The Florida Gulf Coast burned orange.
Sunlight bled across the flat blue water west of Naples, turning every ripple into molten glass. The air hung thick with salt, diesel, and decay.

Patrol Skimmer 239 traced the blue-and-white sand shoreline — part cruiser, part hover drone — its turbines whispering low over the surf. The hull was armored composite, streaked with salt and insect grit, blue strobes pulsing faintly in the dying light.
On its side, fading teal letters read:
FLORIDA VICE ENFORCEMENT — SENSORY NARCOTICS DIVISION.
Below that, the old state crest — sunburst and palm — cracked and weather-beaten.

Inside, the cockpit glowed cold blue.
Detective Lara Vence leaned against the window, watching the Gulf swallow the sun. She’d grown up near here — before the tides rose, before the condos half-sank and the rest were walled off for the rich.
Now the water was higher, the air heavier, and the sunsets meaner — like the world was burning itself out for the view.

Across from her, James Rangler, known to everyone as JR, studied the skimmer’s console screen. The reflection carved hard lines across his face — the look of a man too long in a job that no longer mattered.

“Lot Forty-Two,” he said, scrolling through the readout. “Power spike. No movement for seventy hours.
Bio-sensors flagging organic decay.”
“Another Can Den?” Lara asked.
“Yeah. Dispatch wants confirmation before dark.”
“Always before dark,” she muttered. “Wouldn’t want to see paradise rotting at night…”

The skimmer banked inland, thrusters sighing.
Below, the coastline broke into swamp — mangroves swallowing what used to be streets, flooded driveways shining with sunset light.
Then Palm Haven Estates appeared — a sprawl of rusted trailers under leaning palms, their aluminum sides reflecting pink and gold.

Patrol Skimmer 239 descended in a swirl of dust and glowing insects, settling beside a leaning sign:
PALM HAVEN — VACANCIES AVAILABLE.
Half the bulbs were dead; the rest buzzed like dying flies.

Lara stepped out first, the humidity clinging to her like a second skin.
JR followed, adjusting his coat, scanning the row of trailers.

A few shapes moved through the haze — slow, ghostly.
An old woman rocked beneath a flickering lamp.
A man in a wheelchair stared at the horizon, unmoving.
A golf cart rolled past carrying an elderly couple in mirrored visors, their expressions lost behind the reflection of the sky.

As they approached Lot 42, a voice called softly from a nearby porch.
An older woman — hair in pink rollers, lipstick a little too bright for her pale skin — leaned against the railing with a cigarette trembling between her fingers. A tiny white dog sat by her feet, tail sweeping the floor.
Her name, printed on the mailbox beside her, was Nancy Doyle.

“You folks Vice?” she asked, squinting at the badges.
“That’s right,” JR said. “Detective Rangler. This is Detective Vence.”
“You here for the Leons?” she asked, nodding toward the dark trailer.
“That’s them?”
“Nice people. Kept to themselves. He fixed old radios.” She exhaled, smoke drifting into the humid air. “Ain’t seen ’em in near a week. I figured… well.”

She glanced at her dog, then back to them, voice softening.

“You think they’re using?” Lara asked.
“Honey, everyone’s using something,” Nancy said. “The whole world’s addicted to forgetting. Those dream cans just make it faster.”

She looked toward the sunset, her face glowing pink in the dying light.

“It’s gotten everywhere. Kids, old folks, doesn’t matter. People just don’t want to feel the world anymore.”

Lara nodded once.

“We’ll check on them, Nancy. Go back inside.”
“You tell ’em if they’re still alive in there…” Nancy’s voice caught. “Tell ’em Nancy said it’s time to come home.”

The woman turned slowly, the dog padding after her. Her porch creaked as she went back inside, closing the screen door with a sigh.

Lara and JR stood for a beat, watching the house settle into shadow.

“Every neighborhood’s got a Nancy,” Lara said quietly.
“Yeah,” JR replied. “She’s what’s left of the world that still feels.”

They turned toward Lot 42.
The porch light flickered green. The blinds were drawn.
A low, steady hum came from inside — soft, rhythmic, alive.

JR knocked hard.

“This is Detective Rangler from Vice! Open up!”

Nothing.
He tried again.
Still nothing.

Lara’s eyes met his.

“Kick it.”

The latch gave way with a dull crack.

The smell hit them instantly — rot, ammonia, and something faintly sweet.
The air shimmered, dense with heat and decay.

Inside, the trailer looked frozen in time: wood paneling, vinyl couch, beer signs buzzing on backup power.
But in the middle of the room, three figures sat slumped around a coffee table.

Each wore a dull metal helmet on their head — hoses snaking from the cans into a humming box on the table.
It was cobbled together from scrap and circuitry, vents glowing with a faint, pulsing blue.

JR crouched beside it.

“Selenium unit,” he said. “Illegal splice. Pleasure stim with feedback loop. Caribbean build, maybe Taiwan firmware.”
“How long you think?” Lara asked.
“Week. Two at most. Looks like they burned out in the loop.”

Lara’s flashlight traced across the bodies — skin pale and stretched tight, lips cracked into grotesque smiles.

