New Reality: A Dream x George Fanfic

Chapter 2: The New Reality Project

Dream stepped off the bus first, followed by George, as, luggage in tow, they made their way to the Sultix Building. The bus stop was thankfully not far from the building, so they didn't have to walk far, but the July sun beat down on them relentlessly the whole way. By the time they reached the nondescript gray building, they were both sweating profusely and felt very thirsty.

As they neared the front walkway, the door opened automatically in front of them, letting out a blast of cool air. They hurried inside and the door swung shut behind them with a dull thud.

"Hello. Welcome to Sultix Industries." A cool female voice greeted them from behind a tall desk. As they walked up to it, they saw the woman behind the desk: her dark hair was locked in a tight bun, and she was wearing ugly glasses and a little too much makeup. She smiled and handed them each a clipboard and pen. "You must be Clay and George. My name's Irene. It's a pleasure to meet you both. Go ahead and sign these forms and someone will be with you in a minute. You can leave your bags here for now."

They settled into the understuffed chairs that lined the room and looked at the forms. For the most part they seemed normal: no pictures or videos allowed, don't tamper with the equipment, etc. Dream stopped reading after the second paragraph. He let his gaze drift idly down the page to the bottom, where a line awaited his signature. He obliged and brought his pen and clipboard back to the lady. As he sat back down, George grabbed his sleeve, gesturing at his own form. "Dream, look. This is sort of weird-"

Just then, a door at the far end of the room opened and a balding man in a white coat walked in. He was wearing thick glasses and carried a clipboard with age-spotted hands, making Dream think vaguely of a doctor. "Ah, you two must be Clay and George. Nice to meet you!" He smiled warmly. "My name is Alexander Sultix. Please, call me Al. I'm the founder of Sultix Industries, and lead developer of the New Reality project. I'll be giving you both a little tour of our facilities before we begin the program."

Dream glanced back to George, who was scanning the form intently with a frown. "Dude, hurry up. Just sign it." After a moment of hesitation, he did, and they both got up and followed Al down a narrow corridor.

As they passed empty meeting rooms, more dark hallways, and many closed doors, Dream noticed there were hardly any people in the building. George had noticed the same thing, and remarked to Al, "There's not that many people here, are there?"

Al shook his head. "No. There used to be, when we were first starting up. But you see, in the early days our company developed an AI capable of managing extremely complex tasks. Now, most systems here are run by that AI. Lights, air conditioning, recording data... all of that is done by her."

"Her?"

Al chuckled. "Yes, I suppose I think of the AI as almost human. After all, she has far superior intelligence to any human being. I named her," he paused almost imperceptibly, "Sara."

Before George could ask any more questions, Al stopped them near the end of the corridor. He motioned them to look through a glass door on their left, through which they could see a variety of desks and computers, with people milling about between them. "This is our hub of human activities. Developing new technology, testing it, creating it.. That all happens here." Al gazed fondly at the people for a second, and one looked up and waved at them. They waved back as they continued their walk to the end of the corridor.

"And this," said Al, gesturing at the solid metal door directly in front of them, "is the real heart of this building, of this company. This is where Sara lives." He unlocked the door and swung it open before them, and they stepped into the room. Automatic lights flicked on as they entered, and Dream couldn't help but admire the sheer complexity of the system in front of him. Rows of servers, various screens and buttons, wires going everywhere... The place sure was a mess, but it was a highly organized one.

"Watch this." Al winked at them and raised his voice a bit. "Hey, Sara, we have some guests here! Can you tell them a little bit about yourself?"

A warbly mechanical voice resonated from hidden speakers around the room. "Welcome, guests. My name is Sara. I am a complex program designed for continuous learning and solving of complex problems. I was developed by Alexander Sultix in order to bring his ideas to life."

"Thank you, Sara. Now, can you tell us about the New Reality Project?"

"The new Reality Project is a cutting-edge program which will bring a new, completely immersive environment to virtual reality gaming. The project uses artificial intelligence to adapt new games into an immersive environment for the player."

"Cool!" Dream noticed George was being weirdly quiet. He gave him a small nudge. "Are you good?"

George snapped back to reality from his wandering thoughts and plastered a smile on his face. "Yeah, I'm fine!"

Dream didn't look convinced, but let it go.

I'm not fine. Something's wrong here. First there were some really sketchy bits in the forms we had to sign... And something about this Al guy gives me weird vibes. Hopefully I'm just paranoid.

"Well," said Al, clapping his hands, "That's everything. Let's get started then. Let me take you to the room where it happens!"

As they followed Al back up the corridor, George kept trying to catch Dream's eye, but he didn't notice. He kept glancing behind them, sure that someone was following them.

Al opened an unmarked door on their left and gestured them inside. It was small, white, and the only pieces of furniture were two uncomfortable-looking chairs. "I'll be right back, just have to make sure everything's ready!" He shut the door, leaving Dream and George alone for the first time since they'd arrived.

Dream looked around the room with more interest than it deserved. In reality, his thoughts were far away. I'm with George, in person. That's crazy. I can't believe I'm actually here with him, physically, not just online...

"Dream."

I hope this turns out to be a fun experience. I really want to enjoy my limited time here with George before-

"Dream!"

Snapped back to his thoughts, Dream realized he'd been staring into space for a solid minute at least. "What?"

"I was saying, doesn't this place seem sort of sketchy to you?"

"What? No?" Dream hesitated. "I mean, okay, so it's not some big beautiful building with lots of people and fancy gadgets and stuff, but that doesn't mean it's sketchy."

"I dunno, though... I guess you're right." George didn't sound convinced.

"Come on, Georgie, what's the worst that could happen?"

Just then, the door opened and a woman entered wearing a mask and gloves.

"What-" Before either Dream or George was fully aware of what was going on, she had uncapped a needle and stuck it in Dream's neck. "What the- Lady, what the fuck are you doing?" Dream felt a sudden adrenaline spike as he realized what had just happened. He looked frantically around for some way out, and had just decided to push his way past the woman when he felt a hand grip his arm.

"Come with me." Dream looked up and found the voice belonged to a very intimidating-looking, security guard type of guy. His panic increased as he realized there really was no way out of this.

"George!"

"Dream!"

Through a vision threaded with black dots, Dream saw George struggling to get to him as another security guard dragged him away. He tried to reach out, to shout for help, anything, but he suddenly felt too tired to do so. His vision flickering, his hearing strangely muffled, Dream felt his head drop onto his chest. As he was half-dragged, half-carried out of the room, he heard George's scream as if it was coming from very far away.

"DREAM!"

"George," he mumbled and knew nothing more.