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Elise opens her eyes. She’s floating in artificial amniotic fluid. No,
that’s not what it is, it doesn’t taste right. It tastes more...leafy? Like
spinach that’s gone bad, or kale that hasn’t gone bad, because kale is the
worst food God ever created. She’s trapped. She’s trapped in something
opaque, which is not how body switching works. You’re supposed to be in a
glass box, or in more advanced equipment, a clean and sterile pod. It’s not
this, whatever this is. This is all wrong, and she’s panicking. She squirms
around, looking for a way to escape, but doesn’t find it. She’s going to
have to make her own.
She tries punching and she tries kicking, but neither of them work. That’s
what makes her realize that this isn’t simply a pod. It’s a chrysalis. And
that’s not how butterflies get out of their chrysalises. Elise feels around
to make sure she knows where down is, and then she starts to spit.
Opening her mouth amidst all this goo necessarily forces more goo back into
her mouth. She thought it tasted bad before, but now it’s making its way
down her throat. She starts to retch, and then she vomits. Even though it’s
disgusting, the bile, saliva, and other fluids accelerate the mission.
The enzymes in Elise’s saliva weaken the chitin enough for her to tear
through it. She can see light now, and feel the air. She vomits more so she
can start breathing again. She continues to tear at the chrysalis until the
opening is wide enough for her to get through. She tries to aim away from
her own sick, but that’s stupid, because she’s already covered in filth.
Elise reaches out to the floor with her hands, clumsily slipping on the
fluids, but it slows her down enough to keep her from faceplanting.
She’s on her back now on the cool white floor of a small room. It’s not too
small, though. It’s big enough to fit ten other chrysalises. Her whole team
is here, plus the other team. Wait, there should be twelve in total, so who
are we missing? She frantically starts knocking on the other chrysalises.
“Jolanda? Rage? Is that you? Who’s in there?” she starts to say, looking for
her people.
She can hear them moan back to her, but no one replies with words.
In the real world, with a real butterfly, you don’t want to help it get out
of its chrysalis. The struggle is real, but it is not pointless. It’s a
crucible, which strengthens the insect so it can literally spread its wings
and fly. But they’re not in the real world, they’re in a simulation. It may
be a base reality simulation, but it’s not natural. The others don’t
need to go through what she just did. Elise stumbles over to a wall and
wrenches a sconce from it. She starts tearing at the nearest chrysalis.
Yeah, sometimes you gotta spit on that thing, but sometimes you need good
old fashioned brute force.
A woman tumbles out of the chrysalis. It’s Miracle.
Elise catches her, and gently lowers her to the floor.
“Oh, thank you,” Miracle says. “I’ve forgotten what this feels like.”
“You’ve used this form factor before?” Elise has never even heard of it.
“Yeah, buncha times,” Miracle replies. As she’s resting on her hands behind
her back, she looks around before her gaze returns to Elise. “You take left,
I take right?”
They divide and conquer until the other nine hunters are free. Thankfully,
all of Elise’s teammates are here. It’s Miracle who is missing one of hers.
The girl she was trying to safely fly down to the ground, and who was
wearing her shirt on backwards on the football pitch, is missing. Miracle
says that she had an emergency mind transponder, which she probably used
before she hit the ground. There was no way to know that they would survive
it.
It’s different, though. Elise feels weak, and not just because she just had
to force her way out of a chrysalis, and then help five other people do the
same. Her vision isn’t as strong, her joints are achey, and she feels hunger
in a way that she hasn’t since she was a kid, before she became immortal.
This is a regular body, like the kind everyone had back in the days before
humanity had even reached the longevity escape velocity. Her consciousness
stream isn’t just unlinked. It doesn’t exist. There’s no backup plan now. If
she dies, she truly dies, and she’s guessing the same goes for everyone
else.
Once the last person is on his feet, the ceiling lifts up and to the side
like the lid of a cardboard box, revealing only a dark void above them. It
begins to rain once more, but this time, it’s just regular water, instead of
acid. Well, it’s also a bit soapy. The room fills up around ten centimeters
of water and suds before the drains open up and start to wash all the gunk
and junk away. Next come the blowers to dry them off. They all just stand
there and accept it, because there’s no door to exit, and they want to get
cleaned off, even if at the end of this is, they get decapitated by a Jigsaw
wannabe. They are here to play a game at any rate, and this appears
to be the start of it, for whatever reason.
After they’re sufficiently dry, seams appear on the back wall. They slide
upwards, revealing eleven chairs in front of eleven lockers. Each one is
labeled with one of their names. The hunters proceed to their assigned
lockers, retrieve the generic clothes that were placed there for them, and
get dressed. But nothing happens after they’re done.
“I think we’re supposed to sit down to trigger the next phase,” Elise
figures.
They follow her advice, and once that last butt hits that last seat, the
wall in front of them transforms into a monitor.
A man appears on screen. “Hello, and welcome to Treasure Hunting Dome. My
name is Hrockas Steward, and I own the planet of Castlebourne. Now, you may
be wondering why I would record this message, and whether I do it for the
other 69,814 domes presently in service. The answer is no. This is only for
you. You twelve—forgive me, eleven—contestants have selected our
Premium-Ultra Package. This is the rarest of hunts, which will take you on a
journey few have traveled. In regular hunts, you would be out in the open,
encountering Ambients who are simulating locals from various locales. You
will not be doing this. You are on a special mission to find a unique prize.
“It’s important you understand that I am not admitting that such a prize
exists. This is confirmation of absolutely nothing. You are being isolated
from the other players so your hunt does not influence or interfere with
anyone else. Everyone who expresses serious interest in this track
experiences the same thing. Or do they? You may never know. You may not even
survive. You have become decoupled from your consciousness streams so if you
die along the way, your alternate selves will move on with their lives with
no memories of these events. Even if you do find what you’re looking for,
you might never be able to reveal its secrets. Thousands before you may have
succeeded, but never returned to tell the tale. You will receive your next
clue on the other side of this door.”
The seams of a door appear on the third wall.
“Oh, and one more thing. Those teams you worked so hard to build? They’re
useless. Only one person can win this hunt. Good luck to one of you.
Aaaaaaaaaand go!”
The door opens.
