ã€ŠUNDR Online: Fever Dream (LitRPG)ã€‹


 C1-For your Protection

    ¡°Close the door behind you.¡±

    I did as asked, then made my way back to the pair of seats opposite his desk. Unable to determine which one had seen more asses, I chose the one on the right. Harry¡¯s office had large stained glass windows, and though he did his best to block out the late afternoon sun with heavy curtains and blinds, thin blades of amber and ruby poked through to the opposing wall in long, vertical strips.

    Dust motes meandered in the room, ducking in and out of existence as they passed through the streams of light. I''d only been in his office a handful of times with the sun at this angle, but those instances always reminded me of my grandmother''s house. She¡¯d developed skin cancer, and taken her doctor''s recommendation to ¡°avoid direct sunlight¡± to heart. That wasn''t what had eventually taken her life, though. Skin cancer is like HIV, it¡¯s never what ends up killing you, it just breaks down the door and lets in what does.

    The only other source of light in the room was the glass name plate on the desk. It read Harry Deveau-Editor in Chief, the name and title standing out against the relative darkness of the rest of the room. The little blue LEDs hidden in the base were solar powered, and clearly punching above their weight. As Harry closed his desk drawer, having retrieved a small stack of papers, I absently wondered how long the the battery could hold back the darkness. A wry smile threatened to disturb my stoicism as I rolled the thought around a little. The author¡¯s curse, finding metaphors in the unlikeliest of places. The papers brought me out of my existential angst as they struck the desk with a slap.

    ¡°I have a lead on a story for you, but I need you to sign this before I can tell you what it is.¡±

    The NDA was standard practice, but the printed hard copy let me know that this wasn¡¯t a client covering their intellectual property, this was Harry Deveau covering his own ass. He wanted something that was legally binding if he needed it to be, but offline, where any 12 year old with a deck couldn¡¯t stumble through a low level firewall and land on it. Harry was a hard one to spook, having started in the industry back when we still sold hardcopy of our own. This must be something big.

    I looked at the paper for a moment, and Harry must have taken my silence as some sort of internal moral struggle.

    ¡°The NDA is actually for your protection. This piece will be published anonymously, and I need something on file in case the union comes back on me. This story might end up being incredibly unpopular, depending on how things shake out, and I want to take every precaution.¡±

    I took a deep breath, his words sinking in. I¡¯d never get credit for the story. I wasn¡¯t sure how I felt about that, and wondered if the trade off in not being able to claim it in my work history was worth whatever job security the favor might buy me.

    At any rate, signing the NDA didn''t mean that I couldn''t refuse the job, so my curiosity won out. I picked up the pen, stroked out the unpracticed spastic scrawl that passed for my signature, and sat back, eyebrows raised.

    After a brief glance at my handiwork, Harry relaxed, much of the formality dropping out of his voice.

    ¡°Good. How familiar are you with d.o.mai.n?¡±

    ¡°The alternate reality system?¡± I''d been hearing about it all over the place, but life had kept me so busy that I hadn''t the time to explore any reality except the one that my parents had burdened me with.

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°A little. Haven''t had a chance to check it out yet.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d hoped as much, it will give you fresh eyes on everything. This story is less about the technology or the companies or people creating it, and more about the people using it.¡±

    ¡°So...a fluff piece? You know I don''t do th¡­¡±

    ¡°No, it''s nothing like that.¡±

    I wasn''t convinced. Harry knew I enjoyed engaging in deep dive, hard-nosed investigative journalism, but he¡¯d tried to pull me off on shit detail before. I owed him my job many times over, and someone that never bothered to look below the surface would assume that was his motivation, but the truth was that the site didn''t have the resources to devote to the sort of research my type of writing required. He had to make the case each month to the board for each of our jobs, and if viewership didn''t provide enough value to the company, the weakest performers found themselves at Basic Inc., the popular derogatory term for the Universal Basic Income office. A couple dozen multi-page clickbait articles generated more advertising revenue each month than one well informed one, though one could argue that there were artificial intelligence packages capable of putting out that sort of content at a quarter of the cost.

    So far, I¡¯d managed to create enough of a splash each month to make up the majority of that deficit, but the margin I operated on was much thinner than the ¡°15 times the cameraman caught more than they expected¡± crowd.

    Harry leaned in, placing his left fist on his knee. It was his best, ¡°let''s get down to brass tacks¡± affectation, meant to denote when the conversation had become serious.

    ¡°There are a bunch of new types of virtual worlds being built on the d.o.mai.n platform, and some pretty crazy stories coming out about what goes on in them.¡±

    That was an understatement. I''d heard some of the rumors, and it seemed like whatever you couldn''t do in reality, either because of money, legality, or due to reality having immutable laws of physics, you could do there.

    ¡°Yeah. People talk.¡±

    Harry nodded. He could tell I was prepping to turn him down if I thought the assignment too creepy or strange.

    ¡°Right, well this assignment is actually being sponsored by Scource Technologies.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t they own d.o.mai.n?¡±

    ¡°Well, they make the software it runs on. Kincaid Industries builds the hardware. Joint venture.¡±

    As he talked, he reached into a folder in his desk and handed me a coded ticket for a lockbox. I¡¯d seen the type, useful as a way to receive goods purchased online if you weren¡¯t lucky enough to be member of the rapidly diminishing ranks of homeowners, and needed a secure place to receive a package. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    ¡°That''s the ticket to the storage locker where they shipped the hardware you¡¯ll need to visit this place. This one is a bit different. UNDR, they call it. It''s a cyberpunk neo noir world, but the interesting part is that it''s designed for working people.¡±

    Harry saw my provisional interest slipping, and hurried on.

    ¡°...because you don''t log into it like you would a normal simulation. Instead of coming home from work, logging into the system and doing your thing for a couple hours, then logging back off before going to bed, this system is designed to function while you sleep. You lay down, connect to the system when you''re ready to go to bed, and you drop into UNDR while your body sleeps. If your character is killed or you log out early, it just lets you sleep. You set your morning alarm, and through time dilation the system makes sure that when the sun rises in game or you¡¯re killed, it''s to the sound of your alarm going off.¡±

    ¡°Okay,¡± I interrupted, ¡°Time dilation? Is thing going to fuck up my brain?¡±

    Harry laughed.

    ¡°No. Over 2 million people log in all around the world, and they haven''t had a problem with the hardware yet. With different time zones, it staggers the load on the system by functioning only at night. It¡¯s also always night time in UNDR, a way of keeping everyone''s Circadian rhythms in sync. That''s why everyone gets booted at sunrise, they need to free up space for the next batch of players on the other side of the world that are logging in. Pretty genius, actually.¡±

    ¡°You seem to know an awful lot about this for a humble news outlet editor.¡±

    ¡°Well, I might have tried it out a few times.¡±

    ¡°Is that why I''m being offered this story? You had a good time and Scource offered to partner up, to sponsor this? I thought you said this wasn''t a fluff piece?¡±

    Harry took a shaky breath.

    ¡°Casey, this isn''t about the company. Not really. The story was my idea. I said I tried it out a few times, not that I still use it. I...uh...had a bad experience on my last login a little over a week ago.¡±

    ¡°A bad experience?¡±

    Nothing to do with the system itself. The hardware is safe, I told you.¡±

    I couldn¡¯t place the look in his eyes at first, but I saw it for what it was as he turned away from me, the focused beam of light from the window crossing his face without so much as a blink from him. Haunted. That was the word for it.

    ¡°Of course, Harry.¡±

    I paused for a moment, to make sure my words had a chance to fully sink in before continuing.

    ¡°I need to explain how the world of UNDR works. At least the basics.¡±

    He reached out to adjust the NDA I signed. Any other stack of paper, it would have looked like nervous fidgeting. In his current state, it felt a little like he was verifying the pages were real, questioning reality. Harry was the most grounded person I knew. His need to do that, even if the action had been subconscious, made me more than a bit uneasy about the story he wanted me to run down.

    ¡°Alright. What I¡¯m about to tell you...I¡¯m really putting myself out there. NDA aside, I hope you appreciate the amount of trust that I¡¯m putting in you.¡±

    Not knowing what else to do, I nodded in what I hoped to be a reassuring way. I wasn¡¯t sure I even wanted to know what he was about to tell me, but I thought a lot of Harry. A part of me felt obligated to step up and repay some of the faith he¡¯d had in me over the years. I wasn¡¯t eager to share the weight of whatever it was, but somewhere along the way I¡¯d passed the point of no return.

    ¡°I was...am,¡± he emphasized the word before moving on, as if to remind himself that he wasn''t free of whatever hell he was currently in,¡± being extorted for money. It''s not a sum of money that I can come up without attracting a lot of attention.¡±

    ¡°How much money are we talking about?¡±

    The question was out before my sense of propriety could check it.

    ¡°The exact amount doesn''t matter, just know that to pay it would require me to sell my house. If I do that, there¡¯s no chance of keeping the larger secret. I want to keep Carla out of this. That''s why I''m not going to the cops, that''s why I''m not hiring a private eye. I need someone I can trust to keep my secret.¡±

    I levelled my best, can you get to the fucking point glare at him.

    ¡°A few weeks ago...I made a horrible mistake. I cheated on Carla.¡±

    I deadpanned, ¡°inside of a video game?¡±

    His mouth, which had spent the majority of the conversation contorted into a grimace, compressed into a thin line. I could tell he was actively composing himself, so I gave him the handful of seconds he needed to reign in his temper.

    ¡°Casey, if that was all this was, do you think I''d let someone hang it over my head?¡±

    I thought about it, and agreed that it wouldn''t make any sense. Carla wasn''t the jealous type, and I''d bet even money she knew just enough about simulated reality sex to equate it to jacking off to two dimensional porn. After a few moments, I realized that his question wasn''t rhetorical.

    ¡°No, I guess not.¡±

    ¡°No. That wasn''t what they were threatening to release to the media.¡±

    He paused, collecting his courage. It came out in a rush, like he was ripping off a metaphorical bandage.

    ¡°The girl was under age. At least, that''s what they''re saying. The avatar was a middle aged woman, but there''s no way to tell for sure. They showed me the video, the girl¡¯s ID, even the account in UNDR with the girls information. It said she was 13. Fucking 13, Casey.¡±

    I thought about that for a second, a few of his earlier statements dropping into place. Simulated realities weren''t considered reality in the eyes of the law. Murder in a digital world wasn''t considered murder in the eyes of the law, for obvious reasons. It wouldn''t even count as a child porn charge, because the avatar was of a middle aged woman. Even in virtual reality, appearances were everything. It was a gray area, but it would play poorly in the court of public opinion, that was for sure.

    Carla probably wouldn''t forgive him for virtually fucking a 13 year old in the same way she would a virtual middle-aged woman. Her not knowing much about simulated realities would make it nearly impossible for her to see her husband as anything but a child molester. She wouldn''t care that Harry had been tricked. She wouldn''t care that it wasn''t technically illegal. All she would see was Harry the kiddie fucker, and once that was out in the world, a sympathetic ear would be hard to find.

    I then understood why he couldn''t go to the police. They''d be forced to open an investigation. They''d have to make sure no laws were broken, and given the questionable legality of the act, Harry would spend months or even years enjoying the half-star accommodations of the criminal justice system while the terminology was hammered out. By that time, Carla would leave him. The news outlet would replace him, or even more likely farm out the work to a rack of servers in Colorado, and anything he had that was worth a damn would be gone.

    ¡°That¡¯s pretty fucking awful, Harry, but I''m not sure what I can do to help.¡±

    The entire character of his face shifted. Where before he¡¯d been sullen and remorseful, now his features hardened. Harry was always at his best when making moves, putting a plan into motion, and over the span of a heartbeat, the Harry I knew returned.

    ¡°All I need is to know who these assholes are. I can''t be the only person they''ve pulled this racket on, there have to be others. I need to know as much as you can find out about their operation, so that I can get ahead of this thing.¡±

    ¡°How so?¡±

    ¡°I need to know if the girl I slept with was really underage. If you can''t find that out I need to know who is behind this extortion ring. I need to know how the operation works, I need to know anything that can help me, then turn the tables around on them. I need either to be able to clear my name or to leverage them, so that they can''t drag my name though the mud without getting themselves dirty in the process. Mutually assured destruction, in other words.¡±

    I understood what he was asking for, and why he was asking me for it. That only left one part of the puzzle left to negotiate.

 C2-Lay of the Land

    <h2> </h2>

    ¡°Not that I don''t want you out from under this, and for things to go back to normal around here, but this is likely to take some time to sort out, and I''m not exactly above reproach around here. I hate to make this about me, but if I''m sticking my neck out to look into this for you, I need to know that I''m going to be able to eat while I''m not writing articles for the outlet. I''m not going to be able to put my byline on this expose either, per your NDA. I need to make sure I''ll be taken care of.¡±

    Harry smiled.

    ¡°Of course you¡¯ll be taken care of. Don''t worry about your production requirements, I''ll make sure that the board sees what they need to see, and I''ll make sure you are compensated for the additional risk you are taking on. Aside from that, I can''t really go into detail just yet. I''m trusting you with this, I need you to trust me too.¡±

    I wanted to help Harry. I did. The idea of doing some actual investigative journalism instead of having to write a half dozen fluff prices over the next few weeks sounded like a vacation, albeit a working one. But I didn''t want to jump into the deep end without knowing a little more about what I would be getting myself into.

    ¡°Tell me a little more about how this works. I''ve played a few simulated reality games before, and they can vary quite a bit from game to game.¡±

    Harry touched the glass top of his desk, bringing the computer display embedded into it to life. He flicked through a couple of menus, finally finding what he was looking for. He flicked the files in my direction, and a prompt arose in my field of view, asking me if I trusted the source before authorizing the transfer.

