I had a ton of dreams last night. I don’t remember any except for one. The fog took a lot of the details but I remember enough of it that I wish I could remember every single detail. This one has “hell pods” in it! Read on to find out what those are.
Dream starts with us (Erin and myself) looking for a new place to rent. We decided we wanted an apartment instead of a house and we went to one we lived at before. But when we got there it had changed a ton. The traditional apartments were still there but they also had this sort of community centric type area where there were shared common areas like 2-3 restaurants on premises, shops, a coffee shop, co-working spaces etc. I think the idea was that it has everything a busy person might want. Lots of creative/tech types living here and apparently it was also a tech incubator. If you wanted in on that they basically got a percent of your profits and in return you got to use their servers, network and business resources to start your business.
While they were giving us the tour and sales pitch I had the feeling we were being watched. Just something felt off. Wrong.
At one point we were at the coffee shop and they we were in a group that was considering moving here so we were all together and trying out some of the treats. One of the people giving us the tour started trying to tell me about “living in the moment” and how it was a way of life around here and she could tell I was a bit skeptical and pressed me about how I felt about that. Not sure why she would care but that’s dreams for ya. I told her that whatever works for her I find no fault in. I do whatever works for me and as in live, in my dream I kept that detail to myself. I did tell her that growing up my dad studied all sorts of religion and philosophy and he would tell me all about them growing up and that there are as many ways for people to believe as there are people.
I could tell she didn’t really like my response but nothing sinister, yet. We were then given freedom to explore the campus and meet other people staying there and check out the pool, etc. It was hot so we decided to get in the pool for a few minutes to cool off then continue exploring. After a quick dip we wanted on the other side of the pool but the only way was through the pool. Apparently I could jump really far in this dream because I dove almost to the other side of the pool – long ways. With Erin on my back. So weird. Anyway, we were back in our dry clothes now and headed to some party type thing.
It was here that we started getting really suspicious. I’m missing details thanks to the fog of waking up from here but at the party we met people who suggested that other people had gone missing and that they were stealing tech ideas from the people who were working there.
Later at an evening event, some sort of outside concert in a common area. A group of security types showed up looking for one of the residents. Apparently it was one of my friends who had been living there for a while and he was taken by these guys and I remember wanting to find them. One of the security team was actually a robot! I was near the concession stand and the robot one had some sort of weapon. He pulled out a short looking gun thing but it expanded into a full size long barrel sniper rifle. But on the end was some sort of screen/sensor for him to track his prey. But he never took a shot. They captured my friend and then the robot stood down and just nodded to me and walked away. I thought it was odd.
So I start exploring trying to find where they are keeping my friend and I find the “server” room. I use the term lightly because what this was was a horror show. It had that green matrix like tent you would expect from something like this. It was dark and the vibe was super scary. It felt pretty wrong in here. I noticed that the dark green glowing server stacks were not indeed servers but rows and rows of people in coffin like glass containers stored floor to ceiling. Inside people were stuck in a greenish liquid, hence the color of the light in this area. They were connected to wires and tubes. This was their sever farm and it was running on people!
I found my friend inside one of them and apparently we were also cybernetic at this point. They were taking apart his so that they would not function and wiring him into their system. I found the controls and made the machines fix my friend and then got him out of there. On the way out it was obvious we were discovered. We made our way through the next area and found people sitting in chairs with helmets on over their entire heads. My friend told me he learned while he was hooked up that these were called “Hell Pods” – basically torture devices that literally put the person in a hell like virtual reality where they were tortured in various ways through direct connection to the persons mind via these helmets. Their minds were stripped of ideas and useful information before being completely broken and turned into drones of sorts.
We found our way out through some tunnels and when we came up the security squad was waiting on us. For some reason the robot one shot two members of it’s own squad and the robot and the remaining members all said they wanted to help us. They had not signed up for hurting innocent people and that even members of their own team have disappeared into the hell pods or server farm.
That’s where the dream ended. There was even more to it that I can’t quite remember unfortunately but those were some of the more vivid bits. I think this would make a great episode on one of those science fiction anthologies like Electric Sheep. I think with some development it could be cool short story or book too!