The whiteness surrounding them fell away, dispersed just like the hologram. Instead, all the players stood at the center of a metropolitan city. The towering buildings were imposing but familiar. Having no idea what the landscape of the game would be like, everyone thought it was an urban monster-killing game.
That was until a siren blared. Larson pressed his hands over his ears and sank to the ground in a familiar position. In his youth, he had lived in the border area and often heard this sound during tense times. There were blackouts and sirens right before bombs dropped somewhere. He didn't take the situation lightly.
Tyler nudged him up and shook him. "Don't worry. No bombs. It's a cutscene to introduce the players to the plot of the game world," he assured him.
And true to his words, no bomb dropped. Instead, something like a dark, molten wall moved toward them. There were screams and appreciation for how real everything looked.
The dust and the wind threatened to throw them away, and some did scatter. When the dark cloud cleared, nothing remained except for the gnarly skeleton of the buildings and desolation. Apart from the scattered and coughing players, not a single thing that had life in it survived.
Larson looked around the concrete desert.
Flickered in bold in the sky.
[In 2053, an abnormal weather phenomenon, now termed MC000-B, was observed. Suspected to move at a speed of 440km/h, the phenomenon wiped out all existing forms of living species, leaving behind mutations and anomalies that are yet to be scientifically understood. Your mission is to secure this planet for human habitation and help study the anomalies experienced as a result of MC000-B. Good luck, Seekers.]
The voice disappeared and they found themselves in the middle of a wasteland. No, it was not all the players put in one place. Instead, Larson found four of five faces that had surrounded him when he first arrived at The Lounge.
Of course, Tyler stood right beside him.
"That was so cool," he whispered as he looked at his uncle. "Did you feel the wind pushing against your chest? It was so real!"
The excitement was palpable.
'I don't like this,' Larson thought but didn't say it out loud.
He noticed everyone apart from Tyler slowly walking away, trying to get away from each other.
"What's up with them?"
Tyler followed his gaze. "It's too early to form cliques. We don't know what the game is about and the final prize is too big for anyone to help someone else win," he commented. "The Connector is updating."
Larson looked down and found that the wat—Connector had lit up. It was stuck at 99% for a full minute before it displayed everything.
He scrolled through the list that appeared, finding the options floating in the air, right above the screen of the Connector. With the twist of the dials on the device, he saw options to view the map of the landscape, coordinates of missions, game layout, and the best of the game: Tutorial.
This was what Larson needed. He could move around just fine because it was a 100% immersion game, but what about the rest? What was all of this?
He pressed yes. The world around him plunged into darkness. And no matter how much he groped around to find his nephew, the other was gone from beside him. He was transported into a completely new space.
A large image of the Connector appeared in front of it. It rotated like a 3D model, giving Larson a closer look at its features.
[The Connector is designed to keep the player connected to the game interface. Once the player puts in on and completes the sign-up process, the Connector cannot be removed by the player until gameplay ends.]
[It provides information about the game layout, map, locations of in-game friends, and location of new monsters and anomalous objects. Point the device at a player, anomalous object, or new monster to get all relevant information in the database about it.]
A wiggly object appeared at the ground level and Larson pointed at it. A full page of data appeared and Larson was too bored to read through it. He clicked on a segment, which the voice started to read. Good enough. He didn't have to read anything aloud. He was getting old and his eyes hurt if he read small scripts.
He tapped on the connector for the main tutorial page to arrive again.
[The information available to you is limited by your security clearance within the game. Right now, your security clearance is 'Civilian.']
[A player with 'Civilian' clearance is the lowest ranked. Your goal is to familiarize yourself with game controls, learn how to collect and modify weapons, acquire and administer health shots, and understand statistics.]
[You can only access information about 'Anomalous Items' and 'Explained Phenomenon and Objects'. You can use the aforementioned to complete challenges and missions assigned to you by the game system.]
[To level up, 'Civilians' have to complete all relevant missions. They may come in contact with New Monsters and Anomalous Items. Excellent performance may allow players to access higher security clearance.]
No, he didn't understand! What were all these new words being thrown at him? He remembered the cutscene and the narrator saying the purpose was to research and explain anomalous phenomena and objects. If the black storm mutated living organisms, it must have also changed the fundamental composition and properties of everyday items. The very science that earth knew was turned on its head. If he thought about it this way, the simplistic names made sense.
The New Monsters were the mutated living organisms. The Anomalous Items were inanimate objects that made scientists scratch their heads and which couldn't be explained because of a lack of understanding. And the 'Explained Phenomenon and Objects' was clear enough. The scientific knowledge of the times had caught up with these and was able to explain what exactly was going on with them.
He was 90% sure that he understood.
As they said. Fake it till you make it.