I came around slowly. My head swam and it was hard to focus my thoughts. The air was stale, clean with a whiff of chemicals. I pieced together voices.

“He should really be restrained, doctor. The policy-” Whining, supplicant.

“It’s fine. He couldn't hurt a fly.” The voice was cold and businesslike. “Go wait by the door.”

I turned to the closer voice and forced my eyes open. The man was older, hair more salt than pepper. He wore a doctor’s coat and blue collared shirt.

“Ah, you're awake,” he said with an easy smile. “Hold still just a moment. There’s a good chap,” he said in a calming baritone.

“Where am I?” I managed to struggle out. It was hard to think straight.

“This is the onsite clinic, I’m Dr. Hide,” he said, pulling a needle from my arm and replacing it with a cotton ball. “Hold this for me?”

Still confused, I did and looked at the friendly old man. “What happened? I was fighting...”

“You sure were,” he laughed. He took the needle, a blood sample, and placed it carefully in a rack. “Turns out that berserk potion was a little too strong for you. Your heart couldn’t take it.” He flashed me a grin. “Sure put the fear of God into those parasites before you went though.”

“If I died, why didn’t I respawn in the church?” My head felt thick. I was missing something obvious.

“Oh, Inquisitor George Silver didn’t die, you” -he checked a chart at the end of my bed- “William Trapper, did.”

I stared at him.

“Not for very long,” he reassured. “We got your heart restarted in just a few seconds. Still had to sedate and pull you out for a full medical exam.”

It finally clicked. I was in the real world. I blamed the drugs for it taking so long. The recycled air, the pristine room, the modern clothes. I looked down at my own clothes, a patient gown.

“You really shouldn't be talking to him.” I had forgotten there was someone else in the room. This man was younger, dressed like a security guard. He nervously fingered a baton. My eyes caught on the sleek pistol strapped in its holster.

A gun? The sight sent a chill down my spine. Were we even in England anymore? How did a civilian company get its hands on firearms? Could I get it from him? Escape? My body felt wrung out. I doubted I could overpowered the doctor, let alone both men.

“If you have a problem with it, go take it up with Axeton!” Dr. Hide’s voice shocked me back into paying attention. “I’m not going to pass up an opportunity for an interview for that man’s silly games.”

The security guard looked troubled, but didn’t leave.

“Interview?” I asked.

“Yes,” the doctor wheeled on me, all smiles again. “It would be a great help to have first hand accounts of the memory implantation process.” He took out a clipboard. “Tell me, when you first took your starting proficiencies, did you notice any change to your memories?”

“What? No,” I said, struggling to keep up.

“Good, good.” He scribbled down a note.

“How could the berserk potion have stopped my heart? My real heart I mean.”

Dr. Hide took the change in topic in stride. “Oh the drugs are very real. The pain and maiming is simulated, we purchased the code from some Polish startup, but nobody has made good drug simulations yet. The hope is to get enough data from these tests to give our developers a leg up.”

“You really inject us with drugs every time we take something in the game?” I asked, incredulous.

“Of course not!” Dr. Hide laughed. “That would take forever. I’d never get anything done. No, it’s all automated. The game sends messages to the immersion pod system, the system injects you with whatever is needed.”

“And the poisons?” I asked with growing horror.

“There is nothing in the game we don’t have the proper anti-venoms, treatments, and detox procedures for.”

I stared at him. We were all one minor bug away from a painful death. An infinite loop, a transposed decimal, or a deleted database and my life as a tester would end as nothing more than an incident report.

“It’s not as bad as all that,” he said, seeing me face. “We have a state of the art medical facility and 24/7 vitals surveillance. You’re safer here than you were commuting from home.”

“And when one of us dies? When something goes wrong and you can’t fix it?”

Dr Hide sighed. “If that happens, then the news hears about a tragic death. An Axeton studios employee suffered an extreme allergic reaction and didn’t make it to the hospital in time. The autopsy gets waived, life insurance paid out, and everyone forgets about it within a week.

