CHAPTER 2

Canterbury, England – four days until the Exodus

I sat in front of the VR hub with my hands clutching the headset and my eyes on Luke, who sat calmly in front of his own. We were in a part of the Mayer building that Luke’s uncle, Carl, told us people didn’t normally go to. It had been a testing room for VR tech so it was fully stocked with meds and IVs and the like, but the building was so freaking huge and this particular testing room was so unused that nobody was likely to come in in the next week. That’s what Carl told us, anyway.

We had to believe him. Mayer uses a specific type of technology that means the body and consciousness sort of temporarily … separate. Which means for one thing that you can experience all parts of life through the brain in-game, because it’s an incredible, magical organ, but also that force-unplugging someone who is in-game can have really disastrous effects. There are reports of people who are paralysed afterwards. Completely. I think one guy died from it. It’s scary stuff.

And I have to admit, it’s one of the reasons I wanted to live alone. No risk of that stuff happening. But here, in the Mayer building, they all know that stuff. So even if someone happens upon my and Luke’s bodies in here, they can’t unplug us or force us to come out. They have to wait until the week is up and we come out voluntarily.

But being in this separate, secluded room will mean that it is less likely we’ll wake up back in the real world and be in trouble, so that’s something.

“You guys excited?” Carl asked, pacing back and forth and peering at the screens.

‘Spectres & Skin’ hovered in front of me in the air by the hub and I popped on my headset and looked at it closer. It suddenly looked amazing. A three dimensional splash screen depicting the most beautiful landscape I had ever seen in movies or in pictures. It showed a sloping hill dotted with vibrant, exotic flowers. Hyper-realistic trees waved in a silent breeze and in the background a clear blue sea with dots of faraway boats turned into foamy surf on a faraway beach.

I was going to go there.

I was going to take my shoes off and plunge my toes into the sand, and feel it again. I could not wait.

“Uh, you ready?” Carl asked. “You sure?”

Luke laughed. “We’re ready, jeez!” He leaned back with a grin. “Matt? You ready?”

I lifted the headset, feeling that my cheeks were coloured with excitement. “I’m so ready,” I said. “A week in paradise?”

Luke nodded once, looking right at me. “Shall we try to meet up?”

“Definitely,” I said.

Carl lifted a finger and wrinkled his nose. “Actually … your starting position will be determined by a little quiz. And it’s a good quiz, if I can just toot on my own horn for a second. You’re not the exact same person so you probably won’t end up in the exact same starting place.”

A quiz to determine your starting position? I thought about it, and actually it was a pretty cool idea. I thought back to the scene I’d seen and I couldn’t decide if I’d prefer to be up in the crow’s nest of a huge pirate ship, searching for treasure and dispatching foes, or just … picking apples in an orchard somewhere.

Wherever I started off, I was sure I’d find something to enjoy. Something simple

“It’s like we’re going on vacation,” Luke declared. “OK — is there a landmark we could try to meet at, Carl?”

Carl thought about it. “I mean … your starting location could be anywhere in the most civilised landmass we have. That’s like if someone asked ‘where should we meet in Africa? But … without transportation.’”

“If you had to pick somewhere,” Luke pressed.

“Alright. If you are in the South, get to Dawnspire. Meet outside the spire itself, it’s huge,” he said.

“And the North?” I asked.

Carl grinned at me. “If you’re in the North … well, you’d want to meet at the castle.”

I nodded at Luke who nodded right back. We had it. It might take us all week to find each other, but at least I would have some sort of direction when I got there, instead of wandering aimlessly. And playing a game like this one with a friend, and with full use of my body, would be a lot of fun. I couldn’t wait, and we were only seconds away.

“OK. You’re ready, guys?” he asked again. “Anything else you need to know?”

“Yes, give us some cheats,” I called over, and he pretended to swat the back of my head. “There are no cheats. There is only praying to RNGesus. You might roll well or you might roll badly. That’s the hand you’re dealt. Kinda like real life.”

“C’mon, Carl, we’re only there for a week. How do we optimise our characters to get the most out of it in a short time?” Luke pushed.

