by Alex Mulder
She said she wanted to go on a date today…
Luke grabbed his bag and stuffed his computer and headset into it. He made his way downstairs as silently as his feet would carry him, stopping to grab an apple and a package of pop tarts from the kitchen before slipping out through the front door. He walked quickly as he ate and instead of heading straight to Ben’s house, he took the long way around.
A strange rhythm was developing in Luke’s life, and it made him feel as though his priorities were beginning to change. He wanted to get to Ben’s house and play Yvvaros. He wanted to text Sam and go on the real date she had suggested. But it didn’t feel like he could choose to do both.
I’ll just start out at Ben’s, and then figure out what’s going on with me and Sam later.
When he finally arrived outside the front door of Ben’s house, Luke knocked as softly as he could to still be heard. He waited for what felt like at least a minute before the door opened.
“Luke, hey…” Emily was standing in the doorway, smiling. She wore a thin nightgown that looked phenomenal on her. “Come on in. I’m not sure if Ben is awake yet but you are always welcome.”
“Thanks, Emily.”
Luke walked forward as Emily stepped back and allowed him in. She gently closed the door behind him, an odd tension settled in to the air.
She’s just… watching me?
Luke awkwardly scratched his head. It looked as though Emily wanted to say something to him, something important but was holding it back.
“I should probably go wake Ben up,” he finally said, breaking the silence.
“Yeah, of course.” Emily crossed her arms and looked as though she was searching for her tongue. “Uhm… Luke?”
“What’s up?”
“I… I can make you guys breakfast after if you get hungry.”
Luke smiled.
“Sure, that would be great.”
She’s acting weird.
He made his way upstairs and into his friend’s room. Ben was still sprawled out in bed, tangled in blankets and thankfully, wearing pajamas underneath. Luke pulled up a desk chair and gently began shaking him by the shoulder.
“Wake up, sleepy head,” said Luke. “We’ve got a guild to expand and monsters to slay.”
“Uhhh…” Ben looked as though he was still in the midst of a comforting dream. He slapped Luke’s hand away before slowly beginning to stir. “What time is it?”
“Half past eight,” said Luke. “I figured we might as well get an early start.”
Ben rubbed his eyes open and then sat up in bed.
“Fine.” He yawned and stretched his arms in an almost exaggerated caricature of a middle-aged man. “Can you pass me what’s in my top desk drawer?”
Luke opened the desk and found, unsurprisingly, Ben’s pipe and a bottle of prescription pain meds.
“Really? This early in the morning?” Luke frowned. “Can’t you at least wait until the afternoon?”
Ben climbed out of bed and slid Luke and the chair aside. He tossed a couple of pills into his mouth and took a hit of the pipe with quick, practiced movements, as though they had been a part of his morning ritual for a very long time.
“You have got to start thinking about cutting back,” said Luke. “This isn’t a healthy way for you to go through life.”
“Says who?” Ben exhaled a bit of smoke with each word. “It helps dull the pain, a lot. And besides, it’s no different from zoning out and playing Yvvaros.
Yvvaros… is more than just something to zone out into.
“Whatever,” said Luke. “But come on. Think about what your sister would say.”
Ben laughed.
“Emily isn’t exactly as well adjusted as she looks,” he said. “There’s a reason why she’s been home from school this year.”
“I thought it was to look after you?”
Ben shook his head.
“I’m only telling you this because you’re my close friend. Don’t let her know I told you, seriously. Luke, at the end of last spring, she attempted suicide.”
“Jesus…”
Emily? Suicide? She seems so happy.
The silence was interrupted by Ben taking another hit from his pipe.
“Anyway, all I’m trying to say is that we shouldn’t get too caught up in self-analyzing. Sorry to dampen your mood.” He walked over to his desk and took his wallet off of it. “Come on, they’re releasing the new version of the Gamesoft VR headset today. I have one preordered, and I figure if we get to the store early enough, we can scoop up another before they run out of stock.”
“Dude, I don’t have money for that.”
“Consider it a loan.” Ben walked across the hall to the bathroom and started brushing his teeth. “We… need you… playing at your best.”
“Alright, sure,” said Luke. “What makes these headsets so important? The ones we have already work well enough, don’t they?”
Ben spat into the sink.
“These ones don’t have screens, or speakers, or anything like the ones we use now. These headsets induce a noninvasive transcranial neural connection.”
“Uh, you mean like… a brain implant, or something?” Luke tried to not sound as confused as he felt.
“They are a bit more sophisticated than that,” said Ben. “You put on the headset, and the electrodes connect through the skin of your head, to your brain.”
“Does this mean I’m going to have to shave my head?”
Ben grinned.
“No. A bit of saline solution on each one should do the trick. Come on, let’s go.”
Emily was still downstairs and still in her nightgown as Luke and Ben made their way by. She gave the two of them a curious glance.
“No early morning gaming session?”
Ben shook his head.
“New headsets to buy,” he said. “They make the current generation of VR equipment look like old CRT TVs in comparison.”
Emily looked a little thrown. Her arm stopped stirring the bowl she had a spoon dipped into and she bit her bottom lip.
