Eegleet finished working at his menial job at the factory, a job too low for the corporation to purchase and maintain a robot to perform, and made his way home. Mass transit was crowded that day, with everyone looking down at datapads, working or not, or seemingly involved in conversations on ear-buds. Eegleet pretended to be the latter, wearing a non-functioning eye-piece that wouldn't perturb him if it was stolen. By pretending to be in conversation with someone, just mumbling to oneself, no other being would bother him, panhandling or raving or just lonely.

Eegleet knew a basic fact that everyone learned on Gulmisvan.

Life was lonely.

Still, Eegleet felt a surge of anticipation as he entered his small dwelling. It had a basic food dispenser, a basic waste disposal, and a single room. The only two things inside were a comfortable nest, at least as comfortable as someone of his economic status could afford, and an EVR rig that he had recently upgraded to the best he could afford.

Even better, he had entered a contest recently and won, which meant his EVR rig was capable of more than he had ever imagined.

Today was the day.

Eegleet had been looking forward to it for almost a third of a Great Cycle, since message boards and virtual meeting places had begun talking about it.

A new game.

It took effort to find information about it. It took effort to even get any previews of it. Eegleet had heard it referred to as an "Alternate Reality Game", where there were hints hidden all over, some even in real life. At one point he had found a broken food dispenser with a shiny keypad. He had followed the instructions and punched in his comm-code.

That night he had received a GalNet address, a one-time use GalNet address. Navigating to it with a text-only communications program had earned him another address, this one deep in the old abandoned sectors of GalNet, where virtual reality games had been tried and failed over the eons.

There a rusted and battered robot had given him an orb. The orb contained a file, heavily encrypted, that claimed to be a prize, and it was inscribed with a real-mail postal address to a location that the curious had discovered was an old abandoned scientific research station on the edge of the Outer Rim Civilized Races territory.

He had mailed his address and "I WANT TO BELIEVE" on the actual, physical paper.

In return, he'd won a new EVR rig, but had to promise to keep it secret. After all, supposedly agents of the "GalWiz Corporate Security" were looking for any "outlaws" who possessed the rig.

It was exciting, to play the game.

Eegleet, like many others across the Unified Civilized Races, had furrowed out the clues, deciphered the riddles, decrypted the files, and bit by bit, sometimes literally, had discovered more and more about the mysterious game.

Each drop of information had intrigued those searching out the data even more. Set on a world before star-drive. Containing only a single species. Set in a world much like their own where corporations ruled everything and government was just a place for the corrupt and incompetent to earn an easy paycheck off of the backs of everyone who paid government extortion.

The game promised to be in real time, to link as many players as logged in, with full EVR support.

The only downside was it was a single race game. But what a race. Able to accept cybernetics without pain and suffering and mental anguish. Able to accept enhanced biological parts without rejection.

Able to commit violence and give back some of the misery beings like Eegleet felt every day.

Everyone knew someone, a tenth of a Great Cycle, who had been allowed to play the Alpha, and then the Beta, test. Who had gotten to experience the world. There were bugs, problems, in the Alpha, but by the Beta they had been ironed out.

Except one.

That bug had become a feature.

The chance of crippling, agonizing pain if you were "killed" that lasted for cycles and couldn't be disconnected from.

It even worked player versus player and Eegleet, like some others who would never admitted it, felt a thrill at the idea of inflicting such agony on another being.

It had been an entire third of a Great Cycle.

But today, today was different.

The flashing light that the download was complete. Even the Day One Patch had finished.

Even at Eegleet's slow GalNet connection that was the same that everyone had a right to by the Civilized Races Rights and Entitlements Compact.

Eegleet ate sparingly, preferring to wait to eat his tasteless paste till he was in The Game. He had found the "Sal's Diner" area during his searches, and found that purchasing a meal there and then eating his own sustenance gruel made it so he tasted what he ordered.

Only a hundred or so ARG players knew about "Sal's Diner" and yesterday the owner, one of the stocky bipedal primate race, had given him a "key" that would allow him to find the diner and enter it in the game.

A reward.

Eegleet shivered with anticipation when the EVR synched up with his body. It was a non-invasive model, a dermal contact rig, but amazingly it worked. He leaned back and closed his eyes, consciously surrendering his two motor control cortexes to the EVR rig.

WELCOME TO CYBERLIFE

YOU ARE NUMBER 23121351 OUT OF 23121357

appeared in front of him.

But his participation in the ARG had given him something better. He reach out and tapped the little bouncing whiskered cartoon creature called a 'dawg' twice, scratched its belly, then said its name.

"goodboi"

The scene in front of him, a fairly boring GalNet holding wait screen, vanished. He felt like he was being sucked through tubes that looked like they were made of neon and electricity. It stung, slightly, which thrilled him because he knew that it wasn't a lie, pain was part of the risk.

It dumped him out in darkness with a single window.

WELCOME IAMEEGLEETMALE

YOU ARE 15 OUT OF 16

The number dropped to zero and he felt a surge of disorientation. It stung again, but once again, it thrilled more than bothered him.

He found himself on a street. It used black pavement, an archaic form of roadway that the ARG players actually had to look up in ancient data-archives. He was sitting against a wall, made of red brick, dressed in black clothing. His stomach hurt and in his hand he held a projectile weapon.

Blood was around him and on his stomach.

