“Well hey there, Barbie,” Tiny said when Chris walked into their cell. “How was your first day?” She pouted mockingly and added, “Did any of the other kids give you a hard time?”

“No, but I met Doris and Si—”

The woman wasn’t paying attention. She was busy slapping her thigh as she laughed at her own joke.

“Too good. I mean it’s so perfect, cuz you’re like so…”

Chris rolled her eyes and walked to the bunk, dumping herself into her lower slot as she activated the b-link interface once more.

“Uuuuuu,” Tiny said from the bunk above her. “One day in and I already can’t recognize you. Look at you getting all defensive and stuff. What did they do to you in there?”

The tall blond woman didn’t wait for a reply as she sprang from her bunk with her usual unexpected grace. She walked to the corner with the small cabinet and took out a mat, the same she had been using the previous day. Chris looked between the forum page she had just found and Tiny, who was just starting her warm-up. Her eyes wandered back to the b-link, focusing on one of Serving Time’s subdivisions leaders’ names, but she gritted her teeth and put the interface away.

She walked to the cabinet and took out the other, identical mat. Without saying a word, she positioned herself as far from Tiny as she could. The woman broke her fluid stretches to eye Chris’ struggles before returning to her own stretch. She elongated her arm; Chris followed suit. She stretched her leg and Chris did the same. She arched her back; Chris moved in unison. When she spontaneously cracked a split, Chris tried the best she could.

They went through an intense routine of cardio interspersed with sit-ups, push-ups and other exercises Chris did not know the name for. By the end of the first twenty minutes, she did know one thing: she was in horrible shape. Sweat was pouring off of her skin and she was panting like she had just run a marathon. She almost felt like she was back in the game again, pushing her body to the limits.

It was different though. She only realized then, how different her game body was from her real body. Her real body, even in the sorry state it was in, was capable of so much more. There was so much more strength and willingness from the limbs to follow her commands. She wondered if her game body could be leveled and trained to be capable of the same, if not more.

Tiny’s movements suddenly changed. Her body contorted itself into weird poses that seemed harmless at first but soon became excruciating to bear. Sometimes, Chris managed to hold it to the end of the Tiny-assigned intervals but most times, she had to take a break in the middle when the burden on her muscles became too much. After shaking the burning sensation from her muscles, she kept at it, knowing that her movements were nowhere near as graceful as the ones she was trying to imitate.

Her muscles were cramping up and she was on the verge of giving up by the time Tiny’s stretch flowed gracefully into a standing position. Chris followed with shaking limbs, grateful for the short reprieve.

Tiny clapped abruptly.

“Aaaand,” she said. “That’s a wrap.”

Chris was caught off guard as she watched the large woman walk to the hidden bathroom corner to grab a cloth, which she used to wipe down her mat. It was completely dry. Chris looked at her own to find it drenched with sweat. She followed suit, cleaning her mat and putting it away with militaristic precision as Tiny had done.

“Alright Barbie, let’s shower,” she smirked and added, “You need it.”

Chris merely rolled her eyes and waited for the bout of laughter she knew was coming.

It came even before she expected.

Tiny cackled while she got her shower things together: flip-flops, sponge, soap and a towel. Chris mimicked her and wondered where they were going to shower. Tiny answered her question by walking to the door, which opened after Tiny held her b-link to a small panel to the right of the door. Her b-link lit up with a soft blue light and she simply stepped out into the hallway.

Chris blinked in surprise, but followed when she noticed the larger woman wasn’t waiting. Her b-link also lit up with blue light the moment she stepped out into the hallway. Rushing to catch up with Tiny, who was already two doors down, Chris fell into step beside her and asked, “Are we always allowed to leave, just like that?”

“Of course not,” Tiny said. “Just between counts.”

Chris looked at her with an obvious lack of comprehension.

“Between six AM and ten PM.”

A moment of silence followed and the two women kept walking down the hall. It still surprised Chris how, even so far under the surface, she could be so convinced she was in the wilderness. Somewhere that had mountains in the backyard. Even the crisp wind that she felt on her skin helped convince her of the fact.

