[ WP ] You are hooked up to the machine . You are the test subject , the first person to have their conciousness uploaded . They flick the switch ...

`` Okay, I'm ready,'' you say. 
 
 You're thrilled. 15 years you've been working on this. Now you'll be entering a world where you create anything you can think of, all at will. You'll be inside the machine. You'll BE the machine. Your reality will be whatever you want it to be. 
 
 You shiver again with the pure excitement of it, and wait for the team to execute the command. 
 
 Silence. 
 
 More than silence, an absence of noise. 
 
 You turn your head and see the lab technicians locked in place, utterly frozen. One of them is pushing the big red button that should have started the transfer. The button is lit. It should have worked. 
 
 You nudge one of the hundreds of sensors glued to your head. Nope, still there. 
 
 You move your hands in front of your eyes. Yes, still in your body. 
 
 You snap your fingers. The click is loud in the silence, but there is no echo. 
 
 Everything is frozen. 
 
 You hear something, now. It's a voice, echoing in reverse through your brain, as if remembering the voice instead of hearing it. 
 
 `` Dammit...'' 
 
 What? Did you hear it, or did you imagine it? 
 
 A second voice, slightly softer, asks, `` What is it?'' 
 
 `` We got an emulator in 37. The whole thing is locked up.'' 
 
 You look around. But there's nothing. Where is your best friend? He said he'd be here. 
 
 You hear / sense / remember the voice again, `` I'm going to pull her out. We'll give her a coupon for next time.'' 
 
 You feel yourself getting *pulled* out of the room, light stretches, figures deform and elongate as if getting sucked into a bright light growing at the center of your vision. 
 
 You come to, awake in a laboratory with a complex helmet on your head. You turn your head and your stiff neck aches in protest. You see rows of people sitting in similar machines, each with helmets on their heads. Sensations flood your body. Noise of cooling fans, smells of electric heat and disinfectant, sounds of a busy building and streets outside, and itching. Itching everywhere. You reach, without thinking, to scratch your crotch. 
 
 You freeze in panic as you find you are n't a man any more. 
 
 It all comes rushing back then. Kelsey. That's you. Not James. Kelsey. 
 
 `` Miss Frederickson?'' the voice asks, now it's in your ears. `` Miss Frederickson,'' a technician says, `` I apologize but your evening's *Quick Life* experience is now over. It appears your *Quick Life* simulation attempted to start a second simulation *inside* the *Quick Life* simulator. Basically it tried to create a whole second world running inside of itself. It crashed the whole pod. Too much processing demand.'' 
 
 You remember now. A whole life in just an evening, the brochures said. This was a reward for meeting your sales quota at Yoyodyne. Right. Kelsey. 
 
 The technician continues. `` Of course we will be refunding you for the cost of tonight's service and we'll be glad to include a coupon for next time. As soon as you feel oriented again, the exit is on your left.'' 
 

