When we landed two hours and change later in the CenTEX metro airport we were ushered into a whole bunch of comfortable air busses. Damian and Nico and me stuck together as unaffiliated gamers as we made our way through the heavy air traffic over the second busiest metroplex in the North American Controlled Trading Zone. 

I didn’t keep track of the time but I became aware that we reached our destination when the busses left the high speed lane and turned towards what looked like a huge pyramid with a flat top. Over it hovered a huge holo logo of LD in a bluegreen against the night sky. The dimensions of the ‘office’ were ginormus. Don’t get me wrong. Anybody growing up in this day and age was familiar with huge buildings, skyscrapers over 500 floors and arcologies in whatever shape and form. However, we didn’t have that many of those in the PNW. And even flying over CenTEX I hadn’t seen that many.

But this one was a really interesting mix of egyptian design, or what I had seen of it in pictures and recreations of it in the Hub. It really was a pyramid with the top third missing. It was a sand yellow-brown color and it looked to be perfectly shaped. The sides were broken with huge window fronts and as we got closer we saw that the whole thing was covered in a steel glass construct. Between the walls of the steel glass and the actual walls were levels of parks, gardens, copses of trees and even streams visible. In short, it was an incredible sight to behold. And looking around me briefly I noticed that I wasn’t the only one captivated by the sight.

The busses set down on a parking lot and we were met by a coordinator who then asked us to follow him and then set off towards one of the arc’s entrances. My quantum watch notified me that my id was scanned as I passed through the entrance. From there he took us up about 30 floors, through some nicely decorated corridors and into a theater.

The coordinator stepped on the stage and tapped his own watch which led the sound system to play three soft pings to draw our attention to the stage. 

“Gentlepeople, we have prepared a presentation which will start in 20 minutes. You will also be joined by another 271 people to complete your testing group. They will be joining you from the SUK PLX.”

He pronounced the place as ‘Sook pe el ex’ which I know was the common name for the Southern United Kingdom Plex. The thing that people often made fun of was that they still called themselves united and kingdom. They were neither. There were constantly skirmishes and gang wars and even military actions between the Northern United Kingdom Theocracy and the SUK. And they had gotten rid of any titles like King or Queen about 15 years ago when the North decided to adopt the Irish theocracy model.

“You can also see that we have prepared a buffet and drinks for you. Please feel free to help yourself. There will be no formal welcome dinner later but after the presentation we will show you to the testing center and your areas and you will be free tonight to visit any of the restaurants on the first outdoor and commerce level. Of course you are also free to visit any other place outside the Arcology but we recommend you staying on site tonight and enjoy the amenities as you will have a busy day tomorrow between medical checks, legal meetings and your first immersion.”

After he was done I grimaced to Damian, “Man, I am dying for a coffee.”

He chuckled, “I hope they have the good stuff. I can’t imagine that you got any less snobby about coffee than you were before.”

“Can’t help that I actually have taste buds my friend.” I shrugged and made my way to the table that was set up for hot drinks. I poured myself a cup, smelled it and tested it and was positively surprised to find that I could enjoy this one. Not the best cup of coffee I had but way from the worst two. I judged it 7.4 out of 10. Which was pretty decent in my book.

A few minutes into enjoying the black brew - by the way there is no other way to drink coffee, if anybody tells you differently they either don’t like coffee or only had the shitty kind - we were joined by the group of Brits and the conversations died for a moment only to pick up even more animatedly shortly after. 

I saw another 30 or so people from the New Gaming Collective make their way over to their PNW clan mates and watched when they greeted each other in a boisterous manner. I internally groaned. I had to deal with NGC in the past since Strike Force was the kind of game they specialized in and they were sore losers. I hoped I would not bump into them in this new game anytime soon. I also mentally crossed my fingers that LD hadn’t signed some kind of contract with the Collective to get more testers. They were a worldwide organization with a lot of backing and money and they liked to think of them as the shit. The fact that they had been pretty successful in the last few years didn’t help their non-existent humility any. 

Another quarter hour three people step on the stage. The pinging of the sound system repeated itself and conversation died down pretty quickly after that. Apparently each one of us was as eager to learn more about the game and the test as I was. The one in the with greying hair and a white lab coat over an expensive suit touched his quantum watch and the sound system linked and transmitted his voice.

