Excerpt:

Before there was the NIRV, there was the NEVI – Nintendo's first body system, named simply for for what it was: the External Visual Immersion system. It spent two rocky years on the market – critically adored, user loved, but fiendishly expensive and incredibly breakable. Reports all over the internet were in some iteration of: “The games released on the NEVI are so intense that you'll forget you're gaming. Until the motion wires snap and your character is eaten by aliens or some such nonsense.”

Still, third party games flocked to the NEVI – designers couldn't believe how much they could achieve now that they could surround their players. It was another console war won for the Nintendo – really, it was the last console war.

And then it happened. After two years of scant upgrades, of consumer complaints, Nintendo announced their true intention, their first dream, the reason behind the NEVI – the Nintendo Internal Reality Video System. The NIRV, the first internal system for the most complete gaming experience. Nintendo scientists had finally completed the system in a way that was (mostly) affordable, upgradable, and 98% safe for consumers.

The Nintendo surgeons were booked nearly three weeks out, now; it was a fairly simple procedure, 24 hours in the hospital after the insertion of the motion wires, sensors, optics – the hardest part of recovery was the cartridge holder inserted in the neck, the attachment to the brain.
The player interacted with their game via screens placed on the eyes as contacts. The screens were cheap, easy to replace if lost or stolen. Some screens were mere overlays of the real world – as in the case of the gesticulating couple, probably playing some interpersonal game with little background – and others were complete immersion, such as the guy in the corner, his hands mocking surgery over an empty table.
The NIRV no longer belonged to Nintendo, Nintendo belonged the NIRV. The applications in medicine, in education, and in all forms of entertainment were endless, and almost immediately made everyone at Nintendo very, very wealthy. Microsoft and Sony tried to keep up, released internal systems of their own, but neither achieved the raw power and user love that the NIRV commanded. Gaming in a world where the system interface was permanent, eventually the companies stuck to what they were good at – creating ultra-modern consoles for the traditional gamer – and even contracting some work from Nintendo themselves.
The most noticeable change was the pop culture fragment, about five years after the NIRV was released into the mainstream. It was the same time that Nintendo opened both a hospital and a security force in forty-six American states and a dozen other developed countries. A citizen was either “unplugged,” a “traddie,” “fixed,” or they were “free roaming,” “wired in,” or – most recently and growing in popularity as the generations forgot it as a come-on, “switched on.”

The last was Beatrice's favorite, because it lent well to her work – it was so much easier to tell someone that they were “switched off,” when no other phrase would work.

#

Beatrice finally found her mark – sandy-haired, late twenties, lizard tattooed on the side of his neck opposite his cartridge slot. She watched him her half-lidded eyes, making careful note of the way his fingers were twitching – scrolling through some document, or website. He was staring straight ahead, and his grin seemed to take up most of his cheeks.

She rolled her right thumb and felt the little metal ball roll into place under the pad. The feeling still made her a little queasy; she would have avoided even that modification, if she could have. She watched still, just to be sure. She touched the bud of the microplayer in her ear, synced up with the laptop still at her table; she listened again to the description of her mark.

It was definitely him.

Beatrice stood and strode across the room to him, sidestepping tables and coming up behind him. Without a word of warning she pressed her thumb against the nap of his neck, her palm coming down over his cartridge slot. There was an audible pop.
“What the fuck!” He stood and shook his head, rubbing the screens from his eyes as quickly as he surely dared. “Who the fuck – ”

“Devon Baxter?
”
“Who the fuck wants to know?” His hands were balled into fists; sweat beaded on his brow. He was noticeably woozy, and common side effect of the disconnect.

“You've been disconnected under authority of Agent B-604 for the crime of hacking and abuse. You're being ticketed for $225, and a blacklist period of 2 years.” The voice recognition device on her belt took the words in, and the hand held printer on her hip spat out a ticket about the size of an index card. She held it out with a smile. Devon backed away from her, touching the nape of his neck. Surely he was confused to find no physical damage. “You can, of course, appeal this decision at the Nintendo Corporate Courthouse – the proper date is at the bottom of the ticket.” When it was clear that Devon was taking it, she set it on his table next to his smoothy. The patrons that were aware of their surroundings were watching.

“You – You can't just unplug me like this!” Devon was shaking and wan, the shock slowly wearing off and being rapidly replaced with indignation, and probably a small amount of panic. He had probably been plugged in most of his adult life. “I – I – I paid this in full last year! I'm a customer – ”

“Yes, and when you signed the agreements and logged on to the Nintendo International Network, you agreed to adhere to a certain code of conduct, and we as a corporation have rights to terminate you at will.” She rolled his thumb again, the magnet rolling back to dormancy. “Please, feel free to appeal. It's how we maintain a fair and balanced system between agents and users. And when your two year ban is out, you can schedule maintenance with a licensed surgeon to repair your system.”

“You – you – you bitch! I'll have your fucking authority for this! You won't – ” He moved to hit her, stopped only by another patron grabbing his elbow.

“Stop, Dev,” the man said, not much older than the offender. “It'll be a permanent pan if you assault an agent.”

“Good friend,” Beatrice said.