“And you turned it down?!” The hand of the sandy-haired man across from me slapped into his face. He let out a long groan, which only earned an eye roll from me. The two of us were sitting in a mid-level cafe hanging about forty stories off street level in his apartment building, steaming cups of coffee sitting in front of both of us as we talked.

“Sydney…” I replied slowly, glancing around us to see if anyone had started paying attention to my friend’s exaggerated antics. A couple people glanced over, but everyone turned back to what they were doing soon enough. Sydney had been my friend since I was a child, so I was familiar with his habit of drawing attention to the both of us when we hung out, but that didn’t mean I had ever gotten actually comfortable with it. “I don’t do VR. You know that.”

“Only because you are constantly away! This is an opportunity to actually get into it, and get paid! That’s basically a Contract Player offer!” Sydney insisted, and I just gave him a puzzled look. My friend’s already incredulous expression morphed into something even more exasperated. “Seriously? Do you not pay any attention to what's going on?”

I gave a halfhearted shrug. “I’ve never heard the term before. I’m not in the gaming scene, Syd…”

“C’mon Myles, they are, like, everywhere!” Sydney sounded exasperated, shaking his head as he picked up his drink. “They are only like… The elite of the elite players, the professionals, the biggest personalities!”

I shook my head again, looking blankly back. “I… Don’t really see many ads when I sail, since I avoid computers and devices. The payment plan for internet access on ship is super expensive, and I opted out.”

“Oh my god. You truly are a caveman.” He let out a long suffering groan, before setting his cup down and staring me right in the eyes. “Okay, so. Companies like making money, right?”

“Yyyyyes, that… Is obvious?” I said, my voice making it into a question as I looked at him funny. Where was he going with this?

“Well, about three months ago, Terra Co. sponsored a group of players in Stellara Nova. The players get full-time jobs to play the game, and Terra Co. gets to use their likeness in advertisements and endorsements for their products.” He explained, gesturing on the table to emphasize his words.

I let out a low whistle. Terra Co., or the Terra Corporation, was one of the largest mega-corps in the world, with at least 40 different brands in the North American Commonwealth alone, not including places like the European Union or the various balkanized nations in the formerly Chinese region. They had a hand in pretty much every industry, and I was even pretty sure they were in talks to absorb my employer, Maesk-Evergrey Shipping. “Who’d they sponsor?”

Sydney let out a disgruntled noise at that, shaking his head. “They sponsored one of the larger conglomerates in Stellara Nova, the Delanno Group. They have a pretty popular space combat team, who posts highlights of their fights online.”

I nod slowly, before letting out a soft sigh. “Still, I don’t know if that’s really for me. Being popular, even by proxy through my avatar from a game, doesn't sound appealing to me. And again, it’d be a major risk to change careers at this point. I’m getting close to five years at Maesk, and I’ll start getting benefits soon.”

Sydney opened his mouth, but I cut him off with a shake of my head.

“Look, Syd…” I started, but stopped and swallowed. “I appreciate what you are saying. But I don’t really have the luxury to take such a different job with no real prospects for a career afterwards. It’s just not viable for me, and I don’t really have any security net without my current job. Please, just drop it.”

The conversation fell quiet after that, the atmosphere turning awkward around us. I took the chance to sip my coffee and take a moment to recover. I knew Sydney wanted to say more, but despite his normally big mouth, he kept quiet.

The awkward silence was broken only a few minutes later, and though even as I was grateful in the moment, when I read the email that had come up on my phone my blood ran cold.

[TERMINATION NOTICE: MYLES VESTER (EN:9323411551)]

***

I tapped a staccato rhythm with my foot as I waited. The restaurant wasn’t fancy, but it brought back a number of bad memories. The beige walls with large drapes across the overly decorative windows, the open space and fake wood trim. Tables and booths scattered around that seemed cared for, but on closer inspection were worn and tired. The smell of disinfectant and cheap plastic filling the air made the memories of past dinners with my parents in similar, generic dine-in restaurants vivid. The middle-manager class they were a part of, pretending to be better than the lowly workers they presided over despite the fact that they were just as much cogs in the machine as the people they lorded their petty kingdoms over.

Breathe in… Hold… And out…

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I forced myself to slow my breathing and focus on the moment. There was no need to get lost in those kinds of thoughts, they’d only lead to me getting angry and likely an outburst.

The chair across from me creaked against the faux-wood floor, and I opened my eyes, that I hadn’t realized I’d shut, to see my aunt sitting down. She was a typical-looking middle-aged woman with greying blonde hair, dressed in a perfectly fitted white pants-suit. She was better dressed than most people in the restaurant, but not by much. Despite this, I knew she absolutely did not fit in with the people here. Despite her suit looking relatively simple, the price tag on it was a few zeros larger than what the middle-management here wore, let alone compared to my basic, second-hand clothing.

