“Darling, remember when virtual gaming was a new thing? When people began living online rather than just staying there for a few games? When real life activities were almost as common as online ones? No, of course you don’t. I know your grandpa doesn’t like it, me talking about these things, but I think it’s important that you at least imagine a life in reality. Not like it would’ve been today, but as it once was: a place where people played, laughed, explored, thrived… A world where space was plentiful, but energy not. A place where people enjoyed each others company, shared experiences, touched each other, all knowing that it happened for real, in its utmost sense… Sob… Where families…Sob”

“Mum, why are you crying”

Two thick hands covered the youngling’s ears from behind.

“Beth, are you forcing your ideologies to my kiddo again?”

“Please, it's not an ideology, it's realism. I think it's time to..."

“God, why do you haft to be so religious about reality? No one I know has ever lived there, and that’s for the better. Tell me, has any of your fanatics’ forums ever hatched a truly skilled pro?”

“No, but that’s not the point. He's old enough to…”

“That’s exactly the point! Stop messing with the kiddos potential, or I’ll disown your noob of a husband, and raise him myself.”

.

.

11 years later.

.

.

‘This is gonna give me at least half a day of lag spikes,’ Jerry sighted.

A tugging, incoherent with the visually possible, lifted Jerry upwards, preparing him to get into the real world again. A cold sensation hit the skin of his IRL face. It was now above nanofluid level.

As his Oculars unmounted, an uncomfortably bright lit ceiling pained his eyes. While trying to adapt to the rapid change , he noticed a rhythmic sound to the left. He dismounted the oxygen supply and turned his head around. Fluid in his left ear popped free, unmasking a Birthday song.

He stiffly waded towards the rim of his capsule, his own personal connection to the internet. With help, his half asleep body got seated on a chair next to his liquid filled home. His family was persistant; the singing didn't stop for four more refrains. It felt like an eternity, but before he had gotten used to reentering reality, the song was over.

“Congratulations to your last game's Pownage… and happy birthday too!” his grandpa, Ingmar, chuckled smiling.

“Thanks,” Jerry replied, happy to be freed from the love overflow induced vacuum.

“We’ll be in the living room while you’re changing” his Mom said, smiling at him.

A wall was raised, enclosing the area around the capsule.

The wall left about a meter more of space than usual, teasing him into doing something he hadn’t done since he was a little kid: He changed clothes lying down, delaying having to deal with gravity.

‘Wow, the things I did in reality to escape boredom huh? Alright, time to start walking like a noob with a wooden capsule‘. It had been long since he walked IRL; most birthdays were on the early part of the year and his was the first.

“Here’s a plate, take some cake, the food will arrive soon,” his mom updated him.

Jerry had a big slice and sat down on his own, stiff as board. Getting accustomed to reality, he started to enjoy the scenery. The orthodox realism of the real world had its charms, the few times you visited it.

As always, being stripped of his in-game appearance he felt naked, yet, with only his family around it wasn't too bad. Usually, a cake wouldn’t be worth the hassle of having to DC later. IRL toilet visits were one of the noobiest thing Jerry could think of, but accompanied by potato pancake, bacon and whatever was in that awesome sauce, he could hardly complain. Even pro gamers had to adhere to antiquated rites sometimes.

“You know, Jerry, I never thought you’d be able to hit pro after finishing that high school, it being IRL styled and all” his grandma praised.

“Yeah, we almost worried you’d go for some real life bogus and aim for a job.”, his grandpa filled in.

"With 'we', you mean 'you', Ingmar, our son does whatever he wants," Jerrys mom compelled to say.

“Yeah, yeah, twas never any need worry though, my lil kiddo always had my pro blood runnin’ in him .” Ingmar casted the usual leer at Jerry’s dad. Jerry’s dad had to Ingmar’s dismay stayed a casual since before Jerry was born. Him meeting Jerry’s Mom hadn’t made him less of a failiure in Ingmars eyes either.

After a successful attempt by Jerry’s younger sister to change topic, the social climate improved.

Soon, a soft, melodic beep caught everyone’s attention. Another drone had arrived to the delivery depot, this one carrying a ribbon wrapped package.

“Wow! You could’ve just sent me a regular in-game gift or something”, Jerry said, trying to mask his disappointment. He had no idea what he had to unwrap. The sphere shaped thing was pretty big though. Why were they giving him an IRL gift? Hadn't his last year's rant been clear enough?

“That face of your is so totally gonna change when unwrapping that thing”, Ingmar laughed.

“Wait, this one's from you?”, Jerry asked, he felt confused.

“Yep, this one’s badass as fuck”, the old man almost giggled, excitedly awaiting the unwrapping.

A spark of devouring interest grew as Jerry approached the delivery holder.

