Expectant Breath

*Ping, ping, ping*

The sound of a bar code reader could be heard in a monotonous manner. People were buying a lot of food lately. Markets were more than happy to sell so much. Seeing so much people buying all that food and mostly canned food made you wonder if a storm was coming.

And it’s half right, it's a storm, but a digital one. With the news of Full Immersion Virtual Reality, FIVRa for short, there was a global “catastrophe”. People were so expectant for the game, that virtually everyone who could afford it, would play it. And those who could not, will take loans. The volume of people wanting to play the game was so big that the GGA had to make policies regarding playing time and work occupation. They clearly didn't want police officers to not enforce the law by playing a game that they made themselves.

People could not play for more than 8 hours a day. People were raged with such a stupid regulation saying that 8 hours was to short but when the answer of GGA was release, people were flabbergasted. ANBO had a time dilation technology, meaning 8 hours in ANBO was 24 hours inside the game.

There we other policies such as to play the game you need to be clean of major crimes such as murder and the like but they did say that people that wanted to rehab can go to their nearest GGA council to find a way for them to enter. ANBO is for everyone to have fun. They didn't disclose anything about how though.

“March 18, 2 weeks to go”, said an enthusiastic young man by Basilis’ side. “Yesterday my POD reached home, thing looks so alien… I guess this will change modern society fashion a bit, every home will have one!”.

“Fashion, uh?”, thought Basilis and then said: “It does look alien enough”.

Surprised, the young man yelled. “Eh!? You have one!?”. Every worker in the market heard the yell and went to the counter.

“Wow! How do you have one!? Can I take a look!?”.

“What color do you have, is it white, blue, yellow?”.

“Does it plug to the electricity?”.

“Do..?”.

“Where…?”.

“Fuck! Why did I have to say that!?”, thought Basilis with a troubled face.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

*2 Days ago*

A troubled face could be seen in the door of room A147.

“So you are Basilis”, said a man in a suit.

“Yes, I am. Who are you?”, said Basilis while seeing that behind the man there were another 5 guys in suits and some kind of big box.

“I am Ramir. Bonjour monsieur Basilis”, said Ramir with a respectful tone as he made a small bow. “We are here to deliver a POD for ANBO”.

“Eh? I never ordered one”, Basilis thought. “Are they trying to frame me or something?”.

“It’s from the Prism Tech company, we’ve been ordered by Madame Milenia to deliver this POD”.

“What? Let me call her”, said Basilis as he took his phone and made the call. “Give me a minute”.

“Well, can you at least let us enter this POD?”.

“No”, answered Basilis as he heard the phone call ringing.

“Hello Basilis”, a sweet voice went through the phone call.

“Milenia, what is with this POD?”, he said while seeing the big box at his door.

“Well, Bask wanted to play with you and I am lending you one”, she answered with some rustle in the back, seemed like paper rubbing with each other.

“Well you knew I was going to call you, otherwise how would you take the call”, he said. “You know me well enough. What made you think that I was going to take it?”

“Ah, don't worry, you can pay me in quotas”.

Basilis saw the big box at his door aggain. He knew this was a trap but he felt that Bask must have nagged Milenia for a while for this “What a brave chap” he thought then he remembered that It has been a while since last time he saw him. He sighted at the thought. “So, how will I pay you? I know you know I don’t have that kind of money and you sure for hell know I won’t take a loan.”

“Well, I’ll give you a hint”, Milenia said. “I don’t know if you have seen all the information for ANBO, but the money you gain in ANBO can be used to trade in for money in real life”.

“And what about it?”, he said.

*Bang* A strike of a bundle of paper on a deck could be heard “Ugh, you metal head! You can sell what you make for money!”, she said with a fed up tone and angry tone.

“Yeah but I don't think I will make much money with it”, he said.

“Oh for the love of…! Of course you will make a lot of money. Don’t sell yourself short…”,said Milenia with a sad tone, as if regretting something.

“Sell myself short? Does she still feel guilty…?”, Basilis went silent… not knowing what to say he saw the Ramir and signaled him to enter.

“... Just take the POD, Bask really wants to play with you”, she said.

“Right… Bask”, he said as he remembered that Bask told him something. “Is she really going to play?” “He-”.

“Goodbye, work call”, she hastily said as she hung up the phone.

“-y”. A dumbfounded expression could be seen from his face. Basilis told the delivery men to put the POD where it’s needed. A time passed before everything was prepared.

“A black cube… who designed this?”.

“Yours is special, designed from Milenia herself”, answered Ramir proudly.

“So that’s why it looks so alien, pretty normal of her…”.

Ramir had a troubled smile since he thought that this man might be the only man on earth who can think of Milenia like that. “Well Mr. Basilis, we’ve done everything you need to play ANBO. If you have any kind of problem, the POD will give an automatic emergency call to Prism Tech branch office in this city”.

“Yes, thanks for everything”, said Basilis as he looked at the alien like cube. “If you see Milenia, tell her I say thanks”.

“Yes sir”, answered Ramir as he left with the other 5 suit guys.

“Uh… Well, this is handy. Really need to get into this game”, thought Basilis. “Mmm, I will retire from my job, have enough money for around a year since most of what I earned was to save.

“And if I’m going to get into this game… I need help”, he said as he took his phone and dialed a number.

“Brother, want to play a game?”.