Space is silent. The lack of atmosphere ensured sound could not travel the same as they do through the atmosphere of Earth. You could scream forever at someone just a few feet away and they would never hear it.
It’s ironic then, I thought, as the alarms of damage rang throughout the hull of the ‘Crosspoint’. Incoming fire ripped a hole somewhere behind the cockpit. Close to the port-side weapon mount. The rotary cannon on that bracing spooled down, its electrical feed severed.
“Godfuckingdammit!” I cursed, twisting the yoke to the right and back to bring myself into a rolling manoeuvre as the enemy ship blasted past my cockpit window. Why the hell did I take the bounty hunting job alone?! Damn, Soren was right again. Running on my own with a fancy new toy I had no clue how to handle would get me killed eventually.
I barely had time to regret as the enemy craft, a nimble Aerobraun V-32, pulled itself behind me. Even as I jinked to the left to pull away. Not that it was much help, as the cracks of bullets ripped through the rear of my craft even as I pulled from his line of fire. Both engines were below half power now, and nearly a dozen of my twenty or so RCS thrusters were out of action. I really only had one option at this point as the G-forces pulled me down hard into my seat, as much as the game’s systems would allow at least.
Bringing my darling, expensive, shiny NovaCorp Cobra fighter around, I pressed the throttle into War Emergency Power or WEP. The damage they took meant they would likely burn out after a few seconds.. But a few seconds was all I needed. Lining the ship up with the oncoming V-32, the burst of speed that came out of my plasma-infused engines slammed my fighter head-on into a high-speed collision with the enemy.
The game turned dark as my cockpit was crushed, leaving me sitting on nothing in the black despair of the death screen. A small holographic screen popped out in front of me as I took a deep breath, its white light blinding me for a second. Dammit, why did they never have dark mode on by default in the death screen?
I quickly tapped on the settings tab and enabled it, blinking the white spots of the hologram-based flashbang from my eyes.
[YOU DIED]
[Your ship was destroyed. All equipment stored on board has been lost. All credits carried outside of your bank account have been lost.]
[Would you like to respawn?]
[Yes] [No (Quit Game)]
I jabbed the second button, and the world around me dissolved as the system disconnected from the full-dive encasement system. In reality, most people just called them coffins, given that’s what most models of virtual reality pods looked like. My case was no different, the thing itself a smooth black gloss like that from an executive's expensive street car.
Slowly sitting up as the lid opened, I rubbed the suspension gel out of my eyes and nose before coughing up some of the disgusting fluid that I breathed in.
I groaned, feeling the pains that came from stretching out my real body after a couple days in VR. It didn’t take me long to shower and get dressed, throwing on a loose-fitting hoodie and some casual black slacks. It hid all the things about my overly male body that I hated. The too-broad shoulders, narrow hips, and the constant shadow of stubble on my face no matter how many times I shaved every day. My parents would have shot me nasty looks of disapproval at me if they saw me wearing this, but they weren’t. Instead, I let myself wallow in how much I hated how I looked, pushing down the feelings of disgust for my reflection as I stepped out into the silent, lifeless apartment.
My parents weren’t home much these days, the massive penthouse apartment near the top of Tempurmetrics residential tower. Both of them worked for the company and were close to the VPs and board. That granted them a lot of privileges like such a personal massive space in the densely packed city of New Toronto. The two usually were out travelling or working and had been for most of my teenage and adult years.
I’d begun to start pulling some of the frozen meat in the freezer out when there was a knock at the door. Setting it into the sink with some warm water to let it start to thaw, I went and opened the door to my Aunt. I grinned seeing the tall blonde woman, reaching out to give her a hug.
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“Hey Aunt Lori, good timing. I just got out of my coffin.” I gave a half-hearted grin at her as she hugged back and stepped in.
“Yeah, you certainly smell like it.” Lori snarked, a grin on her face as she tossed my own blonde hair with one hand. Rolling my eyes, I closed the door. Aunt Lori had been the one to raise me most of my adult life, being around more than either Mother or Father had since I turned thirteen.
“I’ll have you know I had a good shower before you got here!” I snarked right back, leading her towards the kitchen to continue my dinner preparations.
