Accident-Prone(UI/CD/Sissy)

Taking the small case in his hand, Caleb fiddles with the clasp, seemingly glued together. "Fucking, stupid-ass latch on this stupid-ass CASE!" Placing his thumbs under the latch, he yanks mightily and opens the case. Unfortunately, in order to achieve that grip he opened it upside-down, throwing the vials and injector half-way across his room. A moment later, several cracks and crashes confirmed his worst fears. All four vials of Recombinex lay shattered on the hardwood floor.

"Uh, Evan, I accidentally dropped the vials. Guess we won't be making you Captain America after all."

"Uh, okay, I'll tell Andrea about that. Not sure why I'm apologizing to a Digital AI, but whatever.

"No, sorry I didn't really mean that, don't cry, I guess it'll be a while until you're freed and real, sorry about that, blame Caleb..."

At this point, Caleb has a number of conflicting thoughts running through his mind.

“What did Evan mean by ‘free her and make her real’? Is this some kind of mind-altering VR program? Why was there no ‘Subject Change State’ parameters? "

While Caleb was pondering these and a thousand other questions, Evan suddenly went silent and reached out as if to embrace someone, then cocked his head forward and to the side as if to hear something better…he muttered “What?” then abruptly fell back against the bed with a thud, a clattering of abused bed-spring coils, and went silent.

Looking over at the source of the noise, Caleb glanced at Evan who now appeared to be sleeping, judging by the stillness punctuated only by slow rhythmic breathing.

“What the hell? He went from animated and happy to **** in like 3 seconds, something's fucky.”

Turning back to his monitor he saw the words ‘Session 1 of 2 Complete - You may safely remove and power down the headset’ with a countdown timer of 18 hours or rather 17:59:11…10…9 seconds.’ Caleb pushed the helmet power button to ‘Off’ and unlocked the strap webbing. Tossing the helmet onto the bed, he checks Evan's pulse and quickly determines that between a normal pulse and slow breathing, his friend was probably okay...probably.

Grabbing Evan’s forearm, Caleb gives him a few short shakes in an attempt to wake him up, to no avail.

“Of course you’d pass out on the top floor, ain't had to carry anybody's passed out ass since college. I'm just glad yer skinny. Let's see if I can get you to your own bed.”

Caleb picks Evan up in a cradle carry and slowly makes his way down the stairs. Bumping open the bedroom door with his hip, Caleb enters the room and carefully picks his way past scattered clothes and random nerdy detritus to lower Evan onto the bed then goes to the bathroom and puts a glass of water on the bedside and sets his friend's work alarm.

“Goodnight man, sweet dreams.”

Back upstairs in his room, Caleb collects all the parts to the kit and places them in the box next to his desktop. Then, checking to make sure the program has finalized everything, he exits it and shuts down his system. Crawling into the bed, with the rollercoaster of the night's events behind him and the physical exertion of carrying his friend, exhaustion carries him to sleep nearly instantly.