by Danny
Danny Hearn was now experiencing two separate realities simultaneously. The first of these was his corporeal reality, in which he was unconscious, passed out due to injuries sustained at the hands of both his enemies and his teammate.
The physical pain of the former was great, but easily dwarfed by the emotional pain of the latter. Of course, emotions were a scarce commodity when one was unconscious, so Danny may perhaps have been thankful for that one small consolation.
His body was lying flat on its back in the midst of a rubble-strewn courtyard somewhere in the Castle of Crossed Destinies. If he had been conscious and in full control of all his senses, he would have seen broken rocks and shattered concrete littering the paved floor around him. A giant archway extending for what may have been miles, but may have been only meters, was above his head. There was a sky above that would seem -- if one were not wise and mature, and inclined to flights of fancy -- like nothing more than a piece of purple satin, draped precariously over the structure of the Castle.
Of course, Danny was not prone to flights of fancy. He was far too insecure with his actual reality to go about making up new ones to be insecure in. So he would have accepted it as a sky, without ever entertaining the notion of a giant piece of satin.
Would have accepted it, of course, if he had been awake to see it, which he was not. He was, indeed, very unconscious.
If he were conscious, what would have bothered him most -- yes, more than the sky, more than the rubble, and more than the hastily bandaged wound in his side that seemed to be leaking blood at an alarming rate -- would be the sight of the voodoo priestess Ma Kalunga standing over his body, bearing a wicked grin.
All in all, he was probably lucky he wasn't conscious to see any of this. It would have bothered him to no end, and stress was bad for a person.
Which brings us, in a roundabout way, to the second of Danny's realities.
This was the reality that existed in his mind. Whether a product of the magicks worked upon him by his enemies, or an effect of the mysterious Castle of Crossed Destinies, or merely a hallucination brought about by head trauma and massive blood loss, it was hard to see. But nonetheless, this reality was there; it was in his mind, and it was every bit as vivid as anything he could have experienced while waking.
We join this reality in progress.
"Danny! DUCK!"
Danny ducked. A bolt of laser fire cut through the air above his head and struck the wall behind him with a loud "ZAP!" and a flash of light.
"Thanks, Ace!"
"No problem!"
Danny ducked down into a crevice and cocked his laser pistol. He listened for the source of the voice, his partner, Ace. He was counting on Ace to save his arse, or they'd both end up dead.
Danny took a deep breath, counted to three, and rolled out of the crevice. His gun was raised to the balcony, and he did a quick sweep for any sign of the enemy. He moved his gaze slowly but carefully from left to right, until he came across what he was looking for: an enemy soldier, navy blue combat gear, laser rifle over the shoulder.
The enemy turned and met Danny's gaze. They both drew their firearms. Danny fired.
The other guy didn't have a chance. He struck the floor, Danny having hit his chest dead-on. Danny let out a breath, having just become aware that he hadn't done so for what seemed a slightly over-long period of time.
A noise from behind him drew his attention. Danny turned, laser pistol raised and his finger on the trigger.
"Whoa, it's just me. Calm down, soldier..."
"Ace!"
"That's me. Where to next?"
"Well, we destroy their power battery, and then we're both done..."
"Great." Ace raised his left forearm and slid open a panel on his glove to reveal a small computer touch-screen. He pressed it and activated a homing device. "That way," Ace said, pointing to their left.
"Right. So... we go that way." Danny took charge, walking off into a small alleyway, always with his gun raised, always alert, and always with Ace watching his back.
"Uh... it's in there," Ace said, pointing to a gray steel door a few meters in front of them, on the left. Danny took a few steps back and discharged his laser, destroying the lock. He pushed the door open, and it fell off its hinges, hitting the ground with a loud CLANG.
"Well, if they didn't know we were here before, they do now..." said a grinning Ace.
"Shut up."
"Is that it? The power battery?"
"I think so."
"So, what... blow it up then?"
The power battery was little more than a gray cube about a foot square on all its sides. Some wires protruded from it, connecting to various computers around the room. Daniel plucked a flash bomb from his belt and placed it on the battery.
"Ten seconds -- arm," Danny said, and the bomb beeped. "10 Sec" flashed on the bomb's tiny screen.
"Right... now we get out of here," said Ace, and the two turned to make their exit.
"Not so fast," said the navy-blue-garbed man who had just appeared in the doorway.
Seven seconds.
"Oh, shit..." Ace said.
"Indeed," said the new arrival, and fired his weapon. Ace fell to the floor, a gaping hole in his chest. Anyone with any power of observation at all would know that this man was dead.
Danny stood, stunned. "Shit... you killed Ace..." he stammered.
Four seconds.
"And now I'll kill you."
"Not much point. There's a bomb on your side's power battery, right behind me. We're dead in... two seconds."
"...What?"
One second.
The countdown finished. The bomb exploded. Danny was thrown forward...
...and his world went black... with a little bit of green.
The green started as a dot, and then turned into a sentence:
"Game over."
Danny reached up to his head and removed the vid-reality glasses he held there. He looked across to other side of the couch where his friend Ace sat. Ace was removing his glasses.
"That new game is pretty cool..." Danny said.
"Yeah, it's not bad. Not as good as the 2081 version. You'd think they'd get better with two years to improve it. Wanna go for one more round?"
"No, sorry. I really gotta get to school."
"Fair enough. I'll see you later," Ace said, getting up. Danny walked back to his room and replaced the vid-reality glasses on his head.
"Classroom," he said. The glasses navigated to his on-line learning site. Or, they tried to, before their signal was intercepted.
"Danny..." came the voice from the glasses' inbuilt speakers.
"Huh? Who this?"
"My name is Hal. You know me, you really do. I'm locked in your subconscious, and I've been trying to reach you through this fake reality, and it really has been tough..."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Reality. Your reality. You have to snap back to it. This is NOT 2083, you are NOT in your bedroom. There's a crazy voodoo woman controlling your unconscious body, and you really must get back to it before you're dead..."