Tearing half of the wrappings, the corners of a very recognizable logo got visible.

On the now soon to be opened sphere-case, you could easily see the captivating logo of ‘HIimmersion’ , followed by a less noticable ‘0.971 Beta’.

“No way, this is.., this wasn’t gonna get out until late next year”, Jerry burst out with joyful face, inextinguishable from one in panic. “Who.., just how.., wow! Did the team sponsor get it for the rest of my teammates?”

“Your nobass friends don’t deserve the luck you’ve had this time”, Ingmar postulated. “You know, a childhood friend o’ mine, casual, too bad…Well, he actually got to me me after a tournament some months ago, offering a beta-testing position for the HIimmersion. ‘T seems like he ended up in the UN. Turns out they’ve finally done somethin’ useful after dealin’ with them earlier global warming hassles.

“What? So they’ve finally started caring about what’s actually happening in society?’

“It makes great sense ya’ know, they’re doin’ a great favor for humanity, decreasing in-game delay n’ connection lag n’ all. I’ve heard it’s goin’ to be lower maintenance than them current capsules too, Ingmar explained, knowing what Jerry thought.

HIimmersion was the first ever Direct Stimulation Virtual Headpiece. For the past decades, gaming had been done in a capsule filled with nanobots. The small robots would stimulate sensory feedback to the nerve endings.

HIimmersion changed everything; it was the first system ever to directly stimulate the brain, circumventing ‘delay’ from nerve endings to brain. ‘Lagg’ commonly experienced when having one's nanobots unevenly distributed in thebody wouldn’t be a problem either; You could enter and exit the internet without penalties. Even the iris reading holo-oculars were now obsolete. It was all brain interactions. As a pro gamer, trying to streamline every gaming action down to the millisecond, this was huge.

“Oh look at that face,” his mother said in a baby voice, seemingly forgetting that this was his 20:th birthday. “Maybe we can see each other IRL more often with that thing. It should be easier, getting in and out of game, now when a nanosoup bath isn’t needed.”

Ingmar slapped his forehead. Why had his already idle son married this realist fanatic?

“C’mon Lily, you gotta have some common sense at least. Disturbing the boy's gaming like that would ruin his future! The boy’d have to worry bout sleep n’ eat n’ and all the hassles accompanyin’ that. Don’t be unreasonable with ‘im that’s so much hassle! Why can't he can just use the HIimmersion inside o' ‘is capsule?

Ya know capsules we're originaly made to feed serious gamers, nonobots being better than stim-suits was just a bonus."

“Oh, well”, Lily oncea again held back her irritation, as often was the case with Ingmar.

The chatting went on for ages, at least according to Jerry, whose skin itched horribly, waiting to check out his new toy.

Eventually it was time to try out the new equipment. “Finally”, Jerry exhaled before mounting the HIimmersion to his head. He submerged into the warm, familiar, nanofluid. The artificial, relaxed breathing never got enjoyed; Before he had time to get all comfy in his capsule, his new device kicked in, bombarding all his senses. In eager excitement, he left the plainness of reality behind.

****

Farah was a not a misfit of society, at least not to the part she considered worthy of the name.

The two most promising subjects thus far had all turned her down, sad, but not devastating to this trip of guilty pleasures; she had rented a capsule over the day to visit the yearly online exhibition of older media.

The exhibition was huge, as was its bandwidth consumption. About 54 Million people were currently connected to it. As Farah looked around, huge egg-like shapes of light were seen, spread out in all six directions. She directed her floating downwards, where the older media was, not caring much for the non-vertical directions; she couldn’t care less about game genres.

Soon, she hovered above one of the shining eggs. Inside of it was a huge cluster of old capsule precursors. Surrounding each group of 'capsules' was a colorful signboard, advertising whatever game the group of capsules was assigned to.

There wasn’t as many lining up for game matchmaking here in the lower eggs as in the upper ones. Farah had noticed higher ratios of families each time she went for a lower located cluster. ‘Most of these games probably only have people playing them out of tradition,’ she concluded indifferently.

The egg shaped coat, enveloping this cluster, was, as most other old media stations, made out of old TV screens. When passing near one of the floating, illusionary, displays, Farah felt its sounds of music and speech surround her, from all directions.

To most, the flat screens were a great way to immerse visitors in the feeling of antiquity. Long time ago, flat screen technology had probably been impressive, little doubt about it; today though, they served little purpose other than invoking a feeling: void lack of stimulation. Perfect for setting the right atmosphere for old games from old eras.

The shell of ancient entertainment understandably wasn’t given much thought by any passerby, short of one; Farah was cemented next to one of the floating flat screens. Crude audiovisuals didn’t deter her much; what captivated her was their traces of true, unadultered life.

