Eli looked at the rough wooden door. Inside a heavy frame, the door stood in the center of his lab. Eli and AV settled on a door as an intuitive transition between realities. Like the sky in his lab, the door didn't exist. Modeled in Realism, they created a macro to make it appear when Eli wanted to transition from one world to the other.

Eli circled around to look at it from the front, on the door was the stylized logo of a windblown leaf, a name centered underneath. Widesky.

Of the three options he had that didn't require updating his terms of service, he'd settled on Widesky. It wasn't ideal, but the alternatives were even less so. Widesky wasn't an immersive. It was a game; an ancient one. It was the most popular first-generation, full-sensation role-playing game.

Games differed from immersives; They made games to be played while they designed immersives to be lived in. Developers learned quickly that people could have fun playing a game where they defend a town from an invading horde, but if they owned a house in the town, if their children went to school down the street, repelling an invasion wasn't as entertaining.

After Oceanic created a system of transferring between games, developers prioritized measures to increase customer retention. Immersives were the natural evolution.

Are we really going to do this? Eli tightened the black straps of the gear he fabricated that morning. He had a backpack large enough to carry Legend, two biofuel canisters, one for each of the miniaturized SNCs, and all the supplies he might need for the day. His personal canister he strapped to his vest. It provided the power for his headset.

He shrugged, trying to even the weight on his shoulders. It was heavy. It was heavy, and he was exhausted. He'd stayed up late improving the tech, trying to plan for everything. When he finally got to bed, he couldn't sleep.

"Transfer is complete Eli."

Eli looked at the panel. It hovered in the top right of this view area. Once he realized they didn't have to be empty black boxes, he'd configured them to show relevant system metrics.

"Power draw is good... memory consumption is great. You feeling alright?"

"I am good, Eli. Are you ready?"

Eli tightened the straps again, then reached behind, his hand coming alongside the rigid pack, hovering there.

Click. A panel retracted, a white polymerized blade extended, grip first. Eli's hand closed over the grip, the tacky ribs of the handle compressing to fit his palm. He pulled the blade half-free before sliding it back in. With another satisfying click, the panel returned, concealing it. It was a risk, bringing an illegal weapon with him, but hidden at it was; he considered it a slight risk.

Eli nodded, stepped forward, and opened the door. Beyond the doorframe, the world was different. A sloping field of long grass waved in the cool breeze. Further still, autumn trees congregated in smaller groups on foothills before joining into a forest that surrounded a distant mountain.

He stepped forward, crossing the threshold, his feet landing on earth. The cool breeze picked up as leaves circled him, multiplying until he was in the center of a cyclone of colorful leaves.

"Welcome to the world of Widesky." Epic music swelled as the sonorous greeting echoed around him.

"As you have traveled to our land from the deep country, you may keep your existing avatar or create a new one. Which do you prefer?"

"I'll keep what I have.... maybe make it older?" Eli replied.

"You have kept your existing avatar. You are a member of the Skybright faction, as your avatar is human. Would you like to pre-select your path now or explore the world first?"

"Explore." Eli answered immediately. He hadn't researched Widesky, so he'd rather not make any selection he might regret.

The cyclone of leaves took longer to dissipate than it did to form, leaving Eli frowning. When at last the final leaves left, he took a moment to himself. His aches, the burden of the heavy pack, the weariness he felt from fitful sleep; he didn't feel them. In their place, he felt the vitality of a child's body burdened with nothing more than basic clothes.

He reviewed the numbers, glancing at his display panels. Everything was working, which meant it was still there. He just couldn't feel it.

"Excuse me, sir. May I enlist your aid?" a man not twelve paces away called out. In his hands he clenched a crumpled green felt hat. "My daughter is missing. She was here a moment ago. She was... She was just here. Her name is Dahlia, won't you please help me find her?"

Eli looked at the man, then around at the surrounding area. Ignoring the father, he turned back towards the way he came.

