Sean scanned the place one more time – he couldn't just start chasing the fluffy critter around. On second glance, it appeared to be some kind of logistics depot: elevated loading ramps and utilitarian aesthetics. No signs or markings, bright LED lights illuminating– No, a different kind of lighting, but…
He was distracted by a high-pitched screech and found the rabbit staring at him again from inside, so he sighed and stepped in the direction of the furry distraction. It immediately jumped into a corridor, and Sean followed. Everything looked the same: bare plastic walls but matte instead of glossy, and divided into modular panels with some connectors here and there, no markings or labels, and all the rooms and corridors were just empty.
Sean stopped by the wall – just to make sure it was there and real – but another screech from around the corner attracted his attention before he touched anything. He walked over to take a look and… there was a gateway of sorts. Or a transition perhaps? Not an oval portal or any kind of archway, just… the sci-fi facility ended and an opulent hallway began – like some European museum, or a palace maybe? The white critter was already inside, staring back, ears trained on Sean.
He had no idea what was going on. The place was– Where would it all even be, a secret military base in the middle of the city? Or had Omega demolished–
The rabbit squealed briefly – also tapping its hind leg.
"Alright, alr–…" He found himself talking to the animal, but why? He sighed again and followed it inside. The hallway was clearly ornate: marble walls with a golden finish and exquisite wooden flooring. He suddenly noticed a lighting change and the sci-fi corridor vanished behind him – but before he could process it fully, his gaze landed on… windows? How were there windows… underground…
And not just windows – the hallway was actually more of a viewing gallery with sunlight flooding in from the side, an entire array of massive segmented glass panels that started slightly above the floor and ended just shy of the ceiling. He approached the first one and looked outside.
His heart skipped a beat… though it felt more like five.
The closest image that came to his mind was one of those background structures he had seen in video games many years ago, looming in the distance. Except he was 'inside' one of them, looking down on the… medieval city? Complete with muffled sounds, voices, shouting now and then. It was hard to make out all the details from several stories up, but armored guards were clearly visible in the streets, people walking around or just standing, or gathering in plazas and next to landmarks, horse-drawn carts carrying goods, odd flags waving in the wind, ancient architecture… It was just like Europe!
It suddenly clicked what a physicalized reality-game implied. He looked further away: if the building he was in had a proper interior… did all the others have one too? A whole city, markets, what appeared to be temples, countless houses and other buildings that he had no idea about. Then the city walls and beyond them… plains, forests, a river meandering in the distance, a few flat stone bridges just barely visible, mountains on the horizon, a landscape crisscrossed by roads, something brushed against his leg, he looked down, a white rabbit standing on its hind legs, looking out the window with him – though its sideways eyes seemed silly in this pose. Ears angled forward and forelegs crossed in the cutest expression a furry animal could… What!
Sean finally realized: maybe follow the white rabbit . Omega. It was not just a random critter.
"What do you want?" he asked. "Can't you just speak?"
The fluffy avatar lowered its ears… as if apologetic?
Sean exhaled tiredly, then tried, "Fine, but what do you–"
The rabbit just turned into the hallway and darted off – using the side of Sean's sock-less foot in the sandal as a launchpad on the otherwise smooth floor. The windowed hall ended in a T-junction where the animal stopped to wait for him – but only after sliding a good few feet. It stood on its hind legs again, ears up, and tapped a hind leg… this time repeatedly.
Sean sighed once more and glanced out the window. He should not have mentioned 'like a video game' before. Except now it almost felt like a dream – the morning conversation: blurry, vague. The current moment was absolutely vivid, and so was the city outside, the world. Two moons? He shook his head and followed the rabbit, which then dashed to the right and around the corner. It had better have some answers… but Sean was clearly not in Kansas anymore. He had never been in Kansas to begin with!
He indeed followed the white rabbit, getting annoyed by this… what, joke? Was Omega trolling him right now? Of course it was, but– No, it didn't matter. The world. He had heard about physicalized reality-games , but all discussions on Discord, forums, Reddit… they basically always ended with 'You'd have to be there to get it!' Sean had always assumed they were exaggerating the realism, but now he realized that no description could do it justice.
An actual, living, breathing world.
And Omega had made many a game-world to keep people occupied during the transition into the new normal . Sean groaned quietly as he turned to follow the critter. The straight hallway on both sides of the junction looked completely different from the windowed gallery: dimly lit with flickering candles and whatever indirect sunlight made its way from the distant windows. Deep alcoves with doors on both sides. It took his eyes a couple of seconds to adapt enough to see the rabbit standing on its hind legs, ears raised, a few doors ahead, on the left. He walked there and glanced at the doors as he passed them: simple wood, no labels other than a single number each. 108, 106, 104… the white rabbit was standing by 102.
