A faint tingling sensation spread along my forehead, and a vague hum echoed in my ears. Both disappeared an instant later when I blinked and suddenly found myself standing atop a snow-swept mountain peak. Icy wind howled around me while wild flurries of snow obscured my vision. Though a terrible cold clawed at my armored body, I barely felt it past the golden magic suffusing me.

Holy shit! I’d known the Sphere was supposed to be fully immersive, but the realism was still uncanny. It truly felt like I was standing there in the flesh. I tried to raise my hand or take a step, but nothing happened. Right…this was just a demo: a preview of what I could expect once I became a proper IA. For now, I was just along for the ride.

A massive shadow suddenly loomed ahead of me in the storm, spreading scaled wings so wide they blocked out the sky. A dragon! My mind leaped to the cover of the brochure for Caelarian Online that Emily had shown me, and anticipation thrummed in my chest. The demo had thrust me straight into the shoes of that Prism Crusader facing off against an ice dragon with nothing but their lance.

And I was about to experience the epicness in real time.

Letting out a massive roar, the dragon breathed a cone of frozen icicles right at me. The Crusader, whose body I occupied, reacted with impossible speed. Leaping high into the air in a burst of golden light, they dove toward the dragon and pierced its scaly back with their lance.

The dragon roared again, this time in pain. Flapping its great wings, it rose into the blizzard, attempting to throw the Crusader free. But they kept an iron grip on their lance embedded in its back.

The Crusader waited for a moment of calm, then tore their lance free and speared it through the dragon’s right wing. Golden light erupted around the blow like a crack of lightning. The dragon’s agonized bellow tore at my ears as it plummeted from the air and crashed to the slope below.

The impact hurled the Crusader free. My stomach lurched as my perspective jittered and bounced sickeningly. For a heart-pounding instant, I feared the Crusader would tumble straight off the side of the mountain, but they caught themselves on a rocky outcrop.

Recovering in an instant, they blazed with more of their solar magic to fuel a lunging dodge. The dragon’s claws, each as long as a man’s arm, punctured the air where the Crusader had been an instant before.

Ducking and weaving about the dragon’s furious strikes, the Crusader countered with strategic thrusts of their own. Each found its mark, landing glancing wounds to the dragon’s limbs and along its scaly hide.

Frozen magic gathered once more around the dragon’s mouth. Rather than attempt to dodge, the Crusader planted their lance in the snow. I watched in awe as a glowing barrier sprang up around them to absorb the dragon’s frost breath.

The instant the barrage of icy magic ended, the Crusader canceled their barrier and leaped forward, thrusting their lance at the dragon’s exposed belly. Golden light erupted around the wound. The dragon let out another roar, but the Crusader didn’t relent. In a gravity-defying feat of acrobatics, they swung themselves up and onto the dragon’s back. A battle cry erupted from their throat—my throat—as they raised their lance high.

A dozen translucent lances blazing with holy light materialized in a circle around the Crusader. Spinning in unison, the lances shot downward and impaled the dragon. Bellowing in pain, the dragon tried to batter the Crusader back, focused now on fleeing into the raging storm. But the Crusader had no intention of letting their prize escape.

In a final blaze of radiance bright enough to pierce the heavens, the Crusader flung themself into the sky and, in a spiral of blazing light, streaked back toward the dragon like an unleashed missile. Their brilliant lance pierced the dragon’s neck clean through.

With a final shudder, the great beast collapsed. As the triumphant Crusader rose from the slain beast, giving me a perfect view of the dragon’s corpse lying there on the mountain peak amid the still-raging blizzard, my vision faded to black.

Blinking, I realized that I was back in my body in Emily’s office. The demo had ended. My fingers trembled as I removed the Sphere visor to find Emily watching me.

“So, what did you think?” she asked with a knowing grin. “Cool, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” I breathed. “That was awesome!” It was a struggle to remain sitting there with leftover adrenaline from the fight still pumping through my veins. “Is that what it’ll feel like as an IA?”

“Pretty much,” she said. “As you just saw, the player experience is fully immersive…within reason. Obviously, we don’t want our players to feel exhausted by their actions in-game, or to actually suffer any pain whenever they take a hit. Every Sphere visor comes with built-in safeguards to ensure players aren’t harmed and can safely return to their bodies whenever they like. As an IA, your connection to the game world will be even stronger.”

Jesus. If that was what Caelarian Online felt like as a player, I could only imagine how much cooler it would be as an IA.

Emily walked me through more of the logistics after that, occasionally asking me for a new bit of personal information, or producing yet another form for me to sign. But my mind was already far away, on the harsh, frozen world of Caelarian that represented my future.

At last, she slid one final form in front of me. I stared down at it, the pen gripped tightly in my hand.

This was it—the one that signed my life over to Infinitarium and pledged myself to their Immersive Agent Program. I skimmed the paper, but it didn’t say anything I didn’t already know. In exchange for accepting an early retirement from Earth and serving for thirty years as an IA, Infinitarium would provide my family with a monthly stipend in my name.

Then, when my time of service expired, I’d qualify for free access to the Sphere’s entire library of programs, including Arcadia, Infinitarium’s exclusive virtual retirement community where my consciousness would live on forever in luxury. The wealthiest people on Earth could afford to buy a spot on their own, but for the rest of us, completing a contract of service was the only way.

“Thirty years seems like an awfully long time,” I said, my voice uncertain.

Emily gave me a sympathetic look. “I’m sure it does, especially for someone so young. But for what it’s worth, I promise it will pass much more quickly than you think. You’ll receive frequent breaks to help you relax, as well as opportunities to explore your chosen world along the way. Just think of it as a thirty-year-long vacation.”

A vacation…right.

“What if I mess up or don’t know how to do something?”

“We’ll provide you with access to extensive training and around-the-clock support.” She reached across the desk to clasp my hand. “I know this is scary, Sebastian. And you are still well within your rights to back out if you’re having second thoughts. But I promise you, if you decide to do this, Infinitarium will have your back one hundred percent of the way. Okay?”

Swallowing, I nodded. She withdrew her hand, and I shifted my attention back to the form waiting in front of me. The pen trembled in my grip as I thought again of my family, of what I was giving up. Then, I glanced down at the stipend amount listed on the form. Memories of the demo I’d just experienced replayed through my head.

This was my shot to help my family and seize the future I wanted, all in one fell swoop. The only thing standing between me and paradise was thirty years spent playing a game. And what were three decades in the face of eternity?

Brandishing the pen, I signed on the dotted line.