"Hello? Mr. Moores?" The surprising, synthesized-sounding voice of Oscar Anders filled Moores head, adding on to his already growing bewilderment. He felt like he was having a migraine, yet at the same time had taken a blow to the midsection. "I know you can hear me. Third-person view is showing you crystal clear."
Carter looked around frantically, his vision blurred by intense white light. He scrambled to a sitting position, but found this to be somewhat difficult. Everything about moving felt exotic, almost as if he had never performed any action before.
"Yeah, that blindness is only temporary. Probably." Anders gave off a bout of nervous laughter at the last part. "I'm going to need you to reorient yourself, Mr. Moores, or this is going to be a very short game session."
With much effort, Moores was able to refocus his eyes, the blurriness fading from his vision. Strange icons filled the periphery of his sight, which he reasoned were simply part of some sort of Heads Up Display. He looked out towards the actual world that he was in, and was simply amazed by it.
With computers and other platforms, graphics quality depended on the video card. Here, Moores saw everything as vividly as though it all was actually there. The light blue sky and the vast fields of grass all seemed so... real. The wind moved the clouds and the grass as one would expect back on Earth.
Though for some reason, he couldn't feel anything. His nerves seemed unresponsive to anything in his environment, much less anything he commanded them to do. He wasn't quite paralyzed from what he could gather, but he was extremely numbed.
"I'm sure you're familiar with the HUD feature from other games. We've limited it to a small map of the area as well as personal communication, though. Everything else will have to be done manually." Anders' voice continued to come from nowhere and was becoming rather disconcerting to Moores. "Hey, Gerald. Plug in that video cam over there. No, damn it, the other one."
In the top right corner of Moores sight came the upper body of Oscar, who was trying to fix the camera's angle.
"Ah, there we go!" Anders said with a grin as he settled himself into his revolving chair. By the looks of the wide glass windows behind him, Moores guessed that Anders was still operating at the desk he had seen back in the testing room. The camera suddenly turned to the leather couch where Moores' real body was sleeping comfortably. "Hey, look! It's you! Do you want to say hi? Gosh, I sure hope you don't snore when you sleep. If you do, this is going to be unbearable."
Moores wanted to tell Oscar to cut it out, but he found that he could not summon the words. The camera moved back over to a smirking Anders, who looked towards another monitor.
"We're keeping you on a Tier One consciousness right now, nothing too stimulating until we're sure everything checks out. Nod if you understand me and want to move on to Tier Two." Anders said, to which Moores clumsily nodded his head in confirmation. "Excellent. Jorge, raise consciousness to level two."
"Got it, Oscar." Came the off-screen reply. Just as the assistant raised the inhibitions, Moores mind began to feel much less cluttered and enigmatic. He could begin to feel the numbness begin to ebb around his body.
"That's it. Brain activity is back up to seventy percent of the norm. Higher motor functions and cognition should be back now, Moores. Try speaking. We need to see if the game's sound generation works properly," Anders image said to Moores.
"What should I say?" Moores said as he realized that something was indeed up. His voice was much too high-pitched to be his, sounding of a rich alto as opposed to his normal baritone. It was far too feminine for his liking. "Oscar, the voice generator is a bust. It's not working right."
"Oh, it's not a mistake," Anders said, adjusting his glasses and smirking smugly. "Remember when you told me to hit the 'randomize character' feature? Yeah, it controlled a lot more than your color scheme. Size, eyes, mane. Gender."
Oscar's emphasis on the word "gender" caused Carter's stomach to do a back flip.
"You mean...?"
"Congratulations, you're now of the gentler sex!" Anders said, his voice and facial expressions screaming: "I told you not to use a random character!"
Moores expression darkened. He had heard of men playing as female characters in RPG and MMO games, but never truly understood why they would do so. He always found it creepy and, at the same time, degrading to do so. With the present turn of events, Moores was absolutely petrified.
"Let me create a new character," Carter pleaded.
"And take up more memory?" Anders asked with a raised eyebrow. "We're not wasting any more time just so you change a minor character feature. Besides, you had your chance."
