When I stepped through the café door I found myself back in the character creation gym. Looking around I found myself at a bit of a disadvantage. Savira had been here last time to help me with the log out; since she wasn’t here now I might have a bit of a problem. Before I started to panic I looked at the door I had come through. Next to the door was a display that had different options on it. One was Neighborhood Café, another was Hero’s Call, and the last was Log Out.

“Okay so no reason to panic,” I mumbled to myself.

“Well, maybe a little,” said a deep masculine voice behind me.

I spun around, my body instinctively dropping into a low fighting stance. Across the room, leaning against the locker that I had used for my costume, was a huge middle aged man. When I say huge, I mean this guy looked like he bench pressed trucks. He stood about seven feet tall, was built like a professional football lineman, and had muscles that were as defined as old Greek statues of gods. He also had a military crew cut of sandy brown hair with hints of grey, light amber eyes, and a square cut face that just seemed to match the rest of him. Dressed in a simple t-shirt, boots, and jeans similar to mine he looked at me with a small smirk.

His voice rumbled out again, with a tone of voice that reminded me of my old high school football coach, “Chill out kid, Savira asked me to stop by. No one can normally come into your personal area without your permission except the administrators; and they are tracked for what they do in here. If you want me to leave, just say the word.”

I didn’t come out of the defensive crouch, but did reply, “Depends on why I should panic ‘just a little’.”

He chuckled and said, “She asked me to be your trainer for your powers tutorial. We don’t normally step out to help out the new players, but it was approved for the special test cases.”

I noticed he said step out, not some parallel to dive in. My mind spun a bit and when it settled I asked, “Are you another virtual intelligence?”

“She mentioned you were clued into that. Yes I am, hell about half the population that inhabit Hero’s Call are. Most of us aren’t anywhere near as advanced as she is though,” he answered.

“Most?” I asked.

“Yeah, the various mentors and in game administrators have some extra functionality that allow us to know about the so-called real world, that way we can make allowances for players not being logged in. The average citizen in that world though just operates like a normal person though. Animals, constructs, and anything else without sufficient intelligence are standard AI programming,” he explained.

I slowly rose from my crouch and stepped forward extending my hand, “Name’s Alexander Cayne.”

His hand engulfed mine in a strong grip as he shook it and said, “Name’s Phil Daniels. I’m a little surprised though. Savira bet some of the other mentors, myself included, that a few of you would treat us as people rather than glorified programs. I thought she was a little cracked personally.”

“I have a bit of a leg up on the others; I already know she’s advanced enough to be a person regardless of her digital nature. In a digital world us having bodies doesn’t matter as much since we are in the same state of existence as you would be,” I said on instinct.

I was a little surprised at the concept now that I considered it. I believed my own statement, but I hadn’t really been giving it that much conscious thought. I mentally shrugged, I did that a lot, my mind running in advance of my thoughts and only actually registering the answers to my questions if I gave it conscious thought. Phil raised an eyebrow and said, “Huh I hadn’t thought of it that way. Philosophical discussions aside, do you want to start your power tutorial now? Savira’s message said you were planning on logging out to research some ideas for new techniques. While you technically can rearrange this room to do some of your research here it is better for you to do it out there so you use your own body.”

I considered his question a moment before asking, “What can you tell me about the power tutorial? For that matter what do you mean by I can rearrange this room?”

He ran his hand through his hair in what looked like a nervous gesture before answering, “As I understand it this room is set up as default for character creation for the game you’re registered for when you first log in. Since there is nothing stopping you from logging in for other purposes it becomes a digital home base not directly connected to any particular world. So you can do minor changes to the layout and amenities after your first character is created as a jumping off point. You can also be given access keys to other locations to travel to using the door. Savira or the Home administrators would be the ones to ask for more information. Since I’m actually a resident of Hero’s Call I don’t have most of those details. The power tutorial is an option for all beta players, and allows you a total of eight hours worth of time to familiarize yourself with how to use your abilities in the game world in a separate instanced environment.”

