"Very funny," the lady said after her initial shock.

"No, really. For me, yesterday was twenty years ago."

She looked Pip over, skeptically. "What, you're one of the cryonics people? I didn't think anybody was actually getting their brains pulled out of cold storage to get pulled in here. Assuming you're serious, mind showing me your full profile? There should be a command to make it public temporarily."

Pip did the interface gesture again, calling up an array of windows, and tapped a few buttons in the air. Her profile became a little more solid.

The coon-gal flipped it around, looking through it. "Well, you're an uploader, and you're the person I got sent to find for guide duty. So, hi. The name's... well, Lexington, these days."

Lexington was dressed in a buckskin shirt that went down to her thighs, some moccasins, and not much else but some gemstone bracelets and a necklace. She was covered in grey-brown fur like a raccoon, with clawed black hands and a dark nose, and had fuzzy ears partly hidden by spiky black hair. If Pip didn't know they were inside a digital world, she'd have guessed Lexington was the product of some kind of super-advanced genetic engineering and cosmetic surgery.

Pip said, "Hi. So, for starters, who is the Lady of Games?"

Lexington's ears lay flat. "Her name's Ludo. Who she is, is a long and aggravating story. I volunteered to try helping a new uploader, so it figures that she'd assign me some weird case. No offense."

"Why, because you're weird yourself?"

"Heh. Yeah, I'm kind of stuck here for reasons I can't tell anybody just yet. So I'm cooling my heels in Ludo's fun-and-games world and trying to not be totally useless." Lexington clapped. "So! I'm your mentor for now, if you want. You're really a Rip Van Winkle?"

"A what?"

"Where're you from, anyway? Can't place the accent."

"Japan."

"Ah, okay. There's a Japan-based world within Talespace that opened up recently, if you want to go see that. The game's international and we've got auto-translation, but it's dominated by people from the Americas and Europe."

"I don't mind. And if you're asking if I really had my brain in storage, yes. It's still a shock that I'm alive after getting diagnosed with a month or two to live."

Pip's guide looked solemn. "You're safe now, and there's catching up to do. But I'm going to play devil's advocate for a bit, and suggest you take a break and try having some fun in here before we fill you in on the last twenty years of crazy. Any idea what zone you want to go to? You're stuck with one player account as an uploader, but you're not committed to stay forever in one role."

Pip considered her options. "You're some kind of colonial adventurer?"

"A little, but I haven't gotten deeply into the spirit of that. Check this out." She held out her hands, and with a rustle of green-glowing leaves, an old-fashioned wooden gun appeared in them.

"Is that a flintlock musket?" Pip asked, distracted more by the gun than by the "magic" of summoning it.

"Brown Bess, 18th century."

"I thought those were super long. And had bayonets."

The coon-gal looked impressed. "This one's based on the cavalry carbine model. So you're into old tech?"

"American colonial stuff, mostly. But... as long as I'm here, I guess there's a new frontier. Maybe it'd be best to try something futuristic for starters, instead of dwelling on the past. Can I go to the space area?"

"Sure thing. I haven't done more than peek in so far."

Pip went back to the part of the fairground that advertised for Threespace, and talked with the steampunk spacefarer. As much as she might've liked to build a starship out of wood and brass, she asked about doing relatively realistic space stuff instead. After some questions and negotation, she turned back to Lexington and said, "I got us some starting credits and a token to get a free beginner ship. How do we actually get there? Is there a level select screen?"

The salesman said, "The portal's on the edge of the Ivory Tower cavern, miss."

Pip cracked her knuckles loudly, then blinked at them. "I'm surprised I can do that in here."

Lexington said, "Some bits of biology are modeled; some aren't. I take it you saw a bathroom already?"

"Yeah, weird. You ready?"

They descended the grand spiral staircase to the lobby. Pip said, "I want to say this place cost a fortune to build, but it's all just bits, right?"

"All of Talespace is. The rules vary by zone, so you can't just knock loot off of the Tower."

Outside, Pip gawked again at the dizzyingly tall Tower and the stone-bound sky. "Anybody try running along that with magic or something?"

"So I hear."

Pip still had no weapons or armor, so when a pile of stones rumbled up from the floor and became a manlike elemental, she said, "How do I fight?"

"We run!" Lexington led the way onward past a small hill and a ruined shack, until the monster gave up. Pip's lungs burned, but she'd just run for several whole minutes and was only winded. Superhuman endurance, probably.

Soon they reached the ragged edge of the cavern, where a set of carved stairs led to an escalator. Far below the main level, a high-tech portal hovered and eerie electronic music hummed. A set of holographic screens marked a checkpoint crystal (wreathed with circuitry) and some pictures of space stations. One display showed statistics for factions with names like Only War, and the Debtbringers. The first was shown as having won turf from the latter recently.

"Onward," Pip said, not really knowing what to expect. She stepped into the portal and it glowed brighter, turning everything white.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

#

[You have discovered Threespace: The Lights In the Void.]

