Free The Game by Christopher J. Thomasson

to
sleep—even if there is complete silence.
    Finally, his phone vibrates. It’s six o’clock
on Sunday morning. He steps into the next office and gently nudges
Singleton’s shoulder. The older man’s eyes flutter open.
    Paul says, “It’s time.”
    Singleton yawns and pushes himself out of the
recliner. They wake Georgia and the three of them shuffle tiredly
into the room where Potter still rests facedown on the
table.
    Paul asks, “Are we positive this is going to
work?”
    Georgia responds, “In theory, yes.”
    “ At any rate,” Singleton adds,
“We’ll be rid of him for good.”
    The two men unlock the wheels of the gurney and
roll Potter out of the room and into the hall. At the far end is a
set of double doors. They wheel the General through the doors and
into a large room. In the center of the room is a giant,
milky-white sphere—almost identical to the one Paul used all those
years ago. The sight of it makes him want to throw up.
    “ You okay?”
    Paul tears his eyes away from the sphere. He
nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”
    They continue into the room. The door into the
sphere is already open so all they have to do now is carry the
unconscious General inside. Advances in the technology have
eliminated the need for the silky black shirt Paul had worn years
before. Now the simulator feeds right into the central nervous
system, directly triggering the nerves within the body. The gun
lies on the floor of the simulator and they set the General down
next to it. Paul places the gun near the General’s hand and then,
using a long cable with locking connectors, attaches it to the
computer components hardwired into his spine.
    Singleton flips a couple of switches near
Potter’s neck and steps outside the sphere. Paul doesn’t follow so
he looks back inside to see the younger man leaning over the
General’s body. “You okay?” he asks for the second time.
    Paul nods again and then addresses the
unconscious body, “Have a nice trip, asshole.” He slaps the
General’s slack face—hard.
    And as if that weren’t enough, he slaps him
again—harder.
* * *
    The two men join Georgia in the control room.
There are no windows. Before them, the wall and ceiling are one
large, curved surface. A high definition projection system will
transmit the images onto the curved surface, giving them the same
view as that of the test subject—who, in this case, is General
Potter.
    Singleton takes a seat beside her. “Any idea
what we can expect?”
    She is silent for a moment. Her fingers dance
across a computer keyboard as she completes uploading information
into the system linking the software to Potter’s brain. She says,
“I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.”
    Paul takes a seat opposite the others. He
stares at her intently and the look is slightly unnerving. His gaze
is that of a much older man. She knows it’s just a reflection of
Rob’s personality showing through, but it still seems
impossible.
    She addresses the younger man, “When you and
Rob…” She glances up and meets his eyes.
    He nods to her, silently telling her to go
on.
    She clears her throat. “Well, when the two of
you were hooked up, the transmission was supposed to only work one
way—from Paul in the simulator to Rob at the other end of the
line—to put it in the simplest of terms. In all the other
experiments, that one-way connection was the undoing of the person
in the simulator. Their consciousness left the simulator, entered
and controlled the avatar, but then was unable to return
again.
    “ For some reason (and for all I
know, even the General never found out how it happened), during
your simulation, the mental connection worked two ways. While we
thought that Rob was completely brain dead, we were apparently
wrong, and his consciousness found a way to transfer into Paul and
share residence—so to speak.”
    Singleton looks thoughtful. He says, “What if
that was the key?”
    She turns to him, “What do