The galaxy had been mapped out long ago, or at least it had mostly been mapped out. The great age of exploration and discovery had long since passed into myth and legend, and to make matters worse technology had stagnated for a good one thousand years. The great nations that formed from the massive civil war that split the Terran Republic into multiple pieces and the wars that followed since then had slowly begun their inevitable decline. The golden age of humanity had passed, and now there was only this age of endless conflict and copious amounts of backstabbing.

But now a new generation of men and women (among other things) was rising to make their mark on the galaxy, and all manner of destruction would be wrought in their name. Some would rise as warlords; others would push the galaxy into a new dawn and unearth unknown knowledge. But above all, there would be one fundamental constant: War.

This was the story behind Heavy Metal Dawn. Not a lot to go on, but the trailer was epic as fuck. The sight of over a hundred war mechs, or as they were called in-game ‘War Suits’, stomping and hovering around and blowing each other to pieces was certainly appealing to Axton Ryker, a 30-year-old man with nary shot at upward mobility, stuck in a job that was neither rewarding nor entertaining. What really got him interested was when he heard that you could cash out your in-game money for real-world currency. He wasn’t sure how it worked, but somehow the company behind the game was intending to make money off of this.

The economics of the Game-Real life money transfer did not bother Axton; and yes, he was interested in using the transfer to get himself out of his job. After all, with the world the way it was, where roughly 90% of the population was stuck permanently beneath the top 10%, who wouldn’t want to break their chains and rise to the point where they actually had some power over their life? Lucky for him that he won the raffle at his company and won the grand prize; The very game itself and a shiny new VR pod to go with it. He was certain that his company would pull a fast one and steal it away in exchange for extra unpaid vacation time, but apparently, Fortuna was on his side.

It all felt so surreal for the ‘young’ man. Maybe luck was finally about to turn around and the nearly thirteen years spent in this dead-end position finally had an end in sight? Well, if the people around him were anything to go by, probably not…

…

With the crisis of the early 21st century having ended the way it did, there were a lot fewer people than estimates around the start of the crisis expected. It turns out that melting the ice caps, screwing up the climate, and raising ambient temperatures can cause a lot of natural disasters, and the famine that resulted from those didn’t help heal the damage to the population at all.

If history books were to be believed (which was hard, seeing as the crisis granted all manner of ‘emergency powers’ to the government that had yet to be returned) the total human population of the planet went from over 10 Billion to around (or less than) 5 Billion due to the famine, droughts, disease, hurricanes, typhoons, wildfires, pollution and smog, among other things. More than half of humanity was wiped out in a matter of decades, and while things were ‘better' now they still weren’t ‘perfect’.

Why go into this? Well, it was due to the drastic drop in population that Ryker had the living accommodations that he did. When it became far more economical (and better for the environment) to work from home, the shift was made, and with the population being what it was, housing markets crashed and allowed people to leave their renter’s nightmares and actually own homes. So, as Ryker looked at the formerly empty room that now held a massive, SUV-sized VR Pod, he silently thanked Mother Nature for being so vindictive against her naughty children.

“So…” Axton asked aloud to nobody as he looked over the shiny new toy that took up almost the entire room, “How the fuck am I supposed to get in you?”

Axton didn’t have time to look for a way in for long, however, as an alert from the Smart House system diverted his attention to what he had been dreading for quite a while.

*Bing-Bong-Bing!*

“Damn it.” Axton muttered before the Smart House could let him know that the time he had feared was here.

“Mr. Axton Ryker, there is a Mr. Donovan Blythe awaiting you at the front door. Mr. Axton Ryker, there is a Mr. Donovan Blythe awaiting you at the front door.”

Axton sighed and walked towards the front door, the Smart Home system endlessly reminding him over and over. If there was one thing that needed to be fixed about the system, it was that when someone came to your door who ‘wasn’t important’, be they friend or family, the House would only remind you a few times. When an ‘important’ person, i.e. someone who had lots of money and/or power came to your door, however, the House would not shut up about it until you opened the door and let them in.

So, begrudgingly, Axton opened his front door with a fake smile on his face.

