The process for Warren’s implant went off without a hitch. He was transferred to a different bed by a pair of strong but gentle nurses, which flipped him onto his front and supported him comfortably. His face rested in a hole in the pillow, which combined with the drugs left him feeling like he was nestled in cotton wool.
A cold spray on the nape of his neck surprised him, Warren had been used to feeling nothing from the rest of his body. The sensation faded quickly as the numbing agent in the antiseptic got to work. Warren felt a weight press on the back of his neck and a pins and needles-like sensation spread through the area.
“Ok, the next part goes into your brain, so we’re going to need to monitor you closely for this bit,” the anesthesiologist explained. “The implant will be connecting to your neurons directly and people have reported a stinging in their limbs as it does. You can’t feel your extremities with the severed spine, but these pain signals will be coming from inside your brain. Sorry, I’d let you sleep through it if I could. I will be watching your pain levels though, and can up the dose if it starts to hurt.”
“If it means I get to feel something, I’ll take it,” Warren mumbled from his face hole. “Please get started.” Even behind the drugs he could feel the irritation beginning to bubble up.
“We did, five minutes ago,” the surgeon leaned under the bed to look Warren in the eyes. “We’re well past the point of no return. Your implant has bonded nicely with your spine and you should feel the first phantom pains about… now.”
The surgeon was true to his word, the pins and needles spread into the base of Warren’s skull and then swept through his brain. It felt like someone had jabbed an acupuncture needle into each and every nerve end in rapid succession, but only for a tiny fraction of a second. It was as though Warren had streaked through a poison ivy patch then dove into a pool of aloe. He felt his heart race as his fight or flight instinct kicked in but he could neither fight nor flee. All that was left was a seething rage and the unrequitable desire to crash tackle the surgeon.
“God. Damn. OW!” he spat. Whatever else he was going to say was lost as ALL his senses packed it in. No touch, taste, smell or hearing. Proprioception was right out. Balance went on holiday as well, leaving Warren with no sense of up or down. Slowly, everything faded back in, like someone was turning to volume knob on reality back up from zero.
As his sight came back, Warren found there were a couple of extra features in his vision. A row of icons floated in front of his face demanding his attention. As he was deciding what to do about them the surgeon spoke up again.
“All done. Nurse, he can be released back to the ward. Warren, you should be seeing an instruction manual for the implant,” the business-like tone came from somewhere behind Warren’s back. “Strike that, I know you can see it, because I can see what you see.”
“Doesn’t that violate the anti-sequestration laws?” Warren’s father asked, having arrived some time during his micro-blackout.
“No, this is medical equipment and can only read the output of the implant,” the surgeon explained. “We can’t inject impulses to control his body. This sort of thing is heavily regulated and anyone even suspected of puppeteering someone will be lucky if they ever see the light of day again.”
“Oh, well that’s fine then,” Mr MacGregor harrumphed. “When will my boy be able to get back to studying?”
Warren didn’t hear the response, the back and forth between the adults and his rising pain levels combined with his already heightened frustration to hide the rest of the conversation behind a red curtain. Amplifying this already agonising situation, he’d found he couldn’t move his face yet either so he couldn’t let anyone know how much pain he was in. He mentally shoved the icons in his vision to the side where they hovered like gnats in the corner of his vision and willed the one app he had available to open.
The Age Of Steam and Sorcery.
Warren’s world went white, the pain shut off and he found himself floating in a warm pearlescent void. The void wafted and swirled, giving the impression of clouds lit from an unknown source. Warren revelled in the comfort. For the first time in months he was completely pain free. He lifted his hand to his face, fascinated by his ability to do so, and found it to be stark white and featureless, glossy though not reflecting anything specific. He tried walking, but there was no ground to set his feet on. That didn’t stop him flailing his legs about from the sheer joy of being able to feel his legs.
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With his anger supplanted by happiness at having a functional body, even if it wasn’t the one he was born in, Warren spun and twirled mid-void, poking himself and waving every limb he could. Eventually though, this began to become boring and he looked around for more stimulation.
“How do I play this game?” he wondered out loud. “Start? Open game? Begin? Alexa, play The Age of Steam and Sorcery on my implant?”
