Bicycle Confinement Laboratory [better] -

Not the rusty commuters chained to lampposts, but the ones in the basement of the old Humbert Pharmaceuticals building. He’d been hired as a night security guard after the lab downsized—a skeleton crew maintaining a skeleton facility. His only job: walk the perimeter every two hours, swipe his card at checkpoints, and ignore the distant hum of machinery that never quite shut down.

Elias moved down the row. Each screen showed a different person—different ages, different builds, all pedaling. All asleep. All with neural upload percentages ranging from 3% to 91%. bicycle confinement laboratory

The rain had been falling for three weeks when Elias first noticed the bicycles. Not the rusty commuters chained to lampposts, but

He didn’t run for the exit. He didn’t call the police. Instead, Elias walked to the mainframe, pulled a fire axe from the wall, and swung it into the largest cable he could find. Elias moved down the row

Below the data, a live video feed showed a bare room with white walls. Inside, a man in a gray jumpsuit sat on an identical bicycle, pedaling steadily. His eyes were closed. His lips moved, but no sound came through. Behind him, a robotic arm periodically extended a water bottle to his mouth. He drank without waking.