Jack jolted up with a gasp and struck his head on a metal surface. Falling back down he grabbed his head in pain. After laying there for a second, Jack opened his eyes with strain, he felt like someone had just flash-banged him. Jack closed his eyes and rolled over to pick himself off the floor. When he went to roll over he fell onto the hard cold floor. Opening his eyes once again he looked around, "I thought I was on my living room floor? WAIT!!!" Standing up quickly Jack grabbed his chest, "I got hit by lightning! How am I still alive?!" His eyes finally adjusted properly so he could see again. Jack looked around in pain, "THIS IS NOT MY LIVING ROOM, WHERE AM I?" he said out loud.
Looking around the room he felt a familiarity to it, like he had seen it before. Jack turned around to see the bed he fell from. "Do I have brain damage? Because… I think I'm hallucinating." He walked cautiously towards the bed and touched the yellow metal frame. Jack's eyes widened, "…that's real…". Standing there with his mouth gaped open, SMACK! "Yep, that smack felt real." Jack lay down on the floor and stared at the fan in the ceiling. "I'm in Star Citizen"
This would be the beginning of a cool show that Jack would love to watch. But being in this situation is different, obviously it would be. "Did I die? Like… I was struck by lightning dude!" Jack thought as he lay there. A moment of silence was broken up by the sound of commotion outside the room's door. Jack walked over to the door and put his hand onto the access pad, and the door slid open. Light poured into the room, looking to his left he saw the massive window he was expecting. "Yep, that Lorville." Looking over the 2nd floor ledge he saw a group of people talking hysterically as if in a panic. After taking a moment to observe the situation downstairs Jack's eyes widened. HE KNEW THOSE PEOPLE!
Looking around he noticed the people down there were from his college. One of the guys looked up and locked eyes with Jack, "YO! JACK! YOU'RE HERE TOO?!" Gary exclaimed. Gary was one of Jack's three roommates. Everyone looked up at him, there were nine of them. Everyone looked stressed, they didn't know where they were. Jack recognized a few girls from one of his classes, they were crying. He went down the stairs to the main floor, where everyone was on, and Gary met him at the bottom step. "Bro, do you know what is going on?! I want to say we got kidnapped. But I don't recognize the outside!" The others started being in a frenzy again after Gary suggested that they were kidnapped. Still on the stairs and higher up than everyone Jack raised his voice to get everyone's attention. "GUYS… guys… I know everyone is scared right now, and I am too. If everyone would go over to those benches I can give you a bit of information on our current situation."
As everyone made their way over to the benches. Jack stood there for a second to compose himself. When it came to public speaking he was a nervous wreck, even with a group of 9 people he would probably struggle. As he stood there he noticed that everyone including him was wearing clothes from their world. Everyone was looking at him, he said he had information, and they wanted answers. Their gazes were making Jack sweat, he was nervous.
"Hey guys, some of you know me, for those who don't I'm Jack. To clarify we have not been kidnapped… well kind of. To give an introduction to who I am, I am a gamer and nerd. If I have played it I know a lot about it. However, there was one game that stood above the rest for me, and that was Star Citizen. A couple of people on campus played it with me, but I was the one with the most hours. In total, I have put in over five hundred hours in Star Citizen, so I am relatively knowledgeable at the game. That being said, when I look around I know where we are…" Jack cleared his throat. "We are in Star Citizen." The crowd started talking amongst themselves. Gary spoke up above the rest, "So… if we are in a game, let's just beat it and get out of here!" People agreed with him. Jack paused for a moment, thinking about it. "If we could leave just like that it would be nice, but Star Citizen doesn't have an end, no endgame. That's the point." Looking around, he noticed the "NPCs" weren't acting the same, they were walking around and talking, acting as if they had a purpose. One NPC was noticeably a child, Jack had never encountered a child NPC before. Looking back to his group, they all looked at him puzzled. "Hey, uh… give me a second, I need to check on something." Jack briskly walked towards an NPC that was a Janitor, or at least that is what Jack assumed. As Jack approached the Janitor noticed him and looked up.
"Hello, sir… If you have a maintenance need or a mess to be cleaned up, please fill out a request on your mobiGlas." The Janitor had such a dead tone like the NPC was actually dead inside.
"uh… actually, I have a question for you. How are you doing?" Jack asked this because, in Star Citizen, the NPCs didn't really have dialogue yet.
"Well, I'm almost done with a 12-hour shift, so I'm pretty tired. But I'm hanging in there. Sorry if I was a little rude just a second ago. It's been one of those days ya know?"
Jack's eyes widened, he responded so he didn't seem like he was acting weird, "12 hours! Man, you deserve a nice break after that!"
"Yeah… I'm actually going on vacation starting tomorrow. So a well-deserved break. But enough about me, are you ok?!"
"Shoot, does he know that I don't belong here?" Jack gave a puzzled look, "I'm fine what do you mean?"
"Well your shirt is burnt and the edges are falling apart, and you don't look like you just got freshly cloned."
This interaction was real, this wasn't an NPC, this was a real living breathing person. "Wait… did he say that my shirt was burnt?" Jack looked down to see not only was his shirt was indeed burnt and falling apart, but also he was now skinny. Jack used to be a bigger guy, but now he was skinny, actually he was more ripped than anything.
Jack stepped backward in disbelief, looking up at the Janitor who had a nervous look on his face Jack knew he had to calm down and divert the conversation. "oh! yeah… I was tinkering in my ship and a component blew a fuse on me and here I am with a burnt shirt… heh."
"Well dude, you better be more careful. If you are careless and die, you might not be able to recover your backup chip."
"Backup chip…?" Jack gave a very confused look.
"Yeah… you know… the way that you recover your memories after dying…"
Jack kept his puzzled look.
"Man, you must be from the sticks… when you die a signal is sent to the place where you most recently backed up your DNA for cloning. When you back up your DNA you also "save" your memories from up to that point. So that signal that lets the hospital know that you have passed is only powerful enough to do just that, let them know, no data is transferred. So a sheet will be printed and a pinpoint will be set for where your freshly printed clone will have to go to recover your stuff, but also be in range for the backup chip to transfer the data to your clone's chip."
"Thanks dude, without that info I would probably be up a crick."
"No problem man, well I better get back to work."
"And I will leave you to it!"
Jack walked away learning two things, that respawning was a thing still, a bit more in-depth though; and that NPCs were real. He got Gary's attention and pulled him aside. "Hey Jack, what were you two talking about?"
"Yeah, I'm going to adjust my previous statement about us being in the game. I think that this isn't the game, but a universe just like it. These other people are real, not just programmed NPCs."
Before Gary could respond, Jack's wrist started to buzz and light up. His watch from the other world was replaced with a mobiGlas. Jack tapped the top of it, and a holo-screen blinked into view, it said incoming call. Jack answered it, and a video call popped up showing a face that he wasn't expecting. "Hey Jack, so we might have a problem."
"JP?!"