    The hologram reminded me once again about the implant embedded into the base of my skull, and beyond that, the mental illness it held at bay. It was a secret that nobody at the news outlet knew about. Nobody except Harry, who had been remarkably open-minded when he interviewed me, as I was legally required to disclose it. He''d never judged me for it, and that went a long way in building the mountain of respect I had for him.

    I accepted the file transfer and opened the file. Images, video, more, even rudimentary maps spilled out, threatening to overwhelm my view before I quickly filtered out everything but the pictures. I would read and view everything in due time, but wanted to get a quick sense of the world I would be diving into, and images were still the best media for that.

    Harry, sensing what I was looking at, launched into a synopsis of the more general points of the world of UNDR Online.

    ¡°The world, as it is, consists of a series of vertical towers. These towers are, as far as anyone can tell, are endless. There is no top or ground floor to them, and aside from climbing stairs or making use of elevators or escalators from within the buildings, the easiest way to get from one building to another, or from one level to another, is to physically leap through the empty space between buildings.¡±

    I raised my eyebrows at that. I didn''t have a fear of heights per se, but there was a level of mind over matter involved in leaping from one perfectly sound building to another that I wasn''t sure I was ready for.

    ¡°The spaces in between the buildings have a neutral gravity, making them a fairly easy to get where you want to go. There are launch ramps for longer jumps, but they''re more about accuracy than speed. It all sounds scary, but I promise it''s no big deal.¡±

    Safe in my chair at the moment, with the added reassurance of two hands gripping the padded leather armrests with what could probably be considered excessive force, I took all of the information in detached stride.

    ¡°There''s a three-dimensional map, of course, which fills out as you explore. More detailed maps can be purchased or downloaded from player kills, but there''s enough redundancy in the world that you shouldn''t really need it for much.¡±

    ¡°Redundancy?¡±

    ¡°Points of interest. Since the world is procedurally generated, so anything you might need is spread out evenly across the world. If you need an artist, you''ll never be that far away from one.¡±

    ¡°Why would I need an artist? I thought I was trying to find info out on the people blackmailing you.¡±

    Harry tapped on his desk, and the augmented reality hologram of images hovering in front of me reshuffled. Once they stopped, the too image was of a man''s forearm, a very basic tattoo, vaguely rectangular in shape, dominated the shot.

    ¡°Artists are the main quest givers and quartermasters in UNDR Online. Most of the abilities you accumulate, your Interface with the world, and more, function as animated tattoos on your body.¡±

    In reference, he tapped his desk slowly, cycling through the images in front of me, showing variations of the tattoo from the first image. The tattoo blacked out in one, a feed of white text against a black background visible within its boundaries.

    ¡°This is the console. It¡¯s basically a real time text Interface for everything going on around you at any given moment. Your battle log, inventory information, etc, shows here.¡±

    Tap

    ¡°Here is it showing your map.¡±

    Tap

    ¡°Here it is showing character information.¡±

    Tap

    ¡°And here it is showing a character stat and ability list.

    I nodded in understanding. It was the sort of detail that I''d need to make heads or tails of the world once I logged in, and I appreciated Harry''s foresight into collecting the information for me. I hated tutorials.

    ¡°There are ways to expand it and use it for more than this, but those are advanced functions, nothing you''ll need right away.¡±

    Reviewing the pictures, I noticed something missing.

    ¡°What about weapons, items? I''m assuming there''s a level of combat involved.¡±

    Harry flipped back to the photo depicting player abilities.

    ¡°Weapons and items are handled a bit differently from your typical sword and sorcery RPG. Talents like spells and specials skills take Activity Points, or AP, and the cost for those will vary based on the ability. The designers of UNDR Online didn''t want people carrying around ridiculous loadouts of weapons and bags of 200 healing potions, so they made conjuring collected items and weapons zero cost abilities. It makes the world more elegant, they say. People wear clothes, jewelry, that sort of stuff, but anything worth a damn as far as combat is concerned is stored in your ability list until needed.¡±Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

    I wasn''t sure if I liked that. I was likely to find myself in some pretty shady places at some point, and I would probably feel a lot better with the knurled steel of handgun grips in my hands.

    ¡°What''s involved in conjuring a weapon? It''s going to suck if I''m scrolling through menus while someone is shooting at me.¡±

    Barry laughed.

    ¡°No, no menus. Just picture whatever item you want from your inventory, and it appears in your hand. It''s really easy. You''ll see.¡±

    At various points in my life people had explained things as easy or simple, and it had rarely been as easy or simple as they had described. I doubted this would be any different. Harry picked up on my unease, and started to explain further, but I cut him off.

    ¡°It''s fine, I''m sure I''ll figure it out. I guess the part that I''m least comfortable with is the logging in and out of the simulation. How do I get in, how do I get out, and what happens if my avatar is killed in UNDR Online?¡±

    Harry relaxed, leaning back in his chair and losing the mission critical time in his voice.

    ¡°That''s the easy part. You log in by laying your head on the interface pillow, which connects into your implant. The system helps you go to sleep, and once your mind reaches the right level of unconsciousness, the system pulls your mind into UNDR Online Online.¡±

    Seemed simple enough, though I was a little more concerned with getting back out than getting in.

    ¡°And getting back out?¡±

    ¡°The system has a pretty heavy reliance on time dilation. Barring your death in the system, you stay logged in until whatever wakeup time you set in the software. I don''t know all the details, but if you''re killed in the game, the system stretches out your perception of it until it''s time for you to wake up in the real world. You can of course choose to go idle and accelerate that rate of time, but it''s only your perception that accelerates, you''re still logged in and if anyone talks to you or attacks you, normal time resumes. Also, no matter if you die five hours away from your alarm or five minutes, you always wake up feeling as though you were kicked out of the system upon death, and you get the benefits of a full night''s sleep while your mind was active the entire time.¡±

    I didn''t say it at the time, but the entire time dilation thing sounded like a one way ticket to a thunderclap migraine. Harry had a head of steam going, so I let him talk.

    ¡°The only thing else you really need to know is the sociopolitical climate of the game.¡±

    ¡°Wait,¡± I cut him off, ¡°don''t people play games to get away from that shit?¡±

    He shook his head.

    ¡°No, it''s nothing like that. But there are groups in power, and groups in power almost always want more power. Knowing a little bit about the players involved can help you stay out of their way.¡±

    The only reason I was still listening was that he included the phrase little bit. My stomach had been growling since I''d signed Harry¡¯s NDA, and if Harry expected me to sit through a dissertation on the sociopolitical climate of a simulated reality dream world, I had a few thoughts I wanted to share with him as well. Most of my thoughts were of the four letter variety, and I wouldn''t be talking about food. Something in my expression must have said as much, because he hurried on.

    ¡°The world of UNDR Online, as I already said, is made up of an endless series of infinite, procedurally generated skyscrapers. They have no beginning or end that anyone has ever found, and yes, they''ve looked. Aside from the map, the only real way to know which direction you are going is from the global illumination. Moving up always moves you closer to the blue fog, down moves you closer to the gray. The colors are perceptual, things don''t start getting more blue or more gray the further you go, except for the center 20 or so floors, which are considered neutral territory.¡±

    I raised an eyebrow. If I knew anything about any situation requiring people to band together to protect their interests, be they governments, gangs, clubs, or committees, it''s that inevitably they look to expand. In a world where the map is almost entirely colored in, that expansion comes at the expense of someone else. Those people, having interests of their own, usually don''t step aside without a fight. For those reasons and others, peace treaties and armistice agreements have always been tenuous, temporary affairs. Harry''s talk of a neutral zone was instantly translated to firing line in my brain.

    ¡°The groups are referred to as the Blues and the Grays.¡±

    I lost my battle to hold in a chuckle.

    ¡°Yeah, I know. Not exactly eloquent, but it makes it easy to keep track of territory. Nobody knows why they never came up with anything more threatening or awe inspiring. I suppose getting a large enough group of people to agree on anything nowadays is asking a lot, especially on the internet.¡±

    I couldn''t argue with him there. I was honestly surprised one of them wasn''t called Bluey McBlueface.

    ¡°But as long as you stay within the Middle 20, as they are called, you''re not likely to run into any further wars or gang battles. Most of that goes on at the fringes of the neutral zone, with the zone shifting up or down a level or two as needed. The system maintains the buffer, meaning nobody can claim it, and any ground gained or lost happens on the outside of the neutral zone. It just,¡± he made a gesture with his hand that looked accidentally sexual, ¡°slides up or down, staying in the middle.¡±

    My eyes must have glazed over, because he narrowed his eyes and a crown escaped one corner of his mouth.

    ¡°Anyway, hopefully you caught all that.¡±

    Sensing an end to the conversation, I perked up.

    ¡°Didn''t have to.¡±

    I tapped the back of my neck, at the base of my skull.

    ¡°Total recall. Everything is buffered for a period of four weeks. So long as I saw or heard something inside of that timeframe, I can play it back.¡±

    Harry had a similar implant, but his only allowed data to flow between his brain and whatever brain computer interface he might be using. Mine, owing to the added complexity and horsepower required to manage my condition, had a few more bells and whistles. Most days, it was simply there, invisibly cranking away, but every once in a while it proves useful in other ways.

    Harry nodded.

    ¡°Right. Forgot about that. Well, here''s the info to pick up your equipment.¡±

    He virtually slid me a file from his desk. It struck the edge of his desk and flipped into my view like a paper football being flicked with a finger, a neat trick built by some programmer yet to have his sense of imagination crushed by the near sweatshop-like conditions typical of his trade.

    ¡°Got it.¡±

    Harry leaned back in his chair, the exhaustion he had been pushing away finally cornering him. His nod came across as disinterested, but I''d known Harry long enough to see it for what it was ¨C embarrassment. While he was rattling off all of the pertinent details of UNDR Online, he was able to hide behind purpose, but the story told, the weight of his situation fell back on his shoulders.

    I hated seeing him like that, but took it as yet another reason for me to stand up and leave. Harry, brought out of his solitude by the change in the room, spoke before I had managed a second step towards the door.

    ¡°Casey?¡±

    I turned around to face him.

    ¡°Yeah?¡±

    He still looked beat, but he had just enough of that old steel in his eyes to lend his next words gravitas.

    ¡°Be careful. These people can''t kill you, at least not in the game, but I don''t know how big this thing is. It''s probably best to assume that anyone willing to threaten people in a virtual world is willing to do it in the real. Randomize your avatar every time you log in, and use the masking software I bought as part of the package. No idea what you''ll come up against, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as my mother used to say.¡±

    Not wanting to risk a waver entering my voice, I gave him a nod, trusting the serious expression on my face to say everything that needed to be said.

 C3-Special Delivery

    The package locker was in a neighborhood that neatly straddled the line between the place you didn¡¯t want to be after dark, and the place you didn¡¯t want to be at any time. I understood why he had chosen it, of course. Nobody with any sort of real power cared about these places, at least until they ran out of nearby real estate and decided to ¡°uplift the community¡± through gentrification. As part of that neglect, no one had bothered to repair the wide angle street cameras typically attached to the corner of each building. Poor people are not without pride, and the idea of some government fat cat watching them struggle every day from the other end of a wire probably didn¡¯t sit well.

    The lack of blinking red activity LED¡¯s on every corner might make them feel better, but the heft of the handgun in my jacket pocket, its knurled steel grip having warmed to my palm five blocks ago, was the only thing within a quarter mile telling me that I would make it home alive.

    A few hundred feet from the package locker, I tripped over the outstretched foot of a vagrant. Not knowing which direction danger would approach from first, it was the one direction I hadn''t been watching that nearly did me in.

    I stumbled, able to catch myself before I lost my footing, and whirled on the slumped form behind me. My first thought, that the man propped up against the concrete barrier had intentionally tripped me, gave way to pity.

    The layer of road dust and loose bits of plastic trash stuck to him told me that he hadn¡¯t moved for a very long time. The smell of gently rotting flesh rolled off of him, and a quick estimate, taking into account the undisturbed layer of debris collected across his body, put him at about three or four days dead.

    A faint light danced around the eye cups of the virtual reality headset he wore, which must have been activated by the motion of his body when I kicked his leg. In the near dark of the street, only illuminated by the indirect rays of the setting sun as it did its best to penetrate the urban sprawl, the light was noticeable at distance.

    Several of the more enterprising vagrants shuffled over, and after a brief glance shot my way to make sure I wasn''t a threat, began struggling with each other for the dead man''s headset.

    I turned away, feeling guilty for reasons I couldn''t immediately articulate. The man had been a person, as had the other vagrants, but economic and societal nihilism had turned them into something less.

    Needing to get away from the suffocating sadness of the scene I could hear unfolding behind me, I closed the remaining distance to the locker and scanned the code that Harry had provided.

    The door opened with a click and a grind, the poorly maintained entryway grinding the sand caught in its hinges into even finer sand. Inside of the first entryway, a second door kept me from entering the building proper. Once the outside door ground to a close behind me, red LEDs blinked on in each of the upper corners of the inside door.

    Cameras.

    I allowed a second scan of the code, and after what felt like an excessive amount of time, the second door clicked open. I assumed the double entry doors were to keep the facility from being overrun if a group of people followed in a paying customer once they opened the door. A shiver went down my spine at the thought of being that customer, trapped in a room with a group of would-be criminals in this part of town, knowing what the police response times were for this area. For the second time in five minutes, I had cause to appreciate my meager place in the world.

    Where outside the facade had been weathered and dirty in the way that most of the city was in this neighborhood, the inside was well kept and clean. Clean, yet not well appointed, as anything that could potentially be removed was covered with lexan or steel housings and bar code scanners. The place gave off a ¡°we don''t trust you, but also don''t want to give you a reason to complain on our customer service surveys¡± vibe.

    Service with a stiff upper lip.

    I matched the code on the ticket with a locker, and after a quick check to make sure nobody was watching, I let the black mirrored scanner on the door get a good look at the code Harry had given me.

