“Love the sea, don’t you? All that bracing, fresh air.” 

Mei came to a groggy awareness. She opened her eyes a crack and saw light-brown wood; planks. She was kneeling on them. She squinted. Bright sunshine reflected off the wood. The air about her was warm. 

“That tell-tale salt of the ocean spray…,” a male voice musically called out.

A heavy splash of cold water hit her in the face, shocking her fully awake. She looked up and dripping saltwater stung her eyes, making her blink uncomfortably. 

An unfriendly, small male face with an oversized nose and large ears smirked down at her. He had one hand on his hip, the other holding an empty bucket. “Wake up, loves. Welcome to yer new home.” He gestured around them with a wave of his arm.

Mind foggy, she took a moment to focus. She was on the deck of a sailing ship, European, historical, something from the age of sail. Said sails flapped overhead in an utterly blue sky, with a harsh, yellow sun glaring down on their heads. It was hot; really hot. The noise of the wind was a constant background roar, as was the sound of the hull crashing through the water each time it dipped between rollers. Sailors walked about in bare feet and she watched them scamper up into the very complicated rope rigging, as agile as monkeys. 

A pair of cellists in tuxes, one cobalt blue and the other blood red, sat on chairs under the mainmast, bows on their instruments. They watched her with curious eyes but played a serious tune seemingly without distraction.

She looked at the sailor who’d thrown the bucket of seawater at her. He was gangly and wore a blue uniform jacket and white pants like the other sailors. 

Looking down at herself, she was dressed in a shirt and capri pants, a classic prison uniform with white and red horizontal stripes. Well, it was more interesting than the plain, shit brown ones they gave people in her home country. 

A foot came at her from the side and kicked her hard in the ribs, causing her anger to flare. All the air left her lungs and she fell sideways with a groan. In doing so, she became aware of the heavy, iron manacles on her wrists and the thick chains between them. 

“Yer awake then now, eh?” The kicker laughed. He had a thin, rat face and was missing a couple of teeth. Shorter than the other man by a hand, he was openly lascivious as he appraised her body.

It belatedly occurred to Mei that they were speaking English. Interesting. She must have been sent to one of the European prison servers. Not entirely a surprise with how many political prisoners were filling up servers in Asia with each cultural and anti-democratic crackdown. She didn’t mind the idea of not being under the thumb of the very people she’d fought against to land herself in this situation. However, the European servers were populated with far, far fewer political prisoners and a hell of a lot more real criminals. That would make it just as dangerous here, but in different ways. 

The gangly one grabbed her long, black hair. Causing her to grunt from the sharp pain, he hauled her up to her knees again, then to her feet. This last part caused him to let go of her, however, as she was actually slightly taller than he was, to his evident surprise. “Huh, lookit that,” he muttered, backing up a half step.

The shorter own cackled. “Hah. Percy, she’s taller than you.”

“And everyone’s taller than you, Saxston,” Percy bit back.

She fought the urge to claw his eyes out. Her wrists were chained, true, but they were in front of her. She could reach. It was tempting. But the reality of her situation crashed down on her, snuffing her indignant anger out. She sagged a bit on her feet. She was in prison now. She would have to endure or make things worse for herself.

Percy spoke with a thick, olden English accent. “‘Nother Asian castoff. Yer government sure does like to lock up its own. Don’t ya worry though, luv. We’ll find a nice, sometimes uncomfortable, way for you to pass yer time in ‘ere.” He barked a cruel laugh. 

The cello music grew ominous.

Her heart fell further. Great, it looked like the prison guards in this part of the world weren’t going to be any kinder or more professional than the ones back home. There would be no tolerance for her unfair imprisonment and no empathy for her plight. No going easy on her because of her gender. At first glance, it looked like they could openly act in any way they wanted within the system, which likely brought out the worst in many of the employees. On the upside, all those English lessons she’d been enjoyed as a child were now paying off. First day, first win. Her lips curved in a small smile. 

Saxston guffawed. “Lookit that, Perc! Likes the idea of naughty fun with us, she does. She must be a smart one.”  Another English accent. Natural or part of the simulation? 

Percy chuckled and casually backhanded her.