Carl shrugged slightly. “Alright, well, I guess you’re coming back out again, so there’s not much harm in a little something. There’s … an extra set of questions in the quiz that I programmed in. It was just meant to be for staff working on the project who wanted to go in, for a bit of a boost.”

“What’s the boost?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“It’ll depend on your starting faction,” he said. “When the game asks you your favourite TV series, tell it ‘the second season of Firefly’. You’ll unlock extra questions. Answer them honestly. And don’t tell anyone I told you that. Good luck, boys. Try not to die. Hurts like a bitch. And put skill into Stealth. Bye!”

I pulled my headset back over my head and looked at the beautiful landscape. The boats had completely changed position, and so had the clouds. I wondered if it was on a loop or if I was actually looking through a real-time window to one part of the game.

Now text appeared under the name of the game.

Spectres & Skin.

Bryson Mayer was a weird-ass guy for calling his his pet project such a weird-ass name.

LOG IN

I reached out and touched it and the haptic glove thudded as I made contact, tricking my brain into thinking there was an actual surface against my finger. I grinned, unable to help myself, knowing that when I was logged in fully it would be sending signals directly to and from my brain itself, not my real life body. It would go straight to the source, and input information in, well, almost exactly the same way that real life did.

I licked my lips and that was the last I felt of my real body before everything went dark and I was floating. The background noises — Luke and Carl and the machinery — was gone, like it had never existed.

Then there was a room, made out of knotted wood with grass underfoot, and a big tree trunk spiralling up through the centre. Branches jutted out of the trunk but were cut short. On one of the branches sat a creature that looked like a flying squirrel, or maybe a Furby, but a bit less creepy.

“Hey!” it cried.

Its friendliness immediately lifted my already high spirits. “Hey there!” I called back. “Where am I?”

“This is the quiz! I’m called Charon. I’m going to guide you through to the world of Ilyria. For some people the big change can be a little bit jarring!” it said. It had a cute voice, but one that would definitely annoy me after a couple of hours … luckily, it would just be a short personality quiz.

And then I would go see if I could still cartwheel.

Other VR had me standing and walking, but I hadn’t felt my lower body like this since the accident. I could feel the temperature — moderate — and the weight of my body on my legs, and the cool grass under my feet. It was incredible. Exactly how I had remembered it. Mayer really hadn’t skimped on this game.

“You ready to get started?” it squeaked, tilting its head at me from its branch.

I smiled up at it. “Sure am.”

“Great! Easy one. What’s your name?”

“Matt. Matthew Blake.”

“Is that what you’d like your character to be called too, Matt?”

It just said my name flawlessly back to me. Amazing. I stepped to the left, and then to the right. Charon’s eyes followed me.

“Why are you dancing, Matt?” it asked. I let out a small laugh. What a cute AI.

“Yes, my character can be called that too.” It was just a week, I didn’t need to fuss around with creating a name … like Vlad the Destroyer. Or Destructo. Destracula. Des … never mind. Matt was fine.

“What’s your favourite city on Earth?” it asked, readjusting itself so that its tail curled comfortably around its fluffy brown and white body.

Easy. “London.” I went to university in Canterbury, which was gorgeous, but London was where I grew up, and I had a lot of affection for the place, despite its flaws. And the fact that the pollution was at the point where oxygen masks didn’t cut it; you had to protect your eyes as well. And skin, for long periods of time outside.

But I had seen what it used to look like in TV shows and it was really beautiful and distinctive. I was confident with my answer.

“That’s a great answer, Matt,” it praised, and I found myself laughing again.

“Thank you, Charon. Would you have said that no matter what I answered?”

I didn’t expect it to have an answer ready for this kind of statement, but the programmers were clearly ahead of the curve. Charon tilted its head the other way before it responded. “Actually … yeah! You’re right, I would have!”

I wasn’t even in the game yet and I was having a pretty great time already.

“What is your favourite Earth cuisine?”

Hmm. “Italian, probably,” I said.

“Pizza and spaghetti? Forgeddaboudit!” the creature said in a silly Italian accent. Who had programmed this little thing? Carl? Charon was such a random feature to have. It could have just been floating white text on a black backdrop but this whole interaction added so much and hinted at what was to come.

