I came out of the VR haze in my apartment. It wasn’t big and it wasn’t shiny. But it belonged to one Kade Wilson - me. Grant Fuller is my VR alter ego. In real life I am a 34 year old ex-cop turned pro gamer, 5’9”, decently built although there is a layer of pizza hiding the six pack, dark brown hair, green eyes. Grant Fuller on the other hand is 6’2”, built like the love-child of Hercules and… Hercules with blond hair and blue eyes. We don’t look anything alike but my agent told me that this appearance sold better. 

Over the course of my last eight years of gaming career I managed to buy a type-2 apartment on the 21st floor of an Irvine Company arc tower between Tacoma and Olympia. And my apartment reflected my mindset - pragmatic spartan. No frilly shit but all the cool toys.

I got out of my gaming immersion chair and started stretching. While the Deep Immersion Chair offered all kinds of goodies to the serious gamer, like continuous massage, position shifts to avoid pressure points, stress monitoring and even bio-sustain, there was nothing like a real good stretch after nearly 8 hours online. 

Okay, stretch and shower. I made my way to the bathroom, jumped under the water and enjoyed the hot water jets on my skin for a moment. Good thing that type-2 apartments came with a daily shower allowance of 10 minutes. 

By the time the water had died to a trickle I felt refreshed and I had decided that I would go for a real-life beer instead of a virtual one. Yeah, with the n-links you could actually get buzzed. At least online. As soon as you logged out, the signals stopped and the nervous system recovered within 20-30 minutes. The benefit: No hangovers the next morning. But I was in a celebratory mood and decided that a hangover might just be the thing to go with it.

15 minutes later I was dressed in black cotton pants and a white cotton button down. It was nearly 10 am and even in the Northwest summertime is warm. I added a pair of flip flops as I stepped out of the door. 

In the express elevator I pressed the button for “Transit Pad” and the little box took me to the 5th floor where a hover Lyft was waiting for me. After a short discussion with the automatic system and about 10 minutes I exited at the Shamrock Tavern. 

I stepped in and was surrounded by fake Irish decoration and the smell of fake Irish food. I breathed in deeply. Yep, exactly what I needed now. After the glitz and pomp and super-realism of the VR it was good to get a dose of reality in your neighborhood dive bar. 

“Kade - fooking - Wilson!” a high pitched and yet sexy voice exclaimed from my side in a fake Irish accent. Okay, maybe the voice wasn’t sexy but I knew the body of the bartender it belonged to. Sue me for remembering that voice begging me for another slap on her ass. 

“Rach, love of my life, how’s things?”

“Ha, smooth talker! Don’t think you are going to get away that easy.” She scowled at me. Then her face turned all sweet innocence. “You can always make it up to me and take me downtown for a shopping trip.”

I suppressed the desire to roll my eyes. That’s how this whole thing with her got started. I had a win to celebrate and she was along for the ride. Sometime halfway through the celebration we ended up downtown on a shopping spree for her. That particular experience cost me nearly 15 grand. 

“Let’s talk about that later. Right now I’ll have a beer and three Leprechaun tacos.”

“You got it sexy! Out on the patio or at the bar?”

I hesitated for a moment but then made up my mind. “Patio. Let me see what the sun does to my body.”

She snorted as she typed the order into her pad while I made my way to the patio. I flopped down in a sunlit corner, leaned back and closed my eyes for a moment savoring the feeling of sun and wind on my skin. I opened them again as a shadow fell over me. 

I thought it would be Rachel with my beer but instead an angel hovered over me. I blinked a few times. Nope, still there. 

The sun outlined a perfect body in a tight and expensive mini dress mixing classic chic with the perfect amount of sexy. Her head framed by a mane of curly blond hair, her lips full and ruby, her eyes green and piercing. I let my gaze wander, taking in the sights. Slender but toned legs, pumps the same color of her lips. If I would have tried to create my perfect woman, she would have looked a lot like her. To top it off, she held my beer in one hand and a tumbler of whiskey in the other. 

* * * * *

I gave her my best Kade-Wilson-at-your-service-smile. Her eyes held mine but I could see the right corner of her mouth twitch. Win!

“Mister Wilson,” she placed the beer on the table in front of me. “May I?”

The fact that she knew my name had me instantly on edge and with a frown I pointed at the 2 empty chairs on the table.

“You have me at a loss here Miss…?” 

