Other than the obvious, I didn’t look all that different as a guy. Still stocky, with a slightly different ratio of muscle to fat. My lips were thinner. I suppose the game was minimising the differences, since it could hardly know for sure what I’d look like with different chromosomes.
I was curious enough to flip to [Neutral], and blink at a Taia who was entirely smooth across the chest and between the legs. There were a few more differences: a subtle elongation caused by a completely up-and-down figure, and an ambiguity to the features. The way neither hips nor shoulders had any hint of broadening gave the model the appearance of a lanky pre-teen. I didn’t dislike the look, but it didn’t feel like me, and my synch rating agreed with that response.
Core Unit Synchronisation
63%
[Custom] opened up a whole series of new sub-menus allowing for combination characteristics and more complex variations. I only glanced at them before resetting again, too aware of time passing. Even though Dream Speed had taken the world unawares by unlocking early, the first day zerg was sure to be mad, and despite me and crowds being a thing, I still wanted to be there for it.
How to hit on some life-affirming revelation of who I really truly deeply was? If there was a Taia more Taia than Taia, I didn’t know what that involved. But I still wanted longer legs.
Settling down to small changes, I kept an eye on the synchronisation score with every adjustment, and drew back if it dropped. Two extra inches of leg made no difference, but any more saw a significant percentage loss. A touch of eyeliner, a more even skin-tone, and some perma-waxing didn’t budge the score at all. A few faint adjustments to waist and hip gave me a less stocky outline, but I definitely couldn’t turn myself into a sylph without losing points. Muscle definition even increased my score, reminding me I still missed my high school track days. I kept my short hair, but gave it a more manageable texture and, finally, a dark blue streak spiking from my temple.
Core Unit Synchronisation
91%
"That’s going to have to do it," I said—or thought—and immediately my camera view moved back away from my Taia 2.0.
Player Name:
Taia de Haas
Enter Core Unit Name:
"Core Unit Name?"
The Player Name is
not publically accessible.
Core Unit Names are visible
to other players at default settings.
"So people will be able to see my Core Unit Name when I’m playing alts? What are the naming conventions?"
Core Unit Names may
be one to ten words.
The Core Unit Name of
a player is unique to
that player of
Dream Speed.
"Unique? Shit. What about alt names?"
Additional Modal names are not
required to be unique.
Some people never used the same name twice, but just as many had built identities over years of gaming, and it could be quite a race to claim certain popular names on a server. Unique names across all of Dream Speed would produce a lot of pissed-off players.
I hurriedly entered my preferred name, which wasn’t a common one, but I’d hate to see it go to someone else. Mentally hitting [Confirm], I watched the words floating in front of me.
Core Unit Name:
Leveret
Commencing Dream Speed.
6
opening cut-scene
Stars, swirling in a vast white disk. The Milky Way, or something like it, and that pale streamer drifting lazily into closer focus was—probably—the Orion Arm, Earth’s location.
[[[Welcome to The Synergis.]]]
The words were spoken, the voice the rich and strangely layered one that had been used by the Concierge Ryzon. As if three or four copies of the same person were speaking in unison.
[[[In The Synergis
you will not hunger.
In The Synergis
you will not want.
By the bounty of the
Cybercognates,
you will not fear
disease, age, or war.]]]
The camera was hurtling toward a single mote of light that became a distant, burning ball.
[[[Your handling has been
assigned to a
fledgling Cybercognate.
You will be
trained
to strengthen your lan.
To push the limit of
interstellar travel.]]]
We passed a planet. Not a blue gem, but dusty red, with one vivid blue-green slash like an enormous wound.
[[[Gain rank.
Gain reputation.
Gain the strength to
surpass the
galactic limit.
Be celebrated as
the first among all Bios.]]]
The wounded world had been left behind, and a watery paradise hurried to replace it. Strings of islands, a touch of ice at either pole, and no sign of continents.
[[[Welcome to the Drowned Earth.]]]
I plummeted. The ocean filled my view and then I was swallowed by brilliant blue. Shoals of fish darted away like silver fireworks, vanishing into fractured light.
As I began to sink, a different voice spoke. Not rich and multi-layered, but a jagged growl.
Competition.
Distraction.
Complacency.
The light of the surface was receding rapidly, and larger shapes seemed to be moving around me.
Yes, the Cycogs allow
Enclaves outside their rule.
Yes, The Synergis will allow anyone to leave.
But they control all passage.
We are the beasts of burden they use,
but they claim that without Them,
humanity cannot touch the stars.
Something vast came so close to me that its wake sent me spinning, but it vanished into the gloom without touching me.
Go.
Join The Synergis.
Strengthen yourself.
Gain your ship.
Then bring it back.
Find a way.
Break their rule.
I sank into total blackness, the surface a memory, both voices silent, leaving me to try to make sense of what I’d heard. A galaxy ruled by non-humans…non-Bios. Enclaves outside their rule. Space travel that involved something called lan. The game’s main plotline.
Then, in the very depths, one final whisper reached me. A faint, shivering quaver, as fleeting at those vanished beams of light. Barely audible.
Who drowned the Earth?
7
newbie
I woke, and let out my breath in disappointment. The game had crashed. No surprise: I’ve never been part of an MMO launch that had run without problems. My very first open beta—_World of Warcraft_—had had a loot bug that had frozen my character every time I tried to pick something up. Entire servers falling over and kicking everyone out of the game was probably even more common.