As Octavius languorously awoke from his nap at the end of the lecture, he rubbed his at his tired grey eyes amidst the rustling sounds of book bags, holotops, and good old fashioned notepads being collected. After a brief moment he snapped to complete alertness, filled with panic and excitement in almost equal measure. Panic because he knew that this guest lecture that he'd been looking forward to for the last three months was over and he'd missed everything important, having barely made it past introductions before nodding off, and excitement because he could finally head back to his apartment. He had been so excited the night before because it was supposed to be such a big and important day, he had hardly slept, and God knows where he would have gotten the money for coffee or a stim to get him through the day. Ultimately, Octavius decided, it was perfectly fine to have slept through the lecture, vastly preferable to sleeping through the release of the answer to all his problems.
He glanced around the lecture hall, looking for someone he knew or that would give him a lift home, his ride there having opted out of the lecture to take a girl out instead. When no one stood out to him he shrugged and resigned himself to taking the bus. As he walked out of the hall with his notepad and pen tucked under one arm and jacket under the other, he heard someone call his name and caught a glimpse of a waving hand at the end of the hall.
“Oc,” they shouted, “Over here!”
He began struggling through the crowd, swimming against the flow until he reached the hand. “I thought you were hanging out with Vivian this afternoon, what are you doing here Clint?” Octavius asked, but thankful that he didn’t have to take the bus in the end.
“Well… things didn’t quite go as planned, suffice to say,” Clint said, scratching the back of his head and ruffling his long brown hair in the process. “After we got to the coffee shop and I told her that I couldn’t buy her anything more than five dollars things deteriorated pretty quickly.”
“Of course it did you idiot, did you really not have more than five bucks on you?” Octavius asked incredulously.
“You know it’s not that, I’m just trying to save for that new system that you got, it looks fucking sick.”
“Whatever, can you give me a ride back to my apartment? I’ll probably need to sign for my pod and I have no idea what time it gets here beyond after four,” Octavius asked, elaborating with, “You know how these delivery droids work, they’re only as fast as their handlers.”
“Yeah, yeah, obstruction of progress and efficiency I’ve heard it all before, let’s just get going already. I for one am ready to put Vivian and today’s disasters behind me,” Clint said and tugged on Octavius’ arm, already heading off towards the exit.
****
As Clint’s old beat up Focus pulled into a parking spot, Octavius slid out, stretching his body to its full height of five foot eleven inches and calling a quick goodbye as Clint pulled out before turning around to head inside. He huddled deep inside his jacket to shelter from the cold, seemingly amplified by the dreary grey sky, until reaching the warm lobby of the apartments. After passing through the lobby unnoticed he could no longer hold back and smilingly whispered to himself, “Finally, finally, finally!” already too excited to restrain his excitement.
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Today wasn’t the petty release of some high powered GPU or fresh holo gloves, it was so much more, something the world had been looking forward to for decades. Today the first public shipment of VR pods were being sent around the world and everyone was holding their breath in anticipation of an earth shattering change in the way games were played. Obviously the uses were far greater than as a glorified console, but that was the only aspect that Octavius cared about. All he’d ever wanted was an outlet, some sort of escape, and it was finally here in all its shining glory.
After climbing the five stories of stairs to his apartment, he unlocked his door and stepped inside, not even bothering to take off his shoes before throwing himself onto his futon. He flipped open his ancient laptop and after waiting for it to boot up, checked his order. Only two hours away, he had to prepare. After ensuring that the area beside his futon was large enough to fit the pod for what felt like the tenth time, he decided to look over his finances, something he’d gotten used to after nearly six years of scrimping and saving and working to get through community college and buy the ludicrously expensive VR pod, which he had ordered four years prior. He was amazed that they had somehow managed to complete the product in only four years since announcement, every analysis and prediction read the project needing decades. Even with the hefty discount from investing so “early” in an experimental and frankly unlikely to work VR pods, it had taken him years of careful payments to pay it off. But it would all be worth it.
After ensuring all his money was in order, Octavius glanced at the clock and found that his package should arrive any minute. He took the stairs to the lobby at a quick jog and sat on the sofa waiting for the delivery drone to arrive. In general he wasn’t a fan of the handlers assigned to monitor the droids in the workforce, because as he saw it, why should a program need a minder? It’s only going to do what it was designed for, nothing more and nothing less, no need to reduce its effectiveness by bogging it down with human problems. But in this case, he was thankful that he would have someone to assist him in setting up the complex machinery.
Octavius saw a large drone with a huge crate strapped onto its back roll into the lobby, quickly followed by an officious looking tech with a holotab out and ready to be signed. He stood up and strode over to the tech, introducing himself and reaching for a handshake. Upon being summarily ignored, Octavius said, “I believe that you have my package?”
“Oh, I’m quite sorry sir,” said the unapologetic tech, “I thought we may have gotten the wrong address, this isn’t quite the clientele I expected.” He gave a pinched smile and held the holotab out to me. “Let it be known that upon signing off on your reception of and installation of the patented Lumia Corp. “Virtual Reality Full Immersion Capsule” Lumia Corp. will no longer be held responsible for any and all damage incurred and you will not be reimbursed for the destruction of your “Virtual Reality Full Immersion Capsule”.”
Octavius grinned and quickly signed on the holotab, putting in his biometric data to confirm his identity. “Let’s go and get this thing wired in, I’m ready to get started.”
****
After the long and drawn out process with the inhospitable but efficient tech, Octavius was finally ready to play. He’d already signed a two hundred page plus waiver and received all required operation instructions and documents necessary to begin his journey. All the overhead and hassle had been worth it though, he was sure. All that was left was to hook in, load up the only game ever created for full immersion, Audentia, which he had access to due to his status as an early investor and begin. Octavius opened the pod, wired himself up and reclined, ready to be whisked away.