by J D Astra
“What’s up, Tristen?” I hoped he wasn’t going to go on about, “Now that I’m not your manager anymore, could we like, go out for pizza some time?” Or would it be roasted chicken now? I didn’t think pizza made it into V.G.O.
He eyed me with teeth clenched. “You were cutting it close. What were you doing?”
My stomach fluttered at the thought of what I was actually doing for the last hour. Hacking into Osmark’s private code, inspecting his future commits, writing automated code to copy them, and more.
“I had to call my mom. She didn’t want to transition, so I had to say goodbye for good.” I entwined my fingers, not wanting them to wiggle and look suspicious.
“Oh.” Tristen looked down, then placed an awkward hand on my shoulder. “I’m really sorry.”
“It’s fine. We said what we had to say, and I’m ready.” I filled my chest with air in an attempt to shake his hand from my body, but he held tighter.
“That’s good. We need people like you in the new world.”
The New World, Osmark’s world. My resolve returned. I wouldn’t let him dominate the people who put their faith in him, in Osmark Tech. Sure, they may “survive,” but would they be saved? No. They were entering into a dictatorship they couldn’t have imagined. Not on my watch.
“Yeah, totally. I hope it’s just as awesome as we coded it.” I smiled again, trying to get out from under his grasp, but his grip was strong as he pulled me into an embrace.
“It’s going to be okay.”
I gritted my teeth and pulled away. “Yeah, it’s going to be fine.” I offered him a punch to the shoulder, and his cheeks flushed red.
“What’s your username? Maybe we could meet up?”
I bit my lip. “I haven’t picked mine yet. I haven’t had a chance to play at all.” I shrugged to mask the lie about not picking my name, and he laughed.
“Yeah, cool. Great. Well, maybe I’ll just see you around.”
My lips pursed. “Yeah, definitely.”
He shuffled his feet, and as I turned away, he grabbed my hand.
“Abby...” His voice was soft.
“What’s up, Tristen?” I didn’t want to hear it again. I wanted to get into the game. I wanted to start leveling. I needed to get a head start on Osmark, because his people definitely had a head start on me.
“I just wanted to say... you’re awesome.”
I stopped short. It wasn’t the same old rhetoric of why aren’t we dating. He was just being nice.
“You’re awesome too, Tristen.” I smiled.
He nodded. “It was nice being your manager. I hope these last eight months weren’t absolute torture.”
It was perhaps my last human interaction ever. I had to make it count. I had to try my best.
“Yeah, you did a great job. I hope you make it.”
He gave me a thumbs-up, classic Tristen. “I’ll see you in there. My tag is Triskiller.”
I groaned under my breath. What a terrible name to be stuck with for the rest of your life. But whatever.
I walked the rows, looking for “H.” So many D’s, what the heck? Ah, “H.” I walked in a few capsules to find pod 8. It was open and ready to receive me.
Unlike in Star Trek, the pod next to me didn’t have a glass cover. I couldn’t see the person inside, couldn’t watch them decay as their body died in the transition.
“Ms. Hollander. Please remove your clothing down to your underwear,” the pod said in the same artificial PA voice.
“Why?” I asked, though when I looked down, the clothes of those near to me littered the floor.
“The transition can be difficult on the body, and heat regulation is important. Removing some items of clothing can help us do that at a lower cost.”
There Osmark goes with the costs. Of course, do it fast, do it well, do it cheap. He wanted every point on the iron triangle, and he got it. Not by noble means, but he got it. This game would be amazing, a technical wonder, completed by slave labor and crime. Who would oppose him at the end of the world, though?
I unbuttoned my shirt, removed my flats, then my slacks, and hopped up into the tanning bed gone VRMMORPG simulator. I took my last breath in this world and closed the lid with the touch of a button.
It was dark for a moment, and as the machined whirred to life, so did the white loading screen. “Hello, I’m the CEO of Osmark Technologies, Robert Osmark, and I’d like to personally welcome you to Viridian Gate Online, the most advanced full-immersion video game in the world.” Osmark’s voice was unmistakable.
