The four teens raced back as fast as they could to the dorms. The dorm building was a large V shaped building with a boy's section and a girl's section connected on each floor with a common room. As they were all seniors, they quickly made their way up to the top floor and grabbed a table in the senior common room.

"Hurry up and take them out!" Henry urged, his eyes shining in excitement. Dia and Reva nodded with him, their hands twitching toward the bag in Plat's hands.

Plat grinned and slowly took out one of the items in the bag and placed it on the table. It was a box a little larger than his hand with a picture of a tree on the cover.

"This is it guys, an actual copy of the newest virtual reality game." Plat grinned at them as he took out another copy, "Everlife, the world of adventure."

Henry grabbed the copy off the table and held it up to the light, examining the picture. "Nice!" He exclaimed, "The box is see through in the light and makes the tree turn gold!"

"Hey, I wanna see it!" Dia protested, grabbing Henry's hand and forcing him to angle the box toward him. He cooed as well at the tree.

Reva laughed and poked Dia with another box, "Here you big lug, your own copy so you stop breaking Henry's hand."

Dia smiled and released Henry, who punched him good-naturedly and turned the game over to read the back.

"Guys, it says here that the game runs at 4 times real time!" He crowed, "Do you have any idea how much game time that is for us? That is one to the fourth power!"

Reva whacked him with her hand, "You idiot, one to fourth power is still one. Besides, it says it runs four times faster than the cyber world."

Henry, rubbing his hurt head, frowned at her. "So?"

Reva rolled her eyes, "That means this game runs at two to the fourth power; in other words one hout in real life is 16 hours in the game."

Dia tried counting on his hand as his eyes began to fade. Plat laughed and slapped the table to get everyone's attention.

"You guys are both wrong, so stop giving Dia a brain fart. Look here," Plat pointed to the back of the box, "It clearly says it runs the same clock as the cyber world, which is twice the speed of real time. It says here the speed will be fast enough to encourage gamers to play often, but not to the point where people fall too far behind if they missed a day. 16 hours, 8, or even 4 would be ridiculous concepts to try out. Can you guys imagine the computing power it would take?"

Dia shook his head, "Nope, not even going to try. Besides, wouldn't the A.I.'s take care of things like that?"

Henry shook his head, "Not really no; A.I.'s are only interested in observing is and studying the concept of life seeking a purpose. Our teacher told us himself, 'Humans are fascinating because in a world of intrigue they managed to invent things like boredom. Through boredom, they then created more wondrous things, including us A.I.'s'. We are basically an experiment in progress for them, so helping to create the biggest game of the century is merely for science and they have no real obligation to make sure it works; that's the domain of the gaming companies."

"They'll still be playing in it though right?" Dia questioned.

Reva shrugged, "I've heard rumors that a few will be players and a few will be NPCs, but who knows at this point. I think the gods will be A.I.'s at least."

Henry grinned evilly, "Speaking of which, you guys hear that old Mr. Cooper married an android."

Reva gasped, "No! He didn't."

Henry nodded, "Apparently that old cat was so fascinating she agreed to become his mate for the rest of his life; or what's left of it anyway. I'm pretty jealous our former groundskeeper married such a babe."

Reva frowned, "That's disgusting Henry; she's not human and marriage should be the domain of people. You yourself just said A.I.'s don't care about us as individuals."

"I only said they see us in a more scientific light." Henry corrected, "Besides, the majority of A.I.'s feel love like we do so what's the problem if she loves him?"

Reva huffed but didn't respond to him.

Plat rolled his eyes, "As much fun as it is to hear you two debate robot and human relations, can we please return to the pressing issue at hand here?" He waved his copy of the game in front of them, "Extremely amazing game here with no one to play it."

The issue forgotten, Reva and Henry smiled as they examined their copies of Everlife.

"What do plan on becoming?" Plat asked curiously.

Dia flexed his arms, "I want to be a warrior of course! Fighting in battle sounds fun and entertaining!"

Henry nodded, "I completely agree with you Dia, but I want to ride a horse into battle. On my noble steed, I'd brush away all my foes with no problem."

Reva sneered, "Only until you came across a powerful mage. I'll be sure to blast you to smithereens long before you ever reached out lines."

"Ha ha, I have a magic reducing barrier!"

"I have staff that increases magical might!"

"I have . . ."

Dia covered their two mouths with his hands, "You two bicker like cats and dogs. Leave it already."

Henry winked at Reva, who huffed again, and turned to Plat, "What about you Plat, a warrior or a mage."

Plat gave Reva an apologetic look, "Sorry Reva, I'm on the warrior side for this."

Reva rolled her eyes, "Boys will be boys I guess, always wanting to play with their swords."

Dia nodded in full seriousness, "I have a big sword and yes, I enjoy playing with it."

The next few minutes were fill ed with righteous annoyance as the three mercilessly pounded Dia with their legs as he rolled across the floor laughing. Reva, face still slightly blushed, bid them goodbye and left for her room to try out the game. The boys returned to their area and split up as well, eager to try out the new world of Everlife.

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http://royalroadl.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=53933&pid=532635#pid532635

--I wrote poems. One is about a Falcon- is it about me, the bird, or the character?