[Alternate Earth]
Dave had worked at the same insurance office for six years, and in all six years he had never once looked at the clock this much.
11:42. Six more hours. Six more hours, then the drive home, then dinner, then the pod.
He was supposed to be reviewing a claim about a hailstorm and a Honda. What he was actually doing, with the claim open in one window, was watching a 40-second clip on his phone under the desk for the ninth time.
The clip was from Wave 1. It was shaky and first-person, and it showed a gray, fat, horrible beaver-thing the size of a couch going down under a storm of blue Mana Shots, a spear, and an old woman with silver hair hitting it in the head with a ladle over and over while yelling, "NOT. IN. MY. KITCHEN."
The caption said: grandma solo'd the boss in the new VR beta (not clickbait)
It had eleven million views.
Dave was in the clip. You could see the back of his silver ponytail in the bottom left. He'd told exactly zero people at work.
[SleepyTeaLive — Stream Title: "day 3 of being a tree person (wave 2 prep)"]
The stream had started as a joke. Sleepy Tea had a little channel, two hundred followers maybe, mostly people who watched her fall asleep in cozy games. She'd turned it on during Wave 1 because the pod had a recording option, and she thought her friends would think it was funny.
Now she had forty thousand people watching her carry rocks.
chat: is it actually real gameplay
chat: NO WAY that's real
chat: what pod is that
chat: ASK DAY IF HE'S SINGLE
chat: how do i get a key
chat: how do i get a key
chat: how do i get a key
"I don't know how you get a key," Sleepy Tea said, for the hundredth time that day, dropping a stone in the pile by the gate. "I signed up and got an email. Also I'm not asking Day if he's single. He's an NPC. He's busy."
She turned the camera toward Day's house. He was sitting on his porch with that mug, watching the gate get finished, looking tired in a way that made chat go quiet for a second.
chat: why does he look like he works retail
chat: the NPC has eye bags. the NPC has EYE BAGS
chat: this is the most expensive tired man ever rendered
[Alternate Earth: Tech news site, Tuesday]
"The Collective's Challenge": The VR Beta Nobody Can Explain
The article was long, and Dave read the whole thing on his lunch break.
It said that the pods were real, and that teardown videos showed hardware nobody could identify. It said a startup reporter had gone to the business address listed on the website and found an empty parking lot. It said that the company had no employees anyone could find, no investors on record, and no press contact except a single email address that answered every question with the same reply:
Thank you for your interest in The Collective's Challenge. More players will be admitted as the world grows.
It also said the beta had fifty players. Exactly fifty. And that pods from people who had gotten keys were selling on auction sites for the price of a used car, except nobody who had one would sell it.
The last paragraph quoted a game designer who had been making VR games for fifteen years.
"I don't know how they did it," she said. "I genuinely don't. If I had to guess, I'd say it isn't a game at all. But that's crazy, so I'm going to assume they just have really good engineers."
Dave laughed at that one, out loud, at his desk.
[Alternate Earth: The Collective's Challenge Official Forums]
Thread: OFFICIAL — Closed Beta Phase 2 (pinned)
Posted by: TheCollective
{Closed Beta Phase 2 will begin when the settlement's average player level reaches 8. 200 additional testers will be admitted. Selection will be random.
Thank you for your interest. Please stop emailing us.}
{Anonymous 47} "THEY RESPONDED"
{Anonymous 112} "'please stop emailing us' is so real"
{GuildMaster_Rhen} "Iron Covenant has 3,400 applicants for this beta. If even 1% of us get in, we'll be the largest organized group in the game by day one of Phase 2. Founders: we're not your enemies. We want to help Day too. Just faster."
{Eat Dirt} "@GuildMaster_Rhen nobody said enemies man, but 'just faster' is how you get eaten by beavers"
{Brick Layer} "Phase 2 people: bring stone. That's it. That's the post."
{xX_Bargain_Xx} "Paying 3 USD per GC. Founders DM me."
{Cool Spoon} "@xX_Bargain_Xx 4 and you have a deal."
{Gummies} "SPOON"
{Cool Spoon} "a man has to eat"
Thread: The Collective doesn't exist. I have proof. (long)
Posted by: ConspiracyCat
{I've been tracking this "company" for a week. Here's what I have:
The website was registered the same day the first trailer went up. Not the day before. The same day.The pods ship from a warehouse address that is a field.The trailer's "actual gameplay" has a shot of Day sitting on a stump. That stump is in the game now. Players found it. It has the same cracks. Trailers are never that exact.Ask any founder what the game's pain setting is. There isn't one. No company would legally ship that.
I'm not saying it's aliens. I'm saying it isn't a company.}
{Old Swordsman} "I asked Day if it bothers him when we die. He said yes, every time. Whatever this is, it's the best writing I've ever seen in a game. I don't really care what's behind it."
{ConspiracyCat} "@Old Swordsman that's EXACTLY what I'm talking about"
{Valefor} "Cat I promise you if you got in you would stop caring in like five minutes"
{ConspiracyCat} "Then let me in."
That one got two thousand likes.
[Day]
That night, Valefor logged in and found me on the porch, like he usually did.
"Day," he said. "Phase 2 at average level 8, huh? You guys finally put out an announcement."
I kept my face exactly the same. I'd gotten pretty good at that.
"Is that what it said?"
"Yeah, two hundred more people. It's pinned on the forum." He grinned. "Guess you'll have more mouths to feed. Better start stacking wood."
He wandered off toward the wall. I sat there and looked at my mug.
I hadn't said that. I knew about the 200 slots. The skill had told me. But I hadn't announced anything to anyone, because I couldn't. I didn't have a forum. I didn't have a website. I didn't even have my phone.
Something on the other side did, though. And it was talking to them in my name.
I added that to the list of things I wasn't going to think about too hard. The list was getting long.