“Winter, Claudia Winter.”

She sat down and looked at me expectantly. What now? I took a sip of my beer. She knows my name and I have no clue who the hell she is. Fan? Can’t be. I go through quite some trouble to keep my VR and my IRL personas separated. Of course there were always ways if you really wanted to find out. So, Stalker then? I didn’t believe that either. There was something in her eyes, a knowledge. 

“Don’t get me wrong Miss Winter, I don’t mind good looking women showing up at my table for a drink. However, when they seem to be more familiar with me than they should be I get both cautious and curious. So, if you would not mind, please tell me what brings you to my table.”

She smiled. The kind of smile that sends tingles up and down your spine hitting your groin the same time as your fight-or-flight instinct.

Keeping eye contact she snuck her hand into her purse. “Call me Claudia.” She took a sip of her whiskey and then, I swear, she lit a cigarette. Not one of those electric ones that you could see every now and then but the real deal. I didn’t even know they still made them. 

“Okay Claudia.” I had to suppress and eye roll. This was like those famous film noir detective movies. You know, where the main character's voice can be heard commenting on the ‘dame’ from off screen. I briefly wondered who was commenting my story. What the hell? “What can I do for you? You seem to be on a mission here and I have no clue what that might be.” I was a VR celebrity but a woman with a whiskey and a cigarette has my brain in tangles.

“Actually Mister Wilson, I am here to see what I can do for you. I have come with an offer.” She waited for me to respond.

“An offer? Go on.”

“I am working for a well known VR company and we would like to invite you to beta test our newest product for us. We are extending you an invitation to be one of the five hundred thousand closed beta testers.”

I grumbled. So she knows who I am in VR and she managed to track me down here to make me this offer. A bit too stalkery for my taste. 

“Claudia, I have to admit that I am impressed that you tracked me down here. I am also flattered that your company makes this offer.” I steeled my face. “But I don’t deal with these things myself. This all runs through my agent.”

She took another sip then looked at me over the rim of her glas. “I understand your reluctance Mister Wilson but I am not authorized to deal with anyone but the actual prospect themselves.” She sighed. “Let me be honest with you. We are looking at something that will change VR and gaming forever. It is a project on a completely different scale than anything done so far. I can’t say much more because everything rides on this project and we have to keep confidentiality. There is no way around it.”

“So what are you saying? I am either in or out? Without any further knowledge? Why would I do that?”

She looked at her wrist monitor and I saw the color change from green to orange. “Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. You have 24 hours to decide.”

“What now? No way I am in without further information.”

She hesitated for a moment as if deciding I was worth her further attention. Then she nodded slightly to herself. “Kade, may I call you Kade?” I nodded.

She continued, “Kade, the world we are introducing in our new title is something that has never been seen before. All the potential beta testers are handpicked by our research and analytics department and then approached by a member of that team. I personally selected you because I believe that you will not only be a great tester due to your experience but that you also would contribute a lot to the game world.”

My disposition softened considerably at this revelation. “You picked me out of the billions of gamers?” 

Now it was her turn to nod. “Yes, I did. Although it is more like 10s of millions of professionals. And, full disclosure here, I also personally vetted you. Our research department received your school and service records as well as all gaming records of the last 8 years... “ She raised her hand to forestall my extremely annoyed reaction. “Yes, I know. Total violation of privacy and probably some laws about records we shouldn’t have access to. And I would like to apologize for that. However, the conclusion to all of this is that a lot of the things you have done in the past, your character, your personality, your choices throughout life all led me to one conclusion. I, personally, want you on the beta team. And I am telling you about all of this because I know that you are more likely to agree if you have the full picture and the truth from me than if I would just try to butter you up.”

I took a deep breath. Yes, she was right. This violation of privacy was incredible and I would get up and walk away right now if I could. But at the same time she was right. Her honesty about this had me stay in my seat. I always had a thing for the blunt truth. And being picked from millions of possible players to become one of five hundred did sound good. So much for not being buttered up. But I definitely liked it better that she was telling me these things flat out and I could make a decision. 

The one thing that struck me though was that she hadn’t told me yet what company we were talking about. Especially considering the resources and connections this company needed to have to be able to get their hands on all these highly secured information, especially my service record. These things were sealed for every cop. But they were buried when you were in federal employ. I was momentarily stunned. But I can play that game too. 

