WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO DO THIS TO YOU

A reasonable-looking man; a reasonable-looking room. She didn't recognize either of them.

He was white, maybe 5'11, but small enough in the shoulders and chest that he didn't look it. Sitting across from her in an old over-upholstered chair, drinking the same weak coffee she was. His soft blue shirt from some independent retailer: better fitting than off-the-rack, but nothing ostentatious. He had soft brown hair, a trimmed beard, and tortoiseshell glasses. Timeless rather than the fashionable. He was young enough to 'get it': maybe around 30.

A reasonable-looking man. His name was probably something like 'Charles'.

The room was softly grey: the colour you'd paint a house to sell, but not live in. A wide, north-facing window let in a good amount of cool grey light. Rose-of-Sharons blooming just outside, and the drone of a lawnmower at awareness' edge.

A reasonable-looking room.

Erin settled back into the chair. Her coffee still hot. Charles or Andrew or whatever-his-name-was drank his with one milk and one sugar: reasonable.

Erin drank hers black.

"So Erin, How are you feeling?"

She looked down at herself, and found she was wearing reasonable clothing. Chinos and a soft-collar shirt. Flats. Like she was in a job interview. She couldn't remember the last time she'd dressed this way.

"I'm alright." An automatic response. No truth in it.

"Do you know where you are?"

"Looks sort of like my Aunt's house in Rosedale."

The man leaned back to look around the room: crown molding, hardwood floor, pot-lights from a recent renovation.

"Rosedale. Interesting. It's supposed to be a... a neutral setting. I guess the designer must have grown up in a neighbourhood like that."

"A designer? What a surprise."

He reacted to her tone with an expression halfway between polite smile and a wince. The face you'd make at a party if someone said something you were too polite to disagree with.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked, changing the subject.

"You look familiar, but... no, can't say I do."

"My name's Jonathan. I work for a company called Coles & McNeil."

"Isn't that a bookstore?"

Another polite wince.

"No. We're an international management consulting company. One of the Big Five."

"I see..." she squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. She was feeling foggy. Not exactly sure where she was or what was going on. She couldn't remember how she'd gotten here. "So you're not a... a therapist or something? This isn't an institution?"

"Not a psychiatric institution, no. Technically, you're in a detention facility in North Scarborough. But I'm coming to you from several miles away, at our offices downtown."

She blinked.

"I'm sorry... I don't, you're not making any sense to me."

He took another sip of coffee. One milk, one sugar. What reasonable person would take their coffee any other way?

"It's normal to be disoriented. Just think of this as a kind of video call. Cutting edge for now, but we'll all be doing it from our living-rooms in a few years' time. Right now your body is lying unconscious back in Scarborough."