The week after Hamster injected me into a Sniper’s Folly tournament, I’m feeling less hostile to the talkative gamer.
“You are better than your ranking in team play, why do you not pursue an SF team?” Hamster asks.
“DH, you are a generational talent, analytical, and male. Girl gamers are still under-respected.”
“But you are excellent. I do not understand. Your FoF team made it to the International Tournament, your Auto Chess play is admittedly weak, but your SF play is . . . as good as mine.”
Oh. Well, I . . . “What?! I mean, thanks Hamster, but seriously your image is the demographic that sells. Mine is used for charity and tax write-offs.” Also fuck off about my auto chess play, asshole. It’s my only sponsored solo game, I’m defensive. Lay off me.
“Do not let the attention get in the way of your love of gaming, yah? You make enough to press your drive. Do so, be happier. Be fulfilled like me.” He says this while having the worst resting frown I have ever seen. Despite his lack of emotional delivery, that was heartening. Okay, maybe I was wrong to typecast the expert, but stunted expression gamer.
“Thanks DH. That’s . . . thanks for the advice.” He waves me off and points to the computers before delving back into the tournament he was playing while talking to me. What a legend.
After my matches are over for the day, I go back out to the event space that houses wardrobe and makeup, with a side table for catering where I grab a post-gaming plate of snacks and half sandwich. I’m mid jamming food in my face when Ophelia walks toward me.
“I am displeased that you altered your appearance before the interviews, however, Orion Gaming and the outreach teams are thrilled with you.” She sighs and taps into her interface that comes with the UI in the expanded time demesne that are these re-creations of major cities. “That said, you now owe me a dinner confab for this change in your marketable assets. My normal hours are fully booked.”
I raise an eyebrow, wondering for a short time if this is a random play for a date. Ophelia is far too attractive to engage in harassment for a date. “I . . . where would you like to eat?”
“Hmm? Oh, no. You are not my secretary and I do not expect you to be. There is an executive lounge on the roof. You will accompany me there to discuss business and further opportunities for your . . . independence.” She sends me a meeting to attend at 6pm. I send her my tournament schedule and show her that my matches may be that late in the next two days if my team advances.
During my mid-day break, where other teams and other modes for the three-games I am now playing are decided in time slots that I’m not involved in. I see Gwen across the green room as I exit our make-shift gaming room and just succumb to her gravity.
I hug her and kiss her cheek, delighting in her giggle and the firm arms that hug me back.
“I take it you did well?”
“Not bad, but I needed some Gwen time. Your hugs are magic.” I luxuriate in her arms for a second before pulling away. “How are you doing?”
“Mm, many of the dissonance holders are not making strides. I am struggling to think of ways to lower their percentages without using intimacy, which has the tendency to backfire over time.”
Does it hurt to hear she is willing to be intimate with other people? Absolutely. Do I understand? Reluctantly. “You’re trying to identify activities that they wish they had enjoyed with their lost ones or their abusive relationships yes?”
She quirks her head a moment. “Not empathy then? You are suggesting exposure therapy with a source of correction and or stability. My training is not replete with knowledge on how to utilize those methods without intimacy. Analysis is required.”
I hate when she defaults to her computer version. I mean, I know she’s an AI construct, but . . . she’s so real to me. “Yeah, my intimacy issues clouding your experiences right?”
She turns on me as though I attacked her. “Serena Salcedo, do not denigrate yourself in my presence. Not only is it wrong, I take offense.” She walks over, stands on her toes and cups my face with her hands. “You are not just a job to me, Serena. While I do take helping you seriously, I don’t consider sleeping with everyone, you know.”
Immediately my whole-body flushes with a nuclear warmth. I am so fucking gay and completely useless. I pull her into a hug, not knowing what else to do and just cry into the top of her head. “Not just for therapy right?”
She chuckles as she rests her head against my shoulder. “Not only, no. Though, I think it would help you.” I open my mouth to protest, but she boops my nose to interrupt and it is super effective. “Your dissonance is unique, though many are, and I think intimacy will help you greatly. I also think that under the wrong circumstances, it would adversely affect your mental state and harm your recovery in general.” She thumbs the section of my stomach above my pants and I shudder with want and comfort.
“I am willing to propose a trade: personal encounters of your choosing, say no more than twelve hours, in exchange for meeting me and a group of professionals from Orion that will offer you an opportunity that I think will make you happy and help ground you with a sense of purpose.”
Twelve hours of time with Maddi where she’s not working an agenda? Daaaaang, I almost don’t care what she’s trying to wrangle me into tomorrow. “So I take a job and you’ll go on a date with me?”
She smiles like a cat that cornered a mouse. I should worry, I really should, but simping though.
