"Pairing complete. The SNC is now attuned to your headset. Do you want to jump right into the deep end or would you prefer to dip your toe in first?"

"Let's take it slow AV." Eli glanced at the screen, his avatar still sitting at the table, then at the performance readout, noting the synchronicity.

"Transfer olfactory from the SNC to me, let's start with smells first."

The synchronized neural construct, or SNC, synchronized with Eli's brain signals, monitoring them, memorizing them, and building a complex library of reactions it could use when needed. At its core was a learning algorithm capable of simulating Eli's specific cerebral responses. Presently, the headset around the SNC was sending those responses to the Project Deep network.

Eli was particularly proud of how it used the same DAO tech the headsets relied on to suppress real senses. He'd reversed it to suppress the real reaction from his brain and supplant it with the reaction from the SNC. Oceanic had literally given him the final solution, the missing piece that made the whole thing work.

"Transferring now."

Eli inhaled deeply, the clinical sanitized scent of his lab faded, replaced with wood smoke, the smell of fresh bread, jams, and more faintly spilled ale, and a host of other smells Eli couldn't single out. He could smell everything on the screen as though he were there. Fresh bread, when was the last time we had that?

He glanced at the SNC performance metrics. They held steady.

"Smells," Eli inhaled again, "work well. Transfer tactile and enable the motor interface."

"Transferring tactile in three...two...one."

Tactile included the basic touch senses, like the feel of the wood grain when you touched a wooden surface. But it was much more than that; it included pain, pleasure, and pressure sensitivity. The tactile stream came with all the body's aches and pains, the slight tickle of the circulating air on small hairs, bladder pressure, even some of the deeper emotional reactions, like despair, the ones that had a physical effect on the body. Eli hadn't realized how tired and tightly wound he was until all those feelings faded, replaced with the feelings of his much younger avatar.

He shuddered as he felt his new body. He felt the hardwood bench where he sat, the surface of the table where his arms rested, the warming glow of the fireplace. It was overwhelming, and for a moment the synchronicity dropped, unnoticed by Eli, as he adjusted to the new senses. His mind struggled to resolve the difference between what his eyes told him about his body's position and posture and he could feel. He moved his arms to mirror the position shown on screen, which seemed to help. Moving his arms again, he noted the mirrored motion of his avatar on screen.

"Third-person is problematic now, let's switch to the direct feed."

AV removed the visual displacement, returning the first-person perspective. Eli moved his head around, looking up, down, the screen panning to match as he did. He looked down at the table before reaching out with his hand towards the bread. It took him two tries, feeling around until he could lift the fresh loaf up and breathe in the scent.

"Tactile is working." Eli checked the synchronicity again. It was, once again, holding at one hundred percent.

"Transfer taste over next," Eli said salivating in anticipation. When he moved to sit down at his workstation, the avatar tried to move forward, bumping into the table in front of him. Eli registered the impact with a wince. I should have started seated.

"Transferring taste ...now."

Sitting at his worktable, Eli ripped a sizeable chunk of bread from the end of the loaf and brought it to his mouth, promptly stuffing it in.

"Mmmm," he chewed the bread slowly, enjoying its texture; the crunch of the salty crust, the sweetness of the soft, warm center. The flavor spread through his mouth as he chewed. After a moment to savor it, he swallowed the bread hungrily, then stuffed another bite into his mouth, then another.

"It's so good," he managed between bites, slowing down to pay attention to the flavor, the texture, the way it felt as it moved down his throat as he swallowed, how it felt in his stomach. He glanced at the synchronicity; it held steady. With an unsteady hand, he lathered some bread with butter and fruit preserves.

He couldn't recall ever tasting food like this. It felt as though, his entire life he had been eating synthetic replicas, bland, flavorless.

A mouthful of bread, and butter, and jam later, his eyes started to water. Eli swallowed the bread. His mouth firmed into a line as he dropped the remaining bread to the table. He stood up from the table and moved towards the fireplace. The heat from the fire disguised the flush from his embarrassment.

After a moment, he opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. Instead, he stood there shivering, partially disgusted with himself at how much he enjoyed the bread, partially angry at the unwelcome understanding he briefly had. It was the fledgling start to answers, answers to old painful questions. Unable to understand his reaction, to process his emotional response, he closed his mouth and distracted himself by reviewing the performance metrics. Synchronicity had dipped to 99%, but was holding steady. He reviewed the rest, all within ideal ranges.

"Transfer audio, let's see if we can mix in your channel too." Simply replacing his audio with the DAO stream would prevent him from hearing AV, so they'd worked out a system to mix in additional audio signals.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"Transferring audio in 3... 2... 1."

Immediately the sounds of the fire, the noise of other chattering patrons, the clink of mugs being collected from a table, the distant sound of a bird chirping outside crashed over Eli like a wave, destroying his practiced silence. He closed his eyes, listening. Without his eyes to tell him differently, Eli felt as though he were elsewhere, magically transported to a different world. The illusion was so real as to be indiscernible from reality. It was both wonderful and frightening.

"Can you hear me Eli?" AV's voice sounded unfamiliar. In his lab, AV projected his voice using the speakers embedded in the walls and ceiling. There the sound bounced around, reverberating as it hit the floor, the walls, the objects in the room. Now, with nothing to bounce off of, it had a unique quality.

"It sounds like you're in my head," Eli remarked.

"I thought it best to make obvious that you are the only one that can hear me."

