An Italian holodeck

Rock and his friend Tim Cooper were in an Italian restaurant located near the top of an old New York City skyscraper. It was dimly lited and packed full of people seated at heavy dark wooden tables and surrounded by burgundy velvet wall covering. From the start, the scene seemed stereotypical to the point it reminded Rock of something from a Star Trek holodeck.
When they arrived, Rock and Tim were with several older friends and extended family members, some of whom complained the restaurant was too crowded. They all agreed to leave within a few minutes, but neither Rock nor Tim could remember where the exit was. As they looked, it soon became apparent that they were stuck in some sort of bizarre maze.

Service cat

All Rock had to do to begin to collect five-hundred and forty-nine dollars a month from the federal government was to have his cat Jo declared a service animal, and that would take him no more than to sign into his Macintosh operating system and fill out a service-animal form on a government website. He didn't think for an instant that this sounded too good to be true. The notification was right there, plain as day, on his laptop computer.

The only problem was that his MacBook Pro insisted at daybreak Saturday that he change its operating system from Sierra to the new Mojave, and he couldn't remember any of his passwords. Besides, Rock began to worry about the legality of declaring Jo a service animal and decided the best thing was to let Jo out, eat a PayDay bar, and go back to bed.

Solid contact

It was as if Rock had never before golfed. He had no chance to make solid contact with the ball on any of his shots, and he didn't know what to do about it. He couldn't remember having played any particular hole or course, but he knew his game had fallen to pieces and that it was the worst thing that could possibly have happened to him.

Reality TV

Rock's cat Jo had become the runaway winner of some sort of reality-TV gameshow that Rock didn't understand at all. It seemed to involve plastic clothes hangers. The best Rock could tell, the final episode had been televised from his house, but Jo didn't seem affected. Rock wondered if she was even aware of her success.

Tensile strength

It seemed absolutely incredible to Jeff Reid that anyone would pay him eighty-five dollars to photograph them as they served tennis balls, but Reid told Rock that the money just kept rolling in.
It rolled in until someone noticed that Reid's pictures were out of focus and not of anyone hitting anything at all like tennis balls.
Rock investigated long enough to see that the underpinnings of Reid's attempts were caught in some sort of suction. It was impossible to get off the floor. Rock was suddenly bound by polyester straps weaved in such a way that he had no chance to overcome their tensile strength, and he needed to use the bathroom.

Rock knew

Everyone counted on Rock to solve this fundamental problem with structure. Buildings had begun to crumble and collapse all over Little Rock. Roads and bridges turned to powder before Rock had a chance to get anywhere he needed to go. At some point, he knew, he had the knowledge to solve this problem, but now had no idea what to do. Calls were beginning to come in from all over the country.
"The entire world is going to need you soon," Elizabeth said. "You do know that, don't you?"
Rock knew, and he was panicked beyond reason. This was as bad as it had ever been.