Alan watched the countdown.

0:00:03…

0:00:02…

0:00:01…

Chapter 2

A message popped up in front of Alan, startling him a bit:

Alan thought for a second, then motioned at the Accept button in front of him. Whatever the presentation was, it was probably important.

Nothing happened.

Accept, Alan sent, remembering Eve was responding to his thoughts.

He’d briefly considered enabling the ability to push buttons he saw with his hands, but figured it would probably lead to misclicks.

There was a slight disorientation, shortly followed by a sudden blinding light.

Alan closed his eyes. When he opened them he found himself standing in a cylindrical, mechanical tube, the glass in front of him sliding open.

Directly in front of him was a Caucasian male American soldier in full military gear, motioning him forward. As Alan stepped shakily out of the chamber, he looked to his left and right; he could see there was an entire row of the teleportation chambers, or whatever they were, with people stepping out into the open all around him.

As the soldier eyed Alan warily, Alan remembered the bow and knife he was holding in his hands.

“Wait, sorry, I thought there might be a survival challenge or something. So I grabbed what I found where I started when I logged in. Umm… do you have anything that might hold this knife? Actually, you can have it, and the bow and arrows.”

Alan thrust his hands forward, holding both the knife and bow out. It wasn’t like he was going to be able to do anything with them, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to go walking around carrying a kitchen knife. People would think he was crazy.

The soldier stared at him blankly for a second.

“Okay. Wait here for a moment, player.”

The soldier took the bow and knife, then started walking over to a small station of soldiers set up near the exit.

Alan glanced around, trying to get a better sense of his surroundings. It looked like they were in an airplane hangar of some sort, upwards of two hundred feet long and a hundred feet wide. There were maybe fifty chambers with players emerging out of them. In front of each chamber was a soldier holding an assault rifle. Everyone was being directed to the exit at the far end of the hangar.

Trying to see if he could spot anyone he recognized, Alan looked at around at the emerging players. Most of them were muscular, with a no-nonsense gruffness, and wore a uniform representing the company that hired them. These were not the nerdy gamers Alan had been expecting. Alan felt rather out of place in his jeans and t-shirt.

The majority also carried guns. Maybe Alan should have held onto the knife.