Chapter 1: Press Start to Begin

Rain gently fell from the sky over Hendon Central station, which was quite normal in North London, especially considering the time of year. What wasn’t normal was how long the train was taking.

Sebastian threw his hands into the air.

‘Why today?! Of all days!’

He pulled a coat out from his bag and threw it over his red blazer, completely covering his school uniform.

‘Common, common, common,’ he said tapping his foot on the ground.

He was supposed to be meeting up with his two best friends, Sophia and Alister, in Bethnal Green on the other side of London. Sophia had managed to sign the three of them up for some kind of exclusive beta test for a new kind of console.

That had been a week ago.

***

‘I think it’s something like VR, but it’s supposed to be more interactive, and so much better!’ Sophia told him.

‘That sounds SUPER cool,’ Alister said, ‘if you can sign us up, I’d be SO into it! You in Seb?’

The three of them walked through the courtyard of their school, weaving around other students as they went.

‘How did you even find out about it?’ Sebastian asked.

Sebastian was feigning an air of scepticism, you kind of had to if you lived in London, but inwardly he was excited. His family had never been super rich. They’d gotten by, but when it came to gaming consoles, Sebastian had always been a console behind, and everything he owned was almost exclusively second hand. He had never even seen a VR headset in real life – so the opportunity to beta test something that was even further ahead of VR technology was a tempting one.

‘Josh Wiley told me about it. Apparently his uncle works for someone who gave him a link to some website. Anyway, I can sign the three of us up. There’s no guarantee we’ll get in – but Josh thinks our chances are pretty good.’

‘You already know I’m in!’ Alister said.

Sebastian scratched his chin.

‘Mmm, I don’t know…’

‘Common man! You’ve got to do it with us! It won’t be the same if you don’t come.’

Sophia smiled. No matter what mood Sophie was in, her face was always comforting. Even when she was mad. Her dark eyes were like the night sky; and her hair was almost the exact same colour. Sophia’s eyes were beautiful to look at. Calming. Relaxing. Not in a romantic sense. More in a everything-is-going-to-be-okay sense. It wasn’t as though she wasn’t romantically appealing. She’d been asked out by five guys this year, and it was only term one.

Sophia was a little different to Alister. Alister’s red hair burnt with the same fire that fuelled his personality. He had a freckly face and usually always wore a cheeky grin, like he was about to pull a funny prank. But Sebastian knew that whenever he hung out with Alister they were going to have fun.

Sebastian was somewhere in between. With dark hair and blue eyes, he had a tranquil personality but was usually always down to muck around. But he could never match Alister’s confidence and energy, as hard as he did try.

The three of them had been friends since primary school. Life had been different back then. They used to game more frequently, hang out after school more regularly, and they really just had more time to waste. Now they were in Year eleven, and were supposed to be concentrating on their GCSEs. Their year coordinator organised a meeting almost every second week during form time just to tell them how important it was. Sebastian was sick of hearing about Sixth form, and the targets they were expected to hit, and their predicted grades from their mock exams.

‘You don’t have come Sebastian, if you don’t want to. Alister’s right, though, it wouldn’t be the same without you,’ Sophie said gently. Sebastian didn’t know where him and Alister would be right now if they hadn’t had Sophia to keep them in check for most of their lives.  

‘I’ll think about it,’ Sebastian had told her.

The bell had rung a moment later, and a teacher began shooing them towards the school building.

He wasn’t lying. He did think about it. He continued to think about it throughout his whole English class while he pretended to listen to his English teacher lecture them about War Poetry.

‘War Photographer has a cyclical structure. It ends where it begins. The cyclic structure represents the futilities of war. In your exams you can also talk about strong language and imagery. You’ll probably want to compare this poem to something like Exposure or Charge of the Light Brigade…’

And on and on his English teacher droned.

At least Sophia was concentrating, or she looked like it anyway. English was one of the few classes she shared with Sebastian and they’d convinced the teacher to let them sit together because they worked well with each other. Usually that was actually the case, but today Sebastian wasn’t feeling it. All he could think about was a VR headset, putting it on, playing a new state of the art game. Running around. Swinging a sword. Casting a spell.

‘Sebastian?’  Sophia said tapping him gently on the back of the head.

‘Huh?’

‘War Photographer. We’re supposed to be annotating it.’

‘Oh yeah.’

Sophia began talking to him about literary techniques, the writer’s intentions and all other kinds of jargon that would probably help them get good marks on their exams. Sophia was smarter than him. She always had been. The only reason he had passed everything so far was because of her. In fact she was kind of better than him at most things. Writing, puzzles, languages, talking to other people. The only real thing he was better than her at was video games.

