So, it wasn’t exactly a void joe now found himself suspended in, it was more like, empty space that transitioned into an endless grid. It was a room with no doors and no apparent ending. He was surrounded by off-white not-walls that seemed to be present just at the edges of where he could perceive. Along them, a 1-by-1 cubic metre grid formed a pattern that encompassed the entirety of the space he found himself in.
"Welcome to Beyond the Veil, a New Horizon extended reality progression module. This is your creation sequence. Please relax as we complete an analysis to generate your Personal Profile," said an emotionless voice in the generic cadence that had come to be associated with artificial intelligence assistants everywhere. Then, Joe waited while seemingly nothing happened.
Joe refused to be disappointed yet. Instead, he tried to focus on feeling, well, anything. Joe stayed still as the seconds passed and tried to keep his neural pathways clear and relaxed through an active meditation pattern that he’d begun practising once his overclocking had reached above previously explored thresholds. Calming techniques were one of the few things he had left from his father. It was difficult to stay calm and keep his mind from spinning off.
When over a minute had passed (Joe had been actively counting the seconds,) Joe began to get confused. Joe didn’t like being confused. Unlike curious, or inquisitive, confused implied, a rule had been broken, an assured theory had been disproven, or an expectation hadn’t been met. With all the hype, he’d been expecting an incredible experience from the beginning, and he was inuring himself to the fact that this was either the scam of a lifetime, or he’d have to accept delayed gratification. The fact that there wasn’t even an initiation sequen-
"Thank you for your compliance," the AI voice cut into his thoughts as a sudden, tingly feeling started at the back of his teeth where the roots met his gums. It travelled into his head, down his spine, and spread out through his body. At first the change was welcome, it meant something was happening. Those welcome feelings quickly vanished when the tingle turned into a terrible itching sensation, like that month he hadn't exercised at all, then suddenly went for a jog. That awful runner's itch burned through his entire system in a flash, passing by quickly, doing whatever work the nanotech or perhaps the neural sensors were doing. He wished for the boring nothingness again. Whatever was happening left him with the roof of his mouth, and the base of his spine itching and his teeth clenched and bared from the sensation.
"Apologies for the discomfort. 100% calibration is required to accommodate adequate gameplay experience and Drive usage," said the voice that was slowly becoming more feminine and less robotic. Joe just panted in relief that it was over. It had taken maybe 30 seconds, if that, but discomfort had a way of stretching time.
He distracted himself by focusing on his surroundings, what little of them there were. There was the AI voice that had subtly changed. He'd heard of some games that synced up to the things that players enjoyed, playing into their base desires to generate endorphins and keep users coming back, but this didn’t feel like that. The voice had become firmer, stronger, almost maternal. It was like the voice was playing into what he responded to best from an authority figure. Joe didn't know how he felt about that. Especially after the harrowing experience he’d just gone through that had left him breathing deeply as he attempted to centre himself.
That was when it hit him. He was breathing, really breathing. His lungs were moving! He could feel them expanding, stretching against his skin. He rubbed his fingers together, felt the smooth pads against his fingertips. It was at once entirely mundane and completely extraordinary. He huffed out a laugh, his diaphragm contracting as he did, his muscles tensing and cramping in a way that gusted short bursts of air from his lungs to his head and outwards from there. It was remarkable. He laughed again just to feel it once more.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
He took that moment to look around the void-grid pseudo space he'd been dumped into. He would have asked where exactly he was, because ‘creation sequence’ wasn’t a particularly helpful descriptor. However, he assumed some things would become self-evident if he gave it enough time. Despite his research into accelerating synaptic firing rates… Joe was used to being patient. Just because something could be done faster didn’t mean it should be, or even had to be. He was happy to simply breathe and observe, and had often found it to be a superior way to accumulate information. Just let a subject or a situation talk or work itself out. Most times, information was freely given, which was exactly what the voice proceeded to do.
"Thank you for submitting to the full initialization scan by wearing the Veil Suit. The data gleaned in this diagnostic procedure will ensure a significantly enhanced experience for early adopters of New Horizon’s breakthrough virtual reality technology. We appreciate your patience and your willingness to participate in this uncomfortable procedure."
Now that was interesting, Joe thought. Because he hadn't actually known that just wearing the body gear meant he was agreeing to that bizarre torture they were trying to pass off as merely ‘uncomfortable’. He'd read the EULA, and nowhere had they indicated how invasive the experience was. A blanket scan? Sure, but that was mandatory for all hyper-realistic virtual reality. What this game had done was invasive beyond the ordinary, and if nothing else, the experience should have fallen under the international VR regulatory guidelines that required New Horizon to issue ‘clear and obvious warnings for any participating party’. Sure, the tech being new created a grey area, but the types of people a lot of the early Drives had gone to were not the kinds of people who would be happy to let something like this go. Joe knew it, and if the next thing that popped up in his face was any indication, the dev’s certainly knew it.
In front of him was a post-procedure consent form that stated that he was okay with the scan that had just been done on him, and if he wasn’t then he couldn’t play the game as the game tapped into pain receptors. There was more legal jargon that Joe dutifully read through at lightning speeds, but considering ‘real pain’ had actually been a feature of the game ads, the legal document was playing directly to the same pride and indignation receptors in the types of people that would pull New Horizon into court just on principle. It was brilliant, and devious, and didn’t matter to Joe one way or the other. Neither his pride, nor his body were injured. If anything cropped up, well, his mother had him being constantly scanned. Plus, he’d already experienced the itching nightmare anyway. Joe found himself developing a new thread of respect for not just New Horizon’s developers, but also their legal team as he mentally selected the glowing ‘Accept’ button.
“Well played,” he said, still somewhat giddy that he could feel his vocal cords vibrate and hear the words in the air as he spoke them.
In fairness, Joe didn't feel in any way threatened by the procedure. However, he was not interested in any more ‘surprise procedures’, and Joe was happy not to play the game at all should this not be the end. He’d take off the suit, and go about his research as he had been now that he had the enhanced chip installed and calibrated. Instead of doing, or saying anything, Joe let himself float there, waiting to see what happened next.
He couldn’t deny he was still excited about the game; he couldn’t wait to get experimenting. He’d read a beta tester's account of some of the features. Apparently, the tester’s NDAs were extremely restrictive, however, the snippets he’d read were promising.
While there was a storyline in-game, BtV (Beyond the Veil) was built to be a sandbox world. This meant that individuals could move counter to the storyline, in tandem with it, or even just do their own thing. In the review he’d found, the beta tester had written: ‘…unregulated, unconstrained freedom in real-time! We've just found a new playground, kids, and you won’t wanna be the last one in.”
He wanted so badly to believe that he could finally begin truly working, not just on himself, but on everything he was interested in. A new world? With no serious government oversight, no restrictive regulations. No risk of turning a real person into a blubbering vegetable with a misplaced circuit. Nothing holding him back from being able to truly explore what the mind could be capable of. Plus, magic. Who didn't want to play with magic? Who didn’t want to do something truly extraordinary?
“Initialization sequence completed,” said the voice. “Welcome, Joseph.”
Then, he was hit by a wave of vertigo.