summary: This is my speculation on Jack's possible trip down Virtual Reality Lane in the yet unaired episode, "Force Quit." POVs: real Jack & real Zane. There are SPOILERS for episode promo&preview and all previous episodes.
"VR-Ln."
by JustWriter
After tearing out of the virtual version of his de-SARAH-fied bunker in earnest, after faux-Jo tried seducing him, he stumbled into his faux-Jeep and then went into faux-Diem after parking. "Hey Sheriff, where's the fire?" faux-Vincent asked. "Ah…" he uttered with awkward tension still in his voice, "No fire Vince, just been a little… busy lately," he said referring to all of the work that the Astraeus Crew was going through. He then ordered his usual burger and faux-Vincent exclaimed, "What about the diet the Jo's got you on?" Startled, especially since he had just been reminded of that, he muttered, "old habits Vince," as an excuse. Catching Zane out of the corner of his eye, he stood from the bar and wandered over to him.
"Hey Zane!" Zane looked up, a little disgruntled with the Sheriff. "Hey Carter," he said in what he thought was a warm and friendly tone, but was probably a little more forlorn than he'd like to admit. Carter continued, "Have you seen Allison or Fargo; I really need to talk to them?" Zane scoffed, just because he'd been a little more buddy-buddy than normal with Fargo, didn't mean that he knew where he was all the time. "Why don't you check GD or the Astraeus?" Carter hemmed and hawed, shifting from foot to foot, and said, "Already checked," he said definitively and then added, "Jo didn't know either which is weird." Zane flinched minutely while typing on his GD-Pad and glanced up at Carter again as he continued, "Do you maybe wanna help me look for 'em?" Zane shrugged a little and acquiesced, "Sure Carter, but I gotta be back at GD by 3; there's an Astraeus thing that I have to attend."
They searched the woods for a while and Zane called his attention to a rock that looked like a 'computer game,' and then there was the whole thing where his own fake body wavered in and out in front of Zane before he could stutter out a real explanation. He'd been told by Beverly that he wasn't supposed to alert the others of their predicament; however things seemed to have been taken out of his hands. This must be one of those, 'logic errors,' that Beverly had warned him about. Now he had to hope that Zane didn't persist in the idea of the virtual reality and get killed for it, but he didn't have much hope. Zane was a very driven person and he'd figure it out a lot more quickly than was currently healthy with the threat of death hanging over their intelligent skulls. "ZANE!"
By the time he got to GD, Allison, Grace, Fargo, and Allison had already set up a trap for him. Great… they thought that he was faux-Carter. They had him tied up and planned to interrogate him. There were questions about Holly and the Astraeus, about how long they'd really been gone and Carter kept his mouth shut, even when they were about to use a taser on him. He made subtle writing gestures with his right hand and they noticed. He blathered out some nonsense about how they were all being paranoid, which they had a right to be, and wrote in the scrap of paper they gave him. The note said a few simple statements, "IT'S ME, came through a Back Door! They're watching. Pass this along: Input Force QUIT."
"Here's a doctor's note for the lot of you," he remarked dryly while making certain eye movements to let them know that he was just putting on a show. "Fargo, I'm doing everything I can to find her," he sincerely added, even if it was just her body like Beverly had hinted at.
When Allison unfolded the note he saw her rapid-fire glance back in his direction as she immediately refolded it and passed it to Grace saying to everyone, "You know you're right Jack, we should see a doctor about this." Grace skimmed the contents and glanced up, startled, stating, "I agree, we should think more rationally about all of this." While Zane studied them in contemplation, Fargo let his disbelief be known. "What! How can you all say that?" Grace passed the note to Zane and after he read it he said, "Oh can it Fargo; you know we've all been stressed lately." As Zane pretended to storm out of the room he dropped the crumpled note into Fargo's suit jacket, "You really should get that jacket cleaned Fargo." Fargo fished into his pocket and opened the note and muttered, "Oh…" and then quietly exclaimed, "oh!" Grace and Allison began to untie him.
As he gazed at Ally with hopeful longing, he faded away and woke up in the real world suddenly. Adrenaline shot through his system when he realized that Beverly was on the ground with a bullet in the back of her head and what looked like his VR headset slack in her grip. The computer above her read, "Are you sure you want to eject this asset; enter YES or NO? Asset Ejected. Do you want to replace the ejected asset with the Carter Construct; enter YES or NO?" the cursor was blinking, the question unanswered in the black rectangle.
There was a small unit of soldiers across the room, guns cocked in his direction and Senator Wen approaching from the door behind them. "Don't get up Sheriff," Senator Wen said in a genial voice with a practiced smile on her face, "We can't have you leave now that you've let yourself in. Now tell me exactly what you were doing in there," she said inclining her head towards the lone bed and the attached gadgets.
Author's Note & Disclaimer: This was based on a promo and preview for the as of yet unaired episode, "Force Quit," and all previous episodes of Comcast/SyFy(SciFi)'s EUReKA. Please review and tell me what you think of my intuitive leaps. I'm not making any money from this publication. My knowledge of computer tasks comes from a Computer Science Programming course that I'm currently taking in College right now. -JustWriter ^-^