I blinked hard, and his face came into view. Such a retro, Steve Jobs look. Thin-rimmed, round glasses, dark turtleneck, and shaggy hair about his face.
He went on. “Viridian Gate Online is truly the first of its kind. And that’s not the typical hyperbolic language so cavalierly tossed around in tech circles. No, I can assure you, I truly mean this is the first of its kind.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get me into the game!
“Our revolutionary work with massive memristive neuromorphic computing systems has created a paradigm shift in AI technologies, and the result is an experience second to none. Moreover, through Osmark’s patented NexGenVR capsule you will experience a whole new world as though you were there in the flesh. Even the pain is real.”
The system stuttered, Osmark froze on screen, and the robotic voice of the AI took over. “Patch 1.3_e announcement update: Employees of Osmark Tech.”
Osmark’s face resumed its idle movements. “Hello, employees of Osmark Technologies, or close friends and family of the employee.” I was tired of hearing his nasally, droning voice, mostly because I’d heard it so many times in the last few months.
“You have done us, no, humanity, a great service. Either you contributed to the game, Viridian Gate Online, or you supported a technician working day and night to complete this new world. For that, we all owe you our lives. This couldn’t have been possible without you and the contributions of our benefactors.”
Benefactors. Right. He meant the politicians and criminals. Those able to give worldly support for virtual compensation when the end came.
“In the next seventy-two hours, you may experience some discomfort, and at the end of it, one in six will not be able to survive the transition to the game. Allow me to explain how it works.”
Osmark’s recording went into the layman’s version of the nano-tech copying the brain’s patterns line for line into a digital form over the next three days.
“Truthfully, that’s far more candid than I ever expected to be about how the process works, but this is the end of the world.” Osmark offered a genuine, yet exhausted, smile. I appreciated that. He was a dick and a whip cracker, but he could be real sometimes.
He went on to further explain that the nanobots now coursing through my veins would be copying my essence and uploading it to the servers deep underground, protected from the catastrophic EMP 213 Astraea would discharge on entering our atmosphere.
“We installed neural inhibitors into all the capsules which automatically logged players out after six hours of gameplay, but Patch 1.3 has changed all that. The neural inhibitors have all been disabled, and after twenty-four hours of in-game time, the logout button will permanently disappear, leaving you stranded in the game.”
No skin off my back, I didn’t plan on logging out.
“If you choose to upload yourself to Viridian Gate Online, you have a chance at surviving Astraea, at least in a digital form. Now, let me take a moment to address some of the concerns circulating around the internet rumor mill. First, I can personally assure everyone listening to this message that Patch 1.3 is our last major update—the game is locked, and all essential functions are now being administered by the AI controllers.”
The Overminds. I knew them all pretty well, understood their roles. I had to. My code needed to know who to call to complete a function, so I’d had to learn them all, though I only created code for two of them: Enyo, the Overmind of Chaos, and Sophi
a, the Overmind of Balance.
Osmark went on to discuss the fears of hacking, which we “secured” against. We certainly did our best, but someone with time and a lot of dedication could hack what we did. It would be hard, nearly impossible with the time the world had left, but they could do it.
“By watching this warning, you hereby remove all liability of damages from Osmark Technologies, its corporate owners, and its subsidiary entities. Would you still like to proceed?”
I knew what needed to be done, and I was the one to do it. Even if I only had three days until my heart stopped, perhaps stopped for good, I would make them count. I would make Osmark pay.
I cherished my last moment as a living, breathing, fleshy being, then answered. “Yes.”
Dev Dive
THE SENSATION OF PLUMMETING on a raging rollercoaster sent shivers up my spine as an imaginary world of wonder rushed up to meet my feet. Or was I falling? Mountainous peaks, sprawling fields of green, huge shimmering lakes, and the pockmarks of civilization came into view on the brilliant globe I was steadily approaching.
“Traveler”—the booming voice of an announcer, the same one from our commercials, added to my gut-clenching nerves as I soared—“prepare to enter Viridian Gate Online!”
