Prologue
On May 19th, 2037, the very first Cognitive Virtual Reality Transfer machine was unveiled.
Before the masses, a completely successful demonstration was held in which nine individuals all stepped into large, full-body containers, closed their eyes… and had their minds transported into a video game.
The world went nuts.
Many questioned the ethical practice of separating the cognitive functionality of a person’s mind from their body. Who were we to play with the essence of soul, of identity, of personality? What happened if the game was shut down? Where did that essence go?
What happened when the entirety of a person’s character was transformed into Data? Just pure data, an array of values that all somehow came together to make up the totality of a person’s interests, hobbies, or memories? Their personality?
Their mind?
In the end, however, the desperation of the masses won out. The announcement was sent around the world: in 2040, the very first public machines would be opened in special arcades across the world, and by 2042 at the latest, they would become commercially available in smaller, more accessible versions.
This was the best news since sliced bread.
Virtual Reality had already run its course, or so people claimed. It had never risen to its own potential… but Cognitive Virtual Reality Transfer? This was unprecedented. At long last, people could actually put themselves into participating video games, into solo experiences or even— more popularly, perhaps— MMORPG’s, Massively Online Multiplayer Role-Playing Games. Players could stand in public squares and really look at each other, really take part in the game.
Again, dissent arose. What about privacy? How were players supposed to trust that the person they were looking directly at really was a girl, or a boy, or an adult, even?
Those who were against the march of progress were quickly silenced. How dare they come between the players and their greatest dream: the ability to really become their characters. For the first time, reality was becoming the video game, and the video game could become reality.
A contest immediately went up. Across the globe, in select locations— major cities, mostly— individuals could enter in to win a chance at trying out the arcade and the machines for the very first time. Winners would get three hours of blissful, uninterrupted playtime, the first to tread new waters.
On top of that, Glacial Games— the world’s leading company on all things MMORPG— announced that they had been in production of a game that would launch with the CVRT machines.
Hype was at its peak.
Tests were conducted; governments across the globes conducted their exams. One by one, country by country… the green light was cautiously given.
We all entered that contest, none of us really expecting to win. The numbers were revealed: that Day One stress test would welcome 500,000 players to the world of Arcana Guild. On the day that the winners were announced, players tuned in worldwide, refreshing email accounts every few seconds. A livestream showing a wall of green lights for every player that activated their placeholder account went live.
I sat in my small apartment, alone, my mother at work, quietly refreshing that email. my heart hammered in my chest even though I knew that my chances were abysmally small. 500,000 people in the entire world, over eight billion people, and I had the audacity to think that I— a 17 year old girl from Los Angeles— would be one of them.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Maximilian Vance— the CEO of Virtual Technologies— announced. He was popular and well-liked since his sudden debut on the scene of technology, a handsome young man full of charisma and personality. “Please check your e-mails now! Winners: follow the instructions within, and lock in your places! Remember: the email address should look identical to what we’re showing on screen. Anything else is a scam!”
I refreshed. The disappointment was already starting to leak in; there was simply no way, a fact that I had known all along, that I could win. It’d been a pipe-dream, a joke—
Bing!
FROM: [email protected]
Subject: Congratulations!
I stared. My stomach fell through the floor, and then exploded past my head into the sky above.
I’d won.
We are happy to reveal that you, Summer Houghton, have been chosen as a first-time player in Arcana Guild! You will be among the 500,000 lucky players playing this brand new MMORPG release in the unprecedented Cognitive Virtual Reality Transfer machines on July 23rd, 2040.
Please follow the below instructions to start setup on your account, and in a few short minutes, you will likely receive a call from a Virtual Tech representative to walk you through the entire system!
Once more, we are incredibly glad to have you aboard! Congratulations!
Almost as soon as I had finished reading the email, my cell phone rang, and I actually screamed from how quickly it startled me.
I had won. By sheer dumb luck, I had been chosen to join only 500,000 other players into the never-before-seen world of Arcana Guild. I would find out later that two of my best friends in the entire world would go with me.
Back then, I couldn’t believe how lucky we were.
If only that had been true.
