‘Well done!’ the man said, and he seemed quite genuinely delighted. ‘Well done indeed! It’s quite an achievement to make it even this far.’

Neb held his pistol in his bloody hands, covering the man steadily. The vision from Neb’s right eye was dimmed almost to blackness. He coughed and tasted blood, and his chest ached. His arm was a dull, burning pain, one that seemed to be early in the process of building to something intolerable. He coughed again. The room was fading, getting distant.

‘Are you Main?’ he managed to say.

‘In a small way, yes,’ the man answered. He took a step forward though the carnage, and Neb saw that the pools of blood remained undisturbed from his footsteps. The man was a hologram or projection, though visually he seemed completely solid and even cast a shadow. Humans had similar tech, but far rougher.

‘My name is Veranimus, but you may prefer to call me Ver. I am a representation of the Game. I am assigned to be of some assistance to you. Are you ready to begin?’

Neb half smiled. It didn’t seem probable that any of this was real. More likely he was just dying like everyone else, and these were the last imaginings of his final moments. All of the training and planning, all the time and energy and life… It had mattered little in the end.

‘Begin,’ Neb echoed, and laughed. But the laugh made him cough, and pain wracked his body. ‘That’s funny.’

The room was almost dark now, even though he knew the sun was still bright outside. He thought of the world outside and felt sad that he would never get to explore it. But it was a distant thing, more of an acceptance than a regret.

Then Ver was beside him. Neb had not heard or seen him move. He crouched down beside Neb, and he held something glowing in his right hand. ‘In the open Game I am not allowed to take any physical manifestation to assist you,’ Ver said. ‘But happily, you’ve reached a checkpoint. It’s a pretty rare thing, actually -- as far as I know this is the only one on this Circle. So think of it as a kind of introductory gift.’

He showed Neb what was in his hand. It was a small shining blue sphere, glowing as if lit from the inside. It was not quite resting on Ver’s hand, but hovering slightly in the air. Neb felt a strong desire to touch it. Ver reached over and pressed the ball gently against Neb’s arm. Immediately it lost its shape and pooled like a liquid before spreading out in all directions, running over his arm and up his neck to his face, and disappearing into his body.

‘What the fuck,’ Neb murmured.

Then came the strangest sensation of his life. The burning in his lungs and chest disappeared. The heat on his face cooled, and there was no more pain from his arm, or from his side where Meathead had hit him. Gently and slowly, as if the pain could come surging back at any second, he moved his arm around carefully. But it was as if none of his injuries had ever happened. In just a few seconds he went from feeling weak and injured and on the verge of death, to feeling fine.

‘Is this a simulation?’ he asked, wonderingly. It had to be -- nothing else could explain this kind of tinkering with cause and effect. But if it was a sim, it was by far the most perfect representation of reality he had ever seen. Basically god-like.

‘No,’ Ver said. ‘It may seem like a simulation, but this is augmented base reality -- an area of space over which Main systems have perfect control. What you see and experience is real, with real consequences. Death is death, just like in your normal world.’

Neb coughed again, but there was no blood, no pain. He still couldn’t quite believe it. ‘Are my friends…’ he began, but he couldn’t make himself finish the question. In the pile of creature parts and goop he could see only Meathead up against the back wall, still unmoving. ‘Are they dead?’

‘I am not sure,’ Ver answered. ‘In a moment we will look for them together. But first, I need to do something else for you. Something which you will find discomfiting. Everyone does.’

‘Wait, I need to help my --’

But Neb’s words faded away as an overlay of information appeared in his vision. He closed his eyes and opened them again but the information persisted, as if he was wearing invisible dataglasses. There were icons along the lower part of his vision. At the top right was a timer, counting down from 69h 14m. Below the timer was a blue bar, with a label: 20/20. Neb’s gaze fell on Meathead, still slumped against the wall, and now he could see a bar over his head, almost all black apart from a sliver of red at the left. The label said: ‘2/30’. Underneath it said: ‘Unconscious.’

‘What the fuck,’ Neb said softly. ‘This is the Game.’

‘It is,’ Ver answered.

Neb got to his feet. It still felt strange and unsettling to be able to move freely and normally without any pain or injury. To his body and mind he should still be injured. ‘The blue sphere -- do you have more of them?’ he asked.

