The following morning I was graced with the smell of coffee and the sound of the news on TV. I turned over to confirm a suspicion, and just as I thought, I was the only one in bed.
I sat up so my legs were touching the ground and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.
Today was saturday. Along with sunday I had the day off.
I stood up and headed for the door which was slightly open, allowing me to see flickers of movement.
“Morning.” I didn’t bother looking at my sister seeing as her back was to me anyway.
“Morning.” My sister turned her head to give me a smile as I stepped into the kitchen beside her.
Scooting behind her I grabbed a cup of coffee and took a seat in the living room facing the television.
On the screen a male reporter was seated in an office with bookshelves behind him.
“With the escalating debate surrounding the Abashiri Islands the relationship between the United States, Russia, and China has been on the downhill since February. Just how long will this stalemate persist until the situation deteriorates once more? With me I have Professor Sue N. Aurora to discuss this topic.”
The screen pulled back to include the professor who wore casual clothes and a pair of circular frame glasses. She smiled at the camera and looked at the reporter.
“So Sue, let's get down to the questions everyone has on their mind. Is this going to turn into another Sanjaquh skirmish?”
“Well it’s honestly very hard to say, but the possibility of a repeat from two years ago is definitely on the table at this point. What makes it so hard to predict this time though is we’re no longer dealing with two average sized nations, we’re talking about three major powers in-”
Someone switched the channel and proceeded to tap me on the shoulder, making me almost spill my coffee.
“I was just trying to get your attention, don’t murder me.”
Honestly, sometimes I actually did want to murder my sister, but that’s what family is there for right? Hating and loving someone in a way you can trust them like no one else.
The couch I was on had space for three people so my sister took a seat to my right.
“Catherine, don’t get me started on how vulnerable you are at night.”
My sister held a cup of tea between both hands and raised an eyebrow at my reply.
“That’s... honestly kinda scary. And since when did you use my full name?” Catherine’s voice has always had this sophisticated feeling to it. Not an exact match to her personality though.
“Birth, and it’s just a fact. We literally sleep together so it wouldn’t be hard.”
My sister laid back against the couch but kept her eyes on the television. On it was the news, but more tailored to the sports.
“Aaron Smith. I’m pretty sure if we slept together it would be hard.”
“You honestly shouldn’t make those kinds of jokes. Kelly could be awake.” I chided.
“So? She’s old enough to understand, and she knows we’re just joking.”
“I hope she does.”
A creaking sound brought my attention to my right where I could see the door to the other bedroom opening. Perfect timing.
“Morning Kelly!” I shouted.
My niece walked out the door and gave me a pathetic excuse for a smile as she went and checked the fridge. I turned my attention to the TV and sipped away at my coffee.
Kelly plopped herself down to Catherine's right with a bowl of cereal in hand a couple minutes later.
I looked at my wrist and remembered I wasn’t wearing my watch… or really anything. I was still in my shorts and shirt since I’d rushed out to get coffee. Suddenly a lot more clothing conscious I looked at my sister and niece for consolation.
“What?” Cat raised her eyebrow at me.
“Just seeing if anyone else was still in their PJs.”
Cats lips curled up into a sly grin. “Uh-huh. And your decision?”
I rolled my eyes and stood up. My cup was empty and I had better things to do than deal with Cat’s teasing.
“I wanna have a shower.”
“Oh.” Cat pouted.
Sometimes I feel like my sister forgets that even though I’m her brother, I’m still a man. The only reason she flirted and teased me every waking moment was because she thought it was fun. Plus she thought that just because I was her brother I’d never do anything to her.
I mean, she was right, I probably would never do anything, but I’m no oracle so I can’t predict the future. She’d been pushing the boundary of flirting more and more over the last few years as well though, so things were getting hard. Pun not intended.
I grabbed a towel from my slash my sisters bedroom and hopped in the shower. I don’t need to explain how I shower so once I finished I dried myself off, wrapped the towel around my bottom half, and headed back to the bedroom.
When I left the room I checked my watch. Time? 9:44 am. Not bad.
“Are you two just gonna walk around in your PJs all day?” I said as I grabbed a couple slices of bread and started to make myself a more proper breakfast.
My niece, Kelly, got up and rinsed her bowl in the sink.
“I don’t know, I was thinking of staying home today so does it really matter?” Kelly’s voice was dead flat. Definitely not a morning person.
“Not really, just wash them after today. You only wore them last night right?” Clothing isn’t my area of expertise, but there’s nothing wrong wearing the same change of clothes for a couple days in my opinion. Heck, I do it at work sometimes and it’s never caused me a problem.
