“Welcome Mav!” boomed a voice. Mav lowered her arm and blinked, then froze. She was sitting in her chair at the threshold of an arched doorway, looking into what appeared to be an old Japanese training hall.

  A dojo, she realized, but not the sterile, digital kind she expected. The tension mats were worn smooth by generations of footsteps, wooden pillars gleaming with the patina of long polished grain. At the far end stood a small Buddhist shrine whose incense-stained wood radiated a quiet, familiar reverence she couldn’t quite place.

  Her jaw hung open. The place didn’t just look real, it felt real. A subtle warmth wrapped around her skin, carried by a drifting breeze that slipped through the open windows. It brought the scent of greenery, faint blossoms, damp earth. She heard birdsong, actual birdsong, bright and layered and sunlight played across the floor in warm latticework where branches cut the beams into shifting pieces.

  Her senses drowned her. Every inhale brought new detail, every glance revealed new texture. She couldn’t distinguish this from reality. Her body insisted it was reality. Awe prickled up her spine as she turned her head, sniffed the air again, trying to keep up with the sensory flood. And then she saw Arthur, standing across the room, hands resting at his waist, dressed in a black gi trimmed with white. He looked at peace and impossibly smug.

  “This is a sparring program,” he began, voice echoing cleanly in the open space. “It mirrors the programmed reality of Eclipse Nexus. It has the same basic rules of the real world, rules like gravity. What you need to learn is that these rules are no different than the rules of any digital system, some can be bent, others broken.” That small, knowing smirk tugged his mouth. “Understand?”

  Mav nodded, though only partially. Her brain was still wrestling with the sensory immersion, her heart hammering at the uncanny déjà vu. ‘Why do I know this place? Why does it feel old, like a memory borrowed from someone else?’ The question hovered, until Arthur spoke again.

  “Good,” he said. “Then hit me… if you can.”

  And that was the moment she realized exactly where she was. A laugh burst from her chest before she could stop it. “Dude, this is that scene where someone blinks and suddenly knows kung fu,” she said, laughing. “And you’re doing the mentor thing frighteningly well.”

  Arthur bowed deeply, then exploded into motion. He dropped low, launched high, his left leg snapping forward in a sharp kick before retracting into a spin. He descended with unnatural lightness, drifting like a falling leaf before the momentum carried him through another twisting heel strike punctuated by a ringing shout. When he landed, he bowed again, grin splitting his face.

  ‘Did he just float?’ she wondered, stunned. ‘How the hell does a man that big move like that?’

  “That it is,” he said, unfazed, barely breathing, eyes alight with mischief. Mav rolled her eyes even as she smiled. “But I didn’t say all that to quote the classics. It applies to you. Especially you and you’re going to have to understand it.”

  “Firstly, holy shit,” she blurted. “Just… holy shit. This feels real. It smells real, sounds real. How? Is it the nanoneural connections? Actually, don’t tell me, it probably is. Wow.” She pushed her hands to the arms of her chair. “Second… I get it. I have to get up and walk, don't I?”

  “You got it.” Arthur stepped aside, crossing his arms as he leaned against a pillar. He made no move to help. Of course he didn’t.

  ‘Fine,’ she thought, scooting forward. ‘How hard can it be? I signed the papers, got in here, didn’t I? I know how this works.’ She thought, getting to the end of the seat and using her arms to leverage herself up and forward, seeing herself pushing upwards with her feet. She pushed and promptly face planted, her palms slapped the floor with a bruising oofh.

  “What the fuck!” she yelled, twisting to look at her legs, still sprawled uselessly behind her. “Why didn’t I stand up, Arthur?” Her breath hitched, panic rising.

  “You think that’s air you’re breathing?” he answered smugly, still leaning against the pillar.

  “Asshole!” Mav shot back. “Enough with the movie quotes! Help me up!” She twisted, dragging her leg around to sit upright, and her stomach dropped.

  The chair was gone. Simply gone. “Oh, come ON,” she groaned, pounding her fists weakly into her thighs, and winced as both blows hurt.

  She sat there on the floor and cried, frustrated and angry, pounding her fists down, each blow causing a shooting pain up her legs, then froze in mid motion. ‘Pain, I can feel pain.’ the thought slid into her clouded mind, ‘and if I can feel pain, then I am having nerve response.’ She concentrated, realizing she could feel the floor through her butt and legs.

  The realization slid into her anger like a key turning. If she could feel pain, then she was receiving sensory feedback from her legs. Pressure, weight, contact. ‘If I can feel pain… then I can…’ her toes twitched.

  A broken laugh bubbled up from her chest. Then another. Tears flooded her eyes as she stared at her own foot in disbelief. “Shit. Shit! Shit they moved,” she said quietly. Her heart thudded wildly. The logic raced behind it, Arthur’s lesson reframing itself in a sudden burst of clarity.

