With the paperwork done, Dylan got to meet back up with Mae. His stomach might have been doing backflips, but Mae’s enthusiasm was making him wonder if it was nerves or excitement.

“I’ve been giving everyone else the full tour,” she explained as she guided Dylan back through the office, “but if you want to catch the big event, we need to get you into the plug room like ten minutes ago. So I’ll just point out the stuff between here and there.”

“Can I still make it?” Dylan asked, picking up his pace to match Mae’s light jog.

“Theoretically? Yes. Realistically? Um… We’ll see.” She pointed off to one side. “If you agreed yesterday afternoon and been hooked up last night, you would have spent some time in the viewing room down there while waiting for your turn to be hooked in. That’s where you can watch the streams of the alpha players already in the system - or your fellow beta players as they log in.”

Dylan wished he’d had that chance. He realized he didn’t know what genre he was going to be thrown into, let alone anything about the races and classes he was going to get to choose from when he got to character creation. But it was too late now.

“The server is down that way, too, but it’s behind like five different key cards and seven airlocks. So you don’t actually get to see the monstrosity up-close,” Mae continued. “The programmers are right across the hall from it, so I was showing people the whole team, but only like half of them are even here this early.”

“Even though it’s day one of the public launch?”

“They’re the programmers for the world stuff. Any changes they could make would take days, or even weeks, before it was ready to be spliced into the system. There’s no need for that team to be all-hands-on-deck. That was what the alpha was for.” Mae pointed ahead of them just before leading him down a fork off of the main hallway. “Down that way is where the real chaos is. That’s where the teams working on the streaming service are. Everyone was in here six hours ago, and they were told to expect to stay here until that time tomorrow.”

“Wow. That sucks.”

“The Tempest is going to be the public face of this game for years and years. Plus, it has to support other games, interface with all kinds of streaming software, and all the other inherent issues with a streaming platform which leads to a whole mess of moderation issues.”

“Ah. I see,” Dylan said. He’d barely been able to figure out how to load StreamChem on his home PC. He couldn’t fathom actually running the systems, and especially with an immersive VR system.

“I can’t get too far into it in the time we have, though. The plug room is right here, through this changing room.” Mae gestured once more, but this time she stopped and smiled his way. “I’ll let you get changed in privacy. Just come grab me when you’re decent.”

Dylan entered the room, and it was almost a hallway. It was about eight feet wide, but against one wall was a row of racks, and the other wall was a row of lockers, crowding the walkable space down to the tiny aisle between. The suits were arranged by height, and Dylan was able to locate his size relatively easily. When Mae had described it as the ‘plug room’ he’d anticipated something sleek and form-fitting, like an anime mech pilot suit. Instead it was something between a hospital gown and footie pajamas, with a few velcro patches. Each separate pajama gown thing was wrapped in protective plastic with the words “Sterile Sealed” printed over and over in unbroken horizontal rings across the plastic.

Self-consciously, Dylan stripped down. He left his underwear for last, unwrapping and setting out the pajama gown, reducing the time he was fully nude to just a few seconds. Fastening the garment up was quick and easy velcro. He noted that the velcro patches across the gown gave access to his bare skin. He knew this was to allow whatever access the medical staff needed, but his body anxiously reported them as vulnerabilities. As if someone was going to rip open the panel across his chest and laugh at his weird asymmetrical chest hair.

He gathered his clothes and went back to fetch Mae. “So I’m guessing I put my stuff in one of these lockers?”

“Yes,” Mae said quickly, popping one of them open, “just toss it in.”

Dylan threw his clothes, shoes, and jacket into the locker, feeling somehow strange that he wouldn’t see them again for years. Mae snapped the door closed and pulled a key out of the door. She gave a quick tug on the door to make sure it was locked properly.

“So there should be a little metal ring on your pod suit.”

“Pod suit?” Dylan said, looking down at himself. He found it at about waist level. There was a spot that was kind of like a belt loop, but with a little keychain ring dangling from it.

“Yeah, the apparatus you’ll be hooked into has some hilariously long technical name, and a really nonsensical acronym. It was called SYNCHRONOUS, but like half of those letters were capitalized in the middle of the words.” Mae handed him the locker key and he attached it to the ring on his waist as she led him through the room to the far door. “I think it was Jordan who said he doesn’t respect acronyms like that, and he was just going to call them pods. It kind of stuck. Hence,” Mae said, gesturing at his outfit, “pod suit.”

The next room looked like a surgical theater, and a pack of tired-looking nurses urged him onto the stiff hospital bed in the middle of the well-lit room.

“Don’t worry,” one of them said, turning over Dylan’s hand and applying alcohol to the back of it. “We’ve been appraised of the time control here. We’ll get this done right quick.”

“Um,” Dylan stammered, suddenly uncomfortable with the flurry of activity. There was a sharp prick as an IV went into his hand. He was used to being eased into any doctor thing involving needles, but this was going way too fast.

“Good veins,” the nurse said. He gave Dylan a reassuring smile. “Saves us a lot of time. One of the first few people, we had to take like five whole minutes just getting the IV in.”

“And we don’t have five minutes,” Mae said, stepping up to get Dylan’s attention back. “You’re going to be under for just a little while while getting hooked up, so don’t worry about it. The nerve tap is the scary part, but you’ll be out for it, so just relax.”

“Um,” Dylan repeated, “do I not seem relaxed? I feel relaxed.”

“Don’t worry,” Mae laughed. “I know this is scary to you. For you, this is one of the most impactful moments your life.” She gestured at the nurses, who were readying equipment and attaching sensors to Dylan’s body. “But for them? It’s just Tuesday. This is their jobs, and they wouldn’t be here if they weren’t good at it.”

“Okay.” He blew out a shaky breath, trying to calm himself down. “So when I get in, what do I do? Where do I need to go?”

“Okay, first thing,” Mae said, “you’re going to want to skip the introduction cutscene as soon as your mental faculties are up for it. You’re probably going to also want to skip the tutorial. It’s designed to run a little long so that people getting in last night wouldn’t spend too much time waiting around for the launch event, so I wouldn’t recommend sitting through the whole thing. You’re gonna want to go through character creation as fast as you can - you can make cosmetic updates later. Just get the class you want quick... and then go go go.” Mae pulled out her phone and checked the time. “The countdown to the launch event is at the two hour mark now, but once you’re in the pod, you’re only going to have at most an hour left. Maybe more like thirty to forty minutes.”

“Where do I need to go?” Dylan repeated. “What do I need to do?”

“It’s hard to say. The event leaves from the docks, but your spawn location will be slightly randomized. You’re going to be in a big city, but all you have to do is keep moving downhill. That’ll take you towards the water. Once you’re at the docks, the boat is kind of impossible to miss.”

“Okay,” Dylan said. “Head downhill, unmissable boat.” He nodded, and found his head lolling to one side. Darkness was closing in on his vision really quickly. “I hope I remember that, because I’m going.”

“Good luck!” Mae said. “And enjoy the world of Rundan!”

And those were the last words Dylan heard with his physical ears for five years.