Some of the audience starts muttering to each other, while Steve scratches his beard. Myself, I’m not entirely sure how to respond to that. I can’t say I hadn’t been really into fiction when I was a teenager, and even a decade later I still have several shelves worth of classic fantasy and sci-fi literature.

Nowadays, most people use e-readers for their novels, but collecting literature in book form is something of a hobby. I think about a third of my collection is autographed or first editions.

Steve speaks up again and the murmuring ceases, “Sorry, that’s a bit of a loaded question, isn’t it? Maybe being an evil mastermind, or something less contentious would be more your speed. Point is, my wife has had a dream since she was a little girl. To be that hero. The villain. The humble fisherman doing his best to get by in a world of chaos and magic. Not because she wanted prestige. But because, and this is what convinced me to marry and support her…”

I lean forward, curious.

“There’s not a lot of wonder and mystery left in the world,” he announces, frowning, “The more we advance, the less there is to discover. There’s no romance in it anymore. And since building a rocket and fucking off into space isn’t what we’d call the greatest idea without a destination in mind. To a world we don’t know even exists, lightyears and generations away; We can only do as we always have. Make our own world. Our own adventures. Humanity might not be able to leave for the stars in our lifetimes, but what we can do is bring the stars to us.”

A couple of people gasp, my eyes widen as I begin to see where he’s going with this. The pieces of information I’ve gathered up until now forming an answer. Pill the Pseudo-Intelligence. The money, the experimental medical research and the power couple’s shared interest in video games and fictional realities.

Emboldened, Steve continues, “A few of you seem to understand what I mean already, but I’ll spell it out. We have successfully invented Virtual Reality. Not that headset and haptic glove nonsense of yesteryear. True VR, and the AI to run it.”

I can feel my eyes bulging, my heart rate soaring. They actually broke the singularity?

“You’re all here, to play a game that will put that question to you again: Given the chance, would you be a hero? A villain? Or something in between? Free to choose your own path in a world of magic, who would you become? Would you even change at all?” Steve pauses and looks at each of us intently. We all squirm a little under the scrutiny.

“This will be your chance to find out who you really are. And play the single most complicated and expensively produced RPG ever created. You are the last group we will be inviting before we move to commercial launch - people to whom we owe much of our success to. Your stories will shape the history of Project: Eden - Actual name pending - that future players will experience. At the moment, we don’t have the resources to make the game an MMO, and frankly, it’ll be decades before it goes into full swing, as the industry we’ve created expands and advancements are made. What we do have is a full experience. However, it is still a prototype - a precursor - of what’s to come.”

My mind is turning somersaults in overdrive, and my hands are shaking with excitement. This is amazing, truly, truly magnificent! The possibilities of this new technology are groundbreaking enough to herald a new age of humanity! The information age is dead, and Virtual Life is coming to take its place.

Steve claps his hands together, “Now, who wants breakfast? I’m starving.”

A team of catering staff in pristine white uniform files out to the tables carrying a variety of dishes to each of the attendees, including a glorious stack of 5 thick pancakes and a gravy boat with warm maple syrup for me, and what I’m pretty certain is a BLT sandwich for Steve, who has taken to sitting on the edge of the stage.

Everyone else has dispersed amongst the arranged tables, meaning I now have two people sat at my own table.

The first is a white woman with dyed red hair tied up in a bun eating a smoked kipper and salad wearing a frilly, bright yellow blouse, with a white corsage affixed to the left shoulder. Though intensely focussed on her food, the man sat opposite her manages to convince her to tell me her name - Alexis McDonnell - before she goes back to eating.

The man, African I think, introduces himself as an author I’ve heard of, Rhys Owusu. He wrote a fairly successful - if mostly forgotten - series of courtly intrigue-style novels inspired by old tribal politics. Apparently, Mr Jennings is a big fan of his work and set up a meeting with him about a decade ago to discuss it, then invited him out of the blue after years of silence yesterday. A literature nerd myself, I enjoy discussing recent trends in fiction with him as I eat when someone taps me on the shoulder.

