"What is all this?" Rhese asked.
The elderly woman called to us through the tube instead of crawling in behind us. "Press the button on your assigned suit like we did during the fitting. Then step inside to get ready for your first game."
"Yeah, but what's with the weird room and the chairs?" our team captain asked.
"We are trying to make this as authentic as possible," she explained. "Viewers will be watching after you are suited up, so please follow my instructions carefully. You wouldn't want to embarrass your sector."
"Authentic?" asked Zaya.
"This league will be launched with a video sequence to make it appear as though you are traveling to another world," the woman explained. "You'll need to sit in the center of your seat and press the button on the right arm when you are ready."
"Ready for what?" Rhese asked, looking as uncomfortable with this last-minute revelation as I was. In fact, I had been feeling this way for a while. Ever since my father tried to dissuade me from joining this league.
"The room will rock and bump around slightly," our instructor informed us. "That is the reason for its unusual shape. That will continue for more than thirty minutes so we can get several nice segments of video that can be used before each show. Each mission for your team. You will remain restrained during that time for your own safety. Once that portion is complete, the harnesses can be released and you will be able to exit the, um, the room."
"Then where?" asked Zaya. She seemed to be the least shaken by all this, already climbing into her armored unit. It was tall and sleek like her old avatar.
"Your new living area will be close by," we were told.
"Will be?" I asked.
"It is," the woman clarified. "It is close by. You will not have to go far to find it."
"Find it?" we all asked at once.
"It is time to get fastened in," the woman said urgently, ignoring our last question. "I’ll be sealing the inner door now. The rest of your questions will be answered after you arrive at your destination.
"Arrive at our destination?" Zaya asked, looking much less confident than she did a minute ago. "I'm not liking the terminology they are using."
"Me, either," Rhese replied. "Hey! Can anyone hear me? We are not comfortable with this. We need more explanations please!"
No reply. The door sealed with a hard locking sound. By that time all of us had entered our new armored suits that were supposed to hook us up to a computer. But this room had nothing to indicate that the computer was here. Perhaps, it would be in our new habitat. After this video sequence that they seemed to have put a lot of effort toward.
Everyone's units closed up perfectly. Then our face shields dropped into place to make a much smaller locking sound. I tried to tug it back up with my thick armored hands, but it wouldn't budge. After a few heavy breaths I assumed that there wouldn't be any breathing issues.
A red light then began flashing on the ceiling. Hurriedly, we all sat in our seats and pressed the buttons for the harnesses to hold us in. I didn't know how rocky things were going to get, but following those instructions sounded like a good idea.
Another minute passed as we all voiced our concerns. Then, like a good captain should, Rhese got us focused on what lies ahead. We couldn’t do anything about this sequence that the league administrators were putting us through. We might as well just accept it and look forward to our first game in the new arena.
A loud metal clang by the door halted all conversation. After another one, slightly more thudded, we felt the first jolt. It was like our room was being pushed from the side. It was a totally unexpected sensation.
"That's kind of cool," Zaya said.
Then I nearly vomited when the weightlessness kicked in.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
We had an extended period of zero gravity. None of us had experienced it before so it was quite dramatic. I could see that they were all feeling the same way as me. No one wanted to acknowledge that fact out loud. The nausea was extremely uncomfortable.
The discomfort lasted for several minutes before we felt gravity return. We all took a deep breath and swallowed down whatever was in our throats. Before anyone could speak it was apparent that the g-forces were going to gradually increase. We all braced for it.
Why did they not tell us about this? The woman’s instructions were not near enough to prepare us for this torture. I felt deceived more than anything else. It was difficult at that very moment to realize the depth of the deception. All we could really acknowledge was the extreme discomfort that we were feeling at the time.
Zaya was the only one that was able to mutter anything. "Damn this feels realistic," she said.
I had no idea if it was realistic or not. I only knew that something was very wrong. We were not fed the entire truth. Instead of a simulation, our cramp little room was doing much more than we anticipated.
The pull of my seat on my body steadily increased until it was nearly unbearable. There was nothing that I could do except gasp for breath. My mind wanted to blame someone for what was happening to me, but there was no place for those thoughts. I simply needed to survive whatever was going on.
Turbulence took control of our tiny little room. I barely knew what that word even meant. The woman had said there would be some rocking back and forth. But that barely touched on what we were experiencing. It felt like our pathetically small room was about to rip apart.