“Holdddd up a second!” Cat’s voice pierced the peaceful conversation between my niece and I, and she had on that same sly grin. “Why are you so interested in knowing what she wears at night hmm?”
“It was nothing like what you’re thinking Cat.”
The toaster popped up and I put the pieces on a paper towel. I hate doing dishes so it’s easier to just throw it away when I’m done. I grabbed some jam and a knife as well.
“Mum Aaron was just answering a question I asked him.” Thank god, at least Kelly defends me whenever she’s involved.
“Oh. Well that’s nice of you Aaron.” Aaron one, Catherine zero. “Just stay out of her pants.”
I sighed and kept spreading the jam. Kelly put her bowl into a cupboard and headed towards the couch.
“I don’t always wear pants to bed.” Kelly’s voice raised itself a little but otherwise remained flat. I didn’t read too much into what she said either.
One thing to note is that Kelly’s behaviour around me had certainly been influenced by her mother. 17 years of being with Catherine and however many years of me living with them easily made it such that she wasn’t afraid of fooling around.
At least it was with me and not some kid at her school though. God help me if I found out she talked like she did to me with others. I could control my actions, but others… not so much.
I put the knife and jam away and took a seat on the couch. My toast sat on my lap which I grabbed a piece and started eating.
A few minutes passed in silence before lo and behold…
“I’m bored.” Of course my sister is the one to break the peace again.
“Then go do something.” My solution was clearly very useful going by the sigh that came out Cat's mouth.
“Like?”
“I don’t know... go make yourself breakfast?”
“I can’t be stuffed. Kelly make me something.”
Kelly didn’t even respond and kept watching the TV. I let out a laugh.
The eyes of the devil set themselves upon me, and then my lap. That familiar grin that was starting to piss me off also returned.
“You can’t have it.” I took the pre-emptive strike route.
The grin vanished replaced by a mocking pout. “Aww.” Cat looked me in the eye and put her hand on my thigh, bringing it dangerously close to my groin. Slowly and in a whisper she spoke. “I can have it whenever I want.”
My eyes stayed locked onto hers before she pulled back and that grin returned. I looked down.
Fuck me right up the ass. Half my breakfast was now the property of my sister's stomach. She’d left her hand on my thigh as well, grazing on the bulge that was rapidly forming.
“Well I’m gonna go.” The degree of awkwardness had gone up in more ways than one, ways of which I didn’t like.
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“Where?” Kelly pitched her question at me in a totally ineffective monotone voice. It almost sounded like she really did care where I was going.
“Out.”
“Kay.” Yeah, the TV was clearly more interesting to her than me.
I grabbed my phone and was out the door in less than a minute. So… where to?
Gentlemen's club to let off some stress? No, never and nada. Gym to try get that six pack I always wanted? I could wait a bit longer. Maybe an internet cafe? Yeah I could jam a game for a couple hours, I’d played games as a kid so there was a bit of a nostalgia factor going on as well.
Plus it’d get me away from Cat and my niece.
I took the train to the city and did a search for nearby arcades or cafes. Eh? Normally there would be some suggestions but there was nil. Only the classic words of, “Did you mean: nearby public portals?”.
No I did not mean nearby public portals, but it was more than likely the internet knew what I wanted more than I did so I clicked the link anyway. Bingo. They were practically everywhere. I chose the nearest one that was up the road and stopped outside.
The position I was in felt very similar to the one I would have when trying to pick the right restroom. If I made the wrong choice I could very well be stepping into rows of lawsuits, labels, and slaps.
Yeah that feeling faded in less than a tenth of a second and I walked in. I’m not that paranoid.
The room was a little dim like internet cafes were and the layout pretty much the same, except missing the computers. Instead the place was full of people sitting in chairs with what looked like neck braces crossed over with dog collars. Uh, kinky?
They all had their eyes closed as well and some had on glasses, I take it those were optional for whatever they were doing.
“Hey.”
I looked to my left where a young dude dressed casually was sitting behind a counter and walked over.
“Hi, is this a public portal?”
The guy behind the counter gave me a nod.
“You new to alternate reality?” I could tell this person loved his job. I know that feeling very well.
“Yeah, uh, I was just looking to play some games for a couple hours.” I felt like I was making a confession to this boy.
“Yeah you’re at the right place, follow me and I’ll show you how to get running.”
The boy who will go unnamed because he didn’t have on a nametag led me to a chair with one of those neck-collar things sitting on it. He picked it up and told me to take a seat.