After English he had Maths and then Science. Alister was in his science class, but they weren’t allowed to sit together. Unlike Sophia, whenever he was with Alister, the two of them always got into trouble. Sometimes they tried to communicate to each other across the room using hand signals when the teacher’s back was turned. Today Alister keep looking over at him and nodding. Sebastian knew exactly what Alister was thinking about.

When Sebastian got home he sent Sophia a message. Just four words : fine, sign me up.

Sophia did sign him up. And things seemed quiet for a while; like nothing had come of it. But a few days later each of them received a separate phone call; and Sebastian had to admit that it did all sound professional and above board. After the phone call they were each sent a link by email – they had to sign non-disclosure agreements before they were allowed to receive any further information. The forms stated that they weren’t allowed to reveal any details about the beta test to anyone in the public, nor were they allowed to talk about it. Sebastian was careful to abide by it too, only talking about it subtly to both Alister and Sophia because he trusted them and knew they’d received the same form. If any minor detail did get out, and it was traced back to him, he’d probably get sued for a lot of money. He certainly didn’t want to take that risk.

‘This is going to be awesome! I can’t believe we actually got in,’ Alister exclaimed as they strolled around the school yard.

‘Keep it down, we don’t want anyone else overhearing,’ Sophia rebuked him.

‘It’s fine. They would never know it was us anyway,’ Alister said as carefree as anyone could have been.

‘I’m sure they have their ways. I’d rather not end up having to pay a ridiculous amount of money because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut Ali,’ Sebastian said.

Alister flicked his wrist brushing off the thought as nothing.

‘Are we heading over together on Thursday afternoon?’ Alister asked.

‘I can’t,’ Sebastian said, ‘I have a Spanish revision session. I’ll meet you guys there though.

‘We’re supposed to be there by five-thirty. It’s all the way over in Bethnal Green, are you sure you’re going to be able to make it?’ Sophia asked.

‘You’re not suggesting I skip my revision session, are you?’ Sebastain laughed.

‘Well…no…but…’

Sophia was almost shocked by the thought of rebelling and skipping a revision session.

‘It’s fine Soph! Forty-five minutes on the northern line and another fifteen on the central. No problems.’

‘If you say so.’

***

It wouldn’t have been a problem if the trains weren’t backed up. But they were. And now it was a problem. Sebastian looked down at his watch as the rain began to patter down a little harder. It was four-thirty. He could still make it, probably barely in the nick of time, if the next train came when it was supposed to.

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Sebastian was the first one through the door when the train finally arrived, and he was the first one out when he it got into Bank Station. He sprinted through the station, trying to dodge the hundreds of commuters passing him by, and he actually knocked into a couple of them. It was a five-minute walk from the northern line to the central line, but Sebastian got there in two minutes. The central line was always crowded during the peak hours, and he had to squeeze himself on the train so that he was packed in like a sardine, to avoid having to wait for the next train.

Sebastian got to Bethnal Green station, ran up the stairs, tapped out and bolted down the streets of Bethnal Green. The rain was still coming down making; it harder for him to navigate using his phone, as the touch screen was continuously bugging out because of the water. He rounded the corner to the street where they were supposed to meet at five-twenty-nine, and began to approach the exact location as his watch hit five-thirty.

Alister and Sophia were waiting out the front.

‘And here I thought you had gotten cold feet,’ Alister said to him as he ran up to them.

‘Trains…delayed…got here…quick as I…could,’ Sebastian said as he huffed in lungfuls of air.

‘Well you made it on time. We wanted to wait for you so we could go in together. All three of us,’ Sophia said, ‘we hadn’t decided what we were going to do if you didn’t actually come.’

‘Well…I’m here,’ he replied still huffing slightly.

Sebastian looked up.

‘Is this the place?’ he said after he’d caught his breath.

‘I think so,’ Sophia replied.

‘It doesn’t really look like all that much, does it,’ Alister admitted.

The place itself was an old single storey building that looked more like a storage shed than the headquarters of a corporate business. It was surrounded by empty lots, with shut up windows, and graffiti on the walls. This set alarms off in Sebastians mind, and he almost did suggest that they back out, but suddenly the door opened, and a young blond-haired lady dressed in formal attire stepped out. She held a clip board and some papers in front of her.

‘Are you here for the beta testing?’ she asked.

‘Yes!’ Alister said.

‘Password?’ Asked the receptionist.

‘Red apples,’ Alister said without even thinking.

‘Names?’

‘Alister, Sophia and Sebastian,’ Alister spoke for the three of them.

‘Follow me,’ the lady said as she turned and walked inside leaving the door open for them.

‘Let’s go,’ Alister said turning and running through the door.

Sophia looked at Sebastian. She too seemed to be a little hesitant now.

‘What do you think?’ she asked.

