I had spent the entire afternoon getting my new apartment in order. It galled me that it was nicer than anything previously available to me at any price, but that was just the way of things. Various corpos owned every single New York Metro arcology (and probably every arcology in every metro area), and they didn't rent space in them to just anyone. The rabble, which I apparently wasn't anymore, were relegated to the decaying skyscrapers of yesteryear, or the disproportionately expensive hovels in the suburbs. Don't even get me started about the crazies living entirely beyond the sphere of influence of the corporate metropolises. Living like it's the turn of the millenium, doing brute manual labor, all in exchange for the illusion that they were still free. Corporate media sometimes even reported on the minor armed conflicts which occasionally broke out. Nope, no thank you.

I looked out my window, which was a real actual window rather than any sort of smartscreen, to take in the glittering spires. Most modern arcologies (and this one was no exception) were massive step pyramids, with the flat surfaces occupied by drone landing pads, gardens, and miscellaneous outdoor attractions. The Digital Arts Arcology tended to heavily favor statue gardens with depictions of characters from their various intellectual properties. Somewhere in the range of eighty stories, I was about halfway to the top. Looking down from my window I could only see the tops of the various trees planted on the lower terraces, making the whole thing look like a forest sweeping down a mountain slope, the discrete steps somewhat hidden by the varying heights of the trees. I could see, beyond the artificial forests and the solar glass of the arcologies, were the more traditional skyscrapers. They looked reasonably well maintained, but I knew that the interiors were not so clean and well cared for. Most I had seen and lived in weren't bad, but I had heard horror stories of communities which didn't keep good maintenance practices.

I passed by the bathroom as I roamed my new lair, and caught sight of myself in the mirror. It was still a surprise to see myself in the bright colors of arcology wear. The pants were simple, with discretely placed pockets just below the hip and at the thigh level. The shirts were button down style, no collar, and a small breast pocket likely for hanging an access clearance badge. Where normal clothing would have buttons or zippers, magnetic clasps served those functions instead. Small magnetic strips also loosely connected the shirt and pants, and allowed the entire outfit to serve as a signal repeater for my Personal Area Network. It wasn't a huge difference, but it would mean that I could connect to any of the appliances in my apartment no matter where I was in it. The way that the blue and white outfit hung off my body in such clean lines, hiding any obvious flaws in my form. The cloth was smooth and supple and totally immune to wrinkling. I could scarcely even guess at the number of man hours that must have gone into both the design and the material engineering. To make everyone look good (or at least decent) was likely the goal, and from what I had seen on my way in, it certainly seemed to be working.

There wasn't exactly a dress code for my new community, but it was strongly encouraged that residents not stand out too much. I was happy to oblige as my once and again employer had provided me with a few outfits so I wouldn't cause a scene as I moved in. I'd likely need to get a few more once my paycheck came in, but my recently fortified salary could likely handle that expense. I looked over myself, and was only moderately dissatisfied. I had medium tan skin, like most living in the Americas. My build wasn't thin, but thankfully I also wasn't heavy enough to trigger any health-related tax penalties. Medium length dark hair, medium brown eyes, average, average, average. The only thing I had that was my own was my height - I stood a full six feet. Quite impressive considering the average height had been on the decline for decades, and was now something like five and a half feet. In the Americas, at least.

Stomping down on that rising anxious energy, I continued my wandering. My next stop was the kitchen. My previous apartment had a minifridge/microwave combo and a small sink. There was no need for a proper kitchen when fresh ingredients were too expensive anyway. I was still suspicious of spending so much on food that wasn't even prepared, and would take additional time and effort to cook, but if executives did it (or hired people to) then there must be a good reason. It was almost a shame that such a massive leap in my quality of living would be overshadowed later tonight.

My alarm went off while I was still reviewing the various arcane implements that came with the kitchen. It was time. I looked over what scant information was given to me, and my list of tasks to perform. My augmentations were set to record even though I would be 'sleeping', and I enabled all the alternative control schemes in case the game somehow messed with my voice controls. I loaded up all my debugging tools and the few intrusion tools I had managed to track down over the years, and got them all situated on my HUD. I quickly changed into my sleep clothes and took a few moments to get comfortable on the rather nice bed that I had been provided, and waited. I had no idea what to expect, but the signal that humans could log in to the alien game was supposed to come at any moment.

Then it came, and it wasn't any sort of thing I had ever experienced. All at once, I simply knew that the way was open. A shudder crept up my spine. I didn't like the idea that knowledge, or something which felt like it, could be so seamlessly placed into my head. If those newer augs were like this, I was glad that I hadn't been able to make the upgrade. Oh well, no use wasting time. I focused my intent on the vague presence lurking in my head and, without further sensation, I was no longer in my room.

I floated in the blackness for a few moments before I received a message. It was somewhat like the prompt when I first got my key, but it was a single, relatively simple concept:

[Dreamshards]

The concept unfurled further, evoking a sense of discrete realms drawn from some sort of vast collective unconscious. As title cards go, it was a little underwhelming, but the concept bundle UI was interesting. I tried to speak up to make a note, but I found that I had no voice. Bad design. Don't just leave people floating in the void without a body!

