Tomorrow explodes. Yesterday downloads. Today erodes.
He is plugged into a Warewolf experiential remix engine and time is splintering into instances that he can’t add up into a day. He doesn’t know the last time he had a straight day.
He thinks his mother was in front of his face screaming. He seems to recall that he had a girlfriend for a month, and then she broke up with him. His money has been coming in from Disintegration Livestream as part of the Psychological Pressure Program.
He wonders if his tastebuds have atrophied. Wonders if he could eat solid food if he tried. Invalid or pioneer? Hard to tell.
How many like him are there? He knows that something is going wrong, but he is not quite sure how to handle it. He thinks he has unplugged but the resolution gives him reservations.
He stares into a field of glitch art, digital fizz, mathematical irregularities. His teeth itch, and his retinas ache. He steps out into the uncertainty of the street and he walks in a direction he remembers there being a Wipe Bar. Info-fluid drinks hang behind the barman, whose face keeps stuttering, he reaches into his pocket, grabs what feels like a Bump Card, and drops it on the bar. It charges. He picks it up.
The barman asks him what he wants, and he asks for a Reece Set. They don’t have one, but they give him a Plateau Drone Cola. He pops the tab and pours the icy liquid down his throat. Things calm down. He makes his way to the chemist to grab a Suppressive Subroutine Suppository, because he knows that the Warewolf has an Aniseed Protocol, that will cause it to restir at some point, and then he will be back to square one.
His watchers have been Bump Dropping this whole time, digging his self-extrication from the heart of the mess. He is breathing good. He will not be so stupid next time, and he will take an Experiential Rider Add-on, so that the thing will naturally time out. John almost lost his mind this time. How many times could you do that? How elastic was his mind?