Hob laid down in the interface capsule, the leads attached to the disks upon his temples by the engineers before they sealed him up again. He hated the damned interface tubes. There were like MRI machines with a hatch at the bottom. The leads weren't the worst, though, and claustrophobia was a short lived problem once a neurotech was integrated into the computer system; the body might be confined but the conscious mind had a vast playground to run around him. No, it was the rest of wires, leads, jumps, sensors, and (shudder) catheter that made his flesh creep, especially the latter. He had tried to argue that with shortened shifts the latter was no longer required as he could certainly hold his bladder for four hours! 

No go. No one wanted to risk having to mop urine out of the expensive interface machinery. Medical had agreed with Hob but Engineering had won out, so what went for eight hour watches would still apply for four hour ones, including the catheters. So stripped naked and dripping with tubes and wires, Hob was given one last check before being closed up. [i]Don't think about, don't think about, don't think about it, just relax![/i] One of the medicos gave the signal, and the sliding bed moved Hob's prone body up into the tube. One click, two clicks, three clicks... It was done. Hob was now effectively sealed from the outside in a protective cocoon that contained its own life support system. Somewhere in Sections Two and Five, Yuriko and Charlie were undergoing the same. The Port Watch would be together for the first link up, though, since they would only be in for an hour before being pulled.

"Come on, come one," Hob muttered as he anxiously waited. "Someone throw the god damned switch already."

Oh, the fear! Countless nightmares about being locked forever in one of the interface capsules, not being uploaded and not knowing if anyone else was out there. Being left eternally trapped with no one to talk to, unable to move-

There was a flash and a buzz.

Hob stood in an orchard, the leaves purple and the fruits looking like... like... Well, there really wasn't an analogy that would fit them because they themselves were analogies. He was dressed in a plaid three piece suit, a black velvet fez atop his head. Looking around, he took in the sights to figure out where in the system he was. Hob's brain jumped through irrational conclusions that were somehow none the less correct as he muttered, "System archives. Maintenance." In the back of his mind, automated subroutines ran without him have to even concentrate on them. His breathing linked with the ventilation system, his digestive system with the refuse and recycle conduits, his circulatory system synching to the power distribution system. There was only a short pause while he checked on all of those before allowing his consciousness to focus on system checks.

"Val?" He called throughout the system. "Yo, Val! Third Shift, Starboard Watch reporting or... whatever! Val?! Oh come on, I am not playing fucking hide and seek throughout the entire network for you!"

A motion to his 'right' caused him to glance over just in time to see the teenager slip out from one of the trees. She was green and naked save for a wreath of flowers. The tips of her ears had become pointed. Moving with a curious grace through the blue grass, she approached Hob cautiously.

Hob sighed in annoyance. "Val, I'm not gonna bite. Look, I'm sorry about my Ghosts. Honestly! You are... a very attractive young woman, and I... couldn't help noticing. For what it's worth, I'm sorry." She only looked at him reproachfully, causing another frustrated sigh to escape. "Fine. Whatever. I know you guys have had it rough, Harris told us about the others. I'm in, though. Go ahead and bail so the rest of my team can start coming in alright?"

Val merely nodded and then began to fade from sight. Somewhere in Section One, a warning siren would be going off and medics would start bringing the girl out of her capsule. Checking her stats, Hob winced. She had been pulling a double on the old shift, sixteen hours. There was no envying her either the psychiatric debriefing or the nightmares she would have in cryo. No doubt she had left Ghosts of her own that they would have to find and purge shortly, too, only none of that could start until Yuriko and Charlie were hooked up as well. As Hob waited for the Second Shift to leave and his partners to come online, he began to peruse the most recently accessed files. There would a slight lag for end users, but it would be barely noticeable. True to classic science-fiction tropes, there was a time dilation issue between the outside reality and virtual reality. 

At first, nothing seemed overly out of place. Usual stuff, at first actually. It wasn't until he began noticing smaller changes that kept leading to bigger changes that Hob began to suspect that something was off. Personnel changes, scheduling edits, power fluctuations... It was like unwinding a ball of yarn, and thanks to his mind's agility that was exactly what it became to his perceptions! A ball of multi-colored yarn to be unraveled until its core was found. His curiosity got the best of him. The scene changed until he was following a line of string through the Minotaur's Labyrinth to discover its center, obscuring him to everything else save the automated systems that didn't require his conscious thought. Hob barely noticed Yuriko appearing in her grey sweat suit or Charlie arriving looking less like the sixty year old man and more like John Henry. The two of them merely looked at one another before Yuriko tapped Hob on his virtual shoulder. "What's up?"

Looking at her, Hob frowned. "I'm not sure. Here, take a look at this." Together they all began to examine the string in minute detail, sucking it dry of any information it might yield before looking up at one another again. When they looked up again, it was at each other as if making a silent decision. Out of nowhere, the Port Watch appeared and Singh noticed something was up as well. Soon all six of them were moving along the yarn, following it from orchard to ball of yarn to Maze and back again. 

"Yuriko?" Hob muttered, "Who's arrived for the briefing already?"

She gave him clipboard manifested by her will, containing all the relevant data. "That we can see, anyway. The security cameras do not cover the whole of the Auditorium, and the holographic trees get in the way. I can filter them out for you, if you want."

"No, no," he mumbled, "Too much effort."

A wave of his hand and a massive monitoring screen appeared showing the Auditorium from the back of the house. He zoomed the camera in on Abby's face as he pursed his lips. Hob could only shake his head in amazement at the woman as he flicked a message to her command tablet: [b]Neuro-Interface Technician Exchange Complete. Third Shift, Starboard Watch, Robert Bach Reporting.[/b] Hob sent a portion of his consciousness to deal with a sudden power surge before adding a bit more. [b]Damn, lady. Talk about balls. I mean big ones. Big, brass ones cast in sand. Seriously, like, go toe-to-toe with that walking mountain with the donuts in the front there! Balls that could wreck whole buildings with one swing of the scrotum![/b]

He then sighed. He could see where this was all going and what could easily come of it if people lost their heads. He sent one more message after a quick consultation with his teammates, a message that made him grit his teeth. [b]Lockdown procedures on standby. Just give the command code if you need us.[/b]