‘Try the secret room,’ Ver said. ‘Also, at the risk of repeating myself -- I can only aid you directly because this building is now a checkpoint. Once you leave here, you’re back on your own.’

Neb didn’t answer but just ran to the little room. There was a wooden box on a lower shelf, marked with a bright blue circle. He opened it and there were six blue orbs glowing inside, each one sitting in its own carved space. The box was beautifully decorated with Main runes. Neb resisted the urge to examine it and ran to Meathead.

‘Just so you know, those orbs are very hard to come by,’ Ver said. ‘Perhaps you should consider --’

But Neb ignored him. He took out a blue sphere which hovered just above the surface of his palm. It looked and felt like magic.

Meathead had been badly hurt by the explosion. The left side of his face had a jagged gash, and his right arm hung at an unnatural angle. The plasma cannon still lay over his knees, smoking gently. Had this really been his death, Neb thought, it would have been how the big man wanted to go out.

He touched the sphere against Meathead’s chest, and the blue glow spread out and disappeared as it had done with Neb. He watched in fascination as the skin on Meathead’s cheek knitted itself back together and his arm straightened out and took its natural position. The ‘Unconscious’ label disappeared, and the numbers underneath changed from 2/30 to 30/30. A timer started, counting down from thirty seconds.

Neb glanced at Ver in confusion.

‘The upper numbers you’re seeing are his hitpoints, or HP,’ Ver explained. ‘Current and maximum. So Meathead has 30 HP out of 30 now, thanks to the blue orb. They’re powerful, but like I said, hard to find. When you go below three hitpoints you become unconscious, and full revival takes thirty seconds. Those last three HP are the hardest to lose, so it’s more common than you might expect.’

‘But if you go all the way to zero…’ Neb asked.

‘You’re as dead as if you had died on Earth,’ Ver answered.

The thirty-second timer ran out and Meathead’s eyes opened, and he looked in confusion at Neb.

‘What?’ he said.

Neb smiled. ‘Help me find the others,’ he replied. Meathead needed a moment to process the fact of not being dead, but then an instinct to follow orders kicked in and he got to his feet to help Neb search through the wreckage. They found Gray first, half under the lower part of the body of the bug that had stabbed her, looking very pale. The bar floating over her head read 1/20, and there was barely any red on it. Meathead took the orb from Neb and applied it, and at once the color of Gray’s skin changed and the timer started.

Buzz was in a corner where he had been blown back by the explosion, at 3/25 HP. Mallory was beside him at 2/30. Anna was at 2/24, looking almost unhurt apart from the spike that had passed through her lower back and now protruded from her stomach. Even covered in her own blood and on the point of death, she looked beautiful, Neb thought, her hair matted to her bloodstained face as if it had been arranged that way. When they applied the orb the spike was forced from her body as if moved by an invisible hand.

It took them some time to find Jasper, who was tangled up with the legs of at least three different bug corpses. ‘Hey buddy,’ Neb said, when at last they found him. ‘Don’t worry, it’s going to be…’

But the words faded on his lips. Jasper was unmoving, and he looked different to the others in a way that was impossible to define but unmistakable. The bar over his head read ‘0/20’, and over it was an icon of a red skull.

‘Oh fuck,’ Neb said softly. He still held the blue orb in his hand, his body stilled in the act of applying it.

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The team came over to him without saying a word. They knew that tone of voice; it was far from the first time they had experienced the death of one of their own. They stood in a silent half circle behind Neb, who remained crouched beside Jasper, until finally Buzz spoke. ‘Let’s get him away from these things,’ he said, and then he kicked savagely at the body of one of the bugs. ‘Fuck.’

They brought Jasper outside and laid him carefully on the grass, folding his arms over his chest. No-one spoke. The shock of everything that had happened since they arrived was almost unprocessable.

‘If I may,’ Ver said quietly. ‘I will be able to assist you with your customary funerary rights. But we have much to discuss.’

Buzz sighed, then nodded curtly. It sucked, but it was what they needed to do. Death was part of the soldier’s lot. It didn’t stop the war. They followed Ver back inside and stood in a semi-circle near the secret room. Neb felt numb. So much had happened so quickly.

