A Second Chance Read online

  Professional transitory-immersion pod (PTI). Supplied for an additional fee. All the extras of the PCI pod, but without some standard features: medical unit; sanitation unit; bed sore prevention; feeding tube. Continuous game-connection limit — max. 3 hours. Interval between connections — min. 1 hour.

  Familiarize yourself with the terms of the contract and the user agreement.

  A multipage text appeared, of the kind which, due to the nature of my profession, I was used to reading in full and with care. Cutting corners wasn’t an option anyway, because the system monitored my eye movements and turned the page accordingly. It was impossible to just scroll to the end of the documents and touch a finger to the scanner to confirm my agreement with the contents. I didn’t learn anything new — just the customary buck-passing from the administration to the player. I’d prepared identical documents myself and knew all the nuances. There could be no fault-finding — if I died or went bust, it would be my own fault.

  The system confirmed that my eyes had followed the text from start to finish, and opened a new window:

  Touch any finger to the scanner screen.

  Congratulations! You are a new, and therefore favourite, client!

  Select a type of pod and take the test to define the limit of your tactile sensation

  GCI | PCI | PTI

  TEST

  Choosing a pod wasn’t all that straightforward. The GCI was free, meaning I would save some money, but it was damn unpleasant when you could feel the feeding catheters, the urine-collection bag, and whatever else inside your body. My body mass, now in three figures, had long been hinting at exercise. The household robodoctor was forever complaining about my blood pressure and sugar and cholesterol levels and suggesting a diet and exercise plan, but I would refuse, citing a mad rush at work, a bad mood, the release of the new Star Wars film, or just that it wasn’t Monday. Ultimately the choice was between the long-stay and short-stay professional models, and the advantages of the long-stay were obvious: I would fulfil the socialization tasks quicker, the inbuilt medunit would make sure I was losing weight and, significantly, in six months’ time I would be able to give the pod to Matty. I’d be doing him a good turn. And I still felt guilty. Some things are worth loosening the purse strings for.

  No sooner had I signed the contract than a crew of service engineers left for my house to install the pod, without even waiting for it to be fully tested. The pods gave the user a whole range of tactile sensations to make the playing process as realistic as possible, but each one had its own sensitivity threshold, and so that the user didn’t accidentally go schizo from overdosing on pleasure or pain, they ran checks before fixing the settings. My figures settled at roughly 30% pain and 80% pleasure. With high parameter readings, the conscious became addled or switched off altogether. In this respect I was statistically average — it would be easier to fuck me to death than beat me to death.

  “Would you like to open an internal game bank account? If you do this the same day you sign the contract, we will offer you a discount.” As befitted any good worker, the Imitator was trying to flog me optional extras.

  I had read up on the Bank and the internal game accounts the previous evening, so I knew it was the same bells and whistles as the immersion pod. When a character regenerated, half the money they had at the moment of death remained at the place of death as loot. Beginners, of course, had nothing to lose, but as your level rose, so did your income, and thoughts of losing it would begin to torture everyone who was progressing. The Bank offered an automatic transfer of money to your game account, bypassing any pockets. No cash meant you couldn’t lose it. Only vagrants refused, because for them, losing half their money was no scarier than the commission for opening and maintaining a virtual account.

  “What terms are you offering?”

  “Fifty-three credits to open the account; a yearly service subscription of fifty-eight credits; the commission for account transactions is two percent of the sum of the transaction.”

  “I hope that’s without the discount?” I understood vagrants very well.

  “The discount applies only to opening an account. Without it the fee is seventy credits. You can also merge a real account with a game account.”

  “No, I’ll keep the game account separate.”

  “We have a promotion at the moment. If you top up your account with between one thousand and ten thousand credits, you will receive an additional twenty percent from Barliona. There is one small condition — you cannot withdraw the money for three months.”

  What a surprise! The last free gift I received was from Santa Claus. And that was bought by my dad. My account balance was no secret to the Imitators, and they were trying their hardest to con me into converting real money into game money, in strict accordance with their raison d’être. The less money a client had in reality, the less desire they had to return to that reality.

  “Transfer fifteen thousand credits to my game account.” Even so, the offer was very tempting.

  “Would you like access to a mailbox?”

  “That will be all, thank you.” I brought the conversation to a close. Being blessed with a brain, I would decide everything else after reading some forums and guides, and after a chat with my personal expert, Matty.

  When I got home I was cheered by the news that the installation and setting of the pod would drag on into the late evening. I called Matty.

  “Hi, buddy! Can you talk?”

  “Hi, Bro. I always have time for you. Just wait a second and I’ll log out.”

  If anyone was going to diss modern technology, it certainly wasn’t me. You could call somebody even if they were in their pod. The main thing was to know their number.

  “Has something happened?”

