The week passed in a blur, with Alex mostly spending time trying to imagine what his new work would be like. Actually, that wasn't quite true - he was mostly helping his mother in the garden whilst imagining what he would be doing. In her own words:

"You don't help enough as it is, and now it's the summer holidays and your work hasn't started yet you have no excuse not to help."

And so he became Alex, Destroyer of Weeds.

Chris had fulfilled his promise of compensation in the form of a bike chained to his gate, though the key came the next day in the post causing a certain amount of confusion, so Alex was able to travel to work using his preferred means of transport, leaving him in front of the gate of the industrial complex he had been just a week prior.

"Welcome, Alexander. Chris has been notified of your arrival."

Startled by the unexpected noise, Alex took a look at his surroundings but was unable to find the source of the feminine voice, concluding that there must have been some speakers. But where? There were none of the usual signs, such as perforations. Alex shrugged, deciding to add it to the growing list of Midnight's curiosities as he had spotted Chris walking towards him. He took in a deep breath, suppressing his excitement and nerves, before stepping through the gate that had just opened, seemingly by itself, and greeted Chris.

"Good morning! What will I be doing today?" Alex asked curiously.

"We'll start off with some testing, and if all goes well hopefully we can get right to it!" Chris replied with a smile, before walking back towards the building he came from.

"Great!" Alex exclaimed with a grin. Did he come across as too eager? He hoped not. "Do you mind if I ask some questions?"

"Sure, go ahead."

"Last time I was here you mentioned that the game I will be testing aims to feel real. How is that feasible with the processing power that would take? You would have to be simulating billions of points and their interactions, so wouldn't that be too costly in terms of energy usage?"

For a moment Chris seemed surprised by the question before he smiled confidently, "A great question! I won't bore you with the details, partially because I doubt I am allowed to but have you ever heard of a wetware computer?"

Alex shook his head.

"Well, they can be considered 'organic' - that's to say that they use living neurons. We have found that they can be both considerably quicker at processing as well as more energy-efficient than the conventional transistor-based computers. It's just a shame that the conditions for operations are... difficult to maintain without specialised equipment, so it is unlikely to become widespread anytime soon."

Alex quickly shut his mouth, having realised it had been hanging open. Biology had never been his strongest science, but he had never even imagined that this could be possible. How would you program it?

Chris must have seen the look on his face, giving a short laugh, "I'm glad you're impressed, many hours of work from very talented people have gone into this! I'm afraid I'm unable to tell you more, perhaps in the future?"

Was he hinting at the opportunity for further employment? Alex took a moment to calm himself, doubt starting to creep in. Maybe he was just reading too much into this?

"Here we are!" Chris spoke as they arrived at a familiar door, swiping his card to unlock it before stepping through.

Alex followed him through, before pausing to reacquaint himself with the surroundings. The room had undergone a dramatic change since his visit the week before; whilst it had kept the bare white walls, the concrete floor, previously bare, was now covered in wires leading to the pod in the centre of the room and to several monitors occupying a desk beside it, a new addition.

Chris strode forward, placing himself at the desk before speaking. "Shall we begin?" He asked, tapping away at a keyboard.

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Navigating through the maze of wires, Alex nodded.

"Ah, I must apologise for the mess. Cable management has never been a strong suit of mine," Chris said, having noticed his plight. After a moments pause, he spoke again "Here we go."

At his words cracks appeared on the pod, before it opened, reminding Alex of a flower. Or maybe he'd just spent too much time helping in the garden, and in reality, it looked nothing like one. Not that it was important.

"I have to get in that?" Alex asked, eying the red-tinted gel that filled the pod suspiciously, "Also, why is it red? Not that I mind, since red is, of course, the best colour."

"I'm glad we agree there! The colour is actually just added for the aesthetics, and yes, you will have to get in that. The gel contains silver particles that will form millions of connections to your body, which are necessary to transmit the data to and from what we are calling DR, Digital Reality, which the game will use to provide the realism we promise, so there is no escaping the gel!" Chris said, chuckling, "Oh, and by the way, you'll have to remove your clothes so the connections can be formed properly."