He placed his hand over his chest as he continued, “One of the in-game mentor’s is on hand to help those of you using the new dive system in case you have trouble due to your specific circumstances for using it.”

“You keep referencing your world as ‘in-game,’ why?” I asked.

It was his turn to shrug as he responded, “Mostly to make it easier for you to understand. To me the world of Hero’s Call is home. No different than the world you are from. Since I am both aware of my digital existence and the fact that you and those like you are coming here to play a game; it just keeps it simple.”

“What if someone decided to stay in the digital world? Can they do that?” I asked.

“No clue kid, but if that was the case they still wouldn’t think of themselves as a part of the world if I understand the concept right. I could be wrong though, I did lose the bet to Savira,” he answered.

I smiled and said, “Yeah, but some people might go for that option if it was available. It isn’t a big deal to me right now, just a random thought. I can go for the power tutorial, but I do wonder what makes you a mentor.”

Rising to the verbal bait Phil responded a little hotly, “I’m a mentor because that’s what I get to do in my world. I’m a retired hero who is expected to spend his days training punks like you that come to our world to play at being a hero.”

It was obvious he had an issue with people just playing at being a hero, so I added some more fuel to the fire, “So you’re saying you don’t think the players can do the job?”

He growled a bit before obviously stopping to consider, “Most of you can’t get over the fact that you see this as a game. There was a few during the Alpha test though that had the right mentality and treated it as another world. Rumor has it that those ones got an invite to return during the Beta with a bit of a head start if they played the same character.”

I decided to ask, not really expecting an answer, “Anything you can tell me about them?”

Surprisingly he answered, “Well there is CAL; he’s a tech villain who insists on taking areas and fortifying them with nanite constructs just to challenge heroes who come to stop him. Always thought he was a bit crazy in his approach to things, but he was effective and sometimes did things for our side. There was another one who went by King Gnome, he was an odd one; a magic hero that liked to mix it up with close quarters magical combat. Warlock was another magic hero, but he used conjured creatures that actually evolved into virtual intelligences of their own; that surprised the rest of us to no end. Those three are going to be pissed if he doesn’t come back. There were a few more, but I would have to check the database.”

I shook my head, there was going to be a lot to this game that would require me to get into it to figure out. That was for Monday though, for now I started moving to the door and said, “Let’s get started. I want to at least learn how this works before I do more research. It might save me a bit of trouble in the long run.”

We both moved back to the door and Phil pulled a keycard out of his pocket. As he passed it over the display a new option appeared: Hero’s Call: Power Tutorial (Duration – 8 hours). He pressed the button to select it and said, “When you leave the area to return to this room the timer on it stops. If you run out of training time while still in the room you will be notified to exit the area within five minutes before it shuts down. If you are still there when it shuts down you will be booted from immersion and locked out until Tuesday.”

If I was locked out until Tuesday that meant I would both be missing time that I was employed to do, and miss the beta event. I had a suspicion I wasn’t supposed to mention the expected beta opening event to Phil, but if the people in there were actually real beings I couldn’t just let them walk into danger. I spoke up, “Before we go through, were you aware that there is supposed to be an opening event for Hero’s Call when the beta goes live?”

He looked at me cautiously and asked, “What kind of event?”

I shrugged and replied, “Nothing was explained to me. It could be harmless, but in some games of the past the launch day events were something used to set the tone of the world. If we are supposed to be stepping into the world as superheroes then there could be something that brings us together. Quickest way I know to do that is some kind of conflict.”

He nodded, “I’ll make sure the others are on the lookout. During the time you would know of as the alpha test most of us that are mentors were active heroes. For us it has been almost fifteen years of relative peace. Knowing that you all are returning to the world does make it likely something is going to go pear shaped.”

“Then I guess I need to do some serious training before stepping into the meat grinder,” I said.