I worried about Memphis. I wanted to ask if she was okay. But I couldn't speak. It was all I could do to keep both eyes open. Even that was too difficult after a spell. One eye closed as I struggled to keep that second eyelid from quivering. Despite my concerted effort, I eventually failed. Darkness surrounded me as I could still feel the vibrations in my seat. This was so alien to me that I didn't know what to make of it.
My father's warning came back to me. I should have heeded it. I could have saved both myself and Memphis from this hellish torture. And the slender goddess Zaya. And my leader, Rhese. Why was I still too weak to speak up?
That was the last thought to pass through my brain before I blacked out. The only thing that remained was a gut feeling that I had disappointed Memphis and my family. I sat in that guilt for an eternity before my eyes opened again.
I had hoped that it was all a bad dream. But the scene before me implied otherwise. We were still in the same tiny circular room. The others all seemed to be asleep. And no one had come in to check on us.
I felt so abandoned in that very moment. At least the vibrations and sensation of being kicking around inside of a ball was absent. The terrible part must have finished. We would just need to wait for someone to guide us to our new home from here. Or to wherever we were supposed to hook into the game. Surely this wasn't that place.
There were no flashing lights. No displays of information whatsoever. An eerie silence instead. Was it okay to unfasten the harness?
I pressed the button on the arm of the chair and heard a click. A moment later the harness released across my chest and receded into the seat back. I was free to move around. Hopefully, they wouldn't allow that to happen if we were still in store for more rough treatment.
Pushing my hands against the arms of the chair I raised up only to find my knees too weak to hold me. I dropped to the floor on all fours, my armored suit protecting me from harm. I barely felt the impact at all.
It was a thick exoskeleton of sorts. I had full control of it and decent dexterity. The part around my neck and head moved like skin as I rotated my view. The bubbled faceplate so clear that I barely noticed it.
Something felt different. I was weaker for sure. Disoriented from the room bouncing around. Was that the reason?
Or had we been placed in the game already?
Hooking into Skotopia always had a period of blackout. Going in and coming out. But there was no ruse about what was happening.
This new league must be an excessively big deal indeed if they are going through all this effort. Not only for the
viewers. They had seriously amped up the player experience. There was a realistic three-dimensional feel to this new adventure that blew away the Skotopia in-game experience.
Was my body dormant? Am I inside of an avatar now? Or am I inside this new suit and seeing the game being played out on my face plate. Was it a super advanced technology displaying the world to me? Is that why it was so clear? With no reflections off glass.
I rose up to my knees and brought my hands to my face. Armored fingers came into view and made contact with the shield. The realism was confusing and disturbing.
Why were the others still asleep? Shouldn't we all enter the game at the same time?
I reached out and touched Memphis' armored knee. Was it really her? Could she feel me shaking her to wake up?
Pressing the button on her armrest released her harness. I shook her shoulder gently hoping that she wasn't seriously injured. It only took a few seconds before her eyes popped open inside her helmet.
I could see her clearly, but there was definitely a reflection on the outside of her faceplate. A cinematic wraparound view of the room behind me shifted as she moved her head.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
"I think so," she replied as she slid forward on her seat.
"Be careful," I warned her. "I was too weak to stand at first."
"Why?" she asked, as disoriented as I had been.
"I think that we might already be in the game."
Memphis looked around her confused. "How can we be in the game if we are still in this strange bouncing room?"
I shook my head. I simply didn't know.
"Are they okay?" she asked, referring to our teammates. "Why didn't we all enter the game together?"
I didn't know the answer to that one either. I stepped over to Zaya's still form. She was the closest to me. It was crazy how the shape of her thin body retained its unique form even with the armored suit. Even more surprising was the shimmer across the surface of the suit's rigid material. It was changing colors as I watched. Some of it was even disappearing.
"Boone," Memphis got my attention. "What is happening?"
I turned to see her suit doing the same thing. My own legs were changing, too. And my hands as I pulled them up into view.
Slowly the armor faded away to reveal my skin. I wiggled my fingers. They looked just like my fingers, too. I knew them like the back of my hand. However, when I pressed the fingertips of each hand against each other, there was a gap. A thin space where the armor must still exist, but it was invisible. Why? If this was all in my head, why was there still a gap?
Turning back to Memphis I saw the same effect on her. All over her body. No longer armored up, she was rocking a tight pair of short shorts and a t-shirt with our team logo front and center. Her beautiful face was unmistakable. I had learned every inch of it over the last couple days. Her hair had been rendered perfectly as well. They even got her toes exactly right.
Is that how the suit worked? Is that what the fitting was really all about? Did the computer memorize the form of our bodies to display them in the game?
"We are our own avatars now," I told her.