Sebastian looked up at the door, and back down at Sophia, then up at the door again.

He huffed and said ‘the worst they can do is mug us I suppose. And this dodgy phone is almost at the end of its life anyway.’

***

The inside turned out to be much different to the outside. It was sparkling, shining and modern, with a new lounge in one corner, and a counter lining one of the walls. There were only two doors, one that led into the building, and another that obviously led somewhere else.

‘If you’ll just wait there,’ the girl directed them towards the couch where Alister was already sitting, ‘and we’ll be with you in a moment.’

Sebastian nodded and joined Alister on the couch. Sophia sat next to him a moment later.

‘See, it’s not so bad. Is it,’ Alister said.

‘I suppose they’re trying to be inconspicuous,’ Sebastian suggested, ‘which is why the outside looks like such a dump.’

‘Obviously,’ Alister replied, ‘relax.’

‘This whole modern look does make me feel slightly more at ease,’ Sophia said looking around at the place curiously.

Sebastion jumped up from the couch and looked over at the girl who was typing on the desktop computer in front of her.

‘Hey umm,’ Sebastian started, ‘is this legit? Like actually legit?’ he called politely to the girl.

‘If they’re trying to scam us, they’re not all going to be like yep, this is a scam. Now give us your credit card details,’ Alister said.

The girl looked up from the computer and smiled.

‘You’re not the first person to be put off by our location,’ she said with a soft tone, ‘but I assure you this is a real beta testing program; and project X2466 is running smoothly. We’re not expecting any technical difficulties. Give me a moment, and I’ll take you to our development team, where they’ll get you started with the game.’

Sebastian plonked back down on the couch and Alister punched him lightly in the arm.

‘See, I told you.’

‘What do you guys think will be like?’ Sebastian asked.

Sophia put her arm around his shoulder.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘but I’m starting to get excited.’

‘I wonder if we’ll be able to play together,’ Alister said scratching his chin.

‘If we are, then you guys are done! I’m coming for you,’ Sebastian teased.

‘You know I would refute that, but you are better than both of us at almost every game that exists.’

‘Who knows,’ Sophia said, ‘it might be co-op.’

‘If it is then I’m expecting you to carry us Seb,’ Alister laughed.

‘Yeah, as usual.’

Suddenly the lady stood up from behind the counter.

‘We’re ready for you now. If you’ll just follow me.’

The lady stepped around the counter and an instant later she was in front of the only door in the room (other than the one that led outside). The three of them jumped up from where they were sitting eagerly ready to follow her.

The door let to a staircase in a musty tunnel that was lit with fluorescent lights. The ladies’ feet tapped loudly against the metal as she began descending. Alister, Sebastian and Sophia followed in single file.

If Sebastian had to guess, he would have said that the stairs had gone down at least three floors. Eventually they came to a small room with a tiled floor, and lit with the same fluorescent light as the stairs. There were lockers on one side of the room and rack of thin grey onesies hanging in a makeshift closet on the other side. The one-piece suits looked like they were thermal wear, but thinner and quite a bit odder. There was only one other door in the room, besides the one they had just come through. The lady made room for all of them to enter, and then turned to address them.

‘If you don’t mind, put all of your belongings and clothes in those lockers. The only thing that you should be wearing for the beta test are those specially designed grey suits hanging to your left, and of course, your underwear. You really should have no other personal belongings on you. You won’t need glasses if you’re vision impaired, or hearing devices; our state of the art technology will circumvent all of those things. And those things are made of stretchy fabric. They’re one size fits all. Just grab any one and throw it on. I’ll give you a moment to get changed.’

The lady turned and stepped through the door that led to the stairs, then shut it so they were alone in the room.

Sophia turned to look at them.

‘What do we do?’ she asked.

But Alister was already emptying his pockets and dumping his things into the lockers.

‘I guess we get into those grey suits,’ Sebastian replied.

‘I guess so.’

‘I swear Ali, if we have to walk back through London in these suits because we got robbed blind, it’s completely your fault.’

‘Well actually,’ Alister said already with one leg in his suit, ‘it’s Sophia’s fault. She’s the one who got us into this. Besides – I doubt it’s a scam. Do you think they’d go to this much trouble just to get some school uniforms, phones and textbooks?’

Sebastian didn’t reply.

Five minutes later the three of them had completely changed out of their school uniforms and now wore the plain grey suits that had been set out for them. They looked like the kind of thin grey fabric that should be worn under a spacesuit. It had been a bit awkward for Sophia having to strip down to her underwear, but she made both the boys face the wall while she did so. When they were done, they opened the door that led to the stairs. The blond-haired receptionist was waiting patiently.

‘All done,’ she said as she walked past them back into the room, ‘are you ready for the beta test?’

