The Core: The First Guest

15. Nightmares

Needless to say, while I wanted to go off and experience everything all at once, I had this nagging feeling that staying awake a week wasn't a good thing. I ended up asking her about the Tela race and if they needed sleep as well. She explained that they had, over time, developed a way to have the system continually replenish and restore their minds so that they could go without for long periods.

"I just get this feeling in the back of my mind that this is not good for me. It just feels like there is a slowly increasing weight the longer I don't get sleep." I said as I made up my mind. I was going to test different nap and sleep times to find out how long it would take me to get this weight to finally go away.

"I am going to take a nap Tutor." I said as I gripped the stainless steel railing and pushed away from it slowly while glancing first at the stairs up to my private top deck suite and then back to her for a moment. "Let George know please? Also, come get me if something is needed. I just... need to recharge for a little bit." I said as I tried to yawn. It was glorious, the first yawn in a week and it almost made my face cramp with how long it was.

"Interesting." She said as she watched and listened to me. "Also, you know that both George and I can hear you anywhere you are in your VR home, right? It is nice of you to consider us though." She said as she went towards one of the deck chairs and lowered herself down to lay on it, materializing a novel in her hand once she was comfortable.

I climbed up the stairs, taking one last moment to look off into the dark distance and to admire the earth from above. It was an unforgettable sight. When I got to my suite I tossed off most of my clothes and threw myself into bed. Oh, sweet luxury - was the last thought that went through my head before I nodded off to sleep.

I may have made a mistake. Being the first human to ever have its brain infused with cr nanobots, copied, and now contained solely inside a virtual reality space designed and intended for a race of aliens called the Tela. Dreams were something new entirely for the System. Dreams and nightmares.

I blinked and swore that I had just laid my head down on a super soft pillow in a satellite yacht. "What a strange thought," I chuckled to myself as I looked around. I was sitting astride my 21-speed bike and I was back at the driveway to my rented house. My mind tried to make sense of what just happened, I could swear that I was just somewhere else, a guest to something bigger, and yet I had been sitting here for the last minute trying to decide how far I wanted to ride my bike today as well. It was as if two realities were conflicting and one was starting to fade away. Like I had just woken up and the dream was disappearing.

"Why can't I remember? I swear I was just on a ship." I said softly as a gentle breeze blew some leaves across my lawn. I sat there, struggling to make sense of all the memories that I had just had inside my head, memories that quickly seemed to be vanishing the longer I sat there staring at the cracks in the concrete under my feet. A man. A man in the park! I remembered something happening to me when I met a man in the park.

"Disha tah!" I said as I remembered it being said today somewhere next to a man... sitting on a bench.... the more I thought about it the harder it was to draw out the sequence of events or the picture of the man feeding birds.

I quickly jammed my foot down on the pedal and raced down the driveway and out into the empty street. I had to get to the park to find this man before this fading memory completely vanished.

I pedaled down 1st street as fast as I could and almost got ran over by a squirrel with octopus arms driving a green 1969 El Camino.

"What the heck was that?" I said as I swerved to the side to avoid the car that ignored the stop sign. I watched as a cigarette flicked out the window as it sped away.