“In a crowd, do you like to stand out? Or blend in?”

I couldn’t help but think about the metagame. Was this going to lead to my class? Almost definitely. I was sure a hack and slash character would answer the first way, and a sneaky archer might answer the second way. I had literally no idea which kind of character I wanted to be, though, so I just answered truthfully.

“I like to stand out if it’s positive, Charon,” I said. “If it’s negative attention, I’d really rather not be seen at all.” I knew it would be too complicated for the game, but I wanted to know what other phrases they had programmed the little squirrel-imp to say to me.

“Oh, Matt, that’s pretty understandable,” it said. “I’m not a fan of negative attention either. I don’t think you’re alone in that. OK, next question.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Wait, hang on, you don’t … just speak in stock phrases?”

“What’s a stock-phrase?”

That was a fairly normal thing to programme in for if the AI didn’t have an answer for a question, but something about its cadence made me wonder.

“A stock phrase is something a programmer asked you say to respond to me, and you can’t say anything else.”

“Oh, the creators? I wouldn’t talk about the creators when you get into the main game, Matt, only I know about them, after all. And they didn’t programme stock-phrases into me. They just sorta made me talk! And I love talking!”

I was taken aback. I had thought it was an advanced AI, but I hadn’t realised how advanced. It could just … hold a conversation?

“Are all NPCs like you?”

“Again, don’t say words like ‘NPC’ in the game, OK? They won’t know what you mean. And yeah, they can all talk to you like people talk to each other. The creators called it OI, instead of AI. It’s Organic Intelligence! Isn’t that cool? I don’t know what it means.”

I blinked a couple of times.

“Next question is: what’s your favourite animal?”

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

“Dog,” I answered quickly.

“Quickfire! I like it! What is your dream career?”

I thought about it. “Programmer, I guess.”

“I’ve been told they’re great people!” I laughed again. “If you found a wallet on the street with a loooaaad of money in it, and the address to return it was right across the street, what would you do? Be honest, now!”

I thought about it honestly. “Yeah … I’d return it.”

“With the money?”

I looked down at my feet in the grass. “Man, I don’t know. If it was a little, then I don’t think so. But if it was a lot … maybe I wouldn’t be able to resist.”

“Cool, Matt, it’s great chatting with you. A couple more. What’s your favourite weather?”

“Mild, warm, sunny?”

“And what’s your favourite season of TV?”

I swallowed. “The … second season of Firefly?”

Charon blinked its huge eyes at me and was a bit taken aback. “For real?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. “Yes?”

“Oh, that’s pretty interesting is all. Hey, one more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“You must be powerful and wrong, or weak and ethical.”

I waited. “Charon?” I prompted, but the creature was looking off into the distance. I clicked my fingers, and it looked back at me. “What’s the question? Is that it?”

“Sort of,” it said. “Do you pick one?”

Powerful and wrong, or weak and ethical. “Do I have the opportunity to become strong if I start weak?” I asked.

“Oh, pretty good answer,” it chirped. “OK, you’re ready to go to Ilyria! I think you should start off in the South.”

The South. All I had to do was make my way to some spire and maybe Luke would be there too? This game was already pretty exciting, and I couldn’t wait to play through it in a small party. We could choose to complement each other’s play styles and we’d probably advance faster. And time was of the essence if we wanted to see as much of the game as we possibly could over a week.

A week. It already felt so short.

“The stretch of verdant lowlands in the South of Ilyria is called the Veldt. The capital is Dawnspire. The rest is up to you to figure out. You can log out at any time during your first week, and there will be a timer telling you when your time is about to run out. If you miss it, you’re a lifer! Any questions?”

I struggled to think of any specific questions. “Is … fighting and levelling up kinda self-explanatory?” I asked.

“Yeah, don’t worry about a thing, Matthew Blake!” Charon sang. “I can already tell you’ll do great!”

The chirpy voice faded as the world turned black again, and I already missed the creature a little. The world was going to be a huge and intimidating place until I got a couple of levels under my belt, I was pretty sure about that. Especially since there were multiple starting areas. The enemies would be pretty varied.