‘Yes!’ Alister said.

‘Very well,’ the lady turned to the only other door in the room and pulled out a set of keys from her pocket. After fiddling with them for several seconds, she fitted one of the keys into the door handle and turn the lock. A moment later the door popped open.

The next room was a little bit eerie, but also a little bit fascinating at the same time. It was a large room with metal walls, lit by green and blue lights. It had computers at the far end. Several machines lined the walls, all of them hooked up with wires and buttons, and computers that made odd beeping noises. When Sebastian looked the machines a second time, he realised that the they were actually pods, many of them were wide open, but some of them already had people inside. The people inside the pods wore the same grey suits they were currently wearing. The only difference was that they were wearing some kind of VR headsets with red and blue flashing lights that covered their entire faces. Their bodies were almost completely submerged in liquid; they looked to be asleep, and frozen in time almost.

They weren’t the only ones inside this room. Several people were working on the computers, some of them carrying clip boards and seemingly doing checks on the machines as they passed by. All of them wore white lab coats. One of those people approached them eagerly, he was a young handsome man with short black hair and rimmed glasses.

The blond-haired receptionist turned to face them.

‘This is doctor Charles. He’ll be your guide from here. He can explain everything better than I can. I hope you enjoy the beta test.’

Charles waved at them.

‘I wish you the best of luck with the beta test,’ said the blonde haired girl, ‘but I think I’m due to show another group through in about twenty minutes.’

The lady smiled, walked past them, and then disappeared through the door that led back to the changing room.

‘I…I’m not sure if I want to do this anymore,’ Sophia said hesitantly.

‘I assure you,’ the doctor said to them, ‘that we’ve run many tests, and the games are perfectly functional. Please, come this way.’

The doctor began walking through the room.

Sebastian felt Sophia take his hand.

‘What do you think?’ Sophia whispered in his ear.

‘Well I’m pretty certain it isn’t a scam. Ali?’

‘Yeah, I am starting to get weird vibes. But…I’m still in if you guys are in.’

‘I kind of want to…’ Sebastian turned to Sophia.

‘Umm… if you guys are with me…then yeah. Sure. Let’s give it a try.’

Sebestian turned back to face the doctor, who had stopped several meters ahead of them.

‘This way please,’ he said.

The three of them quickened their pace to catch up.

‘How does this work doctor Charles?’ Alister asked.

‘What you’re looking at are what we call virtual reality pods. They take virtual reality to the next level by connecting to your senses. I’ve never experienced it myself, but from the tests we’ve run, theoretically, you’ll be in the game. Feel the wind in your face and the grass on your feet as you run. You’ll have unnatural speed, depending on your level of course, and remarkable strength if that is the path you choose to go down. We’ve tried to eliminate pain from the game as much as we could, but you still might feel a bit of a tingle if get a sword run through your gut,’ Charles giggled a little at that.  It was obvious that the man was excited by the project.

‘And what game is it that we’re going to be playing?’

‘An MMORPG of course. You’ll all be able to interact with each other in the game.’

Sebastian threw his fist into the air. MMORPGs were his favourite.

‘High fantasy, or scifi. Or a mix of both.’

‘High fantasy. We don’t mix genres here. Look I don’t want to say too much, you’ll all receive a tutorial once you get in.’

‘Sure,’ Sebastian said feeling his excitement suddenly rise.

‘And you’re sure this is safe?’ Sofia asked.

‘The game functions perfectly.’

Charles then stopped walking so suddenly that Alister almost bumped into him. In front of him were three empty pods.

‘Well,’ Charles said gesturing to the empty pods, ‘all you need to do is get inside. The machines will take care of the rest.’

Alister didn’t hesitate. He stepped up and fell back into the nearest pod.

‘See you guys in the game’ he called out as the pod cover began to lower over him.

Sebastian turned to face Sophia. She still hadn’t let go of his hand.

‘You okay?’ he asked.

She nodded, squeezed his hand and then let go. She walked forward, turned, smiled at Sebastian and then fell back into the second pod.

‘See you there!’ she said as the pod cover lowered over her.

Sebastian was the last one left. With a mix of fear and excitement he walked forward, and stepped up fell back into the final remaining pod. The pod cover began to lower over him and then it was closed completely.

‘Please turn and fact forward,’ a mechanical robotic voice said through some kind of speaker inside the pod. Sebastian turned so that he was facing the clear screen at the front of the pod. He could see doctor Charles giving him a hearty thumbs up. Suddenly a headset lowered down until it fell over his face cutting off his view completely. The pod began to recline until it felt like he was lying down. Then there was a white flash and Sebastian fell into a deep slumber.

Chapter 2: The Tutorial.