“Don’t forget where you are, Barbie,” Tiny said as she swiped her b-link against the [SHOWERS] door. It opened and their b-links’ illumination changed to green the moment they passed the door. “This isn’t a beach resort.”

They walked down a corridor that branched off into dozens of little stalls. As they passed some occupied stalls, heads could be seen towering into the upper glassed section of the cubicles. Some of them turned to look, but most were focused entirely on their showers. Tiny continued walking until she found an empty stall and got into it without a word or a backward glance in Chris’ direction. She closed the door behind her but Chris could still see her head, her neck and even glimpses of her shoulders poking through the glass section. The woman then glanced at Chris and winked before turning her attention to the shower.

Chris looked around until she found her own shower stall and made sure it was as close to Tiny’s as possible. When she got into hers, however, not a single part of her was visible to others. The top of her head never reached the bottom of the glass section. She took her clothes off quickly and got under the shower. Before she could worry about how to turn the water on, the spray began washing down upon her. She sighed in relief as the water washed away the accumulated grime. Most of all, she enjoyed the feeling of wet cleanliness after spending the equivalent of almost two days in utter filth in the game.

She wanted to just stand there under the shower and enjoy the feeling of water gushing down on her. But before letting herself get carried away, she began methodically going through the steps of taking a shower. Shampoo, conditioner, soap, rinse, rinse, step out of spray, dry and get out. It took her a total of six minutes and she was relieved to see Tiny stepping out at almost the exact same time. As she walked toward her cellmate, another woman stepped out of a shower stall in front of her. They looked at each other uncertainly.

For a moment, Chris was afraid of what could happen, but the moment the woman saw Tiny, she gave Chris a wide berth and the two of them continued on their way.

“So you said you ran into Doris and Sid?” Tiny asked as if the woman hadn’t existed in the first place.

“Yea,” Chris replied, surprised Tiny had remembered her off-hand comment.

“Sid’s a good one,” Tiny said. “Even though she can’t play, you shouldn’t underestimate her.”

“Under— She can’t play?” Chris asked, wrinkling her brows as she followed Tiny back down the hall to their room.

“Yea… Didn’t you work that out?”

“No,” Chris said. “What?”

“You met her at lunch right?” she asked. “I’m guessing you went for one of the nutri-packs?”

“Yeaaa…” Chris said. “And?”

“And… Any player worth their salt is in the game at that time.” Tiny said. “Anyone you see in the service sector is a dud. A non-player.”

Tiny swiped them into their room again, turning the light on their b-links off the moment they entered the room.

“But… She can still play, right?” Chris asked, putting her toiletries back in the designated drawers under her bunk. “I mean,” Chris continued hanging her towel to dry. “Doesn’t the government require conv... us to play at least two hours every day?”

“Yes, they do,” Tiny said arranging her own things before she jumped into her own bunk. “But in Goldilocks, the only people not playing are complete duds and… does Sid seem like a dud to you?”

“No…” Chris said, remembering the woman’s intelligently discerning eyes. “So… Why? Is she just really bad at the game or something?”

Chris settled down into her own bunk, only to have Tiny lower her head down to give her a questioning look.

“Obviously not,” Tiny replied, disappearing from Chris’ sight as she settled back into the upper bunk. “She literally can’t. The VR just doesn’t sync with her system. She’s an immune.”

“What do you mean?” Chris asked. “How can she be immune to VR?”

“I don’t know,” Tiny said. “I don’t think anyone else does either, it just sort of is. There are others like her. Not many. I think there are only like four of them in the entire prison. And of those four… only one of them is functional.”

“Why?”

“All the others have lost their mind or gone a little crazy,” Tiny said. “It’s not easy for humans to be below the surface for so long. Why do you think that even the guards wear b-links?”

“They do?” Chris asked.

“Yea,” Tiny replied. “Even if they only have to spend a fraction of their day down here with us. I mean, how would you feel in these cramped walls, knowing the whole time that tons and tons of earth loomed above you, ready to crash down on you at any time?”

