4

Alex had been living hand to mouth for years-pretty much his whole adult life. If he’d known that committing credit card fraud would get him a free room and free food, he would have been tempted to order that damn pizza way, way earlier.

The room wasn’t much, but it was clean. The mattress had no broken springs, and there was hot water in the bathroom. Alex found clean towels, underwear, and clothes in the wardrobe. They were his size, too. He had a long, hot shower, dried himself, jumped into clean sweatpants and a t-shirt, and lied in the bed with his eyes closed. For jail, it wasn’t half bad–not by a long shot.

The first thing he planned to do was take a nap, enjoy the feeling of fresh, clean linens against his ski. In the end, however, his curiosity proved stronger. He reached into the cupboard by his bed and pulled out the casque. To his surprise, it wasn’t heavy at all. It had no markings or logos, no external cords or ports of any kind, and just a single big button on the right side, around the place where his temple would be. Suspicious or not, he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t itching to see what this game was all about. Taking a deep breath for good measure, he put the casque on and pressed the button.

At first, nothing happened. Just the pitch-black darkness of the inside of the casque. Then, a weird falling sensation–like the one Alex sometimes got when he was halfway to falling asleep after smoking a blunt. This was nothing like any VR experience he’d tried in the past. Suddenly he wasn’t in his room anymore. Hell, he wasn’t he anymore–just a tangle of random thoughts and senses floating in some kind of void.

“NEW USER CALIBRATION”, announced a vaguely feminine voice, resounding out of everywhere and nowhere at the same time. “USER ID: PP-B-036. WELCOME TO ELDERPYRE, ALEXANDER RULIN. INITIALIZING SPEECH SYNTHESIS MODULE CALIBRATION. PLEASE SPEAK YOUR FULL NAME OUT LOUD.”

“Alexander Rulin”, Alex said, and it felt like his own voice came from a place deep underground.

“PLEASE REPEAT AFTER ME: ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE.”

“One, two, three, four, five.”

“SPEECH SYNTHESIS MODULE CALIBRATION CONCLUDED. SENSORY MODULE CALIBRATION INITIATED. TRY TO CONJURE THE IMAGE OR SENSATION ASSOCIATED WITH THE WORDS YOU HEAR. ARE YOU READY, ALEXANDER RULIN?”

“Ready when you are”, said Alex in his new, artificially synthesized voice. It wasn’t perfect, but it was very, very close to his real world one.

“HOT.”

Alex imagined holding a fresh cup of scalding coffee in his hands.

“COLD.”

Waiting for the bus at seven in the morning, smack-dab in the middle of a snowstorm, chilled to the bone.

The voice went through a series of words: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, stiff, too hot, too cold, painful, too painful, hungry, thirsty, and about two dozen more.

“SENSORY MODULE CALIBRATION CONCLUDED. INITIATING FULL BODY MOTION MODULE CALIBRATION. ARE YOU READY, ALEXANDER RULIN?”

“Yup.”

“TOUCH THE FINGERTIPS OF YOUR LEFT HAND WITH THE RESPECTIVE FINGERTIPS OF YOUR RIGHT HAND.”

Alex did.

“TOUCH THE TOP OF YOUR HEAD.”

He did that, too.

“TOUCH YOUR SHOULDERS.”

A couple of minutes went by like that. Alex followed the voice’s instructions and touched his elbows, hips, knees, ankles, toes, and other body parts. As far as character creation went, this was the weirdest game he’d ever played–and he’d played a lot of obscure stuff.

“FULL BODY MOTION MODULE CALIBRATION CONCLUDED,” said the voice. “THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION, ALEXANDER RULIN. INITIATING AVATAR IMAGING MODULE CALIBRATION. ARE YOU READY, ALEXANDER RULIN?”

“Sure am.”

A male mannequin about the same height and build as he was popped into existence somewhere in front of him, making the void feel somewhat like actual space again. It was smooth-skinned, clad in nondescript sweatpants and a t-shirt, and had no facial or other discerning characteristics. Then, as if an invisible someone had pressed a button, the avatar started to morph into an almost exact copy of Alex.

It was a hair’s breadth below six feet, just like him, and somewhat muscled–a remnant of Alex’s days as a not very talented teenage kickboxer. It also had a tiny bit of extra blubber–a much more recent addition, the result of being a twenty-something slacker. Dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, thrice-broken nose, sturdy jaw covered in the shadow of a patchy beard–yes, it looked like Alex alright.

“IS THIS AVATAR SATISFACTORY, ALEXANDER RULIN?”

“Can I make changes?”

“YES, AVATAR IMAGING MODULE CUSTOMIZATION IS ACCESSIBLE AT ALL TIMES FROM YOUR PERSONAL SHARD.”

“Okay, un-break my nose.”

The avatar’s nose popped back into place, straight as the day before some asshole called Bobby Lutz had sucker-punched Alex after practice and broken it for the first time. Beyond that, he didn’t want to change much. Character customization was a rabbit hole that ran pretty deep, and he was anxious to see what the actual game was all about. Maybe he’d make changes later, he thought. Maybe a thicker beard. Or some tattoos. Maybe.

“Alright, looking good.”

“AVATAR IMAGING MODULE CALIBRATION CONCLUDED. YOU MAY NOW CHOOSE YOUR ELDERPYRE IN-GAME USERNAME, ALEXANDER RULIN.”

“Hunter”, Alex said–the same username he’d used in pretty much everything since he’d rolled a hunter-class character is some Korean MMORPG back in the third grade. Not the most creative, as usernames went, but it was now as much part of his identity as his actual given name.

Well, the original username had actually been xXx_HuNTeR_xXx–a big thank you to the original username unavailability and the cringeworthy naming conventions of that era–but he wasn’t about to go walking around Elderpyre calling himself that. He felt his skin crawl with a kind of primal shame even thinking about it.

“H-U-N-T-E-R?” asked the voice, slowly and deliberately spelling his nom-de-joueur one letter at a time. “HUNTER?”

“You got that right.”

“ALEXANDER RULIN, YOU WILL HEREBY BE KNOWN AS HUNTER.”

And, before Alex even had the chance to say anything, he felt the nothingness around him convulse.