Three days of orientation went by in the blink of an eye. On day four, Mark awoke in his new apartment—a luxurious condominium on the 42nd floor of the Unity Game Labs corporate headquarters, overlooking a gray misty morning beside Union Lake.
Even sensing the duplicitous intent of the company, it was hard to be mad about this. UGL had assumed responsibility for his mortgage payments while he was here, and frankly this condo put his little house to shame, in scale and decor and quality and location. Even without any rights to the monetization of this ‘experiment’, he was set up much better than he would be if he had turned down UGL’s offer. He showered, shaved, and got dressed in his new weird, high-tech, skin-tight black body suit for what was to be his first day of work, and the beginning of the contest. Or experiment. Or maybe just hidden-camera reality show set in a VR game.
He hadn’t seen the other subjects since the moment they split off to sign their documents four days ago. Per the agreements everyone signed, they weren’t allowed to access any sort of social media. Their devices were all connected to—and monitored by—UGL’s internal network, which blocked most websites. Disconnecting your device from the network or leaving the Corporate Plaza meant instant disqualification. The consequence of this, Mark judged, was that none of the players would be able to communicate or coordinate with one another outside of the game.
The game. This was the most interesting part, and the most nerve wracking. Mark reported to work in the room next door to his condo, where a technician helped him to climb into what looked to him like a cryo pod from a sci-fi show, or like a dentist’s chair designed to torture claustrophobic people.
“Good morning, Mark!” the technician said brightly, which stood in stark contrast to Mark’s mood about the whole affair. “My name is Randall, and I’ll be supervising your Dive. How are you feeling after yesterday’s orientation? Did you come up with any new questions last night?”
“I did actually. One of the technical specs suggested that a Diver’s perception of time is altered while in the simulation. I think I understand why that would be feasible, but is it safe? Over-clocking the proverbial human CPU like that seems like something technology can’t compensate for.”
The technician seemed surprised and delighted by Mark’s curiosity about the Diver’s Bell, even if that curiosity came from a place of concern for his own physical safety. “Excellent question. We’ve actually already tested the Diver’s Bell through phases one and two of medical device trials. It isn’t technically serving a medical application, but because of the exact point you raise it was mutually agreed upon by UGL and the FDA that it should be evaluated as one for consumer safety. Rest assured, there’s no concern of ‘over-clocking’ related health risks. You’ll be diving for eight hours at a time, and in that time your mind will complete a full day’s worth of activity, including a complete regenerative REM cycle if you choose to. When eight hours is up, we’ll pull you out and you can go about the rest of your day as you like—well, within the restrictions of the experiment’s design, anyway. It shouldn’t feel like any more brain-strain than you’d get from a strenuous day at the office. Does that make sense?”
“I suppose so. Just to confirm, UGL didn’t report any negative outcomes to the FDA during phases one and two of its trials?”
“None whatsoever as relates to your physical health and wellbeing, though some people did report some irritability immediately after their Dives. Nothing to be concerned about,” the technician said enthusiastically.
Mark shrugged. “Alright. So, I guess we should get going.”
The technician smiled and gestured toward the Diver’s Bell. “Climb on in and I’ll get you set and ready.”
Mark climbed into the pod and eased back into the chair. He tried to shift around to see if there was a more comfortable posture, and the chair moved as if it were bound to him, preventing him from feeling any change at all.
“Oh, weird,” Mark mused. The chair felt foreign, unnatural, and after a brief time, it felt as if it weren’t there at all. Mark might as well have been sitting in midair on nothing.
The technician lowered a helmet-like visor onto Mark’s head, and as the helmet went on, Mark found himself in a sense of total sensory deprivation. He couldn’t hear the technician moving or working or speaking, he couldn’t really move or feel anything around him. Even his body-suit felt like it wasn’t really there anymore.
Just as Mark was starting to panic, he heard Randall’s voice in his ear as if over a headset. “Alright, Mark! You’re all set in there. How are you feeling? Ready to cross the Threshold?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Alright great. We’re just waiting on a few more of the subjects to ready up before we deploy. I’ll load you into an environment so you can take a look at the character design and costume our developers cooked up using the material you provided in your design consulting interviews. Sound good?”
“Sure.”
Streams of blue light descended from on high all around Mark, and he came to find himself no-longer floating in a void of sensory deprivation, but instead standing in a quaint, well-lit log cabin with cozy wooden furniture and a full-length mirror. He felt the solidness of the wood floor, heard it creak as he cautiously walked around in it. He felt the warmth of the distant fireplace, and the cold of the window, all in shockingly realistic fidelity.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
He stood before the mirror to see not Mark Kimbell, but Prospero. The design team had outdone themselves, crafting a product that suited and surpassed his vision. He saw a young man dressed in a light brown tunic, dark brown pants and cuffs, and brown leather boots. Over these he wore a series of belts, pouches, and holsters suitable for a mage’s accoutrement in the game. Lastly, he wore a comfortable shawl around his neck and a long traveler’s coat. He was indeed the image of a common, itinerant mage from the Kingdom of Vallon. His eyes were a dazzling mint green color, his skin an olive shade, and his hair dark brown, worn as a dense stubble on his chin, thick eyebrows, and a mess of wavy and curly hair styled in a medium-length undercut.