"Fine." Moores said bitterly with his new feminine voice. For the first time since he became conscious, Carter looked himself over with curiosity. He looked down and inspected his front legs. The rosy red he was met with was much too light for his tastes. His mane was understandably long, appearing on the edge of his eyes and sometimes getting in the way of his sight. It was a slightly darker shade of red than his coat, complimenting it nicely. Eye color was still an unknown, however.
"Moores, focus." Anders said, snapping his fingers. "It looks like the NIT's neural sync is working at its optimum. Could you try standing up and moving around a bit? Try performing some complex movements as well."
"Like what, a somersault?" Moores asked sarcastically, still unnerved a bit by his voice.
"To the best of your abilities, friend." Anders said, switching off the video camera feed.
Moores did as he was told and got up on his four legs. It felt similar to crawling, in his opinion, but at the same time a lot like standing normally. He wobbled a bit as he put his front left hoof forward, trying to figure out how to walk. This turned out to be a surprisingly simple feat, his movements becoming more fluid within minutes. He wasn't confident enough to run a marathon, but he was sure he wouldn't look like an idiot.
"Hmm. We're getting some strange feedback from your neural linkup. Hold on a moment." Anders came back onto the HUD. He squinted someplace else on the monitor for a few seconds then shook his head. "The error seems to be gone now, oddly enough. Everything good on your end, Jorge?"
"Yep." Replied the unseen assistant.
"Then we'll move on to the final Tier and get to the game tutorial. The NIT isn't able to sync up to all of your brainwaves, but you should expect around ninety to ninety-five percent of your normal capacity. This should only cause minor issues with rational thought and language retention."
"Language retention?" Moores inquired.
"You know how when you say a word repeatedly and it starts to sound weird? Yeah, that will happen a lot more often." Anders explained.
"Lovely." Moores muttered.
"We set your spawn point close to a major NPC city. Let me pull up the name from the directory." Anders said as he turned to the monitor to his left, typing in queries. "Manhattan? No, wait. There's an 'e' in it. 'Manehattan', maybe? Did he make a typo? Whatever. Pull up your mini-map and set a waypoint on the area titled 'Manehattan'."
Moores simply focused on the mini-map and it enlarged to fill most of his vision.
Neat, he thought.
Moving the map was similar to how Moores had pulled it up. He imagined where he wanted it to move to, and it moved. When he finally hovered over the large expanse he was looking for, he set a waypoint to it. The mini-map once again became miniature and Oscar's video feed came back online.
"There's that anomaly again. Jorge, tell me it registered on the diagnostic screen." Anders said as he looked over to Jorge.
"Still nothing." Came the reply.
"I really hope I'm not going crazy." Anders shook his head. "Anyways, now that the waypoint is set, you need to make your way over to the city. By the looks of where we placed you... it should take around fifteen minutes, give or take a few."
"What? There's no instant travel or anything?" Moores mouth fell agape.
"Nope. Enjoy the hike." Anders smiled before keying the video feed off.
"I won't!" Moores retorted to the vanished image. He sighed, focused on the mini-map, then headed off in the general direction of Manehattan.
***
Oscar Anders did not hesitate to open the glass doors for both Mr. Mathers and Mr. Cheswell, the latter of whom looked rather skeptically at the NIT room. It was obvious by the expression on Mathers' face that their meeting had not come to the outcome of his liking.
"So this is where the millions of dollars we've invested go, eh?" Cheswell said with a scoff. "I'm hardly impressed."
Anders tried to shake off the obvious blow to his self-esteem. Dean Cheswell was known throughout the company to have no interest in video games or the technology required to create them. And yet, here he was as the Chief Financial Officer of the company. His reasons were unknown, but his gargantuan investments made it clear to people that it hardly mattered.
"It's much more than you think, sir." Anders said as he motioned them inwards. The two walked casually inside, Mathers patting his hand firmly on Anders' shoulder.
"What are these two doing here?" Mathers asked as walked in, the two techs looking up from their computer screens.
