Chapter 2: Thank you for your feedback

Chapter 2: Thank you for your feedback

Ghostly words appeared out of pure, silent darkness.

[Title earned! Alpha 01. Congratulations. You are the very first player to experience initialization. +2 luck.]

“Initial welcome, player. I am the introductory subsystem.”

Blake blinked in the dark. Then he squinted as white light replaced everything, blinding him just as easily before it softened and became grey, and green, and brown. He was standing on a road, or maybe a highway, in a grey jumpsuit with nothing but flat plain on the horizon.

“What...” he blinked and turned in a circle, until he found a middle age woman who looked like a DMV employee sitting at a desk in the middle of the road. “What the hell is this place?”

“Initial apology,” the woman smiled without her eyes. “Biological translation is difficult, and this is my first attempt. You might call it a loading zone. Or purgatory. Technically, it is a fraction of space too small to be affected by time.”

Blake tried not to think too terribly much about how or why or literally what the fuck.

“It’s...a little creepy,” he said with a friendly tone, trying to control his heart rate. “Off putting? A bit terrifying, if I’m being honest.”

“Explanation requested.”

“Well, you see, I was just...somewhere else. Now I’m here, and it’s too big and endless, and I feel like I’m about to get hit by a truck. Why a road? And the desk in the middle of nowhere...creepy. If you can make it look like anything, maybe let the, uh, player? Pick their surroundings. A nice wilderness sort of thing. Maybe a comfortable office. A babbling brook! And that text. The text in the nothingness was dreadful. I’d use something easier on the eye, but again why not just let us pick from a nice list or something.”

At some point it occurred to Blake he was rambling, and he stopped. The woman stared and said nothing, and Blake glanced at the sunless sky and continued doing his best not to consider the insanity of the moment.

“Your voice, too, if that’s doable. Hell, even your appearance! I’d like a nice, hot, British woman, myself. Oh! Can you do specific people?”

The woman frowned.

“Processing.”

The world vanished in an instant. Blake just barely stopped himself from screaming in panic, as he felt like he’d leapt, or maybe fell, or...

The British woman stared without blinking for several, long seconds.

“Game purpose as yet unspecified. Feedback requested.”

Blake found himself uncharacteristically speechless. He wasn’t sure what was more terrifying—being sucked into some kind of robotic simulation world, or discovering one’s abductor didn’t actually know what it was doing. “Well,” Blake hoped his chuckle wasn’t as inauthentic as it felt. “What happens if we lose the game?”

“Biological termination,” the woman said rotely. “Death.”

“Oh,” Blake said as if that wasn’t terrifying. “Well, that’s a bit...extreme. Maybe you could just, I don’t know, let us try again?”

“Experiment requires mortal peril. Request denied.”

“Of course, of course. Wouldn’t want to leave out the mortal peril. Well. If failure is death, I guess, umm...” Wait, Blake thought, is this Robotic God asking me to define the meaning of life right now? No pressure, Blake. Think. Think!

“Well, maybe the purpose could be: to make life as good as we can, for ourselves, and for our loved ones,” he said, wiping a bead of sweat.

“Processing.” The British woman frowned. “Suggestion rejected. Game parameters will align to universal biological imperatives.”

Universal biological...what? “Sorry, but, what does that mean, exactly? I’ve always been the type who likes to know the rules.”

“Genetic survival,” the British woman smiled politely. “Genetic procreation. Elimination or assimilation of competition. Please note: system time line will be enhanced. Biological imperatives will be enforced. Introduction for player 01 concluding.”

The walls of the office shook and wavered with weakening color, the floors and ceiling fading to black. “No, wait,” Blake swallowed at nothing and tried to stand. “There’s more to life than just...that’s not...those are bad rules, if we could just talk a little more, I’m sure we could just...”

System initiation ending, intoned a voice from all directions. You will now enter player selection, followed by tutorial mode. Good luck, player 01. Thank you for your feedback. We are rooting for you.

“Wait,” Blake felt like he was falling. “Wait!”

The lovely British woman vanished along with everything else, and the whole world seemed to pull or squeeze Blake inside an invisible tunnel. He didn’t even hear himself scream.