Icy wind nipped at my exposed skin as the virtual “floor” drew ever nearer. I was certain the very first experience after the loading screen wouldn’t be painful, but for a moment, I wondered if this was Osmark’s last brutal act on the employees. A character screen created just for us in the 1.3_e patch designed to hurt us on entry.
I closed my eyes when the ground was a few yards away, but the rushing of air slowed, and the queasiness in my gut subsided. A gentle vibration shook my legs as I touched down, and I peeled my eyes open.
It was breathtaking. Snowcapped peaks loomed in the distance, with one spitting gouts of liquid red: an active volcano. Flowers on the grassy knolls below blew in a gentle wind that smelled of pollen and pine. My senses were alive with the outputs of the virtual world, and damn, it was hard to tell the difference.
The pine scent was less woody than I remembered, but pleasant all the same. The slight chill to the wind raised hairs on my arms. My arms. I inspected my body to find it all looked just like me, but cleaner somehow. The fifteen-year-old scars on my arms from my hellacious cat were gone, and the skin was unbelievably smooth to the touch.
I ran my left hand up my forearm, and suddenly, it was sensory overload. I gasped for air, bending at the waist and placing my hands on my knees. It took a moment, but a few steady breaths later, my racing heart was calm. Wow. So, this is what I helped create.
Thunder crackled overhead, and dark storm clouds moved in from over the mountain peaks. Tiny droplets speckled my body, and I turned my face up to the sky. It felt absolutely indistinguishable from the real thing. I opened my mouth and caught a few of the sweet, slightly sulfurous drops in my mouth.
“Volcano water.” I gripped my throat and hummed, feeling the vibration of my vocal cords. It sounded like me, too.
As if sensing my discovery moment was over, the game prompted me with a character creation pop-up. The view filled my forward vision with a transparent overlay, and my body was the subject matter of the window. It had me in little more than a bikini, but I guess it was necessary to see nearly all the parts of my forever-body.
Short, shorter than I’d really liked growing up, dark skin that shimmered from the rain, brown eyes, a teardrop face made even more so by the auto smoothing of the game simulation, a mess of brown curls down to my chest, and generously curved hips... though quite a bit less pudge on my tummy. Eight months of Osmark-mandated crunch with takeout every day, candy whenever stressed—which was always—copious amounts of sugary coffee, and very little exercise had left me chubby. I was relieved to see the game ignored my recently added pounds.
It was fantastic to have my pre-hell-year body back and better than ever in the snap of a nano-synapse. But this was no time to admire myself. It was time to get down to business.
The interface running along the left side gave way to all the options I could engage with: Race, Build, Gender, Face, and Name. I eyed the Name tab, my heart thumping in worry. If I got this wrong, everything I’d done in the other life to discover Osmark’s plan would be moot.
First, the body I would use for however long the game simulation ran. I scrolled through the races, though I’d already settled on Wode weeks ago. I wanted to look human, like I had in the real world, so I could keep a bit of my mother and father with me. But it never hurt to see what I’d look like with wings!
I scrolled to Accipiter and selected it. With a pop, my human form shifted, growing massive dark-feathered wings laced with hints of gold, just like my hair. My skin took on an almond hue, growing a little lighter, and my eyes became a piercing yellow to match the highlights of my wings. The teardrop shape to my face became hawklike, my nose growing narrower along with my cheeks. My body leaned out as well, the curvy hips sculpted into longer legs, with pointed feet that hovered just above an invisible ground as my massive wings pumped.
Beautiful! A pop-up appeared at the bottom of the semitranslucent window.
<<<>>>
Accipiters
Though war-torn and isolated to the Burning Sands, this gregarious race thrives in the deserts of the far west. While most make their homes in the grand shimmering city of Ankara, known for its crystal spires, some still take to the mountainous wastes beyond. The Accipiters’ nimble shape and lightweight bones give them a +10% Dexterity bonus at all levels; however, they are restricted from wearing heavier weight armor, such as plate mail. Accipiters excel at classes requiring speed and keen eyes, such as rangers.
