I rubbed my eyes, tired. Another scam. I had so little time left as well. I was going to die in maybe about a month, and I didn’t want to die! I was searching for anything, anything that could help me. Cryogenics was useless; my body was already too damaged. I was only 22, I couldn’t die! I switched to my email, Jason’s Inbox. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh. Nothing. Refresh. Refresh. Wait! What was that? I had a new message in my inbox. How could that be? I had all messages going to junk because I didn’t have time to delete all of them. Eagerly, I opened my inbox. It was a message from Infinite Horizons, the biggest gaming company in the world. I was an amazing gamer… I didn’t have to have a job, I didn’t have to pay rent, and I lived in luxury… Anyway. I opened the message, to see it offered me a place in a Beta Testing. Might as well have fun as I die. I replied in the positive, I knew there was no chance of me finding anything. The meeting was the next day and, knowing I had nothing else to do, I climbed into bed. Why? Why do I have to sleep? I have so little time left, and I have to spend so much of it sleeping. I was slowly going mad, I don’t know how I’ll die, if I’ll commit suicide or if I’ll be killed by the cancer inside of me.

         The next day I climbed out bed at 4 am and scoured the internet for any chance of help. But nothing. It was 2037, and we were no closer to a cure for old age than in 2000 BC. Sure, we increased the lifespan to about 110, but who cares when you die at 22? I brushed my teeth, got dressed, and headed slowly out the door at 8 am, although the meeting was at 10 am. I kept on browsing the internet, but nothing suddenly appeared to my desperate eyes. I wanted to do something in my life, become someone important, not just someone a bit known on YouTube. I had posted one last video telling people what had happened and my subscribers had disappeared overnight. At least I had enough money for the rest of my short life. I was a failure, a wimp. I didn’t do anything in my life. Nothing. By the time I had finished wallowing in self-pity/hate I had arrived at the office building. I spent the next hour trying to find which floor had the best Wi-Fi connection, which lead to me being banned from the elevator. That meant I had to walk up the stairs to my meeting. Exercise. It would have helped me to live a longer life, if I had one left. I entered the conference room five minutes later and ignored everyone else, browsing on my phone. This floor had the 3rd best Wi-Fi by the way. After sometime, that was better spent doing something fun, a woman walked up to the podium.

         “Hello everyone, I’m sure you’re all eager to get started, but we just need you to sign a non-disclosure before I can start. If you don’t want to sign it, please leave.”

         I nodded by head and signed without question. Standard procedure.

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        “Hello again, thank you for signing; now we can start on the interesting part. Have you ever heard of an ARMMORPG? All of you here know VRMMORPGs, some have even came to this very room before to join the Beta Testing of one of our numerous games. An ARMMORPG is a so close to reality, it is Alternative Reality MMORPG. We have created a perfectly realistic world, now we need to develop the rules. You may be surprised, how could we create a world without rules? First of all, we have the basic rules, but we need help on developing the rules for love, for power, for knowledge. How you research, develop a town, make someone fancy you. The game was created by a ‘mother’ AI…”

Here she paused for effect as only three AIs were known, and all were in the military.

“… who birthed new AIs from her to create the NPCs, or, as we call them, APC, AI Player Characters, who have the same interface, freedom, everything, of a player. Of course, we toned down the adventurous part so the players had something to do, but they exist none the less. We then made the game progress thousands of years in a day, so that the culture developed for itself. When the time is right, the ‘mother’ AI will birth a daughter, who will create her own world. This is all made possible by own advancement in quantum computing with our quatum servers. Where the game taking place, the world contains, mixed, magic and technology. For example, the gigantic metal Guardians of Zeidtar, or the eternal clock of Endubar. As I was saying. You may wonder why a large group of dying people have been recruited to test a game. You are not here to do that. You are here to live the game. We want to upload your minds into the game as beta testers. Don’t worry, the game servers are eternal, even if all the servers shut down here, the game will have progressed by the time it is reconnected. Also, if you want, you can activate aging in the settings, which will slowly kill you, or you could pray, willingly, you cannot be forced; those who try will be punished, for release. By the way, APCs have the aging feature always on, although they respawn. Alternatively, when you get bored, you can create a character in another of the worlds, to add some variety to your life. I will now let it all sink in, but I hope that at least some of you join us.”

That was an understatement. Everyone started signing, checking, copying, and typing as fast as they could in order to sign up. Myself included. I was very skeptical, but I wished, oh, how I wished for it to be true. After signing, everyone started chatting, talking, discussing what had been said and whether it was true. During the ride home I was so distracted that someone could have stolen the hair on my head and I wouldn’t have noticed. Luckily, that didn’t happen. I was thinking of how much I wanted everything to be true, and for how much I’d sue them when it turned out to be a lie. I stumbled home, somehow took off my shoes and fell into bed and started wishing, for the first time in a month, for sleep to come. I didn’t have to put my affairs into order; I had already done it a week ago, so I signed up for tomorrow. I somehow managed to get to sleep, it was like Christmas but with a near certitude I would only get coal. Still, I had to try. What was the use of having tried so hard to find something but to not to dare test it? None.