    The door clicked open with much less fanfare than I¡¯d been expecting. Growing up in a hard world, softness became more surprising than loud, brash noises. I''d expected the snapping, undeadened release of the post office box in my apartment building (create alternative to burbclave here), but the smooth, precise action of the locker was more satisfying than my last three orgasms.

    The door pivoted open with well oiled care before retracting back into a narrow compartment, giving me unimpeded access to the opening. Inside, I found a couple of psy-con data crystals, a thick winter jacket, and an opaque white plastic bag covering the aforementioned pillow. The plastic had a matte finish, a subtle extravagance that alone would get me stabbed and robbed within minutes of leaving the building. I had no idea how Harry expected me to get this stuff home without bleeding all over it.

    The pillow inside was sculpted out of layers of some sort of foam that, to my untrained eye, looked¡­.expensive. How Harry had managed to swing all of this without his wife noticing the missing funds was beyond me.

    Sliding the pillow back into the locker, I turned my attention to the jacket. It was dusty, faded, and much of the polyfill insulation in the lower back had fallen out at some point in the past through a fairly large tear along one of the seams.

    Why would Harry would leave me this shitty jacket? Fairly certain I was missing something, I began to check the various pockets, and in one of the inside security pockets found a small slip of translucent paper. Opening it up, I recognized Harry''s hurried scrawl.

    Use the jacket to hide the pillow. Be careful. PS-this paper is edible.

    Omit needless words, eh Harry? I had no idea where Harry had undergone his secret agent training, but I did as instructed and used the pillow to replace the missing polyfill in the jacket. Putting it on, I marvelled at how the jacket made the pillow almost invisible.

    I tucked the psy-con crystals into the security pockets that the note came from, and ate the note. It was edible, in the way that dry oats were edible, but choking it down was not an enjoyable experience. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

    Once the inside of my mouth had reconstituted itself, I scanned the code again and enjoyed my daily moment of zen as the door extended from its compartment and closed with a quiet efficiency no human being would ever approach.

    Two more scans of the ticket got me outside the building, my brief respite in a space where vacuums and window cleaning were still a thing making the real world look even worse by comparison.

    Had the world always been this much of a shithole? Ancient videos from before the turn of the century made everything look so perfect. Kids walked down the street by themselves trick or treating, people could swim outside in lakes and oceans, and the only people who seems to walk around armed were soldiers and police officers.

    Nowadays, the only difference between the police and the military was the color of the uniform, chemical runoff made swimming in unfiltered water a quick way to shorten your life expectancy, and any kid that wandered out in public unsupervised was often never heard from again.

    I turned back towards the supervised part of town, and was around halfway to safety when I heard a voice ring out behind me.

    ¡°Oy!¡±

    I kept walking. The voice had been a little over a block back, the only reason I even knew they were talking to me was that I was the only person left upright.

    ¡°Hold up, friend!¡±

    I wasn''t buying. I didn''t make friends, and if I did, I wouldn''t make them in this part of town. The soles of my shoes pounded the pavement as I worked to preserve the distance between me and what sounded like two or three people of questionable character.

    ¡°Get ''em!¡±

    The words all sounded as though they came from the same mouth, which had given up the pretense of trying to be my pal.

    I could hear the rush of footsteps closing ground, and knew I wasn''t going to make it before they were on me. I turned down the next alley I saw, blindly hoping for it to not be a dead end.

    Three buildings down, a brick wall bisected the pavement, but about halfway down the alley I saw a fire escape and a low wall I could probably clear if I beat my pursuers to it. I least for the blackened iron of the fire escape ladder, hanging low in a way that told me I had done something right in a past life, and felt the scaly surface rust come away with my fingertips as they were unable to hold on. I stumbled as my feet hit the ground, requiring a few halting, uncertain steps to catch myself.

    I risked a glance back at the entrance to the alley, hoping that I¡¯d drawn a pack of lazies, only to see them spot me as they rounded the corner.

    My eyes shot from the lowest rung of the ladder, to the leader of the pack chasing me, and back.

    It was going to be close.

    I sprinted for the ladder. I wasn''t sure why I thought this attempt would be successful when the first hadn''t, but I suppose desperation convinces us we can be all heroes.

    I leapt, timing my jump perfectly, and this time one of my hands wrapped around the pitted iron. My momentum carried my feet forward, striking one of the freshly arrived things in the face as I swung. The resulting crunch would have been incredibly satisfying, were I out of harm''s way, but that was still to be decided.

    The thug, who I could now see was bald and wearing a worn military jacket, fell back and knocked his two compatriots over in the process as he clutched at his nose.

    I noticed no name badge on the jacket, making me think that the jacket must have been purchased from a military surplus store.

    Strange, the things you notice when you should be running for your life.

    I expected the ladder to release, to descend to ground level in the way I''d seen them work in the past, but this ladder had probably never been used, rust locking it into its current position. I swung myself, reaching up and taking hold of the next rung up from the bottom with my other hand, and began to climb.

    The iron scraped my forearms, but the only option left to me was to continue up. A hand raked across my ankle, and I almost lost my grip in surprise. I kicked, shaking off the hand, and reached for another rung. I managed another rung before a price of discarded lumber struck my shin, causing my eyes to water and forcing out a grunt of agony. I didn''t think the leg was broken, but putting weight on it was going to be sketchy.

    Another blow caught me across the calves, and my off hand slipped free. I mastered the pain and swung back up, using the momentum to grab another rung. And another. And another.

    The bludgeoning of my lower body had stopped, giving me the impression I had climbed past their ability to reach me, but I kept climbing. Another rung. Another. Running on adrenaline and endorphins, I poured every ounce of focus and strength into getting to the top of the ladder, and when I reached the second to last rung, I finally let myself take the first full breath I could remember since I''d started running.

    And that was when the ladder let go.

    The rusted mechanism screeched to life, betraying me at the last possible moment, and gravity took over. The lower end of the ladder slammed to the pavement, jarring me from the end hinged to the second floor landing. My hands were yanked free, and I landed atop the three things, driving them to the pavement.

    Not bothering to scramble to my feet, my hand done for the hand gun that I had transferred into one of the large jacket pockets. No sooner had I yanked the zipper free than a pair of calloused hands wrapped around my neck.

    The pressure in my head swelled, my vision going blurry. I couldn''t breathe, and the throbbing in my head suggested whatever amount of blood was reaching my brain, it wasn''t going to keep me conscious for long. Before either of the other two thugs could recover, I jerked the handgun free of my pocket and fired two rounds into forearm. How I managed to not blow my own face off, I''ll never know. There was no aim, no consideration over the path the bullet might take once it punched through my assailant¡¯s arm, I just pressed the muzzle into the meat muscle near his elbow and turned the encased radius and ulna into powder.

    The pressure released immediately from my neck, consciousness preserved with only moments to spare. The arm turned to broken, bloody jelly, flopping away as the attacker rolled to his right.

    The other two were already turning to run, but one of them had the presence of mind to help their injured friend to his feet before fleeing. I caught their retreat out the corner of one eye as my vision returned, coughing as I rolled into my side.

    I managed to retrieve the arm holding the gun from where I had rolled into it, and lifted it. Two pulls of the trigger later, and the thing with the ruined arm had at least one additional round in his shoulder, a souvenir to remind him to not chase people into dark alleys.

    Safe for the moment, I clutched the handgun to my chest, watching it rise and fall with my breath. After another minute, my breathing had returned to normal and I decided to test my legs. They both held, though I would probably have some nasty bruises for the next week or two.

    The rest of the journey, hobbled as it was, was uneventful. The pillow and psy-con crystals had escaped unscathed. I was not nearly as lucky. My left ankle had a pretty nasty gash across it, which I cleaned out and dressed with first aid adhesive. I''d never had to use the stuff for anything larger than a paper cut before, and marvelled at how easily it stopped the bleeding. Wrapping it with a clean compress bandage and cloth tape for good measure, I grabbed a cold drink from the fridge and sat down.

    Fitting the first psy-con crystal to the contact point at the base of my skull, my vision flooded with files. I took another drink from the bottle in my hand. If I was going to push through the pain of nearly having my legs broken for this story, I wasn''t going to do it alone.

    I closed my eyes, directing my glance to the unoccupied space at the bottom of my field of view. After a few moments the menu faded out, leaving me alone in the blissful dark.

 C4-Down the Manhole

    I opened my eyes some time later, darkness having consumed the world outside my window. With no idea how long I was out, I pulled up the interface for my implant to check the time.

    I''d only been asleep an hour and a half, by some miracle. That meant I hadn''t wasted the night, and since Harry had gone to such great lengths to tout the time dilation functions of the UNDR system, I¡¯d have plenty of time to get a head start on my investigation.

    I opened the Quick Start tile and went through the setup procedure. Harry appeared to have done much of the configuration for me. I could see boxes checked to randomize my avatar¡¯s appearance and user ID with each login, to turn off the broadcasting of my user information and to privatize my profile.

    All that I had left was to choose my username, class, and first ability.

    I let the system randomly generate my user ID, deciding it was pointless to create something that would be changed every time I logged in anyway. Part of me wanted to have a badass name, but the rest of me trusted Harry¡¯s desire to keep me safe. The system read my name off in a cultured British accent.

    ¡°User ID...Quixotic_Supernova1¡±

    Damn. That was a mouthful. Before the system had even finished generating the rest of my profile, I resolved to have everyone call me Q.

    I''d played plenty of RPGs, back before writing overtook my life, so the next screen was familiar to me. A window, showing a list of seven blank character stat fields filled my view, each of the empty squares followed by a -ROLL- button to their right. Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Luck were all familiar to me, but the others were new. Resilience, Street Cred, and Aptitude filled out the seven.

    Of the RPGs I had played in the past, usually there was a Constitution, Charisma and Wisdom skills, but apparently UNDR was going to be a little different. Street Cred was probably a stand in for Charisma, the standard indicator of attractiveness and how you were perceived by others. In the same vein, Resilience was probably similar to Constitution. Aptitude and Wisdom didn''t quite mesh the way the other two did, but since UNDR was supposed to be a futuristic cyberpunk world, it made sense that Wisdom, which traditionally came from learning from your mistakes, would be replaced with a new ability that indicated how likely you were to not make any. In modern society, nobody really cared about experience, they just cared if you could do what they needed you to do. Careers were elusive things nowadays, so wisdom was in short supply. There was always a younger, cheaper replacement waiting in the lobby for you to make a mistake, and with the razor-thin margin of error brought on by 40% unemployment, most people were never allowed to learn from their mistakes.

    Artificial intelligence had taken most of the jobs in the world, and in the ones that remained, their precedent of perfection made for a plenty hostile work environment.

    I pressed the -ROLL- buttons in quick succession, not even bothering to see the results. This wasn''t a game that I''d be spending much time in, so I didn''t think the stats I carried would matter much.

    Strength:12

    Intelligence:14

    Dexterity:16

    Resilience:9

    Luck:12

    Street Cred:7

    Aptitude:18

    I only had a basic understanding of what each of these stats stood for, and zero idea how they would impact the game. They seemed passable, assuming the scale matched up to a typical d20 stat structure, so I didn''t think too much about it as whatever server kept track of it all churned in the background.

    I was a little surprised as the process ended abruptly after that, not giving me a chance to select a class, race, or anything else. Part of me wanted to go back and read the few hundred pages of tutorials Harry had included in the other crystal, but I didn''t want to waste the first night reading.

    No, I was going to jump in, get my feet wet, and get a sense of what I didn''t know before I pulled out the instruction manual. The system indicated that my profile had been finalized and everything was ready for me to log in.

    I was still a little sleepy, so I removed the pillow from its protective plastic covering, stared at the rectangular code printed on its reverse until my implant recognized it, and the system connected it to my account through the backend.

    I got undressed, tossed my regular pillow into an adjacent chair, and let my head sink into the conforming memory foam of the UNDR pillow. A moment after my head made contact, a single stream of particles faded into my view, like a drunken comet a foot above my face. It slowly faded from one color to the next, tracing a lazy figure eight pattern above me. Realizing this was likely a function of the system meant to help me both get to sleep and sync my mind with the UNDR servers, I played along, tracing the path of the stream with my eyes until everything faded to black, and I fell asleep.

    I opened my eyes some time later, and I was surprised to see that I was still in my bedroom. Thinking that the system was defective, I turned to get out of bed.

    A light from my side table caught my attention as I stood, and I glanced down to find a card, about the size of an antique postcard, shining up at me from the surface of my table. It glowed with a blueish-pink light, bright enough to touch most surfaces in my room, if not entirely illuminate them.

    It read: ¡°Welcome to UNDR. You are currently in your lobby, a recreation of your real life home. When you are ready to enter the world of UNDR proper, please place this card on the floor where you would like your entrance portal to be.¡±

    I glanced around, unable to believe that the space around me was a digital recreation. Every surface my eyes met was so perfectly imperfect, so appropriately dirty. I¡¯ve never been someone who prized cleanliness over function, and my apartment certainly reflected that. It wasn¡¯t filthy--there was no food lying about, no dirty clothes covering the floor, but there were dishes in my sink from two days ago and an empty pizza box standing next to my door waiting for me to remember to bring it out to the compactor. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    I stepped past my refrigerator and could see gobs of dried szechuan sauce clinging to the silicon mixing spoon in my sink. As I walked closer, the now ruddy brown flecks of dried peppers embedded in the sauce became discernable, and I felt an insane urge to tidy up the place, to atone for my sometimes disgusting life habits as though by living like a pig I had made some game artist sculpt my apartment in sickening detail.

    I really hoped nobody had to do that.

    I reached out, my left hand to grab the spoon, my right to turn on the hot water, when a thin silver line began to circle all of the dirty dishes in the left half of my double wide sink. I pulled my hand back, because the line had the glinting texture of a razor¡¯s edge, and I¡¯d sliced my hand on enough submerged kitchens knives to be wary.

