It was the first time I’d logged in to VirtuaNet, and the first time I sped through the Bridge without moving, without bridging. When I bridged, I leaped in right through my smartwatch, and in a way, virtualized my real body online, in the network that connected all devices and appliances to the internet. It made me feel safe in a way. Because I was in control. Because I could decide when to return to the real world. Everything depended on my actions. But now, logging in as a virtualized copy of myself, dread immobilized my veins. Because I wasn’t in control—Lezavre Corporation was. And I knew how they failed at times to keep players safe. My job depended on that.

I thought I had already become accustomed to the hollow, isolated void that was the Bridge. To its eternal darkness, only briefly brightened by the light bursts of people coming and going from VirtuaNet. To its eternal silence only briefly alleviated by the sounds of people’s agonized voices, pleading for help when they got trapped. To its temperatures so cold that they charred your skin, and in bridgers’ cases, left actual burn scars on our bodies.

But that was when I could freely move through it, as if I were in space, unburdened by gravity and pressure. Now I was immobile. Now, I wasn’t in the majestic world of space, but in the terror-pulsing depths of the ocean. Trapped in a submarine I could not escape from. Immobilized by pressure.

Anxiety began to invade my mind. Claustrophobia set in. I couldn’t move. VirtuaNet’s safety guide stated that you shouldn’t move while being transported to the game and back to the real world. That would increase your chances of getting trapped in the Bridge to almost 100%. And I didn’t want to risk it. No bridger had dared to see what would happen if they bridged while being virtualized, and I wouldn’t be the first. But that was all I could think about now. I could feel sweat trickling down my arms, but I didn’t know if it was for real or if my mind was playing tricks on me.

I had to do something. Before I blew Aisha’s job request without even starting.

I thought on the positives of being virtualized by Lezavre. At least the system didn’t think I was a virus. When I bridged, the system considered my real body a foreign entity bent on destroying it, a virus, so it would send antiviruses and firewalls to eradicate me from the world. And I had to dodge them, because getting caught by one of those things usually meant getting trapped and becoming a data packet yourself, something I knew all too well.

But being virtualized meant the system wouldn’t consider you a virus and therefore would not strike. Nothing would attack you. Try to make your destiny worse than death. Calm began to soothe me. Tranquility settled my heart. I wasn’t in pain. I hadn’t realized it until now, but being virtualized meant that you didn’t feel the scorching ice of the Bridge, as if the light burst Lezavre transported you in protected you from the truth of the place.

Perhaps that was the point. Perhaps that was Lezavre’s motive for VirtuaNet.

To protect you from the world. Always safe, always shielded. To help you escape the vicissitudes of the real world. To make you hope for them, just like Zielkkenhom and his sycophants wanted people to believe in him and Eugenex.

Disappointment pounded my soul. Because we were falling for it. And I could understand why. I could see the appeal of that proposition. In their minds, at least, they probably considered themselves the most moral, righteous, gracious of us all, guiding us toward a better future.

A future that I could see coming true. Sadly.

I still hadn’t fully regained my sense of time when my environment changed. I wasn’t in the Bridge anymore, but in a picturesque landscape that looked like Heaven, or at least what I thought Heaven looked like. The most pristine sky I had ever seen. A gentle waft that refreshed you. Mansions of gold atop pearl clouds. My favorite music playing in the background. Was that VirtuaNet’s doing? Designed to make people want to play?

Aisha had told me VirtuaNet was like the real world, with cities, towns, and land features, not like Heaven. And I had never heard anyone comment about it. She said that most people were prompted to make their characters once inside VirtuaNet, and then they emerged on Peuma Island, the place where the game dropped all beginners.

But then it hit me. What if VirtuaNet’s AI had access to your mind, your deepest memories and desires, and crafted the game accordingly? And that was why I was welcomed to VirtuaNet with a heavenly scene? Was Lezavre Corporation storing a database of people’s most hidden hopes and fears? Or worse, sharing it? Selling it? I wondered how I could have been so dumb as to not think about my privacy beforehand.

I was about to activate my headpiece and ask Aisha if I could fully read VirtuaNet’s EULA and Lezavre’s privacy policy and terms of use, to see if they said Lezavre had access to your memories, but a system prompt emerged in front of me.

