Chapter 6

John invited a second guest on to the stage, a man with the title Chief Immersion Officer. This guy was apparently in charge of the game and started to explain the specifics.

Nathan lost focus and started to reconsider the vodka. He had almost managed to convince himself that drinking it would be for the best when the doorbell rang. He ignored it, as he always did when he hadn’t made an order. After all, he didn’t generally like people, and specifically not visitors. And, since he didn’t live in the best neighborhood, it was also just common sense. Still, the doorbell kept ringing. After a while, it changed to knocking. And then, yelling.

“Mr. Nobel, I know you are home. Could you open the door please?” someone said outside.

“Go away, I’m not buying anything!”

“You haven’t even heard what I am selling, Mr. Nobel. Besides, why would you turn away an old friend?”

“I don’t have any friends,” replied Nathan, although the voice did sound oddly familiar.

“Will you just open the door? I will not go away until you do, so you might as well get it over with.”

“Yeah, yeah. Since you insist.” He muted the TV, wheeled over to the door, removed the deadlock, and opened the door. He then looked at the TV, and then back at his visitor.

“Thank you,” said John Moon.

He didn’t have on the same suit as he used on the talk show, but besides that, he looked like he just walked off the stage. There was a second guy two steps behind him, and Nathan could also see a third over by an expensive-looking car by the road. They were dressed more or less the same as John but had an entirely different vibe. A vibe that said these guys didn’t mess around.

“May I come in?” said John after a short while.

“Ah, sure. Please”, said Nathan. He pushed the door open and rolled back a bit to allow John entrance. “Can I get you and your buddy something to drink? I think I have some soda and… vodka”.

“No thanks. Besides, my ‘buddy’ will not join us.” He stepped in, closed the door, and sat down on the couch. “So, how are you, Jonathan? May I call you Jonathan?”

“Jonathan? Not many calling me that these days. I guess you’ve been reading up on me?”

John laughed. “Busted. After the incident in Africa, I did a little research on your whole team, and you in particular. I like to know the people I owe. I tried to reach out through some contacts -several times actually- but I got the distinct impression that you weren’t interested to talk with me, so I stopped.”

“Yeah, I’m not a big fan of social calls. Still, though, I appreciate you paying my medical bills. It’s funny, I always thought my insurance would be good since I kind of worked for an insurance company and all. But they washed their hands of me quick enough when I couldn’t do anything for them, anymore.” He stopped to think. “Actually, now that I say it out loud it doesn’t really sound that funny. Anyway, I guess I’m trying to say thanks. I owe you. Could you pass the vodka?”

“No, no! I owe you,” John said sincerely while ignoring the vodka request. “Paying the bills was the least I could do. I can do more – I will do more. But first, let me say thank you. Thank you for saving my life.”

Nathan waived it away. “Don’t mention it. Anytime.”

“It’s not something to just waive away. It cost you your legs! That’s a sacrifice I’m not sure if I ever can repay.”

“Yeah. To be honest, if I’d known I would end up like this, I’d probably have left you. No offense, but I always thought that all I would lose was my life. I guess I kind of did, depending on how you look at it. So yeah… It is what it is. Anyway, don’t you live across the pond? Why are you in London?”

John smiled friendly. “I’m here to visit you. So, back to my original question; How are you?”

“Cut the bullshit. You found me here. Probably had your boys check me out beforehand. You know how I am. I’m half the man I used to be, figuratively. I didn’t have a lot of skills -things I could do- even before, and now… now, this is what my life has become,” he said angrily while indicating the wheelchair, but also perhaps subconsciously including the bottle of booze. “Why are you even here, John? To remind me of better days?”

“It hurts me more than you know to see you like this,” John said quietly. “I owe you a debt, but I didn’t want to intrude before I had a way to repay it. I think I have found a way, although in truth it is just as much a favor to me. I have a job for you, something I think you are uniquely qualified for.”

Nathan started laughing. “Yeah? Ok, I’ll bite. What have you got for me?”

“First, how much of this did you watch?” John said nodding towards the TV where the end credits of the talk show were rolling across the screen.

“Just your part. I turned it on because I saw your face. Didn’t hear a word that Dave follow said.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Dave Johnsen, great guy. What he has done is no less impressive than what I have done. Have you seen or read any other news lately? Immersion Inc. and Immersion Online have been mentioned all over.”

Nathan shucked his head. “Sorry, no. Don’t care much about the news these days.”

“Ok, at least you know the basics. That will save us some time, but I’ll have to add some background info first.” John stood up and paced around the room.

“Since you caught the basics of the technology, I’ll focus on game; Immersion Online. It’s a fully interactive game, or a simulation if you will, taking place in a futuristic but also post-apocalyptic fantasy world. It’s a roleplaying game, but we are aiming to be a little more realistic than your standard game. We have areas for a lot of different activities like racing, socializing, puzzle-solving, and so on, but we expect that combat will be the most popular activity, so that’s what we have focused on. Does any of this make any sense?”