In this instance she was watching the third remake of ‘Inception’, a movie few knew to have inspired some pretty fundamental legislation, long, long, time ago. ‘Pity those laws were ever needed,’ Farah thought bitterly, gradually recovering from her own line of though.

She loved watching these old movies. What she gazed onto was a world where everything was real; the people, the feelings, the clothes, the food, and foremost the culture,shared bt everyone; everything was real. Well, in this particular movie, perhaps not so, but at least the actors were all from a world where everything they ever knew and acted upon was real. Farah loved it, thus the guilty pleasure; she was in a fake world watching real people. She was escaping reality within a world not even real, yet she felt as if she was closer to how the world was supposed to be; much closer than before entering the rented capsule.

The movie ended, and she immediately headed towards the center of the capsule cluster to get a good look at candidates for the next watching. After a while of focused staring, accompanied by her signature frown and tensioned lips, she was almost done pondering what to binge next. Before coming to a decision, her forehead went from unusually low to unusually high; a bit above a prospect movie, was a person standing; He was quite hidden by the flat screen actors around him, but bloody hell, he sure was watching a movie!

Seeing another person, such as herself, had her both hopeful and nervous. She tried to quench her hesitation and fly straight over to him; ‘one wouldn’t just stay in the middle of nothing rather than watching one of the masterpieces just next to you. Would you?’

Deciding not to give her anxiety another chance taking root, she started hover towards him, not awkwardly fast, in case he’d see her, but fast. Small butterflies hit her stomach and fluttered upwards her throat as she wondered what’d happen when she reached her destination.

Arriving to his left side, she stopped for a moment, taking a glimpse at him, and the flat screen in front of him. He was at least 190 centimeters tell, blue, half long hair… and, wow that as an impressively muscular back. ‘Not the time to dream away.’ She stopped about a meter away from him, careful not to disturb his view of what seemed to be an investigative drama.

“ Hi,” she said, looking at him, looking down, looking at him, looking down, looking at him… “Hello?” she continued in a careful tone, biting the tooth gum bellow her lips. No reaction. Well, fuck it. She patted him on the shoulder.

“Hi”.

”Eeh, Hi?” the man replied. “How’s the show? “she followed up. “Good,” the man replied vacantly. “Mind if I’d join watching,” she asked, pointing at the flat screen in front of him. “Fun joke,” he replied coldly, turning back his head.

Farah was confused and didn’t know how to respond. As if noticing her awkwardness, he continued: “Only my family should be the ones disrupting me today, I’m watching the quarter finals of BenDover versus Enigma god dammit.”

His voice was less vacant now, but, his face frowned faintly instead. “Asphyxia, block her”, he indifferently instructed his AI; his twitching eyes soon no longer to be seen.

“Fuck it, for reals, fuck it!” Farah burst out. He had been the third person she had tried to talk with today. She knew that realists were considered weirdoes, but the indifference she had met today was just burning her insides. If it was disgust, anger, anything, she wouldn’t have had as much problem with the way she was treated, but this indifference; It was as if she didn’t have the ability to exist in anyone’s ‘personal sphere of self-delusion’. She hated it.

Deciding to leave the socially empty exhibition, she started multitasking. One half of her mind repeated a impressive chain of curse words whilst the other focused on getting out of the capsule. She hovered towards the place she entered the exhibition from, neglecting that a voice command would suffice to exit the dimension. “I’m done with this fake world’s, fake people... Probably fake backs too.” she muttered.

As she kept up phase, an unfittingly happy and forward going voice hit her. “You’ve been registered watching a lot of old media, are you perhaps a fan of old style reality?”

“Fuck you too computer, what if I am,” she spat to her bodiless greeter. “Then we’re happy to inform you on UN's recently released full immersion game...” the AI kept the same tone, clearly not programmed for social cues.

“Not interested”, Farah muttered. UN’s recent shift in policy was a lego in her shoe. To have gone from saving the lives of billions, just to 'game zombify' their offspring, the thought was one she'd rather not think. The era of immediate challanges, such as getting relocating countries, destroyed by global warming, might be over, but Farah hardly saw that as a reason to abandon reality and aid the world's flight to empty fantasies.

“The immersion game is a sanctioned initiative, keenly modeled after reality. The log in rate has averaged three and a half million a day on different servers for the past month.”

‘Just when things couldn’t get more stupid; it’s now officially more popular to play reality than actually experience it.’ "Wait, what? There's a reality inspired game all of a sudden?"

“Found 3 friends playing it together: Oscar Anderson, Khalid Babak and Hua Yawen, do you wish to join them?,” the AI once again ate away at social capital not existing.

“You know what? Screw you! Go uninstall system32 or something.”

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.

“Take me to my friends already. I’ve got about 6 hours left of no-refund on this stupid machine anyways.”