Somebody Pinch Me

by CitrusBlast

A possible ending to "The Invisible Man"

"Somebody Pinch Me" Written By CitrusBlast Darien was walking out of McDonald's with his girlfriend Helen, chatting about what to do for the rest of the day, Darien's one-month anniversary. "Darien!" a voice rang out from several cars down, there stood the person he least expected to see today. "Arnaud?" Darien asked rhetorically, he glared at the man and walked briskly over to Arnaud, who had a smug smile on his face, Darien stopped a foot in front of him, "You...." Darien said, a scowl crossing his face, Darien lunged at Arnaud, the scowl turning to a wide smile, giving him a strong hug, and patting him on the back several times. "How ya doing man? Long time no see, eh?" Darien said, pulling back, the smile still on his face, "Oh, pretty good, working on some new projects...."Arnaud replied, he smiled and greeted Helen, "top secret, of course" he finished with a sly smile. "So, what brings you to this humble little McDonald's joint today?" Darien asked him curiously, Arny was the type of person to be seen at fancy places with french names. "Oh, thought I'd try something other than the usual, besides, Kevin says that they serve the best burgers in town, if a little overcooked" he said, glancing at the building, "Well, I've only got a little time for lunch, so I'd better be off, see you later." He walked to the door and dissippeared into the resteraunt. "Well, that was cool, haven't seen him in a while... So, where next?" he asked Helen, "Hmmm.... well, we could go to the museum, they've got that new section 'Scholars of the Past and Their Famous Quotes'", she saw him smile widely, "I thought you'd like that" said, drawing him in for a kiss. They left for the museum, intent to make the most of this day... ~and that night~ she thought slyly. One month and one day before..... Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep! Darien's alarm clock rang out, he reached over and hit the snooze button, ring...ring...ring.... ~what now?~ Darien thought, he was still slightly out of it, then he reached to the bedstand and picked up his cell phone, "Ye- " he yawned loudly "-ah?" he said into the phone, Hobbes' voice came from the other end, "Come on partner, get up or you're gonna be late again" he said crisply, though there was something in his voice, worry....? Darien didn't have the wits to ask him about it before Bobby hung up his end. Darien shrugged and got out of bed, he stretched, tossing the phone on the cloths he had picked out last night, his orange shirt, blue jeans, and his 'Vinnie' bowling shirt, man, he loved that shirt. He walked to the kitchen and made himself a bowl of cereal, then sat down at the table and turned on the television, almost every channel except the huge news stations were back to normal after the terrorist attacks almost two weeks earlier, he was suprised the fat man hadn't given him an assignment concerning it. After he had finished breakfast, he lazily strode to his bed, glancing at his clock, 7:39, "Crap, gonna be late, chubs won't like that" he said, chuckling to himself, that was his new behind-the-back nickname for The Official. He got dressed, stuffed his phone back into his pocket, grabbed his keys and left the building. "You're late" the Official said as Darien walked in, "Oh, well, hi to you too" Darien said as he sat down in the chair besides Hobbes, he gave him a nod, then turned to The Official, "So, what do we have planned for today? Oh, wait, don't tell me, psychotic killers, escaped super-human mental patients, my arch-nemesis, am I getting close?" Darien said, expecting a scowl from Eberts, (who was standing behind The Offial, doing his best impression of a statue) and a few words from The Official himself, he got the exact thing he had never planned for, the Official started laughing, Eberts was snickering, and even Bobby had a smile on his face. "Whoa! Hey, what's going on here?" Darien asked frantically, his eyes widening, this was just too creepy, The Official stopped laughing, and looked Darien straight in the eyes, "Darien, there's only one way to tell you this, and I guarantee that you won't believe it at first, but it's the truth", he said, never breaking eye contact with Darien, Charlie sighed and looked at his desk for a moment, as if summing up his thoughts. Bobby was getting anxious, and before Charlie could say anything, he started talking, "My friend, as corny as this may sound, the world is not what it seems to be" Hobbes said to him, when he saw Darien frown, he took a deep breath, then said "Darien, you've seen that movie, The Matrix, right?", "Uhh, yeah, what does that have to do with anything?" he asked, now completely bewildered, "Ok my friend, in that movie, the guy finds out that he's been in a computer world all his life, and then the other guy and the girl pull the plug, and he comes out of it", Hobbes explained, hoping beyond hope that Darien wouldn't take this badly. "All right, are you saying that I've been living in a computer world my whole life?" Darien asked, half-seriously, "no, only the past year or so, since your brother busted you out of jail for the experiment" Bobby said to him, completely serious, by this time, Darien was sweating, breathing extremely heavily, and his eyes began to dart around the room, first to the Official, who was nodding, then to Eberts, who had a grim look on his face that said quite plainly, 'this is true'. "No way, no way! This can't be true, there aren't any computers powerful enough to create an entire virtual reality world, and....and....this just can't be true, ok? It just can't!" on the last word, Darien jumped out of his seat and ran towards the open door, which he plowed into, as it had somehow closed a milisecond before he had reached it, "what the hell?" he said from the floor, he bolted upright, then looked back at the three other ocupants of the room, "what the hell just happened?" he asked, half-outraged, half-scared shitless. "Fawkes" said Bobby, "It is true, now, we knew you wouldn't take it very well, but we can't let you leave this room, which, doesn't even exist itself, but that's besides the point... until you accept the fact that the past year of your life was lived out in a computer-generated world" he said, very matter-of-factly. "Ok! Alright, fine..." Darien said, waving his arms about, "then prove to me that this is all fake, huh?" he said, still not wanting to believe that it was true. "Darien" said Charlie, "Kevin has been removing the neuro-implant wires from your brain, very carefully, luckily, there haven't been