<<<>>>
Ugh, but so impractical. Accipiters had a sweet dexterity bonus, but that’s not at all what I needed for my class. Wodes didn’t have any bonuses like the Accipiter, but it didn’t have any restrictions, either. I could be whatever class I wanted, with features that matched my IRL body.
I idly scanned past a few of the other options. Imperials, very Anglo looking. Risi, massive, terrifying, positively disgusting looking seven-foot beef slabs with skin ranging from a gray-green to a puke-inducing lime green. Hvitalfar, also known as Dawn Elves, were tall, delicate looking things that served well as caster classes due to their Spirit bonus. I was tempted to pick a Hvitalfar, but I didn’t want to look like a Barbie doll for the rest of my life. Dokkalfar, the Murk Elves, were similarly tall, with pointed ears, but that’s where the similarities stopped. The Dokkalfar were dark-haired, dark-skinned, dark-eyed, with athletic builds. They looked cool, but their poison resistance bonus was fairly useless to me.
Okay, enough messing around. I inhaled, holding my breath at the top, and switched over to Wode as I sighed. My form shifted back to regular Abby, and I was a little disappointed to see her. Another pop-up appeared at the bottom of my screen.
<<<>>>
Wodes (Human)
The most numerous of Eldgard’s races, the Wodes are a flexible and resilient people known for their impressive stature and steadfast nature. Though Wodes are not blessed with any particular affinity for one class or another, they can assume any profession or nonrestricted class without penalty. This adaptability has allowed the Wodes to spread far and wide, making them as at home in the mountains as in the forests or plains.
<<<>>>
Yep, that was my boring pick. I fiddled with my height a little, just a little, and my face structure before looking on the Abby I’d live in for the rest of my life with mild satisfaction. It was Abby 1.5, not quite a 2.0 shift. She looked fierce, strong, beautiful—taller—but still me. I selected the “create” button, and a new prompt appeared.
Time for my name. Why oh why had I decided to go with Abby Hollander as my username? Because I was rushed and panicked? I’d planned out several other awesome names a week ago, but when the moment came to code in where I would direct the scroll copy, I choked, forgot, and typed in my name. I rol
led my eyes. Too late now.
“Abby Hollander,” I said aloud, though I was certain I didn’t need to.
The guy from the commercial was back again. “Are you sure you would like to create Abby Hollander, the Wode? Once you create a character, you will not be able to change your racial identity or name. Please confirm.”
“I confirm.”
The character screen disappeared, and the full view of the mountains was restored. The storm clouds swirled over the active volcano, and steam billowed up where the rain fell on the rivers of lava coursing their way down the obsidian mountainside.
Nothing was happening.
“Hello?”
I turned and looked over each shoulder, suddenly paranoid that Osmark had found me out and had stopped my character creation process. If he figured it out before I transitioned, he could kill me in the tube out IRL, where I was helpless and unaware.
Trumpets blared, and I screamed, holding my chest to keep my pounding heart from escaping.
“The year is 1095 A.I.C.—Anno Imperium Conditae,” the disembodied announcer bellowed over the music, and I swallowed back the knot of fear in my throat. It was just standard loading lag. No one knew what I’d done or what I was about to do.
“Dark power and the stirrings of war ride upon the winds of Eldgard, the provincial outpost of the Great Viridian Empire.”
The view before me became murky, waving and bubbling like I was looking through a stream.
“Imperial legions,” the announcer continued, “allied with the forces of light, march from the east, bringing the natives of Eldgard to their knees through flame, magic, and steel.”
My vision filled with the scene of a massive battlefield. All manner of dark-aligned creatures, ogre-like Risi, the dark-skinned Dokkalfar, Wodes, and more charged across a field made bare from so much combat in a disorganized horde. The battle formations of Imperials stood unmoving on the opposing side, their plate armor gleaming under the smoke-streaked sun, and war banners whipping with a crack in the wind.
