He nodded at my blonde acquaintance. ““Miss Winters, would you be so kind?”

She took a step forward touching her quantum watch. “I would like to remind you that you already signed an NDA and that what you are going to see is considered proprietary information and any leaks will be legally pursued.”

Another touch to her watch and the lights in the room darkened. Then a holo light appeared to be hovering over the stage. It formed the words we all were waiting to see:

WELCOME TO BLACK SPACE

With that the hologram expanded, suffusing the room into a diffuse light. And we were standing in the middle of it. Music befitting a symphonic orchestra accompanied video shots of a galaxy, getting closer and closer in scope, fields of plasma in all colors came into view, black holes, suns with their star systems, planets, space stations, fleets of space ships. Closer and closer. Until suddenly we were inside a spaceship. It seemed as if I was the only person there even though I stood in a pretty crowded room.

The music changed, deep basses were shaking my insides while the screens of the ship flashed. Voices could be heard over the music.

“Sir, our interceptors have caught up with the pirate fleet. Intercept fields are placed. Enemy fleet has stopped and prepares to engage.” The image of the person speaking turned to look at me expectantly.

I wondered for a moment if he was actually expecting me to say something but then he turned with a snappy “Aye Sir.”

The music changed again and became even more driving. It felt like the room was lurching forward. Tiny dots in the distance became bigger. A 3D tactical display bloomed in the middle of the bridge, showing dots in different colors.

“Delta Fleet, prepare to engage. Cruisers, focus fire on enemy frigates, Interceptors engage fighter crafts. Serra, prepare for shield support. Rakon One and Rakon Two focus fire on the enemy battleship. Torpedos, full broadside.” The voice let these commands sink in for two seconds. “Fire!”

The music was booming now. My heart was beating so fast that the medical monitor on my wrist kept buzzing like there was no tomorrow. I noticed my fingers hurting and unclenched my fists. Suddenly the ship lurched again and I could see streamers of rockets passing our ship, accelerating towards the biggest enemy ship. Were they going to hit? Would the ship blow up?

Closer and closer they drew, icons flashed in the tactical display, reports from the rest of the fleet came in. “Torpedoes hit in three… two… one…”

The image collapsed, the music died and the lights flared back to normal. A stunned groan escaped me, letting out a breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding. Holy-fuckin-moly! My heart was still racing and I blinked away the tears in my eyes. Plug me in… right now!

* * * * *

After that, the rest of my meeting while interesting, was rather anticlimactic. Dr. Steiner ran us through the immersion tank concept and we got to see a short video of it. The tank was similar to the old total immersion capsules before Neural Links became a thing. However instead of the normal sensor mesh that used to transfer sensations the inside was covered in a blue gel which he told us was a nano solution and would equally nourish the human body perfectly and could even be adjusted to different nutrition profiles as well as take care of all waste material export or processing.

To be fair being walked through this process seemed to be a highlight for some of the invited people but then there were always a few that got something out of these details. At the same time I heard some muttered comments that included the words ‘Yuck’ and ‘Disgusting’. I had neither reaction as in my time as a police officer and detective I had to deal with my fair share of the above and it was just a matter of fact. He then got to the more interesting part and that was the schedule.

“As you are aware we want to test the long term immersion capabilities of the gel and the capsules. For that we have the following schedule in general: One month of closed beta testing and one week of open beta testing. For your group this time is split as follows: The first immersion of five days followed by two days offline, second immersion of ten days followed by two days offline and finally 16 days of immersion and two days offline. At which point the official release will happen. This gives us enough time to gage your physiological and psychological health between each immersion and allow you to stay grounded in the real world.”

I wondered briefly why there could be psychological consequences or what they would be. And as if on cue the third person, Doctor Maharanov stepped forward.

“You probably wonder why there would be any psychological effects. As you are probably aware that when long term immersion was tested in the past there were a lot of issues and we want to make sure that none of you are affected by this. As we are, of course, concerned about the wider player base once we release.

“In the past we saw issues where people could no longer distinguish real and game world or had them confused. Which led to severe cases of confusion and not being able to function in a real world environment. We also saw cases of severe PTSD when people got attached to NPCs that were killed or died ingame. So we would like to prevent all of that.”

Yeah, I remembered. And he left out the worst part about the people that could not distinguish between real and game world. I was still on the force at that time and caught the case to investigate a digitizer ring. A group of people that promised confused players that they could digitize themselves, basically becoming part of the game world forever. The only thing that the people have to do was to pay exorbitant sums of money to them and then they would ‘help’ them. This case had first landed with White Collar and Cyber Crimes as it seemed to be just a scam. I got involved when it had turned out that the ‘help’ was a mental training regimen followed by a time delayed suicide pill. Over the course of the investigation we found out that 93 people had died before we even became aware of it. Worldwide this ‘movement’ had claimed over ten thousand lives.

“So why would you be at risk. First and foremost because you will be dealing with a time dilation effect. The time within the game will pass at a different rate than in the outside world. While your physical body will experience five days in your first immersion, your mind will experience twenty days of the game world.”

He let that sink in for a moment and waited for the spontaneous murmur to die down again. “Further we have two different sensation filters in game. One for pleasurable sensations and one for unpleasurable. Both of these filters will be set to 70% of real world experiences for the first immersion. This will allow the learning algorithms to adapt. As you can imagine what is pleasurable for one person might be very unpleasant for another.”

Another mumbling swept the room. I nodded to myself. It made sense. Even though I was not sure if I liked it. Normally sensation filters were not split. And while being able to be regulated to personal preference they were normally capped between 0% realism and 50% realism. The cynical voice in my head immediately asked the question what kind of addiction behavior 0% pain and 100% pleasure would create.

“Now that you have all the information, it is time for Q&A. Please, if you have a question state your name and then ask your question. We will answer to the best of our ability.”

And with that a storm of questions was unleashed. They covered everything from the game world and more information on classes and races and other ingame topics (which were not answered) to questions about the technology behind the game (which were partially answered) to questions about the new N-Links, immersion technology, safety and security concerns and much more (which were mostly answered).

Two hours later the presenters bade us goodbye and good night, promised that we will see each other tomorrow and handed us off to the coordinator. He in turn briefed us on the schedule, pinged a map of the open facilities of the Arcology and our living quarters to us as well as a reminder that we will have a busy day tomorrow and the advice to stay in the Arcology.