Zaya started stirring awake causing me to look back her way. Her tight and skimpy clothing revealed more of her skin than I had ever seen before. I told myself that it wasn't really her. But of course, it was. In a way. What I was seeing was what she really looked like.
"What is going on?" Rhese asked.
We took a couple minutes to share with our new arrivals what we thought was happening. I explained how I awoke in my suit. In fact, we were all still in armored suits at first. Then this visual affect.
Zaya walked up to me with both hands extended. She ran them over my shoulders and chest. Then my face. I was getting a bit uncomfortable with it.
"Why is there a gap where the thick layer of suit was?" she asked. None of us could figure it out.
"Should we try to exit?" I asked.
"I think we should wait for someone to come get us," Memphis said. I could totally understand her fear.
"If we're in the game, no one is coming to get us," Rhese informed her. That made sense, too.
"If we are in the game," Zaya said with a mocking tone. "Why are we still in this room? Shouldn't we be at the starting point on the map?"
Rhese held her hand forward as her eyes darted back and forth. That was her hard thinking face. "The starting point was in a structure on the map. Right? Maybe this is that structure."
Memphis shook her head. She was struggling the most with the concept. "We were supposed to be led to our new home after being in this room. None of this is making any sense to me."
"Actually," I said. "The woman implied that we would need to find our new home."
"Yes," Memphis responded, pointing at me. "That's right! If we are to go from here to our new home, how can we be in the game? It can't be both!"
It was a conundrum. None of us had an answer for her.
"One way to figure this out," I told my teammates. "Is to see what is outside of this room."
Rhese nodded emphatically, then headed for the sealed exit. We watched as she felt around the perimeter of the round door for a release mechanism. After a few seconds, the circular barrier slid into the wall.
"There is another door on the other end of this tunnel," Rhese told us as she climbed into the tube.
Staring at her backside was all we could do for several seconds as she tried to find another door release. She had the biggest butt of the three girls on my team, though it appeared to be all muscle. Was that an enhancement by the game?
I leaned back to nonchalantly check out my girl's bottom in her tight shorts. It looked nice. Just as nice as I remembered it. Maybe Rhese's butt was really that firm.
"What are you looking at, pervert?" Zaya said to me with a swat at my shoulder.
"Are you looking at my butt?" Memphis feigned shyness.
"It's better than looking at Rhese's," I told her just as the sound of second door opening reached us. Shortly after that was the scent of whatever was outside our round room.
"That smells like dirt," Zaya said. "That means that we are in the game. There is definitely no dirt in the hallway of the station. What do you see, Rhese?"
"Not much," our captain replied as she crawled out of the cramped section to land somewhere dark. We had to be in the new battle map. "Another tube, I think."
"What?" Zaya asked rhetorically as she climbed into the tubular passageway.
I tried not to stare at her backside. I could feel Memphis glaring at me out of the corner of her eye. This jealousy over Zaya wasn't going away. It was understandable to a degree. She had that sexy battle goddess vibe going on. And she was a celebrity that all the teenage boys wanted to meet. If Memphis knew that Zaya had kissed me after our last game this could be much worst.
I helped my girl into the tube next, then followed close behind. The smell of the game world was getting stronger as I went. I then understood what Rhese meant once I stepped outside. There was a huge tube going up into the sky. It was just a bit wider than our room, which now looked like a space pod from its exterior.
"We are definitely in the game," Rhese announced as she left our view. "We're in the corner of the battlefield behind our starting structure. This is awesome. They really upped the experience with this new league."
The ground was slightly spongier than I had expected and had a wide variety of dirt granules below the scattered blades of grass. I had to agree that this game world was much advanced over what we were accustomed.
The sharp corner of a square building made from stone blocks stood just outside the tube. Looking in either direction I didn't see any openings, doors or windows. In a single file line, we then followed our leader as she went left to explore. The area was poorly illuminated by a high mounted light source. I didn't realize there was a walled barrier beyond the building until Rhese rounded the corner and disappeared.
"I see a door," she yelled back to us.
"It's cold," she said, staring at the wall briefly. I placed my hand beside hers and had to agree that it was strangely chilly. Another trick of advanced technology.
Our starting structure was surrounded by a wall with tall metal gates that blocked our view of the rest of the battlefield. There was probably a way to open them from the interior our building. Or maybe they only opened when the league administrators wanted. Any concern about getting inside the construct faded when Rhese simply pushed against the large door. It swung open on a hinge with a strange creaking sound.
Gamer 1 - Skotopia: A Gamelit novel for science fiction action fans Page 17