Chris remembered the uncomfortable feeling she had the moment she stepped out of the long elevator ride. She felt a shiver crawl down her back just thinking about how it would be to have to live like that all the time. Focusing her eyes on the windows that were once again displaying the setting sun, the feeling of that sun on her skin made her realize just how thankful and even dependent she was on the b-link for her sanity.

“Wow,” was all Chris could say. “That’s crazy.”

“Yep,” Tiny agreed. “Sid’s kind of a legend around here, being able to keep all of her screws on tight.”

“But if she’s not in the game, what does she do all day?”

“I dunno,” Tiny said. “You’ll have to ask her.”

Chris took a moment to take it all in, and when Tiny didn’t immediately say anything else, she opened her interface to make a note of what she had just learned.

“What about Doris?” Chris asked. “You mentioned her as well, so you know her too?”

A deep chuckle resonated through the room before Tiny replied. “Who doesn’t?”

Chris waited, but she Tiny didn’t say anything else. A minute later, the lights went out and they were left with the glow of their interfaces as the only light source in the room, other than the minuscule light provided by the fake moon and stars. There was amicable silence between them for some time, Chris occupied with her Serving Time and general guild research and Tiny with her own game-unrelated pursuits.

At some point, when the moon disappeared beyond her windowed scope of vision, Chris suddenly sat up and said, “Hey Tiny?”

“Yeah,” the woman said with slumber in her voice.

“You awake?”

“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”

“Oh, right,” Chris said haltingly. “I heard something in the cafeteria today about rankings… could you… what’s that about?”

“Everyone in the prison has a ranking. One is the best, five thousand and something is the worst. If you’re in the five hundred worst, you’re a dud. If not, you play.”

Tiny yawned audibly and Chris wondered if she should continue talking to her or not. Courtesy dictated that she should remain silent but her curiosity won out and she asked anyway.

“Right and… how do you find out what your ranking is?”

“You look it up on the interface.”

“Wh—”

“Oh for Christ’s sake Barbie, use the search function!”

“Sorry…”

Chris searched the rankings, afraid of what she would find out but more afraid of saying anything else that would upset the woman.

5787/5792

She was sixth from the bottom. Not 60th, not 16th or 6th. The four digits stared at her like a incriminating symbol of failure. Chris’ mind went blank for almost a minute as she tried to process the implications of the rank.

“Tiny,” Chris said, with worries about the woman’s mood completely forgotten. “Do those four immunes get ranked as well?”

“… Yeah. Why?”

“Oh. Ok,” Chris said trying to keep any trace of emotion out of her voice.

Chris continued her stare down with the six and had almost manage to comfort herself with the fact that there was still one person that was worse than her.

“Chris… What rank are you?”

Chris was uncertain if she should reply or not. She did not know much about Tiny, but she didn’t know much about Suerte, either and yet she had deposited not only her own but also the fate of her sister’s on his lap.

“The worst rank is Lala’s,” Tiny added cautiously. “Everyone knows she just sorta hangs out at the pillar room before you even go into the game. She’s afraid of Era.”

“… Oh.”

Chris said simply, trying to swallow with her suddenly very dry mouth.

“I see,” she said, unable to keep the dread from leaking into her voice.”

“Barbie,” Tiny said as she leaned over the bunk, changing the settings on her b-link so that Chris could also see it’s illumination. “This is a very private question. And you can absolutely choose not to tell me, but… what rank are you?”

Tiny’s face glowed with such concern in the slight light that Chris couldn’t help croaking out, “Sixth.”

The woman’s eyes widened, “But h—”

“From the bottom,” Chris amended with finality.

“Shi—” Tiny began before she caught herself.

Chris could see a multitude of thoughts flash across the woman’s eyes before Tiny suddenly disappeared from sight and her bunk creaked as she shifted her weight off of the springs into another graceful leap off of the bunk. Chris was caught off guard by the woman’s very sudden and very large presence.

“Okay, not trying to offend you here, but seriously…. How did that happen?”

“How di—”

“Barbie, it’s no time for bullshit. Suerte is gonna be here tom— well. I guess Monday since it’s the weekend. So you’ll have a little more time but you’ll still have to show some progress.”

