At 6:00 a.m. the next morning, I was downstairs in the powered chair, waiting in the wide driveway of the hotel. A couple of minutes later, Aurelie came down to join me. I was a little surprised to see the French Canadian woman there I had not spotted her the previous night and assumed she washed out. We exchanged some pleasantries.

Eight military types joined us. Precisely at 6:15, a black van pulled up. It was unlabeled, unmarked. It might have been the same one I'd ridden over in. Two uniformed service members hopped out and ushered the able-bodied to board before loading Aurelie and me in the back. As we set off through the already busy streets of Vegas, the military guy who wasn’t driving passed out clipboards. “These are your NDAs,” he said. “You’re going to be seeing a lot of stuff here that’s technically classified. You guys don’t have clearance — no way we could get you all checked out — but you’re going to have to be seeing it anyway. So the NDAs have some super stiff penalties for violating them. Like, kicked out of the program and facing jail time. All the countries involved in this tournament have agreed to prosecute if necessary. If you decide not to sign, just stay in the van and we’ll take you back to the hotel and arrange to have you sent home.”

I flipped through the pages. They were dense, with the JTF Ganymede logo in each header and small type reading not for distribution or reproduction at the bottom. I made sure I understood, but there was no question I was going to sign. I wanted to know what came next.

I thought we'd be heading back to the airport where we'd come in. Instead, we headed northwest out of town. The Strip quickly gave way to an American-style sprawling city. Parking lot-encumbered strip mall followed strip mall, punctuated by neighborhoods with houses surrounded by tiny gardens, mostly of native rock and stone. We passed one golf course, ridiculously green against the desert, and then abruptly we were out of town. It didn't fade away so much as just cut out, going from dense Las Vegas to abso-freaking-lutely nothing. Mountain ranges rose up on our left hand, sprawling emptiness on the right. I was disappointed not to see any tall barrel cactuses.

We drove for 30 miles or so before turning off the highway into a stretch of desert featuring a tall wire fence with official-looking "No Trespassing" and "US Government Property" signs every 10 meters or so. There was a checkpoint on the road. Our driver rolled down the window, showed a pass, and was waved through. We headed east through the desert.

The passenger seat military type twisted around to address us. "Keep an eye there out your windows. We're coming up on the 7 a.m. launches." A few minutes later, someone shouted, "Look over there!"

I squinted. A glistening silver canister rose out of the earth some distance off. It was hard to tell out here, but I thought at least a mile or two. It had no cloud or flame beneath it, just lifted silently out of the hills.

It disappeared quickly out of my sight. I felt exhilarated and disappointed at the same time. My very first spaceship launch, and it honestly hadn't looked like much. A bloke in front of me was taking a contrary opinion. “That's what's so impressive about it," he said. "It's gravity drive, and it's practically free from a fuel standpoint. It's revolutionizing space travel already and will continue to do so."

"So you don't need fuel to get to orbit?" one of the others asked.

Even I knew that was a stupid question. The knowledgeable space bloke chuckled. "Nah, you've got to have some sort of reaction drive to achieve orbit. Antigrav just gets you out of the atmosphere."

"What's the difference?"

"Orbit's where you stay out of the atmosphere," a girl in the front seat called back. "Otherwise, you fall right back down to Earth. You can't use antigrav to get you up to speed 'cause there's nothing for it to push against."

The guy in front of me started to say something, then shrugged and said, "Yeah, close enough."

We went back to studying the landscape. I saw another ship rise off, and then my attention was taken by a group of lumps in front of us, growing larger by the minute. Desert-painted Quonset huts and Connex trailers formed a small, tan city in the desert. We pulled up to a stop in the midst of a maze of trailers, cargo containers, Quonset huts, and a couple of ancient-looking hangars, all laid out on the tarmac of what clearly had been a runway.

The rest of the gamers jumped out of the van as Aurelie and I waited for our assistants to come and get us and our chairs out. When I was back down under my own power, I wheeled my chair around in front of the van for a better look at this place.