Which was painted red.
Sean lowered his head and snorted, then asked: "Red door, seriously? Follow the white rabbit and enter the red door?"
The animal hopped to the door and lowered both ears onto its back, then put one paw on the door's surface and slid it up and down as if trying to open it. All the while staring back at Sean – so maybe to signal that Sean should open it? Too adorable not to smile at this sight, no matter how much he hated his reaction.
"What if I don't…" Sean started and hesitated. He had already broken so many self-imposed rules today and agreed to things he had promised himself he never would. "Do I even have a choice? Am I a prisoner here or…" he trailed off as the fluffy critter scurried across the hallway. And there was… a blue door, labeled 101. "Oh-for-fu-" he stopped himself, pivoted to: "Seriously! Red door or blue door? Wait, is the– Is going back home like room one-oh-one now?"
The rabbit stared at him for a second, then… nodded. Just twice, in quick succession.
Sean groaned again, loudly this time, and closed his eyes to think about it. Barely a couple of seconds later, he looked down to investigate something touching his right thigh… the fluffy rabbit, obviously, was staring up at him. No expression on its face, but its folded ears made the sight absurdly pleading-adorable. Why did it have to be an adorable rabbit – to match Omega's character, it should have chosen a freaking hyena, or some shark on wheels perhaps! But of course it would be weaponizing cuteness instead…
"Stop this," he demanded, and the rabbit hopped a few inches back. "It's like…" He paused to think. The animal watched him in silence. Sean realized that for the most part he wanted to see what the reality-game had to offer. The teaser from the window was too tantalizing, but he still dressed his agreement in defiance: "Fine! But just for today, remember?"
The rabbit nodded once, and it actually made Sean chuckle. The absurdity, the… nonsensical nature of… everything here!
He approached the red door and reached out with his free hand to grab a knob made of some kind of metal, copper or bronze maybe. For the first time, he touched something in here, it was… real, normal, slightly cold to the touch and startlingly boring. Then he took a deep breath, turned it, pulled the door open, and peered inside. By the time his eyes adapted to the brightly lit hall, a dozen or so faces were turned toward him, people sitting at the desks arranged in a semicircle. It seemed that he had entered from the back of what must have been a classroom or a lecture hall of sorts? An oddly shaped room: the back wall was rounded and the desks surrounded something on the other side, which he couldn't clearly see yet.
Somebody whispered, easily audible in the dead silence of the room: "Oh shit, our instructor is a hobo…"
Sean frowned at this, but it had already landed and… in hindsight, his choice of attire was not optimal for this. Omega had recommended proper clothing, but it was a bit late to fix that, so he entered the room and turned around to close the door behind himself… all the while thinking about how to explain the events of today that led to this.
While his back was turned to the group, another voice whispered, closer to him: "Check this out, it's a jogger-hobo, must be a secret class or something!"
Sean remembered the sports-bottle he was still clutching in his hand, half instinctively at this point. He glanced down, and his clothes were a complete mess: old sweatpants and a used shirt, both messy from the pizza-braking. He was angry at Omega for setting him up like this, but he would be fine. He had handled worse. He had participated in a quality-department presentation to the corporate board, where they had forgotten to test the projector – and that had turned out alright. He would handle this.
He took a breath, turned to face the group, and clarified, "I'm not homeless , and– Wait, what is going on here?" He only now realized that he had never asked Omega about what 'this' was supposed to be.
"Our hobo's on drugs!" a Latino guy on the right remarked, then laughed with a Caucasian young man further to the right. Sean assumed they were just messing around at his expense and the situation would calm down soon enough. He still knew, however, that first impressions land hard…
A young White brunette sitting to the left of the Latino was visibly amused and added, "Sports-hobo, remember."
He got slightly flustered at this constant verbal assault, and the sweatpants covered in pizza-chunks were not helping! "Look, it's…" he started, but sighed and scanned the room to take stock of the group. A dozen– no, thirteen people, wearing mostly casual clothes, though some more formal than others. Nothing like the poor state of his attire, of course. Seven women, six men. Two African-Americans, three… what seemed to be Latinos, maybe four. One possibly Indigenous woman, or an immigrant from somewhere perhaps, and the remaining six or seven Caucasians. It appeared to be a random cross-section of US society, but young. Most of them even younger than him, which made sense for new players of a video game – or some reality-game , so presumably Omega had just added him to the pack.
"Yo, hobo-instructor's totally stoned…" the Black guy in the center of the arcing desk formation commented.
"I'm not– Look, it's a long story, okay?" Sean started defensively, then tried to clarify, "I'm not an instructor. I was driving here, and there was…" He paused: how to explain Omega feeding him pizza in a stolen car? At this moment he almost wanted to go back to the dim hallway and talk with the rabbit. At least the animal wouldn't be using high-school humor, but maybe he could try to summarize the events vaguely?
