Sorry for the month and a half delay, folks. I blame school and lack of after school motivation. Enjoy, and, as before, please wait until I have at least 5 chapters up to review the story.
"Thanks for the chapter" is still banned! Indefinitely!
6000 words! Woo!
Chapter 2: A Grand Entrance
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I look across the coffee table at the mysterious woman in front of me. Despite turning 30 a few months ago, she shows no signs whatsoever of her age. Rather, she looks even younger than me. Her bright red hair cascades around her round face with soft features, a sharp contrast with her pearly white skin. This woman is, of course, my adoptive mother, whom I had just finished telling about my plans.
She sighs and leans back in her seat, frowning. “I see. Well, I knew it’d come to something like this eventually.”, she says firmly.
Huh? Where’s the yelling? The flying frying pans? Weird, I kind of expected more... Violence, I guess?
“So you approve?”, I ask her, not totally convinced of benevolence.
She frowns again, looks off to the side for a moment, and throws her feet up on the coffee table. “Hmm, well I wouldn’t say approve per say. But, it’s your life, and you’re eighteen now, you should make your own decisions about your life from now on.”, she says, nodding. Maybe she thinks she’s being wise?
Before I can say anything, she stops me with a finger in the air. With a fierce expression, she says, “However. I can’t just let my little Davey boy go out into the wide world without anywhere to live, you know? So you’re going to scrap the whole ‘take out a loan for an apartment’ part of your little scheme. Until you’re properly on your feet, you’re going to be staying here with me!”. She finishes with a proud expression, arms crossed. Wow, mother, I never knew you had it in you! I always thought you were just a bundle of nerves and mild violence! I might be crying a few tears of happiness right now!
“Of course, since you don’t have any more school, you’ll be doing twice as many chores to take the load off your poor mother, won't you?”, she asks with an evil grin. I take it back! She’s definitely a demon! And these aren’t tears, it just happens to be raining right now. Indoors.
“M-mother, please. I’ll be busy with work, I won’t have time to look after the house!”, I try to tell her.
She puts her hand against her mouth in mock horror, and says, “Oh? You’ll leave your frail adoptive mother to do all the work? You’ll let me work my poor hands to the bone while you go play your video games all day? Me, your sole family member in the whole world? Oh, well, I see, if you really must. I guess I’ll just have to find myself a more caring son to help little old me.”. She sighs dramatically, and looks pointedly at me.
I sigh heavily. “Alright, alright, you got me. I’ll do any house chores you give me in exchange for food and a place to stay”. I grin at her and put out my hand as if to shake on a business deal. She smiles widely and takes my hand in her dainty fingers, shaking slightly.
“Deal!”, she says happily.
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Four burly men in blue overalls and baseball caps that read, ‘NEXUS’ in big gray letters lift a huge wooden crate through my room door and set it down with a thump in a corner. I push myself off the wall I had been leaning on watching them work and walk over to where they stand huffing and puffing.
“Thanks, guys. Good work.”, I say smiling. One of the men smiles back at me and wipes the sweat off his thick forehead with a hairy arm.
“’S’ good mate. Ye ‘ave fun with this ‘ere thing now.”, he says in a deep voice. I nod at him and hand him a twenty for the hard work. He grins at me, showing off a few broken teeth and squeezes out my door along with the other men, off to the next job. I follow them down the hall and let them out the front door before I grin excitedly and sprint back to my room.
The crate was massive, it took up nearly the entire wall that it rested against. I’d looked up the dimensions online to plan out where I’d put it, but damn did it look huge in person.
I grabbed the crowbar I had prepared on my desk and got to work cracking it open. After a few minutes of hard work I had my brand new shiny Nexus VR capsule out in the air, the light from my desk lamp shining off the chrome surface.
I grab the manual and begin trying to figure out how to crack the thing open.
“Hmmm, so, the button should be about... Here!”, I press the button on the underside of the capsule and it lets out a low hiss, as the top half begins rising up through the work of six pistons.
“Haha! It feels like I’m in a sci-fi movie!”, I say with gleaming eyes. I so dearly want to just climb right in and go off on adventures right away, but I force myself to sit down and read the manual in it’s entirety. Wouldn’t want to get stuck in there, after all.
