(CNN) DeepDive Clinics

Valentina stared at the flat TV screen with blank eyes, squeezing the pillow in her arms. "Deep… dive…?" she murmured, engrossed in the news report. Her thoughts whirled around her. Grass under her feet, running and feeling the strain of her legs. A life where she wasn't pitied, always burdening her family. The TV continued, but it all sounded so muted to her. She pulled out her phone and tapped in "Deep Dive Clinics" into a search bar, trying to find a phone number she could call, maybe a clinic in her area.

"…icians’ induce coma in their client an…"
"…ey sis, what'cha watchi…"
"…dy enters a vegetative state which re…"
"…ina? Valetina!"
"…bzzt!"

Her head shot up as a pair of hands firmly grabbed at her shoulders, the droning TV voice coming to a stop. She stared up at Matthew, then tried to look around him at the TV. Had he turned it off? "I was watching that," she said, voice soft but frustration still evident.

His laugh sounded so fake to Valentina. "Finally get you out of the game and the first thing you do is read up on stuff about it." He crouched down, trying to get her to look into his eyes. "That kinda stuff is dangerous, Val." Matthew reached out to grab her cheeks, forcing her to look at him. "It's dangerous!" he repeated, as if she hadn't heard the first time.

She did what he wanted, staring just as intently into his eyes as he did hers. "I know, Matty." But it's still worth it, went unspoken. She was never good at hiding her thoughts, but she liked to believe her smile was good enough to throw him off.

As he pulled her into an embrace, tucking her head under his chest, Valentina sighed. "I worry 'bout you," he murmured into her hair, stroking it. She let go of her pillow, moving to squeeze his mid-section. "I'm sorry for getting mad, I just... I don't want to lose you too." She squeezed harder, as if reassuring him she was still there. Still real.

He was talking about mom. He'd lost mom, and it'd been her fault. All her fault. "I'm sorry too, Matty," she said, pushing him away to stare up at his face. "What's for dinner? 'm starving."

That got a laugh out of him, breaking the serious expression that plagued him. He still looked concerned, but his lips had tilted up at the corners. "Always thinking with your stomach, you!" he teased, ruffling the hair he'd so carefully smoothed down. He stepped away, towards the kitchen. "It's a surprise, and it's ready soon, so don't head back to your game yet, lil addict!" he commanded, pausing by the doorway. It had been spoken in a teasing tone, but he still waited for her confirmation. He was still worried.

She swallowed her sigh. "Knowing you, the surprise is: burnt, burnt, and burnt," she teased, using her arms to lift herself slightly over the back of the couch. "You'll get me when it's ready?" she asked.

His smile blossomed into a wide grin. She had not asked to go back upstairs, to be strapped into her VR again. It was a start. Progress. He would take what little victories he could.

As Matthew disappeared into the kitchen, Valentina sunk back into the cushions, swiftly pulling her phone out again. He couldn't know that she was looking into this "Deep Dive" stuff, or he'd take away everything. She saved the details she could find, an address and phone number, then closed down the tab. Her recent history wiped, Valentina let herself relax. She had options now. She just had to scrounge up enough money and find her way to the clinic without her family finding out.

The TV turned on. "…ure to pack your umbrellas, we're expecting rain today! Here in Bos…" The report had ended. Stomping down her disappointment, Valentina leaned back into the couch, taking the pillow into her arms once more.

 

He leaned into his palm, impassively watching the newscast on his monitor. Work was slow today, so it was okay for him to slack off a bit and catch up on all of the exaggerated news reports. "Huh," he said, blinking. Paying unlicensed people to throw you in a coma so that you could play a game forever? So many things hadn't been answered: like how long they'd take care of your body; liability; the actual fees. "How stupid do you have to be do that?" Benjamin snorted, leaning back in his chair.

Sure, the TerraSphere universe was absolutely fascinating to him. A true VRMMORPG! But just like everything else, it was a fad, and the hype would eventually die out. As players abandoned the games, anybody who'd been dumb enough to 'deep dive' into it would be left in a dying world. He scrolled through the article, humming a tuneless melody to himself.

"Hoffmann!" He looked up. "Customer, line three! Chop chop!"

He rolled his eyes, careful to keep the action hidden from his supervisor. He closed the tab. "Yes sir!" He picked up the phone, the oddly interesting article quickly being pushed aside into a small crevice in the back of his mind. "... Have you tried turning it on and off again?" His eyes dulled, brain engaging auto-work-mode. Just five more hours until he could go home.

