If stepping into Tetra Chronicles felt like entering a new world, then after thirteen straight days immersed in a fantasy, opening the capsule feels just as fantastic.

My room. Well, one of my rooms. So dark, lit by pulsing electric signals leading to my enormous gaming pc monitor which takes the whole west wall of the room. The other walls are crowded with game posters, and on the opposite wall there’s a built-in shelf full of every major console from every decade going back to the Atari 2600, complete with the top twenty games for each. This is my collection. It wasn’t cheap, and I have to be honest I haven’t spent much time playing those old games, but I wanted to own them, and I had the money to do it, so why not?

Just then I notice movement in the corner of my room, a humanoid figure approaches.

“Hey, Link,” I murmur from my seat on the edge of the capsule.

“Welcome back, Master Austen. I’ve missed you.”

Link is my servant, a highly sophisticated ai robot programmed to fulfill my every command, within the parameters of the law, of course. There was no way the government was turning loose ultra intelligent, virtually indestructible robots capable of nearly every possible human function without hardwiring their subservience to human governance first. Especially bots like Link, who on the outside, appear totally human. Even amongst robot assistants, which are fairly commonplace in this day and age, there aren’t many like him.

“Start the shower, Link.”

“As you command.”

He communicates with the house’s system to start the shower remotely.

“I’ve set the temperature to ninety-eight degrees.”

“Turn it down.”

“Ninety-six degrees?”

“Seventy.”

“Understood. Would you like ambiance?”

“Something bleak. Rain on the moors.”

Inside the shower is just what I ordered. I gasp at the temperature, but the cold water feels good. Feels real.

All around me the scene I requested is displayed, the dark sky, the gloomy landscape, but suddenly I’m no longer in the mood.

“Turn off ambiance.”

The scene is traded for white walls, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Yes. Real.

“Link, time?” I ask the robot later as he meticulously shaves two weeks worth of beard from my face.

“It is 7:10 AM.”

“I’m hungry. What’s Mrs. Agate got for breakfast?”

“Chef can prepare a strip of savory A5 Wagyu over a roasted oyster with quail egg and—”

“Tell her to do me a bagel and orange juice.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Showered, shaved and trimmed, I stop briefly to examine myself in the mirror. Light brown hair, cut in the short style I like. Washed out blue eyes that turn down in the corner, giving me that perpetual lost puppy look. My face is flabby, like the rest of me, nothing special to look at. I’m ghostly pale. But I suppose that’s to be expected, when I hardly ever leave the basement.

I dress simply in cashmere sweats and an Egyptian cotton tee. I consider having breakfast sent down, then, feeling a certain desire to move about some more in the real world, make the impromptu decision to take my meal upstairs.

Of course if I’d been thinking, I would have avoided this decision. I should have known she’d be at breakfast.

“Well, if it isn’t Austen. Nice of you to make an appearance.”

“Good morning, Mother.”

“Hm,” is her response as she tips a cup of black coffee to her lips, scrolling the table distractedly. I don’t have to ask to know she’s been up working since six, following the stock exchange. Of course Father gets up even earlier, and heads to work at five.

Link appears then with my breakfast, a glass of orange juice and a perfectly toasted plain bagel spread with plain cream cheese. Just the way I like it.

I help myself to an enormous bite just as Mother addresses me.

“So, have you given any thought to university?”

Cough! Choke! Sputter!

“Master Austen!” Link is the only one concerned, he’s handing me my orange juice. I drink a sip and clear my throat.

“I thought I would study game development.”

“The gaming market, hm? Not the most stable career. May as well tell me you want to be an idol,” she says, and laughs at her own joke. “Really, Austen. It’s a lot of risk for potentially no reward.”

“That’s what they told you, wasn’t it? When you opened the Rose Bar.”

She smirks, her thin red lips spreading faintly in an amused smile. Her blue eyes, so like my own, regard me thoughtfully from across the table.

“You are audacious, I’ll give you that. You come by it honestly. I’ll be honest, in the spirit of entrepreneurship, I’d like to tell you to go for it. But your father is insistent you go for business management. In fact he’s already enrolled you in our alma mater.”

“But thats—”

“Not what you want?” she cuts me off. “But you’re not paying for it, are you? We’ve certainly given you enough allowance. If you’d managed your finances properly instead of pouring it all into your silly games, you might still have some say in the matter. Then, I suppose if you wanted to sell your collection—”

“No. Not that,” I say, feeling my heart begin to race in my chest. Aware of this otherwise undetectable change taking place inside my body, Link watches me closely with a concerned expression.

“Then,” Mother says, with a cold, businesslike smile, “if you will provide us with no other alternative and you mean to continue living under our roof on our dime, you’ll do as your father wishes.”

