Chapter Six

Ruined Lives

Ashley scampered alongside Mitchell and asked him for the third time if he would mind just slowing down a teeny tiny bit. He glanced to her impatiently, and then slowed a little.

'I'm sorry,' he told her through gritted teeth. 'It's just your friend annoyed me. He doesn't seem to understand how sensitive some people can be after being unplugged.'

'I'm sure he knew what he was doing,' Ashley replied. 'He knows a lot about… stuff.'

Mitchell shook his head, unimpressed. 'I might hate this place and I might hate those machines, but I don't hate the people. It's their choice. Just like it's my choice to help them.'

'The Doctor just gets… well… he's sensitive.' Ashley shrugged her shoulders, not knowing any other way to describe him. 'He gets upset when he sees people kind of… wasting their lives.'

'Yeah well wasting lives isn't much different from risking lives in my book.' Mitchell replied. 'Mr Cartwright could have died right there and then.'

Ashley nodded grimly. 'Yeah I know.'

Mitchell sighed heavily and looked at his watch. 'I'm not leaving them for long. We'll do one job, and then we're heading back, okay?'

'That's fine with me.' Ashley nodded. 'I'm like you. I don't want to leave him on his own for too long.'

Mitchell glanced at her. 'You think he might do something?'

'What? Oh no… No way. He just… he gets riled up. Hard to calm down again, you know? Like a kid when you tell them they can't have any Jelly Tots.'

Mitchell glanced at her in bewilderment.

'The sweets?' Ashley offered.

His expression didn't change.

'Doesn't matter.' Ashley sighed.

They walked on. Mitchell began to quicken again, but when he noticed her jogging to keep up, he slowed down again. He seemed reluctant to make conversation with her. Maybe after he saw the Doctor unplugging the old man the way he had done, he automatically didn't like her either. Which was a shame, because Ashley liked him.

'So why didn't you plug in?' Ashley asked.

Mitchell shrugged my shoulders. 'I guess I was lucky. I was young when they started getting popular. I didn't see what all the fuss was about. So I watched my family and my friends plug in, and I saw what happened to them. I didn't want to end up like that. I didn't want to end up dying and stinking in my own bed and not even knowing what was happening to me. I couldn't live my life knowing that nothing was real.'

Ashley looked at him sympathetically. 'So your parents just plugged in?'

Mitchell shrugged. 'I think they thought I was going to as well. Or maybe they didn't think of me at all. Either way, they died quickly. They starved in their beds. I didn't know what was happening to them. I didn't realise that they were dying until it was too late.'

'Wow. I'm sorry.'

Mitchell shook his head. 'It's nobodies fault. They chose it. They knew what would happen to them.'

'Then why don't you just leave here? Why do you keep looking after these people even though you know they're going to die?'

'Everyone dies eventually. But I'm not going to let everyone die. I'd like to think I can keep them happy for longer.'

'But what about you? You're not happy.'

Mitchell glanced to her sadly. 'Some of us have to make sacrifices for the people we love.'

Ashley offered him a small smile. 'It's good that you can do that. You're a good person.'

Mitchell smiled back slightly. 'Thank you.' He replied.

He seemed to relax a little and slow down to her pace of walking. They headed to the next job site both feeling a little less tense.

The Doctor stood against the wall in Harrison Cartwright's bedroom and watched as Harrison poured himself a glass of water. He turned to the Doctor and offered the jug. The Doctor held up his hand and shook his head.

'Suit yourself.' Harrison replied, setting the jug back down. He took a long drink from the glass and sighed in satisfaction when he finished. 'I needed that.'

The Doctor only watched him silently. He had been quiet since Harrison had broadcasted his feelings on his VR invention. He wondered if he was in the wrong to be feeling the way he did about it. After all, like Harrison said, no one was forced into plugging in. But still… if it hadn't been introduced in the first place…

He couldn't help the way he felt.

'So what now?' The Doctor asked with a shrug. 'You're just going to plug yourself back in and let Mitchell run around after you? Wasting his life by keeping yours going?'

'I don't ask him to do anything for me.' Harrison replied, shuffling over to the window. 'I have never asked anyone to do anything. I have never told anyone to do anything. I created this because I wanted it. Others just decided they wanted it too. Is that a crime?'

The Doctor thought for a moment. 'It depends on your stance.'

'Then what is your stance, Doctor?'

'I think you already know that, Mr Cartwright.'

'Please, call me Harrison.'

'I think I'll stick to Mr Cartwright.'

Harrison chuckled. 'You know, Doctor, you remind me of myself when I was your age. I was adamant that I was always right. As you get older you realise that you can be wrong about a few things.'

'Oh I am older. I'm old enough to know that I am always right.'

Harrison eyed him for a moment. 'So why are you really here, Doctor? Why did you send your friend away? It's obvious you want more than a debate over right and wrong with me.'

'I want you to shut these things down. I want everyone on this planet unplugged.'

There was a flash of anger in Harrison's eyes, but it quickly disappeared. He smiled thinly. 'Why do you think it is such a bad thing? Do you want to know what I do for ten months of the year? I go to my house by the lake with my wife, Karen. She died twenty years ago. In fact, she is the reason I built this for myself. I couldn't live in a world without her, so I created one.'

'That's fair enough. But you could have kept this to yourself. You didn't have to share it with everyone else.'

'And why should I refuse people happiness?'

'You're refusing people their life. Hooked up to a machine, that's not life. You know it's not. You have an excuse for hooking up to it – it's because you're weak and you couldn't get over the death of your wife. Did you really have to give it to people with families? With real lives? Or did it annoy you that they could get on with their lives while you couldn't? Is that what it was, Mr Cartwright? Jealousy?'

Harrison stood, his eyes furious and his fists clenched by his sides. 'I am not weak, Doctor.'

The Doctor moved forward. 'You turn off these machines, Mr Cartwright. You let these people live their lives.'

'Do you know what would happen if I took everyone out of their new worlds? They would take one look around at the overgrown plants and their weakened, withered bodies and they would kill themselves, Doctor. There would be thousands more dead people, and that would be your fault. You would be the bigger killer.'

'I would help them adapt. I would stay as long as it takes to help them.'

Harrison snorted angrily. 'You'd be killing them, Doctor. What gives you the right to take away someone's dreams like that?'

'What gives you the right to change their lives like that?' The Doctor glared at him, and then moved around to the machine by the bed. 'If you won't do it, I'll do it myself.'

Harrison watched him, shuddering with anger. The Doctor stood with his back to the old man, examining one of the computers. Harrison looked around, his eyes wide and wild. He grabbed the pain plug that had been recently plugged in his right temple – a thin needle that went into the brain without damaging it – and moved quickly towards the Doctor.

Before the Doctor had a chance to register what was happening, he felt a sharp pain in the right side of his head. He yelled out in agony, and his body stiffened. He slumped over on the bed, his eyes wide and bulging. He saw Harrison's angered face above him.

'Try it for yourself, Doctor,' Harrison told him bitterly. 'I'm sure you'll change your mind.'

The images around him faded into green, and then the world as he knew it vanished.

Lots of updates today because I might not get to write another chapter for a day or so... blame the universities, not me :p