"Door." He spoke the command out loud. AV triggered the macro, and the door faded into view in front of him. It was identical to the previous but had no logo or word on it.

"Sir? Please..." the father continued. Eli opened the door and looked back through to his lab.

"Okay, let's try this. I'll handle the actual world, you handle this one." Eli stepped back into his lab, turning in time to see the door vanish. The plan had AV piloting his avatar in Widesky while he navigated the actual world.

"Everything still good?" he asked.

"Yes Eli. Should we help the man find his daughter? He still seems rather anxious."

Eli settled the pack, then headed out of the lab to the door leading out of his unit.

"It doesn't matter. If you find his daughter for him, he'll lose her again as soon as you walk away." He stopped in front of the exit. "Back when Widesky was a popular game I bet he found and lost his daughter a thousand times a day."

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The door slid into the wall. Eli leaned quickly into the dim hall, scanning one direction, then the other, before leaning back into his unit.

"That is terrifying. To constantly suffer the feeling of loss and despair every day. It seems cruel."

AV's voice trembled.

"Don't worry AV, these early systems didn't have real AI, just pre-scripted interactions. You're probably the first real AI ever to see Widesky."

Eli headed out into the hall, turning towards the entrance to his complex. The lighting illuminated just beyond where he tread, then dimmed after he passed.

"Hey let me know if I'm about to collide with anything over there, I don't know how these systems handle collision or...damage."

He walked down the hall, marking the doors as he passed. Were there this many before? A24, A25, A26, he tracked the units. He was A7. When he got to A33, he knew he wasn't imagining it. They had made his building bigger.

He made it to A73 before the hall opened into the lobby. The lobby, at least, was the same as he remembered, a bank of elevators to the right, doors beyond leading out of the complex. Like his unit, the building was utilitarian: gray concrete, galvanized metal framework, and functional lighting. He just stepped into the hall when he heard the elevator arrive and settle. He stumbled back into the hall, his attempted quick retreat thwarted by the bulk of his pack.

Instantly, his face felt hot. He could feel the beating of his heart. He stood centered in the hall, illuminated by the lighting. No place to hide. As the elevator door slid open, he took a quick breath and prepared to run. Eli froze. For a moment the occupant, a man wearing white armor, paused, facing Eli, before he stepped out of the elevator and headed outside.

What kind of armor was that? Did he see me? With his armor covering his eyes completely, Eli couldn't be sure. Was that even an actual person? Eli struggled with it for a moment, considering the possibilities.

He moved into the lobby, a sense of grim determination stirring him to motion; the same determination he had when he crawled from the starting zone to the inn starting those many years ago. He reached into his shirt, pulled out his good-luck stone, and gave it a kiss.

Then, for the first time in six years, he stepped outside.

***

Eli sheltered his eyes from the sideways driving rain. It was cold and windy. He stood in front of the complex and looked down the street, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. There were people in smooth white armor, box-like carts, and large and small armored vehicles moving in one direction down the street.

"Sorry," Eli said as he stepped closer to the building to avoid a cart. This was not the street he remembered. Gone was the curb, the streetlights, the signs, the procession of stately maple trees, the parked cars. From building to building the street was a flat and featureless textured gray concrete. Finger-width lines divided the surface of the street into a grid of equal-sized cells.

Eli moved and found he could just fit his body, with his large pack, inside one cell. He looked down and noticed several others standing in the same row of cells closest to the buildings. From his stationary cell, Eli inspected the people walking by.

Each had armor covering them. He saw some so completely covered they could have been robots, others had only chest armor or other assorted bits. Everyone had a helmet. Most times, it fully covered their head, including their mouth and eyes. From what he could tell, it was all made of white polymerized metal, the people, the vehicles, everything made of white, gray, and black.

Eli looked at the buildings, all cubical, flat, gray, and featureless. The traffic moved at different speeds; nearest the building it was the slowest, getting faster the closer to the middle you went. In the very center there was a wide empty lane. He stepped into the slow pedestrian lane and started moving at a pace to match the others. He'd almost made it to the intersection before he realized no one seemed to notice he wasn't armored. Curious. I wonder if they can't see me because they are logged in.