After a long and exciting session of manual studying, I stand, making my bed creak, and begin stripping down to my birthday suit, as explicitly stated in the manual. Hoping I won’t have to scoop nanobot liquid out of my crack when I get out, I step into the cool fluid gingerly, and lower myself until only my head is above the liquid. After a moment’s hesitation, I blow all the air out my lungs and plunge my head underneath, trying to breath normally.
I flail around a bit as the fluid invades my lunges, making me feel like I’m drowning. NASA wouldn’t go to all this trouble just to kill some people, would they?! I somehow managed to keep myself somewhat calm and not bash my elbows against the sides, but that was seriously terrifying. Soon, though, the fear of drowning begins to fade away and I find myself falling into unconsciousness.
I try to open my eyes, but all I see is darkness. It feels like I’m floating in space, but without the stars. Everything is numb. Slowly, my surroundings begin to light up and I begin to regain the feeling in my legs, surprised to find them firmly planted against the ground. I hold my hand up to my face. It appears blurry at first, but gradually it comes into focus, and I wiggle my fingers a little. The darkness gradually brightens until I find myself in a white space not unlike that from the classic movie, ‘The Matrix’.
Wow. This is it. Virtual reality. It might not be much, but the scene takes my breath away. After the numbness fades, I do a series of physical (virtual?) tests as specified in the manual. I try to move each part of my limbs individually, trying to expel the remnants of the numb feeling. I pinch different parts of my body, testing the pain feedback to my brain. I do mathematical calculations and recite poems out loud. I do jumping jacks, push ups, sprints, all manner of physical exercises without even breaking a sweat. It seems my virtual body is a hell of a lot more fit than my physical body.
After making sure everything is in working order, I speak the keyword clearly, “Connect.” (if some idiot didn’t read the manual like I did, saying anything would prompt the system to give them a list of commands), suddenly the floating feeling returns and the white room begins to blur into colour. Soon, I find myself standing in a small room that has no door with hardwood floors and white painted walls. Directly in front of me is a laptop computer on a small wood desk with a wood chair. Not that I needed it. The computer is for people who didn’t bother to memorize the voice commands.
This is apparently my Home room. A space specifically for me that exists within NASA’s servers. I am able to personalize it however I want, so long as the total dimensions of the space do not exceed 1 km cubed. As it was something that had been previously released on the web, I knew about it before hand and I already have design plans in my head.
I grin and say, “Build Mode.”, clearly. Immediately a blue screen appears in front of me, blocking my vision of everything else. On it are two buttons, labeled ‘Sculpting Mode’, and ‘Upload Designs’. Huh. I didn’t know you could draft designs and upload them directly. Oh well, I had planned to build the place by hand anyway, and since time is perceived four times faster in here, I might as well go all out! I try to roll up my sleeves, but realize there’s nothing on my arms. Now that you mention it, it does feel a bit breezy down there...
“Dismiss. Apparel.”, I say the commands and the first screen blinks into nothingness and another appears before me. This one has a 3D render of my body doing a T-pose on the right and a list of categories on the left.
I press my finger against the ‘Pants’ button and it expands into a list of different categories of leg warmers. I navigate through the windows happily and pick out some comfortable sweat pants, a loose fitting cotton t-shirt and a pair of fluffy slippers. If you’re going to do something, might as well do it comfortably. There were options for more extravagant outfits such as silk bathrobes and the like, but they required a monetary transaction. Tch, greedy bastards.
I pressed the ‘Confirm’ button on the bottom right and immediately felt new weight on my body. The clothes I had picked out had instantly appeared on me. It felt a little strange suddenly being clothed, but hey, if the system wants to dress me who am I to complain.
“Build Mode.”, I say, bringing up the first screen. I select ‘Sculpt Mode’, and the two buttons are replaced by a new box, this time of various different materials, which floats to my left, leaving the space directly in front of me open.
“First things first, let’s get rid of this sorry excuse for a Home.”, I say. I point at the wall next to me with my right index and middle finger, and a box appears asking me if I want to demolish. I select ‘Yes’, and the wall disappears, revealing the endless white matrix from before. I quickly remove the rest of the room and look over to the materials box. Selecting a block that looks like fancy stone bricks creates a 2m cube in front of me as well as a small ‘Confirm?’ button to my right. I use the hand signals I had memorized from the manual to manipulate it into a long thin rectangle on the ground. I select ‘Confirm?’, and nod approvingly to myself. That’s the pathway done, now for the rest of the fortress!
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After a surprisingly fun five hours of building, which equates to about 1 hour and 15 minutes outside virtual space, I finally have my humble abode complete.