Turning around I see Shirley standing behind me, tablet at the ready like some sort of honour guard, “Apologies for interrupting, but Mrs Jennings would like to speak with you now, Mr Lancaster. If you’d be so kind as to follow me…”

Surprised, I make to leave, but I still half of the pancakes left to eat. I hesitate to leave the greatest pancakes I’ve had in my life unfinished, but Shirley sighs, “You may take the pancakes with you, Mr Lancaster. Mrs Jennings will not be troubled, as she has stressed that this is to be a casual affair.”

I waste no time in gathering up the plate and cutlery in one hand and waving farewell to Rhys & Alexis with the other. Rhys smiles and returns the gesture, but I’m not convinced Alexis is even paying attention to the world beyond her plate. Not that I’m one to judge her, given my attachment to these pancakes.

Shirley leads me back behind the stage, and down a long glass corridor connecting to a second building, two stories tall, built similarly to the first. She presses a few buttons on a touchscreen panel next to the door at the end of the corridor and steps back, “Mr Lancaster, and his...pancakes, here to see you, ma’am.”

From the other end of the intercom, I can hear shuffling fabric that sounds suspiciously like someone getting out of bed, before a woman’s voice says, “Come in. I’ll be with you in a minute. Pill! Open the front door. Where did I lea-”

The audio feed cuts, and the door slides open with a quiet beep.

“The dining area is on your left. Mrs Jennings will join you there. Excuse me,” Shirley bows slightly, and heads back to the atrium.

Crossing the threshold, I step into what can only be described as someone’s home. By the door is a coat rack, with several dozen pairs of shoes and boots at the base. Directly ahead is a large open kitchen with several open boxes of cereal on the countertop and the cardboard remains of a Chinese take-out. On my left is a small dining area with tall chairs and a huge flat screen tv monitor flush with the rock wall. On my right is a staircase leading up to an overhanging second floor.

I take a seat in the dining area and get back to shovelling flapjacks down my throat. A voice from upstairs calls down when I’m about to put a forkful into my mouth, “Coming! Sorry about the wait.”

The owner of the voice, Sharon Jennings, a woman in her early fifties, descends the staircase quickly, blonde hair bouncing behind her in a trail. She, unlike her husband, has actually bothered to put respectable clothes on, a tailor-fit white shirt and black pants. I’ll just ignore that she called me here from her bedroom and didn’t get up until I was knocking on the metaphorical door.

Sharon Jennings. A world-renowned physicist, and principal creator of the Crystal physics engine that dominated the gaming market almost 30 years ago. She married her husband shortly after he bought her company. And that’s about the extent of my knowledge. I mostly know her as one of the pillars of my teenage years spent playing video games, a major influence on how I’ve grown as a person, albeit indirectly.

Mid-approach, Mrs Jennings stops, “Oh, those look delicious. Pill!”

“Confirmed,” responds a slightly too loud monotone voice.

“Ask the canteen to send in another stack of pancakes with some bacon, and a pot of coffee, please. Also, turn your voice down by two in the house.”

“Order received. Communicating...Orders given. Estimated time of arrival .”

Mrs Jennings nods, satisfied, then smiles apologetically at me, “Sorry, my stomach came before my manners. I’m Sharon, and I must say, Mr Lancaster, that I owe you a massive debt, which I’m sorry I couldn’t pay back sooner.”

She takes a seat across from me. My confusion must be a sight to behold because a second of looking directly at me makes her laugh heartily, “Sorry for sounding cryptic. I’m honestly glad to finally have a chance to talk to you. That thesis of yours has had wider ramifications than you probably ever realised. Honestly, I find myself curious why you’re a Mister and not a Doctor. I heard rumours, but nothing conclusive.”

I grimace, and shove another chunk of now cold pancake in my mouth and chew, thinking about how much I should really tell her. It’s not really something I’m all that proud of, and given my reputation, it’s often better to let that side of things stay buried.

“It’s...kind of embarrassing to talk about…” I say, carefully, “But to put it bluntly, I flunked out.”

Now it’s Mrs Jennings’ turn to be shocked, “You flunked out? A bright young mind like you?”