"They're the only ones that helped assist with the game's development. Since David stormed out earlier, I need them to keep me informed." Anders explained.
"I don't care about that man's little tantrum. Call him up and tell him to haul himself back over here." Mathers ordered. "And get these two out of here. There's barely enough space in here for me to breathe."
"I'll get on that, sir." Anders complied. "Jorge. Gerald. Head back up to production, captain's orders."
The two assistants looked at each other and gathered their things. After the two men walked outside the room, Anders shut the door behind them. Cheswell walked around the room, inspecting all the nooks and crannies as if looking for something. Oscar led Mathers to the leather sofa occupied by Carter Moores.
"I'm glad he agreed to test it. I was getting tired of looking for new people," Mathers said smiling.
"Yes, the NIT is working wonderfully. Everything is looking good so far, but we've been getting some very odd readings from the diagnostics." Anders reported, adjusting his glasses.
"Did anyone else observe these anomalies?" Cheswell asked out of nowhere, catching Anders off-guard.
"No, sir."
"Then think nothing of it. It must be your imagination," Cheswell said sternly.
"Y-yes, sir," Anders stammered.
"Inform me when this session is over." Cheswell stated, bringing his phone into view. "Collin, you've delayed me long enough. We have other matters to attend to."
"But you just got here," Anders said confusedly.
"And now we are leaving," Cheswell replied. "Goodbye, Mr. Anders."
The two officials left the room, Mathers doing so reluctantly. Anders couldn't help but think that there was something very much wrong with the atmosphere of their conversation. He rubbed his forehead and was surprised to have his hand come off somewhat coated in sweat.
He pushed the past few minutes to the back of his mind and refocused himself on the game. Whatever these anomalies were, they weren't going to get in the way of proving his NIT unit. These kinds of problems always arose with testing new technologies, therefore it was foolish to think that there was anything really too wrong.
Nothing bad was going to happen on his watch, he would make certain of that.
***
Moores kept himself on pace, following the obvious blue circle on his HUD towards his destination. It had only been a few minutes, but he felt awkwardly tired. Either he wasn't used to this pony body of his or he was even more out of shape than he thought. He held onto the hope of the former being true, denying that he was anything but the gleaming picture of health.
"How are we doing, Mr. Moores?" The image of Anders suddenly appeared in the upper-right of his vision. It would take some time for Moores to get used to that.
"Just about the same as I was three minutes ago, I guess," Moores responded. "I thought you said you we were going to talk when I got there."
"I just needed to give you a status update and some tips," Anders answered, pulling a napkin out of his pocket and unfolding it. "Ah, there we go. I knew I wrote it down somewhere."
"What's this status report you mentioned?" Moores asked.
"Oh, that. Both Mathers and Cheswell were here to check up on the project. The assistants had to leave, so I'll be short-handed until I can get the creator of the game over here."
"Is Mathers still there?"
"No, Cheswell said they had a meeting about something. They left just a minute ago."
"And this all happened in the three minutes that you've been gone? You people sure are straight to the point with your conversations."
"Yeah, you could say that," Anders gave a slight grimace. "They'll probably rejoin us in a little while once they've finished up."
"Works for me. Say, did you ever figure out those glitches from earlier?"
"Um, yeah. Yes, they weren't really glitches. Just a misreading on my part," Anders replied quickly, but Moores didn't notice.
"That's good."
"Now onto some tips that I got from the main developer," Anders said, squinting at the napkin in his hand. From the looks of the barbeque sauce stained on the Dickey's Barbeque Pit logo, these "notes" had been taken quite haphazardly. "Number one: 'Do not break character when socializing with local AIs. Causes them to think you're weird.'"
"Define 'break character'," Moores asked.
"Basically don't start saying that they're part of a video game and such. They don't know any better and won't believe you anyways."
"I suppose that's a given."
"Alright, second rule: 'Don't think game food is real. It only seems like it.'"
"Well, duh." Moores rolled his eyes.