  “No, I just wanted some advice. I’m having a pod installed. Can you tell me how to go about starting? I killed off my old guy.”

  “So you decided to go for it?” he said, thrilled. I didn’t want to go into details over the phone, so I responded with silence, but Matty wasn’t expecting anything else. “Cool! You’ve made my day.”

  “Uh-huh. Listen, you said you’d worked it all out. Let’s meet and you can tell me who to play and where to begin?”

  “Great!” He was genuinely excited. “But only in two hours, okay? I’ve got to finish a quest against the clock. Some guys are waiting for me. Then we’ll discuss everything. Shit, Bro, we’ve got big work to do! We’re gonna kick Barliona’s ass for sure!”

  Matty hung up, and I dialled the next number. I had a training session to prepare for.

  “Peter, hi, it’s Brody West. All good, thanks. Oh, you know already? I’ve nearly found one, that’s why I’m calling. How are you? Great. Listen, remember we ran that communication course years ago? Have you still got the teacher training and preparation plan? It should be on the server in the archive somewhere. Yeah, with the course. I fancy giving it a go. Yes, I know it’s all out of date. Can you send it in an e-mail? Thanks. I owe you.”

  Before meeting Matty, I had just enough time to fry myself an enormous marbled steak. While I had money, no one was going to stop me enjoying a slap-up meal.

  We arranged to meet in the park zone just outside the city. Anywhere else would be difficult for him to get to. The social shelters were being built a ninety-minute journey from the edge of the city, and the reasons were compelling enough. Firstly, to minimize time spent by social citizens among the Free. The less a vagrant saw of normal, comfortable life, the fewer improper thoughts they would have; and if such thoughts did arise, then their realization would not be far off — an hour tops. Secondly, so that endless concrete anthills wouldn’t ruin the green splendor the city had become.

  The park zones were being developed directly outside the city specifically so the vagrants would have somewhere to stretch their legs. Beyond them was an exclusion zone which only public transport was permitted to enter. The state very charitably paid to deliver the wearers of metal bracelets from their shelter
s to the park zone and back. To get to the city you had to take a taxi, and pay for it yourself.

  I sat on a bench with a parcel of warm food on my knee and a bag of our favorite beer beside me. It was already evening, though at that time of year, twilight draws in much later, so I saw Matty’s gangly, jogging figure from a long way off.

  “Hey! It’s cool you came.” He was panting, but it didn’t stop him rejoicing at seeing me, and at a little physical exertion. We embraced, and he plopped himself down beside me.

  “Ah, living it up two days running! Decent food.” Matty took his wrapper and got stuck into his kebab. His stomach would organize a revolution out of sheer joy.

  “What do they feed you? If I’d thought, I would have grabbed something more substantial,” I said, opening two cans of beer. I’d already forgotten how easy it was to talk to Matty about simple earthly matters. At work everyone used office speak, even if they were talking about some new dish on the set lunch menu.

  “Powdered gruel, like what they give babies. Very little pleasure involved, it’s just to clear the pipes out so they don’t get gunked up. So go on then, tell me. We haven’t got much time.” Matty somehow managed chat between mouthfuls.

  I took a swig of beer, then told him everything, just like at confession.

  “Yes, you’re in trouble now,” he said. “Do you really want to work there? If you ask me, the people in Barliona will be more normal than there.”

  “Matty, they’re offering me something Barliona doesn’t have and never will — reality. Sorry, but I want to live here.”

  “Yeah, I get it. You don’t have to explain. In six months you’ll completely disappear.”

  “No, I like the idea of the clan. Let’s try it. Six months for set up and development, then we’ll need a powerful advertising campaign. Then I’ll hand over management to you, and only login for a couple of hours a day.”

  “Like that, huh? What the hell do we need advertising for?”

  “No offense, but even a genius director won’t lead an all-vagrant clan to the top. We need advanced players with gear and money. It would be good to find a Maecenas or two. The Phoenixes and the Legends made names for themselves first, then people came flocking to them. Now they always have plenty to choose from. A well thought out advert is half the battle. So, Matty, we create a clan, we establish connections, we organize the collection and processing of materials, we do quests, we sign contracts with NPCs. And that’s it — we’re the victors in life. All we have to do is start and finish.”

  “You’ve already drawn up a plan?” asked Matty in awe.

  “Yeah, just now,” I admitted honestly. “They’re installing me a pod too, but I haven’t got a clue. That’s why I called. Come on, we’ve only got half an hour left.”

