Written in 365 Parts: 73: We Aren’t Anywhere Really

“Where am I?” eyes were blinking into the low light of the room and a hand was brushed through that curly mound of hair.

“That line is starting to get old really quick. Can we not have a better way of saying hello? Maybe just assume that you are somewhere beforehand and say ‘Hi’ first, and then follow it with something else?” Drick cocked a head to one side and stared at Marsh who had rested on his elbows to stare across the dim room.

“Sure. One second,” Marsh lay back down and closed his eyes to Drick’s bemused frown. “Good morning sunshine,” he said and sat upright smiling maniacally, “wait this isn’t Aunt Mabel’s outhouse, where is Uncle Sydney? Where are the twins? These are surely not my knuckles. Now, Drick, where am I?”

“In bed.”

Marsh looked around, “whose bed?”

“At this moment you are the only one staying in it so I would say it is your bed. You have woken in an interesting mood.”

“Yeah, well I feel a little out of place but some of the buzzing in my head has gone.”

“About that. It was a jammer that was injected into the web attached to your brain. Whomever got you out must have known quite a bit about what hardware was in there as they knew that it had a locator fitted to it. They should have been able to track your every move and even remotely operate some of your senses.”

“Do what now?”

“They would have been able to passively pick up whatever you heard, saw, smelt or touched. It also looked like they had the ability to direct certain impulses. Like remotely making you turn your head for instance.”

“You mean they controlled my mind and body?”

“Not really, more that they could replicate certain sequences so that you would respond automatically and just believe that you had wanted to say, turn left, or look upwards.”

“That is the freakiest thing I have ever heard. So you say they were jamming it and that caused the headache and the buzzing?If it isn’t there and you turned it off, can they get in and do that again?”

“Nope. We removed their capability to do that. And after some discussion they wouldn’t let me install a few special ones of my own.”

“You wanted to mess with my brain.”

“Well…I was joking.” Drick smiled. “Come on, I will let you get dressed there are fresh clothes in the wardrobe. I thought you might want a bite to eat and then we will activate the full system and show you how to use it.”

“Still didn’t answer my first question?”

“Oh, right. We are not anywhere really. This is a construct program running inside your head.”