"And the last one... it has a bit of barbeque sauce on it, wait a second... I can't read it. I'll just have to ask David when he comes in," Anders shrugged as he crumpled up the napkin and tossed it aside.
"Sure hope that isn't important." Moores said, facehoofing.
"I'm sure you'll be fine. From the looks of the game diagnostic, you're coming up on your first tutorial quest," Anders said, typing on his keyboard.
"But I'm not even at the city yet."
"It looks like the quest holder is coming to you, actually. I'll leave you to it," Anders said before keying off the video feed.
I sure hope that this quest doesn't start off with a generic cry for help, Moores thought.
"Help! Anypony!" Came the outcry of who Moores guessed was the quest holder.
Moores sighed as he rushed himself over to the direction of the pony in need.
Carter Moores stared intently at the address inscribed upon one of the many sheets of paper in his possession, then at the enormous building in front of him. For a business situated in downtown Fort Worth, it wasn't particularly grand when one compared it to the other company headquarters he had seen. Nonetheless, these people seemed legitimate, despite their outlandish claim.
He read once more the name of the gaming company that he was reporting to: Reality Check.
From what his notes had gathered online, the company had been in operation for the past five years. However, they hadn't developed a single product in that time span. No new consoles, games, or even software. This was odd in itself seeing as that without anything to sell, an industry would have no sales and therefore no profits.
He had been given the letter of approval to test Reality Check's new... something. The message hadn't specified what he would be testing. Only that it would be "the apex of all gaming that we know today." He wasn't one to jump blindly in on a job, but the pay was good and his wallet was thin. He decided that if if everything turned out to be a hoax, this would make a somewhat funny story with the rest of his buddies on X-BOX Live and PlayStation Network.
The cloudy, windy weather didn't bode well for his enthusiasm level, but he finally sighed walked through the large, tinted glass doors. He had to squint his eyes upon entering due to everything inside the building being so blindingly white. It was staring into a light bulb, but only slightly less intense. He blinked a few times before stuffing the papers he had back into his jacket's pocket.
Moores casually walked up to the young male receptionist, who had not noticed him as of yet. "Hey, I have an appointment with one Collin Mathers." Moores said, remembering the name of the sender quite clearly.
The receptionist looked up from his game of computer Solitaire and put on a smile.
"Yes. You're Mister Moores, correct?" He said cheerfully.
"That's me."
"Floor Eight. Just go right in, he's waiting," The receptionist said before returning to his game. Moores could tell from the atmosphere of the room that waiting room never really had very many occupants. He strolled down the rather unassuming, desolate hallway towards the elevator.
At least I know this is for real, Moores thought as he pressed the up arrow button on the elevator. The door opened to reveal a very angry looking employee, suitcase and files clenched firmly in his hands. He glared at Moores for a second, but then departed without a single word exchanged. Moores gave the equivalent of a mental shrug as he boarded the elevator. It wasn't the first time he'd seen livid workers storm out of their jobs. It was actually rather commonplace in his line of work.
He was caught off guard by the elevator music as it rose. It was clearly electronic, similar to that of what one would find at raves, but at a lower volume. Not that he really minded, he personally enjoyed the high tempo and beats. He spent a good thirty seconds in the elevator, and just as it was about to hit a very danceable part, it ended with the ring of the elevator stopping.
The doors slid open to reveal a rather large room that he deduced was the executive office. The waiting room on this floor was highly decorated and much more pleasant to the eye. The laminated wood on the floors and bronze colored walls made Moores almost feel as though he were inside of the trunk of a tree.
He pulled on the large black metal doors, revealing a slightly rotund man at his desk. He looked up from his desk and papers and shot a warm grin at his visitor, his bushy brown mustache moving with the smile. By the looks of the man's neatly gelled brown hair and dark green business suit, he was definitely the company's single executive officer.
"Mr. Moores! I've been having anxiety attacks waiting for you!" Mathers said with a hearty southerner laugh. "I thought I'd gone and scared off another game tester! You folks are extremely nit-picky, if you don't mind me saying."