“Oh…” she said. “Oh yeah, I have to run some errands… I probably won’t leave until you two get back, but just so you know, that’s where I’ll be.”
“Whatever sis,” said Ben. “Come on, Luke.”
The gaming store was in their town’s tiny commercial district. It took Luke and Ben about half an hour to walk to, and once they got there, they were greeted by a surprisingly large crowd of mostly teenagers and younger adults.
“It looks like we weren’t the only ones anticipating the new Gamesoft release,” said Ben. “Come on, let’s push through the crowd.”
Luke nodded and began making his way through the mass of people, toward where the headsets were lined up along the back wall.
This is the same type of crowd I’m always running into in Stark Town and Kantor, and many of these same people are probably part the game.
There was only a half dozen of the new headsets left. Luke worried for a moment that they might not end up with theirs, but Ben elbowed a husky, bearded man out of the way to scoop one up.
“Alright, they should have the one I reserved behind the counter,” he said. “Let’s pay for them and get out of here.”
“Sounds good to me.”
After another half hour or so of waiting in line, they were finally able to pay for the headsets. Luke thought for a moment that he hadn’t heard the cashier correctly when he told them the price. Ben paid it without batting an eyelash, and they each carried a bag outside.
“How can you afford that?” Luke was shaking his head in disbelief. “That’s… $700 I’m going to owe you? Jesus, man, it’s going to take me an eternity to pay off.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Ben. “I’m not exactly strapped for cash. My parents give both me and Emily an expense account for all our needs.”
The walk back to Ben’s felt as though it went by much more quickly than the walk out had, even though they were going a
bit slower. Ben stared at the back of the box and read aloud from it, hyping Luke up with the immersive details that the advertising copy promised.
“This is the ultimate VR experience. You don’t have to use gestures anymore, and there’s even touch sensory feedback in-game.”
“How is that supposed to work?” Luke couldn’t help but smile at his friend’s enthusiasm.
“Its cutting-edge technology, man,” said Ben. “The original VR headsets were just as mind blowing when they came out. So was the television, and the radio, back in the day.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s true enough.”
The two of them headed to Ben’s house. Emily had left on the errands that she’d mentioned before, and Luke and Ben began unboxing the headsets in the living room.
“Whoa… this looks interesting.”
Luke held one of the headsets in his hand and took a careful look at it. On the outside, it resembled the previous model, but on the inside it was as though the entire headset had been gutted, the screens and tiny speakers replaced with odd-looking circular, sponge covered electrodes.
“I’ve seen a couple of crazy tech demos of what they can do,” said Ben. “They’re being used in therapeutic applications, like helping quadriplegics and people with locked-in syndrome live normal lives again.”
“What do you think it… feels like?” Luke turned the headset over again in his hands, touching it with the kind of reverence that a musician would afford an expensive new instrument.
“There’s only one way to find out!”
They each took a headset and walked upstairs to Ben’s room. Luke opened his laptop and connected all of the wires, finding it just as easy to set up the new model as it had been with the old one. He started up the Yvvaros launcher and made it all the way through the log in sequence, up to the black screen informing him that it was time to put the headset on.
“Ready?” He glanced over at Ben at his desk and saw him nod.
Luke pulled on the headset, pressed enter on the keyboard, and everything changed in an instant.
CHAPTER 20
It’s… real.
Luke blinked several times and took a deep breath, feeling the air actually rush into his lungs. The room smelt of fresh wood and dry sand and his body felt hot, as though he was at the beach on a summer afternoon. He stared down at his hand and flexed his fingers, feeling a chill run down his spine as he watched the wrinkles on his palm shift from the movement.
He was no longer in Ben’s room. He was in the guild hall, the same guild hall that he had worked to build up the day before, and there was nothing surreal or unconvincing about it.
“Ben? I mean, Silverstrike…?”
After a moment, Luke saw his friend’s avatar walk over to him from across the room. With the old headset, he’d noticed Ben’s mannerisms and body language bleeding through into his in-game character, but never to this extent. After a mild episode of cognitive dissonance that was only reconciled by pure strength of will, Luke nodded to his friend, accepting him as him.
“Come on,” said Silverstrike. “Let’s go outside.”
Luke felt unbelievably unnerved as he walked out of the guild hall and into the area surrounding their little oasis. His stomach felt on edge, but in the exact opposite of the usual way, as if it was threatening to take in what he was seeing rather than pushing it out.
The heat was dry and a bit oppressive. The sand sunk and shifted underneath his feet, and tiny ants scurried about a couple of feet away, more visible and convincing than they’d ever been before. Luke could hear the wind in the distance, and see the air wavering on the horizon to the south where the desert grew even hotter.
“This is… unbelievable.” Luke shook his head and looked over at Silverstrike, who was grinning from ear to ear. “This is real. This is no different from walking around in the real world.”
A mild feeling of claustrophobia began to build inside Luke’s chest, intensifying as a single thought began to echo inside his head.
What if I can’t log out? What if I can’t go back?
