“Uuuaaaahhhgghh…”

Yep, a hearty yawn could be considered my typical start into a new day. For months now I felt tired, always, anytime, anywhere. My therapist told me that I had too much stress in my life. It wasn’t in me to object. But not because I felt she was right. I hated confrontation or needless discussions. And when you have problems to say “No”, well I got to say; you have to sail in fragile and dangerous waters throughout the day.

Did I feel stressed? Nope! Everything just tired me out. That’s it.

I know I am weak. There are no excuses. An Opossum would show more courage. My way of living with the least confrontations and commitment lead to my marriage as well. I’m not going to bitch about it, maybe a bit.

Marriage felt like going to work or paying bills. You had to do it sooner or later. The only difference: you had to show up with a happy face at the altar or would get into big trouble.

It was over after 9 years, we stayed friends…

We never talked again. No big deal.

I turned around in bed again. Oh yeah, I had enough space for myself. Snow angels in bed are terrific! Are those considered bed angels?

It was my 10th day of freedom. So, what’s with the thought of a typical day in the life of Martin Cline? Was I wrong? Did I feel a hint of motivation, a whiff of a fresh breeze?

I stretched my arms above my head and smelled my right armpit, unconsciously.

Brrr, that wasn’t nice and the breeze felt more like a poisonous mist. I should jump into the shower. I didn’t care too much. It was Sunday and I had time. What a great life!

But, I had a schedule at this last day of the week. I was totally excited and felt somehow like a curious child and was going to sing in my shower as off-key as I wanted to. There wasn’t anybody anymore who could kill the mood with nasty cynicism. Divorce was fucking great!

So why did I seem that motivated? At 10 a.m. a new game would be launched. No, no, no, not any game. I was a revolution, a unique masterpiece. To call it just a computer game would be almost sacrilegious.

“Karma” was a software module developed by Unicode. It was a fantasy world in a complete virtual reality environment. The hardware, a kind of oversized helmet, was part of the retail package.

The full immersion set wasn’t just one of those crappy headsets with integrated display and sound. It was the first mainstream central processing unit that could connect to the brain. It was only known by Unicode, how that thing even worked. You couldn’t find even valid theories for that piece of hardware in the Net. The rumors felt more like conspiracies.

The what, where or why held no interest or deeper meaning for me. The only thing that counted; it would begin soon!

***

It started two months ago. I was browsing the Net without aim and was captured by a big add on some porn site. I mean, it was quite the coincidence that I saw that some gamer network portal would have a hot story and interview about virtual reality. It seemed to be exclusive as well. That didn’t mean jack, but I had to give it try with all the time at my disposal. So GON, Games Online Network, was on! No pun intended!

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

And there she was. What a woman! It felt like my eyes were going to pop out of my head. That cupcake with extra cream was introduced as CEO of Unicode? She wasn’t simply out of my league; she was out of my universe. I guess I was ok looking. But when I saw her I got an instant complex. It was worth visiting this web site just for a glimpse on the goddess!

How crazy when you really thought about it. A supermodel ran a giant multinational software corp, with their Apps usually in all the Top10 download charts.

My now more relaxed savoring of this highlight was just interrupted by some different pictures of the second channel I ran in the background. I instantly switched this to full screen.

“Wowee, wowee, wow!” I started drooling, figuratively. I was absolutely speechless und overwhelmed by the shown scenery and the huge walls that seemed to belong to some medieval city. A monstrous white dragon was the next blow to my brain. That was part of a game, no real life footage with CG? It seemed totally real!

“Fucking awesome!” I already jumped to the chat and asked for some elves in case there would be some around and there was still enough time.

I raised the volume to not miss even a minor detail.

Lilith Anihcam, said CEO supermodel cupcake babe, didn’t say that much about the game. Karma, as the name implied to some extent, should be an important part of the experience. Over all there were no fixed regulations and you could almost do what you wanted to. The environment itself and the societies the world carried would generate rules.

The world you would play in and could be discovered was already five times as big as Earth.

“Fantastic!”

Because of my excitement and all the gorgeous input I felt like peeing my pants.

The immersion system from Unicode and software was said to be available at a reasonable price.

“Really?”

I felt like you could ask for several grant when all the stuff I was seeing so far was real. ‘It better be true!’, was what I thought.

All the additional information and the rest of the video was just icing on the cake. I was convinced. The new religion with Unicode as tin god could start anytime.

By the way: I would marry again if Lilith Anihcam would be the bride! Was that love at first sight? Or had I just experienced a hormonal disorder?

What was going in the last days and weeks? Yeah right, I was working and paid the bills. Beside the obvious I was plowing through the Net for information and news about Karma. Nothing!

Only Unicode’s separate Karma web site had some info, but no too much. What was wrong with all the insider blogs and important shitheads who knew usually weeks in advance which coffee were cold first and which fart caused a setback in the development of the newest game?

Time was ticking! Was it 10, yet?