  “Ok, the rules aren’t physical. They’re beliefs. I’m not breaking Eclipse Nexus’s coding, I’ve been obeying my own. My injury isn’t real here. The pain isn’t real. The ground isn’t real. I am only as broken as I believe I am.” She coached herself just under her breath

  Across the room, Arthur watched in silence, arms still folded. Pride and tension warred behind his eyes. ‘She’s fast,’ he thought. ‘Faster than most people without a crippling injury’. But he didn’t move. He couldn’t, helping her would undo what she was achieving.

  Mav planted her hands and shifted her weight. Her legs slid, curling beneath and beside her in a position unattainable to her real world self. She wiggled her toes again, giggling wetly. Then she flexed her feet. Her calves tightened, almost spasming and she grinned at the ache, embracing it.

  ‘God… what must this feel like to someone paralyzed for years? I’ve only been this way for days and it feels like a miracle.’ She drew a breath, pushed through her palms, lifted and rose to hands and knees. One more breath. One fluid motion upward.

  She stood. Unsteady and wavering. Hands out for balance, but standing. One step followed. Then another, her stride slow, awkward, but hers. She walked the entire length of the dojo toward Arthur, each footfall a small triumph, each heartbeat a thunderclap.

  She reached him, eyes red-rimmed, cheeks streaked with tears.

  “Motherfucker,” she whispered, then punched him in the jaw.

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  Arthur's head rocked back from the blow, smacking into the pillar with a wooden ‘pock’ sound. He easily blocked her next two punches at his head and body, moving effortlessly into a defensive fighting stance, still grinning, with a touch of crazy in his eyes. Mav unleashed a flurry of well placed punches and kicks, advancing on him.

  “Damn girl, that was fast!” he said, watching the fluidity of her motions, the ease in her stance and kicks. ‘This is what could happen for so many. If they are fresh from the ability to move their bodies willfully, they don’t forget, they still have the kinesthetic sense of themselves.’ He added to himself.

  She snapped a surprisingly well executed low-high kick, shooting at his knee to drop his blocking hand and then his head in one motion. He blocked the low kick and slid into her to catch her knee on his shoulder, then palm healed her in the chest, knocking her back with a laugh.

  “Excellent!” Arthur said, holding his hands up to stop her rush back in. “Really, Mav, that is excellent. You understood right away what I was alluding to. Here, in this place, in your mind you are the master of your own body and movements.”

  “You could have helped me!” she spat back at him, pacing back and forth, reveling in the feeling of being on her feet.

  “No, I couldn't,” he said with sadness in his eyes. “Everyone who is injured and uses the VR technology to help their body heal has to come to that understanding on their own. Back when it was regular VR it was harder, we had to use these beanies that read the impulses in your brain and start by doing simple things with our minds, like moving a ball in an open space.”

  “Once you mastered that, you would get a very basic avatar and start learning to move that with your mind,” he continued, walking to the side door of the dojo and motioning her to follow. “There was no nano to insert itself into the feedback loop and make the motions happen here. It would take months to begin to move the avatar, and by that time, a lot of people believed too deeply in their dysfunction, so they couldn’t begin to feel how to make the avatar move.”

  As they crossed the threshold to the outside, she was struck still again, hand on the doorframe, eyes wide. The landscape was an unreal version of reality. They were high on a mountainside, with a view down a long sloping decline to what looked like a great lake or a bay. There were massive trees of various types, all with different colored leaves and bark. There were green trees to be sure, but then there was a redwood-sized one right beside the dojo with silvery bark and leaves that looked metallic golden-red in the sunlight.

  There was another that seemed to be a spreading oak, but four times the largest she had ever seen, with bark so black it reflected light and huge leaves like an elephant palm, but colored an ochre hue. Then there were the flowers, too many to begin to take in. Some looked normal, like the rosebush she saw with white buds, but others were fantastical, lilies her height, their petals shimmering in rainbow hues that shifted and flowed in the breeze.

  Arthur gestured at two large chairs with a table between them, laden with drinks and food. He sat heavily in one of the chairs and took up a large tankard of beer, drinking deeply. Cautiously, Mav sat down on the soft cushions, which molded to her frame, providing perfect comfort. She was still in a daze as she reached for a glass of white wine, shimmering with condensation, and jerked her hand back when she felt cold wetness on her fingertips.

  She looked at her fingers, dumbstruck at the detail of this programmed reality. The water droplets ran down to her hand, cooling in long lines of moisture. ‘This is amazing, the technology, the programming, the nano all come together to create this world where I can feel this,’ she thought, watching the droplets disappear as they lost surface tension and sank into her skin.

  “Have a drink, it won’t bite,” Arthur said, taking another long pull from his tankard, froth brimming on his moustache when he pulled it back from his mouth. He licked it off with a grunt of pleasure and set the large tankard down on the table. He picked what looked like a chicken leg, but the meat was a light lavender in color.

  “Really, it won’t bite!” he said as he took a bite and smiled at her. “And no weight gain, eat your fill and drink yourself silly, it’s all virtual. In this construct anyway. In the game world, your avatar can gain weight, can become addicted to drugs or booze. We had to add in consequences, if we didn’t, people would use this space to indulge in their worst proclivities.”