“But it’s not going to happen. Like I said, top of the line medical facility. The odds of a tester dying is far less than the common citizen. You’re actually safer in here than you would be out there.”

“But we are still being held against our will. Axeton kidnapped us.”

“And you’re getting paid twenty percent over the going rate for testers. Look, can we just move on? What did it feel like when you first took the shamshir proficiency? Did you notice a metallic taste in your mouth?”

“You’re torturing us! Holding us captive. Exposing us to drugs and atrocities. Do you know what it feels like to have your arm torn off?” I was yelling. The security guard shifted, fingering his baton.

“It’s not like you’ll remember any of it,” Dr. Hide snapped. “This time next year, you’ll be working some other job and this will all just be a pleasant haze. Hell, you’ll miss working here. What does a little pain now matter if it doesn’t even affect your future life? People get surgeries all the time. It might be unpleasant during, but they are better off for it in the long run. The testers won’t even have that level of bad memories.”

“But we are still losing chunks of our lives,” I said, intimidated despite myself.

“For which you are adequately compensated,” he countered. The doctor sighed with exasperation. “Don’t you get that this is bigger than you? Bigger than the drugs, the testers, and Axeton’s stupid Victoria Online?” he said the name with spite.

“This technology is going to revolutionize the world! Think of the military applications. Hell, think of the implications for our schooling system. No more antiquated teachers and rote memorization. We’ll pay to scan the world’s greatest minds. PhDs will take weeks instead of years. Researchers will have dozens of years of experience before even starting field work.

“The ability to implant memories is the most important step in human advancement since learning to harness fire! Scientific advancement will grow exponentially in every field.”

I stared at the raving man. He was insane, completely bonkers. “Why even bother with the game then?” I asked. “Why not study memory implantation full time? This can’t be the most efficient way.”

“Not even close,” Dr. Hide said, calming down. He sat down on a stool, deflating back into his friendly self. “But Axeton bought the patent for the technology. I’m just a doctor and he’s the one that signs the checks.

“I told him that this would change the future, but he is too narrow minded. Obsessed with making ‘perfect’ videogames,” he said, making finger quotes. “He wants full immersion to mean more than just virtual reality. Not good enough to play a character, he wants gamers to be the character.”

“How?” I said, not understanding what that even meant.

“Complete set of fake memories. Is there a difference between you having the memories of Inquisitor Silver and being him? Of course, the technology’s not there yet. The implanting is easy, the brain adds memories greedily. Suppressing the existing personality is the issue. Suppress a week of memories? Easy. Two weeks? No problem. A month? Maybe. But twenty years? Thirty?”

Dr. Hide ran a hand through his hair. “It’s a waste of time. We could be out there changing the world, but I am relegated to the scraps.”

“Look, let’s go through a full interview later ok? You have the Decoction Killer cornered. Can’t be too much longer before you finish your main quest. We can spend your exit interview going over how the implanted memories felt and how the process could be improved. Your preliminary tests came back fine, so I am sending you back into the game. We’ll run a couple more blood tests just to be sure, but there’s no reason to keep you here.”

“Doctor, we have to wipe his memory before he can go back in,” the security guard said.

“So I can have this whole bloody conversation again tomorrow?” Dr. Hide scoffed. “Screw that. Axeton may pay the bills, but I’m the only one that makes all this work. I call the shots when it comes to medical choices.”

“And if I say I’m not going back?” I asked, feeling angry.

“Like you have a choice, Inquisitor,” Dr. Hide said lazily as he pushed a button next to the bed.

I noticed a small box attached to my upper arm for the first time as it vibrated. It made a quiet whirring sound and cold flowed into my veins. The chill spread quickly, threatening to overwhelm me.

“Oh, and don’t forget to check your quest log,” Dr. Hide said as my head sank into the pillow.

“You can’t tell him that!” the security guard whined.

“Go pull the other one!” the doctor snapped back, exasperated.

The cold closed in.