    The line continued around, leaping from silicone spoon, to pizza cutter, to coffee cup, around the stuck together stack of pancake plates, before making the turn for lap two. There was no physical explanation for it being there that made any sense, and I was suddenly reminded that the apartment I was standing in was not really mine. Well, it was mine. My lobby, the card had said. But not my apartment.

    I shook my head, but the bout of unease rode out the motion. I¡¯d heard of something called the ¡°uncanny valley¡±, when an android or AI approached perfect parity with a human counterpart and started to creep people the fuck out. This virtual apartment was certainly creeping me the fuck out.

    As I focused more heavily on the silver thread tracing around the dishes, a menu faded into being above the sink, asking if I would like to do the dishes. Curious, I selected YES by staring at it intently for a half a second, and the dishes faded out of view and reappeared in the sink side drainer, perfectly clean. For someone that hates to do dishes as much as I hate to, the casual ease in which it broke down a thirty minute job to a wave and a blink made me want to ask Harry if I could cancel my real life and stay here permanently.

    I glanced at the hoodie draped across the bar stool behind me, and the thread returned. I indicated that, yes, I did want it to be cleaned, and it disappeared. I spent the next minute taking care of a week¡¯s worth of housekeeping, deciding that if housework was this easy, I¡¯d probably do more of it in the real world.

    Having exhausted the obvious work in my tiny apartment, I took another look at the postcard. I wanted to put it in a place that wasn¡¯t directly in any walking paths, falling back on my reality-based feng shui needs. I settled on putting it on the floor next to the living room wall, since it comprised the largest amount of available space.

    I flicked the card, which landed a half from the heat register at the foot of the wall. When it came to a stop, a fluorescent blue/pink line traced around its edge, as though lit from underneath. The line sped around the card, then sprang out in four lines that each made immediate left turns and formed a circle on the floor. Smaller, faster moving lines made internal connections, then the entire web of lines grew exponentially in brightness, forcing me to look away. Once it faded, I looked back to see a heavy metal manhole cover embedded into my living room floor. Across the center of it, spanning from one side to the other, was the embossed name UNDR.

    My first thought was that If I had to crawl through the sewer to get into this world, Harry was going to have to find himself another private investigator. As with the dishes, a menu faded into view above the manhole cover, asking me to step onto the platform to enter UNDR.

    I did as requested, and the platform began to rotate forward, like an incredibly slow moving coin flip. I tried to jump off, tried to raise my hands, but none of that actually happened. I remained upright, my body falling toward the floor like a bike with a stick shoved between its front spokes at speed. But when my face touched the floor, it passed completely through. The transition felt like walking from a well lit place into shadow, from the carefully climate controlled 70 degrees of my apartment to the damp wind of a city at night. There was a moment of residual vertigo from my sudden 180 degree rotation, but it quickly gave way to wonder.

    The disc at my feet had taken on a black nickel-plated finish. As I looked around, most of the metal surfaces that I could see bore a similar finish. The lamp post to my left, the window frames in the darkened shop behind me, all were coated in the semi-reflective black material.

    I took a tentative step away from the manhole cover. The platform I stood on stretched away from the tower behind me for roughly twenty feet, encircling its entire diameter before extending out in each of the cardinal directions like a flat four brimmed baseball hat. Small lips, no higher than the typical four to six inch steps from street level to sidewalk, were the only impedance to the empty space beyond.

    Another tower, constructed of similar materials but bearing a platform shaped much differently, stood about thirty feet opposite the place I stood. Close enough to recognize a familiar face through the ambient occlusion of the air, but further than any human alive could jump on their own. To my left and right were similar towers, with others peeking through the gaps between those. The further away they were, the more detail was lost through the atmosphere, like how mountains fade out over great distances. Multicolored light from each tower interacted with the mist, which I had to assume was equal parts water vapor and air pollution, breaking up the darkness just enough to make out the silhouetted forms of people jumping between platforms in the distance.

    I was surprised at how much free room I had on the platform around me. When Harry had described it, I expected a ground level cyberpunk mob of jockeying and jostling people, but there were only a few dozen people spread across the few platforms in easy viewing distance of my position.

    A green glow brought my eye back to the manhole cover. A thin green tracer, similar to the silver one from my apartment, sped around the circumference of the cover before shooting across the platform to my right. I watched it complete the journey a few times before understanding that I was being prompted to follow.

    After a few steps, the pulsing thin meteor train stopped running laps around the manhole cover and began to fire away from between my feet, like some sort of lilliputian phosphorescent GPS indicator. When I had to step to the side to allow someone to pass, the line simply corrected my path. The line led me around the tower to the opposing platform, ramping off the ramp-shaped accelerator platform near its apex.

    It obviously wanted me to let this high tech catapult launch me off into the direction of another platform, but I wasn¡¯t ready to do that just yet. I stepped aside, wanting to see a few other people safely complete the journey before risking my own virtual life. I realized it wasn¡¯t real, that there was no way the fall could kill me, but I still needed to see it done by someone that knew what they were doing. I had no idea who would design a introductory experience that involved them risking their lives in ways they never would in real life two minutes after arrival, but chances are they were probably too far removed from being a noob to understand what a daunting task jumping off a perfectly sound building was after your first five minutes in the world.

    I watched a few people casually step from the pads, the acceleration so gradual and controlled that they made the trip from accelerator to landing pad like they were riding on an arcing, invisible conveyor belt.

    Building up my courage, I walked through the pad and felt the inertia of my body being carried over the edge. The air rushed by gently, with none of the instability or balance issues that might make one panic. Acted on by unseen forces, my body remained upright and steady the entire trip, which was a relief. I mean, I still panicked. A little. But before I could scream or do anything else that would betray the badass persona I was cultivating, my feet touched down on the opposing platform, and the green thread shot away, leading me on.

 C5-Retail Therapy

    The thread pulsed directly to the front door of a shop across from the landing pad. Once it hit the door sill, it hooked along the base of the door, up and around, running a complete circuit of the door every two seconds. As signs go, I felt this was a fairly obvious one.

    ¡°The Shop¡± as the weathered neon and metal sign extending away from the building proclaimed itself, dominated an entire corner of the floor I was on. Strangest of all, it was comprised entirely of tan brick. I had to look at it for a second or two before I could put my finger on why that was significant, until I remembered that I was standing on the side of a skyscraper, and clay bricks probably made incredibly shitty skyscrapers.

    Glancing around, most of the other buildings were made out of a variety of metals and glass, but most looked like they belonged halfway up a high rise.

    I shook it off, actively reminding myself that I was inside of a computer simulation. Humanity had thousands of years of impractical ideas, wasted on a reality that couldn¡¯t sustain them for one reason or another. The virtual worlds were probably the only place for most of them, islands for misfit thoughts.

    The thought made me smile. When I was a child, my mother told me that there was a place in the world for everyone, but that little nugget of wisdom was just another in a long line of shitty advice that parents give their kids. An entire generation, raised to thrive in a world that would never exist. At least, not for most of them.

    As I finished inspecting the outside of the shop, I wondered if it was overly idealistic advice given by decades of overmatched parents that had driven my generation to design and build the alternate digital realities of the d.o.mai.n universe. I guess it made sense that large portions of the population, reared on fantasies of altruism and the golden rule, would set about creating that reality for themselves inside of a digital dream world upon reaching adulthood and not finding anything approaching the reality promised to them by their parents.

    Our parents no doubt sold us that line of gilded horseshit because they thought if they impressed upon us a desire to live in a utopia, that over the coming decades we would create it for ourselves.

    Of course, that¡¯s not what happened. Instead, the idea that everyone would be honest and decent just set us up for the inevitable fleecing to come. Like Lucy holding the football, any ounce of trust was taken advantage of. Re-education from a legion of grifters and con artists, no doubt raised by parents with a much less optimistic view of the way reality would become.

    So, denied the reality promised to us by our parents, we¡¯d created it with strings of code.

    In our digital worlds, we could live in safety. Here, we could be loved for who we are on the inside, because whatever you wanted to be on the outside.was only a few clicks and credits away. The creators of the d.o.mai.n universe had made right the promise of the previous generation through the only means available to them.

    Lost in reflection, I barely noticed the person leaving the shop until the opening door almost struck my knee.

    ¡°Oh...sorry.¡±

    Coming back to myself, I looked up to meet the man¡¯s eye. He was around my height, with broad shoulders and short hair. His shirt looked to be painted on, giving an impressive showing of the underlying musculature. He nodded in my direction, pulled out a cigarette, and kindled it in a practiced motion as he leaned back against the storefront..

    I thought he looked every bit a middle eastern Tyler Durden, but that could have been a remnant of the vaguely mutinous frame of mind I had been in.

    ¡°You new?¡±

    His words caught me by surprise.

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I didn¡¯t hear what you..¡±

    ¡°I asked if you were new...to UNDR?¡±

    I smiled. ¡°That easy to tell?¡±

    He took a drag off his cigarette and chuckled as he exhaled, the smoke coming out in bursts. It reminded me of the old steam locomotives in the ancient Wild West movies my grandfather used to make me watch when I would be dropped off at his place after school while I waited for my mom to get out of work.

    ¡°Yeah, you all have that same expression, same way of standing next to the exterior walls of the building in an effort to get as far away from the drop as possible.¡±

    I turned around and glanced at the empty space between the towers.

    ¡°Well, in my defense, it does look like a long way down.¡±

    He answered again between drags, ¡°You have no idea, friend.¡±

    As I gave the drog a final glance, he took one last pull from his cigarette and cast it away. I watched it as it flew, saw as it dematerialized into particulates that diffused into the air like breath in winter.

    The man gestured with his head towards the door.

    ¡°Well, you¡¯d better come in then.¡±

    He pushed the door open and waved for me to enter. I didn¡¯t move.

    ¡°What is this place?¡±

    The man looked confused.

    ¡°What does your HUD tell you it is?¡±

    ¡°HUD?¡±

    He laughed. ¡°Damn, you are a noob. The Shop is a hub for players joining UNDR Online from the Eastern Time Zone. There are others, even in just the New England area, but they serve as markets, training grounds, networking centers, among other things. Judging by the fact that you don¡¯t even have a heads up display yet, I¡¯d say you¡¯re exactly where you need to be.¡±This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

    He extended a hand. ¡°I¡¯m Raul, by the way.¡±

    I took his offered hand and shook it.

    ¡°Nice to meet you, Raul. I could probably use someone to show me the ropes. Anyone in particular I should ask for?¡±

    He gestured at his chest.

    ¡°You¡¯re looking at him. Now come on, we¡¯re letting the smog in.¡±

    I thought back to the atmospheric graying out of buildings in the distance, and wondered just how health it was to breathe the air outside. Then, I remembered that this was a video game, and there was no such thing as virtual cancer. That I knew of.

    I stepped past Raul and into the Shop, and my eyes went wide. From the outside, the building looked like some sort of diner, but I¡¯d only been able to see around ten feet into the building due to the dark tint of the windows. The tables and chairs that I had thought extended all the way through the building were only balconies that wrapped around the first floor, before giving way to a larger lobby with a staircase leading down a level in the building. The entirety of the interior was lit indirectly, with the light squeezing out from behind gaps where the crown molding met the cuiling far above, as well as below the mopboards and along vertical wainscoting seams every few feet. The amount of light coming from each source wasn¡¯t a lot, but the combined illumination from what must be hundreds of locations, arranged in a grid on every surface, gave the place a strange quality that I couldn¡¯t put my finger on right away. The staircase terminated at a round, glowing floor surface that I recognized as an amalgam of every teleport pad I¡¯d ever seen in video games and movies growing up.

    Raul continued down the stairs and hopped onto the glowing pad. From a distance, the pad appeared to glow white, but once I stepped on it, I could tell finally see that it was just an extremely brilliant shade of blue. I wanted to close my eyes, but the entire journey took place between the time it took me to think about closing them, and the muscles in my eyelids actually flipping them shut. So, not really in the blink of an eye, but about a hundred times more quickly.

    The first step I took to continue following Raul was a bit shaky, but other than that the teleport was uneventful. I¡¯d expected to be met with a bout of intense nausea or vertigo upon arrival, but learned long ago to not question something that worked out better than anticipated. The uniform gray illumination of the main lobby gave way to a hallway with no visible lights in the ceiling, but that was lit by the actual walls themselves. The walls looked like translucent panels lit from behind, darkening slightly at the edge of each section.

    The designers of UNDER really had something against LEDs.

    Raul peeked over his shoulder to make sure I was still following.

    ¡°You doing alright?¡±

    I squinted back at him through the excessive brightness of the space.

    ¡°Yeah. Why is this hall lit like a damn tanning booth?¡±

    He glanced at the walls, like he had forgotten that they were unusual, and smiled.

    ¡°The lighting in The Shop is all omnidirectional. The reason for it is that much of the camouflage and stealth abilities in UNDR Online are darkness or shadow based. If there are no shadows¡­¡±

    ¡°...then they can¡¯t sneak in unannounced. Got it.¡±

    Raul nodded. ¡°Now you¡¯re catching on.¡±

    The doors were all the same, save a single LED about three quarters of the way up the center of each. All of the doors we passed were lit with an overly obvious shade of red. Raul stopped at the first door with a green lit LED and pushed it open. No unlocking of the door, no latch mechanism, just pushing it open like a gunslinger walking into a saloon.

    Sensing my question, he called back over his shoulder.

    ¡°The doors in The Shop are all bio-encoded. Or, at least what passes for biology in UNDR Online. If you have access, you just push them open. If not, well, you might as well be pushing against the Great Wall of China. The spaces themselves are all shared, we Mentors just grab the first room available, and a standalone instance of our study loads in as we enter.¡±

    I had no idea what he was talking about, but didn¡¯t want to further Raul¡¯s impression of me as a complete noob, so I¡¯d kept it to myself. I was envisioning some sort of hippie commune, a shared workspace or an eastern bloc hostel. None of the ideas seemed all that fun to work in. As I stepped through the entryway, my eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

    The room beyond was...empty. A gridlike pattern of the same blue white from the teleporter broke up the six walls of otherwise uninterrupted satin gunmetal into six inch squares. Raul stepped behind me, making sure that the door was securely closed, and as soon as the door clicked into place, the room began to change.