The sting of his hand was unexpected and she felt her anger rising again. Mei turned her eyes towards Saxston, the little smile still on her lips. “I’m gonna kill both of you before I get off this ship.” She’d spoken before thinking, just blurted out how she actually felt. It was something that seemed to happen all too often. Her smart mouth could really get her into trouble. 

They both looked at her with wide eyes, then threw back their heads and howled with laughter. 

The music darkened and picked up. 

“Kill us!”

“Get off this ship!”

Percival slammed his fist into her gut.

Saxston punched her in the face. 

She fell to her knees, trying to gasp for air but her diaphragm locked into place in shock. The next punch rocked her brain. She felt blood on her lips. Well, apparently pain was very, very real in this digital world too. Sad, but to be expected. She was a prisoner, after all. The powers in charge no doubt wanted prisoners to suffer, and suffer they would. 

Percy chuckled. “That spirit you got is gonna be fun t’ break. And break it we will. But do us here a favour and make it last, will ya? Female prisoners are a lot rarer than males and we do enjoy our playtime.”

She gingerly rose back up to her feet, her scalp, ribs, stomach, and face all hurting. She felt so helpless, literally in chains. So this was how her life would be from now on? She wanted to scream and weep. It was so unfair!

A man in a crisp, blue and white uniform and a naval hat tromped up to them in shiny, black boots, a picture of dignity and efficiency in every smooth movement. One look at him and the immediate deference the others showed and it was obvious that this man was master and commander of the vessel, someone a cut above ‘lesser’ human beings.

Both sailors quickly backed off. 

A glance and the cellists smoothly returned to their previous, serious melody, as if they hadn’t been playing Mei’s personal soundtrack earlier. 

Mei forced her emotions under control and defiantly raised her head.

“She’s awake, Cap’n,” Percy said with a measure of respect in his voice. 

“So I see.” The handsome officer was a touch taller and perhaps a decade older than her, a hint of gray in his sideburns. He looked down at her with a mixture of bland contempt and disinterest, a document in hand: a beige scroll tied with a red ribbon. “I’m Captain Fowler.” He opened the scroll and scanned the writing as he spoke. His voice was much more cultured than that of his crew. “As per the terms of your incarceration, you are to serve the next twenty years in forced labour here within this virtual prison world. Due to overcapacity on your home country’s servers, your penal contract was purchased by Ravenwold Corporation, of the United Kingdom, and thus you will be serving your time with us.” He looked up and nodded to the ship around them. “As you can see, you’ve been installed in the Colonial Realm, circa an eternal 1675. This time period was chosen because the lack of technology and hardships inherent here are expected to help you appreciate the efforts of yourself and others in surviving and creating a prosperous community.”

Mei’s head still swum from the punches that had shaken her skull and her ribs ached from the kick. But she managed to hear and understand everything. That was good. Didn’t want to miss something important in the tutorial, right?

The captain droned on, his voice quick and sure, giving words he’d surely given many times before. “Your sentence will be fully served in the colony of Barbados, which we’ll be making landfall at tomorrow morning. You will devote yourself to whatever labour you are given, and subject yourself to whatever demands you are given. You will be obedient and harmless at all times or you will be punished, ruthlessly.” Here he looked pointedly at her and spoke in a warning tone. “And because your real body doesn’t undergo any actual damage, and because you will simply respawn with each torturous death, we can get away with causing all kinds of trauma here. It can have quite the scarring impact on your mind, so I’d strongly recommend avoiding that route.”

Percy sniggered. “Or don’t be good. Man’s go’a enjoy his job, right?”

Mei eyed the smug bastard. Yeah, he definitely looked like the type who enjoyed bullying and hurting others. Which was probably exactly why he’d taken this job. She wanted to vent all her pain and anger out on him. Bash that ugly face in. 

“Of course, as per regulations,” Captain Fowler continued, “if you are a model prisoner, you may reduce your sentence for good beha—“ He squinted and scanned the document in front of him. “Actually, no, I’m sorry. Your country has stipulated that the sentence will not be reduced for good behaviour. Well, how unfortunate for you. They do love to bludgeon their own people for daring to speak out against the government over there, don’t they? However, as the United Kingdom is a far more forward-thinking country, good behaviour here may result in a reconsideration of labour type and location.”