"Can I at least have some privacy whilst I take my clothes off?" Alex asked, overcoming his reluctance. This was for science!

"Sure, sure!" Chris said before leaving the room.

Soon after, Alex stood in front of the pod in all his glory, wondering how he should get in. That led to him climbing in feet first... before the rest of him came crashing down into the gel, face included. He had been utterly unprepared for the lack of resistance. Lifting his arm slowly he met the resistance he expected. But if he suddenly increased the amount of force... then the resistance abruptly vanished! Well, not completely, but certainly enough to catch him off guard, it seemed. Another thing to add to the list... At least this mystery gel was opaque enough to protect his modesty. And it was warm, which was always a bonus.

A knock at the door broke the silence. Was that Chris?

"I'm done!" Alex half-shouted.

"Good," Chris said as he entered. "Now close your eyes and submerge yourself. Don't hold your breath, the gel will provide the oxygen and remove the carbon dioxide for you - it's perfectly safe."

Following his instructions, Alex lay back, only to surface a moment later spluttering and coughing.

"Try again, but this time relax. Don't worry about it, that will just make it worse."

This time everything went smoothly, though it was rather uncomfortable letting the gel into his lungs. Fortunately, it was barely noticeable once it was finished.

"Now just relax, it will st..."

He was suddenly standing in a white room. White walls, white floor, white ceiling, with no texture at all. It was rather odd: he knew he was lying down in a pod with his eyes closed, yet he could clearly see a white room; he felt like he was standing up but he couldn't feel the floor beneath his feet; and, above all, he could move, even though he should be restricted to the inside of the pod. He walked to the wall on his right and put his hand against it. It was just like the floor: he could see it, and he couldn't push past it as you would expect from a wall, yet he couldn't feel anything from it - it wasn't smooth or rough, it was just there. How odd.

"Good, it seems everything is in order! Let's load in the environment," Chris' voice sounded out, seemingly from the ceiling.

Suddenly the floor turned grey, and now he could feel the roughness on his bare feet! The walls stayed white, but now they didn't look quite so smooth... Wasn't this the room the pod was in, just with nothing in it? The air even felt slightly cold against his skin!

"So, what do you think of this Alex?" Chris' voice asked.

"This is amazing!" Alex exclaimed, "It feels so real! Wow... Can I have some clothes though? Also, it's a bit weird hearing you as a disembodied voice."

A pile of clothes appeared in front of him, as well as a large monitor mounted onto the wall.

"Is that better?" Chris asked, now visible through the screen.

"Thanks. It's all so... real," Alex said as he marvelled at how the sensations of cloth on skin felt exactly as he would expect, putting on a t-shirt that read 'I <3 Midnight'. How come they knew his size?

"Good. Now, are there any exercises you are particularly familiar with? We would like to confirm that our muscular assessment is accurate."

"Sure, I'll do a round of press-ups," Alex said, lowering himself down.

"It's all fine," he said a moment later, catching his breath, "even the burn!"

"Good, good! Now one other thing - testing increased simulation speed" Chris said.

Was that excitement Alex could hear in his voice? Wait, increased simulation speed? Did that mean...

"Isss eeevvveerrryyy ttthhhiiinnnggg fffiiinnneee?" Chris asked, his words almost too slow to understand.

"Uh, well your voice sounds really slow, but other than that, yeah?" Alex replied.

"Apologies, is everything fine now? My messages will have to be recorded and artificially sped up to account for the differences in perception of time." Chris spoke, his mouth moving comically slowly in the screen.

"Yeah, everything's good"

"And now?" Chris asked again.

"Not quite so good, I think I have a headache" Alex groaned, raising his hand to his head, "I hate headaches."

"Okay, we'll return to 1:1."

"Thank you," Alex said, feeling the headache going away.

"No, thank you!" Chris said, "Thanks to you we now have a lot of valuable data!"

"But we didn't even do many tests?" Alex asked, confused.

"Not many tests needed your active participation," Chris revealed, "Now, are you ready to meet Felicity and start the game?"

"Yes!" Alex said in excitement. If it was going to be so real... he couldn't even imagine what the game would be like.