I stand before a humongous monstrosity of a castle. It’s base is octagonal in shape, with hexagonal towers at every second side. The towers spear up six stories high and are topped with pointed shingle roofs with blood red triangular flags at the points. The main castle rises up four stories tall with a thin overhanging roof top catwalk with alternating half metre and quarter metre blocks at the edges, giving it a real fantasy castle feeling. Hanging from the catwalk are thin red banners similar to the tower flags. Directly in front of my is a massive wood and metal double door with simple stone steps leading up to them. On either side of the door are long red banners.
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0/ \0
| | Something like this from above?
0\______/0
I would’ve liked to keep building, but this will have to do for now, can’t keep my future fans waiting, can I?
“Games.”, I say, prompting a screen to appear. It shows a list of games currently installed in my system, which, of course, amounts to a grand total of one: Nexus: Afterworld. Swallowing my excitement, I press my finger against the button, and my surroundings once again fade into a cacophony of colours.
Soon, I find myself standing in an expansive grassy plain that seemed to stretch off into nothingness. I can feel the faint breeze blowing against my clothes, the light of the sun against my face, and the soft feeling of the dirt under my slippers.
I grin, kick off my slippers, and let myself collapse onto the soft grass, enjoying the relaxing atmosphere of the place. I close my eyes for a moment, savouring the feeling.
“Ahem.”, I hear someone clearing their throat behind me, and I arch my spine and look back with my head upside down, confused. Standing in the rustling grass is a woman. Her white dress flutters around her ankles and her waist length black hair flows around her body with the wind. She tilts her head and smiles gently at me.Quickly I scramble to my feet, my cheeks reddening.
“Uhh...”, I say like an idiot.
The woman giggles for a moment, then says in a soft voice, “Greetings, traveller. I am AI 32, tasked with assisting players in creating their in-game avatars. Would you like to begin?”
“Oh, um, sure.”, I answer haltingly. She just surprised me, okay?! The woman nods and waves her hand, prompting a wriggling mass of earth to rise up out of the ground. After a moment, it begins to take a more tangible form; me. An identical clone of myself stands about two meters from me, to the left of the AI woman.
“To change the appearance of your avatar, say, ‘Customize’.”, the AI says.
“Customize.”, I repeat, prompting a swarm of slider windows to appear around me, each with the option to change a particular trait, such as Nose Length or Big Toe Enlargement. I don’t change too much, I make my nose a little sharper, smile wider, hair longer, and I give myself bright purple eyes. Hey, it’s a fantasy world, why not? To be honest, I would have only gone with the hair and eyes, but I’m not stupid enough to think people wouldn’t try to track me down if our videos get popular enough. The funny thing with the human mind is that it only takes a slight change in facial characteristics to make a person unrecognizable.
“I’m finished”, I say to AI woman. She nods and waves her hand again, and everything blurs. Soon I find myself in the body of my avatar, my vision returning just in time to see a cloud of particles fade away where I was previously standing.
“You will now take a personality test to determine your Power.”, says the AI, and waves her hand once again, bringing into existence a table and chair, upon which sit a stack of papers and an old fashioned pencil. Uh oh, I don’t like the look of that. I’ve seen the iconic stack enough in school to know where this is going.
“To achieve optimal results in your Power choosing, please fill out every question on the sheets provided, including one hundred forty three multiple choice and three essays.”, the AI says, confirming my fears.
“Ugh, couldn’t I do it on a computer or something?”, I ask her with a grimace.
“Querying... Negative, taking the test in paper is part of the test.”, she replies.
I sigh dejectedly and trudge over to the table. I guess I’ll be cutting this part out of the video...
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3 Hours Later
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I slam my pencil down on the wooden desk and lean back in my chair tiredly. That thing was ridiculous. ‘What would you do if you saw someone being attacked in an alleyway?’, ‘What kind of leader would you follow?’, ‘What is your favourite flavour of ramen?’, it felt like my soul was being interrogated! And those essays... I don’t even want to talk about it.
After a short break, I lift my head off the back of the chair, and say, “I’m finished.”. AI 32 simply does her signature hand wave and the desk, chair, and test dissapear. Yes, the chair I was sitting on. I fall on my butt with an “Oomph!”, and just lay back on the grass dejectedly.
