Week 3:

*DING*

The bell had rung but Jack was still in his seat. His back was arched over his seat and it almost seemed like steam was rising off of his head. It was only Tuesday but he was already burnt out by the finals. So far they hadn’t been particularly hard, but the college he was going to next year was a bit obsessed with their new students maintaining good grades.

He didn’t get up until Pete and Ju dashed into the room.

“JACK!”

“Come on man, we don’t wanna get stuck behind the buses!”

At the mention of getting stuck behind the buses Jack energetically jumped out of his seat and then fell immediately to the ground. His inner klutz always acted up when he was excited or anxious about something. He chalked up to being too busy thinking to pay attention to correctly using his motor skills. On their way out of the school jack had managed his left side into the exit door and nearly trip when going from side walk to pavement.

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The next day was like this as well. However, it was for entirely different reasons that his mind was preoccupied. In fact many of the students going to school that day were thinking about it. At lunch it was all he and his friends talked about.

The previous night Unicorn and Haptix had released the pricing of the new game. A headline from Jack’s favorite game info site had read:

NEW ROAD IS SET TO LAUNCH AT A REDUCED PRICE FROM PREDECESSOR!

It was almost too good to be true. Royal Road’s subscription fee had been $300 a month. Thankfully the price had been cut in half to $150. The article went on to speculate Unicorn’s reasoning behind this, the company itself had been quiet about the reasons. The only official statement from them was that they wished to allow more people to experience the beauty of their VR world.

By the time Jack got home, another story popped up about the sales of Accessors and Capsules rising drastically after the announcement. Jack settled down onto his spot on the couches with a smirk and began to play the old robot game; soon he wouldn’t be playing it ever again.

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Week 4:

Jack woke up late on Monday, very late. So late that it was his dad that had come in to yell at him about how late it was and immediately told him to go a clean the car that he had used during the school year. On his way out, grumbling about how ridiculous his dad was, Jack noticed three conspicuously large boxes sitting in the entryway. He was about to touch the top one before he heard his mom behind him.

“ah ah aaahhh. Not until you’re done with cleaning the car. Even I know when that game is launching, you’ll be fine waiting one more day.”

“Fine.”

He grumpily made his way out to the driveway to begin cleaning the car that his parents let him use. It had already been well past noon when he had woken up and he didn’t finish until it was dark out. As he was walking back in he noticed that two of the boxes were missing and that Pete and Ju were lacing up their running shoes. The two of them going for a run wasn’t all that odd, they were both athletes on the school’s track team, what was odd was that they had the Accessor helmets on their head.

“What are you guys doing?”

“Oh! You’re finally done cleaning!”

“We’re going for a run to calibrate the Accessor system.”

“Why are you doing that?”

“I guess since it doesn’t enclose the full body like the Capsules do, it needs to be worn while doing a range of physical activities to calibrate it for the person wearing it.”

“Yeah, and it apparently gets a better calibration the longer you wear it and the more vigorous the activity.”

“Which is why we are going for a run.”

“Uh-huh… alright, can you guys wait for a bit? I’ll get suited up too.”

Jack rushed into the house grabbing the final box along the way. In a few minutes he had activated the calibration mode and was ready for running. However, the twins had left after waiting only for a short while.

“Those bastards.”

Jack whispered as he started running. It wasn’t until half an hour into the run that he had caught up with them. Jack too was an athlete for the school; he was one of their soccer players and performed decently well. He tried to make up for his lack in the usual finesse of the sport by being one of the best conditioned players on the team. It was because of this he was able to catch up and then pass his younger siblings.

“You guys can go suck it!”

He hopped and twisted in the air to flip them off before picking up his pace to put a greater distance between them. From behind he could hear them shouting at him, he just kept running.

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June 1st:

On this hot summer day the roads were oddly quiet. Those who normally had free-time during the summer were nowhere to be found. Today was launch day, it was the day that the gates opened up and New Road was open to the public. All over the world news stations were covering players from their country that had been famous in Royal Road, and those that hadn’t purchased the game or were still waiting on their VR system were avidly watching.

However in Jack’s little corner of suburbia a small problem was occurring. His mom was giving them a lecture.

“Alright now there will be some ground rules for playing if you want money from us to help with the subscription fee. First, you all have to do your summer homework in a timely manner; don’t put it off till August. Second, you will always be on time for your summer jobs. Thirdly, you will spend some time outside each day so that your muscles don’t atrophy. Finally, please have fun and be careful, these systems aren’t like the capsules. There’s a rumor that the government rushed them through the development phase.”

“Yes mom.”

The three all replied slightly bored. Their mother smiled slightly and then nodded, indicating that they were free. They immediately rushed off to their rooms to hook into the system. They had all tirelessly calibrated their systems over the past few days, ensuring that they could maximize their in-game responsiveness. They were so dedicated because a VR enthusiast group had run a test comparing the Accessor to the Capsule and had found that after extensive calibration the Accessor gave an even better response time than the Capsule.

Jack fidgeted on his bed a bit to make sure he was completely comfortable before starting up the system. His heartbeat spiked slightly before his consciousness was severed from his body. He then saw it, floating in front of him in an endless white space.

Connect to New Road?

“Yes.”

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And there we go! Now we finally see Jack connect......And we won't be seeing him again until the chapter after next. Sorry, next one is going to be about Weed, there are a few loose ends to tidy up with him. As always just leave some comments down below if you have anything to say!