Things moved quickly after that. Everything was a blur as Emily smiled and said goodbye, then pawned me off on an aide to take me to Processing. None of this felt quite real yet.

I’m going to be a part of Caelarian Online.

My mind reeled, struggling to process that as the aide led me back through the halls I’d just passed through and out into the main foyer with its rows of statues.

Now that I’d made my choice and there was no going back, the statues seemed to take on a new significance. Studying the proud visage of the Prism Crusader and the stoic strength of the Human Warden, I could hardly believe that I’d soon be joining them.

I was so focused on the statues that I didn’t notice the person in front of me until it was too late. We collided with a muffled oomph. I staggered, managing to catch myself on the leg of the regal Prism. My counterpart, however, wasn’t so lucky. He went tumbling, landing on his backside on the hard tiled floor.

I winced, rushing past the annoyed-looking aide to offer my hand. “God, I’m sorry. It figures one of my last acts on Earth would be knocking someone over. Are you all right?”

“Fine, if you discount the bruise on my tailbone.” The man accepted my hand and let me haul him to his feet.

I got a better look at him once he was standing and realized he couldn’t be much older than me. His face was rounder than mine, his body taller, more heavyset than my short, thin frame. He wore his blonde hair a bit long, with swooping bangs and bright blue eyes I couldn’t help but find adorable.

“I’m CJ,” he said, shaking my gripped hand with a smile. He glanced at the waiting aide. “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

A nervous flutter went through my belly. I shoved my hands in my pockets and rocked a bit on my heels as I tried and failed for nonchalance. “I just finished at recruitment, so I guess I’m off to processing to start my new life.”

I wasn’t entirely sure what reaction I’d expected from CJ, but it wasn’t for his eyes to widen and his mouth to twist in a horrified grimace. “What the hell are you doing that for?”

Indignation gripped me at the judgment in his tone. Screw that—he didn’t know me. He had no right to judge my situation. “What’s it to you?”

“I just don’t want to see you make such a stupid mistake. You’re way too young to throw your life away like that.”

It was like what that man I’d bumped into earlier had said, only with ten times more condemnation. I raised an eyebrow and scowled. “You don’t know the first thing about me. I could be a rapist or a serial killer. Maybe this is the best way to get me off the streets.”

Seeming unfazed by my snark, CJ said, “The vetting process for recruitment is way too strict to let something like that slip through. Gotta protect the bottomline, after all. And there’s no more valuable asset for Infinitarium’s bottomline than its players…except maybe its IAs.”

I frowned at the hint of bitterness I caught in CJ’s tone. I eyed him up and down but didn’t see an employee badge. “You seem to know an awful lot about it. What are you doing here?”

He snorted and swiped the bangs out of his eyes in a way I also normally would have found adorable…if I wasn’t so stressed and annoyed. “Definitely not committing suicide via brain hijacking.”

“You didn’t answer my question.” I glanced about the foyer, but other than the two of us and the aide—who was giving me increasingly impatient looks—no one else was around. CJ appeared to be here alone. “Why are you here? I don’t see a badge, and besides, you look way too young to work here.”

Infinitarium was the golden goose when it came to careers. Everyone knew it, and even jobs like this aide’s were hotly sought-after by the best and brightest minds.

CJ flushed. An expression I couldn’t quite read flitted over his face as he averted his gaze. “My dad works here. I just stopped by to say hi.”

“Right. Then, you decided to take a detour and lecture me about how I’m offing myself. Which, for the record, I’m not. My consciousness will live on in the Sphere. That’s kind of the whole point.”

CJ rolled his eyes. “A consciousness lives on. But whatever. Let’s pretend it really is you in there and not just some digital copy. You’re still making the biggest mistake of your life—the last mistake of your life. Once you do this, there’s no going back, no unplugging you. You’ll be trapped in the Sphere until Infinitarium’s servers go offline.”

The thought of that eventuality sent another ripple of unease through me, but I dismissed the notion. People far smarter than me had written reports and conducted studies on Infinitarium’s Sphere tech. With a self-contained power source and redundancy after redundancy, nothing short of nuclear Armageddon was likely to disrupt its operation. And even then, my money was on the Sphere lingering on with the cockroaches.

“Yeah, well.” I crossed my arms and turned away from CJ. “Better there than here.”

And wasn’t that the truth, when you got right down to it? Sure, I was nervous. But I knew deep down to my core that I was doing the right thing. This world was screwed. At least this way, my sacrifice would give me and the rest of my family some semblance of a future within the rubble.

CJ puffed out a heavy sigh. He reached up to brush back his bangs. “Well, I guess it was nice running into you. Good luck. I sincerely hope you don’t regret it.” His shoulders slumping, he hurried past us, his sneakers squeaking on the tiles.

I watched him go, uncertain how to feel. Maybe I should’ve asked him for a kiss goodbye. You know, to send me out of this mortal coil. The thought elicited a quiet snort.

“Are you ready to continue, Mr. Koster?” the aide asked. “The technicians should be ready for you by now.”

“Then we’d better not keep them waiting,” I said, gesturing for the aide to continue.

