Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

The familiar sound of a life monitor beckoned Max back into reality.

He laid still for a moment, resting his eyes, listening to the steady cadence. It was like the crack, crack, crack of a pickaxe.

In a way, the sound was comforting. It reminded him that time was passing, one second into the next, with or without him. For Max often felt that if he stood still too long, if he relaxed for just a moment too long, his world and the people in it would surely fall apart around him.

He opened his eyes to the inside of his pod—a rectangular capsule, seven feet long, four feet high and wide. A cool blue light was just beginning to grow in intensity, sensing Max’s wakefulness.

A pod was essentially a mattress with prefabricated walls and ceiling built around it. The entire bottom was Max’s bed. On one side of the off-white wall was a large screen, while the other had a foldout table and several small cubbies.

At the head of the bed was a thin shelf. Built into the wall above it was everything related to the Dreamdrive—the piece of VR technology that allowed Max to connect to Starsword Online.

It included a small life monitor which tracked Max’s vitals; a charging desk for the headset currently wrapped around his head; and a long, flexible tube which extended into Max’s arm, supplying him with Juice. This milky liquid kept his real body nourished while connected to the Dreamdrive, ensuring his brain and muscles didn’t lose function or atrophy.

A good chunk of Max’s earnings paid for all this. The monthly rental fee which included the Dreamdrive, the supply of Juice, and the Pod which made up his living quarters. It’s where he worked, slept, and ate some of his meals. This tiny elongated rectangle was his only bit of privacy in the whole world, and he didn’t even own it. All that said, for someone who’d been born in the Bottoms, he was doing comparably well for himself.

Max yawned and sat up.

He took off the Dreamdrive headset and placed it on the charging desk behind him. Then he disconnected the tube of Juice from his arm. The simple linen clothes he wore were damp with sweat. Even though he hadn’t used his real body, 16 hours of menial labor in the Dreamdrive tended to trick the brain in curious ways.

He then stretched his muscles, encouraging blood back into them. Well, at least they don’t ache to hell and back out here in the real world. That was one benefit of working in a virtual game.

Max's mind, however, was another matter. He tried slapping some alertness back into his face, but it was no use. He felt just as tired as he had been back in Alethia... maybe more so.

In the early days of the Dreamdrive and other emergent VR technologies, there were those who thought they could escape sleep by alternating between a real and virtual world. They soon found, however, that even in this age of advanced technology and scientific wonder, sleep still reigned supreme. No one could cheat it, no matter how hard they tried.

He grabbed his tablet from the wall and was surprised to find a message waiting for him. It was from Polar Tech Industries, the company that currently held his terminally ill mother in suspended cryosleep. The message was terse, as usual, and only requested that he stop by the building.

Max frowned and rubbed his eyes. Curious, but not overly concerning. He knew he hadn't missed any payments, and the last time they'd asked him to come in it was only to provide an update on their services. Oh well. Just one more thing to add to the list.

Groggily, Max inched his way to the foot of the pod. He reminded himself that once he took care of a few responsibilities, he could sleep. He just needed to make this inconvenient (and hopefully quick) trip to Polar Tech and—feeling his stomach rumble—grab something to eat. He sniffed under his arm. A shower probably wouldn’t hurt either...

After changing into a jacket and jeans kept in one of the Pod’s cubbies, Max grabbed his mask and tablet, slipped on a pair of shoes, and pressed a button. The door at the foot of the Pod lifted, and Max climbed down a short ladder into a hallway.

Each wall on either side of the hallway was made of pods identical to Max’s own. They were stacked one on top of the other, three high and ten deep. Max’s Pod was in the second row, halfway down the room. He headed towards the sliding glass door at the far end of the room.

He exited into another large hallway. On his way to the elevator, he passed more pod rooms. There were six total on this floor and each held 60 pods. Max didn’t know exactly how many floors the entire building had, but it was a lot. They didn’t call it a “Pod Hive” for no reason.

Thousands of people, most of them from the Bottoms, connected to Dreamdrives… Working, working, and working more in the hopes that one day they’ll earn enough to create something better in the real world. Those who made enough often moved into apartments higher up in the building, small rooms outfitted with a pod. It still wasn't theirs, but at least it was roomier and more private. One day, Max hoped to have enough to have his own space like that.

In the center of the floor was a large food court, where people could eat and socialize when they weren’t plugged into VR. Max had to circle it to reach the elevator located in the corner of the building, which would take him to the street entrance on the ground floor.

When he stepped into it, the AI scanned his face and confirmed his identity. “Floor?” it asked.

“Lobby.”

The elevator closed its doors and began to descend.

One wall of the elevator was made of solid glass. Outside, rows of buildings stretched up into the clouds. It wasn’t raining, but the sky was blanketed with them, a giant gray cover preventing any sunlight from reaching down.

The result was a permanent pallid cast to everything, and it seemed like the city had responded to this lack of natural vibrancy by layering its buildings with neon signage and ever-moving digital screens. They advertised an endless stream of products and places to the shiny hovercars zooming by.

As the elevator continued to plunge, the outside became even darker from shadow and smog, the buildings showing more grime. There were less hovercars, too, only a few beat-up models passing by the window. By the time the elevator reached ground level, it was like Max had descended into a different world entirely... an underworld.

Ding!

“Lobby,” said the AI. “Have a wonderful day!”