The wall sank into the floor to reveal a large room, most of which was below the level of those looking. This pit area was covered with transparent glass or plastic. On one edge of the room were cabinets of computer server units, which reminded Mark of the pictures of super computers he had seen from the ‘80s. On the other two sides were monitoring stations and on the walls above them were a lot of arrays of LEDs some of which were lit and almost all of which were green. Occasionally a LED would change to amber, and this would cause one of the staff to do something at a computer.

The staff themselves were all wearing lab coats and gave the impression of calm competence. Even when one of the LEDs turned red there was no urgency within the room. Of course, there might not need to be, there was no indication what the lights indicated.

Looking through the transparent roof of the pit allowed Mark and the others to see rows and rows of sleek white instruments which looked a cross between a hospital bed, a sun bed and the thing that Lady Gaga crawled out of in the video of Bad Romance. These had various tubes and wires that disappeared into sockets in the floor. There was an odd humming that had only become apparent once the wall had been lowered.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, what you see before you is the result of the most secret and innovative games research in the world. Each one of those pods before you is designed to hold one person and will keep their body fully fit and properly maintained whilst the person inside is immersed inside the most comprehensive virtual reality scenario that the world has ever seen. Our technology is so good that you will believe that you are in the real world, or at least a real world!

As you can see, we have some of the pods active already and they contain early volunteers to the program. They have been exposed to a limited scenario of a base similar to this one as we tested all of the equipment to ensure that everything was as perfect as we could make it. This means that when you join them you will not be behind them in any learning curve.

After the three-month process that you will be undergoing, starting tomorrow, you will be joining these players in our biggest scenario to date. A whole new world for you to explore and survive. The goals of the game will become more apparent as you play so I won’t spoil the surprise. I will say that your abilities to adapt to unforeseen situations is key to success in the game and so you will be tested over the next twelve weeks by putting you in imaginary scenarios and seeing how you cope. We want to see imaginative ideas and out of the box thinking because we want to ensure that our program can cope with all such situations.

The cabinets you see before you contain one of the most powerful computers in the world. Only the US military are likely to have one more powerful but of course we can’t prove that. These are the heart of everything we do, and this is why we have hired some of the best programmers from around the world to work on this game. Those of you who are currently taking Computer Science, Graphic Design or similarly useful degrees may want to think about applying at the end of your stint playing. Your insight from playing should be helpful to everyone.

The program we have built is called ‘New Worlds’ and is currently the biggest, most comprehensive, most believable, easiest to play game in the world today. Welcome to the New World beta testing team. The hard work starts tomorrow so I suggest you relax this evening because you won’t have much time to relax in the next three months. As a welcome, we have placed drinks and a music system in the canteen area. Have a good evening and be prepared for a tough time over the next few months.”

With that Dr Adham left the room and the wall rose back up. The man who had brought them to the building came back into the room.

“For the rest of the evening your time is your own. You have access to the canteen and to the two bunkhouses. None of the other buildings are unlocked so don’t try to enter them. Please keep back at least 5 metres from the security fence, there is a red line showing you where not to stand. For security reasons we restrict access to this compound to employees only and everyone lives on site. Therefore, there is no need to leave the area. If you try, then you will be assumed to be an industrial spy and treated as such. Have a good evening, we will be starting fairly early tomorrow so don’t drink too much.”

With that the man also left by the back door and the group were left alone. One of the guys let out a whoop and shouted “party!” and led everyone towards the canteen. Mark and Dan were two of the last to leave.

Mark turned to Dan and said, “I get the impression we are going to go through an army boot camp type of thing, you know early starts, little sleep, people shouting at you.”

“What you are saying is get an early night and don’t drink much.”

“Well, that’s the sensible way to act, besides I know I sound like my Grandad, but I don’t really enjoy loud parties.”

“This might be the one night you get to meet up with someone and have fun though.” Dan replied, raising his eyebrows twice as he said fun to emphasise that wasn’t exactly what he meant.

“You’re talking to someone who took five weeks to ask a girl out when she was practically telling me she wanted to go out with me, as were all her friends. One-night stands are not going to happen.”

“Well, I’ll give it a shot and if I don’t get anywhere by 10pm I’ll take the early night.”

“What is the time anyway?” Mark asked, it was darker than he thought it should be but as his phone had no signal, he’d turned it off to save battery.

“No idea! I turned my phone off. Hang on.” Dan turned his phone on, but it refused to show time, date and weather conditions nor were there any ways to get on the internet.

