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28 MINUTES LATER

NeXus Cafe, Chicago, IL

Friday, July 11th

“Calm down, everyone!” Shaun Sr. shouted over the almost two-hundred people crowded around the cafe’s lounge.

“After creating your character, make sure you find Jonathon, Jr. or Julie. We will try and organize everyone as fast as possible for the various tasks once we know what we’re dealing with. If you’re not going to be a team player, please leave now. I have a waitlist of those who are biting at the bit to play Outbreak with our group.” Shaun Sr. said in a lower voice once everyone got quiet.

The NeXus FIVR cafe was a hive of excitement. In less than an hour, they would be logging into Outbreak. Everyone would be playing for twenty-four-hours inside Outbreak during each eight-hour session every night. The new upgrades Shaun had installed into their now hundred-ninety-two capsules would allow everyone to experience the full spectrum of senses in their games, as well as experience the time compression technology available in Outbreak.

Shaun Sr. had set up a signup list for Outbreak on the cafe’s intranet. Everyone currently here had opted to prepay a week’s time in advance to join the group. The only exceptions were the chippers who had their Neurolink Delve Implant already. The chippers would be using cots to sleep while they delved into Outbreak.

Shattered Helix had hinted at rewards for the winning groups in each of the fifty regions, getting everyone in the cafe excited to be the group who won. They would be one of the larger groups getting organized for Outbreak. They made sure to tell everyone in the Chicagoland area that if they wanted to join them, they could. The stipulation was they had to get to their base from where they would spawn in and follow their rules.

[I’m still upset that I can’t play with you, Kyle. I can’t even log into Fantasy while you’re in Outbreak. I was hoping to teach Than’ro my Fast-Ball Special before we logged in and started traveling north.]

“Yea, I can understand your frustration, Bob. You never know what they’re going to do with the game. I mean, there aren’t many AIs right now who can say they play games.”

[You're correct. I’ll be here if you need my help.]

Everyone in the cafe sat around talking and guessing what would happen when they finally logged into Outbreak. The time slowly crawled forward until it was five minutes to launch. The assembled players then finished talking, eating, and drinking before heading to their assigned capsule for the evening. Shaun Sr. and Jr. helped everyone into their pods, ensuring everything worked for each user. With the help of Terica, father and son settled into their capsules. She would be the sole attendant for the cafe every night, as Terica wanted nothing to do with zombies.

Kyle McCoy, and the five who had their delve chips, went into the back office to get comfortable on the provided cots. Laying his head on the pillow and kicking his shoes off, Kyle mentally initiated his delve, bringing him to his MicroWorld.

Not seeing the new monolith under his pavilion, he walked into his Japanese style modern house and found his AI, an orange and white Persian cat sitting on the couch watching Stargate SG-1 and eating popcorn.

“I don’t think anyone would believe me if I told them my AI spends all of his time watching TV inside my MicroWorld.”

Bob, the cat, looked over at Kyle, now Flea the Gnome, and shrugged, causing the Gnome to laugh.

“Well, you enjoy your TV. I’m going to go murder me some zombies.”

Flea walked back out onto his massive deck and over to the pavilion. The Gnome had to wait just another minute before a large grey monolith materialized next to Fantasy’s shiny-black standing stone. Walking up to it, he could see what looked like hundreds of cracks in the grey stone, with some of the corners missing and chipped. Carved into the stone’s center above the dark red door was the word Outbreak, with what looked like neon yellow liquid dripping from a couple of the letters.

Flea tentatively reached for the door handle, opened it, and walked through. Coming to the other side, he found himself immediately growing back into his human form. Looking around, the bright white room he found himself in seemed to be a padded room for people with mental health conditions. To his right was a single tall mirror. Kyle also noticed there was no exit door in the room.

Well, I guess they have a thing for mirrors for their character creation.

Walking over to the mirror, Kyle was not surprised to see himself in it. Tapping its surface, he found it was, in fact, the character’s customization system. At first, he was surprised to find he could only change the hair on his head and face. It soon occurred to him; Shattered Helix wanted people to play as themselves for this game. Kyle decided to keep everything the same except dying his hair a royal purple.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Kyle sat with his back against the padded wall and waited for the remaining twenty-eight minutes to tick away. Shaun Sr. said everyone had thirty minutes to finish their characters’ customization, and much to his chagrin, it took him less than two. As the time finally hit the thirty-minute mark, the mirror changed into a door and opened into a bright light.

“And away we go!”

Kyle stepped into the light and found himself in the park behind the cafe. Looking around, he was shocked at how the game looked so much like the real world. Of course, the one big difference was the city of Chicago was dead. The usual sounds of the city couldn’t be heard around him. It was an eerie experience.

Before he could ponder more on the subject, someone materialized fifty feet in front of him and then immediately another fifty feet to his right. Looking around now, Kyle recognized most of the people porting in were players from the cafe. One of them began to run towards the back of the cafe, and people started to follow.

