There was nothing. It didn't matter.

A pulse of pain. Pain was something.

Nothing mattered. It was pointless.

No, I was pretty sure pain mattered. At least my pain mattered to me. That was something to cling to.

My thoughts started to gain speed.

[ Give up, give in, let go, serve us. ]

'What? Not just no, but HELL no! Go fuck yourself... '

What the fuck was that?

The pain and despair receded. My momentary defiance allowing some much needed clarity of thought.

The lack of material space made it difficult to focus. The lack of air made it easy to begin to reject this present reality.

So was this a dream? No, or at least not quite a dream. Something within myself sensed this was both a dream and real at the same time. Though could I trust even my own feelings at this point? No, best not to start down that twisted trail.

A projection into my mind maybe. That's as good an answer as I was likely to get for the what of the situation. The remainder of the classics, who, where, why and how eluded any insight at the moment.

What could I do?

I felt nothing, there was no pressure on my skin, none of the usual sense of an empty space. No sounds or vibrations. No sensation of hot nor cold. I could move but there was none of the feedback I associated with motion. Nothing to orient myself against or towards. Except myself which I felt only in the most faint of manners.

What was left to do? Find a way out of this. Duh.

How? Now that was a good question.

I had better things to do than float around in... in primordial nothingness.

I had no idea how long I pondered this odd situation. While the hamster wheel in my head spun, I could perceive my sense of self growing. I could almost feel my body again.

[ You really should just give up. You are going to serve us one way or another. Come on, let go. ]

'You're still here? The show's over. Go home.' I made a shooing motion. The classics always worked. No more peeping at my... My what? My inner space? My mind?

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

[ Well, this is a waste of time. Just send the quickhack. Fuck, he got that...shshshshshshshsh ]

Quickhack! Oh fuck!

I now had a pretty good clue what was going on. I'd been targeted by a netrunner.

When did they find me? How did they force me into this state? Who the hell were they?

I had to wake up, they could be after Misty. They could be after Vik.

Argh. I felt my sense of mana come flooding back.

It twisted in an odd new way, and released in a massive explosion.

{ WAKE UP! }

And I did.

Light. Blinding after so long in the dark. I blinked like there was money in it. My eyes were so dry.

I was on some kind of gurney, covered in a thin white sheet. I couldn't move very well yet, and most everything hurt.

"He's coming out of it. Tell me what happened, Misty?" Vik's voice, I thought.

"Hhhhhh... " I tried to speak, to warn them. Nope, my tongue went the wrong way and my lips just kind of flapped uselessly. My vocal cords didn't seem able to catch the air from my lungs.

"He was fine, then he seized and when rigid." She was calm, training and practice kept her together. I could respect and admire her professional demeanor.

"Might be a rejection of his cyberware. Though he should have had symptoms before now." Vik sounded angry but still in control, like this offended him somehow. No, I got it. He went out of his way to make connections with as many of his patients as he could. Wonderful attitude but it had a cost. I couldn't imagine the emotional toil of loses folks you genuinely cared about

"Hhhhaaaacc..." Was all I could get out. Come on mouth. Work, damn it!

"Hack? Someone spiked you?" Vik sounded almost relieved. If he had an idea of what was wrong he had a place to start fixing the problems.

"Ya...." I managed to reply.

He put an inhaler to my lips, "Take a puff. Do you have feelings of despair? Nothingness?" Deft motions forced the burst of mist into mouth.

I breathed in ad deeply as I could. The rush of the stimulant burned through my lungs before spreading everywhere else. It was like concentrated expresso straight to the bloodstream.

Things across my body started to wake up. Coming back online.

I groaned at my own brain's attempt at humor. Way too soon.

"Yeah... said to let go. I would serve, but I didn't and then they said to send the quickhack." My mouth still felt like it was full of mush, but I get the words out as best I could.

"You seem to have avoided whatever they intended. I'll run you through the scanner and then we'll do a software purge. A hard reset should wipe out whatever they snuck in there."

"Any-Anyway to trace them? I'd like a few words." Yes, a few words. Hackers this is Mr. Wick. That's a few words, right?

"Nah, we have to bring in a runner. I don't think you're in any mode to have anyone rummaging around in your chrome right now." Yeah, that didn't sound like a fun time.

Maybe a few more Observers hanging over the city... Wait, if I had one watching me, would it have caught the intrusion? Probably. Fuck. Was there some kind of guide or course you could take to prepare for these kinds of situations. There couldn't be right?

Vik took good care of me. Running me through the scanner, then performing the hard reset of cyberware.

The hard reset was kind of troubling, my eyes went offline. Misty talked me through it though. She really was the best friend a person could have in this crap-hole of a city.

Vik guided me through the system setup procedures. Then they wheeled me over to rest beside Raynor and Mr. Wick both of whom were still out from whatever additions Vik chipped into them.

That was a good thing, I'd hate to see the reaction to my situation from these two. When they had even less context than me about how this shit worked.

Hopefully they'd be calm once they woke up.

I'm just going to shut my eyes again.