The big CON

Patrick scrolled through his list of contacts and sighed, the loose group of friends he texted had never even bothered to send a follow up text. Looks like he was going to another con alone, like the last five before and all the other cons before that. They could hardly be called friends, and most of them were “online” only. He’d promised to even buy food and rent rooms for everyone to stay a couple days, and still he couldn't get any takers. Whatever, he was here for business anyway. Grabbing some exclusive swag to hock on his online store for 120% the markup price, along with some personal buys for his own collection.

The 23rd Annual Video and Media Expo was currently on opening day, he’d scheduled a full day of going from booth to booth with a group of friends. It didn’t feel the same playing all those demos, and browsing exhibits by himself. Nobody to geek out with, or argue with.

He crumpled up his guest passes, and shoved them into his pocket. Heading into the main hall, he was used to this by now. It’d be no different from the other times.

There were all types of people mulling about, fans, enthusiasts, media, journalists, developers, artists, and best of all...Cosplayers!

Partick smirked bitterly, he missed the good ol days when everything wasn’t so “PC”. He remembered the halls lined with booth babes, cosplayers galore and wall to wall sexually explicit advertising. Sure there was the “Anime” corner where you could still find all of that, but it was sequestered in a spot away from the main attractions.

Weaving his way through the crowd of geeks and gamers to check out the first spot on his list, the VR Den. Patrick was not swayed by the gimmicks of the technology at such an early stage, what if offered was a far cry from what he’d been promised while watching sci-fi and video games. The times he’d demoed some peripherals, he’d only come away dizzy and cross eyed.

Patrick frowned, checking his watch. He’d made a miscalculation in his schedule it seemed. The VR Den was blocked off, was it supposed to be open on the second day? There was red theatre rope sectioning it off from the rest of the exhibits and the hall was practically deserted, there were no displays on or staff present.

Patrick cursed under his breath, and turned around only to collide with a lanky older man making his way past the VR Den. The guy was dressed in a tight black sweater vest, and high waisted suspender trousers. A stereotypical nerd if he ever saw one.

“Watch where you’re going pal!” He shouted, shoving the nerdy guy back roughly. He stumbled, startled as he hadn't even noticed the person he just walked into, surprised to see anyone even talking to him. The nerdy guy shuffled away nervously and ran past the roped off VR Den into the area beyond. Patrick grumbled angrily about antisocial nerds, despite being one of them himself. He was going to move back into the main hall, when his foot kicked something metal and plastic along the ground.

At first glance it looked like the nerd had dropped his glasses, but there was something peculiar about them. The frames were thicker, and had an interesting texture to them, as well as the lenses were a shimmering blue and white screen. Almost like a DOS boot up menu, it flickered like an old computer monitor and he was curious. Was this some sort of VR Dev kit? He glanced around on the lookout for anyone watching, and picked them up from the floor. Dusting them off and twirling them around in his palms.

Patrick thought they looked kind of cool, in a faux-tech 80’s sci-fi kind of way, he could picture these being in some retro cheesy movie from back in the day. Carefully he laid them on his face, and blinked his eyes rapidly from the blinding light on the internal monitors. He grasped his head in pain momentarily, a searing migraine slicing through his frontal cortex and singing every neuron it’s path. Patricks ability to scream was taken from him along with all of his motor control as he fumbled to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut, he flopped limply.

Patrick woke up on the floor, an indeterminate amount of time had passed. His body was sore, and his head was throbbing. Gingerly he lifted himself from the floor, steadying himself upon his feet. He could see clearly again, however there was a strange text in the upper right corner of his vision. SIMULATION EVENT 0002 <Alpha>. He was still wearing the glasses, the ones that had nearly killed him. Reaching up to take them off, his hand encountered an electrical shock. “MOTHERFUCKER!” he screamed, holding his singed hand.

SIMULATION EVENT 0002 <Alpha> Commence at 1700 PM.

Patrick groaned, stupid faulty VR glasses were trying to blow up his brain. He was about to reach up and yank them from his head when a harsh voice interrupted him.

“STOP! You don't know what you’re doing!” a male voice called, causing him to turn in the direction of the VR Den. That nerdy looking guy was briskly walking up to him with an intense look on his face. “Why did you put them on? Why!? Who just picks up some random glasses off the ground and starts wearing them? That's extremely unhygienic!” he complained, much to Patrick's annoyance.

“Hey listen pal, your little doodad tried to kill me...you’re lucky I don't sue and GAH!” *ZAP* “Fuck!” Patrick screamed, once more getting electrocuted by trying to remove the glasses from his face.

“Stop that! You’ll damage very delicate equipment!” The nerdy guy argued, now circling Partick from the side and focusing in on the glasses.

“Yeah, well get these damn things off my face before I break them and then beat the shit out of you” He seethed.

“I can't! They’ve bonded to you...you’re gonna have to override the simulation event and cause a manual shutdown” The nerd spoke, as if it was the simplest explanation.

“Oh yeah, real simple!” Patrick ranted.

“Can you just pay attention you simpering imbecile!”

“What’d you call me?”

“You, the obvious moron who decided to try out experimental technology he found on the floor”

“Yeah!? Well I wish you’d shut up and be more helpful!” Patrick yelled, clenching his fist.

“You-BZZZZT!” The nerdy guy seemed to freeze in place as his body shimmered like a glitch happening in a video game, his form beginning to disintegrate into millions upon millions of multicolored voxels and pixels. Patrick stared in awe for a moment, not believing his eyes as the nerdy looking guy standing in front of him turned into rainbow dust and...completely disappeared.

He twirled around, looking in every direction for where the man had fled to and was only met with empty air. He heard a bell ring inside of his brain, and a notification popped up in the upper right corner of his vision. ASSISTANT APPLICATION INSTALLED. There was an icon that appeared, that looked like the nerdy man's face albeit stuck in one of surprised shock blinking in the corner. Hesitantly patrick moved his hand to where it existed in his vision, and clicked on it.

Instantly the man was back, albeit looking very different. He almost looked like a hologram of himself, as he patted his see through body in apparent astonishment.

“This can't be happening!” His voice echoed like speaking through a digital speaker. “Ive been fucking digitized?” He spoke incredulously. Patrick was in awe, was this part of the simulation?

“So wait, none of this is real? This is just a sim?” He spoke aloud. Which caused the hologram man to wave his arms in alarm.

“NO NO, we need to get that device off your head and restore me...or restore me and then get that device off your head. Listen to my instructions very carefully...Okay? You need to-”

“So you’re like Cortana or something?” Patrick ignored, not listening to what the man was trying to say.

“What? No, no I'm nothing like that...that device is a very advanced form of augmented reality alteration device. It’s powered by a nuclear-”

“Blah blah blah, boring...I wonder if I can customize this avatar into something...sexier” Patrick mulled over, stroking his chin.

“Stop!.uhh uhh.. Override protocol 7261010-008...damn, um override protocol Uhhh waagh!” The man's voice trailed off into a high pitched squeal.