Tom hit the control panel of his laptop and winced at the ripple of pain that shot along his arm. 'Sybil, we need comms. Now!'
'I understand, Tom, but that's a negative. I can't repair the network any faster than it's doing itself.'
Tom looked away from the holoscreen and stared at the wall. He suddenly felt completely useless. Back there in that alternate reality he had been empowered. He had functioning legs again, he could walk, he could run. Now, here in this dense, clumsy world of solid matter and the more prosaic laws of physics, he could do nothing. He couldn't even use his phenomenal intelligence. Every avenue was blocked. I might as well be living twenty years in the past, he thought, not twenty years in the future. All this wonderful technology at their fingertips and yet they were no better off than they had been before the invention of the internet – before radio, even.
'That's it!' Tom exclaimed. He looked back at the holoscreen, his face alight with hope. 'I'm a freakin' genius!'