Daylilies

Part 1: A Contract

"Are you sure about this?" He asked.

The room was dark. The only light was from the setting sun, glowing through the hotel windows across the table in between me and the lawyer. On that table a single sheet of paper and a pen rested. It was the final paper of the contract. For the last hour or so, the lawyer had carefully explained every portion of that contract to me. For example, I knew that they had to renew the contract with me every two years, something about it being the policy.

I reached for the pen. The lawyer sighed and I looked at him. "If you don't mind, can I ask you why you've agreed to this?" He leaned back in his chair, his face covered by the sun's shadows. My eyes trained back on the thin line that the pen was now posed over.

"What else am I going to do?" I looked up at him. "At least with this, I can be useful until I die." And with that my name was written, and then replaced with the name Subject.

I stayed in that hotel room for three more days, only seeing one of the two guards who gave me my meals. At first, I joked that it was like I was a prisoner, waiting to be executed. The guards didn't laugh. I hadn't seen my sister at all in those three days. Then on the fourth day I finally woke up in a different room.

It was opposite to the dark hotel room, with white walls and a white bed. The door was directly across the room from me. When I walked through the door, the first thing I noticed was the floor to ceiling windows that stretched the entire hallway. Outside those windows, a blue on blue ocean and sky view welcomed me. The sun shined brightly on the two, giving it a sparkling effect.

"I see you have awakened already." The voice spoke from a little down the hall. I turned and looked for the source. Also looking out the window, a man in a white long lab coat greeted me. He was smiling, his black hair tumbled down to his chin. Upon seeing him, I remembered I hadn't showered in those four days.

"Yes." I spoke.

"This view is something else. I've always enjoyed looking at it." He turned from the window and looked at me with a smile matching his eyes. "My name is Hunger. I'll be your caretaker."

"Caretaker?" I asked.

"I'll watch over your vitals when you're under, and do physical and mental checks when you're awake. I had just been on my way to wake you up. Follow me." He started down the hall and I caught up behind him. He was much taller than me, but I've always been shorter than most people, so the feeling of being small wasn't new. "We go by nicknames here. Everyone's name will not be their real name." He glanced back at me. "You'll go by the project name, C.O.N.N.I.E."

I was taken back by that. Who the fuck names a experiment Connie? I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at how ridiculous it sounded.

"Have you been told what you will be doing? Or did you sign on blindly?" His voice seemed to echo slightly off the walls and high ceiling as we walked.

"No, I haven't been told much other than it's an experiment that involves some sort of virtual world."

"So you came in blind."

"Yes."

He looked back at me and was still smiling. He stopped and turned to a door. The windows were now behind us and showed our shadows creeping on the wall and into the door frame. I followed him through the doorway.

The room was long. When we entered through the door, we were on an elevated platform with a glass divider that overlooked the lowered portion of the room. Inside was a single clear box that was filled with a clear liquid. Wires extended from the box, and several machines and tables lined the walls of the room. On the platform, control panels sat under the glass divider, and monitors displayed above them. A round table was in the middle of the platform. No one else was in the room.