Chapter 2 — The Upload
The room smelled different now — not sterile, but metallic, like a train tunnel after a storm. Ethan's mouth tasted of copper and old coffee; his hands trembled when he pushed himself upright. The overlay in his vision hovered like a second conscience: small, bright, clinical.
[SYSTEM]
[IDENTITY: ETHAN CROSS]
[STATUS: UPLOADED — STABILITY: 67%]
[OBJECTIVE: ACQUIRE REALITY POINTS / SURVIVE / EVOLVE]
He blinked, and the numbers rearranged themselves into a rhythm his brain tried to follow. Reality points. Survive. Evolve. They sounded like commands and promises and curses all at once.
Alyssa was kneeling beside him, palms flat on the cold floor. She still wore the lab coat, but now it hung open, sleeves rolled, the scientist's armor stripped down to frantic humanity. Up close, Ethan could see how much she'd spent herself: dark under-eyes, a smear of blood at her temple, a tremor in her left hand that wasn't from the machine.
"You shouldn't be here," she whispered, and for a second the professional wall cracked, revealing something raw. "You weren't supposed to–"
He reached up, fingers brushing at the patch of skin where the translator had been affixed. There was a shallow scar, almost invisible. He felt the ghost of the device like a weight under his skull. "What did they do to me?" His voice sounded small in the wide room.
Alyssa's eyes flicked to the overlay then back to him. "They uploaded you. The interface— it converts neural patterns into a construct. It's not just data. It's a world. Or a prison. It depends who's asking the question." She swallowed. "We don't have time. The system is live for more than one subject."
Ethan's overlay pulsed.
[NOTICE]
[MULTI-USER ENVIRONMENT: INITIALIZING]
[NEIGHBOR NODES: 13 ACTIVE — PROXIMITY: UNKNOWN]
"Neighbors?" Ethan asked, the word foreign and intimate at once. The idea of other people — not just as silhouettes in a lab, but as other consciousnesses inside the same code — shifted something in him. A panicked part of his brain, still clinging to waking-world logic, wanted to believe he could find his way back. Another part, darker, tasted opportunity.
Alyssa glanced at his face like she was measuring him. "You need to understand the economy here. The system gives you scenarios — controlled events — and you get reality points for surviving, solving, or dominating them. Points buy upgrades. Upgrades change you. That's the whole transaction." She touched his wrist as if testing for a pulse and then, impulsively, held his hand for a beat longer. "I can… help. But I can't be there for everything."
Ethan felt the weight of her fingers. Small contact. A human signal in a manufactured world. Something like warmth pulsed under the overlay's edges.
[SYSTEM]
[NOTICE: MENTAL INTEGRITY FRAGILE — RECOMMENDED: LOW-INTENSITY SCENARIO]
[ASSIGNED SCENARIO: TRIAL FIELD — LEVEL: 1]
"Low-intensity," Ethan repeated, trying to anchor himself to the calm words. He wanted the promise of soft landings. But the overlay had already queued the scene: a skyline flicker, a map tile updating, a countdown in the corner of his vision.
Alyssa's jaw tightened. "Low-intensity can go sideways. The system adapts to you. If it detects fear, it punishes with complexity. If it detects competence, it scales difficulty. Don't—" Her voice broke. "Don't be predictable."
He could see the logic of it: behave like a frightened animal and be fed tragedy; behave like a strategist and be fed a challenge that made you sharper. His life had been mostly fear and default scripts. He felt a quiet anger tighten his chest. "Then I'm learning to be unpredictable," he said, more to himself than to her.
Alyssa's laugh was a short, frightened sound. "Good. That will help. The first scenario will test basic problem-solving. You need to find a crucible and keep it safe for twenty-four minutes. The crucible will spawn items, some helpful, some harmful. Collect the right sequence, or the scenario escalates." She paused, searching his face for comprehension. "Twenty-four real minutes.
The system uses objective time. If you fail—"
Her sentence didn't finish. Behind her, something metallic clicked. The door had been sealed. A thin, automated voice threaded through the air, not the overlay this time, but a speaker embedded in the ceiling.
[SCENARIO NOTICE]
[TRIAL FIELD 1: ACTIVATED]
[TIMER: 24:00]
Ethan's chest tightened. Twenty-four minutes. The system's timer glowed like a metronome in his inner sight. Scent, temperature, and physical resistance snapped into focus. The world reassembled itself around them like a set dressing. The lab dissolved along its edges; in its place, a ragged urban square bled into view: a fountain choked with plastic, a rusting kiosk, an arcade of shuttered screens.
Alyssa shoved a compact device into his palm — lightweight, cold. "Use this," she said. "It's a field beacon. It marks the crucible. Without it, you'll wander and the timer will punish you." Her fingers brushed his, and the near-contact sparked a memory: a classroom bench, a laugh. It was a trivial image and devastating.
He swallowed. "What about you? Aren't you—"
She cut him off with a look that was cruel and tender all at once. "I'm on the outside. For now. I can nudge, but I can't override. The system denies direct extraction. If you want to come back, you earn it. Or break it." She leaned close, the overlay washing her features into stark lines. "Ethan—survive. Don't trust the flashy solutions. Use your head. And when the timer hits zero… don't expect mercy."
He should have been terrified. He was. But under the fear was something sharper: a thread of feverish anticipation. The system had promised both danger and a ledger to pay with. If survival yielded upgrades, then survival could become the instrument of his escape.
The countdown ticked once in his vision. Twenty-three minutes, fifty-nine seconds.
Ethan tightened his grip on the beacon. The arcade's shuttered screens flashed a static pattern, then rearranged into a path. Somewhere in the distance, something moved — not human, not animal. A shape. A node. A competitor.
[SYSTEM]
[NOTICE: OTHER PARTICIPANTS DETECTED — HOSTILITY PROBABILITY: VARIABLE]
Alyssa's hand hovered over his. "Be clever," she breathed. "Be human."
He stepped into the square.
The door behind him sealed with a hiss that felt like the closing of a real coffin. He felt the city press in; the timer pulsed in his mind like a heartbeat.
Twenty-three minutes, fifty-eight seconds.