The doors whipped open and a blinding whiteness filled the interior of the armored truck. Their eyes stung beneath tinted visors as they hopped out, one by one, feeling the weight of their gear when they hit the street. It was still the afternoon and the city was lively; they had planned for that. They had to make a spectacle of it for the onlookers, in order to set an example. The grimy urchins who lived here hovered near broken windows and watched the officers arrange themselves in a beautiful formation outside the building. No commands were heard and none were necessary, each man knew their role. Moving as one cluster of limbs, helmets, and rifles, they cut towards the entryway to the decrepit apartment complex.
They poured through the front door in a line, and entered a skinny lobby area with stairs that began at their right and spiraled over their heads for many floors. Litter, dust, and mold congregated in every crevice of the room. The officers started up the stairs with their heavy boots drumming a chaotic beat on the wood. Dirty and ragged people sauntering in the hallways huddled in fear and tried to appear innocent as the officers stormed past them. The group of armed men continued upwards with animalistic intensity, until their leader halted at a specific floor.
The smell hit them first; moldy carpet, human waste, and everything else foul they could imagine. Younger officers hesitated, but the veterans ran forward into the stench. It was a long hallway covered with a putrid glaze that only a severe lack of care could create. Chipped wooden doors to the apartments were spaced out along the walls. Each door was cracked open slightly with dozens of thick wires snaking out of them and leading across the hall into the other rooms. A horribly tangled web of cords covered the floor, and the officers had to step into the scattered spots of dirty carpet to walk without tripping.
Masterfully, they separated from their line formation without confusion or overlap, and spread out along the hallway, two or three men per door. After a countdown, they blasted each door wide-open with forceful kicks and launched themselves into the apartments. The previously quiet hallway became filled with the sounds of struggles, glass breaking, people screaming, and authoritative shouting.
Each apartment on that floor had ten to twelve people living in it, and not nearly enough space to accommodate that many lives. Mangled cots and yellowed mattresses lined the walls and corners of the rooms. Even dirtier men and women were sprawled out on top of them, intertwined with and connected to the network of wires that covered every surface. Beaten desks held large PCs that produced considerable heat and had loud fans blowing inside. Thick cords jutted out from inside the computers and led directly into the people’s headsets. Some of them were still enmeshed in their personal programs as the officers began ravaging their physical surroundings.
Boots crashed into the PC cabinets, launching crumbles of glass into the air and crunching mechanical parts within. Wires and plugs were forcefully yanked from sockets and headsets. Some people had their headsets forcefully torn from their craniums, violently ripping their minds from one world into this one. Many began screaming at the state of their physical body and surroundings, unsure how much time they had actually spent in there. A few did not react and stared blankly at the ceiling, as if menus and images were still suspended there. Eventually, the commotion died down, and they were all restrained. Those that could walk were escorted out of the building by an officer. Some were enmeshed for so long, they had to be carried. Those unresponsive few needed stretchers. Most of them seemed like their minds could be salvaged, but only through the needed reality checks and intensive therapy.
As they were led into the back of the trucks, many of them were shaking and confused. They felt trapped inside a body they had not piloted for a lifetime, in a world they turned away from so long ago. They were now foreigners in a place that was once their home, crying out to virtual spouses and children who existed only in now-lost solid state drives.
Thomas Mazzaferro 