This is my first RA fanfic. Actually, it's my first fanfic ever. Please review, and please be gentle. :-)
My reality and my fantasy have always been blurred. When I was a child, my imagination was so strong that sometimes I would see with my eyes what was only in my head. Now that I am grown, I know how to keep my dreams confined to my mind. What fortune, then, that I don't have to!
I awoke from a dream. It was a real dream this time, not a day dream. I lay in bed a moment, confused at my body. Oh that's right. I'm not a man, and I am not in the wastelands. It was unusual to have a nightmare, and my dream disturbed me. I got up and reoriented myself to the world. Everything was as it should be in my cozy flat. I sat on the white and blue sofa and watched life on the busy street far below.
Life was busy; life was hectic. The domed city of Eureka was crowded with life: full to the brim with people who wanted an escape from the reality of the dying world around us. I provided that escape. I wove realities of lush fields and of mountains stretching to the sky. Pay your download fee, and you can forget the poison air and the mutant worms! Aren't the sea-salt breeze and unicorns better?
I reflected again on my dream. I still had a sense of forboding. I had been in a wasteland with twisted metal, a cold wind and… a presence. I made myself tea. I would work from home today. Dr. Alexander Gromov had contracted me and a number of other expert dreamweavers for a special project. We were to build a fully utilizable alternate reality comparable in complexity to the real one.
Just a few years ago what we were doing would not have been possible. Our computer network, Annet, was being constantly upgraded. When the Good Directorate patented sleep, my profession really took off. Everyone wanted a pleasant experience as they dreamt, and were willing to pay good money for the best dreams. Interest in alternate realities during waking hours increased, and the technologies for reality building got better, more intricate and more believable. You could now get a visor and overlay anything you wanted over what was actually there. I worked on some of that, but because of my already tenuous grip on reality, I chose not to use it myself. I also dreamed disconnected, but that was purely to avoid accidental patent infringement.
I would be able to do all my work today over Annet. The net was complex enough that I didn't even need a computer terminal. I picked my headpiece up, and slipped it on.
TO BE CONTINUTED (also, I have not yet decided whether my protagonist should be mind-controlled by Annet in the end or survive. Your thoughts?)