Chris lifted her eyebrows in surprise.

“The angel has a predictable MO,” Tiny shrugged. “So, seriously what happened? It’s basically impossible to have such a shit rank.”

Tiny’s words hit her like a brigade of slapping insults. She felt about as competent as a solitary grain of sand.

“I dunno. I’ve never actually play—”

“Seriously? You’re gonna give me some bullshit excuses? That’s just sad,” Tiny said as she moved to stand up.

“I think it’s probably because I ended up in prison,” Chris admitted.

“What? We are all in prison. I know that it’s hard being a convict in there, all those regs are so prejudiced. I mean, I get it with all the other prisons that only—”

“No. That’s not it,” Chris said. “In Era… I ended up in prison in the game.”

Tiny’s eyes widened before she crouched back down beside Chris, who was sitting on her own bunk.

“Say what?!” Tiny half gasped half snorted.

“Well… It’s a long story.”

Tiny settled down, cross-legged on the floor.

“Hit me.”

Some time later, Chris had caught the tall woman up on most of what had happened in Era. She left Serving Time’s involvement out.

“But with 800 gold you would have been ranked like… higher than me!” Tiny said. “That’s unheard of for the first day and sort of genius, I might add. Don’t think it would usually work though…”

“Yea, but I don’t have that anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Sunk cost,” she mumbled. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Tiny lifted an eyebrow but didn’t comment, but instead said, “Alright so… this Donovan guy isn’t wrong. He’s just a grinder.”

“A grinder?”

“Yea… super intense about maximizing the stat aspects of the game to succeed and all.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Chris asked, pursing her lips in thought.

“Not really… it’s just. Well. It’s really advantageous but only later in the game. In the early levels it really doesn’t make that much of a difference at all.”

“Yea..” Chris replied, thinking about how all the strength training Donovan had taken her through hadn’t added up enough to even allow her to compete on the same level as some of the other low-level players of different races. It especially hadn’t made a difference when she had tried to elude the high-level NPC guard.

“I know what you mean,” Chris added with a sigh.

“I…” Tiny began cautiously. “Don’t know how many successful Goldilocks players have actually taken that route.”

“Why not?”

“Because… that’s not what we are judged on.”

“What are we judged on then?”

“Well… Nobody knows for sure but it’s definitely profit and level associated.”

“How do you know that?”

“… Because high level players that get a lot of high level loot that is worth some serious high level cash are ranked at a… high level.”

Tiny smirked at her own purposefully obtuse answer, which only incited an eye roll from Chris. A slight pause followed where each of them looked at each other in amusement before they both cracked up laughing. It felt good to let the stress of the day seep out of her a bit. Laughing almost made her feel normal even, like she wasn’t in a bunker-like prison which expected her to spend her days gold-farming for a warden to do god-knows-what with.

Unfortunately, the moment didn’t last and Chris soon felt the pressure to succeed once more. She unconsciously bit her lip as she thought about how she was going to dig herself out of the mess others had gotten her into. For starters, she decided she was no longer going to trust others so willingly.

‘Perhaps not at all.’

She looked at Tiny, wondering if she should have revealed so much to the woman. Chris didn’t know how trustworthy the woman was.

“Relax, Barbie,” Tiny said, making Chris think that she had somehow read her thoughts, but then Tiny added. “We’re gonna figure this out. Lucky for you, there’s a way to cut your prison time a little shorter.”

“There is?” Chris asked, unable to control the slight hysteria in her voice. She had been avoiding the thought of what two full real-world days spent in prison would do to her chances in climbing the ranks.

“Yea, don’t get too excited, though. It only cuts about half the time off and it’s not free.”

“Doesn’t matter, whatever works is fine for me.”

Desperation leads humans to do mysterious and often unthinkable things.

The next day, Chris managed to avoid any serious contact with any of the inmates. Instead, she became close friends with her food tray, the spork, her plate and the gruel therein. Aya, on the other hand, learned that her unthinkable task involved a quill, an inkpot and a stack of decaying scrolls.