Jeremy floated in black nothingness. Everything from his shoulders down had no feeling, no sensation. Objectively, he knew that he was floating in the sensory deprivation pod. But the fact that the only thing he could feel was his head was a little unnerving.

He tried turning and shifting his head and could feel the helmet he wore slide across the top of the pod. It wasn’t necessarily uncomfortable, being just a head but the blackness, the lack of sound was starting to generate concern in the pit of his stomach. Well, area that he figured his stomach would be.

“Okay Jeremy,” he heard the voice of the tech through a speaker next to his ears, “we’re going to ease you into this. Can you hear me?”

“Yes.” Jeremy replied to the darkness, “It’s all black and I’ve literally got no sensation below my neck.”

“Hmm,” came the response, “let me make some adjustments.”

A few seconds went by and he began to register some sensation below his neck. As if his entire body was being stuck with pins and needles, the same as when an arm or leg would fall asleep, except this was his entire body. It was dim at first, the feeling, but then grew in intensity to where Jeremy just tried waving his arms and legs to try to fend off the prickliness. There wasn’t any pain, really. Having your foot or arm asleep didn’t do that. But it was definite sensation that could chalk up to being a new virtual reality experience.

Eventually his body finished waking up and he could feel his entire body. Rather, he was aware of the haptic suit he was wearing and how it felt against his skin. He had stripped down naked to put it on, and it was pressed against every centimeter of his body. Jeremy didn’t want to dwell on certain aspects of that. Jeremy had heard stories of different VR accessories that attached to and stimulated different area of the body, and those were things that he had no desire to try testing. The haptic suit, as form fitting as it was, was still only as anatomically correct as a ken doll. Jeremy was fine with that.

While the feeling of having an actual body came back to him, Jeremy hadn’t noticed that the enveloping darkness had started to lighten. It was a murky grey around him, like an overcast sky. With no sensation below his feet, it felt like Jeremy was floating in that sky. There was no chill to the air, or warmth. No humidity or dryness. Just a boring blandness that felt completely artificial and completely appropriate in the digital environment.

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“How’s that?” the tech’s voice came again, “Better?”

“Yeah.” Jeremy replied, “There’s no white room?”

“Hmm?” The tech asked, “Oh, I guess we could . . .”

The murky sky started brightening quickly. Jeremy moved his hand to cover his eyes and half a second later stopped and tried to reason how he was able to move his arm and hand through the pod cover that only his head was poking out of. The arm and hand he saw in his vision was that of what he would expect from a department store mannequin. Dark grey and without detail.

His feet started to feel the traction of ground underneath them and he lowered his hand to look around. He found himself in a generic white room. Walls, ceiling and floor all in a dull off-white. Bland and plain with no adornments whatsoever, not even an exit door.

Jeremy walked the few steps over to the wall and he pushed his hand against it. The glove of his haptic suit responded with the sensation of a very solid wall. He gently tested the wall with his left foot. Pressing against the edge where the wall met the floor, he felt the same solid resistance to the VR environment.

“Interesting.” He said.

“Oh we haven’t even gotten started yet.” The tech’s voice said. From the way it sounded, it was as if the tech was standing behind him, Jeremy turned to look, and yet the room was empty. He was still alone in this virtual room.

“Where’s the exit?” Jeremy asked, noticing a lack of door along any of the four walls of the cubic room.

The tech chuckled, “Does anyone ever use those things? I mean, come on, usually people just pull off their headsets, and hit the power button. When was the last time you did a proper log off of a VR session?”

Jeremy rolled his eyes, starting to get upset, “When was the last time I a guinea pig for new technology that didn’t give me the option of pulling off my headset?!”

A door popped into existence right in front of him, then he heard a new voice.

“Jeremy,” Mr King’s sounded calm next to his ears, “I apologize for the abruptness of that technician. He’ll be re-assigned to some other tasks from now on and you won’t have to deal with him. As it is right now, I would think that this is a successful test. If you want to log out now, we can do that.”

Jeremy looked at the exit door, and then around the barren room. He glances down at the featureless mannequin avatar that represented his self. He took a calming breath and shook his head, “Nah, I’m good.”

“There is so much we need to do,” Mr King said, “Trust me when I say we don’t need to do it all at once.”

“I understand Mr King.” Jeremy said, “But, it took me a while to get into this get up. Let’s not waste that time.”

“Understood,” Mr King replied, a note of approval in his voice. I’m turning you back over to a technician again . . . a different technician.”

Jeremy nodded and it dawned on him that he could no longer feel the helmet or the pod cover like he had only moments before.