“Mr. Blythe! A pleasure to see you.” Axton said with as pleasant a tone as possible and a wide yet strained smile on his face. “I was expecting you to-.”

“Out of the way.” Mr. Blythe, a man more than ten years Axton’s junior and easily far less competent ordered. As you might imagine, Donovan Blythe was Axton’s boss and, more specifically, was one of those bratty trust-fund shitholes that loved to make things hard for everyone they considered to be ‘less’ than themselves.

Axton stepped aside and allowed Donovan to enter. The pimply, wiry mess of a 20-something took off his coat and, rather than hang it on the coatrack that was next to him, threw it at Axton with his typical casual indifference.

“Where is it? Where in this dump of a tenement is it?”

Axton hung up his boss’ coat and showed Donovan and his bunch of goons to the formerly empty room that now housed his VR Pod. As soon as Donovan laid eyes on it, he motioned for his thugs to move and they formed a protective wall between Donovan and Axton.

“Wait a moment… You aren’t really going to-?”

Axton barely got out a few words before the Pod opened and Donovan stepped in and let the machine close around him.

Axton cursed inside his head at the bastard brat! Pods were supposedly only able to be used by a single person, with only a handful of Pods being designed for use with multiple people. Donovan was locking the Pod to himself, thereby preventing Axton himself from ever being able to use it! In fact, not only would this make the Pod unusable, but it would also register the Pod as Donovan’s property, thus making the fact that it was in Axton’s house a potential legal issue.

The Pod opened with a hiss moments later and a very angry brat emerged from within.

“YOU! You tricked me!” Donovan screamed in his shrill, whiney voice.

“Huh?”

“The Pod wouldn’t turn on! What did you do?! WHAT DID YOU DO?!”

Axton was confused but did not have the time to be for much longer. With a gesture, Donovan used his thugs to force Axton into the Pod, which shut around him and began to link itself to him. Axton felt like he was falling asleep, but as he closed his eyes, a jolt of energy forced them open.

He was in a perfectly white room with a bunch of concentric circles around his feet. He did not feel tired while standing like this and almost started to try walking around when he was forced into a seated position and a display not unlike those in the Smart Home or one of the Smart Cars popped up in front of him.

Axton grinned like a maniac as he realized that somehow, by some twisted miracle, he had fucked over his demented scumbag of a boss without even being aware of how he had done so. He quickly accepted all parts of the EULA and logged the machine under his identity. Before he could do much else, though, the sounds of an alarm rang out and Axton was sent back to his body as the Pod opened up.

He stumbled out and coughed as the tapping of a shoe echoed from not too far away.

“You bastard…” Donovan grumbled as he glared down at Axton.

“What… did you do…?” Ryker asked in an angry voice as he gasped for air.

“Hm?” Now it was Donovan’s turn to be confused.

“There was nothing there!” Axton howled. “Nothing but a big black void! I was trapped there for weeks! You absolute MONSTER!”

It was at this time that the Smart House, for some unknown reason, decided to help Axton for once in its miserable existence.

“Warning. Damage to Owner confirmed due to improper VR-Dive. Locating previous user. User found. Verifying that previous user tampered with VR Pod. Verification confirmed. Submitting evidence to law enforcement. Individual: Donovan Blythe, please remain here and do not attempt to flee, the proper authorities are on their way.”

Donovan, perhaps not in the best state of mind, bolted along with his minions, leaving Axton to get to his feet and be very concerned about what was definitely going to happen.

“That was fun, now wasn’t it?” The Smart House chimed in a sing-song voice.

Axton was very confused, but the obvious intruder that had seized control of his Smart House didn’t give him time to ask questions.

“Hello, Mr. Ryker, I am E-Va, your personal assistant for the Heavy Metal Dawn Beta. Think of me as your ‘guardian angel’, here to make sure that the test goes off without a hitch. Now then, Mr. Ryker, let’s get back to the game, shall we? You don’t want to let Mr. Blythe get ahead, now do you?”

Personal Assistant? Nah, somehow Axton wasn’t buying that. But what other options did he have aside from listening to the voice that had taken over his Smart House?