He couldn’t help but admire himself. If this experiment was destined to be a show for the masses, perhaps a clear design philosophy and a handsome face would help win over the audience. That idea caused him to glance around the room warily, as if he would be able to spot a floating camera spying on him. No, this entire world existed as purely as data controlled by UGL. If they wanted to watch him, they could do it from any angle they wanted, without doing anything so obvious or courteous as spawning in a camera sprite for the benefit of the one being watched.
“Still there, Randall?” Prospero asked, and indeed even his voice was different. Smoother, richer.
“Yep. Anything wrong?” Randall said through the headset, only now it seemed like he was speaking directly into Prospero’s mind.
“Nah, just checking. Is there an ETD, or should I get comfortable?”
“Should just be a few more minutes. Get cozy, I’ll give you a heads up before I send you anywhere else.”
“Alright, thanks.”
Prospero sat on the edge of the bed, still looking at himself in the mirror with a grin on his face. As much as the seedy business angle and the hush-hush nature of the experiment’s purpose had been off-putting, it was hard not to be excited and delighted by what UGL had pulled off here. If this was to be the game of the future, where people could create themselves in whatever image they liked, extend their recreational time artificially through high technology, and completely immerse themselves in the game’s environment, that was hugely significant. It might be a step to rehabilitating the callousness of modern internet denizens, or even re-humanizing people reliant on escapism to evade the rigors of their everyday miseries.
“I have to say, Randall, this is pretty next level. Have you ever done a Dive like this?”
“Oh yeah, are you kidding? The dev team were the first to play with it. Everyone in Research & Social Initiatives have logged months of Dive time. It’s going to change the world.”
“Yeah,” Prospero mused in agreement, as his mind went to work mulling over that tidbit.
“Okay, we’ve got green lights across the board. Stand up and make ready! You’ll be arriving in a small village in the fringes of Vallon. From here on out, you’ll be on your own. All your choices will be your own from now until such time as the experiment concludes, you quit, or you’re disqualified.”
“Understood,” Prospero said. He stood up and adjusted the brown leather cuffs on his wrists, then took a deep breath in through his nose, and sharply exhaled through his mouth. “Ready.”
The cabin melted into streams of blue light around him, receding into the depths of darkness below. Briefly, Prospero stood alone in that empty void once again, but it wasn’t long before new streams coursed down from above, replacing the setting with a dirt road in the middle of a forest. It was not unlike what someone might see playing Unity Online, but it wasn’t just a game environment. This felt entirely real. Search though he did, try as he might, Prospero could find no artifacts or evidence of the digital environment he was observing. He moved his arm to bring his hand forward for inspection. The movement was real and natural. His hand itself was real and natural.
He probed at the flesh of his palm, judging for himself how real it looked and felt. Then he moved his hand to the fabric of his coat, and pinched it between his fingers, rubbing it over his fingertips. He might as well have been at a store, examining a genuine article of clothing.
“Incredible,” he whispered.
Birdsong distracted him from his micro inspection of the simulated world. He looked up, and saw where fifty paces away, the road led out of the forest. Invigorated and eager, Prospero ran toward the tree line. He slowed to a stop as he emerged from the forest, where he beheld a charming, fantastical rural village in the distance. He shielded his eyes from the glare of the morning sun to survey the village from afar. It was ringed with large fields, where some cattle grazed and others worked, pulling rudimentary metal plows through the soil. Beyond those fields lay scattered dozens of small buildings, and near their center on the left side of town he saw some larger buildings and market stalls.
It was time to enact his plan. To deliver on the promise of the unique factor he presented to this experiment. A subtle grin formed on his face.
“And so,” Prospero said, raising his voice with performative energy—just as he had done a thousand times prior on his Unity Online streams. “-my journey begins. Come, friends, and witness, as I do, the way in which this story unfolds. Where modern men and women, with modern ambitions and modern minds, set upon an unsuspecting world. Won’t it be fascinating to see how it goes?”
Prospero grinned as he began walking. He looked up toward the sky, as if reflecting fondly on what this new game, this new technology, was. But in his mind, Prospero was already past that sense of wonder. Now his mind was alive with his sense of purpose, and his true intentions. He chuckled and turned back to face the road.
This is my gift to you, Doctor Fourier. Thus have I turned this promotional stream-athon into the social experiment that I sensed you desired. If your plans are what I think they are, only I know that this is all being televised. Using my play style as a Roleplayer, I shall style myself as the protagonist of this great work of theater, and I shall represent the perspective of the Humanist, who has seen the tragedy and comedy of the modern world. Win or lose, I shall make of this audience my enchanted admirers, who will see my allies as my supporting cast, and my enemies as the antagonists of this performance. I suspect it will indeed alter the results of your experiment. You have made a good choice in me.