  Mav reached for the cold glass again, still slack-jawed, and wrapped her hand around the cool wetness. She lifted it to her lips and closed her eyes, pulling a deep breath in through her nose. She smelled golden apple, white peach, and notes of oak. She took a small sip and pulled air across her tongue, popping the flavors of apple, pear, and a slight acidity.

  Through a smile, she took another longer pull from the glass and let it roll around her mouth, then swallowed. She could feel the cool liquid move down her throat and into her mid-belly with a spreading sensation. She placed the glass down and looked over at Arthur with raised eyebrows.

  “Holy shit, is this Cakebread?” she asked.

  “Yep,” he answered, raising his ‘chicken leg’ in salute. “When they sent a team over to secure your home and make sure your fridge was emptied and everything would be good for your return, they found two bottles of that in the fridge.”

  He leaned back in his chair and added, “Here’s the thing, Eclipse works with real-world purveyors, wineries, distilleries, chocolatiers, you name it, to bring their creations into the game. It’s a kind of product placement, but done so it feels organic, part of the world, not a billboard. The bottles, the labels, even little bits of their history get woven into the scenarios.’ He paused and pointed to a frosted wine bucket with just the neck of a bottle sticking out.

  “The Cakebread Cellars Chardonnay? That was put in here just for you, but it’s also going to show up in Penumbra’s high-end lounges. Players can ‘order’ a glass there, savor the in-game flavor profile, and if they’re hooked, they can buy the real thing right from the player hub. Immersion meets indulgence, with a little marketing magic on the side.”

  He took another long sip from his tankard and smirked. “Basically, Mav, if you like something in here, there’s a decent chance you can drink it, eat it, or wear it in real life. Dangerous for your wallet, great for your taste buds.”

  Mav laughed and took another sip, savoring it. “Alright, I admit… that’s clever.”

  “So, I thought it would be nice to have here for your first introduction to Antumbra and Eclipse Nexus in general. Most gamers just get a basic intro screen and then go into a training yard with other players and NPCs to guide them. We decided to do it differently for you as you are the first, make it special and comfortable.”

  Mav took another sip of the wine, letting it roll around in her mouth, amazed at the sensations and flavors. Looking out at the fantastical landscape, she watched the breeze move through branches and flutter the leaves on flowers.

  Down the mountainside, she could see light dancing on the water and could just make out boats on the waves. Birds and other creatures moved through the sky, dancing and wheeling. As she noticed a group of what looked like small dragons, one turned its head to her and, with a snap of its wings, arrowed her way.

  It flew unerringly straight toward her at a breakneck speed. Alarmed, Mav squeaked and tossed the wine glass at the creature as it neared. The glass arched out, spilling wine and missing the creature completely as it twisted out of the path of the projectile. The glass landed with a crash and exploded into fragments, glinting in the sun. The small dragon opened its wings like a hawk catching a mouse and halted its forward momentum.

  “Mav!” Goo’s voice came into her ears. “Why did you throw a glass at me?”

  “Goo?” she asked, surprised. The little dragon quirked its mouth up at the edges almost like a smile and bobbed its tiny diamond shaped head. It hovered in the air in front of her with a lazy beat of wings.

  She held up her forearm and Goo settled down on it, lightly gripping with his talons. She looked him over, noticing that his coloring was in the hues and shades she was wearing, iridescent dark purple scales, gunmetal gray talons and wing accents, and dark rouge ridges down his back.

  “You’re gorgeous!” Mav said, running a finger under Goo’s chin, eliciting a small trilling sound from deep in his throat. She giggled at the sound, a silly grin making its way onto her face, and laughed louder. Goo spread his wings and preened, lifting his chin for more scratches.

  “I know,” he stated as if it were common knowledge. “I like this, having my own body. It makes me more versatile.” He hopped off her arm and, with a quick beat of his wings, darted back into the air. He flew around her in a few tight circles, then darted up high above her. Her HUD opened in front of her eyes and, with a start, she realized she could see his bird’s-eye view as he looked down on her and Arthur. As he shifted his gaze, the perspective in her HUD shifted to match.

  “Oh, that’s cool!” Mav said aloud, looking over at Arthur. He had a smile on his face as a slightly larger dragonette landed on his shoulder, Mazor, she surmised.

  “Ok, Goo, thank you for showing us the bird’s-eye view. Would you mind coming back down so Mav and I can go over some of the particulars and controls?” Arthur asked, waving the small dragonette down from his flitting. He took one last draught from his tankard, set it down on the table, and stood from the recliner. Gesturing into the air, he caused six screens to appear, hovering in a semi-circle around them.

  “First, how about we start with a breakdown of the three scenarios?” Arthur said in a tone that was more statement than question. Mav just nodded and plucked a square of what she surmised was cheese from the table, biting into it carefully.

  The creamy but crumbly texture and sharp taste curved her lips. “That is the best cheddar I have ever had!” She mumbled around the bit of creamy goodness and Arthur smiled.