Just then, a helicopter whirred overhead. I looked up, shading my eyes as it came in for a landing on a circle painted on the tarmac between a couple of the buildings.

A gal with a clipboard came out of one of the trailers. She wore a desert camo uniform and a hat with a broad brim to shade her face from the sun. She collected our NDAs, checked that each had been signed, then shouted,"With me, all of you. I'm Specialist Jenkins, and I'll be getting you set this morning. Come on over this way."

She led us to one of the trailers. Aurelie and I stopped at the foot of the metal steps leading up to the trailer. The Specialist hurried the others inside and then turned to us. "We'll be right back with you. We're making accommodations for you elsewhere. Sorry. Just hang on." She disappeared inside, leaving Aurelie and I alone on the bustling tarmac.

I cleared my throat in the uncomfortable silence. "So," I said, "you did well?"

"Well enough, it seems,” Aurelie replied, shrugging. "I am glad to see you made it too, Colin."

And the awkward silence was back. It stretched for a couple of minutes before Specialist Jenkins emerged from the hut once more.

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

"Sorry about that," she apologized. "If you two will come with me. We don't have quite enough transport for our physically challenged participants. We've got plenty of room for you once you're here, but we have to stagger your arrivals to make the best use of our vans that we can. It shouldn't be a problem after this morning. You'll be able to just come to your assigned pod on your own. Come with me."

She led us about a quarter of a mile down the tarmac, past identical-looking trailers. As we went, more SUVs full of hopefuls arrived, dislodging their contingents.

"How many are you bringing out here?" I asked.

"Oh, thousands," she said, waving it off. "We'll work through everybody here soon enough. Come on."

She led us into one of the repurposed hangar buildings. My eyes took a minute to adjust to the sudden gloom after the bright sunlight outside, and then I stopped dead, my hand falling away from my wheelchair controls.

The hangar was full of coffins, dozens, maybe hundreds of them, lined up in eight rows with a wide aisle between each row of coffins. There were lights on the coffins and wires dangling from overhead, leading to each of them. I snapped out of it. Coffins didn't need lights and wires.

"What are these?" Aurelie gasped.

"No way," I looked at Specialist Jenkins. "Are they full sensory VR immersion tanks?"

Jenkins frowned. "They're pods," she said. "We put you in them and hook you up to the controls to make you experience what we want. I guess that's what you said."

"Sounds like it," I said happily. I'd seen pods like this in dozens of anime, TV shows, books, and movies, and I couldn't wait to try it on myself. "Put me in the Matrix now!"

Jenkins' expression cleared up. "Oh, that reference I get," she said, sighing.

Aurelie looked at her with some amusement. "You are having trouble dealing with some of these gamers," she said.

Jenkins sighed. "Yeah, it seems like I'm the only specialist in the whole damn army who's not into sci-fi these days. Don't ask me how I got put on this task force. I knew people in AIT who would have given their eye teeth for this role, but here I am. I just hope they don't try to send me out to Jupiter. Not my idea of a good time."

"So," she said, picking up her clipboard again, "I've got you two here on row seven, bays 58 and 43. We'll get you hooked up first, Aurelie." She looked around, then reached for the big clunky radio on her belt. "Uh, Jenkins here in Specials A. Can I get a pair of assistants? Thanks." She clipped the radio back to her belt and then led us down the aisle.

We stopped at coffin 43. Jenkins pointed at the control panel. "This'll be you, Aurelie. There will always be someone on hand when you check in to help you get settled.” She looked relieved as a pair of large, uniformed men arrived.

"Is it okay if we help you in, ma'am?" one of them asked Aurelie, who looked a little taken aback but nodded. They lifted her gently but firmly from her chair and sat her in the coffin. Aurelie directed them to arrange her legs.

"This goes on your head," Jenkins said, reaching behind Aurelie and pulling out a metal crown made up of eight interlocking loops. It had a band around that settled in over Aurelie's forehead and wires leading off into the coffin.

"Where'd we get this tech?" I asked, fascinated.