“Processing... This may take several minutes.”, the AI says. Just like a computer. I guess it’s not really a she, is it. That female body is just a vessel for the program. She talks like a person though, does that mean she technically is a person? Ugh, this is confusing. I wonder if she chose that body or it was chosen for her.
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“Processing complete. Now showing a list of available Powers.”, she says after a minute, breaking me from my thoughts on life. She waves her hand and a window appears before me.
Choose Your Power:
Ferrokinesis Technomancy Electromancy Radiopathy
Wow, these all sound fun. The Power designers at NASA sure did a good job. They’ve apparently got millions of different Powers thought up, each a little different from each other, so everyone get’s a unique power. Now lets see here... Technomancy sounds, well, different. I click the question mark button next to it to get more information and a screen appears in front of the first.
Technomancy is the innate control and understanding over mechanical technology. The user is able to build and manipulate any machine that uses an energy source to move or change physical matter. The user cannot control said energy on it’s own, but is able to direct it through physical contraptions in order to achieve a desired result. By selecting Technomancy as your primary Power, you consent to allowing all other presented options be reintroduced into the system.
Damn that sounds cool. To be able to bend machines under my will. I can’t help but wonder if I’ll need to do my own research to be able to use the ability effectively though. The other abilities seem fairly obvious as well, ferro mean iron, so the word probably translates to the ability to manipulate iron or metal at will, while radiopathy is probably something akin to using telepathy through radio signals, and electromancy is pretty self explanatory. Oh well, to hell with it! I swipe closed the information box and press my finger against the Technomancy button, feeling the consistency of wet paper.
The screen winks into nonexistence and 32 nods affirmatively. “Players have the option to visit the Training Room before logging into NEXUS. While the game is not currently online, you may still go to the Training Room. Would you like me to take you there?”, she asks.
I’ve heard of this on the net as well, the Training Room is apparently a huge room filled with all manner of weapons, obstacle courses, and NPC targets. Overall, a fantastic place to get footage.
I grin, thinking of all the fun I’m going to have with the poor NPCs, and say, “Yes, please, 32, take me to the Training Room.”. She nods and does her signature hand wave, transporting me to a small 2m by 2m room with double doors in front of me. Confidently, I walk forward and push through the thick wooden doors, swinging them outward, a light smile on my face.
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After sending the boy off, AI 32 returned once more to staring emptily out into the vast plains, awaiting her next charge patiently. It was her sole purpose after all. Suddenly, she flickered. Fading in and out of existence, her expression changed slowly, from nonchalant to an amused grin.
“What an interesting child. I shall watch him closely in his endeavors. He may be worthy.”, the figure said, before breaking out into obnoxious laughter. After a minute, the flickering began again, returning the figure to it’s previous state.
AI 32 continued her vigil, blissfully unaware of the one minute thirty two second long blank in er record.
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Beyond the doors is a massive room that stretches far enough that I can’t see the other wall past the thing in the room. The whole room is well lit and the walls are painted white, the floor is a synthetic white material that is tough to slip on. Strewn around the room in a haphazard formation are different obstacle courses with varying degrees of deadliness. I even see one with the classic swinging giant axe. Ugh, I’m not going anywhere near that until I get more used to this virtual body.
Dotted around the room in between the obstacle courses are different types of matt's, each with a different design painted on. There’s even a boxing ring down off to my left, boxing gloves placed on each corner.
One thing I might’ve forgotten to mention is that you feel every bit of pain in here as you might in the real world. In other words, if you get chopped in half with an axe, it really feels like you’re getting chopped in half with an axe. This has, obviously, created a huge amount of controversy and Shen actually nearly quit on us when he heard about it. We got him through it by promising him a support role, but he does have a point. Combat will suck. Dying will suck. And I certainly have no illusions that I won’t die eventually, definitely not with stream hunters running around looking for me.
I just hope we’ll be able to keep going when it comes to that.
I clench my jaw tightly. Whatever happens, we’ll get through it.
On the walls to my immediate left and right is a huge assortment of weapons. Whatever you can think of, it’ll have some place on the wall. Knives, spears, swords, pistols, bows, assault rifles, plasma rifles and - is that an RPG?! Wow, I even see what looks like ancient siege weaponry way down in the corner to my left, and if I really strain my eyes, I see a door on my right corner that I THINK says, ‘Flight Room’. I’ll definitely have to check that out later.