A few moments later, I got another bundle of information, which calmed my rising anxiety. It was the most complex yet, being divided into three distinct chunks. As I waited, it gradually resolved itself into something comprehensible. I understood that it was asking me what sort of class or powers I wanted my character to have, but it was still too unfocused for me to get any clear details. When it did finally resolve into something clear, it had taken the form of a message window floating in my vision.

Frequent Concept

Written Explicit

Soulsearching

Select an ability set from a list compiled from most frequent selections of compatible beings

Express clearly and explicitly what ability set you desire

Soul may only be shaped by itself

Greatly augmented initial magnitude

Nominally augmented initial magnitude

No magnitude augmentation construct

Difficulty of synchronization uncertain but often high

Generally moderate difficulty of synchronization

Minimal difficulty of synchronization

[SELECT]

[SELECT]

[SELECT]

While the content of the message was interesting, I was a bit more focused on the UI design. It was mine. More worrying, it was the UI from my last unfinished gamedev project but with intricate filigree decorating the lower right corner, the design of which was lifted directly from my favorite civilization from the world I had designed for my most recent tabletop campaign. I had never gotten around to describing this particular detail to my players, or so much as scribbled the design into a note file, so the UI was being plucked directly from my head. While I worried, the wording of the prompt in front of me had shifted into a mostly comprehensible form.

Commonly Selected

Design a Power

Soulsearching

Choose your power from a list of common options

Describe your power in detail

Your powers will develop to suit you

High Starting Power

Medium Starting Power

Low Starting Power, manual item use

Low Sync

Medium Sync

High Sync

[SELECT]

[SELECT]

[SELECT]

From how the wording had shifted, I was starting to suspect that this UI system was a combination of information provided to the player, and some sort of reflection to fill in the gaps. That was a much less concerning conclusion than wholesale mind-reading. I took stock of the three available options, and immediately was drawn to the third option. I always preferred to play "snowflake" characters, ones with unusual combinations of powers or classes, and that third option looked like it would be the path to get there. I wondered if this choice primarily would affect the early game, or if it affected progression as well. My experience with game design suggested that there must be a trade-off for starting with less power. Whatever "Sync" was seemed to be tied to some concept that I didn't have any reference for at all, so the description was opaque to me. Hopefully it was useful. I was momentarily thankful that I had negotiated so hard on my contract. I vaguely remembered the original having a clause about being required to select a class based on how powerful it seemed, to make the subsequent farming easier. Well, no such clause bound me. I mentally selected the third option.

The next thing I knew, I was standing near the edge of a concrete platform, something massive looming over me. I looked up and nearly lost my footing, a wave of vertigo washing over me. Many miles above me, on the bottom of a massive floating landmass, was a forest surrounding what appeared to be a mountain pointing down toward me. It was as if I were suspended in the sky and looking down, and it took me a moment to mentally adjust such that I was able to stand back up. Below the island in the sky were old style skyscrapers rising up to, and just above, my eye level. This would have been a much better moment to show the title card. I glanced around. I was standing at the top of one of the skyscrapers, featureless and pristine, except for a roof access and a cluster of whirring machinery. The lack of dust, dirt, and trash clashed hard with the vintage nature of the building style and machinery. The entire vista was lit by an orb of golden light which hung somewhere between the inverted peak, and the tallest skyscraper. Barely perceptible golden threads seemed to link the mountain and skyscraper, via the artificial sun. The weird upside down land, the teal sky, and the soft golden orb were nice touches, giving off an otherworldly feel, but I was not expecting human architecture to appear at all. There must be some sort of server-side procedural generation system, or they had hand-designed this as the human starting area, either of which was impressive. It seemed that I was alone. Maybe an instanced starting area?

"Note," I called to my augments. Nothing. At that moment I realized that my HUD was missing entirely.

"HUD. Console. Time. Well shit." Nothing was working. I swept my hand down across my vision with my palm towards me to trigger the alternative command for my note app. Still nothing. I swept my hand left to right to clear my desktop, on the off chance that everything was working fine, but the game was somehow interfering with just the HUD. I suppose I should have expected an advanced alien race to have countermeasures for people bringing outside tools into their games. My memory wasn't bad at all, so I would still probably be able to get this done.

I took a moment to examine my hands, as I made my way over to the roof access door. It seemed that I was in my normal body, though strangely I was missing an old scar on the back of my hand. Smooth, unbroken skin. Weird. If the game was doing the mind reading thing and taking from my self image, then the scars should be intact. That really didn't seem like a shortcut. It would have probably been easier, if they weren't going to let us create an avatar, to either give a generic one, or to leave us as we are in the real world. Shouldn't it be harder to have an accurate body but heal the scars? I glanced down the grey shorts my avatar had been clothed in. Anatomically correct. Shit, if my augs are still somehow recording I’ll need to censor the files a bit. I guess the aliens must have fewer taboos for their entertainment. I glanced up at the upside-down forest, and decided that it probably wasn't dedication to realism. Maybe this game is only for adults?

As I reached the door, I heard the sound of someone shuffling around behind me and turned around. It seemed the starting area wasn't individually instanced after all.