Chapter 01-02

Taking the bus was not an option for Alex. Well, he could leave his wheelchair behind but that was kind of an important tool that he needed to get around. Instead he had to use a service for the transportation of the disabled and elderly. It was almost like a taxi service, but due to government grants they weren’t allowed to charge as much to the passengers.

The van that arrived to take him to the Sleep Center was crammed full of as many people as the driver could cram in legally. In recent months he had noticed that it was not just disabled people that were using the service but more and more people who couldn’t afford standard public transportation. The city where Alex lived was dying, it had not seen the same infusion of infrastructure as some of the human cities after the machine exodus.

Parked outside of the Northwest Sleep Center the driver helped to get Alex out of the van. He was a nice enough, middle aged man, who looked exhausted. The last thing that Alex did before rolling away was to insert his credit chip into the driver’s tablet to be charged for the trip.

“Thank you, sir, please consider Rapid Transport in the future” The man said closing the van up and hardly paying attention once the transaction had completed. Alex hadn’t noticed that he wasn’t the only person who had gotten off of the van.

“What game are you going into?” The small girl asked looking up at the sleep center with her hands wrapped around the straps of a backpack.

“My Supers.” Alex said glancing at her but looking back up at the building.

“That’s one of my top three, maybe I’ll see you inside.” She nodded and took a step forward towards the building, “My name is Luke. If you come across a female character named Luke that’s probably me.” She turned for a second then continued to walk towards the building.

Alex shook off the odd interaction and rolled his way inside the building. They had nice very accommodating handicap accessible front doors. When he entered the building, he watched Luke as she was led away into the back by a couple of people in blue scrubs.

“Welcome to the Northwest Sleep Center!” A cheerful woman walked up and flashed Alex a wide smile.

“Thank you.” Alex said with a nod and returned the smile awkwardly.

“Are you familiar with the games offered at this facility? Would you like a list?” The woman asked walking around behind Alex and taking ahold of his chair’s handles.

“I know that you offer My Supers, and that is the game that I would like to enter.” Alex said while they walked through the lobby.

“Excellent! Many people entering that game today.” She said and took hold of the handles on the back of his chair. She wheeled him through the lobby and into a small nearly empty room.

At the rear wall of the room there was a glass tube just large enough for a person. The bottom was lined in nice soft material. Alex thought it looked strikingly similar to a coffin.

“What is the state of your medical condition and how long have you suffered the affliction?” The woman held a tablet at the ready and was intently waiting for his answer.

“I am paralyzed from the waist down. I was in a car accident when I was seven so about fifteen years ago.” Alex rolled up to the glass coffin and looked down inside. He reached in and touched the soft material in the bottom. It seemed comfortable enough as if it would matter once he was in the other world.

“Excellent. And how long would you like to be inserted into the game. My Super’s currently as an indefinite time frame with an automatic update system.” The woman asked.

“However long this will get me to start, but I don’t really want to come back out.” Alex said holding out his credit chip.

She took the chip and scanned it with her tablet. For a moment they sat in silence while she worked through some items. Alex waited patiently looking around the room, but there wasn’t a whole lot to look at besides blank walls and the empty shell.

“You qualify for fourteen days’ worth of game time. Company policy states that you must enter the game with at least five hundred in-game money, Thread, so I will have to convert some of your money over, but the fourteen days includes this conversion. Once those fourteen days are up if payment is not received from within the game, we will automatically deduct the sleep fees from your in-game account, payment in this manner with incur an additional fee. So, it’s important to pay before your game time expires.” The woman explained handing over the tablet for him to sign.

Alex took the tablet, looked it over, which was word for word what she had described, and signed with his fingerprint. He was familiar with all of the rules for My Supers, but he didn’t want to be rude and if he knew them or not, they would have to go over them with him.

“In case of catastrophic failure in this sleep center or failure of any related server clusters Northwest Sleep Center nor the Aurora Corporation are not responsible for loss of life or any other resulting ailment. These entities do agree that in the event of a failure that results in death or other aliment that your medical expenses will be covered given that treatment is received in an Aurora Corporation Medical Center and all available money and game time will be transferred to closest relative or designated in game recipient. Do you agree to these terms?” The woman said holding out the tablet.

“What are the chances of something like that happening?” Alex asked taking the tablet but waited for her to answer before signing.

“Of the one million consumers helped in the North American Sleep Centers five have had an adverse effect to the Sleep system. All five of these cases occurred in the very early days of the Sleep System and all of the causes have been repaired or removed.” She explained her smiled never wavered.

“Sounds good to me.” Alex nodded and signed his name. He had used the home version of the same basic system for many years without any adverse effects.

“Thank you so much.” She smiled taking the tablet back from Alex. She stood up and leaned into the coffin making sure everything was in good order before walking to the door.

“Someone will be with you shortly to get you fixed up.” She said. Her smiled somehow grew, “Welcome to your new life!” And with that she left Alex alone with his thoughts in the room.