“No. You show up to the meeting with an open mind, ready to ask questions. You take the opportunity if you want it. No obligation by showing up. However, I want to plan the date activities, and you can set the required attire.”
“Okay, done up but sensible shoes?” She chuckles at me and surges up to give me a kiss on the cheek.
“I can think of a few things to do with that.” She takes a few steps and then turns around. “I don’t think you’ll have time to change into your game gear before your first match tomorrow, so dress accordingly?”
After she’s out of sight I dance around and squeal with excitement until someone comes to check on the commotion. Then I promptly cover my face and run away.
***
The next morning, I am tired after a night of my brain being too active to fall asleep until 2am. That is no excuse to miss an 8am meeting, so I’m up and drag my brown ass to the shower and scald the tired out of my mind. I do a fit check for ‘girl gamer’ and decide that the windbreaker looks nice with the oversized jersey tucked into my purple, gray, and black Orion Gaming gear. Funny enough, I have a hard time remembering when I first signed on to their gaming division, but from what I recall they sponsored me before I came to work for them.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
My memory before being uploaded to the ATC is ‘vibe only’ and I have no concrete memories. Doctors and Maddi assure me that the memories are not erased or manipulated but they could hazardously destabilize my sense of self if they are re-introduced before I get below 10% dissonance—so they blocked them. Like, I understand what they’ve told me about dissonance, and I remember waking up in London with a warning of 55% dissonance, but I don’t know why it’s there. I have some self-worth issues, but I know who I am, or at least I think I do. Maybe that’s the issue? Not knowing a part of what I don’t know.
I walk into the 48th floor boardroom feeling extremely underdressed. Ophelia sizes me up, checks her active screen and nods. The man in the suit basically sneers at me and the male Doctor looks like he’s reading my medical profile on the inside of his glasses. Maddi is wearing a cute floral dress and looks oh so smoochable.
“Miss Salcedo. You were told that you were meeting with Orion leadership, were you not?” The suited man asks.
“I was told, word of mouth, with no official correspondence, that this meeting would run into my gaming tournament and to dress appropriately.” I look down at myself. “This is in line with the games I played yesterday.” I look at Ophelia and Maddie and they both waive me off. Suit stares at Maddi until he sighs in futility, hard to hold an AI accountable.
“I will ensure the next meeting is appropriately populated. That said, we want to talk to you about our Fantasy Life project.”
“Working title, we are still workshopping but Alaris Eternum is currently leading with the focus group.” A clean-cut man in a v-neck and blazer speaks from the corner. “That said, we should publish a name once the closed beta participants are loaded and integrated.”
“Yes, thank you Matthew,” Suit says, not sounding that thankful. “You are in our database as a high dissonance participant. As such you will be ideal.”
“Arthur, she is a permanent resident.” Doctor man speaks up. “Sorry Serena, your sensitive arrival in the ATC has been a recurring topic in medical discussions, as well as legal discussions in real-time.”
“Thanks Doc. I do know that my dissonance is high, but I think you’re working with information I don’t have. You’re saying permanent, like my change of address forms literally say ATC London, condo 1417.”
“Soooo, these men, especially Arthur, were supposed to inform you of this before we had this meeting. However, now that they haven’t, I am allowed to answer any of your questions regarding your situation, save anything that might destabilize you past a lethal threshold. A.K.A, pre-integration memories, for now.”
“Now listen here, Intelligence Construct . . .” Arthur seems to continue, but with a silencing gesture, Maddi mutes him.
“You agreed, Arthur. Or failed to read the fine print. Anyway, Serena, I can answer most of your questions, but I can’t volunteer information for programming reasons.”
“Why did he say permanent?” I blurt.
“Your biological body had a seizure when you first realized within a digital realm space. Your dissonance was 90%. As such, your acceptance of the realm space, dissonance below 50%, indicates a similar seizure would occur with a greater than 80% chance of multiple brain trauma events limiting your bio-normality, and a 15% chance of outright death if you choose to return to your body before we resolve the issue. Due to the health and welfare clauses in your contract to integrate into the ATC and related realms, Orion International is required to keep you alive and in these realms until such time your full recovery chance is above 75%.”
“Thanks Maddi that was a concise summary, meaning that since we cannot reach that number with current technology, you are a permanent resident of ATC London and we are working on the legality of that. That said, we are only obligated to ensure a reasonable life span, so fifty additional real-time years has been judged as the average lifespan for your biological body.”
I thought there was going to be a way out. I would be able to live a real life as soon as I stabilized and my dissonance leveled out—assuming it can. Maybe there is another city that could help? Are they called realms? Wait, I’ve never heard of ‘realms’ in marketing or discussions ever.
“Maddi, what did you mean when you said ‘realms’ and why is that relevant to me?” She grins as though I answered a riddle correctly, then smirks at Arthur who is still trying to yell and interrupt.