"Look at you cattle!" Eli yelled out, nervously looking around to gauge people's reaction. When none reacted, when they kept moving indifferent to his exclamations he yelled out again. "You don't have real lives!" Still no reaction. "I live on a planet of losers," he muttered as he continued marching in step with them.

It wasn't until Eli heard weeping that he noticed how silent most of the traffic was. There in the center of the street, isolated from the faster vehicular traffic, knelt a man, partially armored, weeping.

He tipped forward, palm coming up to brace himself against the ground before he crumbled the rest of the way and went silent. Eli was passing where the man fell when he saw a cart coming from the opposite direction down the central aisle. The cart zipped up next to the man before panels opened and arms reached out, pulling the man inside. Once done, the cart rejoined the regular flow of traffic. Eli watched as it pulled into a faster lane, leaving him behind.

Did he just die?

Approaching the intersection, he watched as the woman ahead of him slowed, then stepped through the faster lanes at just the right time to avoid oncoming vehicles. Eli moved over to a stationary square to observe others crossing, trying to learn the secret. It took a moment for him to identify something strange. None of the pedestrians crossing the fast traffic lanes were looking to where the faster traffic approached. Head straight forward, they just moved out at the exact right time. Some kind of internally synchronized system?

"What do you make of this AV?"

"Analyzing. One moment."

Eli watched as a man stepped in the path of a large fast-moving hauler. The man wasn't looking at the vehicle at all. Just when Eli thought he'd see the man spread into paste, he stepped out of the way into the next lane.

"The movements are precise. It is very probable that the system is controlling them."

Eli's brow furrowed. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking at the people crossing the lanes. He tried to tell if the speed of the transports and haulers varied or if they were constant, but decided he couldn't see well enough from where he was to make an accurate determination.

Turning, he took one step against the flow of traffic, back into the nearest unoccupied stationary cell. He stood there for a moment before stepping back again. He moved four more cells back, then stopped. A man with armor occupied the next cell.

"Okay, give me a door on the pedestrian path."

The door to Widesky appeared on the pedestrian path just as someone was passing by. Only I can interact with it, he reminded himself. Eli stepped through onto the lush rolling hills of the fantasy world then took four more steps.

"Door." When the door re-appeared, he stepped back onto the street and looked behind him. The man with the armor was still there, four steps behind.

"Your body moved here when you walked there," AV explained.

"That's disturbing on so many levels."

Eli swallowed, then tried to swallow again. He stepped back into the stationary cell, shifting from foot to foot. His eyes darted between the pedestrians and fast-moving transport vehicles.

"Okay." he took a quick breath. "Give me a door on the pedestrian path."

Before he could change his mind, he stepped back into the world of Widesky. He stepped tentatively forward, then paused. He felt his heartbeat in his chest. He shook his hands a dozen times, then forced them down to his sides, took a few deep breaths, then started walking. The further he walked, the faster his breathing became. One step. A breath. Another step. Two breaths. Each step parted the thigh-high grasses as he walked down a sloping hill. By the time he got to the bottom of the hill, he was panting. He used his sleeve to wipe away the sweat from his brow.

"How's it going, AV?" Eli inquired. If I die over there, will I be stuck here? He rolled his eyes at the ludicrous idea; dead in the actual world meant dead in every world. He started up another hill.

"See for yourself Eli."

Another door appeared in front of him. He stepped through it back onto the street. His eyes scanned the area, landing on the intersection which was now behind him.

"You went through, changing speeds twice to avoid oncoming traffic."

Eli stumbled into the stationary lane, his legs shaking. He leaned against the building and tried to slow his breathing. He doubled over, his mouth feeling wet. After a minute, he stepped back to the pedestrian path and headed towards the park.

Bury Legend. Get home safely. After that, we've got to figure out what's going on.