    The segments of gunmetal extended in places, retracting in others. The changes formed rudimentary chairs, tables, and from the walls and ceiling, shelves and chandeliers. The majority of the ceiling retreated, along with the top third of each wall, creating another balcony, one that my logistically bound mind told me had to extend back into the high-ceiling hall that we had just come from. Of course, inside a simulated reality, they don¡¯t always concern themselves with petty things like laws of physics. Once the objects became structurally complete, the gunmetal sections began to subdivide and add more complex geometry, each square facet decreasing in size but multiplying exponentially in number.

    Raul continued walking towards the center of the room, unimpressed with what must have been to him an everyday sight. I, however, was enthralled by the casual and flippant use of processing power. There are times when, even knowing that it is only three dimensional computer graphics rendering at an insanely high level, the primitive parts of your mind refuse to see it as anything less than magic. This was one of those times.

    In the amount of time it took Raul to reach his chair and sit, the room had gone from looking like it had been built of edge lit metal cubes to a full realized study, complete with deeply lacquered, almost amber wall treatments, a winding staircase leading up to the second level, and several panels of abstract art that looked to be constantly evolving, morphing from one masterpiece to another. I¡¯d never been someone who put a lot of value in having some grandiose place to hang my hat, but even I had to admit-I knew I was going to miss this place when the time came to leave.

    ¡°Raul...this place is amazing.¡± The words came out in a breathy, awe-filled gasp.

    Raul looked around, as though trying to see if anything impressive had changed since the last time he¡¯d been to his study. A slight, confused frown gave away that he hadn¡¯t noticed any changes.

    ¡°I guess¡­¡±

    His lack of deference irritated me. It¡¯s been said that human beings can take even miracles for granted if they see them enough, that novelty is coveted above all else, but this was the first time after hearing the adage that I realized how right it was.

    Sensing my mood, he elaborated further.

    ¡°I designed this study about a year ago, so I¡¯ve seen the startup sequence a few thousand times. After a while you get used to it.¡±

    I shrugged and shook my head slightly at the same time. It was the nonverbal equivalent of, ¡°If you say so, but I don¡¯t think I¡¯d see it that way.¡±

    Raul mirrored my shrug without the shake of the head. A moment passed where I could feel him taking my measure, and just before it passed the line into awkwardness, he extended a hand, gesturing to the chair to his left.

    ¡°Alright, I just reviewed your stats, and if you¡¯re ready, we can start setting you up with a class.¡±

    ¡°Nice rolls, by the way. It makes this part way more fun when your stats give us the leeway to pick from some of the more...interesting classes.¡±

    The smile he punctuated the sentence with was honest, and contagious, coaxing out one of my own.

 C6-Upgrades

    ¡°What do you mean by that?¡±

    Raul took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, in a near sigh.

    ¡°Most of the people that come through here have one stat that¡¯s decent, but the rest of their stats start out under ten, which limits their options. Almost all of your stats are above ten, save two, giving you more options as far as which classes you can choose.¡±

    ¡°What sort of classes are there to choose from?¡±

    Raul hopped up from his chair, as though just remembering something important. He strolled over to one of the shelves of books that wrapped around the study on both levels, grabbing a four books from one of the closest shelves. They were shelved next to each other, and he pulled the entire stack from the shelf between his hands and turned back towards the rooms center. As he passed his chair, he thrust the books forward, like he was passing a basketball to a teammate. The books flipped open, landing in a perfect square pattern at the center of the room.

    I raised an eyebrow, curious at the strangely abusive way he had treated the books. I wondered how long it would take for me to get used to the casual nature in which people treated objects of perceived value in UNDR. Books in the real world were not exceptionally rare, even though printed paper books had fallen out of favor a decade before, but the ones that were still in existence were almost always valuable.

    The instant that the books settled, thin beams of light shot up from each corner terminating at a height of about seven feet. The four beams of white light from each book tilted together, hinging at their lowest points until they each connected at the top, creating four elongated pyramids. The lines flickered, then faded, and were replaced by four vaguely humanoid forms. Translucent white in appearance, the forms rotated slowly in place above the books beneath them.

    Raul spun each of them with his hand as circled around them, describing each in turn.

    ¡°There are hundreds of classes, but they all branch from the same four master classes. Everyone starts off choosing one of these base offerings, and as their stats dictate, they are offered the chance to specialize from there. At this level, everything is all terribly generic, with classes like Mauler¡­¡±

    He took a step and spun the next.

    ¡°Technomancer¡±

    He continued walking around the roughly six foot circle, as he spun each one of them, the forms blurred slightly.

    ¡°Netrunner¡±

    The expression on his face indicated he personally didn¡¯t think much of those.

    ¡°Transhumanist¡±

    He glanced at me, making sure I was still paying attention.

    ¡°Now, as I said before, none of these classes are especially interesting, but the subclasses are much more interesting. Being that UNDR is a cyberpunk themed world, all powers are derived from technology. If you have a background in games, you can consider them roughly equivalent to Fighter, Mage, Rogue, and Cleric.¡±

    The four forms resolved as they slowed their spinning. Each of them looked like me, just with different outfits. I stood and walked forward to get a closer look. The outfits were all plain, low level, stereotypical garb for each class. Fighter me wore generic leather armor, whereas the Technomancer and Transhumanist wore robes of dark and light fabric, respectively. The Netrunner wore dark pants and a dark long sleeved shirt with a scarf wrapped around its neck, hiding the lower half of its face, poorly hiding metallic implants near the side and back of it¡¯s skull.

    Raul met me as I paced around the offerings.

    ¡°Don¡¯t get discouraged by these base classes. They¡¯re...well...quite honestly they¡¯re boring. Nobody ends up playing any of these classes, anyway. Consider them more category than classes. You¡¯ll leave this room with something much more interesting, especially with your stats. Before we get into these, it might help to see what your random start drops included for items, since those can sometimes be fairly decent, and might have a bearing on the class you start off with.¡±

    ¡°Starter items?¡±

    Raul stared at me, as though he had to have heard me wrong. I broke the silence before it could grow any more awkward.

    ¡°Oh, yeah. Sorry, I sort of jumped into UNDR on a whim, and didn¡¯t get a chance to read the introduction all the way through.¡±

    Raul sighed and turned to the wall behind him. He extended his arm, and a large book shot out of the case and into his hand, the binding striking his palm with a snap that I could hear six feet away. He handed it to me.

    ¡°Here, use this. This is going to take infinitely longer if I have to keep stopping to give you information you should already know.¡±

    A little irritated at his sudden change of mood, I took the offered book.

    ¡°You¡¯re going to stand here while I read this entire thing? This is going to take hours.¡±

    He took the book from me, opened it, and handed it back.

    ¡°Here.¡±

    I took it, and no sooner had I glanced at the first page than the pages began turning faster and faster, as though an industrial strength floor fan was blowing on it from just off screen. My mind experienced the time compressed equivalent of an all night study session, drying out my eyes and causing the front of my head to adopt a pulsing headache. The entire thing only took about three seconds, at which time the book snapped shut and flew back to where it had come from on the shelf. In my periphery, an overlay of menu options encircled my view. One of them pulsed an attention getting shade of blue, and I looked up at it.

    When looking straight ahead, the menu options were blurred out and partially obscured by the unfocused darkness that marked the physical limits of my eyelids. When my eyes went to the blue tinged option, it not only resolved into great detail, it raised slightly and a transparent shade dropped down, bearing the following prompt:

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td>

    ITEM

    </td>

    <td>

    INFO

    </td>

    <td>

    EXP GAIN

    </td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>

    Introductory Tutorial

    Repository

    Type: Tome

    </td>

    <td>

    You now know all information contained inside the Introductory Tutorial Tome. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

    </td>

    <td>

    +25

    Intelligence

    </td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    My eyes went wide. Every question I considered, I easily found the information in my mind, or knew that it wasn¡¯t covered by the ITT.

    ¡°Damn. That was...intense.¡±

    Raul smiled. It felt good to be back on his good side.

    ¡°I bet. What you just experienced was what is called a ¡°Knowledge Repository¡±. They can take on different forms, usually in the form of a book, crystal, tablet, artifact, etc. But they all basically work the same, functioning as a fast way to download knowledge or skills. They don¡¯t work for everything, and they are all prohibitively expensive in game, but as time saving measures go, they¡¯re pretty much the easiest way to learn anything. In game.¡±

    I glanced around at the huge shelves of books around me, wondering how much of that wealth of information I could cram into my brain. If I had something like this for journalism school, college would have been a much more enjoyable experience.

    ¡°No.¡±

    I looked over to Raul.

    ¡°No what?¡±

    ¡°I see you looking at all of the books in here. The answer is no. The only reason I gave you that one was because not having to hold your hand through all of this was to my benefit. There¡¯s a chance I might share some of these Tomes with you at a later date, but you¡¯ll have to earn that. Right now you¡¯re not ready. You have to learn to walk before you can learn to run.¡±

    I smiled sheepishly and nodded in understanding before breaking the tension by getting back to the task at hand. I walked over to the Mage class and touching my ethereal fighter form on the chest to select it. The other three forms disappeared, and all four of the books materialized new Mage-like variants.

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td>

    CLASS SELECTED: TECHNOMANCER

    </td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>

    Based on stats, the following four subclasses are available.

    </td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    I already knew what each of them were, from the ITT, but I reviewed each of them in turn, helpful menu options materializing next to the chest of each, outlining their basic abilities.

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td>

    SUBCLASS TYPE: RECTIFIER

    </td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>

    The proverbial glass cannon. Supremely powerful in directed energy attacks, but not worth much in hand to hand combat. As long as they are protected from melee combat, they can deal more Damage Per Second than any other class.

    </td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td>

    SUBCLASS TYPE: ENGINEER

    </td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>

    Able to control surrounding technology, including that of some enemies, and in a world suffused with technology, are not to be taken for granted. At higher levels, become immune to surveillance, are master trap makers, and are able to bend security bots to their will.

    </td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td>

    SUBCLASS TYPE: RENDER

    </td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>

    Can craft temporary exoskeletal augments for their own bodies and create specially crafted minions. At higher levels, able to summon armies of creatures, crafted from the underlying geometry and materials of the world.

    </td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td>

    SUBCLASS TYPE: BLACK HAT

    </td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>

    This class relies primarily on their powerful mind implants, and are able to craft direct attacks on the psyche on opponents through wireless signals, and also impart illusionary misdirection and debilitating debuffs such as confusion or blindness.

    </td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    Before I could move to make a selection, Raul spoke up.

    ¡°Actually, wait. We never went over your starter items.¡±

    I took a step back from the rotating forms and turned to him.

    In the lower right hand corner of my field of view, I could see the word ¡°Inventory¡±, exactly where my implanted knowledge told me it would be. Focusing on it pulled out a transparent panel with a grid of box shaped voids. I willed the menu to dislodge from the corner of my vision, and as it slowly drifted away, it enlarged, and I was able to physically turn it with my hand. Once my hand made contact, the panel instantly became more opaque and a shift in Raul¡¯s gaze told me he was able to see it.

    ¡°Looks like someone has a fairy godmother.¡±

    Rather than spin the menu back around to face me, I took a couple of steps around behind Raul and looked at the panel.

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td colspan="2">

    INVENTORY

    </td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>

    NNF-S45 VEST

    </td>

    <td>

    ONI BLACK DUELLER JACKET

    </td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>

    NAKAMURA KA-616 FIREWALL SHARD

    </td>

    <td>

    SENDAI-113 PORTAL GLOVES

    </td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>

    TYPE-31 BOOSTER HYPO

    </td>

    <td>

    DAEMON CRYSTAL

    </td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>

    NEMESIS 8 RAIL REVOLVER

    </td>

    <td>

    REGEN INDUSTRIES NANO MOD

    </td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    I had no idea what any of the items were, but as Raul tapped on them one of them at a time and handed them to me, I knew I had hit the motherload.

    The NNF-045 vest was thin and flexible, but when Raul held it up in mid air and struck it with a closed fist, the fabric turned rigid.

    ¡°These things are really cool. The fabric has an internal bladder matrix, filled with a non-newtonian fluid called Stonewall t45. At normal pressures, the fabric stays flexible, but when abrupt force is introduced,¡± he punched the vest, and the impact area turned rigid,¡±the fluid turns into a hardened shell, stopping most small arms fire.¡±

    My eyebrows went up at that, and I took the slate black vest and pulled it on over my plain black t-shirt. The outside was a textured material, almost rough to the touch, but the inside was smooth, like a breathable satin, rippling reflectively as I pulled it away from my body to line up the closure. In place of a zipper, a contact bond seal ran the vertical length of the front, and when I touched the contact patches together, they snapped together as though magnetized. Raul nodded in appreciation as I turned to face him, the vest shrunk to fit snugly across my torso. The non-newtonian fluid flexed easily as I tilted from side to side, and despite the protection it offered, there was no restriction of movement.

    I smiled at Raul, impressed.

    ¡°And the jacket?¡±

    Raul had already retrieved the jacket from my inventory, and was looking it over.

    ¡°I actually wanted one of these a while back, but they limited the run, and since they¡¯re soul bound on equip, so the few that have never been equipped and end up on the resale market are ridiculously expensive.¡±

    I took the jacket from him and looked it over. The jacket was long in the back, appeared to be made from a synthetic leather inlaid with a reflective circuit pattern running from the neck and shoulders vertically down the majority of the jacket. Across the central section of the shoulders, a semicircle of ballistic polymer was doing double duty as an epicly popped collar and a retractable hood.

