Free eXistenZ by Christopher Priest

That’s flat, and it’s final.”
    “What’s this about two of them?” Geller said to Gas.
    “My little joke,” he replied. “Just winding him up a little. Bedside manner, you know.”
    “Pikul doesn’t have much of a sense of humor,” Geller said quietly, then pushed past him. She went straight up to Pikul. “No bioport, then?”
    “No.”
    She glanced back at Gas, judging the distance, then lowered her voice to a husky whisper. Her breath played lightly on Pikul’s cheek.
    “This is it, Pikul, you see,” she said. “This is the cage I was talking about, the cage you make for yourself. It keeps you trapped inside, pacing about in the smallest possible space. Forever. You’ll never escape because you’ve forgotten, or you never knew, how you got inside in the first place. This is your chance, Pikul. Break out of your cage. Break out of it now.”
    He stared back at her, breathing heavily.
    “I don’t want to,” he said stubbornly.
    She moved closer still.
    “Think of the rewards, Pikul. Think of where we could go together.” She was leaning toward him. She plucked at the front of her T-shirt, pulling it forward, making a gap down which he could steal a glimpse. He stole a glimpse. She let go again.
    “Everything can be yours,” she said. “That’s not a promise. It’s a prediction.”
    Kneeling once more on the wingback chair, trembling and shuddering, Pikul waited for the impact. He heard Gas moving around behind him, he sensed something being adjusted, he heard again that deep ratchet sound. Something cold and metal touched his back.
    Slam!
    Pikul fell forward into the chair, while the agony screamed through his body. Nothing in his life had even approached the threshold of such pain, far less actually crossed it.
    Then, remarkably fast, it began to fade.
    Within a minute of the terrible impact the area of his lower back felt as if an extremely large and sensitive carbuncle had suddenly grown there, but the shattering, paralyzing pain had receded.
    Pikul wondered if he should continue to lie in the humiliating facedown position in the chair awhile longer, to ram home his point about having to suffer, then decided against it. Slowly, he eased himself around. His eyes focused.
    Gas and Geller were watching him. He fancied that Geller was watching him with concern and affection, but he couldn’t be too sure of that.
    “Okay, Pikul,” Gas said. “You’re going to have a swelling there for a few hours, but by tomorrow you won’t even notice it.”
    “I love it,” Pikul said. “Great.”
    He tried to get up from the wingback chair but the moment he put weight on his legs he collapsed forward into the arms of Geller and Gas.
    “What’s going on?” he cried in panic. “I can’t walk!”
    Geller helped Gas ease him back into a sitting position in the chair.
    “The bioport comes with its own epidural, like when you have a baby,” Gas said.
    “I don’t have babies.”
    “If you did, you’d be familiar with the feeling. Instant paralysis from the waist down.”
    “Paralysis?” Pikul said, thinking of several important parts of his body from the waist down.
    “Only temporary. You wouldn’t want to experience the full pain of invasive spinal tapping, would you? The epidural saves you from pain. It’ll wear off in no time.”
    Pikul noticed that there were specks of fresh blood and tiny flecks of skin on Gas’s work gloves. A mist of tiny blood droplets lay on the lenses of his safety glasses.
    “You look more like a butcher than a mechanic,” he said.
    “Things do get kind of confused these days, don’t they?” Gas said, but he made no attempt to wipe off the stains. A smile formed on his mouth, beneath his cold, empty eyes. “I’m going to go wash up. You two make yourselves at home.”
    He threw his gloves to one side and strode off in the direction of the washroom. He was emanating great waves of self-satisfaction.
    Geller shifted the game-pod case from her shoulder and