I decide to bite the bullet and tell her everything, “I’m not anywhere near as smart as my reputation would have you believe. The thesis that made me famous is something I threw together a couple days before the deadline after 13 shots of espresso. I figured I could convince my professor to let me try again if I handed something that looked reasonably finished in, so I just bullshitted about how the brain perceives the body for 280 pages. Pulled a bunch of articles off the internet for research. It was such a horrendous mess, my professor kicked me off the course for failing the task so hard. I was already on thin ice as it stood. It wasn’t until it was put under peer review that someone noticed something of value.”

I polish off the pancakes, “And the rest is history. Engineers and programmers had spent years trying to track down why robot prostheses had such a high rejection rate, and here I come along, a delirious college student jacked up on an unhealthy amount of caffeine, and unwittingly solve it without even meaning to. The idea that the brain perceives the entirety of the arm, not just the muscle and sensory input just never occurred to them. Once they started digging deeper into that line of thought, suddenly the bottleneck was broken. I didn’t even find out until almost year later when a reporter tracked me down to my shitty old apartment for an interview. I’ve been living quietly off the patent ever since.”

Mrs Jennings smiles, “I believe the term for that is serendipity, Mr Lancaster. And I do believe you are selling yourself short. Thanks to you, tens of thousands of people can walk comfortably again. We may not be in an age where true cyborgs roam the world, but even that is only a matter of time. If and when that happens, you will be the one people look back and remember, even if you're not the one who designed the technology. But more than that, you helped solve a very real problem we’d been struggling with.”

“You mentioned that. What did you mean?” I frown.

“You’re familiar with Phantom Limb Syndrome, yes? A part of your thesis mentioned it as evidence.”

“Melzack’s paper. I remember.”

“Well,” she tilts her head, “The main problem facing anyone trying to create a true VR experience is interrupting the connection between consciousness, perception, and body, then transplanting the ‘Self’ onto a second body without severing the connection with the original. We were able to simulate dreams in our early models for the system. The problem was that the subject wasn’t able to fully immerse in the Avatar construct, and in a number of cases, could feel both bodies simultaneously, which led to several instances of either sensory overload or disconnect.”

I grimace, trying to imagine what it would feel like to be stabbed in the arm in one body, whilst being perfectly fine - other than feeling an itch on your foot - in reality. The conflicting signals would play havoc with the brain’s ability to process information. They’d be feeling limbs that weren’t there, and those ‘limbs’ (really, an entire body) would cause immense discomfort, if not outright agony.

“I think I understand. In tricking the brain to accept prosthetic limbs as the original, you found a way to trick the brain into thinking that the real body wasn't there and the virtual construct was the real body. Then you completely disconnected the mind from reality without the brain even realising it was moved. A controlled coma, almost,” I say, after a minute of thought.

“See? You’re a smart cookie,” Mrs Jennings smirks, “You just figured out what took a team of thousands of doctorate holders 6 years and millions of dollars of funding in less than 5 minutes.”

I feel my face flush, unaccustomed to such high praise. Let alone from someone like her.

“Well, I admit I did lead you to the right answer, but I can’t help but regret not getting you onto the project back when we were still struggling with that. Obviously, it’s a lot more complicated than what you just hypothesised, but you’ve got the idea of it.”

“To be honest, it’s been years since I’ve even thought about any of this,” I say, leaning back into the chair, feeling oddly comfortable with the conversation. I'm reminded of debates with my old college roommate.

“Such a shame. But enough about the past for now. Let’s talk about the present.”

The front door opens again and in walks one of the chefs from before, a tall, moustached man, carrying a plastic tray with Mrs Jennings’ order.

“Ah, excellent. Thank you, Jimmy, they look perfect,” she smiles, getting up to take the tray off the man a good 4 inches taller than her.

He bows his head briefly, then promptly turns to leave with nary a word.

Taking her seat again, Mrs Jennings sets the tray down and picks up her knife and fork, “Although I’m reasonably confident you’ll accept, we’ve called you here to be the last people to test the game and technology before we release the patent and trailer, and start working on turning it into a commercial version. The game itself is complete, and we have a couple dozen machines ready to go. But creating and maintaining it all is a massive amount of capital, as well as space. It’ll be a number of years before we officially go to market, with a number of facilities similar to this one dotted around the world equipped with several hundred VR machines ready for extensive play sessions - at a rather hefty price tag I might add.”

She puts a bite of syrupy pancake in her mouth and moans a little, “Sho good..."