    One thing was for certain, I¡¯d never owned anything half as cool as the jacket in my hands. I felt like a badass just looking at it.

    ¡°Are you just going to stand there looking at it, or are you going to put it on? We still need to get your subclass selected.¡±

    For another moment, the paralysis held...then I whipped the coat around and pulled it on over an arm, then the other. The front seam snapped together in much the same way as the vest, and the hood snapped to attention over my head.

    When I looked at Raul, his expression was a combination of envy and awe.

    ¡°You look like a total badass in that thing, Q.¡±

    He¡¯d obviously come to the same conclusion I had when I first saw the ridiculous auto-generated name pop up in my profile screen.

    I flexed my arms, already loving the way the light glinted off of the black chrome inlay, and laughed.

    ¡°I guess I do.¡±

    Just then the jacket finished resized itself, and a prompt appeared in my vision.

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td>

    ITEM:

    </td>

    <td>

    ONI DUELLER JACKET

    </td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>

    PERKS:

    </td>

    <td>

    +5 DEFENSE AGAINST HEADSHOTS.

    RADAR REFLECTIVE.

    +3 DEFENSE AGAINST ELECTRICAL ATTACKS.

    SCALING ADAPTIVE CAMOUFLAGE.

    </td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    With a thought, the hood retracted back into the collar of the jacket, and I laughed, entirely too pleased with myself. Raul was reaching back towards the inventory screen to grab the next item, but I cut him off.

    ¡°Actually, let¡¯s wait on that for a minute.¡±

    He didn¡¯t say anything, but his expression was all question.

    ¡°Let¡¯s get this class situation sorted out before I open the rest of my presents. I think I¡¯m ready to choose.¡±

 C7-The Fabric of Reality

    Raul¡¯s attention shifted from the open inventory panel to the four figures still rotating slowly in the center of the room.

    ¡°Alright, which class are you leaning towards?¡±

    I immediately disregarded the Black Hat subclass. All four of the classes sounded cool, but the description gave me the impression that I¡¯d be a liability in a straight up fight. The jedi mind tricks might come in handy as I investigated Harry¡¯s problem, but without other players around me that I could trust, I felt it left me a little too vulnerable most of the time. The tradeoff just didn¡¯t seem worth it starting out.

    ¡°Are these choices permanent, or can I change my mind later on?¡±

    Raul bobbed his head side to side, as though weighing how to best describe the situation.

    ¡°The subclasses themselves can be changed, but at a severe penalty. So much of a penalty, in fact, that I would encourage you to make your choice based on the assumption that they are permanent.¡±

    I took a deep breath. This decision had just taken on an another level of significance.

    ¡°Alright. So how much overlap is there between the classes?¡±

    ¡°Eventually, all of the abilities are available to all of the classes, though you will advance much more quickly in your chosen specialty. Black Hats can learn to channel Rectifier battle magic, Render¡¯s can learn psionics, etc. Usually most of that overlap doesn¡¯t start to kick in until past level ten.¡±

    It was reassuring to know that I wouldn¡¯t forever exclude myself from certain abilities just because I picked something that was a little more useful right out of the gate. Not that I intended to be a long term resident of UNDR Online, my priority was still clearing Harry, but the world was already drawing me in.

    I took a look at the Rectifier next. The damage per second focus was easily the biggest payoff starting out, but I worried that it was a little too focused. Dealing damage was great in a straight up fight, but in a cyberpunk world like UNDR Online, I wondered if I could close some of that gap with advanced weapons. In the end, it felt like too much of a one trick pony, so I dismissed it.

    The final two classes, Engineer and Render, remained. The Engineer sounded powerful, but I ran into the same worries with it that I had about the Black Hat. I was certain that Engineers would make powerful additions to medium to large groups once they reached higher levels. I could easily see how Engineers could set up larger attacks or overcome problems that required more than a blunt instrument, but they would need someone else to give them time to set everything up. Again, it didn¡¯t offer the balance in short term survivability and long term potential that I wanted.

    As the Engineer class disappeared, the Render avatar broke from it¡¯s static pose, rolling it¡¯s shoulders and tilting its head from side to side as if loosening up. I understood that it was most likely a pre-programmed pose, but the figures movements and lopsided grin came across as almost cocky.

    ¡°Render. Nice.¡±

    Raul smirked.

    ¡°We don¡¯t get too many Renders. You would think it would be a more common class, but the prerequisites are pretty stiff, so that eliminates most new players, and it¡¯s powers don¡¯t fit into common game stereotypes, so very few people end up appreciating how useful it can be.¡±

    The figure stepped down from it¡¯s hovering perch above the book, and outside of the glowing light that I assumed was keeping it in place, I could get a better look at the enhanced version of my character.

    The figure had on a plain black jacket, long in the back, hooded, with both sleeves rolled up just below each elbow. Basically, a generic version of the jacket I wore.

    I wondered if receiving the Dueller Jacket had subconsciously nudged me in that direction, since I was already half dressed for the part, but I shook the thought away. I could accept being manipulated by nature or physics, trusting that everyone was getting a roughly equivalent shake, but once you start introducing human motives into the equation, that was a power I knew not everyone would be able to resist abusing.

    ¡°So, will I look like this right at level one?¡±

    Raul smirked. The hands and forearms of the figure before me were covered in lattice of lines, intersecting at hundreds of points, creating an intricate mesh of polygons. The lines glowed with an inner light, as if the avatars arms were paused at the inception of an explosion, the energy inside rupturing the bonds of the polygons that made up the 3D model but not able to escape further.

    ¡°Not at level one. The figures are mockups of a level ten progression for each class, meant to give you an idea where you will be once your powers develop a little more.¡±

    He gestured to the figure, and it casually walked up to me and extended it¡¯s hand. Looking over at Raul for confirmation, a subtle nod from him later I was reaching for the hand. As soon as my hand wrapped around the Render¡¯s, a brilliant white light blasted everything in the room, overpowering my vision. Once the light faded a few seconds later, I found that the figure had disappeared.

    In the upper left corner of my vision, the SYSTEM menu dropped down and began scrolling text that zipped by faster than I could read. I knew from my tutorial tome that the text could be reviewed at a later time, so I didn¡¯t bother trying to keep up.

    After a moment, the high velocity word crawl ended, and the menu retracted like a door with a hydraulic shock. As it retracted, the entire interface flickered, glitching with the briefest of static laden screen tears, and the tabs had changed. The options were the same, but the edges of the translucent tabs took on a more angular appearance, almost like the tabs were cut from glass or modelled in a rudimentary 3d design program.

    I glanced up at Raul, who smiled back at me, gesturing to my hands. Bringing them up to my face, I could make out jagged polygonal lines bisecting the joints between each of my knuckles. The lines began from a central point in my palm, passing over the webbing between my fingers and reconnecting with one another. The lines were white in color, and were recessed like my skin had tried to heal over them. A few small triangles spread across the back of each hand, but the overall effect was much less impressive than the fractured appearance of the level ten Render.

    ¡°So, how does this work?¡±

    Raul understood what I meant without my needing to go into further detail.

    ¡°The instructions should have appeared in your system log during the transformation. If you turn on the automatic parsing function, the information will download into your mind automatically. There¡¯s really too much information to be read effectively while you¡¯re in battle, but sometimes it¡¯s useful to scroll back up and see the raw data if you need to see the effects of a new item or ability.¡±

    I focused my vision on the System Menu in the upper left of my periphery, and the tray slid down as before, exposing the translucent black window within and the white text that had blazed past earlier. A small toggle at the bottom of the tray drew my attention, and I flicked it on. That feeling of my brain straining against internal pressure happened again, though in a much weaker manner, and I understood the basics of my new subclass. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

    Raul, knowing that I had just absorbed the information, began talking again.

    ¡°A few things that your system update would not have told you is the rules of etiquette that all Renders are expected to adhere to.¡±

    ¡°Wait...etiquette?¡±

    Raul nodded patiently.

    ¡°Yes. etiquette. What makes a Render powerful is their ability to absorb and use the surrounding geometry and materials of their environment. Not such a big deal if they¡¯re doing so in an abandoned warehouse, but,¡± he gestured around the office ¡°less appropriate if you are in a trusted mentors office with legions of priceless knowledge tomes. It¡¯s considered in bad taste to deconstruct objects without permission, or unless you are reasonably sure that the materials are open source.¡±

    I chuckled.

    ¡°So, don¡¯t fuck up your office. Got it.¡±

    Raul nodded, more than a little relief at my ability to grasp the concept so willingly.

    ¡°Now, let¡¯s get you to a place where you can test our your new abilities.¡±

    One of the bookcases retracted, and a moonlit courtyard could be seen through the opening. Sunlight streamed through the opening as though the space it occupied wasn¡¯t another mentors office space. Reading my expression, Raul clarified.

    ¡°This is a microportal leading to a training area. It¡¯s exactly what it looks like.¡±

    As he spoke, he moved through the opening and into the starlight beyond. I followed, and was surprised to feel the drop in temperature on my skin. The level of realism was impressive.

    Large blocks of different materials ringed the courtyard, set equidistant from each other, like the numbers on a circular clock. I could see concrete, wood, various types of metal, even water and smoke confined to large rectangular shapes through some magical means.

    ¡°As you know, the power of a Render is their ability to utilize the surrounding geometry and materials of the world of UNDR Online to create constructs to assist them. At lower levels, these constructs are rudimentary. At higher levels, these constructs increase in complexity. There are even tales of Master level Renders able to craft sentient creatures from materials they¡¯ve absorbed, and those creatures take on the abilities and characteristics of the materials used.¡±

    He pointed at a block to my left. Under the caustic illumination of the blue-gray moon overhead, I could make out a fluid pattern of darkened lines over its surface that I quickly identified as wood. It was entirely solid, the growth rings expanding out from the center of the block as though it had come from an enormous tree that someone had squared off on a saw mill or a magical equivalent.

    ¡°Now, I want you to concentrate, and use some of this material to create a simple cube. In the center of the courtyard.¡±

    I raised my eyebrows, but did as asked. As I extended a hand to the block of wood, the white lines on my hand flaring to life. The wooden block was the size of a minivan, but I could sense it vibrating from around twenty feet away. There was no visible shaking, no seismic activity under my feet, but I understood the strain I was putting on the material in much the same way that you know things in dreams, and sound like a psychopath trying to explain it to someone who has never dreamed.

    At first, the wood resisted me, but as I poured every ounce of will I could muster into it, a faint gridlike pattern of golden diagonal lines shimmered across the block. The light dappled across the moonlit courtyard like a tropical sunrise through shallow ocean  water. Realizing that I was probably spreading my focus a little too broadly, I picked a single knot in the wood and directed all of my force there.

    The knot began to pull away from the larger block, the lines criss-crossing it¡¯s surface flickering brighter and brighter until the faceted chunk of wood that contained the knob popped from the block. Other wooden fragments followed it through the air as it moved towards me without my having to focus on them directly. It seemed there was an initial resistance to overcome, but once that threshold was breached the focus required fell considerably, like the structural integrity of the object only needed to be weakened first.

    As I continued to concentrate, the white lines on my hands took on the same golden hue as the compromised wooden mesh. I could see the scanline-embossed edges of the chunks as they approached, breaking down into individual, two dimensional triangles with golden neon tinged edges which looked for all the world like a merry train of magical tortilla chips flying towards my outstretched hand.

    I glanced at Raul, who nodded his approval.

    ¡°Good, but you can do better. Focus. Pick up the pace.¡±

    I did as asked and the chunks began to move so fast I could no longer make them out individually. The sensation was strange. The closest way I could describe it would be like someone pouring loose dirt over my hand, but instead of bouncing off my palm, my hand drank up the geometry. I could smell the sawdust of the disintegrating wood, which was an alien scent to a kid like me that had never been out of the city.

    ¡°That should be enough. Now comes the hard part. Try to form a cube in the center of the courtyard with the wood polys you have absorbed. Take your time at first, you¡¯ll have to visualize how you want it to assemble in your mind.¡±

    ¡°Polys?¡±

    ¡°Polygons. Renders absorb and generate their constructs from the underlying geometry of UNDR, which is comprised of polygons.¡±

    As the final triangle floated towards my palm, I took another look at it. The central section of it still retained the same woodgrain appearance as the rest of the block, but the edges flared with the same golden light as the lines on my hands.

    ¡°Right here?¡±

    I pointed to the location a few feet away that Raul had indicated, asking for confirmation. I had no idea how the process of making a construct would work, but my hopes were not high, my redundant line of questioning just a stalling tactic. In the few games I¡¯d played, breaking down items tended to go rather smoothly, but crafting new ones could sometimes explode in the players face.

    My first attempt went poorly. I visualized a cube, but like everyone else if you asked them to draw a cube on a piece of paper, I attempted to create my cube with square polygons. I projected a mental image of the cube inside of my head, how the pieces would connect, in what order they would be placed, yet when the polygons tried to form up, I realized that they were all triangles, leaving gaps in between the sides where I would need to use more geometry to complete it. After a brief moment of uncertainty, the cube collapsed, the triangles I¡¯d committed to its construction falling the the ground and fading away. Raul directed a patient smile in my direction. .

    ¡°Initially, you¡¯ll have to build your constructs out of triangles, or tris. At higher levels, you¡¯ll be able to unlock abilities to use polygons with more sides. It¡¯s one of the early limiting factors for Renders, the complexity of their constructs being limited to a finite number of polygons based on their level. As you increase in level, you will be able to maintain more complex objects. Then, once you unlock the ability to use polys of more complex shapes, the resulting number of polygons required to craft a specific object will decrease do to the lower number of polygons needed, thus increasing your efficiency.¡±

    I stood there, trying to absorb what he was saying. He glanced over my head, as though he was seeing something off in the distance that concerned him slightly.

