh, what he would give for this to be a dream. To go back and visit his parent’s house and watch those old films.

He pushed the thought to the back of his mind, or he thought he might fall apart right there in the hallway. And he did not think Shad, or the shirts and ties upstairs, would take that well.

After passing through one last holding bay, they emerged in the station upon a busy lane lined with stark white buildings. People moved quickly past them, all wearing plain navy uniforms, just like the one Jake was wearing. No one seemed to take notice of them.

“How many prisoners are there?” Jake asked.

Shad’s hologram shrugged. “Hundreds in this station.”

“How many stations are there?”

“No idea. One in most cities, I suppose. Come on.”

Shad led the way down the thoroughfare. Both sides of the lane were lined with two story buildings made of concrete painted with large blue numbers on the front. They walked past dozens of them before entering Building 69.

Jake couldn’t help himself. He smirked. Shad rolled his eyes and carried on down a white hall lined with doors every ten feet or so.

They stopped at Number 17.

“Welcome to your new home. And believe it or not, this will be the best part of your day.” With a rushing sound, the door opened, sliding into the side of the wall.

What lay beyond was not at all what he expected. There was no bed. No furniture.

Just a terrifying contraption that reminded Jake vaguely of a dentist’s chair. Tubes hung from a large robotic arm, and the room was lit by the soft glow of a display screen beside it.

“This is the best part of my day?”

Shad laughed. “Your waking life will be spent doing nothing but work. Tomorrow, you will be shown to your position. But when you sleep, you will be hooked up here to the Virtuality Core.”

“Virtuality? Like the gaming company?”

Virtuality had made some of Jake’s favorite VR games when he was in high school, though they hadn’t released any new titles in a couple years. Not since a scandal involving stolen tech tanked their flagship MMO. There were rumors that they were going under.

Looks like those rumors were a bit premature.

“Like the gaming company,” Shad said. “Virtuality is owned by the Mercer Corporation, who also own this prison. Should have all been in your NDA.”

“NDA?”

“Installing that hardware takes its toll for a bit, but it’ll all come back.”

“So prisoners here get to play video games?” Jake asked, rubbing his hand across the disk on the back of his neck.

“Call it an incentive. You do your job. You behave. You get to have a semblance of a life, even if it’s fake. While you’re in, you’ll be nourished with these.” Shad ran his hands over the tangle of tubes on the robotic arm.

“Like an IV or something?”

Shad nodded. “Saves us all the trouble of cooks and a mess hall and time.” Shad gestured to the seat. “Go on, climb aboard.”

“Now? Before I’ve done any work?”

“Like I said, it’s an incentive. They work best when you’ve had a taste. Believe me, every time you leave, you’ll be dying to work and earn your next trip back.”

The robotic arm began to shift. The tubes began to orient themselves at one end of the chair arm, while the other end of the arm shifted toward the headrest. With a whirring sound, a large needle emerged precisely where Jake’s neck was supposed to rest.

“I-I’m not so sure I want to. This isn’t like any game I’ve ever heard of. Where’s the headgear for virtual immersion? Where’s the hand controls?”

“This is something new altogether,” Shad said. “You might say they’re beta testing it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Kid, this is unlike any game you’ve ever played. You won’t just see it as if you’re in the game. You will actually be there. Now, climb aboard before that shock comes again. The first one was light. But in the future, you’ll really feel like hell afterward.”

Jake shook his head, but he knew there was no point in resisting. The last thing he wanted was to experience that shock at a higher level.

He climbed into the cushioned seat. The robotic arms whirled around, and the tubes attached themselves to the three metallic disks in each of his forearms.

“All right, now, lean back.”

Jake obeyed. The Virtuality Core whirred, and there was a sharp pain and a rush in his neck.

He could not hold back his scream as his vision went black.