“Sure you did.” She chuckled in her low, melodic voice. A voice that had soothed me many times during panic attacks when it had just been her and I. “Any luck on the job search?”
I sighed, shaking my head. I was starting to wash the vegetables in the other sink as I replied, “Nothing yet. Most places want me to have a university education, and you and I know that I want out of here as fast as possible without relying on my parents' shitty make-work jobs at their company.”
Lori nodded slowly, letting me growl out my frustrations about my parents. “Are they still trying to pressure you into that terrible management position in… Where was it again? The sanitary department?”
“Office Waste Disposal Team Leader.” I recited out the job title with as much sarcasm as I could manage to fit into my tone. “Being in charge of a bunch of techs fixing the garbage and cleaning robots.”
Honestly, the idea of being in charge of anything terrified me. I was able to hide most of the anxiety away with the carefully maintained persona of a loose and casual guy, but the idea of being responsible for anything but myself was something I was desperate to avoid. Lori knew all of that, she’d been the one to comfort me multiple times when I’d been pressured by my Mother into being in charge of people for the banquets they held at home occasionally.
Lori rolled her eyes, chuckling to herself quietly at the idea. “Well, I might have something that will interest you then.”
I raised an eyebrow up at her as I scrubbed the label sticker off the natural-grown tomato that my parents constantly kept stocked with their automated grocery orders. I was pretty sure they just had forgotten to cancel it at this point, but the benefit of being absurdly rich was that you could afford to ship in perfect-looking produce. “And what might that be?”
“Well, we’re looking for help in our VR testing department at Fidaela,” she started while putting a hand up to stop me as my expression soured, “Don’t worry, this isn’t a do-nothing job, nor is it a handout. You are actually qualified for this one.”
“What is it?” I asked, setting down my task for a second as I focused on her. What could I do without a degree in the research department of her company?
“We need a new product tester for a new VR pod we’ve been developing,” she explained, pulling out her phone, and swiping towards me on it. A ping from my phone notified me about a data transfer as I pulled it out, looking over what she sent me.
As I got a solid look over the specs of the machine, I let out a low whistle. Most coffins were designed for relatively short-term use, two or three days at most. They did this by having suspension gel inside them that served as both water and food to keep the user alive for the time they were in VR. However, the gel rapidly lost its nutrients and turned inert and gross-smelling, meaning that it was by far not an ideal solution for spending long periods of time in VR. Honestly, the fact that you couldn’t be inside for long periods of time was one of the biggest barriers for the VR industry which had been developing into the more and more realistic. Games were now focusing more and more on creating simulated worlds as full-immersion VR became a widespread technology that allowed players to really become a part of the game.
The machine that my aunt sent me was not that. It was roughly double the size of a typical VR coffin and was completely packed with a ton of tech that I could barely figure out. Helpfully, the plans I was looking at came with more plain text for non-technical people like myself. Most of the hardware was just straight-up top-of-the-line equipment that would be in most coffins, though the inhabitant survival and care equipment system (ISCE it was labelled) was what took most of my attention.
The ISCE system extensively used a new technology that had just started to see widespread use planetside after being approved by the Earth Administration Council. Matter Transference technology was woven into the systems of the ISCE. All it required was your typical water hook-up, and the system would be able to turn that into a fluid much like that you would find in an IV drip. This was all introduced into the user’s system by a series of microneedles that fit around the base of the neck, just to the sides of the cyberware port integrated into a user’s spine.
“Wow,” was all I could say as I stared over it all, impressed by the sheer complexity of the system. Slowly, I managed to pull my attention away from it all and looked up at my aunt. “So, what is the job exactly?”
“It’s pretty straightforward. We need someone to test the Behemoth coffin in a long-term configuration. If you accept, you’ll be put into VR for six months. You’ll only be allowed out if something goes wrong, for which we will have staff on-site 24/7 monitoring you.” She explained to me, locking her light-grey eyes on mine as she spoke. It was certainly a commitment, I had to admit. But… Well, anything that got me away from this lonely apartment was better than suffering alone.
“Alright, let’s do this then.” I grinned at her without a second thought. Six months of being able to play out my escapist fantasies? Hell yeah.