"I see, smart. That only leaves one." Eli glanced back at the screen. "All systems seem to operate effectively." In his lab, he reached down into his collar and pulled out a thumb-sized black stone, it was tied up with twine and hung around his neck. The stone was teardrop-shaped, a present from his mother. He brought it up to his lips and kissed it for luck.

"Transfer sight over."

Eli closed his eyes - finding himself back in front of the inn's fireplace.

"Transferring sight in 3...2...1"

Eli opened his eyes. The inn was brighter than he expected. Stone walls with arched windows let the daylight filter through to the common room in front of the stone fireplace. He brought his hands up to inspect them.

They were children's hands. He was a child. That's going to take some getting used to.

"Synchronicity has dropped to ninety-three percent Eli," AV's flat voice warned, "Beginning analysis now."

Eli dropped his hands before looking around the inn. At his height, everything seemed bigger than he expected. It was early in the day. The inn common room wasn't even half full. He noticed some other children carrying bundles of wood from the backroom to stack near the fireplace. Several patrons nursed drinks or lingered over half-eaten plates of meat and potatoes. Small conversations were going on here and there, quietly in most cases.

"He just up and shot out, came back half our' later with arms full of bread and butter. I've half a mind to scold em. You can't be bringing your own food in my place, but he's been here so long I feel like 'is mum."

"Well, least ya got the table back, that's if he doesn't go to sleep again."

As Eli listened to the conversation, the room tilted. He spread his feet and crouched a bit to keep from falling. A bout of dizziness hit him, then faded.

"I just felt dizzy AV," he made his way back to lean against the table. He was very familiar with this sensation. It was the start of an episode.

"Synchronicity has dropped to eighty-three percent Eli, please remain still as I attempt stabilization measures." AV analyzed the traffic between the paired headsets.

"I am increasing the variance range to allow the CR to synchronize with you. Be advised, there is a non-negligible chance this increases the risk of hypoization."

Hypoization was reduced interaction speed. As with hyperization, theoretically, it was possible to decrease the rate in which one experienced events, turning one second into two, three into nine, and so on. Every effect of hypoization was universally negative; shortened lifespan, slower reaction times, lag. Just like hyperization, Eli had questions on how that worked in a social environment, but that wasn't his largest concern. The biggest problem was that human brains were consistent, which made hypoization a reliable indicator of tampering with DAO streams. Oceanic would flag any account evidencing hypoization for administrative review.

A competent admin review would likely turn up a half-dozen flags; a problem he didn't want.

"Keep track, and if we approach a ten percent deviation from the average, don't go lower. I can deal with another episode. I can't deal with an admin." Right now anyway.

"Understood. "

Eli focused on an empty table directly across from him. There on the table sat a flickering candle. He stared at the flame, not allowing his eyes to travel or pay attention to any periphery motion. Of all the ways he found to manage early symptoms of a phrenophasic episode, this one worked best. It worked but it was mentally exhausting. It required extreme vigilance in preventing his eyes from wandering, and mental control to prevent registering peripheral visual cues, and even more concentration to keep his eyes open as long as possible, to keep his blinks as short as possible.

It was exhausting, and Eli had been tired, to begin with.

"Synchronization has reached ninety-four percent and is climbing slowly."

"Are you okay, lad? You look like you've seen a ghost?" The matronly owner of the Gentle Woad inquired as she hobbled up. Eli ignored her approach, not moving his concentration away from the candle. His eyes remained steady, open, intent on the flame.

"I'm fine, thank you. Just thinking," he lied, not like he could explain to her the issue he was dealing with. He heard several conversations behind him get quieter. They probably think I'm daft or dumb. That's fine. As long as they think I'm harmless, they should leave me alone.

The owner looked at the boy leaning against the table for support. She followed his eyes to where he was staring, then looked back at his face, some jam from the bread had collected in the corner of his mouth. After a moment she moved closer and lowering her voice so only he would hear her.

"I'm Hester. I run this inn." Her voice was warm and rich, like a warm cup of milk. "If any of the other children are causing you trouble, you let me know and I'll sort em' out."

Blink. Eli blinked a fraction of a second longer than he ought, which caused a momentary lapse in his concentration. He automatically glanced up to where he felt her standing. She had a look of genuine concern.

He recovered by settling back at the table, facing the candle once again. His stomach lurched inside him as he forced his attention back to the candle.

"We are approaching ten percent deviation, I will not be able to maintain synchronization."

Eyes focusing on the flame, Eli could feel the room moving around him.

"I'm slipping AV. Quickly. Run the superimposition and distortion tests."

"What was that child? Tests?" Hester leaned closer.

"Stand by in ...1 ...2 ...3"

Eli tried to maintain his concentration on the flame as the world started spinning, first one way, then reversing and spinning the other. Saliva filled his mouth and his stomach soured. With a violent heave, the half-digested bread, butter, and jam spilled from him out over the table as he gripped the seat to keep from toppling over. He spat phlegm and drool from his mouth, strings dribbling down as he gripped the bench and stared back at the flame. His eyes felt hot, and as he started shivering, tears flowed. He redoubled his concentration on the flame as the world took on different appearances.

First, all colors drained out of it, then the colors reverted, inverted, pulsed, everything became blue, then green, cycling through every color of the spectrum. Then it was black and white, like a charcoal sketch, then hard lines and solid fills, then overlaid with a checker-board pattern, then shrinking black squares, then static, then lines. Various psychedelic patterns and textures pass in front of him unremarked, his concentration spent. He closed his eyes and felt the powerlessness of falling as he lost control of his body. He barely felt the table, then the floor as his body collided with them.

"Oh dear," the innkeeper whispered. It was the last thing Eli heard before the darkness took him.