“We licensed it from one of the galactic conglomerates," Jenkins said simply. "The details are classified. These pods are being made on Earth, though. I can say that."

I whistled. "So, I'm gonna get to try next Christmas's must-have gift right now. Awesome!"

"Lie back," Jenkins told Aurelie. "The familiarization routine will take a few minutes. Once it does, you'll have control of the pod on your own. You'll want to close it up before beginning anything complicated. After that, only you can open it unless you experience medical distress or it's been more than the allowed number of hours, in which case it will be opened for you automatically."

"What if I get stuck?" she asked, sounding worried.

"We have people on hand," Jenkins said. I wasn't entirely sure I was reassured. Aurelie nodded, and Jenkins gestured to me. “I’m going to get Colin loaded in, then I’ll be back to help you with the connections.”

"What about our chairs?" I asked as we left Aurelie behind to find my coffin.

"I'll have them moved out of the way and brought back when your shift is up." Jenkins said. She stopped at an open coffin. "Here we are."

The pair of burly men repeated the same process for me. A moment later, I was ensconced in the coffin, adjusting my headset.

"Just go with it," Jenkins advised. "It's uncomfortable at first, but you'll get the hang of it."

I couldn't answer because my mind was being assaulted with different inputs. The thing on my head was screaming at me. Bright purple lights flashed in front of my eyes. I smelled roses, then almonds. My right arm prickled, like all of my hair had just stood up at once. Then I felt a deep burning sensation in my big toe. And then my leg jerked. Or it felt like it did. I was watching it, and my leg didn't actually move. But it felt as though I had. It was unnerving, since I hadn't moved that leg in years.

Then, abruptly as it had begun, the assault stopped. I took a deep breath.

"All right," Jenkins said. "I'm gonna leave these guys here with you to get you settled while I go back and help Aurelie. This next part's a little delicate and the two of you are possibly going to need more help than most." She disappeared back down the row of coffins.

The guy in front of me leaned forward. "So," he said, detaching a hose from the inside of the coffin. "This one clamps to your nethers for waste evacuation." It was a big, plastic sleeve with a semi-rigid band around it. I couldn't quite see how it was supposed to go on. The military aide saw my look and chuckled.

“So good news, bad news. It adjusts itself, which isn't particularly pleasant, so it'll happen once you're plugged into the simulation and we'll block that out, which is kind of disturbing, I know. What we need you to do right now is open up your pants and slip it into position as best you can. Uh, you able to do that yourself?"

I nodded. Thankfully, my injury was such that I could manage my own hygiene pretty much all the time. There had been one or two unfortunate occurrences that I tried hard not to think about, but I'd be able to manage this. I undid my fly and then, horribly conscious of the men watching me, slipped the bag into place.

"Now this," he said, raising a thin plastic tubing from the right side of the coffin next to my arm, "is an IV. It's gonna go in your wrist to keep you hydrated."

"Wait, how long am I going to be in here?"

"Up to 14 hours at a time, and you're not gonna notice your bodily cues. You will get dehydrated and you will piss yourself. We'll be feeding you saline, so when you get out of this, you'll be starved. We'll have food on hand or you can eat when you get back to your hotel. I suggest taking up a habit of a hearty breakfast."

"I don't know if I like the sound of this."

"It's how you get through this stage, so if you want out, tell me now before I tap in."

I said nothing. "Good. So, since we don't want to put in a new IV every day, I'm gonna insert this now and then tape it down. Don't worry. I've had medical training. I took the long course, too," he added brightly as he bent over my arm with a needle.

"Ow," I said as he poked me.

"Thought you couldn't feel anything."

"I'm a paraplegic, not a quadriplegic," I said irritably.

"Right, well, that's in now." He pulled off a couple of pieces of cloth tape and taped down the IV. "We can attach and detach you every day. You won't be here for more than a week, so you'll make do."

"Right," I said, looking at the thing with distaste.

"Now, you’re all set. Have fun.” The aide reached up and touched a button at the top of the coffin.

I lay back in the coffin. It closed itself. And then I wasn't in the coffin anymore.