3) Analogic (I)

During the next couple of weeks, Luca's routine remained unchanged. He would go to school late, ignore everything during class, go back to his hotel room, sometimes destroy the mirror, and sometimes he would go drinking at the nearby bars.

He had turned 18 at the beginning of his last year of high school. Not that anyone cared anyway.

Everything was going great, or as great as it could go, until one night. After destroying the mirror he called the front desk so they would send someone to repair it again. However, it did not go as expected.

"We are sorry Mr. Luca, but your bank has rejected the transaction. They have just informed us that you have run out of funds. You are expected to vacate the room by 11 am tomorrow. Sorry for the inconvenience:" -said a feminine voice on the other side of the phone before hanging up.

"Dammit!" -he shouted as he threw the phone at the wall. Where was he supposed to go now?

When morning came, he was woken up by a sudden banging on his hotel door. He checked the time on his holographic watch and realized it was 12 pm. He was supposed to leave at 11 am.

'Sh*t sh*t sh*t! I was supposed to leave an hour ago'- Luca hurriedly stood up and started packing his bag with the few things he owned. He picked up some black pants he found laying around, a blue t-shirt, and was looking for shoes.

The banging continued and then a masculine voice said.

"Sir! It has been an hour since you were supposed to leave! We will open the door now!"

Then, the door was flung open.

*Crash*

A few men dressed in black suits entered the hotel room where Luca was packing his bag.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!"- Luca was in a fit of rage, after he spent so much money in this stupid hotel they dared kick him out like a homeless man.

"Sorry sir but you don't have money. You are trespassing now."- said the man on the right.

A few minutes later, Luca was kicked out of the door, literally. He stumbled at the front of the hotel and fell down. His stuff was then thrown before him on the street. Even though it was a school day there were still some people moving about who gave him condescending glares.

The only place he could go was his school. However, once he arrived at the golden gates of the Academy there was a woman leaning on the stone wall. She had black jeans, a black shirt, an olive-colored sweatshirt under a wine-colored leather jacket. She had dirty blonde hair and round sunglasses.

As soon as she saw Luca she approached him.

"You're late."

As Luca had no idea who this hot lady was he just decided to ignore her and kept going. However, once he was at the gate one of the security guards stopped him.

"Hi mate, you alright? I don't know how to say this but… you were expelled this morning. As you didn't show up earlier, the headmistress decided it was enough. Her words, not mine. Anyways, you are no longer welcome at the Academy. Sorry, man."

"What do you mean? I was literally here yesterday and no one told me anything!"

Then another security guard approached him while shouting.

"Weren't you listening just now you idiot?! He said it was decided today, now get out of here!"

This security guard's son was in love with Luca's ex so of course he knew of Luca's identity and what happened, as well as his poor performance in school recently. As his son could do nothing about it, he decided to vent his anger on him.

"You are not welcome here Luca, come with me."- said the woman with a slightly angry undertone, no one liked being ignored afterall.

After the awful day Luca was having he decided against talking anymore. He just lowered his head, turned to the woman, nodded and then followed her. After all, the worst thing that could happen was him being killed. He really didn't care anymore.

The woman had a smug smile on her face bacsue her goal had been completed. The fish had bitten, now it was time to reel it in.

After going into a fancy car, they road in silence for an hour to the outskirts of London. They finally arrived at this warehouse looking building. It has nothing special really, it was just grey concrete tall walls. They went through the small door beside the huge metal one and into a smaller room.

"What are we doing here? If you want to harvest my organs I want at least 25% of the money"

"What the hell is wrong with you! Of course we won't harvest your organs, are you okay? How desperate are you?"

"Very"

As soon as the door shut behind them, a small square slid out of the wall and a black metal ball came out. It then scanned the ladies face, shone green and went back into the wall.

The room then started to rumble and the celing started to grow. Wait no, the floor was going down, the walls turned slowly into glass. Luca's jaw dropped so low it almost hit the ground.

In front of them there were around a thousand green glowing "eggs". These were called VR pods. When VR first came out, it was accessed with the help of a helmet but humans had to go out and exercise, eat, etc. In recent years these pods came out.

These pods had an interior made of a jelly like substance that secreted the necesarry minerals and nutrients for the human body to survive, eliminating the need to eat. It also electro stimulated the muscles allowing the virtual exercise to actually be of use in the real world. People would spend weeks in the virtual world. That is why a ton of companies were spending so much money in researching the side effects of VR.

The walls of the room where white and smooth. On the other side of the room there was a huge drawing of a human in a fetal position and half his body was turning into pixels. Underneath the image there was a name. "Analogic".