[b][u]Present Day[/u][/b]

On occasion, other runners - other members of whatever team Traction happened to be with - would harry her about the Dreamchips. Usually out of concern for the habit interfering with her job, sometimes just out of misplaced personal concern. Both parties afraid that you would forget which layer of existence was real.

None of them had ever ran hot in a UV host though. Hosts that hard are rare, to say the least - word says the number of them in operation is only in the single digits. SCIRE, or rather ACHE, had one of them. You were thrown out by Renraku when you were only ten, just in time to avoid the Arcology Catastrophe and to be swept back in when the Yak and Mob and everyone else moved inside. The Yak were a resourceful bunch, to say the least, and they milked the host for everything they could. Skilltrainer programs, elaborate pornographic fantasies, horrific torture, the works. All simulated in a VR so swag that people actively looking for telltale signs that it was all fake in the sculpting found less evidence than if they had been looking in real life. The process of jacking in is literally simulated as waking up, and even switching interface modes in order to jack out hits you with dumpshock which people have described as similar to being born a second time.

Some people say that using Beetles makes the user forget which layer of existence is real, since the programs don't have simsense limitations and 'feel' more real. Maybe that's true for most Beetle addicts. Not for you though. The truth of the matter is, after having to experience UV Hosts, everything about regular Beetles screams 'fake.' There are small telltale signs, giveaways, flaws that you would normally never ever consider - but which would be absent in UV. You see them everywhere in every beetle you've ever used. If anything, the Beetles are just something to keep your mind stimulated and distracted, a bit like the brain does when sleeping. So that you can ignore the truth.

When you left the Yak, you left the UV behind. Barred from the Heavens. Now you're trapped for all eternity in the hell that is reality.

You never studied Decartes, but you know about his ontological exercise. You see it in the real world every day, shadowy half-real, muted illusions playing before your eyes and filling your ears, pressing against every fiber of your being. Less overtly harmful, since even real pain never hurt so much as it did in UV. More subtle. Sinister. Some force directing attacks at your psyche - the only one of two things you could be sure with utter certainty truly existed.

The twist is, you're pretty sure the damned are in the same situation you are. They just don't know it. They never fell from Heaven. Even in Hell, life goes on, and there is always work to be done. 

[quote=Satan, Paradise Lost][i]"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."[/i][/quote]
You pull the Beetle and descend back into the depths from Purgatory.

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For the longest time Traction lay limp on one of the couches in the Commons, unmoving. Then without warning, her eyes flashed open, one of her hands suddenly moving to yank the simchip out from the back of her neck. Tucking the small device away, she looked around the room, a bored if stern set to her features.

The briefing was scheduled to happen in five minutes. Practice dictated that everyone should arrive early, and yet she was the only one here. Typical. With a silent sigh, Traction got up and headed for the fridge, effortlessly calling up an ARO displaying her current WAN connections to three of her team's cybereyes - Damien, Yegor, and Recluse. They weren't in any immediate danger (she would have been alerted while still in-sim if that were the case). She was less certain about Kali and Caewil. The former's simrig wasn't wireless and so couldn't be hacked without a direct connection. Caewil carried a Commlink, but that wasn't something Traction could use for surveillance. She could use it to contact the Elf though, and as far as Traction cared Kali could spend the entire briefing unconscious in a ditch somewhere. It wouldn't affect any aspect of the actual planning that occurred. The others needed to be here though.

Traction opened the fridge and sent out a message. For Damien and Yegor it was a simple AR notification in their messaging system, which they could be relied on to open and read without prompting. For Recluse, she forced open a number of neon-colored noisemaker popups with the message flashing in large, bolded technicolor letters right in his center of his cybereye's vision, since if she didn't he would leave the message unopened and unread. For Caewil, she forced the Elf's commlink to vibrate and sent her the same message that had been sent to Damien and Yegor.

[hider=You Have One Unread Message from: T][b]Briefing is on. Everyone get to the commons. If you see Kali and she isn't using a Snuff Beetle, get her over here as well. If she is, just leave her.[/b][/hider]
Peering at the contents of the fridge, Traction reached in and procured a bag of soyjerky. She wasn't hungry right at the moment but wanted something to chew on, and it was always helpful to have small snacks on hand during rides. She headed back to the couch and mentally deployed an Agent into the local Host to scan the WAN for hidden intrusions and unauthorized marks.