  “You’re right. It’s just a bit sudden.” Matty snapped out of his daydreaming about a happy future, and looked balefully at his bracelet. “If only I could take this bloody leash off. Anyway, listen. A new continent has just appeared…”

  Reference information

  Continents in Barliona

  Astrum — a continent for players in North America

  Kaltua — a continent for players in Africa

  Calragon — a continent for players in Europe

  Celestial — a continent for players in Asia

  Ratrandia — a continent for players in South America and Australia

  Stivala — a continent introduced in the latest version of Barliona, with no geographical reference for players

  For the remaining thirty minutes, Matty gave me the gist without going into too much detail. He really did have an idea. While doing some Blacksmith and Engineer business, he’d wangled a rare quest connected with materials on Stivala. After the first settlement of the new lands, players began to mine resources and sell them at auction. Prices for demon ore were exorbitant, but it was still snapped up in seconds. Matty pushed the boat out too and bought a little ore and some other ingredients, whereupon, for perhaps the first time in the game, fortune smiled on him. After you created an object, the system offered a unique handicraft task, only it demanded resources and funds. He couldn’t boast either of these, but if he had a reliable clan, it might all work out. That was when he found out I’d lost my job, and he was struck by a ray of hope.

  I needed to create my character on another continent, get busy with some Mining and Lumberjacking, bust a gut while making others work too (demanding ten percent to the clan), build a castle on the new continent to house the main stores, and wait for Matty to show up. His last piece of advice concerned expenses imperative for a comfortable game: an account in the game bank, a mailbox, and a communication amulet with a game number. But I knew all that anyway. That was pretty much it: our master plan to nail some unreal megabucks.

  I wanted to discuss the rest of the details over the phone, but Matty rejected the idea categorically. Pods and phones were wired, and great ideas stolen without scruple. We parted on that good note, and without me saying out loud what I thought of the plan. At first glance it looked utopian. At second glance too. But what did I know about game economics? Nothing. Before you’ve done any digging around for yourself, it’s silly to speak of the reality or unreality of any plan. Who was I to criticize without an alternative to offer?

  Returning home, I poured the first of that night’s succession of coffees down my throat, and fell to digging. For three hours I scoured everything available, all the way down to advertising descriptions, guides and official reference materials, until my head was in pieces. Most of what I read was almost worthless, and any essential information on the new continent was only to be found in fee-paying resources. Game specifics, extras, bonuses, advancement tips, videos — everything cost money, and sometimes quite a lot. Apparently this was due to an announcement by the Barliona Administration that people would no longer be able to influence the mechanics of the game. Some recent, large-scale bribery cases had forced the Corporation to take extreme measures — complete replacement of the development and support team by Imitators. Programmers, scriptwriters, designers, cartographers, project developers, and testers were all laid off. Now nobody could spill any beans. The market reacted instantly, and prices rocketed. Not so much on legacy content, but you could easily make reasonable money from selling new content.

  I decided not to use the sellers’ services, preferring to rely on my own experience. On the official site, the most valuable information about starting the game concerned a bonus for commercial accounts. If a player created a new character but left the choice of race, class, and initial location to the discretion of the game, they received a bonus. Since I had no thoughts on the matter, and I only wanted Matty to see the right continent, I was delighted at the opportunity for random generation and the extra bonus for my lack of initiative. As long as the bonus was of use, of course.

  When I finished the theoretical preparation for immersion in Barliona, the clock showed I only had three hours plus journey time before work. It was too late to think of sleep, so I decided to check out the pod.

  Years ago I dreamt about a huge grand piano in the middle of the living room. That dream, adjusted for time, had almost come true. In the middle — though not of the living room; and huge — though not a grand piano. In its dimensions, the professional pod for continuous immersion in the virtual reality of the Barliona game world was consistent with an unrealized dream. Maybe someday I’d enrol on a course and climb in there to play Vivaldi or Chopin.

  After pressing some buttons and carefully studying my new toy, I froze with indecision. To climb in or not to climb in?

  Hell, bring it on! This ultra-modern coffin was thought out to the last detail. I didn’t actually have to climb in to it, like in the vampire films, because the pod adopted an almost vertical position for loading and unloading the passenger.

  Inside, to my surprise, there were no horrible probes, tubes for biowaste, or other suchlike fittings. Or rather there were, but they only appeared and were al
igned while the pod was returning to its horizontal position, so the player didn’t experience fear or discomfort. I didn’t even notice the roof closing. A platform came out, I stood backwards onto it, and it went back in, depositing me into a chamber in the lower part of the pod, at which moment a hoop was lowered onto my head, taking over control of my brain. Absolutely no feeling of claustrophobia or being buried alive. Cool!

  I stopped sensing my body. All around was boundless and pristine space. And a message before my eyes.

  Welcome to Barliona

  Description: We are delighted to welcome our new player. The initial settings of the pod are fixed. The sensory perception filters are set in accordance with your individual characteristics.

  Important: You are entering the pod after a long absence from the game. Be advised that the Barliona game mechanics have been significantly revised. You will find a description of the changes on the official game site. A redenomination has been conducted, equating the value of gold in the game with the value of credits in reality.