She opened her eyes and woke up in the wrong order. She was drinking hot cocoa and she could see the box right in front of her on a glass table. Below an enormous logo were the words. "DuZélle Flavor" Beyond it were fluffy, alien-looking plants.
Then she blinked and saw the inside of her visor again. She started to raise her arm slowly toward it.
She heard the scuffling feet of the monitor and imagined the monitor’s key, moving toward her wrist. She pushed her wrist outward against the plastic wall, felt some give and heard a click.
The whole cover swung up and away. She paused deliberately, then sat up and slid off her head gear. It was violently heavy.
"Hi, I’m Annie," she greeted the monitor, lowering the angry bulk of equipment.
"Hi, I’m Monica."
The little box next to her ratcheted like a coffee grinder chomping eggshells. Annie and Monica both held their watch hands up to the machine and Annie’s fingers fluttered automatically under the privacy sleeve.
The box whirred exactly like a candy dispenser. A satisfying patter of lightweight objects resounded from the tube below it.
They both watched. Plenty of plexiglass parts showed jewel-toned pills raining down the tube, striking the counting mechanism and dropping like chunky grains of sand in an hourglass.
Annie carefully hung her visor up on its hook. It was connected to the machine by a flexible spiral chord like on an antique phone.
"That’s a...whole lot of pills..."
The visor was still blinking its little line of LEDS.
"...and its uh--How long were you asleep, Annie?" Monica reached over and efficiently took care of Annie’s needles.
"...Uh..."
"Oh, right. Sorry." Monica turned to look at the numbers on the monitor.
the beacon above another bed two or three over started blinking bright green.
Monica shouted, "Oh boy, some help over here, Teena? This one’s going to be a while."
Annie recognized the discreet squeak of Teen’s lab shoes.
"Goodness, is Annie still here?" came Teena’s voice. "You got enough water over there?"
Monica flinched and handed Annie a water unit that Annie opened and drained instantly.
Teena was clicking open another cover already and the occupant was sitting up groggily.
Monica handed Annie another water and she seemed to try to inhale or laugh while drinking it, spraying the bed next door. This got them both laughing a little even as Annie finished that water.
Beads dripped down the cover of the bed and the sleeper slept on. All the sleepers, dreamers and any remaining drxxmxers slept, dreamt and drxxmt on.
They were still carefully watching the pill counter and the display, both sensitive to errors. Annie recognized the logo from the hot cocoa box on several of the pills. Nearly every pill had some familiar logo on it.
Annie poured her legs and then her butt off the bed, still watching the pills pour through the tube. She smoothed her blanket and zipped it into a bag, unlinking its strap and lifting it over her head.
The blinking lights on her visor slowed and stopped.
Annie felt a line of pain across one finger.
She looked and saw it was cracked above the nail.
Monica’s hand had drifted down from the card reader and she lifted it back up as the total blinked on the screen.
162g -- 15 ads -- 3055.20
"Ooh...that’s so much for just one session! Whoa, what’s going on?"
Just enough to pay off the house and the bed.
Teena was there. Or at least her voice was there and squeaky shoes were there. Reassuring supporting arms were there.
The readout was blooming into feathery ovals of light, then returning to readable. Then everything was huge circles of overlapping color.
Annie felt her finger cut bleeding freely.
The ground mushed away and when it came back, it was resting on her face and her ribs instead of her feet. She could smell again. Then she could hear again. She was folded over her arms on the bed. She pushed herself back up.
Her lip had also cracked open and stamped half a kiss on the bedsheet.
"You’ve still got to cash out, and you can go back to rest for a bit. Can you lift your arm?"
She could. She did. Now it was just Teena there. She was about to ask, when.
"Alright, Monica, when you’re done with that one, I think she’s back up."
Annie brought her wrist back to the machine and punched in her PIN as Monica’s scuffed back over. They both held up their keys and heard a very soothing beep.
She felt clear skin dabbed onto her finger and then another finger she hadn’t realized was splitting. She recognized the way it stung and cooled her skin as it dried.
"Oh, here." Monica gave her an extra dab that she rubbed on her split lip.
"Thanks."
"Is this your last one?" Monica asked.
"I think one more," Annie breathed.
Another light was blinking up high. Teena smiled warmly and turned toward it, saying "Tess Speed, you champ."
Monica stood for a little bit and took a couple of awkward inhales, like she was going to say something, but she also turned to a blinking light.
But Monica turned back one more time and stammered, "I hope you take a nice trip or something with the money, away from here."
Monica looked back sheepishly as she approached another waking sleeper.
"Thanks." A nice trip to my bank to pay off my house.
Annie leaned one hand on the bed and looked around the lab.
There. There were the signs to the exit. Annie stripped the sheet and rolled it up. She looked around, and wiped the drops of water off her neighbor’s cover with the sheet. It left a moist streak and obscured the lip shape printed in her blood, leaving only the edges and a pink wash.
There might have been a pink streak left over her sleeping neighbor, but it was too dark to see. She had walked about ten beds before she had to stop and rest again.
She made it all the way to the laundry return without having to rest again.