Leon Richardson sat in the soft leather seat of his luxurious self-driving car, staring through the windshield at the brightly colored sign reading ‘Clairmont & Clairmont.’ He had known in advance that this would be one of the hardest tasks he had remaining, so he'd left his home three hours early, hoping to give himself time to consider what he would say to the man inside.

That hope had been quickly dashed as his analytical mind had refused to work the moment he had parked outside the building. He had tried tricking himself - knowing that all he had to do was open his car door, step outside, and shut it. Once he made it that far he would be trapped, forced to enter the building or return to the interior of his car - which he felt would be a new low even for him.

Time seemed to crawl as he stared through the glass, unmoving, with his hands on the now obsolete steering wheel. He could steer the car himself if he switched the car into manual guidance mode, so it did serve a function, not that he was even licensed to drive. Who would even need such a license? He had been extremely careful in his choice of vehicle, of course. While price may not have been much of a deterrence for him, its similarity to his neighbors was extremely important. When he had bought it, he had first carefully considered the vehicles of his neighbors and coworkers. It wouldn’t do for him to have anything too flashy, of course, lest he appear unconcerned with money, yet it couldn’t be anything too old or cheap either. White paint had seemed a good color choice at the time, when one considered that exactly 42% of his neighbors were driv- beep, beep, beep.

‘Oh..’ He thought to himself.

‘That’s the alarm. My appointment is in five minutes. Has it been almost three hours already?’

He double checked the clock in his car, then checked it on his phone.

They were both the same.

‘I guess I’ll have to get up now, go and see this through.’

His left hand lifted off the steering wheel, slowly moving through the air until it rested on the latch that would release the door.

Suddenly he returned his left hand to the steering wheel, reaching out quickly with his right to start the ignition, turning his car on and preparing himself to drive away.

With a deep breath that he released slowly, he suddenly felt much better. He would simply return home, wait until the office was closed, and then leave a message saying he would return tomorrow…

He felt the pain in his chest for a moment.

No.

He stopped himself.

He had to remember.

The only important thing right now, was that he was going to die - and it would happen soon.

He had to get this done, or all thirty two of his years on this planet will have come to an end, pointlessly.

He didn’t hesitate, unwilling to give himself a moment to argue his way out of it.

He shut his car off, jerked the door open, and practically threw himself out of the vehicle.

He almost allowed himself to sigh in public. He had barely made it, if he went in now, he would only be a few minutes late.

With a sudden tinge of fear and nervousness at the thought of what he was about to do, he walked into the building.

—-------

“So Mr. Richardson, am I reading this right?” Michael Clairmont had the annoying habit of leaning forward into Leon’s personal space whenever he was intently focused. A habit Leon had immediately noticed that fateful day three years ago when he had come here for his divorce…

Leon was too afraid his voice would crack and show his nervousness, so he remained silent, pinching his lips to avoid making any expressions with his face. He nodded.

Michael leaned sideways in his chair, his elbow resting on the desk and his head on his hand. His body rotated to face slightly to the side, away from Leon. It was a deflective posture. He looked back down at the tablet in his other hand, speaking without looking up. “This is - of course - your property that you want us to do this in?” He was a professional man, but it was clear he was uncomfortable with the subject.

‘Well, so am I.’ He thought, nodding his head again.

“I bought and paid for the pod myself. The receipts are there.’ He hadn’t had much of a choice, not that he’d minded. Normally the pod would detect tampering and void your insurance, but if you owned it outright you could turn that ‘feature’ off. He was one of the first buyers of the pods, as they wouldn’t be available to the public until a few weeks before the game was released.

“I would like to confirm it with you Mr. Richardson, but this says here that you wish for no funeral, and instead would like to, quote; ‘die while playing the game’ and that you ‘do not wish to be removed from the pod at all for any reason’ and instead wish to be cremated while still inside the pod.’”

Michael waited a few seconds before he looked up at Leon.

“This is all correct, Mr. Richardson?”

Leon felt his face flush. His palms were sweaty. He struggled not to ball them up in his lap, to sit still.

“It’s correct.” Leon pointed to the next attachment in the email. “I believe this amount will cover it.” Michael's eyes flicked to the attachment, giving a slight nod of his head before quickly returning to the rest of the main document. “And here it says you wish to donate the entire remainder of your savings - minus the funds needed for cremation, taxes, our fees and so forth, to the company ‘E-World Gaming.’ Is this also correct?”