"Some people have tougher skin than others," Moores replied, firmly shaking Mathers' right hand. Now that they were face to face, Mathers didn't look nearly as fat as he had in the chair. He was much taller too, two inches taller than Moores.
"That's the spirit!" Mathers said giddily. "I'm positive you're gonna have a great experience while here. Follow me and I'll introduce you to the production team."
Carter did as the man said, shadowing Mathers as they went back into the elevator. Before Mathers pressed a button to any single floor, his look hardened and he turned to Moores.
"Son, I want you to understand that his is extremely confidential. I know that you've already signed the damned legal documents and such, but you must promise me, right here as a man, that you won't mention anything that you see on the production level. To anyone. Got it?"
Moores nodded frantically, suddenly very scared of the man beside him.
"Fantastic!" Mathers voice returned to its normal cheerful tone, much to Moores relief. Mathers took a key out his jacket pocket, put it into the slot, and turned his hand. A complete new panel of floors, listing from negative one to negative five, appeared on the console.
"Sir? Why do you have underground levels?" Moores couldn't help but ask.
"You see, son, these here regular floors are mostly storage and sleeping rooms for overworking employees. These floors, however," Mathers pressed the negative second floor, "are the real floors."
The techno music once again started blasting on the elevator's PA system.
"Ha ha! My golly, I love this here young person music!" Mathers laughed. "Would you believe it annoys some people? Uncultured swine, I say."
Once again, just as the song was about to reach its climax, the elevator stopped, bringing an end to the electronic notes.
The doors slid away to reveal a massive room bustling with activity. As far as the eye could see, men in white lab coats moved around in their personal environment. Many were at computer stations, each group of a dozen facing a different large screen projecting some statistic or another. Others rushed to opposite sides of the room, carrying papers and the like.
Mathers unhooked a hand phone from the wall and brought it to his mouth.
"Oscar Anders! Get over here, boy, we have company!" Mathers booming voice resounded throughout the room via the intercom. A slim blonde-haired man stood up from his computer terminal, grabbed a folder full of papers, and rushed to the elevator.
"Mr. Mathers, sir!" Oscar said, readjusting his thin rectangular glasses. "Is this our tester?"
"Indeed it is," Mathers said. "Follow us to the testing room, if you will."
The three boarded the elevator once more, the space becoming much more cramped than before.
"Hey, I don't think you ever told me what exactly I was testing," Carter said, taking advantage of the time they had.
"Didn't I? I'm sure I must have brought it up at some point. Oh well. Anders?" Mathers turned to Anders with an eyebrow raised.
"Oh yes, of course," Anders answered. "You see, Mr. Moores, for five long years this company and its employees have worked tirelessly to create the newest and most cunning of gaming software and devices.
"Is that why I've never heard of your company until today?" Moores asked skeptically.
"Actually, yes. Our company is extremely secretive with its products," Anders said proudly as the elevator stopped at the negative fifth floor and opened its doors. Moores noticed that the music he had been hearing earlier had not been playing. "And with good reason, too! Our technology easily surpasses all that the competition produces."
"And that brings us back to my original question."
"Right, I was getting to that." Anders answered. "Our project includes the two of our main latest advancements: brilliant near-sentient AI programming and Neural Impulse Transfer, or NIT for short. Imagine it! Video game characters that you can actually interact with. Speak to! And with our NIT technology, it'll all feel, smell, and taste real!"
Moores couldn't believe what he was hearing. It sounded far too good to be true, an actual gaming experience where he could move around instead of having use a controller or a motion stick.
"And it's all here, ready for testing." Anders said, sighing dreamily. The group finally stopped at an empty white room. Inside were a half dozen monitors, a desk with three computer screens, and a seemingly out-of-place leather sofa in the middle.
"Mr. Mathers, sir? CFO Dean Cheswell is trying to contact you in your office." Said the somewhat familiar voice of the receptionist Moore had met not ten minutes ago.