    ¡°Alright, we¡¯re almost out of time for tonight. Let¡¯s see if you can get this cube created before you wake up.¡±

    I looked up, and realized that the earlier void of night was slowly being replaced with a graying dawn, the stars losing their contrast and receding into the background.

    Focusing on orienting two triangles together to make each side, I crafted a cube roughly one foot in all dimensions, it¡¯s edges growing in luminance for the briefest of moments before leaving a completed cube of wood on the ground.

    Raul walked over and picked it up with both hands. He looked it over, tossed it up lightly and caught it as though he was testing its structural integrity, and handed it to me.

    ¡°Nice work. I¡¯ll teach you how to build a handful of more complex constructs tomorrow, and then I think you¡¯ll be ready for your first quest.¡±

    ¡°Raul...I appreciate all of the help. You¡¯ve been amazing, but there is soemthing I¡¯m supposed to be doing, I¡¯m not sure I have time to run a bunch of errands.¡±

    He smiled at me good naturedly, but his voice was iron.

    ¡°You will do nothing until we have finished our lesson, and I release you. It¡¯s my job, to make sure you are prepared, and my superiors take it very seriously, so, in accordance with that. I take it very seriously, and you will too.¡±

    I stared back at him, not quite sure how to reconcile the warm smile on his face with the cold, pragmatic tone of his voice. In the end, I mentally flipped a coin. Smiling back, I took the diplomatic path and reached out a hand as the first rays of full sunlight struck the tops of the trees ringing the courtyard. As he shook It, I said the only thing I really could think to say.

    ¡°Tomorrow, then.¡±

    And the light came for me.

 C8-Head in the Clouds

    As I opened my eyes the following morning, the entire experience felt like a very lucid dream. Just for kicks, I reached out my hand to the bedside dresser to deconstruct the wood in it, but nothing happened. I smiled, but part of me was a little disappointed in reality.

    As I climbed out of bed, the typical shroud of post sleep exhaustion was nowhere to be found. The normal tightness and aches in my knees and ankles were also gone. The day kept getting better and better.

    Normally, I¡¯d never be up that early, much less be useful to anyone, so my usual frantic dash to get ready for work took on a more pedestrian pace.

    I actually cooked breakfast. Eggs, Bacon, even baked that can of expiring croissant rolls in my fridge.

    I kept a careful eye on the clock as I ate, chewing away at the best breakfast I¡¯d eaten in months. Typically, my breakfasts consisted of an expensive coffee from the vendor at the autocab pickup near my apartment, but the change of pace was nice. By the time I ate, showered, and got dressed, I still ended up being late, which probably tells you all you need to know about who I am as an employee.

    Forgoing the coffee vendor, who waved at me like a friendly tetrameth dealer from a dark alley, I glanced at the locational glyph printed on a nearby sign and signalled that I was awaiting the first available autocab through my implant. I could have just had them pick me up outside of my apartment door, but the response time to the stop was much quicker, since the AI¡¯s running the cab companies attempted to maximize profit. Targeting their stops meant more money per operational hour, so instead of chasing single fares down back alleys, they would send the vast majority of their cabs to predetermined pickup points which would usually have clients waiting curbside.

    A cab arrived a few minutes after I¡¯d sent out the beacon, and I was on my way to the office. Even though Harry had indicated that I really didn¡¯t have to show up in person while working on his project, the thought of hanging out all day in my shitty apartment was just a little too much reality for me after last nights experience.

    The autocab lifted from the pavement and climbed rapidly. Long ago having integrated all of my communications accounts with my implant, I began sifting through the morning notes each department head was required to issue in order to keep everyone on the same page. Harry, being a little more old fashioned than most, believed that while internal tracking software perhaps did a more efficient job of keeping work organized, the work produced would be better if everyone in the company was required to actually communicate with each other. In a larger company, this would be nearly impossible, but Harry got away with it because our entire staff numbered around forty employees total.

    Water began to spatter against the side window of the AutoCab as we banked around a familiar office tower, and I knew from experience that my journey was around halfway over. The autocabs were remarkably predictable, slaves to their programming despite all the talk of sentience, so the entire operation ran like clockwork. That my own life had become equally predictable drew uncomfortable parallels that we¡¯ve already established I''m not proud of.

    The clouds overhead seemed to get a little bit closer to the ground every day, their inexorable descent taking our world a little closer to the stylized reality of UNDR all the time. The virtual dreamscape from the night before was still fresh in my mind, bringing me back to a thought that I often toyed with during my morning commute - were the writers and artists designing dystopian societies in science fiction just incredibly prescient, or were their creations so stunning that we¡¯ve been subconsciously pushing our reality in that direction? Depending on mood, I¡¯d found myself on either side of the fence each time I put my mind to the question.

    Below, I saw the rooftop gardens, flashes of green behind pollution clouded glass. They were usually run by cooperatives in each of the buildings, but even with state of the art hydroponics and the best water and air filtration systems available with modern technology, the industrial runoff that kept us dumb and sick, that the FDA assured us were within ¡°acceptable levels¡±, was still rendering the produce little better than the processed nutrition bars handed out by the government.

    The only untainted goods available came from self contained biomes, owned exclusively by those with the means to ensure their purity, or from the large growing fields outside of the city. Those plants had been genetically modified for maximum yield, and cared more for sale weight than actual nutrition. Most days, I couldn¡¯t be bothered to put in the work to buy and prepare them. I preferred to instead check in daily with the VitaDoc mounted to the wall in the men¡¯s bathroom to fill the gaps left in my diet from whatever was on sale at the convenience store in my building.

    When I placed my arm inside of the roughly foot deep cylinder of the VitaDoc, the machine drew a small amount of blood, ran a battery of tests, and injected any vitamins or nutrients it found me to be especially deficient in. After the health insurance crisis of the 2130¡¯s, it was what passed for healthcare coverage in most companies now. I was under no illusions of it¡¯s ultimate effectiveness, all of us ultimately doomed to death, but it was only a minute out of my day, an easy measure to take against the pollution and malnourishment of the modern world inexorably pushing us to an early grave.

    The autocab landed on a pad halfway up the building owned by my employers parent company, which DownEast News leased through an incredibly complex web of corporate shell games that probably saved the company a fortune in loopholed taxes. Our entire operation was housed in half a floor of the gigantic building, and in the years I¡¯d been working for Harry, I¡¯d never been curious enough to find out what sort of corporate hijinks our neighbors got up to. Shit, I couldn¡¯t pick out the person who lived next door to me from a police lineup. Social interactions tended to be largely handled through the asynchronous filter of software, every message a make or break hurdle to overcome in order to facilitate continued discourse. If enough hurdles were overcome, perhaps a face to face meeting might take place, but largely, most relationships outside of the workplace existed entirely online.

    All of that was mainly to justify my lack of social interaction with my coworkers. Call me an introvert, call me a sociopath. I''d probably have a hard time refuting either, other than to say we''re all moving in that direction. I might just be ahead of the curve.

    That''s not to say I don''t recognize familiar faces, give what I hope to be congenial nods or gestures, but In my years at DownEast News, I''d carefully cultivated my loner mystique to the point where nobody really made attempts at anything more than that. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    I stepped on to the conveyor, getting a slight jolt of nostalgia from my leap of faith the night before. It brought a smile to my face, but I hid it before anyone managed to see. I wasn''t at work to make friends. That hadn''t always been the case, but after being burned several times early in my career by people I trusted or thought friends either throwing me under the proverbial bus to further their own ambitions, or rotating to new departments or new companies just as we were developing a rapport, I stopped bothering out of personal necessity.

    Plus, there was the implant. It still weirded most people out a little, sticking racks of hardware in their head, and while they were becoming more common, there was still a large subset of the populace that considered it a betrayal to their own bodies. I could certainly try to explain that I didn''t have a choice, that my implant was there to keep my neurological demons at bay, but that would only further complicate things. No, I''d rather them just be afraid of me recording every word they said, reading their body data and using the implant to see through their clothes with my x-Ray vision. Not that I had x-Ray vision, but when people are afraid all sorts of bullshit possibilities get thrown around.

    Harry''s office was one of the first ones off the conveyor, a glass edifice of trust and transparency, or at least that¡¯s how he referred to it. I could see his head uncharacteristically bobbing up and down, hands waving, obviously in the middle of an animated telephone conversation with someone. The sound deadening laminated into the glass made eavesdropping impossible, so I continued on to my desk and flicked the switch on it¡¯s side, turning on my own reciprocal sound dampeners.

    Old school desktop computers were almost nonexistent nowadays, but writing and low level coding were two of the remaining fields where the ergonomics of having physical keyboards and upright screens were still the most efficient way to get work done without developing repetitive stress injuries. For all of the technological advancements over the past few decades, the human body remained relatively unchanged. Ten fingers, two eyes, one brain.

    The white noise from the sound dampeners relaxed me, as well as the knowledge that any sounds from inside my workspace would be instantly deadened on impact, as well as any sound from outside it.

    I scanned my retina and fingerprint to log in to my machine, and the back edge of the flexible glass work surface rose at the back and sides, a browser window flickering to life across its surface. The surface was slanted towards me front to back, the front portion at wrist level, the back edge at eye level. Sensors at the corners continually adjusted the angle and tilt of the screen as I shifted and leaned, which was about the best our company could provide in the way of ergonomics.

    Sure, I could have researched UNDR Online at home through my implant, but the data connection at work was free, uncapped, and I¡¯d yet to bother checking to see how much I¡¯d used last night while inside of UNDR.

    Logging into my UNDR online account, I was able to see my stats, and also research the items in my inventory. The Firewall Shard was a reasonably decent implant that protected against psychic attacks up to and including 6th level Black Hats and Psyonicists, a variation of the Cleric-like Transhumanist class branch. I¡¯d equip it as soon as I logged back in that night, since I was allowed three shards to be equipped at any time. Similarly, the Regen Nano Mod slotted into a similar slot, though there was only one of it¡¯s type. At first glance, it wasn¡¯t quite clear what the box, placed to the right of the paper doll depiction of his inventory that slid out from the lower right of his HUD. A bit of research explained that it was a moderate level regeneration/healing buff, an injection of regenerating nano-bots that could heal a hit point a second, a ten fold increase over the base recovery rate of 1 hit point per ten seconds.

    The Portal Gloves looked cool, with light blue tracers running down the back of each synthetic leather digit, but I wondered how they would work with my Render powers. If nothing else, I figured I could use them to cover my hands if I needed to hide my powers. The Booster Hypo was like a synthesized shot of adrenaline, giving +20 boosts to  Strength, +15 to Dexterity, and +20 to resilience for a period of five minutes. It was also a one time use item, so not something I¡¯d want to pull out unless I needed an escape hatch from a bad situation.

    A flash of shadow caused me to look up, but it was just one of the overly friendly layout artists waving as they passed my office. I waved back to her so that she wouldn¡¯t stop to wait for a response, and went back to my screen. The screen had a privacy filter, which locked down the viewing angle to around five degrees, only tolerable because the desk continually morphed to keep my eyes within the narrow window in which it was useful.

    I continued to research the remaining two items, and discovered that the Rail Revolver was a cross between a large, old school revolver and rail gun. The cylinder automatically replenished it¡¯s load, so the action was probably a heat dissipation function.

    The hand cannon dealt 45 base points of damage, but by plugging my stats into a handy online calculator, I was able to lock down the damage potential more accurately. Strength (12) + Dexterity (14) x Level (1) divided by 5 gave me a modifier of 5.2, which made the gun capable of 59 DPS, or Damage per Shot/Second (Ranged/Melee). Including the 1d10 randomized damage increase per weapon level (1), each shot would ultimately cause between 60-70 DPS. Headshots were subject to a critical hit multiplier of 2.6 (calculated Dexterity (14) + Luck (12) divided by 10), meaning that if I were able to hit someone in the head with the unwieldy revolver, it was possible to do between 157-180 DPS.

    My head spun with all of the numbers, but the calculations were all done in the background and I really only needed to know the ultimate potential of each shot. So, 60-70 for normal shots, 157-180 for headshots.

    The final item in my inventory seemed to be some sort of pet egg, though I had no idea how to hatch it. I pulled it up on my screen, staring at the hologram like projection through the translucent black glass of my desktop, when someone spoke behind me.

    ¡°Ah, I see you got my present.¡±

    I spun, realizing that the only way I¡¯d have been able to hear the person, and the only way they¡¯d have been able to see my screen, was if they were standing directly behind my chair, practically looking over my shoulder.

    Harry smiled, amused that he had been able to sneak up on me without my noticing.

    ¡°Dammit, Harry, you scared the shit out of me.¡±

    ¡°You need to be more aware of your surroundings if you¡¯re going to be playing UNDR Online. These gifts are about all I¡¯ll be able to give you in the way of help, since I can¡¯t log in without alerting the people tracking me. I¡¯m still not sure how they¡¯re able to do it, but I believed the man when he said it was possible.

    My attention drifted back to the screen.

    ¡°So, what can you tell me about this Daemon Crystal?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m told it¡¯s some sort of pet, but since I already have one, I wasn¡¯t able to hatch it and find out. You¡¯re only allowed one pet at a time, though certain classes like Shamans and Renders can manufacture minions, but those minions can¡¯t really think for themselves until you get pretty high in level. Anyway, just leave it in the top row of your inventory, and you¡¯ll be notified when it¡¯s ready to hatch. I carried it for a while, so it should be due to pop any day now.¡±

    The facets of the crystalline egg flickered as the artificial light inside the program generating the model played off it¡¯s surface. I felt a little conflicted, unsure of how I felt about a pet that would either be a great help to me, or a severe pain in the ass to care for and train at a time that I would probably have a hard enough time keeping myself alive.

 C9-Errand Boy

    Harry had provided my items. Knowing that softened a shadow I hadn¡¯t noticed  looming over me. Taking the day to get more acquainted with the world was a good call, and as I placed the last of the washed dishes in the drainer, double checked that all of the doors and windows to my apartment were secured, and laid down in my bed, I felt much more prepared to return to UNDR.