Then the blackness faded and I heard a chorus of birdsong as bright green plantlife and pink flowers slowly came into focus, right in front of my face.

It was already all so beautiful.

How could a false reality be so much more perfect than the reality I had known my whole life? Every other VR programme I’d run through was not a patch on this, already, and all I could see now was a collection of bushes.

But the way everything moved. The breeze calling up goosebumps on my flesh. None of it seemed in any way fake.

I could already tell that waking up back in that anteroom in the Mayer building was going to be a shock to my system. Can one be disappointed to death?

I realised quickly that I was sitting in a half-crab position, with my palms behind my butt, splayed onto the cool grass. I picked up a green blade and rolled it between my fingers, feeling the sensation of its damp freshness. The grass on Earth was crisp and dull-coloured. I felt tears threaten to spring to my eyes. Even the single greatest experience I had had to date — The Afterlife — had nothing on this, and I hadn’t even started yet.

I got to my feet and looked around. I was in the capital of the South, Charon had said. I wiped my damp hands on my sackcloth trousers and began to walk. The sensation was unusual, stilted, at first — unlike my experiences in other VR, where I could move my avatar around but couldn’t feel anything I couldn’t feel in real life — but then muscle memory kicked in from the years before my accident, and I was strolling around the sunny, green landscape like a pro.

To my back was a spread of carefully manicured bushes and flowers, and to the right was a smattering of saplings with manure heaped around the growing trunks. I could smell it. It smelled disgusting. It was so real!

From behind me was a sudden harsh, throaty growl, and I barely had time to spin around on my feet when a scrawny canine shape launched itself from the trees and aimed itself right at my throat. I held out my arms and managed to create enough distance to stop the attacking creature from latching its slavering jaws around my flesh, protected by the sparsest of clothing, and then brought my knee up to slam fully into its jaw.

The wolf — at least, that’s what it kind of was; small and wild-eyed and missing patches of copper fur — fell to the ground, but then with a wet throaty cry launched at me once again. This time I was just about ready, having done more than my fair share of combat in The Afterlife, though barely ever without a weapon, and I pivoted and slammed my foot into its ribcage. It cried out, a pitiable yelp that made me wary about other wolves nearby approaching to investigate.

“Shush!” I hissed. “Good wolf. Be quiet.”

It tilted back its head and let out a baneful howl.

“Uncool,” I told it, and took a couple of careful steps back to eye it up.

The creature was so real, I couldn’t fault a single aspect of its design for anything. The way that it favoured the legs on the side that I hadn’t kicked it on, and worked its jaw as if feeling real pain. I spotted a large rock nearby and knew that I could put it out of its misery, but I had a peculiar feeling, especially being in a virtual world: I didn’t really want to end its ‘life’.

The only indication that this wasn’t the world I was used to was the red health bar hovering above its head, already at just below half. I guessed that it probably hadn’t been fully healthy when it had approached me.

But it had no problem ending my life. When it had recovered from the kick, it aimed for my ankle and clamped down hard before I could move, and I screamed. I saw a faint flash of crimson and the red bar in the top left had a chunk of about 20% knocked out of it instantly. That meant I could only take four more bites before I was done for. Luckily no status condition cropped up, so it perhaps wasn’t as diseased as it looked.

I fumbled for the rock, groaning through my teeth at the agonising pain. The very real, very awful pain. I could feel the detail of every one of its wet needle teeth piercing my skin, and it should have been one of the most unpleasant feelings I had ever experienced, but … it wasn’t. All I could really think about was the fact that I could feel my leg so vividly. I could feel all of me. Being here, among the plants and the air I could breathe without getting hazy, feeling real pain in my body … it was like I was finally awake.

The rock was jagged and cool in my hand and I winced and half squinted as I lifted it up and brought it down on the back of the wolf’s head just as it released my leg. There was a horrible yelp, and the hit point bar hovering above it dropped from 40% to zero.

You have discovered a hidden skill!

Improvised Combat: What, swords and shields just don’t cut it for you? I guess a win doesn’t count as a win unless you carry out a coup de grace with a potted plant, right? So quirky.

Related Attribute: WIS

You have defeated Scrawny Wolf (Level 2)

You have gained 15 EXP!