“Sure. I’m not a big gamer these days, but I played quite a lot of games in my youth. I don’t see what this has to do with me, though?”

“I’ll get there. As I mentioned in the interview, the game will be very expensive, at least initially. We expect a low number of people will try it immediately, but we are confident more will join in when they see the actual value in the game. We hope that the more common the pods become, the easier it will be to get approval for our other services.

“To encourage this,” John continued,” we need to find a way to create enthusiasm in the population who cannot initially afford to play, but who might be able to invest in the game given time. We want the game to be a global phenomenon and be a topic in daily household discussions. We need to show them what they are missing. Now, what do you think the best way to do this is?”

Nathan pondered the question for a bit but didn’t care enough to spend too much time on it. “I don’t know, but I expect you are gone tell me?”

“Traditionally the best way to spread the word about a new game is through blogs, vlogs, or ‘Let’s play’s’. Let the audience get a taste of the excitement, even though they are not playing themselves,” John said ignoring Nathan. “But there is the problem, as I am sure you can see. In VR games – or at least not in our VR game – there is no way for the consumer to record or broadcast their game session.”

“Hang on,” interrupted Nathan. “You do have the signals you are sending to the pod, right? Couldn’t you just also send them to a screen next to the pod. Or the visual signals at least?”

“Ah, no.” John stopped his pacing and looked into the air for a second. “I am afraid that is not technically possible. The long answer as to why is... too long. The short answer is that the signals have to be interpreted by your brain before they become... visual. As an example, if we send you a signal saying that you see a brick wall, we don’t specify every detail of how that brick wall actually looks. We just send the basics and let your brain add in the blanks. This means that the brick wall you see doesn’t necessarily match the same brick wall seen by someone else. Your visual output is colored by prior experience with brick walls, and indeed your imagination. But broadly speaking it will be the same. If we hadn’t done it this way, the amount of data we would need to send would be so enormous that...

“That is a trade secret, by the way, so please don’t repeat that to someone else,” John inserted, suddenly serious. “I should probably have had you sign an NDA,” he muttered quietly.

“Sure. Trade secret. I’ll keep it to myself,” Nathan acknowledged. “Still, I’m not seeing my part in this?”

John sighed half-seriously. “You are an impatient man, you know that? You got somewhere to be, perhaps? Things to do? No? I didn’t think so. So, where was I? Right.”

“We have developed a unique method”, John continued,” which does let us try to render whatever happens in the game into a video. It is based on the sense imprint from one or more players but doesn’t need to be from the players' point of view. In fact, it renders a 3D world that the ‘camera’ can then float around in however we choose. It is truly amazing, and in the long term, we believe it will take over all major movie production. Imagine, you can create whatever sets, scenes, and actors you need. No need for locations or extras. But I digress.

“My point is, we are planning to create a daily series following the hopefully action-filled adventures of a player, without the use of any purchased advantages besides the normal subscription fee. We intend the show to be around an hour and only include the most exciting events. We will distribute the show through our website so that it will be available around the world. There will be some advertisements and such, but not too much as the most important exposure we want is for the game. Which brings me to your part. I cannot think of a better player to follow than you, and personally I would be thrilled to see how you would fare in our world. I want you to be our poster boy, so to speak.”

Nathan had started to pay a bit more attention during the end of John’s explanation, but he still couldn’t quite take in everything. He stared a bit at John before he ended up echoing him. “You want me to be your poster boy?”

“Yes, exactly”, John exclaimed. “It would be very interesting to see how your real-world skills translate to our world. I think you are the perfect candidate.”

Nathan was confused. “How would this even work? I don’t have room for any pods here, and besides, I’m not really in any shape to do anything physical. I mean, when would I even start? Is there an onboarding?”

“We have several apartments close to our headquarter, comparable to large hotel suites. They are being prepared for virtual streaming as we speak. If you agree, one of them will be customized for your use. As we do expect you to spend most of the time in Immersion Online, we would strongly prefer you to live there, both for convenience and security. We will also provide an assistant that will help you in your daily life, and you will of course be generously compensated. Your shape, or lack thereof, will not impact your virtual self, so that is a non-issue. There will be a medical, though, as we need to check for preexisting brain damage and such. Standard stuff. No onboarding or explanation. We prefer you going in blind, as we do not want to give you an advantage compared to other players. Consider it a test of the in-game guiding. As for when... I admit we are in somewhat of a rush. This was a last-minute idea, and the game launches in-” John looked at his expensive-looking watch, “-76 hours. We have a private jet ready.”

Nathan started laughing and after a while, John joined in. Seconds later Nathan was so out of breath that he had to stop. He wiped away a few tears with the back of his hand and eventually managed to collect himself.

“Let me get this straight,” he wheezed,” you came all this way – even brought your two buddies outside along for the ride – just to give me the opportunity to play your game?”

“No, Jonathan,” he replied sadly while smiling. “I came all this way because I wanted to start repaying my debt to you. Play my game? No, you are thinking too small. I am giving you the opportunity to walk again.”