“That means,” Saxston clarified, “if ya take yer beatin’s quietly and be a good li’le wench, ya might end up serving in some guv’na’s mansion instead of slaving away in the co’on fields. Foldin’ laundry and getting bent over the dining table by yer master every other day is far preferable to losing fingers and arms in the fields and sweating yerself to death in the sun every other week.”

Sad music carried through the sea air. 

Mei slowly looked up at the Captain and caught his blue eyes with her brown ones. “What’s the price of freedom?”

The captain frowned and raised a brow. “Excuse me?”

“Freedom. How much?”

He snorted with genuine amusement, smiling slightly for the first time. “Quite right, how could I forget? All prisoners, regardless of sentence and origin, do technically have the ability to purchase their freedom from the prison world as proof of rehabilitation. The price for doing so is one million doubloons.”

Percival sneered. “To put that inta perspective, a good, middle-class urban family living in London within in this world lives on about fifty gold doubloons a year. A poor London family on about ten to fifteen. A family out in the colonies, where you’ll be workin’, lives on about three to six doubloons annually.”

“You’ll be getting paid too,” Saxston added. “As part of your rehab.”

“And how much do I earn for my labour?” she asked, knowing the answer would be pitiful.

Saxston grinned, his crooked teeth twisted and yellowed. “About one doubloon per year.”

The captain continued in his amused tone. “All you have to do is work a million years in here and you can buy your way out. Enjoy the rest of your…oh, that’s right, you’d have died in here long before that. Or finished your official sentence and been released.”

“That’s not the only way to make money though, is it?” she challenged him. It was a pity: in other circumstances, she might have considered the captain attractive. Too bad all she wanted to do was pull the sword he wore out of its scabbard and drive it into his neck.

He bowed his head. “Technically, no. Some prisoners are granted freedom within their colony for good behaviour, allowing them to take up jobs that pay more or even to set up as merchants. There’s a thriving, real economy here that encompasses prisoners, staff, and AI non-prisoner characters, or NPCs. To the very best of my knowledge, however,” he added wryly, “no prisoner, even a merchant one, has ever amassed anything even close to a million doubloons.”

Mei grinned, rebellion sparking in her heart, perhaps because of how helpless her situation was. “How about pirates? How much do they earn?”

The cellists picked up the beat with a note of surprise. 

The captain’s amusement faded quickly and he frowned at the cellists, then at her. “Pirates,” he spat. “Yes, the system does allow for it, unfortunately. But I shall tell you right now,” he pointed at her, “that pirates generally live short, ugly, miserable lives. Most prisoners do not stay in that line of work very long, and most soon come crawling back to one port or another and are locked up or chained up in the fields, or put to work on our ships. It’s far better to do as you’re told and to eventually rehabilitate yourself as a farmer or servant or something. It is far more mundane and pleasant than having cannonballs tear off your limbs or filling your body with wooden splinters like a porcupine or undergoing one drowning too many. All that trauma does tend to drive more than a few mad, eventually, seeing as how realistic this system is.”

Percival verbally jumped in, merriment in his eyes. “There’s also the ma’er of dying and its penalties.”  

Captain Fowler nodded. “Quite. In order to buy your way out of prison, you will need to amass a fortune. But with each death, you will lose a portion of the wealth that you have accumulated. Die too often in the violent throws of piracy and you’ll find yourself perishing of starvation more often than not, without the coin to buy food. And that’s not even counting the fact that the thousands of fellow bloodthirsty, selfish criminals all around you can murder you at any time and steal everything you have, just as easily as they could in the real world.” 

“And they do tend to stab each other in the back with fair regularity.” Saxston laughed.

Fowler gave her a cold smile. “To make matters much worse for you, even if, by some miracle, you were to escape this ship and become a pirate, if you are killed within one of the prison colonies or on one of our ships, then you will simply respawn in our possession once more, in those very chains you’re wearing now.”

“And if I die in free territory?” she boldly asked. 

He gave her a dangerous look. The blue in his eyes seemed to turn icy and sharp. “You’ll respawn within free territory.”

She grinned and heard the music reach a crescendo around her. There it was. A chance for freedom. To live her own life outside of the oppressive weight of corrupt authorities. “Then I guess it’s a pirate’s life for Mei.”