‘What are you?’ Buzz snapped at Ver. ‘Are you Main? Are you the Game?’

‘I am a representation of the Game,’ Ver answered calmly.

‘What is the Game? What do we do? How do we win?’

‘This is the First Circle,’ Ver said. ‘Your objective is to survive and get to the Second Circle.’

‘How do we do that? How do we get there?’

‘There is a Circle gate. Your job is to get to it and go through it.’

‘Where is it?’ Buzz demanded.

Neb was certain that they would have to find it somehow, but Ver answered: ‘It’s marked on your map, which can be accessed through your overlay. The overlay is your connection to the Game, it tells you everything you need to know. The gate is at the most southerly point of the Circle.’

Neb accessed his overlay and saw the map icon glowing at the bottom. It was just as Ver had said -- the gate was marked at the bottom of the map, about 30 km from their position.

‘What’s the catch with the gate?’ Buzz demanded.

‘In a way, there are no catches,’ Ver said. ‘But in another way, there are many. That’s the Game.’

Buzz glowered, but before he could speak, Mallory said: ‘Well can we just fucking go there and walk through? What sort of bullshit answer is that?’

‘Yes, you may go there and walk through,’ Ver said, spreading his hands. ‘But you’ll recall you don’t have this world to yourselves. You’ve already met some of the local fauna.’ He glanced around at the dead creatures. ‘And there are other players.’

‘How many Circles are there in the Game that we need to pass through?’ Neb asked.

Again he was sure Ver would not answer, but he said: ‘There are Seven Circles.’

‘What happens after the seventh?’ Buzz demanded. ‘What is the prize of the Game?’

Ver shrugged. ‘I have no idea. What I know is related only to this Circle and a limited amount of supporting information. The part I personally find strangest,’ he said, meeting Buzz’s glare, ‘is how every civ sends a team to almost certain death without even knowing why they’re doing it.’

That gave them all a moment of pause.

‘How many other players are there?’ Neb asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Ver said. ‘Definitely enough to worry about.’

‘The timer in our overlay,’ Buzz said. ‘What’s it for?’

‘From the moment you arrive, you have 70 hours to get through the gate.’

‘What happens if we don’t make it?’

‘I don’t know,’ Ver answered, ‘but safe to assume nothing good.’

‘Is the gate secured in some way?’

‘I don’t know,’ Ver said yet again. ‘But quite probably it is.’

‘Did other teams get to bring their weapons from their home world?’ Meathead growled.

‘I do not have information about other teams. But I can tell you that the Game is fair to all players.’

‘Are our weapons here somewhere? Can we get them back?’

‘I do not have that information.’

‘What else can you tell us?’

‘I can only answer direct questions.’

‘You don’t seem to actually know jack shit,’ Mallory snapped.

Ver sighed. ‘I can only do what I can do.’

There was a pause as they tried to figure out what to ask.

‘All the other humans before us,’ Buzz said, after a moment. ‘All those who have come to previous holdings of the Game -- they’re all dead?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ Ver said.

That silenced everyone again.

‘When can we access you for conversation?’ Neb asked.

‘At any safe house. Some safe houses are marked on the map. Others you will find in the course of your travels.’

Neb examined the map in more detail. The Circle was 50 km in diameter, meaning a surface area of almost 2,000 square kilometers. That sounded like a lot but was only the size of a decent county back home. There was a blue icon about two-thirds of the way up the east side of the map, marking their current location. Neb zoomed in and could see details of the terrain and some basic information like forests, rivers, lakes and so on. No other players were shown, though, or monsters, or missions. It was like a stripped-down version of the map in the immersive games he had sometimes played in his pre-Game life.

He saw from her glassy stare that Gray was also using the map. ‘What’s at the edges?’ Gray asked. ‘There’s a line on the map. Can we go past it?’

‘Good question,’ Ver said again. ‘At the edge of the map is a wall. There is no way under, over, or through it, except by the gate to Circle Two. The Main were very careful in its design. Beyond it is only water, which you may be able to see from certain map locations.’

They fell silent again. Without knowing anything at all about the world out there, it was hard to know what questions to ask.

‘Can we take these weapons?’ Meathead asked, gesturing at the secret room.