I stood, and gathered myself for a moment. The pain was really intense, and the novelty of being able to feel below the waist was now rapidly wearing away. I needed to find some light healing item or it would take me a while to walk anywhere with this injury. At least I appeared to have gained some kind of skill, though it … definitely didn’t look like one that I would be rewarded by the game for levelling up.

After a five minute walk towards some farmhouses, I spotted my first human in the game and quickened my pace as best I could.

An NPC woman was crouching nearby and tending to some weeds by a patch of flowers, and I walked over, clearing my throat along the way.

“Excuse me?” I asked. The woman looked up at me with big, shiny brown eyes. Her long dark hair was wrapped in a cloth and she was wearing dirty, sparse clothing. She dipped her head slightly at me as I approached, in what seemed like a sign of respect, and instinctively I returned it, which seemed to unsettle her. “Could you tell me exactly where I am?”

“Brother?” she asked, her eyebrow twitching. I frowned deeply at her. I was someone’s brother in this game? That would be … interesting, I supposed?

“I’m your brother?” I couldn’t help but ask.

Her eyes glittered momentarily as she tried not to laugh, but then she threw back her head and laughed. “No, you are not my brother. From the symbol around your neck I thought you were a Brother of the Collective. Are you not? Are you a thief?”

“Oh.” I traced a hand down from my neck to my chest and felt the cold hardness of a bronze pendant, which I fished out and peered at. It was a fair-sized circle, and the top half was a half-circle disappearing upwards, with a peak underneath breaking through it. I squinted at it for a moment, and then I realised that I knew nothing about my own character.

Rookie mistake.

The personality quiz was supposed to have decided the basics about the character I’d start off with — the skills I was more likely to lean towards and the play style I might want to try. Right? I wasn’t sure how the questions I’d answered were going to work to achieve that, but if I trusted anyone to provide a good gaming experience, it was Bryson Mayer.

“Sorry, excuse me for a moment,” I said, and stepped away again. Amused, the NPC (Charon was right: the word really didn’t seem respectful or appropriate when it came to this woman … and presumably all of the other characters in this astonishing new world) smiled and shook her head, going back to the weeding.

I knew the most likely command since I had spent an inordinate amount of time playing Mayer’s last game, so when I wanted to bring up my character sheet I just concentrated briefly and swiped my hand through the air where I wanted it to appear.

A hovering screen flickered quickly into view and I was glad I hadn’t fumbled for long, since I’d played a similar game before. This game really didn’t give much help to people, did it? Or maybe it had, and I’d just skipped past it without even noticing?

Name: Matthew Blake — Level: 1 — Progression: 15%

Race: Human — Specialization: None

Faction: Dawnspire Collective — Rank: Acolyte

STR: 12

DEX: 10

INT: 8

WIS: 5

FORT: 9

CHA: 9

Atk: 6 (+0) — Def: 5 (+0)

Alliances:

Dawnspire Collective — Friendly

Extras:

None

Skills:

None

Abilities:

None

Yeah. OK. I wasn’t afraid to admit it: I had no idea what an Acolyte was. But it was what I was, apparently, so I’d have to find out some time. Who was the Dawnspire Collective? I concentrated hard on the text to see if something else would come up, but it didn’t seem to be clickable. My best guess was that the world here altered and changed so much, for the programmers to add in text information for each new person or faction as it grew and changed would take literally forever.

I couldn’t log out to search the web for terms or for guides, because I wouldn’t be able to log back in … ever. And I wasn’t willing to give up this experience for anything; not until I absolutely had to go home, anyway.

I returned to the young woman kneeling in the dirt and I knelt beside her. I couldn’t explain to her that it seemed like, yes, I was a part of something called the ‘Dawnspire Collective’ — which honestly sounded a little ominous to me — but actually I had no idea what it was or my role in it.

This game really would never be accused of handholding, that was for damn sure.

“Hey,” I said, and she looked up at me with a funny smile and then looked back down at the dirt.

“Are you quite alright, Brother?” she asked, but her voice was a little strained, as if she was uncomfortable talking to me at all — so then why wasn’t she telling me to fuck off? Was I trespassing or was she just having a bad day?

