The recording dissolved, leaving behind three shimmering gold words on the page. The options were 'Watch Again', 'Stay', 'Reset', and 'Logout'.
It was a no-brainer for Hugh. He hated his day job and his grades had been too poor for college. He'd barely talked to his parents in the five years since he moved out. His mom wasn't worthy of the title and his dad was less useful than a potato. He doubted his little sister would miss him. She, along with all her snotty Net-famous friends, believed gamers were embarrassing toads. Or so they said, loudly and often, when he encountered them.
Hugh's only real friends were probably sitting at their own campsites watching the same video he'd just finished. He had no reason to hesitate, so he didn't. He immediately pressed his finger to the word 'Stay'.
As he pulled away, the word dissolved. More words appeared in their place, asking him to confirm his choice to stay. He confirmed again and those words dissolved, too. A full sentence appeared, reminding him of what he was committing to—staying in Thrive for a minimum of a hundred years. He confirmed once more, noting how the place he had to press moved with each dialogue so no one could claim their choice was made by accident.
Next, he was asked to read a statement aloud for the record.
"I choose to stay in Thrive. I commit to remaining in stasis for a minimum of one hundred years. I understand this is not part of the game. This is real. I understand I will not be allowed to log out and return to the physical world until after final wake-up protocols are activated by the World Council. I understand I will not be able to change my mind once this decision has been finalized."
Yet another dialogue popped up, asking him if he had any questions regarding the terms of his decision. He pressed no. An outline of a hand appeared, along with the words, "Press this page to finalize your choice."
He pressed his palm on the page. Three seconds later, light flared under his fingers. He hesitantly pulled away to find his hand-print stamped on the inside cover in gold foil. The edges were slightly raised. Instinctively, he scratched it to see if it would come off.
There was no flare of light this time, but the effect was still noticeable. Text rose up on the book's first page, encircled with a fancy frame imitating an old illuminated manuscripts. At a glance, Hugh recognized it as a table of contents, except there only seemed to be one entry, "Page One...Profile."
He flipped the page to see what it was about, but it was still blank. He went back to the table of contents and stared at the words. They didn't shine like the gold foil words had, but perhaps that wasn't necessary for him to interact?
He pressed the entry. Like magic, the pages flipped by themselves, bypassing four blank sheets before it finally settled down. The blank surface of page one filled with a copy of his Net profile. It wasn't just the alias profile he used to log into the game's site, but the one he had registered with the World Council—his official citizen's registration profile. In it were links to his real world medical profile, his banking profile, his criminal profile, his job profile, his school profile, and his genealogical profile. Literally everything the government knew about him was available to view in neatly organized, scrolling sub-menus.
The very top of the page even announced his real name, "Hubert Dean Vander-Huberten." With a grimace, he pressed on it in hopes he could interact with the heading and change it. Nothing happened, telling him he was stuck with seeing his real name until he went to the World Council offices and officially changed it—assuming he could find an office in the game's main city.
Recalling the recording had said something about exchanging money, Hugh looked under the sub-menu for his bank profile. He wasn't too happy to see both his personal account and his gaming account listed. He'd always been careful to keep the two separate. His day job paid for his daily necessities. Money made from gaming—mostly streaming video and compiling articles for Net sites—paid for more gaming. The two accounts weren't supposed to overlap because then he got confused and overspent.
When he saw the new account listing for 'Bank of Nexus,' he realized it didn't matter if they overlapped anymore. Nexus was supposed to be Thrive's main city. And since he wasn't going to be waking up anytime soon, only the money in the Bank of Nexus account would actually matter from now on.
The interface for transferring funds was no different than using his bank's Net application, except it didn't bother asking for his login information. They didn't need to confirm who he was since they had custody of his entire body and all the DNA in it. Now that he thought about it, that was probably how they'd linked him to his World Council profile to begin with—his Cryosis suit sampled his DNA and matched it to his medical profile.
It took only a minute or two to confirm no bank accounts were missing, then transfer the funds in both real world accounts to his new auto-generated Bank of Nexus savings account. The page warned him funds would be automatically exchanged for Zettabits at a rate of $1.27 per bit. He didn't know if that was any good, but he supposed it could be a lot worse. At least this digital currency would be used, unlike so many others on the Cryptocurrency Market.
When he finished, he closed the sub-menu, then turned back to the Table of Contents. Three new entries were already waiting on him—Status, Navigator, and Life Drought. He was severely tempted to jump ahead to 'Navigator', but he pressed "Page Two...Status" first. The book flipped itself open to the correct page and filled in the appropriate information.
As far as he could tell, it was an approximation of a typical character status sheet using a star diagram. There were six stats in total. To the right it said Strength, Dexterity, and Stamina. To the left was Intellect, Empathy, and Constitution. His star was bottom-heavy with his best talents being empathy and constitution. Everything else was barely reaching average despite how much he'd built up his body with daily workouts in the real world.
Beneath the chart, there were sub-menus for Titles, Achievements, Contracts, and Hobbies. The first two were blank, but the third made him goggle when he saw a dozen entries. He opened the entry under 'Gaming' and found every game he'd ever played. Under 'Movies', he found dozens of titles. 'Writing' provided a list of gaming articles and walk-throughs he'd put together.
It wasn't until he saw 'Cooking' on the list he realized what must have happened, because he actually hated cooking. The system must have gone through everything he scanned into his memory modules and categorized the contents. And since he'd downloaded a bunch of freebie survivalist recipe books into his digital library, the system now thought he liked to cook.
He must have paused too long with his finger on one of the cookbooks because the neighboring blank page filled with a question. "New Recipes Found. Would you like to add them to your Book?" Hugh pressed yes. The pages instantly began flipping until it reached three-fourths of the way back. A new page appeared entitled 'Cooking Recipes 19/500'. Below were a half dozen entries for Dutch-oven casseroles. He stopped himself from adding anything more since there was a storage limit. Undoubtedly, there would be a way to buy upgrades later, but for now he preferred to play it safe.
He returned to the Table of Contents at the front of the page and pressed "Page Two... Navigator."
The book flipped to the correct page and filled in with a drawing of a man's face. Hugh smirked when he saw the gender symbols in the corner of the page and the sub-menus necessary for customizing the NPC's appearance. Finally, his experience as a gamer came in handy.
Hugh breezed through the menus, making selections and adjusting sliding scales by rote, until his Navigator looked like the avatar he used in nearly every other game he played. The only surprise came at the end where it said "Test" rather than "Confirm."
He pressed it.
"Hello, Hubert."