"Damn him. Of all times to talk my ear off..." Mathers grumbled. "Very well. Son, I hope to hear what you think of our project when I return, hopefully in the next four hours."
At that, the executive marched himself back over to the elevator, muttering curses all the while.
"Let's not dilly-dally." Oscar said with a smile. "I don't know about you, but I am absolutely ecstatic for this."
He took the key card from his pocket protector and ran it over the scanner on the door's frame. The red light turned to green and the door unlocked. Stepping into the rather cold room, Anders proceeded to turn on all of the electronics within the room, beeping and whirring coming from each one.
"So... Oscar. How long have you been designing games, exactly?" Moores said, trying to make conversation while he waited.
"Around eight years. I worked at BioWare for a short time, as well as Bungie and Microsoft. I only started working on the NIT and such three years ago." Anders answered. "If you wouldn't mind, sit on that couch, please."
Carter did as he was told, finding the black leather couch rather comfortable, even more so than his sofa back home.
"You don't know how lucky you are. I'm not allowed to use this in the fear of producer bias, and each of the seven other testers before you quit before actually testing anything." Anders said cheerfully.
"Wait, why didn't any of the other guys go through with it?"
"Oh." Anders stopped typing in commands onto one of the computer screens. "He didn't tell you, did he?"
"Tell me what?" Moores asked, hoping to get some answers.
"Please, Carter, understand this. We gave unrestricted game writing to the single most competent man we could find. His programming is flawless, much better than I could strive to create." Anders said, trying to soften the coming blow. "But the one single flaw in this game is not the software or hardware. Its the concept of the game itself. A concept that the gamers before you wanted nothing to do with."
"What's the concept?" Moores asked, afraid of what the answer could be.
"My Little Pony : Friendship is Magic." Anderson said, visibly anxious to see Moores reaction as well as embarrassed to say those words..
"...Seriously?" Moores cocked an eyebrow, stifling a laugh. "Is that really it?"
"Yes. You mean you're not..." Anders said with a growing look of relief.
"Dude, I've tested children's games before." Moores smirked. He knew about the brony fandom all to well, and though he didn't particularly want to have anything to do with it or the show, he wasn't going to let it bother him. "Sure, it sucks that it has to be colorful ponies and stuff, but come on. This is thirty grand to test out one of the coolest experiences of gaming. I couldn't care less at this point."
"Yes!" Anders said, fist pumping silently while Moores stared at one of the diagnostic screens. "After so long, my work will finally be used!"
"So what's next, Oscar?" Moores said, now happy with the knowledge of his string of luck.
"The NIT requires these sensors to be placed around your arms and legs." Anders said, picking up a small square item with a hole through it. "After that, it's simply a matter of placing bio monitors across your body so that we can record the process."
"Go for it."
After the surprisingly short process of applying the sensors to his arms and legs, Anders went back to his control area.
"Now, I need you to relax. The NIT is going to test your nervous system and calibrate to it." Anders said. "You should only feel a slight tingling in your arms and legs for a moment."
Anders pressed a button and, true to his word, Moores appendages gave a slight jerk to the almost ticklish shock from the NIT.
"Good! Calibration complete." Anders said happily. "Now for the last part before I put you under, Carter. You need to create your character. The NIT will compensate for the physical difference between you and the equine character."
"I hate this part." Moores grumbled, remebering all the other MMOs and RPGs where he had a seemingly limitless amount of options to choose from, but not enough patience for them all. "Is there a 'randomize' feature, Oscar?"
"There is, but-"
"Just do that."
"But you really should-"
"Oscar. Click the stupid option."
"But you might-"
"Click the darned thing!"
"Fine!" Anders conceded. "I'm powering up the NIT to full power. You should fall asleep instantly after that. We'll be in touch throughout the game, so just listen for my melodious voice."
"Gotcha." Carter said.
"Have a nice trip." Anders said as he pressed ENTER on his keyboard.
Moores eyes went black, leaving him with only the feeling of falling upwards. His vision was then filled with white light, only to break back to dark. He felt a full force slam on his back before he finally blacked out.