Player Cael Cavanaugh’s DNA virtualization process complete.

The game knew who I was without needing me to make an account or identify myself. I guessed VirtuaNet was synced to my USN government-issued smartwatch, which was already linked to my DNA sequence. Hurray for corporatism, I supposed.

Two seconds later, a new holographic screen materialized. I had already regained my sense of time, which I definitely needed to properly bridge.

Welcome to VirtuaNet, the world’s leading online game!

Player Cael Cava—

A second later, the letters vanished, and the screen faded. Swift pain, like a burst of lightning, shot through my veins as the Heaven I was in turned into the nightmare I thought I’d never relive. The nightmare I thought I had escaped from.

I was back at the Rebirth School graduation ceremony. In a field of freshly cut grass and ferns pocked with critters of all sorts and the most pristine, clear snow I had ever seen, berry bushes of all sorts and a few fruit-bearing trees. Surrounded by stone walls modeled after the Anglian Tower of the Old World, the ruins of a former castle that now served as a sort of bleachers for the onlookers to gather and cheer for the winners of the strategy game that made up the last segment of the Rebirth School’s graduation exams.

Or in my case, to clamor for my death.

The familiar taunts and jeers pounded my brain all over again. With a lynch mob ready to skin me alive because of lost bets. Protected only, ironically, by a squad of Esneas, all enraged at the fact that they couldn’t kill me. All but one.

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I was not the candidate who was supposed to win.

Everything felt as real as when I had experienced it for the first time back in the real world.

“What an extraordinarily odd year this has been, full of inventive, intricate strategies and ploys,” the school’s headmaster said. She was a middle-aged woman of harsh words; sharp, lioness-like facial features; and long sepia hair tied in a ponytail, who despite her tough exterior, did actually care for her students. Even though she was most likely a High Fengel, a subclass of Fengel usually in important government positions, probably soon to be granted Achroite Eugenex for her school’s superior academic quality and rigor.

My class had the highest graduating score of all the Rebirth Schools in the country, ever since the system was established.

“One that may never repeat itself again, but that truly exemplified our national spirit and guiding principles,” the headmaster said. Joy resonated in her voice.

Ríceablæd. Dread drowned me, though. Because I knew who she meant with those words.

“And the top graduate for this year is…” the school’s headmaster said as she held my arm up. “Cael Cavanaugh!” Laughter and happiness echoed in her voice, but I didn’t know if it was genuine or if she had been practicing for the last hour.

A gentle zephyr wafted its way toward us and made the headmaster’s ponytail flicker against her back in a soothing manner.

It did not calm the crowd, though, who instead of “merely” yelling for me to be burned alive as they had been doing earlier, decided to leap from the walls and into the field where I was and charge right at me. Even the Esneas meant to protect me aimed their weapons at me. Panic shot through my veins as I dashed away, deeper into the field, toward a nearby pine forest.

I tried accessing the Status Screen, but nothing came up. The Equipment Menu. Item Menu. Anything. I said it. Thought it. But nothing happened. Aisha hadn’t warned me anything like this could happen. I couldn’t activate the headpiece. I was on my own for this one.

Was the game treating me differently because I was a Natural? A bridger?

After some five minutes and eleven seconds of sprinting, my body caved. Elks grazed about nearby. Petal birds, a newly discovered type of eagle that made its nest out of its lethally poisonous saliva and looked like a harpy eagle covered in maroon violets, soared off as soon as I had to lean against a tree to rest my twisted ankle; adrenaline could no longer mask the pain. I knew they had given away my location, but I couldn’t keep going. I took a deep breath and tried to step forward, but I couldn’t endure the pain.

I chuckled.

I could save people from becoming data packets, dodge antiviruses and firewalls with ease, but I was stopped by something as mundane as a twisted muscle.

There had to be something ironic in that.

I heard the incoming footsteps. Growls and howls on the way. Cool wafts accompanied by occasional mighty gales made the tree branches and leaves sway, almost to the point I thought some branches would break off, but none did.

Had my journey into VirtuaNet ended as quickly as it started?

No. Aisha trusted me. Aisha believed in me. I needed to prove to her I could do this. To her and me. To me and everyone else.

