3

The sudden existence of reality was startling. I blinked my eyes at the bright light high in a cloudless blue sky, shielding myself with a shiny hand made of who knows what metal alloy.

That was the part that jarred me into focus. Oh, yeah. The game. This was more real than I expected. A mix of earthy scents drifted on a chilling breeze. A gray jumpsuit and black, sneaker-like shoes were far too familiar, which was disappointing. At least the shoes weren’t the white of prison sneakers, and gray was at least a change from khaki. The fabric was smooth under the fingers of my flesh hand.

Rough canyon walls sloped gently up away from me. Blue-green grass lined the canyon floor dotted with purple-leaved low shrubs. I squatted down, checking out the grass. This was no rendered field, these were individual blades of grass. The moved independently. I plucked one. It broke with a smooth edge, the first hint it wasn’t real, but it even had a scent. Something herbal. It reminded me of one of the spices in Mom’s kitchen, but I couldn’t place what. I considered tasting it, but decided to just drop it. It fell realistically, drifting several inches in the breeze.

“You are in the Keldor Mountain Range, not far from Outcrop, a small spaceport town, on the planet Relkit III,” NarratorChick explained. “Take some time to explore, get a feel for your mobility. Let’s start by heading west, directly ahead.” At least there was a tutorial, then.

I walked forward, which felt no different than walking normally. A smooth dirt trail wandered through the canyon, easy to follow. I ran forward, and a blue bar came into view towards the upper left wherever I looked.

“This is your Stamina Bar. Strenuous activities deplete it. Things that raise your Constitution will give you more Stamina. Penalties apply to most actions below twenty-five percent.” Okay, pretty straight-forward.

The canyon curved while the stamina bar slowly decreased. I stopped before a number of large boulders, and the green bar replenished very quickly.

“You recover Stamina whenever you aren’t exerting yourself, and especially when resting. Cyborgs recover Stamina very quickly. Those boulders are taller than people can jump up to the top of, but you have thruster assisted leaping. Try it.”

If that didn’t sound like oversimplifying I wasn’t sure what would. They were about the height of a two-story house. Sure, just trot over there and jump, right? Fine, leap of faith. I ran. I jumped.

Ports opened at the back of my shoulders and hips and, sure enough, I sailed up to the top of a boulder, landing neatly on my feet. The ports closed. I reached around, and the jumpsuit didn’t seem any worse for wear. That was handy. A cool-down timer started, counting down from two seconds.

+100 XP

Once the timer reached zero I hopped down, and similar ports at the bottom of my feet let me land lightly. Okay, that was cool. So a couple stories up and down I could do. That was good to know. It also reassured me that yes, things would be pretty much as simple as just do it. That would speed up the learning curve.

The patch of boulders here looked like they had tumbled down one side of the canyon. It would make a good ambush point. That would be a fun welcome to the game. Good to see they were nice than that. I trotted along the continuing path to see what would happen next.

Something hit me from behind and knocked me down. I got to my hands and knees to see a red and blue six-legged lizard, looking me in the eye. Or lens, since it seemed to be looking at my right eye. What, a lizard that ate bionic parts? That’s not creepy at all, right?

“You’ve been attacked by some kind of alien creature,” NarratorChick so helpfully stated the obvious. “Get up and punch it while it decides what to do.”

Who was I to argue? I hopped up to my feet, more agile than real-world me, and I slugged it good. Metal fists, it turns out, are decent to punch with. Didn’t hurt my hand at all. A red bar showed up over the lizard-thing, and shortened about an eighth or so.

“Enemies you fight have a red Health bar. You do, as well. Penalties occur below fifty percent, and if it runs out completely, you die. You’ll need to kill this lizard before it kills you. It will probably eat you if you do not defeat it.”

It lunged at me, hissing and snapping like some twisted chihuahua-crocodile crossbreed. Scales around its neck flared out. I managed to avoid it and I punched at it again, but missed. We went back and forth, and it scored a bite on my leg. It hurt. Not mind-wracking agony, but it was still real, genuine pain. My health bar showed up, except it was red on top and silver on the bottom, then it got marginally shorter.

“Cyborgs are part human and part machine. The red part of your Health bar represents damage that can be healed magically. The silver part represents damage that can be repaired or will heal over time.”

The critter lunged again, but this time I was ready. I hadn’t been distracted by hearing about the Health bar because, honestly, I’d already figured that part out. So instead of catching me off guard like it might have, I bopped it good on the nose.

“You’ve scored a critical hit, doing bonus damage.” Yep, she was a master of the obvious. The critter’s Health bar dropped by about double what it had before. About two-thirds were left. “Try using your claws,” she suggested.

Melee Combat Skill +1 (1)

I looked at my fleshy left hand. The critter was either dazed or waiting patiently. That would be pretty stupid, but this was the tutorial, after all. I wouldn’t expect them to do that later. I clenched and unclenched my hand, expecting some kind of mental command, and, sure enough, claws popped into place. One sprouted out each knuckle, nasty serrated blades about as long as my outstretched hand.

