The day was so routine and unremarkable that there was nowhere else to go. The sun, as luck would have it, hid, not wanting to disperse even the smallest bit of this gloomy mood that covered the metropolis. Here, among a scattering of high-rise buildings, a little less than a kilometer high, it was already rare to enjoy the sunlight, and even more so now.

It was late in the morning, but the streets were already crowded. In the midst of a stormy gray stream of hurrying residents, a guy was walking. Nothing remarkable, at first glance, and at the second, to be honest, too. The same gray spot that looked to be in his mid-thirties. And you'd have to look really hard to see that the man was actually quite young: just over twenty, no more. But the pallor of his face, the bleakness of his eyes, and the shuffling, lifeless gait of his gait did not make him look younger.

Right now, the poor guy was returning from a specialized pharmacy. The drugs that were supposed to prolong his life just a little, although they worked, caused such painful and severe migraines that the guy was not too happy that he was not yet dead.

With a sullen look on his face, he trudged along in silence, resisting the living tide of people who, as always happens, are not too concerned about the fate of the first person they meet.

"I can't take it anymore..." - A similar thought in one form or another occurred to this person for a whole month now. Every day and many times. But he stubbornly endured this joke of fate, continuing to take medication.

The incurable neurodegenerative disease progressed extremely quickly and, even according to the most optimistic forecasts, it was no more than a month away. And this is provided that you take exorbitantly expensive medications. Despite the level of development of modern medicine, such diseases could not even be stopped, so the poor guy had no choice but to accept this outcome.

And I don't care that I wanted to live at least a little longer...

As he continued to walk slowly, he heard the sound of water, but he was only surprised for a moment. This hologram advertising the game has been here for a very long time. The boy lifted his seemingly heavy head and looked straight ahead. There was a small hill, above which shone a three-dimensional optical projection. The ancient wooden ship bobbed steadily on the waves, cutting through the azure sea. There were quite a few people on board, dressed in strange outfits that looked like they were stolen from a previous era. The ship continued to float, and gradually the camera moved away and it became clear that there was an armada of similar vessels on the water. Their destination was also well known. I don't think there are people on the whole planet who haven't heard of it.

REVOLVE is a new game based on the principle of virtual reality, the technology of which has been developing for more than 40 years. There were even rumors that the game began to be planned from the moment of the birth of primitive augmented reality devices against its background. Just think, today it is difficult to imagine an ordinary walk without such devices, but this was not always the case. Developers were able to predict the development of technologies for decades to come...

In fact, it was only possible to call REVOLVE a game by greatly downplaying the scale of this brainchild of scientific thought. The developments discovered in the process of its creation have found application in almost all spheres of human activity: from medicine to mining. The main achievement was not even the technology of creating a complete virtual world itself, but the unique artificial intelligence that designed it.

At the very beginning, only the basic laws of the world were set, and the process of creating and populating it was entrusted to a specialized, completely unique AI. And now, so many years later, in 2065, the game is finally ready to see the light of day. The scale of the marketing campaign turned out to be so large that it would not be surprising if they were equal to the cost of its development. But in fact, the game, even before it was released, completely paid for itself! The principle of working with the human nervous system has already been applied for completely different purposes. The main thing, perhaps – is the creation of perfect AI, which brought developers fabulous profits and attracted the attention of the whole world to create the game. And now, there were two days left before the long-awaited launch.

The game had only one drawback: in order to visit the new world, you had to pay an unbearable amount for the average person. However, there were quite reasonable rumors that the price is fully justified, and the company is preparing a big surprise for users. Maybe the developers even spread these "rumors"themselves...

The gameplay itself took place exclusively in the company's branches, where there were special installations for connecting the user to the virtual world. This limitation is due to some incompleteness of the technology of working with human neural networks. To ensure complete safety when connecting to the game, constant supervision and strict adherence to the established rules were required.

The gameplay was divided into sessions, the duration of which was equal for everyone. An unprecedented early rule, but it was around him that at least a dozen theories were built up about what kind of surprise awaits everyone...

It was for each such session that you had to pay. The amount announced was so large that it would be enough to buy a small house! But this did not deter the powerful from starting a large – scale occupation of new lands, which in the future promised to become so popular that they were actually supposed to completely replace the current planet-and such words are not an exaggeration. The company itself has confirmed this possibility in the near future.

This is completely public information, or rather, it was made public to further increase the popularity of the game. And, it is worth noting, such a move has had an explosive popularity, even despite innumerable complaints about the cost of diving.

And the person looking at the hologram that had already entered the second round of the show also knew all this.

The solution settled into his mind easily and easily. Recently, this has been the case for almost every even slightly important choice. This is understandable, when you already have one foot in the grave and the only thing you can lose is the remaining few months, or even weeks, to think about something for a long time is simply stupid.

He turned around and started walking in the same direction he came from. It would seem that even the hated migraine receded a little, it was worth setting a goal.

The guy was home only in the late afternoon. He'd just sold his car and most of the furniture, and tomorrow he was going to do the same with the apartment. The price was pleasantly surprised, but on the other hand-here is the very center of the city.

Amazing. He parted with almost all of his possessions, and the money is still only enough for almost a month of connection. But it didn't matter at all. In fact, without medication, he wouldn't last that long. The heart will stop beating in a couple of days, but a person who has lost faith in the future will be able to live them without pain.

***

A small reception area, individual for each player who paid a lot of money, welcomed its guest with bright walls and a futuristic design that is now fashionable. But there was no time to look at the furniture.

A contract the size of a small book was placed in front of him, and he signed it without looking at it. A step behind her, the consulting girl didn't even bat an eye at the carelessness. With a smooth motion, she picked up the document and placed it in the hole right in the wall.