It’s not that I don’t have the money. After all, I have a quarter of a million dollars set aside that I intended to spend inside Tetra Chronicles, buying my way to the top. No, it’s not the money I lack. It’s the guts to stand against these two terrifyingly competent people. To defy their expectations, and live a life of my own choosing, carving my way in the world outside the shelter of their basement—something like that, I could never do. Not in a million years…

“May I attend classes remotely?”

She frowns. “It would be better to gain business connections by attending classes with your peers.”

I say nothing. Don’t have to. Mother knows my condition, like she knows I’m severely allergic to the beta blockers that might have offered me some relief.

“But of course, you can’t do that,” she gives in with an annoyed sigh. “So yes, you will attend remotely. And become a businessman remotely and run a business all from the basement, I expect,” she sighs again, her frustration, her disgust with me, her only child, evident.

“I shall do my best not to disappoint you, Mother.”

She does not answer, but goes back to her scrolling, carefully monitoring the business feed running through our smart table. I might pull up my own social media and see what’s been happening in the world in the nearly two weeks I spent asleep, but suddenly, I’m not so interested.

“Mother, university classes, do you know when they start?”

“Mid-August, I expect.”

Today is June 10th. That means I have at least two months of freedom to do exactly as I like, in a world of my choosing. A world with no expectations of me, and no one to disappoint.

“Have you lost weight?” she asks me then without looking up.

“Maybe a little.”

“Good. You’ve always been a fatty. Maybe that ‘capsule diet’ I’ve been hearing about will help.”

“Yes, Mother.”

No longer hungry, I leave my bagel mostly untouched and make my way back downstairs, Link at my heels.

“Are you alright, Master Austen? At the table—”

“I know. It’s fine.”

“Not just at the table. There were several times inside the capsule where I noticed your heart rate rising.”

“It’s fine. Tina—that’s the capsule’s system—she plays a relaxation protocol for me when my heart rate reaches 150 BPM.”

“I see,” Link replies, though he doesn’t sound too pleased. “I do wish you wouldn’t strain yourself, Master Austen.”

I clap my servant on the shoulder. It’s nice to know someone is worried for me. Even if he is just a robot.

“Will you be returning to the capsule so soon?” he asks as I strip my clothes in preparation for another immersion session.

“That’s right. I plan to spend the majority of the next two months inside. You can put yourself to sleep.”

“Yes, Sir,” he says, though he continues to hover over me. I look up at him from my reclined position inside the capsule, the lid still open.

“What is it, Link?”

“Sir, I was just wondering…is it fun?”

“The game? It’s fun,” I say with a grin. “It’s the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.”

“Even though it upsets you at times?”

“Yes,” I say a bit more thoughtfully, thinking of the events that led to my last forced log off. “Even though I do get stressed at times, or frustrated or scared, it’s fun. It’s too bad, you know? It would be fun if you could join me inside. We could form a party.”

“The technology of the capsule is not compatible with my system. But I’ll scan for updates every hour. If SMark company provides a link allowing my software to access the gameplay features—”

“Yeah,” I say with another grin. “Come find me. Look for Revelator.”

“I shall, Sir,” he says, clearly pleased with the idea. I guess taking care of me is Link’s primary function. Without his master around, a robot’s life must be a dull one, indeed.

I press the button to close my chamber. As before, a deep violet light fills the capsule and I feel a prick in my arm as the computer finds my vein with a needle. A saline drip begins, and I feel my body relaxing very naturally into the luxurious cushions.

This capsule was worth every penny, I think. Even after thirteen days spent immobile inside of it, my muscle mass did not deteriorate in the slightest. Indeed, besides the growth of hair and a slight loss of weight which I didn’t need anyway, my body wasn’t altered by the experience in the slightest.

“Greetings, Austen,” I hear Tina’s familiar voice.

“Hey, Tina. I’m ready to go back inside the game.”

Pads connect to my temples, and a bar lightly presses against my forehead.

“Initializing contact. Alpha waves registered. Contact stabilized. Would you like to launch Tetra Chronicles?”

“Yes.”

“Loading…”

I materialize back inside the game, aura active. It instantly pulls the goblins that have spawned in the tunnel I left from. I kite them on autopilot, hardly aware of their threat as I search both ends of the tunnel for a far more intimidating foe.

The minotaur.

I know it’s out there. If it’s moved on to some other part of the tunnel, that doesn’t hurt my feelings in the slightest. But I’m not so foolish as to hope I won’t run across the beast again.

Our battle, so one-sided, so abruptly cut short—it’s only a matter of time before we are forced to resume it. When that happens, will I be ready for it? More importantly, even if I do manage to defeat the minotaur, will I ever find my way out of this labyrinth?

There is an exit. There has to be. Right, Ari?

Right?