A gigantic billboard with a Steampunk motif emerged from the mists. It dwarfed Warren’s new body and the glow of the gas lamps that illuminate the words outshone the glow of the void.
Countdown to Launch: was written in massive gothic font and below it was a series of nixie tubes the size of Andre the Giant. The first four were dark, the remaining showed the numerals 22:12:05.
Tomorrow morning at… ten? Warren did the mental math. I can’t play until then. Fine, I’ll see what’s happening in the real world.
Real life returned in what cinematographers call an iris wipe. Beginning in the centre of his vision, rippling out to the edge in a perfect circle, the glowing void was replaced by a hospital scene filled with angry faces. Warren’s irritation returned in a heartbeat. What’ve they got to be mad about? I’m the one trapped in this body.
“You know we can see what you see, boy,” Warren’s father growled. “Why were you messing about with that game rather than reading the instruction manual like you were told?”
“Because you lot were arguing and not paying any attention to the one person in the room with a broken spine.” Warren raged. “You know, the person in constant agony who’s stuck immobile in a bed, never to play football ever again? Me, in other words?”
Warren’s mother looked stricken and whispered to the anaesthetist. “Can we increase his dose now? Let him sleep for a bit?”
The anaesthetist didn’t bother whispering. “Now that the implant has fully bonded with your nervous system, we don’t need drugs anymore Mrs MacGregor. Not for this, anyway.” He fiddled with a small tablet on his arm and Warren’s pain abated instantly. “With medical authorisation we can now turn off pain signals to the brain. It’s a lot more effective and has fewer side-effects.”
“Fine, not in pain anymore,” Warren grumbled loudly. “I still can’t move, I’m still covered in bandages and I’m sure have several internal injuries you’re not telling me about.”
The surgeon’s eyes widened briefly before his stoic expression returned. “How do you know about…? Never mind. Yes. You will be our guest for a bit longer, Warren. Until we are sure that you will not experience another internal bleed and that your other injuries are healed enough for you to go home.”
“Can I at least get some sleep?” Warren whined. “I’m tired.”
“Sleep boy,” his father huffed. “We will be expecting big things from you tomorrow though.” He turned to the anaesthetist. “You can do that, right?’
The anaesthetist nodded and Warren’s world faded to black.
The black wasn’t complete, however. The icons from his implant persisted and now there was a timer counting down over the one for The Age. Blinking in the corner of Warren’s pseudo-sight was the icon for a document, the instruction manual he’d ignored earlier. He perused the manual briefly, but most of it boiled down to “think about it and it will happen, if it doesn’t happen it’s because you don’t have the app or you don’t have signal”. Since he was in the hospital and in a VIP wing, there was little chance he’d ever be out of signal range and his family’s funds meant it was unlikely he’d be unable to access an app if he wanted to. One thing he couldn’t do, no matter how hard he thought about it, was speed up the timer though.
Even though the pain was gone, Warren didn’t have anything resembling a physical form as things stood. Rather than wait in the formless void with nothing to do but read like a nerd, he returned to the waiting screen of The Age Of Steam and Sorcery. At least there he had a body, of sorts. He found, after a while, that through concentration he could put his feet on something resembling a floor. He sat on that floor for a bit, then stood and paced for a while. He tried running, but the not-body avatar he was in just stumbled and he returned to floating when it fell. It was incredible having something akin to a body, but in the end it wasn’t HIS body and it was ultimately disappointing.
As the last seconds ticked down, Warren felt a flutter in his virtual stomach. He knew intellectually he couldn’t feel his real stomach, but the butterflies he felt didn’t seem to care. The moment the clock hit zero he was plunged into a pool of amber liquid, bubbles swirling around his body. He briefly imagined diving into a glass of beer before it crystalised into an icosahedron with every face showing a different race of fantasy creature. They were all variants of himself, but none interested him. Warren wanted nothing more than to be himself.
As though responding to his deepest wishes, the icosahedron spun to show him a man with his face, encased in shining full plate armour that somewhat resembled his football armour. Warren and the figure reached out and clasped each other by the forearm and nodded to each other in respect.
Frothy amber liquid swirled around Warren and the armoured figure as they merged into one, then Warren sat up in a fountain inside what looked like a cave.