The old car’s brakes squeaked as Ray came to a stop in front of BranCo Industries. Grabbing his handheld video camera, he opened his car door. It started to sag ever so slightly. After stepping out, Ray lifted the door in an effort to close it.
Pressing the “lock” button on his car fob out of habit, he heard no beep. It hadn’t worked for months now. Ray smirked at his old, beat-up car. He’d owned it since high school, and fifteen years later, it still served him well. They’d been through hell and back together, only the car showed more of that adventure than he did.
Ray glanced at an enormous hangar-like building before him with a BranCo Industries logo plastered on its corner. A high fence with razor wire encircled the structure. The logo was a shield with a cross in the middle. An armed guard approached as Ray walked up to the fence’s gate. Ray eyed the man’s rather large weapon and laughed to himself.
These guys take their games really seriously! he thought to himself. Do they really need firearms or do they just like wearing them because it makes them feel cool?
Ray reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a formal invitation for a site visit. The guard took one look at the paper and grunted, waving Ray into the fenced off area around the structure. Ray gave a sigh of relief. He was by no means a small guy and was more than capable of handling himself, but compared to the guards that patrolled this facility, he seemed to be a shrimp.
Standing before the hangar-like structure was a Japanese man dressed in an expensive suit that probably cost more than Ray made in a month. The man offered Ray a warm smile.
Oh crap, am I supposed to bow? Ray wondered. Is that racist?
Ray stopped short of the man with an awkward half-bow that he hoped was sufficient.
“Mr. Matsimoto, it is an honor to be here.”
To Ray’s relief, Mr. Matsimoto bowed back. Ray stood head and shoulders above the man, but while Ray had height on him, Mr. Matsimoto had billions on Ray.
“The honor is mine,” Mr. Matsimoto said with another warm smile. “Your reputation precedes you and we feel with your viewership and track record, the worries about our new product will be laid to rest.”
Mr. Matsimoto’s accent was thick, but Ray was able to understand him just fine. Holding his camera up, Ray flipped open its viewing screen.
“Would you mind if I did a live stream of your facilities?” Ray asked.
Mr. Matsimoto motioned for Ray to enter their facilities.
“Please, be our guest.” Mr. Matsimoto replied.
Ray pulled a jerry-rigged selfie stick out of the inside of his jacket and attached his camera to it. Ray synced the camera to his ViewTube account for a live stream, noticing that out of his fifteen million subscribers, almost two hundred thousand were online. Holding his stick out, Ray framed himself with the BranCo Industries facility set as his backdrop, making sure to get their logo in the picture.
“Good morning, Sunbeams! I’m Ray Robbins coming to you live from sunny southern California at BranCo Industries, where I will be taking you on a tour of the newest step in video gaming technology. With me is CEO Hiro Matsimoto, who would like to fill us in a little bit about what I will be showing you today.”
Ray swiveled his camera to Mr. Matsimoto, who gave a toothy smile and waved.
“Good morning. Today, you will be seeing the newest innovation in video gaming technology. We have designed a completely immersive virtual experience from the ground up. But telling you about it is the boring part. I will let Ray show you.” Mr. Matsimoto kept his intro brief while waving for Ray to follow.
Ray kept his camera rolling as they entered the facility.
“Mr. Matsimoto, what kind of games do you have lined up for your players?” Ray asked as they entered the significantly darker building. “I’m sure they’d love to know as much as you’re willing to share.”
“Right now, it is an RPG with the most advanced A.I. programmed for the NPCs so that no two playthroughs are the same,” Mr. Matsimoto continued as they wound through a maze of hallways. “It’s something truly remarkable, if I do say so myself.”
“And how is the immersion?” Ray added to his list of questions.
“We have a day-to-year system integrated into our games. One real world day is equal to one year in game. We are constantly tweaking to enhance that mechanic for our three levels of immersion,” Mr. Matsimoto responded. “In game, where there is no difference from a Virtual Reality set, immerses where you put on a motion-capture suit and move on a track pad and life.”
Life. Now that sounds like an interesting setting. It piqued Ray’s interest.
“And what does the ‘life’ setting do?” Ray’s words were tentative, not wanting to push too far too fast.
Mr. Matsimoto waved Ray forward as they approached a set of double doors.
“Why don’t you find out?” Mr. Matsimoto teased as he pushed the double doors open.
Ray stepped into a much larger room. Ray’s jaw hit the floor so hard, it could have registered on the Richter Scale. A sense of awe washed over him as his gaze, and his camera, followed the miles of wire that fed from all corners of the room into a singular reclined chair.
It reminded Ray of the bed used by the bad samurai guy in one of Hugh Jackman’s hero movies before his character’s powers were stolen. Ray’s heart pounded in his chest out of excitement.
Never before in his thirty-three years had he seen anything remotely close to this. Like a child on Christmas Day, Ray looked over at Mr. Matsimoto for permission to approach. The businessman nodded, complying with his visible wish.
“What is this thing?” Ray marveled.
Ray climbed the small platform the gaming system sat on and ran his fingers over the cool interface.
“I am the Neural Gaming Interface, or N.G.I. for short. Would you like to run a demo?” a robotic voice called out from speakers hidden within the room.