I scanned the area for weapons and saw a gun and a grenade lying nearby. Perhaps the game was testing what choice would I make to assign me a class. I thought VirtuaNet let you choose your own class without any sort of trial, but maybe that was a luxury only the Enhanceds had.

At first, I thought about using the grenade because it would have slaughtered everyone in the lynch mob at once, but it felt kind of brutal. I didn’t know if that was the kind of player I wanted to be. Then again, the footsteps were getting louder and louder with each second, so maybe I didn’t have a choice. But when I snatched the grenade, I noticed how old it seemed. Must have been lying there for ages. And I didn’t know its potency either. For all I knew, it could have been just a single blast, so I discarded it and thought of something else.

The gun would have been impractical as well. I could have kept running away, but my ankle still hurt. And I didn’t want really to run away and hide. I wasn’t sure I’d find a better hiding spot or better weapons. Maybe I could use the elks. Make them attack the lynch mob, but training elks to do my bidding would take a long time. Time I didn’t have. And I didn’t want to think about taking on the lynch mob on with my fists, so then what?

I smiled as I glanced at the tree branches above me.

The poisonous nests.

I punched the tree until my knuckles bled, but I managed to tumble the nests. I wrapped my shirt around my nose and mouth as a face mask of sorts to protect me from its poisonous toxins as I ground it into a fine powder that I hurled into the wind, right in the direction of the upcoming lynch mob.

I then sighed in relief as I heard their wails of agony as they all stumbled and crashed to the ground, waiting to die. Waiting for the toxins to kick in. It was kind of a traumatizing death. You could feel your body paralyzed, until eventually your heart stopped beating. And then you died. A burst of guilt pounded me. Perhaps I had gone too far.

But those were just virtual beings.

And I needed to survive.

I needed to find Aisha’s brother as soon as possible.

Before something I could not come back from happened.

One of the members of the lynch mob died at my feet. And with that, VirtuaNet transported me back to Heaven. Or at least, what I thought Heaven looked like.

Congratulations on choosing the Artist Class, Player Cael Cavanaugh! You succeeded despite your genetic abnormalities. You have a high genetic compatibility with the online world and acted in accordance with your dominant personality traits and specific neurological pathways.

So Lezavre did have access to our brains. But my guess was convenience made us dismiss all other concerns. And that also must have been why VirtuaNet had locked its game menus. To make it seem as real as possible, so you’d act exactly how you would have in real life.

Crafty.

You may grow this class, but until further notice, you may not change your class or

character backstory. Furthermore, some things will be more difficult for you while

playing with genetic abnormalities.

Aisha had explained that much. Enhanceds started at Level 5 and leveled up at a normal rate while fighting enemies on a normal difficulty. Naturals, on the other hand, started at Level 1 and leveled up at half the rate the Enhanceds did, while fighting enemies on a hard difficulty. Enhanceds experienced decreased pain levels, while Naturals felt the same pain they’d have felt in the real world. Enhanceds could receive money and equipment from people in the real world, or outright buy it in online auctions, but Naturals had to acquire everything in game and could not receive transfers or participate in auctions. So much for having Aisha buy me the best equipment to breeze through the game.

But God willing, I wouldn’t be staying in VirtuaNet for long. Or at least, I hoped so.

But do not let this discourage you from enjoying the game. Developing superior

strategies to overcome any adversities your genetics may bring about will help you

rise to the top ranks of the game and achieve a better life than you could anywhere

else.

Apparently Lezavre wanted people to perpetually live inside their online world as zombies. Data zombies that brought them billions when they sold their information.

Remember to arrange for adequate nourishment while playing. If the system detects

your physical body is at risk of dehydration or starvation, you will be forced to log off

and fined at Lezavre Corporation’s discretion.

They weren’t lying about that fine. A Natural I knew stayed online once for three days until Lezavre forced him to log out. And then they imprisoned him until his family could afford the fine.

He died in prison.

One last piece of advice before you embark in this journey, Cael Cavanaugh: Remember to have fun and enjoy yourself. Explore everything. Secrets lurk beneath the surface for everyone, including those with genetic abnormalities. They might even affect your worlds, both online and offline.

Offline as well? How would a game … As if on cue, the Heaven I was in disappeared, and the game dropped me not on Peuma Island, but somewhere else. Somewhere I had never heard anyone who had gone to VirtuaNet mention.

A city encased in ice.