“So that’s all I have to do? Put the helmet on and press the button?” Omar asked as he held the contraption in his hand.

 

“Exactly right, sir! It’ll take up to five minutes, but you’ll receive a full night’s sleep. Just remember to set the alarm, and voilà!” responded the disembodied customer service representative over the audio transmitter in Omar’s living room. “Anything else I can do for you, Mr. Estren?”

 

“That’s all.” With that, Omar ended his frustratingly long call with the SleepMaster customer service. He sat himself down on the couch and stared at the glossy helmet in his hands. Since the divorce five months ago, he has yet to get more than three hours of sleep a night, with most nights being an hour or so. Currently, Omar was kicking himself since he fell for the “SleepMaster's Mind-Numbing Technology” during a night of self-pity and insomnia.

 

When the instrument had arrived this morning, he instantly remembered the sleep-deprived purchase. After he had berated himself and reluctantly checked his credit card statement, he unpacked the package. There was a small, black box with a few dials and a monochromatic display screen; additionally, a cord connected the box to the main instrument: a blackout headset. The headset was white with a convex black oval that contained a display screen. Omar would’ve ridiculed the device even more, but he was the one stupid enough to buy it.

 

He had looked all through the box, but there wasn’t an instruction booklet or link for a helpful website, only a phone number to call. So now, after a few hours of waiting on a hold line with synth jazz, Omar was finally ready to try out his new machine.

 

Even though it was only five in the evening, he figured he could recoup some lost sleep before work in the morning. Without much hesitation, Omar got ready for bed and slipped on the helmet after settling down in his recliner. A flashy logo appeared on the inside and the catchphrase, “Be the Master of Your Dreams,” quietly filled Omar’s ears.

 

“We’ll see about that,” Omar muttered as he stared into nothingness. Soft white noise reverberated in his studio apartment from the headset. He was out almost instantly.

 

* * *

 

Three days later, the south district police station received a call from a manager at Calvary Insurance. The receptionist immediately forwarded the caller to Inspector Davis O’Chef’s office. The video transmitter flashed in his peripheral as he was finishing a written report over his previous investigation. As he finished a sentence, he told the transmitter to accept the call. A plump, perturbed face appeared on the display.

 

“Inspector O’Chef speaking,” he responded.

 

“Good morning, Inspector. I’m Gerald Rushford, one of the heads over here at Calvary Insurance, and I’m calling to report a missing employee by the name of Omar Estren,” the man said with a slight irritation in his voice. “He hasn’t shown up here in three days, and we cannot get ahold of him.”

 

“I see. What is his address? We can do a house visit.”

 

“It’s 555 Avor Street, Apartment 387B. It’s over near the observatory. Thank you, Inspector,” the man responded with momentary relief. “We are short staffed at the moment, so please update me once there has been a development.”

 

Suddenly, the video transmitter shut down and Davis stared back at his reflection. He slowly ran his thin fingers across his five o’clock shadow and thought of how far the drive would be. He had been shut in his office for a few hours this morning with mindless paperwork, so a field trip would do him some good. Before shutting down his holoscreen, he sent a receiver signal telling his squad car to drive itself to the front of the station. He snatched his coat and walked out of the office with notepad in hand.

 

“Claire, grab your things,” Davis said to his partner as he was throwing his coat on. The woman nodded, seemingly just as bored with her paperwork, and immediately took her coat and purse as she rose from her seat.

 

“What’s the occasion?” She asked, eager to have a chance to ignore filing reports.

 

“Some guy hasn’t shown up for work in a few days. Apartment is only about a fifteen minute drive from here. I am tired of writing.”

 

“Sounds good to me. My eyes were staring to blur,” Claire responded as they waved to the receptionist on their way out. They opened the door to see the squad car that Davis had ordered a few moments earlier. The doors raised, and both investigators slid inside. Without a moment’s hesitation, the car hovered and sped off towards the high-rise apartment.

 

* * *

 

“Sure is a dingy place,” Davis said as he opened the apartment door. The pair walked in, and the metallic crunch of a soda can reverberated from under Davis’s foot.

 

“That’s a nice way to put it. I would’ve guessed this guy was a squatter rather than an insurance agent,” Claire retorted back. She flipped on a light to immediately see their missing person slumped to the side in his recliner. His face was covered by the SleepMaster helmet, but his body was rigid and motionless. Both inspectors approached Omar’s corpse in silence.

 

“The thing still seems to be on, whatever it is,” Claire said as she was inspecting the helmet.

 

“It's a SleepMaster. My wife has one at home. Did wonders for both of us.” Davis retorted as he kicked some more cans away to create a path. “Go ahead and call the station. Have them report back to Mr. Rushford that we’ve located his missing employee.”

 

Claire took out her company-issued phone to begin dialing. As she was waiting for an answer, Davis wrote something down on his notepad as he squatted in front of the black box.

 

“Notice something, Dave?” Claire asked between the crackly ringing.

 

“Yeah, the poor fella never set the alarm.”