Five minutes later, many of the players were now inside the NeXus. The inside itself looked nothing like Kyle had expected it to be. Instead, the walls were a plain light grey, with no furniture and none of the capsules or other hardware. The entire building was just an open space.

“Oh my god. Everyone, come outside and look!” someone yelled.

Following the mass of players outside, Kyle looked up to where people were pointing. Most of the eastern sky was dominated by a large planet. Some smaller planets also dotted the heavens.

“Is that Mea?” someone said behind Kyle.

“Is this the Earth they showed in the Fantasy trailer?” another person asked.

That would be a safe bet. Kyle thought.

The group sat around talking. No one could see any zombies or figure out what the game wanted them to do next. Thirty minutes passed before a ringing in Kyle’s ears got his attention. A prompt popped up a foot in front of him, hanging in the air as they did in Fantasy.

Welcome to Outbreak!

You have one hour to find other survivors and create a group. The group leader will gain 100 AP and a single territory claim token. The leader must claim the group’s territory within the hour limit. Once the territory is claimed, your group has three additional hours to find supplies.

At the end of those three hours, the first event begins the outbreak.

In a few moments, Kyle got a prompt asking to join the ‘NeXus’ group by Shaun Sr. It took the man almost twenty minutes to get everyone in the area into their group. Once everyone seemed to be sorted, Senior went inside the cafe to claim the territory.

The group ‘NeXus’ has claimed the territory ‘43,752.’

Your leader has renamed territory ‘43,752’ to ‘The NeXus.’

NeXus has 2:59:57 to find supplies.

Kyle watched as the timer slowly ticked down. Senior immediately started organizing people into groups, with orders to go out and find supplies. Waiting around for a few moments, Senior spotted him and beckoned the teen over.

“Ok, Kyle. You, Junior, and Julie grab a few people and scout the area. Find out what’s different around here, and if there are any special locations or even anything that catches your notice.”

“Alright, we can do that,” Kyle responded.

Kyle and Junior grabbed two people each, growing the group to seven, and then headed out.

“What are we looking for, Kyle?” asked Julie.

“Honestly, not sure. I’d hazard a guess we are trying to find anything out of place. Like a building or structure that shouldn’t be there or is different from the ones in real life,” Kyle said.

“You mean like that shack over there?” said one of the guys tagging along.

Kyle looked to where the new guy had been pointing, and there next to the taco joint was a large wooden shack. The small structure reminded him of the old retail kiosks, some of which still existed as landmarks in the city. A cloaked person stood behind the counter. Drawing even closer, they could see a plethora of familiar items and guns behind the man.

“Ah, my first customers!” the man said with a toothy grin.

“What do you trade for?” asked Kyle.

“Cores, and only cores.”

“Where do cores come from?” asked Junior.

“Anything alive...or undead,” he grinned as he said it.

“Thank you for your time. We’ll be back soon,” said Kyle.

“Yeah...that wasn’t creepy at all,’ commented Junior once they were out of earshot.

The group left the shack and continued to walk down the street. Around them, other small parties from their group were ducking into each building and coming out a few moments later empty-handed. Kyle’s group had barely made it to the corner when they heard some shouting from ahead. One of the scavenger teams on the next block were yelling for everyone to come help collect supplies.

Drawing closer, Kyle looked into the local convenience store and saw it was filled with stocked shelves. On each, food, as well as other items, lined them. A few of the others found bags and started filling them with the supplies, then carrying them off towards the NeXus.

“Alright, guys, let’s keep scouting. If we find other stores like this, we’ll send someone back with the location,” said Kyle.

The team would walk down two blocks, then down the next set of two making a sweeping pattern through the streets. They found one other store with items in it and sent one of the random guys to report its location. They had just begun walking down the next two blocks when Julie squealed and ran off.

Running to catch up with her, they watched as she bent down in front of a truck tire on the side of the street. Standing up and turning around, they could see she held a white kitten that looked half dead.

“Aww, look at him, Shaun. He’s nothing but skin and bones. We need to find some food and water for him,” said Julie.

“It’s just a cat inside a video game. How did you even see him?” said Shaun.

“I saw him pop his head up for a sec... OWW!” Julie yelped as she let the cat go.

The cat hit the pavement and ran into an alley; no one bothering to follow.

“He scratched my arm really good. Damn, that hurt. The sensations in this game are crazy. He must have been scared by so many people and wanted to get away.”

“Let me see your arm,” said Kyle.

She had four red scratches going down her arm. They looked a bit swollen, but nothing major.

“Looks like we don’t heal fast. I’m betting we need to find medical supplies for injuries. I doubt we can make healing potions like in Fantasy,” said Kyle.

“There should be a hospital a few more blocks down that way. We should see if it has supplies before others ransack it,” said Shaun.

“That’s a good idea. Let’s head there now. I know we haven’t seen any yet, but keep an eye out for any kind of vehicle. That’s going to help us out with the time limit.”

The group of six began walking towards the hospital, still peeking into every building as they went.