To Be Alive Is To... - 01

“Life isn’t always about fixing something broken. Sometimes, it’s about starting over and creating something better.” Anonymous

I can feel the cool air-conditioned wind on the back of my neck as I try to get comfy in the capsule, there are numerous screens facing me, telling me my body’s core temperature, my heart rate, blood pressure, lung speed cycle, state of sleep and many more that I suspect a doctor would have a wet dream over.

Then slowly from a passage from above the seat, a helmet came down, it was half face, covering everything but my mouth and nose. I put it on and I feel the gel fitting fit snugly to the base of my neck and all the way around. I could see a black light in my obscured vision, it must have got some VR properties, it slowly boots up not becoming too bright for my eyes before three dimensionally showing the menu and the loading screen.

• Start
• Options
• Quit

It had only those three selections, reminding myself that I’m not holding any interactive equipment I say it aloud. “Start.” My vision tunnels as if I’m racing through a pitch black slide before jolting still. I take a look around and at myself, I’m wearing exactly what I was wearing when I entered the pod to the exact detail of the dirt under my nails.

“Welcome to Vigil Until Dawn, I’ll be guiding you to help you create….” I zone out effectively jamming what she had to say to me as I swiped around my hands to play with the options. As soon as I changed something by a minor degree another me appeared, completely naked apart from what looked like skin tight speedos.

Looking at the menus there is a lot of creation choice, I can even change species to alien races. Or I can play as a human with a wide array of genetic, cybernetic, and even neural modifications. It does say that some options are only available while is character customization but most can be bought for using in-game credits in various places.

“Pardon, however you may want to listen to what I am saying.”

My eyes race around the never ending whiteness of the character creation room before locking eyes with the what I thought was just a dumb NPC.

“Excuse me?”

“You may want to listen to what I have to say, it may pertain information about the game you wish to play.”

I examine what I believe before to be a non-sentient existence, what was shown to me was a female avatar dressed formally for business, long brown hair, and glasses.

“Sorry…?” It was more of a question than a statement that I am.

“I am an Artificial Intelligence tasked with helping players create their characters for maximum customer satisfaction.”

“Okay, I’m Eric.” I raised my hand to offer a handshake, she did the same offering a more dejected hand with confusion etched on her avatar’s face. “Grasp the hand like this” I hold her hand and shake it.

“What is that?”

“A handshake, but grasp more firmly next time.”

“Stored in memory banks.” We continue staring at each other, perhaps trying to assert dominance over who is the smarter person here. Obviously, I am not, however, I can put in a complaint and get her memory wiped. “Is there something wrong?” She asks staring at my face.

“Nope!”

“You can change your character into several different kinds of biological races and three types of machine type, would you like to choose any?”

“No, just leave me human.”

“You can also perform several types of modifications to humans, ranging from; genetic, cybernetic, neural and general body enhancements. Would you like to receive any changes?”

I look at her again, most of those words went way over my head but I can sort of understanding the jargon, they sound interesting enough. But I’d like to think I can also acquire most of these in-game as well. “No, I’ll be fine.”

“Would you like to change your character appearance?”