 

“Heading out.” Ana signed as she swept through the kitchen. Her mother, Vicky, sitting at the kitchen island, didn’t look up. Ana paused and tried again. Her mother stayed fixated on the small television placed in the corner of the kitchen. A news broadcast played, the news ticker at the bottom of the screen reading “VRMMORPG leading to Voluntary Sedation.” Ana’s mouth went dry. She looked away from the screen and found Veronica pointing to an empty seat beside her.

“I’m late.” Ana signed.
“Please.” Vicky gestured at the seat again.

Ana sat. She watched as her mother picked at her fingers. It brought Ana back to the days when she was a teenager, pushing her parents’ boundaries and rolling her eyes when it lead to trouble. She tried not to roll her eyes now as she took a seat, keeping her backpack on. She raised her eyebrows at Vicky. This had better be fast.

Her mother finally let go of her fingers and signed: “I know you play Terrasphere. I’m worried.”
“It’s fine. I’m fine,” Ana couldn’t believe this. She tried to get up and Vicky pushed her back down. Ana shrugged her mother’s hand off. “I don’t play that much.”
“You’re lying. You play all the time.”
“Because it’s fun.”
“Too much of a good thing, Ana.”

At that, Ana stood up. Her mother tried to lead her back to the seat but Ana moved away. Her mother tried to sign another plead, but Ana’s hands clamped over it and tired it away from Vicky’s chest. Tears perked in her mother’s eyes and Ana let go. Ana took a deep breath before giving out a shaky sigh of her own. Her mother tried to sign again and Ana put a hand in front of her, signaling for her to stop, to wait, to let Ana gather the words that she had been holding back this whole time.

“I’m 27. An adult. You don’t get to pick and choose what I do anymore.”
“I’m trying —“
“You’re making me late. Bye.” Ana stormed out of the house, making sure to pull the door shut with all her might as she locked it. Yet another thing she was invested in. Yet another thing her mother stuck her nose into. As if on cue, Ana’s phone vibrated to the three texts sent from her mother. Ana gave an audible groan, deleted all three without reading, and headed off. It was just a game. She only played it every night because what else was she supposed to do. She wasn’t going to go into a coma, how ridiculous. Wait until her friends on Terra heard about this. Just a few more hours until she could log on again.

 

冬雪：开始

Dongxue turned the key in the door and poked her head in. "I'm home," she called out, though with how creaky the door got, there wasn't really any need for it. She kicked her shoes off and quickly moved past the kitchen with a nod towards her father at the stove, and dumped her bag in her room. She'd go through it later.

She emerged ready for dinner, and eagerly dug in when she got her plate. It was always a delicious experience when Dad was cooking; sure he sometimes got experimental, but that was a small price to pay for deliciousness. Idly, she wondered whether she would be able to pry some interesting recipes out of him to bring over to Terrasphere. Or if her in-game cooking knowledge would actually translate to real-life cooking ability. Maybe she could test that out later.

Mom had the TV on, and everyone was quietly eating and pretending to pay attention to the news as they ate. Well, that was what Dongxue was doing.

Though it looked like she'd have to change at least this one habit of hers. This would be the third report she caught about Terrasphere on CNN. Seemed like the game was getting more and more notorious, even if apparently the government still couldn't find out where it was coming from.

Dongxue frowned into her rice as the unsettling report continued. People voluntarily putting themselves into comas, just to be able to play Terrasphere nonstop? That was... disconcerting. Especially if there still wasn't any way to revive them. Had she ever interacted with a comatose person in the game? The thought nearly gave her shivers.

Thankfully, it looked like both her parents were caught up in discussing something else and missed the news. Not that they knew she was playing Terrasphere anyway, but it was always better to be safe than sorry. Dongxue finished up, deposited her dirty dishes in the sink, and then quickly made her way back to her room saying that she needed to prepare for uni next week. That excuse was easily accepted, and Dongxue sighed in relief as the door shut behind her.

Normally, she'd already be plugging her VR headset in to log in to Terrasphere for the evening. But, well. She couldn't deny that she was unsettled by her recent knowledge of the DeepDive Clinics.

"Just for tonight," she told herself, leaving the headset in her bag. Instead, she pulled out her laptop and started browsing YouTube. Maybe some funny cat video compilations would take her mind off the news.

