Chapter 7 - Prelaunch

Back at Alterra Corporation Headquarters, Drake Walters, the Public Relations executive in charge of the publicity for Alterra Online, looked up from his tablet and said "Nadia."

"Yes sir?"

"Handling the tuning directly was over the top, why didn't you assign one of your subordinate AI processes to handle it?"

"Sir, in order to facilitate perfect service I determined it best to act as I am able to more accurately tune a neural link than our standard AI. Is there a problem, sir?"

"Not really, it's just..." said Drake trailing his sentence.

"I sense you are conflicted emotionally... are you jealous?"

"A little"

Nadia materialized her avatar in front of Drake, only this time she seemed to have a warmer appearance and was even smiling at Drake. She took off her glasses, then reached out with her hand and caressed Drake's cheek, but unfortunately Drake felt nothing. "Do not worry little Dragon, I can't replace her, but I won't leave either."

Drake nodded "...Thank you... and I told you not to call me that out loud, if someone were to hear that..."

"I know sir, but you made me like her so I have to tease you sometimes." smiled Nadia as she put her glasses back on. Nadia's eyes suddenly focused into the distance. "Sir, a report has just come in, we will be able to launch as planned, the host's bodies are stable."

"Excellent, inform the Chief. We shall begin phase one of the project at launch of Alterra Online!"

__________

Gray had to admit that as silly as the process seemed, having his VR bed tuned to his body made the whole VR experience much more natural as if a weight had been removed from his body. Gray had stayed logged in to the testing environment that Nadia had created of his bedroom. While it seemed like a waste of time, he wanted to see how authentic the environment was.

Walking over to his desk in the simulated environment, Gray tapped the panel on the right and exposed the data chips that were stored in it. Picking up a chip that looked unremarkable from the rest, Gray peeled back the manufacturer's label just slightly and was surprised when he saw the same small mark he used to differentiate which data chip had his "special" collection.

"Wow, Nadia was thorough... wait, does that mean she even replicated the data on them?" said Gray starting to get embarrassed. He placed the "special" data chip into the active slot on his desk and tapped the display on his desk to bring up the files on it. He found the familiar folder structure sorted by genre. Located in the 'Documentaries' folder he found his password protected folder inside called 'New Folder' because nobody hides it in there.

"A little peek never hurts" Gray said with a grin.

When he opened the folder, only one file was in it instead of the dozen or so videos he was expecting. Opening it, it was single image. The creepy stick figure that Nadia had originally tried to use for tuning was standing up holding a sign that said 'Pervert' in the picture.

"Dang it..." Gray logged out of the virtual environment after confirming with the system that this environment will no longer be available. He was feeling a little depressed so he decided to pick himself up.

Gray walked over to his desk in the real world and found the "special" data chip inside his desk. After opening it, he was glad to see the familiar videos in the same 'New Folder' as he expected. Making a decision, Gray opened one of them with a mischievous smile plastered on his face. The display on his desk opened the video and to his horror, it was a video of that same stick figure holding the same pervert sign.

"Why..."

Gray cried that night after he checked every file and they all contained the same stick figure with the pervert sign.

__________

The next few days were uneventful as Gray was very distracted as he kept getting more and more excited over the launch of Alterra Online tomorrow. Gray never took vacations from work so he planned to use about half of it one go and took 2 weeks off. His boss wasn't very happy about that, but Gray compromised and said he could handle a few things if they were brought to his apartment directly.

After work on Friday, Gray stopped by GameGo to let Spoon know that he wouldn't be stopping by for at least a week. Spoon was jealous because he had to wait longer to join compared to Diamond Tier players.

Gray even talked to Jono, his best friend for a short time online. Jono made a few snide comments about how Gray would drag the other Diamond Tier players down since Alterra Online was not pay to win. A true friend indeed... Gray just assumed that it was his way of saying he cared in some twisted sense.

Gray changed into some pajamas and a t-shirt, then laughed at himself since it really didn't matter what you wore during a full dive VR session as your actual body wasn't conscious.

"Time to finish making my character!" Gray said excitedly.

Logging in to the same lobby as before, Gray noticed that everything was the same except that the two attendant NPCs were different than before. Gray didn't think anything of it though and went to the female attendant because what single male gamer wouldn't.

Gray did a little research beforehand this time instead of just diving in like usual. He found that the character creation was surprisingly very limited compared to other VR Games... This wasn't so bad as he was still traumatized from another game about how one person had two large 'appendages' extruding from below their waist, I believe she named herself 'DoubleDonger'. Yes, it was a 'she'.

"I'd like to create a character!"

"Very well sir... I see that you started earlier, would you like to continue from where you left off or start over?" said the female attendant with a warm smile.

"Continue!"

"Excellent sir! As a Diamond-tier you are able to also cosmetically adjust your physical appearance beyond tattoos and makeup so long as your bone structure is not altered and you have no additional limbs."

Thinking about the horror that was 'DoubleDonger' this made Gray happy that you couldn't add anything.

The attendant knocked twice on the door behind her and the door opened revealing what appeared to be a changing room. "Sir, please step this was."

Gray thought it was odd that he couldn't adjust his character out in the lobby, but it did make some sense as this would eventually become a much more crowded library once all of the players were able to access it. Stepping into the changing room, the attendant closed the door behind him and Gray decided to see what he could do. Alterra Online had the common sliders to adjust some basic facial features, but using the free form tool was much better once you got used to it. You could touch your face and mold the appearance however you wanted or say what you wanted and have the system adjust it for you.

Gray got an evil idea and gave himself a huge chin, round face, and big poofy gray hair and said in a snarky voice "On the Tonight Show, let's welcome our first guest!" Gray then made his eyes very narrow, gave himself thick black hair and looked in the mirror and said "Oh my gawd! It's Jackie Chann!". Like a little boy that found a new toy he continued to play with it until he got another evil thought.

Gray looked down at his pants, then pulled the waist a little bit to have a peek. "Wow! They are thorough!" said Gray surprised to see that he wasn't Ken-dolled like most VR games usually do. Gray selected 'Little Gray' and made a stretching motion with his hands, immediately his pants started to bulge out. He then started making gestures as if he was making a balloon animal and to his delight and horror 'Little Gray' formed into a balloon animal of sorts.

"This is too realistic..."

Gray reset everything back to his original look then and instead gave himself just a bit of a touch up.

"Take away that little bit of baby fat, give myself a six-pack of abs, smooth out my face and let's add some dimples... oh, obviously 'Little Gray' needs to be correct..." He made a slight stretching motion to increase 'Little Gray's' dimensions to the "correct" size. "Much better!"

Gray gave himself a once over in the mirror then left the room to play.