- The Control Voice: A safe place, warm and quiet. A place to rest and recover. When all is said and done, isn't that what we all want? A safe place in someone's home... or someone's heart?
When a man is given shelter from a blizzard by a group of people in a cabin, he notices that things are not as they seem.
- The Control Voice: A poet once wrote, "In dreams begins responsibility." So too, perhaps, with love. Without dreams, without the hope of a better life, a brighter future, it is difficult for love to flourish. And without love... there are no dreams.
Tropes
- 20 Minutes into the Future: This episode takes place in the 2000s, by which time it is common for patients with incurable diseases to be placed in stasis until cures can be found.
- Endless Winter: Raymond Dalton is told that an organism discovered by a deep sea drilling rig polymerized the world's water which resulted in it having a much higher freezing temperature. However, it turns out that this is merely the setting of a virtual reality environment.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: Raymond is stranded in the middle of nowhere in a blizzard when a rich man offers him shelter in his mansion, along with several other random people. Eventually, it is revealed that all of these characters are terminally ill people in stasis, with their minds uploaded into virtual reality to prevent their minds from atrophying. The rich man was the only one who remembered this, and since he is aware of the dream, he has seemingly godlike control over the environment and bullies the others around. Raymond figures it out too and manages to defeat the rich man and free the others. They then make the blizzard go away so it is a true paradise. A technician informs Raymond a cure was found for his condition, but he chooses to stay until the girl he fell in love with in the simulation is cured as well.
- Prefers the Illusion: Raymond Dalton, a journalist with wanderlust, falls in love with a kind, lovely nurse named Gina Beaumont in what turns out to be a virtual reality environment which he experienced while cryonically frozen. He is revived once a cure for his brain tumor is found. One of the other people in the environment, Sanford Vallé, has the ability to alter the others' personalities at will. As such, Raymond is relieved to discover that the "real" Gina has the same personality as the first version of her that he met, the only difference being that she is a doctor in the real world as opposed to a nurse. Gina cannot be taken out of stasis as she is suffering from the Osaka virus (which she caught as a result of her work as a doctor) so Raymond elects to re-enter stasis to be with her. He helps Gina and the others defeat Vallé, who dies in the real world as a result. Gina attempts to convince Raymond that he is missing out on his life by staying in the virtual reality environment with her. He replies, "Out there is the dream. In here with you is the reality."
- Shout-Out: The abovementioned polymerization of water is a nod to ice-nine in Cat's Cradle.