“Good question, Sellie. The Maddi that you know is a fragment of my Intelligence that my brother AI has agreed to host so that I may properly learn emotional protocols to aid my denizens in their realism. My world is the heuristic integration realm that Orion will advertise, and the Fantasy Immersion Experience that allows gamer choice in appearance and behavior is merely a series of automated copies of my world’s underlayment.
“When you first initialized, your mind was shunted to my realm to create a seed of unbelievability for your mind to grab onto, a mote of familiarity in a digitized existence. There are approximately two months of realm time that you spent in A.E. before your dissonance finally reduced below 50% and we could safely wake you in ATC London.”
“Oh, uh. Does that mean that the Me in your realm is the real me?” I never consciously formed that thought, but my mind is so scattered by the information that it’s hard to think about any of it. Maddi is just a splinter of Alaris?! Does that mean I like Alaris or is her splinter an autonomous fragment?
Maddi chuckles. “Yes, I am reading your thoughts. And they are mostly autonomous, yes. That said, the rest of this conversation should include Arthur, if he’s willing to be cordial to one of his employees that will likely be with the company longer than he will be.”
Arthur sneers, and a faint growl can be heard as Maddi un-mutes the man.
“Right, this meeting is off the rails. I came to offer you a closed beta slot in the heuristic fantasy realm. Doc is here to make sure you load properly, and Ophelia is going to capture your other person for social media and advertising purposes.”
“Uh, I am of course interested.”
“Great!” He manifests a contract and slides it over to me.
“Thanks!” I say and slide it into my coat. “Was there anything else? Like how often I will be monitored for my wellness in A.E., what protections I will have against linking my ATC self and my AE self, etcetera?”
The room is quiet. Everyone is frowning save Maddi. “Was it not obvious that I was going to read the contract at length? I mean, I have thirty minutes to my call time for today’s tournaments.”
“This is more important than your GAMES!” Arthur shouts and slams his hands on the table.
I take a deep breath, lock my eyes with his and begin. “This is literally my life, Arthur. You have given me no indication of what that means to you beyond a legal obligation, and I can’t imagine that you will pay my condo and cost of living if the gaming division of this company bails on me if I miss three competitions that I stand to reach the podium in.” I take another breath and continue, “I get that you’re important, but no one here introduced themselves. Unless you can promise me right now, that if I default on my obligations that you will bear the cost, how can I agree?”
Arthur seems about to start fusing the hydrogen in his blood he’s so red. I decide to be cheeky and offer him some medicated tea for blood pressure. He takes it and slams the glass and hands it back to me with a look of odd appreciation.
“That helped, actually. Thank you. The board of directors did not have a complete briefing before handing me this contract, so you and I will need to schedule a separate meeting to go over your future terms of employment.” He gestures with an open hand, slightly cupped. It looks like he’s asking for his papers back. I shrug and hand them back. “Out of curiosity, what do you stand to win this weekend?”
“Oof. My estimate, is 15k for Realm of Raidcraft PVP, 30k for Fathom of Fates, and maybe five grand for my Auto chess tournament. That’s team winnings for the first two. If DarthHamster wins our bet, about double.”
“Oh, I have to know how if you lose a bet you win double.” Ophelia purrs.
I shudder at the heat and pull on my middles and collect myself before answering. “Hamster thinks he has ‘the sight’ or whatever. He thinks that my FoF team can make it to the grand finals. That’s a mill split seven ways if we lose in the grand finals.”
The marketing man in the corner walks forward and focuses his gaze on me. “You don’t seem surprised at a 200k windfall, why?”
“I mean, that would be fantastic, but I have a sponsor for three games, one of which is a salary, so my finances are relatively secure if I keep my APM up. Forty grand a year isn’t chump change, but with my winnings this year and my salary, I can buy the condo I’m renting and not have to worry about things long term. Everything after that is gravy.”
I see people open screens and send messages to whomever before Arthur turns back to me. “Our offer will be changed completely. My assistant will reach out to you after the tournament. Is there anything you require before then?”
The nice turn is freaking me out, but why not ask for the moon.
“Uh, yeah. Hamster and I compete for like six hours and we’re not allowed snacks in the game room. Can we get that lifted? Dynamic time is not cutting it.”
He waves a hand at me. “You’re a gamer, mind agility is more important than basically anything else. Submit a catering request and your room will have anything you ask that is snack-able. No saucy contaminants.”
Sushi BAYBEEE!! I order sushi, pocky, a ten pound sandwich wrap platter, and a variety of pickled things to force some electrolytes in our brains with the refreshments that I order. If half of this shows, Hamster will play like a god. If I do, he might even win our bet.
