Multiverse

Prologue

5th November 2025

Finally, it was completed. His life's work, all his time, energy and effort was put into this project. As he wired in the motherboard, he felt glorious. This was the turning point of gaming, the point where the future will come to the present. This piece of fantastic equipment possessed technology that won't be there even for another century.

The "Multiverse" was a pure virtual reality game, but there is one single difference. It is more genuine than virtual. It accompanies the player into the game. Inside this modern game is a whole new universe. Everything is lifelike. The sole difference from the concrete world is that the player has two lives. If the player gets injured or dies in the game two times, the outcome could be fatal.

But still, this game is quite vulnerable and could easily get affected by any virus strong enough to penetrate its weak security system. So he had to keep it safe. If anyone exposed it to any sort of harmful network, all his life's work would be washed away.

He carefully put the Multiverse into his briefcase. He had to meet someone with a lot of money and power. The Multiverse's security systems are critical to its development, and they require some rare and valuable equipment to be upgraded. And he knew just the person.

He trudged forward towards his jet black Toyota Axio and carefully secured the briefcase on the seat next to him. As he walked carefully toward the door, he noticed that the ground was wet. It had rained sometime before. He got into his car and started it, the engine hummed to life, and he sped towards the city, from where he would follow the highway. The road shone in the moonlight as he raced forwards, his speed increasing by the second.

The speedometer reached eighty when he felt the car sliding from side to side. As one of the smartest people in the world, he knew that water was a lubricant, which could make the tyres skid at any moment, but he shrugged that thought off and regretted it when his car skidded.

The car crashed into the barrier that divided the road into two, flew over it, toppled down the road and screeched to a halt, upside down. Ben Tyler hung upside down, strapped onto his seat by the seat belt. His head was critically injured and he was bleeding.

The briefcase, however, surprisingly had not been damaged by the crash. It lied on the roof of the car. Using his last reserve of energy, he pulled the briefcase towards him and unlocked two of the three locks in it, but his life was quickly sucked out of him. As his hand reached for the third lock, it fell onto the floor, limp. He stared at his masterpiece, unblinking. It was quite apparent.

He was dead.