As I followed the aide through an unmarked door sealed with an ID scanner, the budding nerves brought on by my encounter with CJ gradually settled. Perhaps I should be grateful—if anything, him forcing me to confront my doubts so openly had made me all the more certain in my decision.

If his dad was lucky enough to work at Infinitarium, he likely had every privilege my own family didn’t. He could afford to live in this dying world. Let him have it.

My newfound confidence lasted about as long as it took for the aide to guide me down a new hall to a door at the end and beckon me inside, looking relieved to be rid of me.

The instant I glimpsed the spindly-armed contraption in the center of the room, bristling with needle-like appendages arrayed threateningly around a metal slab, my nerves returned in full force. My heart throbbed in my throat, the first edges of panic bristling along my mind.

I tried to swallow it down with a loud gulp. “Hello?”

“Yes, yes, come in.”

Glancing around for the source of the voice, I spied a technician wearing a white lab coat adjusting settings on a screen set in the side of the wicked-looking device.

Hesitantly, I shuffled a step closer, eyeing the metal cot. “Where should I, um…”

“Just lie down,” the technician said without looking up. He waved in the general direction of the cot. “I’ll be ready in a moment.”

Nodding, I slowly approached the bed. My skin prickled. I couldn’t help imagining the spindly device coming to life and attacking me like some tentacled frost aberration straight out of Caelarian Online. Strangely, the vision comforted me.

This will all be over soon. In just a few minutes, I’ll be in Caelarian Online for real.

Clinging to that thought, I laid down on the metal cot. Not sure what to do with my hands, I folded them across my chest, then moved them to rest stiffly by my sides when I felt too much like an arranged corpse at a funeral. My dad had looked like that, his hands clasped peacefully in his coffin during the viewing, despite the hovercar crash that had killed him.

The metal cot felt cold against my arms and back. I wriggled in discomfort, sneaking a glance toward the technician. I couldn’t see him from my current vantage, tucked away as he was in the corner. “How long does this usually take?”

“The procedure itself is pretty much instant. It’s supposed to be set up before the subject arrives, but the last tech forgot to reset it. Hold on, I’m almost done.”

I fidgeted in the pressing silence, the only sound my pulse thudding in my ears and my increasingly shallow breaths. I hadn’t expected to have to wait like this. Each passing moment sapped a little bit more of my resolve.

The technician’s attitude didn’t help. Muttering to himself, he seemed far more concerned with his wasted time resetting the device than with alleviating my anxiety. His callous demeanor couldn’t have been a further cry from Emily’s warmth back in the recruitment office.

A little voice that sounded suspiciously like CJ whispered in the back of my head, What did you expect? They already got you to sign on the dotted line.

My voice shook a little as I asked, “Does…does it hurt?”

“Don’t worry,” the technician said, sounding distracted. “You won’t remember a thing.”

I stiffened, fear washing through me. “Hold on. What do you mean, remember?”

“There we go, all set!” Ignoring my question, the technician pressed some buttons and strode around the machine to loom over me. “Hold still.”

Moving with practiced ease, he settled a metallic dome over the top of my head. It completely encased my skull down to just above my eyes. Then, he reached up and adjusted the machine’s spindly arms, maneuvering them into place so that they lined up with little nodules set along the domed helmet. One by one, he clicked them into place.

I fought to regulate my breathing as he stepped back, giving his work a cursory once-over before shrugging and returning to his console.

“Are you sure everything’s hooked up right?” I asked, an edge of panic creeping into my voice.

“Yep. I’ve done this procedure hundreds of times. There’s nothing to it, trust me. One minute, you’re lying here in this room, and the next you’ll be off having the adventure of a lifetime in…” He paused, and though I couldn’t see him, I had the sense of him flipping through my digital file. “In Caelarian Online. Hey, good choice! Gotta appreciate the OG. You ready?”

I inhaled and then expelled a long breath. Sorry, Mom. I swear I’m doing this for you, and Ella, and Winnie. I just hope you can forgive me.

A final image of CJ’s disappointed face hovered before my eyes, and I blinked it away, tightening my jaw. “Ready.”

I heard the sound of tapping keys, followed by a low hum as the machine powered on. The spindly arms hooked to my helmet began to glow.

“Close your eyes and take a deep breath,” the technician said. “Try your best to relax. You don’t want to tense up in the middle of the extraction.”

I resisted the urge to ask why, pretty sure I wouldn’t like the answer. Here goes nothing, I thought, squeezing my eyes shut.

Blinding light flared, so bright I could see it even through my closed eyelids. White-hot heat seared into my skull, and I flinched at a sharp stab of pain—there and gone in an instant. The light faded, and I waited for something else to happen, bracing myself for more pain or discomfort.

None came.

Eventually, I cracked open an eye, only to suck in a startled gasp. The white-tiled room with its spindly machine and surly technician were gone. In its place was a stone chamber lit by pulsing orange spheres that mimicked torchlight. Rather than lying on a metal cot, I was on a wooden bed draped with heavy blankets, my regular clothes replaced with a medieval tunic.

Excitement coursed through me, and I broke out in a wide grin.

I had arrived in Caelarian Online.