“Gentlepeople, I would like to welcome you to Lirium Dreamsoft and the closed long immersion and game beta test. My name is Doctor Steiner and I am one of the lead developers of the immersion technology. To my right,” he gestured at the only woman on the stage. A woman I was very familiar with as she was the one that personally invited me to participate, “is Miss Winter our Director of testing for Project Black Space and to my left,” again he gestured, this time to a guy with a brown mop of hair in a blue button down and jeans, “is Doctor Maharanov, Director of development for neural link technology.”

“We will be starting by showing you a trailer of Black Space itself. The footage is from our internal alpha test and was taken in the game itself. I know that you most likely were unable to find any information about this and we would like to keep it that way. After that we will go into a session of Q&A and then I will hand you back to your coordinator and he will have any further information and schedules for you. Now without further ado, let us start with a first impression.”

* * * * *

He nodded at my blonde acquaintance. ““Miss Winters, would you be so kind?”

She took a step forward touching her quantum watch. “I would like to remind you that you already signed an NDA and that what you are going to see is considered proprietary information and any leaks will be legally pursued.” 

Another touch to her watch and the lights in the room darkened. Then a holo light appeared to be hovering over the stage. It formed the words we all were waiting to see:

WELCOME TO BLACK SPACE

With that the hologram expanded, suffusing the room into a diffuse light. And we were standing in the middle of it. I was drifting through space. Symphonic music started to accompany the drift. Darkness, broken up by distant stars. Speeding up, I zipped by a planet with icy rings, flew by an asteroid field, a planet with giant ring structures all around it, fields of plasma, nebulas, stars with their planets. Always speeding up to bring me to the next view and slowing down to give me a moment to take it in, then speeding up again. Suddenly I approached a structure, a ring with a watery surface and the speed slowed down.

As I got closer and closer to the surface, the music picked up again and suddenly I was plunged into it, everything went black, then suddenly the light was back and I was in a different place. The music changed to some kind of march and I zoomed by large flotillas of different looking ships, planets where the surface looked like one big light, huge space stations of all shapes and forms. I slowed down again and zipped over the surface of a massive ship, laser turrets swiveling this way and that. 

Then I sped up again, plunged through another of watery surfaces and then again I was somewhere else. The music somber and quiet. I drifted through fields of debris, leftovers from destroyed ships. In the distance I saw shapes ming, ships.

Again the music picked up, a driving rhythm now. I was getting closer and closer to the ships. I drifted through the hull and suddenly I was inside a spaceship. It seemed as if I was the only person there even though I stood in a pretty crowded room. 

The music changed, deep basses were shaking my insides while the screens of the ship flashed. Voices could be heard over the music. 

“Sir, our interceptors have caught up with the pirate fleet. Intercept fields are placed. Enemy fleet has stopped and is preparing to engage.” The image of the person speaking turned to look at me expectantly. 

I wondered for a moment if he was actually expecting me to say something but then he turned with a snappy “Aye Sir.” 

The music changed again and became even more driving. It felt like the room was lurching forward. Tiny dots in the distance became bigger. A 3D tactical display bloomed in the middle of the bridge, showing dots in different colors.  

“Delta Fleet, prepare to engage. Cruisers, focus fire on enemy frigates, Interceptors engage fighter crafts. Serra, prepare for shield support. Rakon One and Rakon Two focus fire on the enemy battleship. Torpedos, full broadside.” The voice let these commands sink in for two seconds. “Fire!”

The music was booming now. My heart was beating so fast that the medical monitor on my wrist kept buzzing like there was no tomorrow. I noticed my fingers hurting and unclenched my fists. Suddenly the ship lurched again and I could see streamers of rockets passing our ship, accelerating towards the biggest enemy ship. Were they going to hit? Would the ship blow up? 

Closer and closer they drew, icons flashed in the tactical display, reports from the rest of the fleet came in. “Torpedoes hit in three… two… one…”  

The image collapsed, the music died and the lights flared back to normal. A stunned groan escaped me, letting out a breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding. Holy-fuckin-moly! My heart was still racing and I blinked away the tears in my eyes. Plug me in… right now!