And so I nodded to her. “Yes, you are right, I prefer straight up honesty. And I love the way you threw the buttering up comment out there making it sound as if you are not doing this while admitting that this is exactly what you are doing. You are either a lawyer or a really, really good saleswoman” I chuckled and continued in the voice of the guy that tries to sell you shit you don’t need in the after midnight trideos: “Be one of five hundred thousand that were picked from billions. One of five hundred thousand that get to test a game that could change the world of VR gaming.” 

I paused for a moment looking at her and saw the beginning of a smile on her face. “So, what you are saying is that you basically know which color underwear I chose each day of the week? That is something I expect you to repay in kind.” I gave her a smirk. “And, as you well know, I have given up on public service. So, the question is: What’s in it for me?”

“I see. To be honest, everything will be outlined in your tester contract if you sign up for it. But a few key points I can give you right now to make your decision easier: All real world obligations will be taken care of for the course of your beta test period, courtesy of my current and hopefully your future employer. You won’t receive any further compensation but we are introducing an exchange economy where any ingame currency can be exchanged 1000:1 as soon as the game goes live. Of course that also means investing credits the other way round. 

“Further all content can be recorded and once the game is released can be published. You know from the past that players are all trying to get a leg up in any game and if you can already provide content for them that can raise your profile as well as make some really good money. And finally, there will be no wipes after closed nor after open beta. You will basically have a pretty decent headstart in case you stay on playing the game.”

I frowned at that. Beta testing is nothing like simply playing the shipped and bug-fixed product. Yes, the thing will be much cleaner than the Alpha version which is normally run internally or with an even more select crew of people. But nonetheless, it wasn’t simply fun and games so to say. Because anything could be buggy, you would often have to stop and write reports, explaining exactly what you were doing for the bug to occur, steps to reproduce them, your system specs, etc. Then the report would be submitted and you could hopefully move on. But I had seen it often enough that you couldn’t just move on but needed to be rolled back to a time before the bug occurred because something had gotten messed up.

Now the real world obligations being taken care of and the payment weren’t a big deal to me. Not after my earlier windfall. That would last me a good long while, especially if I invested it wisely. The recording of all ingame footage sounded good and would definitely help me to establish myself as one of the first experts in the game which would then lead to more money. However, that only worked if the changes between beta and release weren’t too big.

“Hm, I can tell you right now that I am not sold yet. All these benefits don’t mean much and have too many ‘what-if-scenarios’ attached.”

Her eyes were watching me and without actually moving her mouth, I could see her eyes smiling at me. She was about to hit me with the thing that actually mattered.

“Did I mention the completely new neural interface of the latest generation. And that is the generation that isn’t on the market yet.”

Now THAT was a benefit I was actually interested in. And I had to catch myself not to gape at her. 

See, the way neural interfaces worked was that they were relaying the data from the computer to the brain of the user and vice versa. The thing was that brain and computer data was processed very differently. 

The computer didn’t “think” like a human and thus wasn’t grouping the data in the way the brain would understand. If you would transfer the word ‘word’ from a computer it would first make it a string of quantum signals. So it wouldn’t actually be like a word at all. Then it would start pushing this string of signals into your brain. But the brain processes images much faster than data strings and can’t interpret quantum signals at all. Which means when we see “word” we are not actually reading it. We look at the shape of the word and compare it against what is stored in our memory. If we find a match we know it is the word word. If we don’t find a match, we go letter by letter. We hear a voice in our head that is speaking the letters and syllables and words. 

So the neural interface was the translator between. It transformed the computer data stream into something that could be processed rapidly by the brain and the brain data into the strings the computer could understand. Don’t ask me about more details because I don’t understand it any more in depth than this. But what I know is that newer interfaces allowed for faster transfer in both directions, increasing reaction and processing speed and thus giving the player a very distinct advantage. A pro-player with a gen one n-link would not stand a chance against a casual gamer with a current fifth gen model. That is how huge the advantage was. So yeah, this was a great offer.

“Okay, you got me interested. I would like to think about this some more before making a decision and then get back to you.” I let go of the tension this conversation had brought with it and leaned back in my chair. I just had to let my agent know that I would be unavailable for the next few weeks. No big deal. And then finally the last bit of her statement started to trickle through my business mode brain. 

“Claudia, let me grab us another round and then I suggest you allow me to get to know you a little better considering we will be working together for the next few weeks. Besides you already know me so much better than I know you.”

With that I got up and headed to the bar.