I punched at the lizard-thing with them jabbing them deep into it. The thing screeched a sound somewhere between a hiss and a squawk, about as pleasant as a screaming baby. The health bar dropped much more dramatically this time, losing about half what was left. Okay, I could handle this. It took a couple more swipes, during which it made a couple more feeble biting attempts, before I caught it with a good slash that finished it off. The claws retracted automatically.

+300 XP (400 total)

Melee Combat Skill +1 (2)

I half expected some kind of selection ring around it and another oh-so-helpful suggestion that I check it for loot. Nope. Nothing. But, after a little looking around, I found a dead body.

It looked human, face down, with blue hair and a gray jumpsuit suspiciously similar to my own. Either that was just the local fashion or someone actually failed the tutorial. As uninteresting as the jumpsuit was, I couldn’t help but hope it was just a local fashion. I wasn’t ready to lose that much faith in humanity.

I rolled it over and spotted a pistol. Ah, reward for checking, I guess. The body had what looked much more like a gunshot wound in its chest than any kind of lizard wound. The pistol I picked up.

“You now have your first weapon. Notice the counter displaying the number of shots remaining.”

Item acquired: Basic Laser Pistol

This simple laser pistol doesn’t look like much, but it’s functional.

Range

Accuracy

Damage

Durability

50m

+1

25

15/50

The weapon itself wasn't terribly interesting or unique looking. Rounded edges, but still basically pistol. A counter on the back under the rear sight read 20. And here I'd been hoping for one of those games with unlimited ammo. Oh, well.

“Weapons will generally come with basic, automatic holsters. Simply put it where it feels right to assign that holster location for that weapon.”

If it hadn't been for the jumping experience I think I might have been confused at that point. But sometimes you just have to roll with it. I holstered it on my right hip and, boom, a holster and belt took place to hold it. Basic black, pretty much much what I expected.

I tend to pick up these games quick. If not, I probably wouldn't have ended up in jail and then recruited to rescue the President’s daughter. I could be sipping beer on a ratty sofa blowing off class coming up on graduation. Just then I'd settle for the cold beer.

Lacking that, I figured it was time to move on. The trail wound up until a set of switchbacks up one canyon wall. This was prime ambush territory, so I kept the pistol out and ready. Reaching the top of a ridge would have been anticlimactic if it weren’t for the view.

A broad valley sprawled away into an expanse of blue forest. A red-and-brown raptor circled casually at about my altitude over the trees. The mountains curved outwards in both directions, a mix of rounded edges and jagged peaks, the taller ones capped in white. Off to the north, thanks to a pop-up map that showed what I’d explored and bits of what I could see from here, a small spaceport perched on a plateau jutting out from the range.

A ship angled in from over the forest and lowered itself to land, too far away to see details. Apparently, magnification wasn’t part of any of my packages. Maybe that would be an available upgrade later.

The trail I had taken followed the ridge for a little before dipping down into the range again. It looked like a pretty solid day’s hike, at least, to the spaceport, which seemed a likely destination. A transport and communications hub should have been a good place to start my search for Silleste. I trotted off, alternating between faster and slower to maintain my Stamina bar. I didn’t feel any exhaustion from it, which was nice. Track days in high school had sucked. But no stomach cramps in this life, it seemed.

I came into a valley, too gentle to call a canyon, but still clearly defined not just by the path snaking through it. Scraggly trees scattered up the slopes and huge boulders sat here and there along the trail. More ambush territory.

I told myself I was getting paranoid, but I felt pretty sure that as soon as I stopped expecting one, the game would throw one at me. I had plenty of gaming experience learning that there was only one good side of an ambush to be on. I ran towards one and lept up to the top, landing in a crouch down behind the tallest part of it.

A soldier in gray combat gear toting a rifle walked along, his head scanning side to side. I flattened myself down, pistol out.

“You are about to encounter your first dangerous opponent. How you choose to act will determine your first character class. Will you hide behind a rock and attack from behind after he passes? Will you fire from cover? Will you charge and take the fight up close? Or will you observe and then let him pass? Choose your destiny.” A text box appeared with more.

Quest: Intro to Tactics

Interesting way to pick a class. Nicer than scrolling through a list, but this time I would have preferred a table of bonuses. I needed to play this right if I was going to accomplish my mission. And live, let’s not forget that part.

The guy kept coming. A decision would be made for me if I didn’t make one. If I let him get close we’d be fighting in fairly tight quarters, which would minimize the range benefit of his rifle. Plus I had claws, which seemed like an advantage. But here I had cover and he did not. If he got close I would still have that options, but from a maximum-benefit-minimum-risk standpoint, sniping from here won out.

I took aim and fired.