Volume 1: Arc 1: Chapter 1

February 13, 2067

A low thrum rent the air, abbreviating the high-pitched hiccups coming from the corner of the room. David Peterson took a shallow breath and the thrum reached a fever pitch. Clean and clear plastic covered his mouth as air began to be forced into his mouth in a rush.

He tried to raise a hand to his face, yet, it would not rise. There was not enough air. Not enough. He tried to turn his head, yet, he was not able. Something was impeding him. Every attempt met a solid object and as he thumped against it the hiccuping from the corner of the room abruptly ceased. Footsteps quickly followed along with a rush of warm air as his daughter, Carolyne, leaned down over him.

“Daddy! Daddy! Can you hear me?” She half-wept. Tears stained her plain, but pleasantly ovular face. He straightened his neck, attempting to give her any indication he could still understand. His neck did not move. It was too weak from laying in this damnable bed. All he could do was thump the side with his shoulder. Thump! Thump!

It was infuriating. A man, once so strong, was reduced to this. But he knew age was the great equalizer in the end. Depression overwhelmed him and tears came to his eyes, watering them. “You can hear me, can’t you?” Carolyne murmured as she saw his eyes begin to water.

Mistakenly, she thought his tears were for her and not his weakened position. He attempted to smile. It was typical of her to think the best of him. He had not always been the best father. While he was in the army, he had neglected all but his post at the time. His wife left him long ago and he heard, from Carolyne, she had passed away years previously. He never knew. They had grown apart in the early years after their marriage and only stayed together for Carolyne’s sake; however, after Carolyne became an adult and moved out of the house, they separated amicably as neither saw the need to remain together any longer.

A soft knock on the door interrupted their small moment. “Yes?” Carolyne said, somewhat flustered as she rose from the bed. “Excuse me miss, but I’m with Renewal Eternal?” The man, David could only see the tips of his brown loafers, said almost as if it were a question. David attempted to snort. This was the man who would give him his immortality? Pathetic.

“Come in. Come in.” Carolyne said walking over to the corner of the room and grabbing her purse protectively. “I’ll be just outside daddy. Call me when he’s done.” She said to the man as she left taking a single look back before shutting the door with a snap.

The man stood in the same place for a long moment before he dropped his thick woolen jacket onto the chair Carolyne had previously vacated. Walking over to the bed, he thumbed the chart that had been tacked over the bed with a nail.

“Pulmonary Edema.” The man tisked. “Such a shame.” Turning to David, he said, a soft smile touching his lips, “You know, I was once in the army. National Guard, in fact.” David only blinked at him. He had an inability to do anything else. Although, he did think rather atomically, Softies.

“It was years ago though.” The man continued, not sensing David’s annoyance. “During the Detroit Riots, in fact. Nasty business that.” The man chuckled and looked down at David, a bemused expression on his face.

He had a thin goatee covering a weak chin and thin face; however, David had a hard time paying attention to his face when his eyes….his eyes were like that. They were wide and narrow at the same time, contracting and expanding like they were, themselves, alive. A thick azure color gleamed out from the whites, penetrating David with their cold bite.

If he could, he would have shivered; however, even that, was forbidden him by his body riddled with age. Instead, he thumped against the side of the bed, once again. “Oh! Excuse me.” The man said surprised. His eyes expanded significantly creating a rather bizarre look. “I’m Ryan Knight, one of the chief programmers of Renewal Eternal.”

David just blinked at him. Coughing once into his hand as he attempted to cover the silence that greeted him, Ryan said, “We have already scanned your brain and digitized it. Payment has been made in full as well. Over the last year,” he took out a folded sheet of paper, “Mind you, this is just for contractual reasons we are going over this.” Ryan said, attempting to diffuse the patronizing tone of his voice.

“A man, such as you, would not like it, I think, to have that last year of our painful poking and prodding retold to him.” Ryan chuckled weakly. “Well, I’ll make this short. And when it’s over, we can begin the transition process.”

The transition process. David grew cold inside. It meant death. Actual, physical death. When Renewal Eternal began to be marketed, a little over two years ago, David had signed up almost immediately. It was just after his second heart attack and the beginning of his time on a respirator. He knew his time was almost up and he felt rather aggrieved that his time on this world, only sixty-seven years, was so short. While he knew many of the reasons for his short life were due to many of the deplorable habits he had picked up over the years, he could not help but think fate rolled him a bad toss of the dice.

Renewal Enteral gave him the chance to have another chance at life. While Carolyne would not be there, he felt he could live with that. When he died in this world, he would not see Carolyne again in any case. David never really believed in the afterlife. While he had grown up a Christian, he felt, as most did these days, religion had too many contradictions to hold true. There still was a possibility for a God but he had never given a hand to David; therefore, David would not give a hand to him. He would admit it was selfish; however, his pride vied for absolute truth before he submitted to any such God and Christianity never provided that for him.