"Come on, we gotta get moving," Another avatar said, reaching down. "Can you walk?"

Eegleet nodded.

"To continue you must accept the terms and conditions. Would you care to read them or do you accept them?"

The pain vanished and Eegleet felt weirdly disconnected from the game. He didn't like that, and being in a hurry, he just clicked "I ACCEPT" and was gratified when the pain returned and the other avatar heaved him up.

"Don't talk, we'll get you to the doc. We'll get you a new face, then we'll get you out of CorpSec's sights."

In his apartment, in the real world, Eegleet sat in darkness for hours. He was in no hurry to disconnect, he did not have another labor shift for 5 days, the minimum amount of hours he could receive as a voluntarily employed citizen.

In the EVR world, he had named himself Calshiina, after a girl he had liked in Cultural Education.

He was a neuromancer, a wizard of the crude but amazing version of GalNet, good with a gun, and a cyberpunk with fiberoptic hair that changed colors, swirling electric tattoos, and facial piercings. By morning he was part of a gang of fellow ARG players.

The orb he had found with the encrypted program, when the program was loaded, was a coupon to let him choose a pistol and a submachine gun to start with. Sal's Diner turned out to be a place they could sell ill gotten ware and purchase illegal tech and weaponry, even get cybernetics.

Eegleet got cybernetic eyes, an induction cyberjack that he could never afford in the real world, and cybernetic wiring that made him better with his smartgun.

Others didn't dare. The very thought repulsed them.

Eegleet/Calshiina/CRASHRIDER sneered at them.

Anarchy was life. Netrunning was life. Resistance was life.

Eegleet was hooked.

And he didn't care.

He was an outlaw, but he had his chummers.

Which was more than he had in what they all sneeringly referred to as "meatspace".

--------------------------------

UNIFIED INTELLIGENCE COUNCIL MEMO

The game Cyberlife encourages antisocial behavior in its playstyle and has unrealistic depictions of violence and crime. An attempt at suppressing it has caused no less than ninety different lawfirms on over fifty planets to engage in defending the game under archaic "Freedom of Artistic Expression" laws.

Only the user interface and supporting software is stored on the player's local machine, unlike standard massive multiplayer worlds. It appears their system transmits user input to servers, which are currently protected by mountains of slavering angry lawyers with credit signs in their eyes. Even login names are property of GalNet Artistry Incorporated, as is the avatar appearance, making it difficult to get warrants to electronically spy on any players.

GalNet Artistry Incorporated is less than three Great Cycles old. Funding was apparently done through the anonymous donation site "FUNDMYDREAMS" to the tune of literal billions of dollars. Programming was done via "public listserv" code sites that were password encrypted. Code acquired was variations of older code, nothing special, just applied in a strange way.

Unified Science Council suggested that the game was built by largely inexperienced coders using publically available freeware code and volunteer coders, which is the reason for the unstable algorithm rather than any malevolent or secretive reason the games streaming code is unable to be broken.

Further examination is needed.

//END MESSAGE//

----------------------------

CONFEDERATE INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN

SUBJECT: CYBERLIFE

CC: Artificial Biological States; Digital Artificial Intelligence Infonet Worlds; TERRASOL.GOV; Cyborg Cooperative; Clone Directorate; Mantid Free Worlds; Traena'ad Hive Worlds, Electronic Artistic Studios Incorporated, Galactic Studios Incorporated, Von Nuemann Artificial Intelligence Creations

Penetration of "Cyberlife" exceeds estimates. Evaluation of number beings with free time to reach level 3 or higher within the alternate reality game suggests automated economy with low chance of employment or advancement.

Average player online time is 3-7 local work cycles.

Average player engagement is 80%.

10% of players make power and ability purchases in the online store. Those often have the least engagement in time and effort in the game. TRA-INT estimates that these are the wealthy. Have added visual effect when player makes power or ability purchase in store to warn other players. This has resulted in "Chump Hunting" as predicted.

Nearly 95% of players online 2 or more local work cycles prefer to sleep in game and use the game's dream generator rather than go offline.

Estimated

Online store was hacked by in-game players using in-game technology and infrastructure at 70% of estimated time, suggesting a desperate desire for luxuries even if they only exist in EVR.

In game item shop purchases are primarily cosmetic decorations. Power ups and gear enhancements reduced customer engagement and resulted in less customers online. This had been rectified by the "Street Ware War" story arc causing the power up and gear enhancements available on the online store being looked at as dangerous drugs and enhancements that mark out wealth players who are often set upon by "gangs" and eliminated.

80% of players spend 30% or more of their time socializing in public areas or at private living spaces with other, suggesting a high loneliness index concurrent with low social health infrastructure.

Game is operating at only a 25% budget loss and is estimated to break even next quarter.

Pain as a stimulus has driven off casual players as well as the wealthy and privileged.

Conversations between players continue to be logged, providing valuable insight to the lives of players and their place in culture and society.

CLON-INT is requested to add additional players as well as engage in conversations.

BAS-INT has reported "Goodboi Gang" members are among the most popular of companions. This suggests low emotional connection between players and other members of their culture/society.

TRA-INT reports high level of success playing as "Ghosts in the Net" and rogue AI's.

DAS-INT has suggested a "Free Work Cycle" period in order to encourage more players. This has been approved by CON-INT.

Next bulletin in 18 hours.

----------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------