I raise an eyebrow.

"Uh, sorry," She apologises, sheepish, "I’ll be candid with you, Mr Lancaster, this is a passion project of mine. I’ve spent billions of my husband’s money bringing this dream into reality, and as popular as the finished product will be, it will never be able to recover the investment, even though our exact business model is still a work in progress. But that was never the point. I just want to bring a little wonder back into our lives. And Stevie is a bored man with entirely too much money on his hands. Neither of us will regret it, not at this point. We’ve talked to authors, architects, doctors, athletes, martial artists...all kinds. Talented, passionate people. But each and every one of them, when asked what they want from life has said essentially the same thing. ‘I want more.’”

I pour myself some coffee, and swirl the black tar around the cup, “I can get that. Humans are ever greedy. I want in. This is the sort of opportunity I’d have killed for as a teenager. Hell, I still might. Lots of people would, actually. Whether its a success or a failure, this is going to be a monumental time in history. That’s what I think.”

At this a complicated look forms on Mrs Jennings’ face, “I’d thank you not to joke about that. I’m-We’re already well aware of the lengths some people are going to go to have a taste of Project Eden’s apples. It’s not something I’m looking forward to.”

I nod, “Sorry. I’m not really known for my tact.”

She waves her fork at me, “Don’t worry about it.”

“So, what can you tell me about this game? I gather that it’s supposed to be a swords & sorcery RPG affair?”

“There’s a lot of information I can’t really give you. To begin with, I don’t fully understand the game myself. It’s curated and populated by dozens of AI of varying complexity in a persistent world. Even now, thousands of fictional characters, portrayed by AI are living out their lives in the game, in an ever-evolving world. We have hundreds of data banks going miles underground working constantly to maintain it. Our technicians work around the clock feeding gallons of liquid oxygen into the coolant system to keep the hill we’re on melting into a silicon volcano, and our private electrical grid can power New York for almost a week. The scale is truly monstrous, and the majority of our spending.”

Mrs Jennings takes a long draught of her coffee, then continues, “What I can tell you, is that yes, it’s a High Fantasy setting. The world is called Eden, and it is home to a number of different sentient species and a wide variety of monsters. There are 5 main continents, with about 100 different countries when I checked the logs a week ago, though that may have changed since then. It features an extensive, intuitive skill and class acquisition system. Performing specific actions, meeting certain conditions and so-on can get you new abilities that help define your character. As for your actual character themselves, they’ll be created from the ground up by you as a native of the land in an act of cosmic editing.”

She winks, “We won’t be doing that in the release version though. Players after launch will be in a different situation.”

“How so?” I ask.

“That would be spoilers, Mr Lancaster,” She grins.

I silently wonder why she even mentioned it in that case, then ask a couple of questions I’ve been sitting on since I heard this would be a game, “How do you handle player character death? How about the roleplaying aspect?”

“Assuming no interference from other people, death is permanent. You only get one shot with a character, so no Leroy-ing into a dragon’s mouth, alright?” She snickers, “As for the roleplaying? It’s mandatory. You can play as yourself if you wish, but only within the context of the world of Eden. Whatever your goals or actions, the world will react accordingly. Also, there is no easy way to tell whether you’re talking to another player or an NPC.”

“Understood. Sounds fine to me. Cheapening death is one of the fastest ways I know to destroy immersion and interest in a character,” I muse, “Though I must say I’m curious how you handle the player’s absence, in that case. I’m sure that prolonged play won’t be much of a problem, but what about after? What if they need to, just as an example, attend a funeral in real life? Do they just, I don’t know, vanish?”

“In your case, you will be ‘under’ for the full duration of your character’s lifetime - game time, just for the record, moves at several times that in reality. One of the things we’re testing for is the viability of such an approach, as well as the short and long-term effects on players - in essence, we want to know if it’s safe to let them stay the full time, or if we need to break it up. There’ll be a more official talk about all that later on when we hand out the next round of paperwork. In the event of an emergency, however, we will pause the simulation for you and wake up all the players in the session. It is, after all, still a computer program,” She finishes her plate.

“Having said that, when we expand the number of facilities and available machines, we will have to come up with a new solution.”

I scratch my chin, “When do we start?”

“Tomorrow.”