David had tuned Ryan out as he delved into his thoughts. Perhaps, it was best as what Ryan was saying would have made him even more depressed. “…And last month we tested your blood type, type AB, had your psychological test, you did rather well, although you have a tendency towards violence when your patience wanes.” Ryan smirked, the whites of his teeth, gleaming in the radiant light shining down from the light overhead.

“Right.” Ryan said, clearing his throat. “Let me tell you a few of the rules of the program before we begin. I’m sure you’ve heard some of them before. Whether it was in discussions with our staff or through advertisements, we still have to list the rules and protections before a client enters the program. Contract law requires it, you see.” Ryan said as he attempted to look apologetic, yet came off looking disdainful. “First and foremost. This will not make you immortal. We have to make this clear to all of our clients beforehand. As you’ve already signed the contract, you understand the implications well. Therefore, I will go to the second point. There is no end to the program. Over the last two decades, we have developed multiple AI systems to run the program for a very long time. While it is still harbored within Cloud servers, they are in an undisclosed location and secured tightly. As there are no foreign entities allowed into the program, we have established an Intranet to secure our control more tightly. As of now, only six people have the key to log in and out of the intranet, so your data will be perfectly safe.”

David relaxed slightly at that. He had harbored some doubts that he would be safe from hackers in the program but it seems Renewal Eternal had thought of all of the possibilities.

“Inside of the program, you will be transported to a world we have programmed called Thantos. During your first rebirth, you will be allowed to choose your role, place, and parents within the world; however, you are precluded from royalty or other leadership roles. This limits the misuse of power by our clients within the world. NPC’s populate the world at a population of one-billion; however, they each have their own individualized AI programs based upon discarded data streams. Due to this and other programming tools, they can technically be considered people. While in the world, you can decide to follow the rules of the country you have established yourself in or you can refuse. It matters little as each country has forces to control their citizens.”

David blinked in surprise, they had added so much detail to the world since the last time he had researched it. Frankly, it was astonishing how much they had improved the technology of the world in the last two years. “Further,” Ryan continued crisply, “You will age in this world. We have programmed the world so you feel as if everything is real. While it is technically virtual reality, death is a very real possibility. This has not stopped many of our clients to decide to become adventurers; therefore, due to this notion of our program as a game” Ryan said, sarcasm oozing from him, “we have systematically allowed for a leveling, skills, and quest system to be included within the program; however, it is quite different from other games.” Ryan coughed as he tried to get the word out. David thought he found it rather distasteful this was even in his beloved program.

“Instead of the typical system overlay one would find in an online game, we have established a system of NPC’s and clients who are employed by each country as Identity Merchants. They are located in most of the larger cities and can be found rather easily within them. They will allow you to view your skills, stats, and primary quest objectives for an exchange of a small sum of gold. Finally, the technology in this world is currently at the middle-age stage but is subject to change at a later date. There are also a variety of races within this world not found in our own. You have the ability to choose your starting race and will always be born into that race henceforce. This is due to corruption of data streams if a client continually changes race. ”

Ryan said, his face turning grim, "If your race somehow becomes extinct, there are a few endangered ones out there mind you, we do have the ability to copy your data stream into a new race; however, as mentioned, it is an ill-advised decision." Ryan looked down at his small sheet of paper frowning slightly.

“Right. I think that covers it.” Turning away from David’s bed, he opened the door to the room succinctly and called into the hall, “Hal, get his daughter and bring a doc with you!” There was a slight pause where David could hear a murmured response. “Yeah. It’s time.” Another murmur. “Alright. Set it up.”

A few moments later, Ryan walked into the room followed by Carolyne and Dr. Nimitz, a short, fat, greasy man but David thought he was the most tolerable of the doctors in this god-forsaken hospice. “Daddy?” Carolyne said hesitantly. David tried to respond but he couldn’t. Every time. Every damn time. He was pathetic.

But, he did not have to. She walked slowly up to him and gripped his hand gently. Her smooth warm hand squeezed his rough and calloused hand that over the last two years had grown cold as life swiftly began to leave it.

“Ah, Mr. Peterson, are you ready?” Dr. Nimitz said. He was chipper, the damnable bastard. There was a smug grin on his pudgy face; yet, David could not blame him. After all, he watched his patients die every day. It was rare he was able to help someone go out on his own terms.

Ryan walked up to his bedside. “Mr. Peterson, please say your last goodbyes.” He held a business-like tone as he aided Dr. Nimitiz in administering the cocktail of drugs that would end his life. “Daddy, I’ll pray for you.” Carolyne was crying again. Tears flowed down her face and cupped her wide cheeks before falling onto his sheets. “I know. I know.” She patted his hand gently. “You think that stuff is wishy-washy. But let me do this for you.”

It was getting hard to hear her. His vision had begun to cloud while his ears felt like they had cotton stuffed in them. Tiredness overwhelmed his bodies and he felt as if his body was sinking into his bed. He knew, in the back of his mind, this was his body reacting to the drugs but he craved for the sleep that called him. He blinked once. His eyelids were getting hard to open. Try as he might, he could not open his eyes again and thus, David Peterson left his world forever.

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