4

Synchronize

By the time Rian unlocked the door and stepped into the foyer of his mom’s house, he’d been wracking his brain for so long that he almost didn’t see the package sitting in the living room.

He froze. No way that’s what I think it is.

As he stepped forward, he recognized it, exactly as he remembered: the box for a MIRROR-XF5 headset.

He flipped on the lights. There was a note taped to the box. Tugging it free, he held it up and read.

Rian, I’m so sorry about what happened. Those bastards ought to get what they deserve for hurting you like that. When I heard about what they did, I bought another headset for you. I hope when you wake up, you’ll get to have as much fun as you were meant to have that day.

This might sound confusing, but something very, very strange just happened, and I want to make sure that it was real. I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you what’s going on or where I am right now. I want to hope that you’ll wake up in time, but all I can tell you is this—

No matter what happens, I’ll be waiting for you in the game. Come find me, and I’ll explain everything. I already secured the name, so you’ll know who to look for. :)

Don’t ever give up hope.

Love, Mom.

Rian stood there for a moment longer, then sat down on the floor with the note as he attempted to process everything.

The headset was obviously meant to be delivered to his apartment. There was no date on the note or on the box’s address tag, but it couldn’t have been here in the days between his injury and her disappearance. This had to’ve come recently—after she’d gone missing.

That meant someone else had brought this note and the headset here, after the police had finished their investigation; otherwise it would’ve been confiscated as evidence. At first, he wasn’t sure if he could even trust the note—that it wasn’t some kind of coded message sent by whoever had abducted her, which was what he assumed had happened.

The note did sound like her, though. And all he had to do, according to it, was do a character-search for “Azure” while inside the game to find her. But what the hell was the deal with the note being obtuse about what had happened or where she was? Were her kidnappers keeping her from revealing her location? Why the hell would someone want to kidnap her in the first place?

He sighed, setting down the note. There was so much that didn’t make sense.

So she was playing Mirage. From somewhere in the world. Or at least she had been, at the time of the note. He took a deep breath. The house stilled smelled faintly of vanilla and cinnamon, as he always remembered it.

All right. He was going to do this. All he had to do was log into Mirage, look up his mom’s character, and brace himself for whatever came next.

In a way, he guessed, he was getting what he’d wanted after all. But he sure as hell hadn’t expected his first experience with Mirage to be like this.

He grabbed a knife from the kitchen and set to opening the box. As hesitant as he was to use this headset that someone had likely planted here for him, the box was factory sealed, which was a relief. There was no chance anyone had tampered with the headset to do something screwy, like trapping him inside the game or something.

Yeah, he thought, chuckling. Like that would ever happen.

The headset, a sleek green-gray plastic helmet, fit snugly atop Rian’s head. He plugged the incredibly long cable from the back of the headset into the router at the corner of the living room, then plugged in the power cable. Thankfully, since the payment for utilities was still automatic, everything in the house was working. It was just a matter of time until those funds ran out, but he could worry about that later.

Sitting on the couch, he pulled out the manual from the box to read it over. As worried as he was about Emily, taking a few minutes to make sure he wasn’t about to botch his entry into the game would do some good in the long-run, he supposed.

There was no visor on the headset, as Mirage was streamed directly into the players’ brains via powerful electromagnetic waves. Somewhere around here he still had his old headset for his first VR MMO, ElmSaga—which he’d probably have to sell off soon to keep things running. But that headset was nothing compared to this. He flipped through the manual again, in awe at how insane the technology was.

Upon entering Mirage at full-synchronization, the player’s body would become paralyzed as if they were dreaming. It was recommended that he lay down in a comfortable position before hitting the ON switch.

All right. Nothing that could go critically wrong, from the look of it. The headset was at least idiot-proof, but he was always a bit paranoid when jumping into full-immersion games that involved momentary loss of consciousness. He set the manual aside.

Lying upon the couch, he took a deep breath and hit the switch on the headset. Nothing happened for a moment. Then a mechanism inside began to whir, spinning faster until it hummed.

Bright blue text appeared on his ceiling.

If you can read this, congratulations on your purchase!

Holy shit.

It was working. The headset was projecting images into his brain while awake. That was a first. His old headset couldn’t even do anything until the user was conked out.

When he glanced down, the text followed his line of sight and remained in the center of his vision. The message faded, and another took its place.

Please review the End-User License Agreement.

Ugh. Okay, he probably should’ve seen this coming. He considered skipping it, but he had a bad feeling: how many times had he read stories about people ignoring this thing only to discover later that it was hiding some kind of horrific clause that would completely screw them over?