“Myles! Hey!” My Aunt Lori smiled wide as she sat down setting her purse under her arm as she got settled. “I’m so sorry I’m overdressed, I just got out of a work meeting when I got your text. I’m glad we could get together sooner!”

“Hey Auntie,” I smiled back, relaxing slightly in the chair even as my anxiety remained at a high level. I knew we’d get more looks here than I’d gotten even with Sydney, but at least people would be more likely to stare at my aunt than me this time. We shared pleasantries until the waiter came around and took our order. Soon after our drinks arrived, her a bright red cocktail of some kind and mine just a plain glass of pure filtered water, she finally brought up the main topic of conversation.

“So, you said you’d reconsidered on the offer? I’m so glad!” She said with a happy sigh, a wide gentle smile on her face.

“Yeah well… I don’t really have much of a choice.” I replied, blinking even as I felt the emotions welling up. I’d hoped my eyes weren’t red anymore with the amount of crying I’d already done.

She tilted her head slightly, her smile faltering a little bit. “What do you mean? You don’t have to take it…”

I gave a single shake of my head. “No, I have to… I… I’ve been let go from Maesk. They… They automated my position.”

“Oh, oh Myles…” Aunt Lori reached across the table, and I let her take my hand. “I’m so sorry.”

I squeezed her hand back. “It’s… It’s not great, I’m not going to lie. I’m terrified about losing my apartment, and about ending up down on the streets…” I left out that I doubted I’d live long after losing my home, either at the hands of the gangs that controlled the lower-level streets, or my own hand.

Aunt Lori’s smile failed entirely, taking on a frown as she looked into my eyes. “Myles, if you don’t want to work, I can pay for your apartment, and whatever else you need.”

“No, you can’t.” I stared at her with wide eyes. “The family will go nuts over that, you’ll get cut off!”

“Psht.” She rolled her eyes, letting out an annoyed hiss. “Who cares what they think? I should have cut them off the moment they threw you out.”

“I… Even then, I don’t want to just take your money, Auntie.” I felt my chest tightening. I didn’t want to be the reason my aunt would be cut out of our family. “You know I feel horrid taking handouts…”

“It’s not a handout-” Aunt Lori tried to insist, but stopped and sighed instead. “You’ve made up your mind, haven’t you?”

I nodded, taking a moment to swallow as I fought the tears back again. “Please… I don’t want to argue about this.”

She studied my eyes for a few moments, before nodding. “Alright, hon. If that’s what you want, I won’t stop you. Instead of arguing, why don’t we talk about what you’ll be doing?”

I just nodded before she started talking again. “So, you’ll be coming on to join our Tennant Pod Project. We’ve been developing a long-term medical pod with access to the entire VR ecosystem.”

I silently chided myself for the outburst. She was trying to help me, and I couldn’t accept that. A stomach churning mix of regret and self-loathing roiled within me, but I forced it down with a heavy swallow. “Right…” I nodded, forcing my mind back onto the conversation at hand. VR pods had the ability to keep their occupant hydrated and hygienic for a time, but they were limited in duration to only a week with only the highest-end pods able to sustain that without being refreshed. “So… I’ll be testing… What, if it works?”

Aunt Lori shook her head, a small smile returning to her face. “We have already confirmed it works on the basic level… We need someone to help us do longer-term human trials. You’ll be participating in a six month test.”

“Isn’t it for medical purposes? I don’t have any physical problems… Wouldn’t a trial be better done with someone who needs it?” I ask, shifting in my seat. My body was relaxing and my breathing was returning to normal. Good… I hated my intense hyperfocus on my body when I got anxious. Everything felt uncomfortable and wrong.

“We want to do this first trial with someone who is healthy to establish a baseline.” She explained, “If we put someone who was sick in, and complications arise, it would be much more difficult to establish if it was caused by the Tennant machine, or the patient's health. We’ll be testing for those aspects down the line in future trials.”

I nod slowly. It made enough sense, at least for me.

“Do you have any idea what you want to do while you are inside?” Aunt Lori asked, changing the subject.

“Well… I was talking with Sydney earlier, and he was pretty insistent I come join him in Stellara Nova…” I explained, watching my aunt’s eyes light up.

“Oh that’s great!” She nodded eagerly, “I’m glad you won’t be alone. Stellara Nova is a good choice too.”

I nodded, smiling awkwardly back at her. “Yeah… He said it was the largest of the games on the market, plus there was lots I could do even if I didn’t want to get in depth in the social aspect of MMOs…”

“Oh absolutely.” Aunt Lori agreed, “I play when I get the time, but I’m not on extremely often. We work pretty closely with the developers on hardware efforts. I think Fidaela even supplies the server capacity for their Gamemaster AI, Nora.”

A soft sigh escaped my lips, but I simply nodded again. I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. Still, I felt a slightly ominous feeling cross the back of my mind. What was I getting involved in?