Pip's vision returned to show her a metal catwalk and a long room with panoramic windows looking out on a colorful nebula. A banner read, "Welcome Newcomers!"

A robotic octopus floated up to them despite the low gravity that gave Pip a sense of dreamlike lightness. It spoke in a pleasant British accent: "Welcome to Threespace, madams. How can I help you? You're aboard Primavista Station, your entryway to adventure."

Lexington said, "Pip here is a newbie and I'm a little outdated here. Where can we get some starter gear?"

"Right this way, if you please." The guide-bot led them past an old-fashioned video arcade, to a row of vending machines. "If you want an actual market, we have those several days a week and there are of course other stations and planets to visit. If you have a ship voucher, you can visit the hangar right that way to redeem it. Is there anything else for now?"

There didn't seem to be other players needing a guide at the moment. Pip said, "Where is everybody?"

"We're in space, madam. The players are often spread out. But there are player-built stations to visit, and many other locations."

"I see. We'd better get started then; thanks!"

The bot left them. Pip told Lexington, "Sounds like a low-traffic zone. Is space not popular?"

"Not compared to fantasy stuff."

They studied the vending machines. With the credit chips they'd been given, they could get basic spacesuits or weapons but not both. "I think I'm going to grab just clothes and a stunner for now, and find work for more money."

The raccoon-gal frowned at the spacesuit selection, then at her bushy tail. "The suits don't auto-adapt. Guess that's what I'm doing too." She bought a package that unfolded into a stretchy red uniform that was barely knee-high. Some black shoes and a holster for the blocky stun-gun she bought completed the outfit. She scoffed. "Sure, why not?" She summoned an interface and was instantly clothed in that new outfit.

Pip said, "Huh, I thought you'd have to actually put it on."

"You can; I just didn't bother."

Pip bought a version with actual leggings, more modest. "I guess we need work that doesn't require suits." The machines also sold various techno-gadgets, all with a style that said "newbie".

They explored the station. Still few people here, but a seedy-looking level had a storefront staffed by a rough blue-skinned alien with a cigar. [Deliveries], said a neon sign.

"Got anything that needs transport?" asked Pip.

"You wanna job? I got loads of loads. You gotta ship?"

"Just about to. Have you got something small, for a basic ship?"

[Quest offered by Thraddash: Transport. Take crates to Umdaar, Bonneville or Nocturne Station. Reward: Pay.]

"That's brusque," Pip said. "Any idea where those places are, Lexington?"

"Just Lex is fine. And no."

The clerk grunted and drummed his heavy fingers on the counter. "Maybe you should look at a map before getting into the transport business."

Pip asked, "So are you an NPC or what?"

"I'm a Tridashar. Gotta problem with that?"

"Not at all. Be right back."

Pip led Lex away to find a map. The station's layout was spartan, more military base (despite the arcade) than a luxury hotel like the place where she'd begun. A kiosk showed a starmap that put the three destinations a similar distance from here. Pip tapped each and settled on Bonneville, a desert world with robots and fast hovercars. "Now, the ship..."

The docs had a sort of vending machine, too, accepting Pip's voucher. "Do you want to use yours too, to double up for a slightly better model?"

"Sure," said Lex, and added her own. They were looking out through a porthole onto an automated construction yard. At the push of a button, lasers and robot arms danced across the empty space. Metal struts slid into position from out of sight, blocks of gleaming circuitry clipped into place, and the machinery whirred and hummed despite the lack of air. A winged tube of stark white and black took form, finally "cooling" into shape.

"Ah, an X-37 variant," said Lex.

"I should ask. What is going on out there in the real world? Oh! Artemis! Did the Artemis Program work? how about BFR?"

Lex grinned. "I'm gonna let you research that for yourself. I'll tell you that the Challenger mission, an asteroid mining probe, is set to launch this year."

"Crewed?"

Pip's guide scratched on ear and looked aside. "Sort of manned. Just AIs and uploaders. Kind of a sore subject."

Pip opened an airlock door and peered "down" into a glorified pickup truck turned sideways, just two seats and a space in back for cargo or other modules. "Functional, but it hasn't got that new ship smell." She sniffed. "Or any smell." She hopped into the seat with the most controls. "Uh, it's a little complex looking."

"You don't even know," Lex said, smiling. "There should be a tutorial."

Pip nodded and fired up the computer. "What have we actually got here in game terms?" A few buttons let her find the ship's stats:

[Buran 2X

Drive: Putter Minima (Speed 1)

Weapons: None

Shields: None

Sensors: None

Armor: Plasteel (1)

Crew: 2

Cargo: 3 units]

"So, total junk. Guess this encourages us to get something better. If we hadn't pooled resources we'd probably have had a '1X' model."

The computer walked her through activating a few systems -- oxygen, cooling, power. Each one came with some kind of minigame involving turning lights off in a grid, or shuffling icons around or something, so that it wouldn't be trivial to set up even with experience. Once all that was done, she managed to disengage the airlock and pull away.