Chapter 3

October 1, 2076 - Release day

  Chris stepped out of the rain onto the steps of his apartment building and glanced up at the dirty window three floors above. His little home. He walked up the stairs to his room and looked around at the mess of his tiny apartment. Walking over to the counter, the bottom of the bag rips open, spilling his newly purchased tools and equipment on the floor. He just laughed at his own misfortune and shrugged at the mess, "Seems like every time I come home lately I'm dumping a bag of something on the floor." His laugh faded into a sigh as he leaned down and started cleaning up.

  An hour later he had most of the place swept and the broken furniture stacked in a pile near the front door. At least in such a small space there wasn't a whole lot of stuff to break, he conceded. Chris grabbed an electric screwdriver from his pile of tools and got to work installing a new deadbolt on his front door. He muttered to himself that he shouldn't have put off getting one of those for so long, especially in an area like this. It might not have stopped those guys, but it could have at least pissed them off a little.

  He was standing in the open doorway, half out in the hallway drilling into the doorframe, when a delivery girl emerged cautiously from the stairwell. She glanced at him first, sizing him up, then he saw her eyes flick to the numbers on each of the suite doors one by one, finally stopping on his.

  "Chris?" she asks. He nods and she continues. "I have a package for you." She pauses for a moment as his eyes drop down to her empty hands. "Oh," she says with a tinkling laugh. "It's down in the truck still! It's pretty big and I didn't want to bring it all the way up here if you weren't home."

  She turns and half-sprints back to the stairwell. Chris watches her leave and stares at the peeling wallpaper in the building hallway. He really needed to save up some more money and move away from this place, even the delivery people were scared to walk down the hallway. But the rent was static, and he was already here. It's hard to move away when you can't save up enough for a deposit.

  The girl returned a few minutes later just as Chris was finishing installing the deadbolt. She had a large box in her hands, plastered with the Cerillion Entertainment logo on each side. Even if he could have afforded it Chris never had much interest in owning one of their VR headsets before, but after Awaken Online was announced he and every other gamer in the world couldn't wait to get their hands on one. Chris had started saving to buy it since the game was first announced, and that gave him several years of cash saved by the time the game was finally available to pre-order a few months ago.

  The delivery girl handed the package to him and grinned. "You must have bought this for AO, huh? All I've been delivering all day is this headset to everyone! Seriously, my whole truck is just full of these boxes right now. Man, you're lucky. I can't wait for my shift to end so I can play too."

  Chris did a small double-take, "You play MMOs too?" he asked, turning and setting the box down just inside the door.

  "Hell yeah!" she replied. "I've been playing games since basically forever. My grandma got me hooked on MMORPGs when I was little. My parents weren't around much and they left me at home alone, so she was kinda like a remote babysitter through the games we played." Her wide smile faded and she laughed nervously, "And now I'm oversharing! Sign here please!" She smiled and held the Core on her wrist up to Chris, while handing him a stylus from her coat pocket.

  "Half our delivery team booked today off so they could get a head start." She shook her head wistfully as Chris signed the delivery notice on the small screen hovering over her Core.

  She accepted her stylus back from him. "Can you believe they booked it like two years ago!" She said with a snort. "I wish I'd thought of that. I'd be lying down at home right now instead of running around making deliveries like a chump!" She laughed again and Chris felt his cheeks get warm as the sound tinkled in his ears like music. "I guess you're not working today?" she asked.

  Chris looked sheepish for a moment and hesitated, unsure how to answer. Finally he met her gaze. "No. No work today," he said.

  The girl tucked the stylus away in her jacket and started to turn away. "Good luck in the game, maybe I'll see you in there!" She said over her shoulder. "It's gonna be wild!"