A wall of text followed, and Rian focused upon the lower edge, forcing it to scroll down. He skimmed it, only finding information about not being able to sue Mirage’s development company, Reflect Systems, if anything went wrong—including how they’re not liable for injuries sustained while playing; had to be 18 to play, no minors, no avatars resembling minors, and so on. Standard stuff.

He focused on the AGREE button and, as he looked, a loading circle appeared around the option and began to fill up. When he blinked, the option reset. He stared and let the circle fill to completion.

Immediately, the headset began to download and install a patch for Project Mirage Online. Rian sighed. All these hoops to jump through. All he wanted to do was check if Azure was online.

The patch completed in two seconds.

He stared at the PATCH COMPLETE message. There hadn’t even been a loading bar, but it made sense; the game was hosted on Reflect Systems’ quantum server, so the headset was really just a connection device. Most of its storage and CPU power was for processing brain signals.

The server, however, was supposedly capable of simulating infinite variations of the game world at once, calculating and accounting for every possible outcome simultaneously. How it all worked was a trade secret, of course, but the demos had made it clear that it really worked.

There’d been a rumor, before release day, that the server was capable of predicting the future via quantum mechanical shenanigans, and that was how they were able to stream data for the game to the headsets. It made everything nigh-instantaneous. They hadn’t just abolished lag by establishing zero latency between the players, the server, and the other players; there was negative latency.

Rian glanced at the notes for version 1.0.40, the latest patch. There were some slight balancing changes for certain classes, a new “Temporal Rift” area—whatever that was—and some new cosmetic options available. It seemed not much had changed in over a year.

He remembered how excited he’d been to get an early start in the game, but now he was behind just about everyone. Whatever, he thought. He wasn’t here to play. Not yet, at least. Maybe after he figured out what happened to his mom, he’d give the game a serious play-through, live-streamed and everything, the way he’d originally wanted.

The patch notes fell away, and the central VR hub opened across his ceiling. There were a few options for other immersive experiences, like movies and online shopping: the usual stuff his old headset had. He scrolled past them and found the box he was looking for.

Bright blue, with stylized text, there was the icon for Project Mirage Online.

Here we go.

As he selected it, the box faded to black and expanded to fill up most of his vision, spreading like a night sky inside the living room. White text wrote itself onto the dark.

Welcome.

This game utilizes a system referred to as half- and full-synchronization, allowing players to remain in the game world during breaks from play. As you will not be conscious of your physical body while playing in full-synchronization, it is recommended that players take one (1) five minute break for every hour of game time.

A break every hour? Rian nearly chuckled. Who would actually do that?

To avoid injury to players, there is a mandatory limit of consecutive game-time. This limit is 4 hours. When this limit has been reached, the game will automatically switch to half-synchronization and the player will be penalized. You can check your remaining time by using the in-game menu; please use half-synchronization before the time limit. A minimum of five minutes spent in half-sync will accrue 4 more hours of game time in full-sync.

Okay, that made sense. There was something similar in ElmSaga—a kick-out mechanism, booting people from the game to prevent blood clots due to staying in one position for so long over a period of time. Except, for Mirage, the player could technically still remain in the game. Or at least “halfway” in the game. Even though the EULA thoroughly protected Reflect Systems, thanks to the half-sync mechanism no one could even attempt to blame the game for injuring them due to anyone’s negligence other than their own. Lots of rules for this technology, but he supposed it was worth it.

Beginning setup.

A wave of electricity, slightly uncomfortable, spread over his scalp. Was that normal, he wondered? His old headset hadn’t done that.

Cognitive-Mirror 99.87% operational; minimum benchmark achieved.

Key-and-lock sequence complete.

Beginning half-sync test.

Whoa, what? Cognitive Mirror? What the hell was that? Some kind of new proprietary tech? He didn’t remember seeing that in the manual.

Light pierced through the ambient dark behind the text, merging with the walls of the living room. Where before there had been soft blue wallpaper, the wooden planks of an inn appeared in its place. Rian gently tilted his head to look around. Everything in the room was still there—the TV, the coffee tables, the couch, and even the kitchen—but the materials had changed. The tables were of lacquered wood, and the lamps atop them were candles instead. The walls shimmered as if a hologram had appeared over top of everything.

Half-synchronization achieved.

To avoid injury, it is recommended that you play Project Mirage Online while lying down on a comfortable surface. Please adjust yourself now.

He was kind of nervous, as he always was, jumping into a new full-body VR game for the first time. Even in ElmSaga, the feeling of falling asleep against your will was a little frightening, like being anesthetized.

Beginning full-synchronization in 10… 9…

Rian’s body sank into the couch. A pleasant, encompassing warmth soothed his fear as the countdown ticked its way to zero.