2. Ada in a dream

Ada dreams that she is in a video game

2

 

Ada woke up in a rush and sat up, panting, sweat slicking her hair to her face. The room was dark. Her bedroom? She’d been dreaming. Fever dreams. She figured she must be sick. She brushed the hair from her face and held the back of her hand to her forehead. It was warm, but she reasoned that maybe her hand was just cold. She couldn’t tell. A dim light from the hall cut a path through the dim room. It took her a moment to determine that no, it wasn’t her bedroom. It was the room from her dream. Dreams? Ada swung her legs out of bed. No, she didn’t. They wouldn’t move. Her legs were strapped down. She looked down dumbly and ran a finger across the heavy straps. Her legs were strapped down. She flexed against them. Why just her legs? She plucked at the band across her thighs. It was too heavy for her to possibly be able to break it. She was oddly calm though, considering. She sort of just assumed it was a fever dream.

 

If it was just a fever dream, then realistically it didn’t matter how long she’d been there. Of course to her it felt like forever, but then dreams never can get the passage of time quite right. She looked back at the bands across her legs. If it was a dream, then… she flexed the muscles through her thighs and bent her legs at the knee, straining lightly against the two bands across her thighs and shins. They made satisfying sounds between a pop and a whap as they snapped. Ada nodded appreciatively and swung her legs out of bed. She was wearing a paper gown. Unsatisfactory. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t picture herself, couldn’t dream herself into anything more fashionable. Dream-Ada was wearing a paper gown, and that’s all there was to say. She hopped to her feet and wobbled faintly.

 

As soon as Ada’s feet touched the floor, the lights flicked on. Fully adjusted to the dark, it was a painfully uncomfortable switch. She tottered past another bed, like hers, that contained a thin figure with a pile of dark curly hair, and wobbled over to the door, rubbing her eyes and flailing a bit looking for a light dimmer switch on the wall.

 

 There wasn’t one. Ada blinked a few times until her eyes had somewhat adjusted, then squinted around. The door was shut, and she jerked the handle a bit. Locked. She jerked it again. No longer locked. The metal door frame next to the handle bowed out. Dream-Ada had pulled the lock through the frame. Whoops. She padded barefoot out into the hall and looked around, picking a direction and setting out to walk that way. She felt a bit dazed, and everything was a little fuzzy. Fever dream. She shrugged, kept walking.

 

There was a shout, and a pinch in her shoulder. That pissed Dream-Ada off. In the odd way that dream time doesn’t run like awake time does, Dream-Ada was suddenly an angry gorilla. Not an angry gorilla, still a girl in a paper gown. She felt like an angry gorilla. Doublefisted smash. She enjoyed every weird dream moment of it inside a bubble of rage. Then she was in a stairwell, and it felt like a video game. Run up. And up. And up. And up. Next level. More monsters, low level badguys, grunts, whatever. Angry gorilla. It was fun. Petite girls like her didn’t get to be hulking angry primates often. There were so many hallways. Where was the treasure chest with the level map? Where was the boss key, where was the boss. It was a video game.

 

Then she was in the front lobby. She grabbed a black puffy men’s coat off the coat rack and slipped it on. It hung to just above my knees. It was almost like an armor upgrade. Ada walked out the front door. The wet sidewalk was cold under her bare feet. It was raining. Was this a zombie video game? Post-apocalyptic? No, it just… looked like a rainy night in San Martín. Her feet were cold. She scrunched the oversized coat around herself and took off quickly down the street. She didn’t know where to, but this was the next level and there was sure to be treasure chests with boss keys and level maps somewhere. That’s how it worked, she reasoned. Right?

 

She hadn’t gone more than half a block before the dream ended and she blacked out on the concrete, felled by the syringe she hadn’t really ever registered had stuck her in the shoulder. More shouts, and pounding feet, come to collect her. This time the bands holding her down to that bed were tighter, heavier. This time she wouldn’t escape. Most test groups didn’t make it this long with the treatment. They couldn’t have such an excellent subject just walk out the front door. That would be an embarassment, not to be tolerated. Not when this test group was looking so very promising.