It felt like he was in a dream that he couldn’t wake up from, and even though it wasn’t necessarily a bad one, the lack of control added a sense of vulnerability to every second. Luke took another deep breath and looked back at Silverstrike, who didn’t seem to be sharing his concerns.
“This is perfect!” he cried. “Kato, let’s go check out the rest of the zone! Let’s go for a swim in the oasis.”
Kato… That’s who I am in this world.
Luke turned and made eye contact with Ben, Silverstrike. There was something shared with his friend’s eyes, a sense of understanding, mixed with acceptance. Silverstrike nodded to him, and then ran over to the oasis and climbed in.
Luke walked over to where he was and just stared. Silverstrike’s clothes were wet, and even though the water was not that deep, he let out a deep, satisfied laugh.
“Come on, get in!” Silverstrike smiled at Luke. “Trust me, you won’t regret it. We’re in the desert, and the water is perfect.”
We’re in the desert… We are, aren’t we?
Luke stepped forward into the clear pool, feeling the fresh water soak into his shoes. It was unreal but real. It was exciting and scary at the same time, Luke’s awe and unease began to fight for control as he moved to where Silverstrike was and slowly lowered himself into a seat beside him.
“This is too weird,” he said. “How much of this is… believable?”
“It all is,” said Silverstrike. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
Silverstrike gestured to the sand and desert all around them and then slapped his palm flat against the water.
“This is a world just like ours, Kato. The only difference is the perspective we enter it with.”
Luke shrugged.
“It’s convincing, sure, but…” He looked into the water again. “It’s still just a game in the end.”
“Maybe.” Silverstrike leaned his arm back against the sand and watched intently as tiny grains of it stuck to the wet drops dripping from his skin. “This water we’re in right now… we need it, even in the game.”
Luke nodded, and he continued.
“I’m not sure if you noticed, but the small animals of the desert, the mice, the rodents, the hoppers, they need water, too. I’ve seen them come by the oasis before.”
That makes sense. They must also have stats, stamina bars to keep up.
“What’s your point?” asked Luke.
“I think we should be open to giving away the water in our zone.” Silverstrike paused, and for a moment Luke thought he was joking.
“Why in the world would we start doing that?” asked Luke. “Isn’t this what we just began a fight over?”
“We’ll do it because it’s a savvy political move,” said Silverstrike. “And we’ll do it because it’s the right thing to do. But we won’t give it away to just anyone.”
A small, scruffy looking mouse was approaching the opposite edge of the oasis from where the two of them were lounging. Luke watched as it slowly made its way over to the side of the water and began to drink.
“We should give water to solo players,” said Silverstrike. “And we should give water to guilds that are small, like ours.”
“It would certainly be a straightforward way to buy some loyalty,” said Luke. “I’m not opposed to that aspect of it.”
This is Ben, but he’s changed so much. He’s still Ben, but in-game, he is someone more than that. He’s Silverstrike.
“I’ve begun vetting some people for the guild.” Silverstrike looked abashed, as though he was concerned that Luke might get angry with him. “Don’t worry, the ones I’m considering will be an asset.”
I trust Ben, Silverstrike… Don’t I?
“Okay,” said Luke.
They would need more people to protect the guild hall. That was just a fact, and Luke didn’t dispute it. What clawed at the back of his mind was a growing sense of instability, pushing in betwee
n him and the new world just as he began to accept it.
We’re less than a week into this game, and we’re already fighting against other players. And the stakes feel as though they’ve been artificially raised to a level that’s beyond what Yvvaros should be capable of.
Something appeared in the corner of Luke’s vision and he instinctively flinched back. It was a tiny red envelope, the indicator that he’d received a new message. Luke climbed out of the oasis and began to dig through his bag. The contents were still somehow totally dry even though they had just followed him into a pool of simulated water. The message was from Tess.
Kato
Meet me in Stark Town. I found something you might be interested in.
Tess
Luke smiled. Silverstrike had walked back into the guild hall and was sitting at a table that Luke hadn’t seen before, scribbling away on a piece of parchment.
“Tess has got something for us,” said Luke. “You want to go check it out?”
Silverstrike shook his head.
“I’m setting up a preliminary guild meeting for later today,” he said. “There is another guild in the area, not the Rebels, but a friendly guild. They want to talk terms for the water.”
Luke nodded.
“You’re really taking to this diplomacy thing, aren’t you?”
Silverstrike didn’t look up from the parchment, but Luke saw the slightest hint of a smirk on his face.
“What can I say? There’s a lot of it to be done if we want to hold this zone.”
Luke left the guild hall and walked out into the dry, hot desert air. He could even feel his body sweating though it was hard for him to understand just why that had been included in the simulation.
I’m hungry, too. Or at least I feel like I am…
His stamina bar was down to a third of his maximum length. Luke walked over to the oasis, cupped his hands together, and scooped some water up to his mouth. It was cool and refreshing, like the purest water he’d ever had in the outside world.
His stamina increased and he filled it even further by eating some bread from his bag, thick crusted and deliciously soft on the inside.
Alright, time to meet up with Tess.