“Look at their muscles,” she murmured. “Overstimulated. Every cell still thinks it’s happy.”

JR swallowed.

“We saw this in Clearwater. One guy thought he was on a beach with his kids. Said he could smell the salt air. The feed showed him sitting in a concrete cell, scratching his arms till they bled. He never even knew.”

Lara’s jaw tightened.

“That was a clean model.”
“These aren’t. Cheap Seleniums crosswire the pleasure and panic centers. Users think they’re ascending. From the outside—”
“It looks like this,” she finished.

She studied the label etched into the side of the unit.
SELENIUM CORP – MODEL 7F. PRIVATE USE PROHIBITED.

“Hospice tech,” she said. “Rewired and resold.”

The hum deepened, a fading heartbeat of circuitry.

“Vitals?”
“Gone,” JR said. “Neural activity lingered for twelve hours post-mortem. She died smiling.”

Lara stood, voice soft.

“They always think they’re in paradise. Family. Love. Light.”
“And from the outside?”
“A room full of corpses grinning at nothing.”

Silence.

“Tag the feed,” Lara said. “We’ll send it to the lab. Maybe they’ll tell us what flavor of heaven this batch was selling.”
“Heaven,” JR muttered. “Looks more like hell from here.”

They turned to leave—

—and then JR froze.

“Wait. You hear that?”

A faint beeping echoed from down the hall — irregular, urgent.

They followed it, moving slowly through the narrow corridor. The floor stuck to their boots.
The sound grew sharper — a portable Selenium field unit chirping out distress tones.

Lara pushed the door open.

Inside, heat shimmered off the walls.
A girl — barely twenty — lay on a collapsed bed, drenched in sweat.
A compact Selenium headset clamped over her skull, cables running to the beeping field unit beside her.

Her body trembled in waves — pleasure so deep it looked like seizure. Foam gathered at the corners of her mouth; her skin was gray and thin, the body wasting away.

“Jesus,” JR whispered. “She’s still in.”

Lara scanned her vitals.

“Heart rate unstable. Oxygen seventy-five. She’s crashing.”

JR grabbed his comm.

“Dispatch, this is Vice 239 — live subject on portable Selenium, early twenties, critical vitals. Send paramedics, code three. Lot Forty-Two, Palm Haven Estates.”
“Copy, Vice Forty-Two. ETA six minutes.”

Lara looked at the girl’s chest — each breath shallower than the last.

“She doesn’t have six minutes.”
“We can’t pull her cold, it’ll shock her system. Protocol says wait for med assist.”
“Protocol’s for people with time, JR.”

The machine’s pitch climbed — frantic now.

“Vitals dropping,” Lara said.
“Damn it…” JR’s hand hovered over the connector. “Just hold on, kid…”

The beeping spiked into one long shrill tone.

“She’s coding,” Lara snapped. “Pull her, now!”

JR ripped the cable free.

The girl convulsed violently, foam spilling from her mouth, limbs jerking.
Her eyes flew open — pupils huge, blind, terrified.

“No—no no—please!” she screamed.
Her hands clawed for the helmet still locked to her head.
“Put it back—please—I can still feel them—they’re waiting—please!”

Lara tried to steady her.

“Stay with me! You’re out! You’re safe!”

But she wasn’t hearing.
She fought them both with a desperate strength born from withdrawal and longing.

“It’s beautiful!” she sobbed. “It’s all light—don’t take it away—”

Her voice cracked, foam bubbling over her lips.
Then she went still.
The field monitor flatlined in a long, steady tone.

JR lowered his head.

“Paramedics aren’t going to need to hurry.”

Lara sat beside the bed, staring at the helmet’s faint glow.

“You think she saw them?”
“Who?”
“Whoever she thought was waiting.”

Her voice was quiet.

“Doesn’t matter. Whatever it was… it was better than this.”

She shut down the unit.
The hum died. Silence filled the room.

Outside, the Gulf wind moved through broken blinds, carrying the scent of salt and rain.
In the window’s reflection, Lara could still see the faint pink glow inside the helmet — a ghost refusing to leave.

“When technology stops helping us live and starts helping us escape,” she said softly, “it doesn’t free us. It buries us.”

She paused, her voice almost tender.

“And just imagine — all this started with those stupid social-network algorithms chasing whatever was most addictive. My grandpa used to scroll videos for hours on something called TikTok. Said it helped him relax. We thought it was harmless.”

JR said nothing. He looked at the girl, then at the silent machine.

“Pleasure without purpose,” Lara said. “That’s where it started. That’s how it ends.”

They walked out into the humid night.
Patrol Skimmer 239 idled in cyan glow beside the cracked road, turbines humming like something alive.

Across the lot, Nancy stood once more in her doorway, tiny dog at her feet, rollers still in her hair, lipstick too bright in the porch light.
She watched them silently as the skimmer lifted, its lights painting the wet asphalt blue.
The dog barked once, then stopped, head tilted toward the sky.

Behind them, the sign buzzed weakly in the wind:
PALM HAVEN ESTATES — VACANCIES AVAILABLE.

And beyond the palms, the Gulf stretched endless and black —
a mirror for a world that had finally learned how to destroy itself
by giving everyone exactly what they wanted.

End.