“I’m—” I looked around. The sky was a clear blue with just a few fluffy white clouds gliding slowly across. The smell of her gardening was sweet and earthy and alien but … it awakened something primal inside me. It was as if I knew that the world was supposed to be like this. I couldn’t quite put exactly how I felt into words, so I just smiled. “Apart from this wolf bite, I’m doing pretty great.”

Her gaze trailed down my body to the bloody tooth marks on my ankle and she wrinkled her nose. “Here,” she said, and stood to hand me a bandage from the little pack beside her. I didn’t want to accept at first, but she looked alarmed when I waved it away, so I took it.

I bent down and tied it tightly around my ankle.

You have discovered a hidden skill!

First Aid: Don’t trust doctors? Grab your trusty herbs and bandages and tie a comrade, or yourself, back together after a tricky combat encounter.

Related Attribute: INT

Oh, cool! Good to see that something useful may have actually come from that unfortunate encounter with the wolf earlier. It had been pretty unlucky of me to spawn right next to a hostile enemy in the first place, but what else was new? I’d pretty much always been the unluckiest person I knew.

I rolled my ankle and grinned, watching as my health bar slid up closer to 100% — stopping at 90. “That’s so much better, thank you,” I said. Were all characters as helpful as her? This game was going to be a cinch if so.

“Glad to hear it,” she said. “Is there anything else I can do for you?” She still wasn’t really looking up at me, just spreading fertilisers, or something, around the bed of new trees.

“Are you safe here? There are wolves,” I pointed out. She gestured to her pack beside her without saying anything, and I could only assume that she had some good weapons, or something, inside there. “Could you just point me in the direction of the spire?” I asked. “I am new here and I’m just kinda turned around.”

She peered up at me like I was trying to test her, but hopefully saw the genuineness on my face. She gestured behind me, and I turned. “It’s that … big spire over there.”

Just beyond the little patch of farmland, and beyond the rickety homestead that I assumed this woman lived in, was … yeah, a towering spire. I could see it now. It was one of the largest things I had ever seen. Probably, I realised getting to my feet, no bigger than a skyscraper, but when nothing around here stretched taller than a tree … the spire was noticeable.

More than that: it was intimidating.

I took a few steps so that I could see past the farmhouse and folded my arms across my chest as a cooling breeze rippled across my skin, and chilled me as if my sackcloth wasn’t even there. The city gates surrounding the spire came into view, and for a moment I wondered if I would have any trouble breaching the gates as a newcomer, but then I recalled that I was one of the people that lived there. Presuming that this Dawnspire Collective operated out of Dawnspire itself.

I considered for a moment asking the woman still kneeling nearby if she would clear up a few things for me, like who my people were and where their headquarters were, but she didn’t seem to like interacting with me, particularly.

Instead I thanked her and she gave me a cursory nod, and I took off in the direction of the spire.

I hoped idly that Luke had spawned somewhere nearby. We were similar people, after all, so maybe he had answered the questions similarly? Hopefully he wasn’t in the North, anyway. Then there was literally zero chance I was going to find him during this short week, and it would be fun to play a little together when we had so little time here.

It occurred to me as I crossed the beautiful arable land towards the thick, tall walls of Dawnspire that maybe I should try to level up a little before I got into the city, because maybe Luke would be waiting there after all — and knowing his incredible luck, he’d already be at level 40 and have a harem of beautiful local women following after him and giggling.

I looked down at myself, tugging on the coarse, loose-fitting clothing the game had given me, and glanced around momentarily before I pushed my shirt up. Yes. The game had selected my usual avatar: the one I used in every other VR experience. I was stocky and built and my body made me look like the kind of dude who spent all his time working on it. I did not have a problem with this.

When I got to the gates of the capital city, a guard jerked his head towards me from a watchtower by way of greeting.

“Acolyte,” he said.

I nodded back up at him, though it hadn’t seemed to be a question. With a groan and scrape, the gates slid open in front of me, and I took in one last look of the gorgeous landscape behind me: the bright green grass bent by the breeze; the tall swaying trees, and then turned around again when the gates finished their journey.

At that moment, I felt totally ready for anything.