Swimmingly

Taking the injector and the first vial out of the case, he slots the first vial into the injector, presses it against Evan’s right arm and depresses the button on the side. With a slight pop and crack, the injector jumps and a hissing sound emanates from the injector as the first vial quickly empties into the muscle. Caleb repeats the process with the left arm. Reaching lower, Caleb injects vial #3 into the meat of {male_friend}'s right thigh and then stretches across the bed to inject the fourth and final dose. "Ow, damn dude, did you have to pick the most sensitive spots on my thighs?". Shortly thereafter, Evan’s annoyance disappears and is replaced by open-mouthed wonder.

“Caleb, I can feel her! Andrea, I can feel you touching my arm and face, your hands are like warm silk!”

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? Did the **** he just injected into his friend make him start having sensory hallucinations?” He’d heard of plants and illicit **** that could do something similar, but never that quickly.

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. Gently teasing the headset helmet off Evan’s skull, Caleb noticed that his hair was thickly matted by sweat and helmet pressure. “Did his hair get longer? Nah, probably just increased skull pressure from the side.”

Grabbing Evan’s forearm, Caleb checks his pulse then 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 roller-coaster of the night's events behind him and the physical exertion of carrying his friend, exhaustion carries him to sleep nearly instantly.