"Follow me, please." — With an extremely angelic smile, the employee chirped, pointing in the direction of the door.

She had been leading the client through an ornate series of corridors for almost five minutes before they reached a room about a hundred square meters in size. Here were ten installations for immersion in the world of the game. At the moment, all of them were empty, which, in the guy's opinion, was due to his decision made too quickly earlier. Mindless signing of a contract is not the fruit of excessive trust in a world-famous company, in any case. This is just one more example, representing the full extent of despair of a person whose shoulder was already squeezed by a bony hand.

They were met in the room by four doctors, judging by their white coats.

— How do you feel?" One of them asked, more out of politeness than anything else, since the game unit itself was performing body diagnostics.

— I'm perfectly fine. Except that I'm filled with anticipation. The prearranged phrase sounded surprisingly light. He hadn't been very talkative lately, but it was obvious that some anticipation had actually managed to break through the wall of apathy that had been created by the realization of his own demise. Just a few days, but spent in a really interesting activity-exploring a world unknown to anyone yet...

"But the new world is really, in fact, unknown." - Thought the guy, pulling off his clothes. In a couple of days, he managed to learn quite a lot about REVOLVE.

Aria-that was the name of the main specialized AI-independently brought the game world to a state of complete autonomy. At the moment, the developers almost could not influence it directly in any way, except, perhaps, for connecting new players, for which, after appearing in the new world, Aria was also responsible, generating their appearance, parameters and everything else.

Death in the game, as previously reported, was punished quite severely – a person lost all the collected items and one of the specializations. This was done to maximize the realism of the gameplay. The world itself could also be called real without the slightest doubt, all the phenomena occurring in it were strictly subject to the laws set initially, which directed its development together with Aria.

Of course, the developers worked out the main points that would make your stay in the game more pleasant and take into account the mistakes already made in the real world.

For example, in REVOLVE there was no garbage, all discarded items disappeared after a while.

Although the player could get sick, but organisms smaller than a certain size simply did not exist, which excluded most diseases caused by viruses and parasites. Surprisingly, even most of the small insects were missing.

The players ' senses, whether it was pain, thirst, or anything else, were also dulled, they simply couldn't exceed a certain threshold. This topic caused a lot of controversy, because they wanted to remove unpleasant sensations altogether, but the experiment confirmed that this can cause some harm to mental health. Yet, having forgotten what pain was, players might have inadvertently harmed themselves after returning to reality...

Also, despite the fact that in the game people had to eat, their bodies did not produce waste products, and only the outer layer of skin was dirty. This was done mainly because the world in the game was close to the early Middle Ages and in order to please a person who was used to household amenities, they decided to simplify personal hygiene as much as possible.

Also, the player characters didn't age. Their bodies when generated were of a similar build, which gradually changed, depending on the direction of development. The complexion of characters could not be chosen, the player could not even name their character. All parameters, from the length of the hair to the innate characteristics of the race, were formed by Aria.

It is also worth noting that the organisms inhabiting the virtual world could rightfully be called living, because each of them was responsible for its own AI of the appropriate level of complexity. In the game, you could even have children who were not inferior to a real person at all.

The list of such global and minor differences was quite extensive, but not all of them were disclosed – players had to experience all the charms of the game firsthand.

Sighing, the guy finally undressed completely, finishing remembering what he had read on the project's website. Following the instructions, he lay down in a rather large installation, similar to a metal-covered sarcophagus.

The body immediately seemed to sink into something thick and slightly warm. This feeling did not cause any hostility, quite the opposite. It was light and good, like lying on a gently swaying water. Except that my migraine-ridden head kept reminding me. Something cold touched the back of my neck, and then the same thing happened to the top of my spine.

- Close your eyes and relax. One of the men in medical scrubs gave the first and only command in a monotone. The boy wasn't bothered by the tone of the doctor's voice at all, and now he had already managed to close his eyes, falling fast asleep in a few moments.

The young man could no longer see how the small indicator on the surface of the newly closed lid of the "sarcophagus" began to slowly fill up, indicating the progress of the process of its synchronization with the user's nervous system. The indicator successfully filled the entire scale, but after a moment, an error message appeared on the holographic display. The device stopped syncing and slowly opened. The boy's body could be seen shuddering from the electric shock. Once, twice, three times, but calmly watching what was happening, the doctor simply continued to monitor the vital signs displayed on the retina of his eye. The immersion setup consistently followed protocol, and the user's body received all the substances that should have been used during resuscitation. But my heart didn't start beating. Four minutes later the doctor said in the same emotionless voice:

— The first case of a fatal outcome was recorded when connecting. The device is fully functional. - After sharing his observations with his colleagues standing nearby, he gave the command to take the body and turned around, leaving the room.

***

Ten hours later, the head of the department responsible for connecting new players to REVOLVE was finishing up an oral report to the company's CEO.

— ... thus, during the connection session that ended today, more than 290 thousand people were entered into the game, which, in fact, only slightly exceeded the initial calculations. A gross error was also found that was not taken into account in the development process. People with certain types of nervous system disorders cannot be connected to current models of dive devices. One case of fatal outcome was recorded, due to overloading of neural networks during synchronization. According to protocol, Aria immediately began to check the state of the nervous system of each plug-in before starting synchronization.

— Was it someone important?"

— Not at all, sir. A young man, 23 years old, no family, sold all his property before connecting. If you'll excuse me, I'm guessing he just wanted to spend his last days in the game.

"Very well. Keep working.

The two people's faces didn't show any emotion as they talked about the other person's death. The department head bowed his head slightly, turned around, and left the office. Only the main session of connections was completed, which actually did not stop for a moment, and he still had a whole lot of work to do.