结束

 

With an idle stare at her computer, Kelly watched the report on a video stream with vigorous intrigue. "Aylen! Come take a look at this!"

The nursing student, still wearing her visitor's badge to a major hospital that was given out to students during a special excursion of sorts, the girl ran to better call her friend. "Looks like she left...But still, this is pretty intense news. Guess I should text her later."

Returning to the report, she tried her best to watch quietly. "Still, isn't this kind of dangerous?" Surely, it had it's uses in the young nurse's mind. She wished she could have pushed her mother into it before her death- but then again, that would've hurt her unborn brother, too.

"I should write a report on this for extra credit. My teacher at the ICU would probably be interested in this. I mean, weren't we using Deep Dive on some of the coma patients to try to activate their brains? This is like...just the opposite, kind of!"

She rushed off to write her report, turning the video stream off. "Still, I wish Aylen would tell me if she's going out. Now I have to tell 'er all the news she missed again...I bet she'll find this interesting, too...Even if I have to leave Terra out of it."

 

"I think I've seen enough comas in my life," Jaluna muttered. Her face was paling from the very memories of her youth, seeing her father in and out of comas like a plague had befallen him. "I mean, I kind of get it...But...This kind of feels like watching a report on assisted suicide."

She looked back in her mind to one of her earliest moments playing Terrasphere, and how a knight in shining armor first saved her from a mob then scolded her during a conversation where she'd mused an unhealthy curiosity about what had happened in the incident with SAO. If it was then, this news would make her quite interested in the clinic idea. Now, it was more of a fear as she listened.

Sighing, she turned the television off before she could listen to it finish, adjusting her glasses and then stretching herself while sprawled on her couch. "Well, I guess it's not a total pain to listen to it. It did give me some ideas for a short story. Still...I kind of worry what kind of people are going to try those clinics now...It'd be nice if it was safer and less...questionable? If I felt safer with it, I might still try it if I could choose how long to go."

Then again, even for her, four hours not moving wasn't something she could do. "On second though, I'll just have to email a clinic asking to interview them for a better perspective, from a writer's point of view."

 

Sabine sighed over her pastry, picking at it offhandedly as her father spoke into his phone. She didn't put much effort into listening in since it sounded like it was entirely work related and thus entirely boring. It was something about a new project they had him working on at one of the industrial sites, but that's where her interest in it ended abruptly. She was happy her father enjoyed his work and found something to dedicate himself to after her parents divorced, but she wasn't a good enough liar to fake caring about the details of it. Just like he didn't know near anything about her climbing. He supported her and that was all she asked of him. Even despite her fall and all their work to get her back into shape and proper repair, he never once showed disbelief or the like over her still loving it. He hadn't flinched when the first thing she asked her doctors and physiotherapists was 'can i climb again?'

He had always said she took after her bull-headed mother. She couldn't agree more. He hung up the phone and tucked it away in his pocket to finally get the chance to eat the pastry he'd gotten. She couldn't barely pronounce her choice and she cared more about the small hot chocolate than that. "You still feel up to that movie later? We've still got an hour and a half." He sipped at his coffee before scowling and putting it down to add more creamer. "Yeah, of course. I promised didn't I? Pinky promised at that." He laughed at that one, "Can't go breaking a pinky promise, no. Alright, just checking. You know your old man worries."

They carried on idly talking, sometimes both drifting into silence as they ate, drank, or watched people come and go around them in the small cafe. The man enjoyed movies meant for kids, enjoying how light hearted and fun they were, just as much as he did his cheesy scifi movies and it wouldn't kill her to go with him. It would hurt like a son of a bitch to get up and walk after sitting for so long in uncomfortable movie theater seats, but when didn't the most basic of things hurt her leg and hip these days? They didn't. Might as well enjoy herself and provide company for her father after all he'd done since her accident. Finally the tv mounted in the corner of the cafe caught their attention. Another story about Terrasphere? As the story wrapped up she sighed deeply, her father leaning back in his chair to look at her with a serious expression. "That's that game you play?" "Yeah." "You're not going to consider-" "No."