    Harry¡¯s eyes had lit up while he was talking about the items, how he¡¯d earned them, the stories behind each of them. The entire time, I could see the strain in his face, his desire to log back in and guide me in the world that had become a second home for him. Of course, seeing he and I together would blow any potential cover I had, and his logging in might have unforseen consequences.

    No, I needed to get to the bottom of whatever was going on before Harry could rejoin the world of UNDR Online.

    I moved through the virtual copy of my apartment quickly, my desire to get back to Raul relegating the novelty of it all to flashy background scenery. Once I stepped on top of the manhole cover in my simulated living space, it deposited me not at the place it had left me the night before, but outside of the familiar plate glass windows of The Shop.

    Stepping inside, I realized I had absolutely no idea how to find my way back to Raul¡¯s study. Clenching my jaw, I silently cursed myself for not paying better attention the night before. I¡¯d been so caught up in everything going on around me, all of the beautifully impossible things going on, that I lost my sense of direction.

    I made my way down the wide stairway, below the windowed balconies that ringed the interior of the building, to the teleportation pad. A man leaned against the wall to my left, eyes closed as if in a trance, but I was unable to get his attention. He stood like a statue solidly immobile even when I tried to shake his shoulder.

    I really needed to start asking more questions.

    Having no better plan, I stepped atop the pad.

    Roughly an hour later, I was standing in the access hallway leading to Raul¡¯s study. Understanding that any one of the rooms could be his, I just stood there like a noob, waiting for him to respond to the message that I sent a moment after stepping off the teleport pad. .

    A door clicked open ahead of me, and Raul entered the hallway, closing the door behind himself with what felt to me like unnecessary haste. I was about to ask him what was wrong, but just then another door burst open, and a young woman wearing a form fitting outfit stepped through it quickly. With similar urgency, she closed the door behind her and quickly made her way down the hall away from us.

    ¡°Uhh, Raul? What¡¯s going on?¡±

    He looked up at me, mild panic in his eyes. I started to turn back to look at the woman walking away from us, and his voice came out in a rush, clearly meant to get my attention.

    ¡°Q, there you are. You, uhh...haven¡¯t had your first job yet, have you?¡±

    My turn back to the woman halted, I focused on him.

    ¡°No. And you know that. Seriously, what¡¯s going on?¡±

    Raul¡¯s eyes became distant, and a moment later a prompt swung into the center of my field of view.

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td>

    Mission Alert

    Raul has offered you the following quest:

    Locate the criminal Reef in The Gallow Sprawl and recover the blueprints he stole from Raul.

    Reward:

    200 EXP-Street Cred

    175 EXP-Dexterity

    250 EXP-Aptitude

    100 Credits

    Choice (1) of recovered blueprints.

    Accept?

    YES            NO

    </td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    I looked at him suspiciously. The prompt blurred and became more transparent, allowing me a relatively unimpeded look at Raul. I didn¡¯t appreciate being brushed off.

    ¡°Dude, you haven¡¯t even shown me how to use my powers yet. How am I supposed to defend myself? I¡¯m not getting my ass kicked because you¡¯re in a hurry.¡±

    Raul took a deep breath and stepped closer.

    ¡°Sure I did. Yesterday. The process is the same for any other construct. Just make sure that whatever you create has less than 20 polygons, that¡¯s the current max for your level.¡±

    I was unconvinced.

    ¡°Yeah, I understand it in theory, but I¡¯m not ready to go out and fight off thugs in the..what¡¯s it called...The Gallow Sprawl?. I don¡¯t even know where that is.¡±

    Raul tilted his head, his expression one of an exhausted teacher recovering old material.

    ¡°Once you accept the mission, your in-sim navigation system will kick in and show you where you need to go. Well, it will get you to the Sprawl, you¡¯ll have to do a little legwork after that to track down Reef and recover the blueprints.¡±

    I stared at the prompt, which resolved into focus and grew more opaque as the system registered my focus. I reminded myself that the absolute worst thing that could happen would be that I would die and wake up with my alarm in the morning. It was easy for me to forget that the incredibly tactile and realistic world around me was little more than a bunch of code run through an incredibly powerful quantum server farm.

    ¡°And what are these blueprints that I¡¯m supposed to retrieve?¡±

    Raul smirked.

    ¡°That, my friend, is the fun part. Each of these initial missions are meant to get you up to speed quickly. Sure, at higher levels grinding is a necessity in order to give value to the effort of gaining strength for your avatar, but initially, I¡¯m allowed a fair amount of leeway in granting you mission rewards that exceed your current power level. Blueprints are plans for advanced, highly efficient constructs.¡±

    ¡°But if I can build anything I can imagine, why would I need plans?¡±

    I could tell by the way Raul closed his eyes and smiled that I had just asked a dumb question, so I hurried to elaborate.

    ¡°I mean, I¡¯m sure that the plans are a time saver, shortcutting a bunch of trial and error, but I still don¡¯t understand what you mean by advanced, highly efficient constructs.¡±

    Raul let me finish before responding, his level of patience increasing greatly now that the woman he had been trying to keep out of my sight had left the access hallway. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

    ¡°Construct efficiency has to do with the strength to poly ratio of whatever you are building. Unless you¡¯re a brilliant mechanical engineer in the real, you¡¯re not going to know enough about structural integrity, material tensile and shear strength, and load distribution to create constructs that are much more than temporary distractions for an enemy.¡±

    I opened my mouth to respond, but he cut me off.

    ¡°Without a lot of trial and error. Sure, you can make a cube, and it was a pretty cube, but creating the constructs you¡¯ll need to be powerful will require a huge amount of time to get right. Blueprints are like cheat codes for that process, saved designs crafted by much more talented Renders that will perform perfectly every time.¡±

    I didn¡¯t like the way he was thrusting this entire mission on me as a way to cover his ass, but I could tell he wasn¡¯t going to do anything else for me until I at least tried to give it a shot. I really didn¡¯t want to waste time on a fetch quest that I could be spending investigating Harry¡¯s blackmailers, but I knew that I would need Raul¡¯s help down the line, and to keep the relationship rolling along, I needed to play ball.

    ¡°Fine.¡±

    I said it as I mentally focused on the ¡°YES¡± option on the prompt. The panel blurred into nothingness, and a green thread raced away from me along the floor. It ran the length of the hallway, back where the woman had escaped to, and up the staircase at the end of the hall, pulsing green tracer light it¡¯s entire length, as before. I followed it with my eyes until it rose out of view, then turned back to Raul.

    ¡°So, who was that that just ran off? Someone you didn¡¯t want me to see, no doubt?¡±

    Recovered from his earlier panic, he didn¡¯t take the bait.

    ¡°Sorry, Q, you haven¡¯t unlocked that information yet. Come back to me once you¡¯ve reached a higher level.¡±

    I couldn''t help but laugh.

    ¡°So it¡¯s like that, then. Alright. I¡¯ll go get your damn blueprints.¡±

    I didn¡¯t need the navigation beacon to tell me how to get out of the building, but I couldn¡¯t figure out how to turn the damn thing off without cancelling the entire quest, so I rolled with it. Once I stepped through the front door of The Shop, the green line ran to the nearest jump pad and arced across to an adjacent building. The smog-like atmosphere made seeing any more than that far ahead difficult, and I could only follow it that far because the green phosphorescent pulse of the thread cut through the fog like Rudolph''s nose on a Christmas Eve storm.

    I could only have been walking for around a half an hour, but the quality of the architecture dropped off precipitously in that time. Around The Shop, near the starting zone, most of the streets were clean, the windows unblemished, every surface appearing to have been freshly painted. As I neared the Sprawl, as indicated by helpful signs that slid smoothly away from the green navigation line when I paused for too long, the streets became more and more clogged with refuse, the windows, when still there at all, were often cracked or festooned with cobwebs or boarded up.

    I toyed with my powers, absorbing metal and wood from whatever garbage and detritus I happened across, but it wasn¡¯t much. I made a few primitive objects-a knife, a club, a...stick? The more I fought with the system, the more I came to regret my class choice and appreciate the offer of blueprints after the mission.

    Burned out husks of cars, none of which appeared to have been driven in my lifetime, grew in prevalence. I followed the winding navigation line as it led me unerringly around larger and larger piles of garbage, disabled machinery, and in more than one occasion, toppled buildings. One of those buildings had been tall enough to reach from one tower to another, creating a perilous bridge of twisted wood and steel to the adjacent tower.

    Of course, the green line indicated that I should climb across it to continue my journey, because...why not?

    Perhaps the hardest thing about full immersion simulated reality is when you have to do something that every one of your senses are screaming at you not to do. Traversing this rickety bridge of half demolished building, with the green nav line tracing confidently across it, was one of those times.

    I could visualize this thing falling apart, dropping me to my death just as I crossed the point of no return. I didn¡¯t even know how far down I would have to fall before hitting something, but my mind drummed up a series of incredibly horrific possibilities, none of which help my confidence. As I looked down into the drop, I couldn¡¯t see a bottom, only a narrowing of perspective between the buildings, which did wonders for my confidence.

    My overactive imagination pictured me pinballing between buildings as I fell, eventually catching one of the jutting platforms with my face as my body underwent a rapid phase change from solid to liquid. Shaking myself free from the vision, I double checked that my gear was secured and took my first tentative step out onto the makeshift bridge, muttering to myself as my first handhold broke away from the structure.

    ¡°Fuck my life.¡±

    As predicted, the next twenty or so feet passed uneventfully. I fought against the natural inclination to grow passive, complacent, double checking and load testing each step as much as I could before trusting it to hold my weight. The process was painstakingly slow, but I knew that if I got impatient and rushed things, I¡¯d misstep and would have to come back tomorrow.

    I had to maintain my focus. The simple constructs I had conjured were pretty pathetic, breaking apart easily on the chunks of concrete I tested them against. My confidence level in melee combat was essentially zero until I could get some blueprints and generate something more structurally sound than a wrapping paper tube. I needed those plans. I wasn¡¯t interested in power levelling or making a passtime out of this new world, but I had no doubt that the type of people that made a living off of blackmail and crime would hit a lot harder than I could at the moment. I needed to get stronger.

    On cue, a prompt popped up in front of my vision, blocking my line of sight and causing me to lose my balance.

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td>

    NEW SKILL GAINED

    Passive: Climbing Level 1

    Boost: +1 Dexterity when Climbing

    </td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    I waved the prompt away with a frantic gesture of my hand, which, if I¡¯m being honest, totally looked alot like someone spastically trying to fight off a swarm of angry bees and not at all the nonchalant gesture I would try to convince Harry of later on. I¡¯d prepared myself, been entirely focused on the task at hand, but the notification had arisen at the most inopportune time, reminding me that expecting something to go wrong and knowing exactly what would go wrong are two entirely different things.

    My weight shifted, disturbing my carefully balanced equilibrium, and the increased weight placed on my left foot caused it to punch through a cracked piece of sheathing. This caused my position to further shift, and a last second grasp at a mangled aluminum window frame only slowed my descent. The metal twisted, drawn out of shape by my weight, and what had been a quick promise of death became even worse.

    Jagged glass shards, the remainder of large double pane windows, bit into my palm, coaxing a slow but steady stream of blood flowing down my arm that I barely noticed. The pain seared the nerve endings in my palm, but by some feat of will I managed to hang on. Struggling, I tried to reach the frame with my other hand, but the sharp tug required to lever my body closer caused the frame to buckle further. My hand slid along the jagged glass, leaving a staccato smear of blood along the metal window frame as the bones in my palm begrudgingly jumped each shard.

    I screamed. Or, rather, I continued to scream. I hadn¡¯t noticed the strain on my vocal cords before, which goes a long way toward explaining the amount of focus it took to maintain my grip and avoid plummeting to the smog filled abyss below. My foot strained against the backside of the plywood it had punched through, the growing crack in its surface flexing with each effort to improve my position. I was stuck, and a quick glance up to the new menu that popped into the upper right of my field of view showed that my typically green stamina bar had begun to blink an angry shade of red. I recognized the menu as the ¡°Combat¡± menu, which cycled into view when significant changes happened to any of the three main attributes that it displayed-Hit Points (HP, Stamina Points (SP), and Magic Points (MP). In my case, Magic Points had changed to ¡°Max Polys¡± (still MP) the instant I had chosen my character class of Render, and totalled the grand sum of polygons that I had absorbed, that I could use, measured against my maximum allowed.

    Render.

    Seeing the bar with only the slightest sliver of remaining polygons left gave me an idea. With an exertion of will, the simple sliders disappeared, replaced with much more useful numeric values. The Max Polys figure told me that any chance of escape would hinge upon the 17 polys left at my disposal, limited to triangles due to my low level. Focusing further on the menu caused it to expand vertically, informing me that one of the polys was wood, and the other 16 something called ¡°unrefined metal¡±. I reached to my right with my free hand, trying to absorb more metal polys to aid my plan, but the first poly that flew towards me destabilized the entire bridge, causing it to wobble and causing me to realize that any further attempt to pull material from the bridge was a very bad idea.

    I cursed myself for not having put more time into practicing my new ability. With my free hand, I spent the remaining 16 metal polys and fashioned the ugliest hook shape I had ever seen, sparing two triangular polys to extrude a square detent at the base of the handle that would hopefully keep my hand from sliding off the end.

    During the entire four or five seconds it took me to conjure the pathetic looking hook, the aluminum window frame continued to buckle. My mangled hand, still clinging for dear life at what had previously been the upper left corner of the window, shook and continued to slip free.

    Wasting no time, I swung the hook forward and plunged it through the nearest surface that looked like it would hold, the sheet of plywood that still trapped my ankle.

    Flicking my eyes to my stamina gauge, I knew I only had precious seconds before my remaining seven Stamina Points fell to zero.