“6 months or so without the internet, how will I cope.” Dan said plaintively.

“If it gets desperate, we will have to talk to other people.” Mark said.

Dan grinned at him and replied, “Maybe someone will take pity on you and talk first.”

Mark lightly punched Dan on the arm whilst scowling slightly. “Let’s get a beer and then I’m off to the bunkhouse to read, enjoy the party.”

“Loser.”

<><><><><>

Much to Mark’s expectation they were all woken early to the sound of shouting at them to get up. There was a lot of groaning and complaining as the men around him managed to emerge from their bed clothes.

As they became more aware of the world around them, they noticed that there now sat a pile of clothes on the trunk at the bottom of the bed.

“Change into sports gear you will be doing warm up exercises and running to start. I expect you outside in five minutes.” With that the shouting man left. Mark hurried to get changed and use the facilities when he knew there was likely to be great demand.

As they emerged from the barracks, they could see the ladies emerging as well, everyone was told to line up along a conveniently painted edge of a square that was enclosed by several of the buildings.

Whilst waiting Mark noticed that everyone was wearing exactly the same clothing. Shorts, Top, Socks, Trainers were all a dark blue. Each item also had a design in white upon it. The design was something like an asterisk with brackets around it, although the asterisk was centred and more star like and the brackets were stretched out more.

The shouty instructor started shouting again.

“Every morning you will start with exercises before being allocated different tasks to do. These exercises are for your benefit as we want you to be as healthy as possible before you enter the pods. In the alpha phase of testing we didn’t worry as much and there were problems. We will not force you to exercise but you have already signed contracts that absolve the company from any consequences if you don’t. Whilst you might think that exercise will kill you, not exercising makes that much more likely. Now on to the starting exercises.”

Mark was somewhat surprised in the way that the instructors and their assistants conducted themselves. Whilst all the instructions were shouted there was no mean spiritedness along with that. Unlike the army training courses that he had seen on TV there was no trying to break the candidates down so that they would obey instructions. In fact other than the basic instructions all comments were given as suggestions and in reasonable voices.

A similar style was used when it came to them working as groups to do the various scenarios. On each occasion one person within a changing group of six people was asked to be the leader and then the groups were given a scenario. Each scenario was wildly different and could range from cooking a five course meal for twenty with just two hours’ notice and limited ingredients to being passengers on an airplane that has crashed in the desert, killing the crew and smashing all communication equipment.

Mark enjoyed these scenarios. In many ways it was like playing role playing games and the skills he had developed for those were transferrable. The hardest part was making sure that his ideas were heard amongst the louder, more aggressive candidates, who seemed to always want to be leader even though they were ill-suited to it.

One of the things Mark noticed was that groups were more likely to listen to and follow people who were physically attractive although they weren’t necessarily the ones who had the best ideas. If he could get that person to listen to his idea then it often didn’t matter who the actual leader of the group was.

The worst part of the day was when Mark had to go through a battery of tests. These were more comprehensive than the physical he had done the previous day and involved more needles than he wanted going into his body. He decided just to endure them. He wasn’t looking forward to twelve weeks worth of similar testing but if it meant that he would be less inclined to have problems within the game it was worth it. In much the same way that the exercise was worth it. However the exercise was less of a problem as Mark rather enjoyed doing exercise whilst being pushed. He hadn’t enjoyed it at school as it had always felt like the aim at school was to ridicule those who struggled but with only positive encouragement from the instructors, the exercise program looked like it would work for Mark.

In contrast to the medical examinations, the best part of the day were the meals. Mark hadn’t appreciated yesterday just how good quality the food was and how much variety they had. None of the meals on this day were the same as what was available yesterday (with the exception of some basics like rice, bread and pasta). There were large quantities of food and no restrictions as to how much they could eat. This was good as it seemed that everyone had increased appetites.

This regime continued for the first week. Every day was pretty much the same as the last, although the exercise got gradually tougher and Mark hurt more each morning because of it. The medical tests got even more complex but fortunately there was less time allocated to them per day. Mark started to settle into the routine. At the end of the week they were informed that they would get some time off the next day to help their bodies recuperate. Mark went to sleep that night looking forward to a longer rest.

When Mark awoke it was to a bright light hitting his eyes as a lid was opened above him. Before he had time to think about it the outline of a face appeared, blocking the light.

“Good morning Mark.” A man said. “How did you enjoy your first day in New World?”