any side-efects, you're not completely in this world anymore, but you're not out of it enough to know it's not real, it's a process that can't happen too quickly, or there are some consequences that I'm sure Kevin wouldn't want you to go through" Charlie told Darien, whose eyes were wide, "Why did you keep saying 'Kevin'?" Darien asked with heavy breath, half-and-half hoping and fearing what the man would tell him now. "I think you've guessed that already, haven't you?" Charlie looked deep into Darien's eyes, sending a chill down his spine, "your brother was never killed, Darien, only in this world, he's still the project leader in the real world" by this point, Darien had tears going down his cheeks, "I'm going to have something done that I didn't think was necessary, but now I see that it is" Charlie said, he brought his hand in an arc from one shoulder to the other, a yellow, not quite opaque frame appeared in front of the Official, Darien could see a backwards face from where he was, it was a woman who he didn't know. "Pam? Have Kevin log in, Darien needs to see him" Charlie said to the hologram, Darien just stared in amazement, "Alright, Kevin suspected he might be called in, he's getting ready as we speak" Pam said back to Charlie. He mirrored his shoulder-to-shoulder motion, and the picture dissappeared. There was a crackling noise from behind Darien, he stood up and turned around to see what it was. There was a golden outline of a person forming halfway between him and the door, the gold spread inward, then expanded, making the gold mist three-dimensional, then it started swirling within itself, and the color mostly changed to white in the middle, black in the legs, and pinkish in the head, then it suddenly halted, and the colors stopped swirling, and there stood Kevin, in a doctors coat, black pants and shoes, and a smile on his face. "Hi Darien" was all Kevin said to him, before walking over and getting the biggest hug ever from Darien. "KEVIN!! YOU'RE NOT DEAD!! h-how...why..." Darien studdered, and broke down into even greater tears, releasing Kevin. Kevin sighed, and led Darien back to the chair. "Ok, let me explain from the start, you remember why you were going to go to prison in the first place?" Kevin asked gingerly, "Yeah, I... got convicted of attempted robbery and.... that other thing, you know", Darien said, wiping away his tears, chuckling slightly. "Ok, well, that was about the last real thing that happened, besides going to the holding jail, there, I told you about and experiment to get you a full pardon, and I took you to the site, well, when we got there, Arnaud gave you a sedative shot, that was the last real thing that happened, we hooked up your brain to our system, and your next consious thought was inside the computer" Kevin explained slowly, emphasizing every point. "What? That...that's just not possible, no computer I've ever heard of has that kind of power" Darien said, though he was beginning to doubt his own statement. "Darien, you've heard stories of how the pentagon had acres of computers underneath it, right?" Kevin asked, "Yeah...why?" Darien asked, though he already knew the answer. Kevin gave a smug grin, "They've got nothing on us" he said, sounding like a proud papa. Darien just stared, after several seconds, Kevin started talking again, "Darien, you've been in our machine longer than anyone, ever. That was the experiment, to test the psychological and physiological affects of a person living in an completely isolated world, over a long period of time... not an invisibility gland", Kevin explplained further, "most of the people you see are constructs, A.I. programs, all set to repsond to different circumstances in their own ways, but people like Bobby, Charlie, Claire, even Arnaud, are real people, who put on external headsets to get into the system" Darien was listening very intently, "I really hate to tell you this Darien, but the past year of your life has all been fake", Kevin suddenly found the floor to be very interesting, as he was staring at it intently, while Darien tried to formulate a complete thought. ~Kevin, alive, gland, not real, how?~ he thought to himself. He grabbed his forehead in pain, "Kevin! I thought that quicksilver madness was just part of this computer thing?" "It is, that's just the feeling of the neuro-electrodes coming out, we had to insert them into you, instead of just using a headset, so that your body and mind would accept this world as reality, with the headsets, you can't feel what you do in here" Kevin said, spreading his arms and looking up, he smiled briefly, obviously marvelling at his invention. Then there came a beeping noise from Kevin's wrist-watch, he looked down at it, then pressed a button. The same woman Darien had seen earlier appeared in hologram form, "Dr. Fawkes? Five minutes until complete removal of your brother's electrodes" Darien had a worried look on his face, "What's gonna happen when they come out?" he asked. "Well, first you'll feel like you've got a hell of a hangover, you might not be able to see for a minute or so, but don't worry, we've got pain-killers on an I.V. already in you, ready for when you come out, other than that, you'll be fine" Kevin said confidently, Darien looked as though he was going to throw up, Kevin put his hand on his brother's shoulder, "See you outside..." was all Darien heard before his entire world went to hell. Just as Kevin had said, Darien had the worst hangover he could remember, and when he opened his eyes, all he saw were swirling shadows, which almost immediately disappeared, ~heh, at least Kevin was wrong about one thing~ he thought. His next sight was one that he had expected, a white ceiling, a nurse rushing into the room with Kevin not far behind. "Darien, welcome back to the real world", Darien groaned, "Kevin, come on, I've been dreaming for a year, and that's the best line you can come up with?" he chuckled, so did Kevin. "Darien, there's somebody who wants to see you, and I think you'll want to see her", Kevin said with a grin. "Her?" Darien asked stupidly, he got his answer a few seconds later, as she walked through the door. "Alliano-", she raised her had to cut him off, "Helen Black", she smiled affectionately, "I wanted to be here when you woke up, but the traffic was horrendous" she walked over to his bed, where he was sitting up now, and whispered into his ear, "I never stopped loving you." Darien noticed now that Kevin had left the room after Helen had come in, he looked back at her caring face, slipped his arms around her, and drew her in for a long, passionate kiss.