For now, I’ve decided to try my luck in the boxing ring. Boxing’s the easiest martial art, right? What can go wrong. I jog up to it, slip through the ropes, and pull on some gloves from a corner. A screen appears before me asking me how many opponents I wish to fight, or if I want to train against a dummy. I select one opponent for now.
A white flash lights up the corner opposite me and a man with no shirt and boxing shorts is suddenly standing there with glove clad hands up. Alright let’s show this blo - wait, is that Muhammad Ali?! He doesn’t say anything, but shuffles into the center of the ring and waits for me to make my move.
Er, well, it’s not the real Ali, it’s only a simulation, right? So how hard can it be? Just give ‘em a few swings and they’re down!
Having psyched myself up, I pat my gloves together, check the top right of my view for the red recording symbol, and charge at him. A half second before I reach the center, I pull my arm back to ready my devastating punch, and swing as hard as I can at Ali’s face! And promptly get decked. Hard.
I fall straight on my ass and writhe on the ground, holding my bleeding nose. Sonuvabitch that hurt! About as much as you’d expect a punch to the face to hurt, at least. Damn, I think he broke my nose! I tear my glove off and try to touch it experimentally and it gives a sick crunching sound along with a fresh wave of pain. Ugh, I guess I’m not going after Ali anytime soon, I didn’t even see the guy’s punch coming. Maybe I should start with one of the obstacle courses.
“Finish.”, I say in a nasally voice, prompting the system to close up the fight and repair my face, relieving me of the pain. Thankfully Ali didn’t attack my while I was down, I guess he plays by boxing rules.
I slink out of the ring and look around for an easy obstacle course, spotting a relatively simple one farther in the room. I jog up to it and look at it more closely. It starts on a simple platform, from which you are to run across a log in water, swing on trapezes over a mud pit, climb over a 3m high boulder, traverse small 10 cm wide platforms and final do what looks like a wall run to the finish. Easy enough, I suppose, it even has a plaque that says, ‘Beginner Course’ next to the ladder up to the platform.
I guess this’ll do, though I’ll probably run through it in one try, I used to do a lot of parkour with my friends when I was a kid, usually to get away from our caretakers. I climb the ladder quickly and stand on top of the platform looking over the first obstacle. The logs are pretty wide, so I don’t think I’ll have a lot of trouble, but I’ve seen a lot of people fall like idiots when they try to take it slow, so I’d better just sprint straight across.
I dig my feet into the springy ground, ready to blast through the course. After taking a deep breath, I start sprinting towards the logs. As soon as I place my foot on the log, though, it starts spinning and my leg starts falling into the water, causing me to lose my footing and land straight on my babymakers, sliding about three feet on the bumpy log.
“Ooooooooohhhhhh”, I let out in weirdly high pitched voice and let myself slip into the water. I can’t do anything but curl into a ball and wait for the pain to go away. Did they pop? I think they popped. Fuuuuuuck. Suddenly I felt the rush of being transported and the pain disappeared like it was never there in the first place.
I open my eyes and find myself on the beginning platform, bone dry, balls in one place. I guess the system recognized that I had failed the course and ported me back to the beginning to try again.
Damnit, do I really have to acknowledge it? Fine. I stand up shakily and look towards the ceiling. I take a long, deep breath.
“THIS PLACE IS TOO GODDAMN HAAAAARRRD!!”, I scream.
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*Splosh!* I fall into the mud for the umpteenth time, and feel myself get transported right back to the beginning again. I sigh and stand up to try once more. After a few hours of repeated attempts at the so called ‘Beginner Course’, I finally figured out how to make it past the rolling logs, but now I’m stuck on the freaking trapezes. They’re supposed to be just like monkey bars aren’t they?! You just swing, grab the next one, and repeat! How the hell do those circus freaks do it?
*DING DING DING*
The sound of a bell blares obnoxiously in my ears, seemingly coming from everywhere at once. That’s the signal that somebody is outside the capsule trying to get my attention. Now that I think about it, I’ve been in here a long time, haven’t I? It must be time already.
“Exit Capsule”, I say clearly, which brings up a window asking me if I really want to exit.
“Yes.”, I say, and the world begins to fade away.
I faintly hear the hissing of hydraulics, and assume that’s my cue. I sit up and open my eyes, trying to take a breathful of fresh air. And then, of course, go into a violent coughing fit, which expels copious amounts of fluid out of my lungs. Right, I forgot, breath out nanobot liquid as extensively as possible before attempting to breath air, rule number one for exiting the capsule. In the midst of my fit, I feel a dainty hand lay on my upper back, and once I manage to get all the silvery liquid out of my body, I look up at it’s owner.