“Alright so I guess all you need to do is make sure you put this on right. Like, you won’t get injured or anything if you don’t, but the connection will be better if you do it right.”
“Ah, what is it?”
“Oh, I don’t know the actual name ‘cause it’s like this really long technical thing, but we just call it a portal. So yeah, you use to to connect to the FAR network.” My eyebrow raised itself without me thinking and it prompted the boy to go into more detail. “Well, I think you can connect to other networks but like everyone plays on FAR. Actually I don’t even think there are any other networks.”
“Cool. What’s the FAR network?” I could just look up all this stuff and probably get a much better explanation than this kid in front of me, but it was kind of cool seeing him get a lot more enthusiastic when discussing the topic.
“Um, Free Alternate Reality.”
Seriously? Free Alternate Reality? I want to speak to whoever names games nowadays. Oh, wait.
“Is that-”
“Nah, it’s not a game. It’s hard to explain but everything's explained when you login.”
“Ah.”
The boy must’ve decided that he was tired of explaining everything to my feeble mind, because he quickly ran me through putting the portal on and left. On the bright side, I didn’t have to pay for anything. Free definitely had its perks.
The portal attached in a rather simple fashion. I touched a button at the front and it unlocked on the side, then I put it around my neck, closed it, and touched another button. Bzzz. Motors fastened the portal around my neck and I laid back in my seat. The most important thing the boy had told me was to ensure the back of the portal touched the top-back area of my neck, which I’m pretty sure I’d done.
One more step, I touched another button to initialise the connection.
Nothing happened. Was the thing faulty? Slow? I got no clue. Maybe I’d go ask that boy…
Shit.
Okay. I can’t move. That’s… definitely concerning. I tried to call out but that was no good as well.
My eyes were gradually closing as well and my hearing fading, eventually replaced with darkness and dead silence.
“Welcome to the FAR network. As part of the registration process you will be guided through an interactive explanation to help you get acquainted with alternate reality.”
This voice I could hear... it was weird. Neither male or female. Simply in between. What would the owner of such a voice look like? I could only wonder.
“To begin, you must consent to information about you being collected and stored on the FAR network for the purposes of providing you with an alternate reality service. Do you consent?”
I was expecting a box to pop up with two options, “I agree” and the obvious opposite. However, the continuing darkness and silence was telling me I wasn’t meant to press anything. This was very much different to all those VR games I’d tried as a child.
Well, I suppose there’s only one other way for me to reply this question.
“Yes I consent- Argh!”
Without a moment's delay my mind was assaulted by sensory data, making me clutch my forehead and collapse to my knees. Wait, what?
My arms, legs, and a few other rather important things had all come back to me, and now I was left on the ground clutching my head, which now that a few seconds had passed didn’t actually hurt at all.
I took note of the fact all I could see was a white floor and an endlessly black void above me. The source of the voice, which was probably just being played directly into my ear, couldn’t be seen.
“Thank you Aaron, and once again, welcome to the FAR network. Information collated from various sources has been used to form a profile on you and render your body. The tutorial will now begin.”
Prompt and to the point. I suppose the company that made this figured out people hated tutorials and just wanted to get into the game.
Ding
The area around me started to change. Things popped into existence and before I knew it I was standing at the beginning of an obstacle course. A box also appeared in the top right of my vision with the word “Calibrating: 0%”.
I don’t need to be a genius to know where this is going.
For the following twenty minutes I repeated a simple routine. Run through the course, check my calibration progress, run through the course…
It was fun. A simple task that kept me on my toes every second helped get my mind off everything. For 20 minutes I wasn’t living paycheck to paycheck. I felt free.
“Thank you for completing the tutorial. We hope you are now acquainted with operating your body in an alternate reality.”
The obstacle course vanished as fast as it’d appeared, and the ground turned white and the sky black once more.
“This area is now yours to use and you are free to join any worlds on the FAR network from here.”
Finally. Even though I enjoyed the tutorial, I want to get into the game already. As I was doing the tutorial I’d actually been fed a little info on the network.
The creators of the FAR network were an international research group with participants from all over the globe, and alongside this network that could link me up to several million people at the same time, they’d made one game. The only game released thus far due to the sheer difficulty in programming a whole world.
Ok, it wasn’t even a game. It was a simulation. A simulated reality that conveniently worked as a game as well. I suppose that was how they’d got the funding? After all, the video game industry had been on the boom since before I was born and it never died down.
“Connect me to Alternate Earth.”