V-World
Perry had just taken the hugest toke off the J when his mother knocked on his door.
“Perry! Are you decent? Can I come in?”
His computer chair squeaked under the strain of his corpulent frame as he leaned across the desk to snuff the joint hurriedly in an ashtray. He gave the ashtray a quick shove to send it sliding under an alcove of the desk.
“No, ma!” he shouted, releasing a copious amount of smoke into his own face. He fanned at the smoke with his hand while fighting the urge to cough so hard that his eyes teared up.
“I thought you were going out to look for work,” his mother called through the door.
“I'm looking online,” he shouted hoarsely, “it's more efficient.”
“Finding anything?”
“I'm just getting started!” he yelled. 'Jeeze, he thought, she's really on the rampage!'
It was probably because of the money he had just borrowed, he reflected, but he couldn't very well help that; the new game had been rather expensive. Not that she knew what the money was for. He was always very creative about the reasons he needed money. He had told her he needed a tune up for his car, this time.
It didn't matter the reason, though, she still had a row whenever he borrowed money.
‘Lives on a fixed income’, she says. Shit, she collects social security, doesn't do anything for the money. Not like she works, or anything. Still, it takes money away from her pissing it off on the lotto so she has a holy cow over it.
Perry reached over and retrieved the ashtray. Time to get his mind back on the event of the day. He certainly hoped that Jonathan was right about the new game, (and Jonathan usually was.)
He finished off the joint and reached under the desk to get the box. He opened it and took stock. First he looked over the interface device. It was beautiful. He had never seen one quite like it. He had been playing online games since he was twelve and was especially into virtual reality environments like 2nd Life.
When he had first started, they had used avatars that had little bubbles that showed what you wanted to say but the technology had gotten a lot better in the last few years and now the new interface devices let you get the experience of really being there inside the virtual body you created.
Everyone was talking about V-World; that it was the bomb. The interface for V-World looked like a black hockey mask with a black visor in a silver frame. It had several leads that plugged into a black box which, in turn, went into the computer via a couple of U.S.B.s.
He scanned the manual, which looked pretty standard. It said to install the program first before hooking up the hardware so he tossed the disk into the drive.
After it was installed he hooked up the interface and logged in. It asked for a credit card; they were going to charge a monthly fee.
'Shit!' Perry thought, and got a piece of paper out of the drawer that had his mother's credit card number on it.
He went through the rest of the drill and was finally prompted to put on his interface.
'Yes!' he thought as he leaned back in his chair. The view inside was completely dark and then a gif of a green loading bar appeared and it said;
'LOADING. PLEASE WAIT.'
Perry waited.
Then a two dimensional picture showed up. It looked like a dark alley with some broken down doors and a few signs over them.
'What is this bullshit?,' Perry thought, 'this better not be some bullshit program, man.'
He had certainly paid enough for the frickin' program and he was already picturing how he was gonna take it back and shove it up that goddamn Chinaman's ass, if it turned out to be friggin' bullshit. It was strange that none of the big retailers carried V-World, just these little out of the way computer stores. It was like you needed a personal invite just to buy the fucking thing, or something.
There was movement on the inner screen. The video was taking him into a door that had a sign that read;
“BODY SHOP.”
'Oh yeah,' he thought, 'we haven't picked out an avatar.'
Inside the shop was a fairly impressive array of bodies, even though quite a number were obviously just variations on the same model. It was kind of bogus that you couldn't mix and match body parts to come up with your own. As if reading his thoughts, the scene was interrupted by a field that said;
“WOULD YOU LIKE TO UPGRADE TO 'CUSTOM BODY SHOP?'”
I don't think so, wasn't born yesterday, thank you very much.
The screen returned Perry to the Body Shop where he finally picked out a muscular punk with a huge purple mo-hawk, tattoos and studs everywhere. There was an accessories section and Perry selected a few puny knives and some lame martial arts throwing stars.
'I suppose you have to upgrade to get a fucking handgun,' he thought.
“WOULD YOU LIKE TO UPGRADE TO AUTOMATIC AND ARMOUR PIERCING WEAPONS?”
Jesus, what kind of place was V-World?
“STAND BY FOR INTERFACE ACTIVATION.”
The screen went black and Perry thought he heard a low humming which was followed by a weightless sensation. He opened his eyes and caught his breath. He seemed to be getting a hormonal rush from the body he was in. It was positively invigorating. He felt like committing some senseless violence and drilling a ho or two.
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