The next day, Dad took me to the hospital, or rather, the small office with its own entrance staffed by a med-tech or two, responsible for calibrating chips for new applications. We had to wait a few minutes before we were called up and, after Dad filled out the required information and waivers, I was soon taken into the back by a technician.

“So,” the technician paused for a second, looking at the fle, “Christina it says you’ll get the full unlock for Irminsul. I’ve heard of that one, any thoughts of what you’ll play?” she asked, obviously making small-talk, while directing me to a comfortable chair above which a bowl, looking almost like a drying hood, was suspended, ready to be put over my head. I had to take off my computer-headband, apparently it might interfere with the calibration, so I reluctantly switched off my music and took a seat.

“No, I’ve not. In the last couple of games I’ve mostly played some sort of spellcaster or healer, but now that I’ll be able to go full-dive, I’m not sure.” I answered, while she fiddled with the hood.

“Hm, yeah, a lot of full-dive players love to go into close combat, but you should remember that just because you use the chip to play, you don’t need to use direct control, you can still play your character as if you were using mouse and keyboard, so if you enjoy the caster-playstyle, you can have that, too, without losing the advantages you are used to.” the technician explained, sounding almost a little bored. But then, a huge percentage of chip-applications were recreational and fantasy-games were one of the biggest genres, so she likely talked to gaming-nerds most of the day.

“Close your eyes and relax. The calibration will run through all sensations you can experience in the game, I think they even added a bit of a tutorial to it, so you might enjoy it.” the technician told me, before the hood cut off most of the light.

I closed my eyes and relaxed into the dream-like feeling projected by the chip in my head.

“Welcome, to the world of Irminsul.” an incorporeal voice told me, vibrating with power that I felt all over my body. I managed to open the eyes of my dream-self on the second try and found myself in an wide chamber, made from white marble.

“You were called by the great pillar, Irminsul, itself, summoned into this world to preserve the balance. But if you will be a force of good or a force of evil, that is in the future.

“Now, take your first steps in this new world.” the voice told me and I felt a body around me, still dreamlike, but quickly, the sensations became natural. After what felt like a minute or so, I was able to walk, to move my arms, everything. It felt quite natural but when I looked down, my body was merely a humanoid shape made from rainbow-coloured light.

“Good, good, you can move. Now, let’s see about your senses.” the voice spoke again, and suddenly I felt the temperature around me drop. After a moment or two, I realised that, while it seemed to be seriously cold, my nonexistent breath misted in front of my nonexistent face, I merely felt a little chilly, not truly cold, just enough to give me a feeling of gooseflesh. No matter how long I would be in such an atmosphere, it wouldn’t be more than a little unpleasant. But the coldness only lasted a minute or two before it swung into the opposite direction and it felt as if I was in the sweltering sun, but again, I realised it was limited to a mild annoyance, not in the realm of actual pain.

Next, the calibration went through a couple more sensations, some annoying, like a full-body itch, others pleasant, like the smell of roses. Others, again, I wasn’t quite sure, but my head felt a little light, as if it was about to fly away, my vision blurred, just a bit, and I felt strangely uncoordinated. Whatever it was, I wasn’t sure I wanted to feel like that again.

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But it was obvious that they left the strongest for last and suddenly, a burst of pleasure went through my body, unexpected but very, very powerful. Now, I had figured out how my body worked some time ago, but never like this. A girl could become used to that.

The next sensation was, again, the opposite, it was pain. Not serious pain, merely at the level of stubbing your toe in the dark, or maybe stepping onto a danish plastic brick, but it clearly registered as pain.

“Yes, it seems as if everything is in order. Now, why don’t you return to your world, until you are called back?” the voice told me and the white marble fell away, leaving me in darkness. After a second or two, I realised that I merely had to open my eyes back up and once I had done that, I saw the bit of light below the hood I had on and realised that I had been hearing the shuffling sounds of footsteps.

“And that is done, there seem to be no problems, Christina. Did you enjoy it?” the technician asked with a slightly sly grin, causing me to blush.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s like that for everyone. The programmers know exactly what they are doing, making their applications as pleasurable as they dare, without making them too addicting.” the nurse explained, making me feel a little better about myself.

“Are we done here?” I asked, annoyed at myself for sounding a little timid due to my embarrassment.

“Yes, you just need to instal your application on your computer and the headband, wait for the game to actually come out and you will be good to go.” she told me, before sending me back out.

There, my father was waiting, reading something on his tablet. He grinned a little when he saw me and I realised that there was still a slight blush on my cheeks but there was nothing to be done about that. Hopefully, he wouldn’t say anything.

“I take it nothing went wrong?” he asked, answering my hopes.

“No, all’s good.” I answered and fell into step next to him.

“Oh, by the way, a few weeks ago, you mentioned something about me, looking over the classwork with you, what was that about?” I asked, curious. My father was teaching at the local University, mostly fluid-dynamics for all flavours of engineer, so the idea that I would be able to help him correct classwork was a little strange.

“They established a new course for next semester and I’m helping to design it. I thought it would be good to have a new set of eyes go over it.” he answered, his smile turning sly.

“But I haven’t even finished high school, how would I be able to understand an University-course?”

“Oh, if it was any course, you would have to put in a ton of work to get the prerequisites. But this one is not for highschool-graduates, it’s for people who barely finished or even dropped out of high school and got themselves apprenticed with a craftsman. They all worked in their field for some time and now they want to get a degree in it, that’s why the course needs to be newly designed. A normal course wouldn’t work for them, we want it to be applicable and easy to understand.” Dad explained, making me hum in agreement. It sounded interesting, and it might even get me some contacts to the University, other than my father. I planned to go into a similar field as he was in, once I had completed high school, so it wasn’t too early to think about that.

“If you give me the script, I’ll read through it over the next few days. That way, I can dive into the new game once it comes out.” I explained with a grin, causing him to chuckle in return.

“Just don’t completely vanish into another world like your brother did last year, we still want to see you from time to time.” he replied, alluding to a time last summer in which Jonathan had used his chip to play during his sleep and played some twelve to fourteen hours of his “waking” time as well. It had been almost as if he had been kidnapped, just that his vacant form had been sitting on a comfortable chair and that, from time to time, he had gotten up and gone to the toilet.

“I don’t plan to go that extreme, now that I can play during dream-time, I don’t think I’ll play all that much during the day.” I admitted. Playing during dream-time was one of the biggest advantages of using the chip, giving you eight hours a day during which you could play without regrets. Current advice was to sleep one or two nights each week normally, but even that was merely a cautionary tale, not medically proven.

“That’s good. I think Treya would miss you.” he told me and we spent the rest of the way home without talking, sharing our appreciation for turn-of-the-century music, metal to be precise, something he had gotten me into.