The same young brunette taunted, "What? Did you stop to take a nap under a bridge? That why you're late?" Almost all of the group laughed, some less than others, and the Latino guy from before high-fived her.
Sean noticed a blonde on the far left was frowning hard, but she didn't do anything to protect him. "What is this, high-school drama?" he countered as the laughter was dying down. A moment later, Sean was already composed, so he explained to preempt another joke: "There was a pizza accident on the way. I couldn't find any clothing store and was running late anyway, so big deal!" A small pause while the grins slowly disappeared. Sean asked, "So what's the procedure here, are we supposed to–"
Another Latino guy sitting toward the end of the semicircle on the left asked, "Are you Sean?"
"Why, am I famous as the jogger-hobo-guy?" Sean said and smiled, trying to dismiss the whole thing as a joke. He preferred a jogger-hobo over the sports version.
"No, but your name's on the front over there," the Latino remarked and waved to his left, then added, "The only empty desk with a name, so it's kinda obvious."
Sean took the hint… hoping it wasn't some kind of trick or tease, and walked to the first of the three empty desks on this side. The blonde to the left of the seemingly helpful Latino was already glued to her phone. It struck Sean as slightly odd, but if it was as real as reality – then why not also have smartphones here? He quickly checked the wooden chair, not a trap, so he sat and looked to his right: there were indeed names written on small chalkboards, one hanging in front of each desk.
He put the unfortunate bottle on the floor beside his chair and leaned over the desk. His name had been written down just as the Latino guy had pointed out, at least no last name – that would be awkward with all the hobo nonsense! He glanced to the left, two more unoccupied desks were nameless, then to the right – and every chalkboard had its assigned owner. He wondered what would have happened had there been a first name conflict: would Omega or the game have made somebody change their name?
Still, sixteen desks, fourteen occupied. Sean wondered how many instructor sessions like this ran every day. But for now he read the names, trying to familiarize himself with the people present. Or at least their names.
The Latino on the right noticed this and complained, "Look out for the hobo crawling under your desks, guys!"
Sean checked the Latino's name on the front of the desk, Santiago, and was about to counter – but the brunette from before beat him to it: "Oh, give him a break. Dude had a food accident!" Nobody laughed.
Sean took it as a win and smiled briefly at the brunette, Michelle – apparently. Then he kept reading the names closer to him and the last three were: Black guy Caleb, helpful Latino Juan, frowning blonde Emma – who was still on her phone, now typing aggressively. Sean tried to make contact and remarked, "I didn't know phones worked in here, would've brought my own." The last part wasn't exactly true, but it was a good excuse for a conversation starter.
"Uh-huh," Emma muttered while typing.
Sean exhaled out loud, then attempted to clarify: "Look, I'm not a hobo, and I'm just trying to–"
Emma glanced at him and interrupted, "Whatever." She frowned briefly, then shook her head and returned to typing. Then scrolling.
He tried not to sound too pushy: "I was saying– Look, there's nobody to the left of me, so… do you know what the procedure is here? Or what are we supposed to–"
Juan, on the other side of Emma, seemingly heard Sean's question and cut in, "Oh, we're waiting for the introduction to the game. How did you– Didn't you see all the details while signing up?"
"Um, the thing is…" Sean started, considered quickly – these kinds of questions were inevitable, in hindsight. He promptly bluffed, "A friend signed me up." Technically, it wasn't even a lie – minus the 'friend' part, of course.
Juan seemed confused and asked, "Oh really? How did that work?"
"It's complicated," Sean said, then followed up, "but what kind of introduction, are we supposed to do something or–"
"We're waiting for the instructor," Juan cut in. Emma pushed her chair back, further away from the direct line between the two men. The Latino ignored it and continued, "The invite said that it's super important to be here on time and not late. Except I guess the instructor is late, so I'm not sure how this works. Wait, are you sure you're not the instructor?"
"No, I'm pretty sure I would know," Sean answered with a smile, then quickly added, "and my name is on the desk, remember? So I'm probably not that." Juan nodded at this. Sean chuckled and speculated, "Then again, I think the instructor might be a rabbit…"
"A rabbit?" Juan asked loudly, attracting the attention of others from around the room, except for Emma – who seemed focused on her phone as always, now apparently reading something.
Sean hesitated for a moment – not like he could tell that story. So he tried to deflect, "It's… never mind, it was just a stupid joke."
"Oh, I love stupid jokes!" Juan encouraged and leaned closer to Sean. A couple of others seemed to focus on him as well.
"Well…" Sean trailed off and sighed, trying to come up with some excuse or fabricate a story about white, fluffy rabbits…
…and then the door on the side of the hall opened…