‘An excellent question, Meathead, if I may be so bold as to use that name. In a way, you are asking an operational question I cannot answer, and my recommendation is you examine the weapons themselves for more detail. But in another way, you are asking an inventory question about the Game itself, and I can provide some assistance. Each one of you can carry much more than you would be able to physically manage in your old Earth lives. It will be invisibly stored in a persistent inventory, easily accessed through your overlays. But there are limits.’

‘What kind of limits?’ Buzz demanded.

‘Your starting configurations are based on who you are today,’ Ver continued. ‘Meathead and Mallory, for example, can each carry and expertly use two heavy weapons systems, but no-one else is able to carry even one such system. However, everyone on the team can carry a rifle and a sidearm. Everyone can also carry food and supplies, and you will find food is plentiful in safehouses.’

Mallory had gone into the secret room, and now he came storming out waving one of the weapons. ‘This gun says it’s locked to Level Nine!’ he yelled. ‘What the fuck does that mean?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so,’ Ver said. ‘All weapons are level restricted by player level. That ultrafusion-based device you are holding is Level Nine or above, and as you are currently at Level One, you won’t be seeing those fireworks for a while. You also won’t be able to put it in your inventory. Sorry.’ He didn’t look in any way sorry.

‘That’s fucking bullshit,’ Mallory yelled. ‘The Game takes our shit, then shoves guns in our faces that we can’t even use?’ He looked like a child who had opened his Christmas present only to find someone asking for it back.

‘What are player levels?’ Buzz snapped. It was clear he was getting tired of this conversation and wanted to get moving, and yet knew he needed the information.

‘In answer, allow me to make a group change to your overlays,’ Ver said.

All of them simultaneously saw a new bar below their health bar on the overlay view. For Neb, it said ‘L1’ on the left and ‘L2’ on the right, and the gray bar was a little over half way to the L2 side. Underneath it said: 2,824 / 4,000 XP.

‘You gather experience points, or XP, by gathering experience,’ Ver said. ‘Many acts will contribute, including but not limited to combat. Finding secrets is a good one,’ he added, and nodded to Neb.

‘How many points do we need per level?’ Anna asked.

‘It varies. You can see Level 2 starts at 4,000 XP. But the gaps are not linear. And before you ask: no, I have no further information on the scale.’

‘So we just need levels to access advanced weapons?’ Anna asked. ‘Or what else do they do?’

‘An excellent question,’ Ver said approvingly. ‘Perhaps even more importantly than weapons and equipment, levels give you access to skills you may acquire. That doesn’t start until Level Five, however.’

‘What kind of skills?’ Anna asked.

‘I’m afraid I can’t answer such questions until you have reached Level Five and have access to skills,’ Ver said. ‘But I wish you luck in the attempt.’

Neb was still exploring the overlay. It was possible to activate the icons by looking at them or just by thinking about them, which took some getting used to. The overlay could also give information about things in the world by ‘selecting’ them. Neb looked at one of the bug corpses and a message appeared in his overlay:

Green Mountain cynobug. Native to the Mersin system. Pack hunter. Strongly hierarchical organization, with phosphorescent color differentiation between leaders, soldiers and other functions.

Neb read it through several times. Strongly hierarchical… Color differentiation... He felt a knot in his stomach. He was pretty sure the message was telling them to kill the leader bug and the pack would disperse. But how could they have known that, when they didn’t have the overlay before the battle?

‘This is bullshit,’ he said to Ver, feeling anger rise. ‘If we had the overlay in time, maybe Jasper would still be alive.’

‘That is true,’ Ver replied. ‘The Game designers intended a steep learning curve.’

‘So that’s the point of the game, is it?’ Neb demanded. ‘To kill us?’

‘The point of the Game is to survive,’ Ver snapped back. ‘And you’ve done that. Congratulations. But now, if I may be so bold, you need to remain focused. These early hours of the Game are particularly critical.’

Neb felt real anger now, flowing through him. He stopped forward, fists balled even with the awareness that Ver was a projection, but Buzz interrupted. The commander said simply: ‘We’d like to have the ceremony for Jasper now.’

It was enough for Neb to regain control, though he was still breathing hard, feeling anger run through his body at the unfairness.

Ver bowed to Buzz. ‘Of course, commander. If you please, follow me.’