Chapter 11 -- The Second Override
I was still shaking when I sprinted back from the IP demo plaza, lungs burning, hands trembling so badly I could barely grip the railing as I crossed the civic lanes. My heart pounded like it wanted out of my chest, every beat a reminder that what I'd just experienced wasn't entertainment. It wasn't just another VR simulation. It was something else—too sharp, too responsive, too human.
The engineering part of my mind kept cycling through the impossibilities. Memory engrams required quantum-level processing power. Neural pattern extraction needed military-grade hardware worth more than most countries' annual budgets. Yet Rob and Sarah had been running it on salvaged arcade equipment held together with cable ties and hope.
Which meant the technology wasn't theirs.
Something had enhanced their system beyond its physical limitations, creating experiences that shouldn't have been possible with their hardware. But how the enhancement worked, or what triggered it, remained a complete mystery.
The question followed me through Wall Pod's entrance, past Mark wiping down station four, all the way to my cleaning cart. I went through the motions—disinfectant, neural cap cleaning, haptic calibration—but my mind was elsewhere, calculating variables and testing hypotheses.
I needed to know if what happened at the demo plaza was hardware-specific or something that could manifest across different systems. The variables bothered me: why had the override responded when I was there? What was the trigger mechanism?
There was only one way to find out.
Near the end of my shift, when the supervisor had retreated to his office to argue with suppliers over late deliveries, I found myself standing before pod twelve. One of the Bear House-certified units, sealed and sterile, their emblem glowing with quiet authority. These weren't scrap machines cobbled together by desperate students. They were clean, firmware-locked, audited weekly by House technicians.
If the override could manifest here, in an official Bear House pod with military-grade security protocols, then whatever was happening went far beyond a couple of graduate students playing with salvaged hardware.
I pulled out my maintenance chip—standard equipment for cleaning staff, designed for basic diagnostics and surface-level calibration. Nothing that should give me access to deep system functions, but enough to initialize a simple simulation for testing purposes.
The pod hummed to life as I settled into the padded seat. Status lights flickered green across the control panel. Standard start-up sequence, no anomalies detected.
I kept my selection simple. Baseball—something with straightforward physics modelling, minimal narrative complexity, low computational overhead. If an override was going to manifest, it would have to work harder to infiltrate something this basic.
The system initialized normally:
[Welcome to Bear House VR Systems] [Loading: Recreational Baseball Simulation] [User Safety Protocols: Active] [Neural Feedback Limiters: Engaged]
Standard interface messages. Nothing unusual.
But then I made the mistake of thinking about what I'd experienced at the demo plaza.
That level of realism... if only this could be the same...
The interface flickered.
Warmth pulsed against my palm where it rested on the control surface, like the pod was recognizing something about me that went beyond biometric scanning.
[Detected anomalous override. Bypass accepted.] [Uploading enhanced parameters...] [Modifying scenario depth...] [Enjoy your experience, Master.]
My blood turned to ice water.
The exact same messages. The exact same progression. This wasn't Rob and Sarah's hardware responding to some hidden modification—this was something else entirely, something that could infiltrate any VR system in the Republic and reshape it at will.
The simulation unfolded around me with that same impossible fidelity.
Summer heat pressed against my skin, real enough to make me sweat. Dust motes danced in afternoon sunlight that felt genuinely warm on my face. The smell of grass and leather and concession stand popcorn filled my nostrils with perfect authenticity.
But it was the people that convinced me this was real memory, not artificial construction.
The pitcher on the mound had the loose-limbed stance of someone who'd been throwing baseballs since childhood, muscle memory written into every gesture. The catcher behind home plate adjusted his mask with the unconscious efficiency of long practice. The crowd in the bleachers moved with the restless energy of real spectators, not the generic animation loops of standard NPCs.
When I stepped into the batter's box, bat heavy in my hands, the pitcher looked at me with the focused assessment of an actual competitor, not a scripted character.
"Hey dickface," I called out, testing the boundaries like I had at the demo plaza. "Throw it like a man."
His eyes narrowed with genuine irritation. "The fuck you just say?"
The umpire behind me barked a warning: "Keep it clean, rookie. One more crack like that and you're ejected."
Real reactions. Real anger. Real consequences.
The ball came fast and true, a white blur against blue sky. When I swung, the impact jarred through my arms with painful accuracy—the specific shock of aluminium meeting leather that every recreational player knew intimately.
"Run, you idiot!"
I bolted toward first base, cleats digging into dirt that felt genuinely solid beneath my feet. The first baseman moved to intercept, his positioning too natural, too reactive to be programmed behaviour.
This wasn't just advanced VR. This was lived experience, digitized and replayed with perfect fidelity. Someone's actual memories of playing baseball on a summer afternoon, complete with all the sensory data that made it feel absolutely real.
But whose memories? And how was this technology possible?
I forced myself to think analytically, to observe rather than just experience. The computational requirements for this level of reality synthesis should have been astronomical. Full sensory recreation, individual AI personalities, physics modelling down to the molecular level—it would require processing power that didn't exist in civilian systems.
Unless it wasn't being processed locally at all.
What if the enhancement wasn't being injected from outside, but somehow triggered by user presence? What if certain conditions activated dormant capabilities in the systems themselves?
It sounded impossible, but the evidence was right there in my memory. Both experiences had occurred when I was present, but I couldn't determine what specific factor linked them.
Menu access, I commanded mentally.
The baseball field shimmered, and a control overlay appeared in my peripheral vision.
[System Menu] [Continue Session] [Adjust Settings]
[Logout]
I focused on logout, and the confirmation dialog appeared immediately.
[Confirm Session Termination?] [Yes] [No]
"Yes," I said aloud.
The world dissolved like smoke.
The pod hissed open, releasing the smell of recycled air and cleaning chemicals. I sat up slowly, shirt damp with sweat, heart still racing from the impossible experience.
But this time, I wasn't just shaken. I was fascinated.
Whatever was causing these enhancements, it seemed to respond to focused intent. When I genuinely wanted more realistic experiences, the systems somehow delivered them. The mechanism was unknown, but the pattern was becoming clear.
I wiped down the pod's surfaces with mechanical precision, sanitised the neural contacts, reset the system to standby mode. To any observer, I was just another cleaning tech finishing his shift routine.
But inside, I was calculating. The engineer in me needed to understand the parameters of what I'd discovered. Was there a limit to these enhancements? Could they be triggered deliberately, or only through genuine desire for increased realism?
As my shift ended and the daily credit transfer completed, I walked out of Wall Pod with a new perspective on my situation. I wasn't just a cleaning tech who'd stumbled onto advanced technology. I was someone who could somehow access capabilities that shouldn't exist in conventional VR systems.
The question was what to do with that knowledge.