He pulled a hand through his hair and rested an elbow on the table as he considered what they'd heard. Sabine was trying not to let it freak her out. Thinking about being put in a medically induced coma was slightly better than being paralyzed for life in terms of nightmare scenarios at least. She regularly had nightmares of her fucked up hip and leg being far worse and the horror of being trapped inside her own body, unable to ever feel the whip of the wind, the grit of stone under her hands, the brush of plants as she hiked by, the weight of a pack, the heavy tread of boots. The though of never being free to hike and climb? It kept her up at night until the terror of it forced her to sleep to escape... or log into the game. Even if she could do that and never worry over death in the game, it wasn't real. She was painfully aware of that. It was so incredibly true, but she could feel the disconnect. There was a hunger for the climb in her that said it was wrong. That it was a ghost of the glory of her true passion.

"If I did that, dad, I'd never get back out there. I'd never get to take on that cliff again once my hip's good again. Plus the game's in the northeastern US and all the good climbs are foreign or in the west." That was a lie, there were plenty of good ones, but she'd joked with him before about it and it had stuck. She got a kick out of egging him into an east coast vs west coast argument, especially considering they were both born in France. "Though now that I mention it I'll have to hunt down New Hampshire in the game and see if Cathedral Ledge is still around. Already found The Gunks." He didn't laugh, still eyeing her as if it would suddenly show a reservation or a lie hidden in her words, but she could see the crows feet around his eyes deepen. "I still think that's a stupid name." "No, a stupid name is Ghetto Booty. Or Flex Luthor." That was enough to break him into a chuckle and the tension all bled away.

"Alright, spitfire. I trust you to know what's best for you." She smiled at him only a little sadly. "Thanks, pops."

 

Ken had seen a lot of alarmist news items about Terrasphere. How supposedly, it was messing with people's minds, or had some other nefarious effects. It was the same sort of whining that old people had done about new media all the way back to, from what he'd read, the invention of writing. So he was about to tune out this latest story, only to realize it wasn't the same old thing. This was something different.

People were... putting themselves into comas to play the game more? What the hell?!

Ken had gotten a lot of enjoyment out of Terrasphere so far, he thought as he glanced over to a sketched portrait of Kaeliel he'd hung up on his wall. Starting an entire separate life as an elven maiden had changed him (but not in the brainwashy way the "public health" people claimed). It had revved up his creativity; given him the motivation to make Kaeliel into a great heroine; and stoked his dreams of one day creating a virtual world of his own. That was the important thing- he was enjoying Terrasphere but he was far from giving up on reality. That was what the people who were using these clinics were doing. What sort of people would do that?

And yet... after this initial reaction passed, Ken started pondering it a bit more. What would get him to give up his real self to become Kaeliel full-time? He'd set her on the path toward becoming an integral part of the new elven community. Sooner or later, she'd find a husband, have a family... as weird as it seemed sometimes, from this perspective, for him to be the one to make her do those things. At the moment, Ken himself didn't really seem near to having those sorts of objectives in real life. What if Kaeliel's life ended up better than his?

Ken shook his head, trying to be rational about all this. The best thing to do would be to try to get the best of both worlds, as they say. He couldn't do that by locking himself up in the game. He was sacrificing part of his time in the real world to be part of Terrasphere; Kaeliel was sacrificing part of her time so that Ken could have a real life. "Guess we complete each other," he said to the drawing of Kaeliel with a grin.

 

...were they for real?

Jesus Christ, this was ridiculous. Be put into a coma to play a game? That was dangerous! Potentially lethal! And nigh-irreversible too! Harry shook his head as he stood up from the chair, the voice of his mother joking to one of his brothers about how he won't need one since he's already a zombie-like gamer, spending his nights playing the game and his days sleeping and walking around listlessly.

He went to his room and flopped onto the bed, sighing. He turned on the AC, letting the cool air blast him for a bit.

...seriously. He's seen the news - people who play games till they die of exhaustion or starvation or thirst. People who were addicted to winning, or the challenge, or just escapism. It might feel far-fetched to him, but he knew full well that it was a reality. A very grim reality.

Still...it made sense, in a way? If your current life in this world was dull and dreary, and suicide was not an option, why not live in a fantasy world instead? Be a knight, or a hero, in a world that was designed to excite, surprise and shock people.

Until the game shuts down its servers and all those comatose folk goes into just a coma. Nothing lasts forever. Not life nor death, nor anything else, beautiful or otherwise...

Still, what kind of a game was this, to the point that people were so desperate to play it? Regardless of the DD Clinics (at this point Harry had decided he was revolted by the idea) the game itself seemed so...attractive.

Maybe one day he'll find out why.