ENTER

C4 - Avatar

“James, what are you doing?” Emce wants to know as he can see through his Avatar that an Avatar is walking towards them and figures it can only be James.

“I want to see thing up close,” James says.

“Are you nuts? You will expose us,” Emce says.

“There is an old broken Avatar over there if you want to check it out,” Emily points out.

“Just hurry up, it is almost time,” Emce says.

“Almost time for what?” James asks as he walks over to the broken Avatar.

“In a couple of moments, aliens will come from where our Avatars are, trying to cross over to this bridge to get to the planet's civilians.  Did you think we are just hiding out, waiting the time over?” Emce says, laughing.

“No,” James says.

James kicks the Avatar before bending down to have a closer look at it.

“Why does it look like a human can control it from inside?” James asks as he notices that inside the broken Avatar is space for a person to sit in and that the headspace looks like a helmet.

James notices movement on his VR glasses and realizes it is time to fight.

As he presses the first button on his controller for his Avatar to lift its arms and fire at the drone-looking objects approaching, his VR glasses go from half view to full Avatar view.

“This looks just like the game,” James says, talking to himself.

After shooting a couple of drones down, James notices bigger flying objects approaching and follows the lead of the others and shoots at it.

James starts to realize that every time after shoots down flying objects, bigger objects stake their place, leaving James with not time to explore his new environment.

James watched as the Avatars of other players gets shot down by the flying objects and then moments later new Avatars came on, into the scene.

“Take your Avatar to safety,” the AI voice instructs.

“But the battle is not over,” James objects.

“James, let's go, time is up!” James hears Emce call out to him.  James's VR glasses have gone to half screen and as he tries to aim and shoot with his Avatar, he realizes he is no longer connected.

James's VR screen goes clear, and he can see his own surroundings and no longer that of the Avatar.  James makes his way over to Emce, noticing that there are quite a few gamers that have joined since he started this morning.

“I can not believe then hours went by so quick,” James says when he catches up with Emce.

“Tell me about it,” Emce says.

“Stand still!” Emily whispers loudly, looking at the alien warships approaching.

James looks over at the broken-down Avatar and wonders if he can make a dash for the gun that is attached to it. ‘Does it work?’ James wonders.

“Don’t think about it, it won’t work,” Emce says.

“Just stay still, they only register DNA strands and as long as we don’t touch someone from this planet while one of these is in sight, they can’t pick up our DNA.  Unlike our planet that has about three hundred and twenty-four million different DNA variants, there are only nineteen left on this planet,” Emily says.

The flying drone-looking object has three camera-looking eyes on all sides and hovers from one person to the other.

“If it can not see us, why do we have to stand sill?” James whispers, filled with fear, his heart pounding louder than his breathing.

“It has connected the VR and the controller with the DNA of this planet. If you make big movements it might attack,” Emce says.

James realizes that the flying object is alive, he can see pulsing veins running all over it, it is hovering so close to his face.  One of the players that are still on duty has managed to bring his Avatar closer to them so that he can shoot the creature down.  Normally don’t bring their Avatars so close as to keep their hiding spot close.  But right now, the player knows if the creature gets away they won't be able to return to this spot.

The creature spotted the Avatar and chase after it, shooting at it.  The player controlling the Avatar manages to run it away from them until his connection to the Avatar is lost due to the distance between them. 

“What the f**k is that?!  It is alive! It is not just a machine!” James points out in shock.

“It is some sort of AI machine and organism,” Emily says while they make their way off the battlefield, towards a white large cube.

James realized that that is where he came on to the battlefield, not having looked behind him after the black wall opened this morning.

James, Emce, and Emily stand in front of the cube and it opens up revealing darkness.

“Do I need to hold your hand again?” Emily jokes.

“You are not funny,” James says.

Back inside the large room, they make their way over to the elevators.

“See you outside,” Emce says before he goes into an elevator.

Emily winks at James before stepping into her elevator.  James looks at a guy getting out of the elevator that walks straight to the opposite wall and without hesitation steps into the darkness.  ‘He must be doing it for a long time,’ James thinks as he gets into the elevator.

Once back in the white room James noticed the clothing bag where he left it.  After putting his clothing back on, without warning the bright white light comes and when James opens his eyes he is back in the colorful lit room.  James stands in front of a wall, and as expected it opens up.

James meets Emce and Emily outside. 

“How was that for a first day?” Emily asks, smiling.

“It went by too quick,” James says.

“I shot down one hundred and fifty-one intruders,” Emce says smiling.