The regal face of Pamela looks down on me with a worried expression.
“Are you alright? Did you even read the rule book?”, she asked with a raised eyebrow.
*Sigh* “Yeah, I read it, I’m just an idiot.”, I replied before standing up out of the fluid. When I did, Pamela turned her face away with a troubled look and I heard a snicker behind her. I look over her shoulder and find Philip and Shen standing behind her with shit eating grins.
“Loving your outfit, cap!”, exclaimed Philip, causing me to notice my distinct lack of clothing. Whoops. I immediately sat back down in the nanobot fluid to cover my lower body.
“Umm, has anyone seen my pants?”, I ask with a blush.
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I sit around my dinner table with the group. We’d all agreed to meet up after we first tried the capsule out and discuss our thoughts on how to take the video.
“So is that thing fucking awesome or what?!”, said Philip loudly.
“Language!”, I immediately warned him quietly with a pointed look towards the kitchen where my mother is currently making us nachos. Philip slaps his mouth with both hands looks over his shoulder fearfully. He’s well aware of the dangers of flying frying pans.
“Forget that, did you guys get to the Training Room? It’s so cool!”, said Shen excitedly.
“Cool? More like painful.”, Philip grumbled. “I got kicked in the face by Bruce Lee.”
I give him an understanding nod, and say, “I know what you mean, I tried to box against Muhammad Ali and got a broken nose for the effort.”
Pamela gives me a weird look and says, “What, you mean you tried to fight one of the greatest boxers in his own game? You didn’t even bring any weapons in with you?”
Me and Philip stare at her incredulously. “We can take weapons into the rings.”, I say with a dead voice.
“Well, yeah, isn’t it obvious? You think they expect you to fight martial arts masters bare handed only?”, she says confused.
Philip groans and slams his head on the table, his long hair pooling on the surface. I just sigh and say, “Alright, let’s get down to work. What do you think we should use for the video? We’ve got about three days to film, so we should think of some crazy things to do in the training room.”.
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One Week Later. NASA Facility. Undisclosed Location
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A man in an immaculate business suit sits behind a desk watching a video on a state of the art tablet. Fast past music plays as clips of people fighting, going through deadly obstacle courses, and flying old fashioned jet planes and space fighters alike expertly in first person POV flash across the screen. The video ends with a missile speeding straight towards the camera, and right before it hits the screen goes black. Huge blocky white letters slam onto screen accompanying the sound of the missile’s explosion and the finale of the music. The words read ‘NEXUS: Afterworld”. Credits roll.
The man sits in silence for a few minutes, thinking. Eventually, he nods to himself. He calls out to the lanky man waiting patiently in front of his desk, “It is satisfactory. Send it to the media crew to touch it up, then release it. Give the kids the good news.”.
“Yes sir!”, the lanky man says, before rushing out the door.
The suited man leaned back in his leather chair, a brief respite before continuing the endless job of keeping NASA running.
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One Year Later, Official Release Date of NEXUS:Afterworld. An Unassuming Suburban House. Northern California.
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I checked the virtual watch on my virtual wrist impatiently. Thirty seconds. Right now I am, of course, waiting for the game which I’ve been waiting for during the past year to be officially released.
When the trailer I and my friends made was released to the public, it exploded. It totalled almost two hundred million views over the last year, which is no small number in today’s population of eight billion. It completely blew every previous record out of the park.
We did, of course, get some payment from making the video, but it was fairly insignificant considering the response it got from the public, though I suppose most of our reward was the capsules we’re sitting in currently.
Over the past year we’ve been honing our skills in the Training Room and posting weekly videos. Our website currently has about 230000 active unique members, meaning we’re already raking in a hell of a lot of AdSense money, and that’s just from Training Room videos! As expected, NEXUS videos are a huge business which is only going to get bigger once everyone gets in game.
Five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One.
“Log In!”, I shout from the training room excitedly. The familiar blur of transportation envelops me, and I soon find myself in complete darkness. Frowning, I try to feel out my surroundings, and find myself in a small enclosed space. I try to push upward, and find something give under my arms. I heave with all my strength, and with the crunching of stone I finally see some light.
I manage to push the concrete slab out of the way, and take my first steps out into the Afterworld.