Once again, Leon nodded. This too was part of his plan. He had long considered that one day he might somehow be caught, flagged for review. He was essentially hacking the game, the equipment, using a modified developer account as his character. But this was his life. He would not be leaving this game. Not ever. He needed every advantage he could get. The company, however, would not see it that way.

They would see a potentially hazardous situation for the players.

It could be a potential PR nightmare, or even worse - immersion breaking. That would be just unacceptable.

So he hoped to ‘buy’ some goodwill from the company. If all went well he would never need it, and he would instead just look like a loyal employee who shared the same dreams as the company. If he was caught, however… Perhaps they might look the other way.

He hoped.

Michael corrected his posture, sitting up before steepling his fingers across his desk. It was, as Leon had come to recognize, his thinking pose.

“You’ve no family you wish to leave this to? No charities in mind?”

Leon had considered it. He truly did feel bad, not donating his money. He had never really put it to use and he knew that others definitely would. He knew that money could help people.

But he NEEDED to be on the company's good side if they ever found out. Alexy Rodette would have the power to instantly and silently erase him from existence with no effort whatsoever.

Leon shook his head.

“No.”

—----

Leon sat on the edge of his opened game pod. Silently observing it’s padded cushions, meant to perfectly mold to the body. He was intimately familiar with all of the technology on the inside face of the pod. It was where he had started his design of the PMU. He had needed to design it to fit seamlessly into the machine, unobtrusive to casual observers. He thought about reaching his hand out to feel the memory cushions, but instead remained still as he fell deep into his thoughts.

He had designed his character. It was a 24 year old human male (The human race was the only currently available starting race for the game, with more races being available when the game progressed into space.) It was six feet tall, exactly two inches taller than him, with above average but not abnormal muscle mass and weight. Short cropped black hair instead of his own, nose length brown hair. Brown eyes with a strong jawline, instead of green eyes and a weak jaw.

He had purposely made it look different than him. One more trick to throw any hounds off the scent, one more reminder that he would be a different person in this new world. He wanted to remake himself, and he would do so both physically and psychologically. He had calculated his progression path as best he could. Memorized the names of every important NPC and hidden skill trainer that he would need. He knew the entire projected timeline of Ezuno by heart, up until the game reached the galactic stage, the peak of the current projections. He knew the exact locations of multiple military bases and hidden outposts, forcibly memorized so that later he could take advantage of them.

These were things that would help him later in the game, and he had spent his last weeks memorizing everything he could about the world he would be living in, ensuring he would have every advantage during the main storyline events. He needed to become an NPC who was essential to the players, and since the AI would not be scripting his actions like it would the other NPC’s, he would need to perform them himself.

He had finalized the tweaks on his account, giving his account a few starter weapons and a decent amount of money. He had even changed the base racial bonuses of the character, ensuring they would distribute in the most beneficial way possible for him. He had then selected his start location. All quite normal and unobtrusive things for an NPC his age to have.

He was ready.

It was unknown how much time had passed, how long he had sat on the edge of that pod, until suddenly he coughed violently. That had happened frequently of late, it was starting to occur frighteningly often. It had come to the point where he had called in all his accrued sick leave, afraid to draw attention to himself at work. The coughing fit left him gasping for a few minutes, clutching his chest in pain.

‘I’ve entered the game a hundred times before.’ He thought. He had often tested the interface inside the game with other accounts, using one of the hundreds of testing pods on the 68th floor of the E-World building. ‘This won’t be any different’ he reassured himself.

He slowly lowered himself into the pod, too afraid to move quickly in case the pain in his chest increased. The memory cushions seamlessly formed to his body, allowing it to sink in a few inches. It would be extremely comfortable, for the players, that is. Like laying down to go to bed. He reached up slowly, almost hesitating to admire the inside of the pod. ‘This truly is a great piece of technology…’ He thought to himself. It was too bad he would not be around to see it change the world.

With a soft click, the lid closed around him. Encasing him in a faint blue light.

That was all that was required. No helmet. No wire harness, no physical link to the brain. It was incredible, an almost fairy-tale like technology, brought to life by the genius of Alexy Rodette.

All that was left was for him to say the words, and he would be in the game. Forever.

Leon took a deep, shuddering breath, his chest hurting him more as he did.

He let it out slowly. Deeply relaxing his body. ‘This is it.’ He thought. ‘Do or die.’ He couldn’t waste any more time.

He sucked in one last breath of air, real air, and then he loudly and clearly said the words:

“Game Start.”

Just like that, with just those two words…

Leon died.