Ray panned his camera around. His viewership spiked to nearly a million people viewing, with hundreds of thousands of likes and comments on his live feed. Ray waved one of the guards over to him. Mr. Matsimoto nodded, allowing the smaller of his personal bodyguards to approach Ray. Ray handed the camera off to the guard.
“Okay, just keep me in frame, and if Mr. Matsimoto or one of your techs wants to talk about what is going on, then go ahead. There’s no such thing as too much information,” Ray exclaimed.
As Ray climbed onto the cool recliner, he felt it contour and morph around him before changing to a temperature at which he hardly felt the contouring device around him. A light beamed down from the ceiling as a technician spoke in the background. Ray’s heart pounded so hard in his chest, he hardly noticed what the technician was saying.
“We are now scanning Ray’s body for automated projection into our virtual world. On ‘life’ level immersion,” Mr. Matsimoto explained, “the scans even duplicate an individual’s brain waves to aid in complete immersion. Mr. Robbins, you may feel a novel sensation. It is completely normal.”
Ray nodded as he closed his eyes. The moment he did, white words that read “LOADING” seemed to project onto the inside of his eyelids. A strange tingling sensation washed over his body. After several moments, Ray could swear he felt a breeze on his face, something that should have been impossible inside of a closed-off hangar bay. A small blip of light crested on the horizon before growing brighter and brighter with each passing second. It was a sunrise.
Ray took several steps forward. His brain told him everything he was seeing was digital, but his eyes were struggling to differentiate reality from the game.
‘The white of the clouds, the blue of the sky, my goodness those God-rays! This place is AMAZING!” Ray thought to himself.
He took in the sky before him. A slight tickle ran over his hand, causing Ray to look down. He was standing in a field of waist-high grass. Taking in a deep breath, he could even pick up its scent, just like the wild grass in the field behind his house back home. Ray jumped a few times, and gravity pulled on him just as it did in the real world. He jogged, then ran, then sprinted to the point of exhaustion.
Stopping to catch his breath, Ray noticed a soft blue blinking at the bottom right of his field of view. After not moving for several seconds, the blue bar refilled automatically. As it filled, Ray was able to catch his breath, and his heartbeat slowed. His muscles ached less and less with every passing second.
‘Stamina bar, nice mechanic!’ Ray thought to himself.
A notification filled his vision, accompanied with a soft “PING,” which read:
Magic is of great use in this game. Try casting a frost spell.
To use the spell FROST, hold out your hand and focus your mana into your palm. Let the mana flow freely in order to continuously cast the spell. FROST will continue to flow until you either drop your hand or run out of mana.
Ray nodded, impressed with the mechanics thus far. Obeying the instructions, Ray stretched out his arm and visualized ice forming in his palm. After several seconds, a sensation of cold gripped his hand, accompanied by the sound of frozen wind blowing.
A wave of snow, ice, and visibly chilled air rushed from his hand, coursing over the grass before him. A green bar appeared in the lower left hand corner of his screen. The bar drained at a consistent rate. Once it was empty, the frost spell sputtered out like his car did that one time he ran out of gas in the middle of the desert.
A soft breeze blew through the grass, causing the blades that had been touched by his magic to shatter and fall to the ground instantly.
Wow that was realistic; kudos to whoever coded that! Ray thought to himself. This place is amazing. I’m freaking out right now.
He took a step forward, intending to test out some more mechanics. His foot slipped out from under him as Ray stepped on the ice he had just made, causing him to land face first in the cold, frozen grass.
He felt the impact, pain lacing through his body the same way it would if he experienced a fall in real life. A red bar appeared in between the green and blue. It dropped down slightly. A soft “PING” and a message showed up.
Falling damages the player, reducing the health you have.
Health regenerates over time while outside of battle, items or spells are needed to restore health while engaged with an enemy. If your health reaches zero, you will die and respawn at the last town you visited. You have a set amount of times you are allowed to die. All loot and carried items aside from armor and weapons will be left where you died.
Players may retrieve their loot, but be quick. Bandits may get there first.
As he pushed himself off the ground, the sensation of pain faded from his fall. His health increased. As much as he’d hate to die in most RPGs, at least he would get to keep what he had with him upon respawn. A sick little part of him kind of liked the idea of losing loot as a punishment.
The hair on the back of Ray’s neck stood on end and goosebumps cascaded over him. He wasn’t quite sure why as he looked around at the beautiful paradise that surrounded him. Something seemed off, not with the game or anything inside. He heard the echoes of voices in his head. They were far away, but he recognized Mr. Matsimoto’s voice. “No! Not again, I thought we fixed this! Get him out of there!”
His disembodied words echoed in Ray’s mind. Ray whirled around.
“Guys, what’s going on? Mr. Matsimoto, can you hear me?” Ray yelled.
“There is a cerebral feedback loop. We can’t pull him out!” a technician’s voice rang out, rife with terror.
“It’s going to blow!” another voice screamed.
Ray spun around just in time to see a wall of fire rip across the beautiful grassland and slam into him. The force of the blast sent Ray flying. The concussion forced the wind from his lungs while heat seared his skin, causing agonizing pain to ripple throughout his body.
Ray’s vision was blurred as the blue of the sky, the green of the grass, and the fiery red of an explosion all whirled together before all combining into one color: brown. Ray slammed into a hard, rough surface with so much force, it rendered him unconscious.
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