For a few minutes Alex rolled around the room. He touched and poked things out of boredom. He was ready to get started but was not sure how long he was going to have to wait or what exactly he was waiting on.

When the door to the room reopened two men and a different woman came inside with him. The men were larger and were wearing the same scrubs as the rest of the people he had seen. The woman was wearing a lab coat and held a tablet that didn’t look like more than a pane of glass.

“Hello Alex, my name is Dr. Carter. I’ll be assisting you with your travels to the new world. I see that you’ve chosen to join My Supers Online. Are you familiar with this world?” She sat down on a stool and crossed her legs.

“I’ve played a little on a friend’s in-home device.” Alex said lying without even batting an eye.

“Excellent. Will you be wanting to use that account for this experience?” She asked.

“No ma’am I used his account, so I need a new one.” Alex shook his head.

“Very well.” She said with a smile while making a note on her tablet, “Let’s begin.”

The two men effortlessly lifted Alex from his chair and moved him over to the glass coffin. They laid him down inside and arranged his legs. He shifted himself a little to get comfortable. He found that laying on the material in the bottom of the tube was what he imagined laying on a cloud would feel like.

“If you played on a friend’s account you might find the sensation of joining the world to be a little different. Your friend’s system was most likely calibrated to him and would have some signal errors from your brain. You can rest assured nothing of the kind will happen with this set up. Everything will be perfectly calibrated to your body and mind.” Dr. Carter said with a smile. She walked over and looked down on Alex in the tube.

“Yes ma’am.” Alex said giving a slight nod.

“There might be a bit pressure in the front of your head and some discomfort in your eyes. This is completely normal.” She explained placing a device over his eyes. The piece of technology wrapped around the back of his head locking tightly into place.

Just as informed, the device started to activate, he felt pressure in the front of his head. It spread slowly to his whole head. His eyes felt as if they had been open for hours on a dry sunny day. He wanted to blink, but they weren’t even open.

Just as quickly as all the discomfort had started the world around him went completely black. There was no sound. He felt nothing and there was nothing to see.

A chime sounded indicating that he had arrived or more akin to the loading was done. He looked down to see a pair of hands. Three icons appeared floating before Alex in the air. One icon represented Magic, one represented Technology, and the last represented Supernatural. His choice here would dictate how his abilities would be granted to him.

He considered for a moment and chose to go with Technology. He could get stuck with his ability coming from gadgets, but they could also come from things like serums. He liked super solider serums when they were used in comic books and superhero movies.

Next he had to decide on his appearance. There were two modes that Alex could use to complete the process. He could use sliders to create the character bit by bit or he could create an image in his head and the system would then do best adaptation of that image. He went for option two because there were several ways in game to get a character’s appearance changed if he changed his mind.

He pictured a man in his mid-twenties. His body was physically well off, but not to the point that he would stand out in a crowd or his shirt would bulge around his muscles. His face was very close to Alex’s normal face, a little sharper on the features. He gave the avatar short black hair. At nearly six feet tall he stood a little higher than he did in real life. Keeping his crystal blue eyes, he gave the image to the system to do its thing.

A few seconds passed before the avatar appeared in the space in front of him. It was almost an exact copy of the avatar that he had created in his mind. The hair color wasn’t exactly the same and the muscle tone was a little less, but Alex was happy with the end result.

He embodied the avatar and could feel himself becoming this new person. He took a deep breath and looked down at his hands. Flexing his fingers into fists he turned them over a few times. A long few moments passed as he tested his legs and made sure that it was all working as it should.

Three lists of abilities appeared hovering in front of him. He got to choose three that would make his hero, or villain, however he decided to be inside the world. There was still a bitterness in the back of his throat from what had happened to him, but he pushed it away.

The first ability that he chose was Health Regeneration. He wanted to be able to take a hit and heal quickly. Over the years it had been the most useful. After he was able to spend some points in its progressing it would be really helpful.

The next ability that he scrolled to was super strength. He knew that it was one of the best offensive abilities to a new low-level character as it didn’t take many points before a punch could do some real damage. That was even more true when dealing with henchmen who really didn’t have any powers of their own, for the most part.

The last ability that he chose was flight. He needed to be able to get around and flight was always his favorite option. He would have to spend a couple points before he would be soaring across the map, but it would be a start.

Alex could feel his new abilities take root within him. He clenched his fists and released his fingers slowly. The powers themselves wouldn’t be able to do much until he spent his starting skill points. Every new player started out with three power points that they could spend however they saw fit. Whether they wanted to put every point into a single ability or spread them out evenly, it was completely up to the player. He wouldn’t get an opportunity to spend the points until he entered the game world.

The last thing that he had to do before entering the game was decide on his alter ego’s name. ‘The Frost’ was something that he had come up with when he had first started playing and was embarrassed by it daily. Several months before the incident he had begun to consider changing his name to Aether. With his forced rebirth he decided that there was no better time. He set his name and finished the character creation process.

Alex closed his eyes as the darkness took over the confines around him. He could feel the world coming into existence in all directions. When he opened his eyes, he stood before a door.